NOT YOUR AVERAGE LINE COOK

This week at work, one of the sous wanted to make canadian bacon because he a pork loin that wasn’t going to use for anything except family meal. He gave me recipe and told me to make enough brine for the loin( he didn’t tell me how much damn thing weight). I like the brine because it was the first time I seen a brine with herbs ( this brine as for sage and thyme). The sous and I brine the pork loin for two days and air dried it for a couple hours. the next day I had the awesome task of hot smoking the pork for 2 hours and make sure the pork reached 150 degrees. My job does not own a smoker but we use catering boxes to cold smoke our bacon, pork belly and sausages. The biggest problem we have with smoking is keeping the smoke going for a long period of time. We use charcoal and wood chips for smoking( the smoke would die out and it takes two or three times). I knew i could create enough smoke and heat to last two hours in one shot. It would be a tab bit different from the normal way. I use a full sheet tray rack and put the charcoal on the heat until everything was white and i didn’t see black after that i put the wood chips directly on the hot coals,(normally they throw wood chips on the coals before they get white and put them into the box). With this method I created enough heat and smoke to last two hours. There was moments when the sous and mangers though I would smoke out the huge kitchen of ours and the bacon would have to much smoke since we threw a few marrow bones and tasted it. It tastes like pure smoke and no marrow flavor. After two hours it reached 110 degrees and I finish cooking the bacon in the oven at 350 degrees until I reach the goal of 150 degrees. Shocking the bacon didn’t have a overpower smoke flavor but taste like actually canadian bacon. I was so freaking happy and the bacon is going to be used during brunch for eggs benny. Last canadian bacon is normally made with the pig butt aka ham which why most people don’t see it as bacon since it does not come belly of the pig.

Cold smoking- using ice in the smoking process to get the flavor of the smoke into the product. Also this is short and the products needs addition cooking

Hot smoking- using heat from the smoke to flavor and cook the product.

This dish I always vision, talking place in the naked chef kitchen ( Jamie oliver’s first tv show in america before the hype but the apt and kitchen was awesome with the spiral stairwell to the kitchen on the second floor) and going to the farmer’s market to buy everything which I manage to do. But never the less if someone did come over for breakfast and in I would normally make this dish simple but rich in flavor.

I made catalan crema toast with duck rillette and eggs on any choice ( I did easy over and sunny side up because it’s the most common order egg)

Duck rillette, I made duck rillette with shallots chives and whipped fat.

Catalan Crema, Is a spainish version of creme brulee, where cinnamon is used instead of vanilla bean. I throw my little spin on by whipping the eggs yolks to a ribbon state and add what ever booze I have laying around collecting dust. This I time I use black spice rum when normally I have cognac. As for the bread I prefer to use day old flavor croissant. It does not fall apart and hold the batter more and whatever the flavor of the croissant is now warm and blends with the rest of toast.  Not a bad meal to come over to your friends apt for breakfast. 

When I came up with this dessert, a image of skinny lumberjack hipster riding around on his fixed gear bike blasting spice girls music and it made me laugh. I think it’s good to have a savory dessert once that uses fall flavors and one that’s not a mouth full of sugar.

This week I made pumpkin ice cream with acorn-butternut squash cake.

I started off by making a custard based for the ice cream

I use mashed some pumpkin and use cinnamon and nutmeg as the spices for the ice cream

Here I am whisking the custard into the pumpkin

This is the squash cake batter, The best way I compare making this batter is a pound cake batter. I creamed butter and using 1 to 2 ratio of brown sugar to white  sugar.I roasted the squashes and added nutmeg and fresh mint to give the a cake a nice contrast to the ice cream.

This is the finish product I have a mini bunt pan witch help the cooking process and shorten the time by 30 mins.