Raw/Cooked

Wow - there are some great sounding menus here! I did all the cooking for Christmas Eve and day this year, so no time to post till now. For Christmas Eve we did the traditional Italian fish dinner. My maternal grandparents were from the Lazio region and many of the dishes I made this year were things that my grandmother used to make and that I grew up eating: Baccala salad with potatoes, roasted peppers and boquerones Stuffed baby squid (stuffed with the tentacles, spinach, pecorino and bread crumbs) Spicy braised cuttlefish Baccala stewed with tomaotes, onions, and raisins Mussels with wine, garlic and parsley Fried flounder (leftovers are now pickling in wine vinegar, wine, onion, and bay leaves) Fruit, nuts, espresso, and grappa for dessert Christmas Day I prepared a meal that could have come out of my paternal grandmother's kitchen: Roasted leg of lamb with mint sauce Roasted potatoes (English style: boiled first then roasted in the drippings from the lamb) Cauliflower braised in wine Salad Plum Pudding with hard sauce (thanks to Jackal10 for the recipe) Thankfully we're having a bunch of friends over tonight to help with the leftovers!

If you have rear shanks, they actually are below the knees. The part that is all tendon and bone is the metapodial. These are often confused with the lower leg, but that long bone is really part of the foot. At any rate, I love to braise venison shanks on the bone, and like Peter I don't draw distinctions between front and rear.

Bellwether cider is quite good, especially the drier varieties, and they're very nice folks. A small distillery recently opened in Burdett, NY. They make something called "Maplejack liqueur," which is an apple brandy and maple syrup concoction. When I tried it recently, it had a great nose of apples and reminded me of Calvados. The added syrup made it too sweet for my taste, however, and the sweetness obscured the subtle apple flavors. They're not planning to release the plain apple brandy for sale, which is too bad as I think the base spirit would be pretty good without the maple syrup.

I was tasked with determining the yield of brisket and whole pork shoulders when I worked at a BBQ place several years ago. I weighed individual briskets and shoulders (about 25 of each)before and after cooking. I no longer have the exact figures, but the average loss in weight for these cuts was 40-50%. Granted there are many variables at play here, but this is what I found given the meat we were buying and the cooking method. I should note that these numbers represent untrimmed cuts. Once prepped for service (i.e. removing the skin and large chunks of fat from the pork shoulder), the yield was reduced further.

I worked in a kitchen equipped with a Blixer for about 6 years. It's a large, heavy, and powerful machine. I think the advantages of the Blixer over the R2 include the large (7qt?) stainless steel bowl, the additional processing attachments, and the amount of power. If the R2 works for you, and you don't need the additional capacity and attachments, than the Blixer might be overkill. Hope this helps! Adam

A friend of mine makes a delicious leek and porridge soup. It's easy too: sweat a bunch of sliced leeks in butter, add rich chicken broth, steel cut oats, and a sprig of thyme. Cook till the oats are tender and the soup thickens slightly. Season and finish with a little cream.

That's about what I was thinking. Could you estimate how much ice you used? - we used a lot: @ 100lbs that we ordered from a local ice company. Here's another question to pose, which I regret not knowing the answer of yet (haven't gotten an email back from the farmer on it yet). How big is a 150lb pig? Roughly how wide and how tall will it be when suspended? - a 150lb pig won't be too huge: probably 4-5 feet long, and about 28-30" wide, though like people animals have a huge range of variation.

Brody, we usually slaughter when the weather is quite cold, which helps a lot. On the occasions when it has been warmer than we like, we've used a large galvanized tub filled with bags of ice, placed a clean tarp over it, put the pig on the tarp, and then placed heavy duty plastic bags filled with ice on top of the pig and in the body cavity. This has generally worked well for us. Good luck!

Brody, my neighbor and I slaughter a couple of pigs every fall. It is really critical that you cool the carcass down as quickly as possible. Pork spoils incredibly quickly, especially if it isn't handled properly. I agree with Chris and think that there is no advantage to aging pork. Any chance you could do the slaughtering closer to the day of your pig roast?