BadRabbit

The marketing dishonesty inherent in the term "grass-fed" ticks me off. All conventional cows eat grass. I know of know operation in the US that has cows strictly fed on grain since birth. Maybe one exists but I doubt it. Grass finished is what is really meant by the term. All that said, count me in on the grain finished side of things. Grass finished beef is usually one note and chewy. No thanks.

If you use metal utensils on Teflon pans, then yes you are a bad cook. Regardless of how tasty the meals you're serving are they are tainted with tiny bits of scraped up non-stick surface. That's definitely not being a good cook. Would you call someone who made delicious meals that gave you salmonella half the time because of bad kitchen habits a good cook? I wouldn't.

I'd take issue with both of those. To a lot of Americans, salad is basically an afterthought and most of them don't care to whip up a dressing every time they have salad. I know literally 20 great cooks who use strictly bottled dressings. I usually make my own but it's because we don't eat much salad in my house so when we do I am usually making something special. I keep lemon juice concentrate to acidify items that I am canning because the squeezy bottle has a known range of acidity. Fresh lemon can have considerable variance in acidity and is not recommended for canning.

My mother in law has cooked 3 meals a day for 40 years and still makes mostly horrible food.

I generally consider an array of quality vinegars beside the stove to me a pretty good indication that someone knows how to cook. The proper use of acid is one of the last things most cooks learn. I'd have to say that usually a person who has non-stick pans that are obviously scarred by repeated use of metal implements is the mark of a bad cook. Good cooks understand the proper tools to use and respect their pans.

I agree about the shopping list feature. I don't have enough faith that things have been indexed properly to use it. I've been bitten twice before. It's a shame because it would be nice if I could make a shopping list at work when I don't have my books available.

I'm with you. My KA stuffer has ruined more sausages than I care to count. I wasn't having problems with air pockets as much as having issues with the forcemeat getting too hot and breaking. I tried everything including leaving the whole apparatus in the freezer but nothing seems to make it fool proof. I'll be buying a vertical stuffer soon.

For salmon, I just look for tins stamped "Alaska." (And I prefer Sockeye to "pink" salmon.) I'm no expert in the fish canning business, but I suspect that the salmon is packaged, and then shipped from the cannery to StarKist, Chicken of the Sea, etc., who then slap a label on the tin. You suspect correctly. There are only 3 or 4 Alaskan canneries that produce all of what is available in the regular grocery.

I'm going to make rillettes this weekend but am trying to determine which book I'm going to use the recipe from: Les Halles - Bourdain Charcuterie - Ruhlman\Powlcin My New Orleans- Besh Anybody have an opinion on which is a better recipe? Also, how long will they keep at room temp? Besh says six months but I assume that is refrigerated.

LeSueur Early Peas- Even people who don't care for green peas seem to like them. My daughter will not eat any other kind. Just some salt and a pat of butter and they are delicious. leSueur offers some other canned stuff but oddly enough I've never tried any of it.

Everybody I talk to thinks they are a novelty whose time has not come. The current models only work well with a small amount of substances and are thus VERY limited.

The BBQ shrimp have been an absolute show stopper for me. Everyone I've cooked them for just goes on and on about them. I usually try to hide the reason they are so good though (i.e. that the recipe is 90% butter and cream).

I recently made the Rilletes from his cookbook and it says they keep for six months. I assume this is in the fridge (he doesn't say). How long will they keep at room temp before I'm running a risk of issues?

As someone who ran mostly Mom & Pop and single unit operations, I'd say that the custom program advice is absolutely contrary to my experience. I've had nothing but headaches from small developers and custom systems: Upgrades\updates are always huge pains in the ass on custom jobs. They are consistently more buggy than the large releases. Training takes 2-3x as long because new employees have to learn a system from scratch as opposed to just learning the local customizations of a base system they are already familiar with. Local businesses like Deus is talking about move or close up shop all the time. Then you are stuck with a system that you can't upgrade and will cost you an arm and a leg to have someone reverse engineer if it breaks. This particular problem has happened to me 4 separate times. I've found that support is better with the big boys. They've generally seen all the bugs and can diagnose very quickly (often over the phone). Small time guys have to come in for hours (or log in remotely for long periods) just to try and figure out what the issue is.

What are the traditional dishes of Mughlai cuisine? What ingredients are typical?

I wasn't looking at the book when I asked the question about brining. The duck ham I made was in a brine and I thought the prociutto must be as well. Now that I think about it, prociutto is fairly dry and you probably would not want to brine it as the texture would be affected.

You can adjust it either through time or by lowering the salt in the brine. I personally think that the difference in saltiness for something as thin as a duck breast is likely to be imperceptible past 6 hours so I'd probably adjust the brine. Perhaps Jason or one of the others more experienced could speak to that if anybody is still following the thread.

Pardon my ignorance but what illicit activities do people engage in with citric acid?

What did you think of the salt levels in the DP?

With vodka it is almost impossible to tell any decent one from a top shelf in a mixed drink (because the qualities of a good vodka are that it is has a neutral smell and taste). I've tested this hypothesis with quality bartenders and none of them were better than random on anything with more mixers in it than a martini. Most could tell the difference in dry martinis and straight shots. This is absolutely not true with gin, whiskey, dark rums etc... however. It's still stealing but I agree with you that most people are just ordering top shelf for looks when they ask for a Grey Goose sour.

Check the alcohol percentage of both, if they're the same, it's the same recipe. Although the bottled Guinness purchased in N. America is probably brewed in Canada, and the can is brewed in Dublin. The reason there is a night and day taste difference is because cans are THAT MUCH BETTER than bottles. EDIT -- That being said, it's better to go with the Young's taste test -- same beer, same brewery. The canned product is sublime. In the bottle, most of the subtle chocolate flavors are lost from oxidation. The Guinness Extra Stout that you usually see in bottles is from a different line than the can (which is from the Draught line). The Draught is also apparently available in bottles though I've never seen it and I used to run bars that specialized in beers. http://www.guinness.com/en-us/thebeer.html That said, I agree with you that beer tastes better in the can.

I didn't think that Guinness in the bottle and Guinness in the tall can were even supposed to be the same beer.

Do you use the pickled cayenne as a condiment or do you eat them by themselves?

I am going to have a TON of cayenne peppers and I usually make them into southern pepper sauce. This year I was going to try and find some different things to do with them. I'm looking for ideas that will last a long time either on the shelf or in the fridge. I'll use some to cook with but I will have way too many to use up that way (though I'd be interested in ideas for these uses as well). What is the best technique to dry them? Any interesting pickle recipes that would work with cayenne? Has anybody ever cold smoked them?

I forgot about Conecuh Sausage. It's probably on the edge of this discussion since they aren't a really small operation but I think their Hickory Smoked sausage is the best smoked sausage I've ever had anywhere. Conecuh is available in nearly every grocery store in Alabama but is hard to find elsewhere. I regularly have to send care packages of it to my expat friends in California.