Week 6 Low CarbBootcamp - the second half

[BIWI]

Morning campers!

Here's the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness for you to confess all

We're half way through now. Hopefully by now we should all be getting used to a low carb way of eating, which will mean we should be fat-adapted.

I hope you've enjoyed the recipe challenges, and I really look forward to reading more recipes.

I especially hope that the challenge has lured the lurkers out! Please post your recipes!

And, of course, here's hoping that we all have a good week ahead

A home made fajita-style spice mix is much nicer anyway. I’d probably fry up a whole bunch of sliced chicken breasts in the mix - 6 to 8 of them, then freeze in smaller portions. Then you’ll have your base for 6 to 8 meals already done. When he’s doing fajitas for the rest of the family he can fry some of yours up for you in a separate pan, throwing in whatever extra veg he might be using.

Go easy on yourself @Onelittlepiglet, it's not easy for anyone at the moment

Yes I can imagine it’s full-on! Do take it easy.

I’d probably wait until you’re cooking anyway and just plan to cook an extra huge portion, then freeze from that. That’s the only way I do batch cooking as I can’t stand the idea of slaving away in the kitchen for two days straight or whatever cooking endless meals. I figure since I’m cooking anyway it’s no hardship to add extra ingredients and I get an extra 3 or 4 or whatever meals out of the one lot of effort.

Sorry about the detail with he nail talk, but back to Bootcamp and cooking, I wanted to share a tip about pork belly.

First, for those who haven’t tried it, it’s generally glorious. Incredibly fat, but white meat so a nice change from all the steaks and beef mince used in so many recipes. It’s brilliant many ways and it’s cheaper than many other cuts.

At the weekend I bought a 2kg slab—with bones in—from my butcher, who also scored it for me because I’m lazy. His suggestions were:

1. Rock salt and oil oil on both sides to season. Pepper if you must but not necessary.

1. Cook on 140c for at 3-4 hours.

1. Cook with fat side down for better crackling. If you slow cook in an oven with fat side up then it’s a bit rubbery. Alternately, if you do cook with fat up start at 230 for appx 20 minutes then keep the fat side up and reduce oven temp to 140 for remainder.

1. This bit blew my mind. He went through the meat temperature for medium, well done, etc. For well done it’s 180 but if you get it to 188c some magical chemical wizardry happens and that is when the pork becomes this soft, luscious thing that falls apart and melts in your mouth.

I chose the fat side down option and when it got to 188c (a bit over, actually) I turned it over to sit in the oven for an extra few minutes and crisp the crackling even more while I finished the rest of the meal, but didn’t change the temp.

An extraordinarily long-winded post, but it was, hands down, the most beautiful unadorned pork belly I’ve ever made in terms of a great cut of meat (and it was about £22 I admit, but our closest butcher happens to be one of those National award farm shop butchers that’s a destination place for the county, so they ain’t cheap), salt, and olive oil.

My family could not shut up about how amazing it was.

Now, maybe everybody else knows the 188c temp thing, but I did not. I have done my good deed for the day.

Mmmmmmmm pork belly. We have it often, and love it. We’ve got one in the freezer which I might do next week.

That is a brilliant tip! I’ll try it out soon (I got too excited about unctuous pork belly and posted before I’d read the whole comment )!

@MarmaladeTeepee thank you for your kind words. I have picked myself up. @Ninkanink you come across as a very kind, capable person. @StuntNun I have tried the low carb rolls but not the bread. I must give it a go. I don’t have an Asda close to me. I wonder if I made the effort to go would they have the protein bread in stock. I have just had one of my remaining rolls toasted with crispy bacon. Back to work to gurgle all afternoon.

That sounds lovely @ShagMe. Another thing we tried recently for the first time with great success was to pour boiling water over the skin before cooking - it made for amazing crackling.

Ooh, boiling water sounds quite cool!

Great to read the recipe ideas. And I love the celeriac variations. Thanks a lot for them.

Here, finally managed to weigh in this week. Down 1 more pound. That makes me 2 pounds away from goal ! Really excited about this now.

KOKOing on everyone who's stalling. You can do this.

Well done, @WitchWand. I am also tantalisingly close. I look forward to hearing about your maintenance in the next few weeks - assuming you lose your 2 before I kick my 3-4lbs ;).

Yes, pouring boiling water over renders down some of the fat and also dries it out. I usually leave the skin sitting in it for about half an hour. Then pat dry and salt/pepper as usual.

Danish crackling is the best (imo), and is practically a national institution! The butchers there score it very carefully and precisely for you, in 1cm strips, so it gets very crispy and delicious. Sigh now I want flæskesteg (a traditional Danish pork roast)! I have one in the freezer - all the way from Denmark - an extra one that I ordered for Christmas. Just don’t know when to have it...maybe in May for my birthday!

Tonight we’re having lamb kofta, with flatbreads for DH, plus a salad, with spiced butternut squash and a yoghurt harissa sauce.

Ninkanink - I'll not post up the picture of the Othello cake I'll be baking myself (from the Scandinavian cook book my mum was given c50 years ago) for my birthday

Let's just say that it will be just as well that this Boot Camp will have finished and the next one won't have started

❤️❤️❤️ oh please do!!

Well done @WitchWand and @Lyrata!

I'm going to attempt this chicken recipe tonight but subbing panko breadcrumbs for blitzed pork crunch. I will report back. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/crunchy-garlic-chicken

Here's one I made earlier (for my 50th)

Very non Boot Camp compatible with layers of angel cake and a macaroon cake sandwiched together with confectioners' custard, swaddled in cream and topped with chocolate

I'll be delivering (socially distanced ) big slices of it to local friends and family to keep it out of my temptation's way

Afternoon campers!

I am having a (superficially) frustrating day. Ordered exotic ingredients to make Yorkshire puds which promised to taste exactly like the real thing.

Gopping

Also have some sort of email virus shenanigans going on. Am getting 1000 messages per minute saying that my email could not be delivered. I didn't send the email in question. Have changed passwords and spend most of the day on live chat with host winds to no avail. Am

Ohhhh lovely!😍

I always buy my lagkage layers ready-baked so that’s very impressive!

Here’s one of my favourite cakes from home:

It’s called goosebreast. It’s quite BC friendly (at a stretch... ) because it’s mainly whipped cream/vanilla creme. On a very thin puff pastry or sponge base, with a little bit of jam, covered with a thin layer of marzipan. So very light and delicious!

No more naughty pics now or the big stick will come out!

One of my favourite treats used to be a chocolate macaroon from the Danish Food Centre - gone but not forgotten

Their smorgasbord used to be brilliant too

@ShagMeRiggins fascinating about the pork, but my meat thermometer died, I shall have to buy a new one! 188 degrees is very precise... But does explain why sometimes my pork comes out better than others.

188 is precise but mine did go over a bit. I’ll have to ask him if that’s a minimum and if there’s a meat temperature you absolutely don’t want to reach and then it all goes south.

We have about 100 meat thermometers**. I can send you one but understand that would include addresses etc if you’d rather not!

** okay, five—we’re given one every year with the Christmas turkey we order from same butcher. Point is, I can spare one.

Hi ShagMeRiggins. Is the pork 188 degrees Fahrenheit for the meat itself? Just looked at my meat thermometer. It sounds delicious btw.

I've posted up my Lamb with Lime and Pernod Ouzo on the relevant meat recipe thread.

Finally caught up! Pork belly fat side down you say?

That seems... counterintuitive, but will try it.

Am also trying the ratatouille recipe, but have just realised (with 10 mins to go) that I've only used one tin of tomatoes, not two. May, er, not work well.

No loss for me this week, as I got out of the wagon and have been bargin' about in the Noddy car like an imbecile.

The temperature thing is the whole point of sous vide cooking. Different proteins soften and toughen at different temperatures so precise temperature control yields perfect texture.