Lot 30, Charlottetown and Poached Salmon Niçoise

Just before the holidays, I proposed to my girlfriend. Though it really hasn't changed anything, we are now engaged. I took her to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. For any of my fellow Canadians and even those interested in visiting Canada, you have to visit Charlottetown. Not only did people look at you and say hi when you crossed them in the street, but they smiled! This is a big deal. Charlottetown and PEI in general was full of great, kind people with beautiful scenery. If we weren't moving back to Ontario in the fall, I'd be moving to PEI.

In Charlottetown, we ate at Lot 30 http://www.lot30restaurant.ca/. The atmosphere was great, with a television over the bar where you could see a live feed of what was going on in the kitchen's plating table...a great idea! The service was also fantastic though I wouldn't expect anything less from Charlottetown. As for the food, it was good. I particularly liked the fact that we took the tasting menu and they didn't give us a choice of what we wanted; they just said, "Is there anything you don't want?" to which my girlfriend said offal (to my dismay). They then presented us with a five course meal where every dish was a surprise. Though the food was good, I found that at times the dishes were overly complicated by too many sauces. The dishes felt like they were competing against themselves; they felt aggressive and lacked the simplicity which is, in my opinion, what higher class restaurants should strive for. I was unsatisfied. Just not thoroughly impressed.

When we arrived back home, I had prepared a little 3 course meal of my own. As is the case when I cook for myself, I tend to make too much. Therefore, when preparing a 3 course meal, it is not useful to have heaping plates full of food; one dish just ruins it for the others. Well anyways, after a whole day of preparation, my first course rolled out. It was Gordon Ramsay's "poached salmon niçoise with boiled quail's eggs". I decided to skip the egg. Despite this, the result was amazing. I love tiny potatoes in cold salads. I don't know what it is about them that just get to me. This salad was composed of boiled small potatoes, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, black olives, thinly sliced shallots, all tossed in a basic vinaigrette (olive oil and white wine vinegar) and topped with salmon poached in fish stock, thyme, basil, lemon, and lemon grass. This salad was simple, elegant and delicious. Next time I'll do the egg. I'm sure it would make things even more delightful.

The following coarse was not so much of a hit. First mistake, the previous salad was really big. Secondly, the beans. The recipe is from Cook with Jamie and called "grilled fillet steak with the creamiest white beans and leeks". Being a purist or slow food dude or some other pompous foodie title I could give myself, I thought of doing things the "right" way and not getting lima beans from a can but rather buying them drying and cooking them the good-old-fashioned-way. I don't think I've ever had any luck with dried beans. They never fully cook. Maybe it's because I'm too used to the texture of canned beans but I guess I'll never know.

Anyways, the recipe goes something like this: sweat leeks, thyme and garlic in olive oil and butter; dump in some wine, bring to a boil, add CAN of lima beans along with some water; simmer; add parsley, crème fraîche and olive oil; meanwhile, grill or pan fry steak to desired doneness; serve with a lemon for squeezing. This is a simple enough recipe with nicely matched flavours. Next time, however, I'll go with the can. My bad.

Finally, to round out what I'd planned to be a delicate yet delicious dinner, I served cooked custard ramekins which the French cookbook calls "petits pots de crème". If you can swing custard, there is nothing simpler and more beautiful in the world. It's light and sweet and rich. Just lovely. Here's the recipe.

Petits pots de crème

410ml (1 and two-third cups) milk
1 vanilla pod
3 egg yolks
1 egg
one-third cup caster (superfine) sugar

1. Preheat oven to 140. Put milk in a saucepan. Split the vanilla pod in two lengthways, scrape out the seeds and add the pod and seeds to the milk (or be a cheap cheater and give a little squirt of vanilla extract). Bring the milk just to the boil.

2. Meanwhile, mix together the egg yolks, egg and sugar. Strain the boiling milk over the egg mixture and stir well. Skim off the surface to remove any foam.

3. Ladle into one-and-a-half cup ramekins and place in a roasting tin. Pour enough hot water into the tin to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the custards are firm to the touch. Leave the ramekins on a wire rack to cool, then refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pepper Steak

I had a recipe for pepper steak in Gastropub Classics but I basically just used it as a guideline and as a confirmation that I knew what I was doing. The reason I had a pretty good idea what I was doing was that I'd bought some green peppercorns in brine at the Italian deli I'd visited in Ottawa. Who could have passed up such an opportunity?

My memories of pepper steak involve my father's charred pieces of beef doused with a sauce reconstituted from a package. The idea of a cream and peppercorn sauce isn't something that's really difficult. I knew I'd be using cream, the beautiful little green peppercorns and some dijon mustard probably with whatever else I felt like putting in on the spot. The only thing I added due to my inspiration from Gastropub Classics was some vermouth (she recommended white wine and chicken stock but I only had vermouth) and garlic.

We bought the steak at the market so it doesn't cook the same as a supermarket steak. The meat turns out to be more of a pale colour than the brown of other beef. I don't know if that's a good thing but his meat is always tender no matter how long I forget it in the cast iron frying pan. Plus I've got Gordon Ramsay's steak doneness trick down pat: 1) your cheek is rare; 2) pushing up on your chin is medium; and 3) your forehead is well done. Pocking my steak as many times as I can helps me determine what this is supposed to mean. I'm actually getting good at cooking my steaks properly.

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.

Blue Cheese Steak with Balsamic Reduction and Purple Mashed Potatoes

I know I talk about the market pretty much every time I start writing a word but I'm really obsessed with the place. The cheese counter we go to every week always makes us taste something different. You tell them what you like and what you've had and they pull something new out. Like that tulip petal cheese I mentioned in my last blog entry. Or the subtle nutiness and fruitiness of the powerful blue cheese I used to stuff my steak with.

I prepared the steak by cutting a slit into the steak and working my knife around a bit to make a sort of pocket. You have to be careful when doing this not to make any holes or make the opening too big. The result of these simple mistakes is that you loose all your cheese to the buttom of the cast iron skillet or worse, the barbecue. I use my fingers to make the pocket larger and then stuff it with the best blue cheese I can find. What's great about blue cheese is that it's got an intense flavour but still let's the flavour of the steak shine through. Coupled with a drizzle of balsamic reduction (which is just balsamic vinegar boiled down to make it more concentrated) you've got yourself a steak worth any overly priced big city steak house. And if you really want to treat yourself, go with filet mignon. It's always tender and not having to cut around any bones, fat or cartilage always makes for a more pleasant meal.

Along with the steak, I served mashed purple potatoes. It doesn't look too purple on the photo but I just couldn't resist grabbing a bag when I saw how cool the farmer lady at the market thought her purple potatoes were. I'd seen them before, along with purple carrots and other such odities, but I figured it would be fun to eat. To tell you the truth, I'm not a big potato eater and these potatoes, though very cool, were not the best tasting. However, when standing aside a well browned blue cheese steak and a mound of sautéed mushrooms with onion and garlic, taste can take a backseat to coolness.

BBQ Season is Coming to an End

Pretty much all the trees have turned yellow, orange, and red. The wind is getting colder. It rains a cold kind of rain that makes you want to stay inside and make soup. But I'm still braving the weather. I'm still firing the grill.

I made an oregano and walnut pesto and stuffed it into some nice big white mushroom. Topped with a tiny mound of shredded parmesan, the turned out juicy and delicious. So did the plump tomatoes on which I placed thin slices of fresh garlic underneath yet other mounds of parmesan cheese. The result was barbecued vegetabley-goodness (I make up words like that).

The vegetables accompanied a piece of steak with perfect hatch marks. One problem I have with cooking steak is that my grill is steaming when I slap the meat on. That's not the problem. The problem is that the exterior chars fast but the middle doesn't cook as fast as what the outside would make you believe. So what I'm left with are beautiful, barelly cooked pieces of beef. Given that my girlfriend just started by capable of overcoming her psychological and bio-class induced fear of anything below medium, I've had to reheat steaks every time I'm ready to sit down for supper.

I think that I'm going to celebrate what's left of the bbq season with roasting squash or grilling root vegetables that are in season. A good grilled vegetable soup, some maple syrup glazzed pork maybe, or stuffed onions. Who knows? But I have to do something before winter hits...and seeing as most of the people who visit my sight aren't Canadian, all I can say is that almost everything stops when Old Man Winter rears with ugly head.

Simple Hearty Supper

It's a habit of mine to starve myself when I work which means that I'm nearly famished by the time I get home for supper. Lucky for me, my girlfriend was off and decided to prepare it all for when I did get home.

What we had was nothing really extravagant. The steak we grill on the bbq with salt & pepper and simply pour on some barbecue sauce after the meat is cooked to medium-well perfection. With that we often sauté some small button mushrooms with onion, garlic & butter. This time I used some of the leftover butter I had from the mushroom sarnies (see previous post).

With that my girlfriend prepared to of her famous salads. Though the macaroni salad is nothing fancy, it's really delicious. She prepares it with macaroni (of course), loads of sweet imitation crab, sometimes includes cubes of ham when we have some left over, about half a brick of cheddar cubes, shredded carrots, chopped scallions & celery, and enough mayo to bring the whole thing together into a satisfying whole. The result is something sweet - but not too sweet - which is also tasty and creamy.

The last feature of this feast is also one of my girlfriend's favourites: "Greek" salad (the apostrophes are there because I'll be the first to admit that lettuce has nothing to do in an authentic Greek salad). With tomatoes, feta, red onions, unpitted kalamata olives (non of that tasteless canned crap), and romaine lettuce, this salad is already off to a good start. But what truly makes it a joy to eat is the sharp vinaigrette my girlfriend makes with it. The trick is that the large amount lemon juice makes every ingredient sing as if they were all from the cast of The Sound of Music. So here's the recipe!

Sharp Greek Vinaigrette
1 1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
splash of white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp dried or fresh whole oregano
2 small garlic cloves minced

1) Mix all ingredients together and be sure to shake well before drizzling vinaigrette onto salad. And please note that this vinaigrette should only be made and used on the day of consumption...any longer and the ingredients seperate and their taste transforms into something which is not nearly as tasty.

Crab, Pizza Pockets, Summer Rolls & Steak...All in Two Day's Work

My girlfriend works at the grocery store which means that we know about all the great bargains. And seeing as we live in the Maritimes, the great bargains often include fresh seafood. On the menu tonight, crab!

We bought the crab pre-cooked and frozen. All we had to do was throw it in some boiling, well-salted water for a few minutes and soon we were eating our way through the sweet tender flesh. In my opinion, crab is oftentimes better than lobster. It is often cheaper too because lobster is so popular these days whereas people just 60 years or so were frowned upon for eating the ugly things. People would actually hide it in their garbage so that their neighbours didn't know that had to eat lobster! And when you consider that lobster and pretty much all seafood spend their lives sifting the crap out of the sea water, you get to understand why this would have been a proper preoccupation. I wish we were back in those days. I could eat all the lobster I want on my shoestring budget.

In the background of the photo above you can see our pizza pockets. We used the leftover wonton wrappers from the day before (those we used to make briks) and stuffed them with thick slices of pepperoni, spaghetti sauce, and grated mozzarella. We then dropped them in a pan of oil till they were nice and golden. The result? A gushing little accompanying dish. Though you can't eat more than a few of these little things without getting overwhelmed by the greasyness of it all, they were delicious.

Yesterday, for supper, we had some friends over. I prepared the smoked salmon appetizers similar to the gravlax. We then prepared some summer rolls which my girlfriend is crazy about, a recipe I got off Tyler Florence's Food 911. These little rolls are really fresh and light. They go well with pretty much anything. But we didn't just pair it with anything. I marinaded some steaks in a Thai inspired marinade which I got from Christine Cushing on Food TV. The sweetness of the marinade (which we could only marinade for a few hours but should be left for something like two days) worked well with the light summer rolls. It was a refreshing twist on the old meat and potatoes.

Finally, we ended with a huge cake our friend make for my birthday. When I get the recipe I'll post it. But for now I can only tell you that it was a mound of light cake, whipped cream, and toffee pieces. Served with a cup of licorice tea, it was a great end to a great meal.

Summer Rolls with Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce

1 oz Vietnamese cellophane noodles

1/2 cup bean sprouts

1/2 carrot, julienned

1 beet, julienned

1/4 fresh red chilli, cut into circles

1/2 handful fresh cilantro, hand-torn

1/4 cup chopped unsalted peanuts

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/4 lime, juiced

Mint leaves

Sea salt

1. Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Remember that the ingredients are approximative. Add or reduce any amount to personal taste or to give the rolls some extra umph.

2. Prepare rice paper according to instrustion.

3. Place about 1/4 cup of the filling near side of rice paper. Place one mint leaf on rice paper opposite to the filling. Flip sides of rice paper towards middle and then roll paper over filling and mint leaf to make a tight roll.

Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp fish sauce (or clam juice)

1/4 cup hot water

2 tbsp sugar

1 lime, juiced

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp red chilli paste

1. Mix ingredients together and serve in individual bowls since double dipping will be inevitable.

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Honey Thai Marinated Steak

2 oz sesame oil

8 oz honey

2 tbsp Thai spice paste

2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

2 oz orange juice concentrate

Sea salt

Pepper

Cracked coriander seeds

Light soy sauce, for dipping

1. Mix sesame oil, honey, paste, ginger, and orange juice concentrate in a large ziplock bag. Slip steaks into bag and marinate for 48 hours, flipping every 8 or 12 hours.

2. When ready to eat, preheat bbq grill.

3. Pat steaks dry, sprinkle with sea salt, pepper, and coriander seeds

4. Cook steaks to desired doneness, basting with remaining marinade.

5. Serve steak whole or sliced with soy sauce on side for dipping.