nickrey

Check out The Essential Pasta Cookbook. It is on Amazon with the "Click to look inside" function.

Just the website it seems.

Just brought the website up on my iPhone. As it doesn't use software downloaded to your computer it works just fine. Now I can look in my own recipe books for cooking ideas while in the supermarket rather than using Epicurious, as I do now.

I didn't see the page omission as a flaw. Basically the app tells me which cookbook to go to. I can then use the cookbook's index to find the recipe. Also, the indexing being mainly for US editions is not a major issue precisely because it doesn't have page numbers. It's just the funny spelling that makes it a bit more challenging.

Looking at the instructions, it is one per line using either the 10 or 13 digit ISBN. Books with ISBN that are not yet in the EYB book database apparently will be automatically added to your own bookshelf once they are uploaded.

You can bulk enter by ISBN (which I only found out after searching for each title).

I'm surprised no-one has started a thread on this as yet, so here goes. There is a very new web site (so new it's still in Beta) that you can enter your cookbooks into to create an on-line bookshelf. This is the slow and tedious part of the process (particularly if you have as many cookbooks as I do). What comes next is the neat part. A lot of books have been indexed, with all the recipes and their respective ingredients. Want to search through your books for a recipe using lobster and vanilla? Enter the ingredients into the advanced search engine and up pops all of the recipes from indexed books in your own library that contain these two ingredients. They also give the rest of the ingredients and allow you to add these to your shopping list, which is categorised by type of produce so you can order your shopping around the store. I'm not sure how many books have been indexed so far and not all of my books were on there but I do know that from today I have indexed 176 cookbooks and can search through 12,022 recipes. No more simply going to old standby cookbooks. I'm sure I'll get more use out of my library as a cooking resource using this website. The web site is called eat your books. At present the site is in beta but is accepting subscriptions (current price is $25 per annum or $50 as a limited offer for lifetime membership). It's an idea that I wish I'd thought of but am really pleased to be able to use.

Strainers/Sieves. I have at least six for different purposes. And I also use cheesecloth for sauces.

Ok, I promised a photo. Here is a shot of tonight's dinner. Marinated spatchcocked poussin with heirloom tomato salad. Chris, tasting it, I'd have to say that the marinade penetrated the flesh as well as providing a very good skin sear.

Because I freeze a lot of my meat, I quite often use it on meat that is mostly but not fully defrosted. Because the meat has a bit more solidity, it seems to cope very well with the Jaccarding. I suppose it is a bit like the partial freezing that is sometimes recommend to make it easy to slice beef very thin for Asian stir fries.

It must be something in technique/the steak you use/how thick it is that leads to you making cube steak. Many of us have a different experience from you using the same equipment.

There was a discussion about this topic earlier this year in the sous vide thread. Check out this post and the ones around it.

How long are you cooking the tomatoes for? After more prolonged cooking they tend to flip from acidic to sweet.

I agree on adding the acid just before serving to retain its vibrancy. You also do not need much at all. Sometimes a sauce will need a little bit of something and I'll add a few drops of sherry vinegar. This is enough to take it from flat to tasty. If you overdo it, like any flaovuring ingedient, you lose the balance of the dish as a whole.

I'm not a cocktail person but this caught my eye. Doesn't a smoky flavour go with chestnuts (roasting on open fire and all that)? Is there some way of giving a smoky aspect to the cocktail (a peaty scotch perhaps) to capture this classical mix? Scotch, chestnut liqueur and cream perhaps. Or use scotch instead of the rum in the chestnut sour recipe given above. Just throwing it out there...

It's not just vinegar but all souring agents that add zing to cooking. My pantry includes the following, which I use according to the requirements of the dish: Balsamic vinegar, sherry vinegar, rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, black vinegar, frozen ice cubes of lemon juice, tamarind extract (this is a key ingredient of Worcestershire sauce), lime juice, raspberry vinegar, dehydrated lemon skin, and verjuice.

I know stock is something that is created with the scraps in the kitchen but I use a free-range chicken for flavour. As the option is buying poor quality pre-made stock at a horrendous price, using a free range chicken is actually a comparative thrift measure. Remove the breasts and use them for something else. The process given below contains a number of snippets of technique that improve both flavour and clarity. The whole is given to put it in context. Immerse chicken in water, bring up to boil and immediately drain. This removes a lot of impurities. Roast at 180C for a while to render fat and give a small amount of colour. Mirepoix of celery, carrots, and onion (equal quantities) briefly softened in butter in pressure cooker without lid. Add white wine to cover, reduce by two thirds. Add chicken, some old button mushrooms that have gone close to their peak in the fridge (the mushrooms add umami; I find star anise too overpowering in a general use stock). Cover with water to about 1/3 above the ingredients. Bring to simmer and skim off any floating bits. Add bay leaves and a few whole cloves of garlic. Seal pressure cooker and bring to pressure. Keep cooker just at pressure for 1 ½ hours. Turn off cooker, let it cool of its own volition sufficiently for top to be removed. Take off top and add aromatics (eg. parsley stalks, thyme). Let this infuse for around ½ an hour. Remove stock by using a ladle (do not pour as you will stir up any debris that is in the pan). Place in fridge, cool and scoop off any residual fat. Strain through cheesecloth, bottle (I then can the stock for storage in my cupboard, but this needs to be done so as to ensure the integrity of the product. If you have not heard of and understand Fo values and total integrated lethal effect, forget it). I don't use salt or any other seasoning. This keeps the stock pure to make it a base component that can be manipulated with appropriate flavourings later in the cooking process.

I'm not sure whether it was the cooking at 60C or the somewhat vigorous browning of the belly but both the fat and the meat were melt in the mouth tender and not at all stringy.

I'm not sure Chris. The lemon is an acid so it may well penetrate but the cooking method forms a very tasty crust on the chicken that would swamp the taste of any penetration that may have occurred.

It can only be purchased second hand through Amazon, but try Jessica Harris' Hot Stuff. Subtitled "a cookbook in praise of the piquant," it covers the world of cooking with pepper and chillies.

For grilled chicken, I spatchcock the bird by cutting the bird either side of the backbone and flip it over, press down on the breast and flatten the bird. This makes it much easier to cook on a grill as a whole bird. To keep the chicken flat, I put wooden skewers criss-crossing the bird starting at the drumstick, through the body and coming out of the wing. My marinade of preference is olive oil, garlic, lemon rind, continental parsley, salt and pepper. Submerge in the mardinade for at least an hour, preferably a few hours to overnight. Cook over a medium-hot charcoal grill skin side down and turn once during cooking. Don't be afraid if it flares occasionally, the burned portions of skin are crispy and delicious. Test doneness by seeing if juices are clear when you pierce bird where the thigh connects with the body. For a nice serving size, try this with a poussin sized bird (400-450g). Will cook this up soon and post a picture.

It seems I'm not the only one who has the impression of multiple pressings. This link and this link are both to olive oil producers who talk about the same categorisations that I did. Other sites that I found stated that multiple pressings went out when mechanical/hydraulic presses ceased to be used. New technology means that there is typically only one press (as you state for virgin oils). However, I'm sure that amongst all of the olive oil producers around the world, not all are using new technology presses. Even with first pressing, if you don't use the right mix of ripe and less ripe olives or include leaves and other contaminants, you will wind up with a flawed product. This is more virgin than extra virgin. On Chris' original point about bitterness, this article in The New York Times by Harold McGee talks about judging EVOO and the effects of oleocanthal, which is responsible not only for the bitterness but also for the pepperiness that catches in the back of your throat. Although McGee says that this does delay the oil becoming rancid, to my mind this was not given as a prime reason for enjoying the pepperiness and definitely not some plot on the part of EVOO producers to skew our perceptions of what is a good oil. Obviously taste lies with the individual experiencing the product. Personally I like pepperiness and freshness in olive oil so I find myself on the side of the professional tasters on this. I like some extra virgin olive oil and my taste tends towards the more peppery versions. I don't like all extra virgin olive oils; some are not to my taste and some would not meet the international tasting standards for extra virgin olive oil (which I think was the point of the original article introduced above). I don't like virgin olive oils as, in my view from the ones that I have tasted, all have some faults: rancidity is a fault to me. As a final comment, the people who set the taste specifications for olive oil live and breathe this subject, let's give them some credit for developing sophistication in their own area of expertise.

My understanding was that extra virgin olive oil came from the first mechanical pressing of the oil and typically has less than 0.8% acidity. Virgin olive oils are still pressed or removed by mechanical means (eg. centrifuging) but come from subsequent processing after the first press. These typically have less than 2% acidity. Perhaps Australian practice and terminology differs from what is used in other jurisdictions but the "extra" is not just a marketing gimmick. It is my understanding that the US is not a member of the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) so perhaps what you say is true of what happens there.

I think we may be losing sight of the fact that extra virgin oils are the ones that are first mechanically extracted from the olives. When first produced, they have low acidity and a rich taste. It is purely and simply how olive oil tastes. If you are used to chemically treated or heat extracted pressings or old oil that has oxidised then so be it but please don't say that this is how olive oil should taste. Unlike wine, oil does not improve with age. As far as the taste response on tomatoes goes. Let me expand my analogy. I used to chat with a grocer who sold organic products in the late 1980s. He bemoaned the fact that people would come to him saying that his tomatoes did not taste like tomatoes. The problem was that they had never tasted tomatoes that had been allowed to ripen naturally. The taste was unusual so they did not like it. I really think tomatoes that taste of tomato should be the norm rather than some caricature created by processes applied the mass food production industry. Besides, who had the educated palates in this olive oil test? The Cooks Illustrated people or the trained testers? Years of tasting processed and aged olive oil and developing a preference for it doesn't detract from the fact that it was still processed and oxidised. There is no immutable law that developing a palate that perceives faults in a food as a virtue makes it what we should aspire to. Perhaps we should add extra virgin olive oil to the thread on foods that you need to learn to like. I do and I dislike any hint of rancidity: it gives an unpleasant sensation of biting in the middle of my nose that transfers to my taste sensation.

I'm concerned over your quote: "Many of the oils that had done poorly in the Cook’s test, but were liked by professionals, were bitter. McGee told me that bitterness is an indication of polyphenols, a mark of quality — polyphenols prevent oxidation and rancidity. On the flip-side, many of the oils rated highly by Cook’s showed some rancidity. It turns out that we tend to like rancidity when we’re used to it." Rancidity is a flaw not a feature. Just because you are happy with store bought tomatoes because you are used to them doesn't mean that your world won't expand dramatically when you finally acquire a taste for sun ripened warm organic tomatoes.