OliverB

Weber and other grills are the apprentice, the BGE is the master :-D Just slow smoked/cooked two packs of Johnsonville brats last night, kept the egg at about 200 degree and cranked it up a bit towards the end. Came out great, very smoky, almost bacony. Left overs will go in a pot of beans. I cook on the egg several times a week, the weber is still around for a quick grill (as the green egg coals are a bit pricy), but the egg is fantastic. 600+ degree for steaks? Sure, no problem. 200 degree for a low and slow smoke? Sure, got that. Plus anything in between. And nothing ever dries out! As 70es goofy as it looks, it's a mean green cooking machine :-)

That is a great idea! I'll have to try that very soon. The weber chimney should fit a nice big steak, enough for my family to share, and even if you need to make more, while one rests you make the second, while you carve the first you rest the second, should work out just fine. As for cooking on top, the only think I sometimes cook on top is potatoes (or beets) wrapped in heavy duty foil at least twice. Some olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper etc in there. I put that on once the paper burned away and the initial heavy smoke stops. While the coals come up to heat the potatoes cook and brown nicely. I flip the package a couple times, then - once I empty the chimney - it goes off to the cool side of the bbq, I almost always build a two stage grill, all coals off to one side. Or two sides and nothing in the middle. I guess for this chimney salamander you won't even need to fill the chimney more than half?

all looks great! I don't have a spit yet, almost bought the weber one, but I think I'll get something from spitjack.com instead, as it works with a (yet to be obtained) fire pit and it should be possible to use it on my weber too somehow. The bonus with the weber unit is that you can close the lid though, as mentioned above.

strange, I'd sure not want that experience! Of course, the fact that pine nuts are either not available or cost some $30/lb here right now makes me feel rather safe. TJs can't get them, Safeway hast the expensive ones in an open bin (uh - super expensive nuts in an open bin? Spells rancid to me...) and I can't find them anywhere else either. But I will stay away from Chinese ones from now on. I'll rather pick up some local walnuts at the farmers market for my pesto I think.

after entering mine in EYB this weekend I have a better picture and my total is probably around 210 to 220. I did not enter German books and some the system did not recognize and I left those out too. I'm also at the end of the line so to say, no more room in the book shelf, so before new ones come in some old ones will have to go. And hopefully EYB will now make me actually cook from them occasionally too :-)

well, entered all that the system recognized, a couple I could not find via author, title, or isbn. some others I found, but not the edition I have or I could not compare as only the 13 isbn was shown and my book only has a short one. Sadly, so far only 84 of the 193 books I entered are indexed and of course I left all my German books out, but still, I think this will be a nice resource. Hopefully more will get indexed. As a side note, sometimes the title did not bring up an entry, but title plus author did, or just author instead of title, etc. Sometimes title got me nothing but isbn did, sometimes vice versa. Also search does not seem to recognize unfinished words (like google does for example). The complete robu got me no result, robuchon did of course. Just some things I noticed, and some books I simply could not find any which way, despite that they are US edition with isbn numbers. Phew, that was a boring task, glad I'm done....

curry and the like I toast on the stove before anything else goes in, though I sometimes do it in oil, which seems to be just fine. I never toast anything before grinding though, I'd always grind first and then toast. I doubt it makes much of a difference, aside that the toasting goes faster and needs a bit lower heat and more watching. Or? At least, that's the way I do it. Never thought of toasting pepper though, I'd be afraid the good stuff evaporates too fast? It's pretty fugitive from what I understand.

I just signed up as a lifetimer too, can't beat that offer. I'm getting quite excited about this site, I've not cooked from a book in quite a while, it being summer and there being a big green egg and a weber outside, but for one, winter will come, and for two, I'm looking forward to trying something new for a change. I think this will get me using my books a lot more, that alone is worth the money! It's been often that I remember a recipe but have no clue which book (or magazine for that matter) it was in. Magazines I throw out after keeping one or the other recipe I want to make, and most can be found online, but I'm loving the idea behind this site! Now I also have to see what that librarything thing is. It'll take a while to enter all my books, and my German ones I won't even try, but just adding a handful already gives me thousands of recipes and ingredients, very very neat!

roasted with other veggies or it also makes a nice cream soup IMO. Of course, kids don't like it much, wife is so so about it, thus we don't have it very often. I do have some in the fridge right now though, maybe I'll try to create a broccoli curry cream soup of some kind, kids eat just about anything with curry, even eggplant :-)

I'd just buy a bottle, keeps for ever and hardly seems worth the work, unless you want some exotic wood smoke flavor, which I doubt you'd be able to differentiate. And no matter what's in my past, I sure am glad that I have no clue what bong water tastes like, yikes! :-D

the pickled ones from the Zuni Cafe book are simply to die for and super easy, I could eat those every day. Other than that I just cook them low and slow with olive oil and butter. First throw in an appropriate amount of onions, cook those until golden, add fitting amount of garlic, then the zuces and let it all simmer down into a nice tasty mush. Something I learned from my Italian uncle who lives in Regio Emilia, the center of everything that tastes good :-) Ad s&p to taste, finish with some more olive oil and crushed pepperoncini and you're done :-)

portobello and chanterelle, freshly picked in the Austrian Mountains! Yumm! There are also tons growing here in NorCal and I'll be out in the woods once the season starts up again, I think around Nov to Feb or something like that. Never had a chance so far, but the kids are now big enough to hike through the wild :-)

I went with the hardware store and also got the ACE hardware head with automatic start, definitely worth it. I never tasted or smelled anything off or chemical, the flame is very hot and I don't touch the meat with the fire anyways. Some say they can taste a difference, maybe they're more sensitive. But any good hardware store will take a return, maybe not of the cheap gas bottle, but of the rest, and I've seen plenty cooking shows where they use exactly what I have. Fun to play with, just keep the kids far away :-)

don't know if it would make sense to open a separate "review only" thread about SV, this one is getting way too big to root through? Anyway, I'm curious to hear from those that have the FreshMealsMagic (FMM) Sous Vide 18L Kit setup. I'm not a big fan of the other all in one option, I think this setup is more flexible and personally I like the "science lab" look of it all. Are you happy with it? Would you buy it again? It's not overly expensive and I'd guess that it creates a nice even environment with the bubbler that's part of the system. I feel like buying something, either camera gear or this thing, so let's hear from those that have it, especially the things you don't like about it, if there are any. Thanks! Oliver

I'd put it on a rack, but also cut away as much obvious fat as you can. Air chilled would most likely be better, but might cost you quite some more for a larger crowd. If you even can find just legs. Most chicken share a 40 or so degree chlorine bath after slaughter to chill quickly. You can imagine how nasty that soup is, and the chicken all soak some of it up in the process. Nice, hu? You could also try to dry the chicken on a plate in the fridge for a day, but be careful with smells and flavors it could pick up. Don't put it next to the stinky cheese :-)

I love my BGE, it's really super easy to use, keeps constant heat at just about any level between 200 and 700 degree. To me there was more of a learning curve to keep temps in my weber where I want them, than with the BGE. I have the large one, the grill is about 18.5 inches diameter. I've smoked a ton of bacon, pork, brisket, what have you. I've roasted chicken to complete crispness and juiciness, I've not had any better anywhere else. And it was not my doing, it's the egg or this style of oven. The only think I rarely do on it is just grilling up some brats etc., those go on my trusty old Weber. Mostly because the good quality lump coals are pricy. No matter for low and slow cooking, since this thing just keeps on cooking on one load for hours and hours (really almost spooky at times). It's a perfect smoker, but would be too expensive if that's all you want to do IMO it's a fantastic pizza oven It's a fantastic bread oven It's a fantastic small wood fired oven if you don't have room or the cash to build one of those. Awesome for high heat steak, something you otherwise only can get with infrared burners I think. I never got my weber up to 700 degree, that's for sure. It burns very little coal unless you go to the full blast 700degree, but even then there's always some coal left over. It keeps it temp for a long time even once you shut it off, while I have not done so, you could bake desert in it while eating dinner. Now, to me it looks a bit 70es goofy and yes, you need accessories to really make use of it to it's fullest. So for the large you'll eventually spend about $1000 all together, or somewhere around that. You can even get controllers that regulate the heat automatically, though I've found that completely not necessary. I still won't give away my weber and I want a fire pit with rotisserie next, I love cooking with wood fire. I went with the BGE for lifetime warranty and supposedly no questions asked replacement. This thing will last for ever. The large is plenty big for a family of 4 and has fed many a big party too, the XL is a monster, make sure to look at it in person before you buy! The smaller ones would be too small for me. Our local Ace sells them, as does a bbq store. Do NOT buy it online and have it shipped, at least when I bought mine this would have voided the lifetime warranty, check their website. Oh my, I'm going away for 4 weeks today, what am I gonna do without my egg?? ;-)

interesting stuff! Be careful too when you buy, just because it says EVOO from Italy often means that it was packed in Italy, but contains oil from all over, often none from Italy itself. I'm not too picky with oil for cooking, but for salad, dips etc, I only buy the more expensive good stuff, preferably from California as I live there. Costs about the same as imported, uses a lot less resources to get to my plate :-) As for tests, I trust my own taste, any other tests are just opinions of people I don't know. I canceled Cooks Illustrated, the magazine no longer "speaks" to me and personally I found some of their tests disagreeable. (and the hokey editorial is just too much...) But tastes differ, make up your own mind. I use tests if at all, as a mere guide and probably will avoid the worst performers.

I have a binder for recipes from magazines or online and in books I use post it notes if I want to add some notes, I don't like writing in my books (or getting them messy...) I've started notebooks too many times for too many topics, I guess I'm not a note book person. I use them for a while and then completely forget about them...

I can't even remember the last time I followed a recipe to the word. I tend to pick one (or parts of one or several) and run with it, adjusting as I feel like. Of course, if it calls for one chicken I won't add 5 or 1/2, but with other things I go with my own taste/intuition. I never ever measure salt/pepper and most other spices unless I'm totally not familiar with it. Nor do I measure oil, vinegar, wine, things like that. "That seems like about a cup and let's add a little more" is what I tend to do :-) As for salte/unsalted butter, for cooking I only use unsalted, never even heard of salted growing up in Germany, don't think you can even find that in stores. For bread etc I currently use salted, that round organic fancy (expensive) round puck thing that fits into the little stone ware container. Comes from a farm here in Norcal and is really good. too expensive and would actually be a waste in cooking, but on nice fresh bread.... Hmmmmm! I don't bake, I'm not into sweet things and bread takes more time than I usually can dedicate, unfortunately. But when I bake, I do sift if asked for, simply because it's fun to use the oldfashioned sifter and the kids like watching (or doing) it. As for eggs, I use the one that are in the fridge :-)

if you have it, I'd leave it on. My Berkshire place always takes it off, simply because the beasts are very hairy and they don't have the facility to scald and remove the hair, and even if, (they tried it once) it takes a lot of work and time to scrape all that hair off. So, they skin it. I still have some trotters they gave me for free in the freezer, all hair on. I have no idea how to get it off in a reasonable amount of time and might just toss them. I can't see myself scalding, scraping, shaving, and then burning off the last bits. There are also cuts in the skin as they simply just lopped them off to compost, so I could not use these to stuff them, which I had planned to do. That the skin is toxic, I don't know, never heard that and unless you eat pork belly every day, I'd not worry. And if you do eat it every day, there are probably other more weighing things to worry about ;-)

interesting, I never would have considered getting one of these things, but now I'm tempted. Can't afford prime all the time, as nice as that would be, and the idea behind this tool makes sense. I'd not be concerned about sanitation, I think one would have to have a really dirty tool or piece of meat to cause much damage. Maybe not in SouVide, but why would you need this tool in that case? I think I might pick one up next time I'm in a kitchen store. Tempted to do the same test as above, treating half.

Unless you need the fruit flesh, why not juice them and freeze the juice? Maybe even as ice cubes if you want it for drinks?

all looks very tasty! I've been smoking single pieces but never did a marathon like this. Great idea with the salt, I'll do that next time!

marinate with your favorite curry powder, lime juice and salt, put on bbq. Eat with naan bread (the curry one from Trader Joes is quite good) and/or saffron rice and a nice salad with red wine or sherry vinegar, olive oil, s&p. Quick and one of my kid's favorites.

I think the burning is the main reason for this. You get the flavor, but no burnt bitter bits. Same reason I think why often garlic is added towards the end of cooking something on high heat, once the garlic burns there's no return, you can't get the flavor out. And it doesn't taste much like garlic anymore. Like recipes that call for browning onions for a while, then add garlic and stir for an other 30 sec or so before adding tomatoes etc and then continuing with a slow simmer where the garlic won't burn.