I still had a lot of 35% creme in my fridge so I was looking around for things to do with it and came across a recipe for creme fraiche.  Let me start off by saying I’ve never had creme fraiche before so I have no context to base my end result, but I’ve seen it many times on television and in magazines.

It’s very easy to make: take heavy cream and add buttermilk to it.  Heat one cup of heavy cream slightly to 110 degrees, pour it into a container …

A few weeks back I discussed smoking on my Big Green Egg and using indirect heat: I was able to accomplish this by using the Plate Setter.  For indirect cooking you remove the grate, insert the plate setter with a drip pan and put the grate on top.

Or you can flip it the other way and use it as a baking stone for bread or pizza.

It’s made a big difference in the smoking I’ve done.  Well worth the additional investment.  Since I’ve only used it for indirect cooking the bottom …

Delving further into Charcuterie I had been thinking about confit: slow cooking meat in a fat at low temperature.  Traditionally it’s done with duck legs in duck fat but I had neither so I used what I had: a big container of bacon fat and chicken legs.
For years I’ve been saving my leftover bacon fat (grease if you will) for no apparent reason other than it might come in handy.   Well, when I was younger I used it for my Krafter Dinner instead of butter but that was about it.  …

Our freezer was getting overcrowded with pork so I decided to take out sixteen pounds and make some sausage over the weekend.  My family seems to like smoked sausage the best so I made Hunters sausage (forgot the German name, sorry).  It’s a pork sausage with coriander and mustard seeds, dry milk powder and a little garlic.  I followed the recipe in Charcuterie and everything worked well.  The batch was too large to mix in my stand mixer so I did it manually and it was tough going.
The sausages above have grill …

Homemade ice cream was one of those items that pushed me into making things from scratch.  A few years ago my wife bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday: I tried a bunch of the recipes that came with the machine but they didn’t turn out.  My new toy became my white whale, haunting and mocking me every time I opened the cupboard.  Then I came across David Lebovitz‘s blog and everything changed.
He has a great recipe for vanilla ice cream that I tried and immediately fell in …

As part of my wife’s sandwich catering I handle all the meat production: curing, cooking, slicing.  I had read in a few places about cooking whole cuts of meat at a very low temperature for extended periods but wasn’t able to put it into practice until this past week.  I had prepared four whole pork legs for a lunch event on the weekend and was just able to fit them into my oven: they cooked for twelve hours at 200 degrees and came out beautifully cooked.  A nice crust on …

Found whole pork legs (hams) for $0.69 a p0und so I picked up two.  I love pork and keep finding new uses for it.  After trimming I roasted the bones to see how much meat I could get from what was left, just like the pork shoulders I picked up last month.  Except this time I remembered to take pictures.

This time around I seasoned the bones with salt and pepper and added a small amount of pork stock to the bottom of the pan.  After about two hours I flipped …

I took advantage of the freezing weather to cold smoke my latest batch of bacon.  Until now I’ve been hot smoking it: working with a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit in my Big Green Egg I smoked the bacon for about four hours until it’s internal temperature reached 150 degrees.
With the Weber Smokey Mountain I can maintain smoke indefinitely and keep the bacon’s internal temperature to around 100 degrees.  I smoked this batch with sugar maple charcoal and maple chunks for six hours.

The texture of the finished product was a …

Grey sea salt: I’m in love.  At Costco a few years back they had French sea salt for an excellent price so I picked up a container and started using it as a finish on meats.  It added such an amazing dimension to steak, chicken and pork chops that I rushed back and bought four more containers.  My little red pot sits by the stove so I can finish most of my dishes with a modest sprinkle.
This is not fleur de sel, that pure white salt collected off the top …

Every year in Southern Ontario we get about a month of cheap pork: whole legs and shoulders for ninety nine cents a pound.  I was at Fortinos on Saturday and picked up two whole shoulders.  When I got home I deboned them and broke down the meat into three reasonable pieces per shoulder, then put the meat right into the freezer.
I find if I don’t get on it right away big pieces of fresh meat sit in my fridge for a week and I end up throwing it out, which …

Just came back from a trip to Quebec and was able to eat at Moishes in Montreal.  It’s an old school steakhouse: very nice wood interior, well dressed wait staff and a small meat menu.  I ordered the ribeye with twice baked potato for $54 and my wife ordered the striploin New York cut with french fries for $52 so we could get a nice cross selection.  We also shared oyster mushrooms ($11) and a Caesar salad ($10).  I’m remember-guessing on the prices but they’re pretty close.
Every meal at Moishes …

I love black pepper and really enjoy pepper crusted bacon.  I have been looking for a method to make this at home since I’m already making bacon, and was peeling the skin off a smoked belly when it hit me.  When the belly is hot it’s covered in a thin layer of hot fat which acts an adhesive, so anything you rub into it at this stage will stick to it when the bacon cools down.  This sounds incredibly obvious now but it never occurred to me.
I cracked about a …

My next baking project is sandwich bread: that regular light loaf that’s good for most of a week, toasts nicely and gets the job done.  I turned to Cook’s Illustrated for a recipe and gave it a whirl: it’s good but a little too dense and heavy, which I blame on the milk.  It’s great for toast but not a sandwich.

Every recipe I find for basic white sandwich bread calls for milk, along with the flour, yeast, salt and eggs.  The other factor so far is that every recipe is …

A trip to the local farmer’s market brought me in contact with a mixed basket of peppers for $1: it was a deal I couldn’t refuse.  It was a real mix of varieties and shapes but they were at maximum ripeness so I immediately washed them up and roasted the lot.
I thought about oiling them up and roasting in the oven or the barbeque but I have a gas stove so I did three or four peppers at a time sitting on the grate of my largest burner with the …

In my bacon recipe post I mentioned using a pork loin instead of a belly and sort of left it at that so I’m revisiting the topic.  I really enjoy smoked pork loin which also goes by the name back bacon or Canadian bacon: it’s a cured and smoked pork loin.  It’s solid, slightly dry and tastes like the meaty part of traditional bacon.  After traditional pork belly smoked bacon it was the next recipe I tried in Charcuterie.  The recipe called for a spiced brine and then smoke with …

Successfully came through my Thanksgiving dinner. The last few years I’ve been winging it with my stuffing and the results have been mixed to put it kindly. This year I turned to a great basic stuffing recipe from Saveur that was full of fresh herbs, celery, onions, dried bread cubes, stock and eggs. I added mushrooms and homemade sausage and baked for fourty five minutes: the end product was excellent. I also made Parker House rolls from a Cooks Illustrated recipe but let the buns do their final rise in …

I’ve made panchetta a few times, most recently late spring.  It’s a savoury dry rub on pork belly that’s cured for a week, rolled and hung for several weeks: I follow the Charcuterie recipe.  Pancetta is an Italian bacon that has a nice savoury flavour.

A key part of the process is the air drying or curing.  It reduces the liquid and concentrates the flavours; with smoked products the low heat does the same thing.  My issue is finding the right spot to air dry: it’s recommended to air dry in a 60% humidity …

After much trial and error over the last year I’ve settled on a standard cure for smoked bacon.  I started with the smoked bacon recipe from Charcuterie and made my variations from there.  I like a sweeter bacon but also want the bite of the pepper.  I enjoy the dark syrup more than the brown sugar, but I’m Canadian and have easy access to excellent pure maple syrup.  A nice fatty pork loin works just as well as a belly if you want an English cut bacon.

5 lb pork belly (or loin)
1/4 …

Every burger has to go on something and traditionally that means a bun.  Bread is out simply because it gets soggy and you can’t handle the burger anymore, and there is no way to eat a burger other than picking it up!  Yes I’ve seen people eat a burger with a knife and fork but we all know that’s just deviant behaviour.
For the ultimate burger experience I like a bun that fits the patty nicely, isn’t too soft as to squish up and doesn’t get soggy and has sesame seeds …

I’m new to the “locavore” movement, or trying to eat only locally produced food.  My wife saw a sign up for a new CSA from an organic farm this spring and the items at their stall at out local farmers market always looked good so we signed up.
Most CSA’s operate this way: you sign up for a full share or a half share and receive a box of produce every week for the growing season (sixteen weeks in our case).  We were told a full share would feed two people …