Steve Irby

My Mom told me not to eat anything I couldn't pronounce but in the case of the pepper I'll make an exception. I've never had mango other than raw. How was the mango prepped? Beautiful color on the duck and great presentation as usual.

Rotuts -I trimmed the steak out while breaking down a whole hog so it was not purchased at a market. A specialty butcher may have pork flank but at a processing plant it would go in the sausage mix as trim. One of the nice things about home butchery is the ability to use these "off cuts" that never make it to the supermarket.

Pork confit on sourdough. The pork was confited four months ago at the start of Cook-Off #64. Finally got around to that corner of the refrigerator today.

I finally got around to a piece of pork confit that I prepared when the challenge first started. It's been resting in the back of the refrigerator in it's bed of pork fat for about four months. I used a pork flank steak that I seasoned with a New Mexico spice rub and let it rest for a few days. I then simmered it in rendered pork fat until tender and then off into the refrigerator. The was pork trimmed out of a Tamworth hog that I butchered the previous fall. Getting ready to melt off the fat. A few succulent slices. And a quick quality control check.

Nice looking dish. In New Orleans (or in LA in general) the preferred beans are Camellia brand whether kidney, navy, lima, etc. Always fresh, cooks up quick, at $2.50\#. http://www.camelliabrand.com/ For real all school RB&R try using pickled pork. http://www.gumbopages.com/food/pickle-meat.html or google other sources. It's easy to cure a few ham steaks to get a little different take on a southern classic.

It's a pretty straight forward preparation. I stuffed the pork with a paste made from fresh rosemary, fresh garlic and red pepper flake. I made the pockets for the filling mixture with my finger at muscle separations. At a few spots I cut slits into the muscle with my boning knife and pushed in the seasoning mix. The butt had a really nice fat cap that I wanted to preserve so I loosely tented the butt with foil and cooked at 250F for probably four or five hours until it reached an internal temp of around 190F and basting every hour. I removed the foil and turned to the temp to 475F to char the fat cap. I also scored the cap prior to cooking then deepened the cut marks prior to browning. Be sure to save the rendered fat as it is great in savory pie crust. I used some of the rendered fat to make a crust for empanadas using some the leftover meat and they were terrific.

A few dishes from this week. Locally sourced pork butt stuffed with rosemary, garlic and red pepper flakes. The shoulder was huge so I sectioned it into four portions hence the weird looking cut. Chicken thighs seasoned with harissa and preserved lemon and served with cous cous, feta and oil cured olives. And a few appetizers for a friends get together. Mini-muffelatas with genoa salami, Citterio mortadella, ham and olive salad; leftover harrisa chicken with spansh olives and feta; fresh sausage with feta and oil cured olives; and roasted cauliflower with goat cheese and feta spread. Also served store bought dolmades served with a quick tzatziki.

Last nights dinner. Potato and celery root rosti, grilled chicken, cauliflower gratin and romaine salad with pickled turnips, roasted beets and clementine supremes.

Okay, it's getting close to cocktail time. I know our drink was delicious at Bayona but there seems to be more than a little skepticism as to the proportions. Could it be that they are holding back on their signature cocktail recipe? As we are very "green" in the mixologist role (and two main ingredients) what does our fellow eGulleters recommend as the primary or fall back ratio's in preparing the cocktail.

Has anyone tried a Stormy Morning? We had one in New Orleans last week at Bayona and it was really great. We stopped at Rouses supermarket chain on the way out of town and picked up some of St Germain and Rathman so we could recreate the drink. Here's link http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Stormy-Morning

Speckled butter beans seasoned with rosemary,garlic and ham steak. The ham steak was from the pig that I butchered a few weeks ago and prepped in a simple overnight brine. Added some leftover mashed potatoes to thicken the soup and served with buttermilk cornbread. Yesterday we had a lamb po-boy on Reisings french bread from New Orleans. The lamb was leftovers prepared from a leg of lamb using the recipe from Zahav in Philadelphia. It may not be the best photo but that lamb is fantastic.

Quite an incredible spread. Beautiful execution and plating.

All the vibration? Trash gauges? What unit are you referencing? My Ary unit does not vibrate to the degree that there is any bounce in the needle. The vacuum observed is also consistent with the vacuum required to compress fruit and "boil" like crazy warm food or liquids.

Here is a photo from tonight with time=40 seconds and maximum volume in chamber.

With the three factory spacers in place and a large piece of meat 30 seconds.

Okay here's my two cents worth regarding the VP-112. I bought mine in March 2012 and have probably gone through ~1500 cycles. The amount of vacuum definitely has an effect on the quality of the seal. At high vacuums the standard seal time of 5-6 seconds is fine. If you decrease the vacuum below a 20 second cycle time I have to increase the seal time to 7-9 seconds. I usually insert the bag with about an inch past the seal bar. If I'm not sure about the seal I double the seal by decreasing the vacuum and increasing the seal time. Be careful to not overfill the bag as it will bunch resulting in a bad seal. Regarding warm or hot food. Be prepared for a big mess in the chamber with liquids because the food in the pouch will boil like crazy regardless of machine. Been there done that, forgot that I'd been there and cleaned up the slop again. After two or three iterations I've learned my lesson. The VP-112 has (or had) the same pump as the VP-110. The gauge on my machine reads to 30" Hg and my machine will hit 29.5". It is important to keep the gasket seal clean and free of dust, crumbs, ets. I use food grade silicone on the gasket. I have had no problem with fruit compression. Here's a few photo's from 2012 with my first try with watermelon. The company has replaced two lids that developed stress fractures. They replaced them with no questions and included 2nd day shipping. I assume they were aware of a manufacturing\design defect and took care of the problem.

I've got enough pig parts that I could certainly experiment. The dry brine's that I've used for bacon, and variations for bacon and guanciale, have been pretty damn tasty. I've primarily used recipes from Charcuterie and from the Len Poli site. Given the time frames between initiation of the wet brine cure and sampling the final product it would be easy enough to try your variation. For those that inquired as the breed of pig my supplier says it's a yorkshire.

The pigs like me - questionable pedigree. I've haven't tired pancetta yet but have cured bacon and quanciale several times. I think last year I started out to cure a piece of belly for pancetta and changed course and smoked the piece with mulberry. I definitely will try pancetta this go around as I have plenty of belly. Shel - Here's a photo from last year of a tamworth cheek cured for quanciale.

Thanks for the link. It's exactly what is was looking for. I've prepared a number of pig parts by dry brining but would like to try the wet method. I'm not sure what I got and I don't think the farmer knows exactly. I'm pretty sure it's not a heritage breed. I bought the pig from Carl Stewart in Bay Minette AL and he was pretty surprised when he took them to the slaughter that they weighed so much. Carl is primarily an organic produce farmer who bought some pigs to turn in to his vegetable plots to fatten them up on the tail end of production so to speak.

I had a pretty big weekend breaking down a hog that I bought from a local farmer for $2.00 # hanging weight (My backs still killing me). It was delivered to a slaughter house with a kill fee of $65 which included blocking. The hanging weight was #300 and it was the fattest one I've dealt with to date. After breaking down the carcass I have some nice sheets of fat that I thought would be nice to cure. I've cured the belly for bacon and guanciale but haven't tried lardo. Any tips for lardo? I would like to shoot for a long brine time (3-5 months). Potential bacon 27# Fresh Ham

Ann-T great photography and bread. I tried making ciabatta today and it turned out pretty good. I did have some weird striations or banding on three of the loaves. The bread made great muffaletta's for supper tonight.

Dinner tonight was a muffelata with montasio cheese, mortadella, salami, ham and olive salad. The bread was ciabatta that I baked this afternoon.

Lions mane mushrooms from the wilds of Andalusia AL with a couple of farm eggs and toast.

We're working through a box of Louisiana oysters. Starting out tonight with raw oysters southern style.

Looks delicious! About how thick was your cut? It was a little under 2" at the thickest.