207 replies to this topic

[djyee100]

Wonderful blog! I love what you're cooking.

I decided not to form the links during stuffing, which may have been a mistake. When I twisted the links at the end of the process, a couple of them ended up bursting open...
Next time I will try forming them as I go.

When I make sausage, I stuff it rather loosely. Then I lay the tube out on the counter and gently even out the meat in the casing. A needle is handy to pierce air bubbles. I pinch and twist to make the links. With a looser packing, there's always plenty of room to apportion and twist the links. Make sense? The pinch-and-twist action will tighten the meat in the casing to form firm sausages.

I just use piment d'espelette in recipes that call for cayenne. I find the flavor more nuanced and interesting.
It's excellent in the Basque dish piperade (bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes).

I always think of piment d'espelette as a Basque product. I have a small jar of it in my cabinet, and I should check out more Basque recipes. If you're ever in the Bay Area, the Spanish Table stores sell piment d'espelette. They also sell by mail order. Though when I think of it, I would rather go to Paris to shop for piment d'espelette--or anything else, for that matter.

[FrogPrincesse]

Wonderful blog! I love what you're cooking.

When I make sausage, I stuff it rather loosely. Then I lay the tube out on the counter and gently even out the meat in the casing. A needle is handy to pierce air bubbles. I pinch and twist to make the links. With a looser packing, there's always plenty of room to apportion and twist the links. Make sense? The pinch-and-twist action will tighten the meat in the casing to form firm sausages.

Thanks for the detailed advice, djyee100, it is great to get some feedback. This was a step that was not really described in great detail in Charcuterie, so I was not really sure what to do. It looks like you have a lot of experience with this.

It makes sense to pack things a little loose so there is more room to twist and form the links properly. I am going to have to grill the whole sausage without cutting the links, as I am afraid they would burst if I cut them.

I always think of piment d'espelette as a Basque product. I have a small jar of it in my cabinet, and I should check out more Basque recipes. If you're ever in the Bay Area, the Spanish Table stores sell piment d'espelette. They also sell by mail order. Though when I think of it, I would rather go to Paris to shop for piment d'espelette--or anything else, for that matter.

I just could not bring myself to spend $20 (or more!) for a little jar. I think I paid 4 or 5 euros for mine, but you could buy a rather large bag for 12 euros or so.

[andiesenji]

The easiest way to separate the links is to twist the casing at the end of the stuffer when the length you want has been filled.

I get someone to help me - I have them feed the sausage meat into the stuffer while I catch and form the links. I used to try doing it alone but found that I didn't have enough hands to keep it going efficiently and it took way too long.
I could process four times as much in the same amount of time with an assistant.

[FrogPrincesse]

The easiest way to separate the links is to twist the casing at the end of the stuffer when the length you want has been filled.

I get someone to help me - I have them feed the sausage meat into the stuffer while I catch and form the links. I used to try doing it alone but found that I didn't have enough hands to keep it going efficiently and it took way too long.
I could process four times as much in the same amount of time with an assistant.

Having an assistant was the key for me. I don't think I could have made it without my husband. Maybe with the vertical stuffer it's possible to handle this solo, I don't know. The Kitchenaid works but requires more hands and constant attention to avoid pushing air.

[FrogPrincesse]

The fireworks are over and our last guests have left, so I am going to try to catch up with the pictures.

Our barbecue party was a great success, even though we had a few snafus. Everyone commented on the food and seemed to be having a good time. And it's amazing how few dishes we had to wash afterwards after the dishwasher had been all loaded up. We rarely have barbecue parties at our place for some reason, and have been doing mostly formal dinner parties. We just need to do this more often!

Let's go back to this morning when I was finishing up my lamb kebabs. I did the binding in the Kitchenaid with half a beaten egg.



The mixture became sticky fairly quickly and was a little on the wet side. I started forming the kebabs.



I used 1.5 cm wide (about 1/2 inch) skewers. The kebabs were easy to form as the meat was very sticky.




I stored them in the fridge suspended on the rim of a half sheet pan so they would not flatten.

[FrogPrincesse]

This morning I also made a batch of brownies from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert (Robert's Absolute Best Brownies). I've made many batches of these brownies since a post I made back in April.

The ingredients.
I used chocolate disks from Trader Joe's, which are very convenient. The taste of this chocolate is a little flat/burnt to me, though. This is not Valrhona or Scharffen Berger. Of course, it's only a fraction of the price.
I am looking for other suggestions for reasonably-priced baking chocolate if anyone has one, by the way. I use A LOT of chocolate at home. I love baking.




I did my best attempt at origami to line the mold. It helps to get clean edges in the finished product.
I used a dot of butter under the parchment paper to make it stick to the mold.




The chocolate melting with the butter. David Lebovitz says to melt the butter first, then to add the chocolate, but I don't understand why, so I just melted everything together. I put the disks on top of the butter, so the butter would melt first.




I added the sugar and the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time.
Finally, the flour, and probably the most important step - mixing long enough to get this really smooth texture.



After the nuts were added, the brownies were ready to go in the oven.



They only took 20 minutes to bake.



The house smelled ready good at that point!

[FrogPrincesse]

Because we did not have much time to have lunch (our barbecue party was scheduled for 5 pm), we got takeout from Rubio's, a restaurant chain that originated in San Diego and is known for its fish tacos.

Fish tacos are a specialty of San Diego that originated just south of the border, in Baja California.
The very first Rubio's restaurant is just down the street from us, on Mission Bay Drive.

These are the tacos especiales with guacamole, cheese, onion and cilantro.



To be honest, we've had better fish tacos at other places (we like Sharky's in LA better). Since the fish is fried in batter, there tends to be very little of it. And the tortillas are not that great. But it's really convenient for us.

[FrogPrincesse]

After lunch, we prepared the corn for the grill.

My daughter really enjoying peeling back the husk and removing the silk with me.
She was holding everything together so I could tie the husk.



She said at the end that it looked like "crazy hair day" for corn.

[FrogPrincesse]

One of the last things I did for our party was a big watermelon and feta salad.

This is a recipe from Nigella Lawson and my favorite summer salad. It is so refreshing, I could pretty much eat the whole bowl by myself.

I use Greek sheep feta because it has the most flavor.

Here are the ingredients - a finely sliced red onion steeped in lime juice, cubes of watermelon and feta, leaves of italian parsley left whole, some chopped mint, olive oil and black pepper. I omit the olives because the combination seems a little strange to me, and my husband does not like olives.

My daughter's bear decided to check things out.



The salad with everything mixed together.

[FrogPrincesse]

Since I still had 30 minutes before the arrival of our guests at that point, I decided to make a punch.

It goes without saying that I used the excellent "Punch, The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl" by David Wondrich as my reference.

For Thanksgiving last year, I made the wonderful Philadelphia Fish-House Punch. And then for Christmas, I made the delicious but powerful Chatham Artillery Punch. So the 4th was a great occasion to make punch again.

Because I finally managed to get my hands on Batavia Arrack van Oosten, and did not have time to make an oleo-saccharum, I settled for the O'Doherty's Arrack Punch.

As a side note, we had to get the Batavia Arrack in LA at Hi-Time Wine Cellars after searching for it all over San Diego for years, in vain. These guys are really friendly and have the most amazing rum collection, and a lot of hard-to-find cocktail ingredients. We got a couple of bottles and, sadly, I broke one of them some time ago in my kitchen after having used it only once. It's a good thing that it smells so good!

The recipe for the O'Doherty's Arrack Punch calls for demerara sugar syrup, lime juice, Batavia Arrack, dark rum, and cold water.

As I am reading the recipe again, I realize that I forgot to add the final touch to each glass - a little freshly grated nutmeg.

[FrogPrincesse]

To call it a night, here is a recap of our barbecue party.

The menu:

Snacks
Macadamia nuts and baby grape tomatoes
Tortilla chips and fresh tomato salsa (a must-have in parties in San Diego)

Salads
Watermelon and feta salad
Caprese (brought by my friend; it was wonderful)
Yellow beet salad (also brought by my friend, and equally delicious)

Mains
Lamb kebabs with cucumber raita and pita bread
Sweet Italian sausages
Shrimp
Corn

Dessert
Brownies
Pineapple with mint sugar

Drinks
O'Doherty Arrack Punch
Stone Cali-Belgique IPA
Heffenweizen
Karl Strauss amber ale (another local brewery)
Lemonade

I have only a few pictures as my husband and I were both busy with grilling & enjoying our guests' company.

We grilled the lamb kebabs first. We used a couple of bricks covered in foil to hold the skewers, so the meat would not touch the grill. However we quickly ran into a problem as the meat started falling onto the grill. Thankfully my husband managed to rescue everything.
It was very tasty (although a little charred in areas), and the cucumber raita went well with it.
We wrapped everything in pitas that were grilled for a few seconds.

The sweet Italian sausages were a success.
We grilled the whole string of sausages as I was afraid to separate the links, and cut them at the end.



I thought that these sausages had a wonderful flavor. The sweet paprika was not overpowering.
The texture was a little on the fine side for me though. Maybe next time I will grind using the coarser die.


The grilled shrimp was very flavorful and tender.
We made sure not to overcook them and took them out as soon as they changed color.




The corn was extremely sweet. We left it on the grill just a few minutes.



The pineapple with mint sugar is a recipe from Jamie Oliver. It was a pleasant way to finish the meal.
The combination of pineapple and mint is unexpected, but it really works.


I think that it's for tonight. I am not really looking forward to work tomorrow!

[FrogPrincesse]

One last picture.

Enjoying the fireworks from our place tonight.

[kayb]

Oh, that sounds like a lovely barbecue party! Dying to try the watermelon feta salad and the pineapple with mint sugar!

[kalypso]

Your daughter is adorable

Your menu looked fabulous. I'm really enjoying seeing what you're doing with the blog this week

[Genkinaonna]

That's a wonderful cookout menu! I'm doing a barbecue for my little guy's first birthday this weekend so it's nice to get some inspiration...although I'm leaving the sausage making to the experts since decorating the cake is going to take a lot of my time. BTW, your daughter is GORGEOUS! And we have the same bear, although it's usually the stuffed seal that supervises the cooking .

[FrogPrincesse]

Your daughter is adorable

Your menu looked fabulous. I'm really enjoying seeing what you're doing with the blog this week

Thanks kalypso!

It's been a quiet morning so far.

I did manage, however, to spill a full cup of cappuccino all over my desk while taking a picture of it.
I am definitely not a morning person!

I have been trying to figure out a way to post pictures from my work computer, but that does not seem possible without installing software that only an IT administrator can do.
So pictures will have to wait until tonight.

I did not have time to have breakfast before leaving for work this morning, so I used the work coffee machine, a Flavia, for my cappuccino. It uses little vacuum-sealed pouches of coffee. It makes something called "espresso" but has little resemblance with the real thing.

To make my cappuccino, I use real milk instead of the horrendous "creamy topping" option, and the end result is semi-decent.

[heidih]

Your menu sounds and looks delightful. Thank you for reminding me about that watermelon salad - I also omit the olives

Did you baste the grilled shrimp with a seasoning? I have never done them on the grill but now it is on the list to try in that skewered style.

[Kouign Aman]

Its fun to see the town thru your eyes. Your food looks fabulous.
My 6 yr old has the same argument for chocolate chip pancakes that your tadpole princess has for Nutella on toast.

[FrogPrincesse]

That's a wonderful cookout menu! I'm doing a barbecue for my little guy's first birthday this weekend so it's nice to get some inspiration...although I'm leaving the sausage making to the experts since decorating the cake is going to take a lot of my time. BTW, your daughter is GORGEOUS! And we have the same bear, although it's usually the stuffed seal that supervises the cooking .

Thanks Genkinaonna!

The stuffed sausage was more an experiment than anything else. I doubt that I will be making it on a regular basis because of the time involved. Maybe a few times a year? Bulk sausage, on the other hand, is a relatively small time investment.

It's funny because I try a lot of new things in the kitchen, but cake decorating is something I have no clue how to do. I love baking, however decorating is completely outside of my comfort zone for some reason.

I really enjoyed your blog last month, by the way.

[Nishla]

Love the blog so far! We have a lot of tiki ingredients collected in our home bar, but never know what to do with them, so I'm really looking forward to more of your drinks. You inspired me to make an Ancient Mariner last night--it will definitely be entering the regular rotation. I also happened to buy a watermelon this weekend, so that salad will probably show up for dinner some night this week

[FrogPrincesse]

Its fun to see the town thru your eyes. Your food looks fabulous.
My 6 yr old has the same argument for chocolate chip pancakes that your tadpole princess has for Nutella on toast.

Hi Kouign Aman,

Thank you. It's great to see you on this blog.

I see that all kids are the same!
These chocolate chip pancakes sound wonderful. Do you just add chocolate chip to a regular pancake recipe?

[FrogPrincesse]

Love the blog so far! We have a lot of tiki ingredients collected in our home bar, but never know what to do with them, so I'm really looking forward to more of your drinks. You inspired me to make an Ancient Mariner last night--it will definitely be entering the regular rotation. I also happened to buy a watermelon this weekend, so that salad will probably show up for dinner some night this week

Hi Nishla,

Finding uses for tiki ingredients is never a problem at our house.

I am glad to hear that you liked the Ancient Mariner!

[Kouign Aman]

These chocolate chip pancakes sound wonderful. Do you just add chocolate chip to a regular pancake recipe?

Yup. Make them just like making blueberry pancakes: make batter, add berries / chocolate chips. Cook.
Choc chips dont like high heat cooking. A nice medium heat works well.

Do you guys use the Iowa Meat Farms / Siebels mesquite charcoal or? on your grill?

[FrogPrincesse]

Kouign Aman,

I had to check with my husband on your question. I am a rookie in the grilling area. Yesterday was only my second time using the grill, and he quickly took over when the kebabs started falling off their skewers.

He says that he tried the Iowa Meat Farms/Siesel's mesquite charcoal, but that we just used Kingsford mesquite yesterday. He finds that Kingsford burns faster, and that the smoke flavor is less pronounced.

So his preference goes to Siesel’s charcoal; it's just that sometimes we forget to buy it.

[FrogPrincesse]

It's 7 pm in San Diego, I am back home and it's time for a cocktail.

Tonight we are having a Test Pilot, a cocktail created by Don the Beachcomber.

The recipe is from Beachbum Berry Remixed and contains lime juice, falernum, Cointreau, dark Jamaican rum (we used Appleton 12), light rum (we used Flor de Cana), Angostura bitters, Pernod, and a cherry garnish. It's blended with crushed ice for a few seconds.

We bought the falernum during a recent trip to St Lucia. When it runs out, I will attempt to make my own.

For the cherry garnish, we used brandied griotte cherries from France that we bought at Euro Food Depot. They are wonderful in cocktails, including my husband's favorite, the Manhattan.



This cocktail is quite complex and interesting thanks to the two different kinds of rums, and the Pernod. It is also pretty strong.

We are nibbling on macadamia nuts and cherry tomatoes.

[David Ross]

Your photos are wonderful. How do you get such refined definition? That's some good-looking food photography.

[FrogPrincesse]

Thanks David.

My husband, who took the vast majority of the pictures, uses professional camera equipment. Photography his hobby, although he tells me he's a bit out of his element with food (he mostly takes pictures of architectural buildings).

He uses a Canon 5DMkII, and a variety of lenses. For most of these photos, he's been using a 24-70mm f2.8L lens or a Tilt-Shift lens. He tells me that this camera has a very large sensor, equivalent to 35mm film, which helps to get a lot of detail. Most compact cameras and camera phones use tiny sensors which aren't able to capture as much detail or light.

[FrogPrincesse]

Here are the pictures from the lunch I had today.
No spectacular photography here, I was just using a little point-and-shoot camera and did not have my expert photographer by my side.

Caprese salad and watermelon salad (which tasted even better than yesterday). It's funny how they are completely color coordinated.




I did not have a chance to try the shrimp yesterday, as I was too full from the sausage and the lamb kebabs.
Even reheated, they were amongst the juiciest and most flavorful I've had. I had not used any seasoning at all, but they were packed with aromas from the bright orange juices that were leaking from the heads. Head-on shrimp is self-basting.




The pineapple and mint sugar. The mint did not age very well at all in that dish, and I had to discard it.

[FrogPrincesse]

A few weeks ago, I ran out of the fresh homemade bacon I had made in February for Charcutepalooza.
So, last week I decided to start curing more bacon.

I used the maple cure from Charcuterie.




Here is the pork belly that I purchased at Iowa Meat Farms.



Belly massage with sugar and maple syrup.



Then it went in a ziplock bag for a one-week long body wrap.

[FrogPrincesse]

After a week (yesterday), I took it out of the cure, rinsed it, dried it, and put it in the fridge to dry further.

When I took it our of the fridge this morning, it was completely dry.




I used a stovetop smoker and hickory chips.




I was lucky because the belly fit in the smoker exactly.



I set the burner at medium low, and checked the temperature after about 1.5 hours. It was about 130F at that point.
The smoker was very hot so I turned down the burner to low.

After 2.5 hours I checked the temperature again, which was around 160F. It was time to remove the smoker from the heat.
Then I realized that part of the belly had started to burn.



I flipped it over...



Yes, definitely burned! But most of it seems salvageable.