No. The sausage is cooked when the sausage is cooked. The water can definitely boil around it before it’s cooked. Spoken from experience.
Also:
BBQ pizza tonight. It’s a gas bbq, so I put these two pizza stones in there and turn the bbq on to its lowest setting for about 30 minutes. Turns out like restaurant pizza: very crispy/chewy crust with little charred spots, cheese has a few brown patches, etc. And does not heat up the kitchen!
So I tried my hand at making some bacon. It started with me buying a slab of pork belly. They had 2 slabs at the store and I was originally going to buy both, but luckily I only bought one, because one made way more than I could handle as it was.
So I started by brining the pork belly is a mixture of salt, curing salt, black pepper, brown sugar, and distilled water for a week, flipping daily. After the week, the meat was firmer.
Off to the grill, which I prepared using the snake method, scattered with apple wood chips.
My grill was definitely too hot since it took only a couple of hours to get to the proper temp… 150°.
It may not have gotten smoked ad much as I’d have liked, but it turned out fine otherwise.
This is probably old news for folks, but I’ve become an addict of the whole line of Lao Gan Ma sauces (known fondly as ‘grandmother’ or ‘angry lady’ sauce from the photo on the label). Easily found at any Asian market or increasingly at supermarkets with large Asian sections.
Her Dan Dan Noodle sauce has authentic spice, the Black Bean Chili Oil is great for stir fries. But the one to get is Spicy Chili Crisp. Put a scoop of this in anything for a spicy, tingly, crispy hit of real Szechuan flavor.
This is fantastic. (also…I have that same tfal non sick heh).
This bird is going into a family-style one pot pasta dish in a few minutes. I used to BBQ them on a beer can, but I do it so often that I bought the conical ceramic roaster and pour a beer into it and set it in the half hotel pan like this. Yes, this pasta dish has pineapple in it! If you think pizza are gorgeous with pineapple, then try my pasta.
The pasta method:
Espagnole sauce, made earlier in the day.
Beer can chicken and roasted pineapple.
Make the dish base with garlic sauteed in butter and olive oil, toasted pine nuts, chopped bacon, chopped roasted red pepper, zest and juice of a small orange like a Clementine, and salt and pepper. Put in freshly cooked pasta, some (not all) of the roasted pineapple, chopped to bits, and a few ladles of the espagnole and mix well. Then take the chicken meat off the bone, chop it up and put on top. Serve with fresh grated Parmesan. This dish is meant to tweak the umami, sweet/sour/salt thing. Too much pineapple and it’s too sweet. But without it, it’s just another blah pasta dish. There’s a fine line…
I will really miss fresh corn when it is gone.
Okay, a week ago I butchered the lambs, now I need to figure out what to do with some of the bits. I have one entire lamb plus three extra tongues and three extra sets of kidneys. Any suggestions?
Do you have Julia Child I and II? If not, please find them or buy them and all your questions will be answered! 
Personally:
Tongues would be boiled, peeled and chilled. Sliced for sandwiches or sauteed and put on top of something. Kidneys would be sliced, sauteed in butter with salt and pepper, then put on brown rice or quinoa with some kind of velouté or espagnole and something green nearby. Look up recipes for rognons de veau (veal being closest to lamb). There are a million other ways to do them.
Does anyone know any good curry recipes? Looking for stuff I could make on a Sunday, portion out, each night one goes from freezer to fridge. Trying to be healthier so doing some curries and adding tofu for protein seems a good start.
There is a curry bible:
And one geared Asian:
(These are both good reads. Apologies for the nytimes paywall one, but it’s quality.)
Ooooh so by “british curry” do they mean things like tikka masala? (Which IIRC is a staple in Indian places but was orig developed in England, a kind of British general tso’s?)
The second one seems especially useful, there is a store in my city that sells authentic Japanese stuff. Nothing super obscure but I could probably get “curry bricks” if you know of good brands.
TBH I’m trying to find stuff a little simpler to start out with though once I build up a spice rack will branch out.
They seem to writing about the sort of curry that comes from cheap, ubiquitous Indian take out restaurants in the UK. Sort of like how American Chinese take out places are everywhere in the US, and the food is adapted and simplified rather than hardcore Chinese. The curries from these places aren’t neccisarily made with rigorous Indian technique. There’s also a sort of generic curry that’s just curry, rather than being a specific Indian dish in the category. Which is what that can of “curry powder” is for.
And fun times Japanese curry is actually derived from British curry and its general curry powder. Was apparently introduced to Japan by British naval and trading vessels and is rooted in the sort of stews that were served on board. Which, owing to British control of India, were often heavily flavored with curry powder. The story goes that British curries have more root in techniques for European stews than to Indian cooking styles. But owing to continued Indian immigration into the UK, you can actually see that history more in the Japanese curry than in today’s British Curries. Japanese curry is built around a roux of Japanese curry powder, fat, and flour, with stock or water added and meat stewed up in there.
S&B Golden Curry, Vermont and House are all very good brands for the bricks. S&B apparently makes the go to curry powder in Japan, and I’ve got a can of it up in the cabinet its very good curry powder, and I always liked the Golden Curry bricks best. I’d definitely stick to the bricks, they’re really just pre-made roux. And having made the stuff from scratch (hence the can of curry powder) the texture is just never right. Just too much curry powder, ends up kinda gritty.
Its not really supposed to have a ton of meat in it. So I usually just use something cheap like pork neck bones or rib tips. Its usual to add some sauteed or caramelized onions, and a splash of soy sauce, sometimes some grated fruit. (apple, pear or Asian pear) for some sweetness. Potatoes and carrots are usually included, I like to use sweet potato. Freezes really well so for your packaging it up thing it works great. You just heat it back up and make some rice, maybe fry up some katsu if you want more meat.
That was awesome. Thank you for writing it.
I also refer to this book for serious “authentic” Indian cooking. I put quotes because I don’t know about the utility of that word, but it seemed to fit. These recipes require work and love to execute well. I have failed many times, but also succeeded a few times and made something sublime. I taught myself how to make paneer from this book, in the 90s. I highly recommend it.
Classic Indian Cooking https://www.amazon.com/dp/0688037216/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_54BFDb582NJRP
And this one, though I hate to recommend it because of the ridiculous price. Mine was a gift from a dear friend. However, the content is unparalleled:
Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking https://www.amazon.com/dp/0752900803/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-bCFDbS4TCW6G
Sorta kinda food related… and because Simone Giertz is a treasure.
also the making of the meal.
Honestly authentic Japanese curry is second rate at best. This isn’t surprising considering they got it from the 19th and early 20th century British
My two favorite quickie-curries are Vermont brand curry bricks for Japanese-style curry (that sort of sweet, brown gravy that’s wonderful with veggies and small pieces of meat or a wedge of hamburger) and Maesri for Thai-style curry — it’s a paste that comes in little cans. Pretty easy to get ahold of in any Asian market. There’s about a million flavors, it seems, and they range from mild (massaman) to fiery hot (kaeng par). I usually go for red curry or panang. I just fry the paste in a pan until it’s fragrant, then add a can or more of coconut milk, add brown or palm sugar to taste, a squirt of fish sauce, and then my meat or veg.
Yes! ‘The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking’ has been my Bible for 30 years. It was a first Valentine gift from my husband. Our first date was at an Indian restaurant. Very exotic food at the time.
I’ve got a bunch of good ones from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even the UK. The base I use for most is as follows…
In the fist pan:
Heat oil
Put in
Cook until they’re starting to brown and smell delicious. If you’re Northern Indian or Pakistani take them out and grind to a paste then return to the pan
Add
Brown the protein for a bit.
In the second pan:
Saute the onions with a pinch of baking soda until they’ve given up their water or caramelize them
Add the garlic. Cook until fragrant
Add the ginger. Cook until you can smell it
Add the contents of the first pan to the second pan.
Add coconut milk or chopped/diced/stewed tomatoes.
Add broth if you’re into that.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce to a simmer.
Add other spices, fresh peppers, veggies, etc.
Simmer a while longer
Depending on what spices you add, anything from hing to mustard oil, trassi, nigella, galanga, lemongrass, your choice of protein, veggies, and so on you can get infinite variations out of this.
If you use a curry paste omit pretty much all the spices and seasonings. A good curry paste is a complete set of flavors.
