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Playing again with sake lees - kasudoko, sake lees marinade...

Vegetables - cukes were done first. Carrots and radish still going, take longer. Definite Asian flavor. I think I prefer vinegar or lacto fermented veggies but I may try this again.

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Salmon kasuzuke was really good. Again, pronounced Asian flavor. This one I'll do again.

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Another delicious peasant food you'll only find in a local Hungarian or Eastern European butcher shop. I grew up calling this paprika szalonna - paprika bacon. I have to make some every time I get a pork belly. The pork belly is slow boiled for about 2 hours with onions and garlic. While still hot it's covered with paprika, wrapped in wax paper, and refrigerated overnight. Usually eaten sliced on rye bread with onions. And if I have patience I'll also smoke it. Crazy good!
Oh, the cooking water makes a great soup base.


20240419_170537.jpg
 
Another delicious peasant food you'll only find in a local Hungarian or Eastern European butcher shop. I grew up calling this paprika szalonna - paprika bacon. I have to make some every time I get a pork belly. The pork belly is slow boiled for about 2 hours with onions and garlic. While still hot it's covered with paprika, wrapped in wax paper, and refrigerated overnight. Usually eaten sliced on rye bread with onions. And if I have patience I'll also smoke it. Crazy good!
Oh, the cooking water makes a great soup base.


View attachment 111980

I'm going for it!

Inspired by this post, I just pulled some pork belly out of the freezer, and will give this a try. 😋
 
Another delicious peasant food you'll only find in a local Hungarian or Eastern European butcher shop. I grew up calling this paprika szalonna - paprika bacon. I have to make some every time I get a pork belly. The pork belly is slow boiled for about 2 hours with onions and garlic. While still hot it's covered with paprika, wrapped in wax paper, and refrigerated overnight. Usually eaten sliced on rye bread with onions. And if I have patience I'll also smoke it. Crazy good!
Oh, the cooking water makes a great soup base.


View attachment 111980

Dave, do you cure the belly before braising it? I am getting mixed signals on the internets!
 
Dave, do you cure the belly before braising it? I am getting mixed signals on the internets!
Usually no. If I smoke I'll do an equilibrium cure - 2.5% of the weight of meat in salt, vac seal, fridge for a couple days, then the boiling.

Been doing this about 15 years because the nearest source is 3 hours away in Cleveland. Simple:

1 lb piece of pork belly into heavy pot with COLD water covering about an inch.
1 onion quartered
as much garlic as you want (at least 6 cloves)
1 Tbls peppercorns
Couple bay leaves
3 Tbls kosher salt

Slow boil 2-3 hrs, pat dry a bit, cover with Hungarian paprika while hot, wrap in waxed paper, fridge over night. Sometimes I'll put a weight on top to keep it flat. (This time I did.) And as I mentioned the water is delicious.
 
Usually no. If I smoke I'll do an equilibrium cure - 2.5% of the weight of meat in salt, vac seal, fridge for a couple days, then the boiling.

Been doing this about 15 years because the nearest source is 3 hours away in Cleveland. Simple:

1 lb piece of pork belly into heavy pot with COLD water covering about an inch.
1 onion quartered
as much garlic as you want (at least 6 cloves)
1 Tbls peppercorns
Couple bay leaves
3 Tbls kosher salt

Slow boil 2-3 hrs, pat dry a bit, cover with Hungarian paprika while hot, wrap in waxed paper, fridge over night. Sometimes I'll put a weight on top to keep it flat. (This time I did.) And as I mentioned the water is delicious.

Thanks for writing that up. Will do this tomorrow. 😋
 
My niece & her family visited this week, and per our usual, I made egg rolls. Mine are very different from commercial egg rolls as I use mung bean sprouts for filler instead of cabbage.

egg rolls.jpg

The picture is the "before" picture. After 3 adults and one 12 yo finished, there wasn't much left.

We had wrappers left over, so they were filled with a dollop each of peanut butter and strawberry jam. Dessert egg rolls!

Nutella, apple pie filling, and cherry pie filling work very nicely as well!
 
I have been taking you guys lots of dinner pics, but the evening schedule is a bit off and I haven't been finding time to post them after cleaning up.

This I had to share though. FINALLY. Paprika Chicken. I live in a world of bland and tasteless paprika that gets used to turn potato salad red, and carry flavorful herbs and spices in rubs and chicken seasonings. I bought some quality paprika and gave it a shot because it was posted frequently and clearly given a place of honor.

My folks made it and sent me a recipe because they were so impressed. That lit the match. Then I came here to see if I was given a recipe to follow in the posts that inspired the paprika purchase. @BigDaveK posted a recipe and armed with @winemaker81's notes that if you can see the chicken, it is not enough paprika, I felt well instructed enough to come out successful.

Well hot damn. I would have to use explicits to describe my astonishment and pleasure. It is so _$%$#% good! Has a curry like presence without the I am going to smell this in my clothes for the rest of the day depth, but it is rich, tasty, and glorious. If I like it this much with an uneducated palate, I can only imagine how comforting the dish will be when it starts to feel like home. 100% going to be added into the rotation.

I might even make it for guests, and I aim to please, but sometimes simple is so much more than you can hit with showing off.

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the motivation. Just a shame it took me so long, that was months ago.

Here is Dave's recipe post. https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/whats-for-dinner.40309/post-881578


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I have been taking you guys lots of dinner pics, but the evening schedule is a bit off and I haven't been finding time to post them after cleaning up.

This I had to share though. FINALLY. Paprika Chicken. I live in a world of bland and tasteless paprika that gets used to turn potato salad red, and carry flavorful herbs and spices in rubs and chicken seasonings. I bought some quality paprika and gave it a shot because it was posted frequently and clearly given a place of honor.

My folks made it and sent me a recipe because they were so impressed. That lit the match. Then I came here to see if I was given a recipe to follow in the posts that inspired the paprika purchase. @BigDaveK posted a recipe and armed with @winemaker81's notes that if you can see the chicken, it is not enough paprika, I felt well instructed enough to come out successful.

Well hot damn. I would have to use explicits to describe my astonishment and pleasure. It is so _$%$#% good! Has a curry like presence without the I am going to smell this in my clothes for the rest of the day depth, but it is rich, tasty, and glorious. If I like it this much with an uneducated palate, I can only imagine how comforting the dish will be when it starts to feel like home. 100% going to be added into the rotation.

I might even make it for guests, and I aim to please, but sometimes simple is so much more than you can hit with showing off.

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the motivation. Just a shame it took me so long, that was months ago.

Here is Dave's recipe post. https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/whats-for-dinner.40309/post-881578


View attachment 112181View attachment 112182
That’s it… I’m going to have to buy some quality paprika. I was going to grow paprika peppers this year but life got in the way and I never ordered the seeds.
 
That’s it… I’m going to have to buy some quality paprika. I was going to grow paprika peppers this year but life got in the way and I never ordered the seeds.
@BigDaveK Told me even though he grows his own, he buys the Hungarian paprika to make sure the dish tastes right. I bought the Szeged brand he recommended. Cost me way more than it should have, but in hind sight, it was worth it.

I posted this after it arrived. I believe Costco on the left was $9 and Szeged was $14. Shipping is likely hidden in that cost, but I can understand why I had such misgivings about paprika. You get what you pay for. I wasn't wowed by the finger dip. Definitely more flavor, but it didn't kick me into action, in a dish though, holy. The generic junk I have been buying around here has nothing to add. So much so, that if recipes included it amongst flavorful spices I omitted it. It just gets lost.

I will have to reevaluate my stance.

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