Charles Haynes wrote: > When it arrived, it was swimming in a puddle of fat, and had been > cooked completely through till it was chewy.
This is just personal, but I like the foie gras to have crispy bits at the edges. And to be recognisably a bit off a liver. Now, I've never cooked foie gras at home, so I'm not sure if you put it on a very high flame to burn bits while keeping the inside moist. > The waiter was shocked, and the chef came out to ask what the problem > was. Out of curiosity, who was this luminary chef ? > I had a similar problem trying to order duck in Bangalore. It got to > the point where I wondered if there wasn't something about Indian > ducks that made them always come out that way, so I ordered a whole > duck from our local cold storage place, I have not been able to procure a decent duck in Bangalore. And I've been here all my life, so this is quite embarrassing. This is not the cold storage on Infantry road cross just up the road from your apartment is it ? The somewhat passable duck from Caperberry has been the best in recent times. A Mallu chef put it rather cryptically, "I cannot get duck from water here". Every year or so I try again, asking maids and finding a new place to buy ducks, but it ends in tears. As an aside, Karavalli (in the Gateway), back in the day (I'm talking 15 years here) had an awesome 'nadan' duck. > Both of these examples actually serve to illustrate the basic > conservatism of most Indian diners, even ones adventurous enough to > try new cuisines. They seem unwilling to take the cuisine on it's own > terms, rejecting bits that are "too foreign." Indians are not alone in > this of course - westerner diners do it all the time, the difference > being that you *can* find "authentic" ethnic restaurants in most large > american, european, and australian cities, not just the westernized > versions. Sure. Because the authentic ethnic people whose cuisine it is live there. They would probably reject Larousse as "too foreign". People are the same everywhere. I don't think restaurateurs strive for authenticity as much as business sense. The exceptions are usually featured on TV in the company of Antony Bourdain :) >> as well as cured meats (again quite expensive). > Again, charcuterie is, to a first approximation, the curing of pork. > The things you think are examples of cured meats are a travesty. When > I left Bangalore I believe there were two purveyors of cured pork > products (other than bacon and ham) in all of Bangalore, and one had > just launched. And it's all vacuum packed stuff. Not that I have anything against vacuum packed stuff. I love the vacuum packed Danon salami that you get in France. But Tapas brand 5mm think salami doesn't do it for me. Even most of Sunny's cured meats are vacuum packed. -- Alok Stay away from flying saucers today.
