The Befuddled Canuck Cooks

In which I continue my Love affair with Whisky – In this case Lagavulin

Marc — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:44:53 +0000

The word Whisky, originally Uisge Beathe (or Usquebaugh in the Scots English spelling). itself is from my understanding a Celtic translation of the ancient Latin acqua vitae (water of life). So basically the word Whisky means hooch. Also let’s be clear, all Scotch is Wkisky but not all Whisky is Scotch. Around these parts, people generally refer to Scotch Whisky simply as Scotch, whereas outside North America Scotch Whisky is called simply Whisky. A quick word on spelling, you will often come across regional variations such as Irish Whiskey or American Whiskey (which is really either rye or bourbon. Regardless of how you spell it or which you drink, Slainte Mhath (Slancha Va)!

As I started this little chat on the premise of talking about a specific Whisky and got side tracked talking about the meaning and spelling of words, here is a little tidbit on my Whisky of choice.

The name of Lagavulin is an Anglicization of the Gaelic lag a’mhuilin, meaning “hollow by the mill”.

Lagavulin 16 y.o happens to be my favourite Whisky in any price range. I will be reviewing, chatting about, waxing poetic on the topic of various libations ranging from $10 bottles to bottles in the hundreds of $’s, feel free to suggest anything you want to have reviewed on the site. As for what I have to say about Lagavulin: It is Smoky, peaty, and full bodied in both flavour and aroma.

A bottle of 16 year old “hollow by the mill” is at the time of writing this, selling for $110.50 at the LCBO who offer the following tasting notes (I tend to agree):

Golden amber colour; intense smoky peat & iodine; full flavour, smooth, long smoky dry finish.

Simply put, this is my alone on a deserted island bottle of choice, what’s yours?

Wow, been too long

Marc — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:54:58 +0000

Sorry for the ridiculous delay in updating posts, more to come soon, promise.
Including food photography updates, restaurant reviews and recipes.

We’ve gone on a bread binge at the Befuddled Canuck

Marc — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:54:00 +0000

A little break from Terrines to go full bore into bread making for the next few weeks, FUN FUN FUN!

The Thwarted Meal Plan

Marc — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:04:33 +0000

Like many people, particularly people with families (read small children) we try to come up with a meal plan for the week, and like many of those people, those plans go to hell in a hand basket at least half the time.

We receive our giant pile of flyers every Thursday and tend to base our core buying decisions on what’s on sale that week, so if cod is on at Farm Boy for $4.99/lb that week (they do not this week so don’t get too excited), odds are the meal plan includes fish that week. If the Real Canadian Superstore has anything at all in their weekly flyer odds are it won’t be in stock so I’ll need a plan B but you get the picture (sorry for that little vent, last week I had 5 things on my shopping list and not a single one had evidence of getting acquainted with a store shelf any time that week).

The last few days have turned into one of those ‘meal plan goes to hell’ weeks, get home to late from swimming lessons to make the dinner you had planned on Sunday, Monday get invited out for dinner so by Tuesday you are looking at a fridge with fresh produce, meat and fish all nearing the end of their “Sweetie, do you think the fish is still good?” life expectancy. To that point, some of my favourite meals are based on the need to use ingredients rather than the advanced plan to do so.

Last night I had a blast in the kitchen emptying the fridge, I had a few fresh trout fillets, a half dozen quails and some carrots that all needed to be used before they either went bad or got vacuum sealed and tossed in the freezer.

In an effort to turn the trout into more of a side dish, I made a mousseline out of it that was a far superior effort to my first attempt at a similar process. The ingredients are simple, fresh firm fleshed fish, 1 or 2 eggs, salt and pepper and some cream. The first time I tried my hand at this I followed a recipe, big mistake. It suggested throwing everything into the food processor and whizzing until it’s done. In reality it’s just as easy just not as simple.

Start by blending the fish in the food processor.
Add the eggs and seasoning and blend until well incorporated (at this point it will have a very firm texture.
Slowly add cream while blending until you get to your desired consistency (that of a very thick yogurt works well.

I ended up preparing it in two ways, method one was to put the mixture in ramekins and cook at 350 in a bain-marie, my second prep was to form quenelles and cover with a penko breading and pan frying them.

Recipe: RABBIT TERRINE WITH DRIED FRUIT

Marc — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:27:51 +0000

I’ve made this recipe twice now and am still playing with it to make it just right. My first go round, I had more than enough of every ingredient so I ended up with an almost 2 kg terrine of yummy goodness though there was just a touch too much liquid (I doubled all the ingredient and should have left the liquids as is because the original recipe you will find has way too much liquid in it, I have reduced the quantities for the version included below).

The second attempt was better but in this case a little too dry, I figure I just did not have enough fat in the mix, the high fat pork belly included in this version plus the extra duck fat should go a long way to correcting the problem.

Ingredients

200 g Rabbit Meat (Boned and Cubed)
3 Shallots
1 TBSP Duck Fat
300 g Fresh pork belly
200 g Chicken Livers
50 g White Raisins
50 ml Armagnac
50 g Whole Almonds
50 g Pistachios (shelled)
50 g Hazelnut
50 ml Heavy cream
25 ml White Port
1g Cinnamon
1 g Sharp paprika
15 g Salt 3 g Ground Black Pepper
150 g caul fat (crépine)

Instructions

Cut rabbit meat into cubes. Peel and dice the shallots. Lightly sauté shallots in duck fat until translucent (not caramelized), add rabbit meat and brown lightly (it should remain tender at this point).
Warm the Armagnac and soak raisins until they have swelled and softened.
Using a meat grinder at its largest setting, grind together the pork and chicken livers.
Mix the ground meat mixture with the cubed rabbit and shallots. In a dry non-stick pan, lightly roast almonds and hazelnuts.
Mix in spices, salt, pepper, heavy cream and white port.
Stir in the raisins, nuts and half the Armagnac.
Line terrine mould with webbing (crépine) leaving enough overlap to cover mixture.
Add mixture to terrine mould creating a seal with webbing and cook covered in bain-marie for 2 hours at 180 °C. Serve cold.

Equipment Required

Meat grinder, terrine mould, big spoon.

Variations

The Rabbit can be substituted for any similar textured meat.

If you cannot find any webbing, feel free to substitute fatback, or line the terrine and cover with duck fat.

Cooking time (duration): 45 minutes prep, 2 hours cooking

Number of servings (yield): 1 kg

Culinary tradition: French