Make your own beef? Jean-Simon Petit wants to convince us that it is possible. It can be simple. That’s why his book is designed to make it easy to navigate.
“I wanted to show that this can be done at home, on a small scale,” the 40-year-old chef said in an interview. I started like this myself. So when I wanted to write the book, the idea was always to use materials that you could find at home. We also promoted content; I initially wrote it in classic cooking terms, but we’ve revised it, and people with less experience have been able to make the recipes. »
The tone is set as soon as you read the title of the book. Baloney, the common term used in Quebec to refer to bologna sausages, already has a place of its own in the Quebecois culinary psyche.
Almost everyone knows bullshit, and everyone has a bullshit story to tell.
Jean-Simon Petit
“When I started my career as a butcher, people would come in and eat their bullshit steak. We laughed a lot. I looked for clichés related to bullshit, and I even made bullshit sushi inspired by Hawaiian musubi. “Ballone is a name that calls out to the world,” says Jean-Simon Petit with a smile in his voice. .
The taste of self-sufficiency
So there is a home-made recipe among the 70 recipes in the book, but you should first of all read the introduction, because here you find the basic rules of cold cuts. Spices, salt, sugar, casings, lactoferments, yeasts, and nitrates, Jean-Simon Petit explains in detail the role of each of the crucial elements in making good artisanal roasted meats.
It also talks about the equipment used, maintenance, and safety to consider in the kitchen when dealing with trimmers and meat grinders. “We are playing with bacteria and warmer temperatures, and food safety is important,” warns the chef.
Photo by Stefan Do, courtesy of ÉDITIONS CARDINAL
Smoked bacon is one of the simple meat recipes presented in the book prattleWritten by Jean-Simon Petit.
Although the book gives pride of place to fresh sausages, terrines and other dried cold cuts, there are also recipes for fermented foods, preserves and breads, selections that are all part of the back-to-the-source dynamic of the kitchen here, both in presentation and cooking terms.
“Often, when you want to cook, when you are interested in making bread for example, you develop a desire to do something else yourself,” says Jean-Simon Petit. So I wanted to provide grounding in all styles of transformation, and I wanted to move toward something that was about self-sufficiency. I personally distill alcohol, and since I live in the area and there is no nice bakery nearby, I try to do it myself. »
Jean-Simon Petit lives in Hemingford, less than 5 km from Ferme des Quatre-Temps, where he works as a chef. It was also the farm owner, Jean-Martin Fortier, who suggested he write this book, for which he wrote the introduction. The man who previously worked in the kitchens of Toqué! And Taverne Square Dominion and L’Utopie in Quebec. “A lot of people ask me how I make meat dishes, but I never thought of writing a book,” he said. “Then I realized he wasn’t in Quebec, and when I mentioned that I intended to write the book, people told me he was sick! »
Photo by Stefan Do, courtesy of ÉDITIONS CARDINAL
Section of the book prattle Intended for foods that can be stored in jars, like our famous baseball mustard!
Five-star collaborators
Jean-Simon Petit took advantage of his many contacts in the sector by inviting several chefs to collaborate on the book. Among them are Patrice Demers, Stephane Modat and Stefano Faetta. He also puts his extensive experience at the service of readers. “I’ve been making meat for about fifteen years. I took a butchery course. The weather wasn’t really great at the time, but I thought it was hot. I bought some American books and old French books to try it myself. Through my work, I made cold cuts.” “With as few, if any, additives as possible. I’ve done a lot of testing to be able to make cold cuts as natural as possible, going back to traditional recipes.”
Want to make all-natural hot dogs at home? It’s in the book. “This is one of my things, I’m a real hot dog fan; I’ve bought all the commercial hot dogs in the US and Canada to understand what makes a good hot dog. It sounds cheap, but it starts with emulsion sausages like in Eastern Europe. “I just remade the sausages that were made that day, to make sure they taste like sausages. I don’t want my kids to eat crap!”, says the father of two, including a two-month-old newborn.
All by adding a little baseball mustard to your bread… because yes, that’s in there too prattle !
Baloney – sweets, preserves and company
Cardinal Editions
210 pages
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