I read an article on the internet extolling the virtues of Marcella Hazan, the Italian cookbook author, and the article mentioned in passing how great Athony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook is. That inspired me to buy a copy, and this is the first dish I have made from it. So far, so good. What I Read More …
This is how I used up the stock and odds and ends of duck meat after I separated out the breasts for duck prosciutto and the legs for confit. I was following a recipe from The Essential Pepin for Duck and Bean Casserole except that I had more stock to use up so the final Read More …
Beef rendang is a classic Malaysian beef stew. The first time I made it was in 1979. Carol and I were living in Houston and we were friends with a young Malaysian couple which had their first child in Houston, far from the support services of family members. A Malay tradition is to serve a Read More …
After taking apart two ducks to make breasts for duck prosciutto and legs for confit, I had two duck livers. In the true peasant spirit, that represented some food which should not be wasted, so I made paté out of them following a recipe in The Essential Pepin. The paté made a nice lunch on Read More …
Today, I cut up two ducks in order to make duck prosciutto out of the breasts and confit out of the legs. To get full value from the ducks, I also plan to make pate from the liver, I am making soup from the carcass, and I rendered the duck fat to have a high Read More …
This post is documenting my journey on learning how to make a pressed cheese. I picked farmhouse cheddar as a starting project since it is a simplified version of cheddar cheese. A key part of the learning experience has been learning how, in my kitchen and with the equipment which I own, to keep the Read More …
I have made many focaccia over the years. This is one I have now made twice and it is a winner. I had the idea that the dough from Cast Iron Pan Pizza would make an excellent focaccia dough, and it does. Focaccia can be topped a number of ways but the key thing to Read More …
We are having a Mediterranean themed Easter dinner and spotted a recipe in The Complete Book of Greek Cooking from the Recipe Club of St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, probably the greatest community cookbook ever published. Honey Pie (Melopeta) is an Easter dish from the island of Sifnos. In Sifnos, this would have been made Read More …
This is a traditional English bun for Easter. This version is an adaptation from Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Small Breads. On Good Friday, I made the dough, gave it a first rise, and then split it in half. Half I formed into 6 rolls for Holy Saturday, and half I left in bulk, to Read More …
These roasted ribs are an adaptation of a recipe in Saveur magazine in 2008, which in turn was based on the Joyce Chen Cook Book from 1962. I left out the red food coloring from the original recipe as not necessary these days. The ribs took about 90 minutes to roast. 2.33 lbs. of ribs Read More …