Fugu

I usually dock the pastry and add pastry weights and par cook. Then, while still hot, I brush the dough with egg wash to reseal the holes made by the docking. Then I add the quiche mixture and bake. Maybe the docking park is not necessary with the weights?

Dirty rice: Sautee some chopped onion, peppers, celery, garlic, . Add duck liver and hearts season with worcesteshire salt and cayenne pepper, puree. Mix with cooked rice. Garnish with green onions and cilantro. Duck liver mousse: Livers cooked medium rare with cubed pork fat, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. Flambe with Cognac, add port. Chill(needs to be very cold to prevent breaking) run through food processor with butter then cream. Pass through sieve. Sauteed with bacon, parsley and thyme served on a crostini.

The Pastry Chef at our hotel was very creative and he made some really good ones. Curry icecream, olive icecream and cheese icecream were my favorites. Didn't like his version of galic icecream.

Not from a book but a movie, actually, several movies: The beginning of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, where the Chef/father prepares a Sunday meal for his children. Amazing knife skills and cooking techniques. Another one was Tampopo, makes me want to eat noodles every time I see that film. Comedic value: Dan Akroyd's parody of Julia Childs' cooking show, simply hilarious! At work, watching a Japanese Chef, and my mentor, race to peel an apple using his 10" Chef knife and 2 fingers to hold the knife. The cook used a peeler. No cutting board was used. Knife skills are sorely deficient with North American Chefs, even watching Top Chef confirms this. Aside from Hung, how can you be top chef if you can't even chop onions or break down a chicken?

So many variables to consider but freshness of the ingredients is always a good point to start in judging a restaurant. Milky flavoured scallops are being previously forzen. Frozen carribean lobster tails are like shoe leather compared to freshly caught. Watery, flavourless fish means they've been sitting in ice water. Fresh deep frying oil will produce golden crusted products instead of dark crusts. A good cook will have a difficult time hiding or masking old ingredientss, but freshness will not matter if the cook is inept.

When there is an emphasis on your ingredient's provenance, just like your antiques.

Such great photos! I don't remember much about my trip to Korea, back in the early '70s. All I remember from our tour were the temples, my dad harping about our delayed flight to Japan and all the anti aircraft guns littering some of the roads we passed through. We were in Seoul and Pusan. Thanks for posting the pics.

Taste like chicken?

Wow, second recipe calls for beets, horseradish and dill! I've been making gravlax for a long time, part of my job but I have never deviated from the usual dill, salt, white peppercorn cure. This is exciting! Thank you.

voila! ← Muah!

Has anyone tried curing the salmon with red beets? I've been seeing a lot of gravlax cured with beets lately and although the colour is spectacular on a plate, I am concerned about the how earthy the fish flavour would turn out. If someone has a recipe, could I have a peek?

Chilli pepper belong to the nightshade family and yet the leaves are edible. We cook the tender leaves with mung beans as a soup.

Unfortunately no. Ankimo is the only fish liver that is first of all clean enough to use a food preparation. Fish liver is typically ridden with all critters of all sorts that you would never want to come across. In fact, for those of you attempting to make Ankimo, I would hightly recommend searching the liver very carefully for small, white worms. They most often are coiled in appearance and are gennerally on the surface of the lobe. Also, Ankimo is the only liver big enough to really have any kind of success. I recommend only buying Ankimo from a well established Japanese vendor. I have seen this stuff run the gamut in quality. ← I'm not talking from experience, but . . . I can't beleive there is only one single species of fish in all the oceans and lakes of the world whose liver is suitable for human consumption. ← When I worked in Harbour Island(Off Eleuthra), Bahamas some of the locals at the docks, where I buy my fish, gathers all the liver from Nassau Groupers caught that morning. I was told they were good fried. It may seem odd but with the abunadance of fish there, I am not surprised that some of them preferred the liver to the actual fish.

Travel time from my house to Buffalo is less than an hour , I would probably be inside Macy's within an hour. there are sopme outlet stores worth looking into as well. Thanks for everyone's input.

Do you mean each ingredient is a separate "pancake" on its own, for example, shrimp in one, fresh baby corn in another, and chives in yet another? Can you provide a picture next time you make this? ← Oops, I meant by having each ingredient mixed separately with beaten eggs and fried separately and stacked. Pictures? I have a ton of pictures of food porn, I just have problems uploading. I am a cook, what do I know about computers? I will try again, maybe it is a jpeg sizing issue?

Sanrensho, thanks for the link. Unfortunately I no longer have a US address. I clicked on their international site and clicked on Canada, they are asking for $679! GordonCooks, thanks for heads up. My brother frequently crosses the border to Buffalo, he will know Walden Gallareia. US made products are not subject to tax when crossing the border. NAFTA

With the Canadian dollar hitting a 30 year high, I've been thinking of driving to Buffalo, New York to do a little shopping for Christmas. Our retail stores here in Toronto are not doing much in terms of lowering their prices. I prefer to spend my dollar in Canada but at retail stores here want $650-$750 vs. $250-$399 in the US. Canadian dollar hit $1.10 yesterday! Does anyone know of a place that sells the Pro 600 at a reasonable price or should I just go to Buffalo and buy it there and fill up on groceries and my gas tank?

from here. ← Interresting article, I did not know that whale sharks are butchered for this soup! Donsol, Sorsogon(Bicol region, where I was born) is a diving destination, swimming with the "Butanding" whale sharks is their selling point. Based on what I've seen on my 2006 visit, the people there are proud of and protective of their tourist attraction. I can't say the same for Pamilacan Island in Bohol, I've never done any diving there. Philippines has a long way to go when it comes to nature conservancy awareness and practice. Thanks

My neighbour is an avid hunter and sometimes gives me some venison. Last batch was last year and I did an east west theme and made a terrine mixed with pork and some were used to make a Filipino dish called Kaldereta. I marinated the venison in red wine, instead of the vinegar that the recipe calls for. The recipe also calls for goat and I used venison. I hope I get more this year.

Fish lip soup, is it another North American concoction? Care to share your recipe? Hopefully it is not a recipe that calls for shark skin?

Most Egg Foo Yong take-out I've had in Toronto are stacked like pancakes. The vegetables and shrimps are all mixed into the egg and fried. My DIY home edition is made by having each ingredient mixed with beaten eggs and fried separately and stacked and I pour a chicken veloute on the stack. I love fresh baby corn and garlic chives mixed in there.

Googled fish maw and came up with....hzrt8w's thread, ofcourse. I have never tried fish maw but I was curious what they were and how it was prepared. I thought they were some sort of fish rind similar to pork rinds. Iron Chef Moriomoto was at Toronto's downtown Chinatown, he had fish maw but I am not sure how it was prepared. He was in Toronto to promote his new cook book. The Asian store I frequent have these and all sort of wonderful ingredients I have yet to discover and explore. They even sell frozen turtles . Thanks, it was a yummy read.

Egg drop soup always remind me of a poor man's bird's nest soup. Same look, same texture and taste. Maybe these 2 soups are related?

Hsrtw8, would this recipe work with frozen abalone? I came across frozen abalone, the size of a dollar coin, at a nearby mall selling Asian produce. On the same mall, there is a Chinese apothecary. Among the bins of shiitake, conpoy, ginseng and various herbs, they sell dried, sliced, king top shell. Would soaking then and simmering in ginger be the right way to handle this product? BTW, your sea cucumber thread looks wonderfull! Thanks

I just had to say thanks for posting this tutorial, Hzrt8w!