patrickamory

Just got another block of unsalted Echiré and felt moved to post about it. I think it is the ne plus ultra of butters. Rich and soft on the tongue even out of the fridge, with a slight tang. Perfect smeared on some black Finnish ruis bread.

Oh man Prawncrackers you're killing me. Can you share the recipe for the Chettinad curry?

A fairly elaborate ras-el-hanout. Toasted spices below, untoasted spices (including dried rose petals and lavender) on top. Pressure-cooked a beef stock from oxtails. Browned a 3-pound chuck roast and then used the stock and the ras-el-hanout to make a Moroccan pot roast, cooked for 3 hours in a 325F oven. Served with dried cherry couscous.

I love my Rifi tagine. Beautiful, easy to use, and it's turned out dozens of delicious dishes. Everything I've cooked in it has turned out tender and shot through with all the flavors of the ingredients. It works like a tagine should work. But note: It's a completely unglazed vessel, and it does really have a characteristic smell and flavor, which gets more pronounced over time. I guess I could describe it as "earthy," though that doesn't really capture it - it's more distinctive than that. I'm assuming this is from the seasoning that an unglazed pot gathers from all the meals cooked in it, combined with the bouquet of the original porous clay and its first seasoning with olive oil, and in my case, ashes. You may or may not want this in a given preparation, which is why I'm thinking about getting a glazed tagine to use as well. Just something to consider.

40 is a great year Shelby Negro de arbol beans slow-cooked with roasted poblano, a local bacon and sage. More hen of the woods, sautéed in butter.

I agree 100% with the article. In fact, I always wave away cocktail menus - not interested in looking at them.

I use my Rifi tagine on the stove top all the time. I generally use a flame tamer and don't go much above medium (gas). [Edit: You need to allow yourself extra time. Particularly when the instructions say to bring something to the boil. Can be as long as 30 minutes. And be sure not to add cold ingredients to hot tagine, or vice-versa. It's all about matching the temp of the ingredients to the clay, and being comfortable with gradual.]

Too cutesy. It would have been just as entertaining, but more instructive, if they'd done it with seventh graders. Echos of the Wire?

I got my Rifi tagine from them - super smooth and fast, no problems. I'm iffy on the unglazed. Maybe it's gotten a bit musty from not using it all the time - I seem to remember Wolfert posted some advice about that. Time to re-season maybe. But I've also been thinking about getting a glazed or semi-glazed instead. The unglazed definitely has the prior dishes' flavor. I'm just not certain I always want that. Maybe I just want the slow-cooking conical rehydrating functions of the shape. TBD.

I try not to refrigerate cheese - it's almost always better outside the fridge. However it generally wants to be cooler than NYC room temp. Before my wine fridge broke, that was the perfect place for it. About 55F.

Yes - front yard! The amount is staggering - new ones popping up daily. They come up under a 120 year old oak tree that is dying, which is apparently an environment that maitake love. (If we don't harvest them, the local landscapers come around and just come right up on the lawn and take them.)

In Boston for the weekend. 4 lbs of hen-of-the-woods, harvested from the front yard: Cleaned and sliced: Cream of mushroom soup: Count neck clams from Barnstable: Pasta with white clam sauce: Tongue of fire beans, grown in the town we were staying in: Shelled: In a Tuscan style salad:

Here you go - Habaneros tend to be more smoothly tapered from their stem to their tip, while Scotch bonnets have a more distinct double-bell shape, their tops spilling over like a fat man wearing a too-tight belt. With photo (scroll down to third photo) http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/08/the-food-lab-how-to-make-jerk-chicken-at-home.html

The labeling is completely random here in NYC. I was about to agree that Scotch Bonnets are unavailable, when I realize that what I regularly buy labeled as habaneros are actually Scotch Bonnets! See the Serious Eats article on how to distinguish between the two.

1. Echoing Alex: salting sufficiently, and early enough in the cooking that the salt is absorbed into the food 2. Toasted ground Sichuan peppercorns are fantastic in all kinds of marinades, stews and chilis (not in ma quantities) 3. Anchovies. Nuff said.

I use it all the time - I love wax paper. For keeping pieces of reggiano or pecorino for long periods of time, Marcella Hazan recommends that you wrap the cheese first in wax paper, then in foil. I wrap in fresh pieces of wax paper and foil after each use. This has kept them for years in my fridge. If they do dry out too much, you can wrap a damp piece of cheesecloth in with the cheese, then wax paper then foil, and leave it for 2 days. The cheese will come back to life (discard the cheesecloth). Great for wrapping sandwiches too. Just nicer in every way than plastic wrap.

Yum! Those beans look great Soba.

RG is no longer supplying white runner cannellinis… they propose these royal coronas instead: http://www.ranchogordo.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RG&Product_Code=1CAN&Category_Code=DHAHB4#.VCyx8VaRpg0 Anyone try them?

IndyRob, Very well put and very good points. However I'm not sure about the butters. Perhaps we want the American butter for, say, chocolate chip cookies. For whatever reason, it melds better with the sugar and gives a better texture (I'm just guessing here). But when you say to save French cultured butter for spreading on bread and not for _any_ melted butter application, isn't that going a bit far? After all, the French have been melting cultured butter for centuries and using it for roux or sautés. It's probably not detracting from another element if it's a quintessential part of their cuisine - melted or not? Similarly for any European cuisine that uses melted butter in some application or another, which would be most of them - presumably the recipes were built around cultured butter and something will be lost in the change. I also like to heat decent olive oil for mirepoix or soffrito. Not necessarily the stuff that costs $25+ a bottle, but probably stuff that costs $15 a bottle. I can certainly smell and taste the difference. Anyway, my 2 cents (or 2 dollars, if we're talking about expensive imported products).

Aha, that makes sense. Thanks guys - very edifying!

bobag87: keep it coming!

re: City Chicken. This is deep - I've never heard of it. Surely veal (and even pork) were more expensive than chicken? Or was it just a clever preparation, and not an attempt to disguise something?

I love Ruth Rogers' recipe for pasta with porcini. I have some hen of the woods coming… will report back on that.

I think anyone who thinks eggplant is tasteless might be eating the wrong eggplant.

Continuing to work my way through Franci's pastas. Tagliatelle burro pancetta e salvia (pasta with noisette butter, pancetta and fresh sage): Served with heirloom tomato salad Also returned to yellow eye beans Tuscan style, but this time I roasted Hatch chiles and used them as a base Served with zucchini fried in butter (anyone who says you can't do this is wrong - some bizarreness out there on the web) yeah I like sage and grow it