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CHALLENGE - possible to make a terrine or pate with leftover cooked duck and ham, plus raw livers?
I have the following left over from a Christmas feast and was wondering if I can put them together to form a terrine or pate. I realize that such things are usually constructed from raw ingredients but something tells me I should be able to make something serviceable with the below. Any thoughts?
* 1 Cooked duck breast (whole)
* 1 lb of cooked duck meat (stripped from the carcasses)
* 1 lb of cooked (non-smoked) Virginia Ham (a very good one)
* 2 RAW duck livers
* Plenty of duck fat and duck stock in the fridge
* Various jams and jellies in the larder if needed
Also, I don't have a food processor, - just a blender to mix the ingredients.
Is this possible or should I just construct something else with the leftovers? Any advice much appreciated!
Zaab-Elee, new Thai in the east village, now the best Thai in NYC, perhaps.
Okay, I've held off on writing a review of Zaab Elle until this point but after my third visit I'd like to chime in and say I don't think this restaurant is as good as its press. It is DEFINITELY not the best Thai in nyc, unless Queens has been kicked out of the city for some reason.
I'm not saying the food is bad, it's way ahead of most Manhattan Thai but at the same time it is still NOT authentic Thai or Isaan food - the food here is still far too sweet and somewhat gloppy. This applies especially to the salads which have been weirdly lauded - sorry but every salad I've had from here has been disgustingly sweet - waaaaay too much palm sugar in the dresssing and not enough herbs present. Yes, you can get spicy food here but that doesn't make it authentic in itself.
I've lived in Thailand and for me the main difference between real Thai food and the glop we generally get in New York comes comes down to:
(A) Most Thai sauces are very light, they're usually based upon broths and stocks and are not at all syrupy. There is a sweetness to many sauces but thai cooks pride themselves on balancing that sweetness with the acidity, spiciness and umami of the dish.
(B) Fresh herbs - Thai salads and especially ones from Isaan have huge amounts of herbs, as do many of the stir fries. Herbs become an integral part of the dish and not just a garnish or flavoring.
On both of the above fronts Zaab Elle currently falls down. Regarding the sweetness it would seem that the kitchen believes that this is what Americans really want. Regarding the lack of fresh herbs in the salad and other dishes, I'd put that down to the cost of purchasing these ingrediants in the USA. I also agree with those above who said that many of the salads seem to be prepared in advance - the pappaya and other ingrediants seemed to be very limp in the ones I've eaten, this totally ruins the texture for me. Not surprising given how busy the place is but still not excusable.
My other problem with this restaurant is down to the cramped seating, horrific noise levels and service which seems to be continuously swamped. It's not exactly relaxing watching your waiter literally run up and down the narrow isle between seats.
I do give them a lot of respect for keaping their prices down and for attempting to offer something different but the execution of most of the dishes needs work and the seating is just too cramped for this to be a comfortable place to eat. Sripraphai still comes out way ahead for me.
Cupcakes that don't taste like a stick of butter
I strongly agree with you about the buttercream topping. I'm from Europe and most cupcakes over there either have a hard frosting top or a slightly soft iced top. This might be underwhelming to Americans but it allows you to taste and enjoy the texture of the underlying cake which is overwhelmed in most of the magnolia cafe type versions. A mouthful of cloying buttery over sweetened icing does not make for a good cupcake.
Best General Tso's Chicken in Manhattan or Brooklyn- HELP?
Yours is a noble quest twan, hope you get some more good responses. I love authentic chinese food, but some days you just can't beat a Tso's. I'm afraid I can't give any recommendations though, I live downtown and all the versions I've tried around here have been sub par.
Rhong-Tiam (formerly Penang)
Lunch at Rhong Tiam is appalling. Had a great dinner there a couple of weeks ago but the lunch is sub-par even by the standards of Thai food in Manhattan. Their set lunch includes a bizarrely tasteless watery soup, cold spring rolls, a mayonnaise laced salad and crappy renditions of Americanized Thai food such as chicken in spicy basil sauce. Definitely not the same chef as the night time guy (unless he's a schizophrenic).
Westville East -- What's the hype?
I live around the corner from Westville and am continuously amazed by this restaurant's popularity.
The food is generally incredibly bland and carelessly cooked - gloppy vegetables, half-assed sandwiches, burgers, etc. There is obviously something about the place that appeals to people though - the menu is slightly unusual in that it features a lot of vegetable side dishes which can be offered as combos and these seem to be popular. Perhaps people think they are eating healthily by choosing these, but honestly, canned mushrooms sauteed in copious amounts of corn oil or sweet potatoes laced with spoonfuls of sugar isn't really that good for you. Most of the items on the menu are the kind of thing just about any barely competent home cook could put together at home in about half an hour with far superior results.
Overall I'd have to say that the place is indicative of the culinary standards of a lot of the midwesterners who have migrated to the hip east village in recent years. Call me a meanie, but there you have it!
Tokyo the best food city in the world?
Not sure what you mean by 'municipal area'. However most people when they think of Tokyo would probably think of the region within, say, a 15 mile radius of Shinjinku. It's obviously a VERY densely populated area but there's no way 36 million people commute into it - that's over 1/4 the population of Japan!
Tokyo the best food city in the world?
I think this is missleading. The 2.2 million figure for Paris refers to the central 20 arrondisements (the Ville de Paris) at the very center of the city, an area of about 80 square kilometers. To give Tokyo a population of 12 million you have to go out to the 'Special Wards of Tokyo', which has an area of over 2000 square kilometers, believe it or not.
Certainly the center of Tokyo is denser (is that a word?) than Paris but most of that 12 million reside in a never ending sprawl that stretches up to 100km (and more) away from the city center. Paris has a similar sprawl into the 'Isle de France' which would swell its population towards the 10 million mark if you counted it.
Tokyo the best food city in the world?
I've been to Tokyo once, about five years ago for two weeks have also lived in Paris. I have to say, when I visited Tokyo I had some of the best food I've ever eaten. Not just occasional stand-out excellent meals, but consistently fantastic food everywhere I ate. Obviously the local stuff was great and I remember fantastic Isakaya taverns, great noodle shops for dealing with the hangovers caused by drinking at the Isakaya taverns, a specialty Tempura restaurant with fantastic eel which supposedly came from a lake in Ireland where I'm from, cheap but excellent conveyor-belt sushi bars and one or two more upmarket Japanese restaurants.
However, I also had one of the best Italian meals of my life in Tokyo and the best Thai food I've had outside of Thailand. Plus, most of these joints were regular, mid-range restaurants, not expense-account destination places.
Paris has fantastic food too obviously. The thing I like most about Paris is that you can go out and have a great two course lunch of proper food in a simple bistro with wine for around twelve euros. Eating isn't a special occasion event there, it's considered your natural right to expect good food every day and to be given the time to eat it by your employers. (Contrast that with London, the supposed new culinary supercity where it's diffficult to find a mediocre lunch with wine for less than twenty five pounds per person, and you'll want to have a day off work to enjoy it).
Where Paris falls down in comparison to Tokyo is the lack of a wide variety of genuinely good international/ethnic restaurants. There are some exceptions such as the many excellent Moroccan and Vietnamese restaurants but you'd be hard pressed to find a decent taco or even a fair slice of pizza in the city. Gotta love those crepes though.
Durian pudding w/fresh durian at "Whatever"
saw Dorian on sale at a stall in chinatown on Sunday. Think the stall was on the Bowery just above Canal, but not certain. They looked good.
Todd English NYC Pizza Episode
and that's a SMALL 10" individual pizza that wouldn't suffice as a dinner for most peeps. I respect this guy for the authenticity etc. but I really think his prices are out of line. I don't buy this idea that authenticity allows you to charge people up the ass. That's a really juvenile, 80s-style consumerist approach to food and not one seen in countries such as Italy or France where they have a long standing food culture.
Gillian McKeith - BBC's You are What You Eat
Okay, but why would you buy McKeith's book when she has no background in nutrition (or cookery) and has been been shown to have made ridiculous claims and to have lied about her credentials. Wouldn't it be better to purchase the works of someone with more credibility - which would be just about anybody. I mean, did you really need 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith to tell you that eating more fruit and vegetables is good? That's been mainstream nutrition for decades. Her ridiculous claims such as the idea that ingesting chlorophyl "oxygenates" the blood on the other hand are verifiable nonsense and do nothing but help confuse people regarding nutrition.
Gillian McKeith - BBC's You are What You Eat
Maybe some of her recipes are okay, though I remember most of the one's I saw in the book my sister bought looked pretty unpalatable with ingredients that would be very difficult to source. Personally I don't think eating well is very difficult or requires an exotic diet, plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables with regular intakes of oily fish (for omega 3s) plus the occasional portion of red meat, cream, cheese etc. for iron and some nutrients not found in non-animal products.
What I find so galling about McKeith is the way she abjectly lies about her qualifications then uses her supposedly objective books to push her nutritional supplements. Her husband owned a chain of health food stores in the US before she met him and her only real educational credential is a Master's Degree in... marketing.
She has made a fortune hawking books and 'nutrional supplements' to the unwary and has done much to confuse people about nutrition and make them feel that the only way to eat healthily is to seek out exotic foodstuffs and supplements that hold the key to getting their bodies back to health.
Her claims really are total junk, for instances she states that the tongue is "a window to the organs - the right side shows what the gallbladder is up to, and the left side the liver." Raised capillaries on your face are a sign of "digestive enzyme insufficiency - your body is screaming for food enzymes." Thankfully, Gillian can sell you some food enzymes from her website. "Skid mark stools" (she is obsessed with faeces and colonic irrigation) are "a sign of dampness inside the body - a very common condition in Britain." If your stools are foul smelling you are "sorely in need of digestive enzymes". Again. Her treatment for pimples on the forehead - not pimples anywhere else, mind you, only on the forehead - is a regular enema. Cloudy urine is "a sign that your body is damp and acidic, due to eating the wrong foods." The spleen is "your energy battery".
It's shocking that her show is shown on BBC American, that really is a bad mark against Britain's public broadcaster. Please don't further enrich this charlatan by buying her books or 'nutritional supplements'.
Gillian McKeith - BBC's You are What You Eat
Gillian McKeith's reputation is pretty much in tatters in the UK, she claims to be a 'doctor' but actually got her 'phd' from a non-accredited mail order university. Most of her nutritional advice has been debunked by scientists, doctors (real ones) and nutritionists as total claptrap (e.g. her claim that chlorophyl 'oxiginates' the blood).
I am very interested in food and love to eat. To a lesser degree I am interested in nutrition and have generally tried to base my dietary philosophy on eating a similar diet to those who live in countries where people are generally healthy and have low rates of heart disease, cancer, etc. For this reason I love French, Japanese and for want of a better term - Meditteranean food. The reason I say this is you can tell from looking at people in France, Italy, Japan etc. that they eat healthy diets. They just look good. McKeith on the other hand, always looks tired, drawn and to me, vaguely undernourished in her tv shows, hardly a recommendation for her philosopy.
Furthermore, someone who reccomends not drinking any alcohol whatsoever, even an occasional glass or red wine seems to be basing her career on being a killjoy. She also seems to be ignorant of current research regarding the beneficial effects of the limited intake of wine.
My sister bought one of her cookbooks a few years ago. It was full of the most grotesque culinary reccomendations I have ever seen. Avoid.
PS - Check out her entry on wikipedia If you'd like some more info about her fraudulent credentials and other controversies surrounding her - including the very unpleasant legal threats her lawyers regularly issue to those who dare to criticize her.
Menupages censoring negative reviews of sponsors?
Was just wondering if anyone else has noticed this? I posted a pretty negative review of a burger joint called Twisted Burger on 14th St. a couple of weeks ago. I gave it 2 out of 5 and wrote up my experience with their food. I only went there once but have heard other people who have had similar experiences with the place.
Anyway, I didn't think much of it when my review didn't post, thinking perhaps they have moderators review the postings for obscenitiy, invective or lack of relevance. After a week it still hadn't posted, I also noticed when I checked back on the site that Twisted Burger seems to be a menupages sponsor - their listings appear with little promotional by-lines in the site's directory and search results. I emailed their contact address for feedback to ask what their policy on sponsor reviews was and so far haven't heard back.
Just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences? I resubmitted the review today to see if it was a technical glitch. If they censor reviews I have to say the site will have lost what little credibility it still had for me.
PS - Am also wondering if anyone else agrees with me about Twisted Burger? It was about the worst hamburger I've had in New York, and that's saying something.
Does a Chinese restaurant exist in Manhattan that doesn't drown its dishes with brown sauce, black bean sauce or other jarred glop?
Brian's point above about prices is well made Beau. I eat at Noodletown once a week, generally having a great meal and getting out the door for less than $15 pp. Chinatown is the deal that it is because of cheap staffing and high customer turnover (I generally order, eat and pay in about 45 mins in noodletown). The kind of service and attention you require would massively increase prices. Plus, since people are now paying so much more for the food itself the surroundings will now have to match the price point - shifting costs and prices higher still. If you are looking for this kind of restaurant it does exist in the form of Chinatown Brasserie (average meal $40+). It's not my cup of tea but it does have some fans here on chowhound.
PS - I know what you mean about CHEAP bottled sauces, however in my experience every restaurant (barrring perhaps celebrity chef gourmant style joints such as Voneghrichten's 66) use bottled sauces. I've watched cooks preparing food in some of the best kitchens in bangkok and believe me they reach for (good quality) bottles of oyster, sweet chilli sauce, etc all the time. It's also completely standard for some MSG to be added to many authentic asian dishes.
Does a Chinese restaurant exist in Manhattan that doesn't drown its dishes with brown sauce, black bean sauce or other jarred glop?
When talking about 'gloppy' Chinese food it's important to understand that almost any reasonably decent restaurant in chinatown (eg Amazing 66, NY Noodetown, Cantoon Garden, etc.) is capable of serving pretty authentic, non-oversauced chines food. The one's you list as examples of places you eat in your post above (Ping's, Peking Duck House, Joe's Shanghai) are not very authentic in my opinion, especially if you stray away from the signature dishes they are know for.
One thing that I think is very important to do though is to put yourself in the shoes of the waiters/proprietors of the better restaurants in chinatown. A large number of the non-chinese customers who walk in their doors are tourists who ultimately expect traditional US style chinese food in a slightly more authentic feeling surrounding, these guys are often unhappy when served something more authentic ('hey, where's the sauce?').
I lived in Thailand for a long time and the proprietors of excellent restaurants and street stalls over there often told me that they automatically serverd farangs (foreigners) over-sweetened, under-spiced, over-sauced versions of Thai dishes as not doing so frequently resulted in trouble.
You can certainly get gloppy food at places like NYC Noodletown, Cantoon Garden, etc, however, if you order the 'correct' dishes from their menus, they will serve you some pretty good stuff. It sure helps to go to one of these places with a chinese speaker, failing that tricks such as ordering a steamed fish from their tanks or ordering the better dishes on the menu will generally generate respect and send a message to the kitchen that you are probably able to deal with properly cooked chinese food.
Ordering patterns are how the waiter gauges what kind of customer you are, so subsequent dishes often come out better. It also helps to just ask them what's good, telling them you don't want "american style" but want the "real stuff, same like you eat". I don't want to be condescending but these guys often don't have the best English so it helps to speak using the simplest language possible.
Having said all of that I have to admit that now and then I love a nice and gooey General Tso's Chicken. My credibility is ruined.
