Chris Hennes

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen these at my farmer's market here: we love our okra here in Oklahoma, so it would be natural to see some okra greens as well, but there has been no sign of them. I did dig up a single blog post on the internet here that seems to indicate that they do indeed have a remarkable, and not necessarily desirable, thickening power. I think a little experimentation is in order before committing to using them in a recipe. And of course, we want pictures and all the gory details!!

Thanks for the recommendations: we ate at two places while in town (there on business, not a lot of time, unfortunately). Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's (website, map) At the time of our visit one of Charlie Parker's newest restaurants, this one is adjacent to a Bloomingdale's, hence the name. We had late reservations so the mall was closed, which was probably a good thing. Tons of very close free parking, no need at all for the valet. It was a Sunday evening, so it was fairly subdued: I imagine this space can get a bit loud when it is busier. The food was quite good, and our waiter was very helpful. It may not have been worth what I paid, but it was by no means a bad meal. In particular the evening's Amuse Bouche, an heirloom tomato gazpacho with cumin foam, was very good. Anaheim White House (website, map) The Anaheim White House is about five minutes from Disneyland, so the location couldn't have been more convenient. To all appearances it is a high-end Italian restaurant: unfortunately, the food was mediocre, and in fact quite dull. What did I expect this close to DL? Win some, lose some... with so many great restaurants an easy drive away (during the summer, anyway... traffic is pretty calm right now), there is no reason to give this place another glance. You can get this food at the Olive Garden (I'm not kidding).

I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out: I regard losing a batch of bacon as a fairly crushing defeat. I hate it when I do stuff like that! Could you explain what you mean by this? I am not familiar with Dunlop's recipe.

Alas, Marche Moderne doesn't fit into my schedule, but I've got a rez at Charlie Palmer for tomorrow night: thanks for the tip, I didn't know he had a place that close. Now I need dinner Tuesday, early (like 5:30pm) and lunch every day. Dinner Tuesday doesn't have to be as upscale, but maybe something I can't get in OKC (like decent Asian!). ETA: Anyone familiar with the "Anaheim White House"?

I'll be at the Anaheim Convention Center tomorrow through Tuesday eve: I've got a car but gas prices and traffic being what they are would prefer to stay with, say, five miles of the Center. Is there any decent upscale dining in the area for dinners that I could still get a rez for at this point? How about lunch places? I don't really want to set foot in Disneyland, even for food, so Napa Rose is out, I'm afraid .

Is anyone familiar with the restaurants in the W Olympic & Sawtelle region in West LA? I'm meeting a friend for dinner there on Monday and he (who lives in the LA area) suggested we just meet at that intersection and find someplace. I gather there are some sushi, ramen, shabu-shabu, curry, etc. places in the neighborhood: any suggestions? Must be within a couple block radius of that intersection, but I'm otherwise completely open.

I think someone in the old Charcuterie topic mentioned something like that, and that it worked well, but really, the recipe in Ruhlman's book calls for hot-smoking the bacon and I have had very good results with it. Cold smoking lets you up the amount of smoke that gets absorbed, but the basic recipe is still plenty smoky, in my opinion.

Wow, you're right, that really does look like a bruise. It seems too dark to be a pooling of the curing liquid. Based on my extremely minimal knowledge of bruising (gleaned mostly from watching way too much CSI!) I theorize that it is at least possible that very shortly before being "dispatched" your pig was injured in some way. It ordinarily takes a bruise some time to form/become visible, so if the freezing happened very shortly after death (as it would in these circumstances) that could have stopped the visible formation of the bruise until you thawed the belly and put it in the cure. I'm totally making this up, but hey! it sure does look like a bruise.

I have an odd request for a roasting technique: let's say (purely hypothetically, of course... ) that I want to overcook one of the breasts. Just one, though, maybe to 175F or so. The other should be 155F when I pull it. Any thoughts on how best to achieve this?

I don't generally re-use oil from frying fish unless I know I will be frying fish again in a couple days. I don't really have any great reasons for that, I just don't do it. When I do filter oil, from making fries or something, I also use a coffee filter, and I change the filter out every now and again. I let it go for a couple hours, usually, for a full fryer of oil. Since you don't really have to babysit it, it doesn't really matter to me how long it takes.

The longest I have gone is two days, for bacon. I would be concerned with the duck drying out if you went any longer than that, but I think you would be OK if you let the pellicle form and then bagged it up. Or better, bag it up now, then form the pellicle right before you smoke it. Brined duck breast should keep in the fridge all week with no problem.

It wasn't bad per se, it was just dominated by the allspice. Some tinkering with the marinade will be required to get the ingredients in balance. In retrospect I should have done some adjustments when I first tasted it, but I sometimes have a hard time imagining the effect of a marinade based on its initial flavor. Gotta work on that!

After a 48-hour marination, this is what the pork shoulder looked like: I soaked some allspice berries in water to add to the coals and create some smoke. In hindsight with was probably not worth the trouble: I did not detect much scent from them while smoking, and I think the standard smoke from the hardwood charcoal overpowered any slight flavor they may have imparted. I set up an offset fire in the trusty Weber: I held the temperature between 200F and 250F for approximately five hours, to get this: That only brought the temp up to about 150F, so another hour or so in a 350F oven finished it off and brought it up to 200F. Action shot courtesy of my wife: Close-up of the pork: I followed markemorse's recommendations for the sauce, though I don't think the additional sugar was necessary: And finally: I served it with cilantro-lime rice and some sauteed squash, since I am not familiar with the appropriate authentic Jamaican accompaniments. The verdict? Tasty, but not enough heat, and too much allspice. I think I would cut the allspice in half, and double the habaneros next time. I know in markemorse's original post he was trying to keep the heat down, and I wasn't sure exactly how much heat there would be since habaneros can be a bit touchy, so that's no big deal, but your instincts about the amount of allspice called for seem correct: I think about half that quantity would be more appropriate. Maybe that was a typo?

Well, in the defense of the recipe, it calls for 1/4 cup of Allspice berries: once ground up I estimate it was more like a tablespoon. The flavor is definitely strong, but not overwhelming. I'm smoking it right now, so I guess we'll find out how well it worked in a couple hours. I only used a fraction of the recipe: I made a whole batch, but added just enough to the bag to make an effective marinade: maybe 1/4 of it?

I wanted to bump this topic up because, due to making some Jerk over on the new Jerk Cook-off I now have an overabundance of habaneros: Anyone have any other creative uses for these little buggers? I sometimes make chocolates with habanero in them, and was thinking along the lines of some kind of habanero extract/essence that would allow me to control how much heat I was adding (there is so much variation in the individual peppers that I have a hard time infusing the pepper directly in the cream and getting consistent results between batches).

Today I started on the marination process: I'm using the recipe from markemorse over here: it does call for soy sauce, incidentally: I picked these babies up at the farmers' market this morning: What do you mean you don't use that many?!? Sissies... (OK, OK, I only used three of them, but the guy was only selling by the basket-full). The recipe calls for "fire-roasted habañeros" so here goes with the fire roasting part: The ingredients are then combined into a food processor (or blender, or maybe even a mortar and pestle setup if you are hardcore...): I whirred it for a good long while since I didn't want any big chunks of habañero in there: better safe than sorry! What you finally end up with is a bit wetter than I was expecting: the recipe calls for a quite large quantity of orange juice (fresh-squeezed, of course) which serves as the liquid base. Having never made Jerk before I was imagining more of a paste-like texture that would get rubbed on, but this is definitely more of a marinade: Next up, the pork shoulder. I ordered this one up from Niman Ranch since I don't have a local pork supplier yet: I didn't actually want the whole thing to go Jerk, I am making some pulled pork as well, so I cut off a good looking chunk to get marinating Jerk-style: Finally, I put it one of those Reynolds' Vacu-Seal bags and sucked the air out to keep the marinade in good contact with the meat: My plan is to let this marinate for 48 hours, then slow-smoke it over charcoal with some soaked allspice berries added to the coals in an attempt to get some Pimento flavor. No idea if it will work, and I've never tasted something smoked over Pimento wood, so I guess I won't know! Hopefully it tastes good, anyway. Edited because I can't type...

I wonder what would happen with the starch, though. When you cook pasta in boiling water a lot of starch from the pasta ends up in the water: doing sous vide would prevent that. I guess it would be like those macaroni and cheese things where you add just enough water to microwave the pasta to doneness, but you don't have to drain it. I can't recall what the sauce on those was like...

How long did you smoke it for? Or is it not the "smokey" flavor that is lacking, but the "briney" flavor you want more of?

I just picked up a small amount of "purple rice" at a local store, but I have no idea how to cook it! I'd like to try it plain first, rather than in desserts or things like that: does it need a soak? A rinse? Steamed, boiled, or something else? Any idea how long?

I have read in various online sources that soaked allspice berries can be added to the coals to get a similar flavor. Has anyone tried this? There is an online source for Pimento (Pimiento?) wood out of Minneapolis, I think, but they are quite pricey and frequently sold out.

Welcome to the eGullet Recipe Cook-Off! Click here for the Cook-Off index. Perhaps the most internationally well-known food from Jamaica involves the spicy dry-rub Jerk seasoning, cooked in a 55-gallon drum converted into a charcoal grill, and served screaming-hot as street food across the island. While most of us don't have 55-gallon drums in our backyards, jerk-style meats (and even tofu!) are perfect for outdoor grilling, and (in a pinch) roasting for those without access to a grill. The recipes in RecipeGullet have the common theme of Allspice and Scotch Bonnet peppers, in addition to the inclusion of scallions, garlic, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. We have a recipe for Jerk Chicken and for Jamaican Jerk Paste which it seems can be readily adapted to nearly any protein, with pork, goat, and chicken being the best-known examples. In addition, entire cookbooks exist dedicated to the subject—Jerk from Jamaica: Barbecue Caribbean Style, for example. Here on the eGullet Forums we have topics devoted to Jerk Chicken, Jerk Sauce, Jerk Pork, a discussion on the authenticity of using Soy Sauce in Jerk, and even some advice on Oil Drum Cooking. What is your "house blend" of Jerk spices? Soy Sauce included, or sacrilege? Doin' your thing over gas, or burning Pimento Wood, or living in an apartment with no grill and winging it?

I think this is a good point: the use of the commercial box differs in a very fundamental way, I think. With the commercial box, the box is sitting on the counter next to the item you are covering. You reach across the item with your left hand (assuming the box is on the right, of course) and pull the wrap across, then use your other hand to slide the cutter. The action is almost the opposite with the consumer boxes, where I use them by picking up the whole box, grabbing the plastic wrap with my left hand and sweeping the box across the item I am wrapping. With the metal blade cutter a quick yank at this point sliced off the wrap and you were done. With the plastic cutter I have to set the box down, fiddle with getting the cutter and plastic wrap aligned, and then slide the cutter. Much slower and more frustrating. I can't say I can recall ever injuring myself with the metal zigzag cutter, but maybe I've just blocked the awful memories .

Over the past years consumer-grade plastic wrap boxes seem to have become progressively worse, in my opinion. Between dull "blades," annoying placement of the blades on the box, lack of tabs to hold the roll in, and various other minor quibbles, I am seriously considering mail-ordering. The latest "innovation" is the silly slider gizmo: This is quite possibly the most annoying "feature" in food storage packaging today. To use it you have to slow down, adjust the position of the little cutter, slip some wrap under it, and only then, slide the thingamajig to cut the plastic. WHAT!!!???!!! Pain in the butt. I hate them. Am I alone? Were the focus groups right? Does the rest of the world think these things are great? Am I just doing it wrong?!?

And of course there is always Salad Caprese: sliced fresh mozzarella and sliced fresh tomatoes, sprinkling of basil and olive oil... summer on a plate.

Chris, is this the technique you're talking about? The guide hand is doing the Flying Hand Trick rather than the standard Claw. It's a little less scary for some people because it gets your fingers up and out of the way. I do start near the heel of the knife and make a smooth draw stroke to create my horizontal cuts. Now that I think about it, that works best with a knife that is not only sharp, but also thin (like the Japanese knives I prefer). A thicker, more German-style knife would probably work better using the section closer to the tip. That's going to be a lot thinner than the area down near the heel and cause less wedging. Nice catch. I'll make a note of it for the paperback version. Chad ← Yes, that's the cut I'm talking about: instead of going at the onion from tip to root, I go side-to-side using the tip of the knife. I lightly press down on the top of the onion with a finger or two to keep it in place and make a quick sweeping motion through the onion: it feels less awkward to me and seems to be easier to get the tip right out near the root without "overshooting." Does that make any sense? I am using a Forschner Fibrox at the moment, which seems pretty thin to me (but maybe I've never used a really thin blade!).