jackal10

Potted Prawns Potting was an old method of preservation, cooking and then sealing with fat, usually butter. Traditional with small whole shrimp, for prawns just use the shelled tails. Mace is a favourite spice with this. 75g / 3oz butter 1 garlic clove (peeled and crushed) (optional) 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice 225g / 8oz peeled prawns salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, mace Melt the butter, optionally with the garlic Stir in the prawns, salt and pepper, lemon juice Put into ramekins. CHill. Top with fresh melted butter. Serve with plenty of good bread. Home made prawn crackers These are amazing, and a good demonstration of the amazing properties of starch. Unlike commercial shrimp (US) crackers you can put a decent amount of prawn in them. You can make nice variations, for example by including shredded Nori. Its a lot of work, but the chips keep for a long time. and make a novel nibble. 1 lb shelled and minced prawns (or any fish etc) 1lb Tapioca flour (often available in Asian grocers) 1 oz salt 1 tsp ground white pepper 1 cup water. Bring salt, water, pepper to the boil. Pour the boiling water onto the tapioca flour and stir quickly. Add the minced prawns and knead as you would dough. If its too stiff add more boiling water, but it should be on the stiff side. Roll into a cylinder about an inch in diameter. Wrap in cheesecloth, if you have it, or put a cloth under and over the cylinders. Space them at last an inch apart to stop them sticking together. Steam in a bamboo steamer, or on a cake rack over a pan of plenty of boiling water at high for 45 minutes. After steaming, unwrap and cool the dough on a rack. Re-wrap and keep in a cool place or the fridge to dry - maybe 3 days, untl you can cut very thin slices with a sharp knife. Don't hurry the drying process before you cut the chips. Lay the slices on a piece of cardboard and dry in the sun or a low oven until brittle. You can store for a long ime in a n airtight container. To use deep fry in hot oil at 360F. They will puff in seconds.

I think you have it backwards. Nobody makes that claim. Good cooking is at least as much about inspiration, feeling. Its like having good ingredients; a bad cook willstill spoil them. What I think is claimed is that by understanding the molecular basis of the process you may get additional insight which a good cook can use to their advantage.

Sad. I was at the Universit of Sussex in the 60's and remember the market as vibrant then. You could also buy fish straight off the boats, if you got up early enough. Are there still day boats operating, and do they sell things like small slip soles locally still? These were fish that were not economic to transport, but cheap, very fresh and delicous.

I should declare bias as list manager of the Molecular Gastronomy mailing list. There seems to be some confusion between Molecular Gastronomy as the science and understanding of food and its perception, and a gastronomic style. MG as a science is I'm sure what Nikolas Kurti has in mind when he coined the name, and what Herve This teaches and holds seminars about. Knowing more about the how food cooks is something useful to all. The better understanding leads to a new range of techniques and dishes. These techniques can also be used to re-create or create classical inspired dishes - lighter mousses, for example. However like any technique they can be applied with skill and imagination by a talented chef, or misapplied or used out of context by a poor one.

Don't know about Kansas but I would have though that shade would be better. Tomatoes need a lot of water. Asparagus is a permanent crop. You need to prepare the gound well, and the main problem is keeping it weedfree. I doubt if they will transplant well. I'd buy new crowns from a reliable supplier Here are notes from the University of Kansas http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/hort2/MF319.pdf

I've started taking my own. Better wine and even at $10 corkage a lot cheaper...

In the UK the last couple of weeks have been really cold and snowy - unusually so, and the first proper winter weather this winter. Before that everything was about a month ahead - outside there are snowdrops, aconites, iris stylosa and daffodils all at once. The shops are begiining to get their gardening stock. I've ordered seeds etc. I guess I'll do most of the sowing when the weather warms up towards the end of the month - pointless now with snow on the ground. In the vegetable department the purple sprouting broccoli is just beginning - such a treat. Leeks continue. I've set potatoes to chit (Arran Pilot, Pink Fir Apple and Blue Salad) Sown some lettuce (indoor) Planted out overwintered broad (fava) beans.

Soup Souffle (capture that taste) Pickle (dill, mild vinegar)

Steak in Europe is different in amy ways: the cuts are different (except maybe for filet), and the meat is mostly heifer not cow; enphasis is more on flavour than butter tenderness. As always, if you order steak well done you will get what you deserve...

My family (Ashkenazi anglo-jewry) always served fish for Friday night supper. It is a custom peculiar to some London Jews. Sometimes cold poached salmon but usually cold fried fish - fish dipped in egg and matzo meal and deep fried, then eaten cold. There is a reference to it in Thomas Jefferson's cokery book. Jefferson, the third President of the United States and a famous epicurean, discovered "fried fish in the Jewish fashion" when he came to England. When his granddaughter Virginia put together a collection of his favorite recipes, she included a recipe for fried fish in the Jewish manner to be eaten cold.... I beleive it was a legacy of the Portuguese Marranos (crypto-Jews) who came to England in the sixteenth century, many of them via Holland. Manuel Brudo, a Portuguese Marrano, wrote in 1544 that the favorite dish of Marrano refugees in England was fried fish. They sprinkled it with flour and dipped it in egg and in bread crumbs. Lady Judith Montefiore, the anonymous editor-author of the first Jewish cookbook in England (published in 1846 - I have a copy) referred to the frying oil as "Florence oil," meaning olive oil. At that time an important community of Marranos in Livorno (where her husband came from) exported olive oil to England. SOme claim that this is the origin of fish and chips as a national dish.

Just to re-iterate, you will need some suppport for the dough, or they will spread out. 10C is a bit hot, 10F a bit cold. Can you improvise with a bucket of ice, a large cadboard box and some insulation, like a spare duvet or towels and blankets? Cooling the dough first in the real fridge for an hour or two before putting in the makeshift cool box helps as well.

I'm not sure if its more gas production, or just straight physics. PV=RT, so going from roughly 4C instead of 20C to 100C gives and extra 20% or so expansion

Yes you can. You may need to proof them less, as they will contiue to rise, although slowly in the fridge Try it and let us know how you get on

This is from my foodblog http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...foodblog&st=120 Salmon en croute. Good easy party dish Can make individual portions instead on one large one Cheat by using shop bought puff pastry, but given a couple of turns with more butter. Roll out the pastry and put the skinned salmon fillet on it. Make forcemeat stuffing with breadcrumbs, parsley, rosemary, onion, salt, pepper, bound with an egg. Make it quite green with lots of spinach or parsley or other soft herbs to give a colour contrast. Layer the salmon with the stuffing, and lay the other salmon fillet over the top. Cover with more puff pastry, cut into the sahpe of a fish if you like, eggwash, and decorate - scales made with a small pastry cutter and a head and tail are traditional. Bake for twenty minute or so. Unfortunately I wasn't paying enough attention, and the brick oven was much hotter than I expected, so it burnt. Artistic slicing saves the day (colours are a bit washed out) Lots of variations: ginger and raisin is a tradtional stuffing. Hot or cold, or make individual ones

Have you considered salmon in puff pastry? Its my standard hot salmon dish for large numbers. You can do it whole or individual. Makes the salmon go further as well, and a whole one looks spectacular

I'd take it all the way, and put the formed loaves in the fridge. They will need some support, like a banneton or a tin. They will sit there happily for 24 hours or so. Personally I bake from cold. I think it does increase the oven spring You need to slash well to cope with the oven spring. Others let the dough warm up, but I think that tends to overprove the outside, You could bake the bread the previous day, and then just warm it though before service

Thanks. Its very different here. The legal age is 16 for beer and 18 for everything else. My college has about 25,000 bottles laid down in its cellar (for 500 or so people). The college has a student run bar. I get an entertainment allowance for students that I am tutor to. I well remember my tutor, when I was a student, used to hold a blind wine tasting once a term, and the student who most correctly identified the wines won a case.

Countertops: Like: Granite Hate: Marble, Corian or any artifical surface Floor: Real linoleum (e.e Faber-Nairn marmoleum) Hate: laminate, tiles, stone unless has underfloor heating

No alcohol? What kind of education is this? What do the girls do when they want to impress their friends with their cooking, or hold a dinner party? I seem to remember that was an important part of my student life, at least at grad student level.

London is also in a unique position for the excellence and selection of fine wine, despite the tax, which mostly affects the cheaper bottles. Because of the UK's geographical position in Europe, and that it has virtually no indigenous wine growing of its own, but was a trading nation a wide range of wine is available. Wine has always been drunk, without hang-ups like the prohibition era. Wine merchants and auction houses still trade today that were founded in the seventeenth century

It also acts as insulation. In the days when ovens had poor temperature regulation it was one way of slow cooking.

Just leave out the acid: In each parcel put some butter or EVOO, a tsp of some white wine or a water, salt, pepper, and whatever herbs or flavourings you like - dill, or ginger and spring onion, or ginger and raisins, and do the parcel up. 20 mins in a hot oven just before service. (check one to see if it needs another 5 mins - should be under rather then over cooked) Let each guest open their own parcel and smell the delicious aromas. The salmon will produce quite a lot of juice on the plate; serve bread or potato or something to mop it up. Since you are serving this hot, I'd avoid a mayonnaise, but a hollandaise would be good.

No one has yet mentioned the range of Asian pasta/noodle dishes. Noodles in soup, fried noodles, chow mien, transparent noodles...even some of the instant packets are edible, especially if you add extra protein

Skate calls for black butter - beurre noisette - more nut brown. Having cooked the skate in butter, remove and keep warm, wipe the pan and add fresh butter, cook on high heat until nut brown, add capers and lemon juice, pour over skate. Decent Chablis, good bread to mop the juice, maybe a simple salad..heaven

Can you post here the menus you posted on Friday? Here at the University of Cambridge things are organised a little differently. Although the main teaching is done in the University depoartments, students also belong to a college. I am a member (actually a by-fellow, but I was an undergraduate and graduate student) of Emmanuel College, which is about 600 people. Colleges provide living, eating, drinking and individual or small group tuition. Each college has a full kitchen brigade, and turns out 3 meals a day, 7 days a week including cafeteria and formal meals. In some sense one of the ways the Colleges compete for the best staff and students is to provide the best food as part of the general ambience. Formal meals (including the wearing of gowns) were declining in popularity. This was a pity, since socialising and dining together is an important part of the Cambridge education. By increasing the quality of the food, and making it more of a social occaison the trend has been reversed.