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Cookbook Challenge


Heather

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Neither of these recipes were particularly quick, though (this is a bandwagon jumping quick/easy cookbook)
Sounds sort of like Mahdur Jaffrey's Quick and Easy Indian cookbook. It must be quick compared to the original recipes, but still involves lots of prep.

The salad sounds delicious, and this reminded me that I have a Bayless cookbook that hasn't been cooked from. I'll start with that one once I can eat normally.

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The salad sounds delicious, and this reminded me that I have a Bayless cookbook that hasn't been cooked from. I'll start with that one once I can eat normally.

I have Mexico One Plate at a Time and everything I have made out of it has been very good. One of my favorites.

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Last night I made (minus the appetizer and dessert) "Fish Dinner for Four in Half and Hour," from Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook. There were only two of us, so it made enough for a nice meal plus some leftovers.

Because it was designed as a menu for a 30 minute meal :P , the recipes were intertwined with each other to make maximal use of time. I suspect this worked better for a tv demonstration than it does reading it from a book. I've made other recipes from the book but don't recall doing any that were menus before. It took me longer than half an hour, and that was only making 3 of the 5 meal components.

It was quite good, though: Tranches de Poisson a la Barbouille (Fish Steaks with Eggplant and Tomato Sauce) and Noodle Shells (buttered pasta shells). I skipped the Cheese and Artichoke Appetizers (frozen pastry shells, cream cheese, and canned artichoke hearts) and Baked Apricot (canned apricots, banana, bourbon, brown sugar and peanuts ;) it was the 60s...) dessert. I used swordfish steaks (one of her options) for the fish. I wasn't sure how the sauce would match the fish, but it was delicious. There's enough fish and sauce for dinner tonight (there were also shells and sauce, but that was my lunch :blink: ). I'm going to make 3 components of another one of her 30-minute menus to round that out. They probably don't really require recipes: a cold hors d'oeuvre platter with watercress, salami, hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, and tomatoes; sauteed zucchini; and sauteed potatoes.

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Not me, but I'm curious where you found tef (if you did)?
I used Bob's Red Mill teff flour, which I got (probably) at the Old Town Whole Foods. I can't swear as to where I bought it, but that's the line of products it came from.

I thought maybe I used a little too much butter in the pan. It called for 2 Tbsp. clarified butter to grease the pan, and I didn't clarify and I didn't measure exactly. Of course, I tried again and used very little butter, and they didn't come out any better. There must be a trick to it that I'm missing. The batter looked good.

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I also have Rick Bayless's Mexico-One Plate at a Time & although I haven't cooked very many dishes, everything has turned out well-(the recipe for Classic Red Tomato Rice in RB's Mexican Kitchen is my favorite, bit of work, but it's excellent). I signed up for the Sur la Table cooking class, then backed out (still thinking about that). Instead, I'm taking a knife skills class at La Cuisine & a Fairfax Co Adult class-Prep like a Chef. I hope I made the right decision...

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Hey campers - anyone want to start this up again? I need to do some serious cooking, and weed out my cookbook collection.
I'm interested. I need to dig out my vegetarian and lower-fat cookbooks again :blink:. I'd also like to try a few more recipes from that Samuelsson book, maybe trying the injera again.
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I'm considering Fergus Henderson's The Whole Beast. I know you're all eagerly awaiting more pig head stories. :blink:

Thinking about:

Onion soup with bone-marrow toast, page 13

Warm pig's head, page 30 (I absolutely love the directions for this recipe)

Beans and bacon, page 79

Treacle tart, 177

Hm, I never got around to this. Might have to start here since the weather is supposed to cool off next week.

Warm pig's head. Mmmmmmmm.

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I'm not sure if I'll do it this weekend or at the beginning of the week, but I'm going to do four from Marcus Samuelsson's The Soul of a New Cuisine:

Curry Chapatis, p. 142

Chicken and Shrimp Soup, p. 113

Mango Couscous, p. 96

Black-Eyed Peas, p. 173

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OK, I'll be working from a cookbook that has inspired me for awhile, Michael Bauer's The Secrets of Success Cookbook. Apps-Stuffed Pasilla chiles w/ avocado salsa, p28-Main-Coq Au Vin (Bistro Jeanty)-I've been watching TopChef this season & Casey's Coq au Vin in the last episode makes me want tp try this one. Side Dish -Long bean & Okra sambal, p. 264 -because the long beans I planted this summer are out of control & huge! I just ripped most of them down, they were strangling my roses & fruit trees. For the dessert, Kerry Heffernan's Apple Crisp, p. 308. These are all recipes I can do easily, this week, from a cookbook I have enjoyed for a while, but have not cooked from, yet.

I have a bunch of new cookbooks from the library-Morimoto-the New Art of Japanese Cooking, Daniel Leader's Local Breads, Pichet Ong's Sweet Spot, Isabel's Cantina & the Sushi Economy by Sasha Issenberg. I hope I find some things I'd love to cook from these...

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I made 2 of the Samuelsson recipes tonight--the black-eyed peas and the chicken and shrimp soup. The black-eyed peas were different than I expected, with a nice curry-ish undertone. I'll try to remember this one for a New Year's recipe.

The soup came out well, with the exception of the shrimp balls that were supposed to go in near the end. They fell apart. I used the amounts called for, but it's possible the 2 egg whites I used produced more than the recipe was calibrated for. I'm not sure quite what went wrong.

I was tired and ran out of time for the other two recipes I planned. They should be the easiest, requiring the shortest prep/cooking time. I'll make those tomorrow to go with leftovers from tonight.

I really have to learn to wear gloves when I work with habaneros. (I used them instead of the scotch bonnets called for--3 across the two recipes.) Ouch. My hands feel like they're on fire.

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Jamie Oliver must be getting too old for me or something, because he's just not inspiring me to get in the kitchen. :blink: Plus, I've been distracted by stock-making this week. So I pulled out Bouchon and Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. I'll be picking a couple of Nigel's fall recipes.

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After neglecting Molto Italiano for quite some time, I adapted a recipe I've made before for a stuffed, rolled meatloaf, using what was on hand. The original recipe is a bit richer since it includes a generous amount of prosciutto.

Flavored a combination of ground turkey breast and pork w grated Pecorino, very fresh garlic and flecks of parsley. I bowed to American tradition by adding the last of a baguette soaked in yogurt and a little sour cream. One egg more than usual to lighten. Really.

After spending a little time in the fridge, this mixture is spread over plastic wrap coated w bread crumbs and flour. I pre-cooked and drained a mandoline-sliced globe of zucchini and laid the circles in two rows on top. Then spread on caramelized onion. Then, parboiled carrot sticks.

The plastic wrap helped me roll the loaf, shaping it into a cylinder w a spiral of vegetables to place on a rack over fresh rosemary sprigs and water (later augmented w stock). Loaf smeared w olive oil and slathered or basted once or twice more over the course of nearly an hour (165 F internal temperature).

Because of the flour used to form a crust, the pan juices were easy to transform into a rosemary-scented gravy.

Fussy. Pretty. Needed an ear of corn to tide me over for a very late dinner. Yet a nice change and good way to make the transition to the new season when it's still quite warm. Great leftovers for sandwiches.

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Flavored a combination of ground turkey breast and pork w grated Pecorino, very fresh garlic and flecks of parsley. I bowed to American tradition by adding the last of a baguette soaked in yogurt and a little sour cream. One egg more than usual to lighten. Really.

Your ground meat roulade sounds delicious, and I'm sure it looked beautiful. But I wonder why you say you are bowing to American tradition, when what you are adding is a panade, a basic French technique, used in almost all terrines and other ground meat (and ground fish) dishes, to insure tenderness. The difference between a meatball, meatloaf or Russian kotelet made with and without a panade is striking--them that's got're good, them that's not, ain't--they are dense and tough. Some meatloaf recipes call for uncooked oatmeal instead of bread crumbs, but I don't find it works at all well. I use cracker or matzo meal soaked in milk, in most cases. Or breadcrumbs. If I'm making a salmon patty, I moisten the cracker meal with some white wine. The egg holds it together, but it is the panade that lightens the mixture.

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But I wonder why you say you are bowing to American tradition, when what you are adding is a panade, a basic French technique, used in almost all terrines and other ground meat (and ground fish) dishes, to insure tenderness.

Because Mario Batali's recipe conforms to practice throughout much of Italy in just adding fresh bread crumbs to the meat and egg mixture without the soaking process.

I grew up on the oatmeal method, but because I was allergic to wheat. Actually learned how to do what you're calling a panade when given a subscription to Cooks Illustrated (a most ANNOYINGLY formulaic publication, but everything I've made from it has been wonderful). Recipe for American spaghetti & meatballs called for buttermilk--or yogurt and drop of whole milk.

Thanks for the new vocabulary. Just have not kept up on all these French terms since I crossed over to the earlier, great civilization that gave the world Gaul. Reminds me that I haven't looked at the brittle, yellow pages of my one book by Elizabeth David for some time...

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Because Mario Batali's recipe conforms to practice throughout much of Italy in just adding fresh bread crumbs to the meat and egg mixture without the soaking process.

Actually, the "dry" breadcrumbs absorb moisture in the mixture from other ingredients, including eggs, and form a panade--so it isn't that different than moistening the crumbs before adding them.

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But I wonder why you say you are bowing to American tradition...
To explain differently: I consider soaking torn bits of bread in milk or a fresh dairy product something an American would do when making meatloaf or meatballs.

Getting back to the cookbook, Mario Batali is known for gussying up or altering traditional regional dishes of Italy to make them more Babbo-worthy. Nonetheless, Molto Italiano was published in conjunction with a television show that was meant to introduce American home cooks to the discrete cuisines of individual Italian regions. He tends to respect tradition in the dishes he presents.

The recipe I adapted is Lombardian. The ground meats in Batali's polpetton[e] ripieno, or "BIG [-one suffix] stuffed meatball" get mixed w eggs; grated, aged Pecorino; fresh bread crumbs; salt and pepper only. There is no fresh dairy product. In this respect, the recipe conforms to every Italian recipe for polpette (meatballs) I've seen.

Therefore, I kind of went Italian-American with my version of the recipe.

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To explain differently: I consider soaking torn bits of bread in milk or a fresh dairy product something an American would do when making meatloaf or meatballs.

Not according to my library. I've checked The Joy of Cooking (1943 and 1973 eds.), The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (1965 and 1987 eds.), The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (early 1950's ed.), and the Woman's Home Companion Cook Book (1943), and the only one that instructs the reader to soak the breads crumbs is the Woman's Home Companion.

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Not according to my library. I've checked The Joy of Cooking (1943 and 1973 eds.), The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (1965 and 1987 eds.), The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (early 1950's ed.), and the Woman's Home Companion Cook Book (1943), and the only one that instructs the reader to soak the breads crumbs is the Woman's Home Companion.
Milk-bread combo vs. method.

There are American meatloaf recipes that do not call for milk, including those catering to Kosher diets. However, there are also many recipes for meatloaf that call for milk and something like bread, bread crumbs, rice, oatmeal, crushed corn flakes... It seems to be a common practice here.

On the other hand, Batali's recipe for Lombardian polpettone does not call for milk.

It is common to make meatballs w fresh or dried bread crumbs and aged cheese, but I have yet to come across an Italian recipe for polpette that calls for milk, cereal product and meat. Doesn't mean it isn't done. Anna Del Conte (from Lombardy; the U.K.'s Marcella Hazan) published a Lombardian recipe for meatballs that call for ricotta and no cereal or grain filler; they're rolled in flour before frying. Linking meatballs to cucina povera, she notes that they're a practical way to make leftover meat go further by adding bread, cheese, mortadella or other pork products. (She also stuffs a poached capon w ricotta, Parmesan and walnuts.)

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However, there are also many recipes for meatloaf that call for milk and something like bread, bread crumbs, rice, oatmeal, crushed corn flakes... It seems to be a common practice here.
You keep saying this, but I've never seen anyone do this or seen a recipe for meatloaf, other than the one Heather cites above, that calls for milk or cream. Can you provide some specifics?
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You keep saying this, but I've never seen anyone do this or seen a recipe for meatloaf, other than the one Heather cites above, that calls for milk or cream. Can you provide some specifics?
Ahhhh...perhaps I was assuming the recipe my mother wrote on a now-splattered index card represents a norm when it apparently doesn't.* We're from Connecticut where there is a large Italian-American population, though our roots are greater New England, including Rhode Island w Scottish/British/Irish/Scandanavian/French heritage. A friend from the midwest (Israel/NYC/Michigan) does the same oatmeal-milk thing we did.

I don't have my mother's general cookbook, but James Beard wrote a number of meatloaf recipes, several without milk of any kind. One calls for bread soaked in milk. One for cream and dry breadcrumbs.

Might our family owe a debt to Italian-American meatballs in Connecticut?** I kind of doubt it. Perhaps the recipe for spaghetti & meatballs in Cook's Illustrated is also 1: atypical and/or 2: New English in the recommended use of a paste made from buttermilk-soaked bread?

*I thought I was being perfectly clear. Then, decided I simply did not provide enough details.:blink: Or maybe I was wearing a pair of invisible wabbit ears.... :P

**Epicurious: My Mother's Italian-American Meatloaf

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This is the first recipe I ever made for meatballs or meatloaf that used the milk. I've seen plenty more since then. My mother used oats and eggs in meatloaf but no milk. I'm really not sure how I would characterize what kinds of recipes have it vs. don't have it.

That meatballs stroganoff recipe is a great retro dish, BTW. I don't make it very often, but I've just been thinking about it recently.

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Whether or not Beard's recipes represent traditional American cooking rather than his interpretation of it is an argument for another thread, but I suspect what you're characterizing as "American" here may be better represented as a Northeastern/Northern regional variation.

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Whether or not Beard's recipes represent traditional American cooking rather than his interpretation of it is an argument for another thread, but I suspect what you're characterizing as "American" here may be better represented as a Northeastern/Northern regional variation.
This thread is about turning to cookbooks we haven't used for a while.

Deciding to acknowledge that I was not following Mario Batali's recipe to the letter (it also calls for beef and veal vs. turkey and pork. Spinach and slices of prosciutto and provolone instead of zucchini and onions. No garlic. No parsley...), I characterized one of my deviations as being American as opposed to Italian. Click.

I get the impression that I've been cast as a fat British boy on an island whose glasses break as a result of my subsequent posts. Luckily, there's a boat just around the bend.

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I've totally slacked off in my attempts to cook from an untried cookbook this week. Coq au Vin-nah, too hot for that, just grilled the chicken & the long beans, while the sambal w/ okra sounded wonderful, the commissary didn't have good looking okra, so I just braised them for a long time in chicken broth , w/ s&p, tasted yummy w/ rice & soy sauce....

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Re: the rolled meatloaf, I went out and picked up a few ingredients and made one myself soon after reading the posting.

Meat variation: pork + beef; tomato juice (from a can of tomatoes); fresh bread chopped fine; egg. Chilled before rolling.

Filling variation: spinach, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil.

Parmesan on the top of the roll and then a few tablespoons more tomato juice. Came out with a lovely color on top, and nice look to the slices. Yummy too!

This is a lovely dish. Very tasty and lazy - nothing is time critical until the final baking. Made with a side of stewed tomatoes just like momma used to make every time she made meatloaf.

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I finally got to the Mango Couscous from the Samuelsson book last night. Very nice. It's relatively simple and quick to prepare and tastes delicious and fresh. There's a jalapeno in it, which would not be something I would think of in a dish like this, but it adds just the right amount of bite.

I'm trying the curry chapatis tonight.

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I still didn't make the curry chapatis. I'm forging ahead to make it tonight. Then I'm moving on to a new cookbook.

A couple of years ago, when the The Silver Spoon had just been translated into English and was the most popular (or talked about) cookbook around, I bought a copy at Costco. I look through it periodically and use it for reference, but I haven't cooked anything from it yet. It is so enormous, I am just jumping right in and picking some recipes.

Farmhouse Rainbow Pie, p. 188

Cream of Lettuce Soup, p. 219

Meatballs with Anchovies, p. 796*

Cinnamon Cookies, p. 1050

*It says the meatballs are to be served with spinach in butter. I'm not sure if this means the Spinach in White Butter Sauce recipe in the book or just simply buttered spinach. I'm going with the latter, but, since there is an ample amount of spinach in the farmhouse pie, I may sub swiss chard instead. (The other recipe on the page with the pie is for Easter Pie, which uses Swiss Chard, so I figure it's a decent substitution.)

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Hm, I never got around to this. Might have to start here since the weather is supposed to cool off next week.

Warm pig's head. Mmmmmmmm.

I just finished reading this book (The Whole Beast, Fergus Henderson). It is amazing. Easily my favorite cookbook reading ever (some of the descriptions are downright hilarious). I'm starting to look around for pig spleen and liver, and seriously considering expanding the curing fridge to allow for entire hams.

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I made the meatballs with anchovies from The Silver Spoon tonight. They were excellent, flavorful but without a distinct anchovy flavor. Measuring was a little tricky, as it called for 2 rolls (crusts removed and the bread broken into pieces and soaked in milk), and I didn't know what or how much to use. The recipe also called for 1 cup of breadcrumbs for the meatballs to be rolled in before cooking. I bought a striata baguette at Marvelous Market to use for both purposes. The buttered crusts were a delicious appetizer during meal prep :blink:. The bread crumbs on the outside made a nice brown crust on the meatballs. They also held together very well.

Lacking energy, I didn't make the buttered spinach the recipe said should accompany this. I can do that with the leftovers. (The recipe was supposed to make 8-10 meatballs, but it made 11. I wasn't too precise about measuring the 3 1/2 cups of beef, so I think I may have had more raw material than necessary, but the amount of bread was comparable, and it worked fine.)

We had soup and salad with the meatballs. Quite satisfactory. I'm looking forward to making more recipes from the book, and there sure are a lot! I'm hoping to hit other ones I planned later this week.

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I made the Farmhouse Rainbow Pie from The Silver Spoon tonight and it was pretty good. I found it interesting that my husband could taste the wine in the crust, because I couldn't (crust was 2 1/4 cups sifted AP flour, pinch salt, scant cup dry white wine, I Tbsp. olive oil). The crust was relatively easy for me to to make. That's not my forte, typically.

The layers of the pie were

crust

ham

creamed spinach

roasted red peppers

fontina

ham

creamed spinach

roasted yellow peppers

fontina

crust w/egg yolk

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I've done three from Jacques Pepin, A French Chef Cooks at Home. We had the Mussels Marseillaises (with saffron broth) for lunch. They were a bit gritty, but that's not the fault of the recipe :P. Otherwise they were good. Braised veal shanks for dinner were excellent, as were Potatoes Biron, a lovely large potato pancake. I love reading through this book, but the recipes have a lot of butter, cream, and other fatty delights. The potatoes were to die for, but I hope not literally :blink:.

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Used Su-mei Yu's book: Asian Grilling to make chicken and shrimp satay over the weekend. EASILY the best satay I've ever had! If you want to ruin yourself for 99% of the satay you get in restaurants, try making the recipes in this book. These recipes, however, are NOT for those who like the abridged versions of recipes. Su-mei has you cut the chicken as thin as possible (10th of an inch) to increase the surface to volume ratio and it took 4 hours alone just to skewer the 6 lbs of chicken breast. The peanut dipping sauce for the chicken was FAR superior to what you get in jars or in restaurants. It only had one tablespoon of peanut butter for each one cup of sauce made. The rest (off the top of my head) was fresh lemongrass, galangal, shallots, garlic, red miso, red chilies, veggie oil, salt, tamarind juice, coconut milk, and maybe a few other ingredients. It was UNBELIEVABLY good!

The shrimp satay was even better. The marinade for the shrimp was very simple (off the top of my head): veggie oil, thai basil, ginger, garlic, shallots, arbol chilies, salt, soy sauce, and maybe a few other ingredients. It recommended a Thai Sweet Pepper sauce that had white peppercorns (dry roasted and crushed), coriander (dry roasted and crushed), sugar, arbol chilies, cider, white vinegar, cayenne, and a few other ingredients. You boil the this down to a syrup and let cool. The shrimp had just the right amount of heat that builds up a few seconds after you bite into it.

Here's the chicken satay:

IMG_2071.jpg

IMG_2076.jpg

I had to cook it on my brother's gas grill :blink:

IMG_2082.jpg

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"These tagines of meat and vegetables with preserved lemons and olives are marvelous fragrant dishes, particularly if the vegetables are absolutely fresh and not ripened in crates...

I have also included recipes for lamb tagines with three ingredients virtually unknown in the United States, but which hopefully will someday be imported or cultivated. These [include] wild cardoons..."

--Paula Wolfert, Coucous and Other Good Food from Morocco (1973)

There is supposedly a cardoon plant growing on the south side of Dupont Circle. Heinz Thomet spotted it just last spring. Nonetheless, the bitter, mammoth cardoons that line dusty roads in California are distant relatives of the wild cardoons unearthed in Italian woods (scroll down).

More than three decades after the publication of this book, we have access to cardoons! The best dish I made w this year's crop from Next Step Produce is the author's tagine which calls for lamb shoulder, saffron, turmeric, dried ginger, parsley, and grated onion. Lots of fresh lemon juice at the end in addition to the preserved lemon quarters and pitted olives. Little effort at all other than preparing the cardoons since the meat stews without searing.

The excessive amount of lemon juice makes the dish, really enhancing the flavor of the vegetable so that it seems more than a pale reflection of an artichoke.

Fantastic over couscous with a salad of radishes and orange (same book) made by grating the large white bulbs w brilliant red centers that are sold by numerous venders at the market.

* * *

From what I understand, the principal ingredient of majoun is not quite the same thing these days as it was back in the early seventies. Nonetheless, this cookbook also includes a recipe for kif (cannabis) candy which calls for lots of butter, figs, raisins, honey, spices and ground nuts. Wolfert advises readers to eat w care, no more than a tablespoon at a time, though she claims to base her comments on observation, having never sampled it herself.

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Nonetheless, this cookbook also includes a recipe for kif (cannabis) candy which calls for lots of butter, figs, raisins, honey, spices and ground nuts. Wolfert advises readers to eat w care, no more than a tablespoon at a time, though she claims to base her comments on observation, having never sampled it herself.

Yeah, right. And Bill Clinton never inhaled. :blink:

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My plan for Valentine's Day this year was to construct a menu from two Texas restaurant cookbooks: The Mansion on Turtle Creek Cookbook (Dallas) and Fonda San Miguel cookbook (Austin).

This was the intended lineup:

Mango Margaritas [FSM, p. 56]

Tequila-Cured Salmon Tostadas [FSM, p. 41]

Jalapeno Jack Cheese Soup [MOTC, pp. 37-8]

Spicy Fried Oysters on Roasted Peppers with

Spinach and Radicchio Salad [MOTC, pp. 51-3]

Zarape De Pato (Stacked Enchiladas with Duck) [FSM, p, 130]

Mexican Wedding Cookies [FSM, p. 205]

Lace Cookies [MOTC, pp. 204-5]

I ran out of time, so the menu ended up being served over two days, with no dessert either day, so the cookies were liberated from the menu :mellow:. Both kinds of cookies turned out well. The highlight of the three recipes from MOTC was the salad, and the standout of the four from FSM was the margaritas. I mentioned the meals in the dinner thread.

post on night one

post on night two

I'd had MOTC for a quite a number of years (Dean Fearing isn't even at the restaurant any more!), but I'd never made anything from it. It always looked too intimidating. Many of the recipes are quite complex, with lengthy subrecipes. Something similar keeps me from delving too far into The French Laundry. Now that I've tried three recipes--one simple, one complicated, and one portion of another multi-part recipe--I'd say that the recipes are well thought out and will produce a good result if followed all the way through as written. The one slight disappointment (the soup really had only one note) was due to the fact that I only prepared one part of a multi-part recipe. That one flavor would have been wonderful in combination with the others it was designed to fit with originally. The "simple" recipe I choose turned out gorgeous lace cookies, something I've had trouble getting to come out right in the past.

FSM cookbook I bought more recently, as I'd eaten at the restaurant years ago and wanted to recreate a couple of the items. Well, the margaritas were fantastic :). The cookbook also features some wonderful artwork. The recipes, however, seem to have been oversimplified for the home cook, and the times given on some things are simply wrong. (The cookies needed 30 minutes at 325F, not 15 minutes, as written. The tostadas baked for well over an hour at 250, not 45 minutes, and never got done the way the book photo illustrates, even when I got frustrated late in the game and turned the temperature up.) The description of how the cured salmon fillet was to be cut ("crosswise") had me a bit puzzled until I realized that the only way I could get 8 of the wafer thin slices the recipe called for would be to slice the long way along the surface of the 1/4 - 1/3 inch piece of fish :). Not my forte, cutting thin slices of anything. Somehow I managed.

Oddly enough, the dishes I made from FSM were largely visually attractive, but the flavors were not as impressive, even given the quality of ingredients. I somehow managed to roll the thin (somewhat irregularly cut) salmon slices for the tostadas into rosettes that looked like rosettes. The beautiful creamy green sauce for the tortilla stack looked stunning on the plate.

Much of my disappointment with the stacked duck tortillas was in not being able to recreate what I'd had at the restaurant. I guess I should have expected that. The recipe in the book was similar but clearly different than what I'd had. For starters, it had slices of duck instead of the shredded duck I had. I gave up on shredding the duck when I realized that the duck breast I bought (per the recipe instructions) would not be the optimal part of the duck for shredded meat. The sliced duck they called for was fine, but shredded was so much better.

Searching around, I discovered that the chef had left a few months before I went there. The subsequently retooled version of the recipe was published in the cookbook. Reading reviews, in combination with my memory, told me that it probably had blue corn tortillas, in addition to chipotles and tomatoes (cookbook says only tomatoes, optional). Since I was able to find blue corn tortillas, that's what I used, and they looked gorgeous on the plate with the brilliant green sauce above and below. And the original was a stack of several tortillas, not the sandwich of two presented in the book. I did two layers instead of one--adding a reconstituted chipotle and broiled tomatoes to the refried bean portion of the filling. Even the toasted shredded pasillas on top looked pretty.

The margaritas were still the best part of the meal.

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Anyone feel like reviving this thread? or another cook-at-home kind of challenge? I'm thinking about my food resolutions for this year, looking at my overflowing cookbook collection & pantry of unused ingredients, & while I'd love to take a class to jumpstart my creative urges, don't have the time or the cash right now. I always do better if I have a deadline or a challenge, or some sort of structure. If someone would like to choose a cookbook or theme or ingredient to work on, I'd be on it, in a heartbeat. Confession, I've been watching Top Chef, & Hell's Kitchen starts next week-a real challenge like a mystery box or list of ingredients would be great...I just need a push, to get cooking!

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Anyone feel like reviving this thread? or another cook-at-home kind of challenge? I'm thinking about my food resolutions for this year, looking at my overflowing cookbook collection & pantry of unused ingredients, & while I'd love to take a class to jumpstart my creative urges, don't have the time or the cash right now. I always do better if I have a deadline or a challenge, or some sort of structure. If someone would like to choose a cookbook or theme or ingredient to work on, I'd be on it, in a heartbeat. Confession, I've been watching Top Chef, & Hell's Kitchen starts next week-a real challenge like a mystery box or list of ingredients would be great...I just need a push, to get cooking!
I'm up for reviving it.
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Yay! -I hesitate to say, 'Woo-hoo!', for fear of sounding like an Orange Co. housewife-I have a 4 day weekend staring at me (courtesy of Fairfax Co. teacher workdays-didn't these kids have off last weekend?). Someone please throw out an idea or a challenge, & I'll try & hit the commissary tomorrow for ingredients-problems-it's too cold to think about any kind of outdoor cooking, pluses-the garage is cold enough for curing or holding food. Any ideas, folks?

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Ok, fast or made ahead, I vote for some type of slow-cooker meal, or something that can be prepped in another kitchen appliance/cookware (microwave, cast iron, pressure cooker, rice cooker, etc.)-I have cookbooks for both the slow cooker & rice cooker, but really haven't pushed the boundaries for either one. I have 2 children, ages 9 & 13, who are my harshest critics-they like to help cook,yet offer intense criticism for most new dishes. If I could come up w/ something that everyone would eat, (I'm not including side dishes), I would consider it a success....

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My grand intentions have started with a puff, rather than a bang. I did cook some black beans last night in the crockpot, a new technique for me. Dinner tonight was leftover steak, sauteed in butter & pepper (for my son & husband), boiled little yellow potatoes, & sauteed napa cabbage w/ country ham & sauerkraut-oh, & I made some fried rice midday, using leftover pork tenderloin& I used a Krusteaz (this sounds bad)mix to make blueberry muffins, the crumbcake mix is awesome, have my doubts about the blueberry muffins, maybe 'cause they're fatfree. Tomorrow, I'll go grocery shopping & see if I can get some ideas...

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