Spicy Smoked Pancetta & Lemon Coriander Pancetta

Every Christmas all of the cousins in my family do a Christmas gift exchange.  This year I got my cousin Hamish.  He's the perfect person to gift with his love of all things meaty.  So what was I going to get him?  Hmmm, ponder, ponder, ponder.  Ahhhh, yes.  Bacon.  No, pancetta.  No, smoked pancetta!  The best of both worlds!  

I decided on two types of pancetta.  The first would be flavoured and the second would be smoked and flavoured.  And guess what?  I got to build a smoker.  Oh yes.  Read on...

The first pancetta cured in salt and sugar, diced preserved lemon, toasted coriander and thyme.  I let it sit in the cure for a week, the water slowly seeping out as the salt and lemon worked their way into the belly.  It got a little bath to rinse off the salt and sugar before I grated fresh lemon peel straight onto the belly and then rubbed it with toasted and ground coriander.  Into the drying closet it went.

The second pancetta cured in salt and sugar, hot flaked red pepper and one clove of garlic.  It sat with the other belly, also being massaged and flipped every couple days.  After rinsing, it got another dusting with hot pepper flakes then it was time for smoking.  But I have no smoker!  What's a girl to do?  In my case, I decided to build my own and it worked like a hot damn.

I started with a kettle barbecue.  The little black one that people bring down to the beach.  There are four vent holes out of the top of the barbecue and to that I attached a ProFlex Dryer Vent Duct, with tape.  Oh yeah.  Hi tech.  I cut the dryer vent duct in half, which was the hardest part, and attached the other end to the barbecue grill with twist ties.  I suspended the grill between the backs of two chairs and then on top of the chairs I placed an oven rack.  Voila!  An ultra cold smoker!

I'm not sure what temperature a cold smoker is at normally but I wanted mine as cold as possible because I didn't use any pink curing salt.  How perfect that it is winter in Vancouver right now so it is about refrigerator temperature outside.  My little belly sat on the oven rack above the dryer vent for five hours and I didn't have to worry about food safety at all!

For the smoke itself, I used mesquite.  To light a fire, I bought Lokkii bricks from Canadian Tire and then put handfuls of damp mesquite chips on top of the Lokkii every 20 minutes or so.  The package said that each large charcoal chunk lasted for two hours but mine lasted longer than five hours.  I just stopped after five hours because it was late and I wanted to go to bed.

The belly took on a beautiful color, which I greatly admired as I hustled it down into the drying closet.  Now when I say drying closet, I really mean my unheated storage locker.  And let me tell you, it is smelling smoky.  Sorry other tenants!

After two weeks of drying both pancettas were given a tin foil blanket and passed off to my cousin.

The Verdict

I have no idea!  My cousin is getting four pounds of pancetta and I hope he enjoys it...  Maybe he'll comment on my blog!

Up Next?  My EPIC Christmas Eve Brunch 2012!

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment.

The Death of my Soya Sauce

The death of my soya sauce provides a wonderful opportunity to both grieve and celebrate experimenting with food.  Yes, you read that correctly, my soya sauce is dead.  There will be no beautifully aged, complex tasting, umami-full soya sauce in my pantry, or in the pantry of any of my family members and friends.  However, I learned a bit more about the varied and rich processes found in Asian cuisine, and that is the purpose of experimentation.

As my loyal blog readers may remember, my experience thus far with my homemade soya sauce was a bit unsettling and traumatic.  It started out innocently enough, got a little bit creepy, and then turned downright Lord of the Flies.  I was seeing it through though, putting up with its stank, settling in for the long haul.

Like a new relationship when you discover that your beau has obscenely stinky feet, but enough potential to make it seem not that bad.  Until you discover that he is also full of bugs.  And you just can't put up with a man who is full of bugs.

Picture this.  I was allowing my sauce precious house time.  It sat there stankin' up my living room, smelling like death.  Seriously, it smelled like death.  But the time came.  I decided to peer in, pulling the cheesecloth aside for the last, fatal time.  If I hadn't looked closely, been willing to get down and dirty with my soya sauce, I never would have seen the awful truth - there were many tiny, tiny, tiny white crawlies using my fermenting soya sauce as a home.


It had to go.  That was the final straw.

And my fantastically rustic ceramic pot that I bartered to get?  The pot that looked as if it were made to brew soya sauce in?

It's now a new home for my curly fern.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment.

Homemade Soy Sauce: Part 2

The second stage of making soya sauce is done and part three is well underway.  The second stage, as documented, involved growing plentiful amounts of mold and then drying the mold cakes in the sun.  I found the latter part of the second stage almost unbearable.  Like a little puppy with her favorite toy, every afternoon I carried my tray of soy cakes out into the hot sun so that they would get nice and dry and crusty.  However, they spent the morning in my living room window where the sun is hottest.  The quality of my soya sauce took precedence over everything else, chiefly my ability to spend any amount of time in the living room.  Drying soy cakes are stinky.  I think they are so stinky because they are basically naked, with only cheesecloth to keep away the flies.  The cheesecloth does nothing to contain the smell and even as I write this, about a week after the stage ended, I shudder a little on the inside.

Why am I doing this?  And I don't think I like soya sauce anymore.

Anyways, once the cakes were nice and dry into my beautiful ceramic pot they went!  With a whole lot of salt and water.  To be specific:

• 1 cup of sea salt
• 6 litres of purified water

Yeah, I am making a lot of soya sauce.

Then the lid went on and into the hot sunny window the giant pot went.  Of course I am never one to leave things alone so I started looking around online a little and I started to worry that sealing my sauce in would ruin it.  I became obsessed with the need for the sun to touch my fermenting brew and so I decided to, gasp, open the lid.

For those who don't understand why this horrifies me, I should mention that I opened the lid a few days after closing it and the experience wasn't pleasant.  It smelled like rotting so the idea of keeping the lid open for an extended amount of time in my living room wasn't something I thought I could handle.  But as I mentioned earlier, what the sauce wants, the sauce gets.  And so the lid came off and the cheesecloth went back on, damn you cheesecloth.

Then I had another traumatic experience, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.

After I opened the pot, I left the house.  I was out for the whole day and entering my place at the end of the day I noticed there was little smell.  Quite pleased I strode over to my window and whipped open the curtain to check on my precious sauce.  There were probably about 15 flies buzzing around behind the curtain, above the pot.  Ahhhh!  So freaky.  I quickly closed the curtain, took a deep breath, went back in to put the lid on the pot over the cheesecloth and then got out of the way of the freakin' flies.  Nasty.  Thank god for cheesecloth!

Damn you soya sauce.  I've invested so much effort that I just can't give up on you!

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

Grandpa's Blackberry Jam

When I think of my Grandpa I think of bear hugs and whisker rubs.  I think of long afternoons sitting in the carport watching him guide wood across the surface of his table saw, showing me how to do it safely, how to measure carefully so no wood went to waste.  He built furniture with sturdy frames, generally covered in laminate with a wood pattern - he thought laminate with a wood pattern was a marvel.  When I smell sawdust, or wood glue, or contact cement those memories rush back.

My Grandpa was a teacher, not so much with his words as with his actions.  Despite growing up in an era where a woman's place was securely in the home, he sent my Grandma off to go shopping and socializing with her girlfriend's every weekend.  He stayed home and invited all of the neighborhood children over for a big pancake breakfast.  I am sure that there was no mess for her to clean up afterwards, that would have been an unacceptable way to treat a wife he loved deeply.

I have so many memories of growing up with him.  When I turned five, he dressed up as a candyman for my birthday party.  He pinned bags of candy all over his shirt and pants and then ran as a horde of young girls chased him down ripping off the candy.  The before, during and after pictures are hilarious and he is smiling in all of them.  During Christmas he let the grandkids decorate his bald head with the bows from our presents because it made us laugh.  He loved making people laugh.

What I remember the most though is how openly he loved us.  His cards were always the corny floral ones with one on my mantle reading in his carpenter's print, I want to thank you for the treasure you have become to me.  It's from several years ago but I pick it up and read it often.  He was such a treasure to me.

He loved me despite the distance between our world views, despite my back covered in tattoos and my hair dyed a platinum blonde.  It is through him that I first began to understand what unconditional love looked like in real life.

He passed away a few months ago, after several years of decline, first his body, then his mind.  I mourn that the newest generation, my baby nieces and nephews, will never remember his bear hugs.  In my mourning though I realize the honour of sharing his love falls to those who knew him.  That I can make epic pancake breakfasts, hug my niece tightly and love her unconditionally. 

At this time of year, late-August moving into fall, blackberries are at their peak and blackberry jam was my Grandpa's favorite.  I decided to ask him for the recipe a few years ago, I wanted to know his secrets, the story behind the recipe that I was sure had been passed down through the generations.  In his common sense way, he looked at me and said, "Just follow the directions on the pectin box dear."  So as I attempt to capture late summer in a jar by carefully following the directions on the pectin box please know that his love is my inspiration.


Directions:

Follow the directions on the pectin box.  With blackberries you may want to strain half the berries to remove some of the seeds as it is quite a seedy fruit.  That's the one tip Grandpa gave me.

Thanks Grandpa.

Eat on toast with cream cheese or butter.








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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment.

Pesto: Freezing a Summer Day

Basil is funny to grow.  It starts as a spindly plant, often with just a few leaves, so few in fact that to take any feels wrong.  To snip a couple off for a tomato salad makes me worry that I might kill the plant.  In the beginning I always straddle the line between wanting to taste and not wanting to kill.  More times than not in early summer I skimp on the basil leaves or I (ahhh!) buy basil.

Then late summer rolls around and my basil plant has turned beast.  There are so many leaves that I don't know where to cut.  And then I see them.  The seed pods and flowers, inching their way out of the top, getting ready to turn my basil into a bitter compost addition.  Not on my time.

Basil, you're about to get whacked.

The scissors emerge from the kitchen.  I grab the entire basil plant and cut it off at the ankles.  Brutal to be sure, but necessary because it is at this moment, when the heat of the late summer is overbearing and I am praying for rain as if I live in a desert that I know it is time to make pesto for the winter.

To learn about the history of pesto is to free yourself from recipes and proportions and rules.  The word itself is from the Latin word pestle, which mean to pound and to crush.  Historically, pesto is a herb sauce made from crushed basil and cheese, but the possibilities are endless.  Play with different herbs and seeds and nuts and oils to create a pesto that tastes amazing for your palate.  Here is one possibility.






Ingredients

• 1/4 pound of garden fresh basil
• A few sprigs of mint (they were in the fridge and I didn't want them to go to waste)
• 1/2 cup of toasted pumpkin seeds 
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Honey to taste (I started with a tablespoon)
• Enough oil to make it smooth
• Salt to taste
• Thai chili peppers (please see point 2 in the directions)

Directions

1) Some people might want to strip the leaves off the basil plant.  I chose not to.  I just threw the whole clump of basil into the blender with the mint, garlic, honey and some oil.  You might be wondering why I am using a blender considering my obsession with tradition and authenticity.  Well I had a quarter pound of basil to get through and I have rheumatoid arthritis in my hands so modernity won this battle. 

2) Previous to making my pesto I had been making my latest batch of chili paste to ferment so instead of washing out my blender I decided that spicy pesto was the order of the day.  It was a win-win situation, less clean-up for me and more flavour for my pesto!

3) You will be adding a lot of oil to make your pesto blend properly.  Just be patient and once the blender stops blending productively (the pitch increases because it's not blending anything), turn it off, open up the lid and press the basil leaves back down onto the blades using a wooden spoon.  Don't do this while the machine is on please.  I know it can be tempting.

4) As I am blending up the leaves and oil, I am toasting my pumpkin seeds.  Some recipes call for pine nuts, but to be honest, they are really expensive and I had pumpkin seeds on hand.  Once the nuts are toasted and the basil is of a nice consistency, add the nuts and keep blending.  Blend until smooth but not necessarily perfectly smooth.  Imagine the texture that an old Italian Noni would approve of, I think she would raise an eyebrow and perhaps a tut-tut at a perfectly smooth pesto.  Go for rustic over elegant. 

5) Taste and adjust for salt and honey.  Now pour your pesto into a clean ice cube tray (thanks Auntie Kathleen for this idea) and freeze.  Once the pesto cubes are frozen, pop them out of the tray and into a ziploc freezer bag.  Use whenever you need a hit of summer.

The verdict: At the farmer's market this week I took home some beautiful Italian zucchini, which I sliced thick and sauteed before topping it with my pesto.  Delicioso!











Notes

• Uses: on pasta, on veggies, on bread, on sandwiches, in dips and spreads
• If you want a lower fat version, substitute broth for some of the oil.  Make sure you taste before adding extra salt because most broths are quite high in sodium.
• Be warned that pesto is used a symbol of love in Italy, so be careful who you serve your pesto to...  Think of it as a garlic laced cupids arrow.
• Find this recipe and other sugar free ones here.

References

Pesto Recipes
History of Pesto

A Meditation on Mold

Stage one of mission soy sauce is complete and stage two is well underway.  Stage two is the development of mold on the soya bean and wheat cakes.  The original recipe called for wrapping the cakes tightly with damp paper towel and saran wrap.  This didn't work for me.

After about a week, I checked on my soy cakes and I found day-glo paper towel and very little mold.  This didn't seem right and I am sure the ancient Chinese peasants who created soy sauce didn't use paper towel or saran wrap.

Plan 2: Arrange soy cakes on the back of mini muffin tins, squirt with a little water, seal them in and give them more time.

After about two more weeks, I decided that the mold development was sufficient.

Before setting them out to dry in the hot summer sun, I wanted to capture the best of the best in terms of mold development.

I love this one to the left.  It looks like a little mini-volcano.  I had my eye on this mold pile as it grew, starting out as a beautiful coil, over time it collapsed on itself and developed lovely little white fuzz.

This is another interesting one that looks a bit like cheese.  The darker brown patch at the top of the cake was also originally a fluffy white coil but then collapsed or perhaps got crushed by my rough handling...

Sorry little mold hill.

This is one of my absolute favorites.  It's as if you are flying through a bank of clouds in an air plane and all you can see are fluffy, fluffy clouds.

I would love to know what is going on right now in the mold colonies.  Why are some areas fluffy and some cauliflower-like?

And for the finale mold shot...  Look at those delicate white hairs.  The gaping hole is where I ripped the little cake away from the pan.

I'm such a beast in the kitchen.

One thing I should mention for those inspired to make their own soya sauce is the smell.  You are basically making blue cheese (from a smell perspective) and after about a week the soya wheat cakes start to smell like ammonia and sour blue cheese.  You will probably find the odour offensive though my roommate hasn't mentioned it yet so maybe it is not as bad as I think it might be.  She is also used to me brewing up weird things on an almost constant basis.  Now that the moldy cakes are in the living room window getting baked by the sun the scent might become stronger and weave its way through the apartment a bit more.

I'm not yet at a point where I can see or smell soya sauce.  I keep sniffing the bottle I have in the fridge to see if I can detect any similarities, this might happen once I start to ferment my mold cakes.

Exciting!

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

Dinner for Dad: Pasta Carbonara

For those that follow my blog, you will remember the start of my love affair with cured pig cheek or guanciale.  A traditional use for this lovely fatty pinch of pig is in carbonara, a traditional Roman pasta dish full of egg and cheese and guanciale.  Sounds pretty good right?

So I decided to "treat" (not this time unfortunately) my Dad to a dinner while my Mom was away.  This seemed to be a win-win situation in many ways.

First, I get to hang out with my Dad, which I always enjoy.  Second, he doesn't have to eat take-out for at least one night (my Mom is the cook, he is the dishwasher).  Third, he is very accepting of food and so is the perfect target for new and/or untested recipes.  Fourth, he eats gluten and my Mom doesn't, and finally, it is the opening ceremony of the London Olympics and he has a giant TV and I have none.  What a perfect situation!? 

What a perfect foil for an untested recipe...  Please allow the story to unfold.

Ingredients

• Batch of homemade pasta
• Fresh peas from Bob's fruit stand
• Large chunk of guanciale
• Two eggs
• 1/2 cup of parmesan
• Sprigs of thyme

Directions

1) Everything started out well.  I was a bit nervous about making pasta for the first time, especially without a pasta machine but being experienced with handling dough I thought should hold me in good stead.  It did.  The kneading went well.  I chose to use whole wheat flour from the Flour Peddler so I reduced the flour in the recipe just a little bit to account for this.  It came together nicely and was popped into the fridge to relax.

2) While the dough was relaxing I cubed the guanciale and allowed it to slowly render with the sprigs of thyme.  It smelled beautiful.  I also shelled my peas in anticipation of the grand cooking finale.

3) It came time to roll out the dough.  I had bought a book on pasta making earlier in the day and my instructions were to roll it out to the thickness of a piece of brown paper.  A piece of brown paper!!!  My goodness that seemed thin at the time.

I started to roll, and roll, and roll.  Every once in a while I picked the dough up and flipped it over, gently slapping it against the granite counter top.  Roughing it up a bit is good for the gluten development, think of it as giving your pasta character.  It was getting quite thin but wasn't as thin as my book said and here is where the first mistake occurred.  I started to panic.  My Dad was sitting at the dining room table doing some work and I became sure that he wanted to eat and was getting impatient (he wasn't, I was just getting anxious).  Mistake 1: I rushed the process...  Never rush the process. 

4) My too-thick pasta was dumped into the boiling water and promptly thickened up until it resembled flattened earth worms.  I guess I never realized how much pasta thickened up as it cooked until I made it myself.

5) As the pasta cooked (it only takes about 3 minutes) I had to work on the carbonara.  The peas had been added to the guanciale before the pasta went in so they would have time to soften (dump out some of the guanciale fat before adding the peas and make sure you give the peas a good amount of time to cook).

6) The parmesan was mixed with the eggs and whisked together.  Then about half a cup of pasta cooking water was slowly whisked into this mixture until it became smooth.  As I was doing this I anxiously watched the pasta cook and stirred it so it didn't all stick together.  Then the moment of truth and the secret to amazing carbonara (besides fantastic ingredients).

The pasta is whisked out of the boiling water and thrown in with the guanciale and peas.  The egg/cheese mixture is poured on top and the whole mess is gently tossed for only about a minute until it is shiny and beautiful!

Mistake 2: Never, never, never return a carbonara sauce to the heat once it is done because you fear the pasta is underdone.  It cooks the egg too much and becomes a lumpy mess.  Again, I panicked.  Honestly go for an undercooked pasta rather than an overcooked carbonara sauce, not to mention that an extra 30 seconds on the heat is not going to do much to your pasta anyways.

Panic is not a good ingredient in food.

The verdict: It tasted good.  The whole wheat flour lent a stronger taste to the pasta than regular white pasta but personally I don't mind when my food tastes like what it is.  It was definitely toothsome.  The carbonara was a bit lumpy because of my panicked overcooking but delicious nonetheless.  In the words of my father:  "Well, it's not a very pretty looking dish dear but it tastes good."

Thanks Dad.

End note: You are probably wondering why there are only two photos.  Carbonara, even the mess I made of it, doesn't leave much time for snapping photos.  It all happens in the blink of an eye and I am just not willing to sacrifice my end product for a photo.  Not to mention that by the time I was done I just wanted to sit down and eat, as did my father.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

Homemade Soy Sauce: Part 1

As I started to write this post, I kept wanting to write: "Fermentation is not commonly used in the West."  After I wrote it though I kept coming up with examples of fermented products - beer, wine, cheese, 'kraut, pickles, vinegar... etc. etc.  We clearly ferment a lot of things.  I suppose that in the East the methods and subjects are different so in some ways it feels like a different process, but fermentation is common to many cultures.

While I haven't been able to clearly divide how different culture ferment, one thing I can say is that making soya sauce is funky involving kneading and mold and fermentation and sunlight.  This ancient process takes a long time, possibly up to six months, but the end result is stunning (according to the blogosphere).  Here is step 1 to delicious homemade soy sauce.

Ingredients

• 420 grams of dried soy beans
• 3 cups of whole wheat flour from the Flour Peddler - check out this website, really cool guy who mills his flour by bike
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour

Directions

1) The first step is soaking the soy beans overnight.  They swell considerably so cover them with about three times as much water as there are beans in the pot.  There are ways of quick soaking beans but I don't recommend doing that in this situation.  When a process is meant to be slow, perhaps it is better to luxuriate in the slowness rather than attempt to speed it up?

2) The next morning the soaking water will be all bubbly and slightly thick.  Pour this water off and pour in fresh water, again using about three times as much water as there are beans.  Put the pot on high and watch it.  I am serious about the watching because once it reaches a boil, the soy beans will quickly foam over the pot and all over your stove top.  No one wants that.  Once the water is at a strong boil, turn it down to just under the maximum heat (or to however low it needs to be so that it doesn't continually boil over).  As the beans cook, skim the foam off the top.

The cooking time is about two hours or so.  You will be able to easily smoosh a bean between your fingers when it is finished cooking.

Note: My 454 grams of dried beans turned into almost 800 grams once puffy and cooked.  This is approximately seven cups of soy beans.  Yes I have seven cups of soy beans.  It was only at this point that I started to calculate how much soya sauce I was making - approximately 10 litres, and it won't even be ready in time for Christmas!

3) I used the approximate ratio of 4:3 for beans to flour.  The easiest way to mix everything is to dump your freshly cooked beans onto a clean surface and mash, mash, mash them up.  Once mashed, put the flour on top and knead the whole mess together until you have what is known as a "soy log."

4) Using the picture on the left for reference, cut your soy logs into thin slices, approximately 3/4 of an inch.  There might be larger chunks of soy bean visible.  This is fine.

It was at this point that my recipe failed me.  The next set of instructions called for wrapping each piece of log tightly in wet paper towel and then saran wrap to promote the growth of mold.  I did this and was unimpressed with the results.  I recommend laying your pieces out in semi-upright positions (propped up on the back of a mini-muffin tin perhaps) so that the maximum surface area is available for mold growth.  Seal everything up so they stay moist and mold friendly and leave it alone.  You are going for ultra mold growth right now.

5) After I was finished with my whole wheat soy log, I moved on to an all-purpose flour soy log.  I used the all-purpose simply because I didn't want to waste my soy beans and was out of whole wheat flour.  Same process - mush, knead, form, slice, wrap.

I am intrigued to study the mold growth on the different flour types.  Will my beautiful whole, wheat locally grown flour grow fantastic mold or will the commercially processed, old and stale white flour?

Any bets being made by gamblers in the whole foods community?

Please look for future posts to discover where this fermented mold sauce came from!

References

• History of Soy Sauce
• How Products Are Made
• Shaughnessy, E. L. (2005). China. Duncan Baird Publishers: United Kingdom.
• Soy Sauce

Making Fish Sauce

"An Englishman teaching an American about food is the blind leading the one-eyed." -A. J. Liebling

I have often heard it said that the Vancouver restaurant scene owes its bounty to our large Asian population, that the expansive palate of Asian diners mirrors that of the French.

Obviously Asia is a much larger area and contains many, many different cultures and cuisine types.  What they all have in common, however, is the funk.  The funk is the opposite of white bread, of pale tomatoes, of commercial mayonnaise and prime cuts of meat.  The funk is spot prawn brains, spicy kimchee, furry tofu and my oh so funky homemade fish sauce.  Or what will be my oh so funky homemade fish sauce.

I am on an Asian fermentation kick right now.  Fermenting peppers, brewing soy sauce and now creating a West Coast version of fish sauce.  As I looked up recipes, I noticed that they contained fish, salt and water.  That was too boring for me.

I want some kick, and some subtlety, and maybe even a little West Coast vibe in my fish sauce.  Here's what I came up with.

A little warning before I tell you my secret recipe.  It is completely unscientific.  Completely.  Even more unscientific than my previous attempts at fermentation.  Maybe fish isn't the best choice for an unscientific experiment but clearly I am not always one to use what my mama gave me - my brain.  It hasn't killed me yet and I consider myself lucky so, lady fate, may I have one more roll at the dice please?

Ingredients

• Almost half a kilo of sockeye salmon bits - fins and ribs and flesh, this is where the West Coast vibe came in
• The salt is supposed to be 1:2 or 3 ratio of salt to fish so I guesstimated, err on salty
• Three habanero peppers, chopped roughly
• Four cloves of garlic, mine was organic from Klipper's farm - I think that will make my sauce extra delicious and funky
• Tablespoon of star anise pieces, hey why not
• Water to fill the container

Directions

1) Open up your fish, get your nose in there and take a nice deep sniff.  Don't skip this part because you don't want to introduce the funk here.  Funky fish at this stage is not cool.  It should smell like the freshest ocean breeze or don't use it.

2) Wash out a container really well and start packing it with salt, fresh fish, habanero peppers, garlic and the star anise.  You will think to yourself, "whoa that is a lot of salt."  This is okay, salt prevents spoilage and promotes fermentation.  This is what you want.

3) Once your container is packed, pour your water on top until there is just about an inch of room at the top of your container.  If you are using tap water, let it sit out uncovered for at least an hour before pouring it in to let the chlorine evaporate.

4) Now weigh your fish bits down and put a cover on top loosely so that gas can escape.  At this point I placed the container in my "fermentation" cupboard next to my peppers.  One of the recipes I looked at said to let it sit out in the sun on occasion so I might do that tomorrow just to kick off the fermentation.

The whole process of fermenting fish sauce takes from nine months to a year so look for my grand unveiling then.  I am sure the first time I use this sauce will be an EPIC experience.

Check out this link for more information on the history of fish sauce.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

References

• How Fish Sauce is Made

Fermented Hot Sauce: 2-1

My first batch of fermented hot sauce was so successful that I have two orders for more!  Never one to rest on my laurels I've decided to experiment with the second batch.

I'm starting off with thai chili peppers again.  I've been reading up on hot sauces and for fermentation you want to use super hot peppers.  The high levels of capcaisin (the molecule that makes you burn) help keep bad bacteria at bay.  I again added garlic and I'm trying the fermentation process with whole peppers this time instead of ground peppers.  

I have four cups of peppers fermenting so I can make a whole lot of sauce as well as allow two of the cups to ferment for a longer period of time.  As you can see I left the green stems in again and I plan to grind up some of the green tops with the peppers once the fermentation period is over.  I'm rather excited about this hot sauce experimentation.  There are so many ways to experiment and change the character of the sauce even with just the basic ingredients.  How long do you ferment them for?  How long do you age the sauce?  How much vinegar do you add?  How finely is it ground?  Do you keep the seeds and membranes or remove them?  Lots to contemplate.

The peppers and garlic and brine are now bubbling away in my darkest cupboard.  I like to keep the top on loosely so that the glass jars don't explode spraying peppers and garlic all over my kitchen.

Once the fermentation period is over I plan to remove the stems and add a touch of chipotle pepper when I blend the thai chilis up.  Chipotle is a smoked red jalapeno and I think a hint of smoke should be nice in the hot sauce.  

At this point, I'm not sure how long I will let the other jar of peppers age?  Any thoughts?  Suggestions?  I am learning that hot sauce lovers are a passionate, somewhat obsessive, bunch and I would love to hear other contemplations on aging and fermenting and heat.

"You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you.  I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you.  You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours."

-from Saint Augustine Confessions

Like my sauce here!  I'm number 19.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

Rendering Suet aka Makin' Lard

Suffice to say that I have a greater understanding of the scent of a medieval household after my first experience rendering suet.

I've been reading The Great Mortality by John Kelly, a riveting account of the black plague and how it wound its way through Europe in the 14th century.  Needless to say a key ingredient in its spread was the incredible filth of households in this period.  People bathed rarely and garbage (think dead animals, toilet offerings, rotten food) was strewn about the streets.  They also used lard or tallow in making candles.  According to Kelly, lard wasn't a preferred source of fuel because of the smell.

So let me get this straight.  People who were surrounded by rotting flesh and human excrement complained about the smell of burning lard.  How could this be?

Let me tell you.  It is a penetrating and murky smell.  Those familiar with the smell of their house after a deep fry session will have some idea, but rendering lard is worse.  It lacks the richness of cooking meat and the purity of cooking with vegetable oil.  It just smells heavy, and not in a good way.

I would like to think that I have a fairly strong stomach.  I mean I did saw open a sheep's head after all.  Despite the strength of my stomach, I will probably never render suet again.  But what inspired me to bother in the first place?  It was the pie competition.

According to the Joy of Cooking lard makes a "very tender crust (that) is best reserved for covered fruit pies" (p. 862).  Did I want a "very tender crust" and was I making a fruit pie?  Yes on both accounts.  I was sure that using lard would give me an upper hand on my competition.  With this in mind, I trotted to my butchers. 

Lo and behold they had bags of frozen suet, ground up and ready to go.  Luckily one of the butchers told me that I would need to render it before I used it for my pie.  Armed with this information and clutching my little bag of ground fat, I trot home, sure that I was about to have a pastry breakthrough.

Before getting started I decide to do a little research.  There is a wet method and a dry method of rendering fat.  The dry method is used during normal cooking - think of frying bacon and then using the wonderful extra fat to fry your eggs.  The wet method involves throwing, in my case, a big chunk of suet into a pot with water and letting it cook on low for hours.  As it cooks the fat melts out and can be poured off through a strainer. 

I didn't use a lot of water so the water had evaporated before I poured the fat off.  If you are using a lot of water then the fat can be skimmed off the top.  As this fat and water-filled mixture steams and bubbles away for hours your house will be filled with its distinctive odour.  I highly recommend closing all doors to bedrooms to prevent the smell from making friends with your clothing.

The rendered lard is quite beautiful, lily white and pure.  Its hard to believe that it came from a murky, flesh-colored pot of melting suet.  Once the process was complete (well to be honest, once I had rendered enough lard) I took my hot pot of suet off the stovetop and thanked the spirits that the process was over.

To ready myself for the pastry-making process (this was for my second test pie - the disastrous one) I froze the lard.  I grated the frozen lard into my flour, using butter for half the fat, finished my pastry, filled the pie and waited for ecstasy.  The pie was a disaster because I was experimenting (a combination of different recipes and my imagination) and miscalculated the cooking time.  Once my pie had "cooled" I realized that it wasn't hardening and in fact I had made strawberry soup pie.  Luckily I was still able to taste the lard-filled pastry on top.

The Verdict

It tastes like beef.  The texture was nice but the beefiness came through so strongly that it overpowered the delicate fruitiness of the filling.  Mmm strawberry-beef fat pie...  No, not so tasty.  It might work for a beef pie but even then I question the flavour the lard gave the pastry.  Some would call it the essence of being not tasty.  I have since read up more on lard and possibly, possibly will try pork fat in the future.  Emphasis on the possibly because I don't really want pork fat perfume wafting its way through my house.

Back to pure butter pastry for me!  I would love to hear if others use lard in their pastry?  Do you render it yourself or do you buy it from the butcher?  Do you use pork or beef?  Share your pastry and lard experiences.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment

Sate Chili Sauce

As I wandered my way through fermented hot sauce links and recipes online, I found a recipe for sate chili sauce.  This is one of my favorite sauces in the world, but I've never known how to make it.  Now that I know what is in it (garlic, lemongrass, chili, fish sauce, need I say more???  delicious!) and the general process, my head is spinning - the possibilities are endless.  Here is my first attempt sticking fairly close to the original recipe:


Ingredients: (pulled from Viet World Kitchen)

• Four cloves of garlic, pureed
• One large shallot, pureed
• Three stalks of lemongrass, whizzed in a food processor but allow it to keep some texture
• One cup of peanut oil
• 1/2 cup of fresno chilis (the recipe calls for thai bird chilis), whizzed in a food processor but allow it to keep some texture
• 1/2 cup crushed chili flakes
• 1/2 cup chopped peanut
• 2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce
• Salt to taste
• Two tablespoons sriacha sauce (I used cock brand)

Directions:

1) Pour the peanut oil into a small saucepan with the garlic and turn the heat onto medium-low.  Listen to the oil as it heats and once it starts to bubble turn the heat down to low.  The oil is there to draw the flavour very slowly out of the garlic rather than fry it.  It's as if the garlic is having a nice hot tub.  After about five minutes, add the pureed shallots and let the garlic and shallots mix and mingle in the oil.

The smell in your kitchen is unbelievably delicious at this point and just wait, it only gets better as the recipe continues.

2) Once the shallots and garlic have mingled for about ten minutes, add the lemongrass.  Keep in mind that you are not trying to cook any of the ingredients quickly, they are being slowly, slowly eased into the sauce.  You will know that the lemongrass is ready once it has sunk to the bottom of the saucepan.

I decided at this point to add some chopped peanuts.  The original recipe didn't call for peanuts but I just love the richness they add and the way they echo the peanut oil.  The texture they give is also lovely.  Give the peanuts at least five minutes.

3) The process now starts to get exciting as the chilis and chili flakes are added.  The pureed chilis go in first and as they simmer their color leaks out into the sauce turning it a lovely burnt orange color.

Then add the chili flakes and continue to allow the simmering and drawing out of flavour.  Once you feel you have bathed all of your ingredients in oil for long enough, add the remaining ingredients: fish sauce, sugar, salt, sriacha.

Taste, adjust and enjoy.

What to use it for:

• Everything
• Dipping sauce
• Stir fry sauce
• Yeah, I mean, everything.  This sauce is just so yummy and flavourful that it can be used on just about anything you eat

The verdict: Not as much of a quick burn as the fermented hot sauce.  This could be because I used fresno peppers rather than thai bird chilis.  There is also obviously a lower percentage of chilis, mmmm lemongrass and garlic and shallots.  Having said that though the sauce is still quite hot.  The burn is just a little slower.

Fermented Hot Sauce: Part 2

My fermented hot sauce was bubbling and brewing away in the corner for several days.  It developed a little bit of white mold, which I promptly scraped off.  I did notice mentions of mold in various blog posts so I didn't worry overly much, it seems to relate to the fermentation process.

Once I felt that it was fermented enough (use your intuition) I slipped on a glove and picked through the mixture removing all of the green stems.  I then dumped the mixture into a saucepan with about half a cup of white wine vinegar and let it boil for several minutes. 

I put in a teaspoon of salt and then poured the whole saucepan into my blender and whizzed it up until I liked the consistency.  The sauce then took another journey into the saucepan for another round of boiling while I sterilized a few little jars.  I tasted it again as it boiled and decided to add a teaspoon of white sugar.  This just seemed appropriate.

The verdict: Whooo!  This sauce basically takes my head off!  The thai chilis are killer hot, KILLER hot, seriously.  The burn is a quick burn, there is no slow build-up that surprises you after a few minutes.  It kicks you in the mouth quickly, spreads and then sits.  You will sweat and it might make your eyes roll back into your head slightly.

Fermented Hot Sauce: Part 1

I never used to like hot sauce. 

That changed during my first camping trip.  I was 19-years-old.

Traveling to the site with a fellow newbie girlfriend, we brought with us a lot of beer, a 12-pack of hot dogs and a sack of buns.  That was it.  We had no tent, no sleeping bags, no nothing.  Just beer and hot dogs.  We joined a big group of experienced campers.  They had barbecues, food tents, frying pans, cooking sauces, venison, and...

Sriacha sauce.  That lovely fermented garlic hot sauce, you all know it, the squirt bottle with the green lid.  The symbol that you're in a good restaurant.  I mean, come on, Morimoto uses it.

So there I sat by the fire with a nice cold beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other, watching as this beautiful piece of venison was coated in sriacha and grilled over the open fire.  Luckily the guys took pity on my pathetic camping skills and offered me a taste of the venison, with a warning that the sauce was quite spicy.  Never one to make wise decisions, I scoffed at them and dumped more hot sauce on my piece of meat.  As I popped the venison in my mouth they all stared, waiting for my reaction.  I gave them none!  Not only that, but I then put more sriacha on my hot dog.  I mean I couldn't even feel my mouth at that point.  Thank god for beer.

Somehow, this traumatic first experience led to a passionate love affair with sriacha that continues to this day.

Because I am so passionately in love with this sauce, I am embarrassed to admit that I only recently learned that it is fermented when watching a documentary on Chinese food systems (yes the movie was as thrilling as it sounds).  I had tried to make sriacha previously and had never achieved a good result, which confused me but didn't lead to much investigation.  I simply accepted that I must purchase the sauce I love rather than make it.

But not anymore!  Here is mark 1 in my journey to make a delicious fermented hot sauce.

Ingredients

• A lot of thai bird chilis (maybe a cup and a half)
• Four bulbs of garlic
• One tbsp of salt
• Water

That is really all you need, and a little luck (or a prayer to the fermentation gods, which is my preferred method).

Directions

1) Fermenting hot sauce seems to be much like making sauerkraut.  I chopped all of the green tops off the bird chilis and then tossed the red ends into my food processor.  Normally I like to hand chop but I had so many bird chilis and the volatile oils were so powerful that into the food processor they went.

2) Once the chilis were roughly processed they went into a bowl with four roughly chopped garlic bulbs, salt and a just a touch of water. I also added the green tops.

I found a plate that fit over the chopped chilis perfectly and then weighted it down and put it in the corner.  Now I just have to wait a week to see if anything is going to happen!

Before setting and forgetting it, make sure that the salt draws out enough water to submerge all of the peppers so they can brew and bubble and develop.

Notes

• Wear gloves.  Don't even think about working with this many hot peppers without wearing gloves.  You will not be able to wash all of the volatile oils off your hands and you will, I repeat, you will touch your eyes or nose at some point and it will burn.
• Be careful when you take the lid off your food processor.  Whizzing up that many hot peppers releases a lot of volatile oil and breathing it in will make you cough and choke.  You've been warned.
• One of the recipes I found called for the green tops to be added during the fermentation process.  It makes a "richer" flavour supposedly.  Meh.

References

• Nourished Kitchen
• Well Preserved

Sheep Tongue with Chorizo

The real offal experiment continues... with a sheep tongue.

My attempt with the brain was fascinating but not incredibly tasty.  Will the tongue taste better?  If looks are any indication then the answer is a resounding no!  Good god a tongue is an ugly piece of meat.  None of the silkiness of a prime cut.  No.  It's all ugly.  It's also a process.

To start a tongue needs to be brined - this is a familiar first step with organ meat.  I used a combination of sugar, salt and spices.  At that point, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my tongue or I would have put a mexican spin on my spice mixture.  Instead I threw in a couple bay leaves, some black peppercorns, and some coriander.  To keep the tongue submerged I put a pretty blue cup on it.  And there is sat stewing for a few days.

The next step is to poach the tongue until tender using lots and lots of aromatics.  At this point I still wasn't sure about where my tongue would end up so I used the spices that Jennifer recommends in Odd Bits - onion, five spice, bay leaves, and black peppercorns.  I mean how this tongue had any tongue flavour left is not something I can explain.  It was loaded with spices.

Once the tongue was nice and soft, I poked it with a skewer, I removed it from the poaching liquid and very quickly peeled the now very bumpy outer layer off.  The process of peeling the tongue isn't too hard but is easiest when the tongue is hot so get on your rubber gloves and start tugging.

The after shot doesn't look much more appetizing does it?

I wasn't looking forward to eating the tongue until I remembered the secret to expanding my palate.  For some reason, early in my life, I became obsessed with learning to like a wide variety of foods.  The process is quite simple:

1. Start with small amounts cut into small pieces combined with food you absolutely love, love, love.  It is best if you cut the pieces of the food you don't like into a similar size as the pieces you love.  I call this step tricking yourself.
2. Practice step one for a long period of time, until you firmly associate the new food item with deliciousness.  At this point start decreasing the yummy food item and increasing the food you are hopefully starting to like at this point.
3. Continue to eat the new food item covered in yummy sauces.  By this point you should be starting to semi-enjoy the new food item and are well on your way to adding a new food to your diet.

In the case of sheep's tongue I decided to bring out the big gun - chorizo sausage.  Does anything taste bad when it's fried up with chorizo?  I would venture to say no.

Ingredients

• Onion - sliced thinly
• Jalapeno - sliced thinly
• Chorizo sausage - cut into small pieces
• Chili powder - 1 tablespoon
• Oil - for frying
• Poached and peeled sheep's tongue - cut into small pieces
• Salt to taste

Directions

1.  Put the pan on medium heat and give it time to warm up (about five minutes). Pour about a tablespoon of oil into the pan and add the onion.  Saute until golden brown.
2. Add the chili powder and continue cooking for a few minutes.  Now add the jalapeno peppers and chorizo sausage.  Normally when I cook chorizo I like to render out some of the fat.  Not when I'm eating it with tongue.  I wanted this to be rich and fatty and delicious.
3. Once the chorizo is almost cooked through, turn the heat down a bit and add the tongue.  Heat until the tongue is hot and the chorizo is done.  Mmmm... Chorizo sausage and tongue.

I served my chorizo and tongue fry-up on steamed rice.  For toppings I used a squirt of lime juice, some chopped cilantro and slices of avocado.  I love spice so I also added a drizzle of sriacha sauce. 

The Verdict

Well much like the brain experiment, the tongue didn't do it for me, even with the chorizo sausage.  Having said that I did eat it all, which is saying something I suppose.  The texture is quite smooth and the flavour wasn't overly strong.  I was amazed though that with all the aromatics and spices infused into the tongue, it still tasted like, well, tongue. 

Notes

• It is really easy to cut chorizo up with kitchen scissors.  Try it and you'll never go back to a knife.

Middle Eastern Rhubarb Fool

The rhubarb theme continues in my mother's garden.  My niece was visiting from LA and the family decided to celebrate her "Almost 1" birthday since she wouldn't be in town when she actually turned one.  It was the perfect opportunity to use up some of my mom's rhubarb and introduce my wee niece to a new taste! 

But first I needed rhubarb inspiration.  Epicurious is so helpful for this.  They had a ton of rhubarb recipes - rhubarb upside down cake, rhubarb pie, rhubarb cheesecake, the list went on...  For once though I didn't want to spend hours prepping and/or making my dessert.  I wanted simple and delicious.  Rhubarb fool was the obvious choice.

I attempted to figure out where the name for this light and airy dessert came from and found nothing concrete.   However, the OED gave me a few hints.  The word, when it was originally used and when the dessert was originally served, had a much gentler meaning than the modern usage.  It was almost a term of endearment, which makes sense in the context of the court jester being the Crown's fool.  The term was also referenced in the Feast of Fool's, a dancing and feasting church celebration in the Middle Ages.  If I were to hazard a guess, and I am always willing, I would imagine that fool refers to the light and airy nature of the dessert.  It is not a dessert to take seriously like a heavy cheesecake or a rich chocolate pate.  It is more appropriate to joyfully spoon it on top of other desserts, as if it were a bit of a joke.

A fool is a simple dessert and perfect for the summertime.  It is basically stewed fruit layered with whipped cream.  Yummy!  I decided to add a Middle Eastern twist to mine.  Feel free to play around with the flavours.

Ingredients

• Rhubarb - 4 cups
• Honey - to taste
• Orange juice - three oranges
• Orange blossom water - several capfuls
• Vanilla bean - scraped out
• Whipping cream - 2 cups
• Orange zest - three oranges
• Icing sugar - to taste

Directions

1) The rhubarb needs to be chopped into 3/4 inch chunks.  Keep the pieces fairly large because you don't want them breaking down completely when you stew the rhubarb.  A fool needs some texture.

2) Add the rhubarb to a heavy, non-reactive saucepan with the freshly squeezed orange juice, orange blossom water, honey and vanilla pod (scrape out the seeds to use in the whipped cream, see note below for instructions).  Cook down on low to medium heat until the rhubarb is soft but not mush.  Start to check your rhubarb at ten minutes and keep an eye on it after that.  Once it is at a nice consistency, pull it off the heat and add two oranges worth of zest to the stewed fruit.  Let it cool completely.

As it cooks and then cools you will have some free time to spend with your family - in my case, my wee niece.  This is an excellent opportunity to introduce her to a new flavour: rhubarb!

As you can see it's a little sour, not that the sourness stopped her from munching on it for quite a while.  It's good to see an adventurous palate at such a young age.  Oh the food adventures I will take her on as she gets older!

3) Once you have finished socializing, head back into the kitchen to whip the cream.  I used a hand mixer and I recommend a deep bowl and an apron because whipping cream can be a bit messy.  As you whip it, add icing sugar to taste as well as the vanilla seeds that you scraped from the pod (see below for instructions).  Whip the cream until it is whipped!

4) If the rhubarb is cold and the cream is whipped, it is time to assemble your fool.  Start with a layer of stewed rhubarb and then add a layer of whipping cream.  Then GENTLY spoon another layer of rhubarb on top.  You want to create distinct layers and if you slosh the stewed fruit onto the delicate whipping cream it will muddy up your presentation.  Finish with a layer of whipping cream and then zest the final orange on top to make your fool look extra pretty.  I wanted to add toasted, sliced almonds on top for garnish but they burned because I was too busy kissing and cooing over my niece.  Such is life!

To Serve

Rhubarb fool is wonderful on its own.  It's also great spooned onto pie or cake.  If you are feeling like extra work then you can make beautiful single servings in wine glasses.  Dressing up like a jester is optional but would be a hilarious compliment to your fool.

Notes 

• To scrape out a vanilla bean, take a sharp knife and cut the bean open lengthwise.  Inside you will find an oily, black paste - those are the vanilla seeds.  Take your knife and scrape out all of the delicious paste.
• Any kind of stewed fruit will do for a fool.  I read that gooseberry is the traditional choice.
• Experiment with different flavour and texture combinations.  I almost added candied ginger but then decided to allow the orange blossom water to shine.  Rosewater is a traditional choice, cinnamon is delicious, star anise, lemon peel, clove, let your imagination go wild!

References

"fool, n.1 and adj.". OED Online. March 2012. Oxford University Press. 1 June 2012 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/72642?rskey=sIq05A&result=1&isAdvanced=false>.