Steve Irby

After a long and hot day at work dinner became dessert. Leftover from Mother's day it is black bottom pie from Joy Of Cooking that I've made for about 45 years. It was a real treat as a kid when my mom put it on the table so it has become somewhat of a family tradition. I made the crust with lard that I rendered and it really held up nice. I can't say I've tweaked the recipe at all except to use 2X - 3X more chocolate.

I cooked the chicken thighs with indirect heat in my weber kettle. I used a pretty hot fire with lots of pecan to get a heavy smoke. No basting or flipping either.

Ann-T Beautiful complete meals as usual. Huiray and MM84321 continue to turn out an amazingly high volume of great looking dishes. Last night my wife wanted meatballs and I wanted chicken. So I pulled some meatballs from the freezer that I had prepared with mushrooms and spinach to serve over pasta plus grilled chicken over pasta with curly kale and garlic. Both served with a generous amount of Piave cheese. And from earlier in the week a tomato basil soup topped with a little feta. The soup base included some of the jelly from the easter ham which really adds a lot of extra flavor.

First crawfish boil of the season. In order of cooking, potatoes, Conecuh sausage, corn, crawfish and shrimp.

Kind of got in the weeds at plating time so only one photo of a great fresh ham (13.5#) for dinner last night. The ham was seasoned with alaea salt, harissa blend and a little cinnamon. The ham was finished with a light glaze of pomegranate juice, pomegranate molasses and pineapple preserves.

You can smoke after sous vide quite successfully. The key is to have the exterior of the meat dry so the smoke can penetrate. My procedure is to cook the meat to desired temp, rapid chill in an ice bath, blot the meat of all moisture and then air dry for a half hour or so using a fan. If the ambient temp is pretty warm I leave the meat uncovered in the refrigerator to dry out. In order to prevent overcooking the food should go onto the grill cool to cold. Using a heavy smoke and instant read thermometer smoke the meat until you are just below the target temp. I finish my food on a weber grill but I'm sure an indoor rig would be easy enough to make. I was watching DDD the other night and the cook had a one gallon food can with wood chips in it with a small kettle grill balanced on top. The kettle can be purchased for around $30 and would make a great stove top smoker. Regarding temp and humidity you goal is to produce the maximum amount of smoke with the least amount of heat. You are going to definitely need to provide good cross ventilation unless you like the cave smell a lot. I've attached a few photo's of last weekends batch. The smoke flavor was stronger after a few days of being resealed a the flavor equilibrated through the meats. The first two photos are air dried after the bath and the second two are coming off the grill.

Tonight we had the first fresh corn of the season and it was delicious. Served with wilted spinach, carrots and turchetta. The turcehtta was prepared over the weekend with a variety of other meats cooked sous vide and finished with a light pecan smoke. The sous vide session included turchetta, turkey tenderloins,turkey thighs stuffed with homemade chorizo, legs and wings seasoned with cajun seafood boil with lemon and butter, and pork two ways with five spice and New Mexico chili rub.

One hot water bath with six variations. Turchetta prepared as presented from Serious Eats, pork sirloin with five spice, pork sirloin with kind of a New Mexico Chili rub, turkey thighs stuffed with homemade chorizo, turkey legs and wings with Old Bay seasoning variant and turkey tenderloins. The pork, tenderloins and turchetta were cooked 4.5 hours at 140 F and the thighs and wing were finished at 165 for and additional 3 hours. All packets were chilled in an ice bath when they came out of the of the circulator then air dried prior to being finished on the grill and smoked with pecan.

Last night's dinner was surf'n turf with Niman Ranch lamb and Royal Red shrimp. Served with roasted asparagus and baked potato. Easy meal that really hit the spot.

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.