Stilton Steak with Pesto Spaghettini and Endive Apple Salad

A good steak is even better when it's stuffed with a strong cheese like English stilton. All things considered, pretty much everything is better when either covered or stuffed or accompanied by a good quality cheese. Here in particular, the cheese melts nicely in its little beef pocket as the steak browns in the cast iron pan and then finishes off with a nice long bake in the oven. The result is a nice jus and cheese sauce. And if you stuff the beef properly, the cheese will ooze out as you start cutting it. It's wonderful to have such a delicious alternative to barbecue sauce ladden steak.

Along with the steak, we made our little accompanying dish, pasta with pesto. Now store bought pesto is a very far cry from homemade pesto prepared at the peak of the basil season but it's still a nice side dish that beats making something from a box.

In addition, we used the green leaves of the Belgian endive, cut up a pink lady apple and tossed with the simple lemon oil my girlfriend's so fond of. This, I found, was a nice flavour mixture since you have tart, bitter, and sweet all with the underlying smoothness of the olive oil. All in all, this was a nice meal.

Pâté au saumon with Funky Salad

I was sitting at my desk at work and suddenly I had a craving for pâté au saumon, a Québécois expat food I grew up on. What this meal is is basically just a meat pie whose protein is salmon. The only salmon that might be found in the middle of the Boreal forest where I'm from are those who are hopelessly lost or cans of this rich pink fish. So it's a Pacific sockeye salmon meat pie in a Québec recipe, made by a guy from Northern Ontario whose presently residing in New Brunswick. How's that for an all-Canadian meal?! (Sorry prairies...)

To offset things, I made a recipe from the best known British chef, Jamie Oliver. When it comes to greens, I would like to consider myself an amature. Truth be told, I think most of us cringe at the thought of paying for and eating something called "dandelion greens".

"Isn't that the crap that grows in my front yard that's full of ants I just can't seem to get rid of?" you ask.

"Why yes," answers the celebrity chef. "Would you like to pay me a ridiculous price to eat them?"

"I think I do Mr. Celebrity Chef. I think I do. Your popularity persuades me."

Ridicule aside, the salad was a bit too expensive for my tastes. Many of the ingredients in this salad recipe aren't readilly available unless you live in a metropolis. These ingredients include fennel, arugula, dandelion leaves, watercress, baby chard, asparagus, and fresh chervil. I found everything except the chard and watercress. They were out of chard so the only thing really not found was the watercress. And the only reason I found any of the other ingredients is because they opened a new grocery store in town and are making an effort to be cutting edge. After a while they'll have wasted so much produce that it'll be back to iceberg and romaine lettuce.

Pat's pâté au saumon

Dough...super flaky and rich...the best ever!!!

200ml shortening

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar

1 egg

200ml water

1. Cut shortening into flour.

2. Add salt, vinegar, the egg and water. Mix well. The dough should be pretty sticky. Refrigerate till ready to use.

Filling

1/4 cup carrot, brunoise (cut julienne and then cut into small cubes)

1/4 cup celery, brunoise

1/3 cup onion, brunoise

1 tbsp olive oil

450g canned sockeye salmon (I just used two 213ml cans)

1 cup cooked and mashed potato flesh (it's good to use leftover baked potatoes)

2 tbsp sour cream

1 egg

1/2 tbsp lemon zest

1/2 tbsp fennel greens and chervil (or dill or parsley...I just happened to have these herbs on hand)

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sweat the carrot, celery and onion in olive oil till soft. It's best to keep the lid on for this since the goal is to keep the humidity in the pot with the vegetables.

2. Mix together the salmon, mashed potato flesh, sour cream and egg. Fold in sweated vegetables, lemon zest and herbs. Season to taste.

3. Take dough out of fridge, roll out and layer into a greased 8 1/2 inch (or 22cm) wide pie dish. Dump salmon mixture into the prepared pie bottom.

4. Place another sheet of dough on top of the pie and crimp edges. Poke or cut holes in top of pie.

5. Cook pie in 425 degree oven for 10 minutes then bring temperature down to 350 degrees and cook for 30 minutes.

6. Serve hot.

Sorry that my measurement systems are all over the place. That's what happens when you live in a non-metric system country beside the largest metric system country in the world. Maybe it's time for the US to join the rest of the world and convert.

Beef Fondu with 3 Dipping Sauces

So we've all done fondu's before. Stick some canned fondu sauce in a saucepan and have your guests cook their own damn meal ;) We served ours with chinese fondu style beef slices - which are just really thin slices of eye of the round - shrimp, spinach, zuchinni, chinese radish, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, red onion, and three types of cheeses: smoked gruyère, colbe, and mozarella. I made little pockets full of cheese, veggies wrapped in beef so that it doesn't leak all over the place and enjoyed more food than I should have eaten.


To kick things up a bit I made three dipping sauces. One of them was just the leftover of the lemon oil I used for the salad the other day (see previous blog entry) and the other two were aïoli and an improvised fig balsamic honey sauce. Now aïoli is just a fancy word for garlic mayonnaise which is just egg yolks with oil and a squirt or two of lemon juice. For this particular recipe I used half an egg yolk - don't ask - and beat it together with one mashed garlic clove. To properly mash a garlic clove, chop the garlic as finely as you can, sprinkle a bit of coarse salt on it and then use the flat part of your knife and press down with your palm, working it to really mash the garlic to a paste. You obviously need a proper chef's knife for this. No paring knife here.

Once the egg yolk and garlic are properly combined, slowly whisk in 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil making sure not to pour in more than what can be absorbed. So pour slowly then whisk or have someone pour for you while you work up some of that unused elbow grease. The mixture should now be nice and stiff so add about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to break it up a bit, whisk together one last time and voilà! You've just made aïoli! And don't tell your friends it's just mayonnaise with garlic. You'll sound cooler if you say aïoli. Pronounciation unsure...I just say ah-ee-oh-lee.

The other dipping sauce I made was basically the flesh of three black figs, a tablespoon of water, a tablespoon of honey and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar. I didn't measure anything and just went with my gut. My cheesy beef and vegetable fondu bits had the delightful opportunity of going for a dunk before dissapearing forever down the gullet.

Mmmmm....saucy goodness...

Simple Salad with Lemon Oil and Lots of Snow

So like I said last time, there's a whole chapter in Cook with Jamie that's all about salads. I figure it's not a huge sin if I don't have all the ingredients for a salad so long as it's close. I mean a basic salad is a basic salad. I'm not talking about fancy salads with cured meats and fancy cheeses and dressings with 28 ingredients in them. But this particular salad was entitled "Simple Crunchy Salad". I was missing romaine lettuce, green beans which were supposed to be blanched and cucumber. The ingredients I did have were Boston lettuce, a carrot, celery heart, parsley and I added some grape tomatoes. This chapter also has a few recipes for dressings; because if you're going to make fresh salad, might as well make the little extra effort to make your own fresh, preservative-free dressing. And the dressing I chose couldn't be any simpler: 3 1/2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice with 10 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil shaken together and seasoned to taste with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Simple dressing, simple salad but really nice taste.

In the background you might recognise a generous slice of tourtière which also goes by the name of meat pie. Where I'm from a tourtière is made with ground beef but this one was made with ground pork. It was storebought so it wasn't the best I've ever eaten. I'm used to 3/4 meat and a thinner crust. All that was needed was a bit more ketchup yet it was still easily outshined by the simple salad. Some things are just better when your grandma makes it.

Oh and here's a photo of my front yard today. The office was closed so I'm snowed in :) Who says winter isn't a beautiful season?