Cured Fatback – Lardo

November 17, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Originally posted on July 5, 2014.

This post is about cured fatback, most commonly known by its Italian name lardo.

Fatback is the subcutaneous fat that covers the pork loin. Resist the urge to say “back fat”: it’s called fatback. Industrially-raised pigs are intentionally grown very lean, so the fatback is typically only an inch thick. Heritage pigs can have three inches or more of fatback. These are the animals you need in order to make lardo.

Two autumns ago I got a side of Tamworth pork from Nature’s Green Acres. The fatback was two and a half inches thick in some places. It was the first pig that I ever cut that truly deserved to have … Continue reading.

General

10 Foods that You Should Never Buy Again

October 4, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

I love the title of this post because it sounds like those fear-mongering, unsolicited internet advertisements, like, “3 Foods that are Making You have Cancer right now… You’ll never guess what number 2 is!!!”

Despite my pedantic writing style, I really hate pretension, and I don’t want to make people feel bad about enjoying their favourite foods.

But…

Following is a list of ingredients, prepared foods, and drinks that I think no one should ever buy. Like ever. Not because they’re bad for you, but because paying money for these items makes you a sucker, both financially and spiritually. You can make the following foodstuffs from scratch for a fraction of the cost in no time at all, and your homemade version is … Continue reading.

Cheese, Starch, Thanksgiving, Whole Grains and Legumes

Squash and Barley ‘Risotto’

October 1, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Risotto is a traditional northern Italian dish of short-grain rice cooked in broth and finished with butter and grated hard cheese, usually parmigianno. The “ris” in the name refers to the rice, so “barley risotto” is sort of an oxymoron. There happens to be an Italian word for barley cooked in the same style as risotto: orzotto.^[1]

Anyways, this morning I prepared a squash and barley risotto on Global Edmonton and promised to post the recipe here. This is a dish we do at Elm Catering throughout the autumn, a re-imagining of the traditional risotto using some local fall ingredients. It would be a great addition to a Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps in lieu of mash potatoes.

You can use … Continue reading.

Charcuterie, Meat, Pork, Sausages

Plain Jane Garlic Sausage

September 20, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

It recently dawned on me that I don’t have any sausage recipes on this site. Which is crazy. So I’m going to post a bunch. For details on procedure and technique, I have two posts linked below. Also… I happen to be teaching a sausage-making class for Metro Continuing Education on October 19, 2016.

This simple sausage goes by many names in my house, among them “everyday sausage”, “plain Jane”, and occasionally “garlic brat”, though it is not a bratwurst in the strictest sense.^[1]

I wanted a relatively neutral sausage that would go well with most of the food I cook at home, which I would describe as North American farmstead with a serious … Continue reading.

Sausages

Breakfast Sausage Recipe

September 19, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

I wanted to create an artisan version of the little sausages you get at dive-y breakfast institutions like the Commodore. The kind of diners that that pour you bad coffee all morning.

North American breakfast sausage is usually made entirely of pork. It is ground quite fine and mixed to emulsify so that it has a very delicate texture. It is often flavoured … Continue reading.

Fruit, Sugar and Syrup, Sweets

Candy Apples

September 1, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

I really want to like candy apples. They are so closely associated with fall and carnivals and country fairs, they seem like a fantastic way to celebrate our local apples.

In practice they are usually disappointing. They are often died a garish red. The candy coating is either adamantine, or it sticks to your teeth and threatens to pull out your molars. And usually the fruit is so large that it cannot be eaten comfortably from the end of a stick. You have to unhinge your jaw, which compromises your ability to break the adamantine candy coating.

In theory all these problems can be solved.

Let’s talk apples. Any good eating-apple is a good candy-apple. Firm, crisp, juicy. Apples … Continue reading.

Fruit, Sauces

Apple Must

August 30, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

When you have hundreds of pounds of something you start thinking deeply on how you can preserve and consume the bounty. This time of year apples are the subject of those deep thoughts. Of course cider is the supreme way to preserve and consume apples, but I’ve been experimenting with some other techniques that involve cooking and reducing the fresh apple juice.

I got the idea from the cuisine of Modena. Obviously they have an abundance of grapes, and obviously the majority of those grapes end up as wine or liquor, but they also have a few preparations made by cooking and reducing fresh grape juice. The most famous is traditional balsamic vinegar, but there is also a … Continue reading.

Candy and Confection, Fruit, Sweets

Sour Cherry Pâte de Fruits

August 24, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Originally published December 14, 2013.

Pâte de fruits, literally “fruit paste,” is a simple confection made of fruit, sugar, and pectin. Some recipes also use gelatin.

Pâtes de fruits have a very distinct texture. They are firmer than a spreadable breakfast jelly, but without the persistent chew of a gummy bear or gummy worm or any other fauna from the gummy kingdom. One of my chefs compared the texture to a medium ganache.

Another distinction between true pâte de fruits and inferior industrial candies is flavour. They are very bright, pure expressions of the fruit from which they are made. They tend to be tart, though well-balanced.

The chemistry behind pâtes de fruits is the same as that … Continue reading.

Foraging, Vegetables

Dandelion Crowns

August 22, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

We’ve tried a lot of things with dandelions. The leaves are great. Hopefully everybody knows that by now. I’ve made syrups with the flowers, but truthfully they don’t have much flavour and are only good for their sunny colour. The roots are delicious roasted and useful in bitter infusions, but they are such a bitch to harvest I rarely bother. The flower buds can be pickled, but while they look a good deal like capers they don’t actually have much flavour of their own, and certainly don’t have the distinct mustard-like pop of their Mediterranean look-alikes.

Dandelion crowns might be the tastiest part of the plant.

The crown is where the root transitions to the stalks. It is only slightly … Continue reading.

General

Arm of Lamb

August 19, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

One of the great things about purchasing your meat as a whole animal and cutting it yourself (besides getting high-quality ethically produced meat for a fraction of its farmers’ market price) is that you have total control over how the meat is divided.

I’ve written about this before (Alternative Pork Primals) but I have another great example of an unorthodox meat-cutting practice: arm of lamb. While lambs have four legs, the traditional roast leg of lamb is always a hind leg. The shank meat is trimmed away, leaving relatively tender, lean meat that is best roasted medium rare.

The foreleg is a very different piece of meat. It could simply be billed as “foreleg of lamb” but I … Continue reading.

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