Curing Duck Breast, Ostrich, and Sockeye Salmon..not to mention drinking some Craft Beer....great afternoon!

So after a long hiatus which included a trip to the east coast, a trip to the west coast, and a trip to Alaska I think I'll break back into the flow of foodie/beer/travel blogging by letting you folks know about 3 food items which are now (as of last hour) in our fridge and on their way to becoming extremely tasty. This afternoon I cured two types of meat, threw down some salmon for another batch of Gravlax..and put down some fine craft beer (primarily Dogfish Heads Mida Touch)..and some of my own homebrew..good times!

First up: Duck Prosciutto, this is my 3rd go-around with the salt cured duck breast, no major changes compared to past sessions. This time I utilized only some crushed peppercorns and some thyme seed for. Stay tuned...

Second up: Gravlax, but here's the kicker..its with fresh Sockeye Salmon that yours truly pulled out of the icy cold waters of Alaska just two weeks ago! Ready for another kicker?? These fillets have traveled with my good buddy Anthony across the nation just to get back to me (via Anchorage, to Tucson, and finally to Chicago).

Recipe is pretty straight forward. Salmon is curing in Kosher Salt with a small amount of white sugar (3 tablespoons to the 3/4 cup Kosher Salt), a hefty amount of Young Dill picked up at Whole Foods, and the juice of one orange (not traditional for gravlax). The two steaks of Wild Sockeye are both about 2 inches thick which means this should be ready in just a few days..cant wait considering my last venture into gravlax was last summer.

Third up is another salt cured prosciutto...Ostrich. I picked up a frozen steak of Ostrich meat at Whole Foods and thought "well..why not cure it like Duck Prosciutto?"..so that's what I did. Nothing fancy here at all. We have one steak curing (completely covered) in Kosher Salt for the next 24 hours and then will hang side-by-side with my Duck Breast Prosciutto for one solid week (after being sprinkled with some white pepper).

Dark Lord Day!

This past weekend we took a short trip down to Munster, Indiana to partake in the world famous "Dark Lord Day" put on by Three Floyds Brewery ( http://www.threefloydspub.com/ ) once every year.

Essentially the "Dark Lord" is a HUGE imperial stout which imparts so many subtle flavors that it boggles the mind...seriously after one sip at the festival we all looked at each other and just said "wow" and agreed that it was difficult to even start describing what was going on with this jet black stout.

The actual event was what I would classify as just "ok", meaning that it was certainly an experience but after waiting in line (which ended up in the thousands of folks from as far as Japan) for 5 hours to get our bottles you were kinda left with the sense of "what now...". Well "what now" ended up being sampling just a few beers (a good cask bitter, and a Russion River brew), listening to a brief amount of heavy metal from a local band in the brewery wharehouse and jumping back on the road to Chicago. Granted the location is in Munster, IN and to be fair..well..there's not much going on down in Munster, but please keep in mind that I'm not faulting the event on the location but rather what was available at the fest....4 bottles of DL-good, 2 food stands and no access (well under a 2 hour wait) to the brewpub-bad.

Anyhow..the DL is a extremely chewy and robust stout and it's going to be very difficult to leave the remaining 2/4 that I have along for a year +

At $15 per bottle (22oz) and a limit of 6 per person you can bet we will be cellaring these bad boys for some time.

...also check ot the metal group that opened up at 11am....if this stuff does not get you drinking a beer called "Dark Lord" nothing will...

Panchetta!

So its been a while since I've put a posting up..which sucks :) But rest assured outside of not having enough time to post on my culinary adventures I have actually reserved my spare time to actually "have" my culinary adventures...and this was one of them.

I'm happy to report that only weeks after picking up my copy of Charcuterie I've already produced 4 different flavors of cured meats and will get some pics/descriptions up very soon...but for

now

lets look at the Panchetta.


Essentially a salt cured (with spices and herbs) pork belly then hang dried for
2+ weeks to develop flavor which is used to flavor other dishes.

So after leaving this guy to hang dry for two weeks (next to my second round of du
ck breast prosciutto) I was finally able to bring it down and use it one a nice breakfast pasta for the wife and myself. After slicing thin and cooking with some shallots I added our panchetta to some pasta, goat cheese, and sun dried tomato for a hearty (to say the least) Sunday morning breakfast (by the way..as I'm writing this Sunday evening I can now tell you that this more than contributed to our Sunday late morning nap :) ).

Personally I loved it, the flavor was very much like bacon (no surprise) but had a nice herbal/floral note to it left by cure (if you have any interest in the cure please let me know).

Cheers!

Duck Prosciutto..

Here's a riddle for you:

What has a road flare kit, a spare tire, tire iron, duck proscuitto air drying, my old softball mit, and is part of my car?

Thrown by the tire iron?

The answer is (of course) the trunk of our car!

So yeah..I let my duck proscuitto air dry in a propped open cooler in the trunk of our car..can you imagine the gatherinf of squirrels, ferrel cats, and whatever else wild animals prowl during the nights here on the north side of Chicago all gathered around our car during the nights like some sort of weird pagan ritual?

On to the process! After reading a few postings on making duck proscuitto over at the "Paupered Chef" (http://www.thepauperedchef.com/) by both writers on that site (Blake and Nick) and after getting my copy of "Charcuteries (http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Craft-Salting-Smoking-Curing/dp/0393058298/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206570634&sr=8-1) I was good to go!

First off, if this sort of thing interests you in the least (salting, smoking, and curing meats) please check out "Charcuterie" the book..well worth the investment.

Ingrediants are pretty straightforward: duck breast (I ended up with a frozen one from Whole Foods-but next time will go direct to China town), kosher salt (about 3 cups), some crushed peppercorn, thyme, a little cumin, and a small amount of white pepper (black is OK if thats all you have).

Equipment: non reactive dish ( I used a 12" pyrex pie pan), cheescloth, some twin or other way to suspend meat for approx one week.

Process: lay down an base layer of salt in your vessel, pat dry the duck breast and lay (fat side up) and cover fully with remaining salt, cover with plastic wrap. Refridgerate this for 24 hours to allow the salt to cure the meat.

After 24 hours remove, rinse breasts well off with tap water and pat completely dry. Once dried sprinkle with pepper and suspend in cheese cloth for 7 days (for approx 2 lbs of duck breast) at a tempeture around 50-60 degrees in a fair amont of humidity (not extremely wet, but also not extremely dry).

A quick note of the tempeture for line drying the meat: I actually left it to dry out in my trunk for a week which included some wild temp swings..from the low 30s for a small window up to the 50F mark...and my stuff tastes fantastic.

..I need a disclaimer after that though..please be careful and follow your best judgement (..if should be better than mine :) ).

After one full week (give or take a few days) remove from cheescloth and prepare to be turned off by the weird dark ruby colored meat and glistening duck lardo...but get ready for some amazing tasting meat as well!

Slice thin and serve as you see fit. Personally I enjoy the "gamey" taste of mine and eat it sliced and straight up.

Cheers!

Quiche...

Well as you can see it's pretty damn snowey for the 2nd day of spring here in Chicago, so on a Saturday morning that we were definetely not going out into I thought I'd give my first quiche a shot...

Pretty straightforward recipe: eggs, milk, cheese, portabello and spinach as the "meat", 2 kinds of chese (sea chedder, and gruyere), salt/pepper, and some spinach tossed on the top baked in a pie tin at 350 for around 25 minutes.


It came out pretty well, my only complaint is that I tried to cook the portabello a little before baking the quiche in the oven..which ended up adding a little too much moisture to the final product..making it kinda soggy, but still tasty.


In the future I think I will cut down on the egg/milk ratio for the filling. This time around I went with 4 eggs to 3/4 cup of reduced fat milk. Next time around I'll be aiming for 1/2 cup milk to cut down and cook time and also to dry the quiche up a bit, and hopefully in turn making it fluffier.


..Also it occurs to me that I should go with a deeper pie tin (and make my own dough) rather than using one specifically put out for use with pies..you just cant fit that much stuff in there :)

Cheers!

Chamomile Wheat Ale..

I've always been a big fan of Chamomile tea..so I suppose it was inevitable that I end up brewing a beer with this tasty, yet subtle, little flower...

Really straight forward brew here..an even mix of Belgian Pilsner malt and Wheat malt (5 lbs/5 lbs) and about 1/2 lbs of rice hulls to avoid the probable clogging of my mash tun had I not added them..

For hops I thought I would mix it up a little by using some Amarillo for flavoring, and a small mix of Magnum and Cascade for bittering

Note on the use of Cascade for bittering..if your savvy about the hop game right now you know this *should be considered a sin..using Cascade in this manor. Allow me to explain, I was using the last of my magnum (about 1/8 oz) for bittering and needed just a little bit more Alpha Acid to get my IBU's to where I wanted 'em...and knowing I would use the rest of the Cascade to dry hop..well there ya go :). Also please note that you will not see the cascade addition in the recipe below...I forgot.

Onward to the yeast..I really wanted to do something with a more clove/banana taste to go along with the chamomile and slightly fruity flavor put off by the Amarillo so I settled on White Labs Hefe yeast IV..which should (or "is") do the trick.

Chamomile was ala Trader Joes Chamomile Tea..which is delicious and actually manages to pull off a very present chamomile taste after using just one tea bag per cup o'tea. I had shopped around trying to find the "best" tea to use and I ran the gamete from loose chamomile flowers (whole foods), to their "yogi" tea..both of which were tasty..but on the same time extremely subtle and I needed some more chamomile (I need more cowbell!). Final addition was 12 tea bags of TJ's chamomile tea steeped at flame out and remaining through chilling to 68 degrees (about 20 minutes).

She's (just seems like you should call a chamomile wheat beer "she") has been in primary for a week and will remain there for one more at which time I will bottle.

..speaking of which I'm about to go into the brave new land of kegging...enough of this bottling bs :). Stay tuned for my conversion post, turning my Sanyo 4912 into a kegerator...

Cheers!

New website address!

Good day all!

I've picked up the domain : www.dailyikura.com for the ole blog. If you have me linked anywhere you're going to want to change it from www.breuni.blogspot.com

Cheers!

Vietnamese Pork Ribs and Pho..

I found this recipe off of a Whole Foods Video Podcast called "The Secret Ingredient", which is overall a great podcast once you get around the fact that they are obviously selling you Whole Foods products :)..maybe its my sales background that makes me sensitive to this..but hey everyones got to pay the bills right??

On with the recipe, its pretty straightforward-cure some baby back pork ribs for a few hours (sprinkled with kosher salt and peppercorns then wrapped up and set in the fridge), juice some coconuts (if you can find em-3 small/medium sized should give you 3.5 cups or so), add some dark sugar (1 table spoon), Vietnamese fish sauce (1/2 cup), garlic (5 cloves), and chicken stock (1 cup)..then braise for 1 hour at 350 degrees at which point you add some hard boiled eggs, cut ribs into 2 piece sectionns, and braise for an additional 30 minutes. Easy! And trust me its...delicious.

What you end up with is your ribs..which simply melt off the bone..but your also left with this amazing broth. What to do with it? Well thats your call..but here is what I did.

Take some fresh Star Anise, nutmeg, Cinnamon, and dark sugar, dump into a mortar and mix (about 1 tsp per for 2 servings), split up between 2 large soup bowls...cook some Pho noodles (rice noodles found in your local Asian market). Cut up some green onions, mushrooms, or whatever other veggie you think would work well (but does not require a long cook time) add to your bowls and pour the liquid left over from the ribs on top for each bowl, making sure that the broth is hot from the oven (this will release the flavor and fragrance from spices/veggies). Dump noodles on top, slice the hard boiled eggs in 1/2 and you've got your own version of Pho soup to go along with your ribs...good stuff.

The next time around I plan on using a sweeter beer (possibly a home brewed one) to replace the coconut milk..stay tuned.

Tips for this recipe...I wouldnt worry too much about having those exact spices on hand for the soup...think in terms of pumpkin pie spices and you'll be just fine..in fact you'll be making your own soup that way..no need to get hung up on the details :)

Also, I would focus on the quality of ingredients here (i.e. fresh coconut milk) but dont let that dissuade you..use what you have on hand and you'll soon be creating your own version of this dish. Take care!

Mixing it up!

..So I'm a big beer geek..also a big foodie..who loves to travel. I had given the idea of creating a new blog dedicated to only food/cooking/travel...but to be honest I would rather be able to park everything right here...so thats what I'm going to do!

I would expect one cooking entry to each homebrewing entry..maybe somthing like 1.5:1. My apologies to my handfull of homebrewing buddies in the blogosphere...but I promise to carry my homebrewing street cred during this small change to the site.....and will be striving to do my share of recipes that include beer..

Working in these new subjects brings me much joy....

Man its silent around here!

Just a quick update, as I've been crazy busy with other things lately and have not given the ole blog the attention she so richly deserves, I've brewed one additional brew recently (and set to brew in both the next weekends-chamomile wheat and a argentinian cascade apa), which was an APA..weird I know considering the hop shortage..but well..fuck it I felt like having a nice apa around for a while :)

Stay tuned for a facelift on the ole blog, I would expect even a name change...I'm going to be working on the blog with my buddy Anthony who recently just picked up homebrewing in a big way....guy doesnt brew anything under a 1.080 OG...so in about 7 months we'll be reverting back to the "Daily Ikura" after his liver craps out.

On that note does anyone here even know what "Ikura" is...I'm suprised I've never gotten a comment on that..anyhow I'm looking forward to working on the same blog with my buddy and would even venture to guess the site overall improves as a result.

Well do some pretty randomn stuff on this blog..just taking some chances ya know?

Cheers!