Slow Roasted Pork Belly, Honeymead Soaked Apricots Cepe

2010-09-02T19:41:00.001-07:00

Ingredients

6 to 8 kilograms of grade-A honey20 lt of tap or bottled water8 grams (1/4 ounce) of freeze-dried wine, champagne, or dedicated mead yeast

Method

Making mead requires essentially the same basic kit necessary to brew beer at home: primary and secondary plastic-bucket fermenters with air locks and spigots, transfer hosing, a bottle-filler tube, heavy bottles, bottle caps, bottle capper, and a bottle brush and washer.

Bring the water to a boil. Boiling should remove harsh chlorine from municipal tap water. If you don't own a pot large enough to hold five gallons of water, boil as much as possible. You will add the remaining water to the fermenter later.

Once the water reaches a boil, remove it from the heat and stir in all of the honey. Do not boil the honey, as it reduces the aromatic quality of the finished mead.

While the honey dissolves in the water, put a cup of lukewarm water into a clean bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. When the honey has been fully dissolved in the water and the pot is cool to the touch , pour the honey-water into the fermentation bucket and stir in the yeast mixture. Note: Cooling the honey-water could take quite a while. This process can be accelerated with a so-called sink bath, that is, repeatedly immersing the pot in cold water in a sink or basin.

If you have not already added the full 4 1/2 gallons of water, top it off with the balance in bottled water .

Seal the bucket and allow the mixture to ferment for two weeks to one month. The progress of fermentation can judged by monitoring the carbon-dioxide bubbles escaping from the air lock: When they drop to one bubble every sixty seconds, fermentation has nearly concluded. Note that is only an issue during this primary fermentation; secondary fermentation has more to do with aging and mellowing and hence is more flexible. When primary fermentation has subsided, siphon the mead over to your secondary fermentation bucket and seal it. Allow one to four months aging time. Do not open the fermenter, as this risks contaminating the mead.

When you decide it has matured enough (and the mead has cleared), you will want to siphon it into sterilized bottles and cap them. Follow the same procedure as you would for home-brewed beer.

This recipe is a basic mead. You can add different spices or play with elderflowers or add fruit flavours to your mead. It all depends what you want to use it for.

Burgandy Cepe Mushrooms

2010-09-02T19:39:00.001-07:00

Peel some very large cepe mushrooms.
Put the heads in a fireproof dish with some oil and butter, and put them in a very moderate oven till tender.
Baste frequently.
Meanwhile chop the stalks finely, and put them in a saucepan with a little oil.
Cover, and sizzle very gently till tender.
Leave to get cold.
Then mash together with the same quantity of Burgundy butter.
When the cepe heads are ready, stuff them.
To re-heat, lay them carefully, so as not to spill the butter, into a fireproof dish containing a little water or white wine, and put in a medium oven.
Take them out as soon as the butter begins to bubble.
Burgundy butter is made with the following ingredients: 1/2 lb.
of butter, 2 tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, 2 shallots (about 1/2 oz.) or the same quantity of chivesâ€”2 cloves of garlic, I tea-spoonful of salt, 3 pinches of ground white pepper.
Chop the shallots or chives, garlic and parsley finely together, and mix into the butter with the salt and pepper.

Cepe Mushroom Recipes

Slow Roasted Pork Belly, Honeymead Soaked Apricots Cepe

Burgandy Cepe Mushrooms