Butter making (room in a packed xmas food fridge) .my xmas is seat of yer pants stuff

[Mr Gus]

Made butter today, xmas is a fantastic time to get overstock of whipping cream (36%) ..I snaffled 4 litres, for a quid total.
Anyone with a decent food mixer n' balloon whisk, one of those fine mesh fruit bags & a large bowl for chilled ice water can make it easily (if time to spare)

However DON'T believe all the youtube malarkey abbout it only taking 10 minutes start to finish, that's BS (no, not Butter Sticks) even with a food processor (kenwood chef titanium for us) it takes.its merry time, i've yet to weigh the results let alone flavour it as it got too late, but I did enjoy a few small glasses of buttermilk & sadly no room for more than 1litre of it to be used (pancakes)

Ifyou leave it unwatched you make bad butter, (not catching it at point of separation) rancidity from the buttermilk is why it needs squeezing in ice cold water
Satisfying & very much lighter & creamier than the regular supermarket fare, & making your own does give you an idea of why it is priced at £2 a pack for even the basic stuff, gives you a bit of "fair do's" when it takes you multiple hours to produce a few packs worth.

Didn't fancy going down the pub & drinking a questionable pint in a crowded false bonhomie covid sketchy environ with the inevitability bladdered folk, & the ones who only pour in at xmas, so making space for the 10 hr sous vide lamb leg in a bowl of iced water & getting another 40 or so pickled eggs in a 3 vinegar mix done & dusted tonight was a no brainer.

Early start tomorrow cooking decent amount of steamed rice to dry for boxing day & sous viding more fridge s*** so I can air dry it properly
..is it overkill to sous vide pigs in blankets? & a beef joint, yes for the love of *rice* it is thank goodness for the uniformity of takeaway rice containers en masse.

Tomorrow I hope to remember to light the bbq to cold smoke, because its just another day of no snow & not being abroad in it.
Of the weather is good, chainsaw a few logs maybe.

If you are participating in the xmas frenzy, have a good one, it's just not for me, avoidance wherever possible.

It's just a Sunday lunch, so don't stress. & if you are you need to consider paring it back.

Have fun, if xmas is your schtick, stay covid free, see you back here when the boredom sets in

Boxing day, will be spent fine tuning special fried rice with crispy pork with my new can of kadoya japanese sesame oil, "uncle roger" would be proud

NSFW "wideo"

[Mr Gus]

Tomorrow is salting day, a nice garlic salt & the rest normal "I think"
Creamy as hell..

Entertaining video from a french / french canadian ? chef who sounds like he's in a liddle idaly environ.

"budda" ..

[Mr Gus]

After years of jokingly being offered siracha, & not a fan of hot, not even mild fruity cholula, it turns out that izzy tuned in to korean Gochujang sauce on some korean stylee chicken yeserday ...& followed it up today with hot rice chili shredded chicken ..amazed, ..so have to pack her back off to plymouth with a litre of Gochujang in a glass parfait jar.

(fermented red bean paste is main ingredient, simple to make & keeps well, make as spicy or mild as you like).To quote the daughter "...ive got to find a few things to go with all that bloody rice you bought" (30kg) ..kid yet to realise how hills take their toll on heavy shopping without a car, lugging food up the snowy hills in resort when your legs are already burning from the hill, etc.

Apart from the fermented bean curd it's likely many of us have the rest as cupboard staples..


Speaking of parfait type jars, it's that post xmas opportunity to buy filled for the price of empty, ..currently Lidl are doing 2 parfait jars of salmon pate / regular pork pates at £5 for 2 ..which if you are concocting smaller amounts of sauces oils etc are handy to have around, ..back in the late summer I paid as much, maybe more for an empty jar, between £2.35- £2.75 at QD stores, ..so filled with salmon pate for toast is a no brainer, thick glass & rubber gasket, decent wire surround & locking mechanism.

[Mr Gus]

Update: Jars bear the "parfait" logo, so definite quality + salmon for £2.50 a pop, great value, the 200g size is stackable & ideal for repurposing as cooks ingredients jars for those sesame seeds etc
Effectively from their terrine range, 70 mm gasket, which is most common within the lower volume end of the range.

https://leparfait.co.uk/products/le-par ... 1997683785

[AE-NMidlands]

Update: Jars bear the "parfait" logo, so definite quality + salmon for £2.50 a pop, great value, the 200g size is stackable & ideal for repurposing as cooks ingredients jars for those sesame seeds etc
Effectively from their terrine range, 70 mm gasket, which is most common within the lower volume end of the range.

https://leparfait.co.uk/products/le-par ... 1997683785

Those are a bit too wide and squat for our needs and so thay take up too much space. We have over 30 Tomato Puree jars with seeds and ground curry spices in, not to mention a few old (refilled) Rajah brand tins of chilli powder, garam masala, ginger, plus small bottles of cloves, asafoetida etc. Plus top-up bags of ground and seed spices in big old ice-cream tubs stacked on another shelf.

Le Parfait are good for fruit etc though, also the small ones for holding nibbles peanuts airtight when you open a big bag.
Most of our fruit is in (very) old Kilner jars though as you can get more than 1 in a pressure cooker!
A

[Mr Gus]

Yeah, I get you on the width, unless you have super deep spice shelfs they are limiting.

Then again looking at what we have as unnecessary essentials, I ought clear out the unused & just use 16 or so of these tbh.
At least they fridge stack sauces well.

I will be going backto get a few more, (if available) nice on waitrose seeded oatcakes & a pack does you as lunchtime fodder.

Wonder how many just end up as jars to recycle

[Mr Gus]

As per recipe but tentatively bought the "mild" ssamjang (green tub) of mixed soy bean paste followed the recipe using my decent sesame (30 ml) as one ingredient, cheap light soy sauce (mayfloer brand), 2.5 regular teaspoons / 1 Tbls white granulated sugar, & rice vinegar (it can do without this imho)

All ingredients in a pyrex lab style glass measure, stirred with a knife.
Runny sauce, dare I say too mild so added another 1/4 cup of mild ssamyang (well actually 1/8 then another 1/8 cup) ..result is 200ml runny sauce with a delicious light kick which remained on my tongue 30 mins later ..yum.

The high quality of the sadoya toasted sesame oil really stands out, use 15ml, then add same again after tasting if you think its needed.

I'd be happy to do some chicken wings or satay sticks with this & give them to a youngster, plenty of flavour & all the other ingredients tamp down the heat of the ssamyang mild, so much sesame flavour in this if ou don't buy crappy supermarket overpriced sesame oil.

Will try medium heat next time as this trial used 7/8 of a 170g small tub.
Perfect fill level for that lidl parfait jar.

[Mr Gus]

Quick thought: if you are using a good quality toasted sesame oil (kadoya) ..consider halving the oil due to the intense sesame, especially if your consumers arent "smoked" food fans, you should be fine with insipid regular, overpriced & underflavoured supermarket bottle dross though

I looked (too late) at the el cheapo light soy (mayflower brand) & whist way less salty than regular soy it does contain msg ..bah

But frick, its divine with the fermented soy bean paste, hopefully in m.k. "central" asian store again soon to get a few different tubs / strengths & stuff, wok tools & strainers, & try a meal in the attached cafe / canteen restaurant

The store chain (central) we are familiar with, but not this store, which is far better laid out than sandy location (by black cat roundabout)
Nice to try foods & snag ingredients next door if it blows your socks off!

Izzy & I were agog at how packed the food canteen side of things were (4th jan, lunchtime, not in the centre)
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_ ... =445808887

[Mr Gus]

Been making butter again after spotting a few litres of cream on the cheap.. (2 litres for a quid at morrisons after the cafe closes)
I've also made a few of both the hot sauce & the mild now, (it doesn't last for long)

A few different bottles of sake in I'm getting to understand it a bit more.

My first bottle was by a big uk distribution brand & cost £14 for the non cheap non salty variety but was still cooking sake ..that is heavily sherry in character & sweetness..

Next I tried another japanese brand "Sawanotsuru" (720ml) from a general wholesaler with a good selection of asian ingredients this time under a tenner inc vat.

..lighter, minimal sugar, ..so will likely be adding sugar to the next couple of kg I make, this sake still has a sherry nose to it but is so light it is missing depth of flavour that the syrup nature of sugar imparts.

Overall there is a lot of sense simply using a cheap bottle of sherry as it delivers a lot of the first bottle, the second bottle is cheap drinking stuff, watery by comparison (well it is straight spirit) ..save some money & is available at every corner shop thru supermarket

It is an effective cheap ingredient which I kept hearing about being used but without context, so if messing around in the kitchen & it calls for sake, cooking sake etc ..ignore it, splosh of sherry will likely suffice without harming your dish in the least (nor likely to be picked up on by the majority)

[Mr Gus]

Well, 6 litres of whipping cream came my way yesterday so I got into butter making mode early on..

New jar of Cornish sea salt

Still reliant on my re-freezable ice blocks to semi chill water (this is where I wish we had an ice cube maker)

Something I realised the jean pierre video does not address is "washing" prior to patting (which I wasn't doing well enough) & the kenwood mixing bowl can be utilised with cold / iced water on a low speed to rinse until water is clear, prior to chilling & patting to ensure rancidity via left over buttermilk is avoided (it can even be frozen at this stage & finished by patting (& squeezing) forming butter later.

The problem with the immediate chill & squeeze in a bag is that butter is inevitably very very soft, enough to get through the mesh in some instances, & does need considerably more force than you initially anticipate.

Small ratchet press system needed to avoid slog as 6 litres demands a lot of work done properly.