Steve Irby

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.

Great prep photo. Mise en place in the plural or at my house Out of Chaos Comes Order.

Thanks to all for the informative posts. Of course it's the great photos that are the hook and between Ann, Anna and Kerry lots of incentive to adopt new methods . I didn't realize what a high hydration dough was until reading this post and via link to portions of the Forkish book on google. I made bread today that I've made many times over the years that includes a biga and is about 80% hydration. I incorporated some new techniques such as autolyse of the water and flour and the bread turned out to the the best ever. It had great height and crumb. And for Kerry, that photo is from the side of the loaf!

Oyster salad with buttermilk dressing and watermelon radishes. We were in New Orleans a few months ago and had this salad at MiLa. This is my reasonable facsimile and it is really tasty. For the dressing I used a Ina Garten recipe with a substitution of tarragon for the basil. I shucked the oysters and dusted with a very fine corn meal and flash fried.

Great posts. Shelby I too took the plunge for the first time and roasted up a piece of belly that I had dry brined for 4 days with the intent to smoke it on the grill. I decided to change course and cooked it in the oven after reading this post. The pork came from a tamworth hog that I butchered last fall and the skin came out really crunchy without the soda step. I was a little sloppy in the scoring process but lordy is that pork tasty.

Great, great meals being posted after the Christmas lull. It's been pretty cold on the Gulf Coast so a couple of days ago I made a big batch of Chill-Umbo. It's a true garbage can gumbo with cappicolla, pulled pork, tasso and smoked sausage plus a few chicken scraps . The base is a standard dark roux with a gelatinous pork stock . Add some cajun seasoning, mexican seasoning , okra, black beans, white beans, chili beans, garbanzos and viola! Chilumbo. Last night - I'm still working on variations to the perfect roast chicken. Judy Rogers recipe with the paprika rub suggested by Patrick Amory. This afternoon we had friends for dinner so I prepared a few dishes from "friends" Heston Blumenthal - Braised chicken with sherry and Jamie Oliver - Crosata di Fiche.

Here's an interesting article on the impact of single service pods. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/single-serve-coffee-brewers-make-convenience-costly.html?_r=0. We switched to the french press method a couple of years ago after our Krups coffee maker died and we've been very pleased with the results. The HB is certainly a nice looking brewer and I hope it's hitting the spot for you.

Definitely a photo worth posting. Very nice loaf. What website did you go to for the recipe?

Ann_T great looking bread and pizza. I've started making bread after a lay off of many years. A nice loaf cost about $6-$7 so I thought I'll make bread and upgrade my beer. This loaf is Pan Bigio from Carol Fields book made with a starter and 2:1 ratio of bread flour to whole wheat. It makes great toast. Anna_N beautiful ciabatta. I'll try that later in the week or the coccodrillo variation posted by Jon.

Okay, we polished off the rest of the oysters tonight. Probably about 4 dozen raw and finished with a fried oyster and catfish Poboy.

We got a great 50# sack of oysters from Capano Bay, Texas. A little on the small side but very salty. So far we had them raw, rockefeller and char grilled. And Chocolate Espresso Torte from Jody Adams cookbook. And a picture of Christmas Cornetti

I think the standard being referred is one atmosphere or 29.92 inches of mercury. As you get more familiar with the machine you will see that the time it takes to reach the target vacuum is primarily a function of how much space is taken up by the object being vacuumed.

Cornetti with some prepared with almond paste. The recipe is from Carol Fields The Italian Baker and has become a Christmas tradition.

My condolences.

Merry Christmas to all. Dinner tonight was my take on Salmon Rockefeller as prepared by a local restaurant. Grits with Gruyere, wilted spinach with Pernod, topped with grilled salmon, fried oysters and hollandaise. I think it's the start of a new Christmas tradition.

It's been pretty chilly for us folks in the Florida panhandle so comfort food is in order. Lentils and lamb with sun dried tomatoes, parsley and green onion. The french lentils were cooked in turkey broth and seasoned pretty aggressively with a harissa blend from World Spice with additional coriander, cumin and fenugreek.

Thanks, this is the first time I cooked the leaves and stems and the dish turned out to be really tasty. I got a giant cauliflower (6#) at the farmers market with the leaves attached. I cut the leaves from the stems and sliced the leaves thinly. I chopped the stems in the food processor with lots of fresh baby vidalia onions and garlic. I sauteed the stem mix in bacon fat till they started to soften then added the julienned leaves and cooked the mixture until they sweated down. I had some pickled pork in the freezer that I cubed, browned and added to the greens. All the ingredients were combined, with addition of chicken stock, and baked in a casserole dish for about an hour.