Let’s start with Rotisserie Polderside Farms Chicken.

• First, rinse the chicken under cold water (get inside the cavity too) and pat dry with paper towels.
• Next,  that bird; it will stay compact while cooking and the wings and legs won’t flop around while it spins.
• Heat one sage leaf, some thyme sprigs and some butter in a small sauce pot. Once melted, rub this buttery goodness all over the bird and sprinkle on some sea salt and pepper.
• Preheat your oven to 450° and put the bird in for ten minutes before turning the oven down to 250°. The initial heat will help make the skin crispy.
• The bird should be cooked in just under an hour but make sure you keep an eye on it because all ovens are different. I have a which has been pretty solid for this dish.
• Once done, let that bird rest for 15 minutes so that the juices can disperse through all that luscious meat.
• I served this with a simple arugula salad, twice-baked potato and a sauce I made a sauce using the rotisserie drippings which I pour onto a that has sage, thyme, dijon mustard, a couple drops of worchestershire sauce and a good splash of .  Just reduce this together at a medium low heat (this can be done while the chicken is resting). Welcome to flavour country!

Beef Brisket

• Brisket is an inexpensive cut that requires some low and slow loving before it becomes the definition of tender. I usually get mine from which always has some fine product, but if you can get it direct from a local farm like it will be well worth your while.
• I like to sear mine first on the BBQ then it in the oven for 6 hours at 235°.
• Before searing my brisket I make a rub using smoked paprika, cumin, mustard powder, ancho chili powder, thyme, oregano, s&p and a nice big sprig of rosemary.
• My braising liquid contains one cup of this Spanish Tempranillo from (which is pretty much my favorite thing in a bottle under $20), two cups of beef stock, which has been sweated down in butter for about 20 minutes with some garlic and one whole red pepper which has been skinned and diced.
• All you need to do is place the seared brisket fat-side up in a rather snug fitting oven safe pan and pour the braising liquid over top of it until the meat is nearly covered.
• After 6 hours at 235° take the meat out and let it rest on your cutting board under a tinfoil tent.
• While it rests take all the liquid (with the vegetables still in it) and blend it in small batches. Once this is done you can gently boil down the sauce (at medium-low heat).
• I finish the brisket under a hot broiler (fat side up) just long enough to give some nice caramelization. I like there to be a bit of a crust on the fat to give it a nice contrast of texture.
• Cut the brisket into long strips and pour the sauce over top.
• Serve with crispy kale (just toss it in olive oil and s&p and throw it under that hot broiler for two minutes a side) and let the delicious times roll!
  

  Everybody I know likes their Kale Cripsy

They own and operate Polderside Farms which specializes in ethically producing — they are BC SPCA certified — heritage chickens and ducks which come from France.

Virginia with her award for Producer/Supplier of the Year from Vancouver Magazine and a photo of her famous Redbro Rooster taken by Daniel Boulod's official photographer.

My girlfriend and I went for a visit to their farm on Saturday and ended up spending the better part of the afternoon with Virginia just talking about food, chickens, farming and life in general.

Admittedly I wasn’t holding on to all of my  journalistic principles that day.  When we arrived we discovered that Virginia was waiting for us and had baked some damn fine cookies to go along with organic coffee and goat’s milk.  We then sat down to a lunch of wok fried chicken wings which Virginia had marinated overnight in soy sauce.

Virginia said that there was no way I could write about her and her farm without tasting the product.  I was happy to oblige.

Wok-fried Polderside wings

The meat was rich and had a depth of flavour which you cannot find in other poultry.  This has been key to the success story behind Polderside Farms.

Even if you are skeptical about the merits of organic farming, your skeptisism would be curbed by the taste.

Jens and Viriginia know this and it has been the driving force of their business.

Virginia directly attributes much of her success to local chefs who have been drawn to her product for years.

It started when Virginia sparked the interest of chefs like Jeff Van Geest, formerly of Aurora Bistro and David Hawksworth, formerly of West.  Robert Belcham of Refuel and Campagnolo has since become one of Virginia’s favourite clients as he only uses Polderside Farm’s poultry in his restaurants and has now called dibs — so says Virginia — on all the lamb (also organic and ethical) the farm will raise this year.

Celebrity chef Daniel Boulod once stood at Virginia’s kitchen counter and ate roasted chicken and duck, which Virginia had prepared simply with salt and pepper.  (He was looking at local farms to source for DB Bistro Modern and Lumiere.)

I asked her what it was like to have such a world famous chef eating birds she raised.  She replied that the most pressing memory she had of that day was that chef Boulod didn’t wait to be served at the table.  Instead he and his associate simply stood at the kitchen counter and picked away at the two birds with hands and forks.

Such is the taste that even the French forget their manners.

Up next was the moment I came for.

Chef Vaughn pulled out half a Slopping Hill pig from the walk-in cooler and rather quickly began to cut it into workable portions.

Every Thursday morning the chefs take apart two pigs — one for each restaurant — which are delivered directly from Slopping Hill Farm.

Chef Vaughn said he was excited as it was the first time in about a year that he was in charge of the butchery.  Chef Belcham usually holds court on the weekly Thursday morning sessions.

The advantage in this, as explained to me by Chef Vaughn, is that it effectively makes every cut of the pig cost the same.  There is no premium to be paid for with the loin or the chops; when you buy the pig whole the butt essentially becomes the same price as the loin.

The benefit for the chefs is learning to deal with product in its purest form.  Chef Vaughn told me that he simply would not be able to go back to a restaurant where the food comes from a box where you don’t know where it came from or what went into raising it.

The loin and belly are neatly laid out, freshly cut from the pig.

Profits seem to take a back seat to quality at Refuel and Campagnolo.

Chef Vaughn told me how last year the restaurant bought up an entire crop of heirloom tomatoes from a local producer at a price that simply couldn’t be recuperated as an item in the restaurant.  However, since the tomatoes where so tasty the restaurant supported the producer and bought it all so that he would have the incentive (and funds) to create a new bigger crop for this year.

Now that is supporting the farm.

There is love there — both of the product used and in the process of creating food.

Award winning Chef Robert Belcham was kind enough to allow me access to the kitchen of Campagnello on a rainy Thursday morning to watch three of his chefs (Belcham is currently on holiday) create the cuts of meat that will be used in both restaurants.

Doug Lowey and Adam Vaughn work at a tub of Polderside Farm Chickens

During the morning, chefs Alvin Pillay (Campagnolo), Adam Vaughn and Doug Lowery (both of Refuel) showed me how they prepare the cuts for a wide range of items on both menus.

When I first arrived Adam and Doug were breaking down poultry from Chilliwack’s Polderside Farms.

Every bit of meat the restaurants use comes from local farms like Polderside and Slopping Hills where the animals were ethically raised, having foraged freely on the farmland without the use of antibiotics or hormones in their feed.

The result is a superior (and ethical) cut of meat that only gets more delicious in the hands of Belcham and his crew.

The feeling I got watching the chefs at work was that this was something old school, something special.

After Adam and Doug had broke the chickens down into cuts for Refuel’s now famous marinated-then-sous-vide-in-buttermilk-then-fried chicken, Alvin showed me something I had not seen before.

Growing up on Lake of the Woods, Ontario, an area densely populated with deer, I’d like to think I have had almost every cut of venison.  But what Chef Pillay was preparing was new to me.

He was taking meat off the neck of venison to use for the base of a bolognese sauce.

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Chef Alvin Pillay working at some venison neck.

After a trip through the meat grinder the venison is slowly cooked for four hours in a bit of butter so that the connective tissue breaks down and the meat — so Pillay assures me — becomes most tender.  The venison meat is later mixed with onions and garlic that were slowly cooked in another pot. Combining the ingredients and simmering in a house-made tomato sauce — finished off by a cup of milk at a time — a rich game-based bolognese is made.

The venison itself is from a wild herd that lives on Sydney Island.  It doesn’t get any more natural.

Portions of fresh pasta sit in beds waiting for tonight's dinner service

(Continued in Adventures in ethical meat: Part two)