[Sca-cooks] Adventures in redaction...LONG

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 01:49 PM 4/27/03 -0600, you wrote:
>I noticed a couple of things, once I stopped laughing in sympathy....<g>

Thenk you, thenk you...

>The original recipe does not specify onion size, nor does it say
>anything about any cutting or quartering of said veggie prior to
>boiling.  It might be worth some experimentation with different
>sizes/types of onions to see if some work better with the post-boiling
>chopping that others.

Ooh! Hadn't thought of that. The recipe says onions or shallots- maybe
onions the size of shallots would work better.

I quartered them because I worried about how long it would take to cook
through. if the onions were smaller it wouldn't be a problem.

>Also, the orginal speaks of *chopping* the pork fat, which doesn't sound
>very likely possible with lard.  I'd think it's more likely pre-rendered
>pork fat, like the really fatty bits on American bacon, or the stuff
>around the edge of a porkchop that gets all crispy when you cook it
>(mmmmm.....) You might look for some non-cured bacon or something with a
>higher fat-to-meat ratio that hasn't had anything done to it.
>Duh! It occurs to me, you might be able to talk a butcher out of some
>pork fat scraps, the way you can get suet from them sometimes.....
>As far as how much pork fat, that's really hard to say....too much could
>make it "greasy" for modern tastes (especially with the cheese in there,
>too), and I don't know what the preference back then would have been!
>(I'm old, but not *that* old! ;-P)
>--maire

Yes, when I asked Morwyn she said that 'lardo' could be lard or salt pork.
(The linguist at the table agreed.) It was determined that the thick-cut
bacon I used wasn't that far off (glory be!) but the ends and pieces that
are mostly fat may be closed to what they were looking for.

I'm thinking about shifting the balance a little more towards the eggs, a
little less on the cheese. Any ideas? Opinions?

'Lainie
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Sometimes Life makes drastic changes without our permission...