col klink

Anything I'd do would be a rip-off of what Hajime at Mashiko's would do. But that's what's great, if I were to choose a last meal, it would be there and I would die a happy man.

And they're off!

If you look in the right places you can pig fetuses. I believe I recall hearing that Nigella Lawson tried a roasted pig fetus and said it was sublime. I'd love to try it as well.

I ordered some lamb prosciutto to go and it's out of this friggin' world. It has the same texture as pork prosciutto but has the gaminess of lamb. The gift of the garlic salami was also quite good but not nearly as mind blowing as the prosciutto. I was very tempted to order the guanciale & mozarella pizza but knowing I could barely finish the veal breast sandwich I didn't go for it.

All of those will work but I prefer the foil and oven first, then pan frying then microwave. Although pan frying will slightly alter the flavor of the pork, giving it a slight resemblance to grilling. I only recomend microwaving if it's still in the vacuum sealed bag. Glad you're enjoying it.

I've only refilled mine 5 times in the last year and a half but when I light it up, it's not for long. For the bruleé I have a bigger torch.

I use it to light fires and candles mostly. My fiancee bought for me as part of a crème bruleé kit and it's all right for that, but it really is underpowered but it's great for fires and candles. I love the little guy. Nightscotsman, did you heat any of that pork up first? That will loosen a lot of the juices from the meat. Juuceman, you're welcome!

I'm going to have to drop a big apology because I didn't make it to the Post Office in time to drop off all of the shipments. Between figuring out the "inventory," who gets what and printing out labels I piddled the afternoon away and missed the cut-off time. Never fear though, all I have to do tomorrow morning is bag 'em and drop 'em off and it's a done deal. Last time I ended up smoking about 70 lbs of fresh brisket, this time I smoked 50 lbs of brisket (which was not enough in the end), 70 lbs pork shoulders and butts and 12 lbs of turkey breasts. That may seem like a lot but there were only 4 breasts. So all of that meat smoked down to about 65 lbs and across the board I pretty much had about a 50% loss in weight regardless of the meat being smoked. Oh yeah, and it took 4 days to smoke it all.

If you ever get the chance to try the stuffed veal breast sandwich, I highly recommend it (just like every other sandwich there). So very tender and tasty.

Ok folks, today is the last of the smoking. I started off with the last four shoulders and two sets of turkey breasts. When the breasts were done I threw on the last corned beef brisket. Here is one of the shoulders from last night: Here is the last of the meat to jump on the smoker: And here's my freezer! I mean my lair! I begin shipping bright and early tomorrow morning.

Frozen is all right if that is all you can find but fresh is certainly better; it won't be as slimey.

Just a little update. Today I'm smoking up two more butts and another corned beef brisket. I thought I was going to finish today but I still have more pork and the turkeys left. I'll be shipping everything out on Wednesday as well.

It's fun to see it all stuffed together but you're right that if you cook, or even better - smoke, the birds separately you'll get much more flavor. Though my turducken was good, I've smoked those birds on different occasions and they were obviously smokier and had more going on.

Um, I remember posting about gumbo but, hopefully, your thread turns out better. My, um, thread. Oh yeah, my thread doesn't involve seafood.

8:30 this morning: Around about noon:

Welcome to the club Steven. Was it roasted? What kind of sauce?

The corned beef briskets came off about a half hour ago. According to their fat trail, it's going to be a good batch.

Bright and early tomorrow morning. Right now they're sitting in brine.

Howdy folks, just to let y'all know, 2 of the three corned beef briskets went on today and will come off sometime around midnight. Why so late? Well, I didn't get them on until 6 because I was working on the new cold smoker all day. Here's my buddy Jeff working on the base with his oxy-acetylene torch: Here he his with his mig welder laying down the beads: I'll be doing a seperate write-up on it later but I thought you guys might be interested. edit: I don't know how to spell.

Here in Seattle I have a grocery store (possibly the best ever) that sells frozen un-rendered duck fat for a little more than a dollar a pound. I don't even have to dice it up, just throw it in the skillet with the bacon press on med-low and in a hour or so I'm in heaven.

Smoked pork shoulders make excellent split pea soup, or as my buddy Shamus calls it, 5 pork salad.

I save my marinades a lot of the time, it depends on what I eventually want to do with the meat. As long as you boil it for a couple of minutes, the nasties will be killed. Often what I'll do is reduce the marinade to almost a paste (after seperating any oil) and then add a cup or two of cream or butter. Yum, yum.

Is this the one? I have no experience with these but it looks just like a weber bullet. You can do some pretty good smoking in a bullet and this "Gourmet" seems to have everything the bullet has for far less. At $45 it doesn't seem like an unwise investment. Then again it could be a POS. But if you get a year's worth out of it, who cares? Has anyone used one of these?

It's a wine I never would've tried unless the review at the grocery store explicity used "bacon" to describe it. There's a smokiness in the first 15 to 20 minutes of opening that's reminiscent of bacon. No kidding!

What, no bourbon?