Mjx

Thats why I posted it on here, to see if anyone had any sources for authentic Ras el hanout Any place that sells good quality North African/middle Eastern spices is likely to carry ras el hanout, or if you're in luck, prepare it for you. The question of what makes for 'authenticity' is usually complex; in the case of ras el hanout, a significant part of it is in the hands of the one who does the actual blending, determining what makes it 'top of the shop'. I haven't tried any premixed ras el hanout, since I prefer to make my own mixtures of herbs and spices, but there are quite a few options online. Kalustyan's (NYC) sells it from their online shop, and it's described as 'house brand': http://kalustyans.co...219&currpage=14. I've seen Mustapha's (Seattle) recommended here and there: http://www.mustaphas...od&productId=45. I've also seen it at Williams and Sonoma. These blends won't contain blister beetle, since it's illegal to sell it pretty much everywhere in the world, but you will have a (I'd hope) lovely spice blend (if you decide to augment it, the ground beetles are described as having a 'disagreeable scent and bitter flavor', so you probably won't want to sacrifice the entire spice blend). If you do find a legit. shop or online source selling blister beetles, try the stuff on your skin before you do anything else with it, since the principal compound, cantharidin, is used to remove warts and treat molluscum (a skin disease), and it can do quite violent things to living tissue; the stuff you find is Santeria shops is intended for burning, and may contain things to enhance burning, definitely not food safe.

Pecan-bourbon pie, with a spiced Graham cracker crust (I believe the spice blend was actually Chinese 5-spice mix). Interesting and unusual, without being even a tiny bit weird.

OT, but I'm afraid this just undermines your position. Do you have any idea how heavily regulated the preparation of fugu is in Japan? Wikipedia (admittedly not always a reliable source) suggests there are less than 50 incidents of fugu poisoning per year - in a country of almost 130 million - and the fatality rate is only 6.8%. Most fatalities seem to arise from people preparing their own fugu catch. Your chances of dying of fugu poisoning from commercially prepared fugu are vanishingly small. I didn't eat fugu when I was in Japan, even though I could have, but that's mostly because it's quite expensive, and reputedly not really all that tasty... I don't see that this undermines my position (that position being, 'Think'). I'm quite aware of the strict regulations surrounding the preparation of fugu in Japan (i.e. the chefs are carefully trained and really, really skilled), but as you pointed out, there are do-it-yourselfers, and (I'll try to find the article, although you may be familiar with the story) at least one idiot who somehow talked an unqualifed chef into preparing fugu (and died). If a friend of mine in the US or the EU said they were going to go out and eat fugu, I would definitely point out that it would be a great idea to look into the chef's credentials; I'd rather have them think I was a neurotic freak than be unsure that they knew what was and should be involved. Getting back to ras el hanout, if I was dead keen on having it with Spanish Fly, I'd first look into scoring some from a legit. pharmaceitical concern (if any even sell it), or harvest the beetles and process them myself to add to a part of a really well-created ras el hanout from a good spice dealer (frankly, since I've already travellled down the chemically-induced UTI road, I don't get the excitement over Spanish Fly, but everyone has their own idea of enjoyment).

These look delicious, but as you say, cutting those circles is really tight, I probably would have just cut them as squares.

Nope. That is literally killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. When it's first expelled (let alone cut) from a whale, the muck is not ambergris, and is unusable as such. It has too flaat about and weather a hell of a long time before it stops being whale shit and becomes ambergris. There used to be more ambergris found because there used to be more whales about to expel it.

C'mon, what are your thoughts on Birds nest soup? Actually, evidence suggests that most of it is expelled as fecal matter. Regardless of which end it comes from, you could argue that it's something entirely different by the time that it's floated about long enough to be desirable. The use of ambergris in food and as medicine goes way back (e.g. Ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Romans; Dumas mentions its pharmaceutical use in his Encyclopedia), so there's no novelty involved, and pretentiousness probably accounts for nearly all its sale and use in food these days. Still, I'm all for its increased use in cooking and any other damn thing, since it can only obtained from live, free-roaming whales, and the demand can therefore only be met by preserving these suckers I'd be interested in experimenting with it, although probably only in perfumery (one of my other interests), since it's really all about the scent, there's no indication it has much to offer on the flavour front.

I'm all for authentic experiences, but even before the ban on blister beetles in food, it was as traditional to make the blend without ground blister beetles, as with them, since there is no defining recipe for ras el hanout; the name means top [lit. 'head'] of the shop, the seller's special or 'best of' blend. If you buy the beetle-augmented type, the seller is going to be operating outside any enforced standards, and can sell you any old crap and assure you it's 'authentic'. Sellers dealing in the un-beetled seasoning are going to have more at stake, in terms of authenticity and quality. As an aside, these beetles are by no means rare (like ambergris), but indigenous pest species and a livestock hazard on several continents including North America, so US corporate greed/politics are unlikely to be at the bottom of this particular ban, particularly as it originated in Morocco in the 1990s. Second, you risk being ripped off, which never feels good. Since the stuff is illegal (regardless of whether this is 'fair' or 'right'), the people selling it to you may pull a fast one and charge you a small fortune for something that they say contains ground beetles, but doesn't (kind of like college freshmen getting stiffed for a bag of oregano, when they buy pot from someone they don't know). Third, if the the sellers do include blister beetles in the mix, since they're operating outside enforced standards, the actual amount of ground beetle added could be enough to cause significant problems (because again, we're talking about not-at-all rare beetles, here, not platinum flakes or ambergris), even when small amounts of the seasoning are used. Finally, yes, I would make similar points to someone having a go at fugu (although here, the bottom line is that if the preparer isn't really, really skilled, you may well end up dead... which does of course have the advantage that you won't be stuck with the dinner bill); the other things are unlikely to drop you dead in your tracks. To be clear, I have no problem with eating invertebrates, or taking risks (if you you knew my life, you'd knw what I mean), it's just, well, don't get so hung up on the authenticity thing that you ditch your common sense. That's all. And hey, if you still want blister beetles in the mix, you DO know that you can find these beetles yourself, in the wild, in the US (as I mentioned, they're a pest species)? Just saying...

I'm kind of lucky, because my boyfriend's tastes and my own are fairly close: we appreciate carefully executed, complex dishes, but are also fine with something like a bowl of pasta topped with some hastily heated crushed tomatoes and basil, and a side of raw vegetables, because god-its-dinner-time-I-had-no-idea. I don't like crap, but have no problem whatever with cheap and no-fuss. Typically, I keep things quite simple, and break out something more complex a couple of times a week, and maybe once a month make something really elaborate. These days, I don't have access to a kitchen of my own, so I spend as little time in the kitchen as possible, and haven't done anything elaborate (=requires the better part of a day, or is spread out over more than one day) in quite a while. I miss that. Duck breasts, chicken breasts, and various cuts of beef and pork, prepared simply (pan fried, or browned and braised) and accompaned by rice or pasta, and raw bell peppers, tomatoes, or carrots are what I end up making most. Roast chicken, larb, various stir-frys, maybe once or twice a month. Since it's usually just two of us, and meat tends to be packaged to serve four, the leftovers are usually turned into some sort of soup the next day. Oh, I make bread twice a week, usually spelt, sometimes spelt/rye blends.

Sounds like you made some good choices (and congratulations on making a point of getting a scale). This was part of a regular e-mail thing from ATK, a discussion of of working with what you've got: http://www.onlinecoo...@googlemail.com

What Hassouni said. I grew up in Florence, so my take on this is obviously biased by that, but I'd describe the fundamental difference between traditional Italian food and Italian-American food as a question of restraint v. excess. I've eaten all over the northern half of Italy (somehow, I've never made it further south than Rome), and the restraint may more evident in Tuscany than Emilia Romagna, but I'd still argue that restraint is always present in traditional Italian cooking. The example that leaps to mind is the two different ways pasta is sauced: in Italy, it's usual to toss pasta in a modest amount of sauce, then serve it; In the Italian-American tradition, it goes on top after it's served out, and usually a lot more is used (or so it seems, although its sitting on top no doubt emphasizes the effect). My own experience is that Italy is fairly conservative about food, and tends to stick with some version of the traditional preparations (although 'convenience' foods are making inroads, and I've certainly come across Italians who cannot cook and only do so reluctantly); even modernist cooking actively embraces traditional flavours, often moving into pure nostalgia (this is not a criticicsm, by the way). To me, Italian-American cooking means traditional Italian preparations adapted by Italian immigrants, owing to the absence of usual ingredients/affordability of previously too-expensive ingredients (not the careful, accurate recreation of traditional Italian favourtes, nor the 'Italian' dishes that have no basis in an Italian tradition, but merely happen to contain some sort of tomato or olive product). Oddly, I've had very little exposure to Italian-American cooking: 'Sunday Gravy'? Never heard of it until I came across it in Cook's Illustrated, and apparently, it's something huge for many Italian-Americans. And it's bigness, it's so-much-ness, really encapsulates the excess (not necessarily a bad thing!) of Italian-American food. I can't think of any parallel to this meat+meat+meat+meatmeatmeat-fest in Italian cooking, but as I mentioned, I grew up in Tuscany, and Tuscans are kind of known for being cheap frugal; beans are really popular, no one is eating a serious bistecca on a regular basis, and traditional deserts run to the dry and the concentrated (e.g. torta della nonna, panforte), rather than creamy and rich. But perhaps even more than the use of more of meat, it's in the use of dairly products, especially cheese, that the difference between Italian and Italian-American food really leaps out at me. At least in savoury dishes, Italian food tends to either not involve dairy, or move it to the background: traditional ragù alla bolognese contains a good bit of milk or cream, but there's nothing creamy about the finished product; Italian lasagnas tend to use dustings of intensely flavoured cheeses, rather than a lot of soft, mild cheeses; cheese on pasta is a light snowfall, not a blizzard. My experience of Italian-American food is that it tends to involve alarming amounts of cheese, perhaps because back when the first waves of Italian immigrants reached the US, the traditional hard cheeses were impossible to find, so they compensated by using larger amounts of the milder available cheeses. This is pure hypothesis, obviously. I'm hoping that some of the other Italian members who've sampled Italian-American cooking will add their perspectives on this.

With a little planning, you can use the meat, even though a lot of its flavour is gone: I use it in filled pasta and empanadas, where the seasoning and other ingredients bring their own flavours, so the meat functions as a filler/flavour vehicle (it's also still valuable as protein).

Erm, the beetles that were sometimes traditionally used are the ones commonly used in Spanish Fly, and the effects of taking this range from mild urethral irritation, to severe, possibly fatal GI and UTI inflammation. The flavour and scent of the ground insects are described as unpleasant, and since the sale of this substance is illegal, you have no way of being certain of the actual nature and concentration of any blend allegedly containing it (you could also just be ripped off by paying a huge price for something that has not so much as a single beetle leg in it).

Anyone have an idea of what might be plagueing these poor tomatoes? Or, anything much you can do with a bunch of not-yet-full-sized green tomatoes?

True, but you can compensate for that by holding back on salting the dish you're using it in, until you're done; despite their saltiness, yeast extracts, like the rest of the ingredients in the umami paste, just seem to work work out better when you can use them separately. I guess it's a question of control; the umami paste just doesn't give any, apart form how much paste you squirt in (i.e. you're stuck not only with the full set of ingredients, but their ratios are pre-set).

In Denmark, it's starting to feel like autumn, so we're waiting with bated breath to see whether things like tomatoes win the race against the first frost. Looking out the window this morning, it struck me that my boyfriend's parents' garden was looking photogenic in a moody sort of way, so the camera came out: I walked about a bit, noticed the apples are almost ripe. These are Filippas, the best-tasting (really excellent, in fact) of the three species in the garden, and native to Denmark: Victoria plums: In a couple of places, I've seen this done with small fruit trees in Denmark, although this is a willow: Grapes (no idea what species; they're a bit like wild grapes, though): Our tomatoes have developed some sort of... I don't know, blight? They fruit looks sound, though it's still small, and I don't know whether these guys are going to make it before frost strikes: On the other hand, on the indoor gardening front, the productive chili plant (De Arbol, I think; we used seeds from a chili given to us by a friend) is being REALLY productive; a lot of the peppers are still green, but but they're starting to ripen, and the plant is still setting flowers: And last, some pea shoots (more indoor garden):

Coffee, Victoria plums, and Filippa apples

I opened an artery in my wrist, sending blood everywhere in the back. This resulted from my placing a dishwsher trayful of glasses on a heap of plastic spoons with great care and tremendous stupidity, making it that much worse. It was so excruciatingly embarrassing that I literally felt no physical pain when I got four (unanaesthetized) stitches about a quarter of an hour later.

Funny, I was wondering how it would be on bread. Think I'll stick with Marmite, though.

I haven't tried it, and doubt I will. Umami paste seems like a textbook example of some focus group riding the coat-tails of a concept they only understand as an abstraction. I looked at the ingredient list when I saw the stuff on a shop shelf, and could not wrap my head around why anyone would think having ALL those things in a single dish would be a good idea. I've stood over a pot, thinking 'Needs something...' and reached for mushrooms and an anchovy, or olives and garlic, lots of combinations, but if I'm even considering throwing more than three of these in a pot, I step back and start considering what is lacking at a more fundamental level (often it's 'decided to take a chance on not reducing X, Y, or Z').

Have you looked in the freezers? I've found frozen organic broiler chickens (and parts) for way, way less than the cost of a fresh one, and in stock, the possibility of the meat texture being compromised by freezing isn't an issue. I've also occasionally been given elderly, athletic (i.e. almost inedibly tough) roosters by owners who'd become seriously sick and tired of the miserable bastards heralding the sun on an hourly basis starting at 2.00 a.m; and they make incredibly tasty broth.

What about draining the ginger and drying it a bit in a warm oven, or with a hair dryer? Other than that, all I can think of is, does the ginger have to be the kind you get in syrup? I've always used soft candied ginger (the kind without sugar over it, or I rub off the sugar).

Because cast iron has exposed carbide crystals, which is almost as hard as diamond. dcarch If you don't slide the pan about, it makes no difference; I'm speaking from nearly a decade's worth of experience. If you slide pans about on a glass cooktop, you're going to get scratches, since there's almost always something lying about loose on the surface.

Regarding cast iron on a glass cooktop, I promise you that unless you drag the skillet around on the surface, you won't scratch it. I use a cast iron pan on a glass cooktop all the time, and it's just fine. What really scratches the top is loose salt between the pan and the cooktop + dragging. Does it have to be purchased on amazon (another gift certificate or something)? You can get a 10 1/4 cast iron skillet from Lodge for way, way less than that: https://secure.lodge...&idProduct=3924 (Or is this still about getting an enamelled pan?) If you do get an enamelled pan, just live with the interior enamel, since you'd almost certainly need a sandblaster to get enamel off anything that is even halfway decent quality.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ! Stop now. Now. Full on, dead stop. In your Dutch oven, you want a fully-enamaled cast iron (i.e., LeCrueset or its ilk.....). For the cast iron skillet, you want a Lodge UNENAMELED at all ! You will have to season it. it will be a bit of a pain in the butt (but not a big one) to do that. You will have to treat it carefully once its seasoned, but its not onerous. You want it ALL CAST IRON, NO ENAMEL. No grinding. No buffing. None of that. Lodge. Look for Lodge. Or Wagner is a good second choice. Note, you do not have to season the exterior, just the insides. What Pierogi said! Keeping the pan in good condition isn't huge deal, either; don't try to soak out gummed on food by leaving it full with water, reseason it occasionally, and you're good. There are lots of different ways to reseason a pan, some much more complicated than others. CI experimented with the various methods, and this was the winner: Heat pan over medium-high heat until drop of water evaporates on contact. Wipe inside with wad of paper towels dipped in vegetable oil (hold towels with tongs to protect yourself). Wipe out excess oil and repeat as needed until pan is slick. (Cook's Illustrated, September/October 2008; part of a larger article on cast iron, so worth getting hold of).

As someone with slightly high blood-pressure (well controlled by some old line medicine), I feel that there is most likely a link between sodium and high blood pressure, and there's plenty of proof about the link between high blood pressure and various other health issues. So I think it's a good move for these companies to proactively attempt to do certain health-positive things to their food. What about you? My first reaction was 'Mitch just want to see us scream and rant'. On the other hand, I've seen so many people reach for the salt shaker and stat shaking out salt without having tasted so much as a bite, I think getting people to pause, taste, and think about how much, if any salt the food needs, is a good idea. There will be plenty of people who will scream about 'nanny governments', of course, so I'm hoping that the emphasis will stay on the way food tastes. But it isn't as though they're witholdingt he salt altogether. Most people who have high blood pressure and take care of themselves are unlikely to thoughtlessly reach for the salt shaker, so I'm a bit sceptical about any purported health benefits of not having the salt shaker on the table.