lesliec

We recently attended a cooking class run by an ex-chef who had done her back in after years in a busy restaurant. She runs a variety of classes and caters for both interested individuals and corporate groups. She's formed a partnership with a local winery and is able to use their kitchen - the winery connection is also handy for accompaniments to the long lunch which follows the classes! Here's her site, which may be of interest. Good luck to your cousin. Edited for spelling.

The MyCook (www.mycook.es/kitchen-robot/) is similar in concept to the Thermomix (there are several eG TMX topics but no MyCook one that I can find); it's a food processor/blender which also heats, so one can cook entire dishes in it. For reasons which now escape me, my wife and I carried one in its box, in a suitcase, from Barcelona to Wellington last year. This is not entirely recommended! Its instructions and recipe book (which is large and comprehensive) are all in Spanish; this is not a major issue, but what my amateur Spanish translation doesn't give me is a feel for whether it's supposed to make the noises it does. In particular, on the lowest speed setting it runs slowly most of the time but every few seconds gives a burst of higher speed. Should it do that? The heating part also worries me slightly; there are sinister cracking noises from the bowl even at temperatures below boiling. If it is in fact broken I don't fancy my chances of getting service in this part of the world, but I guess that's what you get for being a kitchen toy enthusiast. I keep telling myself it's actually working and doing everything it's supposed to, but I'd be interested in comments from anybody else who's got one (input from Thermomix owners is also welcome) about how their machines behave. I'd use it more (and make wifey much happier about what it cost and the joys of getting it on a plane) with more confidence it was performing as it should. A major gripe, which I gather is shared by TMX owners, is the temperature control. Want 85 degrees for something? Forget it - you can have either 80 or 90. This deeply offends my sous vide/PID-controlled soul.

On the contrary. Back up there in post #21, Mike said: ... which is as good a summation as you're going to find. It's not a 'style'; it's about knowing more about what happens when, for example, you poach an egg. Although I acknowledge it's quite possible to cook something good simply by following a recipe (hell, that's how I do it most of the time), I'm a huge admirer of chefs such as Adria or Blumenthal (or somebody like Harold McGee), who have developed a much greater understanding than I'll ever have of WHY things behave and are traditionally cooked in a certain way. And from that understanding, they gain the ability to know how to break the 'rules' or combine ingredients in 'unusual' ways. Certainly, not all their experiments will result in something everybody wants to eat - I imagine that would apply to any chef/cook using any technique (I don't care that this piece of pumpkin was hand-reared and milk-fed - I still don't like pumpkin!). But surely an important point is that professionals in any field, whether it be cooking or car maintenance, could be expected to be able to do a better job with a better understanding of the how and why of their trade. Shalmanese said it: it'll be good when we accept it's just food.

I'm with Jenni on the olives. A few years ago I had a trip to Spain planned, and figured it would be difficult to avoid olives there (I wasn't disgusted by them or anything so dramatic; they were just on my list of things I'd prefer not to eat). So over the two or three months before leaving home I made it a point to eat a few, every time they were offered. I knew it had worked when, a couple of weeks into the trip, I found myself in a very ordinary little Spanish bar with a plate of olives and realised I was actually enjoying them. My major aversion is/has been pumpkin, which since I was very small I've refused to eat even to be polite - most of my other 'rather not' foods I'll at least make an attempt at if I'm served them at somebody's house. But, to my surprise, even that may be changing - an eGullet thread a while back prompted me to do something edible with a butternut (yes, I KNOW [because my wife tells me] that butternut/pumpkin/squash aren't all the same thing. I'm allowed to doubt it, OK?). If there is any logic to my 'rather not' list, it's a sweetness thing. I do like sweet things, but in their place (ie at the end of the meal, called dessert). I'm not keen on a lot of Asian foods, for example, where there is a mix of sweet/savoury. And putting pineapple on pizza is an abomination and will be punished, in the next world if not in this one. Thus far I haven't found this to be the case for myself, but how something is served can make a huge difference. We always ask about any preferences or aversions when we invite people for a meal. At one recent lunch I served a dish our guests thoroughly enjoyed, thinking the black bits were mushrooms. They hadn't mentioned they didn't like snails ...

Hi Steve. You've reminded me that Heston does indeed mention something about (blast?) freezing. If I recall, he notes it's something the home cook might have trouble with! My full method, very heavily based on Heston's, is as follows: Peel spuds and cut into chips (big is good, but this still works if you prefer smaller chips) Place in cold, unsalted water and bring to the boil. Cook until chips are soft (any longer and you'd have mush) Drain and place on a cake cooling rack. When cool, put in the fridge and leave as long as possible (for my recent versions I've done the boiling bit before I've left for work, so the chips have maybe 10-11 hours in the fridge. I see no problem leaving them longer - starting your chips on Wednesday for Thursday's dinner would be a pretty good plan) Cook in oil (I'm using peanut, as others in this thread have suggested) at 140°C until lightly browned. Drain and, if you have time, put them back in the fridge for as long as possible (I generally don't, and I don't think the quality suffers) Crank the oil up to 190-200°C and cook the chips again until golden (maybe another 5 minutes or so) Serve and salt I have a batch in the fridge for tonight as we speak. Enjoy yours; I know I'll enjoy mine.

If it's Spanish paprika, which seems likely, use it as for any other sort of paprika but watch your quantities - it's strong stuff. If a recipe requires a tablespoonful, a teaspoonful is likely to be more than enough (depending, I suppose, on how much smoke you can take).

Ah - yes, that's exactly what you said. I suspect your quantities are greater than mine. De nada. But, as noted, ya gotta have a big enough pot.

Heard one on TV last night: 'Kitchen pickers wear big knickers' (ie if you spend too much time sampling the dishes you'll end up a little, shall we say, plumptious). Maybe related to the one about skinny cooks ...

I use citric acid in a mix with baking soda and caster sugar (1:1.5:1) to add fizz to my gin and tonic jellies. Best bet is to make the fizz mix in a separate small bowl or dish and have guests sprinkle a pinch or two themselves. And only make it just before you need it; it's VERY thirsty (I had to re-make a batch at the last minute a couple of weeks ago because it had got soggy and solid). Dougal - you mention citric acid is better than vinegar for 'de-clouding' wine glasses. What sort of concentration would you recommend?

There is ALWAYS a reason to sous vide - anything!

Can't speak from personal experience, but I had a recent very strong recommendation for Quay (over Tetsuya's).

20 minutes to cook a piece of fish? How BIG's them suckers?? My most common method is simply to put the battered (I like tempura) fish fillets in on top of the chips as they're on their final fry. They come out when they're brown, which (I confess haven't timed it) feels like it should be no more than five minutes. This, of course, presupposes one has a deep fryer (or other pot) large enough. If one is employing the Heston Blumenthal In Search of Perfection approach, one cooks fish and chips at different temperatures, which logically requires two vessels. Heston specifies a scarily high temperature for the fish; I have done it his way a couple of times but really can't see much advantage. For the chips themselves, however, I am an unabashed Hestonian devotee. His triple-cooked method (cut the chips, boil them until soft, keep in the fridge all day, fry at 140 C, keep a bit longer then fry at 190 C) produces entirely stunning, super-crisp-but-fluffy-inside, chips which I've never matched with just two fryings. (Had triple-cooked chips at a restaurant in Auckland last weekend. Mine are better ...)

Sounds like a reasonable list (and well done to the guy for being willing to try. Another foodie may yet be born ...). We found a good book a while back which covers basic techniques like scrambling eggs and allows the user to build up to some quite sophisticated stuff. This one, I think - Amazon USA doesn't seem to have it but the UK does. A strainer/sieve/chinois? Or is that too advanced at this stage? One possible modification to the electric section. I've recently (well, last couple of years) become particularly fond of my stick blender. It's a Braun, decent power (can't remember - 600 watts?) and came as a set with the usual blending stick plus whisk, ice crusher and a couple of mini food processors the power handle plugs into. Extremely versatile, and takes up much less room than a 'normal' blender. Just watch out for the processor blades when you reach into the drawer it lives in ... And thank you, thank you, thank you for insisting he has some kitchen scales!

Hi Johung. Interesting topic ... Your academic's notion that 'new' things can't form part of a national cuisine seems remarkably restrictive. Must we conclude that 'traditional French' cooking isn't traditional at all, since it's not what the French used to eat before Catherine de Medici arrived from Italy? Is much of Italian cuisine inauthentic, since the tomato didn't arrive in Europe until around the turn of the 15th century? And in the New Zealand context, even the pavlova is a 'recent' introduction - 1920s, maybe. Going further, since ultimately ALL of us here are immigrants, maybe none of our cooking is truly local! Your statement that From the 1980s onwards, the Pacific (Asian) and Mediterranean ingredients became progressively more popular, such that you probably see butter chicken and sushi being eaten just as frequently as fish and chips is, I think, completely accurate. Certainly 'old' NZ cuisine survives - I'm not even willing to say it's limited to rural areas and the older population - but I think it is fair to say that by far the majority of food served in our cafés and restaurants, and the recipes in our magazines and newspapers, show definite Asian/Mediterranean influences, albeit with modifications to suit local tastes and/or availability of ingredients. In short, I believe a national cuisine is defined by the food cooked and eaten by the majority of the country's population. And naturally, this can change over time. I'll be interested in other comments. Bye, Leslie

Kathryn, according to A Day at El Bulli they have a complex(ish) formula for selecting who they accept. I don't have it to hand, but it's along the lines of a certain percentage from Spain vs. elsewhere, a certain percentage of first-timers vs. returners, and possibly one or two other criteria. My personal Rule #2 applies to bookings: if you don't ask, you don't get.

Applied 15 Oct 2008 (for 2009, of course); favourable reply received 26 November. If reservations for this year were being taken at the beginning of January, I suspect the replies will appear about the middle of February. I agree that Roses looks a bit dodgy. We stayed in Cadaqués, on the other side of the hill. It makes for an expensive taxi ride but Cadaqués is a wonderful, picturesque, relaxing place. Highly recommended, even if you don't get to El Bulli.

You can get the 'real' elBulli chemicals and toys from these people.

When I was just a little fellow, one or two years ago now, my mother always let me have the bowl and spoon to lick when she finished baking. Consequence: I still LURVE uncooked cake mix, pastry, cookies, pretty much everything. That was not my guilty secret. This is: When I had a son of my own, he was reasonably well schooled in affairs of the kitchen and is now, aged 24, a proper foodie just like his Dad (but with less money). After baking, did I let him have the spoon and bowl? Hell no - that's MINE!

Thanks, Bob and David. I'm reassured, and may not be able to get past next weekend without going shopping ...

New ice cream maker? Decisions, decisions ... Hi all. I've been thinking an ice cream maker might be a nice thing to add to my collection of toys. However, on doing a spot of research I find that, unless I want to spend about 10 times as much for a unit with its own refrigerating system, the available products rely on churning the mix in a special double-skinned bowl which has previously been frozen. My question is: is one of these things really much better than chilling the mix in a food processor bowl and giving it a quick blast of the motor every 10 minutes or so until the desired consistency is reached? Supplementary question: somebody in an appliance shop yesterday warned me that home-made ice cream is intended for immediate consumption, as it sets like a rock if kept in the freezer. I can understand that commercial ice cream will have emulsifiers or whatever added to keep it 'creamy'. Why can't we do that at home? I own things like lecithin already. Would a small quantity of that, or something else readily available to home cooks, improve the texture? Thanks for any advice.

"Mess" presumably goes back to Genesis, where Esau sold his birthright for a "mess of pottage" - aka lentil stew. Let us hope they were good Puy lentils, cooked well ... It should be noted that the interesting names for large wine bottles quoted upthread by Barry are referenced to The Devil's Food Dictionary: A Pioneering Culinary Reference Work Consisting Entirely of Lies. Some of the names mentioned (eg Jeroboam) are familiar but I'm dubious about the larger ones (a quick Googling of 'Malfeasium', for example, returns only this EG thread). The more usual names are: Magnum = equivalent to two standard 750ml bottles Jeroboam = four bottles if it's Champagne or Burgundy; six, if it's Bordeaux Rehoboam = six bottles if it's Champagne or Burgundy Methuselah = eight bottles if it's Champagne or Burgundy. In Bordeaux they call it an Impériale Salmanazar = 12 bottles Balthazar = 16 bottles Nebuchadnezzar = 20 bottles (Source is here) It's always been my ambition to own (and share) a really huge bottle of something, but I haven't managed it yet.

Heston seems to be coming through as a common influence here. Here's another one ... In the Big Fat Duck Cookbook he describes using two atomisers, one of vanilla and the other of cinnamon, each sprayed while the diner is eating something cinnamonny or vanillary, respectively. I don't recall the details (and the book's a little large to bring into work every day) but I think the idea was that the vanilla thing appeared to taste of cinnamon and vice versa, or something along those lines. Heston describes it much better than that! I like the idea of forest smells while eating game, though.

Part of Heston Blumenthal's roast potato recipe is to leave the skins in with the spuds (in muslin) as they go through their first boiling, the idea being to impart even more potato flavour (tried it once; couldn't taste any difference ...). I hypothesise that maybe the same principle is intended here. Certainly I use the boil/ice/peel method for tomatoes, where trying to get the skin off any other way is tedious, to say the least, but I really don't see much point for potatoes.

Hi Frank. My loaves often do something similar. I put it down to hot (or cool) spots in the oven, but I haven't yet been scientific enough to work out exactly what's happening and where. It probably helps that my bread tastes fabulous.

My clever oven has a pyrolytic self-clean setting which works really well, but the instructions are that thou shalt not leave the racks in there. So I now put said racks in the bath with enough hot water to cover and a bit of dishwashing liquid. An hour or so later, when I get round to it, the baked-on muck comes off comparatively easily. It is advised cats be excluded from the bathroom while the soaking is in progress, in case there's an amazing clatter and lots of wet paw- and tummy-prints through the house ...