fifi

Uhhh . . . What is an "organic" truffle? Truffles are found, not farmed. It is just this sort of thing that makes me wrinkle my brow about anything claiming to be "organic."

I think what you first have to decide is what you are trying to achieve with a pork roast and what cut you have. A lean piece like loin or tenderloin is best done to 140 degrees F internal temperature and a little pink. Let it rest under a foil tent for about 20 minutes before slicing. A butt is an entirely different thing. What you have is a significant amount of fat and connective tissue (collagen). You want to go low and slow until the fat has rendered and the collagen has converted to gelatin. This will take a long time and either on the smoker or in the oven, you should see a temperature "stall" at 170 degrees F for a while. (I run my Weber Smoky Mountain at 225 degrees F at the grate and my oven at the same temperature.) This is when the conversion and rendering is going on. The "stall" is because the conversion requires energy. (It is a thermodynamic thing.) Then it should get up to about 200 degrees F or a bit more. You know you are done when a fork stuck in the meat will easily turn and the meat is falling off the bone. Any other fate for a butt is doomed to tough and chewy mediocrity. That is a sad fate for a butt.

I hope I am not too late to help. DON'T PANIC! (I still have my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy button. ) Once your meat has gone above, say 140 degrees F, it really isn't going to absorb more smoke. Just continue to cook wherever to the desired degree of doneness. My big hunks of meat stay in the smoker because it is just easy.

As we speak (type?) I have some carnitas of the Goya Mojo Criollo variety in the fridge. Some are destined for the DeLonghi oven and a final destination of a tortilla with rinsed diced white onion, lime juice and Mexican crema. Otherwise, I continue to snack on the pile. As to cheese . . . If any of you have access to the products of the Texas company, Cheesemakers Inc. they make some dynamite melting cheese under the Jaimito brand. The quesadilla cheese is mind blowing. A quesadilla with that cheese and carnitas is a thing of beauty.

Wowser, that is an interesting article. I am now wondering about the origin of the dish I used to order at Dong Ting. The restaurant was definitely up-scale Chinese. Of course, there may be some cross over in the cuisines. I did not taste fish sauce in the Dong Ting preparation. I did taste soy, but lightly, and star anise, probably as part of "Chinese Five Spice." I think where I am heading is to make a good pork stock, infuse it with the "Five Spice" components, add a little light soy sauce and braise some good pork in that.

Zilla, I can't help but stand up and applaud your effort. Seeing the "deal with what you got" tradition that is common in the home kitchen translated to a professional setting was really a lot of fun to read. I had never thought about it but having that bottle of Pernod in the pantry isn't a bad idea. Finding good fennel is often a challenge and I love that flavor. I used to keep a fennel plant or three in the garden primarily to provide a home for pipevine swallowtail butterflies. But when I could snatch some of the fresh seeds before the caterpillars got to them, they made wonderful additions to soups and other dishes. Pernod is a lot handier than fighting off caterpillars.

I agree that sublime confit takes many hours to make but not all that time is used productively. I feel that the first few hours of gentle simmering until the onion water is almost completely gone does nothing for the confit and merely allows volatile flavour molecules to waft off and disappear forever. I'm advocating a relatively high simmer at the start until the onions start to wilt and dry followed by long, slow heat to let the delicate Maillard reactions to take place. ← I think that is what most of us are doing. You start out in the crock pot on high, then switch to low for the long haul. I will repeat what I reported up-thread about sweetness. For my last batch I used some really strong white onions and found the final product unpleasantly sweet. I know that using the word "unpleasant" and "sweet" in the same sentence sounds strange but I expect my onion confit to be savory. I am going to try lovebenton0's approach next, use a mix of red, yellow and white onions. Or, at least, I will go back to the all yellow onion approach.

Thanks for bumping this back up. I need to get back to the pot hunt since we are all into braising these days. I have also decided that a good clay pot pork recipe probably needs a good pork stock. Oddly enough, I have seen pork neck bones in the grocery so pork stock may be next on the agenda. We started discussing pork stock here in the eGCI. Check it out and stay tuned for further developments.

Years ago, during my fishing days, when we were out for a two or three day trip about 100 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, I didn't really think about it. I would commonly grab a bucket of sea water to poach eggs or make a soup or stew from some of the catch. I do remember the seineing parties when I was a kid. We always had a big bonfire on the beach. When we were lucky enough to get a batch of big shrimp in the seine, they would go into the big cast iron pot set over the coals and steamed in settled sea water. My grandma always got a bucket and filled it when we first arrived so that it could settle in case something came out of the seine that she wanted some sea water for cooking.

Hmmm . . . I am not sure about CM versus Plugra. The CM is very good and in my opinion is a bit better enough than LoL that I will buy it when I am there and it is available. I probably wouldn't go without to wait to get CM. I do remember buying the Plugra and going "Eh, What is the big deal?" I think this calls for a side by side comparison. Quite possibly, I am missing something. BTW . . . That blood orange soda is spectacular. And I am not normally a soda drinker. Having read the label, I find it interesting that it contains 12% juice and is colored with "black" carrot juice. (I am wondering if those are the same carrots that turned my chicken and dumplings blue.) Anyway, there is something oddly familiar about the flavor of the soda. I can't put my finger on it.

Now that the deed is done, I will have to agree with Fat Guy. The final product that I have this morning is spectacular but I really don't think that is due to sweating the chicken. I went back and re-read the Cooks Illustrated article that the idea came from. It was, indeed, to save time. That isn't of interest to me since I typically "set up" the stock in the evening, then shove it into the oven at 225 degrees F and go to bed. I decided to do this on a whim. Cut up whole chickens were on special so that is what I went with. The chicken was the first thing I got out of the bag so I dumped it into the pot and put it on medium low while I dealt with the mirepoix. The verdict is that CI is correct, I would have had better stock really quick having sweated the chicken. But it wouldn't be as good as the slow simmered loveliness that I have this morning.

I don't know if this has come up before but I am in the midst of making chicken stock reported on the soup thread here. My comment is particular to the practice of "sweating" the chicken prior to proceeding with adding the rest of the ingredients and going on with making the stock. Obviously, you lose the advantage of retrieving the breast meat, etc. because this wouldn't work so well with whole chickens. Anyway, the aroma from this batch of stock is extraordinary so I am wondering if there is an advantage to this approach. And, I suppose I could have still dug out the breast portions but I didn't. I gotta go to bed. The smell of this stock is killing me.

I am working on a batch of chicken stock. I have followed the usual formula from the eGCI but I did try one thing new. In Cooks Illustrated, they advocate "sweating" the chicken in the pot prior to proceeding with the mirepoix, etc. I had gotten a couple of "whole chickens, cut up" from HEB because they were on sale for 99 cents a pound. The packages included the back portions and giblets. I put it all in except for the livers, a total of about 9 pounds of chicken for the 16 quart stock pot. I gotta tell you that this is about the best smelling batch of chicken stock I have done in a long time. It is now in the oven for an overnight sojourn and am anticipating what to do with it in the morning. After the usual straining and defatting, I will have to decide what to do with some of it before reducing the rest of it before freezing. Now I am wondering what that will be. I suppose that if it were colder here (currently 50 degrees F) I would be more inspired. I have to think of something noble for this exceptional batch of stock.

In a younger time, I was involved in some serious sportfishing (pestering pointy nosed fishes in various parts of the western world) so I suppose my prejudices come from there. First, a confession: I don't like raw fish. And I have had tuna belly sliced by a sushi chef who happened to be on board when we landed the 400 pound yellow fin. I still don't like it. Number one has to be wahoo steaks, fresh from the hook. Next is mahi-mahi, dorado, dolphin fish . . . whatever, in the form of ceviche about two hours from being flipped into the boat or a few hours later with the filets grilled in garlic oil at the Presidente Hotel in Cozumel. The grill (griddle, actually) guys know what they are doing. Sashimi grade tuna fish tacos in Hanalei, Hawaii. Home smoked, fresh caught salmon with my buddies in Bellingham, Washington. Ditto for the grilled halibut. A nice big (30 pound or so) baked red snapper, fresh from the Gulf of Mexico, body cavity stuffed with oja santa leaves, doesn't suck.

The original Saran Wrap works better than generic cling film. It is polyvynilidene chloride which is much less permeable to oxygen than the generic polyolefin wraps. Lime juice helps a lot. I happen to like a bit of lime in mine anyway.

Nephew called and reports that he may have a source of bison and asked me what I know. Isn't this place amazing. I was able to say, "I think we have a current topic on that." Then I thought about a recipe for venison I got from a friend at work the other day. It occurs to me that recipes like this for venison could work for buffalo. After all, you are dealing with lean red meat in both cases. That it is based on beer is not surprising since my friend is an avid home brewer. He calls it a "brazen departure from Guinness Beef" and is willing to share . . . therefore: Guinnison 4 lbs Venison – cut into 1 to 2” Cubes 4 Tbsp to ½ cup Flour – seasoned with salt, pepper & cayenne 2 – 3 Tbsp Olive Oil or Drippings 2 to 4 large brown onions chopped 2 to 4 cloves Garlic – crushed or chopped 2 – 14oz Cans Swanson Beef Broth 2 – 12oz Bottles Guinness Extra Stout 4 cups carrots – Roll Cut 1 cup prunes – pitted and coarse-chopped (adds sweet and balances Guinness bitterness) 4 bay leaves 1 fresh sprig thyme or 1 tsp dried 1 tsp dried rosemary Parsley – Garnish 1. Coat the meat with the flour mixture and brown quickly on all sides – Remove. 2. Add the onions and cook until golden – add the garlic and bay leaves for one minute additional cooking. 3. Transfer to Slow Cooker and deglaze pan with Guinness into the slow cooker 4. Add remaining ingredients to cooker. 5. Cook for 1 ½ to 3 hours – check seasoning & correct with salt and pepper.

I am not going to be playing with seeds but that is really a lot of fun, almost magical actually, and gives you a lot of control over the varieties that you plant. My sister and I used to do that a lot. But, my mother was the real seed fiend. That got started back in the late 50s and early 60s when she and our neighbor got into herbs. Back then, anything more than parsely was considered exotic. She used a grow light set up that my dad made for her. Do any of you remember those really cheap plastic shelving units that snapped together? You used to see them in the discount stores and even the big drug stores. (I still have some somewhere.) Well, if you turned them upside down, the shelves formed a tray. Then dad hung gro-lights over each shelf on adjustable chains attached to the shelf above. Since she had to keep this in a corner of the wash room, she mounted a couple of circulating fans to keep the air moving. Stagnant air encourages damp off. I couldn't find a picture of those shelves but it occurs to me that some of the wire shelving units could work very well. I also remember that she used to finagle some styrofoam meat trays from the butcher to act as starting containers for some seeds. For larger seeds like tomatoes and squash, a toilet paper inner roll cut in half, packed with starting medium and set in the trays, provided a home from the growing shelf to the garden. She also swore by sifting spaghnum moss over the surface of the starting medium having read some where that it helps to equalize moisture and retard fungi. Any of you playing with seed, please take pictures so I can enjoy the fun vicariously.

I just returned from my local HEB, not one of the real biggies, and I have good news. They had the blood orange soda as well as other flavors. I also noted in passing several other CM brands of salsa, chips and applesauce. That is just what I saw in passing. I didn't take the time to go looking. I am wondering if this is some new strategy? Whatever it is, I like it. Since our suburbs are normally deprived of the presence of upscale markets, at least this gets some options out there for us.

Hoo boy . . . This is going to be a big guess since the cooker doesn't work on time but by sensors that detect the temperature rise that occurs when the water has been absorbed. Normal procedure is just wait for the chirping sound. I am thinking that I usually allow at least 45 minutes for purposes of meal assembly. Perhaps the manufacturer of your cooker has some instructions on-line that will be helpful. I have been meaning to try the coconut mango rice recipe with the short grain brown rice that I love so much. Has anyone tried that?

My nephew is of an age that he has the occasion to give wedding and housewarming gifts a few times a year. He has traditiontally bought the large chicken fryer, seasoned it, and packed other goodies inside. It is hugely popular. Thanks to Dave's article, he now buys the logic, goes through what is now a second seasoning, and it looks like he really worked at it.

Even better . . . I am seeing more and more CM brands at the HEBs. I get the butter there. They are also starting to carry some of the non-CM brands that you used to be able to get only at CM.

Well, most folks I know just about gag when I ask for the mayonaise. It really doesn't work if the dog isn't pretty well charred. Sometimes, I reach for redemption by adding some Dijon or Creole style mustard. Oh yes! Speared on a long fork and blistered over coals is the best. (You are a really cool babysitter.) My dad made these wonderful really long stainless steel forks out of tubing that he split at the end to form the two tines. He even put mahogany handles on them that had been turned on the wood lathe in different patterns. They were absolutely beautiful. We would have big piles of coals fairly often from burning brush, mostly mesquite. A hot dog and marshmallow roasting orgy just about always followed. Now a question about using baguettes . . . If you take some of the inside crumb out, would that be a good thing so that it could hold more chili?

I am not sure which is which but I would expect that the more expensive one is the tri-ply. I sauted a few times in the tri-ply skillet at my son's house over the holidays. As far as I can tell, it performs the same as All-Clad tri-ply.

Nooooooooo! says she. I feel another eGullet inspired craving hot on my heels. I really don't like hot dogs. But, sometimes, nothing else (and I mean nothing) will do at all. Since my favorite version is grilled over charcoal until just about burned, dressed with mayonaise *ducking*, maybe some cheese, grilled onions if available. Buns are problematic. I may try the baguette approach. I also like the split and grilled idea. More browny bits for me.

Funny that you should mention this. My sister and I were just discussing what she used to make years ago when she and her husband had two hungry young men staying with them. She used to collect all sorts of scraps and leftovers in the freezer in a big plastic container that was lovingly dubbed "the garbage can" as in: "Don't throw that out, put it in the garbage can." This could be anything from that leftover cup of lima beans, peas, corn or whatever. Meat scraps always went in there. She always had homemade stock on hand. When the container got full, it was time for "garbage can soup." It was always so good that the garbage can was closely monitored in expectation. Heh . . . Have you seen the the onion confit thread?