ianeccleston

Sorry, no visual food porn - but man, that brisket practically disappeared on the 4th. Ooh and aahs, moans, people bickering for the last pieces, people running their fingers through the trough of the cutting board to get the last of the fatty black bits. It was well received indeed. Klink's Dry Rub, sans sumac, and fresh garlic for the dried was great. (although a bit salty and a bit sweet - perhaps the ratios were off due to leaving out the sumac. On a bun though, it was perfect). One half of a recipe covered, with leftovers, a 4.5 lb. brisket flat. =Mark's Mustard Sauce, left over from last week's pork roast was a big hit too - not really needed though. 7 hours of smoking it with hickory chunks and lump charcoal. I took it off at an internal temp of 185 degrees - it was fairly tender, but not falling apart at that stage. I used 3 small to medium chunks of hickory 3-4 times, more or less for the first 4 hours of the smoke. It had a nice smokey flavor, but it was not overpowering. Thanks for all the great posts here, I couldn't have done it without egullet!

Looks great, BTW - can't wait to try mine out tomorrow. Ian

How well do smoked products last in the freezer? I'm thinking of throwing on a turkey breast to accompany my brisket, but I'll probably have too much meat to eat in a week between the two, and so will probably need to freeze the turkey... Ian

I make a cucumber-avacado soup, with cubes of watermelon that gets good reviews. No set recipe, really: just puree Peeled, seeded cucumbers, ripe avacados, salt, pepper, garnished with watermelon. Sometimes I add parsley or cilantro, sour cream, etc. Ian

Just my two cents - I've eaten the Hearty Boys' food a number of times, and it has been excellent.... I'm glad they won. I hope they'll still be available for catering contracts! Ian

6 pound butt, cooked at an average of about 250 for 5 hours (187 degree internal temp). In hindsight, I'd cook it a bit longer so that it really "pulled", and would cook it with a lot more smoke. Still pretty tasty though! More pork porn for ya:

Hell yes. Looks lovely.

You had white summer truffles - which are completely different in aroma, taste, texture, and most importantly price from white winter truffles - they're less than one tenth the price. They're black on the outside - creamy white and veined on the inside - and much more subtle in aroma and taste - and yes, more starchy in texture. Knowing the chef's reputation - he's probably using a good quality white summer truffle. But when you get a chance, give white winter truffles a chance - the aroma alone will blow your mind. ← Ah! Thanks so much. Very good to know - I was surprised that the truffles weren't expensive, and now I know why they weren't. I tend to be thrifty, but I'll see if I can dig in my pockets to try the winter truffles.

Thanks to everyone for helping me find Le Troquet, especially John Talbot for his great advice all over this board. I lurked a bit while I was in Paris to find a great meal for me and my family after a very disapointing meal at Le Grand Colbert, near the Louvre (so expensive! so unexciting! suce poorly prepared food!). I was determined to find a reasonable, exciting bistro, and as usual egullet saw me through it. At Le Troquet, Prix fix was only 30 euros, and if the whole table was game, you could have a 37 euro degustation menu, selected by the chef. There were many selections on the regular prix fix, and some really exciting supplements. For the first course, I got the truffle suplement, on a melange of spring vegetables - favas, carrots, peas. They were generous with the white truffles, but (and I'll admit this is the first time I had them when they weren't itty bitty black bits in pate or something) maybe not the greatest quality - they only tasted vaguely garlicy, a bit acidic and a bit starchy. No wows. On a better day, this would have been worth the 12 euro supplement. But thet vegetables were so good, that I hardly cared. Perfectly seasoned, with a warm vinaigrette, and perfectly cooked and presented on a piece of black slate, decorated with spices. Others had an out-of-this-world vichysoise (very delicate and thin), or a generous portion of a torchon of foie gras (buttery!). For the second couse I had a braised suckling pig shoulder, stuffed with garlic and almonds, served with a rich gravy and mashed potatoes - what seemed like a 3/1 butter to potato ratio. My family also had spring lamb (supplemental menu, I think) - very good, but very, very rare - served with a ragout of white beans (stole the show), and a great perch fillet. For dessert I splurged again, and got the supplement for 6 euros: a vanilla souffle. trembling and custardy. Oo la la. Others had a cheese plate, and ... ? As reported, the ambience is not extravagent, but is charming - menus written on chalk boards, relatively small restaurant - and the service was a bit harried, but overall well worth it for the extraordinary meal. Total bill for 5 adults and 2 bottles of a cote de nuits from Burgundy (37 euros each) was about 300 euros. Thanks again, Ian

It looks like Ian and mrbigjas are going to be doing some terrines in the near future with great pans! Please tell us how you like this mould, does it have a mechanism for pressing the contents? Ian, Why are the sides ridged? ← Man, I don't know why they are ridged. Maybe it adds small ridges to the final product? The only description I have is on the Matfer web site. It does say that there it's for pates in crust, which is an exciting thought. As for weighting it down, I guess I'll use weighted down reinforced cardboard as I do with loaf pans.

It looks beautiful Ian! Can you estimate how thickly did you slice the vegetables before cooking them? ← Thanks! 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch. I can see from the photo that I cut them a bit unevenly... but there's a lot of leeway, I think. The eggplant can be thicker, as long as it's fully cooked, but the zucchini have to be a bit thinner so the terrine cuts without squishing and so that they cook to a nice texture, a bit al dente. I just got a Matfer terrine mold off of ebay!! Very excited. $9.99. They can go for $80 new. Has anyone used anything like the one picture below? The bottom slides out, and the hinges are removable to release the sides. Ian

Twice-cooked pork Red-Cooked Pork Belly both recipes are salty and unctuous. mm.

By the way, this is how the vegetable terrine mentioned earlier looks... I made this last spring. It really comes out beautifully. Has anyone tried the green apple and duck terrine from Tom Colichio's book? It looks great, I may give it a whirl this weekend. Ian

The dextrose provides an energy source for the bacteria that do the actual curing. Their action turns the dextrose into lactic acid which subsequently raises the acid level (lowering the pH). So you need the dextrose both as a fuel for them, and as a raw material for the manufacture of the acid that actually does the curing. ← Also, the nice thing about dextrose is that it doesn't make the end product as sweet as sugar would, while providing the same properties, as jsolomon points out. Ian

There are several farmer's markets in the Chicago area that service the best restaurants in town. Yes, lettuce that was picked that day (or late last night). Home cooks can order truffles too. Not to mention ordering meat from Nieman Ranch, or going to some of the great butchers in the area for prime, dry-aged steak. That being said, that isn't going to happen every night, especially on my budget (although it would cost less than ordering at a restaurant). Home cooking will never be restaurant cooking, and vice-versa. But both have merits and can offer something that the other doesn't. When was the last time you went to a restaurant and had day-picked sweet corn on the cob, with nothing but salt and butter? Fine cuisine indeed, but you'd never see it on a menu.

Of course the speed of the cooking in much different, in a restaurant the chef has to whip out the courses in minutes compared to the hours it can take the home cook, but that isn't to say a home cook couldn't or shouldn't do it if they have the desire. ← There's also the issue that some home-cooked meals could never be served at a restaurant, because in fact they can't be whipped up in minutes, or must be served immediately as soon as they are done. Or, because a homey dish might not sell well on a menu, but would be quite delicious. (Risotto cooked to order might be an example - how many restaurants can have one cook stir a risotto constantly for a half-hour, cooked to order? Now, I'm personally not going to cook a 10 course tasting menu ala Keller's French Laundry cookbook, but I bet there are a few on egullet that would. Home cooks might take shortcuts because they don't have the time or equipment (I do not own a chinois, for example), but I bet restaurant cooks also take shortcuts to get the dish out of the kitchen. My point being, there are meals that you get at a restaurant, and meals cooked at home. Both can be delicious, if somewhat different.

The Minimalist article today in the NYT is a great essay on home cooking vs. restaurant cooking. Hear, hear! Bittman will have a new televsion show where he compares chefs' recipes to his scaled-down, home-cooked version. I can't wait to see the show - hopefully it will get distributed nation-wide so I can see it.

Dark chicken meat with lime, fish sauce & thai red curry paste. poach, then grill. Ian

*bump* So, OK - I've been doing the salting routine for years, but every once in a while, the eggplant comes out very, very salty. Is there any way to prevent this? I've tried rinsing (doesn't seem to get enough salt out, and possibly makes it absorb more water), and squeezing (the theory being that it will get rid of the excess salt water), to no avail. Specifically, I tried Mario Batli's preserved eggplant, which steeps in salt for 12 hours. Can't bear to eat it. Any ideas? I'll try the microwaving idea for sure. Ian

Lovely! When I try to make these, I have trouble getting a nice, tight, neat roll that sticks. Any advice you can share? (I am similarly burrito-rolling challenged). Ian

OK, just for the record, the barbacoa is good, but way too salty.

Mine was "Eggplant to make the Sultan Swoon." Think Cinnamon Toast, but replace the toast with soggy-fried eggplant. It did make someone fall down when they tasted it, but not swoon, per se.

Hear, hear! Why doesn't the North Pond get more press?

Ciao Faith, Thanks for your advice. Are there any other shapes besides ravioli and tonarelli that I should aim to make thicker? And also, concerning semolina pasta, is there a technique to make the semolina pasta edible? Other people have recommended using the dough hook on a stand mixer to get the flour and water to a dough-like state, but I would imagine that that might make the dough even tougher. Thanks, Ian

Faith, Thanks for joining us here on eGullet! I've been making homemade pasta at home for a couple of years now - mainly for ravioli, lasagna and tagliatelle (and of course maltagliati, inadvertently or no). In all these cases I always use the pasta machine, and roll it out to the thinnest setting. However, I always wonder if there are cases where people make thicker pasta - fresh pasta with more of a chew. Marcella Hazan says to roll it out "as thin as you want it", but other cooks usually say to roll it as thin as possible. If people do indeed roll thicker pastas, what are your recommended sizes, cuts and sauces to accompany them? The alternative, I suppose, is to use semolina flour (with water, no eggs). My attempts at this have been appalling though, from the long kneading to the rubbery, inedible product at the end of it. Which is unfortunate - my father-in-law, whose family is from Calabria, gets misty when he talks about his mother making cavatelli from semolina. I'd love to be able to make something like that for him. Please share your thoughts. Thanks, Ian