edsel

Hey Michael, Since you're judging the Chili Cookoff Benifit on Wednesday, you'll have a chance to meet some of the more interesting chefs in Cleveland. Rocco Whalen (Fahrenheit in Tremont, just down Professor Street from Lolita), Jonathan Bennett (chef at Moxie and Red noisy Flash warning!), Brandt Evans (Blue Canyon in Twinsburg), and Dominic Cerino (there's a thread about CC in the Heartland forum). Ask Chef Cerino about his love of salumi. Carrie Cerino's has a very affordable wine list, and is certainly kid-friendly as well. The first Friday of the month they serve the hand-made egg-yolk ravioli that we've all raved about on the CC thread.

Niman Ranch pork is certainly an upgrade from the usual supermarket stuff, but it's still leaner than pork used to be. The bigger problem might be the cubes-vs-larger pieces issue. Maybe cut back on the cooking time? I had some slow cooked "heritage" (Berkshire) pork on Saturday that was cooked low-and-slow overnight. Again, this isn't as rich (and fatty) as pork used to be, but it was scrumptious. Since your pork is cut into smaller pieces, the main thing is to shorten the marination time. Unless you want pickled pork....

I bought one of those curved cast-iron things from one of the Amazon affiliates. It works OK, but the sausage "stuff" tends to squeeze out around the plunger, and it seems impossible to get the last bit of stuff out of the press and into the casings. I wind up having to wash a significant amount of stuffing out of the press when I'm done. (It's wedged way down inside the press and is really hard to get out of there).

Adam, bacon is almost always smoked here. Fruit woods like apple are common, but much of the bacon available in supermarkets has a really strong hickory smoke. Sweet cures seem to be popular (maple, honey, brown sugar). Often too sweet for my taste. I used the dextrose version of the cure for the bacon I made recently because I wanted to cut back on the sweet flavor. The first batch was smoked over hickory because that's all I had at the time. I got some apple wood chunks for the second batch (much better!) We can get pancetta here. I used to have to go to an Italian grocery to find it, but now it's turning up in regular markets. I still haven't found guanciale - my local supermarket carries smoked hog jowl, but I've never seen unsmoked outside of the Italian specialty stores.

There's a blurb elsewhere on that site that says the restaurant hasn't found a location yet:

Could you fill us in on that? Who is no longer there?

I love the mouseovers on the ingredients. Especially on the Alinea photos - it's sometimes hard to figure out what's what in those dishes, even with a good caption.

Welcome to eGullet, ojisan. There's no easy way to keep the liquids from being sucked out when you use a Foodsaver. There's a (very long) thread about sous vide on this forum if you're interested in more detail, but basically you need to freeze liquids with that style of machine. Basically, if it can flow, it will ooze out of the bag before it's sealed. For the sort of thing we're doing here I would think that zip-lock bags should suffice. I'm also interested in knowing why the rind is left on the bacon. One thing that pork rind is useful for is lining the casserole when making cassoulet. Of course it's supposed to be unsmoked rind, but I've used bacon rind that was blanched and it turned out fine.

Ronnie, the full list of nominees is in a pdf file on the Beard site. The Midwest chef nominees are: Shawn McClain, Spring, Chicago Jean-Robert de Cavel, Jean-Robert at Pigall's, Cincinnatti Carrie Nahabedian, Naha, Chicago Brian Polcyn, Five Lakes Grill, Milford MI Lucia Watson, Lucia's, Minneapolis Polcyn is also nominated in the single-subject cookbook catagory along with Michael Ruhlman for Charcuterie.

That's an interesting question - does that lack of oxygen in the bag change the way the meat cures? I just assumed that it wouldn't. Vacuum sealing seems like a good idea just because there's no chance of stuff leaking out (or anything getting in). I'm not worried about the botulism issue (anaerobic environment) since there's pink salt and regular salt in the curing mix.

I would think (based on zero experience) that the vacuum would retard or totally inhibit circulation of the cure liquid. The book says explicitly that the curing liquid should be in contact with the meat at all times. ← I've got some pork belly vacuum-sealed with the salt/dextrose/spice cure for bacon in the fridge right now. There's a small amount of liquid in the bags now, so I think the cure should be well distributed at this point. I massage the bags a bit every time I flip them over, just to be sure. I don't see much difference between using the vacuum pouches and the large Zip-lock bags others have been using. Think of the vacuum pouch as a Zip-lock with a better seal.

I'm pretty sure that the Roca / Brugués book mentioned in the NYT article has a section on processing and apportioning food into vacuum pouches before refrigerating it. I don't have the book here so I can't verify that. If the book recommends storage of raw food sealed in pouches, that would run counter to the E.U. guidelines. I could be mistaken though - I'll check the book when I get home.

Jmolinari, Good to know that a small amount of culture is enough to inoculate a small batch. I suspected as much, but the manufacturer's spec sheet sounds kind of scary. I suspect that there's a strong measure of "CYA" in the Bactoferm specifications.

Pallee, did you reduce the Bactoferm because it seems wasteful to use so much or because the previous batch was too sour? If the latter, I think you need to adjust the amount of dextrose and/or milk powder in the mix. The amount of available sugar is going to determine how "fermented" the sausage turns out. For what it's worth, the Bactoferm spec sheet says to use a minimum of 1/4 package. They're obviously geared toward commercial-scale production. I wonder how little starter culture you can get away with. Guess you're going to find out.

The NYT article is being discussed over on the Food Media and News forum. It does seem that the food police got carried away on this one. I'm glad that the inspectors are keeping an eye on sanitation, but banning sous-vide techniques (and related equipment) is just ignorant.

Does the anti-griddle get as cold as the "teppannitro"? Having a built-in compressor sounds more convenient than using liquid nitrogen. I wonder about the noise from the compressor though....

Regarding the growth of green mold, has anyone tried inoculating with "good mold" spores? Butcher-packer sells p. nalgiovense culture (tech sheet here). Note that despite the Bactoferm™ brand, this is a mold, not a bacterium. From the application notes: Sounds like it might be worth a try.

Then the P.D. column the other day must have gotten it wrong. They said that Lola Bistro would be opening after Parea (the New York place). The part about the historic district hadn't occurred to me. I assumed that the delays were due to waiting for specialized equipment or some such.

I keep the most-frequently-used spices in little jars with ceramic grinder heads. Bulk supplies and larger spices like Ancho chilis get vacuum-sealed in mason jars. (We get those obnoxious meal moths in Ohio, too, Fifi). I keep the "bulk" stuff away from sunlight. The least-used stuff (for me, at least), like black cardomom and cubeb pepper, gets stashed in vacuum-sealed jars or pouches in the cellar where it's dark and cool. A few small and expensive items like saffron, fennel pollen, "exquisite"-grade paprika, get vacuum-sealed and refridgerated. One little rule that I have to remind myself of: the "frequently-used" stuff has to be turned over often, even if it means tossing some occasionally. As for organization, that's a whole 'nother pathology.

I wasn't watching very closely, but I don't recall seeing a Pacojet - just the conventional commercial ice cream machine. Could that have been part of the problem? Maybe bacon doesn't work well without the Paco's smoothing effect. I, too, was surprized that Steingarten didn't love the bacon ice cream. There must have been something wrong with the texture.

I'm making pho following Adrea Nguye's recipe on vietworldkitchen. I made the stock last night, but cooked it longer than she says. We'll see how it turns out - sure does smell good.

I ate at Lolita twice in the last couple of weeks. The Thursday before Christmas I sat at the bar and enjoyed some of the small plates. The sopressata and the lomo are particularly great. The wine selection at Lolita is really interesting (all sourced from the Mediterranean region). There are plenty of wines available by the glass, and if you're sitting at the bar Frank can help you chose. Without some guidance I might not have tried the Biblia Chora. Macedonian wine? Who knew?! New Years Eve we had the "Iron Chef" dinner upstairs. They were also doing a Lola Bistro new menu preview downstairs, but I figured I'll be able to sample that soon enough, whereas the Iron Chef menu is a unique opportunity. They served the five-course menu from the Iron Chef episode, but also offered some variations. The avgolemono was served with the poached oyster as it was in the competition, but an alternate presentation had truffles instead of oyster. The grape-leaf “sushi” was available with prosciutto in place of the crab meat. There was a fish alternative to the lamb loin, and chocolate cake or pana cotta for those who weren’t up to trying asparagus doughnuts. I chose to eat everything as presented on the show (even the asparagus dessert). How often will I get to have a full Iron Chef menu prepared by the same people who competed on ICA? Everything was wonderful, but the highlights were the lamb loin - the best I've ever had - and the ricotta dumplings. The candied asparagus in the dessert was surprisingly tasty. It was a fun and unusual way to start the New Years celebration.

Last week's Bites column in the Free Times has more on the Opening Soon episode, and also this:

I've heard late February / early March. I took a stroll down E. 4th St. a couple of weeks ago when I was downtown. There are several storefronts under constructoin - maybe the one on the corner labeled "Restaurant" is the new Lola. Since it's all covered up with plywood there's no telling how far along they are. The process of opnening the restaurant will be documented on a Fine Living cable show (mentioned in this PD piece: Reality show will highlight Lola progress) They're supposedly doing a "preview" menu at lolita in the new year. I'll try to check it out when I'm in town. ~Edsel (temporarily living in Indianapolis)

If you're going to be in Indianapolis, check out the CIRA web site (dineoriginals.com), indyethnicfood.org, and the reviews from NUVO to get an idea of what the food scene is like. I had the tonkatsu at Mikado the other night. Does that count? ~Edsel (Temporarily living and working in downtown Indy)