faronem

With regard to the cooking time itself, you might select pasta shapes and sizes which cook more quickly. With a large enough pot of water, you could probably separate different types with a spider. Fresh pasta would shave several minutes. I suppose if you were really stuck you could pair up two very dissimilar pasta shapes in the same pot and manually separate them after cooking. You could finish the pasta in the sauce in the oven. Alternatively, you might consider a few starters which are served room temp or cold which you can cook a few minutes earlier than the rest, or dishes that have an additional cooking method after boiling. A couple which come to mind: pasta fritattas, marinara (I like mine room temp), pasta salads, fried ravioli, etc.

You didn't mention which nuts, but I imagine you could lightly toast them in a dry skillet until the oils come to the surface, then season while hot.

At a recent dinner, I had some questions about how to properly season. I mostly focused my answer around salt and gave a demonstration with salted vs. non-salted tonic water I saw in cooking school. However, one friend then asked about the role of black pepper, that is the final step of any savory recipe she's seen: "salt and pepper to taste". I talked about black pepper's spiciness, pungency, and sharpness but never felt like I was able to really answer her question. Since then, I've been thinking more about the role of black pepper as a flavor enhancer (as opposed to as an ingredient). Although I find I have an intuitive sense of how to use it, I find I'm still lacking the words. How would you describe the role of black pepper, including how it changes one's sense of taste and flavor? Can anyone recommend a simplistic demonstration?

I agree that black and white pepper have somewhat different flavors and markedly different aromas. Basically, I think the oils in the black pepper's sheath bled more pungent flavors than I would have liked into the prosciutto. I think white pepper gets a bad rap due to the fact it's usually pre-milled; I often find it quickly gets an off-putting armpit/musty aroma after being exposed to air for a while. I find it a different creature when you crack it yourself. And I substituted it because I had no white peppercorns available. Live and learn. However, I've read that the pepper is in this recipe just to keep the bugs away; I may leave it out completely next time.

After literally years of lurking on egullet, here's a first post and my first go at charcuterie. So please, be gentle I made the Ruhlman duck prosciutto using Pekin breasts and would love thoughts on it. The only real substitution I made was milled black instead of white pepper. After a 24hr salt cure, I air cured at about 68F and 20% humidity for about 7 days: I cut them down when they felt firm but also hit about 30% reduction from the original wet pre-salt-cure weight. Overall, I loved it and won high praise from family and friends, but I'm more curious about anyone's thoughts on the shortcomings. With the Prosciutto di Parma I've bought at the market and eaten over the years as a flavor and texture reference point, I found this duck prosciutto was just slightly too briny and peppery. Other than doing a better job rubbing off the salt cure and pepper, I'm not sure what I could have done differently? Less salt cure and more air cure? Also, the very top layer of the meat side of the breast is tasty but is drier than I would like and is slighly "jerkied". It's only about 2mm think but causes a slightly stringy texture. I think this may be due to the low humidity (20%) environment in which it air cured? It occurs to me that placing the two sides of the breast meat-sides together when air curing might reduce this, but I'm unsure how that might change the rest of the cure. Also, the skin had a slightly stringy texture, too. Is scoring the skin generally advised? Finally, it's hard to see in the picture, but some parts of the fat layer are fully opaque and others translucent. I'm curious what thoughts are out there for what is a 'best' level of the cure. Also, any thoughts about how scoring would alter the curing of the skin/fat. Thanks!