mgaretz

Last night's dinner was grilled salmon with an orange-honey mustard-port wine glaze. Served with steamed Yu Choy and salad (not pictured).

It looks to be nicely cooked, though. I use paprika for color (2-3T for a 2.5lb chicken) - it gives a nice brick red; real cochineal is no problem but some of the yellows fail the 'natural' or safety test too badly, for me. Thanks Blether. I added some paprika hoping for some red - used about 1 tsp for two skinless breasts and two skinless thighs. Guess it wasn't enough, but I have decided I don't care if it's red - it tasted good. And while there was some char, the chicken was moist and tender - something you rarely get in a restaurant. Cooked it all on the grill - 6 minutes per side on indirect medium heat, then another 3 per side on full high direct heat for the char.

Tonight's dinner was Tandoori Chicken with salad and basamati rice. I didn't use any food coloring in the chicken so it's not the traditional red color.

Tonight I made meatloaf, sorta from the CI recipe for all-beef meatloaf. I changed it up some (of course) and it was very good.

Wor Wonton Soup - with homemade wontons (filling and dough - first attempt - came out excellent), char siu (BBQ pork), chicken and shrimp. The wonton filling was ground pork, chopped shrimp, scallions and ginger, with soy and hoisin sauces. In the picture you can see a wonton I cut in half with the filling floating to its lower left. You can also see some wonton dough scraps that became extra noodles.

Thanks. Pretty simple rib recipe: I put the ribs in the slow cooker, brushing a healthy anout of BBQ sauce (I use Bullseye) on the top of each piece. If I need to layer the ribs, I stack them rotated 90 degrees so there is space between them. Nothing else in the pot. Cook all day on low to medium. Heat up the grill and set it up for indirect cooking. Gently remove the ribs from the pot and baste the tops with more sauce. Gently put them on the grill and cook on indirect heat for about 12 minutes - you can baste again lightly at about 9 minutes in. Then gently remove and serve. A gentle touch is necessary because the meat will literally be falling off the bones if you're not careful.

I use a blend of 50 grams of white unbleached flour and 50 grams of whole wheat durum flour (the mother of semolina - get Golden Temple Brand at an Indian Grocery - get the brown bag with the red/orange stripes), a pinch of sea salt and 1 extra large egg. (Once, just once I had to add a 1/2 teaspoon of water, maybe the egg was a tad small or I didn't measure the flour correctly.) I mix this in my KA mixer on the lowest speed with the standard paddle until all the flour is wetted (you'll hear the motor start to work harder and then wait until the dough picks up the last dry bits from the bottom of the bowl). The dough will be very dry, just wet enough to stick together. Kneed together for a minute and roll into a log. Then I cut the dough into either three or four equal pieces and process through the flat rollers (KA pasta attachment) to setting 5 to 7 depending on what kind of noodles I'm making, but usuually 5. I flatten each dough piece out and feed through on setting one. Fold what comes out in half and repeat until the width of this piece is just a little less wide than the rollers. Then once through on each progressively higher setting until I get where I want. Then hang the piece on a pasta rack (or lie on a towel) and repeat with the remaining dough. Change to the cutter and cut - no need for further drying. Also no need for any more flour while working the dough, but once cut I flour it a little as I collect the cut pieces. Tonight I am going to attempt won-tons, so I will use the recipe above but with 100% white flour and probably a bit extra water to give a little more stretch to the dough.

There are a few on my blog - markiscooking.com My favorite is the Sweet and Sour Cabbage Borscht, but there's a couple of Chili Colorado recipes, a lamb with mushroom dish, and a beef sukiyaki dish. I also use it to make beef stew and corned beef with cabbage. For the latter, I rinse all the goo off the corned beef, trim the fat off and then soak it it cool water in the fridge overnight (in the slow cooker pot). This gets rid of a lot of the saltiness. In the morning I pour off the water and add fresh water to just cover the beef. I also add carrots and the spice packet that comes with the beef (put the spice in around the edges of the beef before adding the water). Cook on low to medium for 8-10 hours. 1 hour before serving, add the cabbage to the pot. Let me know if you want the stew recipe.

Last night I made homemade egg pasta (tagliatelle) served with saut­­éd onions, green peas and shrimp (in olive oil with a touch of marsala). Tonight it was BBQ'd baby back ribs (fall off the bone tender) with sweet potato fries (and I remembered to take a picture!)

Actually sanding sugar is just the opposite. It's very coarse sugar used primarily as a topping and decoration (it's also known as coarse and decorating sugar). Colored sugar is the same, but with food coloring added.

Thanks all = keep 'em coming!

We'll be spending three nights (Monday through Wednesday) in Santa Barbara in early March as part of our honeymoon and I'm looking for good recommendations for dinner. At least one good steakhouse, the rest is open. Thanks in advance!

Today's dinner was my chunky red sauce with homemade angel hair pasta, mixed green salad with my balasmic vinaigrette dressing, followed by homemade apple pie. Ironically, even though our dinner guests were two gold-medal winning photographers, no one took pictures!

I have the "Emeril's" version of this fryer and I love it. Once the oil has cooled it automatically drains and filters into it's storage container. I put that in the fridge and reuse the oil 10-15 times (I don't fry any fish) topping up with fresh oil when necessary. We don't deep-fry all that often so the oil can be in the fridge for months between uses. So far no problems at all.

I like the contrast of the bok choy with a sauce made with hoisin sauce as the base. (I especially like it with Gai Choy aka Chinese Mustard.) I almost always add some cream sherry and sesame oil to the sauce. Sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds on top just before serving.

I have played with roasting pork a lot and so far the best straight roast pork has been following the advice of CI: Brown sides first, then roast at 300oF until the internal temparature reads 135o. Comes out juicy and tender. I should mention this is for a pork loin.

When we were in London this summer the Indians running our hotel (near Paddington) suggested Shalimar Garden on Gloucester Terrace (just a few blocks from Paddinton). We had lunch there and it was very good. Not gourmet, but very good.

Weber! Make sure you get one with three burners so you can do indirect heating.

Here's my red sauce recipe. It's very thick, sometimes too thick, but everyone loves it! (Tonight I'm using the left over sauce from Wednesday's pasta as a base for pizza.) Ingredients (makes enough to serve 4-8) 1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (or 6-8 fresh ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced) 1 6 oz can of tomato paste 1 tsp Italian seasoning belnd 1 tsp sea salt 1/2 tsp pepper 1 tbs sugar 2 medium garlic cloves, minced 1 medium onion, fine diced 1 large carrot, peeled and fine diced 1 large celery rib, fine diced 1/4 cup sweet marsala wine 1 tbs olive oil 1/2 lb lean ground beef In a large sauté pan over medium heat, saute the onions, carrots and celery in the olive oil until softened, about 8-10 minutes. Add in the seasoning blend and garlic and sauté another minute or so. Stir in the marsala to deglaze the pan, then add the tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper and sugar, stiring well to combine. Bring back to a simmer and stir in the ground beef, breaking it into small pieces. Simmer on low for another 30-40 minutes.

Not sure if you them near you, but Smart and Final sells caramel coloring for a good price. If you don't have one near you, try a restaurant or baking supply. If you want to pay a huge premium, Kitchen Bouquet is essentially caramel coloring.

I wanted to make Carbonnade a la Flamande but didn't have the time to chase down the proper Belgian Beer (I wanted to use Kriek or Framboise). So instead I made a sort of hybrid of Carbonnade and Beef Bourgogne - call it Carbonnade a la Bourgogne! Served with Basamati rice.

Gum Arabic is a really versatile gum. I haven't used it in years so I can't give you specifics, but it doesn't take a lot. Use as an emulisfier and thickener. Recently I have been using Xanthan Gum (because you can get it at a well stocked supermarket) for smoothies and frozen desserts - extensive discussion is here. The key is to experiment and blend well.

One of my TJ "staples" is their spice blend called 21 Seasoning Salute.

What I like about In-N-Out is that they are the only fast food "burger place" that when you order a combo without cheese they actually subtract the price of the cheese. Every place else, 99% of the time their combos include cheese and you pay that price whether you order it with or without cheese.

Next time try 8 lbs of pale malt extract, .75 lbs light crystal malt (about 17 degrees), .25 lbs 95 degree crystal malt and 1 lb of a dextrin malt. (Dingman's can be steeped with the crystal - if all you can get is Breiss then do a "mini-mash" by covering with 160 degree water for 15-30 minutes then steep with the rest of the grains). For bittering hops use any neutral hop - Northen Brewer as you used is fine - shoot for 35 to 45 IBU. You need about 1.5 ozs of Cascade for finishing and then dry hop with another 1.5 ozs. (If you're after an "American style" IPA - otherwise use East Kent Goldings or Fuggle for a British style IPA.)