JoNorvelleWalker
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Posts posted by JoNorvelleWalker
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I've been remiss in recording my attempts. Since the chicken breasts in my post above, not much has been worth mentioning, but I did have an accidental success with pork shoulder:
My pork was a three pound boneless roast. Because it was boneless some sections were thicker than others. I put the Combustion probe in the thickest part, and proceeded to smoke using the Profile's preset, to a target of 92C. After five and a half hours I gave up about 2:00 am. My Thermopen agreed with the Combustion, but because of the size variations some parts of the meat were underdone while other parts were quite overdone.
Dinner was some of the more overdone. Tough but edible. But then night before last I took a chunk of the pork and cooked it further in the Anova on sous vide mode 100C and 100% RH, for an hour and a half. This was the first time I achieved anything like pulled pork. I was very pleased.
Tonight I hope to replicate the success.
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6 hours ago, rotuts said:
S&S started carrying Dukes . $ 5.99 Ooooops
but it went on sale this week @ $ 3.99
'thought Id finally give it a try. its not Mayo season , but Ill get to it eventually.
but before 5/2026
said to have twang , on the lid.
Some months ago I bought a jar of Duke's from Amazon, since stores here don't carry it. I had a recipe that called for Duke's. To make what, I don't remember. I have yet to open it. I'd love to hear what you think of the brand. I regard dates on jars as "guidlines".
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On 10/6/2025 at 2:34 PM, KennethT said:
I've never experienced the rotten potato smell, but this reminds me to say that I will never again leave a bag of frozen shrimp out on top of the freezer (which was in the middle of our living room)... We walked in one day and thought that there was a dead rat hidden in the walls, which would have been impossible in our 21st floor, poured concrete and steel apartment!
I'm not the only one who has a freezer in their living room!
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1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:
Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg was published last week. I received my copy, have given it a good once over, cooked one of the recipes and have a bunch more marked to try.
The book opens with a dried pasta primer and discussion of his decision to use dried pasta exclusively in the book. The recipes offer a range of interesting ingredient combinations but he also devotes space to “how to” pages for dressing pasta with the basic pestos, flavored butters and whipped ricotta that appear in the front of the book. There are similar sections for using ragus, making baked pasta dishes and pasta salads so the reader can build on the basics with their own recipes. After the basic sauces, the recipes are organized by season, similar to Six Seasons. Plenty of meat and seafood are used. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook but I think that cooking with vegetables is really McFadden's strength. In reading through, I thought some of the dishes would be delicious without the pasta, just adding more vegetables.
With a few exceptions, the pasta recipes serve 2-4, depending on how hearty or rich they are. The ragu recipes tend to make enough for 8-12 servings, and he recommends freezing them in portions appropriate for one meal.
There's one recipe for a Caesar salad and one for garlic bread but other than that, it’s all pasta.
I’ve got several pasta cookbooks that focus on making fresh pasta, so I’m fine with the dry pasta focus. I’m also quite capable of concocting my own pasta dishes without relying on a cookbook but I think I’ll enjoy trying quite a few of the offerings here.
I started with the eggplant puttanesca with fresh tomatoes on p 301 and thought it was quite good.
Do the recipes call for homemade dried pasta or storebought dried pasta?
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I shall never again order spareribs flanken cut when what I want (so I learned) are called English cut. It does not help that Whole Foods uses the same picture for both.
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3 hours ago, lemniscate said:
Chimay White is $14 for a tulip glass around these parts.
As I recall the white is quite less expensive than the green. I've found the white OK but nothing to write home about. After the green my second favorite is the blue.
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1 hour ago, gfweb said:
Didn't Guinness used to have some sort of CO2 generator in its cans that fizzed it up upon opening?
Nitrogen.
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2 hours ago, Smithy said:
What would you suggest?
Get a GE Profile Indoor Smoker and try smoking them.
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58 minutes ago, lemniscate said:
I tried this new to me Blond Ale which came in a 750ml at a very surprising low price. I found it delicious, my tastes run primarily to strong Belgian styles.
If I ever see it I will probably give it a try.
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1 hour ago, gfweb said:
@JoNorvelleWalker Chimay is good stuff but that price is nuts. Joe Ortleib is twirling in his grave ;-). I drank a lot of Schmidts and Valley Forge back then. I'm too young to have drunk Esslinger's or Hohenadle's.
I just had a couple DogfishHead 60 minute IPA. Nice.
My son loves Dogfish. Schmidts makes me gag. I was once at a trade show in the old convention center. There was a beer vendor with an Ortlieb's tap. I should have thrown the Schmidts he sold me in his face.
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Last night I had my first Chimay Green Strong Blond Ale.
https://chimay.com/us/beers/chimay-150-us/
My new favorite. Wonderful as long you can forget about the price. A quart of Ortlieb's (I grew up in Philadelphia) used to go for 35 cents. Four little bottles of Chimay Green are closer to 35 dollars.
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I shall never again attempt to cook food in my kitchen. Last night I was smoking a chicken breast in my GE smoker, grilling arepas on my Paragon, and running the Anova oven. Of a sudden it got dark and quiet.
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7 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:
I found numerous threads about stand mixers, so picked this one at random. I've had a Kitchen Aid for quite a while but it got buried and not used in a long time. Determined to change that after the move, I dug it out yesterday to pack and take to the new place. OMG!! It either gained weight or I got weaker because I did not remember it being so heavy! I hope the bottom of the box doesn't fall out.
I have ordered some of the mats that you put under appliances to make them easy to slide and hope that does the trick when I get it there and unpacked. I do not want to have to lift it again. My back!!
I feel your pain! A couple of years ago I found a wonderful mat that is specifically designed to fit a KitchenAid. It really, really helps...
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6 hours ago, rotuts said:
nice work. when you say pull temp , that would be the probe temp in an approximate center of the item
but not the equilibrium temp when taken out of the IDS and rested ?
I have not tried these higher temps just yet. Next time Im in possession of a CkBr or TrBr
I might try it , going for an equilibrium temp of `145 F , and then using the meat w think slices for
a sandwich or what not .
good work.
By "pull temperature" I mean the core temperature as read by the Combustion probe. I then let the breast equilibrate outside the smoker but I did not take a final reading.
Edit: I forgot to mention, some sources say to smoke chicken breasts at a higher temperature to avoid formation of an unpleasant dry chewy skin.
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I'm pleased to report a modest success. Last night I smoked a chicken breast in the GE. For wood I used a sweetwood blend. For a rub I used an Oaxacan Ancho Coffee Rub from The Spice House, being careful not to overdo it. Smoking temperature was 135C. Pull temperature was 71C. Time was about an hour and ten minutes. The meat was lovingly tender, and I could slice it remarkably thin. I could even chew it. For someone who finds chicken breasts impossible to cook I was impressed and pleased.
It would be interesting to cook a chicken breast in the Anova at the same temperatures but with steam.
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Smoked bluefish pate from Delish was excellent. Eggplant took too long to cook.
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Last night I smoked another hamburger in the GE:
Mesquite
Half pound ground beef
Smoker temperature 140C
Target temperature 56C
What's different is I used the Combustion thermometer. The prediction was right on. My mistake was to try some cheese. I put the "cheeseburger" back in the smoker, but I could not get the cheese to melt and the meat over cooked. Final thermapen reading was 61C. The result was not that bad (I ate it all), but it was more difficult to chew.
Tonight I hope to smoke an eggplant for baba Ganoush, to go with smoked bluefish pate. The smoked bluefish has been hydrating in a bowl of water.
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A couple to share today...
I shall never again reach into a near boiling (95C) sous vide bath only to discover my silicone gauntlet leaks.
I shall
never againalmost certainly again allow an organic pineapple to liquify in the living room. I cannot lie, this makes twice in recent memory.-
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Since last posting I've received the long delayed Chris Young predictive thermometer. I've had much success smoking a few hotdogs. The predictions were right on.
It's interesting to compare set temperatures on the GE Profile to the ambient temperatures measured with the Combustion:
Set / measured
107C 119C
96C 101C
118C 108C
After smoking a few hotdogs to 62C, tonight I am smoking another pork shoulder. One minute still left to go. My target is 92C. Finally after six hours my meat is resting.
I can report that after the six hour cook, this pork shoulder was better than the last. I could chew it but not easily.
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16 hours ago, Shel_B said:
Sometimes it's helpful to have a handle or gripper to move or remove the pan from the oven. I've been using a set of groove joint pliers for this task.
They are somewhat suited to the task, but sometimes their grip and stability are poor. A friend made me aware of the existance of pan grippers.
(eG-friendly Amazon.com link) (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)
The shape of the head is designed to grip the rim of sheet pans and the like in a more secure manner than pliers. At least that's the intent. Has anyone used these things? Do they work as advertised?
I have these:
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6 hours ago, Smithy said:
I will never again reach into my food processor (NOT running) to check the consistency of pie crust dough. That blade is SHARP. Fortunately I have plenty of bandages and finger cots so I could contain the blood.
Seriously, folks: if the material in the processor bowl isn't too runny, tip it out onto a work surface and remove the cutting blade before feeling around the dough. If it is runny, use a spatula.
@Smithy I am sorry for your accident! My food processor has long since been retired, but one reason I love my Blendtec blender is that the blades are intentionally dull and it's [almost] impossible for me to cut myself.
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Another failure, this time with a large (and expensive) Berkshire rib chop. Most of the porkchop smoking suggestions I found were for 121C for 2 1/2 hours. After just over an hour I went to turn the meat. When I read the temperature it was 75C at the warmest part. My target was 63C. Very sad. Something is going on that I do not understand.
On the positive side the salt and spices were just right, and the pork was very flavorful. But frightfully overdone.
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How much do such things cost, may I ask?
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After rereading Chad Ward's An Edge in the Kitchen
Chad says he does everything with a chef's knife...before adding that he has 43 chef's knives at his disposal.
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Gotten any fun stuff lately?
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
I found my jar of Duke's. The best buy date is 8/11/2024. Note this is a "buy" date. It says nothing about by when the product should be eaten.