Brisket

Alice visited the Garrotts in Memphis last weekend.  One of the stops on their tour was Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, the uber-famous BBQ restaurant.  Alice was crazy about the brisket there (which isn't even their specialty), and brought back 2 jars of the Famous Seasoning.  And then the Garrotts very kindly shipped 2 bottles of sauce--mild and hot.

The sum of all that was I needed to cook a brisket.  I realized I had never written down my various learnings--gleanings from the internet and hard-won experience--from the past couple of years.  So here they are, from the top.

This one got a liberal dose of Famous Seasoning on the fat side, and started at ~6:30 last night, then went all night.  I rescued it from a dead fire at 4:30AM today, then finished it wrapped in foil and finished it in the oven.  The result was ridiculously tender and good.  Arguably a bit rich for breakfast, so we'll enjoy it with the basketball games this afternoon... 

Eggs from the bantam chickens

The eggs come from these guys:

They live in here:

This is a nice way to eat them:

The bread comes from a Pullman loaf pan, which makes amazingly square loaves:

Panettone

A first shot at panettone, using a no-knead, retarded fermentation, all sourdough variant of the version in Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  Hoping to refine this for semi-mass production (in smaller loaves) over the holidays.  This one came out of a 10" diameter spring-form pan, and the pre-baking weight was a massive 1675g.

Updated, refined, adapted recipe now posted.

Big Green Egg Pizza

Found a good setup for BGE pizza baking on the forum, using the plate setter with legs down, the 3 green ceramic feet that came with the Egg, and a 3/4" thick 13 5/8" diameter Fibrament stone.  Max temp was a little over 700F, using a full firebox of lump charcoal from Whole Foods, with no size sorting.  At 700, bake time was ~2 1/2 minutes.  By the end of the cook, temp had dropped to ~580F and bake time was ~4 min.  Nice even cooking on top and bottom throughout the bake.  Total baking time was ~30 min, after a full hour of pre-heat at 650F+.

Here is an example--top:

Bottom:

Olive/rosemary boule

Here is a boule that turned out very well:

Made with King Arthur AP flour (which still gives the creamiest, coolest crumb in my hands), and baked in La Cloche.  I made the dough extra wet--around 72% hydration in order to make it easy to add stuff later.  Used a high fraction of starter and fermented overnight in the refrigerator.  After an hour or so out at room temperature, I folded in the olives (pitted Kalamatas) and rosemary, in 2 steps (i.e. 2 foldings).  Then formed the boule, put it on parchment, and baked after ~90 min of proofing.

A bunch of breads for a party

Here is a photo of (from lower left):
baguettes
rustic boules with 10% rye flour
pains d'epi
boules with Kalamata olives and rosemary
bâtards with walnuts and flax seed
focaccia with oven-roasted tomatoes
focaccia with caramelized onions
all made in a ~18hr span leading up to a small party.

Fishing for blackfin tuna

We went fishing off Cape Hatteras last week.
The catch was ~30 blackfin tuna, total weight ~350lbs, which yielded ~90lbs of filets.