Panaderia Canadiense

Cilantro (at least, the cilantro I grow) looks like that when it's maturing - the broad leaves are, for want of a better term, "baby" leaves, and the finer ones are the mature leaves. The baby leaves have very little of the compounds that make cilantro taste and smell the way it does, but the mature leaves are right full of cilantro-y goodness. I don't even bother harvesting until I see the feathered growth. Incidentally, if you leave that it will flower in about 3 weeks. So here's a question for you: how hot has it been in your garden lately? Hotter weather induces earlier maturation in cilantro, and can concentrate the flavours more heavily in the feathered growth....

My vote is now going out to the boat-fresh yellowfin tuna steaks that my local favourite fishmonger has had the last week or two. However, he assures me that when the dorado (mahi mahi) starts running, that will be even better....

Add one to the "sort of minty in a pleasantly green watercress-y way" flavour perception for Cilantro; I can't smell stinkbugs either (at any time, although I've never been so hungry as to want to eat one), and I do perceive the asparagus pee smell. Definitely a spectrum thing going on.

It's called a Comedor here in Ecuador; they typically have 3-4 tables in the living room of the house, and serve 3-course set-plate lunches. Very popular, because they're not very expensive ($2-3 for a full lunch that includes soup, main, dessert, and fresh fruit juice) and the food quality is typically over and above a "budget" commercial restaurant.

Japanese turnips Mushrooms of your choice (whatever looks best) Potatoes Cippolini onions Herbs Butter

I am intensely jealous of your crust, Ann. Do you care to share the recipe?

Mine have traditionally been named after dictators, but often with horrible puns thrown in for fun. So I've had Atilla the Hen, Ghengis Chook, Pullet Pot, and so on....

Shades of Hitchhiker's Guide.... Personally, I think it's not such a great idea, for reasons stated above. We know from studying humans with congenital anaesthesia that they're more likely to injure themselves gravely without really noticing - why on earth would it be a good idea to give that to poultry, which are not bright to begin with and prone to pecking one another?

Keith, I know from shrimp with roe, and this was not one of 'em. Thank you for the link, Celeste - I'll check it out, and now I don't feel so bad about turfing the shrimp.

OP says he can't stand tea with lemon, so I'd suspect that citric acid, although more easy to procure, would produce a flavour he finds disagreeable....

OK, so I was peeling and deveining some blonde mangrove shrimp I bought this morning from the fishmongers here in Ambato, Ecuador, and in one of them I found this weird black lumpen thing. I discarded the shrimp and its lump, because it creeped me right out and I figure better safe than sorry. Sunday is fresh catch day so these are no more than 12 hours out of the sea, and they're an small-scale traditional fishery so anything is possible. I'm very curious if anybody else has ever found this in a shrimp. If so, what the heck is it? A parasite? A cancer? Did the shrimp swallow something untoward and then cover it with shrimp excreta, sort of a shrimp pearl thing? It was hard and kind of gravelly in texture (if that makes sense), and it separated easily from the flesh of the shrimp. I was too weirded out by it to try dissecting it.

Hahaha!! Someone I knew would faint at the very notion.¶ Cook and eat a blue-eyed pleco? Like the one she kept and which she swore winked at you and followed your movements around? Heh. ¶ Although I presume you mean the related ones, not the blue-eyed pleco. :-) I haven't eaten blue-eye, but that's more a question of it not being a native fish in the rivers I frequent. These ones, however, are often on the table when I go fishing in the Río Puyo or the Río Cosanga.... Until I looked at your link, it had never occurred to me to try frying them - I fish them with cast nets and generally get smaller catch that what's shown there (probably because I'm not in deeper water).

The best tasting fish is the one I'm eating. I'll admit a fondness for some rather odd fish, as well - particularly Carachama, which most people know as Plecostomus and keep as pets. They're very nice steamed in canna leaves with a bit of garlic and palm hearts.....

I've got a head cold right now, so it's a hot ginger toddy. 1 part ginger syrup 1 lime's worth of juice 1 tablespoon of honey hot water to nearly the top of the mug, and 3 oz of rum.

Melted butter will go a really long way, as will molasses, to boosting flavour. How was the texture of the KA loaf? Was it moist or was it drier? You might also want to try this, which is my go-to honey whole wheat. It's got all sorts of flavour and is quite moist and tasty.... It's not a 100% whole wheat, but I think that actually works in its favour. 4.5 oz pea flour (or similar light-bodied non-wheat flour; quinua or amaranth is nice) 18 oz unbleached AP flour 3 C water, at 50 C 1/3 C honey 1 oz active dry yeast Sift the flours together. Stir the honey into the warm water, then add the yeast to this and allow to stand until you have a good head of foam. Stir the liquid into the flour, cover, and allow to double or triple in bulk (about an hour on cool days, and less when it's warm). This is a poolish pre-ferment. The most finely-milled whole wheat flour you can get. This measurement depends hugely on humidity, so I simply don't measure anymore - I add to the poolish until it hits the right consistency, which is smooth without being too stiff, and the dough stops sticking to my hands and the bowl. Usually this is in the range of 18-22 oz. 1/2 C butter, melted (this is 1/4 C of final volume - you start with 1/2 C of solid butter) 1/3 C honey 1 TBSP sea salt * Up to 1 C oats (optional, but yummy) Add the butter, honey, and salt to the poolish, then start adding the whole wheat flour while you mix and eventually knead with one hand. Stop adding whole wheat flour when you've got a dough that is fairly smooth in texture and doesn't stick to your hands when you knead. Continue kneading until the dough is slightly elastic, then put it in a greased, covered bowl and let it rise until it roughly triples in size (anywhere from 1 to 3 hours). Punch down, form into loaves or buns or whatever, and allow to proof until roughly doubled. Brush with butter. 425 F is the oven temperature; for 2.5 lb loaves, I bake for roughly 35 minutes, or until I've got a nice Maillard browning going on. For buns, usually about 20 minutes.

Oooh, ooh, I've got one. This was a mouthwateringly delicious Chicken Vindaloo, a dish which is most unfortunately not all that photogenic.

I've been on a shrimp kick lately, when I actually bother to make something more substantial than a sandwich, some crackers, or a bowl of ramen noodles, or a reheated bowl of something I found at the back of the fridge (too much work lately, not enough time for cooking for myself!) - those are things I'd rather not show you, because I'm kind of ashamed of them.... Camarones Al Ajillo Shrimp in Mushroom Cream Sauce, with beef tenderloin in a brandy reduction Shrimp pizza

David, have you ever come across super jumbo ones (like, 4-6" across?) I pleat all of my empanadas by hand, and have only come across the teeny ones that are good for personal consumption empanadas but not so hot for sale ones, which have to be big.

Looks like it's a blend of white and brown rice flours, with tapioca starch and potato starch. You could try blending from those ingredients - the general rule is 40% whole grain (heavy) flours to 60% white (lighter) flours or starches. I have no idea what's available to you in Denmark - you'll probably end up with work-arounds.

Figs come to mind immediately, as do ripe Persimmons. I have no idea about availability in your area, but can you source red-skinned bananas? Have you ever found Mamey or Zapote? How about Babaco?

Thank you! Part of the wonder of these cook-offs is that they are timeless and we can regularly revisit each one for discussion and inspiration. Did you brush the dough with egg wash to get that shine? Yup, that's egg yolks cut with just a bit of water. The dough itself is slightly shiny on its own, though.

I'm a cheesecake nut, so I'm slightly envious of your creation here. What are the components exactly? This might be fun for you; I'm in Ecuador and my cheeses are not quite like anywhere else. In general, it's a mixture of 250 g mascarpone that I make myself from nata (the cream that rises to the top of the cream, when you buy milk from Guernsey cows), 250 g of a very soft locally-produced cream cheese, and 500 g of hard-pressed ricotta from full-fat mozzarella. To that, I add between 8 and 10 oz of melted Caoni baking chocolate (about 75% cocoa solids), about 8 oz of panela (truly raw sugar), and three big, farm-fresh eggs. It sits on top of a crust composed of crushed up chocolate animal crackers and fresh butter - something I don't measure anymore, since I make so many crumb crusts. Bearing in mind that I'm at 10,000 feet of altitude, 1 hour at 350 F in a floured 25 cm springform pan. It's covered in a dark chocolate ganache made using more of the Caoni baking chocolate bittered with a product called Mother of Chocolate, which is close to 100% cocoa solids, in crema (the cream that the nata is skimmed from). My general recipe for this is floating around in one of the ganache threads. Finally, the cake is drizzled with high-cocoa-butter white chocolate, and decorated with grageas (sesame seed dragees in bittersweet chocolate) and shaved milk chocolate. The end result is so rich and chocolatey that even the most diehard chocoholic is hard-pressed to finish a 1/12 slice.

For my mom, hands down, it's a lemon cornmeal shortcake with strawberries macerated in honey and rum on top....

It might also be a blueberry thing. My hands-down favourite jam is made with Mortiños, which are Ecuadorian-native highland blueberries. They make a lovely sauce in the pot, regardless of how much pectin I add (I use Citric Pectin, since it's what's available, and boost it with shredded apples in the jam base itself). However, by two or three weeks from jarring, it's a perfect thick consistency, just exactly as you're describing with your preserves. So maybe the answer isn't more pectin or any other change, but just a bit more anticipation time?

You can. The proportion I was taught is 3/5 oz (18g) of cake yeast for every 1/4 oz (7.5g) of active dry. You'll want to crumble the cake yeast into your warm liquids - this exposes the maximum surface possible for activation and proofing. Incidentally, I use liquids at between 45 and 50 C for initial yeast proofing - get it active quickly, then use long initial and secondary proofing times with no additional heat to develop flavour and texture. (Also, since I'm at very high altitudes, I generally bulk proof twice before the bench proof.)