This recipe leapt off the page from the the An American Place cookbook. Crisp duck skin, delicious as it is, isn't a much of a culinary mystery. But the technique in this recipe -- rendering the fat, leaving the meat nice a rosy red and getting a 100% enjoyable crispiness to the skin, sounded, well not too good to be true, because it sounds so sensible. But the method … [Read more...]
ZESTY STRAWBERRY BLUEBERRY JAM — ORIGINAL GOURMET RECIPE
When canning you really have to follow the rules. With jams, jellies and marmalades, tinker with the fruit/sugar/pectin/cooking time ratios at your own peril. The heartbreak of a batch that doesn't set is like getting a bad sunburn. You have that same kind of regret. Stupid me, I knew I should of put on sunscreen. Or measured that fruit more carefully. … [Read more...]
ÎLE FLOTTANTE
It's been a snowy winter and recently, looking at the pristine heaps surrounding our house, thoughts lazily drifted to oeufs a la neige. Knowing it's a close relative to île flottante, I dug out the cookbooks and poked around the Web to see what the differences are. There doesn't seem to a complete consensus. Both are meringue … [Read more...]