A Day at Austin's Top Caribbean Restaurant Cooking Whole Wild Boar

If Texas was a Caribbean island,

what kind of food would come out of it?

And that's kind of what we cook here.

Our philosophy is to treat each ingredient

with as much respect as possible.

So we think about the final product

days before it's actually done.

The job of a chef de cuisine is to operate the kitchen.

I take on a lot of large projects.

My main job is to train, to teach, and to inspire.

Coming up with new dishes,

make sure I progress the menu in a creative direction.

[mellow groove music]

Hi guys, my name is Harvard Aninye.

I'm the CDC here at Canje in Austin, Texas.

And this Texas heat is real,

so let's get back inside before it gets too hot.

We've been open for about a year and a half.

We are modern Caribbean restaurant.

So we are authentic, we are in no way traditional.

We'll serve the food that your grandmother would make

if she lived in Texas.

So it's 10:00 AM, I gotta get in there,

check the prep list, check how many people

we got coming in today.

Follow me.

[upbeat groove music]

So this is our prep list.

As chef de cuisine, it's my job to kind of make sure

we're all on task on a day-to-day basis.

So right after service, I kind of go throughout the line

and ask them what they need.

They tell me, we'll write down a morning prep list

and make sure that everyone else

is kind of making it ready for them at night.

Here we have a little couple of items

that tell you how many of each to do,

which allows me to track food costs a little bit better.

So these dots mean these projects have already been started.

Here, at the very bottom I gave myself

a couple of tasks here.

We got a whole wild boar in today.

I wanna make sure that's cut and ready to go for pepper pot.

Next thing I'm gonna do is look at the books

to see what we have ready to go for today

and see who we have coming in.

It kind of gives us a base schedule for the entire day.

So it tells me who's coming in at what time,

what they need and any dietary restrictions.

So it gives us a chance to prep.

Right now, looking pretty busy.

We have 176 people coming in,

which is kind of a classic day at Canje.

Any party over eight people,

we have a special menu for that

and it's kind of my job to set that menu.

That's coming in right at seven o'clock.

All right, I gotta get that boar started

'cause it's a lot of work.

One of our most labor intensive projects.

Follow me.

[mellow groove music]

[wrapping rustles]

All right.

[Harvard grunts]

This is a 83 pound boar, just came in today.

All the moisture here means it hasn't been frozen.

A wild boar pepper pot is what we use this for.

Pepper pot is the national dish of Guyana.

A combination of this cassareep,

which is a very special ingredient,

black cassava root that's juiced

and reduced down with warming spices.

So you have things like orange, cinnamon,

all spice, a lot of thyme, and a little habanero.

I like to say that pepper pot is a little bit

like Caribbean mole, it's beautiful.

This braise is about a six hour braise,

as low and slow as possible.

So this is my Dexter butcher kit.

Got a little bone saw, got an axe here,

and it actually says Dexter right there.

So you know it's gonna get bloody here in a second.

All right, so first thing I'm gonna do

is kind of make this thing a little smaller.

Coming up the leg here you see the hip bone right here.

I'm gonna cut right on this side of the hip bone,

cut all the way down to the actual bone itself.

Release this belly and then I get to grab my bone saw.

[saw whizzing]

So we basically saw through the bone

and cut through the rest of the meat itself.

You never wanna saw through meat

because it rips and tears the flesh.

The reason why we're getting wild boars

is 'cause they're actually a problem down here.

It's a pest, honestly.

And when these boars come in,

we are doing our part to help Texas farms grow better.

When we first opened, we were talking to one of our farmers.

He asked if we can use a boar and we said yes.

They have actually trapped them for us

right outside of La Grange.

Send them here once a week

and that's kind of how we sustain our pepper pot.

All right, next thing I'm gonna do

is take these shoulders off.

So basically you kind of lift this guy up

and chop right under the armpits here.

[bones cracking]

And take it right off the edge.

If you have a sharp knife,

it really doesn't take very much actual effort

and you get the seams here,

you kind of crack it open and you can hear it.

If you hear that sound, you know you're doing a good job.

You're right through the seam.

Breaking down boars,

specifically breaking down whole animals,

takes a lot of practice and we only get one of these.

So if this is kind of messed up,

there's not really much we can do, right.

So it's one of those things where as a CDC,

because I have the most experience in the kitchen,

I'll break this down to make sure it's done correctly.

There is no in-house butcher.

I am the in-house butcher.

And it's kind of my retirement plan.

One of these days I wanna open up a butcher shop,

chill and make a lot of charcuteries.

So you can tell this is a little bit of an older boar.

The texture of the meat is more firm, the younger they are.

So if you kind of feel this,

you can see this a little bit older 'cause it gives a lot,

which is nice because it's gonna be less tough.

Next I'm gonna go for the belly area.

If you look right here,

that is where you get the back strap or tenderloin.

My goal is to cut all of this off in one go.

And you can see this here is a really nice color.

This guy was running around a lot, active boar.

This is all food costs, right.

So anything I leave on these bones

doesn't go into the plates, doesn't go in our wallets,

does not go into our bank accounts, which is not great.

So no meat on the bones means I'm doing a good job.

There's the belly there.

So other side of the back strap here, taking that off.

Different game meats will taste different

based on where they are in the country.

The wild boar here eats a lot of sage, eats a lot of pecans,

eats a lot of like weird Texas ingredients.

So you get those flavors as you're eating this boar.

This is the fun part.

[bones cracking]

There you go.

That's one rib cage right there.

The first couple of times I did this,

I was so bad at it, it was embarrassing.

So with all of these ribs, we'll roast them.

We'll make a stock out of this

and we'll use that stock to braise the pepper pot in.

[bones cracking]

There you go.

The hard work is over.

It's about 11 o'clock now

and I gotta get started on some coconuts.

[mellow groove music]

So this is where we keep all of our tools.

This is my drawer at the very bottom.

Grab my suitcase, grab some coconuts and ready to work.

All right, you walk in with a briefcase,

people will remember you.

So I got my knives, I got my aprons.

Got a little picture of me right here

from when I was in culinary school

to remind me where I came from.

[coconuts thudding]

Now it's time to crack some coconuts.

Everyone has their own way of cracking coconuts.

I use a knife, the knife scares people

a lot of times, I'll use this guy, it's less sharp.

And really, the only way to do it

is by hitting it as hard as you can

in a certain amount of angles.

[coconuts thwacking]

There you go, that's one.

So coconut milk is made in Canje probably every other day.

But today, we're making curry, we're making callaloo.

Callaloo is kind of like a braised green dish.

Right now we're using Swiss chard and spinach,

a little coconut milk and mustard.

So we're gonna need a good amount of coconut milk.

We go through maybe 20 quarts every two or three days.

It's a very different flavor

than store bought coconut milk.

It's fresh, it's light, it's not as heavy

and it doesn't add so much

sweetness to your food without you wanting it.

You can tell when a coconut is ready to go

and nice and fresh by how dense and heavy it is.

[coconuts thwacking]

That was close.

Well, I would say 20 coconuts

will get us about 20 quarts of coconut milk.

We use coconut milk in a lot of different dishes here.

So we'll use a shell, we'll light that on fire

and use it as like charcoal.

We'll smoke with the shell also.

The coconut flesh itself, we use it in a sweet potato dish.

I'll strain this out

and we'll use this as coconut water.

If you're thirsty, it's a great way to start your today.

The next thing we're gonna do

is literally shuck these coconuts.

So I'm gonna take this oyster shucker

and we're gonna peel all the flesh

from the inside of this coconut out.

But the whole point is to go around the entire outside,

get the coconut out in one go.

This I'm gonna add some water to

and we'll turn it into coconut milk.

So I am Nigerian by birth.

My dad is from Lagos, Nigeria.

I was raised in San Antonio.

So I would say that I'm first generation African American,

which for me, is a really cool perspective.

So my dad cooked a lot with coconuts.

It wasn't ever fresh coconuts.

This is the first place

that I've actually used fresh coconut in

as often as I have.

So one more coconut should just about do it

for the next couple of days.

There we go.

So all of this stuff here, we'll burn this today.

Right now I'm basically just getting a weight

on the coconut flesh itself.

And we'll go two parts water to one part coconut.

The hot water will extract more fat out of it,

which gives us more of a creamy kind of texture.

[water gurgling]

So I'll let this steep for a little while.

We'll basically come back to it in about 15, 20 minutes.

We'll blend it and strain it out.

Right now it's almost noon.

The kitchen is in full swing.

My sous chef, Steph, is over here.

She's making some rotis for us.

We sell about 120 rotis a day.

We got Blanca back over there peeling some shrimp.

She's really, really, really fast at that.

The biggest blender in the entire world.

This thing's like 25 pounds.

You can look at the actual flesh itself

and see that it's more translucent than it was before.

That means that the hot water's kind of doing its job.

Add a little bit of the water itself,

almost equal parts there and blend it.

[blender whirring]

So as the coconut flesh breaks up,

the fat from inside of the coconut releases

and it emulsifies with the water

and that's kinda what makes it milky.

When you run your finger across it,

it kind of holds its stripe there

and that's when you can kind of tell

the texture is where you want it to be.

So I'm gonna press out all of the excess water and moisture.

So an extra cup and a half per batch

turns into a quart here and there.

Do that three times a week, that's a gallon.

A gallon is a lot of money.

So that's my job to make sure we're making money here.

[mellow groove music]

[blender whirring]

All right, it is 1:00 PM.

I'm gonna clean up here a little bit.

Check in with the team and get started

on that Wagyu beef curry.

[mellow groove music]

That's my whole job.

I just walk around freaking out, making everyone stressed,

just checking in, making sure everyone's doing good.

[soothing groove music]

Okay, I love our prep team.

They make my job so much easier.

This is all the stuff that will very soon

be our Wagyu beef curry.

Tavel Bristol, the chef-owner of this place,

made this together with us.

But this is all soul, it's all taste.

Because it's so hard to translate this

in a style and a recipe,

I like to make this to make sure that it's correct.

And we always taste it as a team.

Onions go in.

And we'll cook these down

until they get a little bit of color on that.

Cebolla, onions in Spanish.

[Harvard laughing]

Blanca helps me with my Spanish every now and then.

Si Blanca, [speaks foreign language]?

[person speaks foreign language]

[people laughing]

Yeah, [speaks foreign language], yeah, yeah.

So we got a little color on these onions.

That's what we're looking for.

Next, I'm gonna add to that some tomato.

Tomato gives it a nice color,

a nice roundness and a little sweetness as well.

So we have some scallion or green onion in here.

A little garlic and ginger.

I don't think that there's ever a such thing

as too much garlic.

So I'm gonna add this whole thing, you know.

So any recipe you see garlic in, just double it.

So the curry that we're doing

is kind of an African meets Indian style curry.

The word curry just means sauce.

So we're kind of reaching into the Afro-Caribbean

side of the islands while we're doing this.

So this is our house curry spice blend.

Some toasted turmerics.

There's a good amount of cumin in here,

a lot of curry leaves and fenugreek.

So you get a lot of sweetness in this curry powder.

You get a lot of depth.

We're basically coating all of the vegetables

with this curry powder and kind of cooking that

for a while until the moisture

comes out of the vegetables themselves.

I can't tell you how much in ounces

or cups or grams that was,

but I can tell by looking at this that that was correct.

One of the coolest things about working in this restaurant

is when I walk in it kind of smells like I grew up.

We are not shy with the aromatics here at all.

This thyme, I'll use it in a lot of different ways.

So I'll take this and I'll pluck some of it in here.

So it dissolves as it cooks for a really long time.

This basically, just bundle of thyme,

I'll add to the end of it so it can steep.

I'm gonna add a little fruit stock.

Fruit makes me think about the Caribbean.

We actually are making some more fruit stock right here.

So basically any of the fruit scrap,

any of the pieces, the peels, the tops, the bottoms.

We'll add to here.

We'll cook that until all of this flavor and color extracts

and we'll use that just as we would chicken stock.

It's a way to add flavor

and you're not just watering down your dishes.

Next, this is a really nice chicken stock here.

That's gonna give a lot of body,

a lot of texture to this curry.

I'm gonna add some mango cores to the actual stock itself.

Mangoes are a little bit acidic, a little sweet.

So again, we're adding a lot of sweetness to this dish

without any sugar.

I'll have to fish those out later.

How many was that, was that four?

I did four.

So make sure I get four out later when y'all see that.

So one of our secret ingredients,

one of the things that I love about this curry,

we add jerk drippings.

So basically, every time we cook a chicken,

there's all these drippings and juices that come off of it.

We save those, this gives it depth, this gives it fat.

So I'm gonna add some of that.

So last but not least, we're gonna add pineapple aminos.

It's full of just umami.

This is kind of an answer to fish sauce.

So the beef is cooked separately.

We'll add that to order, add the potatoes

and then all of that will cook together for service.

So that we have it ready to go.

It's two o'clock.

I gotta get started on some R and D.

There's a couple of things

that we're gonna change the menu with,

and one of my jobs is kind of make sure

I progress the menu in a creative direction.

So that's what I'm gonna get started on right now.

[soothing grove music]

All right, I'm gonna be working on this dish called akra.

It's a Haitian dish.

It's a dumpling made out of raw malanga or a tarot root,

epis, which is kind of like the Haitian version of sofrito.

This is malanga.

This is a starch that's found in the Caribbean.

It's similar to a potato, little starchier and more chalky.

So I made a couple of versions of this already.

The last version we made just didn't have the texture

that we wanted it.

It was a little too gummy.

So I'm gonna try to see if we can remedy that a little bit.

I think we're gonna try to get rid of that

by rinsing off all the starch for a while

before making it into the fritter.

Our partners and a corporate chef

all kind of get together on a weekly to monthly basis

and we'll all talk about what dishes we want to do

for the next season.

Actually, all of them are coming in tonight.

We'll taste a couple of these dishes together.

We'll see if we like them.

If we do like them, they'll be on the menu very soon.

If not, we'll keep working.

All right, so this is all cut now.

I'm gonna go rinse this for a little bit.

So this cloudy water tells you

that there's a lot of starch in here.

If you remove the starch, then you remove the ability

for it to kind of like retain that glutenous texture.

That glutenous texture is where you get gummy,

kind of chewy foods.

I think it's gonna work, that's gonna be enough.

I'm gonna just add this to the Robo Coupe

and buzz this up with the Haitian epis.

So this is just a base of thyme,

habanero, some parsley, a little bit of fennel.

We don't have a recipe for this yet.

That's why the R and D portion of this is important.

And then I'll train someone else on how to do it

after I'm done figuring it out myself, so.

[blender whirring]

The salt that I'm adding now is just really for texture.

It's an abrasive, so it'll help break up

this tarot a little bit.

Honestly, this is one of my favorite parts of the job.

A lot of being a chef de cuisine

is really all about function, and like paperwork,

and making money, and making sure the place is doing well.

This is the part where we actually dream about doing,

like where we're creating dishes.

[blender whirring]

And we are there.

So this is a little bit wet to the touch.

If you fry something and it's too wet, it'll kind of explode

because the water that's inside of it

will escape too quickly.

So adding a little corn star to it

will stop the water activity fast enough

for it to fry and brown.

I think for a batch this size, I'll use two eggs.

The egg will help bind as well.

[blender whirring]

You can feel the differences in what you're making

over a period of time.

The first time I made this,

I messed up 'cause it was a little too wet.

Second time I made this,

I messed up 'cause it was a little too starchy.

And now I feel like we have a good balance

of moisture and starch.

That's the texture that we want.

And I'm gonna add to this some salted fish.

We use whatever fish we have available.

This is basically all the trim,

all the pieces like the belly pieces

that are too thin to sear, and we'll salt this, cure it,

and use it in a bunch of different stuff.

What's good? How are you, chef?

I'm good, how are you? Good to see you,

good to see you. Good to see you.

So this is Tavel Bristol-Joseph,

the man, the myth, the legend.

What we working on, dude?

So this is, that's the epis

I was telling you about, the akra.

Dude, I'm excited Charlie stuff, man.

What time y'all coming in?

Around 9:30 or so.

9:30.

We're gonna have all the partners in.

So with this dish, I want something

that when I bite into it, it takes me to Haiti.

That's what I'm looking for.

My other partners, they're gonna look at how does it look.

So we all kind of play our roles in different ways.

And also, the flavor.

If it ain't there, it ain't there.

A good dish could taste good,

but it's great when it has a story.

All right.

All right. Thank you.

All right, later, chef.

See you. See you.

Yeah, y'all have a good one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[people laughing]

He hates when we clap for him.

So we do it literally every single time we see him.

[mellow groove music]

So we're gonna drop this in the fryer.

I'm gonna drop a couple of them

so I can taste one, some other chefs can taste one.

And we'll talk about it from there.

All right, so those are gonna fry for about two minutes.

Nice golden brown, delicious.

Turn them out on here.

Let's tastes these.

Yeah, so it keeps its green hue.

We can see the salt fish in there as well,

which is really nice.

I feel like this is gonna be

the best iteration that we have.

Slightly spicy, not gummy, really crispy.

I'm happy with it.

Every single time we do a dish,

we try to taste it with everyone.

'cause the more opinions the better.

You like it?

Yeah, I didn't expect to all the lime to be there.

Do you get any spice on that?

No.

No spice, so you want more heat?

Let me taste. Taste one.

Yeah. I want a little bit-

I think this will be ready

for our tasting at nine o'clock.

We're gonna serve it with some spicy picklies.

We think it needs a little bit more acid as a whole dish.

It's 2:30 ish right now, so I gotta start cleaning this up.

We are about to have our meeting

with all the back of house chefs

just to see what we have left to do today.

[mellow synth music]

We have a lot of specials that happen here and there,

but I'll make sure we're tasting all of that

before we get to service.

And I'll kind of be the last person

to okay, yes, this is going on.

Or no, that's not gonna be good enough today.

What's up?

Hi. [Harvard laughing]

[Harvard] How's it going?

I've got some hot corn milk for you to try.

Hot corn milk, all right.

So are we gonna be able to eat this today?

So I'm trying to make it more corny and it's not as corny,

so I'm gonna add a lot more corn to it

and I think we're gonna have something to taste tonight.

This time I- Say corny one more time.

I did the same corny situation.

This tastes more grilled than corn,

right. Yeah.

So I feel like if you juice it

and add a little of sweetness, I think it'll be fine.

Cool, sounds good.

So in a second, my manager is gonna come in,

we'll talk about the menu for the day.

So if we're low on a certain menu item

or anything like that, I'll let that person know then.

So we're gonna turn that choka

into a corn and sweet potato choka today.

And just to confirm, with the 10 top

tile and pepper pot.

We'll go tile and pepper pot for that 10 top.

All right, should we happy salmon?

[Blake] Yeah.

[hands smacking]

[Harvard laughing]

[mellow groove music]

So Blake, let's do the numbers.

We have about 60 covers from five to six.

Big push at 6:30.

Orange broth is on Tyson's list, he's gonna work that.

He'll juice it and pass it on to you to season.

You should have about three quarts to start.

[people speaking indistinctly]

Yo, Debbie [indistinct].

[mellow groove music]

All right, so this curry's been going

for about three or four hours.

We're gonna add a little coconut milk, some fresh thyme,

and then let that go for another

maybe 30 minutes to an hour.

I think we're on track for service.

What do you guys think, are we ready here?

[Staff] Yeah.

I'm gonna check in on family meal.

It's about 3:40.

We should have family meal up in about 20 minutes.

[mellow groove music]

So you got a salad coming?

Yeah, salad's ready.

I'm just working on the vinegarette.

Working on the vinegarette, okay.

Mari, pasta?

Pasta's ready?

Do you need anything from me at all?

I got noods and I got pesto.

Noods and pesto, all right.

So we're gonna, it's all vegetarian today.

Cool, 20 minutes? Yes.

All right, guys, 20 minutes.

20. 20 minutes.

[chef speaks indistinctly]

I want a little bit more spice.

This is the time that I'll kind of go around,

check in with the team, make sure we're all in good shape.

Any concerns that happen right now,

we'll fix before service.

So it's kind of final checks right now.

[mellow groove music]

All right, so it is four o'clock.

We need to break down this whole kitchen.

Takes us about eight minutes to scrub, sweep, mop,

take on all the trash and then it's service time.

One of the reasons why we clean before service,

we wanna reset the kitchen, start fresh, set up our tables,

and we're going into a brand new part of our day.

So the prep side is over, now it's showtime.

It's exactly 4:08, family meal is up.

And it's time for everyone to go eat.

[Staff] Yeah, boss, let's go!

[Harvard laughing]

I told you, eight minutes on the dot every time.

[Harvard laughing]

So while everyone else eats family meal,

they leave the kitchen.

I get my own peace and quiet for once

and then I get to set up my station

while they're all out there eating.

This is my ticket rail.

So basically this top area here

is where all the first courses will be.

This bottom area is where I'll drop it when we start

the second courses, our entrees.

So tonight, I will be working expo.

It's the communication between the kitchen

and the dining room.

I'll handle any kind of dietary restrictions or allergies.

We'll send food out to make sure

everyone's getting food in a timely manner

and they're getting the right food at the right table.

All right, it's 4:30, now it's my turn to go eat.

I'm gonna get some food, I'm gonna go change

and I'll get ready for service.

[mellow groove music]

[people clapping]

[mellow groove music]

This is, honestly, one of my favorite parts of my job.

My grandmother started off in the service industry.

My mom was in the service industry.

So it runs in the family.

I'm a third generation culinarian, if you will.

Thanks, mom.

[mellow groove music]

It is now 4:59 and we gotta go.

So, people are getting here.

Y'all gotta get outta here.

I gotta get to work.

See y'all later, thank, y'all.

It's five o'clock.

Five! Five o' clock!

Order in, one tile, one curry, one pepper pot.

[Staff] Yes.

Fire plantain chip, escabeche, ceviche.

[Staff] Yes.

[mellow groove music]