Bouchon: Simple Roast Chicken

A couple of weeks ago I received Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. One of the first recipes that stood out to me was Keller's "Simple Roast Chicken," mostly because it was so simple. Keller calls for a "fresh farm raised chicken" so I made a trip to The Butcher & Larder (2323 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL) to pick up a 3 pound chicken: 

After we trussed the bird, Keller calls for only salt and pepper for the bird, no butter as is traditionally used, as he claims that butter creates steam and that he wants a dry heat to cook the bird. So we didn't use any butter. Here's the bird before we put it in the oven:

And after only an hour of cooking at a high heat with no basting:

Before serving Keller recommends some thyme, and to "serve simply":

The Verdict:

A very tasty and moist chicken. The flavors are very simple, but with a high quality fresh bird I'm not sure you need a whole lot more than salt, pepper and thyme. We were surprised just how moist the meat was, despite not using any butter in the cooking process. I have to imagine that this is a very healthy dish. After we had our fill, I stripped all the meat I could find off the bird and saved it for later, when I made some great chicken salad by adding a little mayo and celery.

The Butcher & Larder: "The Untouchables" Sausage

Here is another glorious item from the team at The Butcher & Larder: "The Untouchables" sausage-green onion, bourbon and Great Lakes Eliot Ness beer. A fantastic beer sausage that features a wonderful spicy bite and a smooth beer and bourbon finish. Their sausage machine is constantly cranking out house creations that change almost daily. I would recommend heading down there and grabbing a sausage or two along with some pate as it makes for a great treat!

The Butcher & Larder: Pate

I just wanted to share a picture of the fantastic pork based pate that I picked up this past weekend from The Butcher & Larder (2323 N Milwaukee, Chicago). I stopped in looking for some of their "Country Pate," but Chris asked if I would like to try some of this instead. I'm glad I did as it is some of the best pate I've ever had. All of the pates are made from farm raised animals in house, the pate below is pork liver based. Even if you're not a big pate person, it's worth giving it a try at B&L. Serve it with some simple toast and enjoy!

Pork Belly Tacos

This past weekend I set out to recreate a great dish: the pork belly tacos at Big Star in Wicker Park. I went to the great butcher shop The Butcher & Larder to pick up about 3.25 pounds of pork belly:

I then cut the belly up into 12 squares and put a Mexican spice rub on them before letting them sit for about a half an hour to get to room temperature and absorb the spices a little bit: 

I chopped up some celery, carrots, and onions for my mirepoix: 

I then seared the pork belly in my clay pot: 

In the meantime, I started soaking some black beans that morning to be served as a side dish with the tacos: 

I then put the pork belly in the oven at 350* for about 3 hours, flipping and stirring the contents every half hour or so. After three hours it came out looking like the following: 

I removed the belly, then strained the braising liquid multiple times before reducing it for about 30-40 minutes: 

After the mixture reduced, I cut away some of the very fatty parts of the pork, and pulled out the flavorful meat and placed it back in the pot. I cooked/fried the pork in the reduced liquid which really crisped up the meat: 

Meanwhile, I put the black beans in the oven for about 2 hours to cook: 

I put the pulled pork on a fresh Whole Foods bakery tortilla and served it with queso fresco and cilantro, with the black beans on the side: 

The Verdict:

These where some great tacos. They didn't turn out the same as Big Star, whose belly comes out essentially in cubes and more fried. That doesn't mean these weren't good...in fact the pork belly meat was incredible and very tender and you don't really need to put too much in toppings on it as the meat is really the "star" of the show. A possible idea for next time though would be to put some grilled pineapple on it like another one of Big Star's tacos. I also want to experiment more with Pork Belly and make a few other recipes with it. 

The Ultimate in Sustainable Eating? Scrapple.

This past weekend while visiting The Butcher & Larder to pick up a few night's worth of meat, I spotted something you don't see very often in Chicago:

Beautiful, isn't it? It's called scrapple, and it's a fantastic breakfast snack. Very popular in Pennsylvania, scrapple is traditionally a mush of pork scraps (hence the name) and trimmings combined with cornmeal, flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a loaf and served pan fried with eggs. 

So what are the "scraps" in the scrapple? Traditionally it's made of hog offal, like the head, heart, liver, and other parts. The meat and bones are boiled to make a stock/broth. Once the meat is cooked, it's removed from the bones and cornmeal is added to broth to make a mush. The meat is minced and returned to the mush before making a loaf. At The Butcher & Larder...it's only $4 a pound! 

While it doesn't look particularly yummy sitting on the butchers paper, once fried and served with eggs and ketchup...it's really good. It has the consistency of a hash, but there is a great sausage/meat flavor that goes perfectly with the yolk of the egg. 

Here it is cooked up: 

If this isn't a perfect example of sustainable eating I don't know what is. The butcher takes the meat that is many times thrown away, and finds a vehicle for them. In the end almost all of the animal is used. Considering the quality of the meat sold at Butcher & Larder, if you're going to eat the "questionable" meat from a pig, I would much rather it be from a high quality local sustainable farm.

Next time you're at your local butcher, ask if they have any scrapple. You might be surprised how much you enjoy it. If you don't? You're only out a couple dollars.

The Butcher & Larder

The Butcher & Larder

1026 North Milwaukee Avenue

Chicago, IL 60642

773-687-8280 

The Butcher & Larder is a new butchery in Noble Square owned by Rob Levitt. Rob and his wife, Allie, were behind the very popular Bucktown restaurant Mado, which was even praised by the New York Times in an article here. At Mado they were famous for butchering local animals in house and serving very simple dishes that let the high quality ingredients speak for themselves.

Only a few months ago, Rob left Mado and almost immediately announced that he would open Chicago's first "all-local, humanely raised, whole-animal butchery." Considering he was well known in Chicago for hosting butchery classes at Mado, this announcement was big news in the local foodie world.

With that, this past weekend I made the short trip west from downtown to visit the Butcher & Larder to pick up something for an appetizer for a dinner party we were hosting that night. Other than the shop's twitter page, there really isn't a "menu" of items. In fact, the shop seems to get a few whole animals a week and then butchers them on a first-come-first-serve basis until the animal is gone.

The shop itself is pretty low-key with not much except for a small window full of ready to go products and a long counter and 3 people working, including Rob who was there working on a large piece of meat behind the counter. In addition to being a butcher, B&L also offers a few daily lunch specials. When I was there their hot sandwich was a sloppy joe, cold sandwich was chicken salad (both about $8), and they also were selling pints of homemade chili for $16.

When I was there I spotted one of the daily specials, a jalapeno cheese curd brat:

I ended up cooking them for lunch. Very flavorful, they had a subtle jalapeno flavor, a few cheese curds, and a hearty brat texture. Great stuff and not too expensive at roughly $2.50 each.

For our dinner party, I bought three links of B&L's "house" sausage. I served them on a platter with some simple mustard. To be perfectly honest I forgot to ask what was in them, but they were very good and went quickly during our cocktail hour.

When waiting in line, I spotted a few different pates in the display glass and had to try some. Below is a small slice of the very rich and creamy "country" pate. This was just outstanding, and something I can see myself stopping in for and buying by the pound. I served it with some light toast.

Overall, the Butcher & Larder is a big winner in my book. I love that all the animals come from local farms, and the freshness of the meat really shows through in their offerings. I expected the shop to be expensive, but it really was pretty reasonable. I will certainly be back!