This blog will be on hiatus for a bit over a week. I am jetting off to Barcelona, Spain to attend a work-related conference and bum around town for a couple of extra days. I have the good fortune of going with a fellow foodie, great friend and brilliant colleague, Ireen.
To appease our boss, of course I have to say that the conference is our utmost priority. And don't get me wrong: I am looking forward to attending the sessions and interfacing with professionals in the field from across the globe.
However, I have to confess that gorging on the food and drink of Spain are on my "must do" list. This is my second time in the fair city and food -- along with incredible architecture, flora, fauna and the utter chic-ness of the people -- was a very memorable part of the last trip. I adore tapas-style cuisine, which reminds me of a cross between French bistro and balmy Mediterranean flavors. And it goes without saying that Spanish red wine is my top choice for an evening beverage.
So, apologies for the break in postings but I will be back with an abundance of photos. If I can get around the local Catalan dialect (I can barely understand fragments of Spanish, which is no help at all in Barcelona anyway), then perhaps I might even return with some recipes. Adéu!
Scandinavian cooking is one of my favorite types of cuisine. There is a freshness and rustic simplicity in their choice of ingredients and manner of food preparation. Fruit figures prominently in many salads and mains like Curry and Apple Herring, Pork and Prune Meat Balls, Blackberry and Goat Cheese Salad, and Seared Scallops with Blueberry Vinaigrette. They share the Japanese inclination to use a lot of seafood such as halibut, herring, lobster, shrimp and eel. Vodka-cured salmon (aka gravlaks) is a delectable Scandinavian specialty -- Sweden is the birthplace of Absolut Vodka, after all.
A theme I want to explore in the cookbook is the soup + sandwich combo. (In warmer weather, I prefer salad + sandwich.) It's a familiar, homey style of eating. I chose to make a Leek and Potato Soup and an open-faced Mushroom and Apple Sandwich.
I hadn't counted on leeks being so hard to find. The first two groceries I went to had leeks but they were drying out and starting to turn brown. The third grocer didn't even have any. Pushed into making a choice, I bought a green zucchini and yellow zucchini to replace the leeks. The skin of the green zucchini and mild flavor of roasted zucchini would be a reasonable substitute, and adding some yellow onion and garlic would make up for the missing onion-like flavor. Two pinches of oregano, a bit of marjoram, coarsely mashed potatoes and fat free sour cream completed the soup.
The sandwich filling was a very fast and easy stir-fry of butter, oyster mushrooms, red onion, Fuji apple slices, fresh rosemary, and lemon zest, topped with a few teaspoon scoops of soft cheese. I served it with a few slices of smoked salmon.
One of my projects for the cookbook is to develop a rice porridge recipe similar to nanakusagayu(七草がゆ), a comforting Japanese dish. Nanakusa literally means seven greens. The choice of greens varies by season, but they are the primary seasoning ingredients in the recipe.
Trying to find suitable greens in North American supermarkets is a challenge. Grocers in Japan stock produce such as perilla leaves, edible chrysanthemum, variegated water parsley, shepherd's purse, Jersey cudweed, chickweed, lapsana, turnip leaves and daikon leaves -- common ingredients in the nanakusagayu. Clearly, substitutions are necessary on this side of the Pacific.
One of my first picks is kai-lan or Chinese broccoli, a relative of kale. It is easily available in Chinese groceries and some adventurous supermarket chains. It looks like rapini with its broad leaves and vestigial flower heads, but when stir-fried, a mellow flavor emerges unlike the slight bitterness imbued in rapini leaves.
I chopped a large fistful of kai-lan leaves into fine strips, quickly fried them in cooking oil, then tossed it with a bowl of rice. Next, I grated a daikon radish, topped a small mound of daikonon top of the rice, drizzled some soy sauce, and sprinkled some yuzu-flavored ground hot pepper flakes (available at Japanese shops). The daikon added a palate-cleansing zip that contrasted with the mildness of the rice and greens. It was a deeply satisfying meal in a bowl.
It's my mother's birthday, so I'd like to commemorate the occasion by posting about some of her cooking. After all, I think mothers (and some fathers) are the primary influence on people's food preferences and habits. It's plenty obvious that I have a predilection for Japanese cuisine which stems from growing up under my parents' roof.
Mom and Dad recently made an excursion out to Angel Seafoods Ltd., a Japanese food warehouse/market in the Saint-Laurent area of Montreal. Mom picked up a shiny red snapper, already neatly gutted and scaled. She salted it, skewered it from tail to head -- like sticking a rod up a puppet's butt -- then baked the whole thing in the oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes. To prevent burning, she covered the tail and fin with foil.
Salt crust roasting is an ancient technique used across different cultures. Salt, as I've mentioned before, has a way of drawing out moisture from flesh. However, salt crust roasting creates a barrier that locks in the moisture that the salt crust draws out, causing the flesh to steam inside.
Of course, instead of remarking on such intelligent details, I made a facetious remark about Mr. Snapper's teeth looking somewhat scary and comical at the same time. (Come on, you can't tell me this guy doesn't look like Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi with piranha dentures?!)
My mother promptly replied that traditional Japanese cooking dictates that you should tie the fish's mouth shut with twine to prevent it from opening during baking. Presumably, this is to keep moisture from escaping from the mouth. I did some Googling and found that some people also sew the gills shut for roasting. Who knew? Mom knew.
I leave you with a photo of one of her New Year's feasts which she spends almost a week preparing for at the end of every December. This isn't even the full meal: these are the remnants (neatly re-arranged) after the family has devoured a number of dishes. Eventually, I'd like to accumulate enough understanding of these foods to be able to make something like this without consulting a book. My mother has all of these recipes in her head. Now that's skill.
Usually when you move into a new place, any "surprises" you find tend to be unpleasant horrors such as mouse droppings, mutant bug carcasses, a leaky roof, broken window panes, or a water tap that doesn't work. Fortunately, the big surprise that came with the front lawn of my new house is the expansive growth of physalis, otherwise known as "Chinese lantern", "Japanese lantern", "ground cherry", "tomatillo", "cape gooseberry", "wild gooseberry" (btw, "gooseberry" by itself refers to a completely different plant), and so on.
I make myself sound like an authority on the subject, but the identification of the plant amongst my co-workers involved many debates and Googling/Wiki-ing. ("How many analysts does it take to identify a plant?")
While Wikipedia provided the answer, I didn't know about physalis' culinary value until a colleague told me how much she loved ground cherry pies. Intrigued by the concept, I agreed to harvest what I could over the weekend and bring the berries to her.
The ground cherry aficionado also requested some cuttings of the plant so that she could plant some of her own. I was happy to comply but it should be pointed out that I have a "black thumb" and can kill almost any plant simply by trying to care for it.
After some online research on how to nurture physalis cuttings in water, how to harvest the berries without damaging the plant, how harvesting was good for the plant because it stimulates the growth of more berries, I braced myself and stepped onto my front lawn.
Unripe ground cherries are toxic, so I was leery of plucking any greenish-yellow pods. A couple of slugs had burrowed their way into pods -- it didn't appear that they were eating the berries so perhaps they were using the pod for shelter. There were signs of other critters feasting on the berries, but not nearly as many as I would have anticipated.
The physalis pod in its prime is a gorgeous shade of orange. Yet even in a state of decay -- with its orange husk disintegrated, leaving only a dried web of brown membrane -- it is a lovely work of nature. If the expert approves of this harvest, I will see what I can do with it in the kitchen.
In the interest of responsible eating -- a subject I wrote about before -- I have been trying to introduce more animal parts into my culinary repertoire. And so, more offal have been creeping into my diet. The slow adoption has more to do with limited availability -- most butcher counters focus only on popular meats such as chicken breast, pork chops, ground beef, etc. -- and my inexperience with cooking animal parts that too often end up in the trash.
However, chicken livers can be found even at the most under-stocked grocery chains. And having made chicken pâté before, using a recipe called "FauxGras" (a cheaper, more ethical alternative to foiegras), I am comfortable cooking livers.
The dish I present here is my own recipe. The inspiration stems from a case of misidentification. Many months ago, I decided to explore a new area of Toronto on my day off. I found myself in Liberty Village: a compact but developing area where shiny new condos are sprouting up and posh shops have set up camp. Part of the draw was the knowledge that acclaimed chef, Marc Thuet, had opened a bistro called Atelier Thuet in this neighborhood. It was a luxurious treat to have a lazy late lunch there with a beautiful glass of SauvigonBlanc while everyone else was at work.
I ordered an open-faced sandwich served with a liver stew on marvelous slices of bread from Thuet's own bakery. When the plate arrived, I thought I saw lemon slices in the stew. This was an unexpected accompaniment to liver and the idea delighted me. Only after taking my first bite did I realize it was actually a greenish-yellow tomato that merely looked like stewed lemon. Thuet's dish was unquestionably brilliant, but my desire for lemon would not go away.
And so, here is my own chicken liver stew, as I had originally imagined it:
Drain, rinse and trim around 200g (or a cup) of chicken livers. Try to get rid of the stringy sinew that connects the lobes and any excess fat. The sinew becomes gritty and tough to chew when the livers are cooked. Coarsely chop the livers into small pieces -- how small is up to your own personal preference.
Finely mince 3 cloves of garlic (more if you want). Heat oil in a pot and add the garlic.
Slice a small yellow onion into thin strips. Add them to the pot and sweat until translucent.
Add the chopped livers to the pot and cook until most of the pink/purple has turned brown. It's best to under-cook them slightly, as they will be subjected to heat for a while longer.
Pour just enough chicken broth/stock into the pot to cover the mixture, around 1-2 cups. Bring to a gentle boil then lower the heat down to a simmer.
Add 1-2 Tbsp of tomato paste. Use ketchup if you prefer a sweeter stew.
Add your choice of mushrooms. I like oyster mushrooms for this dish because the texture matches the texture of liver.
Grate the rind of half a lemon and add it to the pot.
Depending on how acidic you want the stew to be, add 6-10 thin slices of lemon.
Add a sprig or two of fresh thyme. Rosemary also works well. If you have herbesde Provence, then by all means, add half-a-teaspoon of it to the pot. It doesn't matter too much what you use, as long as you stick with herbs that are commonly used in French cuisine.
Pour in 1-2 Tbsp of brandy or Marsala. This is optional, but it adds depth to the flavor.
In a small bowl, measure out 1-2 Tbsp of corn starch. Make a slurry in the bowl by adding some of the liquid from the stew and whisking it until there are no powdery lumps. This doesn't take a lot of liquid -- use just enough to moisten the corn starch without drowning it. Add the slurry to the pot.
Once the stew has thickened to the desired consistency, season it with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve the stew with some bread, rice or pasta. Garnish with some capers and grate Parmesan on top.
Chicken livers are an excellent source of iron as well as Vitamin A, B-12 and C. Vitamin B-12 has been associated with memory, mental function and moods: a deficiency can lead to depression and symptoms similar to Alzheimer's. Vitamin C is beneficial for the nervous system and has been proven as a good antioxidant.
There's much to love about roasts. Meat cooking slowly in the oven is an alluring promise waiting to be kept. The sizzling, crackling sound of the meat's juices sweating from the flesh and caramelizing on the skin is a soundtrack to an ambitious kitchen production. The crusty, browned edges urge me to call dibs on the end pieces.
Preparation of the roast builds a relationship between you and the animal you are cooking. If it's poultry I'm roasting, I enjoy washing the bird, plucking fragments of feathers from the skin, patting it dry, moving or snapping joints, and poking around under the skin to slide in aromatics and marinades. As I've acquired some skills from skillful people, I've come to love the mechanics of butchering meat. Knowing the anatomy of an animal and working a knife between flesh, sinew, fat, bone and skin makes for elegant roasts. Trussing the meat looks like bondage using kitchen twine, but I think of it like wrapping a present to be unraveled later.
A few nights ago, I got to my neighborhood butcher too close to closing time. He didn't have much left in his display case that looked fresh, save for a pork loin. I brought it home, trimmed chunks of fat but still left some behind for flavor, trussed it into a cylinder of even thickness, and rubbed it with some lemon gremolata (similar to the gremolata I had used on lamb chops for Thanksgiving dinner). After searing it quickly on a skillet, I stabbed holes all over the roast and pushed in springs of fresh rosemary. The pork was placed on a bed of sliced baby zucchini and chopped tomatoes in a roasting pan. Juices left behind in the skillet were drizzled over the vegetables. Everything was roasted in the oven at 400°F for an hour. During that hour, the scent of rosemary filled my house.
The result looked like a roasted porcupine due to the blackened herbs protruding from the meat. The jus of the pork had been soaked up by the zucchini which were moist yet golden and crispy. Slicing the roast revealed tender meat inside. Served on rice, the meat and vegetables were hearty and flavorful. The charred rosemary contributed a crunchy, savory component. I'm pretty sure it would be delicious in a hot sandwich as well.
According to the Wiki entry for fruit preserves, a recipe that calls for heating fruit, mashing it through a sieve, then cooking the pulp with sugar until it thickens, is called a fruit butter. I've been prancing around for days telling people that I made jam.
So now I stand corrected: I made fresh guava butter.
My magical neighborhood grocery had fresh guava fruit so I snatched it up without knowing what I was supposed to do with it. Anyone who knows me knows that this isn't the first time I bought an ingredient I had no clue how to cook.
I've had guava juice many times and guava-scented soaps. Being a huge fan of anything citrus, the lemony aroma of the guava fruit has always been appealing to me. However, I had never eaten the fruit itself.
Some quick Googling told me that the skin is edible but bitter, that the skin is loaded with pectin (a gelling agent commonly used and required in preserves), and that the seeds should be avoided. Latin and West Indian cuisines use guava jam quite a bit. It wouldn't surprise me if there are many others who do the same.
Passing the boiled (whole) fruit through a sieve was a tedious exercise but it was a simple way to remove the seeds and break down the skins. Once the sugar and some extra pectin were added, the resulting mash took no time to thicken over low heat. Chilling them in the fridge allowed them to thicken some more.
I prefer a touch of tartness over sweetness, so I was conservative with the sugar. The resulting guava butter on toast is a bright way to start my day.
As I await the ground-shaking results of the U.S. elections -- it's looking very promising already -- my mind has drifted to thoughts of food in film. No, there is no logical association there. My mind is simply full of food and film pretty much all the time.
I'm not sure how much interest this topic will generate since my earlier posting on food in music elicited no comment. However, this is my blog, so what the hell.
I can only think of six films that embody the passion and sensory thrills of cooking. Until the day someone invents smell-o-vision TVs and cinemas, movies are dependent on visual and auditory stimuli to convey smells, textures and flavors. My six pix picks not only make my mouth water, but they fill me with a desire to run into the kitchen and start cooking a feast.
The indie movie, "Big Night" (1996), co-directed by actors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott, is one of the most charming, joyous celebrations of food. The title refers to a climactic banquet that is supposed to save a tiny Italian restaurant from bankruptcy. The aptly named brothers -- Primo and Secondo -- are the proprietors of the establishment. Although both of them cook, Secondo knows very well that Primo is the one blessed with talent and he will go to any lengths to defend his brother's gift. The third act of the film is the big night itself: the ambitious and over-the-top dinner prepared with every ounce of zeal and desperation that the brothers can muster. I won't spoil the ending for anyone who has yet to see it -- go see it, you fool! -- but the quiet final scene with nary a word uttered for five minutes is one of the most deeply poignant endings in cinema.
Here is but a snippet from the grand banquet in "Big Night":
"Babette's Feast" (1987) from Denmark also centers on a sumptuous meal. However, this feast is a gesture of immeasurable gratitude for a humble but extraordinary act of kindness. In a small, remote village in 19th century Denmark, a pastor and his two beautiful daughters spread their faith. Out of a sense of duty to their father, the daughters forsake their hearts' desires and opt for a pious life by his side. Decades later, long after their father has passed, the aging sisters are sought out by a French woman fleeing the post-revolutionary bloodshed in the streets of Paris. The stranger, Babette, offers to be their housekeeper, even without pay -- anything for asylum. And so, Babette serves the sisters dutifully for fourteen years until, one day, she receives notice that she has won a lottery in Paris. Babette offers to cook a feast for the sisters and the late pastor's followers, presumably before returning to France. What transpires is a stirring, unforgettable meal for all, seasoned with a twist from Babette. In the last scene she utters, "an artist is never poor": an eloquent statement of conviction that cooking is truly an art.
On the polar opposite of the spectrum, you have "Tampopo" (1985). This is a zany collage of vignettes about food peppered across a silly central plot about a ramen shop trying to concoct the ultimate noodle. Through the comedy emerges a theme about how food permeates every corner of our existence, from a mother's breast to the last meal, in class divisions and domestic order, in public and in the bedroom. It's hard to single out the funniest scene from the movie. There's the side-splitting French restaurant scene in which director JuzoItami pokes fun at the fronts old Japanese farts will put on in order to hide their ignorance and save face. Less funny, but more mouth-watering is the scene in which a homeless man with obvious culinary talent shows our heroine's son how to make the perfect omurice, i.e. omelette + rice. But I will be remiss if I don't post the opening clip in which noodle-eating is discussed with Zen-like earnestness:
Also from Asia, Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" (1994) swings in yet another direction. Food here becomes a symbol of love and family. Master chef Chu is widowed and has three adult daughters. With age, Chu has begun to lose his sense of taste as well as his hold on his daughters. The weekly ritual of cooking an elaborate dinner for his family falls apart as the daughters run off to pursue their own lives. That the unlikeliest daughter becomes the one to pick up the torch and displays the same culinary gift is a touching affirmation of the bond between father and daughter. The stunning opening scene in which Chef Chu prepares one of his Sunday dinners took over a week to shoot. You can see why:
It goes without saying that "Ratatouille" (2007) has won my heart. I've mentioned it before and here I'm mentioning it again. The film has its flaws, but the primary theme of "anyone can cook" is a lovely one. I won't bother describing it here because it has received such tremendous exposure in the Western world. However, I will single out the speech by Anton Ego near the end of the movie. Ego is the acid-tongued restaurant critic who can make or break a chef's career. When his haughty arrogance crumbles at the discovery of Remy, the rat chef, it leads him to this powerful soul-searching narrative:
I won't lie to you. That speech makes me cry every time.
Last but not least, "The Scent of Green Papaya" (1993) deserves honorable mention. It's not a foodie movie, per se, but its slow, lingering moments revolving around food are imbued with a sensuality that is hard to describe with words. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "a poem for the eyes". There is little to it in terms of story, but it's like watching a moving painting with moments of exquisite beauty and poetry. Mui, a little Vietnamese servant girl, is at the heart of the film. She glows with an innate goodness and purity. She is not naive, but she dislays no judgement -- only curiosity and affection -- for everything and everyone around her. She grows up and falls in love, which pretty much sums up the "plot". Plot doesn't matter when you can drink in the details in scenes such as this one:
"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast." --John Gunther--
I have never been a morning person. I’m the type of individual who hits the snooze button several times before crawling out of bed on a work day. If left to my own devices on a weekend, I can easily sleep until noon (yes, sometimes later). I resent getting up so much that I ignore people and snarl if spoken to before I’ve digested my coffee. If required to communicate, I will be incoherent and likely come across as neurologically damaged.
But I love breakfast.
It should be clarified that I don’t enjoy breakfast in the morning. I skipped breakfast during my academic years until I learned that this habit would slow down my metabolism and make me rounder than I already was. Today, I still have no appetite in the a.m. but I will choke down a crumpet or slice of toast before heading off to work, if only to curb the mid-morning stomach growls.
Yet the idea of having eggs and toast for supper or sourdough blueberry pancakes at 3 a.m. gives me the warm and fuzzies. “All Day Breakfast” is one of my favorite phrases in the English language. Even though I am a confirmed night owl, I recognize and appreciate the fact that breakfast dishes are intended to wake you up and fuel your brain and body for the challenging day (or night) ahead.
Imagine my glee when I spotted the October issue of Saveur magazine – its theme was breakfast. Most fascinating to me is the series of essays and pictorials on breakfasts around the world. Some things are universal: breads, pastries, eggs, potatoes, drink staples like fruit juices, teas and coffee, and breakfast meats (predominantly pork) seem to turn up everywhere in one form or other. However, Laotians start their day with a steaming bowl of khaosoi, a rice noodle soup topped with spicy pork. Mexico is the home of chilaquiles, a piquant dish consisting of fried tortillas, salsa, herbs and shredded meat. Seafood like raw fish and fish paste make their way into the breakfast dishes of Singapore.
Whenever I eat out for breakfast or brunch, I tend to choose dishes that I wouldn't normally make for myself at home. That includes freshly made waffles, pancakes, steak & eggs, giant fruit platters, elaborate omelettes, and the king of breakfast egg dishes: Eggs Benedict. Once in a blue moon, on a lazy weekend morning, I like to pull all the stops and make a lavish brunch for one.
And so, I recently tackled the Eggs Benedict. Two weekends in a row, in fact. The first time was when my parents came to visit over Thanksgiving weekend. I had baby spinach and Berkshire pork belly on hand, so those went into the dish along with the English muffins and poached eggs. My hollandaise sauce on that occasion was a disaster: I had forgotten to buy butter in advance, so the only substitute I came up with was margarine. This should serve as a reminder that sometimes ingredients are chosen for legitimate reasons and therefore foolish to replace. Without the necessary fat, my sauce turned into a vinaigrette. (Only after the fact did it occur to me that mayonnaise -- which I had -- would have worked well in place of butter.)
The disappointment over the sauce made me want to do it again the following weekend. This time, I used Canadian bacon for the meat. I had no spinach left so there were no greens except a side of pan-fried asparagus drizzled with balsamic vinegar and butter. Finally, the hollandaise became a beautiful creamy yellow thanks to the magic of butter.
Poaching eggs is as satisfying to me as meditation. Jacques Pepin and "The New Kitchen Science" have taught me that the keys to perfectly poaching eggs are to:
use a generous amount of water in the pot,
add roughly 1/4 to 1/2 cup of white vinegar to the water (more if boiling in a giant pot),
swirl the gently boiling water with a spoon before slipping in one egg at a time,
cook the eggs only a couple of minutes if you like the yolks runny, and
dunk the cooked eggs briefly in cold water, then drain them on paper towels.
I love that moment when you cut into a poached egg and the bright yolk starts oozing out, forcing you to swab at it with scraps of bread.
"Cooking a Book" is one woman's quest to author and publish a cookbook in memory of a departed friend. Can she do it? Or will procrastination and excuses about having a day job thwart the mission? Follow the snail's pace adventure at "Cooking a Book"!
This blog will be on hiatus for a bit over a week. I am jetting off to Barcelona, Spain to attend a work-related conference and bum around town for a couple of extra days. I have the good fortune of going with a fellow foodie, great friend and brilliant colleague, Ireen.
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