Archive for April, 2011
You guys. Oh.
I made this for CBC on Tuesday, and when I came home around noon, Mike had chocolate all over his face. He looked all sweaty and big-eyed, like he couldn’t control himself and might be in trouble for it.
“What is that stuff on the kitchen counter??” he said. “I hope it’s OK that I ate some.”
(He never does this, in case the food in question is for a shoot or a story or is somehow important.)
There was exactly as much left as you see above. I had to zoom in on it.
I only ate one bite of this, enough to evaluate it for its potential postability. That’s it. And it was really hard to stop at one bite. Really hard.
Then again, there comes a time when the alternative is even harder. When enough is enough.
Also – hard is not the same as impossible.
Yes, I’ve started eating better. And less. I’ll tell you all about it soon. I promised myself I’d finish my thoughts this time before posting – I meant to do it on the plane (I went to Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday, to do a cooking demo at an event at the St. Lawrence Market and meet with some of my editors) but the plane was so packed both ways that there was no elbow room for typing. In Toronto I wasn’t in one place with an internet connection for long enough to pull it all together.
And it’s the weekend again. Easter weekend, and you may need some of this. (I need some of this. Just not so much of it.)
The sheets of matzoh – like big square water crackers – provide a pretzel-like base for this chocolate bark-like bliss. The toffee is simmered, then baked in a layer, and turns out perfectly – not at all hard on the teeth. Sprinkling the chocolate (you could even use chopped leftover bunnies) over the warm toffee allows it to melt with its residual heat, making it easy to spread over the surface with a spatula.
Chocolate Matzoh Buttercrunch
There are plenty of versions of this stuff out there – and I’ve seen this several places, so I have no idea who to credit it to. Whomever it is, thank you.
4-6 unsalted matzoh boards or sheets (alternatively, you could use soda crackers)
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup packed golden brown sugar
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
Preheat the oven to 375F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil, then cover the bottom with parchment. Line the pan with matzoh boards, breaking them to fit if need be.
In a medium saucepan, bring the butter and brown sugar to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour evenly over the matzoh, spreading it with a heatproof spatula to cover.
Put it into the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 350F. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until deep golden. Remove from the oven and scatter with chocolate chips; let sit until they soften, then spread evenly over the caramel.
Let cool completely, then break into chunks, or cut/score into squares while still warm. Makes lots (but not enough).
April 22 2011 | dessert | 26 Comments »
It seems you’ve been getting a lot of leftovers lately. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Or have you?) Although I’ve been cooking like mad, prepping and photographing in an almost-always-near-disastrous kitchen with an often grumpy sous chef-slash-dishwasher, I can’t share most of the results with you. Sue and I are in the final stretch of the bean book, finishing up edits and photos and working on the layout and design, and the recipes and images for Alice Eats are due at the end of April (which my calendar tells me is in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS) and if I’m not done I’m pretty sure Pierre will maim me. I’ve seen how good he is with a knife. And this week I’m working on stuff for Swerve, the Herald, Parents Canada, Readers’ Digest, City Palate and Family Kitchen. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, it’s just that I haven’t been sharing. Also, I’m feeling a little tapped out when it gets to be dinnertime.
This morning I covered traffic reporting on CBC (tomorrow too, I’m trying to go to bed now), which meant a 4am wakeup (and a 1am, 2am, 2:30am to make sure I wasn’t sleeping in), so I was ready for dinner mid-afternoon. I had pulled a frozen steak out of the freezer (which meant Mothers Little Helper has been playing on a loop in my brain all day). I just finished working out some recipes for a peanut butter company in New York that I may be in love with, one that makes peanut butter infused with maple and honey and chocolate (not all at once) and so have peanut butter on the brain. Also a glut of peanut butter. And a half can of coconut milk in the fridge. The combination may sound odd and a little lowbrow, but trust me – it worked. As much as anything because the sauce picked up the browned bits from the pan, enriching it far beyond the sum of its parts. Very much yum.
Also? I have some New York peanut butter for you if you want some.
Quick Peanut Butter Beef Curry
1 steak, cut into bite-sized pieces or strips
canola oil, for cooking
3 garlic cloves
2 tsp curry paste (or to taste)
a big spoonful of peanut butter
half a 14 oz (398 mL) can coconut milk
Pat the beef dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle some oil into a large, heavy skillet (cast iron is ideal) set over medium-high heat. Brown the meat, getting some good colour on it – don’t worry about cooking it completely through. (It is a steak, after all.) Transfer to a plate.
Add the garlic and curry paste to the pan, then the peanut butter and coconut milk. Stir to blend and melt the peanut butter, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Cook for a minute or two, until well blended and thickened; return the beef to the pan and heat through, simmering a little longer if the beef is still too pink inside. Serve immediately, over rice. Serves 2-4, depending on appetites.
April 18 2011 | beef | 13 Comments »
I was invited to a swanky dinner. There were lots of fancy dresses. Also some corn shoots.
It was a fundraiser for the Art Gallery of Calgary. Some of the best chefs in the city were there, many of them well known – from CharCut, Rouge, Rush, and the Chef’s Table. And there was a relatively new guy, chef Geoff Rogers, with his sous chef Vincent Maas and their team from Home Tasting Room.
I always feel funny telling you about fancy dinners like these, but I do want everyone to know what an amazing job Home Tasting Room (which opened up early in the winter on Stephen Avenue downtown, across from Divino) did with our meal. (The guests were divvied up among tables, each served a unique menu by one of six attending restaurants – I think we lucked out.)
We had local braised lamb neck ravioli, ahi tuna with tender pea and corn shoots, and duck breast over a perfectly cooked white bean cassoulet. I’ve never been so impressed with the wine pairings at a meal – I made sure I made note of them, then lost the paper menu I brought home – but the real brilliance was dessert. Pastry chef Shannon Ekkel came up with a sweet charcuterie board made up of chipotle-spiked chocolate salami, fig jam and cornmeal biscotti, garnished with candied orange peel and an enormous sugared grape. How completely brilliant is that? HTR welcomes dessert-goers – they have a great wine list, good coffees, and interesting desserts, like New Orleans-style beignets and butterscotch ripple ice cream in just-made mini waffle cones. They just may warrant more research.
April 15 2011 | eating out | 8 Comments »
Again, working against any efforts that may be underway at the gym. Again, totally worth it.
A pot (“poe”) de crème is like an un-brûléed crème brûlée – a little stiffer, on account of using the whole egg instead of just the yolk – but essentially a baked creamy pudding. The cute part about coffee pot de crème in particular is that you can cook them in little mugs, like the vintage Pyrex ones you bought for a dollar each at Value Village, then eat your über-creamy coffee with a spoon.
Coffee Pot de Crème
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1 cup half & half
1-2 Tbsp. instant espresso
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar (white or brown)
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
In a small pot, stir together the creams and espresso and heat until steaming. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, yolks, sugar and vanilla.
Gradually whisk the hot cream into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Once blended, divide the mixture between 4-6 ramekins or ovenproof coffee or tea cups. Place in a 9″x13″ baking dish (or any baking dish that will accommodate them) and pour water into the dish to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake at 325F for 30 minutes, or until set but still slightly jiggly in the middle. Cool, then refrigerate until well chilled. Serves 4-6.
April 14 2011 | dessert | 5 Comments »
I taught a baking 101 class in Red Deer the night before last, which was awesome fun. We made pastry and butter tarts, browned butter blueberry muffins, two kinds of chocolate chip cookies (the test: softened butter vs melted – the melted came out predictably more dense and chewy), sunken chocolate cake with raspberry fool, bagels, pain au chocolat (almost) and biscuits. Dinner of champions, I say.
The ladies at the bagel table turned out some beautiful bagels and pretzels – chewy from boiling and golden from baking. When they were done, they thought they’d try their hands at biscuits. They used Wade’s recipe.
A biscuit is a pretty standard thing. Flour, baking powder, salt, butter, milk or buttermilk or cream. Sometimes egg. Sometimes a spoonful of sugar to sweeten or help them brown. The key when making a biscuit, as opposed to a yeast bread that must be kneaded in order to develop the gluten and give the bread structure, is to be gentle with it. Once the liquid comes into contact with the flour, gluten comes into play, and so one must be delicate. Ditto pastry and muffins.
We were discussing this very thing when I looked over and wondered what it was the ladies were kneading – leaning into the dough on the countertop, working it into submission the way they had the bagel dough – a yeast dough that went from cellulite-y in texture to smooth and elastic, as soft as a baby’s bottom. Just like it should be.
The same does not apply to biscuit dough. It was fortunate, actually, that they had kneaded the biscuit dough as if it contained yeast – a good experiment to demonstrate the difference between a lightly handled biscuit (pictured above, behind the two puck-like ones) and one that has been overworked to the point where the dough is dense and tough. Here we had the same ingredients, same oven, the only thing different was the handling method. I told them I was going to post a photo of their biscuits under “what not to do” for the benefit of all aspiring biscuit bakers-tread gently on that biscuit dough.
April 14 2011 | leftovers | 9 Comments »
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