slkinsey

I'd like to plug my method as well, which is essentially: braise the leg meat in red wine and roast the breasts separately. A more detailed method for a fancy version may be found here, but notew that most of the frills can be eliminated. At its most basic, you're braising the legs in wine, roasting the breasts and making the sauce out of the braising liquid. The breasts could easily be roasted in something as small as a skillet, thus saving a lot of oven room. Also, by taking everything off the bone, you can simmer the bones and make a rich turkey stock to add to the braise.

Is it carbonated or sweetened? I have seen it in stores, and thought of reducing it to a thin syrup on the stove to make home-made grenadine.

I like the livery taste.

Where can I get some of this stuff in NYC? Does it have to be ordered from the site? Looks interesting.

I'm interested!

Thanks for the rec, Bill. Adding it to my Amazon wish list now.

If I may offer a slightly differing opinion, I don't really have any problems with eating squab where the breasts and legs have been cooked together at the same time. That said, I also like eating the breast cooked just through and I don't feel that the legs need to be falling-off-the-bone done. This is how I have most often had piccione in Toscana. I wonder if the rare breast meat thing is French. Anyway, what I like to do is cut out the backbone and breastbone so the only bones remaining are the wing bones and leg bones. The breastbones and backbones get simmered in water to make a squab broth. Then I like to throw the squab skin side down in a very hot pan to brown the skin, flip it over and finish it in a high oven. Deglaze the pan with the squab stock and mount with butter to make a quick pan sauce (sometimes I like to crush the squab liver into the sauce). Serve with a white bean/garlic/rosemary puree and some balsamic glazed cipollini. That's how I like to do it, anyway.

I have a problem with your line of reasoning here... Yes, the question does beg to be asked (and is being asked) with respect to C-8, a chemical used to make PTFE. However, I have seen no evidence that there is any cause for concern as to negative health effects relating to PTFE itself. And no one seems to be asking this question, primarily because the last 50 years have shown PTFE to be a material with very good biocompatibility and very low tissue reactivity. So... are the companies making PTFE covering something up with regards to C-8? Is C-8 actually all that bad for you? Are the factory sites unsafe? Who knows? Maybe? More germane to this discussion, does the answer to any one of these questions have any bearing on whether or not PTFE is a safe substance when deployed in the context of cookware? No. And all the evidence we have suggests quite strongly that it is safe in this context. I should point out, by the way, that doctors and surgeons haven't been putting PTFE in people's bodies for 50 years bewcause the chemical companies told them it was okay. There has been voluminous research and experience.

To follow up on Dave's post above... Just to be clear, I don't think anyone is suggesting that polytetrafluoroethylene ("PTFE" or "Teflon") is causing birth defects, etc. They are suggesting that ammonium perfluorooctanoate ("C-8"), a chemical used in the production or PTFE, is causing these problems. This assertion may or may not have merit, but it really doesn't speak to the safety of PTFE. There are plenty of perfectly safe substances created from "ingredients" that are quite harmful. Sodium, for example, reacts with water extremely violently (and occasionally explosively, as I discovered in high school chemistry). Chlorine is a deadly poisonous yellow-green gas. There is no way you want to be around a lot of pure sodium or chlorine. And yet, these two dangerous substances react (rather violently) to form the benign substance sodium chloride, otherwise known as table salt.

For those who don't know, Cusina and I went to college together in Wisconsin. We didn't see much of eath other at the time, but she did work with two of my ex-girlfriends -- which makes it a minor miracle that she will actually speak to me. Anyway, grilling sausages -- especially before a football game -- is a big Wisconsin tradition, and one of its best. Here I am at college grilling: I'm the drunken one with no shirt, a broken nose and bad 80's hair. You can tell I'm not going to a Packers game in that picture... not because I'm wearing no shirt but because I don't have a giant "G" painted on my chest. Here I am last year getting ready to head to a Packer's game at Lambeau Field in December. Note the "Sgt. Schultz" double chin, which is de rigeur at Lambeau Field: Wisconsin is a great state. I try to get back as often as I can.

Oh yea? Like what? Where did you hear of this study and what were the findings? Who is conducting the study and for whom? Where will it be published? Inquiring minds want to know. The EPA appears to be looking at ammonium perfluorooctanoate, which does appear to accumulate in human blood and have a toxic effect. But this is a chemical used to make polytetrafluoroethylene, not PTFE itsself. Given the PTFE inside my knee, and the fact that it has long been regarded as having high biocompatibility and low tissue reactivity, I am fairly skeptical than any seriously damning report is on the horizon. But who knows, maybe there is a serious report on the horizon that will turn the last 50 years on its head. Ben, I'm not trying to break your balls with the questions in the first paragraph. I really am curious.

Do you have a source for the little panties that go on the ends? I'm tired of making 'em myself. The "little panties?" You mean, make your own thongs? Mrs. The Cook is one lucky woman. At least, I assume you're not making them for yourself...

Just out of curiosity, what do you think that would bring on eBay? Hee! Who knows? A lot, maybe? Think about it... how many shrimp would be needed to get a quart of shrimp fat? A thousand? Ten thousand? That stuff would more precious than saffron.

I've only got chicken fat, smoked chicken fat, turkey fat, smoked turkey fat, duck fat, and beef fat in my freezer. Clearly I need to work on my collection You'll know it's really getting out of hand when you have a big tub of shrimp fat tucked away in the freezer.

Chances are it was also used to make soap in its day. And wash clothes.

Coquille: don't let Sam make you feel guilty about not having bacon fat in your freezer. I'd bet he's got friggin' pigeon fat in his freezer. The guy collects fat the way most people collect belly button lint (which by the way doesn't go in the freezer, but in a Tupperware container in your pantry, lest it dehydrate in the low temperatures). Wait... doesn't everyone collect rendered animal fat in the freezer? I encourage all confit-ers to use whole ducks. The way I got all my duck fat was by going down to Chinatown and buying 4 cheapo whole ducks (including heads and feet, I might add). I trimmed off all the external fat, took the skin and fat off the breasts, and rendered it all down. That gave me more than enough fact to confit all of the duck meat once I packed everything tightly into an enameled cast iron casserole. An easy way to fill in the empty spaces is to cut the breasts in half and use them to fill in the gaps. Duck breast confit isn't too terribly interesting all by itself, but its great to have some in hand every time you feel like making duck ragu, duck gumbo, etc. You can also roast up the bones and make a killer duck stock with the four carcasses. BTW, don't discount the idea of drying out your belly button lint in the freezer. You wouldn't believe how much money we save on Bacon Bits.

Just use the bacon fat you've been saving in the freezer. You have been saving your bacon fat in the freezer, haven't you?

That is indicative of an actual lactose problem as opposed to a casein allergy or other milk-related allergy. People who can tolerate cheese but not milk are the ones who are really and truly lactose intolerant. I say this because most cheeses contain little or no lactose (>95% of the lactose is washed away with the whey, and the tiny amount remaining is consumed by the bacteria that ferment the cheese). Cramping associated with the consumption of lactose is caused by bacteria in the gut which eat the unreduced lactose and produce gas as a fermentation byproduct. Lactase pills should not, in and of themselves, cause cramping. However, in someone with extreme lactase deficiency, it is possible that no reasonable dosage would suffice. As for alcohol dehydrogenase and/or mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase pills to help you metabolize alcohol properly... it's something you might consider talking to your doctor about. Obviously you don't want something to help you go out to the bars every night. But something that might help you have the occasional glass and a half of wine with a big dinner sounds entirely reasonable and not outside the realm of possibility.

Soba, this is a little OT, but I assume this is due to the fact that your body doesn't produce sufficient alcohol dehydrogenase (an important enzyme the body uses to break down alcohol)? Given the fact that this genetic disposition is quite common among the huge worldwide population of Asian descent, I wonder if there is some kind of alcohol dehydrogenase pill one can buy. After all, it's fairly easy to find lactase pills, and the worldwide population of people with alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency has got to be much larger than the (actually quite small) number with serious lactase deficiency. Have you ever heard of anything like this?

My opinion: no on one and yes on two. Family traditions will differ, however.

this post made me want to attempt sauce from scratch this weekend in my crockpot. and could you give me some measurment guidelines for the ingredients? (more specifically the tomato products - the spicing i can do by smell) It depends on the size of your Crock Pot. I would suggest something like this as a general outline: 1 large Spanish onion, medium dice 10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped 1 pound beef (or pork) stew meat 1 pound Italian-style mild fennel sausage 5 cans tomato paste 2 large cans whole tomato, lightly crushed EVOO Plenty of dry thyme, oregano and basil 1. Soften vegetables in copious amounts of evoo and place in crock pot. 2. Brown all meats and place in crock pot 3. Add tomato products and dried herbs to crock pot and add water to thin it out (around 3 quarts) 4. Fire up the crock pot on low and cook at least 12 hours, preferably 24. You will know it has cooked long enough when the sugars caramelize, the sauce takes on a brick red-brown color and the fat has begun to separate into a thick layer on the top. 5. An hour or so before you intend to eat, make a batch of your favorite Italian-American meatball recipe (pork, veal, beef, bread crumbs, softened garlic, softened onion, parsley and parmigiano go in mine) and perhaps a braciole or two. Brown these meats and simmer together with the sauce extra low for the last 45 minutes or so (you may have to do this in a larger vessel on the stove). 6. For service, remove all meats from the sauce and serve separately (some small pieces of the original sausage and stew meat will remain floating in the sauce.) Depending on your tastes and traditions, you can add celery or green peppers to the initial sauteed vegetables (I like celery but am not fond of the flavor green pepper gives a long cooked sauce), or perhaps some crushed red pepper. If you want an extra garlic-ey flavor, throw in a clove of finely minced garlic for the last 30 minutes. Many Italian-American families would forego the garlic and onions entirely and use powdered/granulated garlic and onion, although I am sure this is less true today than it was >20 years ago. But, if it doesn't taste quite like grandma's, this would be the first modification I'd try.

Now, that would be really cool.

Soon enough, a big basement plus an additional freezer (and probably fridge, too) will be added down there. So storage room isn't a problem. (Though someone else--read: SO--might have something to say on this! ) Dude, you should definitely invest in some canning supplies, then. Think about how easy (and cool) it would be if, every time you wanted to have some sauce you could just nip downstairs and bring up a jar of your own basic sauce! It's much easier to do that kind of cooking on a daily basis when you only cook up two gigantic batches of sauce a year. I suggest this because, in my house at least, 4-5 quarts of tomato sauce doesn't last a very long time -- hardly long enough to be worth the trouble of freezing part of it. Also... you could do as most Italian families do and jar a zillion fresh tomatoes in the fall.

Yes, I'm looking for a neutral base that I can make 4 quarts or so of & then freeze. What kind of storage space do you have? If I didn't live in a Manhattan apartment with no storage space and already packed to the gills I would make a gigantic recipe of basic sauce on a quarterly or semiannual basis and put it up in quart Mason jars for future use.

Yea? I watched his show a lot when it first came out and have generally been influenced by his cooking. I'd already been making more-or-less that same sauce for a number of years, but it's very possible that the thyme comes from him. Actually... I just checked the TVFN site and the two recipes really are very similar -- even down to the quantities. That's funny, because when I posted I tried to put in whatever quantities sounded general and all-purpose (i.e., 4 cloves garlic) rather than a longer explanation of what I actually do. I might just as often put in only one clove of garlic, or sometimes six -- sometimes sliced thin, sometimes whole. I do the variations I gave at least as often as the "reference" recipe. Subconsciously, though, I must have been putting in "general purpose" quantities and techniques that I had seen on his show.