Nick’s Mushroom Sauce with Truffle Oil

Ingredients

About 1 lb. fresh mushrooms: shiitake, pleurot, cremini or a combination, sliced
1 small onion, chopped finely
6 large cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 cup dry white wine
1 heaped tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard
1 cup veal demiglace sauce (available at the butcher’s) or make your own
Flour
Butter
Truffle oil
Italian parsley, chopped
Salt
Pepper
Sugar

Method

Heat about a tablespoon of butter in a nonstick saucepan. Sauté the onions on medium heat until translucent, about 7 minutes. Add garlic, sauté three minutes further. Add about 1/4 cup chopped parsley. Remove and set aside.

Add two tablespoons butter and about one tablespoon truffle oil to pan. Sauté mushrooms until they lose their liquid, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Keep separate from onion mixture.

Put about 2 heaping tablespoons of flour and about 2 tablespoons of butter in the hot pan. Stir until well combined and keep stirring until the mixture begins to turn slightly brown. Add the wine and, stirring continuously, reduce for about ten minutes. Add the demiglace sauce and keep stirring, perhaps ten minutes more. Add mustard.

Add the onion mixture and combine well. Pour hot sauce into a large measuring cup. Purée with a hand blender until smooth.

Pour back into pan and add mushrooms and two tablespoons butter. Mix thoroughly. Serve on steak, chicken, veal, or marsh turtle with sprig of parsley and deep-fried garlic chips to garnish.

Next project, when I have a spare 48 hours: make my own demi-glace.

Patate Cinque Formaggio, Prosciutto, Cipolla, Crema, Aglio e Mandorla alla Nicola

That would be Nick’s Five-cheese Scalloped Potatoes with Prosciutto, Onions, Cream and Garlic and Parmesan-Almond Crust. This is a dish of creamy goodness that goes well with red meat, chicken or marsh turtle — well, just about anything.


Needless to say, do not skimp on the fat. Do not use low-fat anything or you’ll make me come over there.

Ingredients
5-6 medium russet potatoes (new potatoes are too waxy and don’t have enough starch to give this recipe its creamy taste), peeled and in cold water
1 medium white or red onion, sliced thinly
5-10 medium cloves garlic, chopped finely
10-15 very thin slices prosciutto
3/4 cup crème fraîche, or 1/2 cup crème fraîche mixed with 1/3 cup 2% milk
1 cup each grated aged Dutch Gouda, aged Asiago, aged Cheddar and a good Gruyère
1 cup finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup ground almonds
Parsley
Freshly-ground black pepper

Method
The best way to slice the potatoes is with a mandoline. I like to give them a ripple cut; it’s easy if you have a good mandoline (the tip of my middle finger does not agree with that statement, however).

If not, have all the ingredients at hand. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the bread-crumb-almond mixture: bread crumbs, parmesan, ground almonds and some finely chopped or dried parsley and some ground pepper.

Mix the chopped garlic with the four cheeses and some black pepper and parsley and combine thoroughly.

Grease the bottom of a 14 x 10 Pyrex baking dish or some similar-sized baking dish with butter.

Start cutting the potatoes or use the mandoline. Each slice should ideally be about 1/5 of an inch thick, or about 4 millimeters. Smaller or larger is not important, but try to keep them uniform.

As you finish the first potato, lay down each slice in the bottom of the baking dish so that they’re all slightly overlapping until you’ve covered the bottom of the baking pan. Lay on top three or so slices of the prosciutto. Depending on how many slices you have, be sparse or go wild.

Sprinkle a handful or so of onions on top, distributing evenly. Add some of the cheese mixture and distribute evenly. Drizzle about 1/4 cup of the cream over the potato-cheese-onion mixture.


Repeat the previous steps exactly in another layer. Depending on how many potatoes and/or cheese you have left, repeat until depleted, but you want to end up with the top layer completely covered by potatoes. If there is no more prosciutto, skip it; ditto for the onions. It’s best if you end up with a layer of the four cheeses on top of the potatoes.


Now sprinkle the top of the potatoes/cheese with the parmesan-bread crumb mixture in an even layer until gone.

Lower oven to 350 and bake one hour uncovered, checking frequently that the bread crumb topping is not getting too brown. Cover with a top or aluminum foil and bake another hour, checking from time to time. The parmesan-breadcrumb top should be a fairly deep brown; now carefully broil the top on 500 degrees, uncovered, for about three or four minutes, making sure not to burn.

Let cool slightly and serve. Reheats in microwave like a charm.

Note: if the potatoes are still underdone at this point, cover, increase heat to 450 and bake 30 - 60 minutes more. It will be worth it!

Nick's Meet Sauce

. . . because this is what YOU should make on the first date. The classic Bolognese, made only the way a true mafioso would make it, know what I'm sayin? No fancy stuff, chop chop early, put it inna pan, wait three hours, put on your Sunday best, and wait for the doorbell to ring.

Nick's Bolognese



Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup finely chopped carrot
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
3/4 cup finely chopped red pepper
4 tablespoons minced garlic
Salt
Cracked black pepper
Sugar
About two cups of shiitake, pleurot or porcini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb. each beef stew meat (cubes), veal cubes (if you can get them) and pork, in each case, no particular cut, ground in your nice grinder, or bought pre-ground
1/2 cup milk (low-fat is okay, we'll make up for it)
1/2 cup crème fraîche (see?)
1 cup dry white wine
1 large can San Marzano tomatoes, puréed with a hand blender (or a vacuum cleaner, whichever you prefer)
Fresh basil leaves

Method

Heat the butter in a large pan, Le Creuset if you have it. If not, a large nonstick skillet is acceptable. Make sure it has a cover. Sauté the mirepoix (onions/carrots/celery/red pepper) on medium heat until softened but not brown, about ten minutes.

Add the garlic, sauté another five minutes, stirring often.

Add the meat and separate with wooden spatula until thoroughly broken up. When meat is no longer pink, add milk and cream. Stir to combine. Cook until the liquid has almost disappeared, 15-20 minutes, stirring often; add the wine and mushrooms and repeat until the liquid has reduced, again, about 15-20 minutes.

Add the puréed tomatoes, stir to combine. Set stove on lowest possible setting, so that the occasional bubble is seen and, with lid partially on, simmer for approximately three hours, stirring occasionally.

At any point during these three hours, add the salt, sugar and pepper, tasting constantly. You want a nice balance of sweet and salty.

If it ends up being too dry, add a bit of water or chicken broth. Garnish with basil leaves. Can be made ahead and refrigerated/frozen or served right away with pasta of choice.

A Knife Story, For a Change

Now that there are two choppers around here, it was obvious to me that we needed two good chef's knives. Mine is already good, so I ordered one on eBay, thinking, Well, mine is Damascus steel, this is Damascus steel (half the price!) so what could be wrong with that?

Lots, as it turned out. Ignoring the fact that it took 45 days to arrive (more on that later), I took it out of its "box" and immediately knew I'd never use it. It was extremely heavy, for one. It was badly balanced, for two. And it wasn't sharp.

My test for sharp is The Tomato Test. If, using no pressure, only the weight of the knife itself, the blade immediately penetrates the skin instead of just impressing a blunt line, the knife is sharp (try it with your knife and a tomato. I'd like to hear the results of your tests). This knife failed the Tomato Test.

Add to that, the first time I washed it, I was appalled to come back an hour later to see it merrily rusting away. I kid you not.

$101 down the drain. (When I tried to file a claim with PayPal they told me the claim time limit was 45 days. Guess what? $101 down the drain. Anyone want a rusty, dull never-used knife with a nice cedar handle? Mail me a stamped, self-addressed knife box).

So we decided to go with what we have, and in Brigitte's case it was a serviceable, no-name, very blunt chef's knife. It was nice enough, though, well balanced and from I could see, a nice blade.

I tried sharpening it with the stone but it didn't work. Hard steel. So we decided to take it in. Somewhere. But we didn't know where, so we tried a couple of key shops but no one sharpened knives.

One of them recommended a place on Van Horne called Paris. "They sharpen hockey skate blades."

I should have taken that as an ominous warning.

But we went there anyway, and I decided to take my precious Kasumi with me as well.

The young guy said "Sure, I can sharpen these." And he proceeded to grind them in some godawful grinding machine for a few minutes. "Eight dollars."

I got home, did the Tomato Test on both and was horrified. The Kasumi was useless, where when I took it in it easily passed the test. Brigitte's was still useless.

But all Knife stories have good endings, as we all know. My friend Barry Lazar recommended a place in Laval called Bertoldi's.

So we popped up there on this very sunny morning. It's extremely hard to find -- hidden in a warren of side streets off the 15 to the Laurentians, but they were very pleasant and said they could have them in an hour, so we buzzed off to Carrefour Laval.

(Side story: found a place there called Le Rouet, that was having an astonishing 95%-off sale. Imagine a nice set of pasta bowls for four, quality stuff, for $2.50. We bought four. They usually cost $25. Get your sweet peasant asses down there before they're all gone).

Anyway, back to Bertoldi's to find out that I owed them not $40, not $20, but $8.

I didn't even look at the knives. Just brought them home and did the Tomato Test.

I could shave with both of them (matter of fact I might, tomorrow -- my razor's getting a bit worn).

So I really enjoyed making a mirepoix for my Bolognese this afternoon -- an hour of untold bliss.

See? I told you it'd be a knife story.

UPDATE:

We've decided we're going to go up to Laval tomorrow and buy ten pasta sets. For $25. Got that? $25 for TEN PASTA SETS FOR FOUR PEOPLE PLUS A SERVING BOWL. I'm posting this late so YOU< MY DEAR PEASANTS, CAN'T GO BEFORE US AND BUY THEM OUT FIRST.

The Roast Part Deux

Too oily to tell is my watchword, but hey, I'm blogging as I cook. But Brigitte seems to be of the opinion the the meat is just a fucked piece of meat. That happens. We're blasting the hell out of it at 500 degrees but apparently it just doesn't seem to be softening, and it's been 4 hours.





Now doing the mushroom sauce . . . at least that's my specialty. A few shiitakes, a few buttons, some garlic butter, a little white wine, some pan juices (hey, remember that, my earnest band of pupils?) maybe some flour and lots of butter and we have >FUCKING LIFTOFF> Houston.

Capiche?

The Roast

God, everything seems to be a production around here. Brigitte was sneezing like a squirrel yesterday and then today I sneezed, like, literally, fifteen times in a row.

It was my plan to cook the pot roast, so indeed, I woke up out of an Ambien-induced sleep this morning and went to get all the vegetables at Exo Fruits and came back, but started sneezing shortly thereafter. So we both took Actifed. Mistake! We died as if being snowploughed by a team of meese. Woke up with a jerk at 4 and realised I had neglected to spice-rub the roast . . . Oh, the Humanity!

Anyway, long story short, got that done and the bastard is in the oven sitting on a bed of garlic cloves, celery and carrots (Brigitte told me in no uncertain terms: NO TOMATOES).

Cut new potatoes, halved them and sautéed them in garlic butter (of my own making, I'll have you know!) then did halved onions -- I forgot the pearl type, which I regret -- and then long green beans, which I did with a slight Indian touch of cumin seed and turmeric. Put all those creatures together in their own roasting pan and put them in with the roast on 400.

God knows how this will all turn out; it's all on the fly, McFly. Hopefully the beans will turn out browned and succulent, the potatoes soft yet not overdone, the meat absolutely falling apart on the-not-bone, and the shiitake and button-mushroom sauce I am planning will just make everything SING. (No pastis! Don't you admire my restraint?)

Ahh, I guess we'll find out. I may even take pictures of this potential disaster. At least I'll have a record for next time.

But just remember this one word, my precious peasants: pan-juices. THAT ALONE will save the day.

The sermon hath officially been delivered for this, the fourteenth day of our Weasel, 2009.

Pot Roast

Okay, I'm faced with yet another first. My Saturday cooking project involves around a 2 lb. "European Blade Roast".

From what I've gathered, this is called a pot roast. Maybe? Anyway, it's a less desirable cut that needs to be braised for several hours, probably in some kind of alcoholic liquid (how about scotch and coke?) with large vegetables. Okay, this I can do.

I thought I would look up some recipe for it but instead will ask you, the peasantry, for ideas, and if they are not forthcoming will get the servants to cook it.

But the sound of the words "Pot Roast" remind me of my mother and the abominations that came from her oven.

Perhaps some truffle oil could be involved? Some sherry and/or champagne? An exotic mushroom or two, just for the flavor? Tons of shallots and garlic and a roux gravy with the pan juices after, with tomato paste or maybe even roasted cherry tomatoes? Puréed with Italian parsely or even, as a touch of the exotic, mint?

Hmm. Fennel. I said I wanted to cook with fennel. Would that work here, or is this a more Irish-style deal? Earthy, salt-and-pepper stuff . . .

Hmm, could Italianate it with a ragù-type sauce, tomatoes, chicken broth, potatoes, basil . . .

C'mon, c'mon, HELP ME, pezzanovante, don't just stand there reading! The fate of my Saturday cooking project depends upon it and may affect generations to come. Ideas, IDEAS, people, let's come up with IDEAS.

I will hold each and every one of you personally responsible if it is not a success. And YOU KNOW THE VASTNESS OF THE REACH OF MY INESTIMABLE WRATH.

Stir-Fried Thai-Style Beef with Chiles and Shallots

with Spicy Marinated Cucumber Salad and Jasmine Rice
The key to this dish is twofold: first, get Thai basil. It is a cross between mint and fennel — the taste is indescribable. Second, get tamarind concentrate (or paste.) It gives an authentic touch that is difficult to duplicate with substitutes. Palm sugar is good, but brown will do. Piquin chiles are good, but serrano or even jalapeños are okay.

Serves 4 with rice

Beef and Marinade
1 T tamarind concentrate
1/2 tsp. ground white pepper
1 tsp. palm sugar
2 T fish sauce (Nam Pla)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 T minced garlic
2 T lime juice
2 pounds Boston or New York steak , trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips

Stir-Fry
2 T Nam Pla
2 T rice vinegar
2 T water
1 T palm sugar
1 T Asian chili-garlic paste
4 medium cloves garlic , minced (about 2 tablespoons)
3 T vegetable oil
10 Thai bird chiles (piquin), halved, seeds and ribs removed, chiles cut crosswise 1/8 inch thick
3 medium shallots , trimmed of ends, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and layers separated
1/2 cup Thai purple basil, in chiffonade
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped coarsely
1/3 cup chopped unsalted roasted peanuts

Lime wedges for serving

1. For the beef and marinade: Combine marinade ingredients in large bowl. Add beef, toss well to combine; marinate as long as possible. Overnight is good, minimum is one hour.

2. For the stir-fry: In small bowl, stir together fish sauce, vinegar, water, palm sugar, and chili-garlic paste until sugar dissolves; set aside. In small bowl, mix garlic with 1 tsp. oil; set aside. Heat 2 tsp. oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until smoking; add one-third of beef to skillet in even layer. Cook, without stirring, until well browned, about 2 minutes, then stir and continue cooking until beef is browned around edges and no longer pink in the center, about 30 seconds. Transfer beef to medium bowl. Repeat with additional oil and remaining meat in 2 more batches.

3. After transferring last batch of beef to bowl, reduce heat to medium; add remaining 2 tsp. oil to now-empty skillet and swirl to coat. Add chiles and shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until beginning to soften, 3 to 4 minutes. Push chile-shallot mixture to sides of skillet to clear center; add garlic to clearing and cook, mashing mixture with spoon, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Stir to combine garlic with chile-shallot mixture. Add fish sauce mixture to skillet; increase heat to high and cook until slightly reduced and thickened, about 30 seconds. Return beef and any accumulated juices to skillet, toss well to combine and coat with sauce, stir in half of mint and cilantro; serve immediately, sprinkling individual servings with portion of peanuts and remaining herbs, and passing lime wedges separately.

Spicy Cucumber Salad
1/2 cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. sambal oelek, sriracha or garlic-chile paste
dash lime juice

Combine thoroughly, marinate for a couple of hours in refrigerator. Serve.

Jasmine Rice
2 cups jasmine rice
2 1/3 cups chicken broth
Stick cinnamon
3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
Ghee (clarified butter)

Wash rice until water runs clear. Soak in water for 2 hours, drain. In large sauté pan on medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil. Fry spices for a couple of minutes. Add drained rice. Stirring constantly, fry for about five minutes, or until glassy. Add hot chicken broth, stir to combine, reduce heat to minimum, cover with aluminum foil and pan lid. Let steam for 18 minutes or so, remove from heat and let rest for 10 more minutes. Remove lid. Remove whole spices and fluff up. Serve.

Crevettes Marseillaise Pastis au fromage

Here's that shrimp recipe I was promising you. It's entirely improvised; I didn't base it on anything I'd read. But obviously it has its predecessors.

Key here is to flambé the pastis at two stages; when the mushrooms are cooking (they'll absorb a LOT of pastis flavor) and when the shrimps are sautéing (they absolutely suck the stuff in, it's incredible) but to be careful -- hair and eyebrows are at risk. Use a long kitchen match and don't use as I did a midget cigarette lighter. The only reason I have my eyebrows is that food in my kitchen knows very well who's boss.

The pearl onions are a major pain to peel but they taste great. If you can get them frozen, use those.

Ingredients
10-20 very large raw jumbo shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails removed, brined for 30 minutes
I cup finely chopped shallots
Lots of large garlic cloves, finely minced
5-6 cremini mushrooms, sliced
10-20 cipollini (pearl onions, peeled)
Small container crème fraîche
Whole milk
Flour
Chicken broth
2 cups hard cheese, preferably asiago, aged cheddar or Marechal au Lait Cru, grated
Compound herb butter from scratch (butter, sautéed chopped shallots, garlic, Italian parsley)
Red pepper flakes
Pastis as needed
I package good dry linguine (Barilla or Rusticella d’Abruzzo) or any fresh pasta not named Olivieri
Italian parsley
Basil

Method
Sauté shallots in compound butter till translucent. Add pearl onions and sauté about ten minutes, stirring constantly. Add some garlic and sauté a further three minutes. Remove. Add compound butter and mushrooms. Sauté on medium heat until mushrooms have lost their water and are beginning to brown.

Carefully, splash some pastis on the hot mushroom mixture and be standing by with a kitchen match or barbecue spark lighter. Stand back and flambé.

Remove and add to shallot mixture.

Add the container of crème fraîche and about 1/2 cup of milk to the pan and bring to simmering boil, stirring constantly. Stir in a scant tablespoon of flour and continue stirring. Slowly add chicken broth on a medium simmer, perhaps 1/2-to 3/4 cup. Remove from heat when sauce coats back of a spoon. Add cheese and stir in until thoroughly combined. Mix in one tablespoon of pastis and two tablespoons of chopped Italian parsley. Cover.

Start water for linguine. Water must be the salinity of the sea.

Clean and rinse soaking shrimp. In new, clean stir-fry pan, melt at least two tablespoons of compound butter on medium heat. Add more garlic and about a tablespoon of red pepper flakes. Mix thoroughly and bring to a simmer. Drop in shrimp and distribute evenly. Now, about one minute after dropping in the shrimp and not having turned them over, increase heat slightly and splash pastis generously in the pan. Light pastis with aforementioned kitchen devices and let flame out.

Turn shrimp over, cook a further minute or so and remove to bowl with shallots and mushroom mixture.

Cook linguine to not even al dente; it must be slightly hard at the center. (In the ten minutes or so between being drained and being on your plate it will come to be fully cooked, and NOT MUSHY). Drain and remove to sauté pan. Now add the cheese/crème fraîche sauce and bring to a very slight simmer. Chop basil and Italian parsley. Add the shrimp and all other ingredients and serve before I come over there and do it for you.

Do NOT Make Pizza . . .

. . . when you do not have your full attention on the job.

Of the possible food groups I can think of, pizza has to be one of the most complicated. There are simply so many things that can go wrong at any time.

Tonight I did not have my FULL attention on what I was doing. My son was buzzing around, wanting to put ingredients on it. At one point, Barry stopped by and we had a spirited conversation about what was going on in the Middle East.

So naturally I fucked up. All the prep was there, but I was so distracted that I lost track. I became sloppy. DO NOT TRY TO MAKE PIZZA if you are going to be sloppy.

There is only you. You are the only person who is going to make the pie, make sure the oil is on the crust, cornmeal is on the peel . . . if you only forget one step, you're FUCKED. No one is going to help you. You're "Mr. Pizza", everyone has heard how "Nicholas makes the best pizza in town!!!" so you have a name.

So I got distracted. We were entertaining Barry and I just got fatigued; all the prep was done but I was getting too tired to go through with it, as he wasn't even going to eat it. I preferred sitting around and drinking wine.

I didn't put enough corn meal on the peel. The pizza stuck to the fucking stone. I was too tired to do all four pizzas. Thank god Brigitte rescued me and patted me and cleaned up the mess. When I yelled at her about where my long-handled tongs were and the pizza burned while we tried to find them, she kept her cool. I didn't.

So, Pizzas: 4, Nick: 2.

Update at 11.

Tomorrow

I love this place called Parthenon, just off Cote des Neiges, on Van Horne, I think.

I love to cook, but there are just simply things that you can’t do at home. I wander the aisles at Tzanet and gaze at the industrial ovens and grills and believe it or not, I scheme privately to myself, wishing there were some way to get one into my house (Christ, with my kitchen about as big as a Windjammer Cruiseline’s, you KNOW the best I’m going to be able to put out is a fairly tasty grilled hot dog).

And Parthenon simply makes the best grilled shrimp . . . as I type the words the smoky piquancy, the lemon aftertaste, the sheer knowledge that it should be accorded its own Food Group in the Pyramid . . . well, it makes me Lust.

And when I lust, it usually means, can I make it at home, myself?

So naturally, I tried. First off, I recognized what I don’t have, namely, a wood-burning oven, or charcoal, or whatever. No grill. So how to get that smoky taste, that indefinable shrimpicity?

I’ve become a tiny expert in these things because I’m so doomed in this pathetic apartment kitchen . . . I HAVE to find workarounds for this stuff. I know it’s not going to taste identical but I have to try my damndest to make it as close as possible because I simply can’t afford to go to Parthenon every time I need their shrimp.

So here is what I did, and I have to admit, (unseen hands patting back) it turned out okay. In other words, I’ll do it again.

First off, I had to duplicate the sleekness. There were Things on the shrimp which I can only interpret as batter and spices. Plus, the shrimp have to be gigantic. Like, mega-shrimp. (You might want to substitute small lobsters, but do shell and devein them nicely).

So here is what you do:

Ingredients

10 -12 very large shrimp, 12-14/lb.
Two eggs, lightly whipped
1/4 cup shallots, minced
1/4 cup garlic, minced
1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 cup flour
Salt and cracked black pepper (in the flour and corn starch)

Method

Shell and/or devein the shrimp. Brine them for an hour or so. Rinse and drain thoroughly. Pat dry. Dredge each shrimp through the eggs, then through the flour/corn starch mixture. Skewer the shrimp on a wooden skewer so it doesn’t curl while cooking. Proceed with all the shrimp. Now sprinkle the shallot/garlic mixture on the shrimp and turn to encrust thoroughly. Don't worry, those bastards had a marriage agreement with the eggs so they'll stick, trust me.

Heat a grill pan on medium for six minutes. Place the skewered shrimp on the grill pan, watch carefully, turning every three minutes for about nine minutes, or until all sides of the shrimp are no longer translucent.

Drizzle with lemon juice. Serve on Greek rice with tsaziki and toasted pita (sheesh, you want me to give away those recipes as well? Tomorrow. As they say in Athens, tomorrow).

Not Paté Chinois

Comfort food . . . I’d like to shoot the progenitor of that term. Some savvy marketer, no doubt. But what it implies is that French Fries, for example, are uncomfort, but that macaroni and cheese is comfort. What do they mean? Foods that Mother made us? My mother was a lousy cook. There was nothing comforting in her food, love her though I do.

Could they have meant “simple”? As in, not foie gras or feuiletté de ris de veau au sapins crû? Doh. We get it. Anyway, I hate that term, so I won’t tell you this recipe is comfort food. It’s just goddamn food.

But Brigitte commented that it was Paté Chinois (before I made it). It is most definitely not that Québecois abomination, I can assure you. French Canadian food is usually some bizarre hybrid of fur trappers’ roadkill and some odd food idea from Ancient France, but it sure don’t have a lot to recommend it. Poutine? Yecchh.

So, this is Shepherd’s Pie, people, a dish with a very old provenance, and it sure doesn’t come from China. Plus, I made sure I put my goddamn stamp on it — after all, I’ve made it about a thousand times and I just keep improving it.

Ingredients
Sauce

1 1/2 lbs. stewing beef, ground in grinder or by the butcher
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
30-40 small pearl onions, peeled
5 large shallots, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
5 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons crème fraîche
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup demiglace sauce or substitute Knorr demiglace sauce powder
1 can corn niblets
Parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Potatoes
3 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup of grated parmigiano-reggiano
1/2 cup of crème fraîche or sour cream
2 tablespoons compound herb butter or butter/parsley/thyme/rosemary mix
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Sauté pearl onions in some olive oil on medium until browned and slightly soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside; sauté shallots until translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and sauté a further two minutes. Remove shallot-garlic mixture and place with pearl onions.

Grind beef, or if already ground, stir in the garlic, worcestershire sauce and sun-dried tomatoes, combining thoroughly. Heat more olive oil in the pan and sauté the ground beef mixture until it begins to lose its pinkness. Add the wine, crème fraîche and chicken broth and stir well. Cook on medium heat until the liquids have reduced by half. Add the demiglace or about 4 tablespoons demiglace powder and cook until slightly thickened, about ten minutes, stirring constantly. Add shallot/onion mixture and combine well. Add corn niblets and about 1/4 cup corn juice from the can (for the sweetness). Add chopped fresh parsley and salt and pepper. Taste often during the cooking; a bland and/or salty filling will not make a good pie.

Place filling in a large rectangular Pyrex baking dish. Pat down into an even layer. Place in the refrigerator or freezer to cool down to a cool/cold temperature.

Put the cut potatoes into a large pan of slightly salted water. Bring to a boil. Set timer for about 20 minutes. At the end of the 20 minutes test the doneness of the potatoes with a fork. They should be completely soft with no resistance.

Drain in a colander. In a large metal bowl, combine the cheeses, garlic, crème fraîche and herb butter. Using a potato ricer, rice the potatoes into the bowl. Combine thoroughly, adding salt as necessary. Add pepper.

When the sauce is completely cold, smear the mashed potatoes on top very carefully with a fork so that they form an even layer. Use the tines of the fork to make attractive patterns. Preheat the oven to 450 and place the pie in the oven on the middle rack. Watch it carefully; it should start browning within 20 minutes. If it starts browning too quickly, reduce the heat to 350. If it’s not browning quickly enough, increase heat to 500, but watch carefully. It only takes 60 seconds to burn.

After about 30 minutes, remove from oven and carve into rectangles. Serve with a good Girondin from Bordeaux.

Thoughts on No Longer Being a Vegetarian

I was a vegetarian for, I think, at least six months this year. Not only a vegetarian, but I didn't eat any wheat as well. No pasta. No bread!

It was completely by choice, but how did I feel then and how do I feel now? Do I feel like a prick because I eat hot dogs, the messier the better? Do I feel less healthy? Well, yes and no.

I recently had a steak sandwich and I was so fucked up the next day that I realise that it's a stomach-learned skill to eat stuff like steak. But I love steak! I had a steak blog, ferchrissakes!

But, mark my words, I also had a vegetable blog.

You can gaze at these two extremes of the pendulum and you can ponder. How has it affected my eating habits? After all, I'm living proof of both experiments. I have to admit that I'm still parsing the data.

One thing I can say is that for me, giving up meat and wheat was not hard at all. It was very interesting. I discovered many things that I had ignored in my omnivore days, namely lots of rice dishes, but also rice noodles, quinoa and cooked fish, which I used to hate (love sushi, hate cooked fish, go figure).

Did I miss stuff like hamburgers, pizza, pasta, bread, steak and hot dogs? Sure. But it was not insurmountable at all. I think one thing that was on my side was that I didn't have any issues with those foods. I wasn't out to make any statements or go on any diets. I just simply gave them up to just give them up. No agenda at all.

So it was just as easy to slide right back into omnivore-mode. Yes, now I crave hot dogs at 4 a.m. or am jonesing to make some fresh-pasta XtravaGanZa but it wouldn't bother me if it all went away tomorrow and the vegetable blog came alive again. Or the steak blog, for that matter!

Wouldn't bother me at all.

Anyone for a shrimp blog?

My $450 Recipe

When I was in France earlier this year, I had it in my mind that I would write a cookbook. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of a cookbook I would write, but I had in mind something that reflected how I liked to cook; namely, all day, with sometimes quite complicated recipes and hard-to-find ingredients.

I’m the type of cook who will either abandon a recipe right in the middle of cooking it because I’ve forgotten a crucial ingredient, say, galangal, or I’ll just march right out there in blowing snow to go get it. Aside from pastry and dessert making, I love to go to the ends of the earth to find ingredients. I hate substituting “in a pinch.”

So my modus operandi was usually to cook on a Saturday, doing the shopping that morning and then cooking all the rest of the afternoon, watching cooking shows while I cooked and leisurely sipping Cuivrée, and that’s what I wanted this book to reflect. It was to be called The Saturday Cook.

To this end, for a month in France, I was busy assembling recipes from everywhere; the Internet, my own cookbooks, and then I went out and bought cookbooks in French at the bookstore in Bordeaux and started picking recipes that I liked and translated them into my MacBook laptop. I made a few, too, and sometimes the results were spectacular. I even went as far as to design the first few pages with my own food photography; I was well on the way.

Alas, when I got back to Montreal, one day I was playing the guitar along to some jam tracks on my laptop and it started stuttering, so I did what I normally do to balky machinery: I hit it. The rest can be guessed.

I trashed the hard drive. All was lost. I replaced the hard drive but the guy who replaced it said there was no way he could get any data off the old one. All that effort, all those translations, that whole month: gone. But I wasn’t about to give up. I took the hard drive to a data-recovery service in Montreal operated by a really nice Russian guy. But data recovery is not cheap. It took him a month and in the end he was only able to rescue 27 text files. It cost me $450, and there was only one recipe that was recovered that I either didn’t already have duplicated somewhere else or that I could track some version down of on the Internet.

Here’s the list of some of the recipes (that I had miraculously emailed to someone before the hard drive crashed) that I intended for my book, and at the end there’s the recipe that I made in France that was so spectacular that I wrote it down. It’s the only one that survived . . . a $450 recipe.

Asian Tomato and Mushroom Chicken (à la Marengo)
Asian Vegetable-stuffed Beef Rollups in Teriyaki Sauce
Balinese fried chicken
Beef Rendang
Bucatini with Prosciutto and Feta
Burmese beef and potato curry
Burmese chicken curry
Chicken Jalfrezi
Chile dogs with homemade chili sauce on Knackwurst or Frankfurters
Chile-garlic dip
Cucumber-Garlic Raita
Cucumber-Shallot-Chile Salad
Farfalle with roasted cherry tomatoes, goat cheese and kalamata olives
Fresh homemade pizza å la Luzzo’s in New York
Ginger Beef
Hmong curry
L'Express Raviolis Maison (fresh raviolis in a hunter’s mushroom sauce)
Late-night Leftover Pasta with prosciutto and parmesan
Linguine with Prosciutto, Gorgonzola and Basil
Magret de canard with honey dijonnaise
Nachos with four cheeses, pancetta, garlic, olives and jalapenos
Thai Green Chicken Curry
Pacific Rim Kobe Steak Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing
Penne with Chicken, Feta and Dill
Pita Rapture with chicken or beef, peppers, onions, lettuce and cilantro with a Caesar dressing
Quesadillas with three cheeses, bacon, jalapenos and cilantro
Seekh Kebab (ground beef on skewers)
Sri Lankan Cucumber salad
Sri Lankan Mulligatawny
Sri Lankan pork curry
Szechuan-style Chile Shrimp
Tandoori-Style Chicken Burgers with Cumin Yogurt Sauce
Thai Beef “Mussaman “ curry
Thai Beef and Basil Flat Rice Noodles
Thai Spicy-sweet Roast Chicken
Tomato-Onion-Chile Salad
Yang Chow Basmati Fried Rice

And the $450 recipe:

Asian Tomato and Mushroom Chicken

Ingredients:

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, halved lengthwise
1 medium onion, cut in thin crescents
4 medium very ripe tomatoes
8-10 shiitake or matsutake mushrooms, thickly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons Sambal Oelek
3 tablespoons Mirin
1 cup chicken broth
5 tablespoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons peanut oil

Method:

Brine chicken in 4 cups warm water with 4 tablespoons salt and 3 tablespoons sugar for 15 minutes. Remove from brine and pat dry.

Heat 3 tablespoons sesame oil and 1 tablespoons peanut in large nonstick frying pan on medium-high. Brown the chicken one one side in hot oil: about 7 minutes. Turn and brown other side for an additional 4 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoons sesame oil and 1 tablespoon peanut oil and sauté mushrooms until water has completely evaporated and mushrooms have reduced by half and are browned on both sides.

Remove from pan and set aside. In remaining oil, fry onions until limp, about three minutes. Add garlic, sauté two minutes. Add tomatoes. Sauté about 5 minutes; add back mushrooms. Sauté another 5 minutes, then add chicken, Sambal Oelek, mirin and chicken broth. Stir to combine. Simmer covered, for 10 minutes. Add cilantro and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve over basmati rice.

Son of Pizza Meetsa Mozza

Yesterday it was experiment time. Now I know enough about pizza-making to not panic when things go wrong. (Famous last words).

One thing I've learned about an extensive pizza session is to prepare the day before. Do all the prep of the meats and vegetables and cheese. That means, cook the Italian sausage, shred the prosciutto, slice the olives, onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic or whatever it is you're using, make the tomato sauce you'll be using, and stash it all in the refrigerator. Then actually assembling and making the pizzas should be fairly brief.

So the next day all you have to do is preheat the oven (I suggest for at least an hour at 550 degrees, with your pizza stone in), bring the dough to room temperature, bring out the mozza di bufala and let it drain, assemble your dough board, corn meal, olive oil and brush (if you use olive oil) and you're set.

I had a to-and-from with Blork as I was doing the prep and I asked if he thought my following theory might hold water: I figured that if you kept all the ingredients as cold as possible, they wouldn't cook as quickly and the crust would have more time to develop a char and a crispy underside.

He figured that it would probably delay the cooking for less than a minute, and maybe possibly cool the stone down as well. Good reasoning!

Then, I wondered if the layering made a difference. He pretty much described his layering the same way I do it; stuff like green peppers, slivered onions, mushrooms (if any are being used) on the bottom, followed by possibly some cheese, then the meats/olives and then the top layer of cheese.

I agreed with him, but since I was making four pizzas I decided to experiment.

One thing I found out right away is that the first pizza will be the best. The stone will be ultra-hot and the oven won't have been opened for an hour and a half.

Then it goes downhill with all the opening of the oven and the repeated cooling of the stone, but it's unavoidable, unless you have all four pizzas dressed and sitting on their peels and you just shove them in one after the other. Which can't be done in my kitchen.

What I also found is that the cheese on the bottom is a very bad idea. I did two identically topped goat-cheese pizzas but just reversed the layering, and the one with the toppings on the top burned badly. The one with the cheese on top was pretty damn good.

I found that I could get a pizza done in 7-8 minutes, which is pretty good, considering some home recipes call for 15-20 minutes on 425! Ouch, don't be giving me a slice of that.

So, the pizza saga goes on. I will not rest until the dough does! (Hey, I'm getting pretty good at spinning! They're actually looking non-rhomboid!)

Pizza Update #3

I decided to try putting the pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven this time before preheating it, as with my previous methods since watching the action at Luzzo's in New York involved putting the stone as close to the broiler as possible. The reason was that I was not getting a good char on the bottom, and I theorised that if the stone were nearer the bottom element I could cook the pizza on broil (550F) and the top wouldn't get incinerated before the bottom had a chance to get done.

Blork, my partner in pizza crimes, agreed with me, so that's the way I did it. Results, however, were disappointing.

The pizzas turned out okay but there was no appreciably upped char on the bottom of the pizzas even with an extended cooking time. The ones nearest the broiler had been done in seven minutes and the ones on the bottom took at least ten. The char on both kinds was not very developed, but the ones done near the broiler had their toppings very well cooked, as you can imagine.

Blork stresses that getting a good char in a domestic oven is probably not going to be possible, and I agree with him. But I'll keep working on it . . .

Another thing I noticed with this batch is that making three pizzas out of the boule de pâte from the pizza place at Atwater is a mistake; I should divide it into four pizzas instead of three because the ones I tried to make were too huge and became square. My pizzas have to be hip.

Pictured is a goat cheese pizza with Hungarian peppers, garlic, olives, Toscano ham and Marechal de lait cru cheese with cherry tomatoes. Damned good if I may say so myself.

Saffron Chicken II

Tonight I made my fantasized recipe . . . and it worked amazingly well! I tried to follow the score as faithfully as possible and didn't taste it until the very end. There were only a couple of points where I diverged from the method; namely, I upped the amount of spices, I sautéed the shallots separately from the onion as the pan seemed to be quite crowded with the shallots alone, and I added some cornstarch towards the end to thicken up the sauce. But other than that, it was a fantastic success, and extremely easy to make.

Next time I will put some bamboo shoots in it, perhaps, or some red pepper, or substitute shrimp for the chicken. However, all in all, it's a brilliant base recipe that proves I right the thongs that make the hole whirled thing. Or something like that.


Saffron Chicken
4 tablespoons ghee or peanut oil
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
6 large shallots, finely diced
4 large cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, cut in 1/2 inch squares
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon chile powder
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 tsp. salt
1 teaspoon palm sugar
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 tablespoon saffron threads
Juice of half a lime
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Method
Brine chicken in salt and sugar (about 1/4 C each per litre of water) for about 2 hours in the refrigerator. In a non-stick saucepan, sauté the shallots in 1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter) or peanut oil on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until translucent. Remove from pan and sauté onions in another tablespoon of ghee for 8 minutes. Add garlic and sauté another two minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add 2 more tablespoons ghee. Heat until sizzling, then add the chicken, cumin, coriander and chile powder. Mix well and sauté until browned on all sides, stirring frequently, about 8-10 minutes. Add back onion mixture, then coconut milk and chicken broth. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

When sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon (if at this stage it is not thick enough, add 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed in water), add the palm sugar, tamarind paste and saffron. Stir well to combine. Simmer another ten minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Add lime juice and 1/4 cup cilantro. Stir well to combine. Serve on steamed basmati rice with cilantro garnish.

New Recipe?

I write songs. But songs don't have recipes. They just exist. There are no measurements. You either know how to do it or you don't. The songs are either good or they aren't. It all depends on how many songs you've written.

So it suddenly possessed me to write a recipe. I've never made this recipe, and I don't know how it's going to taste. Probably someone out there has made something similar, but I deliberately didn't do any research. Something just came out of nowhere and said: "Saffron Chicken."

I had to think: what style? Could be Italian. French. Vietnamese. Indian. I settled upon that all-encompassing category: Asian. But as I typed it up, I imagined what it would taste like. And I realised that I don't have to imagine. I already know what it's going to taste like. I don't know the method, but I'll improvise and find it, just like I improvise a solo on top of a song (done; see below -- Ed 11/03).

What do you think it's going to taste like? How do you think it should be made? I'll make it exactly according to the specifications and not taste it once until it's time to eat, just to see how faithful my culinary instincts are . . .

Saffron Chicken

4 tablespoons ghee or peanut oil
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
6 large shallots, finely diced
4 large cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, cut in 1/2 inch squares
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. chile powder
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. palm sugar
1 tsp. tamarind paste
1 tbsp. saffron threads
Juice of half a lime
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Method:

Brine chicken in salt and sugar (about 1/4 C each per litre of water) for about 2 hours in the refrigerator. In a non-stick saucepan, sauté the shallots and onion in 1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter) or peanut oil on medium heat for about 8 minutes or until translucent. Add garlic and sauté another two minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add 2 more tablespoons ghee. Heat until sizzling, then add the chicken, cumin, coriander and chile powder. Mix well and sauté until browned on all sides, stirring frequently, about 8-10 minutes. Add back onion mixture, then coconut milk and chicken broth. Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

When sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, add the palm sugar, tamarind paste and saffron. Stir well to combine. Simmer another ten minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Add lime juice and 1/4 cup cilantro. Stir well to combine. Serve on steamed basmati rice with cilantro garnish.

My Kitchen

I’m very, very particular about my kitchen. It’s probably the most groomed room in the house. No, not because of expensive appliances. It’s also more akin to a galley on a small boat, so every iota of space counts and for one who likes all his tools at hand, this can be a blessing and a curse.

The pots and pans became a major storage issue until I bought a pot rack, from which hang at least 8 pans and pots. Brilliant!

Early on, I had a very expensive food processor, but I ditched it. I actually prefer to do the prep and I have a hand mixer so it’s not necessary.

I need a very, very good chef’s knife that always has to be sharp enough for me to literally shave with.

I need a dishwasher. My kitchen is too tiny to put up wooden dish racks. I like all needed items, eg. vegetable peelers, cheese graters, pizza cutters and so on to be within hand’s reach. Same with oils, sauces, dry goods and spices.

I need an in-sink garbage disposal. I can’t stand the smell of yesterday’s chopped, discarded lettuce rotting in the garbage. I do all the peeling, husking, coring and discarding directly in the sink.

I need lots of counter lighting, preferably halogen. One at each station. I need counters to be swept completely clean constantly. I cannot cook if I sense the counter is dirty.

I mainly use paper towels to dry/clean things. Dishcloths or sponges accumulate too much bacteria. (Chuck Gerba once opined that a typical kitchen counter has more bacteria on it than your toilet seat). If the sheet of paper towel is only wet and not dirty, I hang it over the oven handle and let it dry and then use it as a counter rag.

The kitchen should be used for only one thing at any given time; I can’t stand someone coming in to make a sandwich while I’m prepping dinner. Actually, make that I can’t stand anyone being in the kitchen while I’m cooking unless we’re partners making the same dish.

I love my kitchen. And my kitchen loves me.

Magret de canard au miel

I made Magret de canard au miel dijonnaise tonight. The actual magret I got from Jean-Talon market, at a game store (gibier). I ended up being slightly disappointed, because it was nowhere near as sleek as the one I made in France; still, it beat a filet mignon hands down.

You want to brine the duck breast in a mixture of sugar and salt for about an hour before cooking. When it’s time to cook, sprinkle the non-fat side with salt and pepper generously and cook from a cold pan to medium temperature. The fat is going to render; dump off but save! Duck fat is sooo tasty.

Cook for about ten minutes on the fat side, then turn over and cook for ten more. Place on a plate and foil-tent. Put in oven at around 200 degrees while you do the sauce.



Sauce
3 tablespoons clear honey
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 cup of chicken broth
1/2 a cup of chardonnay
Salt, pepper

Reduce all for about six minutes on medium. Pour over sliced magret. Serve with petite pommes de terres and haricots fins.

Pizzafolies

Blork was more prescient than is possible in his comment when he recommended going back to his regular pizza peel. Trouble is, I can’t. See, when I have my dough laden with its ingredients (pictured below) it is almost impossible to get it off the peel and onto the pizza stone (hot! hot! Close oven door RIGHT NOW!) without something going into freefall, be it the dough scrunching, cheese falling off, what have you . . . at least with the traditional peel, even with corn meal.

He might beg to differ, but for years I wrestled with pre-baking the dough for a few minutes so it was hard enough to slide on and off the traditional peel, and it just never came out right . . . it wasn’t until I started using the slide-off peel that I could assemble everything on the dough and expect it to still exist in its format when it came to sliding it onto the stone. (Why does this sound so sexual?)

So, conditions were ripe last night for disaster. Thing is, I had forgotten just how to slide the pizza off the Super Peel . . . instead, I assembled it on the peel on the SLIDE-ON position, so when I went to slide it onto the red-hot stone, I realised it was the opposite and I could not get it off the peel, it being sloppy and not inclined to slide in one piece (see doomed pizza, assembled, last photo). Trust me, with two other pizzas and all the ingredients and a dinner date waiting in the wings, I was not in the mood for this to happen.

I tried to spade it off onto the traditional peel. It went, sloppily, but as predicted, that was about that. When I tried to get it onto the stone, it fell apart. Literally. Cheese, mushrooms, peppers, all over my 550-degree oven, all over the pizza stone.

Fire, fire about to happen, thought I, and desperately tried to rescue the situation. Luckily, my neurons, dendrites and axons decided to get together and finally have a party and cooperate after months of feuding and I was able to rescue the situation. The one disaster-pizza I had to toss, but the other two were awesome.

Below is pictured the roasted cherry-tomato-red-pepper-sun-dried tomato-prosciutto-mozzarella di bufala concoction that I came up with. The other pizza had no sauce, just truffle oil, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, basil and arugula.

Roasted Cherry Tomato pizza sauce

Ingredients
A bunch of cherry tomatoes — doesn’t matter how many. Lots. Little buds removed, quartered
Two large cloves garlic, diced
Sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and finely chopped
Roasted red peppers, also out of the jar, patted dry and finely chopped
Good olive oil
Fresh oregano
Chicken broth

Method
Assemble all ingredients in a casserole. Mix well. Roast on about 500 degrees for about 45 minutes, observing often and stirring about every 15 minutes. When done, let cool at least to room temperature.

Purée sauce with hand mixer or food processor, adding chicken broth if too thick. Spread on dough.

Kitchen Gadgets Part 19

As noted in this post I do like my little toys. But over the years I've become more discriminating. I don't want to "simplify" my kitchen experience. Ergo: get a food processor. I don't want to process food (at least like that). I want to spend the time chopping and dicing. Obviously the only things I'd want to process would be meat for grinding and pasta for flattening. The things I can do myself I want to do myself.

Blork pointed out that "highly specialized tools are for the birds." Quite correct, but only for the Geospiza fortis family of finches.

I, on the other hand, am a crow. And I like my highly specialized tools. Specifically, I like them because they are highly specialized.

But to clarify, I don't like useless so-called time-saving devices; rather, devices that (insert "heh-heh" here) make me look more professional than I really am.

A garlic press is an example of a so-called time-saving device; however, even though I possess one, I would only use it in a bare minimum of cases, because I simply enjoy chopping garlic. It is my hobby to see how finely I can chop it (indulge me!) and squeezing the fuckers into paste is not enjoyable to me unless I'm in a particular mood.

But the finer things, as Blork mentions: a Microplane grater is something I can no longer do without. An amazing chef's knife is something I can no longer do without, and the amazing stone sharpener that complements it.

Other Stuff I Have Gone Through And Discarded: several garlic choppers, a useless and dangerous "food flipper", and many other "As Seen On TV" items that usually belong to Starfrit.

But I must say that I still use my Hearthkit and I particularly enjoy my pizza peel (one of which I personally had sent to Blork).

And now I have two more tools that make my caw a little more raucous: witness the Benriner Turning Slicer. I've always wondered how those sushi places got those little carroty curls and radish hairs onto my plate and now I know.

And how those little cucumber slices have those tiny notches in them (specialized cucumber notcher, not pictured). But just look at the results! (Guaranteed not Photoshopped!)





And spy this fine colander I got at the kitchen supply store . . .



keeps your pasta out of the soapy dishwater that you clean your serving bowl with!

So, time will tell whether these things will ultimately be consigned to the back shelf of the dark cupboard but for now I'm a sucker for that kitchen gadget . . .

Nick's Garlic Shrimp Linguine

Bought some fresh linguine at Capitol at Jean-Talon market the other day, so I decided to make some garlic shrimp. At my local Metro they now have a frozen self-serve case where you can choose various-sized shrimp at $9.99 a pound so I’m always tempted. I’m basically on a shrimp kick as a leftover from my vegetabledom.

I improvised this recipe, so you’ll probably want to as well.

Garlic Shrimp Linguine



Ingredients
12-13 large raw shrimp, peeled (tails off)
4-5 large shallots, finely chopped
6-7 large cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 lb. fresh Shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed, and sliced
1 lb. fresh linguine pasta
2/3 cup dry white wine
Olive oil
Compound herb butter
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Red pepper flakes
Italian parsley
Basil
Salt and sugar for brining shrimp

Method
About thirty minutes before starting to cook, brine frozen shrimp in lukewarm water with about 1/3 cup of salt (dissolved) and about 1/4 cup caster sugar (dissolved).

Cook pasta until a hair short of al dente, about 4-5 minutes. Do not overcook! The pasta will cook further with the other ingredients.

In a large non-stick skillet, heat about three tablespoons olive oil on medium heat until shimmering. Sauté mushrooms until they have lost their water, about five minutes. Remove and set aside.

Add about two tablespoons herb butter and sauté shallots for about five minutes; add garlic and sauté three minutes more.

Remove and add to bowl with mushrooms.

Rinse shrimp under cold running water, pat dry.

Add two more tablespoons herb butter to pan and one teaspoon pepper flakes. Add shrimp and sauté for about two minutes on one side and three minutes on the other. Remove and place with shallot-mushroom mixture.

Add wine to pan. Cook until vaguely syrupy, about 8-10 minutes. Add the cooked pasta, the shallot-mushroom-shrimp mixture, and the two cheeses. Chop about half a cup each of the basil and parsley. On medium-heat, mix all ingredients thoroughly; serve immediately on warmed plates. Drink a nice dry Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio.

Shrimp Stroganoff

It's been a while since I posted. Japan was a disaster, as usual. I arrived in the evening after a grueling 20-or-so hour journey, ate, went to sleep, woke up the next day, went back to sleep, woke up, ate dinner, went to sleep, woke up, packed my bag, headed for the airport and did another 20-hour journey. The only consolation was that I was in First Class from Japan to Vancouver, but the hitch was that I slept the whole time.

Today will be a week since I've been back and it's truly the first day I feel human again (it always takes about a week).

But the other day I did have the pleasure of making my new favorite dish, Shrimp Stroganoff. It was only the second time I've made it (the first was for Shelley of montrealfood.com and was a grand success) but this time was excellent as well. If you really want to blow away your friends or family you will make this! The kicker is that it's really easy. But do not substitute sour cream for crême-fraiche.

Nick's Version of Shrimp Stroganoff


Ingredients:
1 1/2 pound frozen large raw shrimp (15/21), peeled and deveined (easy-peel is fine)
4-5 large shallots, diced finely, to equal about a cup
9-10 cloves garlic, minced, divided
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning (available from various spice manufacturers)
4 cups or more shiitake and pleurot mushrooms, stems removed, washed and sliced
Olive oil, as indicated in method
Approximately 1 1/4 cup chicken broth, divided
Approximately 1/2 cup dry white wine
Approximately 1 cup crême fraiche
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Handful chopped Italian parsley
Handful chopped fresh dill
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Brine the shrimp. In a microwave-safe container, combine about four tablespoons sea salt and two tablespoons sugar with half a cup of water. Heat in microwave until almost boiling. Stir to dissolve salt and sugar. Pour into bowl, add frozen shrimp.and warm water to cover. When thoroughly thawed, remove shells as necessary (tails as well), rinse and drain.

In large nonstick sauté pan, add about three tablespoons olive oil. Heat on medium until shimmering. Add shallots and sauté until translucent, about three minutes, then add about half the garlic. Sauté further about two minutes, then remove and set aside. In same pan, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, remaining garlic, Cajun seasoning and red pepper flakes. Sauté one minute, then add shrimp. Spread evenly throughout the pan. Cook one minute on one side, then turn shrimp with tongs. After a further 2 or so minutes, or until pink, remove shrimp and set aside.

Add mushroom slices to pan and sauté until mushrooms have shrunken by half. Remove to bowl with shallots. Add wine and 1 cup chicken broth to pan. Cook down until reduced by half — approximately 8-10 minutes.

In separate container, mix crême fraiche with remaining chicken broth and cornstarch and combine thoroughly. When mushrooms are done, add all remaining ingredients except shrimp, parsley and dill and stir constantly until sauce coats back of a spoon.

Reduce heat to minimum; add shrimp, parsley and dill and combine well. Heat through, about three minutes. Serve immediately over white rice. Garnish with parsley.

My Asian Pantry

I just went to Kim Phat to replenish my Asian pantry. It’s all I ever seem to eat these days, because the cuisine is a) spicy, and b) very vegetarian/pesco-friendly.

So I thought I’d just assemble what I have for your amusement. I left out some of the almost-empty bottles in the refrigerator, but here’s what’s in this photo (click on the photo to magnify):

From left to right, top row: Tamari soy sauce, spicy Thai chili sauce, plum sauce, sweet red chili sauce, (top) sambal oelek (bottom) coconut milk, (top) Mussamun curry sauce (bottom) green curry sauce, (small jar) shrimp paste, (top) tamarind sauce (bottom) kimchi, mirin bought in Japan, (top) Thai green curry paste (bottom) “goma” sesame salad dressing bought in Japan, dark shoyu bought in Japan, ultra-high-quality shoyu bought in Japan (haven’t had an opportunity to use it yet!) sesame oil bought here, and ultra-high quality sesame oil bought in Japan.

Front area, left to right: turmeric root, Thai stir-fry paste, rice paper, rice vermicelli, lemongrass and palm sugar. There is galangal in my freezer and numerous Asian condiments in my refrigerator that I’ve left out, but this is my basic Asian pantry. What’s in yours?

What I Hate About Recipes

Sometimes I go through my voluminous library of cookbooks. It’s not so much an urge for food porn. It’s more like being a musician and reading scores for songs, which I regrettably can’t do (can’t read music). But I read them for sport, for ideas, for mind-fodder. But sometimes I get really annoyed.

I think I have maybe ten books on Indian cooking alone. Some of them are from the U.S. and some are from the U.K. But every single one of them has a different recipe for basmati rice. If at all.

It’s just gross inefficiency on many levels. It’s like you wrote out Brahm’s Fifth but only gave vague directions as to where the sharps should be. But those are the easier ones to parse.

The maddening ones are where they specify, say, 3 ounces of coriander. Three ounces of coriander? What the fuck, I’m supposed to get out my coke scale and weigh the fucking thing? How about a quarter cup?

But what takes the cake is the “5/8ths of a cup of yogurt” for a Cream Cheese Kofta Curry in the cookbook “Complete Indian.” Five-eighths of a cup? Waaah? How about “A little more than half a cup”?

Considering 95% of the world makes dinner with no measuring whatsoever, it seems ridiculous that a cookbook can be published, well, so ridiculously. What the fuck is a medium onion? Please tell me.

And why are there fifty ways to cook basmati rice? Every single cookbook I have has a different formula. Thank god I found mine and now it comes out perfectly every time. Two cups of water for one cup rice? Recipe for a very effective glue.

Lesson: most cookbooks are like the charts for the Beatles that you find in music stores; bogus, simplified instructions that will always produce a mere parody of the real thing.

Nick's "New Canadian" Four-Cheese Pasta

I was being prodded to make “Mac ‘n’ Cheese” the other day when I coincidentally stumbled across the post at one of my most favorite food blogs these days and was astonished how close it came to Djou’s recipe.

Of course, I’ve posted noodle recipes on this blog before, but I don’t eat Mac ‘n’ Cheese; I eat Baked Creamy Four-Cheese Pasta.

So, even though I will be only tasting it, not eating it, as I am semi-officially no-wheat (well, I might make an exception this time!) here is the recipe:

Creamy Baked Four-Cheese Pasta

Bread Crumb Topping

1/2 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup whole almonds, ground coarsely
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

Vegetables

3 shallots, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
with 2 tablespoons butter

Pasta and Cheese

1 cup 5-year-old grated cheddar cheese
1/2 each cup grated Gruyère, Emmenthal and Maréchal au lait cru cheeses (for the latter an aged Gouda may be substituted)
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 pound penne pasta, preferably Barilla penne rigate (thinnest ones you can find)
1 tablespoon table salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup 3.5% milk
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method

1. For the topping: Combine all items well. Set mixture aside.

2. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees.

3. For the pasta: Bring 4 quarts water to rolling boil in stockpot. Combine cheeses in large bowl; set aside. Add pasta and 1 tablespoon salt to boiling water; stir to separate pasta. While pasta is cooking, in a sauté pan, fry the shallots and garlic in about two tablespoons of butter until translucent but be careful not to burn. Remove from pan and set aside.

4. In the same pan, add the two tablespoons flour and butter (always keep the flour/butter ratio equal to produce a good roux) and cook on medium heat until thoroughly combined.

5. Heat the milk/cream mixture in the microwave until hot; add to the pan with the roux. Add the shallot-garlic mixture, stirring often. Finally, add about 3/4 of the cheese and combine well. Add the Tabasco to taste (I like it hot).


6. When pasta is very al dente (when bitten into, pasta should be opaque and slightly underdone at very center), drain about 5 seconds. Flush with cold water to prevent further cooking.

7. Generously butter bottom and sides of 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish. Add about 3/4 of prepared breadcrumb mixture to prepared dish. Tilt dish to coat bottom and sides. Return any loose breadcrumb mixture to a container.

8. Put the drained and cool pasta into the baking dish and pour the cream/cheese mixture on top; shake gently to let the mixture settle.


9. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.

10. Now evenly sprinkle the remaining breadcrumb mixture over the whole dish. If there is not enough, either add more breadcrumbs or grate more parmesan. You’ll know what to do.

11. Bake in 350-degree oven, uncovered and watching carefully, until light brown. Cover and lower heat to 300 for about another 20 minutes, watching carefully every five minutes or so. When it’s bubbling around the edges of the pasta, remove the cover and blast it with the broiler for about 3-5 minutes to get a nice crispy crust.

That’s MY Mac ‘n’ Cheese.


PS. I became Canadian today

Hip-hop Vegetables

Can you say “wrap?” Good. Now say "rice paper" . . . and you’re on your way to the most incredible taste sensation. The thing about meat, be it chicken or beef or pork or duck or quail, is that is can never be (or shouldn’t be) crunchy.

And the mouth craves crunchy! And the mouth also craves raw, sometimes . . . one gets tired of cooked, cooked, cooked.

So, we made incredible vegetable wraps—some would call them un-fried spring rolls—last night, and here is how you can, too.

You need:

Rice-paper wraps. These are usually disks, large or small, that look like translucent glass and are stiff and dry. You get them at your friendly Asian food store.

Shrimp, declawed and deveined, sautéed in sesame oil and garlic and julienned
Carrots, julienned (into matchsticks)
Red, orange or yellow pepper, julienned
Green onions, white part only, sliced lengthwise into long shards
Snow peas, threaded and both ends removed, sautéed briefly and then julienned, with
Shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly and sauteéd with the snow peas.
Beansprouts
Cilantro, washed, leaves separated and patted dry
Serrano chiles, julienned (optional)

Method:
Get all your mise in place. Best to line up all the ingredients next to each other, assembly-line style. Have a clean kitchen towel at the ready. And go!

Put the rice paper disk in warm water for about thirty seconds. It’ll take a few tries to get used to how it handles. Quickly place the ingredients one by one , starting with the cilantro, on the bottom third of the rice paper disk. Roll the bottom up over the vegetables, then fold in the sides. Then complete the roll. You now have a vegetable wrap.

For dipping sauce:

Orange-chili dip:

1/4 cup orange juice, pulp included
2 tbsps. soy sauce
3 tbsps. mirin
1 tbsp. rice vinegar
1 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tbsps. Asian chili sauce, such as sambal oelek or chili-garlic sauce
1 tsp. nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Mix all ingredients thoroughly, let stand 30 minutes to blend before serving.

Amazing

The pesco-ovo-lacto-vegetarian saga continues. Last night it was Thai green curry with shrimp, something I usually do with chicken. Very odd to taste shrimp where chicken used to be, but I’m getting used to it. It’s just picking off the tails—that I will never get used to. One after all does not have to peel the tail feathers off every chicken breast.

And sesame-cashew rice noodle salad (no meat, no wheat) . . . rice noodles are a devil to make, much touchier than your ordinary pasta. Re: gluey on the outside, hard on the inside. Don’t you hate that? But I defeated it by putting the throwaway mess in the microwave in water for a few minutes and it actually turned out fine (recipe to follow).

Walked to the Asian store (Kim Phat, at Plaza Cote-des-Neiges) yesterday, and as usual it was like being a kid in a candy store. So many sauces, so little time. I could barely stagger home with my haul.

But my cucumber salad is becoming perfect, now that it’s being made and consumed in large amounts every day, so when the magic formula has been determined (it changes like the wind but is always good) it shall be posted.

Haven’t seen a chicken or a cow in almost a month now.

Amazing.

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Spicy Sesame Noodles with Chopped Peanuts and Thai Basil


1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/8 cup mirin
1 tablespoon (or more) hot chili oil
Salt to taste (but can always adjust with soy sauce instead)
Packet Vietnamese rice vermicelli
12 green onions (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced
1/2 cup coarsely chopped roasted peanuts
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh Thai basil leaves

Heat peanut oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add ginger and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Transfer to large bowl. Add next 6 ingredients; whisk to blend.

Follow package directions (good luck!) for vermicelli. Drain thoroughly and transfer to bowl with sauce. Add sliced green onions and toss to coat noodles. Let stand at room temperature until noodles have absorbed dressing, tossing occasionally, about 1 hour. Stir in peanuts and Thai basil; toss again. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.

(After-note: the next morning the noodles had somehow magically become al dente; don't give up on them! It turned out to be awesome!)