jackal10

The Tandoor Site describes a person who built his own round a liner, and recommends TANDOORI CLAY OVEN CO. LTD 164A DUKES RD LONDON W3 0SL clayoven@lineone.net Tel: +44 (0) 208 896 2696 Fax: +44 (0) 208 896 2686 I find a french bread/pizza oven better and more versatile. I bought mine from WOOD FIRED PIZZA OVENS Co MR Mc DONALD Ian and Grant 72 Ladbrooke Drive Potters Bar Hertfordshire ENG - 1 QW ENGLAND Tel : (0044)-1707-85-28-53 Fax : (0044)-1707-64-78-02 Four Grandmere[

Not really about cornbread, but its in the article; What is the other use that you might reserve the kale stems for? Short of compost, or feeding to pigs, I can't think of any, but you never know what those Southerners might get up to...

I have overproduced plants. If you can figure out a way to collect them from Cambridge UK, then free to a good home: Red Brussel sprouts Purple Sprouting Broccoli Cavallo Nero Kale Savoy cabbage Tomato "Fireworks II" Leek starters Nature is wonderful. I saw in the garden an Orange Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) which I had never seen before. I also noticed that the row of seedling Chinese Mustard had been devastated, which is apparantly this butterfly's favourite food plant. I'm sure that this is the only chinese mustard for miles around - we are surrounded by agricultural fields. How did the butterfly find it?

For these purposes you can substitite any good edible oil, such as olive oil for the mustard oil. You may want to infuse some mustard seeed in it for flavour, but not essential for the coating purpose. Jaggery is sugar and any sugar, but preferably a brown sugar will substitute. I would not use molasses syrup, since you don't know the concentration, Its the same principle as seasoning a cast iron pan: essentially you are laquering the inside with the dried on oil. You need to keep the fire low enough so the oil doesn't catch fire before it permeates the clay and dries.

I think you are exactly correct here. The issue is that of information flow. I wonder how that has changed with boards like this. I expect it to speed up a lot compared to paper media, like guide books. If so, that will have a de-stabilising effect, since one bad meal at Restaurant X, and every restaurant has bad days will be reported round the world in hours, just as an outstanding meal, or celeb sighting at Restaurant Y. Guide books may take a year or two to tell that this restaurant is not good or the chef has moved ( I'm assuming you are far away and don't have access to the newspaper reviews). Reputational value is a whole interesting area of economics in itself, and for example is possibly what drives the Free Software movement, such as the software this Board is implemented with. I teach and research this stuff at the University of Cambridge. Restaurants have high barriers to entry. It can easily cost £1m to set up a new high-end restaurant. The marginal cost of an extra cover is low. Consolidation doesn't work because the high value chef has limited capacity. Successful chefs opening second restaurants almost always fail, since the standard in both restaurants drop as they take their eye off the ball.

Joy Larcom's revision of the Royal Horticultural Society's "The Vegetable Garden Displayed" "The Salad Garden" from the same author is good as well. Other than that the golden oldies: Hilliers "Manual of Trees and Shrubs", and Sutton's "The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers" (1926)

Firstly use the right varity of corn. You need a "supersweet" variety. Secondly time from picking really does matter. Seconds are vital. Build the BBQ next to the corn patch, or run from the garden to the kitchen, where the pan is already boiling or the grill hot. If you can't get them picked within minutes, frozen is the best substitute, since the better ones are, like peas, blast frozen as soon as picked. I prefer to cook them in the cobs, since this steams them and I don't like the parched corn effect, YMMV.

I'm not sure about your analysis of restaurants as "Winner take all" market. Reatuarants are certainly capital intensive, labour intensive, top-end limited (you can get only so many bums on the seats) and fickle. The capacity limitation means there will be several winners, but the ones at the margin will suffer first in a recession. However "Winner take all" markets are usually those where the switching costs are high, so it is easier for the incumbent to keep customers than for a new entrant to gain them, such as where there is some network externality. For restaurants the switching costs are low - where there is competition its easy for a customer to change aligence. Few restaurants run loyalty schemes, other than being recognised by the Maitre'd. Restaurants are more akin to a fashion business, which does have some element of the network effect: everyone, when they hear about it, wants to go to the fashionable place, forsaking the previous fashion, so in that sense it is winner takes all, and the network is that of the spread of news of the fashion. Some restaurants have even tried to simulate that by making it very hard to get in, but the policy can backfire. . However I suspect fashion only applies to the early adopters. To buld a long-term business you need to appeal to more than just the fashionistas, and like any other business, that means long term consistency and excellence, and features like location and value. Remember it can take 2 years to get into the guides. Where there may be an element of lock-in is in the external activities: TV appearances, cookery books, newspaper columns, product endorsements etc. These help drive customers to the restaurant, and I suspect generate more money for the successful chef than the market limited by the restaurant's capacity.

I like the ravioli idea Alternatively I'd saute some potatoes in the fat then add the shredded meat, and maybe some cabbage and serve with a tomato chutney... Or make version of cassoulet with the meat, garlic sausage, beans, and a tomato sauce Or serve whole, with creamy mashed potato and a tomato based sauce So tomato sauce seems to be the answer

Yes, the wrong butter can ruin a recipe. Many of the butter substitutes use thickeners and emulsifiers. These don't behave the same way as butter under heat, or even under shear like being stirred into a mixture. They melt at different temperatures. The taste of the butter (or other fat) is often reflected in the final taste. If you use crap butter it tastes crap. If you want your dish to taste of EVOO use EVOO. Besides salted and unsalted (why use salted? Its much easier to control the salt in a recipe using unsalted) the major difference is in the lactic acid content. Some european "cultured" butters are allowed to ferment to develop flavour, as opposed to sweet butter. There are other variants such as whipped butter, and of course Ghee and other clarified butter products.

Doesn't last long round here. It gets used. Main use is roasting or frying potatoes...

Soupe du jour is soup of the day in menu Franglais. Actually if you go back to the original Escoffier, rather than the later Grand Hotel Cuisine, his recipes are remarkably fresh and modern. More often than not the sauces are relevant and often reductions, the garnishes apropriate.

Our local Coton Orchard used to make a quite acceptable light lunch wine. Unfortunately they have been taken over, and once the new accountants calculated the true cost, the vinyard has been grubbed up.

Well done Adam. May have been too obvious...

Green Tea and Lime Sour Risotto of Smoked Bacon, Parsley Ice Cream Sweet Basil Soufflé, Tomato Sauce (UK, but not in London or Bray)

The Ivy

October should be fairly young. Did you hang them before plucking and freezing? If not too late now. They are, however much better eaten in season. If they are young treat them in a traditional fashion: Roast fairly plainly Treat like a small chicken (especially if you did not hang them). . Put bacon over the breast to stop it drying out. Traditional accompaniments are bread sauce, redcurrant jelly, game chips, gravy. You'll need roast potatoes and some member of the cabage family as well. Old birds braise, casserole or make a game pie. Long low wet cooking. The flesh stuffed into the middle of a cabbage makes a good dish.

They aren't waxed here! Parsnips are delicious. Roast: Parboil first, then roast like potatos, but not as long, and in quite a lot of fat. The high sugar content causes them to burn quickly. You want the caramalised, but not burnt. Pureed, or pureed with potato Soup: Lightly curried parsnip is good hot or cold, as is "nip and nip" parsnip and turnip Parsnip crisps Blumenthal and others do a version of "corn flakes and milk" but with parsnip crisps and parsnip infused milk. Maybe it was the pan handle burning...

400 plants of Chamomile Treneague have just arrived for a camomile and thyme lawn on top of the outdoor bread oven. As soon as it stops raining I'm outside to plant them at 3-6 inch spacings. The theory is to keep it quite dry so as to inhibit the grass. Frost date here is 1 June "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" Meantime the greenhouses are full with starter plants: Tomatos, Chili peppers, cucumbers, pole beans red brussel sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli pumpkins, winter squash, basil, lettuce, pansies for bedding, Amaranth, sweet corn... Outside the radishes are coming, as is spinach, and chinese mustard. Potatos just showing through. Broad (Fava) beans up, but patchy - need to re-sow. Sweet peas are up, but no sign of the purple podded eating peas. The apple blossom is lovely but patchy. The Egremont Russet is full on, but the Ellisons Orange is not there at all. No buds even. Allington Pippin in between. The grass needs cutting, the herb garden tidying, and the clematis tying in. The cock pheasants stroll around crowing, and either doing battle or claiming ownership. The hens, meantime, come out for brief breaks then scuttle back to sitting on their eggs hidden in the brambles and the long grass.

You can't really make Borscht from cooked beets. Borscht is basically a good broth, coloured with the juice from cooking beets in it, and with sweet/sour overtones. Many variants though. Versions go all the way from clear consomme, hot or cold, via creamy soups (thickened with egg yolks) to meaty stews, one pot meals. Sour cream is traditional, or a boiled or fried potato and/or cabbage pirogi if you don't want to mix meat and milk. You could approximate by liquidising some of the beets and adding the strained result (the liquid, not the solids) to a broth (with or without chunks of meat and vegetables), with a good slug of vinegar and sugar. Add some julienne of the beets if you like, but primarily as decoration. Easy on the sugar, as the beets are quite sweet. May need a balancing amount of salt. Let it simmer a while to take the edge off the vinegar. Pre-cooked beets are traditionally eaten as a salad ingredient, usually with a fairly sharp vinegar dressing. Sliced thinly and deep fried they make good root crisps. They can also be roast.

Lynne Olver, editor of The Food Timeline (Morris County Library, NJ USA http://www.foodtimeline.org) has kindly pointed me to their web entry: Steak Diane History. In it she points out Escoffier's recipe for Sauce Diane: "Sauce Diane Lightly whip 2dl of cream and add it at the last moment to 5dl well seasoned and reduced Sauce Poivrade. Finish with 2 tbs each of small crescent shaped pieces of truffle and hard-boiled white of egg. This sauce is suitable for serving with cutlets, noisettes and other cuts of venison." and suggests it evolved from Steak au Poivre, traditionally propared at the table. The crescent shapes are because Diane is also Goddess of the Moon. The toast served with to mop up the juices should also be in crescent shape.

Steak Diane is not mentioned in Escoffier or in la Repertoire, so has no place in Cuisine Classique. Diane (Goddess of Hunting) is usually associated with game recipes, and garnishes and sauces involving game. Presumably one of these made the cross-over to beef. Hunters Beef, on the other hand is pickled and long slow cooked. The food timeline gives its origin as 1908, but with no justification. Steak Diane has the feeling of originating in a grand hotel dining room, and The Chicago Meat Authority give its origin as "Created at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, individual tender beef steaks are pounded flat, quickly cooked in butter and flamed with cognac. The cognac sauce is typically finished with sherry, butter and chives". However, the Copacabana Palace Hotel was only opened in 1923, and note no onion, mushroom, mustard or Worcester sauce in this version.. My guess is around the turn of the century, with a revival in the 1950s, fading out as front-of-house staff became deskilled plate-slingers.

Use the white linen tablecloths at the end of service. Wash in hot water plus a little washing up liquid. Rinse. Dry. A tablecloth is big enough to wrap round your hands and provide some protection, also avoiding fingermarks. If there is a stubborn deposit, soak the glass overnight. Decanters are rather more difficult. You can get special brushes, and a length of lavatory chain works well.

Tungpo "straw mat"pork, named in honour of the poet Su Tungpo.The story is that a passing Immortal flung a bit of straw mat into a pot of belly pork to give it it special fragrance. Not the version with peanuts, but a precise square of pork belly salted, blanched twice, long braised and then long steamed, so the fat and skin can be cut with a spoon, with smoothness, depth and clarity of flavour. Tender, sweet, tasty, rich but not oily. The surface is brown and yielding, and the underlying fat smooth and custard-like, the meat brown and tender,

IMHO a few days won't affect the wine. It would be worse if it cycled continously and quickly (say every 15 mins) between 56 and 78, mostly through agitation, but you won't notice the effect of a steady temperature. At worse may make the wine mature a day or so earlier, but if you can tell that over the period a wine ages, then you are bluffing. While the cellar is hot you will need to chill the whites before serving, instead of having them at cellar temperature Of course you worry about the dramatic effect. Ship the lot to me and I'll taste them all for you..