tekobo

Thanks. Lots of good suggestions there. Will consider sous vide when we come to cook the cotechino and will definitely smoke a few sausages in the KK. No, won't be opening a deli. Keeping all the goodies to myself! Taking "dang" as a compliment - not in my Afro-British lexicon. Yes it was hard work but The Husband is always very clear that such things should be fun and not a chore. We did it in three separate three hour stints and managed to stay jolly throughout. Dotty amused us by wanting to know how we could spend so long in the kitchen without producing anything that she likes to eat.

Congratulations and welcome @coolpapabill! Looking forward to seeing photographs of your new friend. Good luck with your cooks. I found it easy to get started, never having cooked on a kamado before so it should be plain sailing for you.

I am looking forward to hearing more about the method and the results, especially how much your kids enjoy their creations.

I came across an interesting duck giblet sausage recipe the other day and, somehow, went from a small bag of goose giblets in the freezer to half a pig and two days of sausage making. Here we go... First soak your skins. The sheep's skins are thinnest but were actually the easiest to work with. Duck giblet sausage from the Pitt Cue Co book. I am guessing it is an Italian recipe given the fact that your "sausage" ends up being wrapped in the neck skin. My necks came skinless so I opted for chipolata style sausages. Colourful rub ingredients, including orange zest. Goose necks, giblets and chicken wings ready to go. Onto the KK in dairy cow fat. Smoked at 100C for three hours and then added hearts for two more hours and then livers for a further 20 minutes. I am a little squeamish about hearts so this was a good recipe for processing all the interesting bits of poultry. I know the idea of poultry necks will be daunting for some but just look how familiar the picked meat looks - you wouldn't know that that wasn't a (small) pile of pulled port, would you? It was very hard work to get the very stiff mix into chipolata skins but here are the resulting sausages, waiting for their debut. Think very skinny liver sausages with the added benefit of chopped pickled cherries. Here is the head of the lovely pig that gave up his/her life for the rest of the sausages. At the end of day 1 we had all the meat cut up, seasoned and waiting in the fridge for mincing on Day 2. First we made cotechino sausages. I totally loved these winter sausages when we bought them from Italy last year. Imagine my surprise when I find that they are made of half and half skin and meat. I guess that is what gives the sausages their unctuous flavour. I found two different recipes. One had parmesan in and the other red wine. I made both. Here is the batch with red wine, I think. @Braai-Q recommended Luganega sausages in a previous post so when I saw the recipe in my sausage making book I thought I would give them a try. Here they are, looking luscious. We made a couple of batches of bog standard pork sausages. One coarse cut Italian hot sausage and one fine cut old favourite, pork and sage. And finally the Cornish Hogs Pudding or White Pudding. Made with a mix of pork and "lights" (lungs and hearts) and groats. They are a "white" equivalent of black/blood pudding. You have to poach them for about 50 minutes. In the past we have had them break at this stage, filling the pot with your precious sausage meat. This time we paid attention to the definition of "poach", didn't boil and didn't have any breakages. The cotechini need to hang for up to six weeks and the rest of the sausages will go in the freezer. Will taste over the coming weeks. I imagine some of you will be uncomfortable about the "nasty bits" that go into sausages. Don't be. Sausage skins encase and make all meats wonderful. Here are my left over skins, salted and waiting for their chance at greatness.

Nice looking cook @ckreef and neat application. My MEATER packed up a few weeks ago during a low and slow cook. I raised a ticket with their support desk and they noted that I had exceeded the maximum ambient temperature of 275C on a few cooks (they could see this on my MEATER Cloud account). They said that I had invalidated the warranty. The good news is that, in spite of that, they offered me a replacement MEATER. That got me thinking. My brother in Texas bought me the MEATER in the first place and he had just received notification that the MEATER Block that he ordered for me two Christmases ago was finally to be delivered. The deal was that he wanted me to send him the single MEATER back and I would get the Block. I thought it would be much better if he had the MEATER+ so I asked customer service if I could pay the difference for a MEATER+. Customer service became customer delight service when they very kindly sent me a MEATER+ at no extra charge. So, they did take ages and ages to deliver on their original Kickstarter promises but their customer service since has been very good indeed.

Thanks for posting this @Pequod. I love everything about her.

Ooo. I hope that means you may get the chance to use the KK sometime soon. Welcome to the blue pebble club. All the best KKs are blue pebble.

Interesting @Basher. I have made salt beef but have never tried a cold salt cured beef. What sort of texture are you looking for? Chewy like biltong?

That looks great Mac. That is one loaded nacho dish!

I like your recipes! Please post when you have refined. We don't get your lovely Californian peaches out here but I will look out for some good Mediterranean ones as the season progresses.

Hi @jruddy. It looks like you are pretty much set. The two things that revolutionised my fire lighting were a MAPP torch and a small leaf blower. There are threads elsewhere on the forum about the type of leaf blower available in the US if you are interested.

Having examined the smoker properly I now know that my proposal, as set out above, was flawed. The tube that fits into the KK means you cannot "slip the smoker off" without undoing the bolts (see picture below). I am now more relaxed about all of this. I load the smoker with just the amount of pellets that I think I need, they burn out and I leave the smoker to cool before unbolting from the KK.

Hi Paul. The Husband has returned from his foraging, sorry business, trip to NYC and he came back with these. Are they the right sort to be using for your tortilla recipe? I think they are, from your description.

Welcome @jruddy. It sounds like you are all set for your KK adventure. It is fun using different cooking methods. What accessories did you order?

@Steve M,the Husband saw a picture of your set up on Dennis' instagram feed and wanted to know more about the Evo and the drawers that you have underneath it. I showed him your series of posts about the build. Serious ODK envy ensued.

I was rehearsing lighting the KK as I sat on the train home on Friday night. Home safely and one hour or so later...heaven.

I love that. Having a connection with someone who lived in your house all/most of his life must have been interesting. I often wonder about the people who lived in our house and what their lives would have been like. Yay! What colour is it and what are the bells and whistles?

Tee hee. I knew there was something I had forgotten. I have not sealed the lid on the smoke pot with paste for a long time. The lid is good and heavy and fits well so I rely on that for sealing. I have to admit that I have not checked for leakage once it has got going so I don't know if I am undermining the effectiveness of the smoke pot significantly by not adding the extra seal. I remember @Syzygies saying that he found applying the seal was good work for hands that might otherwise be idle. Decided my hands would be better occupied with a drink.

Wow. I had never heard of estrattu. Just did a search on the net and found a few interesting descriptions including this thoughtful one : https://honest-food.net/essence-of-tomato-strattu-estratto-conserva/ and another that describes a tomato heavy hitter: https://www.ciaoitalia.com/my_weblog/2010/09/tomato-paste-with-attitude. I am not sure that I will ever have the tomatoes, sun, time and patience required to achieve these results but, just in case, can you share your method @Syzygies?

I hope it works for you Paul. For more information see the attached post and linked posts from @Syzygies. He talks about pre-heating on a Weber in one of the linked posts and I am sure he will chime in if any of the advice that I have given is wrong.

Hi @PVPAUL. I had trouble with the smoking pot initially but I have since used it successfully and consistently at low temperatures. I heat up the empty pot on a gas ring in the kitchen and then put in on the fire in the KK and add in my chips, taking care not to block the exit holes. That has worked every time for me. Now that I have the hot/cold smoker I don't think I will need to use the smoke pot unless I am using chips that don't work well in the smoker.

I have seen the warnings about eating too much cured meat on account of ingesting too much sodium nitrate. I have not paid much attention on the basis that I don't eat all that much cured meat. That is if I don't count all the bacon I make and the Italian charcuterie that I buy. This article is interesting and seems to suggest that if you eat more veg with your bacon you should be fine! https://firsthandfoods.com/2017/12/06/nitrate-free-bacon-myth-or-reality/

Lovely looking rib Mac. And you know I've got to ask - grapes? Were they for afters or did you eat them with the beef?

Thanks @DennisLinkletter. Nice looking bacon! Lots for me to follow up on. It took about three hours for the internal temperature on the hot smoked joint to creep up from about 59C to 65C in the KK. I did not monitor the temp after the resting period. Will do so next time given I like this slow cooking method and @Basher asked me a similar question about my lump of funky cow. It will be interesting to know what margin to allow in future. Yes, you are right, the hot smoked bacon can be eaten without further cooking. I like that effect because I can have yummy bacon goodness with my lunch at work with just a little light heating up in the office microwave. Your post prompted me to check what the difference is between ham and bacon. The answers were interesting. The term ham is usually reserved for the leg of pork and it can be raw cured, cooked and/or smoked. Bacon is for other cuts of pork and can range from wobbly cold smoked to rather less wobbly hot smoked. Happily that means I don't have to change the name of my post to HAM. Much less fun than BACON!!!!