Dinner! 2013 (Part 5)

[nickrey]

Caviar has a strong reflective sheen. I don't get that in this picture.

[dcarch]

"darch! You can't just show us this and not tell us how you managed to make it so PERFECT! "

Thanks Anna N. After many years of trying, finally perfect cracklin skin on perfectly juicy tender meat! Here are the steps:

1. Poke a million holes on the skin. Season and rub well all meat surfaces.

2. Use a flat tray and make the skin lay very flat, and freeze pork belly.

3. While it is still frozen, boil the skin side in shallow boiling water to cook the skin only.

4. After the skin has been well cooked, and the meat is still frozen because of the fat layer, sous vide the pork belly the normal way. I did 24 hours.

5. Take the pork belly out from sous vide bag and dry with paper towel.

6. Wrap Heavy duty alum foil all around, exposing only the skin.

7. Lay foiled pork belly (food safety) on a rack in a dehydrator set at 150F (food safety!) face down so the skin will be flat and fat can be drained away. Dehydrate overnight.

8. In a pre-heated 400F oven, bake the pork belly face up with the alum foil on a cold pizza stone.

9. Don't walk away. In a few minutes, the skin will puff up beautifully.

10. Let the pork belly get to room temperature and the skin will be unbelievable on the most amazing juicy tender sous vided (24 hours +12 hours) pink meat.

11. Find a way to divide the skin up equally or you will end up with big fights. :-)

dcarch

Edited November 7, 2013 by dcarch (log)

[Anna N]

"darch! You can't just show us this and not tell us how you managed to make it so PERFECT! "

Thanks Anna N. Making the skin side very flat is the key idea:

1. Poke a million holes on the skin. Season and rub well all meat surfaces.

2. Use a flat tray and make the skin lay very flat, and freeze pork belly.

3. While it is still frozen, boil the skin side in shallow boiling water to cook the skin only.

4. After the skin has been well cooked, and the meat is still frozen because of the fat layer, sous vide the pork belly the normal way. I did 24 hours.

5. Take the pork belly out from sous vide bag and dry with paper towel.

6. Wrap Heavy duty alum foil all around, exposing only the skin.

7. Lay foiled pork belly (food safety) on a rack in a dehydrator set at 150F (food safety!) face down so the skin will be flat and fat can be drained away. Dehydrate overnight.

8. In a pre-heated 400F oven, bake the pork belly face up with the alum foil on a cold pizza stone.

9. Don't walk away. In a few minutes, the skin will puff up beautifully.

10. Let the pork belly get to room temperature and the skin will be unbelievable on the most amazing juicy tender sous vided (24 hours +12 hours) pink meat.

11. Find a way to divide the skin up equally or you will end up with big fights. :-)

dcarch

Wow! That's an amazing method. It obviously worked brilliantly. Now to examine my conscience and find out if I am willing to do the same! Have everything except the dehydrator and know where I can borrow one of those. So it's not the equipment, it's the commitment. Thank you so much for sharing.

[liuzhou]

Rabbit with garlic potatoes. red onion 'jam', and spinach.

Rabbit legs were boned and cut into bite size pieces then marinaded with lemon zest and juice and some gin. (Excess gin and lemon were enhanced with some passing tonic and administered to the cook for medical reasons.)

Red onions were sliced and slowly cooked with some halved 'single head' garlic for around 45 minutes. The garlic was removed, but reserved, and a little balsamic vinegar was then added and they were left to 'develop'.

The rabbit was browned then left to slowly stew in its marinade. Some 'herbes de Provence were added along with a sprinkling (generous) of chilli flakes. A few chopped green olives were also added.

The reserved garlic was added to a pan with the potatoes and boiled with salt. Drained and peppered.

The spinach was merely wilted in its washing water with a little salt.

Top to bottom.

Sliced boiled potatoes.

Onion 'jam'

Spicy rabbit in gin.

The garlic from the spuds.

Spinach

It was a lot of work for a midweek meal for one, but I have guests coming at the weekend and need to come up with something interesting and different. Plating needs working on too!

Edited November 7, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[jsager01]

"darch! You can't just show us this and not tell us how you managed to make it so PERFECT! "

Thanks Anna N. Making the skin side very flat is the key idea:

1. Poke a million holes on the skin. Season and rub well all meat surfaces.

2. Use a flat tray and make the skin lay very flat, and freeze pork belly.

3. While it is still frozen, boil the skin side in shallow boiling water to cook the skin only.

4. After the skin has been well cooked, and the meat is still frozen because of the fat layer, sous vide the pork belly the normal way. I did 24 hours.

5. Take the pork belly out from sous vide bag and dry with paper towel.

6. Wrap Heavy duty alum foil all around, exposing only the skin.

7. Lay foiled pork belly (food safety) on a rack in a dehydrator set at 150F (food safety!) face down so the skin will be flat and fat can be drained away. Dehydrate overnight.

8. In a pre-heated 400F oven, bake the pork belly face up with the alum foil on a cold pizza stone.

9. Don't walk away. In a few minutes, the skin will puff up beautifully.

10. Let the pork belly get to room temperature and the skin will be unbelievable on the most amazing juicy tender sous vided (24 hours +12 hours) pink meat.

11. Find a way to divide the skin up equally or you will end up with big fights. :-)

dcarch

Wow! That's an amazing method. It obviously worked brilliantly. Now to examine my conscience and find out if I am willing to do the same! Have everything except the dehydrator and know where I can borrow one of those. So it's not the equipment, it's the commitment. Thank you so much for sharing.

another method would be here http://forums.egullet.org/topic/108508-siu-yook-roast-pork-belly/page-4

it has not failed me, and the discussions/experiments by prawncrackers and origamicrane were, IMO, very interesting.

there are similarities between the methods in this thread and those of prawn..., like poking a zillion holes in the skin, and a jaccard is indispensable in this context.

[dcarch]

another method would be here http://forums.egullet.org/topic/108508-siu-yook-roast-pork-belly/page-4

it has not failed me, and the discussions/experiments by prawncrackers and origamicrane were, IMO, very interesting.

there are similarities between the methods in this thread and those of prawn..., like poking a zillion holes in the skin, and a jaccard is indispensable in this context.

I have studied and tried those various methods. What I had intended to accomplish:

1. No skin treatment other than perforations. No vinegar, no salting, no vodka, etc.

2. When you buy roasted pork, they don't scrape the skin after roasting.

3. I want to have great cracklin pork skin, as well as meat that is not overcooked (sous vided).

This method gives me all the above.

dcarch

Edited November 7, 2013 by dcarch (log)

[rotuts]

""" rack in a dehydrator set at 150F """

would a smart oven w fan on work? the BV goes down to 120. but I guess it has time-out funtions.

Im sure dcarck included this but Ive missed it ; SV 24 hrs at what temp?

Killer Dish. why not score the fat into expected portions leaving it on the Hog for easy further separation?

Edited November 7, 2013 by rotuts (log)

[dcarch]

""" rack in a dehydrator set at 150F """

would a smart oven w fan on work? the BV goes down to 120. but I guess it has time-out funtions.

Im sure dcarck included this but Ive missed it ; SV 24 hrs at what temp?

Killer Dish. why not score the fat into expected portions leaving it on the Hog for easy further separation?

An electric convection oven may not work as well. Electric ovens can only go up to 1,800 watts. So the oven's design is to seal as much as possible to conserve heat. That makes it not a good dehydrator. You can't leave the door a crack open because there is a switch to cut off power.

I like pork belly sous vided at 150F, but that's a personal preference.

Part of the fun is to hear that cracklin noise when you cut the skin. So don't cut it first.

dcarch

[Anna N]

I suspect dcarch approaches a cooking project with a very different mind set than many of us. I would think:

I want to make perfectly cooked pork belly with crispy skin.

His, I suspect, go something like this:

I want to create a symmetrical plank of perfectly cooked pork belly topped by a crispy skin whose colour hits the exact ideal, neither too light, nor even slightly scorched and whose texture is only dreamed of by most of the world!

[sigma]

Caviar has a strong reflective sheen. I don't get that in this picture.

Are you still thinking lentils, then?

[nickrey]

Caviar has a strong reflective sheen. I don't get that in this picture.

Are you still thinking lentils, then?

Not at all, however those who saw what it was recognized the whole dish from a picture in a book and then adduced the presence of caviar. This does not make it an obvious choice, particularly when there are sustainability issues around this ingredient.

I wasn't criticising your picture per se instead I was simply asking for a clearer one if you are asking us to guess the ingredients from visual cues alone. Degrading a picture is used in experiments to make such tasks more difficult, as it did here.

[mm84321]

Shellfish tart

Turbot with cauliflower

[scubadoo97]

Stunning dishes!

I kept it basic tonight. Grilled loin chops with roasted multi colored potatoes and tomatoes with Valbreso French feta and

Greek oregano

[C. sapidus]

Roasted Poblano-potato salad with smoked salmon – with sautéed red onion, olive oil, black pepper, Mexican oregano, cilantro, and rice vinegar, served over Bibb and Romaine lettuce. Excellent flavor to effort ratio.

[Franci]

Beautiful colors, Bruce!

We had a fregola soup, some parmigiano and soppressata.

[patrickamory]

Party cross-posted from the Filipino thread, hope that's kosher... Jaymes sent me a second batch of calamansi from her tree in Texas.

Spinach with dried shrimp and cilantro in calamansi dressing:

Chicken adobo using calamansi in place of vinegar as the souring agent:

Texas chili with calamansi on the side (a great combination):

Thanks Jaymes!

[EnriqueB]

"darch! You can't just show us this and not tell us how you managed to make it so PERFECT! "

Thanks Anna N. After many years of trying, finally perfect cracklin skin on perfectly juicy tender meat! Here are the steps:

1. Poke a million holes on the skin. Season and rub well all meat surfaces.

2. Use a flat tray and make the skin lay very flat, and freeze pork belly.

3. While it is still frozen, boil the skin side in shallow boiling water to cook the skin only.

4. After the skin has been well cooked, and the meat is still frozen because of the fat layer, sous vide the pork belly the normal way. I did 24 hours.

5. Take the pork belly out from sous vide bag and dry with paper towel.

6. Wrap Heavy duty alum foil all around, exposing only the skin.

7. Lay foiled pork belly (food safety) on a rack in a dehydrator set at 150F (food safety!) face down so the skin will be flat and fat can be drained away. Dehydrate overnight.

8. In a pre-heated 400F oven, bake the pork belly face up with the alum foil on a cold pizza stone.

9. Don't walk away. In a few minutes, the skin will puff up beautifully.

10. Let the pork belly get to room temperature and the skin will be unbelievable on the most amazing juicy tender sous vided (24 hours +12 hours) pink meat.

11. Find a way to divide the skin up equally or you will end up with big fights. :-)

dcarch

Wonderful. I have to try this. I've been for a while searching for reasons to self-justify buying a dehydrator for which I don't have much space, and you have likely given me the definitive reason. My wife will hate you for yet-another-cooking-gadget

A couple of questions: About how long do you boil the skin? And, what's the purpose of the pizza stone if it is cold and you put the meat side on it? To keep the meat cold so it does not overcook?

[basquecook]

Well after being on the road for like 20 days or so, in china and beautiful exotic chicago, i am happy to be home. First night back from China, I felt the need to hit up a Chinese Restaurant. My wife made roast pork last night. She brined the pork for three days in a brown ale, with brown sugar. She cooked it at 250 and then crisped the skin (which was fantastic) at 500 for the last little bit. I made tomato paste rice and steamed spinach with ginger, soy and garlic.

Cracked it up and plated it.

yeh, not the best shot but, you get the sense, the skin was pretty perfect too.

rice and spinach

Dinner with about another two meals of leftovers totaled $8.43.

Edited November 8, 2013 by basquecook (log)

[Ann_T]

Chicken with Rosemary, Olives and Lemon with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach.

[EnriqueB]

This time italian instead of spanish (paella) rices. I had edible flowers and black truffle, which made for nice presentation and aroma.

Pigeon risotto

Pork & ham risotto with suckling pig ears (confited & deep fried)

[Franci]

Tri tip SV, sweet potatoes and salad

[basquecook]

looks really nice Franci. What are you thoughts on SV? How long did it go, did you marinade, how did you finish it.

[David Ross]

Shellfish tart

Turbot with cauliflower

Getting caught up here and I must tell you, that is about the most delicious fish dish I have seen. Actually much

more tempting than the Turbot dish I had at Le Cirque two weeks ago. Sadly I rarely can get Turbot here in Spokane.

[mm84321]

Thanks, David. It is my favorite fish. The guy I buy them from can FedEx to you, if you ever need one. They come from Holland on Sundays, and this one came from Normandy, which come on Wednesdays. Gorgeous fish.

Tonight, I tried something a little bit different. Roasted a piece on the bone and covered it with leaves of cabbage, which I cooked sous vide in chicken consommé. I then cooked some small croutons in the roasting butter, and added some of the fat and the barbes to a veal jus. Roasted and sliced sweetbreads to add on top of the cabbage, then I made a butter from some of the turbot stock to which I added caviar and a drop of lemon, and then topped the sweetbreads with this. Turned out pretty tasty.

[C. sapidus]

Franci – Thanks! Now I have a hankering for sweet potato fries

Ann_T – Gorgeous chicken!

Indian tonight

Chicken baked with green chiles and onions – Flavored oil with cinnamon stick, cardamom, and cloves. Salted and peppered chicken thighs, browned and removed. Topped the chicken with fried onion, slivered ginger, and sliced jalapenos. Fried mustard seeds and garlic with a sauce of heavy cream, tomato paste, cayenne, garam masala, and lemon juice. Added the sauce to the chicken and baked until done. Yum.

Stir-fried green cabbage with fennel seeds – Fried onions with cumin, fennel seed, and sesame seeds. Added slivered cabbage and cayenne and cooked until done. Finished with lemon juice and garam masala. One of my very favorite vegetable dishes.

Store-bought garlic naan, heated in the oven and brushed with butter.