slkinsey

Sure, you can do that. But it's not really rocket science, as I am sure you know. I use something like this. 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 2 medium onions, small dice 1 medium carrot, grated 2-3 teaspoons dried thyme 2 large cans whole San Marzano tomatoes Good EVOO Salt 1. Sweat garlic and onion in plenty of evoo until soft, but not colored 2. While vegetables are softening, open cans of tomato, pour into bowl and crush lightly with hands (can omit this step) 3. Add carrot and cook until soft 4. Add tomatoes (including liquid) and thyme. If you have skipped step 2 above, break up the tomatoes slightly with a spoon while they're cooking. 5. Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes. 6. Pass the sauce through a food mill fitted with the disk appropriate to the smoothness of texture you desire, or leave as-is for a more rustic chunky sauce. Season with salt to taste. I have found this to be a relatively neutral sauce that is good all on its own, but also works well as a "mother sauce" on which to base future "small sauces." Some common variations in my house include using butter as the lipid instead of evoo (the difference in taste is huge), leaving out the garlic (I do this often when using butter), adding small dice of celery or some celery seeds crushed with a pestle, and adding a pinch of crushed red pepper. Any one of these variations seems to work well all by its self, or as the basis of a later variation (although I would not use the butter variations for sauces that would later include seafood).

Several things: 1. Keep the sauce relatively thin as you are simmering it, then reduce at the end. Most of the splattering comes from large bubbles of thick, viscous liquid breaking. Keeping the sauce thin reduces this problem quite a bit. You can reduce the sauce at the very end of your simmering period if you like. I think it makes a more versatile sauce to keep it relatively thin and then reduce the amount you are going to use to the consistency you want when you are actually reheating the sauce for use -- hopefully to be tossed with the not-quite-cooked pasta for the last minute or two in a saute pan. One of the great things about a very basic tomato sauce is that you can make a thousand "small sauces" out of it by adding herbs, meats, mushrooms, whatever. A thinner sauce also means less stirring is required. 2. Don't use pre-crushed (i.e., milled) tomatoes -- use whole tomatoes lightly crushed with your hands. Whole canned tomatoes are generally better quality anyway, IMO. Then, what you have for most of the simmering process is a relatively thin liquid with chunks of tomato floating in it. Since the bubbling part of the liquid is thinner, there is less chance of splattering. Once you have cooked the sauce most of the way, you can run the whole thing through a food mill to achieve the texture of your choice (most food mills come with 3 disks). 3. Make sure there is plenty of room between the surface of the sauce and the top of the pot. This way, the splatters have to travel a long way to get out of the pot. 4. Don't simmer the sauce all that long. The longer the sauce is simmered the greater the "blort" factor will be. Unless you're making ragu Bolognese or an Italian-American "Sunday Gravy" style sauce, there is rarely anything to be gained by simmering more than 30 minutes. 5. Cook the sauce under the simmer. No bubbling = no splattering. There is nothing special about 212 degrees that 190 degrees won't do just as well in this instance.

Which is precisely correct. Balphie, the intent of my post was not to demonstrate that you were wrong. Rather, it was intended to reveal the source of Adam's misunderstanding. I would suggest that "small, unsexed chicken" conveys less information to one unfamiliar with chicken hudbandry than "very small young chicken." I am quite familiar with what a poussin is, and yet I had no knowledge of the age at which secondary sexual characteristics emerge in chickens, nor whether or not it is particularly relevant.

Are you saying Bux is wrong? I don't think Bux ever represented himself as an expert on chicken husbandry. To wit: "Poussin, to the best of my knowledge, is a little chicken--bred that way rather than just young" (emphasis is mine). As it turns out, he is partially mistaken because poussin are not, to the best of my knowledge, bred to be small (I think the ones bred to be small are "rock cornish hens"). The salient point of my post, I thought, was that a pissing contest about who knows the meaning which words and what such knowledge has to say about a person's level of high-end culinary fluency is unproductive. One would hope that we can avoid such a devolution of the discussion here and its concomitant counterstrikes, deletions, etc.

Poussain is a sexless chicken? Weird thought indeed. I'm a poor speller myself and understand why greater minds have trouble with little things like spelling, but it hinders communication sometimes. Poussain is likely a last name in France, or maybe Cajun country. Poussin, to the best of my knowledge, is a little chicken--bred that way rather than just young. Capon is a desexed (castrated?) rooster. The confusion here doesn't speak well about the depth of your interest in food. I think Adam's misconception came from here: Poussin is, in fact, a French word describing a very young, small chicken (see here and here). Regardless, I don't know that it's constructive to dwell on whether he knows the French word for baby chicken, and while it may be indicative of an overall lack of exposure to a certain kind of French high dining, I am not sure it is a litmus test of food knowledge any more than knowledge of a word like "faraona."

If I may step in here and offer a few words of moderation, I am not sure it is productive to impugn another's profession in making one's points. One would also hope that any "go-arounds" would stick to the topic under discussion and avoid such pejoratives as "disgraceful" and "obnoxious" when referring to another's points of debate or writing style. All of which is to suggest that we all confine our remarks to the subject at hand and leave any name calling aside.

The funny thing for me is that the first Target store I ever saw was in Geneva, Switzerland -- so I thought this really was the correct pronunciation. Alas, it is not so. From Target's web site: Needless to say, it's highly unlikely Dayton's was opening a store in Minnesota during the 60s that was supposed to have a Francophone pronunciation.

Yep. That's exactly what I would say. Given the huge volume of oil and the fact that you are basically heating up a liquid (the turkey "floats" in the oil) there is no reason to worry about thermal properties. Whatever thermal properties the cooking vessel might have are insignificant compared to the thermal properties of the oil itself. IMO, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever what the pot is made of, so long as it doesn't melt due to the heat from the burner.

Can you scan this? I think this one of those rare cases where it might be public domain and ok for us to put up. I'll have to talk with my parents about that. The original is somewhere in the Kinsey Family archives in Houston. I don't think it's quite the same thing, but you could probably get away with using schnapps instead.

I've heard thats a fairly well known Southern variant, yeah. I don't know that I'd call it a "Southern" variant per se... The recipe we use was passed down to my mother from her father. It came in the form of an advertisement clipped from New Yorker Magazine for Four Roses Bourbon. On the reverse side of the clipping is another advertisement "introducing the new 1938 Ford." It goes a little something like this: - Separate 6 eggs - Add 1/2 cup sugar to yolks and beat to dissolve sugar - Beat whites stiff and add 1/4 cup sugar - Mix whites and yolks - Stir in 1 pint rich cream and 1 pint milk (we use 1 quart half-and-half) - Stir in 1 pint bourbon and one ounce Planter's Punch rum - Serve cold with grated nutmeg - Makes 5 pints egg nog Also in our "historical archive of eggnog recipes" is a formula calling for rye whisky, brandy and rum, and one interesting one calling for cognac, dark rum, peach brandy and applejack.

My family recipe for egg nog -- a very old and very traditional one -- is made with bourbon, not rum.

According to Joe they were picked in Salaparuta. Salaparuta is in Sicilia, South of Palermo near Partanna. Since he was recently in Sicilia, I figure he got them there.

Jat, this is something that would generate a fair amount of interest, I think. Perhaps you might consider taking a bunch of pictures and writing something up for an eGCI class?

Excuse me while I drool. This is one of the best dishes ever. I got ya covered Sam. Woo-hoo!

D'oh! I meant to say "there is no indication of the age." There is an indication of the year. In fact, that's the whole gimmick. Hmmm... must now pick up bottle of Aberlour sherry matured.

Excuse me while I drool. This is one of the best dishes ever.

I'd go a little further and say that these words are almost an Italian-American dialect. During the years when America saw a huge influx of immigrants from Italy, most Italians didn't speak Italian in their own homes, they spoke the dialect of their village or zone. In fact, it was only relatively recently that the Italian census showed more Italians speaking Italian in their homes instead of dialect. This is, IMO, not such a great thing, as the dialects are beginning to die out, but that's for another discussion... Anyway, getting back to funny Italian-American words, the vast majority of Italians emigrating to America were from Southern regions like Sicilia, Campania, Calabria and Puglia. Plenty of them probably only spoke dialect and didn't particularly speak Italian. The dialects in these areas tend towards extremely soft consonants (e.g., "c" might sound very close to "g" and "p" might sound very close to "b" and in some regions "s" was changed to "sh") and tended to minimize final unaccented syllables. This is exactly how "spaghetti" turned into "spaghett'" or "shpaghett'" or "zhbaghett'" depending on where your family came from. It is also the case that the Italian immigrants worked hard to integrate into American society and, as a result, Italian language skills were often marginal in the first generation born in the States and nonexistent in the second beyond a few words. This is especially true of dialect language skills, since the dialects tended to be microregional and most immigrants spoke different dialects. Understanding all this, it's easy to understand how grandparents from the old country might pronounce "capocollo" as "gabogol'" using soft consonants and minimizing the final syllable. Their children, and especially grandchildren, not having particularly well-developed Italian language abilities, might perceive this as "gabagool" and before you knew it, that was the "official" Italian-American pronunciation. ("Capicola" appears to be an Americanization as well... in Italy it's either "capocolla" or, in central Italy, "coppa.") A similar thing might have happened if there had been massive 19th century/eatly 20th century emigration to Italy from Arkansas or Boston. The thing that I think makes a lot of the Italian-American "mispronunciations" a little more funny than mispronunciations of French is the widespread use of the same "mispronunciation" and the widely held belief that it is actually the correct one. There's nothing like someone telling you "don't say pro-shoo-toh, it's bra-zhoot."

Can we get a detailed explanation on how to do this? I've read about doing this before, but it seems you'd have to be a serious bird surgeon to pull it off... or pull all those bones out as the case may be. Could you then roast the bird conventionally? Perhaps by stringing it up into a large more or less uniform "sausage"? Schneich, I don't think you mean to say a galantine, which is forcemeat stuffed into poultry skin, poached and surved cold, but rather a ballotine which is deboned meat, fish or poultry that is stuffed, tied into a roll, roasted and served warm. Al... it really isn't that hard. Basically this is a turducken, only with only one kind of bird. All you have to do is cut the backbone out with scissors and spread the bird open. Then slide a sharp knife under the breastbone and slide it upwards scraping under the rib bones. Do this on both sides. Once the rib bones are free, slide the knife in the other direction, scraping against the breastbone, until you reach the center of the breastbone near the skin. Do this on both sides, disarticulating the wings from the breastbone up at the front along the way. Once the breastbone is almost entirely separated, lift the breastbone up with one hand while teasing away the last little bit of meat with the knife until the breastbone comes free. This is the trickiest part. Now, all that remains is to scrape the meat away from the larger wing bones from the inside. You can even use scissors for this. Cut away the remaining part of the wings once they get small enough to be tedious. Don't worry about any small holes, as they can be closed when you tie up the bundle. Now, using the tip of your knife, carefully scrape the meat away from the thighs taking care not to pierce the skin. When you get to the joint, you can disarticulate the thigh bone and put it aside. Now all that remains are the two drumsticks. I find that the easiest way to handle these is to stand them up with the knuckle on the table, take a pair of poultry scissors and snip around the bone all the way down to the end rolling the flesh down as you go. Once you get near the end, just lie the drumstick on the table and whack the knuckle off with a heavy knive. Voila! Boneless poultry! At this point, all you have to do is cut down the meat a little to distrubute it evenly (with turkey this involves cutting away quite a bit of the breast and relocating the meat to other areas), putting on a layer of stuffing, then rolling it into a sausage shape and tying up the whole works with butcher's string. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I can bone out most any bird in less than 10 minutes. I hadn't ever thought of deep frying a ballotine, but I bet it would work pretty well.

"Aberlour Glenlivet" is actually "Aberlour Vintage." I don't know why it says "Glenlivet" on the bottle. According to their materials it is a "specially selected cask of one particular vintage." There is no indication of year, but given the price one assumes it is younger than 15 years. Take a look here to see the range of bottlings offered by Aberlour.

I believe Benjamin & Medwin still makes cast-iron cookware. I bought a piece of it, new, less than a year ago. There also seem to be some other, imported brands available at stores like Target. So they do. Whaddaya know. I somehow had heard that Lodge was the last American company making cast iron cookware.

Thanks for the info, Alberto. Although I still think that grain whisky, as you call it, is what I would call "neutral spirits" when it comes out of the still, obviously it would not be so neutral after several years in a barrel. It seems strange to me that they would age a grain spirit for 50 years, but if you say it's true I acquiesce to your greater depth of knowledge. Thanks.

In terms of a good blended scotch, I think you'd have to look long and hard to find something better than Famous Grouse. A bottle of that will run you maybe 30 bucks. I'd choose Fanous Grouse over Johnnie Walker every time. The gold and blue JW labels are obscenely expensive for blended. I can't see the point of spending more than around 40 for blended scotch.

Glad to see another HP fan. I am reluctant to do too much evangelizing, because I think it's so reasonably priced due to the fact that few people are hip to it. Have you tried the 18 year old? Interestingly, I find that I prefer the 12 year because the honey/heather quality comes through better. I also like Laphroaig 10 better than 15 -- has more of that funky "burnt inner tube" thing going on, whereas the 15 is mellower. Hollywood, perhaps he is a sophisticated Sophist? A sophisticated Sophist sipping some simple single malts, seemingly serenely satisfied?

D'oh! You're right, of course about Chivas Regal rather than Crown Royal. My eye saw one thing and my fingers typed the other. I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say that the "age statement imply all the whiskies in a bottle, grain whiskies included." If by "grain whiskies" you mean neutral spirits (which is to say ethanol of more than 190 proof, often used in blended alcoholic beverages and commonly produced in a continuous still) I think you are mistaken if you think these are also aged 50 years. The whole point of using neutral spirits in blended scotch is that they are relatively flavorless and smooth out the flavor of the whisky by diluting the strong flavored single malts. What would be the point of aging them? I was recently at a tasting and presentation of Johnnie Walker Black in which the entire blending process was discussed at some length, and they never said anything about aging the neutral spirits. Neutral spirits are a part of every single blended scotch whisky. Blends comprised exclusively of malt whiskys are called "vatted" rather than "blended." According to what I have read about blended scotch, they typically contain 20% to 50% malt whisky with the rest being neutral spirits. Canadian whisky is, of course, another matter entirely and has its own laws and regulations. You're correct that Booker's is aged around 8 years. This is a long time for bourbon, as the charring of the barrels imparts much more wood aging flavor in a short period of time (Jim Beam is normally aged 4 years, and only 2 are required by law). Booker's is Jim Beam's small batch flagship brand. These are the barrels that the master distiller reserves in the best part of the warehouse and determines to be the cream of the crop. Personally, I think it has the strongest flavor and fullest mouthfeel... but any one of the Jim Beam small batch bourbons (which are all made from the exact same whisky coming out of the still, simply aged and treated differently) should be very good: Baker's, Booker's, Basil Hayden and Knob Creek. Maker's Mark, IMO, is a great mixing bourbon (the house bourbon chez moi) but isn't really so special that I'd carry a bottle across the water for someone.

Lodge is the only manufacturer of cast iron cookware left, but there used to be quite a few. For the really heavy duty stuff, Griswold is highly prized. Take a look around eBay and you will likely find plenty of Griswold cast iron for same at reasonable prices.