chris-s

I've been looking for something to help me make purees. I used a Raymond Blanc recipe to make a chicken liver parfait but pushing the gloop through a conical sieve with a ladle was slow, hard work. I looked up moulins on the interwebnet - I've used a Mouli-legumes in the past - so I know what they do. However, on several websites, Moulins are listed alongside Triturators but I can't find any explanation of what they do. They cost significantly more than a food mill, so I don't want to buy the wrong thing. Can any professionals out there tell me what they would use a triturator for? Thanks

Are there any other potential UK customers for this book, who have orders with Amazon.co.uk? Did any of you get an email yesterday stating "We regret to inform you that your order will take longer to fulfill than originally estimated. Our supplier has notified us that there is a delay obtaining stock for the following items you ordered on June 08 2011. Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking" Or is it just me? Given that they've already cancelled my order once, I wondering what you have to do to buy a copy of this book in the UK.

Leave it on the counter but you need to feed it with a little flour every couple of days or feed it & refrigerate it till next week but take it out the night before you want to use it, so it can get active again.

Hi Ian, I bought my machine from Northern tools in the UK but strangely they don't offer it at the moment. You can find it branded as Buffalo meat mincer in the Uk and available from several on-line outlets

Kitchener #12 Electric Meat Grinder — 1/2 HP I've been using this machine for grinding meat for sausage making for a couple of years: it's fast & easy to clean and easily copes with the batches I make - usually 8-10 Kg. It's a little over your budget at $99 from Northern Tools.com but excellent value IMO

But if you did have sex with nymphomaniac twins, would you write it up in your blog, with many photographs and describing each sensation in loving detail? Would you wax lyrical and at great length about the starters, the mains and the afters? It seems to me that professional newspaper restaurant reviewers give a brief overview of where they've been, what they've had, what they liked and disliked, quality of service, price & opening times. Maybe 10 column inches & a small photo. The purpose is to impart enough info for others to either go or not go: not to have to read the subjective ramblings opinions, laced with lots fashionable foodie prose, of a pair of soi-disant food experts. I have a natural (and egotistical) need to share the experience of my whole life with you...but I don't expect you to be daft enough to want to read it. Now about those nymphomaniacs...

I followed the link to their blog which I read briefly then stopped when I realised it was simply pretentious and boring. I prefer brief, pithy & witty in restaurant reviews: we can't taste the food but a well-written review can give us the flavour of the restaurant. OK, great, this couple can afford fine dining - but this blog is simply a vanity project to flaunt their wealth & erudition to us common folks. The Critical Couple; hah; I can think of better names for them.

Well, well. Wonders will never cease. After having my order for MC at £375 cancelled by Amazon and then being asked to register my interest in the new edition at £465, I've today had a general email offering the books at £300 (list £395). Naturally, I've ordered them & now just have to wait till August. That's improved a crappy day no end. It also means I can now continue shopping with Amazon for other things because they're not quite the greedy b**st**ds I took them to be. http://forums.egullet.org/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif

Re Cancellation of UK orders I've now had time to check my original order on Amazon UK. It was ordered at a price of £375, before they cancelled it. Subsequently, their page asked me to register my interest when it became available again and the price...£465.00 - around 55% more than on Amazon.com I think I can guess why the order got cancelled: the greedy bas***ds simply wanted to up the price by 25%. I know the MC site says the retailer sets the price and MC can't control it but giving Amazon an effective monopoly ensures they can do what they like. Perhaps, MC should appoint alternative retailers as they've done in the US.

thanks Nathan

#1416 Lucky you. I ordered MC a couple of months ago from Amazon Uk. Imagine my surprise on Wednesday when I received the following email Hello, We regret to inform you that we have been unable to obtain the following item: Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking" http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0982761007 Our supplier has informed us that this item is no longer available. This item has now been cancelled from your order #026-8099699-2101143 and we can confirm that you have not been charged for it. Please accept our apologies for any disappointment or inconvenience caused. I thought that there were 25000 second editions being printed: so how come it's suddenly unavailable and there's no copy for me. According to the MC site it can still be ordered through Amazon US & Canada & Japan. So why have UK customers been booted off the order list?

Being based in the UK, I use double cream (50.5% fat). I culture it with a bit of live buttermilk, leave it overnight in a warm place, then return to the fridge to chill. Into the Magimix with the egg white whipping device and it comes together in around 5 minutes. Pour off the buttermilk (keep for scones or soda bread or the cat)and wash with several changes of cold water in the Magimix. Drain & work with wooden paddles to remove excess water. This last bit is hard, tedious work but necessary to prolong the shelf life. Culturing the cream gives a better yield: I got around 50% yield from the last batch I made, which given the cream is 50% fat is about what you'd expect. Without culturing, you get sweet cream butter which is absolutely delicious.

I drink wine with or without food, although some wines clearly complement food better than others. But it's too facile to lump wines into new world v old world as though one type is all big, juicy & alcoholic whilst the other is stylish, refined, subtle etc. Absolute BS. There's a great deal of intellectual arrogance in the "I can only appreciate fine French wines" attitude. I've had some great French, Italian & Spanish wines but I've had a fair amount of rubbish too. Try some cheap Claret (Bordeaux) and you'll find it's not fit for drinking with anything. Then try a New Zealand Pinot Noir from Otago instead of a Burgundy and you might be pleasantly surprised. The Carmenere grape, sadly now lost to France but strong in Chile, can produce excellent drinking both with & without food. My favourite white grapes, Viognier & Gewürztraminer,produce similar delicious wines in both Europe & Australia/New Zealand. And where would a Chateau Musar from Lebanon fit in to this wine snobbery? So, no you don't need to apologise at all for being able to appreciate fantastic wines from all around the world. It's been a long time since I've had a bottle of Penfold's Grange but I seem to recall that - for a New World Wine- it wasn't too bad.

Taking wife & friends to Paris for her 60th. Need a good French restaurant/brasserie/bistro (good of its kind) for a Saturday night meal. Staying on left bank, so looking for something not too far from that area. Not fine dining: actual birthday meal is at Le Gavroche in London. What can you recommend?

I've owned a LFP-SV 1000 for a couple of months now and I've used it to cook brisket, duck & chicken breasts and pork belly. I paid just over GBP100 (approx USD 160) In use the temperature display varies from the set temperature by +- 0.4 degrees but I'm not sure the water is varying by that much -it may be because the sensor is very close to the pump outlet. In any case it doesn't matter to me. For a start, I couldn't afford a SVS at GBP349 (USD 560)and I'm only using it to cook food - scientific precision is of no great interest to me: I suspect that variations in the raw materials have far more effect than the machine's temperature variations. I can recommend the LFP-SV 1000 if you want to try out SV cooking: then you can progress to a bigger spend if you want to. I have to say I think SV is more of a texture thing than a flavour enhancer and my wife is so far quite unimpressed.

Went there about 6 months ago for lunch. Very disappointed in the food: hated the décor and the table position. Expensive for what it was. Won't go again

Not quite a typo but at a small hotel in Millau, France, they had a menu in the lifts translated from French into English, obviously using a dictionary. There were many howlers but my favourite, a dish of gesiers de canard was described as hearts, livers and duck's muffs. Must be a regional speciality.

Thanks Dave - that's exactly what I need

@ #8 Paul, that recipe will probably do fine, although I'd grind the pork more coarsely, to match what I ate and because I like a coarse grind. The port would give the hint of sweetness and the seasoning sounds about right. A little cure would keep the pinkness and I'll get some Ox runners for casings. Thanks

Hi Chris, No, that looks a bit like a cured sausage, although there could be a colour cast on the photo. The one I had was pure pork & quite crumbly in texture - a coarse grind - lightly salted but with a hint of sweetness. Possibly there's a reciope in Hélène Darroze's "Personne ne me volera ce que j'ai dansé" book but at GBP54 (roughly USD100)I don't want to find out the hard way that there isn't. I'm coming round to the view that I can create something edible using the hints on various websites I've visited but, being lazy, I'd still quite like a definitive recipe.

Kerry, I'd already looked up cervelas, under "cervelas recipe", which only gave dishes prepared with the sausage but your posting prompted me to look again under "cervelas ingredients". What I've found so far is: Cervelas de lyon The elegant French cervelas is thought to have originated in Florence and originally included brains (cervelle), the source of its name. Made from lean pork shoulder mixed with belly and bacon, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sugar. It may also include port, Madeira, or Cognac and truffles, pistachios, or morels. It is uncooked and must be kept refrigerated 1 to 2 days and simmered for 30 to 40 minutes per pound, or until it bubbles when pricked. It is closely related to German cervelat. from Quirk Books: www.quirkbooks.com and found on Chow.com Now I've simply got to figure out the proportions: can't see truffles appearing in the final recipe somehow

I've just had a great lunch featuring poached Lyon sausage on a bed of lentils (Hélène Darroze at the Connaught, London). So now I'd like to make some Lyon sausage AKA Saucisse de Lyon. This is a fresh sausage for cooking, not the Jesus de Lyon salami style product. Sometimes it has pistachio nuts in it. I can't find a recipe: can anyone help? I've tried all the usual sources including sausagemaking.org & Len Poli's site plus internet searches. I believe the sausage contains pork, wine & seasoning but beyond that I have no idea. The one I ate was about 50mm dia so I'd need some large casings: suggestions please. Thanks.

I’ve cooked this twice: I think it’s a Burton-Race or maybe Raymond Blanc dish Take a whole oxtail & braise it whole till tender. When cool, split it down one side (the flatter side) and carefully tease the meat from the bone so you have a flat sheet of oxtail. Pipe a line of chicken mouse along the centre, reform the meat into a tube around the mouse, wrap in cling film and braise again to cook the mouse. Cut into pieces to resemble a section of oxtail: the chicken mouse is supposed to look like the bone in the centre. Reheat in the de-fatted & reduced stock and serve. What does it taste like? Oxtail. Is it worth the considerable effort? Doubtful Will I do it again? Only under extreme duress

My wife & I were fairly regular diners here for many years but for the last couple of years we have been unable to book a lunch-time table on a Friday. Indeed we got an email last week saying they're fully booked for Friday lunches till Christmas. So they must be doing something right! However, last time we ate there (about 3 years ago) was in the evening at someone else's expense. From the start, it wasn't great - four of us were put around a small table with the surface entirely covered with glasses, chargers, cutlery and so nowhere to put our drinks. Then, we couldn't have the tasting menu because they couldn't cope with the vegetarian in the party not taking the same menu. What we were finally served was frankly uninspired. I know they can do better but that's why we didn't go for a while... and now we like to, we can't get in. Oh Well!

When I buy a chicken, I remove the legs & breasts for main meals. The carcass is chopped and roasted with the skin, the feet, celery, onion & carrot chunks till it's all got some colour. Then into the stockpot, just cover with water, add a bayleaf or two & simmer for a number of hours on the lowest flame with the lid half open. Skim at first, then just leave it alone. When cooked, I strain it into a bowl through a colander and then back into the cleaned stockpot through an old gold mesh coffee filter to remove the very fine particulate matter. I allow it to reduce to around half a litre and when quite cold, it goes in the fridge where it forms a firm jelly. Very good as a French style stock for use with everything from meat to fish to shellfish and when a dark coloured stock is called for I simply colour it in the dish with a dribble of dark soy sauce