use it!!
Seems that the guys had some problems in storing the meat over the last weekend. As I mentioned before, thanks to the set-up for the Music Festival we don't get to use the modern kitchen for the June weekend and so they had no access to the large catering fridges for storing ingredients and in spite of their best efforts they weren't able to keep the meat in "tip top" condition for Friday.
To be frank and to quote Marc H it apparently "stank like an abattoir" before it went on the spit and when it came off...so it was duly taken into our office, double bagged then stuck in the bin.
Now it can be argued that throwing it away was a waste of the meat and the money it cost, however the powers that be don't necessarily see it that way as while it was on the spit it "did the job" and allowed people to have a go at turning it round, take pictures and see what roasting is actually all about..eating it afterwards would just have been a bonus really.
So why tell you all of this...well, the next event in July sees us in the same boat as the June weekend as thanks to a function on the Saturday we will once again have no access to the fridges.
What will we do? Well, having considered the possible options....not roast at all, not roast on Sunday...the message from above is "carry on as usual, roast on both days". The only difference being to try and make the most out of things if the meat turns out not to be in the best of states on Sunday.
How will we do this? Simple really, use it to discuss storage in the Sixteenth Century Kitchens compared to storage today; after all the Tudors managed without access to electric refrigeration didn't they?! Worse case scenario and we end up with a stink laden piece of beef when we come to look at it on Sunday morning...roast it anyway then show that it isn't possible to disguise the smell let alone taste simply by using spices (yes that age old chestnut!)..at least until we can't stand the smell ;o)..take some pictures of public reaction, possibly some vox pop comments to be taken, that sort of stuff.
Now that's kind of sorted it's now time to get on with the nitty gritty of the rest of the menu plan for July and get that submitted before I pop off to Wakefield on Friday.
TTFN
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
You Can Take Your Stinking Meat And.....
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4 comments:
Well, I might have misunderstood something, but why not freeze the meat & put it into a termobox? We do this when we go to festivals & meat unfreezes on the third or fourth day (if we put enough ice containers) & stays cold for another day or so. Anyway, it won't smell that bad in a week. ))) You could easily make one with some foam plastic inside a chest.
as I understand it, that's what the guys did.
Trouble is it has to be fully defrosted in order for the spit to go through it and it was whilst de-frosting that it went a bit awry....simply due to excess heat that day.
Salting works quite well. Based on the size of those roasts you could probably cover it in salt, put it in a sealed container in a cool dark room for about a week. Then before spitting it you brush off the salt, run some water over it, then parboil it in some water & wine vinegar, spit it and roast it.
It worked for venison, I don't see why it wouldn't for this.
Oh, I should probably give the link to my information on salting in case you were interested:
http://www.sca.noaharney.com/salting-meat/
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