joesan

Emonster - get the biggest one you can afford - it makes it less effort to cover the entire area of your meat. I bought. I believe, the 40 blade one that has removable covers and a cartridge for the blades. The benefit of this is that you just remove the blades and have easy cleaning access to the blades and the mechanism.

I can definitely recommend the Jaccard. I now use it on just about every steak, even on the finest filet and also some other meats like lamb or venison. I would be willing to bet that many of us have tried Jaccarded meat without knowing. After buying one I kept an eye out for seeing it in action at any steakhouses that I went to. Quite quickly you can detect where it has been used, but at Nathan says you have to look very closely. There's a mid-range French chain here in the UK called Chez Gerard that sells a very tasty cut called Onglet, it's served with Bearnaise Sauce and very good Frites. This is a normally tough but flavoursome and meaty cut similar to Hanger steak. I noticed last time I was there that it had been over-enthusiastically Jaccarded - I could see many cuts in the meat fibre - and concluded that they must use this tool to make their steaks more tender. Look very closely at your next Steak in your Steakhouse and I think you may well see the tell-tale cuts. As the previous poster says for $30 you can't go far wrong to experiment.

Douglas, Nathan - thank you both for your sage words. Your advice is much appreciated. I actually like to try a variety of meat types - after all anyone can cook something beautiful with an expensive well-aged piece of filet but it's sometimes more fun to try to make something out of the cheaper more challenging cuts. I have found the Jaccard works wonders on nearly all cuts of meat. Coupled with Sous Vide just about anything is possible. I'm not a fan of "spoon tender" meat as to me it is an unnatural texture for the majority of meats. More I am aiming for rare meat with a fully meaty flavour and some tenderness but not too tender.

Thanks for the pointers - you always seem like a man that knows what he's doing! Ultra-pastuerization is not a problem for me as I am in Europe and have access to pretty un-adulterated, and even raw milk that is completely as nature intended. Given that the quality of the milk will be good - I still wonder will the short-hand process produce something mozzarella-like or string cheese-like (albeit fresh-tasting!)?

Sorry to hark back to some earlier posts but I've been catching up on some earlier entries. Anyway back to the perenial favourite of safe storage of SVed items. Most of the calculations above tend to make the reasonable assumption that for an intact roast the inside is sterile and one need only perhaps take the precaution of searing the outside if SVing at less than 130F. Fair enough, but recently I've taken to using the Jaccard tool (on the recommendation of Nathan and others) as it produces a more tender mouth feel and does materially reduce the amount of juice emitted from even SV meat. The point of contention though is that with my use of the Jaccard I no longer have a guaranteed sterile intact piece of meat and have possibly introduced some bacteria inside the meat muscle via the blades of the Jaccard. Given this do you think that we should add any additional safety proceedures or extended times for Jaccarded joints?

Very nice little diversion from the mighty SV thread! So what is considered the best practice to cool and prepare for refridgeration say, for practical illustration purposes a. Vegetables b. Piece of Steak c. Rib of Beef d. Whole Duck Is a stirred bath of coolish water best?

I was getting all fired up to make some mozzarella but then I read a couple of posts upthread that say they ended up only with tasteless string cheese. Can anybody confirm that it is worth making any of the 30 minute mozzarella recipes? Dr Frank looks like he knows what he is talking about but the process to make his mozzarella looks quite involved. Not that it may not be worth taking a more involved approach only that the idea of making mozzarella in 30 minutes is appealing. What do you think - worth it or not?

Hi Chris - well done - yes that does look like them! Thanks for the help in tracking them down. I see on Len Poli's excellent site that he has a recipe that contains Cure #1 so that would indicate that there might be a hammy flavour. If it truly is the same recipe then I would recommend someone trying them for a nice change to the more typical Italian/American Sweet or Hot sausage. They had a truly excellent taste. Now in the meantime I just need to see if I can order from that site you found. Thanks again.

Chrises - thanks for the guidance I am looking forward to trying it all out when I get the equipment in place. In the meantime I will live vicariously! When I was younger we used to get these amazing little red sausages, made to an Italian recipe, called (if I recall correctly) Toscanella or something similar. They were small reddish sausages with an intense hammy flavour and contained a mixture of cubes of pork and a more emulsified content. I think that the must have been cured or smoked in some way because they had a succulent sweet, hammy taste. Ever come across a similar recipe?

Guys, these checklists look great - they're a real service to humanity! Thanks. I haven't made any sausages myself yet but have followed the Charcuterie threads carefully as well as reading the Charcuterie book a couple of times. I almost have the courage now. It surprises me a little that the meat has to be below freezing. How do you judge it so it is just below freezing but not completely solid?

Hee hee - cool... looking forward to seeing the pictures of the food results!

Infernooo - you are the man! I just chanced upon this thread again and I see that you've got the pyrolitic oven of your dreams. What make did you go for? I haven't been able to find any information on overriding my Gaggenau oven (I also want to be able to replicate woodburning temperatures for pizzamaking). I may have to look at alternative ovens. I see that you are using a DAQ - any plans to computer control your oven? Cheers

That is a joke question right?!!! ← er...yes...

Matthew - I was just wondering are you connected to Arbutus in some way or merely mildly obsessed ? Like me with El Bulli!

You needn't be concerned that the cyrovac was punctured. In Italy most households store it loosely wrapped in waxed paper in the fridge. It will store that way for a long time. You can also additionally put it into an airtight tupperware box and that will further ensure less loss of moisture - although some aficionados argue that this kills the cheese. Make sure that no moisture is trapped on the surface of the cheese as that will cause a mould to grow on it. You can freeze it but the crystals of water that form inside the cheese on freezing tend to spoil the texture of the cheese when defrosted. Also some people pay a fortune for aged parmesans so why not effectively age your own in the fridge? I store mine in waxed paper loosely wrapped in an airtight box in the fridge. The piece I have in there is 8-9 months old and still tastes excellent.

When in doubt rip off the artisanal recipe and sell it cheaper! Perhaps we could use some High Fructose Corn syrup and artificial apricot flavouring to bring that price right down. Or alternatively you could pay a fair price for the high quality original and consume them moderately. That's what I would do.

Guys, - thanks for the tips. I am a big fan of greek oils even though I mostly use the oil in Italian dishes. Now the dilemma is just to decide between the two brands...

I cook a lot with olive oil so would like to find a good source to buy it in 3l, 5l or more quantities, both for convenience and for economy. This will be for everyday cooking (so won't be replacing those special single estate oils one drizzles over expensive ingredients) but I would like it to be of sufficient quality to use in salad dressing, over fish etc. I will also fry with olive oil so any non extra-virgin oil recommendations would also be good. Anyone know a good UK source to purchase olive oil in bulk?

Hi Tim, Any freezing will slightly damage the structure of the protein but I regularly use both frozen duck and chicken livers and the taste and quality is fine. Deforst them in the fridge and refreeze as quickly as possible after separation. Repeated freeze/thaw cycles will damage the meat but once you should be okay. Health concerns would arise if the meat reached above fridge temps but not at them. Might be good to defrost them in running water to quickly acheive the separation?

Sygyzy - Perhaps these separations that you experienced were do to some over-zealous mechanical meat tenderizing. Some suppliers will mechanically puncture the tougher cuts of meat with blades (similar to the hand jaccards that many of us use) to make them more tender. If this is done over-zealously then the meat can break down into these "major separations". When done properly you wouldn't notice it at all.

Hi Adey, Whilst I like the Ginger Pig, they are a bit over-priced (IMHO). Any good butchers that cuts up the whole animal themselves can do this for you. I have found, amazingly, that a lot of butchers simply throw away the head. When I have bought other cuts of meat two butchers I have used actually gave me the cheeks for free. Worth a try. Don't forget that you will need to remove any glands from the cheek. These are relatively easy to spot pinkish fleshy parts on the inside of the cheek. It's not as gross as it sounds!

I just finished reading the excellent Q&A on Gourmet with Heston and Grant Achatz about their upcoming new books. The Q&A a great read and I can't wait to get my hands on these fine books. One thing that Grant said really pleased me - "For us, we even went as far as breaking a pretty major rule here in the States: We’re doing all the recipes in Metric." I am tremendously pleased about this as I find translating a recipe from Cups, teaspoons, stick and tablespoons and other arcane measures extremely hit and miss and, well, lacking in accuracy. This is going to make anything from the book much easier. But it got me thinking - don't you find it really hard to produce recipes accurately by measuring things by volume that are ideally measured by weight? I weigh everything including water to make my recipes more reproducible.

I've had a very nice antipasto plate - prosciutto, grilled pumpkin etc. at the bar at Cecconis. Was very nice with a glass of prosecco and extremely reasonable with a nice buzzy vibe. I went there about a year ago but the menu should still be similar. I could recommend it for a light lunch in the situation you outlined.

Cheers Marco, I wish you all the best in the venture - looks like you are really going for a quality product. I look forward to trying it.

Pizza Napoletana - please don't misunderstand me I think the product looks really great, I definitely intend to try it. The sourcing policy looks admirable e.g. I do think if you can get a fresh locally produced mozzarella that freshness will pay divdidends in terms of flavour over strict authenticity. It's just that you asked for our views and my view, and I think the views of some others, is that you will never see a pizza with Chorizo on it in Naples. If they can't find a good Salami from Naples they haven't looked very hard - I have at least two of them plus a fine Coppa in my fridge now. To me it's more likely that the owner (wrongly) thought that Chorizo sounded more trendy and went with that. But true Italian food doesn't go that way. It is very,very conservative (in the main) and sticks to the tested and true ingredients with those ingredients being primarily from the local area. Not, as in this case, a product from an entirely different country. Anyway please don't feel I am negative about the pizzas themselves - I can tell you care about them and that they will be good. But try and let the chef in you persuade the owner on what is appropriate re the toppings. I think that it would make a big difference for those of us who care about "la vera pizza napoletana". I've just been re-reading Elizabeth David and the things that the British did do Italian cuisine in the early days were unbelievable - it's a wonder that the cuisine survived here let alone flourished.