Dave the Cook

I just use parchment paper, as I don't (I don't think, anyway) own any Silpats. Usually a tilt of the pan and a deft hand are sufficient. If something's really delicate (this would be my definition of delicate, not a professional's definition), I do what Wendy does -- turn the sheet pan over so there's no lip to deal with.

Pear-rosemary sorbet, with a splash of slightly reduced late-harvest riesling (just close your eyes and don't think about the cost or the violence you're doing to the wine. It will taste great) or Poire William. For a chile glaze, I think you have a number of possibilities: - puree a can of chipotles in adobo, rub lemon juice over the exposed meat, and brush the paste on before roasting. - ground ancho, limeade concentrate, cayenne and honey. - soy sauce, ancho, brown sugar, black pepper and reduced apple juice. - tomato, pequins (sauteed briefly, then whizzed in the food processor),Worcestershire sauce, molasses

Unless I'm mistaken, Chef Paul has done eight books. Most of them probably deserve space on your shelf, but not all of them are about Cajun/Creole. If you want to stick close to that oeuvre, I agree with Dana. You can't do better than Louisiana Kitchen. There's a fair amount of background in the book, though it's mostly distributed among the recipes. For history and tradition, The Prudhomme Family Cookbook is fun. I also agree that you'll probably want to work up to the full dose of cayenne. Once you've mastered that, I highly recommend Emeril Lagasse's New New Orleans Cooking, to see how broad, inclusive and adaptable these cuisines can be.

Sorry. Try again. Huh?

did I miss this somewhere? Maggie makes madeleines Chile glaze later. What means blinking after intermezzo suggestion?

I'm going to go all radical on you and suggest that you don't stuff the roast. You've got plenty of food already, and some of it's on the heavy side. I'd rather see you do a realtively simple chile or tart fruit glaze on the pork, and set your adventurous mind to something else, like an intermezzo to clear the palate and lighten the tummy between the mains and your friend's mystery dessert. For potatoes, I love your version of parisienne, but what about maggiethecat's tater madeleines?

Can I get a sense of the room on a bechamel/balsamella issue? I admit that I haven't made lasagna in a long time, and the recipe was probably off the back of a box of Mueller's lasagna (the source, I suspect, of the cottage cheese substitution). As I was reading through this thread, I mentioned it to my assistant, who asked what a balsmella was. I explained that it was more or less the same as a bechamel, which of course meant that I had to explain that, too. The formula I gave her was what I thought was the standard: 1 part flour, 1 part fat (in this case, butter), 8 parts milk (whole, please). So, 2T/2T/1 cup, right? When I got home, I checked Mario (Simple Italian Cooking, and he has something rather different: almost 1:1 fat to flour (precisely, 5T butter and 4T flour), and 3 cups of milk. This is a ratio of (roughly) 1:1:12. The recipe somehow yields 2 cups of balsamella, which seems impossible given that the sauce simmers for all of 30 seconds. So, a couple of questions: isn't this going to yield a sauce too thin for lasagna purposes? And how does (again, roughly) 3-1/2 cups of ingredients reduce to 2 cups of sauce? Finally, what ratio is everyone using for lasagna?

The nice thing about the sheet materials that Steve refers to is that you can slide a sheet of cookies or pastries right off the pan and onto a cooling rack. The baked goods cool more evenly (helps avoid condensation on the bottoms, I think). Once you've done that, you can slide a pre-prepped sheet of unbaked items right onto the pan and stick it back in the oven.

I don't really disagree with you, Kit. I've almost quit using large (1/4-cup and up) dry measures in favor of weights, unless I'm familiar enough with the recipe and the ingredients to be sure that things will work. But given the precision of the scales available today (usually 1 gram/0.25 ounce) I think you'd have a lot of trouble distinguishing between the weights of small volumes -- say a quarter-teaspoon and a half-teasoon of cream of tartar, or almost any dried herb in quantities as large as a tablespoon. Until we can get more precise, reasonably-priced scales that are practical for the home cook, I'll stick with one (or more) of my 5-1/2 sets of spoons (they always look great when you take 'em home, but by the next morning, somehow they've lost their appeal).

Thanks, everyone. If I can do this stuff, pretty much anyone can (especially snowangel, who I'm sure is handier than I). I am thrilled with the floor. I ended up using an acrylic polish. It won't be quite as shiny as wax, but it won't require five coats, either. Two are recommended; what you see here is one, and it's added a nice sheen. But more importantly, it's started to fill in the tiny cracks between the tiles, and leveled out the roughness of the raw vinyl a bit. Both of these effects should keep dirt from accumulating, thereby minimizing cleaning cycles. A further benefit: recall that the dog at first wouldn't set foot on the floor? Now he loves it. He likes the slick surface that lets him do that cartoon running wind-up, and he likes skidding across it to retrieve things. So much for the precipice reflex. (Fifi [and, erm, Marlene]: that dog is certain that he's cuter than any human that ever walked the earth. Given that attitude is 90% of the magnet thing, I'm hopeless.) Two other things: First, it's time to settle the issue of the peninsula. I don't have access to an Ikea, unless Klc is willing to put me up for a weekend. However, I can get similar product with the Mill's Pride line from Home Depot -- frameless cabinets; a variety of sizes and configuratons. They're a little more expensive, but they come with bases attached, so I won't need to add feet or build a ladder box. Since this run won't be more than five feet, I'm not too worried about leveling issues. The problem is that I haven't had any luck scouring yard sales and antique shops, and the storage/prep situation is getting critical. Any further ideas? Having worked in this kitchen for a few weeks now, I'm convinced I need an immmovable worktop, as well as more storage -- half my batterie is still in the carport. The second thing is more salubrious. While leaving the neighborhood today, I spotted a garage-sale notice. Sighing, I spun the steering wheel in the appropriate direction. No dressers, no sideboards. I checked for the usually-hoped-for ten-dollar Martin guitars and obscured Wyeth pentimentos, and turned to leave. Sitting on a redwood picnic table ($12) was a deep red KitchenAid stand mixer. With the exception of the orange, wheelless Cosworth Vega (as is -- on concrete blocks, u-tow-it -- $275), it was easily the most expensive item up for sale: $165. I didn't recognize the nameplate: Accolade 400, but I took the number to mean that it was a 400-watt model. Righteous power for the money, and it looks like new. It's not the color of the tile, but more of a maroon. To my eye, it's better than a perfect match; it complements and deepens the monchromatic appeal of the reds in the room. By agreeing not to haggle over the price, I got the seller to accept the $27 I had on me as a deposit until tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I said I was broke, and this kitchen is straining my present liquidity, but I'm willing to stretch if this is good buy. The question is, am I being rash? Is this a decent model? Does anyone know anything about it?

Ta-da!

I am thrilled that this turned out well, though maybe it's good that you had a chance to try it on a forgiving family first. Pictures? Please elaborate on the troubles you had. How did you go about following my inept instructions for creating a hole for the stuffing? What made you think that your reduction wasn't done? Most importantly, what would you change? What didn't work?

I have to throw a couple of other things into Brooks' fine exposition. He touched on the environment as it relates to growing seasons and crop affinities, but left out the fact that, in hot, humid climates, spicy dishes are valued because they help cool you off. So it's not just that this is stuff that grows well here, it's that its use is particularly well suited to the comfort of the inhabitants. Therefore the food is unapologetically spicy. But to get closer to Smithy's original question, no, that's not all there is. Though the food is often spicy (of course, you only have to look at traditional regional desserts to see that in some ways, more than heat, the cuisine is often about extremes -- sweet as well as hot), it uses a technique of layering flavors to increase the complexity of the experience. I'm not necessarily talking about a melange of different ingredients, but rather a way to use the same things two or three times in a dish: first caramelizing, then braising, then garnishing, for instance, to give you a rounded flavor that features an item (bell peppers, onions, shrimps, a number of spices including sugar, just to name a few) locked into several states in the same dish. I'm not sure there's another cuisine that does this, except maybe those of some Indian regions. I'm not done, but I'll end with one more observation: Cajun and Creole are the descendants of a remarkable confluence of events and cultures. Although it's been narrow-mindedly sterotyped into a single spicy dimension, there is not another branch of cooking in North America that is so reflective of its geography, and at the same time inclusive of, and adapted to, new ingredients that transportation and agriculture have made available to it. So while its roots are peasant, it's moved uptown from the bayou without desecration (forget Chili's for a moment, and think of Lagasse, Spicer, Kearney and Brigtsen). Oh! I confess, that despite doing a fair amount of Cajun and Creole cooking, I don't use a lot of pepper sauce. And in leafing through what I consider the bible of the cuisine, Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, I'm not seeing a lot of mentions. Certainly it belongs on the table, but I see it as a condiment, not an ingredient. I think Chef Paul even points out somewhere that pepper sauce doesn't survive long cooking very well.

Go for it, though maybe substitute shallots for the garlic, if you've got enough. If you don't, garlic is fine. Maybe a bit of Worcestershire, too. It browns nicely, and will echo the stuffing.

I will be cleaning and waxing this weekend, so photos are forthcoming. I promise. In the meantime, the oven broke, to the tune of $400. We have a warranty with a $45 deductible, but of course, they're reluctant to pay. (Awesome, Diana!)

Well, ours do, anyway.

eGCI unit on brining: Here.

Must be an American thing Well, you could break out that deep fryer and do it right, but Durkee's are a decent substitute, and kind of witty, when you think about it (OK, maybe it's an American kind of wit). So, what time is dinner?

Oh yeah -- as a final garnish, something I learned from MatthewB: sprinkle some Durkee's French-fried onions on top.

In return for the cheesecake recipe, let me flesh the roast thing out a bit. Note that, ideally, you'll make the sauce ahead of time, so you can defat it. Bleu cheese stuffing 1-1/2 C crumbled bleu cheese 4 slices bacon 1-1/2 T Worcestershire sauce 1/2 - 3/4 C dry bread crumbs 1/4 C creme fraiche 1 medium shallot, minced Fry the bacon until crisp. Remove from pan. Discard (or reserve, if needed for sauce, below) all but one tablespoon of fat. Over medium heat, saute the shallots until soft. Turn heat down to low, and add Worcestershire sauce and creme fraiche. When heated through, stir in the cheese and take off the heat. When the cheese is nearly melted, crumble the bacon and add it, then stir in the bread crumbs until you reach the consistency of thick oatmeal. You want it to hang together, but you're going to have to push it through a pastry bag. Adjust the consistency with additional creme fraiche or bread crumbs. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and Worcestershire. This will make about 2-3/4 cups. Port wine/demi-glace reduction 1 C demi-glace 1 C port wine 1 T Worcestershire sauce 2 medium shallots. minced 2 t bacon fat, reserved from above 1/4 t kosher salt Heat the fat over medium heat. Add the shallot and salt, and saute until tender. Add the wine and Worcestershire sauce, and reduce by half. Add the demi-glace, and stir to combine. Once heated through, remove from heat and let cool. Chill, then skim the fat off the top. Warm the sauce up and strain, then adjust seasoning. Keep warm until needed. If you don't have demi-glace, you could get away with: 1 quart beef or veal stock mirepoix from 1 small onion, 1/2 a carrot, 1/2 a stalk of celery 1 T tomato puree 1-1/2 T flour 1 T butter bay leaf pinch of thyme Over medium heat, cook the mirepoix until it takes on some color -- don't try and rush it. Add the flour and make a blonde-to-light-brown roux. Slowly add the stock, then the tomato and herbage. Simmer until reduced to about 1-1/2 cups. Cool and strain, then reduce further or add water to make 1 C. And if you can't do that, reduce 6 cups of brown stock to 1 cup, and use that for the demi-glace.

OK, it's not a glaze application, but this will taste just as good, and make a nice presentation. You'll need a well-trimmed roast -- almost a perfect cylinder -- but since you're only serving four, that shouldn't be a problem, if you or your butcher starts with a decently sized primal. I think you want about 3-1/2 pounds. That's more than you'll eat, but you're going to sacrifice the ends for the sake of presentation (save them for sandwiches). Make a stuffing of bacon, Worcestershire, bleu cheese, parsley and bread crumbs. Just a guess, but I think you'll need about a cup and a half. Make about two and a half just in case, and if you have any left over, refrigerate it and serve it melted on crostini the next day or so. Run a long slicer lengthwise through the roast, then wallow (or use the verb of your choice here) the slit into a more-or-less round hole, all the way through the roast. You'll need to stretch the meat a bit to make a good opening, but don't tear the meat, or you'll end up with a mess on the grill. Tie one end of the roast tightly. Load the stuffing into a pastry bag (no tip), and squoosh the stuffing into the hole. Tie the other end. Roast as usual, and let the roast rest before carving. If you're going to carve tableside, slice off the tied ends before presenting. Slice into 3/4-inch rounds, and sprinkle with additional stuffing and a bit of extra parsley or tarragon. If you really want to go over the top, make a sauce of red wine (or port or madeira), shallots, demi-glace and a touch of Worcestershire. Deposit a little puddle of it under each slice.

Not at the moment, because I just made it up. It would be easy on individual filets, but that would spoil the presentation value of a whole roast. Let me think on this a bit.

I was thinking on the way in to work this morning, that a tenderloin roast might work. I'm not a big fan of the cut, but spit roasting might make it more interesting. To give it a bit more lift, maybe a bleu cheese glaze, rather than Bearnaise? (Not that there's anything wrong with the classic accompaniment.) Have we seen your recipe for Garlic Peppercorn Cheesecake?

Brilliant, Lily. Um . . . Tater Tots on Horseback?

Are these similar to Arby's Potato Cakes? Along with the Jamocha Shake, these are pretty much the only things left worth getting there.