Duvel

Following @liamsaunt‘s post, Pizza & Movie night here as well. Forgot to start the dough yesterday so „emergency dough“ today, featuring one of my wife’s lovely homemade yoghurts for complexity & structure - no complaints. This time I stuck to the classics (not to aggrevate certain members 😉). Mushroom & salami … Capers, olives & anchovies … Homemade spicy Italian sausage & mushrooms … All enjoyed with another classic - „Asterix & Cleopatra“ (in Catalan 🙄). That nose …

Stuff like this always makes me wish to raise my own animals* … —- *on the lush pastures around my castle, full of fireplaces of course.

I never had meatloaf - what is the problem with homemade versions, that everyone seem to favour the commercial ones ?

No, you simply go to the bakery and ask what has been baked in the afternoon. That specific batch was about 4 hours old, which seemed to be reasonable.

Lazy Friday, soo …commercial Roggenmischbrot: sourdough, 55% wheat (with a certain whole wheat percentage), 45% rye. Baked around 4h before slicing.

I sometimes feel that the best thing about the St. Patrick’s Day brisket is to have the corned beef leftovers in a Reuben the next day …

Yes, it’s Dijonnaise (60% Dijon mustard, 40% Kewpie mayo).

Happy St. Patrick’s Day ! Home-cured corned beef (SV 10h@180 F), potatoes, carrots & cabbage. Served with the best accompaniment … Sláinte !

I did 10h @ 180 F (82 oC). Just pink salt, no tenderizers needed …

I think that depends very much on your expectation on those two items. For me, these are softer than any of the meatballs I usually make (Italian, Vietnamese, Greek, Turkish, ...), because I intend to eat them cold, rather than all the varieties mettioned, which are served warm. The addition of the fried onion (IKEA type) makes for a mellow sweetness, which I usually not include in meatballs (Vietnamese maybe the exception). I cannot compare these to a meatloaf, because I have never prepared or eaten one.

They look perfect !

This is my recipe for Frikadellen - my mom does them differently, as did my grandma. But they are pretty good and are what my family likes to eat. It is worthwhile to note that this version is meant to be eaten cold. It is also good when eaten warm, but I would aim for a slightly denser mouthfeel (and thus reduce the amount of egg and probably add milk). I aim for 2% salt in the mixture. To add complexity to the salty taste, I vary the salt source. Table salt, bouillon powder, fish sauce can be used interchangeably, so no need for following below mix exactly (I am a bit OCD about this). Frikadellen have a faint, yet complex background taste. You can use a pinch of the mix I suggested in my Köttbullar recipe, or curry powder, a mixture of paprika, pepper and dried herbs … Feel free to experiment. Ingredients: 500 g of minced meat, not too lean. I like to use half beef, half pork. Pure pork is great too. 2 eggs 40 g of bread crumbs (Panko is ok, too) 30 g of fried onion (the IKEA type) 13 g of salt (for example compromised of 7 g of table salt, 6 g of bouillon powder (66% salt) and 8 g fish sauce (25% salt)) 1 garlic clove, grated or dried garlic to taste maybe a teaspoon of “background spice mix”, as described above. If you don’t want to experiment, use 1/3 paprika, 1/3 black pepper and 1/3 parsley. Method: Mix all the ingredients throughly - it will feel too soft initially, but will firm up after some time. Let stand for about 30 min or refrigerate until ready to cook. Form patties of about 50 g each. Either fry gently in batches (ideally in clarified butter) until done or cook in a convection oven at 225 oC for about 12 min. It should be nicely browned. To be enjoyed with … anything you like. Mustard, ketchup, in a sandwhich - the world is your oyster. And a beer. Better lots of beers. And also after a lot of beers 🤗

I think the term convection oven was coined to distinguish it from a conventional oven, where most of the heat transfer is done by radiation. I also think the term fan-assisted oven is used interchangeably, so I can not detect any ill will here from the marketing department ☺️ I don’t think it matters much how the convection (again, just the term to describe the heat transfer process) is caused.

Which is heat transfer by a moving medium (air), so nothing wrong with the term convection oven. I doubt anyone would claim that the movement is solely due to density changes in the heating environment ...

It's not so much of a recipe, but more of a method. But I am happy to share it - I'll post it in RecipeGullet tonigtht ...

That’s the butter. The container is from Alessi, the so called “butter boat” …

The epitome of lazyness - got some Brötchen, Boursin and minced meat. Managed to prepare at least some Frikadellen. Was a good & welcome dinner nonetheless …

Ok, that sounds about right. From what I can see the skin appears only to be scored at the surface. On the sides it looks like there is almost no scoring. It definitely helps to cut deeper, and maybe make a finer score pattern. Remember you want to do three things: 1) Hydrate the fat layer. It is the water that later expands and puffs up the crust. 2) Render some fat out. Fat inside the skin inhibits the „puff“ 3) Create a superficial „dry“/tough layer, that traps in the steam while it generates under high heat before breaking and releasing all steam in the „puff“ For the last part you need to get much heat/IR radiation as possible, so oven on full whack with broiler on (but keep your distance). Hope this helps 🤗

Do you mean the very first time ? If so, the skin needs to be on the bottom (inside the liquid) for the first part of the cooking time, to hydrate the skin properly.

I am „refurbishing“ our rooftop terrace*. After spending all day carrying building materials two stories up I was prepared to order something in because I literally couldn’t lift a knife anymore. Unfortunately little one was feeling a bit under the weather (maybe vaccination side effect ?) and really needed his Pizza & Movie night. And take-out/delivery pizza was not an option (according to him). So … Mushrooms & salami (as seen in pretty much every Sunday pizza post from me) The @weinoo special: Hawaii (based on fresh pineapple) with sweet ham just added post bake for maximum flavor … Brussel sprouts and Serrano ham (post bake). Pretty good, too … Enjoyed while watching the new Pixar movie „Turning red“ - fun movie. I went straight into a hot bathtub afterwards … —- *refurbishing might not be the right term. We have a lovely huge south-facing rooftop terrace that in all the years living here we haven’t used even once. So I‘ll build a deck, a pavilion and maybe some area for growing herbs. Plus electricity, water, etc. … The only issue with that is the „rooftop“ part, that comes with free work-out 😉

It sure does look delicious ! At which stage is the 4th picture taken ?

Pretty much, except for the cooking techniques that rely on thermal radiation, e.g. grilling, some types of baking, …

Maybe there are a few terms used too loosely here: Convection is heat transfer by a liquid or gaseous medium. It consists of mainly two different underlying processes: Conduction is heat transfer by thermal diffusion, thus two media in contact with each other try to equilibrate their temperature. Advection is the heat transfer by movement of bulk medium (this is what you refer to here as convection in the last paragraph). Convection encompasses the two processes above and is the correct term to describe both deep frying and air frying.

Little one got his second CoVid vaccination today (🥳) and was allowed to choose dinner (and watch the Snoopy movie). He wanted Schnitzel, so … A little cook‘s treat after the breading session, while the oil was heating up … We had half veal, half pork. Served with either Kochkäse and lingonberry jam or mushroom cream sauce. Or with both. Also: Herzoginkartoffeln (commercial, no time to make my own) and string beans with bacon, apple and onions … Very happy kid, very happy wife. Aaaand I made enough Schnitzels to have copious leftovers for Schnitzel sandwiches in the upcoming days …

From my point of view it really depends on what you intend to do with then afterwards. Do you want to brine a whole pork loin ? Let’s say 2.5-3 kg, that‘ll take quite a while. If you „just“ want to make a roast / SV that thing I wouldn’t go through the trouble … But - to answer your question - no, it won’t hurt the product.