Duck Proscuitto and Confit


 
Kevin do you use an immersion circulator or do you jury-rig a SV setup using a big pot of water and a low oven?

I've seen some posts (here and on the eGullet forums) recently about using a large pot of water in a low oven. The large pot gives thermal mass for consistent temperatures, and a low oven is able to evenly heat it, requiring only an occasional stirring.

I'd love to get myself a water oven or IC but I think the wife would flip out if I went and dropped a grand on one of these SV Supreme setups...
 
Originally posted by j biesinger:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">cook sous vide around 180 for 10-11 hours. Works great.
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I made a cassoulet minus the meat and we assembled our dishes based on our tastes. Here's my plate with the duck confit, a bit of homemade champagne sausage and the cassoulet. Nothing like enjoying a weeks worth of cooking in one bite:

It was great paired with roasted parsnips, toast with garlic confit, and a salad with walnut and apple. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

JB - looks nice and sounds nice. Cassoulet is one of the 2 or 3 "projects" I'm planning. Yours looks great. When you say no meat, you left the duck out as well and just heated the confit up seperately and sliced?

The other is that Momofuku book that I've been going through. Really want to start with their Ramen recipe.

The other is the penang yong taufu recipe posted by Gary H NJ.
 
Dave-- I have a circulating water bath, the type labs use, purchased used from an online lab equipment dealer. It's kind of large and rather heavy. I keep it in the barn at my Fla place. I use it when steady low temps - temps difficult if not impossible to maintain in an oven or on a stove - are required.

For duck confit - the first thing I ever did sous vide - I use a pot on the stove. It's gas and quite easy to control. The oven won't go that low. But now no duck there.In Okla I have electric. (I hate electric. There's a gas line present so really hope I can get rid of it soon.) Till I switch, I think I'll be able to better maintain temps in the oven. (I know I can't on the stove, though a 'flame-tamer' might work.)

Either way can work. Using any one of a number of possibilities to keep the packages fully immersed, the pot's lid can be used to partially cover to help maintain even water temps. For duck, pork or turkey confit, or for anything you want to cook sous vide at relatively higher temps, this arrangement is fine. A few degrees of variability isn't a concern. For sous vide items typically cooked at lower temps (131-144; lower still for fish), an IC or CWB is essential as these temps are nearly impossible to maintain any other way, and temp variation during the cook is to be strictly avoided.
 
Yeah that's what I was thinking - there's no way I could run a 63*c egg or a medium rare brisket for 48 hours in my oven but for 180 degrees I think I could give it a shot.
 
Kevin, we never solved the mold situation. I'm looking at two issues: I used bottled water instead of distilled, and I did not incubate first with high humidity and higher temps.


When you say no meat, you left the duck out as well and just heated the confit up seperately and sliced?
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If you look at the recipe I linked to, you can get a feel for what I did. I used canned beans and simmered them for an hour with most of the rest of the ingredients except the sausage and the duck. I poured the beans into a casserole and backed them in the oven with the duck and the sausage in a separate casserole. At the end, I broiled everything (including the beans which I sprinkled with bread crumbs) to get some color. I've eaten cassoulet twice at two different places, and both times the duck was served whole, on top of the beans, with nice crispy skin. That was the preparation I was trying to replicate.

The other is that Momofuku book that I've been going through. Really want to start with their Ramen recipe.
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I got a bunch of bones from pork butts saved up from making sausage. It seems silly to be vac packing and freezing bones, but I can't figure out a better way to keep them. I plan to turn them into the stock. And I did some pork belly sous vide, that will be perfect for the ramen. I;m close to pulling the trigger on that recipe.
 
I used bottled water instead of distilled, and I did not incubate first with high humidity and higher temps.
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If the water contained anything, like chlorine, that would have killed the stater that would be all she wrote. I'm leaning that way because the product should work at lower temps/humidity.
 
did not incubate first with high humidity and higher temps.
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If you used bottle water, that should be fine. My guess is the incubation period. By the same token: The thought of doing the mold with such a short term cure item never crossed my mind.
I only did it with the Pork because I had some mixed for another project....
 
Depends on the water. 'Bottled' water can simply be water that's treated. If treated with chlorine and if all the chlorine is not removed before bottling, that would kill the starter. Many non-spring bottled waters use chlorine.

If 600 is like MEK4 (from the brief glance I took, it's the same, renamed), the lower temps at the outset should not have been a problem. I've not had problems with it but have not used it but a few times. From a comment elsewhere

"I have had hit and miss luck with Bactoferm 600 (which I am assuming is what you are using). Some notes on it -

You must keep the product frozen. As soon as it arrives in the mail, bung it in the freezer.
When you make up the solution, dissolve a few grams in about 100ml of water. Let this sit at room temp. for 12 hours. Further dilute this to about 750-1000ml.
You should use the solution the same day that you make it - certainly within 24hours. I make mine up normally in the evening, then spray the meat in the morning sometime.
The solution is only good for 24hours, according to the product literature. After that it can develop unfavorable yeasts, which aren't the best sprayed on to your product. I have sprayed some on about 2 days after making, and it was OK though.. but I am not advocating that.

The apparent good thing about bactoferm 600 (formally MEK4) is that it is meant to bloom at relatively low temp and humidity. 60F and 75% humidity should be absolutely fine for it to bloom properly. Even higher humidity is ideal - 85% for the first few days would really get it going good.

So - here is my take on the product. It is a decent product, but we have no way of telling how it is handled by the packer and shipper. I buy mine from Butcher Packer. So far I have used two packets. The first worked like a charm, the second isn't so great. We have no way of telling what conditions they keep the product in, or how long it has been sitting at room temperature (which is bad). If you ask me, they should also ship it next-day delivery - since at ambient temp it will only last about 5 days maximum. All it takes a 4 day delivery, and them taking 12 hours to ship it out once they box it up, and you have wasted $15."
 
So - here is my take on the product. It is a decent product, but we have no way of telling how it is handled by the packer and shipper. I buy mine from Butcher Packer. So far I have used two packets. The first worked like a charm, the second isn't so great. We have no way of telling what conditions they keep the product in, or how long it has been sitting at room temperature (which is bad). If you ask me, they should also ship it next-day delivery - since at ambient temp it will only last about 5 days maximum. All it takes a 4 day delivery, and them taking 12 hours to ship it out once they box it up, and you have wasted $15."
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mine came from butcher packer too. But I have a local source (Sausage Maker) that just started carrying it, so I think I'll buy my next pack there. I might give the stuff I have one more shot.

It seems hit or miss whether the bottle water I used has chlorine. I haven't checked the label as I threw the bottle out, and a google search provides conflicting info on whether bottle water have it or not.

I did leave the mold solution in the fridge for a week and tried again on some pancetta, I guess that was a pretty bad idea.
 
Its activity is short-lived.

As for the water, unless it's 'spring', bottled at the source, many 'drinking water' brands use municipal water which they filter. Some treat it with UV or use reverse osmosis, and others chlorinate then remove the chlorine. In the latter case, how effective their removal is would be the kicker.
 
On the sous vide topic, I've been kicking this around a bit and noticed that some folks use a controller along with their rice cooker or slow cooker to turn them into a bath:

Sous Vide Controller

$159

They also sell other systems to convert any/larger container that include immersion heater and air pump. Interesting concept/alternative to the $400 smallish home cookers.
 
Originally posted by K Kruger:
As for the water, unless it's 'spring', bottled at the source, many 'drinking water' brands use municipal water which they filter. Some treat it with UV or use reverse osmosis, and others chlorinate then remove the chlorine. In the latter case, how effective their removal is would be the kicker.
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The sad fact is that most bottled water is re-packaged municiple sourced water. If your worried about residual chlorine or anything else being in the water you use then you'll want to get some reverse osmosis (RO) water. You can buy RO systems but even the samller systems would be overkill for what you need. I have a 50 gpd RO system from when I was keeping/propagating saltwater corals. Just about any aquarium store that sells saltwater fish and corals will have RO water available for sale.
 
Breasts are at 75% of their original weight, so it looks to be about 2 weeks of drying at my conditions.

It appears as if I have some fuzzy white stuff cropping up on my pancetta that was inoculated with the same mold just a week later.

So here's my hypotheses:

1) maybe overnight, at 60* wasn't sufficient to get the mold going in solution, but a week in the fridge was

2) the breast had dried for 12 hrs before inoculation, the belly was inoculated after rinsing the cure. Maybe the extra bit of moisture was enough to kick start the mold

3) the breasts are wrapped in cheese cloth, maybe there is some activity but I can't see it yet
 
I took down the proscuitto this morning. They were both around 70% and were feeling pretty firm. I didn't want the ends to get too crispy.

The results are pretty spectacular.
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next time I'll be sure to not omit the dusting of white pepper, and try to use better cheese cloth. This stuff left a lot of fibers behind as it was too loose of a weave.

I'm guessing this was a good duck. Both the confit and the proscuitto have great flavor.
 
Very nice! They look outstanding compared to the now apparently "lacking" breasts I cured. Well done!
 
I felt they were still a bit "raw" at 70%. if you notice the darker area of meat at the spot where it lacks a covering of fat, I'm wondering if this is considerably drier ( 50%?) making the average 70%. seems like an argument for improving my curing conditions and increasing the ambient humidity. Maybe it would have dried more uniformly.

Keep in mind I'm not complaining, it's just an observation.
 
BRAVO!

Any chance you could do that supplemental insurance duck for your next project?

Looks great. Stunning photography as usual.

When are you going to start teaching high end cooking and food prep?

Ron
 
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