Karldub

Hi again. Oh, what I mean was that I was not sure if the salt actually gets through the skin to cure the flesh closest to it, no the skin itself. But I guess it does, since it's the common way of doing it. I guess I'll just have to try with more salt on the underside, for a longer time. Thanks.

I've curing the salmon in a large container, but I've also tried wrapping the salmon in clingfilm with the salt stuck on both sides as well, using less salt that time though. I've never done wacuum curing. When I cured my salmon in a large container, I cut down on the salt on top of the salmon, but instead i put weights on top of the salmon just to really force the skin side of the salmon against the salt. I did this to see just how much of the curing is done through the skin, which in my case was very little. I do have a have hard time imagining how the salt from the bottom is able to pass through that thick, tough salmon skin to cure it, but I know I'm probably wrong about those suspicions

Hi! I've always taken the skin off my salmon when curing it to make gravlax/nova or cold-smoked salmon. However, I've seen that leaving the skin on the salmon in the end creates nicer slices and is done by all the profesional smoke-houses. However, when I've tried, I can't get the curing even. No matter how much salt I put on surface that faces the skin, It seems as if the flesh closest to the skin doesn't get cured enough, which leaves the texture raw-ish and the taste is not enough salty. I can distribute the salinity through the salmon by putting it in water for about an hour after the curing. This however didn't cure the flesh close to the skin noteworthy and also affects the "upper" looks of my salmon fillet. I've seen that some people score the skin of the salmon fillet, this however is not the traditional method. What are your experiences with curing? Karl

Hi! I've been making fresh pasta quite a few times, using different recipes with lots of egg yolks as well as using tipo 00 flour, but my pasta always comes out pretty boring looking after it's been cooked. Taste is just fine though. Anyway, last week a had a meal at Mario Batali restaurant Babbo, and the stuffed pasta I ate were really delicious and had that strong yellowish color mine is missing. Has anybody had this problem, knows how to fix it? I've seen some recipe (not batalis) putting in turmeric for colour which I'm pretty sure is not how they do it in Italy.

What is it that naturally thickens a stock-made sauce? I've made a lot of classical stock-made sauces and they always thicken well when cooked down. Though, the other day i made a boef bouerguignonne, but without the flour. Instead, I wanted to remove the meat once cooked, sieve the sauce, and then reduce it down to thick consistency. The thing is, not matter how much I reduced it down, it never got thick. Just more and more muddy from the small particles that had fallen of the meat (chuck). How does a Boef Bourguignoone without flower, differ from a stock? Well, it is made with wine and so on, but the key difference is it's made with meat, not bones. So what is the reason a stock has natural thickening in it? These are the arguments I've heard. 1. Some people say the gelatin from the collagen in the meat. But gelatin is not active in temperatures of say, 70-80 degrees celcius, is it? Also, there is some connective tissue in chuck, and that didn't thicken it while hot. 2. Some people say the sugars and starch in the vegetables the stock is cooked with thickens the sauce when concentrated. That would also have thickened my sauce since i had a lot of carrot's and onions to cook it with. 3. The concentration of all the ingredients will thicken the sauce. This didn't apply to my boef bourguignonne either. All i got was something with the viscosity of water, but with small beef particles creating a non-pleasent muddy look. 4. There is meat/fish - glue present in the bones/carcasses of your selected stock. This stickens the stock. I don't know. Might this be true? Wouldn't transglutaminase then be used to thicken sauces without changing flavour? Lastly, can anybody comment on how these "new" hydrocolloids, e.g. xanthan gum etc. do the trick at thickening sauces?