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col klink

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by col klink

  1. I'm in, what day is good for you?
  2. col klink

    White asparagus

    Sous vide? And what makes it redneck? The ziplock bags? As for the three hours, white asparagus isn't any tougher than green asparagus is it?
  3. col klink

    Leg of Lamb

    Depending on the method anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour. The bone doesn't transfer heat as well as muscle mass because of the lack of water. For smoking red meat and pulling it off at medium rare this is a great way to leave the leg in the smoker longer. I smoke mine and if I'm on a roll (i.e. the fire is really low), I'll smoke it for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. This allows for any of cloves of garlic to cook and to get as much smokiness as possible in the meat. Red meats don't pick up the smokiness like poultry and pork does. I also like to do a combination of smoking and grilling on the Weber. Get the coals nice and hot and grill for a minute or two per side all the while the top is off of the grill. Move the coals to one side of the kettle, add wood chips, place the leg on the other side and smoke for as long as possible until the internal temp is 130. Schielke, adding rosemary branches is a really good idea; up until now I've just been putting the leaves in the marinade.
  4. It looked so lonely there sitting in the fridge, all by it's lonesome. I was able to pawn off one of them on one of my buddies without any complaints! Actually, if you can get to the bottom of the bottle you forget how it tastes.
  5. I'm currently drinking a Joe Stiff's Spiked Root Beer currently sans float or floaters. Nightscotsman abandoned it at my place.
  6. This was a Wednesday night about a month ago and it just so happened that Hajime and Kirsten were back in Japan for some family business. At first I was a little worried because I had been here before once without either of them and although it was still good it wasn't up to what I'm used to. However, by the end of the meal any doubts were misplaced because we all had a fantastic meal. Back in December I reported that Hajime started a new menu which now actually lists omakase and at three different levels: beginner ($20 and up), normal ($30 and up) and expert ($35 and up). We all opted for the expert save for one party who ordered off of the menu. As with any omakase experience, you are more than welcome to make suggestions or special requests and as always, I made a special request for sawagani for the uninitiated (and myself ). The sawagani was the first course of nine. 1) Sawagani. I can't speak well enough about sawagani, the very, very cute fresh water crabs about the size of a 50 cent piece that are dropped (alive) in the fryer with a minimal amount of batter. Not only are they quite tasty, but they have a cool factor that's hard to beat. 2) Penn Cove oysters served on the half shell. Beautiful, raw, juicy and plump served with a light ponzu sauce, pickled daikon and a horseradish sprout on a bed of cucumbers and seaweed. 3) Sashimi platter: surf clams, baby octopus on chukka salad, uni on squid and seaweed on a bed of red seaweed, and a white fish I believe was called onaga. The onaga was tasty (sorry, it's been awhile so my memory isn't quite as sharp as I would like) as well as the uni whose season is nearing its end. A number of people have issues with the texture of uni which basically disolves as soon as it hits your tongue but when you serve it with squid there isn't a reason in the world not to like fresh uni. I'm very happy that a few in our party tried the baby octopus for the first time and liked it. Like the sawagani, baby octopus has a tinge of fear factor because you eat it whole: tentacles, head and all but they overcame it and now they love it as much as I do. 4) Hajime's prawn ceviche with avocado, black sesame seeds, cilantro, onion and served with fresh fried taro chips. Very fresh and a great palate cleanser but I'm also a fiend for cilantro. 5) Platter of maki and nigiri. The maki: salmon skin roll and a natto roll. The nigiri: hamachi (yellowtail tuna) with curry powder, toro (tuna belly meat) with garlic/ginger sauce, black sesame seeds and scallions, tako (adult octopus), saba (mackerel) on a shiso leaf and sake (salmon) with a small wedge of lime. One of the reasons I've been such a proponent of Mashiko is the use of curry powder which I haven't seen anywhere else to my recollection and for some reason it really highlights the hamachi. The toro was absolutely divine as it was buttery and slightly plump yet so tender you chew it with your tongue. The saba was not as heavy as most is but that may be because of the shiso which cuts through the oil. If you haven't tried a salmon skin roll, it's very good. Salmon carry the perfect amount of fat under the skin and it crisps up very well. I should mention that when we ordered omakase our server asked if there was anything we didn't like and the knee jerk response is nearly always natto. It's a fermented soybean product with a texture that most find very difficult to get past. I can only imagine that it's due to very long protein strands but nothing describes the texture like "mucus." The first time I tried it was a couple of years ago and I haven't been tempted to try it again. Mashiko's natto though was a pleasant surprise. There were solid pieces instead of a homogenous slurry and it had tasty burnt flavors similar to chocolate and coffee that I liked really liked once I got past the odd texture. I ended up eating half of the roll myself! 6) A platter of seared tuna from the kitchen sliced and served rare on a bed of onions (short of caramelized), carrots and bell peppers sauteed and with a sesame flavored cream sauce. Nightscotsman mentioned that it was similar to shabu shabu sauce; all I know is we came really close to licking the plate. 7) Platter of rolls: mountain potato, saba and shiso; "temptation island" tempura onion inside topped with albacore, garlic-ginger sauce and scallions; and the last roll was squid, tobiko, dried shiso and lemon. The potato and saba roll was better than I had expected but someone mentioned that the potatoes were traditionally fermented in some fashion but I think they were just boiled or steamed. Now for the "temptation island" roll, I'm not a fan of the name but I am a fan of using tempura inside of rolls and to top it with albacore and Hajime's garlic-ginger sauce, who couldn't be happy with that? The squid and tobiko roll was also quite good. 8) Albacore nigiri. The savory courses actually finished with the rolls but we couldn't leave without the Mashiko newbies trying the best albacore in the city. It's topped with the garlic-ginger sauce, pickled daikon and scallions. It's not just the sauce and the scallions, Hajime is able to find the best quality of albacore in Seattle and nobody else can match it. 9) Dessert. Plum ice cream with plum sake marinated Asian pears, a split grape (though detached so you couldn't do the really cool microwave trick) and topped with powdered sugar. All I have to say is that I really like plums after this. Though the meal was very good, I should mention that the service was a little off. We initially ordered a couple bottles of house sake but it took almost 20 minutes to arrive despite the fact that they weren't that crowded. Once the food started flowing though, so did the sake and the service but at times subsequent courses came before the current course was completely finished. In no way though did the service detract from a terrific meal at a terrific price and the best sushi in town. Besides, at this price point, you wouldn't expect service like at a Michelin 3 star restaurant costing five times as much but since the food is at that level, you sometimes forget!
  7. That's so sad but not surprising because the last time I was there (3 1/2 years ago) and the brisket was inedible. When I make it back to Austin I've always told myself I'd hit Black's. It's sad the family couldn't get along. However, the brisket in the picture looks like it had enough fat to edible and tasty though the pink ring looks odd. When I smoke my brisket I get a nice ring all over:
  8. The next time you go to Kreuz's Market, order the prime rib, it's out of this world and it won't be dry since it's served medium rare. I've orderd the pork chops before and the first one was magnificent since it still had some fat on it but the next time it came out pretty dry. Sometimes the brisket is dry too but more often than not, it's perfect, just like their links. Totally sweet, last time I checked (a couple of years ago), they hadn't made it online yet and they didn't even sell their dry rub on site. While I was down in Austin, Kreuz's was certainly my favorite 'que joint but you have to be careful when you go there because you can't do anything for the rest of the day. Meat comas are great!
  9. col klink

    Brining

    I just brined a bird for roasting over about 48 hours. The breasts came out perfect but the drumsticks came out a little too salty but it wasn't bad at all. I'm very happy with 24 hours for brining but as little as 4 or 5 hours is just fine for a whole bird. Of course this is assuming 1 cup Kosher salt to 1 gallon water.
  10. That pork looks like it's been blessed by the Pope. I wish I coud've been there! So the jus, what did it taste like? Was it mostly a roasted pork flavor or were there some herb flavors as well?
  11. I want to see the stove! Is there something wrong with the link? I get a blank page. (p.s. nice article mamster) (p.p.s mamster, do you prefer mamster or Mamster?) edit: nouns are cool.
  12. col klink

    Meat Grinder Uses

    Make *small* batches of sausage. Those hand cranks can get pretty tiresome very quickly.
  13. col klink

    Rhubarb

    When I was growing we had a lot of rhubarb in the yard and my mom would make the best rhubarb jam. When I hit double digits she started adding strawberries and she hasn't stopped since. I'm particularly fond of rhubarb blueberry pie. I once tried making a rhubarb maple sauce for a duck I was serving but it never panned out.
  14. See all y'all in a few.
  15. No problem, but we make no promises about the 'que. Also, you might get some requests to bring down some smokey bacon or extra salt & vinegar potato chips. So when can you make it down?
  16. I completely forgot about Jone's. I'm in, when's the big day?
  17. I'll join you.
  18. col klink

    Smoked Corned Beef

    I have smoked those before but they tend to be overly salty and the flats rarely have enough fat to smoke well. Oh yeah, and unless they're $2/lb or less, they're overpriced to boot. I am a big fan of First Street corned beef that I can pick up at Cash & Carry (or Smart and Final in California). It doesn't come too salty but still has that great corned flavor. More importantly, they corn and cryovac whole briskets so I can have plenty of fat to make it through the long smoking process. Now that C&C's corned beef briskets are no longer on sale, I'm gong to try corning them myself but with a wedding and a move coming in the next 4 months, I don't know how much experimentation there's going to be.
  19. Good question, I don't rightly know since it's always been eaten within a couple of days but I suppose two weeks isn't out of the question.
  20. I've been rolling on my butcher bloc. However, I might have some marble that's big enough but I doubt it.
  21. Starbucks bought the land right out from under him and put up a shop. Actually, the folks in the NW don't know what good bbq is like folks in the South and consequently there isn't the hunger for it. So what ends up happening is you only get a few joints (only a few of which know how to bbq) and they get sporadic customers. Low volume with uncertain demand = staging and holding the meat in steam trays = even worse bbq. It's a vicious cycle. Take Texas for granted, Kreuz's market will get 300 people on a weekend afternoon which means that every person gets meat fresh off the smoker.
  22. col klink

    Second -- Bacon

    That's basically how I like it, but I refer to it as "semi-flaccid."
  23. Last night's pies: Starting from the lower left corner and going clockwise: blueberry, lemon cheesecake, rhubarb, curry chicken savory, and lemon. I made the savory pie. There was also carmelized onions, mushrooms and peas. Sauteeing was done with duck fat and the gravy was duck fat and smoked turkey stock. I also used duck fat in the crust but it was very difficult to manage since it's not exactly a solid at room temperature. I ended up adding more flour to compensate. I'm still finding it difficult figuring out exactly how much water to add. Last night I added just enough so that it formed a ball and set it in the fridge for two or three hours but it was still very difficult roll out and not break. I ended up breaking the dough apart and spraying it with a mister until I could roll out with any decency. It turned out to be a pretty decent crust but I can't wait until I no longer need to compensate at the end and it's second nature.
  24. Do we need a quick run to Musashi?
  25. Help a Polish ex-pat a couple generations removed out, what's Dziennek? I assume the Chicagoski would be the Chicago version right?
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