sybarites

The other day, Marc noticed that since we started this blog in August, we have not made the same thing twice. How extraordinary. This is about to change.

Mushroom risotto!

I never would have anticipated such a delicious, earthy, complex meal from this simple recipe. I admit that America’s Test Kitchen made it seem very tasty but paired with a good red and a bright, little salad, it was definitive bistro fare. I will absolutely make this again- as a main course for company even! The recipe included both crimini and dried porcini mushrooms and just those two things (plus the secret ingredient of soy sauce) made for some deep and fantastic flavours. I am decidedly impressed. Marc contends that risotto is not very good when re-warmed and I disagree. A verdict is forthcoming.

The wine we tried with this was Undurraga Riserva, a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. I thought it was quite enjoyable; I don’t recall what Marc thought, though I’m quite certain he would’ve said something if he had disliked it.

Also, it’s worth noting that while eating this dark, earthy, creamy meal, we were watching Megacities: Paris on the National Geographic channel. Of all the magical elements of the city of light, they chose to profile the sewer system; this included some pretty disgusting, though quite interesting and informative footage. The point is, even though we were watching gag-worthy, educational TV, the risotto was still outstanding. I can only imagine how good it would have been had it not been consumed in the presence of a “slurry of raw sewage”.

Oh yes, the croutons! Success at last! I put something under the broiler and I actually didn’t forget about them or anything. They came out perfectly, married the salad and lived happily ever after.

I am wary of dumplings. In fact, I’m pretty wary of stew, as well, which is why I was not especially keen on making Beef Stew with Herbed Dumplings . Might as well have read boring brown with sad veggies and gummy blobs on top. [insert grimace here]

However, Marc was quite anxious to make this because for some reason, he likes dumplings. I guess my exposure to the slimy, gloopy, flour-tasting dumplings of my past is what caused my hesitation but because he makes me cappuccinos every morning, I was willing to do this one small thing for Marc and conceded to the stew.

The first step was to get the ingredients, which always involves a few hours of pleasant grocery shopping at various places. At the very least, we have to go to the Co-op Marketplace, the butcher and the liquor store. Depending on the week’s recipes, we may also need to make a trip to Sunterra, The Cookbook Company, the Safeway and The Real Canadian Stupidstore. And another liquor store sometimes. Anyway, this week, it was butcher first. Our man was behind the counter as always and, as always, asked us “What’s on list?” We always have a shopping list and they tease about being organized. (What’s wrong with being organized?! Without The List, you can bet we would never have bought the duck breasts or the veal shanks.) Anyway, The List said 4lbs. of beef chuck. It turns out that 4lbs. is a lot of beef. And it’s none too cheap, neither.

At home, the stew was dutifully assembled and with all the meat and rutabagas and sauce, our biggest pot was almost overflowing – and this was before the dumplings went in. Not to be discouraged, we shoved them in anyways and just used an upended bowl for a lid, to allow the dumplings to expand. Indeed, they did expand and we were left with a veritable bucket of stew with a pile of puffy dumplings. The taste was OK, kind of bland, but this met with my expectation. The dumplings exceeded my expectation which is to say that they did not taste of flour. However, it wasn’t gross and we have 2 months’ worth of brown in the fridge/freezer so we have no choice but to like it.

Oh yeah, I made a green salad with shallot vinaigrette and I may or may not have burned the croutons. It’s hard to tell.

a few carrots
+ a little bok choy
+ some ginger
+ extra garlic
+ a big pile of chicken
+ sauces
———————————-
one good stir fry

Though really, I would argue that one could smash together almost any ingredients in a saucepan-pretending-to-be-a-wok and call it a stir-fry. Witness:

pickles
+ cocktail onions
+ peanut butter
+ tofu
———————
stir fry

apples
+ soy sauce
+ mushrooms
+ whipping cream
———————
stir fry

soy beans
+ pizza sauce
+ waffles
+ mayo
+ cherries
———————
also, a stir fry.

Last year Janet took me to Brava for dinner. That night we shared the Ginger Cakes with Carmel Sauce. It was abolutely incredible. Over the holiday season, Janet attempted to replicate the recipe four times. The first try was a baked gingerbread cake. The second try was steamed ginger pudding, which didn’t have any molasses. A couple of variations of gingerbread followed with mixed success.

Based on her experiments I found a recipe for molasses pudding, with the thought that the restaurant couldn’t sell anything by that name and the pudding recipe had the correct texture. I cut down on the cinnamon, pumped up the ground ginger, and replace the nuts and raisins with candied ginger. America’s Test Kitchen has a recipe for Easy Caramel Sauce, which I screwed up. It was still tasty. It’s been a year, but I’m pretty sure it’s a very close duplication of the Brava’s dessert. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

– 1/4 cup butter
– 1/4 cup molasses
– 1/4 cup hot water
– 1/4 cup milk
– 1 egg
– 3/4 cups flour
– 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
– 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
– 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
– 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
– 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
– 1/4 cup candied ginger
– 1/2 tablespoon rum
– Caramel Sauce

Instructions:
Grease 4 1/2 cup ramekins. Add 2 inches of water in a large double boiler and set over high heat.

While the water is coming to a boil, cream the butter; mix in the molasses, hot water, milk and eggs. Sift the flour with the soda and spices; blend into the butter mixture. Add the candied ginger and rum. Fill each ramekins two thirds full.

When the water in the stockpot comes to a boil, carefully place the cakes in the pot, cover and steam (adjust heat so water gently simmers) for 1.5 hours. You may need to cook them in two batches. Watch the water level; when it gets low, add boiling water.

Remove the cakes from the pot and let sit for a few minutes before unmolding. Serve the cakes topped with caramel sauce.

Serves 4.

I was making fun of Pam the other day because she had agreed not only to attend an animal-themed potluck birthday lunch for an 85-year-old mother of a friend, but also, to bring a ham. When the hostess asked “What do you think you will bring to the potluck?”, why, I wonder, did she respond with “A baked ham.” Anyway, that’s what started my ham-craving. Marc had a simultaneously triggered ham-craving but I don’t know his catalyst.

We were fixin’ to done buy a good ham for the Balsamic-and-Dijon-Glazed Ham with Roasted Pearl Onions but the butcher ain’t haved one. We had to resort to Safeway ham and, luckily, it was way better than I had expected; it even had a reasonable outer layer of fat for scoring. Marc cooked the cute, little pearl onions and then we de-sheathed them in preparation for their 45-minute appointment with the oven. One mistake that we quickly rectified was putting the onions into the same dish as the glazed ham as they are supposed to cook independently so that the sauce can thicken nicely.

Joining the ham, we had smashed potatoes and some blanched, fresh green beans, a serendipitous find at the market. Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water. After the first few bites of ham, we had to fetch a separate little dish with extra glaze and onions to the table for dipping purposes. Combined with a few healthy glasses of Vieille Ferme, we were setting ourselves up for some major dehydration but that didn’t quell the enthusiastically consumed second and third helpings. Sometimes, we can really be pigs.

For the past year I’ve been telling Janet that I’m going to make sushi. It finally happened. I learned to make sushi by reading Sushi (Essential Kitchen Series) by Ryuichi Yoshii. It makes everything easy, but it still takes 3 hours. One tip is making California rolls with shrimp instead of krab, which makes a huge difference.

We were lucky to find an exceptionally fine piece of tuna at the Coop. The avacados were ripe and snow peas were fresh too. The rice turned out as good as could be expected. Jan cut all the decorations and plated everything.

You can’t eat sushi without sake. Jan doesn’t really like it, but she went along with it for the authentic experience.

Foods consumed on Saturday evening, in the order in which they were consumed:

– 2 bottles of Stella Artois
– 2 more Stellas
– microwave popcorn
– some chocolate chips
– 2 more Stellas
– leftover bits of un-popped popcorn
– some wine, red
– Turkey Cutlets with Corn Salsa and rice
– more wine
– port

The picture looks nice, doesn’t it? I would comment on the food but it’s kind of a blur. I remember laughing like crazy at the movie we were watching, and then Marc was gone for awhile. And then he was back and putting a plate of food in front of me. And then I ate the food. The End.

Every Wednesday for the past two months, Ingrid and I have been meeting to learn Italian. This is like the blind leading the blind. Neither of us speaks the language (though Ing did take a couple years’ worth of classes in university) but we figured we could probably muddle our way through it. I borrowed a “Learn Italian in Your Car” CD from the library, bought some crisp, new exercise books, Ingrid dragged out her old notebooks and tests and we set to work.

So far, we’ve come along fairly well. I definitely enjoy this class way more than I would’ve at some kind of ‘structured’ course because we go at our own pace, it doesn’t cost a thing, we’re planning a field trip to the opera, and our classes always involve Italian food. And wine. Oh, the wine. Something about speaking Italian makes us really suck back the vino. I can tell, because my notes at the end of the evening are always misspelled with sections crossed out everywhere and tend be kind of shout-y when written in all-caps – DOV’E LA MIA NOCCIOLA? IL GATOPARRDO E ALLA SPIAGGIA.

But I digress. Thus far, we’ve cooked the stereotypical Italian fare: spaghetti with meatballs, pizza, lasagne, minestrone, etc. and some just-the-other-side of ordinary: roast pork with fennel, parmesan risotto. Last Wednesday, I chose something that qualifies as Italian only for the fact that it contains spciy Italian sausages. So, past-perfect conjugation of strong verbs and Lentil Stew with Sausages and Spinach.

Marc always helps make supper on the weeks that I am hosting our class (indeed, those meatballs he made are arguably one of the best things we’ve had so far), and this time he made almost the whole thing. Ing said she really like it. Marc said that we would definitely make it again but I’m not so convinced, though you wouldn’t know it from the two bowls that I ate. It was good enough but the lentils were a little too center stage. I would have preferred a tiny bit less salt, too. But hey, not every meal can be an epicurean masterpiece. One must have evil in order to have good. (Marc- this was far from evil, you did a great job and you are too good to me, cooking for my class like you do; I criticize only the recipe.)

Speaking of good and evil, we also disagreed on the wine we tried the other night: Wente, from San Francisco. I like it; it tasted a little of cherries but not too much. Marc did not like it, no. LUI NON HA PIACCIUTO IL VINO.

And then we have the meat pie, an example of which is seen at left. Disregard the blurriness of the picture and notice the fluffy potatoes which were browned on top of a slow-cooked, steamy pile of vegetables and meat.

As the weather cools – or rather, colds – quite rapidly, we turn again and again to our Slow Food cookbook for comfort food and inner warmth. We consumed several mountain-ed plates of Cottage Pie– even the name invokes comfort. What was basically a simple ground beef and veggie stew with smashed tatties on the roof turned out to be a new favourite.

Beef in its ground form is not generally something I yearn for due to years of being subjected ground beef cooked with cream of mushroom soup and served in front of The Muppet Show, but this dish went a long way towards redeeming its reputation. I suspect that anything that employs the title of “beef pie” can easily slide into Disgust-dom but this version didn’t follow that path; it was moist like a casserole, with veggies that still retained some of their original flavours and crunch (i.e. carrots) and the potatoes made a perfect crust with which to soak up any lingering gravy. I guess that’s what the hour in the oven did to finish the dish: it gravified the filling.

Much like Mmmm, Pie (Volume I), we made one big pie and then a couple of little ones for leftovers and this trick is genius; brought some in to work the next day and was thinking about it all morning. Marc’s mini-pie never made it to work.

How much food, I wonder, would one have to consume for the fat contained therein to actually accumulate on one’s thighs whilst eating? Imagine if such a thing could occur? I’d never look at cheese the same way again, i.e. with lust and abandon. Anyone who knows me, knows that cheese is the one thing that I could never give up; when playing the What Would You Rather Give Up For The Rest of Your Life game, I always pick cheese over anything else. Cheese beats cookies. Cheese beats beer, chocolate, all forms of hard liquor and candy. Cheese narrowly, narrowly beats wine.

Anyway, the point is, it’s amazing that I like Pad Thai so much considering that it involves no cheese. In fact, considering that it calls for The Mysterious Fish Sauce (a.k.a. feet sauce), it is remarkable that I like it so much. Maybe it’s all the superbly fresh ingredients or the tamarind paste that is simultaneously bitter and kind of salty or the peanuts or the shrimpies –yum! Ultimately, who cares what makes it beautiful, as long as it is so? My only complaint is that it can be kind of finicky. Like, this time, we slightly under-cooked the noodles, slightly over-cooked the shrimp and added just a little bit too much tamarind paste. I still ate until I could eat no more but these points were duly noted for next time.

We should really make this for M & D when they arrive. It never fails that the first place we go when their plane lands is to the Vietnamese place next to the 7-11. They crave good pho and spring rolls and vermicelli when in Europe and so, before we do anything else – drop off the bags, have a drink, anything – we go straight for dinner. Because they crave Asian food so much, I suspect that they’d appreciate this Pad Thai. Especially accompanied by a few Big Rock McNally’s? Some Coors Light? Eh?