Thursday, May 14, 2009

The sausage fest/competition

The sausage fest! 5 seasons brewery hosted its first ever sausage competition. There were about 6 local chefs competing for the title. I love the way dennis gets other people in the industry involved in the stuff he does. Lots of people showed up for the festivities and it was a blast. I love every opportunity I get to do things like this, There might be a pig dinner sometime in june at 5 seasons which should be a good time. hey also released their new maibock which was awsome.
The winner! Smoked thai stick. Its a slim jim thats spiced with thai flavors and smoked in the bowl its presented in. it was a last minute thing that happened to turn out really good. The plan was to enter a smoked boudin blanc but it didn't set up right.
The final sausages entered.


The sausage queen competition was great. They all were asked sausage related questions and had to perform some kind of talent. good stuff.
The crowning of sausage king and queen. ts funny how it worked out considering were married. some people probably think it was fixed but I can guarantee it wasn't. Good time big thanks to dennis and the staff at 5 seasons for throwing such a fun party. it was a honor to be the first ever sausage king and queen of the five seasons brewery

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Duck terrine with almond orange and cranberry

This was actually a big mistake that turned out to be my new project. I made a basic country pate with duck and I inlayed some foie gras scrap an the center. When I cut into it most of the foie melted into the terrine so I couldn't serve it. So to fix it I hollowed it out and set a cranberry gelee. now I have some ideas to make it a perfect circle of gelee in the center. so this one will definatly be revisited.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Q Room dinner

Andy carson invited me to help out at this pig dinner that quinones. I was surrounded by great talent and just good people. The food was amazing it was alot of fun going back to see everyone and get to help out. Ham and cheese ( lonzino and pancetta with sweetgrass dairy green hill and red wine apple puree)
This is wood grilled riverveiw farms pork loin and ginger maple thyme sausage and pork belly confit. I wish I took more pics cause there was alot more food. Sean brock, Tyler brown, and dan latham were the guest chefs.
Hamachi, lardo, meyer lemon marmalade and pickled ramps. it was garnished with popcorn sized pork rinds.

super bacon

So I have been doing more experiments with activa or "meat glue". I love this stuff you can use it in so many applications. we got another pig in this past week bout 240 lbs. I needed to start another batch of bacon so I glued the two bellies together to make one big slab of bacon. its cured for 10 days and then smoked and dried for about 3 weeks. we'll post more pictures when its drying.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

this is a mortadella from blackberry farms. its really good.
before the ham is cured we remove the fimir bone without cutting into the meat. not a easy task but it prevents the ham from rotting from the inside and the cure is absorbed more.

I also started a speck ham this week. This is a italian ham that is cured with juniper and loads of black pepper its then smoked and dried for 7-8 months.
so our meat case has been running around 40-50 percent humidity. all our salami was drying way too fast sometimes causing case hardening. I recently had a humidifier installed at the top of the case. now we have a consistant 70 percent humidity. which helps with proper drying but also the beautiful mold!

Monday, March 16, 2009

These are some of the recent projects that we have been working on. A country ham and shrimp terrine. The shrimp are floating in a country ham consomme with green onion.
Coppata. This was a challenge. Its a coppa stuffed into a salami and dried tigether. The salami is a fennel and mustard seed. We dried it for three months. It was hard to center the coppa so we are going to do it again soon.
Coppa. This is similar to lonzino but it uses the shoulder not the loin. The cure has different spices and it seems to take a little longer to dry but its great with all the fat running through it.
Lonzino is a pork loin that has been cured and dried. This is amazing stuff it is so aromatic and flavorful but the texture is just as good. We hang it in cheese cloth instead of the classic natural casing because we use the loins from the whole hogs we get and there way too big to fit into natuaral casings.
Our second attempt at bresaola and we are really happy with it. the eye round is cured in two stages for about 10 days and then dried in our meat case for about a month and a half.
We have recently tried to conceptualize new salami flavor profiles. these are two gigantic salami's with ginger, sake, and pink peppercorns. they will take about three months or so.


Mortadella garnished with pistachios and lardo. We made this for muffalatta around mardi gras. This is a emulsified forcemeat alot like bologna. It was definatly one of those projects that could use some improvment but we were happy with the results.
This is a rabbit terrine which is a pate made from ground rabbit and its own liver and pork fat. Its garnished with georgia peanuts and green peppercorns. There is also a inlay of the loins and then wrapped in caul fat.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hog killing time in Woodland, GA

On Saturday February 7th, I attended the annual hog killing at Old South Farm.  It was a good time and brought a lot of people out, more that I had expected.  It was almost a two hour drive from Atlanta, but well worth it.  It gave me a good first hand look at the slaughtering process and a closer connection with the animal.  I will be back next year.  Unfortunately, the large number of people made it difficult to get as many good pictures as I anticipated, but here are a few. 

Two beautiful white Yorkshire hogs at Old South Farm.

Right after being slaughtered and bled, the hair was removed using a mixture of hot water and pickling lime.
Removing the nasty bits.
A huge crowd gathered to watch the demonstration.
Splitting the hog.
A demonstration on butchery the hog.
Several workshops took place during the day, included ham curing and sausage making.


Sunday, January 25, 2009

Pig heads, salami, and terrines

Yes, more heads.
Skinning the head.
Skinless pig head.  We used the skin from the head, cooked it, then made a roulade, rolling the skin around a headcheese.
Cleaning the leg for lean meat, which will go into sausage, salami, or terrines.
Tuscano salami (right) and salami Luccese (left).
Salami Luccese closeup.
Tuscano salami closeup.
Veal tongue Rueben terrine.  The veal tongues were corned for several days then braised.  We used the corning liquid to make a jelly, mixed it with the diced veal tongue and added caraway seeds.  This one will be served with rye toast, swiss cheese and a homemade dressing.  
Braised oxtail terrine layered with cilantro, scallion jelly.
Duck terrine with dried cherries.
Headcheese, enough said.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Terrines

Duck terrine with foie gras mousse.















Moroccan-style lamb terrine.















Assortment of terrines from H&F.