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

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

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

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

(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

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

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!