Black Hoof Pigs

Not the Actual Black hoofed pig from spain, but these two ladies are now owned by the Black Hoof and we are raising them up to be the first two of our future breeders. I have yet to find time to bring the staff up to meet them, so we have yet to finalize their names, but the ones i like the best are "Brunch and Dinner". Crude i know, but we dont plan on cooking these ones so i guess it makes it fine. We are constantly looking for ways to make our restaurant more self sustainable as well as doing as many things as possible in house. Surely these two arn't cooped up in our back patio but we have found a great farmer by the name of Rory O'neil to raise and breed our pigs in the best manner possible. Rory's farm is just outside Cobourg, its a small operation and the animals get the best of treatment.

If you cant tell by the pictures, these two are 100% Berkshire. I chose Berkshire because the meat is just so dark and purple, its got the best marbling, and the fat content is the perfect amount (read ->lots of fat).

By taking this next step in producing our own pork, we get a lot more control on what we serve. These pigs as well as there young will be whey fed on Empire Cheese whey and then finished on apples and walnuts. The fat literally melts on your tongue!!

They are pretty skittish at the moment, but i hope with some time, they will become pretty laid back as some pigs ive been around. We wont be seeing any edible pork from them for atleast 10 months, but i guarantee there will be a party when that time comes. Something along the lines of a big pig roast im sure.

Kitchen staff #3

This is Mike "agnolotti" Angeloni. He's probably the best looking of the kitchen bunch with his italian boyish looks and he's also the hoofs baker, pastry chef and pasta maker. He's spent the last few years at Splendido working under David Lee and although he's only in his early 20's, he is sure to make an impact on toronto's food scene one day soon. Like most italians, his food approach is to keep it simple and traditional. He has a tendency to sleep through his alarm clock and show up several minutes late in a cab outside the hoof cafe.

This is Guy "GingerHead" Rawlings. Guy just returned from Beijing where he spent the last 4 months discovering the food and culture and most recently was heading up the kitchen at Delux, before that he was the Chef de Cuisine at Cowbell, and has also spent time cooking in the UK. Guy is the craziest of the bunch and is generally always "outside the box" rather then within. He is currently seeking someone to fund his own restaurant but for now is cooking some badass brunch.

Kitchen staff #2

So this is Colin "C-Dub" Tooke, i dont even know what a Dub is but thats what we call him. He's my main man at the hoof. He takes care of everything if im not there and i know i can trust any part of my restaurant with him. He also just bought a loft right beside me, infact his bedroom wall is mine.... weird i know... but sometimes he'll walk my dog when im too tired... so i guess if works out for the best.

Anyways, hes hard as shit. Although he used to work at a restaurant called "Four" and apparently it didn't serve food over 650 calories (what the F$%@ is up with that?) Anyways, big change to the hoof, but he's got a natural talent with food and i guarantee you will see his picture in the paper one day soon. He's also single, and although he still dresses like a gangster he deserves a nice girl.

This is Thoshon, you may remember him. He was our stage for several months a while back. You know, the crazy guy who used to drive in from Niagara on the Lake? Anyways, i offered him a job a little while ago and he basically picked up his belongings and moved to T.O.

He replaced G-mo, our peruvian sous chef who is now in Peru discovering his cultures food to hopefully bring back some to Toronto.

But anyways, whats up with this picture thoshon?

Did you used to pose in Bay catalogues as a child? That dreamy smile just seems too rehearsed.

Anyways, This guys hard as shit too. He's pretty quite and way too polite. Infact it kind of freaks me out sometimes, but this guy can cook. From day one, he was killing it on the electric stove. I have never seen someone put such love into each piece of pork belly, suckling pig, or foie gras in the middle of the shits as this guy does. He never loses his cool and is completely focused. But for real, we need to get a new picture.....shits freakin me out.

Re: New Guy Branden

Branden just overcooked several hundred dollars worth of foie parfait tonight. He just became my least favorite new employee.... and now we're fucked for parfait tomorrow.... this incident will be the butt of our jokes for ATLEAST a week.

Most chef's might get super mad. For me, the two lobes of foie, kilo of turkey livers, and a 100 bucks worth of booze is worth the ridiculing he is about to endure. But were still fucked for parfait.... and that i am not happy about.

Kitchen Staff part 1

The thing that makes the hoof so special is its staff. I often look at the crew at both restaurants and think to myself, where else can you find such a wide range of talented cooks in one place who just dont cook food, but live food. You can find anyone of our cooks, on there day off cooking in one of the hoof's kitchen, not because they were told to, not because they have too, (and definately not because they're getting paid) but because they want to. They are so important to the success of both hoofs that without them it might not be possible.

If you dont know who he is already, this is Geoff Hopgood , our head chef at the Hoof Cafe. He is the one responsible for starting your day off in the morning with a smile and a full (perhaps very full) stomach. Geoff and i met a few years back when i worked at Lucien. You see, Geoff is not only a cook but a forager as well. He came into lucien one day selling ramps. I am glad that i am paying 1/2 the price for ramps now that he works with us. If there is one person i would choose to be lost in the wilderness with, it would be Geoff. He even finds edible things in the back patio area of the hoof. He is originally from the east coast but spent a good time cooking in BC at C restaurant as well as Fuel. But his cooking really reflects the south and he generally thinks everything tastes better with a bit of his special bbq spice.

This is Brendon Olson....Brendons new.... i dont know much about him yet, so i cant go into much detail but i can tell you he has worked most recently with Thomas Keller at TFL, Bouchon , and most recently a year and a 1/2 at Adhoc. Working in the keller kitchens, his work ethic and skill level is as sharp as my knifes used to be back in the day when i had time to sharpen them. He is the newest addition to the team and brings new knowledge to our already primo team.

More cooks to come.

its been a while.....again

So long, i thought this blog may have expired.... or if it hadn't, perhaps i would have forgot my password.

Lucky for me, and perhaps for anyone who decided to steal my wallet, all my passwords are the same.

Life lately has been hectic, opening a second restaurant took a lot out of me, so much that at certain points throughout the process i thought i was going to totally lose my shit. I was faced with the longest days i have faced in my life, always feeling behind two weeks, in prep, in money, in my love life, even in basic hygiene like simple things you take for granted everyday, like sleep, eating, showering, brushing my teeth (god knows i need to brush my teeth more, or atleast my GF likes to remind me after a pack of smokes a day and a couple of coca colas late at night)

Three months behind schedule, a good 75 grand more then we thought,mold in the basement, getting dinged by the building inspector and drug and alcohol addicted contractors are just a few of the roadblocks we had to face.

But now its open, like a hurricane that has passed. time to pick up the pieces, time to pay off the credit cards that were maxed out in the last few weeks before opening, and for fucks sake, time to finally get on the payroll again.

The happy ending to this story is that we have a new spot that couldn't be any closer, the room looks awesome, the kitchen is sick, and the cooks, food and cocktails are even sicker!

I have a lot of catching up to do. The boys at both kitchens right now are kicking it into overdrive, were screwing with a lot of stuff these days. Were having a lot of fun and not taking anything too serious other then putting good food on the plate.

I think its time i start to introduce the kitchen staff that makes everything possible at the hoof.

Glad to be back.

Hope theres still a few people reading this.

Anything for a buck

The frustration of the garbage strike was too much to blog about as it was happening, now that its over and i no longer have a pile of maggot filled bags to deal with i feel i can write about the joyful time we had. It all began with the construction across the street. We had a large construction bin going for rubble, so when the strike began we didn't sweat it too much. We had our garbage disposal so things were looking up. but then it became a local garbage dump and quickly filled up. 500 dollars later and it was gone but we didn't replace it because it would only fill up not just with our garbage but with everyone's in the neighbourhood. 

So we began just putting the garbage in the same spot just minus the bin. I dont think anyone thought it was going to last as long as it did, i sure didn't. Everyday, the garbage piled up, recycling bins  filled up, and balancing acts began with the cardboard. 

Eventually, it became too much and we had to get rid of it. 

So straight to craigslist i went. Apparently a lot of people were taking advantage of having a truck and making money off it. 

So, i called the cheapest crew on criagslist, Labelled "Hard working students", i said to myself "Hey, id love to support some hard working students." So i called, hooked up a decent rate and then waited. 

I didn't really know what to expect, but i figured it would be somewhere along the lines of   a pickup truck or a U haul. 

These "students" , no older then 18, showed up with there pops lincoln towncar lined with a tarp, ready to take any garbage we had. I cant tell you how funny it was to see these two kids jamming 25 large husky bags into there poor fathers car dripping with maggots and pork and fish carcass juice, but they did, and in two trips, our garbage was gone.

All for a crisp $120!

Gotta love the entrepreneurial spirit. 

I hope it covered the car cleaning service. 

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. 

Its been a while

I wont bore any of you for my reason of absence, i told you already, when the vibe to write is there i take advantage of it, when its not, its not. 

Lifes been busy, running a restaurant is a full time job, but often feels like a few full time jobs. We've been busing stocking up our selection of preserves over the last month, this time for two restaurants and were busy playing around with new menu ideas. 

The new place although coming along, is coming along slower then we hoped. I have some updates and pictures to follow. 

Summer has flew by and i didn't get a chance to enjoy it i hope you all had fun!

N'duja Update

So i tried the first bit of N'duja the other day. A little early, but its ready nonetheless. My worries of too much powdered hot chili pepper was correct. I've never tasted the real thing but theres some things i would tweak in the recipe. 

While mixing this batch, i found it incredibly hard to mix everything properly because i had to work in so much powdered hot pepper. In Italy they most likely use some sort of liquid hot pepper paste, but alas we are in Toronto, and authentic products like that are rare to come by, even in little Italy. Round two, i think i would make my own paste with sweet peppers with a little less hot pepper, because although i like the heat and can stand it, the first taste sends you running for water, but then you just cant stop eating it. Today i cooked out some cubed fat in duck fat with hopes that tomorrow i can fold in the n'duja in a kitchen aid mixer to make it a little more spreadable. I'm not sure it will work but i think its going in the right direction to improve its consistency. 

I plan to serve it this week on the menu with some smoked BC spot prawns, crushed cherry tomatoes in a pool of good olive oil with some crusty baguette. 

Smoked Jowl Rielette

I've made some rielette's before, but this one is by far my favorite. Generally i make them with pork or rabbit, sometimes pheasant but never jowl before. I used some nice tamworth jowls, a bit of pork belly and the meatier Kurobuta jowls that i am in love with. I lightly cured the jowls and smoked the Kurobuta's which were then all cooked gently in duck fat and shredded, then pressed. The thing about a good rielette is that the temp and cooking times are very crucial to a good consistency. Its very easy to end up with dry meat and one can do there best to emulsify enough fat to make up for the dryness, but a good palette can always distinguish the difference. 

Easy solution....Jowls. 

Even a newbie could pull this one off and have it taste good and you'd have to do something seriously wrong to have this come out dry. I love the way the marbling of the kurobuta jowls show up throughout this terrine, and i already have plans for a 2.0 version of this where i'd like to press whole jowls throughout to show the amazing marbling.  I tend not to really like aggressive smoke in most things, i find it covers up the flavor of the meat too much, so i only smoked a third of the jowls for an hour or so and folded them in. I tried to fork the rielette, but jowls just dont shred as well as cubed pork, so i just used a whisk and left some chunky goodness here and there. 

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.....