Be Excellent To Each Other

Which is fine, but of the two methods, that's the 'dangerous' one. The food spends much more time at temperatures conducive to bacterial reproduction.

Your Mum spends time at temperatures conducive to bacterial reproduction.

Also, any luck with you and the missus and the French Laundry?

Why is rice so susceptible to bacteria?

I have vague memories of someone telling me that bacteria lies 'dormant' in all rice grains waiting for lively fresh water, but I'd have thought that all that boiling water wasn't so comfortable for a sleeping microbe...

Please explain, so as to make me afeared of the rice.

Not so far. Can't even get through on the phones. I suspect this will be a non-starter.



It's nothing more sinister than surface area. Grains of rice (and indeed, pearl barley, cous-cous etc) provide lots of lovely, lovely surface area for bacteria to colonise.

Because it's foreign muck.

I always thought it wasn't rice as such.. just that canteens or takeaways or whatever cook it and then leave it at 60odd degrees so bacteria can grow?

Or is that wrong

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/vent/review4.php
/

All the ones that'll give you the poorlies are rendered inert above about 42 degrees, after varying periods of time. At 60 degrees, 30 seconds is enough to pasteurise something (temperature of the middle of the food, rather than the water/oven). At 42 degrees I think it's 30 minutes.

Not that it's not always bacteria that does you in, of course. Botulism isn't caused by the organism, it's caused by the toxins the organism releases, which isn't denatured by heat at all. It's important to prevent botulinum spores from reproducing because you can't do anything about the toxins once they're released.

Technically incorrect. The toxins will break down at application of about 125 deg C for about five minutes; of course, this is high enough that any food you cook this way will be utterly destroyed by the process. However, you can reach these temperatures in a pressurised autoclave, which is how canned hot dogs are preserved.

Granted.

I bet you have a pressurised autoclave, don't you, Craster?

Nah. I like playing it fast and loose with food hygiene. Ensures a healthy constitution.

Are you back at work today?

Haha!

Yes, but that's hardly related!

I made hot sauce this evening. not as successful as the chutney from the other week but as a fruity sauce with a lingering tingle it'll do, especially as it's my first ever. i've got another half kilo of chillis in the fridge and more on plants to try again - and the tabascos are ripening at last!

Which to be fair, were already utterly destroyedbefore they got canned.

Ahh,, Clostridium botulinum, cause of many innappropriate bursts of laughter during lectures.

My butcher's generic "braising steak" looks lean. Like, as lean as sirloin. That's odd, right?

I think so, I thought it was supposed to have a good amount of fat. Isn't it normally from the shoulder, which is some way away from the sirloin department?

Yeah. Wikipedia says it can be flank, apparently, but I'd expect blade or chuck normally. In any event it looked too lean to be slow cooked, and they were very busy this lunchtime so I didn't get chance to ask exactly what it was. I slightly disapprove of a proper butcher selling something labelled as "braising steak" anyway. They could at least write the actual cut in a sub title or something.

Over the weekend I'm going to have a go at deboning a chicken, having found this video inspiring. Or at least I am if I can find somewhere in this shopping centre to sell me some suitable string; Asda didn't have any, surprisingly (that I could find anyway).

braising a piece of beef isn't so much about rendering fat as it is about breaking down the collagen in connective tissue.

One of the reasons you cook it for a long time is because it doesn't have enough fat to keep it tender if cooked at high temps.

Agree that it's very annoying not listing the cut. See also 'roasting joints'.

It's very annoying that your face is not listed as cunt.

I deboned a duck a few weeks ago, as I was making Five spice crispy duck but the supermarket only had whole duck, which was half the price of two breasts normally. I cut myself in three places, the kitchen looked like a massacre had taken place, and I left a good amount of meat on the bones, but still got two breasts that were far bigger than I would have got from the tray packs. 12 hours later I was a father. Take care.

Lacking in style and panache today, Z. Everything ok?

Hmm, good point, Cras. Maybe I'll get some tomorrow to cook on the weekend.

Yeah, I'm in a good mood actually today. Just a little busy so I've skimped on some final touches.

Was it in here someone talked about Bradley cold smokers?

Alternative Meats, pointed out to me for entirely different reasons (MEAT! Including a Welsh wagyu I'm extremely interested in, along with goat), sell the pellet-fed smoke generator separately (and many flavours of briquette), a snip at £170.

Ar, that was I.

I'll look into that, thanks.

http://objection-salad.com/post/1009456 ... -a-chicken

I went from this



to this



and then to this



Success! (With some caveats; read the post for more about that.)

http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/london/l ... =aff_1&nlp

?

Large quantity of cayennes: pickled.

Chicken roasted and lamb shanks slow cooked, also, but less exciting (despite being by far the best roast chicken and slow-cooked lamb shanks I've ever had).

I'm doing lamb shanks next week. What was your process, Bik?

Shanks dredged in seasoned plain flour and browned in a very hot frying pan.

Erm. Can't remember the rest! Hang on, Chrome should've synched the bookmarks to this laptop...

Right, it was a mashup of these two (extremely basic) recipes, roughly rounded down for 4 shanks:
Braised lamb shanks
Slow cooker braised lamb shanks

(Seasoned-)Flour and brown the shanks in a very hot pan with a little olive oil, move them to the slow cooker. Deglazed the pan with half a bottle of Sainsbury's nasty "cooking red wine", added fresh rosemary, 2 fresh bay leaves, 2 peeled, lightly crushed garlic cloves, 2 chopped carrots, a quartered onion and 300ml of OXO chicken stock (half a cube), transferred it all across, and left on low for 12-18 hours.

4 shanks didn't really fit in the cooker, I had to make up the liquid volume with boiled water and it still didn't cover the shanks but they shrank under eventually and we turned them yesterday morning. They were stupidly tender, even using a big spoon the bones were falling out while removing them.

It's hazy because I was drinking delicious beer.

The pickled cayennes, meanwhile, were a mashup of the three recipes on this page: boiled 250ml of white wine vinegar and 100ml of water with a pinch each of salt and sugar (no carrots left after doing the shanks, the delicious bastards), poured into a large sterilised jar containing a quarter teaspoon mustard seeds, 4 multi-colour peppercorns, a bay leaf, half an inch of cinnamon, quarter of a chopped sweet onion, a peeled clove of garlic, about 400g sliced cayennes and a halved-lengthways anaheim (because mine are weak but extraordinarily sweet and fruity). Then I topped the jar off with more boiled water and put the lid on.

Oh, beer! That edit to the shanks post reminded that we made gravy for the chicken* by thickening some of the fat-strained juices with arrowroot and my pouring some Butty Bach in (Helen tried to protest but I didn't really give her chance; she ended up really liking it [thankfully]). And probably adding salt and pepper and maybe some other stuff. I can't remember, Waitrose did me proud on Saturday.

* Waitrose corn-fed free range. Cor it was nice roasted for an hour and a half under foil with thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper and stuffed with lemon and garlic - I went to twist a leg off and the bone came away in my hand, and when I tried to carve a breast the ribcage collapsed away from the meat. So moist and tender and tasty!

Looks like you're on your own...

I have the usual scepticism of groupon restaurants. Will look into it though.

I've actually heard it's not too bad. Kat went there the last time they had this offer on, which might have been a bigger reduction. It's been on a few times now.

Well, the doc might not be impressed but we finished the shanks tonight with goose fat roasted homegrown potatoes and some boiled veg and i still say it's a delicious, easy, cheap meal. must do again.

Not impressed? That sounds delicious!

Ah; I mistook your silence as polite disregard.

Ah, the old Necrophiliac catchphrase.

Aha! No, sorry. Merely that I read the post while mobile and forgot to come back and post a followup.

Edit -- the only problem is I can't do that because I don't own a slow cooker. I'm going to go for 3-or-so-hour braise when I make them next week, I think.

I usually do four hours at 140.

Aha, thanks. I've only cooked them a couple of times before, so tips are appreciated.

Get one, they're cheap. Or was it space that's an issue?

Yeah, that. My kitchen gadget allocation is already full to bursting with a steamer, breadmaker, food processor, Kitchen Aid mixer, etc etc. A slow cooker doesn't offer enough advantages over my existing oven+cast iron casserole pan to justify the space.

pfft. There's always room for MOAR gadgets.

Yeah, their special power is being able to flick on in the morning (or evening before) and have your meal ready for you when you get in from work...

...sorry, that's my wife.