fifi

tchocolatl... That sounds wonderful. Why didn't I ever think of that? I will definitely be trying that. Maybe with Christmas breakfast.

Bambisian! That one made me spit merlot. Now I am defiintely going to get that vinegar if they have it. Hong Kong Market is a pretty big place. Have you been able to find it in a general Asian market?

Thanks, Mabelline. I will be going to my Asian market tomorrow or Wednesday and I will look for that vinegar. It sounds really good. Is it milder than our usual white vinegar? If so, maybe I should use a little more than the original recipe. Heh. Heh. An Asian twist on venison is a departure from our usual methods but I think the sweetness of the venison should work well. Now... What kind of fusion would you call THAT?

My nephew is our chief provider of game. He is excellent at getting a clean shot and really knows his way around a field dressing knife. He has been doing it since he was a kid, now in his mid 30s. His venison is always the very best. Yeah, we are looking at the pork fat for flavor more than anything else. We just think that this will "work" with this braising liquid recipe and give us a really new twist on the venison. The pork fat and skin is my idea that I literally dreamed up. I don't know that I have ever seen that one before.

My nephew got a doe and we are going to do the leg for Christmas. The whole back leg is about 10 pounds which makes it perfect for a braising recipe I have from a friend from Taiwan that I have used for fresh pork ham. It is heavy on the ginger and not so heavy on the soy and is a delightful balance. I have been able to get my hands on a piece of pork skin and some extra pork fat to tie it up in. We are after a long braised dish with tender succulent meat. Am I on the right track? Has anyone done this? We have braised leg of venison before (and it is one of our favorite ways to do a whole leg) but never tried the pork skin and fat thing. We have certainly used bacon, both larding and wrapping, but we didn't want that much smokiness for this recipe. This is the braising ingredients: 1 large hand of ginger, about fist sized 1 bunch green onions ½ cup light soy sauce (regular Kikkoman will work) ¾ cup Chinese cooking wine (usually labeled “not for consumption”… no kidding) ¼ cup white vinegar ½ cup rock candy 2 Tablespoons brown sugar ½ cup dark mushroom flavored soy sauce We are also looking at giving some of the sides an Asian twist and think that is going to be really fun. Christmas is our time to play with food. That is our Christmas food tradition. Comments? Ideas?

Damn. That is what my grandma and great aunt did. But I will bet they didn't know why. I can stills ee the big pots of boiling water when it was time to put up the vegetables from the garden. They always blanched and froze. We were some of the first kids on the block with huge chest freezers in the early 50s. KarenS, I have always wondered about that cork thing, too. Didn't someone, (McGee?, Steingarten?) test this?

For food infections, when I was in a position to investigate some of those, we had some very severe cases that were 2 to 3 hours to onset. These were borne out via matching cultures. With high initial bactrial load, it can happen but is not typical. The creepiest case I worked on was a normally healthy kid, 10 or 12, that was in the habit of making milk shakes with eggs. They lived on a farm. He started showing symptoms in less than an hour and 12 hours later he was dead from massive infection, blood infection and organ failure. But that is a real extreme. And probably involved some particularly agressive strains of salmonella. (That is what it was.) Staph poisoning is a toxic reaction to the toxin and not an infection. It can happen really fast, less than an hour, if the toxin is in a high enough dosage. Staph toxin is not destroyed by heat so there are sometimes erroneous assumptions that it couldn't have been this or that because it was served hot. I would discuss it with the chef but I would go to him armed with all the information you have (who ate what, commonalities, etc.) so that he can maybe figure out where the safeguards broke down and fix it.

There are parallels to this concept if I understand their description. There are PTFE "composites" out there where, if you think at the microscopic level, a tougher polymer or ceramic type matrix holds finely divided PTFE in order to provide a structural framework for the relatively fragile PTFE. Xylan polyamide/PTFE coatings for fasteners that are inserted with power tools comes to mind, developed for the automotive industry. Also, bearings and such where there is a mocosite of ceramic or graphite. I can see how an anodizing coating structure, basically a type of ceramic, could be developed to include PTFE. If that is what it is. How durable would that actually be? Who knows. Would it really allow for development of fond? Who knows.

Elie... I am in awe. Thanks for the "critical" comments on the amount of liquid and the bread crumbs. Those are the details that are so helpful. And, of course, that leads to more questions. Are you saying that you would use less liquid than in Wolfert's recipe? I wonder if there may be a variable here that can't be controlled... how dry the beans are... and that you just have to go by look and feel. Did you use Wolfert's confit recipe? Looking at that confit has me drooling. Thanks you so much for sharing.

Oh dear. I wonder if that means that they didn't even try or if they tried and got no help. What we seem to have here is a potential conflict between opposing government forces: Agriculture trying to promote the idea and Depts of Health trying to shut it down. About the only way to work through that is to run the regulatory gauntlet, starting with the side that is supposedly willing to help you out. Being in the food industry, I am sure that these folks understand all of this, but you never know. I will see if my sister's friend knows what the deal is since he has been talking to them about getting more participants. I probably won't see him until Christmas, though.

Claire, I am going to make a WAG here and guess that the last recipe you found is closer to what we are talking about. That is idle speculation from one who knows close to NOTHING about the subject at hand. I am just thinking that the mix of white and brown sugar may be an attempt to come close to piloncillo. Although piloncillo is now pretty much available in the larger urban markets the mix looks like a reasonable substitution. The condensed milk also looks logical given how much of that stuff is used in Mexican sweets. The slow cooking also makes some sense. Me try it? That would not be helpful. I know diddly about candy making. I can read a recipe but candy seems to me to be one of those things that suffer when you haven't developed the little techniques... grandma knew just how long to stir the fudge and what it looked like when it was the perfect texture, Aunt Minnie knew just when to pour out the divinity, that sort of thing. Those things are part of the art that I am artless about. Isn't there something about stirring fudge before pouring out that determines sugar crystal size and therefore determines the final texture? There may be something like that at work here. I seem to recall having leche quemada that was kind of grainy and then getting some that was wonderfully creamy in the mouth. Same as with fudge. I would look at fudge techniques as a guide. Then again... Maybe an experienced candy maker will help us out here so that the ignorant (me) will just shut up. edit to add: Nuts... BAH!

Jaymes, THANK YOU! YES! Burnt milk candy. That is the one. I always liked it in the little fluted logs. It looked like it was squeezed out through a pastry tip and then cut into pieces. I am a purist about the stuff. NO to nuts or coconut.

I LOVE that candy. If you are talking about the same thing I am it is a brown, sugary, fudgy type thing. The main flavor is like dulce de leche, that toasted milk and sugar blend. I have looked in some of my books and haven't found a recipe yet. If I do, I will post it here. edit to add: That candy has a name. I just can't spit it out. It is driving me nuts. If Jaymes or theabroma don't show up soon, I may have to PM them. Hey... Maybe one of them knows how to make it.

OK... The coconut pearl tapioca experience. My son was in love with the pearl tapioca in coconut milk that he would get at Keo's. I had given my mother the book by now but I hadn't read it. I was just starting to cook again after a 10 year hiatus so I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. We decided to try to make the tapioca so I bought a bag of the stuff and my usual case of coconut milk on a trip to Hong Kong Market. Now what. Suffice it to say that I had made tapioca pudding before but I had never messed with the pearl type. Do you precook it? We decided not since we wanted the coconut taste all the way through and the pudding I had made years ago was a simple dump together type thing. That was the first of many mistakes. No rinsing. No soaking. As we cooked the stuff in a dutch oven it started swelling a lot more than I expected. And it kept getting thicker. Bigger pot. More coconut milk. Stirred some... oops! It got thicker. And it is still growing. Bigger pot. Repeat the steps above. Send son to store for more coconut mik. (Why did we keep thinking it would do anything different?) We gave up when we had graduated to the biggest pot in the house. Think about your biggest stock pot. Now think about that stockpot filled with coconut flavored paste! We finally looked at each other and simultaneously said... "What the f*** are we doing?" We laughed until we had tears rolling down our cheeks. Everytime we order that dessert at a Thai restaurant we come down with a case of the giggles.

I know that this is a cookbook thread and I may have taken it off-topic. But, that original experience at Keo's and our subsequent cooking from the cookbook has been a seminal happening, never to be equaled. My (now grown) kids and I still talk about the original experience of the spring rolls, Evil Jungle Prince, and the pearl tapioca dessert. My son and I had a VERY funny experience trying to duplicate the tapioca dessert.

Too funny, Brooks. (Yikes! I just realized that I misspelled theabroma!) To anyone that has not followed her wonderful journey, it is here. I think, basis my conversations with Richard, that she might be ammenable to arranging trips. That would be really fun.

Yeah, Seth. I agree. Our policy toward drug addicts is insane. But, I also think that getting the inmates involved in something as basic as the production and preparation of food is one route to rehab. The Vitapro scandal here in Texas was obscene. We have a lot of land for growing grain and raising cattle and here is this big scandal about providing soy based food for the prisons. That is just nuts.

I think that there is a fundamental difference between having meaningful work, performed in a safe and humane manner, and "slave labor" conditions. Meaningful work is a positive thing. I really don't get the argument that you can't have convicts working. Growing and producing food, then cooking it, is such a basic part of life that I can't see the downside of having the convicts contribute to that effort.

Help me out here. I didn't really think of the original Keo's we went to years ago as being "in Waikiki" but then, we took a cab. I am not sure where it was now. It was called Keo's. This had to be in the mid '80s. Is that the original that is still there? Then, I remember last year, we were at a gas station gassing up the rent car before we returned it and there was a Keo's that was new to me in this esplanade (I think) at this really big intersection. I think where Kalakaua takes off into Waikiki. What is that one? I am sorry to hear that the Ward's location closed. We liked dining there then going to the shops. I recall that there was a really good book store. That is where I bought the cookbook one year. They had a great Hawaiiana section. That is where I got my very favorite history book, Shoals of Time I think.

You guys need to talk to theabroma if you are serious about a trip.

About 20 years ago, I took the kids on their first trip to Hawaii. It was up to my son (about 12 at the time) to make the dinner decisions and reservations. After looking in one of the dining guides, he suggested Keo's because we had never had Thai food. This was the original. I didn't know it was on King Street because we took a cab. The food blew us away! We were in love! On subsequent trips we ate at the Keo's at Ward's Warehouse. (I think that is right.) Then, Thai restaurants started showing up in Houston. We tried every one and found them ok but not quite like Keo's. No one had the spring rolls that you wrap in a lettuce leaf. Then one day my son was reading an article in Conde Nast rating Thai restaurants around the world. I hear this loud exclamation... "Oh Shit!" (Watch your language, dear.) "No wonder we can't find Thai food to equal Keo's. They are rated the best in the world." On a trip last year I saw the "new" Keo's on Kalakaua but didn't go. Is it the only one left? Is it as good as the original(s)? I bought the Keo's cookbook several years ago for my mother. It is now in my library and I cook from it fairly often. The photography is lovely.

I dunno about that. I wore contact lenses for years and would always have to take them out when I got into a really bad onion attack.

It seems to me that the prison kitchen setting is an enormous opportunity for developing skills that can be used "outside". I remember seeing a program on FTVN about a restaurant run by ex-cons, San Francisco maybe? In Texas, we have had our "pea farms" where the local town drunk was sent to till the fields. It seems that those are falling by the wayside. But, it seems to me that a prison system that keeps the inmates involved in producing their own food and seeing to it that it is cooked and served well could be a win-win situation. Of course, you would have to be really careful about picking the kitchen staff. I mean, you don't want to give the violent types access to a chef's knife.

Very cool pictures. What does "patchwork" mean in relation to stuffing? (Ah... the English language. )

The onion and eyes problem is well known. The sulfur compounds are released into the air, contact the eyes, and in the presence of the moisture on the eye, are converted to sulfuric acid causing the burn. Anything that disrupts the transmission of the sulfurous vapors to the eyes will work. Think: holding your breath to not cause local air currents, cold onions, goggles, whatever. What I want to try is a little fan. I bought one to use on brined salmon to dry the surface before smoking. I am thinking that if I set it up to blow air across the cutting board and away from my eyes that that might work. BTW... Another onion tip. Mexican cooks almost always use white onions that can be quite strong. They also rinse the diced onion in cold water before using. The strong flavors are produced when the cell walls are disrupted by chopping and the various sulfurous compounds come together and react. The rinsing removes this reactive soup and results in a much fresher and brighter onion flavor.