Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:04 pm Posts: 1642 Location: Walnut Creek, CA
Maybe you can always use the bacon fat to boost the bacon taste of a pie like this:
"Mmmmhhh baconelicious2"
Pork meat is quite appreciated/used in Italy too, especially in the North, I'd say. But worth of note would be also some Southern recipes such as the "maialetto" (fire roasted suckling pig), typical of Sardinia:
And the "porchetta" (big roasted pig, properly deboned, prepared and stuffed with herbs and spice). This is sold in slices and usually eaten in a sandwich ("panino con porchetta"). Typical of Rome and surrounding areas (lucky Alberto...)
How could I live without pigs?
Ah, now let me dream to be on a warm Caraibic island, with a coconut, a bottle of rum, munching a huge porchetta sandwich. (looks out of his window and sees the snow falling and the labs cafeteria. A French one, yuck... )
That's the trouble with Air Force personnel; never taught to fend for themselves. Take their tin openers away from them (and boil-in-the-bag) and they simply starve in droves
Who you calling Air Force??
Apologies. Air Force doesn't know what 'bacon fat' is.
Wow, you all know so much about foods as well as gems! It's incredible!
I'll try to get lard just to test it out, however I believe you're right in that it is mostly a matter of oven temperature, as the standard recipes I have calls for 225 degrees C, rather than the 180 degrees you says. It must be like when I got hold of a British pie book, in English for once, and didn't count in the difference between F and C... Lets just say that baking a pie in 400 degrees C isn't such a good idea! Baking it in 205 degrees C went just fine though!
_________________ If it sounds good, then say it again!
Wow, you all know so much about foods as well as gems! It's incredible!
Perhaps not... both interests imply a fairly developed sensuality?
Quote:
I'll try to get lard just to test it out, however I believe you're right in that it is mostly a matter of oven temperature, as the standard recipes I have calls for 225 degrees C, rather than the 180 degrees you says. It must be like when I got hold of a British pie book, in English for once, and didn't count in the difference between F and C... Lets just say that baking a pie in 400 degrees C isn't such a good idea! Baking it in 205 degrees C went just fine though!
FWIW, I just reached for the Cordon Bleu Cookery Book from which, more than any other, I learned to cook a very long while ago. This gives 180-200 deg C as the range for cooking pastry dishes. Other than by under cooking - or burning, its actually quite hard to ruin a pie If it were me, I'd have another try, keeping the temperature down and increasing the cooking time as you may need until the top of the pie *looks* right and the you may see the edges of the pie beginning to pull away from the dish too. With a few exceptions, cooking is more about imagination and 'feel' than it is about slavishly following a book - not least because the performance of different ovens varies so widely.
Cooking at 400 dec C huh...... Did you get an enhancing colour change Did it take a good polish?
Well for all you pastry lovers, here's a professional/keen amateur's choice of dish - the Moule à pâté .
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Made in three parts in galvanised steel. The two sides hook into the base and are then held together with three spring clips. After baking, cooling and stabilising, the clips are removed, the metal sides carefully lifted away and the cooked food lifted off the metal base onto a plate or wooden board. The pastry sides of the 'pie' are markedly concave and the whole effect is quite delicate. I use mine once a winter to make a game terrine. Sometimes in the Summer, to make a chicken liver pate too.
This device allows a pate or a terrine to be assembled from raw ingredients and packed in layers into a pastry case before the top is sealed with the pastry lid and the whole cooked slowly to perfection. The pastry case holds in much subtle flavour which is otherwise lost in the cooking. Test for completion of cooking with a steel pin (ice pick is fine) inserted through the hole in the pastry lid; when withdrawn, if blood appears, cook some more. If the fluid runs clear, she's cooked. Cook slowly.
On cooling the case contents can shrink substantially. Top up the case with a stiff jelly made with plain gelatine and Port wine. Allow the whole to set firm before removing the moule. The pate/terrine will continue to improve in flavour if stored for 4-5 days before being cut. Eat quickly. Do not be tempted to freeze; freezing ruins the textures and kills the flavours. Nothing tastes quite as good as a game terrine made in this way.
These thinks are not cheap (about 100 bucks) but nothing else does the job as well. Looked after well, they last a lifetime. Try not to scratch and never put in the dishwasher
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