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polack

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Everything posted by polack

  1. polack

    Rice Pudding

    Would like a good recipe for baked rice pudding. Polack
  2. polack

    Sausage Making

    Jackal, I'm also envious of the oven but for bread making. I have a smoker that will do about 120 rings of sausage but i'm going to have to build the oven. Polack
  3. polack

    Sausage Making

    Not to pick a nit, but dextrose is 100% sugar, is it just slightly less sweet than some other sugars. Fructose, Dextrose (d-glucose or invert sugar), glucose (l-glucose), and sucrose all have different sweetnesses, but are all 100% sugar. An equal weight of each will add an equal tang to the dry-cured product. ← You are right, it should have read 70% as sweet as sugar. Polack
  4. polack

    Sausage Making

    Jackal, When I make sopresatta, I stuf them into beef bungs that I turn inside out and let the fat from the casing dry from the outside air. If you stuff the bung with the fat against the meet there's a chance of your product spoiling. Now when these are cured after about 2 months, they to look brown on the outside but once you slice it you will find a darl mahogany color on the inside. Polack
  5. polack

    Sausage Making

    The dextrose provides an energy source for the bacteria that do the actual curing. Their action turns the dextrose into lactic acid which subsequently raises the acid level (lowering the pH). So you need the dextrose both as a fuel for them, and as a raw material for the manufacture of the acid that actually does the curing. ← Also, the nice thing about dextrose is that it doesn't make the end product as sweet as sugar would, while providing the same properties, as jsolomon points out. Dextrose is 70% sugar and will also add the tang to the dry cured product Polack Ian ←
  6. polack

    Sausage Making

    I didn't read all the posts to see if Rytek Kutek's sauasge making book is a point of reference. I have found it to be a very good starter book for making all types of sausage, fresh, smoked, semi-cured and cured. I used quite a few pointers and of course doctored or made my own recipes for the sausage making. As far as dry curing I waited for cool weather to come before I dry cured, and in a pinch I've used an old non frost free frig. to do some dry curing. Polack
  7. Bakerboy, I live in N.E. Pa and have been looking for a piece of soapstone to make a griddle for my gas stove. Should you have an insight of where I can get one please let me know. Polack
  8. I used Nancy Silverton's recipe, and with the help of Jackal, Boulak, and a few more people, I've made some of the best bread me and my family have ever eaten. She uses 1lb of grapes, stems and all in cheese cloth, with one cup of flour and one cup of water. The grapes are squashed and added to ingredients for 10 days in a closed container. After 10 days the grapes are removed and the starter is strained. You could make bread at this point or you could start feeding it 3 times a day to make larger quantities of bread. Let me tell you it works very good with excellent results. Polack
  9. If you have an old working refrigerator that's not frost free, you can dry cure in it. You want to have the temp. around 40 to 50 F when dry curing.
  10. polack

    Sausage Varieties

    When I was a kid my aunt would stuff sausage casings with the same ingredients as you would in making pierogi's, potato and cheese. She would then fry it in bacon greese or pork fat, delicious.
  11. I knew the Jackal would get into this thread, it's his passion and does very well with it. I used his advice and am reaping the rewards every time I bake bread. I too wait about 20 minutes, after the first knead, before I put the salt to it. When I tried my first loaf I was adding not only my starter, but a tsp of dry yeast and that definitely kept the sour flavor out. Polack
  12. I forgot to mention that I put a small cast iron pan in the oven and when I put the loaves in to bake on the stone, I put the water in the pan, shut the oven door and don't open it until the bread is baked. My oven is set at 400F and it takes roughly 45 minutes for them to bake.
  13. I too used Nancy's recipe and make some of the best bread that I've tasted. When I first started I also didn't have the sour taste like like you mentioned so I asked the people on this site for help. I ran a thread on sourdough starter and here's what some of the answers were for the sour flavor. Let your starter set in a temp. of 85F and let your starter sit a longer period of time without feeding it should make the taste more tart. If you could find that thread, you will find some very good pointers from Jackal, Boulack, and a few others that will get you streightened out. I know when I bake my bread the top crust will get somewhat distorted, good and crispy, and very chewey. I don't know if you stretch and fold but that's one thing Jackal mentioned and I do it 3 to 4 times when I'm proofing the dough. Polack
  14. polack

    Cold smoking steak

    Cold smoking is exactly what it says, smoke with no temperature. This is usually accomplished with a smoke generator. Quite a few large kielbasi producers cold smoke and then steam the product to get to temp., usually 160F. This process takes probably 1 1/2 hours, with little to no shrinkage, thus chiching money in their pocket.
  15. polack

    Rice Pudding

    Jackal, that was about the same recipe my mom used. She would also use raisens and bake it in the oven until the top was browned. I liked it when it sat on the stove to be at room temp. or out of the frig. Also it was real thick and if you wanted liquid you had to put the milk to it. One other thing was she made it in a bigger glass dish that was desert for the day and a little of the next day.
  16. From what I understand is that kitchenaid was bought out by Sears. I don't know what the mixer looks like but if it's true she'll still have the same company. To add to the conversation, I was at a house sale a couple of weeks ago and the person running it showed me an N50 kithenaid made by Hobart, now that's a machine. Polack ← I forgot to mention that he paid $50. for it. So there are deals to be had if you look long enough.
  17. From what I understand is that kitchenaid was bought out by Sears. I don't know what the mixer looks like but if it's true she'll still have the same company. To add to the conversation, I was at a house sale a couple of weeks ago and the person running it showed me an N50 kithenaid made by Hobart, now that's a machine. Polack
  18. I paid more for mine going on 15 years ago. If I remember right it was around $269. Polack
  19. polack

    Bad Home Cookin'

    Allthough my Mother was an excellent cook, especially with what she had, I couldn't get the liver and onions down right. The gravy and mashed potatoes were excellent but the liver was a no-no with me. Polack
  20. I picked up a dual burner stove from Cabela's for about $40. In the smaller smoker I never used two burners to hold heat, all I had to do was keep it on a low flame and it held pretty steady. Matter of fact I would go for hours at a time without having to worry about a temp. problem. The old smoker had about 1" of insulation, while the new smoker is setting with about 2". The best thing about the smoker I got was that it was free with the exception of the pipe and vent, that was about $10 to $15. I have pictures on my daughters camera, if I can figure out how to post them I'll get them on. Polack
  21. For a good 15+ years I was using a ss refrigerator that was the size of a large beer meister. I was able to smoke around 30 rings of kielbasi at a time with no problem whatsoever. All I did was cut a six inch hole in the top and mounted some stove pipe, with a flapper, for a vent. I then cut a 2" hole in the bottom and put a vent plate in it to create a draft. Drilled about a 1" hole in the side for the bottle gas hose, and a small hole in the door for a long stemmed thermometer to be installed and I was good to go. I would start the smoker and let it get up to about 130F for an hour and then crank it up to 160F and add the wood chips. This worked perfect until I needed a bigger smoker and I went to a large ss refrig that is capable of doing 160+rings. Polack
  22. polack

    Cabbage Rolls

    Just was in the company of some people that imigrated from Poland a few years ago and they pronounced it Ga wum kee. As for us we call them piggies and you better get out of the way when they hit the table. My wife makes them with a tomato sauce, my aunt does it with tomato sauce with sour cream, and some other reletives with saurkraut. The best meat filling for me is ground pork and beaf with the rice. Polack
  23. I would definitely have to say how the wonderful world of computers, television, and other forms of media, has opened the eyes of people that are interested in satisfying their friends and reletives with their cooking skills. Hey, 15 years ago it was lucky to have just a few cooking shows on TV, and they were on PBS on Saturday afternoon. Today there's TV channels dedicated soley to cooking and better still there's sites like this that can answer a cooking question in a heart beat. Yeh, to me it opened up a new world of cooking when you can communicate with people with the same interests. Polack
  24. All I want to know is, for that price where's the engines and wheels?
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