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Aussie day lamb lollipops Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

I am such a copy cat. This is @Troble's original: Here is my copy, using beef and suya spices: I was desperate to try this and, following @BOC's advice about how to make a Trombo King of my own, I hunted around in my cake tin box and presented The Husband with this, an hour before it needed to go on the grill. Make me one of those please I said. He drilled a hole through the middle and "secured" the skewer with a plate he found in his workshop. Here it is loaded up Lessons learned? Cook low and slow initially to avoid too much fat rendering and collecting in the base, cut the skewer so that it fits within the KK without tilting and ... do it again. Soon.

This was our Conference championship meal. Crazy delicious. The recipes were from the Pitt Cue Co book. Found a copy for the chicken online here: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/07/whole-spicy-smoked-roast-chicken-from-pitt-cue.html I originally thought I should have cooked the chicken directly on the grate but I did as I was told in the recipe and cooked it in a pan. So glad that I did. These juices and sticky stuff were delicious! The anticipation was off the scale when we cut it up And we paired the chicken with a real flavour hit from the Pitt Cue Co book: pumpkin home fries with Nduja mayonnaise. Picture not pretty but so, so tasty.

RD that reminds me of this story. My cousins are bull farmers in NZ. They sell their meat for a premium price thanks to the American market preferring bull meat for their burgers. All grass fed and all exported. As good farmers living the dream, they always have an array of animals for their own consumption- Chook’s, pigs, a few sheep. When we were visiting a few years ago they said the local ice creamery had a failure with one of their freezers and they needed to dump 200 gallons of blueberry ice cream. My cousin lobbed in their door with a truck full of drums to pick up this ice cream and for a month, this fed the pigs before sending them off to the butcher. Our trip coincided with the return of this pork.... talk about a build up of high expectation for the anticipated bacon breakfast the next day. Expectations were high........ It tasted like bacon! It was pretty good, in our minds we had all built up an expectation of a little blueberry, or hint of ice cream flavour in the bacon [emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi @jeffshoaf. The best thing that I can say about dry aging at home is that it has become routine and exciting at the same time. This photo illustrates my point: The cote de boeuf at the top went in last week Monday. No fuss, just sitting there and we will probably have it with chips this Friday night. I asked The Husband to pick up a chicken from the supermarket today, something that we almost never do apart from to mince up for our cats. I want to see how/if aging will make a supermarket chicken worth eating. We will probably eat it sometime next week. And at the bottom is the three rib sirloin joint that I coated in fat at either end and started to age in September. Smells just fine and there is no sign of any sort of mould because of the fat painted on either end. So. On to your questions about whether to age small pieces or not. I was unsure about how best to use my dry ager until I visited a great restaurant in Wales last year. They kindly let us see their aging operation and these are the notes that I made afterwards: Mackerel - guts out cut flat underside. 7-10 days. Duck crown - ideal 10 days absolute max 3 weeks Fat encased joints - 8 months and more Chicken - max ten days Lamb fat trim - 6 months before making butter Tuna - 5-10 days Turbot (big) -10 days Their confidence about these timescales and the book "The Whole Fish" gave me more confidence about using the dry ager to a) improve tenderness and flavour and b) improve the dryness and crispiness of skin with a whole range of meats and fish. I was starting to lose confidence in my plan to age the three rib sirloin joint for 200 days, ala Lennox Hastie. Last week I dropped at note to my mentor at the Welsh restaurant and he came back to say he had gone up to 300 days but would advise I stop now unless I want a really "cheesy" taste. I like the blue cheese flavour so I will likely wait until my birthday in late Feb to break it out of the fat. You never know, we might be allowed to meet people by then. We have many friends who love to experiment with us. I hope you do too. It will be lots of fun.

Fixed it for @Basher Happy Austraya Day. (Major upset in our office today. Aussie Quiz won by an Italian.)

Pork Tenderloin, with evo and KC Butt Rub, was last night's dinner. I intended to cook it Sunday night but was too busy watching the Chiefs game (How 'bout those Chiefs!) Cooked to 140° F, thick part of the tenderloin, before rest KC Butt Rub leans toward the semi-sweet side, so the cole slaw and olives made a nice change of pace for the palate. Accompanied by a 2009 DuMOL Finn Pinot Noir.

@RokDok, I realise I was in a Bolshie mood this morning. As always, your story was fun. We spent a few years butchering our own meat the Hugh's "Pig in a Day" DVD was our handy guide when we came to butcher pigs. I am pretty certain Ray would have been the butcher in that video. One of us always had to have a clean hand free to press play and pause as we arrived at the next bit of the pig where we required assistance and instruction.

Unusually @RokDok, I am going to disagree with you. If the definition of provenance is that you know where your food has come from then I don't think that makes much difference to the taste of the meat, which is what I was thinking of when I posted above. At the very least I know the name of the supplier of the meat that I buy but I often know the farmer, I have sometimes met the animal and I usually know when it is to be killed and how long it will be hung. That knowledge makes me feel connected and responsible for my meat eating but my ranking of what impacts the taste is: 1. Breed of animal 2. How long it has been aged/hung 3. How it was raised and what it was fed (and this could be what you mean by provenance but I don't know that that is in the strict definition of the word) Which brings me neatly back to @Troble's original question. Is it worth trying Wagyu beef and does it matter where it was raised - US or Japan? The biggest difference will of course be the fact that he will be eating Wagyu. The things that will set the Japanese Kobe version apart will be items 2 and 3 on the list. For me they are in that order, for a Japanese person who knows their Kobe, 3 may come ahead of 2.

There's a place in the Napa Valley where I buy meat every now and then. They roll out the whole carcass on an overhead rail and ask you, "What cut ya looking for?" Great place and great product. You are spot on with the provenance!

Never had Wagyu beef but the above comments remind me of something we did a few years ago (well maybe 15-20) We had a local butcher who was an old chap and who sourced his animals from local farms. Mrs RD & I really liked the steak - and always had rump. He'd say 'this is a Hereford from the Piddle Valley '- ( four or five miles away) you could poke your head around the counter and glimpse the carcasses as he went in and out of the cold room. He'd trim them beautifully - clearly enjoying his art. The steaks were gorgeous. Then, one day the old boy had gone and Mrs RD and I remarked on how the steaks had become tasteless. I went in once more to buy our steak for the weekend and a young lad threw up an amorphous vac packed lump of stuff onto the counter. He slit the vac pac - the meat was bright red and sodden with watery red fluid. He cut a slice off, carelessly, no trimming - and it was unceremoniously chucked into a plastic bag and given to me. It tasted as grim as the scene portrayed. We never went there again. But we really missed the steak.... The valley in which we live has several small farms - organic and, I think , but not sure, the largest contiguous bit of organic farmland in the UK - don't quote me on that though. Some friends are stewards / guardians of some land called SSI - this means a site of Special Scientific Interest. It's chalk upland and has its own biodiversity - you can't mess with it, but you can graze it as it has been for centuries, if not millennia. They had a few pure bred Hereford which were suckled by their mothers and were grazing on this SSI land, with it's grasses, herbs and flowers. So disappointing had the steak been that we decided to buy a whole cow. It was a Heiffer and it was hung at the local artisan abattoir for 5 weeks. Mr Farmer brought it round in four quarters in a horse box and we hung it from scaffold poles in the rafters of the garage for a few more days. Fortunately I'd got to know a chap called Ray Smith, a butcher. I'd worked with his wife. He was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's butcher - probably only known to UK folk, a kind of alternative celebrity chef. One of his books is here : https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/river-cottage-meat-book/9780340826355?keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjrOtwqW67gIVjJntCh3-vAP5EAAYAiAAEgJ6__D_BwE I'd recommend it - it's just beautifully written. In there is a recipe for "Ray's liver pate" , which I'd made and then when I met Ray I said to him that it was a good recipe but that instead of mincing the mixture I squeezed it between my hands so that it farted out between my fingers and made the pate chunky ( and saved the cleaning of the mincer). We had an instant rapport and he came round to our house, we got some pigs and he taught me how to butcher them. I've realised this post is a bit long - sorry Troble - hope you don't mind, but my KK is not being delivered tomorrow as planned so I am ameliorating my distress with some adult beverage. Anyway Ray came over and over the course of the weekend we butchered the heifer He was really impressed with the quality - in fact we cut fine transparent slivers of sirloin, rump and fillet straight from the carcasses to taste the difference. The slivers of raw fat were like butter. Cooked, the taste was etherial. So, to : Couldn't agree more. I'd add provenance. RD

Looks like his top hat could use a dustin off, Aussie.

Thanks Tekobo! Here's the ager I'm looking at; it can also be used for dried sausages with the optional humidifier: https://steakager.com/ It's more economical than others I've looked at but seems pretty capable. Uses UV light to help sanitization.

No worries !! We'll have a great discussion once this wretched lockdown is over and you come down for a stout & cider fest !! I'll also let you into a little secret about the " Pig in a Day with Hugh and Ray " DVD ....... But you'll have to wait for the Stoutfest !! Best, RD

Lovely lamb for Straya Day, but where are the snags??

As usual @tekobo, I agree with you.

Tekobo, any updates on your dry aging efforts? I'm thinking about getting a dry ager but I'm not sure... I noticed that you have aged some smaller chops; in my limited research, I saw something warning not to age individual steaks and small pieces of meat and only age primal and sub-primals; have you had any issues with mold getting so far into the meat that you had to toss it? I also see that you mention washing off the mold; are you trimming off the really dry pieces and/or moldy pieces? Thanks!

@tekobo great effort! Wish I could make my own tools in the shop but alas I am terrible at any construction or machine related tasks. Nice job!

Great story

Great sticker for the car's back window. A great nation too, with it's values still intact.

I've eaten wagyu in Japan and really enjoyed it but have no desire to hunt it down and eat it again. The thing I have found with meat is that the breed and how the meat has been hung and aged makes so much difference. If I were you I would try wagyu once and then move on. Explore what's available from specialised farms and butchers. There so much to learn and enjoy.