many aeons ago, there was a thread on here about making bread .... it died, perhaps because man shall not live by bread alone ..... anyway, there seem to be a fair number of people on this site who enjoy cooking, so i thought to start a thread for recipes and associated topics.

i'm assuredly no expert, but i reckon i cook tolerably well, and i know that any recipe i paste here, genuinely works - even for those who can only shop from supermarkets!

a starter recipe follows ......

hi harry, i hope you found i guided you well ......

meanwhile, does anyone have any experience with cooking with pressure cookers?

as we use quite a lot of chicken stock during the year, and it steams and stinks the kitchen out every time i make a batch, a commercial-size pressure cooker will overcome that prob

however, there have to be more everyday tasks for which these gadgets are really useful - and do a really good job too ....... dried pulses are an obvious

I'm not sure it will cure the problem. I had a Malaysian (chinese) student staying with me and she regularly used the pressure cooker to cook whole chickens (they don't roast them as we do) and as there is still some steam which escapes from the pressure valve, the house regularly suffered.....and of course you have to go outside when opening it, which most people don't. They are widely used all across Asia, but seems that they have fallen out of fashion in Europe. My father used to cook whole ox tongues in one, but somehow it just sits gathering dust now.

it's also a time issue
what i don't know is whether or not if you cook say an oxtail casserole, will the flavour be as good as when cooked for 4/5 hours in a low over

how was your "wine experience"?

The wine experience started with a sharp intake of breath when we saw the price of the wines, though many of the wines didn't match the list on the website. The house wine was Chateau La Croix de Perron Lalande de Pomerol AOC, I think as I wasn't doing the ordering, which seems to be a mix of a number of grapes, but was decent enough to satisfy all. €24 a bottle. Most others started at €40 per bottle. It seems the markup on wines in Paris restaurants is the same as everywhere else, unless you order the house wine by the carafe.

of course it's a mix .... pomerol has a preponderance of merlot but with some cab franc and a little cab sauv .... the wines are generally soft and approachable

if the restaurant was reputable, you'ld probably have found that the house carafe wine was more than fit for purpose ..... did you notice if many tables were opting for that, for that is always a good clue?

I think it was the kind of restaurant where the clientel are happy to have a decent Chateau bottle on the table. I agree that in many less expensive restaurants the house carafe is very drinkable......it's a social statement to have a bottle on the table!