jmacnaughtan

There's a lot of very good (and mediocre, bad and worse) Asian cuisine in Paris - not so much elsewhere in France. One ramen place I go to frequently does it better than anywhere I visited in Japan If you have the time and the budget, there is a 1* Chinese place in the Shangri-La. Really excellent cooking.

We've all been stockpiling. Around the abdomen, mostly.

Let me know what you think. He's generally my go-to guy for chocolate. I can add a few pictures from the Salon du Chocolat from my visit on Monday that I thought were cool. So, if you don't mind... Animals: Flowers: And of course: Life-size! Threadjacking over.

It was a good presentation! And you got to experience first-hand the wonders of Parisian organisation. They even left you a decorative microphone on the stand It is pretty cool. I asked him how long that pig takes to do, and he said "hmmm... maybe fifteen seconds". Want. It doesn't look like you've hit Patrick Roger yet. I know he's everywhere, but his sculptures are cool and his chocolates are very good. Also, head upstairs and eat some of Jean-Charles Rochoux's rum raisin chocolates. You seem to have almost everything else covered

Hi, Pretty much anywhere in the city centre (1st and 2nd arrondissement) will be a short walk from a very good baker. In fact, pretty much anywhere in the city at all. I'd recommend staying near the Hôtel de Ville. There is an excellent market on the Quai Saint Antoine almost every day.

It does sound delicious. However, you can avoid browning by dipping the slices in diluted lemon juice. They should last a day or so like that. But I suppose, if you're baking them anyway, they're going to turn brown no matter what.

I generally would, but I don't think it's essential. If you keep in well covered in a cool room, it should be fine. But in terms of quality, it might be better to prepare all the components beforehand, refrigerate, and then bake at the last minute.

@Anna N has a point - the age may make a difference, as does personal taste. However, I find this works particularly well with girolles. Sautéeing them normally, even when they're bone dry, releases a tonne of liquid that then just stews them and leaves them limp. I get much better results with almost all mushrooms (except ceps and eryngii) by toasting or blanching them before adding fat. Even with button mushrooms, it makes a positive difference But we're missing the point here - everyone talks about adding oil, when what you really need is butter.

Excellent topic. One of the most useful tips I've received for sautéeing mushrooms (girolles in particular) is to blanch them for 10 seconds before throwing them into a very hot pan with no fat. Wait for all the liquid to flash off, then add the fat. It works well, and means that they neither go flabby, greasy or flooded with water.

It's been a while since I made a cake, so I went back to an old favourite for a dinner last night. Squash, orange and ginger tart Speculoos base Squash and orange crémeux Crystallised ginger The base was a bit of a cheat - just crushed Speculoos biscuits, roasted hazelnuts and candied ginger, held together with butter and white chocolate and seasoned with orange zest and flaky sea salt. Not even any baking Tasty though.

I'm unsure of your point concerning electric and electronic. Never mind. Tilting it backwards would, unfortunately, choke off the air circulation at the back of the cellar. And I dislike storing wines vertically. I also think having a wine cellar laying on its side would be cumbersome and look awful. That's good to hear - I've got a friend who has recently redone their floor with fairly heavy duty lining, so I may be able to get some for free. Have you noticed that it has any particular odour?

Good advice. This is another thing I need to sort out, but preferably when I've got the stability issue resolved - there's only so many times I can bring myself to empty and restock the cave. I've looked at that, but I'd like to keep as much capacity as possible and they are quite expensive. In hindsight, I probably should have bought a larger cellar... I like this idea. Do you know if it's inert? If it's fabric-based, it may suffer the same problems as cardboard. Something like this would be a good solution, especially as many of my bottles are unusual shapes and size (Alsace, magnum, jeroboam, etc.) and don't always fit comfortably in traditional racks.

Hi everyone. I have a rather bourgeois problem, and wonder if anyone else has found a cheap (or free) way of solving it. Like many people in the city, I don't trust the security of my cellar downstairs, so my wines are currently sitting in a Climadiff 120 bottle electric wine cellar, in my living room. This works great. However, the cave has only two shelves plus the base, and to reach that capacity I need to stack the bottles - and this is where the problem arises. Every time I open the door, I live in fear of an avalanche. I've tried using cardboard dividers from wine boxes, but they take up a lot of space and I'm worried about the smell affecting my wine. So, does anyone know of any way of keeping the bottles in place, while not taking up a lot of space and not affecting the wine?

Ah OK, I missed the part about it being a tiered cake. I've never seen a tiered millefeuille, but I'm sure it could be done. But you would have a hard time cutting and serving it - it's tricky enough to slice a single-tier one. I can only imagine the crumbs, tears and panic with a two- or three-tiered one... For what it's worth, you would make everyone's life a lot easier if you just did a long one. One of the advantages of puff pastry is that it's easy to cut it into whatever shape you want (before baking).

I disagree - there's something wrong with your pastry and/or pastry cream if it can't stand upright on its own. The traditional way is just puff pasty and pastry cream. I like to incorporate 1% gelatin and 3% cocoa butter into the pastry cream while it's still hot, then when it cools to body temperature blitz in about 20% butter (as a % of the milk). Let it set overnight, then whip for 15 minutes before using - it makes it firmer and lighter. I think you would have problems with a bavarois (unless you really pack it with gelatin), especially when you cut the cake. They're delicate, so I'd be worried about the cake collapsing and mousse squirting out all over yourself and guests. Then panic, depression, etc.

Poached eggs. It doesn't matter how fresh they are, how much I swirl or how much vinegar's in there, I always end up with a sad yolk in a cheap dress drowning in scummy water.

I like squash and pumpkin It seems that everyone just uses the purée, which is a shame. I like to roast pieces in duck fat with garlic cloves and thyme, serving it with beef or whatever. I make the occasional dessert with them as well. For me, the key is to whip whatever your doing; when they're dense, pumpkin desserts are really dense.

Crack because of the appearance, or because they're just so moreish?

I don't cook it at home, but I recently had it in Japan where it was sliced into bite-sized pieces and marinated. Then you cooked it yourself on the little gas barbecue. It was great! I have no idea what the various parts of the stomach/intestine I was eating (my Japanese is nowhere near tripe level yet), but this is what it looked like:

Why do you start with such a cold bird? Is it not easier to bring it to room temperature first? I find it cooks much more easily this way.

If it is to do with the calcium, you may have to cook them for a lot longer. Here, the water is really hard, so I end up simmering potatoes for a long time. My mashed potatoes were no good at all until I started properly cooking them for at least 30-45 minutes, until I can no longer pick them up by spearing them with a knife.

It's spelled chichi, I believe. But still, 17 dollars a kilo is ridiculously expensive for something that contains around two thirds bone, fat and gristle, and that requires 5 hours' cooking. You could get a very good steak for that.

Hmmm. It may be something about the calcium in the cream acting on the pectin in the potatoes. If, in fact, potatoes contain any pectin. Maybe the lower water content affected the heat being transferred, as well. Would you try cooking them for longer next time?

Interesting. Did you leave them chunky on purpose, or is that an effect of cooking them in the cream?

Shin might be a good option. I love oxtail, but it's ludicrously expensive here too. When you factor in how much you're paying for bone and fat, it works out more expensive than fillet or ribeye... And that's without factoring in the 5 hours of cooking time