Michael Ruhlman
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Posts posted by Michael Ruhlman
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it's not unreasonable. molds are alive and they compete. i've heard from some sausage makers that it is indeed a good idea to hang a sausage with good mold on it next to the new ones. I hadn't heard of making a mold slurry but i can't imagine it would hurt.
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For us with no FoodSaver, is rewrapping the Bactoferm tightly and freezing it ok for long-ish (several months) term storing?
it should be wrapped and kept frozen, i believe it will keep for several months. if it's thawed and been sitting around for a while i don't know if i'd have confidence in it when i went to use it.
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Pork Belly question:
In my search for great pork belly here mentioned up thread, I talked to Central Market about geting a Berkshire pork belly. Today I looked at the bershire site and they list only a pork belly with skin off. Michael and Brian call for a skin-on pork belly. So should I avoid the Berkshire and have a grocery store source a commercial skin-on belly, or look for a local farm-raised skin-on belly?
The skin does help retain moisture, it also helps retain the shape. and skin of course is loaded with collagen and so skin is fantastic to add to stocks and stews for great body. and it's sublime when cooked till crispy. but you don't need skin. I would go for the best quality pork.
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White mold question
I have collected my Chirizo and Tuscan Salami - will post once I charge my camera battery...
I have question about the white mold. I have some pretty heavy white mold on the Tuscan - do I wash it or brush it off?
hard to say withoug seeing it but unless it's furry, it should be fine. I would leave it on while it's drying--good mold competes with bad mold so the more good you have the better--and then brush it off when it's finished.
the only reason you would want mold at all, as far as i'm concerned, is because it prevents bad mold from growing.
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Ok, here's a different sort of question. Michael, are you there? Anyone?
I want to make the boudin noir from the book. Our local Asian markets sell frozen pork blood, but it also lists water and salt as added ingredients. I have no idea how much dilution there is, and if this blood will work for the boudin. Has anyone successfully made a blood sausage using a similar product?
Brian who has worked with frozen says, "thaw completely stir with a stick blender then proceed as described in the recipe."
blood coagualates to something like dense Jello almost immediately outside the body (an important trait!), and I don't think any amount of salt (or vinegar) will change that. it becomes liquid again on stirring.
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Ok, here's a different sort of question. Michael, are you there? Anyone?
I want to make the boudin noir from the book. Our local Asian markets sell frozen pork blood, but it also lists water and salt as added ingredients. I have no idea how much dilution there is, and if this blood will work for the boudin. Has anyone successfully made a blood sausage using a similar product?
I love the blood sausages I've eaten in France, Sweden, and Finland, and the imported Spanish morcilla I've had here, and would be so happy to be able to recreate them at home.
not sure why water is added. salt maybe to preserve. i've never used frozen, but i'm told it freezes well. assume you can use according to recipe as is. in that recipe the blood is like a binder for the apple and onion.
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Because Alinea is ultimately not about the customers, but about the creator. When I made the reservation to eat there two weeks ago, I specified that the whole party wanted the long tasting menu. When we sat down, we were told that we couldn't order it because the "Tour" menu takes too long and they needed to turn the table. When we complained, we were told that "if we were unhappy, they could always help us find a reservation elsewhere". I feel like I was not a client of the restaurant, but a mere mortal being given the priviledge of worshipping at the great temple of Alinea.
needless to say, that's appalling, so much so it's hard to believe. not that i don't believe you, it's just astonishing. I look forward to a response, as I'm sure Nick is eager to answer.
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This is the recipe i used for mine:
1 liter water
300g salt
9g rosmary needles
2 cloves garlic
3 small bay leaves (i used fresh)
7 juniper berries
7 leaves of sage
1000g hunk of fatback that is as thick as you can find
that is really salty--30 percent salt?
i would think you could take it down to 50 grams which is what you want for any basic pickle
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again, abra, talk to niman about this.
jason, the thickness of that fatback is fantastic. glad it worked out. a drop of really good olive oil, some fleur de sel, some good bread...looks beautiful.
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I cut it open, and alas, it is greenish all the way through. It's from a Niman hog, and was cured, wrapped, weighted, and in the fridge the whole damn time. I'm at a loss to imagine how this happens. It smells sweet and delicious, just as the final insult.
I'd bring this up with niman customer service. they've been very attentive when i've had issues, though no green pig. very strange. if you just used salt and herbs, should not happen.
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another one i love, from erstwhile egulleter tana butler, is http://smallfarms.typepad.com/, devoted to small farms, which are ultimately the source of the best food on earth
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Gack! Here I was worrying about cyber-contagion of molds, and what do I have? Ron's Green Goo!
Here's my lardo, after 13 days in the cure, wrapped light-tight, weighted, in the fridge the whole time. Now isn't that gross? It smells just fine, perfectly sweet and neutral, but hey, the little meat strip running through the fat is all green.
Now, this lardo was thoroughly covered in fresh thyme as it cured, but the thyme was all on the top surface, not touching the part that is now Ghastly Green.
You eat the stuff raw. It's green meat. All I can do is toss it, right?
definitely not supposed to be green. is it green all the way through? how does it smell? is this from ron's hog?
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you must confit some of it! this way you can keep it in the back of the fridge for months, a great method for when you have an abundance, which is why the method began in the first place!
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glad to see mark mentioned megnut.com and her whole-hog relaunch devoted to food. it's really good.
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Actually, I went back and read that part of the book as soon as I read that post. For fuzzy green mold Michael says take no chance and throw it out.
I don't recall that i was so absolute. maybe just very cautionary. you can wipe down a moldy sausage with vinegar or brine. the danger is that some of those evil molds can penetrate the skin and get into the sausage, in which case throwing it out is prudent. but after washing them down, examine the casing to ensure it's intact and you've got all the mold. but once the mold has started, it's tough battle.
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I pulled the smaller of the jowl pieces too, to see how the guanciale is doing. It's been hanging over 5 weeks, and still feels somewhat tender to the touch. I know guanciale isn't meant to be eaten without cooking, but holy porker, that stuff is delicious just as it is! Sweet, mild, and almost all fat. It really makes me look forward to my lardo.
Abra, when will your lardo be ready? I have a nice chunk of fatback from a local farmer, and am considering the lardo cure. It will be my second attempt at anything out of the book, after today's Pate Grandmere is all done.
I don't have any pink salt, nor have I got a good hanging set-up. But I figured I could just leave the fat to dry in the fridge instead of hanging it, and that way I wouldn't need the preservative/ antibacterial properties of the nitrite.
I talked to a guy at the farmer's market yesterday, and he said all he does for his salt-cured fatback is rub it with salt, wrap it in plastic and leave it in the fridge for three weeks or so, until it feels right. Talk about easy! So I figure I can modify the lardo cure in a similar way. Maybe it will take longer to dry in the fridge.
Any thoughts?
scottie,
you don't need sodium nitrite for lardo; unless you smoke it there's no botulism concern. salt and herbs are all you need. my only concern with drying in fridge is that it's too dry in there, though i know chefs who only cure in the walkin. but youre not going to hurt any body no matter how you do it. i think the most important factor with lardo is light, it needs to be kept out of the light, which actually disintegrates the fat, if i understand the venerable harold mcgee correctly.
my only problem with dry-cured lardo is that it still retains a slight crunchiness--this is the case with the ones i've cured, with brian's, and was the case with the lardo pizza at mario and co.'s otto (excellent btw, and also saw an unusal drycured sausage there with a bullseye of fat in the middle the size of a quarter; the superlative bartender that day refused to reveal how they got that fat in there--if anyone knows, would love to find out!). the first lardo i had was in the mountains above carrara near the marble quarries. a scary man, long and lanky with long uncombed black hair and a black beard, named fausto, served it to me and then showed me the marble casks in a lightless dirt cellar where they cured--salt and herbs and oil for many many months. that lardo was smooth as butter. that was the lardo cherry-breaking for me and i've never found it again since.
i think a long slow cure in absolute blackness is the key...
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not so, i say it all the time. sometimes i say it when i'm here. i wrote a whole book about the subject!
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i prefer sweet but it's a matter of taste, the most important part is that it's fresh and hasn't been hanging out in your pantry for ages
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I and seven other friends ate there last week. symon's a friend i've written about, so i'm completely biased, but if it had been shit, i wouldn't post. I was really happy, the food was excellent. he and his exec chef jonathan sawyer did a phenomenal job. from octopus to veal breast even to some midwestern walleye he slipped in there, definitely two-star caliber restaurant. great house cured and dried meats, too.
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Abra -
I'd guess that they were overcooked - the fat renders at about 160+ deg. Next time try for internal finished temp of 150 deg.
bingo. i cannot emphasize enough: as with any special cut of meat and there's nothing more special than a well made sausage, cook it carefully and to a precise internal temperature.
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I am planning on doing some more salami and sausages this weekend, but I realize that I do not have any more bactoferm. I want to make the spanish chorizo... just how obligatory is the bactoferm?
Can you make it without?
I agree with Dave. If you don't have some bugs in there to generate acid, it's not likely to dry properly and will remain mushy and will rot. but maybe not, maybe you'll get lucky. in any case, you'll know it if it's not right.
do you have any sourdough starter or real yogurt? i have no idea if adding liquid from those would work but it would be better than nothing...
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I have a question for the butcher's among you. I could not tell whether the jowls had glands or not. Was not sure how/where to locate them.
they can and you don't want to eat them, though i doubt they'd hurt you.
they're about the size of a quarter sometimes bigger, disc shaped, and a little off color, clearly not fat and not meat.
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what i love best about aarons post, besides seeing the perfect looking duck breast, is that this cook is evaluating and thinking and fixing. everyone on this thread does that, but it's nice to see the thoughts and actions described because really that's the essence of cooking.
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some meat proteins are salt soluable, so i wonder if some of the surface moisture is liquified protein, which accounts for the better more complex crust and why maybe you shouldn't pat dry meat that's been salted before it goes into the pan, even though it is the common sense thing to do.
Curing and Cooking with Ruhlman & Polcyn's "Charcuterie" (Part 3)
in Cooking
Posted
jason and i were posting simultaneously. i'm glad to know about the spray bottle experiment, and would like to know how butcher packer stuff works.