fifi

I dunno about that. I have eaten in many upscale restaurants in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara. There is a long tradition of upscale dining that does not compromise the basic techniques. A Phd anthropologist that I was lucky enough to dine with in Mexico City, informed me that the upper classes and royalty in pre-Columbian times were very formalized in their artful presentation of food and paid a lot of attention to quality of ingredients. They had runners that would bring fresh shrimp and shellfish into Teotihuacan from the Pacific and Gulf coasts. Those delicacies are enshrined in the sculptures there. Yes, French and New American plating and presentation may be influencing Bayless but there is a long tradition in Mexico for the same thing, so who knows where it comes from. Unfortunately, ethnic cuisines seem to have this stigma of a pile of glop or stew on a plate and anything more than that is credited to the French, or these days, New American cuisine. That just isn't true. If you want an extreme example, look at royal Thai food presentation. That is food ART! All I am saying is that what we connect to high style food in presentation and ingredients is not the exclusive domain of the French, New Americans or whoever. After all, it took a Hapsburg to teach the French how to cook.

OK guys... How long is this supposed to take in a crock pot? I had to go out for a couple of hours so I turned it to low and left the lid on. I figured that was the safest thing to do since I really don't know what I am doing. Got home and the onions are just starting to cook. eGads the onions gave up a lot of liquid. (Remember, the only liquid I added was a 1/2 cup of demiglace. I don't count the butter and oil of course.) Now I have turned it up to high and taken the lid off. This puppy looks like it has a long way to go to get the liquid concentrated down to where I have that marmalade consistency and for there to be some browning going on. HELP! Do I just leave it on and go to bed?

I this a good place for my usual rant about leaving the tail shells on shrimp... when they are served in a sauce? I will add huge leaves of greens in salad so that you can effectively paint your cheeks with salad dressing. Uh... they don't set the table with a salad knife anywhere I have been lately. (Exception: The recently resurrected wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese. This is actually one use of iceberg lettuce that I like.)

It is not just you. Playing with my food with my hands is fun. I love the pork chop idea. A guy that caters monthly department lunches at work, often brings along these perfectly cooked little lamb chops that you hold by the bone an chomp. We love those things and everyone enjoys the experience. But ANY sandwhich that deconstructs on the first or second bite is evil. I will include in that group sandwiches that are too thick for biting by any normal being that does not have an unhinging jaw like a python. Don't even get me started on the bottom piece of bread or bun turning into goo from the juicy internals. If you can't make a sandwhich that can be eaten like a sandwich then don't bother. Deconstruct and give me a knife and fork.

Singapore... Is that an incredibly strange craving? Meaning you never eat it, probably don't like it but are suddenly struck with a ravenous craving... out of no where? Hash browns with country ham sounds like a particularly tasty food group to me.

We have plenty of slugs on the coast. The SE part of Texas is pretty wet. But I was going to nominate spider mites. They appear out of no where and can kill pretty quickly or will debilitate the plants to the point that you don't get anything. Hard as hell to kill, too. I will even take fire ants over spider mites.

Had to do this. As I type, 6 white onions, butter, olive oil, a sprinkling of white pepper, 3 bay leaves and 3 sprigs of thyme are starting to heat up in the crockpot. I also threw in a 1/2 cup of beef demiglace because it was sitting in its little jar in the freezer door and said... Use me. Please... use me. So I started it on high with the lid on. Do I leave it on high? Leave the lid on after it gets going?

You are quite welcome. However, expert advice at this level is not free. We will expect a report, with pictures if possible.

FISHSTICKS! I don't like fishsticks. I just finished off the eighth one. I am so ashamed.

Have any of you eaten at Topolobampo, Rick Bayless's high end restaurant in Chicago? If that isn't haute cuisine I don't know what is. And... shhhhh... don't tell anybody... It isn't FRENCH. No, he has not applied French technique to his cooking to "elevate it". Mexican cuisine is all about techniques that are peculiar to Mexican cooking, from the most casual snack to an artfully plated masterpiece. What's funny is, Mexico is one place where French influence is lightly felt even though they had the pleasure of putting up with Maximillian for a while. Bolillos are probably a hold over. But, for the most part, they have just kept on toasting, roasting, grinding, griddling, sauce frying and clay pot simmering through the centuries. What I do find fascinating is that the typical Mexican techniques have a more in common with Indian and various Southeast Asian cuisines than other traditions.

Ummm... I consider myself a fairly accomplished cook of the Mexican cuisine. Oddly, I have never done the rice thing. I have no idea why. You are causing me to rethink the whole rice thing. You are correct. This is not a dish that assaults the taste buds but is a pleasant under dish that is like a calm in the middle of a storm of flavors. I will research my books (Bayless, Kennedy, Martinez) but I will bet that the answer will be the typical mild chicken stock and the addition of some tomato and not much else.

I have a wonderful story about a guy named Miguel at the El Presidente hotel in Cozumel. I was part of was a group (6) that arrived at the hotel. We were on a trip for offshore fishing. Miguel met us and escorted us to our rooms. My room and the room of one of the others of our party did not have working air conditioning. Not a good thing in late May. We sat around waiting for the maintenance people to sort this all out and had a good conversation with Miguel. We were working on our Spanish and he was working on his English and a good time was had by all. We got into a conversation about mangos. Miguel is telling us about this wonderful mango tree in his grandmother's garden. We got our rooms and the air conditioning sorted out and went to bed. We were up very early for breakfast the next morning at the beachfront grill. One of the waiters came to our table with a large plate with an elaborately folded very artistic napkin arrangement holding slices of mango. It was mango from Miguel's gandmother's tree prepared specially for Senora Linda. I still swoon at the taste of that mango... and the kindness of the incomparable Miguel.

I did this in a crockpot a couple of years ago when I ended up with a bag of onions unintentionlly. (Don't ask. ) I thought I would have ready made caramelized onions for whatever use. They didn't taste the same at all. They weren't bad, just not the same flavor as when I caramelize onions for onion soup. I didn't know I was making confit. I wouldn't waste vidalias or other sweet onions on this. Strong onions cook up sweeter as they have more "stuff" that converts to sugar. My rule is sweet oninons = raw, strong onions = cooked. That linked recipe looks pretty good but I would leave out the sugar. I can also think of other flavor notes to add. I am currently on a fennel binge. Fennel seeds would be good. In a crock pot, do you do it on high or low? I don't remember what I did before. The house sure smelled good.

Thomas Jefferson Winston Churchill Richard Feynman John Cleese (for fun and interpretation of the other three)

I do these all the time. One approach is to score the fat and slow roast a la Nigella. Check out this thread. Another thing I do is a braise with an Asian touch. A lot of fresh ginger is sliced and put in the bottom of the pot. Sit the ham on it. Tuck a bunch of green onion around the sides. Mix up soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, sugar to your taste. Maybe throw in some star anise. Cook at 225 to 250 F for several hours. The broth is not all that fatty since the slow braising leaves you with luscious fat to just eat. At any rate, you can just defat the broth and make killer soba noodle soup. edit to add: I actually prefer the shank. There is more connective tissue to turn to gelatine in the slow cooking processes that I use and the bone isn't so obnoxious.

Definitely mangos. My kids called them "sweet christmas trees" which Varmint (I think, or was it Mamster?) adopted as an acclamation... "Sweet Christmas tree, Mabel". Second would be papayas, the Hawaiian varieties, not so much the Mexican.

RecipeGullet seems to be repaired and the pickled shrimp recipe is similarly repaired. This topic is increasingly interesting. Pickled Shrimp

I am so looking forward to my new stove in the new house that will have a griddle. I will then come back to this thread and make all manner of grilled cheese sandwhiches for the rest of the millenium. The address of this thread is now in my favorites file. Do quesidillas apply? Maybe not. Maybe a separate thread.

Thanks. Gotta try it. And I just happen to have a can of Goya garbanzos. For my next trick, I am going to try the red onion with the cauliflower. I may add some fresh finely chopped rosemary.

Details please. This sounds delicious but I am not sure I understand what you did. Are these canned garbanzos? In a pan like a skillet? A pan in an oven? I am confused. (Not an unusual state. )

That link is a real find. Thanks, Mudpuppie.

I have a group of guy friends in the PNW. Morel hunting is definitely a "guy thing" to them. They band together and go to their secret places. If they come back with a haul, they go to a friend's place that has a full fledged bar in the basement, cook mushrooms and drink beer. I have the distinct honor to be invited along if I am in the area during the season. They consider me "safe" since they can ship me back off to Texas with their secrets. Alas, I have not yet been able to arrange such a trip. Do morels occur in Texas?

RecipeGullet doesn't seem to be working as it froze when I hit the submit button. I will try again later if it didn't make it in there.

This is one of my favorite topics. Loved the article. My dad's Scotch Raisin Bread is one of those recipes. We also have a recipe for Pickled Shrimp that came from my dad's oldest sister. She was old enough to be his mother as he was the youngest son in a family of nine. My sister got it from her before she died and wrote it down. We don't know how old the recipe is but we still wonder where she found capers back then (the 30s maybe) or even where the idea came from. I mean, isn't escabeche one of those new exciting trends? It is a fabulous recipe and a family tradition that I will share by posting it in RecipeGullet when I get a chance.

The Houston Chronicle - Food Spend time, not money, on meals with budget-friendly braising Not exactly high culinary art, but braising turns out some delicious eats. It is also timely given the discussion lately on dutch ovens here. Besides, a lot of our friends to the north are still freezing their whatevers off. There really isn't a whole lot new here as to technique but there is an interesting recipe from Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman. A Fort Bend festival An interesting update on the Fort Bend festival. This one continues to look more and more interesting. The Houston Press - Dining Raw Weather Our own Robb Wash speaks eloquently on the subject of eating oysters in a month with an "R".