Duvel

Looks pretty good for a pourable 100% rye dough

I prepared squid stuffed with blood sausage, braised in tomato sauce. It should be an easy sell for dinner for my in-laws as well as for my brother in law, in whose house we are currently staying. Of course no one was on time for dinner (which drives the residual German in me nuts - every time). Well, realisizing that I did not had enough bread for mopping up the sauce I just ran around the corner to get some more. Stupid as I am I had the table set up already ... Coming back after a few minutes this was all I could find. Together with the sentence "Oh, we thought you were done already - you said dinner at nine ...". At least they liked it

Chicken wings - half buffalo, half BBQ sauce, with blue cheese dip, local beer and sunshine on a rooftop terrace overlooking a tiny Mediterranean coastal town ...

After 10 days of indulgence I decided that a more sensible approach towards food in general is in order. So I went to the market and bought lots of fresh veggies and cheeses. Why in the end I ended up with a Chili Dog for dinner completely eludes me. As big a mystery as who drank my entire six pack of beer in the afternoon ...

Nice idea. Are you expecting the fermentation / the final proof to take place in the inliner ? If so, does the perforation affect the shape - as most no-knead breads have high hydration I'd expect some sort of "migration". How does the final loaf look like ? The perforation part is a bit hard to see on the pictures. If the inliner doubles as a fermentation / proofing container you may consider adding a second one to the set, given the long fermentation times of NKB ...

You can use it to make stock and achieve the "I can't believe it isn't tap water" effect ...

That's correct. You need to hear it up above the melting point to properly dissolve it. Then upon cooling, it will solidify around 50 oC. I think amountwise you are good, as even with partial gelatization you are almost there. I'd suggest to take the remaining material with the added agar and reheat to simmer and cool down again. Should be fine then. Good looking disc in the pan picture. I think your guests will like that !

Good luck !

Try not to "dilute" it too much. If the mixture becomes fluid upon heating, try to stir in the agar powder directly. Will be better than adding extra fluid.

It depends on the liquid content in its warm state. Heat it up, take the formed liquid and start with a teaspoon (asuming its powder). Mix well while still hot, as it will gel around 50 oC. Breadcrumbs alone won't hold. You need an enclosed layer, so flour/eggwash and breadcrumbs. Would make for a neater presentation as well ... You may check for preparations of boneless pork feet. Same principle.

Melts at 85 oC vs 37 oC for gelatine. I doubt that the procedure produces 85 oC internal temperature in the roll, given that the gelatine only looses its structural integrity 2 min before finish ..

I would offer two work-arounds: 1) the addition of minor amounts of heat-stable gelling agent, maybe Gellan or Agar, to act as an additional binder. 2) creating a more stable jacket, by flour/egg wash/panko or similar coatings that act as a containment for more fluid content (think cream croquettes or classic French pork feet). Enjoy experimenting - especially rewarding if also the failed attempts are delicious ...

1,5% Salt, 1,0% MSG (and if required up to 1,0% sugar). 140 oF for 3h. Rapid cooling in ice water. This will give you a very flavourful chicken breast (unless you start with poor chicken in the first place) and a soft, juicy, bordering to undercooked texture. For usage in HCR you might consider adding mircroplaned blanched ginger. BTW: it's a urban myth that the blanching liquid is water with ginger and solely is used for the rice. Plenty of scraps and carcasses go into the broth, as well as old & dried out ginger and smashed spring onion stalks. And they are extracted far longer than the chicken needs to poach...

May I join as well ? Pllleeeaaaase ?

Finished prep for tonight's potluck: Plenty of Gyoza and Teriyaki rabbit ...

I think at least in the US context, Braunschweiger refers to a smoked liver sausage (with possible cured meat added), while Leberwurst is plain. In Germany, Braunschweiger is a completely different product - a raw, soft, sometimes spreadable, smoked and cured pork sausage ("Mettwurst"), similar to my favorite Mett, just with lots of nitrates

Technically, this was lunch, though served at nighttime. Traditional Christmas day lunch in Catalonia: "Escudella i carn d'olla". We arrived yesterday night from Germany and had what my wife is craving for the whole year - the traditional Christmas soup, eaten on Christmas day with the whole family (a 50 persons affair here). Prepared over the course of two days, starting with a broth made from onions, garlic, root vegetables, bird carcasses and bones (boiling vigorously for a day or so), strained and then enriched with various pork parts including skin, black and white sausages, chicken, duck and intestines. It's a rich, gelatinous and flavourful broth, that is served with minced meat-stuffed pasta and only spiced with a bit of salt and white pepper (I always dream of this soup as a Ramen base - one day ...). As a second course the meat is served, together with "pa amb tomaquet", toasted bread rubbed with tomato, olive oil and salt. I like mine with "pilotas", giant meatballs that are also simmered in the broth, but as strange as it sounds skin is also fantastic as a topping. Lastly, the potatoes and a bit of cabbage boiled in the soup are mashed with raw garlic and a bit of blood sausage and fried into a thick omelet called "trinxat" - to be eaten with olive oil and salt or, as I prefer it, also on the "pa amb tomaquet". Needless to say, even though everything spend waiting 4 days in the fridge for us, it was all still delicious and not only my wife was very happy ...

You need to give it a try - it's the original health food: You better be very healthy when you eat it...

Disclaimer: I am not a breakfast person. That being said, if I had to choose my perfect breakfast food was, is and will always remain the Mettbrötchen. The roughly ground raw pork meat so fresh that you still hear the pig squeaking (in the past, body warm Mett was not unheard of). With the only option for carrier carb being a fresh rye roll. Then there are two schools whether the roll has to be buttered: some people argue that a thick layer of butter between the dark roasted flavours of the roll and the bold, spicy flavours provides a nice bland yet fatty contrast, and the others just don't know how to enjoy Mettbrötchen. When it comes to the raw onions the simple rule of contrasting elements applies: The finer the grind of the pork, the coarser the onions need to be chopped. Rye rolls, Mett and the metric system in Germany developed codependently: It is no coincidence that 1 kg of Mett exactly fits 8 rye rolls and is thus able to sustain 2 Germans until lunchtime (when subjected to the usual rural activities, such as naked mudwrestling at sub-zero temperatures' with wild boars). And now, three hours after breakfast in the train to Frankfurt airport I can still feel the glow (read: non-exercise activated thermogenesis) on my cheeks from a minor calorie surplus and the deep craving for a beer after consuming a pound of spicy fatty pork, which will only be silenced in the lounge in one hour ...

Yes, they might qualify as "hanetsuki gyoza". For a very long time (including my time in Japan) I was under the impression the name "hanetsuki" was referring to the net of the popular and remotely Badminton-like Japanese ball game. Until I learned that this bat-and-ball game is actually played without a net

Skip the beer - upgrade to Somek !

Venison "Wellington". Roasted brussel sprouts. With a close to perfect sauce ... Very, very content. Maybe because of the digestif ? Nope

Yuzu !!!

Christmas lunch: Roasted goose, Grünkohl (kale) and Knödel (potato dumplings). With copious amounts of sauce and beer. And a nice red wine ...

I had collards for the first time three weeks ago in Baton Rouge. I have to admit they are somewhat similar, but German Grünkohl is more aromatic (smoked meat is maybe heavier flavoured, and the caraway also does it's job). Needless to say, I liked collards as well and my hosts were a bit surprised by the amounts I consumed