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CRW_6825

I have been working on this Bresaola now for, er, 7 weeks in total. That is the longest time, by a country mile, I have worked on any one piece of food.

Each day, I would go down to the garage and check it. Check temperature, check humidity. Heck, most days I would do it twice.

But, alas. It was not enough. The bresaola now resides in the trash can.

And here is the kicker… It is most likely completely safe to eat. However, most likely isn’t good enough for me when I run the risk of either poisoning or killing myself or guests.

So what happened? What went wrong?

Well. A couple of weeks ago I noticed what looked like black mold on it. During the course of its curing (hanging) it has had white fuzzy, and green mold. These can be wiped off with vinegar, without too much alarm.

Black stuff however is nasty. Puke your guts up, or kill you nasty. The problem is, that it was so bloody hard to tell. The outside of the meat turns really dark during curing (those areas not covered in the white powder mold) – so was these round black areas in the middle of white mold just meat, or something more sinister?

For me, the novice at curing, it just wasn’t worth the risk. I did seek some advice. Some nutters just said cut it out and it will be fine. Others said junk it. Some said “cut it open when it is done, and sniff it – if it smells bad, throw it out”.

I just don’t want to risk it. As one friendly help said “It isn’t a sin to bin”. How right they are.

But that wasn’t it.

The bresaola developed what is called “case hardening”. During the first few days of hanging the meat, the humidity was pretty low. Down at 50%. Ideally you want the humidity between 60-70%. Too low humidity means that the outside of the meat dries out quickly, forming a crust – trapping the moisture in in the inside of the meat in – meaning the inside of the meat won’t dry out properly.

This is obviously completely my fault. I didn’t realise how important the right humidity was.

I fixed the humidity problem by wrapping that rodent cage surrounding the meat in plastic wrap, and putting a pan of salt water under the meat. But it was too late, the damage had been done.

This was meant to hang for about 3 weeks – it would then be pretty hard to the touch. Even after 5 weeks it still wasn’t that hard – the outside felt hard, but when you squeezed it the inside seemed soft. Not good.

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Before throwing out the bresaola I cut into it, just to take a look at it.   This is it above. Looks bloody fantastic doesn’t it? Well, it was obvious that there was some case hardening. Most of the slices showed a really dark ring around the outside (where the meat had really dried out, forming that crust I was talking about), and the inside was still too squishy – not quite raw meat squishy, but not cured meat texture either.

I so badly wanted to taste it. But no. Not risking it.

So, there lies the end of my bresaola experiment.

I am not going to bullshit you, I am sad. This was a really fun experiment, and I was so hoping it would come out right. It wasn’t even the money spent on the meat to be honest.. I just really wanted this to turn out – from a cook’s perspective – how awesome is it that you can just bathe some meat in salt (and a few other things), hang it in air for a while, and its flavor and texture is completely changed?

This failure however hasn’t quenched my desire to cure meat.. Heck, it has fueled it if anything. But, I am going to invest in some more equipment to help out.

Namely, a fridge. To go into my garage. With an external temperature controller, I can create the near perfect environment in a small fridge to cure meat.

My next experiment? DUCK PROSCUITTO.

I am going to try two different duck breasts – one from a natural grocery store, and one Magret duck breast – the breast of a fat duck (the breed raised for foie gras). The magret should give a far deeper flavor I would think – but only one way to find out. It should be fun.

Anyone have a mini fridge they don’t want? (and live in Seattle..)

(collard greens, mushrooms, proscuitto, apple brandy and sage on toast.. and a great DeBuyer carbon steel pan)

So much to say.

This has been a shitter of a week. WOW. I swore in the second sentence on this post. That is a first I think, even for me. I normally wait till at least the fifth paragraph!

Drake has been sick. Really sick. 104.5F fever and chest X-Ray sick. The most nerve-racking week of my life for sure. Thankfully we have the most amazing pediatrician that ever was, and Drake is now feeling much better.

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A fellow food blogger, and all round lovely person Leah, over at SpicySaltySweet left me a comment asking how the Bresaola was going.

“Well”, I thought, “I should do a blog post on that”. Why? you ask – well, I have learnt quite a bit about meat curing in the last two weeks, and quite a bit about myself in the same period too.

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Maybe this is a British thing, but there often isn’t anything better than some lovely soft cheese, a decent slice of bread, and some great chutney. Pair it with a glass of wine and you have a lunch fit for champions.

My love affair with chutney really started back in England, in my early twenties. A friend and I every weekend would go off for a walk through the countryside, chew the fat a bit (talk a bunch of complete crap), get thoroughly lost, but somehow always manage to end up at a pub.. Actually if you have been to England you will know it isn’t too hard to always end up a pub.

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Home cured Bresaola

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Yep, that is right folks. I am attempting to attract every rodent in the greater Seattle area to my basement.

Just kidding.

I have been wanting to try something new for a while. I cook fish. I cook meat. I cook a ton of vegetables every week. The one thing I have never ever done is tried curing my own meat. The closest I have come is with bringing pork and turkey.

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Dearie’s Fish Pie

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You remember Dearie right? No? She is my mother…. I did a post a while back about cooking with her when my folks were here for a long visit. Oh, and then there was the post about us cooking Meringues together too.

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I have mulling this one over in my head for a while now. I have been thinking of ideas for simple appetizers, or even an amuse bouche  that had the flavor intensity that I love with autumn, but a really clean light taste.

Sage is one of my favorite autumn herbs. Rich, deep, but yet floral, and sometimes with almost a citrus undertone to it. It adds this lovely almost smokiness to dishes, and really gives a certain robustness. Cook some with a little proscuitto and butternut squash, and have the basis for a lovely little quick pasta dish that just shouts fallen leaves, dew, and scarves.

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Ahhh, the Cornish Pasty. Actually, you will note I haven’t called this a “Cornish Pasty”. I certainly don’t want a self respecting Cornish person to come and lynch me in the middle of the night.

A cornish pasty is traditionally made with beef, and anything else otherwise certainly wouldn’t be a Cornish Pasty.

But, much like Bouillabaisse, and countless other “heritage” dishes, the Cornish Pasty has so many bastard variations it just ain’t funny. So, all you Cornishmen out there – this is my bastard version.. come get me.

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Recently I have been thinking quite a bit about classic dishes from my English past. Unfortunately these thoughts aren’t always good. We all know the stories about English food. Certainly nothing sexy. But, I honestly think that Brit-food gets a bad rap. Sure, the traditional stuff was super heavy and rich – but a lot has to be said for modern British cuisine. Actually, sod it, a lot has to be said for the classics too – all they take is a bit of re-interpretation.

So, I am going to be visiting a few classic dishes from my past, and putting my spin on them.

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en Papillote is just French for “cooking in parchment” which normally refers to baking a bunch of ingredients together in a parchment parcel. It is all very dramatic to be honest, especially when guests open up the parchment for themselves at the table. Of course, the drama is heightened further if you don’t tell anyone what is in the parcels. Looks around the table for peoples expressions – some shock, some delight. Then of course, there are those people that just forget this is straight out the oven, and open the thing with their face RIGHT over the bag. Opps, steam burn for you!

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Pinky to the corner of your mouth folks.. It is mini-post time!! (a short post, with few pictures, but still dead interesting!)

Again, more simple, rustic food. YAY!

So, those that didn’t get grossed out by the terrine post before (apparently quite a few people don’t like pate! nutters), I also served up a hunking great lump of pork to the veggers. I promised some more info on it, so here we go.

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Yes folks, that is correct. I served a game terrine, and a slow roasted pork shoulder to a group of vegetarians. But wait.. this is more than my rather sick, twisted sense of humor (come on.. it is kinda funny).

I wanted to test run a few recipes for a party I am throwing in the new year. The problem is that I really needed a large group of people to do this for, since the party is for a decent sized group of people.

“Well”, I thought… “we are having our parenting (PEPs) group over for some Halloween fun, I could hijack that in the name of food testing”. And so my evil scheme was underway.

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OK, perhaps the longest dish title I have had on my blog so far. It sounds like there is a lot going on here, but there really isn’t – It is actually a rather simple dish, with a lot of really robust flavor to it.

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New blog title image!

Delete your caches and reload the page! A new Autumn inspired (well, not that Autumn inspired come to think of it) Wrightfood title image is up.

And yes, that is my arm on the right!

OK.. the presentation kinda sucks with this one. But bare with me, this was something special indeed.

When we were at Sea Breeze Farm a couple of weeks ago (see previous post). I heard the M word, shouted out from the owner, in the kitchen. In most kitchens, that M word starts with “mother” and ends in… well you get it. Not here though. George said that magical word “Mutton”.

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This is going to be a long post.. Sit down and get comfy.

YEP, we are back from our holidays. Two weeks of fun with our little lad Drake. Much needed I must add. The first week of vacation was spent in California, visiting family, friends, and going to Disneyland.

The second week is what I want to talk about. One of the most amazing, and simply most enjoyable weeks of my life.

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Yep, we are back from LA. A great time was had by all, especially Drake at Disneyland. Holy cow that kid wore us out. I had my reservations about whether Disneyland was going to be good for a 21month old lad.. I was wrong, it was just perfect. If he breaks down and starts screaming – so what? There was 3 other kids in earshot all the time doing just the same.

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Dandelion leaves. These have always been one of my favorite greens to prepare. Maybe it has some sadistic pleasure in cooking up something that I always seem to be yanking out of our lawn. Maybe it is the fact that they taste great, and are one of the healthiest greens you can eat.

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So WhiteonRiceCouple got me thinking (bloody hell, can I ever do a post without mentioning them?). I have a ridiculously talented and completely gorgeous wife, and I have never really talked about her on my blog. That strikes me as a little rude to be honest, so here.. I am fixing that. I might be many things, but I don’t reckon I am rude.

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I am still on cloud nine to be honest. The party hosted by WhiteonRice is still in my darn head, and I cannot get it out. Dani and I finally met the awesome couple, and can now call them friends. I am honored. The only bugger is they are in California, and we are in Seattle, so I cannot invite them over for dinner every weekend!! They managed to assemble such a fabulous range of bloggers, that are truly inspirational – it is no wonder I cannot stop thinking about that wonderful sunny afternoon in California.

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Nutty, nutty stuff. I was swearing like squadie last night I can tell you. I haven’t had a huge amount of scary things happen in my life. A really nasty bike accident in my teenage years, and that is about it.. Oh, Danika going into labor was pretty bloody scary (but exciting) too.

I type up a blog post last night, and submit it. 500 Internal Server Error. Bastards. I try again. Fuckers.

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OK - link first: http://whiteonricecouple.com/blog/?p=337

So, what is this post all about? No picture straight off??… Wait, no pictures at all!!! Has Matt lost his fingers? Wait, he is still able to type, so that cannot be so.

Danika and I had to go down to Southern California for some business, and we managed to wangle it (thanks work!) so that it would be around the time of a food bloggers party, hosted by the completely brilliant Diane and Todd - or as most know them White on Rice Couple

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It takes a certain kind of bloody idiot to want to roast a chicken in 90F weather. It takes an even bigger idiot to think “wouldn’t it be great to roast three of them!!”

That’s me folks. Some of Danika’s family were coming over to dinner. One I would describe as a picky eater. The last time I cooked for them it seemed like almost everything that was on their plate was something they didn’t like. That was my bad – I didn’t ask before cooking (but in my defense, it wasn’t any freaky ingredients).

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Seafood Paella

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I have been having seafood withdrawals recently. It has actually been quite a while now since I have really cooked up a decent amount of ocean fair.

This post, you see, is actually out of order. I have a great roast chicken post to do, which actually got “made” before this one. The problem is that there is a video associated with that, which is taking me a sodding age to edit, because I have realized that I am remarkably crap on camera.

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Talk about a taste of summer. This is a really fantastic little recipe from Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray owners/chefs of the amazing London River Cafe. I have one of their cookbooks - “Italian Two Easy”, and it is brilliant. Effortlessly simple, but just striking food that you will honestly remember for years. Much like their restaurant!

So this was a quick lunch today. I am working from home, to spend a little more time with the family, and decided I would do this recipe again. For the last couple of summers we would have this at least once every two weeks – when tomatoes and zucchini’s are great.

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