Duvel

I’ve seen them doing that in Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo. Exactly one nail was involved, and it took about 2 seconds to poke the eels head onto the nail and skin the unfortunate critter after being taken out of a bucket and before before it was thrown into another bucket. But buckets were full of wiggling eels, just one bucket was skinless …

No vampire visits tonight …

I think this scenario is highly unlikely. The inside of the chamber will graduately heat up as the fire develops, the thermal mass of your oven will delay the process even more. Water will continously evaporate, not in an explosive fashion. If heated too fast I recognize the chance of cracking, but for a violent explosion (the "BOOM") triggered by pore-enclosed water in set-up for example as pictured above from @Margaret Pilgrim I see very little chance.

Also ok …

Killepitsch, Hamburger Kümmel or both 🤗

That’s the smartest thing ever 🤗 !!! Germans are usually so very good with hangover cures … why didn’t we have invented this ? Shall we arrange for a “spirit exchange” ?

Seeing the quotation marks, did it come from the black forest (like the one a few kilometers from here down the Bergstrasse) ? Or a black forest (in China) ?

In the meantime you can buy an Ooni and practice …

Take her for a vacation in Germany and have some raw pork … she’ll be cured instantly ☺️

I do love Reblochon (especially in a Tartiflette), but at least for my nose an overripe Munster or the magnificent Pont l’Eveque are in a higher league (smell-wise, at least 😷) …

A really ripe Époisses classifies as a biological weapon (and is surely a thing of beauty 🤗) …

There might be a few carbs hiding in those apple slices … 🤗 How do your de-carb your beef sandwich ?

I got that, no worries 🤗 This was meant as a tongue-in-cheek comment at anyone who might have not …

Really … seafood congee with duck 😜 ?!

And yet - he was talking about dried squid and baking soda. And yes, it is common (except in Liuzhou, Guangxi, China) 🤗

Just because it is not common in Liuzhou, Guangxi or China doesn’t make it any less of an employable technique. It isn’t used traditionally in Germany either, yet I used it …

It‘s a common technique for rehydrating dried meats. The alkaline medium increases water absorption.

Soooo … Canadian cars suck ? 🤭

They usually have, albeit overpriced. I picked some bottles I was interested in because they are a) hard to obtain in Germany, e.g. the Benromach expression or the Glen Moray Warehouse Edition, that is not sold outside the UK; or b) I wanted to try e.g. the Caol Ila 12 yo, the Scarpa Skiren, which is supposed to be the next best thing after the discontinued 16 yo and the Edradour that is just great as it is (matured in sherry casks from day one - see the picture below the bottles).

None extra, as the NPS (Nitritpökelsalz) is 99.5% salt and 0.5% nitrite. It's a fixed preparation. The results will look like this ... I also found this: cured chuck-eye, dry cured ...

I use 28 g of NPS (again, that is 0.5% nitrite, rest regular salt) per kg of meat. I mix the NPS with whatever else needs to go in (spices, sugar) and seal in a vaccum bag. Leave for [(1 day per cm meat "height") plus two days] in the fridge, turn upside down daily.

It is a little bit less that that: you’ll end up with 10.09 kg of solution, so sugar is 6.5% and so on … In general, this is a “weak” brine in terms of salt. In Germany usually we shoot for 8-10% of salinity, and since we have only a mixture called NPS (containing 0.5% of nitrite), the resulting brine has also a higher nitrite percentage (though not much). I think as long as you get uniformely pink meat, all is fine …

Epilogue: This was an unusual holiday - in many ways. Some successful, some unsuccessful planning, a lot of improvisation and going with the flow, weather ranging from great to Scottish, camping in the rain … But there were constants as well: having a great time with the family, good food, fantastic scenery and a deeply relaxing feeling that persisted for weeks after returning. And so I would happily repeat the tour and so do the other two, as we (jokingly) yesterday discussed … And - of course - there is this little piece of Scotland I took home to at least temporarily restore the memories of the holiday and the relaxed feeling … Slàinte mhath !

After a healthy breakfast we hit the road again … A brief stop at a shopping center (where we invested our last GBP in some completely unnecessary things and some canned Haggis) … … we drove down to the harbour and boarded the ferry. Dinner was sandwiches with coronation chicken, tasty enough but not quite photogenic 🥲 Farewell, Scotland ! We arrived in Amsterdam well rested and cleared the room … On our 4h drive back to Germany we made one biobreak, which little one used to get a light lunch in butcher shop located in an nondescript shopping mall near Arnhem … “Filet Americain” (read: beef tartare) with onions and egg … Chicken wings Salad of the day (actually fresh & tasty) Little ones choice: warm baguette with bacon, onion and cheese … The rest of the drive went uneventful - we arrived safely home in the afternoon. House was still standing, all our fishes survived, which cannot be said of the grass in the garden (a little bit of drought this year). But - all in all - completely fine outcome !

I usually dry cure, so I needed to calculate a bit. It seems to be on the lower end of things … How much regular salt do you add on top of that - do you go for a 10% solution ?