ChrisTaylor

I made this with Abelour cask-strength, purely because it's my favourite Speyside (altho' I did initially reach for the Glenfarclas 15). It's okay--I didn't like the first sip but it's growing on me.

Islay and BBQ.

The wings in David Chang's book. You brine, smoke, confit and saute them. Then hit them with tare. Awesome.

The first talks about 'non-scientific' studies; the second contains research conducted by the eminent research institution "Cook's Illustrated." Anyone have anything more scientific? This is what I'm looking for too. And I say this as someone coming at this with some very obvious cynicism. I have no issue with being told I'm wrong, but I'm really, really, really doubtful when I hear stories like oh, we stopped seasoning our food with salt x and all of a sudden our food started to taste like shit. If sea salt does have trace amounts of interesting flavours in it--say, some small percentage of, well, stuff that's not actually salt--I'd be surprised if those elements shone through when the salt was sprinkled over a strongly flavoured dish. Or, at least, shone through so strongly that they influenced whether or not the dish tasted 'good'.

This is a really interesting drink. Really interesting. It took me a few careful, considered sips before I even decided I liked it. Perfect drink for a quiet and cold winter night.

I take it they're tasted in brine form so people don't let their preferences for certain textures/grain sizes make them think that, oh, sample A tastes superior to sample D.

As an Australian, I think maybe I have some sort of patriotic duty to be a big fan of caramelised onions cooked on a BBQ hot plate (appendix: 'BBQ' in Australia refers to a gas-powered hot plate and, maybe, grill) with sausages and bread and tomato sauce of the most dishonourable of origins. Onions, especially when caramelised, are my favourite vegetable. I can't think of any reason not to eat them with, well, anything.

This guy I know, he likes expensive things. He went out and purchased 500 grams of salt for ~$40 (AUD, but that's basically $40). I like nice things. Some of these nice things are expensive. But $40 for salt is, well, a fair bit. This wasn't truffle salt or anything of that nature. This was Welsh sea salt. The price tag isn't so much the issue. In fact, it's bordering on an irrelevancy. Maldon salt in Australia isn't as expensive as the salt my friend bought, but it's still significantly the supermarket's standard 'sea salt' offerings. Salt is an interesting topic. You can spend a lot of money on salt and buy a lot of different kinds of salt, even before you get into the realm of smoked salts, flavoured salts, salts with bits of truffle in them, salts mixed with ash, et al. Looking over old threads here, there are people who collect salts. For each kind they have a specific purpose in mind. But what's, really, the difference? I get that when I go to the supermarket and pick up salt, it might come as fine grains or large rocks or fine flakes (like Maldon). It may be hit with anti-caking agents or other additives. But aside from that--and large grain/flake sea salt tends not to have those additives--what, really, is the difference? Is there a difference, aside from subtle textural differences (and the way it's easier, I guess, to evenly season something w/ less salt using a coarse salt than it is table salt) I might get from seasoning my rib eye with Maldon as opposed to my friend's Welsh salt? Has anyone--say, one of you with a large-ish collection of sea salts--done a blind tasting (and again, I'm not talking about black salt or smoked salt or lemon salt or anything like that--just 'plain' but costly sea salt). How can one sea salt have noticeably more of a 'subtle sweetness' than another? Is Maldon, on a chemical level, truly different to the Welsh stuff or salt from Hawaii or salt from Nigeria or salt from, God forbid, a big 1 kilo bag I purchased for $3 at the supermarket (as opposed to ~$8 for a little box of Maldon)?

Just tried this one, too. I don't have any blended scotch at the moment (keep forgetting to pick up a bottle of Monkey Shoulder, say) so I went with Glenfarclas 15. I liked this a whole lot more than I thought I would ... which is odd, really, as I have no reason to imagine it being shit. I like Speyside. I like orange. Nice find. EDIT While we're on the topic, I really like a Blood & Sand with Talisker or gutsy Islay. I like the 'Cherry Ripe dipped in an ash tray' quality of it. For about two seconds I thought this was my idea then I went to some cocktail bar in Melbourne and spotted a B&S variation that had, among other changes to the standard recipe, Laphroaig 10 instead of the more usual blend. I do find the use of blends in cocktails interesting. I get why, on some level, it's done, but the standard 'oh, use a blend' line rarely, if ever, talks about what kind of blend to use. Johnny Green is not Monkey Shoulder is not Peat Monster. They're three blends that, off the top of my head, are very different animals--varied and unique in character, as distinct from each other as Glenfiddich is from anCroc is from anything from the Isle of Jura. I use single malts in cocktails, not that I make many scotch cocktails, purely because that's what I have on hand. Do you use blends or single malts? If so, what blend/single malt do you favour (ignoring the cocktails that specify the use of, say, Oban 14 or Laphroaig 10)?

This I mostly like. I think I might make another with a bit more scotch in it--it's ever-so-slightly too sweet for my tastes.

Saw that too. Kicking around the idea of one of the classes.

I just mixed up a Mai Tai following Wikipedia's recipe. And I like it. I've had it before. The dominant note, for me, is the orgeat ... altho' it's not so strong that it overpowers the lime/rum factor. And yet the other night my partner ordered a Mai Tai when out. I tasted it and all I got was lime, lime, lime, lime, lime, lime, lime, lime. Like maybe they used a drop too much lime juice. >_> What's the 'point' of the drink? What's meant to be the 'star(s) of the show'? Did this bar get it right and me, a cocktail novice, screw it all up with my (real almond but not actual orgeat) orgeat?

About a week overdue -- an image from my Escoffier-themed dinner. Starting at the bottom left-hand corner of the image ... Tournedos Rossini. Except not. Instead of fillet I slow-roasted a rib-eye, Hestonstyle, and served it with bloc de foie gras. The sauce is Escoffier's Madeira sauce. To make the sauce I first made brown stock, then brown sauce and then demi-glace, which I jacked with Madeira. Oxtail soup. The broth is pretty much Escoffier's recipe, altho' he bases his oxtail soup on water (the idea being, of course, that after ~8 hours ticking away on the stove the water will be rather broth-like). I opted to use his brown stock as a base. The dumplings contain the oxtail meat as well as some rehydrated morels, parsley and chives. Various charcuterie bits and pieces. I mostly bought things--the olives, the various cured beef and pork products--but there are a couple of things I made there (the carrots and mustard seeds, both of which came from David Chang's book). Not pictured: truffled roast chicken (slow-roasted Hestonstyle, of course), assorted roast vegetables and annachan's dish of oxtail, pig bits and sausages. I also made a ratatouille but, as I finished things off, covered it and set the pot aside to make room on the stove. And then ... I forgot about it. Only when I got into bed, when everyone had gone home, did I remember I still had a pot of ratatouille just sitting on the bench. When it'd been out far too long to say, oh, I'll just put it in the fridge and eat it for lunch tomorrow. Sad story, that. There are also no dessert pictures.

Today I made: - slow-roasted leg of lamb - pommes boulangere - potato and leek soup The leg of lamb was okay. I think I'll revisit it w/o the anchovies. At 60C, the anchovies do not melt as they do in a leg cooked at the more usual 160-190C. Well. To a point they do. But nowhere near as much as you maybe want. The potatoes were again, okay. I used chicken stock as I didn't have any lamb stock on hand. The soup was nice enough, altho' out of the (two) soups I've made so far I think the mushroom is vastly superior. Will get around to the marmite consomme soon enough.

From the other day: another haresfur-brand™ modified Dark and Stormy. This time it was a shot of rum and a half shot of Cointreau (it seemed like a sensible starting point--I didn't want to overdo it) w/ the ginger ale. Surprisingly quite sweet. I say surprising because Cointreau isn't hugely sweet, so far as that sort of thing goes, by itself. Still, I don't think I'd want less of it. The orange-ginger combo works well. At some point I might get around to seeing what orange bitters or Grand Marnier (in place of both the rum and Cointreau) might do to it. Maybe.

Well actually, for food products, they deliver nowhere on the planet outside the US, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Why am I reminded of the baseball 'World' Series? >_>

Looking back and all, not that I tried them side by side, but the 8 might just be that little bit superior to the 12. A little bit. It's a close call, though. I've heard good things about the Rochefort 10. It's also far, far, far cheaper than the Westvleteren. Any others you'd recommend?

The other two Westvleterens. The 8. Same smooth mouthfeel, altho' this one feels a little more carbonated than the blonde. V. fine bubbles, tho'--more Veuve than Coke. Again, subtle and restrained and everything else. More yeasty/bready notes, tho'. Another yes. Westvleteren's flagship brew. Like its brothers (sisters? cousins? ships and cyclones are women, but what about beers? are they asexual like old Soviet countries?) it's all underdone, subtle, restrained, altho' this being a darker beer it is obviously *less* underdone, subtle, restrained. It's very good. Is it the best beer in the world, as hailed by basically every 'best beers in the world' list ever printed or uploaded? Well. I don't know. I mean, 'best ever' is a pretty subjective thing and, just as price makes foie gras/caviar/et al more exciting, the difficulty in acquiring Westvleteren beers probably adds to the appeal. That and the label-less bottle and the fact the monks only brew just enough to keep the monastry running. And, too, the way it's one of the few truly true honest-to-God (pun intended) Trappist beers left. So. I don't know. But it is pretty fucking good. And so are the others. They're different beasts, sure, but I wouldn't rate the 12 any higher or lower than the 8 or the blonde.

A very very very good example of a Belgian blonde. Soft and smooth mouthfeel, altho' the finish is pretty subdued. Only a hint of that 'metallic' note Blondes tend to have. Only a hint, too, of carbonation. The whole package is somehow subtle without seeming watery and insipid. This is very much a yes. Worth the expense of the import. Shipping was fast, too. I kind of expected them to piss fart around a whole lot, but Belgium > Australia took a week-ish. Which is only marginally longer than how long it takes for an order from a large, Australian online store to arrive. Not that any local stores stock the Westvel range.

I read your post as I was sitting in a local restaurant, waiting for a takeaway order. On the way home I hit Coles for some ginger beer. Just for this. And it was worth it.

To a Dark and Stormy?

A couple guests tried making a Dark and Stormy w/ pimento dram instead of regular dark rum. Kind of works.

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/conservation/the-good-oil-on-food-miles-its-a-bit-of-a-myth-20120414-1x0jy.html Pouring more fuel onto the smouldering coals.

I've had it and it's not so great. Not terrible, but *meh* compared to freshly cooked rice. Even living as a lazy and temporarily single person I don't find it's worth it. But last year I overheard a group of people talking about it and how fabulous it was. So convenient, saves time, perfectly cooked, etc. I suspect a lot of people find rice painful to cook, particularly if they are from a potatoes & noodles eating background and rice isn't a big part of their diet. Surely potatoes prepared in basically any form, aside from plain boiled or baked potatoes, are more labour intensive than rice--particularly if you throw down some pocket change in the direction of a small rice cooker.

I'm keen to get feedback from Nich and annachan, but I was happy enough with the results. * The beef wasn't especially well-marbled to begin with and didn't have much, if anything, that resembled a layer of fat on the outside. Welcome to buying beef at 90% of Australian butchers. So I was a bit worried that maybe slow-roasting wouldn't work. And yet it did. I was very happy with the rest. I seared it (salt, no oil, no pepper) in a screaming hot pan then moved it to a tray (purely because that pan holds its heat well and would continue to cook the before at too high a temperature when moved to the oven). I then drizzled it with a little truffle oil, added some more salt and pepper then roasted it for ~3 hours at ~70C. I then rested it in foil for just over one hour. I was happy with the rest, which was medium rare with a very gentle gradiant of colour inside--a fairly even pink 'cept for the very middle. So not quite as 'even' as you get with sous vide, but different to how I've seen 'traditional' roast beef or steaks turn out. * The chickens were brined, fridge-dried and then hit with a compound butter, most of which went under the skin, along with some slices of preserved truffle. It took about 3.5-4 hours for them to reach 60*C (which they hit within about five minutes of each other--buying two chickens of the same size was the plan). I then rested them in foil for about one hour, too. The oven was cranked up to 225*C and I gave them just shy of ten minutes--the skin wasn't flabby but wasn't crisp. Any other time I'd aim for crisp skin, perhaps by giving it the prescribed 250C/10 minutes treatment, but my aim was more for truffle flavour/aroma than crispy skin. I was happy with the result. A noticeable step up from traditionally roasted chicken (my go-to method always involves brining and air-drying, so I don't attribute the improvement in quality to the prep).