exam time + trying to cook = fail.

Dear future me:

Do not attempt to mash under cooked potatoes. Counter to your time saving intuition, this will actually increase your cooking time (and frustration) 4 fold. You will be cursing at yourself for your foolishness, and then you will be making a mess in trying to fix your lumpy mass of a mess.

Also: find your ricer. I doubt the kitchen gremlins have actually stolen it. And/or buy a potato masher. Pastry cutters are are subpar for the task at hand.

Damn rice eating ancestors for not teaching me how to mash potatoes!

love,
Lindsay.

prepared to be disillusioned: ghostwriters & cookbooks.

For those of you who love cookbooks as much a I (often I will have an old favourite on my nightstand), check out this interesting read from NY Times. Ghostwriting is not a new phenomenon, but it never really occurred to me that chefs often don’t pen their own work. Of course, once the article was brought to my attention, it seemed like a glaringly obvious facts. In any case, it’s an interesting read! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

wherein our house smells like a poutinerie.

I suspect normal folks with evening munchies quench their craving by going to the nearest convenience store. In our house, munchies often lead to full fledged kitchen adventures.

This evening’s snack is brought to you (me?) by Anthony Bordain’s No Reservations: the boy, watching S02E04′s feature on Quebec, became nostalgic for our days in Montreal.  Nostalgic specifically for La Banquise. I should add that we’ve never actually been there (and that yes, I admit this with much sorrow and sheepishness), but we’d often walk past this little joint that was constantly packed with people and presumably delicious poutine.

Potatoes were washed and sliced. Generous amounts of oil went into a cast iron pot.

The boy’s (mad) deep frying skills are much better than my (non existent) deep frying skills, so I made gravy while he dealt with the potatoes. While I would’ve preferred to have made a velouté sauce, the spontaneous nature of our evening snack didn’t allow for a 30 minute mother sauce making process that involved reducing stock whisked into roux. I cheated and concocted gravy from homemade  chicken stock thickened with cornstarch. To that, I added a hint of soy sauce, a dash of cumin and salt, and a whack load of freshly ground pepper.

Once all the potatoes were converted to fries (the boy made them in batches to ensure the hot oil didn’t suffer huge drops in temperature; the batches were kept warm in the toaster oven), they were liberally covered in salt and tossed. The rest is self explanatory:

“But those aren’t cheese curds!” you cry. Perhaps you are correct that this is not the traditional Quebec fare. I can assure you however, that generous amounts of grated mozzarella was a solid compromise and that this plate of poutine was devoured with gusto.

never say never: the case of creamy caesar.

I was never a fan of creamy Caesar salads, and I suspect my disdain was grounded in encounters with mediocre-at-best bottled versions. For longer than I can remember, the boy and I have been quite happy making our own vinaigrettey rendition and I think we would’ve happily continued to do so had it not been for Sunday. Which was the boy’s first day off since starting  his month long stint in Halifax (at the HSOW) as Hoffmann in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann (an opera featuring drunkenness, death, evil geniuses and love. Shameless plug Sidenote: his performance dates are August 6 (7:30PM) and August 13 (2PM). Concept: Victorian steampunk. The show’s going to be awesome.)

I’d like to think I’m a pretty laid back traveller (i.e. none of the here’re-46-must-sees-I’m-cramming-into-3-days silliness), but there was one thing I’d been craving since purchasing my plane ticket: fresh Atlantic seafood. I was stoked when Jeff revealed that D, a fellow HSOW colleague and friend was a chef in his pre-singing days. Who’d travelled from Ontario with his knives. Another friend/colleague was staying at a relative’s empty house during HSOW and we quickly found out M’s accommodations included a Very Large Kitchen. Clearly we needed to have a delicious homecooked seafood-full meal.

After spending a lovely afternoon at Conrad’s Beach (a beautiful local secret close to Lawrencetown), we picked up some groceries and cooked up a storm. Part of the fun and frustration of working in a stranger’s kitchen is getting to know a new space, and improvising with unfamiliar equipment. Crossing my fingers for dijon (in stead of the plain yellow stuff), I realised that my assumption of not having to buy mustard was unwarranted. There goes my emulsifier to pull together the Caesar dressing.

M: thanks for sharing one of your favourite spots with us!

But not all is lost as the boy suggested throwing an egg yolk in the mixture. Plus that’s the way D makes his Caesar dressings, and this was a man whose food knowledge I trusted. I’d already been using the immersion blender to whiz together the ingredients (the parmesan was only coarsely shredded; I missed my rasp dearly and was making do with an old box grater), and blending in the egg instantly thickened the dressing into what was essentially an aioli with parm and anchovies. Holy toledo, batman! This stuff was good.  We’ll certainly be making more of the creamy version in the future. Hooray for happy accidents!

We’ve been vamping on this recipe for years and even if you’re not a fish fan, don’t let the anchovies scare you. They add a savoury depth that makes the dressing superlative; even our non seafood eating friends have been pleasantly surprised by its deliciousness. I think our proportions are closer to doubling the garlic and anchovies, though it’s been ages since we’ve actually measured anything. This is easy peasy, delicious, and a great starting point if you’re attempting Caesar salad for the first time: have fun playing until it suits your palate!

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 1/2 ounces)
8 anchovy fillets
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3/4 cup olive oil

It was a lovely start to an all around awesome evening. D whipped up a delicious bean dish, along with quite frankly the best seafood chowder I’d had, ever. The mussels and lobster were cooked in a liquid that became the base to the soup (along with cream and white wine, of course); the fish (salmon, tilapia) and scallops were poached to perfection at the end. We lounged around drinking wine and listening to choral music while watching the sunset over the neighbourhood (wrap around windows are wonderful are to die for). When our stomachs could handle a bit more, we finished off the evening with the boy’s lemon curd (we have no problems breaking the mould of what can and cannot be stand alone desserts).

Even during holiday famjams, I’m fairly cognizant of my stomach’s limits and rarely actually need my fat pants. For this meal, I completely ignored that feeling-of-being-full, and the discomfort was well worth it. Cheers to great food and friends!

Postscript: apologies for my brief disappearance but I promise there are at least a few entries on the backburner right now. Including posts featuring homemade Italian sausage,  fedoras & pho, and fun ice cream flavours (like sweet potato and black sesame). Stay tuned.

wherein lindsay learns how to grill.

Barbeques were a thing while I was growing up – like a Big-Deal-Rarely-Occurring kind of thing that happened once or twice a year (and usually only once). Usually in the company of others, copious amounts of food were cooked and consumed: wings, steak, pork chops, sausages, fish, corn, other veggies. These were always delicious, but grilling was exclusively a summertime activity and there was none of this business of tossing-a-steak-on-the-BBQ-for-dinner. For the longest time, I was under the impression that everyone had a BBQ as clean as ours.

My learning curve with the BBQ I’m sure will be reminiscent of my journey with the humble potato (e.g. mind being blown with shepherd’s pie). I’ve always loved grilled goodies, but admittedly have left grilling to the men. Thanks to the boy and tonight’s happenings, the tides are shifting.

The boy whipped up a BBQ sauce (onions were caramelized, a can of tomatoes was tossed in with chipotle and garlic along with a hodgepodge of delicious spices: paprika, smoked paprika, thyme, coriander, cumin, celery plus salt & pepper; honey, molasses and cider vinegar were also added. The mixture reduced for a while until sticky, and a bit of cornstarch was added for texture).

Then, he handed me raw chicken, the tongs, a brush and some oil and told me I would be making supper. Me? The grill? I had to be shown how to turn the damn thing on!

It’s not as though I’d never used the barbie before – in fact, we used it quite a bit last summer to make sense of our massive amounts of zucchini (an aside: apparently compromising to two plants from last year’s four means the boy planted three when I wasn’t looking). I even managed not to set the shed or my eyebrows on fire while flipping courgettes. It’s just that, well, I needed a bit of a reminder after a winter of boy-manning-the-barbeque.

Apparently chicken thighs do not behave like zucchini. In fact, they’re even different from steak and pork chops because of their lovely fatty skin (when it comes to chickens, thigh > breast in awesomeness). Conscientiousness must be practised to minimize rendered fat causing a surge in flames. First rule of grilling chicken thighs: do not let the chicken catch on fire. Thankfully, I didn’t have to sacrifice more than 1 of 6 (very charred) skins off the thighs, and I’m happy to report my eyebrows are intact. These babies were slathered in BBQ sauce and thrown over high (direct) heat for approximately 3 minutes on each side. Then they were shuffled over to be finished slowly over indirect heat (the 2nd burner was off) for 20 or so minutes. I kept a close eye on them, flipping and slathering on more BBQ sauce.

I’m pretty pleased with myself: they were spot on – just cooked, super tender, and delicious. Perfect with a bright summer salad tossed with the remainder the boy’s blue cheese dressing from yesterday, along with my cauliflower blue cheese soup I discovered in the freezer. I’m already excited for tomorrow’s lunch of chicken sandwiches, and the boy’s promise of teaching me heat management required for burgers and sausage the next time we fire up the barbie.

more miso, please.

Ever since my last going-out-for-sushi excursion, I’ve been wanting to make my own miso soup. How hard can it be? Miso paste, dashi, some fun tasty things like tofu/seaweed/shitakes/green onions.

All I needed were the ingredients to make dashi: bonito flakes and kombu seaweed. So off I went to United (where I procured salmon for gravlax not too long ago) thought it ended up taking me two visits because they were out of stock for me to make stock. I only wish I knew where to buy bonito flakes in a larger, less cutesy (small individually packed packages) format. Where does the industry go shopping for Japanese ingredients? I certainly can’t complain, though, since I found the stuff in LondONT.

I pretty much followed Alton Brown’s dashi recipe for the timing purposes; unfortunately I didn’t actually have enough bonito flakes (and if I had to guess, I had perhaps 2/3 – 3/4 of 1/2 ounce called for; the battery on our kitchen scale needs replacing). I’ve since found this very interesting article on various methods of flavour extraction, and extensive reporting on the specific outcomes, which has me wondering if a sous vide machine would at some point be justified on our counter top. After the first batch of dashi was made, I saved the seaweed and skipjack to make a second extraction – which turned out to be a bit stronger and smokier (the bonito flakes have a really neat smoky flavour). All that’s left, should one want miso soup, is adding the paste and other ingredients.

When I was at the grocery store, I was overwhelmed by the choice of miso and knew nothing about how they differed other than by colour (white versus red; some combination of both). So I grabbed a container of shiro miso (the white stuff), promising I’d try another variation next time. Other than putting it in soup, I’ve been making salad dressings (see below) and cannot wait to try some on fish. I’m thinking a miso-sesame crusted salmon or something on the grill (tis the season for that!).

But that’s not the end of the dashi story. After making the second extraction, I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the kombu, and the bontio flakes are easily toasted with a sprinkling of sesame seeds on a non-stick pan with a very modest amount of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar. The kombu metamorphosed into a salad, dressed with a blend of miso/homemade mayo/rice vinegar and a drop of sesame oil. All topped off with the toasted bonito flakes. YUM!

mayo: a pickle purchase justified.

Despite the bits of green poking through the ground and the almost teeshirt weather, we’re still a ways off from cucumber season and being able to make our own dills. Which meant I had to placate my prodigious pickle pining with a grocery store jar. To justify said purchase (and immediate pickle consumption), a tuna salad sandwich was the only sensible lunch option upon returning from the supermarket.

Tuna salad was the perfect excuse to make mayo!

Mayonnaise is simply a yolk and oil emulsion, flavoured with a bit of acid, salt and pepper. While there’re different oil-to-egg ratios, I had no problem incorporating about 2 cups of oil into a single egg yolk. Mainly Jamie inspired:

Whisk 1 egg yolk with a squeeze of dijon together in a bowl. Drop-by-drop, add oil to about 3 tbs, ensuring full incorporation into the yolk before adding more. Do not stop whisking! Keep adding the oil in a slow and steady stream (to about 1 1/2- 2 cups of oil), again ensuring full incorporation. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.

Keeps for about a week in the fridge.

I used a fairly strong olive oil this time and want to try something more neutral in my next batch. The tuna salad sandwich was delicious, nonetheless! For more info, Alton’s Good Eats episode is definitely worth watching:

ego stroked while buying truffle salt.

After a recent visit to The Only on King, we walked away both satisfied (as always) and tipped off: conversing with our server about truffles, he brought to our attention the existence of truffle salt sold by Savvy Chef. In fact, his wife always carries a little jar of it in her purse so she is prepared at all times. Boring diner eggs? Not an emergency if you can season them clandestinely, thank you very much.

While we were at the Western Fair market to purchase our own jar, conversation with the vendor somehow turned to alliums as the boy showed off a beautiful Spanish onion.

Boy: “We’re making onion rings!”
Vendor: “Are you guys chefs?” (note: this isn’t the first time we’ve been asked this.)
Boy: “Nah – we’re making them just because.”
Vendor, nodding: “Ah. That’s the good life.

For 2 large, thick-cut (~1/2″) Spanish onions:

OVERNIGHT BUTTERMILK SOAK: use enough to cover the onions (~2 cups in our case). Buttermilk was spiced with a Cajun inspired palette: cumin, paprika, garlic powder + 1 tsp each of salt & pepper.

FLOUR DREDGE: 2tsp salt for ~2 cups of flour; 2 tsp baking powder (optional – makes the batter extra fluffy).

OIL: candy thermometers are really handy here as frying temperatures of 350-60 F should be maintained. We found our large enameled cast iron pot perfect for frying the onion rings in batches of 6-8. To avoid sudden drops in temperature, don’t try to cram too many in there at once.

(The dill mustard from gravlax making happened to pair pretty well with these too.)

The lack of photographic evidence speaks to the consumption speed of these deep fried goodies. This is indeed the good life!

shark fin soup & bridal bouquets.

I often spend my first cup of coffee listening to Q on CBC. Yesterday, Jian was joined by food writer Francis Lam. They discussed shark’s fin soup in light of California’s move to ban finning, in the context of the ban being attacked as racist. Whether you’re familiar with this Chinese delicacy or not, both Francis’ article on the matter and Q segment are worth checking out.

My quick answer: seriously? People think this is racist?!

More extensively, in my letter that was read on Q today:

I’ve joked with my partner that should we marry and celebrate with a “traditional” Chinese banquet, there would be no way shark fin soup would be served. Firstly – from a purely gastronomical perspective, shark fin is tasteless: it is the broth that makes the soup. But more importantly, the environmental and ethical implications of shark finning simply can’t be justified for gastronomically boring dishes that have no purpose except acting as a status symbol. (At least foie gras is tasty.)

Culture and tradition are often used as arguments against change. Take flowers, for example. Most brides will insist on spending hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on floral arrangements without realising (or if realising, then without caring about) the ethical and environmental implications of the cut flower industry. And how many know the historical significance of the bouquet? Brides carried flowers to mask  their own odor while walking down the aisle because showers were only an annual event! Certainly this is no longer necessary.

We desperately need to take issues of sustainability to heart – to be as deeply influenced by these values as we are by cultural ones.

pretending to be scandinavian.

We tend to do as much one-stop-shopping as possible around the holiday season. Inevitably, this means many December hours at Chapters and/or Indigo, which often comes with some degree of self-indulgence. Especially if it’s justified: I simply could not put down Marcus Samuelsson‘s Aquavit, on clearance for ten dollars (!).

Within the first skim-through of the newest addition to our collection, I’d decided that the no-frills gravlax would be my first recipe to test. During the last couple of months, however, we hadn’t actively sought Big Pieces of Good Looking Salmon. Also, grocery visits as of late have been, well, late: there’s nothing left at the fish counter when 9PM rolls around. Imagine my delight when, last weekend, the boy waved me over to the fish section at United (the new 27,000 sq ft Asian grocery store in London). And there she was. Good Looking (and smelling) Salmon.  Gravlax, here we come!

For 2 1/2 – 3 lbs of fish (pin bones removed, skin on):

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt
2 tbs cracked white pepper
2-3 large bunches of fresh dill (I took this to mean lots)

Fish is pretty quick curing (6 hours somewhere cool, then 36 hours in the fridge), and while a flip of the fish wasn’t advocated in the recipe we did so 24 hours into the wait to ensure even curing. To accompany the fish, I also made Samuelsson’s dill mustard sauce (which is delicious and turns a delightful shade of green when blended), eyeballing:

2 tbs honey mustard
1 tsp dijon
2 tsp sugar (I probably used closer to 1; the gravlax was pretty sweet already)
1 1/2 tbs white wine vinegar (our delicious homemade stuff)
1 tbs strong coffee
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper
3/4 cup grapeseed or canola oil (I used vegetable oil)
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

Breakfast time! Smoked salmon on bagels has been an indulgence of ours since we first started dating. But homemade gravlax with dill mustard on latkes just brings it to a whole new level of awesome. The best part? A midnight snack of crispy salmon skin later that day.