Fried chicken should be eaten off the bone. Following is the classic way to break down a whole chicken into boney pieces that can be dredged and deep-fried. Traditionally there is a lot of cutting through the bones, which is fun but can leave little shards in the meat. I’ve cleaned up the method somewhat by separating at the joints where possible. Even so, I wouldn’t cut this way if I were feeding small children.
We start by removing the legs at the hip. Bend the leg backwards to expose the joint, then cut with a knife.
To separate the thigh and drumstick, bend the knee against it’s will until it snaps, then cut through the joint. These are the … Continue reading.
Pâté is fancy French meatloaf: it’s ground meat, bound with dairy, eggs, and bread. The only difference is that pâté usually contains some liver, and it’s usually eaten cold. If it’s baked in a special ceramic dish, it can be called a terrine.
Within that definition, there is a spectrum of pâtés that runs from rustic to refined. The two qualities that decide a pâté’s place on the spectrum are texture and ingredients. Rustic pâtés are coarser in texture and made with cheaper, heartier ingredients, like liver. They are often described by words like campagne (“country”), grandmère (“grandma”), and maison (“house”). Refined pâtés have a finer, creamier texture and feature meat more prominently than liver. … Continue reading.
I’ve given details on preparing tongue a couple times (here for buffalo, here for pork). This corned beef tongue was brined with curing salt and lots of pickling spice. As you can see in the picture, the tongue has some insanely thorough fat marbling. It actually looks a bit like Wagyu beef! Fantastic sandwich…
After this year’s Eat Alberta conference, I had a few people ask me about giving some kind of “advanced” sausage-making class. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert sausagemaker, but at Nomad I got to make them almost every week, so I picked up lots of tricks. I thought I’d compile some of those ideas in this post.
The following are notes on refining ingredients and techniques to better tailor your sausages to your liking.
Ingredients: The Meat and Fat
Every book on sausage-making says pretty much the same thing: use shoulder. Maybe jowl, maybe belly, and maybe a bit of trim from around the carcass, but shoulder is the undisputed sausage-making cut. The reasons are this:
This happened ages ago, back in September, and Kevin has long since posted a fantastic video about it, but I want to write about a pork butchery workshop that took place out in Sangudo, Alberta. The workshop was put together by Kevin Kossowan, and hosted by Jeff Senger of Sangudo Custom Meats. The day started with the killing and processing of one of Jeff’s own pigs. Since it was Saturday and there were no inspectors present, the kill took place on Jeff’s farm, then the pig was processed at Sangudo Meats. The day continued with a hands-on meat-cutting class, and finally some demonstrations of sausage-making and other charcuterie preparations. … Continue reading.
In case the title didn’t tip you off, this post contains pictures of a lamb brain and details on its preparation for human consumption. If that bothers you, there’ll be a new post tomorrow that you’ll like better.
“Because of their delicacy and easy digestibility, spine marrow and brains are of great nutritional value for children and old people.”
-Escoffier, La Guide Culinaire
I would say that I eat more offal than most. I don’t really seek it out, but by buying whole animals, there’s always some available to me. Most of the offal I eat is from lambs, which is weird, because most of the meat I eat is from pigs, cows, and chickens. The main reason that I … Continue reading.
Having removed the scrag when breaking the lamb into primals, the components remaining on the lamb front are the shoulder, the breast, and the shank.
I love having ground lamb in my kitchen, so usually I bone out on entire lamb shoulder just to run it through the meat grinder. The other half is broken in a bone-in shoulder roast, a boneless breast ideal for stuffing and rolling, and a shank, one of the world’s supreme braising cuts.
Here is half of the lamb front, with the fell still attached.
We remove the fell to expose the fat cap.
Here is the inside of the front, showing the backbone on the top, the first six ribs, and the breastbone … Continue reading.
The loin primal is divided into two sections. The forward part, from the thoracic section of the spine, contains ribs, and is usually trimmed to make rack of lamb. The back part, from the lumbar section, contains no ribs, and is usually broken into lamb chops.
Dividing the Loin Primal into the Rib and Loin Subprimals
This is the whole loin primal, with the fell still attached.
Here is the underside of the loin primal. You can see the rib section on the left, and the loin subprimal on the right.
We divide the two by cutting after the last rib bone, then cleaving through the backbone.
This post is about preparing a whole lamb leg for a classic roasted leg of lamb, or gigot. This is the whole leg, straight from the animal.
First remove the tail bone, which you can see running along the top of the leg primal. On the forward end of the tailbone (to the left in the picture below) is the connection to the pelvis. Since lambs are so young, you should be able to easily break this adhesion.
The leg, tailbone removed:
Next remove the pelvis. This is a complicated little bone. Follow it as closely as you can, making small, exploratory cuts with a boning knife.
This is a whole lamb from Tangle Ridge Ranch. Notice that, unlike pork and beef, the lamb has not been cut in two down the spine. The carcass is easy to handle (typically 40-60 lbs, maybe a bit smaller for grass-finished varieties like Tangle Ridge). It’s traditionally broken into four primals:
front,
leg,
loin, and
flank.
Removing the front. The first primal to be removed is the front, which is separated from the rest of the animal by cutting between the sixth and seventh ribs. You can count the ribs by putting your hand inside the cavity. Slide a knife between the sixth and seventh ribs and cut all the way up to the backbone, and all the … Continue reading.
The personal website of Edmonton chef Allan Suddaby
