Mallet

This article clinched the Kuhn Rikon for me, as I am primarily planning to use it for stocks and stews. I went with the 8 Qt Duromatic, should be getting it in a few weeks.

Another option, if you have an electric stove, would be to install a PID and temp probe to one of your elements (link to previous thread).

I just picked up a copy yesterday. I had only heard of Momofuku on eGullet in passing, but the book immediately drew me in and I felt compelled to buy it. Can't wait to start cooking from it.

I'd like to try curing a Canada Goose breast. Canada Geese are much leaner than domestic ducks (nearly no fat), and the meat is much darker- almost like beef. I'm not sure that that the duck prosciutto recipe would be appropriate, perhaps a bresaola cure would be better?

That's really cool! I see that Spruce Grouse is more closely related to Willow Ptarmigan than it is to Ruffed Grouse. I've eaten Spruce Grouse before, and it is also dark meated, probably not entirely unlike Ptarmigan. The individual I sampled had probably been eating conifer needles, since it had pronounced but not unpleasant spruce undertones. The only other grouse species I've had is Blue Grouse, which was intermediate in color between Ruffed Grouse and Spruce Grouse. Ruffed grouse is actually my least favourite of the bunch (being very relative, since they're all delicious), precisely because it is the least distinctive.

For the food that I eat at home I'd say we are pretty good locavores. By that I mean if there's a local alternative we usually by it. Using Ontario as my local area and the same breakdown as Chris: Produce: Highly dependent on season. I'd say we fluctuate between 50-80%. As with Chris, bananas are a big outlier as are clementines in the winter. In general though, we buy very few citrus. Fresh herbs are possibly grown in province, although I confess I don't check. In the winter, we eat a lot of root vegetables. Meat, Poultry, & Fish: 90% local. We buy very little fish (mostly wild sockeye salmon, less than once per meat). Starches: Not local, although mostly canadian (prairie provinces) Drinks: Most beer I buy is brewed in province (but who knows where they're getting their ingredients). We don't buy a whole ton of wine but when we do it's about 50% local. Dairy: 90% local,apart the odd french cheese. We're fortunate to gave a great artisanal cheese industry in Ontario. Miscellaneous: cooking oil, soy sauce, sugar, dried mushrooms, salt, spices... 1% local. I made my own pepper flakes this year I'd like to tally up the real figures and see how they stack up to my perception of my household habits. If we factor in meals eaten out though, it all goes out the window.

The prices for SVM seem to be creeping up, with the 2 models going for $140 and $170. You should easily be able to get a used immersion circulator for that price or less (especially factoring in the extra cost of a large rice cooker or roasting pans etc..). I bought a mint-condition, perfectly clean analog circulator for about $120. For the price, SVM is not worth it IMO.

Ok, I'm sold. DEATH TO SKIMMING!!

We're starting to build up our wild edibles inventory for the annual game dinner. We had one good day of Canada goose hunting, which yielded us 5 geese (without any decoys or calls, mind you), and we're planning to up the ante on the small mammal front in the next few weeks. So far, we have: -4 Canada geese: breasts, legs, and carcasses separated -2 ruffed grouse: boneless, skinless -Deer: I believe it's some pieces of an old-ish buck -2 mallards: whole -2 wood ducks: whole -2 squirrels: whole -1 large halibut fillet -1 sockeye salmon fillet -dried morels and chanterelles -sour cherries, and raspberries We may be getting some bear and/or moose meat from friends, and we're hoping to add some other small game (rabbits, more squirrels, etc..) to the total before we're done. We're not likely to do the dinner until after New Year's, so lots of time to gather further and plan. Any ideas?

Congratulations to the Atelier team! I hope to return this winter when I'm visiting family.

On that note, the adductor mussel on oysters is super-tasty when raw. Next time you shuck some oysters scrape off the bits on adductor muscle left on the upper shell and taste it, it's impossibly sweet.

Well, the big day has come and gone, and the pig roast was quite a success! I don't really have much to add to the procedure given above, except that we added sheet metal to the bottom of the baskets to help build up the ash/heat. I think our efficiency of wood usage roughly doubled as a result. The pig took about 9 hours to finish (it was roughly 100 lbs dressed).

Wow, that looks fantastic! How big are scottish grouse compared to, say, ruffed grouse (or perhaps blue grouse, which I think are more common on the west coast)?

Sounds like a great experiment! Too bad I'm allergic to mussels ... I've never tried pickled oysters, perhaps I'll try a similar experiment over the christmas holidays when I have ad lib oysters...

Hunting season has started in Ontario. Hopefully I'll have something to post in the coming days/weeks/months

I purchased the bucket less than 2 years ago, and probably used it less than 10 times. Is it possible that the sanitizer could have weakened the plastic? I was mixing up big batches of Diversol and immersing my bottles in the bucket before starting a batch (I'm switching to another sanitizer though, as Diversol seems to basically be powdered bleach and the price recently doubled).

I haven't eaten out much lately, but I think a lot of the old recommendations on this thread still stand. If you like Cambodian/Thai food then Cambodiana or Cambodian Village are both good places worth checking out for lunch. Pan Chancho is another good place for lunch, as is the smoked cod fish 'n' chips at the Pilot House. You mught want to check out Luke's for dinner since you missed out last time. Luke was recently featured in Toronto Life (link). Aqua Terra should still be a good bet. As for new places, I don't think there are that many in the downtown core (Olivea is on the market square, right next to Casa Domenico, and Luigina has been reincarnated as Sotto Sopra). Chien Noir is moving more towards named ingredients. There's also a new sushi place downtown (Sima on Princess at King St), I went when it had just opened and found it much better than TaKe.

Speaking of weakened buckets, I recently left home for about a few weeks and left a batch of beer behind, When I came back I found the apartment smelling a little yeasty and my bucket standing in a pool of beer! Cracks had started to form on the bottom rim. Fortunately, I only lost about 1L to the floor (I threw out the remaining for fear of contamination). Is this a common occurrence with plastic buckets?

I've noticed that vacuum-packing my sausages and letting them sit in the fridge for a month or two (or more) dramatically improves their flavour. It's hard to resist eating everything right away, though.

Wild game loves sous-vide! Here's a link to a game dinner I made last spring, most of the meat was cooked sous-vide.

Well, it's not that far removed from hodge podge, minus the cream

I agree that catching the drippings would be great, but I'm not too sure how to implement it. The pan would have to be huge to catch all the drippings, and how would you keep all the ash from the fire out?

By all means! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the lamb because I was busy carving it. I would say this is pretty close. I didn't really have much to do with the details of the event, but I think my dad managed to pick up a whole lamb at the local SuperStore (the Barrington St. one, for the Haligonians out there: they have a great meat counter). It was definitely Nova Scotia lamb, which is primarily marketed through the Northumberland Lamb Co-op.

I'm prone to not really thinking ahead and to making grandiose plans, but sometimes people actually indulge me. For example, when I decided to handle the food for my wedding, no one objected. Why on earth would I do such a thing? Mostly, because it's a fun, informal family gathering and northern NB has not much by way of catering (to my knowledge). We're also doing all the decorations, handling accommodations for guests etc..., but that's another story. We decided to go the spit-roast route, and rather than buy a commercial rig, we decided to design a spit and have it made for us locally. My dad and I used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's pictures in the River Cottage Meat Book as a guide, and drafted some plans. Here is the result. The most salient feature of this design is its dual fire pits. The idea is to make all the heat indirect, which minimizes the chances of burning and also makes it easier to add large quantities of fuel at a time. the pit The pits are approximately 6 x 2 x 1 ft. The top is stainless steel, while the bottom is not, but has been painted with some sort of heat resistant BBQ paint. There's also a cross bar for support, and the whole thing can be taken apart (you can see the bolts holding the structure together above). If I had to redo-it, I would put another set of nuts on the vertical face, but the cross bars do a great job stabilizing the whole thing so it's a minor point. The bottom and inside faces are made of mesh to keep airflow high, while the sides as solid to redirect heat. the crank This is the crank. We left room at the other end to attach a motor, but I insisted there at least be a manual option in case the motor breaks down. The handle is made of teflon, so it shouldn't burn or melt. It locks in 8 different positions with the help of the large stainless steel disk and locking pin (the t-shaped thing at the bottom). To rotate the shaft, simply remove the pin and crank. The shaft is set in two pilot bearings, which rotate incredibly smoothly. The barely visible hooks in this picture are to adjust height. The pilot bearings are bolted on to an inverted "U", which engages the hooks. To adjust the height two people are needed to lift the bar and set it onto the desired hooks. Not the most fun job when the fire is roaring, but I've found height adjustments not very necessary (it's much easier to simply modulate the fire). Before the wedding, we thought it would be a good idea to put the spit through its paces, and it just so happened that we had another occasion to celebrate! My family is in the oyster business, and we just opened NB's first commercial shellfish hatchery. The grand opening was last weekend, and after the press conference, I ran off to my aunt's house to start a fire. the fire This thing cranks out epic heat. For the first hour or so we just tried to built up a good amount of ambers. The aluminium foil is there because my aunt didn't want me to mess up her tiles, although in retrospect putting little wood weights there was not a great idea (it all basically vaporized). For our inaugural run, we decided to roast some lamb (40lb) and some chickens (10lb each). The shaft, is quite large (1.5 in square), so getting it through was a bit of a challenge. I've heard some people use different size shafts depending on what they are roasting, we managed to fit everything on there. I simply rubbed the meat with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. the meat You can see that the meat is raised fairly high above the pits, even on the lowest setting. We burned about 6 cubic feet of wood every half an hour throughout the process (over the 3.5 hour cook time we burned about a quarter of a cord of mostly maple and beech). I was turning it randomly (more erratically as I drank more), but I would guess it amounted to a quarter turn every 20min. nearing completion At this stage I was putting on wood towards the ends only, for two reasons. One was to avoid overcooking the ribs (which are much thinner), and also, to cook the chicken well. I was quite surprised at how evenly everything cooked. After about 3.5 hours, we decided to pull everything off. By this time, the chickens were at ~160F, and the lamb was ~150F, with a bit color left in the thickest parts. done carving I was convinced the lamb was going to be dry and overcooked, but my relatives insisted the meat be well done (I would normally pull it off closer to 120-125F if I was roasting a joint at home). I was wrong. Everything was delicious and juicy owing to the fact that the fat and collagen managed to break down. Not bad for a first try! It was really great to have a chance to do a test run before the big day in 3 weeks, I'm planning on roughly doubling the cooking time for a 90 lb pig (8-9 hours).

Holy F**k! 5690 mg of sodium is 14,225 mg of salt! That's like two tablespoons of Diamond Crystal Kosher salt per portion! !!!! (for emphasis)