Appetite for Books

A Year in Lucy's Kitchen

2010-05-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

For those not in the know, Lucy Waverman is the food writer for the Globe and Mail. She is the author of eight cookbooks. The newest one is called "A Year in Lucy's Kitchen". A common trend in some new books coming out is the idea of cooking in season. Of course this is not a new idea, but recently, things have come full circle. With the wide spread Slow Food Movement and the emergence of Farmers Markets, cooking in the season and becoming more aware of the foods available locally is on more peoples radar.

Lucy Waverman's new book is not only divided by season, but month to month. Being that the class was in April, I decided to keep in the early spring months with recipes from March, April and May sections of the book. Here is what we cooked:

Lyonaise Salad
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Fiery Fiddleheads with Penne
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Maple Infused Salmon with Watercress Salad
Fingerling Potatoes with Herbes de Provence
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Banofee Pie

A traditionally French salad. Nothing really different in this. A classic mixture of crisp lardon, mixed greens, garlic croutons, a poached egg, and a simple vinaigrette.
Tasted as you would imagine it would.

Next was something a little more interesting. Fiddleheads are common this time of year in Quebec, parts of Ontario and New Brunswick. But most people are a little confused as what to do with these young ferns. I loved the fact the author adds a few recipes for fiddleheads in the book. In this case we made a quick pasta incorporating the fiddleheads, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovy and chili. To finish we grated on some pecorino cheese. For fiddlehead fans, this is a winner, colourful and fresh.

The main was another simple seasonal dish that incorporates one of Quebecs favorite ingredients, Maple Syrup. We marinated the salmon and a mixture of maple, vinegar, wine and lemon and then seared in a pan. It had a nice balanced flavour with the sweet and sour.
The side for this was a salad of watercress. We also roasted some fingerling potatoes spiked with Herbes de Provence. I figured I would combine the 2 and make a warm fingerling and watercress salad. Came out very nice.

Dessert on the other hand was more of an experiment. I think I chose to make this purely out of curiosity and the name "Banofee Pie" intrigued me. In my mind, I could not imagine this would turn out that great. I'm pretty good at reading recipes now. Lets just say it was an acquired taste. Also, it would be a diabetic nightmare. A mixture of sugar, sweetened condensed milk, bananas and milk. Now I like sweet, but this was off the charts!

Real Cajun

2010-05-11T08:29:00.002-07:00

Nothing is hotter right now than Cajun. A recent featured city during the Montreal High Lights Festival, New Orleans style of Cajun food has been getting a lot of press. Most specifically Donald Link's book real Cajun has been a popular go-to reference for authentic Louisiana Cajun recipes.
We recently did two nights of Real Cajun. Here is what we made in no particular order.

Old School Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya
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Fried Chicken Livers
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Lake Charles Dirty Rice
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Chicken and Andoulle Gumbo
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Peach Buckle

The Jambalaya didn't really turn out like the picture. Mostly because I was a little short on time and cooking it for as long as the recipe asked for just wasn't time sensitive. I will say the flavour was there. The recipe calls for smoked sausage like andoulle. We don't get that sausage here in Montreal so I substituted Chorizo. It gave it the smoky flavour we needed. It definitely had a paella-ness to it.

When I mentioned fried chicken livers to the guests, there were a few strange looks. But once you have one bite, you're hooked. Anything deep fried is good. Especially chicken livers. They were soaked in buttermilk and dredged in flour and served on a crouton. Some chili on top and voila. They were awesome. One thing though is that the really spat up when frying. So use a net over the oil.

Give me a bowl of rice and I'm a happy boy. But when you fry up ground pork and ground chicken livers, fry them up and fold them into rice, you had me at fry! This is like nothing I've ever had. Reminiscent of Chinese fried rice, this incorporates pork, chicken livers, chili and vegetables folded into perfectly steamed rice. The flavour was deep and rich with a mild liver taste. A definite winner.

It wouldn't be a Cajun class unless we put together some gumbo. In this case, we fried up some chicken and sausage gumbo. This rich, thick, meaty stew is a staple and can be difficult to make. I tried to cook it as fast as I could for the class and it came out pretty good. I had attempted this recipe the weekend before and it was the same. Served over rice, it was very hearty. But it was a certainly big bowl of brown.

For dessert we made a typical southern Peach Buckle. It is essentially a simple cake batter with fresh peaches folded in. One tip. Don't make this outside of peach season. Use fresh, in-season peaches and it will be an amazing dessert. But we made it, and it came out OK for off season. But in season, it will blow your mind.

Chef at Home - The Jolly Maritime Giant

2010-05-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

You can't really miss Chef Michael Smith for two reasons. 1) He is on the Food Network Canada 10 times a day and 2) he's a full 6'7" of chef-ness.
I honestly didn't have too high hopes for this class. When Michael Smith cooks on tv, it all looks very simple, tasty and fun. But the translation into book just doesn't do it for me. But that's not his fault.
Due to the popularity of the Chef at Home, I had to do a class on the newest book. I have to tell ya, everything came out awesome! Everything from the soup to the dessert was very tasty and simple to make.
Here is what we did.

Maritime Clam Chowder
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Southwestern Bean Salad
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Cornmeal Crusted Salmon with Basil Mussel Broth
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Bread Pudding

The Clam Chowder was simple. Canned clams, vegetables, some cream and milk. It took all of 20 minutes to put together. It was creamy without being thick and rich like some other chowders. I prefer mine thin so I put in a bit more milk that cream.

The next was a simple bean salad done "Southwestern" style. I used a mixture of Black Eye Peas, Black Beans, and Red Kidney Beans, along with blanched green beans, red pepper and some corn. It was brought alive with a very simple lime vinaigrette. The difference with how I did it was I used dried beans rather than canned which is what the recipe calls for. You get a better texture that is not mushy like canned beans can be.

The main course was probably my favorite of the night. Simple crusted organic salmon with cornmeal with a mussel broth. The cornmeal gives an amazing crunchy texture to the salmon and the broth from the mussels was full of flavour. The hardest part of this recipe was after cooking the mussels, you have to remove the mussel meat from the shell. But once that is done, it's a simple preparation.The broth is mixed with some pesto and I added some baby spinach to it. The salmon was crisp and the broth was full of basil and mussels. Very nice.

Dessert on the other hand wasn't my favorite. But that could have been my fault. I think the bread i used wasn't the best. It was a fairly dense levain like bread that being day old was even more dry and hard. I'm more accustomed to using croissant for bread pudding. Also, I'm not too keen on putting raisins in bread pudding. But that's just me.

The Best of Chef at Home is a pretty good book. Loads of recipes for the family, comfort foods with simple preparations. What I think most people will like about this book is Michael Smiths easy going attitude and unpretentious recipes. Your week night cooking just became a lot more tasty!

Tardy

2010-05-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

As you have noticed, me and updating a blog do not go together.
All this writing makes my head spin. I'd much rather be in the kitchen cooking than be chained to this computer. So, in order for me to appease everyone, I'll be reformatting the posts' in a way that will satisfy me and the 2 people that read it :)
I have been taking pictures of this seasons food and will post them along with a short description. Not the lengthy, time consuming write up as before. If you want to cook it, you'll just have to come in and pick up the book.
Happy reading!
Jonathan

Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health

2010-03-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

The first Moosewood cookbook came out in 1977. To this day, the Moosewood collective continues to put out quality vegetarian cookbooks loved by believers. The idea behind this book is that by eating more fruits, vegetables and legumes, one can live a healthier life. How this differs from any other vegetarian cookbook confuses me. The one thing I noticed was that there are nutritional values for each recipe. Does that make it more healthy? or just gives one the power to choose wisely?
Last night we cooked out of their newest offering, Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health. Here is what we cooked.

Curried Tofu and Mango Salad
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Raw "Tacos"
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Savory Asparagus and Mushroom Bread Pudding
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pecans
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Silken Tofu Pudding

People tend to be on the fence when it comes to tofu. Texture and taste, or the lack there of, are the main offenders. But as I always say, everything tastes good if it's cooked the right way. In this salad, the tofu is cooked the right way.
We used very firm tofu that was broken into large chunks and then fried in a frying pan until golden and crispy. Already sounding pretty good. Now because tofu has no distinct flavour, you have to add it. Tofu is a great vehicle for flavour. In this case, a mixture of soy and miso. Once the tofu was browned, the sauce was added and quickly tossed together. We had to be careful not to cook it too long because soy can over cook and become to salty and bitter. So a quick toss and out of the pan.
The salad part was simple. These days, Ataulfo mangoes are in season. I love these. The smooth, creamy texture and sugar sweetness is a great combo. To me, it's the best fruit in the world. Anyways, the mango was mixed with celery, red pepper and green onions. We added some spinach to bump up the salad.
The dressing had a yogurt base with madras curry powder and a touch of cumin. I used Mediterranean yogurt when the recipe called for non-fat yogurt. It may not fall into the "Healthy Cooking" concept of the book, but we only used a very small amount of the dressing. Just enough to lightly coat the salad. The cooled tofu was mixed in and there you go.
For the people that didn't like tofu, and there were a few, they loved it. Some even went so fr as to say this was the best tofu they had ever eaten. And mixed with the fresh vegetables it was a great fresh and light, but satisfying salad. The complex flavours of the curry and soy and miso balanced well. I think if you are a vegetarian, or even a non vegetarian, you would love this salad if it was served to you.

The idea of Raw Tacos fascinated me. I love making tacos, but never imagine making them raw and vegetarian.The whole idea of raw is that nothing is cooked, or brought above 115*C. It is believed that cooking the food destroys the "life force" of the ingredient and kills certain enzymes that aids in the digestion and absorption. Whether or not this is good for us, the Raw Taco was tasty to eat.
It is started off by making the "Cheese", which consisted of ground sunflower seeds, lots of herbs, soy, lemon, and olive oil. It was mixed into a sort of salsa like consistency that really did not look like "cheese".
The next part was the actual filling. In the food processor we mixed sun dried tomatoes, lots of walnuts, garlic, olive oil and more herbs. It was processed until smooth but still a bit chunky. Because it was a raw dish, we could not use the tortillas used for a typical taco. We used lettuce cups as the shell. The "cheese" was spread on first and then a spoonful of the filling.
I think it was a surprise for a lot of people. First of all, you would not even consider it a raw dish. The richness with all the nuts was, in my opinion, was more rich than adding meat. The flavours with the sun dried tomatoes, garlic and soy really made this dish exciting. The texture of the nuts gave it some crunch that made it very palatable. It was a surprise at hoe good it was. Another winner.

I have been seeing savory bread puddings an a few cookbooks lately. It's definitely a great one dish meal. With the mixture of bread, vegetables, combined with the richness of eggs and milk or cream, it's a satisfying option.
In this case, we used some seasonal asparagus and mushrooms. If you have never made bread pudding before, i highly recommend trying it out. We started by sauteing some onions and then adding the asparagus and mushrooms. It was mixed together with some multi grain bread and the eggs and milk. Baked in the oven for 20 minutes and it was done.
The meatiness of the mushrooms along with the freshness of the asparagus really balanced out this dish. The bread added a nice texture and the creamy custard kept it really moist. You would not even think you are eating "bread pudding". And it was so simple to make. This is a great base for a savory bread pudding. Mix in a number of any seasonal ingredients and make it your own.

On the side we simply prepared some roasted Brussels sprouts. The were put in a hot oven and then tossed with a lemon Dijon vinaigrette and sprinkled with crushed pecans. So simple. I love the idea of tossing roasted vegetables with a light vinaigrette and Dijon. It really brings the flavours together and balances it all out. A great side dish not only for a bread pudding , but for really anything you serve.

IN vegetarian classes, i not only like to try and incorporate tofu once or twice, but I also like to try and make a vegan dessert. IN this book, there was a dessert recipe that allowed me to do both. The Silken Chocolate Pudding incorporates silken tofu, which is a very smooth tofu with a high moisture content which gives it an almost custard like texture. It is used in many vegetarian and vegan desserts as a dairy alternative.
This Chocolate pudding pureed the silken tofu with melted chocolate, cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla and a touch of water together until smooth and rich. Portioned into small ramekins and chilled until needed. It was that easy. The pudding was amazingly smooth like a pudding should be. But when tasted, you sort of know it's vegan. The texture was rich and creamy, but it was missing the cream. It was very smooth on the tongue and did not give the creamy aftertaste a regular pudding would. But that's not to say it was a bad dish. I really liked the rich chocolate flavour and the non creamy creaminess of it. I also really liked the quickness of the recipe. As you can tell in the picture, it looks like a really good pudding. Surprise, its vegan!
I'm not too sure if people really liked it though. Most of the dishes were left half eaten. But in their defence, i gave a pretty big portion. I think it is an acquired taste and once acquired, you could easily gobble it up. Also, I think we compare it to a full cream and egg pudding. This does pale in taste to that, but if you don't compare it, it's a great dessert.

The Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for health was one of the best vegetarian cooking classes I have ever done. The combination of dishes, flavours, and cooking techniques were vast and exciting. When we first received this book, the second I opened it, it gave me good vibes. The recipes on any given page really spoke to me. These were only a few recipes we cooked, but I look forward to trying a lot more. The Moosewood Collective continue to produce some of the best vegetarian cookbooks out there, and this new one is no exception.

Next Class: Nutmeg and Custard

Gourmet Today

2010-03-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

This is the final bow for the famous Gourmet Magazine and it's editor Ruth Reichl. Gourmet Today is a compilation of over 1000 recipes from the now defunct magazine. They claim it's an answer to today's changing tastes, with more of what people want to cook and eat today. Hence Gourmet Today.

With over 100 recipes in one book, you can imagine of hard it is to choose a menu. With so many recipes, I decided to stick with a tour around the world, in 4 recipes.
Here is what we made.

Southwestern Quinoa Salad
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Korean Pancake
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Lamb in Spicy Yogurt Sauce
with Rice and Pita
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Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake

Lately I've been doing a few recipes with Quinoa. It's a seed originally from South America. The high protein content adds great nutrition to salads, soups, or side dishes. It's easy too cook and is a great vehicle to infuse flavours and mix with any ingredients you have around the kitchen.
This salad had Southwestern flavour that is very basic and simple to prepare. When it came to cooking the quinoa, i did change the preparation. The recipe called to steam it, which i have never done before. Usually I boil it, as I did this time. Boiling it eliminated using one extra piece of equipment, and I'm not to fond of washing extra things, so I boiled it. The general rule is 1 part quinoa, 2 parts liquid. After simmering for 15 minutes, I poured it onto a baking sheet to cool and dry a bit. Ready to go.
The quinoa was mixed together with typical southwestern ingredients. Tomatoes, roasted poblano chilies, corn and Queso Fresca which is a fresh Mexican style cheese. It's a little harder to find, so we altered it by adding in Geek feta. The vinaigrette was just a very simple mixture of lemon juice and olive oil.
The salad was refreshing, extremely nutritious, and satisfying. It took no time to make and everyone loved it. It would be a great dish for a large group, a light lunch to go, or a starter or side to a nice dinner. So far, we're on the right track.

Next was trip to Korea with a classic Korean Restaurant Staple, the Korean Pancake. Whenever I go for Korean food, I love to order this as a starter and share with the table. A mixture of vegetables and meats or seafood are cooked together into a large sort of pancake and dipped into a quick say based sauce. These pancakes are huge, packed with stuff, crispy and savory.
I have fond memories in Vancouver going to this Korean joint after the bars and eating for the first time this Korean pancake with a bowl full of assorted organs, stewed in kimchi with a cracked egg on top. So delicious. But my cousin Jeff didn't think so as he was passing out in the corner of the booth after too many shots of Jack Daniels...lightweight!

Anyways, The cool thing about this pancake is that it's base is not made from flour. It's a puree or dried, soaked and pureed yellow mung beans. It incorporates only a couple tablespoons of flour for binding and, in this case, shredded carrots and green onion. We fried them in a large pan until golden and crisp. Meanwhile, we made a simple dipping sauce of soy, mirin, and sugar.
The pancake it self was a bit bland, but with the sauce, it woke up. I can also suggest, if one plans to recreate it, to add assorted seafood or meats to make it more interesting. The base recipe is there. Building on it would make it even better. The texture was like it was made with all flour, and not the mung beans. A bit more dense but still having that "bready" feel. Interesting because of the lack of gluten.
The hard thing about making them so large is the flipping. The first one was a challenge. As I've never made them before, i wasn't sure how i would go about it. So, in true Julia Child fashion, the first one broke! But i made up for it with the second one. I guess in Julia's words, I just didn't have the confidence.

The main course brought us to the Middle East with the flavour combination of lamb and spiced yogurt. The lamb shoulder had to be simmered in a mixture of turmeric, cinnamon, onions and allspice topped with water. Because lamb shoulder is as tender and your leather shoe, it had to be cooked for a few hours. After about 2 hours of simmering in this liquid, we added in the yogurt and allowed to simmer another hour to thicken. I have to say, I've never had more tender lamb. The yogurt really helped break down the connective tissue in this tough piece of meat, and the spiced really were aromatic and added a beautiful, exotic taste.
This was served simply with steamed white rice and a bit of pita. The sauce mixed well with the rice and everyone loved the tenderness of the lamb. Some were concerned about the fact that the lamb was cooked in yogurt though. They thought it was a strange combo, But once tasting it, they realized it made sense. The yogurt added a slight tang to the dish that helped balance out the richness of the lamb.

I think I picked this dessert purely for it's name. I tried to do a little research as to why this pound cake would be Elvis' favorite. But I came up with nothing. So, whether it is or not, if it's good enough for the King, then it's good enough for us.
There was really nothing overly special about this pound cake, just a plain vanilla flavour. Butter, sugar, eggs and flour were mixed together and baked.
This recipe called for 3 cups of sugar, which might have been perfect for the King, but we don't want it that sweet. I cut the sugar by 1/2 a cup and it came out fine. Also, the key to this is the flour. The recipe called for cake flour which is a more finely ground flour. It gives the cake a very fine crumb and keeps it nice and spongy.
We served it with a dollop of whipped cream. It was still a bit warm which was nice.
The texture was great and the cake was moist. Make this in the summer and grill it on the BBQ with some grilled seasonal fruit and you're in business. The King would approve!

I have to give it to Gourmet. Coming up with over 100 recipes is not an easy task. In the cookbook world, we call these books "The Workhorse's". They provide you with every recipe you could ever need. Gourmet Today certainly does just this. The one problem I have with these kinds of books is that sometimes they can be a bit intimidating. Looking through it trying to find something to cook can be difficult just because there is SO much to choose from. It can make you dizzy.
Also, these huge books tend to lack a common theme. With recipes from all over the world, it's hard to create a focused menu.
But on the other hand, the variety is amazing. As with the menu tonight, we were able to taste flavours from all over.
So if you are not afraid of big books like this, and know how to read a cookbook properly, meaning focus your attention on one recipe at a time, then pick up this book. People who love Gourmet magazine love their recipes. With such a large collection in one book, Gourmet can live forever!!

Next class: Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health

Basic Japanese Cooking

2010-03-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned last night in class that if I were to eat only 1 cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be Japanese. The clean simple flavours make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. I love the use of soy, seaweed, miso, and fresh fish. For those who have been to Japan or has experienced the Japanese culture will know what I'm talking about. It's not just the food, but the people and traditions around food. Each dish is a well thought out and precise item from a simple miso soup to a more elaborate Kaiseki meal.
We didn't get as intense as a Keiseki, but we did touch upon some of the basics.

Zaru Soba
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Okonomiyaki
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Yakitori Chicken Meatballs
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Oyako Don

The first thing we did was make Dashi. I consider this the life-blood of Japanese cooking. It is an ingredient that is in many dishes from sauces to soups and stews. The base is Kombu, which is a dried kelp, and Bonito flakes, which are dried and smoked bonito fish. A very flavourful broth that only takes about 15 minutes to make.

The first dish we made is a standard in Japanese cuisine. I have a fond memory of walking into a soba restaurant in Tokyo where the chef was cutting fresh soba noodles with a huge sword in the front window.
Here, we just buy Buckwheat soba noodles. The are prepared very simply by boiling for a short time and making a dipping sauce of dashi, soy and mirin. We garnished with some toasted nori seaweed and a bit of grated daikon radish. To eat, the noodles are picked up and dipped into the sauce and slurped away.
This "salad" is a great starter because of the clean flavours. The sauce really makes the noodles come alive.

I loved the next dish. When I was a kid, my mom used to take in Japanese Exchange students. When they cooked, this was one that they always prepared for us. I consider Okononiyaki a student food. Sort of like Kraft Dinner or instant noodles. Except this is made from scratch. It is essentially an savory pancake with a variety of fillings.
When I visited a former student of ours, Miho, in Japan she took me to a cool little lunch counter that had a flat-top grill embedded in the counter top and wrapped all the way around. You would order the okonomiyaki with what ever filling you want and they cook it directly in front of you.
We did pretty much the same thing here. We did a simple batter of flour, eggs, and dashi. We filled the pancake with the standard shredded napa cabbage and dried shrimp. At this point, one could put anything in from assorted seafood, chicken or beef. We fry it like a pancake in a pan and serve it with a couple of sauces. Traditionally, Kewpie Mayonnaise (Japanese mayo) and Tonkatsu Sauce (a sweet savory sauce) is drizzled on top along with a sprinkle of bonito flakes.
The pancake itself is rather simple in flavour, but the sauces really wakens it up. I can also imagine that with more "stuff" inside the pancake, the flavour would be more intense. It's an amazingly simple dish ready in minutes. I can see why students who have NO cooking skill can make this.

Next we did a yakitori. Yakitori joints scatter the Japanese alleyways and street. Small little restaurants with small stools and tables are usually packed late at night with beer guzzling Japanese business men looking to grab a hearty snack after work. Yakitori is pretty much meat on a stick. In this case, it was ground chicken egg, Japanese breadcrumbs and ginger. They were molded into small meatballs and skewered. We grilled them on the BBQ until brown and crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle.
Meanwhile, we made a sauce of sake, soy, sugar and mirin that was thickened with a bit of cornstarch. The sauce was brushed over the skewers and served. The char on the chicken, mixed with the sweet and salty sauce reminds me of the streets of Tokyo. A dish like this is perfect for the upcoming BBQ season. A variety of different yakitori would be great for a party.

The last dish is dish that reminds me of my teenage years in Vancouver. I've always wanted to learn to make it. If I knew it was this easy, I would have been doing it my whole life. But tonight was the first time.
I think it's the combination of the dashi, soy, sugar and egg that really makes this a savory and hearty dish. It can be made with any meat of fish that you have around. In this case, we used chicken what was cooked inside the mixture of dashi, soy and sugar. Once cooked, we cracked in a couple eggs that cooked and thickened up the sauce slightly. Served over rice, it looked just like what i had always ordered in the Japanese restaurants in Vancouver. But it tasted better, because I made it myself.

For all these recipes, i didn't change anything. I kept it pretty much by the book. The great thing about Japanese is that there are minimal ingredients so a few basic things in your pantry can put together a great Japanese meal. This book really makes it easy. Just like the Basic Thai Cooking last night, Basic Japanese cooking is great for people wanting to get into this style but wants to avoid complication. The recipes are easy to read with many pictures strewn throughout.
I'll definitely go back to this for the basics.

Next Class: Gourmet Today

Entre Cuisine et Bambini

2010-03-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hi – my name’s Hilary and I’ve been working with Jonathan and Michelle for almost 2 years now and I love cookbooks. I used to work in professional kitchens as a cook but the lifestyle afforded me very little in terms of “me time.” As a former Literature major turned cook, Appetite for Books is the perfect spot for me. Starting today, I’ll be doing a book review every month. Enjoy!

Reading recipes in anything other than your mother tongue is a little daunting. Actually, reading anything in a second language can be tough. My sweet and loving boyfriend got me some French books for Christmas and I hate to admit that I have a hard time reading them. I grew up in Montreal and have spent the majority of my life here yet I am not a true Montrealaise, as they say, since my French is slightly short of spectacular. It’s always bothered me that my French isn’t “comme il faut” and I’ve decided to finally do something about it. Enter Stefano Faita and his wonderfully Italian cookbooks, written in French and bursting with deliciousness. Anyone who has ever set foot in Montreal’s Little Italy will tell you of their affinity for Qunicaillerie Dante, a kitchen supply institution cum gun store masquerading as a hardware store. Confused? I was too the first time I went in. Guns? For a second I thought I was visiting my relatives in Texas and made a mental note to hide my liberal sensibilities. Reality flooded back as I examined the Bialetti espresso carafes, Mario Batali cookware and amazingly awesome meat grinders. I get excited in these kinds of places – there is so much to see and touch and fawn over that I become paralyzed and stagger around making the staff eye me suspiciously. Hmmm…is she casing the joint? Should we bust out one of those guns?

Stefano has just published his second cookbook called “Entre Cuisine et Bambini” hot off the heels of his 2007 publication, “Entre Cuisine et Quincaillerie.” The philosophy behind his latest book is one that I subscribe to, the idea that food is about friends and family. That sharing a meal with the ones you love is the ultimate satisfaction and is really what life is all about. A new father, Faita dedicates the book to his daughter, Emilia, and what follows are a series of not only delicious but kid friendly dishes. The book doesn’t follow your traditional Table of Contents so instead of the usual appetizer, chicken, beef and fish you’ll find sections like “La famille dans la cuisine” and “L’Italie en Famille.” There’s a brunch section, a Christmas section and a bit on barbecuing. The book is chock full of Faita’s own family gatherings – those he loves laughing, cooking, eating and most of all, enjoying life. You feel as if you’ve been invited into his world, that if your approach to food was half as enthusiastic as his, your life would be that much warmer.

So back to my original thought: how easy is it to read a recipe, let alone feel inspired by it, when it’s written in anything other than your mother tongue. And with me being the mother of all Anglos – how would I react to this book? I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in this department as many of you have assured me that you too are not totally at ease reading recipes in another language.
I gave it a try and it paid off – in spades. Enter this month’s Recipe Review, which is effectively a quick bolognaise sauce served on ziti (or gemelli, if you can’t find ziti) and garnished with diced salami and ricotta. It was the garnish that got me – that and my usual bolognaise needs at least 3 hours to cook. I’ve taken the liberty of translating it for you here but you can find the original French version at Appetite for Books.

Pasta di Giuliano

• 60ml olive oil
• 1 diced onion
• 1 minced clove of garlic
• 1 finely diced carrot
• 1 finely diced celery stalk
• 70 grams finely diced pancetta
• 600 grams ground veal
• 100 ml white wine
• 200 ml tomato puree
• salt and peper
• 400 ziti or any other short pasta – I used gemelli
• chopped parsley
• 80 grams diced salami
• 125 grams ricotta
• 60 ml parmesan

1. Heat up oil and gently cook garlic and onion a few minutes – add carrot and celery, veal and pancetta.
2. Let cook around 5 minutes or until the water from the vegetables has evaporated. Add the wine and let reduce until dry.
3. Add tomatoes and season with salt and pepper.
4. Reduce heat and let cook 25 minutes.
5. Cook the pasta in lots of boiling, salted water.
6. Drain the pasta and mix with the sauce – add chopped parsley.
7. Serve in individual portions garnished with the diced salami, a spoonful of ricotta and parmesan to taste.

So many fun, fast and soul satisfying dishes that I can’t wait to unleash on my friends and family. Surely they’ll know how important they are to me after eating pizza with bacon and eggs, Italian style ribs, fried cheese sticks, grilled peppers stuffed with mozzarella and ricotta, espresso mousse.

So I invite you to expand your linguistic horizons. Put down your copy of “La Presse” and pick up one of Stefano’s books. Invite your friends over. Tell them to bring their kids, their parents, their dearly loved dog. And above all – Bon Appetit

Basic Thai Cooking

2010-03-13T06:44:00.001-08:00

If you want to get into Asian cooking, I think Thai food is a great "gateway" cuisine.
When it comes to Asian cooking in general, be it Thai, Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese, it's all about the balance of sweet, salty, sour, and sometimes, hot. Once you master differentiating these flavours on our palate, you are ahead of the pack. Combine that with being familiar with some of the key Thai ingredients, you will be a master Thai chef. That's why this book, Basic Thai Cooking is a must have for beginners. Like the title says, it's a basic overview of Thai techniques and ingredients, with all your favorite dishes.
Here is what we made:

Tom Yum Goong
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Green Papaya Salad
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Duck and Pineapple Curry
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Sweet and Sour Vegetables
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Coconut Custard

When I do Thai classes I love to incorporate this soup. It's a favorite among customers and and mine. The reason I like teaching about this soup is because it incorporates most of the most common Thai herbs. It's like the one stop lesson in Thai ingredients.
It is a seafood type soup using all the Thai herbs. Lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, tamarind, and fish sauce. We first made a simple shrimp stock by simmering the shells of the shrimp we put into the soup for 5 minutes. Then simmered all the herbs along with tomato and mushrooms. Season with some fish sauce, sugar and lime juice and it was done. I beautiful clear broth, hopping with flavour, and a great way to get the taste buds jump started.

Next is the salad. Buying green papaya may not be that easy. You would have to go to a good Asian store to pick one up. Essentially it's an unripe papaya. It has to get shredded either by cutting it or on a mandolin. If you have time, I would recommend go to Marche Hawaii on Marcel Laurin. It's a huge Asian grocery store that sells already shredded green papaya for salad. Very convenient.

The dressing was pretty cool in this. It's important that you have a mortar and pestle. Garlic and chili is mashed up to a paste, then peanuts and dried shrimp were added and mashed to a paste. Then some lime juice, fish sauce and sugar is added along with some cherry tomato. The mixture is mashed together to a paste/dressing and then mixed with the shredded papaya. It's garnished with some very fragrant Thai basil, cherry tomatoes and coriander. Very fresh and again, a well balanced salad with the fish sauce, lime and sugar. The papaya was nice and crunchy with a very mild sweetness to it. I'm not a fan of regular papaya, but green papaya is great used this way. A simple salad that is very typical Thai.

The main course was Duck and Pineapple curry. I think this was my favorite of the night. The great thing about Thai curry is it takes only 20 minutes to make. That is if you have a curry paste already made. In this case we did. I'm not really one to make curry paste from scratch. The grinding in the mortar takes a long time. I buy a good quality paste with no additives or preservatives. Everything that you would put in a proper Thai curry paste is in there. Nothing more, nothing less.
First we started by frying the paste in a bit of oil in a wok. The herbs and spices in the paste are all raw, so in order to bring out the most of it, it needs to be fried a bit. Be careful though, because it can burn and become bitter.
The paste is fried on medium heat for about 2 minutes until very aromatic. Then the coconut milk was added and brought to a simmer. At this point we begin to reduce the coconut milk in order for the milk to sort of separate. This is what gives a Thai curry it's sheen of spicy oil on top that we all love!!
The Duck used for this was from Chinatown. Chinese BBQ duck is needed. It's impossible to get the same flavours without it. Just drop by a good Chinese BBQ place and pick one up. It's what makes the dish. It was chopped and added to the sauce, along with some chicken stock, kaffir lime and the pineapple. After simmering for 15 minutes it was done. Seasoned with fish sauce, lime, and sugar, and Thai basil to finish. We served this on rice and it was so great. There was a HUGE bowl of it and we finished off every drop.

The vegetables on the side were very simple. Peppers, cucumber, pineapple onion and garlic were tossed with a sweet and sour mixture of tamarind, sweet chili sauce and fish sauce. A very simple concoction that took no time. It's important to cook at high temperature though to ensure the vegetables warm through without releasing too much liquid which results in soggy veg.
I realized i don't have a picture, but it was colourful and really tied together well with the curry.

Finally, the dessert. I'm not a fan of Asian desserts in general. I find them either way too gelatinous or heavy. This steamed coconut pudding seemed like it could be OK, but it reassured me, Asian desserts are not the greatest.
3 ingredients. Coconut milk, sugar, eggs. Whisk them together and steam. The recipe said 30 minutes, but it took only 15. It tasted like steamed egg with a little sweet coconut. Not my thing. Maybe with a little more sugar and less egg, this could work. But if you follow this recipe, it's not the greatest. That recipe needs some work.

so to sum up, Basic Thai Cooking is just that, basic Thai cooking. It has all the favorites people love. They use simple techniques and flavours. Nothing overly complicated and there are a lot of pictures to compliment each recipe. For those wanting to start off cooking some Thai, this is the book for you.

Next Class: Basic Japanese Cooking

How to Roast a Lamb

2010-03-12T06:12:00.000-08:00

Michael Psilakis' new book "How to Roast a Lamb" is not really about lamb. Eventhough there are a few great lamb recipes in the book, it;s more about his Greek heritage and the wonderful food that he was brought up with.
You don't really come across too many good Greek cookbooks that often. Recently, a great book by Phaidon called "Vefa's Kitchen" came out that was traditional recipes. Claimed to be the bible of greek food. But Psilakis' book is more of a modern twist to traditional reciles, a bit more contemporary. The book is filled with family memories and the recipes that go along with them. The one thing I love about Greek food is the simplicity and freshness. Minimal ingredients, with bright ingredients ad any Mediterrainian cuisine should be like.
Here is what we cooked.

Tomato and String Bean Salad
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Shrimp with Orzo and Tomato
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Roast Leg of Lamb
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Potatoes, Olives, Capers with Anchovy Vinaigrette
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Yogurt with Quince and Almonds

First course was pretty much what it sounds like. Blanched green beans and chopped up tomatoes with some thinly sliced red onion. The one thing that really brought this dish together was the vinaigrette. The red wine and feta vinaigrette really made it. I love this greek thing with feta in a vinaigrette. The cheese soaks up the flavours of the vinegar, shallots and garlic and then tossed with the vegetables is so delicious, simple and fresh.
Of course, it is the beginning of march and I'm using hothouse tomatoes that are not the greatest. It just reminds me, along with the current nice weather, that summer is around the corner, and if using fresh local ingredients, this is the perfect salad to
showcase fresh product. Using a variety of different tomatoes in season would not only boost the colour and visual, but is a great way to utilize the different kinds we get here in Quebec.
I have NO complaints about this salad. I didn't change anything about it except I didn't have any yellow beans. It was dead simple and everyone loved it. A great quick weeknight meal. Keep with the Greek theme and add a bit of grilled fish with it. Would be a super lunch!

Next was a pasta dish. Orzo is not a really common pasta used by many people. It is a rice shaped pasta used in Italian, Greek and Turkish cooking. It is common in soups and salads, but this time, on its own with some prawns and tomatoes. We cooked it like you would cook pasta. Drained and set aside. Sauteed onion, garlic and tomatoes were cooked together and the orzo and prawns added back in. Lastly some baby spinach was tossed in and barely wilted. Finally we topped it with feta cheese and it was done. A simple pasta dish utilizing a different pasta shape that I love. Not sure if this is really that Greek, but Greek and Italian cuisine can cross over a lot and similar in many ways. I'm not complaining.

I didn't want to disappoint people and not cook lamb for this class. So I figured I would do what the book says. I taught them how to roast a lamb. Not a whole lamb though, just the leg.
We did just what the recipe called for. Butterfly the leg and stuff it. It was stuffed with a mixture of sun dried tomatoes, olives, lots of herbs, and garlic. It was pureed in the food processor and smeared all inside the lamb. It was then tied up and placed in the fridge to marinate a bit and firm up a bit. We skipped this step. I just put it into the oven. The remaining stuffing was put in the bottom of the roasting pan with a bit of water and whisked together to make a sort of sauce. The lamb was placed on a rack, seam side up, which I thought was a good idea. This way, when cooking, the marinade doesn't seep out of the lamb, it melts into the meat instead.
One problem I had with this recipe was the cooking temperature and time. The recipe said to cook it for 1 hour at 375*. I did this, for the first hour! But it was not cooked. I don't think the meat I bought was not much bigger than what the recipe called for either. So I had to bump up the temperature to 400* and I think in total, it took at least 1 hour 40 minutes. It threw my timing off. Not only that, but he mentions that the internal temperature for medium rare is 140*. I cooked to 135* because I could not wait, and it was medium well, which is fine for me. I'm not a big fan of leg of lamb at medium rare. So again, it internal temperature was off.
But besides that, The lamb tasted great. It was juicy and really flavourful with the briny herbiness of the stuffing. If you decide to make it though, watch the timing. it'll take you longer than the recipe says.
On the side we prepared an exceptionally briny vegetable dish. Potatoes with olives, capers, caperberries and Anchovy vinaigrette. The potatoes, capers and olives were placed in a saute pan and tossed together to warm. Seperatley in the food processor, i added in anchovy, shallots, lots of fresh herbs, dijon and vinegar and olive oil. It was buzzed up until smooth and then drizzled into the sauteed vegetables. It looked like a typical mediteranian dish with the capers and olives. Paired with the lamb, it was a well rounded dish.

Lastly was the dessert. There are NO desserts in this book. Lately I have come across a few books with no desserts. Is this a new trend?
Lucky there was one very traditional dessert that was there using good thick greek yogurt with quince and almonds. Due to the lack of quince this time of year, instead of cooking down and candying fresh quince, I opted for a simple bought quince jelly. The recipe also called for Jordan almonds, but i bought regular almonds. It was a simple preparation with the yogurt, quince on top, with crushed almonds. I loved this yogurt, it was mousse like with the perfect amount of sour. The Quince jelly balanced with the sweetness and the almonds gave it some crunch. A perfect end to a rather heavy meal.

I'm a big fan of this book. I could open to any page and cook that recipe. The flavours are fresh, cooking techniques are simple and the result is tasty. I think everyone enjoyed all the dishes, even though we had to wait for the lamb. But it was worth it.

Next class: Basic Thai Cooking

Salt to Taste

2010-03-07T08:10:00.001-08:00

When people were asking about this class "Salt to Taste", the first thing asked was if I was going to use a lot of salt. Salt to Taste is not about salt. It's about basic cooking techniques. The most basic skills we need in the kitchen are strewn throughout this book. It teaches recipes that are so stripped down and encourages you to built and experiment with it.
Here is what we started with.

The Escarole Soup is really simple. Stock was brought to a simmer, escarole was added along with Parmesan and seasoning, and done. Escarole is a great green to have cooked or in a salad. Sort of like in between butter lettuce and romaine. It has a nice crunch and a very mild bitterness sometimes. Very clean, refreshing and a great light started. I loved that it was very quick to make. The key is a good rich chicken stock. We were chatting while we ate this on ways we can build on this recipe. Whisking in some egg like a Stracciatella was one idea. Another was adding in tortellini or ravioli would work as well. Other vegetables or legumes.
I don't have a picture because I forgot. Sorry. All you have to imagine is wilted escarole in a broth. Easy.

Next was another starter recipe. The most basic of tomato sauce with spaghetti. Onions, garlic, pepper flakes and cherry tomatoes. No other liquid was added. The cherry tomatoes slowly cooked and released all their juices. After about 10 minutes, the cherry tomatoes created their on sauce. Meanwhile we chopped up some parsley, lemon zest and garlic to make a gremolata.
The Spaghetti was tossed with the sauce and the gremolata sprinkled on top. I have to admit, I was a bit generous with the pepper flakes. But the good thing was the gremolata cut the spice with the fresh parsley and lemon. A quick pasta that like the soup, was simple to make, few ingredients cooked the right way, and satisfying.

The Main was a bit more complicated compared to the first 2 courses. In the past, I've had a lot of bad luck with braised duck legs in class. The recipes NEVER tell you to cook them long enough. Case and point with this recipe. Maybe it's the duck legs we get here, but they never cook in the time the recipe says. These legs are cooked in wine, stock, aromatic vegetables, and olives. It's important to sear the legs first and brown the skin to give it some colour. They were submerged in the liquid and braised in the oven. The recipe said a total of 1 1/2 hours at 325. But if I had not put the temperature up, they would still be like rubber. The legs came out JUST done. I think it could have used another 30 minutes at least, but due to time constraints, we had to take it out. Luckily they were tender enough and everyone enjoyed them.
We served it with some simply sauteed rapini with garlic. A classic Italian preparation that is a great way to cook rapini. The rapini is blanched in salted water for a couple minutes then shocked in cold water. Garlic is then browned in olive oil and the rapini is added to warm up. This was a bed for the braised duck leg. The flavours were definitely there. The rick duck with the sauce was amazing. A great alternative to confit, as duck legs usually are. The green vegetables were a perfect match as they made the dish as a whole more fresh and light.
I would recommend if you like confit duck but don't want to confit at home, attempt to braise them in wine and stock. But whatever recipe you follow, allow more time to cook. Take it from me.

The final dish was dessert. I read the recipe and I knew something was wrong with it right away. But I decided to make it anyways because 1) there are not a lot to choose from in the dessert department and 2) I wanted to see if it I was right in thinking it wouldn't work.
I was right, it didn't work.
This Panna Cotta is simply cream, buttermilk, sugar, and gelatin. The author mentioned infusing it with a multiple of things, so I opted for chocolate. Everything was heated in a pot and poured into small ramekins. Set to chill in the fridge for a few ours and it should be done. This was not the case. The recipe called for a mere 1 tsp of gelatin for 3 cups of liquid. No way would it set with that little gelatin. I had even put in a bit more gelatin to try to compensate. I didn't want to make this and not have it work so no one would have dessert. But even when I put 50% more gelatin in it, it still didn't set totally. It was still runny. So this recipe is a dud. It totally doesn't work.
Also, one customer mentioned it was a bit too buttermilky for his liking. I could definitely smell the buttermilk. So if you're not a buttermilk fan, the recipe said to forgo it and add all cream. So I think the next time I make Panna Cotta, the recipe will not be from this book.

The recipes we started off were very promising. The simplicity and bared down ingredients made them typical Italian style cooking. But the duck legs and desserts would not work for people using the book for the first time. So it's a 50/50 chance that the recipe will work for you. I think I'll have to try a couple more things out of this book to give it another chance. I like the concept of the book. Trying to teach home cooks is a noble cause, but when recipes don't all work, you might give them a complex!

Next Class: How to Roast a Lamb

Michael Symon's Live to Cook

2010-03-05T13:31:00.000-08:00

There is at least one thing that Michael Symon and I have in common, We both "Live to Cook"!
Live to Cook is the Iron Chefs first book. Michael Symon is also the executive chef and owner of Cleveland's Lola and Lolita restaurants. I was able to eat at Lola earlier last year. The open kitchen, lively atmosphere, and a fresh menu is the reason why it is one of America's most sought after reservations. And if you've ever seen him, you would know that insane laugh!

Here is what we cooked:

First course is the soup. Dead simple. The key to this dish are the tomatoes. Canned San Marzano tomatoes. Well balanced, low in acid and sugars. Great for tomato sauce or a soup like this. We sauteed a bit of onion and garlic in oil, added the can of whole tomatoes, simmered a couple minutes, added heavy cream and the blue cheese and puree. Simple as that. For a little added heat, we added in some sriracha chili sauce. The blue i used was a really creamy Gorgonzola. Not to blue as I wasn't sure what people liked. But the soup was very creamy with the addition of whipping cream and the cheese. But I heard no complaints. This soup took all of 15 minutes to make.
Next time I would add a stronger blue. This soup is pretty much what it says. Spicy Tomato and Blue Cheese. Nothing more, nothing less. I really liked the idea of blending in the blue, but it's not really a "new" concept. I do like that this took no time to make. Usually I don't add cream to puree soups either. I'm thinking if you used enough cheese, that would be enough cream. I'll try it and let you know.

Second course. This was a hit. When you mention pork belly, peoples eyes light up! And when they are called pork belly croutons, people start to become hungry. I think I picked this dish for this exact reason. Pork belly croutons are ingenious. Pieces of braised pork belly that are deep fried until golden and crispy. Serve it with some frisee, pickled red onion and a perfectly poached egg and you're in heaven.
This pork belly took a while to cook. The day before I had to salt it and let it sit over night. The next day, I had to braise it for 7 hours. I find seven hours REALLY long. I cooked it for 5 and it was good. 4 would have been fine too. It was braised in aromatic veg, wine and stock. It came out super tender. It had to chill in the fridge in order to cut it into thumb size pieces to fry.
But once they were fried, they were something special. Who can say no to bacon and who can say no to deep fried anything. Put them together and you are at the mercy of the pork belly crouton!
Once put together, the salad was just like the picture. I was happy that I was able to poach the egg perfectly. Not all cooks know how to cook eggs properly. And poaching ten perfect eggs in front of 10 hungry customers is not easy. But they came out perfectly runny. Whew!

Mac and cheese with goat cheese and rosemary was the main course tonight.
A note on this dish. I use whipping cream once in a while. When desserts call for it, whipped cream as a garnish, sometimes in a sauce. But this was crazy. Most mac and cheese recipes call to make a bechamel sauce with cheese whisked in. This recipe called for 1 L of 35% cream reduced to half, infused with some rosemary, and then a lot of goat cheese whisked in. It tasted good though.
Instead of elbow macaroni, we used rigatoni. I also roasted some chicken in a hot oven and shredded it. All tossed together it was amazingly rich. The chicken was really great in it. The goat cheese really came out and gave it the typical sharp goat flavour which I love.
This recipe was pretty simple and straight forward. The only thing that takes a while is reducing the cream. It has to be done at a fairly low temperature or else it will simmer over. Other than that, it was quick.

On the side I figured we needed some sort of vegetables. It's not easy finding fresh vegetables in this book. There is a whole chapter on pickling fresh vegetables. And a lot of meat! But I picked a grilled radicchio dish that is different for a lot of people. This Italian standard is a great way to use radicchio. Usually this purple cabbage like lettuce is used in salads. But on the BBQ, grilled until charred and slightly wilted, makes a great side dish any time of year.
Radicchio can be pretty bitter. The grilling mellows it out a bit and makes it more sweet. Once grilled, it is traditionally drizzled with olive oil and we added on some orange zest and juice. The acid helped cut the creaminess of the pasta sauce. So it went well together.

I can tell Michael Symon is a real cook. There is no dessert section. So we didn't make dessert. The soup, pork belly and pasta pretty much busted every ones gut, so it was not missed. I did whip together some chocolate chip cookies earlier so they could have a little sweet after the meal.
The meal was a winner for sure. Everyone was relaxed, having a good time, and talkative. Good food and good company always makes for a great evening. we all ooed and ahhhhed over the dishes and came out. Excited about pork belly and mac and cheese. At first glance the book was not what I had hoped for. But by the end, I was sold on this book. I look forward to trying out some of the other pork belly recipes like grilled pork belly. I'll let you know how it goes.

Next class: Salt to Taste

Pasta Sfoglia

2010-03-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

In Italian, "sfoglia" means a thin layer, as in a thin layer of pasta dough.
Pasta Sfoglia is the first book written by restauranteurs Ron and Colleen Suhanosky. Sfolia is the name of their two restaurants in New York and Nantucket and they have just reveiled all their pasta secrets!

The Menu

The first was a simple spaghetti dish with almond pesto and lemon. A great starter. Not to heavy with a refreshing hit of lemon. This pasta took all but 10 minutes to prepare. All we had to do was buzz up some almonds, garlic and enough olive oil to moisten it. We warmed up some lemon juice and olive oil in a pan, added the almond mixture, and then the cooked spaghetti, salt and pepper, and your done. How easy was that? The ricotta salata on top just gave it a bit of salty creaminess. Ricotta salata is not available everywhere. Go to a proper cheese shop and you should be able to find it there. If not, use some mozzarella.
Earlier in the day I made some fresh spaghetti. It took a couple minutes in the salted boiling water and directly from the boiling water into the sauce. THis is an important tip to you all. No need to rinse the pasta before putting it into the sauce. Leave the starch on the noodles and the sauce will stick to them.
This first course tasted very simple, with the creamyness of the almonds and the zest of the lemon, it's a great starter for a bigger meal or just a simple, light, quick weeknight meal. We're off to a great start.

Second course was something I have never done. It s reminisent of middle eastern style lamb that is cooking in yoghurt. In this case, the lamb shoulder is simmered in a mixture of white wine, stock, heavy cream, capers, onion, and garlic. It took about 3 hours in the oven to produce an amazingly tender, juicy meat that was fall off the bone. We shredded the meat directly into the liquid it was simmering in which after 3 hours of cooking in the oven, had reduced about half. The shredded lamb thickened up the sauce even more.
While the lamb was cooking, we roasted the eggplant. It was simply tossed with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, cinnamon and pepper flakes. After they were roasted in the oven for 25 minutes, they were tossed into the sauce, which was then tossed with some cooked penne.
Creamy, salty, and full of tender juicy lamb. The capers gave it real brininess that I wasn't expecting.

When I saw a picture of the third course in the book, I knew it had to be made. I've never attempted a "rotolo" before, but it seemed simple enough. I had made some fresh pasta sheets earlier in the day. The shape and thickness exactly as if you were to lake lasagna. Two sheets were over lapped by a few inches. We mad a filling of a LOT of fresh goats cheese, wilted spinach, and fresh prawns. THe filling was layed on the inside of the pasta and it was rolled into a large log, sort of like a really big cannaloni. They were cut into 2 inch sections, stood cut side up in a roasting pan, and cream poured all over it. After roasting in the oven for about 45 minutes, the pasta was cooked, the edges brown and crispy, and the stuffing creamy and light.
This was probably my favorite of the night. I really liked the crispness of the edges. And the shrimp mixed with the goats cheese was tasty. When all that cheese gets hot, it sort of puffs and feels light on the tongue, but at the same time rich. There was really nothing I didn't like about this dish. It would surely be a show stopper at any dinner party.

Lastly, I decided to do a risotto. A lot of people think risotto takes a long time and you have to sit there the whole time to stir, stir stir. Wrong! Risotto is a very quick meal and is not as time consuming as one thinks. With the proper "mise en place", risotto is done in 20 minutes.
In this case, we made a simple white risotto with sauteed zucchini, peppers and lobster. We started by sauteing some onion gently. We didn't want to colour them, just sweat them off. The rice was added and then the first liquid, wine. Once the wine is cooked into the rice, the stock is added. It is important that the stock is simmering before you add it in. This ensures the rice cooks right away and does not cool down. The stock is added gradualy as to develop the starch which gives the risotto it's nice creaminess. After about 20 minutes of gradually adding in liquid and stirring the rice, it should be done. Lastly we stir in some butter and parmesan cheese.
While the risotto was cooking, we simply sauteed some zuccini, peppers and lobster meat together in a seperate pan. It was place on top of the risotto and done. The risotto was cheesy, creamy and rich. The vegetables were fresh, crisp and full of lobster. A great combo.

I love pasta books, especially this one. There are so many new, fresh ideas coupled with some classic standards. The recipes range from dead simple to mildly complicated, but follow the basic rules for Italian cooking, freshness.

Next class: Michael Symon's Live to Cook

Simple Fresh Southern

2010-03-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I've never really cooked southern food much in my cooking career. Does BBQ count? But now, I'm well seasoned in the ways of the Southern Gentleman.
Last night we cooked out of the Lee Bro's Simple Fresh Southern cookbook. If you want to get into southern cooking, and let me tell ya, it's pretty cool and fun to cook, this is a great book to get started with. There has been a small surge in "southern" cookbooks recently with John Besh and Donald Links' books about New Orleans and Cajun cooking respectively.

Currently at the Montreal en Lumiere Festival, New Orleans is the feature city.
This is not something I planned. It is purely coinsidence that tonight we did southern cooking. Besides, the Lee bro's are from South Carolina. A totally different kind of southern.
Here is what we cooked.

Collard Green and Winter Root Soup
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Sweet Potato and Okra Fritters with Buttermilk Dip
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Easy Shrimp Creole
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Banana Pudding Parfaits

If one is to cook southern food, there are a few specific ingredients one should incorporate into the menu. Collards is one of them. We started off the evening with a soup that used collards, winter root veg, and lots of bacon.
For those who have never had collard greens before, it's very similar to kale, with a cabbage sort of vibe. It is available in good vegetable markets like Atwater or Jean Talon. It's treated the same way kale or cabbage is treated. In southern cooking, it's cooked for a really long time. And this recipe does just that. When greens are cooked a long tine, they turn a really funky green colour that really is not appealing to me. So this is the one thing I changed from this recipe. Other than that, I followed it pretty well.
We started with some slab bacon that was diced. Slowly cooked until the fat has rendered off, but not nesacerally crisp. The vegetable were added, in this case, Onion, garlic, turnip and carrot, and cooked together with the bacon. The collards were added with chicken stock, and simmered until the vegetables were soft, about 15-20 minutes. The recipe says to simmer for like 40 minutes. I'm not a big fan of cooking soups that long. Everything becomes over cooked. So I do it my way. It came out pretty good. The soup was hearty with the root veg and the collard greens, and very smokey from the bacon. A good start to this meal.

Next was one of my favorite. Probably because it was deep-fried.
Another must use ingredient in southern cooking is Okra. A lot of people have bad impressions of okra. When cooked, it lets off a gummy, starchy texture not loved by many. But when cooked properly, has a beautiful sweet flavour and crisp texture. But only when it's done right.

We started by simply grating some sweet potato and salting it. It was allowed to sit for 10 minutes then we squeezed out the excess moisture. Sweet potatoes when cooked, because of their high sugar content, tend to brown quickly without crisping up. Salting them helped draw out some of the sugar that allows them to crisp up nicely when fried. The grated potatoes were then added to the sliced okra and then a batter of eggs, cream and some flour. The mixture was stirred and then let to sit for a few minutes. Then the recipe says to stir the mixture for a full minute. This sounded kind of strange to me. The mixture before stirring was fairly thin and not at all like a runny batter or thick enough to really stick together. But once mixed for the one minute, the starch from the okra started to come out and made everything stick together. Genius!
We spooned batches of the mixture into hot oil, fried until golden, and served with a simple m=dip of buttermilk, sour cream and garlic. The dip really brought the whole dish together. The tang balanced well with the sweet potato. I'll make this again for sure.

The main was a very simple Shrimp Creole. his is a great dish for a quick weeknight meal. It's packed with flavour and can done is 20 minutes. The base of a traditional Shrimp Creole consists of onions, celery, tomatoes, peppers and spice. I also made a quick shrimp stock with the shells from the shrimp. This was added to the vegetable mixture and cooked down to the desired thickness. The shrimp were added in the last few minutes.
Traditionally served on top of rice, I decided to do out of the book and cook some grits. for those who don't know what grits is, think of polenta, but using white corn. Cheesy grits was on the menu tonight. I dove into the Lee Brothers first book, Southern Cooking. The grits were cooked with some stock for 30 minutes, then I added in some Monterey Jack cheese at the end. Served with the Shrimp Creole on top, you can't get more southern than that.
This dish was a lot easier than I had though it would be. The flavours were intense with peppers, tomatoes and shrimp.

For dessert, we put together Banana Parfaits. when I say parfait, I can't help but saying it in a southern drawl. Paaarfait!
It's sort of like making pudding. The bananas were first pureed in the food processor with sugar and lemon juice. They were placed in the fridge to chill.
The second part was the custard. Like pudding, the custard consisted of milk, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, and vanilla. It was cooked in a pot until thick and then allowed to chill in the fridge.
To assemble, there is a layer of custard, banana, some crumbled gingersnap cookies, more custard, and whipped cream whipped up with sugar and some rum.
Puree Banana is not really my thing. But I get the idea. I was sweet, tasted like I should be in Louisianna, and with a shot of Jack Daniels, hard to pass up.

Simple Fresh Southern is for the beginners. If you want to get into some light, easy southern dishes, this is for you. Not the most traditional, dirty southern cooking I had in mind, but a great stepping stone. I really enjoyed the ease of use and full colour pictures so I knew what I was supposed to be making. This book gave me a taste of the south, now I want more.

Next class: Pasta Sfoglia

Jamie's America

2010-02-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-25T06:54:00.000-08:00

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
~
Penne with uncooked Puttanesca
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Chicken Pot Pie
Braised Carrots with Leeks
~
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

2010-02-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

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
~
Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs, with Fennel, Garlic and Lemon
~
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

2010-02-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-05T06:21:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

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

Soup Jan 28th

2010-01-29T05:22:00.000-08:00

The other day when it was 10* and raining, I thought winter was over and making soup was not on peoples radar anymore.
I was wrong.
Thanks to Mother Nature, Thursday ended up to be perfect soup weather. Blowing wind, snow and frigid temperatures didn't keep away our brave customers though. They battled the elements to sip down some hot soup, at the same time learn different soup making techniques.

The book tonight was called Soup by the editors of DK Publishing. There are many reasons I enjoyed not only cooking out of this book, but reading it as well. First off, as most people lie to see, it is beautifully illustrated with great pictures that seem like they are saying "Hey, you can cook me". Second, and one of my favorites, is the fully illustrated technique chapter. A picture by picture walk through of simple preparation and cooking. I really think this is great for people who don't have a whole lot of cooking experience. Reading through the first bit of this book teaches you how to cut up your vegetables, make a proper roux, or strain out a stock.
Thirdly, the recipes are laid out so in a very simple manner with concise explanations and easy to to read text. It's un-intimidating.

Lets get on with the food.
The life-blood to any soup (or cooking in general) is a properly made stock. Now I take great pride in making stock. It's a challenge for me to make it better and better every time. Tonight we prepared four different types. From left to right, Brown veal stock, chicken, fish, and vegetable. Making good stock is an art form. It takes time. Brown stock can take you up to 8 hours, chicken at least 2, and fish and vegetable 30-60 minutes. But there is no substitution to a good homemade stock. There is no store bought stock that can even come close to the purity of flavour that you can make on your own.
I do have to admit, I didn't use the recipes from the book to make stock. I used my own. But the base technique and ingredients are the same.
I started the veal and chicken stocks in the morning, allowing them to gently simmer all day. It filled the store with the smell we all love, cooking.
Once everyone arrived, we chatted about stocks and the importance of. Then we got right into it. Here is the menu:

Maple-Roasted Carrot and Ginger Soup
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Cabbage and Tomato Soup with Meatballs
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Creamy Smoked Trout Soup
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Sausage and Bean Soup

To start, we tossed a whole lot of chopped up carrots, along with some ginger, onion, garlic, and maple syrup together in a large bowl. I realized as i was pouring the maple syrup over the carrots, i didn't have enough to cover the recipe. So I supplemented with equal part local honey. did the trick. That went into the oven, 425*, for 45 minutes, until the carrots were well caramelized in parts. After 45 minutes, i scraped the roasted veg into a large pot and added enough vegetable stock to cover and pureed with my immersion blender. Simple enough. You don't even need a recipe for a soup like this.
It was garnished with a dollop of Creme Fraiche and some chopped chives. Nice and smooth, balanced in sweet, salty and spice from the ginger.
After a few spoonfuls of this, you would feel pretty healthy. The colour alone screamed "I'm healthy, drink me down!!". My grandmother would have called it "Medicine Soup". And when I say medicine, i don't mean Buckley's cough syrup.

Next was the Cabbage and Tomato Soup.
I had made the meatballs earlier in the afternoon because the recipe says to let them sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before cooking them. This is a great idea when making meatballs or hamburgers. When you work ground beef with your hands, mold it, then try to cook it, it's more likely to fall apart. If you chill it after you mold it, the meat firms up and is less likely to crumble when cooking.
Anyways, the meatball recipe was pretty straight forward. Onion, garlic, hot smoked paprika, cumin, thyme, breadcrumbs, egg, and the secret ingredient, lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Molded into walnut sized balls, i placed it into the fridge to chill.
Meanwhile, in a large pot i started preparing the base. Onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil. Then shredded savoy cabbage, and a can of whole tomatoes.
In a large saute pan I started to brown the meatballs. The recipe called to dredge them in flour. Initially I wasn't going to do this because, well, i didn't think it needed it. But for the sake of following the recipe, i did it. Adding them to a pan with some olive oil, I fried them until they were nicely browned. The good thing about dredging them in flour is that you get a nice crust on the outside of the meatball. Also, after putting them into the pot with the cabbage and adding in some of the brown veal stock, the flour helped lightly thicken up the soup. It gave it a slight, glossy look which was very nice. I added in just enough stock to cover and allowed to simmer about 10 minutes. The cabbage was well cooked. Still with a bit of texture but not overcooked. The meatballs were tender and juice. We served it with some grated Parmesan cheese and voila.

Next was the Creamy Smoked Trout Soup.

To make this soup right, we made fish stock. In order to make fish stock, you need white fish bones. Apparently, they are harder to find than I had hoped. Maybe it was because I went shopping later in the day. But I went to La Mer, no go, surprisingly. Then i went to Poisonerie Sherbrooke and he Costa didn't have any either. I was getting a bit worried. I didn't want to buy a whole fish just for the bones. Costa did have a fish head though. Now, I'm not really into making fish stock out of fish heads. In fact, in culinary school, they tell you fish heads are not good for stock. Something about it becoming bitter. But for lack of any other options and running out of time, i opted for the fish head. I got Costa to chop it in half. I brought it back to the store, cleaned it up, and made stock. While making it, i had flashbacks of a kid watching Much Music and waiting for that Barnes and Barnes song "Fish Heads" to come on. Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Eat them up. Yum!
I digress.
To start, i made a roux with butter and flour. Whisked in my hot fish stock and and allowed the flour to cook out for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile i added in some heavy cream, Worcestershire, and a bit of lemon juice. When the soup was smooth and creamy, I added in the smoked fish.
It's pretty impossible to find smoked trout around here. So I bought some hot smoked salmon and smoked haddock. When I saw the smoked haddock, I immediately thought of Gordon Ramsay and in all his British-ness, always convincing restaurants to make Smoked Haddock Chowder in Kitchen Nightmares.
The recipe didn't call for anything other than smoked fish in the soup. I had some fingerling potatoes that i par boiled and added them into the soup which complimented everything nicely. Finishing off with some chopped chives, the soup came out very smooth, rich, and smokey.

Last soup.
To start, the recipe called to lightly roast the cherry tomatoes in the oven. 350* for 30 minutes with a bit of olive oil and seasoning. When taken out, it's drizzled with some balsamic vinegar. Easy enough.
While the tomatoes were cooking, I prepared the base. Onions and garlic sauteed. The recipe called for a pork sausage i think, but I thought i would mix it up and buy some merguez sausage meat. At Atwater Market, you can sometimes buy sausage meat not in the casing. So that's what I did.
Once the onions were soft, i adding in the merguez and sauteed until browned. I added in a can of white beans, the tomatoes, and chicken stock to cover. It simmered for about ten minutes.
I carefully scooped out some of the tomatoes and beans and pureed them and added them back into the soup. So this soup was partially pureed and mostly chunky. I think it was my favorite of the night. A touch spice, and the lamb sausage really gave it something different. This soup was amazingly easy to whip together. I think it took less than 30 minutes to make. As similar in looks as it was to the first soup, the taste could not have been any more different. This last one, with the pureed beans and spice, was a lot more rich in flavour and texture. It was the perfect soup to finish off with. Everyone was warm enough to battle to dropping temperatures outside.

Hopefully winter will be over soon. But with the -30* outside, it doesn't look that way. It'll be a good weekend to stay home, make some stock and prepare a big pot of homemade soup.
Might I even recommend picking up Soup from the editors of DK Publishing?
This is going to be my go-to soup book from now on.

Next Class : Pure and Simple Homemade Indian Vegetarian

St. Mary's Ball Silent Auction Winners

2010-01-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 25th

Tonight we welcomed the winners from the St. Mary's Hospital Ball silent auction. They generously bid on a Private Cooking Class w/ Chef Joe Mercuri of Bronte.
After much planning, Joe and his two sous chefs put together an amazing five course meal that everyone loved.
There were too many courses for me to remember exactly what was in each dish. But I'll try.

Snacks

When Joe arrived to start prep, we discussed menu. Earlier in the day, on the phone, he wasn't so sure of what was going to be made. And even when he came in at 5:15 (People arriving at 6pm) he still wasn't 100%. He mention right off the bat, he wanted to "bombard them with snacks". That he did. Three plates at a time. Starting with Beef carpaccio with some Gruyere cheese.

Scallop Crudo with blood orange gelee and candied macadamia nut came next. Then cubes of marinated Ahi Tuna that was so fresh, i could have sworn it was flapping around a few hours ago.
All three were beautiful to look at and tasted as good as they appeared.
On the side, there was "bread". Skewers of toasted focaccia chunks that you could dip into bowls of porcini cream. That's a bread basket I could have again.

Once the plates of snacks were cleared and all the bubbly was drunk, Joe and his team continued with the first entree.
Tagliatelle, Braised Rabbit Ragu with Carrot Foam. I love Pasta, especially fresh pasta. I never order it when i go out to dinner because anyone can make a really great pasta dish at home. But I would definitaly order THIS dish in any restaurant if Joe was making it. I'm a fan of rabbit to begin with, so braising it in a rich sauce really appeals to me, as it did with everyone who was there. The pasta was perfectly cooked with a light snap when bit into. The rabbit was tender as any meat could be when braised for hours. There was a light hint of porcini in the sauce which brought an earthy aroma. Paired with the sweet carrot foam, this was a quintesential cold weather dish.
The next dish, on paper, I was a little scepticle about. What the Chef called Surf and Turf. Olive oil poached salmon with crispy sweetbreads, celery root puree, madjool dates and toasted almonds and apple.
the salmon was cooked in an immersion circulator in a bath of olive oil cooked at, if I remember, 43.5* exactly. The pieces of salmon appeared uncooked on the plate, but were moist and rich when bitten into. Accompanying the salmon were crispy pieces of sweetbreads that were crunchy on the outside and melt-in-your-mouth on the inside. Paired with some dated and the celery root puree, it was a well balanced plate and totally not what i was expecting. Salmon and sweetbreads, go figure.

Next was the meat. Magret of Duck. Earlier in the day, I Joe mentioned we would have duck. "With what?" i asked. "I don't know" he said.
And he continued not knowing until the duck was already cooked. But magically, Joe and his sous chefs put together some baby kale, tepenade, and a rich demi-glace to go along with the thinly sliced breast. Sweet, sour, duck fatty.

I think at this point, people were into sensory overload. It wasn't over. One more course to go.
Desert!

Half way through the evening, Joe asked if i had a microwave. I didn't. He seemed unhappy with that answer. "Is there somewhere where we can borrow one?" he asked. It was 9pm. Everything in the area is closed except the Metro across the street. We ran over and asked if we could borrow their microwave. Here we are at the grocery store, Joe, the chef of one of Montreal's top restaurant, his sous chef, and me, asking to borrow their microwave. Haute Cuisine at it's finest.
What is the microwave for you ask? Well, I had the same question. Cake. Microwave cake. The batter is put in small plastic cups, into the microwave and cooked very quickly, and voila, the puffiest cake you could imagine. This cake, scented with truffle, came with chocolate ganache and an ingenious "cookie" crumble with pop rocks. One bite of this and you literally get a flavour explosion in your mouth. After everyone's plate was licked clean, they were still grabbing for the bowl of cookie pop rocks.

We love it when guest chefs come and cook in our kitchens. There is a freshness that goes along with it. Inspiration for not only me, but for all that attend.
I want to thank the family that bid generously on our donation to St. Mary's Hospital Ball. We also want to thank Joe Mercuri and his team at Bronte for donating there time, ingredients, and skill.

River Cottage Everyday Jan 21st

2010-01-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
I think I just like saying that name. It makes me sound smarter.
Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall.

On Thursday we did a class based on Hugh Fearnley Whitingstalls' newest book "The River Cottage Everyday".
The River Cottage H.Q. is located in Devon, England and is home to his "Real Food" campaign. With multiple books and television shows, Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall is a house hold name in his native England, but in North America, not so much. He has written some of the best books that i have ever read, most notably "The River Cottage Meat Book". His desire to educate the public about the joys of earth to table eating and food sustainability is followed by some of England's top chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay.
The newest book does just what the title says. Food for everyday. Now i do have to mention, because Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and the River cottage is based in England, the food is very British centric. Using some ingredients not so common in North America. Sometimes people get a little confused when they see Roast Beef with all the fixings next to a recipe of Thai Curry. But don't let that throw you off. I'm a big fan of the River Cottage and everything that goes along with it.
Here is what we cooked.

Beetroot Soup with Spiced Yoghurt
~
Warm Leek and White Bean Salad with Mustard Dressing
~
Shin of Beef with Ginger and Soy
Caramelized Onion and Thyme Mash
~
Apple and Almond Pudding Cake

The Last time I made a puree beet soup it was horrible. The worst thing about it was I made it during a class. I was so embarrassed that it tasted horrible, it scarred me and I haven't made a beet soup since. Redemption time.
It was a simple soup using the basic techniques used for any puree soup.
Starting with onion and garlic, this soup is spiced up with some cumin seeds in the beginning and then with the beets and stock added, simmered for bout 15 minutes and pureed. While it was cooking, we whipped up the sliced yoghurt with toasted ground cumin, coriander and caraway seeds, paprika, Cayenne and some olive oil.
I dollop of that on top of this beautifully red soup really brought out an exoticness that every one loved.
I was so preoccupied with the sop tasting good I forgot to take a picture of the final product. So a picture of an empty bowl will have to do. I guess that means they liked it.

Next course was the perfect winter salad. Warm leeks with white beans and mustard. Simple enough to do. I sauteed the leeks on a medium heat with a bit of olive oil until wilted. Then I added the beans (which were canned, which I got a little flack for using, understandably) and sauteed them with the leeks until warm. Season with salt and pepper and done.
In a small bowl i made the dressing with some Dijon and grainy mustard, vinegar and olive oil. I added a bit of the dressing in with the leek and bean mixture and the remaining with some salad greens. I layed the greens on a large serving platter and put the warm leeks and beans on top. I think the best part of this salad was the dressing. I like the idea of using both kinds of mustard. Added great texture and creaminess. Also, the fact that it was a warm salad is great for a cold January night.
This can be a meal in itself, but we were only half way through.

Shin of beef is not something we in North America are too familiar with. Although, we have all had Osso Bucco. That is a cut from veal. What we cooked was a cut of beef. I ordered a whole shank from my Tony the Butcher at Boucherie Westmount.
I brought it back and cut and trimmed this huge piece of meat. I do this to try and keep up with my butchery skills or the lack there of.
I started by searing the meat in a large pot until nicely browned. After removing the beef, i added big chunks of ginger and garlic and slowly sauteed for a few minutes. Then I deglazed the pan with a combination of soy, vinegar and apple juice. The addition of the apple juice was really weird to me, but after thinking about it for a second, the sour, salty and sweet elements were all there, so i trusted my good friend Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.

Once the liquid came up to a boil I added the seared meat back into the pot and laced it in the oven at 250* for a total of 3 hours.
While cooking we caramelized some onions and thyme and added it to some simply mashed potatoes. As simple as it sounds, this was a hit. I loved the texture of the sweet onions mixed into the smooth and creamy potatoes.
There was no recipe for it, but we needed some greens so i sauteed some escarole on the side.
The beef same out and it was a lot better than I though it would come out. Even with the all that apple juice in it. It was amazingly tender (anything will be after cooking for 3 hours) and really flavourful. All the plates were empty and no leftovers. That's a good sign.

Dessert was something I was really impressed with. The apple and almond pudding, once out of the oven, looked just like the picture. I LOVE it when that happens.
To start, we sauteed the apples with a little butter, sugar and cinnamon. while they were cooking, i made the batter. Nothing really special about it. A very basic cake batter incorporating ground almonds. It was thicker than i thought it would. I reminded me of a coffee cake batter. I spread the batter into a lined 9 inch spring form pan then placed the sauteed apples on top. Into the oven for about an hour and voila.
I should also note, I bumped up this recipe by 50%. After reading the amounts initially, i knew it would not feed 10 people. Originally it says to bake in a 20cm pan. Way too small to feed us all.
Even with the alteration of the amounts, it came out how I had hoped. The apples were perfectly tender and the cake was moist. I'll be making this again for sure.

So all in all, I have to say it was a successful class. Much easier to do than the River Cafe classes earlier in the week. I was happy with all the recipes and the final flavours were pretty much what I expected.
Whether or not all the recipes in this book is designed for "everyday" it's a great book to explore. The passion of Hugh Fearly Whittingstall really comes out. It's an eclectic mix of tastes and techniques that will hopefully get everyone cooking at home.

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall.
I just can't say it enough.

Next Week : Soup!

River Cafe Jan 18th & 19th

2010-01-21T05:36:00.000-08:00

I think I was a little ambitious for this one.
Picking the menu for a class is a simple recipe. There is two and a half hours to cook a four course meal for ten people. Pick recipes that fit into the allotted time and pick recipes using techniques and ingredients people may not be familiar with.
Flipping through the newest book by the famed River Cafe in London, i got a bit excited. The River Cafe Cookbook Classic Italian Cookbook is so full of amazing looking and sounding recipes, it was difficult to narrow it down to just four. Luckily for me, there was two nights to try out as many as I could fit in.
Jan 18th:

Tuscan Kale and Polenta Soup
~
Pizza Frita
~
Bollito Misto
Rich Lentils
Salsa Verde
Horseradish Sauce
~
Torta di Capri

Lets start with the soup. Tuscan Kale is a great ingredient to use in general. That's why this soup was really appealing. It's not an easy vegetable to find. With it's dark leaves and great crunchy texture, it just screams "good for you"! Adding it to a polenta along with carrots, celery, onion, potato and garlic surly makes it a hearty, wintry soup. Perfect for the middle of January. When I cook polenta in classes, i tend to opt for instant polenta due to time constraints. The problem is that when it cooks, it gets really sticky and stiff FAST. So for this soup, i went with a regular cornmeal, and I'm glad i did. The book says to cook it a total of one and a half hours. You braise the kale in water , along with the other vegetable, for an hour, then add the cornmeal and simmer for another thirty minutes. I cut down the cooking time for the kale by half because i don't like the idea of cooking greens for that long. I also cut down the cooking time for the polenta because i like my polenta with a little bit of texture, not completely smooth. It had a great texture and people loved it. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. The kale added a great look and texture. So far off to a great start.

Second course was the Pizza Frita. This was basically pizza fried in a pan. Pretty good idea right? The picture in the book looked great and the recipe sounded simple enough. I started making the pizza dough earlier in the afternoon. While making it, it seemed really familiar. The use of rye flour in the sponge reminded me of my favorite pizza dough recipe from Chez Panise. Going back and reading the blurb before the recipe the authors mention its a variation of the Chez Panise pizza dough. Pretty good memory Jonathan. Now you just have to remember what you had for breakfast.
The pizza dough was easy to put together. I found it a bit wet, but this could all be because of the type of flour i used and not knowing exactly the texture or wetness/dryness they want. That's the thing with breads, they can't really tell you what the exact moisture of the dough, so you usually are guessing. Maybe that's why home made bread usually sucks. Anyways, because i found the dough to be a tad moist, it fermented a lot faster that the two hours mentioned. But that's OK, it came out pretty good in the end. One recipe yields ten thin crust pizzas. We rolled out the dough and placed it in the pan with a bit of olive oil. On medium heat, I cooked one side til sort of brown and flipped, dressed with thinly sliced potato, boconchini and fresh basil. Put a lid on the pan and cooked another 2 minutes.

Voila! Pizza Frita.
Not really what i was expecting. But pizza is always a hit. I thought the dough would puff more, or get more crispy, but it didn't. Maybe it needed more olive oil and higher temperature. It was a cool concept and I would for sure try it again.

Main Course was Bolitto Misto. The picture in the book is what inspired me to make it. Table side Bolitto Misto looked like a thing of wonder. Essentially boiled meats and vegetables with a rich meaty stock and a variety of sauces and side dishes to go along. It was a hard sell this boiled meat concept, but i assured everyone that they have to try it first.
I followed the recipe pretty closely. Using brisket, chicken, veal tongue, and sausage. The recipe called to use Cotechino sausage which i couldn't find. I opted for sweet Italian sausage instead. The Brisket and tongue took a total of three hours to simmer in water along with carrots, celery and onion. The chicken only and hour and the sausage ten minutes. I altering the recipe slightly, i cooked the brisket and tongue in one pot and the chicken and sausage in another. The brisket and tongue was melt in your mouth and everything was served with two very simple sauces of Horseradish cream and salsa verde. Both brought the meats to life with a little heat and freshness.

On the side we made lentils that were cooked with carrots, celery, onion, pancetta and lots of red wine and stock. Very rich and was a hit with everyone.
after the first bite, the people who were sceptical of the idea of boiled meat were excited to recreate it on the weekend. I hope they do. Although cooking time is long, it's so easy to throw together and is a great dish to entertain with.

Dessert was a chocolate torte that had no picture so there were no preconceived ideas of how it would turn out. It's a flourless cake using lots of ground almonds and bits of chocolate. Easy enough to put together. I liked the bits of chocolate strewn throughout. when it came out of the oven it looked like big chocolate chip cookie. after about one hour at 300*, the cake came out looking really rich and delicious. But being a bit worm while eating, it was very light on the palate and not as rich as it looked. I like those kinds of desserts.
All in all the class was a success. People had a great time eating and watching me run around. It was a very consuming class because all the dishes were very time consuming. I didn't have time to wash dishes in between courses. So once everyone left with full bellies it was a late night washing all the pots and pans, which i don't mind. Keeps me grounded. I may be a cook, but I'll always be a dishwasher at heart.

Jan 19th:

Potato, Rosemary, Pecorino Pizza
~
Tagliatelle with Porcini
~
Bollito Misto
Rich Lentils
Salsa Verde
Horseradish Sauce
~
Almond, Ricotta and Polenta Tart

I was ready for this one. More organized and practised.
Pizza this time was done in the oven. I didn't own a pizza stone so i went to Home Depot to buy something along those lines. I purchased two slate tiles for $6. Wasn't sure of it would work. Placed them in the oven and after reading up a bit on it, slowly started to heat them up in the oven. One at 450*, we were ready to make pizza.
The dough was the exact same as last night. We rolled them out and dressed the pizzas with thinly sliced potato, fresh rosemary, and pecorino. We made some variations using more boconchini and anchovies (my favorite). Pizza's came out better than last night. More crisp because of the slate tiles. Half way through the slate cracked in half though. No worries, it didn't stop is from making them.
Next time, I'll buy an unglazed ceramic tile from home depot. Apparently that will work without cracking. Good thing they only cost a couple bucks instead of the $50+ for "proper" stones at some kitchen retailers.

Next course was the pasta. I made fresh pasta in the afternoon. Haven't made fresh pasta in a while. What better class to do it. There is no fresh pasta recipe in this book. So I took a recipe from another book, Pasta Sfoglia, that I'll be doing later in the season. The dough was nice. I ran it through the pasta roller attachment for the Kitchen Aid.
The final dish was so simple to put together, as any good pasta is. After soaking some dried porcini for twenty minutes, I drained it, chopped it up, and reserved the liquid. Saute some garlic, sage and chile, then add in some of the liquid and reduce to almost nothing. Add in the chopped porcini and some heavy cream and stir together.
Because the pasta was fresh, it only took two minutes in boiling salted water. Directly from the boiling water into the pan with the sauce, a quick toss, salt and pepper and you're done. We added a bit of the pasta water to loosen up the sauce. The fresh pasta had a great texture with a little snap when you bite into it. Cooked perfectly. The sauce was rich with the cream and porcini. A meal in itself.

The main was the same as last night. And everyone loved the tongue. At least that's what they told me.

For dessert tonight, we made an Almond, Ricotta, and Polenta cake. Again, it was a flourless, using lots of ground almonds and polenta. With the incorporation of ricotta, this cake was super moist. The recipe called for fine cornmeal flour, but I used a courser grain to give it the cornbread-y kind of texture i like. Great for breakfast, with coffee in the afternoon, or dessert. Refreshingly lemony, we served it with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. Just like last night's cake, it baked for one hour at 300*. Nicely golden and a winner. If you're going to make a dessert out of this book, the Almond, Ricotta and Polenta cake would be a wise choice.

Another successful class with The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook. It will be a go too for solid Italian recipes from now on.

Next Class: River Cottage Everyday

Knife Skills

2010-01-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

First day back after a few weeks no classes. But we got into it right away.

Knife skills is the most important skills to have in the kitchen. It's amazing that some people, after so many years of cooking, have no idea how to hold a knife properly. Maybe that's why this specific class is popular at the store.
During this class, one is taught how to hold a knife like a real chef, arm and hand placement, and various classic french cuts like baton, jullienne, and brunoise among others.

As simple as this sounds, it's a struggle to learn them properly. Some say you can't teach old dogs new tricks, but after this class, most of my students walked away with a greater knowledge and confidence in using a knife. They also walk away with a knife. A brand new Victorinox 8inch Chef Knife.
Even though this is all hands on, we still had time to whip up something to eat. With expertly cut vegetables, we made a Indian Spiced Sweet Potato Soup, and a very simple Raw Vegetable Pasta taken from the River Cafe Cookbook Too Easy.

The class went great. No one cut themselves which I'm very proud of (keepin' the streak alive). Everyone left happy, knowing their kitchen/cutting skills are greatly improved. It's the knife Skills Class' that i get the most response from. Students who took the class years ago still come in and mention how this class has changed the way they cook.

Next Class
River Cafe; Classic Italian Cookbook

2009-12-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

And so it begins...

2009-12-02T15:27:00.001-08:00

Hi,
I'm Jonathan Cheung. co-owner of Appetite for Books. A Montreal-based cookbook store/cooking school/gathering place for gourmets and gourmands alike. I am a Chef who teaches and hopefully inspires willing students basic cooking techniques so their life in the kitchen can be easier and less stressful.

The reason I am starting this blog is to share my experiences of recreating recipes from cookbooks. The cooking classes we offer are all based on specific cookbooks. Since the store opened in 2005, I have cooked out of over 500 books. And not just one recipe from each, but multiple. Most work, some don't. Some are very impressive, some are average, and some are plain boring. And I want to tell you which one is which. Not only to help you with new ideas, but to guide you on what cookbook is best for you.

The plan is to blog about every book I cook out of. Whether it be a class consisting of 4-6 recipes in a night, or a recipe I'm trying out on the weekend (with a few pictures thrown into the mix).

For a full schedule of classes coming up, check out our website at Appetite for Books.

I'm Jonathan Cheung, and this is my cooking blog.