Friday, September 24, 2010

Done at Dalton Trail Lodge, River Cottage On the Horizon


The season is over at the fishing lodge I was working for the last 4 months. I'm heading up to Dawson for one last low brush cranberry round up and some big potluck feasts. Then I'm off to stage at River Cottage(http://www.rivercottage.net/) in Dorset, England for a couple weeks. I have a week and a bit after the stage to do some exploring in London and eat at St.Johns (http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com/home) etc...

Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall of River Cottage is a culinary icon in the world of seasonal, ethnically produced natural foods that has earned him a tremendous following in England and North America. Ive been following Hugh since his days on the road as "cook on the wild side" a self produced t.v. series where he converted a old land rover into a "gastrowagon" where he planned on leaving the city in search of wild foods and self sufficient living. He also has wrote numerous cook books (all of which I can personally recommend)

http://www.amazon.ca/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books&field-author=Hugh%20Fearnley-Whittingstall

I’ve always loved Hugh's philosophy and way of eating, sharing and respect for the food. I’m extremely stoked to say the least to be part of the crew for a few weeks this fall. Counting the days now…..














(Memories form the DTL) From to to bottom, 1) Go fish, 2) scoping out the smoke house, 3) red currents, 4) braised lamb with gnocchi,stunted peppermint and Swiss mountain cheese, 5) Roasted pork belly with uncle berwyn's birch syrup, white sweet potato, grilled wild onions and Dowdell's sweet fennel slaw



Saturday, September 4, 2010

Nitro Cavitated Fresh Yukon Truffles


After picking my prized truffles the other day. I let them sit in the fridge wrapped in a slightly damp paper towel in a ziplock bag for 3 days. Each day opening and inspecting ripeness so see if I was gonna get any scent at all from this rare form of truffle. The smell is not far off Oregon white truffles and intensified as it sat. Yesterday I had a wiff and knew it was time to shi#t or get of the pot if you know what I mean. After reading this http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/08/11/infusion-profusion-game-changing-fast-%e2%80%98n-cheap-technique/ AMAZING article which has opened up a lot of new doors for me. I thought I would try to make some instant truffle oil. Here's what I did.

The first thing you must do is admire your bounty! What a stinker this one was!
I used a mandolin to slice the truffles very thin
Placed them in a whip cream dispenser about (2 ounces of truffle) with 150ml of light olive oil and charged it with N02 (the regular whip cream cartridge) Shook it vigorously for 10 seconds and left it to infuse for 3 minutes. Quickly released the pressure form the canister.


Popped the olive oil and the truffles into a clean sterilized jar for storage. Instant truffle oil. Really good truffle oil. Really Really good truffle oil. Tips....Make sure all ingredient's are room temp. Make sure your using very ripe truffles or you will probably be disappointed.
So far using canister infusion I have infused Klondike distilled vodka with peppermint and I also did some moss berries. Both were very good. I have plans to make some habanero vodka soon!
On another note, there are still boletus edulis to be had, but I woke up this morning and there was ice on the ground! Winter is creepin up on us! I have a whole pig to process in the next week or two into winter delights for my freezer/fridge/cupboard!