Chris Hennes

Any canned foods in particular, or just in general? Looking for the best ones?

Has anyone tried to make the "Chile-roasted pork on the grill, Chiapas style" on pages 266–267? I see that he calls for a bone-in pork shoulder, but then instructs you to cut it into 2-inch slabs. Seems like you'd either need a meat saw to do that, or you'd have to bone it out first (but then why call for bone-in?). Any ideas?

Thanks. I really love Mexican food, but I've been in a bit of a rut with Szechuan before this; it's a welcome break from the routine. And tonight really paid off: Enfrijoladas (Savory Bean-Sauced Tortillas with Fresh Cheese) (pp. 196–197) Oh hell yes. Worth the price of admission right here, this innocuous-sounding recipe really fires on all cylinders. There are some changes I'll make next time to compensate for apparent differences in the way Bayless and I cook beans (my broth wound up a bit too salty once reduced), but the basic idea of this recipe is fantastic. Dip fresh corn tortillas in bean cooking broth, sprinkle with chorizo and cheese, add roasted tomatillo salsa, et voila!—a masterpiece. I unfortunately did not have any fresh cheese on hand so had to substitute leftover queso quesadilla from last night: still good, but I think with the fresh cheese this dish is a definite keeper, to be brought out whenever I have leftover bean broth to use up. ETA: I should mention that my bean cooking broth this time was a lightly-smoked chicken stock, and I cook my beans with heavy doses of both onions and garlic, which of course affects the taste of the final broth.

Enchiladas Suizas de Verduras Asadas (Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas with Creamy Tomatillo Sauce) (pp. 199–200) This is a great dish, in my opinion. I made the filling with carrots, white onions, turnips, and butternut squash; this wound up being a slightly-sweet medium-firm filling that contrasted very well with the bright flavors of the tomatillo sauce. I love enchiladas made with slightly-thicker-than normal homemade tortillas since they hold up to being immersed in the sauce better, and the queso quesadilla added a nice textural component, though is perhaps not flavorful enough to stand up to the vegetables and tomatillo sauce.

You can count my plus one and me in for: Thursday night Szechuan Banquet at Chia Shiang (pending on-time arrival of flights) Friday breakfast at SELMA (pending flights not arriving at 2am) Friday night dinner at Grange Saturday Evening Feast Sunday Bacon Tasting & Brunch

I've used both, though for the size you are looking for you would use hog middles, I think. I've never cooked them, so I'm not sure what you mean by "thin out." I don't generally eat the casing unless the finished salume is sliced very thin, I peel it off before slicing (it comes off quite easily).

I think liking that blueberry pie it doesn't so much matter if you are "pie people" as that you are "fresh blueberry people". If you like raw blueberries, you will like that pie. Leaving most of them uncooked makes it a whole different animal compared to a traditional blueberry pie.

I regularly use middles as casing for larger dry-cured sausages: their thickness is no problem. The curing takes longer, of course, but part of that is the thickness of the salume itself.

Aguacate Machacado (Yucatecan Guacamole) (p. 29) I'm not real clear on what makes this "Yucatecan"—in his description, Bayless talks about what he thinks Yucatecan guacamole is (Florida avacados, habanero, cilantro, sour orange juice) and then says "I do the same thing, but use Mexico's west coast avocados—the creamy Hass avocados that are so popular in the States—and add a little tomato, a handful of red onion [...]". Which is to say, nothing at all like a Yucatecan guacamole, right? OK, enough whining about semantics. The guacamole is basically what I think of as a traditional guacamole, and it's good. In particular, this recipe calls for rinsing the onions in water before adding them, which is a very effective way to tone them down a little but still get that crunch.

Lisa, I'm having trouble tracking down a reliable scientific study that demonstrates that. McGee makes no mention of it even though he specifically discusses eating them raw, and a Google search just yields anecdotal evidence. None of the scientific papers I read note green (string) beans as poisonous. Do you have a reference?

Blueberry Tart with Lemon Curd (pp. 258–260) I first reported on RLB's no-bake blueberry pie recipe in in the Blueberry Pie topic: this is a similar thing, but with a lemon curd tart underneath the layer of uncooked blueberries. Overall a good idea, with an execution flawed by an overly-sweet lemon curd. The tartness of the curd is almost completely eliminated by the large amount of sugar she includes in the basic curd recipe. I don't know if it's possible to decrease the sugar and still get the curd to set up properly, but I may give it a try next time, since the premise seems so good.

Tomorrow night I'm making enchiladas from Rick Bayless's Fiesta at Rick's: it's a traditional Mexican enchilada Suiza, but instead of a meat filling you use roasted vegetables. If you make the sauce with a vegetable stock (which I am doing), the recipe is completely vegetarian.

Tacos de Arrachera al Carbón con Ceboliitas Asadas y Nopales, Roasted Tomatillo Salsa (Grilled Skirt Steak Tacos with Knob Onions and Cactus) pp. 182-183 and p.208 While the title is a mouthful, this recipe is quite simple, and showcases the great flavors in the beef marinade without overshadowing the beef itself. I also like his recommended salsa here, a very basic roasted tomatillo salsa (the recipe is included in this book, and I think in all his others as well). My one question is, how do you eat the cebollitas? They are grilled whole, and are too large to just put on a taco without cutting them up. What's the story on those?

Tacos al Pastor with Three-Chile Salsa (pp. 188-190) The first thing I tried from the book was his modified-for-home-equipment "Tacos al Pastor." All told it worked out pretty well: nothing mind-blowing, but pretty tasty. My one complaint is the use of pork shoulder here: I don't find that the texture is that good when the pork is cooked so quickly. I ended up having to chop the pork finer than I would have liked. The three-chile salsa on page 190 is quite good, I thought, and worked well on these tacos.

Oh yeah, the guac. He has a LOT of guacamole recipes in there! Guacamole is one of those things that I never really even considered playing with, I make the same basic guacamole every time. I think that is about to change...

Not blanching, just rinsing. Is there any flavor of any kind left after blanching? I found them to be sorta bland.

Stir-Fried Pork, Mushrooms, and Carrots Another dish with a questionable name... it has six dried mushrooms and one cup julienned carrots, to two cups each of celery and cabbage. So why give top billing to the carrots and mushrooms? The celery is a very dominant flavor in this dish, which I like very much. I don't think it needs (or wants) the bamboo shoots, but maybe the brand I'm using is not a good one. Overall, though, I think this is one of the best dishes in the book. I'd leave out the bamboo shoots, and use fresh shiitake if they are available, but otherwise make it as-is.

Over in the "Mexican Dinner Menu" topic rancho_gordo and kalypso recommended Rick Bayless's new book, Fiesta at Rick's. Not one to ignore recommendations from those two, I bought it immediately, and it just arrived. It's a nice-looking book, and is chock full of awesome-sounding recipes; so much so that I hardly know where to begin. For those of you out there who already have this book: what are your favorite recipes from it?

Chicken with Garlic and Sugar Snaps (p. 75) Not much to say about this one: it's pretty boring. It seems funny to call it "Chicken with Garlic and Sugar Snaps" -- the garlic is obvious, but the sugar snaps are just part of the vegetable medley, and tend to lose out to the baby corn when you get both in the same bite. I'm not sure using canned vegetables in this dish is really advisable, despite that being what the recipe calls for.

If you're just looking for a way to get bacon flavor into the burger I suggest grinding the raw bacon in with the beef, rather than trying to actually deep-fry in it. It seems awfully wasteful of all that good bacon fat, when you'll only get a couple uses out of it before it goes rancid from the heat-cycling.

And here's an eGullet-friendly link to Bayless's book, if you are interested in buying a copy there.

Do they replay any of the older seasons? I can't remember seeing anything recently that was before about season five, I think. ETA: I think they are available at iTunes, though.

I agree about "recipe girl" too, and with the judges' astonishment that she would openly brag about how she was making a low-fat LIVER MOUSSE!! It's not like the judges on TC have ever commented that they wished the food was lower fat. Colicchio owns a steakhouse! And there is no shortage of butter and foie gras on the menu at Le Bernardin. It seems to me that this early in the competition, there is no reason whatsoever to take risks of any kind, be it making a dessert, or making a "light mousse." Let the losers wash themselves out for a few elimination challenges, see who the competition is, and try to avoid screwing up.

Sure, bad BBQ sauce and mediocre onion rings... I just don't get all the love they receive. The Western Burger I tried was among my least favorite burgers I've had since I started this "research." Give me a better-tasting patty over more toppings any day. On another overrated (IMO) burger note: I had my first Sonic Supersonic Cheeseburger the other day. Not saying it was bad: just that it was completely unremarkable. And who the hell wants to eat in their car, anyway?! The fries were pretty awful, too, guess I should have gotten the Tots.

Right, it definitely looked like what Tom was really looking for was a "fine chop" not a "brunoise." Can't say that I was sorry to see John go, he had a weird vibe (maybe just a victim of the editors, I suppose). Anytime a chef of TC makes something that I could make at home, I figure they are doomed. Pre-made puff pastry and whipped cream? Say what?