Recoil Rob

Resurrecting this thread, I was walking through Eataly for the first time last week and they had shishito samples out for tasting. We immediately bought a pound and have been eating over the New Years weekend. I fried them very fast in light olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. Addicting!

Yes, well wrapped and kept in the bottom of the drawer, still very good.

As usual my mom bought way to much lamb for Easter and I have a cooked 8 bone rack. I would appreciate some suggestions other than just reheating the rack, and it's my feeling that the meat from rack would not do well in a "stewed" dish such as a tagine or vindaloo or curry, not enough connective tissue like shoulder. I suppose I could cut them apart and quickly grill them scotto ditto style but any other suggestions? A good sandwich? thanks, Rob

Am heading down tomorrow morning, Sat., 2/20 to see the daughters new apt. will probably have brunch or lunch but what, foodwise, should I try to get to? Don't need Italian but interested in all other ethnic markets. If possible a name and address? thanks, Rob

Not NYC but many years ago (back when you could by 1963 ports for under $10) I worked at Zachy's in Scarsdale. We were then, and I'm sure they are now, happy to order any single bottle of spirits available. The idea is to think ahead, order, and order a backup for when you run out.

It's just a recipe for a Florentine steak adapted to venison. Venison gets a bad rap for gaminess due to mishandling of the game. good backstraps should be treated simply. I like your recipe, will try it with my next kill.

I take mine and cut them into manageable lengths to fit into a large black iron skillet, about 8-10" In the meantime take about 1/2cup of virgin olive oil and heat gently in a small saucepan with fresh herbs, rosemary, thyme, peppercorns, etc. Salt and pepper the meat and brown all over, the meat should be about medium rare since it is small diameter. Rest a couple of minutes and slice into pieces about 3/4-1" thick and drizzle with the warm herb oil.

Very lovely Baron, did you use something to keep the pink color intact? I was very pleased with my first attempt, universally declared delicious by my table. My only minus was the skin, though beautifully colored deep brown, was thin and leathery, certainly not crisp enough to eat. Next time I may try the dusting of baking soda. I did cover the snout and ears with foil and the ears were crisp enough as was the tail.

T minus 7 hours and counting! Babe will hit the oven at 6pm for 6-7 hours at 250˚ and then teh high heat if needed to crisp the skin. My butcher, (Peter on Arthur Avenue, for those that get Saveur there's a full page picture of him in this year's Saveur 100) said it weighed about 20 lbs before he boned it out. He left the legs intact so I also took out the leg bones ( and kept the four baby trotters for another adventure). It was then filled out with about 6 more pounds of boneless pork shoulder. I kept the seasonings along the lines of a traditional porchetta, plenty of salt and black pepper plus a mixture of finely chopped garlic, sage, rosemary, fennel seeds and lemon zest. I have to practice my bondage but I think it will work out. The whole package came out a bit larger than I thought so I will have to cook it in a curve. Already had to hacksaw a grate to fit the bottom of the roasting pan. First time with a small pig, should I remove the eyes? The die is cast, will report tomorrow. Rob

Good advice, low & slow. I'm leaning toward boning a whole small pig, 18-20#. Low & slow is the way to go.

I still remember the porchetta sandwiches I had in Rome almost 25 years ago, a small shop with 4 tables, small glasses of red wine and paper cones with olives. The entire pg would come out of the oven, each pannini had meat and skin along with some fat, just great food I've always wanted to try this at home and the time has finally come. I'm going to do it for my girlfriends birthday. I have done the requisite searches online and come up with mostly variations involving a boned pork shoulder. One looks very good, it comes from Jamie Oliver, at least the photo looks like the real thing. What I'd really like to do is a small whole pig, just for the presentation value alone. I imagine I could do it with a 18-20lb pig, I have the skills to bone it. Would love to hear any comments, ideas, warnings, etc. before proceeding. thanks, Rob

One of my pet peeves is restaurant tea service, usually never fails to disappoint. Le Bernadin is an exception though, but then again, they do everything right... I also get to visit Harney's store and tearoom in Millerton, NY regularly, they are trying to promote proper service in restaurants that use their teas. They have a tasting room with hundreds of teas.

I get the real deal, available year round, at the Calabria Pork Store on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx. Got mine on Wednesday and the Italian lentils were available inside the old Mercato. I like Batali's recipe with the red wine vinegar in the lentils, cuts the fattiness of the cotecchino.

I eat only steel cut oats and I toast them in butter before adding water. About 1tbl./cup of oats.

Similar to rabbit but richer tasting, they eat nuts instead of grasses. Young ones can be grilled, older ones braised.

Actually it is quite legal to hunt mountain lion in a few western states, when I was in AZ javelina hunting they were giving out free lion tags because they feel the population has grown too much. I recall reading that the Lewis & Clark expedition ate up to 9lbs of meat per man, per day. Mountain lion was one of their favorites. I myself have had bobcat "balsamic" stew a few times at a local game dinner, the meat is quite similar to good pork, one of my favorites. I think if you gt a piece of well marbled pork and cut it into chunks you wouldn't be far off.

OK, thanks I'll give it a try next time.

That's them! I'll give your method a try, does it make it easy to pull the coating off the necks and out from around the rim?

Ipswich calms are soft shell calms, steamers, piss clams. they're the ones you dig in the mud flats at low tide and are used for steamimg or frying. I believe you are speaking of hard shell clams, quahogs, littlenecks, cherrystones, etc. These are used for clams on the half shell, stuffed clams and chowders.

Found a great place to dig for soft shells here in CT and I had my fill of steamers this week so I want to try frying them clam shack style. I'm quite adept at shucking hard shells and oysters so getting the soft shells open is no problem. But what does one do about the dirty, coating on the neck and around the perimeter? I tried peeling a few and it works but to be quite honest it's very labor intensive, is there a faster way? Partially steaming them perhaps? thanks, Rob

I found a mistake in another recipe from his book, they're not well edited. Similar to Batali's but without the blanch.

I followed the recipe exactly, I didn't add any extra liquid.

...and cut cake. Absolutely, decadent, rich, luxurious! There were four of us and we couldn't finish 1/4 of the cake, it will easily satiate 16 for dessert. The actual cake part is actually fairly light without being crumbly, the ganache is over the top. Would definitely make it again. Be careful with the amount of 1c of sugar, it's a bit misleading. 1/4 cup in the eggwhites, 3/4c in the syrup. I'm also not sure if the 1/4c of flour used for dusting the pan is supposed to come from the total 1-1/2c listed. They did the sugar that way but the flour is confusing. I used an additional 1/4c.

I've alway's believed that anyone who can read, follow directions and has enough manual dexterity to have sex could follow a recipe and cook. Baking is a whole different ball game. The cake and ganache both came out perfect but the devil is in the details. I have a new found respect for cake decorating. I went out and bought a piece of dowel to use as guides for dividing my cake into 3 even layers, I place one on either side and tried to keep my knife flat on the dowels. The first layer came out OK but the knife I was useing (my smoked fish slicer) was not rigid enough and the second layer was very uneven. I indexed all 3 layers so went they were stacked they would give a flat top and bottom. The ganache was a bit tough to spread, especially with the rum syrup soaking the cake, but I managed. I tried to get some nice detail going on on the sides drawing from my experience as an amateur potter. The toughest part was the chocolate shavings. The chunk I had left to shave just wasn't cooperating. It was coming of very dry ad then melting in my hands. In the end it was down to taking handfuls of shavings and throwing them at the cake. The dog got a bit on the floor, but he's a trooper, he's done it before. Still, it came out OK, I'm sure it's going to taste great, each component by itself (cake, ganache and syrup) was wonderful. I'll get a photo once it's cut later Rob

I assumed the 24oz. of chocolate was by weight, I melted it and used 3c of heavy cream. It's been in the fridge for about and hour and is just beginning to thicken. I think it's going to take longer than 2 hours to get to peanut butter consistency so it will be done about 4 hours before dessert time. We'll keep it covered in the garage, about 55˚ thanks, rob