Larzo

This is Larzo. Yes i've made this word up. And you know what, im gonna copyright it. Right here, right now. March 24th 2010. Larzo. Blam!(<-kitchen slang)

I've always disliked Lonzino, Lonzo, Lonza, Lomo, cured pork loin.

I've cured it numerous amounts of times and have never really fallen in love with it. Theres always something that has been missing. Its always very blah to me, regardless of the aromatics i've added. What really sold me on my dislike for this cured meat was when i tried some iberico de bellota lomo, it was ok, but it was ridiculously priced at like 250 a kilo.

And then there's Lardo, I love lardo. who doesn't? Well, a lot of people. It breaks my heart when i see pieces of yummy, melty, strips of cured white back fat coming back on a charcuterie plate and into the waste basket. What is it about cured fat that turns some people off? I mean look at our blueberry bison salami, its littered with cubes of fat but people eat that up like msg laced doritos. Perhaps people feel guilty about eating straight fat. I guess i can understand that. Well i cant, but i can try.

So this here Larzo, a cross between cured pork loin and cured back fat, is the answer to my dilemma of the two when cured separately. You have the leanness of pork loin that takes on flavor easily but you have the finish of the Lardo which keeps it moist and offers richness on the tip of your tongue. We dont screw with it much. We dont clean it up, we dont take off the strapping, it comes right off the bone and into the salt. It cures for 14 days and hangs for 3-4 weeks. To do it right, you must weight it during the salting stage so you get a flat compressed brick. It slices well and has the richness of prosciutto, only richer. Do everyone a favour and dont use shitty pork for this. This is only good with the best pork possible. If you can, use whey fed pork. the whey goes straight to the fat and makes it like butter rather then that typical pork fat with a chew. Enjoy!

Suckling Pig Summer Sausage

We've never used suckling pig in a salami before but when we had some extra pieces we didn't have any particular use for we thought why not? It has such a distinctive flavour and since we had the hay from the farm it comes from we decided to smoke it with its own hay.

Summer sausage is a pretty quick process. Grind and mix your meat. Ferment for several days (in this case, only 1 day so we didn't over sour its delicate flavour). Smoke slowly till you reach the optimum internal temperature.

We tasted it already, you can definately taste the hay, we vac packed it and id like to let it rest a little before i give my final thoughts.

Recycled Salami

We go through a lot of cured meats at the Black Hoof and now the cafe. We only use so much of these cured bits of flavor in soups, sauces, ragu's etc.... so we need to find another use for them.

A couple months ago i diced up some prosciutto ends and folded them into a genoa salami and not only did it turn out extremely well, it also gave it an amazing richness that you can only get from a cured ham.

So, the idea here with this "recycled salami" is to use everything from duck ends, pancetta, summer sausage, pepperoni, etc.... everythings fair game. i will only add enough raw meat to bind it plus a little, as for salt, i will minimize the typical 2-3 % by a little and assume the already cured meats may give off a bit. I will not be adding any seasoning other then salt and hope that the flavor from the pre cured meat will be flavourful enough. We'll see......

Smoked Plantain

My newest addiction! We made plantain for the Haitian fundraiser. The concept of the smoking was very last minute. Everything in the kitchen should always have the chance to see a smoker and this time we stumbled upon something great! Not sure it has been done before but it is fantastic! We finish it with a little chili lime salt/sugar mixture. Depending on how smoky you want it you can score the plantains skin or smoke it peeled.

48 hour Trotter

So the idea of eating a trotter in its entirety seemed like a beautiful thing. What could bring you closer to an animal then simmering away its foot in a porky stock for 48 hours with the idea of eating bone and all. Well folks, let me save you some time and excitement and describe what its like. Picture taking a piece of drywall off the floor, dipping it in some water to dampen it a bit, then placing it in your mouth and chewing in to its gritty, powdery nature. This is exactly how the trotter tasted. I was very surprised to even see it hold its shape and integrity after all that cooking, thanks to it being wrapped in cheesecloth. We actually simmered it for 48 hours over a period of 5 days or so. Not ideal, but definitely not the reason for this failed attempt. If you remember, i got the idea from an old school book i have. It notes that if you cook a trotter for this length of time, it is completely edible. Perhaps this was a way for the poor to survive back in the day and this gives new meaning to eating the whole hog. But let me tell you how happy i am to be living in 2009 when times for the most part are good. 

I really wanted to like this, i really did. 

Unfortunately, it looked like crap and pretty lifeless. I dont think i noticed it at first because i was thrilled with the idea of eating it all. I sliced into it and it kind of crumbled but kind of stayed together, so we were off to an interesting start. The bones were pretty hollow as if whatever good stuff that originally was in there had now had the life sucked out of it. We breaded it up and fried it in a pan. Both Colin and myself tried to down it but didn't make it far. We then tried feeding it to one of our servers. We told her what it was, but didn't tell her how we felt about it. We rarely give them food, so she jumped at the chance to have a nibble. Perhaps she was being nice, but she didn't think it was that bad, not at first anyways. Then the sandy texture of the bone, which was hard to get out of your mouth lingered on and her face grew less happy. We broke out laughing and she went for a glass of water. That was that, another one for the bin. 

48-hour Trotter

So, apparently, if one simmers a trotter for 48 hours, everything within that trotter becomes edible. 

The boys at the hoof kitchen are on hour 14-ish.... 

We've wrapped it up in cheesecloth, tied it and have been simmering it away on and off when we have space on our stove. 

If all goes well, we will chill it, slice it, bread it lightly and sear round discs. 

There are three textures we've been told, crispy on the outside, molten on the inside, and somewhere inbetween while chewing on the bones. 

This may go somewhere....but also may go nowhere.....

Pickled Ramp Jam

Sometimes, infact a lot of times, great things come from big mistakes (ie: foie gras gojiberry). While trying to use my new pressure canner to preserve my pickled ramps, i overcooked the shit out of them. I am far from an authority of the pressure cooker, i've barely used one in my cooking career. Perhaps i need to cook in kitchen stadium for practice. Anyways, i overcooked the crap out of the first batch. 10 minutes under full pressure, and the brine came out of the jars and it was still boiling nearly 1/2 an hour after being taken out of the canner. Frustrated by my lack of success my first time around, i was determined to not have these guys see the garbage can. No one wants to smell ramps on the sidewalk, especially during a garbage strike. The brownish colour they took on was similar to caramelized onions, and the only thing that stood between the ramps and the bin, was some sugar and the hopes that it would make a great, or atleast interesting jam. In went the sugar, in went the brine and there i was waiting for that perfect consistency. 

I was a tad bit reluctant because these ramps were pickled in a dill pickle style. I was a little unsure of how that flavour would react with a boat load of sugar.

When it was all said and done, i took my first taste. To be honest, i wasn't sure i liked it. It was too unfamiliar of a taste for my taste buds. It wasn't until Colin and Jen, who both loved it, did my taste buds come around and begin to enjoy the unique flavor we had achieved. 

Its tough to describe the flavour, the dill is there, but you'd really only pin point it if i told you it was in there. The consistency is similar to a date in syrup, sticky and toffee like, but with the help of the pressure cooker, the integrity of the ramp shape, despite being overcooked, still help its shape and the perfect consistency for a jam. Jen thinks it would make a perfect accompaniment with the monkfish liver.... we shall see.

The success of this jam gives me a whole new way of thinking towards pickles.... what else could i make in to a jam with that acidic aromatic flavour much different from your typical fruit jam. 

Stupid things one does when its slow

On a slow night most cooks would catch up on prep or clean areas of the kitchen that dont get regular attention, but some days, for no apparent reason, we go straight to option 3....playing with the deep fryer. 

The deep fryer is the most entertaining piece of equipment in a kitchen. Not many tools can compete with a container of consistently hot oil with baskets ready to fry anything that comes its way. But the beauty of the deep fryer is in the differing outcomes depending on what you put in there. 

It started with an egg. None of us in the kitchen that night had deep fried a whole egg in its shell. We didn't know what to expect, but obviously, we figured it would blow up. We bounced around our theories and argued about the outcome. Some of us took cover, and others, meaning myself, stayed close by to keep watch on the fryer. All three of us stood there, trying not to look too suspicious in front of the surrounding customers. 

We waited....and waited... until clearly this egg was not going to blow up. 

So much for that one.

On to the next. 

I whipped up a quick tempura batter and we began frying every little tid bit in the kitchen. Chorizo, salami's, gherkins, and even sour keys (our go-to protein when were hungry). None of the outcomes warranted new menu changes, but its times like these where new ideas and new techniques are created. I bet you many things you might eat at El Bulli are created by days like these. 

Next stupid thing on the list was the veal brains. We were soaking the brains last night for the ravioli's we are making today. I decided to cut a small piece off and offer it to my dishwasher, labelled veal brain sashimi. It was meant as a joke, i wasn't sure i was going to let him eat it, but i definately wanted to see if he'd do it. He passed on the raw state, so i offered him ceviche. A little marinate of lemon juice and brunoise. I gave it to him and told him to give it about 5 minutes before eating. Tom's a special boy, he'll pretty much do anything you tell him. The ceviche looked appetizing to him, i knew he was going to eat it. 

I've never heard of eating raw or quickly marinated brains before, especially not calf's. I quickly thought of the possible outcomes and decided as a responsible restaurant owner, i wasn't being too responsible. When he wasn't looking, i grabbed the little bowl of marinating brains and walked back to the kitchen. 

Confronted with my two cooks who were hoping for a much more entertaining outcome, i only had one choice and that was to eat it myself. I split it in 1/2 and scooped the first bit in a spoon and i downed it without chewing with the assumption, that if i dont chew it i will have a better chance of not getting sick. Realizing my silly assumption and the fact that whatever would happen was going to happen, i was ready to really taste the raw brains. I took the second 1/2 and placed it on my tongue, i squished and chewed and swallowed. It had a very delicate texture, almost like a scallop but with less bite and chew. When i think about it now, it was a delicacy to my senses. 

Its the next morning and despite a little hang over, i feel fine. 

Not sure brain ceviche would sell nor that i would even put it on the menu, but it was nice to try and another stupid night in the books.

Sobresada

The other day i made Sobresada. Its the spanish version of the italian sopressata, except for that its a ground salami, which then gets pulsed in the food processor and then cures. The end result is more like a pate one can spread, then a salami you can slice. The meat to fat ratio is 1:1 , so its very creamy. I decided not to pulse it for several reasons, the main one being i didn't have enough time to do such a large batch in my dinky food processor. While grinding it, it already looked pretty smooth and mushy so hopefully i get a good product. Like most spanish salami's there is a lot of smoked paprika involved. Infact this salami takes a shitload. 

I used beef middles as my casings but my last few casing purchases have really been a disappointment. They seem to break every few inches which is INCREDIBLY annoying. So i stopped 1/2 way through and began using the saran wrap casing above. I'm not sure what its actually called, so i call it saran wrap casing. It looks like a roll of seran wrap, only 20 times more expensive. I just recently got it but i have already planned out my next twelve things id like to experiment with. 

Basically, in a nut shell, you lay your meat down, wet the wrap, and roll like you would a roulade of sorts. Tie it up, poke your holes and hang. I'm in the beginning stages of experimenting with it, im sure i will come across some obstacles and i wont get it perfect for another few tries. But anything that doesn't take up valuable fridge space like natural casings is worth a try ...or even two...

Evolution

The key to successful charcuterie is to have a starting point and go from there. I have some friends (you know who you are!!)  who have crazy ideas and jump head first into them with the end result not always being fruitful. I on the other hand like to slowly progress from things i have learned in the past. Call it playing safe if you will, I will be cooking for many years to come so i am in no rush.  I have never been the type to try and come up with the next best thing and you can see that in our food. None of our dishes are "cutting edge", they're not trying to be. They are meant to be kept simple. Obviously we are limited with our kitchen set up, but even if i was given a huge kitchen with all the gadgets, perhaps even a gas stove and a regulation hood, the hoof would still be doing the food we do. Which brings me to my point. The hoof is a breeding ground for knowledge. We come in each morning excited to try something new based on something in the past. 

Here you have the headcheese set with the tongue and pig ear, which if you remember both started out as separate identities. 

And again, here you have the testina and the cottechino both started out solo and have now joined forces. 

I guess this is how the quail got stuffed into the chicken and then eventually into the duck. People get bored, especially chefs. Most of us continually push to learn new things. The art of charcuterie has taught me the art of patience. As quickly as i master something, im right back at the beginning with the next. It's as if im running around in a circle but each time its gets much bigger. Amassing information as i go. 

This blog post is about to get way to heavy for 4 in the morning....

My brain hurts. 

You know where i was going with this...

g'night.

Happy Cabbage

So the dish is complete and i am very happy with it. I had some close ups of the dish but i just really liked this picture someone took of us and it really shows the size of the snout as well as how happy it makes us. This is my biz partner Jen and I. We've decided to call it stuffed big snout on happy cabbage because the ratio of smoked bacon, apples and white wine is quite a lot when compared to the amount of cabbage so that makes us and the cabbage ....well.....happy. The final stuffing was sweetbreads, smoked ham hock and 24 hour roasted pigs head.  Since cleaning the porky fat off of the snout the texture and taste has become a lot less porky, in a good way. 

This is a dish for two which will be on the menu starting valentines day. Maybe its just me, but there is something very very romantic about this dish. Love is in the air. 

Pig Roast Finale

So i showed up to work this morning to find the head roast pretty black. At first i was sure it was burnt, but at further inspection and taste it wasn't. It was actually pretty damn tasty. Not exactly cooked so i could shave it table side on some eggs for brunch but it tasted much different then say just your typical poached head. It had depth and a very nice caramelization to it. Unfortunately it was stuck to the side and bottom of the hotel pan so when i went to pick it up the meat essentially fell of the head and into its own oil. I was interested in tasting the brains but didn't have a clever so i just busted it open on the tiled floor and got a little taste. The brains were overcooked, not surprising after 24 hours of cooking. The meat attached to the eyeball was pretty tasty though...considering it was attached to the eyeball. Oh and i couldn't bring myself to eat the eyeball. We picked through the remaining meat and i tossed some in for the stuffed pig snout along with some sweetbreads and smoked hock. The rest of the meat got pressed into a terrine. Tomorrow i shall see what the terrine tastes like. All in all i wouldn't call it a failure as it was a learning experience and i have learned a few things i would do differently. 

Pig Snout Update

So the first stage of playing around with pig snouts is complete. It went exactly as planned. I quickly stuffed it with some smoked ham hock, set it while warm in seran wrap, then wrapped it in caul fat, aggressively seared it, then roasted it, then i basted, then sliced. It was very "porky", almost too much and uber gelatinous because of the fat and meat attached to the skin of the snout. Next time i think i will brine them, and clean out the snout better so that its more of a serving vessel rather then part of the meat component. 

You either view the finished product as a work of art or stomach turning. I dont think there is much of a medium when it comes to this dish.

 The plan is to serve it with some braised cabbage, apples and double smoked bacon. 

Pig Head Roast

I have a weekly order of pig heads. I usually cant keep up with it but never remember to cancel it. this week i got one really big one and the other one went into the headcheese. It was sitting there in a 22 liter container, actually only 1/2 of it was because the other 1/2 was to big. I didn't know what to do with it but i knew i wanted to do something different. It was so big that i didn't want to butcher it. So i've decided to roast it. I've never roasted a whole pigs head but i imagine it cant be much different then a turkey. The task will be doing it in an electrical oven and what pot to use. maybe the rondo. The head got rubbed down with garlic, salt, pepper and fresh dill. why dill you ask? no clue. its been sitting in my fridge for a week now (that stuff lasts forever) and it just called to me. Its been salt curing for two days now. i may roast it tomorrow, but im in the kitchen by myself and i'd really like to give it the attention it deserves. 

Theres something really sexy when i think about basting a pigs head....

Stuffed Pig Snouts

So today I was informed that I wasn't going to be  able to use our infamous Tongue sandwich on Brioche for a magazine shoot because another restaurant was doing a tongue dish. Why we, who specialize in pigalicious and off-cut meats dont get to use our tongue I cant understand, but i was over it as quickly as i got pissed. So what to use instead i thought to myself... Nothing on this weeks menu can outdo the tongue. The tongue is KING. 

And then it hit me... I've been toggling around with the idea of stuffing pig snouts for a week now. I've seen stuffed trotters on menus before but never snouts. is there a reason for this? I took 5 minutes to think about this question....Is it any less appealing seeing nostrils instead of tow nails? is there a big difference between toe jam and boogers? surely there are more people afraid of feet then there are who are afraid of noses. And i'm almost positive there are more nose pickers then toe jam eaters... so quite frankly, i dont see a problem with stuffing snouts. I do see a problem with sales on this one though. I'm not sure toronto is ready for stuffed snouts. I see maybe a few chefs ordering it not necessarily because they're intrigue or because it sounds delicious, but more so because, as chefs, we feel like we must order the grossest sounding dish on another chefs menu as if to say, "Hey! I'm cool, i'm a chef, i'll eat it, i'll eat anything"...when really we usually regret it and would have been better off with an arugula salad. 

Regardless, this dish is in the works. I picture a plate of cooked cabbage with lots of wine and smoked bacon with a big dirty braised pig snout stuffed with smoked ham hock and wrapped in caul fat. So the test snout has been stuffed and is awaiting a trial roasting tomorrow. 

Noisette Round Two

I really enjoyed the Noisette i made a couple months ago, the only problem is that it went too quickly. So i made a huge batch and screwed around with it in several forms. i had these bladder casings just ligering amonst some salt in the fridge i wanted to use up. I'm not sure if theres a traditional recipe one would use to stuff these with, but pork, roasted hazelnuts and fresh tarragon sounded good at the time. It was my first time using them and it was fun to see how big they stretch out to be. By the end of it i couldn't stop thinking to myself what the heck am i going to slice this on. Either way, it was fun, an experience, and something i needed to educate myself on. They look weird hanging in my fridge and the lining is really thick. It was tough to get the meat really compact so i hope there's minimal gaps between the meat. 

I also borrowed a metel pole from a restaurant i used to work at to hollow out a few pork loins to stuff. This just isnt any 

metal pole its been sharpened on one end to cut through the meat. i slipped the cured pork loin onto the tube just like you would a casing and then piped the farce meat into the hole just like you would a salami. I then wrapped it up in cheesecloth and fermented it for a day then off to the curing fridge. i'm excited to see if it binds well in the interior. 

A quick note on mixing starter culture

When i use starter culture, i always use room temp distilled water. The distilled part is obvious, who knows what's in your tap water, also i have it at room temp so it brings the culture alive sooner and quicker. For an added touch, i always add a pinch of dextrose to the water so the bacteria can start feeding and multiplying. And i always try to do this before i grind my meat so it has time to wake up before added. 

Mustard Seeds and Bresaola

The first time i made horse breasaola i gott it in my head of introducing mustard seeds in the mix. Not during the cure, but actually during the hang and incorporating it into the finished product. I wasn't sure if the seeds would stick or what the consistency was going to be like, but i just had to see what would happen. Then one day i was playing around in the charcuterie fridge at my old restaurant and the horse felt ripe. I brought it back to the kitchen and cut off the butcher twine holding the cheesecloth in place. I knew right away there was some good mold cause i could smell it and the cheesecloth put up a fight. What appeared was a beautiful hunk of black meat speckled with bloomed yellow mustard seed intact with the rest of the gaps covered in healthy looking white mold. I sliced into it and the meat was purple outlined with yellow speckling. I let a piece come to room temp, splashed a bit of olive oil on it and down it went. It was great! It had that pungent air dried smell of red meat and the mustard seeds gave it a spicy finish. Unfortunately, i only did two small pieces. One was straight mustard seed cut with a bit of kosher salt, the other had a bit of chopped fresh rosemary in there as well. So this time i cured to large pieces almost 2 feet long. Pressed them as usual and dipped the cheesecloth in a red merlot littered with rasped garlic and salt. once it loses 35% of its original weight i'll post pictures and comments of the finished product. 

Duck Tenders

I've cleaned a lot of duck breasts in my days... 

And very rarely has the tender ever been of any use. I think i remember using them in a foie gras hotdog once but most of the time it gets thrown  into a consomme raft or staff meal. 

So i started thinking about how i could cure it and make use of it, or better yet how could i turn it into money at this new restaurant. 

I'm a big fan of botarga. I have not had much, but i still remember a simple pasta i once ate with a mound of rasped dried roe. So i got to thinking. What if i was to give the tenders a simple cure, perhaps add a bit more salt then i would normally for curing and see if i could get a rock hard piece of cured duck, hard enough to grate. 

I could see it shaved on a nice salad, cheese, pasta, the possibilities are endless and i think it will be a good use of something generally overlooked. 

Cured Duck Tenders

320 gr Duck tenders (approx. 10pc)

25 gr Confit salt

.8 gr instacure #2