Created by Lead Cook Victor Wilkenfeld, tonight’s signature menu item is the Pig Skin Burger. It packs all the pork your palette can handle!
It all starts with the arrival of fresh pork belly at TD Place. The skin is removed and saved for making pork rinds. Then the belly is rubbed with Executive Sous Chef Jeff Brule‘s secret BBQ seasoning.
After seasoning, the belly is left to cure for 24 hours. Fast forward a day, the belly is then house-smoked at 220 degrees for five hours, soaking in all the smoky goodness.
On to those pork rinds! Once the skin of the pork belly is removed, it gets boiled with peppercorns, bay leaves, and spices for three hours. It is then cooled and diced into chunky pieces, then deep fried at 380 degrees until golden and crispy. Then the pork rinds are finished off with a dash of salt and pepper.
Every great burger is garnished with a great sauce. How ’bout smoked bacon aioli? You had me at bacon.
The smoked bacon aioli starts off with the trimmings from the original pork belly. They’re sautéed in a pan with shallots and garlic, then deglazed with white wine, and reduced with chicken broth. Then it all gets poured into a food proccessor and blended into a fine, delicious bacon purée. The bacon (mmmmm) purée is then blended into a medley of roasted garlic, chili sauce, eggs, oil, vinegar, and lemon juice.
Final topping, pickled red onions. Peppercorns, star anise, caraway seed, coriander seed, bay leaf, brown sugar, and salt are added to equal parts water and red wine vinegar. Then the mixture is poured over freshly sliced red onion until cool.
And voilà! You have the perfect Pig Skin Burger. Make sure to sink your teeth into it at tonight’s REDBLACKS game when they take on the reigning Grey Cup champs, Calgary Stampeders.
The Pig Skin Burger is only available tonight at Gates 1 and 4, the grills heat up around 5 p.m. Great tickets are still available here or by calling 613-232-6767 ext. 1.
Watch Executive Sous Chef on CTV Morning Live, as he cooks up the Pig Skin Burger with host Melissa Lamb.
