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So, we took a visit to the Kingston Farmer's Market later than we should have on Saturday so Terry was out of a lot of stuff but still had some chickens we put on order a month or so back as he tries to only raise enough chickens as he has demand for.
So, we see these two birds and choose them:
One went into the freezer and the other kept fresh. I brined the bird today in cold water and about a cup of kosher salt for about 3 hours or so. 2-4 hours is pretty typical. Brining does not salt the bird but allows the salt water to change the structure of the cells inside the meat to be "hungry" for moisture so as the meat cooks it wants to take in moisture rather than get rid of it. Seriously, it makes for the most moist meat ever. Try it.
I put down a good layer or onion, carrots, celery, garlic, summer savoury, sage, thyme, and whole black peppercorns in the roasting pan. I then seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, and dried thyme. I put that in the oven at 400 degrees for 25 minutes and then turned down to 275 for, oh, 4 more hours. Wait now, 4.5 hours for a 5-7 pound bird!!! You got to be kidding me, right? No, low and slow will cook a brined bird the best. Seriously, try it. The high heat at the beginning gets the vegetables going plus starts to brown the skin and render the fat. After that, the meat needs low heat to cook properly. How many times have you had really elastic chicken that is tough to eat and doesn't want to come off the bone? If you have, it means that the high heat made the meat contract too quickly and toughened it. Low heat allows it to cook gently and will give you a much better tasting chicken.
Some local beans and potatoes finished off this dish along with some tasty beer and gravy.
And then, not to waste anything I took the roasting pan vegetables and some fresh ones and made a stock. This will be useful in ways I can not think of yet but having chicken stock available at all times is a must in my kitchen.
That picture was taken before adding the water.
It's midnight on the 29th. I'll be going to bed soon and waking up after that. At that time, I will be roasting a fresh chicken that was raised naturally in the Cole's Island area. I've had chickens from this farmer, Cedar Lane Farm, over the last few years. His chickens are amazingly flavourful and satisfying.
Meat, including chicken, has more beneficial things in them when they're raised naturally. Common sense would dictate that an animal that eats all kinds of good things will transfer those good things to the animal that eats them (for example, me) compared to an animal fed one type of food (grains like corn that are grown on infertile land only useful due to loads of industrial fertilizers).
Tell me, would you like to buy regular chicken with little flavour and eat a couple pounds of it at $1.29/lb or get a reasonably-sized (a few ounces) piece of chicken that fulfills you in flavour and also in nutrients for $2.99/lb? To help you answer, the latter, chickens on these farms are fed a diverse diet of mixed with what the animal gets naturally while pecking away on the ground for hours on end while being free and open. The former animal is locked up in a cage, fed an all-grain diet that is typically only one type of grain as mentioned above.
On top of the practices used to make each kind of meat it is important to mind a few other things. How far did the food come from? How did the animal live while alive? Oh geez, so many other things.
Time to go to bed.
Today's dinner was some lobster chowder inspired by Michael Smith's Chef at Home. I started in a pot with pancetta (still the same slice from last entry's dish) and I rendered that down with a tiny bit of butter and olive oil to start things off. I then added onion, garlic, and celery and sweated these vegetables for several minutes. I then added in two bay leaves, a couple sprigs of summer savoury and thyme from the patio. I added fresh cream and milk from Cedar Lane Farm Authentic Foods. The cow these products came from is grass-fed and naturally raised and the products are not pasteurized. Two small potatoes were diced up and thrown in as well. Some juice from the canned lobster and pepper were added. At the very end I added the lobster meat to just heat up and topped with some parsley from the patio and some fresh pepper. It was a simple dish and I've never known myself to be a chowder eater but inspired by Chef at Home I knew I could put something together that was tasty.
I went to the market today and picked up a fresh Nova Scotia trout, green and yellow beans, pancetta, and a few odds and ends. What resulted is the above meal.
I forgot we were making risotto and had the potatoes already in the oven; big deal if I put two starches in the same dish. Both were amazingly delicious. A few "rules" were broken and don't be fooled, this blog is not about forcing silly rules upon you. Sure, there are some cooking fundamentals that should act as a guide when eating but food should also be enjoyable and if it feels good, do it.
The risotto was started with pancetta, olive oil, and butter, and then in went the rice, red onion and chili. Canadian Gewürztraminer was then added and then the rice was cooked in some chicken stock I had previously frozen from another time. At the end, it was topped with some parsley from my patio and sliced green onion.
The potatoes were sliced in half, tossed in olive oil, a tiny bit of red wine vinegar, summer savoury from the patio, and salt and pepper. Those were roasted off for about 30 minutes.
The green and yellow beans were steamed and finished with butter and seasoned with salt and pepper.
The trout was sloppily filleted, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked in a cast iron pan that started off with pancetta, olive oil, butter, and a bit of the red onion and chili. Skin side down almost the whole time and flipped to give some flavour to the top of the fish. Oh yeah, there was a mango salsa that was made with mango, red onion, chili, cilantro from the patio, lime juice, and a bit of salt.
I had no idea what was for dinner tonight until that trip to the market. If you're ever feeling like dinner is pointless just take a trip to a market whether it be a permanent one like we have in Saint John, a farmer's market or your regular supermarket. There is surely something there that can inspire you to cook up something tasty for you and your friends and family.
Food on the Offense is a take on the title In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan. This book, put simply, defends food in its truest forms against the ongoing threats of food made by nutritionalism.
In this blog I want to write about the offensive position I am taking personally to show that real food is easier than you think to eat. It will never be as easy as putting a Pizza Pop in the microwave and who wants to poke that thing when it comes out anyway? From the commercials, they seem to make quite the mess. Real food, in comparison, can make a mess but with some fundamentals, planning, and help from family and friends you can, in the words of Jamie Oliver, "cook your way to the good life".
The postings you'll see here will contain pictures, "recipes", articles from the internet*, excerts from books, and anything I think will entertain and inspire you to put real food on the offense against all of those convenience foods out there claiming to make your life easier while proclaiming their healthy benefits.
*I've been collecting articles from a few larger news sites on the internet that claim to have the answer for the reader based upon the newest study on what is good or bad for you. Really, all these do is confuse the reader who may have read an article the day before claiming the exact opposite.
