jackal10

I'd really like whatever is deemed fashionable. I like lots of small courses, and a "molecular gastronomy" sort of approach (Blumenthal, Adria, Keller, Achatz...) Alternatively good bourgois cooking - stuffed pigs trotters, andoilettes. Some things that cannot be had, or are not as good anywhere else.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Fitzgerald) "Pass the Thou"

Does no one read Escoffier any more? Or even Larousse The mother sauces are hot: two brown (espagnole and demi-glaze) and two white (bechamel and veloute) and two other (Hollandaise and Tomato). I guess your instructor may be thinking of beurre blanc, but that is not a classical sauce. There are also purees, but in classical cookery they would be combined with another sauce, as in soubise. There are two basic cold sauces: mayonnaise and vinagrette, and butters such as Maitre d'hotel. Sweet sauces (creme Anglais, purees etc) are another division.

Ther are two effects; a) Micro-organisms: Tomatoes are sufficiently acid providing you sterilise well (check the times, but they can be up to 40 mins if starting from cold) for you not to have an issue b) Oxidation and chemical decomposition, such as bleaching in sunlight. This will happen over over a year or so, which is why you need to keep it dark and cool. It won't kill you, just taste off. I don't see any reaon why it should not keep for a year or so. After all you can buy the stuff in jars in the supermarket, and it is basically the same process. Personally I would leave out the cheese and butter as dairy tends to go off quicker and also caramelise in heat of sterilisation. Add them when you reheat, and of course leave out any meat or fish

I'm in Paris for two nights (3rd, 4th Decemebr 2004), at a meeting. However the evenings are free. The bad news is that the meeting is on the outskirts at Bercy, but nowhere is that far. Where should I eat, seriously? Where is current? Gagnaire? ADPA? Robuchon? What chance a booking?

Can you give some more context? Hot or cold? How cooked or plated? Formal or informal? I'm fond of an Asian chilli-garlic sauce as a dipping sauce, a big platter of fried steaming hot soft shell crabs, and some large napkins. Plain Melted butter is good too, or a fresh salsa. Following that theme, something like Sauce Choron (tomato hollandaise) or a beurre rouge (beurre blanc but made with red wine and maybe some extra tomato concasse, garlic, chilli should work. You can always fall back on the old standby of Sauce Nantua. These are more pink than red. For bright red you need a tomato based sauce, like ketchup.

I assume you know the origin and meaning of "puttanesca"; you may not want to give your bf the wrong impression..or maybe you do...

I agree. These are for fruit, jams and vegetables. Meat and other protein are entirely different, and I would advise not to be attempted at home. Indeed, unless you raise your own animals you probably would not want to either. Well maybe one or two exceptions like mincemeat or confit but even so those are consumed fairly quickly, and proably stored under refrigeration in the interval That said, it would be great if someone did an eGCI unit on making bacon, cheeses, smoked salmon, confit etc.

I fail to see why you need to pre-sterilise the jars. Wash to remove gross contamination, but you are about to sterilise them with the contents anyway. The only reason I can see if you are intending to work in an aseptic environement, and not subsequently sterilise the jar and contents, but that is only really feasible for industrial processing.

Thanks, but wait for part 2 (Seasonal delights, including mincemeat and Xmas pud) coming soon. The water should cover the jars so that they heat all the way to the top. I think it might be the angle of the photo. Some canners are designed so that they steam the jars. However one has to work with whatever pans are to hand... In practice so long as the majority of the jar is covered and you have a lid on the pot I expect they will get hot enough

Minor typo that slipped through, despite the team's excellent work: The start of the pickled shallot recipe should read 3 pints (1.4L) of brine made with 6 oz (168g) of salt and 3 pints (1.4l) water In the bottling/canning section although the jars are washed before use, I should have pointed out that there is no point in sterilising them seperately since they are sterilised with the contents.

Pumpkin soup served in a hollowed out pumpkin... One way is to hollow out a pumpkin, discard the seed and the stringy bits and then make a conventional soup - sweat off onions. leek, garlic, lots of butter, pumpkin flesh, stock, liquidise, season (plus nutmeg), add cream. Pout into the shell and serve. Alternatively pack the hollow pumpkin shell with alternate layers of pumpkin, toast and swiss cheese. Season. Fill with cream (or milk), and bake the whole thing in a slow oven (300F) for 2 1/2 hours. Put it in a large tin in case it leaks. It will slump a bit, but should retain its structural integrity Bring it to table and serve, scraping bits of the softened pumpkin

I find it easiest to make a sort of very dry lasagne sheet with the starter and some extra flour, roll it out with a pasta machine, and let that dry. Another way is to spread it out thinly on silicone paper (or even clingfilm) let that dry, and then powder it.

My mincemeat recipe is in Seasonal Preserves, scheduled early November

There is an upcoming eGCI unit (two actually) on canning and preserving...

Those big super-light Dosa's

First a disclaimer: I am not a food scientist or a microbiologist or have any special medical knowledge. You should not rely on this advice. However people have been making and eating mayonnaise for thousands of years (there is evidence from ancient Egypt), and the human race seems to have survived. I personally think that, providing you use good fresh eggs from a reputable source the risk is more theoretical than practical. Yes, salmonella is established in the national flock. Yes, it can cross the the shell barrier. However we eat many sorts of uncooked or lightly cooked eggs. as kids we dipped our bread soldiers in runny egg yolks, that are only runny because they are essentially uncooked and emerged unharmed. I feel there ior s much more risk in eating chicken breast, expecially if it has gone through extra factory processes like skinned, or being sauced or flavoured when raw. Mayonnaise is very acid, so bugs have a hard time living in it. McGee ("The Curious Cook") and Shirley Corriher have both written about techniques for pastuerisitng eggs. To kill salmonellla you need to heat the egg to 160F for at least a minute. The trouble is that egg cooks at this temperature. However if you add acid (lemon juice or wine vinegar) the egg does not start to coagulate until 170C, so there is a slim margin of operation. Here is a method similar to Corrihers. You need a digital thermometer. 2 egg yolks 2 tsp white wine vinegar 1 tsp mustard Put a metal basin over a pan or dimmering water. Put the above ingredients in it. Stir until the temperature is 160F. It will thicken a little, like lemon curd. Use as fresh egg. If you are really concerned, use another source of lecithin, such as granules from a health food store, and omit the egg yolk entirely.

I find it easiest to roughly cut up the apple, discarding the bad bits, stew for an hour or so with about a pint of water to each lb of apple, and then sieve the resulting pulp. Add a pinch of Vitamin C powder, or the juice of a lemon to stop discolouring, and a knob of butter to keep the foam down. You may need to add half a cup of sugar or so per pint depending how sweet are the apples, and how sweet you like the sauce. Others prefer to peel and core the apples first, but since you have to sive it anyway I find that hard work. Some apple go to sauce easier than others. Bramley are the supreme sauce apple. Granny smith will need cooking for longer or action with the stick blender.

Morning all: The quote is taken directly from the International Olive Oil Council's definition. Although the oil may indeed be cold pressed, such terms do not have a formal, legal, definition, so their exact meaning can vary from one producer to another, and they cannot be relied on as a quality mark. They may have had a more formal meaning in some countries before 1990, when the current international terms were agred. Olive oil is very individual, and like wine, the taste varies from place to place depending on the soil, the microclimate and the producer. If you like the oil, stay with it. I've always used a spoon to make mayonnaise. I'm sure you can use a whisk if you want, but I use a spoon as I don't want to take the chance of incorporating air bubbles. McGee, in "On Food and Cooking" has an excellent discussion of the process, and points out that it is primarily the exisiting oil bubbles in the mixture that "mill" and break down the added oil into fine particles, with the spoon or whisk just acting to distribute the added oil evenly. As I say in the lesson there are as many version of Rouille as there are cooks. I guess it is a bit like Brandade, where fillers, such as mashed potato or breadcrumbs are added to make it go further, and make the sauce a bit milder and smoother. The versions around Nice tend to be made from powdered spices without filler, while the ones from Marseilles are made with hot chili peppers and with bread or potato - traditionally a potato that has been cooked in the bouillabaisse. The version in Larousse, quoting Raymond Oliver has potato, fish or chicken liver, garlic, chillis, and no olive oil at all (" teaspoon of oil may be added if liked, but this is not essential, and may change the taste of the sauce"). All are "authentic". 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar is the maximum amount of vinegar (or equivalent) that the oil can take without danger of inversion, and hence the thickest vinaigrette. Less water-phase (vinegar) will give a thinner emulsion. It is indeed a matter of taste. I sometimes dress salad leaves with just EVOO. The skillet is a non-stick pan made by Tefal, stainless with a copper bottom. Using a conventional pan would give more deposits, but would need more fat to cook the steak, and lead to more complaints from my partner doing the washing up. The skillet in the beurre blanc is a heavy solid copper pan I bought in France, ages ago. They cook wonderfully, but need re-tinning annually and are very heavy to lift and use. I have one solid copper pan that is silver plated - I think it was originally for flambe and use in the restaurant, and that is much easier to maintain. The pan residues, for me, are the whole point of the sauce. They add flavour, especially the elusive "Umani" or meatiness, and more importantly the denatured protein acts as an emulsifier. The wine reduces over high heat for about a minute - I guess to half volume, or until it gets a bit syrupy. Heavy cream can be used, but it leads to a somewhat different sauce. Cream and wine sauces can be delicious. You should add the cream off the heat, as the fast boiling will split a cream based sauce. Also the acid in sauce, if it is a very acid wine, or if you add lemon juice, can split the cream. Cream tends to smooth out the flavours in the sauce, so the taste is different from a butter mounted sauce.

With extra yolk you can emulsify gallons of oil. The yolks provide the emulsifier, but its the ratio of oil to water phase that determines thickness The yolks provide some water, but not much, but enough to acccount for the extra half cup of oil.

Thanks I'm honoured! * You mention the importance of temperture control in making beurre blanc. Do you find that the same 100 to 130F guideline applies when mounting the butter for a pan sauce? I think the mechanisms are different for a beurre blanc (which is mostly butter) and a pan sauce (which has a knob of butter in a pan of sauce - maybe 10%). The former maintains the butter emulsion, but the latter makes new emulsion from the vigourous boiling and the denatured protein in the pan residues acting as emulsifier. Keller says Beurre Blanc is stable up to 190C, but even so pan sauces are much hotter. * Regarding cornstarch/cornflour thickened sauces: are there time and temperature considerations here as well? I find that they separate if held too long at a simmer, or allowed to boil vigorously for even a couple of minutes. Is it me or the cornstarch? You may be right. I only really use cornstarch sauces for Wok cooking, or in special cases like Rote Grutze(sp?) - cornstarch thickened red currant puree. Long cooking can degrade the starch, and the oil or fat component starts to leak out of the sauce. However that takes more than a couple of minutes - in the old days Bechamel was cooked for hours. Maybe your sauce is high in oil or fat, and when you stop whisking, the emuslion begins to seperate, just like oil and vinegar. * Maybe you could talk a bit about flour slurries? At the Pig Pickin', we used a recipe (it was red-eye gravy, come to think of it) that called for cornstarch as a thickener. We couldn't find any, so we made a slurry of flour and tomato juice, which, along with the coffee, was the other liquid component in the sauce. Though I've read about the technique often, I'd never tried it before. I was quite pleased with the results, though it simmered for two hours, eliminating the possibility of any raw flour taste. What are your thoughts? Cornstarch is traditionally slackened with water into a slurry, which ensures quick dispersion, and a smooth sauce. Flour is usually used with a fat, such as butter in Beurre Manie or in a roux to coat the particles. I'm guesing, but htis might be because cornstrach, because it does not have gluten, does not form a dough the way wheat flour does, so can be slackened with only a little water. With flour I guess you need more water, or to work quickly before the gluten hydrates and goes lumpy. I don't see why it should not work as a thin batter, however, the amount of liquid needed might dilute the sauce overmuch.

Yes. Singapore Ailines are rally much better than most. The normal business class food looked excellent; the staff were great; the coffee good, and the seats amazing. They went virtually flat so I got a decent amount of sleep. They even had lap-top power points, and good video-on-demand. I sure the mix-up over the low carb food was accidental, and they did offer me a version of the normal food (including delicious sea-urchin salad) to compenste. Best of all was that they had their own fast-track through London Heathrow security, passport control and customs. That alone made flying with them worthwhile.

a la carte: Sauce Verte is a green, herby mayonnaise. Its used mostly as a colour contrast instead of plain mayo for cold or warm dishes.. Good, for example against salmon, or jumbo shrimp, or even lobster. I give as an example using it instead of Aioli for those strange people who don't like lots of garlic. Sauce Tyrolienne (Tomato mayo) is a Frenchman's idea of Austria. Uses might be with cold meats, or a cold salami salad, or with cold fishcakes (think gefilltefish), or as a sauce for a prawn cocktail. It is the cold equivalent of Choron (bernaise with tomato). I included it as it is in La Repertoire. Fat Guy: I find shaking the jar just as good as a whisk or a blender, and better for small volumes at home. It can then go straight into the fridge. I guess we renew it a couple of times a week in the salad season. In a restaurant setting I would either - have the wait staff whisk the sauce just before serving as part of the theatre, or - cheat and add a little lecithin or egg yolk to stabilise the emulsion, or - serve whatever it was plated and ready dressed, not forgetting the obligatory pattern drawn in drops of reduced aged balsamic on one side of a large plate or - more likely use a commercial product so chock full of emulsifiers it is stable for weeks, straight from the plastic jerrycan ...Maybe a professional chef can enlighten us as to current practice.. Skin usually forms on flour based sauces, like bechamel. A knob of butter rubbed over the durface will help. Skin should not form on vinagretes, or mayo if covered. Beurre blanc should not skin if kept covered, and pan sauces are used immediately. To remove a skin either skim it off, or pass the sauce through a sieve

Basically me and my partner, Jill. You will see most are scaled for two, except for weekend and parties when neighbors, friends and relations drop round... The Grand Aioli was eaten by about 6 people fo Sunday Lunch, with some good bread, and fruit and cheese to follow. You will see from the photo it included a boiled chicken, salted cod, tiger prawns, lettuce, beans, carrots, cauli, zuchinni, little gem lettuce, watercress etc. We drank a coupleof bottles of Mas des Brassades Rose 2002 (Costieres des Nimes) with it. Its a great summer dish. Its also why I am trying to lose some weight and cut out the carbs. Hard to do since one of the future lessons I'm writing is on potatoes. Incidently if anyone knows about US potato varieties, and any US potato based dishes (hash maybe?) could they PM me.

dulce du leche Banoffi pie I like it instead of cream for fruit fools (gooseberry, Damson etc). Just mix it with the fruit puree In some parts of the world, like India or Singapore it is essential for putting in the local version of tea or coffee. I guess as a colonial hold-iver