Syzygies

KKoko landing! Unloading at other end: In front of my K lump, under my garage "work bench": Feed me! I'm hungry! (Even the competition has a taste for KKoko!)

Thanks, that was fun to watch. I've been trying to get my nerve up to make Thai "sour sausage", which I've been taught in Thai cooking classes (Kasma Loha-unchit), and loved eating in Thailand. Unlike salumi, they're a "rather fast" ferment, unnerving to our intuitions.

I was able to get raw shanks from my favorite butcher by ordering them. Rather than going the above route, I made a dry-cure ham out of them, and smoked them, "replicating" the smoked ham shanks one can buy, but under my control. Great for bean dishes, gumbo, ... Definitely worth the trouble, as is any house-cured ham. Making ham is much easier than curing salumi...

I have a K. Looser tolerances than a KK when new, and looser still now. I also generally use a BBQGuru for low cooks. I close the damper to the point where the majority of the smoke leaves the sides rather than the top. I then use the "blue" (good stuff) masking tape to seal the more egregious side leaks. I've been meaning to fix this by forming a new gasket, but I've been busy. That said, I don't see an either/or in this discussion, there's a continuum. Doing one's best to seal the top and sides so the only air source is the damper, makes for one extreme. Shading more in this direction is also interesting, beginners may "pull" too much with the top damper too far open. Of late I use a variation on this for pizza. I set up a fire that naturally peaks at 700 F, then stop down the top damper part way to control it to 500 F, while the stone heats. I used to reason that my favorite pizza places in southern Italy cooked at near smelting temperatures, ergo I should cook at at least 600 F at home. Not so, the stretch from 500 F to 600 F is very sensitive for ceramic-cooked pizza. The sweet spot is where it is, different for each recipe and oven. One discovers, rather than reasons.

Go Glenn! I'm part of the SF share, or it would have been road trip time.

Bait-and-switch I went through many seriously ill-conceived experiments proving the inadequacy of existing equipment, followed by laying out plans for a monstrous Italian pizza oven in the middle of our yard. My sincerity was not in doubt because even I was fooled. Then we visited some ceramic cookers and tasted the results. The price of a ceramic cooker would have been dwarfed by the negative effect on neighborhood property values if I had attempted to build an Italian pizza oven in our yard. Believe me, she was relieved to order something so attractive and small.

This information is also helpful for those of us meeting pallets by car. For example, I'm picking up 20 boxes, 22 lbs each, in SF with my VW GTI (think half-assed station wagen with torque). The 440 lbs is less than three passengers, no problem. 20 * (15 * 9 * 9) / (12 * 12 * 12) = 14 cubic feet ...so I'll also be fine on volume, the stuff will easily fit in one trip.

Sour Oranges Anyone with access to east coast Hispanic markets should be on the lookout for "sour oranges" (big orange fruit, ugly skin like Kaffir limes). A key ingredient throughout the Caribbean, it is far more sour than typical oranges, and replaces the "orange, lemon, lime" in original recipe. I know it as a classic marinade ingredient; I'd guess that it's the authentic ingredient for this pork, but I'm not Cuban. In the late '80s, "Key Lime Pie" was at peak hype in NYC restaurants, but various factors made authentic Key Limes virtually unavailable, so everyone cheated and used ordinary limes. Meanwhile, the Francophile food culture overlooked the sour oranges readily available in Hispanic markets throughout the city, which makes a fantastic orange pie by the same recipe.

I came up with this after a few experiments making charcoal; read up on how one does that at backyard scales. One heats wood without burning it, and the gases produced sustain the needed fire once the pilot fire exhausts itself. As raw wood chunks burn, they can emit various nasty byproducts, giving that "creosote" taste to food. Skilled ceramic cooks manage to place few chunks to minimize this, and convince themselves that they like the more distinct smoke taste from a bit of this effect (like the tingle on the tongue from eating fugu?). The alternative is to somehow seal the wood inside an airtight pot with escape holes, so the wood off-gases without ever catching fire. I seal the lid onto a cast iron dutch oven because if it were to jar even slightly loose, the convection effect would burn up all the wood like a chimney, leading to a smoke disaster. I mix a few tablespoons of flour and water in a ziplock sandwich bag, nick off the corner, and use it like a pastry bag to lay a bead around the lid rim, with a paper towel sheet handy for cleanup. Takes a minute or two if one isn't terrified of dexterity tasks, and the result is foolproof. After my reports on the K forum, various people tried a variant, building a stainless steel "pipe bomb" with a few tiny holes. An expensive special order, but skips the trivial paste step. What one doesn't want to do is to use compound metals like galvanized steel which emit toxins when heated; stick to simple materials known to be safe. A commercial cast iron smoke box has way too much ventilation; it's designed to salvage a gas grill. Dutch ovens can be found for $10 and everyone has a drill... This is only for low & slow! I use way more smoking wood than other approaches (2 quarts at a time) but "distill" only a subtle part of the wood's potential smoke. I consider it the difference between moonshine and bourbon, but to each its own. I'm tired of the theoretical debates this provoked; one simply has to try this, or ignore the idea. My wife is completely hooked, so I can never go back.

For low & slows, I always put my smoking wood (usually hickory chunks and apple chips from the SF Lazzari factory) in a 2 quart cast iron pot with 3 holes drilled in the bottom, and the lid sealed on with flour paste. (This is related to how one makes charcoal; it "distills" the smoke like good bourbon, and my wife doesn't like smoke any other way. The paste sounds tricky till you try it; Moroccans do this all the time with poorly fitting couscous pots.) I then lay extruded coconut around the pot, and use a MAPP torch to heat the pot and start the fire at once. For high temp cooks with Lazzari oak lump, I always use an electric starter these days, buried in the charcoal. I've forgotten about the starter many a time without destroying it, they're tough. I used to start lump fires with 99% rubbing alcohol. I loved the serious "womp" sound it made, as did the neighborhood dogs. The fumes from rubbing alcohol are equally dangerous before and after burning; ethanol (drinkin' alcohol) takes longer to kill you because it's so chemically simple, unburned there's no toxins down the reaction chain, unburned, and burned there's a huge difference between "H2O, CO2" and "H2O, CO". But if one can avoid the fumes from rubbing alcohol, absolutely no trace of the stuff once the fire reaches cruising altitude.

Yum! Look up recipes for "Cuban sandwiches" on the web, I'm quite fond of them from living part-time in NYC. You just made the key ingredient.

As it happens, I did take a picture. I forgot.

Actually, I was explicit that they weren't to trim it at all, and I didn't trim it at all. The 25% weight loss was dry aging. This is exactly what they predicted; they do this for a living. I was there, but don't take my word for this, try it! Next time I will trim some fat. I believe you could hang a picture of fat next to the cooker for the same protective effects; the moist / dry axis is determined by other factors.

Sorry, no pictures, it was a chaotic day and the brisket went quickly. I was busy making fresh pasta "from the grain" for the vegetarians, and so forth... No, the brisket was off the bone. It llooked pretty much like any other packer cut 12 lb brisket, before going into the dry aging room. It lost 25% of its weight but still barely fit into my #7 K. (I do explain to friends admiring my now-tileless K that Dennis has worked out the kinks in every respect, so buy a KK ...) Yes, a quick-grilled steak might benefit from weeks of dry aging, yet the effect of 8 days on a brisket was truly dramatic. I'm a broken record on this one, but cooking is only partly responsive to speculation and reasoning, "I'd think ..." is often wrong. All I'm suggesting is that dry-aging worked, and is worth further experimentation. I debated with the butchers whether this might be common practice in Texas, where I've had my best brisket. They thought not, that it instead came down to skill. On reflection, I'd say aging meat is something of a continuum, there's deliberate dry aging, deliberate wet aging, and simply "rotating stock" without calling undo attention to one's practices. Wet aging one can attempt easily at home. It sure seemed to me that the "pudding" consistency I obtained was an exaggeration of the Texas brisket consistency I'd never quite achieved before. (Not to be a troll, but most internet pictures of brisket look like shoe leather, compared to what I've eaten in Texas.) So I'm betting that some subtle "rotating stock" is at play here, and the deliberate sweet spot for dry aging is 4 or 5 days.

I made my first experiment with smoking a dry aged brisket: The Golden Gate Meat Company http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/golden_gate_meat_company.php will hold customer purchases in their dry aging room. I picked out a nice 12 lb packer cut brisket, left it 8 days with them, and picked it up at 9 lbs. I rubbed it with olive oil and a chile, salt, pepper mix overnight, then smoked it for 21 hours at 210 F or so. I let it take forever to melt its way across the crucial 170 to 180 F stretch, then let it creep to 197 F (by raising then lowering the pit temp to time this with our guests' arrival) before the foil and towels in a cooler bit, and serving. This was the second best brisket I've ever made, the idea is worth further experiments. The meat almost turned to pudding, the sweet spot might be 4 to 6 days dry aging. I'd be curious if anyone else gets a chance to try this...

I'm in! I'm in! My hoard of the "good" K extruded is dwindling, this is just in time.

I'm sometimes a fan of long recipes, but not for hash. Hash is the ultimate use of bbq leftovers, be it pulled pork, brisket, or house-cured ham (my favorite). Combine exactly one such meat with onions and potatoes, and a few carefully chosen spices. Salt and pepper works. It's "hash", not "mush", so do everything in one's power to keep the ingredients distinct. Fry the onions on their own. Steam the potatoes in advance and chill them (the usual "twice cooked" starch routine that makes french fries taste so good), then pan saute them on their own until you're tempted to serve them straight up. Finally, combine all the ingredients, but not into a mush. Hash is all technique and hunch, no recipe. If you're not thinking "That's all?" when you make it, you're using too many ingredients. It is great with fried eggs and hot sauce. The leftover barbecue is, however, what makes the hash.

Paella is best thin in the biggest pan you can manage. I own four pans, and only use the largest. My second largest fit with the lid down, handles and all. It took one cook with my largest to convince me to cut off the handles. No question, "open shut" case. Our favorite is chorizo and olives...

Actually, I did have SYZYGIES as my license plate in New York for quite a while. It was fun watching people's reactions. My favorite was a kid clearly heading for a career pumping gas, who looked and looked, then threw me a finger. I've been busy building and overclocking computers (it's like a bat flying around in a dozen-dimensional cage) but we're trying the Zuni Cafe chicken recipe in our cooker tomorrow night.

Re: 10-97

Re: Charcoal Questions Lazarri sells a much broader selection of products from their SF location than one sees in stores. Oak lump, chunks of smoking wood are the highlights for me. Lazzari Fuel Company http://www.lazzari.com/ Brisbane, South San Francisco 11 Industrial Way Brisbane, CA (415) 467 2970 Their driveway is only a few feet from the intersection, and doesn't look right. Trust me, this is the place. It looks from a distance like a movie set for an apocalypse movie, one could easily imagine filming a sequel to "28 Days Later" here. Park near the bombed out abandoned building, go in the opening, look for a stairs on your left to the upstairs level, enter the abandoned office gingerly, and make some noise. A very friendly local will appear and take your order. Lazzari Oak is much better that Lazzari Mesquite, by my lights. Sure, I'd use mesquite if there was no other choice, which was the historical situation in parts of the west. Doesn't mean it doesn't smell bad and leave sharp, off tastes in your food. Hey, I used to use it. Oak is better. I load 8 40 lb bags of Oak Lump into my VW GTI on each trip. While you're there the first time, grab bags of apple chips (no chunks available) and hickory chunks.

I won't do anything year after year for kicks, unless it comes out better than I can buy. I buy wine. I buy beer. I make limoncello. I make hot sauce. We experimented with "extracts" in the spirit of yours, although yours are more advanced. With the one exception of a cooked, Caribbean-style sauce from Fatali peppers (a yellow habanero only 4x as hot and great flavor) all of these sauces tasted raw, unfinished, nothing like the best examples of a Tabasco-style sauce. So we looked into Tabasco methods. Several years in a barrel, scrape off the black crud, hmm... These are methods from a different century. Translate old-school European wine-making in oak barrels to California steel-tank fermentation, somehow I came up with my procedure as the essence of the old-school Tabasco procedure. Yes, it is about the flavor! There may be a preservation aspect, as we don't cook the sauce afterward. It's live, or at least could be, if not for all that added vinegar. Classic mode of food preservation: Rather that cooking and adding chemicals to prevent any bugs, just pick a bug and let it win. We do add chemicals, if you count vinegar and sea salt, but if any bug has a chance, the bug we introduced in fermentation has a pretty strong foothold. Still, we couldn't sell the stuff without cooking it.

A few more notes on procedure (you may edit this and the previous into one post, if you like): I wash and stem the chiles, then blend them a small batch at a time in what my wife calls the "boy blender", a VitaMix VitaPrep. Pricey, but a killer appliance. Like all blenders, it takes more liquid than I want to make a loose enough mixture for the blender to work. I sieve the results into a bowl, reuse the liquid for the next blender batch, and move the blended solids into a bowl large enough to hold the entire load of chiles. This liquid should be spring water, or filtered water that has sat for a while; the chemicals in tap water could discourage the fermentation. The recycled liquid begins to resemble Dave's Insanity Sauce; one could save it for immediate use. It isn't representative of how the final hot sauce will come out. I dump it into the big bowl, then kimchee or sauerkraut juice (make sure it is active, not pasteurized) then enough water for a loose mixture. Now I adjust the pH. Various sources (confirm this yourself!) cite a pH of 4.4 to 4.5 as low enough to avoid a botulism risk. I aim for an initial pH of 4.2, which only takes a few tablespoons of white vinegar per gallon of pepper mash. This doesn't inhibit further acidic fermentation if the kimchee or sauerkraut juice is active. I sterilize my carboys (there's a great detergent sold specifically to prep carboys for making beer) but this may not be necessary. Now, move the slurry to a large carboy, leaving 1/4 to 1/3 space for worst case expansion if the fermentation takes off too fast, and move to a cool location for the best, slowest fermentation. (Pointers from your kimchee experience would be nice here.) Use a fermentation lock like one uses for beer, a hollow rubber cork with a plastic one-way doohickey water trap. Air gets out, air doesn't get in. A friend had one batch go seriously off after he overfilled the carboy, blamed the fermentation lock for being such a pain under this duress, and replaced it with cheesecloth. I have long been fearful e.g. of mold but it has never happened, using fermentation locks. Instead I often overfill my one gallon carboys, wanting any mold to be within easy reach. Next year I'm half-filling a 5 gallon carboy, the hell with worrying about overflows, clearly I don't have to worry about mold. After perhaps 6 weeks, I mix the mash 1:1 with white vinegar (commercial recipes would go 1:2) and blend it again into a finer puree. I let this sit for months, then bottle. It's easy to buy hot sauce bottles 144 at a time over the web, very cheaply. (My friends would love a carry-on legal sample size, one actually checks luggage just to travel with my sauce!) The choice here is to filter as finely as possible through cheesecloth before bottling (this came closest to replicating fabled, long-gone Ortego hot sauce) or through just an ordinary sieve to leave more body, our preference but a matter of taste. We make labels on laser paper that are sized nicely to apply using packing tape, and seal the caps with electrical heat shrink tubing and a heat gun. The ideal size just fits when fresh, but shrinks over time; wet the tubes for an easier time sliding them on. Oh, yeah, wear gloves when handling this many chiles.

Re: Hot Sauce, Home-Made and Tasty... Sure. Post a link here so the curious (e.g. me) can follow the discussion.