mjc

Hey Ted. I don't have this book, but I took a look at it for you at JB prince yesterday. It looks pretty cool and I'd say it's more geared towards the restaurant chef than the patisserie. It's recipes appear to be mostly played desserts, petit fors, etc.

I'll weigh in on this one, but note that I had dinner at Insieme last week and I haven't been to Felidia for a few years. Felidia is a more extravagant restaurant than Insieme, it has a much more formal feel (Felidia reccomends a Jacket for men and Insieme is business casual) and a much more proper service. The food of Felidia is appears to me to be very influenced by Lidia's home region of Friuli and features a good number of very "rich" dishes. The cooking at Insieme is seems influenced by a diverse array of regions. Last week at Insieme we ate the Lasagna verde al Bolegnese, Spaghetti Amatriciana, Short Rib Ravioli with mushrooms, and I had a Sea Bass Saltimboca with a lemon puree. For dessert we tried the quark dumplings and the bombolini. Everything was very good. It is hard not to compare this restaurant, both its menu and decor, to A Voce when Carmelini was still at the helm. I think its got a similar vibe, but the food was not at the same level. The only dish I specifically remember from Felidia were the Krafti. Those are basically a ravioli filled with rum soaked raisins, orange zest, and a mix of cheese. They were excellent. Aside from that dish I remember thinking that the rest of the meal was not as good as it should have been. I liked Hearth a lot better than Insieme. If I was thinking about going to Felidia, I would also consider Scalini Fedeli. Its a beautiful restaurant in the old old Bouley. The food is very luxurious and based more on northern regions. I think for the quality of the food and experience its also a very good deal.

As lala suggests this is often said in referring to food and wine. On Molto Mario, he always says this (at least every show), but always in reference to wine.

This is very surprising to me. On my two trips to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, I was amazed by the high level of service. On both occasions the plates were put down by the runners in perfect unison and they were watched over by our waiter who explained the dishes. The waiter was also always close by throughout the course of the meal. On the second dinner, the waiter would often come over before a course was served with a tray of one of its ingredients, such as heirloom soy beans, talk about the ingredient, pass it around, and explain its role in the upcoming dish.

It also goes well in a ramoz gin fizz.

Wow, its amazing to see this thread has survived the test of time. I think I first posted in it in 2003. I've made canneles in both copper and silicon molds in both convection and regular ovens and with and without beeswax. You can get a very good cannele with silicon, but the quality of the crust is different with copper. When I prepare the beeswax for the molds, I usually put some foil in a pot, and melt the wax with some butter, then brush it on the molds. This keeps the pot clean. I think there is a difference in the flavor of the cannele and certainly the aroma when you use the wax. If you are looking for alternate flavors, try Bau's chocolate cannele recipe.

That could mean a lot of things. Where did you have it? Is it referring to the slow food movement? What was in it?

The Mont Blanc is a classic french cake. Check with Bouley Bakery, Payard, and Bruno bakery.

I tried just the sandwich the other day and the pork was awesome. Though there is nothing extra on the sandwich, I didn't find it dry because the pork is so moist and flavorful. The only downside for me was the bread was a little more chewy than it should be. Next time I'll have to try the sides.

Wow, Its been a long time since I've posted anything. Since I started living in Westchester again, I’m always searching for a good place to eat, but am often disappointed. When I heard that Mario and his gang were opening a place in Port Chester, I was very excited. I’ve been following the local news and driving by to try to gauge its status, as its opening was about 1 month behind schedule. Finally yesterday Florence Fabricant wrote that it was officially open. I don’t usually rush out to try a place on their opening night, but I figured that this group knows what they’re doing, so I did. Tarry Lodge Web Site I was not disappointed. I called at 8:30 and there were tables available. When we got there it was almost completely full. The interior (see pics here) is bright and warm with pale yellow walls and white table clothes. I was surprised at first to see the white table clothes, because I thought it was going to be more of a hybrid of Lupa and Otto. The menu certainly takes the shape of Otto’s. On closer inspection it looks that Chef Andy Nusser has decided to incorporate a little bit of Babbo into the place as well. We tried the Farro with Charred Corn and Burrata and Cauliflower Gratinate which were both fantastic. We also had the Radishes with Bagna Cauda and grilled shrimp wit pickled watermelon which were good. Along with these we ordered the Pizza with guanciale, black truffles, and egg. The pizza was great and had a nice crunch crust with good char as you would expect. It also had a good amount of guanciale and shaved black truffle. Then for the more Babbo like experience we tried the Pumpkin Lune with Sage butter and a dish not on the menu Black Tagliatelle with lobster and corn. These were both superb. The Lune had an amazingly thin pasta component covering the delicious squash filling. The Tagliatelle was also cooked perfectly. Finally we tried the grilled pork loin with cipollini and saffron honey. (Actually the brough it with the pastas for some reason.) There was also some calvo nero underneath. This was good, but for me there was a little too much honey. For dessert a panna cotta with candied fennel and a surprise of vanilla gelato and a panettone pudding also with vanilla gelato. Overall the food was great. Even the service was pretty good for the first night. I can’t wait to go back.

thanks!

I just got back from my first visit to Hong Kong and the my favorite dish from the trip was "Typhoon Shelter Style" Crab. Seems to me that in the version below its just basically fried garlic, mixed with scallion, chilis, black beans, and fried crab. Does anyone know about this style? Have a recipe? thanks.

J. D. Hilburn is the Chef at Danube. Alex Grunert is the exec pastry chef at Bouley and Danube.

Buon italia in the chesea market has it. So too does Faicco's pork store on Bleeker.

I tried this place out last night with a couple of friends. I thought it was excellent. It’s a great concept and the desserts were fantastic and well executed. Then menu is divided into desserts in a glass for $9 (4) and tastings for $12 (6). We had 3 of the “tasting” items. Each item can be paired with either some type of dessert wine/champagne, or tea. Each of the tastings is made up 4 small items served in small porcelain dishes on top of a long rectangular plate. I’ll do my best to describe what we had. Apple in Various States Sorbet tatin, tartare, ‘cidre’, fata papillote This consisted of the sorbet, which was incredibly smooth (thanks to the paco jet) and had a nice caramelized apple flavor. The tartare was 2-3mm cubes of apple, apple gelee, and sprigs of micro basil (?). The cidre was a very warm spiced apple cider that was perfectly clear. And the fata papillote was a silver dollar sized slice of apple in a stapled up plastic bag served next to a similar sized biscuit, after extracting the apple slice you could assemble a tart. Each item was very good. I especially liked the last one, but opening that little back was tricky. Voyage to India Coco, mango 17480 (cat), parfait, ‘kulfi’ This contained a small ring of chocolate mouse on top of what seemed to be a very crispy wafer. The mouse had hints of curry flavor, which I believe came from curry powder sprinkled over the top. The mango was mango caviar. The parfait was very neat; it was a layer of coconut mouse (of marshmallow?) and had a powdered form of bottom layer on top. To me it tasted like a coconut marshmallow and I found the item surprising. The kulfi were just that, and were two small discs, kind of looked like those candy dots on paper I used to eat at a kid. Plat du jour Nolitela, caramel ice cream, brioche, cloud This had a blue jar on which was placed a name tag that said “Hi my name is R4D Nolitela”, which was the home made “nutella” bond girl mentioned, this was along side a piece of brioche, caramel ice cream, and a frozen lemon meringue cloud. As I said, everything was very good. In my mind these are desserts at the 3-4 star restaurant level. Everything was also very petite and light. With that in mind, I feel that these were good desserts if you had already had dessert. I had the sense that they belong somewhere in a flight of pre-dessert, dessert, petit fors, and I’m not sure in which place I would put them. Of course you can combine desserts from the "glass" and "tasting" menu and finish the the petit fors, which would probably be a really great idea, but kind of pricey. As for the comparison to Chikalicous, I have to disagree with bond girl. I thought that some part of the atmosphere are similar, but that Room 4 Dessert is much swankier, its dark and narrow and very cool, while Chikalicious is very bright and open. I didn’t feel that R4D was “laid back” at all. I would say these desserts are equally as playful and that the desserts here were more so bite sized tastings, as compared to Chikalicious where you have one “full size” dessert (read: smallish). Overall I think it’s a great place, doing very high end, cool stuff and worth checking out.

thanks nathan. I tried the turkey again on saturday. I cooked it at about 155 for about 4.5 hours. My family usually cooks their turkey breast to 180!, so I tried to compromise on the temp. Anyway, it turned out great and was the best turkey I or anyone ever had. Unfortunately, in the rush to get it to the table in the end, i forgot to check the final temp. I'll defintely try sous vide again in the future and take better notes.

Hi everyone, this is really a great thread. In New York Magazine Thomas Keller has a recipe for Turkey breast sous vide. Recipe here. Basically he says to use the breast of a 18-20lb turkey seal it with foie gras fat, and herbs and cook it at 164F for 30 minutes!! and then finish on the stove. I gave it a try last week, and the turkey certainly was not near done. After reading this thread, that doesn't seem like even close to the amount of time that would be required. I am going to try this again over the weekend, for our 2nd thanksgiving dinner, and cook the turkey longer, does anyone have any suggestions? thanks

They are 10-12 bucks at JBprince http://www.jbprince.com/index.asp?PageActi...ROD&ProdID=1318

I just wanted to let everyone know that there's a new canele in NYC at the new bouley bakery, and I think its the best one i've had.

I'll second payard, petrossian. Fauchon is ok. If you're on upper east then definetly try out cafe sabarsky. In the village try bruno bakery-though the quality there is very variable. Have some bread/pizza or pastry at Sullivan st bakery. Stop into the bakery at balthazar. And Check out the new bouley bakery for some excellent caneles and other pastries. Oh and try Jacques Torres chocolate haven, he's got some good cookies, chocolate croissants, etc.

I think that Mariebelle's dark hot chocolate is the best. Last time I had her aztec (about a year ago) it was the SAME as Jacques wicked.

paul bertolli writes a few pages and has recipes for and with tomato water in Cooking by Hand.

take a trip to payard to taste a "proper" specimen

did they rise?

Actually I think its sort of a South American take--Argentinian to be specific.