Smoke Break #767: How To Make Porchetta While Drooling

Still reeling happily from my delicious porchetta experiences at Gastown’s Meat & Bread (my review in the paper is online here), I started looking for a video to inspire and direct me to making one of my own. Pretty sure I’ve struck gold with San Francisco’s “Gianni”. Enjoy.

An Animated Short On The Simple Joys Of Eating Local Food In BC

Via The Juki Museum on Vimeo: “This is a short film I made for the 100 Mile Diet Society in Vancouver, BC. The film follows every ingredient of a delicious and simple meal to its source. In the making of this film, I visited a dairy farm, a mill/bakery, and a busy marina, all on Vancouver Island, and all within my 100-mile radius. I also spent time in the kitchen with Tina Biello, a busy working gal who makes time for her food, from growing her own veggies to learning about the production of local food for her favourite family recipes.” Thanks for this, Jody Kramer. It’s awesome.

Scout Surf Spot #257: Blogging Meets Hunting And Gathering…

(hat tip: Owen Lightly) Former line cook Hank Shaw kills doves for comfort food, grinds meat from a black-tailed buck he shot after an arduous hunt in order to make sausages that glisten, makes and bottles wine, and does so much more on his super extra double kickass blog, Honest-Food.net. If you like great food and loathe supermarkets, welcome home.

Queen Margherita Takes A Trip Down South And Discovers Pizza

by Owen Lightly – As long as people have been pounding and grinding wheat into flour, there has been bread – and as long as there has been bread, people have been rolling it out and putting things on top of it. Read more

Lightly On The Elusiveness Of Aglio E Olio

Imagine this after a hard night of hitting the piss

I’ve always loved eating pasta, but only recently have I started to treat it with the reverence it deserves. Like a lot of people, I used to overcook it, and then pile on a shitload of whatever sauce might be accompanying it, leaving a soupy mess at the bottom of my dish long after all the pasta is gone. Now I buy a decent brand (most places stock de cecco or barilla), cook it about two minutes shy of the package instructions in heavily salted water and then finish the cooking while tossing it with the sauce, using some of the pasta water to bring everything together. The starch from the water, helps the sauce cling to the pasta, leaving none of that soupy mess I referred to before.

For whatever reason, whenever I see Andrew he always manages to bring up the dish spaghetti aglio e olio. Our conversation could be going in any direction, but somehow he always brings it back to this simple Roman pasta. “Yeah the food at such and such a place is good and all, but what I could really go for is a good aglio e olio”, he might say, as he stares off into space, mentally recalling all those perfect pastas of time gone by. He often laments the fact that he can’t find a good version of this minimalist dish in Vancouver, something I think he discussed in his review of Italian Kitchen [ed notes: actually, it was Mon Bella...CinCin's wasn't right either. If I recall correctly, Italian Kitchen's was pretty bang on. Alvin at Campagnolo can make a good one, too, but it isn't on the menu].

Don't burn the garlic...

Start your Spaghetti in plenty of heavily salted boiling water. While it cooks, chop some garlic (about a clove per person I’d say). Heat a pan with a generous amount of olive oil, and when you figure the pasta is about two minutes from being done, fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Add a few pinches of chili flakes to the oil near the end. Drain the pasta and toss with the oil in the pan. At the last second, throw in a little chopped parsley and serve.

"Is that what you're talking about Andrew?" Yes, Owen...it's the requisite "puddle" - lovely stuff

A dish this simple, is filled with many pitfalls, so be careful. Like I said earlier, use a decent brand of Italian pasta – none of this Catelli shit. Good, freshly chopped garlic is crucial, as the second it is peeled, it is going downhill fast. The oil is the sauce in this dish, so don’t use the safeway dregs – a nice flavored, modestly priced extra virgin olive oil will do just fine. The most important step though, is the cooking of the garlic: too much and the dish will be bitter and acrid, too little and it will be pungent and overpowering. Just do it perfectly, as Hawksworth used to say to me.

Enjoy!

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Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.

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The Risotto Kama Sutra

Risotto and good sex have a lot in common. For instance, both provide indescribable pleasure and take about twenty minutes to make.

Before beginning these things, there are a few simple preparations you must see to. With risotto, you make a nice broth, dice some onion, and decide on the ingredient that you want to be the star (the simpler the better). With sex, you must light a scented candle and put on an R. Kelly CD if you want to have any hope of success.

You must be very gentle at first. Sweat the onions in a little olive oil and butter, being careful not to color them. Then add the rice (don’t skimp on the rice!), and listen for a light crackling sound as it toasts in the fat, stirring all the while – keep listening, it will tell you when to add the wine. Once added, let it evaporate completely, until it is begging for the stock that you so lovingly prepared earlier. You can’t add it all at once though; it must be added in increments to extract the most starch from the grains, which in the end will give you a nice, creamy risotto. Oh, and the stirring! You must stir constantly, or at least often, and don’t be afraid to vary the speed at which you do so – it makes things more interesting. Seasoning is important as well. I find if you season the risotto as you go, slowly adding it in layers, the result will always be better than if you just dump all the salt in at the end. Now it’s looking good, the rice is plumping up and it’s getting creamier with every ladle of stock that you add.

adding stock

This is the time to concentrate, because it will all happen very quickly from here until the end. When the rice is nearly there, it is time to add the main ingredient, be it mushrooms, squash or whatever the hell you want – it’s like a blank canvas. You’ve been working really hard, so don’t screw it up now. At the moment the rice is done, adjust the consistency so that it’s not too thick, and not too thin (au point, as the French would say). Take it off the heat and add some diced butter, some grated parmesan (unless it has seafood in it, then skip the cheese), some herbs, maybe a touch of lemon juice and you’re done. With all that being said, there are endless ways to make risotto, and everyone has their own little tricks. Like sex, the only way to get good at it is practice, practice, practice. As long as it feels and tastes good, that’s all that matters.

Lately I’ve been using a brand of rice for my risottos at home that I was introduced to when I started at West Restaurant. The brand is called Acquerello, and it is short-grained Carnaroli rice from the province of Vercelli, in Piedmont, Italy. The farm has been owned and operated by the Rondolino family for three generations, and in 1998 became a completely organic operation – on top of that, they allow fish, frogs and birds to live amongst the rice paddies, creating a natural ecosystem that goes “beyond organic”. They are blessed with rich, alluvial soil and an abundant flow of cool, clean water from the Alps. Once the rice is harvested, it is aged in refrigerated silos for anywhere from 1 to 3 years. Aging makes the cereals, vitamins, nutrients and proteins less soluble in water, which allows the rice to absorb more liquid. After aging, the rice is refined using a tool over a hundred years old called “the screw”. In it, the rice spirals slowly downwards, rubbing grain against grain rather than bleaching, which leaches nutrients from the rice. All of this adds up to a rice which holds its shape, has a distinct flavour, and keeps me coming back for more.

Acquerello can be bought at Meinhardt Fine Foods or through Mikuni Wild Harvest.

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Owen Lightly is a boy from a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. After attending cooking school, he moved to Vancouver in 2002 to start a career in the restaurant “biz”. His website, Butter On the Endive, was created for sharing and caring.