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Thanks TFTC, I think it's just a trick of the photo - the bottom was nicely cooked but not overdone.

This weekend I've been trying a Dutch oven boule from Ken Forkish's flour water salt yeast. It's a poolish dough, with the preferment started the day before. I I was really pleased with the appearance, and the taste was pretty good, but I'm not at all happy with the crumb. It's too dense at the bottom with ridiculous air pockets at the top. Any suggestions?

As others have said, I wouldn't consider laminate in the kitchen (or anywhere to be honest). We had it in our last place and although it started out looking good it quickly got tired. Even fairly minor spills were enough to warp it. We've now got engineered oak and it's perfect. Incredibly hard wearing and if you get decent stuff you can resand and finish it if you need to. Not sure if it's available where you are but its from kahrs, I'd definitely go with them again.

Hi guys, just dragging this old thread up. Is the app still available? I've been using it for a year or two and was about to recommend it to a friend but can't find it on the App Store.

You probably should worry. You won't scorch it (but then you wouldn't have scorched the caeserstone either), if you leave the pan there long enough you might crack it though. Having been in a kitchen when a stone countertop fractured due to a large pot sitting on it I can heartily recommend against this!

Great cut of meat, probably my favourite way to eat lamb. This spring/summer I've been having mine with cannellini beans (spiked with with rosemary, garlic and a little chilli) and some swiss chard with lemon juice.

Over the holidays I've done a rack of pork and a whole goose, both of which benefited greatly from a 12-24 hour soak in brine. Which got me thinking... Is there a reason we don't brine beef like this? I'm not talking about cured meat like corned beef, just a relatively short brining the way we do with poultry/pork

Here's a pic from last year:

Christmas breakfast was homemade crumpets - super easy and delicious. Topped with pastrami cured salmon a la chefsteps with some lemon and shallot cream cheese. And mimosas obviously

I've done this a few time sand you should definitely rinse. I do about 275/280 in a convection oven for the slow part then just turn it up as high as I can for the final stage (or better yet take it outside to do on the grill). You won't regret doing this recipe, it's amazing and very very forgiving. A nice side for it is quick pickled onions (sliced onion in red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt for an hour or two before eating), really cuts through the richness of the pork.

Hi Shel If you fancy getting a new book then have a look at Yotam Ottolenghi's Jersualem (being discussed here: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/148712-cooking-from-jerusalem-a-cookbook/). Full of wonderful middle eastern food to use up some of your sumac on/in.

I love this book, it's up there with his first one, maybe even better - don't think I've made an Ottolenghi recipe I don't like yet. On Friday evening (in preparation for a very meat-heavy BBQ day on saturday) we had the fried tomatoes, the spiced fish kebabs and some tabouleh: I found a really nice (for the supermarket) fillet of cod so decided to do it as a whole piece rather than kebabs, and I'm glad I did. The spice paste is really flavourful and goes really well with simply grilled fish. The fried tomatoes are a big hit, very very easy to make - note for next time, when the book says 1.5cm thick slices, it really means it - I got a bit carried away and made some a lot slimmer than this, they just turned to mush in the pan. The tabouleh was great - though there was a bit more bulgar than I would normally like, will make sure I weigh the parsley properly next time.

I've had these Heston Blumenthal branded scales for a couple of months now and really rate them. They have a high capacity plate that measures in grams and a smaller one which does tenths of a gram. I was a bit sceptical about the auto power off function but ithas been fine (unlike other scales I've used which are wont to turn themselves off at just the wrong time) http://www.johnlewis.com/heston-blumenthal-by-salter-dual-precision-digital-scale-10kg/p618645?kpid=232200360&s_kenid=4e601c40-0225-6488-0a70-000048fb74c5&s_kwcid=129x75860&tmad=c&tmcampid=73&stop_mobi=yes

I believe there's quite a big difference between stainless and mild steel in terms of their ability to conduct heat (mild conducts heat a LOT better than stainless). The way you'd use this there's really no need to go for stainless - the small amounts of water that come into contact with the plate are dried off almost instantly due to the heat. The plate I posted on has been used every month or so since last september and is fine, it just sits in the cupboard between uses. I've not needed to re-oil it.

Sorry guys, the books look nice but it's all about the Evernote for me. I'm yet to find a better way of collecting recipes, notes, pictures, ideas - I'd be lost without it!

Sorry, just like tea strainers, muslin, etc that's too cumbersome - it annoys me enough that I can't just crack a lemon like I do an egg, there's no way I'm getting something else out of the drawer as well as a knife! cool, still not quite sure I understand though - the article says that parthenocarpic plants don't require the flowers to be pollenated to produce fruit... not sure why that means the fruit doesn't have seeds in it? How does a lime do the job of growing into another lime tree if it doesn't have seeds?

This is something that's bugged me for a while. Lemon seeds are a pain in the proverbial. All methods for dodging them have flaws - they're either unreliable (flicking seeds out first with a knife - always miss some, squeezing into my left hand to catch them, etc) or too cumbersome (digging out a tea strainer/sieve, muslin, etc). What I've never known is why limes never have seeds and lemons always do?

This post has just reminded me I was meant to be smoking some pastrami salmon to take down to family for christmas today... oops!

If I buy from inkling am I then able to install it on my iPad or do I have to buy it again from the app store?

@jmacnaughton, that is some great piping Made macarons this weekend for the first time, I followed the course on chefsteps which was great - it really explained the whole process well.

Cool, thanks for the reply. The only way I've seen tartaric acid before has been as rough dark crystals so these big, almost slimy pale lumps looked pretty different - they aren't crystalline for a start! The darker spots on the lumps in the picture are definitely more like what I've seen before, just haven't seen the white sludgy bits.

Here's a not very good iphone pic:

I've just taken delivery of a case of 2009 rosso di montalcino and it has a type of sediment I've not seen before. Being a bit eager to try it I didn't really give it any time upright before opening so a slug of sediment came out, almost in a single piece. Thing is it looks quite different to sediment I've seen before, it is a sort of greyish white, almost slimy texture, with a more normal looking dark crystaline sediment embedded in it. Is this normal??

Thanks will look it up. I eat pretty much anything so am open to any good suggestions, any decent seafood recommendations?