What is Victoria Day weekend without friends, family, and some sun? Jenn and I usually make it a foodie weekend, inviting out of town guests to stay with us for several days. The Tulip Festival is usually on its final weekend. The weather is usually sunny. I usually serve up a major feast.

This year, we didn't have any guests staying with us, but I turned to the barbecue to make a feast. Why? Well, the condo maintenance staff set them up early this year, so I've been grilling food for a month now. Also, Jenn's little sister, one of our dinner guests, loves grilled foods.

Can't blame her. We've been enjoying grilled asparagus, wings, and shrimp. Most recently, we seasoned some "colossal"-sized shrimp (count: <10 per lb) and grilled them at medium heat, shell on. When done, we removed the shells and added the slightly smokey shrimp to a Thai-style soup.

Thai-Style Soup with Grilled Shrimp

For our Victoria Day Sunday feast, I started planning the Friday before.

foodiePrints (May 22, 10:02 pm) Planning tmr's cook-out 2 feed friend who will b post 24hr shift at Civic: Think grilled take on http://bit.ly/a35oqm [My Take on Crispy Chicken] & http://bit.ly/3imkNx [Ox Heart Anticuchos]

Not only was Jenn's little sister joining us, but so was a friend of ours, a resident at a local hospital who worked the weekend.

Sunday morning saw me butterfly a broiler fryer chicken, removing the keel bone. I then cured it with a 50:50 cure of salt:sugar and whole spices partially ground with a mortar and pestle. This time around, I added the zest of one orange, star anise, cloves, black peppercorns, and some cinnamon for flavouring. To grill, I washed off the cure and placed it off direct heat, turning it over regularly (every 2-3 minutes). To glaze the skin, I combined equal parts maltose and lemon marmalade.

For the ox-heart, we again sliced it up and marinated the slices in a modified Nuoc Cham, substituting: chile flake for bird's eye chiles and a combination of orange juice and rice wine vinegar for lime. To grill, I skewered them on metal skewers (anticuchos) and placed them on direct heat, set to medium. The Nuoc Cha being so sweet, they would char quickly at high.


Chicken and Ox-heart anticuchos

Our friend brought over marinated Korean-style short ribs. She marinated them in President's Choice "Memories of Korea" Barbecue sauce.

Grilled Korean Barbecue-Style Short Ribs
Incidentally, the prepared sauce can be made by blitzing together diluted soy sauce, sugar, minced garlic, nashi pear (aka: Asian pear), onion, and sesame oil.

With a light vinaigrette dressed cucumber salad and a mesculin salad (a collection of peppery greens), both sourced from the Rochon Farms stall at the Parkdale Market, we had quite the foodie meal. The chicken was unbelievably moist and flavourful, both savoury and sweet with touches of citrus. The anticuchos smacked of umami and brightness from the vinegar. The short ribs were sweet and tasty.

Not bad for a small Victoria Day weekend get-together. As I would later tweet, we essentially tossed a bird on the grill with other pieces of meat, some on sticks.

In learning to eat seasonally, Jenn and I develop quite the appetite for Spring "usual suspect" vegetables. When May comes, we satiate that appetite. It is the time of asparagus in the Ottawa region, which brings with it fiddle-heads and wild garlic (aka: ramps or wild leak).

Already, we have grilled countless spears of thin local asparagus on the gas grill, some not a day from field to plate.

Last weekend, we found ourselves with a half dozen chicken wings. I decided to glaze them in sriracha, slightly sweetened with ketchup and flavoured with a seedy mustard. The result was a wonderfully savoury glaze that took grill marks well. Such makes sense given how much sugar there is in store-bought ketchup.

We served the wings atop a "raft" of grilled asparagus spears. They were drizzled in olive oil and seasoned with kosher salt.

Sriracha-Glazed Chicken Wings on Grilled Asparagus
After some "positioning", it made for a picture-perfect light dinner.

Speaking of which, we put together a ramp quiche several days before as a starch accompaniment to grilled pork. It came out more like a frittata in pie pastry, but featured both the ramp bulbs and greens.

Ramp Quiche

First, I made up a batch of Michael Ruhlman's 3:2:1 pastry: 3 parts flour, 2 parts butter, and 1 part ice-water (as needed) and lined a pie pan.

Pie Pastry
Then, I took 9 baby potatoes and simmered them gently until I could pierce them easily with a fork.

When cool, I peeled them and added 5 sets of ramp greens (chiffonade), about 3 stalks of green onions (sliced thin), 1/4 cup of sharp cheddar cheese (coarsely grated), and the ramp bulbs (coarsely chopped).

Mixture Sans Eggs

To bind everything together, I added 6 eggs and seasoned everything with two heavy pinches of kosher salt.

2 of 6 Eggs

Adding Eggs Until Everything Looked Wet

Mixture With Eggs

The mixture was poured into the pie shell.

Ready for Baking

Everything was baked for 40 minutes in an oven, pre-heated to 350F. Then, I let it sit for 15-20 minutes to set, loosely covered with aluminium foil.

Baked

Done

Gently garlicky, the ramps provided wonderful flavour and texture to the quiche. Next time, we plan on forgoing the potatoes and using a goat cheese royale.

That said, please join me in raising a glass to simple dishes, made great by fresh and seasonal ingredients. Delish!

When last the weather was warm enough to barbecue, I decided to innovate several methods for preparing a boneless pork loin, besides roasting it for Sunday dinner to produce crackling. While making a pork loin crackle without drying out the meat is no easy task, a lean cut of pork with a well developed layer of fat has uses beyond roasting.

Why? During one of my weekly shopping trips, I overhead two gentlemen arguing over a refrigerated display. "Hey! Look at this. Isn't a buck forty nine a good price for pork", said one gentlemen to the other. "Yeah, but we don't need that much meat. What are we going to do with something that big?" As they left empty-handed, I wandered over to find halved boneless pork loins. I fetched one and thought to myself, "Plenty!"

Firstly, let's start with the obvious. What are some of the most prized pork chops at the butcher's counter? That would be "center cut" loin chops (routinely: $2.99/lb). Centre cut loin chops are almost completely composed of one muscle. As such, they cook evenly under high heat, lending themselves well to grilling or pan roasting. Guess what? A halved pork loin, with or without the sirloin portion, is nothing more than unsliced boneless pork loin chops. Even better, you can cut them as thickly or as thinly as you like. Thicker chops lend nicely to being stuffed. Just start slicing at the end where the lighter loin muscle is largest.

I sliced mine on average 2-3 cm (3/4") thick. Since they were destined to be grilled, I applied a dry rub and let them sit in the fridge for an hour to draw out some juices. This way, the chops browned nicely on the flame. On the flame, I turned them every 2 minutes, until they reached an internal temperature of 140°F.

Sliced Loin Chops with Dry Rub

Loin Chops after an hour with the Rub

Loin Chops Grilled to an Internal Temp of 140°F

Loin Chops Served

Here's the dry rub I use:

• 8 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder

It borrows from Alton Brown's 8:3:1:1 dry rub, which he used it to season ribs for braising.

Secondly, usually a halved pork loin has a portion of sirloin on board. This is the darker coloured muscle. I find this muscle takes longer to cook, so I excised it into individual roasts. Besides, why not carve out a piece of sirloin, leaving the fat layer intact, and try to make some crackling.

For the individual sirloin roasts, I seasoned them with kosher salt and pepper and drizzled them with olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar. Then, I tossed them on the grill. I also cooked them to an internal temperature of 140°F, turning often.

Marinating Sirloin Roasts

Marinated Sirloin Roasts

Sirloin Roasts Grilled to an Internal Temp of 140°F

BTW, the crackling didn't work and the fat run off started some unnecessary grease flame-ups. Here's what turned out:

Failed Crackling

Lastly, a pork loin can easily be cut into strips for stringing onto a skewer. This can be done with either the loin or sirloin portion.

For me, I sliced out strips of sirloin and marinated them in President's Choice Korean Barbecue sauce for an hour. I then skewered the strips and tossed them on the grill. They were the last on and the quickest to come off. They make great appetizers or can be served on rice or cous cous for an entrée.

Sirloin Strips Marinating

Sirloin Strips Grilled

And skewers allow for great service options!

Skewered Sirloin Strips Served

Skewered Sirloin Strips Top Angle

Skewered Sirloin Strips Side Angle
If sticky sweet Korean Barbecue sauce doesn't suit your fancy, think coconut flavoured spicy satay!

As has been demonstrated, a single halved pork loin easily produces three dishes.

My advice: pickup a pork loin when they're on sale ($1.49-$1.99 are steals), slice it up into manageable portions, and freeze the portions you don't need. Pork loin is a very versatile cut.

Heck, I've been known to just cut one up into thick strips and make Chinese Barbecued Pork or Char-Siu. Cheers!

Sometime during the fall, a friend and colleague threw a party to bid farewell to the house he designed and built himself. He had just put the property on the market and decided to invite friends and co-workers over to admire his handiwork.

The approximately 2200 square foot bungalow with custom baths, a spacious kitchen, solid wood cabinetry, and laminate hardwood floors is located in Cornwall, Ontario. Personally, my main draw was my friend's custom built barbecue enclosure. It weather proofed his barbecue from rain, wind, snow, and sleet, permitting him ready access to a propane grill year round. I had heard so much about the enclosure that I had to see it before the property sold.

Since this was the first time my better half and I ventured into Cornwall, we volunteered to drive down with my colleague to setup for the party. On the way, we stopped by a cheese co-op to purchase curds for the party and had lunch at Shoeless Joe's.

St. Albert Cheese Co-operative Inc.
According to its website, the St-Albert Cheese Co-operative Inc. (aka: St-Albert Co-operative Cheese Manufacturing Association) is located in the Casselman region (just a few kilometers from Ottawa) and represents approximately 50 producers. It employs approximately 60 people and has been producing quality cheese for over 100 years with 100% pure milk.

There, I purchased a package of pre-sliced old (fort) cheddar from St. Albert's dairy bar.

100% Milk Old Cheddar

At $4.78, quite the bargain

Nutritional Information
Originally, I intended the cheddar to make a baked macaroni and cheese. However, after I sampled a slice, its strong sharp cheddar flavor - tangy, slightly salty, and smooth - made me reconsider. I ate the rest of the cheese over the period of a week with whole grain crackers. It has to be the best cheddar I have ever sampled.

Shoeless Joe's
When we arrived in Cornwall, we had lunch at Shoeless Joe's. Shoeless Joe's is a chain sports-oriented restaurant with well over a dozen establishments throughout Ontario. According to my colleague, the Shoeless Joe's in Cornwall had newly opened. My better half and I, however, were quite familiar with Shoeless Joe's pub fare and menu. You see, we often frequented the Kingston establishment while she schooled at Queen's. We are particularly fond of Shoeless Joe's freshly made lattice fries and garlic dip.

Here are pictures of our orders:

Fish and Chips w/Garlic Dip ($12.45)

Pulled Pork Sandwich w/Lattice Fries($10.68)

San Diego Chicken Wrap w/Lattice Fries($9.95)

Personally, I ordered the San Diego Chicken Wrap. With its fresh vegetables, soft tortilla, and slices of crisp seasoned breaded chicken, I had a good lunch. The wrap must have been made to order because wraps made with slices of freshly fried chicken quickly go soggy with the moisture from the vegetables and sauce (typically mayonnaise or ranch dressing).

Total cost for 2 platters of fish and chips with garlic dip, 1 pulled pork sandwich with lattice fries, 1 chicken wrap with lattice fries and 3 drinks: $63.58 (before tip, after taxes).

Oh and here are pics of my colleague's barbecue enclosure. It was made with several sheets of plexi glass, pressure treated lumber, and a composite material that fits snugly around the pressure treated lumber:

Barbecue Enclosure

Composite Material
Cheers to my colleague for coming up with this solution. If I ever get the opportunity, I plan on plagiarizing the design :)

Particulars:
St-Albert Co-operative Inc.
150 St-Paul Street,
St-Albert Village
(613)987-2872

Shoeless Joe's
1110 Brookdale Avenue,
Cornwall
(613)937-4838

After two unsuccessful attempts making cevapcici, I decided to try again. This time, I substituted baking soda for mineral water and used a food processor. This modification to the recipe and mechanical means to combine the meat together, produced cevapcici with the proper texture: moist and chewy. Previous failed attempts saw me mixing groud meat with club soda and hand-chopping the meat with a pair of clevers. Both methods produced crumbly cevapcici.

This time around, I used my new Rachael Ray food processor to further breakdown ground meat and incorporate the baking soda. Like before, I then mixed in an atypical ingredient in the form of finely chopped onions. This is non-traditional, but, walking by the Parkdale Market (a popular outdoor farmer's market) the day before, a bunch of fresh white onions literally called to me. As such I was looking for recipes to add fresh onions that never met the ciln. The onions were sweet and what onion pieces were exposed ot the heat on the outside of the cevapcici actually caramelized.

Regarding this blog entry's title, cevapcici is traditionally served with sour cream and ajvar. Ajvar is an all-vegetable spread, which is tomato-based. It provides bright fruity flavors that compliment well the Earthy flavors of the ground meat mixture. It can be purchased already prepared in bottles. The sour cream provides two things to the cevapcici. Firstly, like ajvar, sour cream provides some brightness. Secondly, sour cream provides a little fat to carry flavor.

Recipe follows:

More after the jump...