Jamie's America

Who doesn't love Jamie Oliver?!
Some of my favorite classes are from Jamie Oliver cookbooks. The style, the read, the pictures, and of course, the food.
One other thing that made this class really fun was the people that came. They were a rowdy crowd that loved food. Right when everyone had sat down, they became friends, even though they didn't know each other.
The menu consisted of mostly southern American cooking. A bit of Latin/Mexican influence with the Tex-Mex thing. Also a bit of the "Down South" with Jambalaya and Red Velvet.

This what we made.

The Menu:


Mad Dog Salad is a funny name. It gives you no idea as to what is in it. Good thing there is a great picture to go along with it. There are a couple things that makes this salad interesting. One, roasted avocado. I've never roasted avocado before, and I was pleasantly surprised. I thought after roasting in the oven, they would sort of melt away or become soft, but it was the opposite. They not only firmed up a bit, but they browned and crisped up. A revelation!
The second thing that made this salad great was incorporating nachos. Yup, you read right. Tortilla chips, cheese, pine nuts and pumpkin seeds in the oven, melted and used in the salad. The cheesy chips were the base of the salad and the greens were tossed with the avocado. A simple lime and olive oil dressing brought it all together. A really great, refreshing salad with lost of texture.

Next was the Redondo Mackerel Wraps. Again, not really sure what it is except that there is mackerel in it. One of my favorite things to eat is mackerel on the BBQ. That's why this dish really appealed to me. This is a sort of fish taco, Jamie Oliver style. I bought some Spanish Mackerel, which is significant;y bigger than a the regular mackerel we know of. It was simply seasoned and grilled on a hot grill until the skin was crispy and the meat perfectly moist. It was topped with a salad of zucchini, asparagus and radish with lime and olive oil. The base was a tortilla with a smear of guacamole.

Not only did it look beautiful with the charred fish with the colourful salad on top, but it tasted fresh, light and refreshing.

The main was Chicken, Sausage and Prawn Jambalaya. A typical Creole dish meaning "dirty" rice. It's the ultimate in one pot meals that is spicy, extremely flavourful and just plain interesting. Like I mentioned, it is a Creole style Jambalaya that incorporates tomatoes, as opposed to a Cajun Jambalaya what has no tomatoes. The flavour base for this was lots of onions, peppers and garlic. It's also important to use a smoked sausage for this. Traditionally you would use Andouille, but good luck trying to find it in Montreal. We replaced it with Chorizo sausage which gave us the smokiness we needed in the dish. We also incorporated chicken and shrimp into this dish.
Cooking time was a lot faster than I had thought. In total, the dish took 40 minutes. For the intensity of flavours and and heartiness of it all, 40 minutes is nothing. I'll definitely make this dish again. The rice was mildly spicy and smoky. It's also important to not make it too dry. It should still be a bit wet when you serve it. Saucy, meaty and delicious. The perfect one pot meal.

Lastly, we finished off with Velvet Cupcakes. Another southern kind of dessert. Related to Devils Food Cake, what gives red velvet it's distinct look is the use of red food colouring. Traditionally beets were used to give it it's reddish hue. It's a very basic cake batter that uses buttermilk, butter sugar and eggs. A little bit of cocoa and vinegar helps with the colour and acidity. The icing is a standard cream cheese icing with lemon zest and lemon juice.
Red velvet is always a crown pleaser. It's very playful and fun to eat. Sprinkles on top made it even more fun. If you've never made these kind of cupcakes before, I would highly recommend. People love them.

Jamie's America is one of Jamie Oliver best books. He moved away from his typical Italian/Mediterranean/British style of cooking to try something new. But he doesn't sacrifice is style of writing a recipe. The one thing I love about his books is the way his recipes are written. Easy to read, non intimidating, and casual.
This book covers a lot of distinct American cooking with trips to BBQ country, Southwestern Tex Mex, and cowboy country. A great variety of interesting dishes cooked the Jamie Oliver way.

Next Class: Simple Fresh Southern

New Classic Family Dinners

The author of New Classic Family Dinners, Mark Peel, wants you to make dinner at home. He's the chef at the famed Campanile Restaurant in Los Angeles, which is housed in an old building previously owned by Charlie Chaplin. Taking some classic American dishes and giving them a sort of twist that will turn it into something special.
It's an interesting concept for a book and the title alone is an attention grabber. Who doesn't want to create new classics for your family?
Lets see how we did.

Menu:

Radish and Cucumber Salad with Yogurt Vinaigrette
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Penne with uncooked Puttanesca
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Chicken Pot Pie
Braised Carrots with Leeks
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Chocolate Pudding

The first two courses I picked didn't totally fall into the wintry style I Tend to cook at this time of year. Tonight's salad would be great on a warm summer night. The chill of the cucumber and radishes along with the refreshing yogurt would surly cool you off in the heat.
But alas, i went with it anyways.
One thing I didn't really get was why the cucumbers were salted first. They were sliced and sprinkled with salt and allowed to drain for 10 minutes. Then rinsed until the salt was washed off. It was a slight pickle of the cucumbers that I don't think really added anything to the dish. I would have preferred just a fresh cold cucumber sliced and tossed with the dressing.
The radishes were sliced thin and set in cold water to crisp them up, so they were very cold and refreshing.
My favorite part was the dressing. Most of the time I teach to not overdress a salad because you want to taste the ingredients. But this dressing added so much flavour and balance to the vegetables, i could have put a lot more. Freshly toasted cumin seeds and pepper were crushing into some yogurt along with some turmeric and lemon. The dressing was great and totally made the salad. I would used that for any other vegetable salad. Pass on the salted cucumbers.

Next was the pasta. Uncooked sauces are a great option for a quick dinner. By the time the pasta cooks, you can have a fresh sauce ready to toss in. This was for sure the easiest dish of the night.
In a mortar we crushed the usual suspects for a puttanesca, garlic, anchovies, capers, parsley, and olive oil until a smooth paste. They were then tossed with some chopped tomatoes and olives. Added to the cooked pasta and there you have it. It really was that simple. But to really get that full flavour, it's really important to use those anchovies. Many people would pass on them because they thing it would be fishy. But when used properly in the right amounts, you don't even know they are there. Because this sauce is not cooked and doesn't allow the flavours to cook together, you really need the flavour of the anchovies, capers and olives to come through to make it savory. Something like this is pretty fool proof and amazingly simple. Literally a 15 minute meal.

Doesn't the cover of the book look tasty?
That's what I thought, so I decided to make it. The recipe for the Chicken Pot Pie is fairly standard. The method though is really good. It results in still crisp vegetables and tender chicken with a creamy sauce.

The key to getting the crisp vegetables was to not cook anything. Inside we added carrots, pearl onions, peas, celery and asparagus. The only vegetable cooked before it went into the oven were the carrots. They were blanched until tender but still crisp. Everything else was placed in a bowl along with come poached, diced chicken breasts, and an east veloute sauce using chicken stock and a bit of creme fraiche. The sauce was tossed with everything and portioned into small ramekins. I had purchased some pre-made, all butter puff pastry from Fromagerie Atwater that was rolled and draped over the chicken mixture. The recipe said to place the pies into the freezer for 20 minutes before baking. I thought this was a great idea because puff pastry bakes a lot better the colder it is. It puffs up better the colder the butter is. And it is puff pastry! 25 minutes in the oven and we were done. Flaky crust with a light sauce and perfectly cooked vegetables. A great Pot Pie recipe.
For the braised carrots, we sauteed the leeks and then added big chunks of carrots to a pan. The recipe asked to add water, but I had chicken stock instead. After cooking for 10 minutes covered, the carrots were done. Sprinkled with some fresh tarragon and parsley, they were simple and light. It may not sound too exciting, but sometimes the simplest dishes are the best.
I do have to admit, there were not a great selection of side dishes in this book. Not a lot of greens or interesting ways to prepare. The carrots seemed like something most families would eat, so I decided this was good for class. But the lack of variety made it hard to round out the main course.

Dessert was something I was really excited about. When was the last time you had pudding? I loved the idea of making pudding in class. So old school!
The base for this was whole milk mixed with sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, egg yolks, vanilla, and mint extract. It didn't really turn out how I expected. I found the mint was a bit much. Also, because I wanted to speed it up a bit, I set it over an ice bath to speed up the chilling. That was fine, but I think if allowed to chill naturally in the fridge, the texture would have been a bit better. Not too long ago I made a chocolate pudding with a combo of milk and cream. That one was much better, smoother and richer. Using just milk didn't really give me the richness i wanted. It looked great in the picture, and also the finished product, but I think in the future, a recipe with cream in it would be better.

As it has gone most of this winter season of classes, books that I'm excited to cook out of have not really lived up to my expectation. Yet other books that don't excite be, Have been really great classes. I guess it's a combo of high expectation and over excitedness that results in a sort of let down.
I'm not saying this is a bad book. The recipes read well, for the most part there is a good variety, and it's full of lovely pictures. New Classic Family Dinners will appeal to home cooks who may have fussy eaters or want to cook the classics with a little twist.

Next Class: Jamie's America

John Torode's Chicken

Every one's favorite meat.
A few seasons ago I did a class based on Jone Torode's Beef and Other Bovine Matters. It was a really great book with full illustrations and a very satisfying recipe for Corned Beef (that took me 5 days of preparation, but well worth it).
That's why we were very excited to hear that Australian born British chef John Torode was releasing "John Torode's Chicken and Other Birds. If it is anything like the Beef book, I knew we were in for a treat.

The Menu

Chinese Duck Soup with Noodles
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Grilled Chicken, Spinach, Olive and Pomegranate Salad
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Spiced Yogurt Kabobs
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Chicken Confit with Mash and Green Sauce

One of the most delicious things a person can do is make stock using a Chinese-style roast duck!
In order to do that, you will have to go to a shop that specializes in Chinese BBQ. In this case, I went to Chinatown. A whole BBQ duck is pretty easy to find. Buy a whole one. Don't let them chop it up though. You want to bring it home, pick off the meat and reserve it for the soup later, and add the carcass to a large pot and simmer for a while. To bump up the flavour, I added in a few chicken bones, but you don't really need to do this.
The flavour that comes out of the duck is so distinctive because, when roasted, the duck is spiced with star anise, soy, and other aromatics. All these flavours go into the stock and turns it into something so delicious, i could eat it for breakfast, lunch
and dinner.

I prepared the stock earlier in the day because it had to simmer for a few hours. Once done, it was simple to put it all together. The roast duck meat was chopped up, the stock was seasoned, some egg noodles were blanched in the stock, and some coriander chopped. All in a bowl, and you're in heaven.
The broth was clear and rich with roast duck and star anise flavour, the noodles were tender, and the coriander was fresh. One of my favorites of the night. Off to a good start.

When I choose recipes for a class, I try to incorporate as many cooking techniques as possible. The section this recipe was in talked about grilling. A simply grilled chicken breast seems so simple, but is actually very difficult to execute properly. But because the kabob dish I was doing next was grilled, I decided to teach people how to pan sear a chicken breast. This results in a beautiful golden brown, crispy skin with a moist inside. Something you would get a restaurant, a good one anyways.
The key to this is medium heat and a hot oven. We seasoned in generously, placed the breast skin side down in a hot pan and allowed it to cook 10 minutes on medium heat, in a hot oven for 6 minutes and the chicken breast is perfectly moist and crispy.
Other than changing the method of cooking for the chicken, the remainder of the salad was by the book. Spinach, pomegranate, and olives were tossed together with lemon juice and olive oil. The breast was sliced thin and layed on top. Easy. A great lunch of a meal salad, and ready in 15 minutes.

Now back to the grilling. The kabobs needed marinating for a few hours. They were initially marinated in a bit of lemon juice, thyme and salt and pepper for an hour. Then a mixture of yogurt, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon and turmeric were added and continued to marinate for a couple more hours.
A note on the meat. For this recipe, I used dark meat. Meat from the legs are much better for a recipe like this. Chicken breast, when over cooked, is very dry and tasteless. The legs provide moisture and flavour and take a lot longer to over cook. I would highly recommend for all the skinless-boneless chicken breast people out there, open up your minds and palates to the wonders of dark meat!

Once skewered, the kabobs were grilled on a hot, clean grill until nicely browned and cooked all the way through. My grill is a challenge on a good day, but they turned out smokey and juicy. Served with Naan bread, like the picture, the flavours were not overpowering considering all the spices added. They were subtle and the yogurt gave it a nice twang.

Finally, the dish that really intrigued me was the confit chicken legs. We mostly associate "confit" with duck. With it's rich duck fat flavours, crispy skin, and fall off the bone tenderness.
The preparation for this chicken follows the same procedures as for duck. The legs were first salted with a mixture of sea salt, juniper berries, coriander seed, cardamom, thyme and garlic. It has to sit over night. The next day, the legs are submerged in a pot of melted duck fat and cooked for an hour in the oven.
The chicken came out extraordinarily tender, juicy and delicious. The one alteration I did to this was once they were done cooking, I removed them from the fat, and placed them under the broiler for a few minutes to brown and crisp up the skin.
Served with some mash and a simple salsa verde, the legs were rich and warming. This recipe was as simple as it sounded. Unlike duck legs which take ours to cook, this was in the oven for just over an hour. The great thing was that they can be kept for a really long time in the fridge, as long as they are covered in the duck fat. If you pick up the book, you will also notice the dish looked just like the picture in the book, something that always makes me happy.

Just like John Torode's Beef, the Chicken book is the one stop shop for poultry recipes. There are not too many quality chicken books out there. The variety of recipes and flavours in this book will keep you cooking for a long time. And if you get tired of chicken, which we all do sometimes, there some great duck recipes!

Next Class: New Classic Family Dinners

Ad Hoc at Home Part 2

As much fun as it was to cook out of Ad Hoc at Home last night, now I'm a little more "practised" and ready to cook even better food tonight!
Its not that easy to cook Thomas Keller Recipes. Try to find a regular home cook who has cooked more than 2 or 3 recipes from any of his other books. Tonight, we are on recipes 5,6,7 and 8.



Here's the menu:

Chicken and Dumpling Soup
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Green Bean Salad, Mission Figs, Fingerling Potatoes, Radish, Walnuts
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Pan-Roasted Breast of Duck
Butter-Braised Brussels Sprouts, Kohlrabi and Radishes
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Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I figured why change a really great dessert.

There are a couple of pictures of this soup throughout the book. The creamyness and freshness of it was what drew me to choosing this recipe. But I have to admit that this is not an easy soup to put together. But with all the pots (about 5) and steps it took to make this soup, the results were amazing.
A good soup starts with a good stock. I, of course, made my own stock. Lots of raw chicken bones, cold water, carrots, celery, onion, leek, thyme, garlic and bay simmered for 4 hours. One of the steps in the recipes says to take carrots, celery, onion and leek and sweat it off in a large pot, covered for 30 minutes, add the stock and simmer again for another 30 minutes. Then the vegetables were strained out and you have a more flavourful stock. I skipped this step due to time constraints, Also, I made a pretty intensely flavoured stock, so I wasn't worried about the lack of flavour. The reason Keller does this is because the vegetables that are served with the soup are not cooked with the soup! Strange right? But it makes total sense to me. In order to get a beautifully clean soup, everything is cooked seperatly and brought together at the very end.
So we cooked the vegetables seperatly. I blanched the celery in water. I also decided to add some sliced leeks and blanched those as well. In a seperate pot I blanched the carrots with a sachet of thyme, garlic, peppercorns, bay and some honey. This was amazing because the carrots really took on those flavours.
Next were the dumplings. The dough is a "pate a choux". Meaning we heat up water and butter in a pot, add the flour and stir together. Over low heat cook the dough for about 5 minutes and then remove and incorporate dijon, eggs, and chives. Then we made quenelles and dropped them into simmering water for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, while the stock was simmering, we prepared a "roux". It's strange to see a soup thickened this way, but it goes along with the whole clean look of the soup. We prepared equal parts flour and butter, mashed it together and created a "beurre manie". It was whisked into the soup until it had a creamy look. That was left to simmer for about 20 minutes to allow the flour to cook out and the soup became thicker.
Once the soup was thick, we added in the vegetables and dumplings, seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and a touch of vinegar, and after all that work, the soup was done.
A few people said it was the best soup they ever had. I have to agree. When it comes to recipes like this, the more care you take in the preparation, the better the dish turns out. The soup was smooth, clean, and full of flavour. The dumplings were light as clouds and had a light sharpness from the dijon. The vegetables were perfectly tender-crisp and the carrots really stood out with the tastes of garlic and honey. It also looked pretty close to the picture. I love it when that happens.

That soup was pretty complicate. It gets easier from now on.

The salad was pretty straight forward and simple to put together. First we needed to blanch the beans in salted water and shock them in an ice bath. Then blanch the fingerlings in simmering water with thyme, garlic, bay and some salt. Then we carefully roast the walnuts in the oven.
To put it all together, i tossed everything in a large bowl along with some halved figs and sliced radishes and Sherry Vinaigrette from the book. On a platter, a bit og lemon juice and olive oil, toasted walnuts and done. It looked better than the book because we could actually eat it.

Duck, specifically duck breast, is one of my favorite things to cook. Not everyone knows how easy it is to roast a single breast. After trimming off excess fat and silver skin from the breast, we marinated it with salt, pepper, orange zest, thyme and a bay leaf. We allowed that to sit for a while in the fridge. After an hour or two, I prepared a saute pan over medium heat and preheat the oven to 400*. The breast went in skin down and allowed to cook slowly for about 10 minutes. The recipe said medium low for about 20 minutes, but I did it my way :)
Once the skin became dark brown and crispy, it was added into the oven for 6 minutes to finish off the cooking. Duck breast is a fairly dry piece of meat and when over cooked, is really tough. So cooking it to medium rare is recommended. Once out of the oven we allowed it to rest for 5 minutes as we prepared the Butter Braised Radishes, Kohlrabi, and Brussels Sprouts.

We melted some butter in a large pan and gently sauteed some shallots, added quartered radishes, sugar, salt, pepper, vinegar and some chicken stock. It was allowed to simmer, covered for a few minutes. Meanwhile we blanched the Brussels and kohlrabi in some salted water. They were added to the radish mixture and tossed with a bit more stock and butter and done.
The duck was sliced thin and put on a bed of the vegetables.
The duck had a faint taste of the orange and was very tender. The vegetables were crisp and light but rich with butter.
This was the most impressive dish of the evening I think. If you factor in the ease of preparation which results in something like this, it's definitely the most impressive.
And it looked like the picture...not too bad.

I decided to re-do the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake tonight. For notes on that, take a look at the previous post.
I did change it a bit though. Instead of using 3/4 or the smear on the bottom, I decided to use all of it. I figured a bit more sugar and butter is not a bad thing. I was right. The cake turned out more moist on top which made it a bit more sweet and gooey, but not too sweet and gooey.



Ad Hoc at Home is one of the best books that came out last year. I've not had this much fun cooking out of a cookbook before. The anticipation while cooking each recipe to see the end result was like going to a Tarantino movie. It seems complicated, but once it's done, it totally makes sense.
If you don't have this book, get it, cook out of it, and enjoy the subtleties, the discipline, and the uncomplicated complication of it all.

Ad Hoc at Home; Part 1

Even before Thomas Kellers' new book, Ad Hoc at Home came out, I knew there was going to be a class based on it. The second I had the book in my hand and flipped through it, there was no doubt in my mind.
When ever I get a book like this, i get so excited that I cant wait to cook out of it. Last summer, we received a few sample pages from the book with a couple recipes, just to tease you. The first recipe was the Buttermilk Fried Chicken. How do you say no to that, especially when it's a Thomas Keller recipe.
For people that now me, they know that to me, Thomas Keller is the Chef among Chefs. I met him once. It was a bit embarassing. It was the first time I was completely speechless. But that's neither here nor there. Lets talk food!

Ad Hoc at Home is Chef Kellers attempt to make his haute cuisine more accessible to the home cook. This is not to say it's for beginner cooks. VERY motivated beginner cooks maybe. The book is full of amazing recipes that can range from simple to complex. We decided to do two separate classes based on Ad Hoc at Home. This is Part 1.

Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup
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Iceberg Lettuce Slices, with Blue Cheese Dressing, Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Bacon, and Brioche Croutons
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Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs, with Fennel, Garlic and Lemon
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Upside-Down Pineapple Cake


There is a LOT to talk about, so Lets get started.
First up the soup. Earlier in the day I made a full flavour chicken stock with raw bones, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, looks, thyme and bay leaves. For the soup, we started by sauteing finely diced bacon on medium low heat with a touch of oil. It was interesting that it was done on a very low heat. The main objective for this is to render the fat, but not crisp the bacon. after a few minutes, I removed the bacon and added in finely diced carrots and onion. It was again gently sauteed on the same heat for 15 minutes. This recipe, as with all the other recipes in the book, takes care in not over cooking, or cooking too fast, the ingredients so they keep the best colour and texture.
Once the vegetables were done sauteing we added in a bit of curry powder which right away gave it an amazingly sweet smell. Then the puy lentils and stock. I allowed it to simmer for about 20 minutes. The recipes suggests 45 minutes, but due to time constraints, I had to cut it short. It very well could have used the extra time, but the lentils were tender enough.
In a separate pot, we simmered the diced sweet potatoes in water, thyme, bay, garlic and peppercorns until just tender. This is a great idea because if the potatoes were cooked with the lentils, they would surely become over cooked. This ensures they are perfectly done.
Just before the soup was done, i crisped up the bacon I removed in a small saute pan and added it into the soup. Seasoned with salt, pepper and a splach of vinegar. This was a really interesting addition. I'm a big advocate of using a form of acid as a seasoning, but you never see it in any books. Along with salt and pepper, the acid, weither it be vinegar or citrus, add a different taste sensation that really rounds out the palate.
I have to admit, I think I could have added more liquid to the soup. I didn't really follow the recipe for quantities. Also, I wasn't as pretty as I had hoped for, but I think it's because I didn't take the time to make it that way. I think I was rushing a bt because I didn't want to fall behind too much. Also, I forgot to take a picture of the freshly poured soup. I was lucky enough to have some left, so this picture was of soup that was sitting for a while. You get the idea. But the soup was hearty, very tasty, and fairly simple compared to the soup we will do tomorrow. More on that later.

Next was the Iceberg Lettuce Slices. This is a salad of Steak House tradition. Any steak joint in Florida, this will be on the menu. This salad is fairly straight forward, but needs some preparation well in advance. The day before, I started with making some creme fraiche for the dressing. It's easy to buy, but I figured i would make it. Cream mixed with a bit of buttermilk left overnight on the counter. Easy enough.
The morning of the class I prepared the oven roasted tomatoes. Quartered roma tomatoes were put on a baking sheet and slow cooked at 275* for 5-7 hours. I've done this many time before and is really easy. But they became my "tray of shame" as one customer lovingly called them. I'll tell you about that later.
The Iceberg lettuce was sliced and layed on a platter. The bacon was diced and rendered off in a pan over medium heat until crisp. The brioche was diced and toasted in the oven until brown.
The dressing had, aioli, buttermilk, creme fraich, onion and garlic powder, lemon juice, parsley, chives and blue cheese crumbled in (my favorite, Bleu Benedictine).
The dressing was poured over the lettuce, bacon and croutons scattered and then I realized. Sh*&!!!! The tomatoes!!!
I had left the tomatoes in the oven. When the tomatoes were done, I turned the oven off and left them in it. When people came, I turned the oven back of to preheat for the cake, not remembering they were still in the oven.
In all honesty, this is the first time I've ever burnt anything in class. It was really embarrassing. But I figured the rest of the salad was so tasty anyways, especially this dressing, that the tomatoes would not be missed. And by the time we finished the salad, the burnt tomatoes were a lost memory. Except for the fact I kept them on the counter to remind me of what a dolt I am.

On to the Crispy Braised Chicken. This one I have to admit is very simple. It's a one pot meal great for any day of the week.
We started by searing the chicken. bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs were seasoned with salt and pepper and browned, skin side down in a medium heat pan until nice and golden. Flipped and continued to cook for another minute. Once removed, we added in some sliced onion and garlic. Sauteed until tender and then sliced fennel was added. We cooked it gently for 10 minutes, until the fennel was tender but crisp. Then we added in some white wine, pepper flakes, big green olives, thyme, bay leaves and lemon zest. Cook until the wine has reduced a bit then add in some chicken stock. Once the pan came back to a simmer, we added back in the chicken. This time skin side up, and into a hot oven for about 20 minutes to finish off the chicken.
One Pot.
After 20 minutes, it was nicely done. The fennel had an sweet smell, and with the pepper flakes, it added a slight tickle of spice in the back of the through for nice balance. The chicken was crispy and moist. It was a very simple main course that I'm everyone liked. The flavours were subtle and soft. a Crowd pleaser for sure.

The general consensus around the table was that Upside-Down Pineapple Cake has not been eaten by anyone in 30-40 years. So it was a big night!
The last time I made this cake was in cooking school, 10 years ago. So I was excited to see how this one turned out.
First was making the smear for the bottom of the cake pan. Butter, brown sugar, vanilla, rum and honey were creamed together and spread into the bottom of the pan.
We carefully fanned out pineapple slices over the smear. Then we prepared the cake. This base is a fairly standard cake base. The difference is that it used cake flour rather than all purpose. This results in a much finer, crumbly cake. Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and a bit of vanilla were mixed together and again, spread into the cake pan over the pineapple. Into the oven for 45 minutes and it was done. We allowed it to rest 10 minutes and then the nerve racking flip. But you know what, it came out really easily and looked so great. The time we took to fan out the slices of pineapple really made a difference. Not only did it look good, but it tasted great too. The great thing I find about Thomas Keller desserts is that they are never too sweet. The sweetness is not in your face and balances really well with the whole dessert.
A dollop of creme fraiche on top and dessert was served.

It was a good night. The recipes were put together pretty easily. With the proper preparation, all these dishes came together very quickly.
I have one more night to cook out of this book. Final thoughts tomorrow.

Up Next; Ad Hoc at Home, Part 2

Pasta et Cetera a la di Stasio

Who doesn't love pasta?!?
Last night we cooked out of Pasta et Cetera. Josee di Stasio's newest book recently translated into English. Full of classic Italian pasta recipes like Bolognese, Carbonara, and Pesto.
Besides the fact that I'm a big fan of the author, the recipes are very simple to read with lots of full colour pictures throughout. On a recent visit from Josee in the fall for a book signing, we prepared the Bolognese sauce, rich with wine, milk and ground veal and pork, as well as the white bean bruschetta and fig-chocolate sausage.
This is what we made last night.

Basic Tomato Sauce
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Rapini Pest
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Eggplant-Ricotta Lasagna
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Fig-Chocolate Sausage

As easy as it sounds, most people don't know how to make a basic tomato sauce from scratch. So i figured being that it's a pasta class, teaching people the basics should be on the menu. The recipe does state the truth, it is definitely basic. Basic ingredients, basic techniques, and basic flavours. To me, in order to make a proper tomato sauce, it's all in the type of tomatoes you use.
The recipe called for garlic, canned tomatoes, parsley and basil. We started by slowly cooking thinly sliced garlic in olive oil until golden. Then added in a can of whole San Marzano tomatoes. If you have never used San Marzano tomatoes in a tomato sauce, you should start. The great thing about these tomatoes is the balance of acid and sugars. In other canned tomatoes, the acid content is rather high. That's why most people will add in a bit of sugar into their sauce to balance the acidity. When useing San Marzano tomatoes, you don't need to do that.
After adding in the tomatoes, we allowed it to simmer for about 20 minutes, ollowing some of the water to cook off and thicken. For some added flavour, I added in the rind of a piece of parmesan. The rind will become soft and give the sauce a little extra boost of flavour.
Earlier in the afternoon I made some fresh spaghetti by using the pasta attachment on the Kitchen-Aid. The pasta only took seconds in the boiling water and then tossed with the sauce. Some freshly chopped parsley, basil and grated parmesan to finish and it was done.
So simple and satisfying.
A couple notes on the recipe. I followed along pretty well. I didn't change anything about this recipe. Usually I add onion into the sauce, but I thought I would stick to it and not add it in. I like the idea of adding some onion to the sauce and you can if you decide to make it yourself. By the time we were eating it though, we forgot it didn't have any. So I guess it's good either way.
I also have to apologize for the empty plate. We ate it all up before I could take a picture. We were just so excited and hungry to dive into it, taking a picture wasn't at the top of the list. At least it was only Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce. Just imagine the best spaghetti and tomato sauce possible and that was it :)

Next was the Pesto. I think this was my favorite of the night. I liked that it was a different kind of "pesto". Perfect for this time of year when basil isn't really in season. Again, rapini isn't a vegetable a lot of people go for. But if given the chance, the combination of sauteed rapini, garlic and pepper flakes is a thing of joy.
To start, we blanched the rapini for about 1 minute. Drained and then refreshed in cold water to stop the cooking and keep that bright green colour. After chopping it coarsely, I added it to the food processor along with a few cloves of garlic, some toasted pecans, olive oil, zest of a lemon, and a bit of anchovy paste. Pulsed it until it was coarsely chopped and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, I boiled some veal tortellini I bought at the pasta place at Atwater Market. I addd the pesto into a large pan with some olive oil. Cooked it a bit so the anchovy and garlic flavours start to come out. The smell was amazing. The colours were so vibrant. I was drooling.

I added the tortellini to the pan, seasoned with a little salt and pepper and it was done.
I liked this dish. It was done in 20 minutes. Like I mentioned, the lemon zest and anchovy gave this dish something really special. You don't taste the anchovy, but you get the saltiness from it. I consider anchovy a seasoning, along with salt, pepper, chili and acid. It's there to accentuate the flavour of your food.
This dish would be the perfect weeknight meal. Little preperation, few ingredients, and really hearty.

Then it was the big one. We made the Eggplant-Ricotta Lasagna. Making lasagna in class sounds a bit much, but I planned it out pretty good. And I'm glad we did make it because it was really impressive.
In order for this lasagna to be cooked in the time we had, I had to prepare all the ingredients before hand. Earlier in the afternoon I started with the sauce. The recipe called for a double recipe of the Basic Tomato Sauce. Sinece I was making that sauce already, I figured we could make it a little different by adding some meat. So I purchased a couple of beef shank cuts from the butcher. Ones with a good size bone and a fair amount of meat. I seared them off in a pot, removed them and continued making my basic tomato sauce. Once the tomatoes were in, I added back the meat and allowed it to simmer for 2-3 hours until the meat was tender. Shank meat takes a really long time to tenderize. Once tender, I removed the meat, broke it up with a fork and added it back into the sauce. This meaty, rich sauce is a great alternative to using ground beef.
I also prepared the eggplant by cooking slices of it under the broiler. Very simple.
We assembled it at the beginning of the class. Layers of sauce, fresh lasagna noodles, a cheese mixture of provolone, parmesan, and mozzarella, and a Ricotta mixture with egg, parmesan and nutmeg. We placed it in the oven for 1 hour at 375* and she came out amazing.
I've made lasagna one other time in m life and it took me all day. This one was quick. It would be faster if you don't use the mean like me and keep it vegetarian. I also think using fresh pasta really makes a difference. The texture as well as the taste really makes it. You can buy flat lasagna noodles at the pasta guy at Atwater Market.

To finish off the evening we made the Fig-Pistachio Sausage. The name of it doesn't sound the most appealing, but after you taste it, you'll forget all about that.
It was really simple to mix together. Some melted bittersweet chocolate mixed with some dried figs, pistachios, and Rice Crispies, then rolled into a log shape and chilled.
The hardest part is rolling it though. The mixture is poured onto a piece of plastic wrap and molded and rolled into a tube. It has to chill for a couple hours to set. Once chilled, we rolled it in icing sugar to give it that sausage look. It looked like a sausage all right. It was a little difficult to slice. It crumbled a bit, but we got some good slices. The crumbled bits would be great over ice cream. The picture I took doesn't really do it justice. Also the fact I forgot to take a picture of a full plate of it. There was one lonely piece left once everyone left. But it was chocolaty, crispy, and sort of tasted like a fig newton. If you have this book, you should make it.

Josee di Stasios' Pasta et Cetera was pretty fun to cook out of. The recipes are really easy to follow. I of course made some alterations by using fresh pasta and adding meat to the lasagna. I wanted to try and make it a bit more complicated. But if you follow the recipes, you could have prepare a great meal in no time. These classic pasta dishes really represent the basis of Italian cooking, simple.

Next class: Ad Hoc at Home

The Complete Tassajara Cookbook

We continue vegetarian week with cooking out of The Complete Tassajara Cookbook. Tassajara is a Buddhist Zen Center outside of San Fransisco. In the summer time, it's open to the public as a retreat/hot springs. But what they are really famous for is it's vegetarian cuisine.
Over the past few years, they have released a couple of amazing new cookbooks. One specializing in lunches, picnics and appetizers. Another specifically for dinners and desserts. Just this past year they re-released a couple of favorites. An updated version of their bread book and The Complete Tassajara Cookbook.
This is what we made.

Kale and White Bean Soup
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Warm Radicchio Salad, Fresh Mozzarella, Avocado, Fire Roasted Walnuts
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Tassajara Spinach and Smoked Cheese Pie
Green Beans with Sesame Paste and Garlic
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Quick Vegan Spice Cake

We started off by preparing the soup. If I recall, in a recent post, i mentioned the joys of using dried beans over canned beans. Mainly because of the texture. For this soup, I reluctantly admit I used canned beans. Due to my unorganization, dried beans just didn't fit into the schedule. There just wasn't enough time to soak and simmer the bean, so I resulted in using the canned white beans. C'est la Vie!
Anyways, as usual, I changed this recipe around a bit to suit me. Because we didn't use the dried beans, we were no able to infuse the flavours of sage, garlic and bay leaf into the beans while simmering. So, I started off by adding onions, garlic and sage to a pot and saute lightly. I added in the beans and tossed all together. I had made a nice vegetable stock using carrots, onion, celery, tomato, leek and some mushrooms. I topped the beans up with the stock and brought to a simmer. After allowing it to simmer for a few minutes, I pureed a bit of it with the immersion blender, leaving it fairly chunky and very lightly creamy. While it was coming back to a simmer, in a seperate pan we sauteed the kale lightly in olive oil, and when just wilted, added it into the soup. Season with salt and pepper and done.
I do have to admit, using canned beans is very convenient. Because it was partly pureed, i was only partly embarrassed for using canned beans.
I think soups that are only half purred are great. They have a bit of creamyness, in this case due to the beans, and still have texture from the whole beans and kale. So next time y'all decide to make a pureed soup, blend only half of it and see what happens.

Next was the salad. This salad was a favorite of the night. We started off by tearing up the huge mozzarella balls into pieces. The Buffalo Mozzarella was fresh from Fromagerie Atwater, the greatest cheese shop in Montreal. The pieces were drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with Herbes de Provence, and seasoned with salt and pepper. It was set aside to marinate while the rest of the salad was put together. The Radicchio was cut into large pieces and added to a hot pan with olive oil, shallots and some garlic. I didn't want the radicchio to wilt too much so I left it at a medium heat. Just to slightly wild, but still have some warmth and crunch. After a few minutes, I added in a bit of balsamic and tossed it together. Put it on a large plate and added sliced avocado, the mozzarella, freshly chopped basil and the fire roasted nuts.
Fire Roasted nuts isn't really the most accurate description for them though. I realized I didn't have any walnuts, but I had some blanched almonds and raw cashews. So i prepared them the same way. In a small pan on high heat, I tossed them to toast, being careful not to burn them too much. Then added a bit of salt and some sugar. Right away it started to smoke and the sugar was caramalizing. The recipe said to toss in constantly so the melted sugar coats everything evenly. Easy enough. The nice thing about these nuts is that they were not "Candied" nuts, rather than just lightly sweetened. They were not fire roasted, or what I would think is fire roasted. But they were tasty non the less.
I have to admit, it wasn't the prettiest salad ever made, but it sure tasted good. The Balsamic and radicchio worked really great together, the marinated mozzarella was creamy and rich, and the nuts added the crunch we needed.

When choosing recipes to cook in classes, I've mostly tried to stay away from making "pies" or quiche for a main course. I find them boring most of the time. And besides, everyone can make a quiche no? But just like deciding to write a blog, I'm trying out new things. So I decided to make the Tassajara Spinach and Smoked Cheese Pie. The one thing that grabbed me about this was the use of smoked cheese. Not an ingredient used too often by many people. One of my favorite recipes is a Gnocchi dish from the Molto Italiano cookbook by everyones favorite orange chef, Mario Batali. The tomato sauce to go with the gnocchi incorporates olives and smoked mozzarella. This pie doesn't just add the smoked mozzarella, but also parmesan and cheddar.
i had to start by making the tart dough before hand in order for it to rest in the fridge. I followed the ingredients exactly, but followed my own method. When I do pie dough, i use the food processor to cut up the cold butter. The less I touch it with my hands, the better. Usually I can achieve a pretty flaky pie dough this way. This recipe adds a mixture of white and whole wheat flour, sugar, salt and paprika to the dough. When using whole wheat dough, there can be a tendency for it to be heavier than usual, so that's why I was careful in how I prepared it. By pulsing it in the food processor, the butter doesn't have a chance to melt and the dough stays relatively chilled. Working fast, I incorporated the cold water, brought the dough together, and right away placed it in the fridge to chill.
Meanwhile I prepared the other ingredients. I sauteed mushrooms and spinach, grated the parmesan, aged cheddar, and smoked cheese. After the dough chilled for 30 minutes, it was rolled out into a pie plate, the bottom spread with dijon, the cheeses were layered at the bottom and the mushroom and spinach mixture put on top. A quick note about the mustard. It ended up I only had a bit of dijon, so I spread on some grain mustard to compensate. Worked out really well in the end.
For the liquid it was a basic egg, milk and cream mixture spiced up with a bit of Tobasco. Poured into the pie and placed in the oven at 425* for 15 minutes, then 300* for 25 minutes. It was really simple to do and the final result was not only impressive to look at, but the taste was out of this world. All that cheese can't be bad. The smoked cheese came through but not too over powering. Well balanced.

The side dish was equally impressive. To start, the beans were blanched in a pot of boiling water until just done, about 1 minute. Meanwhile, we crushed some toasted white sesame seeds in the morter and grated some ginger and garlic on the microplane. In a large hot pan, we added some olive oil, black mustard seeds, and once toasted, added the ginger and garlic. After 30 seconds, the beans were added and tossed together with the spiced. We added in the crushed sesame past and a couple tablespoons of water. The crushed seeds soaked up the liquid and created a thick sort of sauce with the grated ginger and garlic. It was garnished with some black sesame seeds and fresh cilantro. The ginger and garlic gave it a nice sweet taste and the seeds added a little bit of pop/crunch. And the great thing is that it took like 10 minutes to prepare.

Finally dessert. I like making vegan desserts. I don't do it in too many classes because people aren't to keen on the word "vegan". But if you were served a vegan cake, you would not think it was vegan.
One of the things that make vegan baking so great is the ease of preparation. Everything is thrown into one big bowl, mixed together and baked. There is no creaming of butter or room temperature eggs added in stages. Dry and wet ingredients are thrown together. In this case, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves were joined with water and melted coconut oil. I've never used coconut oil before, but it makes sense in this cake. Instead of butter (not vegan) you use oil, and coconut is cook in cakes, so therefore, coconut oil is a good choice.
In the last minute, i decided to double the recipe. It was no problem to do that and the cake came out very nice, but the baking took longer. The recipe sayd 30 minutes, but because I doubled it, it too more like 55 minutes. I also added in, because I had some, raisins and dried blueberries. They added little bursts of sweetness and a bit of texture. Because the cake took longer to bake, and the class was running a little long, i took it out earlier than I should have. I won't call this a "mistake" per se, but lets just say we had what we called "Molten Vegan Spice Cake". Of the 95% that was cooked, it tasted great, the texture was moist and you tasted the spices, but not to overpowering which is nice.
In vegetarian classes I like to try to incorporate tofu. But with the recipes I picked, tofu wouldn't have gone. The tofu recipes have more of an Asian influence, which I love. But having a Tofu-Miso Stew just won't go with the Kale and Bean Soup, Radicchio and Mozzarella salad, and so on. So I bought some soft Almond Silken tofu on the side with the cake. Even in vegetarian classes, tofu is a touchy subject, as it was with a couple people here. But after tasting it, they were surprised how good it was. As an alternative to whipping cream (not vegan) it was a winner. They ate it all up.

In any given vegetarian cooking class i teach, there is usually only maybe 1 or 2 actual vegetarians. Tonight we had 1 vegan. People are just interested in learning about alternatives to eating meat, or just adding life to their vegetarain options. The Complete Tassajara Cookbook will do just that. The recipes are interesting, tasty and exciting. The recipes from the Tassajara are tested in their kitchens and served to their guests. Some recipes have been around since the beginning of the Tassajara in the late sixties. So You can trust they are solid.

Next class: Pasta et Cetera

Pure & Simple Homemade Indian Vegetrian Cuisine

This week is vegetarian week. Last night we featured the book Pure & Simple Homemade Indian Vegetarian Cuisine. Indian cooking classes seem to be pretty popular 'round here. It was also a vegetarian class. In my opinion, the most exciting and interesting style of vegetarian cooking comes from Asia, specifically India.
It was no-brainer when deciding to cook out of this book. I really enjoyed flipping through it. Loaded with full colour pictures a la Donna Hay. The one thing that's different is that it's not overly styled like Donna Hay. Throughout the class, we realized the food looked just like the pictures in the book, which is a good sign.
Now, I will admit, I'm not the worlds greatest Indian cook. Every time I teach an Indian cooking class, I learn just as much as the students. But I do have a pretty good base knowledge of flavours and techniques I've learned from past guest instructors, authors and family.
My Grandmother, Ruby Cheung, was born in Calcutta and lived there for the better part of her childhood. When I was a kid, I remember the smell of vindaloo and chapati wafting from the kitchen every Wednesday. The best I ever had and will ever have.
This is what we made.


To start, we made Cauliflower Pakora. This recipe, along with every other pakora recipe, starts with making a batter using Gram flour AKA Chickpea flour. We spiced up the batter with some chopped up chili, ground coriander, and cilantro.
I decided to change the recipe a bit due to time constraints and my own personal preference. first, the recipe says to blanch the cauliflower florets, drain, cool, then add to the batter. I opted not to blanch. The reason is because i figured that the deep-frying will cook the cauliflower. If I blanched and then fried, the cauliflower will overcook and turn it to mush.
I was right. After frying, the cauliflower was cooked through perfectly.
The second change I made to this recipe was that it says to dip the cauliflower into the batter, place in the hot oil, and fry for 30 seconds and set aside to drain. Then they do something really strange. When cooled, they squish the fritter into a sort of disk, and then fry it again. The re-frying is probably so it will become more crisp in the end. Sort of like the same idea as blanching french fries in oil, then frying them again so they become really crispy. Due to time constraints and the fact I had 8 people eying this deep fried goodness, I just dipped the raw cauliflower into the chickpea batter and fried it at 375*.
I worked out just fine. They were golden, crisp, and amazingly light. Sometimes when you get pakora in a restaurant, the batter is thick and oily. These were the total opposite. We served it with a refreshing green chutney from the book, simply buzzed up in the food processor using cilantro, chili, ginger, lime and a touch of water.
Believe me, I could go on about the intricacies of deep-fry all day. But I'll spare you rambling and save it for another time. Maybe we can put together a deep-fry class. Dangerous!

Next was a simple salad of chickpeas, lemon cilantro, and an amazing "temper" of hot oil, mustard seeds and curry leaves.
I'm not really a fan of canned beans. The only use for canned chickpeas i think is to make hummus. They are already mushy and super-soft. I was organised enough to soak the dried chickpeas overnight. The next day I simmered them gently until tender. The great thing about using dried chickpeas is, that after they are cooked, they have great texture and flavour. Creamy on the inside with a nice firm outer shell. Perfect for a salad. I mixed together the dressing with lemon juice, sugar and fresh cilantro. Tossed together and allowed to sit for a while. The longer it sits to marinate, the better.
But the most interesting part about this salad is the "temper". Heat up a few tablespoons of canola oil until just smoking. Add in a teaspoon of black mustard seeds and 12 fresh curry leaves. The seeds toast and curry leaves crisp up within second. Immediately pour the hot oil over the salad and voila. A simple salad.

Next we started to prepare the main course. The great thing about vegetarian cooking is that nothing really takes that long to cook. Tonight was a curry with green bananas with a spicy yoghurt sauce, potatoes and peas, and cumin scented basmati.
The Basmati was very simple. I had a dicrepancy with the recipe though. It mentions to use 1 part basmati to 2 parts water. That would work if you want really mushy rice. You should not use more than 1.5 times water, which is what I used. But first, it called to saute some spices (cumin, bay leaves, cloves and cinnamon) in ghee, add the rice, water, bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. I'm glad I caught the mistake of the amount of water. The rice would have been way too wet.

The potatoes on the other hand were pretty bang on. I parboiled diced potatoes and set them aside. Then i prepared the masala by frying up cumin, tumeric, chili powder, and seeded, grated tomatoes. Cooking it slowly until all the water has evaporated and is fairly dry. After adding in the potatoes and tossed in the sauce, i added some ground coriander and garam masala. In a seperate pan, i heated up some more ghee and fryed some cumin seeds and ginger paste. I added the peas and sauteed quickly, then added it to the potatoes. Tossed together and done. Very straight forward. The recipe was great and the poeple really loved it, as did I.

Now the curry. The reason I picked this curry is because I've never made one with bananas or a base of mostly yoghurt. An interesting combination. Firstly i started frying my spices in ghee. Tumeric, fenugreek, chili powder, and dried chilies. Then made a slurry of sorts with yoghurt, a small amount of chickpea flour, and water. After adding the chopped up bananas to the spices, I added in the yoghurt mixture, allowing it to simmer for 10 minutes and done.
A little side note about the bananas. The recipe asked for "cooking bananas". I wasn't really sure what those were. The book said something about green bananas, so i bought the greenest ones I could find. Luckly the Metro grocery store just got a fresh delivery. After buying the bananas and reading the recipe a little more closely, i discovered they were asking to cook the bananas in a pressure cooker. In the back of the book there was a picture by picture guide. In the picture, their cooking bananas looked like plantains. Too late. I only had really green regular bananas.
Finally, another "temper" has to be made. We again heated up some ghee until fairly hot, then added black mustard seeds, curry leaves and chili powder. After a few seconds, it was poured over the curry. In the picture, you can see the it sizzling on top.
It was a very different kind of curry. Mostly everyone liked it. Some didn't. One customer mentioned it tasted a LOT better with a little bit of the "temper" on the spoon. I thought it was pretty good. Maybe I'm not used to the banana part, but the base flavours were there.
Lastly was dessert. This one was a stretch. There isn't a lot to choose from dessert wise in the book, so Vermicelli Pudding was just strange enough that I had to try it. In past classes, we've prepared something similar using rice. The recipe starts with toasting vermicelli noodles in ghee. After 10 minutes on low heat, milk was added and simmered for 20 minutes or so. Instead of using rice vermicelli which i'm not really a fan of, i used mung bean vermicelli because I prefer the texture. Anyways, after it simmered for the 20 minutes, sugar and raisins were added and simmered another 5 minutes. So far looking...interesting. Meanwhile, in the morter, i crushed some cardamom seeds and saffron and added it to the pudding. Right away it turned it a light redish/orange colour. It was garnished with some chopped pistachios then served.
Lets just say it wasn't everyones favorite. Maybe it could have been the mung bean vermicelli. Maybe I'll try rice next time. But the flavour was there. I think it was the texture that turned most people off. I liked the cardamom, saffron, raisin, and sugar mixture. It looked good, but as one person said "It has the texture of rice pudding, and I don't like rice pudding". Fair enough.

Dessert disaster aside, this book was pretty good. For beginners who wants to dive into Indian cooking, it's a winner. Pictures for every recipe, really easy to follow recipes, and full of useful techniques. After tasting all the recipes, i also discovered the spices used were nicely subtle and not in your face like a lot of other books. So people who are skeptical of said spices, no need to worry. This book is also a great vegetarian book for our vegetarian friends. Again easy to follow and adds a whole lot of exotic to your repertoire.

Next: The Complete Tassajara Cookbook