ElsieD

I still eat herring in sour cream and/or pickled herring. Love the stuff. BUT - one thing I remember from the '70s were Ritz biscuits topped with cheeze whiz with a sliced pimento stuffed olive on top. Also, water chestnuts soaked in soy sauce, rolled in sugar with a piece of sliced bacon rolled around it and broiled until the bacon was cooked. Kinda yucky looking back on it but at the time we thought they were classy. No doubt 30 years from now what we are eating today will seem terribly dated and unsophisticated.

I've had mine since the early 1980's, maybe even the late 1970s.

If you are going to core and seed the tomatoes, I'd go the extra step and peel them. I peel tomatoes all the time as I don't like the skin. I use a serated vegetable peeler and it works like a charm. Also, a bit of fresh oregano is nice.

I finally tracked down a source for malt powder. My problem now is, they have four kinds. They are light, wheat, amber and dark. Can anyone tell me which one I should get? It is available at a store that sells beer brewing supplies. TIA.

That's not exactly it, but it looked a lot like that. Would have been about 1980, it had a brown bottom and a cream-colored lid. Had an open/close vent. Maybe West Bend . . . ← I have one that looks like that and it is made by Black & Decker.

If you google Fried Milk Recipe a number of them show up.

Yup, toad in the hole. Grew up in Ontario, Canada.

Dave, I agree. Also, I have made the maple cured bacon from the book (I started curing three more today) and it is excellent! Let us know how you like it. Elsie

I think the belly is fine. What I would do, though, is rinse the belly, pat it dry and put it in the fridge for 24 hours to let the pellicule re-form. You need the pellicule for smoking.

It helps the pizza from becoming soggy from the sauce.

Toasted, no butter.

Well, damn, that was the first thing that popped into my head! I'll nominate superauto espresso machines -- I don't care what anyone says, you don't need a $3,000 machine to make a lattemochafrappewhip. (Built-in espresso machines from Miele and the like also qualify as stupid indulgences...) ← I'm curious - why the rap on all-clad?

Thanks for your kind offer. I'm in Ottawa so I should be able to find it here. Which bulk food store did you get yours at? We have lots of Bulk Barns around here but there are also health food stores that carry bulk products so I'd have to be terribly unlucky not to find it. If that happens, I'll take you up on your offer. Oh, and is it the diastatic or non-diastatic one or does it make a difference? I just had a look at Harold McGhee's book "On Food and Cooking" to see what he had to say about this. He refers to "malt extract" and says that "it is used frequently in baking to provide maltose and glucose for yeast growth and moisture retention". He does not refer to either diastatic or non-diastatic, just "malt extract". Elsie

What a wonderful pictoral. I'm going to have to try both the recipe and then follow the baking directions. First, though, I have to find malt powder. Where can I find this? Note than I am in Canada.

I have purchased Felchlin in Canada. I live in Ottawa, and just across the river in Gatineau there is a wholesaler from whom I have bought it. If it interests you to contact him, his particulars are: Kurt Schmid Import-Export 25 Rue Audet Gatineau, Quebec 819-771-9940 Note that I have no vested interest in his firm. He has various chocolate so maybe you can get what you need from him.

I like provolone, havarti or jack cheese. It has to melt and not overpower the other flavours.

Are you planning on using a pizza pan? You know, one of those ones with holes in it? If not, I think you can say sayonara to your crust.

You can buy it at the fish markets - Merivale Fish Market and Pelican, on Bank street both carry it. I have seen it at other places as well - but where else escapes me at the moment.

We did a taste test of the bacon yesterday. I thought the flavour of the one cured without the rind was slightly better than the one cured with the rind. My husband thought the opposite. Given that the two opinions cancel each other out, I guess it makes no difference. Neither could I tell any difference in the taste between the one that had ice cubes added to the cure and the one that didn't. The moisture content and flavour seemed to be the same as the one without. It sure is good stuff, though. The maple sugar and maple syrup really adds to the flavour of the bacon.

I make them on toasted English muffins. I add cheese and my own home-smoked bacon (cooked). We often have them on the weekend. No condiments - just salt & pepper.

I will post when I am finished. My initial reaction is that the piece that has the water in it seems slower to firm up, but then it's only been a day. Mine will be an 8 day cure as I want to smoke them Friday as I'm giving away a slab on Saturday. What proportions of what did Kutas use? (I'm not familiar with him.)

Okay, I'm going to just add a couple of cubes and forget about the extra salt. I took the skin off one slab before adding the cure so I may as well do it to that one and make it a total experiment. I'll likely be smoking it on Friday so that will tell the tale...........

Chris & qrn, thanks for your suggestions. I am going to add a couple of ice cubes to one slab and I will also add a bit of salt to make up for the dilution. I don't know how much salt to put in as I initially used weight as the measure but I'm thinking maybe a couple of teaspoons. Does this sound about right? And adding just a couple of ice cubes should help with overhauling the cure. Chris, since you add water to your cure, do you change the cure ingredient quantities? Thanks again.

Chris, this is interesting. I too, use the Ruhlman method and find, as you did, that there doesn't seem to be much liquid. I have three bellies curing in the fridge now - I started them last Wednesday - do you think I can add a bit of water to them? Mine are in large zip-loc bags with as much air expelled as possible. Maybe I could add a couple of ice cubes to each one for a slow (but cold) infusion of water? My bellies pieces are about 2 1/2 pounds each. Thanks for your thoughts on this. Elsie

That looks wonderful. I have had the same experience - price versus quality. I just bought some more bellies at a Chinese grocery store, which is where I bought my last batch. I paid $2.59 a pound and they have a very nice proportion of lean to fat. Their bacon is better than the upscale butcher shop where I used to buy my bellies for around $4.00 a pound.