MobyP

you looking to open a place, Matt?

Thursday is considered general public day.

A pinch of quatre epice, shurely?

Feverish gossip will fly for three days before that, most of which will be cobblers. Some, on the monkeys and typewriters principle, will turn out to be true. ← I've already heard that there is going to be a new 3 star (Capital or LMQS?) and a new London 2 star which will be an Italian. ← 'Ere - weren't you spreading unfeasibly optimistic rumours last year as well? Although if New York get Le Bernadin, I suppose we deserve something equitable.

Any French black truffles seen yet?

Is anyone planning to be here in the next few days?

Actually, caul fat is sold in various forms. I once bought a 4lb chunk of caul - frozen - from a chinese grocery, which was shaped like an american football. You had to soak the caul in a bucket (you shoulod soak your caul anyway) before it unravelled into sheets of lacy fat. Then you cut it to the size you want etc.

Thanks lucy. It was worth it for the texture - very smoothe and luscious. The problem was that I hadn't sharpened the blade sufficiently on my food processor, so it made more work than it should have done. Next time I'll spend more time on equipment maintenance, and less time on the tamis. The tamis idea itself came from a terrific book on terrines that I own whch covers everything from the simplest chicken liver pate, to a stuffed Boar's head gallantine. There's also a terrific picture of an assembled (rather than cooked) rabbit terrine in the Girardet book (I think you can google print the image online) with a mixture of baby leeks, rabbit, foie, and bound with a dense gelee. Lucy, you'd be able to do this one because come spring time the french leeks are so extraordinary. Unfortunately their English cousins are not so fine.

Lori, I don't think you over or under sold it. Cooking is a means of travel, of exploration, of anthropology, of sensuality, of seduction, of faith, of comfort and of politics. Not everyone can afford to get on a plane. Some of us, however, can go into our kitchens. I think you did a great job.

A starter course from yesterday's lunch. I had some foie torchon scraps left over, and thought I'd give this a try (inspired by a fat guy/Ellen dinner in the NY forum). Foie gras anollini with a jerusalem artichoke foam.

15 a kilo. Which is below price if it's from Bresse. Total is £55.

I'm picking up a capon from them this afternoon - Thanks Alex.

I took my terrines out at 155F. Next time I'll probably go down to 150. Remember it keeps cooking out of the oven.

I bought a beautiful hand made gyuto from Artisan which is sharper than my ability to describe. Unfortunately I hadn't read the above sentence when I first bought it, and chipped the blade a couple of times on pork crackling. Incredibly sharp, but incredibly fragile.

The platic wrap -I got this from Marcus Wareing (not personally, I think it was on the telly), who also notes it in the new A Cook's Book. Anyway, I layered three layers of plastic wrap, then another 3 layers slightly overlapping. I lightly oiled the terrine, slid the plastic wrap in and flattened it against the sides. I then filled it with the mixture, folded the excess over the top, wrapped the whole thing in a long length of silver foil, and then placed it in a bain marie half-filled with water. When it had reached approx 150F, I removed it, let it sit for 15 mins, and then used a bit of card as a lid and weighed it down over night with a couple of cans. Generally, it worked as advertised. It made the terrine very easy to remove next day - easier than the one I had made without plastic wrap. I understood that it was safe to use up to temperatures of approx 350F.

Good luck with the venison. I ended up doing a smaller version of the terrine using cling film in multiple layers - which is a trick from an English chef. I'll unmold it tomorrow and let you know what happened. This was really a bugger to do. It felt more ike pastry than cooking. Next time I'm going to take half an hour to really sharpen my food processor blade. Spending all of that time trying to get the rabbit farce through the tamis was a nightmare. Also, the butcher refused to slice the back fat for me, so I had to cut it by hand, which was a pain in the arse. In the end I was in a rush to leave the house, so had no elaborate garnishes prepared. Still, it made for a good lunch.

I'll post more pictures and descriptions later, but here is how the rabbit terrine came out. I was quite happy. The two circles in the centre are the fillets.

Sorry - that was a typo. 60C is 140F - for 36 hours, which is also the temp and time that Heston Blumenthal uses for his famous pork belly (which, little known, he brines first). I'll look up the Ducasse recipes for you later to give more details.

Ducasse has two relevant recipes. The first he does for 36 hours at 60C/136F. The second is for 72 hours at 58C/140F.

Very much inspired by Lucy's recent efforts, I cleared the kitchen, and some time (with the wife) to make my first rabbit terrine today. Can I just say DAMN is it bloody hard. I've just spent over an hour forcing the farce and fat through a tamis. I must be doing something wrong. I pureed it as much as i dared - not wanting it to cook. Still - this makes the duck and foie tourte I made (which I'm making again next weekend) seem easy by comparison. Anyway, I'll return here with my moaning, and hopefully a finished product.

Hah, right, try coming to Australia then. For the prices the local "gourmet" suppliers are charging for copper pans, I could fly to the US, buy a skillet and a saucepan, fly back and still have it come out cheaper. ← Then you could fly to France business class, buy three times as much, and still afford lunch.

Is this the same as Bernard Anthony? His cheeses are incredibly difficult get ahold of. I recently tried (along with J Day) his 4 year Comté, and it was mind boggling.

If you're in London, I'd recommend the Japanese Knife company - they have offices in Kilburn. They will resharpen your blades - properly - and give lessons on how to do it yourself. They also have a video.

Sorry if I missed this elsewhere, but I'm wondering what prep you manage to do on dry land that helps you out at sea. For instance, I read somewhere of a sub chef preparing a couple of hundred gallons of stock while on shore, and reducing it all down to a glace to add to soups and sauces. Do you do anything similar?

The first unfortunate truth is that the US is probably the most expensive country in the western world for high-end cookware. The above advice is good, but that said, the cuisinart pieces seem like a decent place to start just to cover your bases for the first few years. Realistically, as you develop as a cook, you'll see the gaps in your cookware that need filling, or pieces that need upgrading - or even those that you never use, or are better than you need. So, you save up for one at a time, or buy them as you can. Never buy expensive non-stick. They physically can't last for that long, unless you use them incredibly mildly (and now someone will post that they've had the same non stick pan since 1974). Many restaurants have a turn around of about 6 months (at the outside) on non-stick. That's why companies such as Bourgeat make great non-stick pieces for very little money. I'm talking Lodge prices. In the home they last one to two years, and then you get another. If you can locate a restaurant supply store, you'll find some pieces which are tough, functional, but not necessarily pretty. Yes, eventually you'll want a creuset or staub braiser, possibly a copper piece or two, and a 12-20 quart/litre stock pot. For now, if you have 150 bucks, take the set. Then, if you're serious, save up for additional pieces individually.