I made this with fusilli and chicken. It was pretty pretty good.

Thanks for the recipe diablo.

Chicken carbonara huh? Needs more bacon.

I wasn't going to leave out the bacon. That would be absurd.

What is this? Brining is a sham now? I just made the best turkey in my entire life Alton Brown brining style. Best anyone had eaten. What's next, no Santa Clause?

Dont try to confuse the issues with half truths and gorilla dust.

great stuff, thx for the info. How long have you been curing meat?

the recipe I'm following has a higher temp in the first stage at around 80 degrees and the second stage goes down to 60 degrees, so I cant use my final stage chamber to do the stage one. Do you use the same chamber for the ground meats like pepperoni?

I use the same chamber for everything. If you need to ferment at 80-85 degrees you can do it in a Tupperware in the oven with only the oven light on. Too far above 85 and you'll start to melt pork fat and that's bad.

I've been curing for about 3-4 years starting with pastrami and moving on to drying pork. My first projects were posted in one of the 2008 or 2009 OOT cooking threads. I still struggle with getting salamis to come out perfect.

Marcella Hazan's Chicken with Two Lemons:



Probably the easiest, and one of the best, roast chickens possible.

Sauce from the mixture of lemon and chicken juice is amazing.

My photo does not accurately pick up the color of the skin, gets confused by fluorescent light (too warm). Highly recommended dish.

Decided the other day that it was time I finally learn how to cook for myself(33) and not be dependent on a woman or fast food/pizza shop to eat. I'm on a roll so far. With the help of youtube I've managed to make french toast twice this week. First time they were too soggy but this morning I nailed em. Yesterday I followed a recipe online and made an amazing Baked Macaroni and cheese. Thought for sure I was gonna mess it up somehow but it came out damn good. So good I ate half the pan lmao.

One of the main reasons for me trying to learn as I got sick and tired of ordering grilled chicken salads at $9 a pop from the pizza shop down the street. I would opt to just order as I had no clue how to make a good chicken breast at home and the foreman grill I have would just dry out the breast and make em hard on the outside which was gross. Twice now I've managed to grill em on the stove top and they came out pretty good. Much better than on the foreman but still not where I want em to be. I just want a nice tender juicy chicken breast. Found a method of cooking them in the oven on youtube I will try today.

Crazy though. All of a sudden I can't stop watching youtube cooking vids. Feel like Randy Marsh in that SP cooking episode. I started making a list of items I wanna be able to bang out.

Yeh I get this. I must have put on about a stone after discovering I had the UKTV Food channel hidden amongst the shopping channels.

Super Bowl Chow:

Braised Rubbed BBQ Pulled Pork sliders, Home-made BBQ sauce (easy to make & tasty) and Tarragon-Blue Cheese Cole Slaw

We did carnitas tacos, patatas bravas, hummus and veggies, almond cake.

Shelling the chickpeas makes a huge difference. And OMG carnitas!

learned a secret that makes hummus even better from the chef I work with

Take several whole garlics (leaving husk on) rub with olive oil, salt & pepper. Wrap them individually in foil and bake them in the oven at 350 until they are soft. Let them cool

When you add the garlic to the hummus, just cut the top off the roasted garlic near the stem and squeeze the roasted garlic into the hummus to taste (it should be medium grey in color). It really amps up the flavor.

if bone marrow didn't already have the "god's butter" label locked up roasted garlic would surely be in contention.

Wow, you put bone marrow in your hummus? Really creative, amps up the cost, eh?

yim,

I think he means that roasted garlic would be GOAT edible substance if bone marrow did not exist.

Doh! Thanks for helping me with my reading comprehension

here is one I did last year for a wedding.hope you like.

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That porchetta is beautiful

i like it both ways but we went raw garlic this batch.

On the topic of roasted garlic though, you can serve it up exactly as you suggest: roast and cut the top off. Now spread that **** on crostini. Or serve as part of a mediterranean appetizer plate. Or... Ridiculously good for how simple it is. Kind of amazing how the roasting transforms the garlic.

You can also just fry whole cloves of garlic in oil over low heat to the same effect. Then use that oil in the hummus. Oh yes.

Just bought 55lbs (25kg) of thick cut bacon.

That's all I've got for now.

That is pretty...

My first attempt was, well, OK. It tasted great but it looked demented. The belly wasn't big enough to actually wrap around the loin and it wasn't very sturdy.

I didn't take pictures.

Yam, they look amazing. Can you give your recipe & rundown of the pulled pork and also the BBQ sauce please as I would like to attempt to recreate all that.

Hey amigo, I'm making some Spanish Chorizo and Pepperoni using the Books Charcuterie and The Art of Making Fermented Sausage (TAMFS hereafter).

Charcuterie calls for Bactoferm F-RM-52 and TAMFS calls for T-SPX culture

TAMFS doesn't say whether these bacteria need to be dispersed in distilled water (as instructed by the supplier--->Butcher & Packer).

Additionally, the Charcuterie book calls for a very large amount of Bactoferm for my 11# batch of Peperone. According to the info supplied by butcher packer, this would be enough to do over 100 lbs.


I'm confused/concerned over how much to use & which source I should trust or go by.

I have "bactoferm F-RM-52" and "bactoferm LHP dry" which I have no idea what the difference between these two are.

Have you worked with these cultures and noticed the differences I've pointed out? If so, which quantity did you go with for Bactoferm in Peperone? Did you disperse it in distilled water?

Thanks in advance for any clarification you can provide