Here it is! 

Looking forward to seeing how my next video (grilled pig tail) turns out.

After having a beautiful roast chicken for dinner I was left with one lonely liver.  That one liver cooked in a bit of nice olive oil, then finished with a splash of last nights red wine, some salt and cracked black pepper made a perfect mid-morning snack.

I seem to be averaging about a post a month, which really disappoints me.  There have been a lot of changes around here.  Been spending more time with the lovely people at How2Heroes doing some videos.  I'm changing jobs, trying to get the new house a little more together.

Trying to ramp up for some more posts, but it may be slow for a bit longer.

Thanks for sticking around everyone!

The How2Heroes crew just left, and I had so much fun!

Not sure when the video will be up on the site, but I'm so excited to see it.

Here's a sneak peak from facebook.

Once again, Jo at Create A Cook has fueled a blog post.  This time she brought me these tiny, lovely crabs - marinaded in chili's, and I'm sure a bunch of other ingredients I'm just not recognizing.  She found them near other banchan (the little dishes that accompany Korean meals) which leads me to believe that's  what these guys are. I love it when Jo goes to H Mart.

I've got no idea how to eat these little guys, outside of with a nice bowl of rice.

The flavour is spicy and fermented with a undeniable fishiness.  Much stronger than the shrimp she got me last time.  As always, I love the biting through the crisp shells.

After tasting these little guys I'm reminded that I need to eat more Korean food.

Thanks for another delicious post Jo!

A few months ago I spoke to a culinary class at Newbury College about food blogging with my good buddy Lilly Jan.  One of the pieces of advice I gave them was you must post once a week, barring an extremely important life changing event.  Having said that, please excuse my absence for the past couple months, it was not without reason.

There has been some excitement in the world of Eating Nose to Tail - I will be shooting my first video for How2Heroes in a week.  I'm not sure if I can give away what I'm making or not but a key ingredient is one of my favorite pieces of offal.  I'm very excited.

More immediately exciting is the two different types of black pudding sitting in my fridge.  Black pudding is a sausage made from blood, oats, bread, fat, meat and a variety of flavorings such as onion, garlic, salt and pepper.  My dear friend Tobi has promised to come over and cook a traditional British breakfast (as luck would have it, Tobi is British.)  I was put in charge of finding the black pudding, and I was able to find it at Kiki's Kwik-Mart in Brighton.  If you have a chance go take a look - it's quite a neat little spot.

These particular black puddings seem to be more Irish than English.  Truthfully I don't really know what the difference is, but I'm looking forward to watching Tobi cook them.  I'm hoping he can tell me everything I've ever wanted to know about black pudding.

Sitting just below the remarkable assortment of black pudding was also some really good looking back bacon which also made it home and into my fridge.  I've been talking about trying to make a peameal bacon at home, hopefully this back bacon will inspire me.

I've been doing this project for almost a year, and I've been thinking about making a few changes.

The first is including standard recipes (ingredient list, followed by step by step instructions), instead of just a narrative about the cooking process.   I'm just wondering if anyone would actually cook the recipes...

The second one being maybe doing a video or two - I think I'm going to have to feel my way through that one.  Investing the money into a camera may not be realistically in my budget right now.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about these ideas, and if you have anything else you think would be a good addition to this blog.

The weather here has been beautiful all week, which made me crave ribs.  The grocery store answered with some big, luscious, fatty, beef ribs. I must confess, I prefer grilled beef ribs but these  were oven baked (still haven't gotten a real grill for the new house.)  The best part of beef ribs is feeling like a Flintstone chewing on a giant brontosaurus bone.

Ribs always remind me of my Uncle Bunny, so I used some of his secret rub.  It's a lovely bright red colour, which makes me think it has paprika in it, maybe cayenne.  Either way it's my favorite for ribs.

The rubbed ribs sat in the fridge overnight, and then went onto a rack, on a tray onto which I poured a can of PBR.

Covered with foil and then into the oven at 300 degrees for forty minutes, followed by another half hour at 400 degrees basting it with my favorite BBQ sauce of the moment (Fighting Cock) every 10 minutes or so.

Nice tall glass of beer, some rice and peas and dinner is ready.  I made way too many ribs.  The leftovers (once stripped from the bone) made a really awesome hash with fried eggs for breakfast the next day.

And yes, if you're wondering, that is BBQ sauce on my camera lense.

Got home late from work, and instead of cooking we ordered Chinese.  One of my favorite parts of moving is finding new take out places, and I've been lucky enough to find a great (if not pricey) place that delivers Szechaun food.  The best part of the menu is that it's full of offal - delicious offal prepared in ways I would never prepare it myself.

The beef tendon was tender and gelatinous, thinly sliced and floating in chili oil with sesame seeds and scallions.  The gelatinous tendon and the aggressive spice worked together, and even played off one another in the kind of way that makes me want to cook tendon.  Truthfully, the thought of cooking tendon has always intimidated me.

It's awesome to find a delivery place that inspires me to buy more offal.

Suet is raw beef fat found around the kidneys and loins, tallow is what you have after you melt it, and strain it.

After my last adventure rendering lard, being stuck in the kitchen for six hours watching fat melt I was prepared for the long haul.  But surprisingly, tallow was much more forgiving than lard.

First you chop the suet into smallish pieces.

Put your chopped suet into a thick bottomed pot, over a low heat and prepare for the waiting game to begin.

Or not.

My suet took half the time to melt than my pig fat did - which was a nice surprise. 

The tallow that I'm making is destined for french fries, beef fat makes really great fries.  It's also shelf stable if kept in an airtight container.

Much like lard my next steps are strain out the hard bits that have sunk to the bottom.  Many recipes suggest that after you strain you heat again.

That's it - in three hours (not six) I have beautiful yellow tallow that will sit in the fridge and turn a lovely crisp white colour once it has chilled.

Now off to make some fries, or candles.

Here she is, in all her gelatinous glory.

The texture of the feet is lovely, a little firm but definitely supple.  I wish I would have included some more meat, maybe some chopped up ham.

I'm proud to say my gelatin is definitely stable at room temperature - no leaky feet here.