Food

No pics but 340g pack of impossible beef makes 6 scotch eggs perfectly.

I gochu fam.
3kg belly

Bonus ribs that were barbecued yesterday.

Although I'm dissembling somewhat - this is going to be for making chashu pork(KL-A style, obvs).

The porchetta is one I made way earlier in the year, vacuum sealed and frozen. That's going to be cooked sous-vide for 36 hours then deep fried on 26th.

Don't let your butcher score the skin!

Also have ham hocks that I smoked yesterday after brining for 7 days, which I'm making into ham and peas with pearl barley.

I'm just gonna do a meatloaf and a couple of stuffings this year, ICBF with porchetta. I'm Mr Keto now so should really be going for a full meat extravaganza but not feeling it.

But I will be eating my body weight in prawns, our mate's husband fishes the bay on his trawler, we get the pick of the catch!

Sweet potato vindaloo is a go

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Also have ham hocks that I smoked yesterday after brining for 7 days, which I'm making into ham and peas with pearl barley.

No porchetta this year. Will be smoking a pork loin rib roast. The plan is to wet brine and inject, then a bacon and jalapeno bbw rub, followed by a 2 hour low and slow cherry wood smoke.

Nothing better value than ham hocks. Think they’re £4 at our butchers and they go a bloody long way.

So, dry brining, aka rubbing in salt.

Considering this for my turkey this year. Looks like it is really a matter of rubbing salt all over and leaving it overnight in the fridge. How do people deal with having an uncovered lump of poultry in the fridge from a contamination point of view? Are sea salt flakes the equivalent of kosher salt over here? Is it really the case that it doesn't taste salty even though you don't wash the salt off?

Also, I'm considering spatchcocking the turkey so could be the impetus to finally get some poultry shears, any recommendations that aren't hugely expensive?

Kosher salt is coarse salt but as you say sea salt.

I had this recipe saved for a turkey
https://frugalhausfrau.com/2018/12/08/bon-appetits-dry-rubbed-turkey/

Which sounded good and always like it when someone has tested an online recipe and written a more comprehensive guide.

I’ll be making a porchetta this year. We’re 3 fewer people than expected so I’ve definitely over ordered. I also picked up some Galician blonde ribs which will feature over the holidays at some point

aka rubbing in salt

Not this again. 🤣

Steam oven for Basque cheesecake?

Quite interested to hear people's roast turkey recipes. Having a look at the one @Tenderloin linked above.

I won't be doing a wet brine though; done that quite a few times and yeah it works but it's a faff and I'm not sure the end product is much better than you can achieve with conventional methods.

Serious Eats is what I was thinking of roughly following
https://www.seriouseats.com/butterfiled-roast-turkey-with-gravy-recipe

Tradition aside.. chicken is the better turkey in every way unless you are cooking for a no-fat-protein-only crowd (or need to stuff as much volume of meat in an oven as you possibly can to feed the extended family and all associated gremlins) in which case then carry on

@dbr what does that hope to accomplish? Surely you want a dryer oven to get the blackening on the top.

Dunno really, but I’ve heard water baths mentioned so thought it might help

I think a decent oven that gets hot is more important, ours is old and rubbish so didn’t go above 220.
Had to give it 5 more mins over the stated half hour, think bakeries do them in 20min or so.

What recipe did you use?

https://www.mob.co.uk/recipes/salted-caramel-burnt-basque-cheesecake

You could ignore the caramel part and just mix the sugar straight in but next one I make will definitely have the caramel in.

Thanks, caramel sounds good

Not that I've heard of for basque; even heating/setting of the custard is less important and some prefer the middle runny. More importantly having too much moisture in oven will definitely interfere with maillard on top. Think there's a posh restaurant in Shoreditch that does its basques heated by a full on fire..

That’s probably Ibai

How do people deal with having an uncovered lump of poultry in the fridge from a contamination point of view?

As long as it's not touching anything, and you're aware of transference, you'll be OK, I reckon.

We're having chicken. Because turkey is rubbish.