Look what I did

We had some time to play a bit today, so that is just what we did. The inspiration for this comes from the "Bacon Explosion" which can be seen at http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/. We did it a bit differently from they did though and wow, was it good!

Step 1: Weave a mat of made of bacon

Step 2: Flatten out a couple of pounds of Italian Sausage

Step 3: Add some cooked diced bacon and some monster sized deep fried cheddar sticks

Step 4: Add balsamic caramelized onions with toasted fennel seeds (the acid was a nice contrast to the fat

Step 5: Roll the sausage so that all the stuff you just laid on top is sealed inside.

Step 6a: Make the Bacon mat larger with some skillful weaving (thanks basketry merit badge!)

Step 6b: Mold the woven bacon around the sausage log

Step 7: Cover with BBQ sauce and bake at 275 degrees for about 1hr. 45 minutes

Step 8: Enjoy (hopefully with lots of other people)

Book Release Party

OK, well the book was released like nine months ago, but I hadnt had a chance to celebrate with family and friends. Mark and Liz Tramontozzi were kind enough to lend their home for the event. Thanks to everyone who came and brought something they made out of the book. You all made it a Wicked Good Time.

Some of the items made were...salsa, butternut squash bisque, vegetable chili, Chicken pot pie with cornbread crust, two mac and cheeses, satay chicken skewers, cheeseburger pizza, two apple crisps, pineapple upside down cake, and gingerbread whoopie pies.

Mashed Potatoes

One of my assignments this Thanksgiving was to make some mashed potatoes. I usually boil some potatoes, add a bunch of heavy cream, melted butter, sour cream, salt and pepper, mash them with the skin on with a whisk...and they are usually awesome.

This year I decided to change it up a bit and make a more refined mashed potato with tons of butter.

It worked out great. I boiled 5 lb of small Yukon gold potatoes with the skin still on, drained them and let them dry a bit (to try and keep the potatoes dry). I then passed them through a food mill and removed most of the skin. I added about two cups of whole milk and then the fun began. I added three pounds of just colder than room temp butter. I added it a bit at a time and stirred it with a wooden spoon until it all incorporated. They were just seasoned with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Wow, these potatoes were great. The texture was super smooth and the flavor was rich and buttery, but without any waxiness or greasiness (which happens when you add pre melted butter). They took a bit longer to make than the recipe in the book, but it was worth the effort for a great change of pace.

Apple Pie

We had a bunch of apples leftover from when my wife went apple picking earlier this season. By mistake, I commited to make an apple pie for a dinner party we were going to.

The crust was made with all butter and came out great. I cooked about half of the apples with a bit of butter over medium heat for about half an hour to get rid of some moisture in the apples so they didnt shrink so much when cooked and leave the pie hollow. I made some caramel and poured it over the apples before putting the top crust.

Overall, I was very happy with the results, but it was a bit runny because of the apples we had at home.

Dinner at Olives

As part of my birthday present, my wife took me out to dinner at Todd English's restaurant Olives in Charlestown. It was a great meal.

The best part about it was the service. Truly fantastic from the valet to our goodbye.

The food was very good as well. We started with the black truffle and foie gras flan. Interesting way to do foie gras...but didnt get much truffle flavor. It was served on a wild mushroom ragu. Sorry the picture is so blurry, I tried taking it without the flash but got less shy with later courses (that may have been the Oban)

My entree was the hot smoked duck breast and leg confit. It was cooked perfectly and nice and tender. The confit, one of my favorite foods, was very good too. It also had a big crispy scallion pancake folded to separate the duck preparations.

My wife had the monster sized grilled bone in pork chop with fingerling potato and pork belly hash.

For dessert we had a sampling of three sorbets (the mango was my favorite) and some biscotti.

After dinner Jane took me to see STAR WARS in Concert. What a cool show! Thats where the stormtrooper photo fits in.

Bees

Did you know a bee will fly up to five miles to search for nectar? Very cool. I am hoping to have a hive or two in the relatively near future. mmmm...homemade honey!

Signing

The Cuninary Institute of Canada purchased some books which I had the pleasure of signing.

About my trip, dinner the first night was at the Gahan House http://www.gahan.ca/ . My tour guide on Wednesday was Chef Allan Williams...co-author (with Chef Austin who runs the program at CIC) of a soon to be released cookbook all about native PEI foods. More info on that to come.

PEI Tour

After some meetings earlier in the morning, I toured Canada's Smartest Kitchen located in the Culinary Institute of Canada at Holland College. What a cool kitchen! It is a research and development test kitchen used by industry to develop new products. Really impressive technology all set up in a way that is welcoming to chefs, food scientists, and industry people. They seem to do lots of work with native PEI items such as mussels, oysters, and potatoes to name a few.

Speaking of mussels, I went and toured a mussel farming and processing facility. Check out the pics. They are of a massive bucket of mussel seed, basically caught on string in the waters in the background of the picture. The next picture is of mussel holding. The bins are filled with sized and cleaned mussels which are waiting to be packaged and shipped. They are constantly covered with icy cold water from a pure salt water well. The water is poured from a distance above the bins so that the water is constantly oxygenated.

On the way we stopped and spoke with a couple of lobster/tuna fishermen and looked at their operations. They still hand make all their own wooden traps. It was the end of the season, so most of the boats are out of the water and being cleaned.

Next we were off to an oyster fishing company. I was fortunate enough to go out on a boat and "tong" for oysters. The ground is just littered with them. After pulling them up, the smaller ones are separated from the keepers and returned to the water. It was a pretty cool experience to eat an oyster that was literally seconds from the water. After returning from the boat, we did a taste test of four oysters harvested from different areas. It was amazing to taste the subtle differences in them.

For dinner, we went to the Merchant Man Pub in Charlottetown. http://www.merchantmanpub.com/ The guys and I shared the crispy sweet potato fries with malt vinegar aioli and curry mayo as well as the pub nachos with tasty potato nacho chips with barbecue seasoning, onions, jalapenos, olives, and cheese. For my entree I had Curry Chips which was a creamy chicken curry served over french fries...wicked good food!

Heading home tomorrow...

The Culinary Institute of Canada

I was picked up at 6:45 am...5:45 am eastern time...for my day at the CIC.

What a great day. I spent about nine hours roaming around the kitchens and bake shops and speaking with students and staff. I was up there to see if they offer a legit program for my students to possibly take advantage of...It certainly was legit.

I toured six or seven kitchens and two dining areas. All of which overlook the water on the outskirts of Charolettetown.

These pics are of a view from the Lucy Maude Dining Room, Chef Bob breaking down an entire lamb in front of his class, and of a student boning out a whole pork loin.

Some of the things I saw/tasted during my day were lots of stocks and sauces made following classic methods, some freshly smoked salmon, house made prosciutto, pork bellies smoking, a great little foie gras and chicken liver pate, plated lunch and dinner service, and a bunch of other cool stuff.

That evening I had dinner at the Lucy Maude. It began with an amuse of a phyllo cup filled with chopped beef tenderloin with goat cheese and a great tomato based sauce. Next were the best mussels Ive ever had. PEI mussels, of course. They were with smoked tomatoes in a cream sauce. Following the mussels was a piece of braised pork belly on a celery root puree and topped with an acidic and slightly sweet glaze (I cant remember exactly what it was). My Entree was bone in pork loin chops on a white bean cassoulet. Dessert was pumpkin creme brulee...I am full!

PEI

Arrived in Prince Edward Island today. Long day of travel, although I was in the air less than two hours. What a beautiful place.
Went out to dinner at a brew pub close to the hotel...got fish and chips. It was pretty good, but fried in old oil. It was served in a paper lunch bag that was cut down to about four inches tall, that was cool. Had a great beer that is brewed right there.
Tomorrow is all about the Culinary Institute of Canada. Spending the entire day there. Then eating dinner in the dining room there.
Ill have some pics tomorrow.

Good snacks

Chef Jim and I had some time to "play with our food" tonight...this is what we came up with.

The second pic is of duck confit with a red onion marmelade, goat cheese, and scallion on a crispy thin piece of cinnamon raisin bread. It was awesome!

The onions were made with butter, olive oil, toasted fennel seed (ground with a mortar and pestle), some red wine, rice vinegar, and a touch of honey. They went great with the duck and cheese.

The other pic is of a pan seared duck breast with a sauce made from some of the rendered duck fat with Marsala wine, sweet soy sauce and demi glace accompanied by Chef Jim's roasted sweet potato fries, creamed spinach with feta cheese.

Working in a kitchen can be a good thing!

Where does sea salt come from?

Well...the sea obviously, but we were curious just how much salt was in the sea.

To try and get an understanding of how long it takes for salt works to allow the water to evaporate under the sun, we chose to use a heat lamp to "reduce" the ocean water.

The water sat under the heat lamp about six hours a day for three weeks for our result. We began with about nine gallons, or about 72 pounds of sea water taken from a beach on Cape Cod in Dennis Mass. We ended up with just about 40 ounces, or a bit under 2 1/2 pounds of sea salt. It was actually more that I anticipated.

As you can see in the photos, the crystals were quite big and would have been bigger if I could have resisted playing with the salt during its final stages of evaporation. I broke up the crystals and sent them through a pasta strainer with big holes to get a nice coarse salt.

The salt tastes like salt...which is a good thing, but it had kind of a metalic taste to it. I dont know if the off flavors were from stuff that was in the water. There was some seaweed and sand in the water. (The water was cold, so I just waded up to my knees to fill up my jug). It was filtered through cheesecloth, but something may have gotten through.

I still plan to use the salt although Im not sure what for quite yet. It was a very interesting experiment...more to come.

New Blog

So, Ive been thinking about doing a blog in conjunction with my book release and website for a very long time...well, here it is. I plan on posting whenever I have some sort of cool or interesting food experience. Ill add recipes too, whenever I create a new one or find a good one. Hope you enjoy.
Oh yeah. Tell all your friends to buy Wicked Good Food!