Trouble no more.... How to make Stew!

Today it is cold. Minus 15 cold. Now If you are living outside of Halifax and are having a balmy summer day this post may not be for you. However keep it in mind the next time you step outside to bone chilling, teeth chattering, below zero weather.

Stew:  In the most basic of terms, if you were to boil any two ingredients in a liquid on the stove for a one pot stop meal you would be making stew. Almost every culinary region of the world has a traditional "stew". For instance, Hungarian Goulash, Beef Bourguignon, Boiled Dinner, Pot au feu, and Hot pots to state a few. Today lovely readers I will share with you my traditional stew recipe. Please let this be your blank canvass and feel free to tweak the recipe in anyway you choose.

 First things first! You are going to make the base of your stew. Head down to your local butcher and ask nicely for some beef bones preferably with marrow.  I will wait for another blog to discuss my marrow love but trust me, flavour, nutrients, bone love... all good.  You are going to roast the bones to start the juices extracting so that you can make a wicked awesome stock to lay the foundation of your stew. This is NOT hard... just a bit time consuming so I suggest making your stock 1 carrot, 1 celery, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, thyme, rosemary, and either 1tbsp tomato paste or tomato (All coarsely chopped). Let this roast in the oven at 400 for around 30 minutes or until a beautiful golden brown. Your kitchen will smell amazing.  From there carefully transfer everything into a pot, and fill with cold water. Bring this liquid up to a simmer and continue to simmer for at least 2 hours. This my dears is your beef stock! you can continue to add water and simmer for up to 8 hours if you are adventurous (and have the time) This will only continue to condense the flavours and liquid.

Now that you have your Beef stock let's make Stew!

2lbs Beef (Ask for your butchers recommendation.. I used brisket)

4 slices thick bacon

1 Large Onion

3 Carrots

1 Bushel Kale 

3 Potatoes

1 Turnip

2 Parsnips

1 Guiness, or 1 cup red wine

Salt and Pepper as needed

1/2 Cup Flour

Cut your meat, and veggies around the same size. Nothing needs to be perfect here so have fun with it. Chop, chop chop... and set all ingredients aside so that it is ready.

1) Season your meat with few pinches of salt and pepper then dredge in your flour so that it is fully covered. While this is happening heat 1tsbp of butter in a large pot on the stove and add in diced bacon. When the butter is melted and your meat is fully covered add the meat into the pot.

2) When the meat is brown, the bacon is crisp, remove them from the pot and set aside. Deglaze the pot with 1 cup guiness and stir so that all the flavours stuck to the bottom of the pan are once more introduced to the liquid.  When the beer has almost evaporated add in your onions, garlic, and let this cook for 2 minutes. 

3) Then add your herbs, and chopped veggies. Once this medly has had time to get to know eachother (3 minutes) add back in your lovely beef and bacon. Give all the ingredients a few minutes to become friends and share flavours. Make sure to stir the ingredients at this point so that they do not stick to the bottom of the pot. From here you will add enough beef stock to cover the ingredients. Do not worry if the consistency of the stew looks thin when you first add the stock. You are going to let this simmer on the stove uncovered for at least an hour. The stew will thinken, your veggies will cook through, and the beef will tenderize. Wait until your stew is almost done before seasoning. While the stew cooks the flavours will add their natural goodness so if you season as you go you may end up with to much salt or pepper. 

I hope this recipe creates warmth, lovely kitchen scents and full tummies. Have a wonderful Friday!!

Eat, drink and enjoy!!!!

Pig meat blues.... (Not for the Faint of heart) Pigs Head

I repeat before continuing on with reading my post this evening I would like to warn you if you are vegetarian or just super sensitive to meat do not read on. 

On the contrary if you are willing to go to the extremes and interested in different and new cuts of meat I beg you to continue reading as I can assure you it will be quite an adventure. This Sunday I went to the Farmers market with a good friend to pick up some lovely local produce.  After picking up some cheese, turnip, parsnips, and butternut squash we headed to the door. On our way I steered us in the direction of a local butcher shop to see what they had in store. Now was I ever excited to see a Pig heads staring back at me from the display case. Now now my friends and fellow readers do not be alarmed. There is nothing wrong with a good ol' fashioned pigs head and this I will prove! 

a) They cost $4.00 or $2.00 for half a pigs head which is what I bought. If you are being charged more tell them that you understand that you are being ripped off and either walk away or barter them down to $1.50. No one deserves to be ripped off when buying a pigs head. 

b) They are super cool. A great way to practice your knife skills fatty, interesting and have just enough meat to make cheek bacon, testina, fried ears or some bacon fat chips to say a few fun pigs head recipes.

c) Talk about a cooking adventure!!! 

Now there is not much I  wanted to do with the snout so I decided to concentrate on utilizing the jaw, back of head and cheek (which  means I cut around the ear)  If you wanted to use the ear you could cut it off, boil for a heck of a long time and then fry. This would make a very crunchy and tasty pigs ear chip for your chewing pleasure.

 Now I had a goal in mind. This was to recreate a dish called Testina which I cooked and ate quite a bit while living in Italy. The process is to take the pigs head, remove the meat and fat from the front jaw, cheek and back of head following along the line of the ear. 

 Once you have done that you are going to butterfly the meat. (This means to cut down the thickness of the meat but slicing it in half 90% of the way) This way the meat and skin ratios will be even. 

Now from here the meat and fat need to cure for a solid day. This is going to begin the cooking process as I used a salt/sugar ratio to begin bringing out some of the water out from the meat. I used course salt at a rations of 5:1 (salt to sugar) the sugar was just there to cut the intensity of the salt. I then took fresh garlic, crushed peppercors, rosemary and thyme and nicely massaged these into the pig meat, fat and skin. 

I then wrapped it very tightly and let the whole head cure for a total of 18 hours. From there I washed off the garlic, herbs and peppercorns, patted the meat dry, tied it tightly with butchers twine into a roll and then poached it for 10 hours. The slow poaching for such a length of time breaks down the meat, fat and skin allowing each element to cook together. It also poaches the meat immersed in it's own fat so the whole roll stays extremely moist. 

After 10 hours I removed it from the cooking liquid and saran wrapped it again very tightly. You have to press it for a second time after cooking so that the fat, meat, and skin can once again congeal. I am not lying when I say that this process is actually so cool and interesting. You see all three elements of the head take many different shapes throughout. I then let my my saran wrapped meat sit for at least another 10 hours. At this time It has turned pretty much into a log of fat wrapped around meat. But the most tasty, devine, smooth fat wrapped meat you will even taste as the skin just melts into the fat at and secures itself tightly around the meat. To serve you heat a pan at really high heat and then  cut off a 1/2 inch log from the round of testina. You then sear the testina quickly on both sides and serve. It is amazing!!!! I will take many photo's of the cooking tomorrow and write a recipe to go with the final plating. For now I just had to share in the actual adventure on how to get to the point of eating it. 

Quite possibly the best time in the kitchen I 've had in a while. Making this reminded me of the past and just how adventurous eating and drinking can be. Check in tomorrow for a full scale view of what "Testina" looks like when it's all said and done.. and a recipe of course that will only add to the experience. 

Eat, drink and enjoy!!!

All the things you are.. Sausage

Ah it is Sunday eve in November. The air is crisp, the leaves have all tumbled to the ground, and it feels as though this is an evening where fires should be lit to accompany the scent of mulled wine brewing on the stove.

Last week I received a recipe by post. I jumped for joy and reread the recipe a few times trying to understand the flavour idea's and preparation method.  Twas a wonderful gift as:

a) I am rarely given new recipes to try unless it's through my own act of reading through cookbooks, and even then I usually change much of the flavouring so that it is more suited to my cooking style.

b) This inspired me to have a new culinary adventure in the kitchen and try out another cooks creative flavours.

c) The recipe provided a perfect excuse to get in the kitchen, have some fun and share in my culinary adventure with you! 

So my dears let's get cooking. Tonight my blog is dedicated to a wonderful friend and penpal. This recipe is sure provide tantilizing flavours, sweet kitchen scents and smiles from full tummies after a wonderful meal. 

Squash with Sas... aka The Sasquash

1 Medium Onion

1 Large Butternut Squash

2 Large Sausages (your favorite local ones of course)

1 or 2 Avocados

1/2 Cup Rice (white or brown)

Olive Oil

Rosemary

Cinnamon

Salt and Pepper

Honey 

Butter

Place a dollp of olive oil in a frying pan with some salt and pepeer. Slice the sausages into pieces of the size you want. I sliced them thinner because they taste so good and I wanted more in every bite =) Put the sliced sausages in the pan with oil on medium heat so that 

they begin to cook. Slice the onion and add this into the pan as well. While the sausages cook peel your butternut squash, cut it in half and clean out the seeds. Make sure to save the seeds.. bake later... yum! Then I was told to cut the squash no smaller than the hedgehog on the front of the card... As you can see I followed the recipe in great detail.

Now you can either steam the squash or boil it until soft but not falling apart. Choose whichever method most excites you.  While that is cooking in a separate pot cook your rice. Remember rice is a 1:2 ratio so 1/2 cup water to 1 cup rice. Cover the pot, and bring your rice to a boil on high heat. Once the water is boiling turn down the heat to low and let your rice cook with the cover on for 10 minutes. Take rice off heat and let your rice finish cooking naturally for a few minutes so that it doesn't burn but has time to take in any extra moisture.

Slice your avocado while rice is cooking and add with the rosemary to your sausages. Your sausages should be well on their way to being cooked at this point. Perhaps nicely browning and singing the song of wonderful scents.. the sign of a happily cooking sausage. Turn down to low heat.

When the rice is done add it to the sausage pan with a small spoonful of butter and stir to mix it all together.

When the squash is cooked add a spoonful of honey and a pinch of cinnamon and mix just well enough (that means mix it so that all the flavours have combined but you don't mash the butternut squash in the process) 

To serve, make a little bed of the squash on a plate and spoon the rice-sausage-avocado mixture on top.  C'est Fini!

There we have it a tasty recipe received by post. I think the best way to end off this blog is by sharing the ending message of the card "I simply want to share some tastes I find comforting and tasty. Enjoy with some wine and a song or two et Bon Apetit!"

Eat, drink and enjoy!!

Gimmie a pigfoot..... Pulled Pork

Hello all and a very joyous Sunday morning to you. Now If I had it my way today I think I would have woken up to the lovely smells of some 12 hour brisket, and ribs coming out of the smoker in my back yard. Such an amazing smell to wake up to on a perfect autumn day. Alas instead I sit here with a black coffee. Not even 1/100 as exciting. 

Meat. - I love meat. I enjoy many different cuts, from many different animals, and the many different cooking techniques in the world. Today I am going to share with you an old classic, one of my favorites. This is will surely have you waking up to some sweet scents and the idea of an old backyard BBQ.

Pulled Pork 

Now many people think that pulled pork has to be incredibly difficulty to make because it is so very tasty. Naturally taste = hard work. Not true my friends. One of the loveliest details about pulled pork is that the pork really does all the work. 

 Go to your local butcher and ask for Pork Shoulder or "Picnic Ham" This is a cut that is taken from the upper part of the foreleg that includes a portion of the pork shoulder. You can either get this cut with the bone in or out. I enjoy bone in because then you can really see the meat fall of the bone after roasting. This is the perfect cut of meet for pulled pork and is one of the lesser expensive cuts as well. 

 As you can see from the picture on the right there is a huge fat cap on this piece of meat. This is the layer of  1inch fat that runs along the animals back. Essential in pulled pork. 

Now you want to cut right between the flesh of the meat and fat and slowly pull it back off. Leave the fatback connected to the meat. You are going to create a layer between the fat and flesh so that as the meat cooks it is consistently filled with flavour.

Rub the whole cut of meat with a generous portion Salt, Pepper, 1tbsp smoked paprika, 1/4 cup grainy mustard, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and then fresh thyme and rosemary. Then place the fat back onto the meat and tie so that the bundle of herbs is secure. 

Place in your roasting pan. 

On the bottom of my roasting pan I always put a liquid. I enjoy using beers (of all kinds) I used a Apple Cider Beer last time because I wanted to get a hint of the sweetness of the apple so that my pork could be in tune with the autumn weather.Make sure that the bottom of the pan is fully covered with beer. If you have to use 2 bottles or cans. You don't your roasting pan going dry. =)

Put your oven to 500 and broil the fat of the pork for 5 minutes or until crisping. This will have the fat immediately starting to release and baste the rest of the meat. It will also secure the fat back on to the meat.

 Once the top of the fat has browned turn your oven way down to 220F. This is going to be some sslloowww. Good for the heart and uplifting for the soul. Cover your roasting pan with tin foil and place in the oven. I like to do this in the evening so that my pork can slow roast over night. I also love that I get to wake up in the morning to the sweet sweet scents of pulled pork. ahhhhh . 

If you are uncomfortable leaving your pork in the oven while you sleep roast it during the day or in a slow cooker. This way you can check it every hour or so to see how it's coming along. You want to give it time so at least 8 hours (depending on how big your meat is) Even so do not rush it. When you pull the pork from the oven the meat should be falling apart on it's own, and easily pulling away from the bone. 

Now remove the string, the fat cap and your roasting rack. I like to let my pork fall right into the roasting liquid that has settled into the bottom of the pan. 

This makes a beautiful natural sauce. 

You have now created love in a pan. Eat this as is, on a baguette, in a bun, on poached eggs, on a picnic, in the backyard or simply standing over your stove as is.

Eat drink and enjoy!