JoNorvelleWalker

Forgive me if this is a double post, but I caved on the last copy of Delish! Dinner tonight is Rancho Gordo Moro beans, my potato salad, and the recently smoked pork belly -- chopped with my second most serious cleaver. (The heavy cleaver I can hardly lift.) Pickle and side of Momofuku ranch.

Smoke them! I'm having pork belly for dinner.

I picked the first few tiny tomatoes from my plants. Tiny, but taste like tomatoes.

I caved on Delish! Tonight I plan to cook up a pot of Rancho Gordo beans, haven't decided which, to accompany my smoked pork belly from the other day.

I searched the library and found books by Philip Craig, no cookbook though. There was a cookbook titled Delish, but by a different author. If you have the pate recipe, how much fish and how much cream cheese?

What is bacony? I looked it up but I still have no idea. Meanwhile after three hours I reduced the smoker temperature to 77C -- as low as the temperature goes. Probe temperature is measuring 94.6C.

After an hour and forty minutes the probe temperature was close to 80C. I lowered the smoker temperature to 82C and turned the tray. Also on the subject I connected the GE to Wi-Fi. I had not planned to do so, but I realized if I didn't one of my neighbors easily could.

The pork belly is in the smoker, seasoned only with salt and pepper. I plan to finish the meat with a sweet Japanese style sauce when it is almost done. Dinner may be close to midnight, but what else is new? The wood is Kona Sweetwood Blend. Some pit people say use just one wood for a year. Others say choice of wood is the first ingredient. Then some people smoke skin side up, others smoke skin side down. I decided on skin side down. Most say score the skin, others say very bad. I did not score the skin on mine. Temperature is another can of worms. I am smoking at 110C. My hope is to slice the pork belly, so I plan to pull from the smoker at about 90C, as measured with the BBQOVN probe. Did I mention it is hot?

I read in one book that smoking fish makes your smoker smell like fish. Some advocate for having two smokers, one for fish and one for everything else. That would solve @gfweb's dilemma! I have not been careful about clearing smoke before opening the door of the GE, and since I've been using it a good bit the smoke smell in the apartment is noticeable. Smoke detector still silent, and CO detector reads zero. Last night I shredded half the remaining smoked bluefish and made seafood paella. Not bad. If anything the dish was under salted. In addition to the fish I used a can of smoked mussels which had salt as an ingredient. Tasting some of the shredded fish alone I was delighted that it was not too salty. I may try making some sort of smoked bluefish dip if I can find a recipe. Today is a day off from work, and I planned to smoke a pork belly. But the heat and humidity is awful. Heat advisory in effect tomorrow.

No, the bluefish had no fishy smell when I bought it or when I cooked it. The smoker smells, well, like smoke.

Sigh. To reset my Anova to Celsius I actually had to read the manual...again.

The GE Profile bluefish was a revelation. Smoked over hickory, two hours at 102C, then a further two hours at 77C. It was like fish candy! Normally I avoid the skin of oily fish but the fat of the bluefish skin melted and the skin melded with the delicious meat. Sadly the result was overly salty, as expected after the unintentionally long brining time. I was minded of the Finnan haddie my dear mother prepared back in the early 1950's. As I recall she steeped the smoked fish in milk to attenuate the salt. The remaining pieces are now vacuum sealed in the refrigerator. I assume they should keep for a good long time.

Last night's mesquite burger was quite good, though I saved half of it for later. As I said I pulled at 56C. Surprisingly both the BBQOVN and the Thermapen agreed. Smoking time was about 45 minutes The meat looked uniformly pink like I would expect at 56C. The burger actually looked like it had been cooked sous vide: no gradient. But with a Mailliard crust. No searing necessary. Result was easy enough for me to chew. I worried a little because of food safety concerns over ground beef at that low temperature. So far I'm still alive. Also last night I came home from the store with a lovely thick fillet of bluefish and a couple lemons. The fishmonger kindly cut off the thin end of the fillet before weighing. The thick piece I got home with was a little over a pound. Very nice, no bones. I cut the fish into three portions. A whole fillet would not fit in the GE smoker. Conveniently the GE has three shelves. I made a brine and let the pieces sit overnight. The plan was to remove the pieces from the brine before I left for work so that they could dry and be ready to smoke after I got home. As it happened I fell back asleep after my alarm went off, and the pieces remained in the brine all day. They are now dried off and in the blast chiller till tomorrow.

Tonight I'm smoking another hamburger. This time half a pound over mesquite rather than a third of a pound with oak. Same smoker temperature of 135C. My last burger was over done. This time rather than using the Profile's probe I'm relying on my BBQOVN, a Meater clone with a horrible user interface. I plan to check at 56C. And hope the probe battery doesn't die sooner.

I scored two Prime deals: a replacement kitchen soap dispenser for me, and a Di ORO spatula set as a present for a friend. It saddens me that no one went for the fantastic price on the GE Profile Indoor Smoker.

They carry Zahav hummus in the Whole Foods near me (which is probably the same Whole Foods as the Whole Foods near you). I'd like to try Zahav while it is still on sale but I just received a Whole Foods order this morning.

No, but I ate all of it. Scaling a can of mango sounds messy.

My results with full fat ice cream in the Creami have been disappointing. Sorbet and lower fat have worked better. Since full fat ice cream is what I love, I've relocated the Creami to the bedroom. Here is one recipe that worked well for me. https://forums.egullet.org/topic/163060-pacojet-competitor-the-ninja-creami/page/50/#findComment-2405223

You do have a bedroom?

That's what I said.

Amazon sale: $499, including accessories.

GE Profile Indoor Smoker $499 on Amazon bundled with accessories.

In spite of the existing heat advisory I used the GE Profile tonight to smoke Plum Chicken Pops from Bill West's The Complete Electric Smoker (p50). First chicken done in my Profile, and the finest legs I have ever eaten. Although I should disclose I am more of a thigh girl than a leg girl. The recipe specified cherry, so that was the wood I used. Total smoking time was two hours at 121C.

What is this "cleaning" that you speak of? I've had my Anova for years and use it almost every single day. With the GE Profile indoor smoker the drips go in the drip pan.

@teonzo welcome back! I've made (once) lady fingers from genoise for a trifle but I didn't think the effort was worth the trouble. For another trifle I used store bought ladyfingers imported from Italy but those lady fingers had a somewhat crisp texture and not the same flavor as I associate with ladyfingers here in New Jersey. As I understand the goal is to reproduce the flavor of ladyfingers and not necessarily ladyfingers themselves. I wonder if one of the flavor companies offers such a product?