Jamieson22

This cookbook was the first thing I pulled out when the weather turned a bit colder here in Chicago, and yesterday was the perfect rainy fall day to be able to braise the Caribbean Pork Shoulder that had been marinating for a day. It was a standard 6 or so pound butt, with a decent fat cap on one side. Braised for a bit more than 4 hours with temp being eventually dropped to about 270 degrees. This was served with a russet/yukon gold mixed mashed potatoes and creamed spinach with a touch of horseradish. The pork was delicious, silky and tender. I think for the leftovers I will reduce the sauce down a bit, as the marinade flavors were not very strong. Overall a delicious and VERY easy meal to prepare. I am quite excited that it is once again braising season Jamie BTW-> This might be a good place to ask but I grabbed a Staub Round 2 Quart Cocotte when Amazon had it for $29; just too good a deal to pass up. Now I am curious of things I can make in it? I generally prefer to make large batches of things to vac seal and freeze, so doubt I'd use it for micro versions of recipes. Any good side dishes that would work well?

I can't see why thighs wouldn't work out well, or even better. Jamie

I should have had this cookbook overnighted to me, as the wait for it was excruciating! Thanks to all the thread contributors that sold me on it! Having more bone-in skin-on chicken breast in my freezer than anyone should (thanks to a B1G1 free sale at CostCo) and realizing I had everything else need except for hard cider, I decided to make Chicken Breast Braised with Hard Cider & Parsnips on my virgin voyage into this book. I used 4 oz of my homemade maple-cured smoked bacon and Woodchuck Amber Hard Cider. I can say that I wish I had more options for Hard Cider as I would have liked something a bit more dry than sweet, but the store I went to had a limited selection But that is such a small complaint as the dish was incredible! You will have to forgive the lackluster presentation, as this was made just for fun for lunch, and was only served to me Can't wait to pick a second thing to make from it! Jamie

I have a Le Creuset manual from a new pot and it says do not exceed 200C (which would be 392F). Jamie

Ronnie- Your advice was spot on. Thanks again for all your help! Can't wait to see the tasso pics and details, as I am thinking I may do that next. Jamie

Just wanted to say hello as this is my first post. To get the introduction out of the way, I am Jamie and live in Chicago, IL. Found the site after searching for more info on sausage making to help hone some skills (whatever skills I actually have) and discovered this thread. I had heard mention of the cookbook in the past but after reading this thread I couldn’t get it fast enough. I have had a Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) for 5 or so years and my only past curing experience was 25lbs of Buckboard Bacon (pork shoulder) I had made last year. I decided to start by making the maple cured bacon and pastrami. Started curing them last Saturday and finally put the meat to the smoke yesterday. One thing is thank you again to Ronnie_Suburban, who I mailed with a few pastrami questions. Mainly I can get packer cut briskets cheap, but would pay a fortune for flats. Seemed a waste to trim out the flat from a packer, so I wanted to cure the whole cut. Based on Ronnie’s advice I brought the cure up to 7 days instead of 3. As I had a 13lb brisket, I also increased the brine recipe 2.5x. I had 2 bellies for bacon, one I cut into 2 pieces the other; I left whole as it didn’t weigh 5 lbs. In the end the quality of these bellies left something to be desired, but the taste of the finished product was fantastic. I can’t wait to try it again with better quality belly. I also skipped the 12-24 hours of drying in the refrigerator, which I assume is to form a good pellicle for smoke adhesion. As can be seen in my fridge pic, curing 13lbs of brisket and 14lbs of bacon does not leave much room. As I wanted to do these in one smoke, it just made sense to skip that step. Talk about a full fridge. Try living with this for a week… Here is the pastrami rinsed, rubbed and ready to go on the smoker: Here is the pastrami after about 5.5 hours of smoke, ready to be pulled to start the braising: This is the pastrami on the range, waiting for braising water to simmer: After a ‘3-hour braise’ (sung to Gilligan’s theme song), the pastrami waits to be sliced. One thing that surprised me was how much of the coriander/pepper crust stayed on during the braise. It really didn't look much different: Finally get to slice it. There are not many meals that take a week to prepare (at least that I have made), but this was worth EVERY day of it. The meat was so incredibly tender, but still maintained plenty of moisture. I wish there was a way to take a picture of the smell of braising pastrami through the house... Here is the bacon, rinsed and ready for the smoker (two other pieces are wrapped in paper towels under this one): The bacon is off the smoker and ready to be chilled and sliced. One thing I can say about the bacon is that it has a really nice balance of sweet from the maple syrup and sugar in the cure, and a good salty edge to it. You can tell these were cut with meaty spare ribs in mind, so the quality of the bacon suffered a bit. The top belly in the picture above basically had a single 1/16" strip of meat running through it. That entire belly (near 5 pounds) will be frozen and used for cooking. Here is the sliced bacon porn none the less, with dreams of better quality bellies for next time: Jamie