What am I, new? Of course I know what a Dutch oven is. I just appreciate the actual (not slang) Dutch oven more than your average bear. True story: the first time I cooked biscuits and gravy was in a Dutch oven cooked over charcoal briquettes.
You are is WA now, right? We used to have state run liquor stores here. A couple (3 or 4?) of years ago an intuitive passed to abolish the state system, and that crazy high tax was part of the compromise to keep the government coffers nice and full. I live close enough to Idaho that people will drive there to hit up the liquor stores because after the insane taxes it is cheaper to buy in ID.
I'm on the other side of the state from you - but I can see how people crossing state lines is a thing. I don't mind too much, after taxes I pay what I'd pay back home. Or just go on post.
My friend's younger brother is an excellent chef and very ambitious with foodstuffs. Brews his own beer/cider, makes wine, has hosted a variety of seafood bakes and boils, and makes any variety of awesome meat preps. Well about a year ago he decided to cure his own bacon. Let's just say the food poisoning that he and his roommates got would have seemed right at home in a scene from The Ten Commandments. Got the timing and recipe juuussssttt a bit wrong
Household injuries to ruin your day: - stubbing toe in bed post/coffee table/sprinkler - scraping hands on low popcorn ceiling - hitting head on edge of open cupboard door - raking knuckles on jamb while carrying laundry basket through doorway - forgetting there's one more stair and landing with locked knee - stepping on punched-through carpet tacking
I've kept my fingers crossed on the fresh sausage I've made. What gets me is the fermented cabbage I've made. Taste 10 times better than store bought. I don't care how much people claim the benefits of fermented food on your gut biome, the diarrhea is purging toxins, toxins you've ingested making fermented food.
I'm interested in curing not bc I want to it's just on tv they make it seem like any moron can do it. Get meat, apply salt or smoke, let hang in a drafty room. Success right?
It's been two years since I worked at PP, but I have a lifelong appointment as the go-to teacher, counselor, and nurse for all things related to sex health for everyone I know and their future children. So, even though it's been two years, I can still run into situations like the following, where my coworker can come up behind me and say, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to read your text but you telling someone to 'Get dem cervix cells scraped, girl' WAS in all caps, and I have some questions."
I'd be more pissed at the fact they are snooping your phone behind your back. What type of psycho does that? All caps or no.
So, I'm trying to figure out how this could have happened and I can only imagine two scenarios: either they didn't cure the bacon long enough AND THEN decided to eat the uncured meat raw, or they used way too much curing salt and almost killed themselves. The latter of which is way more common. I had to throw out a whole belly once after I realized I used 2 tbsp. of pink salt when curing instead of 2 tsp. Don't fuck around when it comes to nitrite poisoning kids.
You beat me to it. Some restaurants keep the pink salt under lock and key for this very reason, and because dumbass, glue-sniffing cooks mistake it for normal salt and use it on line.
So curing really isn't that hard then? I know doing it well is something different but doing it well enough to not poison yourself?
Yeah, as long as you can follow a basic recipe, it's not terribly complicated. Whole muscle cures, such as a pork belly for bacon, or a shoulder to make capicolla are going to be a lot easier than things like sausages or dried salumi since those typically involve ground meats which greatly increases your chance of contamination. With something like curing a pork belly, you technically don't even need to use pink curing salt, but it won't really look or taste like what you traditionally think of for bacon, since the curing salt is what gives it both that bacon taste as well as preserves the color of the meat. Another thing, for bacon at least, is that you're really doing the cure with the meat inside of a fridge, so you're not really getting it into a position where it's in the danger zone temperature wise (40*-140* Fahrenheit) for bacteria to grow. Pretty much once the cure is done, you can go straight from the fridge and into the smoker once you rinse the meat. From there you just smoke it to an internal temp of 155-160 and then you're all set. For example, my coffee & molasses bacon rub is only 5 ingredients 2 teaspoons of pink curing salt #1 3 tablespoons of kosher salt 1/4 cup of molasses 3 tablespoons ground coffee 1/2 cup sugar Just mix all of that together and rub it all over your belly, store it in a Ziploc bag, then refrigerate for 7-10 days, flipping the bag every other day.
I have watched this about 5 times, and it's awesome each time. Free throw, rebound, long shot. https://www.instagram.com/p/BRG35kelN2G/