Live Frog Sashimi

Found this interesting delicacy on the internet.  Probably tastes like chicken.

Teaser: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day

This is more of a teaser post than an actual writeup.  I just finished making a loaf of bread and I can't believe how easy it is!  I recently bought the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois after seeing it recommended on some food blogs.  They took the traditional steps of bread making and turn it on it's head - simplifying the whole process.  So I gave their method a try today and here are the results!

Here's a look of the crumb.  It's a 30% whole wheat loaf:

The crust was really crackly and crusty (I used the dutch oven method of introducing steam).  And the texture of the bread itself was amazing.

The book contains a lot of recipes for different variants of bread.  But if you're just interested in the technique, they posted their 'master recipe' on youtube.  You can watch it and try it out to see how easy it is!

I will follow up this post with a step by step guide.  I'm just so excited about this discovery I had to post a teaser.

Boeuf Bourguignon

One of my friends recently gave birth to a new baby and I wanted to help them out by cooking a meal for them.  I thought Boeuf Bourguignon would be a great choice as the mother have been craving red wine during her pregnancy and I thought the beef would be great with giving her iron.

Boeuf Bourguignon is a classic french beef stew where the meat is stewed in Burgundy wine.  Instead of using Burgundy a good substitute is a nice Pinot Noir as they're made from the same grape.  Burgundy wine is just a Pinot where the grapes are grown and bottling is done at the Burgundy region of France.

For the meat I used beef shank.  This is my first time using beef shank but it was recommended by the butcher at whole foods when I asked for a cut with a lot of collegen.  Meat with collegen are very fibrous and tough but when you slow cook them at low heat the collegen melts into gelatin which transforms the meat into something really tender.  If you ever had Osso Bucco, it's made with veal or lamb shank.

This is most of the ingredients.  Not pictured here is that I ended up adding 1 more cut of beef shank, some tomato paste, some garlic cloves, and demi glace.

First remove the beef off the bone and cut up into chunks.

Then I cut up the bacon into little strips which the french calls 'Lardon'.  I threw it into my dutch oven and cooked on low heat to render out the fat.  After most of the fat has been rendered out and the bacon is crisp, I took it out of the dutch oven and put it aside.

I seasoned the meat with pepper and then seared the beef in the bacon fat in batches.  I didn't use salt as I thought there should be a lot in the bacon fat.  Make sure you don't dump the whole pile in or you won't get the searing benefits.

After the meat is seared you can saute the mirepoix.  Mirepoix is a combination of onion, carrots, and celery.   I then added some tomato paste (maybe a tablespoon or so) and cooked it out on the bottom of the dutch oven.  I then added a few tablespoons of flour and formed a roux with the remaining fat left in the pan.

I added a little bit of the pinot here and then deglazed the bottom of the dutch oven with it.   Deglazing is where you use liquid to dissolve the fond that was created by searing the beef and browning the bacon.  There is a lot of flavour in that fond and you're working that flavour into your sauce by dissolving it.

I then added the beef and bacon back into the dutch oven.  I also added a bouquet garni by tying together thyme leaves and parsley stems.  Also in the pot is a few garlic cloves, the shank bones, and a few bay leaves.

Finally I added enough of the wine to cover the meat as well as a several cubes of demi glace.  Demi glace is veal stock that has been reduced by 3/4 so it's fairly concentrated.  I happen to have made some previously and I store them in my freezer after forming them into little ice cubes.

Crank the heat and bring to a simmer.  Then put the whole thing into a 275 F oven.  Let it braise for 3 hours.  When there's 1/2 hour left I sautéed the mushrooms in garlic butter and added it in.  If you like pearl onions you can also sautée a batch of pearl onions in butter and added it in at the same time as the mushrooms.  1 tip here is while the stew is braising you can also put potatoes in the oven for a mash potato accompaniment.

Here's the finished product!  Actually this is an old photo from a previous time I made this dish.  For this batch I packed it all up and sent it to my friend.  I did taste the meat before I packed it though and the beef shank just melted in your mouth after 3 hours of braising!  If you're not a fan of wine it's ok.  After cooking for 3 hours any sharp wine taste gets mellowed out a lot and you're left with a very rich sauce.












For the authentic version you can always consult Julia Child's version on youtube.  In her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", she describes the dish 'sauté de boeuf à la Bourguignonne' as "certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man".

Home Made Pizza

Aiya I know I know, it's been a month and a half since my last blog entry.  However I'm finding that food blogging is like new year's resolutions.  If you fall off the wagon, don't give up.  Just find a way to get that next blog entry in and move on from there.

I want to get more into bread making.  I tried to make my own multigrain loaf before and it was a diaster.  I thought trying pizza dough would be an easier way to break into making bread.  Heheh get it?  Break bread.

Ingredients
1 package of active yeast
1 cup of warm water
1 teaspoon of honey
3 cups of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt

First thing you do is combine the yeast, the warm water, and the honey.  Let it stand and it will start to bloom.

What does it mean for it to bloom?  The yeast will feed off the honey and stimulated by the warm water will activate.  You can see bursts of cloudy gas pop up for about 10 min.  It's actually quite interesting to look at!

Dump in a cup of flour, the olive oil, and the salt.  Start mixing and then add a 2nd cup of flour until it starts pulling away from the side of the bowl.  Then dump out on a floured countertop.

Here you can see the dough sitting in the third cup of flour on it.  Basically you just grab portions of the dough, fold it over and using your palm of your hand press it down.  Rotate the dough a bit and keep going until the dough feels smooth and elastic.

Form the dough into a little ball and then place in a greased bowl.  Cover with a damp dish towel and place in a warm place for 40 min.  I turned on the warm setting on my oven and then turned it off just prior putting the bowl in it.

Boom 3 times it's size.  Pretty amazing isn't it?

Dump the dough back onto a floured countertop and flatten it down a bit.  For little individual sized portions, divide the dough into 4 parts.  Then roll them each into little balls.  Put it back into the warm area.  Here it is after the dough balls rose again.

Take one of the little pizzas and press it and stretch it down to form the pizza dough base.

For my first pizza I tried to make the classic italian Margherita.  It's a very simple: sauce, buffalo mozzarella and basil.  Put it on a cornmeal dusted sheet pan.

Bake in a preheated oven at 450 F for 10 min.

For my second pizza I tried to make it into a stromboli sandwich.  The sandwich is basically a pizza folded in half.
















Yum!  Ooey Gooey goodness!















Here's the website where I got the dough recipe from: http://foodwishes.blogspot.ca/2009/07/wolfgang-pucks-famous-california-pizza.html

Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival

I think I've been beginning all my posts recently with an apology on the lack of food posts.  Sorry again!  I'm currently working on a post on Rover's restaurant in Seattle as well as a post on Duck Confit so you can expect that coming up soon!

In the meantime I heard about an interesting foodie event going on in Vancouver and just wanted to share!

http://www.cityfood.com/events/hotchocolate/

China Airlines Business Class: YVR -> TPE

A little over a month ago I flew from Vancouver to Taipei on my birthday.  I took off 12am on the morning of my birthday and landed 5am the day after.  Because I spent the entire birthday in the air I decided to splurge a bit and treated myself to business class.  

With my business class ticket I got access to the Plaza Premium Lounge at YVR.  A bunch of airlines share it and it was actually quite busy even at 11pm at night.  So what do you get at this private lounge?

Instant Noodles!

Coffee!

Booze!

A stocked fridge with more booze, yogurt, and vegetable sticks

There is also hot food.  For example there are buns.

Spring Rolls

Fried Noodles

Congee

In the lounge there is also a private room where you can take a nap.  An attendant will come in and wake you when it's time to board your flight.

What's business class like on the plane?  One thing is that the flight attendants address you by name.  They also quickly learned that I preferred to communicate in English and made sure that they always spoke to me in my language of choice.  Since you board first they start attending to you immediately by offering a beverage while you wait for the entire plane to board.

The chairs in economy are so cramped and don't have a lot of room to lean back.  On the way back I took economy and I was seated next to this big burly guy that was not gracious with sharing the middle arm rest with me.  The chairs in business are a lot different.  Look at all the buttons that you have to adjust your chair!  The backs can lean all the way back and the legs can come all the way up so that you are lying completely flat.  And there's also no sharing a middle arm rest!

The entertainment system is the same as what the economy seats get.  You get access to a PVR like system where you can get view a lot of different movie and television programs in both english and chinese.

The display unit though is larger than what you get in economy.  It folds out of the arm rest.

Here are the meals that you get.  You get a meal soon after takeoff, and another meal 2 hours prior to landing.  For the first meal I got an Ahi tuna and duck pâté starter.  Fried halibut in oyster sauce as the main.  You also get real china, linen and utensils.  The wine they serve is also quite good.

Fruit, cheese, and dessert platter.

Breakfast!  The omelette is surprisingly good for something that must have been cooked in a microwave.  Too bad they couldn't get the bacon really crispy.

Here are the menus that you get.  At the start of the flight you make your selection for both meals.

You also get a small little kit with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a sleep mask, and slippers.  You can take home the kit after the flight.  Also any baggage you check in are specially marked and will be offloaded first at the destination.

Overal I fairly enjoyed the business class perks!  Is it worth the extra cost?  It's really hard to say.  Business class tickets can be 2x - 3x more than economy class tickets.  I have a hard time saying that the experience I had was 2x -3x better than what you get at economy class.  However when I returned to vancouver sitting in economy I struggled the entire flight (as I was seated next to a big burly guy) and couldn't wait for the flight to be over.  I had no such thoughts on my flight to Taipei.

L'Abattoir Restaurant

Hi Guys!  It's been a long time since my last food blog post.  I was actually out of town for the past month, experiencing the exotic cuisine of Australia and Taiwan.  But I'm back now and ready to share my food adventures with you guys again!

A good friend of mine had his birthday last week and it's always been tradition that we'll go out to a fine dining restaurant for his birthday.  This year we tried "L'Abattoir" in Gas Town.  

Slow roasted Pork Belly with poached egg.  I love pork belly (it's the same cut of meat where bacon is from).  This is a fairly rich dish but the chef wisely used a brighter vinegar based sauce to help cut through the richness.  

Crispy steelhead trout salad.  This was a great starter.  The trout was served raw and had the texture and fattiness of salmon.  The plate was really well put together.  Crispy fondant potatoes adds a crunchy element and smokey soft/medium boiled egg really adds to the dish.  Arugula and dill completes the dish.  By the way my friend is a professional photographer so you can see how well he uses an iphone camera compared to my own pics!

Lamb 3 ways.  On the left there was a portion of the lamb the server called the 'Cap'.  The middle is 2 pieces of tenderloin.  The right is a sausage made from lamb meat.  Accompanying the dish is a celery root pure, some sort of slaw made out of celery root, and pickled red onions.  The sauce was some sort of red wine reduction.  I enjoyed this dish tremendously.  The gaminess of the lamb did come out but it was balanced by the tartness of the pickled sides.  Each lamb portion was super moist and tender and seasoned and flavoured excellently.

Poached pear and peaches in vanilla syrup.  Accompanying it is a quenelle of cream cheese mousse.  The cream cheese mousse was surprisingly light tasting which was unexpected as cream cheese can feel heavy.  The cake that the fruit was sitting on had an interesting cardamon spicy flavour.  I've never seen micro greens added to a dessert before but in this case it added a citrusy lemon element that was very interesting.















Overall I have to say that I'm very impressed with the chef at L'Abattoir.  Each plate was very complex and was composed of many parts that balanced each other out.   For each rich or gamey element of a dish, there was a corresponding bright or tart element that contrasted it.  Being a foodie I really enjoyed trying to piece together the chef's thought process on how he put together each plate.


Here are some more glamour shots that my friend took of the evening!