SethG

Checked out a Rick Bayless book from the library, tried to see if there was anything I could make without leaving the house for groceries. I settled upon chile rellenos-- poblanos stuffed with sauteed ground pork and tomatoes, battered and fried, served with a tomato sauce. And I made Mexican rice. And I was going to make my first jicama salad, but the jicamas I bought were slimy. So I threw them away.

Do you own little tartlet pans, mdt? I don't. I wonder how that recipe might scale up to a larger pan.

I have a glass pie plate, but I realized as I was rolling out the dough that it was the wrong size! So I used this 9 inch tart pan I own that has high sides. It worked out fine. I'm glad you like it. Please, Rhea, tell us what you've been baking!

Any other votes? Kirsten, did you have any particular chocolate recipe in mind? Chocolate was proposed first, so why don't we do that, and then the potato loaves next? I don't want to stay away from bread too long.

I was looking lustfully at the rustic potato loaves, but I could also go for something chocolate.

I made Pizza Rustica today for lunch: It's really a pretty simple dish, and it looks pretty impressive when it's finished. But I need some work on my lattice skills. And I wish I had one of those pizza wheels that create a zig-zag edge. This dish is very interesting. It tastes very very good, and Malgieri is right when he says the combination of sweet crust and savory filling is successful. But even though I agreed that it worked, I still found it odd. I'm not sure how soon I'll come back to this one. If I could offer one word of advice to others: Malgieri is serious when he says you should wait for the pie to cool completely before you cut into it. We couldn't wait, and it oozed a bit. The pie was still firming up as it cooled. We should have been more patient, but it looked so good.

The initial posts to this thread have been mighty intimidating. Tough acts to follow. Oh, well. I have something to say about pancakes. Eggs play a supporting role in pancakes. Until recently, most of my experience with pancakes at home came courtesy of a box of Bisquick. But just the other day, I wanted to make some pancakes for my daughter and me, and I came upon a recipe for fluffy pancakes in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. This recipe contains the usual stuff: milk, flour, sugar, a dash of salt, and eggs. But you separate the eggs. And you whip the whites into stiff (but still wet) peaks. (This takes no time if you just get over it and use your stand mixer at 8:00 in the morning. Don't worry about messing up the kitchen-- you've got all day to make it even dirtier and clean it all back up.) Then you gently fold the whites into the batter, and make silver dollar pancakes that are as light as a feather, and as high as biscuits. Delicious. Maybe everybody knew about this already? I didn't. And if you've never tried it either, you ought to. Eggs are such a miracle food.

Oh God, here we go again. I think I made it clear in my original post on this subject-- and I was just trying (and failing) to bait Bourdain, anyway-- that I think total bans on smoking are idiotic. In any event, I don't think the subject calls for more ill-informed generalizations about New York or New Yorkers, thanks.

I assume that this policy is not required by law in this restaurant's location. I'm not a smoker. But I thought we might get a rant or two about the policy from a smoker or two. That's all.

Tony (if I may call you Tony), you don't know the half of it. This is from the website: "SMOKING POLICY For the comfort of diners, our air conditioned dining room is a no smoking area. Smoking is permitted in Juniper’s relaxing bar where a selection of fine beers, wines, spirits, cocktails and soft drinks are served." Also, I think it's hilarious that half the pictures on the website are of the chef!

Beautiful focaccia, Msk! I forgot to mention that I made the lemon pound cake from BWJ yesterday. It is super easy, and really really good.

Ms. Greenspan, I'm very grateful for your book as well. The reason we're using it is that it has received so much favorable word-of-mouth around here-- and from bakers with a lot more experience than us beginners! I'm really enjoying the book. I like to browse through it with no particular goal in mind; it contains so much collected wisdom. And the pictures rock. Thanks again. P.S. You haven't missed much of our baking. We didn't start that long ago!

Don't know Peruvian on Smith, but there's a Peruvian place on 5th called Coco Roco. It's an institution. I haven't been in a couple years, but I always found it to be satisfying cheap food. They have a very good roast chicken that will cost you next to nothing.

mdt: beautiful!! So pizza rustica this weekend, then? I'm interested to see other focaccias, if anyone took any pictures.

Here's my focaccia. (I figured out how to make my pictures smaller.) I needn't have worried about the yeast. It came out great. Not much else to say. I topped it with prosciutto, olives, parmesan, thin garlic slices, and olive oil. I'll be making it again. With a salad, it made a nice light meal for my wife and me. Edit: Neil, did you end up throwing in the towel? Or did you try to carry on without the mixer?

Soba, I tried your chicken tonight-- I was intrigued by using 40 cloves of garlic in a roasted shicken-- I'd previously only seen it done in a pot, sealed at the top with a ring of dough, with the chicken swimming in a ton of olive oil (not that there's anything wrong with that). I also liked your idea of using preserved lemon in the cavity. So the chicken was delish! Although next time I think I'll rub the chicken all over with the preserved lemon, or use more of it. I put in half a lemon in the cavity and it wasn't really noticeable in the final taste. One other thing-- when you make this dish in a pot the garlic comes out so mild and creamy; you then spread it on bread as if it were butter. I tried that here but the cloves just didn't soften the same way. And I wasn't about to cook the chicken one second more in order to get soft garlic cloves. Anyway, the crisp skin on the very garlicky but very tasty chicken was more than compensation enough for the less-than-perfect garlic cloves. By the way, I don't have a favorite roast chicken. I love roast chicken; I roast one at least once a week. But I'm still looking for the perfect recipe. I try new ones all the time. Edit: when I say shicken above, I mean chicken.

Okay, I couldn't hold out any longer. I made the roasted 'flower tonight ($1.99 for the head, from FreshDirect). I was fully prepared to tell you all that I was underwhelmed and that you're all full of it. But I can't say that because it was really very good. I'll be making it again. Thanks again, eGullet! You always come through.

Pan, don't be modest. That's as good an introduction as one could get in just a few paragraphs! My wife and I got engaged in Florence, in 1999, on the day that we climbed up the hill to Piazzale Michelangelo. You did omit my favorite attraction in Florence, and it's no small tourist attraction. I expect it's in all the guidebooks: San Marco. The convent and the cloister are both beautiful, but the works of Fra Angelico are true originals, especially his famous Annunciation at the top of the stairs. When you walk around Florence, you sometimes feel like you're lost in an ocean of madonnas and bambinos-- then when you see something as striking and different as Fra Angelico's work, it really makes you pay attention.

I'm with you, B. Atkins can suck my dough hook!

Well, I'm just going to go with it. My second rise is just about done, and it's only been a little over an hour total, for both rises together. But whatever. It'll be good anyway, I reckon. Homemade bread is like that, isn't it? Anyone got any ideas for the next project after focaccia? I keep looking at the Tourte Milanese (incredible color photos on pp. 360-61) and the Pizza Rustica (photo on p. 363). Or should we do something sweet, maybe something from the cake chapter?

That sounds like a real bummer, Plax/Neil. I just made my dough, and I have a different problem. My mixer handled the dough just fine-- it did get warm, but I didn't smell any parts burning or anything. I cut the recipe by a third, so I will have two focaccias instead of three. I think this might have helped with the mixer. I also sprayed the hook with Pam, which I think really helped. I never really had to scrape it down. My problem is this. I'm always using SAF-instant yeast, because I have a big bag of it. In the introductory section of the book somewhere, Greenspan says that's okay, but use only 75% of the yeast called for in the recipes. So today I did the mental calculation, and put in one and a half tablespoons of SAF-instant yeast. Twenty minutes after putting up the dough to rise, I realized that I forgot to cut the amount of yeast by another third, to match the amount I had cut all other ingredients! So I went to check on my dough, and it's already getting kind of close to doubled, after less than half the expected rise time. Am I going to be okay if I just shorten the rises and proceed with the recipe? Or is this focaccia a lost cause? Should I start over?

Just wanted to report that I'm using my moka pot every day and loving it. Thanks eGullet! By the way, I haven't got the slightest idea what "early boil trouble" is, and I think I don't want to know.

That sounds about right to me! I don't have any garlic-infused oil, so I think I'll just add some garlic.

This is a club I'll join. I couldn't think of any aversions to list either. I have a stomach that's slightly on the weak side-- big piles of shellfish and very rich foods somethimes make me sick. But I eat them anyway!

Well, no responses this week, but I know at least three or four of you made a tentative commitment to focaccia last week! Assuming somebody besides me still wants to make focaccia, how are you planning to top it? The basic herb version in the book seems less than thrilling. I might try to make a pizza out of it. Do you have any favorite toppings?