hansjoakim

Hi, A friend of mine purchased almost 15 meters of natural hog casings for me at a local butcher yesterday. The butcher told him that they usually stored their casings in a brine under refrigeration. I am planning on using the casings in a couple of weeks time, and I have for now put them in a 5% brine in my fridge. Ruhlman and Polcyn's "Charcuterie" suggests that natural casings stored in a brine will keep roughly a month in the refrigerator, and I guess I should be able to use the casings within a month's time. However, do I need to use a stronger brine to keep them that long, or will a 5% brine do? Will an overnight soak be sufficient time to rid the casings of the salty flavour before filling? This is my first time at making the real deal at home, so any thoughts and advice are very welcome! Thanks!

Thanks for your reply, Brown Hornet. I actually received my copy of FL before the weekend, and I've been browsing/reading/obsessing ever since. It's a lovely book, with surprisingly detailed recipes and instructions. A lot of great chef/gourmet restaurant cookbooks have been written since, and this one, now already in it's 12th year, sets the standard for all of them. I'm already eyeing potential dishes for next time I got guests over for dinner (including the lobster broth, butter poached lobster or the braised veal breast). Great book.

I just wanted to report back and say that the lamb confit was nothing short of spectacular! I've had my share of duck and pork belly confit, and I have to say that the succulent lamb shoulder confit ranks all the way up there with duck leg confit in my book. In short, I boned and skinned the shoulder and rubbed it with coarse sea salt, crushed black pepper and thyme 12 hours prior to cooking. I used a lot less salt than what was suggested in the recipe linked to in my post above, and the final confit turned out just perfectly salted in my opinion. Thus, salt carefully and don't overdo it, is my advise. The next day, rinse off the dry cure under cold, running water. Pat dry, roll up and tie into a log, put in oven-proof casserole, cover with duck fat and bring to a gentle simmer on the stovetop. Transfer to a 95dC oven and continue cooking until the meat is tender throughout, 3 - 5 hours. Let cool in fat. When ready to proceed, remove meat from fat, use two forks to gently shred it, add pepper, salt and a few tablespoons of duck fat before placing the shredded meat on some cling film. Roll into a log and refrigerate to set the shape. To serve: Cut into 2 cm thick slices and brown each side in olive oil in a pan. I served it this weekend as part of Ramsay's "Navarin of lamb" dish, where the confit is served together with loin of lamb, celeriac puree and buttered vegetables.

As an addition to jackal's brilliant tutorial on boning a lamb shoulder above, have a look at this .

Albert Idsøe is by many considered Norway's best butcher. Their business has been running since 1828, and is located in Stavanger, a port town in the south-west of the country. I'm fortunate enough to live close by, and frequent Idsøe as often as I can (and can afford...). I'm planning on preparing a lamb shoulder confit this weekend (loosely based on Ramsay's Navarin of lamb recipe in his "3 star chef"), and purchased duck fat and a bone-in shoulder from Idsøe yesterday. The person helping me out asked me what my plans for the fat and shoulder were, and could tell me that Idsøe themselves also prepare confit of lamb, and sell it mostly to restaurants in town. True enough, after some googling, I found an article written by Anders Viestad, a Norwegian food writer, about lamb shoulder confit: New Scandinavian Cooking: Lamb Confit. I'm really anxious to try it out this weekend! I think I'll deviate slightly from Viestad's suggested cooking time, by instead bringing the lamb and fat to a gentle simmer on the stovetop and then pop it in the oven for 4 - 6 hours instead.

Thanks dougal! Those are some great recommendations. I wasn't aware of Atherton's books, and I'll be sure to peek inside both "Gourmet food for a fiver" and "Maze". I've had some time to browse through the three Keller books (not "Under pressure"), and I think I share the same impression as you, dougal, regarding both "Bouchon" and "Ad-hoc at home". I've put "French Laundry" at the top of my list. Thanks again

Hi Nick, Thanks for your thoughts. I already have a stained copy of "The Complete Robuchon" - and I agree with you completely. It's a great resource for technique and tried versions of authentic French dishes. I should add that I'm also looking for some new books for the inspiration, plating ideas and new, creative ways of combining "standard" components.

Thanks so much for all the helpful feedback, everyone! I'll definitely have a look at the amazing carolcookskeller blog, and the FL+Bouchon set, in addition to "White Heat". Thanks so much

Thanks so much for your helpful and quick reply, Chris! A question regarding Keller's books: Would they be straight forward to use for a Euro-based home cook? I'm mostly thinking in terms of ingredient selections. I guess the recipes are given in volume in his books? Thanks a bunch for those other cookbooks you mentioned - "White Heat" is another one I was considering before writing the original post.

Hi all, I purchased Gordon Ramsay's "3 star chef" some time ago, and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading and cooking from it. What I particularly like about the book, is that it goes a long way in making "3 star restaurant food" accessible to dedicated home cooks. It takes time, patience, some ingredient hunting, but not overly expensive or hard-to-source equipment. This is pretty much the only "for the dedicated home cook/ambitious but do-able" cookbook reference I have in my collection, and I would now like to see what else there might be out there. I'm mostly interested in French/Italian cooking, and it's a great plus if recipes are given in metric. I am considering cookbooks by other celebrated chefs, such as titles by Heston Blumenthal, Alain Ducasse, Rene Redzepi (NOMA) etc., but most of them appear to me as coffeetable books meant for inspiring the pro chef rather than "home kitchen cookbooks". I've not had the chance to browse it yet, but would for instance Keller's "Ad-Hoc at home" be something to look out for? Any and all suggestions are very welcome!

I just looked this up in one of my textbooks, and it seems to me that the main difference is temperature. A poaching liquid should be between 160F and 180F, while a simmering liquid is one kept between 185F and 205F.

Hi, And thanks! I guess it's obvious that the dry cure both improves shelf life and impact flavour due to the moisture loss in the meat. I had some duck confit at a local restaurant a few weeks ago, and even with my tolerance for salty foods, I found it be way too salty. I'm planning on serving some confit (perhaps pork belly) next time I'm having guests, and I think I'd like to err on the safe side and not over-salting the meat prior to cooking.

Hi all, I've made some batches of duck leg confit and pork belly confit following the recipes in "Charcuterie" by Ruhlman and Polcyn. I'm pretty new to confit in general, so I'm wondering about the dry cure that is usually applied to meat that is to be used for confit. Why do we do it? It often involves significant amounts of salt, so I'm wondering if it's done for flavour, conservation purposes, or perhaps both? Would uncured, confited duck legs spoil quicker or simply taste less?

Hi Ken, I've made duck leg confit following Ruhlman's recipe a couple of times now, and I've been very happy with the results. I put the cured, rinsed legs in a pot, cover with fat, and heat on the stovetop over medium heat until it "simmers", at roughly 90C/195F. Put the uncovered pot into an 80C/180F oven, and leave for approx. 8 hrs. The fat keeps a temperature of roughly 80C for the entire cooking period. The meat has been very tender, but not so much that it falls off the bones. I've also seen the variations you mention in cooking time - I believe Robuchon calls for approx. 1.5 - 2 hrs cooking on the stovetop over low heat. I've also been looking into the cooking times for slow-cooked/poached/simmered pork belly, and I've seen similarly differing results: Ranging from a brief 1.5 hr simmer on the stovetop compared to a 10 hrs poach in a 95C oven (courtesy of chef Blumenthal). Can you overdo a confit/slow-cook of meat? Wouldn't you loose flavour to the cooking medium if you let the meat stay in there for too long?

Thanks for your replies, folks! Good point about doing it in two pieces, AAQuesada. Yesterday, I was thinking about the sizes of my pots, and I don't think a larger slab of belly would fit nicely in any of them. Two smaller ones are easier to fit in, however. I have poached it with skin on, gdenby. I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference cutting it off, but you might loose more fat during cooking with the skin off?

Hi all, I have a question regarding poaching of pork belly (and similar cuts of meat), and the difference between this preparation method and that of braising. I have basically followed a simple approach of poaching a 600 gr. slab of belly in water with mirepoix for approx. 1.5 hours. After that time, the belly is removed from the water, allowed to cool before being sliced and briefly sauteed in butter on each side. Now, the recipe that I follow is scaled for approx. 600 gr. My question is if, and how, I should change the poaching time if I, say, double the weight of pork belly? When you poach meat, you poach it only until you've obtained desired core temperature of the meat, correct? So in this case, I would like to poach it until approx. 70dC? I have the impression that when you braise meat, you tend to cook it longer (until it literally falls off the bone), partly in order to extract flavour of the meat into your cooking liquid/sauce. Is that the most important difference between poaching and braising, namely that in braising you're obtaining a rich sauce from the cooking liquid, while when you poach, the poaching liquid is often discarded with? Silly questions, I know! But thanks in advance for any replies!

Not hard to source in Norway - even low-price supermarkets usually stock both regular and low-fat Philadelphia cream cheese.

Homemade duck confit (Ruhlman & Polcyn's formula) with pommes purée and a lentil ragu.

Just finished a terrific duck confit dinner (followed Ruhlman's recipe, poached the legs for roughly 8 hours, and served with pommes purée and a lentil ragu):

I'm also curious about using other fats or oils when preparing duck confit. Michael Ruhlman has a nice recipe for duck confit using olive oil as the cooking medium: Duck Confit: It's What's For Lunch. Now, the fat factor has me wondering: In the "Test Kitchen tip" part of the recipe for duck confit from Bon Appetit, the "simpler" olive oil confited version should be kept a maximum of 3 days under refrigeration. Any thoughts or comments regarding the discrepancy in keeping times between the two recipes? And would making duck confit with duck fat increase keeping times under refrigeration compared to e.g. olive oil? If so, I guess this would have to do with the properties of the fat once it hardens (i.e. a more or less air tight seal)? Thanks

Hi Diana, That is weird. Dried, salted cod (clipfish) can be stored almost a year at refrigerator temperatures, so I don't see any reason for freezing the unsoaked product. Over here you can find frozen fully soaked clipfish in supermarkets, but these products are very expensive compared to the unsoaked ones. I've never tried the frozen, soaked version, as I find part of the charm is to do this yourself. Additionally, apart from saving money, I also like to be able to control the salt-level in the salt cod myself.

For more recipe ideas, The Norwegian Seafood Export Council actually has a decent collection of salt cod recipes on their web page. Sadly, very few are translated to English, but the Google translator tool does a decent job, I think. Here's a link to the recipe collection (via Google's translation tool). Remember that all temperatures are measured in Celsius, and don't hesitate to ask if you need assistance with the automatic translation

I live in Norway, and I'm a huge fan of salt cod, or klippfisk as it's called here. The name klippfisk comes from "klippe", which points towards the wind and water swept cliffs close to the sea, and "fisk" which is our word for "fish". Traditionally, the catch was salted and then dried in the sun on the cliffs, hence "klippfisk": Click here for a B&W photo. Sadly, the selection of salt cod in many parts of Norway is very limited. I guess this is in large part due to the fact that this kind of preserved fish has been looked at as a "poor man's food", or otherwise inferior to fresh fish. The best salt cod is exported to countries that know to appreciate this delicious food, i.e. Portugal, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy (stockfish) and Jamaica. Luckily, there has been a slight revival of some of our traditional dishes the last couple of years, and it's quite easy to find high-quality salt cod loins in at least the more populated areas of Norway, in the western parts and in the North. The loins that I usually prepare require between 3 and 4 days of soaking in cold water, with at least 1 refreshment each day. Personally, I'm not very enthusiastic about the tomato-heavy bacalao dishes, so I tend to prepare salt cod in pretty much the same way as ordinary white fish. One very nice dish that I prepared for my parents this christmas, was a dinner with salt cod, sweet onion and garlic compote, pommes purée and steamed root vegetables with butter. For the salt cod, I tend to either brown the pieces in butter in a frying pan and then finish them in a 200dC oven (roughly 10 mins, until flaky and cooked through) or poach them in a bouillion or milk/water. You can make a delicious starter from salt cod by poaching the fish, then flake it on a hot plate. Sprinkle with capers, sweet tomatoes, shallots, olives and herbs. Finish with some salt and pepper and a dash of olive oil. Finally, regarding freezing salt cod: I would not freeze unsoaked salted cod. I've not tried it myself, but I've read that the salt crystals in the fish tend to degrade the meat when frozen. Soaked salted cod freezes very well, however. I very often soak cod for 3 or 4 meals every time, and simply freeze what I don't use within the first day or two. Treat fully soaked cod as you would any other fresh fish.

Hi Dick, Thanks for your reply! The supplier lists the ducks as "ducks with ancestors imported from Cherry Valley, UK". I know Cherry Valley is a large producer of duck meat in the UK, but do they also have their own type of duck, the Cherry Valley duck? I believe they are slightly heavier than Muscovy ducks. Each breast is approx. 300 gr. This weekend, I cooked it according to: - Place in cold pan, skin side down. Turn heat to max and cook 5 mins. Turn down slightly, flip breast over and cook briefly. Let rest under tin foil some 10 mins. - Apply thin coating of liquid honey, some coarsely chopped cloves and cinnamon and some gratings of lemon zest. - Finished cooking in oven at 180C, approx. 8 mins, then rest 15 mins before cutting. I used a digital thermometer, and removed the breasts when their core temperature was 58C. Served with pan-fried polenta and roasted apples. Absolutely stellar.

Thanks for your replies, everyone! Know what, I think I'll try the long and slow method. Like Gordon Ramsay here, but with a lower oven setting so that it finishes in approx. 20 mins. Thanks again! PS: Every last drop of fat will be saved