tekobo

Lucky you!!!

I can help you with that. I have had both pebble and tile KKs and I am tiles all the way. And if your wife asks why you need another KK (tiles of course) anyway? We have lots of material to help with that. Just tell us when to shoot! Welcome.

Interesting @wrandyr . I have never heard of olive leaf tea. I just looked it up and it's definitely a thing. I will see what it tastes like.

That's neat!

Welcome to the new Obsession! I understand your madness @Syzygies. I made bigoli three days in a row on a short six day Italian trip, tweaking the recipe and listening to my bigolaro crack and pop as I pushed the dough through. It happened whether the dough was wet or stiff and my husband thought the noises were due to air finally making its way out as I pressed my balls of dough through the body of the bigolaro. So, do I want your modified handle? Yes please! And your dough recipe. Even Evan Funke, he of the very thinly rolled sfoglie and devotee of 00 flour, notes that bigoli is made with whole wheat : https://www.cleaneatingmag.com/clean-experts/how-to-make-noodles/ That is good because with my diet controlled diabetes I want to eat pasta but I don't need it spiking my sugars. That said, my only really successful version of bigoli this trip was with 00 flour. We return to Italy at the end of January. The experiments will continue and I hope to be able to share a successful recipe using buckwheat and wholegrain flour. In the meantime I look forward to reading through all the links supplied above. I do not plan to diversify my extruded pasta shapes in the short term. I have just two dies - one for bigoli and one for maccheroni. Alongside hand rolled pasta (I am learning at La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese) I should end up with all the pasta shapes I can handle. Handle. The power of suggestion. I will DM you to arrange getting hold of one of yours. Thanks.

I agree! The bit of advice I did not take at the beginning was to buy as large as I could afford/had space for. I therefore started with a 21 and 23 but a few years later I saw the light, sold them and went for a 32,23 and 16 combo. That 32 is a multi tool and if I only ever had one KK it would be the 32. I no longer hanker after the 42 (plus free goat). I can lift and wash the grates in my 32. I dread to think of the sheer effort required with a 42.

This experiment was a big FAIL initially. The doughs were way too wet to put through an extruder. I remembered @Syzygies once lamenting the fact that some bread recipe writers do not take account of the amount of liquid introduced by the levain. Well, without counting the liquid added by the levain, the hydration of this Chad Robertson recipe was at 45%! Waay too high. My neighbours kindly and friends kindly ate what I produced but it was substandard. I finally ended up with a very stiff dough, somewhere between 28% and 32% hydration depending on how you count the water added by wetting my hands while kneading. It was really hard work turning the lever to push the dough through the bigolaro but the result was worth it. Bigolaro action: Really simple but delicious pasta recipe called bigoli in salsa, made with just onions and chopped up anchovies. The dough was fermented for 18 hours. I think the pasta tasted better than any I had made before but I will do a side by side test without levain to see if that is just my imagination. And the KK action came in the form of roasted short ribs (should have been low and slow but I fell asleep and they cooked hot and fast instead!)

When I was trying to decide what size KK to buy, all those years ago, @ckreef's advice was to buy two. He was adamant you needed more than one to make sure you got all the components of your dinner ready at the same time. Well, I took his advice and here is Christmas dinner, cooked on my 23 (high heat throughout) and 32 (very low and slow for most of the time and hot at the end to cook up the pigs in blankets). Happy Holidays everyone! I never normally have turkey but here is a boned turkey leg which I seasoned and then my husband added lardo and rolled it up for roasting. Rolled turkey leg and standing rib roast in the 32 after first having been browned in the 23. Potatoes were roasted in the 23. And the pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon) were cooked on the 32 when the other meat was taken off to rest. I finished off the skin on the beef roast with the MAPP torch before resting. The cook was edge to edge perfect, with the very low and slow time it had in the 32. It was an outstanding Christmas meal, with just the Brussel sprouts and sauce cooked indoors. Deeeelicious!

Back in Italy to enjoy the lead up to Christmas. Cooked ribs on the 16 last night. Came out great. No pix. Used the heat shield/paving stone for the first time. It was a good call, the short distance between the fire box and the grate means I have found it difficult to genuinely cook low and slow without something to shield the bottom of the food from the fire. I am near Venice and in the home of bigoli pasta. Today I am trying three versions using a Chad Robertson recipe that uses up spent leaven. Here we are at the first stage: I am experimenting. Bigoli are made with buckwheat flour as the base. I made three variations. The first with durum wheat, the second with whole wheat flour ground from UK hard wheat grains and the third with Italian 00 flour. I followed the quantities for the recipe without thinking for the first one with durum wheat. It was too wet and I made the necessary adjustments for the second two. Will see how each extrudes, using the bigolaro, later today. KK action? Boiled meats are a speciality here and, as well as capons, they include beef short ribs. I have set the KK going and will do a nice slow cook in place of boiling and will see what the Italians think of it. Warming up now:

I have some potential FAQs and forum folk could help with answers: 1. I'm sold, I love your product but I don't know how to convince my spouse/inheriting child/my bank manager that this is a good idea. What is a killer strategy that works every time? 2. What do new owners say surprises them the most when they first start to use their KK? 3. What do KK owners most like about the KK?

Chicken cooked in double bottomed pan went very well last night. The bread heels soaked up the juices and were lovely. Followed by tarte tatin. Enjoyed the meal with @RokDok and his wife who came to ours for an overnight trip to pick up the sausages we made for them.

Hello Max! He does look like a lovely boy. Such kind eyes. What is his history @C6Bill? I do hope you have a long and happy time together.

The journey of discovery continues. The thinner Asahi board arrived and my husband set about cutting it down into more handy sizes yesterday. I think it is 15mm thick and it was pretty floppy as a large board. Cut down, it makes for good sturdy small boards for quick jobs. Pic of workshop set up below. He has since sanded down and bevelled the edges and we have already started using them for small jobs in the kitchen.

We spent the weekend at @RokDok's cutting up a rare breed pig. We got half and I spent an hour this morning cutting some up for mincing to make pies. Just look at that marbling! And just look at that space. It was a joy, cutting this up on my new Asahi board. I think this light coloured one will become my raw meat board. I'll be able to see any marks and stains and can keep it extra clean by sanding it down once in a while. Introducing these boards simply replaces the plastic and Epicurean boards that we used to use for food prep. I still have a wooden board for chopping and a range of wooden boards for serving. I hear you, @David Chang, regarding micro plastics but I don't plan to use a serrated knife on this and will be intentional about using a different board if I need to do any heavy chopping. It actually makes me wonder about how much chopping one actually needs to do when you are not butchering an animal and needing to chop through bone. I do the rocking action for cutting things small and chopping, on any surface, must incorporate little bits of the material that you are chopping on. I am enjoying this journey so far. The black boards are due to arrive from Japan next week. All of the boards that I bought are 20mm thick. My husband usually does the procuring of stuff around here and I think he felt a bit left out. He has bought a thinner Asahi board to cut up to make small boards for quick jobs. Lots to look forward to in the lead up to Christmas.

Hey @C6Bill. It's tough when we lose our best friends. I hope you had lots of good cuddles.