Post-turkey/Thanksgiving cooks?


 

K Kruger

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
What has or is anyone doing now that the holiday cooking dust has settled?

I had two commercial bellies in the freezer that had to come out to make room for some of the meat from pigs we raised so they've been curing for the past several days in a nitrate-free mix of salt, a little sugar, bay leaves, 4 kinds of crushed peppercorns, juniper and a little onion. They are smoking now with sassafrass and a little apple, rubberd with more crushed peppercorn blend.

I rubbed a whole duck with a mix of salt, grains of paradise, Aleppo, sage, cinnamon, thyme and marjoram yesterday, and not it's on the rotis over apple.

Anyone else?
 
A couple of slabs of spares for the Bears/Patriots game. Bear down Chicago Bears
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Set 2 butts curing in buckboard bacon that just came ready. I just set them on the smoker several minutes ago. I am really anxious to try this out. I am tired of reading about it and more than ready to try it.
 
I'm making Barbecue Turkey Soup and Turkey Chili with the leftovers of our two birds. If I don't do it today, they'll go bad before I get around to it.

Jim
 
Jeff, I could have sworn you were an old hand at buckboard. You'll enjoy it.

Jim, so right. Made enough a la King to eat and freeze yesterday. Now I'm about to stock the carcass for soup as today's pretty much the last day.
 
No, I have talked about buying some cure for a long time but too lazy to place the order.

We have a place called gander mountain and they sell high mountain seasonings but only the jerkey and sausage. I finally got around to placing the order. After what seems years of talking about it.
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JRPfeff,
Thank you. sounds like a good thing to try tomorro. I hope my white meat turkey leftovers can hold out till then.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
What has or is anyone doing now that the holiday cooking dust has settled? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sleeping!!!!

Burp. Oh, excuse me.
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LOL,

JimT
 
Putting up my Christmas lights. It's unseasonably warm here in Michigan this weekend and I figured it would be best to do so now rather than wait.
 
Finishing off leftovers.
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I've also started thinking about competitions for next year since I read about the Elk Grove competition next June. Mostly right now I've got a couple of ideas for a chicken marinade that I want to try over winter.

I also got elected to fry another turkey for Christmakah this year since it went over so well for Thanksgiving.
 
Kevin - It sounds like you've been home for a while. It is really nice to be off the road for an extended (1 week) period.

Jim
 
Nearly two weeks. It has been nice. Managed to get a lot done around the ranch and cook a lot as well. But tonight I head for Charlotte and then for Phoenix. Gotta make some money!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">nitrate-free mix </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Kevin, the bellie recipe looks great.
Can you tell me why the "nitrate-free mix" and what the benefit and/or difference in end result will be ?

Thanks
 
Harvey--

I'm at the moment out of curing salt but I often do bacon without it. I find a 5-day salt cure sufficient to both actually cure the meat and to give me a cured flavor once smoked--but I put a fair amount of smoke to the bacon while it's in the cooker.

I use curing salts for other things (I have no issue with small amounts of nitrates/nitrites) but since commercial bellies are fairly thin, they are cured in cold temps, I smoke at about 200 give or take, and I cool quickly, slice and package in fairly small quantities for the freezer, I don't really need curing salt in this situation.

The differences: The bacon does not have the distinctive red-throughout look of nitrate-cured bacon though it does get a smoke ring; the flavor is somewhat less hammy (something I like with bacon; though nicely smoky, I find that the flavors of the cure come through better without the curing salt cure); and the belly is not as firm as one cured with curing salt--but that's not an issue for me as it is firm enough for handling and for slicing.

Whether any of these points are a benefit to others would have to be determined by the others themselves but I like the results very much.
 
JRPfeff,
Thanks for the recepie. white chili w/ turkey turned out great. I will keep this one on the books.
 

 

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