The food thread

Here it is before it comes out of the brine. It will dry for 8 hours and be dehydrated overnight.
The commercial product known as chew is what we call floss.
 

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I got in an order of lamb today. Right now I have started to render 15 pounds of fat. Tomorrow I will sauté and grind up 10 pounds of liver and almost the same of kidneys. (Kidneys require a bit more work to remove the connective tissue.) The meat will get ground with a bit of onion, parsley, cognac, other bits and fat in an old fashioned hand cranked food chopper to make pate. It will be molded round, surrounded by smoked fish upright held up by the pate and topped with carved veggies like raddish flowers, celery fluffies and carrot trees.

Or just a simple over the top holiday appetizer.

All told including legs, chops, shanks and flanks about 100 pounds of bits and pieces.

Only downside is even with the exhaust hood rendering fat still smells not so good.
 
Ya, me too, when winter rolls around you have to put the snowies on, I get it. ;)

I'm slow food only, spent 4 to 6hr yesterday just making a couple of quarts of beef stock for Christmas.
I understand that too Scott. If I wish to spend 5x my time and spend 10x the electricity and end up with what I consider an inferior product, I bring out the slow cooker too.
I have no interest in ticking you off, as you are one of those I would love to stand shoulder to shoulder with in a kitchen where we were prepping for our loved ones, but the results I have achieved tell me I am doing the right thing. The Instapot has so much to offer when used properly.
Tonight, I am using it to render the trimmings from the eye of round into beef stock. 1.5 hours is all that's needed to completely get 'them-there' goodies into the water.
 
Speaking (reading) of durian:

They’re Smelly and Spiky, and They Need Bats to Pollinate Them - The New York Times

They’re Smelly and Spiky, and They Need Bats to Pollinate Them
Researchers wanted to improve the fruit yields for small farmers in Indonesia, and hope their findings will encourage protections for bats.

Known as the world’s smelliest fruit, durians are also essential to the farming economy of Indonesia. Although repulsive to many Western noses — some compare the smell to rotting trash — durians command the highest unit price of any fruit in Indonesia, with an export value of more than $250 million in 2013.
Hoping to help improve the yield of small-scale farmers, three researchers decided to figure out what kind of creatures pollinate the durians in Sulawesi, a large island at the center of Indonesia.
In a three-step process, the team first tested the plants to figure out what time of day pollination usually occurred. Evenings, they discovered, were prime time, as each flower opens for a single night and produces pollen only that one night.
Then the researchers put bags on some of the flowers. Some bags had holes big enough for bugs but not larger creatures, and some had no holes at all. The bagged plants did not yield fruit, suggesting that something bigger than a bug was responsible for pollination.
 
I understand that too Scott. If I wish to spend 5x my time and spend 10x the electricity and end up with what I consider an inferior product, I bring out the slow cooker too.

Sorry I meant no PC's for me, old fashion stock pot on a gas burner. The application of heat, circulation, and evaporation has something to do with it. Even using a bigger pot to make more at once didn't taste right to me, some kind of volume to surface area thing. It's OK nothing will change my opinion and we can all stay friends.
 
Interesting article about PC vs. simmering, but as we have learned recently, they are making a broth not a stock.

Stock is made with fat, skin, bones and blood while broth is made with meat and veggies. I don't make broths so I can't compare the two cooking types there.
When I see what is left after 1 hour of PC and 3 hours sitting vs. 4 hours of simmering I can see very well how much better the extraction has been with the InstaPot, I have a strong feeling the PC stock is going to look, smell and taste better.
Just my thoughts but I have no real desire to compare the two as the convenience, speed and energy used are all that much better than the old way.
 
I get a weird tinny taste out of a crockpot sometimes (particularly beef) even though it’s in a ceramic crock.

I’m with Scott, braising in my le creuset on a gas stovetop is more flavorful than pc.

It was even better on our soapstone wood stove but that’s not a FL item.....I miss slowcooking on that soapstone.

One of those fancy cookers(instapot) is on my short list though......can’t knock it till ya try it!
 
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Keeping yeast is easy, I currently have a dozen beer yeasts on slants in the refrigerator.

One uses screw top test tubes with an agar media on a slant in the tubes. Take a sample of yeast from a bottle if you know the yeast is the primary fermentation yeast. For example, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is bottled with primary yeast in the bottle.

Many Belgian beers are also bottle conditioned and have primary yeast, although some use a bottling yeast which is neutral but good for high gravity to finish the beer.

I have done three Belgian Tart Cherry Lambic style beers using both purchased yeast and wild yeast. One took Southeast regional first place (Asheville competition) in it's style and second place overall against over 200 entries. A Barley Wine took first overall.

yeah... we've got a freezer full of agar slants... wife amplifies them whenever one of us pitches up another batch. Been brewing for over 25 years. My latest flavor is Weihenstephan Weizen clone.. using Wyeast 3068 from years ago. Primary ferment @ ~ 85 F favors the banana / ester flavors, below 70 F favors the clove richness. This yeast is a beast... ferments down to the single digits from most any OG. This one has won many awards for home brew.

I recall the first Asheville comp back 10 years or so ago. All the beers were green, having been hastily brewed weeks earlier. Judging was pretty easy back then... they were all nasty and flat... needed more time in the cask / bottle, etc.

Have judged the WVa state Craft Brew contest for the last 3 years in Greenbrier valley near Lewisburg.... in return for free overnite accommodations, tickets to the gig, and all the craft brew one could handle, mostly micro-brews and an occasional home-brew. Great retirement pursuit, highly recommended.

Lambics and sours just don't work for me, taste like regurgitated stomach contents (aka reflux), or bacteria laden swill ... even though I do appreciate the "funk" in Belgian styles. The Russian beers in Moscow are to die for... very unique character not available in the West. I'd like to get hold of some of their yeast strains, but have been unable to.

Wife is mucking around with kveik strains, and has made several small batch variations of Norwegian farmhouse ales, which turned out surprisingly good. Uniquely, these yeasts ferment best @ 104 Fahrenheit, go figure.
 
was a slow news day in UK today :p. So BBC posted this 'Penis fish' wash up on a beach in California - BBC News Loads of innkeeper worms washed up on the beach (or the beach washed off them really as they live under it). As ever its a delicacy in parts of Asia. Wondered who other than Scott had braved them?

Then there is the Amazon river having a different kind of "penis fish", the Candiru near Manaus... you don't really want to go in the water with them around...at least that's what "They" say:eek::yikes:

A lot of urban legend, but I stayed out of the water anyway... waaayyy tooo polluted

Can the Candiru fish swim up your penis. Facts and Fiction