The Red Wine Beef Debate: Resolution...YES!!!

After reading much on the debate of the new Semznu Meats "red wine beef" topic, I felt it was time to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

On the food inc. website there was a heated debate going on about the ethics of the red wine beef product being offered up here in our backyard, Oliver B.C. Although I could not help but get caught up in the online debate, that is not what today was about. I wanted to do a side by side comparison of the Sezmu Beef to the AAA Alberta Beef that I currently have on the menu. Now I picked the Flat Iron Steak for no other reason than that is what I alredy use on a daily basis. For those not in the know, the flat iron is a cut from under the shoulder blade of the cow, it is a muscle that gets a fair bit of exercise and therefore develops a good amount of flavor. The flat iron still maintains an acceptable tenderness to be a good grilling steak.

As you can see there is already a distinct difference. The Sezmu Beef flat iron is on the left and the AAA Alberta Beef flat iron on the right. The flesh of the Sezmu beef is much darker and deeper in the Sezmu and there is a remarkable difference in the fat marbling. To be fair I will let you know that the Alberta beef was from cryovac and the Sezmu came in wrapped as if by a supermarket meat department. The cryovac may have affected the AAA beef somewhat, but by looking at this photo I think we can all agree there is a big difference between the two meats regardless.

I did try to keep the variables the same in cooking the meats to see how the two products would react to the exact same circumstances. Both steaks are cut to 170g portion size, and were cooked side by side in the same pan for the same length of time.

Once again, there were some signifigant differences with the two products. At first glance you can see that the yield and juice retention of the Sezmu Beef is much greater than the AAA. As the two meats rested, the AAA Beef bled almost a tablespoon of juice and the Sezmu a fraction of that. As before the Sezmu Meat is on the left.

Okay, so I had already made up my mind by this point...I was really hoping that the local red wine beef would be a superior product to my AAA standby, but I was really not prepared for this much of a difference. When it comes to beef the Alberta AAA is no slouch. A picture is worth a thousand words.

This photo gives a much better visual of the yield and juice retention of the superior Sezmu product. In a blind tasting six of six employees in the kitchen preferred the Sezmu meat.

As for the flavor, the Sezmu meat had a richness that encompassed the palate so much that the AAA beef could not compare. the Sezmu had a buttered corn on the cob flavor to the meat...noo...if you had slathered some rendered beef fat onto some fresh corn with a mouthful of beef. Hmmm...maybe still not quite right. Anyway it was very enjoyable and made the AAA pale in comparison to my tastebuds.

Now there is obviously no wine flavoring to the meat, and it is a tough call to decide whether it is the wine or the extra attention these cattle receive that makes the difference. I do recommend that you try this test for yourself if you are still not convinced. Heck try a different cut and let me know how it works out. I know that I will be changing my beef supplier tomorrow to the local artisanal option.

Oh, I almost forgot...the price is almost the same!

Happy Eating...

R.

Miles' Tones for Milestones!

We're over 1000 visits!

Yay!

AND

The Okanagan Daily Special Stock Exchange [ODSSE] is up to 5 messages.

Yay!

(Anyone want beets for $0.89 a pound?)

And we have 10 followers!

Yay!

Here's to many more!

YAAAAY!!!

Lunch feature 07.08.10 pt.1

Crispy pork belly
Grilled poor man's brioche
Sauteed cabbage & onion
Stone fruit chutney
Prawn bisque, mayo & oil

The summer of pork continues with another champion of swine.Who loves an open face crispy pork belly sandwich? I do, you do, we all do.

The pork bellies were braised, then pressed and cooled. Then the were cut to size an pan roasted until crisp. The belly sat on top of some stone fruit chutney(thanks to Shannon's handy work), which sat on top of some cabbage and onions, which sat on top of some grilled poor man's brioche.

This is where the prawn comes in. A bisque is on the plate, which will get all soaked up by the bread. There is an oil made from the prawn shells that is garnishing the bisque. With that same oil I made a mayo that is garnishing the top of the pork belly.

This was one hell of a sandwich, I know that I'll be making this one again sometime.

Sean Peltier.

Lunch feature 07.08.10 pt.2

Beef heart & local peach tartare
Poor mans brioche
beef heart mayo

So, I heart beef heart. That's all that there is to it. As a result of this infatuation, I made a beef heart tartare. After all, if you wanna eat some heart, it had better be raw.

For the tartare I diced the heart(right before serving to prevent bacterial growth), mixed in some fresh peaches, house made peach mustard, house made peach vinegar, shallots, chives & capers with a little bit of olive oil. Season, serve.

The mayo was made by trimming off the fat that surrounds the heart then rendering it until it is liquid. Once cooled, I made the mayo as one would. I also added a little bit of truffle oil. I love the irony of serving the fat that surrounds one animals heart directly into the heart of the animal that's eating it. Fortunately, people shouldn't eat heart everyday. Therefore, what's the harm in eating beef heart fat mayo once in your life. I'm sure that if you were to eat it more than once in your life, the second time would be your last...permanently. So fatty it made my tongue do a strange dance in my mouth and I could feel the arteries in my neck constricting. Bad karma for me serving that to people.

The brioche I made quickly yesterday. Sans recipe. What makes it a poor mans brioche is that it has a lot less egg yolk and butter that a traditional brioche. It also has no milk in it and I made a poolish sponge to start it off.

The feature sold well enough considering that it was raw beef heart. What the hell, why not.

Sean Peltier

Lunch Feature 05.08.10

Pacific Ling Cod Calzone,
Local Caponata & Cabbage,
Carmelis Chevre,
Local Vegetable Gazpacho

Back too my roots with this one. Back to the roots of old Italian food as well.

My first "real" cooking job was at Boston Pizza. That job was most likely why I'm still cooking today. I had no Idea what to do with my life at the age of 20. I had given up on University pretty much straight away, I knew then that it wasn't going to get me a job in anything that I loved, mostly because I hadn't found it yet.

Throughout my time at Boston Pizza I learned a lot about managing chits, working very quickly and efficiently and unfortunately very little about cooking and food. The biggest thing I gained, was the love for the kitchen and a love for cooks.

I also made a ton of pizzas, literally, in the 10's of thousands. One of the things I did a lot of as well was calzones, or as they called them, "strombollies". Basically a pizza folded over itself and baked.

Everyone loves a good calzone. I find the key is to make a dough with a very crispy crust and a thin, soft inside. For my dough I use the following:
3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine
1 tsp of instant rise yeast
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp XVOO

Mix together in a bowl the flour, yeast, honey, wine and water. mix until a dough begins to come together.
Then add your salt and olive oil.
Knead the dough for about 8-10 minutes until a very smooth dough is acquired.
Let the dough double in size
Once the dough has doubled it is ready to use or it can be punched down and refrigerated over night. I find letting the dough sit overnight makes for a dough that gets very crispy with those lovely blisters on it.

For the filling of this particular Calzone I used sauteed local cabbage. A caponata with a tone of local eggplant, summer squash, tomatoes, onions, basil and a few other things that we don't have here such as, capers and olives. With the ling cod I seared the pieces on one side only so that it would cook properly with the crust and also for the flavor that searing gives the cod. Once it was baked at 400 degrees for about 10-12 min I took it out of the oven and brushed it with XVOO right before plating.

The Gazpacho is as easy as it gets. Pureed tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, garlic, spinach, vinegar, olive oil and seasonings with a touch of vegetable stock to adjust the consistency. Serve chilled on a hot ass day.

Hope you like it, I know that I did.

Sean

Shell Shock in the Kitchen !!!!!

Iron Maiden...yes please.

This isn't so much a food song as it is a song that says "kitchen", I don't hear that very often, other than "someones in the kitchen with Dina" and that song sucks!

Sweetbreads

To continue on with the theme of organ meats, sweetbreads found their way onto the plate today. Not nearly as often as I'd have liked, but they did make it onto the plate a couple of times.

I'm not sure what it is about sweetbreads that makes people squeamish, but something does. Perhaps someone out there can let me know what it is. All I know is that we almost sold out of liver but we could barely sell a sweetbread. For any of you lucky enough to have eaten sweetbreads I know that you would order them again. I have never met a single person who has tried a sweetbread and then said they didn't like it. Everything about them is fantastic.

So, what is a sweetbread. Well, it is one of two things. It can be a thyroid glad which is found in the throat, or it can be a thymus gland, which is found beside the heart. The heart glands are said to be a better product and therefore cost a bit more. I really don't see to much of a difference between the two. The glads are used to help fight alongside their brothers in the war for immunities. Veal and lamb are the most common form which you will find, for as the animals age, the gland begin to disappear. The pinker or redder the gland, the older the animal.

First things first. I soaked the sweetbreads in a brine overnight. The following day i poached them in milk and herbs for about 6 minutes to firm them up, then plunged them into an ice bath to stop any further cooking. Once cooled I peeled of the outer membrane, then pressed them between two pans with weights on top to press out any excess moisture. They are now ready to cook. Many people will bread them and then deep fry them. A great way to have them. The most common way is to dust them with flour and then pan fry them. I, along with many others, see no reason to dust them in flour. They pan fry beautifully on their own, why add the flour, I find that a lot of the time they become pasty if flour is used.

I served this along with a sautee of parmesan gnocchi, local apricots and basil. A roasted local eggplant and smoked paprika puree. Finally, some balsamic jus to bring it all together.

This was most likely one of the tastiest lunch specials I've made all season and we only sold 4 on a day when I cooked lunch for 197 people. There are a lot of people who missed out on this one. Sweetbreads will make an appearance again in the near future, I'll promise you that. However, I think that I'll have to use them as a small component and then work my way up from there. The Okanagan has a lot to learn about food before it can become the mecca that it deserves to be.

Sean Peltier

Liver & Onions

Liver and Onions. Nothing over the top about that at all. It just has to be done properly. That is what I aimed to do.

Feeding off the success of the stuffed pork foot, I decided that I'm gonna go a lot heavier on the offal cuts for lunch features. The tourists are in town and hopefully some of them are foodies.

I chose a whole calf's liver to do this feature. It is paramount for the success of the liver that you get a thick cut piece from your butcher as opposed to the paper thin strips. If the liver is over cooked the beautiful silky texture is lost. There is now way to get a properly cooked liver if the cut is too thin. Once you have the liver, soak it in milk overnight or for 24hrs if possible. I like to put some aromatics in the milk as well, i.e. bay leaf, thyme peppercorns etc. Soaking the liver helps to draw out any excess blood and impurities that may be present, I also find that the flavor mellows out quite a bit, losing a lot of the iron taste. When you're ready to cook the liver, remove it from the milk and pat it dry. Season with salt and pepper. In a medium too high heat pan, add your oil followed by the liver. Sear it on all sides evenly. It should be slightly mushy to the touch when ready. If it has a lot of spring to it, it is underdone. Sort of the opposite of steak. Let it rest for 5 min in order to allow the tissues to relax.

For the onion component I caramelized the onions and then made a polenta around that. I pressed the polenta after it was cooked and then cut it into desired sizes. When ready to eat, simply pan sear. There was approx. 50% onion to polenta in the mix.

The vegetable component was simple and a favorite of mine. I sauteed onion and then added quartered pieces of local tomatoes, allowing them to stew until thick. Once the tomatoes have reached the desired consistency, I added some roasted garlic and cut rounds of baby summer squash. At this point I only cook it for a few more minutes, just enough to heat the summer squash through. I don't want the squash to become soft, the textural quality is very important. Then add your seasoning and spread the ragout out in a wide, shallow dish, in order to allow it to cool as fast as possible. When ready to eat, simply reheat gently.

The sauce was a poultry jus with balsamic vinegar reduced in it. I chose poultry jus as opposed to beef because the sauce can easily overpower the great subtleties that make liver such a treat. Ask any Italian what they drizzle on top of their calf's liver, they will all tell you, balsamic vinegar. It is the perfect match. I also like it in sauces as it adds that ever needed acidity to an already rich sauce.

For a little bit of freshness I did a salad of micro greens with celery leafs tossed in lemon vinaigrette. Celery leafs have to be one of my all time favorite greens, a great flavor to go along with the onion polenta.

It didn't sell as well as I had hoped, 10/25, not bad, I'll run it again tomorrow. Those who had it absolutely loved it. That's the way it goes with liver though, you either love it or you don't.

Sean Peltier.

Lunch Feature 29.07.10

So, it's ling cod again. I'm starting to think that maybe I will be solely responsible for the end of the ling cods existence thanks to lunch features this year. However, it was fresh and I had to use it.

Once again a long weekend is upon us, and as a result there is a hell of a lot of mise en place to get ready for the impending doom. This feature is a product of time restraints. Tasty, of course, but simple and fast is the name of this game.

The quinoa is pretty straight forward. Cooked the grain in vegetable stock(1 part grain/1.5 part liquid.) I added a small dice of local cucumbers, some lemon juice, coriander and creme fraiche.

The peach soup was the stand out part of this dish. Puree of fresh peaches with a touch of vinegar, some yogurt, seasoning and xvoo blended in to emulsify everything. So fresh, so peachy, so delicious.

Sean Peltier

Garden Update / Beets me

It's garden time in the Okanagan. Sure, the season got off to a slow start, but be patient. It'll come. Hopefully.

The first run of Poblanos are in. Good times! These grew right in the back yard. Started them from seed. Simple! And don't you make no never mind about the lil' scab on the second to the left on the bottom. We all have scars--true or false?



You gotta love this whole web 2.0 paradigm...type "Poblano pepper recipes" into your google machine and what comes up first? A blog called "Poblano Pepper Recipes", that's what.

Speaking of that strange phenomena of humans willingly and freely sharing data with one another for free, I came across this handsome Canadian blog wherein the poblano makes an intriguing partner. Hands up, who in the last year has made a creamy cauliflower poblano soup?

Maybe I'm not seeing too many hands, as I'm given to understand that pairing wine and peppers isn't always the easiest thing to do, or the most flattering for either.

Peppers and beer? And where is our Rancho Chico anyhow?

In other news, someone did a little food costing and came to the staggering realisation that they were paying $1.16 per beet, for the beets on the right.



Which is probably a deal when you consider all the travelling they got to do and all the packaging they got to sleep in.

The ones on the left are merely from my back yard a few kilometres away. Those poor beets never had the joy of seeing a packaging plant, or a "reefer truck" since they came to work with me in a re-used paper bag. Those beets on the left are hardly worth $1.16 each. Plain ol' boring local unpackaged Okanagan back yard garden beets...not even from a farm with a name.

Questions to the economy: How much do the beets on the left actually, really cost? And just how is that figured out anyway? Is there a difference between the "cost" of something and the "value" of something, and if so, what accounts for (and who determines) that difference?

Question to cooks: Which one would you rather use?

Question to eaters: Which one would you rather eat?

Question to you, dear reader: if I had a surplus of these beets (on the left) and I wanted to put them up for sale, barter or trade on the open market, what would be my best option?

1. Try and get a contract with one of the large food distributors that serve the valley
2. Ask at the local supermarkets if they would be willing to allocate some retail space for local tax paying citizen grown local product
3. Put a notice on the Okanagan Daily Special Stock Exchange [ODSSE] saying "hey, I got a small surplus of beets and I bet I can come in at under $1.16 or I'll trade for php tutoring" (or something similar.)

ANSWER EQUALS "C"!!!

Join the Okanagan Daily Special Stock Exchange [ODSSE]! What is it? Why it's just a simple listserv--a mailing list, connecting producers and consumers via the internet. Is that clever or what? Farmers and cooks, growers and eaters alike are encouraged to join. Got some beets you want to move? Looking to beat $1.16 a beet? JOIN! It's easy and fun!