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davidkeay

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Everything posted by davidkeay

  1. I had good luck covering lamb heart chunks in a seasoning like you use on chinese lamb skewers - cumin, ground chiles, salt, and MSG - then cooking in a super hot pan until it was still nice and pink inside. I've read about using it raw, like in a kibbeh, so I did reserve a little and prepare it like a tartare... also successful, but we preferred the cumin flavored cooked version. I wish I could get heart more consistently... the butcher I got that from is great, but you can never guarantee that they'll have the interesting spare parts!
  2. I just had a look at this on Amazon. I like that it doesn't have any odd stuff in it. Can you tell me what the typical shelf life is? And is the chicken one the only one you use? Thanks!Yep - the ingredient list is one of the things I like about it. I've kept it around for a few months without a problem in the fridge, though I'm careful about using very clean utensils with it. I presume you could get roughly infinite shelf life by portioning it out and freezing it. I've never tried anything but the chicken, because it's the most versatile in my mind. I usually see the small containers (1.5 oz, perhaps) of it in slightly upscale stores... if you try some of the others, I'd love to hear how they are!
  3. I buy the pints of B0010ON2AK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0010ON2AK&linkCode=as2&tag=egulletcom-20">this off amazon... I don't usually use it for soups, but I'll add it to braises, vegetables, and sauces. I find it's the closest thing to having actual homemade reduced stock around. I don't recall if I can tell a difference between their demi-glace and their normal roasted chicken stock, and I lost the label on the one I have now! It's pretty expensive in normal stores, but $18-20 a pound doesn't feel bad to me... a little goes a long way.
  4. I feel like Baron d'Apcher could advise here, given what I've seen him post in the past (even though those pigs look to be half the size you're talking about)!
  5. The ribs sound great, but using that much of the portugese pepper paste does sound like it could end up damn salty. When I'm in new bedford, MA, I usually buy some of the pepper paste and piri piri sauce. They're both fantastic, with a nice slightly fermented flavor. The pepper paste is too salty to just use as a condiment, while the piri piri is a little more manageable (but still easily the saltiest hot sauce I have).
  6. davidkeay

    Sous Vide Duck

    It really does work amazingly well... after the confit cookoff, I had a few bunch of fat and stock after it was all said and done. I just put it into pint containers and let it chill upside down, and the disks of perfect clear stock lifted right off easily!
  7. The liquid is released from the legs as they cooked and is probably not carryover from prep. Most juice evaporates but what is left is SDT (so damn tasty). The gelatin is fantastic in sauces or to moisten rillettes. As long as the fat cap is in place it will keep for quite a while, at least as long as the confit meat. Oh yes, it's great stuff. I just wasn't sure it would be protected by the fat cap the way the meat is. Glad to hear it should be fine. I've got 3/4 of a pint of it in the fridge I get to use up now, which should be fun! I haven't noticed any flavor difference with this batch despite it being half goose fat. For some reason, I can get goose fat cheap ($4/lb) here, but duck still ends up being $10 a pound at best.
  8. I was planning on refrigerating it anyway, so that's good to hear. I also put a pinch of salt in the bottom of the jars, so perhaps that will help keep the gelatin safe (if over salted). Thanks!
  9. I made a large (for me) batch of confit, and put it up in jars today. I noticed that the bottom of some of the jars have some gelatin/stock that settled... I wasn't exactly vigilant about draining all the liquid off the legs that were in the bottom of the pot before moving them to the jar. I assume it was carried over that way, and then settled on the bottom once I covered everything in fat. Is this OK? I had hoped to keep these jars around until at least christmas before eating them... do I need to drain those jars and re-pack it, making sure to strain better than I did, or should I be OK? This was my first time trying to jar the legs whole rather than shredding them first, so I didn't manage to pack them nearly as densely as I usually do. To actually contribute to the thread - I started with 12 long island duck legs. I cured in a mix of salt, garlic, juniper, bay leaves, and thyme. For every 500 grams of duck, I used 8 grams of salt, and let it cure for 24 hours. It was rinsed and then covered in a mixture of half duck and half goose fat. Overnight (~10 hours) in a 220 degree oven, and I woke up to a wonderful smelling house.
  10. This is perfect timing. I am about to finish eating my last batch, and my (until recently vegetarian) girlfriend was pushing for us to make another! It'll be top of my list once we're through Thanksgiving. I'll probably go with a pretty standard duck leg situation, but I can't wait to see what else people post.
  11. Hassouni - do you know if there's any other name to identify the very thin lebanese pita (which still has a pocket, but would be served as a wrap rather than opened)? I used to go to an amazing bakery in Massachusetts that made that, and it ruined me on the thicker pita bread. Nobody in new york seems to make it, so I want to see if I can get close at home. So far, all my searching online has only dug up recipes for the other style. Thanks!
  12. I recently picked up a few kinds of portugese piri piri and am loving them. One is made in NJ and pretty expensive - Mazi's. The other, I picked up in new bedford, MA, and is very similar for about 1/8 the price. They're moderately spicy, oily, and very salty. It tastes like a fermented pepper sauce with capers in it. I haven't had nando's for years, but I don't remember it being anything like this... perhaps the south african and portugese recipes diverged a lot over time. I'm going to have to buy a few bottles next time I'm in MA, since the first one I got there didn't last long. El Yucateco is definitely my go to sauce, though lately I've been using salsa habañera chimay de tabasco black and enjoying it a lot. I buy it online from a guy in texas who imports it. Black (mild, according to that seller) is the only jar I have open, and it's heat is easily on par with el yucateco.
  13. I was a bit taken aback by the prices when I've ducked into Della Pietras, compared to what I pay at heritage meats or albanese. I'm about to move from the LES to clinton hill, and am worried that I'll have to travel pretty far for meat. I guess it'll be an excuse to bike to manhattan, though I'm sure I'll find god places out there too!
  14. davidkeay

    Dry-aged beef

    I'm not sure... generally they would have a sign up for the breed, but in this case, it came straight from the fridge. I'll ask next time I swing by. It came from heritage meats, a great NYC butcher. It's the kind of place where you can't decide what you're going to cook until you're there, since you don't know what surprises they'll have in store. I went to pick up some pork chops, and left with cheeks and lamb heart recently. They usually have a rack of dry aged rib steaks... last weeks were particularly great looking, but I didn't pick one up that day. Unfortunately, they were gone when I went back a couple days later. Photo attached to show off some more interesting marbling.
  15. davidkeay

    Dry-aged beef

    Great, thanks for the additional thoughts! I was feeling pretty anti rehydrating, which is why I came to the experts here. I paid all of $5, so I have a feeling I got my moneys worth just smelling the meat. I can't eat that much dry aged steak anyway, so the eye will be plenty. Anything I get from the rest will be a bonus.
  16. davidkeay

    Dry-aged beef

    That's how I was starting to think about it. The eye looks pretty usable as is. The rest, I'm not sure. I wonder if it could be sliced very thin like cured meat and eaten that way, despite the lack of salt.
  17. davidkeay

    Dry-aged beef

    I just picked up a steak that was aged for 8-10 weeks... it's about 14 oz, but there's a little more for me to trim before it's ready. Given just how old it is, the butcher suggested soaking in warm water for a while to rehydrate parts of it. I thought I'd see if anyone has experience cooking one this dry before I do anything! Not a great photo of it, but gives you an idea of what I'm working with:
  18. davidkeay

    Fennel

    I used to slice fennel into rounds about half an inch thick, do the same with an onion, fry in olive oil and butter until well browned on both sides, then add orange juice and green olives. I really like it, but haven't done it in a few years. Lately, I usually braise equal parts endive and fennel in some chicken stock.
  19. This impresses me. Well put. Dcarch - do you have any photos of the finished dish?
  20. I got one recently after seeing them used in a professional kitchen and like it, though the julienne blade got some bent tines the first time I was using it (on a sweet potato, which did require a lot of force compared to most things I've used with them). Other than that, it's been great.
  21. My girlfriends parents are going to be visiting us in NYC from Omsk, and were asking what foods we'd like them to bring. Being in NYC, we've got a pretty great selection of russian stores out in Brooklyn, so I'm trying to think of something that would be harder to get here. One friend suggested horse meat sausages, which is clever. Does anyone have other suggestions? Specific things you always get when you go to certain countries/cities? I'm reminded of shopping at the Maille store for gifts when I was over in Paris - they had some pretty interesting flavors, and a bunch I've never seen on this side of the ocean.
  22. That makes perfect sense - adding the two weights and going from there. Packing the peppers with 2% salt, and then topping off with a 2% brine is probably what I'll go with next time.
  23. Thanks Martin - that's great info. I will check it out later! The method I had used had me using 2% of the weight of the peppers in salt, and not adding liquid. Would it work/make sense to just make a 2% salt + water brine, and top off the jars with that rather than going with salt based on the amount of peppers I'm using?
  24. Does anyone here make fermented hot sauce? I tried a few months ago and had decent results- a mix of jalapeno and habanero peppers, pureed and mixed with 2% salt, then packed into a mason jar and left in a dark place for 5 days or so. Many recipes go far longer than that, but I was starting to get some mold near the top of the jar (which I hadn't filled completely), so I stopped the process and used them then. I'm going to try it again soon, and will report back.
  25. davidkeay

    About roux

    I think it has to do more with texture than flavor - adding flour directly would lead to lumps. A buerre manie is flour + butter, uncooked, that you use to thicken sauces. There's also things like wondra flour which you can add directly, though I forget offhand what they do to it. See this topic for info about making a butter-less roux and baking the flour to brown it.
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