dstr8

"lawn enough"

Leftovers got made into chicken salad today for lunch. Its going to happen again ... and again ... and

Haven't used the KK much lately. I've been busy with this/that project and opted for simple quick meals and/or eating out (mostly yuck on this front). But today afforded the time and weather to load my 23" with coffee-char for this recipe try out. The only change I made to this Lemon-Rosemary-Garlic Chicken from MyRecipes was the addition of 1-cup of good concentrated chicken stock. Ok, and two other changes :D: I only had 2-lemons, ripe Meyer lemons, but still not enough to provide the juice and the slices so I added the juice of one lime. Oh yeah, I also added a couple of sliced shallots. Other than that I followed the recipe. http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/rosemary-garlic-chicken-potatoes Super super tasty! And quick & easy to make. Served it with some local Pugliese bread made crusty from the residual post-chicken bake Komodo Kamado ... what else?! Although I didn't have any, fresh asparagus would be a super vegetable to serve with this recipe!

Did someone say "tri-tip"?! Michael, your tri-tip looks deelish! All right I guess this is a little sacrilege in here ... but last week I cooked a 100% grass fed and grass finished local tri-tip. If you're like me you be saying: 'Oh I bet that was one 'big jaw workout' :D. Which is the reason I decided to try the 6-hour at 130ºF cook ala sous vide. Salt, pepper and 1/2c BBQ sauce in the vac bag ... and g-damn if it didn't turn out tender, perfectly done and delicious. Worth doing again.

He's a smuck. Read about what he did to the employees at his JG's in Sacramento. He's a showman ... obviously ... and not much more.

Like your Sandhill Cranes MacK (or at least they look like Sandhill Cranes)!

You've been on a challenging circuit @CeramicChef! But surely feels great to be back home and getting back into your groove. Your KK groove ;). Good to have you back in our corner!

tinyfish: Those are the leanest short ribs I've ever seen! Speaking of short ribs ... I had a small package of 2"x3"x3" bone in short ribs I forgot about but found in my freezer. I have been wanting to try the 72-hours @ 135F in the sous vide ... and they were insane! Serious Eats went through a comprehensive cook with various time & temp iterations ... this one providing a steak like texture yet melt in your mouth tenderness with BIG beefy flavor. Sorry for the hijack ... but if you have a sous vide and haven't tried short ribs prepared like this ... highly recommend!

Mmmm...speaking of lavender :D, I just made a lavender and vanilla bean brûlée using my Anova sous vide. And yes it was deelish. Hijack over.

Another option to consider Bruce if you have not done this before: Confit the belly. I have used several different recipes/guides but two of my favorites: Thomas Keller's (from his Ad Hoc book): http://leitesculinaria.com/83219/recipes-pork-belly-confit-keller.html David Chang's: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pork-Belly-Buns-240258 Due to the difficulty to source real lard as well as the cost considering how much you need to confit, I often use olive oil. Makes for a pretty incredible French Lardon Salad sub for bacon lardon!

you got my attention with this statement MacK!

just stop it

I didn't need to add charcoal during the heat soak phase but I did add several chunks about 15-minutes before the pie baking began.

Shuley: Thank you! Yes its a 23". I normally plan for thorough heat soaking at 90-120 minutes. Unfortunately something came up that stalled my pizza baking time so it sat there for 3-hours (at around 500-550ºF). And usually with the Baking Steel (3/8" thick version) 550-600 works well for my Neapolitan style dough. The first two pies baked perfectly; however the 3rd fell slight victim to overly done bottom before the top charred properly due to the temp creeping to 650º. If I had used the KK shaped stone then 650 is a little too cool for proper development of the cornicione. Of note: It was cool yesterday here with ambient air temp around 45F when I had the KK fired up. But with the additional heat soaking the dome was able to radiate more effective heat back to the top of the pie. When I have time I might do the longer heat soaking for all things Neapolitan pie bakes. And I did go through a basket of Coffeechar ... but I have plenty left in the basket for a couple more quick grills for steak or fish.

Generally I go for 4-5 day cold ferment rest with this recipe. The extra couple of days, at 5-days in the refrigerator, provides noticeably more depth of flavor (compared to a 3-day ferment); yet still allowing very good large air bubbles and nice cornicione. The first two of the three pies baked at near text book perfection, given a bottom heat source oven, but by the 3rd pie the baking steel had gotten too hot ... always a fine line dance to nailing it.

Ricotta is a regular thing I make. Every morning we have several rounds of home-brew cappuccinos. Although I could re-use the leftover milk, from the steaming operation for the cappuccinos, I save it. The espresso geeks amongst us understand :D. Sometimes the leftover milk gets used for cereal but mostly the volume each week is more than we could otherwise use. If not for ricotta. Ricotta gets consumed as is, in ravioli, cheesecake, my Mom's Italian Ricotta Pie, lasagna, pasta, blintzes, pancakes, with good tart jelly on toast, etc. Today the ricotta played atop the Neapolitan pies. Dough: Jeff Varasano's Neapolitan dough recipe ... I used 50/50 Caputo "00" and KA bread flour + 5-day cold ferment. Other stars that showed up for their respective roles/pies: Garlic oil and left over cloves from the process KK slow roasted dry farm Early Girl tomatoes from last season Bulk Italian sausage Shiitake mushrooms Smoked mozzarella cheese Pecorino romano cheese Provolone cheese Ricotta Italian Mutti tomatoes Fresh basil (dipped in the garlic oil) Thoroughly heat soaked the Two-Three KK (3-hours ... not the original plan but as you all know shit sometimes gets in the way :D), KK CoffeeChar and a Baking Steel.

...as I sit here and eat corn chips and cold salsa

Mmmm ... tasty look'n!

Have fallen to "sick of winter ..." and have been more into soups and other fare the past few weeks than anything to do with my KK. Until tonight. Local grass fed meat, a stoked Two-Three, a hot hot Baking Steel, smash burger style cook and the taste is still lingering in my mouth ... and its been 1/2 an hour and I've still got that wonderful beefy taste rolling around

^ Yes. Great! You will have more imparted light smoke/wood essence to the bird using CoffeeChar than using CocoChar but I like the Coffee Charcoal's flavor impart.

I recently made some using whole grain-ish wrappers. Won't be doing that again

Maybe its just me but I don't see an advantage of piercing a piece of meat, once or multiple times that would lend itself to better on the plate results; but rather a point release(s) for interior fat/juice to escape.

Good decision mameola! Oh you're going to be so enamored and satisfied with your KK!

Hope you saved all the fat trimmings to render down for frying top shelf french fries!

Ghee compared to clarified butter: http://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/difference-between-clarified-butter-ghee-brown-butter-article I've used Ghee for many years ... started with my interest in cooking all things Indian food at home along time ago. I love it drizzled over air popped pop corn. And it makes all things sautéd mushrooms sing. You'll like it!