Blue Monday: Steak Sandwich and Chips

Depending upon who you talk to (or believe) today is Blue Monday.  It could also have been last Monday, or the Monday before that.  Maybe every Monday in January is Blue Monday.  By that standard, maybe every Monday of the year is a Blue Monday.

How do we know it's Blue Monday?  Because someone quantified it.

Look!  It has a greater than symbol!  Look!  There are uppercase and lowercase letters above *AND* below a line!  Look! There are even brackets and letters to the power of other letters!

Squeeeeee!

It looks mathy and sciencey so it must be true!

Of course just as someone quantified depression to a single day, someone else has published their own study indicating comfort food is a myth.

Why don't these justification-through-quantification types use their (ahem) immense smartitude for good, as opposed playing to sunlight-deprivation and emotional stunting?  Maybe they read 1984 and thought Ingsoc was the key to Utopia.  Maybe they watched Another Brick in the Wall's conveyor belt scene and thought we should all be faceless (and docile) automatons.

It all seems to be about more Sheldon and less Penny.

Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

For those of us who have bad days and whose blue days aren't triggered by a convergence of nonsensical numbers gussied up in the name of science, the occasional wallow in happy memory triggers can make things seem better. For some people it's solitude and an aptly-chosen record, for others it's a night with a best friend and a movie with a favourite actor, and for others, it's food.

The lovely thing about comfort food is how individual it is to the person.  While many think of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich as comforting, not everyone thinks of the same soup recipe (or tin), and the sandwich may be on different breads, different types of cheese, and there may be other things tucked in with the cheese--onions, bacon, avocado.

For me, often the effects of a bad day (not a horrendous day, but one bad enough for me to come home in a funk) can often be numbed by beef and potatoes.

It's on days like these, I want something that doesn't make me think, something that's relatively quick, and something that's easily adaptable to what I have on hand.  Sometimes it's a burger and fries. Other times it's beef fajitas.  Other times it's a steak sandwich.

I feel rather odd about offering a recipe for this as it's something I just pull together, based on what I have, or what I can find.  Here's what I did for the sandwich photographed:


Steak Sandwich and Chips

For the sandwich
Sprinkle Schwartz's Montreal Steak Spice on the steak (for about $5, my butcher had a lovely sirloin medallion).  Let sit in the fridge until you're ready to eat.

Sauté  mushrooms and onions with salt, pepper, thyme and a splash of balsamic.

Pat the steak dry with a kitchen paper and fry in a hot pan until it's done to whatever point makes you happy.  Remove from pan and set on a minced garlic clove.  Tent the steak with tin foil and let sit for about 10 minutes.

Cut the mini-baguette in half and set the cut sides in the steak pan, to sop up the fats and juices.  Slather one half with English mustard.

After the steak has rested, slice the steak and arrange on the bottom half of the baguette.  Top with mushroom mixture, and the top half of the bun.

For the Chips
By chips, I mean chunky fries.  Jamie Oliver has a technique that's pretty close to mine, but instead of sprinkling with rosemary after they've cooked, I toss the chips in an oil and steak spice before roasting.

The Sheldons of the world will need precise measurements--weights and volumes, temperatures and times, and will whiteboard an arcane argument pointing out why what I've posted is just wrong.  The Pennys of the world will make (or get) a sandwich (like or unlike this one) and eat it, with or without chips, while listening to New Order.

Bazinga.


 cheers!
 jasmine
 I'm a quill for hire!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!: Guinness-braised beef short rib poutine

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Some of you may recall my mission to create Guinness-braised short ribs, and what I created was, in fact, Guinness-braised long ribs.  This year, I pledged to rectify this situation.  My plan was simple:

1) Buy beef short ribs when my darling butcher put them on special.

2) Label said shortribs.

3) Freeze said labelled short ribs.

4) Easily retrieve actual short ribs from the freezer, thaw and make Guinness-braised short ribs.

I am happy to report that my mission was successful.

I bought; I labelled; I froze; I retrieved; I thawed; I made Guinness-braised short ribs.

Although they were really good with a side of mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, I didn't actually want Guinness-braised short ribs. 

I wanted Guinness-braised short rib poutine.  Tender meat in a rich gravy, over a bed of golden crispy-on-the-outside and fluffy-on-the-inside chips.  Sauteed mushrooms strewn overtop and soft bleu cheese lightly blessing the entire glorious plate.  

Yes.  That's what I wanted.  And that's exactly what I got: a warm dinner plate of happy.

Of course the main part of this recipe is the short rib recipe itself.  I went back to my Steak and Guinness stew recipe and made a few minor adjustments.  The poutine itself is a non-recipe recipe, and very much up to your individual palate:

Guinness-braised shortrib Poutine

Ingredients

Chunky chips

Guinness-braised short ribs, meat cut off the bone (recipe follows)

Gravy from the above short ribs

Sauteed mushrooms

Bleu Cheese (Cashel, if you want to continue the Irish theme)

Guinness-braised shortribs
Serves four

Ingredients
Marinade:
1 clove garlic, minced
1dspn/2tsp/10ml mustard powder
0.5tsp/2.5ml black pepper
375ml/1.5c Guinness (or any other brand of stout you prefer)

1kg/2lbs beef shortribs, cut into 4cm (1.5") pieces
olive oil
butter
400g/14oz mushrooms, sliced
0.75tsp/3.75ml salt
0.75tsp/3.75ml black pepper
2 medium onions, slivered nose-to-tail
2 fat cloves garlic, minced
2 celery ribs, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
625ml/2.5c diced tomatoes, fresh or tinned
125ml/0.5c Guinness (as above...or any other brand of stout you prefer)
375ml/1.5c beef broth
125ml/0.5c tomato paste
1tsp paprika (hot, preferably)
3 sprigs thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
40g/3Tbsp/45ml soft butter
25g/3Tbsp/45ml ap flour
1-2Tbsp/15-30ml Worcestershire sauce

Method
Mix marinade ingredients together in a zippy bag and add shortrib pieces. Let marinate overnight.

Remove the meat from the zippy bag, and pat dry.  Do not throw away the marinade.

Heat your brasier pan or dutch oven over a hob and slick the bottom with oil.  Sear the meat on all sides and set aside.

Add more oil, if necessary and add the tomato paste and fry until the sugars caramelise and the paste's colour deepens to a brick red.  Remove from pan.

Tip in the onions (with more oil, if necessary) and caramelise to a light golden colour. Add garlic to the pan and mix.  Once the garlic releases its perfume, stir in the celery and saute until translucent.

Preheat your oven to 190C/375F.

Add the seared meat, with its juices to the vegetables. Pour in the marinade along with the diced tomatoes, Guinness, and enough beef broth to cover. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the paprika, thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. Stir well. Let the mixture come up to a boil and keep it there for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Lid the pot and pop into the oven to braise for two hours.

While the meat is simmering, melt oil and butter together; add salt and pepper. Tip in mushrooms and sauté until lovely and soft. Remove the fungi from the pan and set aside.

Just before your timer dings, knead the butter and flour together into a beurre manié.

After the dinger dings, put the pot back onto a medium-low flame on the hob. Remove about a cup's worth of liquid and mix it with the beurre manié and pour back into the stew. Stir well. Add the mushrooms and Worcestershire sauce and simmer for 20 minutes before serving.

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Egg Nog Croissant Pudding

In as much as I love the holidays with all the food and drink that come in tow, at times my fridge, overburdened with leftovers can be a bit of a challenge.

I don't want to waste anything (although, admittedly, some things to end up in the bin), but at the same time I do get tired of reliving meals over and over again.

Every December a carton or two of egg nog finds itself in my shopping trolley. I love good eggnog--rich and cream spiked with sweet woody nutmeg...and maybe some cognac or rye. I usually get a little tired of it...before its all drunk up.

After thinking about it for an extremely short while, I realised that all egg nog is is a custard of sorts. Just add some more egg and maybe a bit more sugar and I've got something pretty close to perfect for a holiday bread pudding.

The nice thing about bread and butter pudding is the relative freedom it allows--plain slices or sandwiches, flavours, textures--a non-recipe recipe. To me, all that really matters is that the bread is creamy soft because it has sopped up as much custard as it can, and that the pudding isn't too eggy-firm.

The "bread" part of the pudding can be anything really--stale bread (of course), challah, brioche, doughnuts, poundcake.

I bought a container of croissants for some lazy breakfasts. Well...the breakfasts were a bit too lazy as the flaky lovelies never did get slathered with butter and marmalade. But they could do well for a pudding.

To give it a bit of interest and contrast, I decided tart cranberries and crunchy pecan would play nicely against the mellow lushness of the softened croissants and the wibbly custard.

The end result is was lovely -- buttery croisstants that were at once burnished gold an flaky and soft and yielding in a nutmeggy custard, punctuated with the occasional sharp cranberry or the slight crackle of of a pecan.

Egg Nog Croissant Pudding
Yield: One 20cm x 20cm (8"x8") pan-- approx six servings

Ingredients
500ml (2c) egg nog
2 eggs, beaten
2Tbsp (30ml) sugar
grated nutmeg (roughly 1/8 - 1/4tsp)
4 stale butter croissants, torn into pieces
a couple of handfuls of dried cranberries, plumped in boiling water, roughly chopped
A handful of roughly chopped pecans

Method

Butter the pan.

In a measuring jug mix the egg nog, eggs, sugar and nutmeg.

Arrange the torn croissants in the pan, Pour the eggnog mixture over top and let soak for at least 20m minutes, so the pastries absorb much of the liquid.

At this point you can preheat the oven to 180C/350F while the croissants soak.

Strew the top of the pudding with the fruit and nuts, tucking some into cracks and crevices where you will.

Bake for about 40-50 minutes. When done, the custard should be just set, with a bit of a wobble.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before serving.




cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Corned beef Hash

Even though I was careful to not have a whopping huge hunk of corned beef, I had more than enough for a couple of suppers and sandwiches.

The most obvious solution to my embarrassment of cured beef riches was, as you've probably guessed by this post's title, corned beef hash.

Then again, I may have embarked on a 14-day brining adventure just to make this crisped potatoey-beefy-oniony conglomeration.

Like so many foods created to use up an odd bit of this or that, this, again, is a non-recipe recipe. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about corned beef hash: chopped up left over boiled potatoes, chopped up left over corned beef, mixed with chopped onion, garlic and spices, fried, an served warm for breakfast lunch or supper.

Browned hashed potatoes with bits of spiced cured beef, topped with a soft boiled or runny poached egg, with butter toast to sop up the golden goo...what more does one want for a lazy Sunday breakfast, or a midnight nosh when back from a night out sampling the local pub's liquid offerings? Not much, I think.

Corned Beef Hash
Serves 2-4

Ingredients
Butter and or olive oil, for frying
1 onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced
250g (1.5c) boiled potatoes, finely chopped
100g (1c) corned beef, finely chopped
salt
pepper
0.5tsp mustard powder
1tsp vinegar



Method
Heat fat in a cast iron pan until quite hot. Saute onions until transluscent. Add garlic and stir until its scent is released.

Tumble in chopped potatoes and meat, a pinch of salt, two of pepper and the mustard powder. Sprinkle with vinegar and stir well and press into an even layer in the pan.

Fry until the bottom is crisp and golden. Turn, in sections, to crisp the other side. If it sticks, add more fat to the pan. Fry and turn again (or as often as needed) until the potatoes and meat are lovely and crispy.

Dollop some sour cream along the side and garnish with chopped chives or spring onions.

Serve with eggs (soft boiled, poached, fried, or whichever way you wish), baked beans, fried tomatoes and or fried mushrooms.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Colcannon

I love it when I find an incredibly easy and tasty dish. Don't get me wrong: for the most part I still love spending a couple of hours in my kitchen, carefully dosing out ingredients, slowly folding and rubbing and waiting for volatile oils to release and scent the air. The truth is I don't always have that sort of time to devote to feeding myself (sad, isn't it?). I'm normally on the lookout for something quick, delicious and slightly different from the same-old same-old, but one that can be completed in those fleeting moments between work, meetings, going out and sleep. From time to time I find a solution so elegant in its simplicity, I wonder why I didn't try it before. Colcannon is one of those foods. A traditional Irish dish, it's simply sauteed greens stirred into mashed potatoes. As someone who loves sauteed kale, cabbage and other deep leafy greens almost as much as I love creamy (and garlicky) mashed potatoes, this is pretty much a happy foodish marriage to my tastebuds and gullet. What makes it better (I think) is that it's pretty much a non-recipe recipe. Don't believe me? Here's proof:

• Step one: Saute some kale (or green cabbage or other leafy green).


• Step two: Mash some potatoes (preferably with milk/cream and butter).


• Step three: Mix everything together.

Still don't believe me? Read the painstaingly recorded instructions which follow this bit of expository. To summarize:

• Step one: Saute some kale (or green cabbage other leafy green).


• Step two: Mash some potatoes (preferably with milk/cream and butter).


• Step three: Mix everything together.

See? Colcannon Serves 4-6 Ingredients 250g (0.5lb) Kale leaves, chopped (one bunch) 1 shallot, thinly slivered 4 spring onions, green parts only, finely chopped butter, for sauteing and mashing 500g (1lb) Yukon gold potatoes (or any mashable potato) 125ml (0.5c) milk 1 clove garlic, smashed salt pepper Method: Fry the shallots in butter until golden. Add the kale and spring onion greens and a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan. Give it a stir and lid the pan and let the greens steam lightly--the green will be vibrant, but the veg won't be limp. Remove the lid and let the water evaporate, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside

Parboil potatoes in salted water. When they are about half-cooked, drain off 2/3-3/4 of the cooking water and retun to the hob, put the lid on and steam over low heat until an inserted knife blade or fork easily slips in and out of a potato. When the potatoes are about ready, heat the milk with the smashed garlic. Mash the potatoes to your liking, using the garlic-infused milk and butter. Stir in the cooked greens. Balance flavours to taste. Notes:

• You can substiute cabbage (savoy or green) for the kale.


• If you have bacon fat on hand, use that to saute the greens.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Mmm...Canada: Roasted Fiddleheads

When I was six years old I took violin lessons. My teacher's name was "Mr. T" (shortened because his surname was long and hard to pronounce...I easily relate). He was old. Like 30 or maybe 35. He had a Tom Selleck-like mustache and the whole 1970s groovy thing happening...or at least he tried to.

Violin just wasn't my thing. I couldn't get the fingering right and even at that young age I knew drawing a bow across my instrument's strings made sounds akin to squalking turkey buzzard stepping on a set of bagpipes than an A, D or even G#.

I was awful. My fingers hurt. My ears hurt. I couldn't hold the neck correctly. My fingering was never right. I always got a tummy ache on lesson day. After a few months of this, my Dear Little Cardamummy let me quit and returned my instrument. I never saw Mr. T again.

It wasn't the end of my music education--I went on to play several other instruments (badly): piano, flute, harp and voice. At some point I'll pick up the piano again...and I have a hankering to learn the cello.

A couple of decades later, when I heard of a Maritime delicacy called "fiddleheads" my mind immediately went to Mr. T and that poor violin. Luckly, I've had better luck with the vegetables than the instrument.

Fiddleheads are the tightly curled tips of the ostrich or cinnamon fern, and is a spring delight. The violin-scroll like vegetable tastes like a cross between asparagus and broccoli.

They fall within the "not quite death defying" food family. In the 1990s there were several food poisoning cases where fiddleheads were involved.Even though the exact cause wasn't identified, it's believed that the ferns have a toxin which is killed with heat. Health Canada recommends the curled greens be thoroughly washed in several changes of cold water and boiled for 15 minutes or steamed for 10-12 minutes.

I've had them boiled and steamed, each time served with a melting pat of butter and a bit of salt and pepper. My favourite way of having fiddleheads, like asparagus, is to roast them in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper and serve them drizzled with balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

I pity the fool who doesn't try fiddleheads.



Roasted fiddleheads with balsamic vinegar and parmesan


Fiddleheads
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Balsamic vinegar
Parmesan cheese, grated



Set the oven to 190C/375F. Lightly oil a baking tray.


Toss the fiddleheads in a bit of oil and scatter them on the prepared tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for about 20-30 minutes or until done


Tumble onto a serving dish and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with parmesan.



cheers!

jasmine











I'm a quill for hire!

Mmm...Canada: Newfoundland Fries

Happy Canada Day!

Has it really been two years since our dear Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess and I cohosted a Canadian food event called Mmm...Canada (she, with sweet entries and I with savoury entries)? Really?

We tried to organise it this year, but our lives are turvey-topsey, bisy backson with barely a chance to sit down and have a cup of tea. And really...if we can't set the time aside for a cup of tea how can we do this land justice in a foodish way?

We'll bring it back. Really. I promise.

When I stepped into my kitchen to offer a Canada Day treat, so many foods came to mind. So many in fact I was practially beside myself with what I should do. Sweet? Savoury? Something regional? Something with indigenous ingredients? Something with a memory?

Yes. All of the above.

It could have been latent guilt playing upon me for not doing an event, but I think it was the sheer breadth of foods that gave me bursts of energy and creativity. Over the month I'll post as many as I can. Some are sweet, others are savoury. Some are ingredient focussed and some, are a regional treat. Some are fabulous for hot and heady summer days and others, like today's recipe, are I think best suited for cool autumns and frigid winters.

A few weeks ago I wrote about poutine, the fabulous Québecois dish that is, according to a favourite colleague, the ultimate comfort food. Newfoundland fries continue in this tradition of embellished french fries.

My area of the world is dotted with the occasional chip wagon: a parked caravan offering sizzling fresh, deep fat fried potatoes. With a sizeable community of Maritime emmigrés--specifically Newfoundlanders away from home--these wagons' signs often boast "Newfoundland Fries."

French fries, turkey stuffing, peas, gravy, cheese curd and sometimes chunks of the bird itself, Newfoundland fries are like the best of a formal Thanksgiving dinner with the informality of a plateful of chunky chips.

Such fare is not for the feint of grease, the watcher of cholestorol or the minder of salt.

No matter. The peas make up for it, of that I'm more than certain.

Newfoundland fries, like poutine are a non-recipe recipe and good use of bits of leftover dinner, in this case a roasted chicken or turkey meal.

Newfoundland Fries
Serves as few or as many as you wish

French fries
Cheese curds
Roasted chicken or turkey
Stuffing from said bird
Hot gravy (chicken or turkey)
Peas

Tumble cheese, meat and stuffing onto the fries. Ladel on the hot gravy and sprinkle with peas.



If you are still hungry—or curious about what Canadians eat--take a meander through my list of Canadian food blogs--it’s a pet project of mine, I've been running for about six years and updated whenever I can--just let me know if you want to be added.


cheers!
jasmine







I'm a quill for hire!

Food to mend a bruised heart: Part Three: Maple-glazed peppered bacon

There's nothing like a good breakfast to start a new adventure.

Granted, I'm not trekking through deepest, darkest Peru in search of the spectacled bear (or any other of Paddington's relatives); I'm not off to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and I've not applied to CSIS (but really, if they need an accusedly adorable short chick who can not only string words together well but bring in the occasional cupcake, tart or biscuit to share, all they need to do is call. Besides, can't you see me as a Miss Marple (à la Margaret Rutherford)-meets-Thursday Next-meets-Nora Charles (especially when she gives that look when people are being idiots and she can't say anything...like the look I give the exbf when he's half-way through a sentence) with a bit of Nero Wolfe thrown in for good measure? See...I'd be perfect there).

I write of the final stage of bruised heart-mending: getting over him and considering returning to those murky dating waters again.

And they are murky.

I peeked into the online dating site where I met Dear Soul.

Eeek.

About half the guys were there two years ago--including *gasp* the superficial and rude ones. Many of the newer ones don't post photos and the "in thing" seems to be leaving a blank profile. Glah. I've even perused some picture-free, information-free theoretically wannabe half-of-a couple candidates whose 100 words mostly comprise of "I'm good looking and fun. Looking for the same. No pic, no response--fair is fair" Umm. Yeah. Good luck with that.

I'm not quite ready to go back out there yet, but at least I can bring myself to thinking about possibly maybe finding someone...at some point...later.

But before I do that, a good breakfast is in order. Not one of those poncey fruit and yoghurt with wheat grass juice dealies. I'm talking of real breakfast. The type that sends farmers off to the fields. The type that makes oleophobes quake in their boots. The type that gets you going the morning after the night before.

You know it:

Maple glazed peppered bacon.

Eggs.

Pumpernickel toast with butter and marmelade.

Fried mushrooms.

Hash brown potatoes

Tea.

Heaven on a plate. Pure and simple. It's the breakfast I have before I explore the country or a metropolis. When I meet with foodbloggers, it's pretty darned close to my standard order when at my favourite Toronto brunch spot. It's my favourite breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning at home.

Maple-glazed peppered bacon is another of those non-recipe recipes I love so much. There's nothing to it--bacon, maple syrup, and freshly cracked black pepper--but when combined, the result is smokey, salty, sticky sweet and spikey...just enough to remind you that life is actually... good.


Maple-glazed peppered bacon

Rashers of streaky bacon
Maple syrup
Freshly cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 160C/325F. Line a baking tray with foil--if you have a cooling rack that fits the tray, set it on top of the lined tray, if not, don't worry about it.

Brush the rashers with maple syrup. Sprinkle with pepper.

Lay the rashers on the rack (or on the foil) and pop into the oven. Bake until done. How long will that be? It depends on a number of things: the bacon's thickness, how much fat there is, the state of your oven. It can take 15 minutes or longer...just keep an eye on them...the time between cooked and charred isn't really that much.

Related Posts:
Food to mend a bruised heart part one: Poutine
Food to mend a bruised heart part two: Choco-fudge cake with peanut butter icing


cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Food to mend a bruised heart: Part One: Poutine

It doesn't matter if you're 16 or 36 or 56 a bruised heart is still a bruised heart. Those of you who know the story, know the story. For those of you who don't, all I'll say is that a cycle is complete, probably not to replay with the same cast. The full story is not yet known...and I suspect I'll never truly know...but hindsight offers interesting glimpses.

Like many, I choose to take my solace in food. Broken down into copious amounts of sugar, salt and fat (which some misguided souls believe to be unhealthy and even self-destructive), these three flavours bring comfort and relief.

The salty-strong craving was matched with hot and cheesey as well as beefy and mindless. Poutine satisfies.

For those of you in the dark, poutine is quite frankly one of the greatest foods on this planet.

French-Canadian in origin, it is at it's simplest a combination of french fries, and cheese curds made melty by bubbling hot gravy. While not quite ubiquitous, it's not that difficult to find as diners, chipwagons, roadhouses and well-known national fast food chains usually have their versions on offer. Even swanky restaurants gussy it up a bit with special cheeses, dusting their fries with spice mixes and slathering everything in unctious sauces.

My preference is to have medium to chunky chip-like fries, made with unpeeled potatoes and deep-fat fried until golden. Baked fries just don't have the same mouthfeel as proper chips, but will do in a pinch. Red wine-mushroom sauce (like the one I used for Julia Child's Oeufs à la Bourguignonne, and what I photographed) is gorgeous on hot fries and mild curds.

Variations could include spaghetti sauce and mozzerella, chili and cheddar, or adding bits of meat like roast chicken, bacon, sausage or ground beef. There are no real rules ... just as there are no real measurments (well, not according to me)...which makes it a non-recipe recipe.

Poutine

French fries

Cheese curds

Gravy (beef, chicken, whatever)

Heat the gravy as the fries are cooking until wisps of steam rise from the pot.

When the fries are done, spoon some gravy onto the plate. Pile the fries on top. Sprinkle with cheese curd and top with more hot gravy.

Related posts:

Food to mend a bruised heart part two: Choco-fudge cake with peanut butter icing

Food to mend a bruised heart part three: Maple-glazed peppered bacon

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Comfort and Restoration: Chicken Broth

School's back in, the weather's turned cold and sniffles are everywhere. Add the current H1N1 meme to the mix and people are queued for injections, emptying shop shelves of antibacterial everything and screens of e-mails proffering "helpful hints" as to how to spot and avoid the 'flu, including giving up hugging and handshaking in hopes of "staying healthy." (Bah to that I say. Bah)

Watercooler talk has turned from the latest political discussions on pensions, media ownership and why Canadians didn't show up to greet Charles and Camilla to whether or not we'll be jabbed, whose child has been bedridden and what our individual bits of preventative and/or curative voodoo we each practise.

Regardless, when illness hits--whether it's a cold or a flu--many people turn to the revered chicken soup to, at the very least, make one feel all warm inside. Granted, some people grab a tin off the shelf and simply heat what marketers, bean counters and dieticians have dictated. Others zhuzh it up with bits of this and that. Others make it from scratch.

Me, I'll waver. If I happen to have any homemade stock in the freezer, I'll use that as my soup base, otherwise I'll doctor up store-bought.

Even though homemade soups are, I think, non-recipe recipes, mine generally start off the same way: chopped onions, sweated to translucency, garlic and then when it perfumes, add liquid, veggies, whatever meats, spices and herbs and then simmered until ready. That's what I call a "normal" soup.

Unsurprisingly, my curative broths contain a mélange of various peppers, seeds, herbs and roots. Little doubt remains of the South Indian under-, mid-, and over-tones in each spoonful. Veggies are whatever I have on hand, same for starches (noodles or rice), meat is (really) optional...but poaching a chicken breast or thigh in cartoned broth to give the illusion of a home made soup isn't unheard of.

Every once in a while, when I've collected enough chicken bits--wing tips, bones, bits of carcass--in my freezer, I'll start a stock.

No. I don't pretend to be some domestic goddess clad in a gingham dress feigning some ill-placed sense of moral superiority.

Stockmaking: It's easy. It basically looks after itself. It tastes better than what's found in tins or cartons. It's time consuming. It's cheap.

Stocks are also non-recipe recipes too. Put veggies, animal bits, and basic spices in a pot and more than cover it all with cold water. Heat, scum, heat some more, scum some more. Let it simmer until the veggies and bones have had all their innate goodnesses extracted...or as much as you want extracted. Strain, if desired. Use what you need within a few days; freeze the rest.

The recipe below is essentially the above, but quantified to a certain extent. I must admit to being sheepish about finished quantities, because of the variables of the amount of cold water you start off with and how long you let it boil (and, as a result, evaporate). Regardless, it's a worthwhile exercise, on a cool autumn night, before flu season sets in.

Golden Chicken Broth
yields 3 or more L of finished broth

1.2kg chicken, washed and jointed
2 medium cooking onions, skin on, quartered
3-5 garlic cloves, halved
1-2 carrots, cut into big chunks
1 celery rib, cut into big chunks
1 leek, cut into big chunks
2 sprigs parsley
1.5 tsp black peppercorns, crushed
salt

Place all ingredients in a stockpot or a Dutch oven and cover with 4-6 litres of cold water, depending upon the volume capacity of your pot. Set the hob to medium-low.

After about 30-45 minutes, a layer of scummy foam will set itself on top of the water. Remove and discard as much of it as possible, while trying to keep as much of the schmaltz in the pot. Increase the heat to medium and continue removing scum every 30 minutes, until there's no more to be scummed.

Let boil, uncovered, occasionally and lazily stirring whenever the mood strikes. From time to time slurp some from your tasting spoon checking not only for salt, but also for desired depth of flavour. By my books, the stock is done when all the veggies yield to the slightest pressure of tongs, a spoon or fork. The total cooking time could be anywhere from four to six hours, depending upon your kitchen gods and how deeply flavoured you like your stock.

When done, remove the chicken herbs and veggies from the pot. If desired, strain through cheesecloth to clarify the broth.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

My own causality dilemma and bacon-wrapped asparagus

Do I eat asparagus because it's wrapped in crispy bacon or do I eat the bacon, because it coddles roasted asparagus?

Granted it's not a question on Aristotle's scale but it is a question I ask myself every time I reach for a bundle of spears.

I was never really a fan of asparagus. My first exprience was not hopefull--overboiled to waterlogged flacidity, each stringy and bitter and acrid bite worse than the last. The next time was as a creamed soup, a palid greyed green that only hinted at its once vital jade,. The taste was no better than my introduction.

For year my culinary life was spent avoiding asparagus. I was mostly successful--the only times it appeared on my plate was when I went to fundraiser some other gala-like celebratory dinner.

Don't ask me exactly how I was introduced to bacon-wrapped asparagus. In all likelihood it was a fingerfoodish appetiser. Those pancetta-wrapped spindly spears opened my eyes to the vegetable. But it also opened my eyes to the fact that often, disliked foods can be transformed by pairing them with different flavours and/or cooking techniques. It also helped me realise that, as far as asparagus is concerned, girth does matter...and with these, the thinner, the better...for dinner at least.

Yes, I hear some of you...it's not the asparagus you like: it's the bacon.

Well, there's little doubt that bacon (in whatever form) makes many otherwise revolting foods a lot more palatable, and if all it takes is a rasher to help me vary my veggie intake from time to time, that's not really a bad thing, is it? As with many vegetables, roasting asparagus carmelises its natural sugars, which plays well with the strip of streaky, salted, smokey goodness.

Over the years I've prepared this dish many, many times--sometimes as a side dish, sometimes as an appaetiser, sometimes with roasted potatoes as a dinner on its own...but dipped into the squidgey yolk of a poached egg, these roasted, baconed roasted spears are simply delicious.

Bacon-wrapped roasted asparagus is another non-recipe recipe. Simply wrap trimmed spears in the bacon of your choice and roast in an oven until the bacon is cooked to your liking. Depending upon your particular kitchen gods (and your oven's temp), it could take 15 minutes or 25.

Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus
Serves up to 4


16 asparagus spears, washed and snapped of their woody ends
4 rashers of streaky bacon or slices of pancetta
freshly-ground black pepper

Divide the spears into bundles of four, wrapping each one in a rasher.

Place on a foil-lined baking tray and pop into a medium-to-hot oven--350F-400F (170C-200C) for about 15 minutes or until the bacon is cooked.

Dust with freshly-ground pepper before serving.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Where I went for my summer Vacation: Ottawa

Gosh, that was a good vacation. Even though I ran around like a madwoman, it was a good kind of "ran around like a madwoman."

It wasn't the same-old-same-old rush to the office, answer calls, shoot off emails, run to meetings while not spilling coffee, impatiently wait in the microwave queue, write this, correct that, tell someone this, tell them this again, queue for coffee, more meetings, more calls and even more emails, try and remember where you parked your car so you can sit in the parking lot that is the expressway home so we can get something to eat before going off to yoga, an interest class, gals night out, boys night in, shopping and try and tackle that room that's been taken over by cartons, broken bits and things the cats hide kind of rush.

It's more of a where can I go, who can I meet up with and what can I see kind of busy:a good, if not fulfilling kind of busy.

I last took the train more than eight years ago. Commuting is different to vacationing, but old habits returned quickly--sitting in the same area, instinctively getting up at the same time, and (most important to me) blocking out all the ambient chatter. Sorry to all those who like to natter at their seatmates while trapped in confined spaces, but for me those travel hours were already booked with Christopher Brookmyre, Bill Bryson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Monique Proulx (sorry Irvine Welsh, but I just couldn't get to you). Yes, I'm a reader...and darn proud of it. I will say I found it interesting that my seatmates seemed to have an affinity to whatever I was reading at the time: Brookmyre and Bryson had me with (even just temporarily) a very handsome Brit, Garcia Marquez had a dangerously young and handsome Spaniard strike up conversation with me. Oh...and the woman next to me while reading Proulx had some pretty bouncy hair.

Apart from a few minor delays, I arrived at my destination no worse for wear with a bright and smiley Jenny of All Things Edible greeting me. She graciously gave me use of her spare room while I was in Ottawa. After a quick stop home, we met Mary of Beans and Caviar and did what it seems all foodbloggers are doing this summer: we headed out to the cinema and see Julie and Julia (here's my review). I adore these ladies--warm and funny with an incredible love of food--Jenny and Mary, that is...

Afterwards we supped at an Italian restaurant and nattered over a shared plate of calamari. Jenny had a seafood pasta dish, Mary had a chicken dish and I satified my craving for veal piccata. Unfortunately, the restaurant was very dark and the necessary Photoshopping to transform blobs of dark into delicious foods would be onerous...and, to my mind, dishonest--that much tweaking is to me as fake as using sugared lard instead of ice cream in a foodporn picture. I do wish I'd gotten a picture of Jenny and Mary, though.

The next day Jenny took me to the Ottawa Farmers' Market and I snapped picture after picture. Here are just a few:

After spending some time at Michael's grave I met up with some friends for, what else, but food and conversation. My lunch with a colleague was slightly delayed by the maze of closed streets and a parade which forced me to find new ways up to Parliament Hill. Thank goodness he was patient and stuck around for me. A pub lunch's conversation centred around music: blues, jazz, folk, Gordon Lightfoot, Stan Rogers, Bachman and Cummings. It was great sitting down and talking about things that were so far removed from work. He walked me to the patisserie I met a dear, dear high school friend I'd not seen in...um...15 years...I think. It was great catching up, commiserating and cavorting with her.

Yeah...no pictures of those either. Especially of the bee that took a liking to my pear and almond tart as well as my café au lait (remember this, this will turn up in a later post).

It was a fabulous but whirlwind of a trip. Jenny: thank you so much for everything. You and your family are absolutely wonderful.

Veal picatta is an incredibly quick and easy non-recipe recipe dish. Sauted pieces of veal in a lemon-white wine sauce If you don't eat veal, you can easily substitute chicken or even pork, but as I have no such restrictions to my carnivorism I happily toss this together when I get the craving.

Essentially all you need to do is coat thin strips of veal (or chicken or pork) in seasoned flour before frying. Then mix equal volumes of white wine and stock with lemon juice and reduce in the fond-encrusted fry pan. Add lemon zest (and some capers if you wish) and return the meat to the pan for a minute before plating.

When I made the dish I lacked one key ingredient: white wine. Given I was only making enough for 250g of veal, I made an adequate (yet imperfect) substitute of a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a squeeze of honey, a couple of tablespoons of apple cider and enough water to bring the mixture to somehwere between 3/4 cup and one cup level. I adjusted things to taste and used only as much as I needed--in this case a 1/4 cup. Again, it's not perfect, but I'm not going to run out for a bottle of wine when all I need is a 1/4 cup.

Veal Piccata

500g veal cutlets, pounded thinly, coated in seasoned flour

Olive oil and butter for frying

Juice of 1 lemon

125ml white wine

125ml chicken stock

Grated zest of 1/2 lemon

optional: capers, drained well

optional: chopped parsley for garnish

Over medium heat, fry the meat (in batches, if necessary) in oil and butter until brown. Remove to a plate before adding lemon juice and wine to the pan. Scrape up the fond before adding stock. Bring to a rapid boil and reduce the liquid by half.

Return the veal to the pan; add the lemon zest and optional capers. Cook for a minutes or

so an then serve. If desired, sprinkle with parsley before serving.

cheers!
jasmine

What I'm reading:

I'm a quill for hire!

Buckle, buckle, who's got the blueberry-peach buckle?

I do! I do!

Well, I did...all gone now.

My dessert preferences have definitely taken a turn towards rustic and hearty. Don't get me wrong. My heart still skips a beat when I see a fancy, schwoopy, piped, spun-sugared architectural marvel. But really, the older I get, the more like myself I become and apparently foof-less desserts are what I am.

Un-iced cakes and cupcakes, crisps and cobblers...serve me some of those and I'm as happy as the Cookie Monster in a Peek Freans factory (really...cookies aren't a sometimes food).

This year, my baked go-to dessert has been studies in baked, stewed and roasted fruits. I know I haven't posted much about this, and I'm not sure why. Maybe my thoughts are deluded in that they aren't fancy enough to blog about. Maybe they are so omnipresent in my kitchen that I just don't think of them as blog fodder. Really, everything that comes out of a functional kitchen (even one with Beelzebub) is food blog fodder.

Residents of my part of the world know this has been an odd summer with the coldest July on record for a good 15 -20 years. Normally, I'd have turned my scullery into an ice cream factory by now, but with such pleasant temperatures, I've kept with my baked fruit desserts. In cooler months, I'd usually be using wintered fruits--apples, pears or some canned or frozen fruit--so it was a bit of a treat for me to use in-season blueberries and peaches for this buckle.

Buckles--at least this one--combines the best of several dessert worlds. A stewed fruit base, a cakey top and then there a streuselly top. Add ice cream, custard, chantilly cream or just straight pouring cream and I think this may be pretty darned close to a perfect dessert...if I could figure out a way to incorporate cream cheese icing, then I would call it a perfect dessert.

While this isn't a true non-recipe recipe--the cake part is, as we know, chemistry and we know what happens when things go askew so it is necessary to measure things out--the fruit and topping are really done by feel and can easily be changed to match your mood, palate and pantry: change the fruits to what's available, just keep roughly the same weight and spice or sweeten it to your taste; if you want to add Scottish Oats or chopped nuts to the topping go ahead. It's all up to you.

Blueberry-Peach Buckle
Fruit layer
500g chopped peaches
250g blueberries
1 rounded Tbsp cornstarch
2-3 Tbsp brown sugar
pinch of salt
squeeze lemon juice

Cake layer
200g ap flour
1 dspn baking powder
salt
110g butter
100g sugar
two eggs
125ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Topping:
50g sugar
50g ap flour
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg
50g butter

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Tumble the fruit layer's ingredients into a 9" cake pan (or equivalent).

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mix in milk and vanilla.

Stir in sifted flour mixture and pour over fruit.

Rub together topping ingredients, to a sandy texture. Sprinkle on top of the batter.

Bake for 45 minutes or until golden. and a skewer comes out cleanish.

Serve warm with ice cream, custard, chantilly cream or pouring cream, if desired.

cheers!
jasmine

What I'm reading: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

I'm a quill for hire!

Stir fried broccolini

First, a couple of bits of news.

New Yorkers can now experience a bit of Canada, now that Tim Hortons has set up stakes in The Big Apple. Why am I mentioning this? In all the hullaballoo this little blog was mentioned not once but twice by some pretty well-read sources. Both the Gothamist and the National Post's The Appetizer linked to my Dutchie doughnut post (IMO, the quintessential Canadian doughnut).

I've finally gotten off my juicilious behind and started Tweeting. Yes, I know...I've been looking at doing this off and on since I first came across it two years ago, and decided to hop on a branch and challenge myself to the 140 character limitation--a tight writing excercise if there ever was. So, if you're looking for more of my inanities and mundanities (but in bite-sized portions), you can follow my omnivorous Tweeting @cardamomaddict. (No, I don't know why my "following" patchwork has three images, while the full list is actually greater).

Back to the matter at hand.

Keeping detailed recipes has never been my strong suit. When I cook for myself I just put things together until they taste "right"; my kitchen diaries (my hardcopy ones, not Sensual Gourmet:Kitchen Diaries) will usuall have a list of ingredients, devoid of quantities or techniques. My baking pagers will have quantities, a temp and rough time, but no technique.

Like watching reality TV, reading anything by Dan Brown or listening to Celine Dion, keeping such detailed notes goes against my grain.

But unlike watching reality TV, reading anything by Dan Brown or listening to Celine Dion, I try my best to make notes specifically for foods I hope to post about. Sometimes my best isn't good enough.

Take today's post about stir fried broccolini. I could try and employ "spin" and employ one of the most hideous of all communications crutches by saying "I'm giving you, Dear Reader, permission to break the confines of weights and measures and let your gut guide your palate and just let you fly free and easy with the base ingredients."

Bollocks.

I didn't write down how much of what I used.

But it was good. So, Dear Reader, I offer you another non-recipe recipe. This time, for stir fried broccolini. Basically lightly steam the broccolini and remove the spears to a dish, make a sauce out of the rest of the ingredients, reduce it down and then reintroduce the veggies. Warm through and toss to coat.

Stir fried broccolini
one of jasmine's non-recipe recipes

broccolini
a few spoons of water
oil
one minced garlic clove
minced ginger
oyster sauce
ketchup
chilli-garlic sauce
soy sauce


cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!