Food

Not sure if this should be here or the restaurants thread, but feels like the unintended, or intended consequences of Brexit (depending on how conspiracy minded you are) is leading to an exodus of European wait staff and a changing of the guard re: what type of cuisines/restaurants will stay the course..
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/apr/14/its-catastrophic-italian-restaurants-in-london-struggle-to-find-staff-post-brexit

I feel DJ or maybe TW will be the ones here... but has anyone made jerky or biltong? I'd quite like to give it a go. I'd prefer to invest in something shiny rather than DIY it with a UV lamp. But anyone with any experience/pointers/horror stories?

It's very easy. The DIY method works but if you want to invest then a dehydrator works very well too. The trick is not to dry it too fast in the dehydrator so to use it on its lowest setting.

Not me. I tried to make pancetta once, and ended up dropping my guts for a week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g9Tc1oeMc4

Air fryers do dehydration as well; there are lots of Youtube vids of people drying meat in them but I haven't tried it in mine

i have been given a knock off annova, only the unit. What else do i need to make it work?

a bucket

A vacuum sealer where the seal it makes fails just enough times to make you think "fuck it" and give up.

Faaaaaairly tempted: https://www.biltongmakers.com/product/si-30-junior-industrial-biltong-drying-cabinet/

50 quid per kilo, that smaller machine fits 20 kilos. 4 days to produce from wet meat to end product. Could theoretically produce about £7.5 grand of biltong per month. 150kg of topside would be about £2k but could probably get it down to £1.5k for scale - £5.5-6k less electricity, seasoning and packaging. (something something adjustment for difference in weight from wet meat to dry product).

Or I could just eat all the biltong in the world and never shit again.

OR....ORRR.... I could just get back to the task at hand and complete the three weeks of work I have due tomorrow.

Hah!

I've only had 1 fail, which meant a braised chicken leg, so it wasn't too bad.

I've learned that the cheap bags are not worth it, as they can't be reused as often.

I also double seal every time now.

Have made biltong and droewors

I was given a dehydrator and it is simple. One issue is many dehydrators run at too high a temperature, it’s really airflow that is most important, and ideally temp around 25C iirc

Of course you have.

Thanks though. Have read airflow elsewhere in my work avoidance this evening.

I used to have a south african/italian colleague who would bring in homemade boerewors and guanciale. I may dig out his number.

Thanks also @dubtap and @jb000

What has happened to the green lanes kebab shops? I’m not paying £20 for a lamb doner that’s insane

Does it do cold smoking too?

Sadly not, because it’s a non airtight cupboard with a fan and a heat source. Smoke would be blown out. If it was airtight things wouldn’t dry.

Prices have been going up for quite a while. It's definitely no longer a cheap meal out and the prices in all the big ones are pretty much in line with each other.

If you want doner I'd go for Antepliler Doner which is a bit cheaper than the main restaurants.

Hi - I'm making this tonight so thanks for the share. Pondering whether it would be weird to make coconut rice to go with it. I know not traditionally chinese, but obviously delicious. Any thoughts?

personally i like it with plain rice as the pork is very flavoursome.

i'm sure coconut rice would be fine, though. the flavours are robust so pretty much anything goes!

Nice one, thanks. It was banging. Did a basic sesame oil and chicken stock rice which was perfect, think coconut would have been a bit much in hindsight. Feel like the oyster sauce glaze could do with a bit of rice wine or vinegar to cut through a bit? Still, will bang again for sure.

1 Attachment

That looks top notch. Think I'll get a big slab of pork belly at the next opportunity.

Getting into Okonomiyagi
Any tips, I’m probably Jamie olivering the shit out of the ingredients at the moment

1 Attachment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg58ao9Gwyw&t

I had this one (ish) on Monday:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/japanese-okonomiyaki-recipe-2031053

With this sauce:

https://sudachirecipes.com/homemade-okonomiyaki-sauce/#wprm-recipe-container-11760

And some boggo Lagerstrom mayo, applied with a jam syringe.