Martin Fisher

Pffft!!! Boning hooks and such are used extensively in butchery—have been for many decades. I don't think it should be assumed that any piece of meat hasn't been hooked, punctured or jabbed in some way, although some cuts are less prone to 'abuse' than others.

Cool! I plan to try the 'Turbo Broccoli" with umami butter soon.

Love it!

Yeah, not agricultural pigs—but pet pigs are often spayed to prevent the spread of congenital defects to offspring or to, supposedly, reduce the risk of some cancers.

It's wheat dextrin, a fiber—it's not noticeably sweet. Well, that's subjective. I wouldn't call it sweet—and I'm one who's definitely not a sweets freak.

A bit—but that's okay. Don't do anything you're not comfortable doing. Meats with a much greater surface area are frequently cooked sous vide — meatloaf, pate, terrine, sausages, etc. What's most important is that the food be cooked in a safe way, which he mentions earlier in the book—core pasteurization, etc. See Douglas Baldwin's work, Modernist Cuisine, etc. for more detail.

Yeah, I've ordered a heck of a lot from webstaurantstore.com. Shipping for one small item will often seem unreasonable but the shipping (usually) changes little and is much more reasonable, on average, as you add more products (unless it's something huge, etc.) As an example..... for the same pan you want to order....they'd charge me $13.16 to ship one pan...but the shipping for 5 of the same pan is only $15.04....10 of the same pan $16.29.

A brand spankin' new copy of Chris McDonald's book arrived today from London, England in perfect condition!

OliveNation hasn't been mentioned yet.....I was very happy with the products I ordered from them. I've found the best deal on Red Boat fish sauce and a few other things at Vitacost when they run specials. Jump on both mailing lists for the best deals.

Yes, it's how I prepared my pickled green beans this past season — they turned out very crunchy!

This I do but usually only in my electric smokers—it's not as easy, but doable in a charcoal smoker too. What veg do you plan to braise with the rabbit? I'd mildly smoke both rabbit and veg for a bit—suspended above a drip pan, at a relatively low temperature—then proceed with the braising. Source: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen By Harold McGee, p. 163

Yeah! "The figure I came up with for that same ordinary yolk was on the order of 100 cups. Something more than 6 gallons of oil! Of course I didn't just add the oil straight, gallon by gallon; that would have been a waste of oil and work. After adding a certain amount of inexpensive soy bean oil, I took a small portion -- around a teaspoon -- of the mixture and then added more oil to just that portion. I repeated this subdivision several more times, periodically adding water to prevent the emulsion from breaking solely on account of crowding. When all the additions and multiplications were done (if a portion containing one-tenth of the yolk absorbs 1 tablespoon of oil, then the whole yolk would have absorbed 10) that astonishing figure emerged: 1 yolk, 100 cups of oil. It seemed impossible, so I did the whole experiment again from scratch. There were some differences, but the result was of the same order of magnitude. There can be no doubt that the egg yolk is a prodigious emulsifier." -- The Curious Cook, Harold McGee, pg 118.

Yeah! I'm thinking I'll just grab a small well marbled chuck-eye roast. It's relatively inexpensive and I'm the only one who'll be eating it...SO is effing ridiculously finicky.

Lucky you Chris!

As you know most low-carb "bread-like" stuff sucks so I'm not going to make a recommendation but this recipe is one of the better ones....or a starting point, anyway.

I'm considering ordering the 5 piece set with 'free shipping' for $226.00 USD at some point.

I wanted low-carb savory or sweet waffles that I could pop in the toaster so a couple years ago I bought the Chef's Choice 852 classic waffle maker. So far, it's worked great.

A favorite of mine — Rådjursköttbullar (Swedish venison meatballs.) I love 'em!!!

Actually, it was The Muppet Show, FWIW.

Okay, I found the current edition in the UK for $16.43 total, to my door. It's on the way.

I wish this was available for Kindle! Dang! It's quite an expensive book via Amazon ($27.95)... for me, anyway. It's available for significantly less from other sources, but I'm afraid that I may get the first edition (November 15th 2015) instead of the most current (December 2, 2016)....listings aren't always reliable.

Any sort of ichthyology authorities you can ask? At a university or whatever?

Please try it and report back! Seems in recent years we hear it's wrong to boil stock for any length of time but some of the 'greats' did, Beard for 15 minutes, etc., IIRC.

Shun calls it a carving knife. "Achieve the perfect slice of meat or poultry with the Shun Classic Carving Knife. It’s the right knife whether you want to carve paper-thin or thick and juicy slices. The razor-sharp blade makes a cleaner cut, which helps keep more of the juices—and more of the flavor—trapped in the meat. The longer blade means you can make precise slices with a single stroke, while the pointed, narrow tip lets you to cut meat away from the bone with ease. Turkey, beef, or the delicate flesh of a holiday salmon—the Shun Classic Carving knife handles them with ease, keeping the flavor sealed in and making sure your tableside presentation is perfection itself."

Yes it is.