Chris Hennes

I see lots of discussion here about smoking, and some tidbits on cold smoking, but the only temperature advice I see given is to keep the temp below 90 degrees F. Is there an "optimum" temperature for cold smoking? Food-dependent, maybe? It is getting a bit chilly here in Central Pennsylvania, and my cold-smoking rig is a bit "ghetto"... I have a bullet-style smoker that I have made a new lid for that directs the smoke through a piece of dryer hose into a Rubbermaid "smoke box." Therefore, there is basically no protection from the elements. Will this be a problem in the dead of winter?

This is just about what I do. In theory, I have a half dozen or so things that I want to make for the week, but as the week goes by I continuously change my mind. So I "over-shop" at the grocery store (e.g. even if I don't think I will make curry this week, I make sure to have coconut milk on hand). The proteins can be adapted to depending on weekly specials, mid-week whims, etc. I meal plan to make sure I have a list of things I can tell my wife are on the "dinner options" list when we get home from work: I find that just saying, "I dunno, what do you want" doesn't go over real well... Just because the list changes day to day, and always includes an "other" option doesn't mean I didn't plan, it just means I didn't follow it.

I don't understand the knock against yeast packets. On average I probably make a dozen loaves of non-sourdough non-quick bread over a year - since yeast has a shelf life, it is cheaper to buy a few packets to have on hand for when the whim strikes me. Kraft Mac n Cheese, scary-looking stuff that it is, is the stuff of my childhood. Every now and again I just *want* some. Yes, on some level my homemade is "better," but it doesn't always hit the right spot. American cheese, on the other hand... doesn't your deli sell slices of real cheddar? You don't even get the convenience points here, they are the same! Repeat after me: "cheese is not orange!"

Or, you could put a lawn chair next to your smoker and "baste" yourself with the brandy while the bacon smokes . Maybe it's the brandy I have on hand right now, but I would think that minus the alcohol, the brandy flavor would come across as a smoky, "brown-suggary"-type flavor, which would seem to be redundant in a slab of bacon.

I got a George Foreman mini-rotisserie for Christmas one year: no complaints about the cooking results, but the cleanup was a bit of a pain. I basically just switched to brining and high-heat roasting when I got sick of cleaning the thing.

When you say "half," do you mean you are going to fully break it down and part it out, splitting by weight? Tough to spit-roast half a pig, too . If you're going to be breaking it down and are just looking for ideas for the more "exotic" parts, I'll second (or is it third?) Nose-to-tail eating. While Ruhlman's book is great for things like shoulder, loin, etc., Henderson is more focused on the offal.

I've had the duck breasts curing for about a week, and they still seem quite soft - I thought after a week they would be at least mostly firm. Maybe it is because of their size? Or am I doing something wrong? Pre-cure: Post cure, ready for the cooler:

Some bacon (pictures here) and a new one for me, Ruhlman's Jagerwurst recipe (pictures here). The bacon was an all afternoon affair, but the Jagerwurst was around 2 hours. Combination of applewood and hickory.(I guess one of these days I oughta figure out how to use imagegullet...)

My understanding is that instant( rapid-rise) yeast is specifically designed for single-rise breads, and should not be proofed, but rather mixed directly in with the dry ingredients. I use it for breads with a rise-punchdown-rise cycle, but I've never tried a second punchdown-rise with instant. Of course, anyone out there who knows better, please correct me!

Wow, I just saw your blog: http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/2007/09/pur...ion-box-it.html Know anyone who has used one for curing? Only $100 shipped, small, silent, sounds perfect! Just what I need, more kitchen gadgets .

Great, thanks. I consider the duck prosciutto to be a "proof-of-concept" for the cooler/ice-pack system, to see if the approach is reasonable. My conclusion is that for longer-term cures it is not, at least for me, due to the daily maintenance required. My memory is not that good . Though maybe after a month it just becomes part of the daily routine...

You all are my heroes: everything in here looks amazing. I picked up Charcuterie about a year ago and have been working my way through it: it is my goal to try every recipe in the book (well, maybe excepting the foie gras sasuage... I'm not sure I could do that to a beautiful piece of foie!). I'm currently trying a dry-cure for the first time and wondered how sensitive it is to temperature variation. I am keeping it in a cooler with an ice pack that I replace every day, so the temp swings around quite a bit: it is always between 50 and 60 degrees, but I wonder if the constant temperature cycling will adversly affect the final product (duck prosciutto). Anyone have any idea? For anyone with a cured meat fetish, I've got some photo albums of my previous attempts (good and bad...) here.

I think this is basically right, though the particle size is also smaller, and I believe a different yeast strain in used (these two facts help to explain why you don't proof instant yeast - it grows too quickly and is wasted before it gets into the dough).

My only advice is this: don't buy the ones that are "semi-programmable." I had this one (until just last week, when I finally got frustrated enough to put it out of its misery ) : http://www.jardenstore.com/product.aspx?bid=17&pid=2632 It only lets you set it for two different times, and switches to "warm" after that. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I think the programmable ones are not necessary, and can be harmful, in this case. Simple is good.

I picked up a few fresh duck legs this morning and was thinking just that - a low slow heat with as little O2 as possible. I've got 4 legs to experiment with, and they're not pricey: My home version of SV is a stockpot on the stove at 60C +/- a few degrees. Those bags in which they are stored look better than what my vacuum sealer can do so I'm thinking "why not stick them in the bath as is, pricetags and all?" ← I'm leery cooking anything without adding seasonings (at least salt!) as a matter of principle. I think the plastic is probably fine to those temps, but of course you never know if you didn't buy it yourself. As a side note, wow, that is a nice price on those legs . I guess I'm used to the Moulard from Hudson Valley Foie Gras - tasty, but a bit pricier than that!

The pecan pie will freeze OK, but the pumpkin won't - the problem is the dairy, I believe.

This should probably go in some sort of "food shame" thread, but Quaker's got a new instant product out that I tried for the first time yesterday: not strictly oatmeal, they call it "Simple Harvest Instant Multigrain Hot Cereal." It's oatmeal based, but with a bunch of other grains in it. Way, way better than their regular instant stuff (mostly due to it's texture, IMO). Maybe I'm just a sucker for anything with pecans in it...

When I do this I go directly into the oven from frozen, at the same temp. the original recipe calls for, and I think for about 10 minutes longer. Obviously, the 10 minutes is going to depend on your oven and temperature. Also, I don't brush with the egg wash until right before baking, rather than before freezing. Edited to add: I've never tried keeping pies like this for a long time - a week or two at most. I don't know how well they will hold up over the long term, but make sure that once they are frozen solid you re-wrap them very thoroughly.

How much Rapid Rise did you use? Is this from a jar or a packet? I have made this substitution in highly-flavored breads like this in the past without much trouble, as long as the yeast is alive, but that's always the trick, esp. with rapid rise where you don't typically "bloom" it first.

Being in Central PA right now, I can vouch that at least not everyplace puts marinara on them - but there does seem to be a distinct lack of meat! When I'm in Philly everyone is advertising their "original half pound cheesesteaks" -- out here we're lucky to get 3 oz. I find that even in the immediate vicinity of Philly there is a lot of variation: my brother-in-law works at a place that makes great cheesteaks, where the default cheese is a provolone-mozzarella mixture. The place down the road only uses provolone, and a little further down is another place that swears by cheez-wiz. Depending on who you talk to, any one of these is the "classic Philly cheesesteak." But don't even get me started on the "cheesesteaks" in Iowa. Ack!!!

My wife can't slice bread. I don't understand the difficulty, but she always ends up crushing the loaf. For a while I tried to show her how, but obviously I'm a crummy teacher... now she just hands me the knife.

I have done this on several occasions - it works quite well. Baking time increases, of course, and the crust suffers a small bit, but considering the alternative (no apple pie!), I think it's worth it.

When I'm eating a banana there is usually so much peanut butter or Nutella involved that the ripeness is irrelevant . Though I do have to use more on riper specimens.

Have you considered going the opposite direction and leaving it even coarser? I think with pesto (the traditional sort, anyway) there is a sort of "sweet spot" where the grind is fine enough not to have large chunks, but coarse enough to have some textural interest. Maybe even to the point of adding nuts?

Interesting. I wonder what the actual temperature exposure would be on my hypothetical road trip. Let's say, for example, you drove from New York City to Los Angeles and back, with various stops along the way, and you did that drive in May and June. There are a bunch of times when major heat is not an issue: nighttime on most of the route should be in the 70s F or lower, any time the vehicle is in motion (because the air conditioning is on), colder days, cloudier days, days when you're parked in a covered or indoor lot. The big temperature shocks are going to be when you park during the day in direct sunlight. The car can easily exceed 50 C (122 F) in that situation. But it's not going to be all day every day for a month. It's more likely to be a few hours at a time, on some percentage of the days. There's also the fact that it takes the milk time to heat up. So if you started the day out at 65 F, and you parked in a lot where the car went up to 122 F and stayed at that temperature for 3 hours, at least some of that 3-hour interval would be taken up by the liquid rising from 65 F to 122 F. I haven't got a clue how the totals would work out. ← Like most interesting questions, the answer is not straightforward . My guess is that occasional heating and cooling will not substantially harm the milk over such short timespans (hours), but who knows? For some things it is the cycling that does the harm, not the remaining at a fixed temperature. Faced with the same situation, I'd be inclined to bring some along and rotate it out with a fresh supply after a couple of those hot afternoons (assuming you are traveling the somewhat-beaten path and there are stores that sell UHT milk nearby). Or a cooler filled with ice (or even just water, to minimize the temperature fluctuations).