TheSwede

Ruhlman/Polcyn's Charcuterie (much discussed in at least two other threads in this forum) has a recipe for fresh Mexican Chorizo.

I've must been in St Martin at exactly the same time as you! I'm sorry I missed BO - sounds like the best place in town. Generally, the restaurants wasn't that interesting. The local "marché" was fantastic though and if you missed shopping there (closed at 1 pm) there was a guy at the quay selling local oysters for 4 EUR per dozen during the afternoons. I lost count of the number of oysters I ate that week. I did try two star "Richard et Christopher Coutanceau" in La Rochelle before going to Ile de Re (good but not fantastic).

It was really excellent. I had their various raw starters together with a nice champagne. It is not a restaurant for some quite dining though, more of a "start the evenings party" place.

Thanks! Will probably visit Kødbyens Fiskebar during the weekend.

Good work on the shucking! Looks like a lovely party. Or rock salt. ← I really dislike oysters on salt. I've been known to not ordering oysters in a restaurant because they serve them on salt. First, I like my oysters cold. But more importantly, rock salt stick to moist oyster shells and that salt tend to come loose when you are eating the oyster. Unless you are careful and brush the oysters off you end up with mouthful of salt.

For me, the hardest part of the chucking is getting the knife those first milimeters into the joint. Often, it is not obvious at all where the joint actually is (at least with the french/dutch Fine de Claire I usually eat). In those situation, just push the knife in where you think the joint should be. A little violence goes a long way and you can always clean up the shell fragments afterwards...

Anyone care to do an update on Copenhagen? What is hot and exciting? Will anything be open during july?

I would like to disagree on the chilling. We always serve our aquavit very cold. I think it adds to the experience, first the intial shock of super cold alcohol followed by the actual taste as the aquavit warms up in your mouth. Besides christmas, the other major "skål" holiday is midsummers eve, which we celebrated this friday.

"Sucre glace" is sugar with a little bit of starch added, ie icing sugar.

I've done that with pork rilettes, but it should work with duck too, since they spend a very short time in the pan: I did a rilette "sausage" wrapped in cling film, refrigerated it and then sliced into pucks which were quickly crisped on both sides.

Traditional rilettes can be browned to a varying degree depending on where they come from. My Larousse Gastronomie has a Balzac quote where he calls rillettes for "brown jam". I have sucessfully made pork rilettes that had a very nice medium brown color and a deep nice flavour. A later batch which wasn't browned was still nice but not quite as good as the previous. No idea how duck would fare though, Larousse makes no mention of browned duck rilettes. Might end up dry perhaps?

Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest newspaper, has a review of newly reopened Mistral today (see above for Mistral info). The shocker is that Mistral only recives 3 points out of 5, which means "ok". The gist of the review is that Mistral is very expensive, the portions are miniscule, the food is pretentious and sometimes bland. On the other hand DN says that the execution is flawless, the ingredients exceptional and that some of the food is really really good. Or would have been, if you would have gotten more than half a bite on your plate. Mistral was also reviewed by Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden's second largest newspaper, two weeks ago. They on the other hand give their highes mark, six points out of six, a grade they usually reserve for Mathias Dahlgren, Frantzén-Lindeberg etc. So, the opions are evidently divided.

Definitely try the gelatine filtration: Gently heat some of the liquid, add 0.5% gelatine (by weight of the total liquid), add the rest of the liquid when gelatine is dissolved. Freeze overnight, then place in a chinoise in the fridge and let the clear liquid slowly strain out over the next two days. I don't know how it will affect the acids, but you won't get any "ccoked" taste.

No, I don't think you want to boil your orange juice (although the egg white probably is harmless once it coagulates). But I though it interesting that traditional clarification evidently works on a very similar substance, a vegetable juice with a lot of pulp.

Do you use boiling water in the mixer, mix/hydrate and then add sugar? Do you need to re-heat or is that enough to make the gel? I usually have problems hydrating both gellan and agar, but hydrating in a small amount of water first and then adding flavours/sugar/acids might help.