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Is that bad? I Believe Niman Ranch does the same thing

I always do keep refrigerated. the garlic is cooked to temp for 20/30 minutes reducing the AW. Then the garlic is not kept in the oil It's also important to note botulism comes from the soil and is a good idea to wash / rinse the peeled cloves and remove the stem end. Personally i am satisfied this will keep safely refrigerated for 7 to 10 days or longer frozen

Garlic confit. Peel garlic, then into a small sauce pan cover 3/4 with olive oil and place on low heat until completely soft with no color. Place in a food processor or blender with enough oil to make a smooth puree. Reserve puree and any extra garlic oil. Great in pasta sauces, aioli. Vinaigrettes ect ect.

I personally think the bigger birds are more flavorful but all I've seen recently are the smaller ones at TJ's at first I could easily get 3.5 -4lb birds but now all I see are under 3lbs. My suspicion is the TJ's account has forced them grow pretty fast and they are keeping the older / larger birds for the main brand. Like @blue_dolphin mentioned When in doublt I get an air chilled bird for me it's the best chicken i can get in a supermarket. I.e. With out going to Chinatown and getting one freshly dispatched. Sounds like you have some great options out there though! I'm jealous.

That's funny I really, really like those Trader Joes Heirloom birds and suspect they are the Cooks Venture brand. Simply roasted they are nice and are lightly gamey -maybe they aren't the best ever but a tremendous value and better than the Mary's Chicken & Jidori IMO but sure maybe not better than what you get locally in NYC

I like the lighter one especially for getting a nice sear on veg like leeks if i'm going to braise them

Frenchies FTG in Paris has been doing this as well! https://www.instagram.com/p/CNIRXpXpjyB/?utm_medium=copy_link

David Rosengarten's old book 'It's all American food'goes into this. Really underrated.

Defrosting in the fridge is the most gentle way of doing it but I think most people do the quick defrost method like you with perfectly acceptable results

This sounds like a fun idea!

Lol I don't know how it works in China but here Government inspectors don't have much of a sense of humor I've found

Just eat it with as much gusto as JT! https://vimeo.com/337867034

Was just going to say the same thing! Love me some yaki onigiri! Tsukune is high on the list of favorites as well 🤩 He looks so happy eating the octopus 🐙

I'm sure you know this already but the book 'Let's eat France' has a nice couple pages on these including this blurb which might be of interest

I haven't seen the new Frantzen book yet, but it looks really good. Now Serving Los Angeles is carrying it and I've been thinking about picking it up. I thought the Relae Cookbook by Christian Puglisi was really good. Noma is a little out there for me, I do like the fermentation book though -very good and clearly written

Maybe get some whole chickens, separate out the legs / thighs but leave the breasts attached to the bone that way you can slow roast them on the bone then carve off the bone after resting. How about doing something with Mortadella ? it doesn't get more fine textured than that! Cube and skewer, brush on some HP sauce (make your own mortadella if you want to go all out -actually not that hard!) Pork loin IDK I wouldn't do it if I couldn't do some kind of yogurt/onion/spices type marinade with it. I guess you could do it Cuban style (just google cuban pork loin) nothing challenging or spicy there, personally I prefer pork butt for this but it is common to do with the loin

The cut at the end of the loin is properly called the 'Pluma'. I think it's more that American butchers are doing what ever they want lol. Presa is a seprate cut as well. You have to scroll down a bit but the link below compares the 3 cuts.. https://nafood.com/spanish-iberico-pork/

I thought the secreto was in between the shoulder and belly like a pork skirt steak? At least according to Charcutería..

From my sleuthing looks like the picture was taken when he did the BBC show 'One pair of eyes' in 1973 that picture was taken at a press reception. That's as far as I got though!

Picking up some books outside of Now Serving in Chinatown Los Angeles! The top one is the fancy Gestura spoon

Hah! 75 is considered pretty cool here a good portion of the year here is southern California and I imagine most of the Southwest United States. You just have to factor in AC into your costs and refrigerated displays?

I just took a look at their menu. wOw. The creativity, beautiful plating & really reasonable prices. amazing

Bienvenidos Umar, I was a practicante at M.Berasategui many (many) years ago! You are lucky there is a very tight knit Chef community there in Spain. If you have any questions or something to share, just jump in and ask!

@weinoo what are the little 'packages' on their soup? a pasta of some sort.. Looks great!

That's such a terrible idea. So, when I'm braising 80lbs of bone in short ribs for hours at a time I do... what?! Don't forget I have a full case of brined pork bellies that need to be braised, cooled, pressed, then portioned out. Or that case of Kabocha that needs to be roasted because I'm making 20 quarts of pumpkin soup to last me 3 days??