ChrisTaylor

Wow. Shopping for these recipes is an expensive exercise, even before you look at texture enhancers. The plan of attack for tomorrow (will be doing some prep today) is pretty much as listed. For the extra vegetable component I'll be looking in the direction of the hot/cold potato dish, only I'll be making the hot potato component by itself (using dried porcini instead of truffle). For the dessert I've decided to step away from the chocolate/avocado idea a bit--I'm thinking a licorice (I looked around for powder but, finding none, ending up buying some decent, hard sticks, which I'll grate finely) shortbread with a quenelle of chocolate ganache resting atop. I'll top the quenelle with lime zest and a fresh mint leave. Put a few drops of avocado oil around the place and a bit more grated licorice.

You could do that, but a 5-6 kilogram bird between four people? Why not roast/BBQ the breasts on the crown (maybe rubbed down with whatever rub or marinade you like) and retain the drumsticks and thighs for, I don't know, a pie or some kind of braise the next day?

Thanks for the heads up on ramps. I looked them up in Larousse and Davidson and all I found was rampsomethingorother, which was described as being somewhat like a radish--I figured 'ramp' was shorthand. I'll probably pick some of the young spring onions or leeks from my garden then.

I'm curious about the number of votes that separate restaurant #1 from restaurant #10 or even #100. I've often wondered if what accounts for restaurants shooting up or down a few spots is no more than a handful of votes one way or the other (obviously there's something more at play when a restaurant drops 70 places, but most of the shifts aren't that significant).

If it's summer I'd be making a simple salad--doesn't take that long to throw some stuff, whether it's an assortment of raw veg or cooked potatoes or whatever--and put the dressing, if you make one, in a little jar. Have some chicken breasts, steaks or fish fillets and cook them in a pan. A few minutes' work for a light meal. Serve them with the salad. Sometimes when my partner's home late for whatever reason I'll do pretty much the same thing--just cook her steak for her when she returns home and dress the salad.

Rather than taking it as a 'best of', maybe it's better to view it as a guide to what's cool at the moment in terms of techniques.

Inspired by my success with a somewhat modified version of the 'sour cream, smoked salmon and sorrel' dish, I'm kicking around the idea of devising a meal from the Alinea book. I'll have to modify the recipes for a few reasons--I want a handful of courses as opposed to twentysomething, I can't access or afford some of the ingredients, etc--but I want to try and stay true to the intent and flavour profiles of the dishes. So ... Appetiser: sour cream, smoked salmon and sorrel First 'main': Kuroge wagyu. I don't have a sous vide rig or the dosh to buy wagyu after all the money I blew on cookbooks this past fortnight, so I'll buy a good quality steak, of which each diner will get a decent slice, and cook it as I usually do. Other than that, I'll be staying fairly true. Second 'main': Pork cheek, pumpernickel, gruyere, ramps. Tempted to sub the cheek for a single spare rib each. As for ramps, they're like radishes, yeah? I'll stay true to the flavour profile but I'll probably mess around with the presentation--looking at the components I envision a sort of open sandwich, even, which is probably madness. Where I run aground is the vegetable component. I want to have something that's heavy on vegetables. I also want a dessert. Suggestions? Things that jump out: a simplified version of the chocolate and avocado dessert. Maybe playing with the tomato and complementary flavours. A version of hot potato/cold potato with dried shiitakes or porcinis subbed for truffles.

And, too, Morimoto's book and Foie Gras & Black Pudding.

I've just put my demo version in the freezer. Into the sour cream/simple syrup mixture I added ground dried pink peppercorns and powdered sumac to taste. I was surprised at how much sweetness such a small quantity of syrup gave the sour cream ... and I was surprised at how much sumac I had to add to get the balance right. Sumac smells so potent so it's deceiving, I guess. I'll check on it every half hour or so. The idea seems to be to have it half frozen, half not. The plan of attack is to freeze the sour cream/syrup/spice mixture atop Chinese soup spoons. I'll then grate the frozen smoked salmon over it, add a dried pink peppercorn (which are giving to the tooth--I tried) and a little sprig of dill. It needs some extra colour and, I mean, dill ... seafood ... the association I have from some Central and Eastern European dishes of dill and sour cream ... EDIT Half a hour in the freezer was enough to get the sour cream to firm up nicely. Grating the smoked salmon was a fiddly barrel of laughs but I got there in the end, altho' I'm contemplating dicing it finely instead next time. I could even leave it unfrozen and get it up to room temp and then put it on top of the cold sour cream, to add a bit of a temp contrast. Just to give it more texture. I'll also use less dill next time, as its flavour dominated the sumac and peppercorns. Overall, tho', once I fix up the presentation (the demo version wasn't meant to look pretty--it was all about the flavours and the freezing) I'll have a nice canape on my hands.

The Australian component of the list isn't too far removed from what our two top restaurant ages--the Sydney Morning Herald/Age Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller Top 100--say, altho' there are one or two restaurants that'd be on the list--and Tetsuya's would have fallen off altogether, maybe--that aren't on there at the moment.

I doubt I'd bother making the haggis myself, given getting my hands on fresh offal In Melbourne isn't as easy as you'd think. More than a few butchers will sell you offal, yeah, but it's usually frozen and I often question the rate of turnover. I can buy reasonable pre-made haggis from a British butcher. Slice it up. Throw the 'patties' into a griddle pan and make mini-burgers. Throw in some, I don't know, bacon, caramelised onion, maybe some kind of pickle and, of course, much tomato sauce.

Haggis hamburgers would be pretty sexy, no?

Purely to be difficult, I guess. I mean I'm a teacher on school holidays. It's not like I have much to do with my time aside from causing damage in the kitchen. I think I'll use sumac, yeah. The powder. I also found the peppercorns today--they're dried and all, but I'll live, I'm sure.

Tastes like bloody grass clippings.

Just returned from the Asian supermarket. They couldn't tell me what this was so I pass it over to the wisdom of the eGullet round table.

Yeah I'll check out Springvale. Might even swing by my local Asian supermarket later, as they have a lot of generically Asian herbs and vegetables. Without my car for the next few days, tho', I'll sub in favour of a road trip further afield.

http://www.theworlds50best.com/awards/1-50-winners Nice to see little Attica, the only one I've been to so far (altho' come twelve months from now and I'll have been to another half dozen, mind), jump a fair few spots (~20).

If I don't want to add a liquid (i.e. lemon juice) I suppose, say, sumac (added to the sour cream) would be worth a shot, right? Good tip on the Vietnamese market thing. I work in a big Viet area so I'll drop by and see if I can find any there. On the pink peppercorn front, tho', given I have no idea where I'd find fresh ones (I'm told the trees grow all over the place but I'm not sure what I'm looking for, exactly) I might have to use Sichuans or dried pinks. Will see how it goes, anyway.

I was thinking that for the lamb neck ragu, actually.

Looking at the recipe it dawned on me that I wouldn't end up with the dish pictured in the photo--my best hope was to stay true to the idea. Be inspired rather than bound. I've heard that spinach and lemon juice are a fair substitute but I don't know if I want to go adding liquid to the mixture. The recipe involves combining sour cream with a small amount of salt and simple syrup and then freezing small dollops of this onto a frozen griddle (which can be made at home using something made out of stainless steel and dry-ice--I'm tempted to see if something that retains temp well, like my cast iron grill pan, can be thrown into a really cold freezer for a few hours to be rendered cold enough to freeze small quantities of stuff put on its surface [only one way to find out, right?] or if I can just carefully freeze the sour cream portions in my freezer). The sorrel leaves are carefully poked into the sour cream dollops, as they freeze, and held there until they are frozen in place. The skins of the peppercorns are dusted over this, along with grated frozen smoked salmon. That's pretty much the extent of the dish. I can buy many different greens but I also have a few in my garden possibly worth looking at: mustard greens, watercress, rocket. I have a couple of days to experiment with the dish before I serve it up. I might experiment using, say, something from my vegetable garden, maybe some spinach and maybe even seeing if I can sub the pinks for Sichuans.

Too, speaking of that dish, the text says 'pink peppercorns.' It doesn't say if they should be fresh or dried. The pink peppercorns I've seen for sale are dried, not that I've had reason to buy them until now. And yet he talks about removing their skins. And in the photo they really don't look dried at all. Are fresh pink peppercorns avaliable in the US? At all? Will freshly ground pink peppercorns do?

To the best of my knowledge, I've never had sorrel. All I know of it comes from books. I don't remember seeing it for sale locally and, given that my car is going to be sitting in a mechanic's garage for the next week, I don't intend to go on a road trip to find it. What I'm looking is something I can use instead of sorrel. I did a quick Google search and the first couple of sites I found listed half a dozen things, such as spinach, that don't really seem much like the description of sorrel in Davidson's book or Larousse. Now, for context, what I want to make is the 'sour cream, sorrel, smoked salmon, pink pepper' dish from the Alinea cookbook. The ingredients are pretty much, well, that and a little bit of salt and some kosher salt. Suggestions?

Totally forgot about lamb ribs. Lamb ribs are lovely. You raise an interesting point about tartare. I've never actually had it ... altho' I do possess a recipe for, I shit you not, lamb heart tartare.

I've put my hand up, perhaps stupidly, for hosting a beer, cider & lamb night. My idea--and I have co-conspirators in this, so I'm not alone--is to offer an informal degustation of lamb dishes. Many different dishes, ideally easily and cleanly consumed without cutlery, that cover the various facets of the lovely beast that is the lamb. I want to focus primarily on the interesting, relatively inexpensive cuts such as offal, neck, shank, shoulder (my favourite) and so on. I've a handful of ideas in mind. Some: nuggets of poached and crumbed and deep-fried brains sosatie skewers something involved lamb neck ragu lamb tartare with, I don't know, fresh mint? tomatoes? chevapi I'm in need of--and open to any and all--suggestions. Things I might not have thought of. And, too, ways of turning some large dishes into small portions I could easily sit in a cup, on a little Chinese soup spoon, on a skewer, etc.

That is one sexy burger. One of those, a few homemade potato wedges (ideally cooked in duck fat) and a quality ale and I'd be the happiest kid this side of the equator.