The Dog's Breakfast

tomatoes and frico

2010-08-24T01:27:48Z

Our memories of food at home seem most often linked to our mothers, or our grandmothers. Learning that yeast needs warm water, why you need to cook the flour in a sauce, and how to smell when things are done – this is all distinctly maternal wisdom.

But my father was a gardener, and I can’t taste a late-August field tomato without thinking of him thickly slicing our backyard bounty for our summer suppers. For about a month every year, there was a plate of tomatoes and a plate of cucumbers on the table nearly every night. You could eat as much of both as you liked.

And on Saturday afternoons, my Dad was in charge of lunch, which was either French toast or grilled cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches came with side orders of home-canned bread-and-butter pickles, and if you were lucky, a little doily of crispy cheese that had run out of the sandwich and onto the griddle.

So this tomato platter with frico (fried cheese) is for me doubly evocative of good times in the kitchen with Dad. We didn’t have extra-virgin olive oil in those days, or balsamic vinegar, or fancy salts. But when something tastes like your back yard, it doesn’t really need any extra help.

Tomatoes and frico

NOTE: You can use Grana Padano, or any other hard grating cheese, in place of the Parmigiano-Reggiano. A cup of grated cheese will make three large pieces of frico, or about six smaller ones.

Sliced tomatoes
Basil leaves or other mild herbs
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano

Grate the cheese, and heat a non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Sprinkle the cheese into the skillet in one or two long ovals, and turn the heat to low. When the shiny bubbles in the cheese begin to subside and the cheese is lightly browned, loosen the edges with a soft rubber spatula, and then carefully peel the oval off in one piece. Brown the other side. If you wish, you can drape the hot cheese over a tall narrow glass, to give it an elegant curve. Don’t worry if the frico breaks into pieces. It tastes just as delicious.

Arrange the tomato slices and basil leaves on a large platter. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve the frico on the side.

grilled thai seafood salad

2010-08-17T03:59:57Z

We’re crazy about Thai food. Its artful balance of spicy, sour, sweet, salty, tangy, crunchy, and yummy has us permanently hunting for new Thai recipes and restaurants. We always have Thai chiles in the freezer and often use them in spontaneous ways: our neighbour Krish had us doing chile shooters one night last winter. You bite off half a chile, knock it back with a slug of vodka, and then bite into a wedge of lime. Instant endorphins.

Like the chile shooters, this salad is not for the faint of heart. The baby octopus often twist and contort themselves when they hit the hot grill, and if you’ve never smelled fish sauce before, you’re in for an interesting surprise.

But once this all comes together on the plate, you won’t believe what a brilliant combination of flavours the salad presents – sour mango, fragrant basil, sweet pea, peppery greens, and perfectly charred seafood, all kissed with lemongrass, chile and lime.

Mizuna greens have a wonderful green, grassy flavour that pairs well with sauvignon blanc.

Grilled Thai Seafood Salad

adapted from the Australian Women’s Weekly book of Main Course Salads. (A really terrific book.)

NOTES: Be sure to cool the seafood before mixing it into the salad, or it will wilt the greens. You can replace the peanut oil with another light-tasting vegetable oil – do not use olive oil, it has too strong a flavour. And don’t be tempted to cut the squid into rings – they fall through the grates of the grill.

for the dressing

2 – 4 small red Thai chiles, seeded and minced
1 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tbsp. sugar
1/3 C peanut oil
¼ C finely chopped lemongrass
¼ C lime juice

for the salad

250 g squid hoods
250 g shrimp, deveined and shelled, tails intact
250 g baby octopus, cleaned and halved lengthwise
1 large green mango, sliced into matchstick-sized pieces
250 g sharp greens (we use a mix of mizuna and watercress)
250 g cherry tomatoes, halved
100 g pea sprouts
1 C Thai basil leaves, torn

Shake all the dressing ingredients together in a jar with a lid.

Cut each squid hood open lengthwise, without cutting it in half, so you can open it up and lay it flat. Score it with a knife in a diamond pattern, then cut the hood into bite-sized squares or rectangles. The scoring will help the squid lay flat while grilling. Combine all the seafood in a bowl with half the dressing and marinate for two hours.

Assemble the other salad ingredients in a large bowl, then grill the seafood in batches. Cool the seafood for a few minutes before mixing it into the salad. Dress lightly with some of the remaining vinaigrette, season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

gingered cantaloupe

2010-08-09T10:31:17Z

You’ve got to love a recipe that can be served two ways. Here the honeyed, warm sunshine flavour of cantaloupe is highlighted with ginger and orange flower water in an incredibly delicious soup that takes all of three minutes to make.

You can also easily turn this soup into popsicles, but you’ll need to double the flavour highlights, because the colder something is, the harder it is to fully taste. (Have you ever noticed how an over-chilled wine begins to reveal its true character as it warms up?)

The cantaloupe-ginger combination is distinctly reminiscent of the classic carrot and ginger pairing. However you decide to enjoy it, we know you’ll be impressed by how something so simple can taste so good.

gingered cantaloupe soup

NOTES: Double the quantities of ginger, yogurt, orange flower water, and lemon if you are freezing this recipe. And thanks to our neighbours Eddie and Carl for inspiring us to experiment with these flavours.

Serves 4 as a soup, or makes 6 popsicles

1 cantaloupe, seeded and cut into chunks
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp. honey
small pinch of salt
1/4 C Greek-style yogurt
4 drops orange flower water
Mint leaves for garnish

Put all ingredients except mint into the blender, and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve. Serve chilled with mint leaf garnish.

wild blueberry and vanilla bean panna cotta

2010-08-01T02:04:08Z

Blueberries are early this year, as were strawberries, raspberries, and just about everything else. The harvest is two weeks early, thanks to a early start to what has been, so far, an exceptionally splendid summer in Québec. The past two summers have been cold and rainy, so this year’s bounty of sunshine and popcorn clouds has been warmly welcome.

It’s really inspired our cooking. This year has been our first real marathon of seasonal summer suppers: fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta and basil, gazpacho, cantaloupe soup, corn this and corn that – we can’t cook enough of what’s fresh.

This panna cotta is just what the season is asking for– a soft linen shirt of a dessert that requires more refrigeration than stove time. Be sure to use the smallest wild blueberries you can find – they’re sweeter and more ‘blue’ tasting than the larger ones you often see.

You can use 2% instead of whole milk if you must.

Wild Blueberry and Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta

from the Williams Sonoma Cooking from the Farmers’ Market cookbook

2 ½ tsp. unflavoured gelatin (1 package)
¼ C whole milk
2 C heavy cream
¼ C sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 C wild blueberries

In a bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the milk. Let stand for about 2 min. In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together the cream and sugar. Using a small knife, split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Scrape the seeds into the cream and add the pod. Heat, stirring, until small bubbles appear around the edges of the pan. Let cool briefly.

Remove the vanilla bean. Slowly add the warm cream to the gelatin mixture, stirring constantly until dissolved. Stir in the vanilla extract and blueberries and then pour into four ramekins. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight.

If desired, tun a thin knife around the inside of each ramekin, and invert onto a dessert plate.

warm beet salad with goat cheese and herbs

2010-07-30T22:52:28Z

We usually think of beets as winter vegetables, and often roast them with other root vegetables as an accompaniment to roast chicken or beef. They evoke childhood memories for the both of us – David’s family served home-pickled beets with nearly every Sunday dinner and Rob’s favourite winter soup is borscht. But the market is full of young beets of several irresistible colours at the moment, so we decided to try a summer treatment.

Warm beet salad with goat cheese and herbs

The characteristic earthy flavour of beets comes from a high mineral content – which makes them very nourishing. The Medieval law of correspondences classifies these ancient roots as blood fortifiers because of their red colour, and they are indeed a terrific source of iron.

The Birri brothers

This simple salad is great for cooler summer evenings, when it’s not so hot that you can’t turn the oven on, but warm enough that you still want something light for dinner. We nestle the red beets into the salad at the last minute, so they don’t stain everything pink. Great with grilled lamb chops.

We found red, yellow, and striped beets at the market - each with a distinct flavour

Warm beet salad with goat cheese and herbs

From the Williams Sonoma Cooking from the Farmers’ Market cookbook

1 ½ lbs. of beets, greens removed
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp. chopped fresh chives
3 tbsp. olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 400º F and wrap the beets individually in aluminum foil. Roast until tender when pierced with a fork, 45 min. – 1 hour, depending on the size of the beets. When cool, peel and quarter the beets and place on a serving platter. (You can use paper towels to peel red beets, to avoid staining your fingers.) In a separate bowl, mix together the thyme, chives, and olive oil. Spoon the oil and herb mixture over the beets, and season with salt and pepper. Top with the crumbled goat cheese and serve.

the stonewall kitchen

2010-07-20T23:57:10Z

We’ve spent several blissful summer holidays over the past five years with friends in Ogunquit, Maine. One of the highlights of the yearly trip are the rapturous hours we spend at the Stonewall Kitchen flagship store, lunching on lobster rolls and debating how much jam we’re willing to smuggle back across the border.

The Stonewall Kitchen flagship store in York, Maine.

This year we had the incredible opportunity of spending a little time with the Stonewall boys themselves. It’s impossible not be inspired by Jim and Jonathan, who got started by selling home-made jams and vinegars at their local farmer’s market, and who are now manufacturing 70,000 jars of jam a day.

Actual jar size may not be as shown. Photo courtesy of Stonewall Kitchen.

They treated us to a behind-the-scenes tour of their factory, cooking school and photo studio, and talked to us a little bit about cooking, the evolution of the specialty food business, and being inspired by family traditions.

How would you describe your approach to food and cooking?

Jonathan: Our approach to food has always been casual; we write our books using readily available ingredients and believe some of the most elegant, tasty dishes sometimes have the fewest ingredients. We both believe cooking should be fun; we love to build confidence in our students and our readers.

What changes have you witnessed on the food scene since getting started?

It’s night and day. The food network launched just 17 years ago, and before that you had a couple of random shows on PBS. Today cooking shows are hugely popular in the US, making chefs into celebrities equal to rock stars. It’s brought so much awareness to food in so many ways. When we first started selling our gourmet foods 19 years ago, there were still very few unique specialty items on the shelf today there are thousands of great products out there. The specialty food business is now a multi-billion dollar industry made up of small manufacturers around the world. I can remember as a child going to the grocery store to buy white vinegar for a science project (I had to make a volcano explode mixing it with baking soda), the vinegar selection consisted of two choices: white or red. Today in that same store there is almost a whole aisle dedicated to vinegars of all sorts.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Our inspirations first come from our heritage. I grew up in a large Irish family outside of Boston, my mother was a great cook and prepared traditional Irish dishes passed down for generations: corned beef and cabbage, roast leg of lamb, and lots of hearty Irish stews. Jim grew up in an English-German family that first settled in Lunenburg, Novia Scotia. His mother not only kept her traditional roots, preparing dishes like sauerbaten with red cabbage and boiled potatoes, but also served many dishes from Novia Scotia like finnan haddie. From those deep family traditions which have inspired us personally we take many inspirations from our travels, cookbooks, blogs like this, and magazines. We both love to experiment, but after a long week at work we always end up cooking a simple twist on a childhood favorite.

Ingredients for the chimichurri sauce from Stonewall Kitchen Grilling.

Don't make this in a blender, it turns to soup, and the dog won't eat it. Use a food processor instead.

Marinated flank steak (also known as bavette) with chimichurri sauce.

Marinated Skirt Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

From Stonewall Kitchen Grilling

Serves 4 to 6

For the steak:

2 pounds skirt steak, trimmed of excess fat
¼ C olive oil
3 tbsp. chopped Italian parsley
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 tbsp. chopped mint
2 garlic cloves, minced
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

For the chimichurri sauce:

1 C fresh Italian parsley leaves
½ C fresh mint leaves
2 green onions, chopped
¾ C olive oil
¼ C capers, drained
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
about ¼ tsp. red chile flakes

Cover the steak with the marinade ingredients, cover, and refrigerate for at least an hour, and up to 8 hours.

While the steak is marinating, make the sauce. Put the parsley and mint in the bowl of a food processor and pulse once or twice to coarsely chop. Add the green onions and pulse again. Add the oil, capers, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste, and blend until coarsely chopped. Transfer to a serving bowl and gently mix in the chile flakes. The sauce can be covered and refrigerated for up to a day before serving.

Bring the meat to room temperature before grilling. Dry the meat with paper towels before grilling on high heat, 3 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare meat. Brush the meat with the marinade a few times while it’s cooking. Let the steak rest before carving diagonally against the grain into thin slices.

Top with the chimichurri sauce, and serve warm.

roasted and chilled corn soup

2010-07-12T01:00:41Z

Fresh, sweet corn is one of the best flavours summer has to offer, but it’s often too hot to boil a huge pot of water indoors, and let’s be honest – it can be somewhat inelegant to serve it on the cob. (Floss, anyone?)

Roasted and chilled corn soup topped with sour cream, cilantro and bacon.

This delicious cold soup is a great way around these two inconveniences. We tasted this at an outdoor cocktail earlier this summer hosted by Bombay Sapphire gin, and have waited until we could get our hands on some local corn before sharing. It’s dead-easy to put together, and makes a great starter for barbecues and picnics.

The only real trick is grilling the corn without blackening it, which takes patience and vigilance, since its high sugar content makes for easy scorching. A little char doesn’t hurt the flavour at all, but will turn the final dish a little grey.

Try not to burn the corn like we did in Ogunquit last week.

Pairs well with a veranda and an ocean breeze.

Roasted and chilled corn soup

slightly adapted from a recipe by Alexandre Gosselin

NOTE: You don’t have to strain this, but you really should.

Serves 4 to 6 as a soup course, 8 to 10 as a tasting course.

3 tbsp. olive oil
5 cobs of corn
1 small Spanish onion, sliced into thin rounds
½ C chicken stock (or water)
½ C pineapple juice
2 tbsp. gin
salt and pepper
½ C sour cream
4 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
3 tbsp. chopped cilantro

Preheat a grill to medium heat. Oil and season corn cobs and onion slices. Grill about 3 minutes on each side, until corn is nicely browned but not burned. Take the corn cobs and the onion off the grill, and cut niblets off the cobs using a knife.

Set the equivalent of one corn cob aside in a medium bowl, and place the rest along with the onions in a blender. Add stock (or water), pineapple juice, and gin, and blend 2 minutes. Season and strain to obtain a smooth texture.

Refrigerate until ready to serve. To the bowl containing the grilled corn niblets, add the sour cream, cilantro and cooked bacon, season, and use as a garnish on top of each bowl of soup. Alternatively, garnish the soup with the the sour cream, reserved corn niblets, bacon, and cilantro.

blackened forest cake

2010-07-01T20:02:45Z

More than almost any other type of cooking, grilling is a form of theatre. It can be a tricky performance for the person holding the tongs – trying to get everything finished at the same time, to varying degrees of done-ness, moving things closer and further away from that one really hot spot, and everyone asking how much longer?

grilled chocolate cake, with vanilla gelato and cherries flambé

Sometimes it doesn’t all come together as planned. Steaks get overcooked, chicken gets undercooked, or most of the onions fall through the cracks. But don’t worry. You have a surprise ending that will eclipse the minor imperfections in your performance: grilled dessert.

No one expects a platter of grilled pineapple or peaches to arrive on the table at the end of a meal, and grilled fruit is one of the easiest desserts you can make. This was the seed idea for this recipe: a simple and surprising fruit-based, grilled dessert.

We thought it would be fun to grill skewers of cherries, and then thought of chocolate, then of cake and ice cream, and suddenly there it was, begging to be made: grilled black forest cake.

Flambé in the pan, or at the table for a dramatic presentation.

Blackened Forest Cake

NOTES: Any sort of jam will do if you don’t have cherry on hand.

Fresh cherries
Cherry jam
Chocolate cake
Vanilla ice cream
Kirsch

Pit the cherries, and slice most of them into quarters. Slice the rest of them in half. Simmer the cherries over low heat with a spoonful or two of jam, until the cherries have softened and released some juice. Meanwhile, make thick slices of cake and grill them briefly on each side, about 20 seconds, or until just slightly charred.

Sprinkle some kirsch over each slice of cake, then top with a scoop of ice cream and some of the warm cherry compote. Before spooning the compote over the ice cream, you may wish to flambé it with some kirsch.

For even higher drama, warm the kirsch in a small saucepan, set it alight at the table, and pour the flaming liquid over the plated desserts in front of your astonished guests. They will forget all about your burnt asparagus.

the purple heart

2010-06-23T01:27:35Z

A heat-busting, heart-strengthening cocktail for the dog days to come. We sip these fortifying refreshers on hot evenings, with sprigs of mint from the balcony garden. Pomegranate juice helps lower cholesterol, and is loaded with more antioxidants than almost any other fruit. The blend we buy also incorporates blueberry juice, which is another superfruit that has multiple benefits, on top of tasting really great. Pomegranate juice is very high in natural sugars – containing more carbs per volume than Coca-Cola – so dose carefully.

The Purple Heart

Ice
2 oz. vodka
3 oz. pomegranate juice (blends with blueberry, cherry, and açai also work well)
Soda or sparkling water
Lime
Mint

Half fill a large glass with ice. Pour in the vodka and pomegranate juice, and top up with soda or sparkling water. Add a good squeeze of lime juice, and some bruised mint. (Slapping mint leaves between flat palms does a fine job of releasing the volatile oils.) Enjoy!

roasted potato salad

2010-06-14T13:12:17Z

One of the revelations of adulthood is discovering the variety of things that people call potato salad. It’s the quintessential summer dish – evoking heat waves, sprinklers, sunburns, mosquito bites, and nights lying awake with a wet washcloth on your forehead. As a kid, I knew that if my mother was making potato salad, supper was going to be fun. There might also be strawberry shortcake. Or maybe we’d eat outside and have watermelon.

Roasted potato salad made with creamy finglerings.

My mother’s potato salad was the classic version that forms the cornerstone of church picnics and summer barbecues. All of the moms I knew made it exactly the same way: diced potatoes, boiled eggs, celery, and Miracle Whip. Sure, maybe someone would throw in some green onions, and I think once I had a version with chopped ham. But like vanilla ice cream, or corn on the cob, potato salad had a wonderful, predictable sameness to it. I loved it, and could never get enough.

White, red and purple new potatoes.

I was probably 20 years old before I tasted a warm potato salad. It was dressed with a simple vinaigrette, and tossed with a soft tangle of tarragon and sweet slices of Vidalia onion, neither of which I’d tasted before. So it was a triple whammy for me, and I quickly learned to make it. My Warm Potato Salad was a regular feature at university potluck suppers, proudly displayed next to the tabouleh and vegetarian chili.

Thyme and shallots.

The question of whether it’s better than my mother’s potato salad has never arisen in my mind. To me they are like two different people who just happen to share the same name. This is really delicious with any kind of small new potato, we are lucky enough to have a local supplier of creamy fingerlings that just love to be roasted.

Mixed potatoes roasted with olive oil and coarse salt.

Roasted Potato Salad

Serves 4 as a side dish

NOTES We’ve sometimes added bacon or lardons to this salad, or used sliced shallots instead of Vidalia onions. You can also think of adding dill, or chervil, or whatever mild herbs you like, just be sure to use a generous amount of tarragon. The roasted potatoes do not refrigerate well. You can also make this using unpeeled boiled potatoes, it makes a lighter-tasting salad that does keep well in the fridge.

4 pounds of fingerling potatoes
3 tbsp. white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
about 2/3 C olive oil
a Vidalia onion, halved and sliced
½ C fresh tarragon leaves
½ C Italian parsley leaves
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme

1. Clean and dry the potatoes. Cut them, unpeeled, into bite-sizes pieces, toss them with olive oil, salt, and a little peper, and roast them in a 400º oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden and crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside.

2. Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette. Pour the vinegar into a salad bowl, and whisk in enough salt to balance the vinegar’s acidity. Add the pepper and mustard, and whisk to combine. Add the olive oil in a thin stream while whisking. Add the Vidalia onions and fresh herbs, and let them macerate in the vinaigrette while the potatoes finish cooking.

3. When the potatoes are done, let them cool for about 20 minutes before adding them to the salad bowl and tossing them gently to coat with the vinaigrette. Let the salad rest for a few minutes before serving so the potatoes can absorb the flavours, then taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.