joesan

This is great guys - so we've discovered that the temperature of the water from the cold water tap is related to the ambient temperature of the part of the world we live in. Who'd have thunk it! I must say here in the UK it's mostly cool enough to use the running cold water method. Sometimes I'll use some ice if I particularly want to ensure that the fresh green of a vegetable is maintained, or where I really want to quickly arrest the cooking process but I must confess I haven't made any empirical study of the effects. Funnily enough it hadn't really occurred to me to use the plastic ice packs that I store in the freezer but I think that I might try that from now on. My concerns re plastic leaching are tending towards the infinitesimally small...

If you cut the steak wafer thin (use a mandoline or slicer if you have one) you could put it in some Thai marinade and make a delicious Thai Beef salad. Or again slice it and place it in a tasty broth for some nice noodle soup.

The inside of your steak looks great but the outside looks a little (actually a lot ) burnt to me... But I think with this kind of thing I think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyway I tried the Ducasse method that the OP refrers to the other night but I ended up with a pretty tough piece meat. I think it was more likely to be the fault of the meat but I think I'll stick to the sous vide then flash grill method since that gives me consistently good results. It's always good to experiment though.

Hi Jack - they look great. I must try that one. I've never made type of macaroon before and I like the idea of beginning with the remix version. Is it hard to form the shells? PS That reminds me I need to update my home cured smoked salmon thread with the results.

Hi folks just remembered that I hadn't reported back on the smoked salmon that I Home cured for the first time before Christmas. In a phrase for those wondering whether this is worth doing or not - it is! Highly recommended. It wasn't perfect but it was very nice for a first try. Here are my observations of my side by side trial. - 1-6 hours of brining is nowhere near enough time. The fish that I came out with were very tasty but too "wet" for my taste. If I'd salted them for more like 24 hours the flesh would lose more moisture and be more chewy (i.e drier) than with less times. This is what I intend to do next time. - There was no discernable difference between the 6 hour continuous brine and the 3 hour brine followed by another 3 hour brine with a fresh application of cure. In consequence I'd recommend just applying the cure once as it makes the process less complicated. - The liquid brine produced my least favourite result. The fish was much more akin in texture to fresh fish which is not what I look for in a smoked salmon. This is probably a matter of taste but to me the dry brine provided a much preferable result and was more like traditional smoked salmon. - I rigged my Bradley to produce cold smoke. It was ridiculously easy to smoke the fish. I cannot recommend the Bradley highly enough. I cold smoked the salmon continuously for 3 hours and got a nice deep smoky flavour by smoking with Oak into a close fitting cardboard box. I didn't want to take the chance of ruining the fish by skimping on the bisquettes and smoking only intermittently (a la Pepin) but I will try it next time for the purposes of experimentation. Overall I'd rate this project a must do and super easy. As a nice side product I also have some smoked salt and a little smoked homemade Pancetta (this is not traditional with Pancetta but it does give a nice result). Give it a try!

Well there's really not much to choose from in London - I've been to a couple of nice ones in Norfolk and one in Kent but that's not much of an option if you are in London only I guess. I think the trouble with Borough is that there are too many downsizing marketing graduates running the stalls and not enough foodies. There are the odd gems though. The Marleybone one used to be good but that has become a bit more dried fruit and doillies of late. It's a lamentable state of affairs! I totally agree with you on Brindisa - the quality is good but the prices are exploitative. I think as you say most people don't know the real price of these things and do think that chickpeas should cost the same per kilo as a nice cheese. All that being said I think that the popularity of Borough is a good thing because as more customers are aware of what is out there the quality will go up and the price down. If anything it's a nice bucolic alternative to wandering round Waitrose or, God forbid, Tescos.

I like Borough Market conceptually but feel that just about nothing is good value for money (except for a cup of Monmouth coffee perhaps). Just about everything is overpriced for the hordes of tourists there so don't go expecting a real market like you'd find in Spain, Italy or France. It's more like a shambolic outdoor version of Wholefoods than La Boqueria. Some products are very good but they come with inflated prices and you'd be better shopping at a "real" farmers market IMO. Having said that I still go about 2 or 3 times a month and thoroughly enjoy myself!

The raw material for the experiment, two 6 kilo of Scotland's finest... I've filleted them and brined them. I'm trying - Tim's method 1 - 3 hour dry brine, wash, new brine for a further 3 hours and His method 2 - 6 hour dry brine and Jackl's 1 hour wet brine I'll let them dry tonight to develop the pellicle and smoke them tomorrow. Can't wait to see the results...

Dougal - thanks for the words of encouragement, and all your help. I'm going to try a variety of methods since I'll have a number of fish. I'll let you know the results. And yup - I want it chewy not flabby! But I will try a wet brine for comparison purposes on one fillet.

Thanks Tim - that looks pretty much like what I have in mind. Do you find it smoky enough at those short times? Dougal's got me thinking...

Dougal - that's a pretty interesting video. I want one of those fish skinners and a vertical slicing machine especially for salmon slicing! Bear in mind though that I'll be using a container many hundreds of times smaller than that room - perhaps that would be a factor in the timing? Logically I would tend to agree with you that 3 x 10 minutes active smoke (plus 3 hours non-active) wouldn't produce much smokey taste but Tim seems to think it works out okay. No harm in trying it anyway. If it's not smoky enough I'll just do it again for a longer period the next day. My Proust's madeleine moment on this one is when I tried some wild salmon on the Scottish borders that the angler had produced himself in a shed out the back of his house. Boy was that good - salty, smoky and chewy - world's away from the flabby insipid stuff that you buy in the shops...

Thanks Dougal - nice full answer as usual. I know I can normally rely on you. There does seem to be some discrepancy, though, between what Tim suggests and what you advocate. Tim mentions up thread that it is possible with a method he has seen to fill the chamber, wait an hour, and re-smoke briefly, for a couple of cycles. Prior to this I had always assumed that continuous smoke production was necessary. I am going to try this method as it is much more economical with the wood requirements. Do you think this won't work? I will be using the Bradley with an aluminium cowl over the smoke producing unit over a lenght of ventilation pipe and then into the box. By that time the smoke should be cool enough. I love the Ruhlman charcuterie book, that's what stimulated my desire to do all this in the first place, but I find the salmon recipe has too many different ingredients - I'm looking to do something very simple and relatively un-adulterated.

Dougal - there seems to be a discrepancy between what you are saying and Tim's method. Should I vent the box for a while to get the smoke in there and then seal it up to trap it? It seems less wasteful to filll the box with smoke and trap it there than to have it continually pumping the smoke through it. Incidentally I only have the Bradley smoke generator unit not the cabinet as I bought the generator itself from a lady in the states sans cabinet. I will probably use a cardboard box for the chamber. I will insert a temperature probe to determine the smoke temperature.

In the interests of science I will try one side with the double salting method and one with a continuous salting. What the hell I may as well try the wet brining method as well at the same time. For the edification of us all I'll report back on the results. I am going to try 3 hour smoke and taste it the next day. If not smoky enough I'll put it back in again. Tim - so I am going to funnel the cold smoke into a sealed box and trap it there for an hour before hitting it with an other smoke - is this correct? Presumably I don't need to let the old smoke escape...

Thanks Kerry - that recipe sounds interesting but I think it might be a little too sweet for what I am looking to achieve this time...

Some good advice Dougal. I plan on doing this outdoors and the Bradley will be demounted. I reckon the ambient temperature should be about 7-8c so I should be fine. I think I will need to fabricate a smoking chamber out of something. I wonder if a cardboard box would be okay? I have decided to go with Tim's double salt process for a couple of hours, I will use a little sugar. I like the idea of smoking intermittently for 3 hours. I'll let it rest up overnight in the fridge and re-taste per your instructions and possibly re-smoke. Lastly I will vacpack the fillets per Jack's advice to let the flavours equalise through the fish. I am buying the fish on Saturday so expect some pictures in the middle of the week...

Great stuff guys - now I've got a range of cure times from one hour to twenty four...hmmmm. What to do, what to do? Seems like each of you got results you were well pleased with so I guess I'll be okay no matter what. I think I will try a dry cure with a small amount of sugar for a couple of hours. Tim - do you think that the 10 minute active smoking then waiting one hour would achievable with the Bradley system. Seems like it would be very economical with pucks. I would like a strong smoke flavour.

Interesting Jack. I don't want too salty or too smoky but I do want salty and smoky otherwise I'd just leave the salmon as is. Did you find the texture of the salmon was okay in the brine I.e. Not too wet? Also sugar - do I need it - many recipes seem to call for it but the purist in me asks if it is necessary?

Tim - this sounds like the closest to what I am trying to achieve. I think i will try one without sugar also. So do you salt the fish for only 6 hours? And how long do you smoke? I want a dry, almost chewy result with a deep smoke. I am familiar with the techniques to produce cold smoke in the Bradley, I am planning on using a box with the smoke piped through some vent pipe to get cold smoke.

Guys thanks for the hints so far. I'm not sure about the brine. I like the simplicity of just placing the salmon in a the salt saturated solution but I, too, am worried about whether the brine will allow the salmon to dry out properly and achieve the right texture. For sure I will let it dry out to form the pellicule in the fridge though. I know that the excess liquid drawn out from the salt method will produce a little brine but maybe the brine solution will affect the texture because of the amount of water in the solution? I wasn't planning on adding anything extra to the cure but maybe I'll try one with some sugar and pepper.

Just thought I'd check in with all you charcuteriers for guidance - I'm planning on home curing and home smoking some salmon for Christmas. I want to do a simple London style cure as I am using very nice quality fish and I don't want to mess about too much with the fish and hide it's natural qualities. So basically the fish is just salted then smoked. I plan on doing 4 or 5 largish fish. About 3-4 kilos each and I will home fillet them, skin on. I want a smoky, salty product that is quite chewy. So here's my plan either a. Soak all the fillets in a brine solution (15%) for about 2 hours. The figure that seems to come up most often is half an hour + half an hour per kilo after that. Presumably I can do the whole 15 -20 kilos of fish in the same brine for two hours. Is this correct? or b. Cover in sea salt about 300g per kilo - this would work out much more expensive salt wise. and then Oak smoke in Bradley for 8-10 hours. I'll rig the bradley so I can cold smoke it. What do you think - anywhere I can make improvements? Any suggestions from people who have already done this? PS On this occasion I'm not making Gravad Lax only simple Smoked Salmon

Hi Al, That for me would be the holy grail as I love induction hobs but I don't think it will be possible to control most domestic models. The reason for this is that the induction hobs have electronic start and power level controls therefore you cannot switch them on using a PID/Auber/SousVide Magic controller. I have looked everywhere for an induction hob with a mechanical switch but I don't think that they are available.

Hi Ellen, I haven't been to avista but I was at Cafe Anglais last Tuesday at lunchtime and found it to be great. It is really good value, the execution was very good, the menu nicely varied and their was a generousity about the place that I really liked e.g. really nice olives as a gratis aperitivo and an offer to fill them up again. I liked the place and intend to go there again at night as I think the room is very nice. If you go there take their separate elevator don't go through Whitelys as that rather spoils the experience!

Maybe he could copy Gordon Ramsay this time - his restaurants are doing quite well!

I bought the official Jaccard one with the removable cartridge. It does make cleaning very easy since it just snaps out and you can throw it in the dishwasher. This doesn't dull the blades in any way. I think ease of cleaning is very important since you are using it with raw meat and you want it to be thouroughly clean if you are pushing whatever is on the surface of the blade deep into the meat that you will be sealing up and SVing...