Charcuterie, Pork, Sausages

Beginner’s Sausage-Making

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A detailed introduction to sausage-making at home: ingredients, equipment, theory, and procedures.

What are sausages?

Sausages are ground meat, usually stuffed into a casing, though there are certain sausages that aren’t in casings.  For instance there are sausage “patties” and sausages en crepinette, which are patties wrapped in caul fat.  For now let’s be content to say that sausages are ground meat stuffed into casings.

Why do we grind meat?

1.  To tenderize

Meat is made of fibers that are surrounded by connective tissue, which are then bundled together in more connective tissue.  Highly exercised muscles tend to be higher in connective tissue.  Examples include:

  • on a pig: shoulder, hock, neck
  • on a cow: chuck, brisket, shortrib, shank
  • on
… Continue reading.
Charcuterie, Ham, Pork

On Ham Hocks

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A fresh hockTraditionally, in North America the hock is a section of the front arm bone of the pig.  On one end the elbow joint is severed.  On the other, where the arm of the pig meats the body, a cut is made and the arm bone is sawed through.  So on one end of the hock there is a clean joint, and on the other the circular cross-section of a bone.

In traditional British butchery it is the analogous section from the hind leg that is called the hock; that from the front was known as the hand.

Nowadays, whether taken from the forearm or the hind leg, both cuts are considered hocks.  They are almost always processed into ham, that … Continue reading.

Maple/Birch Sugaring

Why Maple Sap Runs (or doesn’t)

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Last week I tapped my maple trees, and since then I have collected about one teaspoon of sap from the buckets.

I recently learned that the spring sap run is a completely separate phenomenon from the normal transportation of water and nutrients through the stems of the maple during the growing season.  That transportation is going to happen no matter what.  The sap run, on the other hand, might not, as it requires a very specific set of circumstances, and is not a biologically necessary phenomenon from the tree’s standpoint.

Before we tackle the question of why sap runs, we need some background info on maples.

Why Maple Sap Contains Sucrose in the First Place

During the summer the leaves … Continue reading.

Other Pastries, Pie and Pastry, Sweets

Doughnut Revival

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Homemade doughnuts: jelly-filled, cinnamon sugar, and a doughnut holeThe doughnut: an important food that for most of my life I have known only in its commercial form.  Other examples of such food include hot dogs, ketchup, and potato chips.

Until recently, every doughnut I had eaten was commercially produced.  On top of that, the only freshly-fried doughnuts I had eaten were the mini-donuts at the Calgary Stampede, and a few Krispy Kremes.

As you might expect, the homemade version is vastly superior, especially when consumed within ninety seconds of being removed from the oil.

What would a Button Soup post be without some mention of spelling or etymology?  For the longest time I assumed these pastries were originally called “doughnaughts,” as in naughts (zeroes) made out of dough, … Continue reading.

Maple/Birch Sugaring

Edmonton Maple Tap 2012

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My copper-pipe method of tapping maplesLast year I tapped two maple trees in my backyard.  I got more than 40 L of sap, most of which was reduced to make about 1.5 L of syrup.  There’s a complete summary of the adventure here.

Last year my first day of sap collection was April 2.

Yesterday, March 7, I was in my backyard.  It was warm and sunny.  I had to squint because of the sunlight coming off the snow.  There was a steady stream of water rolling through my eavestroughs.  It felt exactly like April of last year, and it crossed my mind that the sap could be running at that very moment.

This morning I tapped my two trees, as well as a … Continue reading.

Drink, Fruit

2010 Raspberry Mead, in 2012

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A three year old bottle of raspberry mead, aka raspberry melomelIt’s been almost two years since I combined some Onoway honey with crushed, frozen u-pick raspberries and added a bit of yeast to the mix.  (The photo at left shows a label reading “Rasp. Melomel 2009”.  That’s a mistake in my cellar bookkeeping: it’s definitely from 2010.)  This raspberry mead was one of the first fermented drinks I made that wasn’t based on a kit of grape must or malt wort.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I was using a recipe from The Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook by Raymond Massaccesi, a book that I have not used since.  Most of the recipes in the book are a syrup of water and refined sugar, flavoured with fresh fruit, pH-adjusted … Continue reading.

Cheese, Pasta, Seasonal, Starch

Macaroni and Cheese

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A bowl of mac and cheeseLast night was Ash Wednesday, and I partook of my family’s traditional meatless supper of macaroni and cheese.  Thought I’d share my recipe.  Notice the crazy simple ratio at its heart: for every pound of dry macaroni, make a cheese sauce with a quart of milk and a pound of cheese.

Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

  • 1 lb dry macaroni
  • 2 oz unsalted butter
  • 2 oz all-purpose flour
  • 1 qt whole milk
  • 1 lb medium cheddar cheese, grated (Obviously any good melting cheese can be used.  Sylvan Star young gouda and Gruyere work great.)
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • fresh ground black pepper
  • 1 tbsp kosher salt
  • extra cheddar for the gratin

Procedure

  1. Boil the macaroni in salted
… Continue reading.
Maple/Birch Sugaring, Other Doughs and Batters, Seasonal, Starch

Pancakes

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Frying pancakes in bacon fatLast night was Pancake Tuesday, the appropriately subdued Canadian version of Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.

I want to tell you about my pancakes.

 

The Recipe

Pancake styles occupy one point on a continuum between slack batters and stiff batters.  Slack, or high-liquid, batters make thin, soft, limp pancakes the size of dinner plates.  Stiff, or low-liquid, batters, yield thicker, cakey pancakes the size of tea saucers or smaller.  For home-cooking I favour the stiff variety, making a batter that is barely, barely pourable.  The resulting cakes are more dense, but still soft and moist.  They develop a delicate, crisp exterior during frying, something that the slack batters can’t do because of their high liquid content.

In the … Continue reading.

Christmas, Seasonal

Ukrainian Christmas Eve – Sviata Vechera

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I’m not even remotely Ukrainian, but (as I’ve written many times before this) I am fascinated by the food that Ukrainians have brought here to central Alberta.

Yes, perogies.  And yes, sauerkraut, kielbasa, and cabbage rolls.  But the more I read into this cuisine, the more I respect it.  There are so many interesting preserves, and countless recipes of ingenious frugality.

It also seems that every ingredient, dish, and meal comes with superstition and ritual.

Take the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner, or Sviata Vechera (literally “Holy Supper”), perhaps the most beloved of all Ukrainian feasts.  Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar, so their Christmas Eve falls on January 6.  There are more traditions associated with this dinner than … Continue reading.

Lamb

Roast Lamb Leg

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The first cut of our Tangle Ridge Ranch lamb that we cooked was a whole leg roast.

There is nothing quite like roasting large joints of meat and carving them tableside.  A bit of pageantry with dinner.

A down and dirty recipe:

Roast Lamb Leg

Ingredients
  • 1 whole lamb leg
  • garlic, minced
  • thyme, minced
  • rosemary, minced
  • kosher salt
  • coarse ground black pepper
Procedure
  1. Trim the leg: remove the fell, clean the meat from the shank bone, and trim back the fat to an even, thin (1/8″) layer.  For detailed instructions on trimming up a whole lamb leg to make a roast, see this post.
  2. Score the fat in a diamond pattern, with about 1″ between each slice.
  3. Rub the
… Continue reading.

The personal website of Edmonton chef Allan Suddaby