Smoking a Picnic Ham

While grocery shopping this past holiday season, we found ourselves unable to resist buying a lovely, and inexpensive, fresh pork picnic "ham". I say "ham" because it wasn't ham yet, but it was soon to be.

The picnic cut is the shank end of the pork shoulder (the other half of the shoulder is the pork "butt" - the cut often used for pulled pork). The meat on the picnic is a bit darker and tighter, and is perfect for turning into ham. The picnics we've used have been around ten pounds.



The process is actually quite simple. The first step is to put it in a salty brine in a cool place (we use a cooler in our beer-chest at about 45 degrees F).

The brine is 10 liters of water, 500g kosher salt, 100g pink salt (curing salt), 75g sugar, 75g brown sugar, 1 T black pepper corns, 2 t coriander seeds, 1 t yellow mustard seed.

We boil part of the solution for a few minutes to soften the spices, add water to reach 10 liters and cool to 40 degrees F before adding to the pork.



After six days in the brine, take it out, rinse it, dry it off well and put it into the refrigerator uncovered for two more days. This allows the skin and surface to dry a bit which allows it to take up the smoke more readily.



After brining and drying, it is time to smoke. We use our Weber Smokey Mountain with apple and pecan wood smoke for 7 to 8 hours. Keep the smoker at about 180 degrees F for the first couple hours, then up to 215-230 for the next four-five hours, finishing at 240-250 degrees the last hour or two until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

Here is what it looks like when it comes off of the smoker:



Make sure you plan to feature the ham in a meal the same day you smoke it - it is super good hot off of the smoker.



No need to do anything fancy - just slice it and eat it. Yum!



The part of the ham under the skin has a nice fat layer that is reminiscent of pork belly:



We've  found that these fattier slices make a nice substitute for chashu in ramen:



Ham is now solidly in our list of things we make instead of buy. If you've got a smoker, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Holidays 2013 - A Fishy Feast and Other Treats

We've had relaxing and tasty holiday season thus far. We kicked things off Monday evening with happy hour at California Kebab. We'd had their current batch of Pig Nose Pale at the recent Bikes, Boards and Brews festival here in Pacific Beach and were happy to find it on tap at the brewery. Pig Nose is probably my current favorite low(ish) ABV west-coast-style IPA.

And the view never gets old:



Christmas Eve we had our annual "Feast of the Seven Fishes" dinner. This year we did a Korean meal.

We started out with Shrimp and Kimchi Jeon:



For banchan, we had Odeng Bokkeum (fried fishcake), along with cucumber pickles, and kimchi:



The main event was a Seafood Jjigae. We've been making Jjigae at home for a while, now, but we've been cheating by using soup mix packets. This was our first time making stock from scratch - a mixture of dried anchovy, kombu, onion, garlic, shiitake and a few dried shrimp:



After straining you end up with a nicely savory stock:



For the Jjigae, we heated minced garlic, onion, and Korean chile powder in our individual Jjigae bowls:



We added a cup of the stock along with a bit of soft tofu, our fish and seafood (white sea bass, squid, bay scallops and asari clams), and some kale for color.



It turned out really well. Spicy, savory and rich with seafood flavor.

For Christmas dinner, we roasted a pork shoulder in the oven at low heat for 5 hours. The house smelled amazing, and the pork came out perfectly moist and sticky.



Last night we used leftover seafood and anchovy stock to make Chawanmushi:



We also have a few ongoing food projects. We brewed up a batch of our Imperial Stout earlier in the week and it has been happily bubbling away.

We also couldn't resist picking up a 10lb pork picnic shoulder roast to transform into a ham. It is currently brining in our beer fridge, and will later get smoked. It is our first time doing a ham, and we are really looking forward to the result!



Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2012 - Mexican Inspired

Because most of the seafood we eat comes from Baja California (via Catalina Offshore Products), we decided that it made sense to take our inspiration for this year's Feast of the Seven Fishes from south of the border as well.

Bay Scallop Ceviche


We kept this simple to highlight the lovely sweet flavor of the Bay Scallops - marinated for a few hours in lime juice with onion and Serrano chile and then finished with some cilantro and fresh tomato from the garden (yes, we still have tomatoes growing at the end of December).

Camarones a la Plancha


Cleaned, butterflied and briefly marinated in our "Taco Shop Hot Sauce" before a quick sear on a grill pan. So good.

Bahia Falsa Oysters


This was our first experience with Bahia Falsa oysters. They are a bit on the briny side for me, but I still enjoyed them. We had some raw (with a bit of  Taco Shop Hot Sauce) and some lightly grilled in the shell so that they were just warm, but not fully cooked. The oysters paired nicely with a bottle of Allagash Tripel.

Venus Clams and Carlsbad Mussels a la Mexicana


Another simple prep - steamed and then tossed with a sauce of barely cooked tomato, onion, garlic and roasted green chile. The Venus Clams were particularly nice.

Tortitas de Cameron Seco (Dried Shrimp Fritters)


Probably the most complex dish of the night. These fritters are made using an egg-based batter much like the coating on a chile relleno, but with the addition of ground up dried shrimp. They get deep fried, and then simmered in an earthy red chile sauce. Sherry liked these. I was less keen on them.

Cabrilla Grouper


We finished the meal off with fish and saucy black beans. The fish was two different varieties of grouper. The Cabrilla Grouper pictured above had a meaty, "tastes like chicken" texture.

Baqueta Grouper


The Baqueta Grouper was perhaps a bit less photogenic, but far and away our favorite of the two fish. It flaked in big, soft chunks and had a beautiful flavor.

This year our tally was six dishes and eight fishes. Keeping the preparation simple on most of the dishes helped make it a more relaxed affair than some of our past feasts, but no less enjoyable.

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011

Each Christmas Eve, we go a bit mad and cook up a multi-course "Feast of the Seven Fishes" - just for the two of us. It is fun, and gives us the inspiration to try out some new recipes.

This year our dishes ranged throughout the globe - from Italy and Spain to Vietnam, Korea and the Middle East.

Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin


Our feast started out with a bay scallop and tomato gratin - a simple recipe from Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud Cookbook. The tomato and the breadcrumb topping added great flavor, but still let the sweet scallops shine through.

Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes


This dish, from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, has become a favorite of ours. Shrimp and egg go so well together. Dipped into some salty fish sauce, these pancakes are pure heaven.

Sculpin Jun


We paired the shrimp pancakes with a similar dish, but from another country. Jun (or Jeon) are Korean egg pancakes. We had our first Fish Jun last month at a little Korean joint in Honolulu, and we immediately fell in love. The way the texture of the fish and the texture of the egg compliment each other is fantastic. We served the Jun with a vinegary garlic-soy dipping sauce.

Gary's Smoked Alaskan Red Salmon Dip


Sherry's sister lives in Alaska, and she and her fiance sent us the makings of this dish (the key ingredient being smoked sockeye salmon they caught themselves). The salmon gets mixed with jalepeños and cream cheese (we used homemade cream cheese, of course!).



To eat it, you put some on a fork, dip it in Worcestershire sauce and put it on a Ritz cracker. It is a pretty crazy combination of flavors, but it works.

Quilcene and Malpeque Oysters


Roughly midway through our feast, we paused for a palate cleanser of oysters - Quilcene and Malpeque - from The Fishery. In past years, we've done a variety of mignonettes, but this year we had them simply plain.

We slurped as we shucked, but I managed to snap a quick picture before they were all gone. Both varieties of oysters were good, but I preferred the Quilcene - they were sweeter and less briny.

Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco


For me, swordfish has historically been uninspiring - I picture boring, dry steaks coming off the grill. The swordfish we get from Catalina Offshore Products is a different story altogether - consistently beautiful pieces of fish that cook up nicely moist and full of flavor.

For this dish, we paired it with Romanesco cauliflower from our garden, and a Romesco sauce. It was our first time making Romesco. A blend of almonds and roasted red pepper, it is interesting stuff - very rich and intense. A little bit goes a long way.

Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron


This dish is from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, a cookbook that is getting increasingly used in our kitchen lately. The fish is Mahi Mahi from Catalina Offshore. The caramelized onions and saffron gave the broth a lovely burnished color.

And that was our Feast of the Seven Fishes for 2011. Our numbers came out right on the nose this year - seven dishes, seven fishes.

Leftover Stuffing Frittata

After our Christmas Eve seven-fish feast (more on that to come) and a big Christmas Dinner (Turkey - since we had fish for Thanksgiving), we wanted something simple last night.

We had some Turkey liver left over, which we chopped up and fried in some butter. Then we added some leftover stuffing from our Christmas turkey. Add some beaten eggs and parsley on top and voila - stuffing frittata.



Quick, easy and very tasty.

Fish Express in Lihue, Kauai and a Hawaiian Thanksgiving

During our excursion to the Kapaa Farmers' Market, we stopped in at Fish Express in Lihue. The goal was to pick up some poke, as well as to get some fish to cook up for Thanksgiving dinner.



We ended up getting their Inamona Poke and their Spicy Ahi Poke.

Inamona Poke (sometimes called "Hawaiian" Poke) is named after the kukui (candlenut) paste that is used in it.The purple stringy bits are Limu, which is the Hawaiian word for seaweed or algae.



The seasoning was fairly subdued, but the texture of the fish was nice and we enjoyed the contrasting, fresh crunch of the Limu.

The Spicy Ahi Poke wasn't very spicy, but it did have good flavor to it



I liked both of these pokes more than the one we got at Koloa Fish Market - primarily from a texture perspective.

We also picked up some smoked marlin:



It was tasty, but had a bit too much of the sweet teriyaki flavor for me.

Lastly, we picked up a beautiful piece of Opah (Moonfish) as the centerpiece for our Thanksgiving dinner:



Given our bounty of local fresh fruit, we made several fruit salsas to go with the fish, and a definitively non-local cranberry sauce for a holiday addition.

Continuing the Thanksgiving feel, we also made up a batch of our traditional bread stuffing (ok, technically 'dressing' since it wasn't stuffed in anything, but it had the right flavors of sage and thyme).



The fish tasted so good all by itself that the fruit wasn't really needed.

Rich and completely savory, the Opah was a great stand-in for Thanksgiving turkey.

Fish Express
3343 Kuhio Hwy
Lihue, Hawaii
808-245-9918

Feast of the Seven Fishes

We've always had a tradition of seafood on Christmas Eve. It started with Sherry's family tradition of oyster stew. That evolved into more of a chowder which then became a multi-fish stew. When we learned of the Italian tradition of La Vigilia (the Feast of the Seven Fishes), we decided that it was right up our alley.

Since 2007, we've been doing an annual Christmas Eve "Seven" fish feast. We don't worry about the exact number of dishes or fishes, and we don't limit ourselves to Italian dishes. We just use the holiday as an inspiration to create a multi-course meal centered around fish and shellfish.

Here are the Seven Fish Feasts we've done in previous years, in reverse chronological order:

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2012 - Mexican Inspired Bay Scallop Ceviche. Camarones a la Plancha. Bahia Falsa Oysters. Venus Clams and Carlsbad Mussels a la Mexicana. Tortitas de Cameron Seco. Cabrilla and Baqueta Grouper.

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011 Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin. Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes. Sculpin Jun. Smoked Salmon Dip. Oysters. Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco. Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron.

Feast of the Seven Fishes, Locavore Edition Halibut Clementine Ceviche. Rock Cod and Potato Ravioli with Marjoram Tomato Sauce. Smoked Fish Duo. Pacific Oysters. Shrimp al Mojo de Ajo. Sculpin with Roasted Golden Beets and Beet Greens.

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2009 Oysters with Chile de Arbol and Cilantro. Niçoise Tuna Skewers. Seared Scallops with Spicy Lentils. Seafood Paella.

Seven Fishes Southeast Asian Style Oysters with Vietnamese Ginger-Chili Mignonette. Cured Salmon Four Ways. Thai Steamed Mussels. Vietnamese Salad with Smoked Trout and Bitter Greens. Ginger Fish. Squid in Caramel Sauce. Napa Cabbage Soup with Shrimp Dumplings.

Our first seven-fish feast Oysters with a Thai mignonette. Spicy fish and lentil croquettes. Sardines on toast. Yucatecan squid salad. Fish and shellfish stew.