jackal10

Chefcrash: Great pictures! The problem is the temperature. If you want the meat to retain moisture and stay reasonably pink don't take cook it so hot. It really should be arounf 130F( v.rare), and not over 140F (medium) depending just how raw you like it.

Here in Uk many butchers use vacuum packing to store the meat. I'd not considered asking them to pack something for me to sous vide, but what a good idea...

Leek and Bacon Roly Poly Suet pastry; 8 oz flour 4 oz suet salt, pepper 1 tsp black treacle 2 tsp baking powder water to hold together as a soft dough Pat the dough out into a rough rectangle on a floured cloth. Spread with bacon, onion, leeks, fried together to soften Roll up in the cloth, tie and put into a saucepan of water Boil gently for an hour or so it will swell. You can see why its also called "dead leg" I did not let it rest enough before turning out, so it rather collapsed. Serve with good gravy. You can eat this on its own, with a vegetable. We had it as a starch side to roast pork with Brussels sprouts.

Beef fat is even better as a frying medium... Not too thick batter NEVER frozen fish Use firm flesh fish - cod, haddock, plaice, sole

Its a classic burgundy from a reasonable negociant. The wine house: Bouchard Pere & Fils - The area: Domaine du Chateau de Beaune The district: Savigny-Les-Beaune The particular vineyard: Les Lavieres Quality mark: Apellation Savigny-les-Beaune Premiere Cru Controlee Vins de Savigny sont Vins nourrissants theologiques et morbifuges "wines of Savigny are nourishing, theological and death-preventive" Year: 1990 A good classic red burgundy year. It won't be vinegar, but may be beginning to fade. Wine Spectator rates it 82 and says: Traditionally-styled, with mellow chestnut and cherry aromas and flavors and smooth tannins. Lacks intensity. Retails at $38 http://www.casadelvino.net/pgi-productspec?2878 I'd drink it with good beef or cheese.

The inside of the meat is effectively sterile. The outside you can sear. The FDA reccomendations are at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fc01-3.html#3-4. Table 3-401.11 B2 is what you want, and specifies 112 minutes at 130F to 12 minutes at 140F

For meat other than the very tender cuts (and that is about only rib or filet) you are cooking a lot too hot and short. Its so hot the meat muscles contract and and not long enough for the collagen to dissolve. No wonder its shoe leather. You need to set your oven to about 150F - plate warming temperature - and check with a thermometer in a pan of water.. Cook the beef, about 7 hours or more to an internal temperature of 140F - a little more for well done or a little less, say 132F for rare. The science is given in http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40548

Was it a kiwano, or horned cucumber/melon? http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/5aday/mont...inter_fruit.htm

I'm lucky enough to attend large tastings quite frequently. These are professional tastings, with maybe 50 to 100 wines, professional rather than tutored. Long tables of pairs of bottles, white cloths, spittons, reverential silence. Personally I avoid the scrum type of selling and charity tastings, with people trying to load up as much "free" booze and salty nibbles as they can. . a) You have to spit. Drinking even 3 or 4 tasting portions distorts your judgement. b) Your palate is AC not DC. This means your perceptions change depending what you have tasted just before. Take 2 glasses and fill one with a reference wine, preferably one you know to act as a calibration. c) Clean your palate with a dry water biscuit from time to time. Avoid cheese, as the fat coats the palate. "Sell on cheese, but on an apple" is an old adage. d) Be selective. My palate begins to go after about 30 wines, so I can't do justice to them all. Also I'm usually looking for some fairly specific needs for my cellar, so I don't need to taste everything. In wine, as in much else 90% is crap. e) Having done the hard work choose a nice wine to sip and enjoy.

Very different. Texture: chopped liver is, well, chopped cooked liver. Pate the liver is pureed raw then cooked with the other ingredients. Ingredients: Chopped liver has hard boiled eggs and fried onions in it. Pate doesn't usually. Well maybe fat or schmaltz, but garlic, wine, brandy, cream etc, Taste: different.

I was always told the superstition that it was bad luck to "cut the nose off" a wedge of cheese

I like Elizabeth David's Glace Moka, fro French Provincial Cooking. A classic. Its what I make when I want to make coffee ice cream I paraphrase Put 4oz well flavoured coarse ground coffee, 3 beaten egg yolks, 3 oz light soft brown sugar and a strip of lemon peel (optional) in 1 pt of single cream. Heat gently until it begins to thicken stirring all the time. Strain and cool. It should still have fine speckles of coffee grounds in it. Spin in an ice cream machine, or freeze and mush up when half frozen.

I also can't see any advantage in vacuum packing, but you might want to seal it in a close fitting plastic bag to stop flavour or salt migration from the cooking medium. I suspect it was cooked closer to 150F, despite what the dial said. Also the yolk is a complex system, not just on or off. As to cooking times, the key is how long the heat takes to travel through the egg until it is all at a stable temperature. I'd expect that was more like half an hour than three hours, but the extra time at temperature will do no harm Maybe there is nothing new under the sun. There is an ancient middle eastern long cooked egg dish variously called Uevos Haminados or Beid Hamine (literally "bath eggs" - the Haman is a steam bath) where the eggs are slow cooked at low temperature for example with the Cholent, the Sabbath stew, or in water and coloured with onion skins or coffee.

Fresh apple juice and Champagne is delicious - a sort of apple bellini

Yorkshire pudding is not expensive... Traditionally it was served as a seperate course with gravy before the roast to diminish the appetite and make the beef go further. I'd second a standing rib roast. Its only one day a year, and you can make soup from the bones... Alternatively (and also traditional) is spiced beef - start with a brisket, salt, spices, and cook long and slow like a BBQ.

This is going to be good. I'm just discovering Canadian Ice wines. Is there a guide to them? Which do you consider the best? I've had Paradise Ranch and Cave Spring. I believe there is a Lang Vineyard (my family name). It would be nice to get some of that.

Eggs very temperature sensitive. See McGee p91 You need to cook them at about 145F/63C to within a degree or so, so that you set the most heat sensitive protein only. They become jelly like. Too hot and you get hard boiled eggs, too cold and they stay raw. Cook them in their shells if you don't have a complete vacuum sealer.

Its not boiling - the temperature is much lower. Sous vide is a convenient way of doing long time low temperature cooking. The water bath gives very exact temperature control, and the sealed environment keeps the flavour in. LTLT cooking has many advantages, and a few genuinely new things, like soft cooked long time cooked eggs. The resulting package is portion controlled and stores well since it is nearly sterile, and can be reaheated in the waterbath, making it very convenient in a restaurant environemnt.

Here you go http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=466544 I just lined an 8inch cake pan with a collar of baking silicone paper,

You can personally carry up to 2 litres of still wine duty free For small quantities, use a standard shipper like FedeX or DHL. Make the declaration. and they will bill you the duty and VAT on delivvery http://www.dhl.co.uk/publish/gb/en/informa...d_vat.high.html http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalW...CE_PROD1_023923 For most wine duty is about £1.17/bottle plus 17% VAT. That and the cost of shipping means that you get much better value on shipping better rather than cheaper wines.

This is too much like Hoffnung's advice to visitors "On entering a bus or train carriage be sure to shake hands with all present" There are many differences in customs. Here are some more. In Europe Hard liquor is rarely drunk before dinner - no Manhattans as aperitifs Grace is not said in public, and rarely in private when guests are present except in religious foundations Religion is a private matter. Salad is rarely a separate course, and if it is, it is served after, not before the meat. The waiting staff (an honorable profession) are there to wait, not become you best buddy or beg for tips. Announcing their name is far too personal. Nor are expressions like "Have a nice day" used. What sort of day I have is my business. Smoking is normal

None current, (or should that be currant) that I know of. Christ's College makes much of its Mulberry tree (sat under by Milton), and serves Mulberry Sorbet. Trinity serves Trinity Cream, essentially creme brulee Alan Davidson (and Oxford man) in OCF (an Oxford book) describes the well known College Pudding (flour, suet, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, candied peel, sugar, egg, milk), and says it dates from 1617 in Cambridge. Trinity Oxford has a richer version, and New College Oxford fries the same mixture as dumplings and serves them with Jam sauce. Davidson also describes Peterhouse Pudding, which is a suet pudding mix lightened with eggs in pastry tart shell, and Magdalene Pudding, a rich baked sponge pudding flavoured with brandy nutmeg and lemon rind. I have emailed the catering manager at Peterhouse to see if they still serve it. It was not on offer when I dined there last week. There is King's Pudding and Queens Pudding, but I don't think they are associated with the colleges of those names. Nearby Newmarket budding is essentilly a bread and butter pudding. Harvard has the Hasty Pudding Theatre, which is quite inedible.

mmm...pass the custard!

Here (UK) they have a fairly short season around the end of June. Treat like asparagus, except they have a non-edible glassy core unless very young which you suck the succulent bits off. Also traditionally pickled.

Who would you nominate from eG posters? I'll do the bread...