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!

Hot Doug's

Hot Doug's

3324 North California

Chicago, IL 60618

The quote painted on the wall says everything about Hot Doug's: "There are no two finer words in the English language than 'encased meats,' my friend." No there isn't!

I made my way up from the city yesterday to take a long lunch, bringing a friend from out of town on his first visit to Hot Dougs. I've found that visiting on a Saturday can be a complete zoo...with lines at 11am snaking down the block and taking an hour to get your food. Going during the week is the way to go, as I've rarely seen the line longer than 15 people at noon on a weekday.

Anytime I come to Hot Doug's, I try to go light on the fries and enjoy a couple of sausages as they are so unique (and ever changing) I can't choose just one. Yesterday, I went with my all time favorite sausage: the Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Fleur de Sel, and the day's celebrity sausage: Saucisson Alsacienne: Bacon Sausage with Creme Fraiche, Caramelized Onions and Morbier cheese.

The duck sausage is heaven on a bun, as three of my favorite things to eat are foie gras, truffle, and duck. I even had my picky eater friend order it and he loved it. When I asked him if he liked the foie gras, he said yes and "what is foie gras? I hope it's not pork liver or something crazy like that."...I told him to google it when he got home.

The celebrity sausage exploded with bacon flavor, and I loved the morbier cheese coupled with the onions. Very good and an example of the sausage talents of Hot Doug's.

I also took a bite of my wife's order, which was the Traditional Irish Pork Banger with Guinness Stout Mustard and Cahill's Porter Cheese. This was pretty good, but in my opinion nothing special.

The only benefit to coming on a weekend and standing in line is that they have the duck fat fries, so we settled and had some of the standard fries.

All in all, Hot Doug's is a favorite and a place that everyone who comes to visit the city should try to see in order to experience the "real" Chicago.

Ad Hoc at Home: Vanilla Ice Cream

As I've been using Ad Hoc at Home as a springboard into the world of ice cream making, instead of skipping ahead to slightly more complicated recipes I decided to make what Keller calls the "base" for many of his ice creams and other desserts. Here are the ingredients needed for the basic vanilla ice cream (note the real vanilla beans):

After heating up the cream, milk, sugar, and eggs the main step in the recipe is removing the beans from the vanilla stalks and placing it in the mixture (along with the stalks as well) and allowing to sit at room temperature for a while to allow the mixture to absorb the vanilla flavor. Here is the mixture pre-trip to the fridge:

After letting the mixture sit in the fridge overnight, I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker/attachment and placed in the freezer to let sit and firm up. Here is the finished product:

The Verdict:

This was a very good ice cream. Like Ad Hoc's  other desserts, it is very rich and should be limited to 3 or 4 bites. The ice cream tasted the best for two days after I made it, after that it started to loose its texture and became a bit icy.

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.