G-rat

I have a question for you guys. I have a basement with an ambient temp of 64F and 74%RH. Would hanging guanciale to cure in here be a bad idea? I know it is not the optimum, 55F and 40%-50% RH but I have noticed that people's conditions for Guanciale seem to vary greatly some people have had success at 34F and 30%RH or I have even seen some folks hold it in the high 50Fs and 75%RH. Is my space at 64F and 74%RH a bad place to dry guanciale? For that matter is it a bad place to hang fermented sausages to dry. I know it isn't optimum but would it work and not kill me and others? G

I'm going to brine it if at the end of today it still hasn't exuded enough liquid.

So I have a one gallon batch of this hopefully fermenting right now. I work with a catering company and we make really creative food from scratch. It was the exec's idea. It is fermenting next to my 2 gallon batch of red kraut. One thing I have noticed is that two days in it has given off less moisture than the cabbage does. I went 3 tbl spoon salt to 5 lbs of fennel. I'll let you know what we end up with

Guys I don't mean to hijack this discussion of Rick Bayless' new book.... ....but is this a menu you would want to eat? I know these folks aren't like the rest of us in terms of striving for authenticity in mexican cuisine...but I get the feeling that I'm being a little too creative and thus maybe a little irreverent...(That was a joke...sort of...) Maybe I introduced this wrong. Rancho Gordo...your right about Tacos Al Pastor...its not real tacos al pastor and might confuse some of the folks eating for later on down the road...does it sound like something you would want to eat, thought? I could call them Tacos Panza De Cabra I am no longer doing a taco course. Instead I am doing an Antojito plate with smaller versions of all of the appetizers minus the Tostada De Vieira. With the black bean sope, The Taco (vegetables for vegetarians, meat for meatatarians), and the fruit cup. This is all due to the genius suggestion of Chris Hennes (I'm not kissing butt. This really did help my menu!) Main Course is a braise of Pork shoulder in Pipian Zapoteco with beans and really tiny chochoyotes...although I might nix the dumplings. Vegetarians get short braised vegetables (Chayote, Swiss Chard, Carrot). Also what dessert do you guys think finishes the menu? Thanks again for all your help with this. And talk about Rick Bayless as much as you damn well please. I love the guy. And I think it is hilarious(and probably helpful) that he has music recommendations in his cook book. I like to follow his twitter feed because some times he puts pictures up of the food from the restaurant and it makes my mouth water!

I think they only replay the current season after it is over during the year it came out and then they replay the last season before the premiere of the new season. For instance yesterday they showed Top Chef 6 in its entirety from like 12:00pm until 8:00pm. I am off of work helping my mom recover from surgery and it was going on in the background all day long basically.

Ok here's the deal with lamb, sous vide and al pastor. I want unctuousness. I want dirty brisket style, pork belly style fat...but I want the flavor of lamb. This dish is a play on words. Pastor in spanish means shepherd or sheepherder. I know that it traditionally refers to pork shoulder slow roasted with adobo, served with grilled pineapple and cilantro and onions on corn tortillas. Although typically it is cooked like a gyro on a rotating spit with the pineapple above it slowly giving up its sweetness all down the slowly roasting spiced pork. In my opinion Tacos al Pastor is the benchmark for whether or not a restaurant makes good tacos. They might have something else that is good but if they screw this one up...ahh well then they are messing with a classic. But recently when i ate some lamb belly in NYC it blew my mind away. It was cooked sous vide and then seared on a griddle. It was unbelievable. Unctuous. Rendered crispy lamb fat. Gooey silky meat. I thought Tacos 'al pastor' Tacos to the shepherd...or tacos of the shepherd. Well he would eat lamb. So they will be cooked sous vide in adobo with a little bit of pineapple juice (just a touch. hard to seal the bags with very much.) Then I will sear them. Smoke a little pineapple. Finely mince some cilantro and onion (yes I know it isn't normally minced as fine as gremolata but I wanted the texture to really come from the lamb fat and pineapple) Also I didn't explain this. These folks all know I love to cook and that it is my creative outlet. They are sort of expecting something special and I aim to give it to them. Plus this is the sort of menu I always am dreaming of anyway. I want to give them mexican flavors but make them ones they would never even dream of encountering. Plus I like to stretch the idea of mexican while not making something that is completely out of keeping with tradition. Mexican fine dining is something I dearly love. Just as much as mexican cheap dining is also something i dearly love. Some of my first food memories are mexican. It is my comfort food. My death row meal would be: tacos al pastor. Cucumber lime aguas frescas. Tamales de frijol y salsa verde and probably some sort of rich mexican vanilla ice cream...of course if i'm ever on death row i'd never get any of that.

That my friend is most certainly the trinity of mexican cooking. Chiles Corn and beans...whew!

Guys - Wow. thanks so much for the thoughtful input. I knew all of you would have great ideas (including Chris by the way even though I already responded to you). The only Zarela cookbook I have is The Food and Life of Oaxaca...which i'm stealing a lot from and sort of modifying things from. Like the chick pea soup is her recipe the only thing I'm doing is adding a really thinly sliced green tomato or tomatillo slice rolled in milk, egg, masa harina and pan fried...sort of like a crouton. Same thing with the desserts and and the Jicama peanut fruit cup...there's no citrus in her recipe. I think either she or Diane Kennedy have a recipe for Mole De Xico. I need to go back and re read that one. Or it could be in Freida's Fiestas... Great idea with the Pescado Veracruzano. One of the best mexican dishes I ever ate was Huachinango a La Veracruzana in Santa Fe. I didn't even think of it. Just have to see what the cost for whole redfish or snapper is right now. I just want to keep it down to like $20 a person or so. In response to how the dinner will work, normally I would plate everything individually. This time some elements will be plated but some will be family style. This dinner crowd will be a relatively close knit group of people who I would be trying to introduce to another relatively close knit group of people. And there are vegetarians on both sides so I think most people will respect the boundaries. But the only time that might be an issue will be with either the Pipian braise I do (Mole Zapoteco, pork shoulder, canary beans and chochoyotes) as a main...unless I do Pescado Veracruzano which sounds awesome. Everybody will get two tacos. Vegetarians: two cauliflower. Omnivores: one of each the cauliflower and the lamb. These vegetarians are cool folks who won't feel slighted by that. I've only done one of these before but I 'try' (as though I do this all the time...) to draft up a menu where I make the vegetarian options tasty enough that an omnivore would have to think twice before simply choosing whatever had meat on it. I'm not a vegetarian but I think vegetables are so AWESOME and highly undervalued in general. Thanks again everyone for the great and very helpful suggestions.

I would love to do Seafood...but aside from really great dry scallops there isn't much good seafood that wouldn't be cost prohibitive. I could do ceviche I guess but I'd have to do it with like tuna or something because saltwater white fleshed fish is relatively expensive in st louis unless I go with tilapia which sounds boring. I wanted to do tacos because I'm making masa for chips and sopes and thought I could make a little more and have a main course basically done. But you're right tacos aren't really all that interesting. These could get moved to the front with the rest of the antojitos or before the soup and then I just do three large main courses. Soup and two others. I was thinking about doing a Pork Shoulder braised in a pipian that has lots of pepitas (obviously), epazote and dried shrimp and then serving it with white beans and chochoyotes. But I would have to make two separate pipians because of the vegetarians.

Folks - I am putting on a pay for dinner party for some friends the beginning of next week. My cooking roots are mexican. I grew up in Ft. Worth Tx and lived in Austin for 10 years. Now I live in St. Louis and love introducing midwesterners to mexican flavors. Below I've posted the menu I jave planned up to this point and was wondering if you guys had any feedback. I'm looking to add one course possibly a braise like a spin on Zarela Martinez' estofada de peurco con frutas. But there will be a number of vegetarians present and so I've come up with a few options for them that would appeal to both crowds, like the soup and like the appetizers (minus the totopos de vieira). What could I add as a course? What dessert should I do? Here's the menu: Cocktails: The White Mexican: Horchata, Kahlua, Rye Vodka Mexican Greyhound: Ruby Red Grapefruit, Plata Tequila, Salt and Lime Modelo Especial Appetizers: Sopes: Squash Blossom, Charred Poblano, Caramelized Onion, Salsa Verde, Queso Anejo And Cinnamon Black Beans, Salted and Spiced Tangerines, Pasilla Chile Puree, Queso Anejo Totopos De Vieira: Pan Seared Scallop, Bacon Avocado Mousse, Pineapple Mignonette Botanas de Jicama y Cacahuate: Jicama, Fried Peanuts, Grapefruit and Tangerine, Cilantro, Chile powder and Salt Table Salsas: House Made Totopos Fogata: Charred Vegetable and Chile, Smoked Pasilla De Oaxaca Salsa Verde: Tomatillo, Green Mango, Guajillo Chile Salsa Mexicana: Beefsteak Tomato, Jalapeno, Cilantro, Onion, Garlic, Lime Charred Chilaca Chile Soup: Toasted Chick Pea Soup: Tomato Mint Relish, Fried Green Tomato, Queso Anejo Main Course: Tacos al Pastor: Sous Vide Lamb Belly, Smoked Pineapple, Cilantro Shallot Gremolata Tacos de Frutas y Verduras: Pickled Pan Fried Cauliflower, Blood Orange Cumin Ranch, Fennel and Chile Pico De Gallo Dessert: Mexican Ice Cream Sundae: Caramelized Banana, Avocado Ice Cream with Cajeta, Burnt Milk Ice Cream with Prickly Pear Syrup, Pimpo (Dent Corn Sugar Cookie) or perhaps Pan De Chocolate: Cinnamon Chile Buttercreme, Nata and Pecan Sorbet Sorry for all of the explanations if you read this before I edited it. I had sent this to some folks I do some catering with and needed to explain some things. Thanks

Guys - Thanks for all the helpful comments...if you were here right now you would see me blushing....what an idiot I was in a rush and trying to make some mayo in a flash and having made it from a recipe numerous times thought I remembered everything. Well not enough lemon and forgetting a touch of vinegar equals...not enough water to actually emulsify the oil into. Thanks all...

So the other day I poached some artichokes in olive oil. I saved the oil, which was awesomely redolent of artichokes and have been using it to make vinaigrettes that taste wonderful. Today I thought I might make some mayo with it. Started with one egg yolk, lemon, white pepper and salt. Whisked them together and beat the egg yolk, not too hard but got all of the lemon white pepper and salt mixed well into the yolk. Then I started adding the olive oil. It had been in the fridge and was cold but I added small drops at time and beat forever, then another drop, then another drop, doing it really slow because the oil was cold. It never emulsified. It looked like vinaigrette. I kept adding oil and kept beating...nothing. I added another yolk because at this point the proportions were off. (probably my biggest mistake). I then put it in the food processor. Same thing. Then I put it in the blender on high for 5 minutes...nothing...still looked like vinaigrette. After I turned the blender off it looked like it had curdled so I put one more yolk in a bowl and starting adding the curdled misture in a small stream...vinagrette. What is wrong? Thoughts?

I too discovered this the first (only) time I made it with sour cream. When I make it with buttermilk it never quite gets to the right consistency as store bought but always has a wonderful nutty sourness. I actually prefer the one I made with sour cream as it wasn't quite as sour and yet was thick and rich. I don't really have an answer to your question just confirming your observation. There are many though who would say that unless you used a creme fraiche culture you aren't ending up with creme fraiche anyway...but honestly if it tastes good (and apparently the blackberries you just ate would definitely say (if they could talk) that they were tasty... I prefer it because it is less sour and thicker like store bought. If it tastes good do it. As far as it thickening later, I had the same thing. There's no science behind this (at all...) but when I make it with butter milk it stayes relatively the same consistency throughout with a thick cream at the top...with the sour cream it seemed to be the opposite...maybe the culture works differently. Probably bull crap but who knows. Isn't life wonderful...blackberries and creme fraiche..mmmmmmmmmmmmm(drool) Also...it likes your post just got merged with some others or something so maybe someone above already answered this question.

I like the menu....sure it's got a lot going on but I want to see how you can make all of those things fly together and a number of those combinations get me salivating. The middle course sounds excellent, "Quail, celeriac risotto, liquorice syrup, shaved fennel"...uhh sign me up. However the only thing I don't like on the menu is the seared tuna dish. Too many elements in my opinion...lots of naturally acidic things with a lighter (ish) protein. The tuna might be nice and fatty but sounds like it is gonna get lost in the other components. The only other thing I would say critique wise is that you will have a number of diners who, as has been stated, will get burnt out on proteins by dessert. I could be wrong but if the place you cook doesn't normally do stuff like this then will the crowd coming be used to very very interesting food? If not they might find themselves worn out by a dessert BLT...but then again they might think it is awesome because they've never even dreamed of it before. I like it and hope it works well for you. Good luck!

Thanks for the help folks. Now I understand a little bit more. I think I have abandoned the idea in favor of doing a 'blondie' for my component. Thanks