Good god!
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Congratulations on posting number 1000 comment on this BBS. Cheers! 
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for that El Yucateco XXXtra Hot 'tho 
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Interesting list, I am going to have to research some of those.
I have to add though; when I saw New Zealand at the bottom I was hoping it would be a Georgie Pie or Ferg Baker style mince pie (been looking for a good knock-off recipe…)
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Ah yes. Alas, we do seem to have this strange idea that sausages should really be bakery products. Even some quite expensive sausages are better described as meat flavoured breadsticks.
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Yesterday I made a huge1) pot of lentil soup. This portion has some beef sausages and some fresh carrots added.
Lamb’s lettuce with the usual sugar & lemon juice dressing.
A glass of Dornfelder from the Palatinate. (The translation sounds much more fancy than die Pfalz, which always makes me think of Helmut Kohl, which the wine-growers there don’t deserve.) Anyway, just a plain but very nice dry red.
1) More than usual. I always use two packets of lentils. And it was only when pouring the second package into the pot that I realized that while I usually use 500g packets these were 1kg packets. So of course the vegetable consommé I had made earlier wasn’t enough. So I improvised and added beer. It works fine with some of the variantions of potato soup I make, and now I know it also works with lentils.
It’s a good thing lentil soup handles freezing and reheating really well.
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Is there some lentil plate that one might eat for breakfast? Years ago, I was served a plate of lentils that I’m somehow remembering had a rich sauce – cheese? cream? But with lentils? The owner said that’s what she typically had for breakfast growing up in Germany. All I remember is that it was fairly rich and hearty. I was eating it for lunch but it was the first time someone had suggested eating lentils for breakfast (even now the only other thing that springs to mind is a lentil samosa).
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No idea. Sounds pretty obscure, but intriguing. I searched the web a bit and came across a couple of dishes I’ll have to try now, but nothing that really fits your description. Although there are many recipes for making lentil-based sauces (or soups that could be modded into a sauce) and sandwich spreads and the like. Even recipes for falafels or bread.
The usual breakfast would be “continental”, but there is also the “hearty breakfast” which usually is some variation of Bauernfrühstück (farmer’s breakfast) or Gabelfrühstück (you’ll need a fork to eat it). This usually involves eggs (fried, scrambled, omelette), Speck (rather a fat ham than bacon) or Wurst (anything you can fry in a pan, including black pudding), cheese, fish, roasted potatoes… and invariably bread, usually Graubrot (a mix of rye and wheat), possibly toasted, or Schwarzbrot (brown bread or it’s cousin Pumpernickel).
Actually not a bad way to use leftovers, like making some sort of tortilla from boiled potatos and eggs and eating it with some cold cuts and/or cheese. Or a lentil-based sauce-thingy.
I’ll keep the lentils in mind, maybe I’ll come across some breakfast dish specifically involving lentils.
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It really is a bit off. Certain types of sausage, and not just British ones, do traditionally have rusk or bread as a binder.
But every bit of British sausage making info I’ve seen, even supposedly high end artisanal whatever. Tosses a lot of it into everything. And commercial concepts about increasing the water holding capacity, fat content and binders are insanely central. But pitched as traditional, proper sausage making. Rather than the cost saving measures they are.
Although that sort of thinking seems to be a bit of a runner in parts of Europe. I’ve got a book by a Polish commercial sausage maker. It’s a great reference, especially for less “try this at home” stuff, and it’s got a huge selection of recipes collected from people all over the world. The text of it is mostly about how Americans are dumb, the EU is evil, and Communism was the greatest. The main thrust being that any one who doesn’t make sausage the way Polish commercial meat packers did in the 70s are wrong and bad.
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Went for a walk in the woods today and found these!
(Black Morels)
Only seven of them, but the season isn’t over yet, so maybe I’ll be able to find more in the coming weeks
Any Happy Mutants have a favorite recipe that is useful for such a modest amount?
Currently I think my best option is to saute them in brown butter & drizzle the mixture over some sweet potato gnocchi (ala: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Rosemary Parmesan Cream Sauce. - Half Baked Harvest) I might go grab some wild field garlic to use as a garnish.
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Oh, hell, ya, THIS!
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Simplest is best when it comes to a special main ingredient like morels.
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Agreed. A good saute in butter & light sprinkle of salt leave these guys tasting like steak.
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I’m prepping some salmon for the smoker today. Yesterday evening I started the cure: 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup sea salt (this is a pretty light cure) on a big, fatty fillet of Atlantic salmon from Trader Joe’s:
The cure will pull a lot of liquid out of the fish and it will look more like a marinade. I let it cure overnight. In the morning, there was no sign of any grain of salt or sugar. Just liquid.
Rinse the fillet off completely, so there is no sign of the cure on the meat. Pat it dry with a kitchen or paper towel. This is when you can add some spices. I sprinkled some garlic powder, smoked paprika, and dill on it.
Put it into a dry container and back in the fridge for at least a couple hours. That will allow the surface to dry a bit and form a pellicle- a somewhat firm layer on top that seals the fish and keeps the inside m0ist.
I will update once the smoking is done. 
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Well, here it is then 
:
Cleaned & halved, stems minced to add to sauce.
Served over sweet potato gnocchi, with herbed brown butter & parmesan, side of broccolini & a small glass of my Elderberry - California Coffee Berry Port (only one bottle left after this…)
Ohh yeah & a session IPA while cooking / prepping 
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So kind of you to make me a plate, too!
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You betcha! Swing on by, there’s even a little leftover for tomorrow
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Here it is after smoking, and split into portions. You can see that the outside is darker while the inside is pink and tender. It was 2.5 hours on the smoker at 160-200 deg F.
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Perfect.
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