Chris Amirault

What are the basic characteristics so far? What are the max possible ingredients? cocktails? Will it shake and stir? How does it get ice? Etc.

I had one of these last night: I agree with Erik about the benefits of lime here, even inauthentic lime. I used 3/4 oz.

Toby, in your Youtube video of the Southside ( ), you really give that mint a few whacks -- not exactly Lizzie Borden territory but a lot more hammer-like than I would have guessed. I've tended to do a few press-and-turns when I muddle for French Pearls, but I'm game to change. Whither the five muddler pops?

That's a keeper.

Thanks for the great report! Can you say a bit about reservations? When did you make them, how, etc.? Was the 1000 bhat pp including or excluding cocktails and/or wine?

Yeah, it's the "coarse" plate 3/8"/10mm. I think that they are standard, yes. Here's what it looks like --and that's from a different supplier. Ditto the blade. Having said that, I can't say for sure bc I don't know what "standard" means exactly. That's coarsely ground black pepper and fennel seed. Believe me, there was no localized heating. Yes, it definitely does. I wanted to get a finer texture on the kielbasa and so I ran the mix through the 1/8" plate after running the meat and fat through the 3/8" plate. However, the temp went from (IIRC) 29F to 33F, still far below anything that would create a problem. Most remarkably, I never dismantled the machine to chill the parts again during the entire grinding process (a total of 25 lbs: 15 once through and 5 twice through). Actually, I'm getting much better mince than a lot of the butchers I know around here! But to answer your question, I think that the design of the grinder really makes a difference, as does blade sharpness, technique (cold meat, pregrind dice, etc.), and the things you list. I think that's only true if the parts have been machined poorly (like, say, the KA). The blade was snug against the plate but not pushing hard against it. I think that the strip question is a good one. I nearly always preseason and overnight my meat before grinding, and mincing is worth the effort for good distribution. But for weeknight burgers, say, I'd think that strips of chuck would be easier and quicker to prep. Given that it's going to be ground up, I don't think the muscle fiber direction matters too much, does it?

Just got this email: More a bit later today.

A few more shots and two questions. Here's the kielbasa: That's the best sausage I've ever made, full stop. I did a cold smoke for about three hours and then moved up to 175F or so until the sausage hit 155F. Pulled it off, iced down, and there you have it. There was one thing that I couldn't quite understand -- not a big problem but worth a question: Do you see the crease in the middle sausage? I can't quite tell what it is. One thought is that it's a place where there was an air channel of some sort, but I'm not sure. Thoughts? Second question. Here's the andouille: Do you notice those air pockets? There's only a few here and there, and they tend to be localized. I was wondering if they're there bc the sausage got too hot and the fat seeped out, leaving the pockets. It doesn't make a ton of sense, however, bc they didn't give up any liquid fat when I cut them or in the smoker. So I was wondering if perhaps I was just so good at getting the emulsion that I beat it a bit too long and beat in some air. Again, thoughts?

Say more: style? price point? number of folks?

It's in Boston.

I wanted to add a note about a characteristic that's pretty easy to address but worth mentioning. In order to fit a bowl under the grinder plate, I had to raise it about 8" or so. It's not a big deal and can't really be called a flaw, but it seemed worth mentioning.

Mark, I have the same problem that Chris H has in re the C-clamp. There's just no part of my kitchen to which I could clamp the stuffer at the moment. I'll be very interested to see how you do that. I've got to move stuff up and down from the basement, so all my components need to be mobile. I have done both (actually, I didn't use strings, I just draped the sequence of links over dowels), but I came to the conclusion that the final result was basically the same either way, and putting them on the rack is simpler, so that's what I do now. But I have a crappy smoker at the moment... it is probably different if you've got a Bradley. For me the issue has been trading the grid marks from where the sausages sit on the racks for the hassle of hanging them by strings, which, inevitably, produces places where the sausages touch and don't get the heat and smoke they need. I just put those kielbasa and andouille on racks for today and will try to be diligent turning them. Yeah, I've had to make some significant adjustments to the recipes in Ruhlman -- it's one of the reasons I've been so interested to try the more obsessive formulae in the CIA Garde Manger books. So far so good, at least as samples are concerned.

As depicted here, I made the sweet Italian, hot Italian, kielbasa, and andouille sausages from GM. Some initial notes. After being schooled by Ruhlman, whose tone is very affirming and friendly, I'm appreciative of the "do this, do that" tone. In particular, I appreciate explicit instructions about time for creating the bind (different speeds, times, and expectations), and I really stuck to the 28-30F demand. The flavor balance on all of these formulas seemed just right. I had gotten used to needing to do major tweaking all the time, and I didn't do any for this batch.

Thanks to these great step-by-step photos, Chris, I rethought a lot of my own process. I outright stole a few ideas from you here, including using a sheet pan as you fill your sausage spiral. Given your commitment to maintaining temp, I also figured out a way to slide an ice bowl under my KA mixer's bowl, which worked very well. I also had a few thoughts as I read through your post. In the left photo, that grind looks very familiar to me: it's what I got no matter what I did when I used that KA grinder. I think that the mechanics of the grinder are flawed in some fundamental way (power? worm design? blade?) that prevents even well-prepped product from getting a good grind and thus good definition. Compare it to this grind using a Northern Tool grinder (discussed here): There really is nothing quite as horrible as the texture of broken sausages. That experience also teaches you a lot about the importance of mouth feel to flavor: you could be eating some remarkable combination of ingredients and would still have to spit the crap out. In that photo up there of the NT grinder meat, note that the temp was at 30F -- that's after grinding 5 lbs of 28F meat through a 3/8" plate. That goes a long way to reducing my sausage anxiety, let me tell you. Having spent a lot of time in a bread lab at Johnson & Wales recently, I learned a lot about the ways that material heats up in a standing mixer. Smaller amounts allow you to spend less time beating, and that means less heat. If I sound anal about temp nowadays, it's because I am. As you can see from the above, I've taken to sticking a thermometer into the meat at regular intervals, and unless it's in the 28-30F range that the CIA Garde Manger book demands, it goes back into the fridge. That has often meant taking a lot longer than I want to take with the damned things, but I've learned the hard way that investing more time than I planned is better than wasting the time I had planned. We have the same stuffer, I think, and thus the same problem. I bolted mine down to a slab of particle board, which helps a little but, yeah, it would sure be nice to have some set-up with greater security. I've been wondering about drilling bolt holes into a very thick cutting board and figuring out a way to use that.... How do you measure the length as you're twisting off? As you'll see from my andouille, even when I try I never get the lengths consistent. (The lengths of the kielbasa were a product of weak casings.) I don't know about the relationship of temp and flavor here, but I agree that Ruhlman's version of this sausage isn't balanced. Here are a couple of shots from yesterday's link-a-thon. The first was just a prep note. Since I was grinding meat and fat with different plates, I segregated them in one plastic container both during the overnight and then as I ground each. I made 5 lb each of sweet Italian, hot Italian, kielbasa, and andouille using the CIA book. Here are the kielbasa and andouille hanging with a fan to dry: Smoking today. Chris, did you hang them from strings in the smoker or lay them on racks?

Thanks, Maggie. I have a hand-cranked Grizzly stuff that's fantastic, and I'm loathe to switch, especially given the challenge of feeding sticky meat into that feeder channel. That reminds me of one criticism: the plastic plunger works very well when you have cold large dice chunks, but its diameter is probably a good 1" smaller than that of the feeder channel. That made second grinds more difficult and produced meat that picked up more than 2F going through. I'm not surprised. The thing is a powerhouse.

Brought out the new NT grinder today to grind up 20 lbs of Coleman shoulder for 5 lbs each of sweet Italian, hot Italian, kielbasa, and andouille. First impressions are fantastic -- and it's wildly better than the KA. Here it is chilled and ready to go: A shot of the three buttons: It cuts better, faster, and stays colder than the KA ever did. This shot is telling: That's five pounds of shoulder that went into the grinder at 28F. As you can see it barely warmed up while being ground. The definition is also fantastic. It wasn't too loud for my ears, and whatever volume was worth it for the power and speed. As for 176 lbs/hr, I'll never know: I had to scramble to keep up with the grinder, and was regularly feeding more slowly than the machine was grinding. That is to say, it's faster than I'll ever need. I love it. I can try to answer more questions and snap more shots if they'd be useful.

That would be mafé, and the combination works like a charm. In some parts of the world, saying tomato and peanut don't go together is a bit like saying bacon and eggs don't go together....

Since we'll be there for a full week, I'll be very grateful for all the detail you can provide this farang, esp in re addresses and how to get there. I'm very eager to see where and what you eat!

I'll keep an eye out but: what moves you to purchase this elixir?

The Chicago Tribune has a piece today about the new cookbook by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China. I'm a big fan of Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet and was disappointed by Mangoes & Curry Leaves, so I'm wondering what this book will bring. It's out today: anyone got it yet?

That Trinidad Especial looks intriguing, especially with a good homemade orgeat. I'm a big fan of Pink Plymouths, so it doesn't seem daunting at all.

I've been fiddling with pineapple-infused rums lately, and the results have been excellent. Howsabout a pineapple rum fruitcake, using the dried pineapples along with raisins, mangoes, macadamia nuts... with homemade pineapple rum raisin ice cream... sorta like that?

The best scrambled eggs, with shallots, white pepper, and tarragon.

Over here you'll find a topic devoted to the day I spent in a bread baking class at Johnson & Wales yesterday. In some of the photos you'll see these terrific baker's scale scoop bowl things: These double-lipped items can serve as scoops, bowls, and funnels for pouring items into mixer bowls. Most important, they can be used on scales thanks to their footed base. They're everywhere in the labs at J&W but I'm having a hard time finding any on the internet. Here's one example that's not exactly the same but would suffice. Does anyone have any other sources for these?

As a matter of fact, I cannot -- at least not without guessing and likely making a fool of myself. Mitch can take a crack at it when he's on later today!