Slurp & Burp

Rhubard pie

2008-06-10T15:13:00.001-04:00

Rhubarb is one of the easiest things to grow in a garden and, once established, it provides you with delicious tart stems. I have seen recipes using rhubarb in savory dishes as a vegetable or souring agent but most of the time people use rhubarb for dessert applications. My all time favorite use of these red and green stems is the humble rhubarb pie, sometimes with the help of that other spring fruit delicacy: the strawberry.

My recipe is simple: line a large baking dish with your favorite pie dough, cover with chunks of rhubarb, dust with lots of sugar, cut strips of dough and weave them to make a pretty top crust, brush with egg wash, dust with a bit more sugar and bake for about 45 minutes in a medium oven (e.g. 375º). It is so easy that I do not feel I have to measure my ingredients or worry too much about cooking time. The worst thing that can happen is that your pie turns out to be too sour, in which case a dusting of icing sugar or a melting scoop of ice cream can make wonders, or that it is too sweet, in which case the addition of cream will help while adding decadence to an already wonderful dish.

For those wishing follow recipes a bit more closely or to learn more about rhubarb, from its place in history to tips on growing your own, have a look at the Rhubarb Compendium. It is a fabulous website, every fruit and vegetable should have a similarly informative page on the web.

Food 2.0 by Charlie Ayers - A review

2008-06-10T15:00:00.000-04:00

Once in a while I receive review copies of books soon to be published. Although I am not always excited these books, it remains a great way to discover authors and books that I would not have sought otherwise. I recently received Food 2.0 from famed Google chef Charlie Ayers and what a treat it was!

Now, I really loved the book but perhaps not in the way Charlie Ayers and its publishers would have anticipated. In fact, I would even argue that the recipes, although some are truly mouth watering, are not particularly novel nor exceptionally well researched and presented. What makes this book so interesting is the fact that it perfectly encapsulate an era in food in the United States in particular and the western world in general.

I certainly do not want to ridicule the book or its content; in fact it is an excellent opinionated read with useful ideas and recipes for busy people wanting to eat well in a world of over processed and unhealthy food. As a matter of fact, it is probably one of very few books on fast healthy cooking that is worth reading; so much of what is available these days in that category is of very poor quality. One could certainly question the need to be told, once again, what to eat or the need for so much smoothie and salad recipes but let’s admit it: this is exactly what many of us have been eating on a daily basis over the last years.

The design of the book is also typical of a certain style of graphic design that for good or bad reasons I associate with the dot-com era and trendy kids wearing large black plastic frame glasses and harboring irregular and colorful hairdos.

If anything, food is deeply engrained in culture. If this is something well accepted on a geographical scale, it can also provide good evidences for generational cultural divides. One just need to think of post-war food in North America with its multilayered Jell’Os, Pillsbury cookies and TV dinners to understand how the economic and cultural factors of an era shape the food we eat. If the massive incorporation of women in the workforce and the new economic growth of the post-war era impacted the food choices made by families through a crush in the time available to prepare meals and the increased availability of convenience food in the 1950’s, today the fast pace and lengthy work days of project driven dot-com workers along with rising concerns for health and the environment certainly impact contemporary food choices and contribute to this generation’s food culture.

Given the cultural significance of Google in terms of business model, hotbed for innovations and magnet for young forward-looking professionals, it is no surprise that a talented chef like Charlie Ayers was able to grasp the era so well even if unknowingly. After all, food is an exciting cultural marker in ways that are very similar to pop music and fashion.

As for the recipes themselves, they are a bit too much on the fast-eat side to my taste. I like smoothies, salads and sandwiches but do not really need recipes to prepare them, what guides me is the content of my fridge or the availability of fresh ingredients in the grocery store. The text and illustrations in the book are a great source of inspiration however, and that hot sauce recipe is on top of my list of things to cook.

All in all, Food 2.0 is an excellent read, at least for its anthropological value. In 30 years, we will look at this book for the window it provides on the Silicon Valley era in food and lifestyle, probably with a bit of nostalgia.

Morel season

2008-05-01T21:29:00.000-04:00

After a very long winter at least here in the very north of the northern hemisphere, spring has finally arrived!

This can only mean one thing: restaurant all over will feature morels, fiddlehead ferns and ramps. These spring delights all come from the wild giving them an elusive aura that is not necessarily warranted, at least if you enjoy walking in the woods. It is my contention that such wild seasonal ingredients give more pleasure to the forager than to the diner even though they are truly delicious in themselves (with the possible exception of fiddleheads, but Fufu argues otherwise).

Take the morel as an example. As you walk leisurely in the woods, you slowly build up an appetite. Then when you find a few morels you develop some pride in your finding. And finally, as your basket fills up, you anticipate and salivate at the thought of the dinner ahead. When you finally arrive at home, you know, from the smell of the wet soil stuck under your sole and from the excitement of family members and friends looking at the brain like mushrooms that no matter how bad you a cook you might be, your morel experience will be remembered as a great success.

The fact is that a simple walk in the woods can become a wonderful treasure hunt where luck, knowledge, experience and good eyesight all contribute to success in various ways. On bright spring days, the worse that can happen is a short detour to the supermarket to buy button mushrooms or, with a bit of luck, some fresh or dried morels that can compensate for an unfruitful hunt.

To avoid such unfortunate last minute detours, here’s a few hints to help you in your morel hunt this year:

1.) The season

The two type of morels that fructify under Canadian climates are the yellow and black morels or morchella esculenta and morchella elata respectively. When considering the two species, the morel season last at least 4 weeks with the black morels fructifying about a week earlier than the yellow morel. In general, the Victoria day weekend mark the peak of the season but the season truly begin and end with the month of May in southern Ontario and Québec, sometimes extending to early June. Some cynical people suggest that morels pop out of the ground when the mosquitoes season begins others, more romantic, say that the peak of the trillium season is a better indicator.

2.) Where to find them

Around Ottawa, I found a lot of yellow morels under poplar trees and black morels under spruce and fir trees. In other areas, helm trees are said to be a great host. Most morels grow on disturbed terrain where the sun shines once in a while. As such, it is a good idea to stick to trails… it is just more enjoyable to avoid branches and difficult terrain anyway. Take a closer look at places where trees have been cut down and when you find one, look around. Once you spot a morel, chances are that more will be found not too far. And do not forget to take note for the next season since morels tend to grow back in the same area year after year. As a matter of fact, knowing where morels have been growing in the past is the best clue as to where they will grow in the near future.

3.) Take your time

Morels are notorious for how well they camouflage on almost any type of forest groundcover from dead leaves to branches and needles. Once you have spotted a few morels, your ability to find them will develop and you should be able to cover larger areas in less time.

Beware of the false morels

There are a number of other beautiful spring mushrooms resembling the morel which can cause stomach upsets and even death when consumed in large doses. These mushrooms are either verpas or gyromitras and are often abundant during the morel season. Get yourself a good identification guide and you should have no problems safely identifying these mushrooms. One of the best thing to keep in mind is that the morel’s stem is hollow while the gyromitra’s stem tends to be full. Learning to differentiate between gyromitra and morel is easy and fear should not detract you from the pleasures of morel hunting. Here’s a great page which can help you differentiate gyromitras from morels. Verpas are harder to distinguish from morels but constitute less of a problem in terms of toxicity. Unlike the morel, verpas’ caps are not attached to the stem and are ‘wrinkled’ as opposed to the ‘pitted’ ones of the morels.

Cooking with morels

(foie gras with ramps and morels)

What many people do not know is that raw morel is slightly toxic as well. Cooking fortunately destroys the toxin and generally improves the gustative quality of the mushroom. However, unlike other mushrooms such as button mushrooms or chanterelles, morels are quite fragile and will not necessarily benefit from very high heat or prolonged cooking. Cook them like you would garlic: a slight sauté followed by a short stewing if needed, do not burn them.

Morels are mostly appreciated for their aromatic qualities which, in my opinion, resemble truffle. A good cook will therefore insure that such wonderful aroma is preserved by avoiding extended cooking or strong conflicting smells (chocolate coated morel someone?).

More than any other mushrooms, morels like cream and butter and perform splendidly in sauces. Cream sauce and butter sauce are easy successes (see my morel beurre blanc recipe here). Experienced cooks should also be able to produce very fine reduction sauces as long as they do not go too heavy on strong red wine or other flavoring ingredients.

Morels can also be used for their tremendous beauty on a plate in a spring vegetable ragout or simply as a garnish. Some people even exploit the hollow interior of the morels by stuffing the mushrooms. In fact morels can be quite versatile as long as you keep in mind its essential qualities: the aroma and its delicate nature.

I once made pizza with morels but the results were a disappointment. The delicate flavor of the mushroom did not hold up to the stronger flavor of the otherwise delicious slightly burnt crust and only found a poor support in the crust and cheese. Some people deep fry morels coated in different types of batter, I have to say that I am afraid of such recipes even though they seem extremely popular.

Even deep fried morels and weird morel pizza can be a success however when you pick your own mushrooms since half of the pleasure consist in the hunt itself and that after half a day in the woods, anyone is hungry enough to enjoy even a bland pizza or a deep fried lump of dough and has plenty of story to tell to make the dinner a memorable one.

Kitchen Gardening

2008-04-13T21:57:00.002-04:00

Last summer, Fufu and I bought a house with a fairly large backyard. There, you could find a few large wooden boxes where semi-abandoned vegetables were still growing among the weeds: asparagus, peppers, tomatoes and squashes. Even though the garden was in poor shape, we nonetheless enjoyed what could be salvaged from it. Our then less than 6 months old son even tasted his first vegetables directly in the garden with surprising delight. A berry patch, further away, also provided us with a few late raspberries and two apple trees, on the front yard, offered us a bounty of delicious fruits latter in the fall.

A survey of the property confirmed the presence of many perennial herbs including an overabundance of mint as well as a few other surprises: rhubarb, strawberries, cherries and grapes. We knew that with a little bit of work we could turn the place into our own little garden of Eden. After painstakingly removing the weeds in the existing boxes, we built a few more beds, expanded the area devoted to growing raspberries and blackberries, planted about 10 blueberry bushes, 2 gooseberry bushes, 2 black currant bushes, 2 pear trees and 2 plum trees and started to make plans for the next season.

This winter has been exceptionally long and record amounts of snow buried everything. Now, that spring is finally setting in, we just can’t hide our excitement. We already started our seedling for the next season: 6 kinds of tomatoes, 10 of chili and peppers, 4 types of onions, 2 of eggplants, etc. We even decided to try plants that normally require a much warmer climate and longer growing season such as artichoke. We will see what work and what does not but we have high hopes for harvest season.

Since I see my gardening efforts as being an extension of my culinary education, I hope to post a few updates on my gardening adventures on this blog over the course of the growing season and I welcome any comments regarding the cultivation of fruits and vegetables.

Eating bones

2008-04-10T11:48:00.002-04:00

Everyone knows that bones are what give a stock its body and richness which in the hands of a skillful cook can turn into lip smacking sauces. The delicious gelatin extracted from bones through a long simmer is what most people are longing for when cooking bones; the marrow probably comes as a close second, particularly in dishes like osso bucco or a bordelaise sauce.

Bone marrow is deliciously fat in a way that can be reminiscent of foie gras or butter.
This, of course, means that we should not eat too much of it if we want to stay minimally fit which is not too difficult since it is getting harder and harder to find.

In my opinion, bone marrow is better when very fresh, unlike most red meat which generally tend to get better when aged properly. The most available and best source of marrow will come from leg bones. Veal and beef are the usual source of bone marrow but lamb, goat, and any largish animal should not be dismissed.

To extract bone marrow, for a bordelaise sauce for instance, you either need to ask your butcher to split the bones lengthwise or poach sections of the bones for a few minutes until you can poke the marrow out with your fingers.

Another easy and extremely popular way of eating bone marrow, thanks to Fergus Henderson, consists of roasting marrow bones upright for a few minutes (15-20 minutes at 375 degrees). The nose-to-tail eating chef would serve the bones with toasts and parsley salad but you can certainly try mashed potatoes and pickles if this is what you have at hand. My only attempt so far followed Henderson’s indications religiously and was delicious.

This very recipe even found its way to the front page of Jennifer McLagan’s excellent book: Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore.

You can find Fergus Henderson’s recipe here.

Poulet au romarin - Rosemary chicken

2007-06-05T22:17:00.000-04:00

This post is written in both French (blue) and English (pink).

Ce message est écrit en français (bleu) ainsi qu'en anglais (rose).

Un poulet complet, ce n'est pas si facile à cuire. La viande blanche de la poitrine cuit plus rapidement que la viande brune des cuisses, la peau doit être croustillante sans être brûlée et l'assaisonnement doit être assez costaud pour atteindre le centre sans pour autant masquer la saveur délicate de la chair. Déjà que les poulets que l'on retrouve presque partout ont peu de goût... si en plus ils sont difficile à cuisiner, ça va mal! J'ai déjà discutté du peu de goût des poulets industriels ici et Kate (the Accidental Hedonist) et ses lecteurs ont su partager leurs connaissances sur le sujet là... donc je m'en tiendrai à la cuisine aujourd'hui.

Une façon facile et bien connue de ne jamais rater son poulet rôti c'est de n'utiliser que les hauts de cuisses, de les badigeonner d'un peu d'huile pour aider la peau à dorer et devenir croustillante, d'y ajouter sel et assaisonement et de les faire cuire dans un four très chaud. Une de mes recettes préférées, consiste simplement à assaisoner les hauts de cuisses avec du romarin, du sel et de l'huile d'olive... rien d'autre, même pas de poivre. J'ai quasiment honte de discutter d'une recette aussi simple ici mais c'est un peu cette simplicité qui donne tout son charme à cette recette.

It is particularly difficult to roast a whole chicken. The white meat from the breast cooks faster than the darker meat from the legs, the skin has to be crispy without burning and seasoning has to be strong enough to reach the interior of the bird without overpowering the delicate flavour of the flesh. Chickens that we find in most grocery stores are already tasteless... if cooking them is complicated, things are doing looking very well! I already discussed the lack of flavour of industrial chicken here and Kate (the Accidental Hedonist) and her readers shared their knowledge on the subject over there... I will therefore stick to cooking today.

An easy and well known method to roast chicken which never fails consist in using only the thighs, rubbing a bit of oil to help crisp the skin to a beautiful golden brown color, adding salt and spices and roast in a very hot oven. One of my favorite simple recipe consist in seasoning chicken thighs with salt, rosemary and olive oil, nothing else, not even pepper. I am almost ashamed to discuss this overly simple recipe here but it is through such simplicity that this recipe develops all its charms.

Eggplant crisps

2007-06-03T15:17:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, a recipe calls for peeled eggplants which leaves you with a pile of eggplant peels. One easy way to put what would otherwise go to waste is to make eggplant crisps. They can be eaten as is or used as garnish. I generally tend to prefer this last option for the stunning crispy darkness these crisps can provide to almost any dish.

The process is very simple.

1) Cut the peels in fine strips (I tried slices and it does not look as good)
2) Add a little bit of oil (I like olive oil)
3) Bake in the oven until crispy but not burnt (time varies according to the thickness of the peels)

This can be done at different oven temperatures which allows you to make them as something else is cooking. It generally takes only a few minutes but you should always keep an eye on them as thin vegetables tend to burn quite fast.

If you like eggplant caviar or baba gannouj, preserve the skin to make these crisps. They are great with fish.

Smelt!

2007-05-26T00:29:00.000-04:00

Smelts are bountiful in the Great Lakes and the spring fishing season is well underway if not close to the end. Unlike their sea counterparts, river smelts are often full of delicious eggs and, for that matter, eating them whole still with guts and bones is a rare delicacy. I had to travel to Japan to discover how great these little fishes (shishamo) are, especially when eaten with beer. We had them grilled with a bit salt and presented simply on small plates; no dressing, no sauces... just delicious small fishes still full of their own roe.

As soon as we were back in Canada, we had to recreate this dish. Since fresh river smelts are available in season and frozen ones for a slightly longer period, it was an easy task. In fact, all you need is a handful of smelts, a good pinch of salt, a little bit of oil and a grill. Once on the grill, they cook in no time. As such, for a bit of color use a strong heat and a little oil to develop some color on the skin. Serve them hot, ideally outside, with a cold light beer... then fall of your chair upon realizing how good this is.

The part I did not show

2007-05-20T23:37:00.000-04:00

On my last post, I kept quiet on the fact that only one of the plates looked they way it was intended to look like. I completely failed to unmold one of my flan. I learned a valuable lesson: placing a plate on top of the mold and shaking the whole thing will only create disasters when dealing with delicate food items. To unmold properly, you have to use a sharp object to free the flan from the sides and gently let some air get to the bottom of the mold otherwise the suction will simply be too strong and the flan will break in pieces. A hard learned lesson... particularly considering the fact that I was stressed by the outcome of my food that night!

It still tasted very good and at least my partner had a nice dish in front of her.

Lobster, morels and green vegetables flan with morel beurre blanc

2007-05-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

The lobster fishing season is in full swing in the eastern part of Quebec (and probably elsewhere on the East Coast) and around here many grocery stores and fish mongers offer this delicious crustacean at a very reasonable price these days. Once considered a cheap source of proteins in many fishing villages, lobster is now widely considered a delicacy and is exported worldwide making it a luxury item for the table even in fishing communities.

As a conscientious costumer, I therefore do not cook or eat lobster very often which makes me a bit nervous when facing the task of preparing a meal out of these dangerous looking creatures. Not that I am one of those compassionate people who are afraid to plunge live lobsters in boiling water... I might actually be a bit cold-blooded and I consider such task to be the easiest part even considering the occasional splash of burning water.

What makes me particularly nervous is the fear of messing up and ending up with a mediocre meal when all are expecting a feast. It is true that simply boiling lobsters and serving them with a variety of melted butters never fails and can be a lot of fun. In fact, this is exactly what Fufu and I did yesterday. Sometimes however there is some excitement in indulging in, for a lack of better words, more “refined” pleasures and these times call for more careful efforts.

I prepared this dish a few months ago for our last Valentine's day without kids still looking for a way to impress Fufu as if we were still on a first date. Although both of us are not very fond of chi-chi presentations, I think the dish was very fitting: delicious and just kitsch enough for a Valentine's day diner.

Essentially, the dish is made of only two recipes: a beurre blanc and a savoury flan. Lobster tails were simply boiled and the broccoli florets steamed, no recipe there. The tomato concassé was a simple last minute garnish. The flan, if I remember it well, was made with broccoli, peas, mint and basil (the same herbs sprinkled around the dish). There are many vegetable flan recipes and the great thing with most of them is that they are all easily adaptable to your taste or to what is available to you at the moment. The key to this one was the addition of herbs to the vegetable puree.

Fufu and I are passionate mushroom hunters and every spring we hunt for morels in the woods around where we live. They should be available in some farmer's markets and specialty stores at this time of the year in most areas. Look for them they are magic and delicious. I am always a bit wary of marrying seafood and mushrooms but morels usually works well with a fish and lobsters. They were particularly good in this dish which relieved me of all the stress of cooking my expensive lobsters... perhaps the flan had something to do with it too.

The beurre blanc included the juices from the morels rehydration which imparted a great aroma to the whole dish. Beurres blancs are simple butter sauces made by using the butter’s capacity to emulsify fats and liquids at a certain temperature (too cold and your butter will remain solid, too hot and it will split). You will find the recipe of my morel beurre blanc bellow.

Morel beurre blanc

Ingredients:

1-2 finely diced shallots
3-6 dried morels
½ cup of white wine
1 stick of butter (cold)
1 quarter of lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Cover the morels with barely enough hot water to cover them for about 20 minutes. This should rehydrate them gently. Reserve the mushrooms and the liquid separately.
In a pan, sweat the shallot with a little bit of butter until they become translucent and add the morels for few minutes, reserve them for garnishing.
Add the white wine to deglaze the pan and reduce by half.
Add the morel juices and reduce again by half.
Lower the heat to a minimum and whisk cubes of butter one after the other until the sauce becomes nice and thick.
Depending on your wine’s acidity, squeeze a little bit of lemon juice to brighten the flavour. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve immediately because butter sauces are quite fragile.

You can adapt this recipe to make it more stable by adding a little bit of heavy cream before whisking in the butter. In a pinch, you can also substitute white wine vinegar instead of wine but make sure to reduce it to an almost dry stage before adding the butter to avoid unpleasant levels of acidity.

Enjoy the morel and lobster season!

Homemade sauerkraut

2007-05-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

I realize that with spring in full swing it is not necessarily the best time of the year to discuss sauerkraut. The fact is that I have been wanting to write about my sauerkraut experiment for months now but my last months have been quite busy for a few reasons chief among that was that I finally found a job and recently became proud father of a beautiful 2 weeks old boy. My parental leave now allows me a little bit more time to spare at the keyboard.

Making sauerkraut is quite straightforward according to what I read on various websites and books: for each 5 pounds of sliced raw cabbage, you need 3 tablespoons of kosher or pickling salt. I looked at dozen of recipes, the ratio almost always remains the same: 5 pounds of cabbage, 3 tablespoons of salt. Since the same ratio is found in almost all recipes, we could believe that one needs to use very strict measurements but since cabbage varies in water content and salt in weight to volume, there is inevitably some leeway in this. In fact, I did see a few outliers such as the ½ cup of kosher salt for 2 ½ pound of cabbage in Lucy Norris’ Pickled or a few potentially dangerous sodium free recipes but these were not the norm at all.

All recipes advise to place the salted cabbage in a non-reactive crock and place a weighted plate on top to press the cabbage down. Eventually, a brine should form from the juice extracted from the cabbage by the salt. If it does not, one can always add salted water to insure that the cabbage is submerged. You then place the whole thing roughly at room temperature or in a cool place (18°C to 24°C according to Harold McGee) for a few weeks to let the fermentation do its magic. This, at least, is the theory!

My first sauerkraut experiment was a bit of disaster. I followed the instruction on the Kitchen Gardeners International website where instruction from Sandor Ellix Katz’ Wild Fermentation had been adapted. After a few weeks of fermentation and skimming of the scum floating at the top of my brine, I had to throw the content of my plastic bucket in the garbage. A very unpleasant smell developed probably from unwelcome yeasts or other micro-organisms… not the ones I was expecting for sure. For some reasons, I kept my sauerkraut nearly two months thinking that the smell would disappear and be replaced by a more fragrant sour aroma. I even tried a few bites of the foul smelling cabbage and while it did turn sour, the stench was just too bad to make a meal out of it. In retrospect, I believe that I should have thrown the whole thing away earlier and I should never have tried to eat it.

Since hundreds and more likely thousands of people use this method successfully, I assume that I have simply been unlucky; that some bad micro-organisms got in before the proper lactic fermentation developed to protect the cabbage. The remedy to this problem is quite simple: protect the brine from ambient air. In my ill equipped kitchen, I simply used a layer of loose plastic wrap to cover my bucket. This was not enough. Some people succeed with no cover at all but I did not and the whole experiment put me off trying this method again.

The next method I tried made good use of many tricks gathered on many website and on an E Gullet forum discussion (link). This time, my goal was to avoid any airborne contamination by creating an almost air-tight cover. A few plastic bags filled with water (ideally with brine in case of leaks) were placed on top of a plate, itself covering a few large outer leaves from the cabbage. The sliced cabbage was also slightly pounded down to help the extraction of the juices.

The result, this time, was great. The sauerkraut was tangy and still crunchy and developed a very nice aroma.

We ate it very simply with boiled potatoes and sausages. I will certainly make more sauerkraut in the fall so if you have any recipe using sauerkraut, please let me know!

The Method

Here's a review of the whole sauerkraut fermentation process, it includes tricks and details from a variety of sources, most mentioned in the above section of this post:

Ingredients:

5 pounds of cabbage
3 Tablespoons of salt

Tools:

A sharp knife or a mandolin
A non-reactive crock or a food grade plastic bucket
One plate slightly smaller than the bucket
3-4 freezer bags
Water or brine to fill the bags

Clean all your tools very well and sterilize them if possible.

Core your cabbage and reserve a few of the outer leaves.

Finely shred the remaining cabbage using a sharp knife or a mandolin.

Mix the shredded cabbage and the salt in a large crock or food grade plastic bucket by adding one layer of cabbage at a time followed by a sprinkle of salt. At this point, you can pound the cabbage using your hands or a heavy object in order to help the release of juices.

Place the reserved cabbage leaves on top or the shredded cabbage.
Cover with a plate. Apply as much presure as you can to make sure everything is well packed.

Fill your plastic bags with brine or water and place them on top of the plate. Do not overfill them so that they are still soft enough to close all the gaps.

The next day, make sure the juices extracted from the cabbage cover the cabbage by at least 3 cm or an inch. If more liquid is needed, you can add a brine made by mixing a cup of water with a teaspoon of salt.

Leave at room temperature (bellow 24°C or 75°F) for at least 3 weeks then test it every week until it reaches your desired degree of acidity. If you like a delicate flavor, a three or four weeks is more than enough; if you prefer your sauerkraut on the stronger side, leave it to ferment for up to two months.

In general, placing your sauerkraut in the fridge will stop the fermentation and will keep well if enough acidity was developed beforehand. Some people also can their sauerkraut but the process will necessarily affect the texture.

Brie on the BBQ

2006-08-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

This is one of Fufu's summer favourite. Most of you already know about baked brie's delicious gooeyness. This version is interesting because the grill adds a little smoky flavour that is very pleasing to this old classic.

First step: add grill marks on the cheese by placing it directly on the BBQ. This takes only a few seconds as the brie crust char very quickly. If you leave your cheese on the grill for too long it will melt and you won’t be able to retrieve it. Be fast and attentive here!

The second step consists of wrapping the cheese in grape leaves (or corn husk, or blanched leek, etc.) and using toothpicks to secure everything. This prevents the melted cheese from dripping and makes it possible to handle the cheese when ready. If you choose ingredients carefully, you can add flavour to the dish at this step. Roasted red peppers, for example, can add a very nice touch of sweetness.

After a few minutes on the upper rack f your grill (or on the main grill at a fairly low temperature) the cheese is ready to serve. To enjoy it, simply dip your favourite bread in it and serve with your favourite summer wine.

Talking about bad ideas

2006-08-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

For some reasons, I had a lot of really bad ideas in the kitchen recently... and this one was a particularly bad one.

Since I got my BBQ, I am grilling almost every day. Its fun and it keeps the heat outside. But some things are just better when they do not touch the grill. Broccoli is one of these. Grilled broccoli tastes awfully bitter and is truly unpleasant. Don't try this at home.

Blender disaster

2006-08-16T12:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you think you are brilliant but reality keeps reminding you that your own stupidity is hard to evade.

A few days ago, I decided to make a soup out of the many asparagus stems I kept in the freezer... you know the woody parts of the plant that most of us discard when preparing asparagus? I thought puréeing these to make a soup was a great idea but the only thing I was able to do was breaking my blender. While I was busy doing something else in the kitchen, long asparagus strings blocked the blender blade which in turn destroyed the rubber drive which linked the blade to the motor.

It can be repaired but I really feel silly.

BBQ

2006-08-07T00:06:00.000-04:00

My mom gave me her old gaz BBQ a few weeks ago. BBQ are really nice thing to own! As soon as we received it, Fufu and I went straight to the fridge to find things to grill: corn, asparagus, some ready made pork kebabs and a few chanterelles we picked in the woods. Not all worked well, the chanterelles for instance were not at their best, but we very much enjoyed that very simple meal.

It's so nice to BBQ in the summer: the home stays cool no matter how long you cook ... and grilling while drinking a beer never fails to bring out the man, the real and hairy one, in anyone.

Merci maman!

Summer = good tomatoes

2006-08-02T03:56:00.000-04:00

Even with green houses and all the modern food technology available to entrepreneur wishing to make seasons disapear, tomatoes still taste better during the summer months. Its all about the sun I guess... just like for the tomato's best friend: basil.

That reminds me of this classic summer salad made of tomatoes, basil leaves and mozarella cheese. The key to this dish, in my opinion, is to sprinkle your salad with a nice amount of salt just before serving. Some people add a simple vinaigrette to this dish but I believe this to be totally worthless, if not innapropriate, when you have good fresh ingredients... the tomatoes will bleed their delicious sweet and sour juice anyways.

A few nice dishes I did not write about... yet

2006-08-01T00:27:00.000-04:00

As you know, I took a few months off blogging and although having a weird work schedule preventing me from cooking as much as I would like, I did prepared a few nice dishes over the last months. For the most part, I did not take any pictures and my very poor memory does not allow me to recall exactly what I ate. Fortunately, I did take a few pictures here and there of certain dishes which I'd like to share with you. You won't find any recipes here as I forgot almost everything about these experiments but smart cooks might find ideas they might want to juggle with or offer comments on similar experiments of their own.

Chinese 'hot pot' or “huo guo” (火锅): this is a winter favourite here at home and it certainly does not require long hours of preparation to enjoy. Like fondue, almost everything is cooked at the table in a variety of flavourful broths. The traditional Szechwan 'mala' broth is seasoned heavily with hot peppers and Szechwan peppers and can be very, very, very, very… spicy. As for myself, I love it the day I eat it and hate it the next day... I'm not sure I'll give more details here, but let’s just say that this dish is spicy for quite a long time after ingestion.

Living with my adorable Chinese partner, I often Chinese food at home. One of the great thing with Chinese cooking is that the produce needed are usually fairly cheap (e.g. cabbage, rice or tofu) but always delicious. Take that napa cabbage dish (the top left dish on the picture), it costs next to nothing, can be enjoyed year round and complement almost anything... and I bet dieticians would say that it is very healthy.

Now, back to North America... If memory serves me well, this dish is chicken in chipotle adobo sauce. Mexican and Americans living in the South West might laugh but true Mexican restaurants are almost nonexistent in this part of Canada and it takes some imagination and a trip to the local Latin-American grocery store to find out how Mexican food might taste like. I'm not so sure I did my job properly but this chicken did taste quite good with its cilantro and queso fresco toping. I have the feeling that roasted corn kennels would also make a nice toping here. Feel free to comment on this one, I still have a lot to learn about Mexican cuisine especially if it does not include taco or tortilla.

Another Mexican dish: guacamole. I went to Mexico City a few years ago for a conference. I didn't stay there long but took the time to visit the local markets. I found this beautiful molcajete (a Mexican mortar and pestle) made of volcanic rock. Unfortunately I haven't used this great cooking utensil that much but every time I make guacamole, it serves both as the preparation and serving bowl. Nothing says summer like guacamole, corn chips and cold beer so if you live in the northern hemisphere it is the right time to feel inspired.

Do you remember my Jamaican inspired pig tail stew? After eating the stew, we still had quite a lot of delicious broth so we decided not to waste anything and cook lentils in it. That was perhaps my greatest culinary discovery of the year. All the flavours from the stew were there and the gelatine from the pig tail formed the most delicious and unctuous sauce one could imagine for lentils. I am now thinking of cooking all my lentils with pork hocks, tails or trotters... too bad for my vegetarian friends! I wonder if one could use agar agar and other vegetarian ingredients to achieve that level of legume goodness.

The fact about most meat is that there is only two ways of cooking it: you either both sear it and serve it rare to medium or you cook it for hours (smoke, braise, stew...) until it becomes deliciously tender. Almost anything in between is tough and chewy. In my family, beef blade roast has been on the table since long before I was born. It’s a very cheap but quite tough piece of meat with a huge bone in it. We usually cook it for hours with onions and mushrooms, sometimes a bit of wine and some thyme. The end result is always delicious and so is the resulting sauce. This sauce is worth any fancy and expensive sauce you could think of and should not be wasted under any circumstances. Mashed potatoes or egg noodles are perfect starches to soak up this sauce and so is polenta (as shown on this picture).

Sometimes however, what we crave for is more on the light side. This soup was made with a few vegetables that were sitting in the fridge. I don't recall what kind of broth I used but if I had to make a similar soup today, I would probably use a lemon grass (or maybe kefir lime leaves) and basil flavoured broth.

Another nice summery dish, especially now that fresh local beets started to appear in the markets, is a beet carpaccio. Carpaccio is a fairly recent culinary invention born in Italy where ingredients are simply presented flat. It is usually made of raw beef tenderloin cut very finely but I don't see why one could not use anything edible... and many have done so. My version was made of beet roots sliced as finely as I could and served with the leaves sautéed in a little bit of oil and a curry mayonnaise. Let's just say that it was simpler version of one of my Paper Chef (non) entry.

What can you do when your partner does not like chicken but you love it? Transform chicken into something else by adding tons of strong flavours. Fufu does not like chicken here in Canada. To her taste it is bland and mushy. After tasting some good organic chicken here and even better farm raised chicken in China, I understand her dislike of the generic industrial chicken that populate the shelves of supermarkets these days. Let's all be honest here: styrofoam plate chicken does not have much flavour and can be alarmingly tender (not always good thing). But it is also a perfect support for flavour, chicken has a fairly neutral flavour which seems to blend with almost anything. It is this very particularity that I decided to exploit for this honey and balsamic glazed chicken. The bed of root vegetables on which it was served also deserve attention but I'll try to address this in another post.

A last dish: spinach with apple and raisins in a sherry sauce. The verdict: good but a little too much on the sweet and acidic side. In other words, too much apple and raisins. Otherwise, a very nice flavour combination.

Back to blogging

2006-07-16T00:13:00.000-04:00

Ok... Where should I start... a lot have happened since my last post. I found a job. I ate and cooked a lot. I didn't write about all of this for many reasons but let’s say that I didn’t put a lot of energy on this blog because I was too busy enjoying life and working.

I plan to get back at blogging but I won't be able to set aside as much writing time as I once used to. From its very beginning, this blog has been a very personal undertaking which developed into a more connected community project like most blogs. I now want to return to this blog to its original focus: my own experience in the kitchen, my experiments, my failures and mistakes, my discoveries and my occasional rants about everything food.

And now, to conclude, the food porn you all expect from a food blog: the close up shot or three pot stickers we made a few months ago.

Paper Chef # 15 - The Medal Ceremony

2006-02-22T22:45:00.000-05:00

The judges have been carefully reviewing all entries, re-read all the rules, selected finalists for all categories, argued over all the details and finally agreed on a winner in all but one category. A grand winner has been chosen along with a Paper Chef Super Saver, a Paper Chef Indiana Jones and a Paper Chef Picasso but we have a tie in the Home Cook category and the judges have decided it was a good thing after all.

So, who takes it? Whose cuisine will reign supreme?

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The Super Saver award honours a chef who was able to turn cheap ingredients into culinary masterpiece. The finalists for this category are:

Alanna for her beautiful fruit salad for grown ups.
Tankeduptaco for his very skilful use of tongue and lentils.
Emma for her masterful use of simple ingredients instead of expensive equipment (aka a juicer).
Ilva, because noodles made from scratch are usually both better and cheaper then the store-bought equivalent… and let’s admit it, hers are gorgeous!

And the winner of the Super Saver award is (drum roll): Tankeduptaco! You just can’t beat legumes and cheap cuts of meat to get the most out of little money… especially when they are so cleverly used and plated.

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The Indiana Jones award was created to pay tribute to fearless cooks who moved away from their culinary comfort zone and experimented with new ingredients or new techniques. This is exactly what a fairly high number of participants did for this edition of Paper Chef:

Noodle Cook experimented boldly with new flavours to create a visually stunning dish.
Louise deep-fried for the first time making beautiful beet chips.
Haalo used a very bold combination of flavours (sweet, salty and sour) in her spectacular faux-nigiri sushi.
Pille candied beet roots to top her superb mascarpone and white chocolate mousse.
Surfindaave made beet ice cream… yes, your eyes didn’t fool you: beet ice cream!

The winner of the Indiana Jones award is (drum roll): Haalo! Although none of the judges would have ever thought about combining these ingredients both were thrilled about the idea after reading the fabulous description of the dish.

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The Picasso award rewards cooks playing close attention to the artistic value of food preparation. As such, dishes that are beautifully plated and/or induce a certain level of thought and contemplation on the part of the observer are particularly valued. The finalists in this category are:

Noodle cook for the creation of a gorgeous dish and the play on the judges’ cultural backgrounds in the choice of ingredients and techniques.
The Belly Timber duo for the decadent and delightful set of dishes composing their Valentine’s day menu.
Stephen for his striking beet and pear salad which reminded the judges of the sun’s sweet warmth at a time of the year when it is particularly lacking (at least for us Northerners).
Haalo for her exciting play on Japanese culinary tradition in her fabulous nigiri sushi trompe l’oeil.

And the winner of the Picasso award goes to (drum roll): Noodle Cook whose dish, even after considering the slightly unpleasing combination of flavours, was considered extremely thoughtful and creative.

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Paper chef Home Cook is awarded to the participant whose culinary talent is put to good use in the creation of dishes meant for the family table and of dishes with a certain comforting quality. The finalists in this category are:

Alanna for transforming a 1960’s church cookbook recipe into a pleasant and witty dessert.
Marie-Laure for creating delicious and healthy breakfast or snacks which would make your coworkers or your kids’ classmates red with envy.
Surfindaave for his great effort at adjusting the menu for the whole family.
Louise for the extra care in selecting wholesome food and getting as much information as she can on nutrition.

And the winner of the Home Cook award is (drum roll)… Oh wait! we have a tie! So let’s me rephrase it: the ex aequo winners of the Home Cook Award are: Alanna and Surfindaave! After long deliberations, the judges were unable to find a clear winner in this category. Alanna certainly got extra points for reinventing, with a twist, a very comforting dessert but so did Surfindaave for his hard work at pleasing the whole family. For this reason, and to avoid an unnecessary fight between the two judges, it was decided to grant the Home Cook award to both participants and their excellent entries.

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And now, for this month’s Paper Chef Grand Winner… perhaps the most difficult category to judge… the finalists are:

Haalo for her faux-nigiri sushi featuring a stunning beet root cured salmon.
Noodle cook for a superb and perhaps overly daring oyster and avocado mousse topper with lime jelly.
Chopper Dave and Mrs D for their lavish Valentine’s Day menu featuring snails, caviar, truffles and salmon!

And the winner of this edition of Paper Chef is:

(Last drum roll of the day for our exhausted drummer)

Haalo for her amazing and audacious use of the themed ingredients. Both judges were delighted by the playfulness of the dish. A perfect amuse bouche or appetizer that could feature on some of the most extravagant menus of the planet.

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Finally, we would also like to underline the good use of the resources offered on the culinary blogosphere by Marie-Laure, Pille and Ilva. You sure showed us one of the best sources of inspiration available.

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Do not forget to visit Tomatilla the first Friday of each month for new editions of Paper Chef. This means next Friday! March the third!

Cheese Sandwich Day

2006-02-18T17:23:00.000-05:00

I have been quite busy with Paper Chef recently but I was able to come up with my own little cheese sandwich contribution (apart from my attempt at creating 'designer' grill cheese sandwiches inspired by the success of the Virgin Mary grill cheese sandwich sold for 28 000$ a few months ago).

Anyway, in case you are not yet familiar with Cheese Sandwich day, it all started with an article from Pete Wells in Food and Wine magazine which annoyed and sometimes even infuriated a great number of food bloggers. For more information, have a look at Kalyn's blog especially this post and this one. There are also excellent comments on this whole debate on Deep end Dining, on Food Musing, Slashfood, Gourmetish, Tiger and Strawberries, Paper Palate, and a number of other blogs. It's amazing to see how such a text can make such an impression on a community of food bloggers.

Ok, I admit, my cheese sandwich is not really a sandwich... it is closer to what I grew up calling a 'croque', a French word for a type of open face sandwich. During my teens and early twenties, when meeting friends in the cafes of Québec city, I ordered tons of croque monsieur and croque madame. It was always cheap, tasty and filling... the perfect combination when you are young and living on a student budget. This is a slightly different version from the traditional 'croque monsieur', which is generally toped with béchamel sauce, ham, tomatoe and cheese; my version was made of asparagus, prosciutto ham, gruyere and a mustard flavoured béchamel. It was served on baguette bread and toasted under the salamander for a few minutes. Add a simple salad and you got the perfect cafe/bistro meal!

Pete Wells Loves Cheese Sandwiches Cheese sandwich day

Paper Chef #15 - The Round Up!

2006-02-17T23:01:00.000-05:00

The paper chef round up! This is my favourite part of the Paper Chef “contest” and I am glad to be able to write this Valentine’s Day special edition round up. We had a total of 12 ½ entries this month all proving that food and love are intimately related to each other. However, the way each of us link the two varies greatly and this diversity in interpretation is what makes Paper Chef such a great event.

Each month, a series of ingredients are chosen by our ‘chairman’, Owen, at Tomatilla, and food bloggers from around the world are invited to share their creations based on these same ingredients. This month’s ingredients are:

Lime

Beets

Pears

Aphrodisiacs

While the first three ingredients are fairly straightforward, the fourth one is open to interpretations. This ultimately translated into a wide variety of interesting aphrodisiac candidates: pomegranate seeds, vanilla, honey, caviar, Barry White (Oooh yeah baby!), chocolate, black beans, ginger, pine nuts, carrots, asparagus and beef tongue! Well, there are more aphrodisiacs in all the wonderful entries, but you’ll have to find them by yourselves.

This element of interpretation seems to be an characteristic of the most recent Paper Chef events. It is a feature that I personally find quite fitting for a competition celebrating a diversity of dishes made from the same ingredients. This restricted creativity is what makes this event so interesting. It reminds me a bit of some of the literature produced by a group of mostly French authors whose works now forms the core of the OuLiPo movement, but I digress and might even be exaggerating a little bit here.

Anyway, we are here to celebrate inventiveness, but it is this same inventiveness that makes judging so difficult. Not only do we have to judge food without smelling and tasting it, but we are to judge very different creations. If all of us were making the same apple pie, it would be easier to establish a clear grading scheme; alas it is not the case with Paper Chef. This makes judging Paper Chef quite complicated and this is why you will have to wait a few more days before the Paper Chef #15 award ceremony. In the meantime, let’s all have a look at all the contenders.

First we have an audacious entry by Tankeduptaco, of Food for Thought: Pickled Tongue with Lentils, Beetroot, Cucumbers and Pears. This remarkable dish features a great variety of textures: crunchiness from cucumber, chewiness from the tongue, the silkiness of lentils... An interesting combination of flavours is also exhibited here: Sichuan pepper, horseradish, thyme, lime… A very international approach to our four ingredients combining flavours from Eastern Europe and Asia through the talent of Tankeduptaco.

Also from Australia, Noodle Cook, from the unique Electronic Restaurant, offers an elaborate Lime jelly and oyster avocado mousse using French techniques and Chinese ingredients. Although the result was not as good as Noodle cook expected it to be, the visual aspect of the dish is simply stunning. Noodle cook also used unusual ingredients in equally unusual ways; for instance, as aphrodisiac, Noodle cook chose dried Chinese oysters and turned it into a mousse. Finally, is you visit the Electronic Restaurant, you might come across a picture which can turn out to be very pornographic for people with a slightly twisted mind… No wonder oysters are believed to be aphrodisiac!

With her always humorous approach, Alanna, of A Veggie Venture, prepared a 1960’s church cookbook inspired Jelly Fruit salad for grownups. Her Wine & Fruit Salad is definitively not the usual clear dessert jelly; first of all, it contains a huge amount of pureed beets as well as an equally impressive amount of fruits and it comes with a delicious aphrodisiac sour cream sauce.

Also using gelatine, Emma, the Laughing Gastronome, proposes another dessert: Beetroot and Carrot Jelly with Pear and Lime Sauté. Who would have thought that roots could look so sexy? A light and delicious jelly for a Valentine’s Day dessert is a sure way to ensure that the celebration could continue after dinner.

Another contestant also made good use of gelatine in her dessert (what is it with jelly and love?). Ilva, of Lucullian Delights, prepared a visually spectacular pasta dish making full use of the coloring power of beets. Her Pink pasta with Asparagus, pear, pine nuts and lime is so tempting that it is already being emulated by others.

Stephen, of Stephen Cooks, is exhibiting, once again, his incredible talent at making jaw dropping works of culinary art. His Salad of Pears, Roasted Beets and Three Aphrodisiacs is a delight to the eyes and I am sure the palate as well. The pears and beets certainly shine in this dish, but the cheese and vinaigrette play an important supporting role here too.

Louise of Pâté Chinois and Co. decided to use black bean in her recipe after attending a lecture called “Beat the winter blues and boost your libido” at her local natural food store. The result was a hearty black bean pear and lime salad served with home made beet and potato chips. I don’t know about you, but a recipe that includes black beans, cayenne pepper and cilantro is more than just appealing to me.

Pille, our favourite Estonian foodie in Edinburgh, at Nami-Nami offers us a beautiful Mascarpone mousse with white chocolate and lime juice, topped with candied pear and beetroot. Following cues from different bloggers, she was able to create a dessert of her own which screams to be eaten. Hummm, I am still salivating!

Haalo, who seems willing to Cook Anything at least Once, propose a faux nigiri sushi served with equally faux soy sauce and faux wasabi and made with her beautiful Beetroot Cured Salmon. This dish would certainly make a high impression even at top restaurants such as the Fat Duck, the French Laundry or El Bulli.

Chopper Dave and Mrs D, of Belly-Timber, decided to go for luxury by using caviar, truffles and snails (among other things) in their multi courses meal which includes: Snails in beet cups with truffle butter, Salmon and beet mousse barquettes and Poached pears with agave caramel sauce. Let’s just say for now that we agree with them that they have no chance of winning the Paper Chef Super Saver award… but all the other categories are still open to them!

Marie-Laure, of the web site Ô Délices, took the extra time to translate her entry from French to English. Also inspired by other bloggers, her ‘Muffins à la betterave et aux poires’ are very “light and moist” and would probably make a fabulous breakfast or afternoon snack. The French version of the recipe can be found here.

Surfindaave does not own a blog, but his contribution was published here on Slurp and Burp. After some serious thinking and experiments in the kitchen, a few brilliant ideas were brought to fruition in his kitchen including a Proseco cocktail with pear and lime ice balls, and candied beet stem swizzle stick, a Roasted golden beet and ruby pear salad on arugula with lime vinaigrette, pomegranate seeds and parmesan shavings, Seared diver scallops on beet and pear risotto with lime mango salsa, served with sautéed beet greens and port reduction and Beet ice cream with kiwi-lime and thyme-pear sorbets on dark chocolate sauce with pistachio powder. I am not the only one to hope to be able to read the eventual Surfindaave’s blog in a near future.

Finally, Sam of Becks & Posh, sent us this beautiful picture of Dark chocolate lime and honey truffles served with pink heart pear crisps which were coloured with beet juice. She did not have the time to complete her post (yet?), but at least we can enjoy her work through the picture.

As for myself, I presented my own Paper Chef non-entry: Beet root carpaccio with a warm pear and walnut compote and pieces of grilled pig heart. I thought it was bold and delicious looking but reading all the other entries has been quite humbling… especially for someone who had world dominance ambitions…

Fufu and I will now examine each of these entries one by one and make our final decision. It might take us a few days, but rest assured that we will be back soon with details on our finalists and winners for each categories as well as our grand winner.

Paper Chef

A Paper Chef non-entry

2006-02-16T22:23:00.000-05:00

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I know… you are all waiting for the round up. Let me divert your attention with my non-entry for this edition of Paper Chef.

As you should know by now, the ingredients featured this month are:

Lime

Beets

Pears

Aphrodisiacs

My first attempt at using these ingredients in recipe was a failure. I had little time at hand so my first though was to make a juice with half a lime, one very large pear, one beet and a bit of ginger (the aphrodisiac). When you have a juicer the process is simple and self-explanatory. The problem is that even when you are able to do exactly what you intend to do it does not mean that your first idea was a good one. The taste of raw ginger made the juice totally undrinkable. I hate to say this but we wasted good ingredients as no one at home was willing to take a second sip of that awful juice after the first one.

My second attempt was, fortunately, much more successful. This time I cooked a beet root carpaccio with a warm pear and walnut compote and grilled pieces of pig heart.

Yes, we had pig heart to celebrate Valentine’s day; isn’t it romantic? Heart is a delicious piece of meat and I wonder why it is not used more often in this part of the world. I first tried it in Peru eating the local street delicacy “anticuchos de corazon” (heart kebab). The interesting thing with pig heart is that it does not taste exactly like pork, I would even say that the flavour is closer to veal or beef. Anyway, you should try it and judge by yourself but for now let’s call this our aphrodisiac… And if you find eating heart objectionable, you can substitute it with another kind of meat or marinated extra firm tofu. I also included a few other aphrodisiacs in my recipe: vanilla and cayenne pepper.

The recipe

Roast the beets, peel them and slice them very finely. Overlap the slices in circles in serving plates. Let them cool under a plastic wrap until service.

Prepare a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce by reducing balsamic vinegar and a little brown sugar until the liquid coat the back of a spoon.

Prepare chive oil by blanching very quickly some chive and passing them in the food processor with the oil of your choice. (I prefer a neutral oil for this)

Grind coriander seeds, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper and lime zest in a mortar. Add about the same quantity of flour to your spice mix and rub the resulting powder on large chunks of pig heart (the flour is optional but it helps at developing a nice crust).

Cut your pears in small cubes and squeeze a little bit of lime juice on them to avoid oxidation.

When ready to serve, sauté the pears in a pan with some walnuts and a little bit of salt. Near the end of cooking, add a few drops of vanilla and enough butter to create a rich sauce. Place a good portion of this compote in the center of the beet carpaccio.

Cook the pieces of heart, now seasoned, in a pan or on the grill until it is medium cooked. Place a few chunks around the pears and walnut compote.

Sprinkle lima beans and cheese (in this case a nice ‘Bleu Hermite’ from Québec and a Boschetto al tartufo, a sheep and cow milk cheese filled with bits of white truffles).

Top the pears and walnut compote with a watercress salad (or any small greens you might have). In my case, I made a quick dressing using olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Finally, drip the balsamic reduction and the chive oil over and around the beets.

The result was fantastic. I am extremely proud of myself here. The flavours integrated surprisingly well, even the heart and the pears. This is definitely a dish I would do again. I might try to improve a few things though. I would, for instance, pick pears that are not entirely ripe to keep the sweetness of the compote as low as possible. I would also opt for beets of different colors so that the balsamic reduction and the chive oil remain visible. I might even consider using larger plates so that these two sauces have a place of their own around the beets.

Stay tuned for the round up!

Paper Chef

Paper Chef 15 - Variations on two Themes

2006-02-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

This post was sent to me by Surfindaave for the Paper Chef event. Surfindaave does not own a blog which explains the publication of his entry on Slurp and Burp.

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Paper Chef 15 - Variations on two Themes

Initially, the ingredients list looked a bit challenging. Not so much the beets and limes, and there are certainly enough things that are considered aphrodisiac in nature somewhere in the world to someone - but working in the pears seemed to be the challenge.

I spent most of the time looking into lists of aphrodisiacs, and even better the descriptions of why these items supposedly had this power, and in some cases their very specific effects. Everything from chocolate to tiger testicles. I stuck with things I thought I could reasonably and legally get a hold of by the deadline.

We are a house strongly divided on food likes and dislikes - the one half likes pretty much exactly what the other half does not (Life without dark chocolate?? Ever??? Harsh!). Makes for tense moments in the kitchen most nights. I schemed of bringing in the elements I wanted without having to take pictures of food taking a trip down the disposal.

The initial idea of a salad - roasted beets, pears, lime vinaigrette - came quickly. I make a similar salad with roasted beets, oranges and fennel with orange vinaigrette, so that seemed fairly straight forward. But not likely to get much attention, as I imagine it would occur to many people. None the less - doable, makes the majority happy (teenage girls). Add some arugula, pomegranate seeds, etc., for aphrodisiacs, and voila!

More creativity was needed. Maybe it was the red of the Chinese skating team against the ice in Turin - maybe the sudden heat wave in SoCAL. Who knows, but the second idea was there, and it triggered a mini flood of ideas. Idea number two seemed almost too easy - a trio of sorbets - lime, pear and roasted beet. Maybe on a chocolate sauce, or with chocolate shavings, and with pistachio powder – in any event, chocolate was going to be there – dark chocolate – lots of dark, dark chocolate. Maybe I can squeeze some sorbet in around the edges.

The beet sorbet turned into beet ice cream (unbelievably good, by the way). The pear sorbet was done quickly, with thyme to add depth. The lime sorbet turned into the disaster of the weekend. Seemed so simple - limes, sugar, water. But I wanted to be a bit more clever - key lime sorbet, from an interesting Alton Brown recipe (might even work!), but the ingredients were not to be found - anywhere. One down. Back to plain old lime sorbet. But that died too - the juiced limes, reduced with some sugar, looked so bad - pale yellow, with odd chunks floating in it - that we were all afraid to even taste it (if I found that on the floor – the dog would banished for a week). Plus - it wasn't green! No contrast with the pear sorbet. Time was running out. And my ice cream machine - not industrial by any stretch - was tapped out from the other sorbet and ice cream. Two down. But not out - yet!

In the mean time - The Brilliant Idea - a Champaign Cocktail – with, of course, the pear and lime sorbet as ice balls, and the Champaign as the aphrodisiac. But how to work in the beet? The Beet Stems, brilliant red sticks, candied, as swizzle sticks! I tried it - candying (is that a word?) some nice red beet stems in a simple syrup, and letting them cool. They hardened nicely, and seemed like they would do the trick. I just needed the sorbets.

Now the idea became variations on a theme – an entire dinner based on the Paper Chef 15 ingredient list. I was giddy. Little did I know that disaster would be the second theme.

Back to the lime sorbet. I settled on a simple lime sorbet based on frozen limeade and kiwis. The limeade, from the frozen food section (shudder) was already frozen, the kiwis were nice and ripe - what could go wrong? The color was brilliant green - with those nice little black kiwi seeds. Couldn't be better. But no ice cream machine (used it up with the pear sorbet and the beet ice cream). So I put the sorbet liquid on a baking sheet in the freezer - two days ago. Not even slush yet, let alone sorbet. I guess it is the freezer? Maybe the limeade has some residual antifreeze in it? Do kiwis prevent freezing? Who knows. Without the lime sorbet, I get no dessert dish, and no Champaign cocktail. Worst of all – no dark chocolate sauce with the sorbet dish. Life is just harsh sometimes! The weak link was the simplest of all the dishes.

No time to despair (I ate the dark chocolate anyways – got to pump up the endorphins, or something like that!). People were going to be hungry whether I had lime sorbet or not. Time to please the crowd. Fresh seared diver scallops, on a bed of red beet and pear risotto, with a lime and mango salsa over the top, and sautéed beet greens on the side. Looks spectacular (despite my pictures), tastes even better.

Last step, tweak the salad – I already have lots of red beets (I mean how many beets can you eat in one sitting?). I wanted to switch to golden beets, but was concerned I would not be able to find them. If I went with golden beets, then I could poach the pears in something red – ruby port, for instance, and have a nice contrast to the main plate. Five stores and $12.00 later, I found the golden beets – for a price (it is just a root, after all!).

The final menu:

Proseco cocktail with pear and lime ice balls, and candied beet stem swizzle stick (photo tomorrow) – aphrodisiac is the Proseco

Roasted golden beet and ruby pear salad on arugula with lime vinaigrette, pomegranate seeds and parmesan shavings (photo) – aphrodisiacs are the arugula, pomegranate seeds, and parmesan (who knew?)

Seared diver scallops on beet and pear risotto with lime mango salsa, served with sautéed beet greens and port reduction. (photo) – aphrodisiacs are the scallops, mango, and port, not to mention the red color of the risotto

Beet ice cream with kiwi-lime and thyme-pear sorbets on dark chocolate sauce with pistachio powder (photo tomorrow) – aphrodisiacs are the dark chocolate, and pistachios

Served over two days – as I have to wait for the lime sorbet to finally freeze – like waiting for Godot – the second variation on a theme.

So half the house was happy – diver scallops and salad, with the fatty dessert (which they complain about but scarf down anyways) delayed till tomorrow! One abstained (doesn’t like scallops or salad, already ate half the ice cream during the preparation – went for the cheerios). I sat in a dim room, sipping Proseco, nibbling dark chocolate, the hushed cracking of red and yellow stones coming from the TV (Curling rocks, by the way!)

Paper Chef

Jamaican inspired pig tail stew

2006-02-13T22:26:00.000-05:00

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After feasting on pig trotters a few weeks ago, we decided to try other often forgotten parts of this culinary versatile animal. A week ago, we spent a few days in Toronto to meet friends, eat out and shop for delicacies that we could bring back in out camping cooler. Yes, we can be that obsessed with food.

One of our nicest discoveries at a Chinese grocery store in the suburbs of Toronto was pig tail. We almost bought pig snouts too but, since I should watch my diet a bit more closely said the doctor a few weeks earlier, we reached a compromise and only got the pack of pig tail. I had no idea how to prepare it at the time and to be honest my mind was just overwhelmed at all the other things we bought: tons of bones to make stock, great vegetables that we just can’t find in Ottawa, a mortar and pestle, etc.

The day after our return home, I started thinking about a recipe. I even googled a few combinations of the words pig, tail, recipe and stew but got very few interesting ideas. I knew I wanted to braise or stew the meat; I don’t believe there is any other interesting way of preparing this part of the animal. At some point, I thought about Jamaican ox tail stews and that was all I needed to select a few spices on my shelves and work with what I had in the fridge.

I first cut some aromatic vegetables (onion, celery and jalapeño peppers) to add flavour to a chicken stock made earlier with all the bones also bought in Toronto. To add more flavours I also added a few dried Mexican peppers (I forgot which exact type), garlic, well strained canned tomatoes, a few bay leaves, curcuma, all spice as well as the usual salt and pepper.

The chunks of pork tail were first browned in a pan; then the aromatic vegetables were added and everything else followed. Near the end, I also added large slices of carrots, a few florets of cauliflower and a can of broad beans.

The stew was excellent although the meat remained quite rich. I served it on a bed of basmati rice cooked with a few spices and a handful of raisins and a side of fried green bananas and lime wedges. I think the lime juice played an important role in cutting the richness of the stew and enhancing all the flavours; I would not serve this dish without adding such a touch of acidity.

Reminder - Paper chef #15

2006-02-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

I have just received the first entries and if they are a first taste of what is coming, this edition of Paper Chef is going to be a delicious and very diverse one. It is not too late to participate as the deadline has been extended to Wednesday February the 15. All the details can be found here.

You are also encouraged to use the Paper Chef technorati tag so that all of us can search for other entries over there before the round up.

Paper Chef

La réponse - The Answer

2006-02-10T23:35:00.000-05:00

This post is written in both French (blue) and English (pink).
Ce message est écrit en français (bleu) ainsi qu'en anglais (rose).

J'ai reçu plusieurs réponses à ma petite devinette d’avant hier. Bien que certaines d’entre elles s’approchaient drôlement de la réponse exacte, aucune d’entre elles n’était parfaitement correcte. Le légume dont il est question est simplement le cœur d’une laitue romaine dont on enleva progressivement les feuilles du bas lors de la pousse. Il s’agit d’un légume prisé des chinois et tout à fait délicieux. Cet article décrit comment l’apprêter.

I received many answers to my little trivia question posted two days ago. Even though many of them were close to the real answer none were perfectly right. The vegetable in question was simply the core of a romaine lettuce from which the lower leaves were progressively removed when the plant was growing. It is a prized vegetable in China and is simply delicious. This post describes how to cook it properly.

Puisque la pelure de ce légume est très fibreuse, il faut le peler. L’épaisseur à enlever est parfois importante car on doit retirer toute la chair striée de blanc.

Since the skin of this vegetable is very fibrous, it has to be peeled. The thickness of skin to be removed can be significant since all the white streaked flesh has to me removed.

On obtiendra un superbe cône allongé de couleur vert pâle. Notez que sur la photo accompagnant cette description, il reste à retirer la chair striée de blanc.

We should obtain a nice light green elongated cone. Note that it is still necessary to remove a layer of the white streaked flesh on the lettuce core found on this picture.

Ensuite, tout ce qu’il reste à faire c’est de le couper de la taille et forme désirées.

Then, all you have to do is to cut it to the desired shape and size.

La meilleure façon d’apprêter ce légume c’est de le sauté dans un peu d’huile de façon à préserver son côté croquant. La saveur étant plutôt délicate, il ne faut pas ajouter trop d’assaisonnement. Un tout petit peu d’ail et de gingembre, par exemple, suffisent.

The best way to cook this vegetable is to sauté it in a little bit of oil while preserving a nice crunchiness. The delicate flavor of this vegetable can easily be overwhelmed by strong flavoring ingredients. Just a little bit of garlic and ginger, for instance, would generally be more than adequate.

Paper Chef #15

2006-02-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

It is time for one of my favourite blog event: the Paper Chef contest! Paper Chef is a very informal and fun competition where participant are asked to prepare delicious dishes using four pre-selected ingredients. Each participant has the weekend to cook their creation and write about it. It is all done for the fun of working with different flavouring combinations and to appreciate the diversity of dishes produced by all participants.

This month I have the privilege of hosting and judging this edition of Paper Chef. Since I realize that a large numbers of my readers are French speakers who are able to read English but might feel discomfort with expressing themselves in this language (I sometimes still do), I would like to offer my help at translating a short paragraph describing their eventual contributions.

My partner Fufu will help me in the enjoyable but delicate task of judging each entry but before going any further, let’s have a look at the specifics of this edition.

Ingredients

Three ingredients have been randomly selected from the current Paper Chef ingredients list by Owen at Tomatilla. They are:

Beets

Pears

Lime

This leaves the choice of a fourth ingredient to me. Since this is Valentine Day weekend, I think aphrodisiac ingredients are more than appropriate. I will leave the interpretation of what constitute an aphrodisiac to you but I do expect some kind of justification for your choices.

Hence, at the risk of repeating myself, the ingredients for this edition of Paper Chef are:

1. Beets
2. Pears
3. Lime
4. Aphrodisiacs

Rules (I hope I get them right)

This event was created to be fun. As Owen, the creator of Paper Chef, puts it: “For absolutely only the fun of it and for no other reason whatsoever, the Paper Chef challenges each and every one of you reading this to let loose your culinary imagination and make up a dish of your own. Loosely based on the ideas of the Iron Chef, fond TV favorite in the US and Japan, and on the British show Ready, Steady, Cook! (fond favorite in the UK), the Paper Chef is all about creativity and constraint, challenge and cooking.”

From this day (February the 10th, 2006) you have until Wednesday noonsih to publish your entry on your own blog and send me an email at “magictofu (at) gmail (dot) com”. Please include your name, the name of your blog, a permalink to your post and, if available, a picture of your dish that you would like to see on the round up (or more simply a link to this picture).

If you do not own a blog, you can also participate by sending me your contribution by email at “magictofu (at) gmail (dot) com”, I will post them on this blog for the benefit of all.

Substitutions of ingredients are allowed. If, for instance, you can’t find an ingredient, suffer from food allergies or simply do not like one of the chosen ingredients, do not refrain from participating. Simply select an appropriate substitute which would preserve the original character of the event.

Have fun, be inventive and let us know about it!

Special prizes

Following some of my predecessors, I have created special prizes for this edition of Paper Chef. They are as follow:

Paper Chef Super Saver. Following the idea set forward by Noodle Cook, this special prize honors cooks who were able to prepare exquisite dishes with cheap ingredients or using inexpensive cooking techniques. If you plan on using caviar, foie gras or truffles, forget about this prize.

Paper Chef Indiana Jones for the most adventurous cooks. This prize has been created to pay homage to cooks who had enough courage to step outside their comfort zone by cooking unknown ingredients or attempting difficult recipes. Note: to win this prize, success is absolutely not required and honesty, in the case of culinary failure, might be rewarded with extra points.

Paper Chef Picasso. This prize rewards the best culinary works or art. You could chose to be as figurative or abstract as you want and even delve into conceptual art. This is the time to revise you high school art class and put your creative energy at work. Note: a picture or a short description of the ‘artistic value’ of your dish is necessary to be eligible for this prize.

Paper Chef Home Cook. Since I have the feeling that people more inclined to prepare home style comfort food have not been sufficiently rewarded for their work in previous editions of Paper Chef, I have created this special prize. It rewards food created for the family table which convey a certain sense of warmth and simplicity. Contrary to what some food magazines want you to believe, such food does not have to come from 1950s’ America; each of us, after all, have our own history and cultural background.

To simplify our task, we would love to read why you think your dishes fit one or more of the aforementioned categories. Put a nice twist on your creation by providing us with a certain perspective and entice our senses. This is not exactly a cooking competition but a food blogging event; as such, pictures, comments and descriptions carry some significant weight. Put us in context, show us your writing skills, entertain us with your whimsical humor, and, more than anything else, tell us about your experience.

A note about the judges.

Every judge and judging panels have their own bias. We believe that we should tell you as much as possible about our own tastes prior to the event.

Fufu, being of Chinese origin, tends to favor strong tastes and especially spiciness. She is also crazy for the very healthy fruits and vegetables as well as the less healthy charcuteries such as sausage and cured meat.

As for myself, being of French Canadian origin, I often crave protein: eggs, dairy products and meat (lumberjack food). Mushrooms and potatoes never fail to please my palate. Unlike Fufu, I prefer subtle flavors and aromas. Finally, again unlike Fufu, I am a total sucker for sauces: pasta sauce, demi-glaze sauce, stews…

These are our own little food bias but we will do our best to offer a fair judging. After reading entries from past Paper Chef editions, I can already speculate that this time again it won’t be an easy job.

A la cuisine!

There is more to mash than just potatoes

2006-02-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

Ah the marvels of mashed potatoes! They can be as chunky or as silky as the cook wants them to be and they take almost any flavour you fancy to throw at them. I grew up eating tons of mashed potatoes, digging little hole in them to make lakes of gravy, sometime decorating the shores with trees of broccoli and cauliflower. Some say mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food but that, of course, is subject to debate especially considering that it is a very western centered cultural assertion.

But potatoes are not the only roots which can be mashed with success. My mom, for instance, used to add turnip, carrots and parsnips to her delicious mashed potatoes. A recent discovery of mine was taro. It is a tropical root which is delicious in stews as it absorbs flavours like no other vegetables. It can also be mashed into one of the most luscious purée.

The idea is the same as mashed potatoes but you have to make sure your taro root is not too fibrous; chose younger and smaller specimen. If you are lucky enough, your purée will show a slight purplish-blue tinge but if, like myself, your taro roots are a bit pallid your purée might end up slightly greyish; it will still taste very good but might not be very pleasant visually once on your plate.

I personally add a touch of honey and black pepper to my taro purée. They both work very well together to accentuate the flavour of the root. Green onions or chive also add a nice finishing touch, especially if your purée turn out to be a little greyish.

Quel est ce légume? - What vegetable is that?

2006-02-09T18:26:00.000-05:00

The answer and more details tomorow! - La réponse et plus d'information demain!

Sautéed watercress

2006-02-08T22:35:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I feel so compelled to write this post. After all, I barely have a recipe to propose. Simple ingredients simply prepared are sometimes more appealing to me than the complex integration of rare ingredients.

Here it is anyway, a Chinese classic: sautéed watercress with garlic. It resembles the equally simple chicory dish I made a few months ago but here the heat is key.

To prepare this delicious side dish, put a little bit of oil in a very hot pan or wok. I prefer peanut oil but feel free to use any oil which has a high smoking point. Add watercress to the pan along with some garlic. Stir often so that the watercress and the garlic do not burn. Add salt. Stir more and more and more… and then serve.

The very strong heat does wonders to the taste of watercress by adding a slightly toasty flavour. If your pan is so hot that everything burns however, just add a sprinkle of water to cool it down… this way at least you’ll save your watercress.

The egg test

2006-02-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

What are the best tasting eggs available on the shelves of my local grocery store?

If eggs differ in taste in the same way as the animals that lay them, organic eggs should be noticeably more flavourful than their industrial counterparts.

I have discussed the tasteless character of North American industrial chicken before (here et là) and the always eloquent Kate of the Accidental Hedonist offered us her own set of explanations for this demoralizing culinary fact. The topic has also been addressed on other food blogs such as Blue Lotus. What prompted me to ask questions and do some research in the first place was the discovery of huge differences in taste between Canadian raised chicken and Chinese chicken as well as between organic and free range chicken and the usual industrially raised chicken from the average North American grocery store. Organic and free range chicken taste much better than industrial chicken but all the backyard raised chicken I tasted in China were even superior. Partial explanation to this problem can be found on the Accidental Hedonist as well as on Blue Lotus, the comments on both these posts are extremely interesting as well.

Now, what about eggs? They come from the same animal and, as my little experience abroad (again in China) also suggests, their taste can also vary greatly. To answer this question I bought a box of each of the three kinds of eggs available at my local grocery store (organic, regular and ‘Omega 3’ eggs). I then tasted each type with my dear Fufu. I made two very simple recipes so that no other ingredients interfered with tasting: hard boiled eggs and scrambled eggs. Here are the results.

Hard Boiled Eggs

Visually all eggs were very similar. All had fairly pale yolks although the organic egg yolks were slightly darker. This was a bit disappointing since most of what I had read suggested that the darker the yolk, the better the flavour. And lets admit it, we also eat with our eyes and nice colours are always welcome on our plate.

Texture wise, they were all identical or at least none of us were unable to distinguish them from one another when considering their texture alone.

As for the taste, arguably the most important point in our little study, they were very little differences. For some reasons, before the test I believed that the ‘Omega 3’ eggs would have an off flavour but they were almost identical to the regular industrial eggs. The organic eggs were slightly better in my opinion but Fufu didn’t see any difference between them and the other eggs.

Scramble eggs

This time three ingredients were added in equal quantities: butter, milk and salt making the tasting a bit more challenging. The results from the scramble eggs test were nonetheless very similar to those of the hard boiled eggs test.

The color and texture of all eggs were practically identical and only at the taste test did I notice a barely perceptible improvement in the flavour of the organic eggs.

Conclusions

Grocery store eggs pretty much all taste the same, including organic eggs. The very slight difference in taste that I perceived but that Fufu didn’t would be insignificant in any recipe. The way you cook your eggs is much more likely to affect the taste of the final dish. Eggs do not abide by the same rules as chicken it seems.
That being said, I did try very good eggs in China and I believe better eggs could be available elsewhere than at the local supermarket.
I am also in the belief that most grocery store eggs, being regular, ‘Omega 3’ or organic, are the product of industrial farms. What drives production is probably primarily economic: what counts is the number of eggs multiplied by their price on the market for each dollar invested. Smaller local farms might produce better quality eggs for a niche market of egg fanatics, I might have to investigate a bit further.
On the other hand, unlike for chicken, I didn’t find the commercially available eggs to have any off taste but I grew up eating these eggs so I might be slightly biased.

It's ingredient nomination time for Paper Chef #15

2006-02-01T17:26:00.000-05:00

You like the Paper Chef event? You want to participate or you just want to see what participants would do with various ingredients? Well it’s time to go nominate ingredients for the next edition of Paper Chef so go straight to Tomatilla and submit you ideas! Nominating an ingredient does not commit you to anything but believe me, participating in such event is a ton of fun.

If you don’t know yet what Paper Chef is, have a look at this. Fufu and I will happily judge the next edition so even if you don’t participate, come back here in about two weeks to see the round up and learn about the winners.

Chicken, avocado and orange salad

2006-01-31T23:48:00.000-05:00

Another meal done using some of the leftovers from our hot pot dinner. I think it is useless to go into details here. Fine chicken slices were quickly poached in a vegetable broth and were mixed with baby greens, fennel bulb slices, red peppers, oranges and avocadoes. The dressing was a simple orange, balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette. It's good to eat something simple and healthy once in a while.

Cilantro and garlic shrimps with a touch of Australia

2006-01-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

When I opened the mail box a few days ago I found a large blue envelope sent to me by Noodle Cook straight from Australia. The fact is that Noodle Cook offered a variety of prizes not only to the winners but to all the participants (see here and there) of the Paper Chef #13 event. As soon as I opened the envelope, a wonderful smell filled the air of my apartment. Curiosity having a very strong effect on me, I had to find a way to work with these spices, and fast!

As I told you in a previous post, we recently had a Chinese hot pot party at home which resulted in my fridge overflowing with unused food. This is how I used all the shrimps leftover.

First of all, garlic… Shrimp and garlic go together like peanut butter and jam. For about a pound of shrimp, I used a whole head of garlic but feel free to use more (or less but really I don’t see why you would want that).

Then cilantro… Fresh, fragrant and beautifully green… it goes perfectly with shrimps too. I used a good handful of chopped cilantro.

As for the recipe... I simply sautéed the shrimp in oil and garlic, along with some red pepper for color and sweetness and some chilli pepper flakes for heat. I then added a good pinch of wattleseed powder to the mix simply because I loved the smell and thought it would go well with the flavours already in the pan. After reading about it, I realise that wattleseed is more often used as a flavouring ingredient in sweets and for roasted meat but, as my little experiment showed, it works as well on shrimps. After a few minutes, I also added a little bit of white wine and, during the last minute of cooking, some chopped cilantro.

The result was quite pleasing but the wattleseed was not finely ground leaving black specks all over the shrimps. Nothing to worry about when you grill but not perfect for a dish served with its own sauce. I’ll get to know this spice well enough soon to avoid these little imperfection but in the meantime we still enjoyed a delicious meal.

Stuffed baby squids

2006-01-31T21:53:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, Stephen from Stephen Cooks posted a recipe for Baby Calamari Stuffed with Shrimp and Pancetta. I thought the idea was fabulous and decided to make my own version.

For the Chinese New Year, Fufu and I organized a Sichuan “hot pot” diner to celebrate the year of the Dog. Hot pot, or “huo guo” (火锅), is a home favorite for such celebrations. It resembles the western “fondue” in that diners cook a variety of meat, seafood and vegetables at the table in flavorful broths. After this great dinner, we still had tons of leftovers uncooked ingredients including some baby squids. The day after I cooked those delicious baby squids stuffed with prosciutto inspired from Stephen’s Baby Calamari Stuffed with Shrimp and Pancetta.

To do this, I used the trimmings from a piece of prosciutto ham bought at a discount price from the butcher as well as some frozen baby calamari from a local Chinese grocery store. The prosciutto ham was cut into very fine cubes and cooked with onions, garlic, red peppers, salt and pepper. Near the end, I also added the chopped tentacles from the squid and some chopped parsley. I then stuffed the squids and baked them for about 5 minutes in a 375º F oven and an extra 2-3 minutes under the broiler.

I served them with a bit of olive oil and reduced balsamic vinegar. Ideally I would have reduced the vinegar a bit more in order to increase its thickness but both Fufu and I were starving so time was limited. I also found that the addition of lemon juice added a fresh dimension to the dish. We both really enjoyed the squids and will probably cook something similar again.

Cheers to you Stephen!

IMBB 22 - Lamian (拉面) - Chinese stretched noodles

2006-01-30T01:15:00.000-05:00

I know... I know... I have already posted 2 different entries for this edition of Is My Blog Burning but I'd like add this third one.

It is not that I am very proud of my cooking, frankly this attempted recipe was more of a disaster than a success, but this is where I invested the most time and energy... and not only my time and energy but the time and energy of my partner Fufu. She graciously explored the internet and Chinese cooking forums in search of a recipe for what is considered to be the most difficult Chinese noodle to make. She also translated a few recipes to English and helped me in the kitchen during the final stages of my failing attempt at making lamian (拉面).

Lamian is made of dough, itself made of high protein flour, which can be stretched by hand to a very fine thickness. It is generally served with a flavourful broth but few toppings so that tasters are not distracted by the delicate elasticity and taste of the noodle. The Japanese ramen noodles, whose name is written with the same chinese characters, is said to originate from the Chinese lamian but contemporary ramen noodles certainly differ from their Chinese counterpart.

There are many lamian recipes but in all cases the dough is kneaded many times at a fairly warm room temperature. Oil is added to make them less sticky and, after resting for a while, they are stretched by hand to the desired thickness. Many recipes call for weird ingredients unknown even to Fufu herself but I still gave a shot at one of the simplest recipes she handed me.

I was able to obtain a fairly decent dough with a very good level of elasticity. I tried cooking a little of it in boiling water and its taste was great and so was the texture. It is with a certain level of pride and confidence that I started to stretch the noodles. I had seen a guy doing it on TV once and thought I could do the same at home. Those of you who have tried to emulate those guys who can juggle pizza dough around their head probably know already what happened next.

At first, the dough stretched fairly well. I was able to increase its length at least tenfold. But after a certain point, shlop! The dough broke down in a few segments and my still fairly thick noodles fell to the floor. I tried again with a few extra balls of dough but failed every time.

Resourceful, I decided to use my pasta machine to flatten and cut the dough. At that point, both Fufu and I were getting quite hungry and pressure to put something on the table was mounting. I was finally able to flatten the dough which, I thought, would help us eat soon but I was wrong. The machine was simply unable to cut these sheets of dough into finer strips: the dough was simply too stretchy.

We then tried many ways to get noodles of an edible size and finally get something in our bowls. The only technique that really worked was to make a long snake by hand and then to pass it through the pasta machine to flatten it. The result was quite good and resembled large parpadelle but this was quite far from what we expected to eat in the first time. The next day, during our Chinese New Year celebration, we talked to a friend of ours who insisted on the necessity to use a particular powder made from a Chinese plant when making lamian dough. I guess we might give it a second try one day if we ever find that specific powder or if someone is willing to teach us… but for now, let’s just call it a failure which we nonetheless transformed into a meal in time for this edition of IMBB.

Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

IMBB 22 - Udon noodles

2006-01-29T17:32:00.000-05:00

A second IMBB #22 post!!! My first one is here, in case you are wondering.

What is there to say about this dish? Well, it was made using store bought udon noodles, some broth leftover from the pig trotters experiment, bamboo shoots, some dried mushrooms (including a good quantity of wild mushrooms we picked last fall) and a Chinese veggie of which I forgot the name.

Some people are very opinionated about what makes good noodles while others are more interested in the broth or the sauce. I am a broth guy. And as such, I am very careful about the way I season the broth and add flavours. In this case, I didn't have to worry since Fufu prepared the whole thing. The noodles were Japanese but the overall flavours were clearly Chinese. It felt very comforting and took no time to prepare: the perfect lunch!

Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

IMBB 22 - Fettucine with Rapini and Lardons

2006-01-28T13:38:00.000-05:00

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I made quite a few noodle dishes recently in preparation for this month’s edition of Is My Blog Burning (IMBB) hosted by Amy of Cooking with Amy. I will start with the easy stuff. Here is a pasta dish that is as easy as it is traditional: fettuccine with lardoons and rapini (or broccoli rabe).

I don’t cook very often with bitter greens. I like the bitterness of coffee and chocolate but less so the bitterness of most vegetables. Still, once in a while, I get tempted by a bunch of dandelion greens, chicory or rapini. I guess this weird behaviour of mine is the grown up version of those of kids who gobble extremely sour candies for the challenge and for the trill of unusual intensity of a primary taste. Well, it is true that some people don’t find rapini to be bitter. As usual, its all a matter of personal perceptions. But I still like to think that eating rapini, at least when you didn’t grow up eating them, can be interesting for culinary thrill seekers.

Ingredients needed:

1 bunch of rapini
Unsmoked bacon (pancetta for instance)
Olive oil
Garlic
Fettuccine
Dried chilli pepper flakes
Salt and pepper

First, clean your rapini. You can, as I did, separate some of the leaves from the tops. It should help you controlling cooking time as leaves cook much faster then the stems. Some people avoid the leaves but I see nothing wrong with them when the flavour I am seeking is on the bitter side.

Secondly, blanch the vegetables in a large pot of boiling water and immediately shock them in cold water so that they keep their superb color. Refill your pot with clean water and salt and put to boil again so that it is ready to cook your pasta.

Thirdly, brown some unsmoked bacon (I used the ‘lardoons’ from my little butchering from a few weeks ago) in some good olive oil in a large pan. Here the olive oil serves more as a flavouring ingredient since bacon does not need any extra fat to cook properly.
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Fourthly, add some coarsely chopped garlic to the pan along with some dried chilli pepper flakes. Keep the temperature at medium to avoid burning the garlic. The goal here is to infuse more flavours to the oil and pork fat already in the pan.
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Fifthly, add the rapini. Saute them for a few minutes. Make sure that your pasta are ready at this point.

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Sixthly, transfer the pasta to the pan directly from the pot in which they cooked. This will allow some pasta water to get in the pan hence producing a nice and delicious ‘sauce’.
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Mix well together, adjust seasoning (salt and pepper) and serve immediately.
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It is that simple! In fact, most pasta recipe are extremly simple and you can adjust them to your own taste. You don't like rapini? Use broccoli instead. You don't like bacon? Use shrimps or scallops. You can transform recipes like this one in thousands of new and different pasta dishes. Let the ingredients inspire you (motivational guru intonation).

Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

Split Pea soup for Sarah Lou

2006-01-28T00:51:00.000-05:00

Since Sarah Lou of One Whole Clove talked about split pea soup a few days ago without making one, I thought I should share this picture with all of you. On her blog, Sarah Lou discuss amply this delicious soup so I won't go in details here. I made the more traiditonal version using a ham bone to add flavour to the soup instead of sausage.

The Garlic Test

2006-01-27T17:55:00.000-05:00

Over the last months, I have tried a variety of garlic bulbs in my kitchen in order to determine which type to buy in the future. The results varied from one type to the other but, frankly, I found that while each types of garlic definitely had a different taste, they still all performed well in most recipes.

What I learned over the course of my various experiments however was that freshness was key in term of flavour and aroma. It sounds simple. It is pure common sense. I know, but I was still surpised at how huge the difference can be. The best tasting cloves of garlic deteriorated extremely fast while the cheapest imports (those with a fairly strong sulphuric smell) lasted a bit longer. But even they greatly lost in taste and aroma after a few weeks/months.

My favourite garlic was locally grown and was of the "hard neck" varieties which tend to deteriorate faster then the “soft neck” varieties. As such, my favourite locally grown garlic did not last very long. I also think that because it was locally produced its level of freshness was simply higher at the time of buying hence better tasting.

Now, which type of garlic will I chose next time? I'll probably stick with what is available to me at the grocery store for most of the year but will definitely choose the local varieties when in season. I will also only buy garlic in small quantities so that we always have the freshest garlic possible at home. Common sense applies here.

Pig trotters - pied de cochon

2006-01-25T22:51:00.000-05:00

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I am reading many blogs these days and some of them are extremely inspiring. Recently, Brett discussed his recent experiment with pig trotters on his excellent blog: In Praise of Sardines. If for some weird reason you haven’t been there yet, go have a look now. You must admit that Brett knows how to attract his reader’s interest. As for myself, I totally fell for his version of Thomas Keller’s pig trotters’ recipe. I just had to replicate it… at least in my own way.

I had pig trotters before but they were presented to me whole and I had to eat those delicacies cave men style. I usually enjoy the simple joy of eating with my hands and getting messy but pig trotters are just impossible to eat decently even alone in a dark cave. When I saw the simple hockey puck presentation on In Praise of Sardines, I was simply amazed at how uncomplicated a solution to the usual sticky muckiness of pig trotters this was. In my mind, it also solved another problem that I associate with pig trotters: the fact that when eating them whole, you generally eat one part at the time; either you eat the skin, a tendon, some meat or that delicious slime surrounding the bones.

After reading Brett’s post, I knew I just had to cook pied de cochon. Fufu bought me a nice rear leg pig trotter at a local Chinese grocery store and I started working on my dish almost immediately. I pretty much followed the exact steps mentioned on In Praise of Sardines but let me recapitulate them for you here.

Prepare your pig feet by washing them well and cutting them if necessary. I had to cut mine in two sections so that it could fit in my pot. A large chunk of shank was left on it providing a meatier piece than the foot itself.
Boil your pig feet in water for a few minutes and discard the water.
Place them back in cold water along with some aromatic vegetables of your choice. I personally opted for the usual celery, carrots and onion along with a bouquet garni (thyme, laurel and leek) a few juniper berries and a few cloves.
Simmer for 3 hours. Drain the broth and keep it for another use (we have been using it for a few quick soups).
Remove the skin, the meat, the gelatine and the tendons from the bones.
Roughly chop the meat, gelatine and tendons together. Add chopped skin in a ratio of about 50% of the amount of meat, gelatine and tendons.
Mix in a bowl adding cooked chopped shallots, some Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. To give the dish a fresher taste, I also added minced parsley stems to this combination of ingredients.
Place the mixture in circular moulds and refrigerate; in a few hours, the gelatine will set and the hockey puck will be much easier to work with. I do not own any circular moulds so I used cookie cutters and a few empty tin cans that were opened on both sides.
At this point, you can add bread crumbs and Dijon mustard on the top along with some chopped parsley (I am one of those weirdos who happen to love parsley but feel free to use other herbs of your liking)
While Brett pan fried his pig trotter ‘pucks’, I decided to bake mine for a few minutes before placing them under broil to partly char the surface.

I served this dish with home made pickles and a quick relish made with chopped pickles, tomato concasse, anchovies, mustard and a touch of olive oil and sherry vinegar. Fufu, who is used to the Chinese version of pig trotters, loved this version and my guests that night seemed quite pleased too. As for myself, I am glad I served these as appetizers because although delicious this dish remains a bit on the heavy side. Much of that buttery mouth feel is caused by gelatine, not only fat, but after a whole puck I think it is time to move to something lighter and crunchy: a salad for instance.

Now the big question… would I cook it again? Absolutely! But again, I will serve it in small portions along with acidic ingredients (pickles, mustard, capers…). Serving wine with this dish could be a challenge and I am no expert here but I would opt for a fairly acidic and crisp white wine (e.g. a dry Riesling) but frankly a cold beer might work even better. Since I will almost certainly prepare pig trotters again in the future, I am open to suggestions as to how to prepare and serve them as well as to what beverage would best help the diners clean their mouth of the delicious unctuous tastes emanating from this dish.

A steak diner for our new prime minister Mr. Stephen Harper

2006-01-24T20:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Election Day in Canada and a new prime minister was elected: conservative leader Stephen Harper. His party will form a new minority government replacing the Liberals who suffered greatly from a series of scandals. In honour of our new prime minister (even though I am personally a bit afraid of seeing Canada taking a conservative turn) I offer you this steak cooked just a few days ago.

This fairly new conservative party has its roots in Albertan cowboy country although it has now gained a certain pan-Canadian recognition during the last campaign. This is why I chose to honour Mr. Harper with a steak diner. Steaks usually come from expensive cuts of beef which some will be able to afford more often after the promised tax cuts. At the same time, however, it is a fairly traditional, down to earth and, at times, maybe a little bit boring meal, which is, as far as I am concerned, at the image of the conservatives and their leader.

So here is your diner Mr. Harper. Congratulation on your victory. Although you would probably have prefered a majority, there are many reason for you to be proud and to celebrate.

I’m sorry there is no dessert. Since I badly lost my election (let’s just say that I didn’t vote liberal either), I can’t offer much more love to you right now Mr. Harper. It's better for your health anyway. However, I promise that if you come to eat at my table to chat politics and maybe calm my anxieties about some of your proposed policies I'll bake you something nice and sweet. My home is quite humble but I don't live that far from 24 Sussex drive.

By the way, you can recognise the mushroom broth used for my ravioli which has been transformed into a sauce and the gnocchi which were meant to accompany the steak.

Potato gnocchi

2006-01-23T15:56:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking about making gnocchi for years but never took the time to actually make any. I made all kind of noodles and dumplings including ravioli, spaetzle, and linguine. Gnocchi are fairly simple to make and last Saturday was gnocchi day.

Here’s the recipe we followed:

4 medium baked russet potatoes
2 eggs
About 1.5 cup of flour
Salt

Mash the potatoes.
Add the eggs and the salt.
Add enough flour so that the dough stop being sticky but remains supple.
Knead for a few minutes.
Roll into long cylinders.
Cut in small section and, if you like, make ribs using a fork.

We served them with a home made pesto sauce that was sitting in the freezer for a bit too long but the resulting dish was still really good. Reheated, the gnocchi were really not as good so next time we will make smaller quantities.

Use your leftovers: asparagus soup

2006-01-23T15:46:00.000-05:00

We all hate to waste food right? Here's a trick to help you use the hard and fibrous part of asparagus.

Cook them in water with a bit of rice. Purée everything in a blender. You can also add a few leaves of spinach in the blender to add colour. Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the fibres. Season. And voila: asparagus soup!

You can use the same recipe for many other vegetables such as wilted lettuce or broccoli stems.

Miso crusted salmon

2006-01-22T15:51:00.000-05:00

I know that I wrote in my previous post that I suck at cooking fish. One of the exceptions to that rule is salmon. The fact is that with its high level of fat it is quite resistant to long cooking time (for a fish at least) and if you are undercooking it, it can still taste awesome. Salmon is a very forgiving fish.

Two days ago, having very little time to cook, I simply applied a mixture made of an aged dark barley miso, maple syrup, water and lemon juice to a filet of salmon and baked it for a few minutes before putting it under the broiler. The result was delicious although I admit to putting too much of this otherwise delicious glaze on the salmon. Marinating the fish for an hour or so might also help.

We served it with a red pepper and zucchinis (cut in long strips with a mandolin) sauté which I generously seasoned with black pepper. I generally think zucchinis and black pepper form a perfect match but this time their flavour clashed with those from the fish. I'll have to think of a better way to serve this miso crusted salmon next time. And yes, the lemon wedges do look silly but a bit of sourness helps cutting through the saltiness of the miso and the richness of the salmon.

Monfish with roasted vegetables in creamy curry sauce

2006-01-21T23:44:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to eat more fish. The problem is that I generally suck at cooking fish. This time however, the result was more than acceptable although I still feel that I could have done better.

I first prepared a sauce using cooked ginger and carrots, a few slices of red pepper as well as chopped shallot. I simply placed all these ingredients in my blender along with cooking cream, srimps, garlic and some spices (curry powder among other things). The sauce was very nice; I could make a soup with it by diluting it slightly with water.

I also oven roasted the rest of my red pepper along with a bulb of fennel cut in quarters. This never fails and the vegetables were also quite good too.

Then came the monkfish filet. I fist pan fried it on medium heat and finished cooking it in the oven. This is where I should strive to improve next time. The problems were as follow:

I did not remove a small transparent membrane on the fish which shrank under heat deforming slightly the filet. This membrane did not taste very good anyway.
I should have cooked the fish at a much higher temperature or under the broiler. I think monkfish can withstand higher temperature and could develop a nice golden brown crust… or even char marks from the grill.
A bowl is really not the right place to put large chunks of fish and vegetables; the rim makes it almost impossible to cut them.

As you can see on the picture, it was served with shrimps cooked in garlic and olive oil... another never-fail-recipe!

The perfect weekend breakfast

2006-01-20T17:27:00.000-05:00

I often make French toasts on the weekend and Fufu generally cuts tons of fruits to go with them. The caster sugar can look a bit chichi but I love the added sweetness of that adorable melting powder.

It is always a good thing to remember that you can add flavour to your French toasts: orange zest, almond or vanilla extract... even cognac or calvados if you like!

Not all is wrong

2006-01-20T17:01:00.000-05:00

I just wrote about how bad my ravioli dough was but not everything turned bad that night. Using what was left from my egg wash and ravioli dough along with some of the broth I made for the ravioli, I prepared that simple egg drop soup. I changed the flavour of the broth slightly by adding soy sauce and sesame oil; added some cooked noodles made with the dough; dropped the egg wash in the hot liquid; and served it with chopped scallion. Fufu, who didn't feel too well that night was extremely pleased and revitalized by this soup.

Recipe for disaster – Ravioli with mushroom and cheese stuffing

2006-01-20T16:43:00.000-05:00

Ok! I admit… I sometimes cook very VERY stupidly.

I admit… I did not look for any recipe or try to learn something about pasta before attempting this dish.

The result? Well let’s say that while some parts of the dish were excellent, the texture and even the overall flavour were wrong. And I worked hours to produce that deceiving meal. Let me explain what happened.

A few days ago, I decided that I wanted to make mushroom and cheese ravioli and serve them in a mushroom broth. I thought this would be simple but I was wrong. Well no... it is simple... but I cooked like an idiot.

The stuffing and the broth were excellent. The stuffing was made from a mushroom duxelle, polish sausage, a few vegetables, chive, parsley, parmesan and ricotta cheese. You know the kind of flavours that can’t go wrong together. The broth was made with a simple mirepoix (celery, carrot and onion) some bones I had in the freezer (rabbit and lamb) a few herbs (parlsey, bay and thyme) as well as some of the delicious dried mushrooms from my fall foraging in the forests near my home (porcini, yellow footed chanterelles and a few other agarics). I also added a bit of balsamic vinegar to adjust the flavour at the end. It tasted very good, the flavour from the lamb was perceptible but at a very subtle level… it would have made a delicious sauce.

Where was the problem you ask me? The problem was that I made my pasta dough blindly. I knew most pasta dough recipes include both normal flour as well as semolina flour so I made mine using these two types of flour along with eggs and a little bit of water. What I learned after diner when doing some research on what went wrong was that while semolina flour, added in small quantity in pasta dough, gives a nice bite to pasta it can also make it grainy, almost sandy, when added in too large quantities. For ravioli, I feel that the finer the texture of the pasta the better is the final result. My dough had about equal amounts of normal flour and semolina flour; and this is simply wrong. On top of that, I rolled it too thick which resulted in the opposite of the fine and delicate ravioli wrapping I had in mind. My dough could have been ok in a lasagna but it was terrible for my ravioli.

Lesson learned:

Spaghetti dough and ravioli dough are not the same.
I'll use OO flour or fine bread flour to make ravioli wrapping next time.
I should also roll the dough relatively thin. Position #4 on my pasta machine is way too thick.
Alternatively, I could just stick to dumpling or spring roll wrappers. They are cheap, widely available and work very well.

Recette d'avant Noël: Marrons glacés faits à tâtons

2006-01-18T15:25:00.000-05:00

This post is written in French in part because it was inspired by a posts made on many French blogs before the holidays. Feel free to comment in English, Spanish, Portuguese or Mandarin.

Voilà déjà plusieurs semaines que je n’ai rien écrit en français sur ce blog et ce même si je me sens souvent plus à l’aise en français qu’en anglais. Comme je l’ai déjà expliqué, c’est qu’à la maison ma conjointe et moi parlons l’anglais ensemble et que j’aime bien avoir ses commentaires comme ceux de mes amis anglophones. Mais la raison principale pour laquelle j’écris ce billet en français tient au fait qu’il a été inspiré de recettes de marrons glacés trouvées sur plusieurs blogs francophones européens avant les fêtes. Cela fait déjà près d’un mois que mon aventure avec les marrons glacés a commencé mais je n’avais pas encore pris le temps de mettre mes idées à l’endroit; c’est que, comme vous allez le voir, il s’agit d’une histoire un peu compliquée.

Quand j’ai vu les recettes de marrons glacés, sur plus d’une dizaine de blogs différents, je me suis tout de suite dit qu’il s’agissait d’une tradition de Noël qui n’avait pas encore vraiment su traverser l’Atlantique. J’ai bien vu quelques boîtes de marrons glacés importées dans quelques épiceries spécialisées mais comme elles étaient toutes trop chères je n’ai pas pu assouvir ma curiosité. Par contre, les marrons frais étant disponibles à bon prix, j’ai décidé de me lancer dans la fabrication de marrons glacés à la maison. La plupart des recettes que j’ai trouvées demandaient l’achat de marrons précuits qui ne sont pas disponibles, du moins à ce que je sache, sur le marché Canadien; il fallait donc les éplucher et les faire cuire.

Pour l’épluchage, rien de plus facile me suis-je dis. Il faut simplement les ébouillanter ou les mettre au four et enlever l’écorce. J’ai bien vite appris que d’éplucher quelques marrons ça peut toujours aller mais en faire un bol complet ça fait mal aux mains. J’ai pris plus de 2 heures pour terminer l’opération sur le gros sac de marrons que j’avais acheté. Mes mains étaient à moitiés brûlées, les doigts affaiblis par le long travail et la peau ridée par l’eau et éraflée un peu partout par les écailles souvent pointues. C’était dur mais j’étais fier de moi après cette pénible corvée. J’avais maintenant un gros bol plein de marrons épluchés.

L’étape suivante : la cuisson. Je n’ai jamais vraiment cuisiné avec des marrons. Ce n’est pas un ingrédient très utilisé ici et quand on en utilise il s’agit souvent de marrons en boîtes de conserve. Je ne savais donc pas à quel point la cuisson devait être délicate. Je l’avais bien lu mais je ne croyais pas qu’il s’agissait d’un ingrédient aussi fragile. Comme plusieurs des marrons étaient fragilisés par les coups de couteaux en croix fait pour aider l’épluchage, plusieurs ont fendu ou se sont carrément émietté lors de la cuisson. L’eau frémissait à peine, pas de gros bouillons, mais c’était quand même trop pour mes pauvres marrons. J’en ai quand même récupéré une bonne quantité et j’ai fait de la purée de marron avec le reste. Cette purée a par la suite été utilisée dans quelques recettes dont ce soufflé.

Les étapes suivantes étaient moins pénibles. Il fallait simplement couvrir les marrons d’un sirop à chaque jour de plus en plus concentré et pendant trois ou quatre jours. J’ai ajouté un peu des couleurs locales à mes marrons en utilisant un peu de sirop d’érable.

Après ces quelques jours, il ne restait qu’à glacer les marrons avec un mélange du sirop et de sucre à glacer et à les placer au four quelques minutes pour fixer cette ‘glace’.

Le résultat était visuellement plutôt bien mais j’étais un peu déçu de la texture. Mes marrons étaient un peu plus dur que je ne croyais qu’il serait mais comme je n’avais aucun point de référence je me suis dit que ça irait.

Je les ai tous placé dans une boîte et ils ont fait le voyage avec moi dans ma famille pour les fêtes. Le voyage a été dur pour eux et ils ont sans doute eut un peu chaud car une partie du glaçage avait fondu à mon arrivée. Au cours des jours suivant, le reste du glaçage a aussi disparu. C’était un peu décevant puisque je voulais en offrir pour Noël et le nouvel an. Le pire dans tout ça c’est qu’autour de la première semaine de 2006, ils avaient commencé à moisir et plusieurs ont ainsi terminé leur vie à la poubelle. J’ai peut-être raté la recette sans le savoir ou peut-être est-ce que je n’ai pas su les emballer correctement… une chose est certaine, ça ne valait pas l’effort mis… l’an prochain soit je me trouve quelqu’un pour me montrer comment faire soit je m’en tient aux biscuits!

Variation on a family recipe: whole wheat banana bread with cranberries

2006-01-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

My mom once gave me her banana bread recipe and since then this is how I use the bananas that get too dark and mushy to be eaten as is. And for years, it has been the only baking I have done. I don’t know where my mom got the recipe in the first place, it might come from a magazine or a book, but the important thing is that it works all the time. Over the years however, I have developed many variations using ingredients that were sitting on my cupboard: coconut and pineapple banana bread, lemon banana bread, chocolate chip banana bread, etc. And last weekend, it is fresh cranberries that I added to my loaf.

The recipe is extremely simple and never fails.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup of flour (I now use whole wheat flour)
2 tea spoon of baking powder
1 tea spoon of salt
¼ cup of sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1/3 cup of corn syrup
1 cup of crushed ripe bananas (about 2 or 3 bananas)
½ cup of chopped nuts (optional)

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together. In another bowl, mix all the other ingredients. Combine the dry and the liquid mixtures. When everything looks wet (do not over-mix), pour everything in a greased cake tin and cook for about one hour at 350F.

In my last version, I replaced the nuts for cranberries and added some oatmeal flakes and brown sugar on the dough to make a nice crust. I served it with a cranberry sauce made using the leftover cranberries.

Citrus and herbs pork roast

2006-01-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

It's the Some Pig Blogging Weekend event! Have a look here and there.

As mentioned in a previous post, I had a large piece of pork to play with in the kitchen from which I was able to get, among other things, a nice pork roast.

Since citrus fruits are now abundant, affordable and good, I thought it would be a great idea to infuse their flavour to my roast. And since parsley and coriander goes so well with citrus fruits, I have decided to stuff the roast with all of these flavours before immersing it in a citrus juices marinade.

1. Make the stuffing using
· The zest of one lemon, one orange and one lime
· A good handful of chopped parsley
· A bout a teaspoon of cracked coriander seeds
· Garlic
· Salt and pepper
· A zip of sherry vinegar and olive oil

2. Open the pork roast with a sharp knife and spread the stuffing on the opened surface. Roll it back into shape and, using kitchen twine, tie the roast so that everything stays in place for the next operations.

3. Make a marinade using:
· The juice of one lemon, one orange and one lime
· A few drops of sherry vinegar
· Olive oil
· A few drops of Worcestershire sauce
· Hot sauce
· Salt and pepper

4. Marinate the pork for four to six hours in the refrigerator.

5. Pat dry the roast and sear it well on all side in a pan. Place in the oven at a relatively low heat (e.g. 300ºF) until cooked to the desired doneness (e.g. medium).

The result was quite good but I think the addition of a bit of wine to the marinade would somewhat improve the recipe. We served it with baby potatoes and broccoli (you can’t have more traditional accompaniments for a roast).

Cleaning up after paper chef : leftovers omelet

2006-01-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Last week's paper chef edition is over (see the round up on Belly Timber) and almost all the leftovers have been eaten, including our gigantic loaf of multigrain bread. One of the few traces of the paper chef event left in our fridge, at least until yesterday, was a small bowl of quinoa and spinach crepe stuffing. One of our strategies to avoid wasting any food, especially when the said food tastes good, is to throw any leftover in an omelet: spaghettis, stews, old veggies, rice... almost anything! And this is exactly what I have done yesterday with our crepe stuffing. I also added a big handful of chopped parsley, some tomatoes and a bit more spices to my egg and milk mixture. The result was quite good, especially for old leftovers, but I have to admit that the crepes were much better.

Be your own butcher (the pork loin dissection)

2006-01-14T18:47:00.000-05:00

It's the Some Pig Blogging Weekend event! Have a look here and there.

Sometimes whole loins of pork are available in supermarkets at discount prices. They generally come straight from large slaughterhouses in vacuum sealed bags. This is how most meat products are now delivered to supermarkets and grocery stores these days. They are then usually cut and arranged by a butcher for the convenience of the consumer.

A few days ago I bought one of those huge piece of meat in order to cut it myself hence saving a few bucks and getting exactly the cuts I wanted. From the whole loin I got about ten fairly lean but thick pork steaks, one large roast (not lean at all!) and about three cups of lardoons. I froze the pork steaks and the lardoons in small packages for later uses and the pork roast is now marinating in the fridge for tonight's diner. For a little bit more than 12 Canadian dollars (a bit more than 10 USD or 8 EUR) I was able to obtain about 18 individual meals and 3 cups of lardoons which I could add to salads, pasta and various recipes. The whole operation, including the preparation of the roast and the packaging of individual portions, took me about 30 minutes. I feel this was time well invested. I know… I know… I am getting quite stingy but with the money saved, I guess I could treat my partner and me to organic meat next time.

Almost forgotten French classic: "Coq au vin"

2006-01-12T14:09:00.000-05:00

For some obscure reasons, it is now extremely difficult to find Coq au vin at the table of most restaurants with the exception of its various deconstructed versions (e.g. an onion on one side of a rectangular white plate, a delicately stewed piece of chicken in the middle with a wine reduction sauce drizzled around it and a few sautéed wild mushrooms at the other side of the plate).

As a matter of fact, most stews are now only made in some rare home kitchen as they all disappeared from restaurant menus and cookbooks in the 70s, especially here in North America. True: stews are hard to plate in a stylish way and new restaurant trends often focus on design more then on taste. Besides, a whole generation, fed on stew for the entire duration of their childhood have, understandably, came to expect something else from their gastronomic experience. This is not an irreversible tendency however so I encourage all of you to join the fight against the culinary extinction of stews in your own kitchen. This is not just a struggle for the survival of one or a few dishes; it is a struggle for culinary diversity; it is a struggle for kitchen liberation and free expression! Cooking men (and women, to be post-feminist) of all countries, unite!

Well, err… I mean… don’t you feel like winter is a perfect season for cooking stew?

Yesterday, I cooked one of the best chicken stew I know: coq au vin. It is a fairly simple French recipe ideally made with older chicken. I bought two small specimens of what the grocery label identified as ‘mature chicken’. They are, if I am right, hens raised for their eggs but whose old age made them less productive. As such, they were probably of the factory farmed type which I didn’t appreciate much in some recent dishes and that prompted me to research the topic and which was eventually discussed so eloquently by Kate at the Accidental Hedonist. It turns out that these ‘mature chicken’, although not always raised in the best conditions, have much more flavour then regular roasters but their meat can be extremely tough and needs long and patient cooking. When you don’t have the money to invest in free-range organic heritage birds, these are certainly a good cost effective solution for stews and broths. If you do have the money, you are still better with an older specimen; ask your chicken provider in advance.

Here’s my recipe:

First, split each of your chicken into 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and 2 breasts. Reserve the carcass to make broth. This is not as easy as it sounds since the older birds are much tougher then most commercially available chicken.

Second, brown the carcass in the oven for 45 minutes at 400º F or until they reach that perfect brown colour. Use it to make a broth adding a simple mirepoix (carrot, celery and onion), bay leaves, a few whole pepper corns and, one or a few sprig of thyme. Let simmer for at least 2 hours of even better as long as 8 to 10 hours skimming regularly. Strain and reserve the broth. (alternatively use store bought broth)

In the meantime:

Peel some pearl onions. To do this, you can blanch them in boiling water for a few minutes. After this treatment, the skins should slide off the onion easily.
Clean a good quantity of mushrooms.
Brown the chicken in a medium sized pot with some chopped bacon and olive oil. Reserve. (note, you can did the chicken in flour before browning it, this will help thickening the sauce)
Brown the mushroom in the fat remaining in the pot. Reserve.

At that point you are ready to really start working on the stew. In the pot where you browned the chicken and the mushrooms, add the chicken and the chicken stock and let reduce by at least half to concentrate the flavour. At that point, add as much red wine as you can afford; I personally used one whole bottle for two small birds (a good chicken stock to wine ratio: 1:1). Adjust seasoning and add one bay leaf and a sprig of thyme (by that time, the bay leaves and thyme from the broth have lost some of their punch). Let simmer for as long as it is needed to cook the chicken minus about 30 minutes (you'll have to use your own judgement as each chicken cooks differently; it took almost 3 hours in my case). Add the onions and mushrooms and finish cooking.

This recipe produces a fairly thin but extremely flavourful sauce. You can thicken it out by adding corn starch mixed in cold water or a commercial sauce thickener. It is absolutely not a necessary step but I personaly like the sauce to be thick enough to stick to my food, not more then necessary though. Finally, a light sprinkle of fresh parsley adds a delicate touch of freshness to this otherwise hearty dish.

I like to serve this delicious stew with noodles but I bet mashed potatoes or even rice would do a great job too but you certainly need to get some kind of starch to soak up the delightful sauce.

After "Clair de Lune" it is now the turn of "Cafe Henry Burger" to shut its doors

2006-01-12T00:19:00.000-05:00

I just read this article about to closure of one of the best restaurant in Ottawa. This happens just weeks after another famed local restaurant, Clair de Lune, was also shut down after many years in the business. Both restaurants attracted the rich, famous and powerful as well as young lovers on first dates or local foodies in search of culinary excitements. In both cases, business was not what it used to be and the owner of Cafe Henry Burger even blames the recent "greater scrutiny of public servants' expense accounts". The food of these two restaurants was excellent but for what I have seen it was also a little bit on the traditional side; lets say that they were more into the French Laundry's classicality then El Bulli's experimentations.

But lets be frank here, Ottawa is not and I don't even believe that it once was a great city to dine out. When we move here from Toronto, one of the first things Fufu realized was that there were almost more outdoor sports shops then restaurants in the city. Well it is not totally true but the amounts of outdoor sports shops here is quite spectacular when compared with that of restaurants. Ottawa seem to be a place to play outside but not a place to socialize and eat. We are still slowly discovering the city but so far our list of interesting places (budget-wise or gastronomically-wise) is quite short. It seems there is neither offer nor demand for cheap AND good restaurants in the area... and now we just lost two of the good restaurants in this city.

Smoked mackerel with hoisin sauce on avocado salad

2006-01-11T23:38:00.000-05:00

I just discovered smoked mackerel and I love it! It's fairly cheap, relatively easy to find, at least around here, and can be integrated into a delicious appetizer in less time than it takes to spell the word 'delicious'.

A few months ago, I went to a nice local restaurant called Les Fougères for Fufu’s birthday and had smoked mackerel served on avocado salad with a touch of hoisin sauce. Both Fufu and I loved the dish and got me thinking a lot. The idea is so simple and the taste was simply fantastic. Aki and Alex of Ideas in Food seemed to agree by choosing a slightly different version of this dish for their maple syrup menu. Tonight I made my own version for the first time and served it as an appetizer. We didn’t have any hoisin sauce (I left my bottle at my mom’s place during the holidays) so I mixed together some oyster sauce, hot sauce and a touch of vinegar to make a different sauce which worked quite well. The avocados were diced with a bit of tomatoes (which is totally unnecessary but add a nice touch of red) and sprinkled with a bit of lemon juice.

The next time however, because there will be a next time, I will be more gentle with the sauce. Less sauce poured in finer droplets would improve presentation but also the overall mouth feel since this kind of sauce is quite powerful when taken alone or in too large quantity. I would also chop the avocado more finely for a nicer presentation. I am not sure whether or not I prefer the skin-on or skinless version of the dish; the mackerel skin is beautiful and definitively flavourful but is a bit too chewy to integrate well with the other ingredients. A slight sweet onion (or even chayote) crunch would also improve the avocado salad while a delicate sprinkle of chopped cilantro would add an attractive and fragrant finish to the whole dish.

Paper chef #14 - quinoa, yogurt, cashew nuts and 'babies'

2006-01-09T12:38:00.000-05:00

It is that time of the month again when bloggers from around the world put their intellect to work in order to create exiting dishes around four selected ingredients in an attempt to reach the everlasting glory of winning the paper chef challenge. The ingredients for this 14th edition of Paper Chef were:

Quinoa,
Yoghurt (with an ‘h’),
Cashew nuts and,
Babies (human babies being unaffordable these days and with all those scary prion diseases kicking around we were encouraged to chose other species, such as lamb or poussin, or something with the word baby in it, such as baby spinach or baby bok choy)

Since I love the list of ingredients that were given to us by Owen at Tomatilla and by Mrs D and Chopper at Belly Timber, I have decided to offer you a full day worth of kitchen experiments. That means breakfast, lunch and diner. It also means that I have a lot to write about so let’s get started.

Breakfast:

French Canadian quinoa crepe with cashew butter and maple syrup.

In my family, as well as in most French Canadian families, THE cooking reference is, and has been for decades, “L’Encyclopédie de la cuisine” by Jehane Benoit (better known locally as Madame Benoit). Her place in French Canadian cooking resemble the one of Julia Child in American cooking. As such, the crepe recipe that my family used, at least since I am born, comes from that book. I know, who needs a recipe for crepes? Well, I do... for some reason, crepe is one of those things that I cook only using a recipe and frankly I can't explain why. Therefore this next recipe is based on Madame Benoit’s recipe but, in order to keep with the themed ingredients, I replaced one cup of all purpose flour with one cup of quinoa flour and one cup of milk with one cup of yogurt. Yes, quinoa flour does exists! And, surprisingly, it smells a bit like spinach... I am learning new things everyday.

Quinoa crepe recipe

1 cup All purpose flour
1 cup Quinoa flour
One pinch of salt
2 T spoons of sugar
4 large eggs (baby chicken)
2 cups of milk
1 cup of yogurt
1 T spoon of vanilla extract
2 T spoons of melted butter

All you need to do is to mix all the ingredients together; let the whole mixture sit in the fridge for an hour or so and cook your crepe in a frying pan (ideally non-stick). The trick is to make them really thin but this batter, either because of the quinoa or the yogurt, makes crepes that are a bit more fragile (I am betting on quinoa) so be gentle.

I also made a sauce with maple syrup and cashew butter to put on top of our crepes this morning. Usually I don’t bother adding anything but maple syrup on my crepes but the addition of cashew butter was a nice one. The slight spinach smell that came from the quinoa flour was a bit weird at first but as we started eating, we could not care less. Fufu also made a nice fruit salad on the side that we devoured as fast as we engulfed the crepes.

Lunch:

Quinoa stuffed crepes with sprouts salad

Yes, you guessed it, we made too much crepe batter for only two persons and had to find a way to make something else out of it. The solution was simple: stuffed crepes. Well, ok, I'll be honest with you: I always make more crepe batter then I need because I love to snack on them and to stuff them. You now know the recipe for our quinoa crepes, so here is the recipe for our stuffing:

Quinoa crepe stuffing (just mix everything together)

1 package of frozen spinach (frozen spinach are always drier than fresh ones cooked at home, but for those who are crazy about the theme ingredients, you could use baby spinach and dry them in a towel)
1 large carrot, grated (ok, use baby carrots if you want)
2 cups of cooked quinoa
1 cup of grated cheese (we used a very local day-fresh 'cheddar' cheese… the stuff we put on poutine around here)
½ cup of grated parmesan
1 pinch of each: nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and cumin (can't be more precise than that but trust your tastebuds to adjust seasoning to your own taste)
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
Salt and pepper

I also made a nice yogurt based sauce to go with these crepes.

Yogurt-curry sauce

1 cup of yogurt (we used sour cream because we already had many uses planed for the little yogurt we had at this point)
1 T spoon cashew butter
1 T spoon peanut oil (Does cashew oil exist?...)
1 t spoon of apple cider vinegar
½ t spoon to 1 t spoon of curry powder
1 t spoon of hot sauce (we used the Vietnamese version)
Salt
White wine to thin out the sauce to the desired consistency

As for the salad, it is made of various sprouts: (sprouts are babies!) broccoli sprouts, alfalfa sprouts and snow pea sprouts. It also contained red and yellow bell peppers, a bit of good olive oil, a squish of lemon juice, salt and pepper.

The result was greatly exceeding our expectations. I think it is the spices in the crepe stuffing that made the difference; we were lucky (or skilled enough?) to strike the right balance of flavour.

Diner

The lamb extravaganza

I bought two nice racks of lamb for diner. I don’t know what got into me; these delicious baby sheep ribs are too expensive for our weekly food budget. I felt I had to make something really good out of them in order to be forgiven for my extravagance. This is probably why I spent so much time in the kitchen.

In fact, I made a man of myself today and went to work early. And it didn’t take me long to produce. By mid-afternoon, my girlfriend, Fufu, already had a bun in the oven. And I am the one who made it! [insert emoticon: idiotic proud macho smile after bad sexist joke].

The bun in question was a multigrain cashew nut loaf and was more specifically made of:

Whole wheat all purpose flour
White bread flour
Quinoa flour
Oat flour
Oatmeal
Rye flour
Buckwheat flour
Ground flax seeds
Toasted Cashew nuts
Yogurt
Instant yeast
Maple syrup (to activate the yeast)
Salt
Water

Before baking it, I puffed quinoa seeds the way I puffed wild rice or plain regular rice a few months ago and make a nice crust on the loaf with it.

Since I always make bread by feel and taste (yes I do taste raw dough)I can't give you the specific amounts of each ingredients used but I am guessing half of the loaf was made of the two types of wheat flour. This is necessary to give the bread some fluffyness. Even then, this bread was still quite dense as any multigrain bread should be. Both Fufu and I especially liked the quinoa crust on it: it was crunchy and slightly salty while the interior of the bread was moist and truly tasted like the grains it was made off, not only wheat. The loaf is huge so I guess we'll have to make soup to finish eating it up.

At first I was affraid that the yogurt would mess up the dough but the bread turned out to be perfect... When adding it I was guessing it would do the same effect as milk does in some bread recipe and it did: it helped the loaf to stay moist and probably helped tastewise. It was a wild guess though since I am not usually a very good baker. Ah! the risks we all take to participate to this edition of Paper Chef!

Here is another picture of our newborn baby. We are very proud of this very healthy cutie.

We ate a few slices of this bread with a store bought baby pig (porcelet in French) and duck rillette.

The piece de resistance for our diner was, as you now know, the lamb. We marinated it 24 hours with:

Yogurt marinade

- Yogurt
- The zest and juice of one orange
- Chopped parsley
- Chopped lemon balm
- Cumin
- Coriander seeds
- Pepper flakes
- Worcestershire sauce
- One or two drops of liquid smoke (I know it sounds terrible but if you read the label, you’ll see there is nothing to be afraid of and if used sparingly it has the power to add wonderful flavours to a dish).

The cashew nut crust was made of:

- 1 cup of cashew nuts
- The zest of ½ a lemon
- ⅓ cup of parsley and lemon balm
- 1 T spoon of olive oil
- 2-3 T spoons of puffed quinoa
- 1 egg (baby chicken)
- Salt and pepper

We first put the roast under the broiler and then cooked the meat on a fairly low heat to preserve its tenderness. Just before taking it out of the oven, we finished the browning of the crust by using the broiler for a second time. We served it with baby carrots and a quinoa, wild rice and lima bean salad. Chopped parsley, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper were added to the salad.

The presentation on the plate was quite ordinary despites my efforts but almost everything else was perfect. If I had to make this dish a second time, I would prepare a finer crust and find a better way to make it stick to the lamb. The crust I made was peeling off the lamb at times when slicing the meat and I just hate having to replace bits of crust on the meat when plating. Also, since both Fufu and I like to eat our meat rare to medium rare, that we marinated the lamb in yogurt (which helps tenderizing it) and that we had been extra careful when cooking it (low temperature), I believe the extra fat left next to the bone is useless. In fact, it didn't even have the time to render and it is not very pleasant presentation-wise (as you can see in the pictures). As such, I would remove it next time. The lamb was already extremely tender and while it might help adding flavour I am guessing a much smaller amount would work as well if not better.

We also had a nice salad to accompany our meal. It was made of baby spinach, red and yellow bell pepper, shallot and puffed quinoa. We served it with a nice yogurt dressing.

Yogurt dressing

- ½ cup of yogurt
- 1 finely diced shallot
- Zest and juice of ½ lemon
- 1 t spoon of olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- White wine to thin it out

It was a very good salad but I would advise anyone who intend to reproduce it to reduce the amount of shallot that you see on the picture or to replace it with a sweeter type of onion. We first planned to make this salad with a sweet red onion but had none available to us tonight so we opted for shallots, which are generally stronger in flavour.

Finally, and I am still wondering why because we clearly overate during the whole day, I also made a nice comforting desert: quinoa pudding. This recipe is loosely based on a very traditional rice pudding and frankly tastes pretty much like one too.

Quinoa pudding

- 3 cups of milk
- ½ cup of quinoa
- 1 egg (baby chicken)
- 1 t spoon of vanilla
- ¼ t spoon of cinnamon
- ⅛ t spoon of nutmeg
- 1/3 cup of raisins
- 1/3 cup of brown sugar
- One pinch of salt

- 1 T spoon of starch diluted in cold water

- 1/3 cup of roasted cashew nuts to serve

Cook the quinoa with all the ingredients but the egg, the starch and cashew nuts. Take the mixture away from the fire for a good 20 minutes to reduce the temperature, temper the eggs and then mix everything vigorously. Put on simmer stirring constantly until the whole mixture thickens. At this point, you can thicken it even more using the starch (unlike rice, quinoa has very little starch in it). Serve warm or cold with roasted cashew nuts.

Now that all the cooking is done and that this post is almost finished, all I need to do is relax and digest this whole day of quinoa, cashew nuts, yogurt and ‘babies’. Both Fufu and I had a lot of fun playing with these ingredients but I’m glad it is over now… it is too much to write about in a single post… we just got carried away this time I guess.

UPDATE: go see the round up on Belly Timber

Paper Chef

The art of recycling - apple crust and granite

2006-01-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

I made these two dishes long ago and never took the time to write about them. I like to talk about my big successes as well as my catastrophic failures in the kitchen; I also like to share my thoughts on improving dishes that were good but not perfect. The problem here is that my dishes were good, although far from being faultless, but I still have no idea on how to make them better. This probably explains why it took me so long to write about them. I could forget about these dishes and move to more interesting topics but I also love discussing strategies to avoid waste and this is exactly what this post is about.

Months ago, when snow didn’t cover the ground and even before the leaves turned yellow and red, I bought stupid amounts of apples. I can’t help it; the local apples are so good when in seasons. The problem is that after a few days (not even a week) their taste change, they loose their delicious sourness and I stop eating them. When they are fresh, I could eat 10 of them or more in a day but when they are not there is not much left to do but to cook them. This is why I bake so many apple crisps during the fall season. To make this easy desert, you don’t really need a recipe and it is both fast and simple. The problem is that if, like me, you peel your apples before cooking them, you end up with big bowls of unnecessary waste.

Traditionally my answer to this was to make apple jelly; apple peels are full of flavour and pectin and make great jellies. However, I don’t like jellies and jams that much. I find them overly sweet for my palate in the morning; they are fine in deserts but I am not much of a baker. This year, I decided to make granite with them instead. I made a light syrup by cooking the apple peels in water and sugar and then strained it and froze it after incorporating a bit of calvados. The result, I must admit, was good but not good enough to be worth of mention in any cookbook, including the bad ones. Unsurprisingly, it tasted like cooked apples; a taste which I didn’t find too pleasant in a frozen desert.

I will probably stick with the jelly next year if I can’t find a better idea until then.

Back from vacation

2006-01-04T23:35:00.000-05:00

I surely neglected this blog over the last weeks. I was away celebrating the holidays with my family and did not take much time to cook and even less to blog about it. Most other food bloggers had a lot to say about their holiday feasts, but I decided to take some vacations from my blog instead. I had great food during these few weeks: delicious quails with cognac infused grapes, a fantastic although a bit weird Tunisian stew: mloukhia, Peking duck, great brunches, not to mention two different fondues and a Korean diner featuring the always tasty BBQ short ribs. In fact, I simply enjoyed all my meals without having these weird blogger's after thoughts about the best way to write about my experiences and discoveries or about the best light to take pictures.

But do not worry! I am now thinking about my next experimentations, about the best way to enlarge my repertoire and sharpen my cooking skills... And I still have to tell you about some of my pre-Christmas (mis)adventures in the kitchen including my glazed chestnuts experiments.

Happy New Year!

My 7 steak rules - Strip loin steak with black pepper and balsamic vinegar sauce

2005-12-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

I feel I am now quite competent at making steaks. My first steaks were over and under cooked, often rubbery and most of the time quite unappetizing. I am still unable to judge the doneness of a steak by pressing on it with my finger but a thermometer does the job perfectly for me.

Although I now have a few ways to cook myself a steak, there are a few things I always do. Here are my steak rules. Feel free to disobey my rules, no-one will enforced them on you… but let me know of your own tricks and experiments.

1. Use thick steaks. If, like me, you think a thick strip loin steak is too big for you, just cut it in two smaller pieces. Most supermarkets only offer fairly thin steaks. Ask your butcher for a steak at least 3/4 inch thick or cut them yourself from a larger piece of meat.

2. Bring the meat to room temperature before cooking it. This reduces cooking time which helps tremendously the cooking process.

3. Season well but never use oil or use only a minimal amount except if you are using a very lean piece of meat (such as filet mignon).

4. Pre-heat a thick pan to a very temperature and do not be afraid of a little smoke: this is why you have a fan over your stove.

5. Sear all sides of your steak and finish cooking in the oven. It should not take very long but you won't burn your steak. Use a thermometer.

6. Never serve a steak more than medium. If you like it well done, you are probably better off braising your meat and forget about grilled steaks: it would be cheaper, as delicious and no one will frown at you anymore.

7. Let your steak rest at least 5 minutes before serving it or slicing it otherwise it will loose juices and make your plate look messy.

For this recipe, I made a sauce using my veal glace, some black pepper corns and a bit of balsamic vinegar for a nice aroma and to balance my sauce. I served it with mushrooms, roasted tomatoes and roasted fennel.

Chestnut soufflé or how I missed my 'marrons glacés'

2005-12-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

Notice: Ugly picture below

This is another story of a failure turned into a success. I am starting to think that I this could be my speciality.

As some of you have probably noticed by reading my previous posts, I sometimes mingle with French food bloggers. They are a fun bunch and have some very interesting events such as Blog Appétit. During the last weeks however I noticed that a great number of these guys and gals made their own 'marrons glacés' (glazed chestnuts) in preparation for the holidays. I had seen boxes of these in some fancy grocery stores but since they were quite expensive I never tried them. Since I was curious and that I thought they could make wonderful gifts for Christmas, I decided to attempt making some by myself. While I don’t want to divulge the result of my experiment yet, let’s just say that in the process I broke a great number of these delicious nuts while cooking them; they can be really fragile.

Since I could not use little pieces of chestnuts to make my 'marrons glacés', I re-cooked them in a light syrup and pureed them in a food processor. This produced a nice purée which I could use in many recipes. Yesterday however, I made some simple chestnut soufflés. They were good but not sweet enough to my taste. I am thinking about incorporating some caster sugar to the egg whites before folding them into the purée next time. With a bit of luck, it might add some texture and even some structure to this soufflé. I like my sweet soufflés to have that hardish texture in the mouth before slowly melting and vanishing. I'm not much of a baker, so it may takes some time before I'll be able to get exactly what I want. In the meantime I still enjoy them; these are not bad little deserts at all. They just not perfectly adjusted to my taste yet.

And by the way, sorry for the ugly picture... that was the best of the lot believe it or not!

Blog appétit #6 et #7 - champignons, choux, vollailles et émotions

2005-12-20T20:44:00.000-05:00

Puisqu'on nous a déjà offert les ingrédients des deux prochaines éditions de Blog Appétit, j'ai décidé de combiner ces deux éditions en un seul plat. Je m'amuserai encore en cuisine avec ces ingrédients dans un avenir rapproché mais le destin m'a poussé à faire ce 2 en 1 il y a déjà quelques semaines: j'avais tout sous la main de toutes façons!

Je vous conseille de prendre des notes, il s'agit d'une de mes plus belles réalisation en cuisine et croyez-moi, les photos sont bien ordinaire par rapport à l'arôme qui se dégage de ce plat. Ça change de mes recettes ratées ou de celles sauvées de justesse.

Poulet sauce aux chanterelles à pieds jaunes.

Ingrédients:
(note: les proportions sont approximatives car je ne mesure que très rarement mes ingrédients, de toutes façon il est probablement bien mieux d'ajuster la recette à vos propre goûts)

Saumure (note: ajustez les quantités selon la taille de votre poulet et de celle du contenant utlisé):

1 tasses de vin blanc sec de votre choix (Évitez les cépages trop riche comme le chardonais à moins d'être vraiment amateur. Mon avis très peu professionnel sur le sujet: un vin léger et floral, voire même plutôt fruité, est plus à propos)
2 C. à soupe de sel
2 tasses d'eau

Poulet:

1 bon poulet fermier
1 branche de thym
sel et poivre

Bouillon pour la sauce:

cou, ailes et carcasse non utilisée du poulet
2-3 tasses d'eau
1 carotte coupée grossièrement
1 branche de céleri coupé grossièrement
1 petit oignon coupé grossièrement
1/2 tasse de poireau coupé grossièrement
1 bouquet garni (thym, laurier, persil)

Sauce:

1/2 tasse de chanterelles à pieds jaunes sèche (ou tout autre champignons sauvages parfumés et au goût délicat comme des morilles ou d'autres membres de la famille des chanterelles)
1 tasse du même vin blanc ayant servi à la saumure.
1 échalotte grise coupée finement
Quelques cubes de beurre froid (pour monter la sauce si désiré)

Étapes:

Désossez partiellement le poulet de façon à garder seulement les os des pattes ainsi que le premier segment de l'aile de poulet. (Cette étape est facultative mais permet de mieux cuire le poulet et d'en retirer les os qui serviront à faire la sauce)
Préparez la saumure et déposez-y votre poulet pour 6 heures ou plus, voire même 24 heures.
Faites brunir les os au four pendant au moins 30 minutes à 400° F (200° C) puis ajouter la carotte, le céleri l'oignon et le poireau pour 20 ou 30 minutes supplémentaires.
Mettre les os, les légumes, le bouquet garni et l’eau dans une casserole et amener à ébullition très lentement en écumant fréquemment. Laisser frémir une heure ou deux, ou même plus si vous avez le temps.
Passez au tamis pour ne conserver que le bouillon. Réservez.
Après avoir bien asséché le poulet et l'avoir assaisonné avec le thym le sel et le poivre, placez le dans une poêle relativement chaude et déposez un objet lourd dessus (une brique par exemple ou, comme moi, une marmite en fonte), ceci permettra d'accroître la surface touchant à la poêle. Lorsque le poulet sera bien doré, retournez le et mettez le au four jusqu’à ce qu’il soit cuit.
Pendant ce temps, réhydratez les champignons dans un peu de bouillon et préparez le reste des ingrédients pour la sauce. Réservez les champignons et le bouillon dans lequel ils ont baigné.
Pendant que le poulet repose, faite sauter légèrement l’échalote dans la même poêle ayant servi à cuire le poulet puis déglacez avec le vin blanc.
Faites réduire puis ajoutez le bouillon de poulet et le bouillon de réhydratation des champignons. Faites réduire à nouveau jusqu’à l’obtention d’une sauce à peine sirupeuse. Passez au tamis pour en retirer les impuretés.
Ajoutez les champignons et montez au beurre si désiré.
Découper le poulet et servir.

J'ai servi ce poulet sur un lit de choux rapidement sauté à feu très vif. Le résultat était délicieux. Après ma mauvaise expérience avec les poulets industriels, je suis maintenant vendu au poulet bio. Je crois aussi qu'ajouter un vin léger à la saumure ajoute beaucoup au produit final.

Émotion

J'ai commencé à cueillir des champignons de façon sérieuse l'an dernier après m’être joint à un club de mycologues amateurs. J'ai tout de suite développé un grand intérêt pour les champignons d'abord au niveau culinaire mais ensuite pour leur étonnante beauté et leur étonnante diversité. Ce type d'activité n'est pas très répandu au Canada mais les histoires d'empoisonnements sont pourtant très nombreuses. J'étais donc très craintif lors de mes premières excursions et il m'a fallut des heures de vérification, de recherche et de re-vérification pour enfin vaincre ma peur de manger certaines espèces. Je me tiens toujours loin des champignons plus difficilement identifiables mais j'ai maintenant suffisamment confiance en moi pour mettre une bonne quinzaines d'espèces dans mon assiette et celles de mes convives.

Il m'a également fallut apprendre à identifier les milieux et les saisons propices à la cueillette. D'excusions en excursions, j'ai réussi à trouver des sites plus intéressants que d'autres et comme bien d'autres amateurs, j'ai maintenant mes petites talles secrètes ici et là dans quelques forêts de la région. Je suis pourtant plusieurs fois revenu bredouille à la maison avec une certaine tristesse dans l'âme, je l’avoue, et parfois même avec une certaine jalousie devant les paniers bien remplis d'autres cueilleurs. Mais le bonheur de marcher en forêt à la recherche de ces petits trésors gastronomiques forestiers demeure.

Par une de ces superbes journées du début septembre, alors que je prenais une marche dans un boisé près de chez mois, j'ai pu découvrir une immense talle de chanterelles à pied jaune. Je n’en croyais pas mes yeux. Je jubilais. Et c’est avec une certaine fierté que je suis retourné à la maison, un peu tard c'est vrai, avec deux grands sacs pleins à raz bord de ces délicats champignons. La surprise de ma copine de me voir arriver ainsi avec une si grande quantité de champignons estompa immédiatement la petite crainte qu'elle avait de me voir arriver si tard. Lorsque le travail fastidieux de nettoyage et de séchages des champignons commença, un petit brin de fainéantise nous pris tous les deux mais après quelques jours nous savions que nous aurions des provisions de chanterelles à pieds jaune pour l'année entière.

Comme il s'agit d'un des champignons préférés de la femme que j'aime tant, je cuisine de plus en plus avec ce champignon que je crois malheureusement peu apprécié par la plupart des mycophages.

Blog Appétit #6 - Sauté de dinde et champignons sauce au vinaigre de Chinkiang

2005-12-20T19:20:00.000-05:00

Pour ceux qui lisent l'anglais, voici un autre épisode de l'épopée de la dinde à rabais. Vous trouverez les premiers épisodes ici, ici, ici et ici. Pour ceux qui ne lisent pas l'anglais voici l'histoire en bref: j’ai acheté une dinde très bon marché récemment et j’ai entrepris de la transformer en une série de petits repas tous différents les uns des autres. Il faut bien trouver une façon d’économiser un peu si l’on veut, par exemple, contribuer à la campagne Menu for Hope organisée par Pim et dont une des pages les plus importante a été traduite en Français par Pascale sur son site 'C'est moi qui l'ai fait'. (allez faire un tour, il y a plusieurs cadeaux à gagner y compris des repas dans des restos à Paris et ailleurs dans le monde).

Revenons à ma dinde. Dans cet épisode ci, j'ai décris la découpe de la dinde en plusieurs morceaux mais ce que j'ai omis de vous raconter c'est qu'avant de transformer la carcasse en un délicieux bouillon, j'ai pu sauver suffisamment de beaux morceaux de chair pour préparer un petit plat tout simple: au sauté asiatique.

J'ai d'abord fait mariner les morceaux de dindes pendant 10 heures dans un peu de jus de gingembre, de l'ail et de la sauce soya (parce qu'il faut bien l'admettre, la dinde, et surtout la dinde congelée à rabais, ce n'est pas toujours très goûteux). J'ai ensuite fait sauter mes champignons (une bonne quantité de champignons de couche et de shiitakes) dans un peu d'huile. Puis j'ai fait de même avec la dinde après l'avoir bien égouttée. Ensuite, j'ai recombiné le tout – champignons, viande et marinade – dans le wok et ai fait réduire légèrement la sauce avant d'ajouter un peu de vinaigre de Chinkiang. Il s'agit probablement du meilleur vinaigre chinois, il est très corsé, a une belle couleur noire et puisqu'il a été âgé pendant un certain temps, il a un petit côté sirupeux qui ne va pas sans rappeler le vinaigre balsamique. À cela j'ai ajouté un peu de fécule de maïs mélangée avec un peu d'eau pour épaissir la sauce. Le tout est garni de feuille de coriandre fraichement hachée.

Émotions

D'abord l'Amour. On ne peut pas passer à côté de ça quand on parle d'émotion. Comme certains d'entre vous le savent déjà, ma conjointe est d'origine chinoise d'où ce plat d'abord prévue pour lui faire plaisir (on ne cuisine avec amour pour soi même que très rarement).

Ensuite déception. J'ai mis trop de fécule de maïs dans mon plat et la sauce était beaucoup trop épaisse à mon goût. J'essayerai d'être plus délicat la prochaine fois.

Ceasar Salad

2005-12-19T21:10:00.000-05:00

Do you remember my contribution to the last edition of Paper Chef? If so, you probably remember that I used the oil of my little jar of anchovies to make the sauce at the base of my fake soft boiled egg yolks. The inquisitive reader that you probably are is wondering where the anchovies went. The answer is in a series of Caesar salads that I made about a month ago. I didn't talk about them then and I believe most of you can find your own recipes and adapt it to your taste the way I did then. Here's a picture anyway, just in case you are in need of inspiration for a quick, comforting and delicious meal.

More bread, more experimentation

2005-12-16T22:12:00.000-05:00

I made this bread a few days ago. I tried a new type of flour this time (the European 00) which I mixed with standard all purpose whole wheat flour. I find this new flour to be very fine and I believe it would make a very nice and fluffy white loaf by itself; for this experiment however, I simply used it to improve the dough for a whole wheat bread. I also tested the idea raised during my previous bread experiment by using more water than usual. The result was quite good although my bread was still a bit too dense for my taste and lacked the large bubbles I desire so much. I guess this is a normal problem with whole wheat breads.

A last note: I also rolled the shaped dough in ground flax seeds. Most people add flax seeds for health benefits but both my partner and I simply love the nutty taste it gives to bread.

Pork steak with grainy mustard sauce

2005-12-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

This is yet another simple week night recipe. I cooked this dish a few days ago but never took the time to write about it. It tasted quite good but I made one mistake when making the sauce: I used sour cream instead of cooking or whipping cream and the sauce partly separated. I was able to partly fix it by adding some starch and by whisking it. It was still a pretty ugly sauce although much smoother than it could have been and its taste was alright.

5 choses et timidité électronique

2005-12-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

Debo, de l’excellent blog Les Agapes vient de me passer un questionnaire et j’avoue ne pas trop savoir quoi en faire. Plusieurs personnes ont déjà passé cet interrogatoire, parfois même avec plaisir, mais je trouve cet exercice un peu trop exhibitionniste en ce qui me concerne : je dois être timide de nature, du moins sur internet.

Depuis que j’ai commencé ce blog, j’ai tranquillement laissé transparaître ma propre identité sans jamais me dévoiler complètement. La plupart d’entre vous ne me connaissent que sous mon pseudonyme, Magictofu, et la plupart de mes parents et amis ignorent encore l’existence de ce blog (quoique les rumeurs doivent déjà en avoir rejoint plusieurs). En fait, j’aime bien la liberté qu’offre un certain anonymat.

D’ailleurs, pour être très franc, j’ai commencé ce blog parce que j’avais beaucoup de temps libre que je voulais utiliser pour m’améliorer en cuisine. J’ai donc créé ce blog pour me construire un journal de cuisine dans lequel je pourrais prendre des notes sur mes réussites et mes échecs. Avec le temps, je me suis rendu compte que je n’étais pas le seul à écrire depuis ma cuisine et qu’il y avait une communauté gourmande bien implantée sur le web. J’ai rapidement pris goût à lire d’autres blog et à participer à certains événements tel que Blog Appétit ou Paper Chef. Bref, mon blog se transforme tranquillement en une véritable publication électronique, il ne s’agit plus tout à fait d’un simple projet de perfectionnement personnel.

Je vais donc répondre à ce questionnaire mais je le ferai de façon un peu timide en demeurant un peu vague par endroit ou en ne me concentrant que sur la cuisine. J’y répond quand même sérieusement; c’est promis!

5 choses que tu aimerais faire avant de mourir:

Faire un long voyage à vélo. En ce moment je rêve de faire le trajet Amsterdam-Singapour.
Apprendre le chinois. J’ai déjà commencé mais je me suis aplatit devant l’ampleur du travail à faire; il faudrait bien que je me remette à l’ouvrage.
Terminer certains de mes projets de recherche, commencés alors que j’étais encore aux études, et les publier. Ça me permettrait de pouvoir enfin les oublier sans avoir de remords.
C’est naïf pour quelqu’un de mon age mais j’aimerais quand même participer activement à l’amélioration de la vie sur Terre. Oui oui, sauver la planète, affranchir l’humanité de la misère, etc.… je vous l’avais dit que c’était naïf.
Me remettre à dessiner ou m’initier à un art quelconque. Je crois que j’ai besoin de produire avec mes mains. En fait, ce qui me plairait le plus, ce serait d’écrire et dessiner une BD.

5 choses que tu sais faire:

Je ne sais pas trop comment répondre à cette question. Je vais donc simplement mentionner 5 choses dont je suis fier d’être capable de faire en cuisine :

Transformer des restes en un bon repas.
Inventer en cuisine.
Copier presque à la perfection les plats que l’on me sert au resto.
Je sais jouer avec ma nourriture. (C’est fou à quel point la plupart des gens prennent la bouffe au sérieux parfois)
Identifier plusieurs de mes erreurs en cuisine.

5 choses que tu ne sais pas faire

Un bon pain croûté et léger avec de grosses bulles dans la mie. J’ai beau tout essayer, je n’y arrive pas encore.
Faire des pâtisseries. Je n’ai pas de patience pour mesure mes aliments et suivre une recette, deux choses nécessaire en pâtisserie.
Je ne sais pas cacher mon mécontentement quand un de mes plats n’est pas à mon goût. Je suis heureusement beaucoup moins critique quand quelqu’un d’autre me sert.
Je ne sais pas reconnaître la cuisson d’une viande au toucher; j’ai besoin d’un thermomètre dès que la pièce de viande en question est minimalement épaisse.
Je ne sais pas cuisiner dans une autre cuisine que la mienne. C’est con mais je bloque.

5 choses qui t'attirent chez le sexe opposé ou chez l'autre :

Sens de l’humour
Indépendance
Créativité
Calme
Capacité à se faire plaisir

5 choses que tu dis le plus souvent

Qu’est-ce qu’on mange?
Que veux-tu manger?
Veux-tu un coup de main?
Tu me donnes un coup de main?
A table!

5 personnalités qui te plaisent

Là c’est pas facile… car pour être bien franc, je ne connais que très partiellement les gens dont j’apprécie le travail. J’y vais quand même, mais sachez que demain je pourrais bien vous donner des noms bien différents.

Littérature : Georges Perec : pas toujours facile à lire mais toujours stimulant.
Chanson : Georges Brassens : classique, incontournable…
Côté cuisine : Alice Waters et Ferran Adria pour des raisons très différentes.
Bouffe-pop : Anthony Bourdain : un brin cynique genre année 1990 mais tout de même très intéressant.

Voilà, c’était mes révélations de la semaine… je passe ce formulaire à tout ceux et celles qui m’ont lu jusqu’à la fin!

Quinoa soup

2005-12-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

When I visited Peru a few years ago, I was often served quinoa soup and loved it. Most of the time, it was a soup made of quinoa, potatoes and some green veggies that I was never truly able to identify. I recently tried to recreate a similar soup using what was available to me at home. I used my chicken and turkey stock as a base, fava beans, some old root vegetables that were sitting in my fridge drawer for too long as well as some collard green.

The result was surprisingly good. I attribute much of that goodness to the broth I used but maybe it is the cold outside which makes us crave warm soupy dishes like this one. A bit more quinoa and potatoes instead of carrots and turnips would have made this soup more authentic but who cares if its good?

Leeks and potatoes gratin

2005-12-13T23:44:00.000-05:00

We all need to empty the fridge and clean it once in a while. Many months have passed since the last time I cleaned my fridge and I finally reached the limit of acceptable procrastination. It is not that my fridge has become a jungle full of exotic slime eating animals, but there are bits of dried thyme here, some residual dirt in the vegetable compartment and some weird dried spill marks that appeared without anyone ever knowing what caused them. We also tend to accumulate a few long lasting items such as pickles, sauces or leeks and potatoes which have past their prime.

A few days ago, we decided that we would not do any unnecessary groceries before our fridge was empty and clean. It would allow us to restock it with fresher ingredients and to enjoy nicer looking shelves. This is why we made this leeks and potatoes gratin using half an onion that was sitting on the top shelf, cheese leftover from the pizza I made recently, the leeks and potatoes as well as all the ingredients needed to make a nice béchamel.
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First step: I caramelized the little onions I had to add flavour to what could have been a very bland dish.

Second step: I made a thick béchamel and added a pinch of nutmeg to it.

Third step: I blanched the potatoes and the leeks.

Fourth step: I mixed everything together and topped the resulting mixture with cheese.

Fifth step: I baked it in the oven for a few minutes.

The result was surprisingly good. Cooking magazine would talk about its rusticity but I'll just say that it was really nice to have this dish sitting on the table. The days are getting colder and colder and comforting and rich flavours are what we crave for in such circumstances.

Pizza dough turning into bread

2005-12-10T10:23:00.000-05:00

Using leftover pizza dough I made a nice loaf of bread the same day I cooked my last pizza. After all, pizza dough is a type of bread. The result was surprisingly good and light. I might have a few tricks to learn from this experiment: like making a stickier dough using more water.

Turkey Saga, Part 4 - Stock making

2005-12-09T17:19:00.000-05:00

It is not the first time that I am discussing stock making here but it is the first time it is about poultry stock, in this case chicken and turkey.

Stock making is simple but it can take time. Since I tend to prefer working with brown stocks, the first thing I do when making a stock is to brown my ingredients in the oven for an hour or two. If you brown your vegetables too, like I do, you might want to add them when your bones have already gained some color. Something people don't always do is to turn their bones once or twice during this process. I find that this operation not only gives a deeper brown color but it also greatly improve the taste of the resulting stock.

Another important thing that you should not forget when making stock is to deglaze your roasting pan (after draining the excess fat of course) to avoid loosing all the flavourful bits at the bottom of your pan. There is often as much flavour there as there is in the bones. It also makes cleaning a bit faster afterward.

There are numerous recipes for broth available but I tend to adapt mine to what I have in the fridge. The traditional aromatic vegetables like carrots, celery, leeks and onions can be replaced by others ingredients like fennel bulb, daikon or mushrooms.

One important thing to remember however is that you should only cover your ingredients with cold water and bring it to simmer (not to a boil) very slowly skimming every 15 minutes to get rid of the impurities. Finally, the longer you let your pot simmer, the more body the less delicacy it would have. For poultry stock used for a soup, I would prefer shorter cooking time than if using it for sauce making. At home, when both soups and sauces are often made of the same stock, I feel 4 to 5 hours is a good compromise.

These are the tricks and techniques I've learned so far... if you have anything else to share on stock making, I'd be glad to read your comments.

Part 3 of the Turkey Saga - Mexican turkey rolls in mole sauce

2005-12-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

If this is Part 3, there must be part 1 and part 2: have a look at them.
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As you saw in part 2, I had some deboned turkey legs left to work with after deboning the whole turkey. Here's what hapened to them:

First, I simply opened them and lightly flattened them, adding pieces of meat where there was only skin in order to have a somewhat even layer of meat. Then I stuffed them with:

1. Tomato paste diluted with olive oil
2. Very finely chopped garlic and cilantro (I used the stems and roots but the leaves might even be better)
3. Chopped rehydrated Mexican dried chilli peppers
5. Grated cheese (I used Manchego cheese because that's what was in my fridge that day but feel free to experiment here)
6. Salt and pepper

I then rolled them and secured the rolls using butcher's twine.

Then I seared each side in a little bit of oil and placed the roll in the oven until fully cooked.

For the mole, I simply used store bought mole paste and whisked it in some chicken and turkey stock (see next post). I served the roll with roasted garlic mashed potatoes containing a generous amount of sour cream.

I think it was one of the best turkey dish I ever made. I know I
said the same thing about that rabbit the other day but I guess this week everything worked perfectly in the kitchen for me.

Be your own butcher (and the turkey wing story)

2005-12-09T15:54:00.000-05:00

This is the second post on the many uses I made of this gigantic bird I bought on sale at the grocery store about a week ago. You can look at my first post here. What I forgot to mention on that first post is that I committed a big culinary no-no by partly defrosting the bird before boning it and refreezing half of it. It is supposed to be an unsafe practice as bacteria have more time to develop and, I am guessing, the texture of the meat would also be affected. In other words, if you want to follow my steps, do it at your own risks.

The reason I partially thawed the turkey was to allow me to take it apart in smaller pieces: two boneless breast, two boneless legs, two wings each segmented in three and a pile of bones, neck and cartilages to make stock. Fresh turkey is better but always more expensive and, although it is unfortunate, one has to make concessions.

I defrosted the bird in brine made with water, white wine, salt and some bay leaves. Adding just a little bit of wine to your brine is a wonderful way to add a complementary flavour to almost any poultry, about ¼ of the liquid is enough, more and you’ll get something resembling Chinese drunk chicken (which is not necessarily a bad option). When I say that I only partly defrosted the turkey it is because there was still some slightly frozen parts when I deboned it; I didn’t want bacteria to have time to build their own microbial cities and societies so I did what I had to do as fast as the bird was workable.

At the end, the two breasts were placed in Ziploc bags along with some of the brine to freeze until they were needed. The legs were boned and rolled with herbs, cheese and spices (see next post) and I kept the meatiest part of the wings for diner and added the wing tips to my pile of bones from which I made this stock. To this I also added some bones leftovers from previous chicken meals.

I'll talk about stock making in a further post but let's talk about those wings. At home, both my partner and I like very spicy food so I simply made a rub with salt, chilli powder, paprika and cayenne pepper and applied it to the drumette and wing before baking them. Since a turkey is a fairly large bird, it was enough to feed the two of us, especially since we have had a liver appetizer before the main course. We added a small parsley salad, some sautéed cabbage and some beets to the plate to make it complete.

Simple turkey liver appetizers

2005-12-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

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I recently bought a whole turkey. They are usually very cheap after the American thanksgiving and before the Christmas holidays. I didn't buy it to roast it and serve 12 peoples but to butcher it in smaller pieces that I could use in a variety of recipes. It's a cost saving decision that I would gladly discuss in a latter post.

This turkey came with a little bag containing the heart and the liver, nothing more. I usually love these little bagged gifts but I was a bit disappointed by its meagre content. I nonetheless decided to make the best use of what I had and made a small liver appetizer for my girlfriend and I and dumped the heart with the bones from the carcass to make a broth.

Contrary to many people, I love liver. My mom cooked the very traditional liver and onions quite often and although there were times when I protested eating it, I grew up loving this meat. Over the years however I learned that liver was not always a healthy choice: it contains a high level of cholesterol and in rare cases a good amount of pollutants. As with everything else, I guess it means we should eat liver in moderation. As such, I don't buy this delicious part of meat very often.

Conversely, when I get my hands on free liver (from a chicken or a turkey for instance), I find it hard not to cook it and savour it. This is exactly what happened a few days ago. I simply pan-fried the turkey liver until medium-rare and served it with a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and my carrot and anchovies sauce leftover from my recent paper chef contribution. To this, I also added a bit of sauteed watercress and a few leaves of coriander. I think it was delicious but I know I won’t convince the many liver-phobics… Their lost!

Update on Pizza dough

2005-12-07T16:31:00.000-05:00

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I just made a pizza with the ingredients leftover from my previous experiment. This time I made a very wet dough using approximately the same ingredient but adding some extra water. The dough was much better done this way. It is still not perfect but I'm on the right path. It now needs improvements on the crust and the size of the air bubbles.

Fiddleheads soup in December?

2005-12-07T07:49:00.000-05:00

Last spring, my girlfriend and I picked a ton of fiddleheads in the forests surrounding Ottawa. Of course, we left enough of them on each plant to make sure the plant would not suffer too much from our harvest. Even then, probably because of the great excitement caused such an abundance of fresh greens after a long winter, we collected them in such huge amounts and that we had to freeze a few large bags. In fact, we collected so much of them that they still clog the freezer. We are using them once in a while, in fried rice for instance, but there is now a need to use them up before they degrade too much (yes, things do loose taste and texture in the freezer).

I made this soup out of one of our big bags the other day. I simply cooked them in water, pureed them with the cooking water, and strained the puree to remove the fibrous parts. I then seasoned the soup and tasted. Let’s say politely that it was not very good. I wondered for a long time why I had so much trouble eating this vegetable that my girlfriend love so much. While experimenting with my soup in order to make it better, I discovered that a little bit of acidity tremendously helps me appreciate this vegetable better. A touch of balsamic vinegar, sour cream and tomatoes were then added to the soup making it much better. It was still not a tremendous success, there are much better soups to be made, but I now know how adding a little bit of acid greatly improve this vegetable that I otherwise tend to find a bit, well… weird.

That’s one thing to remember for the next spring!

Pears poached in port wine and spices

2005-12-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, and especially when composing a menu for a weekend diner, I find it amusing to subtly link each dish to the other in a succession of services. I guess it comes from my secret fantasy in which I am the chef of a very fine restaurant in only serving people who like and do play with their food. Anyway, when I cooked my rabbit the other night, I also prepared a desert using similar flavours. The rabbit was braised in a spices and dark beer sauce so I decided to poach my pears in a syrup aromatised with the same spices. I decided to forgo using beer here for obvious reason and replaced it with port, water and sugar instead. I’ll let the more adventurous cooks show me how to make desert with beer.

The pears were quite good and so was the syrup which I concentrated into a delightful sauce. In the end I was quite glad of my experiment but I still find the cost of making such desert a bit steep: I used a good cup or two of a fairly good and therefore expensive (at least for me) port wine in my recipe.

Bird Flu - Eggs and poultry eaters beware: The boogeyman is here!

2005-12-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

I just found this article about the potential consequences of bird flu on food safety. As with most governmental agencies these days, they suggest some basic hygiene procedures and some culinary annoying ones like:

“Eggs yolks should not be runny or liquid.”

This is something I am not willing to do for now. I just can’t imagine having my Sunday brunch eggs thoroughly cooked… especially if I’m having poached eggs. I also love homemade mayo and other egg yolk based sauces. In any cases, if bird flu hits us, it would spread from human to human not from egg to human. I understand that these guidelines apply mostly to areas currently affected by the current epidemic and that aim at reducing the probability of a virus mutation into a lethal killer. The problem is that I always fear over-zealous civil servants when addressing food issues. Will bird flu be the end of organic bird farms? Will runny eggs become only available in clandestine restaurants?

Let me set the record straight here: I am afraid of a potential bird flu pandemic but I am equally afraid of misdirected policies in time of great social apprehension and panic.

However, in the event that runny eggs are to be portrayed as weapons of mass destruction and eradicated from the face of this planet, you could still find comfort in my fake soft-boiled eggs.

Paper Chef # 13 - Fake soft boiled egg

2005-12-05T21:52:00.000-05:00

The ingredients for this edition of Paper Chef as found on Tomatilla and An Electronic Restaurant are:

Rice (good, I have a few bags of different types of rice on my shelves)

Carrots (cheap, good and readily available = perfect!)

Anchovies (salty, pungent… excellent to kick up almost any recipe… great!)

Something from the other side of the world that helps make this dish a celebration for you. (Celebration… ok… Food is festive… but where the heck is the opposite of the world?)

I feel quite at ease with most ingredients this week, but I didn’t realize there would be some geographical research involved in this. I dropped out of my PhD studies in geography a few months ago and now I have to get back at it? Procrastinating my way to an answer using internet I found this website which can help any of you to know where that other end of the world is located.

I live in Ottawa, Canada. The opposite of the world, for me, is in the South Indian Ocean just between Australia (hello, dear judges) and the Kerguelen Islands, a remnant of the French Empire. The only commercially available product coming out of these waters found in my area, at least the only one that I am aware of, is the Chilean Sea Bass which is found in the cold seas surrounding Antarctica. It used to be abundant but has been over-fished for the years now and many fear its future might resemble the fate of the Atlantic cod, a social and ecological disaster well known here in Canada. There are already many people involved in the politics of fishing over this species. As such, I am a bit reluctant to use the product.

There are also some problems in dealing with the antipode approach to this “other-side-of-the-world” theme. After all, antipodes, by their physical nature, are usually quite similar, at least ecologically speaking: the climate is usually similar and so is the agriculture practised in each places. There are, of course, cultural differences that usually come into play when such distances are involved. In my case, however, the colonial powers of the last centuries pretty much erased many of the cultural differences between here and the antipode. Ottawa, the city where I now reside is a French and English bilingual city, the capital of a country made of a cultural compromises between these two same European traditions along with a few trace from a long repressed native culture. The antipode of Ottawa, as you know by now, is located between Australia, a country which resemble Canada in many ways obviously without the French influences, and the Kerguelen Islands, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. We are therefore talking about an essentially western culture combining both English and French influences at each point of the antipode.

Perhaps this “other side of the world” theme is more evocative in nature and one could imagine many ways to look at the problem. For instance, we could do like 2-minute Noodle Cook did and use the equator to make a reflection around the waistline of our planet. One could also count 12 time zones to find the opposite slice of the planet or get the equivalent of a place’s latitude in the opposite hemisphere. I bet one could even create a complicated equation which would factor a certain degree of randomness, especially along the latitude gradient, to find a place as different as possible from one’s own.

As for myself, I’ve arbitrarily decided to go the easy way and pretend that China is the opposite of where I live. Since my girlfriend is Chinese, it makes this decision a bit suspicious, so let me explain such a choice. Firstly, there are exactly 12 hours between here and China and therefore it is on the opposite side of the planet in terms of day and nights. Secondly, although the climate is extremely diverse in China from North to South and even East to West, most of the places I visited there are in very hot subtropical areas that are at the climatic opposite of my dear cold Canada. Thirdly, China is very different, culturally speaking, from the western world (at least this is what I slowly start to understand after more than 4 years of common life with my wonderful partner). Fourthly, China is where cartoons characters tend to end up when they dig a hole through the Earth. Finally, it was cold and snowy today and I didn’t want to browse from shop to shop for a product that I was not even sure to find. So I went through my girlfriend’s spice rack, picked a few bottles and smelled them to find the perfect ingredient: some kind of mixed spices that I thought would complement the dish I had in mind.

You will know about this dish in a few minutes, but let’s recapitulate for now. The ingredients that had to be part of my dish would then be

Carrots

Anchovies

Rice

A Chinese spice mix (I can’t be more specific for the moment since I just can’t read the label but I am guessing there is a good amount of star anis in there)

Now, one of the suggested paths was to make something celebratory. At home, we try to make every meal as festive as we can. Life is too short for boredom, so even the simplest hot dog meal has to be as festive as possible.

On the other hand, there are some traditions around festivities in my family. One of my favourite is the Sunday brunch at my mom’s place. We usually end up eating soft-boiled eggs, croissants, cheese, some charcuteries and a ton of fruits. It is the soft boiled egg avenue that I decided to follow for this edition of paper chef.

Now you have waited long enough, here it is: the “carrot and anchovies rice-croquette fake soft boiled egg” with a slight Chinese spices accent and made of recycled products at 70%. I had the idea of making such a dish while thinking about rice croquettes, Japanese breakfast rice balls with a piece of fish hidden inside and, of course, soft boiled eggs.

Two days ago, I made a risotto and we had some leftover in the fridge. Risotto is rarely good when reheated so I had to find an imaginative way to use it and avoid loosing it. This edition of Paper Chef came to the rescue forcing me to deal with a great list of ingredients that got my mind going: carrots, rice and anchovies. Since I noticed that a ‘Super Saver’ category had been created, my desire to use my old risotto grew even stronger and I made an extra effort to keep everything as cheap as possible. As such, I decide to use the oil in which my anchovies are kept instead of the anchovies themselves and to stick to a minimal amount of ingredients. Heck! I even recycled my old frying oil for this recipe.

Here’s the recipe:

Carrot and anchovies rice-croquette or fake soft boiled egg

Ingredients:

Old risotto (one with few added ingredients)

About 1 cup of carrot juice

About I teaspoon of ‘anchovy oil’ (the oil from your jar of oil packed anchovies)

The same amount of flour

1 small pack of gelatine

A good pinch of that Chinese spice mix on my girlfriend’s spice rack

Sea salt (remember, the antipode of where I live is the Ocean)

Frying oil

Steps:

In a small bowl, mix the gelatine with half of the carrot juice.

In a sauce pan, make a roux using the flour and the anchovy oil.
Slowly add the other half of the carrot juice and the spices.

When the sauce has thickened and almost reaches boiling point, pour it in the small bowl with the rest of the juice and gelatine. Mix well. Verify seasoning and add salt if needed.

Place in the fridge for a few hours to set.

Once set, use a melon baler or a spoon to mould your ‘egg yolks’

Using the old risotto, mould eggs and place one of your carrot and anchovies ‘egg yolk’ in each of them.

Deep fry each egg for a few minutes until they are golden brown.

The result is a nice crunchy rice croquette with its own sauce inside. The gelatine, by making the sauce solid at cold temperature, helps when creating the desired shape but melts during the cooking process giving the impression of a decadent runny yolk of a soft boiled egg. We served them with a bit of coriander leaves because we thought that deep-frying stuff would mean a somewhat greasy food but we were probably able to control the temperature enough to avoid that unpleasant greasiness. Oh, yeah… this must be awesome with a cold beer (do I get a bonus point for mentioning beer here?).

Now we are asked to nominate ourselves for one of the four categories. Let’s see where I could fit:

Paper Chef Personality - creative, clever or witty writer (English is a second language to me and I don’t feel like a very clever or witty writer…….. yet)
Paper Chef Super Saver - budget meals or crowd pleaser specialist (Hey… I used recycled ingredients like ‘anchovy oil’ and an old risotto… my carrots were in a 10 pounds bag that I only paid 1$... and to top that I also used recycled oil to fry my ‘eggs’… I could be a winner here)
Paper Chef Prestige - food styling, presentation or plating up expert (not my specialty… I’m actually quite bad at this)
Paper Chef Nutrition Genie - magician for getting fussy diners to eat veggies, less salt, less fat (hum, my dish is probably a bit too fat to fit in there… but I’m sure kids would love to eat carrots this way)
Paper Chef Supreme - the champion for Paper Chef #13 (I’d love to win this one but there are some awesome cooks out there… I’ll pass)

So I officially nominate myself in the Super Saver category!

And as for the gifts… In the event that I win one, I’d like to get the Ground Australian bush spice sampler pack. I’d love to try to other ingredients too but a sampler pack seems like a good option in order to satisfy my curiosity. I’m just afraid I’ll get addicted to some of those and have to rely on mail order in the very near future.

Braised rabbit in spices and Trois-Pistoles beer sauce

2005-12-03T23:17:00.000-05:00

It's a success!

It is rare that I am as proud of my kitchen achievements as I am right now. Yesterday, saw one my best success with rabbit ever. This one started at my local newspaper and magazine shop. This is where I quickly browsed through a new local gastronomy magazine named ‘Flaveurs’. At first sight, this magazine looked fairly pompous, often showcasing expensive ingredients and let’s admit it: the name is awful. Nonetheless, in part because I learned as a kid not to judge things and people by their appearances, I decided to browse the recipes to see if there was something that would provoke my imagination. One of these recipes proposed the use of one of our best and most unusual local beers, Trois Pistoles, to braise rabbit. I forgot most of the original recipe but remembered that it requested a small amount of beer (100 ml I think), one head of star anis and about 2 cups of demi-glace. For those who read French: this could be the original recipe (link) but I can’t confirm for now.

Brewed by one of the best know micro-breweries of Canada, Unibroue, Trois-Pistoles, as I said, is an incredibly good beer but is also a quite atypical one. It is a very dark beer made like a strong Belgian Abbey beer with aromas reminiscent of exotic spices, dark chocolate and brown sugar. It is surprisingly soft on the palate in part due to its slight sweetness. It is not your typical dark beer so I would not advise using a Guinness or a similar beer in this recipe: a nice brown Belgian Abbey beer should do the trick better.

I started my recipe using half a bottle of beer and a few spices which included prominently star anis and clove. After reducing this mixture for a few minutes, I tasted it and was quite disappointed by the taste of it: I wanted a much stronger taste of spices infused in the beer. I then looked at the comparatively large amount of demi-glace in my other pot and realised that I would need much more beer and spices to alter its taste sufficiently for my guests to notice them in the final product. There was definitely a need to move away from the original recipe that I had partly forgotten anyway. I reluctantly poured in my pot the rest of the beer bottle that I planed to drink while cooking and added about ¼ of a cup of star anis along with a few other spices. In the meantime, I browned the rabbit pieces in a small Dutch oven.

Happy with my work, I opened another Trois-Pistoles to celebrate another happy late afternoon in my kitchen. And then, I got distracted and forgot about my rabbit for a few minutes… when I came back, there was a bit of smoke coming out of the overheated Dutch oven… nothing to cause panic yet but there was a need to act in order to avoid a catastrophe. I then decided to deglaze the pot with some of my newly opened beer to reduce the heat and avoid loosing the nice fond which had been created on the base of the Dutch oven. There was now over 1 ½ bottle of beer in my recipe. The rest went as planed and the result more than surpassed my expectations. Here’s the recipe!

(Note that the quantities are approximate since I didn’t measure anything… and don’t be fooled by the ugly picture: this dish was awesome!)

RECIPE
Braised rabbit in spices and Trois-Pistoles beer sauce

- 1 Rabbit cut in 6 or 8 pieces
- 2 bottles of Trois-Pistoles (341 ml each)
- About two cups of demi-glace (I used the commercial powdered version to reduce the costs… I’m sure this recipe would get even better if you use a better product or you own heavily reduced brown veal stock)
- 2 thinly sliced shallots
- ¼ cup of star anis (whole)
- ½ tea spoon of clove (whole)
- ¼ tea spoon of Sichuan pepper (whole)
- A tiny bit of cinnamon stick (cinnamon, as well as all the other spices in this recipe can be overwhelming so stick to these amounts or use your own judgement to adapt this recipe to your own tastes)
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 1 or 2 bay leaves
- Salt and pepper to taste

In a small sauce pan, slowly reduce, on a very low flame, the content of one bottle of beer in which you add all the spices but the salt and pepper along with the thyme and bay leaf. Then strain in the demi-glace sauce and season to taste. In the meantime, season and brown the rabbit in a Dutch oven with a little bit of oil or butter and reserve. Add the shallot until they are very lightly browned. At this point, add the content of the second beer bottle to deglaze (minus a few sips which should be enjoyed by the cook). Let reduce the beer by half. Put the rabbit back in your Dutch oven along with the flavoured demi-glace. Place in the oven for about an hour at 350° Fahrenheit. Before serving, strain the sauce in a small sauce pan and reduce to desired consistency (by half in my case).

A note on the picture: the rabbit was served with a lemon and cabbage risotto, roasted tomatoes and some oven roasted root vegetables. The roots and tomatoes were quite good but the risotto had a sourness that I didn’t like: too much lemon! I also added chestnuts in my original recipe but I came to the conclusion that they didn’t add much to the dish. There must be a way to make a decent presentation with this recipe… I’m open to any suggestion regarding this as I will certainly make this recipe again.

Now, the next things to try with this recipe:

Marinate rabbit in beer and spices for a few hours before hand.
Use only the legs of the rabbit keeping the loins for other uses and the bones to make the stock from which the sauce will be produced. (e.g. for 4 people: use 2 rabbits which will give two carcasses for broth, four loins for another meal and some extra meat from the front legs which could be used in again another recipe)
Try a similar version with chicken legs.

Pizza dough + Pizza sauce + Toppings + Cheese = Pizza!

2005-12-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

We had some leftover pepperoni and mozzarella cheese in the freezer from a previous pizza party. Since I feel like cleaning the freezer these days, I am trying to reduce its content as much as I can and yesterday I felt the cheese and pepperoni had to go. I'm not a bit fan of pepperoni but sometimes I have a strong desire for the type of pizza I had so often as a teenager. Yesterday was one of these days. I quickly made dough using different types of flour that I had at hand in the kitchen and prepared a sauce using a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, a few cloves of garlic and a handful of dried oregano. I finished my sauce by adding a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, some hot sauce and a few drops of vinegar in order to balance the seasoning.

Then my partner joined me and the kitchen and each of us made our own pizza. My partner added a mountain of pepperoni and just a little bit of cheese along with onions, bell pepper and mushrooms. As for myself, I layered just little bit of pepperoni, lots of cheese, about the same vegetables and added tomatoes and olives.

The result was alright. I feel the crust was too thick in the center and not enough at the edge and that it didn't raise properly. Otherwise... it was pizza... pretty much the same kind we get at the local pizza joints. Nothing very good, nothing fancy but filling... exactly what I appreciated during my teen years.

The end of made to order meals at restaurants

2005-11-29T21:31:00.000-05:00

I've found this very interesting piece called "Haute cuisine? More like boil in the bag" from the Daily Telegraph about the end of made to order meals in restaurants. Their focus is mostly on France but I bet it applies to a majority of countries. According to the author, it is now commonplace to be served reheated ready-made food straight from vacuum sealed bags at many restaurants in Europe.

According to an investigation by the newspaper France Soir, the days when a Gallic chef could boast of 86 different ways to make an omelette are fast disappearing.

Instead they are turning to frozen vegetables, ready-made dishes and sauces delivered in cartons - some of them supplied discreetly by an arm of a British "pub grub" caterer.

Restaurants may give the impression that their leg of lamb is fait maison (made by the house) when in fact all the chef has done is remove it from a bag and heat it up, said France Soir.
Many younger chefs, it claims, would now struggle to produce standard fare such as a sauce Béarnaise or even straight-forward vol-au-vents.

To add to the dismay of food purists, more than a dozen traditional techniques - including how to truss a chicken, open oysters and prepare artichoke hearts have been dropped from the national cookery qualification, the Certificat d'Aptitude
Professionnel. Instead trainees are tested on their use and handling of processed, frozen, powdered or pre-prepared foods.

To be honest, I don't know what to think about this industrialization of the restaurant business. This is not an entirely new phenomenon: fast-food chains have done exactly the same thing for the last 50 years and most restaurants keep ready made sauces at hand in the freezer or even more simply in a bain-marie. I think most of the outcry comes from food enthusiasts who are able to detect the smell of the industrial kitchen on their plates and from those advocating for a less industrialized (and homogenized) approach to food. In that sense, I certainly see a problem with these trends especially since low prices for acceptable but homogenised industrial food might put out of business the true and sincere artisans whose product, I believe, would almost always be of greater quality and contributing to culinary diversity.

On the other hand however, we should not forget that these techniques allow a certain democratization of the dining experience. Not all of us have the money to eat out in good restaurants who themselves are able to hire experienced cooks. I live in a city where good restaurants are scarce and expensive and I would certainly appreciate the possibility to indulge in standardized but good food at a reasonable price once in a while. As for now, however, it seems the ready-made meals are only served in awful chain restaurants in my area...

Enfin le nom du légume mystérieux

2005-11-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

J'ai enfin trouvé le nom du légume mystérieux dont j'ai parlé sur ce blog il y a quelques jours. En chinois on dit 'jiao bai' (茭白筍) et le nom latin est Zizania latifolia. Certaines personnes l'appelle riz sauvage de Mandchourie ou bambou aquatique mais il ne s'agit pas à proprement parlé de bambou. Pour ceux et celles qui lisent le chinois, voici un lien intéressant avec quelques images. (link)

Il s'agit, comme vous le voyez bien, d'une plante apparentée à nos propres variétés de zizania qui envahisse souvent nos cours d'eau, surtout en bordure d'autoroute.

Merci à ma conjointe (YanYan ou FuFu dépendamment de son humeur du jour) pour son aide!

Et je le répète, si vous trouvez cette plante dans une épicerie chinoise près de chez vous, essayez-là et donnez moi en des nouvelles!

A la table des grands chefs Européens

2005-11-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

(Another post exclusively in French: I am reviewing a French language cookbook)

Il y a déjà quelques semaines, je me suis procuré ce très beau livre de cuisine présentant les créations d'un grand nombre de grands chefs d'Europe. Avec au delà de 800 pages, toutes superbement illustrées, ce livre est très bon marché puisque je l'ai payé à peu près 60$ canadiens.

J'achète et consulte rarement des livres de cuisine pour y suivre les recettes. Règle générale, je les lis lorsque je suis en recherche d'inspiration. J'y découvre des techniques nouvelles, des trucs intéressants et des agencements de saveurs intrigants. En ce sens, ce livre fait décidément un bon boulot. On y trouve quelques photographies illustrant les techniques de préparations ainsi qu'une photo du plat terminé quasiment pornographique tant elle met l'eau à la bouche. Pour ceux et celles qui désirent suivre les recettes, elles sont très bien décrites, parfois avec une touche historique ou même biographique.

Le mélange de recettes traditionnelles modernisées et de recettes plus contemporaines, tout comme le mélange de saveurs régionales, plaira à ceux ayant l'esprit éclectique. En fait, il n'y manque qu'un peu plus de détails sur les chefs ayant participé à ce volumineux ouvrage et peut-être aussi une petite touche d'humour pour adoucir l'aspect pompeux de la haute cuisine pour me plaire à 100%. Je crois que l'important à retenir ici c'est qu'il s'agit d'un très bel ouvrage à un prix exceptionnel!

A roasted industrial chicken that left me slightly bitter

2005-11-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

Although I love to eat chicken, I don’t cook this bird very often. My partner, who was used to free range chicken before moving to Canada, simply hates North American chicken. I can’t blame her; most of our chickens are raised in factory farms and fed stuff you won’t even believe could be legal. There are tons of activists groups and organizations condemning these practices, mostly basing their argument on concerns about cruelty against animals, (link, link, link, link) but few mention how bad the resulting meat is. In fact, many of these groups advocate a vegan diet so I doubt they have any concern about the taste of meat. At the end however, at least in this country, we have little choice but to buy junk. My partner is working part-time and I am still unemployed at this moment so we have little money to indulge in organic, free range or simply tasty chicken.

Hence yesterday we bought a factory farmed chicken. I actually insisted because I love eating birds (duck, quail, Cornish hen…) and because cheap poultry is usually the only thing we can afford. I made myself believe that I could make something good out of this fowl using some flavouring ingredients such as thyme, bacon and garlic. Today I proceeded with my plan and cooked the bird. I placed garlic slices and thyme under the skin, added bacon strips on top of the bird and roasted it as instructed in most decent cookbooks: breast side down for the first 30 minutes and then breast side up until cooked.

At diner, I served it with roasted root vegetables (carrot, rutabaga, celeriac and potatoes) and a sauce made with the jus from the roasting pan. What a nice combination! Well, to be honnest it was only ok. The taste of the chicken was very mild… not to say bland. The thyme flavour was overwhelming and gave the meat a slight but weird bitter aftertaste; something like the taste you get from drinking cheap beer. I have to say that it was more than just a little bit disappointing. I am not sure where I failed, maybe it was the ingredients and their dosage, maybe it was the chicken itself. Street corner rotisseries are often able to offer a much tastier chicken using what I believe to be the same factory farmed chicken. However, their chicken does not always taste like, er… chicken.

I might be fast to blame the chicken industry for the bland taste of today’s poultry; after all, there is a huge demand for flavourless skinless and boneless chicken breast. I’m not the greatest cook either and I am sure there is way to deal with this kind of bland meat: if Chinese cooks can make such amazing dishes out of tofu and rice there must be a way to make something tasty with industrial chicken. The problem is that I still don’t know how.

Tenting meat

2005-11-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

We all know that it is best to let your meat rest for a few minutes after cooking so that you won't loose all its delicious juices. Most people I know simply tent their piece of meat with aluminium paper. I am using one of my large mixing bowls to do the same. Less garbage and much easier!

Eating Ottawa

2005-11-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

Just a word to tell you that I started working on a new blog dedicated to the relatively poor restaurant scene in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Although it is definitely not the best city to eat out (try Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto instead) it is the city I live in and I am sure I'll be able to find a couple of jewels.

http://eatingottawa.blogspot.com/

Juste un petit mot pour vous dire que j'ai commencé à travailler sur un nouveau blog dédié au monde de la restauration d'Ottawa, la capitale canadienne. Ottawa n'est certainement la ville la plus intéressante pour sortir ou resto (pour cela Montréal, Vancouver et Toronto sont bien plus intéressante) mais c'est la ville où j'habite et j'ai confiance de pouvoir y trouver quelques perles rares.

Quel est ce légume? - What is that vegetable?

2005-11-23T00:13:00.000-05:00

(This post is written in French but if you have any information or question about this vegetable, I would be glad to hear about it in either French or English)

Voici un de mes légumes chinois préféré. Je ne sais pas comment ça pousse ni comment ça s'appelle. À la maison on l'appelle 'magic plant' (plante magique) car il ressemble un peu à la quenouille qui est vraiment une plante magique car on peut manger à peu près n'importe quelle partie de cette plante: rhizome, jeune tige et jeune épi. Enfin, je sais que ce n'est pas très clair tout ça; disons simplement qu'en discutant avec ma copine nous en étions venu à la conclusion que les deux plantes se ressemblaient mais nous ne connaissions ni l'un ni l'autre le nom de chacune des plantes en anglais et les avons surnommées toutes les deux 'magic plant'. À ce que j'en sache toutefois, il ne s'agit pas de quenouille mais d'une autre plante... enfin, c'est difficile de vérifier car je ne connais pas du tout le nom de cette plante.

Lors de mon séjour en Chine en 2004, ma belle soeur a réussi à savoir que j'adorais ce légume et m'en a préparé tous les jours pendant une semaine. Et vous savez quoi? je ne m'en suis même pas fatigué! Il faut dire qu'ici on n'en trouve pas souvent sur les étals des épiceries chinoises et que lorsqu'on trouve, ma copine et moi s'en régalons! Je crois qu'il s'agit d'un produit très saisonier.

Pour déguster ce légume, il faut enlever les feuilles vertes coriaces et trancher la partie blanche dans le sens contraire des fibres (comme pour le poireau ou le céleri). Ma copine, ainsi que ma belle soeur, les font généralement sauter à feu très vif au wok avec des piments forts, de l'ail et parfois du gingembre et un trait de sauce soya. C'est tout simple et délicieux!

Watercress and gravlax pasta

2005-11-22T00:46:00.000-05:00

This is what I've done with some of the gravlax I've made: an easy pasta dish. We are at the point in the week where we have to clean the fridge from the little leftovers we have before doing some grocery shopping again. We had:

- Celery
- Gravlax
- Water cress
- Manchego cheese
- and a few other ingredients in our pantry: garlic, olive oil, pasta...

And since we didn't have much time (badminton night!) we decided to make some pasta with these ingredients. The result was alright... nothing great to be honest but more then edible. This kind of pasta dishes are becoming a weekly occurrence, we might have to rethink our kitchen cleaning practices.

Old recipe books - Vieux livres de cuisine

2005-11-21T17:08:00.000-05:00

I just found these two web sites containing a wealth of very old cookbooks.

Want to know what your ancestors were cooking? How they were cooking it? Have a look at these websites:

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cuisine/index-e.html

If you know of any other cookbook database, please let me know!

=================================

Je viens de trouver deux librairies virtuelles contenant chacune plusieurs livres de cuisine.

Vous voulez savoir ce que vos ancetres mangeaient? Comment ils le cuisinaient? Allez voir ces sites web:

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/cuisine/index-e.html

Si vous connaissez d'autres librairies virtuelles de ce genre, laissez-moi le savoir!

Gravlax (take 2)

2005-11-21T16:31:00.000-05:00

I made an extremely salty gravlax a few weeks ago and was not too pleased with it. But I am not the kind of cook who gets discouraged easily as I actually enjoy a good challenge (at least in the kitchen). This time however, I decided to follow a recipe instead of relying solely on my limited knowledge and instinct. Since a gravlax recipe was presented a week or two ago at one of Canada’s best cooking show (A la di Stasio) I decided to experiment with their formula.

The ingredients are as follow:

7 x sugar
5 x coarse salt
3 x ground white pepper
4 x smoked tea leaves

I liked the idea of having a strong pepper flavour so I used a mixture of green, white, black and pink peppercorns instead of white pepper but decided to forego the tea leaves which I believe would only alter the flavour, not the final texture or the curing process itself.

I then placed a part of this mixture in a pan;

Placed three small salmon filet on top;

Covered them with the rest of the mixture;

And placed a cutting board and four large cans on top to create a press.

This time, I placed the fish in its homemade press in the refrigerator for 5 days, turning the filets a couple of time during the process. There was a problem however: I didn’t read the recipe carefully… it clearly stated to use only ¼ cup of the dry mixture per pound of salmon filet and I probably used more than a cup for each of my small filet.

The filets turned out to be very dry and were a bit too sweet for my taste. The saltiness is surprisingly at a more appropriate level than the last time but it is still a bit too high. The fish is also very peppery; it is almost too strong to eat it as is but I am guessing that it would be much nicer when paired with other ingredients (pasta, cheese, bread…).

Next time, I will:

- Use a 50% - 50% ratio for salt and sugar.
- Reduce the amount of sugar and salt used to at least ½ cup per pound of fish filet.
- Use less weight on my press to avoid loosing too much water and thickness.

Good stew made with flavourless meat

2005-11-20T00:59:00.000-05:00

I've been recycling ingredients again. This time I made a stew using the veal cubes that served as a flavour booster to my veal stock. I knew I had to add strongly flavoured ingredients to this stew in order to get something reasonably good out of these now insipid meat cubes so I added some Dijon mustard, leek, thyme, bay leaves, and tons of mushrooms. Many of these mushrooms came from my collection of dried mushrooms that I harvested this fall. They included some cepes (porcini), a few oyster mushrooms and some aborted entolomas. The rest was the usual white button mushrooms. The added liquids were some beef broth and cream. The stew was ok, better than what you get at most cafeterias, but it lacked complexity and especially a nice meat flavour... but at least the mushrooms did their job!

Roasted vegetables and goat cheese appetizer

2005-11-17T15:47:00.000-05:00

This is another super simple but delicious recipe I don't want to forget.

All there is to do is to stack roasted eggplant slices, roasted red peppers (I used canned ones), spinach, basil and goat cheese and then bake it in the oven for a few minutes. In fact, I used these ingredients because they were available to me but you could use zucchini, arugula or anything you feel would blend well with the other ingredients.

I served it with a good bread (because it gets deliciously gooey with all the cheese and eggplant)... it was really delectable!

Fish catastrophy 2 - Steamed skate wing

2005-11-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

I really didn't feel like cooking tonight so I opted for one of my no-sweat recipe: steamed skate wing with a ginger-lemon sauce. Sounds complex? Nahhh it's the easiest fish recipe there is: everything cook at the same time in stacked steamer baskets. In the first one you place your favourite veggies, on the upper one, you place the skate wing with a few flavouring ingredients and in a wok or a pan the base of your sauce will also produce the steam needed to cook everything.

You can adapt this recipe the way you want, but here’s my recipe (I did measure everything yesterday to be able to provide this to you):

For 2 persons:

- 1 medium skate wing
- 2 cups of seafood or fish broth (I used the powdered version)
- 1 lemon and its zest
- 1 or 2 inches of sliced ginger
- 1 bunch of green onions
- 1 cup of cooking cream
- Your favourite vegetables (I used broccoli and cauliflower)
- Salt and white pepper
- A pinch of nutmeg

Zest the lemon and place the zest in your wok along with half of the ginger and the broth.

Cut the lemon in slices and lay them in a steamer basket with the rest of the ginger. Wash the skate wing carefully and place it on top of the lemon and ginger in the steamer basket. Season the fish with salt and pepper and surround with the green onions. In the second basket, place your favourite vegetables.

Place the fish basket on top of the vegetable basket (this fish generally cook faster then the veggies if your veggies are not cut too finely) in the wok. Steam until the fish is cooked (about 10 minutes). Reserve the fish and vegetable and strain the zest and ginger from the broth (which should have reduced by half now). Add the cream and nutmeg to this broth and cook until desired consistency. You could also put less cream and thicken the sauce using your favourite thickener (e.g. corn starch mixed with cold water) or you could avoid using cream and choose to make a butter sauce (monter au beurre). When the sauce is ready, plate everything with a couple of lemon slices and green onions for decoration.

I am quite proud of this recipe but today I forgot about it when it was steaming. When I finally realized that a lot of time had passed the fish was overcooked. The skate wing was mushy and unappetizing… The lesson? Keep an eye on whatever you are cooking!

Fish catastrophy 1 - Red Snapper

2005-11-15T13:57:00.000-05:00

I don't know why but this week, fish is prominently on the menu at home... I guess it is due to the combined effects of the grocery's weekly specials, some weird health concerns, the feeling of the moment and pure coincidence.

As a matter of fact, I love to eat fish and I could eat more of it every week... But, to tell you the truth, I have very little experience at cooking it… especially in the case of the more delicate white fish.

Fish can be quite expensive and is not always fresh in this city. Subsequently, I don’t have the opportunity to work with this type of product as often as I would like to. I even started fishing a few years ago but even then, my skills at cooking fish didn’t improve much. All fishes do not react the same way in a frying pan or in the oven making the learning curve pretty steep. Finally my sometimes idiotic and somewhat ‘malish’ reluctance to follow recipes didn’t help at improving my skills.

All this to say that I completely screwed up diner tonight! Yep, I wasted perfectly good ingredients and made a fool of myself. Not that it was the first time it happened, on the contrary, but this time I had a plan and an idea of what I wanted to do. Usually, when I mess up something it is often due to a lack of preparation or just a lack of thinking and attention.

Tonight, I wanted to cook red snapper filets and serve them with an olive oil and tapenade (crushed olives) sauce… nothing really complicated, or so I thought!

I heated my pan, poured a good amount of olive oil and added my fish skin side down and almost immediately the skin contracted bending the flesh and preventing its proper cooking. The skin didn’t get crispy and the delicate white flesh didn’t received enough heat from the pan. I guess my pan was a bit too hot and I obviously forgot to score the skin on the filets. Without any delay I tried to save my dish by placing it in the oven adding the tapenade to the oil to enhance the flavour of the fish. The tapenade simply made the whole dish look very dirty. After plating the fish, I realized that since the oven didn’t have the time to pre-heat, the fish turned out undercooked. I usually prefer my fish to be slightly undercooked rather then overcooked but this setback simply added to the multiple flaws of my dish.

Now, if I had to cook this dish again, I would:

Score the skin of the fish before cooking
Fry it in a pan skin side down at medium heat until the skin is crispy
Finish cooking in the oven under broil to cook the top part of the filet.
Prepare the sauce in a separate dish, as one would do vinaigrette, adding a little acidity (lemon juice, vinegar, wine, cappers…).

I’m not sure I’m yet ready to try my luck again but when the time is ripe, I’ll certainly try not to repeat the same mistakes. At least we didn’t order pizza, the problems were, after all, mostly on the cosmetic and texture side... And lets admit it, my girlfriend put a lot of energy in making a nice presentation using my ugly fish!

Using that veal glace - steak with mushrooms and braized red cabbage

2005-11-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

Tonight's diner was the test for all my efforts this weekend: I used my veal glace to make a sauce for the huge steak my partner and I were sharing. This steak was served with sauteed mushrooms and a very nice braized red cabbage (red cabbage, wine, honey, salt and pepper... slow cooked for 30 to 45 minutes). The sauce was based on a wine reduction but even the strong wine flavour did nothing to hide the flaws of my stock. Don't misunderstand me, the sauce was good... it could just have been better.

Thyme and rosemary infused potatoes

2005-11-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

Again simplicity won the game. These potatoes are just awesome!

1. Boil a few new potatoes.
2. Cut them in quarters.
3. Cook some garlic chunks, a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme in olive oil.
4. Add the potatoes to the oil, garlic and herbs.
5. Saute them for a few minutes.
6. Season with salt and pepper.
7. Palce them in a hot over to crisp them up a bit more if wanted.

Seriously yummy!

Leeks in their vinaigrette

2005-11-14T23:13:00.000-05:00

I love leeks but I often cook them in the same way each fall: in a vichyssoise soup. This time, I turned to another classic: leeks with vinaigrette. It is quite simple to make:

1. Wash your leeks carefully!
2. Boil your leeks, choc them in cold water and reserve.
3. Make your favourite vinaigrette (here: Dijon mustard, olive oil, sherry vinegar, parsley, salt and pepper)
4. Pour the vinaigrette over the leeks and enjoy!

This recipe makes a perfect appetizer for a formal diner or a great in-front-of-TV-eat-alone meal when served with your favourite cheese and a glass of wine.

Stock and meat glace... There's place for improvement!

2005-11-14T21:39:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I made my own veal stock. I didn't really plan to do it but when visiting a local butcher shop, I noticed a few packs of veal bones in a freezer. I immediately bought all five of them and ended up working on my stock the whole weekend. To be honnest however, I'm not very proud of my stock. Although it is still the best I've done so far; the taste of veal doesn't come through and the taste of the vegetables from my mirepoix is clearly overpowering everything else. Here's what I did, the good things and the mistakes:

1. I placed all my bones in a roasting pan and roasted them slowly in the oven for an hour or two so that they could develop that beautiful and delicious brown crust.

2. I then prepared a mirepoix (celery, carrot and onion). You noticed that I didn't peel my onions? No worries, we have to strain everything at the end so it's ok to be lazy.

3. When the bones were nicely browned, I added the mirepoix to the roasting pan and returned the whole pan in the oven for another 30 to 45 minutes.

4. I then prepared a bouquet garni. From left to right: parsley stems, thyme, leek and a few basil in the lower left corner.

5. I then added everything to my stockpot

6. Deglazed the roasting pan with red wine. And added the liquid to my stock pot.

7. Covered everything with cold water.

8. I then placed an upside down metal steamer basket and placed a heavy cast iron lid on top to maintain all the ingredients submerged. I first saw Alton Brown doing this on TV and thought it was a neat trick to use. Then the whole thing simmered for 5 to 7 hours (some people suggest 8 to 10 but who on this planet have that much time to spare watching a pot at home?)

9. Now the boring but essential part of the job: skimming! For the first hour or two, I skimmed the foam, fat and residues that floated on the surface every 10 to 15 minutes... and then every hour for the last hours. I made sure my stock was not boiling each time. To do this, I also used an alarm thermometer which rang every time the temperature approached boiling point.

10. After these long hours, I finally strained my stock. The result was, of course, veal stock.

11. The problem was that my stock lacked flavour so I decided to boost its flavour by browning some veal cube (I plan to use them for a 'blanquette de veau', a french creamy veal stew). I then added some stock, let reduce and browned again. Repeated the operation a couple of times and finally added all of the remaining stock and let simmer for another one or two hour with an extra dose of browned mirepoix and tomato paste. Now I think, this whole operation was a mistake as it clouded my stock and exaggeratedly intensified the vegetable flavour of my stock instead of the meat flavour.

12. Faced with a cloudy stock I had to clarify it using egg whites and egg shells. I first cooled my stock to room temperature (by placing the pot outside and adding a few icepack in it) and then I mixed in about 10 egg whites and their shells. I simmered my stock again and waited for a raft to form on the surface.

13. The raft did form after a few minutes and I strained my stock through a fine sieve and several layers of cheese cloth. My stock was much clearer now. (can you see my thermometer attached to the pot with a paper clip on this picture?)

14. Then, still using my thermometer to avoid reaching boiling point, I reduced my stock to a meat glace stage.

The result, as I said, was a bit disappointing but at least I think I was able to pinpoint my mistakes. Hopefully, I'll get better with time. By the way, I welcome any ideas and tricks to help me improve my stock.