Guide to light summer fare on the BBQ: Part 1

No one likes a massive meat fest more then the guys at Smoke Salt and Fire, but every meal can't be gigantic steaks and whole pigs, sometimes you just feel like something a little lighter. Whether you need a quick lunch or a light summer supper on the barbecue your first stop should be your local butchers shop or meat counter. Most butcher offer all kinds of fantastic light summer options.

Hot Macedonian Sausage with olives, feta, green onions and Bordeaux mustard 

Sausage

Sausages are a summer favorite, with classics like brats and hot Italian available in most grocery stores, but your butcher may  be able to offer you some more creative options.  In the past few weeks our butchers have set us up with wild boar sausage, spicy chorizo sausage and hot Macedonian sausage and we didn't even have to say pretty please.
Of course just having great sausage doesn't make the meal, you have to dress them up. Let's start with the bun, first off stay away from standard grocery store hot dog buns if at all possible, I mean your not a kid anymore, get an adult bun. Head over to your grocery store bakery section, or even better your local bakery, and see if they have something a little better. Recently we picked up some amazing baguette buns at our local bakery, but we've wrapped beautiful sausage in everything from croissants to naan.

Now you're going to need some toppings, get creative here, we went mostly Mediterranean with the toppings for our Macedonian sausage, but then we threw in a Bordeaux mustard twist. We went a completely different direction with our Chorizo, pairing it with some red wine cheddar, an Old Smokey mustard and cilantro. The point is to get creative and make something fun.

Chorizo sausage, on baguette bun.

Burgers and Sliders

Burgers and their smaller cousins sliders are another great summer favorite that's easy to get creative with. Let's start with the meat, first of all you don't need pre-formed frozen patties, making a hamburger patty is the easiest thing in the world, if you ever used Play-doh as a kid you already know the technique. Anybody can make burgers or sliders using grocery store ground beef, but if you want something really special why not ask your butcher to grind some of your favorite cut of beef for you, at SS & F we tend to go for a mix of chuck and brisket, but skirt, flap, rump, short rib and even oxtail can be ground for delicious burgers.

Sliders with a chuck/rump mix by chef Dominic

Kangaroo on top emu on the bottom

Of course you don't have to use beef at all, ground pork, lamb or chicken can also be used for burgers and sliders or you can get even more creative, not long ago Dominic graced us with some fantastic kangaroo and emu sliders. If you have access to it game meat can be another great option for burgers, I've had the opportunity to try, moose, venison and wild duck burgers and they were all fantastic. 

Now for the bun and toppings, as with hot dog buns grocery store burger buns tend to suck so be prepared to get creative bun wise. Kaisers are a great option for burgers, they tend to have more substance and flavour then grocery store burger buns. An even more fun option can be cheese and/or onion buns from your grocery store bakery department or local bakery.  If you don't mind you burger patty hanging out a bit around the edges croissants can be another flakey, buttery delicious bun option for burgers. There are bun options for sliders to, the bakery near me does some fantastic Italian dinner rolls, or why not combined the best parts of breakfast and dinner by serving up some sliders on english muffins? This breakfast staple is excellent for soaking up all that yummy meat juice from a nice juicy slider. 

At Smoke Salt and Fire we believe great cheese is almost a necessity on an amazing burger. While it's important not to feel limited in the types of cheese you can use we recommend staying away from processed cheese slices unless you're specifically going for a very old style burger. That said there are literally hundreds of amazing cheese options, if you want to keep it classic you can go with an old cheddar or a nice jack, but there are other ways to go to. Blue cheeses can be a nice option that often gets overlooked for burgers, Stilton is my personal favorite for burgers. Smoke mozzarella is also great on burgers and a bit out of the ordinary or why not try the mix of gruyere and parmigiano Dominic uses for his sliders.

 Another favorite way to dress up a burger is with bacon, why not see if your butcher has something special put aside bacon wise or even better make up a batch of your own bacon, we have great recipe for red wine bacon or go all out and make you own "King Bacon" to put on your burgers.  

Any way you slice it these barbecue ideas should help to heat up your summer barbecues. Keep and eye out for part 2 of our light summer barbecue guide coming soon, when we'll be looking at how to spice up some more summer barbecue favorites.

Red Wine Bacon, a thinking man's recipe

So it would appear my business partner thinks you want foie gras, gold leaf and half a hundredweight of pomp and circumstance with your bacon. Personally I like to think you lot are a little more sophisticated then that. I mean does chef Dominic really think people want bacon that looks like something Mr. T would wear on a chain around his neck? Do you really want bacon that's as spangly as P-diddley's trousers?  I think not.
In all seriousness though I think the bacon Dominic made is magnificent and it's going to be fabulous for an event I'm hoping to organize in the near future, but more on that in a later post.
What you really want is some seriously grown up bacon, you want bacon that's moved on from the breakfast table to take it's rightful place at dinner. You want the kind of bacon that makes people really rethink what bacon is all about, you want red wine bacon.
That's right, I said red wine bacon, amazing winey, garlicky, baconny goodness that takes bacon to a whole new level.

Ingredients

Bacon
1 pound of pork belly (Ask your butcher to remove the skin at the time of purchase)
1 1/2 tsp Morton's kosher salt
1/2 tsp curing salt #1 (sometimes called Pink salt #1 or Prague salt #1)
1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp of brown sugar
2 tbsp of garlic powder
1/2 cups red wine

Glaze
1 /12 cups of red wine
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp brown sugar

!. Throw your dry ingredients into a large ziplock bag (I like Glad Zipper locks, but do you boo, most heave duty ziplock type bags will work)
2. Add your wine to the bag and shake thoroughly so the wine is well mixed with the dry ingredients.
3. Put your pork belly in the bag, force as much air as possible out of the bag before sealing and place the sealed bag in the fridge.
4. Store the bag in the fridge for between 1 and 3 weeks to cure, turning the bag over daily to ensure even curing.  I recommend erring towards longish curing times when working with red wine try for at least 10 day to allow the wine to get right in there.
5. Making a glaze, put your glaze ingredients into a sauce pan and and simmer until the red wine starts to thicken and look syrupy.
6. Remove the now cured belly from the bag and rinse under the tap, allow to dry for about a 1/2 hour before smoking
7. I like to smoke over a hickory and apple wood mix between 220-240 degrees, allow about 45 minutes per pound, double that if it's below freezing out. Coat with wine glaze when you put it in, turn the belly over at the half way mark and re-glaze.
8. Remove from the smoker and refrigerate for 24 hours before slicing. (Do not skip this step!!!)

Cooking:  As I mentioned at the beginning this bacon is more at home at the dinner table then at breakfast, though I've found fun ways of including it at breakfast also, there are lots of interesting ways to cook it, when you fry it it turns a deep winey red as it cooks and the wine flavour is very distinctive.  My favorite way to prepare it is to put it over top of a chicken breast in the oven, just cook the chicken as you normally would and lay the bacon on top of it before you put it in the oven, the wine flavour will spread through the chicken in the most delightful way.

I've also enjoyed chopping my wine bacon into lardons and frying them up to throw on top of salad, you have to do something to help salad. ;)
       

Quick easy delicious steaks

So we needed to eat something while our bacon was smoking, I know it's a tough life right? We stopped by one if our local butchers, Mr Greek Meat Market 801 Danforth, and picked up some steaks, I grabbed t-bone and chef Dominic and our friend James picked up some nice New Yorks.

 At chef Dominics suggestion we seared them briefly on the grill, 1 minute a side, then sauteed them in butter and garlic, using a meat thermometer to monitor the internal temp while sauteing, I pulled mine when it hit 130 F because I like it fairly rare, chef Dominic and James pulled theirs at 135 F. This is an old technique and not for the totally health conscious, but it's quick and delicious, great for when you're busy with other things and need a fast delicious meal.

When they were cooked we poured the butter and garlic over the steaks, delicious.

We served them with some grilled zucchini and served roasted potatoes. We also added some of chef Dominic's "secret" sauce (don't tell anyone but it's peppercorn ranch dressing)

 This whole meal took less then 20 minutes to throw together and and makes an easy win when friends stop by.  For those who were hoping for bacon, we'll be posting pics soon.

Smoke Salt and Fire's favorite butchers: Sanagan's Meat Locker

If Uppercut in the St Lawrence Market is one of the best day to day butcher shops in town, Sanagan's Meat Locker on Baldwin Str. in Toronto's Kensington Market, in the space formerly occupied by European Meat Market, is an entirely different experience. I can't think of Sanagan's without the words artisanal and gourmet coming to mind. Seriously these guys take their meat to the next level.

The near pornographic marbling on Sanagan's steaks and the extremely high quality of all Sanagan's products are a result of one mans passion, when Peter Sanagan gave up a career as a successful chef to open a small butcher shop in Kensington it was clearly a labour of love.

Since moving into their current home they've added an impressive selection of charcuterie, as well as a sandwich bar and meat pies.

The staff are friendly and willing to answer questions and make suggestions,and the decor is fun to.

If you're in Kensington and you love delicious meat make sure to stop by Sanagan's meat locker, whether you're picking up some steaks for dinner or grabbing a quick snack.

Smoke Salt and Fire's favorite butchers: Upper Cut Meats

It seems fitting to start a series on our favorite butchers with Upper Cut Meats in St. Lawrence Market, this is the go to butcher for most of our pork and beef projects, their prices on pork belly and shoulder are some of the best in the city, the staff is always friendly and happy to cut your meat to your specification, trimming, removing skin and bone at your request.

They always seem to have a bunch of eager young apprentice meat cutters who are happy to help you out if you know what you're looking for but if you need advice on a project or you're looking for something specific just ask if you can speak to one of the senior butchers and they will be happy to help you out.

 

Of course one of the reasons we love Upper Cut is their great prices, on the day
this was written, pork belly was going for 3.99 a pound and shoulder was 2.99 a pound; other butchers in the Market were selling shoulder for as much as 4.99 and belly for as much as 6.99.

Upper Cut also offer a great selection of beef, lamb and poultry and their quality is top of the line.  So next time you're planning a cooking project that requires great meat at a great price head on down the the St. Lawrence Market and check out Upper Cut Meats.