Luke

Are you sure it wasn't made using the fortified wine "Muscat" ?? I often use Port or Muscat to provide the foundation to a game/red meat sauce. Muscat is more on the sweet side. Muscat grapes could also make an interesting sauce. I have three "Black Hamburg" muscat vines about 5 years old now - and apart from being the most delicious table grapes, they make excellent raisins. While I don't have any grapes from this years season (just about to start for us southern hemispherians) I do have plenty of raisins left. Good luck in recreating your sauce... Luke

I scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream, add two spoonfuls of preserved sour cherries, add splash of Chambord. Well, that how I am getting rid of mine....

I roast most of my whole spices prior to grinding. However, I don't wait for smoke to appear, I am really not roasting them, but toasting them. I guess anything that has a volatile oil is going be activated by heat. Coriander and Cumin are two candidates that are very different when ground before toasting. Cloves, Cassia, Curry Leaves, Mustard, Black Pepper I don't roast chillies - no reason, just never have. Cheers Luke

What ever you do, don't buy fish fillets! Whole fish that is going off is almost always filleted and this gets another few days of shelf life. Try visiting your local wholesale fish market. You may be surprised what you can buy as a retailer in small quantities. Just be friendly and have a chat to the supplier. Luke

Has anyone thought if polished water has an impact on ice clarity? Fill a fish tank with water from your cold water tap. Note that the water does not look crystal clear. This is unpolished water. Leave the water in the tank for 1 week. Note that the water now looks crystal clear. It's called polished in aquarium terms. So I just wondered if the problem is the use of water strait from a tap. Water frozen from a lake, or slow moving water, would be polished. Luke

Hydroponic Herbs, especially Basil and Cilantro. No flavour at all. Luke

My belief (right or wrong) is that regular edge maintenance with a leather hone and black/green abrasive compounds should avoid the need for re-grinding and thus burr removal. I'll let you know how I go with the leather hone.

Asafoetida Powder. It like the concentrated extract from bad socks. Luke

I recently ordered and received a set of Global Knives this supplier: http://www.everten.com.au/product/Global-Knife-Block-Set-Ikasu.html I'm updating from a very ordinary set of Mundial's I have had for years. A few things I have noticed: (a) They are very lightweight. (b) The handle is very different. It might take a little getting used too. © They are pretty sharp out of the box, but not super sharp. (d) They are all convex edged. I have heard it can be a nightmare to try an remove the burr from this type of steel, but I plan to regularly maintain the edge with the Bark River leather strop/hone and green/black compounds. I'd be interested in others experience with them. Cheers Luke

Quasar, Have you tried leaving it in the fridge for 3 days or more? How large / what shape is your loaf? Can you provide a photo? What type of flour are you using? Luke

I have not cured the inside of my Tandoor pot clay wall, but I stumbled on this thread: which includes this interesting link, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36402-2005Mar15.html I might have to give it a go.

I think I might have answered my own question when I found this on google. http://www.3men.com/threemen1.htm

I was lucky enough to catch 3 trout on the weekend - 1 brown trout about 750g and 2 small trout (1 brown & 1 rainbow) about 300g. The smaller two trout I plan to smoke. I have a smoker, but have never smoked a trout before. My research indicates you should soak the trout in a cure that could contain a mixture of : salt sugar spices vinegar wine However, I'd rather use a recipe that someone has had success with. Any ideas? How long to soak in cure? Wash or not? How long to dry before smoking? Thanks Luke

Thanks for the tips guys. I think I have this pretty close to where I want it now. Here is a photo of a loaf from batch #4. Here is a close up of the crumb. I have not dusted off the flour yet. I have settled on this recipe 250grams pizza flour 750grams special white flour (11.9% protein) 20g fine semolina 2tsp honey 12grams instant dried yeast 18grams salt 800mls water Water ratio = 78.5% Mix, Rest out of fridge 1 hour, retarded rise in fridge 3 days, remove, shape, rise 2 to 3 hours depending on how warm the ambient air temp is. Cook in pre-heated pot with lid for 30mins @ 250 deg cel, remove lid cook for 15 minutes at 215 deg cel. The only aspect I am not entirely happy with is how I am slashing the dough before baking, and the crust. Thanks again Luke

Right now my pairing knife is essential because it is the only sharp knife in the kitchen!!! I'm slowly regrinding my blunt knives into hair shaving monsters and spent a few minutes this morning amusing myself at how thin a slice of tomato I could actually cut. All of the above aside, I like the pairing knife because I find it takes the least effort to control and use, so for those days when I'm spending lots of time in the kitchen, it's gets a lot of use. Cheers Luke

Hi All, This has been a great thread, and I have read each page with interest. I've just started experimenting with the recipe suggested by Heartsurgeoon. I'm now onto my 3rd batch and thought I would share my experiences. Here is a picture of my first loaf. It was based on 100% all purpose flour, and I was so keen to try it out I only had it in fridge for 24 hours (sounds like a common mistake). I put way too much dough in the pot for this one. 75% hydration as suggested by Heartsurgeon, but this was too dry for my flour (I did not know this at the time). I handled the dough quite a bit while shaping it. The crumb was dense and tight. My second batch of dough was left in the fridge for 3 days. It was made with a mixture of special white flour (I'm not really sure what is "special" about it) and all purpose flour. Hydration was increased to 78%. It was smaller, had more oven spring, better flavour and crumb was OK. I came to the conclusion that due to the flours I was using, the hydration could increase while still keeping the dough workable. As noted by Heartsurgeon, you need to be prepared to experiment. So I did. Flour was again 75% special white, 25% all purpose. Hydration was increased to 85%. It spent 4 days in the fridge. As you can see, it produced an excellent crumb, but it was very hard to work with. I think a hydration of 82% would be more appropriate. That being said, it was the best bread I have ever made. The air pockets were exactly what I wanted, and I flavor was fantastic. Crust was crunchy too. I took some of the dough and tried the technique suggested by lesleic on page 20. It didn't work. I'm not sure what I did wrong. You can see in the last photo, the bread on top was the boule that had minimal handling before baking. The loaf on the bottom was a ciabatta style loaf which was folded as per lesleic instructions. I've just made my fourth batch with 80% hydration and I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers Luke

Greetings fellow 'cello'ites. My Myer lemon "limoncello" has been steeping away on top of the fridge for 4 and a bit weeks now. The zest did not go white, did it did lose color, and I decided it was "time". Here is the photo of the steeping zest vodka. As suggested in this thread, I filtered the zest and vodka and squeezed out the last little bits of flavor. To sweeten, I read one of the posts on this site regarding simple sugar syrup, and made a concentrated syrup at 30% baume. I created a small spreadsheet to help me calculate the ratios and final alcohol content. If anyone would like the spreadsheet, please PM me and I will send it to you. Taste Test after blending all ingredients. - Very smooth, with a slight alcoholic heat. Maybe 33.4% is a little too strong. - Sweetness is just right for my liking (ie: not too sweet) - Flavor is mild - different from your "face squinting" lemon that I have had in the past. More subtle flavor, you can taste the "orange" components on the ripe Myer coming through. - Different. Not what I was intending to make, but still very nice. I'm going to give it a month to settle down and then I will re-evaluate the sweetness & alcohol level. Recipe notes below. My Notes for Limoncello Batch #1: - Made 14/6/2010 - 18 small meyer lemons. Ripe. Note: Possibility too ripe. Some greener lemons with strong aroma might have been better. - 1 lime - 1 x 700ml bottle of Smirnoff 43% alcohol vodka. - Lemons and limes zested with microplane zester Note: Need to be careful not to zest too hard. - Zest equated to about 5 and a half tablespoons of moderately packed zest - zest and vodka steeping in jar with lid. - 4/7/2010 - Strained infused VODKA to separate zest - Squeeze zest tightly after straining to extract extra - Mix with sugar syrup (30% Baume) made using § 500ml Water § 675grams refined sugar § Add sugar and water to saucepan and heat until just boiling (or dissolved). Cool. - Add 200ml of syrup to 700ml of flavored vodka. § 700ml infused vodka § 200ml syrup § Calculated alcohol 33.4%.

The Tandoori oven continues to give us great enjoyment. I have fired it up about 10 times, and each time I learn a little bit more about how to get the best from it. Being small, when cooking meats you need to be a little careful about how you skewer the meat and where you place the seekh when cooking (in relation to where the hot coals are). I'll post some pictures a great seekh kebab next time. Here was the latest attempt of Tandoori Chicken using Vah Chefs recipe. Cheers Luke

Hi All, Well, being totally inspired by this thread, I decided it was time to have a go at making some limoncello. While in the country, I picked up some Meyer lemons (for free). They were growing in an abandoned house, and in a fairly high altitude part of Victoria, Australia, called Mount Beauty. You can see the distinctive Golden colour of these lemons indicating their ripeness. These lemons were small. About the same size as a lime. So using Loeb's recipe and factoring in that these were small lemons, I chose 18 to zest plus 1 lime as suggested. Here is the zest I ended up with. It was removed using a microplane I could not easily source 100 proof Vodka at my local bottle shop, so I ended up with 86% proof (43% alcohol) Smirnoff. It tasted neutral which is good. The zest was added to the jar with the vodka, stirred, lid installed in place and now it sits on top of the fridge. I'll let you know how things progress. One question: (not sure if this has been answered earlier in this thread). Can you successfully freeze zest? I plan to juice the rest of the lemons, but was thinking that I could zest and freeze it for later use before I juice them. Cheers Luke

Be careful. You can't normally freeze fat very well. While the protein meat will freeze, the fat will go rank a lot quicker. For this reason, frozen bacon and tuna (both with high oil/fat contents) don't freeze well for more than 3 months. Luke

I recently spent 5 days in Indianapolis and made Palomino's my second home (well, I think I ended up eating their 4 times, although it was conveniently located just across the road from where I was staying). http://www.palomino.com/page/location Service and food was awesome. I became addicted to the rocket, feta and pumpkin seed salad along with the Rigatoni with tomato, cream and Italian sausage. The last time was on a Wednesday and I pleasantly discovered they have a half-price wine "Wednesday" where the offer is literally any bottle of wine for half price. I enjoyed an $80 bottle of Napa Valley Cab Sauv for half-price - very nice! Luke

Finding a F&C shop that actually sells what it claims is step number 1. There are no laws in Australia regarding the true labeling of fish. So you are just as likely to see West Nile Perch labeled as Snapper, as you are finding Hoki fillets labeled as Whiting. And "Flake" could be any type of shark including Elephant Fish. Now Gummy Shark and Mako is excellent flake, and Blue shark I would not feed to my dogs, but I have eaten many types of "flake" and I can often tell the difference (depends on how much beer was consumed before the tasting). Interestingly I suspect most people can also tell, but simply assume the fish was not fresh, as opposed to the fish not being what they expect it to be. Luke

Had dinner at the "Italian Village" on the Rocks last week. Service was a little slow but food was good. Wine list was good. Entree was small, but good (Garlic Prawns). Mains was eye fillet which was ordered Medium-Rare and cooked Medium-Well (lucky I am easy going), but the sauce was excellent and vegetables really good. Side servings of house made fries, mayonnaise and a garden salad were also really good. Cheers Luke

Hi Guys, Dined out at Sean's Kitchen for the 2nd time last Wednesday night. Awesome - food was superb, service great and prices left me with that "I got what I paid for" feeling, which is just what I want. Would definitely put it on my list of restaurants to visit again. Cheers Luke

Here are some photos of items we have cooked since building the Tandoor. I have also cooked Chicken and Lamb, but the fish was the real hit so we did this twice. You may note the bottom of Naan has that authentic crisp brown finish. That is one of the keys to cooking great Naan. The Terra Cotta provides the intense heat to cook the bottom quickly, while the Charcoal radiates heat to cook the top. The fish cooks brilliantly in the Tandoor. I guess this is because it is so hot and so quick, it has no chance to dry out. But make sure you use firm fleshed fish, and don't marinate it for more than 15 minutes. To stop items from sliding down the skewer I place a small ball of Naan dough at the end. I need to add more notches to the Seekhs as the food items slip off too easily.