Chris Hennes

My wife and I had dinner at Stephan Pyles last night and it was quite good: I'd recommend it to someone looking for a nice higher-end dinner in Dallas who is OK with a bit of heat (spiciness, i.e. I could not take my mother there). Service was very good, unobtrusive, and overall the experience was quite pleasant. I especially appreciated the free valet parking, since there was a concert going on at the museum down the street when we arrived and there was no on-street parking to be had. The food ranged from OK to excellent, and the highs were higher than the lows were low. In particular I had a king salmon dish as my main course which was excellent: among the best salmon dished I've experienced, really allowing the salmon to shine, with other flavors melding nicely into the background. The mussels served with it were cooked perfectly and were very flavorful. The Kampachi ceviche was good but not stunning (a little one-note), the amuse bouche tasted mostly like orange marmalade, and I could take or leave most of the gazpachos. The roasted poblano soup, on the other hand, was very good. The various breads served were good, though there were quite a few and I'm afraid I've lost track of which I liked the best. The foie gras appetizer was pleasantly savory, with only a hint of sweetness (unlike the norm these days which seems to be practically a dessert course): I enjoyed it but probably would not order it again. My wife enjoyed some kind of crab flan enough that I didn't get to sample it, so I only have her positive opinion for you . For dessert we shared a set of five chocolate dishes: some good, some only OK, nothing spectacular (full disclosure: I have no sweet tooth to speak of). Shortly after we sat down Chef Pyles came through the dining room welcoming people, which was an interesting surprise in this era of celebrity chefs never to be seen in their namesake restaurants. The poblano soup was comped to us as some sort of intermezzo (in shot glasses, of course) due to some kind of mix-up in the kitchen regarding our entrees, but I didn't find the pace of the meal to be off: if they hadn't said anything when they sent out the soup I would have thought nothing of the delay. Overall I left feeling happy and full: the price was reasonable for the quality, and I would definitely go again. Edited to correct spelling.

I think I'll hit Fireside Pies here in Grapevine tonight, and I may check out Angelo's BBQ in Ft. Worth for dinner tomorrow (unless there is another BBQ place I ought to check out instead). I could use a lunch suggestion for tomorrow: any other voices in favor of Urban Taco?

Alas, I can't eat at both Lannys and Pyles, so Lanny is going to have to wait for my next visit (remember, I'm only three hours north, so it's not like I can't make it down again in a few months). Tomorrow I will probably be driving from Grapevine over to Goody Goody liquors in Addison, and then down to Pogos on Lovers Ln: any good lunch spots in along those routes?

Absolutely the #1 reason to finish in the oven (though the convenience and cost-effectiveness is a close #2). I used the drippings in my BBQ sauce yesterday and I dare say it was the tastiest pulled pork I've ever made.

What if you separate the flavor and the sweetener? Iced tea drinkers are used to stirring in granulated sugar, so I don't think that would be an issue. And the flavorings would then be much less viscous.

OK, I made the Cook's Illustrated version above, but subbed in 1 cup of pork drippings for the cup of vegetable oil. This cuts the amount of fat in half, since the drippings were almost exactly 50/50 fat/liquid. It was excellent: the rendered fat had picked up a great smoke flavor, plus was very "porky" so this really intensified all the flavors. The pulled pork didn't taste like sauce, it tasted like pork with sauce. Very moist, of course. I think that (if you are OK with the fat content) this sauce is a winner.

Yes, that's a good point: there's no reason to think that a vinaigrette would make a good BBQ sauce! I went ahead and made the sauce using the pork fat rather than the veg. oil, and I'm pretty pleased with the result on its own. It remains to be seen how well it works on the pulled pork.

If you look at this as a vinaigrette, it's actually not very much oil at all, as a ratio to the vinegar. It emulsifies right up no problems, and I have never found it to have an unpleasant mouthfeel. That said, it's going on five pounds of shredded pork shoulder, which is bringing plenty of its own fat to the party. Health food this ain't!

Every belly is different, and every brine/rub recipe is different: don't worry too much if you aren't getting much liquid, everything is probably still fine. And there's only one way to find out for sure: eat it!

I'm making some pulled pork at the moment and am doing a "Mid-South Carolina-style" mustard-based sauce. The recipe from the July 1997 issue of Cook's Illustrated is: I've used this recipe several times to good effect (even praised by guests who were actually from the region the recipe says this is native to). That said, however, I'm a bit bothered by the cup of vegetable oil. I just smoked this shoulder and have a great ton of tasty pork dripping (about 50/50 fat and non-fat): of course it's solid at fridge temps, but at serving temps, any thoughts about what would happen if I omitted the vegetable oil and replaced it with this smokey goodness?

Do any of these methods have differing impacts on the development of the crusty edges? I'm of the "more crusty edges == better brownies" school of thought.

Pink salt isn't a problem since even though the recipe calls for it, prasantrin didn't use it at all. I think the issue is going to be that the bacon will be very sweet. But, even bacon that is too sweet to eat plain has plenty of uses, so I wouldn't stress out about it. Make BLTs and use a very acidic mayonnaise, or chop it up and use it in a sauce (adjusting to taste, obviously).

Memorial Day weekend is upon us here in the US, and for many I suspect that means the grill is getting fired up. I'm having some friends over tomorrow, so I've got a pork shoulder in the smoker right now, plus doing some French potato salad and cole slaw. I haven't decided on dessert yet: probably something cold that can be prepped in advance. So, what are you making? Got any dessert ideas for me?

For the record, Wikipedia lists the ingredients as: So more corn syrup than chocolate: what are the conventional proportions for modeling chocolate?

rickster, I have had the same problem, and I have some solutions for you: Make sure the foot is very thin. Use the tip of a paring knife and take multiple passes. This requires some patience, of course, because by "multiple" I usually take 2-3 to get through the ganache and then maybe five more to get through the foot. Use tempered chocolate for the foot, but cut it the moment it has set firm enough to handle, don't let it sit for a while. It seems like you get maybe a 30 minute window with dark chocolate before it really gets that brittle "snap" that is characteristic of well-tempered chocolate. It cuts cleaner before it reaches that point. I got sick of the paring knife method and switched to using a large drywall spatula (image here). This works well as long as you follow the above guidelines, and wet it first.

Interesting. With the Absinthe the lime flavor is the clear winner, with the licorice flavor coming in only at the end. I found these to be very "lime-y".

Lucid Lime Bonbons (pp. 111) OK, he calls these "Lime-Pastis" but I don't have any Pastis: what I have is Lucid Absinthe. So I'm going with "Lucid Lime" instead. I got three new molds from Chef Rubber last week. I have never successfully made molded bonbons before, but I followed along with Trishiad's fantastic Demo: Basic molded chocolates and slightly beyond and at last got some that I am not too embarrassed to serve. I still have a lot of learning to do, however! The ingredients list is pretty tame for these, except for requiring lime oil (and salted butter!!). They are molded in milk chocolate: I used 38% E. Guittard. Making this ganache is straightforward: I decided to try to use a squeeze bottle to fill them, thinking I would have better control. Hah. No. Stupid. Use a pastry bag. I did a kinda crummy job of capping them, I am always forgetting how well chocolate sticks to itself. But, I managed to get that done mostly OK. I let it set and tried to unmold them. After A LOT of banging on the counter, they all came out somewhat intact, but the reason for their reluctance to release was obvious: Damn! Out of temper. And, as you can see along the top, the shells were too thin to handle all the necessary banging to get them out and they all have hairline fractures. Oh well, they taste good. My wife's colleagues won't complain . In the future there are a few changes I will make to these: first, the ganache is too firm for a molded bonbon. I prefer it to be softer than this recipe gives, so I'm going to play around with it a bit. Second, I wanted even more lime flavor: I don't think the chocolate I used played very well with the lime, so that needs some work as well. Finally, of course, the shells need to be thicker and the chocolate needs to be properly tempered. I'm not sure what went wrong there: I tested it before molding and it was perfect. Oh well. Practice, practice, practice. (ETA: No, Lucid isn't paying me for these. )

I'm excited by this for the same reasons paulraphael is: I loved Pop-Tarts as a kid, but these days when I eat them I am more struck by the insipid crust than anything else. gfron1, I appear to have exactly the opposite taste in Pop-Tarts as you! I would cut the filling down to the bare minimum, and axe the frosting entirely. You used to be able to get a lot of different Pop-Tarts with no frosting at all, but these days I think it's limited to Strawberry and Cinnamon, neither of which am I particularly fond of.

I do, anyway.

The New York Times has a short piece by Amanda Hesser up right now concerning the origins of "Le Cirque’s Spaghetti Primavera." In particular, it seems there is some dispute as to who actually invented it. The article also includes this recipe from the 1977 Le Cirque version: it's a bit more complex than I generally do, but I suppose that in order to get that many vegetables to play nicely with one another, that's to be expected. Among the ingredients are: 1 bunch broccoli 2 small zucchini, unpeeled 4 asparagus spears 1 1/2 cups green beans 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas 3/4 cup fresh or frozen pea pods 2 cups thinly sliced mushrooms 3 cups 1-inch tomato cubes (Edited to add ingredients)

Todd, it was a pleasure working with you. Best of luck with your new responsibilities, and I'm looking forward to seeing you around the forums.

Agreed. My point is that as I drift around the internet following links, I hit many random blogs that I have never been to before and will probably never visit again. As someone who visits a website for the first time, I do care what standard the writer is holding themselves to. If it's a random blog for family and friends with no comp disclosures, etc. that's fine, but I'd like to know that before I give their opinion any thought. The way news snowballs on the internet, it doesn't take much for a less-than-credible source to gain traction in the internet food media.

I'm not a blogger, I'm just a reader: coming at this as a reader, however, I'd really love to see some kind of indication of what ethical code a random blogger on the internet considers themselves bound to. Whether it's the eG code, the Journalist's Code, or a self-written code as KitchenHacker suggests, I'd like to know as a reader that whoever is writing the article I just stumbled across has given at least cursory thought to the issue. How many times do you come across some post on the internet and think to yourself "hmm, I wonder how much they got paid to say this?" I personally think it's one thing to have no code at all and to shill, but that it's taking sleaziness to the next level if you claim you're following some code and then you post something you were paid to. I know it's not a panacea, but it's one small thing that will make at least this reader more comfortable taking your opinion at face value. Let's face it: every single one of us believes ourselves to be an ethical person. And we probably all have slightly different versions in our heads of what that means. If you want a random reader who stumbled across your site using Google to appreciate that, however, just state upfront what code you're following.

I couldn't agree more: I've never done a side-by-side comparison, but I've made it both ways and there is no question. The butter works so beautifully with the tomatoes, in a way the olive oil simply can't match. All of this is to say: it's not "culinary blasphemy" to want to make a sauce with simple pantry staples, and you can in fact end up with one of the all-time great pasta sauces.

The kitchen itself. When I bought the house I remember thinking "wow, what a spacious kitchen!" The problem is, spacious is not a good thing in kitchen design, at least not in its own right. It turn out spacious is a euphemism for "has tons of wasted space." It's laid out to have a very tiny island in the middle of it, which is fortunately not present, but this means that there is instead a wide expanse of floor (floor that must be cleaned, I might add!) in between the fridge, the sink, and the stove. I get very little extra counter space out of the deal, more floor to clean, and a less efficient workflow, especially for complicated projects. It's annoying. Regarding your ice: that shape is what makes the modern inexpensive home ice maker possible, and while I agree that it has its issues, I still find it preferable to no ice maker at all. I keep my freezer turned all the way down, which when combined with a fine-mesh strainer mitigates some of the cocktail issues, I think. For drinking water, use a narrower glass .