Hey good lookin', what's cookin'?

Quote:

Magoo, I keep doing goose every year because the family demands it! But it was nice introducing my friends' preteens to something new.

Good enough reason.  I'd demand it too!

Quote:

The duck cassoulet sounds amazing.

I can't complain.  I was initially regretting having used the duck frame for the stock that I used for the dumplings, but then I remembered that I had a few chicken thigh bones in the freezer, and for some reason had saved the duck wings -- a meagre banquet if ever there was one -- so I used them all to make the stock for the cassoulet, and I still had the drums to throw in for meat, along with a piece of smoked slab bacon from a Portuguese butcher.

Also, ALL my bean dishes that call for a plain white bean got a "level up" when I switched from navies and haricots to Great Northerns.  You wouldn't think that a bean that's the same size, shape and colour could be a game changer, but they really are. 

Quote:

Seems like duck is in vogue this year.

The first good news for 2018.  Bring it.

Tomorrow I plan to make some stock from the frame of today's chicken, so that the next day I can make some chicken congee.  My wife's workplace recently had a nice holiday lunch at a good Dim Sum place, and I had proper congee for the first time and now I really, really need to make some.  Also, I had some chicken feet.

Kim Jong Un obsessed with scientific kimchi-making

Quote:

On the outskirts of Pyongyang, surrounded by snow-covered farms and greenhouses, stands one of Kim’s latest pet projects, the Ryugyong Kimchi Factory, which produces 4,200 tons of the iconic Korean pickled vegetable dish a year. The shiny new facility replaces an older factory and opened in June last year after getting Kim’s final seal of approval, according to manager Paek Mi Hye.

I wasn't sure whether to put this in the North Korea thread or here.  :)

Nothing wrong with taking a modern approach to kimchi.  Like many North Americans (I'm guessing) the first I ever heard of kimchi was from watching M*A*S*H, when Frank dug up some kimchi crocks and thought they were bombs, but it's not stoneware pots buried by the shed any more.  Some Koreans actually buy dedicated kimchi fridges, most of which will have a fermentation program that maintains optimum temperature for lactofermentation, then drops the temperature for optimum storage when it's done.  Deluxe models will even have several compartments, so one can be fermenting, one can be storing, etc.  And if nothing else, I suppose it fixes the issue of your regular fridge smelling like a landfill for a few days. 

This year for Xmas, Mrs. M. gave me a sweet book on fermentation -- fruits, veggies, meats, fish, everything -- so it's a safe bet that I'll be letting stuff "rot" for most of 2018.  I've got a litre of sauerkraut on the go on my countertop (started before the book), and I recently made some fermented hot sauce, but any new thing gets me curious.

Did you get the beluga lentils at Bulk Barn?

Because I once got some at Bulk Barn.  And ya, I think they got their name from being little round black things.  Surely other cultures have less evocative names for them (black lentils springs to mind).

They were good enough, for sure, but I still favour Moong Dal (split and hulled mung beans) for most of my lentil stuff, becaue they cook down to a tender slurry before you can even rinse the spoon.

Quote:

I made some more curtido, with red cabbage this time. It is less pickled and fermented than sauerkraut or kimchi, but keeps far better than a fresh cabbage slaw.

And should you ever forget some in the north-west corner of the bottom shelf of the fridge, it can be exactly as pickled and fermented as sauerkraut or kimchi (though, to be fair, kimchi has a huge head start from the fish sauce).

I've currently got on my countertop some sauerkraut (about six months?), some fermented chard stems (four?) and some kosher dills (about two and a half).  All good for you, and very digestible (once the Lactobacilli do the heavy lifting).  Knowing how easy they all are to make, I do sometimes wonder about "probiotic" pills, the same way that when I grill up some salmon and savour the skin I wonder about "fish oil" capsules, or "omega fatty acid" supplements.

Quote:

Bulk Barn is not such a great deal, except on a few items like plain peanuts.

Sadly true.  Though I do appreciate their typically diverse selection of stuff, and being able to buy as little of something as I want.   If I'm eager to try (let's say) a recipe that calls for a bit of chickpea flour, I don't necessarily want to buy a five pound bag at the supermarket.

I have one.  It's a superfluous gadget that's worth it.  :)

My wife gave it to me last year for my birthday, and TBH I worried that it would collect dust in a cupboard, but it's actually got a permanent place and I use it all the time.  A quick stock is as easy as some chicken bones, water and veg, press a button, and 45 minutes later I'm making soup.  Beans are also easy -- about 25 minutes for most, and 30 for big ol' kidney beans.  I've also started using it more for gnarly cuts of meat (partly since my FreshCo sells beef belly dirt cheap), and it cooks the meat to nearly fork tender in about 30 minutes.

It doesn't do anything your regular pressure cooker doesn't do, but it does it better and easier and more consistently.  If you see one on sale, and you've got a bit of counter space, I highly recommend one, but if you're trying to do a Marie Kondo thing in your kitchen then maybe not. 

Amusing story:  when I first opened it up the instructions suggested putting some water into it and running it through a half hour pressure cycle to test/clean it and when I did I was kind of worried it might be broken.  I filled it, pressed the button, heard the bleeps, but nothing else seemed to be happening.  When I opened it 30 minutes later, it had clearly gone through its cycle, but being microprocessor controlled it had never overheated, so there was none of the usual intermittent blasts of pressure out the release vent that you get with pressure cooking on the stove.  When it's in use it literally seems like nothing more than a huge digital timer.  No noise, no steam, no radiated heat... it just counts down and then your food is done.

As it happens, I haven't really tried out the slow cooker functionality yet, but if it does a reasonable job of the slow cooking part, the programmability might give it a leg up over my old first generation "crock pot".   Being able to set everything up to turn on overnight or before arriving home could be handy.  The "keep warm" function is also nice.

You can get a ceramic pot and non-pressure lid for the IP, and it's pretty reasonably priced, as stuff like that goes.

In other foodie news, I finally saw "plant based" "meat" for sale in the supermarket -- Beyond Meat brand, the company everyone's talking about.

It looked kind of interesting, patties made of a chunky slurry of soylent pink, resembling meat but not quite.  I'll probably pick up a couple just to find out what the state of the art is for meatless meat, but I'll wait until the price comes down.  Right now, two quarter pound patties will set you back $8, which works out to $16 a pound.  I can get regular ground beef for two, and lean ground for four, so I don't really see these getting snapped up by parents of large families, or anyone on a budget or anything like that.