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Great, will look into this. How much regular salt do you add per kilo of meat?

Thanks @Duvel - I’m a bit of a fumbling amateur when it comes to nitrite curing so good to sense check it. I might well try a dry brine next time - do you have some proportions that you use for this technique?

here’s the recipe from chefsteps: so, ignoring all the flavourings, I make that brine to be: sugar 7.3% NaCl 4.2% (from the plain salt) + 0.625% (from the Prague powder) = 4.825% Sodium Nitrite 0.04% does that sound right?

Interesting and good to know… the stuff I’ve used is labelled as Prague powder 1, which I thought was interchangeable with insta cure 1. I was using the brine from chefsteps pastrami recipe which calls for 60g of insta cure 1 in 9000g of water. Are we saying we’d need like 10 or 15 times as much?

indeed - 0.6%. It’s kept the meat pink inside, though a blushing pink rather than a deep red. Ideally I’d like it a bit darker - not sure if that is controllable with the amount of pink salt?

Sous vide stage has come to an end, I chilled the Picanha off in an ice bath then opened it up to have a look. Smoking will have to happen another day as it’s dark and cold and this World Cup won’t watch itself. I snuck a little slice or two off the edge just to give it a try - nice flavour, not too salty (which I was worried about when I went back and worked out the %s on the brine recipe I used). Texture is quite firm and sliceable but it’s stone cold too… be interesting how it comes out of the smoker.

I certainly will - comes out around 6pm tomorrow so will show you it bagged up then another once it’s cold and out of it’s wrapping. Basically it’s a nice even triangular cut, single muscle with a perfect fat cap over the top.

We don’t often have sweet potatoes but I needed some for a curry base recently so had half a bag left over. Me and youngest kitchen porter decided to make some gnocchi with them which were delicious. Fried in some brown butter with a bit of sage and served with a tomato sauce to cut though the richness a bit. They had a great light texture, much nicer than “normal” potato ones I’ve made. They were nice and rustic thanks to KP’s cutting!

Looking good @rotuts are those chillies on the second pizza? Looks a nice healthy dose if they are!

I’ve got a couple - tiny baby one which cost me less than £50 and a giant Big Joe version which was substantially more. Last year I got a ThermoWorks signals/billows unit which is great for long slow cooks, it just keeps things ticking over beautifully. The weather has been grim here lately but I’ll be firing one of them up soon to smoke some sous vide pastrami (I’ve started a separate thread on that just now).

Pre-Christmas experiment here - I’m trying out using a Picanha to make pastrami. Not the classic choice but our butcher has started selling this cut recently and I was really impressed by its beefy flavour. Its shape is like a mini brisket with a nice fat cap so hopefully it will turn out well. The process is: 1. cure for a week in the brine 2. sous vide at 63°C for 30h then chill thoroughly 3. smoke at 225°F (forgive my mixing my units - I’m Celsius for everything but bbq!) for an hour or so I’m just at the sous vide stage at the moment so will report back when it’s in the smoker.

Excellent. I loved the Franklin masterclass, have tried a few things from there. Interestingly I’ve found the temps need dialing down a bit on my kamado - guess it’s a different kettle of fish to a pellet grill. Duck sounds an interesting prospect too - I bet the fat just drinks in the smoke. Yum. Keep the updates coming

Any pics rotuts?

Looking forward to this one… I’d love to convince the family to try a smoked turkey at Christmas. More chance of me getting a Lamborghini under the tree

Last night we had a lovely pumpkin dish from Yottam Ottolenghi - glazed a roast with a tahini sauce, “gremolata” and burrata. The pumpkin was roast in wedges for about 45 minutes with some red onions and spices. Glaze was made with a reduction of balsamic and pomegranate molasses.

Interesting! I’d not thought of doing that. Any sign of damage to the silpat? I guess they’re pretty robust…

Interesting thought about pulling 10-15° lower - received wisdom is that the collagen isn’t properly broken down at that temp, so everything’s still a bit tough. but I’d be VERY interested in the results… please fill us in if you get this test across the line with the TO

Exciting! Really looking forward to hearing how these units perform. Get cooking @mgaretz!

having owned various permutations in the past, if a high end pellet grill like this was out of budget I’d really consider a kamado. My kamado joe big joe has given me years of faithful service. As rotuts says you can get a blower which will accurately control temperature for hours on end and a single basket of charcoal can last easily north of 12 hours. Plus the ability to get hotter than I ever got a Weber grill. whichever way you turn there are always compromises and decisions to make but a good kamado should do what you’re after in a single unit

great looking fish and chips @Ann_T I love battered fish done with really nice white varieties like halibut, had a great one done with trubot a while ago… must do it again soon

Wow! Looks like a locomotive! I feel there’s a good rabbit hole for me to go down here, I love a good rabbit hole.

Great thread, Rotuts. If/when we move I’m definitely going to look at getting a pellet grill to go alongside my kamado. What made you go for the Yoder over the Traeger? Also, beautiful trees there

@paulraphael, sounds like a good plan for your room. Have you looked at the new Philips Hue smart switch? I've been waiting for years for something like this and it's finally arrived. Hard buttons for four scenes (we have one set up as an "off" command), plus a rotary dimmer which can be set up to control all the lights in the room or just some subset of them. Surface mountable so no wiring needed and battery powered so it doesn't have the clunky self-powered manual switches which make my teeth itch on the old round Hue controllers. I think you said you had Hue elsewhere in the house so would tie in with that too? https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Hue-578807-Switch-1-Pack/dp/B0B6LLKHTM/ Edited to Add: the other thing which we did with our kitchen was to use these plaster-in recessed fittings: https://www.lightingstyles.co.uk/plaster-in-recessed-ceiling-downlight They take a standard GU10 lamp but give a really clean look to the ceiling, especially when they're not on. You'd need more than the 4" cans you've got specced at the moment I guess but might be a nice option. I'll take some pics of them in our place if you're interested.

Tandoori marinade made with yoghurt and lemon juice then roasted in a very hot oven

super simple - bagged up with some butter and salt then SV for four hours at 85°C. After it’s done I pan fried it to crisp up in some melted butter. Id infused the butter with some juniper and black pepper but I’m not sure I could really taste that in the finished product. Inspiration came from this thread