Steve Irby

Spaghetti and meat balls with lugancea sauage. The beef and pork meatball is hiding under the under the parmesan cloud.

This has been sandwich week with yesterdays lunch being pork steak served over a very nice grilled focaccia slathered with delicious labne. The steaks were trimmed from a portion of a Boston butt and were cut about an inch thick and tenderized with a Jaccard type device then grilled. I got the inspiration for the tenderized pork steaks, and Nuremberg Rostbratwurst, after watching the YouTube channel Moodi Foodi Berlin. Here's the link if you have a couple of spare hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaRwZ7anorg

@Smithy This type of sausage is a fresh raw pork sausage that doesn't require a curing agent. It should be eaten within three or four days of preparing or frozen. I vacuum bag them in about 3/4 lb bags and they hold fine for a year. It's also great as a bulk sausage for patties, meat loaf, stuffing etc,.

I made a 3 kg batch of luganeca sausage this morning and I cooked a few links of the misfires for lunch. It been awhile since I prepared this recipe and I forgot how good it is. This the first time to use the traditional sheep casing. The formulation for the sausage includes pork shoulder, salt, parmigiano cheese, nutmeg, S&P, white wine and fresh rosemary and garlic.

I started out with a nice fatty 3/4 lb skin-on belly filet. The filet was dusted with the spice blend then I added a couple of very thin slices of orange and lemon. The filet was covered with a mixture of 1/3 cup each of kosher salt and granulated sugar and vacuum bagged. The cure time was 48 hrs. Here's photo of the filet after the cure was washed off.

Home cured salmon with a spice blend from World Spice including Indian coriander, fennel seed, cumin, guajillo, cardamom seed, Indonesian cinnamon, turmeric, and cloves. Served over Kalamata olive bread and goat cheese.

A quick lunch that presented well. I bought a tray of pre-cooked tiger prawns from Sam's that had been marked down and served some over cheese grits that I had previously cooked and frozen in silicone molds. I microwaved the frozen grit pucks for a minute to defrost then browned in an olive oil and butter mix. The grits were topped with the shrimp, red onions, garlic chives, capers, oil cured olives and sun dried tomatoes that were sauteed in olive oil. Served with a simple salad dressed with olive oil and champagne vinegar.

Dinner was SV turkey breast over celeriac and potato mash with wilted spinach and carrots. The turkey was half of a turkey breast half that was divided length wise after coming out of the water bath. The breast was seasoned with Cavender's Greek Salt, lemon slices with fresh sage and rosemary. I browned the breast prior to serving and deglazed the pan with the bag juices to make a sauce. The breast was seasoned and sealed the day prior to being cooked. I left it in the circulator for four hours at 141F.

Thanks, they were pretty tasty. I'm not sure about legs but they still have shoulders🐷 I cut these steaks out of a boston butt that I was breaking down for sausage. I think the cut would be roughly equivalent to a beef chuck steak.

Another dessert in the again category. Galatorie's Sweet Potato Cheese that I made for my neighbors 98th birthday get together.

Lunch was SV pork steaks that were cooked about two hours at 141F.

I try to use lean bacon and the meat glue helps in the finishing process which is browning the roll in oil. I've certainly had better luck when using it. Here's a photo of a ready to serve tenderloin roulade from 2022.

It's turkey time again! I had a 24# butterball turkey in the freezer that was competing for storage space with the sausage that I made at the first of the year. I solved that issue by roasting the legs and thighs and prepped the breast and tenderloins for the circulator. One breast half was seasoned with Cavender's Greek Seasoning, kosher salt, lemon slices, rosemary, sage and olive oil. The second breast half was seasoned with a mystery green spice blend that my sister brought back from Istanbul. The fragrance and flavor is similar to a spice blend from Spicewalla that includes curry leaf, fenugreek, dill, tamarind, cumin, coriander, onion, garlic and S&P. I added orange and lemon slices along with a little olive oil. The tenderloins were seasoned with Tony Chacere's and Cavenders seasoning blends, dusted with transglutaminase, and bacon wrapped. I cooked the batch at 141 for 4 hours plus. The breast halves were a little less than 3 lbs and the tenderloin was 1.75 lbs. I split the breast lengthwise and resealed after chilling. I also cooked two 8 oz pork steaks for about 2 hours

I went to the farmers market to buy turnip greens this morning and spotted this robiola in the cheese counter. The cheese smelled great thru the paper and it had right kind of squishy feel. I've decided to take a chance and brought a piece home. OMG it was perfect. The producer is Boxcarr Handmade Cheese in Cedar Grove NC. The price came out to be about $19/lb which is a bargain for artisanal cheese. Served with a sourdough bread from Craft Bakery.

@patti Thanks, it's a bit of production but we get to enjoy the results for the coming year. I ordered the correct size horn for the sheep casing that I have on hand so I'll be ready for the next batch.