jmolinari

I also have a grid of 7x7 tiles, in a 2x2 pattern , i wish i could find 1 big paver, but i make do with these little ones. They are cheap, and work beautifully. I thikn if we go to a real stone store, instead of home depot we could find 12x12 or 16x16 pavers... jason

I use the same tiles from home depot, they work great. I believe they are called "pavers". When i asked for unglazed quarry tiles the guy had no clue what i was talking about. jason

Having grown up in italy, i can say i ate my share of pizza, and i've never, ever seen or heard of anchovies added to the sauce. The sauce consists of crushed San Marzano tomatoes..thats about it...while additions to it may make it tasty and all, the real neopolitan pizza sauce is just creshed tomatoes. Of course everyone makes it how they wish, i add basil, olive oil and salt to mine..but anchovies seems kind of bizarre, and to say it belongs there is entirely incorrect. jason

Hrm i'll have to get in on this cook-off, but i'm wondering why my pizza only takes 6-7 minutes in my preheated oven..preheated to 500, for about 1 hour. I'm guessing my grust is thinner... As soon as passover is over, i'm gonna get in on this... And i'd like to hear how to build a brick oven in your backyard. jason

Looks like someone was paying attention to my prior post:) Take a look here..i've explained it well on my page: https://home.comcast.net/~jasonmolinari/Salame.htm jason Jsolomon, i see you're also a coffee fanatic? Do you roast at home?

I currently make bresaola, coppa, salame, pancetta and guanciale at home. I tried a while back to start a conversation on this, but got little interest. I'd like to start this discussion, and i believe i've learned enough to be able to help people out, as well as learn a lot of things myself. A great page is: home.pacbell.net/lpoli Jackal, the strain of lactobacilli added to salame is lactobacillus plantarum or lacto. notatum..which is probably different than the one in sourdough... botulism is prevented by the addition of nitrates and nitrites which are oxidizers, which prevents the growth of botulism, since it needs an anaeorobic environment. Lets start this diuscussion already!:) Here is a small sample of what i've made...they are all outstanding. the hardest part is finding an area/chamber to age them properly, at the right temp and humidity.

I've bought a couple different salted radishes, and they all tasted odd, if anyone has a good brand recommendation i'd like to hear it thanks jason

You can do what i did (i'm in Atlanta, pretty hot/humid in summer, cool/dry in winter) and set up a curing chamber from an old fridge. It'll need a temperature controller, and a humidity controller controlling a humidifier... jason

Seems odd that noone noticed this. Real quality panettone in italy is made with sourdough, which is the only way to get that special flavor, and the reason it last for WEEKS in a plastic bag. In fact, in italy the bakers tell people not to eat them for about 10 days after they are baked, this allows the flavor to develop, and the panettone remains moist. I see in BBA Reinhardt uses both a sourdough starter and and normal yeast. I havn't tried his recipe, but the trials i've done i also have been unable to achieve the fluffy soft wide open texture that you get from purchased ones. Oh, another KEY fact is that the panettone MUST be dried upside down. When you take it out of hte oven, you're supposed to skewer the paper molds with 2 long needles and hang it upside down. I thikn this helps with the texture. jason

Are you saying that if i rolled a pizza or I pulled it with my hands you would be able to tell the difference.. What are the differences.. I am going to have to try this tonight. ← They are very different in that with a rolled pizza you have a completely level surface, with a hand stretched and tossed pizza you have what in italy they call a "cornicione" or a border. This is the outer edge of the pizza that is slightly thicker, and has more puff than the center area of the pizza. jason

I've had the best luck by not following his instructions at this point. Instead, I take the dough out of the refrigerator, immediately portion & form it, and then let it sit covered at room temperature for 4-8 hours. Basically, as long as it takes to rise. The dough never really quite doubles, but does appear puffy. The most I've gotten is an approximately 1"- high loaf, but the crumb is spectacular. ← Ok, thanks for the tip. I'll try that next time i made this bread. jason

Last weekend i made Pain a l'ancienne following the recipe/procedure in Bread Bakers apprentice. It is by far the best bread i've ever made, the flavor was sweet and sugary from the autolyzation in the fridge... My problem is that my baguettes are essentially pancakes:) They have the correct width/length, but ZERO height. I followed his instructions, took it out of fridge, let it double, gently dump it out, split it in 2, then split each piece in 3 stips and put it on a flat surface.. The 1st 3 i put in the oven were totally flat..ZERO rise. The 2nd 3, that proofed for about 2 hours before i put them in the oven, got 2 or 3 LARGE bubbles in them (like huge, too big, about 1" airspace)...flavor was outstanding..if i can get the crumb right that would be awesome. Any ideas as to what i might have done wrong? jason

foodman, i just basically put the casing on the end of a funnel , and push themeat into it with the back of a wooden spoon...now this was with a 60mm casing for my salame, it would be really hard with small suasages. jason

Here is a pic of my bresaola and salame toscano http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jasonmoli...6&.dnm=19b3.jpg I don't know how to make it an actual picture in here. jason

I'll try to rememebr to post a pic tonight of my bresaola and salame. jason

Well, if you have a grinder, you can get a stuffer attachment really cheap, which i thikn is fine for cooked sausages. But if you're trying to make salame and dry cured sausages, the problem with those is you're running the ground meat/fat through the auger again then through the stuffing tube, and i've found that it caused a lot of fat smearing, which is a problem in salame. I bought a push stuffer from ebay relatively cheap, about $40, its basically a giant extruder, on which you put casings, and push a big handle down, pushing the meat/fat out of the tube and into casings...havnt' even used it yet though, last batch i made i hand stuffed with a funnel. jason

BBQ4, i'd be happy to discuss the sausages and tecniques, pretty much everything i've learned i got from Len Poli's page...take a look at it. He discusses everything from additives to meats to spices to curing... The hardest part for me was finding an appropriate "curing station" where i cuold cure/dry my meats. I ended up buying an old used refrigerator, adding an external thermostat so i could set it to whatever temp. i want between 32 and 75, (instead of using the fridge thermostat which wont allow the temp to go high enough), and putting a humidifier in the bottom of the fridge to control humidity. This system seems to be working well so far! Have you made any cured products? Or just wanting to try? jason

Hey all, glad i found this thread! I just got into meat curing in the last couple months, i've VERY succesfully made bresaola, and quite succesfully made some Salame Toscano, and have some guanciale currently in the "curing station" The bresaola was cured in the real fridge for about 3 weeks, and then hung in a spare fridge, which I keep at 50 deg. F and 75% RH, for another 3 weeks. It turned out superb. My next experiment is with coppa and duck prosciutto, i'm having trouble identifying the coppa in the shoulder though. Foodman, how did you cut the coppa out of the butt? Have any pictures or anything? Does Ferguson's book show good pictures? I don't see that book on Amazon. I found lots of great recipes at Len Poli's page , check it out...it is an outstanding resource. I do use real curing salts, with nitrates and nitrites, mostly for peace of mind. Lets start a thread about meat curing! Its very hard to find people to talk about it.... jason

Briarhill, i also live in atlanta, and was wondering if you're found any place to get peppercorns in all of our asian markets? You're right there are so many, there must be one that has them for us!!!! let me know if you find any! jason