Spring has been tossing us red herrings for the last few weeks, teasing us with promises of warmth followed by days of cold and wet. On one such rainy cold day I needed to stave off the chill with something. Although baked beans are known the world over there is something quintessentially Canadian about baked beans with bacon, and maple syrup. In Ontario maple syrup season has just wrapped up, and I am lucky enough to have Jakeman's Maple Syrup  just down the road from me (meaning quality maple syrup is always to be had!) I also cured and smoked some bacon this week, meaning this match was just meant to happen.

Recipe:

1 lb – Navy, or Great Northern Beans
1 lb – Slab Bacon (sorry didn't document bacon making, perhaps another time.)
1/2-3/4 cup – Maple Syrup
1 can – Whole Tomatoes
1 can - Beer
3 – Medium Onions (chopped)
10 cloves – Garlic (sliced)
1 tbsp – Ginger (grated)
1 bunch – Sage (chopped)

In a spice bag put:

1/2 – Cinnamon Stick
3 – Cloves
1 – Star Anise
2 – Bay leaves

Begin by soaking your beans over night, or use the quick soak method by bringing them to a boil for ten minutes, and then leave in the water for an hour or two (until grow in size). Cut your bacon into 1/4 size pieces, and add to your cooking vessel. Render out the majority of the fat, and drain leaving 2 or more spoonfuls. Add your onions and garlic, and under medium to medium low heat sweat them until just turning translucent. Add ginger. When those are cooked add beer, and increase heat to high. Reduce by half. Add in tomatoes, beans, spice bag, sage, and maple syrup. Season with pepper, but no salt (see note). Add water and/or stock until beans are covered by an inch or so. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, partially cover and let simmer slowly for 6-8 hours, or until beans are soft.

This recipe works great with any cured pork product. It is great for leftover ham, picnic shoulder, or smoked ham hock. If you use a ham or picnic shoulder it is always great to add the bone in to the beans and any ham “jelly” leftover. It really is a versatile recipe. You could also use a slow cooker, or bake in the oven.

One reason I use whole canned tomatoes, is because more often then not your beans will be close to done once the tomato has pretty much disintegrated into the mixture. If you don’t have maple syrup, you could add 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Hope everyone enjoys this as much as I do.

*Note: When cooking beans do not add salt until the end of the cooking process. The salinity blocks the pores of the beans and they will not be able to absorb moisture and get soft.

On occasion I may have to opportunity to cook for someone, and in this case for a person who has never had lamb before. Ive never felt the need to experiment too much with the ways that I have done rack of lamb because they just simply work so well. The hardest part about this dish was trying to balance all the flavours out. There is a bit of acidity from the preserved lemons, marinated cucumbers, and salad dressing which offsets the rich creaminess of the potato salad.  Likewise the nasturtium is peppery and kind of bitter which is why I added wildflower honey into the dressing. Overall this dish has some great summery fresh flavours, and was nice and light.

Rack of Lamb

2 - Racks of Lamb
1 - Bunch of Parsley
¾ - L of Breadcrumbs
Dijon mustard
Salt and Pepper

It is important when cooking any cut of meat to butcher it properly, meat processing plants often forgo doing the fine butchery because it cost too much money in time and waste. Chances are your rack will already be frenched, but be covered with excess fat, and silver skin. The best approach in to cut a small line into the fat about half of an inch from the beginning of where the meat is. The idea is to keep that top bit of fat near the ribs. After you strip away all that extra fat we don’t want, you will see a silvery lining covering the muscles of the meat -this too must go. There is also sometimes an little muscle near the bottom that conceals some more silver skin underneath it, I like to remove this as well. By doing with we are going to ensure a very tender piece of meat. Keep this in the fridge until we are ready to use it.

Wash your parsley and pick off all the leaves from the stem, add this to a food processor followed by the bread crumbs. It make take more or less of either the parsley or bread crumbs to get the colour you want, which is a nice herby green. Blitz this in the processor until uniform in colour and size (might take a little longer then you think, don’t worry its almost impossible to mess this up.

Take the lamb out of the fridge and get a pan very hot with a dash of olive oil and butter. Liberally season every part of the lamb. Sear until golden brown on all sides, and let cool.

When the lamb is cool brush it with the Dijon mustard (not out of the jar, cross contamination!). Put some of your herbed bread crumbs on a plate, along with a little salt and pepper for seasoning. Delicately place your Dijon covered racks on the bread crumb mix until covered with mix.

Bake uncovered at 350 for about 15-20 minutes depending on preference (I like mine rare), when done let rest for a few minutes then serve.

Herbed Potato Salad


Depending on preference you can use any waxy potato, fingerlings work very well, but in this case I just happened to have plain old white potatoes. Feel free also to use whatever herbs you feel like.

4-5 medium White Potatoes
1 cup Aioli
1 Shallot
3 Sage leaves
4-5 French sorrel leaves
Sprig of Thyme
Dijon mustard

Gently boil your potatoes until perfectly cooked, undercooked is no good, and overcooked will cause the skins to tear away. Allow these to cool for thirty or so minutes or until room temperature. Allowing them to sit in the fridge for awhile will also firm up the starch a bit. Dice these up. Chiffonade your herbs, and give your shallot a fine brunoise. Add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and as much aioli as needed until it reaches a good consistency. Season. Can be eaten right away or allowed to marinate in the fridge.

Aioli

1 Egg yolk
1 cup Olive oil
5 cloves of Roasted garlic
1 clove of Fresh garlic
1 Lemon
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Add egg yolk, juice of one lemon, mustard and garlic to a food processor. Start blitzing. Slowly drop by drop add oil. Season. For troubleshooting refer to the Rosemary Sage Aioli post.

Marinated Cucumber

½ Cucumber
1 Shallot
White wine vinegar

Cut the cucumber into about two inch pieces cross wise and each of those pieces in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds using a spoon. Gently push the pieces flat and cut in half. Cut these pieces into strips lengthwise. They should be about 2 inches long by a quarter inch wide. Finely dice the shallot and add to cucumber. Just cover with white wine, and allow to marinate in the fridge.

Preserved Lemon

1 piece of Preserved Lemon

Refer to the recipe for this ingredient here. If you don’t have this laying around the skin of ¼ of a lemon will do. Using a sharp knife carefully scrape away all the pith. Laying the knife flat as well as the lemon slice out all the pith (white stuff). Be Careful. Cut into fine strips.

Wildflower Salad

Feel free to use dandelion leaves, arugula, whatever you are comfortable with will substitute. I didn’t really size any of this out, but it was mostly a small handful of things I had growing in the garden.

Nasturtium leaves (the young ones are best)
Nasturtium flower petals
Lemon Balm
Wood Sorrel
1 tbsp Olive oil
¼ tbsp White wine vinegar
Drizzle of Wildflower honey

Wash your greens, leaves the flower petals out. Most of this stuff is delicate, so you must be to. Just before serving combine everything together, and gently toss by hand.

Parlsey Oil

½ bunch Parsley
½ litre Grapeseed oil

Heat up a pan of boiling water with a touch of salt. Quickly blanch the parsley leaves in the boiling water, and then add to a bowl of ice or cold water to stop cooking. Squeeze the herbs together to ring out all the water, or use a salad spinner. Roughly chop the parsley and add to a blender with the oil. Grapeseed oil is a very neutral tasting oil so its very good for infused oil, however feel free to use what you have. Blitz until the mixture turns a dark green colour. Strain this through a fine mesh strainer or coffee filter.

Arguably one of the tastiest leftover dishes ever conceived, and coincidently my dinner snack. This dish dates back centuries when times were scarce and every morsel needed to be used up. However, do don't have to necessarily use leftover risotto, any rice dish that resembles wallpaper paste the next day will do. This typically means short grain starchy varieties, and ive done it with sushi rice, and short grain wild rice. But in this case its a mushroom, sage, and spinach risotto from last night. Also, panko bread crumbs are not traditional, but they are so damn good! Feel free to substitute for traditional bread crumbs if panko are not in the pantry.  This is so easy... ready?

Ingredients

Leftover risotto (or starchy rice dish)
Flour
Egg
Breadcrumbs
Oil
Sage
Salt

Method

Roll your rice into balls of your preference (I do about 1-1.5 inches in diameter). Roll in flour, dredge in egg, roll in bread crumbs. At this point they can and do freeze well....if you want. Heat deep fryer to 350, drop in one at a time, and take out when golden brown. When done season, let cool slightly. While cooling grab some sage leaves, wash, dry, and plop in the fryer. These will only take about 10-15 seconds. Told you it was that easy.

Nature is a wonderful thing, and provides many opportunities for us to raid from it. In this case its raided from a flower bed (not quite nature, but you get my point). This is my first ever tasting of nasturtium, and I cant wait until fall to make pickled nasturtium buds -an amazing and local alternative to capers. This soup is very simple to make, and rewards you with a beautiful green colour. Both the leaves and the flowers of this plant are edible to feel free to garnish with the flowers. Nasturtium reminds me a lot of watercress, a touch more bitter, and has a wonderfully peppery taste. Feel free to use this soup as is or as a base for other amazing flavour combinations. I feel as though peas, mint, sorrel, would all be quite good additions.

• 20-30 Nasturtium leaves
• 3 Onions
• 1 Carrot
• 3 Celery stalks
• 2 Cloves garlic
• 1L Chicken stock
• ½ L 35% Cream
• Bay leaf
• White wine
• Salt and Pepper

Cut the mirepoix into a rough dice and sweat in a saucepan. When soft and translucent de glaze with some white wine and let that reduce just slightly. Add both the cream and chicken stock (feel free to use veg stock,) add the bay, salt, and pepper and bring to the boil. When the vegetables are quite soft add the mixture to a blender. Roughly chop the nasturtium leaves and add them to the blender. Only fill the blender halfway or your going to get a nasty surprise and puree.  When that bunch is done strain through a chinois and repeat until finished. If you add the leaves while the soup is cooking you will destroy the chlorophyll and lose the brilliant green colour. Bon Appetite.

Always inspired by the more cruder things in life, recognizing the inherit beauty in things made even more transcendent by the simple act of care and nourishment we have the humble pig tail. The inspiration, and downright robbery of this recipe hails from the offal king himself Fergus Henderson, and his culinary pilgrimage of St. Johns Restaurant in England. My biggest contribution of his original dish is a little shine, but at its heart remains the same. This turned out absolutely delicious, and makes a great meal or snack. Feel free to prepare the tails ahead of time, as the tails freeze beautifully -however it might be wise to allow to dethaw before frying.


Pig Tails

• 6 Pig tails (the bigger the better)
• 3 Onions
• Carrot
• Celery Stalk
• 4 Cloves of garlic
• Pint and a Half of Beer (Fergus Henderson's recipe calls for wine)
• 12 Peppercorns (cracked)
• 2 Bay leaves
• Sprig of thyme
• Flour
• 4 Eggs
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• Panko
• Oil for deep frying (your choice)

Prepare the tails by either shaving, or singing off the hair with a blow torch. My thankfully were remarkably clean and did not need much in the way of hair removal. Begin by sweating off the mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) In a dish large enough to contain all the pig tails, when translucent add finely chopped garlic, and de glaze with beer. Bring beer to gentle boil and add pig tails. Stick into a 350 degree oven for about 3 hours, and let cool till just warm. If you leave too long the braising liquid will gel together and make it more difficult to remove the tails, however if this does occur carefully heat the pan back up. Prepare a dredging station using a bowl of flour, a bowl containing the eggs and mustard whisked together, and a bowl containing the panko bread crumbs (I find the panko will add a nice contrasting texture to the very soft texture of the tails.) First dip the tails in the flour, followed by the egg/mustard mixture and finally the panko. At this point it is entirely possible to keep them in the fridge, and they will freeze rather well. To prepare for the dish, heat up a deep fryer to 350 until golden brown.

Watercress Salad

• Bunch of watercress
• 1 Shallot
• Red wine vinegar

While the tails are deep frying, heat a pan with oil and sweat out the shallot, add a handful of watercress. De glaze with vinegar. Your watercress should be just wilted and still retain a nice green colour.

Rosemary Sage Aioli

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (can be omitted but helps with emulsification)
• 1 lemon
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Sprig of rosemary
• 3-4 Sage leaves

Finely dice the herbs, and puree the garlic combine with the lemon juice, egg yolk, and mustard together. While whisking vigorously drop by drop add the oil. When the emulsification begins you can begin adding the oil in a very thin stream. If your mixture ends up splitting, you probably added the oil too fast, but dont throw it away. In a new bowl add another egg yolk and the mustard and slowly add in the split mixture the same way as before (being a little more careful.)

Sorry about the picture, I messed around with this until my food went cold, and well I was hungry. So what we have here is basically a rabbit trio dish, the leg, the loin, and the rack, which leaves us with the front legs and some offal that shall be saved for another day. If ever you have illusions of boning a rack of rabbit, be warned its time consuming, tedious, and a general pain in the ass.

Braised Leg with Morels and Rabbit Cream Sauce

• Rabbit leg(s)
• Rabbit stock
• Garlic
• Bay leaf
• Thyme
• Fennel seed
• Peppercorn
• Cream

I think thats it for ingredients. This is pretty easy to accomplish. Firstly get a pan nice and hot with some oil, and proceed to brown the legs. When they are nicely brown put them in a pot, and deglaze the pan with wine, water, whatever you have around to deglaze with, and scrap all the nice little brown bits off the bottom. Dump this into the pot with the rabbit legs. To this add stock halfway up the legs, and the rest of the ingredients excluding the cream. Allow to slowly simmer with the lid on, either on top of the stove, or put into an oven at a low temperature (275-375) until the meat is tender and is pulling away from the bone. If you chose to braise in the oven, be sure to heat up your braising liquid to a boil before it goes into the oven. Once the legs are tender, take off the heat, and let cool in the liquid. Allowing the legs to cool in the braising liquid will give the muscles a chance to reabsorb lost moisture (in this case tasty tasty braising liquid). After everything has cooled remove the legs, and strain the braising liquid into another pot (this is the base for the sauce). Heat the liquid back up, and reduce. Add cream, and reduce to a sauce like consistency. Just before you want to serve it throw a nub of butter in to give the sauce a nice sheen, and velvety texture.

Garlic Olive Oil Poached Loin on Asparagus with Asparagus Foam

• Rabbit loin
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Asparagus (blanched)
• Lecithin 

Alright, the first thing everyone is going to ask is what and where do I find lecithin, so well clear this up right now. Lecithin is a soy or egg based protein thats used to emulsify water based molecules. This means that if you add the correct amount of lecithin into a water based concoction, and create bubbles within said concoction, they will stabilize instead of popping. This is one way of creating a culinary foam. Lecithin can be found in health food stores, but I found mine at Bulk Barn and paid much less for it.

First thing is first, we want to asparagus tips, and everything else goes to the foam. Take the discarded parts of the asparagus, steam them, then blanch in cold water to preserve their green color. Put these into a blender with some water and blitz up. Allow to cool. Strain. Add one tablespoon of lecithin pure cup of mixture. I am not sure about the exact proportions of this, because resources are scarce, although there are a few videos: Wasabi Foam, Beetroot and Juniper Air, and Lemon Air unfortunately all these videos are either not clear on proportions or use Ferran Adria's Texturas which may contain different concentrations. As before I successfully did this with one tablespoon pure cup. It is important that all the ingredients are cold. One the mixture is strained, you can add the lecithin and incorporate air using an immersion blender. After the bubbles have formed you must let it sit for a few minutes to separate the liquid and foam. Mine stayed stabilized for about an hour at room temperature before there was a noticeably different density.  Unfortunately, I was so pissed off trying to get a picture of the dish, I forgot to get a good zoom of the foam >=/

Thinly slice some garlic, and put this in a pot filled with enough olive oil to immerse the loins. This depends on your pot. Heat the oil to about 170 F give or take a few degrees, and drop the loins in until they reach a safe eating temperature. Take a few tablespoons of the garlic oil, and put into a pan with a knob of butter and quickly saute the asparagus tips until heated through. Serve the Loin on top of the spears, and gently spoon the foam on the loin.

Tempura Battered Rack of Rabbit with Carrot Timbale and Peas

This was inspired by Heston Blumenthals In Search of Perfection where Heston tries to find the perfect fish batter. Well I didnt neccesarly use a CO2 can, and beer, and go absolutely nuts with the batter. However, if you watch the episode it will give you a great tempura batter, and show you proper technique! If however your lazy you can either make your own tempura batter using rice flour, pastry flour, water, and club soda or beer. But, if your lazy you probably shouldn't be attempting this.


Timbale

• 2 carrots
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp Sugar
• Butter
• Water
• Cream

Find nice large carrots, cut one in half lengthwise, and using a peeler or mandoline slice four thin slices lengthwise. Quickly blanch these, and cool. Take four aluminum cups or ramekins (actually I dont know what they are called but they seem to be in every professional kitchen,) and butter the insides. wrap the carrot strips around the inside.

Put the sugar butter, and water in a pan and warm up. Place the remainder of the carrot which is nicely diced up, and cook until soft. The less water you put in, the more flavorful glaze you will end up with. Blitz all this with your trusty blender and add cream and smooth, but not liquefied. Add your eggs and mix. Carefully spoon the mixture into each container (inside the carrot slice). Take a pan, or vessel large enough to accommodate the ramekins fill with water to a height where the ramekins will be half immersed (a bain marie for those not in the know,) and boil. When boiled add the ramekins and put into a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until set. It will end up a custard like consistency.

Heat your deep fryer to 350ish, or if you dont have one as I do not. Take a big pot or deep pan and add Canola, or Peanut oil (high smoke point). The Japanese say that when the batter hits the bottom and raises right away its hot enough. Once again check the Blumenthal show for proper technique. Basically, you batter the rack, dip it in, and flip extra batter on the exposed side of the already battered rack to create layers, and textures. Once its a light golden brown, it should be done. The thing I like about this method is it keeps the rack moist, and does not overcook like searing, or roasting would. The peas can quickly be heated up with butter and served along side.

I think thats it, but I will edit, if its not.

Alright, I have been waiting to make this one for years, and either lamb has been out of season or I couldnt figure out how I wanted to balance it out. I think ive very much pulled off what I set out for.

The glaze was probably my biggest concern. Once the sambucca reduced down, would it be too sweet to function as part of the dish. To combat this I reduced about 1/4 cup of sugar down with 3/4 of a cup of black sambucca with a few cloves of garlic, and a good splash of beef stock. Reduce this down until it starts bubbling on itself, which should be a good indication that once it cools down, it should have a nice sticky consistency that the peppercorns will adhere to. This was then cooled and brushed onto the lamb, then coated in cracked black peppercorns, seared in a hot cast iron to a nice rare.

The fennel is easy enough to accomplish, quarter and clean the fennel while bringing some stock, touch of wine, thyme, and bay to a boil. Introduce the fennel, and then cook in a 450 degree oven until soft (about 30 minutes). It is important not to overcook the fennel, it should be fork tender yet still retain shape. There are almost no better joys in life then braised fennel.

The rice was actually a random find at the grocery store, yet I dare say ive never had a better rice... brand to come soon.

The mache, morel, and purple sugar snaps was purely a spur of the moment conception at the grocery store. Ive never had mache before, mostly because I have never seen it around these parts. The morels were dried morels (fresh would be better) and they were re hydrated in chardonnay, and then towel dried. The excess moisture by not drying will cause them to cook longer, and end up steaming more then sautéing. This was all cooked very simply, a quick saute together, some wine to deglaze, and then finished off with the wilted mache rosettes.

I made a pan sauce with the trimmings of lamb, some shallots, wine and stock, and also served a bit of the sambucca glaze. All in all I am very impressed with how this turned out, although the peppercorns may require a slight balance with bread crumbs or better application as I could see how it may be a touch too much for most tastes.

No clever arrangement of bad eggs ever made a good omelet. - CS Lewis

This dish had quite the involvement. The hardest part being the feature of the dish -a cows tongue. I was perusing the grocery store as I often do on my day off, hoping to be inspired by some sort of odd ingredient and after pouring through my many cook books, searching the internet, getting the necessary information, and techniques ready to transform the unknown, and ugly into something beautiful. That is when I saw it, lurking in the corner of a meat department, looking forlorn and in need of some love and attention. I quickly snatched this up and began the thought process.

The first part of this dish involved learning what I could do with an Ox tongue. I thought about braising, boiling, but that was far to simple of a process, and any opportunity I have to work on charcuterie I am going to jump all over it. I only had one day off, and another a week later. The natural choice here was to brine the tongue, and think about what to do with it over the course of a week. I used the brine recipe out of Ruhlman's Ratio. Remember when your ingredient list starts to look more like a science experiment, then a recipe pay particular attention to measurement. Too much sodium nitrate (pink salt) will kill someone, and too little could cause botulism poisoning. As this was destined to be cooked the nitrates were not necessary, however it will make the meat nice and rosy. This was brined with peppercorns, salt, pink salt, garlic, thyme, onion, and I think that was about it -pretty classic French brine. It was left in the brine for a week, turning, and weighting down every so often.

After the brine, the tongue was rinsed off, put into a pot with aromatics, and braised for three or four hours. This process will break down all the collagen to gelatin, and make the meat tender to eat. It also separates the thick skin off the tongue to be peeled. I had a little bit of apprehension about peeling the tongue on account of never doing it before. After the tongue has been boiled allow it to cool enough that you can comfortably touch it, yet is still hot. Begin by using a pairing knife to peel the tongue, once you have a bit removed its really easy to pull off with your hands. The skin is very very tough, and much like thin leather, I airmailed it to a Nike factory in South America for use in shoes - I loathe throwing things out.

I allowed the tongue to cool overnight, and then to air dry to form whatever pellicle I could on it. For the first time I was happy it is Canada and in winter, cold smoking would be a breeze. The tongue spent six or seven hours in the smoker and stayed at a fairly steady 20 degrees Celsius. The end product had a texture and taste very similar to a summer sausage, yet not as potent. Now that I had a great ingredient it was time to think about what to do with it. My first idea was to use it as an amuse bouche, with a horseradish aoili, however I could not find fresh horseradish anywhere, still might make this at work one day and snap a pic. The next thing I did after my tiring day of going grocery store to grocery store in a snow storm, looking for horseradish was make a Smoked tongue sandwich with Dijon, on Danish Rye. This was a tasty sandwich however I thought the tongue would do better with a hot preparation.

This dish was conceived one morning before work, looking through the fridge for leftovers. My fridge was looking pretty bare, there was duck confit in the corner, roquefort, beer, leftover bottle of wine, eggs, butter, and whatever condiments I deem allowable in my fridge. So I figured beef and blue cheese go together well, I should use up the rest of that wine before it sours, and I had eggs. An omelet was a natural choice for a before work snack. The onions were caramelized up and the wine reduced in them. I then added diced tongue and allowed that to cook, and crisp up. These were thrown into an omelet and Roquefort was crumbled on top. I took one bite and realized I had struck gold! After telling my chef about it, he suggested I throw in some pears into the mix. So many days later  I did. The pears were caramelized up with a bit of sugar and white wine vinegar, then folded in with the omelet filling. Possibly the tastiest conception I had come up with in a long time, but as they say necessity is the mother of all invention.

.

Two books cover to cover in one afternoon, needless to say I am in ocular distress. Well Ruhlman has done it again with Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, and produced yet another book that any cook would probably agree is useful (as opposed to every other cookbook on the shelf). Alton Brown describes this book best as:

"Cooking, like so many creative endeavors, is defined by relationships. For instance, knowing exactly how much flour to put into a loaf of bread isn't nearly as useful as understanding the relationship between the flour and the water, or fat, or salt . That relationship is defined by a 'ratio,' and having a ratio in hand is like having a secret decoder ring that frees you from the tyranny of recipes. Professional cooks and bakers guard ratios passionately so it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Michael Ruhlman is forced into hiding like a modern-day Prometheus, who in handing us mortals a power better suited to the gods, has changed the balance of kitchen power forever. I for one am grateful. I suspect you will be too." -- Alton Brown"

It is very true that cooks, and bakers are very fond of ratios. Ratios are far easier to remember then recipes. The first ratio I learned while attending culinary school was the all important Mirepoix: 2 part onion, 1 part carrot, 1 part celery. I suspect however that bakers are far bigger utilizers of ratios on account of their holy baker's percentages. Which is exactly what I find so exciting about this book. I mostly glazed over any cooking related ratios involving stock, consomme, and the like, but absolutly ate up the section on dough, batters, and custards. This knowledge to me was absolute gold, something I had been previously ignorant about. I would recommend buying this book purely based off those chapters. However, if  you are a baker I am sure you probably already knew all that stuff anyway. I really hope someone takes Ruhlman's concept and runs with it on a more macroscopic level. Could you imagine The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs  geared completely towards ratios? The exact proportions required for the most original version of Tapenade, or Coq au Vin? Ok, perhaps thats a little far streched and takes the creativity out of the cooking, but I for one would buy it. Thanks Ruhlman for reaffirming my faith in culinary literacy.

I am a huge fan of Michael Pollan's work. I have read cover to cover both The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, was inspired by them both, and to an extent they changed my life (or at least my perception of food), so it only made sense to pick up his new book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. I blazed through this book cover to cover in approximately one hour, and was horribly disappointed. This isn't to say its a bad read, it just lacks the depth, information, and journalistic tenacity that has become accustomed to in Pollan's work.

My first issue with the book is that there are 140 pages, and half of those have nothing more then a cute image no bigger then a square inch. So we can with some confidence say that 60-70 of those pages are not required reading material. A large percentage of the pages with text on them, are taken up by large fonts, and whitespace. Compound this with the knowledge that nowhere on the book can we find a "made with recycled paper," we can safely assume a gross missuse of natural resources. Ohh can I add that I paid $13.50 for a book with no fucking content in it? It just seems like massive irony that a man who is alegedly concerned with the worlds troubles would not be concerned with something pivitol to our existence like trees and breathing.

Secondly, I didnt learn a thing from this book. Granted, I've read his two other books where Pollan actually goes into some depth behind alot of the rules found in this book, I've had classes in nutrition and have a fairly basic understanding of what food is, and what food is not, but I did expect to learn something new.

What this book is, is a gateway for those who do not have an understanding about food, and are ignorant about what they eat. The book is published so you can read it in an hour and get an idea of what food is, and is not. This book was published for the ignorant masses, and frankly most of them dont read, so I dont see the point. In short, if you want a quick, cute, kitschy read you can debate with other niave idealogist during your weekly Starbucks book club meeting this is your book. If however you value intelligence and reason, pick up both The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, but steer clear of this one.

The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson is a cookbook classic. At his restaurant in London Henderson specializes in nose to tail cookery (infact I think he coined the term.)

This cookbook covers a large chunk of your basic cookery techniques such as how to make stock, yet the real gold in this book lay in his treatment of offal, and lesser used bits. Adventurous and picked up a pigs trotter, brains, liver? Want to know how your grandmother used to make her pig tails during the holidays? This book will teach you what to do.

Henderson really set the stage for the nose to tail movement, and its picking up a great deal of momentum. If you take yourself seriously as a chef, you should own this book.

Possibly the tastiest sandwich ever. Alright this was a multi-day multi-cooking method endeavor. First you need a large peice of pork. I would suggest a tougher cut of meat like the shoulder, filled with flavour, connective tissues, and glorious porky goodness.

Basic Brine (from Charcuterie)

1 gallon, Water
1 cup, Kosher Salt
2/3 cup, Sugar

Now that we have the basic recipe down, its time to think about how we are going to flavour our brine. I did a classic french style brine with bay leaf, thyme, cracked peppercorns, garlic, and cloves (pork loves cloves you know.) Its quite simple, bring everything to a boil, let cool to room temperature, add your meat product and store in the fridge overnight.

Alton Brown promotes substituting half the water for ice, which will allow the brine to cool down much more quickly, and save you time, personally I would listen.

Smoking

Smoke, there is nothing more manly, and more Canadian. Smoking is very easy to accomplish, and you can make a smoker out of a cast iron pan, a hot plate, and wood chips. I sadly love crazy projects but, I dont have time... and I own a Bradley Smoker.  I am going to tell you, there are many different ways to smoke, but this contraption will save you the headache. It automatically feeds the wood pellets in, keeps a consistant temperature, and produces alot of smoke.

The secret to a good smoky coating on a peice of meat is the almighty pellicle. Im not a scientist, but a pellicle is basically a sticky coating on the meat which will recieve the smoke better, and is caused by coagulated proteins or something of the like. I would gladly look it up in Harold McGees On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, however I am lazy. So what we are going to do is take the meat out of the brine, and let it sit uncovered in the fridge (yes uncovered.) This can also be accomplished much more quickly by having a fan blow on the meat. I also covered the meat in maple syrup. Get your trusty smoker up to temperature, the Bradleys really are idiot proof, buy one already, stick your pellicle encapsulated hunk of piggy goodness in the Bradley at about 300 degrees F, for three hours or untill we reach an internal temperature of about 160. It helps to stick a probe thermometer in the meat, and have it go off when it reaches the temperature. Note: the meat is not technically cooked at this point, we are just aiming for the smoke flavour.

Braising

Although we have cooked our meat rather slowly, and that has broken down a great deal of tough connective tissue, in order to be able to pull the pork, we have to employ another method of cooking. In this case braising. Braising is a moist heat cooking method, which allows us to cook the meat for a long period of time without drying out. First, we need to think about a braising liquid. Water can, and will work. Water however has no flavour, and we have the opportunity to introduce more flavour to enchance our end product. What is tasty, not to expensive, and packed full of flavour? Beer! Yes, beer. White wine would also work, Red however dosent really have alot of complimentary flavour components going on, so I am ruling it out. Grab your favorite beer, Alexander Keiths in my case, pour it in, and drink the other 23. Ok, well dont drink them yet... its not the time. If you need more liquid (we are looking to cover about 1/2 the product) add more beer, stock, or even top it up with water. I added a few onions to the mix as well. Bring the liquid to a boil, add the meat, cover, and throw in the oven at as low as you dare (I went 215.) The longer, and lower the better, provided you stay out of the food danger zone (180F and below.) I believe this took about 5-6 hours or so, I dont remember (this was the time to drink the other 23 you lush.) Take it out of the oven and let cool to room temperature. You have a choice here, either you can start pulling it apart now, or let it cool overnight in the braising liquid.

*If you elect to let it cool overnight, the gelatin will set, and will we hard to pull apart so you will have to reheat it before attempting to pull it, you will however have better flavour.

Pull.

Almost seems like a waste to throw out all that braising liquid. Let strain it, reduce it, and add some things to make a barbecue sauce. This can be as easy or hard as you want to make it. You could just reduce until it reaches a sauce like consistency (there is a ton of gelatin in there.) But im going to add some flavour. I added some Apple Cider Vinegar, and Ketchup (tomato paste works too, but I was out.) Use as barbecue sauce, or mix in with the nicely shredded pulled pork.

Caramalized Onions

Take about 1 large onion, cut it in half from top to bottom and peel. Cut the top and root end off on about a 45 degree angle, and turn to the cut end is facing you. Now carefully make diagonal cuts, and you should end up with perfect slices. If you elect to slice the other way you will end up with a more tangled caramalized onion.

Heat up a large skillet with oil, dump in the onions. Turn down the heat to about medium high. As the onions cook they will release moisture, that moisture will evaporate, and overtime the onion will begin to caramalize. About half way through add salt, and pepper. The salt will help to pull out more moisture. As the onions cook down and more moisture evaporates the pan will begin to get dry. Here we can take a liquid and add just a bit to wet the pan again and keep the onions cooking down. Were you going to use water? Made yah think didnt I? Thats right more beer. Keep adding the beer in small doses, allowing it to evaporate before introducing more untill the onions are fully caramalized.

The End

Grab a nice think hunk of crusty bread, put some good french Dijon on one side, load up with the pulled pork, and onions.

One might ask themselves, what would a cook cook for themselves? Well, after a thirteen hour of New Years Eve service mayham, and willingness to guzzle down as much as possible to make up for missing most of the New Years partying, the answer is NOT MUCH. Truth be told I have a tinge of a hangover, the dreaded chemical induced dehydration, with a slight dose of withdrawl. There are two things one craves with this condition: Fat, and Carbs. One might suggest to themselves a monolothic hamburger, accompained by a gravy and cheese drenched poutine. This would be preferrable, however it is New Years and everything is closed. So alas, we are to venture to the fridge.

This trip was an absolute success. I had a slab of bacon, potatoes, onion, and duck confit (you do keep duck confit laying around in the back of your fridge dont you?). How any of these magical things cannot combine to create a sublime hangover cure is beyond me. Firstly, heat up you cast iron skillet. Dont have one? OK.

Before you rush out to your nearest overpriced "made for rich housewives" kitchen supply stores *cough take a second and think. People used to use cast iron all the time before the invention of Teflon, however Grandma got sick of lugging it around, bought into the newest easiest fad and.... thats right... check Grandmas. Grandma dosent have one? well I am sure someones Grandma died recently... get it yet? Thats right, secondhand and antique stores! You should be able to amass a small collection for less then $15.00. Whats that? Its rusted? No problem.

Traditionally, you can use a handful of salt, and a little oil, and scrub like Automysophobic. For more serious cases just grab some steel wool, and finish with salt. After that you must season them. The proper way is to heat up the pan over flame untill it is white hot, then fill it up with salt, and burn off the salt. This way takes time, and can be dangerous, but it is the proper method. Alternativly, you could rub it in oil (prefrebbly one with a high smoke point,) throw it in a 350 degree oven for a few hours, let them cool, and you should be good. Try to cook high fatty foods at first to break it in a bit.

Alright, cast iron is heated up with a little oil in it. Heres the big secret, throw in the potatoes, confit, bacon, and onions. Toss it in the oven at about 350, and in about a half hour to forty-five minutes you should be rewarded with the tastiest, fattiest potatoes you ever shoved in your mouth. Hangover, averted.

Also, recently purchased a domain name so the address is now commiskaze.com. Feel free to send me money.

I was messing around in a large corperate bookstore today, looking at books appropriately enough about food. I get angry, and almost annoyed not only at the amount of piss poor made for bored housewife cookbooks, but at how many people actually pick them up. Sure, not everyone is a chef, not everyone really understands the fundamentals of how to cook, but they should make it a little easier to find the good ones. This attitude was doubly confirmed when the cute blonde girl at the register innocently flirting struck up the same conversation from the other end. "I wish I could find a book that actually shows you how to cook," which naturally ensued a slightly bitter conversation on my end but ended up recommending Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, or a cooking related textbook. Take the jump, quit your job, goto culinary school, work in a restaurant, but dont complain to me about bad cookbooks! Ok bitterness subsided.

In my venture I finally decided on Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. I have been meaning to buy it for sometime, owned every other one of his books, so it only made sense to actually read what he cooked.

The first section was a hilarious bunch of sardonic rants only too common to Bourdains writing style. No bullshit, in your face, this is how you are going to be a good cook, much in common with what was on my mind at that time. The phrase that hit me the most:

"Chefs' appetites and enthusiasms, you may have noticeed, rarely end with food. I am deeply suspicious of any cook who is less than enthusiastic as well about sex, music, movies, travel -and LIFE. A few years back, dining with friends at one of the "best" restaurants in the country, we sat back, after many courses of lovely but sterile, artfully arranged plates of food, curiously unsatisfied. I wondered aloud what was wrong. One of my companions suggested that the chef "cooked like someone who's never been properly fucked in his life."

I can only think back to this statement, and remember an episode on No Reservations where Bourdain, Eric Ripert, and Michael Ruhlman (was there another one present) went to the French Laundry. My question is whether Ruhlman or Ripert boasted this. After my mixed success with Christmas dinner, and accused of too much flavour on all too many occasions, this hit me like a gold brick. Was there someone innately wrong with my cooking? Or, subsequently was I cooking for impotent palates? Time will only tell. As a result I was sucked into Bourdain's ranting and read the cookbook cover to cover.

What we have here is a tome of classical no bullshit French Bistro classics, done tastefully, simply, and instructively enough that even a home cook could crank this food out. You will find these recipes in almost every good french cookery book. Bourdain however, manages to take the classics throw lube all over the text, so I dont feel like im being penetrated dry like when I read my culinary school textbooks. Would I recommend this to anyone with an interest in well done (sorry rare) rustic French classics? F'n eh.

I was determined to create something for the family Christmas dinner, that reflected what I do with food. We have created something similar at the restaurant, which was damn tasty, so the idea was to take that and throw my taste into the mix. My palate demands strong flavour when cooking for me. Robust and savoury would be how I would place my palate. So Alas, the tortellini.

Duck Stock
2 Duck Carcasses
1 Chicken Carcass
Mirepoix
Bouquet Garni

1. Roast off the carcasses, approximately one hour, deglaze roasting pan with red wine.
2. Add mirepoix, and bouquet garni.
3. Fill with COLD water to just cover and let simmer 4-8 hours.

*note: I did not remove any duck fat, and degrease the roasting pan as I saved the cooled and congealed fat for duck confit. Killed two birds with one stone.

Duck Consommé

1. Mix ground protein with egg whites, allow to congeal and clarify the stock. Watch carefully at first, if the "raft" breaks you are SOL.
I am not going horribly in depth with making a consommé, there are many resources on how to do it, and I am short for time.

Tortellini Filling
2 Chicken Legs, seasoned
150g Soft Unripened Goat's Cheese
1 Onion
250ml Red Wine (drink the rest)

1. First the Chicken Legs were put into the smoker for approximately one and a half hours at 315 degrees. Allow to cool, and shred with a fork. Do not use the skin.
2. Cut to onion in half, knock off the ends in a diagonal fashion, and slice thinly north to south. Saute, and deglaze with a little wine every time the pan gets dry. When the previous wine has evaporated add a little more. Do not rush this progress.
3. Blitz up the shredded Chicken, Caramelized Onions, and Goat Cheese into a fine, but not wet paste. It should hold together.

Pasta Dough:

For the pasta dough I tried the pasta recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook, it yielded an incredibly soft dough that was a pleasure to work with. Not sure I can publish that on account of copyright laws and what not.

Summary

I was incredibly pleased with the taste of the finished product. The filling was incredibly flavourful, and set in a nice mellow, but favourable consommé. I feel the flavour was too much for most of the family, as I am sure there were many ingredients in there they were not accustomed to tasting (ie smoke, wine, truffle, goats cheese). Next time I will do without the truffle oil garnish. It was a gorgeous smelling addition, however sometimes its more about taking things away from a dish then adding them in. I currently have some duck confit, and duck proscuitto on the go, so hopefully I will get pictures of that for everyone.