Canadian Bacon - Second Attempt

Around here, there are many ingredients that are simply unavailable.  Actually, that's a bit of an exaggeration.  Almost everything is available if you are willing to pay the hefty import price.

I'm not willing to pay those prices.  Not when I can make the items myself.  Canadian bacon is so simple ... why should I pay a price that should be reserved only for Kobe beef wrapped in golf leaf?

Of course, it's the simplicity that makes it so difficult.  For me, at least, complex foods are easier.  With simple foods, if you get one thing wrong, everything seems wrong.  Complex foods manage to hide minor errors better.

Now, this particular batch didn't go so well.  The first batch was rather salty, so I cut way back on the salt.  I blame my mother for this failure.  She was the one who said that my previous batch was salty (well, she and others ... possibly including myself).

She claims that she is not at fault here.  When we were discussing this, she mumbled something about me being the one who chose to use only a quarter cup of curing salt.  And, she rambled on about how she might have halved the cure and not dropped it so low.  Blah ... blah ... blah.

Some people might think that she made a couple reasonable points.  To that, I say "hogwash!"  She raised me, it's her fault I cut the salt so much.

Certainly not my fault as I had limited input in cooking this batch.  All I did was buy the pork, prepare the pork, make the brine, inject the pork, brine the pork, smoke the pork, rest the pork, and slice the pork.  She raised me and ate some of the pork.

Any sane person can see that she is clearly the one at fault here.

Ingredients

• One whole pork loin
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Instacure #1
• 5 quarts water
  

Procedure

Here are the ingredients for my simple brine: brown sugar and Instacure #1. Next time, I'll use a lot more of the pink stuff.

Here's my pork loin.  I was lucky to find a reliable butcher here who would do this for me.  Usually this is cut up quite differently for Filipino foods.  I have to pay a slight premium.  Still, it's worth it.

Here is my loin prepped.  I removed all the membranes, silverskin, most of the fat, etc.  And, I sliced it in two because I planned to try two different techniques.

I mixed my brine ingredients with five quarts of water.  Mixed thoroughly until everything was dissolved.

Then, I took my nifty meat injector (it looks like something right out of a really bad horror flick ... probably something by Troma) and give each piece a full shot of the brine.  I stuck the multi-holed needle right into the middle of my loin.

There are my pork beauties swimming in their brine.  They're covered for their protection and in a stainless steel pot.  Into my big chest fridge for five days.

Here they are after their five day stint in the fridge.  I soaked one of them in water for two hours in the fridge after this.  The other one stay wrapped in plastic in the fridge.

Here they are just started their time in my smoker.  225F (107C) for about five hours.  I took them out when their internal temperatures his 155F (68C).

There they are ... done.  Just not Canadian bacon.  Definitely yummy sandwich meat, though.

Test Results
Failure.

Looking at the meat, the brine didn't even penetrate.  Disappointing.  I think I used too little salt.  I didn't even bother having the Primary Test Team taste this formally.  We just used it in soups and on sandwiches.

It wasn't that the pork tasted bad.  It was good.  It just wasn't Canadian bacon.

Also, I didn't notice a difference in saltiness between the two.  Probably because the salt didn't even get into them in the first place.

Potential Improvements

Big room for improvement here.  I'm going to increase the cure next time.  Probably do three versions, one with 1/2 cup of cure, one with 3/4 cup, and one with a full cup of cure.

Potential Variations

Lots of variations.  But, I'm going for a simple, slightly sweet Canadian bacon.  I don't want too salty.  So, once I get this down, I'll probably stick to only a single recipe.

Conclusions

Even with this failure, I think I'm closer.  I could taste the sweetness of the brown sugar in the meat.  Very faint, as the brine clearly didn't penetrate.  But, the sweetness was still there.

I'll figure it out.  When I do ... that's one less item that is unavailable here.

Pizza Cheese Showdown

For quite some time, I've made pizza with at least two kinds of cheeses: mozzarella and Parmesan.  I've done this for years ... a couple decades, actually.  So, I thought it was about time to examine my old habit.  Time to find out if it is a good habit or just something I did.

This is one of probably many cheese tests.  After all, there are a lot of different kinds of cheeses.  Some I can immediately rule out.  American cheese comes to mind.  I will not put that on a pizza.  There are many others worth trying ... some I can even get here.  Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano, Cheddar ... maybe even Jack or Colby.

So many combinations ... so many pizzas to make.

In order to test correctly, I made sure to weigh the cheese.  30g of Parmesan for one pizza.  125g of mozzarella for each pizza.

My normal sauce on the pizza that will have both cheeses.  The two-cheese pizza I made round.  When I did the Oatmeal Showdown, I used food coloring to mark each type.  People found that to be strange, so I decided to use shapes this time.

Putting my sauce on the pizza that will just have mozzarella.  This one is square.

Here's a close up of the two-cheese pizza.

Here's a close-up of the mozzarella-only pizza.

The two pizzas after coming out of the oven.  My oven is working well again.  510F (265C) for 12 minutes to get these results.

Test Results

The Primary Test Team devoured the two pizzas.  As usual, they ate the pizza with all the subtlety of a stampeding herd of mastodons.

With only a couple of exceptions, the pizza with both cheese was preferred.

Conclusions

The result wasn't really a surprise.  While the intial taste of the two pizzas is similar, the Parmesan adds a nice sharpness to the aftertaste.  Something that the mozzarella-only pizza completely lacks.

Canadian Bacon - First Attempt

As you, my millions of loyal fans, know ... I love pizza.  I love it too much for my own good health.  But, this is a bit about cooking .. not a health quest.

My very favorite pizza is Canadian bacon and Italian sausage.  And this isn't just favorite as in "I like it a little more than others" ... this is favorite as in "I believe this is the King of All Pizzas, ruler of the Land of Pizza, Pizza As It Should Be."

I've managed to make some Italian sausage.  It's pretty good.  Perhaps over time, I'll make it better.  But, it's certainly good enough to go onto my Dream Pizza.  The pizza for which I quest.  Of course, if I still lived back in the US, it would be more of a pizza drive not a quest.  Here, I must make it myself.  That seems like a lot more fun.

I poked around on the web and found this recipe for making Canadian bacon.  It sounded simple enough for me to start with.  I figured that I would start with the simple one of go from there to improve the quality with each iteration.

Here is my attempt ...

Ingredients

• 2.5 kilograms pork loin
• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup Prague #1 (Cure)
• 1 tsp pickling spice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  

Procedure

First, I mixed the brine.  I put all the ingredients together (except the pork loin, of course) into a large steel stock pot. 

Ah, there it is.  The lovely pork loin.  Two-and-a-half kilograms of tasty baboy (pork).

I cut it into three equal pieces because I planned to make three different versions.  One I'd brine for a day, one I'd brine for two days, one for three days. 

I enlisted the aid of my sous chef to inject some of the brine into each piece.  I have a two fluid ounce stainless steel injector.  I injected one of the pieces with a full shot from the injector ... putting the needle portion directly in the middle of the piece of meat.  My sous chef did the other two.

I put the now brine-filled loin pieces into the brine in one of my stainless steel pots.  A little plastic wrap on top and into the fridge it went.  

The instructions said to cook the meat in hot water (170F / 77C) until the internal temperature came up to (155F / 68C).  Notice my little probe thermometer swimming in the water and its head barely clinging to the side of the stove.

Here's one of the pieces as it cooks into the water. Notice the color.  This just didn't look like Canadian bacon to me.  Had the wrong look.  To be fair to the recipe source, I'd only brined this one for two days where they call for four or five. 

Here's one of the water-cooked pieces on the chopping block.  The taste and texture were OK.  The color was off for me.

While I was cooking the two-day brine, I'd fired up my smoker to make some ribs (see previous post).  So, I thought, why not smoke one instead of cooking it in hot water.  The results of this test are the picture at the top of this post.

Test Results

Primary Test Group:  Very good.  A bit salty.  One day brine's flavor was weak but the salt was about right.  Two-day brine was too salty and flavor was not-so-good.

Test Group M:  Good.

Potential Improvements

Definitely needs more flavor and less salt.  That's accomplished through the brine.  I need to cut way back on the cure and salt that I put into the recipe.

I'm also not a big fan of the pickling spices.  Those will go in my next attempt.  Replaced by brown sugar.

Conclusions

This was a good first attempt.  While I don't think that I'm close to making good Canadian Bacon, I'm definitely on the right track.  Brine followed by smoke seems to definitely be the way to go.

There are options to consider ... do I soak the loin after brining?  Do I put it directly into the smoker without soaking?  Soak after smoking?

I hate leaving options untried ... I'll try them all ...

Mini Stuffed Pizza Cryogenics

Sometimes I miss convenience foods.  I really loved Red Baron personal-sized microwave pizzas.  So quick and easy ... and, yet, even though they were hard-core industrial food, I still enjoyed them. 

Freezing Procedure

I'd made a couple extra mini stuffed pizzas, so I put them in the freezer.  I wrapped them in aluminum foil and let them cool.  Then, I put them into a zip-top bag and put them into the deep freeze for two weeks (these were part of my experimental batch of sourdough crust mini stuffed pizzas, I normally work on a recipe a little before I embarrass myself and post a blog entry on it).

Being the retentive sort that I am, I even included a laser-printed label inside the zip-top bag.  I'm a big fan of labeling things.  It makes life so much easier a few hectic weeks later when you look at a generic bag of food in the freezer and think "Ano?" (What?).

Re-Heating Procedure


This weekend I pulled them out and tried to bring them back to some sort of life.  One went into the oven.  300F (150C).  After 10 minutes it was still solid in the center.  This was not convenient.  Oven re-heating was out.

The other I'd tossed into my 1200 Watt microwave.  Three minutes later and it was back to as good as it was going to get.  Very hot on the outside, but the inside was ready-to-go.  After a minute of cooldown, the pizza was ready to eat.  Freezer-to-plate in under five minutes. 

After part of the Primary Test Team and I got impatient waiting for the oven test ... we just pulled it out and stuffed it into the microwave for a couple minutes.  When it comes to convenience, patience is not a virtue.

Only one problem with the whole process: the aluminum foil got stuck on the cheese.  Next time, I will let the pizzas cool and then just put them into a zip-top bag.  No alumninum foil.

Conclusions

Freezing these pizzas works fairly well.  Into the microwave for three minutes (presuming a 1000+ Watt microwave).  Let it cool a bit or it's going to burn your mouth badly.

Of course, these were nowhere near as good as the fresh pizzas.  I had no illusions that they would be.  These were good enough and very quick.

For frozen and then microwaved ... definite winner.

Stuffed Pizza Stuffed Me!

Stuffed pizza ... if you love crust this is Pizza Nirvana.  It has an extra layer of crust on top.  Plus, this form of pizza, usually associated with Chicago, allows toppings to be crammed inside in quantities that a normal two-dimensional pizza won't allow.

Yes, this variant allows one to put even more meat, cheese, and tasty veggies onto and into Nature's Most Perfect Food ... pizza. While large factions argue about which kind of pizza is better ... New York or Chicago ... I simply enjoy both.  Good crust, good cheese, meat, sauce ... put together in ways that would make any nutritionist or dietitian cry?   That, my millions of loyal fans, is great food.

I am very proud of this particular post.  The pizza pictured is made nearly 100% from scratch.  The dough, the mozzarella, the sauce, and the Italian sausage were all made by me.  Only the Parmesan cheese was purchased.  And, I'm not sure I want to start making my own hard cheese ... 18 to 24 months is a long time to wait for results.

Procedure

I made the pizza dough. I covered it and let it rise while preparing the ingredients.

 

I preheated the oven to 400F (205C).  While the oven was heating and the dough was rising, I prepared the ingredients.

The sauce I pulled out of my freezer.  I make it in large batches and then freeze it in serving-sized portions to make my life easier when I want to make pizza.

I shredded the mozzarella.  Look at that beautiful mozzarella.  I'm so proud.  That's the first one that I made myself.

The Italian sausage I browned.  This is my own as well.

Lastly, the Parmesan ... I cut open the bag.  I sincerely doubt that I'll ever make my own Parmesan.  18 to 24 months of waiting for results would be quite difficult for me to take.  Waiting 18 to 24 minutes is bad enough! 

  

Once the dough was ready, I rolled out a large piece and draped it over my mini springform pan.

  

Next, a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella.

  

A layer of browned Italian sausage.

  

Then, a little more shredded mozzarella.

  

I rolled out another piece of dough and draped it over the top.  I pinched the edges much like a pie crust to seal the lower section.

 

I put some sauce on the top.  Spread it around nicely.  Don't put on too much!

 

Finally, a sprinkling of mozzarella and Parmesan.

  

Into the oven for 25 minutes at 400F.

Only two problems ... first, I didn't know that my oven was behaving properly when I made it.  So, what I thought was 400F was really 450F.  Oops.

Second, I forgot to put some kind of ventilation in the lower section.  So, it made this beautiful dome.

  

I didn't want my wonderful mozzarella and Italian sausage to go to waste.  So, I cut the Blackened Dome open. 

  

The meat and cheese was scooped out and rescued.  I don't mind the dough and sauce dying ... but, my precious homemade cheese and sausage deserved to be saved.

  

On the second time around, I didn't put the sauce and cheese on the top at first.  And, I punched vent holes in the top of the top dough.

I put the pizza into the oven at 400F (205C) for about 12 minutes.  Really, you just need to watch it until the middle of the top dough is turning golden brown.

Once the pizza reached that point, I put sauce on the top then sprinkled the cheeses over it.  I put the pizza back into the oven for another ten minutes.

Here it is ... the delicious successful stuffed pizza!

 

Test Results

Primary Test Group:  Rabid, ravenous wolves eat slower than these folks ate the pizzas.

Test Group C: It's so small.  I need more.

Test Group M: Very good!

Potential Improvements

None that I can think of at the moment. 

Potential Variations

Sourdough crust and different ingredients.  The usual infinite variety of pizzas.

Conclusions

The flavor was amazing.  Oh so good ... and popular.  I had one person ask if I sell these (tempting).

This is the first time that I've made everything from scratch (Parmesan aside).  It is such a great feeling to do that.  To build something like this completely from scratch ... fantastic.

It inspires me to keep pushing to do more.

Pizza Hell

I was craving a pizza and feeling lazy at the same time.  So, we ordered pizza from a place in town we hadn't gone to before.  As those of you who have read my posts know, the take-out pizza around here isn't very good.  This new place wasn't so great, either.

I should have known I'd be disappointed.

Thing is, the pizza shows a little promise. A little hope. The toppings are good. So is the sauce.

Then, it all goes bad. The cheese used wasn't so good ... although, for P250 per pizza, I can't complain much about that. Getting real cheese here is expensive. So, this sin is forgivable.

The crust, isn't. It's a Bisquick crust. Blasphemy! As pizza sins go, this is a mortal sin. There just isn't any coming back from this one. The crust was like a cracker.

Note: I actually like Bisquick for the things at which it is good ... quick breads ... pancakes, dumplings, etc.  It makes those easy for those times when you just don't feel like going the whole distance.

Pizza crust is not a quick bread.  It is a real bread.  It needs real yeast.  I needs a rising, proofing, punching down, working, etc.  Anything else is a crime against all that is good in the world.

Now, you might be thinking ... "OK, James, so they screwed up the crust by being lazy, cow pie eating morons.  That doesn't make this pizza hellish, just bad.  Don't be so hard on them!"

Look closely at the picture.  See that white stuff?  Any guesses what it is?  We didn't spill any milk on this pizza.  The white hasn't been added through some kind of Photoshop-like software.  Want to know what it is?  Scroll down past the picture.

It's mayonnaise!  Not just any mayonnaise.  Philippine mayonnaise.  It's sweeter than that which we buy in the States (and, yes, if you're wondering, the Miracle Whip here is like a dessert topping).

There is no amount of repentance that can save their Culinary Souls.  They are condemned to Pizza Hell for Eternity.  May their cereal be soggy and their Coke be flat!

Cheesemaking ... Mozzarella

I love good cheese. Getting it here is difficult, at best. So, I decided to learn how to make cheese myself.

I've made a sour cream-like substance for a while now. But, I wanted to get more serious ... step up to real cheeses. With my discovery of an actual dairy where I could purchase cow's milk that hadn't been destroyed by the ravages of heat, my hopes grew.

Ingredients

• 4 liters cow's milk
• 1-1/2 teaspoons citric acid
• 1/2 rennet tablet
• 3/4 cup water

Procedure

I poured all of the delicious white liquid into my stew pot. Four liters of white gold.


I put it all over a low flame.


While the milk was heating up, I prepared the citric acid. I mixed the 1-1/2 teaspoons of citric acid with 1/2 cup of cold water. I stirred a lot to ensure that it was completely dissolved.


I waited impatiently for the milk to warm up to 90F (32C). I used my nifty space-age infrared thermometer. This thing is perfect for cheesemaking!

90F (32C) is the temperature at which I'll add the rennet. While waiting, I dropped the half rennet tablet into a glass with 1/4 cup of cold water. Again, like the citric acid, I mixed very well.


At 90F (32C) I added the rennet. I stirred well ensuring to stir up-and-down in the pot to get complete coverage.

I heated the batch up to 105F (40C). The recipe said that in three-to-five minutes I'd see curds. It didn't, so I added the other half of the rennet tablet.

That resulted in a pot that was almost completely coagulated. Oops.

I managed to fix the problem. I cut the curds and continue to maintain the heat at 105F (40C). The curds shrunk as they expelled their whey. Saved!



Once I'd cooked down the curds well, I dumped the whole pot through a metal strainer. I took out the curds and put them into a two quart microwave-safe bowl.

As per the recipe's instructions (this is from a book that I have, review coming later), I nuked the curds for a minute. Then, I kneaded the curds ... when they got cool, I nuked again for 30 seconds. Knead, nuke, repeat. Finally, I got to a point that I liked with the consistency.

Let me tell you, kneading hot cheese is not exactly a pleasant task. Ouch! Still, it was worth it.

I rolled up the curds like a ball of bread dough, bringing the edges in under and pushing up from inside.

The result? The lovely picture you see at the top of this post. I'm so proud!

Test Results

Primary Test Group: Tastes good. A little more salt would be nice.

Test Group C: Was confused about the cheese until I explained that it wasn't like Cheddar. It's intended to be melted on a pizza. Commented that the cheese needed more salt.

Test Group J: Unfortunately, they were in Cebu when I made the cheese. So, no feedback here.

Test Group M: "It tastes like mozzarella."

Potential Improvements

More salt. More kneading. Less rennet.

Potential Variations

This was the 30-minute method. It's really more like the Hour-or-Two Method. Still, the results are nice.

I want to try the traditional method for making mozzarella. The kind you see the Italian grandmothers do in delis.

Conclusions

I did it! I made my own mozzarella! I am so pleased.

I ended up using far too much rennet. So, no ricotta from this batch. In the future, I'll get better.

Still, P288 worth of milk (P72 per liter once we include the cost of diesel) made 550 grams of mozzarella. Here, mozzarella comes in 250 gram blocks for P240-to-P250. So, we got P530 worth of good mozz out of P288! If I back off on the rennet, I should get some ricotta, too!

The best thing is, I don't have to worry about when the stores will have the mozzarella in stock. I'm in control.

I like control ...

Pizza Quest - Italian Sausage

As my thousands of regular readers know, I'm working towards making some great pizza here. I've got a good crust, the cheese is good, and the sauce is good. Now, I'm onto the toppings.

I want Italian sausage and Canadian bacon. But, for Canadian bacon I need a whole pork loin and I haven't found one. I need to hit up a butcher when they're first cutting. Everyone here just sells tenderloin.

So, I went for the other half of my Favorite Pizza Toppings Ever ... Italian sausage. I remembered watching my favorite food scientist, Alton Brown, making some. There was no need in my mind to look any further.

His recipe called for chopped parsley. That sounded a little wimpy for my taste. So, I swapped in some oregano instead. I started with a small amount (1/2 teaspoon) to replace the parsley (1 tablespoon). Next time, I'll more it up more.

Ingredients

• 1 kilogram ground pork
• 1-1/2 teaspoons fennel seed
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Procedure

I toasted the fennel seeds in a frying pan until they got a little browned. The smell was amazing! Just keep them moving to avoid burning them.


Then, I tossed the fennel seed, salt, oregano, and black pepper into a small bowl and whisked them together to combine properly.


Finally, I poured the spice mixture onto the ground pork and mixed it all together by hand. Try to do this in a cool place. You can also refrigerate the bowl to help keep things cold. You don't want the fat in the pork to melt.

Should store for a few days in the fridge. I put mine in the freezer as I have some pepperoni curing that I want to use on pizza at the same time.

Test Results

Primary Test Group: Delicious! Marasa! Masarap!

Potential Improvements

Possibly a little more fennel seed or oregano. Not sure. Will have to try it.

Potential Variations

A spicy version!

Conclusions

Fantastic. And, can be even better.