Chicken and Bean Stew (EP)

• 4 pounds meaty chicken bones and parts (including backs and necks and, if available, gizzards and hearts)
• 1 pound (about 2 1/3 cups) navy beans, picked over and rinsed
• 2 medium onions (about 12 ounces), each studded with 3 whole cloves
• 3 medium to large carrots, peeled
• 1 celery stalk [Oops, didn't have it.  Recipes use so little celery and I didn't check to see if mine had gone bad before shopping; it had.]
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 8 cups cold water
• 1 cup canned diced tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped (2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

"Mise en place" at the outset of me starting to cook the stew.  In the pot, there's the beans, onions, carrots, salt, thyme, bay leaves and water.

I was sort of freaking out about buying chicken backs.  When I needed to buy them for ramen I found them at the Charles Street Savenor's, but apparently they don't carry them anymore.  Mckinnon's in Davis (another go-to meat shop) also didn't have them.  Super 88: nope.  But I did read that chicken wings could be used although the ones I saw in Allston looked way sketchy.

At Symphony's Whole Foods, I spend a while wondering if I was really willing to spend $16 on chicken wings when one of the employees pulled some backs from the depths of the freezer.  Total meat cost: $4

Simmer all this for 1 1/2 hours and pour the mixture into a roasting pan to cool.  Pick the meat from the bones and coarsely chop the vegetables.

Peeling a thoroughly cooked onion: Difficult.

Throw it all back in the pot (Yeah, $4 in chicken bones provides a sufficient amount of meat for the stew) and then add the 3 last ingredients.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Right after I poured the stew out to cool, I tasted one of the beans and thought it tasted exquisite (even with the missing celery stalk).  Did I think the stew was exquisite?  No, but I thought it was very, very good.  It's great in its simplicity, but not fun to eat 6 servings of.

That, I admit, could be applied to even awesome things.

Gula jawa and Sichuan Peppercorn Cured Bacon

from Zak Pelaccio's Eat with Your Hands:

• 6 ounces Sichuan peppercorns
• 2 1/2 ounces whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 pound kosher salt
• 5 ounces palm sugar (3 1/3 rounds gula jawa) or 6 2/3 tablespoons brown sugar
• One 12-pound Berkshire pork belly, skin removed [I got my hands on an 8-pound slab at Whole Foods]

Lots of peppercorns. Toast and grind them in batches.
Sichuan peppercorns are actually not peppercorns at all but is a member of the citrus family.

Gula jawa is at least according to Pelaccio and Wikipedia is supposed to be palm sugar. I bought something labelled gula jawa at Super 88 since it appeared to be a better value. However what I bought is made of coconut and cane sugar.

I seem to be doing a bit better when it comes to skinning this time around.

Though I got a bit sloppier with the fat caps toward the end.

Applying the cure.

Stacking them in the fridge to cure. Zak Pelaccio suggests 5 days; I assume waiting until next weekend won't hurt.

 
Hickory and cherry wood chips.  I never opened the bag of cherry ones.

 

Getting the smoker going.

The pork belly after being smoked for 6 hours.  It was disappointingly jiggly while I handled it (adding more chips or flipping it skin-side down for the last 2 hours).  Unlike my initial experience I achieved negligible moisture loss even after applying the old leftover cure I had.



All of it resulting in meat that at its thickest points are still pink and a fat cap that hasn't really experienced the magic.  All of those spices are very vague and skin-deep.
Might just do it Tom Mylan's way next time, but there's $50 worth of pork belly in the fridge I have to work through.  Some bits of it are still quite good.  Particularly the smoked meat.  Not so much the fat.