jmolinari

Going to Rincon, Puerto Rico, for a friends wedding. I figure I should get some nice food while i'm there. Any recommendations for great local food ? Lechon, mofongo etc.etc.? thanks

sure, you could...but then you have to put batches and and remove them all at the same time. Not practical...for me at least where i have multiple stages of things going

their recommendations on humidity and times are confusion and contradictory even within the book. So much so that i emailed them, and got a reply VERY quickly....different from the book. Basically I was told that my 75-80% RH for the whole time is fine and correct. Having said that i know there are italian recipes that also have descending and ascending temperature ramps during the industrial process. These are done to minimize loss, maximize beauty (shape etc.) and would be very hard to re-create at home. Everything for me goes into my chamber at 55/75...after a ferment at 70 deg.

I caught this flpping channels. Caught the last 2-3 minutes and I was so taken aback I literally had to google it to make sure I hadn't caught the end of some cooking spoof a-la Saturday night live. Amazing Still think sandra lee is worse.

Agree with dave. "Home production...." is decent, in that it contains a lot of good information, but it's really hard to read, is very repetitious (within itself and against the previous book), and in some cases confused me profoundly.

i'm thinking cardamom and orange zest. I've heard of this combo before. Haven't yet tried it. Salumi in Seattle has it. And i know Bob del Grosso makes one too. any good?

Thank C.Sapidus. the LBE = little black egg pizza oven. I explained how to make one here:

Recreation of Motorino's pizza with brussels sprouts and pancetta. And margherita with nduja both cooked on the LBE

Update. I called Northern Tool and they have the gears as spares. $8.

So, anyone have to replace the gears on their stuffer yet? Mine just broke yesterday. Don't know why, i don't force the thing. One of the teeth just broke.... any ideas for replacements? I have the northern industrial one.

it was binchotan. The charcoal used for yakitori traditionally.

I'm with bud. Calculate your salt you want to finish with and add only that amount and let it equilibrate.

the marianski books are the best so far for dry curing salami...their new one (700 pages) seems to be very good as well...just started reading through it. and bertolli's book as well.

thanks. I hadn't yet read through p.256...

I finally got tired of waiting for this book to get to Amazon, and just bought it. I have a question Douglas. Throughout the book you discuss the temperature and time to pasteurization, but you never discuss the item thickness, which would have a direct impact on cooking time, since pasteurization is based on the time the core is at temperature. How did you derive your cooking times? Certainly a 1/2" pork chop will take much less time to pasteurize than a 1.5" pork chop would. I have to assume that the times you specify are for "worse case" meat thicknesses? How exactly did you arrive at your times? Also, i was wondering why you specify a 6-8hr time for a ribeye steak, but only a couple hour for a NY strip? Isn't the ribeye a tender cut already? So why the long cook time? thanks!

agree, it's definitely the black internal beads that lead to grittyness....i'm one of those people who manually picks through to get the black seeds out.

actually the bulk 5lb bags aren't terribly priced. Depends on shipping. Also would want ot make sure that these are pure wood...not some sawdust with flavors added. There is another page that sells dust that works, but they are flavored with additives!

Thanks Scoobadoo, that's some expensive sawdust, but at least we know it would work. Today i'm making 2 more sides of steelhead. Both brined with lots of coriander and some juniper. One brushed 3-4 times, while drying in fridge for pellicle, with dark rum. Will smoke 4-5 hours.

Thanks Kim! I;m going to start mine today or tomorrow...

I can report back that finding wood for the Pro-Q is in fact rather difficult in the US. Butcher-packer stuff is too coarse. I found wood that works at psseasoning.com but ONLY the mixed hardwood dust. The other varieties (apple, cherry) are too coarse. This weekend i'm making anohter batch of lox, i'll add spices and herbs to one at least.

Kim, can you give me more details? I'm not a gravy person. So i make the stock from teh roasted parts and veg...then what? Thicken with a roux, but do you add the neck meat, giblets.... what? doesn't the tomato paste burn while roasting the stuff?

For making gravy, would you roast wings and parts and vegetables before making the stock?

i saw the stock, but i didn't like that it was in big containers....

I would have said " really? I don't recall signing a non-disclosure, and how exactly are you going to track me down since i live out of state and i'm just coming though here on vacation".

i think every time Batali cooked spaghetti on Molto Mario it was RAW when he took it out!