F10 || arts & life
BREAKING NEWS: VANCOUVERSUN.COM
| SAtURdAy, MARCh 27, 2010
custom cuts
photos by Ian LIndsay/pnG
Sebastian Cortez shows Estefania Echeverria a prime aged rib of beef. ‘The trend of butchering, stepping away from supermarket meats in Styrofoam packaging, is coming back, but slowly,’ he says.
Born-again butchery
Sebastian cortez is passionate about the old-fashioned way of cutting meat
Sebastian & Co.’s Miami Barbecued Ribs
BY MIA STAINSBY
VancouVer Sun
The cut of the meat is the same as
what’s used for Maui ribs but the
marinade in this recipe has Cuban flavours. At Sebastian & Co., customers
are said to be flooding in as barbecue
season ramps up.
1 pound short ribs, cut to ¼-inch
strips
3 tablespoons finely minced garlic
11/2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground ancho chili
pepper powder
11/2 cups orange juice
S
ebastian Cortez is part of a rebirth
of the small butcher shop. He’s
operated Sebastian & Co. in West
Vancouver’s Dundarave Village for
almost three years and it took a while
for people to appreciate why his meat
cost more than at local supermarkets.
“The trend of butchering, stepping
away from supermarket meats in Styrofoam packaging, is coming back, but
slowly,” says Cortez, one of a handful
of butchers who custom cuts meat.
He’s particularly known for his beef,
which he dry-ages for an incredible 40
days. Small butcher shops normally
age for 21 to 24 days. “Most of the tenderizing process occurs in the first 10
to 14 days with enzymes breaking it
down to about 21 days,” he says. “After
that, richness of flavour becomes the
main goal of air drying.”
Dry-aging also means weight loss,
which means fewer kilograms to sell,
and thus, the higher cost. “About
one per cent of the weight is lost for
every day of dry-aging. Over 21 days,
it weighs 21-per-cent less than nonaged. Moisture loss slows down after
that,” he says.
“Modern processing plants break
the carcass down and send them to
grocery stores within a day. Meat is
vacuum-sealed and sent out after it’s
broken down or it’s wet-aged in the
vacuum-sealed bag to preserve the
weight. It makes for more tender meat
but flavour isn’t enhanced.”
Cortez is inspired by the artisan
butchers of Europe and South America. After emigrating from Chile in
1999, Cortez worked as a chef at Jamie
Kennedy Wine Bar and Jamie Kennedy Gardiner in Toronto. He then
decided to learn butchery, working at
an organic farm with an old-fashioned
butcher shop.
“My shop was absolutely quiet to
start,” he says. “Nothing happened.
Now I’m busy. People support sustainability and are willing to try new
things. They come back asking me for
recipes using cheaper cuts.”
Cortez buys grass-fed, grain-finished, prime organic beef from Blue
Goose ranch in 70 Mile House. At
first, he broke down sides of beef himself. “It was a full day of work to do
two sides [at 900 pounds each]. “I did
it myself for two, three months. I’d
start at 6 p.m. and work to 3 a.m. in
Cortez dry-ages his beef for an incredible 4o days, which results in a tender
cut and rich taste.
my commercial kitchen. Then I hired
people to do it while I ran the shop.”
Now, he buys the meat in smaller
sections. “I shake hands with the
rancher every time I pick up the beef,
which is delivered to North Vancouver. I’m told what the animal ate
because it comes down to the personality of the animal. Some decide to eat
more grass than grain,” he says.
Some cuts he shares with customers
are from his native Chile. “We were
brought up on different cuts. Here,
consumers’ wants are top-end, the
New Yorks, sirloin, or maybe flank
steak. I’ve introduced vacio, an interesting cut from the top of the flank. It
usually gets ground.
“The cool thing about my shop is, I
introduce customers to Argentinian
and Chilean cuts you can’t find. Here,
they’d usually end up as ground beef.
In Chile, everything’s cooked on low
temperature on a charcoal barbecue
and tenderizes like braising.”
He also sells skirt, flat iron and
hanger steaks as well as brisket and
chuck. “The hanger steak is at the end
of the rib and beginning of the loin,”
he says. “It’s the muscle supporting
the diaphragm and there’s only one
per animal. It’s going to be popular
but people aren’t used to the flavours
and textures. Usually, the tougher cuts
of meat have more flavour. Collagen
and gristle means more flavour.”
Interestingly, two of his employees
cooked in restaurants and wanted to
learn how to custom cut meats before
going back to cooking. Zac Campbell moved here from Prince Edward
Island, where he worked as a chef.
“Vancouver’s the culinary mecca and
I’ve always been interested in butchery but I didn’t have the opportunity
to learn. It’s not a common thing.
Sebastian and Co.’s beef is a grassfed, grain-finished organic product
from 70 Mile House.
Sebastian’s really a true butcher. He
does everything by hand, old-school.”
Campbell plans one day to open his
own restaurant, do his own butchery
and make charcuterie (hams, pancettas, prosciuttos), which he’s learning
from Cortez.
“Butchery is definitely a topic of
interest amongst chefs. Everybody
wants to learn these skill sets for their
restaurants but there’s nowhere to
learn the proper techniques. If I were
to tell you what I’ve learned from
Sebastian, I’d take all afternoon.”
As a mark of how good his product is, Cortez says a customer just
bought 10 porterhouses to take back
to Singapore.
“I don’t even know if it’s legal,” says
Cortez, “but I know if it’s in checkedin luggage, it will stay cold.”
mstainsby@vancouversun.com
2 teaspoons honey
½ tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon puree of chipotle
peppers
Salt to taste
Mix together all the marinade ingredients and marinate the meat overnight in it. When ready to grill, set the
barbecue on high and grill the short
ribs until crispy, about 2 minutes per
side.
Makes 2 servings.