Category Archives: Charcuterie

Charcuterie, Fish

Cold-Smoking Pickerel

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Cold-smoking pickerel on the barbecueI recently picked up some pickerel from Rebekah’s Fish at the Strathcona Market and took my first stab at cold-smoking on my barbecue.

To hot-smoke on my barbecue I just remove the grate from the righthand side and put foil packets of wood chips directly onto the flames.  I put the meat on the left side, which remains off.  This way the meat isn’t over direct heat and will cook evenly.  With the right burner on a medium-low setting, the wood chips smolder and the average temperature inside the barbecue stays around 250°F.

The point of cold-smoking is to impart the flavour of the smoke without cooking the meat.  Examples of food that you might want to keep raw are … Continue reading.

Austrian, Sausages

Würstlstände – Austrian Sausage Stands

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Sausages and beer from an Austrian Wurstlstand.Würstlstände are Austrian sausage stands.  They punctuate the sidewalks of every city in Austria.  People from all walks of life crowd around these kiosks for, say, a quick lunch, or a post-bar snack: a sausage, fried or steamed, served with some manner of bread, mustard, and beer or pop.

While certain types of sausage appear on almost every würstlstand menu, it can be frustrating trying to pin down their characteristics, as a huge variety of sausages can go by the same name.  Bratwurst, for instance, is sometimes based on pork, sometimes on veal, sometimes stuffed into slender lamb casings, sometimes into wider hogs…

Here are some very general descriptions of the most common würste:

  • Burenwurst – Apparently a
… Continue reading.
Austrian, Charcuterie, Cheese, Sausages

Käsekrainer – Austrian Cheese Sausage

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Fried KaesekrainerWhile outsiders might consider Wiener Schnitzel or Apple Strudel the national dish of Austria, most Austrians acknowledge a special sausage called Käsekrainer (“KAY-zeh KREYE-ner”) as their greatest culinary achievement.

In a nutshell Käsekrainer is a sausage filled with little cubes of cheese.  Like many classic Austrian preparations, it is not entirely an Austrian invention. Käsekrainer has the same relation to Austria that pizza and hot dogs have to the United States: they are unquestionably of foreign origin, but they have been adapted and adopted by the new country.

If you’ll allow me… let’s break down the word Kasekrainer…

“Käse” means cheese.

Krain is the German name for the Slovenian region of Kranjska, historically called Carniola by English-speakers.  This is one … Continue reading.

Austrian, Blood, Charcuterie, Drink

Austrian Heuriger

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Heurigen (“HOY-ree-gen,” singular heuriger) are special taverns in Austria that serve young wine or cider, depending on the region.

The word heuriger literally means something like “of the current year”.  So for instance new potatoes are called heurige erdäpfel.  With regards to wine it refers to wine from the last vintage, ie. wine that has not been bottled or aged.  Heuriger taverns open up for a couple of weeks at a time so that guests can drink young wine and eat plates of cold food such as cheese, spreads, bread, and charcuterie.  The word for these savoury accompaniments is brettljause (“BRET-tel YOW-ze”).  Brett means board, as the food is usually spread out on a wooden board.  Brettl, … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Meat, Pâtés and Terrines, Rabbit

Potted Rabbit

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This is one of my favourite rabbit recipes, and I think a great way to kick off Easter dinner.  This is essentially a rabbit confit, made into a rillette.  First I break up my rabbit.  Then I take all the meaty bits and marinate them for twenty four hours in the following, adapted from Ruhlman’s Charcuterie.  Rub every kilo of rabbit with:

  • 20 g kosher salt
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 green onion, minced
  • 5 g crushed fresh ginger
  • zest of 1/2 orange
  • 2 crushed black peppercorns

The pulled rabbit meat

After a day the meat is rinsed and patted dry, then covered with lard and gently cooked in a 180°F oven overnight.  The cooked meat is cooled slightly and pulled … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Food Matters

On Curing Salts (and Fearmongering)

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Have you seen this commercial for McCain’s frozen pizza?

“What do other companies put in their pizzas? Something called sodium nitrite…” Those last two words are pronounced with a blend of confusion and self-righteous disgust. The molecular diagram of the compound is flashed across the screen for further effect.

The food industry is quick to pick up on trends.  My generation was taught to read labels, and to mistrust “chemical” ingredients, including curing salt. However:

The resistance to… ‘scientific’ ingredients has always seemed to me misguided. In the objector’s mind a line is drawn between science and cookery, which usually turns out to be entirely arbitrary. No one objects to table salt (sodium chloride) or table sugar (sucrose) in … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Ham, Pork

Cured Bath Chaps

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Bath chaps with peppergrass, apples, and pumpkin seedsBath chaps are the flesh from a pig’s head, removed from the skull and wrapped around the tongue. The “bath” part refers to the town of Bath, England, where the preparation became famous. I assume the “chaps” part refers to the two meaty jowls straddling the thinner snout, though that’s just a guess. Bath chaps are usually brined then simmered, and either eaten hot or cooled and used as a cold-cut.

There is a very similar preparation from old Italian peasant cookery called coppa di testa. As I say often on this blog, I favour the strong Anglo-Saxon descriptions, even if they aren’t as precise or pretty as the French, Italian, Latin, et c.

The Process

1. Clean the … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Poultry

Turkey Ham

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Turkey in the brineOne fateful Thanksgiving I treated my turkey as if it were a leg of pork: I pickled it in brine, then smoked it on the barbecue.

The result was possibly the tenderest, juiciest turkey I have ever eaten, but few around the table even recognized it as poultry.  With the rosy colour and distinct piquancy created by the curing salt, along with the smoky aroma and the moist flesh, the final product was a dead ringer for ham. My guests actually referred to it as “Ham-urkey.”

There were other issues, besides guest perception.  The gentle heat of the smoker (225°F) didn’t promote the delicious, delicious browning reactions that give us crisp, golden skin. Once the turkey was done smoking, I … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Ham, Pork

Fir-Smoked Ham

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Boughs of firIf you consult a North American resource on smoking meat, you’re likely find something like the following:

The first rule of smoking meat: use hardwood. Apple, hickory, maple, oak, pear, cherry, whatever you please, but do not use soft wood, and especially not evergreens. They are extremely resinous, and not only do they produce harsh, turpentine flavours in the meat, they are also poisonous!

These comments are discouraging to someone who lives where the prairies meet the boreal forest. Of course there are hardwood trees in Edmonton, but they’re not nearly as common as, say, poplars and spruce. There’s a spruce tree in my front yard that, if left to its own devices, will someday eat my house. There’s a … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Mushrooms, Pâtés and Terrines, Pork

Pâté with Pork Tenderloin and Morels

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Pork pâté with morel and tenderloin inlayI like to make pâté around Christmas. This year I wanted to try a terrine with an inlay. Inlays are usually pieces of lean mean, like a pork tenderloin or duck breast, that are set in the middle of a terrine, surrounded by forcemeat, so that each slice of the terrine has a cross-section of the lean meat. At left you can see a rosy pork tenderloin cooked to medium.

Winter is a reflective season, and nowhere is this more true than with food, as many of the things we eat in December were by necessity harvested in September, or earlier. The special significance this pâté has to the past year is the garnish studding the forcemeat: morels. This was … Continue reading.