Jon Tseng

you could make a very large bellini... j

dunno about the multiple diners, but simon claims he and his bruv demolished one between the two of them... i'll leave that story to him though j

going back to the surfeit of egg white, it has occured to me that the french use an awful lot of egg yolk in their classical recipes (hollandaise, bearnaise, custard &tc) but very little egg white (errrr, meringue anyone), whereas the chinese use lots of white (velveting &tc) but very little yolk. perhaps there is an arbitrage opportunity for trading frozen whites/yolks... also does using the egg shell to get out the egg shell bear comparison with using a mussel shell to pick out mussels from your moules mariniare? (sp) j

by the by, brindisa in the borough market (london) had a stack of those italian ham leg bones (the whole thing from thigh down). flogging them for six quid (which included some meat still on) - a bargain if you're into ya soup j

they're sayin' sept ya can call on the following: 020 7436 3313

Am currently in possession of a kilogram of fresh monkfish liver (borough market. it was cheap. i was hungry) looking for recipe suggestions. i gather tis a japanese delicacy. so far have some ideas out of the nobu cookbook for steaming it as a pate and sauteeing it a la hot foie gras. any more suggestions? cheerio j

following my own advice - popped by this evening - half empty and no need to book! very nice ham broth with mint and bits of chopped hardboiled egg in it, ok-ish pigeon breast (bit tough) on a bed of peas, spuds and whatnot. scrummy frozen meringue cake (parfait?) with rose petals and some exceptionally ripe berries. 25 quid the lot incl. service and water. very good to have a place like this in the back pocket - right round the corner from office. I'd go back. cheerio J ps gav, how busy was it on the lunch? d'ya need to book or can you just rock up?

ooooh... tell us about baltic have been meaning to go for ages but never get round to it... miss a bit of that old polish grub... cheerio j

nah, think that is the crust - nothing underneath think the recipe is in the original rb 1988 book cheerio j

specialities? apart from palet d'or also chocolate truffles and some cakes (le president is one; cant remember the rest). the straight 70% chocolate bar is also fab - best have had (along with the bonnat) if you can find it track down the book "a passion of chocolate" co-aurthured by the bernachons and rose-levy beranbaum. probably the best chocolate book i've come across... cakes... pateisserie... chocolates the lot amazon says its out of print. shame on them. cheerio j

Not sure if I understand you C, but I think you're asking if there's a seperate salt crust beneath the pastry - no there normally isn't. The "salt crust" is a highly salted (as to be inedible) pastry which encloses the meat. Have also seen this suggested with roast beef fillet (eg the patricia wells/joel robuchon book). sometimes this is served with the crust at the table, sometimes the crust is chucked in the kitchen and just the meat served. there are also english meat recipes where a rough pastry is used to enclose the goodies and then discarded Having said that I have seen recipes for salt-baked chicken/duck where the meat is, literally, covered in a couple of kilos of rock salt and put in the oven. cheerio j

Three suggestions: i) Elizabeth David (proper pronoun: The Divine) ii) Terry Durack (proper pronoun: The Definitive) iii) Simon Majumdar (proper pronoun: The Demented) although at a pinch Anthony B could substitute for iii), but only for Kitchen Confidential ;-) J

could "steeping" also fall into this category? on the eggs side the Delia Smith Infalliable Poached Egg Recipe involves bringing saucepan to boil, taking off heat, crack in eggs, cover and leave ten minutes... voila! on a related note have a feeling coddled eggs are when they are still in the shell (fr. oeuf mollet) on the wurst - yeah, definitely works with franks (although nowadays much wasier to microwave) cheerio j

a quickie on the tomatos organic tomatoes cost twice as much in the supermarket but the normal ones don't taste half as bad in fact they taste just the same...

oh i think on the ground chuck point it would be cuz you need a certain minimum fat content for the burger to stay moist (cf putting bits of fat into sausages or black pudding)... especially if people cook them well done (a more frequent occurance in the UK than stateside I guess). a burger made from fillet would probably be pretty dry... though i have seen it done (good trick to fold a chunk of butter or foie gras into each patty so it bastes from the inside as it cooks) cheerio j

>Granted it creates different types of qualities that are valuable, but those >qualities are aesthetically inferior to the ones you get when a steak is >served. still think its more to do with the value society places on large pieces of tender meat - which is a culture thing not a taste thing. viz the chicken breast vs leg example. is chicken leg "aesthetically inferior" to breast? nope - its more tender, has more flavour and doesn't dry out half the time you try to cook it, but western culture thinks it is. >Could it be that the ground meat culture came about in places where >they couldn't afford quality beef and it was cheap to use ground? Suspect more a cooking technique thing. french/brits had spits, ovens and saute pans, whereas in "kebab culture" you tend to find barbeques where the heat is lower/less concentrated than an oven so you'll want ya meat chopped into bits and stuck on a stick. this is definitely true of the far east where expensive fuel = quick stir fries = need to chop meat up into little bits. no reflection on the meat, rather - as ever - on though omnipresent non-taste-related factors ;-) >Jon T. - If you think a hamburger tastes as good as a good filet steak, >you need to come to NYC and eat both a hamburger and a filet steak. well the fillet steak was from gordon ramsay, and quite quite boring. if you presume three star (frenchy) chefs cook superior food, then i presume this was a superior steak... cheerio j

but hamburger tastes better then fillet steak! honest! lets look at it //objectively//, by breaking it down into component elements: hamburger: moist/juicy, seasoned right through (cos you season the mince first), mouth-feel, texture (if the meat is properly hacheed). fillet steak: mushy texture (no mouth feel as meat is uniformly tender), not seasoned all the way through, little flavour developed as muscle so infrequently used. so there you have it. on an //objective// basis hamburger is better than steak but the market differs... so maybe //objective// isn't as objective after all... ;-) j >But Grade A tuna will always sell for more money than Grade B tuna. Exactly - labels. even if the Grade A wasn't as good as the Grade B. Won't happen? errr Vin de pays vs AOC anyone?

depends entirely on how much you wanna pay for it ;-)

>Jon - You conveniently skip over that part of my statement. I am not >arguing that one is worth $26 more than the other, just that the market >has acknowledged the superiority of one over the other. How the market >sets the price is subject to supply and demand. But in reality, chopped >meat will always cost less because they blend in cheaper cuts to make it. >Now why do you think some cuts cost less than others, marketing? I reiterate my point that the price the market puts on food is distorted by so many other factors that it is unreliable to use it as a guide to quality. What's a cheaper cut? Not necessarily a worse cut, just one who's uses doesn't fit in with the market's needs. I'd rather pay more for pork belly than pork fillet because belly tastes nicer, is moister and has a lovely crispy skin. The market however would not cos fillet cooks quicker (belly can be just as tender; just takes longer), is leaner and is perceived as higher quality. Governing factors: convenience, leanness, perception. But not quality and/or taste. Chinese pay more for chicken leg than breast. Westerners value the white meat about all. Governing factors: cultural perception. But not quality and/or taste. Five or ten years ago butchers were virtually giving lamb shanks away, but now every tom dick and gordon has figured out they can be braised, plated and presented on a pile of garlic/musard/truffled mash prices have shot up. Governing factors: perception by the consumer, how many of the damn things we can sell. But not quality and/or taste. And yes, marketing is another of those factors which affect market perceptions. New Zealand lamb anyone? Why /do/ people pay premium prices for sheep which has been frozen and shipped halfway across the world, when they have excellent meat on their doorstep? cheerio J

>This argument comes down to the fact that a hamburger isn't as good as >a steak. Given all things being equal like both made from the best quality >beef, right ratio of fat etc., ground meat just doesn't have the same >complexity as a steak. both in flavor and in texture. And that is why a >hamburger sells for $5.99, and a good steak sells for $32. Whether one is >$26 better than the other is really not part of this debate. But a strong >acknowledment in the selling price that recognizes the >qualitative .superiority of a steak is. Mate... this is the "is it good because its expensive or is it expensive because its good" argument again. The only thing you learn from a $32 steak is that the market is prepared to pay $32 for a steak. This is because the market's assessment of value is assessed on factors //other// than quality ie supply, demand, sentiment &tc I suspect you know the examples... Nasdaq 2000 Vintage, Dutch tulips 1624 curvee, South Sea Company Stock 1720 Special Reserve... For example, I can get a decent fillet steak anytime in the UK, so I'd only pay, say $5.99 for one. However supply constraints mean I canna get a real juicy medium-rare NY cheesebuger. So I'd be prepared to pay... oooh.... $32 if someone would truck it across from Manhattan. Again, doesn't mean the hamburger's any better than the steak. Or vice versa. cheerio J

I've seen an English translation running around in Books for Cooks in London, though not last time (so presumably there's a fairly modern print of it out) remember being distinctly underwhelmed every time i leafed through though (don't have specifics - just remember general ennui) cheerio j

following on from that, i suspect far more people cook/eat chinese rather than french (including various derivatives) ditto restaurant nos. shouldn't we be debating the historic success of chinese cuisine? ;-) j ps actually the same is probably true of Indian too...

where did you find the book? have been trying to track down a copy for some time presume it was 2nd hand? j

oh bux, standard operating procedure is to slit the underside open like jacket, pull out the bone, stuff the baby out then sew up or wrap in foil j

>I spotted Albert Roux himself occupying several chairs in a corner. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ has the old boy put on that much weight since retiring?j