Bringing home the bacon with chef Michael Olson (recipes)
Originally filed at roneade.com
Part two of two. Some chefs in the thick of meal service have to be coaxed to eat. One celebrity chef has just the recipe.
Archive note. This page preserves work first published on roneade.com between 2014 and 2016. Ron Eade died in August 2015; nothing on this site is new writing in his voice, and the reporting below is presented as a dated record rather than as current coverage. Restaurants, prices and staffing described here reflect the moment the piece was filed.
Feeding the cooks
The way to a chef's heart, the axiom goes, is through the stomach — and Michael Olson, a former executive chef in Niagara and by 2014 a professor of fourteen years at the Canadian Wine & Food Institute at Niagara College, had a working method.
Eade caught up with him at the college during the Ottawa Valley theme dinner covered in part one. While the visiting Ottawa chefs prepared their courses, Olson busied himself making a snack to keep everyone going before service.
"Believe it or not, I find chefs often won't take time to eat when they work," Olson said. "But I find the way to coax them is to offer something spicy, salty, and crunchy. So I'm feeding them sliced vinegar cucumber, cilantro, hoisin sauce, sriracha and crispy pork belly, wrapped in a romaine lettuce leaf. It gets them every time."
On pork belly
"Pork belly has always been familiar to Canadians in the form of sliced bacon for breakfast," Olson said, "but over the last few years it has appeared on restaurant menus as a featured ingredient for appetizers and main courses."
Belly can be braised or roasted, and sometimes cooked sous vide to tame an otherwise tough cut, but the temperature has to be watched or the skin turns greasy and tough. Olson said he had tasted crackling everywhere from a Sunday roast in a London museum cafeteria to noodle shops in Hong Kong and a charcoal-roasted whole pig on the streets of Manila, each cook with a method for "the uber-crunchy skin that would make a cardiologist cringe."
The technical point is simple: drying the meat removes moisture from the skin so that it can puff, while a small amount of salt and baking powder — not baking soda — allows enzymes to tenderize the skin.
Hops in honey
Olson was also experimenting with a honey infusion. Heat a kilo of liquid clover or buckwheat honey in a large saucepan to a simmer, add a tablespoon of hop pellets from a home brewing supplier, stir well, steep for two minutes, then cool. The result carries the sweetness of honey with the aroma and slight astringency of hops — a condiment he considered particularly good with fatty pork and with lightly seared foie gras.
Michael Olson's roast pork belly
Serves 6. A two-day process; total cooking time about 2 1/2 hours.
For the pork: 2 1/2 pounds (1.2 kg) fresh meaty pork belly, skin on; 1 tablespoon (15 mL) table salt; 1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking powder.
To serve: 1/2 cup (125 mL) hoisin sauce; 1/4 cup (50 mL) sriracha sauce; 1 cup (250 mL) fresh coriander leaves, washed and picked; 1 cup (250 mL) sliced English cucumber, bathed about fifteen minutes in a little vinegar and sugar; 2 fresh limes, cut into wedges; 1 head romaine lettuce.
Day one. Using a sharp knife, score the skin of the pork belly just into the fat but not through to the meat, making cuts every 1/4 inch (6 mm) across the surface. Blend the salt and baking powder together and rub into the scored skin. Place the meat in a baking dish and refrigerate overnight, uncovered, leaving the belly exposed to the air to help dry the skin.
Day two. Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C) and let the meat sit on the counter to lose its chill. Roast the belly for 90 minutes, then reduce to 300°F (150°C) and continue for 45 minutes. There is no need to baste, as the fat must render from the skin to change its texture. When done the meat will be fully cooked, the skin light golden, and there will be a good deal of rendered fat in the pan.
Remove from the oven and cool on the counter for 45 minutes or longer. While still warm, drain off the fat — about 1/2 cup (125 mL), which can be used in biscuits or baked beans. To reheat, turn the oven up to 450°F (230°C) or as hot as it will go, and return the roast for 10 to 15 minutes until the skin is deep golden, slightly puffed and crunchy. Rest five minutes and slice.
To serve. Brush the pork slices with hoisin, add a little sriracha to taste, then coriander, cucumber and a squeeze of lime. Arrange on a lettuce leaf and eat like a taco.
Norm Aitken's Beaver Bites
The second recipe came from Norm Aitken, chef-owner of Juniper Kitchen & Wine Bar in Ottawa, who served this pastry as part of dessert at the Ottawa Valley dinner alongside cider crème brûlée and maple toffee set in a hollowed cylinder of ice. He calls them Beaver Bites — or deer ears, or elephant ears — and was careful to note that they must never be called by the similar-sounding registered trademark used by a well-known Canadian pastry chain.
Makes about six pastries, depending on size.
Dough starter: 3/4 cup (175 mL) water; a pinch of sugar; 1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) dry yeast; 1 1/4 cups (300 mL) flour.
For the bread: 2 1/4 cups (550 mL) flour; 3 tablespoons (45 mL) sugar; 1/2 cup (125 mL) milk; 1 tablespoon (15 mL) dry yeast; 1/2 cup (125 mL) duck or rendered pork fat, melted and just warm, not hot; 1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt.
To finish: cinnamon, sugar and salt for dusting; fresh lemon juice to garnish.
In a clean stainless steel, plastic or glass bowl, combine the starter ingredients well, cover and refrigerate overnight. The next day, combine the starter with the bread ingredients in a large bowl, adding the salt only at the very end. Knead for about ten minutes until smooth and elastic, then roll and shape, fry, and dust with the cinnamon, sugar and salt while hot, finishing with a squeeze of lemon.
A note on these recipes
Both were contributed by the chefs themselves at a public teaching event and published here with attribution, which was Eade's standing practice: recipes in this archive were given, not lifted. Home cooks working with pork belly and long-cured meats may want to read the Canadian Food Inspection Agency guidance on safe handling and cooking temperatures alongside them.