Rillettes

In our exploration of cooking and experimenting with food, the one conclusion we repeatedly come to is - dishes that have the simplest preparations are often the best. We've been fortunate to have dined at a number of fine restaurants and the most memorable foods tend to be the one you would least expect. Rob Feenie's pea soup at Lumiere, Thomas Keller's salmon rillettes at Bouchon and Fergus Henderson's gulls eggs at St. John are just a few that come to mind. The next time you dine out and are left with a lasting impression of a wonderful creation, challenge yourself to recreate it at home; you may be patting yourself on the back. I shall pass on what I believe to be an excellent piece of advice from Fergus Henderson, 'do not be afraid of cooking as your ingredients will know and misbehave.' Have fun with experimenting with food!

Another of those unforgettable dishes for me was a pork and duck fat rillettes which I've had the pleasure to enjoy a number of times at Salade de Fruits Cafe in Vancouver. If you haven't been, I do highly recommend should you be living in or visting Vancouver. Cash only! Rillettes, the name itself is intimidating, is an incredible dish that should be anything but. It's definitely old school, in the words of Anthony Bourdain, and I would have to agree. Having no Salade de Fruits Cafe or any other restaurant in Halifax that served this dish, I was pushed to my own devices and can now enjoy rillettes whenever I feel like it, provided I plan 3 to 4 days in advance. Patience for this dish is essential, but oh so worth it!

I turned to our cookbooks and found a recipe in Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles. If you don't own this already, it is recommended. And apparently it wasn't that I didn't look hard enough in this city for rillettes, according to Bourdain, it is tragically hard to find. A true shame!

Rillettes necessities:

2 lbs good quality pork belly

1 lb good quality pork shoulder (do not buy from grocery store, you will be disappointed, speaking from experience)

3 sprigs of thyme

1 sprig of parsley

1 bay leave

4 cups of water

salt and pepper

fat pork

duck fat

Remove the rind from the pork belly without discarding too much of the fat and cut into 2 inch pieces.

Cut the pork shoulder same size as pork belly.

Place all the pork in a heavy bottomed pot.

Pour 4 cups of cold water over the pork pieces and toss in the bouquet garni (thyme, parsley and bay leave) wrapped in cheesecloth if you have, otherwise simply tie with a piece of string. Turn the stove on very low, place lid on pot allowing for moisture to escape and let simmer for 6 hours. Did I mention patience?

After 6 hours, remove pork from pot along with 3 tablespoons of the remaining liquids and let cool. Add 1 tsp of salt and pepper to taste and using 2 forks pull apart into very small stringy pieces.

Mix in 1 heaping tablespoon of duck fat.

Place in jars topped with a piece of salt pork. Cover with lids or plastic wrap and place in fridge for 3 to 4 days. This is by far the most difficult thing in preparing this dish...the waiting.

Patience.

3 to 4 days later enjoy with crosstinis, cornichions and picked onions.

Thanks Anthony Bourdain in helping me find a solution to my rillettes dilema!

Pea Soup

Before it's decline and eventual demise, we had the good fortune to dine at Vancouver's Lumiere, consistently listed among the country's top restaurants (Editor's note: since leaving Vancouver, Lumiere has re-opened with chef Daniel Boulud at the helm.) We enjoyed the multi-course chef's tasting menu, and one of those courses (I think there were 14 in total) changed the course of my life. It was so incredibly good, that while eating it I couldn't prevent myself from involuntarily smiling. It was mind blowing, a revalation. It left such an impression on me that even now I struggle to put into words it's effect. The dish? Pea soup.

Suffice it to say, this was no ordinary pea soup. But one of the (many) things that stunned me about the dish was that it truly was "ordinary", in the sense that the dish really was just peas. The chef had taken the humble vegetable and prepared it in such a way as to intensify, amplify and heighten it's flavours. That the dish had such a profound impact on my life is a testament to the skill and talent of the chef, Rob Feenie.

Summer being well underway in Nova Scotia, we just picked about a pound of fresh peas from our garden. I knew immediately what I would be doing with them.

The first challenge was to find a receipe. For this I turned to another chef, one who's cooking is, arguably, among the best in the world - Thomas Keller. In his French Laundry cookbook (which you should own, if you don't already), there is a preparation for "Puree of English Pea Soup with White Truffle Oil and Parmesan Crisps", which I knew would be equal to the challenge of creating my homage to Rob Feenie's dish. And it's always fun to cook from the French Laundry cookbook. This is my adaption of the French Laundry dish.

Sherwood St. Pea Soup

1 lb peas (shelled)

4 l water (for blanching), plus more for soup

1/3 c sugar

1/2 c kosher salt

Vegetable stock

Basil oil

Kosher salt and white pepper

Parmesan crisps (recipe follows)

Step 1 - Obtain Product

These were our peas, picked mere hours before cooking. Do not dare prepare this dish with peas from the grocery store. These should be sourced from a farmer's market or (preferrably) a backyard garden (your neighbour's if not your own). If you don't have the freshest, best quality peas you can possibly lay your hands on, don't waste your time.

Step 2 - Big Pot Blanching

Thomas Keller devotes a separate section in his cookbook just to blanching vegetables. I did my best to keep up. The peas were first chilled in ice water, then cooked in the 4 litres of water with the salt and sugar (about 8 to 10 mins), followed by a dunk into ice water. According to the cookbook, this will help the peas retain their colour.

Step 3 - Puree

Not owning a food processor, I used my blender and it worked fine.

The pea puree was a vivid, vibrant green, just like Thomas Keller said it would be. The photo, depressingly, does it no justice.

Stage 4 - Strain, Strain, Strain!

I added some homemade chicken stock (sorry Mr. Keller, no vegetable stock on hand) and water, blended again, then strained through a fine seive. I only strained it once, not the dozen or so times Thomas K would undoubtably strain his. Add enough stock and / or water to achieve the consistency you like.

The final mixture looked a little like this.

Step 5 - Season

Pretty simple. This dish is, after all, all about the peas.

Step 6 - Parmesan Crisps

I love these little bastards. Follow Thomas Keller's advice and make a couple extra, as you will want to eat them.

Finely grated parmesan goes into the oven (preheated to 325F)...

... and 8 mins later delicious crisps come out. Don't try this at home without a silpat sheet.

Step 7 - Basil Oil

The receipe calls for white truffle oil, which I don't have in the pantry and sadly probably couldn't find in Halifax if I tried. So, I picked fresh basil from the garden and made a basil oil instead. I'm not sure that peas and basil is a classic pairing, but they're both in season and what the hell I like basil.

Step 8 - Plate it Up

There you have it. My nod to Rob Feenie's pea soup, made with Nova Scotia ingredients.