jbehmoaras

Regarding duck prosciutto, I've had mine in for about 8 days now, they have defintely firmed up a bit but they are still somewhat squishy ... At what point do you think squishy means raw as opposed to ready (As I assume the fat on the breast will never not be somewhat squishy).

Hey guys I was wondering if I could pass along a summary of my progress with the duck prosciutto and get some info regarding the safety of the meat. After curing each breast in salt in the fridge of a little under 34 deg F i wrapped them in cheesecloth and am hanging them in a mini fridge kept at 55 deg and a humidity of around 40 to 50. I was also wondering if any of my additions to the meat could cause botulism such as hoisin sauce to one duck, truffle oil to another, a spice rub to another, and maple syrup and dark brown sugar to another? Keeping in mind all of these flavorings were added before they were covered in salt and the ones with oil and spices were reapplied before wrapping in cheesecloth

I had this idea for cold smoking in a set up similar to yours ronnie but i though of coiling the duct into a bucket filled with water to cool the smoke .... I wonder if that would make a difference ... although you may need to brush some lacquer or something on the coiled duct so that it doesnt rust. On another note, I finally started curing my duck today. I covered one breast with a thin coating of hoisin sauce; another with a mixture of ground clove, ginger, and garlic; another with a half and half mixture of maple syrup and dark brown sugar, and finally the last one i drizzled over with some truffle oil and rubbed it in, cant wait to see how they come out tomorrow after curing for 24 hours, then i'll wrap em up and let them hang for a week.

Thanks for that rule of thumb

Yes and no. Pink salt is 6.25% sodium nitrite. Morton's Tender Quick is a proprietary mixture of sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, sugar, salt and propylene glycol. Because you now don't know the amount of sodium nitrite you're using (and Morton's doesn't seem to share this info anywhere), you don't know if you've got the recipe amount. Does this mean the bacon is unsafe? Not necessarily; it's quite possible to make bacon without sodium nitrite, and it's not super-precise how much gets absorbed in a dry cure. But one of the functions of the nitrite is to prevent botulism, and both too much and too little nitrite can be bad, so I wouldn't go off-recipe until you're sure about what you're doing. So if a recipe calls for pink salt, use pink salt. If you want to make bacon with Morton's Quick Cure, find a recipe that calls for it. Yes, pink salt can be unsafe if used improperly; but so can just about anything, including uncured pork. ← it says half a percent of each nitrate and nitrite

About the use of pink salt to prevent bottulism, I'm somewhat confused about when to use it and when it is not necessary

turns out there are 2 other breasts in my pack, any ideas on how to season the other two, I might try a little maple or something....

Alright guys I'm finally trying my hand at the duck prosciutto as well. I just bought two today. One of them i'm going to slather up with some hoisin sauce before throwing in the cure and the other I think I'm going to coat with some ground ginger garlic and clove and throw in the cure .... What do you guys think about the flavor combos for those?

For those of us that keep kosher but would like to try curing some meats, do any of you think its possible to cure kosher meat. I know that kosher meat is salted in some way, although i dont know about poultry, and I would imagine that curing a meat that already has salt added may produce something that is too salty.

Sorry it took so long to reply ... I've been away and then moved back up to school but about what you said about Campari, I find it to be extremely bitter and have never been able to take more than a sip of it even when mixed in other cocktails that feature it.

My favorite sushi restaurant is Hatsuhana It may not have the same ambiance as the more popular restaurants however, I have tasted my best pieces of sushi at this restaurant. Thy dont spend time with fusion and stay away from superficial aspects of many japanese restaurants. Here sushi is serve in its most basic forms to place emphasis on the profound freshness of the fish served. Of course their toro is excellent, but so are their other pieces of fish. If it hasnt come in fresh, they wont serve it to you and if you sit at the bar you can see that they only serve you the best parts of each filet unlike some other sushi chefs and lower quality restaurants. As others have most definately experienced, some of the best sushi meals come from a discussion with the sushi chef and his recommendations for the day. Once, he recommended some copper river salmon they had just received and I must say, it is the single best piece of sushi i have ever had... and I normally never order salmon. Always having preferred toro over most other cuts , I was surprised to find that the texture was just like chu toro however it had a greater depth of flavor and a slight sweetness to it and it had i deep orange/reddish color that comes from the habitat of the copper river in alaska. It has now dethroned toro to second place on my list.

So I tried a couple different variations on the proportion of the ingredients and I have come to the conclusion that it is very difficult to get a clean rose flavor with dairy, even without eggs or cream ... So I tried to make a sorbet. I used 1cup water 1/2c sugar and 1/4 c corn syrup, 1/8 tsp xantum gum and 1/4 tsp rose water. This was obviously a small batch but i was in the testing stages and I didnt include the rose preserves because the truth is that my jam is vary sweet and doesnt allow me to add enough other sugars to achieve the consistency Im looking for. This sobet doesnt harden enough in my opinion so I'll probably have to jack up the water content along with the rose water which i couldnt taste much either. P.S. I think the evaporated milk is what threw off the flavor as I tasted it from the can and it is very similar to the flavor that I think was getting in the way.

Well I'm going back to turkey this summer so I'll see if I can get a hold of some more ... In the meantime I tried the recipe making a couple substitutions from the original. I used 1/4 cup less sugar and replaced it with 1/4 of the preserves, used only one yolk and used only 1/4 tsp of xanthan ... The problem is once I combined everything, it came out to be extremely sweet. Wo I added 1.5 more cups of milk 1 cup of condensed milk, and a little more rose water to compensate for the dilution and then I ran it through my ice cream machine but unfortunately it turned out kind of icey ... Any suggestions on making it smoother.

Thanks for that tip regarding not adding too much rose water ... This does make sense as it is a suprisingly potent flavor. I do have some rose preserves from turkey that my grandmother made for me so i could use that ... Maybe I'll use that instead of half of the sugar because I would like to have some sugar in there because i have heard that the more types of sugar you can mix together, the better your texture will be (or something remotely along those lines)

I really dont want the xanthan gum to have too much of an effect on the texture, I want to use it more for its ability to prevent too many ice crystals from forming and maybe enhance scoopability

Good idea regarding the amount of eggs ... about using rose petals, the problem is i dont know where i could find any edible rose flowers right away as i was planning on making the ice cream tonight

I wanted to add a disclaimer ... I havent tested this out yet so I'm not sure how the proportions are going to work out. The only thing that will really be questionable is the amount of evaporated milk and xanthan gum as I dont use these as much. And I dont know if four eggs will be too overwheling to allow the rose water to come through.

I wanted your input on this recipe for rose gelato I'm came up with while at work today. My goal is for it do be a dense and scoopable ice cream that is sweet but no overwhelmingly sweet. 2c milk 1/2c sugar 1/4c white corn syrup 4 egg yolks -- rose water maybe 1 tsp xanthan gum 1/2 cup of evaporated milk Put together the milk, half the sugar, and the corn syrup, heat until first bubbles come. Meanwhile whisk the yolks untill ribbon stage with the rest of the sugar. Temper with the milk and slowly incorporate. Heat untill it coats the back of a wooden spoon. Then and the evaporated milk and the gum and add enough rose water untill it tastes like you just put in a tad too much. Cool down mixture in the fridge overnight and put it in the ice cream maker

Although I havent sampled anything yet, yesterday I visited R4D to pick up a few of will's willpowder products, and I have to say, Will's passion for the community and the dishes he serves really came through. Within a minute of selecting some of the willpowder selections on the shelf, Will came out to greet me and my girlfriend. The funny thing is that last night i was thinking to myself how great it was that he was really interested in what I was doing and others in the eGullet community. There was nothing pretentious about him and he welcomed me to email him anytime if I had any questions. At one point during our conversation, his two co-workers at the bar came over to discuss a tequilla cassis drink and it was really interesting to see the way they were discussing ways to improve the drink. If I didnt know beforehand who the head chef was, I still wouldnt have known after watching them talk about the drink. Although I dont have much experience in the kitchen, I have had a stage at daniel and the four seasons in london and the head chefs or sous chefs still seemed to give of this hierarchical sense of superiority when discussing ideas with cooks working below them. I hope to actually dine at R4D soon but I thought it was worth mentioning that the philosophy of trying to be part of the community that Will has tried to convey at his place really came through ... He also is trying to extend that feeling beyond Spring ST. and on to egullet as he is hoping to add some links to egullet on his website sometime soon

What kind of stabilizer did you use, I cant seem to figure out which is a good one for ice cream let alone a place that sells them for home cooks other than will's website.

I was thinking about making the dry cured duck breast but then I wondered why not use the recipe that includes maple syrup but instead use hoisin or plum sauce ... Any reason why this may not work?

How about mini tiramisus?

well cricklewood would be the one to about roasting figs in honey but I wouldnt be surprised if it had to do with cooking the fings with some honey over low heat in a saucepan or roasted in the oven in a pyrex dish. I was actually thinking of carmelizing them in a pan with a little butter and brown sugar and then after carmelizing the figs, deglasing the pan with a little cognac or something.

What do you guys think of using this to dry up some sour cream and try to make some chips with sour cream powder lightly seasoned on when chips come right out of the fryer

I keep hearing raw figs as being the issue in this thread and others ... Hopefully I'll find some more fresh figs and retry making fig gelato.