I've wanted to try Turducken for years, and was thinking about doing one myself this year. This is a pretty good article about some of the inherent structural shortcomings, and a couple ways around them. Maybe not practical for entertaining, and I'm guessing if you bought it trussed, you probably don't want to de/reconstruct, but maybe there's some something here that will be helpful.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/11/t...turducken.html

Douglas Baldwin says you should cook fish at 60c for ~45 minutes unless you'd eat it raw. But every sous vide recipe for cod is 55c and sous vide recipes for salmon go from 45c to 55c. I'll eat anything but some of the people I cook for are very nitty and I don't want to serve them anything unless I'm confident that it is safe.

Apparently wild fish is much more likely to have various bad stuff than farmed fish ... advocating 60c for wild salmon is almost standard but many recipes for farmed salmon don't even mention health concerns.

Do you guys buy sushi grade salmon to cook sv? Or are you happy to cook supermarket salmon to 40c? Does 40c offer any health benefits over raw?

Snipe, thanks for the link.

But, meh… I don't have no time for that deconstruction!

I'll just cook it as per the recommended instructions this year and see how it goes. Gotta admit though that the suggestion about pre-crisping the duck skin seems like a winner.

http://www.amazon.com/2723-More-Than...s=baking+beans

found in a supermarket.

Spam bread.

just unreal



EDIT: and I bet it tasted great too… amirite?

It was a solid 7. The ceiling is probably no more than 8, though, with some more green onions and rebalancing the cheese mix. Not as elite as sausage bread.

more like spam calzone than sausage bread though amirite?

Thanks for all the comments on the brisket a couple of weeks back - some good points to keep in mind for next time. It was still very good, but I agree that it would have been better with less of the spice rub on it.

Also thanks for the recommendation on Milk Bar Snipe - looked it up after I saw your post and decided to pick it up for my girlfriend.

We had our 'Christmas' dinner at the weekend before we each go back to our own families for actual Christmas, and we went with Kenji's Prime* Rib with Red Wine Jus.

*the word 'prime' doesn't actually mean anything when it comes to British meat. I picked mine up from a decent butcher and it wasn't cheap, but there's no way the marbling would qualify it as USDA prime. Cuts like the one Kenji has for his photos are very hard to come by over here.

I took a bunch of photos throughout the process, but to be honest they seem a little redundant when I've already provided the link to Kenji's better photos, so I'll just include a few. Here's the beef about to go in, with the oxtail and red win jus underneath:



Here's a photo of some parboiled potatoes with duck fat and thyme about to go in the oven:



Smoked salmon blinis with a mustard/dill sauce while we waited:



Unfortunately by this point I'd had a fair bit to drink, with my carving, plating and photography skills suffering as a result, but here's the final plate:



Top left is the shredded oxtail from the jus (delicious). Top right is some token veg (roasted carrot and parsnip) and Yorkshire pudding. I think I pulled the meat (pre-sear) at about 130, so somewhere between medium rare and medium, which seems about right to me. It turned out well, but must say it was the jus that really made the meal - glad I went to the extra effort to do that properly rather than taking any shortcuts.

While I have my photos out, will post a few other things from past few months, mostly fairly standard stuff.

Kenji's baked Ziti recipe, but with added Italian sausage - turned out very well:



Chili, mostly inspired by the discussion in the EDF Chili thread - similar to Diablo's second recipe in that thread, with the main difference being that I used mostly short ribs as the meat, and cooked until it fell off the bone. Can definitely recommend (didn't take a photo after adding the obligatory sour cream and cheese):



My girlfriend cooked this slightly unusual mac and cheese from some book she has that is only mac and cheese recipes. It's basically normal mac and cheese but with emmenthal, pastrami, mustard and dill. I was skeptical but it was pretty nice:



Rack of lamb - first time cooking this. Got the doneness more or less right but the fat cap was a little thick and not seared enough for my liking, maybe could have rendered on lower heat for a bit longer like with duck breasts. Nice though - would cook again and probably experiment a bit more with herbs, etc.



Next one is a burrito which the photos really don't do justice. In fact, the first photo features a rather unappetising pool of grease around the meat, but that doesn't go in the burrito. The meat is beef short ribs in a Mexican style spice rub, sous vide 24h at 185 for a classic braise type texture. Meat pulled off bone, shredded, mixed with a mole sauce and then browned a little under broiler, ends up looking like this (tastes way better than it looks):



The rest of the burrito consists of lettuce, red pepper, cheese, sour cream, a homemade chipotle salsa and shredded deep fried sweet potato (this wasn't the healthiest meal I've ever had). Photo does a pretty good job of hiding most of this but here it is anyway:



Spaghetti (or that might be linguine actually) carbonara - a dish which I think has a very high deliciousness:effort ratio:



Reading this post back has me thinking I should try cooking some healthier meals next year, but then how can I not try that Chefsteps fried chicken...

Why spend all of that time preparing burrito fillings and then use the ****tiest tortilla possible?

Shocked myself tonight with about as simple dish as possible but for some reason It really hit the spot on a chilly day here in AZ (54 degrees F lol)

Simple grilled kielbasa sausage

On a bed of cabbage sautéed in bacon fat, with garlic, onions and seasonings with a little beer to get a little steam going

Haven't had cabbage in awhile but it went perfectly with the salty sausage and made for a tasty quick meal that I would cook again for sure

Silkworm,

Solid.

Silk,

**** yeah to all that stuff.

That prime rib dinner belongs in the steak thread (too), though!

Silk, prime doesn't refer to the grading, its the cut of the meat

Silk,

I am sure Chef steps fried chicken is great, but have you done ad hoc fried chicken? If not, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of chefsteps, I found this older video yesterday where they make robouchon mashed potatoes, but do it by sous viding the potatoes in the bag with the butter, looks really good!

DW,

Robuchon potatoes is the most pain in the ass thing I've ever cooked. That could be life changing!

I made that recipe before. It's absurd. It's still a decent amount of work because sieving the potatoes takes a lot of time and it's very necessary to the end product. End result is insanely delicious though.

gobbo,

Heh, the sieving was like all the work. Looks so easy in this video!

Needs more butter

have to do it at work fairly regularly.
right texture of the puree(potatoes not overcooked/under-cooked, correct amount of liquid) is key to easy sieving.
if done right and with the right equipment it's super easy and quick but if the puree is too tough/stiff it can become a pita

Did the Kenji ziti last weekend too. Crazy good and super easy.

Unless if he is referring to USDA prime primerib.

Silk - good job, but I'm glad I live in the USA for meat...that's a rough looking rib roast but probably the best you have access to right?