Duvel

After aquiring my pizza steel I had to reformulate my dough recipe. I found that 65% hydration works better with my flour at the higher temperatures. I lowered the olive oil amount to 2% and with that formula I am satisfied. What I am very happy about is that finally using fresh mozzarella di bufala does not lead to a soggy pizza anymore. My to go mix now is 25% Parmigiano directly on the sauce, and 75% Mozzarella on top of the cooked ingredients (if using). My biggest PITA was the transfer from the peel onto the pizza steel. After trying several methods with limited success (and messed up æsthetics) I found an intermediate solution until I master the transfer better. Now, I build the pizza on a trimmed piece of baking paper, load that directly on the steel and remove it after about 45 seconds, when the base has firmed up. A bit cumbersome, yes, but it is reproducible and leads to æstetically pleasing round pizza without compromising on the bottom spotting. My whole pizza cooks now at 4:30 minutes, with the steel just hitting 300 oC before loading. Flavor, texture and presentation are now - at least for me - spot on. I am content 🤗 Mushroom & Salami ... Crumb shot ... Bottom spotting ...

I am happy that there is so much interest in rabbits recently ... maybe we chould consider this as a topic for one of the next cook-offs, @David Ross 😉 ?

Unintentionally, my 6 year old son took it out of the bag at home, looked at it and said happily “We are having rabbit again” 😉

We went to Strasbourg today - it has been a long time ... My favorite cheese shop was still in business (as it might have been in the last decades). They mature the cheeses themselves and sell you everything just right. An they are very enthusiastic to get you what you like ... We picked up some varieties and headed to the butcher ... Since we returned from Hong Kong we bought a large freezer for the cellar. I bought rabbits, veal medaillons, prime rib, several lamb cuts and half a dozen fresh blood sausages 🙄 Plus some interesting horse sausage, pork rillettes, duck pate, ... Veal heart was on offer, but I had stretched my budget already with some canned foie gras ... At night, we had a simple store(s)-bought dinner 😉 Pate en croute Richelieu, with foie gras and sauternes jelly. Our loot from the cheese shop. Upper row from the left: a young Jura abbey cheese from raw cow milk, a washed rind cheese from the Savoy area made from cow milk, very creamy Roquefort, below sheep camembert & a day-old fresh goat cheese. Huge shrimps - very fresh - with Sauce Brazil. The heads were so good ! Rillettes du Mans and duck pate ... Not from France, but pretty well fitting ... I love to cook, but “convenience food” plus some fresh baguette can be pretty satisfying, too ...

Seen today in France, but not sampled ...

Compared to death cap, fly agaric and deadly dapperling ...

Potato leek gratin (loosely based on the NYT recipe, with garlic, thyme and gruyere), topped with smoked salmon ...

Looks soooo inviting 🤗

Here, a rabbit of about 1.3kg costs 16€, on offer maybe 11 or 12€. It comes with liver, kidneys & heart, which usually are quickly panfried while I break down the rest of the animal & instantly consumed by the lucky cook. The rest is always braised. I did BBQ rabbit twice, but it inevitably turned out dry and stringy.

Rabbit was on offer, sooo ... Catalan braised rabbit, with onions, garlic, white wine, whiskey (no brandy in my house) and dried ceps & black trumpets (from my last visit to La Boqueria). Served with creamed spinach. My wife went into a frenzy the minute it arrived at the table, so only my sons plate could be documented. I had Rindswurst, that was about to go wrong (and my plate looked very Zen).

Very interesting... I am looking very much forward to your results!

The little one requested Bacon & Peas. It is amazing how good something can taste thats just made from bacon, peas, onions & parmesan ...

With a storm approaching and the house secured, I felt like comfort food again. And although it is not quite cold enough these days I picked Oden: I made satsuma-age and ganmodoki quite some while ago and froze it for these occasions. The daikon was prepared on Thursday ... ... as were the 6.5 min eggs, that were marinating in the oden broth since then. Ganmodoki contained Edamame & carrot. The Leberkäse is not a traditional item, but works surprisingly well, both in texture and flavor. I opened a pack of Shichimi Togarashi I bought on my last trip to Tokyo. The flavor - especially the citrus notes - was outstanding ! Yum !

Trust me that you do not want to move from SF to the Lower Saxonian pampas, regardless of the quality of the local offal stews ...

Despite a heavy storm approching, we headed north to Lower Saxony to visit my parents for the first time after our return from HK (usually they come around). So, tonight we had comfort food at its best: my moms tongue stew, prepared from cured ox tongue, simmered in a madeira-flavored sauce, finished with heavy cream, mushrooms and a certain kind of “frankfurts”. Served with red cabbage and potato ... And an off-dry white Riesling from the Mosel with the peculiar name “Naked Ass” 😉

Looks like a dedicated donut hole maker ...

And then there is this - the perfect mixture of omelette and scrambled eggs (creamy, with little solid specks in it) ... feel free to start at 2:25min 😉

I once stirred a boiling tomato sauce without wearing a shirt. I still have the burn marks it left on my belly ...

A quick, yet surprisingly satisfying nod to Japan: Okonomiyaki, Matjes “sashimi” with yuzu ponzu, Edamame and Miso soup ...

I am sure it was tasty, but it looks a bit like something from the Cambrian explosion.

I finally bought a pizza steel. Well, technically I bought a CNC-cut square piece of mild steel. So’ve spend my morning removing the sharp edges, cleaning and seasoning. And thanks to yesterdays dough prep, I could have my first steel baked pizza tonight. Now I need to rework my dough formula, but the first results are quite encouraging ... San Marzano, Mozzarella di bufala, Parmigiano, drizzled with pureed basil in olive oil after a 3.5 min bake ... San Marzano, fennel salami, Parmigiano and mushrooms. And the reason I felt I needed that piece of heavy metal 😉

Yes, I got your view earlier. But then again - it’s a pretty big country. And from my limited experience I had ostrich meat at HaiDiLao a couple of times and bought dried ostrich meat at Urumuqi. So, at least in same areas (probably close to the farms, so up north) it seems not too rare ... For the farm size I can’t help much: in 1997, average farm size seemed to be ~200 birds. I would assume, in the last 20 years there has been some intensifying in farming efforts, so it might be larger now ... And before I start to browse the trade statistics, better back to the egg topic 😉

Yes, maybe their English is misleading (as is mine, sometimes). China has 20.000 ostrich farms ...

Au contraire ...

Nope. Foraged ostrich eggs ...