Chris Hennes

We're closing this topic now that the job is over: please feel free to contact CaliPoutine with your comments or questions, and thanks for participating!

Unsmoked bacon can be very good, so go for it! Bacon freezes perfectly, so no need to worry about that: I certainly don't eat a ten pound belly in one go! My freezer is full of individual packs ofpre-sliced bacon. I'd strongly encourage you to read through this topic, or at least skim it: there are definitely some specific ratios of salt:sugar:meat to be had, as well as some sources for Tinted Curing Mix (TCM, a.k.a "pink salt", and definitely not the Himalayan kind !).

It's just my wife and me this year, so nothing terribly elaborate, though naturally I will be overcomplicating things as much as possible : we're having quail with a bacon-sherry glaze, some kind of challah-based "stuffing" that will not be stuffed, and mashed potatoes with as much butter in them as I can get them to hold. So maybe it's more like potato-scented butter.

Thanks, gentlemen. I'm going ahead and making it exactly as written, complete with using a very lean, well trimmed round. I'm using a spicy smoked Spanish paprika: what kind did you guys go with? Spivy, the Duck Prosciutto is an excellent place to start! Welcome to the world of charcuterie!!

Of course, depending on what you are doing with the stock, "clear" might not really matter. I rarely worry much about it, keeping my stock below a full boil, but probably not quite at the low level that some books seem to recommend for various reasons, real and imagined. If you're making gravy with it, clarity isn't of much use!

The Gimlet is a great drink, either with Rose's or with a homemade cordial, and it's my go-to drink when I don't have the energy for more than two ingredients (which is more often than I care to admit!).

A few years ago ronnie_suburban made the peperone (1,2) using pork, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried the recipe as written, with lean beef. Ruhlman indicates that this should be a very lean sausage, and the recipe has no added fat and instructs you to remove all the fat from the beef before using it. Anyone with results to report on this front? Also, the recipe indicates the use of lamb or hog casings, but I most of the peperone I have had elsewhere is in larger casings, hog middles I think. Any thoughts on this?

Scrambled eggs and caviar I get (and wish I could have shared!)... but including the home fries seems like it would be a salt OD. Did you prepare the homefries differently than usual in preparation for their caviar accompaniment?

My understanding is that the only purpose for the fan is to eliminate excessive humidity from building up in isolated regions: high humidity can encourage the growth of "bad" mold. However, there is some question about the "badness" of this "bad" mold (see this topic for details): I'd say that if you get a lot of fuzzy mold growth, especially only in isolated areas say near the top or bottom of the fridge where the air might be more stagnant, then you might want to think about getting more air circulation (and wipe off the mold).

It's interesting that these recipes all include amaretti cookies: they are challenging to come by here until the holiday season, and even then they are typically marketed as fancy gifts with a price to match. I made ravioli a few weeks ago and tried to just replicate the flavor of the cookies without actually using cookies, but with limited success.

Three foods that we simply cannot have in the house because of their irresistible siren song: Snickers, Snickers Ice Cream Bars, and Oreos. I ate more Oreos as an undergraduate than I care to admit. I also find that both Snickers and Snickers Ice Cream bars have optimum serving temperatures that when strayed to far from render the product nowhere near as good. Snickers, for example, seems to hit its sweet-spot at about 75°F: too much warmer and it's too melty, but too much cooler and the caramel is too firm.

Those of you in Philadelphia and New Orleans are in the highly-enviable position of actually having an indigenous sandwich culture. In particular I fail to understand how Subway manages to maintain ANY locations in Philly, where there are excellent sandwiches available on nearly every block! That said, here in the lower Midwest no such culture exists, and if you want a hoagie, Subway and Quiznos are basically the only game in town. The "mom and pop" joints are unlikely to serve anything any better, following the "90% of everything is crap" rule. And man, you better avoid the "Philly-style Cheesesteak" at all costs! While I prefer Quiznos, I do eat at Subway about once a year: I prefer the meatball sub with all the fixings, probably because of the massive quantities of salt (lucky for me I'm not hypertensive). I find deli meats questionable at even the best of places and tend to avoid them when possible.

If I was you I'd give it a try without a fan first: if you are going to be opening the fridge once a day I think that may provide sufficient circulation to prevent overly-humid and overly-dry regions from developing in the fridge. My fridge has a fan that runs a few times per day (as part of normal refrigerator operation) and I have found that to actually probably be too much circulation: I have to work at it to keep the humidity up to prevent case hardening.

I've avoided Charleston's because I lump them in the same category as Perkins and Old Country Buffet, rightly or wrongly. So I can't give you any suggestions, but please do weigh in with your experience after your visit.

A few weeks ago I opened my mail and was greeted by the unexpected (and strong) smell of garlic: it seems that Fat Guy, hoping to win some converts to pre-peeled garlic (which does not appear to be available here in OK) had mailed me a package of pre-peeled and a package of regular fresh garlic, both the same brand, for comparison purposes. I've been using both of them since then, and have a few comments, most of which are in line with what has been said previously. First off, the convenience factor of the pre-peeled is nice, but hardly decisive. I'm not sure that opening the package, and then finding a container for the leftovers, takes me much less time than peeling fresh. Second, the fresh is unsurprisingly much more pungent: I found myself using substantially more peeled to get the same garlic flavor. That said, once adjusted for pungency, I could not identify any difference in the resulting dishes (note that none of these dishes featured garlic prominently, it was a background flavor in various braises, etc.). The one place where the pre-peeled was superior was in burgers, where its reduced pungency eliminated my usual blanching step to tame fresh garlic.

With most roasts (beef, pork, chicken, etc.) I have something in mind for the next day. Same with BBQ, which can easily be incorporated in different dishes, or even just sandwiches the following day. I almost never serve unadulterated leftovers, since I, like Oliver, don't much care to eat the same thing two days in a row. But if it can be transformed into something new, I'm a big fan.

Hello, 2004.... resurrecting this old chestnut from the vaults... I've tried making Gâteau St. Honoré a couple times in the past and have been sort of underwhelmed by the flavors in the various recipes I've tried. Maybe this is just a case of setting my expectations too high, since I think the first book I saw it in was Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry where it is the cover image: it is stunning in that photo, and I think maybe I projected that a little too much into what is ultimately a very simple flavor combination. Not to mention the fact that I've never managed to wind up with one as gorgeous as that photo... my piping skills just aren't quite there. Does anyone have any advice? Any tips or tricks to turning out a sublime GSH? Or is this just one of those desserts that looks better than it tastes?

What is all this "health food" hot chocolate crap! Hot Chocolate 75 g your favorite chocolate (I like E. Guittard 61% Lever du Soleil), chopped 75 mL heavy cream 150 mL whole milk Heat the cream to a boil and pour over chopped chocolate. Let sit 2 minutes to melt, then stir to emulsify. Heat whole milk to a simmer, add to mug with chocolate mixture, stir to combine. OK, so this is more like a drinkable candybar... but on a cold day, nuthin' better.

Out of 65 cookbooks, using the criteria in the original post I "use" 31 of them, for a use percentage of 48%. Probably half the unused ones were gifts, and the other half are "wishful thinking" books (Alinea, from which I made one recipe, but never got to stage two of using the output of that recipe as the input to the next, for example). About 50% of those that I use are baking/pastry/confections books, and the others are things like Peterson's Sauces or CIA ProChef, which, while today I use primarily as references, are the books that I used to teach myself how to cook in the first place.

And in total, how much "hands-on" time did the process require, about? I mean, I love the idea of making fresh masa, but I'm not looking for any more all-day projects at the moment!

How long did you grind it for?

Since the mold operates on the surface, where one isn't concerned about C. botulinum due to the presence of oxygen, I wouldn't think the alteration of the pH there would be of any concern. Interesting that we can add one more "good" mold to the list. I don't know anything about P. Nalgiovense---you?

If I am comparing the best waffle I have ever had to the best pancake to the best french toast, the french toast wins. But of those things, only the best pancake is something I make at home, the others are cooked by others. So, at home, gotta be the pancakes (though I'm working on my waffles and french toast, they haven't achieved the degree of perfection I have reached with my pancakes).

I just picked up a couple lamb shanks at my butcher on a whim, and wanted to try something a little different with them. I boned them out and am roasting the bones right now. My plan is to then sear and braise the meat in a lamb and vegetable stock based on those bones. Has anyone else tried doing the shanks like that?

I made Osso Buco last week following Bugiali's recipe (sort of). Once cooked, however, I sorta massacred the shanks, and ended up turning it into a more conventional stew-like think (breaking up the veal into small pieces). I left out the gremolata, and served it on egg noodles, with petite peas. It was actually very good this way, despite being about as far from traditional as you can get. The peas in particular went very well, I thought.