Sous Vide Smoked Pork Shoulder

I haven't used my New Bradley Original Smoker much this year at all, since I was going to be stuck in the neighborhood all weekend due to a festival at the nearby Buddhist temple I decided it would be a good opportunity to get my smoke on.  I decided to make some pulled pork, but rather than just do the whole thing in the smoker I wanted to try something different.

There have been posts about people using sous vide in combination with smoking to good effect with beef, so I decided to try it with pork shoulder.  On my way home from work I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a boneless pork shoulder roast, I usually go for bone in but this was on sale so I gave it a try.  Since this was a spur-of-the-moment thing I didn't have a rub ready so I just raided the spice cabinet and quickly put one together.

 The rub consisted of cajun seasoning, celery salt, paprika, black pepper and kosher salt.  Rub was liberally applied to all surfaces of the pork shoulder before it was placed in a vacuum bag and sealed with the Food Saver vacuum sealer.  I put about 8 quarts of water in a 12 quart Cambro container, attached my WiFi Nomiku immersion circulator and set the temp to 155°f.  The pork shoulder soaked at that temperature for around 24 hours before being removed from the bath, allowed to rest at room temperature for around 30 minutes and finally chilled and put in the refrigerator until I was ready to start smoking.

Using the PID controller I set the smoker temperature to 250°f and loaded it up with Jim Beam flavored bisquettes.  While waiting for the smoker to reach temp I removed the pork shoulder from the bag, removed all the gelatinized juices (purge) and patted the shoulder dry with paper towels.  The purge was reduced and mixed with a commercial mustard based barbecue sauce.  Once the pork was placed in the smoker a temperature probe was put in place and the shoulder smoked until the internal temperature again reached 155°f.  Once the internal temperature target was reached the pork shoulder was removed from the smoker, tented with foil and allowed to rest until the temp went down to 140°f, at which point it was shredded into pulled pork.

 The sous vide/smoked pulled pork turned out delicious, very moist but with a slightly different texture than a pork shoulder cooked entirely in the smoker.  I believe this is due to the lower temperature that the meat was subjected to, when smoking a pork shoulder in the traditional way you want the internal temperature to get up to around 202°f whereas the shoulder I cooked here never got above 160°f even with carry over.  One thing I will do differently next time is to trim most of the fat off the pork shoulder before cooking, the lower temperature didn't let the fat render off and become crispy.  To serve I dressed the pork with some of the mustard barbeque sauce, pickles and a little sriracha sauce.  It was delicious!

Improved Air Fryer French Fries

I've been playing with my Avalon Bay AB-Airfryer100 air fryer quite a bit lately, mostly for cooking frozen items like fries, onion rings and chicken nuggets but also for making french fries from scratch.  The homemade fries turn out good, but they lack the craggly crispy surface that comes from deep frying.  As an experiment I decided to try and damage the surface of the fries prior to cooking to see if I could get my "air fried" fries closer to the real thing.

I cut the potatoes into batons as usual, but before the soak I added a cup full of crushed ice to the bowl, covered with a tight fitting lid and shook the tar out of them for about 30 seconds.  I added enough cold water to cover the fries and let them soak for about 30 minutes, then rinsed thoroughly and patted dry with paper towels.  The fries were seasoned simply with 1/2 tsp olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika (one of the things I like about air frying is that you can season before cooking).  Another technique I played with this time is double cooking similar to what you do when deep frying french fries.  The first cooking was done at a lower temperature, 320°f for 10 minutes.  After shaking the basket I returned them to the air fryer and turned the temperature up to  400°f.  I removed the basket every 4-5 minutes to shake and check for doneness.  After a total of about 20 minutes they were golden brown and crispy.







The end result was a fry that seemed to be a bit crispier than the previous attempts, damaging the surface of the fries before cooking does seem to have created more surface area to get crispy.  The two phase cooking method may or may not have contributed anything to the final product, for my next attempt I'll try single stage cooking combined with the ice shake to see if the results are any different.

LG French Style 3-Door Refrigerator Model LFXC24726S

A little over a month ago our Kitchenaid side-by-side refrigerator gave up the ghost.  At some time during the night the compressor failed, and with the fans still running the temperature quickly rose.  I left work as soon as I was told that something was wrong, but by the time I made it home an hour later the temperature in the freezer section had increased to over 60°.  We ended up having to throw away everything.  The refrigerator lasted for a little over 14 years so I can't complain too much about the build quality, but I found the narrowness of the freezer section a little limiting.  After taking measurements of the cabinet opening we looked around at several options and finally decided on the LG LFXC24726S.  

The refrigerator is a counter depth French door style with a bottom drawer freezer compartment.  The capacity is a little smaller than the one we were replacing, but the space seems much more usable since the compartments aren't as narrow as in the side-by-side model.  A water and ice dispenser are located on the refrigerator door, with a compact ice maker located in the door of the refrigerator section.  The ice bin is accessible by flipping a latch and opening a small door within the refrigerator door, the bin holds about 4.5 quarts of ice when full.  So far we've been pretty happy with the refrigerator, although there is a rattle from time to time that I haven't had time to track down yet.  On another note, I would like to find the architect who thought putting a kitchen on the second floor with the only access being a 36" wide staircase and flog him with a wet noodle.  I'm sure getting major appliances up to the space wasn't that difficult before inconvenient things like walls were put up, but it was a MAJOR hassle to get this puppy up to the kitchen and installed.

I wasn't really planning on posting about the refrigerator, but an event over the weekend made me want to say something.  A fire broke out in a garage about a 1/2 block down the street, it spread to 2 houses and a garage across the alley before finally being doused by the fire department.  One firefighter was treated for minor injuries, but other than him the only damage was to property.  During the course of the fire a utility pole was destroyed and we were left without power.  We didn't know how long the power would be out, so we just decided to keep the refrigerator doors closed to try and keep everything cold until it was restored.  After about 4 hours I became a little concerned about the ice maker in the refrigerator door, I figured I should dump the bin so the melting ice wouldn't make a mess in the kitchen.  When I opened the ice maker door I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the ice was still frozen, it was all dumped in to a bowl which was then put in the refrigerator section to help keep things cool.  It took about 10 hours before the power was finally restored, almost none of the ice in the bowl had melted and the things in the freezer were still frozen solid.  I had been worried that we would have to end up throwing away another entire refrigerator full of food, but the new LG refrigerator is insulted well enough to keep that from happening.  Now I just need to track down that rattle...

Avalon Bay AB-AirFryer100R Air Fryer

An air fryer is a small, counter-top appliance that cooks by circulating hot air around the food at high speeds.  A heating element above the cooking chamber provides direct, radiant heat to the top of the food being cooked, while a powerful fan circulates hot air around the chamber and through the food.  I had heard about these in the past, but never really considered buying one for myself.  Because of my fondness for fried foods I received one as a gift last week for my birthday.

The model I received is an Avalon Bay AB-AirFryer100R.  The fryer comes with a perforated basket for cooking items that would normally be deep fried, like french fries, a solid, round baking pan and a rack.  So far I've only had a chance to use it a few times, once to make fresh cut french fries and again to cook frozen, pre seasoned curly fries from the supermarket. 

Raw fries with seasonings

Fries in basket after 10 minutes

For the fresh cut fries I took a large baking potato, cut it into batons about 3/8' thick and let them soak in cold water.  After about an hour I dumped the starchy water, rinsed the potatoes , covered them again with cold water and let them sit in the refrigerator until I was ready to use them later that evening.  To prepare the fries for cooking they were drained, patted dry in paper towels and placed in a bowl for seasoning.  For seasoning I used granulated garlic, celery salt, kosher salt, hot chicken spice mix (from my Nashville Hot Chicken post), and paprika.  About 1/2 tsp olive oil was added and everything was mixed together until the spices were evenly distributed.  The fries were put in the basket and the basket inserted in the frye.  The temperature dial was set to 400 and timer set to 10 minutes.  After 10 minted the basket was removed the I shook the fries to turn them over, then the basket was replaced and the timer set for another 10 minutes.  At that time they looked like they needed a little more time so I shook them up again and returned them for another few minutes, total cook time was around 24 minutes, this would be reduced if I had cut thinner fries.

Finished product

The end result was pretty good, the fries had a nice crispness on the outside while the inside was fluffy like a baked potato.  I wouldn't mistake these for good, deep fried french fries, but they were pretty close and much healthier.

For the second experiment I wanted to see how frozen french fries would fare in this air fryer.  I bought a bag of cheap, seasoned curly fries that were on sale at the grocery store.  These were by Mariano's house brand, Roundy's.  I took the fries directly from the freezer and put them in the basket, turned the temperature dial to 400°f and set the timer for 10 minutes.  As before, the basket was removed at that time and the contents shaken up.  The timer was set for another 10 minutes and I pulled the fries out and shook every 2-3 minutes until they were done.  Frozen to done took about 18 minutes.  These turned out really well, very crisp on the outside and moist on the inside with nothing added at all.  I've never been one to keep bags of frozen fries in the freezer, but I think I'll now have to keep some on hand for a quick snack.  Next I'll have to see how frozen onion rings work out...

Frozen curly fries

The air fryer comes apart easily to clean, not that there was much of a mess with what I was cooking this time.  The recipe book that comes with the AB-AirFryer100 has some pretty interesting dishes, from fajitas to brownies.  I'll have to explore it more when I have the time.  Even though I never seriously considered buying one of these I must say that I'm impressed so far with how it works.  I'm looking forward to being able to make faux fried foods without having to go through the hassle of setting up a deep fryer, stinking up the house and having to filter or dispose of quarts of oil.  Obviously there are things that an air fryer isn't suited for, like battered items of falafel, but I can still break out the Paragon cooktop if I really want to indulge in those things.  I assume it would work fine for breaded items, I may have to try some air fried chicken before too long to test that out, or maybe air fried pickles!