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A Mighty Bird

17 May

The Clay Pigeon

1002 Blanshard Street

Victoria (250) 590-6657

A lot of my work involves facilitating discussion, observing, listening, and writing – and on a Friday night after a particularly stimulating week, I was not feeling my after-work run so much as a little date night with Mr. ST to debrief and reconnect. We love food that is simple but thoughtfully composed, and restaurants that are casual yet special, and in the Clay Pigeon we found all those whims deeply satisfied.

I first heard about the Clay Pigeon from Ken at Street Level Espresso who helped design the cocktail menu and can always be relied on to know where all the fine arts, fun and good food are in Victoria.
Street Level Espresso on Urbanspoon
He also serves one of the best Americanos as well as baked goods from Devour. Painfully unproductive conference call? Maddeningly hedge-filled meeting? Unrealistic deadline plopped on you after days of waiting for direction? A coconut, chocolate, oatmeal cookie from Devour has solved all of these problems and more.

The name Clay Pigeon – and the promise of offal and charcuterie – reminded me of the English pubs we went to on our honeymoon.

I had a mild obsession with tracking down are the silly names!

Leave it to British people to sound dirty but in a perplexing sort of way.

But back to the bird! The Clay Pigeon occupies a space that has rotated through a few unsuccessful  diners concepts, most memorably Valentino’s, as the corner of Blanshard and Broughton. Bookended by Devour on one side and the Pink Bicycle on the other, my office area is becoming quite the little hip foodie hub! But don’t hold that against it.

For a small joint, they had a nice variety of less-than-standard wine options, including ones from Mt. Boucherie – a West Kelowna winery we don’t often see on lists in Victoria, especially not a Gamay Noir. It has lots of berry flavour without being jammy and has a lingering flavour without major tannins. It balanced the firey zing of my garlic-lover’s Kale Caesar Salad.

Speaking of ceasars, Mr. ST had himself an excellent virgin caesar.

He shared the bean with me because I have a serious addiction to spiced pickled beans. There are worse things to be addicted to, I supposed – like these strips of fried pig ear, served with a sticky sweet chilli sauce on the side.

If someone took pork belly and turned it into french fries, this is what you’d get!

We also munched on these root chips with homemade aioli.

They were an excellent primer for the biggest hit of the night: the bison tongue reuben on carraway bread.

Oh baby.

Take me away, Calgon! I don’t even care that they are crap-tastic Iphone photos. Ooozy cheese like this defies all resolutions.

If you still haven’t tried my three steps to charcuterie love, I think I just found the new first step for those who need a little more coaxing. After all, it’s hard not to acquire a taste for something if you start by smothering it in melted gruyere.

As we were paying, I noticed a wall full of lunch hour take-away sandwich options, all under $8. My usual go-to sandwich shop is the Italian Food Imports, but it’s nice to know there’s another Euro-twist sandwich option right around the corner now.

For more on the Clay Pigeon, check out EAT Magazine’s First Look.
The Clay Pigeon Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Down on the Farm: Salt Cured Ham Hanging

8 Jan

What do you like better, wrapping presents or unwrapping presents? Earlier in December, we dug our hams out of their month-long salt cure to complete the next step in making homemade salt-cured ham. This is one present I’ll have to wait until the summer to unwrap! When I look back on the pre-salt photos, I’m amazed how the hams colour and texture have changed!

Following the remaining instructions from Charcuturie: The craft of salting, smoking, and curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, we rinsed the surface salt off the hams, dried them, and put them down on clean tea towels.

Then, Maria and Mum rubbed all the exposed flesh with lard. This preserves the meat and seals it from air.

Then we covered the lard with whole black peppercorns, to keep any squirrels or birdies or other possible interloper from taking an interest in them while they’re hung semi-outdoors.

Finally, we rolled the hams in cheese cloth—one sheet wrapped around from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock, and then another from 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock.

We also used cheesecloth to create a cross-patterned knot from which to tie these beasts. And later that night,  Jim was kind enough to get up on a ladder and hang them from some ceiling hooks in their egg processing garage, where there’s plenty of cool air flow. Obviously they’re no beauty queens, but you know they will be in about six months!

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Christmas 2011

28 Dec

Christmas this year was a whirlwind of food, hugs, plastic bows, food, twinkling lights, food, and did I mentioned dessert? It was, in a word, heavenly excess.

Because we’re officially too old to sleep in, we woke up at 7 a.m. and Mr. ST snuck out to get us coffees. We mixed them with nog and slurped them down with these dunkable perfections:

Cardamom Almond Biscotti

and opened our stockings and gifts:

Mr. ST bought me a retro apron and matching oven mitts so I can be stylish and stop ruining clothes with oil splatter and other kitchen mishaps. What I lack in coordination and safety, I make up for in enthusiasm!

The wind and rain howled outside and we had nowhere else to be except snuggled up together by the glow of the tree, grazing on goodies until it was time to go to bed. Family dropped in and out throughout the day and we kept them happy with a steady flow of munchies.

Mr. ST made this tres internationale fruit platter for brunch! Impressive, non?

He spent the better part of 2011 cancelling out every local food mile I saved by sampling dragonfruit, guavas, starfruit, prickly pear, snakefruit, and something from Ecuador called ugli (which he insists is pronounced oooh-glee). But how could I be mad at him when this is the result?

Obviously, we had to serve a variety of charcuterie I can only describe as delightfully excessive, and if you ever want to do the same then I can’t recommend Ottavio enough.

Their general manager Derek gave us the most attentive service and customized everything to our personal tastes, while also offering advice on generally well-liked products.

I also adhered to my brunching rules and made up two frittatas the day before:

1. roasted butternut squash with thyme, red bell pepper, goat’s milk feta, carmelized onion

2. smoked salmon, cream cheese, carmelized leek, tarragon

In the afternoon we served some party food classics: roasted veggies, prosciutto wrapped pears on arugula with balsamic glaze, stuffed mushrooms, and of course a sweets plate.

Every year, there’s usually one new thing I bake that is a mind-blowing success and this year it has to be the red velvet brownies. And don’t you dare say that that is too much icing until you try it. I used about half a cup less sugar so it turned out more like a white chocolate butter cream. Don’t fight it. If you have some kind of messed up rule that you can only eat like this until new year’s day, then I have your plans for tomorrow all worked out. Make these. Seriously, I’m coming over to make sure.

The best part of the day was when Mr. ST scooped me up in his arms with a mouthful of salami and a goofy grin on his face, and said this was the best Christmas since we’d been together. For the first time in seven years, we were both full of cheer–the kind of giddiness that made Christmas special as a kid. In that moment, I felt so much gratitude for our health, a happy marriage, and a place to call home. Because a red velvet brownie just isn’t the same without someone to lick the other egg beater, is it?

Thank you to everyone near and far who made Christmas 2011 special for us.

Down on the Farm: Homemade Salt Cured Ham

15 Nov

Oh yes, I went there. And I’m taking you with me.

My mum and stepdad own and operate a local farm called Omnivore Acres.

When they aren’t busting their butts running their CSA program, plucking eggs from their hens, composting, building planters and coops and managing the million other chores that crop up on a farm, they let me invade their beautiful kitchen and play in it with my Mum.

Food has become a joyful curiosity that we share and Omnivore Acres has become the backdrop for a lot of memorable cooking adventures. I hope to feature many more recipes and lessons from the farm here on the blog. I actually have a whole post written on home-canning your own pickles, but unfortunately I missed the seasonal window for relevant posting!

Over the summer, Omnivore Acres raised and sold their first group of free run, antibiotic free, 100% veggie fed pigs. After 134 days at the farm, they were sent to the big mud-pile in the sky. If you’ve ever wanted to buy your meat directly from a producer who is caring, responsible, and transparent as all heck, I really recommend you get in touch with them….or better yet, get in touch we me first because Mr. ST and I would love to split a pig with another family (or two!) next time around.

On Saturday, with a couple of fresh whole legs and one satisfied pork customer named Maria, Mum and I got down to making some homemade salt cured pork on Saturday.

The beauty of salt curing meat is simplicity, patience and care. You don’t need a ton of skill or labour to do this. You need the diligence to keep your work area clean and clutter free. You need the attentiveness to check these babies every few days and drain them of moisture. And you need the patience to trust in your process and wait thirty to forty days of resting before you’ll know whether you did everything right.

The below notes from our process are based largely on Charcuturie: The craft of salting, smoking, and curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

Supplies:

  • 2 ham roast pieces (between 20 and 30 pounds each)
  • 6 kilos of coarse salt or kosher salt (we used a mix of both)
  • Clean kitchen towels
  • Vinyl, unpowdered disposable gloves (you can buy these in the First Aid aisle of any pharmacy/drug store)
  • 2 large rubber ware containers or non-reactive roasting pans
  • 2 non-reactive roasting pan lins (large enough to fit over the hams)
  • Cling film
  • Tape
  • 20 pounds worth of weights (for resting on top of the hams, 10 pounds each)

Thoroughly wash your hands, work surface and the containers. Drain the hams from their packaging and dry them thoroughly before setting them down on the kitchen towels.

Your butcher should have already done a basic trim on the ham, with a thick layer of fat remaining. DO NOT trim this further. The thick layer of fat is a rich source of flavour in the finished product and also a protective layer in the curing process. Think of how duck confit gets preserved in its own fat. Same kind of principle.

Liberally massage the salt into the ham, on both sides.

Thoroughly salt the end where the femur bone comes out, and any exposed fatty layer and meat.

Put a layer of salt down in the containers before setting the hams inside, skin/fat side down.

Now, make it snow!

When we used coarse salt, it didn’t stick to the ham’s skin as well as the finer kosher salt.

Coarse salt ham

Fine Kosher salt ham

We opted to cover our hams with up-ended roasting pans before adding cling film, so that there would be a sturdy, thick layer between the ham and the weights on top.

There’s no sense in wrapping the whole container in cling film because you’re going to need to peek inside every couple of days and re-seal it. We just put film along the top and around the handles and then taped the film down and called it a day.

The hams should be refrigerated for one day for every pound of ham so ours will be ready in 25-30 days. Throughout that month, Mum will be checking on them every few days to make sure the ham is still fully covered in salt, to drain moisture from the containers, and to test the meat’s density. When it’s ready, it should only have a slight give when pressed.

The next step will be wrapping and hanging the ham. The longer it hangs, the deeper the flavour that develops. See you in a month, hammies!

Date Night Halifax: Obladee

8 Nov

Remember how I already tried to sell you on charcuterie? Well you can consider this pitch number two! Obladee Wine Bar, located at the corner of Barrington and Sackville, is a microcosm of the Halifax restaurant scene’s charm: luxurious flavour combinations, relaxed and attentive staff, and unique personal style. At Obladee, the decor is sleek and industrial, yet the atmosphere was warm and the staff inviting. It’s a wine bar that’s totally secure in the simplicity of that concept.

Obladee on Urbanspoon

It doesn’t serve over-thought tapas that are really just entrees on small plates. Obladee is smarter than that–it knows better than to upstage the star of the show. The wine list covers the range of old and new world specialists and shows they understand what regions produce the best of each style. Plus, out of 15 whites, only two are chardonnay, which shows some courage and faith in their customers and I like that. If you stay within a small wine box, consider ordering a trio of options from one of the three daily flights for $15. But really, if you are attracted to wine boxes, a wine bar might be a bit too adventurous to begin with (sorry to pun but I couldn’t resist).

The charcuterie and cheese selection at Obladee supports local food sources while showing some discerning taste. There’s no “local for the sake of local.” All the charcuterie comes from Nova Scotia producers, from duck prosciutto to rabbit rilette, while the cheese selection includes a pungent PEI cheddar, buttery and mild French brie de meaux, and even the aforementioned Dutchman’s Dragon Breath. You can get any cheese or meat for $4 each, or choose any three and create your own charcuterie board. For $15, they come with pickles, olives, baguette and two daily condiments (a tangy chou and a mango chutney on our visit).

It’s also the kind of place where the wait staff will remember you by name when come by twice in one week. They’ll give you a few free samples ;-) And as if that weren’t enough, they’ll not only recommend places to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals–when your team is battling theirs for the cup–but they’ll actually call up those places and make sure there’s still room in front of one of the big screen TVs for you before you leave. East Coasters’ hospitality–and taste–is truly exceptional.

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