I took a little break from Charcutepalooza over the past two months. August’s challenge involved making a terrine, headcheese, trotters or mouselline, none of which I found particularly appealing. September was all about making various types of pâtés, some en crôute.  These options were a bit more exciting to me [...]]]>

I took a little break from Charcutepalooza over the past two months. August’s challenge involved making a terrine, headcheese, trotters or mouselline, none of which I found particularly appealing. September was all about making various types of pâtés, some en crôute.  These options were a bit more exciting to me but with a vacation, the film fest and various other distractions, I couldn’t quite fit it in.

When the October challenge was posted I was excited to see that making rillette and confit were both options.  My first memorable (or maybe even my first period) experience with rillettes was during a trip to Niagara where we sampled some goodies, including rillettes, at Ravine. I have subsequently enjoyed rillettes while in London while dining at Arbutus. Rillettes is basically a meat spread that is made by poaching meat in fat. Health food, really.

I made pork rillettes since I already had the ingredients on hand (yes, I keep fat back and pork shoulder in my freezer) although you could make rillettes with other types of meat.  The process of making rillettes is really simple.  You season the meat and let it rest ideally overnight.  Then you combine the meat with water and sherry in a saucepan, bring it to a boil and allow it to simmer.  Then you wait. And wait.  While you’re waiting, your entire house will smell like pure porky, boozy goodness.  The scent is intoxicating.

What are you waiting for?  You’re waiting for the chunks of fat to become clear.  The recipe says this should happen in about two hours.  It totally didn’t for me.  After about 2.5 hours I started cutting the fat into smaller pieces hoping to speeds things up.  It helped, but not really.  At about the three hour mark I gave up.  I mean the fat was super soft, it just wasn’t clear.  I followed the rest of the recipe, draining the meat, mashing the fat and meat up etc.

I halved the recipe and ended up with two lovely ramekins filled with the porcine goodness.  I toasted up some baguette and served the rillette with my homemade zucchini dill pickles. Everything about this was fantastic.  The rillettes was really soft and not overly fatty.  The seasoning was spot on and I loved the notes that the sherry added to the mix.

This is totally one of those dishes that is easy to make and perfect for company.  Your friends will be impressed that you were able to whip up this goodness.  Serve this alongside some other charcuterie goodness and you’ll totally be a star.

I used the recipe found on the Charcutepalooza site. Enjoy!

Ever since I bought Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie and started flipping through it I knew that some point I would have to make my own hot dogs. So imagine how pumped I was when this month’s Charcutepalooza was announced and it was all about blending meats [...]]]>

Ever since I bought Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie and started flipping through it I knew that some point I would have to make my own hot dogs. So imagine how pumped I was when this month’s Charcutepalooza was announced and it was all about blending meats which means… hot dogs!

The Apprentice Challenge this month was to make either Bratwurst or Weisswurst and the Charcuterie Challenge was to make either hot dogs or Mortadella. I decided to skip the Apprentice Challenge and moved right to the Charcuterie Challenge. I seriously considered making both hot dogs AND Mortadella (I love Mortadella) but I wasn’t feeling ambitious enough to go on the hunt for Mortadella fixins.

I knew from the jump that hot dog-making would be no joke.  Sure, the ingredients were easy enough to find (the meat is simply short ribs) and you don’t need any odd casings – but it’s the technique, goodness the technique!  The process starts off innocently enough by grinding the meat as per usual.  Then you mix the meat with your spices and pink salt and let it sit for a day or so.  Still easy.  Then everything goes into a food processor to emulsify the mixture which basically means turning it into meat paste.  This is where things get a bit sticky… literally.
I suppose the downfall is mine.  The stars were not aligned this Sunday evening.  I started this endeavour way too late in the evening figuring it would be a nice therapeutic Sunday activity.  Wrong.  I also made the mistake of assuming that stuffing hot dogs would work just like stuffing Italian sausages which wasn’t too bad and didn’t read through the recipe. My bad.

So I pulled out the KitchenAid, threw on the sausage stuffer attachment and went to town. About the same time as I set this up I read some of the notes in book where Ruhlman mentions that the KitchenAid isn’t ideal for using with emulsified meats. CRAP! Instead he recos using a pastry bag and piping directly into the casing. This was my first course of action.

Have you ever filled a pastry bag with meat paste and attempted to stuff it into intestines? It must be a different circle of hell. Of course the meat was barely coming out of the tip but had no problems coming out the top. Meat paste was going EVERYWHERE. Since this technique wasn’t working I figured how bad could using the KitchenAid be? To be honest, it worked for a while and I was on a roll making me some hot dogs. Then it got to a point where I just couldn’t feed the meat down the shoot. I was pushing and pushing but it just wouldn’t go down. At this point meat paste is getting everywhere! On my clothes, all over the counter, under my nails, all over the cabinets… EVERYWHERE.

I still had a significant amount of meat left to stuff. At this point I stopped caring about the meat needing to be super cold and just wanted to get meat into casings. So… I went back to the pastry bag technique and was able to squeak out a few more hot dogs. In the end I had about 7 hot dogs.

The work doesn’t stop there! Hot dogs apparently have to be smoked so I had to fashion me a wok-smoker at about 11PM on a Sunday night. Once the hot dogs are smoked they have to be plunged into an ice bath. HOLY.

As I said, hot dog making is no joke.

The results in the end were good. Actually, they were pretty delicious but I can’t justify the effort required to make them. The hot dogs were perfectly spiced with good bite and were totally like “real” hot dogs. I was kind of amazed although a bit disappointed that I didn’t have to source hoofs, ears, eyelashes and all the other goodness that people say is in hot dogs.

I’m definitely glad that I made my own hot dogs but given that I still feel like I’m picking out bits of meat paste from random places, I won’t do it again!

On a good day I can be a bit obsessed with food magazines.  I’ve been reading them for years but my obsession really kicked into gear when I moved to NYC for school and subscriptions became SO CHEAP.  If you try to subscribe for most magazines from Canada prices are about [...]]]>

On a good day I can be a bit obsessed with food magazines.  I’ve been reading them for years but my obsession really kicked into gear when I moved to NYC for school and subscriptions became SO CHEAP.  If you try to subscribe for most magazines from Canada prices are about $40+ per year whereas in the U.S. you’re looking at about $12 per year.  Needless to say I used to subscribe to Cooking Light, Everyday Foods, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Cooks Illustrated and likely others that I’m forgetting.

Since moving back to Canada and becoming even more into food I no longer read a lot of those magazines and have streamlined my subscriptions to Saveur and Cooks Illustrated.  I like Cooks Illustrated for the “science” and testing behind the recipes.  The geek in me loves the super detailed accounts.  I’m all about Saveur for their travel pieces and all-around interesting stuff.   The others have fallen to the wayside for various reasons: I’m not into light cooking (Cooking Light), I need more of a challenge (Everyday Foods), I’m just not that into you anymore (Food & Wine).  Plus with the proliferation of food blogs, I devote a lot more energy ready about good online than I do in print… which I of course feel bad about being a former journalism student (and sometimes journalist).

One of the joys that I discovered during recent travels is picking up a local food publication.  While in Paris a few years ago I picked up a French magazine called Saveurs.  It was beautifully styled and shot and had a lot of interesting recipes and features.  It also made me feel quite smart casually reading a French magazine.  When I was in Jamaica over a year ago I picked up a Jamaican cookbook while killing time in the airport.  I don’t think I’ve made anything from it yet but I like the idea of having a Jamaican cooking reference on hand.

While in London I didn’t set out to buy any food-related publications but while browsing in Sainsbury one evening I stumbled across the magazine aisle and noticed Jamie Oliver’s magazine, Jamie. I think I ambiently knew that Jamie had a magazine but I never really thought too much about it. Frankly, we probably have it in Canada. I bought it anyway because I was curious.

Jamie Magazine is completely an extension of Jamie Oliver the TV personality and food crusader. There’s an emphasis on seasonal and local as well as on health (but without being weird about it). The magazine isn’t glossy and instead has a nice matte feel to it. I kind of love it!

I loved it even more when I decided to cook from it. First up was the Summery Sausage and Tomato Bake. Interestingly enough there wasn’t the usual long recipe. I found this recipe in a back-of-book feature where Jamie has short and quick recipes to get you through the month. I still had some of my Charcutepalooza Italian sausages in the freezer to use up so I knew this recipe was for me. I don’t know about you, but I never really know what to do with sausages. I usually either pan fry them or throw them in the oven and serve with mashed potatoes. I mean, it’s good but nothing crazy. Jamie’s recipe has us bake the sausages in wine, lemons, garlic, onions and tomatoes. Pretty fantastic.

This is the perfect weeknight meal. Barely any chopping involved and everything pretty much goes into the pan all at once so you can walk away and be done with it. The result was perfectly cooked sausage with loads of flavour. If I thought my sausage was good before, cooking them in wine only made them more awesome.

This recipe would go nicely with a variety of different sausages and you could probably throw in some other vegetables in instead of just grape tomatoes. This is easily going to make it into my regular dinner rotations.

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Alas!  The Charcutepalooza challenge I’ve been waiting for: Sausage-making.

When I first set out to do Charcutepalooza one of the things I was most looking forward to doing was making sausage. Making sausage just seemed so… hardcore. I mean you need a grinder, a sausage stuffer, all kinds of meat [...]]]>

Alas!  The Charcutepalooza challenge I’ve been waiting for: Sausage-making.

When I first set out to do Charcutepalooza one of the things I was most looking forward to doing was making sausage. Making sausage just seemed so… hardcore. I mean you need a grinder, a sausage stuffer, all kinds of meat and fat back AND sausage casings. Plus the idea of actually making the meat into sausages, casings and all was just so intriguing to me.

One of the things that I love about living in Toronto is how easy it is to acquire certain ingredients. I thought I’d have to trek all over the city in search of sausage casings but all I had to do was walking down the street to The Healthy Butcher and pick some up. Truth be told I sort of “impulse bought” the casings without doing much research since I was in the area. The butcher was helpful and asked me a bunch of questions to ensure that I bought the right casings. I didn’t bother asking whether or not the casings were natural but a quick twitter conversation with @BusterRhinosBBQ revealed that I bought natural hog casings… yay!

For the challenge this month the Apprentice Challenge was to make Italian Sausage and the Charcuterie Challenge was to make Duck Sausage with Prunes. Now, Italian sausage I was game for but I wasn’t really feeling the duck sausage or any other poultry sausage for that matter, so I skipped the Charcuterie Challenge. For the Italian sausage I followed this recipe as detailed on the Charcutepalooza site and also read up on Ruhlman’s Charcuterie to get another perspective on the technique.

Making the sausage was pretty fun. The first part (the grinding and mixing) was pretty old hat at this point. The stuffing is where the party really starts. You need a partner. I got my mom involved and gave her the job of pushing the meat through the machine. My job was to direct the meat into the sausage casings. The process isn’t hard, you just have to get into a groove. The person doing the stuffing has to definitely be cognoscente of making sure the meat is fairly well-packed into the casing. At times I felt a bit like Lucy working at the chocolate factory as I tried to make sure not to tear the casing, compact the meat properly and make sure everything was going well on my mom’s end!

It was really impressive to see the coil of sausage at the end of the process and even more impressive when I twisted the coil into actual sausage links. I kind of didn’t think it would work but it totally did. The sausages turned out great. I made the “hot” version but they weren’t that hot and didn’t have the usual red colour you associate with hot sausage. They were flavourful from all the spices but just not hot. Next time I’d take it up a notch or two with the heat.

I ended up using the sausage on what turned out to be THE BEST PIZZA EVER. Inspired by several pizza menus I decided to buy some Brussels sprouts to go on my pizza. I also used mushrooms and my sausage. What really put the pizza over the edge was the garlic. I thinly sliced some garlic and spread them on top of the tomato sauce. I then sprinkled the cheese over top and the sauteed sausage, shredded Brussels sprouts and mushrooms. I could eat this every week. I know the garlic played a role in the goodness but beyond that I can’t put my finger on why this was so amazing. I’ll attribute it to my sausage.

Excited to see what’s up next for Charcutepalooza…

My quest to “make things with chorizo” continues.  The most recent Charcutepalooza Challenge was all about making sausage meat and I went the chorizo route. As mentioned in that post, I made chorizo tacos but of course have another pound or two of chorizo to use up so I’ve been [...]]]>

My quest to “make things with chorizo” continues.  The most recent Charcutepalooza Challenge was all about making sausage meat and I went the chorizo route. As mentioned in that post, I made chorizo tacos but of course have another pound or two of chorizo to use up so I’ve been on the hunt for other chorizo-related recipes.

On a recent visit to Rick Bayless’ Xoco in Chicago I noticed a torta on the menu with chorizo, poblanos, cheese and tomatillo salsa that sounded pretty delish. I instead opted for a different and also delicious taco but I didn’t forget about the chorizo one.

Of course my fave Mexican chef, Rick Bayless, has a recipe for Chorizo subs/tortas in Everyday Mexican. This was one of those recipes that had me at hello. A sandwich filled with black beans, chorizo, cheese and avocado? Sign me up!

I was a bit nervous that this sandwich might be on the dry side but it wasn’t at all. The chorizo/bean mixture is a bit on the sloppy side which gave everything the right amount of moisture. To add some extra kick to my tortilla I used some of my leftover Roasted Tomatillo Salsa from my tacos which really worked well with everything here. In terms of cheese I ended up using a fresh cheese that I had made. I was initially going to use it as paneer but got sidetracked so I used it in my torta! It worked just fine.

This is the kind of sandwich that you eat in your house rather than packing it in your lunch (unless you’re like me and package all components of your sandwich separately and assemble at work right before eating). I found it totally messy in a very delicious way. The flavours all work really well together. I love how the beans and chorizo combine to make this meaty, beany paste. The creaminess of the avocado does a nice job of cutting through some of the saltiness o the cheese. And since I’m a fan of heat, the El Yucateco hot sauce and my tomatillo salsa added a great kick.

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A few months ago I was at this great shop in my hood called Culinarium trying to use up a recent Groupon purchase. Culinarium takes the idea of being a “locavore” to another level and only stocks products made/grown in Ontario. For awhile I would buy my bacon there all [...]]]>

A few months ago I was at this great shop in my hood called Culinarium trying to use up a recent Groupon purchase. Culinarium takes the idea of being a “locavore” to another level and only stocks products made/grown in Ontario. For awhile I would buy my bacon there all the time and I’ve had luck with various jams, popcorn, cheese etc. It really is a great store.

While looking through the meat case I stumbled upon pieces of guanciale. Guanciale is one of those things that I often see listed in recipes or including on menus at restaurants but I’m never quite sure what it is. To me, guanciale is kind of like bottarga, I always come across it but always forget what it is. Seeing that the guanciale was clearly some type of pork product, I picked it up knowing that I can always find a way to use up a piece of pork.

I came home, threw the guanciale in the freezer and forgot about it until one day when I was taking stock of what was in my freezer. I decided it was about time to figure out what to do with the guanciale. The first thing on my to-do list was figure out what the heck it is. Guanciale is a pig jowl or cheeks that has been cured. Think of it kind of as cheek bacon. I knew that this would be great in a pasta and I just so happened to find this recipe for Bucatini All’Amatriciana.

I’m always on the hunt for delicious, simple and somewhat authentic pasta dishes. I’ve never been a fan of jarred or canned pasta sauce (although I used to have a love affair with Newman’s Own vodka sauce) so I’m forever trying to perfect a tomato sauce. Let me just say, guanciale makes things better.

You know when you’re cooking and you can’t stop eating the individual ingredients? Well, that was me with the guanciale. How has no one ever opened my eyes to the joys of guanciale? It’s like bacon, but better… if that’s even possible. It’s pure porky goodness.

This is one of those recipes that it is great to have in your back pocket. It’s super simple to make and the ingredients aren’t crazy. If you don’t have access to guanciale you can use pancetta or unsmoked bacon. The final dish has some great robust flavours. You get a nice layer of meatiness that melds perfectly with the spiciness of the pepper flakes (I added extra) and of course the hint of garlic. Leftovers were great and this is definitely making its way into my meal rotation.

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Last month’s Charcutepalooza Challenge was all about making sausages (sans casings). I decided to make chorizo because I love to get my Mexican cooking on. Of course when I think of Mexican food I think of Rick Bayless so I turned to him for some inspiration.

I kind of [...]]]>

Last month’s Charcutepalooza Challenge was all about making sausages (sans casings). I decided to make chorizo because I love to get my Mexican cooking on. Of course when I think of Mexican food I think of Rick Bayless so I turned to him for some inspiration.

I kind of knew that I wanted to make some chorizo tacos but wasn’t quite sure what was involved. Of course Rick has a recipe for chorizo tacos in Everyday Mexican. The recipe is actually for Chorizo, Potato, and Mushroom Tacos which sounded pretty good to me.

This recipe was beyond simple. You pretty much just sautée the chorizo, add the onions and mushroom, throw in the potatoes and you’re done.  The potatoes were the one sticking point, literally.  Maybe I didn’t have enough oil in my pan but I found that the shredded potatoes insisted on sticking… which made for a great mess.

I served the tacos on homemade tortillas with Bayless’ Roasted Tomatillo Salsa.  I also added my new favourite hot sauce, El Yucateco for some serious extra kick and some avocado for contrast in texture.

The success of this dish pretty much hinges on the quality of your chorizo. I felt it was good but kind of thought that my chorizo could’ve used a bit more oomph. I found it kind of strange how little the mushrooms and potatoes contributed to the dish. They definitely added body but little in the way of flavour. The cilantro was a nice addition to add a bit of brightness to the whole mix.

This is a great super simple taco dish that would definitely hold up to variations in either the toppings or what you throw in with the chorizo. Oh, and the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa is FANTASTIC. I wish I could keep this in my fridge all the time.

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Now grinding isn’t new to me. I broke out my grinder a few [...]]]>
For this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge we inch our way closer to making sausage by exploring the world of grinding. And yes, I feel slightly dirty typing the word “grinding” repeatedly (I’m secretly a 13 year-old boy).

Now grinding isn’t new to me. I broke out my grinder a few weeks ago to make some pretty darned kick ass burgers. BUT the idea of grinding to make sausage meat was new and totally interesting.

This month the apprentice challenge was to make breakfast sausage while the charcuterie challenge was to make either chorizo or merguez sausage meet. The first thing I made was breakfast sausage. I’m all about my breakfast meats so breakfast sausage was right up my alley. Truth be told I was kind of disappointed that we weren’t stuffing sausage casings this month because I always think sausage patties are a bit of a cop out but I forged ahead anyhow.

One of the first things that I had to do was acquire some fatback. I decided to head over to St. Lawrence Market to pick some up as they have like 5+ butchers. Oddly enough NONE of them had any fatback and almost everyone looked at me like I was crazy. One guy even tried to sell me pork belly! I was totally surprised. I ended up at my regular butcher and of course they had it and basically gave me about 3 lbs of the stuff for free (or a couple cents). After doing some research I realized that it probably wasn’t the best quality, I had to do quite a bit of trimming but it did the trick and was worth the price.

Just like last time I used the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Truth be told, I don’t follow all of the rules when it comes to meat grinding. Sure, I freeze the parts and make sure my meat is just a little less than frozen but I’m not too careful about keeping things cold throughout the process. Most instructions say to grind the meat into a bowl set into a bowl of ice/ice water. I don’t bother with that. Mainly because I never have ice on hand and am pretty sure that I don’t have ice cube trays (although I could check…). I rationalize my decision by reminding myself that I’m usually grinding very small quantities so it’s over pretty quickly.

The sausage patties turned out VERY nicely. The meat was flavoured with sage, herbes de provence and parsley among other herbs. The texture was about right and wasn’t crumbly at all. I made some scrambled eggs and biscuits and it was a great Sunday breakfast.

Next up was chorizo making! I had to choose between merguez and chorizo and my heart immediately said chorizo. Sure, I’ve enjoyed merguez in the past but I could immediately think of tons of uses for chorizo. I knew right away that I was going to make some chorizo tacos! Making chorizo was a lot more involved than making breakfast sausages. There were peppers to toast and deseed, Onion to chop, annatto seeds to crush and a slurry to make.

I had a feeling these would be good judging by all of the different flavours going in. I used 3 types of dried peppers (chipotle, guajillo, and anchos), Mexican oregano, annatto seeds, cinnamon, and a bunch of other goodness. The chorizo (sadly) didn’t require any fatback, it was all just porky goodness! The resulting sausage was pretty darned tasty. I’m no chorizo expert so I can’t compare it to others, but on it’s own it was pretty good. Oddly enough I thought that maybe it could’ve used a bit of extra pepper or something but I’m not complaining.

I made chorizo tacos with potatoes and mushrooms and even made a tomatillo salsa. They were a great, hearty meal. I’m looking forward to making some tortas with the rest of my chorizo and maybe some huevos rancheros too. I’ve got 3-6oz packets of chorizo in my fridge and I’m not afraid to use them!

For the recipes for the breakfast sausage and chorizo click here.  I’ll post about the tacos another day.

I’m hoping that next month’s Charcutepalooza involves some sausage casings…

Since I always keep a stash of fish fillets in my freezer, I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use them up. When it comes to whitefish I don’t have a go-to recipe since I usually make fish a different way each time. What can I say? I like [...]]]>

Since I always keep a stash of fish fillets in my freezer, I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use them up. When it comes to whitefish I don’t have a go-to recipe since I usually make fish a different way each time. What can I say? I like to keep things moving.

I came across this recipe in Ina Garten’s (aka Barefoot Contessa) book Back to Basics but never got around to making it since Prosciutto requires a special supermarket trip (I refuse to buy the prepackaged prosciutto and instead like to have the deli slice the amount that I need). I recently discovered that the Sobey’s around the corner from me has prosciutto in their deli case so I was in business.

This dish is equally suited for a weekend or a weeknight.  I made this during the week and it made things a bit easier since I cut up the potatoes, parsnips and carrots the night before to save on prep time.  The actually cooking of things is pretty easy.  The vegetables are pretty much “set it and forget it” and you can even throw in the fish while the vegetables cook leaving you time to have second glass of wine clean the kitchen counter.

This meal totally worked out.  I love when a recipe gives me my main and my side all in one!  I managed to overcook the vegetables a but but they were still great.  Honestly, I need to do more vegetable roasting.  The fish/prosciutto combination was pretty darned good. It’s in your best interest to use the best prosciutto that you can get your hands on here.  I used cod as my fish and a decent prosciutto and was really happy with the results.  This recipe is definitely a different one for my regular cooking AND is good enough to make for a company.  A definite keeper.

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