sng sling

An idea mentioned in other threads is to brine the chops (1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 qts water) for a couple hours before cooking. Similar to the marinade idea, but more neutral flavor. From somewhere (Cooks Illustrated?) I also got into the habit of only lightly browning the chops and then braising them at a reasonably low heat so that you could just barely hear them simmering/sizzling in the covered saute pan. Hope this helps...

I'm travelling and can't check the book, but I think this method was in the early '70s Beard cookbook for steak. Does give a wonderful crunchy, salty crust...

I think FG's comment re closeness to market may be more to the point of good/bad pomelo. What we get here in Singapore is usually tasty and I assume fresh -- a bit sweeter than a normal grapefruit, but with pleasant acidity to balance it. We sometimes see what are called "sweeties" from Israel, but these look much more like a green grapefruit, much smaller than a pomelo. Thai and fusion restaurants here serve a salad of the juice sacs or smallish bits of pomelo, thin-sliced raw red onion, chilies, fish sauce, coriander, and prawns. Really good as part of a meal with a curry to balance the richness. Not sure of pomelo sources -- Malaysia, I guess...

The cooking suggestions sound best, but if you want it "from the can", beat in some heavy cream, cognac, and a bit of pepper to overcome the tinned taste.

Kris: I lived in Japan for a long time and know whereof you speak! I confess that homemade stock is a rare occasion in my house. Our staples are dashi -- just got a refill of great ingredients from my wife's Tokyo trip last week. For Western stocks and sauces, I like the "MoreThanGourmet" brand. I order them online and pick them up at my parents' house. I use www.clubsauce.com, but they are available on several sites. They come in little hockey puck tubs that only go in the fridge after opening. They claim no MSG, no salt, no preservatives and taste as if that's true.

I've been subscribing to this since 92 or so, starting in Japan, and have given it as a gift to a few folks who like food and wine. Overseas delivery is reliable and reasonably cheap compared to other mags. Wonderful food essays in depth, with a good understanding of the topic and an intelligent writing style. This is not recipe driven, but it's one of the few food mags that I save to re-read and refer to.

We travelled from Paris to Burgundy and the Loire and back to Paris. Nothing memorable in Paris other than Bambouche -- we didn't try any of the "name" places there. Other than the meal at Bambouche, we really enjoyed Chateau Noizay (outside Vouvray) for the friendly service and great kitchen. Cooking was less over the top that the starred places we went, but excellent treatment of good materials. We had a great meal at Grand Hotel Lion d'Or in Romorantin in the Sologne. Our lack of French fluency was a small problem there, but the cooking was excellent -- especially the mushrooms and game. Also had a great starter of oysters poached in muscadet!! Went to the 2 starred (formerly 3 star) L'Esperance in Vezelay. Food was good, but we had a sense of its having been too much of a production. The stress of the service team wanting to get back to 3 stars was palpable -- very jet set, self-conscious, and very "Broadway" in feel. Since we were on vacation, I wanted to kick back a bit. That said, the kitchen is great! Also stayed at Chateau Gilly near Vougeot. The food was wildly inconsistent; I had the worst coq au vin I have ever eaten, including my very earliest attempts with "Art of French Cooking" 30 years ago. My wife's meal was fine. However, the wine cellar is AWESOME! Well priced Burgundies that you'll never see elsewhere. Our overall sense is that at the top end, French cooking is as wonderful as always. The median is not so good. Lots of uninspired renditions of the typical classics, with little imagination. It felt to me like many places were going through the motions of quality cooking with little care about the result.

We had dinner at the restaurant this past Tuesday(?), and enjoyed it. We both (unusually) had the menu decouverte which was about 52 Euros. We also saw the Art of Eating article, and wanted to try the place. Madame Coillot (chef's wife) speaks wonderful English, so there was no language barrier for us. Opened with a pumpkin soup which was nice, but nothing special. The following was a duck foie gras cream -- interesting -- like a duck liver milkshake in texture with a caramel/vinegar truffle glaze for the plate. Great taste. The main was an excellent pigeon breast, with dessert a very rich, wet chocolate souffle. Tastes and portions were exactly what we wanted. Our only quibble would be that the soup, duck mousse, and chocolate were too similar in texture -- too much "baby food". That said, we found the place to be only one of a couple places in our two weeks in France that struck a comfortable balance between great cooking, casual/friendly surroundings, and reasonable economics. Our check was about 160 Euros, with a bottle of young-ish Mercurey. I wold recommend the place without hestiation. The restaurant is a short walk from the #10 and #12 Metro lines at Sevres-Babylone -- kind of behind the Bon Marche department store.

Our "house pour" originally came from Cooks Illustrated, I think. Three tea bags (usually Lipton Yellow Label -- standard but not the cheapest) into a quart of water. Seven minutes in the microwave on high, three minutes of steeping, remove the teabags, and dump over ice cubes or keep on the counter. Each serving gets lemon, sugar, mint, or whatever. Keeping it in the fridge makes it cloudy. I think the taste of the ice cubes is important. Our local water isn't the best, so we buy bar ice in bags. Seems to get colder and tase "cleaner".

Jinmyo-san, can you please explain the warm enoki w/ gelled coffee dashi??? Oishii-so!

What kind of OO do you use? Is the point more fat, or if you use EVOO, does that add a layer of flavor or what....??

I average 150-200 k miles a year, most of it in Asia or trans-Pacific in first or business. Someone (jordyn??) said earlier in the thread that none of the airline food is THAT good, and I agree heartily! I think some of the "gee-whiz" factor is that the meal seems free. If you stopped to calculate the cost of that first class meal relative to what you could buy in a three star restuarant for a fraction of the difference, you'd hold the airline to a much higher standard. The best part of the front 2/3 of the bus is that the seats recline so that you can sleep and go straight to work from the plane. Drinking anything but water (even DP!) makes it that much harder to adjust to 13 hour time changes, so I usually save my appetite for real food when I land. The real foodies airline is one that flies to the city with the best restuarants!!

The Demi Glace Gold is made by More Than Gourmet. We get ours by mail from clubsauce.com in Denver and pick it up when we are in the US. We also like the glace viande and the roast chicken base. The bases are allegedly made with real ingredients and no preservatives. I just brought some of their duck fat back to Singapore based on Jinmyo's comments about potatoes sauteeed in same. I know real made from bones stock would taste better, but it just isn't going to happen in my life because of time pressures. These things are a compromise, but not much isn't...

I've got to line up on Jinmyo's side -- if I'm upset or angry, I tend to munch junk food like chips or petzels and then feel like cr*p afterward. Much better for me to go for a walk/run/workout. Food is for celebrations (almost every day). I wonder what the common threads -- gender, ethnicity, age, whatever??? -- are here that make some of us find comfort in certain foods and others in work, exercise, pets, etc.

...a splash of Grand Marnier in the egg mix.

Sure do, though if you're as clumsy as I am, you'll occasionally get some wrinkled pies! A peel would be perfect for this, but I use an aluminum pizza pan dusted w/ flour and shake the dough onto the grates. I brush the grates (reasonably) clean and rub w/ a little oil. Never had a sticking problem or the dough falling through the slots. As the dough firms up, you can flip it w/ your fingers or tongs -- obvoisly before topping! Haven't tried it, but this approach might make a decent foccaccia as well.

We are long time users of clay tiles for baking pizza, bread, etc. Sometimes, I forget and leave them in even when braising or finishing a dish in the oven. We have a miserable quality oven in our place, and the stones seem to even out the temperature fluctuations. However, for pizza, we've been using our gas grill (too much hassle using charcoal on our apartment balcony) to grill the dough and then finish the pizza. Using a typical dough recipe, we make about 200 grams of dough into a 12 inch pie (very thin), grill it (covered) for a couple minutes on the first side, flip it for a minute, and take it off. The first side down becomes the top, so we put a little oil on the crust, top it as usual, and then slide it back onto the covered grill for a couple minutes. The bottom chars a bit (have to watch it), and the toppings cook through. Relative to oven pizza, the bottom gets crispier and the char is more like wood oven pizza. It also avoids a hot kitchen because of the damn oven!n (We are in Singapore and there is no A/C in the kitchen.) We tend to make two or three crusts at a time, and freeze them -- far superior to Bobili or other store bought crusts....

The breadth and depth of knowledge in eGullet is an ongoing amzement to me. Thanks to all for the quick survey on American fine "plate-ery". Living in a Japanese/Western family, we have a slightly different perspective. We have several sets of Western dinnerware -- everything matches or coordinates -- Fitz & Floyd, Noritake (black/white/gold) an old Centura white set and some clear and colored glass plates and bowls for salads and soups or pastas. The Japanese cupboards have dozens (literally) of plates, dishes, cups, and bowls. Colors and shapes vary with the food and season -- e.g., square food on round plates, round food on square plates, etc. It's been great fun and an education for me (the Western half) that mixing and matching adds another dimension to eating. We use the either the Western or Japanese ware for Western food, but the Japanese food generally goes only on/in the Japanese ware. I'd second the observation that solid black can be an interesting pallete for food -- some Mashiko-style plates work well with brightly colored veggies.

Blind Lemon: I've been struggling to find a technique/recipe for red wine reduction that I really like -- would you share yours...? Thanks!

Re the question on brining non-kosher chickens: I've been doing this for the past couple of years since Cooks Illustrated began touting it. Of course, you get more sodium, but the results are outstanding. We've been using a ridiculous recipe for beer can chicken which involve "seating" a whole, brined bird on an open, 3/4 full beer can on the side of the gas grill and roasting it for about an hour. The white is moist and the dark meat falls off the bone, but you also get crispy skin.... Charcoal would certainly be even better, but that's not an option here. We use about a half cup of coarse salt and a similar amount of sugar in a liter and a half of water. We soak the bird in a zip-loc bag for a couple hours in the fridge. Drain, rinse, cook.

Fast food items for which I don't apologize include the White Castles mentioned above. Anyone who grew up in Chicago and now lives far away (Singapore), needs a "slider" every now and then. My dark secret -- every trip to Houston starts with a stop at the Exxon station outside IAH to get some Frito-Lay (baked) corn puffs and a Coke. I usually have to clean the orange goo off my fingers before I check into the hotel!! Why only in Houston? I have no idea.

The city is Guangzhou and the province is Guangdong -- both are romanizations of the real pronounciations, so there are probably other ways to spell them. As I understand it, "Canton" was the British phonetic version of the same sound. (Edited by sng sling at 6:32 pm on Dec. 31, 2001)

What's the consensus re the three wheel diamond sharpener (electric) that Craig Claiborne used to shill. I think it's called Chef's Choice. It seems to work well on our German knives (mostly Henckels) every few months, with an occasional stroke of a steel every few days to hone them and keep them sharp....???

Sauteed a small rib steak, drained the fat and sauteed shallots in a little butter in the same pan until soft; deglazed w/ a slug of cognac, added about a tsp of demiglace paste in a little water; added reduced Cab/Merlot. The reduction of the Cab Merlot (to about a third of original volume) was very acid, so - no surprise -- so was the sauce. Will try some of the ideas in the thread, but does reducing the wine inevitably make it acid -- do you see this with the Chantefluer you use? Thanks... (Edited by sng sling at 9:36 pm on Nov. 19, 2001)

I've been playing around (unsuccessfully) with red wine reduction sauces for roasted meats. The results are either too sweet, not "winy", or (like tonight's) acid enough to strip the enamel from your teeth. I think I am either using the wrong wine (Aussie Cab-Merlot tonight) or doing something in the reduction to make it over-concentrated or too acid. Any suggestions or experiences to share? I live in Singapore, so Aussie, Chilean, Italian, or French wines are easier than Californians.... Thanks! (Edited by sng sling at 8:58 am on Nov. 19, 2001)