Mushroom Rescue Project

Hey there!

I don't know about y'all, but mushrooms are one of my favourite foods, but they're also one the most frustrating. Why? Well, when dealing with your regular variety white or brown (cremini), it's the shelf life. When I buy the regular 227 gram/8 ounce packages of mushrooms, I rarely get the chance to use them all before they shrivel up and go off. 

So, as with all vegetables, I figured the best way to preserve them before they die was to get my pickle on! Now, in my previous pickling endeavours, I combined sweet and salty and sour, but in this case, I couldn't imagine that the bright, sugary pickling liquids that sing with beets and peppers would work with the earthiness of mushrooms. 

What I really wanted to do was impart some of the complimentary meatiness that mushrooms usually get with being paired with or topping a steak, but somehow in pickle form. So, my first ingredient would be steak spice of course! Luckily, we have some of the best, thanks to our last trip to Schwartz's.

Secret ingredient!!

Now, whilst most pickling is simply based on pouring a boiling brine over veggies, with mushrooms you want to add an extra layer of flavour by marinating them in an oil mixture, as follows:

Mushroom Marinade

- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 pinch chili pepper flakes.

Pour this over the mushrooms and toss. Let the mushrooms marinate for at least an hour and transfer to mason jars.

Marinatin' 

Next comes the pickling brine. Now, I really wanted to use tarragon vinegar as the vinegar base for the pickling liquid, but we had run out, so I basically used a mix of four kinds of vinegar, which had some effect on the flavour but was, or the most part, unnecessary (I'll cover that in the recipe). The main reason for the unnecessity was that I threw in a whack of other flavours, most namely tarragon. So, I basically remade the missing ingredient!

Tarragon-Juniper Pickling Brine

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 3 tbsp red wine vinegar (probably unnecessary - it didn't really change the flavour)
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (again, probably unnecessary)
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp dried juniper berries, cracked (or more accurately, smooshed?)
- 1 tbsp Schwartz's steak spice
- 1 tbsp pickling spice (a prepackaged combo of  allspice, coriander seeds, cinnamon pieces, cloves, mustard seeds, and peppercorns)
- 2 tbsp dried tarragon leaves (I used a little too much again, about 3-4 tbsps, so keep it to 2)

Important note: There is no sugar in this recipe as opposed to most other pickling recipes since mushrooms and sweet really don't go together.

Maybe a smidge too much tarragon...

- Mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.
- Pour over mushrooms and let cool until lukewarm before refrigerating. You'll want to leave them in the fridge until cold as this will help them firm up.

- These will keep for about a month in the fridge before starting to soften. 

End result? Well, these aren't quite the same as the marinated mushrooms you buy at the Italian grocers. For one thing, I think I used about 10 times as much vinegar as they do. So, the bite, while being delicious, does lead to a sour-faced tarantella of vinegar overload. So, these are a "use sparingly" kind of pickle. that being said, the 4-months-pregnant lady sure liked 'em!

Next time, I'll use more oil, less pickling liquid and see how it goes. For now when serving, to counter the vinegar, I drizzle some olive oil over whatever bowl the 'shrooms are in.

And that is that! Maybe a partially failed experiment, but at least I didn't waste any food!

Cheers!

Pho-ming at the mouth...

Hey there!

I don't know how food trends and realities establish themselves, I really don't; maybe there's the occasional pop culture reference bump. Think The Avengers, where Tony Stark voices his desire, nay NEED, to try Shawarma after beating up ten million aliens. All I could think of was "Oi, go to Marroush on Elgin!" But it got me thinking as to whether or not some foods that are ubiquitous in one city or region might be nearly unknown in others. Is Shawarma uncommon in the U.S., or at least Los Angeles (thinking that Stark's from LA and maybe heard of Shawarma being a New York thing)? Because in Ottawa, it's all over the place. Might have something to do with a large Lebanese population, who knows. Same goes for Donair in Halifax.

In more recent years, however, the ubiquity of the Shawarma joint has been superseded, at least partially, by the Pho joint. It seems like everywhere you go these days, there's a new Pho restaurant opening up! If you happen to head down Somerset Street in Ottawa between Percy and Preston, which is basically our version of Chinatown, you'll come across something like 5362 Pho restaurants. Well, maybe more like 20 to 30. But still! That's a crazy amount of restaurants based on a single dish for a span of a kilometre! What's even crazier is that a lot of them have been in business for over a decade and always seem to be doing good business. Even outside the East Asian section of town, Pho is everywhere.

So, what is it about Pho that makes it so appealing? I honestly don't really know other than the simple fact that it's perhaps one of the most diverse, nourishing and tasty soup concepts ever made. Conceptually, it's fairly simple: a flavourful beef broth (details to come), noodles, some kind of meat or tofu and all kinds of garnishes. Traditionally, it's served with Thai basil, mint, bean sprouts, lime wedges and whatever condiment you prefer (most Pho places I've been to have Sriracha, hoisin sauce, sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce or fish sauce, or some combination of all of these on the table).

Pho is perhaps the essence of Vietnamese cuisine, I've read that it's "Vietnam in a bowl". It was possibly adapted from a French style of stew, possibly not (the Internet is, as always, confusing on the subject). What is a fact is that by the mid-20th Century, Pho was a staple food in Vietnam and after thousands of Vietnamese people left the country over the course of the Vietnam War and moved all over the globe, Pho became widespread as well. Not sure why it didn't catch on in Ottawa as widely till the 90s, but caught on it has! I still remember my first Pho was at a place on Booth Street called New Mee Fung where they serve a kind of spicy Satay-inspired Pho (I guess it might not be actual Pho - not sure what the nomenclature rules are). To this day, it's the best I've ever had. Thanks to my squeeze at the time, Leslie, for introducing me to that!

And so the day came a few weeks ago that Kari and I agreed to try our hands at making our own Pho from scratch, mostly because when she says she has a craving, I listen! So, we trundled out to get groceries and went to work! What we came up with is far from an authentic Pho, rather it's a simplified version. Normally, to make your Pho broth, you'd have to cook down a hunk of beef or bones (one recipe I saw uses oxtail while another uses a combination of beef chuck and marrow bones). We cheated with ours and used a powdered stock. It also cut down the cooking time significantly.

Now that's a bowl of soup!

Now, I wanted to make my Pho broth really spicy to help clear up the ol' blocked sinuses. Turns out I went a little overboard and had to spend a good hour adding more water and seasoning to balance out the heat. It added at least an hour to the cooking time and was a general pain in the butt and as such, I won't be recreating the actual recipe as I made it, but rather as it should have been made.

So let's check it out!

Part 1 - Making the broth

Ingredients

- 1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
- 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
- 5-6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 litre (4 cups) beef stock/broth - I used the powdered stuff and it was fine, but then I recently read the ingredient list. Yikes. Stick with actual beef stock.
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2-3 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 whole star anise, broken into smaller pieces
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp Sriracha sauce (optional; here's where I screwed up. I squeezed a little too hard and added about 3 tbsp. If you want your soup to be volcanic, use that much)
- 1 Thai chili, seeded and chopped (omit if you want no spice at all)
- 2-3 stalks lemon grass, trimmed and chopped (to trim lemongrass: cut off the "bulb" - basically the bottom inch or so, chop the hard green tops, about 10 cm worth or so, remove the bark-like outer layers until you get to the softer centre and chop, like peeling a woody onion with way more layers)
- 1 bunch cilantro stems, roughly chopped (reserve the leaves for garnish)
- 1 package rice or other other noodles (one package is good for about 4 large bowls of Pho)
- Meat (or non-meat) of choice: beef, chicken, shrimp, tofu. For this recipe, I used about a pound of boneless chicken thighs, sliced very thin.

You can always tweak it as you see fit with the seasoning (many traditional recipes also include cloves, but I find them a bit to strong tasting, so I used allspice instead), but the basic seasoning profile is mainly star anise, ginger and garlic. Well, and beef of course.

The beginning of "Red Pho" broth. I would later have to adjust everything as to make it edible... D'oh!

Directions


Ideally, you'll want two large soup pots and a strainer for best results, since straining the broth is the best way to keep the "purity" of the stock and not have to bite on giant chunks of seasonings!

- Heat oil and sauté garlic and onions in a large pot.
- Stir broth and water into pot and bring to a boil.
- Stir in all ingredients except cilantro and meat and bring to a boil for a couple of minutes.
- Reduce heat to medium-low (2-3) and simmer for another hour.
- Once hour has passed, turn up heat back to medium and add cilantro stalks and meat. Continue to boil until meat is cooked in broth. Using a slotted spoon, take out pieces of meat, or do this while straining the stock. Put meat aside.



Nearing completion

- Cover second pot with strainer and strain broth. Put back on heat at minimum.
- Some time during this whole process, you'll want to cook the noodles according to the package and portion them out per serving in a large soup bowl.
- To serve: Portion out noodles and meat into bowl and ladle broth over top until you have as much as you want.


Part 2 - Garnishes

This is the easy part and the kind-of customized part. There are no real rules for what kind of noodles you can use in Pho, but rice noodles tend to be most common. As for garnishes, traditionally, as I mentioned, you go with bean sprouts, mint, Thai basil and lime wedges. Unfortunately, we live in Ottawa in winter and sometimes the availability and quality aren't so good. The bean sprouts that were there were manky as hell so that was a no-go, so we used chopped romaine lettuce instead to recreate the "crunch and fresh" factor the sprouts would have brought. Also, Thai basil is hard to find except at Asian grocers (none of which being handy on this occasion) so we had to use normal basil.

Setting out garnishes

Here's the list of garnishes and how we prepared them:

- 1 small head Romaine lettuce, roughly chopped
- 1 bunch mint, roughly chopped
- 1 bunch basil, leaves picked
- 1 bunch cilantro, leaves picked (the stems from this bunch will already have gone into the broth)
- 1-2 limes, cut into wedges
- Hoisin Sauce

As mentioned before, you can also have Sriracha, soy sauce, fish sauce, sweet chili sauce and whatever else you feel like saucing up your soup with.

And that's that! A super-tasty Vietnamese soup feast in the making. Of course, in our case, Kari decided to add some Chicken-Celery Pot Stickers into the mix!

Pho and pot stickers - hellooooo comfort!

Here's hoping you enjoy this version of Pho, even if it breaks tradition.

Cheers!

Breakfast Goodness - part 4 - Where To Get The Goodness Made for You in Ottawa

Hey there!

We're back to look at breakfast and specifically what happens when the idea of making it yourself seems ludicrous. We've all been there: whether it's weekend laziness, workday timing or a brain-splitting hangover on any given morning, we've all been in a situation where making breakfast at home is simply a no-go. Luckily, pretty much any decently-sized city has somewhere you can go for breakfast/brunch. Some of us are lucky to live in cities large enough to have all kinds of great breakfast options.

While Ottawa's best known (downtown) breakfast nooks might be the Elgin Street Diner or Zak's Diner, neither of these will be featured in this post, mainly because they're not all that impressive to me. For standard breakfast/brunch fare, I've always found the Lieutenant's Pump or the Manx on Elgin Street are far better value for the money. And if you want to greasy spoon it up for real, there's Mellos on Dalhousie. All of these and many others are adequate, even remarkable, places to indulge your need for bacon n' eggs, but in this post I'm going to tell you about some of Ottawa's truly exceptional breakfast experiences, as well as plugging something awesome should you decide you *can* make it at home.

1 - Chicken and Waffles

A couple of years ago, the concept of Chicken and Waffles was completely ensconced in the realm of "crazy-ass things that Americans put into their bodies". There's been references to this incredulous dish in film and TV (I think Pulp Fiction mentioned Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles at some point), but surely no one would try to export the idea outside of the U.S., would they? Well one man did, Chef LeRoy, formerly of Jean Albert's Soul Food restaurant, which has, unfortunately, closed its doors. But Chef LeRoy was the first to bring Chicken and Waffles to Canada (and still makes them via catering). Since then, many restaurants all around have come out with their own version of this soul food classic.

And, I hate to say it, I find Mill Street has done it better (sorry LeRoy). Probably because they threw authenticity out the window and went for "over-the-top tasty". Mill Street's Chicken and Waffles is boneless chicken tenders coated in a thick, peppery, crispy buttermilk batter served over a giant waffle made with Belgian Wit beer and topped with rich chicken gravy, with maple syrup on the side. There is truly no better hangover food that I can think of, and you'll be full for the rest of the day! Seriously, only get this if you have a giant appetite, it's a stuffer! It's also 14 bucks, so not a cheap breakfast by any stretch. But treat yourself to it at least once in your life, you'll thank me!

Leading potential cause of my obesity, except the beer

2 - Gourmet-ing Classic Breakfast Fare

Let's face it, one can get the standard 2 eggs with bacon/sausage/ham, homefries and toast plate just about anywhere and it's not very different from one place to the next. I honestly don't know WHY breakfast in Canada and the U.S. has become limited to only a dozen or so "classic"dishes, but it has. I guess that's fine if you use really good ingredients and make it original. So with that in mind, I present the Murray Street Brunch.

Murray Street, as I've mentioned before, is one of those high end restaurants that makes what one could call "gourmet comfort food". This certainly applies to their brunch offerings. Last time we went for breakfast/brunch, the menu just sang out all kinds of fun little renditions of classics and a lot of creative twists. But for me it came down to three simple words: Garlic. Maple. Syrup. FRAK YES!!! It helps that said syrup was the topping to a kind of reinvented "McGriddle" dish called the Pauly-D. It consisted of an in-house-made sage-ginger-maple sausage patty, a fried egg, cheese and pancakes. And it was goddamn delicious!!!! I was even lucky enough to have a server who told me how to make Garlic Maple Syrup (which will be featured in a future post).



the Breakfast Sammich as God intended

 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Kari's epic breakfast as well. Her Corned Beef dish was a madcap fusion of Eggs Benedict and some kind of Denny's skillet monstrosity featuring cheese, potatoes, corned beef, egg all under a bone marrow Hollandaise. BONE MARROW HOLLANDAISE!!!! Who comes up with this stuff? Oh right, this guy does.

 

Needless to say, it was about as rich as rich gets. I have to admit, I'm not a huge Hollandaise fan. It's something I can only eat when I get a craving for it, which happens once or twice a year, kind of like poutine. But when I get that craving, WATCH OUT! That being said, today was not that day. All I know is that Kari loved it, so it must have been awesome.

I'm getting full just looking at it...

3 - On Your Way To The Office (aka Screw Timmies!)

I'll admit I'm plugging food purveyors that I've already blogged about in the past, but what can I say? I'm loyal to really top-notch restaurants and bakeries!

So, moving on. It's 6:55 and you're due in the office at 7. Not really time for a big hearty breakfast is it? Now you could go to Tim Horton's or Starbucks for their overprocessed (albeit sometimes tasty) breakfast fare and some okayish coffee. OR you could truck out to Bread and Sons (and if you work for the feds in Ottawa like I do, it's not much of a truck - or is it trek?) and partake of some of the city's best coffee (as I've already mentioned). On top of that, you can treat yourself to either a Boreka or a Black Bean Roll.

A Boreka is a puff pastry stuffed with feta and two other unidentified cheeses (it used to be just feta) dusted with sesame seeds and is pretty much the best morning salt rush a person can ask for. As for the Black Bean Roll, it's a black bean and cheese filling surrounded by a rich buttery pastry shell. It's basically an entire meal in 3 inches. Way better than a doughnut or McMuffin. 

Want to eat them alllllll!!

And finally, as a last little breakfast plug, I want to give a "shoutout" to Michael McKenzie and his charcuterie business, Seed to Sausage for making some of the best bacon I've ever had that wasn't mine (hey, no food is better than that you make yourself, including charcuterie/deli). Specifically his Garlic-Juniper Bacon. Yes, it's a bit more expensive than the commercial stuff from the supermarket, but it is TOTALLY worth it. It's another one of those "once in a lifetime" flavours everyone needs to try. Luckily, they sell it at Saslove's Meat Market in the Market and on Wellington Street, and many other shops as well.




Bacon Heaven - photo from the Saslove's Web site

So, now you know where to get the goods. Get out there and snarf some scran, man!

Cheers!

Atelier - Part 2

Hi there!

OK, so I'm back to finish off my exploration of the gastronomic safari that is dinner at Atelier. Please keep in mind that I'm working 3 months after the fact and a lot of this is coming purely from incomplete notes.

10th Plate - "Appletini, Appletini, Appletini?" - photo by kira_generika

And now, dessert time! The first course "Appletini, Appletini, Appletini?" (I have no idea what the heck the name is all about) was a celebration of apples, obviously, and the chef was clearly have one helluva party with them! I'll try my best to explain all that was going on here. There were pieces of poached apple, an apple and sorrel sauce, apple cider foam, apple-sour cream cake, as well as a hazelnut and white chocolate ice cream, a chocolate caramel "paint" (I think) and pieces of dehydrated chocolate mousse. This last component was definitely my personal favourite on this plate; it was like sponge toffee, but in chocolate form - super crunchy, rich and tasty. I also quite enjoyed the marriage of the apple flavours with the white chocolate-hazelnut ice cream. Very bright and fun, but still pretty damn rich.

11th dish - (Your Name Twice), Pumpkin Eater

Next up, the requisite pumpkin dessert. Kari was wary, not being a pumpkin fan, but needn't have been. This course was quite an enjoyable departure from the standard, and overbearing, pumpkin pie flavour profile. The dish was made up of a chestnut-pumpkin cookie, a pumpkin mostarda (a kind of sweet pickle), a coconut-ginger sorbet, something that appeared to be a disk of pumpkin pie filling (but not sure what they actually called it), homemade granola (which was a bit peppery, in an awesome way), a coconut macaroon, coffee paint, and a bunch of other stuff! I really liked how they played the "heaviness" of traditional pumpkin flavourings with bright and refreshing flavours like coconut and ginger.

Special birthday course - Shattered Dreams

Hey, it's my birthday! So, for an added bonus, I get cake! Although in this case it's shortbread with buttercream icing frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed into pieces by our server. Hence the name "Shattered Dreams". I discovered a couple of interesting things through this "bonus" dish: first, liquid nitrogen is kinda epically cool, and two, not sure I like the texture it creates in baked goods... It was damned tasty, but it felt a little like chewing on fibreglass. Maybe Atelier's version of the birthday bumps?

Last dish - A Mangoes into a Bar...

And finally, the last dessert, A Mangoes into a Bar (ba-dum-bump). It consisted of (so far as I can remember) pieces of fresh mango, cardamom ice cream, funnel cake, crushed pistachio bits and dried mango soaked in vermouth. While this sounds like a lot of big, kick-in-the-face flavours, it was actually a nice light way to end the night and cleanse the palette. The flavours were fresh and bright and it was a perfect way to end the night. Probably my favourite dessert of the night (although the dehydrated chocolate mousse bits in the Appletini dessert win best dessert element).

So there you have it, a remarkable foodie experience - definitely a fascinating and delicious birthday treat!

Now, if restaurants were simply about food, then this would be in the running for top meal ever. Unfortunately, service does play a role and I found the snobbishness of our server didn't mesh well with such fun and playful dishes. He should of at least laughed at the bad jokes!

I'm curious if there wasn't an intentional "good cop-bad cop" kind of dynamic going on since the sommelier was very easy-going and down-to-earth (which aren't really the qualities one expects in a sommelier), in contrast to our reservedly smug server.

But really, that is my only complaint, and it's minor in the grand scheme of things. It would have also been nice to have gotten the details of the plates in writing, but I'm nitpicking out of blogger laziness. Lord knows trying to scribble the notes while the server described each dish was pretty damn challenging.

As for the dining experience, I would, should money accommodate, try Atelier again, but not until they did a total menu revamp. I'd very much like to see how such a culinary production evolves with the seasons.

In the end, was it worth the hundreds of dollars in output? I say yes, if only for the incredible variety, creativity and boldness of the food. Not being a dessert person, however, I found myself wishing for more meat, less sweet (especially when the dessert courses were larger than many of the dinner courses). But the desserts were pretty remarkable and I would not want to take away from them.

So that pretty much wraps up the gastro-journey that is a meal at Atelier! Kudos again to the chefs!

A Toast to My Hometown's Better Eateries - Atelier - Part 1

Hi there!

Yep, it's time for another account of an over-the-top culinary experience. The occasion? My 38th birthday! Now, the occasion (Oct. 16) has long since passed, but I had trouble getting all the pics and write-ups organized. Also, what I'm writing here are memories of impressions of flavours I experienced nearly 3 months ago, so accuracy might not be dead on. Then again, those flavours I DO remember and can describe in detail should help give you an idea of just how *good* this food was.

Note: After trying to get this posted in one go for months now, I decided that splitting it up into two posts was the way to go. After all, we are talking about 14 total courses here! So, the first part will cover the 10 savoury courses and the second part will cover dessert and my overall impression. Essentially, this is one big post split in two mostly to salvage my brain and your eyes.

So let's get to it!

As a birthday present, I asked Kari if she could treat me to a culinary adventure at one of Ottawa's somewhat well-kept secrets in dining, Atelier Restaurant. The brainchild of chef/owner Marc Lepine, Atelier provides 12-plate tasting extravaganzas, and that's it! Each meal (escapade? tasting safari?) takes about 3 hours and there are optional wine pairings as well as an extensive by-the-bottle wine list. The cuisine can best be described as "evil and tasty genius" with lots of neat-o techniques like sous-vide and molecular gastronomy being put into place, which I appreciated, having seen many of these interesting techniques on TV, but they aren't really commonly accessible for the average foodie in Ottawa.

Atelier is a food snob's paradise and they know it. The Soviet-style "no need for a sign" exterior makes a clear statement that if you don't know how to find the place, maybe you shouldn't have bothered. But, that being said, the interior is quite warm and intimate.


Very austere decor on the outside

So, as we were sat down, we were given our wine pairing list and menu:

Wine pairing

The menu - details to be provided!

Our server was quite soft-spoken and, unfortunately, a bit aloof. Which, considering the pedigree the establishment is trying to put together, is understandable, but not always the best way to engage a people-person like Kari. Oh well... Let's get on with the food!

First up were a series of fun little amuse-bouches. Just from this initial display, I knew it was going to be a fun night by my tongue and tummy!

A plethora of "amuse-bouches"

In the shot glass was a combination of 25 spices designed to replicate the flavour of a gin and tonic. it was definitely a wake-up call for the palette.

Next was fried chicken skin (in the centre of the plate) with little dots of jalapeno and plum purée. What's to say? It's fried chicken skin! Bag that stuff and sell it at the local Mac's Milk!

Next was a one-bite tuna tartare (just to the front and right of the shot glass) with passion fruit and jerk spices. This was an interesting dish as it metamorphosized from a sort of muddied bite into an explosion of bright fruit flavour and delicious fish with a spicy kick ,but not too much.

Next up was a little chickpea and yogurt "doodle" on date purée. This was another magical transformation as the flavours came together to remind me of an incredible one-bite samosa.

Finally, in the beakers at the left was a roasted garlic soup rimmed with eggplant calzone spices. It was a little tricky drinking the soup, but it was pretty delicious (hard to miss with roasted garlic!). I don't think I got the spices to mix with the soup the way the kitchen had intended, I just remember a burst of tomato goodness.

OK, now that the freebies were done with, out came the wine and the first of many plates.

1st dish - Undercover Salmon

The "Undercover Salmon" was called so because the fish under the piece of bread, which was actually a pumpernickel chip. Glad to see the chefs share my respect for the flavour of pumpernickel, a highly underrated bread, frankly...

As for the dish itself, it was really fun as you had to crack the chip to get at the sockeye salmon tartare beneath, which was flavoured with lemon sambuca (I think) and tarragon. Very subtle flavours to accompany the salmon which was delicious. The dish was rounded out with a quail egg, edible flowers and a finger pepper. There was a beautiful moment of decadence as I made sure I got a nice piece of fish, chip and the quail egg in my gob all at once. Soooooo gooooood!

2nd dish - Mini Mozza

The second dish was called "Mini Mozza" and centred around a pair of fresh mozzarella balls (snicker here). This was an interesting version of a Caprese salad, with cherry tomato, marinated eggplant, edible flowers, fresh basil and a milk barley foam serving as the dressing (maybe? A lot of this stuff is out of my league for interpretation). Then there were the interesting mad scientist touches of broccoli and heart of palm purées (the green and beige "jellies" on the plate). On top of that was a sprinkling of dehydrated olive which added a nice rich salty finish.

But all of these elements were bowing at the feet of the meat element: pieces of fried pork jowl, which were basically like the bacon God made on the 7th day because He needed to outdo the previous 6 days work via pork. Yeah, that.



3rd dish - Liquid Orange Sticks



Dish 3 was called Liquid Orange Sticks and this was sort of the soup course for the evening. was built around carrot broth with chorizo, oyster plant and pickled Israeli couscous. There were other elements (the white powder was freeze-dried something) but I couldn't write all the details in time. That being said, the most memorable elements of this were the fantastic combo of the carrot soup with the chorizo (definitely something that I'll attempt to make in the future), and the pickled couscous, which was like little flavour grenades - a kind of sweet-and-sour Pop Rocks...





4th Plate - Black and Green (photo by kira_generika)

Next was Black and Green, the second of four fish/seafood dishes (which was quite the surprise for me, who never can get enough fish and seafood). This dish consisted of tempura halibut cheeks with squid ink alongside a garlic pistachio purée, a kind of whipped avocado, corn nuts(?) and slices of jalapeno peppers.

Really, the star here was the fish. It was delicate, flavourful and tender, with the tempura adding a crispy and greasy undertone. It was a fun little juxtaposition of refined and dirty. The purée added an extra dimension of flavour, but got a little lost next to the fish. I don't really even remember that rest of the elements.

But really, they could have just served the halibut cheeks naked on a plate and I would have been happy...


5th Plate - Tofulery

And the food just keeps on coming... Up next was the first plate that had me cocking an eyebrow. it was called "Tofulery" and as someone who generally keeps the bean curd at arms' length, I wasn't sure what to expect.

The dish consisted of smoked tofu in a dashi broth with soba noodles, porcini and lobster mushrooms, ginger and Chinese greens. There were probably more ingredients than that, but I didn't have time to write them down... (I'm still not sure if the the white stuff in the picture is egg or tofu!)

I needn't have worried about the tofu though, it was quite tasty! The whole thing tasted like a very high-end miso soup: salty, rich and warming. Not the best dish of the night, but possibly the nicest surprise.

6th Plate - Sebastien and Pinchy (photo by kira_generika)

And here we have the hands-down winning plate of the night: Sebastien and Pinchy, an homage to lobster.

This was a combination of crab salad and lemon-poached lobster meat with zucchini, celery, and spice cake, topped with brown butter and served on a reduced lobster stock.

Verdict? OH MY SWEET GOD, BEST PIECE OF LOBSTER EVER!!!!!!!! Which means that it's possibly the best bite of anything I've ever had in my life. I cannot give enough kudos to the kitchen team for this one. The lobster was tender, sweet, exquisitely balanced by the lemon and totally worked with the veggies. The spice cake wasn't necessary (as spice cake in savory dishes can be, this isn't the first time I've thought this) and I think I made sure to eat it apart from the lobster and crab salad for that very reason. Also, the crab seemed to be just a couple of degrees south of fresh. It was delicious, but it was a subtle bit funky.

Now, I would like to point out to the creative team that makes up the names of the plates at Atelier that Sebastien (from The Little Mermaid) and Pinchy (Homer Simpson's pet lobster) are BOTH lobsters, but we'll let it slide this time...

I seem to remember that once I'd finished this plate and had the corresponding crustacean foodgasm, I went outside for a smoke and to digest a little.

7th dish - Like a Sturgeon

Next up, more fish! Um, OK!!

I'd never had sturgeon before so I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it taste oily and "fishy"? Would it be super light and delicate like the halibut cheek had been? After all these plates, the flavours would need to be pretty bold to keep me from losing interest.

I was in luck, this tasted like fish should: delicate, but with pronounced flavour. In this case, the fish had a subtle bitterness that nicely went with the Moroccan spices in which it was seared.

Complimenting these flavours was a kind of chickpea/olive/apricot relish. The plate was also served with pieces of grilled (I think) artichoke, red pepper purée and a goat cheese/cauliflower foam. I found that the foam was a bit understated when eaten with the fish, but it was quite lovely on its own.

8th dish - Piggie Smalls

Well, I'll be damned, time for some mammal!

Next up was Piggie Smalls: Crazy porcine goodness with tons of extras. The plate consisted of sous-vide pork leg in some kind of rich tangy sauce with cherry tomatoes, artichoke purée, grated Gouda, garlic powder (but freshly-made magic cooking science garlic powder), chimichurri, slices of beet, charred corn and pickled chantrelle mushrooms served over a habanero "paint" on the plate. Basically it was a kind of Barbecue Salad with elements of Tex-Mex. REALLY tasty, if not revolutionary. The pork leg was cooked terrifically, with subtle hints of ham coming through even though it hadn't been cured or smoked.

The only "gaffe" was that I think the habanero paint had been painted on some time before serving, like maybe an hour or two! It was stuck, almost dried, on to the plate and as such I really wasn't able to incorporate it into the other flavours. That was really too bad, because I betcha it was DELICIOUS!

9th dish - Land of the Rising Bison

The last of the savory dishes was Land of the Rising Bison, consisting of pieces of grilled bison loin, kohlrabi slices with soymilk gel (the round tubular dealies), fennel, green bean tips, cashew tuile (the long thin pieces that look like crispy noodles), a cashew-coriander crumble, fermented green tea and cilantro oil.

By this dish, a little taste bud exhaustion had set in. Looking back, there are only a few elements that were able to etch themselves onto my palette so as to remember what it tasted like. The first was the bison itself: perfectly cooked and delicious, melt-in-your mouth tender. The juice from the meat mixed well into the fermented green tea pooling beneath it to make a remarkably unique jus. Second, the cashew tuile was wonderful, like candy, but paired well with the rest of the dish. Unfortunately, the rest of the plate was a bit more understated and as such was lost next to the flavour of the meat.


To be continued!

Let's Get Nutty!

Hey howdy!

It's time to explore our inner Daffy Duck! Woo-woo-hoo-woo-hoo-woo-hoo! It's time to get nuts!



Daffy was funnier in the 40s when he was completely batsh** crazy!

 

Nuts are one of those awesome ingredients that somehow get overlooked a whole heckuvalot. We snack on them once in  a while, eat butterized forms of them on bread and watch our friends cradle their Epi-pens should they be allergic and in the vicinity of them.

But what is the real value of nuts? Well, nutritionally they're supposed to be rather good for you. They're full of protein and vitamins, making them an ideal meat replacement in most meals. But, they also can be a good ingredient in everyday cooking.

One of the more obvious examples where nuts are used to provide body and flavour is in pesto. Pesto is usually made using basil and pine nuts, but due to the prohibitive cost of pine nuts and their penchant to go stale fairly quickly, they aren't always the most logical of ingredients. Many basil pesto recipes I've seen specifically permit the omission of pine nuts.

Me, I figured I'd not even bother in the first place and use a cheaper (and maybe healthier?) alternative using almonds. And, to give it a much different, zingier flavour profile, I say let's go with cilantro instead of basil! Turns out, after some Internet research, that this isn't a terribly original idea, but what in cooking really is? It's still tasty, goldarnit!

Almond-Cilantro Pesto

Ingredients
 

- 1 cup cilantro leaves, cleaned and stemmed

- 1/4 cup raw almonds

- 1/2 tsp sumac powder (optional - sumac can be found at Middle Eastern grocers - it has a turmeric-like earthiness, but also a nice bitterness that enhances citrus flavours)

- 1 tsp lemon zest

- 1 tsp lemon juice

- salt and pepper to taste

- 1/2 tsp capers
- 2 tsp olive oil

Directions

- Combine all ingredients except oil together in a food processor.
- Pulse together adding a little bit of oil at a time, until all ingredients are well combined into a chunky paste.

Tasty, green and bright!

This is one of those highly functional recipes that can be used in many different ways. You can mix the pesto with other ingredients to make a tasty pasta dish, you can spread it on bread for a sandwich topping, you could even cobble together a salad dressing with the pesto as a base. It's also similar to chimichurri, which is an Argentine form of pesto used as a topping on steak.

Quick lunch - toast, pesto and cherry tomatoes

So, this is just one example of how to get nutty with your food. I'll be back soon with a post on using nuts as a meat substitute. Stay tuned!

'Till then, enjoy!

Cooking with Beer

Hi there!

In a tip of the hat to the original "bachelor cook" concept upon which this blog was founded, I'd like to take a look at what has been an essential ingredient to my own cooking since the mid-90s: BEER! As I've discussed on numerous occasions in these "pages", beer has come into its own in recent years as more than just fuel for frat parties and football watching, with brewpubs like Mill Street who make their own beer and cook with it, and beer-themed restaurants like Brothers Beer Bistro that treat beer with the same respect as other "high end" restos treat wine.

But when it comes right down to it, my most primal memory of cooking with beer is standing over a frying pan with a piece of meat, pouring a bit of suds in the pan to add flavour and de-glaze. Heck, even when making a stir-fry I'd usually use beer as the cooking liquid/marinade (as seen in this archaic "Dude, Cook!" post). And of course, no chili is worth making unless it has a good whack of beer in it.

With the current resurgence of craft brewing in Canada, the ubiquitous so-called Pilsners (Blue, Canadian, etc.) are no longer the norm and there's all manner of different beers out there with unique flavour profiles. As a result, I like to try cooking with some of these more uncommonly flavoured beers.

Luckily, one can find all kinds of wonderfully quirky beers if one looks hard enough. It just so happens that, during wicked good times had at the Festibière de la Gatineau this past Summer, I learned of a speciality beer store deep in the heart of Gatineau called "Broue-ha-ha" ("broue" being French for, um, brew). It sells all kinds of Quebec microbrews and on my birthday I decided to ride out and pick up all kinds of different beers, one of which was Route des épices, which I'd had the pleasure of trying out back in February at Pain Béni in Quebec City. I figured the spicy, rich and peppery quality of the beer would make it fun to cook with, but I still needed to figure out what to make!

Well, luckily, inspiration abounds all the time in this wondrous life we all live. In this case, the fun play of the old Quebecer classic "Hot Chicken" that Kari enjoyed in rabbit form at Joe Beef a month earlier fit the bill perfectly. At first I was thinking I'd mostly follow the standard procedure, using chicken (albeit smoked) and toast and gravy. Ah, but I'd make the gravy using the skin and fat of the chicken, AND the beer! Beer gravy! Totally great idea!

So, with that in mind, it was off to the butcher!

And, of course, as soon as I walked in the door, my fickle mind sensed something even more interesting than chicken. There, quacking out to me, was a lovely duck breast, begging to be smoked. So, it was settled. I would brine and smoke the duck, but instead of searing the duck skin as per the "rules" of cooking duck, I'd trim the fat and skin off the meat before smoking it and use them as the base of my gravy.

With the duck happily brining, I had to come up with other ingredients to round out this happy meal. The "Hot Duck" would be served over toast and topped with peas and gravy as per normal, but I couldn't just eat that. It needed a side to go with it.

Well, traditionally "Hot Chicken" comes with fries, so why mess with tradition? Of course in my case, I'd make sweet potato fries and since I was going with a 'cooking with beer' theme and happened to notice bottles of Beau's Night-Märzen Oktoberfest Lager at the LCBO, I figured I'd whip up some sort of dipping sauce for the fries using the Night-Märzen. I also happened on a shop selling Irish cheddar, so it all pretty much came together quite naturally.



The all-important liquid ingredients in today's feast.



So, with recipes in brain and ingredients in hand, it was time to cook this mess of tasty up!

WARNING: There is nothing healthy about this. Except maybe the peas.

Smoked "Hot Duck" with "Route des épices" Beer Gravy

Ingredients

- 1-1 1/2 pound duck breast

- Trim the skin and fat off the duck breast and set aside in a ziploc in the fridge before brining. If I wasn't using the skin and fat for the gravy, I'd keep them on the duck to help retain moisture while smoking, but in this case the gravy is as much a centrepiece of the dish as the meat itself.

Brine

- 6 cups water
- 2 cups apple juice
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
- 1 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 tsp smoked paprika

- Whisk all ingredients together in a non-reactive container, ensuring salt and sugar are completely dissolved. Submerge duck breast into brine and ensure it stays submerged by covering with a small plate or other weight. Brine for around 12 hours.
- Once you remove the duck breast from the brine, rinse well in cold water and pat dry.


Brining does discolour the meat a little, but it'll look fine once smoked. The little pink area here is a spot where air got trapped under the plate, so that small patch didn't soak in the brine.

Smoking the Duck

Duck doesn't need a whole lot of smoking time, about 3-4 hours at 225-250 degrees Fahrenheit. I'd read quite a few posts complaining about how the exterior of the meat dries out too quickly when smoking, but I found that was not a problem after I wrapped the meat in foil for the final hour of smoking.


Now, while duck breast is generally supposed to be served medium-rare, with the middle being a deep purple colour, in this case the smoking process cooks the meat right through and since we're smothering it in gravy, the meat can be a little less rare and tender.

Keep the duck breast warm by wrapping in foil and keeping in a 200 degree F oven while making/finishing the gravy.

Gravy


Ingredients

- Skin and fat from duck breast (see above)
- 1 tsp unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup sliced button or cremini mushrooms
- 2 tbsp minced onion
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 cup "Route des épices" beer
- pinch each of salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano and smoked paprika
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 2 tbsp water
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 tbsp molasses

- In a saucepan, melt butter and sauté mushrooms, garlic and onions for 10 minutes at medium-high heat.
- In another saucepan, render duck fat and skin on medium heat.
- Once fat has rendered, transfer mushrooms, garlic and onions into the duck fat. Before doing this, you might want to remove the cooked bits of skin. They get kind of chewy and don't really add anything to the gravy. I didn't do this and it didn't bother me, so it's up to you.
- Add beer and seasonings and cook down at medium heat for about 10-15 minutes.
- Combine corn starch and water to make a roux (thickener).
- Whisk in roux, stirring constantly and cook for another 10 minutes.
- Add maple syrup and molasses and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat.



Bubblin' its way to tasty.


It was after adding the roux that I made an important discovery about cooking with strong, hops-forward beer: that stuff can be really bitter! My gravy, which I'd expected to be rich and delicious, was almost unpalatably bitter. So, what to do? Well, sweet is usually a counter to bitter, so to the Sweetener-mobile! I decided on the spot to add a good whack of maple syrup, which countered the bitterness well, but the gravy needed an extra push over the cliff, so I threw in molasses as well. This resulted in a sweeter-than-expected gravy, but how would it taste once I put it all together? We'll see!

Peas and Toast

- In the last 10 minutes of making gravy, toast two slices of dark rye/pumpernickel bread to desired toastiness.
- Steam 1 cup frozen peas in 1/2 cup boiling water for 4-5 minutes and drain.

Putting It All Together!

- Slice duck breast into about 1/3 cm thick pieces.

- Using two dinner plates, place a piece of toast on each plate.



Ready for a gravy bath!



- Next, ladle gravy over the toast and duck. Be generous.

- Finally, top with peas and serve!

 



Dinner time!

So, how was it? Well, kinda delicious! The duck was succulent and tender and is really freakin' good smoked! The gravy was a little more bitter than I'd have liked, but that was balanced by the maple and molasses to make all the flavours combine well, with a nice earthy undertone from the mushrooms. The peas added a fun crunch and burst of something resembling nutrition.

In the end, the addition of sweetness in the gravy actually made it better! As with most smoked meats, like ribs, a sweet sauce is a good counterbalance to the smoky/salty meat flavour. However, the beer choice was a bit of a dud. Next time, I'll use a much less hoppy beer. Maybe a mild stout?


Sweet Potato Fries with Irish Cheddar/Night-Märzen Dip


Fries

- 2-3 large sweet potatoes, cut into fries

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- Rinse the potatoes in water and dry well. The Internet suggested I try coating them in corn starch to help make them crispy, but really, that was an unnecessary step.
- Spread sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, turning halfway through.

Dip

- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup grated Irish cheddar (or extra-old cheddar)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup Night-Märzen beer, or other flavourful Oktoberfest-style lager

- Mix all ingredients together and bake in oven-proof dish at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 8-10 minutes or until top is golden and bubbly.

Note to self, corn starch doth not crispier fries make...

 

In the case of the dip, the bitter flavour of the beer was a bit more subdued, but also worked really well with the sharpness of the cheddar and creaminess of the mayo. The fries were meh-ish, but really, what are fries but simply a vehicle for some sort of saucy, tasty goodness?

And there you have it, my experiment in cooking with more interesting beers. The end result wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it taught me some culinary adaptation skills and a lesson in ingredient selection. In this case, just because you love to drink a certain beer, doesn't mean it'll be the best for cooking.

Til next time, stay tasty San Diego!