Very Busy Day 3 Cooking Projects Started and 2 Finished

 Project #1 -- Duck Prosciutto

I had ordered, while on vacation, too much meat from Wild Fork.  I ordered 3 duck breasts, 6 turkey thighs, 2 packages of turkey wings, a turkey breast, some picanha steaks, and a leg of lamb.  Totally ridic.  There was no room in the building's freezer, so out came the turkey thighs and the duck breasts, along with a couple of small picanha steaks.  

First up was the duck prosciutto.  I used a cure from Hank Shaw.  He really knows how to make the most of every animal that can be fished or hunted.  His cookbooks are witty and full of recipes that you would seldom contemplate unless you were experiencing hunger insecurity on an epic scale.  (Squirrel, Opossum and others of that ilk.  Fascinating reading in an educational way).

There are really 2 big rules when curing or making sausage.  Rule #1, you will need salt and at a specific percentage of it the weight in grams of your meat block.  Rule #2, if you are curing your meat or sausage, you need to know the length of time it will need to cure.  30 days or less, Cure #1, 31 days or more, Cure #2.  Both keep your meat protected from spoilage.  Cure #1 is a quicker acting product, hence the shorter curing/aging length.  Cure #2 is a slower acting product that changes the levels of nitrates and nitrites over a longer period of time.  Both are fine to eat and the amount used in most home curing projects is only .25 or .3 PERCENT of the total weight of the meat block.

I used 2% of the weight of the 3 breasts and 0.3% or cure #2 and 2T sugar.  To play with the flavors, I deviated from the Shaw recipe, and took a cue from one of the comments made by a reader.  I added nutmeg, calabrian chili powder, black pepper, and dried orange peel powder.  I didn't measure the amount because they were so miniscule.  4 or 5 twists of the nutmeg grater, 1 piece of the dried orange peel, buzzed in a spice grinder, maybe 1/2 t of the calabrian pepper and 1/4 t ground black pepper.  All of these were put into a container and then sprinkled and rubbed into the 3 duck breasts.  This is an equilibrium cure, that means that every last salt crystal must be used and put on the breasts.  So rub it in good and any remaining on the dish or pan should be scraped out and added to the vacuum bag that will hold the 3 breasts.  Rub the sides of the breasts around and try to get as much of it attached to the meat as possible.  NOTA BENE:  Do not trim the breasts of any excess skin.  You will hang the breast from a hole poked in the skin.

After making sure that all of the equilibrium cure is in the vacuum bag, seal it up and put it in the fridge for minimum 3 days.  It's OK if you go longer, but you cannot, I repeat, cannot go shorter.  More on this outcome in a couple of weeks.

Project #2 -- Friselle

Coming off a vacation to Puglia, Croatia, and Montenegro, I became very, very attached to the Southern Italian Friselle.  Friselle are thoroughly dried bread that is shelf stable and very hard.  Sailors used to take this on voyages with them.   They would dip it is seawater to revive the crumb, then top with some food.  Nowadays, the Italians top them with tomatoes, onions, rocket, olive oil, and salt.  You can throw some olives on it, or some sun dried tomatoes or capers, or anchovies, or, or, or....you get the idea.  I was served this by our B and B hostess for breakfast one morning.  I fell in love.  Found a recipe and made them yesterday. I did use a second site for the making of the "donuts".  Rather than making ropes and securing the ends together I found another way. After you portion and form balls with your dough, take each ball and gently poke a hole through the center of it.  Put the dough on your index finger and twirl/swing the dough around your finger to widen the hole and shape the donut.  The bigger the hole the better.

Bake in an oven at 400°F for 30 or so minutes.  If the donuts are puffy, go another 5 minutes, if they are thinner, then 30 minutes should be OK.  Cut the donuts in half horizontally so you end up with a donut top and bottom.  Replace on the tray pan and return to a 325°F oven until very dry looking.  You really don't want they too browned, just dried out.

This is a piece of the divided dough and that has been rolled and weighed.  Waiting to form the "donuts"

Here are the 6 rings ready to be baked off the first time, sliced and baked again.

Here is the finished product, you can see how dry they are.  This is what they are supposed be.  Think RUSK or teethng biscuit.

They are now ready to eat.  1) Always dampen, either with running it under water, both sides, OR dunking in a bowl of water.  Length of time depends on your preferences.  2)  Always be generous with the olive oil and 3) Top with whatever your heart says and be sure to salt generously and add more oil.

 

Today's breakfast after wetting, and generously pouring olive oil.  Use good olive oil that has flavor and aroma.  Otherwise it is not going to make you swoon,

Project #3 -- Turkey Kielbasa sausages

I really liked the particle definition in these.  They tasted great too.

As mentioned up top, I had 6 turkey thighs that needed to be deboned and cut up for making sausage.  I also had some porchetta trim that I used as the fat in the sausages.  Here again, there are definite rules about lean to fat ratios.  Anything lower than 25% fat is going to be at its best a mediocre sausage.  The juiciness of sausages is absolutely dependent on the amount of fat in the meat block.  I started with 2562 grams of turkey and 699 g of porchetta.  This gave me a 73 - 27% meat to fat ratio.  I didn't need to dig through the freezer to find more pork fat.  Likewise, there are salt to meat block ratios as well.  On average, sausage makers use between 1.8 - 2.5% of the meat block weight in salt. Much of the decision on how much salt to use is based on how long the product may age.  Fresh sausages do not age, they are pretty much a make and eat item.  They do need to sit over night in the fridge to dry out the casing and allow it to adhere to the mix better.  I used Two Guys and a Cooler recipe for Polish Kielbasa.  I really like that Eric puts in the recipe an auto-calculator for percentages of the ingredients.  Just enter the weight of your meat block (weight of lean meat PLUS weight of the fat) into the box and the amounts populate,  Presto.

I added yellow mustard seeds to the spices that Eric laid out because I like them in my kielbasa.

This project was not as straight forward as the other 2.  There were grinder issues.  I bought a new grinder earlier in the year and how to set up things were quite fuzzy.  I ground the fat on a 3 mm plate, as suggested, and the turkey on a 10 mm plate.  But when I switched out the grinder plates from small to big and ran the machine, the meat was not getting cut it was just being shoved thru the holes.  So that meant break down the machine to trouble shoot.  I thought I had maybe not put the blade in with flat side next to the plate.  Nope, that was fine.  Then I found a silicon gasket that clearly needed to be on the auger somewhere, but I couldn't remember, nor could I find the manual.  To the Google.  Sadly, the manufacturer does not have the manuals online at the website.  So I filed a support request ticket.  We know how that will be. However, I got an email to submit some details, which I did.  Break down #2 as I tried to guess where the silicon gasket went.  Subsequent to this, I found the manual.  The silicon ring belonged on the head of the auger as a spacer between it and the attachment point for the motor.  Crisis averted.  I finished grinding the balance of the turkey and added it to the fat and then added the spices and water and mixed by hand until I got a good bind which is when you grab a handful of the mixture and turn you hand over and the blob just stays attached to your hand and doesn't fall off.  You now have sufficient protein extraction and the casing will bind to the meat  well.

I was using my new stuffer for the first time, and it is a two person job.  I will have to figure out how to  mount it and weigh down the mount so that I can keep one hand on the casing on the horn and the other turning the crank.  The new machine definitely filled the sausages beautifully and I have no complaints.

After casing and twirling, the sausages had to dry in the refrigerator over night and then get smoked the next day.  

It was now midnight, every bone in my body ached and I just wanted a shower and go to bet.  I couldn't because I had to break the machine down for the 3rd time and wash up.  Finally finished and crawled into bed at 1:00.

I smoked them the next day until the internal temperature was 173°F, somewhat arbitrary, but as long as it is over 170° dark meat is cooked.  Got into an ice bath and packaged up for the freezer.  

What was so wonderful about the sausage was the snap of the bite.  The casing cracked under the initial bite.  I think that happens when, A) your casings are not over filled, B) the mixture has adhered to the casing very tightly, and 3) the ice bath after cooking tightened the casing .

What went right, the casings were full and NONE of them burst when being smoked.  None, NONE of the casings shriveled when plunged into the ice bath.  That, my friends, is a miracle.  In watching a YouTube vid, I saw that the sausage maker had made a couple of marks on the side of the sheet pan he was using to case the sausages.   The markings were a starting point, zero, if you will, the second 2 marks were 6 inches and 7 inches from the starting point.  This guarantees that the sausages will be approximately the same size for this particular project.  Worked like a charm.  Best looking links I have ever had!

Sichuan Banquet

Our good friends Rachelle and Sid came over for dinner last night and I made a Sichuan banquet.  On the menu was bang bang chicken, fish fragrance eggplant, cumin lamb with hand pulled noodles, red braised pork, cauliflower with bacon and smoked tofu, and water spinach with garlic and ginger.

Timing got a bit away from me.  The noodles were a huge time sink, but they were really delicious.  I wasn't so happy with the lamb visually, that may have been because I used ginger garlic paste instead of minced/grated aromatics...trying to save a bit of time here and there.  The picture on the website Omnivore's Cookbook looked so much better.  I used her recipe for the hand-pulled noodles as well.  Here is a link to that recipe from the Omnivore's Cookbook for hand pulled noodles.  

Cumin Lamb and Hand Pulled Noodles

The eggplant recipe can be found here.  It was the big crowd pleaser last night once again. My husband is not a big fan of eggplant, but he loves mushrooms, so I added a few king mushrooms that I sliced coated with cornstarch like the eggplant, and fried.

Fish Fragrance Eggplant and Mushroom

The big loser was the water spinach with ginger and garlic.  There are 2 types of water spinach, I used the thin leafed last night, there is a larger leaf that more resembles spinach leaves.  It may have been tastier with that type.  I found it was a bit stringy and difficult to manage chewing. Turns out I didn't get a photo of that. Just as well will probably not make that dish again.  Maybe sub in pea shoots instead of the water spinach.

I used a Fuchsia Dunlap recipe from "Land of Plenty", her food of sichuan book.  Her recipes are always really good. Cauliflower with smokey bacon recipe link.  I added smoked tofu to amp up the smokey flavor, not sure that concepts worked but it was a very tasty dish. I had a few asparagus spears hanging around that needed to be cooked, so I threw them in as well.  I blanched the veggies first and they cooked the bacon and tofu before adding the aromatics and vegetables.  A very satisfying dish.

Cauliflower with smokey bacon

I used another Fuchsia Dunlop recipe for the red braised pork one that usually uses beef.  I subbed in 2 pork shanks for the beef.  The dish turned out too salty and I am trying to figure out what caused the overload.  My first idea was the reduction in the liquid in the dutch oven over the cooking time.  What was almost 2 quarts of liquid at the start became about 1/2 deep pool at the end.  That is probably the reason it was so salty.  The flavor was good and in small quantities over rice it was very good.

Red cooked pork

The bones in the shanks just fell out and the skin came off in gelatinous sheets.  It was a very pretty and authentic looking dish.  Next time I will use unsalted stock.

Bang Bang Chicken is another Fuchsia Dunlop dish and it's served cold.  It consists poached chicken shredded by hand and a sesame based sauce.  I liked this dish.  The cold/room temp was a refreshing change from the fresh off the stove stuff.  I steamed chicken thighs, traditionally it is with breast meat, and after they cooled down a bit I shredded the meat discarding any remaining fat and unappetizing looking bits.  I stored the shredded meat in the fridge over night in about 1 cup of the steaming broth which was incredibly flavorful.  I got out the instant pot and put a steaming basket in and filled up to the basket with water.  I removed the basket and added 3 scallions, 2 big slices of ginger, a couple of sichuan peppers and 2 cloves of garlic.  I steamed them for 15 minutes on LOW pressure.  

Bang Bang Chicken

I urge you to read Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks they are truly amazing and every time I peruse through my copies I get jonesing to return to China and eat my way through difference provinces than when we were there for 3 months in 2016.  Not a bad meal was had over that time period.  We were the floor-show in a hot pot place in Chengdu because google translate was useless as all the items on the paper menu translated to something like "star and moon pieces" or "princess eating roses"  Not very helpful in terms of choosing what you want to dip into your bubbling broths. We ended up asking google to translate "chef's choices" and we got some very interesting bits of unidentifiable animal origin and bodily location.   All in all it was a very memorable experience and we still laugh about it 9 years on!

Variation of Low Country Shrimp and Grits

I have been thinking about the shrimp that I had in the freezer and how I would prepare them.  It hit me today was the day and it was going to be shrimp and grits with some other low country add-ins like okra, green peppers, and corn.  Luckily, all of those were in the fridge and fresh from the CSA in Lancaster, PA.

I had  ears of lovely fresh corn which got shucked and taken off the cob, a 1 lb box of beautiful okra which I used half of, and a lovely green bell pepper.  To these I added an onion and 3 big cloves of garlic and a can of fire roasted tomatoes with green chilis. 

Ingredients

3/4 - 1 lb large peeled shrimp.  For me, this was 18 shrimp in total

1/2 lb fresh okra, cut into 1/2 inch rounds after cutting off tops and tails

3 ears of corn, shucked and taken from the cob

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 large onion, diced 

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

1-2 T Old Bay seasoning, divided

2-3 t smoked paprika, divided

salt and pepper 

1/2 c chicken stock or water

1 T tomato paste

1 14 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes with green chilis

1 handful of thin asparagus woody stalks removed and sliced on the bias into 1 inch pieces (optional)

chopped parsley 

1.5 c grits, not instant

5-7 c water or stock or a mix

        How do you know how much water to use?  Start with smallest amount and add more as it 

        cooks depends on the age and dryness of the grits you are using.  For this time, I needed 

        6.5 cups and still wasn't getting the hydration that I wanted.  I turned pot off, lidded it and 

        let it sit for a while 

        so the grits could get hydrated better.  

salt,  go easy if you use stock

2 T butter

handful of grated cheese of some kind I am using Parmesean

Method

1.  Prep shrimp, if not already shelled and deveined, and hold to the side.

2.  Put corn and okra into a large saute pan with some olive oil and butter.  Saute and add 

        1 T Old Bay and 1 t smoked paprika.  Remove from pan into a bowl.

3.  In the now empty saute pan, add more oil if necessary, and add the onions, peppers, and garlic.  Saute until soft and onions are starting to go translucent.  Add in the tomato paste and stir to incorporate.  Add the can of tomatoes and rinse can with the 1/2 c of stock and add to the pan.  

Mix well to incorporate things and let thicken slightly.  Add the rest of the Old Bay and paprika.  

Stir to mix.

Green peppers, onions, garlic, and tomato paste 

Added tomatoes, Old Bay, and broth  

4.  In a separate pot bring 5-7 cups of water/stock to a boil and add 1 t salt.  Using a whisk, slowly whisk in the grits into the liquid.  Switch to a wooden spoon and continue to stir the mixture.  

You may need to lower the temperature to keep from getting splashed with corn lava.  Stir 

frequently to prevent sticking.  Taste for the texture of the grits.  They should be chewy, not 

mushy, nor gritty (despite of the name).  This will take longer than you think.  Southerners 

think Yankees can't cook grits, prove 'em wrong.

Many individual pieces in a thin matrix

Fewer individual pieces in a thicker matrix

    

This is when you add the butter and cheese

This top left is a spoonful of grits that ARE NOT DONE. Notice lots of individual little bits.  

When you taste this, it feels like a mouthul of tiny pebbles.  This means that the grits are not 

hydrated enough and you may need to add more liquid to your pot and/or cook longer.  The 

top right photo is getting there.  There are fewer individual "pebbles" and the matrix is thicker.  

The bottom photo is when you add the butter and cheese.  The matrix is very thick and the 

pebbles are less distinct.

5.  When the grits have reached the desired texture, add the butter and the cheese and stir to 

combine well.  Cover the pot and turn off the heat.

6.  Reheat the saute pan with the vegetables in it and add the shrimp.  When the shrimp curl 

and are turning pink on one side, flip over and add the asparagus, if using.  Continue to cook 

util the shrimp are cooked thru to your desired level of doneness.  

cooked shrimp and parsley garnish

7.  Plate with a ladle of grits and top with the shrimp mixture.  Garnish with a nice handful of chopped parsley.

    This is my bowl full of tonight's dinner.  It started out with            quite a nice spice kick from the Old Bay.  My can was 

    brand spanking new, so it was very fresh on the spice scale.

Birthday Porchetta

Our friend Beth had a birthday recently and we hosted a bunch of former colleagues over to celebrate the occasion.  

To celebrate I made a porchetta.  If you are not sure what that it is, it is a lovely Italian method of delivering porky goodness, fat, and crispy skin all in one dish.  This cannot be made spur of the moment because the "rolled meat" needs to rest in the fridge overnight to allow the skin to dry out.  That is the key to the crispy, crackly skin that everyone wants to eat.  The "roll" is a pork belly long and wide enough to wrap around a pork loin.  Costco is a great place to get both a very large slab of pork belly as well as a whole pork loin that can be trimmed to fit the belly. The belly is prepped with an herb paste of parsley, basil, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, lemon zest, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and fennel pollen.  The last is what makes the dish, so hunting around for somewhere that sells it is important.  Naturally, Amazon will provide but try to find a local purveyor if possible.  If you can't find any, fennel fronds will be a good substitution.

Ingredients

1 large skin on meaty pork belly

1 pork loin that is either the width or length of your belly piece

3 cloves of garlic

1 lemon, either zested or find removed in thin strips, no pith please

2 large handfuls of PICKED parsley leaves

2 medium sized sprigs of young rosemary (how do you know if it's young?  Is it easily bendy and the                         stems are green not woody and brown)

2-3 sprigs of basil, leaves picked

2-3 sprigs of lemon balm (I have it in the garden, and it amps the lemon flavor a little bit) optional

2-3 sprigs of mint

1/2 t citric acid or crushed up vitamin C tablet (why you ask?  it keeps the herb paste greener)

1 t hot pepper flakes or to taste

salt and pepper

olive oil, minimal

1 T salt

1 t baking powder

Method

1.  Flip the belly meat side down and pat dry.  There will be lots of wrinkles and crevasses in the skin.  Push them out to be as flat as possible.  Decide how you are going to wrap the pork loin.  Can it go along the long edge of the belly and be completely encased or does it have to go the short way to get totally encased.  This is all dependent on the thickness of your pork loin.  If it is a monster, then it will only work being place parallel to the short side of the loin.  If it was a smaller pig, then it might not be so thick and you can place it along the long side of the belly.  Or if you want a longer thinner porchetta, you and use multiple pork tenderloins placed end to end to run the length of the belly.

2.  Then take a VERY, VERY SHARP KNIFE. (this is key, you will be slicing just thru the skin and hopefully not into the meat and a dull knife will not cut it (pun intended).  You have decided on the direction of your "roll", cut the skin on a diagonal that way when you are tying up the belly the strings will not fall into the slices and cut into the meat.

 These cuts in the skin are a bit too deep, but the illustration is for direction of the cuts.

3.  Flip the belly over, pat dry and trim any scraggly bits on the meat side.  If the belly is uneven in its thickness, trim it as best you can to be even.  Try not to sacrifice to much of the meat on the belly.  Square, as best you can, the belly along the edges so that presentation will be pretty from both ends. Pretend roll the loin in the belly so that you can see a) where to trim loin, b) where the belly may overlap itself.  You are going to trim off the belly meat but leave the skin uncut if there is an over lap so that the only thing that overlaps is skin.  

4.  Open up your pretend belly roll and trim your loin to fit.  Remove any fat cap from the loin as well as any bits of silver skin or tendons.  You are now going to butterfly the loin a bit so that there is that pretty swirl of green in each slice.  This doesn't have to be a beauty contest, slice thru the loin as if you were going to cut it in half the long way but leave at least 1/2 inch of meat uncut.  Then do the same with the halves that you have made.  Place butterflied loin to the side.  On the meat side of the belly, make shallow diagonal slices so that the herb paste has somewhere to get into. Put aside.

5.  Herb paste is made with any convenient tool, processor, mortar and pestle, hand chopping, your choice!  I used a stick blender and a tall container.  

Into your choice of tool but the garlic cloves, lemon peel, citric acid, parsley, rosemary, lemon balm, mint and basil and grind up to a paste.  If you need a little help use only a small amount of olive oil.  From experience, I can tell you too much and it just oozes all over the surface when you are tying up the roast making grabbing the strings very difficult.  

6.  Sprinkle salt, pepper, fennel pollen, and hot pepper flakes over the meat side of the belly and into the slices that you made do the same in the butterflied loin.  Use about 1/2 - 3/4 of the paste you made and spread over the belly into your shallow slices.  Place loin in the direction you chose to roll and rub the remaining paste into the cuts you made earlier,  Any remaining paste can be rubbed on the outside of the loin.

You can see that there isn't a ton of herb paste.  Just enough to flavor and color the meat.  Too much and it overwhelms the taste of the pork itself.  

Now comes the tricky part, it is at least for me!

 

7.  The roll.  You will need a lot of precut strings to tie this baby together.  Roll up the loin in the belly and double check that you have either an overlap of just skin, or your two ends meet perfectly together without overlap.  Either is fine.  It is important to encase the loin because it will cook at a different rate that the belly and you want a juicy result, not a dry loin in a strip along the bottom.  If necessary adjust your trim so you have your preference.  Measure out a string that will completely encircle the roast with a lot of room.  Now cut about 10 - 16 of the same length.  

Starting at one end squidgy the string under the roast to the middle.  Continue adding strings to each side of the roast leaving them all untied for the moment.  Think about portioning here and place your strings accordingly.  I'd say every 3/8 - 1/2 of an inch apart.  Here is the difficult part for me, tying the butcher's knot.  This is a link to watching it done slowly.  I have had to watch many videos over and over again in order to tie things.  You need to pull the strings tight so that the loin is tightly enclosed in the belly. You also want the knot to be down away from the presentation side of the meat, for prettiness sake.

Now continue to tie these knots alternating on each side of your first string, think about portioning when you are doing this and keeping the string taut while tying the knot.  The strings make excellent spots to cut the finished product.  

8.  Admire your work.  Take pictures to amaze your friends.  

Put the tightly tied roll on a rack on a foil lined roasting pan.  (Side note:  this baby will shed fat like nobodies business, so choose your pan wisely.  The rack needs to keep the meat above the copious amount of fat that will be rendered.  I did not do this this time, and the fat spilled over the top of the sheet pan I used and filled the oven tray below it as well.)  

Wipe down the skin, you want it free of oil and errant bits of herb paste.  Take the 1 T salt and 1 t baking powder and mix together well in a small dish or cup.  Place the roast seam side up and rub a bit of the salt/BP mixture all over the seam and exposed sides of the belly.  Turn to coat one side then the other and finally put the roast seam side down and rub the top with the salt/BP mixture.  What does this do?  It changes the ph of the meat so that the skin puffs up and gets super crispy.  Works for turkey too, just saying.

9.  Put the roast in the fridge over night uncovered so that the skin dries out even more.  

10.  Remove from fridge the next day.  Make sure that you have enough room to put in the roast raised out of the anticipated fat and set oven to 300-325°F (based on your oven).   Insert a probe thermometer into the thickest end of the roast.  Do not pierce the skin, push probe into the loin from the open end.  Roast uncovered until the thermometer reads about 170°F.  If the skin is not already crispy and lovely burnished brown, remove from oven and increase oven temp to 400°F.  Put roast in and watch closely for about 10-15 minutes. 

10,  Let rest for at least 30 minutes tented with foil.

11.  Slice using a serrated knife into thin-ish slices because this is an incredibly rich meal.  Ideally each slice should have a lovely swirl of herb paste decorating it.  It will take will power not to start ripping of pieces of skin as a cook's treat.  

Curing Meat with CELR-12

Earlier this spring I bought a CELR-12 unit from Tablesmith.com.  I had heard about this unit from a YouTube channel that I follow, and here is their website twoguysandacooler.com.  The YouTube channel is all about making sausage and cured meats, a fabulous site with a wealth of information on making sausage.  The host, Eric, was doing a review of the CELR-12 after having taken it for a spin by making cured pork tenderloin, coppa, and bresaola.  I was so intrigued that I went to Tablesmith and ordered the unit.  

The unit is a box that needs to be plugged in and three hoses that get thread through the drain port of any cooler.  You need a drain hole, otherwise you will need to drill one into the cooler.  Ideally, the drain hole should be 3/4-7/8 of an inch in diameter.  It needs to accommodate all three hoses.  You can remove the caps from the hoses and reattach them if necessary.  However, over time, it will make the connections loose.  The guys at Tablesmith have thought of everything, included with the unit are little clamps that you can use to hold a loosened hose onto the caps.  Marshall, the developer and creator of CELR-12 has been really wonderful. He has answered my newbie questions and has been very supportive.  Thank you.

How does the unit work, you may ask?  It keeps the cooler at a constant (nearly constant) temp that you set, and circulates the cool air throughout.  It has a crazy wide range of temperatures, from 28°F to 140°F.  I have only used 55°F for the curing of the meats.  The humidity is kept about 85-88% and you will need to empty the little drip tank and dry the bottom of the cooler every now and then.  

I used the same recipes that Eric published on the two guys site and followed them to a tee.  The results were, (drum roll insertion here) spectacular.  You will need to purchase collagen sheets and those can be gotten from The Sausage Maker or from Amazon, but patronize the business first please.

The pork tenderloin was a bit too soft for my taste, and that could be because I didn't have a good enough deli slicer to cut it paper thin.  The pork tenderloin, coppa and bresaola were outstanding in their look and in their taste.  Click the link below to open up the recipe pages.

Recipes

What I learned by doing this:

1.  It's fun!  I used to use Umai bags to make these sorts of things but it just didn't have the same taste or smell as this does.  And it's the smell that is fabulous.  The collagen sheets need to spritzed with a "warrior" mold culture (all explained very well on the 2 guys channel).  This is a penicillin type mold, very similar to that on brie cheese that colonizes quickly and fights off (get the warrior name) other molds from getting established.  The smell is intoxicating.

2.  Every dry cure starts with a wet cure.  I found out the difference between Cure #1 and #2.  Cure #1 is for any project that dry cures for less than 30 days.  Not a day longer.  Cure #2 is for dry cures that last for more than 31 days.  The pork tenderloin used Cure #1 because it was only a 2-2.5 week drying time.  The other projects used Cure #2 because their cure took 34 days.  

3.  The collagen sheets are very, very easy to work with and do their job incredibly well.  They allow the moisture from the meat to escape, creating that supercharged high humidity environment with the CELR-12.

4.  Patience is necessary.  This is particularly difficult when you are getting to the end of the curing time.  You are weighing the product hoping to get to the target weight sooner.  But you can't rush it.  No matter how fabulous the smells are when you open up the cooler to pull out a project and weigh it.

5.  A good deli slicer is absolutely necessary to take advantage of the flavors, textures and aromas that your project emit.  Too thick and it just feels gummy in the mouth, kind of unpleasant.  

Now for the finished project photos

 You can see the darker ring around the outer edge.   The outside edge cured at a faster rate than the   center.  After cutting, you can bag it up in a vacuum  sealer bag and over a short amount of time the ring  with disappear.  Has no effect on the flavor.  Note the nice mold coverage.  The collagen sheet gets peeled off but the mold flavor goes through to the cured meat.

Pork Coppa

   The taste of this was out of this world.  It just

    melted   like butter on the tongue because of the

    amount of   intramuscular fat in whole muscle. 

    Again, the mold   provided a lovely depth of flavor. 

    I didn't have   ground Calabrian peppers so I used

    Calabrian pepper   paste on the outside of the

    muscle.  The little kick was lovely.

These are the whole muscles prior to cutting into.  You can clearly see the mold is covering them completely.  The coppa is at the top and the bresaola is the bottom one.

Here is the Bresaola.  It too had the shadow ring.  A short amount of time in a vacuum bag solved that.  Again, there was no impact on flavor or texture.

Here are the slices top is coppa and bottom is bresaola.  Soooooo damn delicious.

My next project will be a genoa salami following Erik's recipe.  

Best Ever "Fish Fragrance" Eggplant

This dish has no fish in it.  The name comes from the flavorings that are traditional used with fish in Chinese cooking.  It is a sichuan style recipe is often called Yu Xiang in restaurants.  This particular recipe comes from delish.com.  It is one of the best that I have used, bar none. 

The dish is simple, but if you don't cook Chinese food often you will need to get a lot of ingredients.  I was looking for a recipe that could use up the mountain of eggplants that my CSA gave me.  

Ingredients

3 Chinese eggplants, about 1.25 lbs, halved and cut into thick diagonal strips
2 t kosher salt

3 T cornstarch

Oil, divided

1 t ground sichuan peppercorns

6-12 dried sichuan chilis, stems/caps removed, cut in half and deseeded

1 T chopped pickled chili or sambal oelek or freshly sliced Thai chilis

3 T fermented chili bean paste, Pixian if possible

1 head of garlic minced, or equivalent cloves, divided

1 T minced ginger

1/2 t ground white pepper

3 green onions thinly sliced divided

1.5 T low sodium soy sauce (I used chinese light soy)

1.5 T rice wine vinegar

2 t Chinese Black vinegar

4 t granulated sugar (I used 3)

1/2 t MSG

1/2 c water or broth

2 t toasted sesame oil

Rice for serving

Method

1.  In a large bowl toss eggplant evenly with salt.  Let sit for 20-30 minutes, then gently squeeze out as much moisture as possible.  Drain and pat dry with paper towels.  Transfer to a dry bowl and then add cornstarch and toss to coat eggplant evenly.

2.  Heat a large skillet or wok over medium heat and add 2-3 T oil.  Heat until smoking.  Working in batches add some eggplant slices to the pan and fry until lightly brown on all sides, about 3-4 minutes.  Transfer to a clean bowl and set aside.  Finish the rest of the eggplant in the same manner.  Adding more oil if necessary.

3.  After frying the eggplant, remove the oil from the pan and add wipe with a wad of paper towels.  Heat pan again and add 2 T fresh oil to the pan.  After the oil is hot, add Sichuan ground pepper, chilis, bean paste, half the garlic, ginger, white pepper and half the green onions, stirring constantly until fragrant and the garlic is golden.  About 1 minute, do not burn.

4.  Return eggplant to pan, add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, MSG, and water or broth.  I mixed all of these ingredients together in a single bowl ahead of time making sure that the sugar was dissolved.  Stir occasionally until the mixture thickens and becomes glossy, only a few minutes needed.  Stir in sesame oil, and remaining garlic and onions in final minute of cooking.  

5.  Serve with rice.

This dish was spicy but very well balanced.  There was the mala heat but it was tempered by that small amount of sugar and vinegar.  Absolutely delicious recipe and my thanks to the originator on delish.com,

I had a few strips of cucumber, onions, and carrots left over from a noodle dish the night before.  Perfect accompaniment.

I have made this subsequently from publishing here and I had a couple of red bell peppers that I stir fried with the ginger prior to adding the hot pepper paste and seasonings.  A welcome textural change.  I also had a ton of zucchinis that I treated exactly like the eggplant and it too was a lovely twist.  

Dateline: January 8, 2022 Pho: Instant Pot Beef Pho

It is cold here in Brooklyn.  Winter came screaming in and it is chilling my bones.  I wanted something hot for dinner as Mandy and Servet were coming over.

It was my luck that Servet had pho for lunch, oh, well, he was getting it for dinner as well.

I was intrigued by this Pho recipe from the NYTCooking.  It looked doable, I had the bones, oxtails, onions, ginger, and assorted necessary spices, so why not.

I did go to the supermarket to get the addending greenery and so picked up a piece each of thin sliced brisket and chuck steak.  I had an eye round in the fridge that is going to be turned into breseola so that raw beef part was also covered.

The recipe is clearly laid out and easy to follow.  I did read the comments and did deeply brown the onions and ginger in the instant pot before adding liquid and bones.

The brisket and chuck provided a nice textural difference to the oxtail that needed to be picked through carefully to remove tendons from any useable meat.  

The broth once strained was a work of art.  Beautifully clear, deep amber color with a satisfying flavor and aroma.  

Of course, I forgot to take a photo, but the photo connected to the recipe pretty much says it all.

Would I make this again?  Yes, it was very straight forward and to make it even easier I would try to pick up some pre-sliced beef for shabu shabu or hot pot.  Don't forget the greenery, it makes the dish.

Dateline: January 7, 2022 Wild Boar Bolognese

I bought a 3 lb hunk of boar shoulder a while ago and decided this was the day it was going to get cooked.  I considered roasting it, but the meat was so lean, I thought it would be as tough as nails after a roast and a stringy braise wasn't going to do it for me either.

I decided on a bolognese sauce.  That meant I had to grind the meat up.  I needed 2 lbs for the recipe, and wanted that to be finely ground, so one lb of boar is a coarse grind, and the other 2 lbs are finely ground.  I wanted a texture closer to keema than to chili.

I chopped up that shoulder into planks that would fit in the throat of my grinder and went to town.  The meat was beautiful.  I used Hand Shaw's recipe for bolognese.  I love his recipes because they work and are very tasty.  He has a folksy way of writing about what he is making and I like that he also hunts for his food.  Not that this city girl would even contemplate doing that, but I like that he does.  

A couple surprising things about the recipe was that 1) not tomato forward, only 1 6 oz can of paste, and 2) the meat is NOT browned.  This gives the desired silky texture of keema which made this sauce so satisfying.

Of course, I only took one photo, naturally, which did not do the sauce justice.

Let the food processor do all the work with chopping the veggies finely.  I pulsed each one separately starting with the onion.  I could have pulsed the carrots a bit more, as you can see a couple of tidbits in the photo.  I did not have whole milk, I had half and half, so that is what I used.  I think I would have only used 1/2 c instead of the full 1 c called for.  The addition of the freshly grated nutmeg was outstanding.  It gave the sauce a bit of mystery whilst cooking.

This was served over orecchietti pasta along with a salad to chopped celery, cucumber, sweet onions, and tomatoes dressed with lemon and oil.  A very lovely dinner!

Dateline: December 28, 2021 Salmon in a Spicy Sauce

Sometimes the little gray cells just don't fire on all cylinders.  For instance, I had some salmon that I wanted to use a recipe that had a compound butter of anchovies.  The recipe sounded good, and I took everything out of the fridge and got a recipe up on the phone from NYTCooking, and half way through the prep I realized it was NOT the recipe that I had intended.

Sometimes things turn out well even when you screw it up and go off plan.  I used Colu Henry's Sheet-pan Harissa Salmon .  And it is a keeper!

The salmon was cooked perfectly, 9 minutes at 400° F even though the recipe called for 450° F.  Many comments were that the fish was over cooked at that temp.  I roasted the potatoes and onions for 30 minutes at 400° F and then added the salmon skin side down.  

The marinade was wonderful.  I didn't have any orange juice, so I used a shot of triple sec and some water to make 1/3 cup.  The salmon marinated in it for about 30 minutes until the potatoes were almost crispy.  I used a mix of sweet and white potatoes as I love sweet and husband unit doesn't!

Photo is not that great, but the eating was!

Dateline: December 6, 2021 Roast Chicken, Green beans and Sweet Potato

There was a chicken in the fridge, just begging to be cooked.  I coated it with some olive oil and salt and pepper, and put it in a hot oven to start.  In the oven also went a white potato, for husband unit, and a sweet potato for me!  Into the microwave went a package of microwave safe green beans...surprisingly tasty!

Nothing special, just lovely crispy chicken skin and beautiful colors!

Ta-Dah