Delicious & Nutritious

Bread Pudding

2013-01-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

So nice. Saturday morning, leftover bread, transformed into delicious rich breakfast, called by some "not necessary". I dis-agree.

You want some nice chewy day old white bread. Baguette works well or an artisan style sourdough.

Chop the bread into cubes and dry it out in a low oven.

Basically you are soaking the bread in a custard mix and baking it. The drier the bread is the more custard mix it will soak up.

Use 100ml of milk or cream for each egg. Whisk together in a bowl.

One baguette, 5 eggs, 500ml cream serves two, or one.

Flavour with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg.

Fold in anything you like, grated apple, pear, banana, peaches, plums, nectarines, raisins, nuts and chocolated all work wonders.

Sprinkle the top with a coarse unrefined sugar and orange zest.

Bake in a water bath at 325F for about 45 minutes, it is done when the custard is just set in the center.

Babylicious

2013-01-25T11:57:00.000-08:00

Baby food is a crazy market saturated with way over-priced or poor quality products I would not feed to my dog, let alone my child. Organic foods are important for adults but essential for babies. I believe it is completely unnecessary to expose a new biological system to the vast cocktail of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and genetically altered foods most of us ingest regularly.
And real baby food is super simple to make!
You will want a blender on a stick and a ricer (a hand food press, with all the little holes) is handy.

Foods to choose. At first you need foods that are easy on the digestive system and also puree well.
Brown rice is easily digested; simply cook in a rice cooker, (don't have one? Go get one. They are cheap and no other technique can compete with its ease or consistency) and puree with water. Use a glass jar with a mouth wide enough for your stick blender. Mix this with puree vegetable and wow! You made baby food!

Some good vegetables to start with are steamed (better than boiling because it leaves more nutrients) carrots or peas. Set up your steamer and cook carrots just until tender all the way through, don't leave them there to die for an hour. Frozen peas take two minutes. Slow roasted yams, squashes and sweet potato are great. Roast in skins in 300F oven for about 2 hours or until super soft all the way through. Cut squash in half, remove seeds and bake cut side down with a cup of water in the pan to prevent burning. Use a baking sheet for yams and sweet potato so they don't leak sugars all over your oven. Roasting at the low temperature of 300F give the starches enough time to caramelize, becoming deliciously sweet before the outside burns.
Taro root is one of the most easily digested starches but very tricky to find organic.

Peel and core some apples. Put them in a pot with juice of an orange or splash of water. Put a lid on the pot. Put the pot on the stove and turn it to low. Come back in an hour. Apple sauce.

Nightshades are a large group of plants containing, among many others, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. These are all relatively new additions to our diet and were considered poisonous for many years. They are rich in alkaloids, especially when green, that can be harmful to the body. In the '70s pregnant women were urged to wear gloves when peeling potatoes out of concern for the high levels of solanine, a steroid alkaloid with paralytic effects, found in green potato skin! This is no longer such a concern but it is recommended to avoid nightshades for at least a year, if not much longer, especially in larger portions. If your kid does not want to eat tomatoes and eggplant that is fine! They could be one of the many people who cannot properly process nightshades!
Other nightshades include tobacco, mandrake and balladonna, also known as deadly nightshade

Cruciferous vegetables can cause bloating and should be moderated. These include cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale, kohlrabi and turnip. As a portion of the meal they are fine, but even some breast feeding mothers need to avoid these. Test and see, some are more sensitive than others.

Smoothies are great too but don't use juice unless you made it yourself. Most juice has loads of sugar added to it, even ones that say no added sugar. What they do is reduce the juice to a super sweet powder, basically fructose, and add that. Not what your baby needs if they plan on napping.
Try banana, blueberry, pear, a touch of kale and coconut water. Delicious.

Roasting

2012-01-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

Roasting means putting something in a fairly hot oven (400F - 500F). It is quite easy, but also because your food is hiding in the oven it is the most common place for burning.. What you need to balance is the time and temperature with the size of your food. If the outside of your food is colouring too much before it is cooked through, you need to lower the temperature.
ALWAYS HEAT UP THE OVEN BEFORE STICKING ANYTHING IN IT
Roasting is a great way to cook larger cuts of meat, carrot, parsnip, potato, yams, eggplant, capsicum, mushroom, pumpkin, all sorts of things.
The easiest way is to wash your vegetables, peel if you like, cut them up not too big not too small. What you want is to have the outside of your product golden and crispy while the inside is soft. Coat your food with oil and salt maybe add a little herb or spice and spread evenly ONE LAYER THICK in a large roasting pan. Don't have your product stacked up on each other or your final result will look like mash and won't have a delicious crispy exterior.
Using parchment (baking) paper is nice for whoever has to wash the pan after..

ROAST POTATOES

Potatoes, olive oil, salt pepper toss.
Spread evenly, roast. Turn once 3/4 through cooking. Done.

ROAST CHICKEN WITH ROOT VEGETABLES

Cut all vegetables large. Add broccoli final 8 min if desired. Season chicken liberally with salt pepper and fresh herbs. Roast until done. To check if a chicken is done shake his leg. He should feel loose and relaxed in the joints. You can also stick a skewer (or knife) in the thickest part of the thigh, juices should run clear.

Quinoa Salad

2012-01-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

Quinoa (Keen-Wah) is a grain originating from South America. It has a very high protein content and no gluten. It is also very delicious.

Cook quinoa using absorption method, similar to rice. Always wash quinoa before cooking, you never know what your farmer has been doing before he used some grubby hands to harvest your delicious grain. Put about half a cup per person in a pot and run cold water over it. Fill the pot with running water, whisk, pour off any grains that won’t sink and repeat. Repeat. Pour off excess water, you want about equal parts quinoa and water, the water should be about a centimeter above the quinoa. (You can drain completely and measure if needed, but just do it a few times and you’ll get the feeling).

Bring to a boil and immediately cover tightly and reduce heat to as low as you can. Leave for about ten minutes and your grains should be cooked and all the water gone. The grains should looked cooked and not have a visible white center (not quite done). Do not add salt until cooking is finished, “salt inhibits the absorption of moisture.” Remember that, it goes for any grains you are trying to re-hydrate..

Remove from heat and flip into a large bowl.

Now for flavour. What you want is to pretty much saturate the grains with a vinaigrette, add some texture, season and enjoy. Any of these ingredients can be substituted with similar of your choice.

For texture add chopped tomatoes and cucumber and toasted nuts (add the nuts very last move so they do not become soggy).

For your vinaigrette peel as much garlic as you can (or get your wife to do it). Like lots and lots of garlic, put it in a pot and cover with extra virgin olive oil, turn to low and cook until garlic is soft golden sticky and delicious. Cool. We call this garlic confit (confit = cooked in fat (see it on a menu, order it, you love it, consciously or otherwise)). Remove the garlic pieces and add to you bowl, put them all in, you probably didn’t do enough.

Add the cooled garlic oil to a blender with a third as much lemon juice and a solid shot of maple syrup, agave nectar or honey and enough salt. Blend. Add a bunch of basil, parsley and tarragon. Bend. There’s your herb vinaigrette.

Pour the dressing into the bowl, use lots.

Add super finely chopped (no, that’s not fine enough, chop more) preserved lemon.

Gently fold using a wooden paddle is best. Adjust seasoning (with salt). Add your toasted nuts. Eat.

Vinaigrette, aka Salad Dressing

2011-03-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Don't ever buy salad dressing.

1 part vinegar : 3 parts oil Shake. Thats it.

Now you can get interesting. You can use any vinegar with any oil plus any flavouring you can think of, that's a lot of options.

Often add 1/2 part sweetener.

To make a nice thick dressing, add everything but the oil and then using a hand blender slowly drizzle in oil. You could even add an egg at the beginning, and have a mayonaisse based dressing, like caesar.

Add salt. Most people don't season their leaf enough if at all.

Squeeze two lemons into a mason jar. Add a spoon of honey and a spoon of mustard. Slowly add grapeseed oil while blending with hand blender. Keep adding oil slowly until dressing thickens. Add a chunk of chevre goats cheese and fresh picked thyme. Taste all the time, at the beginning with no oil it's very sour, when finished the flavour should be balanced and delicious.

Or think of something yourself..

Try adding herbs, spices, raw, dried or cooked fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds......

Confit

2011-03-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

Confit. If you see this on a menu, order it. Don't question it and don't be silly. Order. Confit means love.
Actually it means cooked in fat, preferably it's own, but that's not always possible. Food is usually cured with salt and or sugar and aromats before being submerged in fat and cooked very slowly until tender. What more do you want?
Because confit foods are covered with fat, they are not in contact with oxygen and are therefore preserved. This style of cooking was a necessity before refrigeration. Originally referring to fruits cooked and preserved in sugar, the French perfected the art with meats like duck and goose.
Making Duck confit is easy and amazingly delicious. You would be really cool if you actually tried this.

Liberally cover the skin of your duck legs (thighs attached) with cure. 2 part rock sea salt : 1 part sugar + aromats, (traditionally bay leaves, garlic, thyme, black pepper, juniper berries, I like a whack of herbs too and pulsing in the food processor before adding the salt and sugar) leave in fridge loosely covered 24- 48 hours. Wipe off cure and submerge duck in fat. ( If you can't find duck fat you can use oil, but you should really go find duck fat). Put in oven below 300F. Duck is done when thigh bone can be pulled out with ease, 3-5 hours ish. Cool. Back in the day they'd sort of just keep this downstairs for months but I suggest the fridge. When you want to eat it, which is pretty much always, when you're actually ready to eat, make a pan hot. Gently (always gently (hands of a lesbian, tender yet firm)) remove duck from fat, and place duck skin down in hot pan. Don't move it. (Hot means when the duck hit the pan it goes spttzzzzzzz instantly but not so hot your pan is about to melt and everything goes black). Put pan in 350F oven for 10 min or so. You want the skin all super crispy. That's when it's done.. Put a little salad on a plate, put the duck down, drizzle with a gastrique. Wow.

Oil

2011-03-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

All oils have a set temperatures at which they will begin to smoke, flash and burst into flame. When oil smokes the healthy molecules break down becomes carcinogenic. FYI

You need extra virgin olive oil. It's health benefits have been promoted for centuries and it is used for most western based cooking and dressings EXCEPT when you DON'T WANT TO TASTE OLIVES, or you need HIGH HEAT. Olive oil has a very low smoke point, so don't use it for searing.It is good for sauteing but is the healthiest unheated.

Grapeseed oil. This stuff is great. It has pretty much no flavour and a high smoke point, so it's great for searing. Use anytime you don't want to taste olives. Anything Asian and olives is almost always weird and not so pleasant. (So don't use olive oil to make Asian food).. Grapeseed oil makes wicked salad dressing because you only taste the other ingredients.

Sesame oil. There are two types, made from roasted or raw seeds. By far the most common is the roasted, usually used for flavour rather than cooking. Be careful, a little goes a long way.

Some nuts make great salad and baking oils like walnut and hazelnut, but what you need is nice extra virgin and grapeseed for pretty much all your cooking.

Polenta

2011-02-17T21:18:00.000-08:00

Polenta is quick, easy, cheap and ya, Delicious and Nutritious..
Polenta is cooked cornmeal. It's made delicious with butter and cheese. I love cheese.

Shop cornmeal, (optional( right)) cheese, (whatever you like, parmesan, piave, mascarpone, gorgonzola), butter and the preserved lemon in your fridge...

1 part cornmeal 4 parts water. Boil 1 litre of water with a teaspoon of salt. 'Make it rain polenta,' (250mls) gently shake it into the water while whisking, like so..

Once you have whisked in all the cornmeal switch to a wooden spoon and turn heat to low. Cook stirring often for about 20minutes. You can tell it is done by putting it in your mouth, the bits of cornmeal should not be hard and when stirred vigorously it pulls away from the sides of the pot (somewhat).. Add a whack of butter ( I like a lot of butter on my corn, 1/4 Cup is coool..) hand-fulls of cheese, finely chopped preserved lemon, juice from one lemon. Taste it, add more salt and lemon probably... Now you are at one of the natural cross-roads of life. You can either eat your polenta as it is or you can pour it into a BUTTERED dish of a size that your polenta will be an inch and a half or so thick, let it cool, cut it and fry until crispy in a medium hot pan with oil.
That's it.

Preserved Lemon

2011-02-17T18:24:00.000-08:00

Preserved Lemons are a staple of North African food. All you have to do is heavily salt lemons and leave it on your counter for a month. I like to use 1 part sugar to 2 parts salt. Classic aromatic flavourings are cinnamon, star anise, black pepper, bay leaf, chili. Leave spices whole.
Usually lemons are quartered lengthwise with the cuts not going through so the lemon is held together at the bottom. Cover each lemon with your cure (salt, sugar, spices) and pack into a jar. Agitate daily and the lemons will release juice that mixes with the cure to form the brine that not only keeps lemons edible for months in hot African sun, but makes them absolutely lemony delicious. You can use them anytime but they are really ready after a month or so, when they should be refrigerated. What you're really after on these little suckers is the yellow part of the skin. The white pith is really bitter. To use remove a lemon from the brine and give it a quick rinse. 'Filet' a quarter with a sharp knife so you have just yellow skin. This can be tricky. So here's a better way...

Wash lemons. Peel them with a vegetable peeler into a jar. Try to get just yellow, no white. Cut in half and juice lemons that now have no skins through a sieve into the jar. Add a Tablespoon of unrefined sugar and 2 Tablespoons of sea salt PER LEMON! (about). Add any aromats you like. Shake it. Leave it. For at least a week. Chop it up really small and mix into grain salads, put on vegetables, use with meats or to finish stews*...

*Citrus peel becomes very bitter when cooked too long, it's a finisher..

Happy Birthdaiye!!

2011-02-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

Here's the menu from a birthday I did for a friend. We started with started with four little bites and then had some snacks..

Asparagus, Proscuitto, Thyme Goat Cheese

Smoked Duck Breast, Cider Gel

Smoked Salmon, Pickled Beets, Lemon Dill Fraiche

Mushroom Crustini

Chicken Sticks, Peanut Sauce

Root Beer Beef, Polenta

Lamb Chop, Black Fennel

Garlic Prawns, Sweet Chili

Veggie Cakes, Rouille, Red Onion Jam

Scalloped Potatoes

Green Bean, Broccoli, Sesame, Onion

Farro

It was Nutritious and oh so Delicious.. I'll post some recipes, if you want more just ask!

Caesar?

2011-02-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

Mayonnaise is really easy to make. It is basically oil and an acid, (vinegar, lemon juice), which would normally separate when combined, held together by egg yolk. The trick is to add everything but the oil, blend on high with a hand blender on a stick and then slowly drizzle in the oil while blending.

AIOLI = MAYONNAISE WITH GARLIC IN IT. THAT'S IT.

SHOP LIST eggs, oil, vinegar or lemon juice, any flavourings you like, garlic, chili, herbs, pickles, spices, fruit, whatever...

Put three yolks in a mason jar. (Or something that's sorta tall and skinny that you can fit your hand blender into(that's not hand in blender please)). Add 75ml, 5Tablespoons, or a couple shots of vinegar, flavours (like garlic, anchovy, caper for Caesar dressing), blend. While blending drizzle in about 1Cup, 250mls oil. *be careful using too much olive oil, it can taste quite strong. I like half and half grapeseed and olive oil. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it. Finish with blending in herbs or mixing in chopped pickle or whatever. Use for anything you can think of ...

Vinegar

2011-02-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

Wow. This stuff is amazing. Wild sour fermentations. Delicious. And Nutritious. I eat a lot of vinegar. It's great straight and amazing when slowly reduced with some aromatics and sometimes sweetener. French food has gastrique sauces, Chinese have sweet and sour, Indians chutney. We have... ketchup. Do not misunderstand. I love ketchup. But kinda weak...

VINEGARS YOU SHOULD HAVE AT ALL TIMES...

Apple cider vinegar
White wine vinegar
Red wine vinegar
Rice vinegar
** 'white' vinegar is for cleaning, keep away from your mouth

...go for it

Try this. 2Cups apple cider vinegar, 1/2Cup honey, dried chili, fennel seed, mustard seeds, little cinnamon stick, 2 cloves. Bring to boil and reduce slowly 40ish minutes, strain and continue reducing slowly until thickened slightly. Add finely chopped peeled apple. Adjust sweetness. Spoon over pork, duck, chicken....

Pancakes, Crepes

2011-01-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

One of the things that got me into cooking.. I love crepes. They are quick and easy, sweet or savory and definitely Delicious and Nutritious.
Simple.
Crack 5 eggs into a large jug. Using a hand blender (blender on a stick, get one of these) blitz the eggs. Add 2 Cups of milk, blitz. Add 1 1/2 Cups flour, a pinch of salt, spices, (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cardamom, coriander) blitz. You might need a touch more flour. For thicker pancakes you need a thicker batter, for crepes a thinner batter works better. Crepes are better. Now comes the best part. Beurre Noisette. Browned Butter, awesome stuff. Put a whack of butter in a small pan, something between a couple Tablespoon and a 1/4 Cup. Medium heat. Cook until butter turns light brown, just a few minutes. Don't burn it. If it goes black don't use it, it's disgusting and unhealthy. Let the butter cool slightly and pour into batter while mixing with blender. Let the batter rest 10 minutes or more. This lets the flavours meld and helps the batter hold together a bit more when cooking..
Large pan hot. Small amount of frying oil, make it hot. Add a 1/2 Cup of batter to the pan. Either swirl the pan so the batter covers the bottom or use a pastry cutter to spread the batter. Cook for a minute or so, flip once.
Butter it and do your thing, maple, chocolate, jam, yogurt, whipped cream, ice cream, fruit, whatever...
Yes they are very good but you really should share...

Lamb Stew

2011-01-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

Stew is the best. It is a braised product. Read the Braising Guide. Braising is one of the best ways to cook; using tough cheaper cuts of meat, made deliciously sweet from thorough caramelization and then tenderized and infused with the cooks imagination with slow cooking.. Bloody delicious..

Make large cubes out of a lamb shoulder. One piece of meat per person size.. Make a cure by warming in a pan until fragrance is released a combination of fennel seeds, mustard seeds, chili, cumin seeds, anise seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, allspice. Take it easy on the last three. Otherwise up to you. Pulse in coffee grinder with 2 Tablespoons of rock sea salt and 2 Tablespoons of unrefined cane sugar. Rub the meat with the cure, be generous but not ridiculous.
Let the meat hang out in the fridge if you can and when ready to cook make a large pan nicely medium hot. Add oil to lightly cover the bottom and make it hot. Add the meat. Read the Braising Guide.

Add onions, garlic, ginger, caramelize. Add celery, carrots, tomatoes and stock. Boil, place in 350F oven. Cook 1 hour and add potato. Cook 1 more hour or until everything is tender. Serve over rice.

Braising

2011-01-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

This is one of the best ways to cook. If you serve people braised food they will love you. It is economical, personal, delicious and nutritious. Use cuts of meat that have many small muscles held together with connective tissue. Pieces like shoulder and shank, if just cooked briefly on the BBQ are amazingly tough. The way to tenderize them is to cook in liquid until soft, usually about 2 to 4 hours. This is not boiling in large amounts of water, but using just enough flavour-full liquid to barely cover and left in a low oven until perfect. If you boil something in water the water will taste like your something and your something will taste like water. This is a guideline to braising. Like a guide to say BBQing, the options to interchange ingredients are endless. It is never the same and always a miracle. Use the ingredients you like, add a little more or less here or there, trust yourself.

General Guidelines

Season your meat with salt (sometimes sugar) and spices if you like (more about spice later). If possible let meat hang out in your fridge for a while, up to a week if you can keep it on a rack with air circulation. Don't use too much salt if leaving for over 48 hours. When you are ready to cook make a large pan quite hot. Dry off the meat if necessary, use a kitchen towel (it's ok, you can wash it). Put oil in the pan to cover the bottom and let it get hot. Put your meat in the pan gently, not overlapping. Don't overcrowd the pan. Really. Don't do it. Cook in batches if necessary. Now do nothing. Let your meat become very crispy on the first side before touching it. Now turn and make the other side crispy. Do this to all sides. Use medium heat so the meat can caramelize without burning. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP!!!! Do not rush. You do not rush braising. Be a big person and wait.

Once your meat is really actually very crispy you can add everything else. This consists of aromatic ingredients to flavour and liquid to flavour and tenderize. Common aromatics include onions, garlic, ginger, celery, carrot, leeks, fennel tomato and most fruits, herbs and spices. These can be cooked for a while in the pan to deepen their flavour before adding liquid or not.
Add liquid. Use anything you have in the house in combination. Vinegars, beers, wines, spirits, stocks and juices. Balance the sweetness. If you use a bottle of vinegar it will be sour as ... but if you use a jug of apple juice to braise a pork shoulder you could use a cup or more of apple cider vinegar..
Bring the whole kit and kaboodle to a boil and then fire it into the oven at 325 F or so. Doesn't really matter. You can add potato, sweet potato, squash or yams, but generally they need half the time the meat does. This all depends how you cut them. Tiny little bits of potato cook in 15 minutes, while you can cook a whole potato for a couple hours. Cook until everything is tender, somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Keep tasting all throughout the cooking process. It is done when it's tender. If the meat is not tender it is not done. When it is done, eat it.
**Braised meat wants to cool in the liquid it was cooked in. The heat in the oven forces juices out of the meat, while it cools in the 'braissage' it sucks all that tasty liquid back in.
The very best thing to do is let it cool over night. Remove the congealed fat on the top. Warm the meat back up in the liquid, then reduce until it thickens slightly.

Meat

2011-01-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking there are two categories of meat. Tender cuts of meat, pieces like yes, you guessed it, the tenderloin and the rib eye, striploin, sirloin and a few others. These meats will be cooked to a determined internal temperature. If you take a piece of beef and make the entire thing 55 degrees celsius, it will be a rare piece of beef. If you increase the temperature to 60 degrees celsius it will be a medium rare piece of beef. Another 5 degrees and it will be medium and so on, 70 degrees is well done beef and much beyond that you are making charcoal. This is non-negotiable. These pieces of meat are expensive. They should have nice marbled fat, but very little connective tissue, which is usually removed prior to cooking. Don't over-cook them. A helpful way to do that is to use high heat at first, making the outside crispy delicious and then finishing the inside at more gentle temperatures.

Now we can talk about tough cuts of meat. The world is confused. These pieces have more flavour, are more tender when finished and are cheaper. They just require a little technique to prepare. Easy. Use pieces of meat with a lot of small muscles held together with connective tissue. Pieces like shoulder and shank. If one were to cook such a piece to a particular temperature like 60 degrees celsius it would certainly be medium rare but as tough as Chuck Norris. These meats need to be braised. Some people like to boil them do not ever do that. If you boil meat either stop now or stop reading. Braising is an amazing way to cook. You should try it. These meats are always well done and tender.

What does that mean???

2011-01-22T19:08:00.000-08:00

This is for anyone who gets confused reading recipes. I'm sure you will still get confused reading recipes, but this could help.. This will will be an ongoing post.

Aioli = mayonnaise with garlic. Old school no egg.

Bake = turn your oven on between 200F and 400F. Put something in it. Now you are baking.

Broil = only the top burner of the oven is on, things burn very quickly here. Good for tuna melt and such.

Boil = drop it into a pot of boiling water. ya. Very few things get boiled. The violent water activity makes food look like you chewed it for people.

Braising = cooking food, usually meat which has been seared, in just enough liquid to barely cover in the oven. The slower the better. One of the best ways to cook. Thorough searing is the key.

Caramelize = cook food until it turns golden brown. Only occurs during the absence of water. A boiled potato will never turn golden crispy...

Dice = cut it into squares, small medium and large sizes

Simmer = the sexy option to boiling. Temperature is just few degrees below boiling but the water doesn't destroy your food.

Saute = fry pan, stove top. Medium high heat. Food should 'jump' when it hits the pan.

Sweat = cook food without any browning

Sear = fry pan, high heat. Usually used to develop flavour by crisping food and then followed by another cooking technique.

TBC...

Salmon

2011-01-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

Salmon is the s*^t. Awesome. This will be one of many.

I like to use skinned salmon filet for this recipe, ask your monger to pin bone it< We use large flathead tweezers. Don't serve people fish bones, you might kill them.
Into a pot add 1/4 Cup of each- maple syrup, mirin* and fish sauce, one of the most amazing ingredients ever.. anyone ever heard of garum?? so tight
Add a splash of soy sauce and put in whole peeled crushed garlic, ginger and chili
Bring to the boil and simmer for 15min. This will release more flavours eliminate the ethanol (alcohol). Everyone knows what pure ethanol, rubbing alcohol, smells like, yes?

WHEN COOKING WITH ALCOHOL, BURN OFF THE ALCOHOL. IT DOESN'T TASTE VERY NICE>>

when the concentration of alcohol is high enough it will burn, but only about 60% will burn off, simmerling gently for about 20 minutes will do the trick though. Alcohol boils at 78 degrees Celsius. If you gently simmer you will be able to remove the alcohol without reducing your, in this case, marinade too much.

Cool the marinade. If you put it in a hot marinade it will cook ya? Cover salmon in marinade. It will absorb enough flavour within a few hours, but can be kept for up to three days. (In the fridge please)

Bake briefly in oven, about its done when its warm, there's only two people out there who like dry fish; old people and...

Most seafood really doesn't like very high heat, it overcooks very quickly so what I like to keep in mind is that once it is warm, it is done. That's it. Really.

I like to eat it with garlic and chili fried broccoli and wild rice salad.

Mirin is a sweetened Japanese rice wine used for cooking. It is delicious and is used to season many nutritious things like sushi rice and terryaki sauce.

Snapper

2011-01-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

This is a quick and easy dish I learned from some Phillipinos while working on the SS Delphine in the Mediterranean. It's apparently quite traditional and though I have not been there yet I can tell you it is Delicious.... and Nutritious>

Crispy Snapper in Tomato Sauce

Dice some onion, chop garlic and ginger and chili, sweat in grapeseed oil. Once the onions are soft you can add tomato, fresh, canned or both, or you can cook onion mixture until caramelized for a deeper flavour. Up to you. Season liberally with fish sauce and a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. Cook for 30 min or longer, medium heat.
While tomato sauce cooks cut snapper filets in half after removing any bones. Season lightly with salt. Make a large pan hot, add enough oil to thoroughly cover the bottom. Make it hot. Add snapper and don't do anything. You will flip the fish once only, when it is very very cripsy on the first side. Seriously, don't touch it.

The key to this dish is making the fish really very extra super crispy. Cook it until it is crispy. But not burnt, not too high heat. Burnt is not crispy, burnt is bad and gives you cancer.

Once your fish is crispy add it to the sauce. Simmer a few moments. Serve over rice, or tonight it's quinoa.

Bon appetite

Breakfast Smoothy

2011-01-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Anyone ever find themselves rushing out the door in the morning skipping breakfast?? This might help.

Buy a nice blender.
Put in a big handful of granola, add healthy sprinkles like flax seed, chia seed (great for long-term energy and making you feel full), hemp harts, add coconut, almond or rice milk to cover, (cows milk is for baby cows and making cheese and butter, but we'll talk about that later), make into a paste. You can add other crazy things like bee pollen, kale, spinach or parsley...if your wife makes you..
Add whatever frozen fruit, banana, yogurt and top with any juice and blend on high.
You might want sweetener, use something natural like maple syrup, agave syrup, or honey.
Enjoy your Delicious & Nutritious Smoothy.

Hello Hungry People!!!

2011-01-18T01:58:00.000-08:00

Be careful<< this could make you hUngry..

My name is Boyd Simmerling and I have been a professional cook for ten years. I have worked and traveled throughout Canada, Australia, the Mediterranean and Central America.

I really, really love food. I love expensive food like foie, truffles and Kobe, but who doesn't? Even the most expensive ingredients can be ruined by improper preparation, poor company or the wrong atmosphere. What I'm always searching for is the perfect meal. It doesn't have to be expensive and can be found seemingly anywhere.

For me a perfect meal is that exact combination of food, drink, company and environment. I've had many as I'm sure you have..

Hot lobster, melted butter, keg lager, in the sun, by the water..

Street tacos after wandering out of a tequila bar in Mexico...

Fresh Oysters and Champagne..

A thick piece of seared foie gras with some kind of fruit gastrique(sweet and sour), shaved truffles warmed in butter, on spiced frogbread..

Kobe Tartar..

GyozaKing, datenight with the wife.

Pupusas, after surfing all day in el Tunco, made by little old ladies laughing at you for ordering your twelfth.

Shepherd Pie after skiing all day. With Ketchup.

Anything. 4am.

I love all food so far except for gruel, nasty porridge. Disgusting. I love to learn about new food and share with people what I know.

Everyone I have met has had something to teach me about food.

PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN TO COOK.

I can help. Ask questions.

I love to make dinner and you are welcome to join me but if you can't make it maybe something here will help you make a Delicious & Nutritious dinner all on your very own. You're Special.

This will be about the many things I know and the infinite questions there are about food.

Blessings on the meal.