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The plan was to roast a whole pig.

Mother Nature though, that greasy bitch, wasn’t having it.

The swine was fine. A 62 pound specimen grown in the Sussex, New Brunswick area and delivered beautifully cleaned and fresh to a local restaurant where we picked it up last Thursday. My friend Dan and I sampled a few beers and a few ideas for marinade for the pig before settling on a well rounded mix of lemon, lime, spanish onion, olive oil, gobs of garlic, cumin, fennel seeds and black pepper. After a 12 hour brine and 12 hour soak in cuban marinade, the pig hit the fire.

Then the rain hit everything. All efforts to cover the pig, bail away water and keep coals fired were no match for the teaming blast of pummelling rain over a two-plus hour period, after the pig was just 45 minutes into what should have been a six to seven hour slow roast.

In the end we simply cut up the pig into individual roasts for each of us to finish in our own ovens. I put a shoulder into my pressure cooker with some additional chili powder and cumin and made a great batch of pulled pork tacos that fed eight people that night.

Overall it was a costly venture, but we’ll try again next year perhaps. We at least know that 25 cinder blocks and 30 bricks makes for one hell of a good barbecue pit. Top that with a grate made from four-foot lengths of steel rebar and you can grill one huge load of food in no time. I might just make a temporary bread/pizza oven out of the blocks to use for the rest of the summer and fall so watch for future photos of that.

Also watch for future lawsuits against The Weather Network that forecast “less than 1mm” of rain on Saturday, August 16. Somebody dropped the goddamned ball on that one, boys.

Pig Roast 2008. Dang it

Preparing piggy for the marinade application.

Assembling the grill grate and covering with foil.

It seems simple enough – bacon and eggs. A simple breakfast though is where a cook can really shine, or stink up the joint. Try having breakfast at any Greater Saint John area restaurant to experience just how lousy the execution can truly be. Cooking a decent egg takes finesse and care. It’s a delicate little ingredient that cooks quickly and has a very small window of opportunity for greatness. And remember, an egg, like pretty much anything else in life, needs to be seasoned. A pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper – get it on there.

Here’s a nice idea for a breakfast that actually makes the process of getting an egg into your belly a little more forgiving, if you’d had some trouble with it in the past. In this dish, the hash browns and bacon are prepared first, then it’s topped with eggs, seasoned and gently finished in the oven. Grate some cheddar cheese on top if you like, and you’ve got a classic farmer’s breakfast. This will get your day off on the right foot.

Bacon, eggs and hash brown, Hawk Style

1 russet potato, peeled and diced

water

2 tablespoons vegetable oi

2 strips of bacon, chopped coarsely

2 eggs

salt and pepper

First, dice the peeled potato and place in a bowl. Pour in enough water to cover, then season generously with salt. Stir just a little bit then microwave for 3 minutes on high. This should mostly cook the potato. Alternatively, you can put the potato in a pot or fry pan with a cover and add some water and salt and just let simmer for about 5 minutes. Drain the potato in a collander and immediately dump onto a tea towel or paper towel. The potato will still be very hot so it will dry on its own in a couple of minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 F at this point. Heat the oil in a stainless steel fry pan (preferred over non-stick because it’ll brown better) over medium-high heat for several minutes while the potato dries. Add the potato and fry until golden, moving and tossing often. Drain off any excess oil if necessary. Move the potatoes to the side and add the bacon. Fry until crisp and toss with the potato. Season the whole works with pepper and place in an oven proof, single serving dish of some kind. Carefully crack two eggs on top, season well with salt and pepper, then place in the oven. Bake until the egg whites are solid and the tops of the egg just begin to turn opaque. This will probably take about six to eight minutes. Remove and place on a plate with some toast, those little jam things, some coffee, little creamers and packets of sugar and charge your customer $17.95 plus tax.

Alright, stop buying bread. Stop it right now. Dust off that KitchenAid mixer you got when you got married five years ago and whip out a dough blade. It’s time to make some freakin’ bread. Commercial bread blows. It really blows. It is flavourless, nutritionless garbage, to be be completely fair and polite. Making your own bread makes a loaf that is world’s better than the cardboard from the grocery store and once you’re in the habit of doing it two or three times a week, the world is your oyster. Want a hamburger? Make the buns yourself. A hot dog – do the bun yourself. Dinner roll? Italian loaf? Baguette? Foccacia? Bread stick? Do it all yourself. Here’s how I slap together my daily bread. See the notes at the end on how to modify the dough slightly for different results. A KitchenAid stand mixer really is pretty important with something like this. The kneading is back breaking work so let the machine do it while you sip $200-a-bottle wine.

Bread (pretty good title eh? I thought of it myself).

2 cups water

2 tablespoons sugar

2 heaping tablespoons dry active yeast

2 cups whole wheat flour

4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 heaping tablespoon of salt

First, we nuke. Fill your microwave-safe measuring cup with two cups of water and microwave until the temperature is between 110 F and 120 F. In my crappy old microwave that I got from Sears in 1990, it takes about a minute and 45 seconds. The water should be just about bath-water hot, or a little less. Get a thermometer and leave me alone already.

Now, add the sugar to the water and stir to dissolve. Sprinkle in the yeast and let it stand for 10 minutes to proof. It should be a nice foamy, liquid in that time. If the yeast didn’t do anything, sell your KitchenAid mixer on eBay. You’ll get $100 easy.

Add two cups of whole wheat flour and one cup of all purpose flour to the mixing bowl. Add the salt as well. Attach the flat beater and combine the flours. Add the yeast mixture and the butter to the flour in the bowl. At slow speed, combine until smooth for about two minutes. Begin slowly adding another cup of all-purpose flour as the machine runs slowly. Stop the machine, change to the dough hook, add another half cup of flour and start the machine on its lowest speed again. In small increments, continue adding flour until the total in there is around 5 and a half cups. By this time, you can increase the speed to the second setting and the dough should start to clean the sides of the bowl. Let it run (this is the kneading process that’s a mother by hand) for about 7 minutes, adding flour if the dough sticks to the bottom of the bowl at all. After about 7 minutes, stop the machine and remove the dough to a floured board. You’ll just need to knead it for a few seconds to smooth it out into a nice dough. Grease a big bowl (remember, the dough is going to double in size) with olive oil or butter and drop the dough in. Turn it to coat with the butter or oil and cover lightly with a tea towel. Let stand for two hours to rise. Remove it from the bowl and cut into two pieces. Knead each piece briefly, again just to smooth it and drop it into greased bread loaf pans. Again, turn to coat the dough with the butter or oil, then cover with the tea towel. Let it rise until they look like a loaf of bread should look like – this will take about 90 minutes to two hours. Preheat your oven to 375 F (350 F if it’s convection, the preferred type of oven, by the way). Put the loaves in and bake for 35 minutes. Turn the bread around halfway through cooking if you think your oven is uneven at all. Remove the loaves from the pans and let cool for 10 minutes before you dive in. Repeat three times a week for the rest of your life.

Notes:

• I use a mix of two cups of whole wheat flour to four cups of all-purpose flour for a nice all-purpose loaf of bread. Try experimenting with the mix to find the one you like best.

• If you’d like an Italian round loaf, just place the round of dough on a pizza pan to rise for two hours after you’ve cut the large dough in half instead of in the bread pans. Also, use extra virgin olive oil in place of the butter.

• I wanted to show this in a video demo but I suck at video. So there ya go.

Here’s my stand mixer, which I’ve used several times a week for the last five years:

And here’s some more breed I just baked today. It’s easy – try it.