Truffle Mutt

Homemade Pasta Weekend

This last weekend I competed in self-induced marathon of pasta making, which was more of an Italian food marathon, since I embarked on Mario Batali's ragù bolognese too.  I started with hand mixing dough, then moved on to making dough with the food processor, I tried dough made with "00" flour and then tried a batch with semolina flour.  There was pappardelle, ravioli, linguine and orecchietta and a simmering a batch of ragù on the stove behind me.  

And to what do I owe this sudden burst of Italian adventure?  I'm reading HEAT and am totally inspired by the stories of this regular Joe, Bill who chronicles his experience working in the Babbo kitchen.  Which has translated into me making a LOT of Italian food.  Thankfully I haven't yet had the urge to bring home an entire pig to butcher in the kitchen (you'll understand where I'm going with this if you've read the book).  Jason doesn't know how lucky he is.

I decided to try my hand at making orecchietta, which according to the book is the easiest of the pastas to make.  But unlike Bill, I could not phone up my contacts in Italy and arrange a few weeks of instruction in an Italian kitchen.  So I turned instead to the power of the Internet and more specifically YouTube.  In a matter of minutes I found several gracious Nonna's that were willing to invite me into their kitchens for a lesson - albeit a lesson entirely in Italian.  I did a lot of watching - video upon video, for the better part of the day before making the dough and attempting the process myself. 

I started with the semolina flour and used my food processor to make the dough.  Having just made two successful batches using "00" flour I was feeling pretty confident in my pasta-dough-making abilities.  I mixed it, kneaded it and let it rest.  But as soon I took it out to roll, I could see my Nonna's shaking their heads and resting their floured hands on hips.  My dough was too dry.  I made my orecchietta anyway, but the little ears just kept closing up.  Back to Nonna's for more watching and learning.  Maybe I should take some Italian lessons too.
 

A little taste of Paris in Calgary

Some of you might recognize what's in this picture.  And if you do, you're likely a little bit excited about it.  Well, me too and three!  But if you don't, well, not to worry, I will not leave this mystery unsolved.  These colorful gems of crispy, creamy, chew-y-ness are the-one-and-only French Macaron.  And if you've never had one you seriously need to.  Right now.

Lucky for you, or at least me and all the other people in Calgary, they are now available here from Macaron at the Calgary Farmers Market.  It's a friend of a friend of mine that's opened the shop and I'd say she's giving Peirre Herme a real run for his money.  Personally, I'm struggling with an extreme addiction to the Salty Caramel flavour.  Can you say Intervention?

Head over to the Farmers Market and check them out.  The various different flavors are listed on their website.  Once you've tried one I can promise you'll never see that drizzled lump of gooey coconut at Tim Horton's quite the same. 

Pass the Salad

Meat and cheese can't be the only things you eat.  Or at least they shouldn't be.

Thanks to Yvonne, this is now one of my favorite salads.  It's a simple and sublime combination of creamy avocado, pungent onion and sweet tomato.  And since there's not much too it I make sure to buy the best possible ingredients and splurge on heirloom tomatoes if I can find them.

With a simple oil, champagne vinegar (or lemon juice) salt and pepper vinaigrette this salad is perfection.  Slice the tomatoes and avocado top with thin shavings of onion and drizzle on the dressing. 

Smoking out the neighbors

Santa was listening to me this year AND I guess I was good, because he gave me my very own Bradley Smoker.  :)  I'm off to smoke out the neighbors!

And what did I do on New Years Eve?  Well, my brother brought over a freshly caught Northern Pike and we set to filleting it with the help of a few back-woods YouTube videos.  It went surprisingly well (what would we do without YouTube) and all the bones were successfully removed.  Then the pike went into the brine for an overnight spa treatment.

The next morning my brother and I moved onto the smoker assembly.  Really there wasn't much to it, take it out of the package, attach the smoker box to the tower and plug in the cords.  So we did that and were rewarded with an E1 error message and a seriously annoying beep.  Fabio!  So we looked through the forums and followed all the recommended fixes but to no avail.  Armed with the receipt we went back to the store and returned it for a brand spanking new one.

Take two.  We went through all the same steps and breathed a sigh of relief when we didn't get the E1 error message.  But our celebration came to an abrupt halt when we noticed that the door seal seemed flawed.  Frig!  We figured that maybe it would improve once the rubber had a chance to warm up, so we took it outside and began the seasoning process. 

There were a few more bumps that we had to go through but eventually we did put the seasoning behind us and we could move onto the pike.  It had been air drying under a fan for a couple of hours and it was ready.  So in it went.  My brother went home and I was happy as a clam that everything was working.  Then I when I checked on it the temp wasn't climbing?!  It was staying at about 80.  What?!  I bundled up and went outside to discover that the door was open about an inch.  And it wouldn't stay closed.  Friggin' frig.  Okay fine.  I could deal with this - duct tape.  It worked like magic and although it took until midnight, the fish turned out great. 

Next time I'll change the brine 'cause it came out too salty for me, but the smoke was perfect and the texture was moist and not chewy.

Given my success from last night, this morning I moved onto spare ribs and a chicken that I rubbed and refrigerated overnight.  I smoked the ribs at 200-225 for 3 hours with 1 hour of heat and then I removed them, wrapped them in foil with a slathering of bbq sauce and put them in the oven at 250 for another 4 hours.   The chicken also hit the smoke and then finished in the oven.  The picture from above is the pulled chicken and a bit of bbq sauce. 

 

I didn't stop there though.  Right after the ribs and chicken I took advantage of the cold weather and cold smoked some white and medium cheddar cheese.  Whew what a day.  Anyone want dinner?