ChrisTaylor

Approximately how much potato starch would you use for ~200mL reduced stock? I've only ever really used potato starch for coatings (i.e. the turkey wing recipe).

We'll see. I have enough brown stock made up that if I kill my gravy I can always use the rest to make a jus and pretend that's what I wanted all along.

A Manhattan made with Punt e Mes, High West Double Rye and Boker's bitters. Initially I was leaning in the direction of the ultra simple: a gin and tonic. Then I considered a Negroni. Finally, I settled on this. A workable drink for a summer's night. I think the High West shines through the Punt e Mes. Given that it's my go-to vermouth and I've probably tried more whiskies with it than I have actually bought other sweet vermouths (there's something sickly sweet about M&R and Cinzano), it's nice to find a whiskey that announces its name so clearly through what is a very robust apertif. I think this is now my go-to Manhattan formula, altho' I reckon it'd be nicer with the peel of an orange cut into some bullshit twirl that'd likely put me in the ER.

St Stefanus Blonde (cellar release November 2013). This is a nice example of a blonde ale. Works nicely in the Australian summer. Would buy again.

I think it is very good, although I'm surprised they didn't do something with the skin.

I am eyeing off the 'turkey gravy' recipe in Modernist Cuisine. It calls for Ultrasperse 3. I have Ultrasperse M, though I've never used it. Are Ultrasperse M and 3 the same product? If not, can I at least use them in the same way? Do I need to add more/less of M than I would 3?

This. You can also do the sear beforehand, something Blumenthal recommends in Heston Blumenthal at Home. I thought this roasting technique, which he uses with three different meats (whole chicken, leg of lamb and rib eye), produced the best results with beef.

That. And then I'd park it in the fridge overnight and skim off the solidified fat in the morning.

Lemon tart. I used Keller's recipe for lemon sabayon, although I included a couple dashes of Scrappy's cardamom bitters, a handful of freshly picked kaffir lime leaves (removed as I poured the sabayon into the tart casing) and messed around with his ratio for lemon and sugar (he goes for 0.5 c lemon juice to 0.75 c sugar: I invert this and add an extra whole egg to compensate for the extra liquid). I think the original recipe, like many American baking recipes I've tried, is just too sweet. I like lemon tarts that possess the sour quality of lemon. I didn't use his pastry recipe, either. I turned to David Everitt-Matthias' Dessert for that. It includes a little bit of almond meal (540 g flour to 100 g almond meal) and vanilla extract. I took his advice and use demerara sugar in place of regular confectioner's sugar because I really like the flavour of demerara. EDIT It'd be nice if I attached the photo, hey?

Christmas 2013 The hocks from Thomas Keller's Bouchon. I was unhappy that the foil, er, foiled by attempt to make a perfect log of meat. It was easier to get it right with cling film. That said, these things are easy as hell to prepare, store and portion. The hocks with sauce gribiche (from the original recipe) and pickled vegetables. The pickles were from Momofuku. The course was matched with a pinot gris from Alsace. I'm rather fond of Dopff wines: cheap, cheerful and bloody good for the price. I think the pinot gris is the pick of the range. Elements of the main course, portioned and readied: potato pave (Ad Hoc at Home), hot applesauce terrine and corn pudding (both from Modernist Cuisine). The pave was a gamble. Russets are hard to get in Australia and the one source I was aware of only stocked small ones. Keller calls for potatoes that are approximately 500g each but these were in the 100-200g range. I was concerned this would fall apart so I had some extra potatoes sitting in the cupboard ready to make an emergency rosti. Pork scratchings from Heston Blumenthal at Home. The completed dish: all elements of Modernist Cuisine's Sunday pork belly (the red eye gravy was the version from MC@Home, though). It includes pork belly (62C/40 hours), hot applesauce terrine, corn pudding (sadly, this was a little thicker than my trial version--it didn't ooze when you cut into it, soft-cooked-egg-style, red wine cabbage and red eye gravy). The carrots were from Neil Perry's Rockpool Bar & Grill book, although I modified the seasonings by adding in some fennel seeds and celery seeds. They were bagged with a little bit of butter (less than Perry says because of the fattiness of the rest of the dish), salt, sugar and spices then steamed for about 30 minutes. This was paired with a riesling from Alsace. Two different desserts. Pudding + rum & raisin ice cream + chocolate ice cream (Fergus Henderon's Beyond Nose to Tail) + creme anglaise (Modernist Cuisine at Home) + crumble (cardamom shortbread, cocoa nibs and almond) and raspberries + creme anglaise + crumble + chocolate ice cream. The raspberries were for the communists that dislike pudding. They were partly frozen thanks to my new fridge. Let's pretend that was a feature and not a bug. I served this with a dram of Cowboy's Delight from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society: a rich 15-year-old Springbank.

This. It might also end up too salty.

One of the pieces has a bit of nip on it, actually.

I parked them in a cool, dark cupboard. In a container. With some paper towel wadded up at the base to collect any moisture or grease that might still run from them. Luckily the temperature dropped significantly as the evening kicked in.

You're raising that lass the right way. I do like the look of that marrow.

Cavalier Courage. This is an interesting one. It's an ale developed by or in support of some guy that's dying--perhaps he's dead now, as I saw the Australian Story episode about him some time ago--of Motor Neuron Disease. I consumed this in the midst of a 12 hour session in the kitchen involving everything from locust bean come to pork hocks to pureed pop corn. It's just the right kind of beer for that. I guess what I'm saying is that if this beer was basically my tombstone after I died from some terrible disease for which there is no cure, I'd be rather pleased. Perhaps I'd even suggest you share one with a homely girl if you had thought to please my ghost.

I'm in Australia. It's summer. Room temperature is, er, warm.

I am making the pork scratchings from Heston Blumenthal at Home. The method is as follows: scrape the fat off the skin, salt the skin, park the skin in a very slow oven for about five hours (rub the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again) and then crank the heat up for a final five to ten minutes. Now, I know scratchings are traditionally a snack food. What I want to know is whether I can make them one day in advance of serving without any noticeable loss of crispiness or added rubberiness. If so, any tips on storage? Would it be worth vac sealing them to prevent any moisture creeping in or would a plastic tub in the fridge do the job?

Mountain Goat's Crossbreed. Crossbred because it's shooting for the hoppy hefe thing. Does an okay job of it, I guess. I think sometimes these craft beers can be too hoppy. That metallic note of the hops just dominates. It's the shot of Bailey's.

Rogue's Dead Guy Ale. It was nice enough, I guess.

The chocolate ice cream from Fergus Henderson's second book, Beyond Nose to Tail. I have made some modifications to the recipe--I include a little bit of chilli and cinnamon--but keep the base the same. It's very good. Tastes like, well, chocolate.

Rogue's Dad's Little Helper. A bit more assertive, a bit more character than the Santa Ale. And yet clearly in the same family. I think I like it a little more than the Santa beer but it's a slow burn. I wish I could get 330mL bottles of their beers.

Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve Ale. I guess I like it. Less outlandish than the two or three Rogues I've had so far, which works in its favour. One of my local bottle shops has started stocking Rogue so I have four or five others to try. Something closer to home: Red Hill Brewery's Scotch Ale. Chocolatey but not ... you know, too much. This is a beer I could consume with steak and eggs and frites. It's pretty fucking good. I know I've had Red Hill stuff before, purely because it's avaliable, but clearly nothing was that amazing if I can't remember anything about it. Toe-to-toe I think it has the edge on the Santa beer.

Interesting. I've made two or three attempts at the smoke goat shoulder--once with lamb, I think, the other time with actual honest-to-God goat--and I wasn't very impressed. The book's recipes are hit and miss. When they're good, they're very good. When they're not they're ... not terrible, I guess, but forgettable. Almost as if these were scaled down or modified from a restaurant dish and no one bothered to do a few trial runs to iron out the kinks.

One of my first attempts at homemade bitters was bottled recently and I decided to get a little creative. Not terribly, so. The roots of this are, I think, obvious. Die Bible and Die Rifle Chill a serving glass, Sazerac-style. Meanwhile, in your mixing vessel, combine some cane syrup (enough to form a film over the bottom of the glass), three or so dashes of homemade Boer bitters (heavy on the coriander and allspice), about three drops of Habanero shrub and a scant drop of liquid smoke. Combine this with two ounces of South African brandy: not the rotgut you'd mix with Coke but not the stuff aged to resemble liquid oak. Stir with ice and then strain into the chilled glass. This is a work in progress but I am pleased so far. The smoke and chilli work nicely with the coriander notes.

Thomas Keller's pork trotter (well, hock) recipe. The gribiche was a little rough: this was a long Monday and chopped was enough.