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  1. by Chris Amirault Anyone who wants to write about food would do well to stay away from similes and metaphors, because if you're not careful, expressions like 'light as a feather' make their way into your sentences and then where are you? - Nora Ephron I attended a training last fall at which we were asked to share an object representing something important about mentoring, our focus for the week. I suspect that few in the workshop had difficulty coming up with their tape measures, baby photos, and flower pots, but I usually find this sort of assignment challenging, preferring simple denotations to forced connotations. On the drive home, I rolled down the windows, sensing that the air was turning slightly crisp and cool. I savored that harbinger of autumn in New England, when my thoughts turn to braises, stews and charcuterie. After a summer of keeping the oven off in my non-air-conditioned kitchen, I dreamed of daubes, considered new curries, and generally jonesed for the promise of meat to come. And then I realized that I had a perfect metaphor for mentoring: my 5 lb. vertical sausage stuffer from Grizzly Industrial, Inc. The next day, I lugged the apparatus to the training, hiding it behind a door for fear of ridicule. When my turn arrived, I hauled it out and clunked it down dramatically on the center table. "Good mentoring is like a sausage stuffer," I said, "for at least ten reasons: One. When you make sausages, everything -- utensils, machine, meat, fat -- has to be properly cool. If you've got warm meat, you can't make sausage, so don't try. Heat will prevent for a good bind. Two. It takes two people to make a sausage stuffer work. [Note: That's not entirely true, or at least it's idiosyncratic to my situation. My sausage stuffer is mounted to a free-floating piece of particle board and not to a countertop, and thus someone has to hold the thing still while the other person cranks away. But, hey, cut me some slack. It was overnight homework and I was trying to get to a round number.] Three. Contrary to popular belief, you do want to know what ingredients are in a sausage. What goes in determines what goes out. Reflecting on the stuff makes the product much better. Four. To fix a sausage that isn't working, you tweak it slightly; small changes can have big results. Trying to fix everything at once with bold gestures is doomed to fail. Five. You don't find out whether your sausages are good while you're stuffing them. The proof is in the blood pudding. When you apply heat, good sausages bind unlike elements; bad sausages break and separate. Six. The sausage stuffer takes something messy and encapsulates it, bringing order where there was chaos. Seven. You never know everything that there is to know about sausage making. Hubris is your enemy, humility your friend. Ask around and make friends with experts. Eight. You will never perfect your sausages. The greatest charcutiers in the world stress the impossibility of perfection. Forget about it. There are too many factors beyond your control. Strive for making them as good as you can make 'em. Nine. The only sane approach to sausage-making is to take the developmental long view. After all, this isn't Plato's cave in which you're hanging the links; it's your unfinished basement. Since you can't get perfection, you want improvement each time. Ten. Despite all efforts to the contrary, sometimes your sausage turns out really lousy. Flavor dissipates; binds break; good mold flees and bad mold flowers. When sausages go awry, don't wring your hands. Just do the best you can to figure out what happened, toss 'em, and take another crack. I mean, it's just sausage. Thank you." + + + That's the article as I started writing it. But over time, Nora's words came to haunt me. The whole shtick began to smell a bit fishy, and I began to fear that, like many tropes, this metaphor turned attention away from a trickier, worrisome truth hiding in plain view. But unlike many tropes, the worrisome truth I was hiding is in the object, and not the subject, of the metaphor. That is, the metaphor wasn't really about my relationship to mentoring. It was really about my relationship to sausage. Imagine the scene: I whip out my sausage maker and give ten reasons why my metaphor is bigger and better than everyone else's. (I did mention that I was the only man among three dozen women in that training, didn't I?) Laugh if you want, but one's sausage is important to many a man. A quick perusal of this topic reveals that I'm not alone. (You did notice the gender breakdown in that topic, didn't you?) Last weekend, while in the unfinished basement of a chef buddy, talk turned to our sausages, and before long we four charcuterie nuts were looking at our feet and commiserating about our failures. We shared a bond: our sausages had the better of us, and we knew it. Pathetic though it is, are you surprised that I felt a deep sense of relief, even of control, when I walked through my ten reasons? My metaphor afforded me a rare opportunity to feel superior to the process of sausage-making, and believe me, that doesn't happen often. My name is Chris A., and I have sausage anxiety. Read that list up there about my sausage maker, the instrument that I describe with distanced assurance. It's a ruse, I tell you. No matter how often I try to buck up, no matter how definitive a recipe, no matter how wonderful a pork butt or a lamb shoulder, when it comes to making sausages, I go limp with worry. Can you blame me? Look at all the places you can screw up, where your sausage can fail you utterly and leave you in tears. You grab some wonderful meat, hold it in your hands, appreciate its glory. Chill. You grind it, add some fat, and sprinkle some seasoning, whatever the flesh requires. Chill again. Slow down, contemplate the moon or something. You paddle that meat to bind it, melding flavor and texture seamlessly. Chill some more. What's your hurry? Toss a bit into a skillet, ask: are we ready? and adjust as needed. Stuff away. Then relax. If you can. I can't. You need to keep things cool to take care of your sausage, and it's challenging to stay cool when I'm all a-flutter about the prospect of a culminating, perfect, harmonious bind. If you read the books and you watch the shows, everyone acts just about as cool as a cucumber. But that's not real life with my sausage. It's a frenzy, I tell you. I know I should chill and relax, but I get all hot and bothered, start hurrying things along, unable to let the meat chill sufficiently, to take things slowly. Hell, I'm sweating now just thinking about it. I have to admit that I don't have this sausage problem when I'm alone in the house, have a couple of hours to kill, and know I won't be disturbed. I just settle in, take it nice and slow, not a care in the world, and everything comes out fine. But with someone else around, forget about it. Despite this mishegas, my wife is as supportive as she can be. She humors me patiently about these things, gently chiding, "Slow down! The house isn't on fire. It's just your sausage." Though I know she loves me despite my foibles, that sort of talk just adds fuel to that fire -- I mean, she can speak so glibly because it's not her sausage we're worrying about. Even if I am I able to relax, the prospect of sudden, precipitous sausage humiliation comes crashing down upon me. Think of it. All seems to be going so well -- a little too well. I'm keeping things cool, making sure that I'm taking it easy, following the plan step-by-step, trusting my instincts. I smile. I get cocky. And then, the frying pan hits the fire, and within moments I'm hanging my head: instead of forming a perfect bind, my sausage breaks and I break down. I want a firm, solid mass, and I'm watching a crumbly, limp link ooze liquid with embarrassing rapidity. Given my gender, in the past I've tried to subdue sausage anxiety with predictable contrivances: machines, science, and technique. If there's a tool or a book useful for perfecting my sausage, I've bought or coveted it. I calculate ratios of meat, salt, cure, sugar, and seasonings past the decimal; I measure out ingredients to the gram on digital scales; I poke instant-read thermometers into piles of seasoned meat; I take the grinder blade to my local knife sharpener to get the perfect edge. (We've already covered the stuffer above, of course.) I've got a full supply of dextrose, Bactoferm, and DQ curing salts numbers 1 and 2. The broken binding of my copy of Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie has xeroxes and print-outs from eight other sources, and the pages are filled with crossed-out and recalculated recipes. It's the sort of thing that I used to do when I was younger: arm myself with all things known to mankind and blast ahead. It hasn't helped. I've learned the hard way that my hysterical masculine attempt to master all knowledge and technology has led, simply, to more panic and collapse. There is, I think, hope. I'm older, and my approach to my sausage has matured. I'm in less of a hurry, I roll with the challenges, and when the house is on fire, I just find a hydrant for my hose. If things collapse, well, I try to take the long view, recall the successes of my youth, and keep my head up. I mean, it's just my sausage. * * * Chris Amirault (aka, well, chrisamirault) is Director of Operations, eG Forums. He also runs a preschool and teaches in Providence, RI.
  2. Since there are so many bakers around here who know their sugar much better than me, I'm turning to y'all for help. I'd like to make a bacon macaron. My first thought is a regular almond macaron cookie with a milk chocolate/bacon filling a lá Vosges Mo's Bacon Bar. I'm not quite sure how to make the filling though. Would I just temper some milk chocolate and add crumbled bacon? Or is there something else I should be doing? I'm also open to other ideas for this bacon macaron idea if anyone has any.
  3. Hey Y'all- I've been very successful at making tesa (flat pancetta) and various fermented, moulded salamis for our restaurant, but have a couple of questions regarding whole-muscle cuts, (think culatello, lomo, speck, etc.) 1. For the coppa and lomo I have curing/hanging presently, I have used a 5% salt to raw weight ratio. If the initial cure is done in plastic bags, will this be about right? I know that prosciutti require 6%, but I figured that since they are allowed to "drip" and contain the bone, then 5% should be about right for boneless, "wet-cured" cuts. 2. The FDA requires 200 ppm nitrite in dry cured meat products. Cure #1 is 6.25% nitrite by weight, so the calculation for nitrite addition is easy, but the #2 cure I am using, (from Butcher & Packer), is 5.67% nitrite and 3.63% nitrate. Should I calculate for a nitrite value to equal 200 ppm, or should I just assume that over the hanging time the nitrate will be degraded into the appropriate level of nitrite? 3. Culatello is called the "heart of the prosciutto". Am I to assume that this is a single-muscle cut containing only the pork top round, or is it "harvested" including other muscles? 4. Which muscles/muscle groups are used to produce real Südtirol-style Speck? 5. Where the hell does one find hog bladders!!?? Thanks in advance for your input, you'll see a lot more of me around here.... Erich
  4. Are you hungry? The Bacon Flowchart Sheer pork genius.
  5. Somehow I've got it in my head that I should make pork heart confit. Googling has turned up nothing. I've made duck confit several times, pork belly confit once, and bacon confit a few times before, so I'm not totally clueless, but I have a few questions: -Is this even a good/feasible idea? -How long should I cook it? Would it be better to "fast confit" (say 350 degrees for 2-3 hours) since heart is very lean or "slow confit" (8-10 hours at 200) since it is particularly tough? -Any special curing requirements (e.g. more/less salt, shorter/longer curing time, pink salt?) -Confit whole or in chunks? What size/shape chunks? -Serving suggestions for the finished product? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
  6. http://www.baconsalt.com/ Bacon-flavored salt! As soon as I read the words, I began salivating...
  7. Hi All, Does anyone have this recipe from Gourmet Magazine? I'm supposed to teach an informal cooking class next Wednesday and thought it would be the perfect dish to start with. This particular Gourmet has a peach tart on the cover and has recipes from Thomas Keller in it. Help? Thanks! Patti
  8. Hi all! I'm new here. I'm an amateur cook from Stockholm, Sweden, sometimes with ideas far loftier than my skills. My current project: I'm doing pork belly confit. I have some slabs of pork belly brining in the fridge right now in a standard sugar/salt brine. Tomorrow I'm planning on slowly confiting them in duck fat. I don't want a rilette type end result, rather I'm after whole confited pieces. After maturing in duck fat in the fridge for a week or two, the confit could be carved, heated and served with...puy lentils perhaps. I could have gotten pork fat instead of duck fat (cheaper!) but it was just too easy to grab a big can of duck fat when I visited my lokal market yesterday. I've never done this type of confit before (but I have done rilettes). Anything I should think of? Temperature? Cooking time? For duck confit I've seen 190F/90C oven for up to 10-12 hours and I'm assuming the same will apply for my pork. (I also have a big chunk of tough cow marinating in red wine and and the usual aromatics in the fridge. I'm planning on braising it in it's own juices in an aluminium foil packet.)
  9. Ok, I have a weird, but good desert idea that I want to explore. I can handle the fried egg part of the equation, but have no chocolate experience for the bacon. If you were going to make chocolate into the shape and look of bacon how would you do it? I was thinking you melt dark, reg, and white chocolate and pour out on wax paper. Swirl or streak with a chopstick and then chill. Remove when hardened and cover with a touch of simple syrup foam to look fried. Will that work?
  10. I've been dying to get my hands on some lardons like I get when I'm in France. Especially now that cassoulet season is approaching, I'd like to get the real stuff. Thick-cut bacon just doesn't seem to do it. Can anyone recommend any place to get them in NYC? Thanks in advance, Cheers!
  11. I am trying to make a bacon mousse and am a little concerned with how the texture is going to work out. Is there anyone out there who can help me with this problem? and also I am a rabid garde manger enthusiast and would love to hear any stories or recipes involving garde manger food.
  12. I'd like to try making duck confit, but I'm wondering whether using fats other than the actual duck fat is, like, sacrilege, or something. Because frankly, where in the world do you get the amount of duck fat called for in a duck confit without roasting 40 ducks in a row first? Googling, I see substitutions such as olive oil, canola, lard, etc. Is this okay? Do they work as well in terms of preserving the duck? Is one better than another? Help?
  13. Are there any stores in Chicago that stock Portuguese sausages. Gaspar's or Amarals are the best known brands, but I can't seem to find them. I would appreciate any ideas. Tim
  14. My boyfriend's room-mate is not much of a cook. He eats sausage (supermarket grade Italian sausage) and broccoli for dinner every day, if he is the one cooking dinner. Sausage cooked in frying pan, broccoli boiled. No exaggeration. After my boyfriend boasted about my cooking ability (especially my self-proclaimed innovativeness with mundane ingredients), his room-mate raised a friendly on-going Iron Chef challenge for me. Not-so-secret ingredients: Sausage and broccoli. My first attempt occurred the other day. I started at 10pm, and used only what was available in the house. Luckily, I had a few things that I had left there (sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sirricha, honey, ginger, shallots, garlic). I made broccoli/sausage noodle stir fry. The noodles were those North-American style instant ramen-type noodles. Boyfriend and room-mate proclaimed the meal the most excellent ever cooked in their house. So, I'm having them over for dinner sometime soon, and I want to do much better. I've thought about making my own sausage, though I don't have one of those sausage-makers. I could only make the filling and then form into patties, or crumble (I do this from time to time). Things like pastas, stuffed pastas, lasagna, pizza immediately come to mind. But those seem almost too easy. I could roast the broccoli, or make it into tempura. But how to make the best sausage complement? Does anyone want to help me play this game?
  15. I remember reading a while ago in the Cooking>Charcuterie thread a mention of pictures of chrisamiraults Duck Breast Bacon. I would like to see these but after many unsuccessful searches I am asking for help. Anyone point me in the right direction? Many thanks. Norman
  16. So I am partnering with a local pork producer who specializes in amazing berkshire pork but also raises lamb and some grassfed beef (DWFarms). I have offered to make them some sausage recipes to sell at the farmers market. The sausage they have made so far has some texture issues. I assumed that being a leaner pork and a very small farm they were using mostly scrap and did not follow the proper ratios for sausage. My first batch with a proper lean meat to fat ratio as well as a batch with an increased fat ratio also had this texture issue, dry and crumbly. Obviously it is a fat emulsification issue. I tried a mousseline route with heavy cream but no panada. Besides the next step of adding a panada does anyone have any suggestions? Adding any pork besides theirs is not a possibility.
  17. Hey everybody! I just bought Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie and, obviously, I'm chomping at the bit to try on his recipes. Does anyone know where one can find "pink salt" (salt with nitrites) and all cuts of non-commercial pork (belly, blood, hocks, etc.), in the Montreal area? On a side note, has anyone ever seen a Cuisinart Stand Mixer in any shop in Montreal? I can only find KitchenAid. Thanks!
  18. Anyone doing diy link sausage- please point me in the right direction to find some interesting combos for sausage making. I've been tasked with coming up with 6 interesting sausages this week, both exciting and intimidating as I've never made sausage before! We have a kitchenaid mixer with the grinding and stuffing accessories, and I've picked up some casings as well. Thanks in advance for your ideas and suggestions! Warmly, Shai
  19. https://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bac...otic_candy_bars Has anyone tried this? I'd buy them buy the case if I had some first-hand reports that actually suggest they "work".
  20. Hebert's Meats ( I went to the Richmond at 610 location near the Galleria) is carrying Poffenberger's Bellville Sausages and they are delish!
  21. When I was in Portland OR this spring, I had a chance to get some grass-fed lamb shoulder, which I kept frozen until this past week. I defrosted it thinking that lamb shoulder might have the same beneficial effect on sausages that pork shoulder does, so I ground it up for merguez. I also went back to my books to see if there were any interesting ideas out there for merguez, and I couldn't find too much. Ruhlman's Charcuterie has a recipe that requires roasted red peppers, which might be interesting for some but wouldn't suit my needs. So I ended up winging it. I trimmed very little fat off the shoulder, added no extra fat, and diced the meat. I then made a seasoning batch with salt, sugar, garlic, cayenne, cumin, black pepper, paprika, and small amounts of cinnamon, clove, and allspice; the salt and sugar is in proportion with other sausages I've made, but the rest of the spices are stronger than usual. (I foolishly didn't write the proportions down.) Finally, I ground, beat, and stuffed it following the guidelines I've learned from Ruhlman (keep it cold, cold, cold, basically). I don't have any lamb casings, so I used standard pork casings and have fatter-than-ideal links. I really like the finished product. It has an intensity that I'd want a merguez to have; as far as I'm concerned, when I'm having spicy lamb sausage, I want it to taste like spicy lamb sausage. It's also got a swell mouthfeel thanks to the shoulder meat and fat, leading me to believe that a fear of lamb flavor has encouraged recipe writers to cut the lamb with beef or -- bizarrely -- pork, to the harm of the sausage. Finally, breaking down a shoulder is a lot less work than dealing with a leg of lamb and all that silverskin and tendon. Are there any other folks out there who make their own merguez? What recipes do you use? Seasonings? Cuts? And do you try to hide the lambiness or bring it out -- and how?
  22. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you encased a slice of bacon, and a raw egg, in a clear plastic box, and let it sit for a year? This guy did.
  23. First post all, and glad to be here! I want to make tuna confit this weekend. I have never confited anything. I understand the process, but does anybody have tips and tricks? Especially in cooking afterward to get it warm again. Thanks in advance and nice to stop lurking.
  24. Our great state, the one of 10,000 lakes (at least) has more meat markets that make their own sausages and bacon that you can count on the digits of all of my extended family. But, what is the deal with ultra thick bacon? It is like smoked pork that hasn't been cooked long enough, and then fried. Then there's the average supermarket thin, which crisps too crisp and way too fast. But, I have hit on two perfect bacons. Hackenmuellers in Robbinsdals will cut to order, unlike a mess of places that only sell cryovaced stuff in what they deem (IMHO, too thick) the proper thickness. And, then there is McDonald's Meats in Clear Lake (click). They have the thickness perfect. The right amount of fat renders out, you don't feel like you are eating smoked pork that hasn't reached it's prime temp. They are "da bomb" (according to the kids) for breakfasts and for BLT's. Just this last week, I had the opportunity to sample Fraboni's bacon. It would have won an award with me had it not been so thick. Now, for me, bacon should be thick enough to stand on it's own, but not TOO thick. There's something to the flavour/thickness ration in my mind. If I want smoked pork, I'll smoke a butt and pull it. If I want bacon, I want bacon. Perhaps I'm alone?
  25. Is a charcuterier a maker of charcuterie? Is a retailer of charcuterie also a charcuterier?
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