The Fish Butcher and Eric Ripert

Yes!!!! I found a clip of Justo Thomas. It's in one of Eric Ripert's "Avec Eric", which makes sense since Justo Thomas is the fish butcher at Eric Ripert's restaurant La Bernadin.

Go to about 14 minutes 4 seconds if you just want to see Justo.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/187638

That episode also has a recipe for what looks like a lovely scallop dish. I love good big, fresh scallops. They're hard to find around here.

On January 12, 2016, I edited this post, because I originally said to go to 4 minutes, when actually the clips of Justo are at about 14 minutes. Sorry and apologies to anyone I unintentionally misled.

Cooking Tuna with Jose Andres

This post is to include a link to a show featuring Washington, D.C., chef Jose Andres in a show he did called "Made In Spain" cooking dishes with tuna. Here is the link:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/60535

For those not used to a Spanish accent, Andres has a fairly strong one. Just remember that the letters -cia, z, and s in the middle of words usually sound like "th" to us, and the letter v sounds like a "b." For example, the area Galecia (Ga-lee-see-ah to us) sounds like: Ga-lee-thi-ah. The area Valencia (to us Va-len-see-ah) sounds like: Bah-len-thi-ah.

The first dish he makes is a tapa called Ensaladilla Rusa, which is actually a potato salad with tuna, and he tops it with trout roe. The potato salad is different from what we're used to in the U.S., or at least in my area, in that it also has cooked carrots and green peas. I can hear Max groaning now. Andres made an olive oil mayonnaise, which I have to admit has me groaning. He also used balsamic vinegar as the acid. I've tried using only olive oil for mayo, and it went straight in the garbage pail. Goes to show my appalling lack of taste, I guess.

The next segment of the show  is shot at sea as the fishermen fish for tuna, the bluefin. Then he goes into a restaurant famed for its treatment of tuna and shows various dishes and treatments of tuna.

Following that Andres goes back to his home in D.C. to do a dish. I had to just shake my head because the man started the segment with a block of tuna that would likely cost $100 at the very least. Yep, I'm gonna run down to my local Kroger and pick up a block of tuna a foot long, 4-5" wide, and 2" tall. Mebbe after I win the lottery.

Other than the appalling waste of food used in filming cooking shows, though, I've enjoyed the series. In keeping with my effort to refine my taste enough to like fish, I wanted to keep track of the recipes and methods shown.

As an aside, I have looked and looked but been unable to find a clip of Justo Thomas going about his day as the fish butcher of Le Bernadin, Eric Ripert's restaurant. I've found a few showing Mr. Thomas filleting a fish, but that's not what I want. I remember watching a full segment of him. I think it was filmed by Anthony Bourdain, and must have come from one of the "No Reservations" shows.

Justo Thomas is an amazing fish butcher who daily prepares at least 700 pounds of fish for Le Bernadin. Ripert states that when Thomas is on vacation it takes 3 people working 12-hour days to replace Thomas. Wouldn't most of us love that kind of job security!

Canning Tuna

I'm making a link here to a show that I've been watching on hulu.com, and this particular episode is about water, but for my interest it shows canning tuna in Italy. In this video there is only a short highlight of canning the tuna. It shows cooking the tuna in boiling water, scraping the skin off and boning the tuna, cutting it into pieces to fit the jars and putting the jars into a pot of water.

What I get from watching the video is that the tuna is packed in jars with screw tops unlike the canning jars we use in the U.S. but tops that things like our pickles from a store come in. I forget the different names for the different tops. Blast getting holes in my mind. Regardless of canning warnings from Ball, I frequently can things in recycled pickle-type jars. They seal. Period.

I also get that they are canning the tuna in a water bath. My Ball Blue Book calls for processing tuna in a pressure cooker for 1 hour and 40 minutes for half-pints or pints.

Now I know that the canning guides for the U.S. are litigation driven nowadays, and that the way people canned things in the past was different. People can argue that science is better, and we have more knowledge of bacteria, its survival and affect on our food than people used to have. It's still a subject that I ponder frequently.

At ORNL I worked with a man from a city west of Nashville, TN, and he used to talk about his youth and how his mother did things. He was from a large family, like, 14-15 siblings, and they weren't well off. He has talked about his mother canning fish whenever the kids brought a large one home, and she would pack the jars and cover them with melted, hot bacon fat or lard.

At one time I priced tuna for home canning. I was wondering how effective it would be cost-wise. My conclusion was that living in the middle of the country made buying fresh tuna prohibitive. Maybe if I lived on a coast and could go out fishing for tuna, it might be worthwhile. Otherwise, nah.

Here's the link to the video:  http://www.hulu.com/watch/85506#i0,p0,s1,d0

Dehydrating Tomatoes Into Fake Figs

Okay!  When my tomatoes come in, I'm going to have to try this:  Dehydrating tomatoes into tomato figs. This is a video from youtube.com by imstillworkin. It is a recipe she found in an old cookbook, and it is a way to mimic figs. However, she commented that to her the taste was more like dates than figs. Whichever they taste like, I love them both. That makes this look like a win/win.

Eggs - Storage at 4 Months

Here's the video that imstillworkin just posted about her experiment with storing eggs. From this video, I get the idea that if you want to store eggs, coating them in mineral oil is the best option, and if kept at a fairly low temperature (between 60-65F) you can hope for them to last 4 months.

Cajun Cooking with Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse

I'm embedding this video because I want to keep the ingredients for Cajun spice so that I can make it myself, and, LOL, reduce the amount of cayenne pepper. Maybe then I can enjoy the flavor of Cajun without being turned off by the heat. This video is from 1993, and my, oh my, doesn't Emeril look young! in this video, he shows how to make a Shrimp Etoufee and a Crab Boil.

Watch Cajun Cooking with Emeril Lagasse on PBS. See more from Julia Child.

Grinding Your Own Cornmeal

Cornmeal

The question is: Can you make your own cornmeal easily and cheaply? The simple answer is: Yes, if you have an electric coffee grinder and buy a bag of feed corn. If you're wanting to live off the grid or grind cornmeal during an electrical outage, you need to find a different method - hand-powered grain mill. Otherwise, if you're just looking for corners to cut on your grocery budget, an electric coffee grinder and a bag of feed corn are dandy. Oh, and you have to be willing to invest a little time, a little elbow grease, and not be distressed by the things YOU are going to have to do that are usually done by the people behind the bags of cornmeal in the grocery that you don't see.

On the other hand, you can shop online at many places and buy buckets of ready-to-go corn sold to people who want to either store corn long-term or not fiddle with any cleaning process. It's all up to how cheap you are, how squeamish you are, and what your goals are - long-term storage or let's get this done.

Corn still needing to be ground.

The coffee grinder, finished cornmeal on right,
leftover corn to be finished on left.

Bacon in April 2012

I just finished my first batch of bacon for 2012 and thought I'd post some pics of it. To the left are pics of this batch from one hog belly, except for the two hunks I'd taken out of the smoker earlier and forgot to include in the pic. On the far right you can see the inside of the bacon because I cut into one hunk for supper.

The house is still full of the smell of smoking bacon, and that's great. This batch was done with apple wood, and I liked the smoke from the larger chunks of apple wood more than the smoke from the little chips of hickory you buy in the stores.

Since I'm still in my first year of curing my own bacon, each time is a learning experience. Hopefully I'll get it all together and post a final post on making bacon. The first time I learned not to pile the salt on like you're baking a fish in a salt dome. So this time I salted lightly and appropriately. However, I put the bacon in salt on March 20, 2012, and didn't get it smoked until April 8, 2012. That's too long in the salting process. The bacon didn't end up salt pork, but it was a close call.

The second thing I've decided is that I want to cure the bacon in larger slabs. For some reason, maybe because it's what I'm used to buying, I keep cutting the slabs into pieces about the size of what I'd buy in the grocery. I decided that's really not the way to go with it. I'm going to keep the slabs in the largest pieces possible on the next batch. Once they're cured and smoked, I'll cut them into sizes appropriate for storing.

The third thing I've decided is that I need a different smoker. I bought a propane Char-Broil Smoker and thought that would work for the bacon. However,  I've decided it's simply too hot for the way I want to smoke bacon. Everything I've read recommends a cool smoke for curing bacon, and after this last batch I think I'm going to try that route. A bit ago I saw a smoker with the bin on one side, and the racks for the meat in a different chamber. I want to try that for curing the bacon.

This time I had all three racks full of bacon, and after about two hours I noticed grease pooling on the patio around the legs. When I checked on it, enough grease from the bacon had dripped into the pan holding the wood that I was worried about overflow of grease and blow up from the grease spilling into the propane flame.

Ah, no problem, thought I. I'll just get my ladle and scoop some of that grease out. Don't try that if your ladle isn't stainless steel. Otherwise, you'll simply melt your ladle.

The last thing I've learned is that you really have to shop and search for a place to purchase the hog belly. The first I bought from the good meat market in Memphis, Charlie's, and it didn't cost more than $35. The second I ordered from a local grocery in Carlisle County, and that price was $120 for not much different poundage. I ordered one from a butcher near Paducah, but they never ever called me to let me know the order was in. What? Did they think I wasn't serious about the order? So Max agreed to take time from work to drive over to Charlie's in Memphis and get this last one. Again, 30-something pounds of hog belly for about $35.00.

Don't ask me what's up with the meat market. I can't figure it out.

Canning Pumpkin Question

At the end of fall in 2011, I canned some pumpkin and have what may be a problem with it. There has been some discoloration which I can't decide is actual spoilage or something home canned pumpkin does. Because I'm unsure, I'm tossing it.

It's seeming to come from one particular pumpkin - I only had two, but I'm not sure. I may have been sloppy with one pumpkin and took too long to get it from the roasting into the jars. That and the fact that I've never done pumpkin before is why I'm so unsure about this.

I'm really hoping someone that reads the blog will know something about this and can give me some information on it. Please, if you've canned pumpkin before or seen this let me know what you understand about it.

Following is a picture of the discoloration. It's a bright orange that seems to develop around where the pumpkin has bubbled during processing.

Great Fake White Wine Experiment

We're off on another Great Fake Wine Experiment as of March 2, 2012. This experiment is to make a white wine easily and cheaply. I have a problem with the tannins from red wine - they have a tendency to give me a headache. So I thought I'd try a white wine.

After tasting the Great Fake Red Wine, it was far too dry for my tastes. After decanting the peach wine, it was sickeningly sweet. Four pounds of sugar for the red grape wine; 10 pounds of sugar for the peach wine. This white grape wine will get 5 pounds of sugar.

It generally follows the original Great Fake Wine Experiment recipe:
4 cans of frozen white grape juice
5 pounds of sugar
1 package of yeast
4 gallons of water

Before beginning defrost the frozen juice.

Put the sugar in a big saucepan; I used my pressure cooker. Measure out one gallon of water and pour enough of this in the pan to cover the sugar well. Pour the rest into the container in which you're going to make the wine (5-gallon carboy/water jug). Heat the sugar just enough to get it all melted; it melts better with as much water as you can put in your pan without sloshing over.

While stirring sugar and waiting for it to dissolve, in a small container, cup measure, bowl, whatever is easy for you, put about 1/4 cup warm water, not over 115° F, and add the package of yeast and stir in. Let this set and bloom while you're melting the sugar and doing other things.

Pour the grape juice into the carboy. Add 1 gallon of water. Add the dissolved sugar water. Add the yeast; don't worry about this extra 1/4 cup of water - it won't break the recipe. Add the last 2 gallons of water. Put the lid on and give this a shake to mix everything up. Take the lid off and tape the balloon to the top of the carboy. Electrical tape is the best as is doesn't leave tape goo on the carboy.

Set aside somewhere that doesn't go below 70°F until the balloon deflates and falls over, usually 4-6 weeks. When the balloon flops over, the fermentation is done, and it's wine.

The Great Fake White Wine Experiment
Due sometime after May 2, 2012

Food Discussion - Up With Chris Hayes

Here's a very thoughtful and interesting discussion on the food we eat. It's from the show "Up With Chris Hayes" aired on April 4, 2012. The panel discusses the "pink slime" issue which has finally hit the mainstream, along with legislation, inspection, finance, drugs, husbandry and a bit of morality.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

See my post from April 11, 2011, by clicking here, if you're interested in more information on our meat industry. Looking at the dates makes wonder if these discussions are an annual thing.

Broccoli and Pasta - Tom Colicchio of Top Chef

This is a video of a one-pot dish of broccoli and pasta by Tom Colicchio of Top Chef.

Egg Dish - Tom Colicchio on Top Chef

This is a video of a breakfast dish that is a favorite of Tom Colicchio of Top Chef. It's an oven-baked egg dish with bacon, mushrooms, leeks and eggs. Since leeks are sparse where I live, I'd likely use green onions or sweet onions.

Spicy Cole Slaw - Gail Simmons on Top Chef

This is a video of making a spicy cole slaw that I wanted to remember. It's by Gail Simmons on Top Chef. It uses peanut butter as the base. She adds enough Sriracha to blow the top of my head off, so I think I'll be skipping that. Max loves it. It's so hot it ruins anything for me to eat. Crystal sauce or Cholula is about as hot as I can go. I know; I'm a wimp. I also think I'd slice everything more finely than done here; certainly on the carrots. I'm simply not a fan of a lot of carrot in any salad.

Fish Recipe - Tom Allen on Top Chef

This is a video of a method of oven-cooking fish in parchment which I want to remember. This method cooks the fish in parchment and calls for a fish fillet, grape tomatoes, kalamata olives (or whichever olive you like), some lemon zest, and a sprig of fresh thyme if you have it.

Pork Roast - Tom Allen on Top Chef

Here is a video I'm embedding to remind me of a method of roasting a pork shoulder. Yum.

Onion Soup Mix

This is a video by BexarPrepper from youtube.com on how she makes onion soup mix.

Runza

Imstillworkin recently posted this recipe on her youtube channel, and it piqued my interest enough to want to save it. I've been craving a meat pie or pastie-type thing lately, but am so horrible with making crusts that craving is all I've done. This recipe looked delicious and easy enough there seems hope that even I can make it.

From her vid, she says it's a dish called Runza and is eaten in Nebraska. It's a meat filling wrapped in a yeast dough and baked in the oven.

Great Peach Wine Experiment Begins

The Great Fake Wine Experiment has been so much fun it's propelled me into trying a different one. This time it's peach wine. It began on January 7, 2012.

Non-sequitor: While I'm writing today's blogposts, I'm listening to an Amanda Palmer channel via www.pandora.com . For those not familiar with Pandora on the computer, it's an internet radio website that allows you to listen to music. You type in an artist that you like in the search box, and Pandora begins playing music from that artist and others that perform similar music. I've loved Pandora for at least 7 years, probably longer, but I can't remember when I first learned about it.

Charles or Melda - you could listen to singers like Frank Sinatra, Perry Como or Tony Bennett :-)

Back to Peach Wine








Original Peach Wine Recipe 
1 gallon fresh peaches
3 gallons of water
9 pounds of sugar


Gayle's Adapted Peach Wine Recipe
2 #10 cans of peaches
3 gallons of liquid - peach juice + enough water to make 3 gallons
1 10-pound bag of sugar



Again, I used a 5-gallon water container purchased from Wal-Mart. I emptied it, measuring out the required 3-gallons of water for the wine. Then I put the canned peaches in a colander sitting over a bowl and drained them. I saved the juice.

While you're draining the peaches, put the sugar in a large pot and cover it with enough water to melt the sugar, and sit that on the stove on low. The object is to get the water warm enough to melt all the sugar but not to get it terribly hot.

While the sugar was melting, I chopped up the peaches in a food processor. Two (2) large, #10-size, cans of peaches were exactly the gallon of fruit the recipe requires. Of course, for a not-fake recipe, one would use fresh peaches.

Next I put the peaches in the water jug. To get the fruit in the water jug, I used electrical tape and taped my canning funnel to the jug. That way the fruit actually went in the jug and not slithering and splashing all over the floor. Although since I splashed so much water on the floor emptying the water jug, it would have been fairly easy to clean.

Then I added the by-now melted sugar. That got shaken up until the mash was thoroughly mixed up.

Then I poured in the peach juice and shook that to mix it all up. I had measured the liquid from the peaches and subtracted that same amount from the 3 gallons of water. After the peach juice went in, the remaining water was poured in. At this time I yelled for Max, and he shook the whole shebang vigorously for me.

Then I taped a 9-inch party balloon to the top of the water jug with electrical tape. The electrical tapes makes a nice seal but doesn't leave tape goop, um, residue on the water jug. Now the impatient waiting begins.

Peach Wine Updates

At the beginning

The peach wine has been merrily fermenting away since January 7th. It took about a week for fermentation to begin and the balloon to begin to expand. It got bigger and bigger. In fact, it got so big I began to fear for it's life. It finally died an explosive agonized death last night. It was buried with due dignity in the trash can and replaced with a new one.

At the beginning all of the peaches were at the bottom of the jug. About a week later it was odd in that there was a bit of peaches on the bottom but the majority was in the middle of the jug. By about 5 days ago, the majority of the peaches moved to the top of the jug with some still in the bottom. If you sit and watch, you can occasionally catch a piece of fruit either falling or rising in the handle of the jug. Things to do when bored.

While replacing the balloon, I could see the peach mash, err, correctly called mast by real wine makers I think, gurgling and bubbling. Fascinating.

January 18, 2012

Kablooey - January 20, 2012

In looking at the pictures, you can also see the balloon on the Great Fake Wine jug getting smaller and smaller. One of these days it's supposed to fall over which marks the end of fermentation and the finishing of the wine. Impatient.