mrbigjas

noted for next time! and there will be a next time, because it tasted great. thanks!

i got cooking! i'm not a native apulian like franci, but what the heck, i'll put up some more pics. first of all, penne with tomatoes and ricotta salata and basil. this was a combination of a couple of recipes i read--basically a pasta with a mostly uncooked sauce. (actually first of all we had a few olives, and some sweet/sour cucumber/onion mix i made, but you know, i didn't have official apulian recipes for that so no pics). anyway here it is, a picture like many that have been posted here on eg before. then the braised lamb with greens--i'm putting this up even though i screwed it up some. basically the lamb wasn't completely thawed when i started browning it, so of course it threw off a bunch of water and it didn't brown the way it should have. so it looks kinda odd in the picture. also there don't appear to be that many greens but there were! it's a real shame since i was using jamison farm lamb stew meat, which is great and kind of expensive. d'oh. the flavor was great though, and this dish is going to go on my regular rotation, some night when i am not trying to come home from work and put together a braised dish by 8 p.m. contorno: paula wolfert's stuffed eggplant recipe. this is of interest for one reason: the eggplants. no wait, that doesn't sound right--the recipe is delicious. but since the finished dish is... well, we all know that cooked eggplants aren't the most attractive vegetables in the world. so here's a shot of them cooking: those orange things are eggplants too! but with a yellowish flesh inside. and the others are indeed green and yellow striped. i never saw anything like them, so i bought them last week. i figured, this dish will highlight their interesting colors as well as anything... picked up a bottle of primitivo at the state store on the way home, which was a pleasant if inexpensive and uncomplicated wine. the end.

see, now that's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that i like to see.

sorry to spoil the fun by going against the grain, but i thought the fries at five guys were overcooked. too brown. the texture was basically right, but the flavor was... brown. the burger was great though. like what i imagine mcdonalds was before the advent of steam trays. (i got the little burger, because it seemed like the balance of burger and bun and whatnot made more sense). totally a fast-food style burger, not some fancy 14 oz steakhouse burger. and greasy enough to not be dry even though it was fully cooked. damn good.

whoa, i missed this one for a few days, pontormo, sorry. i don't remember getting amaranth recently--purslane, dandelion, collards, chard, kale, and curly endive were all recent purchases, but not amaranth. maybe we should take it to the greens thread.

Damn and here I am thinking I had this great discovery. I am so out of the loop . ← well, you reported on their new location, so in a way you were posting about a new place...

i think there's beena mixup--i haven't made anything yet! the weather finally broke and it's only going up to 85 today, so tonight i plan to make the lamb stew with greens. i have some curly endive i bought at the farmer's market that needs to be used. it's nice and bitter and can stand up to some cooking, so i figure it will work pretty well. i don't have my cookbook yet, so i'm relying on an on-line recipe--this one is the only one i can find--any thoughts about it? last week i bought a couple of crazy eggplants that are small and are all yellowish purplish stripey and green, so i figure i'll make this one from paula wolfert for a contorno. maybe a pasta course, or maybe a couple of antipasti if i can figure out something and do it. it's a monday night after all--i got nothin else going on...

i bought a pile of cherry tomatoes today that had a sign on them that said 'THESE ARE THE TOMATOES USED FOR SUN-DRIED TOMATOES.' they appear to have thin skins, not much pulp, and lots of juice--i'm looking forward to using them in just the way you describe, franci.

great review, dagordon. that goat is something else, isn't it? maybe it's time to head back for some more...

Not to derail, but what's with the stingy toasts trend? Seems like everytime I get pates/terrines/mousse it comes with fewer toasts, and greater resistance to bringing more. Sometimes the table bread works as a sub, and sometimes it really kinda doesn't. ← ansill has been guilty of this since the beginning--i whined about it on my first post about the place on this very thread back in february--and i really don't understand it. it's nice and generous to give a big pile or cup of rillettes or pate, but it's not pleasant to just eat it as is. you can't just take forkfuls of rillettes--you have to put it ON something, and three little triangles of toast are not the answer.

i would be happy to pay $30 a pound for really good fish, served in portion sizes that i actually eat, with some well-made greek sides. i mean, i rarely eat more than about 6 oz of meat per meal, so that would be what, $12? heck at that price i'll pay for the sides. unfortunately i guess you can only get the whole fish. i haven't been to estia, but i love good greek food, and after all it's well known that i'm stunningly attractive, so maybe i should take them up on it.... hahahahahaha sorry, i can't help it. maybe i'm just one of those philadelphians who doesn't respect his hometown, but this kinda thing in this town is just too funny to me.

hey, good deal--i just bought a copy....

coming back late to this one, it sounds like the same stuff i got last week at the farmer's market, and used last night for this same dish: of course, letting it sit in the fridge for five days doesn't really help, but let me affirm that this green is aggressively bitter--a bitterness that laughs at collards or chard or any other green that i know of. the kind of bitterness that, even after boiling, at first bite makes you blink hard, shake your head and go WHOO! even if you're a lover of bitter greens like i am. good stuff. i have the leftovers for lunch today.

up early this morning doing some reading about puglia cuisine, i figured i'd post some links with recipes for those who, like me, don't have piles of regional cookbooks around. here are a bunch of recipes (all in italian). english version of same site here that site includes some interesting infused liquor recipes, including bay leaf liquor, basil liquor, and amarella, infused from black cherry leaves. molto mario 'seaside puglia' show, including a recipe for pettole with pepperonata, as kevin mentions above here's an introductory essay about apulian cuisine, from flavors of puglia by nancy harmon jenkins. an article from food and wine magazine about apulian antipasti, with some fun-looking recipes.

hi my name is sam. i 'm sushi chef. (i'm sorry my english is not good,please understand me) i'm sorry about your o-toro.exually o-toro taste like very oilly taste.but i think you don't like oilly fish.next time when you coming, please let me know. i'll recommend best mild fish for you,and i'll do my best for you.thank you very much. -sushi chef sam- by the way,hey greg now i know how writting in here~ ← oh no, sam, i gave the wrong impression--what i meant was that my description was bad, not the fish! the fish was fantastic and incredibly delicious. i loved it and i'm coming back for more soon. welcome to the forum--i hope you'll keep posting.

burrata is available here in philadelphia from either dibruno bros or claudios. i know i've gotten it at dibrunos--the problem i have with the the stuff is that it's big and very perishable, so unless i have several people over to scarf the whole thing it's a waste of money... but since it's puglia month over in the cooking through italy threads, i might have to hook it up.

i wonder what they're called in tunisia?

best cereal restaurant? they'd pretty much have to win that one...

this is the funnest thread in the PA forum in a long time! thanks y'all.

franci, fantastic pics, thanks! oh man, panzerotti. how i've waited for an excuse to make them. and now i have it. but that reminds me: when are we going to cover the italian-american regional cuisine? spaghetti and meatballs!

oh did you make that one last year? i was just going to make the perciatelli with greens and ricotta that someone (hathor? pontormo?) made upthread, but maybe since we have officially crossed into the new month, i will... i still have a couple bottles of nero d'avola to drink though. decisions, decisions.

yeah i got some really nice dandelion or chicory greens at the farmer's market on saturday, which aren't going to be used until tonight at the earliest. on the other hand, nothing says 98 degree summer day like a nice puglianese lamb stew with dandelion greens, eh?

i was over at raw on friday after work. the person i was meeting for a drink took the time to go over and ask the sushi chef what to get. of course he recommended bluefin, and o-toro. also he recommended kanpachi, a.k.a. baby yellowtail, which i hadn't had before. the bluefin and the kanpachi were good stuff. but the o-toro... wooooo.... it was like eating a slab of fish butter. wait, that doesn't sound as good as it actually was.

i too lament the loss. silver king =/= silver queen

if you go just outside city limits, though, there's uddupi dosa house in bensalem... neuronix, i know what you mean about affordable places in town. it's a sad state of affairs, and one that always surprised me in university city when i was up there--of course that was before penn bought everything and jacked up all the rents in order to turn the whole neighborhood into a bland suburban mall, so in a way it was weirder then than now. but there were always the food trucks--they used to be on every block. the various le anhs, there was olga's, that served pizza and great cheesesteaks, there was mexican connection (since turned into mexicali and apparently still trying to make the restaurant thing work), there was korean and indian and thai and a crepe truck (since moved indoors) there were tons of chinese trucks, some of which were even good, and falafel all over the place. if you don't like philly falafel (i went there last week and found it to still be damn good), have you tried mama's vegetarian on 20th just below market? it's my favorite falafel in town. anyway, back on topic, as far as minar palace goes, i can only hope that they've made enough over the years to survive a move. and i have hopes that they can, because they certainly don't have to do a stephen starr-style renovation on a place. my secret hope is that they'll take advantage of the development opportunities over here in g-ho and open up closer to my place. i'm pretty sure there's still a storefront or two....elve open between broad & 20th on south.