January 14th, 2012
When my Mother was a kid, her family would vacation on a lake in Ontario. During my childhood, I heard stories from these vacations. My Mom gushed about swimming in the lake, her father and brothers’ fishing for pickerel, and most of all the peameal bacon! For Xmas I decided to try to make my Mom some peameal bacon.
I think I was quite successful but I am waiting for feedback from my Mom. Today, peameal bacon is made by pickling a pork loin and then rolling it in corn meal. My research and intuition told me that this is not the traditional technique for curing peameal bacon. I wanted to create a more traditional peameal bacon or at least my romanticized version of peameal bacon from a lake town in Ontario in the 1950s and 60s. I mean first of all it is called “peameal” so I forgot about the cornmeal and went straight for the dried yellow peas. The peameal, was used to prevent bacteria and mold from forming on the surface of the meat. It protected the meat similar to the way a casing protects a coppa. This suggests to me that traditional peameal bacon was dried for a period of time so I decided to use my normal dry cured method. I decided to add the kombu (seaweed) because I picture the butcher creating the peameal bacon, on this lake in Ontario in the 1960s, as a thoughtful creator who would utilize his/her readily available lake resources. I rubbed the pork loin down with salt, kombu, bay leaves, pink salt, juniper, black pepper and some dextrose. I let the cure penetrate the loin for 14 days and then I rolled the loin in ground up yellow peas or “peameal”. I then hung it in my drying fridge for 10 days. The best way to cook it is to fry slices very briefly in a pan. The bay leaves add a nice floral contrast to the sweet pork and the unctuousness of the kombu. I’m not sure if the people who eat this will be talking about it 50 years from now but its a good first try.
Posted in Bacon, Charcuterie, Pork | 2 Comments »
January 12th, 2012
One of my many new year’s resolutions was to bake bread every week. I have been complying with this resolution thus far. Pictured above there is a sourdough bread I made with my starter. In previous posts, I have talked about the various ways to use one’s sourdough starter. In this case, I made a sponge with the starter…. I mixed half of my starter with water, honey and flour and then let it ferment over night at room temp. The next day I mixed more water and flour to the mixture in order to get the correct bread dough texture. I let this bread dough rise over night at room temp and then punched it down. Then I let it rise again and then baked it. The amazing thing about this loaf is that no store bought yeast was added to the mixture. The yeast came from my Urban Starter in which the yeast was procured from the air and/or the whole wheat flour I use to feed the starter. I can’t wait to cut into this loaf tomorrow.
I have been up to other stuff as well….Like making some kombu cured pancetta and dry aging some beef top loins in my home fridge(pictured below)
Posted in Beef, Bread | No Comments »
December 15th, 2011
I tried to channel my Tyrolean roots on this one. I came up with this recipe about a month ago. Even though my Tryolean roots run shallow, I tried to imagine what kind of sausage alpine people would make after slaughtering their hogs in the late fall and early winter. I assumed that hearty herbs would still be growing on the alpine cliffs and wild onion would still be available so I added some leeks, fresh marjoram, and thyme to the sausage. I also threw some wine and some other spices in there.
I cold smoked my first batch but the smoke over powered the subtle herby flavor. I skipped the smoke on the most recent batch which allowed the sausage’s lactic acid flavor shine. I think this recipe is a keeper and may be a new holiday tradition.
Posted in Charcuterie, Holidays, Pork, Sausage | 2 Comments »
November 1st, 2011
Cory and I just came back from an incredible trip to Munich, Interlaken and Amsterdam. The food markets were filled with great cheeses, meats, charcuterie and bread. One small meat shop in the Munich Vikualienmarket, displayed pork cheeks, sweetbreads, hanging tenders and lamb heart in their front window. This is a far stretch from what Americans display front and center in meat markets. The people of Munich know how to eat well. We came home inspired by all the simple foods that were done so well.
I just sliced another slab of my seaweed cured applewood smoked bacon. I cured the bacon with kombu, salt, bay leaves, black pepper and pink salt. I then cold smoked the cured bellies intermittently for 5 days. After smoking, I dried the bellies in my drying fridge for 10 days. Pretty damn tasty!
Here are a couple photos from the trip:
Cory eating some carrot ginger soup on a chilly morning at the Munich Vikualienmarket
Me drinking a litre of Urbock at the beer garden in the Munich Englischer Garten
Posted in Bacon, Charcuterie, Pork | 2 Comments »
September 25th, 2011
When I make chicken kabobs or any boneless chicken recipes, I buy a whole chicken and process it myself. This is ideal for Cory and I because she likes the breast meat and I enjoy the thigh and leg meat. I throw the bones in the freezer for later use for stocks but what do you do with the skin? …..Well, you make chicharrónes for a snack. First thing you do is boil the skins in water to render some of the fat then place the skins on a baking sheet with a rack. Let the skins dry in the fridge overnight. The next day, heat up some oil and fry the skins. They puff up and spit hot oil at you so be careful. Dust the chicharrónes with ancho chili powder and salt. Serve with salsa verde.
Posted in Chicken | 5 Comments »
June 5th, 2011
It looks nice an crusty. I dry aged this ribeye for 22 days in my home fridge. Click here to read more about dry aging at home. I love the smell of beef dry aging but it starts getting a little funky when the ice starts tasting like dry aged beef. Cory will be happy to have a normal fridge again. Here’s a photo of the steaks cut from this…
I had to cook up a 1/4 inch steak to get a taste. The flavor is very beefy and the fat melts like butter. The great thing about dry aged steaks are that you can get an amazing crust on them because the excess water from the meat and fat has evaporated during the aging process.
Posted in Beef | No Comments »
May 8th, 2011
Fresh homemade brats seasoned with ginger, coriander, mustard seeds, mace, nutmeg, garlic and a few other things. The key to any good fresh sausage is to hang them at room temperature for 2 to 24 hours. This ferments them a bit and dries the casing between the links. I made these bad boys Saturday as well as a new batch of fennel and nutmeg salami. The salami are fermenting in the oven until they are hung in my drying fridge tomorrow night. They look and smell good already.
Posted in Pork, Sausage | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2011
This coppa came from a carcass that had its chuck/loin brake between the 4th and 5th rib so it is a bit longer than then ones you could cut from a pork butt from a grocery store. It took about 90 days to dry. The flavor is really nice. It has a nice salt level and the meat seems somewhat sweet. I seasoned this one with juniper, bay, pepper and mace. Overall the texture is nice but there seems to be a bit of case hardening, that is, the outer layer dried a bit faster than the inside. I may have to raise my humidity a bit in my drying fridge. This was the first batch that I cased a coppa in beef bung and I tried a few slices with the casing still on it…….WOW! that was a bit too gamy/tripey for my taste. Overall I am very pleased.
Posted in Charcuterie, Pork, Salumi | 2 Comments »
April 16th, 2011
I have been on the quest for the perfect homemade pizza for years. I have been searching for the perfect mixture of flavorful crust, crust charring, foldable slices, simple sauce and perfectly melted cheese. I have the flavorful crust covered by using my sourdough starter and the sauce is a simple mixture of garlic, onions, whole canned tomatoes and some tomato paste. My biggest problem has been syncronizing the perfect crust texture with the perfect melted cheese. I solved this by modifying how I use my oven to bake my pizzas.
In the past, my pizza making was a multistage process. First, I would preheat my oven to 550 for about an hour with my baking stone on the floor of the oven. My thought here was to get a great char on the bottom of the pizza and this worked very well for that purpose. After I accomplished the perfect char, I turned on the broiler which is on the top of my oven. I moved the pizza to the top rack and charred the top of the crust and melted the cheese. These pizzas turned out great but I wanted better. The crust on these pizzas were a bit over cooked. Yesterday, I figured out how to fix this problem.
First, I moved the baking stone to the rack about 5 to 6 inches away from the broiler. Next I turned the broiler on high for about an hour to heat the stone. Then, I threw the pizza on the stone and waited about 5 minutes and heaven in slice form was served. The crust had the perfect char on the outside but still soft on the inside. Success!!!
Posted in Pizza | 2 Comments »
April 11th, 2011
I have tried out quite a few different themed posts on this site. For example, there was “Exploring The Classics” where I tried to reconnect with American classic cooking by cooking one recipe a week from James Beard’s “American Cookery”. I think I posted one maybe two posts before I gave up on that one. Next there was “Smoking Sundays”. This one died because it was too time consuming to maintain a consistent temperature in my R2D2 smoker. Well, “Smoking Sundays” is back. I bought a new propane smoker and have been smoking every Sunday. In the past few weeks I have smoked a pork butt, pork back ribs, pork Karubi Ribs (pork chuck short ribs) and beef short ribs(pictured above). I rubbed the beef short ribs with fennel, black pepper, salt, brown sugar, mustard seeds and paprika and smoked them for about 5 hours at 225*F. I served them with a tangerine mustard sauce. Some good stuff.
Posted in Beef, smoked meats | No Comments »
