Here is my pasta dough recipe, its the best one I’ve come across so far, but I’m always tweaking it every time I learn something new about pasta. This one I think came from Northwest Italy where they have amazing quality eggs, using the best quality eggs you can get is very important. The large amount of yolks in this recipe make the dough rich in flavor and color and it also makes the noodles delicate and tender because of their fat. There are some whole eggs in the recipe as well because egg white proteins make the noodles cohesive and firm and reduce the amount of starch that comes off the noodles during cooking. There are 3 kinds of flour, semolina, 00, and all purpose. They each lend a different quality to the dough, because of their different protein contents. Semolina has the most protein. 00 is also known as Italian soft wheat flour. Here is the recipe:

300g semolina flour

300g all purpose flour

300g 00 flour

240g yolks

6 eggs

salt

olive oil

If the dough seems to hard and too dry then you did it right, but different humidity and egg size can effect your dough so add more egg if you think it is really to dry. Wrap it tightly so it doesn’t dry out and let it rest so the courser semolina flour has a chance to soak up the moisture from the egg and so that the gluten has a chance to relax.

This is a video of my Chef butchering the pig. But now I do it. I make the sausage and the bacon and the sauce, just one small part of the meat station. In the kitchen he talks mostly in french to the other french cooks.

The pig arrives tomorrow. He comes every two weeks. I’m going to have to work fast because it usually comes late on wednesday, during service so I only really have thursday to do it. But I’m not leaving the pig’s side until he is totally cooked.

I have to sign and be resposible for a lot of new deliveries now that I am on meats. Today I cooked the pigs cheeks that we have been saving in the freezer until there are enough cheeks to make a special. I made duck jus, I helped other stations. The organic chicken lady dropped off her case of chickens, when I popped the lid there was one chicken that was super small and red and deformed. I was under alot of stress and I pointed at it and said, “that one looks like he is sick, is that the runt?, he shouldn’t go to school with the other chickens…” she was like “OH MY GOD!” and she picked it up like a football and ran out of the place. I never even signed for those chickens.

my wall of spices

Alright, right now the only thing keeping me going is this day. I cook and I have no worries, and my product is good. The team is great. I did some stuff today.

pork stock

I butchered some Lingcod.

I took the meat off the pig’s head.

my sauces pre-service, before the brown butter.

some of the sausages that I make.

My sweet Lidbin plays the mop bass. We got two  26’s from a table, 1 gin, 1 vodka.

banana slug on the forest floor

I’m glad you liked the pictures of the chantrelles. We pick chantrelles every fall on vancouver island, october is the best month. You want to find dense forrest with fir trees, salal berry bushes and a mossy floor. They particularly like to grow around decaying wood. I hope this helps and good luck.

I used to take pictures of my burns but I don’t anymore. This is what I got. Burns happen when you’re learning a new station and you’re working 14-16 hr days. I’ve got a few since I started meats but they are just reruns of the ones below.

These fuckin’ jokers, I love em. In front is Robbie the sous chef and Boner is the guy behind, so funny. Someone brought us a bottle of blueberry wine tonight, it was pretty gross so we did some shots of jamison before! haha.  We did 75 covers tonight and we had lots of laughs. It was a good night tonight nothing else to really report. Getting better at cutting fish and making stocks.

These are cooked pigs feet that I just took out of the stock. Until I started working the meat station I never understood the importance of trotters. I would have to separate the meat from the bone from the skin. I would have a huge pile of bone a medium pile of skin and a small pile of meat. I never knew what the use was. 

Trotters are very important to use when preparing pulled pork. Once the meat is pulled and being seasoned with stock/jus or sauce, the small diced trotter skin is added in and it basically melts away and gives the pulled pork a beautiful moisture and texture that heightens the final product to some next level type shit. Chow has a lot of pulled pork because we get the whole pig and butcher it in house. We make roasts out of the best part of the shoulder and we use the shoulder trim for sausages. But sometimes we slow roast the shoulder overnight for pulled pork.

So basically trotters are used for the quality and the gelatin of the skin. I was always asking the Quebecois cooks that I work with why we waste our time with the trotters when there is hardly any meat on there, they would just look at me and laugh. We also de-bone them and stuff them and serve them to VIP’s. They are also great to put into stocks to add body to a thin stock for sauce.