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![]() Animal - Beef cattle Cut - Skirt steak/Bavette Why? - Beef is one of the more common meats, with a wide variety of cuts readily available to consumers. I chose the bavette because it was one of my personal favourites while I was working at a butcher shop. It's cheap, fairly tender when sliced and not overcooked and extremely flavourful. Background "Cattle (family Bovidae, genus Bos) were first brought to Canada by French settlers. In 1677 there were 3107 cattle in New France; in 1698, 10 209; by the mid-18th century, 50 013. Cattle were valuable as a food source (milk, cheese, butter, meat) and for their hides, used in leatherworking. Cattle farming spread across the country with settlement, and ranching became particularly important in the rangelands of western Canada." (www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca) There are now over 60,000 farms across Canada that produce beef, with 3.4 billion pounds being produced in 2009, making Canada the 6th largest beef exporter in the world. The bavette is a loose-grained cut of beef from the plate of the steer, generally weighing between 1.5 and 2.5 lbs. It is often mistaken for hanger steak (or onglet) or flank steak. Bavette is generally a cheaper cut of beef, and at the butcher shop I went to was $8.99/lb. It does not lose much of it's weight or volume to cooking because it is a fairly lean meat. This of course also means that it can become quite tough pretty quickly. It should be cooked to at most medium rare and should be sliced against the grain to maximize tenderness. When this is done, it tends to pull apart really easily. With it's relatively low cost compared to other cuts, the skirt steak can be used for things like sandwiches easily. It can also be marinated to help improve tenderness making it a very versatile and low cost option. Skirt steak is often marinated ahead of time to help break down connective tissue and is then grilled, pan roasted or braised. ![]() Recipe: Marinated Skirt Steak by David Walzog and Andrew Friedman 2005 The New American Steakhouse Cookbook taken from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/marinated-skirt-steak-232357 "In this recipe, a long marinating time allows many powerful ingredients to penetrate the skirt steak: the acid in balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce doesn't just flavor the meat; it also breaks down connective tissues, making the meat tender." Yield: Makes 8 servings Ingredients 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar 1/2 cup corn oil or other neutral oil such as grapeseed or canola 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce 2 shallots, roughly chopped 2 garlic cloves 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 tablespoon kosher salt 4 pounds skirt steak, cleaned of all exterior fat and connective tissue
Sources:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/marinated-skirt-steak-232357 http://www.finecooking.com/item/5748/beef-skirt-steak http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/beef-cattle-farming/ http://www.canadabeef.ca/fact-sheets/ Photos taken from : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_steak http://livingremixed.com/honey-lime-skirt-steak/ http://www.finecooking.com/item/5748/beef-skirt-steak ![]() Five years ago, when I was just a brand new co-op student who'd never had a job before, was when I made (attempted to make) my first soup. 17 years old, absolutely no knife skills, only a basic understanding of sanitation. "Let's leave Graeme in charge of the restaurant for the day. What could go wrong"? Sysco order doesn't show up on time, fantastic start. The other locations are almost completely out of food, excellent. Well at least we've got a soup of the day and we can use yesterday's feature because we didn't sell much. Oh wait. We should send those to the other locations... alright. Time goes by, it's 11:00, still no sysco order, which is usually already unloaded by the time we get there at 6:00. Well what do we have? Bacon, potatoes, cream, some cheese. Sweet, now how do you make a soup? Oh well, can't be hard, right? Cook some stuff in a pot, add some liquid, boil the potatoes, blitz it, add salt and pepper, done. Should be no problem. Everything was going great at first, it was smelling like soup. Kind of looked like it would become soup. Blitz it up, tastes like soup. Soup that needs some seasoning of course, but soup. Awesome. Just leave that there on the stove to stay hot for lunch. What's that burning smell? Apparently, if you leave super thick potato soup on high heat, the bottom burns... in a big way... who knew?! Three guesses who got to clean the full inch of burnt potato off of the bottom of that pot later. Now five years later, it's time to write a blog about making soup. Of course, in that time, I've made plenty of soups and they've turned out a whole lot better than that first soup. A few disasters here and there. But all in all, significantly better than that first soup. But it wouldn't be any fun to blog about if there weren't a story to go with it. So loaded potato soup it is. Come home from work and decide this is an excellent time to make this soup. Only problem, the grocery store nearest my house is closed. No bacon, no cheese. Maybe this isn't going to work. NAH! In the spirit of that first soup, I'm just gonna see what I have and we'll wing it. Salami, sure. Cream cheese, good enough for me. Girlfriend wants to put broccoli in, why not? And let's put some beer in it, because who doesn't like putting beer in their food at midnight. ![]() Recipe: 2 cups diced potatoes 1 head broccoli, diced 3 cups water 3 tbsp powdered chicken base 1/4 cup diced salami (I'm not sure what kind of salami this is) 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 cup beer (I had PBR, because I'm classy like that) 1/2 cup cream cheese 1/2 cup 10% cream 1 tbsp oil 2 tbsp red wine vinegar salt and pepper to taste 1. Heat oil in a pot. Add salami and cook on low until the grease renders out. Remove salami bits from pot but leave the grease in. 2. Add onions and sweat. Add garlic, cook for one minute. 3. Add beer, and cook until about half of the liquid has evaporated. Mix together water and chicken base. 4. Add broccoli, potatoes and "chicken stock". Cook until the potatoes are done. ![]() 5. Purée until smooth. Return to pot. 6. Add cream and cream cheese. Stir until cream cheese melts in. Add cooked salami. 7. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. I added red wine vinegar at this point because I really like red wine vinegar. 8.Don't leave the soup on the stove on high heat unless you love burnt potatoes. Originally, I had only used two cups of water and 2 tbsp of chicken base and my soup came out like loose mashed potatoes, so I added the third of each. ![]() Well it certainly is different from my first soup now but let's find out how it tastes. Smooth, and creamy texture. Can taste a little bit of the bitterness of the beer. Can obviously taste the earthiness of the potatoes, that's good. Can't really taste broccoli at all. The acidity from the red wine vinegar isn't overpowering but it's definitely there through all of the potato. Cream cheese was too mild of a flavour to really even be noticed, which is a shame. But the spice from cooking everything in the salami grease is noticeable, even more so when you eat one of the little salty, cured pieces of salami that are throughout the soup and get that big concentrated meatiness. All in all, it tastes a lot like you would expect a potato soup to taste. Thank god. I should probably get my girlfriend to try it too, seeing as she contributed the broccoli to it and has been peeking over my shoulder all night while I make it. "It needs cheese," was the first thing out of her mouth. Which was kind of expected. Otherwise she really enjoys it too. She likes the beer in it and the red wine vinegar. And then she got a piece of salami. Now she's a little less focused on it needing cheese. I came home the next night from work and she'd eaten half of the soup with some cheese on top for dinner, so I'm going to take a wild guess that she liked it too. What were some challenges involved?
The main challenge was that between late nights at work, and early mornings at school, I didn't give myself many chances to make the soup, so when I did finally go to make it, I didn't have half of the ingredients I wanted to put in. On the other hand, not having those ingredients made it so I had to improvise, which is one of my favourite things about making soup, especially at home. It's fun for me to go "well I've got some potatoes, what else do I need to use up," and have something to eat at the end of it that actually tastes great. I think the soup was a success though, especially in the sense that the story behind it was about me not having a clue what I was doing and trying to make it work anyways, which I got to do again with this (now with more cooking experience) and have it turn out completely differently. If I could do it differently, I don't think that I would. What did you take away from this experience? To be honest, I didn't really learn anything necessarily from making this particular soup. But making this soup caused me to reflect on how far I have come and how much I've learned in the last five years. It's easy when starting a new job with a new menu and a new way of doing things to feel like you're right back in that first kitchen, not having a clue what you're doing. But doing something which, in the past, was an absolute disaster, and having it turn out fantastically is a great reminder that making those mistakes and learning from them is a big part of this job. I think that reminder was important right now with the amount of information being thrown at me from every angle. It seems like a lot and it's a little overwhelming and I'm making plenty of mistakes, but I'm learning from them. And at the end of it, I'll be better because I've made them. Quinces belong the family Rosaceae which also includes many other fruit-bearing plants such as apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, cherries and many others. The quince originated in and is still mainly grown in parts of western Asia and eastern Europe but of course, they can be grown elsewhere. The first record of them being in England was in 1275. Quinces are most often harvested later in the year, as the plant needs a temperature below 7 degrees Celsius for a period to flower properly, usually somewhere between October and December. Well, time to try this thing. So I look up how to eat this thing, just in case. It looks like an apple on the outside but maybe it's like a pomegranate inside, who knows? Nope, pretty much an apple inside, but all I read on every site I look at is about how to make the quince taste okay enough to eat. Good start. Every single site suggests cooking it and adding sugar at a ratio of 8:1 water:sugar if simmering. Apparently it's really bitter and really tart and eating it raw is going to be an unpleasant experience. Good thing I bought two. I cut both up into slices, put one in a bowl, and the other in a pot with some sugar and water and simmer it for about 20 minutes. Take a bite of the raw one, (making sure my girlfriend is involved because I'm just that nice of a guy) tastes a little tart, a little bit sweet... mostly just tastes like soft Styrofoam. Not a whole lot of flavour to it. I wouldn't say it's unpalatable, there just isn't really any reason I would ever say to myself "I'm really craving a quince." So time to try the cooked slices. Thanks to the sugar in the water, it's a lot more sweet, shocking. Still a little tart, still not really noticing any bitterness. The texture is similar to an apple but with a little grittiness like some pears have. Despite the 20 minutes of simmering, still pretty firm. It kind of tastes a little like a Granny Smith apple overall. ![]() If I were to cook this fruit, which I did, I would definitely be adding sugar. Supposedly they are very high in pectin, so I might use it to make a jam, which I did find a recipe for at http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/quince_jam From this experience I've learned that I don't really think quinces are all that great. It's a fruit that must be cooked to have any flavour or desirable texture, and once cooked, tastes very similar to an apple, although maybe that was just the way I cooked it. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to buy quinces again but also would be open to trying it done a different way if the opportunity arose. Citation:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/quince http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/quince_jam/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaceae Photos taken by me. Growing up in Peterborough, I hadn't really tried a whole lot of international food. It's not that no one ever made it, it just wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is here in Toronto. That being said, I hadn't really had much Thai food, aside from frozen pad thai (which I'm not sure counts) and the odd special that included green curry at one of my old jobs (which I almost guarantee didn't count). So I figured, why not try out a little thai food.
So now what to eat? There's an app for that! To restaurant finder! Pick something I've absolutely never heard of (and am not sure I can even pronounce), Gaeng masaman. What the ******* is that? Sold! I like spice, but I know I need to try to pick out some flavours so I'll compromise. Medium please! Food comes, looks like...... yellow, potatoey, soupy, rice... hmm. Alright, still smells like a good time. I can smell some coconut, a whole lot of cumin, and it definitely smells a little citrusy. All in all, I can tell it's going to be a little bit spicy, but for the most part, smells sweet as all hell. Time to take a bite. Oh hey there coconut, sweet, definitely some cumin and chilis, little bit spicy, little umami from the potatoes and beef. No idea what smelled citrusy. Take another bite, hey there bell pepper. Nope! Not a bell pepper, big ol' chunk of chili pepper! HOLY HELL! Can I taste anything at all anymore? I can still taste the sweetness of the coconut a bit but that's about it... I guess that's the end of that. I was enjoying one of my first experiences with thai food until I was too stupid to realize that it wasn't a slice of bell pepper on my fork. The coconut and heat combo reminds me a lot of one of the coconut/green curry mussel specials that always used to be a favourite of customers at my last job. I think I would definitely try it again but I would definitely keep it mild. I enjoy that sweet heat but damn! ![]() My name is Graeme. I'm 22 years old and have been working in the industry for about 5 years. I've worked at a catering business, a few restaurants and a butcher shop with various jobs from dishwasher, to sausage maker to running the dinner line in a cajun-themed restaurant. I want to be a chef because there are few things that make me happier than making food for others. It's such an integral part of our lives. Most people eat multiple times a day. They eat to celebrate special occasions or to reconnect with old friends. Food is also a window into other cultures, and cooking is a way to express your personality and past experiences (without having to use words most of the time). My philosophy of cooking is that if you put in the effort to create the best product that you possibly can with your skills, product and tools available to you, there will always be something to be proud of at the end of the day. You get what you give. If you put no effort or pride into what you make, there's a good chance that the end result will be equally disappointing. Food should be fun. - Thomas Keller ![]() I personally don't like blogs for the most part but I guess it's time to give it a shot. Maybe I'll learn something about myself. Who knows? Favourite food blog though? www.thugkitchen.com/ It's been a favourite of mine for a while. Rough around the edges, fun, and the food is almost always awesome. Citation
Quote: "Thomas Keller." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2015. 13 September 2015. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomaskell218614.html Image: http://www.thugkitchen.com/butternut_squash_soup |
AuthorNot a whole lot to say. 22 year-old guy in the culinary management program at GBC. Archives
January 2016
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