ChrisTaylor

Not yet. No. I figure that sounds like a logical next step and all--at least it is, I mean, until I get a sous vide rig. I should add that in the latest version, I didn't use any aromatics--the pork (flesh, not the skin) was lightly seasoned with black pepper but that was it ... and mostly because I felt it needed something. The crackling ended up perfectly and evenly crisp. No dodgy soggy bits. No burnt bits. I didn't stab or slash evenly or anything--basically I just went nuts with a box cutter and used more alcohol and rock salt than I initially thought sensible. Maybe half way through cooking the skin seemed a bit moist (despite all the effort I'd put into drying it out) so I just wiped it with a paper towel. Maybe that's the secret (of course, you want to be really careful doing this if you're cooking your pork at >100C ...) But. Yeah. Sick of pork belly? Or pork, even? Surely you jest.

Yesterday's effort produced a very nice piece of pork belly. The best I've made so far. I crisped up the skin under the grill/broiler.

Later in the year I'm heading overseas to meet my girlfriend's father. The man, I'm told, likes his whisky. Where he is--and on his budget--he can get Johnnie Red and maybe Black. I want to buy him a nice bottle of whisky, a step up from his usual dram. My thoughts: * Glenfiddich, say, 12 or 15 is very accessible. It's perhaps a little 'boring' but it's a safe bet. * Lagavulin 16. Lagavulin is a whisky that, to my mind, has a flavour that says 'hi, I'm whisky' (peaty, etc) without being as ... assertive as Laphroaig. It's interesting without being divisive. Of course, peaty whiskies in any intensity are divisive. * Or, as much as I wouldn't buy it for myself, a Walker Green or Blue or etc. It's different to buying whisky for a friend or, say, buying whisky for someone who I know likes Talisker. When they're someone who drinks and enjoys a blend that is basically designed to please everyone (as opposed to one of those blends that, say, wants to highlight the qualities of a specific region--i.e. Monkey Shoulder from Speyside), it's difficult. Thoughts?

Trying a modified version of the recipe today. Day one: immersed the boneless pork belly in brine. Day two: removed from brine. Scored and scalded. Rubbed rock salt and vodka into skin. Air-dried in fridge. Day three (today): dried with paper towel. Oven: 100*C, six hours-ish. We'll see what it looks like after the six hours. If need be I'll use the grill or a frypan.

Tonight's fare (for company): * slow-roasted pork belly * the Mexican pork shoulder from Adria's Family Meal * some sauces: the salsa from the above book, charcuterie sauce * some other stuff to accompany the cooked pork (good quality salami, salad greens, tomatoes)

Bushmills 10.

Fun topic. I've yet to arrive at a 'final' recipe. Just like that In Search of Perfection episode, this is a dish I'm always experimenting with. Adjusting this or that. Ramping up or scaling back the tomato content. I don't aim to make something that's authentic as, let's face it, I'm not trying to get a Masters in Italian Cookery--I'm aiming to make something that tastes good. I guess, in short, my bolognese isn't an Italian dish. It's an Australianised version--it's damn near one of our national dishes--that's been bastardised even further with guidance from my father (it was the one thing he knew how to cook) and Heston Blumenthal and others. I find if I feel like something authentic, I call it 'ragu'. If I feel like having my favourite pasta sauce--as much as the name means something very specific and very different to what I make--I use the term 'bolognese' simply because it's what I grew up with. Some points I consider important in all of my versions of this sauce: * Cured pork, of some variety, is a must. I've seen people use pancetta, chopped sausages, salami and all manner of cured pork products. I tend to just buy a slab of bacon and cube it. If you want the mild chilli heat of pancetta and salami you could always add a bit of dried chilli or even a diced fresh chilli. * Vegetables. The trio of onion, celery and carrot are a must. I like to use a lot of vegetables in my sauce--they lend body and sweetness. I cook them until they're soft and almost ready and then add garlic. * Meat. I've tried various combinations and found that the best sauces always, always, always include beef. I've tried supermarket-grade pre-minced meat (of varying levels of fattiness), diced meat and shredded meat. The best, in my opinion, is freshly minced chuck steak. Get it minced as coarse as possible. Pork and veal are nice additions. I don't think a 50% pork/50% beef sauce is superior to a 100% beef-based sauce. It is just, as Bond said about women from different countries, different. I've experimented with some other meats, such as 'roo, but I've never been impressed. * Tomatoes and the cooking liquid. Some versions are very tomato-heavy. Some aren't. I'm still trying to find the balance (it also depends, I guess, on how good your beef stock is--if you're using insipid stock, a sauce light on tomatoes is going to be pretty bland). I tend to stick with a roughly equal balance of pasatta and beef stock. It's rich but ... to me, that's what bolognese is. * Umami. I was never entirely happy with the results of my bolognese for many years. It was never as good as my dad's. I wasn't being nostalgic or anything. He wasn't and isn't the world's best cook. I remember watching the man trainwreck frozen pies and oven fries by attempting to slow cook them (i.e. the packaging said 30 minutes at 180 degrees so he put them in the oven for a hour at 150 degrees, figuring he'd end up with a more flavoursome product). He did, however, use a dab of Vegemite. He was using supermarket-grade mince--often frozen for a fair amount of time--and still ended up with something meatier and richer than what I did, even when I used expensive cured pork products and freshly ground meat. Then Blumenthal taught me about umami. I stopped caring about being authentic the moment I first said, 'What the hell?' and dropped a teaspoon of Vegemite into my bolognese. It changed everything. Ever since then, I became less precious about the sauce and have experimented with umami boosters including Maggi seasoning. Vegemite is a staple. In fact, the only reason it's in my pantry is for red meat braises. It's much too ... assertive to start the morning with. I've yet to mess around with anchovies. * Time. This isn't a quick sauce. You want quick? Go buy some eggs and make carbonara (a sauce I don't fuck around with--the cream-laden versions make my stomach churn). Let the sauce simmer for at least 2 hours. * Pasta. I tend to buy pasta rather than make it. I always buy decent pasta, looking (and feeling, if possible) through the packaging to see that it's got a nice rough texture that'll help it grab onto the sauce.

I've got a copy on its way for my Christmas gift (along with a couple of other new releases). Having seen photos of some of the food they serve at the restaurant--I haven't been lucky enough to actually go there--it seems like the sort of book that should come wrapped in black plastic and purchased by dodgy men in trenchcoats.

If I'm cooking at home, I rarely take pictures. Particularly if it's a work night. I work in an emotionally and socially exhausting job. Navigating the kitchen and going through the motions is tiring in itself. I'm quite happy to just eat, even if it's something I've put a bit of effort (or, at least, money--i.e. a nice steak) into. If it's for a special event of some kind--a dinner party, say--photos are probably going to be taken, but not by me. I'm too busy doing other things to want to fiddle around with the camera. When I go out? It depends. I documented the trip to Sydney (14 restaurants in a week) extensively ... but perhaps partly because I'd spoken about my plans for the trip on eGullet in the months prior to heading up there and perhaps partly because I had company that was interested in documenting the experience. Oft-times, I wasn't the one at the table actually taking the photos. When my partner and I--or friends and I--go out, someone is taking photos and it's very rare for it to be me. I'm happy to bring my DSLR but I'm also happy to hand it over to someone else more skilled/interested in photography. Me, I'm happy to enjoy the experience in the moment. I find looking at food photos a very different experience to being in a restaurant. I guess I look at photos--of fine dining fare, at least--in a very clinical way. Maybe because the food has been reduced to a visual thing, devoid of texture and aroma and the whole 'you're in a nice restaurant with your friends' atmosphere. Then again, it could just be my attitude to photos in general. When I was a child my family rarely took photos. I hate being photographed--I'm socially awkward as is, diagnosally so and being photographed just seems to make it worse--and really sensisitve to bright, sudden lights such as camera flashes. When I have to take a photo for someone else, I find it painful and just want to get it over and done with as soon as possible. I guess I don't photograph or document much of what I cook/eat because I have a decent memory for that sort of thing. If something is important to me--and often even when it's not--and it's the sort of information that can easily be sorted into categories, I tend to have computer-like recall.

Awesome.

The slow-cooked pork is nice enough, too, altho' I admit I modified the recipe somewhat--I felt 400F (200C~) was too hot--given the intent, after all, is to end up with shredded meat you can load into tortillas--so I dropped it to 125C. Four hours became ... 7? 7.5?

The turkey recipe is okay. The drumsticks in the photo looked small--much smaller than the creepily toddler-sized drumsticks avaliable at Australian supermarkets--so I opted for turkey wings. Turns out, slow-cooking gives turkey of non-descript quality a bit of a boost. Have some pork marinating in the fridge for tomorrow night.

Trying another recipes over the weekend--tonight it's the Catalan-style turkey and tomorrow it'll be the Mexican pork shoulder, about which I've heard good things.

The tartare? Let me crack open the book I was thinking of. The guy trims it of excess fat and then runs it through a mincer on the coarsest setting (altho' you can chop it by hand). Flavours it pretty much the way you'd flavour regular tartare--shallots, Worcestershire sauce, some chopped cornichons, a bit of Dijon mustard. He--Chris Badenoch, a guy who first appeared on the Australian version of MasterChef and then went on to open a beer and offal place--serves it with a bit of toasted brioche and the obligatory egg yolk. There's a recipe for cooked hearts, too. The lamb heart is again trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2cm wide strips. It's then seasoned with salt and pepper and then pan-fried for 3-5 minutes over a medium flame.

You're an artist, ScottyBoy. This isn't just the booze talking. I swear. The plate is your canvas. Those dishes are of the standard I've seen presented in some of Australia's very best restaurants. They're of the standard I've seen in some of the most picturesque cookbooks--Keller, Bras--in my collection. Would love to sit down for one of those meals.

Chicken parmigana. A higher quality version of the Australian pub favourite.

Tequila Sunrise.

I have a recipe (that I haven't tried out, mind) for lamb heart tartare.

It's been a lazy public holiday. I sunk to the depths of buying ready-made spinach and ricotta agnolotti. Dodgy pasta and tasteless filling--the only thing letting you know that there was some kind of creamy cheese in that was that almost bile-like taste that sits in your mouth after you eat cheap feta or ricotta pastries. I'd have been better off just giving in entirely and calling up the pizza shop. Low, I know.

It's also polite to eat what's put in front of you. You know, the set menu: take it or leave it. The lady isn't running a restaurant.

Probably neither you or your guests are geeky enough to get 'Manny Calavera'.

When I moved into this house I ran into much the same problem: the burners, even on the lowest settings, were too hot to maintain a simmer. Forget about leaving a pot of stock or ragu or whatever to tick away for a few hours. I start the preparation on the stovetop (browning the meat, cooking the sofrito, etc) before moving the whole lot into the oven for as long as need be. Does create a bit of an issue when you want a sauce to gradually reduce as it cooks (sure, it does that in the oven, but nowhere near as well as it does on a stovetop).

Everything that Jenni said and more. I mean, as someone who can't eat much in the morning, the idea of starting with creamy anything makes me feel pretty shit. Save that for lunch. At the end of the day, whatever the case was--whether he really craved McD's, whether he wanted to get off early out of paranoia he was going to miss his flight, whether he hated your scrambled eggs--it doesn't matter. By the sounds of things you were a good host. You took someone in. You prepared nice food. If a guest doesn't appreciate some aspect of that then, really, what can you do? You're not in the restaurant or hotel business, where the whole reason you get paid is to cater to their whims and desires. You served food that wouldn't offend too many people--steak, eggs, etc (I mean, hardline vegans and all would be offended, but it's not like they're real people anyway). Without knowing someone and their tastes well, that sort of fare is generally a safe bet. I wouldn't stress--about your cooking or about this guy. It's not worth getting upset over.

Bucatini with anchovies, sardines and pine nuts. Followed a recipe from Locatelli's latest book, Made in Sicily.

I'll take your advice and skip on the cheap shit and wait until I stumble across something respectable then.