Kitchen Gardening

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

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

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

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!

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

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.