Bacon, whip cream, butter: how to make your own and a pinch of TMI. Also safety pointers.

Thanks for checking and feel free…

When I was in culinary classes at O.C.C. under Chef Barber, yes decades ago, I would grab a whip, two bowls (one nested in a bowl of ice), sugar and pour in some heavy cream. Within a few minutes, perhaps while waiting for others to finish thier mise en place/gathering or shhh during a lecture while in the kitchens I had made whip cream.

The chicks that I hung out with in class mostly, dug it, including the PhD psychology student who offered me to literally walk on to her cooking position at a restaurant before she left town. I would have made allot more money than the first couple years of minimum wage at hotels. The chef instructors said I should go work at hotels to get the experience with all the machinery. So I did. Turned it down for Marriott hotel, Fashion Island, Newport Beach. I did run the big person equipment. From making soup in a pot bigger than a bath tub, to prepping food for plating on a conveyor belt, to using a full bakery by myself after hours. Basically a la minute (restaurant), banquets (up to and beyond 1000 plates per day/usually weddings) and I was the last chef to run The View kitchen (top of hotel overlooking the whole Pacific shoreline, cooking self created hors d’oeuvres for the bar, dance floor, sushi bar and bands) which got turned into penthouse suites. That’s when I transferred to Renaissance LAX where I work with some semi-famous chefs and a bunch of high-powered culinary student graduates like cordon bleu simply new way too much to be working at that level. And we’ll never know if it was that smart of a choice to go straight to hotels, but, I loved it and didn’t mind the low pay though I bumped up to double by the third year because I was that into it. I did gather fantastic stories from working at those hotels too. Chefs get lots of real life stories as kitchens are a wild beast tamed by NOT the faint of heart.

Read before preserving food!!!!!! For the preserving lessons: BEWARE: read up on botulism, cross-contamination and all the basic food safety especially before preserving food. One of my favorite chef instructors told me about a guy who made stew and the fat across the top sealed in a small about of botulism which is naturally occurring all over the place. He stuck his finger through the fat in the top to taste it and that was enough to paralyze him for weeks. Barely survived.

This first lesson is a woman who uses only salt and dries pork belly to make bacon or prosciutto. Both her meat curing lessons do NOT use nitrates/nitrites, unless you consider wine as having that in it for the second clip. Ridiculously easy. She obviously knows what she’s talking about so you should pay very close to attention to everything that she says. You might be like “why bother why not just buy some freaking bacon? Here’s a few reasons: if the meat is on sale you can make batches that last like she says forever though I don’t know if anybody doesn’t get around to eating it within a year, also if you’re a sailor/outdoorsperson/prepper/culinary nerd like me, these kinds of preservation techniques are fascinating, simple, cost saving and could save your life with pantries stashed with the preserved meats recipes.

Next one below she teaches how to do it with any meat using salt and any spices and wine

Next few below is charismatic chef lessons for simple tater au gratin without a slicer/mandolin, chicken cordon bleu and how to easily make your own butter… “Spicenice

Next couple you got to read it as the video goes because it’s a different language but very clear and very simple meat canning with cheap beef cut, pork and chicken

Chicken legs thighs
Inexpensive beef cuts and rice/onion/carrot.
Canning pork loin. Easier than pie.

How to not kill yourself or others while home preserving: Always remember when sealing any food in an anaerobic/no or low air environment, there is a small risk of botulism simply killing you. That is why home canning points to being very careful, it is enclosed with very little air. Some say botulism isn’t killed by any amount of heat though others say 121 degrees Celsius or 259 Fahrenheit kills all of it. They say it comes from many different sources often vegetables: oops paralysis/death. Yep I went to, over the years, many paranoid 101 food safety classes. And know all too well why people thoroughly clean ingredients, utensils, surfaces, jars etc before cooking the hell out of the stuff once it’s in the jar.

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