Our last trip to Costco I picked up a 3.5 kilogram centercut pork loin for $17. It’s hard to pass up a nice cut of meat like that. I sliced off a reasonably sized roast, threw that in the freezer and set out to decide the fate of the rest of it. It didn’t take much time to decide I’d brine it and smoke it to deliciousness.

It just so happens we bought the perfect container to brine such a roast, a 24 can Coleman cooler. We picked this up not for beer, but to do a repeat performance of the sous-vide hack, which I just realized I backburnered and forgot to ever post about. Oops. All I had to do was divide the cooler in half using three Ziploc containers filled with water, and a gallon of brine covered the meat perfectly.

Brining is an amazing process. I like to marvel at how much weight it adds (usually around 10% — which is how much water you’re usually paying for with a supermarket pre-seasoned for your convenience! roast). It just helps the flavor permeate all the way to the center of the roast and acts as a general juiciness safeguard from the cooking process. Be careful though, as the saltwater that has absorbed into the meat can ultimately backfire if you overcook way too much — water will evaporate, but salt will not. It is an essential step for smoking anything really, but certainly helps protect leaner cuts of meat from drying out.

My neighbors don’t seem so thrilled when I smoke things in the backyard for several hours, and I feel a little uncomfortable with this every time I do it… that is, until I’m eating the results, and then I don’t really care about much else. This is definitely a time-consuming recipe, but the actual work involved is next to minimal. The resulting meat is infused with a deep smoky flavor and tastes very much like a fresh, nitrate-free ham, which even my disgruntled neighbors will have to admit is worth a little stink.

Applewood Smoked Pork Loin

• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large sprig rosemary
• 1 red chili, split and seeded
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed
• 6 pound boneless pork loin
• black pepper

1. Bring the water to a boil with the salt and sugar. Remove from the heat, add the rosemary, chili and garlic and let cool to room temperature.
2. Place the pork in a container large enough to hold it. Cover it with the prepared brine (make sure it is fully submerged, using a plate as a weight if necessary), put the lid on/cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Leave it in there for 24-36 hours to fully absorb the brine.
3. After the appropriate amount of time has elapsed, remove the pork from the cooler. Place racks on a sheet pan and put the pork on top, so that it is elevated and air can flow on all sides. Return this to the refrigerator uncovered and leave overnight to dry out the exterior of the pork, to allow more smoke to permeate it.
4. Remove the pork from the refrigerator half an hour to an hour before preparing to smoke it. The meat will cook more evenly if it is brought to room temperature first. Since it has been cured with the salt it will inhibit growth of microbes, but this amount of time isn’t really a threat to your health anyway. While the meat is coming to temperature, soak half a smoker box worth of applewood chips in water.
5. Heat your propane barbecue to medium-low or light a chimney full of charcoals. When the pork is ready, drain the wood chips and combine with an equal portion of dry in the smoker box, and place this directly on the coals or barbecue. If using a charcoal barbecue, make sure you have the coals distributed for indirect heat (pushed to the side the pork is not on). Once smoke starts billowing out, put the pork fat side up on the grill grate and close the lid.
6. A box of wood chips will produce more than enough smoke to give this a deep flavor. Once all smoke has been extinguished, continue cooking until the roast reaches an internal temperature of 170 degrees, either finishing on the barbecue, or placing in a 350 degree oven elevated by a rack. Increase the temperature to high for the last 20 minutes of cooking to develop a crispier, crackling skin. Allow the meat to rest 10-15 minutes before carving.

I’m going away for almost two weeks, back to Alberta for one of my best friend’s wedding, so I wanted to make some tasty pulled pork barbecue and enjoy some cocktails this weekend before I left. There was just one small problem: I couldn’t find pork shoulder anywhere.

As I’ve mentioned (complained about?) several times already since moving to NDG, all of the butchers nearby are Halal, the only exceptions being Loblaws and Provigo. So if I want pork, I have to go to the chain stores or make a special trip. Well, the chain stores, or I guess I should say the population at large, have decided that pork shoulder is useful exclusively for wintertime braises, and no one buys it during the summer. So much so that the butcher at Loblaw’s looked at me like I had two heads and repeated, “Pork shoulder? For the barbecue?” as if it were the most foreign concept to “barbecue” something other than a steak, burger or sausage.

This is an honest mistake for the average backyard enthusiast to make, since when most people talk about barbecuing, they really mean grilling, but for a butcher to be surprised by such a request makes me simultaneously raise an eyebrow at the butcher and get more than a little annoyed. The, “You clearly must be an idiot,” response to someone asking for something out of the ordinary, even with such a specific purpose, can totally embarass people trying to learn new things, so undoubtedly most people won’t know the wonders of pulled pork sandwiches smoked on their own barbecues, and only the sweet sauce braised stuff sold at Hard Rock Cafe or whatever. That’s sad to me.

Anyway, the next closest place I thought I’d be able to get pork shoulder was the Westmount Boucherie. I’d never been there before. It’s a very small and rather bare store, just off Decarie on Sherbrooke. They had exactly what I needed, cut and cleaned very well and for a reasonable price. The people were incredibly nice and on top of this, when I said I wanted pork shoulder for the barbecue, the butcher smiled as if reminiscent and said, “Ah, are you making pulled pork sandwiches?” so I almost wanted to hug him. Almost, but he was covered in blood and all.

I don’t exactly have the barbecue setup for proper heat regulation/distribution, so I just hickory smoked the thing for a couple of hours and steamed it in the oven to finish it, almost exactly like the pastrami we made at Easter, except with a spice rub instead of a marinade/cure. I whipped up a couple of barbecue sauces to accompany it on some soft onion rolls, a mango salsa for some acidic balance (I love pulled pork on its own, but I like a nice slaw or pickle or something for contrast) and then some guacamole, coleslaw and rice and beans to round out a plate.

Barbecued Pulled Pork with Mango Salsa

• 4 tablespoons sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4 pound boneless pork shoulder, trimmed of sinew and excess fat

• 2 ripe mangoes, peeled and diced
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 cup cooked corn kernels
• 1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
• 1.5 ounces Triple Sec or 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1 lime, juiced
• (optional) 1/2 Scotch bonnet pepper, seeded and finely minced
• salt and sugar to taste

1. Combine the paprika, brown sugar, salt, white sugar, mustard, pepper and cayenne and pat the pork liberally with the spice mixture. Place the pork on a rack on top of a pan to catch the drippings and refrigerate uncovered for at least 12 hours. This is not only to season the meat, but to allow surface moisture to evaporate and give the smoke something to adhere to.
2. Remove the pork from the refrigerator at least an hour before preparing to cook it so that it cooks more evenly. Pat it dry with paper towel. In the meantime, soak your smoking chips. I used hickory, but I’m not too picky.
3. Prepare your smoker or charcoal barbecue for indirect heat distribution by stacking all the coals on one side. Shoot for a temperature between 200-250 degrees. Anything lower is bad for bacterial growth, anything higher can lead to some tough and chewy meat. Add your smoker box or chips to the charcoal, wait for the smoke start to wisp out of it, then add the pork shoulder, cover and smoke, turning occasionally and brushing with liquid (water, beer, wine, what have you) to ensure even cooking.
4. After about 90 minutes of smoking I transferred the pork to a rack above an inch of water in a roasting pan in a 275 degree oven and steamed it for an additional hour until it could easily be pulled apart with two forks. Allow it to cool slightly, tear it apart and serve on a bun or over rice with the mango salsa (details below) and/or barbecue sauce (below that!)
5. To prepare the mango salsa, simply combine the diced mango, bell pepper and corn kernels with cilantro, triple sec, lime juice and Scotch bonnet. Add enough sugar to counter the acidity and season to taste with salt. This is best prepared a day ahead of time and refridgerated for the flavors to have a chance to meld.

Chipotle Maple BBQ Sauce

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 7 ounce can of chipotles in adobo
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• juice of 1 lime
• salt to taste

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a small pot with the minced onion and a pinch of salt over medium heat and cook the onion until soft.
2. Add the garlic, tomato paste and chipotles and cook for an additional minute or two.
3. Puree with a stick blender, adding enough water to make a smooth sauce, then add the maple syrup and lime juice. Season to taste with salt and additional syrup for sweetness or lime juice for acidity, as necessary.

This is more of a condiment than a sauce and should likely not be liberally applied to coat anything. As I made sure to warn everyone, this is a really spicy sauce, since it’s almost entirely pureed chilies. You may wish to cut back on the chipotles by half or more and still get quite a kick out of it. You’ve been warned. I like it.

The other sauce pictured is simply a mixture of ketchup, tomato paste, molasses, brown sugar and cider vinegar to taste, which is much more accommodating.

Indoor Roasted Sausages

When it comes to hot dogs, I pretty much prefer the cheapest variety available, like those Halal chicken wieners or pork links in the bulk bins that cost less than meat logically should. I’d even choose a tofu dog over an all beef hot dog. To me, a hot dog only seems right if it is uniformly bland and tastes of little but garlic salt, and if I want something more flavorful, I’d go with a proper sausage. The all beef hot dogs just taste and seem weird to me. The “undesirable” bits of a cow sound considerably creepier than from most other commercially raised animals – after all, cows have udders and four stomaches! If nothing else, a hot dog is not luxury food, and I don’t want to pay premium dollar for it. Save the good cuts for something other than a hot dog, please.

Technically, you can eat a hot dog “raw”. That is, a wiener has already been cooked, and is loaded with preservatives, so even cold from the package it presents a minimal danger to your health. At least, in terms of food borne illness. It’s basically a smaller cylinder of bologna. If you’re going to cook it though, the options are pretty limited. You can either boil or steam it, or you can grill it. Sure, you can deep-fry or even flambé the thing, but most practically, people boil their hot dogs or they cook them over fire.

So what if it’s the dead of winter and your preference is for the blistered casing, grill marked variety that brings friends and families together during the summer? Or, in my case, what if you’ve just been barbecuing for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden get hit with several inches of snow? For this, you must master the indoor weenie roast. Now, this might not seem like a revelation, but since I’m the only person I know that cooks hot dogs this way, I am going to let you in on my secret. The best way to cook hot dogs indoors is to use your oven.

The broiler, which not a lot of people seem that familiar with aside from a tool to brown cheese, functions basically like an upside down barbecue. Placing your hot dogs on a pan several inches away from its glowing red coils is the closest thing you have to mimicking fire with an appliance, without actually creating fire in your appliances. For added effect, hot dogs can even be pierced with a stick or skewer and held under its heat. Simply swap for marshmallows later as desired.

The concept is simple. With the oven door open (to prevent the broiler from shutting off) and the broiler on its highest setting, simply roast your hot dog as if you were doing it on a barbecue. The outside skin will blister and poof out and you’ll likely get spat at by searing hot fat if you forgot to poke holes in the casings when heating up a proper sausage, just like outdoors! You can even quickly press the hot dog directly against the glowing coil to leave a “grill mark” on its surface. You might laugh at the ridiculousness of that last suggestion, but tons of “charbroiled” foods are served up in commercials by a similar fashion. Maybe this should’ve been entitled, “Make your weenie look as good as on TV!”

…maybe not.

When I was still in culinary school, my chef promised me that we would make Montreal smoked meat before the year was done. We went to our stages after the first semester, and no longer had the same chef when we returned. The new chef never instructed us how to make smoked meat, and I’ve always wanted to try it since then, but didn’t have the means because we lived in an apartment.

My neighbor dropped the idea in my lap that we should cook up a brisket on my new barbecue for Easter, and it took minimal convincing of him that pastrami would be the only way to go. While some people refer to Montreal smoked meat as “basically pastrami”, I know of a fervent cult of enthusiasts that strongly disagree with this. So I’m calling this pastrami for my own safety. Maybe I’ll just call it smoked and braised corned beef with black peppercorns and coriander seeds in case I don’t quite meet the exacting criteria for the pastrami crowd either. In any case, it was delicious, and that’s all that really matters.

We first tried to get a brisket delivered when we read on Le Biftheque‘s website that delivery was free, but the order had to be a minimum of $50 and we weren’t planning on purchasing that much meat. So the next day we took a trip out to the closest Le Biftheque and picked up a brisket, narrowly missing the big brisket sale by a day because of the wait. It didn’t seem to reflect too poorly on the price though, as we walked away with a seven pound brisket for $27. The price on an already corned beef was exactly $0.01 less per kilogram, but we decided to go for the raw brisket under the assumption it would invariably taste better corned by our own hands.

Bringing it home, I already had the brine waiting, cooling on the stove. We cut into the vacuum seal and I starting trimming off the surface fat and sinew and soon we had the whole thing packed in brine in a Tupperware container in the fridge. The recipe I was using, adapted from Michael Ruhlmann’s “Charcuterie”, called for a gallon of brine for a six pound brisket. A gallon of brine was entirely too much, but I guess it entirely depends on the dimensions of the container you use.

After three days, I started up the beast at 9 in the morning (the time we deemed acceptable to smoke up the neighborhood), loaded in some hickory chips and set a thermometer inside to see what we’d be working with. I wanted a temperature around 250 degrees to hot smoke, and we ended up with an acceptable 225. We smoked the brisket until 3 or so, when it had definitely established a smoky crust, and finished the cooking process by steaming it in a 275 degree oven to tenderize it.

I didn’t make the pre-planning effort to ensure that we had pink salt for the brine to have it retain that reddish hue and give it that extra oomph. The difference between using it and not is the difference between the flavor of cooked pork and ham, so it’s definitely noticeable, but it hardly ruined the enjoyment of it all. It’s always irked me how meats like this are sold “preservative free” when salt has obviously been used as a preservative. Anyway, next time, and there will be a next time, I intend to use the pink salt and also try my hand at sauerkraut, pick up some rye and mustard and give a classic Reuben a go. Depending on how the garden is going by that time, I might even have some pickles ready for the side.

Corned Beef/Pastrami

• 1 gallon water
• 1 1/2 cups (350g) kosher salt
• 1 1/2 oz (42g) pink curing salt
• 1 cup (225g) sugar
• 1/2 cup (90g) dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon (8g) pickling spice
• 1/4 cup (60ml) honey
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed
• 5-6 pounds beef brisket, trimmed of excess fat
• 1 tablespoon (8g) coriander seeds
• 1 tablespoon (10g) black peppercorns

1. Combine the water, salts, sugars, pickling spice, honey and garlic in a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve all the salts and sugars. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.
2. Once the brine has cooled, place the brisket in a container large enough to accommodate it and the brine and cover it with the brine. Put a plate on top of the brisket to keep it fully submerged, cover and refrigerate for at least three days.
3. Once the meat has sufficiently brined, discard the brine and rinse the brisket well under cold, running water to remove excess salt. Pat the meat dry with paper towels and bring to room temperature.
4. Toast the coriander seeds and black peppercorns in a dry skillet over medium heat until very fragrant, then pulse them in a spice grinder or grind coarsely in a mortar and pestle. Allow to cool, then rub all over the brisket.
5. Hot smoke the brisket, controlling the temperature between 225-275 degrees until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees. You can skip this step if you do not have a smoker and you will still have a nice corned beef.
6. To cook for serving, in a 275 degree oven, place the brisket in a roasting pan with an inch of water and cover, steaming for 2-3 hours until very tender.

We bought a barbecue this weekend! Well, sort of… we bought a large, metal fire pit with a cooking grate. To me, though, that’s even better, because I can cook four whole chickens on it without much trouble and it can double as a safe container for a large pile of burning wood. It was only $100, which is roughly $1700 cheaper than the Big Green Egg I had been eying. So not only do I have a barbecue now, but saved $1700. Nice.

I borrowed a shopping cart and hauled home over 30 kilos of charcoal today and I’m ready to go. We tried cooking up a couple of steaks and some salmon this weekend, but I’m a total novice at this charcoal grilling thing and I haven’t really devised a way to contain the heat in the grill yet (not to mention that I really didn’t have enough charcoal to start a proper fire) so the results were a little lackluster.

Honing my skills at the barbecue is certainly at the forefront of my ambitions for the summer. Along with that will come the finishing of my smoker, so I can try my hand at various charcuterie that I haven’t yet done. If anyone wants to go halfers on a whole pig, let me know! I will look forward to this summer even more knowing there’s a freezer full of pork chops and future bacon and sausages nearby.

Shannon picked up something like three pounds of salmon fillet from Costco for $20 this week and after getting a little salmoned out after the third night in a row, I decided to ease myself into the whole curing and smoking thing again by making some gravlax. Gravlax is simply cured salmon, and tastes more or less like smoked salmon, but without the smoke. You can infuse whatever complimentary flavors you want into the meat, but traditionally it is good old-fashioned lemon and dill. Not that fresh salmon is super cheap, but cured and/or smoked salmon is easily three times as much, if not more, so making it yourself is not only a fun and amazing process, but a lovely frugal option for those of you who might like at least 120g of lox on their bagel in the morning or have an entire buffet presentation to make.

The whole process is surprisingly easy, it just requires a lot of time. Time that requires little to no maintenance or attention though, so it’s hardly a burden. In addition to making things taste great, curing creates an inhospitable environment for bacteria. It does not, however, necessarily kill parasites. It may be prudent to use sushi grade salmon, or flash-frozen salmon fillets when making gravlax, to reduce the chance of potential infection. It just seems appropriate to make such a warning beforehand. You can always cook your cured salmon if it’s a huge concern to you, but it’s always good to buy from a good salmon purveyor regardless.

Wild salmon, for the most part, have a higher level of omega-3′s and generally taste better than farmed salmon. Here in the east though, where fishing wild salmon is illegal, importing wild salmon from the west is certainly not the most cost effective method. Farmed will have to do for me until summer, when hopefully Costco starts carrying some wild Sockeye, and I can give my smoker its first tryout. That is, of course, if bacon doesn’t beat it to the punch.

Cured Salmon

• 3/4 cup sugar (175g)
• 3/4 cup kosher salt (175g)
• 2-3 pounds salmon fillet an inch or less thick, bones and skin removed
• 1 bunch dill, roughly chopped
• 1 lemon, zested
• 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, crushed

1. Combine the sugar and salt in a non-metallic, rimmed dish large enough to contain the salmon. If the salmon is too large, cut into identically sized pieces to fit.
2. Dry the salmon thoroughly with paper towels. Press the salmon down into the salt and sugar mixture, then flip and press into the salt and sugar again. Use your hands to spread the salt and sugar over the salmon to make sure it is completely covered.
3. Dust off the excess salt and sugar from the salmon and set aside. Add the dill, lemon and peppercorns to the remaining salt. Put the salmon back into the dish and cover completely with the dill/lemon/pepper/salt/sugar mixture.
4. Cover the dish with plastic wrap with the plastic pressed directly against the salmon, not taut over the dish. Place another dish on top of the plastic wrapped salmon and weigh it down. Anything will do: large cans from the pantry, rocks from the garden, leftover roast beef, etc.
5. Refrigerate the weighted salmon for 24 hours. After 24 hours, remove the weight and investigate! (I just wanted to say that because it rhymed.) You will notice that an incredible amount of liquid has been pressed out of the salmon and it has dried out considerably as a result and is now more or less sitting in a brine. You can drain the brine and repack the salmon with the salt mixture for a drier gravlax, or simply redistribute the salt on top of the salmon and continue curing for at least another 24 hours.
6. Once 48 hours have passed, you can test to see if the curing process is completed. When you press on the salmon, it should feel firm, as though it were cooked, instead of soft, as though it were still raw. If the salmon still feels raw, return it to the fridge to cure for another 24 hours and repeat the test. If the salmon is firm, rinse it under cold water to remove all of the excess salt and herbs.
7. The gravlax can be consumed as is, or patted dry and placed on a rack in the refrigerator (unwrapped, so the air can circulate) to form a “pellicle*”, before being wrapped well and stored in the refrigerator for at least a week, or frozen for up to 3 months.

*Pellicle: The tacky, slightly chewy surface of cured salmon. Developing the pellicle is essential if the cured salmon is to be smoked afterwards, as it picks up more of the smoke flavor during the process. Otherwise, it’s just a textural and flavor preference.