jackal10

You a want the ribs from a wing rib joint. Buy a wing rib beef on the bone; cut off the ribs. Enjoy the rest of the joint rolled and roasted., and there you have the ribs.

Adapted from HMSO Bulletin 21 4lb green tomatoes 1 lb apples 1/2lb raisins 1 lb brown sugar 1 1/2lb chopped onions Chillis to taste (go easy for me) 1/2 oz ginger root 1/2 oz salt Pickling spice (Bay leaf, mustard seed, black peppercorns) 1 pt vinegar (I use malt) Tie the spices and the chilli in a piece of muslin and tie the end of the string to the handle of a lerge pan, so it doesn't get lost. Put enerything else in the pan and simmer over a gentle heat until nothing is really discernable as seperate chunks, except the raisins, and the texture is to your liking. This can take a long time - 6 to 8 hours, and fills the house with wonderful smells. Remove the string, and bottle hot. Improves if kept for a few months if you don't eat it first. The long slow cooking and maturing is the secret.

Ackee seems to me to be a bit like scrambled eggs - same colour and texture. I expect one could substitute scrambled eggs Salt cod with Aoli is good A google search has 5000 entries for "salt cod"

I'm for Brandade with truffles, myself. I'm told that in Nimes, the maker of the major brand of brandade adds truffles at Xmas time... You omitted Salt Cod with Ackee. Easy with tinned ackee.

When are you starting mail order and a web site for your devoted readers? Seriously, its a way of considerably expanding your retail trade...

Red: Latour White: Le Monrachet More affordable: Old Rhone or maybe a Ridge Zin Rolly Gassman Alsace True desrt island wine has to be Madeira. That wine will stand anything the elements can throw at it.

I've put up today some of our surplus apple juice to ferment for cider. No great problem - the juice will ferment on it own, given a chance. However I once had (and made) a recipe that was delicious, that put spices and extra raisins in with the cider to ferment. It came form an old book and said something like "To make the best cider, take a barrel of indifferent cider and add the spices and raisins", and let ferment again" Problem is I've lost the recipe, and can't remember the proportions or the spicings It is not hot mulled cider or cider with added spices - the spices were in the ferment. Can anyone help?

Usually known here as Samphire. Its delicious. Starts here at midsummer for about a month. It grows wild on sandy sea shores and salt marshes. Shakespeare describes samphire picking as a "ghastly trade" Treat like asparagus. Serve with melted butter. I think it works better as a seasonal treat and a dish on its own, rather than as bed or garnish for fish dishes. If its not very young, it will have a glassy core in each stem. Pick it up in your fingers and suck the iodiney seaweed flavoured flesh off the core.

What food do you associate with Sukkot? The only one my family made were cinnamon biscuits, but I know not why they were associated with this festival I believe it was something to eat in the Succah when guests called not at a meal time. We also hung fruit and produce from the green leafy ceiling of the Succah.

Real china and cutlery please! The trick is to use two or even three sets, and wash one while using the other. This is not a hurried meal, so you can take your time... Typically you will need two large plates (one a service plate), and two small plus desert/soup bowls and tea or coffee cups per person. Service plates help, since being cold, they make hot dishes easier to carry, and protect the table. So in the menu above: Plate 1 - small (cold) Plate 2 - large (service) Plate 3 - small Plate 4 - large, hot Crudite - fingers (but need serving platter) Oyster - small plate 1 on service plate 2 Soup - bowl or cup on plate 3 or 4 Salad - small plate 1 reused on plate 2 Souffle - Ramekin on plate 3 reused Sorbet - glass or cup on Plate 1 again Turkey - large plate 4 Pudding- Bowl on plate 1 or 2 or both

No pepper at all goes into Talisker, or any true Scotch malt whisky, just barley malt, yeast and spring water. The malt is smoked somewhat during the drying proces over smoldering peat, which gives the whisky some of its characteristic taste. Talisker is more "peaty" than many, and some might interpret this as a black pepper taste ("the peat reek"). Its more like iodine than pepper to me. Laphroig even more so, which is why some might describe it as medicinal. Other detect seaweed, especially in the Island malts, from distilleries on the Scottich isles (not Isla, which is a river). The whiskey is matured in second fill oak casks. The cask and the first fill, usually sherry or bourbon adds complexity and its own character to the flavour.

The recipe is originally for the HMSO "Home Preservation" book - a government publication from the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, first published in 1929. The orginal recipe gives vanilla or cinnamon as flavouring. No garlic Vanilla and tomato? Who would have guessed? I wonder if ther are other recipes? I had some with garlic and dill from a kosher pickle shop in NY on the lower east side, maybe 20 years ago.

Today seemed like a good day to clean up the tomato patch I made this last year. After a week it was bittre and nasty, so I put it back in the cupboard and forgot it. After six months it was amazingly delicious. The recipe is simplicity itself 3lb green cherry tomatoes 2 lb sugar 1/2 pt vinegar 1 tsp vanilla essence (or a pod) Boil the sugar and the vinegar and tomatoes for 5 minutes. Add the vanilla. Put into a non-metallic bowl, covered in the fridge for a week. Strin off the liquid, boil for 10 mins, add the tomatoes and bring back to the boil. Pack into jars and seal hot. I'll fry a few, but most of the rest will end up as green tomato chutney

Yes, its perfectly possible, if hard work. Its faster if there are two of you in the kitchen, and either LOTS of crokery and cutlery or a fast way of washing and recycling them. An example 14 course dinner Traditionally small and larger course alternate; its easier if the small courses are cold or can be plated quickly or in advance. 1. Palate cleanser 2. Amuse 3. Oysters or clams or caviar (or even a special seasonal fruit) 4. Soup 5. Fish 6. Salad 7. Game 8. Savoury Sorbet 9. Meat 10 Light pudding 11. Heavier Pudding 12 Cheeses 13 Fruit and Desert (or a savoury) 14 Coffee and petit four Of course, each course can be doubled, thus you could serve two different fish dishes, one after the other such as a smoked fish and then a fresh fish, or two different meats, such as duck leg confit, followed by the grilled breast.

Thankyou Chefg. Very interesting. Are you including water baths for sous-vide cooking? What mixers do you plan, for example for bread dough?

Looks good! You might find life easier by retarding in the fridge for between 4 and 24 hours once formed. This also gives a longer, slower second proof. You can retard for up to 24 hours, so you can make up the loaves at your convenience, put them in the fridge, and then bake them (from cold) whenever you want. Or make one day (before or after service) and bake the next. The plastic liner works fine. Try scoring at less of an angle that is with longer cuts more along the length of the loaf - more like 10 degrees to the centreline.

Amen Selah... I have comitted some of those (especially the ones about preparing too much and then finding stuff going mouldy at the back of the fridge) For the sin of making a restaurant booking and not turning up or cancelling late For the sin of turning up with extra or fewer people For the sin of ordering the most expensive dish when you are not paying For the sin of not writing a bread and butter thankyou to your hosts for dinner For the sin of not labelling packages in the freezer For the sin of eating junk food For all these forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.. Restaurants have their own special series... For the sin of having both a service charge and open card slips For the sin of making the customers wait unduly long For the sin of not answering the booking telephone For the sin of saying you are full when you are not For the sin of serving frozen par-baked bread, stock cubes or other shortcuts and thinking the customer won't notice For the sin of over garnishing with irrelevant garnishes For the sin of background music For the sins of designer furniture and decor For the sin of outrageous markups on drinks For the sin of too long or too short menu descriptions, bad puns and cutesy descriptions For the sin of trying to turn the tables twice in an evening For the sin of overcooking a steak For the sins of restaurant critics with no taste For all these forgive them, pardon them, grant them atonement..

The photos are taken originally with a Sony DSC F717 5Mpixel camera, at highest resolution (except the cell phone camera ones). I then post processed them with Microsoft Photodraw; usually the contrast and brightnes needed tweaking, and the sharpness improved slightly. I save them as .jpg with a compression level of 50 and a resolution of 320 x 240 or 640 x 480 for the larger pix. This is good enough for screen work, but will be a bit grainy if printed full page. If anyone wants the high resolution originals, ask. I'm aware of the difficulties to heavy pictures cause, which is why I used the maximum reasonable compression. The average weight is only about 20Kb. The webcam is a Logitech webcam that was uploaded to a private site using ftp and ConquerCam. I asked if people prefer the smaller or larger pix, and the page layout (2 pix + text), but got no response. I'd still be interested. The new Imagegullet is good, but I miss being able to upload eight pix at once; also having all the foodblog pictures in one flat directory is not optimal.

Golden days....We often get an Indian Summer around this time - coming up for the start of the University term. The saddle was from the Denham Estate in Norfolk, as referenced above. There were two for 24 people. Plainly roasted, then filleted, carved and re-assembled for ease of serving. Tender, lean and flavoursome. I think that was a little spurious choppe parsley on the top. Its the sort of thing the kitchen does best. Not that what we had was not good, but I'd maybe consider something fruity and autumnal, such as a blackberry or bramble sauce, as a garnish as an alternative to what we had. Baked or lightly pickled quince might also be good. Little early for medlars.

Golden days....We often get an Indian Summer around this time - coming up for the start of the University term. The saddle was from the Denham Estate in Norfolk, as referenced above. There were two for 24 oeople. Plainly roasted, then filleted, carved and re-assembled for ease of serving. Tender, lean and flavoursome. I think that was a little spurious choppe parsley on the top. I'd maybe consider something fruity and autumnal, such as a blackberry or bramble sauce as an alternative to what we had.

I think one was a Stilton, and the other a Shropshire Blue. Probably from Long Clawston Dairy. Like Stilton, but coloured with Annato, like Leicester cheese.

I don't really know. To me, all three terms are used, pretty well interchangeably. I think there may be slight variety differences (e.g. Kentish Cob is a distinct variety Cobnuts tends to refer to the green whole nut in its shell, as off the tree Hazelnuts tend to mean the nut kernals (or the trees) Fibert is a rather old fashioned term

I do most of the cooking. Jill, bless her, does most of the clearing and washing up...an endless, vital but often an unseen and thankless task Last batch of pictures. Went into College to check the arrangements for tonight M. Reverchon Head of Catering in the cellar; the saddle of Venison (from the Denham estate http://www.denhamestate.co.uk/) Let me correct the idea that Cambridge college life is just about eating and drinking, lest I give the wrong impression. While the environment is supportive, and the networking important, a lot of hard work goes on. The College came top last year in the Cambridge table of academic excellence, measured by the examination results, and is also high in sporting achievement league tables, in what is arguably the best University in the world. It works hard to ensure equal opportunity, with special emphasis on attracting those from disadvantaged backgrounds, although there are many good candidates for every place. It is very tough to get in, but once here it is also tough to fail (or leave) One way of attracting the best and the brightest is the quality of the life... John Harvard studied here, and I believe did good work in the then colonies. More is given on the website (www.emma.cam.ac.uk ). College Hall, the main dining area. High table, where the Fellows of the college dine is on the slight platform at the top. After dinner the fellows retire to the Parlour, where port is drunk and serious conversation is had. The servery, normally a self-service canteen for the students, backing onto the kitchen Upper Hall, the venue for our meeting, and the Gardiner Room, laid for our dinner New Court, new in 1824. The Hall is on the left, the kitchens ahead of you with the Upper Hall above the kitchen. The court, being next tot he kitchen is laid out as a herb garden. The Chapel (designed by Wren) is undergoing restoration While in the centre of town I had a quick walk round the market, on your behalf, dear eGulleteers. The Market is a square, and this is the left side. In addition to produce stalls there are clothes and all sorts. However late on a grey Monday afternoon was perhaps not the best time, as most of the stallholders were packing up or had already gone. The Market has declined somewhat since the City Council made the centre of town a pedestrian area. Also the city centre, like city centres elsewhere, is now mostly shops and offices and tourist places, rather than residential. The left side of the market, and one of the better produce stalls. They had fresh cobnuts, and new season wet walnuts; local raspberries Squashes, corn and new carrots, but I don't think the asparagus was local. Nest stall has wholefoods The fish man was packing up; this "Caffe Mobile" was neat There is a stall with interesting breads, I think from Bury St Edmunds The Dinner itself. Two candidate companies presented themselves, and we also discussed funding for a new approach to diagnosing and treating Alzheimers, and ways of accessing information about charities, and in particular how to measure their efficiency, for example in how much of the donated money actually reaches the intended recipients, rather than is used for adminsitration (surprisingly little in some cases): We had Sweet Pimento and Crab Soup Bassermann-Jordan Jesuitgaren 1990 Roast Whole Saddle of Venison with Caramelised Pears and a Redcurrent Jus Nuits St George Dom D'Arlot 1995 Warm Linzertorte with Armagnac ice cream Ch. Coutet 1988 Cheeses Coffee, Petit Four Port That's it... I'm off to bed, an the baton passes to the next blogger. It's been fun. You picked a good week - although I did nothing different just because of the blog, we don't have such parties every week. If you are planing on passing this way drop me a note...

I did mention it here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=717672 Its a mixture of elm, hazel and mostly cherry from trees on the estate that have fallen down, stacked and dried for a couple of years...The oven is very well insulated, so it only uses half a wheelbarrow or so per firing.

Nearly true... In my college, at least, because of the complex tax and charity laws, the wine is, I believe, formerly the property of the fellows, but is looked after for them by the college. The primary consumer is the formal dining and feasts, but some is sold to the fellowship for personal consumption. There is also wine for conferences, undergraduates, parties and the like. The usual rule is that the wine is sold at the price it would cost to replace it with a wine of equivalent quality of a current vintage, plus a small handling charge; essentially the capital and the cellerage is free.. I remember when I was a graduate student my tutor would entertain once a term with a blind tasting for his students (fellows get an entertainment allowance). The student who most nearly correctly identified the wines won a case. Excellent education and motivation! The wines are chosen and controlled by the wine commitee, drawn from those of the fellowship who are interested. Buying wine for a college is quite different to buying wine for a restaurant. For a restaurant (and the conference trade) you ideally want to sell the wine before you have paid for it; few restaurants have the capital or the time for long term cellerage. For college time is of no object. Of course, the bursar has a severe view of the budget he will allow for wine for feasts and dining that the college pays for, so the wines are typically mid-range, and of fairly conservative taste. Beacuse the colleges are significant consumers (think of them as medium size hotels), and there are enough of them in one place, the wine merchants find it worthwhile to come to Cambridge and show their wines. I suspect they also enjoy it, as the audience is informed and knowledgable. Thus during term there is often a wine tasting most weekday lunchtimes, especially in the Michealmas term