pufin3

Yes I made the same dish last night as the night before. One thing I forgot to mention is I stirred into the butter/garlic etc etc 1t of BTB lobster base. I LOVE this base! I used to always add just a pinch of anchovy paste to pretty much every cavory dish I make. I mean every savory dish. The anchovy paste adds a very very subtle back-note on the palate. Now I use BTB lobster base instead. The lobster base is a lighter flavor than the anchovy paste IMO.

I made this last night: One pound of fresh thin asparagus. Broke off the bottom inch or so. Cut into thirds. 2 Cups of any kind of mushroom you like. I used fresh shiitakes with the stems removed and rough chopped. Preheat wok to medium. Add 2T butter. Add 4 crushed/chopped garlic cloves, 1/2 bulb fennel very thin sliced using all the fronds too. 2T fine chopped chives including the buds/flowers (the best part), Turn down heat to very low to soften the fennel. Lid on. Add in the fresh asparagus and mushrooms and 1/2 C hot water. Turn up heat to medium and cover with lid. Steam-saute until the asparagus is just barely cooked. This will take a few minutes. Add in 2 C hot half and half milk. Don't boil the milk! Serve with whatever else you want for the protein. I removed the asparagus and mushrooms with a slotted spoon and put it in the oven to keep hot. Into the milk I added two fillets of fresh cod cut into 3" pieces and two hundred grams of rough chopped fresh caught small squid bodies. No tentacles. I very slowly cooked the fish until barely cooked through. Plated the asparagus with the fish. Absolutely marvelous! Making it again tonight! Adding creamy mashed potatoes.

Does anyone else make their own 'Sel Fou'? I make it a couple of times a year to give to friends and family. A dozen small jars at a time. Friends/family returns the jars so I can reuse them. My trick with the horseradish is to peel them, rough chop then into the food processor. Pulse until the pieces are the size of small peas. Then into a 225F oven on a cookie sheet until they are thoroughly dry. Then into a coffee bean grinder. The result is a consistency of ground pepper corns. There are some recipes on google. I follow the 'www.food.com' recipe. Sel Fou adds a delicious complex back-note to many dishes.

I made this recipe again last night. The fresh rock cod/ling cod/halibut are in the fish markets now. We 'gorge' on the fresh fish for a couple of weeks and buy enough to freeze which lasts us almost until next season.

This is my interpretation of a Irish national treasure. The fried lettuce replaces the cabbage. I hope you will try it. My Interpretation Of Irish Colcannon With Fresh Cod and Fried Lettuce. Oven baked russet potatoes. Scoop out insides. Set aside. Cut up the skins which were well washed before baking. Put them in milk and keep the milk just hot not boiling. When you make the mashed potatoes add the potatoes skin infused milk and the butter in the ratio you like your mashed potatoes. S&P seasoning.There’s a lot of flavour in the skins. Don’t add the skins to the mashed! LOL Put the mashed potatoes, covered in a warm oven until serving. Depending on the number of servings rough chop 1/2 head of iceberg lettuce (has to be iceberg variety). 1/2 head serves two adults. A couple of Ts of butter into wok or heavy pan. Medium heat. Add rough chopped lettuce. Stir fry gently until the lettuce is just getting fried. Season. Don’t over fry it. Put it uncovered into a warm oven to keep warm until serving. You want to make this as soon before serving as practical. Now the fish. Buy enough fresh cod or thick white fleshed fish to serve generous portions. Try to buy fish with no bones or remove the bones at home. Cut the fish into about 3’x3’ pieces. The balance/ratio of the following ingredients is important. The following ingredients is for two adult servings: The fish goes in last. Into a large enough pan to hold all the fish pieces without putting the fish pieces one on top of another. Add 2T butter, 2 fine chopped garlic cloves, 1 medium size shallot, 1/2 fine sliced bulb fennel, fine chop some of the fronds. Slowly cook these ingredients until the fennel is translucent. Then add 2 cups of half and half milk. Gently add the fish pieces. (Before you add the fish you want your guests to be at the table. If you are serving ‘starters’ they should have been already eaten. Time your plating so the mashed potatoes and lettuce are ready to plate just as the fish is finished poaching.) Turn up the heat to medium/low. You want the fish to poach in the milk but not boil. The fish will literally only take a couple of minutes. Test the fish with a fork. You want the fish to just get to the point of flaking easily. Thirty seconds of over poaching will ruin the dish. You have had the dinner plates in the warm oven so the food on them stays warm while eating. To plate put a generous portion of mashed potatoes and fried lettuce on the plate separately. Gently place a few pieces of the poached fish on the plate. Then ladle on the hot milk onto just the fish. This next part really adds to the finished flavour: Place a few very thin slices of whole (washed) lemon on the plate. Remove any pits. Your guests can use their forks to squeeze out as much lemon juice as they want to mix with the other ingredients. Delicious!

Better Than Bouillon Lobster base my all time favorite BTB, white miso, dried kelp I use to make primary dashi but I chop it up then into the food processor then into a coffee bean grinder. I end up with a fine powder which I sieve to remove any pieces of little rocks and yes pieces of plastic which at one time became attached to the kelp in the sea. Dried wild mushrooms. Dried bonito flakes. Anchovy paste. MSG used sparingly.

I just add the shrimp paste in with the curry paste and a dry spice mix I have. What I don't do is overheat the combination. Over low heat I give these ingredients a couple of minutes to 'bloom' before I add the rest of the ingredients.

Some time ago we were 'B&Bing in S. Italy. I watched at least a dozen 18 wheeler tanker trucks go past the farm we were staying at apparently full of OO. The farm's owner told us about how local olive oil producers would send the OO from their oldest sick and dying trees to the Gov. Co OP. Keep the OO from the new trees for their own use. Scam the system by telling the Gov. they had expenses based on five hundred trees when they only had 100 trees and get a tax break and Gov. subsidies. He rolled his eyes and basically said the entire Italian OO industry was corrupt from the producers up to the distributors. When you can buy a gallon of 'Extra Virgin' Italian OO for 15 bucks you may be getting 2% actual EVOO. The rest is canola grown in Saskatchewan. The trucks were actually just driving into various OO farms. Stopping for a prescribed amount of time supposedly to fill up with OO. Then on to the next farm. What was in fact happening was the GOV. run CO OP trucks were empty but the GPS and 'Black Boxes' on the trucks which record everything date stamped from starting to stopping were making what is referred to as 'pencil-logs'. The tiny amount of the real deal EVOO was leaving the farms in 45 gallon barrels going directly to a 'cash buyer' somewhere.

Yup

I used to sell my fresh Springs/Ling cod/Rock cod/Dungeness crab/prawns to the fish store that's long gone now in 'The Bay'. At one time the owner also had the Post Office which his wife ran. I know the fish store you are referring to. The owners fish out of Rupert, where I also used to sometimes fish out of. At the time I had three commercial licenses which meant I could catch pretty much anything in the ocean. I sold off the boat at the Government wharf in Cow. Bay and Victoria and Steveston, Ganges, Campbell River, Courtenay, Powell River. You name it. 99% of the 'fresh fish' the store at the 'Bay sells is bought from distributors from the mainland. Believe me. That fish has all been 'de-gassed'. Even a 'fresh' Spring salmon caught near Rupert can be a week old from the time it's caught until it ends up in the display counter at the 'Bay. For what it's worth I buy all my fresh seafood at Thrifty's in Duncan. Thrifties have their own 'cash buyers' who go out to the boats and buy the day's catch. In twelve hours that fish can be displayed for sale in the Thrifties fish counters. I personally know the seafood dept. manager for twenty years now. No one takes getting the absolute freshest fish to the customer more seriously than he does. Other local fish stores display the fish for a couple of days. If it doesn't sell it's 'degassed AGAIN! and Cryo Packed and frozen to be be sold later.

As a former West Coast commercial fisherman for twenty five years let me explain something. As soon as anything from the sea dies immediately a gas begins to form on the surface of, in your case a piece of cod. The reason the gas forms is to attract bugs which will lay their eggs which hatch and begin to eat the fish. 'Decomposition'. The gas is what smells 'fishy'. An easy and effective way to wash away the gas is to put the fish in a cold water bath with the juice of a lemon added. The fish only needs to be in the water for only a couple of minutes. Beyond that and the acid in the lemon will start to cook the fish. Give the fish a good rinse and pat dry. This ought to remove virtually all the fishy smell. If it doesn't the fish has been dead long enough for the gas to permeate the flesh. In that case the fish is not edible and whoever sold it to you needs to be spoken to, In many commercial kitchens which serve fresh fish they use 'food-friendly' chemicals to remove the gas on fish/seafood. My advice is to NEVER buy ANY frozen seafood from countries like VN or China etc. The sanitary conditions on the 'factory ships' and the chemicals used to keep fish from 'gassing-off' are beyond sickening.

Last night I made a chinese dish using rough chopped iceberg lettuce. In a medium hot wok add 2T refined coconut oil or other cooking oil 4T fine chopped garlic cloves. When the garlic is just lightly browned add 1/2 head of rough chopped iceberg lettuce and stir fry for a couple of minutes. The lettuce will barely wilt. Add in a sauce made with 1T light soy sauce/1T sugar/1/2 t salt/1T sesame oil/1T Shaoxing wine (I found a bottle in Chinatown Victoria yesterday). The dish was DELICIOUS!!!!! The lettuce was still nice and crunchy.

The thread title asks the question. Is there any difference between the two? I can buy sake locally but not shaoxing wine. Thanks.

I too use the 'low and slow' method to roast any meat. 200F oven until the turkey/chicken/elk/venison/beef etc internal temp. is what I want. Then a long 'rest' out of the oven. Then back into a screaming hot oven to brown/sear the outside then carve and serve. A couple of years ago a young man, (friend of the family) told me he had been nominated to roast the Christmas turkey (about 25 Ibs). He said he had never roasted anything and asked my advice. I wrote out the instructions for the low and slow method. He looked dubious. I said "trust me and follow the instructions to the letter". He did. He later told me that his family raved about the roast turkey and that from then on for all time he was going to be the 'designated turkey roaster'. He subsequently showed the method to a few of his family members. The 'word' is spreading. LOL

BURMESE RICE SALAD Serves 2-4 To serve more people just double/triple etc the ingredients. You say you don't know the couple well so maybe this recipe will be useful. This recipe needs to be made just ahead of time. It will not keep well say overnight in the fridge. This dish has lots of ingredients. I make it as a main course for that reason. It’s a great vegetarian dish. It’s a Burmese staple casserole. Perfect for warm weather in Florida in April. Make The Dressing: In a container with a tight fitting lid add 2 T lime juice 8 T tamarind juice* If you have tamarind paste soak 3 T in warm water to dissolve then strain. 2 T fish sauce 1 T cornstarch 1 T palm sugar Shake well to combine the ingredients. Adjust the ingredients to suit your taste buds. Before putting on the salad shake again. You may not want to add all the dressing. You just want the ‘suggestion’ of the dressing on the salad. Method: Into a large bowl add 1 C cooked cold rice, 1 C cookedcold rice noodles chopped into 2” lengths, 1 C cold sliced small peeled boiled waxy potatoes, 2 coldsliced hard boiled eggs, 1/3 C shredded cabbage, 1/3 C peeled julienned green papaya, 1/3 C peeled seeded sliced cucumber, 1/4 C fine chopped shallots. Gently fold in all the ingredients. Fold in the dressing. Season with S&P.Taste and add S&P to taste. Try to keep the dish nice and fluffy by not stirring too much. Garnish with coriander leafs. Serve as a main course of as a starter. This dish doesn’t keep well in the fridge so it’s best to eat it all at one sitting.

Thanks for the information.

I'm a long time 'Escoffier' fan. It's my hobby to duplicate as precisely as possible some of Escoffier's recipes. Sort of like a friend who is a fanatic about getting the precise lettering/insignias on the model airplanes he builds as on the original ones. Anyway. It often occurs to me that the ingredients used in Escoffier's days had to be somewhat different than today's. Especially dairy products and the types of flour available. For anyone interested here is Escoffier's basic roux recipe and method for making any sauce etc with it. 6 parts flour/5 parts unsalted clarified butter. Regular table butter contains milk solids which affect the texture and flavor of the roux. In addition the amount of water in table butters vary so much it's not possible to know exactly how much butter fat you are actually getting which can have guite an impact on the finished recipe. Heat the flour separately over very low heat to first dextrinize the flour. If you want a darker sauce let the flour turn a bit golden. Add in the butter and combine over very low heat. In a couple of minutes you should end up with a 'grainy' looking roux. You want this. Remove from heat and refrigerate to cool the roux. When I make a roux I make enough to fill a couple of icecube trays. I use trays that make small ice cubes about the size of a large grape. Not the trays that make the bigger ice cubes. I freeze the roux in the trays then transfer the roux cubes to a Ziplock freezer bag. When I need to make a sauce/soup/gravy I always have the roux handy. When you want to make a sauce of soup or gravy have your boiling broth or stock ready. Put one or two frozen roux cubes in a heavy large pot. Med. high heat. Pour in about half the boiling broth/stock over the roux cube and begin whisking. Soon the stock/broth will melt the roux cube and you'll get a soup/sauce gravy happening. Add more hot stock/broth to get the consistency you want. Don't 'drizzle' in the hot stock/broth. You'll get wallpaper paste which you will have to keep adding the liquid to anyways. It takes some practice to know how much hot stock/broth to have on hand. Season. This makes for a silky smooth gravy/sauce/soup with no 'oily' film on top because the roux was cold when the hot stock/broth was poured in.

'Wondra' flour is in fact already 'dextrinized'. Meaning heat has been used to change the starch molecules which makes it easier to digest. It isn't so much the 'flavor' I'm looking for. It's the consistency. I've never needed to use a stick blender making making any gravy base/soup/ sauce based on first making a roux. The consistency I achieve is always perfect. I'm just looking for another level of excellence.

I've used AP flour for years when making a roux. I've found using unsalted clarified butter to be the best type. That's pretty much the standard. But I suspect there are/is a type of flour that gives the better result than AP flour. For the record I follow Escoffier's ratio of 5 parts butter to 6 parts flour. I always 'dextrinize' the flour before using it in a roux. Any thoughts/suggestion for the best type of flour to use?

I use a ratio of three parts 'oo' flour to one part 'high gluten' flour. Extra thin crispy crusts.

1/2-1 T Pernod added at the end. S. France comes to your chowder.

Here's my recipe: Delicious heavenly light braised meat ball dumplings Here's my recipe for the most heavenly light delicious meatball dumplings. Soak 1 1/2 C of Panko bread crumbs in enough whole milk to be absorbed by the bread crumbs. You don't want so much milk that you have to squeeze the excess from the crumbs. Let sit in the fridge for a few minutes. Remove the casings from four good sized fresh mild Italian sausages. Meat into food processor. Don't bother chopping it up. Two eggs. The cold bread crumbs/milk. Pinch of Kosher salt. No added herbs/spices required. The sausages already have enough flavor. On the slowest setting pulse the ingredients together until really well combined. Form the mixture into golf ball sized meatballs, or maybe slightly larger. The mixture should be slightly sticky and you have to be careful. I slightly wet my hands in cold water if I need to. Onto a plate/tray. Heavy ceramic/cast pot. Med. heat. Four T's good OO. One fine chopped sweet onion. As many rough chopped fresh garlics as you like. A few coarsely torn fresh basil leaves. Allow these ingredients to slowly cook till soft. Yes fry the basil leaves. Two cans of diced tomatoes which has been sieved to remove the seeds/skin bits. 1/2 C of good red wine. One C of chicken stock. A Tsp of sugar. Bring to rolling boil for a few minutes. Gently add the meatballs. Heat down to slow simmer for about 30 minutes. The meatballs will be almost white. They will want to float to the top when cooked through. Think sort of like dumplings. The texture will be so smooth and fluffy you'd think you are eating a dumpling! Only one that tastes like a mild Italian sausage. I served them last night with creamy mashed potatoes and corn niblets which I had lightly browned in clarified butter. You can use pretty much any meat in place of the mild Italian sausages of course. The trick is to combine the Panko crumbs/milk/eggs really well then slow simmer the meatballs. Next time for a special dinner I'm going to use raw prawns with fine chopped green onions. For the sauce/stock in place of tomatoes I'll do my best to make a descent 'pho' soup base. The possibilities are endless using this method. Nick Stellino was the inspiration only he used cubes of Italian bread. I used Panko b/c that's what I had in the pantry.

Thanks. I'll definitely use pimentos. Aside: Over many years I've come to believe when someone who has made a certain dish says "don't bother making it unless you use......" has a very good reason for offering the advice.

Good point. I make her a variety of other dishes though. Different fried rice dishes. Sandwiches. Chicken parm. Hearty soups.

No tomato sauce at all.