In a fit of apparent OCD over the weekend (and some inspiration from my wife) I finally got around to sorting through and organizing my herb and spice collection. I took the doors off the cabinets and added a couple of removeable shelf/organizers to each shelf to create a new layout. I think it may be the first time I actually like the way that my collection is organized and displayed. Best of all, for the most part, all the common spices are immediately available. 

In the past (up until Sunday) my spice collection has been hidden behind closed cabinets, and as every spice stayed in it's own package, the lot was criminally disorganized. In fact the collection is actually taking up less space in my kichen that it did before - and it adds a great apothecary quality to the kitchen that I think I love. 

I still have to actaully create some kind of order for the spiced and do some trim and finishing to make everything completed. but I think I am really happy with it. 

A large form sous vide project I am currently working on, and will post about in depth in a couple of weeks, got posted to Lifehacker today (I got scooped on my own build). Somebody found my Flickr set on the project and it has gotten a lot of coverage today - which is very cool - but it isn't done!.

Here is a link to the build photos so far, I am adding new ones as I complete steps in the project. The full article and documentation on the project will come as soon as I complete the build and testing. 

Hack a Day Story - Nov 9th 2011: Kitchen hacks: What would you cook if you had a Sous-Vide this large?

LifeHacker Story - Nov 10th 2011: This 16-Gallon Sous-Vide Water Oven Is Perfect for Huge Holiday Meals

A pâté de campagne is a traditional country terrine, a rustic preparation, slightly more refined than a pâté grandmère mainly in that it uses only a small amount of liver. In a pâté campagne liver is used as a seasoning device rather than a dominant flavor. In the past I have always used a recipe for a more or less traditional styled pâté de campagne from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Thier recipe is made up of ground pork and chicken or pork liver, but I wanted to try to make a variation that offered a richer flavor profile - with a game like character, and this recipe made a successful step in that direction.

The mushrooms bring out the earthiness in the duck and lamb. Morels would be a wonderful alternative to the porcini's I used in this recipe, but I couldn't find any this weekend. In either case I prefer to used dried mushrooms, the grind breaks them into the perfect size and I find that their flavor permeates the pâté in a way that fresh mushrooms don't offer.

The duck and duck fat brought a much finer texture to the pâté that I found to be very appealing as well as creating a earthier and more robust character. The liver flavor in this recipe wasn't as strong as it might have been, If you enjoy a strong liver flavor in your pâté you might consider adding an additional 50 to 100 grams of duck liver. The stronger flavored meats in this pâté make the liver a bit more background than in a pâté made with pork (especially commercially produced domestic pork in the US - which I find to be a bit less flavorful than heirloom pork like berkshire, which is far preferable for this kind of preparation).

Some great news on the gardening/brewing front, at least 9 out of 10 of our hops plants lived through the winter. I have to admit being pleasantly surprised. We had some very cold days this winter -44 fahrenheit according to our outdoor thermometer, and even in the photos I have uploaded you can see frost heave in the hops bed. 

We planted 5 varieties of hop rhizomes last year, and were very lucky getting a reasonable batch of hops for brewing in our first year from two of the varieties. I am pleased to see that all of the varieties have survived, though one plant hasn't yet broken the surface - we will have to see if it catches up later, or if it is a casualty. 

Today's recipe has become one of my flagship deserts - a deep, dark, rich chile and cocoa experience. The delicate addition of finely ground, carefully selected ancho and New Mexico chiles to this sinfully flourless chocolate cake creates a culinary tryst of surpising complexity and history.

I have named the cake for a very old Aztec drink served almost exclusively to royalty. Sophie and Michael Coe, note the drink in thier book The True History of Chocolate: "Universally popular throughout Mesoamerica was the addition to the drink of chile, dried and ground to a powder. The Molina vocabulary [the first Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary] calls the drink chilcacahuatl."

You will love this cake if you take care in creating it.