Tom Gengo

Mike, you are on target: Diamond kosher salt is a larger crystal. Can't remember where I saw the conversion, but it is about a 33% increase in volume. ERgo, for every cup of Mortons you would need 1 1/3 cups of Diamond. However, if the ingredients are weighed, a much preferable method, then there is no concern for the differences in volume measurements. As such, it is unlikely that the brand made a difference here since the book recommends Morton's. Another difference in the products: Mortons has an anti caking agent in it vs. Diamond w/o any "adulterants." Despite the impurities in Mortons and primarily due to accesability, I utilize the Mortons & have not found any adverse flavors.

You can see photos of my method for removing the entire peel from oranges, also works with grapefruit and larger lemons, on the Artisinal Christmas Prezzies post # 163 I really wish that I had seen your technique for fabricating the orange peels. I am in Charleston, SC and found a grapefruit tree with over 400 grapefruits on it. OMG... the owner allowed me to "take as many as you want, but do not take them all..." Sidebar, what would I possibly do w/ 400 citrus????? I took a modest 60 and shared 15 w/ friends. Well, I decided to make candied peel and what a fiasco. Started with a knife trying to cut off, then used different sized microplane graters, back to the knife. Then I "filleted" the zest off the pith and candied the zest by following a recipe. Seeing your technique was an epiphany... I should have included the pith. By the way, the zest did come out fantastic... friends are eating it like candy and it is great in hot tea.

One point to keep in mind is that some municipalities use chloramide rather than chorine for the chlorination of the drinking water. Chloramide does not dissolve out of the water and will affect the yeast activity.

For good qaulity spices, herbs, dried fruit & mushrooms, etc. I go to www.myspicer.com. I have been very satisfied w/ their products. I have also bought from Butcher & Packer w/ satisfactory results. I found Penzeys to be too expensive considering I got the same quality product at a much lesser price.

I took a date a friend's house and the hostess served a dish that I am not sure that it could be named... it was like a San Antonio Chile style of bouillabaise supposedly made w/ Mahi Mahi. I think that it was made w/ Puffer Fish ovaries. It was so bad that my lips tingled, my eyes watered and my entire gastrointestinal system threatened immediate and decisive revolt. I literally gagged with the first bite. The "gagentree" was served atop undercooked pasta that was broken into pieces (a personal irritation.) Copious amounts of white lightening may have helped, but they do not drink alcohol. Needless to say, my date asked that we go get something to eat when we left. Neither one of us ordered a fish entree.

This weekend I made 2 soups. The first is a Beef Barley Soup. Used 2 Beef Shanks, browned them and simmered w/ 8 cups water for about 1 hour with 2 bay leaves and 4 cloves to flavor the stock. Added the Barley for another hour and 1/2. Took the meat and shredded it while 2 celery, 2 carrots, 2 onions (all chopped) and 2 minced garlic simmered in the soup for about 1/2 hour. After adding the meat it was a bit insipid, so I added about 1/4 cup of concentrated beef stock which gave it the unctuous flavorful soup that I was seeking. The other is a Creamed Butternut Squash Soup which is very easy and very flavorful. I cut the BS into 1/4's, seeding (reserved) and rubbing w/ olive oil, fresh cracked black pepper and kosher salt and roasted them in a 350 F, cut side down, for 90 min's. Meanwhile, I sauteed the pulp from the BS in 1/4 cup of butter with 2 minced shallots for about 10 min's, added 8 cups of water, a large pinch of saffron and a bunch of thyme and simmered for 2 hours. Strained the stock, added the BS pulp into the stock and simmered for about 2 hours. Added freshly cracked black pepper and hit it w/ the immersion blender. Voila, a silky smooth, robust and a nice mouthfeel without any cream. Chicken stock is simmering on the stove right now- not sure what is next.

http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?ma...ex&cPath=237_12 I think it is only available through the internet, at least I think I remember that from the book. Check out the sources section at the end. ← Actually, I am located in Charleston, SC and have found Morton Cure at a local grocery store (Piggly Wiggly.) It is pre-mixed salt (sodium chloride), sugar, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrate. Have yet to find the unmixed cure locally, but suspect that one could order it from a pharmacist as they carry salt petre which is potassium nitrate and can be used for making rocket fuel, gun powder, amonst other uses. Potassium nitrate is not recommended for preserving foods by FDA. Probably because your food can blow up in your smoker (just kidding.)

Last night, while visiting my immediate family, I made pretzels homemade for the first time with my 11 yoa neice and her friend. Well, they tasted pretty good, but they looked like my Cocker Spaniel had relieved himself on the jelly roll pan... they really looked unappetizing. I then coined a new name for them, shitzels.

If you are looking for a piece to a matching set, then you can try replacements.com out of Greensboro, NC.

Holy bleeping BLEEP! ← That butter poached prime rib of beast must have been written by a cardiologist who is feeling the current economic squeeze, lol. Paul, regarding the blow torch, you will not get any flavor from the fuel. Firstly, it uses propane more than likely, not gasoline, and as you can see from the flame it is burning very efficietly. The blowtorch flame will be blue, which is highly efficient combustion of the fuel, if it is predominately yellow then the torch is not burning as efficiently, but still no harm nor foul regarding flavor, just a lower temp. I use my blow torch for creme brulee to just brulee or burn the sugar on the top without heating the creme. No flavor transfer, and I am certain that with creme brulee you would be able to taste petroleum contamination very easily. Regarding your pears, a torch will not cook food (unless it is wafer thin), it will only sear the surface. I would recommend poaching the pears first, draining well and putting a light coat of sugar on the pears prior to torching them. A little fyi, the adiabatic (without heat transfer from the flame) temperature of the propane flame is in th area of 3600 F. AS such, the distance of the flame from the object is important and requires practice to avoid charring rather than carmelizaton.

Closer to the first in colour. It seems to follow along where the meat stops and what was two bands of fat turn into one. I fried up a slice and it tasted fine though. If I had a digicam I'd take a pic... ← Hi Adrian, I am new to eG and have done much research on the subject of Charcuterie, but still a novice by all intents. Anyway, the cured color we get from treating meats is by the nitrite oxidizing the porphyrin groups of the meat. In English that means that the porphyrin molecules, which contain an iron molecule & are pigmented (hemoglobin, or in our case myoglobin), have oxygen "permenantly" bound to the iron when they ar oxidized, like iron rusting. If you think about the fact that deoxygenated blood appears blue in the veins of your body it is because the venous blood hemoglobin is low in O2 content yet is bright red when we are cut (exposed to 02.) So, oxidizing the myoglobin "permenantly" wth the nitrite gives us the beautiful pink color for our cured products. Anyhow, if there is too much nitrate present in the curing process, then it can cause an oxidation aka burning or the meat by peroxides created by the nitrates. This results in the afomentioned porphrins aka myoglobin in the meat to appear a green color. In light of the fact that there is a much lower percent of myoglobin by mass in pork jowls, it appears much easier for there to be too much nitrite and cause the burn in the guanciale recipe. I believe your description of the green color being near the juncture with meat ("It seems to follow along where the meat stops and what was two bands of fat turn into one.") support this theory. The term for this phenomena is nitrite burn. To be quite honest I cannot figure out why the pictures that Chris posted show green fat and what appear to be perfectly normal meat. As I am a firm believer that we eat with our eyes and was never a big fan of Green Eggs and Ham (or in this case Green "Ham" and Eggs) I would not be so intrepid as to eat those experiments. (I have had a few of mine own in all humility, lol.) More importantly I believe that the green color can be an indication that there is too much nitrite in your cured product. The recommended level is 50 to 200 micrograms (thousandths of a gram) per kilogram (1000 grams.) As you can see it is a very small amount. For reference, see this article from Butcher and Packer: http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?ma...products_id=743 As a sidebar, the nitrAtes never oxidize in the curing process, they first have to be reduced (electrons removed) prior to activation to nitrite by a bacterium called Micorcoccacea. Therefore, nitrates are used in curing processes where there is an extended cure for the bacteria to convert the nitrAtes to nitrites . Hope this helped. Happy Holidays!

I am frequently asked what inspired me to become a gourmet cook. Although my mother and uncle were inspirations with their cooking skillls, I have to credit my father. This does require some explanation... he is NOT a cook. When I was a prepubescent child my mom worked 2nd shift as an RN at the local hopstal. Well that left the gastronomy to dear old dad. Well I would have been in heaven to eat one of those frozen meals, but dad his own idea of "good" food... diced Spam heated (tepidly at best) in Hormel chili. I gag at the thought of that meal and have to breath into a paper bag in the grocery store when I pass the Spam "selections." To dad's cedit, he has evolved to cheeseburgers (multiple times per week) and anything that is shaped like a sausage. I think while I am home for Christmas I am going to grind some spam and hormel chili together, stuff it in some casings and give it to him for "old times sake." I am only afraid that he will eat it, yuck.

An 8 inch Fibrox (Vicorinox) chef's knife. It is very utilitarian, is not as expensive (19.22 at Amazon) as Henkels, etc. and is highly rated in several reviews that I have seen. You can spend some more and get him the rosewood handle version and it will still be much less than Henkels,etc.

New to eG, but here's my contribution. I have 112 cookbooks and all the subscriptions to Bon Appetit, Cooks Illustrated (love Cooks Illustrated) and Taunton's Fine Cooking since 1999. As such, I probably have about 250+ magazines on top of that. Actually, there is a quasi-qualifier in this category. From my graduate school days I have a book that I have clandestinely placed amongst my cookbooks on the bakers rack adjacent to my kitchen You should see the look on my guests faces when they come to dinner and are perusing the cook books... they usually wait for me to take a bite of my food first... the book is Toxicology. I guess that makes 113, lol. Oh, and then there are gardening books... have to raise the little rascals (slow food believer) so about 10-15 more. Regarding lit fires, I read Charcuterie and it inspired me to purchase The Art of Fermenting Sausages by Marianski, Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery by Jane Grigson and Garde Manger by the CIA. In addition, although superfluous to this thread I have bought over the past few weeks beef bungs (for Cotta), beef rounds (what the hell do you do w/ 400 miles of 2.5 inches wide beef intestines) for Genoa Salami, 2 additional dies for grinding the oink, bacteria (for fermenting), dextrose, TCM #1 & #2, etc. I think if my physician knew all this she would diagnose me w/ OCD, lol.

Interesting topic. My most recent girlfriend served up cheeseburgers for dinner one night and I commented that it was the first burger that I had eaten in 3-4 years. She was flabbergasted, but this is a woman that thinks that anything with melted cheese on top is gourmet. I ruminated (yes, the pun is intended) about grinding our own beef for a "better" burger, but did not receive the expected encouragement from my fromage friend. Top 10 Reasons to Grind Your Own Beef 10. Great conversation piece, "Hey, I grind my own beef." The conversation can go so many directions, or not. 9. Why not 8. Significantly lower probability of nasty, ergo pathogenic, Eschericia coli lurking in your dinner (see below here) 7. You can control the courseness of the meat to craft it to the texture you desire 6. You contol the fat content of your food 5. To borrow a computer term, WYSIWIG... what you see is what you get, hmmm 4. It is great bonding time with you KA or other brand of grinder 3. It is something to do on Sat. night when you realize that cheese head is not the right girl, (please note this is a cheesy grin, lol) 2. It is great practice for a role on the Sopranos if they ever revive the show 1. Bovine that are mass processed are hung upside down for their "euthanasia." I am sure that you have heard the medical term for demise, "Shit the bed?", well it applies to steer also. Another popular quip that applies is "Shit runs down hill." Sorry for the graphic nature, but it is the reason that FDA reccomends (understatement) that all ground beef be cooked to well done. For an interesting book on our food supply and specifically mass produced beef, I recommend The Omnivores Dilemna.

FWIW, the true universal solvent is Dimethyl Sulfoxide, if you put a drop on your finger you can taste it at the same time- it passes through the cells of the body that quickly. In graduate school I disolved carcinogens that were not very soluble. Of course, I do not recommend it for vanilla. Regarding water versus ethanol as solvents. The ethanol will solubilize the hydrophobic "water hating" elements. Both ethanol and water will extract the hydrophilic "water loving" elements.

I am new to e-G and could not stop laughing when I saw your post... are you talking about the vanilla extract or the lingerie???

There are 2 "classes" of copper, commercial (2.5 mm thick) and "home cooking" (2.0 mm.) I have a copper paella pan and it is only 2.0 mm which makes for some uneven heating. As such, I would recommend that you purchase the 2.5 mm (of whichever cookware you choose) for the quality that you expect with copper cookware.