Rory Hart

Interesting I will try this asap! Thanks!

Thanks! Yeah I am pretty sure it was a combination of under hydration and under drying. It is a pretty easy recipe all told and I have plenty of flour so I am going to try doing it without the stock so as to not waste effort and good ingredients and see if I can get it right.

I measured and it was the requisite diameter on the wide side. The roll had sunk somewhat so it was more oblong but I gave it the same cooking time as specified since the widest part had the same diameter as required.

What sort of textural differences?

Turned out beautifully! The salmon came out of the bag a touch over seasoned at the tail end and I only cured it for two of the recommended three. The fleshy 2/3s were delicious however and I served it last night as tartare with toast points and creme fraiche as suggested in Charcuterie. Will do the tail for a day less next time. I also stored it after washing in ziploc bags with the air pressed out for 4 or so days and they were just as good as when they went in. No idea about longer. I think I will* do the dice smaller than that next time it was a little hard to manoeuvre on the plates and didn't hold its shape well when formed with a ring. * It was so delicious and simple (apart from the forward planning and skinning) that I have to do this dish again.

Last night I had the first in a series of dinners I am cooking for the group of friends who gave me MC for my birthday last year. I will do a full write up on my blog and share once I recover, two days of shopping and cooking and not a little bit of stress and now I have a cold I thought I would share the main MC dish of the evening now though (the others just used the techniques from the books) the Thai Crab Miang (5-189). The main part of the dish (the salad) worked really well. I played with the ratios of the different components (the paste, syrup etc) slightly when mixing the salad just before serving starting with a touch less of all and adding more by taste. Unfortunately the crackers were unsuccessful for a couple of reasons. Firstly I don't think I got them dry enough, in part because I sliced them by hand so they came out 2mm+ and in part because I was drying them in an oven. This caused them to not puff in the centre and even the edges were a little bit rubbery. Secondly the centre of the cracker roll was not cooked properly, I cooked it for the dictated time but obviously something didn't quite work the same. The centre 3-4mm was still white with another few mm having a gradient of white to the desired red/brown. Both of this issues are eminently fixable obviously. I will have to make some more shellfish stock and have another crack at it (oh no will have to eat more shellfish *what* shall we do?!). Plating the dish attractively I found rather difficult, I hadn't planned too much thinking the betel leaves and crackers would be enough. I found once plated the salad was a bit of an homogeneous lump, not the most attractive dish I am afraid. This is likely in part due to my novice level when it comes to plating and I think I over stirred the salad while playing with the flavours. Anyway I took of photo of the most dressed up one (of course) at an attractive angle with the nicest looking of the crackers to share. Plating really is an art form all to itself! Oh yes and smashing pomelo segments (in my case ruby grape fruit segments) with LN2 (liquid nitrogen) is *a lot* of fun. I did far more than than was required!

We went to Izakaya Den last night, I've been to a few Izakayas in Melbourne and Japan so I thought I know what to expect. It turned out to be a more fusion experience that I had expected, both the food and dining style having Western and Japanese influences. It was a bit of a hassle to find, with no signage on the stairs down and a big black curtain behind the door making it look closed. You wouldn't have a clue it was there if you didn't know about it, my dining companions remarked it is so very Melbourne to do that. The service was decent, they lost an order for a drink then forgot to deliver a bill but it was pretty good apart from that. Of course the most important thing, the food was kick ass with only one disappointing dish (Tofu Cake) and a number of stand out ones (Duck Liver Parfait, Seasame Stir Fried Mushrooms and Apple Millefeuille). Anyone else been? A full run down of what we ate is on my blog: http://www.roryhart.net/food/izakaya-den/

The salmon went into the cure this morning.

It is probably a difference in curing processes. I don't mind Jamie, he is an excellent advocate for people thinking about what they eat. His recipes generally aren't overly exciting but they're solid and straight forward. That said I'd kill (a pig or two) to hang out with Bourdain. Didn't bother getting tickets to his show, I've watched so many of them already I don't think I would get anything out of it. But chatting to him over a beer (or meal) would be freaking awesome.

This different to what Charcuterie says: Pan size is important, because the fish will release a lot of liquid, forming in effect a highly seasoned brine in which it will cure; and you want the brine to cover as much of the fish as possible. Yay! I've seen a couple of us around, not surprising given what a foodie town this is especially atm with the festival on and the likes of Bourdain and Oliver on our streets and in our restaurants.

I am following the directions in Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie for the fennel cured salmon and am wondering if it is okay to cure the salmon in a ziploc bag. I regularly use ziplocs to cure bacon so I'm thinking there probably isn't any issue. They talk about using foil but that seems less convenient and I can get most of the air out of a ziploc so the cure covers the salmon more evenly. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks

I won't get to cook out of it for a couple of weeks, I am putting on a Modernist Cuisine dinner so all my extra cooking time is going into that at the moment. But once I do I'd love to contribute to a "Cooking with" thread.

Wow that looks fantastic!

I haven't made it, but it seems to me reading the recipe that it's got to be the oil for frying the crab crackers, right? The recipe makes 400g of oil, and in the sidebar they refer the the oil as "the frying oil" which is what they call for in the "Puffed Crab Crackers" recipe. That was my guess for the same reasons, I am curious to see how much flavour it will impart given the crackers are fried very quickly and already have a fair bit of shell fish flavouring. Perhaps a double blind study on my guests is in order! Perhaps it is a colour thing as the bottom right of 5-191 talks about the crab pigment's solubility in fat. Yeah I assumed you steamed the roll in the plastic wrap, I've seen something similar done somewhere else. Yeah dungeness makes no sense in the pomelo context, not being a North American I haven't got Dungeness Crab as an option, will be using whatever picked crab the fishmonger has available next weekend. Makrud lime leaves threw me as well but Google/Wiki says they're the same as Kaffir lime leaves. I've even been able to find Betel leaves which is *really* exciting as I've not found them before.

Has anyone done the Thai Crab Miang recipe(5-189)? I cannot see for the life of me where the Crab Oil is used!