jackal10

Spit roast You can hire these or they are easy enough to build from scaffolding poles or the like. Use a couple of portable BBQs for the fire, or I've even used a wheelbarrow with sand as the firebox. Build a tent round with sheets of tin, plywood or even thick tinfoil to keep in the heat. Quarter of a turn every 15 minutes for about 4-6 hours - very gentle heat, end temperature about 160F. Keep the pig far enough above the fir not to get fat flares, and ideally have a small fire at each end rather than the centre, as that is where most of the meat is. Carve, put in hamburger buns, with stuffing and apple sauce, will feed about 60 people..and the crackling is superb. Also look for cajun or china microwave http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Jul13.html http://www.lacajachina.com/ http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=48801

The local supermarket were selling off large turkey legs cheaply, so I confited some. Seems OK. Any suggestions for use? In particular maybe a variation of turkey-broccoli casserole. This is not in my culture, so I don't have a recipe, and most of the online ones seem to have tinned soup in them. Any other suggestion for use? Thoughts so far In a bean stew (mock cassoulet) Fried with potatoes In a risotto

We have debated this on other threads. IMO Tipping is a foul demeaning practice to be avoided. Restaurants should pay their staff properly. I am a very occasional traveller I am unlikley to return to the same restaurant or be served by the same staff. If I have to tip, I'd do it before service rather than after.

It probably doesn't matter that much. I added tapioca flour until it was as stiff as possible but I could but still form it. I figured it would shorten the drying time. I guess if its really wet you may get some internal cavities.

www.winesearcher.com lists several, and in particular a 1945 Sandeman for around $500.

According to Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to food, quoting "Menagiere de Paris" (14th century) civet sauce has the essential features of fried onions and thickened with breadcrumbs (cives meaning onions, as in chives) By the 17th century the only common civet dish was civet de lievre, or jugged hare, thickened with blood. By extension the term was applied to any blackish sauce. The modern meaning is more of a cooking method: en civet meaning cooked in red wine with onions and strips of larding bacon, and then the sauce reduced or thickened. Although originally "grande cuisine" now they are more a rustic dish, often game but also goose giblets and in some place fish and robust seafood such as abalone. I expect your chef was making a reference to the classical jugged hare dish, and I would expect a red wine and onion sauce, possibly thickened with the blood and liver of the hare.

Some pix from the garden today - definite signs of spring Hawthorn blossom in the hedgerow, and hazel catkins For some reason there are lots of wild violets this year, in the lawn as well as the woods. Occaisional mowing, no fertiliser and benign neglect helps the wild flowers. Wild primroses and white violets Compost ready to use for mulch or for the bean trench. Must clear up the greenhouse, but signs of life - lettuce, tomato and basil seedlings, and the chrysanths coming into life Daffodils are beginning to fade, but native wild orchids have re-appeared with the bluebells coming in the wood. These will be early common purple orchids Wild garlic or jack-by-the hedge. In the interest of culinary enquire I dug a few. Is this what are called Ramps? Meantime in the veg garden the garlic planted last autumn is showing, and the rainbow chard (blette) has new growth. Cardoons in the background. Overwintered Broad (Fava) beans, and must plant out the peas. These are an old purple podded variety that can be ate as mangetout or as (green) peas. Purple sprouting broccoli ready to pick The potatoes are chitting. These are Arran Pilot, and old first early variety, but one that suits my heavy clay. Easter is a traditional time to plant these out, but the ground is still to wet and claggy. Maybe a week or two. Also in the greenhouse. Also in the greenhouse are carnations, responding to the warmer tempertatures. This is Marmion, and old Malmaision variety, with a gorgeous clove scent.

Hot Rice Pudding with preserved fruits. The fruit are Rumtopf (berries in rum) and bottled Greengafes. FOr more anout these see the eGCI Preserving units.

Make the batter Take the roast out of the pan. Let it stand in a warm place - it will be all the better for it. Wrap it in tinfoil ito keep it warm if you like. Add extra fat if need be to the pan and get it smoking hot. I find this easier on the stovetop. Pour in the batter and put into very hot oven. Half an hour later serve with the meat. Of course you'll have to make your gravy from a good demi-glace, since the yorkshire will have adsorbed the pan drippings, but you can't have everything...Gravy is essential to serve with yorkshire. In olden and poorer times Yorkshire pud was served before the meat as an appetite killer; others serve it after with treacle or golden syrup...No gravy if its sweet.

No, no, no; what you have there is a verging on a BLT, which needs crisp thin bacon. A true Bacon Sandwich has thick cut floppy bacon, not crisp. They even sell extra thick Sandwich Bacon here.

That look like a Tarte Tatin (La tarte des Demoiselles Tatin)...upside down caramelised apple tart. I'm sure there are threads about it here

Depth of batter is important; too thick and you get popovers, too thin and it doesn't puff. About an inch is ideal. Making individual ones in muffin tines may be easier than one big one. In all cases make sure the fat (and plenty of it) is smoking hot when you pour in the batter, Some fried or roast onion in the bottom is nice. With sausages embedded it becomes toad in the hole.

Oops I meant 140F - plate warming oven temperature 60C From my eGCI unit Science in the Kitchen:http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=40548

No brown sauce? No butter?

chicken; fried onions; hard boiled eggs; schmalz; salt and plenty pepper; hand chopped

Very pretty to grow as well..

Rib. 6 hours IF your aim is an endpoint of 130F, why put it in an oven much hotter? You will only overcook the outside, and undercook the inside. 6 hours at 140F will be perfection and will let some of the collagen dissolve to give the nicest beef you ever tasted.

The time of year reminded me that I should make Simnel Cake, but I'm sure there are many other local traditions. UK: Simnel Cake: A light fruit cake with a marzipan core, and traditionally 12 toasted marizipan balls on top (the Apostles), and perhaps glace apricots... Originally for Mothering Sunday, but now often served at Easter. The tradition is that servant maids were allowed to make them at the Big House, and then take them home for Easter. Hot Cross Buns Spiced fruit buns with a slip cross on top Saffron breads. A quick Google reveals many more - breads with eggs in them, cheezy breads, tortes with spring greens, greek Tsourekia, Bulgarian kozunak Italian Columba and Pane Pasquali, Rusiian Paska, and others from Poland and Portugal.It would be better to hear from those with personal knowledge. Speak to me of Easter baking traditions:

If you are making ciabatta, the dough is so wet its almost a batter. You can't work with it in a conventional way. That is why its slipper shaped, as it slumps mightily. If you look at the BBA formula, Biga version: Biga: 178 (water 71 flour 107) Water 83.3 Flour 100 Hydration 154.3/207 = 74% The wetness of the dough is the major factor in hole size. 74% or so is conventional for ciabbata, anything less won't give you the big holes. Your crumb looks fine for a conventional bread, and the loaf has risen. You also need to handle it very softly, so as not to knock out the gas that the fermentation has generated. All the traditional knocking back was to make a loaf with even, fine gas cells, the opposite of what is now desirable. Thus today we need to use what were considered bad practices to generate loaves with a lsarge gas cells, and just gently divide and shape. For ciabatta you really just pour it out.

The acid in the sourdough degrades the gluten in the Kamut; kamut gluten is not good for making bread. Most kamut recipes mix with a high gluten variety, such as 50:50 with Spelt or a hard wheat flour.

Isn't lard the same as Suet, just not shredded? You can buy lard, and shredded suet in packets in any supermarket in the UK. Lots of uses, and some things, like suet crust or steamed puddings or lardy cakes would not be the same without it...

Please just use flour and water. That is what the culture needs, since that is what it feeds on in the bread. Ideally use the same flour as you will use in the bread, so use wholemeal if you make wholemeal bread. Anything else added competes for nutrients, and has to work its way out of the culture, taking longer to get to a stable culture. You can add some rye flour or diastic malt which have more amylases to help break down the starch to simple sugars, but ordinary flour, unless chemically treated, bleached or otherwise sterilised will carry enough yeast and lactobacillus load to start fermenting. Teperature (85F) is also fairly critical to select the right bugs. Recipes with grapes and the like bubble quickly and start to ferment beacuse of all the sugar in the grapes, but it is the wrong yeast doing the fermenting. When the grape sugar runs out, they die, or compete with the right yeasts. Other things like milk, I guess are added in the mistaken belief that Lactobacillus in sourdough comes from or eats milk, which it doesn't - it converts lactose to lactic acid. They are just contaminats in the starter, and eventually drop out from the dilution of regular feeding.

Wow! bet they taste as good as they look! Be warned, they don't last. They are so light and moreish they somehow evaporate from the plate if left accessible... I think there is a whole unexplored world here, with similar foods like the South Indian Vadams and appalams, different flavourings and starches..

Personally I would use the one you captured ....if its active you can start to bake with it. Personally I don't like the Goldrush starter. I think its mainly for asale to the tourists, although they did do pioneering eductional work. After a while whatever starter you begin with will evolve to your own, adapting to your flour and your feeding regime. If you are in SF why not beg some starter or a piece of dough from one of the bakeries, like Acme, or visit SFBI http://www.sfbi.com/

Its Hal McGee on Mayonnaise in "Curious Cook", but the same principle applies