Birthday dinner at Woodlot

We left Woodlot smelling of smokey campfire ashes. It stayed on my clothes for days and it’d be a lie if I said that I didn’t enjoying breathing in that smell for as long as it lasted. …Will my dream of one day owning a wood stove oven come true?

Woodlot was rustic and straightforward food, though somewhat underwhelming and lacking at times (too simple, Leo says), with excellent service and a cozy atmosphere. Our waitress that night was very accommodating and didn’t seem at all bothered by our nitpicky questions and the various false panics over a walnut allergy that kept recurring throughout. (Long story short: we failed at reading the menu numerous times.) Everything was executed so perfectly, but the dishes we picked that night felt too light in flavour and depth to give you that sense of hearty satisfaction from finishing a really damn good meal. Nonetheless, I’d still go back again, because, and this will be a shocker to some, the vegetables were so good that I have to try the all vegetarian menu.

We started with a Halloumi Crostini topped with a preserved apple spread, spiced chickpeas and shredded basil. The halloumi had the texture of a very dense tofu and for being a goat cheese hybrid it had a surprisingly mild taste – and smell. We didn’t really care for the cheese though, my favourite is still the creamy burrata, and found that the apple preserve with the chickpeas, a perfect combination of savoury and sweet, was the definite highlight. Plus, you can never go wrong with basil.

For our second course, we chose to share the Buckwheat Tagliatelle with duck gizzards. The pasta was very good, light and chewy, but  unforgivably salty. Thankfully, the side of grilled brussels sprouts with bacon was a saving grace that made the pasta more palatable. At this point, we had finished our cocktails (one bourbon based with honey wine and the other tequila with rosemary) and ordered two glasses of  wine; this turned out to be the best decision of my life so far. We chose the 2010 Chateau de Lascaux rosé, a pale peach and pinkish wine with a very crisp and tart after note, and the 2010 Chateau la Carnorgue rosé, more ember than pink in the restaurant light with a very smooth finish.

Before ordering our mains, we gingerly glanced at the vegetarian menu before deciding to hell with it and each proceeded to get the most meat we’ve ever had in one sitting. Leo went with the Grilled Sweatbreads with Pork Belly Bacon, a very smokey and fatty thing with bits and things all on a skewer (if you’re like me and don’t know what sweatbreads are, give it a chance, don’t let the description scare you! It’s a good way to be introduced to offal cuisine), while I got the Whey-fed Pork Pork Chops with treviso, simple as simple can get but executed perfectly and once again I couldn’t get over how good the vegetables were. I only managed to finish two of my pork chops and regretfully asked for it to go, since I had my eye set on desserts for the night.

The Japanese Cheesecake with caramelized apples and topped with some thinly sliced radishes was…different. It wasn’t the best cake I’ve ever had and I found the caramel too bitter. Unlike North American cheesecakes, this one was fluffy and spongy and less sweet.

Woodlot Bakery & Restaurant
293 Palmerston Ave | Website | Yelp

The IKEA Cookbook

From Carl Kleiner’s IKEA cookbook. Styled by Evelina Bratell. More here.

Homemade soft pretzels

the mall pretzels from rachelchew on Vimeo.

The Mall Pretzels (makes 6 to 8)
adapted from Jeannie Yee via Elephantine

For the dough
¾ cup warm water (110°F)
1 ¼ tsp of active dry yeast (half of a .25 ounce package)
1 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup warm water (110°F)
2 tbsp baking soda (for soaking)

For the tops
½ tbsp butter, melted
coarse kosher salt (or pretzel salt) & sesame seed

Pour ¾ cup warm water into a mixing bowl. Dissolve yeast, brown sugar, and salt into the water. Stir in flour. When the mixture comes together, dump it onto a floured surface. (If you find that the dough is too dry and refuses to incorporate, add more warm water a little bit at a time.) Knead dough for about 8 minutes, until smooth. Pour a few drops of olive oil into the mixing bowl; place dough back in and turn to coat surface. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

When the dough is ready, cut into 6 or 8 pieces. Roll each into ½ inch thick ropes. Shape the pretzels by forming a U, then twisting ends and flipping over onto itself, gently pressing overlapping dough to seal. Let rise for 15 minutes.

Fill a bowl with 1 cup warm water and stir in the baking soda. Soak each pretzel for 30 seconds, flipping over halfway through if not fully submerged. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle coarse salt and sesame seed over the top. (If you prefer sweet pretzels, use cinnamon sugar instead of salt.) Bake at 450°F for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. For an extra buttery flavor, brush on a little more melted butter when the pretzels come out of the oven.

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Surprisingly easy and completely stress-free! I decided to make smaller ones because there were more than six people around at the time. Note: they’re better eaten the day of while they’re still chewey and freshly baked, because they get stale reaaal fast. Like real fast. After a day. Don’t even bother trying to save some.

Easy Pork Belly Crackling

I’ve been badgering and hounding Leo over the past few months to write something for the blog, especially after he went and made a roast pork belly without me one weekend (sad face)! After a solid week of pushy, cohersive tactics and petty whines, here’s a tasty sample of what’s to come from this guy. Photos are also by him. – P

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“You might say that the secret ingredient… is salt.” – Marge Simpson

Pork belly is a widely available and relatively inexpensive cut of pigmeat you may know as PURE AMERICAN BACON. In Toronto, porcine crackling has been observed as a storefront staple of Chinese BBQ restaurants for decades now, and one hopes that same longevity will  be shared by the recent spate of Italian porchetta in hogtown (not to mention the gold standard that is Filipino lechon). As a fan of all these varieties but not the prep work required, I was taken by the results of this stripped-down DIY version. This may well be the most forgiving (read “easy”) pork crackling recipe ever and you can count on it to yield crisp savoury crackling that peels away to reveal a succulent roast every time:

Ingredients & Tools

• Coarse salt
• Slab of pork belly
• Blow dryer (yes, a hair dryer)
• Box cutter (I’ve found that a single edge razor blade works best)
• Kettle of boiling water

Step 1 – Buy some Pork Belly

Start with a slab of nice, fatty pork belly that’s available at most grocery stores. Your choices will be with bone or without bone. I usually go boneless as bones weigh/cost more and can take longer to cook through, but it’s your preference. Don’t be afraid to buy a fattier cut either, this is where bacon comes from remember?

Step 2 – Score, Scald & Salt
Carefully score the skin if your butcher didn’t already do it for you. Break out the hardware supplies for a box cutter with a new blade or razor. You’ll need a sharp blade to do this cleanly because scoring raw pig skin is a bit like cutting through a piece of leather on a foundation of jello.

Score about 1 cm deep through the skin and down into the fat (or just before you hit the meat in leaner areas). Once you’re done, set the pork on a baking rack in the sink and slowly pour an entire kettle of boiling water over the skin, scalding the entire surface evenly. The runoff will cook the sides of the meat a bit too but don’t worry, scalding the skin is essential as it causes separation between the scoring – its edges will curl up slightly and create nice gaps for you to rub salt into.

Pat everything dry with tea towels and blow-dry the meat for about 10-15 minutes until it is drier than a Woody Allen joke. Drying out the skin thoroughly is the trick here for crispy crackling.  Finish the preparation by rubbing salt all over, making sure you get lots of salt into the gaps of the skin.

Cover your dehydrated and salty pigmeat with a dry tea towel and stick it in the fridge overnight to let the salt draw out any remaining moisture.

Step 3 – Baking

Preheat your oven to the highest setting. Some people brush the skin with oil or even hot fat before baking but I find it’s not necessary if your cut is fatty enough to begin with. In a deep baking tray, place your pork belly on the middle shelf skin side up (you can roast some potatoes on the side if you have the room) and leave it to crackle on the highest setting for about 20 minutes or until you see that all the skin is browned, bubbled and blistered. Turn the heat down to 180 ˚C (356 ˚F) and let it slow-roast for an additional 30 minutes per pound of meat.

You’ll know it’s ready to eat if you can pull the pieces of crackling off and away from the fatty layer effortlessly. At this point you can singe off any unappetizingly stubborn pig hairs that survived the fires using a lighter or blow torch.

Done!

Enjoy it with rice, potatoes, or in a sandwich (with lots of mustard).

Weekend Breakfast: Toasted eggy bread with sliced apples, peanut butter and nutella