Atlanta Underground Market 01/29/12

Towards the end of January we had another opportunity to participate in the Atlanta Underground Market. Unlike all the previous markets, including the one that we had done, this was going to take place on a Sunday at Brunch time. All the others had been Saturday evenings. We felt like whatever we may have learned about the diners' habits last time might be thrown out the window with such a change!

Piccalilli and Henderson's Relish

This next market took place in a Midtown location even more centralized than the previous. For this market we kept with the original charcuterie+offal plan and we upped the ante by one more dish for variety. Our charcuterie dish requirement could technically be met by any of the three dishes we did that night. The last job I had before leaving Chicago was at Pleasant House Bakery, an English themed savory pie shop on the Southside. So I chose a couple dishes I had done there. First was a sandwich of English Rashers (back-bacon) served on H&F BreadCo. ciabatta with a piccalilli, another saucy pickled vegetable topping that is popular across the pond. This sandwich is traditionally called a Bacon Butty. I was first exposed to it as such when I staged at St. John Bread & Wine in London (served there with ketchup, the piccalilli came on something different).

Atlanta Underground Market 01/07/12

In my research into Atlanta when Rebecca and I started considering a move to The South I came across a monthly event meant to bring home cooks to a common area to share their goodies. The Atlanta Underground Market was a place where non-licensed cooks could go and sell/share their treats with those who were willing to look past legal requirements and rules for selling food to the public. To do so, attendees had to sign a waiver agreeing that they knew what they were getting themselves in to. They couldn't hold anyone responsible for anything that might have gone wrong, and in exchange they got to try foods that might not have been available from regular restaurants around town. Organizer Michaela Graham was big on unusual foods (bugs, offal, etc) and was really pushing for those foods. But she seemed to find a plethora of baking goddesses instead!

We went to our first AUM in November. It was held in a church gymnasium in a near-south suburb of ATL. There was a good deal of everything available from the approximately 30 vendors there that night. A couple were already legal local restaurants and caterers, others were immigrants cooking their comfort foods and some were actually cooking up some offal dishes. I loved what I saw and enjoy (almost) everything we ate that night. We wanted in! After contacting Michaela and ironing out some details (she didn't want direct competition with her charcuterie guy though there were 3 cupcake-esque joints there that night) we were welcomed into the next event. Since we were going to be out of state for the next event, we signed up for the January date.

The Booth

Argentine Chorizo with a Chilean

Rebecca and I are, for the most-part, American mutts. I can trace my Gaelic heritage somewhat easily with a name like Darrin Patrick McCowan, but I also know of French, German and Crow Indian roots. Rebecca's bloodline includes Polish, French and English (of Anne Hathaway fame even). But our good friends back in Chicago, Monica and Christian are much closer to their foreign roots. Monica is a first-generation American born to Polish parents while Christian was born in Washington DC to Chilean parents. So I will admit I was caught a little off-guard when Christian asked me to make an Argentine Chorizo for him. I imagine it was mostly because the differences between this and a Chilean version were minimal and there aren't any recipes floating around for a more specific version from Chile.

Cooked Coppa: Fauxppa?

Traditional Coppa is an Italian dry-cured and air-dried ham-style whole muscle that is thinly sliced and enjoyed by itself or perhaps on a sandwich. The muscle is traditionally located in the neck, starting in the shoulder and running to the head. The term coppa actually means nape in Italian. When I ordered a whole skin-on shoulder I was excited to find the coppa muscle almost entirely in-tact. I hopped on the chance to make a version I had recently learned about, but unlike the traditional method, this one uses a brine instead of a dry-cure and is slowly poached instead of air-dried. Otherwise, all of the techniques are the same.

The shoulder I received was larger than a typical commodity shoulder that arrives two in a vac-packed bag. This was again from Slagel Family Farms and included the front end of the rib cage and the neck bone. The piece I would trim out for this coppa would include the butt end of the loin.

Great Find: Bar-B-Que: Luella's Asheville, NC

(a continuation from my Asheville post)

Luella's Bar-B-Que came up in one of the online articles I found during an initial search for good eats in Asheville. It caught my attention, not because of its locally sourced FtT concept (Product of Buncombe Co.), but because they use the same pig drawing in their logo that I use for the LotH tweets. So after reading through the menu it instantly made it on the list. But it was the only BBQ on the must-see list. The bellman at the Inn hadn't even heard of it when we asked. Should we worry? Naw.

Goodbye Ronald, hello homemade breakfast sausage!

I don't do fast food too often. My developed tastes and increased conscience have led me away from a one-time big-hitter in my culinary repertoire. But lately not many box restaurants can pull me in. The biggest winner for a long time has been Arby's. I just love their juicy roast beef sandwiches. My fave is still the Bacon, Beef and Cheddar. And I may never want to give it up. Especially when you pair it with their curly fries with more cheese sauce and a Mt. Dew. The only other thing that calls my name regularly is a sausage and cheese biscuit for breakfast from McD's. and at a buck, it so easy. So I decided to just start making these myself at home every week and microwaving one or two every morning. So sorry Ronald, the only thing you have left for me is your fries on special occasions!

Round 2 'Nduja update.

So after the four days of fermentation in my chamber (oven) it was time to get some smoke onto these 32 'nduja monsters. The pH had dropped below 5.0 in the first 24 hours after stuffing and fermentation began, and was down to 4.6 in less than 48 hours so I felt good about food safety. I did a week straight of daily smoking with hickory wood. Because I don't have a cold smoker I simply waited for the full blast of smoke from my propane smoker to hit and threw these guys in and killed the gas, in two rounds, for 15-20 minutes a day. Everyday before I smoked them I cooled them down in my fridge for an hour beforehand and returned them for another hour to cool back down slightly. Each day our apartment smelled like the best smoky Slim-Jims you've never eaten. This was great for me, Rebecca wasn't so excited! After the week and a half of fermentation and smoking it was time to see their new home, my recently built drying rack at Emily and Henning's.

Round 2: Kinda quick 'Nduja

As part of our culinary offerings for our wedding in May, I am getting to do a cheese and charcuterie table. I have to admit that I am a bit pressed for time in preparing the things I am offering, so I have to take the 6 week time-frame into account. I do think that this might be just enough time for a decent 'nduja, a quick version. You might have read about the lack of success with my first attempt. It was far from notable with it having over-dried and having a bizarre graininess. But as I eluded to in that last post, I have a couple fixes that I am banking on working out. Most importantly, my friends Emily and Henning (the same couple for whom I prepared the pulled shoulder) have recently moved. It just so happens that they have a room seemingly ideal for some charcuterie drying! And being a meat lover, Henning is happily accepting my offer of products in payment for his space and occasional tending to the goods (checking temperature, weight and refilling humidifier)!

Instead of beating a dead horse, I'll quickly remind you what wasn't right with the last batch: dry, grainy and it was rather mildly-porky in taste. So I changed the meat composition, peppers, added a controlled drying process, improved the pork quality and fermented this batch. And thus far they are looking much better, though I felt the last batch held good potential at the start. Since I wanted a large enough batch to give to friends as well as offer at the wedding, I ended up with a 24 pound batch, that should yield around 16 pounds in final product! The composition of this batch is:

3 parts Shoulder
2 parts fatback
1 part belly
9% hot pepper puree
9% sweet pepper puree
9% hot pepper powder
4.5% sweet pepper powder
Bactoferm™ F-RM-52 as directed (6g for my recipe)
.1 % cure #2
1% salt

Pulling your leg, err, butt.

Some friends of ours recently made the purchase of their first home. Unfortunately it came with an electric range/oven. So Rebecca came up with the idea that since it won't be installed for two weeks that we make them some food as a house warming gift. They have a lot of work ahead of them, unpacking, putting together 2 trips worth of Ikea furniture, etc. And since they both have full-time gigs, they will be plenty busy. One of the many things we have decided to make was some pulled pork. Henning, the husband, is a German born, French (Alsatian) raised meat lover, so this was my gift for him in a way!

I started with a 7# shoulder piece and split it in half, kinda following the split that was started from removing the bone. I brined it overnight with salt, maple syrup, mixed peppercorns, yellow and black mustard seeds. The next day I made a dry rub of hot italian powdered peppers, sweet paprika, garlic powder, salt, fresh black pepper, ground clove, ground guajillo pepper and onion powder. After patting the shoulder dry I liberally rubbed the spices in and let it hang out for 30 minutes.