OliverB

human noses work on different levels :-) There are people that supposedly can taste a glass of wine and tell you what it is, where it was grown, what year it is, and so on. I could try to do that for a hundred years with no avail. And I'd think that most of that detective work is done with the nose, since the tongue isn't really all that sophisticated in tasting these fine nuances.

I'd probably refrigerate the brine, then put the meat in and put it all back in the fridge. It will take a lot longer, but unless you watch the temp and stir it occasionally, I'd be concerned that the outside would get a bit too warm? Not that I'd be too concerned, the meat is frozen and then will be under water. An other concern might be that the outside will thaw and brine much earlier than the inside. Letting it rest for 8 hours to even things out might help, but then you might just as well do the thole process in the fridge over a day. Since I found that marinated and then frozen meat seems to take much more "marinate flavor" on while thawing in the fridge or even in a water bath, it might be an experiment worth doing though.

this 100% addiction to jello in the 50/60es in the US still has me in tickles, not a single one of those recipes looks even remotely good, but must have looked like some Eichler designed food item to everybody back in the time of built in toasters and ironing boards. And the Jetsons. Hey, looks like something astronauts might eat! :-D

I might add that the "diluted in water" test is pretty silly, nobody would test different peppers, turmerics, dried basils, curries, or what ever else you have in the pantry that way. It seems to be more a thing that somebody that simply believes that "salt is salt is salt" came up with to prove their point. Of course the subtle differences will be lost if you dilute it with lots of water.... I'm sure a $100 bottle of Chardonnay diluted with a liter of water will taste pretty similar to a $4 bottle of Chardonnay.... that test proves or disproves nothing actually, as "diluting in lots of water" is not the purpose of those salts. Kind of like testing different cars by not going faster than 25mph. I doubt you'd see much of a difference between some old rusty Ford and a new Mercedes :-D

I have a whole bunch of salts, but use them as "finishing salts", i.e. sprinkling them over a finished dish or putting them on the table in a little bowl. For cooking I use Kosher salt only, bought in the big red box. The difference is little and subtle (smoked and other flavored salts aside) but it's fun to sprinkle black salt on sliced steak or pink salt scattered around the plate etc. The color plays as much a role as the saltiness. That aside, it's fun to have "millions of year old" salt from a cave, even if all other salt is quite likely just as old. I'd never spend $40 on 500 gr, but I'd also never buy those salts in such large quality, I buy them in small boxes. Which may just cost way more than $40 for 500 gr. But I use them in such small quantities, it doesn't matter. I ate at the French Laundry once, and for the foies gras they brought out a tray with 4 different salts, and I'd swear there was a difference. Texture for one, but also flavor. Of course, some (but not all) of this is probably psychological, but it's still fun :-) I'd never use these salts to salt pasta water (though I've seen people do so) or even salt during cooking, I only use them for finishing on the plate or serving dish. Maybe a bit silly, but many things in cooking are - if you really think about them. Foams, micro greens, etc. But where would the fun be, if you couldn't be a bit silly at the same time :-D

I'm surprised by the sweet buffalo wings as well, my sauce calls for Frank's Red Hot Sauce and melted butter (it's on the back of the bottle) and is really quite good, but not sweet by any stretch of the imagination. I make wings quite often, since my little girl loves "chicken with bone", I either make them on the Big Green Egg or on a baking sheet in the oven. I don't bread them though, I marinate them in what ever is handy or comes to mind, the Buffalo Sauce is served on the side so the kids can take as much or little (or none) as they like. Any left over sauce hardens nicely in the fridge and is great on sandwiches too! I don't have a deep fryer and deep fry so rarely, that I generally avoid it, since I don't want to throw that much oil out, but also don't want it in the fridge. They still come out great and crunchy, fat and skin seem to do that :-)

looks delish! I have one in the freezer, I'll take some of this here for inspiration. Oh, and as a side note: Amazon delivers to any culinary wasteland on the planet, or at least most. Def Nebraska. As do others. Don't waste time looking all over town for some spice/ingredient, order it :-)

very true that it tastes like what it eats! I got a piece of belly from my farmer, they had fed walnuts to finish the animals. It had a very distinct nut flavor, tasted like nothing I'd ever eaten before. Certainly not like bacon, but it was made like any other bacon. I could see using it in some special applications, but not for bacon and eggs or anything like that. Maybe they fed their animals something fishy?

definitely mention it and I admire your adventurous spirit here! If I'd have pork that smells like fish it would be in the trash pretty quick :-) As for pork belly in the future, if you have any Asian supermarkets in your area, they usually carry pork belly with skin on. You may also be able to order it from a butcher or good meat counter in a good market. I've had the no skin problem with pork I got directly from the farm, Berkshire. Those are very hairy and they don't have the facility to scald and de-hair it, so it's always w/o skin. Unfortunately. Edit to add: That recipe you link to now has ME in a panic of finding some pork belly NOW! Wow, that looks absolutely delicious!

this looks like fun! I have a couple books like that, cooking like the Romans, like medieval folks, etc, all in German. I'll have to add this one too I think.

just return the one from Canada, if they show one thing and send an other, it's their fault and they should pay for shipping no problem. I have the US version, unfortunately. Was an impulse buy that I wish I would not have made. I love photos that show step by step how to do things, but showing me how to peel a mandarine is a bit much, and a waste of space. I'm not too intrigued or tempted to cook from this book, I might trade it in at the used book store some day. Should have spent more time looking at it closely I guess. It seems very odd, coming from Adria. Also giving quantities for 2, 6, 20 and 75 people seems rather odd and useless. I cook for 4, I'll have to recalculate every single recipe, and I'll never cook for 20, let alone 75, and most certainly not "at home". But I think it's about time for me to move Heston's book off my Amazon wishlist and into my shopping basket :-)

Asian marinade > skewer > bbq is probably what I'd have done. Or stir fry.

while this may work, I'd be concerned about setting my yard/house on fire. Once the wok is really hot I tend to move it quite a bit, like tilt here and there or lift off the heat, even with the chimney inside my weber I'd be concerned that I'll throw the whole thing over and making cooking over it impossible. I guess with a smaller wok (frying pan size) you can do this? I have the Big Kahuna wok burner, it's not expensive, it will NOT fall over, it gets very very hot and works great. I'd definitely recommend getting one, if you want to wok often. If you just want to play with the idea, do the coal thing, but try to stabilize the chimney somehow, it would be a shame if if falls over and either all your food goes with it or - if lucky - only the coals spill and you'll be in for a bbq instead ;-p There's no way charcoal is going to get as hot as the Big Kahuna. As for the forge shown above, I believe those use natural (rock) coals, as every time I've seen them in action they STINK and I'd not want to cook on those. Maybe you can use those contraptions with charcoal, otherwise I'd pass on that idea.... And keep in mind, aside of liability, there might be other good reasons that chimney starters come with the instruction not to cook on top of them..... The Big Kahuna is not very expensive and works great. I've also read of people using turkey fryers to wok on top of, again I'd be concerned about stability, those tend to have straight legs, the Kahuna legs spread far out, you can NOT tip that thing over. Keep in mind, you will have very high heat, a very hot wok, and oil.... I've had the oil ignite on contact with the hot wok - you don't want that to happen on a wobbly chimney starter! You want something stable. I doubt your insurance will cover setting your house on fire with a weird cooking contraption :-)

I'd probably just make a note about how not to do it next time and use this one for cooking, adding to eggs, beans, etc. Even just julienned and sprinkled on top, pasta, a salad, I can think of many places where it could work, just reduce salt elsewhere. Of course, I haven't tasted it and don't know how salty it actually is. But I don't think there's any process that would reduce the salt without completely changing - or ruining - what you have. One week extra is a long long time. And I hope that personal emergency turned out ok!

it's one of the things where I don't fully agree with Keller either. I use tongs all the time (I do not like thongs though, but that's for a different board). I can handle and flip very delicate things with them w/o damage, but it does take a bit of control. I just like them. I have spatulas and spoons too of course, but 80 or more % of the time I use my tongs. Now, he's writing from a different perspective, and while Ad Hock is for the home cook, he still applies his Ad Hoc restaurant standards. That book is not for quick mid-week dinners, it's for when you want to make something special, with maybe some ingredients that you usually would not buy - or go for more general supermarket quality. Maybe it's just me, but when I cook from that book I don't use frozen this or that from Trader Joe's or meat from Safeway, I go to a butcher, fish market or at least whole foods, and a try to make it "pretty". And I can see where he'd be figuring that a "general" home cook might just squeeze a bit too hard and damage the nice food. It'll taste the same of course, but.... He'd probably faint walking into my kitchen, where 3 nylon or plastic or what it is tipped tongs hang on the magnet strip right next to my knives, but I'd probably faint first if he'd walk into my kitchen, so it doesn't matter. In fine dining, you simply can not damage the food, it has to look like the food porn we're used to. Or better. That's where spatulas, tweezers, and who knows what else comes into play. And in his books, he's just trying to make that point for a special meal. Of course you can cook from that book using yard clippers and a hatchet and you'll still end up with great food :-)

just getting back to this, we're refinishing the hardwood floors this week and half of the house (including kitchen) is not accessible most of the day.... I cut it down into some nice pieces and had to freeze it. I have a Big Green Egg, which is somewhat a brick oven, I think I'll roast one of the legs in there next week, low and slow. I took some pictures of before and during cutting, not after I think (but it's just pieces of meat in vac-bags) and I will add some of finished things, maybe it'll jolt me into actually posting something on my blog again...... I'll let you know! It's pretty amazing to see how big that hind leg on such a small and young animal already is, these are only weeks old. And I'll get a real butcher bone saw before I try this again, my hack saw had it's problems....

well, I cut it down as far as I could. My handsaw and no helping hands made cutting the backbone pretty impossible, so I left the rib cage in two large sections, either cut it later or just cook it as that, rustic chunks :-) Got the two hindlegs off and cleaned nicely, left the shoulder on the front legs, had to get the stuff cool again eventually. I think I'll make one of the legs this week, either roast or sous vide and then brown (or brown, SV, sear/broil again? and the rest goes in the freezer. Fun to butcher something again, but my back sure isn't used to the work (plus the added work of moving furniture and boxes around today).

I just got delivery of a 15+lb milk fed surprise lamb (they don't know which ram developed early and had some fun with the girls). It's in one piece, skinned and cleaned, head removed. Now, best would be a spit and firepit solution, which I don't have, nor do I know enough people people that like lamb - and even less that would want to carve into a baby one. I have some rudimentary butchery knowledge from some classes and books. I'm thinking to partition it into hind legs (leave them together) center with all ribs in one piece since there's probably not much meat on there, and separate the front legs. Thinking to do the legs roasted or on the bbq, see if I can make a nice rib roast out of the middle and also roast or bbq the hind legs as one large piece (or two?) for more people. Given that it's Sunday I probably won't get much in response here, but I'd appreciate input and ideas anyway, cuz if we like this lamb we'll probably order an other one when it actually is spring (on the calendar, as we're practically having early summer here in the Bay Area). Since this is a very young animal, I'm guessing I don't need to cook and braise the hell out of it? Maybe even SV the legs, then a quick trip to the very hot bbq or cast iron pan? What would you do?

same boat, haven't bought one in many months. I have somewhere around 250 cook books, covering just about anything I'd ever want to try. And I haven't seen anything lately that made me want to order it. Seems like a lot of the wannabe chefs on TV are throwing piles of books around nowadays (I'm sure they wrote them too. Yeah, right). I might get Heston's at home book eventually, but considering the thousands of recipes on my bookshelf I really don't need anything new. For a decade or two at least...

I have a Foreman thing that has exchangeable plates to turn it from a panini grill to a waffle iron and that thing works surprisingly well. I don't use it as much as I used to, but it's been a handy machine that I'd not want to throw out. Use it more for waffles now with the kids, but it also worked great to make nice crips bacon or those paninis.

yes, but getting that nowadays is probably in the "most people don't get struck by lightning" category :-) Also, I think that's something so rare nowadays that the FDA or who ever does such things just reduced the recommended cooking temp for pork to 140 degree or thereabout. If concerned you probably have to cook to higher temp, not for longer.

interesting as a secondary unit for sure, but I'll wait for reviews :-) The over 1k price for most others is just silly IMO, somebody's getting a nice margin there I think...

ha, almost forgot that I had issue 2, remodeling the house and lots of things are in places where they usually aren't. Have to look for it tonight, haven't really started it yet.

Thanks Judy, I'll check my e-mail settings. And what Twyst said :-) I'd love to replace the manual with a "working" copy any day :-)

How about making some batches of each? Say cook 4 steaks you like, 4 she likes, do the quick chill with both (meaning dumping them into a bath of 1/2 water 1/2 ice until cold). Then you can just put both into a bath at your temp to bring them back up to dining temperature, sear and eat. A bit of a round about, but you'd also have several steaks at the ready any time, as you can even freeze them once chilled (and put them in the bath frozen). Alternatively you could cook both, take your wife's steak out, insert a probe thermometer and stick it in a low oven at 200-250 degree until done, while yours floats a bit longer at 131. Sear both once your wife's piece is at temp. Seems easier than doing some science calculations...