The Ground Oven!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So we finally did it. Finally. The ground oven was made, and it couldn't have worked
better. With no small help from Mark and Ilze, using their property, and a bunch of their produce, we created magic.

The ground oven is a simple enough concept with a difficult execution. Not only does it require a bit of planning, but it's nature it's prohibitive of most natural heat sources. Think about it, no fire can rage without oxygen, so your wood oven is out. Wood doesn't keep it's heat long enough, so just placing smouldering logs in a hole wouldn't work. The answer, my friends, lies in stones. Not just any stones. Volcanic stones.

This sounds rare, but thankfully Mark has a little bit of an idea about the stones on his property. On top of letting us tear a hole in their ground, they also showed us the stone pile they keep. Thankfully a lot of it is lavastone. Perfect. The next step is to superheat the stones, so that they are at their full carrying capacity of heat, and will release it slow over a long period of time. So we dug a hole, around 2 feet deep and 2 and a half feet across, then we built a pyre. In and on the pyre, stones. Once both are done, the stones are superheated and quickly used to line the pit. For the record, stones will snap when heated this high if not tempered volcanically. Our stones were so hot that breaking them happened by mistake a couple times, and revealed a glowing interior. Don't mess with these stones.

The food is wrapped in tin foil, and placed in the middle. We placed a grill and more stones on top of the food, then covered that with another grill, wet cabbage leaves to seal it off, and then dirt. It's a wild way to do things. This is originally a maori thing, but they use baskets lined with cabbage leaves, then cover the whole thing with coconut fiber. We had to work with what was available.

So at this point we have an oven, packed with a whole lamb shoulder, carrots, potatoes, onions and garlic, and it's doing it's thing underground. The main issue is that there is really no good way to measure the temperature. Maybe the stones weren't good enough, or the ground too cold. Maybe some freaky animal has dug through the impossibly hot walls and is dining as we speak.


To relieve nerves, anxiety and a host of other mental plagues, we took a trip to town to visit Hermann Schmidt. Hermann is a geriatric German gentleman that we met earlier that day, at the behest of both Don and our hosts. Though he's getting on in years, the man is unstoppable. At eighty, he continues to bake bread for locals, as well as build massive stone ovens and other structures for local businesses. We met him at a construction site for an outdoor cafe near the local gas station. He invited us back to grab a loaf of bread later. We obliged.

When we returned much later than we expected, there was a multitude of guests, all anxious for food. It had been 2 and a half hours since with lamb was entombed. It was time for excavation. Timing could not have been better. Upon ripping off the top, the scent was intoxicating. The lamb shoulder was perfectly braised, and though some of the veggies were burnt, it was a small price to pay for the madness that was that shoulder.

I'm still not sure if we had enough food for everyone, but it was an extremely enjoyable experience nonetheless. We made up some roasted cabbage with tomatoes and red peppers and shredded some lamb into it, then served the rest in a huge heap alongside a platter of vegetables. Tremendous evening, great company, awesome hosts, and a load of food, straight from the ground oven. It has to be the most natural way to cook.

I feel it's prudent to point out that this is a really time consuming task. It takes a couple people and a good chunk of a day to work. We would not have been able to do this if not for Mark and Ilze, who wholehearted supported the project, and even did a chunk of the labour needed to make it a success. Thanks and we won't forget it!

Beekeeping.

So after our terrific first day introduction, Ilze and Mark gave us a list of couple people that would be interesting to visit around the area and headed to Halifax for appointments. We headed out not soon after to a local beekeepers. Donald is a friend of Ilze and Mark and joined us that evening for dinner, but before that, he gave us some insight into honey production.

Basically the combs come in frames, which are placed into boxes called 'supers'. A base beeswax comb is first purchased, and that provides the base that the bees will build off of. Once the bees have got a thriving colony kicking it, they'll begin to fill the combs with honey. When the combs are all full, it's time for extraction. That is by far the simplest way beekeeping should ever bee explained, but hey, what will bee will bee.

Forgiving that awful pun and reading on certainly took some courage, I applaud your fortitude. So, extraction is basically the process which gets us honey in the form we know it best. The extractor is a huge cylinder that spins at certain speeds designed so as not to crush the comb. Once the frames are decapped, meaning that the beeswax is stripped off the top of each hexagon with a hot blade, they are placed in the extractor and spun dry.

The result: Honey at it's finest and freshest. For the record, freshly stripped honeycomb is like honey chewing gum and I can honestly say I could chew it until I get it jitters. Tasty stuff.

Meet the Parents

So Paul sent us to his parents house. Against my protests, he was extremely adamant that they would be totally okay with it, that they were consummate hosts. He was entirely correct. Though his mom charged us with the laborious task of making sauerkraut, they were awesome. Sauerkraut is unsurprisingly simple to make, and it was fun for me to learn how to make it. As far as hosting goes, they basically just walked us into the kitchen, lit up a fire, and told us to get cooking. This is the ultimate in hospitality for us. A proper home kitchen and a fire barbeque? I didn't really know what to expect, but this was awesome.

So that night we made a super rustic almost all fire dinner with beef from their cows raised on their farm, and grilled veg from their farm as well. It was awesome. In particular, the onions they grow are fantastic. Super sweet, so bbq-ed was the best possible treatment, and they came out lovely.

We also whipped up a mustard and herb butter to top the steaks and veggies, then supplemented with a tomato and basil salad and some garlicky grilled bannock. Quick, super rustic, and madly grilled. Good introduction to Paul's folks.

Lobster Bisque

Did I mention that we made up a lobster bisque for the crew at the eel plant? Pictures time. A great way to minimize waste by getting the maximum flavour out of the shells. Although this looks like it may be a fight to the death, I assure you these two crusty dudes were good friends for all ten seconds of knowing each other.
After death, smashing time.

After smashing comes the soupiness.

Edibility out of inedibility. Cooking makes bad things good.

Lobster Dinner (The people's lobster)

Clearly, if we were to go fishing for it, we had to cook it. This actually took place the evening before we went fishing, because we weren't s
ure conditions the next day would be ripe for plucking crustaceans out of their comfy seabed homes. The weather was standing at a strange state, clear but gusty, so we decided that buying lobster fresh off the wharf was the best call possible. We grabbed two lobsters, one market and one canner, and boogied home. We wanted to make an authentic lobster roll, a popular maritime dish. This dish basically is designed to bring lobster to the people. This sounds like nonsense, because lobster is expensive. A clarification to the previous sentence would be "this sounds like nonsense, because lobster is expense everywhere else in the world". Lobster right from the dock is some cheap stuff. Way cheaper than most would expect, particularly this year, as the price for fisherman per pound is extraordinarily low. Basically, this equals the best deal on the planet.

Back to lobster rolls. Essentially they are a revamped hot dog fit for the masses. Usually just a bun with lobster salad, or chunks of lobster, mayo and maybe celery or green onion for crunch. Simple as can be, but still usually tasty if seasoned correctly and on a nice toasty bun. Fresh meat is best, soft and tender as can be. We decided that we should do a tail a piece for our rolls, add mayo, salt, pepper, and some banana peppers to give it kick. For crunch some nice iceberg lettuce was the simplest option that wouldn't cloud the flavour. Epic eats happening here daily.

Since we had more lobster and needed more food, I went on another flatbread rampage. I'm hoping to get more experience in dough working soon, so I'm doing a little bit of practicing as I traverse the nation. Made up a quick pizza dough, then got wild with it. Tomato, basil, caramelized onions and mushrooms, topped with cheddar and lobster claws at the very end so they don't overcook. It was tasty, but I made so much dough that we decided to try and bake it like a loaf after it proofed a while. Actually worked out well enough for sandwiches. Bonus loaf!

So first we stuffed the dogs with the freshly cooked lobster, then proceeded to top them up with all but the lettuce, as it would wilt. We then fried them, because they were curious dog buns, and had open sides, exposing dough well suited to frying. We then ate two courses of lobster with some Halifax brewed beer and watched Family Guy til we couldn't stand out of place jokes anymore. Good dinner.

Lobster Fishing (Oliver is a Landblubber)

So we had a friend at the eel plant who was a lobster fisherman in his off-time, and agreed to send us out on the boat with one of his buddies who does it actively. It was a wicked experience. Sadly, not in the way I intended it to be. Lobster fishing is a tough business around this area. The fisherman say that since the confederation bridge was built, the lobster are dissappearing. Most of them will take any excuse not to go out, because it almost guarantees a loss of money if you do. Not enough pounds of lobster to afford the costs of boating and employees. We had enough trouble getting to the wharf as it was. The first day we were scheduled to go we went to the wrong wharf entirely, waited around, then asked a fisherman about our contact. The fisherman laughed a bit and told us where to go. By the time we got there, the ship had sailed.

The next day we arrived extra early, around 5:30AM, to ensure we didn't miss anything. Greg, our man in the sea, arrived around 5:50AM only to tell us that it was way too rough and windy to even think about going out. I confess I was a bit relieved. Keeping my lunch would have been a side note to staying on the boat at that point. I needn't have worried, apparently my lunch doesn't much like me in calm water either.

Now I know I get seasick, because I had a spat of nausea in Victoria, fishing for salmon. This was the uppermost rung of seasickness. We were pulling up the first trap when it hit me like a sack of bricks. Happily I had the decency to run to the opposite side of the boat to let loose. Feeding the sea some more. It's a greedy sea, and demanded much of me that day. We were out around 7 hours, and I basically was wracking and vomiting the entire time. It sounds arduous, but seasickness is a strange sickness, comes and goes like the wind. For minutes at a time I would feel nothing, then all of a sudden I was curled over the railing leaving the seagulls and fish a bit of the cold pizza I ate for breakfast. I eventually found a position which enabled minimal nausea, sadly it was a position from which I could see nothing. After a couple hours I just fell asleep, dreaming of lobsters and waves, waking to vomit on occasion. Happily, by around noon, I was quite fine for some reason, and even helped bind the claws of one lobster before committing the last scraping of my stomach's interior to the malicious waves. They seemed to sneer.


It was actually still a very worthwhile experience. Greg and his son Justin have the lobster fishing down to a routine, and pull, empty, examine and fill traps with the utmost efficiency. Fabian played clawmaster, battling the largest beasts with the mother of all weapons, elastics. Basically lobster gets sorted into two sizes, canners and markets, depending on size and weight. Pregnant females, oversized lobsters, and the very smallest are all thrown back to the deep, surviving to be caught another day. Of the 150lbs we caught, a few were extremely large, most were middling, and some small. The last trap we pulled up yielded the two largest of the lobsters we caught all day. I took a few pictures before reassuming the safety position.

It was a good day regardless of the veritable vomitorium show I put on, and we even got some crab and lobster for dinner. It's strange to be out for a full shift and get back in at 2PM, a very opposite schedule to that of the kitchen. Enjoyable to have the day ahead of you. Mine mostly consisted of showering and brushing my mouth into submission, but hey, opportunities abound.

We cooked a little bisque out of all our shells for the crew of the eel plant, and then we were back on the road to Nova Scotia, the beginning of the end. For the record, sunrise over the confederation bridge is a sight not to be missed. I secretly think its why the fisherman go out at all. Nova Scotia comes next.

Bannock and sausage dinner

So after a brief stop by at Cow's ice cream, nothing notable, we continued on back to New Brunswick. We stopped again at Mitch's place for the night, but got home before he did, and so commenced our test oven. We had this idea, as I've mentioned before, and which may come to fruition soon, to cook a leg of lamb in a ground oven, maori-style. The oven is called a Hangi, and this first attempt was a blind stumble towards what we wanted to do. We dug a hole in the beach, the very rocky beach, and filled it with a big fire. We would have to wait for it to burn down to coals in order to start filling and covering it. In the mean time, we decided we should accomplish another longstanding goal, the mythical bannock sausage. Some of you may know of our obsession with bannock, which borders on a diagnosable condition. We frequently make test batches of bannock of all different kinds. Some work out, some not at all. The most successful by far was the BBQ pizza bannock south of Calgary with the South Africans, part of the notorious feedlot dilemma.
This was another resounding success.
Over the open fire pit, we cooked bannock wrapped sausages, smoked frankfurters, and even veggie burgers for Mitch(who only eats seafood). I personally think that is the future of burgers, but we shall see. I almost forgot, but we also did some firetop eel Kabiaki, with the soy glaze. Twas of quality, but unfortunately by the time we got inside after finishing the sausages, was cold. Nevertheless a pleasure.

The bannock dough is so simple to make, and so heartwarmingly rustic, that it suits the sausages perfectly. I can almost say it's like taking corndogs and upping the ante. The best part? You could put anything inside, including cheese, spices,vegetables, anything. So that was done whilst the fire roared down, then we wrapped a whole pumpkin in tin foil, just to see if it would cook through in the oven. The basic procedure involves a hot pit, full of tasty food, then covered with something wet that you don't care about much, before leaving it for a couple hours. Unfortunately for us and our ambition, the pit wasn't nearly hot enough, the cover not nearly thorough enough, and the pumpkin just too damn big. It cooked a bit, like the bottom three inches of a 10 inch pumpking were entirely edible, but the rest was varying degrees of rawness. The reason was research. Research, my friends, coupled with logic, is the way forward. Stupidity is to be left somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere tricky and difficult to find.

Upon actually doing some research on the ancient practice, it became clear that the heat source was never actually the flame. Though we lined the bottom of the pit with rocks, the maori use only rocks as their heat source. Hence why the bottom of our pumpking was cooked and the rest raw. It's like geothermal on the smallest scale possible. What the tradition entails is superheating lavastones, which reach massive heats without cracking, and quickly filling the pit with first stones all around, then a protected basket of food, followed by more heat and a damp burlap sack or other non porous wet thing, covered in dirt. This ensures steam, heat retention, and even cooking. Our pit basically consisted of one big hot rock on the bottom, our food, sticks and wet leaves to cover, and dirt filled on that. Not likely to work it appears. Well, I'll just have to try it again. Soon. In any case, the bannock and sausages were quality, and we topped it off with a little tomato salad. Nice meal, but the pumpkin would have been epic. In case you were wondering, I fed it to the sea. Not the only thing I fed to the sea in those couple days either, read on.

Birthday Tour Pt.2: The Dinner

After the halibut farm, we also visited a small organic farmer tucked nicely into a wind sheltered valley. It was a pretty nice operation, very freedom to let things grow kinda thing. Massive amounts of squash, eggplant, herbs, particularly basil in quantities that could put a pesto manufacturer on his knees. It was really nice. We wandered the garden, picked some stuff for the nights dinner, and headed back to the house to have it weighed up and costed. An awesome part about the whole thing is this guy's house. It's totally octagonal, and rocks my socks. He bitched about it being impossible to renovate, which I totally believe, because everything has to be custom made to fit inside. Still, a striking building. Sadly we didn't take any shots of the farm itself, we were too busy picking tasty business for dinner. Speaking of dinner, after the farm we went to the liquor store to stock up before going back to John's for a mad amount of food.


When I say a mad amount of food. I mean it. John had slotted some pork belly scraps in the oven to just braise to soft gooey-ness before leaving the house this morning, and we had a whole halibut, on top of a bunch of mussels and bar clams that he had kicking in the fridge. We basically got madly out of control, but before I describe anything that happened, let me tell you about John's house and the kitchen that lies thereunder. This is no wimpy home kitchen, he's got one of those upstairs. What John did, and all real cooks would give an arm and a leg to do, was outfit his back cellar as a professional kitchen. For him, it makes perfect sense, he works from home. For all of us, it was an absolute playground of delicacies. We haven't worked in a professional kitchen for almost four months. It felt like returning home after an epic saga into the wilderness, like nothing had ever been so civilized as this kitchen. In all seriousness, he has a spotless kitchen with a six burner range, two deck ovens, two massive tall boy fridges, stainless steel everywhere, a dishpit, massive spice rack and dry storage, and all the space you'll ever need. It was stellar. And we used it fully. As soon as he had introduced us to the kitchen, it was time for us to get to work. I'd decided to make flatbread pizzas with the mussels, whilst Fabian got his hands dirty cleaning to bar clams, I made dough.
John pulled the pork belly, shredded it, and spiced it up into a terrine. I let my dough rest and butchered the fish, ze german made sauce and a quick heirloom tomato and salami salad and we had first course: Bar clams with white wine sauce. We had already finished all the beer and started our first bottle of wine, there would be many more to come.
Next I rolled out the dough and pre baked it for a stretch, it was going to be thin crust and sogginess was not an option. When the edges started to colour, I pulled it out and laid the toppings down. John had meanwhile baked some croustini to eat the terrine with, so we baked off the pizzas and had second course together. His terrine, and one flatbread with mussels, chanterelles, ricotta and a slew of different herbs from the farm including basil, nasturtium, arugula, dill and some edible flowers. The other flatbread had sungold tomatoes, sopressata, and more mussels. The terrine was mental good, and the flatbreads came out pretty well also. We had already gotten two bottles of wine down and finished another of champagne. And the beer.


Fabian also made a white eggplant caponata, very sweet and sour goodness. John made up a sauce to hit the top, and I seared off two fillets of halibut to cap off the meal. A little bit of chopped basil and the dish was complete.It was a hit, and needed another bottle and a half of wine. After that we sat and chatted, digested a bit, and then spoke of dessert. We were getting out of hand, and reined it in for the moment, then John got a wacky idea. What about searing chocolate cake in nice olive oil? I don't know where it came from, but it came strong, so he did it. It was actually nice, though it was all I could do to take a bite and concentrate on tasting in my stuffed and drunken state. It was good, but I could stomach no more, so after a wee drahm of whisky, we called it a night. I was buzzing like a celebrity cell phone on vibrate at this point. It was an excellent end to an excellent day full of excellent food. Who could ask for more?

Birthday Tour

So after the Smart Kitchen, we were to meet chef John Pritchard, a local private chef, and get a quick run around of the Island before cooking up a dinner with him. He met us at the college when our tour was over, and we followed him to drop off our van at his house. Once we were all inside one vehicle, we hopped from Charlottetown out to a small community which houses a halibut farm. On the way we learned that John was a chef in Bermuda for a couple years, as well as Toronto and PEI. We ate a spot of lunch before visiting the farm, because chowder is not to be turned down when it's served on a quay with fishing boats. After lunch, the farm beckoned.

As it turns out, this was no ordinary halibut farm. It was a really, really cool halibut farm. Jim is our madly fast talking host, and he's excited as hell about these creatures. They have an awesome facility, and give the fish tons of room each. These aren't halibut like you west coasters are thinking, though, they only grow them up to 5 lbs before slaughter. They have a nursery for the small ones, and massive holding rooms for the larges. It's a really clean plant, and they take extreme care of each fish. In fact, their mortality rate is as low as possible. Not even 1%. The most fish who die are what they call suicides. Halibut jumpers, who they find on the floor in the morning.

This plant is so cool they even have plans to put some mussels in the water filtration system, which would make their effluent cleaner than the water input. Wild scene to say the least. Plus they are working on taking shellfish scraps, such as broken or undersized mussels, and turning them into feed for the fish. Right now those mostly go to landfill. Its a really great spot and I hope they can follow through on their visions for the future.

Best of all, they fished a halibut, killed it and sold it to us, fresh before rigor, for birthday dinner that evening. Try and get fresher, try. Psyched.

Smart Kitchen

So as I've said before, I was to spend my birthday in PEI. Thankfully, the night before, I had spent some serious time at the Shellfish festival, and we'd gotten a couple contacts with things to do the following day. First, we visited the New Holland College, where "The Smartest Kitchen in Canada" is located. The day before I had met the chef in charge of the operation, and been invited for a tour around. Obviously I obliged.

The kitchen is incredible. Upon entering, there is a sleek boardroom and display kitchen, obviously meant to impress executives of some of the companies they work with. Basically it's an analytical kitchen, designed for the purposes of breaking down food into it's most basic components and then figure out how to make it last longer, appear better, taste better, crunch better, you name it. Basically, Allen and his posse work with large companies to improve products from numerous standpoints, while trying to minimize the ingredients involved and preserve the flavour as much as possible. Cavendish foods, a company centered mostly on potato products, will give them a potato and say, we want our fries out of this potato. Upon analyzing the starch content, crunch, cooking time and many other variables, Allen can present them with a good product similar to their desires. It also goes far beyond. They have every tool possible to make amazing products and break them down. They have scales that measure such minute amounts of ingredient that you can blow on them lightly and receive a measurement. They have homogenizers, winepods, UHT pasteurizers, centrifuges, dehydrators and a pile of other tools I've never seen in professional kitchens. It's a wild cross between a professional kitchen, which is the approach they take to begin with, and a science lab, producing an odd hybrid of extreme functionality. They even have a machine that tests the crunch of things. How do you test the crunch of things? Numerically I mean. It's a most impressive array of product. They are also highly into getting students from the culinary program involved. That way they get a labour base and the school gets a 4 million dollar facility with the ability to do absolutely anything at all. It is a phenomenal spot, and set up to do business with the big boys. Extremely impressive.

Saturday in PEI

So because of limited time, we didn't want to spend our entire weekend at the festival and miss out on all that PEI has to offer. We opted instead for a little exploratory Saturday, though we were extremely sluggish to get started after the ruckus that was the night before. We ended up deciding to visit the Prince Edward Island distillery, and find a couple of lamb farms to see if we could get a leg or shoulder for our future ground oven plans.

The distillery was a really cool place, where Julie Shore plys her trade as a master distiller. She makes vodka out of PEI potatoes, which is great news, because that qualifies as a local products. Though I'm not a vodka guy at all, the vodka is creamy and texturally different than anything else I've ever tried. She also makes Gin, which is a great addition to any party, particularly one involving me and a bottle of tonic. G&T is my standby, the drink I lean on to provide warmth when all else seems horrible. Even beer can't compete with a well made G&T. Her gin is a little too spice-heavy for my tastes, but once again, totally different than anything else I've ever tried. Her pot still is almost a work of art in it's complexity, and her facility is extremely clean. I almost forgot to mention that after she is done producing her sumptuous spirits, she finished the circle by feeding the mash to several pigs she keeps in the backyard. Happy pigs and a sweet recycling program.

Excellent way to round out a facility, because they in turn provide local chefs with food for the plate, where most distilleries simply provide the landfill with trash for the turf. She also makes a "bourbon" though it can't be called that, because that is a regional name, and a blueberry grain vodka, which actually tastes of blueberries, not sugar and extract. It's a really nice place, and while waiting for the tour before you to finish, you can doze on the sleepy sun drenched front patio. Excellence.

Julie also had an idea to send us to a local lamb farmer to find a large piece of animal to roast underground. Sadly Springwater farms couldn't oblige, all they had left was small portions. However, we did get a wicked run around of the farm, including meeting the animals, learning a bit about tanning hides, and even riding a train made from hay and having a costume show. George has two daughters with a lot of energy and some serious train building abilities, complete with a station. His flock of sheep is so beautiful it hurts. And so domesticated it's awesome. Usually petting sheep is a difficult one, but his entire herd are like pets, and come to the fences when you walk in the barn. An excellent time. We also procured some lamb sausages which we ate that evening upon returning to Charlottetown. All in all, it was a nice day in the countryside of Prince Edward Island, which is some seriously beautiful countryside.