vegetarians!
on this Occasion, I consider'd with my Master Tryon, the taking ever Fish as a kind of unprovok'd Murder, since none of them had or ever coculd do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seem'd very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, and when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between Principle and Inclination: till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you. So I din'd upon Cod very heartily and continu'd to eat with other People, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for every thing one has a mind to do.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography.
- posted by Jesse @ 7:39 AM 0 comments

 
walkin' hand in hand in hand in hand in hand


i made a terrine with the recipe for the patty in "decadent burger" in this website for fancy hamburgers.

it takes a long time, but you will feel true pride in having made something useful out of a pig's head. next time i'll try the filipino recipe.

if you want the brains, you have to crack the skull open. the skull is thick in the areas around the brain, and the cross section is rippled, as if it were designed to absorb blows that would otherwise damage the brain...
- posted by Jesse @ 12:15 AM 0 comments

 
lognghale?


let's see what can be made from this.
- posted by Jesse @ 7:37 PM 4 comments

 
Indian food in NYC
a NYTimes reporter tours several Indian restaurants with Krishnandu Ray, a food studies professor

In Little India, a strip of about a dozen Indian restaurants on East Sixth Street between First and Second Avenues, Angon stands out for its lack of trinkets, flashing lights and live music. The low-key décor is meant to appeal to the non-Indian, somewhat upscale clientele that Begum Mina Azad, the owner and chef, has courted since the restaurant opened in 2004. So are the decorative robes that the waiters wear, traditional garb of Indian’s upper middle class, even though, Mr. Ray pointed out, such robes would be inappropriate for service in India.
- posted by Jesse @ 11:31 AM 0 comments

 
balut egg
i am not a picky eater, but i am disturbed that i just ate two of these.




balut egg. fertilized duck eggs that are about two weeks developed.

how to prepare:

buy raw balut eggs from an asian store.
boil them.
make a bowl of salt and pepper mixture
get a bunch of these leaves. i don't know what they're called. whoever sells you the egg can tell you which leaf.

crack and remove the broader end.
puncture the membrane.
sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper.
chew up some leaves, then suck out the fluid and drink.
remove the embryo and yolk with your spoon. if you hard boiled the egg, the yolk is in one piece, else it is runny. eat these with leaf and salt/pepper.
remove the rest of the shell and you will find the white. eat it if you want.
- posted by Jesse @ 2:31 PM 1 comments

 
boiling water
Harold Mcgee writes:

Once a liquid starts to boil and is turning to steam throughout the pot — the bubbles of a boil are bubbles of water vapor — nearly all the energy from the burner is going into steam production. The temperature of the water itself remains steady at the boiling point, no matter how high the flame is underneath it. So turn the burner down. A gentle boil is just as hot as a furious one.

he is careful to say "the water itself remains steady at the boiling point" rather than saying "the water itself remains steady at 100 degrees Celsius", since the boiling point varies with pressure.

P (psia) - T (C)
------------------
10 - 89.55
14.7 - 100.0
20 - 108.9
25 - 115.6
30 - 121.3

this means that the temperature of boiling water can depend on the atmospheric pressure as well as whether or not the pot is covered.

what is the effect of covering the pot?

it depends on the diameter of the pot and the weight of the lid. here are some boiling points of water boiled with the lid on, for a given pot diameter and lid mass.

d (in) / m (g) / T (C)
----------------------
6 / 100/ 100.02
6 / 1000 / 100.15
6 / 10000 / 101.45
10 / 100 / 100.01
10 / 1000 /100.05


not much difference for a regular sized pot. even if you put a 10 kg weight on top of your 6" diameter pot of boiling water, the temperature would only go up to 101.45.

but if you somehow shrink the size of the face from which steam may issue, then you can have a serious effect on the temperature. a pressure cooker has a tight fitting sealed lid, and a very small hole at the top. by putting a small weight over this hole, it achieves a pressure of about 30 psia, increasing the boiling temperature to 121C. if you were to double the mass of the weight on top of the pressure cooker, you would get a water temperature of 134.5C. but that is very dangerous to do, because the pot could crack and release high pressure steam everywhere.
- posted by Jesse @ 4:42 PM 0 comments

 
The many Books already publish'd on the Subject of Cookery, may seem, in the Opinions of some People, to render useless the present Undertaking: And indeed, were the Number of Books which treat of this Noble Art and Mystery, the Consideration, rather than the Worth and Excellency of the Matter, sufficient Reason would not be wanting to countenance that Opinion.

But when 'tis consider'd, that Variety and Novelty are no small Parts of the Cook's Art, and that no Occupation in the World is more oblig'd to Invention; every Year, and every ingenious Artist constantly produceing New Experiments to gratify the Taste of that Part of Manking, whose splendid Circumstances make them emulous to excel in the Delicacies of the Mystery, especially when they exert their Wealth and their Magnificence to entertain their Friends with grand and sumptuous Repasts; it will be allow'd, that no Art can be said less to have reach'd Perfection than this, and that none is more capable of Improvement; and, of Consequence, that none can, with more Justice, challenge a Right to a king Reception than Treatises of this Nature, which shall be found to be drawn up with Art and Judgement, and the Rules whereof shall be reduceable to the true Standard of Practice and Experience.

from the foreword to
Carter, Charles. The complete practical cook: or, a new system of the whole art and mystery of cookery. Being a select collection of above five hundred recipes ... London, 1730.
- posted by Jesse @ 5:45 PM 0 comments

 
lamb breast - poitrine d'agneau
lamb breast is fatty and not highly esteemed. it is sold very cheaply in supermarkets.

Escoffier's le guide culinaire, the 1921 edition, recommends, for lamb breast

"The breast is generally used for: Navarin, Irish-Stew, Cassoulet, &c. . . . Finally it is also used in the following dishes:

Poitrine à la Bergère: braise the breast; de-bone and let cool. cut into rhombi about 80g each. bread them in the english style with half bread crumbs, half raw mushrooms, finely chopped and pressed dry; sprinkle with melted butter and grill lightly.
Arrange in a ring on a platter; in the middle, put shoestring fried potatoes in the center. serve with duxelles.

Poitrine à la Diable braise the breast; bone it, divide it in rectangles. smear each rectangle with a thick layer of cayenne-seasoned mustard; bread in the english style, sprinkle with melted butter and grill over low heat.
arrange in a ring and serve on the side a sauce Diable (reduce by two thirds three deciliters of white wine, add three diced shalots. add 2 deciliters of demi-glace sauce; simmer for several minutes and season with cayenne pepper)

. . .

i choose cassoulet or irish-stew
- posted by Jesse @ 9:11 AM 0 comments