A Jamaican Holiday in the Kitchen

Hello there!

It was a fairly miserable Spring this year, cold and damp and gross. So, how is one to brighten up their season of rebirth when it's a holding pattern? Well, if you don't have the option of taking a trip to the tropics, you can always bring the tropics home to you! Granted, if you're a locavore, you might want to stop reading now.

Caribbean (specifically Jamaican) cooking is a fairly overlooked cuisine outside of its homelands and emigre communities, except the somewhat famous "jerk" sauce/flavouring/whatever you want to call it. And yet, almost everything about it is delicious! Jamaican food is spicy, flavourful and somewhat easy to make.

A few years back I picked up a cookbook on Caribbean cooking (it was 5 bucks) and made a few items in it that were tasty, but it was one night at Grace food market that I had a revelation: they sell goat meat. I'd heard stories of Curried Goat (apparently one of the national dish of Jamaica) but never had the guts to try it until that day.

It was super-tasty and I'd been itching to try it again, but this time with a full compliment of Jamaican favourites. Specifically, Red Beans and Rice and Fried Plantain.

Now, this is one of those meals that requires a bit of make-ahead, generally the night before. Goat meat is pretty darned tough, so it needs to marinate. Also, if you're using dried beans, and I recommend you do, they too need an overnight or more to soak.

A note on goat meat: I’ve made Curried Goat a couple of times, and the way it’s sold is either pre-cubed, or in large slices from the leg. The problem with using the cubed stuff is that it has the bone still on, meaning a lot of it will be chunks of bone with a little bit of meat on it. So, it’s maybe a better idea to get a couple of pounds of the bone-on slices of leg meat and cube it yourself.

So here we go!

Curried Goat

Meat and Marinade

- 1 1/2 - 2 lbs goat meat, cubed

- 1-2 onions, chopped

- 2 tbsp minced ginger

- 5-6 cloves garlic

- 3 bay leaves

- 3-4 lime leaves

- 3-4 sprigs thyme

- 1 tsp ground allspice

- juice of 1 lime

- 4 tbsp Jamaican curry

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- 2 tsp rum

- salt and pepper to taste

- 4 tbsp butter

- 2 cups stock (or water)

- 1 can coconut milk (about 2 cups)

Directions

-Mix together all ingredients, except coconut milk, stock and butter, in a mixing bowl.

- Cube goat meat if it isn’t already, making sure you keep the bones (as a general rule: marrow adds a whack of flavor to anything).
-Coat the meat with the marinade and allow it to marinate overnight.
-To make the stew, heat stock pot on medium, melt butter and add marinated meat. Cook for about 5 minutes.
-Stir in stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low.
-Simmer for about 30-40 minutes. Stir in coconut milk and cook for another 10 minutes.
-Serve on Red Beans and Rice

GOAT!

GOAT! marinatin'

Red Beans and Rice

 
- 1 cup dried red beans (or red kidney beans)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 4-5 garlic, minced
- 1 inch piece of ginger, minced
- 1-2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 whole dried ancho chili
- 3-4 sprigs thyme
- 2-3 bay leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 can coconut milk (about 2 cups)
- 4 cups water
- 2 cups uncooked rice

Directions

 
- Place beans in bowl covered with cold water and leave overnight.
- To prepare beans once soaked, bring 2-3 cups water to a boil and add beans. Boil for about 20-30 minutes until beans are tender. Drain and cool beans.
- In a saucepan, heat olive oil on medium-high heat and sauté onion, garlic and ginger.
- Stir in rest of ingredients except rice and bring to a boil.
- Stir in rice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 25-30 minutes until rice is tender and liquid has evaporated. Remove chili from rice and discard (or mince and use for some other evil purpose).

Red Beans and Rice, right before getting covered to cook

And voila!

Fried Plantain

-2 semi-ripe plantains

-vegetable oil for frying

Directions

-Peel and slice plantain into ½ centimetre thick slices. This thickness leads to a nice crispy outside/chewy inside texture. If you want you plantain to be more like potato chips, slice about a millimeter thick using a mandolin or samurai-level blade handling skills.
-Heat oil to medium high heat. Once hot enough for frying (drop a drop of water in the oil – if it sizzles, it’s ready), carefully place the plantain in the oil using a slotted spoon.
-Fry plantain until crispy on the outside. It’ll be a little darker than the standard “golden brown”, but it’s totally worth “overcooking” the plantain to ensure they’re crispy.
-Remove plantain from oil with tongs or slotted spoon and place on paper-towel lined plate to absorb excess oil. Serve with Mango Dip.

Mango Dip for Fried Plantain

-½ cup mayonnaise
-juice of 1 lime
-½ tsp Sriracha
-2 tbsp mango juice
-Salt and pepper to taste

-Stir all ingredients together until well blended (consistency will be thinner than commercial dips)

Plantain - sliced and ready to fry!

 

Plantain - fried and ready for dipping!

This was a meal that would warm the cockles of anyone during any season. Of course now that I’m finally done writing about it, it’s nearly 30 degrees and sunny. It does beg the question: How does someplace that’s already so hot come up with such warming comfort food? Who knows… All I know is that I’m glad I’ve learned about this cuisine because man it’s a whole lotta tasty!

The finished product!

 

Enjoy!

Edible Events - A Taste of Winterlude - Canadian Game and Wild Foods Dinner at the Courtyard Restaurant

Me again,

Every so often, the missus/babymama/gf/love o' my life and I splurge for some sort of epicurean fiesta, as my three posts on Mill Street's Brewmaster's Dinners will attest. Ottawa has no shortage of festivals and events the year 'round, but one of its top draws is Winterlude, which is essentially a celebration of all things zero Celsius and colder. And what's a good Winter festival without a bunch of culinary events to surround it?

Annually a number of "foodie" events take place, ranging from giant gala-style events featuring a celebrity chef (not something I've yet to engage in considering the 200-hundred-plus dollar price tag) to foodie tours, to smaller-scale multiple course meals at many of the cities finer restaurants. This will be the third year running we engage in one of the multiple "Taste of Winterlude" events. I'll admit I spaced on blogging about the 2011 event at the Arc Lounge, but that's probably for the best because all I really remember is delicious Foie Gras served on a mini-Beavertail and drinking a metric ton of wine. As for last year's, it was a bit unimpressive and I prefer not to blog about that which does not impress me in foodie-land. But this year's event at The Courtyard Restaurant was definitely worthy of putting fingers to keyboard.

It was a "Wild Food and Game" themed meal, so vegetarians need not apply! The idea was to serve as many "wild" foods that can be found in our proud nation and pair them (mostly) with Canadian wines (and beer). Amongst the key ingredients around which the meal was built were Quebec duck, Atlantic sturgeon, wild mushrooms, wild boar, Steelhead trout and caribou.

The menu.

Dish 1 - Amuse Bouche

This is the opening shot across the bough that's supposed to wake up the palette and make you say "Goddamn, this is going to be tasty!" In this case, the one-bite-wonder consisted of Confit Duck Terrine, Foie Gras, Pine Nut Purée, Hibiscus (leaves and gelée), Black Onion Seeds and an Anise-Porridge Crisp.

The amuse-bouche is conceptually awesome, but I find that sometimes it tries too hard to be too much. In this case, all the various elements were delicious and fascinating, but it was hard to distinguish them all in one bite. What I mostly could taste was the luxurious combo of the duck terrine and foie gras, which was awesomely tasty good (Foie gras and duck? Hard to go wrong!) with an added bit of sweetness from the hibiscus gelée, but the pine nut purée and onion seeds kind of got lost in the whole bite. I wisely broke off and saved the anise-porridge crisp until after, mainly because I wanted to taste it on its own. I'm glad I did because it was a one-of-a-kind flavour and texture experience that I really dug.

The pairing was a Californian sparkling wine which was a fun little compliment that helped open up the palette, but in the end the terrine/foie combo was still front and centre.





Amuse bouche of confit duck terrine and other goodies

While we were enjoying this first bite, the sommelier and executive chef came out to tell us all about how they put together tonight's menu and walk us through the dishes. There was a bit of a bittersweet aspect when I discovered that the chef was no longer Michael Hay (which goes to show you how out of the loop I am since he'd been gone since June of last year). Instead the new chef was Murray Wilson, an export from the UK. I needn't have worried, he had already shown his skill with the amuse-bouche, and I could tell just from the menu that he was creative with the plates. 

Chef Murray Wilson

Dish 2 - Appetizer

Next up was something really unique and special, a neat-o appetizer consisting of a Smoked Sturgeon Rillettes with Caviar, Pickled Cucumber and Red Onion, and Capers. The presentation was great, served up in a little mason jar with a whole bunch of Pumpernickel Toast on the side.

I loved this dish; bright, refreshing and delicious. The sturgeon was light and delicately smoked, the cucumber and onion rounded out the flavours and the caviar gave a nice salty pop to the whole thing.

There was one drawback, though, in that the Pumpernickel Toasts were by far too pumpernickel-y for the Rillettes and overpowered the delicate flavour of the fish. On their own they were fantastic, almost a fusion of traditional pumpernickel and a sweet spice cake.

The wine pairing was PondView Estate Riesling out of Niagara. I have to admit that a couple of months later and not being a huge Riesling fan, I don't really remember the wine being remarkably good or bad. I do remember it going quite well with the pumpernickel.

Smoked Sturgeon Rillettes

Dish 3 - Soup

Next up was the soup course and what a soup course it was! Let me fill you on a little secret (in my opinion at least): I think soup might be the best way for a chef to display some of their best stuff. From the lobster bisque at Mill Street's first Brewmaster's dinner to my own creations, soup is one of those "blank canvases" that allows a lot of creativity. Certainly this dish was another example that makes the point. I've had many mushroom soups in my day, but this one was a completely new iteration of an old classic.

To wit, this dish was made up of a base Wild Mushroom and Beau's "Bog Water" Beer Soup, with Sourdough Croutons, slices of Smoked Wild Boar, dollops of Goat Cheese, Mushroom Chips, and a Wild Mustard Gel.

Holy moly, that's a complicated soup!

It was also really super-tasty! All mushroom soups have a rich earthy flavour, naturally, and this was no exception. But there was an added element of depth from the beer. Beau's is one of those breweries that I think employs mad scientists (or mad brewmasters, I guess) because they put together some pretty crazy ideas for beer. The Bog Water is one of these, wherein they use wild harvested bog myrtle instead of hops to flavour the beer (I had to look it up here). Turns out that this is a method that used to be quite popular in Europe, but it's still pretty crazy to me! The flavour of the beer (which was naturally the pairing to the soup) was interesting, almost a sweet earthiness, if that makes any sense, which in turn added a sweetness to the soup that was a bonus.

Throughout the bowl were all the other elements that interacted in each their own way with the soup. First, the goat cheese was ladled in four little dollops at cardinal points on the edge of the bowl. So, you naturally want to scoop and mix the cheese with the soup, producing an almost silky texture and bringing an airy touch of flavour to the soup. The Mushroom Chips were, I suspect, some sort of dried treatment, possibly using morels. The flavour was quite complimentary to the soup, with just a bit of happy little peppery notes. The Croutons were also a nice flavour enhancement to the soup. I pretty much tried each "side element" on its own with the soup, just to make sure none of the ingredients overpowered the other. This turned out to be a very good idea, because the Wild Boar was by far the standout flavour in this dish, if not the whole meal! So good! Smokey and rich and beautiful, it was like super-bacon. Obviously, it sort of overpowered the soup itself, but who the heck cares?! SUPER-BACON!!!!! And that's about that!

Wild Mushroom and "Bog Water" Beer Soup

Dish 4 - Fish

Next up was the fish course (the pre-main?). This was a lovely and light dish (and light fish), but still substantial enough for a Winter feast. The dish consisted of Pan Roasted Wild Steelhead Trout, Lentils du puy, Yellow Foot Mushrooms, Roasted Almond Purée, Confit Cherry Tomato, Onion and Thyme Velouté.

Let's start with the fish. First of all, it's really freaking hard to go wrong with Trout. It's environmentally sustainable, light-tasting and really difficult to screw up! This was a really nicely done piece of fish. Personally I would have cooked it less, but I like my fish underdone, and really, cooking fish has to be done in a way that appeals to the "masses", which in this case it did. Let me put it this way: my piscaphobe girlfriend ate half of it and loved it (but only halfway because it still got too "fishy" for her, but she's crazy). I do have one little complaint: they cooked it and presented it skin-side up, but the skin wasn't crispy, which makes it a little unpleasant texture-wise. Maybe take a blowtorch to the skin? I'm really not sure.

Now, the other elements did a very good job of complimenting the fish, especially when the trout, Lentils and Almond Purée were eaten together in one bite. It was kind of a neat "earth meets water" flavour. The Yellow Foot Mushrooms, I believe, had been lightly marinated (I could be mis-remembering) and had a nice zing.  The Velouté was, essentially, the sauce on the plate. It was tasty, if a little basic, but didn't really stand out compared to some of the more "punchy" flavours on the dish. As for the Confit Tomato... it was a tomato? I didn't really notice what the "confit" effect was, but the acidity was a nice foil for the density of the lentils.

The wine was Norman Hardie County Chardonnay (2010 - Prince Edward County, Ontario). It went really well with the fish, imparting a buttery flavour and mouth feel, as a good Chardonnay is want to do. I must admit, I'm also a bit biased towards wines from Prince Edward County rather than the Niagara region, probably has something to do with a camping trip a couple of years back where we visited a few wineries in the region and it was epic goodness.

Steelhead Trout with Lentils and other goodies...

Dish 5 - MEAT!

And now we come to the main event: a slab of bloody meat surrounded by side orders of deliciousness!

The dish was: Herb Roasted Leg of Caribou, Gruyère and Truffle Pavé, Carrots Glazed in Bourbon Maple Syrup, Squash Purée, Brussel Sprouts, and Wild Lingonberry Gastrique. I believe the meat was originally supposed to be elk, but the chef told me he couldn't find any and had to go with farmed caribou instead. To be honest, I don't think I would have noticed the difference. The meat was delicious, cooked nice and rare, and not terribly gamey; in fact I found it hard to tell the difference between the flavour profile here and that of really high end prime rib roast. That being said, the caribou was way leaner than any beef I've ever had!

What brought this plate to "above and beyond" levels were the sides (which is often the case: there's only so much flavour you can coax out of a hunk of red meat). The Squash Purée was nice and rich, without being overloaded with cream or butter, which is all too often the fate of any kind of mashed substitute on a "meat n' ________" plate. The Brussel Sprouts were also surprisingly subdued, steamed simply with a bit of butter and lemon juice (I think), which I appreciated. Too many preparations try to mask the unique flavour of Brussel Sprouts, which is understandable, but not what I'd do. The Lingonberry Gastrique (the jelly-looking stuff that goes across the plate) added a nice sweet and sour undertone to the rest of the plate. The Carrots were kinda super-awesomely awesome. They might have been just a smidge underdone (maybe slight crunch to cooked carrots is a new thing in haute-cuisine because this isn't the first time), but really, they were mainly a sauce carrier. And hoo-boy, Bourbon Maple Syrup! How can you wrong? Especially when you slather everything with it? But THE grand champion side for this plate was the Gruyère and Truffle Pavé. It was so good I'll give it a whole paragraph!

OK, so as far as I thought, a "pavé" is a rectangular potato dish. Turns out the term is applied to anything cut into a rectangular shape. Most times I've encountered it, it's been a potato-based dish. It's essentially made from very thinly sliced potatoes cut into a rectangle and stacked on top of each other with goodness between the layers. In this case the goodness was truffle and gruyère. NOM! Also, especially deliciously awesome when saturated with caribou blood! SO GOOD!

The wine pairing was Painted Rock Syrah 2007 (from BC's Okanagan Valley). This was one hell of a wine (and the sommelier made a point of noting it was a 140 dollar bottle of wine from the restaurant and hard to find (lord knows it isn't at the LCBO!).

Dripping tasty CARIBOU MEAT!

As an added spiffy bonus, they put the pairings on display:

Wine/Beer pairings on display

Dish 6 - Dessert

And finally, even though we had bellies full of food, we had to finish off the experience with a Warm Chocolate Cake, Black Raspberry Curd, Agassiz Hazelnut Ice Cream. There were, I believe, actually two kinds of cake: one was a "regular" chocolate cake, the other flourless. Also not mentioned on the menu was a kind of dehydrated chocolate crunchie bit.

I don't remember a whole lot about this dish, mostly because I was very full of meat. It was quite tasty and the mix of chocolate, raspberry and hazelnut, from both ice cream and Frangelico liqueur (the pairing) were very nice; rich but not heavy.



Chocolate Cake goodness!

 

 

 

And that's that! The first of many (I hope) Edible Events!

 

Cheers!

Why Don't I Eat This More?!??! feat. Crab Cakes

I'm back! 

Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of  foodstuffs out there you absolutely adore, and yet you rarely take the time to prepare or eat? For example, how often do you make a Club Sandwich at home, even though it's really not that tough? Or , in this case, Crab Cakes? I've never made them before (although I have made something similar in the form of Salmon Cakes), I've rarely ordered them in restaurants, and yet they're absolutely delicious!

Crab Cakes

For 12 cakes

Ingredients

- 1 tsp olive oil

- 1 small onion, diced

- 2 eggs

- 2 cans crab meat

- 1 red pepper, diced

- 1 cup panko, plus another cup to coat cakes

- 4 tbsp cilantro, chopped

- 4 cloves garlic, minced

- 1 tsp Dijon mustard

- 2 tsp curry powder

- 1 dried chipotle pepper, powdered (or 1 tsp chipotle powder)

- 1/2 tsp allspice powder

- 1 tsp dried thyme

- 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

- hot sauce to taste

- salt and pepper to taste

- 3-4 tbsp olive or vegetable oil for frying (or more if needed)

Directions

- Heat oil and sauté onions for about 5-6 minutes.

- Crack eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork.

- Add rest of ingredients (including onions, not including extra panko for coating) and stir together.

- Form crab cake "batter" into patties and coat in remaining panko.

- Heat oil in pan (and maybe add a touch of bacon fat, trust me) and fry crab cakes until golden and crispy, turning at least once.



Fryin' up those onions!

Throw everything in a bowl to start!









Fork it all!









Fry em in oil! (maybe with a little bacon fat?)



Serving up the goodness involves tartar sauce and maybe some kind of side dish. In this case, we went with creamed spinach.

But, we'll throw together some Tartar Sauce for you now!

Tartar Sauce

- 1 cup mayonnaise

- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

- juice of half a lime

- 2-3 tbsp green relish (or chopped dill pickles)

- 1/2 tsp capers, chopped 

- dash smoked paprika

- pinch salt

- Stir everything together, mixed well.



Ready for snarfing!



And that's that! This was another one of those recipes that really worked well, likely because it's really hard to mess up the combination of ingredients that make up Crab Cakes .

But back to the original point of this post, which is this: Why the frak don't I make this dish more often? I think I might have to change that, because really, it isn't that hard to pull off.

Until next time, stay crabby!

Comfort Meets Fresh - Indian Style

Hey there! Time for more winter-themed fare (sort of)!

One of the advantages of cooking for a pregnant lady (fyi - Kari's expecting, YAY!) is that there's little in the way of food indecision.

"What do you want for dinner, honey?"

"I want something FRESH!!!"

"You want salad in January?"

"YES!!!"

"Um, OK..." (shivering inside) "Can we have something warming as well?"

"Sure! But, what...?" And then the bandying of ideas went back and forth until I remembered that Daal is supposed to be rather quick and easy to make. Luckily I was correct! I did a bit of looking around on the Internet and found several recipes and pretty much combined and adapted to my own wishes.

Daal (or Dal, or Dahl) is essentially a thick soup that originates from the India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka area. It's made up of some sort of pulse (lentils, chickpeas, split peas, beans), usually served with rice or flatbread (or both) and, in my experiences at least, yogurt. It's really hearty and is a great vegetarian source of protein. And, if done right, really freakin' tasty!

I took the basics from Ask.com but got inspired seasoning-wise at Simply Recipes. Specifically a spice blend called "Panch Poran" (aka Paanch Phoron aka Bengalese 5-spice) consisting of fennel seeds, nigella seeds, cumin, black mustard seeds and fenugreek. You can find it in pretty much any Indian grocery store.

Super-professional labelling 

OK, so let's get to the recipe!

Red Lentil Daal 

Ingredients

- 2 tsp olive oil (optional: 1 1/2 tsp olive oil and 1/2 tsp sesame oil)

- 4-5 cloves garlic, minced

- 1 inch piece fresh ginger, minced

- 1 large onion, chopped

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 tsp Panch Poran spice blend

- 1 tsp coriander seed

- pinch cardamom seed

- pinch turmeric

- 2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped

- 4 cups vegetable broth 

- 1 cup red lentils, rinsed and picked

- juice of half a lime

To serve: 

- 1/2 cup cilantro leaves, cleaned and roughly chopped

- 1 cup plain yogurt

Directions

- Heat a dry frying pan and toast Panch Poran, coriander and cardamom until fragrant. In a mortar and pestle or spice grinder, grind spices into powder. Set aside. 

  

Grinding spices the old-fashioned way

- In a large pot or saucepan, heat oil. Sauté onion, garlic and ginger for about 6 minutes, until onions turn translucent. 

- Stir in salt, Panch Poran, coriander, cardamom and turmeric. Cook for about a minute. Stir in tomatoes and cook for another 3-4 minutes. 

- Stir in vegetable broth and lentils and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover.Cook for about 20 minutes until lentils are tender. Stir in lime juice. Turn off heat and cover to keep hot. 

Bubbling away...

Next up is the salad, which was a mostly on-the-fly recipe using what was around the house. I had some apples and some yellow pepper and decided that would make a tasty, fresh salad as had been requested by my better half. So, I cobbled together some ingredients to get the salad going, but I also needed to figure out the dressing. One idea that came to me was to use coconut milk somehow, since it's a common ingredient in a lot of Indian cooking. It all came together to become what I call a Curried Apple Slaw with Coconut-Sesame Dressing.

 

Curried Apple Slaw with Coconut-Sesame Dressing

 

Slaw

 

Ingredients

 

- 1-2 apples, rinsed

- 1 yellow pepper, julienned

- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

- 1 tsp curry powder

- 1/2 tsp salt

 

Directions

 

- Using a box grater, grate apple (use larger holes) and squeeze out liquid from apple (put it into a glass for some of the tastiest apple juice ever!)

- Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate.

 

Grating the apple

 

 

Dressing

 

Ingredients

 

- 1 small can coconut milk (400 ml)

- 1 tsp sesame oil

- juice of half a lime

- 1 tsp sugar

- 1 tsp cider vinegar

- pinch salt

- pinch coriander powder

 

Directions

 

- First, you want to reduce the coconut milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly (it might overflow if you don't stir it). Allow to reduce while stirring, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

- Mix remaining ingredients until well blended.

 

 

Reducing the coconut milk

 

Stir dressing into slaw, mix well and serve!

Simple but unique

To serve the whole meal:

- Warm some Naan bread in the oven and butter lightly. Or cook up some basmati rice and serve on the side.
- Ladle Daal into large soup bowls and serve with cilantro and yogurt on the side. Your diners can add as much of either as they see fit. If using rice, put a small portion at the bottom of the soup bowl and ladle Daal over top.
- Serve slaw on the side in smaller bowl.

Soup's on!

And that's that! Verdict? Wow, this Daal is really tasty! Earthy, filling, nourishing and absolutely comforting. The Panch Poran really helps give it an authentic flavour that you don't often find outside Indian restaurants. It's also dirt cheap to make and really easy. Easily one of my favourite vegetarian meals.

The Slaw was also quite tasty, with a fresh burst of tropical flavour and vitamins sorely needed in the bleak Winter months. The pregnant lady was happy with it...

And that's it for now! Enjoy!

Breakfast for Dinner Goes Epic

Hey there, I'm back again!

I think we all get the urge to make breakfast for dinner once in a while, whether it's a simple plate of bacon and eggs or pancakes or going whole hog for a batch of Eggs Benedict. Well, as I recently posted, I'm a big fan of the latest (to Canada) breakfast classic-in-the-making: Chicken and Waffles!

But, me being me, and Kari being Kari, we weren't going to go the traditional route of fried chicken on a sweet waffle with syrup (and maybe gravy) on top, we were going to try something completely new (maybe).

So for our version of Chicken and Waffles, we used a savoury waffle batter using goat cheese and fresh basil and instead of fried chicken, we kept the Italian influence going with Chicken Parmesan (with Kari's fresh-made tomato sauce, of course!). As a topping, we figured everything can use a touch of bacon-like flavour, but to be thematically consistent, I decided to fry up some Sopressata Salami instead. Also, building on the idea of Garlic Maple Syrup from our last trip to Murray Street, I whipped together a garlic-balsamic-maple sauce. Because HELL YES!

Now, this one is going to take some time, because there was a lot going on with this dish (because it was a rare Saturday off together and we're lunatics).

Here are the four main components of the dish:

Savoury Goat Cheese and Basil Waffles
Chicken Parmesan
Crispy Sopressata Bits
Garlic-Balsamic-Maple Sauce

Kari got the ball rolling by putting together the tomato sauce for the Chicken Parmesan (some day I'll actually reprint the recipe for this):

Saucy!

Meanwhile, I went to the Internet for inspiration, having never made waffle batter before. I pretty much followed the recipe below from Allrecipes.com, while omitting some ingredients, and adding others:

Getting pointers online

So here is the revised recipe:

Savoury Goat and Cheese and Basil Waffle Batter

- Makes 6-8 waffles

Ingredients

- 2 eggs

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 3/4 cups milk

- 1/2 cup olive oil

- 4 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

- 3-4 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped or 2 tsp dry basil

- 70 g (half a small package) goat cheese

Directions

- Beat the eggs with a fork or hand mixer until fluffy. 

- Mix in flour, milk, oil, baking powder, salt, pepper and basil until batter is smooth. 

- Slowly beat in goat cheese, a few small pieces at a time until well blended into batter. 

- Set batter aside in the fridge while making other components. 

Batter up! 

Next up is the chicken for the Chicken Parmesan. As most of you already know, Chicken Parmesan is basically a breaded and baked breast or cutlet of chicken topped with marinara sauce and melted cheese. Now, I've probably said it before, but I tend to prefer chicken thighs (boneless and skinless) to chicken breast. They have more flavour and are almost always way cheaper. Also in the case of this particular recipe, thigh pieces  were the right size for the proportion of one piece of chicken to one waffle (with two of each per serving).

Chicken Parmesan

- Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

- 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, pounded flat (directions to come)
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup panko
- Tomato sauce (pre-made)
- 6 slices cheese, cut to cover chicken (usually parmesan, but here I used mostly mozzarella and a pinch of parmesan)

Directions

Before doing anything, make sure the oven is preheated at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The first step to getting the chicken ready is bashing it into cutlet shape. There are several ways to achieve this, but the best for this recipe was to pound the chicken flat.

This is done by resting a piece of chicken between two sheets of wax paper and pounding it flat using a meat hammer. In our case, since Kari has lots of neato kitchen gadgets, we used this weighted doohickey that looks like some sort of futuristic gavel.

Below is the "before and after" of that process:

Chicken - pre-pounded

Chicken - post-pounded

So, once that's taken care of five more times (or however many piece of chicken you have), it's time to bread those suckers!

You'll need a container with flour, another with milk and another with whatever you're coating the chicken with. In this case, I recommend panko breadcrumbs, mixed with a pinch each of salt, pepper and oregano. If you're lucky enough to have a home breading station, as my gadget-addicted girlfriend does, well your set up is easy! If not, simply fill three bowls with each component.

The dredging station

The process for breading your chicken is fairly simple: coat with flour, then milk, then breading. Boom, done. Try to have only one hand handle the meat since this can be a a rather messy process and better to only have one hand covered in shmutz than both.

So follow along with my how-to in pictures!

Step 1 - dredge in flour

Step 2 - soak in milk

Step 3 - coat with breadcrumb mixture

Ready for the oven!

Once breaded, set a wire rack over a foil-lined cookie sheet and place chicken on the rack. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown and crunchy.

Next, turn the oven to broil. Without removing the chicken from the rack, top each piece with a dollop of tomato sauce and a slice of cheese. Broil in the oven until cheese turns golden brown and bubbly.

Chicken is baked, now to broil the cheese

Turn off oven and keep chicken warm in the oven.

Crispy Sopressata Bits

Next up is the Crispy Sopressata Bits. This part's pretty darn simple. Fry Sopressata in a hot cast iron pan (with just a bit of bacon fat) until it's crispy. Set out on paper towel to absorb grease. Break up pieces of meat with fingers or knife and set aside.

Crispy fried Sopressata... 

...becomes a substitute for bacon bits!

And now we get to the Garlic-Balsamic-Maple Sauce, which is really just those three ingredients mixed together and reduced.

A cross-cultural culinary love affair in the making

Garlic-Balsamic-Maple Sauce

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup maple syrup

- 3-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped or minced

- 3-4 tbsp balsamic vinegar 

- salt and pepper to taste

Directions

- Bring maple syrup to a boil in a small saucepan. 

- Reduce heat to medium, add garlic and reduce for about 5 minutes.

- Stir in balsamic and reduce for another 10 minutes until syrupy. 

- Season with salt and pepper before serving. 

Halfway through cooking the sauce, preheat the waffle iron.

Preparing the Garlic-Balsamic-Maple Sauce 

Next up, we cook the waffles. Essentially just pour a half-cup of batter per waffle onto the pre-heated iron and cook until crispy and golden (about 10 minutes). 

Waffley goodness!

Finally, it's time to put it all together. There are two ways to plate this one. 

The first is to put the waffles and chicken side by side, which is the more traditional presentation. Top the waffles with the sauce and sopressata bits, as shown below:

Let's eat!

The second way is to put the chicken on top of the waffles and pouring the sopressata bits and sauce all over the whole thing, which is how Mill Street does it: 

Let's also eat!

So, the verdict on this over-the-top experiment in tasty decadence? It was really, really freakin' good! The Waffles were rich and flavourful without being too much so. I wasn't sure if the goat cheese would work, but it totally did! The Chicken Parmesan was, well, Chicken Parmesan, which is pretty fail-proof as a flavour profile. The Garlic-Maple-Balsamic Sauce was a great mix of sweet and tangy that offset the richness of the waffles and chicken and the Crispy Sopressata Bits added a salty component that tied the whole thing together beautifully, and the whole affair was a nod to Italian cuisine, although I doubt any chef in Italy has tried this before!

All in all, this was a fantastic epicurean endeavour that I would totally make again, time permitting. This was quite a time-consuming effort, but nothing was terribly difficult to put together and the flavour was unique and delicious and totally worth it. 

If you give it a shot, tell me how it went! I'd love to hear if I'm the only one crazy enough to try this out!