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I have become interested in low temperature cooking for a while – Sous Vide – and after recent success with Leg of Lamb which was cooked at 55°C for 32 hours, I decided to try even longer cooking times.

In the absence of a regulated water bath, I simply put the pieces of meat into special cooking bags and put the bags into the middle of my oven set at 55°C.

This is the result after 74 hours of cooking – the Leg of Lamb slices were absolutely perfect – like no meat I have ever tasted, practically melted in my mouth, but the smoked pork was a bit over done for my taste – rather dry.   This may be due to previous processing – smoking and salting. 

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This is the meat straight from the oven – 55°C for 74 hours.
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sliced leg of Lamb straight out of the oven
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Smoked pork straight out of the oven
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The sliced leg of Lamb after searing them on a frying pan 25 seconds each side
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The sliced leg of Lamb
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The Pork
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The Pork – yes, the knife is a Masahiro…
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 Yngvi, TF3Y piloted TF4X in the CQ WorldWide SSB Contest in the Single-Operator, Single-Band, High Power Category.

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TF3Y@TF4X

When the dust settled, the score was as follows:

3124 QSOs

93 Countries

25 CQ Zones

for a final score of 571,710 points.

Due to the recent sun spot minimum more or less since 2003,  there has been little activity on 10-Meters and almost no activity from my station.

Yngvi´s score was 5 times higher than last year´s top score in this category from Europe and his QSO total is similar to what Multi-Operator stations in the US  and top stations in the Caribbean accomplished this year.  

KC1XX had 3061 QSO’s, the K3LR super station had 3033 QSOs on 10 meters and W2GD made 3356 contacts on 10 meters from P40W in Aruba to give a few examples from the contest this past weekend.  TF4X´s 3124 QSOs compares very favorably considering the difference in propagation in the frigid north to what stations further south experience.

Most of the contest was recorded, both the audio and the 10 Meter Band spectrum using a Perseus SDR.

Here is a recording made on Sunday:

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Andrey, DL/KL1A sent me a link to a recording he made of TF4X in the Contest.

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Yngvi wrote in his Soap Box comments : 

“Had a great time. Ten showed a bit of life but still big room for
improvement, e.g. no JA’s. Being able to transmit to many Rhombics
while selecting others for reception is a big plus. The performance
of the station was excellent apart from a 40 min. electricity outage
due to a fault at the power company. Thor’s station keeps improving
year by year. Due to poor conditions in the past few years there has
not been much activity from the station on ten meters. We now have
proof that the Rhombics do a great job on that band as well. “

It’s not all work and no play, we also take time to enjoy good food and wine, it has become a tradition that my visitors contribute to the food over the weekend in exchange for the use of the station.

On Thursday I put a leg of Mountain Lamb into the oven to slow cook for 24 hours at 60°C – it turned out absolutely magnificent – I will be using this method often in the future.

Yngvi generously brought a very nice aged T-Bone steak 5cm thick which I prepared in my gourmet kitchen for Saturday’s evening meal.

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The raw T-Bone steak ready to cook
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Ready to eat!
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Perfect ! – details of cooking method provided on request. :-)

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The best T-Bone in the Arctic.

Sunday morning we had Spinach Shakshukah and in the evening slow cooked chicken…all dishes washed down with conservative amounts of fine wines.

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 During my recent travel to Sussex, England, I was served with a heavenly fried egg for breakfast.

My wife and I stayed at Millers Bed & Breakfast in the beautiful historic town of Lewes.

I can recommend Millers without hesitation – we had a wonderful stay.

On the last morning of our stay I was allowed to observe how the lady cooked her eggs and the photo shows my first attempt with the method.

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The Perfect Egg!

The egg alone was worth the trip to England.

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Alexey, VE2XAA with two perfect eggs!
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I brought home with me one blue mussel – 12 cm long – and cooked it in boiling water for 3 minutes.

This is the largest mussel I have ever eaten – possibly the largest mussel in the world :-) , it was really delicious.

There are also thousands of sea urchins but I have no experience in eating those.

I collected about 30kg worth of mussels and cooked myself a big mussel dinner with garlic bread.

Birta, the queen of Otradalur loves cooked mussels, but does not show any enthusiasm for raw mussels, even if I opened one for her.

The last big mussel has a small surprise, two tiny pearls – photos of the first one can be seen below.

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While on TDY with UNOMIG in the Republic of Abkhazia, I sampled some local delicacies.   

On the way to Tbiblisi, the capital of Georgia to do some antenna work, we stopped at a speciality restaurant on a mountain pass.

The dish is cattle hooves boiled in garlic soup with bits of stomach and intestines added.  Delicious.

The last photo shows  the famous dish Pelmeni, served in a roadside stall in Gali.

I tasted Shakshukah for the first time last February on my visit to Israel.  This dish in it’s original form is simply fantastic and I especially enjoyed the green version made with Spinach and Garlic – incredible !

I prefer to put the pan into the oven after putting the eggs into the pan.   225° C for 10 minutes works well for me.

Shakshuka lends itself very well to make a delicious dish out of leftovers, what’s even better, it is impossible to get wrong.

Here is a link to a recipe for Shakshukah.

Here are some photos of my own attempts to make Shakshukah with available materials.

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July 2011 – enjoyed by VE2XAA
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