Simple and delicious

Lots of great meals start with a good stock. While it’s perfectly respectable to use the ready made stuff you buy from the super market (preferably organic), with a few minutes of prep on a weekend afternoon you can create your own fantastic stock.

There are very few rules to making stock so use your imagination and impart whatever flavors you like. For me I start with whatever root veggies I have on hand, some fresh herbs, and of course some free range organic chicken from the butcher. The carcass/bones of a whole chicken is ideal (and cheap!) but a few legs will work just fine.

Get yourself a big pot. The one in the picture above is 8 quarts and typically yields approximately 4 liters of stock.

• 2 chicken legs, or the bones from a whole chicken
• 1 sweet potato
• carrots
• celery
• 1 red onion
• few sprigs of fresh rosemary
• few sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2-3 dried bay leaves
• 1 tsp whole pepper corns

Put all the ingredients into the pot and fill with cold tap water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to the lowest possible simmer and cook for at least 3 hours.

Stock will keep in the fridge for a few weeks or several months in the freezer. Hint: freeze the stock in ice cube trays and then store in a big zip lock bag for convenient access later on.

Hot and sour and so tasty.

When I lived in the north end of Toronto, I used to frequent a restaurant called Peking Man for lunch. They served the best Hot and Sour soup. Since moving south, I’ve been searching for an equal alternative with very little success.

The missus gave me a Thai cook book for my birthday “Thai Cooking: The Food and the Lifestyle” (ISBN 978-1-4075-4923-1)  and the Hot and Sour soup recipe had the right flavor but lacked the right texture.  Then I picked up another book “Thai & Asian” from a Costco in Vegas which introduced some great elements but lacked the right taste.

What follows is an amalgamation of the two recipes. It’s awesome.

• 6 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 4-6 fresh green chili’s, seeded and finely chopped
• 6 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 4 ounce pork fillet, cut into fine strips
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp corn starch
• 6 cups good quality stock (I use chicken, but any will do)
• 2 lemon grass stalks, cut in half
• 4 ounces canned water chestnuts
• 6 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of brown sugar
• juice of 1 lime
• 5 ounces fresh firm tofu
• 1 tbsp oil (any will do)

Preparation

The first few times I attempted this dish I used a semi-thick aluminum wok (medium sized). Then I picked up a large mild steel thin wok and the dish seemed to suddenly turn out much better. Keep that in mind.

1. Place the dried mushrooms in a large bowl. Boil some water (or use a kettle) and pour over the mushrooms just to cover. Hint: use something to weight down the mushrooms while they soak. Soak until the mushrooms are fully hydrated, about 1 hour.
2. Combine the chili’s and vinegar and soak.
3. Drain the mushrooms (keep the water) and slice thinly.
4. Dust the strips of pork with some of the corn starch.
5. Mix the remainder of the corn starch with 2/3 cup of the water used to soak the mushrooms.
6. Heat the oil in the wok and fry the onion until soft over medium heat.
7. Increase the heat and fry the pork until it changes colour.
8. Add the stock, mushrooms, lemon grass, water chestnuts, soy sauce, lime juice, and sugar.
9. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes.
10. Add the chili and vinegar mixture.
11. Stir in the corn flour mixture to thicken.
12. Add the tofu and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Steaming butter chicken on a bed of basmati rice

Butter chicken has to be my absolute favorite Indian dish in the restaurant. It took several recipe attempts, but I think I have found one that has to be as good as the restaurant and maybe even better!

• 1 ½ lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• salt
• 1/2 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1″ piece of fresh ginger
• 2 tsp tandoori masala
• 1 ½ tbsp butter
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 4 cardamom pods (green)
• 1″ piece of cinnamon stick
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 large tomatoes, pureed
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2-3 green chili’s, finely chopped
• 1 cup heavy cream (whipping cream)

Preparation

Whenever a recipe calls for tomatoes and sugar, the sugar is usually intended to counter the acidity of the tomatoes. The amount of sugar needed is often relative to the awesomeness of your tomatoes. If you plucked the tomatoes from the vine in the middle of summer, you might not even need any sugar. If you buy tomatoes from the grocers in the middle of winter, you might need a lot more sugar. What it comes down to is taste. Add the base sugar amount and taste. Then adjust accordingly.

1. Smash the ginger and garlic into a paste using a mortar and pestle.
2. Wash the chicken pieces well and cut into bite size pieces.
3. In a mixing bowl combine the lemon juice, 2 tsp of the ginger and garlic paste, tandoori masala, red chili powder, pinch of salt and yogurt.
4. Add the chicken pieces, cover and marinade in the fridge for at least 2 hours (ideally over night).
5. Place the chicken pieces on a baking sheet and cook under the broiler (top rack) for 5-7 minutes per side.  Time may vary depending on broiler intensity, distance to rack, and size of chicken pieces.
6. In a medium size sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat (careful not to burn the butter).
7. Add the cardmom, bay leaf, and cinnamon.  Fry for about a minute.
8. Add 2 tsp of the garlic and ginger paste and fry for about 30 seconds.
9. Add the tomatoes and green chili’s and mix well.  Bring the mixture to a boil then simmer on low for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes have reduced almost to the desired consistency.
10. Add the sugar and mix well.
11. Add the chicken pieces and cream.  Mix and bring to boil.
12. If the consistency is good, take it off the heat and serve. Otherwise, reduce until the desired consistency is reached.

Full of so much awesome it makes you want to cry a little.

Normally I like to keep my posts short and sweet with just the bare essentials for preparing the dish.  Timpano is different.  It deserves (requires) much more attention.  Read on for all the nitty gritty details, plenty of pictures, and some tips based on what we learned preparing this feast.

The Pan

The pan is important.  The real deal is a 6 quart 14″ basin pan with an enamel coating.  I reckon the enamel coating is the key ingredient as it would retain heat much better than a bare stainless steel bowl.  The problem is enamelware isn’t exactly in high demand these days and therefore it’s hard to find.  I left it to the last minute so we used a plain stainless steel bowl with the same capacity.  The result was OK but not great.  I would recommend ordering the enamelware one from Kolorful Kitchen.

Ingredients

When preparing any dish, the end product is only as good as the ingredients that went into it.

“timpano is a pasta with a special crust and is shaped like a drum; a timpani drum and inside is the most important things in the world.”

Make sure when you source your ingredients you get the best you can.  I went to my favourite butcher who also carries a variety of excellent cheese, canned tomatoes, and dried pasta for most of these ingredients.

Dough

• 4 cups flour
• 4 eggs (free range organic if possible)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup water

Filling

• 2 cups sharp provolone cheese, cut into ¼” x ½” cubes
• 2 cups Genoa salami, cut into ¼” x ½” cubes
• 12 hard boiled eggs, quartered then cut the quarters in half
• 2 cups meatballs, approx ½” – ¾” diameter
• 8 cups meat based tomato sauce
• 3 lbs ziti pasta, cooked al dente (for dried pasta, get one with pure durum semolina flour)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 4 eggs, beaten

Preparation

First, and most importantly, obtain the Big Night sound track and listen to it while you cook.

To make the dough for the crust a stand mixer with a dough hook is ideal.  If you have to make it by hand, be prepared for a workout since pasta dough is rather tough.

You will need a very large surface for rolling out the dough.  My table is 30″ x 30″ and was actually a little bit too small.

1. Place the flour, eggs, salt, and olive oil into your mixer.
2. Pour in 3 tbsp of the water and start mixing.
3. Add water 1 tbsp at a time until the mixture comes together and forms a ball.
4. Pull the dough out onto a floured surface and knead to make sure the dough is mixed well.
5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 5 minutes.

The dough half finished. When rolled to the proper thickness, the edges hung off the table.

While rolling the dough, periodically dust the surface with flour and flip. Continue until the dough is roughly 1/16″ thick.

Grease the pan with butter and oil.  Fold the dough in half and in half again to form a triangle.  Place the dough into the pan, open the triangle, and gently press the dough into the bottom and sides.  Let the excess dough drape over the sides.

The dough in the pan, ready for some filling.

Have all of the filling at room temperature.  First, mix together the pasta with the olive oil and 2 cups of meat sauce.  Distribute 6 cups of the pasta mixture on the bottom of the timpano.

Lets just eat the ingredients now.

Lay down half of each; salami, provolone, hard boiled eggs, meat balls, and Romano cheese.

Tisk tisk tisk... blackened egg yokes.

Our timpano had a tendency to fall apart when it came time to serve.  Spending some time really packing in the filling might have helped at this stage.  I would also recommend pouring some of the beaten eggs over the ingredients to help them stick together (you might need a few extra eggs for that).

Pour on 2 cups of the meat sauce, followed by another 6 cups of the pasta mixture. Top that with the remainder of the salami, provolone, hard boiled eggs, meat balls, and Romano cheese.

Finally, top everything off with the rest of the pasta and meat sauce.

Almost done!

Drizzle the beaten eggs on top and fold in the sides.  Trim away and discard as much of the overlapping layers as possible, and pinch the seams to seal. A little overlap is fine, but try to avoid thick sections of crust.  It doesn’t taste very nice in large amounts.

Trimming the excess and pinch the seams. A touch of water or beaten eggs will help the dough stick if necessary.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 350° F for about 1 hour, until lightly browned.  Then cover with foil and continue until the timpano is cooked through.

Apparently when it’s done the internal temperature will be 120° F, and it should take approximately 30 minutes. For us, after 30 minutes a few areas of the crust was still raw despite having the correct internal temperature. This was probably a result of not using the correct enamel coated pan.  In the end, it took an extra 30 minutes longer before the crust was fully cooked.

To get the timpano out of the pan, place a large cutting board (baking sheet would work too) over the bottom off the timpano and get someone to help you flip it over. Then simply lift of the pan. If it sticks, try gently twisting the pan and tapping it.

Let the  timpano rest for 20 minutes before cutting into it. Use a long sharp knife and cut a circular section in the middle, 3″ – 4″ in diameter.  This will help hold the timpano together as you slice it.

Enough food to feed a small village. Or a room full of hipsters.

That’s it! My apologies to fellow drunkards for taking 5′ish months to get around to finally posting pictures of the great timpano feast of 2009.

Blurry glamor shot #1.

Not-so-blurry glamor shot #2.

I made this for dinner last night.  Quite labour intensive, but delicious!

1.  First, put 5lbs of short ribs, 1 tablespoon of peppercorns, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 bay leaf, 10 smashed garlic cloves, and 1 of the quartered onions into a large pot.  Cover with water, and simmer for 2 hours. 

2.  Put 2 tomatoes and 1 quartered onion on a sheet pan, and drizzle with olive oil.  Chop the top off a head of garlic, wrap it in tinfoil, and toss it on the sheet pan.  Put it in the oven for 1 hour at 400 F. 

3.  Seed and de-stem 15 dried ancho chiles.  Tear the chiles into pieces.  Wear gloves.  Seriously. 

4.  Once the tomatoes, onion and garlic done, toss the tomatoes, onion and garlic in the blender (squeeze the head of garlic, and all the goop will come out).  Puree.  You may need to add a splash of water to make it come together.  Also, don’t bother to clean the blender after this step.  You’ll use it again for the same sauce.   

5.  When the meat is done, remove it from the pot and put aside.  Strain the cooking liquid and discard the rest of the stuff from the pot. 

6.  Add 3 cups of the cooking liquid to the chiles and let sit for 15 minutes. 

7.  Put the mixture in the blender and puree.  

8.  Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot on medium heat.  Add the chile puree and stir until heated through.  Add the tomato puree and 3 cups of the cooking liquid.  Bring to a simmer, then put the meat back to the pot.  Simmer on low-medium heat for 2 hours or until the meat is very tender.

9.  Add one 110 gram bar of Mexican chocolate, finely chopped, to the sauce at the very end.  Stir until melted.  Voila! 

I served it with sweet potato mash.  No recipe.  Just boil chopped sweet potato until soft, mash, add butter, salt, pepper and milk to taste. 

Chile Rellenos

Tyler Florence makes it look so easy.  It was not. 

1.  Broil 6 poblano peppers in the oven (or roast over an open flame) until blistered. 

2.  Put peppers in a bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap for a couple of minutes.  Rub the skins off very gently. 

3.  Make one long slit down the length of the peppers.  Open up the peppers very carefully to de-seed and remove the ribs.  This is really hard, so do it slowly.  I even made extra peppers because I assumed that I would mess this up. 

4.  Fill the peppers with crumbled queso fresco.  Stick a toothpick through the peppers to close the seam. 

5.  Dredge the peppers in flour. 

6.  Beat 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form, then dip the peppers into the mixture. 

7.  Heat a pan with 1/4 inch of oil at the bottom on medium/high heat (depending on your stove – mine is really hot).  Fry the peppers until golden, then put on paper towels. 

8.  Put the peppers in a 350 F oven for 10 minutes to heat the cheese through. 

Voila! 

Mouth watering spaghetti

A good meat based tomato sauce is the staple of dozens of recipes.  Until recently, I made my sauce from a mixture of crushed tomatoes and canned spaghetti sauce until I was introduced to this recipe.  It’s relatively simple and the end product is awesomely tasty.

Yields ~8 cups.

• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
• 1 cup fresh basil, diced
• 1 cup red wine
• 2x 28 oz can of whole tomatoes
• 2-3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes, or chili powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 lb ground beef

Tomatoes

I suppose if you want to consider this a truly “from scratch” recipe, then you should start with some good fresh tomatoes.  Blanch them in boiling water until the skins are loose and wrinkled.  Throw them into cold water to cool.  Remove the skins and dice.  I have yet to try this so your millage may vary.

If you use canned tomatoes, splurge and buy the good stuff!  Trust me, it makes all the difference in the world.  The tomatoes I use I get from a local butcher, imported from Italy; “Solania – San Marzano” tomatoes.  At $4 CAD per can, they aren’t cheap but well worth it.

The amount of sugar needed is relative to the acidity of your tomatoes.  Better quality tomatoes will require less sugar.  I like to start with 2 tbsp of sugar mixed with the spices and add more later if needed.

Preparation

1. Crush fennel seeds, chili, and oregano into a powder in a mortal and pestle.  Then add the sugar and grind until combined (spices courtesy of another drunkard).
2. In a large pot sauté onions in the olive oil over low heat, covered, for 10-12 minutes.
3. Add garlic and basil and re-cover for ~5 minutes.
4. Add the wine and reduce by about half (uncovered).
5. Add tomatoes, spices, and a teaspoon or two of salt.
6. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a boil.
7. Turn down the heat to a low simmer.  Periodically check the flavour.  If it’s too sour, add more sugar.
8. Continue cooking until the desired consistency is reached.  The further you reduce the sauce, the more intensified the flavours become.

Just before the sauce is ready, fry the ground beef and add it to the sauce.  I like to finely chop one shallot and 1-2 cloves of garlic and throw them into the frying pan before adding the beef.  Give the beef a good mashing with side of a wooden spoon while frying to ensure there are no large chunks sticking together.

Tip: You know all that liquid you usually dump down the drain after frying beef?  Well, if you buy good quality meet don’t drain it!  Dump the whole lot into the sauce… that’s tasty stuff in there.  Just don’t tell anyone you did that.

Homemade Smoked Turkey Broth

1 Turkey carcass, cut up in chunks

1 Onion, skin left on, quartered

2 Carrots and 2 ribs of Celery, cut up in chunks

Pour a little olive oil in a big pot (or two, if you, like me, don’t have a stock pot), and sweat the veggies for a couple of minutes.  Add the turkey pieces, and brown a little.  Toss in a splash of white wine, and let it evaporate.  Then cover with water and simmer until your whole house and wardrobe smells like soup. 

Risotto

Method

Sweat the onion in the oil until golden, using a heavy-bottom pot, add the squash and cook for a minute, add the rice and let toast a few minutes, then add the wine, let evaporate well and add enough stock to cover the rice by an inch.

Simmer gently, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.  Add more stock as needed.  I didn’t use the full 8 cups. 

When the rice is cooked, turn the fire off and add some butter and the truffle paste.

For the fonduta

In a saucepan at medium heat melt the butter and then add the flour, stirring well to eliminate lumps. Add the milk and continue heating until it reaches the boiling point. Remove from heat and add the cheese. Whip it well to melt the cheese. Keep warm and do not overheat.

Place a scoop of fonduta on the bottom of a flat plate and spread to the edge of the bowl. Place the risotto in the middle on top and voila!  You’re big pimpin’.

roasted pepper soup w/ an orange nose

• 6 peppers, varied colours
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 cooking onion, quartered
• 1 head of garlic
• extra virgin olive oil, blood orange
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• salt & pepper to taste

SOUP:

1> Preheat the oven to  400’F.

2> In a bowl, cover one head of garlic cloves (broken apart but not peeled) in oil. Toss and let sit while preparing the peppers.  Core, seed and roughly quarter peppers. Spread them out on a baking sheet, along with the onion. Scatter the garlic cloves on the sheet. In the bowl formerly used for the garlic, toss the tomatoes with a drizzle of oil and salt to taste.  Scatter the tomatoes on the sheet pan. Roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

3> Remove from the oven, and pick out the garlic cloves. Squeeze garlic from the paper casing into a heavy bottom soup pot. Transfer the roasted veggies into the pot, ad the chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Add the water, and leave simmering for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4> Remove from heat. Using a hand blender on low, puree the entire soup. Increase blender speed while moving in a circular pattern through the soup to achieve desired consistency.

Enjoy!