My recent post about eating shrimp tails seemed to get some good response, so I thought I'd do about post about eating whole shrimp.  Once again, for breakfast.  Congee is a rice porridge, flavoured with fish sauce and soy sauce, and whatever else you have on hand.  It's a terrific breakfast dish for those of us who want the comfort of porridge, but don't really dig sweet in the morning.

The last time I made congee I did not have any dried shrimp.  This time, thanks to my dear friend Jo at Create A Cook, I have some lovely whole dried shrimp in Korean chili oil that are going to be perfect for my little pot of congee.  When I say whole I mean shells, eyes, little flipper things - the entire creature.  These shrimp are a tad larger than the dried shrimp I've used in the past, so I'm excited to see what kind of texture they are going to add to my dish.

The basic recipe I use is by David Lebovitz - it's a terrific recipe that you can really make your own.  In my opinion congee (or Jook as it's sometimes called) does not keep very well.  For one person I use a quarter cup of rice and a half cup of water.  Although, I add a fair bit of water during the cooking process to give it the right porridgy consistency.

I add my minced ginger and garlic as soon as the rice/water mixture starts to simmer.  The other ingredients are based on what I have on hand, and added when the rice has begun to get soft.  Some diced carrot, frozen peas, a pinch of salt and once the rice is tender I add a little dash of fish sauce and soy sauce as well as my dried shrimp.

The chili oil that the shrimp were packaged in gave my congee a little heat which added a surprising element to the congee.  I don't normally add any chili's but after this experience they are going to become a regular player.

The whole shrimp added body (literally) and texture to the congee.  And although they were larger than the dried shrimp I had used previously they still managed to add to the dish without taking away from any of the other flavours or textures.

I think this is possibly the best congee I've ever made.  The flavours are all working together, nothing it too overpowering and it's warm and soothing on the tongue.

I'm ready to face my day, even if I'm wishing I'd made enough for a second bowl.

This morning I was eating leftover sushi for breakfast, trying to think of what to do for my next post when I realized my next post was sitting on my plate.  A shrimp tail sticking out of a roll - with its shell still on.

I eat shrimp tails.  I always have.  I like the crunch and structure that they have.  Ross thinks I'm nuts - and he's not the first whose felt that way.

You can make stock with shrimp shells, but that's only if you've got a lot of them.  And when I was in Tokyo last year I had a tempura'd shrimp shell that was mind-opening, as well as whole shrimp shell on.  But other than that if you've got a lonely shell on the plate and don't want to be wasteful what's a girl to do?

My thinking is that they must be calcium rich, and I'm not dead yet so I'm pretty sure they aren't bad for me.  And although Ross is used to it (in fact he saves me the end piece because he knows I like it) when eating sushi with new friends I still get questioned about my tail-eating habits.

So my question is - does anyone else out there eat shrimp tails?  Or am I alone on this one?

What makes this "Wisconsin-style" is the fact that this Ross' Mom gave me this recipe.  And Ross is from Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin is one of my favorite states to visit (although it's hard to compare it to anything else because Ross' family are there, and I love them dearly). Not only is the state itself beautiful (especially Madison where Ross' family are from) but due to the heavy influence of agriculture on the state the food is generally pretty fantastic.  The abundance of game and lake fish that are part of the regional cuisine also make this state an especialy great spot for the food inclined. 

On top of all that Ross' Mom, Liz, is an absolutely stellar cook.  So when Ross mentioned to me that this was one of his favorite dishes from childhood I had to have LIz's recipe.  And just my luck, Liz was happy to oblige.

Liz uses a combination of ox tails and stewing meat for this soup. 

The process begins by searing the oxtails and stewing meat in butter. Now, my Mum uses olive oil for everything and that's how I grew up.  So I must admit there was a little culture shock due to butter my first few trips to Wisconsin.  I am happy to say I've gotten over it.  Butter is my friend, I love butter.

After searing both the ox tails and stewing meat I added some chopped onion to the pot, followed by my other veggies (celery, carrot, garlic) and let that mess cook for a few minutes.  Once that had cooked down I put the meat and its juices back in the pot with the veggies.

Next Liz says to add a can of fire roasted tomatoes and some beef stock.  I did not have any fire roasted tomatoes on hand, so I used diced.  I tried to make up for it by adding a pinch of smoked paprika and some red wine for body.  Then it was simply a waiting game.  The ox tail meat should be tender and succulent.

After about an hour I added a small handful of barley and two diced potatoes and let it keep simmering.

Eventually Ross wandered over to see how I was doing and asked if I was going to remove the meat from the bones.  This had not occurred to me.  But the answer was yes.  This was Mom's recipe, which is not a thing to ever be trifled with.

After another hour (ish) I removed the ox tails and let them cool.  And once they were cool enough to handle I removed the meat.  Which was a more involved task than I'd originally thought.

The best part of this was that I got to knaw on the bones after they were striped of their meat, the cartilage was tender and lovely, a real treat to those who don't mind getting a bit messy.

Once done I was left with a decent amount of meat which went back in the pot.

This is a fantastic soup that I served with red wine and a baguette and some nice sweet butter (yay butter!).  The ox tails give the soup real body and the chunks of tail meat had lovely gelatinous bits running through them that were chewy and tender at the same time.

Ross says it was close to the dish that Liz makes - but as I said before there's no competing with Mom.

Thanks Liz for a really awesome supper.

My tails have been in the fridge for two nights, and I'm ready for a taste.  Because I saved the stock I cooked the tails in I've also decided to make collards, using my pork stock as the cooking liquid.  I have a really good feeling about these greens.  I've also got some sour cream in my fridge (leftover from making my Omi's cucumber salad earlier this week) so I'm also making a sour cream based corn bread, with kernels of corn I froze earlier this summer from a particularly good batch of sweet corn from the farmers market.

A problem Mum and I have had with her recipe is that it often burns in the high heat needed to crisp the tails.  I do not want to sacrifice the crisp, so I've got to keep the heat high, but this time I'm putting the tails on a oiled rack.  Hopefully keeping them elevated will stop the burn issue.

I've heated my oven to 400 degree's, which is higher than the temp the original recipe cooks them at.  I'm hoping that the rack will stop them from burning.  The heat is cranked to achieve the desired crispness.

After about 30 minutes (basting them with reserved marinade/glaze every 10 or so minutes) the less fatty parts of the tail are exactly where I want them to be.  However the fatty portions of the tail, mostly the thicker parts, and end pieces still need a few minutes. 

Those fattier pieces go back in the oven, and although the pieces that are ready are still extremely hot I can't resist a taste.  They're excellent, the sauce I made has charred in a few places because of the sugar, but has also made the fatty bits of skin crisp and delightful.  The meat easily pulls away from the bone; no wonder after an hour boil and another half hour in a 400 degree oven.  The meat, surprisingly, is not dry.  The fat has dribbled throughout the meat, maintaining both it's texture and taste.

As for the sauce, it's a pretty decent, but standard BBQ sauce.  The smoked paprika has really come through, giving these tails more dynamic than I thought they would have,

The collard greens were as good as I thought they would be, in fact they're probably as good as the pig tails.  The pork stock gave them a roundness that can only be found in a homemade stock where gelatin has been extracted out of the bones.  Although this is just a quick stock, and did not have the real gelatinous nature of a long simmered stock the collards took on many of the desired qualities.  Simmering the collards in the stock for the better part of an hour (adding more stock as they went dry) both reduced the stock and gave its flavors a chance to really permeate the greens.  If making pig tail this way I strongly recommend saving the tail stock for collards.  

This experiment has given me a great starting point for the next time I make pig tails.  The important things to remember are: elevate the tails off the pan while baking, use a good smoked paprika and keep the tail stock for a side of collards.

I've tried a few different pig tail recipes, my favorite are consistently baked or fried and are always crisp.  The pig tails I ate at Craigie on Main were delicious, as were my Mum's the last time I was home.  Now I'm going to try and create my own version.

I like the stickiness of Mum's recipe, but some of the spices are a tad over-powering.  I'm going to use her recipe as the basis for my own.

First I'm going to make a marinade, that's going to double as a glaze.  I love ketchup, so Heinz is the base for this marinade.  To it I'm going to add a shake of smoked paprika, and a squeeze of siracha, salt and cracked black pepper.  I'm also adding some cider vinegar and some brown sugar.  I'm doing all of this to taste, while heating the entire thing on the stove.  This is just a dry run, if this batch works there will be some more tests in the future.

For the next step I'm following Mum's recipe and covering the pig's tails with cold water then boiling them for an hour or so.

After about ten minutes foam began to appear on top of the water,  it's not an issue.  I just skimmed it off.

After the hour or so, drain the tails.  I've kept the liquid to see if I can make something out of it.  Maybe a hot and sour soup or something.  You don't have to keep it though. 

Once the tails are cool enough to handle chop them into pieces.  Mine have already been partially chopped.  This is not uncommon if you get them at an Asian grocery like I did.

The chopped tails now go into the marinade, then the fridge to sit for a day, or at least overnight.

In a day or so once the tails have "gotten to know" the marinade  I'll heat the oven and crisp them.  What I'm going for is crisp but slightly chewy glaze surrounding tender meat.  We'll see how I do in a day or so.

One of the real reasons behind my recent visit to Canada was my Uncle Bunny's 63rd birthday.  The party was planned a few days in advance.  Schnitzel, fried chicken and pig tails were just a few of my favorites on the menu.

The pig tails are prepared by Mum, who boils them and then marinades them in a sugary spicy mixture for a few hours.  She then places them in a hot oven to crisp them.

There are always some bits that get burned, but that's a small sacrifice for these fatty, crisp, almost rib like knobs of pork.  Unfortunately I was flipping schnitzel when they came out of the oven, and although I did get a plate of these brought over to me by a few caring souls, I did not get a picture of the final product.

It did however inspire me to go get some pig tails of my own, and try and make my very own version of this childhood favorite.  My pig tails are sitting in my fridge as I type, waiting for my next moment of porky inspiration.

Last Thursday I had dinner at Craigie on Main.  It had been highly recommended by many people whose opinions I respect.  Once I looked at the menu online and saw that they served pig tails I knew I had to visit.  I was not disappointed.

All of my previous pig tail experience had been through my Mum.  She makes a broiled pig tail that comes out crisp with a sweet and spicy glaze, and she makes a pepper pot soup with pig tails, callaloo, scotch bonnets and various root vegetables.  Both are favorites of mine, so these pig tails had a lot to live up to.

I was not disappointed, they were delicious.  The tails were cut into small segments, not served whole. The serving was large for one person but probably a good size for two.  Although I ate all of them pretty much unaided.  They were well seasoned and served with crisp fried onions and chili's on top of a puddle of nuoc cham.  The tails were tender but also had a bit of crunch.  Totally different than what my Mum makes, and in my opinion just as good (sorry Mum!)

We also ordered the much talked about burger and the potato galette.  The galette was described by our server as 'potato crack',  which turned out to be a very apt description because I could have easily gone back for seconds and thirds  The galette was served with crisp bits of bacon, salmon roe and a flavored cream.  The burger was as good as any I'd ever had, but cost $18, and for my money I'd definitely rather have the pig tails which cost $11.

The restaurant itself is definitely upscale, but the bar food was high quality and reasonably affordable considering the quality and atmosphere.  For an upscale nose to tail experience I would happily recommend Craigie on Main. I will be taking my Mum to try the pig tails the next time she visits.