Wolfert
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Posts posted by Wolfert
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The separation of meat and sauce is a 'truc' of the most famous Gascon cooks including Roger Duffour. You may not have heard of him but he is the guardian of the 'old ways.'
The popular poultry and meat stews called salmis are cooled and reheated daily for up to 3 days before served. I know it sounds like a lot of work. The food of the southwest is not like the rest of France. It is full of long detailed recipes (think garbure, cassoulet, poulet au pot, miques, confit, etc) but they are all incredible when done right.
I don't want to dumb-down the trucs for the sake of the modern cook. I suggest each cook decide just how much time to spend on any dish and make whatever compromises necessary.
Egulleteer bleu d'auvergne wrote and told me she makes the 3day version of a duck salmis and sees the difference and has made it more than once..
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The French cut the parchment paper to fit right over the braise in a pot.
That is fine, but I never can find a pair of scissors when I need them!
Enter the Turks! Those cooks have been teaching me tricks which I started incorporating in my cooking for a long time now" wet a torn sheet of parchment, crumble it as you shake away excess water ,and place it directly on top of the food. Amazingly, it fits perfectly and it keeps the braising liquid from evaporating. Turks do this to prepare their famous olive oil vegetable dishes, and some of their kebab (meat) stews.
This trick didn't come into my books until the one on eastern Med cooking appeared. Then I starated using it all the time because it worked.
By the way, Judy Rodgers and I have been close friends for more than 25 years. ( I first met her when she was working in Michel Guerard's kitchen in 1980.)
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I want to emphasize that I separate the meat and the sauce, and I use a dampened sheet of crumbled parchment paper right over the 'dead' looking chunks of meat before covering and storing in the fridge. Since I write for home cooks I have to think of all those frost free fridges out there that dry the heck out of meat right through plastic covering! Wet crumpled parchment works great with meat whether they are in the state of braising or sleeping.
I absolutely agree with Mr Fat Guy. When reheating larger pieces of meat, I would go long buit jsut as low in the oven.
And you are ever so right to think about finishing at a higher degree the last 10 or 20 minutes to create a rich, plump, and shiny oxtail stew.
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I mentioned chestnut knives in this thread a while back.
andiesenji:I'm sorry I didn't look back on the thread to check if there had been mention of chestnut knives.
I think your small hot pepper cleaning idea is brilliant. Thank you so much for the tip.
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Timing of 30 days is more mportant to achieve a lovely aromatic soft peel
I am actually having a Moroccan dinner then end of this month - 26 days from start of preserved lemons to dinner - are they going to be soft enough or should I do a batch of 7 day ones as well?
I wouldn't bother. On the other hand, if you are nervous as a first timer, make the 7 day ahead ones as well. Use the 7 day ones; keep the others for another time.
The beauty of the properly put up lemons (30 days) is you always have them on hand once made. I now use meyer lemons and they keep for about a year.
The eurekas, the more usual lemon on the market, keeps even longer when properly put up.
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I We've been playing around with Judy Roger's method, and it works much better then the X, but only if you get the cut deep enough (which seems to be tricky to judge).
Have you tried a chestnut knife? It makes that job easy.
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This happens to me a lot. You know what I do? I flip the jar every other day to cut down on the mess. It doesn't seem to make much difference.
Timing of 30 days is more mportant to achieve a lovely aromatic soft peel
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I forgot to mention the following: about 1 1/2 hours before serving put the covered dish in the cold oven and set the oven temperature to about 275. Let the slow steamy reheat plump up the rigid chunks of meat. When ready to serve the meat should be succulent and the sauce rich.
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Here is what I do:
I would store the meat and the sauce separately. I find that the following method keeps braised meat from turning mushy on reheating. And the gentle finishing in the slow oven contributes to a mellowness that You don't get on day one.
the meat:Gently pack the chunks of completely cooled down meat in a bowl or container, cover with a sheet of parchment paper that has been run under water and crumbled and place it directly on top, then cover with a tight fitting lid. THe meat may lose its looks but don't worry, it will turn plump, rich and attractive later on..
the sauce: I would store the reduced and cooled down sauce in a covered container in the fridge.
When you are ready to reheat, remove all the congealed fat from both the meat and the sauce. Let both come to room temperature. Place together in an ovenproof serving dish, place in a cold oven and slowly heat, covered, until hot and once again, alive. Don't forget to correct seasoning.
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My question is just how exposed are the lemons? If most of the lemons are covered, leave them alone. In time the salt will draw out enough juice to cover them.
If you want to there is no rule that you can't open the jar and add more lemon juice to cover. If you do this, add another tablespoon of salt as well.
Glad you like the book. Thank you.
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they are probably not only still ok, they are probably even better.
What to do with them? Well, I only have suggestions using them in Moroccan cooking. Actually you don't cook with them you garnish. Dishes such as leafy greens cooked down in olive oil until pasty then spiced with paprika and cumin and drizzled with olive oil. Wash one lemon, discard the pulp and sliver on top. Serve with crackling pita bread
Also good on red pepper salad.
Use in fish, chicken or lamb and lemon and olive dishes...Some recipes call for using the pulp to marinate the flesh beforehand.
Lots of chefs have come up with fabulous new ideas as well. I'm sure they will chime in once they read your call for help.
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Lamb ragouts are added to cassoulets where sheep farming is prevalent: the landes and Castelnaudary.
The dryness is due, I think, to the cast iron enameled pot. The same could be said if it is too moist. I would love one of the science people out there to explain why.
The cassole, a flared earthenware pot, glazed on the inside and sometimes on the outside is the pot to use.
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I have a recipe in the cooking of southwest france for making toulouse sausages. The recipe is from a spicemaker in the Toulouse main market. I forget his name but it was something like bourdonc . Don't buy the book, I'll post the ingredients here. I figure you know how to make sausage.
The recipe makes about 1 1/4 pounds
4 ounces ventreche without rind (like pancetta)
12 ounces pork tenderloin,trimmed of fat
4 ounces pork fat back
l teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon cracked peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon mace or nutmeg
3/4 teaspon sugar
l large minced clove garlic
hog or sheep casing
THE GOOD NEWS IS YOU CAN BUY TOULOUSE SAUSAGES MADE BY SOME FRENCH CHARCUTIERS WORKING IN CALIFORNIA. www.fabriquesdelices.com or via frenchselections.com
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I'm sorry! If it was better, I'd send the last frozen chunk to you Fed Ex! I'm afraid it might not pass muster, however.... Perhaps a more confident eGullet chef can zip some our sick friend's way!Sounds like you had a wonderful cassoulet. I'm so jealous sitting here sniffling with a cold and wishing I had the energy to prepare one.
So the idea is to embed the crunchy texture of the toasted crumbs or crusty top into the beans for toothiness? Makes sense to me -- I hadn't thought of texture. The crust has such astonishing flavor (see my photo above; it got very brown on the edges, just amazing) that I had focused on that.
In Toulouse that is the only way to top a cassoulet. It is and was absolutely necessary to the making of cassoulet. Years ago, it was traditional to send the filled cassole to the local bread oven for baking. You couldn't possibly break the skin up to 7 times.-- Whither bread crumbs? I cannot imagine why you'd want or need them. Does anyone have a recipe with bread crumbs?While in mountainous regions around Carcassone you had your own baker's oven and you could afford to push the cassole around and get at it in order to break up the crust.
They are both good.
no, not quite. I was unclear. It is either you make a crust with breadcrumbs and don't touch it at all, or you nurse the top by breaking up the crust each time it forms up to seven enriching the liquid below. Both are good, but different. Check on my edited note above on using the hearthkit. You can then see the difference
ANd thanks for the offer of fedexing some this way. I'll take a raincheck. It sounds too good an offer not to miss.
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Sounds like you had a wonderful cassoulet. I'm so jealous sitting here sniffling with a cold and wishing I had the energy to prepare one.
-- Whither bread crumbs? I cannot imagine why you'd want or need them. Does anyone have a recipe with bread crumbs?In Toulouse, it is the only way to top a cassoulet. It is, and was, absolutely necessary to the making of the dish to create a crust. Years ago, it was traditional to send the filled cassole to the local bread oven for baking. YOu can imagine that in the center of town it would have been rare for locals to have their own bread oven. Thus you couldn't possibly break the skin up to 7 times. On the other hand, in the mountainous regions around Carcassone, everyone had their own baker's oven and they could push the cassole around and get at it in order to break up the crust.
Both methods make great cassoulets. For example, yours looked wonderful.
FYI:when and if you ever use an earthenware cassole and the hearthkit oven now available at sur la table, (This clay inset replaces the steamy bakers oven ) you could try either method with great success.
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Ruth,
I only suggested Pekin if moulard is unavailable.
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Meat like shank, pork shoulder, butt, etc is all best cooked at the same temperature that you want it to be when it is done, i.e. 180 degrees .
This is not new news. Thirty-odd years ago, many American cooks, including me, were much taken by Adelle Davis's book, Let's Cook it right. We followed her rules for long slow cooking of chicken, veal shanks and pork butts in order to retain maxium nutritional value while obtaining maximum juiciness and flavor. Her method was to roast in an open pan all day, or even up to a full 24 hours at the temperature that you want the meat or poultry to be when done..
She advocated using an oven pilot light to cook shanks, pork butt and even chicken. If she had known about confit I bet she would have included it in her book.
I have seen sous-vide packaging and cooking at low temperature and for extended periods of time used with incredible results to cook lean beef, fish, vegetables, foie gras and calves liver. But I am wondering if confit is really best cooked in the package. It may be just lowering the temperature to get the texture we all love. The taste may or may not be improved.
I worry about the husky mature taste of moulard or pekin duck legs preserved in fat for over a month. This is so rewarding for the work. This still needs to be addressed, but I guess at a later date.
The upside of cooking the duck legs in sousvide is to avoid purchasing all that duck fat.
I am going to order a 6-pack of moulard ducks from preferredmeats.com (East coast readers might want to use Dartagnan.com if they are searching for a purveyor of moulard duck legs, the best choice for confit) and try two legs each in three different ways: in sous-vide in water held at 180 in an electric skillet; the same in the oven in an uncovered pot of water; and in fat without packaging with fat stable at 180. I think I'll start texture- testing with a broom straw at about 10 hours and work from there.
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Mikey,
Are the ducks you are cooking muscovy, moulard or pekin?
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This is very exciting. I await your experiments.
FYI, I once watched Michel Bras poach a 3-pound calf's liver ( in one piece) wrapped sous vide very slowly in barely heatded water. His intention being to cook it without allowing it to toughen. The resulting texture was silky texture. As you say the result of precision cooking. After being cooked to medium-rare, the liver was chilled, sliced very thin, and served with a sharp radish vinaigrette.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to explain confit in sous vide.
I've done fish that way based on an ersatz method of sous vide packing. (If you have my book on the cooking of southwest france, see pages 349 and 149.)
I became so entranced with this method that I had a correspondence with a French Canadian scientist\cook named Pierre de Serres. He taught me that when the temperature of the water and the fish are the same, the fish can stay in the package in the water all day without breaking down or deteriorating. In fact, it is just as good 30 minutes after it is placed in the waterbath or as long as 10 hours. This was back in the 80's when Georges Pralus was inspiring a lot of people to work with sous vide.
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Nathan,
It's also clear that I need to start out at a higher temperature and/or use a considerably longer cooking time.
I'm just going to jump in here about starting off at a hgh temperature. I am eager to read Nathan reply to all the rest.
I had learned that it is best to start the duck and the fat at room temperature and let it slowly heat together to the temperature desired, poach it at that temperature for a few hours or until a straw easily slips into the flesh, and finally to let the duck cool down in the fat. This has worked for me for more than 20 years.
I never felt the need to shift gears but Nathan's comments about using so much less fat means more people might jump in and try their hand at making confit. Is there a downside to home cooks doing this? I wonder about leaving the duck in the bag afterwards for further aging..
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not so fast-----fat that comes from roasting is a no-no for making confit. It is damaged (overheated) fat. Please dump it
hmmmm... i was trying out a method (barbara kafka's?) where the duck is first poached in stock (that's why there was a considerable fat layer to salvage), then roasted in a hot oven for a brief period (about 30 min)---do you think that fat is still overheated? it is very creamy pale yellow. not browned. thanks for your experienced response!
I wouldn't advise it.
I guess you could do a taste test with a teaspoon of each: fry a small piece of bread in fat from normal rendering and another from the roasting fat and note the difference.
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nice thick fat layer, so with what came from roasting this duck, rendering fat, and skimming from the stock, there's plenty for a new batch. off to the duck market on monday for a new batch of confit.
not so fast-----fat that comes from roasting is a no-no for making confit. It is damaged (overheated) fat. Please dump it
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I agree that the confit of duck leg with bone-in looks a lot better than cut up and scattered about in the cassoulet. In restaurants and at photo shoots that is standard.
In the home, I never saw a cassole (the earthenware dish used to bake the cassoulet) large enough to accomodate enough confit of bone-in duck to serve 8, 10 or 12.
Keeping a braise from drying out overnight
in Cooking
Posted
Three is the magic number. The third reheat will put the stew into an other stratosphere. please don't try for four unless you are serving the true meat of an ox!