David A. Goldfarb

Not too bad for indoor smoking, I'd say. I did these with just a rub, no sauce. The smoke flavor was fairly light, and I think a little more would be good, so I'd be tempted to let it go 2 or 2-1/2 hours next time in the wok with damp wood chips instead of 90 minutes as I did this time, before transferring it to the oven. While it's not the same as fully smoked ribs, it's a new flavor in my kitchen, different from Liquid Smoke, and different from the other indoor methods I've used for making ribs. I can see a lot of experimenting happening with this this summer.

Okay, after 20 minutes, I opened the foil and there was no big smokey disaster. Ribs were coming along, 135F internal temperature, wok looks fine. Into the oven at 200F now, and they should be done in time for dinner, with a break in there to pick up toddler from preschool. I noticed that in the video Jill Santopietro didn't soak the wood chips, though that seems to be the norm for outdoor smoking. I soaked and it seems like it didn't prevent smoke from happening, though it may have slowed things down, which wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe next time I'll smoke for 2 hours.

Turns out it was a sparrow's nest. Should be working much better now! I've got some pork spareribs smoking in the wok using the method described in the video from the New York Times I linked above. The smoke from damp cherrywood chips smells nice, but it isn't smoking up the apartment. I'll report back when I know more. UPDATE--Smoked for 90 minutes, haven't succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, fan's working well, haven't been smoked out of the house. Much less smoke involved than, say, broiling a steak in a grill pan. I'm going to let the wok cool for a bit before opening up the foil, while the oven preheats to 200F.

Are you using semolina flour? Tipo 00 flour is usually a white flour used for pizza dough and such. Semolina flour is yellow. Some egg yolks are also yellower than other egg yolks. You could try different eggs.

Okay, I think I discovered part of my definition problem. The salami I cut into for the photo was probably the last one in the batch, because it was a short one, which means that the meat would have included some that went twice through the stuffer from casings that tore open on previous attempts. Didn't think of that. The ones from earlier in the session that only passed through the stuffer once don't look quite as neat as Chris Amirault's but they're better.

Our apartment in Queens vents outside (theoretically--I think there may be a filter in there that I need to clean), but there's less density here than in Manhattan. There are mostly single-family homes, duplexes, and 3-4 story multi-family dwellings on our block.

I think this rice cooker with a cup for wood chips is going to retain too much moisture to produce the dry texture of smoked ribs, but it may not be bad. There are lots of methods of making ribs in the oven, most of which involve some kind of moist cooking and finishing under the broiler, and a small amount (like a couple of dashes in a cup of BBQ sauce) of Liquid Smoke can add some smoky flavor. I think my father experimented with a half-dozen methods like this--simmering the meat first like fresh sausages, dry rub and baked low and slow in foil, dry rub and baked low in slow in a rack that held the slabs vertically over a sheet pan with water and the whole thing covered with foil, braised, and in each case finished under the broiler or on the grill glazed with sauce so the sauce forms a dry skin. If people like saucy ribs, he served extra sauce on the side. He played around with the sauce a fair amount, but it was usually based on Worcestershire sauce and butter with some other spices and maybe a little brown sugar. I remember being surprised when I realized that his BBQ sauce often didn't have tomato in any form, though it did occasionally. The method I use is dry rub and then baked low and slow en papillote, then finished with sauce under the broiler.

I had good bread at the table at Telepan recently. They did a particularly good semolina roll with golden raisins and fennel seed.

Here's a video showing how to use a wok as a stovetop smoker that I've been meaning to try-- http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/05/21/magazine/1194840415840/kitchen-4b-smoked-ribs-at-home.html?scp=1&sq=Smoked%20Beef%20Ribs&st=cse

Tiny kitchens where you can't do much other than cook, if that, are pretty much the norm in New York City apartments. We currently have a kitchen with enough room for a small table that's hinged to one wall and can fold out of the way when necessary (we've never needed to fold it down, actually), and that's large by local standards. I like having a kitchen that's a social space where I can talk to people in the kitchen and in adjacent rooms, except when I'd rather they not get in my way. A kitchen you can close off is nice when you've got some noisy machine like an ice cream maker running that can run unattended.

If only there were some type of consensus on the best shape for a fish.

I suspect the oldest thing we have may be this Rogers & Bro. silverplate tray that belonged to my great-grandmother-- We have some silverware and crystal that is fairly old, but I don't think we have anything that my great-grandparents on either side would have brought from the old country (Romania, Poland, and Russia). This is a Griswold #9 skillet that I think is the one my paternal grandfather, according to a story my father told, used to use every day to make eggs, onions and potatoes when he came home from his shift driving a cab-- If my grandparents got it around when they got married, that would have been in the 1930s. I remember my grandmother also had a larger cast iron skillet that she used quite regularly, but I suspect one of my cousins has it. I also have her hammered Club Aluminum dutch oven that must have been from the same era. This isn't as oldest thing I have, but one of the old things I like using occasionally is my dad's chef's knife, which he bought around 1970. I've been reshaping it, and it's just about usable now. I can't seem to link to the image, but I posted an early before/after shot and bit more about it on my sister's food blog. Some things I'm not so sure about are some of the Mauviel copper pieces I've bought on eBay. They haven't been in the family, but the designs have changed so little over the years, that they could be quite old. I suspect the only identifying marks would be some of the hallmarks and stamps on them. The stockpot in my avatar was purchased new from Zabar's, so it's of relatively recent vintage, but I saw an antique one from the 19th century that was completely indistinguishable from it. I also have a German-style "Professional Sabatier" 12" chef's knife that could be from an old forging, possibly as early as 1910, though the brand dates to the 1960s and 70s.

Can I get one of those with a little extra cabinet space?

Here's the latest batch of saucisson sec, similar to Chris Amirault's recipe, or maybe across between Polcyn & Ruhlman's basic garlic sausage and saucisson sec recipes, with red wine and thyme and garlic as the main flavorings. I had a fairly large pork shoulder--maybe 12 lbs--and added some fatback to it. I reserved a few pounds to make as a fresh Toulouse style garlic sausage without nitrate and hung the rest. I ground and stuffed this with my KitchenAid mixer, and I think the screw in the grinder/stuffer kind of smooshed things up a bit. I'd like a bit better definition between the meat and the fat. Since stuffing this batch, I've upgraded the mixer to another 5 quart model with a bigger motor, and I think that may do a better job of pushing the meat through cleanly.

Le Clic Huitre looks like a good thing, but a bit different from what these guys were using, since they were holding the oyster on the edge and driving the knife straight down through the hinge instead of keeping the oyster flat and level with the counter surface. I suppose they were losing some of the liquid that way, but not too much, since they were working fast and not opening the oyster all the way in the vertical position.

In the interests of research and one last bowl of crawfish etouffee before heading back to New York, I stopped at Felix's for lunch when it was a bit quieter and I could get a closer look at the oyster station, and the cradle it turns out is actually a strip of grey rubber, maybe 4"x12"x3/8" folded into a rounded "M" shape, resting in a square stainless steel tray.

I had a chance to watch a couple of serious oyster shuckers last night at the bar at Felix's on Iberville St. in New Orleans, and for their non-stop shucking stations they had U-shaped cradles that looked like they were coated with textured rubber or maybe just covered with a towel, attached to the front edge of the counter so they could place the oyster in the cradle on end and drive the knife straight down through the hinge to open the oyster, then turn it quickly in one motion to keep most of the liquor in the shell, take off the top shell, clean it up and place it on a tray. It looked like they were using 4" Dexter knives. Not much danger to hands with this method, and they could easily open a dozen oysters in a couple of minutes this way.

Here is something of a practical answer to the original question-- http://oukosher.org/index.php/learn/article/treiboring/

Maybe some of our Israeli or otherwise knowledgeable members can comment, but my understanding is that there are in fact some butchers who can remove the sciatic nerve and render the cuts like the fillet kosher, but it's expensive and only supportable where there's a large enough community of people who keep kosher and can afford it. And after all, if a shochet is talented enough to excise the sciatic nerve from the porterhouse, why shouldn't they become a surgeon?

Yes, but I doubt that there are very many people who have had gefilte fish in, say, the last 80 or so years who envision it as stuffed into anything. Most commonly the ground fish (with a filler like matzo meal and a binder like egg and a few other ingredients) is just formed into balls and served that way or sometimes sliced from a loaf.

This reminds me as Passover approaches that there is a recipe for gefilte fish stuffed back into the skin and prepared like this in Aunt Babette's famously non-Kosher Jewish cookbook (not that it would have to be non-Kosher, but the "progressive" Jewish-American view of the day was that the Kosher laws should reflect modern scientific views about the cleanliness of food and shouldn't conflict with an upwardly mobile lifestyle that might involve oysters, shrimp, and lobster).

You could do something involving a procedure like the nineteenth-century Russian custom of drinking tea with a lump of sugar in the mouth.

Looks just like it should look from the bread machine. Good to find out occasionally that my recipes are portable!

I used to have a bread machine, and this was the recipe I used. I was basically aiming for something like the challah served in the old Kiev restaurant in Manhattan's East Village. I still make it this way using a stand mixer-- Combine all ingredients: 2 large eggs + water to make a total volume of 1-3/8 cup (dough should be on the wet side) 2Tbs. butter if it can be dairy or oil if it needs to be parve 2Tbs.+2tsp. sugar (I usually use coarse crystal turbinado sugar) 2-1/2 tsp. salt (2-3/4 tsp. of Diamond Kosher salt, which is what I use) 3-1/2 cups bread flour 2-1/4 tsp (1 package) dry yeast You can bake it on the basic light cycle or make it with the dough cycle, braid, rise again, then bake at 375F for 30-35 min. To use your monster Cuisinart stand mixer, combine all ingredients in the bowl and knead with the dough hook at the speed recommended by the manufacturer for 6 min. Cover bowl and allow to rise until double or triple in bulk. Punch down (whenever I read "degas" I think of the painter) the dough, knead a few times by hand, divide and braid as you like, cover with a towel, and allow to rise again until double. You could add an egg wash, and poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or black fennel seed if you like. Bake as above.

When you heat it up it will be liquid again. You may decide to reduce it even more based on flavor. If it tastes good, go with it. I usually reduce stock by half and clarify it, so it's pretty stiff when refrigerated, and doesn't take as much freezer space as unreduced stock. Sometimes I reduce it to around one tenth the original volume to make glace de viande, a tablespoon or two of which can add depth to a sauce or braised dish.