Must be November

Salmon and potato pie

Clockwise from top left

Ontario smoked trout terrine

Candied salmon belly

Pacific halibut terrine

Gravlax

Smoked mackerel mousse

Center… Smoked sprats

Clockwise from top left

Wild boar and rabbit terrine with prunes and pistachios.

Heritage breed prosciutto

Rays pork liver pate

Dried boar sausage and Mennonite summer sausage

Stone ground mustard

Foie Gras mousse with black pepper and parsley

Tasso ham with smoked cherries

And in the middle persimmon chutney

Wild Boar And Rabbit Terrine With Prunes And Pistachios



The Meat

1lb Rabbit (deboned)

1lb 8oz Wild Boar shoulder

8oz Pork or boar liver (add the rabbit liver as well)



Seasonings

2 cloves garlic (minced)

100g sweet onion (Vidalia or Texas sweets) (finely diced)

Cook onions and garlic till soft and cool. Combine with below and add to meat ready to be ground.

30g salt

5g Tinted Curing Mix

1 tbsp mixed spice (get creative here) Or Google "pate spice"

1g white pepper
Garnish

200g prunes, sliced

250g pistachios (roasted)

Panada

120ml heavy cream

2 eggs (preferable farm eggs)

30ml brandy

70g flour



1 Grind the rabbit, livers and seasonings through the fine plate of your grinder. Switch to coarse blade and grind boar meat.

2 Place combined meats in a chilled kitchen aid mixing bowl.

3 Combine Panada in a bowl, mix well and add to your meats.( you can sub different types of booze if you want)

4 Place meat in kitchen aid and mix on low speed with a paddle for about a minute or till you feel its mixed really well. Turn to med speed till mixture gets sticky to touch, about 5-10 seconds.

5 Test seasoning by cooking a little paddy.

6 Place garnish ingredients in bowl and gently fold in.

7 Place mix into a terrine and place in a vacuum bag and seal at high pressure. Leave in fridge overnight or up to 3 days to cure.

8 Place terrine in a water bath and poach in 177F water in a 300f oven till cooked, about 2 hours. (or sous vide with thermal circulator) Meat will pull back slightly from the sides of the mold.

9 Place terrine in the fridge put a weight on it and leave for 2 days. (the hardest part of the recipe is waiting!)

10 Slice it, eat it! Enjoy!

Fresh Black Truffles And Cold Milk

After preparing my truffle preserves, truffle butter and whipped pork fat with truffles I had more than my fill of "nibbles" as I was slicing them up. It was fairly early in the morning so I was having a coffee with cream when I suddenly noticed that the cream in my coffee was starting to taste like truffles! I did not want to eat anything because I wanted to preserve the flavour of truffle on my palette. I then tried a glass of milk and it also taste like truffles. This lasted about 30 minutes after a good feed of fresh truffle slices! Truly awesome!

Today was also terrine production
Wild boar and dried fruit x3
Wild boar, rabbit, prune and pistachio x1
Wild boar, tasso ham and dried cranberry x1

Photos to come!

Some New books,

The Early Canadian Gault Cookbook

Momofuku

The Fat Duck Cookbook

Some New Music

Shotgun Jimmie "still Jimmie"

Tommy Sparda "Specie Differenti"

Joel Plaskett "three"

Bassnector "cozza frenzy"

Dj Decibel "smack my glitch up"

Mmmmm Truffle goodness
Is there such thing as to many webers?

Ham I am with green eggs and ham?

How the hell do you make a great ham?

Well you will need.......

One bone in locally farmed pork leg (about 5-8kg)

(I prefer upper canada heritage meats "large blacks")

For the cure

2kg salt
10g saltpetre (optional)
1 litre good apple juice or pear juice or apricot juice etc....
1 litre strong cider, or white wine (I prefer a nice cider from Quebec)
6 litres water
1kg demerara sugar or golden brown sugar
1kg dark brown sugar or molasses
20-30 juniper berries (I pick mine myself and use them fresh)
30g black peppercorns, crushed
10 bay leaves, crushed
10 cloves

To cook the ham

1 large onion, peeled and rough chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and rough chopped
2 celery sticks, rough chopped
10 black peppercorns
3-4 bay leaves
5-6 sprigs fresh thyme or you can do like me and add 10-15 sprigs of thyme!
1 small bunch parsley stalks

For the glaze

1 generous tbsp grainy mustard
250g light brown sugar
15-20 cloves powdered

Okay how do we do this?

Mix the cure together in a pot. Bring to the boil. Cool completely to 3-4 Celsius. Pour brine into a none metallic tube (plastic or wood). Weight your ham. Its needs to be left in the cure for 2 days/kg. So for a 8kg pork leg it will be in the brine for 16 days. Place ham in brine and place a weight on top to keep it submerged at all times.(get creative with this, I will give you no hints here on how to accomplish this!)

After the time is up in the cure, it needs to be hung in a cool place 2-8 Celsius for two days to form a pellical for the smoke to stick too. If you are not smoking the ham leave it to hang for about a week then proceed to the cooking part. If your smoking your ham, you will need a gentle fire and a cold day to to maintain a constant cold smoke. Cold smoke for about 8-12 hours with your favorite hardwood (maple and apple are nice) or until nicely coloured. Leave to hang for at least a week.

To cook your ham. If you have had it hanging for a week or more you need to soak it in cold water overnight to draw out excess salt. The following day place it in a pot, cover it with water and cook for a hour on a low simmer. Taste the water. If its still quite salty pour it out and cover with fresh water. Bring it up to the simmer and add all veg and aromatics cook till tender on a low simmer about 3-5 hours.

Pull it out, mix the glaze together. Pull of skin, rub with glaze and back for about 30 minutes in a 350 oven. Enjoy!!!

DONT FOR GET TO KEEP THE STOCK AND BONE FOR THE BEST SPLIT PEAS SOUP OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!

Sept is a great month!

Pickles, preserves, charcuterie, ham and cabbage sandwiches, turkeys are getting near slaughter, smoke house filling up. Stocking up, freezing, drying, brewing, vac packing, planning, cleaning, granola, pot pies, matsutakes, honeys, fall tea mushrooms, hard cider, apple pie, pumpkin and bourbon, refreshing rain.........

Back to basics for fall

Some shots of our fall tomato and pickle day. Time to start thinking about eggnog and holiday plum pudding. Ive moved my favourite chili plant inside to hang for the winter in peace. Starting some hard cider and homemade pectin next week. Plus smoking tha country ham! Whats your favourite fall preserve?

I feel like chicken tonight!

September rain brings, ............well chickens! Was on my way back from meeting a fellow shroomer to exchange some fungi news and spotted a "laetiporus Sulphureus" or in other words "chicken of the woods mushroom" These large shrooms "roost" in mature Manitoba maples, Oaks and various other hardwoods in eastern Canada. A texture very similar to chicken and a nice neutral mild flavour makes these shrooms a favourite among fungi enthusiasts.

At the shop we've been busy processing tomatoes for puree and sauce. 400lbs of tomatoes were done this fall, so were ready to hunker down into winter braising and ketchup/chutney production. 16L of naturally fermented pickles have been started (pics of tom production and pickles to come) Ive also started two prosciutto one country style ham, 2 dozen smoked goose breasts, 10kg of pastrami and some more heritage breed pancetta. Happy fall :)

Kobocha Squash Flan

Halibut wrapped with cured pork fat, ready to be sous vide.

"Laetiporus Sulphureus" Chicken of da woods!