Cheesecake Crepes

Many of you know that I'm completely obsessed with cheesecake. I have dreams about it, and have been known to go to Zak's Diner at 12am on any given night solely to have a slice of cheesecake. They know me as the cheesecake guy and one server doesn't even bother to give me a menu anymore. I've been trying to cut down on my cheesecake intake this year, and it's going well. But that doesn't mean I need to cut down on having cheesecake in other forms, right? So I thought, why not make some crepes and make a cheesecake-like filling for them! Genius.

Crepes are one of the easiest things to make, and are one of the first things you learn in culinary school. A good crepe batter simply consists of eggs (I used 2), flour (1 cup), milk (1 1/4 cup), salt (1/4 tsp), and oil (2 tbsp). So I whisked the ingredients together, put the batter in the fridge to chill and then started on my cheesecake filling. I got myself two types of cream cheese, your standard Philly cream cheese and some local sheep's milk cream cheese called La Petite Folie. The latter definitely had more tang than the Philly. I mixed them together (making sure they were softened first) and added some icing sugar (1/4 cup), vanilla (1 tsp), and lemon juice (1 tbsp). In a separate bowl, I whipped some all-natural heavy cream (1/2 cup) and then folded the whipped cream in with the cream cheese mixture. The filling was amazing, and there wasn't much I could do to make it better. I slapped it in the fridge because the harder your cream cheese mixture, the better; it will prevent all of the filling from bursting out of the crepe when you cut into it.

Now it was time to make a sauce. While my favourite sauce for cheesecake is usually a chunky strawberry sauce, I'm also a huge fan of blueberries and had some extra blueberries on hand so I figured I should use them up. I also had a jar of some amazing blueberry and lavender jam called michaelsdolce (made right here in Ottawa), why not throw that in too? Making the sauce was super easy, I put 2 cups of blueberries into a saucepan and added 4 tablespoons of cane sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. I simmered until the blueberries were liquefied, and then stirred in the jar of jam. Done! Taste? Awesome, the lavender in the jam really put it over the top. The sauce is still very good without the jam though, so it's not entirely necessary.

After chilling the batter and filling for about an hour, it's now time to put it all together. You really need a quality pan for crepes, a nicely greased, medium-sized non-stick pan will do. I poured in 1/4 cup of the batter for each crepe, and swirled it around the pan to form a circle. You have to do this quickly because the batter solidifies in just a few seconds! Once the top of the crepe is dry, it's time to flip it and cook it on the other side for about 15-30 seconds. Done! For an instructional video on how to do this, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1DgmbMMOgA

So I took the finished crepes, put my cheesecake filling in the middle-right (not dead centre or it wouldn't roll properly), added just a bit of the blueberry sauce on top of the filling and then rolled it like a cigar. Then added some of the blueberry sauce on top. Too easy!!! They were just as enjoyable as any cheesecake I've ever had, including Carnegie Deli's.

Any questions on how to make these? Just ask. I encourage you to actually make these, they're worth the time and effort! It's been a quiet month with regards to blogging due to being very busy with work and other things, but I'll be more active in the coming months

P.S. I cracked the other day and had a strawberry cheesecake at Zak's Diner, and because of that, I have to take David Lin out to Murray Street Restaurant for dinner next week. We had a deal and I'm a man of my word. That's fine though, it IS my favourite restaurant in Ottawa. I'll blog all about my experience there!

Pulled Pork

Alright, finally have some time to do this post! It's been a busy week at work, word is starting to spread and we are getting busier and busier. I'm loving all of the free amazing food. Anyway, over the weekend I decided it was time to try making some pulled pork at home. I had never made it before, in fact, I only tasted pulled pork for the first time in my life this past summer. It was redonkulous, so I had to add this to my repertoir. I went to my butcher and got myself a pork shoulder roast which weighed in at 6.3 pounds, pretty damn big if you ask me.

First I did a dry rub (pictured above) with my Creole spice mix and let the pork shoulder sit overnight in the fridge. The following morning I got out the trusty slow cooker. I grabbed 2 yellow onions, sliced them each in half and placed them flat side down in the slow cooker. I then put the pork shoulder on top of the onions, keeping it elevated so that it didn't end up sitting in its own juices. I didn't brown the shoulder in a skillet mostly because it was too massive, but I do recommend browning beforehand in order to get rid of some of the fat and to also give it a little more flavour. Do not, however, get rid of too much fat or you'll end up with dry meat! Moving along, I put the lid on, put it on LOW and let it cook for a long, long time. Depending on how big your cut is, 9-10 hours should be enough. You could always put it on HIGH for 5-6 hours if you don't want to wait so long. Don't worry too much about cooking time and setting, just worry about cooking it until it's fork tender.

Not quite done but getting there

After 10 hours, I turned the cooker off and let the pork cool for a bit and then proceeded to pull it apart, hence the name pulled pork. Pretty easy to do, take two forks and just giver! Or you can use your hands if you like to get your hands dirty. I didn't over-shred the pork because I wanted a meaty texture, not a mushy one. After pulling the entire shoulder apart, I added some barbecue sauce. Use whatever sauce you like for pulled pork, but anything with hickory in the title usually works best. I'm going to eventually get into making my own barbecue sauces from scratch.

Sauce it up!

I mixed it up, slapped some of the pulled pork in a kaiser roll and voila, pulled pork sandwich.. it was so good I had to have another one, and another, and another, until I nearly OD'ed on the stuff and ran out of kaiser rolls and had to resort to using plain bread (pictured above). To quote Jerry in an episode of Seinfeld, "This is so ****ing good!" So yeah, it went pretty well. I'll do it again in the spring with my own sauce. Don't be intimidated to make this at home, it takes a bit of time and effort but it really isn't all that hard to do. Get a high quality cut of meat (in this case, pork shoulder), a decent barbecue sauce, and a dry rub (or make your own) and you're good to go. That's it for now, next week I'm taking a break from meat and doing some stuffed pasta and strawberry cheesecake crèpes!

Pork & Fennel Meatballs

Just another (quick) post here, earlier today I decided to make some meatballs! I got some ground pork from my butcher, then added salt, pepper, a bit of my Creole spice mix, and of course, fennel seed. I then rolled them into balls and browned them in a frying pan. You have to do this quickly otherwise you'll lose a lot of moisture in the meat, so get your pan hot at medium-high and don't crowd the pan. Browning will give it some more flavour, and it will also flavour and colour the liquid in which you are cooking the meatballs. I poured 2 cans of crushed tomatoes into the slow cooker, added the browned meatballs, put the lid on, turned it on high, and walked away for a few hours.

three to four hours later

The meatballs were damn good, and thanks to the fennel, tasted just like Italian sausage. The crushed tomatoes, despite me not tinkering with at all, took on tons of flavour. Next time I'll zing the sauce up a bit, but I wanted to see the effect of the browning on its own. There is so much you can do with these meatballs, it's ridiculous. You can add them to pasta or soup, make a meatball sandwich, put them on a bed of rice, use them for meatball stroganoff, add them on top of a pizza (IF I have any leftovers I'll do that!), or you can just eat them on their own. Too easy, you don't even need a recipe to make these.

Meatball sandwich with freshly grated Pecorino Romano

Making Pizza at Home

I've been making pizza professionally in the workplace for just about a year now, but I've never really made it at home. English muffin pizzas don't count, nor does the use of ready-made dough and bottled pizza sauce. I figured it was time to try to make my own pizza at home, from scratch, with the type of ingredients you would find in a typical grocery store. You could always break the bank and go to artisan food shops and get higher quality product, which is what I'll be doing in the future. But since I'm experimenting, it's a good idea to get cheaper product. So I picked up a 2.5 kg bag of Robin Hood's All-Purpose flour. It's nothing special, but it'll do. As far as the rest of the ingredients go, I picked up some dry active yeast, some blocks of full-fat mozzarella cheese, and cans of Thomas Utopia organic crushed tomatoes. For the sauce, I simply added some salt, pepper, garlic, oregano and basil to the crushed tomatoes.

Now, time to make some pizza dough by hand! I started by dissolving my yeast in a few tablespoons of warm water, then adding 2 cups of cool water to it. In a mixing bowl I added 5 cups of flour, a little over 3 teaspoons of kosher salt, and the water/yeast. I then kneaded it for about 4-5 minutes until strengthened, allowed it to rest for 5 minutes then resumed mixing for another 2-3 minutes. I then formed it into a massive ball and covered it with plastic in a greased bowl for 30 minutes. After that, I divided the ball into 4 equal pieces, and rounded each piece into a ball. I brushed them with vegetable oil, covered them, and put them in the fridge overnight. Here's how they looked the next day!

My Neapolitan-style dough

Now that the time consuming part is over, it's time to make some pizza! I put a baking stone on the bottom shelf of my oven and preheated the oven at 550 degrees for an hour. Now it was time to stretch them by hand. I usually don't toss dough in the air, although at times I've showed off to customers by doing tossing tricks. Tossing isn't a bad idea if you're working with high-gluten flour or even bread flour, but for all-purpose flour it's not recommended. I simply stretch it flat down on the counter. For a video demo, check out Anthony Mangieri's technique (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Ahj1GFw18) which is very similar to mine (pictured below).

I always use a wooden peel to prevent sticking

I topped it with the mozz, then slid it in the oven!

10 minutes later!

Not bad for a first effort I suppose. The crust was crispy with a bit of chew and the sauce and cheese were both good despite them being of only decent quality. Time to zing the pizzas up though, tomorrow I'll be making a pulled pork pizza so stay tuned for that! Oh yeah, I'm also making pulled pork.

Corn Flake Chicken

Made some chicken with my bro for dinner tonight, only instead of using the slow-cooking method I baked them in the oven and breaded them with Corn Flakes! The thick breading retains moisture, and provides great flavour and texture. The chicken was crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. Simple, delicious, and ridiculously easy to make.

Ingredients:

10 chicken drumsticks

3 eggs, beaten

2.5 cups of Corn Flakes, crushed

1 cup of All-Purpose flour

honey

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Set up an assembly line with the flour, beaten eggs, and crushed Corn Flakes in their own bowls.

4. Rinse chicken and pat dry.

5. Dip each drumstick into the flour, then into the eggs, and then roll into the Corn Flakes until fully coated.

6. Place drumsticks on a lightly-greased baking dish.

7. Bake for 60 minutes, turning at the halfway point.

8. Drizzle with honey and enjoy!

A couple posts coming next week, will update everyone on how my new job at Tennessy Willems is going and I have another recipe to post. See you soon!

Hey people!

So this is my first post. I've been inspired by the film Julie & Julia to create my own food blog. It makes sense, I have a deep passion for food and always have, ever since I started cooking when I was a little brat. This is going to be a pretty active blog, I'm not going to be doing a post every couple months like most people do. I cook all the time, and I go out to eat all the time. Anything noteworthy will be chronicled here. I'll be trying out recipes from cookbooks, websites, the Food Network, as well as making up things as I go along. I'll be going to restaurants all over Ottawa and reviewing them on here. I also go travelling quite often just for the sake of having great food, and all of those travels will be documented here. Finally, if I discover a great product that I think everyone should know about, then I'll post it on here as well.

A little background sketch, I'm a chef at an Italian restaurant here in Ottawa, where I was brought in to make pizza. Pizza is one of my main specialties, along with barbecue and pasta. One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, I plan to open my own restaurant. I'm not happy working under cheap owners who sacrifice flavour (not to mention the health of their customers) to make more money, so the best way to combat that is to become an owner myself. When it comes to cooking, there's nothing you can't do if you're really passionate about it.

So welcome everybody, and stay tuned.

"No matter how important we think we are, we'll never be more important than the ingredients." - Chris Bianco