Big Mike

Brilliant

I'm in the white plate camp. They look so nice and clean when everything is plated well. I do like a big patterned dish for family style presentations though.

Uni, aka Sea Urchin. I've seen more than one TV chef just gushing over this stuff, how it tastes like almonds, or tastes like the sea. What a load of crap. For the uninitiated, sea urchin has the consistency and coloration of phlegm and doesn't taste much better. It is the most vile food substance I've ever eaten, but that doesn't stop me from trying it again and again. I'm hoping my palette will someday wake up and I'll suddenly see what the big deal is. But it hasn't happened yet.

I'm on a date kick these days, don't ask why. How about halved dates stuffed with marscapone on a reduced port sauce? Could also do a grilled peach slice on the side, I think those flavors mesh.

One of my favorites is A Taste of History with Walter Staib. The show features a crusty old German guy from Philly cooking recipes from colonial and revolutionary times. He uses an open fire to cook on, it's wild to watch. And he uses lard, "schmaltz", and weird ingredients like tripe and sweetbreads. Rock it out Walter.

Ok, that is pretty kickass

Two topics here: whole wheat crust and baking stones. For crust, has anyone experimented with no knead methods? I've done a few and they've turned out well, nothing codified into a recipe yet but promising. The long time period for gluten devlopment and rise means you can have more sharp grains in the dough without the worry of them shredding glutens during kneading. I'm going to try a few experiments this weekend and maybe report the findings. For baking, you guys are way out of my league. That said, I've experimented with stones a lot in my home oven and I've had better luck just cooking pizza directly in a sheet pan. It makes a different style of pizza, a little puffier, but is that bad? If you'll never be able to get your oven to the ridiculous temperatures needed to make a thin crust, why not make a pizza that actually works well with normal temps? I like both styles, I prefer the thinner crust of a fast cooked pizza in high temp but I know it's futile in my oven. Of course, I'm building a pizza oven in my backyard so I can cook both styles, but that's beside the point

That was my choice also. It is a fasciniating read and I'm dying to try sous vide, but it is a bit on the complex side. I did take away some very useful techniques but cooking a straight recipe is not gonna happen any time soon. Ad Hoc is much more accessible, and I think that was by design.

Why the oppposition to the basic badass mainstay of every waiter, waitress and bar back for the past 100 years? It works well and takes up no space so you can have one in multiple locations.

I used to love Roosevelt's Blue Star and Blue 52, but I haven't been in ages and not sure it's still open. You guys know if it's still there?

And his wife in a bikini... dear lord. That is a definite bonus

I just made the Cote-d'Azure Cure-All soup this past Sunday. Amazing, I love how the clear soup turns almost creamy with te addition of the eggs. It's beautifully simple, I'm making it again this weekend because it got eaten so fast I hardly had a chance to enjoy any.

My Ducane grill came with a counterbalance also and it works very well in combatting the turn-bump-turn. I should say it works well on a small application. I roasted an entire pig once on a homemade contraption that looked like something out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was belt driven and no matter what we did that huge pig always wanted WHOOMP on every turn. We actually reduced the turn rate by putting a larger gear on the motor and that helped.

I guess it depends on the application. Bagged baby spinach is nice but it cooks down to nothing and is expensive for an application like a filling for ravioli or lasagna. I've used fresh baby spinach and frozen in these applications, and I can't tell the difference except in the cost. If I were going to make a salad or drop it into soup or some other application where you want texture, fresh is the only way to go. Beautiful mature spinach is really hard to find in my area, the trend seems to be bagged baby spinach or frozen unless you have a farm market that carries locally grown. I haven't seen bagged pre-chopped mature spinach yet in the Philly area. There's always hope with all of the increasing emphasis on locally grown ingredients. BTW, side note: spinach grows like a weed in Spring and Fall. Plant some, you can't believe the difference from store bought.

I think you do need that balance of cheese and spinach. Too much spinach would blow away the creaminess of the ricotta. I still think that earlier recipe of 250g spinach 300-350 ricotta is a good place to start. Maybe even 50-50, but not more spinach than ricotta. It doesn't feel right. For the pancetta discussion, why not make the ravioli without it and then make a sauce kind of like carbonara. Keep the fat and porky flavor on the outside. The two different types of creamy playing off of each other.

I came up empty with my quest for veal bones this weekend. I had to order them special, how crazy is that? Anyway, while I was out and around I came upon some perfect dates, so I picked those up and made a little appetizer. Prosciutto wrapped dates stuffed with toasted almond ricotta

I just picked up the Tartine Bread book last week, it's amazing so far. Do I give you the number of books I actually own or the number of books the wife thinks I own? My wife probably thinks I have 30 but I know the number is closer to 100.

This is close to same recipe my Nana taught me, except she always adds egg so I always add egg. She never measured anything, it was by eye to see how much spinach flecks were in the cheese. I've also used fresh spinach, bagged baby spinach, spinach from my garden, even swiss chard once...for me frozen spinach is still the best option as long as you really squeeze the water out of it first.

That's my exact list, though I'd like to add Les Halles and Eataly just for laughs.

Just seeing the promos for the show are enough for me to never watch it. Unlike some of the previous posters, I do like David Rocco's show if only for the contrived glimpses of Italian culture.

Half related question: what temp and cooking duration did you use for the steak?

I'm chasing down veal bones this weekend to make brown stock so I can ultimately make demi-glace. Tougher to find than you might think, I'll be calling several butchers tomorrow to locate some.

LOVE Heinz baked beans. I have a good friend from Yorkshire who introduced my family to them and now it's a breakfast staple. Beans on toast with sausage.

I love the Ruhlman Charcuterie book, I can't imagine improving on it. I had the CIA Garde Manger book in my hands last night but ultimately opted not to buy. What are your thoughts on that book, it sounds like a must have.

I make baccala every year on Christmas Eve. Thankfully in the Philadelphia area, we have lots of good Italian specialty stores so sourcing is never a problem. This year's was really really salty. My Nana said you need to soak it once or twice in water, then soak it once in milk. I'm going to try that next year. My family is a bunch of salt freaks so the saltiness didn't bother them. This year's dish was a simple battered fried baccala. I made a batter based on the version in the Silver Spoon cookbook, with some slight differences. I haven't made a batter using this method before, but it came out really good so I thought I'd share. I adjusted the measurements slightly. 2 cups AP flour 1/4 cup white wine 3 Tbsp Limoncello (The original recipe called for grappa but the stuff was outrageously expensive so I used what I had on hand.) 1 Egg, separated Stir the yolks with the flour, wine and Limoncello then wait 30 minutes. Whisk the whites into a nice fluffy volume and fold them into the yolk mixture. Dunk in fish, fry in hot oil, drink the rest of the wine and limoncello