[Sca-cooks] Re: rice pudding & marrow

[Craig Jones.]

>
>"Man who catch cuskynole with chopstick accomplish anything."
>"Anything? Like what?"
>"Don't know. Never try."
>
>(How many people have seen the Real, Live Toshiro Mifune bit with the
>chopsticks and the cloud of gnats?)

[Drakey shakes head...]  I think I know this quote... Karate Kid?
(Drakey has probably committed som deep mortal sin here...)


>
>
>You can go several ways, ranging from a funnel, or some variant, to
an
>industrial sausage stuffer, which is like an enormous hypodermic
>syringe. Period cooks would probably have used a hollow, truncated
cow's
>horn, and there's a cool, inexpensive sausage funnel I sometimes see
in
>Middle Eastern markets. It's like a funnel with a half-cylinder
>extension to the open edge, kind of like a large scoop with a hollow,
>tubular handle. You rinse the casings inside and out by running water
>through them, thread the casings onto the tube (at the risk of being
>crass, this is a function fairly familiar to most 21st-century men,
at
>one point or another in their lives),

I've been having a lot of practice lately :)~

 fill the hopper and push some of
>it into the tube until it just begins to come out the small end. Then
>you tie off the end (this helps prevent air from being trapped in the
>casing), and push the filling into the casing, which will begin to
fill
>and slide off the funnel end as it expands and lengthens. Filling it
too
>full is a Bad Thing. In some cases this could be a three-or-four-hand
>job. At the very least it's a good idea to work close to the surface
of
>a table so the filled lengths of casing don't hang down and run the
risk
>of tearing.

I think I understand.  Cool.


>
>Markham specifies in one of these recipes that you can use long
lengths
>of gut for link sausages, as for your typical string of sausages, but
>that for puddings, you use shorter links, presumably for individual
>puddings. Maybe a small length, say, no more than eighteen inches,
tied
>into a ring after filling (I'm assuming hog casings, but ultimately
>nothing teaches like your own, real experience, and for all I know
>smaller lamb casings may be more common where you are).

Don't know.  I'll have to investigate.  There is a nice butcher near
where I live who has his own smokehouse and can get wierd stuff like
that...

 I think
>Markham's advice about the length is about the weight a filled casing
>will have to support, both in maneuvering the filled, raw casing to
the
>pot for poaching, and for hanging up to dry a bit before reheating
and
>serving. Yeah, he sez to boil them, but you don't wanna listen to him
in
>this case; puddings just love to burst in the water, leaving you with
>lumpy, weak soup. You want to lower them carefully into just barely
>simmering poaching water, and heat them very gently. If they start to
>float and show visible bubbles inside the casings, you can carefully
>prick the bubbles with a pin.

>I would definitely stick to Markham's quantities, rather than Sass's,
if
>you want to do these as puds.
>

Thanks for the advice.  Hopefully they'll come out nicer than the
"Tangut Lungs"...


UberEvilDrakey.

>
>Not so old, but a lot of restaurants don't supply decent dental
>insurance as a benefit... ;-)

I thought good podiatrist coverage would be more appropriate?