While personally I’m not a huge fan of the term itself, “molecular gastronomy” is something people are asking about all the time these days, as techniques are finding their way onto more and more restaurant menus across the world. The reason I’m not a fan of the term itself is because it conjures up images of chefs in lab coats using strange chemicals to alter your food into some strange science experiment, when these chefs are simply using (mainly) food based ingredients and extracts to showcase ingredients in ways that haven’t been done before. At the end of the day, it’s still cooking!

The most popular technique over the last decade or so has been spherification, made famous by Ferran Adria’s now legendary “spherical olive”, where a liquid is transformed into a sphere with a liquid centrer, released when bitted into.

However, even this seemingly simply technique requires some difficult-to-find ingredients and can be a little frustrating to start out on for someone that wants to see some cool and simple results right away.

This video we shot at our kitchen below demonstrates a more basic more of spherification, making smaller spheres to resemble caviar, which can be used as a garnish or in any aspect of a plated dish. Here’s the recipe for the technique we’re demonstrating below:

Lemon Ginger “Caviar”

Ingredients:
75 gr lemon juice freshly squeezed
1 tsp grated ginger root
25 grams water
1.5 grams agar agar (an algae extract, can be purchased at Whole Foods or Choices)
1.5 tsp sugar
pinch salt

1.5 cups vegetable oil (cold from being in the freezer at least 1 hour)

Method:
Bring all the ingredients except the agar agar and oil to a boil and then strain hot liquid through a fine meshed sieve to remove any lemon pulp and the ginger. Place back in pan and whisk in the agar agar until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, about 5-6 minutes.

Place the cold oil in a shallow and deep container, and place the liquid into a pipette or dropper. Slowly squeeze droplets into the cold oil and let form into spheres, about 2 minutes. Strain the spheres out of the oil and rinse under cold water. These can be stored in a sealed container in cold water for up to a day before use.

Other suggestions for use:

Balsamic vinegar spheres
Black olive puree spheres
Mango and Cilantro Spheres to garnish Mexican dishes

Let us know what you think!

Duck is one of my favorite things to cook. With the breast, I love the crisp texture of perfectly seared duck skin with the juicy, flavourful meat. I love to braise the duck legs, turning them into a stuffing for pasta or as a topping for pizza.

A little while ago I received some beautiful medjool dates, sticky and sweet, from the Middle East as a gift. I immediately thought to pair them with duck breast, as duck is famously paired with sweeter flavours (most notably the French Classic, duck l’orange).

The dish I came up with is light, crisp, flavourful, gluten free and dairy free.

Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Quinoa, Swiss Chard, Fennel, Pinot and Medjool Date Reduction

Sounds like a mouthful, but it’s a snap to prepare. Here’s the final product:

Now let’s see how we get there!

First things first, let’s have a look at our duck breasts. Almost every one I’ve talked to who doesn’t like duck mentions that it’s “too fatty”. Well, no one’s arguing that duck has a fair amount of fat on it, but properly prepared a duck breast will not be fatty or greasy, but deliciously moist, succulent and crispy. Let me show you how to do it properly.

First, we need to score the fat on them. This helps it render out more quickly and evenly, which will crisp up our skin. Use a sharp knife and make a criss-cross pattern across each breast’s fat cap. Set the scored breasts aside.

Now let’s start prepping out veggies. Swiss chard is a beautiful vegetable that I like because it has two very different textures and colours within the same ingredient; the leafy green tops and the crisp, bright red stems.

Separate the leaf from the stalk, and slice the stalk thinly, keep the leaves whole and intact. Set aside.

Next, using a sharp knife or mandoline, thinly slice fennel and keep some fennel fronds for garnish. Also dice 1/2 a small onion, 1 carrot, and 2 cloves of garlic.

Next, in a medium sauce pot, add in the 2 cups of wine, 1/2 cup of chicken stock, the carrots, onions, garlic, 6 dates and sprigs of fresh thyme.

Place on medium heat and let simmer and reduce slowly for 15-20 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, pre-heat oven to 350F. Cook quinoa according to package instructions. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

Now, heat a dry saute pan (I like to use a non-stick pan for duck breasts) over medium heat. Season the duck with salt and place skin side down in the pan.

The most important thing when cooking a duck breast is to give the fat enough time to render out properly, over lower heat. Think of it like cooking bacon in a pan, crank the heat too high and the bacon will burn before crisping up nicely. Leave the duck skin side down over medium-low heat for 12-15 minutes. You’ll notice the fat rendering out in the pan as you go along:

After the duck has been cooking for about 12-14 minutes, you will see now almost all of the fat has rendered out, leaving behind a beautiful, golden, crispy skin:

As soon as that happens, take it out of the pan, and place it in a small baking dish. Set it aside until we are ready to finish it in the oven moments before plating our final dish.

After simmering for 15-20 minutes, your sauce should look like this:

Strain the liquid throw a fine-meshed sieve, and reserve the dates, discard the rest of the vegetables. Place the liquid back in the pan and place on low heat to keep warm and reduce further. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Roughly chop the soft dates, removing the pits.

Heat a very small pot with salted water, for blanching the chard leaves.

In a saute pan with a touch of oil, saute the fennel, dates and chard stalks for 3-4 minutes season with salt and pepper. Place duck breasts in the oven to finish cooking for 4-5 minutes.

Add in the cooked quinoa to the pan:

Blanch the chard leaves in the boiling water for 3 minutes, pull out and reserve.

Add in a handful of chopped parsley and pea shoots to the quinoa:

Pull the duck breasts out of the oven, it should be a nice medium-rare to medium doneness. Slice into medallions:

Now we’re ready to plate!

First, spoon some of the quinoa mixture onto a serving piece:

Next, roll up a couple of the chard leaves and arrange on top:

Arrange 3 medallions of duck breast on top:

And finally, spoon the Pinot and date reduction over top of the dish to finish!

This dish is a great balance between salty, sweet, and light flavours. Duck is one of those ingredients that, if prepared well, can take any dish to the next level. Try this one at your next summer dinner party for a light main course!

Ingredients: Serves 2

– 2 duck breasts
- 2 cups pinot noir
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 6 medjool dates (or similar high quality dried dates)
- 1/2 small onion, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 small fennel bulb
- 5 stalks swiss chard
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup pea shoots
- few sprigs fresh thyme
- salt and pepper

Cheese making is often thought of as one of those mythical processes we aren’t meant to understand. We go to the store when we need cheese, we buy it, we often spend quite a bit of money on it, and we love it. For the most part we don’t really care how it’s made or how it got to the supermarket, but something this delicious must require intricate machinery and a complex system of pulleys, levers and switches. The cheese factories surely have moats installed (with crocodiles!) to keep their secrets safe from the general public.

While certain types of cheeses DO require specialized equipment, there are several delicious and popular varieties you can make at home yourself using virtually no special equipment or ingredients you can’t find in your local supermarket.

This first type we’ll be showing is the simplest of homemade cheeses, a basic fresh white cheese, sometimes called a farmer’s cheese. I absolutely guarantee you will be astounded by how simple and delicious this cheese is.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:
1 litre of whole milk (the quality of the cheese is entirely dependant on the quality of milk used, so this would be the time to try that local or organic milk from the farmers market for a few extra bucks)
1 cup of whole buttermilk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sea salt

Equipment:

- A spatula
- a saucepot
- cheesecloth (available at any supermarket)
- a large mixing bowl
- a colander
- a thermomter
- some string or butchers twine

Seriously. That’s it.

Now let’s see how it’s made, step by step.

Pour the whole milk into the sauce pot, and heat the milk up gently over medium heat, stirring with the spatula frequently to avoid scalding the milk.

Heat the milk until its around 170F, you should see small bubbles forming around the outside of the milk.

Now for the fun part. Turn off the heat completely, and add in the lemon juice and buttermilk. Stir lightly. It will begin to curdle the milk right away!

Now let it sit for 10 minutes or so, to let the curds develop and separate from the whey.

After 10-12 minutes, place a colander into a mixing bowl and line it with cheesecloth. Be sure to use extra cheese cloth, about 3-4 layers.

Next, you need to start ladling the fresh cheese curds into the cheesecloth to strain out the excess moisture, do this in batches with a strainer:

Eventually you’ll have what looks like this, fresh, beautiful cheese curds! We just need to drain off the excess moisture now to firm it up.

Use some string to tie the cheese cloth together into a tight bundle:

Next, tie the bundle to a wooden spoon or similar utensil and hang it over a deep pot, let it hang for 20-25 minutes to drain out the excess moisture. Also, twist it tight to force some of the excess moisture out of the cheese.

You’ll notice all the excess liquid has drained out of the cheese, and it’s time to snip that bad boy open and have a look.

Use scissors to snip off the top and look what’s there smiling back up at you:

Next, it needs seasoning. To do this old school, simply use good sea salt, however I like to add some fresh cracked black pepper and finely chopped fresh thyme. You can really get creative with flavourings as this is a very fresh, creamy and neutral cheese.

Use a spatula and mix the seasonings into the cheese evenly.

Next, place it into a a couple small ramekins or bowls. I find the lunch pack peaches containers work great

And that’s it! Your cheese is done. Place it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. And when you are, unmold it simply and serve it with your favorite mini toasts, crackers, fruits, chutneys, anything your heart can imagine. This is also time to use your very best olive oil to give the cheese a light and fruity accompaniment. I’m partial to some brioche triangles and my childhood favorite, triscuits!

Making this type of cheese is not only ridiculously simple, it’s fun too. Make it for your next gathering and nonchalantly drop the old, “Oh that cheese? It IS good isn’t it? Yeah I made that, no biggie.” Watch your guests’ eyes widen with bewilderment as your cheese-making skills become the talk of the party.

Up next? Let’s make some mozzarella!

Pork chops have gotten a bit of a bad rap over the years. Most have come to accept the fact that when it’s pork chops for dinner, there had better be a a mega-value tub of apple sauce on the table to drown them in. Or gravy. Or wine. Much of this stems from scares about pork from 20+ years ago, when we were told we needed to cook the begeesus out of any pork for it to be safe to consume. I grew up eating pork chops that were less appetizing than some pairs of shoes I owned, so when I began cooking seriously, making a delicious, succulent, juicy pork chop was one of the very first challenges I tackled.

The two secrets for cooking mega-tasty pork chops:

1. It has to be a thick chop! None of those little “minute chops” you see at the supermarket.

2. It should be bone in for maximum flavour. This is not absolutely necessary, but source out a good butcher and get him (or her) to cut you a few of these bad boys:

Season both sides liberally with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Now how do we cook it? We want to crust the exterior of the meat, while keeping it from drying out. The answer is our trusty cast iron pan + oven combo. When cooking meats these two are BFFs, giving you both the high heat sear and the ambient heat from the oven to perfectly cook our chops. Preheat the oven to 325F.

If you have a gas range, flip the pan down on the burner and turn it on high. Let it get hot hot hot, let it go for at least 10 minutes.

Flip the pan over, add a thin layer of veg. oil to the pan, and add in your pork chops.

Now don’t freakin’ touch them! Let them sit right where they are and don’t move them around for 8-9 minutes. After this time, flip ‘em over and you should be greeted by this:

Now add a dollop of butter to the pan, and continue to cook for 2 minutes while basting the pork with the juices and butter. Oh yeah.

Now transfer that bad boy to the oven, and continue to cook for an additional 6-7 minutes.

Remove from the oven:

Now remove the chops from the pan, and drain off half the excess fat. Add in 2 diced apples, 1 clove of chopped garlic, salt and pepper, and saute for 3-4 minutes until softened.

Add in 1/2 cup of dry white wine, and the chopped sage, let reduce for 5 minutes and turn off heat. Add in 1 tsp of butter and 1 tbsp chopped parsley.

To plate! Serve with your favorite sides, here I used a quinoa, pea shoot and roasted beet salad with lemon dijon vinaigrette, but any salad or sides will do. Plate the pork chop across the sides, and finally spoon the sauce and apples over the pork chop. Garnish with more parsley and fresh sage.

As soon as you cut into the pork, all those awful shoe-leather references will be a thing of the past when this is on your fork:

Pork chops are an inexpensive and delicious cut for dinner. It’s a terrific vessel for strong flavours, so go nuts with your marinades and flavours. Spicy, sweet, curry, tangy, the many sly winking faces of pork will take everything your pantry’s got.

Don’t give up on pork chops just yet!

Enjoy

Chiliiiiiiiiiii’s babyback ribs!

I’m a sucker for a good jingle, and that’s in a cage match with “United Furniture Warehouse” for catchiness supremacy.

A couple years ago we posted a video about cooking great BBQ ribs on any apartment patio grill – check it out here. It was done on a cheap little point and shoot camera, the lighting and sound were terrible, I looked disheveled like I had just come back from a week long bender in Guadalajara, threw on a chef jacket and hopped in front of the camera. Okay, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad. Okay, yes it was.

Well, now we’ve got HD, and a team of hair and make up specialists (aka some guy we found in an alley with a comb), and it’s time for ribs to get some love from us. A re-do, a mulligan, a….well, just watch it.

Recipe: Feeds 4

Ingredients:
- 2 whole racks of babyback ribs, underside membrane removed
- 1 cup dry rub recipe (follows)
- 2 cups apple wood chips, or other suitable smoked wood
- 1/3 cup yellow mustard

Dry Rub Recipe (Makes extra, will keep stored in an air tight container for several weeks)

- 1/4 cup kosher salt
- 2 tbsp black pepper
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup mexican chili powder
- 1.5 tbsp dried oregano
- 1/4 cup dried mustard
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Method:

Preheat BBQ for indirect heat. Have half the BBQ completely off, the other half on low. The internal temp of the BBQ should be between 225 and 250 degrees F. Soak half the wood chips in water for 20-30 mins, and make a couple foil pouches using some of the wet and dry chips. Poke holes for smoke to escape through.

Brush the ribs on either side with the mustard, and coat evenly on both sides with the dry rub. Place wood chip pounch onto heated side of BBQ and place ribs down on the side that is completely off.

Close the BBQ and cook for 2 hours. Open the BBQ and wrap the ribs in aluminum foil, return to the grill and close lid for another 1 hour. Open foil and place ribs back on the grill for a few more minutes to crisp up, and slice/serve immediately with your favorite BBQ sauce. Make friends! Lots of them.

Most of the recipes we post seem to take some time to prepare. Okay, a lot of time. But not everything needs to braise for hours or be cut from an obscure part of an animal to be delicious. Sometimes your second cousin Richard shows up with his 3 kids and 2 yappy dogs and you want to throw together a few ingredients, feed them and get them on their way.

Watch us throw together a delicious and healthy meal, Cajun Dry Rubbed NY Steak with a chick pea, roasted pepper & artichoke salad with chipotle lime vinaigrette.

Recipe (Serves 4)

- 4 NY steaks (6-7 oz each)
- 2 cups chick peas, drained of liquid and rinsed under cold water
- 1 cup artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
- 2 limes
- 1 cup roasted red peppers, roughly diced
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 2 tsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt and pepper

Dry Rub (makes extra, save it for rice, chicken, or other dishes needing extra flavour)

- 1/4 cup smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp ancho chili powder
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper

Method:
Preheat BBQ to high.
In a large mixing bowl, juice both the limes. Add in the adobo sauce, salt and pepper and veg oil. Whisk to combine. Add in the artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, chick peas and cilantro. Toss to coat evenly. Set aside in fridge.

Rub steaks liberally with dry rub, and grill to preferred doneness. Let rest for 5 minutes, and slice thinly on an angle. On a large plate, ladle the chick pea salad, and build height. Arrange the sliced steak around the salad and garnish with more cilantro leaves.

Doesn’t get much easier than that does it?

Enjoy!

One of the most common questions I get asked is, “What’s your favorite thing to eat?” And I can’t answer it, man! How could I? The truth is, for me I really enjoy the process of cooking more than I enjoy eating itself. Don’t get me wrong; I like eating. A lot. But there’s something about the virtue of cooking something beautiful yourself, filling the house with smells, crying as you chop onions (I don’t care how hard core of a chef you are, they still get you), and having a glass of wine or two while you do it. For me that’s what this dish is all about, and it’s one of my favorite things to prepare:

Recipe: (Serves 4-5)

- 3 lbs boneless beef short ribs, trimmed of excess fat
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, diced
- 6 small dried figs (use fresh if available)
- 2 cups Cabernet Sauv. (or another full bodied red)
- 2 cups beef stock
- 4 large celery roots, peeled and cubed
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 1/4 cup cream or milk
- 2 tbsp butter
- 3 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
- fresh parlsey for garnish
- salt and pepper
- flour

Method:

Season the pieces of short ribs liberally with salt and pepper, and dust the pieces with flour to help them brown. In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat a thin layer of oil and add in a tsp of butter. Add in the pieces of short ribs and brown over med-high heat for 5-7 minutes until caramelized. Flip and do the same on the other side. Once they are evenly browned, remove short ribs from the pots and add in the garlic, onion, celery, and carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add in the dried figs, wine and beef stock and bring to a boil. Add the short ribs back into the pot and cover with a parchment paper lid, which will allow for some evaporation and reduction of the sauce while still protecting the top of the short ribs from becoming burnt. Cook at 325 for approx 3 hours or until the short ribs are very tender.

While short ribs are in the oven, heat a large pot with boiling salted water. Add in the cubed celery root and the sprigs of rosemary. Boil for approx. 20-25 mins until fork tender. Remove rosemary sprigs from pot and mash or whip with cream butter, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a medium sauté pan, cook the mushrooms over med-high heat in 1 tbsp of veg oil and butter. Add in 1/2 cup of red wine and let it reduce. When mushrooms are dark and most of the liquid has evaporated, turn heat to low and set aside.

When short ribs are out of the oven, remove them from the pot, and using a hand blender or a standard blender purée the vegetables and figs into the sauce. Place back on the heat for 2-3 more minutes to reduce.

TO PLATE!

Plate a couple spoonfuls of the rosemary celery root purée in the center of the plate and top with a couple pieces of the braised beef short ribs. Add a tbsp or so of the sliced red wine mushrooms on top, and finish with the cabernet fig sauce on top. Garnish with fresh parsley and DIG IN!

The first of our 6 brand new HD video recipes is here for your viewing pleasure. In this video we were making use of a Himalayan Pink Sea Salt Block sent to us by a company called The Meadow in Portland, Oregon. They specialize in gourmet salts, salt blocks as well as chocolates, fine wine and spirits, and even flowers. To me it sounds like the mecca of shopping for apologetic husbands

Enough talking, let’s see it in action:

The salt block 100% exceeded my expectations. During this video was actually the first time I’ve ever used one, and reading over the materials provided by The Meadow it stated the salt block held its heat even better than cast iron. They were completely right, after taking the time to heat it up properly, it was hot enough to actually cook on for a good 10-15 minutes even AFTER removing it from the heat. It imparted a very delicate salt flavour to the tuna that was more complex than any other salt I’ve tasted. It was a treat to cook on and I’m looking forward to many uses in the future.

Here’s the recipe:

Salt Block Seared Albacore Tuna with Shaved Fennel and Citrus Salad

Ingredients: (serves 4)

- 1 whole albacore tuna loin, about 1-1.5lbs (can substitute ahi tuna)
- 1 large fennel bulb
- 2 large pink grapefruits
- 2 belgian endive
- 1 head radicchio
- 1 lemon
- 1 cup baby arugula
- juice from 2 blood oranges, about 1/3 cup
- 1 tsp sugar
- vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- salt and pepper

Method:

If using a gas stove, place salt block directly on the element and turn heat to medium, let the salt block heat up for 15-20 minutes. If using an electric element you will need to use a spacer, then follow the same instructions. While salt block is heating, prep ingredients for salad. Use a mandoline or very sharp knife to thinly shave the fennel bulb, removing any core pieces. Cut the belgian endive in half, remove any tough outer leaves, and slice thinly. Cut the peel and pith off the grapefruits with a sharp knife and use a pairing knife in between the section to cut supremes. Thinly slice the raddichio, and add all these ingredients plus the baby arugula to a mixing bowl. Season the salad with the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and olive oil.

To make the blood orange vinaigrette, combine the blood orange juice and apple cider vinegar and sugar in a bowl, drizzle in 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper until dressing comes together, set aside.

Once the salt block is nice and hot, you can either cook the tuna right there on the element, or remove it like I did in the video and cook it tableside for a more dramatic presenation. The block holds heat so well you don’t need to worry about the tuna cooking properly. Place the unseasoned slices of tuna on the salt block and cook 2 mins per side, they should still be rare in the middle.

To plate!

Pile high a nice assortment of the salad, follow by a few nice slices of the albacore tuna layered in front. Whisk the vinaigrette again just before serving and drizzle all around the outside. Serve immediately!

Enjoy!

The old tailgating classic is getting a facelift today, and I know some of you may be thinking, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Believe me, we don’t think there’s anything wrong with grilling up some brats or Italian sausages along with a cold pint, or cooking them in beer and piling them high with caramelized onions. In fact, it’s so right we wanted to be able to serve it not just for our summer BBQ events, but also as part of something like a multi-course dinner party.

While this version isn’t technically a sausage, I wanted to make use of some of the ingredients commonly used in sausage making such as fennel (seeds) and other ingredients classically paired with pork, such as apples, and present them in an interesting way.

Here’s what I came up with:
Berkshire Pork Jowls with Fennel Purée, Braised Endive and Apple Ale Sauce

Here’s the money shot, now let’s see how we made it there:

Start with the Berkshire Pork Jowls. Berkshire pork is a heritage breed of pig, kind of like pork’s answer to Kobe beef. It is prized for it’s flavour and marbling. While the premium cuts of Berkshire can be pricy, there is great value to be found in cuts such as the jowls, which with a little love can be elevated into a terrific dish:

Beautiful marbling on this pork. Supplied by Cioffi’s Meat Market and Deli in North Burnaby.

Trim any excess fat, and use butchers twine to tie them into rolls.

Next, peel and slice a couple apples, diced a couple cloves of garlic and cut a large fennel bulb in half (bottom removed). Don’t chop up the fennel as we’ll need to remove it from the braising pot later.

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Heat up a large, heavy bottomed pot, add in a layer of vegetable oil. Season with pork and sear 3 mins per side until golden brown. Remove from pot and set aside:

Next, add in the fennel, apples and garlic and saute until softened. Add the pork back in.

Now it’s time to add the beer, which is a nice segway to show you a new Vancouver-area brewery, Stanley Park Brewing. The brewing operations are powered entirely by wind, and it’s a great, smooth tasting Amber Ale. Try it!

Alright, pour in a couple bottles of suds, and bring the mixture to a boil, season with salt and pepper.

Add in a bouquet garni, and cover with a parchment paper lid. Transfer to the oven for 2 hours.

While the jowls are in the oven, let’s prep the braised endive. Belgian endive is a bitter green that mellows out quite a bit when braised, but still provides an interesting note to the dish. I love to serve it with pork and chicken, especially.

Cut off the bottoms, and saute 2-3 minutes per side in a hot pan with some oil.

Add in some chicken stock and a bit of dark soy sauce.

Transfer to the oven to braise for 35 minutes.

After 2 hours, this is what your pot looks like:

Remove the pork, herbs, and fennel from the pot, and purée the apples into the ale sauce. Season with salt and pepper and reduce the sauce over medium heat for 15 minutes.

Next, blend the fennel with some of the sauce until smooth:

Alright! Time to head to the plate. Batting leadoff is our fennel purée, use the back of the spoon to spread it across the plate:

Slice the pork into medallions and arrange in the center of the purée:

Next, fan some of the braised endive around the pork, and spoon some of the reduced apple ale sauce on top:

Lastly, while the pork was braising I julienned some apples, carrots and fennel and tossed them in a touch of lemon juice, salt, pepper and some of the fennel fronds to make a quick “slaw” to provide some acidity to the dish:

And that’s it! Money shot time:

While it may not become the staple at tailgate BBQs this summer, for anyone feeling a little ambitious on a rainy night, I encourage you to try this dish or any of the elements in it. As always, let us know what you think!

We sometimes get people asking us about sweetbreads, so much so we wrote a blog about them about a year ago, in which we basically described them, threw in a pretty gross picture of them uncooked and didn’t show what the finished product could become. I doubt too many readers were inspired to try them out, and we wanted to change that.

Sweetbreads are a star performer of the foodie community. People that know them, love them. It’s like knowing an indie band before they make it big. You can say you were around in the beginning, then accuse the sweetbreads of going mainstream and selling out when they show up on menus all over the place like they are starting to. Or just eat them more often.

This dish combines 2 unusual (for lack of a better word) cuts of meat, and makes them into one enormously satisfying dish. Let’s get started.

Here’s the money shot, now let’s see how we got there:

Start with the sweetbreads in their humble raw form. I purchased them along with the veal cheeks at Cioffi’s Meat Market and Deli in North Burnaby.

Now, you’ve got to soak them in some cold water with a bit of salt for at least a few hours to draw out some blood and other impurities, it really does improve the final product. Do this overnight if convenient but for at least 3 hours.

Now, get out a couple big ugly celery roots:

Preheat the oven to 350F, and slice off the outer layers of the celery root, like this:

Chop them up a put them in a pot of salted water to boil:

Now throw in a couple sprigs of rosemary to the pot, the smell will be fantastic!

Now on to the veal cheeks, let’s have a look:

As you can see, they’ve got quite a bit of fat/silverskin that we need to trim off using a sharp knife. Go for it.

Now, preheat a heavy bottomed pot with some vegetable oil, season the cheeks with salt and pepper and dust lightly with flour.

Brown the cheeks on all sides over high heat:

Next, remove the cheeks from the pot and add in some aromatics and some figs. I’m using dried figs but if you can get fresh in your area, absolutely go for it.

Now, add half a bottle of cabernet, some veal stock and bring it to a boil.

Throw it in the oven and let it braise for about 1.5 hours at 350F.

Drain the celery root when tender and mash with a little butter and cream. Season and add in some fresh parsley to finish and set aside:

Next, scoop out the underrib of a small portobello mushroom cap, coat it lightly with oil, and fill it with the celery root. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 1.5 hours the cheeks should look like this, pull it out and remove the cheeks, they should be very tender but not completely falling apart:

Next, puree the figs and aromatics into the sauce. Put back on low heat and let it reduce for 10 minutes.

Next we’re on to the sweetbreads. Drain and pat them dry, cut them into chunks:

Heat a heavy bottom pan and fill it up about half way with canola oil. If you’ve got a home deep fryer, fire that bad boy up! Always use caution when working with hot oil! Set up a breading station with eggs and milk, as well as seasoned flour. Lightly and evenly bread the sweetbreads:

Test a sweetbread by placing it in the oil, it should bubble immediately which will indicate the oil is hot enough. If you’ve got a good thermometer the oil temp should be around 350F.

Fry them up until they are a golden brown. Words cannot describe how delicious these are. I like to dust them with a touch of smoked paprika right out of the fryer. Use this opportunity to sneak a chef’s snack. Or two.

Once the sweetbreads are fried, it’s time to plate! Start with your beautifully reduced cabernet fig sauce:

Now place the celery root stuffed mushroom cap in the center:

Thinly slice the veal cheeks, and arrange on top:

Followed by those beautiful crispy sweetbreads:

Experiment a bit with garnishes, a simple sprig of rosemary or parsley works, maybe some caramelized shallots.

And there we have it! Sure, it’s not for everybody, but if you’re feeling adventurous and are up for adding something to your culinary repertoire, why not head to your butcher and try at least one of the elements of this dish out for yourself? I promise, you’ll soon be a fan too.