Odd and Ends, or Primavera di Estate

Sometimes, what you have on hand is enough. In this case, quickly grilling some languishing zucchini and peppers while the farfalle pasta boiled up, and tossing with fresh herbs, a diced tomato, garlic and olives. And, just like that, dinner is ready.


I love it when thing work so simply, and so well.

Little Jerks

I can seldom resist the temptation to tamper with a recipe, even when it's one as delicious -sounding as Templar's Jamaican Beef Patties. In my defence, the only thing that persuaded me to vary the recipe was the knowledge that, lurking in the depths of my freezer, were some little containers of Palle's wonderful homemade jerk sauce, carefully saved from the last Caribbean dinner we had. How could I resist? Much of the seasoning in the recipe immediately fell aside as I gleefully poured about a cup of reserved jerk sauce into the beef and onion mixture. I did add a fresh jalapeno, as well - so between the habaneros in the jerk and the whole (seeds and all) jalapeno that I blitzed with the bread crumbs, there's a certain spicy quality about them that would probably seriously harm some of my more heat-wary friends.

I made a half-batch, as I only had one pound of ground beef at hand, so I also halved the dough recipe, whirring it up in my food processor in almost no time. I did use a little less water than called for - I always like to go a bit scant on the liquid, to prevent toughness. I've never used the processor to make pastry before, and I was quite impressed with the results. Tender, even a little flaky. Viva la "pulse" function!

I divided the dough into twelve pieces, and rolled each out out to roughly hand-sized, as directed. The dough is full of curry powder, giving it a lovely flecked appearance and a yellow hue from the turmeric (the latest and greatest cancer-fighting food, you know). It does take a bit of time to roll out a dozen pastries - thirteen, all told, when I re-rolled the cut scraps into an extra, slightly large patty. I was glad that the dough took so little effort to make, since the rolling took longer than I had thought. Each patty is about the size of a samosa, excluding the last one, which is more along the size of the ones you can buy from shops in this neck of the woods. I had a little filling left over, since I didn't want to risk exploding pastries, and that has been tucked into the fridge to be made into a feisty pasta sauce later in the week.

The proof is in the tasting, of course, at the end of it. Happily, they were delicious! I will have to make them again, of course, using the proper seasonings - just to see how they turn out. But I was happy to have a couple for dinner, and I plan to freeze any that don't get wolfed down in the next day or two. I've just added a new entry into my collection of freezer treasures - little homemade gems that are an absolute delight to pull out when one is short on time and in need of a quick, tasty supper.

A Day in Pictures

I didn't really set out to spend all day in the kitchen, but brief shopping excursions aside, that's pretty much what happened.

Breakfast was a quickly cooked and even more quickly eaten breakfast quesadilla, full of scrambled eggs, chile pepper rings, cheese, and Bufalo Chipotle hot sauce.


This fortified me long enough to get some much needed shopping out of the way in the morning, before coming back to the kitchen.

The first thing I set about making was a Turkish Lentil Salad, which I had promised earlier would be in the works for this afternoon. It takes less than an hour, and is pretty relaxing work.

The flavours of lemon juice and white wine vinegar sink into the warm lentils and take with them a payload of salt, cayenne, and most of all cumin. It's delicious while it's still hot, but it's even better when it has a chance to sit in the fridge for a while, to let the flavours meld.

I must have gotten a little faster at the vegetable chopping, since I had time to knock together a white bean hummus, flecked with parsley. I used the recipe Molly posted on Orangette as a departure point, but substituted cayenne for cumin. It's not hot, but it has a little zing to it.

Moving on, my only other real task of the day was to make Challah, which I wanted to do because a) we were perilously low on bread, and b) I wanted to make some as a thank you for someone who did something very nice for Palle and I last week.

I went with the traditional braid, as I often do. This is the bread that I often bring as a gift to housewarming parties, so if you think it looks familiar, it should. This is the "single decker" as opposed to the "double decker" that I sometimes do when there's a lot of people to feed.


I love the little extra bit of rising that occurs in the oven - oven spring - which creates lovely, decorative little tears between the braided strands, and shows of a wonderful contrast between the shiny burnished brown of the egg-washed curves of the braid and the pale, non-reflective, almost white interior of the loaf.

With my last task out of the way, and the bread lying on a rack in the bedroom, which is the coolest room in the house and is the only place safe from cat-predation of baked goods, I decided to have a whack at a raspberry almond torte. I monkeyed around with the ingredients to reduce the amount of oil called for, and studded the batter with fresh, juicy raspberries.

The almond appears as ground almonds, which I buy pre-ground (but very fresh) from Parthenon on West Broadway. It is essential to use fresh ground almonds, because I once made this cake with somewhat stale ground almonds left from Christmas amaretti, and the cake was barely tolerable and had an aftertaste. Not this one, though.

Fresh as a daisy. Er, fresher, actually, as daisies have always seemed a little rank. The reduced oil actually seemed to lighten the torte, making it airier and giving it a real spring in its slice. I plated the torte upside down and dusted it with confectioners' sugar for a simple, rustic dessert or snack. The raspberries did sink down to the bottom of the batter, though, so next time I may have to add them to the top of the unbaked torte, and perhaps they then will only sink half-way. Still, it should suffice for lunches for the coming week - if it lasts that long.

And now my day is drawing to a close. I still need to bag up the challah and put away a few dishes, and then it's quittin' time.

Good night.

Double Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

There is an art to the stir fry, and it's one that has taken me a long time to learn. Most of the principles seemed pretty simple - cut things small, cook quickly over high heat, use contrasting textures of vegetables for maximum effect.

Somehow, though, my stir fries were never quite what I wanted them to be, until one night that Palle made dinner for me. It was the onions. They were cooked, but still crisp - a textural issue which had eluded me for some time. His secret? Add the onions at the end.What? Onions go in at the beginning. Almost every dish I make seems to involve chopping up an onion first. It felt wrong to add it last. I cringed, looking at the neat pile of chopped onions on my cutting board when I first put the theory into practice. I probably made a face. But, at the end of it, I added the onions last, and they had the texture I had been looking for. A whole world of stir fry opportunities opened up for me.

There are a few secrets to stir fries, and most of them involve the word "not." Not to add too much thickener to the sauce, not to cook too long so that the tender vegetables go limp, not to add too many different seasonings that will make the finished dish taste like all of the leftovers at a Chinese restaurant were smooshed into the same takeout container. There are a few positive rules, too: always make sure your pan is very hot before you begin, or you won't properly sear the meat or infuse the aromatics into the hot oil.

Double ginger chicken stir fry came about because I love fresh ginger. I also like the background heat of dried ginger, and combining the two as the dominant characteristics on a background of chicken just sounded like a really good idea. I added mushrooms, because I like them, and because they also play well with ginger. I added bell peppers, because they are a sought-after stir fry item in this household, and I added celery because I had some on hand.

The stir fry is a college mainstay for good reason. You don't need a lot of meat (but you can use it if you've got it), it has loads of flavour, and uses vegetables that are usually pretty affordable, particularly in the summer. It's a cheap topping for inexpensive rice or noodles. You can substitute ingredients according to whim, availability, and budget. You can pick a flavour and go deep - spicy, or gingery, or garlicy, or black-bean, or hoisin, or oyster sauce, or... or... it's really up to the cook.

Too much tzatziki

I have no sense of proportion when it comes to making sauces, so perhaps it should be no surprise that I have way too much tzatziki sauce left after my lamburger dinner on Sunday. The solution? Souvlaki! A little lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper, a little time goes by, and boom! Onto the grill.

Shortly after that, it's into a split pita with an enormous spoonful of greek salad and the aforementioned tzatziki sauce, and dinner was ready.

My day was not quite as simple as that sounds, however, because I had lessons in camera maintenance to learn. Namely, that if you leave the camera turned on while plugged into your computer for 24 hours, the fresh batteries die. So, with my souvlaki marinating away, I ran out to the corner store, cursing under my breath at the shoe that would not stay on my foot, skitter into the shop to get stuck behind some slow-talking customer who couldn't make up his mind what kind of phone card he wanted to purchase, bought the batteries with the last of my change, and skittered back home.

I still have a little tzatziki left - just enough to take care of the leftovers.

Mmmmm. Souvlaki.

If you don’t know me by now…

I’ll have to supply more details!

Linda has tagged me for The Cook Next Door meme.

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
I was seven years old, making oatmeal cookies that I had “assisted” with many times before. I panicked and added only 1/8 of a cup of flour instead of 1 cup plus 1/8 of a cup. The cookie dough was very liquidy, but I pressed on anyway, and the entire pan of cookies flowed into a solid, caramel coloured mass. We pried it off the sheet and cut it into squares, called it candy and ate it anyway. It was tasty, and my family was very reassuring that it wasn’t a dead loss, but I was quite embarrassed. It didn’t stop me from tackling independent cookery again, but from here on I was more disposed to ask advice if something didn’t look quite right.

Who had the most influence on your cooking?
Without question, my mother, who was not only an excellent cook, but had an almost magical ability to make great dinners out of almost nothing at all. There are some other significant influences, though, including the Dutch neighbour we had when I was growing up. She introduced the family to Tai-Tai gingerbread, olieballen, krokets, and all manner of fascinating food. She had been a professional cook for most of her life, and had stories to tell from working at exclusive clubs to being the cook for a logging camp. I was impressed at how much enjoyment she took telling stories about various culinary flops ("The next perogie filled the entire plate!") and her blithe manner of handling things not working out as they should.

Do you have an old photo as “evidence” of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it?
Nope. There are very few photos (other than school pics) of me as a child, and it would never have occurred to us to photograph something going on in the kitchen.

Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
I suffer from Fear of Frying. Specifically, deep fat frying. I’ve done it, but it makes me nervous, and I tend to avoid it.

What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?
Best: My mother’s cast iron frying pan, and my Goldhampster 8” chef knife
Worst: None, really. I have a zester that's not as useful as I'd hoped.

Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!
Peanut butter on pancakes
Fruit yogurt on pancakes
For the record, I don’t think these are weird at all, but this is what I am told…

What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don’t want to live without?
Bread
Garlic
Cheese

Any question you missed in this meme, that you would have loved to answer? Well then, feel free to add one!

Three quickies:Your favorite ice-cream…
Dark chocolate

You will probably never eat…
The still beating heart of a cobra.

Your own signature dish…
That’s a toughie… I love inventing dishes, and am immediately smitten with anything that turns out well. Perhaps my Bengali Red Lentils, or braised lamb shanks. I make a mean sour cherry soup, too…

I think everyone that I know in cyberland has already been tagged, but if you’re reading this and want to participate, go for it (and send me the link)!

Yowza! Gyoza!

This is why I love having a stash of homemade things in the freezer. Even straight from the freezer, these little devils cook in mere minutes, and if you're feeling frisky, a quick little fry on one side gives a fantastic result.

This was the last of my most recent batch of gyoza - chicken with shiitake mushrooms, ginger and green onion. I must make more soon! Every time I make them, I vary the ingredients on whim and availability, and I've never had anything less than stellar results. While admittedly, this is a tiny serving - 3 dumplings of 2 1/2 inches long - it makes a wonderful topping for ramen, soba, or spicy somen, or as an appetizer.

(Note: expired link removed - instead, please see recipe(s) in the comments, below)

Lamburgers

I like lamb. I've gone from a childhood virtually free of lamb, on to become someone who cooks lamb at least once each month. As I cooked lamb last Sunday, for the Taste Canada event, I'm actually having lamb twice in two weeks - an astonishing increase!

One particularly easy and inexpensive lamb dish is the lamburger. Lamb takes to a variety of spices very well, and I often tend toward middle eastern or mediterranean flavours to spruce up the bugers. The usual salt and pepper is supplemented with pomegranate molasses, cumin, mint, and sumac, or mint, oregano, garlic and parsley. I use one of those indoor "grilling" devices, which has sloped channels to collect away the grease - a blessing with a fattier meat, like lamb - and perfect for a hot summer's day when you really don't feel like heating up the kitchen any more than you have to.



Of course, in my case, the kitchen was already hot, because I got the bright idea of making rosemary buns out of my pizza dough recipe, since I couldn't quite face the price tag of the only tolerable commercial hamburger buns that I could find.

I've used the same basic dough recipe to good effect as foccacia, making hamburger buns seemed a no-brainer. I remembered to keep the dough soft (not add too much flour) so that the buns wouldn't rise straight up and give me tall, narrow buns. It worked quite well. One recipe of pizza dough yields four generous-sized hamburger buns, and the texture and flavour beat the daylights out of most commercial efforts.

Since I suffer somewhat from a fear-of-frying, or at least of deep-frying, and the household protests the frozen variety, I seldom make french fries at home. Instead, I like to use fresh summer salads to accompany my burger dinners. Coleslaw, lentil salad, and one of my favourites, couscous salad.

Couscous salad is basically a tabbouleh like salad full of tiny chopped red onion, cucumber, tomato, fresh parsley and mint, lemon juice, olive oil, and a heavy hand with the black pepper. Instead of using bulgar wheat, I use couscous, which I steam up with lemon juice to give an extra zip to the salad. The overall texture is softer than a tabbouleh, but tends not to run as soggy (especially if you remove the seeds from the cucumber and tomato).



It makes a terrific, light side dish, and doesn't heat up the kitchen. Plus, it packs well for lunches, so I make lots, and devour the overage over the next couple of days. A sprinkle of sumac over it gives a fantastic, floral yet woodsy flavour.

I also have taken to using tzatziki sauce as my primary condiment on lamburgers. A little mustard is nice, too, but a slightly garlicky, creamy tzatziki is a perfect accompaniment to a lamb patty. It is also significantly lower in fat than mayonnaise or hamburger sauces, so that pleases me, too - but mostly I like the taste.

It occurred to me tonight, as I tidied up the very few dishes required to make dinner, that I have yet to try an Indian treatment on my lamburgers. Immediately, this conjured notions of lamb patties spiced with kashmiri pepper, garam masala, and cumin, and instead of the tzatziki (although it is perilously close to a raita, as it is) a fruit chutney - mango, or perhaps tamarind. A banana and yogurt salad on the side, or shredded carrots with lime juice and hot chilies - this could be a fantastic meal. The bun, of course, requires some choices. I'm unlikely to make naan at the drop of a hat, but I could see a version of the rosemary buns made instead with dried fenugreek leaves (happily, on hand in the spice box already).

I may have to have this for dinner next Sunday. After all, I have to report back, right?

Spinach & Chicken Curry

Fortnightly update!

The main Always in the Kitchen website has a new recipe:

Spinach & Chicken Curry - a variation on Saag Paneer. Vegetarians can simply leave out the chicken (increase the paneer, if you want it as a main dish).

and a new essay:

Ecumenical Eating

"...My classmates thought that, because they were eating, they were getting away with not studying, even though a highly specific vocabulary lesson was being delivered. Me, I was happy to have bread, cheese, and crisp green pears, and speculate about what it would be like, to live in Paris – where, no doubt, I would be popular, and stylish, and understood."

Enjoy!

Apricot Nectar Cake: Progress Report

I was pleased with my initial efforts at a citrus-y, lower-fat snack cake that would be good for work lunches, but there were a few problems with the first version. The lemon-juice glaze was delicious, but in an already moist cake it created a sticky, fall-apart texture after one day on the counter or any amount of time in the freezer. I scribbled some notes on the recipe I had developed, and set it aside for the future.

Well, the future is now. I tinkered with the leavening (upping the baking powder and lowering the baking soda), I used actual apricot nectar instead of a Sun-Rype multi-juice, and I switched over to a bundt pan instead of the rectangular pyrex dish I used before.

So far, the changes are a raging success! The cake is tender, light and moist without being sticky or fragile, and the appealing bundt shape makes for attractive slices. It's still under 25 % of the calories from fat - well within the acceptable range for snacking.


Apricot Nectar Cake

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon white sugar
zest of one lemon
225 mls apricot nectar
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs, beaten
2 egg whites, beaten
1 teaspoon orange extract

Preheat oven to 325 F. Spray a 9" bundt pan with cooking spray or grease lightly.

In a medium mixing bowl, blend the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and sugar. Mix well with a wire whisk, to aerate. Add the lemon zest and whisk again.

In a separate bowl, mix the apple sauce, canola oil, eggs and egg whites, and orange extract. Measure out the apricot nectar in a measuring cup (just a little less than one cup). Add one third of the dry ingredients to the applesauce/egg mixture, beating on low with an electric mixer until just combined. Add half of the nectar, and beat again. Repeat, and finally add the last of the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Pour into your prepared pan, and bake for 40 minutes, or until a cake-tester (or toothpick) comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. Remove cake to a rack and allow to cool before slicing.

If you're not planning to freeze the slices, you might want a little decorative icing, made by mixing a little lemon juice into some icing sugar, and drizzled over the cake as it cools.

A little addition of spices to the dry ingredients would probably be very good - nutmeg, cinnamon, or clove would be my picks. It really is quite tasty just by itself.

What does Canada taste like?

The possibilities are darn near endless, especially given the diverse regions in such a geographically large country. I was honoured to be invited to participate (thanks, Ana and Jennifer!) in the Taste Canada event started by Jennifer of Domestic Goddess, and immediately set about trying to figure out this very question. What does Canada taste like, to me?

Salmon is one of the biggies in my region, south western British Columbia, as is Chinese food - thanks to a large and thriving living Chinatown district. While these items do speak to me of the particular collision of resource and culture that colours my city, I wanted to reach beyond the most obvious conclusions.

People in Vancouver seem particularly enthused by the "grow local" movement that is occuring all up and down the west coast, but we also embrace a fierce sort of pride in our artisanal products: small bakeries, cheeseworks, and other family-run food businesses. I decided to make that my focus.

Saltspring Island has been famous for its lamb for some time now, and is gaining an increasing reputation for producing fine cheese, as well. With this as my starting point, I chose a dinner of lamb shanks braised in BC red wine, accompanied by wild mushroom and goat cheese risotto and a spinach, pear and blue cheese salad.

My usual source for Saltspring Island lamb was fresh out of shanks - my fault for trying to source them right before an enormous Greek festival in my neighbourhood. I eventually tracked some down, but since the butcher was not my usual one I found myself doing a fair amount more trimming than usual. The wine I chose was the first acceptable Pinot Noir that I've had from BC, and is surprisingly affordable: the vaguely named Okanagan Vineyards Pinot Noir. This was also the wine that we drank alongside dinner.



Lamb Shanks in Red Wine

4 lamb shanks
2 large onions, peeled and diced medium (divided)
2 bay leaves
2 cups of red wine - preferably a Pinot Noir, if you can find an affordable, tolerable one, or other light red wine with good acids (a chianti might do it, don't use Merlot or Shiraz)
1 cup strong chicken stock
salt & pepper

Carefully trim 4 lamb shanks of excess skin, membrane and fat. Tie with butchers twine to keep the meat on the bone during and after the braising process. Season lightly with salt and pepper. In a heavy, cast iron frying pan, sear the shanks to a dark, golden brown colour on all sides.

Place half of the chopped onions in a lidded braising dish or small roaster. Lay the seared shanks on top of the onions.

Add a little olive oil to the frying pan that you used for searing, and add the rest of the onions. Cook until translucent, sprinkling with a little salt and black pepper.

Add 1 cup of the wine and scrape the pan to free up the good flavours in the fond left from the searing process, and then pour the onions and wine over the shanks.

Add the rest of the wine, the stock and the bayleaves. Place braising pan on the burner and bring up to a simmer. Place in a 300 F oven for two hours, which gives you lots of time to have a drink and mess around with the rest of the meal.

When ready to serve, remove the shanks to a serving platter, and strain the wine and juices. You can use the reserved onion bits, pink with wine, to act as a bed for the lamb shanks, if you like.

Pour the braising liquid into a shallow pan and reduce over a high heat while you finish preparing the rest of the meal and pour wine for drinking. Spoon the reduced sauce gently over the shanks and serve.


The mushroom and goat cheese risotto featured BC wild mushrooms - specifically shiitake and chanterelles. The goat cheese, stirred in right at the end, was the Saltspring Island Cheese company's Chevre with basil - tangy and assertive. I used my usual wild mushroom risotto recipe, but without the dried mushrooms, and instead of stirring in butter at the end, that is where I added the Chevre. The flavours were brighter and slightly less earthy than the usual recipe, but just as silky. The mushrooms were purchased at Choices, a chain that focuses on organically grown, local products as much as possible.

The salad was baby spinach leaves with red onion, tossed with a miniscule amount of walnut oil vinaigrette and topped with slices of pear (representing the fruit orchards in the Okanagan) and another BC artisanal cheese - this one a Tiger Blue cheese from Poplar Grove in Penticton. Poplar Grove is a unique company, in that they make wine as well as cheese.

To round things out, I picked up a loaf of Black Olive Bread from Terra Breads, our local and somewhat internationally renowned bakery specializing in rustic, chewy crusts. This proved to be the perfect vehicle for the marrow for the lamb shanks.

The lamb turned out just exactly as I wanted - tender, full of flavour, and with an almost unctuous lip-smacking texture. The use of the same wine that we were drinking by the glass meant that the flavours flowed quite harmoniously from one to the other. We had a lovely dinner with the friend whose camera I used to take these photos - yet another example of my thriving "will exchange food for goods or services" scheme!

At the end of the night - was this Canada to me? Yes - in part. The sheer number of amazing foods and cultural traditions that have taken root in Canada are impossible to cram into one dinner, but this meal reflected some of the cultural sensibilities of my city, the Greek influence of my neighbourhood, and the Canadian willingness to mix up the flavours of our various heritages (European, in my case) into a new and delicious way.

Portugese Table Wine

Most familiar for production of its fortified darlings, Port and Madeira, and for its unutterably pedestrian Mateus Rosé, Portugal also produces a huge amount of red and wine table wines. In fact, the fortified wines only make up around 15% of Portugal's total wine production, but account for over 70% of the exports.

Our wine club has overlooked Portugal as a wine-producing country until now - excepting a Port tasting from a while back - so, since Portugal actually ranks 6th in world wine production, it was definitely time to check out the serious table wines.

Portugal is unusual in that most wine is made from indigenous grape varietals, with few of the noble varieties, such as Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon being grown. This makes the resultant wines somewhat harder to market in North America, which is very name-recognition driven. One of the more recognisible wine types produced is Vinho Verde - "Green Wine." While some of them do in fact have a slightly greenish cast, the verde (green) refers to the youth of the wine rather than its colour. Vinho Verde has something in common with Beaujolais Nouveau, in that it is drunk very young and embraces the characteristics of young, mild wines. What I didn't know until researching this tasting, is that Vinho Verde is made in both white and red styles, but that only the white is exported.

We tried two Vinho Verdes - the oh-so-present Gazela (2004), which was very watery in appearance, had a green apple nose and a cidery, apple and lemon flavour with a creamy hint of dairy in the background. At 9% alcohol - typical for a Verde - it was light and refreshing and pronounced suitable for hot days and patio lazing. The second Verde, Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Branco (2004), there was an overall golden tone to the wine that showed in the appearance, on the nose, and on the palate. The scent of dried pears and freshly ground white pepper gave way to a smooth, golden-apple and olive oil palate, again with a sort of cidery feel to it. There was something slightly tropical about it that made everyone speculate about an appetizer of melons wrapped in prosciutto. While everyone enjoyed both wines, it was roundly decided that this slightly smoother wine had the edge over the two.

The one white wine that we tried was the Vallado Vinho Branco (2002), from the Douro region. In my prep notes, the final comment on Douro was that it is not known for its whites. I now know why, if this was anything to go by. Its yellowish color yielded warm tropical fruit on the nose, but it was a closed and relatively difficult scent to extract. The flavours were a catalogue of unpleasant chardonnay-like characteristics: bland, watery, oily and with little fruit. This was the thumbs-down wine of the night.

The reds were a mixed bag. The José Maria de Fonseca, José de Sousa (2000) had an interesting nose of rocks - pyrite, to be more specific, and damp lichen. Its earthy smell could somewhat be attributed to the clay-pot fermentation that is still used in the Alentejo region, but its thin flavours of red plums and cherry pits led us to suspect that the grapes were squeezed for extra yield, to its detriment. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't interesting past the unique fermentation method.

Somewhat better, the Montes Seis Reis Boa Memoria (2003) had an interesting floral quality about it, although it was closed enough that I had to work at the nose. There was a dusty quality and a hint of leather that usually bodes well. The palate was less well developed, with an underripe quality to the fruit flavours, and massive acidity. The flavours were nice, but it was universally agreed that it needed some food to bring out its charms. Going back, at the end of the tasting, I thought that the wine had opened up more, which brought out a nice, dried fig roundness to the taste. At the end of the tasting, this was one of two contenders for Best Wine.

I was quite looking forward to the Quinta de Chocapalha (2002), the only wine we had from the Estremadura region. I had read a favourable review of a previous year, and was curious how it would fare. It showed beautiful colour, garnet, and big, fat legs. The nose brought something I've never encountered in a wine before: bacon. There was a smoky note, which is not uncommon but usually a good sign (in my experience), but the overwhelming scent was that of raw bacon, specifically the fat. I moved on to the palate with literally no expectations, being unsure what that sort of nose could possibly translate to, and was pleased to find a very balanced wine with mixed red fruits and herbs - fresh thyme was mentioned - and a very drinkable easiness to it. This became the other contender for Best Wine.

The final wine of the evening was the Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas Vinho Tinto (2000), from the Douro region. It had a nice dark colour to it, but the nose was oddly metallic. While the José de Sousa had a hint of pyrite in its rocky nose, this wine smelled like freshly scraped copper wiring. The palate was weak on flavour, with a sour tinny quality that was quite off-putting. I would say that this was the least popular of the reds.

In the final analysis, four of the seven wines were rated well - the two Vinho Verdes, in a class of their own, but both enjoyable, and the Boa Memoria and Quinta de Chocapalha were both well regarded. None of the wines cost more than $20, which suggests that Portugal may be the last bastion (next to Sicily) of affordable, tasty wines in Europe.

Previous Tastings:
Pinot Noir
South African Red Wines
Spanish Wines

Fun with Photography

I'm trying my hand at digital photography, the better to update you all, my dears. These are the more tolerable of the photos of the ginger snaps that I made for my Dad (which he will get tomorrow).



I hope to be able to update all of the recipes on my site with photos, eventually.

I've added some pictures of the Oatmeal Spice Anythings to the June 16th post below, but I was still getting used to the camera settings, and it shows. Now I'm too tired and too busy to set them up for retakes. Maybe next time I make them, I'll get some spiffier pics.

Persian cuisine

I’ve been thinking about Persian food, lately. A few weeks ago, we went to Zagros, a small restaurant on Davie street. The quality of the food was exceptional – the dishes that we tried were delicious.

We started with a plate of pickles (torshi), which our server (whom I suspect is the owner) cautioned us were “quite sour.” They were perfectly sour, in my opinion, and sprinkled with a variety of herbs, including dill and sumac. They came with a dish of flat, flexible bread that looked cracker-like in appearance, and a thick, minty yoghurt dip (mastokhiar).

Palle tried the chicken breast kabob with barberries, and found the chicken to be succulent and not at all dry, as chicken breast can sometimes be. Barberries (zereshk) are always a delight, little sweet-and-sour speckles of fruit, glistening like jewels in the rice pilaf. My dish was a subtle combination of boneless lamb chunks with yellow split peas (Ghaimai/Ghaimeh) in a rich, highly scented gravy with a fantastic, lip-smacking unctuousness and a lovely slightly sharp hit of lime juice. I need to learn how to make this, seriously.

The rice pilafs that accompanied our meals were made from basmati rice, but each grain was plump and tender and not at all dry, as sometimes Indian pilafs can be.

We are both eyeing other menu items and are determined to go back soon. There were a number of vegetarian and vegan items that looked intriguing, as well as a range of seafood dishes.

Chicken & Veggie One Pan Supper

Here’s another “non-recipe” method-driven supper that I make fairly often in the winter, and from time to time – such as on rainy days – during the rest of the year. It involves a few minutes of chopping and arranging, and then a good solid 45 minutes of ignoring. Then, it’s time to eat! Pour yourself a glass of wine while you lounge around and supper cooks itself. If you're feeling ambitious, you could make a salad during this time.

Chicken & Veggie One Pan Supper

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Two serving-sized pieces of bone-in, skin-on chicken. Breasts are fine, but I like to use the moister leg-with-thigh-attached. You could also use a package of four or six thighs.
Two cups of hardy vegetables, cut into chunks. Or more, if you can fit them in.

Get a large, oven-proof pan or casserole dish. Spritz lightly with canola oil. Place your chicken pieces, spaced evenly, in the dish. Tumble the chopped veggies in around the pieces of chicken, making sure they are in a single layer. Spritz the whole dish, including the tops of the chicken pieces, very lightly with canola oil. Sprinkle with salt, and add whatever other herbs you might like. I currently fancy ground cumin, smoked paprika, and a little oregano. The herbs will stick to the lightly oiled surface of the chicken and veggies.

Put the pan in the oven, uncovered, and allow to cook for 45 minutes. Dish up and enjoy!

The vegetables will shrink a little as they cook, so you want to make sure you start with lots.

What kind of vegetables work for this?
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Cherry tomatoes (pierce them, but leave them whole)
Mushrooms (cut in half)
Fennel bulb, sliced or chunked
Garlic cloves, whole and peeled
Brussels Sprouts (really! Cut them in half, though)
Parsnips
Pearl onions

I confess that I love the whole roasted garlic cloves so much that I usually go crazy and put a lot of them in. No complaints, so far.

How big should the chunks be? About the size of a cherry tomato, give or take. Garlic is necessarily smaller, but don’t sweat it. Do try for a certain amount of uniformity of size with the root vegetables, though, so everything cooks at the same rate.

Oatmeal Spice Anythings

The "anything" in these cookies can be chocolate chips, raisins, currants, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, or anything you think a cookie needs. If you don't want to add anything like these, you can make simple Oatmeal Spice Cookies, which are very tasty, too. They aren't as rich as most oatmeal cookie recipes, although if you choose chocolate chips, that will of course add a little fat.

Makes about 3 dozen, depending on size

Oatmeal Spice Anything Cookies

Total prep and cooking time: 45 minutes

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, & allspice
1/4 teaspoon clove

"Anything" options:
as the total is about 1 cup

miniature chocolate chips
chopped walnuts
chopped almonds
raisins
currants
dried cranberries
dried blueberries

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Lightly spray two large cookie sheets with canola oil.

In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until thoroughly combined. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and cream again. You can do this by hand or with an electric mixer. Pour the oats over the wet mixture. Without stirring, sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda directly over the oats. Sprinkle the salt and the spices over the flour mixture. With a wooden spoon, or on the lowest setting of your mixer, carefully begin to blend everything together. When it is starting to come together, add the one cup of optional extras. Finish combining the ingredients until the optional extras are all even distributed through the cookie dough.

Drop by spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving room for each cookie to expand a little. Dip your fingers in a little flour, and flatten the cookies slightly. Bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes, or until light golden. Remove to racks to cool - they will be soft and flexible - downright bendy! - at first, but will firm up as they cool.

Procrastination & Egg Whites

I'd never bought a carton of egg whites before. I'd always just separated out a few whole eggs, and put a bowl of leftover yolks in the fridge to make mayonnaise or custard or a pastry-wash. A leftover yolk can be a thickener for soup, an enricher for scrambled eggs, or fulfill many other possible destinies. However, when you're staring down recipe after recipe that calls for egg whites only, it makes sense to try those pristine little carton-packs in the fridge section of the supermarket.

I originally wanted to make a Darjeeling Chocolate Cake from one of Cooking Light's annuals. I still haven't made it. Upon closer inspection, the recipe looks like a pain in the rump, and as I have suffered a few culinary flops lately, I don't feel like going to all that trouble and be disappointed. Now is the time for the tried and true, and the easy and unfussy. Since the egg whites I bought came in a two-pack, each package containing a cup of liquid whites and an expiry date, I was suddenly faced with the need to use up a number of egg whites in a hurry.

Meringue is the easy answer to start with. A batch of chocolate-chip studded meringue cookies now lives in the tupperware by the coffee maker. I'd considered pavlova, too, but that requires something along the lines of timing where both of us would be home to eat it, since it really doesn't keep terribly well. I've been adding egg whites to everything. Subbing out eggs for egg whites in coffee cake, and taking an ill-advised stab at a chocolate banana souffle - ill advised in that I did not have the requisite hardware, and what do you know? Not everything can be rescued with sambal oelek, it turns out. I used egg whites to bind lamb meatloaf, veal patties, and to glaze bread loaves. I've still got about half a cup left.

I probably have enough to make that Darjeeling cake after all, but I think I'm going to wait. There's got to be a reason that I just can't summon the will to get the thing done, and I think I'm going to respect that. I do wish I'd come to this conclusion before buying the egg whites, but at least I've had some fun with them anyway. Who knows what I will end up making with the last of them? Maybe I'll give the famous Hollywood Egg White & Chive omelette a try. Or, then again, maybe not.

Search & Rescue

I'm coming to the conclusion that you can rescue almost anything with sambal oelek - as long as you like things spicy.

On the day that I wanted to make a noodle salad recipe I've been eyeing, there was nary an Asian eggplant to be seen. My favourite markets... even some less-than-favourite markets... were barren of anything other than big, glossy Italian globe eggplants, which are just the wrong texture for what I wanted. I searched, and searched, and gave up, crankily wondering about the sudden dearth. Yesterday, after a long and barely fruitful quest, I spied some somewhat limp-looking Japanese eggplants and decided that they were firm enough to use. I finally got down to brass-tacks and mixed up the dressing, boiled up the noodles and roasted the eggplant.

The dressing seemed a little rich, to me, so I scaled back the amount of toasted sesame oil by almost half, subbing out the missing liquid with a little rice wine vinegar. Sadly for me, the end result was still a little oily feeling, and not in the good, lip-smacking way. I concluded reluctantly that I had made some other error along the way, since the recipe's source was impeccable, but I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to rescue the leftovers. The whole dish was a little under-developed flavour-wise, it seemed, although I could taste the strong sesame oil flavour and remain convinced that I did the right thing to reduce the amount.

We struggled through dinner, a little, with me being fairly unhappy with the salad, and depressed at how large the quantity was of something that I didn't particularly enjoy. It wasn't bad, it was just not quite want I wanted it to be.

Today, faced with an enormous bowl of leftovers in the fridge, I decided to see if I could pep it up a little. Sambal Oelek to the rescue! Well, I did add a little extra soy sauce, too - just to loosen the whole thing and let it act as a carrier to transport the thicker sambal throughout the noodles. I cautiously spooned up some spicier noodles, along with their accompanying vegetables, and tried it. Much improved!

It isn't number one on my hit parade - that still belongs to the spicy somen/soba recipe for fast, easy and delicious - but it certainly will be good for lunches for the next few days. I may julienne some more vegetables to go with - the eggplant is nice, but a few more crisp vegetables would add a pleasing crunch. There's already a small amount of raw carrot and blanched snap-peas, so I may just increase them. I'm thinking that some marinated shiitake mushrooms might be just the ticket, though, and add a small amount of protein to the overall dish.

Chicken & Dumplings

There may be few dishes so immediately evocative of homey and soothing comfort than chicken & dumplings. The thing of it is, there are just so very many variations that you cannot necessarily be sure exactly what other people mean when they say those magic words. Magic, because no matter how different one dish is compared to another, they still conjure up the same sort of warm-and-fuzzy feeling of being looked after. Even if you make it yourself.

Recipes range from fatty extraveganzas to more modern, lighter cuisine, from dumplings that resemble short, fat noodles to puffy, fluffy steamed buns that rest on the top of a stew, to perfectly round matzohs. Chicken can be on-the-bone or off, cut into serving-sizes or bite-sized chunks. Liquid can be a broth, a sauce, thick or thin, scant or plentiful. With vegetables, or without. There's really just no way to know.

I made chicken & dumplings for dinner last night. My version, for the record, is a creamy chicken stew (made with a milk-enriched veloute and no actual cream) with boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces, lots of vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, whole garlic cloves, celery, corn, and peas, this time) and big, fluffy, herbed dumplings that are dropped by the spoonful onto the bubbling stew and steamed, tightly covered, for 15 minutes. It is a one-pot meal.

My version is a lot leaner than that of my foremothers: I brown the bite-sized chicken pieces in a smidge of canola oil, sautee the "hard" veggies in sherry, and use a slurry of milk and flour without additional fat to thicken the sauce. The dumplings themselves are fairly lean already, although in recent years I've taken to using chicken schmalz (carefully poured from the pans of roasted chickens past, and stored in a mug in the freezer) instead of canola oil, because the flavour is just phenomenal. Add to that a little chopped parsley and some chopped sage leaves culled from the window-box garden, and you've got a tasty, tasty treat. They can go on beef stew, as well, of course (a little rosemary is nice, there, but with chicken we're getting precariously close to Scarborough Fair dumplings - parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme).

I am a firm believer in layers of flavour, so I add bayleaves and mustard seed and ground thyme to the stew mixture, and I've been known to add a shot of Tobasco sauce, too. I tend to under-salt this when I'm using homemade chicken stock in the sauce, so I have to constantly check it at the different stages of cooking to ensure the right amount. The final garnish is a healthy grinding of black pepper.

We eat a fair amount of chicken, actually. We don't eat a lot of chicken and dumplings, though, and I am not sure why. Maybe it's that I like it to be something of a special treat, and that might fade if served too often. Maybe it's that my repertoire is getting quite large, and it's hard to get anything into rotation on even a monthly basis, unless it's monumentally fast and easy, and while chicken and dumplings is relatively easy, it's not particularly fast. Every time we have it, though, I think to myself "Damn, these dumplings are good. Why don't I have these every week?"

Cake in progress

The Apricot Nectar Cake, first edition, came out of the oven last night, and was an immediate flavour success despite a miscellany of obstacles - not the least of which was a decided lack of Apricot Nectar.

Huh? That stuff used to be everywhere, but on the day I actually need it specifically, I can't even find a place-marker for it on the shelf at Safeway. I used to drink the stuff cut with ginger ale, to lighten the thick, fuzzy texture, but I guess I haven't bought any in a while.

I ended up having to settle for an all-juice blend of apple, orange, and peach. The apple juice thinned out the sensation of drinking velvet, which made it perhaps a better beverage, but also made it a thinner texture than I had hoped for (not to mention, different flavour!) for the cake.

Still, I was determined to go forward. The combination of the weaker flavoured juice with the lemon extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice glaze made for a thoroughly citrussy flavour, but my refusal to add yellow food colouring, per many of the recipes I was cribbing from, made for a sort of blandly coloured cake. Not snowy, like a white cake, nor adequately orange to suggest the flavours within. Yellowish beige was the interior of the cake (the fact that I got any colour at all is likely attributed to the yolks of the two free-range eggs) and perhaps a little bit to the zest. The top and sides of the cake took on a nice golden glow, though.

I am reluctant to add food colouring where it is unnecessary, so I have been contemplating alternatives. I have a lovely little container of saffron that was just recently given to me, a gift brought back from the Middle East, and that seems like it might be the way to go: citrus, apricot and saffron all go together delightfully, and it would add a slightly exotic depth of flavour to the cake that appeals very much - at least on paper. Other colour options include Turmeric, which would be effective might probably detrimental to the delicate flavour, more lemon zest, which would have limited effect, or the dreaded bottled colouring.

The pan-size could use fiddling, too. Since I was starting with 2 cups of flour, a 9x9" pan seemed a little small, so I went with a 9x13". The cake did rise to about double its batter volume, but was still fairly short. I am contemplating using a bundt pan for the next attempt - slice-friendly and somehow well suited to the snack-cake oeuvre. I could, of course, give the 9x9" a try, although I suspect that the cake would volcano a bit in protest.

The texture was fairly pleasing - light, much as the buttermilk coffee cake is, but very moist thanks in part to the lemon glaze that is applied while it is still warm (another argument in favour of the bundt). The fat content was a measily 21% (as best I could calculate with the tools at hand, that is) but it doesn't taste like health-food at all.

Overall report? Favourable, with subsequent attempts scheduled to rectify minor defects. Now I just need to source some genuine apricot nectar...