Bring Your Appetite

Eating Seasonally When Nothing is in Season

2012-01-31T12:27:00.000-05:00

Unless you live somewhere that remains warm andsunny throughout most of the year, cooking seasonally in the months of Novemberthrough March is a challenge. When I was living in Washington, my seasonalwinter produce selection was definitely limited, consisting mainly of heartygreens, winter squash, mushrooms, apples, carrots, and onions. In Quebec,though, nothing grows during the winter. Absolutely nothing. In this neck ofthe woods, everything freezes and is covered in a heavy blanket of snow and iceduring the winter months, so the growing season is dormant.

So, is it even possible to eat seasonally during thewinter in a place where nothing grows during those months without gettingscurvy? I am here to assure you that it is, but that it does take a little moreeffort than in the warmer months. There are a few options if you want tocontinue eating only local produce: one is to eat the local bounty that remainsfrom the fall harvest. Root vegetables, apples, and pears all store well, andcan last throughout the winter without rotting (if stored correctly).

Another is to try some of the produce that is grownlocally in greenhouses throughout the year. Greenhouses across Canada grow mainlytomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and peppers so that produce can be grown locally ina controlled environment at all times. The pros: buying greenhouse-producedveggies means not having to buy stuff that has been shipped all the way in fromCalifornia, Mexico, Chile, or somewhere else far away. Also, fewer pesticides andchemicals are used in greenhouses, so even the nonorganic stuff is much closerto organic than field grown produce. There are cons as well, though: greenhouse-grownvegetables cost more to produce, so they cost more to purchase as well. Maybe thisisn’t a problem for you, but it’s worth considering. It should also be notedthat it takes a lot of energy to grow in a greenhouse, and so I don’t know howmuch smaller of a carbon footprint greenhouse growing makes.

Finally, you can look for local produce that hasbeen frozen or canned. In the case of canned, and sometimes of frozen, you aredefinitely losing some taste and nutrition, but if you’re really trying to onlyeat local, it’s an option. Or, if you’re really organized, you can spend yourfall freezing and canning all of autumn’s bounty so that you can eat itthroughout the winter. I hope to be that organized this fall, but we’ll see. I’lladmit, it’s one of those things I always say I’m going to do and then neveractually get around to doing.

Honestly, my take on the subject of eating locally,especially during the winter, is like my take on most things: everything inmoderation. I understand the importance of eating locally for my health, forthe planet’s health, and for the health of the local economy, but there aresome cases where I think eating locally isn’t necessary. For one thing, I reallydon’t believe that it’s better for my health to be denying myself such a hugevariety of fruits and vegetables throughout the winter because they don’t growin Quebec during that time. There are some fruits that don’t grow in this partof the world at any time of year: if I were to only eat locally, I would nevereat citrus, bananas, avocados, or just about any tropical fruit. These thingsnever grow in Quebec, so does that mean I should never eat them? I say no way. Ithink that my health is better for having these items in my diet. The fact thatthey have to be shipped in from afar just means that I should eat less of them,and more of what I can get locally.

Something that I will never ever get from Mexico orthe southern U.S. —and I encourage you to do the same—is tomatoes. If you musthave fresh tomatoes at this time of year, buy on the vine tomatoes that havebeen grown in greenhouses. If you’re not sure which are which, the greenhouseones will be labelled “Product of Canada” (in the U.S. as well, for the mostpart). Why? The answer is long, but I’ll try to be brief: mass producedtomatoes are picked when they’re green and rock solid and sprayed with gas toripen artificially. The labour to grow and harvest these tomatoes is oftenbasically slave labour. In some cases, it is literally slave labour. For acrash course on the evils of industrial tomatoes, read this article.

Andrew and I have salad with dinner most nights. Duringthe winter, I make an effort to stick to the most local stuff possible, as I outlinedabove. Sometimes, this presents a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to addsome variety to my salad repertoire. In looking through some old recipeclipping the other night, I found this one for Beet and Pear Napoleons with Ginger Juice Vinaigrette.

This salad is an ideal representation of myphilosophy on eating locally during the winter: most of it is local, but forthe sake of healthy variety, some of it is not.

Pears and beets are local, likely harvested a fewmonths ago. You’ll notice in the recipe that there is supposed to be shreddedapple on top, but Andrew ate the last apple, so I had to skip that component. Intheory, though, apple would be another local contribution.

Oranges are not local, but they are in season, sothey will represent the seasonal, but imported, component of this salad. I optedfor Cara Cara oranges this time, a less acidic, subtler variety of the navel orange.

The lettuce is somewhat local, and grown in agreenhouse. At least, I assume so, as the label reads “Product of Canada.” It couldhave been grown in British Columbia, which is not exactly in the golden100-mile radius of local eating, but there’s no way of knowing. Anyways, itwill have to do as the greenhouse grown representative in this salad.

But enough about local and not-local: this salad isa great salad because it tastes good. And it looks pretty.

This is the type of dish that you can bust out at adinner party and your guests will all ooh and aah and think that you’veconstructed something very complex, when really, all you’ve done is stack theingredients instead of just plopping them down on the plate. The beauty is inthe contrast between the white pear, the deep purple beet, and the vibrantgreen lettuce.

It might seem like eating locally is a lot of work,especially in the winter, and that’s because it is. I look at it as achallenge, though, and an opportunity to try new things and learn more aboutwhere my food comes from. And don’t forget: everything in moderation.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping: A Guided Tour

2012-01-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

When I blogged about returning to Montreal, Itold you that I would write not only about what I am cooking, but also aboutwhat where I shop for food, what restaurants I go to, and what kind of foodevents I attend. I want to start doing that today by telling you about thelittle grocery store where I buy at least half of my food: Rocky Montana. Now,if you are a Montrealer who lives, or who has ever lived, in NDG, you’veprobably heard of Rocky Montana. I won’t make any assumptions as to what your opinionon the establishment is, but even if it isn’t your favourite place to shop, youwould probably at least admit that it is an interesting, albeit strange, store.The reaction I get when I tell people where my new apartment is located isoften: “Isn’t that right around the corner from Rocky Montana? I love thatplace!”

I’m kind of starting to love ittoo. It’s definitely the sort of place that grows on you, and I’ll admit, I wasnot all that enchanted by the store the first time I went to it. It’s tiny andcrowded and a far cry from the shiny, wide, well-lit aisles of a typical chainsupermarket. If you go there with a specific list, it is unlikely that you’llfind everything on it, even the items that you would expect every grocery storeto have. What you will find, though, are spices, sauces, and a variety of otherproducts that you can never find anywhere else, and for a fraction of the pricethat fancy speciality stores charge.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that RockyMontana is the type of place that suburbanites who are used to driving to thestore and getting all of their groceries in one spot would not like very much.For city folks who walk, bus, or metro to get their groceries, and often shopat several different, smaller places, RM is a favourite go-to.

So, let me take you on a tour of this fineestablishment. The first thing you need to know, before you’ve even entered thestore, is which door you must go through, because the answer is not obvious.When you walk up to the two doors under the sign, enter through the door on theleft, not the one on the right, asyou would normally do. Why the owners of the establishment decided that thedoors should be reversed, I have no idea, but just accept it and move on.

Once you’re through said door, you’ll be greeted bythe sounds of Indian music and the sight of the register station directly infront of you. To your left are jam-packed shelves of baking staples, almond andsoy milk, and organic broths. To your right are shopping baskets and carts.Don’t take a cart. There are few places in the store where a shopping cartactually fits and you will regret it. Instead, opt for a basket. If you’replanning on buying more than what fits in the basket, don’t. Just come backtomorrow and get whatever else you need. Walk through the shelves of nuts,seeds, and dried fruits (or grab a few along the way—the prices areunbeatable), and hang a right at the fruit stand. You need to pass this standto get to the main fruit and vegetable section, which is no problem if isn’tsomeone standing there perusing (or restocking—there’s always someonerestocking) the fruits on display. If there is, you’ll need to squeeze past thisperson, and you’ll probably end up bumping him or her with your basket, orstepping on his or her toes. Just say a polite, “Excusez-moi,” and carry on.You may want to pause for a moment to grab something from the alcove oppositethe fruit stand where the impressive collection of Bob’s Red Mill products is kept,but don’t linger. That passageway can get hairy.

Now, you’re through to the fruits and veg, animpressive part of the store. In this section, the Indian music is accompaniedby a soundtrack of running water and chirping, tropical-sounding birds. I guess these calming sounds are supposed to make you want to purchase more fruits andvegetables. It kind of just makes me need to pee.

The selection here is good, and you’ll want to takeadvantage. I only have two issues with the RM produce: none of it is organic,and among the nice, fresh, quality products, you’ll often find a number offruits and veggies that are past their prime. Neither of these problems stopsme from shopping there, though: for the products that I want to buy organic, Ican go elsewhere, and I don’t have a problem with sorting through theless-than-fresh to find the good stuff. Also in this section is a fridge with asmall selection of cheeses and dry sausage, and the impressive spice collection.You know that spice in that recipe you really want to try calls for that youcan’t seem to find anywhere? They have it here.

After maneuvering your way back out of the producesection, you can investigate the rest of the store: four aisles, with not amillimeter of space wasted. Along the right-hand and back walls of the storeare fridges containing a variety of products, but the real treasures can befound in the shelves of dry goods. Once again, be careful, because the aislesare narrow, and your path will often be blocked with boxes that have yet to beunpacked. Don’t be annoyed: it’s part of the charm of the place.

Now, there is no way I can itemize every type ofproduct that is sold here, but let me give you a sample: a huge variety ofAsian (Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, etc.), Mexican, and American sauces andcondiments, oils, vinegars, dried beans, grains, a nice selection ofgluten-free products, quinoa, a number of canned fish products, a variety ofchips and cookies, nearly a quarter of an aisle full of tomato sauces, threeshelves full of different types of honeys, and almost anything you can think of(and a lot of things you probably never thought of) that can come in a can orjar. Oh, and I can’t leave out: an entire wall of the store dedicated todifferent pastas and noodles.

Every type of noodle, from Italian to Asian andeverything else in between, is represented on this wall. It is for wonders likethis that I love this store.

So have I enchanted you, or do you think I’m crazyfor loving to shop at such an odd little place? My shopping habits havedefinitely changed since moving out of Redmond, or, that is to say, moving outof a suburb and into a more urban environment. I walk to the store, and I oftenget my groceries at several different places. I discover new shops every day,from the snobby fromagerie inWestmount, to the hippy co-op in my neck of the woods. I generally only buywhat I need for one or two days, and go to the store way more often than I didbefore. It may sound like more work, but I don’t think that it is. It requiresless planning, and I stress less about forgetting something when I’m buyingfood.

I think Rocky Montana is kind of unique, but maybeI’m wrong. Do you know of a similar place? Would you rather shop there and atseveral different establishments, or are you more of a one-stop-shopper,preferring to get everything in one big store?

Fruits Rocky Montana

5704, rue Sherbrooke O
Montreal

On Not Following the Recipe

2012-01-18T09:30:00.000-05:00

Something you might often hear from people who cooka lot is that recipes are meant to be guidelines and that they do not need tobe followed word-for-word. In fact, I know that I’ve said it in this blog anumber of times, and there’s a reason for that: cooking becomes a lot more funwhen you allow yourself to experiment. This is something I’ve come to realizein the past couple of years, and it has increased the pleasure I get fromcooking many times over. Don’t get me wrong: I still think that recipes areimportant. Recipes can teach you, and in some cases, recipes know best. Goodrecipes have been tested in professional kitchens, and there’s a reason whythere is no garlic in the ingredients list, or why the cheese should only be addedat the last minute. But once you understand a recipe and some of thefundamentals of cooking, you can understand why a recipe is written the way itis. At this point, you can also see where the recipe allows room to move around.

Sometimes altering a recipe is as simple assubstituting different seasonings, or adding or omitting steps. Sometimes it isas drastic as changing one of the primary ingredients, or using a differentcooking method. You can make a recipe with meat vegetarian, or add meat to avegetarian meal. You can add an Asian twist to a classic Italian dish, ormodernize your grandmother’s famous recipe for beef stew. Once you start toplay with recipes, you get to be creative with your food, and you become a cookwho has her own signature recipes, instead of just a cook who can followinstructions.

A few nights ago, I modified a cold shrimp andnoodle salad recipe to make a hot shrimp and noodle stir-fry. The originalrecipe has you cook the noodles, and then cool them under cold water. It alsosays to make the dressing, then toss the cooked shrimp with a little of it. Thesalad comes together by simply placing the noodles in a bowl, topping with theremaining ingredients, and then drizzling with the rest of the dressing. Itsounds like a perfect summer meal, but since this is January, I thought itwould also make a perfect winter stir-fry. To change the recipe, I had to domore than just heat the ingredients up instead of serving them cold, though.For it to work, I had to understand how this recipe worked as a salad, and whatI needed to do differently in order to make it work as a stir-fry. The recipeis this Asian Noodle Salad with Shrimp from Epicurious.

My plan was to start to stir-fry the shrimp in some oil, then add some garlic, the red pepper, the peas, and the dressing,and then continue to stir-fry until the shrimp was just cooked. I knew that bycooking the dressing, I would lose some of it to evaporation, so I increasedthe quantities in the dressing by about a third. I also didn’t like the idea ofeating totally plain, unseasoned rice noodles, so I tossed them with a littledressing immediately after draining them.

The remaining steps are more or less the same. Ichanged some of the ingredients, mainly to accommodate what I already had onhand. I used frozen peas instead of sugar snap peas, I used basil instead ofmint, and I added sliced green onion at the end as well.

The stir-fry turned out beautifully. The combinationof the sauce, along with the generous amount of fresh herbs added at the end,make this a very fresh and tasty meal. Adding dressing to the hot noodles was agood move, because they absorbed the flavouring very well. It was a bit of arisk turning a salad into a stir-fry—the results could have been veryunappetizing—but this time, the risk paid off.

Asian Shrimp and Noodle Stir-Fry
Adapted from www.epicurious.com
Serves 4

6 tbsp fresh lime juice
4 tbsp fish sauce
5 tsp chili-garlic sauce
3 tsp sugar
1 6.75 oz. (191 g) rice stick noodles (maifun)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb (453 g) medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
2 cups frozen peas
1 cup thinly sliced Japanese or Persian cucumbers
½ cup fresh basil leaves
½ cup fresh cilantro leaves
3 green onions, thinly sliced

To make the sauce, whisk together the lime juice,fish sauce, chili-garlic sauce, and sugar until the sugar dissolves.

Cook the noodles in boiling salted water untiltender, stirring occasionally, about 4 or 5 minutes. Drain, then immediatelytoss with about a tbsp of the sauce.

Meanwhile, cook the shrimp. Heat a large skilletover medium heat. Add the oil and heat until shimmering. Add the shrimp andbegin to sauté until they just begin to turn pink, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the garlic,stir for one minute, then add the sliced pepper. Sauté for an additional 2minutes, then add the peas and the remainder of the sauce. Cook for about threeminutes longer. The peas should be tender, and the shrimp should be cookedthrough. Turn off the heat, stir in the cucumber, and then stir in the noodles.

To serve, divide the stir-fry between four bowls,and then top with the basil, cilantro, and green onion.

Still Learning

2012-01-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

I guess that the holidays bring out my nostalgicside, because the other day I found myself reading some of the early posts onBring Your Appetite. In my opinion, a trip down memory lane is neverfutile. It’s a chance to look at how you’ve grown and changed over time, andhopefully a chance to learn from your mistakes. With about three years’perspective, I can easily see many of the mistakes I made, and also how mycooking style and abilities have changed. My very first post probablyillustrates this the most. I introduce myself and talk a little about what my cookingskills and knowledge level are, and why I decided to start this blog. Wow, whata change three years can make: I wrote about how I often used bouillon cubes inthe place of real stock (*shudder*), how I rarely cooked without a recipe (if Iuse recipes now, they are only guidelines), and how I didn’t know any famouschefs who weren’t on the Food Network (I am now a big fan of many chefs whohave never appeared the Food Network). A lot has happened in that time: I wentto culinary school, I worked in the culinary field, I cooked more at home, Iate at better restaurants, and, last but not least, I maintained this blog. So,of course I changed, and of course I learned.

Some things haven’t changed, though. I still love tocook, and look forward to the time I set aside almost every day to be in mykitchen. I still like to try new things: new foods, new recipes, and newmethods of cooking. I’m also still learning, and I plan to continue learningfor the rest of my life. Looking at my old posts was a good reminder of this.

Just last week, I cooked something I had nevercooked before. It was rabbit stewed in red wine. I had eaten rabbit before, butnever prepared it myself. I chose a Julia Child recipe, because who better tobe my guide into the field of rabbit cookery than the “French Chef” herself?

The recipe required that the rabbit be cut up forthe stew. Julia suggests that you have your butcher do this for you, but therewas no way I was going to let this opportunity to work with an animal I hadnever butchered before slip away from me. During my internship at Café Juanita,I watched the cooks cut up rabbit many times, so I had a decent idea of how toproceed. Despite the large differences in the anatomy of a rabbit compared to achicken (a creature with which I am very familiar), the general principals arestill the same: cut at the joints, and, when separating flesh from bone, usethe bone as your guide so that you lose as little flesh as possible. I think Idid an all right job, but I could certainly use some more practice.

Julia’s recipe and everything else I’ve ever readabout cooking rabbit warns that this meat has a tendency to dry up and becometough easily. This makes it a good meat to stew, and marinating it beforehandwill help it to be even more tender and flavourful. Julia suggests having therabbit sit in a combination of red wine vinegar and herbs for twenty-fourhours, and it turned out to be an excellent suggestion indeed.

The rest of the process will be familiar to anyonewho has braised or stewed meat before: the meat is browned, then placed in acasserole with liquid (in this case, the reduced marinade, along with reducedwine, and beef stock), and cooked slowly until the meat becomes tender.

What absolutely makes this dish is the sauce that isput together at the end. When the rabbit is finished, it is removed from thecasserole. The liquid left in the casserole is reduced, and then prunes thathave been stewed in Cognac, stock, and butter are added, along with therabbit’s liver, if you want. I also couldn’t resist finishing the sauce with acouple dabs of butter to give it a glossy sheen.

Pour this over the warm rabbit, and voila! Rabbitstew is served.

There are few things as rewarding as cookingsomething for the first time and having it come out as a great success. Thisrabbit stew was exquisite. Was it also decadent? Yes. Time consuming? Yes.Worth the trouble? Absolutely. After all, it was all in the name of learningsomething new, and that is always worth the trouble. I hope you’ll take theleap with me and try something new one night soon because trust me, you’ll beglad you did.

Rabbit Marinated in Vinegar and Herbs,and Stewed in Red Wine
Adapted from Mastering the Art ofFrench Cooking, vol. 2 by Julia Child andSimone Beck, pp. 246-249
Serves 4-5

Themarinade:
½to 2/3 cup red wine vinegar (depending on the strength of the vinegar)
½ tsp cracked peppercorns
3 tbsp olive oil
½ cup sliced onion
2 large cloves garlic, unpeeled, halved
4 juniper berries
½ tsp oregano
1 bay leaf
½ tsp thyme
1 whole rabbit (2 ½ lbs), cut into eight pieces

Thestew:
4ounces bacon, cut into 1 ½-inch sticks (makes about ½ cup)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup sliced onions
1 marinated rabbit
1 rabbit’s liver (optional), seasoned and floured
3 tbsp. flour
Marinade from rabbit
1 bottle of red wine, preferably young and full-bodied (Mâcon, Côtes-du-Rhône,Mountain Red)
2 cups beef or veal stock

Thesauce:
20-25large prunes, simmered for 10 to 15 minutes in ¼ cup Cognac, ½ cup of beefstock, and 2 tbsp butter
Sautéed liver (optional), cut into small pieces
2 tbsp butter

Taste the vinegar you plan to use to marinate therabbit. If it seems very strong and harsh, only use ½ cup. If it doesn’t seemoverly acidic, use up to 2/3 cup. Combine the vinegar with the rest of themarinade ingredients in a bowl or casserole large enough to hold all the meat comfortably.Add the rabbit and baste it with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate the bowl,basting and turning the rabbit occasionally. Marinate at least 24 hours, or upto 2 to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Brown the bacon in alarge frying pan. Add the oil, and stir in the onions. Cook for about 10minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are tender and lightly browned.Transfer the onions and bacon to a heavy, oven-safe casserole large enough tohold the rabbit pieces easily.

Meanwhile, remove the rabbit from the marinade, drythoroughly with paper towels, and season with salt and pepper. When the onionsare out of the pan, add more oil if necessary so that the pan is filmed by 1/8inch. Raise the heat to medium-high and brown the rabbit pieces on all sides.Add the rabbit to the casserole. Sprinkle on half the flour, toss the rabbit,sprinkle on the rest of the flour, and toss again. If using the liver, brown itquickly, removing it from the pan as soon as it has browned on all sides.

Heat the casserole to sizzling on the stove, thenset uncovered in the upper third of the preheated oven for 5 minutes; tossagain, and return the casserole to the oven for 5 more minutes. Lower theoven’s temperature to 350 F.

Meanwhile, pour the browning fat out of the fryingpan, and pour the marinade into it. Boil it down until the liquid has almostcompletely evaporated. Pour in the wine, boil down to half its volume, add thestock, bring to a boil, and set aside.

When the casserole is removed from the oven, pourthe hot wine and bouillon mixture over it. Stir everything in the casserole sothat it is well blended. Bring the liquid to a simmer on the stove, cover, andsimmer in the oven. Regulate the heat so that the stew bubbles slowly andregularly throughout the cooking, and baste the rabbit pieces occasionally.Stew for about an hour, or until the meat is tender if pierced with a knife.

When the rabbit is done, remove to a servingplatter, cover, and keep war, while finishing the sauce. Remove bay leaf, andskim surface fat off the liquid. Bring to a simmer, skimming. Reduce until youhave about 1 ½ cups of sauce, thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add theprunes with their liquid and the cut up liver, if using. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes,drop in the butter, and swirl the sauce until the butter has completely melted.Taste and adjust the seasoning as desired. Pour the sauce over the warm rabbitand serve immediately.

Winter Vegetable Soup

2011-12-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

December is a good month to be unemployed. That’s myopinion, anyway, and the reason why my most recent efforts to find employment havebeen halfhearted at best. In January, my job search will become more earnest,but for now, I’m not exactly straining myself. That said, I don’t want to giveyou the impression that I’m lazy, because I have had no trouble keeping myselfbusy. Andrew and I are still settling into our new place, and so I’m working atmaking it feel more like home. I’ve also been exploring our new neighbourhood,and discovering wonderful restaurants, butchers, and other shops. I joined afood co-op last week that advocates for all things local, organic, andenvironmentally sustainable, so as you can imagine, I’m very excited. Ofcourse, there has been some Christmas shopping, as well as some Christmasbaking, and it’s nice to be able to do these things at my leisure, instead oftrying to juggle them with a demanding work or school schedule. I also madethis soup.

I know, it doesn’t seem like much to look at, but I hadit for lunch every day last week, and I’m still in love with it. The soup issimply composed of cubed vegetables simmered in chicken stock, and flavouredwith some dried herbs (that’s right, I said driedherbs, and I’m not ashamed to admit it; they taste wonderful in this soup). Iused mainly seasonal root vegetables: onion, garlic, carrot, turnip, and yams.I was hesitant to add the yams at first, because I worried that they may makethe soup cloyingly sweet, but that wasn’t the case at all. They add just a hintof sweetness to the broth, and the chunks of smooth, creamy yam contrastpleasantly with the firmer turnips and carrots.

I made the chicken stock myself, and it contributedsignificantly to how good the soup was, but I’m sure you would have decentresults with store bought chicken or vegetable stock that you really like thetaste of. I also added some pearl barley to a) make the soup heartier, and b)add more contrast to the texture of the soup. Pearl barley has a firm exteriorthat, once cooked correctly, bursts in your mouth when you bite down on it toreveal a softer inside. It’s sort of a cross between crunchy and chewy. Pearlbarley is also a good soup component because it does not absorb that muchliquid, compared to something like rice or pasta, which tend to soak up all theliquid in a soup if it’s left to sit, even in the refrigerator. And it tastesdelicious.

Once everything was prepped, I sweated the onion andgarlic, and then the remaining ingredients all went into the pot together andsimmered for forty-five minutes or so. It needs to simmer for at least longenough to cook the pearl barley. Meanwhile, the stock becomes delicately flavouredwith the herbs and vegetables. The resulting soup is simple and unassuming. Theflavours aren’t bold or overpowering, but rather, subtle and complex. I want tosay that it tastes nourishing, though, of course, nourishing is not a taste,but maybe you know what I mean. You know when you taste something, and you canalmost feel how it is not just filling your belly, but also providing you withthe nutrients you need, giving you energy and making you stronger? That’s whatthis soup tastes like, and it’s a taste I can only describe as good.

Winter Vegetable Soup

Makes approximately 1 gallon/3.75 litres

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, medium dice
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried savory
9 cups/2 litres (or more) good quality chicken or vegetable stock, preferablyhomemade (taste it first and make sure you like the flavour)
1 large white turnip, peeled, medium dice
2 medium yams, peeled, medium dice
2 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1 cm slices
½ cup pearl barley
Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed potover medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until it becomes translucent, about 6minutes. Stir in the garlic, then the rosemary, thyme, and savory. Stir forabout 30 seconds longer, until the garlic and herbs become fragrant. Add thechicken or vegetable stock, and then stir in the turnip, yams, carrots, andbarley. Add about half a teaspoon of salt. Increase the heat to high to bringthe soup to a boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat to medium and let the soupsimmer for about 45 to 50 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the liquid reducesto the point that the vegetables are not swimming in the broth, add more. Youcan also partially cover the pot to slow the evaporation of the liquid.

The soup is ready once the pearl barley is fullycooked. The grain will have a firm outside, but when you bite into it, itshouldn’t be hard at all. Taste the soup and add salt and black pepper totaste. It is now ready to serve. This soup keeps in the fridge for up to 5 daysor so, and it also freezes very well.

My Favourite Eggplant Dish

2011-12-12T09:38:00.000-05:00

I know you’ve all been waiting on the edges of yourseats to find out how I’ve been managing in my new kitchen. Well, all right, maybethat’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I do think that my previous post requiressome follow-up, so I will happily inform you that I’m faring well in my newworkspace. It’s smaller than I’m used to, but I think the limited area isforcing me to be more organized. I’m only pulling out what I need when I needit, and then I put it away when I’m done with it, rather than steadily fillingthe counter with various jars, bottles, and boxes, along with the detritus ofdiced vegetables and trimmed meat. Someone suggested that I do away with mydrying rack, and while I can’t get rid of it altogether, I’ve been moving it tothe other edge of the sink while I’m cooking to give myself a little morespace.

I thought that I’d share a favourite recipe of minetoday. It’s from Gourmet, but I’vemade a few modifications to it. Inspired by eggplant parmigiana, this"inside-out" version makes for a tasty, healthy, and elegantvegetarian meal.

The main difference between this recipe and a moretraditional eggplant parmigiana is that the eggplant is not breaded and fried,as it normally is. Instead, it is baked, and eggs, breadcrumbs, parmesan,parsley, and garlic are combined and pan fried to make patties. These patties arestacked with the eggplant, sliced fresh mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce, andsautéed arugula to create a delicious layered dish.

If you want it to look more impressive, even ifyou, like me, have no one to impress but yourself and perhaps a husband whowill love you whether your food looks impressive or not, but you, like me,enjoy making your food look impressive, coat the bottom of each plate with someof the tomato sauce, centre an eggplant stack on it, and top with a littlefresh arugula.

The resulting dish will be colourful and the tastewon’t disappoint either. It offers a variety of flavours and textures, withspongy egg patties, creamy mozzarella, bitter arugula, delicate eggplant, andacidic tomato sauce.

The original recipe can be found here.

This one has my modifications:

Inside-Out Eggplant Parmigiana
Adapted from Gourmet magazine,January 2009

For tomato sauce:

1 (28 oz) can whole tomatoes in their juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
½ tsp sugar
Salt, to taste
3 tbsp. finely chopped basil

For eggplant stacks:
2 (1 lb/450 g) eggplants
6 tbsp olive oil, divided, plus additional for drizzling
Salt and pepper
½ cup plain dry breadcrumbs
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
½ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves minced, divided
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup water
¼ tsp red-pepper flakes
10 oz/300 g baby arugula
1 cup packed basil leaves, coarsely chopped
½ lb/250 g cold fresh mozzarella, cut into ½-inch-thick slices

Make the tomato sauce: If you want a smooth tomato sauce, blend thetomatoes with their juices either in their can using an immersion blender, orin a blender. If you prefer a chunkier sauce, simply break up the tomatoesusing a wooden spoon. Heat oil in a heavy mediumsaucepan over medium heat until it shimmers, then cook shallot, stirringoccasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook an additionalminute. Add the blended or crushed tomatoes to the saucepan with the shallot and garlic, alongwith the sugar, and about a ¼ teaspoon of salt. Simmer, partially covered, overmedium to medium-low heat until it thickens slightly, about 20 to 30 minutes.Stir in the basil, taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Meanwhile, bake the eggplant: Preheat the oven to450 F with the rack in the lowest position.

Wash the eggplant, but do not peel it. Cut theeggplant into 1/3-inch-thick rounds (don’t worry that the rounds have differentdiameters). Brush both sides of the slices with about 2 tbsp oil and seasonwith salt. Bake on an oiled baking sheet, turning once, until golden andtender, 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer to a plate and cover loosely with foil.Leave the oven on.

Make the egg patties and sauté the arugula: Stirtogether breadcrumbs parmesan, parsley, half the garlic, and ¼ teaspoon each ofsalt and pepper, then stir in the eggs and water.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a 10- or 12-inch skillet(I like using cast-iron) over medium heat until it shimmers. Drop four 1/3 cupsof egg mixture into the skillet and cook, turning once, until patties aregolden brown and puffed, about 5 minutes total. Transfer to paper towels todrain. If necessary, repeat with remaining batter.

Add remaining tablespoon of oil to the skillet andcook remaining garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring, about 30 seconds. Addall but about one fifth (2 oz/55 g) of the arugula and all the basil to thepan, and stir until just wilted, 30 seconds or less. Stir in 1/8 teaspoon ofsalt.

Assemble stacks: Arrange egg patties about 3 inchesapart on a baking sheet. Top each with 2 tablespoons tomato sauce, 1 slicemozzarella, 1 eggplant slice (use the ones with larger diameters for thislayer), 2 more tablespoons tomato sauce, another eggplant slice (use the oneswith smaller diameters), arugula mixture, remaining eggplant, and a final sliceof mozzarella. Bake until cheese melts, 5 to 10 minutes.

Plate your dish: While the stacks bake, combine theremaining arugula with a little olive oil (a teaspoon or so), a pinch (1/4teaspoon) of salt, and a little (1/8 teaspoon) freshly ground black pepper.

When the stacks are out of the oven, placeapproximately 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce in the centre of each plate. Pickup the plate and tilt it so that the sauce spreads out and covers the plate tothe rim (try not to get sauce on the rim of the plate). Place one stack in thecentre of each plate. Top each stack with a small handful of arugula, trying tokeep all of it on top of the eggplant stacks. Serve right away.

My New Kitchen

2011-12-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven’t done much cooking in the past fewweeks, but I think I have a pretty good excuse for that. After the craziness ofpacking and leaving Washington, Andrew and I spent a week with my parents,during which we enjoyed my Mom’s wonderful cooking, and now we’re in our newapartment at last. This, of course, means that we are currently dealing withthe craziness of unpacking, an at times seemingly insurmountable task (there’snothing like moving to make you sit back and wonder, How did I ever get so much stuff?),so cooking still has not occurred. My kitchen is basically set up, though, andI think it’s worth talking a little about that.

First of all, we love this new apartment. It’s in anold building with lots of character—beautiful, dark wood doors, ornate mouldingaround the light fixtures, a clawfoot bathtub—, and it’s all in excellentcondition. It’s a little bigger than our last place, and it’s divided in such away that makes it seem much bigger. I love the kitchen as well, but it is significantlysmaller than the kitchen in our last apartment. Now, you might ask, wouldn’tsomeone who cooks as much as I do have a hard time with a small kitchen? Well,we’ll see what I say once I actually start attempting to produce meals out ofthis room, but for the moment, I’m feeling pretty good about the situation.

While this kitchen is small, it is not short onstorage space. You can see in the pictures that cupboards line the walls, bothabove and below the counters. These manage to contain plenty, but the realjewel of this little kitchen lies behind that door that you can see at the endof the room in the above picture. Now, behold what’s inside.

I have a pantry! This means that non-refrigeratedfood items do not have to take up space in the cupboards, because I have awhole closet for them. It’s a little colder in there as well, which isexcellent for keeping foods fresher. I’m also using the upper shelves to storesome extra items that didn’t fit in the cupboards, and the floor to store mykitchen electrics (food processor, blender, etc.).

The kitchen has been recently renovated, so it looksfresh and clean. Check out the frosted glass cabinets we have on one side ofthe room.

I like the effect of the lights reflecting off ofthe dishes in the cupboard. And look inside:

Looks kind of cool, doesn’t it? The appliances arealso fairly new and in excellent condition. The oven has a ceramic top, whichwill be a change. The big advantage of these is that they’re very easy toclean—no digging around under electric elements, or scrubbing around the clawsof a gas stove. It also looks pretty sleek.

Now, for the main disadvantage of this kitchen:workspace. There is very little of it. See the little square of counter in thispicture?

That’s basically the only area I have to work in. Inmy last kitchen, I had a huge island to work on, so this will be a change, butone I feel confident I can adjust to. After all, think of all the great foodblogs that come out of small city kitchens. The bloggers of Smitten Kitchen, TheJulie/Julia Project, and The Amateur Gourmet, have all spoken at one time oranother about their less-than-ideal kitchens, but they all make it work, andthey’re some of the best. So if these bloggers can do what they do out of theirkitchens, I certainly can too!

Bring Your Appetite Comes to Montreal

2011-11-23T14:15:00.000-05:00

The end of November is a time of transitions: the final leaves are falling from the trees, the air is getting colder, and winter approaches, as does a new year. This November is time for a major transition for Andrew and me. To say that the last month has been busy would be an understatement. “Chaotic” also fails to capture all of the insanity that the past few weeks have entailed. I’ll settle with saying it’s been chaotically busy, and it isn’t over yet. The reason is that after over three fantastic and enriching years in Seattle, Andrew and I have moved back to Montreal. We have loved living in a different country, on a different side of the continent, in a place that is breathtakingly beautiful, full of lovely people, and, of course, rife with great restaurants and great food. Montreal is home to us, though, and we’re thrilled to be back here again.

The final days leading up to moving day always feel a bit surreal. The rooms that you had grown accustomed to looking a certain way, filled with your furniture and your belongings, are slowly emptying out, while boxes start to cover the floors and stack up against the walls. You go get yourself a glass of water, then remember that you packed the glasses an hour ago; you look at the bare walls of your living room and know that they’re different, but you can’t quite picture how they looked before. Your home is no longer your home, and even when you know where you’ll be living next, you can’t see yet in your mind what it will look like once you’ve properly moved in. It’s all very exciting, but at the same time, you feel a little lost, a little unsteady. You look forward to being back on solid ground.

I’ve found that this particular move has felt especially surreal. Andrew and I knew when we moved to the States that we would eventually be coming back to our home country, and hardly a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about coming back to Canada. After three years in the U.S., though, it is now taking a while for the fact to sink in that we are leaving Washington. It’s a bittersweet feeling: as homesick as I’ve often felt while I’ve been away, I’ve loved this part of the world, and I’ve made some amazing friends who I will miss dearly. At the same time, I’ve been yearning to be back in my favourite city in the world, back closer to my family, and closer to my oldest friends for a long time, so I’m ecstatic to realize that it is happening at last.

This big change in my life will mean some changes for this blog as well. I’ll still post about the food I cook, and though it will be from a different kitchen, that will be more or less the same. I hope to post more about my culinary life outside of my kitchen as well, though. We will be living in NDG, a neighbourhood in Montreal that is positively teeming with great food, from many different ethnicities. I want to post about the “fruiterie” around the corner, the amazing pizza place a few blocks away, and the food co-op down the street. I want to talk about the fantastic culinary experiences that Montreal has to offer, from bagels to poutine, and from Schwartz’s to Joe Beef. If you live in this city, I want to give you ideas for places to eat and shop; if you’ve never been to Montreal, I want to introduce you to how delicious this city can be.

Today is our first day back in Montreal, and the city is welcoming us with a blanket of fluffy white snow. It’s supposed to melt tomorrow, which is fine with me, but for now, I’m admiring it as I sit writing this at my parents’ dining room table. In a little over a week, Andrew and I will move into our new apartment and start to truly settle back into this place that for me, feels more like home than any other place in the world. Readers, bienvenue à Montréal. I think you’ll like it here.

Last Days of Summer: Grilled Pizza

2011-09-09T14:55:00.000-04:00

I’ve always found the end of the summer a kind of bittersweet time. For most of my life, the arrival of September and the beginning of autumn has meant the start of a new school year, and I love new beginnings. I also love fall, with its cooler weather inviting the makings of hot soups and stews, comfort food that warms the body and soul. Of course, the beginning of fall also means the end of summer, and there is always something a little sad about that. Even this year, although I am not going to be going to any school this September, and my routine will not be changing at all as we transition into fall, I still feel somewhat regretful at the changing of the seasons and the departure of all the activities that summer allows.

Still, summer is not quite gone yet, and I, like many others, am clinging to these last few days of hot sun and summer spirit with a passion. Grilling is, of course, the quintessential summer cooking method, so what better way to hold onto the last days of summer than to make the most of one’s barbeque? Grilled steak, burgers, sausages, vegetables, fish, and shrimp are all favourites of mine, but I’ve had plenty of all of them in the past few months. So, I recently tried grilling something I had never thought to grill before, and the results were far better than I had expected.

I’m talking about grilled pizza. When I think about it now, I don’t know why I was so sceptical to begin with. Pizza is traditionally baked in a wood burning oven made of brick or stone. These ovens are extremely hot, and so one’s home oven does not even come close to creating the same effect that a wood oven has. A barbeque, on the other hand, comes much closer. It is not quite the same, of course: the temperature inside a barbeque still can’t reach the heights of those in wood ovens, and the stone floor of a wood oven is also quite different from a grill. However, the fire and high heat in a barbeque still create an excellent environment to bake delicious pizza when you have quality ingredients.

I like to make my own tomato sauce for pizza, and I always make my own dough. I have two recipes to offer below, and both have their pros and cons. The one using instant yeast is an excellent time saver. It requires only a very short fermentation time, and very little kneading. The results are quite good as well, though, my only complaint with it is that I find it doesn’t puff and bubble up as well as the second dough does. The second recipe is more traditional and takes longer, but I find it creates dough that is a little closer to those at my favourite pizza places: soft, light, and airy.

I have also tried two methods for grilling the dough, and one is clearly superior to the other. One recipe I looked at suggested that after rolling out the dough, it should be placed directly on the grill without topping it. Once one side of the dough has cooked, it can be flipped over, topped, and grilled the rest of the way. This created pizza dough that became dry and overcooked. It was impossible to even melt the cheese on top of the pizza without burning the dough. It was edible, but just barely.

The better way to do things is much closer to traditional pizza-making methods: after rolling out the dough, it can be topped, and then placed on the grill. It’s a little tricky to transfer the dough once it has been topped, so make sure to place the rolled out dough on a well-floured baking sheet before topping it so that it can then be slid right onto the grill.

The trickiest part of this is to create an environment that is hot enough that it cooks the pizza quickly, but does not burn the bottom of the dough. I find that what works best is to heat the barbeque with the lid closed and the burners on high until it is as hot as you can get it: I managed to get mine to about 550 F. At this point, the grill is ready for the pizzas. After sliding the pizzas onto the grill, close the lid again, but turn the burners down to medium. This way, it should remain hot enough inside the barbeque, but the bottom of the pizza won’t be receiving such aggressive high heat.

I’ve been talking so far about how great grilling pizza is because of how similar it is to baking in a wood oven, but grilling also has some merits of its own. Like when you grill anything else, the pizza dough gets flavour from the grill. If you do it right, you should get dough that is crisp on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside.

So, I am preparing myself for fall and all the changes it will bring, but I am still holding onto summer with time spent outside reading in the sunshine, bike rides under blue skies, and evenings when I fire up the grill so that I can taste the season that is leaving us.

Quick Pizza Dough
Adapted from Canadian Living
Makes 2 12” crusts

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 pkg. quick-rising dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
1 cup warm (about 105 F) water
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

In a large bowl, combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, yeast, and salt. Pour the water and the oil into the flour mixture, and mix well. Mix in remaining cup of flour to make a slightly sticky dough. Form into a ball. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic (alternately, dough can be kneaded by a stand mixture fitted with a dough hook, for five minutes at second speed). Cut dough in half, cover, and let rest for 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough into two 12” circles. Transfer to lightly floured baking sheets. Let rest 15 minutes for a thin crust, or up to 30 minutes for a thicker crust. Add toppings.

Traditional Pizza Dough
Adapted from Professional Baking, 5th ed., by Wayne Gisslen
Makes 2 12” crusts

8.5 oz. warm (105 F) water
1/5 oz. active dry yeast
14 oz. flour (preferably bread flour, but all-purpose is fine)
¼ oz. salt
1/3 tsp. malt syrup or honey
1/3 oz. vegetable or olive oil

In a large bowl, add 1 oz. of the warm water to the yeast and allow the yeast to dissolve, 8-10 minutes. Add the flour, salt, remaining water, malt syrup or honey, and the oil. Mix to combine well. Knead on a well-floured surface for about 10 minutes, or in a stand mixture with a dough hook for 8-10 minutes on second speed until dough is smooth and elastic. Place dough in a large, oiled bowl and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Let the dough ferment for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until it has doubled in size.

Divide the dough into two, and round each of the pieces. Cover and let rest ten minutes. Roll dough out into two 12” circles. Place on well-floured baking sheet, and add toppings.

How to Grill Pizza
Preheat barbeque on high heat with the lid closed until internal temperature reaches 550 F. Open the lid and slide the dressed pizzas directly onto the grill. Close the lid immediately and lower the heat to about medium. Grill the pizzas with the lid of the barbeque closed for 4-6 minutes, until the bottoms are cooked and golden, and the cheese has melted. Remove the pizzas from the grill and serve immediately.

The Quest for the Perfect Jalapeno Popper

2011-09-01T14:19:00.000-04:00

I know I like to talk a lot about my beliefs in all foods local, organic, sustainable, and healthful. I hope I don’t soap box too much, but I don’t feel any shame in using this blog as a place to talk about these things, and hopefully spread the message. So, it is with a little embarrassment that I admit this particular guilty pleasure, this particular food that I just can’t seem to get enough of.

The picture should say it all. Yes, jalapeno poppers, but not just any jalapeno poppers. I am enamoured with these frozen, processed, and completely horrible for you in many ways jalapeno poppers from T.G.I. Friday’s. I am well aware that they go against most of my food philosophy. They certainly aren’t organic, they definitely are not locally produced, I’m sure that the ingredients were not sustainably raised or processed, and there is absolutely nothing healthy about this junk food. But they’re really, really good.

Of course, pure deliciousness alone is not a good enough reason to eat something with abandon, and the belief that it is probably accounts for a lot of the health problem we see in western society today. So, what’s a jalapeno popper loving, quality food idealist girl to do? The answer was obvious to me when I thought about it: I needed to do what I always do when faced with the problem of wanting to eat a specific food that I either can’t or shouldn’t eat, which is to create my own version. My own version would be made with better quality ingredients that I could feel good about consuming, in my own kitchen, with my own hand touching every step of the creation process. I started by purchasing a large quantity of jalapeno peppers at a local farmer’s market, because, hooray! Peppers of all shape, size, and variety are in season at last.

I also purchased some quality, locally produced cheeses, and checked my refrigerator and cupboards for the other ingredients I would require.

The question still remained as to what method I would use to create my own jalapeno poppers. A small amount of research quickly revealed to me that there are many recipes out there for making homemade poppers, involving a variety of methods to dissect, stuff, bread, and cook them. I wondered what would be best: should I use entire peppers, or slice them in half? Should I stuff them with shredded cheese, cream cheese, or a combination of the two? Should I bread them or batter them? Should I fry them or bake them? Each method offered its own set of advantages and disadvantages, so rather than actually making a decision, I tried them all. All right, so maybe I didn’t actually try every method for making jalapeno poppers, but I tested out a number of them. The first factor to consider was whether to use one whole pepper per popper, or if just using half would be better. I divided my pepper collection into thirds and prepared them three different ways.

For one third, I simple trimmed the top of the pepper, sliced it in half, and scraped out the seeds and membrane. For the second third, I sliced the top only partway off, then sliced lengthwise down one side of the pepper, creating a T. This allowed me to gently open the pepper and empty out its innards, while still keeping it mostly intact. For the final third, I sliced the tops off completely, and used the handle of a teaspoon to scoop out everything inside. For keeping the peppers whole, I liked the third method best since it was simple and maintained the original form of the pepper best.

Next, I decided how to fill and bread the poppers. I filled approximately one third with just cream cheese, one third with just shredded cheese (a mixture of cheddar, pepper jack, and mozzarella), and one third with a combination of shredded and cream cheese. I made sure to try all the different fillings in each of the differently prepared peppers. I used a standard breading procedure to bread the poppers: flour, then egg, then breading. I used panko as my breading, because its light, crispy texture seemed like it would be perfect for this.

Following one recipe’s suggestion, I breaded some of the peppers twice, allowing them a few minutes to dry slightly between breading. I also placed these in the freezer for half an hour before cooking them. Both of these measures were to help create a coating on the peppers that would not fall off in frying oil, or in the oven, and that would be rendered crispy in the cooking process.

I set aside a few of the halved peppers and did not bread them at all. Instead, I filled them with just cream cheese, wrapped them with a strip of bacon, and secured it with a toothpick. This idea is from a recipe from the Pioneer Woman. The recipe came highly recommended from a number of people in a thread on Serious Eats, so I decided I had to try it.

I tried out two different cooking methods: baking and frying. I fried most of the whole peppers and baked most of the halved ones, but, in the vein of experimenting, I did a few of each of the reverse. I baked in a 375 F oven, and I fried in a cast iron skillet at about 325 F. The baked ones took about half an hour to be rendered golden and crisp on the outside, and hot and gooey on the inside. The fried ones only took about five minutes per batch to get to this state. Finally, the moment of truth came, the time to test the results.

Everything looked promising. All of the poppers looked hot, crispy, and golden. None of the breading fell off, no poppers exploded or even leaked, and it seemed that everything was cooked through. With all of the different methods I experimented with, there are four main variations to talk about. I’ll start with the original offenders, the store bought, processed, frozen jalapeno poppers from T.G.I. Friday’s.

The breading on these creates a perfect, crisp layer that gently gives when you bite into it, without the rest of the popper falling apart. The cream cheese filling is hot and almost liquefied by heat, creamy and salty, and texturally contrasting to the crisp exterior. That filling is cradled in just a small square of jalapeno, probably about a quarter of a pepper. After comparing with the alternative, I’ve discovered that the poppers are not made from fresh peppers, but that preserved jalapenos are used instead. This renders them less hot, and distinctly less pepper-tasting. They could be eaten in one bite, but two is just right. They’re a combination of crunchiness and gooeyness, and spicy heat and rich cream. I’m not going to lie: they’re fantastic.

The second are the ones I breaded whole and fried.

I had such high hopes for these guys. I thought that using the entire jalapeno would just bring more hot, peppery goodness to the popper, but in mine and Andrew’s opinions, using the entire pepper was just too much jalapeno to handle. The heat of the whole pepper overpowered every other taste, and neither of us could get through eating a whole one of these. I won’t bother talking about how well the filling, breading, and cooking method worked since the real failure here was in using the entire pepper, and I don’t think anything else could have redeemed it for us. Of course, if you happen to enjoy eating entire just-cooked jalapenos, you might enjoy these poppers very much.

Next, we have halved, not breaded, but wrapped in bacon and baked.

These were all right. Honestly, I can’t put it much more eloquently. They weren’t unpleasant, as I found the whole jalapeno poppers, and they weren’t exquisite, as I (unfortunately) find the store bought poppers to be. The hot, melted cream cheese was as gooey and delicious as ever (though slightly under seasoned when compared to the frozen variety), and was delicious with the salty bacon. The pepper, in this instance, was cooked more than any of the other ones I had made from scratch and as a result, was not as spicy, which Andrew and I both agreed we preferred. They tasted fine enough, but I don’t know if I’d bother making them again.

Finally, I’ll talk about the ones that were halved, filled, breaded, and baked.

These, much to my surprise and delight, were my favourites of the ones I made from scratch. As previously discussed, the halved jalapeno was much more preferable to using the entire pepper. The half got pretty well cooked and was not too hot, and consuming a smaller quantity of pepper at a time was more enjoyable than trying to plough through the entire thing. I was very pleased with how the breading came out: nicely crisped and flavourful. The breading on the ones I fried had gotten slightly soggy, which probably means my oil temperature had dropped too much, but the hot oven rendered the coating on the baked poppers pleasantly crispy. My favourite filling was the combination of cream and shredded cheese, but all of the ones I tried were good, so I think it’s really a matter of personal preference.

You might have noticed that one method I didn’t try was to batter and fry the poppers. It’s something I’d like to try out, but I didn’t this time for two reasons. First, the frozen poppers that I so love are not battered: they’re breaded, and it was their taste and texture that I was trying to recreate. Second, I was already juggling so many things with trying all these different methods, and my kitchen was already enough of a disaster, I decided not to push things any further.

The final verdict? Well, as much as I’d love to tell you that the poppers I made from scratch were obviously way better than the store bought, heavily processed, frozen variety, I would be lying if I said I liked the ones I made myself better. I’d love to snobbishly trumpet about the value of homemade food, and how it will always be better than something frozen from a box, but, in this case, I can’t do that. At least, not yet. I’m not looking at this as a failure: it was a learning experience. I’m determined to make a jalapeno popper that is at least as good as T.G.I. Friday’s, and I do plan to continue trying. In the meantime, though, here’s the recipe for my favourite popper of all the ones I made myself.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers
Makes 20 poppers

10 jalapeno peppers, halved lengthwise and stem, seeds, and membranes removed
4 oz. softened cream cheese
½ cup each shredded sharp cheddar, pepper jack, and mozzarella cheeses
Salt
1 tsp. each cumin, paprika, and chilli powder
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper (optional, depending on how much heat you like)
½ cup flour in a wide, shallow dish
2 eggs
1 tbsp. milk
1 cup panko breadcrumbs in a wide, shallow dish
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat, and set it aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese with the shredded cheeses and a small pinch of salt. Spread approximately 1 tbsp. of this cheese mixture in each of the jalapeno halves.

Combine the cumin, paprika, chilli powder, cayenne, and 1 tsp. salt, and add half of the combination to the flour, and half to the panko. Stir with a fork to combine. Whisk together the eggs and the milk with a pinch of salt in a wide, shallow dish.

One at a time, dredge the filled jalapeno halves in the flour, and shake off the excess. Then, coat in the egg, and finally in the breadcrumbs, making sure that the entire pepper is covered in panko. Place them, cut side up, on the prepared baking sheet. Let the breaded jalapeno halves dry for about ten minutes at room temperature, then repeat the breading process (flour, egg, panko), creating a second layer of breading on the poppers. Place the entire baking sheet in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 F.

Bake the poppers for about 30 minutes, until the outside is crisp and golden and the interior is runny. Serve immediately.

The Pressure to Cook Seasonally

2011-08-23T20:04:00.000-04:00

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am finding that I have some anxiety related to some imagined pressure I feel to take full advantage of seasonal produce. I’ve said it so many times that some might even call it annoying, but I love to cook seasonally. This can be challenging at the end of autumn, in the depths of winter and in the early weeks of spring, especially when one lives in a part of the world where basically nothing grows from October through April. The end of the summer and the beginning of autumn, though, should be a seasonal eater’s dream. Gardens are bursting with the supple red globes of tomatoes, the shiny and colourful skin of peppers, and the slightly obscene shapes of cucumbers, hidden beneath broad green leaves. At farmer’s markets, every table is overflowing with the local harvest, and even at the grocery store, it’s no challenge to find a cornucopia of lovely local produce. So in this heaven of plentiful fresh, local fruits and vegetables, how could I possibly complain?

Sometimes, it just seems like too much. I love the variety of different summer squash I’ve been seeing lately at the farmer’s market, and I imagine what I could do with it, but then oh! Look at those yummy cherry tomatoes—I’ll have to get some of those as well. And then there’s the corn, the eggplants, the cucumbers, the peppers, and the fruit as well. Bright little berries, ripe round peaches that make you swoon when you take a whiff, and richly coloured plums that you know will be the sweetest of the year. I buy it all, and I scramble to use it all up in salads and sauces, omelettes and stir-fries, compotes, and pies. There isn’t always enough time, though, and tragically, some of that beautiful seasonal bounty seems to always be lost to rot.

The solution is simple, of course: only buy as much food as Andrew and I can eat before it will go bad. Maybe don’t buy every possible squash next time, and also, perhaps it would be best to get raspberries or blackberries, rather than both. When I do that, though, I always feel as though I’m missing out. It’s as if I’ve let some golden opportunity slip through my fingers by not snatching up every delicious fruit or vegetable that catches my eye. This is the source of my anxiety.

What I’m trying to do is to find some middle ground. I try to buy the best stuff, and then I look for different ways to enjoy it. Sometimes this means eating the produce as-is, sometimes it means discovering new ways of preparing fruits and vegetables, and sometimes it means returning to favourite recipes again and again because I know how well the showcase these beautiful fresh foods.

Going back to favourite recipes and repeating them does not necessarily mean that they will be the same each time. Recipes can be adjusted and altered to utilize whatever is on hand at that moment. Strawberry season is just about done here in the Pacific Northwest, but peach season is in full swing. This means I can go back to that old favourite, Strawberry Shortcake, but with a peach-y twist. I, for one, was not surprised at all to learn that peaches go equally well with sweet whipped cream and dense, flaky shortcake as strawberries always have.

Any strawberry shortcake recipe could be adjusted to use different fruits, but at the moment, I’m partial to this one from Food & Wine magazine. It’s specifically a peach shortcake recipe, which, of course, could be turned into an anything shortcake recipe … even strawberries!

Peach Shortcake with Vanilla-Peach Whipped Cream
Adapted from Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2011, p 300
Makes one 9” x 13” cake

2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus more for buttering the dish
6 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tbsp. milk, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups plus ¼ cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup peach schnapps, divided
8 peaches, cut into wedges
1 cup heavy cream
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375. Generously butter a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs with the milk until frothy. Add the 1 1/3 cups of sugar; beat at high speed until the mixture is thick and pale, about 5 minutes.

In a bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture; fold in the melted butter until incorporated. Spread the batter in the prepared dish; bake in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes, until golden. Transfer to a rack and let cool.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the remaining ¼ cup sugar with a ½ cup of the peach schnapps. Stir in the peaches and let stand at room temperature for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a bowl, whip the cream with the confectioner’s sugar, remaining ½ cup of peach schnapps and the vanilla until firm. Cut the shortcake into squares and serve with the peaches and whipped cream.

Pasta with Tuna and White Beans

2011-07-20T12:10:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that it has been a few posts since I offered an original recipe, so I’m thinking that it’s about time that I do so. The timing is perfect, because I recently made a pasta dish with tune and white beans that I was quite pleased with. It started as one of those I-have-nothing-planned-for-dinner-let’s-see-what-I-have-in-the-kitchen nights. What I found was some multi-coloured rotini, canned tuna, canned cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and nutritional yeast.

Nutritional yeast is kind of an oddball health food product, a crunchy powder made from brewer’s yeast. It’s nutty and a little salty and is delicious sprinkled on top of a lot of dishes, so I thought I’d finish off my pasta dish with it. I wound up not using it, but it’s still a viable candidate to complete this recipe with. Instead of the nutritional yeast, I sprinkled breadcrumbs I had left over from the garnish for the Chilled Avocado Soup on top of the pasta. I loved the breadcrumbs in this: they added flavour, colour and, texture.

I also added sliced onions, broccoli florets, and garlic to the dish. This recipe makes for a healthy meal, considering the tuna, the beans, and all the vegetables. I used tri-colour rotini for pasta here, but I’m sure whole-wheat pasta would be good here as well.

In terms of technique, I basically combined everything but the pasta together in a large skillet while the pasta was cooking. Some of the pasta water served to add some moisture and flavour, as well as to help bind everything together. As I have started doing every time I cook pasta, I did not drain the pot when the noodles were ready. Instead, I used a pasta lifter to pull the rotini right out of the pot, and into the skillet. This way, starch remains on the pasta and it binds better with the sauce or other ingredients.

I served this in shallow bowls, and finished it with a little salt, a light drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs. The results were tasty and satisfying, a diverse meal in one bowl. The recipe is versatile as well: you could play with different types of pastas, different vegetables, and different beans. And perhaps you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s hard to beat a delicious meal that comes together in under half an hour!

Pasta with Tuna and White Beans
Serves 2

½ lb. tri-coloured rotini
Salt
2 tbsp. olive oil, plus more for finishing
½ medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup broccoli florets, blanched and shocked
½ pint cherry tomatoes
1 5 oz. can tuna, drained
1 15 oz. can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Spicy Paprika Breadcrumbs (recipe below)

Heat a large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil. Cook the pasta in it until al dente, about eight or nine minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until softened and translucent, about six minutes. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about one minute. Add the broccoli cook until it begins to turn bright green, three or four minutes. Add the cherry tomatoes, and cook until skins begin to crack, and then stir in the tuna and beans, and allow them to heat through, another two minutes or so.

When the pasta is cooked, add a ladle or two of the starchy pasta water to the skillet. Use a pasta lifter to take the pasta out of the water, and add it to the skillet. When all the pasta has been added, leave the skillet on the heat for a minute or so to allow everything to cook together.

Serve the pasta in shallow bowls and finish with a light drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkle of breadcrumbs.

Spicy Paprika Breadcrumbs

1 4x4x1/2-inch slice soft white sandwich bread with crust
1 tbsp. butter
¾ tsp. paprika
¼ tsp. coarse kosher salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Finely grind bread in food processor. Melt butter in medium non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumbs to skillet; stir until golden, about 1 minute. Add paprika, coarse salt, and cayenne; stir until breadcrumbs are crisp, about a minute longer. Transfer to a small bowl and cool.

Two Chilled Avocado Soups

2011-07-16T12:36:00.000-04:00

If I haven’t already made it clear, allow me to do so now: I am a soup fanatic. I love to eat it, I love to make it, and I love that there are many different styles of soup, each with its own process and technique, and each wide open to numerous possibilities. There is rarely a time when I would say no to a hot, steaming bowl of delicious soup.

Except, that is, for in the middle of summer, when the weather itself is far too warm for me to want to consume anything hot and steaming. The simple solution? Cold soup! There are the classics, like vichyssoise, gazpacho, and borscht, but just like hot soups, there are many, many different variations of chilled soups. And what better candidate could there be as the main component of a cold soup than the rich and creamy avocado?

I recently tried out two different chilled avocado soups with completely different flavour profiles. The Chilled Avocado Soup Shots with Spicy Breadcrumbs from the June 2010 Bon Appétit was simpler from an ingredients standpoint, and focused more on the avocado itself. The Spicy Avocado-Cucumber Soup in the 2011 Food & Wine Annual Cookbook, on the other hand, had more ingredients, and had more flavour complexity.

Soup number one—BA’s soup—was a simple matter of pureeing four ingredients (avocado, broth, heavy cream, and lime juice) together in a blender, seasoning it, and putting it in the fridge to chill. I also made the breadcrumbs, which were toasted on the stovetop with melted butter, paprika, cayenne, and salt.

I appreciate the simplicity of this recipe. If you want a soup that showcases avocado, this is the one. I even went so far as to tweak this one to use a little more avocado, and a little less cream. I mean, the avocado is creamy enough on its own, isn’t it? Another note about this recipe: be sure to use a very mild-tasting broth. Anything with too strong of a flavour will easily overpower the avocado. You may even want to use half broth and half water.

Soup number two—F&W’s soup—was also simple to put together, though it involved more ingredients. As per the recipe’s instructions, I made this one in the food processor.

This soup includes cucumber, avocado, Thai green curry paste, sugar, lime zest and juice, Serrano chile, water, and coconut milk. Let me tell you: I loved this recipe. I loved the coolness that the cucumber added, and the sugar, while working to balance out the spiciness, seemed to make the cucumber’s delicate flavour pop. I liked the hint of spiciness from the curry paste and the chile. The heat is definitely not overpowering, just a subtle tingling that comes with the aftertaste. I loved the sweetness and the richness that the coconut milk added as well. This recipe seemed very Thai to me, especially with the balance between the hot (curry and chile), sour (lime), sweet (sugar, coconut milk), salty (salt), and plain (cucumber, water). I’ll bet that some chopped and salted peanuts would make a great garnish to this soup.

A quick note on making this recipe: I halved the recipe, and it barely fit into my 11-cup food processor. The original doesn’t say anything about this, but I’ve added a note in the recipe below that if you are making the full amount, you will need to purée it in batches. Another note about this recipe: it is raw, vegan, and gluten-free, for anyone who is keeping track!

So which recipe is better? Well, I’d say that’s all a matter of opinion, and depends on what you’re looking for. I have my favourite, but both of these soups have their merits. There’s a lot more summer left, and plenty of time to try both these recipes, as well as many, many other variations on the cold soup.

Chilled Avocado Soup Shots with Spicy Breadcrumbs
Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine, June 2010, p. 75
Makes 8 small glasses.

Soup
1 large ripe avocado (or two, if using less cream), halved, pitted, peeled, diced
1 ½ cups (or more) MILD vegetable broth or low-salt chicken broth (or, ¾ cup broth and ¾ cup water, depending on how strong your broth is)
¼ cup heavy whipping cream (or 1/8 cup if using two avocados)
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
Kosher salt
Breadcrumbs
1 4x4x1/2-inch slice soft white sandwich bread with crust
1 tbsp. butter
¾ tsp. paprika
¼ tsp. coarse kosher salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Place diced avocado in blender. Add 1 ½ cups broth, whipping cream, lime juice, and a big pinch of salt. Puree until smooth. As necessary, add broth by ¼ cupfuls to thin soup to desired consistency. Taste and add salt to season, if necessary. Cover and chill at least 2 hours. (Soup can be made up to 24 hours in advance.)

Finely grind bread in food processor. Melt butter in medium non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add breadcrumbs to skillet; stir until golden, about 1 minute. Add paprika, coarse salt, and cayenne; stir until breadcrumbs are crisp, about a minute longer. Transfer to a small bowl and cool.

Pour about 1/3 cup of soup into eight small glasses. Sprinkle each serving lightly with breadcrumbs.

Spicy Avocado-Cucumber Soup
Adapted from 2011 Food & Wine Annual Cookbook, p. 62
Serves 10

*NOTE: In most processors, the ingredients will not all fit in one batch. Half works in an 11-cup processor, so I’d suggest doing the recipe in two batches for this size of processor, and in more batches for anything smaller. If you have a larger processor, keep in mind, you’ll need space for approximately 18 cups of liquid in your processor to do this entire recipe in one batch!

Two 12-ounce cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 Hass avocados, coarsely chopped
2 tsp. Thai green curry paste
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. finely grated lime zest
1 Serrano chile, seeded and chopped
3 ½ cups water
One 13-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
3 tbsp. fresh lime juice
Salt
½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes, toasted
10 cilantro sprigs

In a food processor, puree the cucumbers until smooth. Add the avocados, curry paste, sugar, lime zest, and chile. Process until blended. Add the water, coconut milk, and lime juice and process until smooth. Transfer the soup to a large bowl and season with salt. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about one hour.

Ladle the soup into small bowls or cups. Garnish with the toasted coconut flakes, the cilantro sprigs, and serve.

One final note: A really nice touch to any chilled soup is to place the dishes you will be serving it in into the fridge fifteen minutes before you’re ready to plate. This will make the dishes as icy cold as the soup, and the soup will seem even more refreshing!

Not Your Grandmother's Dinner Roll: Cilantro-Scallion Bread

2011-07-03T20:26:00.000-04:00

One of the many reasons why I love cooking from food magazines: when I am using a recipe from one and see another recipe right next to it that I absolutely must make at that moment. This is what happened last weekend as I was working on the marinade for the delicious Green Shawarma Salmon in this July’s Bon Appétit. Two pages later, there is a recipe for Cilantro-Scallion Bread that immediately tempted me. The picture was enticing as well: swirls of golden bread, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and filled with something green. I had extra cilantro left from the salmon recipe, I had scallions in the fridge that I needed to use up, and I always keep ingredients to make bread on hand, so how could I not try this recipe out?

If you’ve ever made cinnamon rolls before, you’ll find the process of making this bread familiar. If you’ve never made cinnamon rolls before, don’t worry, because it’s a pretty simple procedure. Start with making your dough, and proofing for about an hour and a half, until it doubles in size.

My dough proofed a little more slowly than the recipe said it would, but I think that’s because my yeast is getting old. So, if you’re using older yeast, expect the proofing to take longer. Another note: I halved the recipe, which is always a little bit risky when it comes to bread because the chemistry is so delicate. In baking, when scaling recipes up or down in size, one is supposed to use a system using percentages so that proportions stay as precise as possible. I was lazy about it this time, and simply halved everything, and it worked out fine, so if you want to make six rolls instead of twelve, go ahead and do the same.

Meanwhile, you can make the filling, a combination of scallions, cilantro, sesame seeds, and olive oil. The recipe calls for both black and white seeds, I only had white, and yet, the sky did not fall, so use what you’ve got. Once your dough has proofed, roll it out into a rectangle, and then spread the filling over it to cover it.

Here is where your memories of cinnamon roll making will come rushing back to you, if you’ve got them. Roll the dough up tightly. Next, slice the roll into ¾” slices. Use a very sharp knife, or use a good serrated knife, one that won’t tear the dough to shreds. A dull knife will squish your roll down, tear the dough, and leave you with some very unhappy looking swirls. Your hopefully-happy swirls can then be transferred onto a baking sheet, get brushed with olive oil, and then into the oven they go.

In half an hour, they should come out golden brown and ready for dinner. The addition of eggs, sugar, and butter make this a rich bread, but I didn’t find it to be overly sweet or fatty. It had just the right amount of richness to compliment the flavourful filling and the nutty sesame seeds. I don’t normally serve bread with fish, but like I said, this recipe called to me while I was making salmon, and so I made an exception. The two recipes complimented each other well, and the meal was excellent. But how could any meal involving freshly baked bread not be excellent?

Bacon Faro

2011-06-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

I debated with myself whether or not I should add the word “risotto” to the end of this recipe’s name. Though the end result is undeniably risotto-like, the method is not strictly a risotto method, and so, I don’t think it quite deserves the title. But what’s in a name, right? This is a delicious recipe I created that would work equally well as a side or a main course. I was inspired by the bacon-infused faro I sampled off a friend’s plate at Anchovies & Olives recently, as well as the quarter pound of bacon that I needed to finish up. It was all in all one of those look through the refrigerator, find a bunch of stuff that needed to be consumed, and throw it in there-type situations. So, I’d encourage you to get creative and do the same if you find a number of half-finished items in your fridge, like the cup of chicken stock, one half of an onion, and almost empty bottle of wine I found in mine.

I started by chopping up the bacon and rendering the fat over low heat until it crisped up. You could keep all that beautiful, bubbly, golden fat in the pan, but I chose to pour some of it off, because a quarter pound of bacon does render a quite a bit of fat. Next, I added half a diced onion, and let that sweat for a bit. Then, some garlic and red pepper flakes.

At this point, I added the faro, and stirred it to get each grain covered with fat and distributed evenly throughout the rest of the ingredients. Then, in went about a half cup of wine, which I stirred until it had almost completely reduced and been absorbed. Up until this point, my technique was very much a risotto technique: sweat some primary ingredients, stir in the grain and get it coated in fat, and then add a small amount of liquid. Here, though, is where I departed from a risotto method. I did not painstakingly stir in a little liquid at a time, waiting for it to be absorbed, before adding more, and standing over the pot the whole time, ensuring that each grain was cooked evenly. Nope, I decided to keep things simple, and I threw in the rest of the liquid (I used a combination of chicken stock and water), brought it up to a simmer, covered the pot, and let it cook away.

To finish the dish, I went back to my risotto roots again. Once the faro had been cooked through, I stirred in some butter and parmesan, giving the dish just a touch more richness to complete it. Also, it’s worth noting, I used a little bit more liquid than I needed to cook the faro through, so that there was still some liquid left that had become thick with starch and rich from absorbing all the wonderful flavours in the pot.

What I was left with was a very risotto-like faro dish tasting of bacon, and a hint of garlic and spice. I made it as a side-dish, but it would be more than substantial enough as the main component of your dinner. I ate it with a feeling that I had made a great discovery, some well-hidden secret that Italian chefs don’t want you to know: you can make something that looks, tastes, and acts a lot like risotto with about half the effort. Who knew?

Bacon Faro
Serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 as a main course

¼ lb. bacon, chopped
½ medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup faro
½ cup dry white wine
2 ½ cups chicken stock (or a combination of stock and water, or just water)
1 tbsp. butter
½ cup finely grated parmesan
Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat a wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan, over medium-low heat. Add the bacon and cook it, stirring it occasionally, until the fat has been rendered and the bacon is very crispy. Pour excess fat from the pan until about 2 tablespoons remain. Increase the burner to medium, and add the onion; sweat it until it is soft and translucent. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for one minute.

Increase the heat slightly, and then stir in the wine. Let the wine simmer away until it has reduced and has been almost fully absorbed, stirring constantly. Stir in the stock, water, or stock and water combination. Bring the liquid to a simmer, cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid, and reduce heat to low. Cook until the faro has been completely cooked through, about 45 to 50 minutes.

When faro has been cooked to the desired tenderness, turn off the heat, and stir in the butter and parmesan. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

My Favourite Salmon Recipe

2011-05-24T15:11:00.000-04:00

After several consecutive days of sunshine and relative warmth, Saturday was cool, cloudy, and occasionally drizzly here in the Seattle area. Despite this turn for the worst in the weather, I had a lovely day. Andrew and I spent the morning wandering around the Redmond Farmer’s Market and buying ingredients for a decidedly summery dinner, and then we got tamales and ate them while watching the market’s live entertainment. During the afternoon, a friend and I scoped out a couple of wineries and distilleries that were having release parties, and I got a bottle of Soft Tail’s crisp, clean vodka. Then, it was home again to rebel against the weather and put together that summer-invoking meal. I made something I have made many times before, but, incredibly have never blogged about here.

Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, Andrew and I have been consuming a fair amount of the wonderful wild salmon that is so plentiful around here, and I have come up with my absolute favourite way of preparing it. The dish consists of three complex (not really) layers of multi-textured goodness that all work together in perfect harmony (yes, really). Layer one: the spice rub.

The rub I make that differs slightly each time, depending on my mood and what I have on hand, but always with the same general flavour profile. If I had to name it, I would call it a chilli-chipotle rub. I use quite a bit of regular chilli powder, chipotle chilli powder, and paprika (often smoked), along with some garlic powder, cumin, salt, and a little cayenne. I rub most of it on the salmon and let that sink in for about ten minutes.

The next layer is really just an extension of the first, a way of taking those same flavours from the spice rub and transforming them into something creamy and cool. Allow me to introduce layer two: chilli-chipotle crema.

Layer two is so simple, it’s almost embarrassing. Or maybe it’s beautiful in its simplicity. Either way, it opens the door to a whole array of possibilities for the use of plain old sour cream. All I do here is mix the remainder of the spice rub with some sour cream, and add a few drops of lemon juice for a bit of brightness. Lime juice would work as well. I’m tempted to puree some avocado in with it too—I’m sure it would be outstanding. But before I get too distracted with the multitude of crema possibilities, I had better move on to layer three: caramelized onions.

So actually, I lied; step three is usually not caramelized onions. In the past, I have always made crisp-fried shallots, and they have always been a magnificently successful layer three for this salmon. This time, though, I guess I was feeling adventurous and I decided to throw caution to the wind and try something different. I bought some sweet Walla Walla onions at the market that morning, so I sliced them up and caramelized them. I did not regret the deviation from my usual routine: the caramelized onions were savoury-sweet, a perfect finishing touch to a favourite meal. The shallots are good too, though, so I’ll give instructions for both options below.

To cook the salmon, I pan-sear it and finish it in the oven. This is my favourite way to cook a piece of fish: it gets a lovely caramelized layer of crispness on the outside, while remaining soft, moist, and flavourful on the interior.

I usually serve this with some kind of rice (this time, brown), and a vegetable side. In this case, I took full advantage of the start of asparagus season by roasting some with olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs.

I have given this recipe out to several people, and they have all come back with stories of success, both on the cooking and the eating fronts. It’s a recipe I know I will come back to again many times, because it always makes for a good ending to any day.

Chilli-Chipotle Rubbed Salmon with Crema
Serves 4

1 lb. onions, preferably sweet OR 2 shallots

If caramelizing onions:
1 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
Pinch sugar

If frying shallots:
1 tbsp. flour
Vegetable oil for frying
1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. chilli powder
1 tbsp. chipotle chilli powder
2 tsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
2 lb. salmon fillet, skinned, and pin bones removed
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp. lemon juice

If caramelizing onions: thinly slice the onions. Heat a sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the butter and olive oil. Once the butter has melted, add the onion, and toss. Cook slowly over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. After about fifteen minutes, stir in the salt and sugar. Continue cooking until the onions have turned a deep golden colour, about 25-30 minutes total. Set aside.

If frying shallots: in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat ½” vegetable oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Meanwhile, thinly slice the shallots and toss with the flour. When the oil is hot enough, add the shallots in in batches, being careful not to overcrowd the pan. They will crisp up in about a minute. When they do, remove them with a slotted spoon to a paper towel, and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare the spice rub by combining the chilli powders, paprika, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and cayenne. Gently rub about two-thirds of the mixture onto the nicest-looking side of the salmon. Let it sit at room temperature for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, combine the remainder of the spice rub with the sour cream and lemon juice. Taste the crema and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Heat a large, heavy, oven-safe skillet (preferably cast-iron) over medium-high heat. Add 1 tbsp. olive oil. Slice the salmon into four even portions. When the oil is shimmering, place each of the salmon fillets in the skillet, spice-rubbed side down, being gentle with the delicate fish. It should sizzle as it hits the skillet. Do not move the fish once it is in. After about twenty seconds, reduce the heat to medium.

Continue cooking on the stovetop for about four minutes, until about ¼” of the salmon has gone opaque, looking at a fillet from the side. Place the skillet in the oven, and cook for about four more minutes. Remove from the oven and check for doneness. If you are not used to cooking fish, use a thermometer: it is recommended that fish be cook to 145 F. We like our fish a little less done than that, and probably go a few degrees lower, but do so at your own risk, and only with fish you know is fresh. Once you are more accustomed to cooking fish, you won’t need the thermometer and will be able to check for doneness by sight and feel.

Serve the salmon topped with a couple tablespoons of the crema, and some of the onions or shallots.

On a Whim: Spaghetti al Limone

2011-05-18T01:21:00.000-04:00

I tend to be a planner, and this applies very much to my cooking habits. Most of the time, I take time out of my weekend to plan out meals for the week ahead. I try to incorporate variety into the seven meals, use up ingredients I have around, and keep things exciting and mouth-watering. By doing this instead of winging it and coming up with dinner on the day I eat it, I save money by not buying a lot of ingredients that will go bad before they are used up, I eat healthier by having a plan, and I save time by not having to figure out what to cook every day. Sometimes, though, I get a whim that I just can’t ignore. When I get a craving—or, we could call it an inspiration—like this, I’ll often give in to it. I never regret it when I do.

This happened to me recently. I was reading another blogger’s post and she mentioned the spaghetti al limone she had recently, and suddenly, dinner had been decided. The rich, yet, somehow, almost refreshing taste of this pasta dish was what I wanted. Fortunately, like many Italian masterpieces, the recipe is incredibly simple, and I already had all of the ingredients on hand. I say, it was a sign.

A lemon, some parmesan, white wine, heavy cream, butter, spaghetti pasta, salt, and pepper are all that’s required. A note on parmesan: good food deserves good parmesan, so don’t skimp out and buy any of the pre-grated stuff, or—heaven forbid—that white powder that Kraft likes to call parmesan. Is this the good stuff pricey? Yup, it sure is, but it’s totally worth it. Keep in mind that you only use a little at a time and it keeps really well, so you won’t have to buy it often. Or, you can do what I do, and buy the ends. A lot of grocery stores will do this: they will sell the ends of the parmesan wheels and other odd little pieces in bags for about half the price they sell the big chunks for. The quality is the same; you’re just not getting one solid, perfect piece.

I used this recipe from the New York Times as a guideline, but made some modifications. A few things in the recipe’s directions don’t really make sense, so I think I’ve written a clearer recipe here. Like I said, though, it’s pretty straight-forward. To start, reduce wine and with lemon zest and some juice until the flavour is concentrated and the consistency is syrupy. Then, incorporate the cream into the reduction.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted water. When it is finished, do not drain it! Use a pasta lifter to lift the cooked spaghetti right out of the water and into the pan containing the cream sauce. With a toss and maybe a little extra pasta water, you’re almost done. Finish it off with some butter and plenty of parmesan.

Finally, plate it simply in a shallow bowl and top with a little more parm and a few grinds of fresh black pepper. In about half an hour, dinner is served, and inspiration is realized.

Sometimes, plans are good. They keep life organized, and they keep you on the right track. But you can’t always follow the plan, and that’s a good thing too.

Spaghetti al Limone
Adapted from The New York Times, January 31, 2007
Serves 4

1 lemon
1 ½ cups dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream
1 lb. spaghetti
3 tbsp. butter, cut into pieces
4 oz. freshly grated parmesan cheese
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Zest the lemon into a large skillet. Juice the lemon, add about a tablespoon to the skillet and reserve the rest. Add the wine to the skillet. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Let the liquid reduce by about three-quarters, until it has a thicker, more syrupy consistency. Keep a close eye on it—you don’t want it to over-reduce, and this will happen quickly.

Once the desired consistency is reached, remove the skillet from the heat and gradually stir in the cream. Put it back on the heat and allow it to come to a simmer again and reduce by about a quarter. Stir in the rest of the lemon juice. Season with about a quarter teaspoon of sea salt, and a quick grind of black pepper.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large pot of salted water until it is al dente. When it is cooked, turn off the heat and do not drain it. Use a pasta lifter to lift the spaghetti right out of the water and into the skillet containing the sauce. Set the skillet over low heat and toss to coat the pasta with the sauce. If the combination is looking dry, add a little bit of pasta water. Drop the butter in and sprinkle with most of the parmesan, reserving a little for garnish. Toss again and add pasta water if necessary. Taste and season with salt, as needed. Plate in shallow bowls and finish with a dusting of parmesan, and a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.

A Little Unusual: Ramen with Tuna

2011-05-06T22:02:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, a recipe looks so unique, I feel absolutely compelled to try it. An unexpected combination of ingredients just has a way of drawing me in. I love it when this happens, when I am surprised by an idea I never would have thought of before. This was the case with a dish described in this May’s Bon Appétit. The recipe was not so much a recipe as a few lines describing how to throw together this quick meal in a brief feature on different uses for canned tuna. This one was tuna with ramen.

So here’s the general idea: store-bought kimchi-flavoured ramen is combined with tuna, vegetables, herbs, and egg to make a more complete meal. I have a soft-spot for instant ramen, but I don’t allow myself to have it often because of the multitude of sins it commits against a healthy, natural diet of whole foods. One glance at the ingredients list will tell you how heavily processed this stuff is, and skimming the nutritional facts will quickly indicate that having this every day would not be wise. Still, a bowl of those salty, slurpy, scrumptious noodles every once in a while is fine by me, and the idea in Bon Appétit seemed like an improvement on having the soup as-is.

This is not the first time I’ve heard of adding other ingredients to store-bought ramen , but it was certainly the first time I had heard of adding tuna. I started by warming sesame oil in a pot with a dash of red pepper flakes.

Next, BA suggests adding some diced vegetables: carrot, pepper, onion, broccoli, and garlic would all be good. I was feeling lazy, though, and decided to omit the extra veggies. Instead, I added the tuna. I used half of a five-ounce can for my one bowl of ramen. Then, I stirred in the flavour packet from the ramen. Actually, I stirred in about three-quarters of the flavour packet—I never find it necessary to use the whole thing.

When the tuna had warmed up, I added vegetable stock and the ramen noodles, and brought it to a boil. Then, I threw in some herbs (basil and cilantro, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand), and cracked an egg into the hot liquid. My thought here was that I would poach the egg, as the BA recipe suggests, but I’m not sure if this is the best method. It takes a while for the egg to cook through this way, and by the time it’s done, the noodles start getting mushy and over-cooked. I would suggest beating the egg a bit first, then adding it in so that you get more of an egg ribbon effect.

So the final results? It was good, but way too salty. I really have to talk about the salt here, because it was a major issue for me. These instant ramen soups are always high-sodium (this one boasts 1021 mg of sodium for HALF the bowl!!!), but I found that this one tasted even saltier than usual, and I didn’t even use the entire flavour packet. I used tuna with no salt added and a low-sodium store-bought stock. My suggestion to reduce the sodium even more: use only half the flavour packet, and use either salt-free homemade stock or just plain water.

What I loved about trying this recipe out, was that it made me want to try out other combinations with ramen. What about a broccoli stir-fry with shrimp ramen? Or chicken ramen with vegetables and bacon added? I figure, if instant ramen is something I’ll only allow myself every once in a while, I might as well make the most of it.

Cooking My Way to a Better Day

2011-05-01T19:22:00.000-04:00

It had been one of those days. There was no one to blame but myself, really. I was in a bad mood, and I had allowed it to affect everything I did. Each small annoyance dragged me down, and by the time I got home from work, I was fed up. Have I mentioned that I started a new job recently? I’m a barista at a coffee shop in Redmond. It’s a great place: we roast all of our coffee ourselves, and the café has a unique, rustic atmosphere. For the most part, I like the job, but this had just not been a good day for me. So, of course, I needed to cook.

I wanted something that would cook slowly, preferably in a large pot, and would require the building of layers of flavours, filling my apartment and my nostrils with calming, enticing aromas. The gumbo in this May’s Food & Wine magazine seemed like just the ticket. The recipe comes from Andrew Zimmern of the TV show Bizarre Foods, and had a lot of components that appealed to me. Not only did this gumbo contain oysters, crab, and andouille sausage, but the broth was built with chicken stock, clam juice, and Worcestershire sauce, all of which sounded absolutely delicious. Also, and on this day, probably most importantly, it would require me to make a dark roux. This was exactly the kind of slow, meditative cooking that my mood demanded.

If you have never cooked Cajun food before, you may have never made a dark roux. It is a long, painstaking, and often frustrating process. Do not try to do this in a hurry: it will take as long as it needs to take. Like any other roux, it starts with the combination of equal parts fat (in this case, vegetable oil) and flour. This combination is heated and darkened gently as you stir it constantly or at least once every 15 seconds or so. But don’t let it burn! If black spots start appearing in your roux, you have burned it, and you must start over.

So how long does it take? Well, here is where Mr. Zimmern and I seem to disagree. You are looking for a deep, dark brown color in your roux. His recipe says that this will take 15 minutes. For me, it took 50 minutes, and this is how long it normally takes me. Other recipes I have read suggest the same. Roux can also be made in a 350 F oven, allowing you to go about your business while it cooks, but to me, this just seems like cheating. I like the process of standing over the pot and stirring, and on this day, I needed it.

So as I lovingly made my roux, coddling it into rich, dark submission, I took the time to think, to relax, and to meditate. As the toasty and slightly sweet scent of the roux developed and began to embrace me, I thought about my day, and how I could have made it better for myself. I thought about how much I have to be grateful for, and how many reasons I have to not waste a moment of precious time with negativity. I thought about how something so simple, like making this gumbo, could bring me so much pleasure, and how this was yet another thing to be thankful for. I looked forward to when Andrew would get home and we would enjoy it together. I could vent to him about my day, and let the problems that had seemed so troublesome at the time, shrink into nothingness, quickly forgotten.

Once the roux is made, the rest of the process mainly involves combining the remaining ingredients and letting it all simmer for an hour or so. The oysters and crab are added at the last minute so they don’t become tough and overcooked.

After making the gumbo, I had a better evening, and then a better day after that. Yesterday was fantastic: the weather here in Seattle was stunning. I went out to Georgetown where Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks was doing a book signing. I cannot wait to sink my teeth into her new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day. After that, I wandered around Pike Place Market in the sunshine, had one of the best cappuccinos I’ve ever had at Local Color Café, then met up with Andrew and some friends for dinner at Serious Pie.

It’s easy to let a bad day get the best of you, but with a little effort, it isn’t too hard to have a good day either. And sometimes, all it takes to change a bad mood is time spent cooking.

Andouille, Crab, and Oyster Gumbo
Adapted from Andrew Zimmern in May 2011 Food & Wine
Serves 8

½ cup flour
½ cup vegetable oil
1 lb. andouille sausage, sliced ¼-inch thick
3 large celery ribs, cut into ½-inch dice
1 onion, cut into ½-inch dice
1 red or green bell pepper, cut into ½-inch dice
1 habanero chilli, minced and most seeds discarded
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ lb. okra, sliced ¼-inch thick (I am not a fan of okra, so I omitted it and replaced it with extra bell pepper, which worked out great)
2 tsp. dried thyme
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp. filé powder (find it in the spice section)
5 cups chicken stock
3 cups bottled clam juice
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 large tomatoes, finely chopped
1 lb. lump crabmeat, picked over
2 dozen shucked oysters in their liquor
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, stir together the oil and flour until smooth. Cook over low-to-medium heat, stirring constantly or at least every 15 seconds, until the roux has turned a dark, chocolaty-brown colour, about 50 minutes. Alternatively, place the flour and oil combination in a 350 F oven for an hour or so, checking often, until it has reached the desired color. Add the sausage, celery, onion, bell pepper, habanero, garlic, okra (if using), thyme, bay leaf, and half of the filé powder. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent. Stir in the stock, clam juice, Worcestershire, and tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally.

Stir in the remaining filé powder and add the crab, oysters, and their liquor. Simmer gently for a minute or so, until the oysters have just cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over rice, or with bread.

So there's this salad ...

2011-04-16T21:16:00.000-04:00

So there’s this salad. It’s a simple salad, but it tastes like a stroke of genius. I’m a little obsessed with it. It’s the perfect combination of crispy and crunchy, salty and sweet, acid and fat, with just a touch of bitter.

As with most recipes, there is more than one way to make it. The original idea came from the Montreal restaurant, Macaroni Bar. I’ve never been there, but two of my husband’s aunts (my aunts-in-law?) have, and after eating this salad there, they made sure they got the recipe. I have to say, I am very glad they did, because I think my life would be just that much darker without it. Yes, it’s really that good. Have I mentioned how lucky I think I am to have family members who love to cook as much as I do? The original has a base of arugula and pears, but I like to do it with arugula and cherry tomatoes as well.

This salad, as with most salads, really is all about the dressing. It’s about the right ingredients, the best quality ingredients, and the perfect proportions of each. So, remember these three—yes, only three—ingredients: white balsamic vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, and honey.

Of course, there is salt and pepper as well, and parmesan. You can’t leave out the parmesan. It’s all about the parmesan … OK, it’s all about the dressing and the parmesan.

To make the dressing, combine two parts olive oil to one part balsamic, and a teaspoon or a little less of honey. Whisk, taste, adjust, and season with salt and pepper. You know the drill.

After tossing everything together, season with some more salt and pepper. It’s best to use coarse salt, like kosher or sea salt, because getting a bit of salty crunch in there just puts this salad over the edge. If you have a fancy salt that you never know what to do with, here would be a great place to feature it.

Finally, serve it alongside a delicious meal. Or, have it as its own meal. Trust me, a bite or two of this, and you won’t want to eat anything else.

Arugula Salad
Adapted from Macaroni Bar, Montreal
Makes about 4 side salads

1 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
½-1 tsp. honey
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
3 oz. arugula (preferably baby arugula)
1 Bosc pear, thinly sliced OR 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup (or more) freshly grated parmesan

Combine the white balsamic and the honey. Whisk in the olive oil, taste, and season with salt and pepper. If necessary, add more vinegar, honey, or olive oil, as needed.

Toss together the arugula and pear or tomatoes. Toss in the vinaigrette and parmesan. Sprinkle on some additional salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

A Competition, an Internship, and a Graduation

2011-04-03T14:01:00.000-04:00

I’ve left you sitting on the edges of your seats, I know. Tales of my pre-competition preparations and jitters were a promise to reveal what became of it all, a promise that you might think I have broken. I haven’t, though: I have lots to tell. The past two months have been eventful for me.

First, the competition: great success, or embarrassing failure? Neither, really. I would describe the experience as a great personal success, although I did not place in the competition. To be honest, I was just happy I finished. Those three hours of cooking were more challenging than I had imagined, mainly because of what the mystery boxes contained. As you know, I practiced for this competition, but I wasn’t prepared for this:

-A live Dungeness crab
-A whole, bone-in lamb shoulder
-Two quail
-1 lb. sweetbreads
-A fennel bulb
-1 lb. Yukon gold potatoes

As you can see, there is no chicken on that list. You also might notice that there are not four or five ingredients: there are six … and four of them are proteins. Keep in mind that we were only to make three courses using these ingredients, and one of those courses was dessert. They’re not simple proteins, either. Two of them, some would argue, take more than three hours of cooking to prepare properly (the lamb shoulder and the sweetbreads), but I suppose that was just part of the challenge. I had never worked with sweetbreads before, and only had a vague idea of how to prepare them. It turned out, I wasn’t the only one—the competitor who came in first was the only one who really knew what to do with them. The black box was full of curve balls, to say the least, but we each made the most of it. I made a composed salad of crab, quail, and tomato for my appetizer, seared lamb au jus, with fennel and Yukon gold purée and braised sweetbreads for my main, and individual berry tarts with a berry reduction for dessert.

Curve balls or no, I am glad that I competed. I am proud of myself for finishing, and for having three complete courses to present on time at the end of the three hours. If I had to do the competition again, I would do some things differently, but that was the point of taking the plunge and doing this: to learn. I learned about time-management, sweetbreads and butchering lamb shoulder. I also learned more about what judges are looking for in culinary competitions, and what is important to them, and what is not.

In other news, I completed my culinary school internship. I was lucky enough to get to work at one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle, Chef Holly Smith’s Café Juanita. The restaurant features Northern Italian cuisine and uses almost entirely local, organic, and seasonal product. Interning there was my first venture into being in a fine dining restaurant’s kitchen, and it was an eye-opening experience. Holly is obsessively committed to quality; each item that leaves her kitchen must meet her high standards. Thanks to this, she has an excellent, award-winning, nationally recognized restaurant.

As an intern, I was on the bottom of the totem pole. I worked four days a week, ten or more hours a day, doing basic prep: stemming thyme, dicing turnips, cleaning greens, shelling crab, and so on. I got to do a few more interesting things, like making some of the basic sauces and curing guanciale and pancetta, but the highlight of the stage was from observing and talking to people. I learned a lot just from watching the line during service, asking questions, and trying to soak in as much information as possible. I was only there for about a month, but it was a month I won’t soon forget.

And, oh, yeah, I finished culinary school. I am now finally, officially, a culinary school graduate, ready to venture out into the big, scary world. Yay! It’s a good feeling to be done. What I will do next is still up for debate, but I hope good things are to come. The future looks delicious.

Black, Black Box: Competition Preparation with Stuffed Chicken Legs

2011-01-30T15:05:00.000-05:00

In a flash of overconfidence, mixed in with a little insanity, I have decided to enter a culinary competition. I’ll be entering with one of my classmates from culinary school, but we’ll be competing individually. It’s a black box challenge: we’ll be given a mystery box containing four or five ingredients, probably one or two proteins, one or two vegetables and/or fruits, and a starch. We will have three hours to create a three-course meal, highlighting these ingredients and utilizing others provided in the kitchen. I’ll admit it: I am terrified. My classmate and I have been practicing and trust me, three hours goes by a lot faster than you’d think. To be honest, my goal at the moment is just to finish the competition, never mind coming up with anything I would be proud to present.

All right, so maybe I am selling myself a little short. I know that I can do this, I just need to be mentally prepared. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few tricks up my sleeve either, which is why I have been practicing a number of dishes that I plan to pull out if I am given certain ingredients. One protein that I am likely to get is chicken, mainly because it is cheap, and also because you really need to work with it in order to produce something really tasty. If I do get a chicken, it is likely that I will make Ballotines de Poulet, an impressive little composition consisting of a deboned, stuffed chicken leg, braised in a rich sauce. It’s a very classic, culinary school-type dish that, most importantly, tastes really good.

The stuffing is a combination of sautéed carrot, celery, and shallot, mixed with breadcrumbs and eggs. The legs are then tied up to give you neat, sort of sausage-like, chicken rolls. The rolls are browned in a hot pan, then set aside while you work on the braising sauce.

The sauce is a rich combination of golden mirepoix, wine, brown stock, tomato paste, and thickened with beurre manié, a raw combination of butter and flour. The chicken then gets returned to the pan, and it braises in the oven for half an hour. The braising liquid keeps it moist, tender, and flavorful.

When the chicken is cooked through, it is set aside while the final sauce is prepared. The braising liquid is strained into a clean pan and reduced. Lardons (bacon that has been blanched, then crisped), sautéed pearl onions, and sautéed mushrooms are then added to the sauce, and it is served with the sliced chicken.

As you can see, I also served mine with pan-seared Brussels sprouts this time, but I wouldn’t do that in the competition. In fact, I have since made this dish again in a competition practice, and made some minor adjustments to save time, and refine the dish a little: I didn’t thicken the initial braising liquid with the beurre manié. The final sauce was reduced slightly, seasoned, and then monté au beurre, meaning finished with the addition of raw butter. It made for a wonderful sauce, not heavy at all, but rich and with a deep, savory flavor.

I may not do perfectly on this competition, but at least I’ll be going in there with a few ideas, and a few things I know I can do. No matter what happens, it will be an experience worth living, one I’m sure I won’t regret.

Ballotine de Poulet (Stuffed Boneless Chicken Legs)
Adapted from Professional Cooking, 6th ed., by Wayne Gisslen
Serves 4
4 chicken legs, skin on, thigh and drumstick pieces attached
1 oz. shallot, finely chopped
½ oz. carrot, finely chopped
½ oz. celery, finely chopped
½ oz. butter
2 oz. fresh white bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper

1 fl. oz. vegetable oil
2 oz. onion, small dice
1 oz. carrot, small dice
1 oz celery, small dice
5 fl. oz. white wine
1 oz. tomato paste
2 cups brown stock (dark chicken stock or beef stock)
1 oz. beurre manié* (optional—use if you prefer a thicker sauce, rather than a thinner reduction)
Salt and pepper

(If making it Grandmère-style)
3 oz slab bacon
2 oz pearl onions
4 oz. button mushrooms
2 oz. butter (if not using the beurre manié)

Debone the chicken leg by slicing carefully along the thigh and drumstick bones. Gently scrape the meat off the bones, trying to keep the meat as much in one piece as possible. When possible, remove the bone completely from the meat. This video gives a decent demo.

Sweat the shallot, carrot, and celery in the butter until softened. Cool. Combine with the breadcrumbs, and add just enough egg to make a soft, but not to wet consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the bone cavity of the chicken legs with the stuffing, then roll up the legs to enclose the filling. Use butcher’s twine to tie the rolls securely.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat the oil in a large, shallow pan. Brown the legs on all sides, then put aside. Add the onion, carrot, and celery to the pan and cook until golden. Deglaze with the wine, and reduce until it is almost all evaporated. Stir in the tomato paste and stock, and bring to a boil. If using, drop in the beurre manié in small pieces.

Return the chicken legs to the pan; the liquid should come no more than halfway up the sides of the chicken. Bring it to a boil, then place, uncovered, in the oven for about 30 minutes, until cooked through. Baste the legs occasionally with the braising liquid. Remove the legs from the liquid and tent with foil. Strain the braising liquid into a clean pan, and reduce to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper. At the last minute, swirl in the butter, if using.

If doing the Grandmére garnish, cut the bacon into batonnets, about ¼” wide, and 1 ½” long. Place them in cold water and bring to a boil, then drain. Fry them until golden brown, then saute the onions and mushrooms in the bacon fat until golden.

Remove the string from the chicken and slice neatly, pouring the sauce around it. If using, garnish with the bacon, onions, and mushrooms.

*equal parts butter and flour

In Defense of Legumes: White Bean Stew

2011-01-20T14:36:00.000-05:00

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I like cooking with legumes. They can be the basis for some excellent dishes like this one and this one; they pair beautifully with curry, and they can be turned into some delicious dips. The truth is, though, if you took my favorite legume-based dish and matched it up with my favorite meat-based dish and asked me which one I liked more, meat would win, hands down. Meat adds fat, flavor complexity, and texture to a dish. It should be eaten sparingly, but also, with great enjoyment. So, when I decided to make white beans stewed in tomato sauce for dinner a few nights ago, I hoped it would be good, but I expected that it would not have the same depth and richness that a meat-based stew would have.

Before moving on, let me qualify this belief: first of all, if what I really crave is the multi-layered pleasure of eating meat, is it really true that I enjoy legumes, that they are, in fact, one of my favorite types of ingredients to work with? I’ll answer by explaining that the reasons why I enjoy cooking with and eating legumes are very different from the reasons why I enjoy cooking with and eating meat. While meat adds fat, flavor complexity, and texture to a dish, legumes tend to compliment other delicious flavors, rather than add their own. They don’t have all that much flavor by themselves, but they work as an excellent canvas for other ingredients and distinctive aromatics.

Now, getting back to my white bean stew: I had seen recipes for white beans cooked in tomato sauce a number of times before, so I decided to make my own version. I figured if I made a good tomato sauce and cooked the beans in it, I would have myself a decent meal. Maybe not as exciting as something like the Ragu Bolognese I made recently, but good enough for a healthy, simple (in flavor, not so much in preparation) Thursday night dinner.

Well, let’s just say that I vastly underestimated the potential for flavor development without any animal protein. The basis for my stew was pretty simple: sweat mirepoix, stir in some garlic, red pepper flakes, and dried herbs.

I stirred in some tomato paste and let that cook a little, then I deglazed with white wine. I stirred in a can of tomatoes, some water, and my soaked white beans. Once that got simmering, I added some sugar, salt, and pepper. I also added a few ingredients that I think helped developed a more intriguing flavor profile than a basic, meatless tomato sauce: some smoked paprika, a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, and a glug of balsamic vinegar.

The paprika adds a bit of spice, and a whisper of smokiness; the Worcestershire adds seasoning, and a hint of something dark, almost meaty, and the balsamic adds a little acid, a little sweetness, and that deep, caramel taste this vinegar embodies.

I stewed it for about an hour and a half in my enameled cast-iron pot, lid on until the final twenty minutes. In that last bit of cooking time, I tasted and seasoned a lot, working toward the rich, satisfying stew I wanted.

I threw in some chopped fresh basil at the last moment, and served it with faro. I think the stew would work well with any grain, preferably a whole grain, because I think that not only does the stew stand up well to the heartiness of whole grains, but even needs that backbone of something stronger than white rice or white pasta.

The dish was a total success—I was really pleased with the results. Meat may impart flavor and richness that all-vegetable protein can’t match, but legumes encompass a whole different eating experience, one that shouldn’t be brushed aside.

White Beans Stewed in Tomato Sauce
Serves 4
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 carrot, ¼” dice
1 celery stalk, ¼” dice
1 medium onion, ¼” dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. each dried basil, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and oregano
2 tbsp. tomato paste
½ cup dry white wine
1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
1 ½ cups water (or, fill the tomato can halfway with water to get any remnants of tomato on the sides of the can)
1 cup dry white beans (white kidney beans, cannellini beans, or great northern beans), soaked 8-24 hours
½ tsp. smoked paprika
½-1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1-2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil

In a large, enameled cast-iron pot (or any heavy-bottomed pot with a tight-fitting lid), heat the oil over moderate heat. Add the carrot, celery, and onion and sweat for about eight minutes, stirring often, and being careful not to brown the vegetables. Stir in the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook a minute longer. Stir in the herbs and tomato paste, and cook a few minutes more, until the tomato paste begins to take on a rusty color and sticks to the bottom of the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high, and add the wine. Let that cook down almost until it is gone, scraping the bottom of the pot as it reduces.

Stir in the tomatoes, water, beans, paprika, Worcestershire, balsamic, sugar, and a little salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, then cover and let it cook for an hour or a little more, stirring and tasting occasionally. When you stir, break the tomatoes up with your spoon. Season with salt and pepper as you go. In the final twenty minutes of cooking, let the stew simmer uncovered. Taste frequently, adjusting with salt, pepper, sugar, Worcestershire, and balsamic to suit your tastes. Try a bean; make sure it has softened enough. If not, keep cooking until the beans have reached the desired consistency (put the cover back on if this is taking a long time—you don’t want the stew to reduce too much).

Stir in the basil, and remove from heat. Serve hot with faro, wheat berries, barley, brown rice, or whole wheat pasta.

A Cleansing Relief

2011-01-12T21:09:00.000-05:00

It’s pretty much a cliché by now: January arrives, and after a week or two of celebrating, heavy eating, and drinking more than usual, many make resolutions to exercise more, eat healthier, lose five pounds, etc. I don’t want to bore you with another tale of holiday over-indulgence leading to some half-hearted promise to become a healthier me. While I certainly did eat more and exercise less during the last half of December, I think that in general, I have a pretty healthy lifestyle, and I don’t see any reason to change much: I try to eat smartly, exercise regularly, and drink moderately, while still enjoying the pleasures of food and drink as much as I can. So, when January rolled around, it would seem logical that I would simply return to my regular, health-conscious habits, right?

This year, that didn’t quite feel like enough. I wanted something a little more, something to kick-start me back into those regular habits again. At Christmas, my aunt told me about what she does a few times a year when she wants to rid her body of the toxins of over-indulgence, or even of everyday life: she does a cleanse. For about a week, she told me, she cuts everything out of her diet that she believes might be possible irritants to her system: processed foods, gluten, refined sugar, fruit, caffeine, and alcohol. She eats a lot of vegetables, legumes, some lean meats, and drinks plenty of water.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical: it sounded a lot like a diet (as in, a strict dietary regimen that one follows temporarily in order to lose weight, or otherwise improve one’s health), and I am not a fan of diets. I am a firm believer that the key to physical health is to make lifestyle changes, not to temporarily follow an unrealistic diet that will only prompt over-eating once the diet is finished. But my aunt’s cleanse is not really like this. The point of the cleanse is not specifically to lose weight, it is to give your body a chance to rid itself of toxins and irritants. It gives internal organs like your liver and kidneys, which normally have to work hard to filter out anything potentially harmful to your body that you ingest, a break and a chance to clear out and clean up. This part of the concept made a lot of sense to me: a brief period with as few irritants and toxins as possible, then back to my regular, realistic, but still healthful eating habits. So, I decided to give it a shot.

I started last Tuesday, the morning after Andrew and I got back to Seattle from Montreal. (We arrived late Monday night, exhausted and famished, so we ordered pepperoni pizza and garlic bread sticks—talk about the exact opposite of what I planned on eating for the next week!) My own cleanse was a little different from my aunt’s, based on my own body. I cut out as much processed food as possible, refined sugar, gluten, white rice, dairy, meat (except for a little fish), anything fried, caffeine, and alcohol. I have been eating lots of vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and drinking lots of water. After dinner each night, I take a milk thistle supplement, an herb known for its beneficial properties to the liver, and which is often taken in conjunction with a cleanse. A few explanations:

-I saw no reason to cut out fruit: fruit is so full of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, it almost seemed harmful to eliminate it. I didn’t gorge myself on fruit, either, though—it is high in sugar.

-I decided to eat pretty much vegan (cutting out meat and dairy), not because I believe animal products (in moderation) are unhealthy, but because I think that my body could benefit from a break from them. I did have a small amount of fish, though.

-Gluten: I wasn’t sure about this one. While to most people, there is nothing unhealthy about gluten—in fact, products made from whole wheat flour are high in fiber and very good for you—your body does have to work a little harder in order to digest and process that gluten. So, again, I decided my body could benefit from a period without.

A few things I have been eating so far:

-Roasted beats drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a little sea salt
-Brown rice pilaf with Edamame beans and flax seeds
-Vegetables dipped in homemade hummus
-Roasted nori, sprinkled with sea salt
-Oatmeal drizzled with maple syrup
-Trader Joe’s Organic Whole Grain Drink (a really delicious creamy, milk-like beverage)
-Soup of mixed beans, barley, kale, and cabbage
-Quinoa pasta with mixed vegetables and tuna
-Quinoa pasta with sage and roasted butternut squash
-Yogi Detox tea
-Lots and lots of water: plain water, and water with lemon
-Diced avocado tossed lightly with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and sea salt
-Detox shake of spinach, apple, banana, garlic, cayenne, lemon juice, and water (surprisingly delicious and satisfying!)
-Shake of whole grain drink, banana, and ground flax seeds

Everything I have listed above truly is tasty and satisfying. Could I eat this way for the rest of my life? No way. I don’t even know if I could handle a month of it: there are too many things I would miss too much. In fact, this diet is probably lacking in some of the essential nutrients that keep me healthy, so while this diet is beneficial, and even enjoyable, for the very short-term, I don’t think it would work for the long-term. Not for me, anyways.

Maybe I’m being hypocritical by saying that I’m not for weight-loss diets, but I am willing to do, and believe in, a cleanse diet. They aren’t quite the same thing, but some of the concepts are similar: they are both temporary food regimens in order to improve one’s health in some way. Hopefully, mine will have the desired effect of cleansing my body, and I will be able to adjust right back into my usual, health-conscious, but still deliciousness-conscious diet easily. Or, maybe I’m just kidding myself.

Some websites of interest:
I’m not the only one with the idea to cleanse in January: Bon Appétit has a Food-Lover’s Cleanse outlined for readers. It’s more lenient than mine, but lasts longer.

I got a lot of ideas from a website called Just Cleansing. It offers a good overview of why and how to cleanse.

True Ragu Bolognese

2010-12-12T13:10:00.000-05:00

I want to share a dish I made way back in September, when the tomato season was just coming to a close, and weather for hot, savory comfort food was just beginning. The dish was something I had made many times before, but in a different form. In this other form, I think it can only be called “spaghetti sauce”: a combination of canned tomatoes, ground beef, onion, garlic, and various herbs, simmered for maybe an hour or so, then served over spaghetti pasta with parmesan on the side. I think that most North American families have some form of this recipe, and it is almost always a favorite. This time, though, I decided I wanted to do it right, or, more accurately, do it traditionally. I wanted to make a true ragu Bolognese. This is probably something that few non-Italians can describe correctly. I, myself, am no expert, but thanks to a little research and some experimenting, I think I can cover the main points. Here’s what you need to know: a true ragu Bolognese has tomato in it, but it is not a tomato sauce. It also has milk in it, but it is not a cream sauce. It has a good amount of meat in it as well, but it is not a stew. Its true nature is a thick, savory, luscious sauce that is suffuse with incredible flavor, and is a perfect balance of creamy and acidic.

I also decided that I wanted to really make the sauce and all of its components from scratch, so instead of using canned tomato sauce, I made my own with tomato sauce from the farmer’s market.

I also bought one-pound of bottom round and ground it myself in my food processor.

Were these steps necessary? Well, no, you can make an excellent sauce using a good-quality canned tomato product, and high-quality ground beef from your butcher, and you’ll save yourself a couple of hours. I liked knowing that everything was as fresh as you can get it, and that my own skills were really responsible for everything in that sauce. So, if you have the whole afternoon to make your Bolognese, and tomatoes are in season (don’t bother if they aren’t), I’d recommend making your own sauce and grinding your own meat.
Deb at Smitten Kitchen showed how to make a great tomato sauce, and this video will give you a good idea of how to grind your own meat. Don’t forget to keep that meat cold at all times!

I looked through a number of “true” ragu Bolognese recipes, but ended up using directions from Mario Batali here. Don’t just follow the recipe—watch the video. That’s where he explains the true techniques and why to employ them. I didn’t follow his recipe exactly, though—I made a few small changes.

To start, I followed Batali’s advice and sweated mirepoix in an enameled pot in butter and olive oil, keeping the heat around medium-low, and really trying to evaporate the water out of the vegetables. Listen to the man: this is not a sauce you can rush if you want to make it correctly.

For the meat, I used only ground beef, which worked out wonderfully, but I’m sure that the combination of pork, veal, and beef he suggests would be fantastic. Again, I made sure that I really rendered that meat, melting all the fat, cooking out all the liquid.

Now, here’s where I departed from Batali’s method the most: instead of using only tomato paste, I couldn’t resist using some of my lovely, homemade tomato sauce as well. So, I only mixed in a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, let that cook for ten minutes or so, then added two cups of my tomato sauce, and let that reduce by about two thirds.

Then came the milk, then the wine, each reduced down separately so that they can impart their flavors adequately.

I covered the pot, and let it cook for a couple of hours. Then, I added some fresh rosemary, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Finally, I combined it with parmesan and cooked spaghetti, creating a magnificent little piece of Italian heaven.

You may be thinking to yourself, is this really worth all the time it takes? Do I really want to spend several hours making some kind of glorified spaghetti sauce? The answer to both this questions is a definitive yes. This sauce exemplifies the concept of developing flavor over time brilliantly. The resulting ragu has so much complexity, so many wonderful flavor notes, that you will know as soon as you taste it that you could never make anything like this in only a half hour. Also, this is nothing so banal as “spaghetti sauce”: this is ragu Bolognese.

Ragu Bolognese
Adapted from Mario Batali at Savory.tv
Serves 4-6

5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp butter
1 carrot, finely diced
1 medium onion diced
1 rib celery finely diced
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 ½ lbs. good quality ground beef
2 tbsp. tomato paste
2 cups excellent tomato sauce
1 cup milk
1 cup dry white wine
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Leaves from one sprig of rosemary, chopped
Parmigiano-Reggiano, to grate
1 lb. spaghetti, cooked in salted water

In a 6 to 8-quart, heavy bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and sweat over medium heat until the vegetables are translucent and soft but not browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add the beef and stir into the vegetables. Add the meat over high heat, stirring to keep the meat from sticking together until browned. Add the tomato paste, and cook, stirring, for ten minutes or so, until the tomato paste has caramelized. Add the tomato sauce and let that reduce by about two thirds. Add the milk, and allow that to reduce down until it is nearly gone. Do the same with the wine. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Stir in the rosemary, then season with salt and pepper, to taste, and remove from the heat.

When ready to use, the cooked pasta should be added to a saucepan with the appropriate amount of hot ragu Bolognese and Parmigiano-Reggiano, and tossed so that the pasta is evenly coated by the ragu. Serve with more Parm on the side.

Spaghetti Squash Two Ways

2010-10-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

This probably isn’t news to you: it’s fall and winter squash are in season. For many of us, the yellow, orange, and green colors, and the savory-sweet, nutty flavor of winter squash go hand in hand with leaves changing colors and sandals getting pushed to the back of the closet until next June. There are so many possibilities: acorn squash roasted to perfection with butter and maple syrup, butternut squash pureed into a spicy, comforting soup, and, of course, sweet pumpkin filling a perfect pie and topped with whipped cream. This week, though, I decided to tackle spaghetti squash.

If you purchase a spaghetti squash and wonder how it got its name, the answer will become evident as soon as you cook it. Grab a fork and begin to scoop the seemingly solid flesh of the cooked fruit, and it will immediately pull away from the shell in vermicelli-like golden threads. It’s kind of fun, and allows for a whole new realm of possibilities that other types of squash don’t offer. Unlike other varieties, spaghetti squash are not ideal for pureeing, which, though not the only preparation of winter squash, it must be the most common. You can actually treat these strands of squash as you would pasta. There were so many opportunities for experimentation, I knew I couldn’t choose only one. So, I tried two different methods for cooking the squash, and two different methods for preparing the flesh.

Night one was spaghetti squash with meat sauce. I cooked the squash using the method that was the quickest, and most commonly used in the recipes I looked at: steamed in the microwave. Now, the word “microwave” is normally an immediate deal-breaker for me—I use my microwave for reheating, not for cooking. Also, the microwave methods all involved wrapping the squash in plastic wrap, a practice that did not seem safe to me. The box may read “Microwave Safe”, but I usually steer clear of putting any plastic in the microwave—we don’t know enough about what may get leeched out of the plastic during the cooking process, and what kind of harm that may do to us. All of that said, I was intrigued enough to try this quick and easy method that so many recipes recommended. So, after halving the squash and scooping out the seeds, I turned half of it flesh-side down in a glass dish, added a quarter cup of water, covered it in plastic wrap, and microwaved on high for 12 minutes.

Well, it certainly worked: the squash came out fully cooked, and pulling away from its shell in beautiful, individual strands, just as it should. I added some salt, pepper, and a dash of olive oil and set it aside to work on my meat sauce.

I kept my sauce simple. I didn’t cook it for as long as I would cook a Bolognese, and I think it kept the flavors simpler and fresher, perfect for allowing the taste of the squash to come through. It was a basic combination of some local, grass-fed beef, mirepoix, garlic, wine, canned whole peeled tomatoes with their juice, and various herbs and seasonings. I let it cook down for about forty minutes: just long enough to let it concentrate a little and to bring out the flavors of the herbs.

I mixed the cooked squash with the sauce, scooped it back into the shell, topped it with Parmigiano-Reggiano, and baked it for about half an hour to allow it to concentrate just a little more. I loved this combination: the squash and the herby tomato sauce, along with the earthy taste of the grass-fed beef made me think of harvest, wet, fallen leaves, and the comfort of hot food on a cool night. In other words, it tasted like autumn.

On night two, I opted for a more classic cooking method for the squash, and a simpler preparation of the final product, more of a side dish than a main course. This time, I roasted the squash in a 375 F oven. I brushed a baking sheet with vegetable oil, sprinkled the halved squash with salt and pepper, placed in face-down on the sheet, and baked for about thirty-five minutes.

Need I say more? Just looking at that deepened color, and the golden edges of that squash told me right away that this method had produced a richer, more flavorful product than the steamed version. The rest was pretty simple: I melted butter in a hot sauté pan, added the squash strands and tossed it for a couple of minutes, allowing a little more of the liquid to cook out of it. I sprinkled it with a little more salt and pepper, and added a dash of nutmeg. It made for an unexpectedly light side dish, highlighting the combination of savory and sweet that makes squash so delicious and versatile.

These were two of many possible preparations of spaghetti squash. I liked both, but in the future, I will definitely be roasting my squash rather than microwave-steaming it. Try one of these recipes, or make up your own. You should do it soon, though: the squash season will be over before you know it.

Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce
Serves 4

1 tbsp. olive oil
8 oz. ground beef, preferably grass-fed
Salt and pepper
½ cup ¼” diced onion
¼ cup ¼” diced carrot
¼ cup ¼” diced celery
1 tbsp. minced garlic
¼ tsp. dried red pepper flakes
½ cup dry red wine
1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, with juice
1 tsp. ketchup
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. dried oregano
1 spaghetti squash, halved, seeds scooped out
¼ cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

In a medium enameled cast-iron casserole, or a large, heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the ground beef season with salt and pepper. Brown until no pink remains. Use a slotted spoon to transfer beef to a side dish. Reduce heat to medium, and add the onion, carrot, and celery to the drippings. Sauté until vegetables have softened and onion is translucent, about ten minutes. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook one minute longer.

Return the beef to the pot, and increase the heat to medium-high. Add the red wine and deglaze, scraping the bottom of the pan. Stir in the tomatoes, ketchup, and dried herbs. Simmer for forty minutes, stirring occasionally, and breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

Meanwhile, place the squash, cut side down in a large, glass baking dish. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the dish, then cover tightly with microwave-safe plastic wrap. Microwave on high for about twelve minutes, until shell can easily be pierced with a fork. (Alternately, roast the squash using the method in the recipe below.) Using a fork, pull the flesh of the squash away from the shell, separating it into strands.

Stir the squash strands in with the finished sauce, taste, and season with salt and pepper as necessary. Scoop the squash and sauce into the emptied shells, and top with Parmigiano-Reggiano. Place on a baking sheet, and bake in a 375 F oven for about 30 minutes, until Parm has melted and browned slightly, and filling is heated through. Cut each half in half, and serve one quarter squash per person.

Butter-Sautéed Spaghetti Squash with Nutmeg
Serves 4

1 tsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 spaghetti squash, halved, seeds scooped out
1 tbsp. butter
½ tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 F. Brush a baking sheet with olive oil. Sprinkle squash with salt and pepper, and place cut side down on baking sheet. Roast squash for thirty-five minutes, until shell can easily be pierced with a fork. Use a fork to pull squash flesh away from the shell into strands.

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat, and add butter to it. When foam has subsided, add the spaghetti squash strands to it. Sauté for a couple of minutes, tossing, and letting some of the moisture cook out of the squash. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

A Friendship Restored and a Curry Recreated

2010-09-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

I reconnected with an old friend this summer. While we were once inseparable pals, we had grown up and drifted apart. Before this summer, we hadn’t spoken in over three years. The realization of this fact is what prompted me to reestablish a connection with this friend—it was too sad to think that after years of being so close, we could have gotten to the point where we weren’t even talking anymore. We met for coffee, the first of a few meet-ups we had over the course of the summer, occasions for long conversations, catching up on what we had missed in each other’s lives during the preceding years. One of the things that we discovered during our conversations was a mutual appreciation for good food and finding interesting local restaurants. So, for our next get-together, my friend brought me to one of her favorite spots, a wonderful vegan restaurant, Aux Vivres.

As with a lot of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, the menu was intriguing, varied, and original. Maybe I just don’t eat out at meat-free places all that often, but I am always amazed at the originality I see on the menus of places like these—tempting combination of fruits and vegetables, beans and sprouts, tofu and tempeh, and grains and seeds. That said, a cursory glance at the menu wouldn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary: it contains salads, sandwiches, some chilis, as well as their famous “bowls” (basically, ingredients thrown together in a bowl), and some meat-free burgers. It is the manifestations of these more or less standard categories that are really worth mentioning. I was tempted by sandwiches of grilled eggplant and hummus, bowls of bok choi, pickled carrot and daikon, coriander, Thai peanut sauce, and grilled tofu or tempeh, and burgers stuffed with Portobello, caramelized onions, and chipotle vegan mayo. They have something called veggielox, their vegan version of salmon lox, to be found on a number of salads and sandwiches. They are also famous for their smoked coconut which supposedly tastes like bacon—you can try it on their vegan version of a BLT. Everything looked great, and I hadn’t even gotten to the smoothies and fresh juices.

I finally settled on a mango lassi and the Chana—a chickpea curry wrapped up in chapati, a South Asian flatbread, a lot like a tortilla. Maybe it was the company, or maybe it was the fact that I had accidentally parked four blocks away and had to walk in the rain, so I was wet and cold and hungry, but it was a memorable meal. The sandwich was wonderful—a hot, spiced, flavorful curry, encased in a thin layer of soft bread. The seasoning of the filling was spot-on. I could taste the complexity of the curry without being overwhelmed by too much spice. I could taste the coconut milk it had been simmered in, and I could tell by the bite they still had that the beans had been cooked from their dry state, not drained from a can. I also loved how the curry was studded with sweet, chewy dates, a perfect complement to the savory curry. I was inspired. As my friend and I chatted about life, and love, and food, I knew that I would be attempting to recreate this dish myself.

Of course, that is exactly what I did. It had been almost two months since I was at Aux Vivres, but the memory of the taste of that curry was still with me when I tried my hand at making it a couple of weeks ago. I used what I know about making curries and what I thought I remembered about this particular one to try to bring it back to life.

I admit, I used canned chickpeas rather than dried ones because the can was already perched happily in my pantry, begging to be made into curry. I also thought the dish would taste good in pita bread, and so, in my quest to make more bread, and because I was still on holiday and I had the time, I made the pita myself. Finally, I didn’t have any dates, but I had some golden raisins, so I used those instead.

The trickiest part was the seasoning: it isn’t easy to match the flavor of something as complex as a curry, but enough time had passed and my memory had faded enough so that I knew I wasn’t going to be too picky about matching what I had had in the restaurant exactly. I used what I had and just tried to make it taste good. I used curry powder, turmeric, cardamom, anise, cayenne, cumin, and poppy seeds. For a more authentic curry, the cardamom should have been in the form of pods, the anise, stars, and the cumin, seeds, but I only had the ground version of each, so they made decent substitutes. I cooked my seasoning concoction in hot oil, and then added a paste of ginger and garlic.

Next came diced onion, carrot, and potato. I added the drained chickpeas and the raisins, then deglazed the pan with a little water. Once that had reduced a bit, I added a can of coconut milk, and let it simmer and reduce until there was barely any liquid left in the pan. As it cooked, I tasted, seasoned, and adjusted.

I would say it was a success. Of course, if I could go back to Aux Vivres now and try the original, I’m sure I could find a hundred things that are different about mine, but different doesn’t necessarily mean worse. Andrew and I agreed that it was a delicious meal, and so I’ve shared it below. We had it with green salad.

I have to thank my friend for introducing me to this restaurant, a tiny reason amongst many larger, more meaningful ones for why I am thankful that she is back in my life. She was at my wedding and it felt right—unlike this recipe, like it couldn’t have been any other way.

**Note: If the pictures seem worse to you than usual, it doesn’t mean you need to get glasses: I can’t use my usual camera, and I’m stuck with one that does not photograph food well at all. My other camera should be back soon, though!

Chickpea Curry
Serves 4
2 tbsp. curry powder (preferably madras curry powder)
1 ½ tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. ground cardamom (or, use 1-2 cardamom pods)
1 tsp. anise (or, use 1 star anise)
½ tsp. cayenne
1 ½ tsp. cumin (or, use 1 tsp. cumin seeds)
½ tsp. poppy seeds
1 tbsp. garlic, minced
1 tbsp. ginger root, peeled and minced
Salt
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, medium dice
2 medium carrots, small dice
1 medium yellow potato, medium dice
2 15oz. cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup golden raisins
½ cup water
2 14 oz. cans coconut milk
Pita bread, tortillas, or chapati

In a small bowl, combine the spices (the first 7 ingredients). Place the ginger and garlic in a mortar with a pinch of salt, and mash together with a pestle to create a coarse paste.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the spice mixture and cook and stir until the spices have darkened and are fragrant, 30 seconds to one minute. Lower heat to medium, add the ginger and garlic, and stir for one more minute. Stir in the onion and carrots, cooking until they have just begun to soften.

Stir in the potato, chickpeas, and raisins. Increase heat to high, and then add the water, scraping the bottom of the pan to pull up the brown bits stuck there. Add the coconut milk and bring the curry to a simmer. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer and reduce until there is only a small amount of liquid left in the pan. Stir frequently, and taste and adjust seasoning as desired.

Serve in warm pita pockets, or wrapped in tortillas or chapati.

Overcoming Skepticism: Fried Squash Blossoms

2010-09-18T16:52:00.000-04:00

Whoever decided to pluck the unopened blossoms from a squash plant, stuff them with cheese, and then batter and deep fry them was a wise individual indeed. This is a fact I discovered recently when I purchased and ate squash blossoms for the first time. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first: I couldn’t imagine that fussing with these delicate little flowers would be worth the end result.

Skepticism sometimes needs to be put aside, though, and I was able to overcome mine when recently, I saw a bright basket of yellow squash blossoms perched on a merchant’s table at the farmer’s market. The price tag was not very encouraging: at six for five dollars, the blossoms weren’t exactly cheap. You need about six to eight blossoms per person if they are to be the main course. I was intrigued, though, and I’m always interested in working with an ingredient for the first time.

A few things I discovered in working with these: they need to be used within a day or two, because they brown and wilt quickly. Also, they need to be handled with care, because the delicate petals of the blossoms will, again, brown and wilt if you treat them too roughly, or touch them too much. Holding them mostly from the bottom where there is a more robust stem tends to work, though.

All right, enough of the negatives, what’s good about working with squash blossoms? Well, once you’ve discovered how to handle them, they are actually kind of fun to work with. I chose a recipe from last September’s Gourmet, Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Ricotta. The recipe involved stuffing the blossoms with a ricotta, parmesan, and mint mixture, dipping them in a tempura batter, deep frying them, and having them with a fresh, chunky tomato sauce on the side. Stuffing them proved to be easier than I had expected: just pry the petals of the blossom gently apart, then fill the space within with the stuffing. Gently twisting the petals will form a light seal to close the blossom up again.

The filled blossoms are then coated in a basic tempura batter. If you have never worked with tempura batter before, a word of warning: it is much thinner than other batters you may have worked with for deep frying, like a fritter batter. It won’t coat whatever you’re frying the way the thicker batters do, but that’s fine: you only want that delicate coating to stay on food.

The blossoms go into half an inch of hot oil (375 F) to fry until golden brown, about three minutes. You should see lots of bubbling, hear lots of crackling, and the blossoms should crisp up quickly.

If not, your oil is not hot enough and you’re going to end up with a soggy end result. When they’re done, take them out with tongs to drain on paper towels. They should be crispy and golden, but the batter should be thin enough that you can see the yellows and greens colors of the blossoms peeking through underneath.

So after all this, was it actually good? Was it worth all the work? In my opinion, yes and yes. I loved how the fried blossom created a delicate, but definite crisp exterior to encase that creamy, savory ricotta filling. They were easy to eat, and would make a great appetizer or main course. Though the blossoms are delicate, the process wasn’t all that tedious after all. As it turns out, I can produce some decent food when I overcome a little skepticism. I think that’s a lesson worth remembering.

Here's that recipe link once again: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Squash-Blossoms-Stuffed-with-Ricotta-354966

Bake Bread

2010-09-15T17:56:00.000-04:00

It’s generally accepted in this part of the world that resolutions—big plans to eat healthier, be more organized, volunteer more, and so on—are made on January 1st. When I was growing up, that never quite felt right to me. I don’t think I’m alone in the feeling that September was a more appropriate time to be making changes: after a summer of fun and freedom, September meant back to school, a perfect time to vow to quit procrastinating, do extra credit work this year, and get involved in that drama club I’m always saying I want to join. Even as I grew older and summers meant getting a job and working most of the hot hours away, September was always a time for a new beginning, an opportunity to resolve to do better and to be better. Today, I’m still going to school, and will be starting up again in a week. As I mentioned in my last post, I have had an eventful summer: I planned a wedding, had a wedding, and now I’m married! I do feel a little like a new person, and so the start of this school year seems an especially appropriate time to start making promises to myself (and now, to you) about how I’m going to be a better new me. I won’t bore you with the list, but I do have one that seems relevant enough to share: bake more bread.

By making my own bread, I will know exactly what is going into my bread (you can never really be sure with a lot of the breads you can buy at the grocery store today—most are full of suspicious-sounding preservatives). Also, baking bread is fun—at least, I think it is. I love the multi-step process of making bread, from mixing, to proofing, to forming, to baking. I love learning about the process of feeding starters, building gluten, and fermenting dough. I also love how the bread-making process always holds a certain level of uncertainty, and how one can never learn everything there is to know about bread. Finally, making more bread gives me an excuse to use some of the wonderful wedding gifts Andrew and I received, notably my KitchenAid Professional 5 Plus Series 5-Quart Bowl Stand Mixer.

I am in love.

To kick off my new life as a regular bread baker, I decided to make a loaf of whole wheat French bread. It’s a basic, straight-forward bread, and seemed like a good starting point. One of the keys successful bread is accurate measuring and, whenever possible using weight measurements rather than volume measurements. Weights are far more accurate, whereas volumes can have some variations.

This dough can be mixed using the straight dough method, which essentially means tossing everything into a bowl and mixing it up—sort of. The rest of the process is your basic knead, ferment, make-up, rest, and bake. If you make bread already, you know the drill. If not, I’ve explained the process in detail below, with pictures.

At the end of the process, you have yourself a beautiful, simple loaf of bread, the kitchen smells amazing, and you have (I hope) passed a relaxing bread-baking afternoon.

Some resolutions are easy to keep.

Whole Wheat French Bread
From Professional Baking 5th Edition by Wayne Gisslen
Makes one 1 lb. loaf

0.5 lb. water
0.4 oz fresh yeast, or 0.2 oz active dry yeast
6 oz whole wheat flour
8 oz bread flour or all-purpose flour
0.3 oz salt
0.07 oz malt syrup or honey
0.3 oz sugar
0.3 oz shortening

First, if using fresh or active dry yeast, dissolve the yeast in warm (100 F-105 F) water.

Then, combine the dry ingredients in the bowl of the mixer. Pour the water and yeast mixture over that, and add the remaining ingredients.

To start the mixing process, use the paddle attachment on mixer to form a somewhat uniform dough.

Once the dough starts to come together, switch to the dough hook. With the hook, mix the dough on second speed for about 10 minutes—until the dough is smooth and elastic. Since this is a whole wheat dough, you won’t be able to get a great window, but it should be done once the dough is quite elastic and doesn’t break quickly when stretched.

Ferment (rise) the dough in an oiled bowl, covered lightly in plastic wrap, for about two hours (at room temperature), until it has doubled in size.

On a clean, floured surface, flatten the relaxed dough into an oval about the length that the loaf will be, using hands and/or a rolling pin.

Then, roll the loaf up tightly, and seal the seam is well.

Flip the loaf over so that it lies seam-side down. Tuck in the ends, and then roll the loaf under the palms of your hands to even out the shape. Place the loaf on a cornmeal-dusted baking pan to proof until it has doubled in size again (the loaf should be covered during proofing).

Before going into the oven, brush the loaf with water, then give it diagonal slashes along the top (this will create a more evenly-shaped loaf).

Bake the loaf at 425 F for around 20 minutes, with steam for the first 10 minutes. “With steam” means exactly what it sounds like: there should be steam in the oven during the start of the baking process, moisture in the air to keep the dough from drying out too quickly. There are a couple of ways this can be done. The way I chose is to place a dish with hot water on the bottom tray in the oven, while placing the tray with the bread above it. This way is simple, and works great.

Another option is to spray water into the oven every two or three minutes using a spray bottle. This way involves less dishes and less moving trays around in the oven, but it also involves a lot of opening and closing of the oven door, which means your oven temperature will not stay consistent.

Once the first 10 minutes are up, the water tray should be removed from the oven, and then baking continues until the crust has a rich, deep brown color.

Summer Pleasures

2010-08-05T12:54:00.000-04:00

It’s summertime, and the living is easy. Actually, the living is quite wonderful. I’m enjoying the season for some of the obvious reasons: warm and sunshiny weather, time off from school and work, lots of festivals going on, and, of course, plenty of local in-season fruits and vegetables. This summer is extra-special for me, though. As I have mentioned before, I am getting married, and it’s happening this summer, at the end of August. I am so excited to be tying the knot, and after a year of planning, it’s amazing to think that the big day is only a few weeks away. To plan for this momentous occasion, I came home from Seattle to my lovely Montreal to spend time with the family, and make final arrangements for the wedding. In the middle of all this, there isn’t enough time for me to get a job, so it has been a summer of happy wedding planning, fun days with friends, precious time with family, and lazy hours drinking coffee and reading on the deck.

All of these summer reunions and celebrations seem to revolve around food. I have cooked meals, gone out to eat with loved ones, and spent hours sitting at the dinner table with friends and family, talking and laughing over many a wonderful meal. Cooking together, eating together, tasting together, and experiencing the joy of food together seems to go hand in hand with enjoying other people’s company. It is one of the many reasons why I am looking forward to a life with food.

A recent celebration of the summer was my Mom’s birthday. To mark the occasion, my sister and I cooked dinner for the family. Now, this was the first time my sister and I had ever cooked together. I should also add that my sister is, like me, in culinary school. It could have gone horribly wrong, and ended in an angry storm of broken dishes, ruined food, and hurt egos. It didn’t, though. In fact, things went remarkably well. As it turns out, my sister and I work very well in the kitchen together. We danced gracefully around each other, working individually on some components, and together on others. We agreed on almost everything, lent one another a helping hand when necessary, and had fun doing it. We spent the afternoon shopping at a nearby market for fresh ingredients. We brought them home and created a memorable meal that was elegant, and not too heavy.

We started with a couple of plates of hors d’oeuvres. I made Roasted Figs with Prosciutto and Hazelnut Picada.

Heather made mini Spanish Spinach and Tomato Pizzas.

They were both memorable, and are definitely bound to be repeated. My figs created a wonderful combination of warm, sweet fruit, paired with salty prosciutto, and nutty-salty picada. Heather’s pizzas were refreshing bites of spinach on perfectly crispy crusts, finished off with crunchy pine nuts.

For our main, we collaborated on an Asparagus and Artichoke Salad with Mustard-Shallot Vinaigrette, a Carrot and Parsnip Puree, and Mushroom Ravioles. The ravioles were on the non-traditional side, as we didn’t close the two sheets of pasta that sandwiched the sautéed mushrooms, but rather left them open, so that it looked a little like a loose lasagna. The concept, from Laura Calder of the Canadian Food Network show, French Cooking at Home, made for a fun presentation.

To finish off our meal, Heather made Lemon Mascarpone-Stuffed Crêpes with Fresh Berries and Honey.

It was a perfect end to the meal: though the mascarpone was rich, this was offset by the tartness of the berries, and the drizzle of honey added just the right amount of sweetness.

We lingered over the meal for well over an hour, sipping our wine, and enjoying each other’s company. It was good for the taste buds, the stomach, and the soul. Happy summer, everyone!

Mushroom Ravioles
From French Taste: Elegant Everyday Eating by Laura Calder, p. 110
Serves 4

1 ½ lbs. mushrooms (Heather and I used a medley of portobello, cremini, and oyster mushrooms)
¼ cup butter
A splash olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
½ cup stock
A generous handful of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, more for garnish
Fresh lemon juice (optional)
3-4 tbsp. chopped fresh dill or sage (we had neither and used thyme—it was lovely)
8 3”x4” sheets dried pasta
Dill sprigs for garnish (again, we used thyme)

Cut the mushrooms into quarters or eights, depending on their size, and set aside. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Pout a tablespoon of the butter into a sauté pan. Continue heating the remaining butter in the saucepan until it turns light brown. Set aside. Bring a large pot of water to the boil for the pasta.

Add a splash of olive oil to the butter in the sauté pan. Set the pan on high heat and when the oil is hot, add the mushrooms, sautéing until slightly coloured, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, season with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the mushrooms are soft, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, season with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the mushrooms are soft, about 4 minutes more. Pour over the stock, and boil to reduce to a couple of tablespoons, a matter of minutes. Stir in the cheese. Taste, check the seasonings, and add a squirt of lemon juice if you think it needs it. Stir in the herbs, and keep the mixture warm while you cook the pasta.

Generously salt the boiling pasta water. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain the pasta, and return it to the pan, tossing with the reserved brown butter. lay a sheet of pasta on each of four serving plates. Spoon the mushrooms onto the pasta. Top with a second pasta sheet. Drizzle over some brown butter from the pasta pan. Garnish with a dill sprig and serve immediately.

Cooking Local: Beautiful Beet Salad

2010-06-24T12:40:00.000-04:00

Seasonal farmers’ markets are something of a novelty for me. I’ve been to permanent markets in Montreal, where farmers sell some of their produce, but they just aren’t the same as the lovely little Redmond Saturday Market that I can walk to from my apartment. Redmond’s farmers’ market runs every Saturday from May through October, and seems to be different each week. There are some constants: the quiet farmer right at the entrance whose produce is all organic, though he no longer carries the USDA organic certification, because he “doesn’t need to pay the government to tell (him) something (he) already knows,” the various food vendors, like the crepe stand, the tamale stand, and the Hawaiian ice stand, the eggs and dairy stand where you can get chicken eggs that were gathered that very morning, and the farmer with long hair that runs all the way down his back, who always tells you what he’ll be selling the following week. What changes, though, is the produce on sale because, of course, as the season progresses, the crops that are ready for harvesting change. I try to go to the market without a plan in mind in terms of what I’ll buy: I purchase whatever inspires me and then I work with that.

Recently, what inspired me were a few items that came together in a salad I have made several times before. I don’t know when exactly this salad became popular, and I’m not entirely sure whether or not it’s still considered “in”, or if it has been demoted to passé status, but it is a favorite of mine. I helped to make it at a wine dinner at my school about a year ago, I’ve had it at Seattle’s amazing Crush restaurant, and I’ve seen it on the menu at several other establishments. I’ve also made versions of it at home, experimenting with slightly different ingredients each time.

The salad in question is a beet salad, made with some kind of green, or often a combination of a few varieties, tossed with a vinaigrette, usually balsamic, and dotted with roasted beets, chèvre, and often some kind of nut, usually walnuts or hazelnuts.

This time, I made mine with farmers’ market spinach, and green beans that I blanched and shocked (dropped into boiling water for about 45 seconds, then immediately plunged into ice water to stop the cooking process), unfortunately not from the market …

… farmers’ market beets, which I roasted and quartered …

… and amazing chèvre (goat’s cheese) that I got at Pike Place Market. I had the opportunity to chat with the farmer who makes the cheese and I got to hear all about how his goats live their lives, which was very cool!

I tossed my spinach and green beans with homemade balsamic vinaigrette, then laid it out on my fancy-schmancy square white plate:

I roasted the beets by wrapping them in tin foil, then tossing them in the oven for 45 minutes. When they were tender, I let them cool for a few minutes, then removed the skin simply by rubbing them with a paper towel—trust me, it comes right off! When the beets cooled completely, I quartered them, and then placed them gently in the salad.

Next, I dotted the salad with some of that amazing chèvre, and drizzled it all one more time with the vinaigrette.

I didn’t use nuts this time, but when I do, my favorites are walnuts. I think this salad is visually stunning, and absolutely delicious. The combination of roasted beets and goat cheese is heavenly. Actually, if you’re not a big fan of beets, but you’re willing to try them again, I can’t think of a better way: this salad will please almost any palette.

I won’t give a proper recipe, because you should definitely try making a version of your own. Try different greens, different vinaigrettes, and different vegetables. Go to your local farmers’ market, and see what inspires you!

Copper River Salmon Gravlax

2010-06-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

It’s Copper River salmon season! OK, if you’re not in or from the Pacific Northwest, that statement probably means nothing to you. If you had said it to me two years ago, I would have had no idea what you were talking about. I have now been living in Seattle since September of ’09, and I have learned, as everyone who lives here does, I believe, what Copper River salmon is and why it is such a big deal.

This is the salmon of—you guessed it—the Copper River in Alaska. The fish that swim in this river must battle a long, cold, and rough journey through it, resulting in salmon that is rich and more flavorful than any other salmon. Another reason for the craze for C.R. salmon is its brief season: it is only available from mid-May to mid-June, so there is always a scramble to get some while it lasts.

This year, I did get some. I bought myself a nice big fish and used it for several scrumptious and simple meals that Andrew and I enjoyed thoroughly. I say simple because when you have good ingredients like this salmon, you don’t need to do much with it: a basic sear and good seasonings makes for a memorable meal every time. I have a chipotle rub I like to make and use on salmon, sear it or grill it, and then serve it up with a dollop of chipotle crema. I also like salmon smeared with pesto, and then baked. To add a little variety to my salmon creations, and to make it last a little longer, I decided to use my last few pounds to make gravlax.

If you weren’t already aware of gravlax, allow me to be the first to introduce you to this delicious creation. It is salt-cured salmon that concentrates all the good flavor of salmon without cooking it and changing it from its beautiful raw state. As long as you use fresh salmon and follow the directions carefully, there is almost no risk of food borne illness, though, I must warn you, that risk always remains. It makes for a visually stunning and delicious appetizer.

Though it takes 48 hours to make gravlax, it is a very simple process, and requires little work on the part of the cook (can I say cook when there is actually no cooking involved?). The process basically consists of covering one fillet of salmon with dill, then a cure mix of salt, sugar, and cracked black pepper.

That fillet is then covered with another fillet, and then the whole thing is weighted down, put into the refrigerator, and then forgotten about for twelve hours.

After twelve hours, the salmon gets turned, and then it goes away again. The process is repeated until 48 hours has gone by when it is finally ready to eat. To serve, slice it thinly off the skin.

You can use gravlax pretty much any way you would use smoked salmon. It is delicious on bagels and cream cheese, or as an hors d’oeuvre, served on a toast round with crème fraiche. You can mix it up a little, and replace the toast round with a mini potato latke like I did here, or with a potato chip. You could use gravlax on a pizza covered with cream cheese, or in sushi.

Whatever you choose, this salmon is sure to look impressive, given its brilliant pink color, its glossy texture, and its delicate appearance when it is thinly sliced. It is perfect to make in the summer since no cooking is involved, and tastes fabulous with chilled cocktails enjoyed on a patio on a hot day!

Gravlax
Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, p. 59

2 fresh salmon fillets (about 3 pounds), center cut and skin on
1 large bunch fresh dill
¼ cup coarse kosher salt
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons crushed black peppercorns

Pat the salmon dry and remove any small bones. Place one fillet, skin side down, in a deep, flat-bottomed glass baking dish.

Spread the dill evenly over the fish. Combine the salt, sugar, and pepper, and sprinkle the mixture evenly over the dill. Cover with the other salmon fillet, skin side up, so that the two flesh sides face each other.

Place a piece of plastic wrap over the salmon, then put a dish over the salmon and weigh it down with heavy cans of food, or bricks, making sure the weight is evenly distributed. Refrigerate for 48 hours, turning the salmon over every 12 hours and basting with the marinade that accumulates, letting it flow between the fillets.

When the gravlax is finished, remove the fillets from the dish, separate the halves, and scrape off the dill and seasonings. Pat dry with paper towels. Refrigerate until served. To serve, place the fillets skin side down on a cutting board and thinly slice on the diagonal and off the skin.

Perfecting Potato Gnocchi

2010-06-01T22:37:00.000-04:00

If you’re a home cook with a penchant for making different, possibly challenging, foods, there’s a good chance you have at least tried to make gnocchi before. You’ve heard people say “Making gnocchi is so easy!”, and, “You’ll have so much fun making your own gnocchi, you’ll never buy it premade again!” Bolstered by promises of the pleasure and simplicity of creating these little potato dumplings, you sought out a recipe from a book from your cookbook shelf, or maybe your favorite recipe website. You start out strong, cooking your potatoes, and lining up your ingredients. Things are still going all right when you mash your hot potatoes with flour and egg to create your gnocchi dough.

Here’s where you hit your first bump, though: the dough is not a dough at all, just a goopy, mushy lump that you can’t imagine will ever be gnocchi. Not to worry, though: just work a little more flour in, and let it absorb some of that excess moisture. Soon enough, you do have a dough-like mass that you can divide up and roll into long strands that you can cut into gnocchi. It isn’t as elementary as your recipe suggests, though: the dough doesn’t roll out easily—it breaks, and is uneven, creating gnocchi of every imaginable shape and size, other than, of course, the perfect little dumplings you desire. There is flour everywhere and all you can think is how certain you are that this will not come out as you had hoped, and how long this will take to clean up. When finally you have a sheet pan of gnocchi in various forms, you get a pot of water up to a boil, and then skeptically dump the little lumps in, hoping for a miracle.

Just as your recipe says, you wait for the gnocchi to rise to the surface of the water, and then remove them to a separate bowl. The first few come out looking all right, but then the gnocchi still in the pot, waiting to be removed, are beginning to disintegrate in the water. You frantically try to get them all out, but meanwhile, those first few are getting covered in the mush you’re pulling from the pot, and beginning to fall apart themselves as the heat from the rest of the gnocchi steams them. What you’re left with is a watery bowl of mashed potatoes, and the feeling that if you can’t make the apparently simple potato gnocchi, what kind of a cook are you?

I use the second person in the story above in the hopes that you, reader, can empathize with me since this is exactly what happened to me the first few times I tried to make gnocchi. After a few failed attempts, though, I started to realize what was causing me problems, and I have figured out a few tricks to make gnocchi that is, I daresay, enjoyable and straightforward to create.

I have provided a recipe below, but the truth is, making wonderful gnocchi is not about having the perfect recipe. Getting gnocchi right is about knowing the right techniques, the right tricks, if you want to call them that, to creating this Italian classic.

First: you will need to cook your potatoes, but do NOT boil them! Boiling adds even more moisture into to your already water-filled potatoes. Instead, bake the potatoes in their skins. They will lose moisture this way and concentrate the starches, which is what you need to hold your gnocchi together.

Next, get the consistency of your dough right, but don’t over-mix it. You do want a dough that is slightly moist, but not overly wet. I find it best to be conservative when adding flour, then continue to work in just enough to get your dough to the right consistency. Be careful about over-mixing, though: mixing develops gluten in the flour, toughening your gnocchi. You want gnocchi that is light and fluffy.

When rolling out the dough to cut the gnocchi, divide the dough into small portions and roll gently, exerting only the slightest amount of pressure to create long “snakes”. Try to cut them into evenly-shaped dumplings, but don’t worry too much about this. As long as they’re roughly the same size, they will cook evenly.

Finally, you need to get the cooking right. Get a large pot of salted water up to a rolling boil, and have a large bowl ready to the side. When the water is ready, add the gnocchi, being careful not to crowd the pot. If necessary, cook the gnocchi in batches. Now, as soon as the gnocchi rise to the surface of the water, remove them using a slotted spoon and place them in the bowl. It’s good to allow the gnocchi release some steam for a few seconds after they’ve been pulled from the water. After a moment, add them to your sauce, which you should have gently simmering on another burner. Once all the gnocchi has been added to your sauce, give it a toss and serve it up right away.

Now, a note on sauces: there are endless possibilities in terms of what sauce you can serve with gnocchi, but personally, I prefer something not too heavy. This time, I made a cream sauce with leeks and bacon, and it was good, but maybe even a little too rich. Gnocchi is fabulous with a braised meat sauce, as long as it isn’t too thick. Small, spring vegetables are also good, or try a fresh tomato-basil sauce.

Potato Gnocchi
Serves 4
1 ¼ lbs. russet potatoes, washed and dried
¾ cup flour
2 eggs
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F. Poke a few holes in the potatoes to allow the steam to escape. Bake until tender, about 45 minutes. While potatoes are still warm, peel, then mash them, or pass them through a food mill or ricer.

Mix in ½ cup of the flour, eggs, salt, and pepper (this is best done while potatoes are still warm) until dough is formed. The dough should be wet, but not too sticky or gooey. Add more flour if necessary.

Roll the dough into two rolls, about 1 inch thick on a lightly floured surface; cut them into ¾ inch pieces. Place the pieces on a sheet pan, lightly dusted with flour.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add the gnocchi. As soon as they rise to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon to a bowl on the side. Serve immediately with sauce.

The Best Risotto I've Ever Made

2010-04-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago, I made the best risotto ever. I wasn’t trying to do anything spectacular—the risotto was just a side dish—but it came out as the most scrumptious, homey, and flavorful risotto I’ve ever had. The rice still had a slight bite, and each grain could be separated, an important attribute to a proper risotto (no mushy rice!). It was also a little soupy, which is not so traditional, but it’s the way I prefer my risotto. By soupy, I mean there was a thin layer of starchy, thickened stock covering the bottom of each bowl, perfect for slurping up when the rice was gone. I could taste the richness of the stock, which paired beautifully with the distinctive flavor of the braised kale I folded in. I finished it with butter (this, also, is very traditional), lots of parmesan, and some freshly-ground black pepper. I think it changed my life. The question was, could I do it again?

A few nights ago, I tried to recreate this earth-shattering rice dish, mainly just by trying to remember exactly what I had done the first time, and repeating it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why when you are cooking without a recipe, you should write what you are doing down as you’re doing it, or right after, if you ever want to make it again. That is what I should have done. Instead, Andrew and I ate our risotto with great enthusiasm, and then melted into globby piles of post-gobbling goo, causing me to completely neglect jotting down notes on what I had done. So when I attempted to do it again, I worked from memory. The first few ingredients were obvious: shallots and garlic.

When I make risotto, I typically start by chopping and mincing these up, and sweating them for a few minutes in oil. This is a great base for your risotto—the oil becomes infused with the shallot and garlic, so that when you then stir in your Arborio rice …

… it gets coated in a flavorful oil. After letting the rice to cook a little in the oil, I deglazed the pan with some white wine (I used a buttery chardonnay—its richness worked really well). Once that had been absorbed, it was time to start adding the stock. Now, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: homemade stock is always better. However, the first time I made this risotto, I didn’t have any homemade stock, so I used store-bought, and, well, see the first paragraph for notes on how gosh-darned good it was. So, I used the same brand of stock the second time around, and it has become my new favorite store-bought stock. It’s called Kitchen Basics, and it comes in a yellow, modest looking carton:

It’s much darker and richer than other store stocks. I recommend it when you haven’t got any homemade. As to adding stock to your risotto, there are two schools of thought. The traditional way is to add hot stock to your rice, the idea being that adding cold or room temperature stock would mean having to cook the rice for longer, since it would take time for the stock to heat up enough to be absorbed, resulting in an overcooked final product. The second school of thought says that adding room temperature (note: not cold) stock works equally well, and saves the time, energy, and equipment necessary to heat the stock. I’m not sure who’s right, but I like to do things the traditional way, so I heat my stock. One day, I’ll have to conduct an experiment to see if it makes any difference! So I stirred in the stock one ladleful at a time (½ to ¾ cup).

Whenever I make risotto, I don’t stir it constantly, but I stay close and stir it often to ensure that the bottom doesn’t stick and burn and that the rice gets evenly distributed throughout the stock. When the stock has mostly been absorbed, I add another ladle of it. I continue to do this until the rice has softened, but is still al dente. Now, for this risotto, a little before this happens, I needed to deal with my kale.

I heart kale. It is yummy and incredibly, amazingly good for you. I washed, stemmed, and chopped a whole bunch of it. I brought my stock (there was only a little left in the pot at this point) up to a simmer, and then added the kale to it, letting it cook down into the stock.

Cooking it this way is amazing, because it gets cooked just the right amount, and any nutrients that escape the leaves in the cooking process turn up in the stock, so they aren’t lost. After about two minutes, I folded the kale into the risotto.

At this point, I tasted my rice again to see if it needed to be cooked more. It didn’t, so I just added a little more stock to get that soupy consistency, and removed the pot from the heat. To finish it, I folded in butter, parmesan, and black pepper. I served it in shallow bowls, and made sure that each bowl got a bit of that thick liquid at the bottom of it.

So, was it just as fabulous as the last time? Well, almost. It’s hard to remember exactly what I did before. Also, when I have a particularly memorable food experience, it is very difficult, usually impossible to recreate it: the memory will always seem better. That said, I did overcook the rice a little this time. The final result was a little mushy, and a little gummier than I would have liked. The problem was that the rice continued to cook after it had been taken off the heat since it absorbed a little more of the hot stock. The lesson: just as you take a steak off the grill just before it’s accurately cooked, take your risotto off the burner when it is just shy of al dente so that it will be perfectly cooked by the time you eat it.

Here’s the recipe—I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Risotto with Braised Kale
Two main course servings
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cup Arborio rice
½ cup white wine (chardonnay is good)
2 cups, or more good chicken stock, heated
1 bunch of curly kale, washed, middle stems removed, and chopped
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup, or more finely grated parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and shallot, and sweat for about two minutes, until the shallot has softened. Add the rice, and stir to coat it completely in the oil. Cook for about a minute, until the germ is visible in the rice (you’ll be able to see a white spot in the center of the grain). Stir in the wine, and scape up anything sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Once the wine has been mostly absorbed, add one ½ cup ladle of the stock. Stir it frequently, ensuring that the bottom doesn’t stick and burn, and that the rice gets evenly distributed throughout the stock. When the stock has mostly been absorbed, add another ladle of it. Continue to do this until the rice is just shy of al dente.

Just before this happens, bring the remaining stock to a simmer in a medium pot. Add the kale to it, and let it cook down into the stock. Stir it for a minute or two, and then use tongs to add it to the risotto. Fold the kale into the risotto, distributing it evenly. Take the risotto off the heat and add one more ladle of stock (if you like it soupy).

Stir in the butter, parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve in shallow bowls, getting a nice layer of thick stock on the bottom of each bowl.

Let’s Hear it for the Local Butcher

2010-04-11T18:22:00.000-04:00

Last time, I talked about my ever-evolving food philosophy. I spoke about how I’m trying to cut down on meat consumption and switch completely to organic and ethical meat sources. I said that I was buying my meat from Whole Foods and PCC, both of which offer organic meat options. Whole Foods, once a smaller organization, dedicated to local and sustainable foods, is now a huge corporation who uses their “green” focus to overcharge customers for products they are made to feel are morally superior to those from the Safeway down the road. By reading the labels on many of their products, indicating places of origin everywhere from California to Australia, they seem to be far less committed to local products than they once were. Now, this is not to say that Whole Foods is not a store worth going to: they do offer great variety and quality in many of their products, especially fish, meats, and cheeses, and if you know where to look, you can get some local and sustainable products. PCC Markets is much smaller than Whole Foods: they have a total of nine locations, all in the Seattle area. They are similar to Whole Foods in their focus on organics, but they seem to be a lot more dedicated to local products, and a better bet for meat that is local, organic, ethical, and sustainable.

Both of these options have their advantages, but neither can beat Bill the Butcher, the awesome butcher shop that just opened up two blocks away from my place. I’m not going to lie: I am ridiculously excited about this place. Their meat is all very local, organic, ethical, sustainable, and, just as important, of very high quality. I’ve been on the hunt for a place like this: a small, local shop where I can go in and talk to the (knowledgeable) butcher about what I’m buying. I’ve been in there three or four times since I’ve discovered it, and every time I’m greeted by an enthusiastic butcher who can’t wait to tell me about what they’ve got in this week, whether it be the exquisite grass-fed beef tenderloin on display, or the impressive wagyu rib steak that just came in.

Last time I went, the new excitement in the shop was the bag of morel mushrooms that just came in. When I say “just came in”, I don’t mean it came on a big refrigerated US Foods truck with a bunch of other produce from California, Mexico, and Chile. These morels arrived in the hands of a man who goes foraging for them in the nearby woods and the mountains and then goes around, selling them to local shops. The butcher, described him as quite a character.

Now, can we just pause for a moment and appreciate the awesomeness of this? I went wandering in to my local butcher shop, thinking of buying some flank steak to serve while my mother-in-law was visiting, and maybe something else for the week ahead, and I left with (among other items) wild morel mushrooms. I want to emphasize how vastly different this experience is from anything that ever could happen in a large supermarket, and that includes Whole Foods and PCC Markets. I didn’t take these mushrooms out of a bin in the refrigerated area of the produce section, picking through dried, broken, and old-looking fungi to select the few edible ones. I didn’t toss a plastic-wrapped package of these mushrooms into a cart filled with every other category of food one could imagine. In fact, these mushrooms were not on display or in visible evidence anywhere in the shop. I only learned about them because I had a conversation with the butcher, and he told me about these morels that they had just gotten. The personal connection was necessary in order to even know that this treat was available, and I absolutely love that. It makes it so special, and this is no small triumph. I believe that food should be special, all the time, and I believe that we should have this personal of a connection to it. I believe in the importance of having the story behind where my food has come from. When you buy food from the big, national supermarket, you don’t get the stories behind what you are buying; at places like the local butcher shop, you do. Does the story make the food taste any better? I would argue that absolutely, yes, it does.

So, along with my flank steak, I left the butcher shop with a few house-made Italian sausages (good enough, by the way, to make you swear off eating any sausages from the supermarket ever again), and a quarter pound of freshly gathered morel mushrooms. A quarter pound may not sound like much, and it isn’t, but (understandably), they were not cheap. The five mushrooms that made up this quantity cost twelve dollars, so I took great care to treat them gently and use them well.

I sautéed them with the sausage, along with some blanched green beans, shallots, and garlic, tossed with whole wheat spaghetti and parmesan. It was a satisfying meal, perfect for the beginning of spring, made special by the knowledge of the story behind what I was eating.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Sausage and Morels
Serves 3-4
¼-½ lb. fresh morel mushrooms, or 1.5 oz. dried morel mushrooms, reconstituted in hot water and drained
½ lb. green beans, rinsed and trimmed
1 lb. Italian sausage, casings removed
1-2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, if necessary
1 tbsp. butter
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 lb. whole wheat spaghetti
½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

If using fresh morels, soak them in a large bowl of cold water for 30 minutes to one hour to remove dirt and any critters in the caps. Do not skip this step! Remove mushrooms gently and dry well with several paper towels. When mushrooms are dry, slice them.

While the mushrooms soak, blanch and shock the green beans: bring a large pot of water to a boil. As it comes to a boil, fill a large bowl ¾ of the way with ice water. When the water boils, dump the green beans into it and boil them for 30 seconds to one minute, depending on how crisp you like your beans. Drain the beans and then immediately plunge them into the ice water. Leave them for about five minutes to cool completely, and then drain them again. Slice the beans on a bias, into halves or thirds. Set aside.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water, and then drain. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and brown until cooked through, 8-10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sausage to a separate dish and tent with foil to keep warm. Add olive oil to the hot pan or remove dripping as necessary to equal two tablespoons of fat in the pan. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the mushrooms and sauté until browned and softened, 4-5 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper, remove from pan, and set aside.

Reduce heat to medium, and add olive oil, if necessary, to equal one tablespoon of fat in the pan. Add the shallots and sauté until beginning to soften, and then add the garlic. Sauté one minute, then add the green beans. Sauté another minute, then return the sausage and mushrooms to the pan. Stir to combine, and then add the cooked spaghetti to the pan. Toss for a couple of minutes until all ingredients are well combined and heated through. Remove skillet from heat, and stir in the Parmesan. Season to taste with salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Why and How I Eat

2010-03-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

All right, so the explanation of the title of this post might seem obvious: I eat because if I didn’t, I would starve, and I do it by placing food in my mouth, chewing, and swallowing. As you may have guessed, this is not what I mean. I want to talk a little about why I eat what I do, as well as why and how I try to be aware of what I’m consuming and take pleasure in having it. I’m not going to get into a lengthy discussion about the problems with the food industry in North America, or the problems with what and how people are eating in North America, because then this post would be much, much too long and I’m sure I would still have more to say on the subject. But I will say this: most of us are not thinking enough about what we’re eating, why we do, and whether or not we should. People are seeking convenience and economy, and dinner has become something we grab from a drive-through window and eat in the car, or throw in the microwave, and devour in front of the television. Meanwhile, the Big Food industry is destroying our planet and destroying our bodies. It is also abusing the animals that produce much of our food, and abusing the farmers who grow and raise our food. This state of affairs will not stand, but very little will change until there are some changes in policy when it comes to the sale and manufacturing of food (the subsidization of corn, for example, needs to end). It’s not all about policy, though, and the vast majority of us need to start making some changes to what we’re eating.

Where I’m getting my information: I’m constantly learning, and I learn from many different sources. I read a lot. I read food blogs and magazines on a daily basis, and I read food-related books regularly, many of which are about food ethics and sustainability. Right now, I’m about a quarter of the way through Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and it’s fantastic. So far, I was more or less already aware of most of the stuff he’s talking about, but he goes into more depth than I’d seen before, so I’m learning a lot. I’m also in culinary school, so discussions with classmates and chefs about food ethics and sustainability is a common thing in my day-to-day life. The more I find out about this stuff, the more I want to learn, the more I want to change my own habits, and the more I want to inform others, and change the world. Honestly, get me started, and I could talk about this stuff all day, which I’m trying very hard not to do in this post.

What I’m eating: My diet, for lack of a better word, is constantly changing and evolving. Lately, it’s been changing more quickly than it had in the past, mainly because I’m learning more about food than ever before. This includes what I learn in culinary school, so culinary fundamentals, techniques, theory, and so on, as well as what I’m learning from the reading described above.

So what exactly are these changes? I’ve started to cut out processed food almost completely (and by processed food, I basically mean anything with more than three ingredients), buying mostly whole foods and making everything I can from scratch. Also, no more fast food. I’m eating a lot more organic foods, but not all. There are some limits to what I believe is worth the extra cost for organic, what I trust as what I believe organic means, rather than the USDA’s definition, but that merits a whole other discussion. I have started buying mostly organic dairy products, though. I’m trying to eat as locally as possible, and if that means no tomatoes in December, then so be it! The biggest change I’ve made is with my meat consumption: it’s gone way, way down. I used to eat meat about five to six days per week. Now, I eat it about two times per week. I’ve also changed the quality of meat I eat: I’m buying only organic and humanely-raised meat (I’m lucky enough to live near a Whole Foods and a PCC Natural Market that allow me to do this), and again, local as much as possible. Also, when I do eat meat, I make the portion sizes much smaller than I used to. The reduction of my meat consumption allows for an increase in fruits and vegetables (I’ve been loving the leafy greens lately), whole grains, and legumes.

These changes happened about as organically as they could: I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to start eating this way. I’ve learned little by little, so I’ve made changes little by little. I sought out more vegetarian recipes, and so I cooked more vegetarian meals. I barely even thought about how much less meat I was eating until after the change had been made. I started trying out different grains and legumes, and now many are regular staples in my pantry. I discovered that if I was eating less meat, I could afford to pay more for local, organic, and humane, and the more I read about it, the more I realized that this was a necessary change if I was going to continue to eat meat at all. I read more labels, and think more before tossing something into my shopping cart. It was easier than I expected to make these changes, and gradually, I know that even more changes will be made.

How I eat: I’m trying to take my time more when I eat. I’m also trying to think more before I put something into my mouth. I’m trying to think about how fortunate I am to have access and to be able to afford more than enough food to sustain me, and this affects the quantity and quality of what I do eat. I try to remind myself that the reason I am eating is to sustain myself, and that eating too much will, in one way or another, hurt me, and also probably hurt others. I also take pleasure in eating. This means taking my time with food, chewing well, and identifying the different flavors contained in it. I try to think about (without obsessing about) what harm or good the food I am eating is doing to my body, and I try to adjust my consumption accordingly. I come from a family where family dinner—all of us sitting around the table each night to eat, to talk, and to spend some time together—was a nightly occurrence. Dinner in front of the television was simply never an option, and I think that we have all benefitted from this, both nutritionally, and in our relationships with each other. Family dinner is actually an important topic to me, and something that I would like to talk more about another time, but I just wanted to mention here that it is something that I strongly believe in.

I feel like I could continue this diatribe for a lot longer, but I’ll end it here because I think I’ve at least given a good overview of my own personal food philosophy. One more thing though: the best way to learn about food, to think about food, and to understand food is to cook food, and that’s why I do it every day.

But enough about me, what are your food philosophies?

Falafel

2010-03-20T12:26:00.001-04:00

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that falafel is one of those foods I used to associate with dreary, unimaginative food courts. Until recently, I had only ever experienced falafel from little Lebanese restaurants in sad shopping malls where I munched on the dry, fried balls of chickpeas that had probably been prepared hours earlier, and had since been losing moisture and flavor under a heat lamp. That said, it has always been a food I took pleasure in eating and that I ordered frequently enough. They were unlike anything I had tasted before.

Well, I have since had better falafel at better restaurants, and I can now better appreciate what falafel has the potential to be: a simple, unassuming combination of ingredients to produce a unique and delectable treat. After tasting superior falafel, and seeing a particularly inspiring episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay in which he heads off against the maker of the so-called best falafel in NYC, I decided, of course, that I would have to try making falafel for myself.For those of you poor souls who don’t know what falafel is, and have never tasted it, allow me to enlighten you: falafel is basically a mixture of mashed chickpeas with various herbs, spices, and baking powder for volume, rolled into a ball, and deep fried. The origin of this tasty treat is up for debate: several countries in the Middle East claim it as their own, including Egypt and Israel. Regardless of who created it, falafel is popular in many places today, and for good reason: it’s delicious.
I had wanted to make my own falafel for a while when a recipe for it popped up in my February issue of Bon Appétit. I took it as a sign, and decided to give the recipe a shot, at least as a starting point for my own version.
The recipe is as simple and straightforward as you can imagine: basically, mash the ingredients together, form into balls, roll around in some flour, and fry. I fried mine in about a half inch of canola oil in my cast iron skillet on the stovetop, and they came out quite beautifully. Served on couscous with hummus and pita bread, they made a very tasty vegetarian meal. Unlike the heat lamp-petrified falafel I had had in the past, this falafel was hot with a crisp outside, and a fluffy, moist interior. It tasted fresh and delicious.
They weren’t perfect, though. My cooking method was fine: I liked how they came out texture-wise. Where I found they were lacking a little was in flavor. They needed more. The next time I make this, I think I’ll use more parsley and cumin, and I would also add some mint and coriander.

If you haven’t had falafel before, I would recommend that you try it at a restaurant (even a restaurant in a food court) so that you can get an idea of what falafel should taste like. I think that this is one of those dishes where it is really necessary to know what you’re going for before you try it yourself. Then, find the recipe here, make it at home and perfect your own scrumptious falafel, worthy of so much more than their food court popularity.

A Simple Recipe

2010-03-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

If it seems like it has been a little longer than usual since my last post, that’s because it has. You can blame a certain important international sporting event that has been going on for the past two weeks in my home country that has made me a captive to my television set. Life is back to normal now, though, and I want to share a dish with you that I made, incidentally, on the night of the opening ceremonies of said international sporting event. First, a little about the recipe’s source.Mark Bittman has been a favorite food writer of mine for quite some time. I follow his blog and I am a big fan of his book Food Matters. Bittman has also published an impressive number of cookbooks, many of which I have browsed and used. This particular recipe came from a book of his called Kitchen Express. It contains 404 recipes, organized by season. What makes this book unique is how the recipes are written: you won’t see lists of ingredients, precise instructions, or exact measurements anywhere. Each “recipe” is a short paragraph, giving general guidelines on what to do and how much of each ingredient to use. For example, here’s the recipe for “West Indian Pork Kebabs”:

Heat the broiler. In a bowl, combine some minced garlic, about a half teaspoon of ground allspice, a pinch of nutmeg, some fresh thyme leaves, a chopped small onion, and the juice of a lime. Toss this mixture with about a pound of pork shoulder cut into one-inch cubes. Thread the pork onto skewers and broil for about six minutes or until cooked through, turning to brown all sides evenly.
-Bittman, Mark. Kitchen Express. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. p 99.

Some cooks may not like this style, may even object to it, in fact, on the basis that these little paragraphs don’t constitute recipes. However, I happen to like it quite a lot. These are not recipes to be meticulously followed, never wavering from the directions given in black and white. These recipes are guidelines as, really, all recipes are. But by presenting his recipes in this format, Bittman seems to be encouraging his readers to experiment, to use these recipes as inspiration, rather than gospel.I put this concept to good practice when I made “Linguine with Butter, Parmesan, and Sage”, a simple classic of pasta tossed with sage-infused browned butter, a little pasta cooking water, and a bunch of freshly grated parmesan. I made a few simple changes: I used garlic and basil pasta from Trader Joe’s, and I added cubed, roasted butternut squash to the mix.The dish came out well, though I would make a few slight changes the next time I make it. I would definitely use plain linguine rather than the garlic and basil infused variety I tried this time. The flavor of the pasta took away from the delicate, nuttiness of the browned butter and the aromatic sage. Also, I would add less cooking liquid at the end than I did this time. I managed to actually water the whole thing down more than I’d like, so I’d be more careful with that the next time. All in all, though, a tasty, simple pasta dish to curl up with in front of an exciting television event. (Hint: the Oscars are on Sunday!)
I like that Bittman challenges his readers to play with his recipes by presenting them in such a basic, stripped down way. When directions are more precisely given, it is more intimidating to waver from them. So while some cooks may feel thrown into the deep by a book like this one, I hope that they will take a chance on it and use it as an opportunity to be creative, and use a recipe as inspiration for a masterpiece of their own.In honor of Bittman, I will attempt to describe my version of his recipe as clearly and efficiently as he does.

Linguine with Butter, Parmesan, and Sage
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express.

Peel, seed, and cut a medium butternut squash into ½” cubes. Toss with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper, and roast in a 400 F oven until browned, 25-30 minutes. Cook linguine in salted, boiling water until al dente and reserving a couple ladles of the cooking liquid. Meanwhile, melt three tablespoons of butter, then add a few handfuls of sage leaves over medium-high heat. Cook until the sage leaves shrivel and the butter has begun to brown. Add the cooked pasta to the pan along with a third of a cup of the reserved liquid. Toss and cook about a minute longer, adding more cooking liquid if the pan gets dry. Toss in the roasted squash and a few handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Season to taste with salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper.