Let's Go Crazy! - Part 2 - Pizza

Hey there!

Ok, we all love pizza, don't we? I mean it's pretty much on everyone's top 10 list of favourite foods. What's not to love? There's cheese, there's delicious tomato sauce, there's the crust (which, when done right, can be the best part of the pie) and there are all those wonderful toppings (especially when bacon's involved). One of the things that makes pizza pizza is its reliability. As a very lousy actor said in a very bad film (albeit with a memorable line): "Sex is like pizza: even when it's bad, it's still pretty good."

But what about when you want to break away from reliability? What about when you decide you need to top your pizza with MADNESS?!?!? For me, it started with my darling wife buying a smoked duck breast. We bandied about ideas for how to serve this dish for a while, but nothing seemed to come together. We then remembered that we'd used smoked duck breast once before for an appetizer we'd served at Christmas, which was basically crackers topped with a fig compote, slices of smoked duck and baby arugula. So, DING! it came together from there: We'd make the compote instead of using tomato sauce, then add the duck, mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese. See? It's a meal fit for this guy:



"Bon appetit! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!"

One of the best parts of this descent into Arkhamian levels of culinary depravity is that the pizza dough is actually quite easy to make and only takes about 30 minutes to put together. And yet, it's quite tasty and turns out with a light and crispy texture at the bottom, but still a nice chewy texture throughout the "body" of the crust.

Quick Pizza Crust

Ingredients

- 1 package dry yeast (.25 oz package)
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 1/2 flour (unbleached or whole wheat)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt

Directions

- Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
- In medium bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water. Let stand for 10 minutes until creamy/foamy.
- Stir in flour, salt and oil; mix well, forming a solid, but somewhat fluffy ball of dough. Try not to overwork dough or it will be tough.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, roll in flour then pat into a round or square pizza shape, or use a rolling pin, but try not to make the crust too thin, unless you want a thin-crust pizza!
- Spread Pizza Sauce (see later) on crust, smoked duck breast, mushroom slices, tomato slices and blue cheese. We also topped it with rind pieces of Parmesan cheese, but that didn't turn out super-well. If you really need to have Parmesan on there, I suggest grating some once the pizza is cooked.
- Cook pizza for 15-20 minutes until crust is golden.

Ready for oven lovin' 

Fig, Plum and Port "Pizza Sauce"

Ingredients

- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced or 1/2 tsp dried ginger
- 1 shallot, minced
- 2 small or 1 large plum, pitted and chopped
- 3 dried figs, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup port (use the cheap stuff for cooking)
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions

- Heat oil on medium-high and saute garlic, ginger and shallot for 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in plum and figs and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in port and seasonings, bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat to low and reduce sauce for 20 minutes, until it's the same consistency as pizza sauce. Allow to cool slightly and use like you would pizza sauce!

Pizza Sauce's fruity sister

All in all, using a fruit compote of sorts as the base for this dish was something of a stroke of genius. It gave a nice sweet undertone to compliment the smoky saltiness of the duck and the pungency of the blue cheese, while the mushrooms and tomatoes rounded out the pie with more traditional pizza flavours. To be honest, it was one of the most awesome pizzas I've ever had, but smoked duck is pretty hard to beat as far as toppings go, so there's a bit of single-ingredient bias going on...  

Not your mama's pizza pie!

So there you are, pizza madness like nobody's business! 

On the move! - Part 2

Hello!

Back again with the second part of recapping the first week in our new house and demonstrating how to make great meals while having half your stuff in boxes. As I look at Part 1, I realize I might have been a bit wordy. Well, it's been two months since we *actually* moved, so maybe I need to get off my arse and finish writing about this! Here goes!

- Saturday: Stuffed Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

On Saturday, there was a craving for Italian goodness borne of a craving for meatballs. But being us, mere meatballs would not suffice; they had to be STUFFED meatballs. That idea led a visit to Parma Ravioli where we acquired a loaf of foccacia and bocconcini balls. Now, having never made meatballs before and still scrambling to unbox the kitchen in full, this might have been a daunting task. Luckily, after a few searches around the Internet, I happily discovered that this stuffed meatball idea isn't too difficult to set in motion, as long as you keep it stripped down (a lot of the recipes I saw were a bit overdone, and coming from me, that's saying something)

Meatballs

Ingredients

- 1 lb. ground beef (medium or lean)
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 12 bocconcini balls, patted dry

Directions

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- Mix all ingredients but the bocconcini balls together in large bowl.
- Take a portion of the meatball mix, about 4 cm diameter, and form around a bocconcini ball. Make sure you seal the meatball well, otherwise, the cheese will leak all over the place when you cook them.
- Place meatballs in a large ovenproof dish, such as a lasagna pan and bake in oven for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and cheese is melted.

Stuffing...

... and balling!

While the Meatballs are cooking, whip together the Tomato Sauce!

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 large tomatoes, finely diced
- 1 small onion, minced
- 2 ribs celery, chopped
- 1 medium-large carrot, peeled and chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp dried basil or 1 tbsp minced fresh basil
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
- liquid as needed: either chicken stock, veggie stock, red wine or white wine. Try to avoid using water since it usually drains flavour.

- Heat olive oil on medium-high and sauté tomato, onion, celery, carrot and garlic for about 4-5 minutes.
- Add seasoning and liquid, stir thoroughly and reduce heat to medium-low.
- Simmer sauce for about 20 minutes, till it thickens.

To Serve

- Arrange 4-5 meatballs on plate. Top with tomato sauce.
- Using a vegetable peeler, peel Parmesan cheese shavings onto meatballs (or use grated Parmesan). Garnish with fresh basil or Italian parsley.
- Serve with green salad and bread. For this instance, we used a lovely foccacia, sliced into long, dipping-sized pieces and served alongside a mix of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.

Not a bad way to spend the first Saturday in your new home

Verdict? I make pretty kickass meatballs! The key to this one is in its simplicity; the flavours were clean and basic - it tasted like meat, cheese, tomatoes, herbs and garlic. What else can you ask for? Seriously, I think I'm a convert to the mono-meat meatball. All too often, meatballs ask for a mix of pork, beef and veal, but I found that using just beef made for one tasty ball. Having melty cheese inside didn't hurt either...

- Sunday: Pizza

Alright, alright, after this many days of cobbling meals together, it was time to seek out the bountiful goodness of the neighbourhood pizza joint. Luckily for us, there's one right on the corner! Anthony's Pizza at Hinton and Wellington is a spiffy place serving up some very rustic and delicious pizzas and calzones. 

- Monday: Pot Roast

By Monday, we had the kitchen fairly organized, but we still managed to find a recipe for pot roast that uses one dish (a dutch oven) and that's all. Our good Greg (aka Lefty McRighty) put this up on facebook and raved about it. As a result, I had to give it a try, especially after finding a lovely Angus roast on sale at Saslove's. Look it up here, drool and love it! It was AMAZING!

MEAT BUTTER (topped with veggies)!

Well, that's another look back at "Moving n' Cooking". Hopefully, I don't have to do this again for a while. 

Cheers!

Let's Go Crazy! - Part 1 - Dessert

Hi there!

While I probably need to lose 20 pounds to feel like I'm not gigantic these days, it doesn't stop me from going a little overboard in the kitchen every so often. I can't help myself, I'm a loonie sometimes. To be fair to myself, when you look at cooking as an art form, and I do, well, sometimes you want to write the Great Canadian Novel with your spatula. Unfortunately, it's hard to do that without being a little calorie-indulgent because, let's face it, the tastiest things are usually *not* the lightest. So with that, I'll be taking a few posts to look at some of the crazier recipes I've made recently.

Being a grown-up, I'm starting with dessert, so there, neener-neener-boo-boo. It was one of those quiet Mondays at home: baby Olivia was asleep, WWE Raw was on the tube (I'm a wrestling nerd, deal with it) and Kari and I had just enjoyed a lovely dinner of Jambalaya. But dammit, I wanted something dessert-y. I'm not sure *how*  brownies came to the table, but once they'd been suggested, that was that, I was making brownies! I've made brownies once before, I think, but it had been a while, mainly due to my aversion to baking - there's something about the precision and inflexibility of it that scares the bejeezus out of a free-form culinary thinker like myself. That being said, there are forms of baking that are a little more forgiving than others and brownies are one of them; you can botch a recipe slightly and still have pretty tasty brownies. Do that with a loaf of bread and you're screwed.

As for the brownies, I was inspired to shake things up a bit by the beer I was drinking which had a fantastic richness and depth and wanted to add some grown-up flavour to dessert. So BOOM! Let's get to 'er!


Beer and Bourbon Brownies

Oatmeal Stout Brownie


Basically, I made this recipe, except I added walnut pieces and Smoked Oatmeal Stout from Trafalgar Ales and Meads. But I'll reproduce it anyway:

Makes 12 brownies, or 2 servings of ridiculous gluttonous decadence...

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder (best quality you can find; I used the PC Black Label Cocoa Powder)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder

Added bonuses:

- 1/4 cup walnut pieces
- 1/2 cup Smoked Oatmeal Stout beer (or some other inferior dark beer)

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8-inch square pan.

- In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, beer and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, walnuts and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.

- Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook. NOTE: using the beer made the brownies a little bit moister than brownies are, traditionally. They were a little bit more like a cake/brownie fusion. If you want a "drier", more traditional brownie, bake an additional 5 minutes.

Hey look, I baked something!

Now, as you may have noticed if you checked the link, the original recipe calls for a simple chocolate frosting. I, however, made a Bourbon Caramel to top it, because I'm insane and want all the sugar and booze. Also, while baking might be an exact science, caramel's a little more loosey-goosey. Basically you cook up sugar and butter with a few other flavours and it usually turns out pretty damn tasty.

Bourbon Caramel

Ingredients

- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup bourbon
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Next stop, a shot glass... (kidding... not kidding)

Directions

- In a saucepan, melt butter on medium-high heat.
- Stir in sugar and bourbon and bring to a boil. Add vanilla.
- Turn heat down to medium and keep stirring until caramel thickens.
- Remove from heat and let cool for about 10 minutes.
- Spread caramel over brownies.



The finished product and a reminder that I need a new camera, because the phonecam isn't doing the trick.

Now, if you're smart, you'll wait for the brownies to cool for a half hour before digging in. If you're me, you have one right out of the pan...

 

... and then, whilst the sugar demons of boozy-chocolate-caramel-awesome-ohgodthatssofrakinggood are having an orgy of blissful flavour-sex in your mouth, decide to grab the pan and a fork and eat two-thirds of it with your wife before anything has a chance to cool down... Oops.

Needless to say, these are some tasty, tasty brownies, but the real star was the Bourbon Caramel. I'm going to start putting that on my toast. And in my coffee... and maybe bring a jar to take spoonfuls from during the day... Now excuse me while I go buy a muumuu...

And there you have it! Just one way you can lose your mind in the kitchen! Don't worry, this is series is by no means over yet. Just. You. Wait. *insert ominous evil genius music* Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa!!!!!!

Cheers!

On the Move! - Part 1

Hi there!

January 15, 2014 marks the second time I've moved since I started the blog. Back in 2011 I wrote a post about how cooking right after a move. Last time, we made quesadillas with just a knife and frying pan... and, y'know, cheese, sausage, tortillas and so on... This time, I kicked things up a bit more, using a few more tools and ingredients, but the point is the same: just because you're living out of boxes doesn't mean you have to eat crap or contant takeout. What's even better is when you move to a neighbourhood that has a number of amazing food shops. We moved right close to Wellington Street and are just a few blocks away from the corner of Wellington and Clarendon, which houses several wonderful shops, including Herb and Spice for produce (although they can be hit and miss), Saslove's for meat, Parma Ravioli for pasta, other Italian goodies and remarkably tasty pies, Three Tarts bakery for treats and the Ottawa Bagelshop and Deli for bagels as well as all kinds of fun gourmet foodstuffs. Needless to say, we've been eating well. But, for the first few days, we were pretty damn low on cooking implements and cobbling together a decent meal when you only can find a single frying pan and a spatula, if you're lucky, can be kind of difficult. So, with that in mind, we're going to take a look at the first week of eating at Novo Casa del Unicorn over the next couple of posts.

- Wednesday: Moving Day! OK, no one should have to cook on Moving Day. With luck, you have access to a good restaurant in the nearby vicinity and can toddle off there, but if you're like me and have a little one, you can't just head out. Luckily we had Kari's mom who brought us a  delicious lasagna and Caesar Salad.

- Thursday: This was day one of living in the new neighbourhood and we found ourselves wandering to the local foodjobbers. We wanted to put together something simple and filling, so we made our way first to Saslove's to figure out some kind of meat. We settled on their sausages made with Beau's beer, but we didn't know where to find hot dog buns, so I thought "Well, we'll just cut the sausages in half and just serve 'em on kaisers." Turns out that cutting a sausage in half kind of ruins the casing and makes it more like a pile of ground beef. So, I came up with what I call "Sloppy Beau's": Basically it was a mix of sausage meat, beer, onions, chopped tomatoes, cheese and other stuff cooked in a frying pan and served on buns... I honestly don't remember how it came together, but it was easy and tasty!

- Friday: Salmon w. Spicy Orange Sauce with Sweet Potato and Edamame Salad

Alright, this is the first true "recipe" that I wanted to post. After two days of pretty heavy meals, I wanted to make something a lot lighter. After taking a stroll west to find foodstuffs, we now ventured eastwards to see what there was to find. We found a small fishmonger in our travels and I picked up a nice hunk of sockeye salmon.

By this time we'd managed to uncover our box of oils, vinegars, cooking booze and whatnot. We were still missing most of our spices, but was able to uncover a shaker of Chinese 5-Spice Powder. Also, in preparation for cooking future meals, we'd brought all our fridge items in a couple of coolers on moving day, so at least we had juice and sauces and other fridge items with which to work.

So, I put together a quick recipe for a sauce and decided to pan fry the fish while the sauce was cooking up on the side of the pan. We also happened to have a sweet potato and some edamame in the fridge and a bit of cilantro. It all came together on the fly, but that's how it goes a lot of the time.

Salmon:

Ingredients

- 1 lb. salmon, cut into 2 equal portions
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
- 1 cup orange juice, more as needed
- 1/2 cup cooking wine (Shaoxing wine or dry sherry)
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp sriracha
- 1 tsp Chinese 5-Spice Powder

Directions

- Heat oil in large pan at about 6-7, add garlic and sauté for a minute or two, stirring frequently.
- Add orange juice, wine, fish sauce, soy sauce, syrup, sriracha and 5-spice powder
- Place fish in the middle of the pan. This should displace the sauce to the side of the pan; this is a good thing!
- Get the sauce boiling on the side, while occasionally spooning some onto the fish. Cook the fish skin side down for about 7-8 minutes. The fish will partly pan fry, partly steam from the sauce.
- Carefully flip the fish over with a spatula and cook again for about 5 minutes. Flip back over and serve. You may want to discard the skin. I personally like the skin, but not everyone does. Top the fish with the rest of the sauce and serve with salad.



Equal parts braising, pan frying and steaming - bryming?

Salad:

Ingredients

- 1 large sweet potato, cubed
- 1/2 cup edamame (peeled) or 1 cup edamame (unpeeled)
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Directions

- Boil sweet potato until fork tender, but not mushy (about 10-15 minutes). Drain in a colander and cool with water. Drain well.
- Peel edamame if necessary.
- Combine sweet potato, edamame and cilantro in a large bowl.

Dressing:        

Ingredients             

- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp sriracha
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tsp maple syrup

Directions

- Whisk everything together and toss with salad and serve.



Orange and tasty!

 

The result was pretty darn tasty and very bright, not surprising considering how prominent the orange juice was in the sauce, spicy but not overpowering. The fish was a little bit overdone for my taste (salmon is supposed to rare in the middle), but that was mainly for Kari's benefit since she isn't a big fish eater, and really, even then it was tender and delicious. The salad also added a bit of richness to cut the acidity of the sauce, rounding out the dish very nicely. All in all, it was a great way to brighten up a cold winter's night and have a nice post-move dinner that isn't too difficult.  

 

We'll pick this up next time with meatballs, pizza and pot roast!

Cheers!

From Russia With Beets

Hey there!

It's wintertime in Canada, and in case you haven't heard, it's been pretty damn chilly since the end of November. And it's at this time of year that we pretty much NEED the kind of food that sticks to one's insides like tasty, edible spackle. Now, there are numerous cuisines that come from Northern climes and aren't always well-known or given their due in popular culture and food trends. I already blogged about one Czech comfort dish many moons ago, now I want to move to the northeast, to our friends in Russia. Russian (and by extension Ukranian, Lithuanian and some aspects of Polish) cuisine isn't exactly en vogue (has it ever been?) and yet it features utterly delicious, hearty and nourishing fare, well-suited for the climate in which it originates and in which the mighty Canuck lives.

Now, this post happens to coincide with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, even though we made the meal back in late November (Xmas and moving were in between then and now, don't judge me!). This post is by no means a plug for the Olympics or for Russia itself, because they're a freakin' sh*tshow this year and should never have been awarded to such a repressive country as Russia. OK, getting back off my soapbox and back to the food. Because they do have tasty food.

One of the stalwarts of Russian cuisine is Borscht. Borscht is a stew and/or soup (or "stoup" as my wife likes to call it) that is pretty much always based on beets. It comes in both hot and cold forms, and both are fairly well known. Now, root vegetables are always a favourite in the colder months. They keep for a fairly long time, they're hearty and they do a great job at thickening stews and soups, allowing you to make the "stick-to-your-ribs" goodness a body craves at this time of year. Beets have the added bonus of being delicious with a unique flavour profile no other vegetable can match. They're sweet, earthy and rich, not to mention versatile; you can use them as the base of a salad, slice and fry them into chips, pickle them, and so on. And, of course, make a whack of Borscht!

 I found this recipe for Borscht on the Internet thanks to Martha Stewart (don't judge me) and adapted it to my tastes and desires.

Add caption

Hot Borscht

Ingredients

- vegetable or olive oil
- 3 large beets
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup dried mushrooms (see note below), or 1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced or roughly chopped
- 2 stalks celery with leaves
- 1 apple, cored
- 1 cup beef stock (or vegetable stock if you want it to be vegetarian), keep some extra in case you need it
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4 of one lemon
- fresh dill, chopped
- sour cream or yogurt

Directions

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Soak dried mushrooms for 5-10 minutes. Once done, chop mushrooms, reserving the liq
- Coat beets in vegetable oil and wrap tightly in foil. Please on baking sheet and roast for about an hour, until beets are tender (simply prick with a toothpick, if it goes through beets easily, they're done). Set aside until cool enough to handle.

- Peel skins off beets (they should just slide off) and chop roughly.

- While beets are cooling, in a large pot, heat 2 tbsp of oil.
- Sauté potatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, apples and celery.
- Stir in stock and beets, bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer.



From boring ol' whitish-brown...

... to delicious silky red! Just add beets!

- Simmer the soup for 20-30 minutes. Stir in maple syrup and squeeze in lemon juice.
- Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, blend soup until smooth.
- Serve soup garnished with fresh dill and a dollop of sour cream/yogurt.

For the other part of the meal, we had Beef Stroganoff, but I wasn't as impressed with that as I expected to be. Regardless, here's the basic recipe I used/adapted (went with sirloin instead of tenderloin). My suggestion is to get a big ol' loaf of your favourite crusty bread or maybe pumpernickel and eat the soup with that. Probably less likely to cause a food coma as well.

Preparing for hibernation? Here's your meal!

Dos vedanya Tovarisch!

PS: If a 5-month old likes it, you know it's good!



Agog at the goodness!

"I was working in the Laab late one night..."

Moi encore,

If you've been reading my contributions for any significant stretch of time, you'll know that I don't usually subscribe to the concept that "simplest is best". I like to complicate things and throw more stuff into a recipe than might make sense. But sometimes I come across a dish whose strength lies in its (relative) simplicity. One such case is a Loatian/Thai staple called "Laab" (or "Larb"). Laab is, essentially, a salad of ground pork or beef mixed with shallots, fish sauce, lime juice, herbs and a couple of other ingredients. I first tried it at Play where it was served on lettuce wraps, and I was hooked. It can be served hot or cold, raw or cooked (I recommend the latter) and presented pretty much any way you like. As I said: simple.

The flavour profile highlights a few of the cornerstones of Southeast Asian cooking, namely the uniquely funky saltiness of fish sauce, the tart sweetness of lime juice and the herbal notes of mint, cilantro and/or Thai basil. And that's just the basic model.

So, today I'll be walking you through the how-to on this delicious and easy bit of gastronomy!

Laab

Ingredients

- 1 lb. ground beef or pork
- 2 shallots, minced or thinly sliced
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 inch piece of fresh ginger or galangal, minced OR 1 tsp dried ginger or galangal
- 1 lime, cut in half
- 2 tbsp fish sauce + 1 tsp on the side
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sriracha (optional)
- 2-3 tbsp jasmine rice

Plus, choice of any or all of the following:

- 2 tbsp mint leaves, chopped
- 2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
- 2 tbsp Thai basil, chopped
- 2 tbsp green onion, sliced
- 1/2 cup grated carrot
- 1/2 cup grated red cabbage

Putting things together

Directions

- Mix meat well with shallots, garlic, ginger, juice and zest of half a lime, 2 tbsp of fish sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, and sriracha. Let stand in fridge for at least an hour to let flavours mix.
- Toast the rice in a frying pan for about 5 minutes until golden brown. Grind rice into a coarse powder in a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder. Set aside to cool.
- In a large frying pan, cook meat for 10 minutes until well cooked through. Set aside to cool for a little bit until it's warm, but not hot.
-  Stir in whatever herbs and veggies you like (I went with mint, cilantro and carrot the last time I made it), along with the remaining lime juice and fish sauce.
- Serve on lettuce wraps or in a bowl or whatever you like!

Getting closer to deliciousness

I love Laab so very much. It combines meaty richness with all the freshness of lime juice and herbs and veggies, with a little bit of an exotic crunch from the toasted rice. It's a fairly light meal, but still satisfying. I highly recommend you try your hand making it or at least finding a restaurant that serves it.




The finished product, except not the one I made, because I forgot to take a picture of it... oops...

Which Brisket Is Best? - Pt. 2 - Montreal

Bonjour!!

I'm back with the second part of my examination of the art of smoking brisket. Last time we went to Texas, where slow-smoked brisket is the cornerstone of BBQ. This time our travels take us a bit closer to home, to la belle ville de Montréal where brisket has become one of the city's most recognizable culinary hallmarks in the form of Montreal Smoked Meat. Smoked Meat is to be found any of the dozens of kosher delis spread across the city and is renowned the world over. There's a bit of discussion on who invented the process, more than I have the time or inclination to get into (clearly!), but currently most opinions point to Schwartz's as the best Smoked Meat, and I agree. Either way, Smoked Meat is pretty much one of the best, if not the greatest, of Canada's contributions to the global palette.

Being a convert to the Church of Smoke, the idea of making Smoked Meat was in the back of my mind as a kind of "holy grail" for years, but:

Heed the words of Boromir

As mentioned in a recent post, a good hunk of brisket is at least 40 bucks and you don't want to screw around with that much meat and ruin it. If you're like me, you take to the Internet for inspiration and guidance and then try to make the recipe your own. With the Texas Brisket, the instructions were fairly straight-forward, but flexible; with Smoked Meat, I wanted precision, I wanted to know how they do it at Schwartz's. Remarkably, a recipe from the deli itself was made available on the Food Network Web site, sort of. Those instructions were a bit over-simplified for my taste, so I kept looking around and was able to find a bit more information on a Big Green Egg forum. This gave me a bit more info on the actual procedure, but I had to come up with my own ideas on what to use to actually cure the meat.

So, come with me as I get into this nigh two-week process of transforming a hunk of brisket into deliciousness.

Montreal Smoked Meat Step-by-step

- 5 lb. piece of brisket, trimmed of excess bits of connective tissue (you'll want to keep fat to help keep the meat moist, but the tougher bits of membrane and connective tissue you can try to remove as best as possible)

Smoked Meat Cure

- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- 1 tsp. mustard seed
- 1/2 tsp. allspice (ground)
- 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
- 1 tsp coriander seed
- 1/2 tsp cardamom seed
- 1 tsp. fennel seed
- 1 star anise pod, roughly ground
- 2 cloves, ground
- 1 tsp. juniper berries, roughly ground
- 1 tsp. caraway seed

NOTE: Most restaurants and industrial producers use "pink salt" (sodium nitrate or nitrite) which gives the meat the uniform deep red/pink colour. I didn't, so the result had a colour more like roast beef, although the smoking process did impart a pinkish smoke ring which is to be expected.

- Mix all ingredients together well.

- Brush a thin layer of yellow mustard on the brisket, than apply the cure to the top and bottom of the meat, pressing a little bit to ensure it stays on.

- Place the meat in a large Ziploc bag and put in the fridge for 9 to 10 days, flipping over twice a day.

- Once the meat's been cured, remove from bag.

Hallelujah, I'm cured!

- Rinse meat quickly then soak in cold water for about 3 hours, changing the water every 30 minutes. This step removes a lot of excess salt, which is important in the process of making Smoked Meat rather than Salt Lick. Pat meat dry.

- Coat with a layer of peppercorns, coriander seed, mustard seed, fennel seed and caraway seed, slightly cracked with a mortar and pestle or roughly ground in a spice grinder. I spread a thin layer of maple syrup over the meat to hold the spices in place, but it didn't really do anything to the flavour. Return meat to bag and leave in fridge overnight

- The next day, remove meat from fridge and leave out while you prep the smoker.

- Soak 2 cups of mesquite chips in water for about 30 minutes. Light your fire using lump charcoal or wood chunks (I suggest either apple or maple) and get a temperature of 250 Fahrenheit going.

- Smoke brisket for 4 hours, adding small handfuls of apple or hickory wood chips every 30 minutes to produce more smoke (and more flavour).

- At the 4 hours mark, wrap meat in foil and continue to smoke for another 4-5 hours. Remove meat from smoker, unwrap and let stand for 30 minutes.

- Slice meat into portioned hunks depending on how much you want to eat at any given time.

Mission accomplished!

Now, you don't want to start digging in just yet, as the meat needs one more step before actually serving it. If that's now, then get at it!

- Steam hunk of meat for an hour. I used a bamboo steam basket over a pot of boiling water. Line the basket with a layer parchment paper and place meat on top, cover with lid and steam.

- Once steamed, remove with tongs, slice meat against the grain at desired thickness (I think about 1/4-1/2 cm is perfect) and serve on warmed slices of rye bread topped with mustard, with a side of pickles, fries and coleslaw.

NOTE: If you're lucky enough to have access to it, ALWAYS use Rideau Bakery rye bread. You just put all this love and care into making Smoked Meat, it's what it deserves.

The apex of sammichery, with pickles

As you might have noticed from the picture, I portioned this batch into three pieces, each one being enough for two satisfyingly meat-laden sandwiches. What was interesting about it was that the first serving, which I ate right after smoking and steaming the meat, didn't quite taste as much like Smoked Meat as I had hoped, there was a bit of a pot roast undertone to it. Buy the time I got to the last hunk about a week later, however, it had become a really good approximation of the Schwartz's flavour profile. So I think a bit of post-smoked aging for a few days to a week is your best bet. The steaming is an important step also, as it gives the meat the moisture it needs to be melt-in-your-mouth.

 

Now, with the Texas Brisket, I used it in all kinds of different ways, but the Smoked Meat was purely for sandwiches. That being said, I'm sure it would be spectacular in an omelette, or even spaghetti! Ah, who am I kidding? Make sandwiches with it, any other usage feels a bit like sacrilege.

 

All in all, I think I really nailed Smoked Meat (on my first try!). It wasn't as good as Schwartz's and I'd be a fool to expect it to be, but for something done up on my back balcony in a cheap-o smoker from Canadian Tire? Not too freakin' shabby...

 

And in the end, maybe because I followed directions better or maybe because I'm geographically biased, the Montreal Smoked Meat gets a 9 out of 10, edging out the Texas BBQ to win the "Battle of Brisket". Vive la Viande fumée!

 

Boy howdy did I have fun with this! Here's hoping you do too! 

 

Cheers!