With a newly opened large Asian supermarket, Ottawa is being exposed to foods and groceries more common to ethnic communities in larger cities like Toronto and Vancouver. During its grand opening, the supermarket was quite the realization for many that tofu comes in more flavours and varieties than plain; soy sauce comes in several preparations from a multitude of foreign and domestic producers that bottles can fill an entire shelf; ice cream comes in exotic flavours like green tea, mango, taro, and durian; and Asian cultures commonly prepare off cuts like pig's ears and chicken feet.

Indeed, those, familiar with the Vancouver originating T&T chain, know stores have two meat displays besides a long and well stocked meat counter. One carries more standard cuts of meat. The other, glorious offal. Think beef kidneys, two kinds of beef tripe (honey comb and omasum), pig skin, pig heart, duck tongues, chicken hearts, and chicken gizzards, everything shrink-wrapped on styrofoam trays. At the meat counter, you will find more mainstream cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and duck. Interspersed amongst the chops, legs, stew meat, and roasts, you will also find pig trotters and chicken feet. Having never cooked pig's ears, I chose to challenge myself.

Previously Frozen Pig's Ears
And yes, those would be pig's trotters and tripe sneaking into the picture.

Eating cuts like ears, cheeks, snouts, tongues, and trotters means you are eating from nose to tail. This form of consumption seems to be prevalent in old world cultures whose values reflect strong agrarian origins. Raising livestock is an expensive and risky endeavor when considering both feed and care. To ensure return on investment, all the nutritive value from an animal's carcass needs to be extracted. Just about everything is edible, the question is how to cook it.

While an episode of the recently aired season of Top Chef Masters demonstrated French cuisine to be familiar with pig's ears (boiling them soft in a court bouillon), I decided to red braise them. Red braising or red cooking is a Northern Chinese cooking technique that imparts a characteristically dark colour and flavour to the slow cooked meat. At Northern Chinese restaurants, you will commonly encounter red braised pork belly.

Having purchased no pork belly, I slowly braised the ears, let them cool, chilled them, sliced them thin, and served them cold.

Red Braised Pig's Ears
Besides flavouring them, red braising softened the pig's ears, leaving a gentle cartilaginous crunch.

Recipe

Pig's ears braising in a mixture of wine, soy, sugar, and spice

One ear, retrieved after 3 hours braising, laid flat to cool

Two other ears, retrieved after 3 hours braising, laid flat to cool

Pig's ears, chilled, sliced, and served cold

What you'll need:

• 4 pig's ears
• 1/2 cup of dry sherry (a fortified wine) or rice wine
• 2 1/2 tbsp chicken marinade or dark soy sauce
• 2 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 2 whole pieces of star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick

The following procedure involves parboiling the ears to remove scum and encourage flavours and then slow cooking them in a sweet and spice infused braising liquid.

Method:

1. Add the ears (thawed if originally frozen) to a large pot of water and place the pot on a burner set to medium.
2. Bring the mixture up to a simmer, not a rolling boil, and simmer the ears for an hour.
3. Meanwhile, place the sugar, chicken marinade or dark soy, and whole spices (star anise and cinnamon) into a slow cooker with a cup of water. Set the slow cooker to high and stir to dissolve the sugar.
4. Remove the simmered ears from the pot to the slow cooker.
5. Add as much water as needed to cover the ears and bring to a very gentle simmer.
6. Cook for 3 hours.
7. Carefully remove the ears from the braising liquid to a plate. They will be very soft and coloured brown.
8. Let the ears cool to room temperature
9. Cover with plastic and chill in a refrigerator until solid (approximately 3-5 hours)
10. Slice into slivers and serve cold.

As the Serious Eats recipe, on which this one is based, states, ear is an acquired texture as opposed to an acquired taste. Even braised low and slow for hours, the ears retain a cartilaginous crunch.

Next time, I am going to try cooking them in red chili.

Sleep deprived and with a second batch of chicken pho broth simmering under my better half's watchful eye, I ducked out to the ByWard Market two hours before our guests were scheduled to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner. Before you think this my deserting the kitchen to frivolously go shopping, Jenn and I decided to serve a Mongolian-style Hot Pot this year using the aforementioned broth. The meat, seafood, and vegetables had already been sliced and layered in between plastic film, ready for "service." I needed to re-stock the fridge, every piece of produce spoken for for dinner.

Here's what $20 CAD got me at the ByWard open air market, which was bursting with Autumnal vegetables that October weekend.

$20 of produce

Tomatoes, Russet Apples, and Uncured Red Onions
The majority of this produce was purchased from the Rochon Farms stall, my favourite local farm. Rochon also has a stall at the Ottawa Farmer's Market at Lansdowne, Gerard Rochon sitting on the board of that farmers' market.

Besides incredibly fresh tomatoes, apples, onions and carrots, I also picked up a pint of vegetables dreaded by many children at Thanksgiving.

Brussel Sprouts
Chosen for their tight and firm heads, this pint of brussel sprouts ran me $3.

Taking some inspiration from fellow local foodie @spoonsie, Ottawa's Bacon Princess, I cooked them up with bacon and onions.

Bacon and Onion Brussel Sprouts
The bacon was standard single smoked breakfast bacon, sourced from Saslove's Meat Market, $2.46 worth (approximately a half dozen rashers).

To make "Spoonsified" Brussel Sprouts, boil a pot of salted water (preferably kosher). Carefully add the brussel sprouts and cook for 10 minutes. Remove them to an ice water bath to cool. This "shocking" process will give the sprouts a brilliant green.

Chop the bacon and render them in a pan set to medium low. Essentially, slowly cook the bacon at relatively low heat to draw out its fat. When a couple tbsp of drippings "comes out", turn up the heat to medium and crisp the bacon.

Remove the crisped bacon bits, draining them of their drippings and set them aside. Pour the bacon drippings into another pan. Alternatively, you could do what I did: reserve the drippings, de-glaze the pan with some water, dump out the water, wipe the pan, and replace the drippings.

Halve the brussel sprouts and dredge the cut side in a very thin layer of corn or rice starch. Place them in the pan of bacon drippings, the brussel sprouts cut side down and the bacon drippings heated on medium to shimmering.

Carefully, placing the brussel sprouts in the bacon drippings.

Fry them in the bacon drippings for 1.5-2 minutes.

Frying to crust the brussel sprouts

Remove the brussel sprouts from the pan once a crust forms and the sprouts heat through. For a pint of sprouts, this will take two batches. You may need to supplement the bacon drippings with vegetable oil.

When all the brussel sprouts have been crusted, de-glaze with a medium chopped onion and sautee until coloured.

Assemble everything, chopped onion, crisped bacon, and crusted brussel sprouts together and serve.

The resultant brussel sprouts take on a bacony flavour while remaining earthy, crisp, and green. The onion and bacon add savory. They disappeared quickly...

As for what happened to the rest of the produce, the carrots and onions were sweated and the tomatoes roasted for a sauce.

Roasted Tomatoes

Roasted Tomato Sauce
The russet apples...Well, I'll leave that for another blog.

Particulars:
Saslove's Meat Market
50 Byward Market Square
(613)241-9266

Thanksgiving in Canada came and past October 11, 2009. With a dear friend then getting married the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, several compromises had to be made. Firstly, there was no time to prep a turkey dinner. Normally, we intend Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner to be "cook from first principles" meals. Everything is made from scratch and, as much as is possible, we purchase local ingredients. Every year, with at least 5 guests invited (family and friends), our turkey dinners typically require a day's prep and cooking. Before you ask why a turkey dinner takes an entire day's prep, we cook up a very large batch of turkey stock for a soup course and a veloute gravy; we bake up pastries for dessert; and, given that our guests don't all like turkey, we confit at least 2 entrees of duck. This all happens before the turkey, sans legs, enters the oven for roasting. The legs are braised separately.

With my better half's entire family (brother, 2 sisters, and both parents), a family friend, and a neighbour invited over for Sunday night dinner, we opted to serve up a Mongolian-style hot pot, using chicken pho broth (yes, I know the difference between stock and broth). Why? We could prepare the broth in a slow cooker while we attended our friend's wedding ceremony and reception.

For the pho stock, we took 2 lbs chicken bones and placed them in a stock pot, submerging them in cold water (approximately 2 quarts). Then, we placed it on a burner, set to medium, and brought it up to a simmer. Lowering the head to medium low, we simmered the bones for an hour. Afterward, we fished out the bones, washing off any scum in the cooking liquid and set them aside. The cooking liquid was discarded and the pot washed.

The French tradition for stock involves roasting bones to develop colour and flavour before simmering for the "long term." Then, everything is strained through a chinoise and/or clarified using egg whites. The Asian tradition involves par-cooking to remove scum. It is then strained, but is partially clarified beforehand.

To simmer for the long term, we placed the par cooked bones back into the stock pot and added the flavourants: one large onion, a dozen cloves, 3 whole pieces of star anise, a small head of garlic, an inch of ginger, a tbsp of black pepper corns, and a dash of kosher salt. The flavourants were chosen according to the chicken pho (pho ga) recipe by @wanderchopsticks, author of the amazing Wandering Chopsticks blog (home of the 100 Vietnamese Foods to Try list).

Characteristic Pho Broth Flavourants
According to the recipe we were supposed to roast the spices to release "aromas." We didn't have time.

Once assembled, we again brought the stock back up to a simmer. Then, we placed the entire batch into a slow cooker set to low and let it cook, very slow simmer, until we came home. The scent that awaited us was amazing. The stock had darkened. The bones were about to crumble. The onion had almost liquefied.

Unfortunately, the resultant stock had also reduced, so the next day at 6:00 am, I repeated the process with another 2 lbs of chicken bones. This time, it cooked on the stove top.

Eventually, we mixed the two resultant stocks, de-fatting them first, and used them to poach fish, pork, beef, and vegetables. Here is what the resultant hot pot soup (can't really call it a broth anymore) looked like with Pho noodles.

Bowl of Chicken Pho

Soup
The soup was very rich and deeply flavorful. To serve, I finished the soup with a tbsp of fish sauce, some added umami.

Fear not, besides the Chinese greens we poached, I innovated a more traditional Thanksgiving vegetable side: "Spoonsified" Brussel Sprouts.

Bacon and Onion Brussel Sprouts

In honour of the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness signing a 9000 year lease at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, I decided to attempt a stew, featuring the brewery's flagship product, Guinness stout. Having absolutely no idea how to make an Irish-inspired stew, I asked a local foodie @spoonsie for ideas. She gave me the following recipe:

3 pounds lamb shoulder with a little fat, cubed
1/2 cup flour
3 large Russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 large carrots, peeled and sliced
6 stalks celery, cut into 1/2" slices
2 large yellow onions, cut into large dice
3 - 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch fresh rosemary
1 bunch fresh thyme
1 bunch fresh parsley
2 quarts lamb or beef stock, or as needed
12 ounces Guinness stout
1 cup pearl barley (optional)
2 teaspoons corn starch
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For a real Irish country touch, include the barley -- cook it for 20 minutes in 3 cups of lamb or beef stock, then add when you return the meat to pot with the vegetables.

Cut off some of the parsley leaves and chop enough to make 2 tablespoons; reserve. Cut off some parsley stems, and tie them into a bundle with a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme; reserve.

Season the meat with salt and brown the meat in a little oil. Remove and reserve, and sprinkle with a little flour, shaking off excess. Add the onions, garlic, carrots and celery to the pan and sauté, tossing to coat with the fat. Add the Guinness and de-glaze, scraping up any caramelized meat juices. Add the potatoes, return the meat to the pot (and the barley if you're using it). Add enough stock to barely cover, cook over medium heat until just boiling, then reduce heat to very low and simmer 2 - 3 hours, until the meat is tender, stirring occasionally.

Check seasonings, add salt and pepper to taste, then remove from heat, stir in parsley and the cornstarch (mixed into 4 teaspoons of water) and stir. Cook over low heat for a few more minutes to thicken. Serve with plenty of Irish brown or white soda bread, tea and more Guinness if you like.

YIELD: 6 generous servings

Here is my take:

Guinness Lamb and Barley Stew

Modified Recipe

One 8-10 kg Leg of Lamb, seasoned with Kosher salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

Oiled Wok on medium-high heat, oil heated to smoking

Searing the leg of lamb, lightly coated in a rice flour and oil paste, in the preheated wok

2x440 mL Cans of Guinness Draught

Medium-Large Uncured Onions (2 red, one white)

One red onion, Frenched

Partially Seared leg of lamb, on a bed of Aromatic Vegetables with Guinness de-glazing liquid

Second Batch of Aromatic Vegetables

Roughly Chopped Aromatic Vegetables Sweating in a Pan

Pearl Barley

3/4 cup of Pearl Barley

Barley and Beef Broth Added to Sweated Aromatic Vegetables

Barley Cooked

Guinness Braised Leg of Lamb, rested

Lamb Meat, Coarsely Chopped

Guinness Braising Liquid and Lamb Meat Added to Barley and Vegetable Mixture

Served

Also goes well with...

Herb Roasted Potatoes

The reason I didn't follow the original recipe had to do with texture, flavour, and available ingredients. With stews sometimes braising meat into individual fibers and vegetables into mush, I wanted more control, so I modularized the cooking process, choosing to assemble my stew afterward. This way, I could control the texture the meat took on and the resulting stew, while retaining long cooked aromatic flavours, would have no soggy vegetables. I also had no lamb shoulder to cook with and a leg of lamb is equally replete with connective tissue.

Besides, when braising with Guinness or any other dark beer, one has to be mindful not to reduce it very much. Else, the resulting liquid will be very bitter. Having reduced a Guinness into a glaze on one occasion, trust me on this one...

More after the jump...

With the first sighting of accumulated snow in Ottawa this past Thursday evening, it is time for home cooks and kitchens to regroup and retool for winter. It will be increasingly difficult to source locally grown produce for summery fare. Even fall fare is becoming a challenge with outdoor farmers' markets closing up around town.

As a little fond farewell, we at foodiePrints accumulated a number of our more successful experiments on the grill and offer them up as suggestions for next year's Food Day Canada in August. For a celebration that was once dubbed "World's Longest Barbecue", it is honestly never too early to start planning. This past August, we prepared neighbourhood cheeseburgers, everything sourced as locally as was possible, everything bought within a 15 minute bike ride of home.

Lime and Honey chicken with Grilled Plantains:

Lime and Honey Chicken with Grilled Plantains

Grilled Plantains
For the plantains, green ones were purchased from the local mega-mart and ripened with regular bananas in a paper bag. Once ripe, we setup the grill so the left most burner was off and the right most burner, cranked to medium-high. When the temperature reached 375F, 2" slices of plantains were brushed with oil, placed on the unheated side of the grill, and roasted until softened. Then, they were taken off the grill, placed in an ice water bath to cool, and pressed flat between a plate and a hamburger spatula. Once flattened, they were placed on the heated side of the burner, now turned to medium-low, to colour.


Lime and Honey Chicken
For the chicken, chicken legs were seasoned with kosher salt and left to rest for 2 hours. Then, a mixture of water, honey, and freshly squeezed lime juice (approximate ratio: 3:2:1 by volume) was prepared. The chicken was then placed in the mixture for a half hour and grilled indirectly at 350F, like the plantains, until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the meet reached 165F.

Flavour-wise, the pairing of slow cooked chicken went well with the grilled plantains.

Pineapple Sriracha Ribs and Grilled Mini-Potatoes

Pineapple Sriracha Ribs:
The ribs were seasoned with kosher salt and marinaded for 3 hours in leftover fresh pineapple and juice, the pineapple chopped up finely. They were then slow grilled at 350F, one rack on top of the other directly over two burners set to medium low. They were glazed with a mixture made by mixing together sriracha, more pineapple juice (non-marinade), and honey. Unfortunately, without enough real-estate on the grill, we were unable to truly slow cook the ribs.


Grilled Mini-Potatoes
These are essentially the same potatoes we traditionally serve during Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. The potatoes are boiled in salted water until a fork easily pierces them. Strained and, while hot, they were mixed in a Dijon mustard-based vinaigrette (4:1 canola oil and balsamic vinegar + salt and pepper to taste). Then, they were sprinkled with chopped fresh chives, strained for excess oil, and carefully grilled to take on some colour.

Chicken n' Ribs:

Grilled Peppers, Beef Rib Meat, Dry Rubbed Chicken Wings
The peppers were grilled, skinned, and then sliced for sausage dogs.

The beef rib meat is a cut of meat that Jenn and I discovered at the Loblaws Superstore and again at Ottawa's newly opened T&T, a large Asian supermarket. Sold for approximately $2.99/lb and dubbed "fingers", the rib meat is meat cut from between the ribs of a cow. While beef short ribs have a customer base, unwieldy beef ribs are far less marketable. I for one don't have a pot large enough to stew an entire rack, cut down to individual ribs. I have, however, braised them wrapped in foil.

Normally, Jenn and I reserve the rib meat for long braised dishes. For this grilling session, I decided to try to grill them up. While high in flavour, the ribs were chewy at best, harsh at worst. The meat was even marinated in an acidic Korean-barbecue style sauce that included soy, pears, fish sauce, and rice wine vinegar.

As for the chicken wings, they were doused with a fried chicken dry rub, that is prominently flavoured with garlic powder and paprika, and grilled. It was a hit with our guests, but I found them somewhat over seasoned. We have since adjusted the salt we add to our chicken dry rub.

With summer past and autumn coming to an end, let us make a suggestion for a more seasonal dish.

Spatch-cocked Chicken:

Lemon Butter Chicken
The procedure of "spatch cocking" a chicken involves cutting through the rib cage and ostensibly removing its back. By either removing or splitting the "keel" bone, the bone that comes up between the chicken's 2 breasts, the chicken can be opened up almost like a book and more easily roasted. In the case of the chicken pictured, compound butter, incorporating finely shopped lemon zest, was placed between the skin and the flesh of the chicken after it was seasoned with kosher salt and then roasted. Then, lemon juice was emulsified with canola oil (1:3 by volume) and a little mustard. The pseudo-vinaigrette was used to baste the chicken.


Lemon Butter Chicken resting
After the internal temperatures of the breast and thigh reached 145F and 160F respectively, the chicken was retrieved and left to rest. Roasted in a cast iron skillet, the chicken took on the various flavours and turned out moist and delicious.

I have since tried to replicate lemon butter chicken on the grill with little success. Maybe I will make it next year's project for Food Day Canada.

Several weeks ago, I found myself giving advice to someone who claimed to be a "foodie in training." Honestly, between noted author Michael Ruhlman calling foodies masturbating deviants who "get off" on the Food Network and one of my dear friends telling me that he's not qualified to call himself a foodie, I am somewhat beside myself.

It has been three years since I editorialized that I consider myself a foodie and not a gourmet, the former being less concerned with fine foods than the latter. This very blog has the word "foodie" in it and, unlike Ruhlman, I think there are foodies out there who cook. They are passionate about cooking, but do not consider themselves cooks. I adore Ruhlman's latest book, Ratio, and believe it is a key to reviving cooking skills, something we risk losing if we keep depending on highly granular recipes to make everyday dishes. I think it is foodies who can most easily read his book and take value from it, but I digress....

That evening I was on Twitter and a tweep I follow asked for recipes that involved slow cooking pork tenderloin. She, being a busy mother, was looking for a quick and easy recipe. The Chef/Owner of Ottawa's Epicuria, a fine food store and caterer, replied, suggesting she roast the tenderloins. I advised her tenderloin, being an already tender cut of pork, can be very quickly prepared using high heat methods. Lesser and secondary cuts would be better slow cooked.

Then, I realized how hypocritical I was being. I had prepared what I thought was a braised tenderloin myself. The idea came from a recipe published in the Toronto Star somewhat coincidentally when a local mega-mart had a sale on pork tenderloin. Essentially, the gist is to sear off a pair of pork tenderloins to develop flavour and simmer them in milk to finish. The recipe calls the dish milk "braised" pork tenderloin. According to Chef Tracey Black (the aforementioned owner of Epicuria), it is more of a" poach."

She is right. According to the Fourth edition of the Herbst and Herbst Food Lover's Companion, poaching involves cooking "food gently in liquid just below the boiling point..." Braising involves browning food in fat and then cooking it "tightly covered, in a small amount of liquid at low heat for a lengthy period of time."

Here is my take, borrowing elements from the "Unemployed Cook" blog:

Select an oven-proof piece of bake-ware that will allow you to almost submerge two pork tenderloins in milk. Your choice will depend on the size of the pork tenderloins. Estimate and measure out however much milk is needed to do the "submerging." I estimated approximately 2 cups of 2% milk (whole milk is preferred) for my Corningware.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F with a rack placed in the middle position.

Season the pork tenderloins with kosher salt.

Finely chop 3-4 cloves of garlic (more if you desire a stronger garlic flavour) and gently colour them in a metal pan on medium heat with a tsp of oil. Be cautious as garlic quickly burns.

Colouring the Garlic
Once coloured, add the milk to the pan and lower the heat to medium low. Bring the milk up to a simmer.

Meanwhile, take another pan, preferably cast iron or enamel-coated cast iron, add a splash of oil and heat the oil on medium heat until it shimmers, but does not smoke. Sear the tenderloins on two sides by letting them sit in the pan for a full 2 minutes before turning them over.

Seared Pork Tenderloins
Ordinarily, searing is followed by de-glazing the pan, but this recipe aims to subtly sweeten the pork with the milk.

Place the tenderloins into the baking dish. Submerge it in the milk, garlic and all, and place it in the oven until the internal temperatures of the tenderloins reach 140F.

Pre-Bake

After Baking

During baking, the milk will thicken slightly.

Poaching Liquid
Simmering the pork in the milk on the stove top, as recommended by the source recipes, may curdle it, producing light golden curds. Whereas the Unemployed Cook's recipe actually aims to produce the curds, the Toronto Star recipe recommends blending the cooking liquid until smooth. By baking the tenderloins in milk, I hoped to prevent any curdling.

Slice and serve, saucing with the poaching liquid:

Done
Depending on your taste, the poaching liquid may need to be adjusted with salt or pepper.

The pork came out very tender and the poaching liquid took on a slightly caramel flavour. It is a very clean taste and an easy way to prepare pork tenderloin.