What a productive day! Our buffet is really starting to come along. All of our cures, brines, and charcuterie is progressing right on schedule. As a team, we continued to follow our daily task list in order to get done everything we need to accomplish. I love this part of level four because we are learning how to make all different sorts of recipes/techniques that are aside from the fu-fu fancy stuffy French techniques. Thank the heavens that I haven’t had to make cocottes or macedoine vegetables! Finally moving on to the meat and potatoes of cooking!
I was all over the place today helping, but really focused on my BBQ sauce for the brisket. I gathered ALL the spices and liquids that I needed to use in order to get my sauce to the right flavor profile. I feel like I used everything on the spice rack. I’m talking garlic powder, brown sugar, chilli powder, chilli sauce, ketchup, Worchester sauce , paprika, pepper, onions, garlic, maple syrup, lemon juice, tomato sauce, vinegar, among others—can’t remember off the top of my head. Oh and Noah told me that his mom takes a cup of already made coffee and uses it in her bbq, so guess what I did. I went down to level 4 and got a cup of already brewed coffee and dumped that in my pan. I let my sauce cook- low and slow- for a while until it reached the perfect consistency and taste. I did a lot of tasting and adjusted the seasoning accordingly until my bbq sauce was the perfect amount of tangy to sweet to spicy. Once my BBQ sauce was done, I poured it into a Bain Marie (metal container), so that I could cool it down. As I was doing this, BBQ sauce squirted in my eye and nearly blinded me with the acid! I had to rush to the sink. I also got all my ingredients ready for tomorrow, so that when it comes down to cooking my brisket, I am all ready to go.
Julie and Lashandra were busy using the “dick” (ironic that the sausage machine is called “dick”) to pump out their spicy Italian sausages. Julie also made steamed buns for our pork belly meat! I watched her make it while I was preparing my bbq sauce and she took me through each step, so that one day I’d be able to do it all by myself. Who doesn’t love an amazing steamed bun- filled with anything your heart desires!
Jack and I took out the cured ham we prepared and decided to rub our dry rub all over it. Jack scored the ham while I grinded up all our spices. Jack had a recipe, but we barely used it hahha. For our rub, we measured out the ingredients by eye and chose what spices we wanted to use. We chose cinnamon, brown sugar, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, chipotle chili flakes, and garlic powder. We probably added more, but I forget which ones. Remember Jack’s recipe is called a Maple Chipotle Ham- fabulous balance of sweet and spice. Once, the ham was scored, I took the gloves and started rubbing the ham first with maple syrup and left over chili sauce and then took the dry rub and smeared it right on top! Jack and I were having fun attacking the ham with love- maybe we even gave it a little too much love because the rub was dripping down from all sides. Tomorrow we are going to hopefully smoke it! I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Spicy regards,
Eliana