Getting ready for a weekend of cooking!

Our charcuterie just before the mouse invasion!

I just did a quick run down to Gasparro’s, our favorite butcher on Bloor Street here in Toronto. We always like to have a chicken on hand and our spare got used last week in an experiment with brining and smoking – which was a spectacular success (more about that in the future: we’re still in the research stage).

Nick Gasparro sold me a beautiful pork roast (why are all butchers suddenly “Frenching” the rib ends on their roasts?), six ribs-worth. Karel and I are going to cold smoke it on Sunday in another experiment, then hot smoke it to finish. We’ll use two different woods: maple and hickory.

Normally, Karel and I do our weekly food shopping on Saturday mornings, mostly at Toronto's fabulous St. Lawrence Market on Front Street. Today, though, I needed to get the brining of the pork roast started since it needs twelve hours in the liquid and then to rest in the fridge for several hours so the salt can spread evenly through the meat. Our goal is to have the roast lightly salted and with brining it’s pretty easy to overdo it. Since we’re using salt in this case more as a seasoning than to preserve the meat, it’s better to leave it in the brine for too little time than the opposite.

The brine recipe is from my current favorite cookbook (we have over 100), Charcuterie (link is live in case you wish to order it). It’s Brian Polcyn’s creation and he doesn’t smoke it after brining, he grills it, which does add some smoke flavor. But we’ve got a really good reason for branching off on our own: we’re going to serve smoked pork chops to enjoy with homemade sauerkraut we made in October under the expert guidance of the Gluch family – of great sauerkraut renown. Vicki has come up with what looks like a great recipe for baking raw sauerkraut (herbs, spices and riesling wine), and if it works out, we’ll be sharing that with all of you, too. As a teaser, the brine we’re using is flavored with dark brown sugar, juniper berries, fresh sage, garlic and black pepper. Right now it’s cooling on the back step and the roast will soon go in for twelve hours or so. It smells heavenly.

A CURING UPDATE: Currently, we have four hog jowls (guanciale) and two pounds of pork loin (lonzino) air-drying in our basement. It all smells heavenly. Only problem is, it also smelled heavenly to some deer mice that must have come into our house when the cold weather hit. Not having checked the two jowls finished at that time and hanging from our water pipe, I was shocked to see how much had been nibbled away. We’ve decided to let the damaged ones continue hanging after dispatching two of the little rodents (both female, thank heavens). Seeing no more of their little carcases in our traps for the past two days, I think we’re safe. We’ll just cut away the nibbled parts, and keep the remaining guanciale to be enjoyed “chez nous”, using the two we’ve cured and hung since to share with other people.

Fortunately, the little critters didn’t seem to care for lonzino (probably the fennel I used in the cure) or I would have been really put out. To combat further mice invasions on our larder, I’ve left the traps out, and moved everything to a place where they shouldn’t be able to get at it again. But the whole thing remains a huge bummer. For the future, I may need to make some sort of wire box since with our house’s foundation resembling Swiss cheese, we tend to get a few of the little buggers in every autumn.

To conclude, stay tuned for our report on the results of this weekend’s culinary adventures. We haven’t written much about German food on the blog so far, and what could be more Teutonic than Kassler Rippchen, boiled potatoes and sauerkraut?

Our latest batch of Guanciale

If you’ve been following this blog from the beginning – or have looked back that far into the archives – you’ll know that one of the first posts was about my new-found interest in home charcuterie, or “making sausage and stuff like that” – if you don’t like high-fallootin’ cooking words.

One of the simplest of home curing recipes is guanciale, an Italian bacon-like creation that is found primarily in the central part of the country near Rome, although its fame seems to be spreading. We were able to find some in such small places as Gaiole-in-Chianti when we were in Italy last June. It was almost impossible to find in North America until relatively recently, too. Now, we can even pick some up two blocks from our house at Zito’s, an Italian grocery that opened last summer. If you want to try your hand at making guanciale, the recipe is HERE. The only difficult part of making this delicacy is finding the proper place to hang it. We’re lucky. Our basement is pretty nigh perfect. In the colder months, humidity is around 75% and the temperature is 55°F.

Anyway, we just brought our second batch of guanciale up from the basement yesterday. This one was different than the first in that I added more juniper berries and thyme. I also added about an ounce of Orvieto (white wine) to each package for the duration of the curing stage.

So what are the results? This batch has a more pronounced juniper flavor but I don’t notice the thyme much more. There is slightly more sweetness which is possibly due to the wine. The bit I sampled was raw, but this weekend we’re going to make our favorite recipe that uses guanciale, spaghetti all’amatriciana (recipe below), so we’ll be sampling some of the new batch after it’s been cooked, which may yield different flavor results.

I think we’re pretty much over our curing season as the basement temperature is on the rise. The humidity is also dropping which means that drying is speeding up – which is not a good thing since I believe this second batch has hung a bit too long. I’ll have to be watching this more closely in the future. I’ve also made some lonzino (cured pork loin) which dried out a bit too much – but it is very delicious. I’ll do a post on that at a later date.

On to Amatrice which is the originating town of today’s recipe. It’s in northern Lazio and its founding goes all the way back to Roman times, if not further. Since amatriciana sauce uses tomatoes, the recipe can’t be all that old since tomatoes were unknown in Europe before the settling of North America. As for guanciale, I haven’t been able to discover anything about its origins, but I suspect it goes back quite a long time, primarily because it’s so easy to make.

In any event, some bright person way back when decided to combine the flavor of fresh Italian tomatoes to their local meat delicacy and a match made in heaven was the result. Put simply, amatriciana is a fantastic dish. As a matter of fact, it’s become my redheaded wife’s favorite. When we arrived in Rome last June, very travel-stained after a horrible flight and a search for Vicki’s missing luggage, practically the first thing we did was leave the apartment we’d rented in the section of town near the Villa Borghese in search of a restaurant and some amatriciana. My photo to the right was taken at that restaurant and on the plates in front of me are two kinds of amatriciana: red and white – or as it’s also known, pasta all grigia, a recipe I’ll share on some future occasion, completing our guanciale trifecta (spaghetti alla carbonara being the third).

Spaghetti all’amatriciana is simplicity itself to make, but it is not with out controversy in its ingredients. (What else is new?) Romans add a bit of sliced, then sautéed onion to the sauce. If you’re from Amatrice, you apparently look on this addition with deep scorn, bordering on contempt. We’ve made it both ways, and I have to admit we enjoy the bit of sweetness that the onions add. Don’t use too much, though! Onion can easily overwhelm this recipe.

Spaghetti all’amatriciana
Serves 4

This is our idea of a great dish. Not only is it absolutely delicious, but you can put it together in about the time it takes to bring a pot of water to the boil to cook your pasta. Guanciale is a must. Look online if Italian food stores in your area can’t help you. It might be a bit hard to find, but accept no substitutes! With a glass of good Italian red wine, you’ll feel like you’re in a trattoria in Roma. Also, if you can find canned San Marzano tomatoes, all the better. They are the best sauce tomatoes in the world and worth the effort to source.

Unlike Carbonara, this dish isn’t at all finicky to make. It’s a perfect dish to make for company because it can be cooked ahead, stopping at step 4. Just bring the sauce back to a boil as the pasta cooks. Bucatini pasta is generally used by Romans for this dish, so use it if you really want to be authentic. Buon appetito!

INGREDIENTS
1 lb dry spaghetti
1-2 Tbs Olive oil
6 oz diced guanciale (trim off any rind first) – okay, if you must substitute, use pancetta.
¾ cup thinly-sliced onion quarters
½ cup dry white wine
1 liter diced tomatoes (or one 28-ounce can)
½ tsp hot red pepper flakes
1+ cup freshly grated pecorino Romano (do yourself a favor and buy the imported stuff)
pepper to taste

METHOD
1. Heat olive oil, then fry guanciale over low heat until it’s crisp and browned. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Leave all the fat. You’ll need it.

2. Cook the sliced onions in the guanciale fat and olive oil until it’s translucent.

3. Add the tomatoes, white wine and pepper flakes, then boil the sauce fairly hard to evaporate most of the liquid. Meanwhile cook the pasta to taste.

4. When everything is ready, put the cooked guanciale back into the sauce 
and stir it a bit.

5. In the sauté pan over low heat, toss the pasta with the sauce to get it well-coated, then add the pecorino Romano and a good grinding of pepper. Toss thoroughly to melt the cheese into the sauce. You probably won’t need salt since pecorino is a fairly salty cheese.

There is something about food...

Having been involved in several blogs, I know that this going to start off as a bit of a lecture by me – but that is not how I’m hoping it will finish up. I keenly solicit readers’ views on everything I blog about. I certainly don’t mind being challenged, either! Hit me with your best shot. It’s my goal to see this blog become a very lively forum where all aspects of food are discussed. I also look forward to trying your recipes.

Okay, enough of the introductory BS. Let’s talk food.

Lately, here in the Blechta Test Kitchens in beautiful downtown Toronto, we’ve been taken up with the idea of home-curing of meat. It all started a few years ago, when we were trying to find an Italian salt-cured and air dried specialty, guanciale, which is made from pork jowls. It is a very lovely thing with an intense, buttery pork flavour and aroma. Guanciale is an essential ingredient in spaghetti alla carbonara, all’amatriciana and alla grigia.

For years we’d made carbonara with North American bacon, then switched to pancetta. Problem was, while these were both pretty tasty, it wasn’t real carbonara, as we eventually found out. Even most Italian restaurants don’t serve real carbonara. The reason? They can’t find guanciale. Some of them don’t even know about it!

On a Christmas visit to our family who live in Westchester County just north of the Bronx, we all went out to Lusardi’s, a very fine restaurant in Larchmont, New York. My son Karel, who loves carbonara, asked for it, an off-menu item. No problem. What came out of the kitchen blew the taste buds out of our mouths. It was unlike any carbonara we’d ever experienced, sort of smoky and rich-tasting with an intense porkiness. Stupidly, we forgot to ask what was in the dish (besides eggs and cheese, of course).

Back in Toronto, I set about trying to find out. Eventually, I was led to guanciale (pronounced gwan-chi-al-eh), but it’s hard to find – even in some places in Italy. Fortunately, though, Toronto and area has a rather large community of Italian expats, although most are from the southern part of the country where this bacon-like creation is almost unknown. We in Toronto are lucky, though. I eventually found two companies that make guanciale: Dolce Lucano and Niagara Food Specialties, both very excellent. There are several stores that carry their products. Back home with our booty, we quickly made some carbonara and viola (as we musicians say), we had that taste. From here on, we will not make carbonara without guanciale as one of the ingredients. It just isn’t worth it.

Next time: the Blechta’s decide to make our own guanciale and embark on an expanding exploration of home curing.

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The photo above shows two pieces of guanciale that hung in our basement for two months, drying out and intensifying in flavour. The white is the fat side (since it is a fatty cut of meat). The one two its left is the meat side which we dusted with black pepper. It tastes amazing.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara
Serves 3-4

This dish supposedly appeared in the area around Rome at the end of World War II in response to the fact that bacon and eggs were relatively plentiful (some were traded by the Allied troops), while other foods were not. The Romans came up with a delicious way to enjoy this limited bounty. The word carbonara refers to the specs of black pepper looking like charcoal (carbonara is Italian for charcoal). Guanciale (bacon made from pork cheeks cured in salt with herbs, rinsed afterward with white wine) is what makes this dish special. You should be able to find it wherever real Italians reside.

Carbonara is a special favorite of my son Karel and he makes it quite well. It’s very much a feel type of dish. Using the pasta water to keep the sauce from getting too thick is the key. We always add more pepper and maybe a bit more cheese at the table.

You’ll notice that, unlike other carbonara recipes, this uses whole eggs, no cream, no garlic, and no peas (shudder!). This is the way the dish is made in the Lazio region of Italy where it originated. We occasionally throw in a half cup of dry white wine (Pinot Grigio or Orvieto) to the pan when the guanciale is cooked and heat it through before adding the pasta. In that case, you’ll use a little less pasta water to make the sauce.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb spaghetti
3 eggs, well beaten
¾ cup Parmesan, grated, or half and half Parmesan and pecorino Romano
1½ tsp ground black pepper
4 oz guanciale (if you can find it) or pancetta (more likely), chopped
into ¼" dice. In a pinch, you can use bacon, but we frown on it highly.
2 Tbs olive oil
pasta water

METHOD
1. Put water on to boil for spaghetti.

2. Add cheese and black pepper to the beaten eggs and stir until well-blended.

3. Meanwhile, fry guanciale in olive oil over low heat. You want to render out the fat and make it nice and crispy. If you’re not ready to make the pasta, remove it from the heat at this time. The recipe can be made ahead until this point.

4. When the water boils, salt it, and add the spaghetti, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking. Never overcook pasta!

5. As the spaghetti is approaching being done, mix in about a third of a cup of the pasta water to the guanciale, having gotten it nice and hot again.

6. Drain the spaghetti (saving about a cup more of the pasta water in case you need it) without shaking it, return it to the pot (over very low heat), add the guanciale mixture to the spaghetti, tossing it to get it well coated. Now add the cheese/egg mixture, a splash more water and toss everything rapidly. If the sauce seems to be getting too thick (beginning to look more like scrambled eggs), quickly add a bit more of the pasta water (say another third of a cup) to thin it. Add even more water if needed. If it seems too thin, add a bit more cheese.

7. Serve the carbonara on heated plates with more pepper and eat immediately! Our favourite wine to enjoy with this dish is Orvieto. Include a salad of your favourite greens tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you’ve got a fantastic meal.

Buon appetito!