Okanagancook

Lard is by definition rendered pork fat.

tdatta: I used your method with six bags of onions and they turned out marvellous. The bags did not leak but a strong smell of onions came out of the water bath. You really have to watch the water level as it evaporated quickly at that temperature. The onion soup was deliciously favoured with caramelized onions. I used a little chicken stock and Parmesan brodo for the broth. Five more bags in the freezer

It will render nicely. Cut into small dice and set on a low, low heat with a couple of tablespoons of water and render until the solids have melted and add more water if needed. Strain and I keep mine in the freezer 'cause I made a big pot of the stuff with one of the two bags of back fat we got with our Berkshire pig last year. Or, sausage is easier if so inclined....what no stuffer, just make some nice patties, yum.

I have the VP215 which is an oil pump. Cost me around $1500CDN about 3 years ago. Love it. Sturdy, easy to use, not too heavy and big, chamber is big enough for most things in terms of height, easy to adjust. I have changed the oil once and it was crystal clear. Oil pumps last longer I believe. cheers

If you have a sous vide rig that's the way I go. 134 degrees F for up to an hour. Very quick brown and serve. They dry out quickly in a pan.

Awww, I thought it was the automatic one They look tasty though.

Brilliant guys! I bought extra onions to give this a try. Thanks for the work at posting everything. Gotta love Egullet. Great bunch.

Beautiful kitchen!! Love the back splash. I have a mere mortal Mieli regular oven and I find it amazing. The temperature is spot on and it cooks so evenly. My only complaint would be the cost of the little tiny oven bulbs......$50 Cdn a pop. Two have been replaced in ten years. The other thing that happened was the door hinges gave out and had to be replaced...$300 Cdn. Too much peeking at the food inside I guess. But I would probably be buying a new oven by now if it weren't a Mieli. Looking forward to seeing more from the steam oven. cheers

Chez Panisse has a recipe for herb pasta: for a 2.5 cup flour recipe, she uses 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs. Mix the herbs in with the flour before incorporating the eggs or other wet ingredients of your choice. Her suggested herb combo is parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary. I have made this combo and the amount of herb is good. Not too herby.

Do you have a countertop height that is friendly towards kneading dough? We have three countertop levels in our kitchen. Regular height (37 inches) in the mis en place area and near the stove; at the washing up sink the height is a little higher so one doesn't have to reach down too far to the bottom of the sink (39.5 inches) and the kneading countertop which is 34.5 inches. It makes a hugh difference to me when kneading something like pasta for 15 minutes. Your appliances sound amazing.

Pasta making is really such a fascinating topic. As was Jamie Oliver's trip to Italy, if anyone saw that series. Instructions for making pasta: ah, let me count the ways........ I clearly smell a trip to the grocery store to get a mitt load of eggs! I also think I will start a new note book entitled "Fresh Pasta - A Work in Progress". I have 17 Italian cookbooks...mostly the usual suspects. The latest one by T. McNaughton is quite a bit different from the others and I am looking forward to experimenting with his techniques and comparing them to what I have done in the past which is more along the lines of what Franci and LindaK have written. And, Anna, I do encourage you to proceed with learning to make pasta. You make fantastic bread and so already have a good feel for flour + water, just have to had eggs to the mix. Let the kneading begin.

Glad you like the book. My DH has his mitts on it now reading away. I love his stories of working in the Italian Pasta Lab. Making home made pasta is a lot of fun because it usually results in a great product and guests just love the stuff. It takes a few tries to get the knack of mixing in the eggs. I put the flour on the counter then I reserve around 1/3 cup to the side then make the well and mix in the egg (there are some great videos of this on UTube...these really helped me with technique...I will try and find a good one to post.) If I need more flour it is there...sometimes the dough is too dry to get into a dough ball to knead. In the book, he tells you to spray the dough with water if it is too dry. Practice is what is needed. I like the hand crank pasta rollers. Get a good quality one. I bought an attachment to make cavatelli and it works well...creativecookware have a good selection of machines. I also have a noisy version...the attachments for the Kitchen Aid but they are quite expensive and I do not get the same handmade feeling when using it compared to hand cranking a machine.

I recently purchased Flour + Water by Thomas McNaughton and have found it to be very informative. I have made quite a bit of pasta using various recipes such as TK's and Mario's. TK's is very tender pasta due to the number of egg yolks in it. Mario's is more along the line of 1 egg to each cup of flour, etc. Other variations I have tried is to add a small amount of semolina flour to a Mario-type dough for more texture. However, Flour + Water has explained pasta well: They made two kinds of pasta: 00 Flour & eggs and durum semolina flour + water. The egg dough is for all pasta other than extruded which uses semolina + water. The egg dough has two variations: 1. 00 flour, salt, whole eggs, egg yolks and olive oil for stuffed pastas. The egg white provides elasticity and durability for the stretching, filling and twisting involved in stuffed pastas. 2. 00 flour, salt, egg yolks and olive oil for all other non extruded pastas. The egg yolks add flavour, moisture and fat. They give two recipes for semolina pasta: one that you can use for hand rolled pastas such as orecchiette and the other for extruder machines. The hand rolled pasta is 1/2 00 flour and 1/2 semolina flour plus water. The extruder dough is just semolina flour and water. The semolina flour results in a much denser dough requiring more cooking. Kneading egg dough is recommended for 10 to 15 minutes....virtually impossible to over knead. But don't let it dry out on the work surface either. They also provide detailed instruction for using a pasta roller and how to roll out the dough properly. All very different from what I had been doing. Interesting links: http://www.eater.com/2014/9/29/6850747/sf-flour-water-pasta-recipe-book-Thomas-McNoughton http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/qa-with-chef-thomas-mcnaughton/

Better make sure your bladder is empty before watching this....for animal lovers. http://www.blick.ch/embed/vid48225

My nephew who is residing in Japan gave this to my brother:

We also have to make our own asian food. Pot stickers are our favourites. Just learned to use the waffle maker to cook our green onion cakes....brilliant (from Will it Waffle?) My brother always makes Peking duck for Xmas.

Plus the belly is brined for 72 hours after being sealed so would be a bit salty I would think also at 4%. Wouldn't you want an equilibrium brine at the lower end....like 2%?? The pork belly is cooked at 149F/65C for 36 hours in the water bath so I think they are trying to get the texture firm and colour to be reddish like bacon for the B in BLT.

Two circulators, ok, now I'm totally jealous Oh, sweetie........."I know what I want for Christmas this year!" Hope you like the oxtail.

Another great looking Naan!!!!! You're killing me Anna. Must have been heaven dipping the naan in the lamb korma. Delicious.

I have not made that recipe but it does sound like a lot of instacure. In "The Art of Charcuterie" by the CIA They say 113 g of instacure #1 to cure 45.36 Kg of meat. This is only 2.49g/Kg meat. The recipe calls for 1.5 Kg meat which would be 3.74 g instacure. Could be a typo and meant to be 3 grams. Hope that helps. cheers

Douglas Baldwin's recipe is for a loin or sirloin chop...on the longer side for the sirloin.

1 1/2 to 2 hours, although I usually cook mine at a lower temperature..more like 135F 'cause we like them a little pinker.

We got our dextrose from the local brew place.

I like the idea of the veggie tagine. And that chicken looks lovely and moist.

Correction: the steaks were 30 mm thick, done at 129F for 70 minutes. Sorry.