Saturday, January 30, 2010

What sausage should I do next?

Breakfast Links?
Brats?
Spicy Italian?

BACON!












































The bacon is finished cooking and is cooling now. These are some of the photos of the cooking today.

I took the pork belly out of the refrigerator when it was feeling firm (about 1 week, flipping every other day)

Generally in the United States most bacon is smoked, but it doesn't have to be. And since we haven't got the stove top smoker yet... an alternative is roasting the pork belly at 200 degrees until the internal temp is 150 degrees. Ruhlman says about 2 hours mine was closer to 3.

Next while the meat is still hot the skin need to be removed from the pork belly.

After all that is done, let it cool at room temperature and then put in away for use tomorrow morning (or tonight for BLTs...)

Brown Ale Finished


After 2 week fermenting in the Jug and 2 weeks carbonating the bottles the Chestnut Brown Ale is finished. Ended up turning out pretty well.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Brine Recipe

Due to popular demand this is the brine recipe:

The All-Purpose Brine by Michael Ruhlman:

1 Gallon Water
1 Cup Kosher Salt (important that its not iodized)
1/2 Cup Sugar
Additional Optional Seasonings as desired (we used a head of garlic, 2 lemons, rosemary, bay leaves, peppercorns...).

Heat all the ingredients, but not to boil. Then let cool before submerging the chicken, and put in the refrigerator. It's important to keep the chicken fully submerged so use a plate that will fit into the stock pot you are using to weigh the chicken down (make sure there are no air bubbles under it though).

Leave the whole 3 lb chicken in the brine for about 12 hours then rinse, dry and leave uncovered in the fridge for at least an additional 3 hours. Ruhlman says that the chicken skin should feel kind of tacky when you take it out.

Then roast or broil as you normally would. You can add additional seasoning at this point too. It's finished when the internal temp is about 160 degrees.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Bacon!

Dredging the pork belly in dry cure and brown sugar... mmm. In only one week's time it will be bacon!

The recipe is actually really easy, do as follows and you too can have home made bacon (from Ruhlman's book):

1. Make dry cure:
8oz kosher salt
4oz sugar
1oz curing salt (sodium nitrate) usually sold tinted pink

2. Buy 3 to 5 lb pork belly (I used 2.5 lbs though)

3. Dredge (cover and press into) the pork belly with the dry cure (~1/4 cup will be needed) and optional brown sugar. Put pork belly in a plastic ziplock (1 or 2 gallon).

4. Put it in the fridge and wait a week, flipping every other day. (rest of the instructions in a week...)

Brine Chicken part 2

Part 2 of the Brine Chicken. After leaving the chicken in the brine over night and out open in the fridge during the day we cooked the chicken and the bottom line is that it was a lot juicier than chickens usually are. This could have been because we bought a nicer chicken then usual, though...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Local shopping and tree signs















A little plug for local shopping, found up in a tree in our neighborhood.

And another tree sign worth sharing-
spotted just around the corner.




Monday, January 18, 2010

Brine Chicken part 1

Charcuterie attempt 1: Brine chicken.

This is the brine. Next step let it cool.

Basically salt water with some stuff in it.
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Chestnut Brown Ale Bottling


Bottled my latest batch of beer today, Brooklyn Brew Shop's Chestnut Brown Ale. Just two more weeks to carbonate in the bottles and then its time to drink.








Saturday, January 16, 2010

Queens Museum of Art














This is the panorama of NYC in the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows. It was built for the 1964 World's Fair and contains every building in NYC built before 1992, pretty amazing and worth the trip.

Gloverall

Gloverall Duffel Coats. They are the original manufacturers of duffel coats, which were originally Baltic fisherman coats made from wool bags on the fishing boats and with bone toggles so that they could be buttoned wearing heavy gloves. Gloverall's come with buffalo horn toggles and leather straps (don't settle for plastic). Unfortunately they cost $800 new at Barney's- they last forever though, so go to some nice vintage store to find a used one.

Pork Chop for Dinner














Pork chop from the Meat Hook. Fried in olive oil and coated in salt, pepper, and chicken stock with a fig glaze. Based off a Mark Bittman recipe from his book How to Cook Everything. EE made Brussels Sprouts to go with the pork chop, somehow we missed taking a photo of them.

Hometown Coffee

Sweetwater is the local coffee roaster in Gainesville FL (my hometown).

Crock

I bought this 2 gallon crock today. I plan on making some sauerkraut to go with the bratwurst I'm going to try making. If you are interested, they are cheap ($20) at the Brooklyn Kitchen.

Le Tourbillon

If you liked Amelie and thought that it was really original, then you should really go see François Truffaut's Jules et Jim.

New Cook Book

This is the inspiration for the blog, Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie. This spring I plan on learning how to preserve meat, among other things, and hopefully it will make for interesting reading. Tonight pork chops, later this week a brine chicken.

Christmas Lobster