Ufimizm

Try to look for ramps near you, or ask around to see what other local plants are growing near them. Try to match where you want to plant them to that same type of plant community.

Here are two articles that got me not to soak. http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_soaking_wood.html and this http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/zen_of_wood.html If you love to smoke, I find the http://amazingribs.com website an amazing resource.

Here is a nice article about using Staghorn Sumac. http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/09/foraged-flavor-all-about-sumac.html

Salted fish fried rice, Limburger and Brick cheese. Great Limburger story about my Grandfather. He would fry bacon, then fry onions in the bacon grease and mix the onions into a Limburger cheese omelet. It would stink so bad he would only do it when he could open all the windows and the family would be at church on Sunday. The family could smell it outside walking home from church. He made one of these and left it on the table and went to the bathroom. When he came back the small family dog had gotten up on the table and ate the whole thing. For the next 2 days the dog just laid in the middle of the living room whimpering and farting. Its gas was so bad it would clear the entire family from the house. The next time my grandfather bought some Limburger, the dog got a whiff of it, freaked out and jumped through a screen door to get outside.

I would recommend Corn Huskers Oil. It works well and is not oily.

I am not sure if anyone heard of this yet. I was reading the Food Renegade Blog and came across this story. http://www.foodrenegade.com/michigan-orders-slaughter-of-all-heritage-breed-pigs/

One of my favorite websites about BBQ is Amazing Ribs It is an incredible wealth of information and has some wonderful recipes as well.

I have a Lao style ceramic mortar with the wood pestle. I make som tam in it. As long as you don't pound the papaya to mush, I do not see why you can't do the same job with the granite mortar you have. Another approach would possibly be to get a wooden pestle to use for softer jobs.

Your are limited by your imagination The Korean BBQ style comes out really really good. Gochujang, ginger, black pepper, garlic, salt and sugar in rub , and good Korean BBQ sauce sauce for braise and glaze. It is so good. After I tried it, I felt dumb for not doing it sooner.

I used to work in a supper club 20 years ago and learned a wonderful way to make ribs in the oven. I have done it with pork and beef ribs and have also changed the flavorings as well. For BBQ style ribs you take your ribs and season them with what ever rub you like. You then put them in a pan which you add some rough chopped onion and garlic. You then cover them with BBQ sauce of your choice and enough water to cover. Typically enough water will be to rinse out the BBQ sauce bottle. Put them in the oven and cook until you get to your desired level of doneness. I like my ribs with a little chew left to them, while others prefer the fall off the bone level. Let the pan cool with the ribs staying in the liquid overnight. The next day you can peel the fat off and remove the ribs. Now all you need to do is either rewarm them under a broiler or on a grill to give them some color and put on a finishing sauce of your choice. I like to take the de-fatted braising liquid and reduce it and then use that as a base for the sauce. When I am lazy I will just use fresh BBQ sauce. I have done variations on this with lemon and white wine, Asian red cooked style, Korean style, etc....

A friend asked me this weekend if I have ever made fish stock with freshwater fish. I am located in rural WI and do fish quite a bit. I honestly can say I never thought of it before, and have never heard of anyone doing it. A search around the web brought up more information on stocking fish than making stock out of them. We don't see whole ocean fish around here, so there is no supply of scrap for them. So I have never made fish stock before. Has anyone ever made a fish stock out of fish like Walleye, Panfish (bluegill, sunfish, perch, etc...), Northern Pike? What about using something like smaller channel catfish? I have asked other people who both cook and fish a lot, and none of them have ever done this or thought about it. I don't ice fish, so my supply of bones is nonexistent until open water starts, but I figured I would ask ahead of time to see what peoples thoughts on this may be

The only good thing about this show is reading this guys weekly recaps, they are hilarious. http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/category/_/name/food-fights

Veal bones are not roasted, because the point of making veal stock is to have a rich "neutral" tasting base. In my opinion, veal stock is best used when creating sauces for delicate tasting items where if you used another stock these flavors would be overpowered.

I never heard of it or saw it until I went to college in 1994. I learned it from a friend who was raised in CA and TX, and we only ever did it with frozen pizza. It became much more common around here when a regional pizza chain (Topper's) started to sell Cheese sticks, Cheese on a buttered crust that came with your choice of ranch, nacho cheese, marinara, and garlic butter.

I make this about once a year. I love this recipe Nola Cuisine Worcestershire Sauce

If they have access to a grill I would suggest Cedar Plank Salmon. Salt, Pepper, Mustard and Brown sugar is all I put on it. Another good alternative is Swai. I have seen it turning up in my grocery stores and I live in rural Wisconsin. They sell it IQF, it is affordable, and it is easy and versatile to cook with. It is sweeter and milder than regular catfish. I will do a simple pan fry and coat with a simple sauce.

I have been volunteered to make Cream Puffs next week. Unfortunately the day I need to make them, my time is very short between when I get one with work and when they need to be ready. I know I can make the puff ahead of time and just fill them before I need to take them, but I prefer to have them as fresh as possible. Would it be possible to make the Pate a Choux the night before and then bake them when I need to? Has anyone ever tried this before?

I have never seen or heard of soy sauce paste, but even if it is not what I am looking for, it would not hurt to try it. For me half the fun of trying to figure out recipes like this is finding stuff that I like and can use in other dishes.

Thank you for the responses. I was referring to the pork stomach and not the belly to clarify things. I have done "red cooked" pork belly, pork shoulder, pork hocks.... and I love that, but this was different. I think braising in a lu shui style master stock and then following Zeemanb's suggestion of being fried and chopped would get me half the way there. The sauce on the finished dish is what I can not place. I just happened to meet someone who is part Chinese and she thought it sounded like something her grandmother would have made. She called her mom, who said grandma did make something like that, but she never liked it and did not know what was in it. She thought the odd flavor I could not place could have been either a fermented black bean paste or broad bean paste. She also brought up the point that by being located in rural central Wisconsin with limited access to certain ingredients that she may have used something close but different which will make it more challenging to recreate. She suggested also trying some Gochujang and seeing how that works.

Recently a store started carrying pork stomach in the freezer case, and it reminded me of a girl I knew in college who was from China. We would end up eating lunch in the same place around the same time most days. She always brought her own food from home and it always looked and smelled awesome. I started to ask her about what she was eating and she started to share and bring me samples of her cooking. She was an excellent cook. One dish she made was a pork stomach dish that was savory and spicy and it was my favorite dish she made. I never was able to learn a lot about how she made stuff because she was very shy about her English skills which created a bit of a language barrier. It's been 15 years since I had it, and I would like to try to make it. From what I remember talking to her was that it was a recipe she learned from her grandmother. She simmered the stomach until it was tender in a "seasoned broth". She would cool and slice it and then crisp it in a pan. The sauce is what I need help with, it was a spicy brown sauce, but I have no idea what was in it exactly and while now I have a better grasp on different seasonings I have never been able to recreate it. The veggies I remember that went with it were bamboo shoots, onion, carrot, fresh button mushrooms. I know my description is pretty vague, but is anyone familiar with a dish like this?

I used to go all out on bringing food to work. I had no problem spending the time and effort to share. This was until people who live off of fast food and convenience food started to make demands on how I should make stuff and how I should season it, and how I should make specific dishes for them. The event that broke my will to ever do this again was when I brought in a Kenyan Beef Stew and Coconut Rice for a Kenyan co-worker who was homesick. People were freaking out about how spicy it was without even trying it. It was not a spicy dish for a large batch it had about 1 tbsp of cracked black pepper. They were complaining about it without even trying it and not even knowing what it was. The guy I originally made it for was happy as could be because that meant more for him and he took the leftovers as well. Since then I have a few people I share food with, and who share their cooking with me. Whenever we have a food day I will bring in some novelty items, but I refuse to do anything more than that.

That bean idea sounds awesome. I may need to try it next time I make something with Nuoc Mau.

All the recipes I have ever seen for Vietnamese dishes like this use just white sugar for the Nuoc Mau. I asked some Hmong friends at work and they make dish similar to Thit Heo Kho Trung (Braised pork with caramel and egg) that uses caramel and they will use white sugar for this. One girl though advised me she will use brown sugar and just melt it to get similar color but a sweeter dish. Using just white sugar adds more of a bitter element along with the color. Palm Sugar may work and give an interesting taste but I would be careful with it because it is unrefined. This may cause it to darken much quicker. I know from experience using Chinese Rock Sugar for Red Cooked Pork you only cook it until it is yellowish before you start adding stuff otherwise it will burn. Hopefully this will help a little.

This past weekend a friend's sister got married and they had a pig roast for the wedding. My buddy likes to cook and was around when the guy who was roasting the pig was setting everything up. When they got the pig out it had no skin on it and had to be wrapped in various things to keep it moist. The guying doing the roasting is a instructor at a local tech school for their culinary program. He told him that they are not allowed to roast whole pigs with their skin still on, per USDA rules. I have not been to a pig roast in a long time, but I have never heard of this rule. It doesn't even make sense to me why it would be in place. Does anyone else know anything about this?

Here is the recipe I got out of a church cookbook for Polish style herring. I think it comes out perfect. I added the bird chili's to the recipe because I like a little heat. 2 lbs salt herring fillets or fresh herring fillets. 3/4 cup water 3/4 cup white vinegar 1 bay leaf 2 cloves garlic 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns 1/4 teaspoon whole allspice 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed 1/3 cup sugar 1 large red onion 3-4 Bird chili’s or to taste Directions: For Salt Herring, soak the fillets in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours and change the water a couple of times. For Fresh Herring, salt the water and let the fillets soak overnight. ***It has been a few years since I got fresh herring and I do not remember how much salt was used exactly. I was told by a polish grandma to soak them in salty tasting water, but not too salty. I ended up salting water with some kosher salt and taking it to her and she added some more salt and told me it was salty enough. To make the pickling solution, combine water, vinegar, sugar and seasonings (I crush the garlic, peppercorns, mustard seed and chili together) in a pan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve sugar; let cool. Rinse the fillets with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. I will cut the fish in chunks, but they can be left whole as well. Peel, slice, and separate slices of onion into rings. Arrange herring and onion rings in alternate layers in sterilized jars. Cover with pickling solution and cap. Refrigerate at least 3 days before serving.