The Dog's Breakfast

asian-style noodle soup

2012-02-03T01:36:52Z

Our new favourite thing: a one-bowl meal that’s crazy-good, dead easy, and guaranteed to get you glowing, no matter how cold it is outside. While probably not authentically anything in terms of style, it’s genuinely restorative, with a strong, distinct yang character that warms the heart of winter’s deep yin.

chicken-tamari-ginger-garlic broth - umami, or ooh mommy?

This soup is one of several brilliant permutations suggested by the Japanese Noodle Soup recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. We’ve done this with seared beef tenderloin, sliced into silky pink ribbons, and five-spice duck breast, which lends dark fragrance and depth to the broth. But we like this best as chicken noodle soup. It’s clean, but rich. Comforting, but sophisticated. With something this simple, it’s not just quality of ingredients that’s key – you also have to have a quality approach.

To begin with, if you don’t already, please make your own chicken stock. We do the simplest stock possible: 5 pounds of raw carcasses with 8 quarts of water and 3 tablespoons of fine sea salt. Include 4 necks and 2 or 3 chicken feet if you can find them, they add luscious velvet to the stock. Boil, skim, and reduce to the barest simmer for 4 to 5 hours, longer if you like a stronger stock. What, no onions, carrots, celery, peppercorns, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme? No. Just bones and salt. And just wait for it.

It may seem expedient to cook the noodles and chicken in the broth (and you can, if you’re sick, or having a bad sugar crash), but the elegance and purity of this dish really emerge from a more mindful arrangement of ingredients prepared separately. Individually. If you cook the noodles in the soup, their starch will cloud the broth and make it sticky. Cooking raw meat in the broth is not as detrimental, but searing it will develop better flavour, and a more tender texture.

You get the picture. It’s a bit Zen, the whole process, with meditative insight on Ways of Slicing Green Onion, and a perfectly circular sprinkle of sesame seeds. I’m joking, but not really. Sometimes preparing a dish can be as nourishing as eating it.

Asian-style noodle soup (slightly adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)

3 quarts chicken stock
1 head of garlic
a 4-inch piece of ginger
1/3 C tamari (or soy sauce)
1 tbsp. sugar
8 oz. soba noodles
1 lb. chicken scallopini
3 green onions
black sesame seeds
clilantro sprigs
sesame oil

Bring the stock to a boil, then reduce the heat to a low simmer. Separate the head of garlic into cloves and slice the ginger into thin rounds. Using a mallet or rolling pin (etc.), bruise and somewhat flatten the unpeeled garlic cloves and unpeeled ginger rounds. Add them to the simmering stock with the tamari and sugar, and steep with a lid on for half an hour. Remove the garlic and ginger from the stock with a slotted spoon.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles and rinse them well under cold water.

Slice the onions.

Season the scallopini and sear them 2 minutes on each side, or until just barely cooked through. (The hot soup will finish them off.) Let them rest a minute, then slice against the grain into thin bite-size strips. Add any juice to the broth.

Arrange the noodles in bowls, and add hot broth. Garnish with sliced green onions, cilantro, drops of sesame oil, and sesame seeds.

VARIATIONS:

- turkey scallopini, beef or pork tenderloin, shrimp, tofu
- baby spinach, watercress, tatsoi, mizuna
- udon noodles, rice noodles, ramen noodles
- bean sprouts, toasted nori flakes, kombu, mushrooms

lemon lime pickle

2012-01-22T21:53:34Z

A food-minded friend and neighbour introduced us to home-made lime pickle a couple of years ago. We had a great time shopping for the ingredients at a local Indian specialty food store that stocks such rare treats as fresh kaffir lime and bitter gourd. And the recipe we used was a real winner: it took first prize in the Housewives/Amateurs section of the All-India Citrus Fruit Exhibition in 1957.

The recipe is published in a wonderful old collection called Mrs. Balbir Singh’s Indian Cookery. The book has enjoyed 13 printings. For this year’s new batch, we dared to make a few changes – mostly because we wanted to include some of our preserved lemons, which change the pickle’s flavour quite a bit.

We also used less oil and lime juice, because we wanted a denser condiment with less liquid, and also added extra mustard seeds for more crunch. The resulting pickle has fantastic balance (although being a pickle it is rather salty), and the inclusion of lemons gives it a surprising lightness and a very clean flavour. If you really love the one-two punch of lime that lime pickle usually delivers, leave the lemons out.

Lemon lime pickle
(loosely based on a 1957 recipe from Balbir Singh’s Indian Cookery)

5 preserved limes
3 preserved lemons
1 1/2 C mustard oil
2 tsp. powdered chile
1/3 C brown mustard seeds
1 C ginger cut into small matchsticks
20 small dried red chiles
15 small fresh green chiles
the juice of 4 limes
6 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1/4 C coarse salt

Cut the citrus into 1/2-inch pieces, and juice the limes. Toast the fenugreek in a hot skillet, then coarsely grind. Slice or finely chop the green chiles, seeds and all. Peel the ginger and slice it into small matchsticks. Gather all your ingredients close to the stove.

Heat the oil in a deep pot, “until a blue haze appears”. (We saw a distinct blue ring appear around the oil’s edge after several minutes of heating, but were also afraid it was about to burst into flames. If you’re afraid to go this far, just get it really hot.)

Off the heat, add the powdered chile and mustard seeds. The oil will foam. When it subsides, and after the seeds have toasted for a few seconds, quickly add the remaining ingredients to prevent the seeds from scorching. Cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, or until the citrus has softened somewhat. Store refrigerated, in airtight jars.

springerle cookies: lasting impressions

2012-01-15T22:29:47Z

Just before Christmas, I stumbled across a Springerle cookie recipe, and was immediately drawn to this fascinating and intricate edible art. Using a mould or rolling pin, these edible confections have been made for hundreds of years and have a fascinating history. Historians have traced the origin of Springerle cookies back to an pagan German festival called Julfest, celebrated in midwinter. Part of the festival included sacrificing animals to the gods in the hope of a short winter and early spring. Those who could not afford to do so gave tokens in the forms of breads and cookies shaped like animals. The tradition survived over time and Springerle cookies are often seen at Christmas time.

Anise oil gives these cookies incredible flavour.

The variety of stories you can find depicted in Springerle moulds is truly fascinating. Dating back as far as the 14th century, you can see family histories, biblical scenes, stories from daily life as well as holidays like Christmas. By the 18th and 19th centuries, these cookies were used as birth and wedding announcements, to mark important holidays, to send messages of love, and even depicted news of the day and political satire.

This historical Springerle carving shows Bishops suggestive of Saint Nicholas using a donkey to carry apples that were given out to children (the jester). Source: cookiemolds.wordpress.com

The "Show Stopper" rolling pin from House on the Hill.

A couple things to note here for best results. If you can get your hands on baker’s ammonia, (baking powder will work if you can’t), it will help give you a more defined cookie impression and will also help make very light cookies. I used cake flour and baker’s ammonia, and was surprised at the amazingly light texture of the cookie.

Another trick is to make sure that the dough is of a very even thickness before pressing the mould onto the dough. When making the impression, you need very even pressure, and a steady speed of motion as you roll. House on the Hill has a great primer video for these cookies.

House on The Hill is a great resource for Springerle moulds or rolling pins, and they carry everything else you need to make these cookies. They are actually quite simple to make, it just takes a careful hand and a little practice. Not only are these cookies incredibly beautiful, they are like a delicious piece of history, just waiting to be eaten.

Perfection Springerle Cookies

from House on the Hill

1/2 teaspoon baker’s ammonia (Hartshorn) or baking powder
2 tablespoons milk
6 large eggs, room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar (1 – 1 1/2 #)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened but not melted
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of anise (if substituting fruit flavored oils, use 3 teaspoons)
2 lb. box sifted cake flour (Swansdown or Softasilk)
grated rind of orange or lemon – optional (enhances flavor of the traditional anise or the citrus flavors)
more flour as needed

Dissolve hartshorn in milk and set aside. Beat eggs till thick and lemon-colored (10-20 minutes). Slowly beat in the powdered sugar, then the softened butter. Add the hartshorn and milk, salt, preferred flavoring, and grated rind of lemon or orange, if desired. Gradually beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer, then stir in the remainder of the 2 lbs. of flour to make stiff dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead in enough flour to make a good print without sticking. Follow general directions for imprinting and drying cookies.

Bake on greased or baker’s parchment-lined cookie sheets at 255° to 325° till barely golden on the bottom, 10-15 minutes or more, depending on size of cookie.

Store in airtight containers or in zipper bags in the freezer. They keep for months, and improve with age. Yield 3 to 12 dozen.

chicken liver mousse with Gaziantep pistachios

2012-01-08T22:29:33Z

We recently discovered a butcher who made our spirits bright over the holidays with such delectables as dindonneau (young turkey), and confit of goose drumsticks. A few weeks ago we noticed they had goose and pheasant livers in stock, which gave us the idea to try a mousse de foie de volaille. Of course when we went back to get them, all the exotic livers had been snatched up.

One thing we really should know by now is when you see something like wild game livers, you grab them, before someone else does. You don’t say – they’re not on the list, or, I didn’t plan to make paté tomorrow. You seize the opportunity. On the other hand, you have to exercise a certain discipline, or else you come home with things that are just going spoil. We’re constantly throwing out green chiles, for example, because they seem so rare to us, and look so cute in their little green grocer’s package. One will get used in scrambled eggs and the other 39 will turn into mush in the crisper, beside some slippery cilantro.

I’m sure you understand. And in any case, there’s nothing wrong with good chicken livers. This is the second time we’ve made this mousse, and it seems the only real trick is deciding how hot and how long to cook the livers. The first time around, we left them rather pink, which gave the final mousse a wonderful colour, but something of a raw finish. On the second attempt, we treated the livers more like meat – searing them for flavour and poking to make sure they were springy and done. The browning made the mousse taste a little too meaty. It’s a delicate balance. We’ll split the difference next time, colouring them only very slightly on the outside, and letting the inside cook to a pale (not bright) pink.

What’s so wonderful about a simple liver mousse is how easy it is to accessorize. You can make a crust of cracked black pepper and serve with hot Polish mustard. You can load it with your favourite herb. Here we added pistachios to the mousse and on top as well. We used Turkish nuts from Gaziantep, and they taste as intensely of pistachio as their emerald colour suggests. Good with a Port jelly, but great with the home-made pepper jelly we were lucky enough to get for Christmas.

Chicken liver mousse (slightly adapted from Julia Child)

NOTES: Some butchers sell livers and hearts together, if this is the case, you will need a little more to make a pound of livers alone. You can omit the pistachios if you like. Give the liver trimmings to your dog and he will love you forever.

1 lb. chicken livers
2 tbsp. chopped shallot
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tbsp. butter, plus 1/2 C melted butter
1/3 C Cognac, Armagnac, Madeira, Port, etc.
1/4 C whipping cream
1/4 C shelled pistachios, plus 2 tbsp. chopped pistachios
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch of dried thyme

1. Trim the livers well, removing any fat, large veins, or discoloured parts. Slice them into equal-sized pieces, about one inch square.

2. Sauté the liver and shallot with the black pepper in butter over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until slightly coloured on the outside, and cooked to a uniform, pale pink on the inside.

3. Scrape the liver and shallot mixture into a blender jar. Deglaze the pan with the cognac (or whatever), reduce slightly, and pour this liquid into the blender jar.

4. To the blender jar, add the cream, whole shelled pistachios, salt and thyme. Blend to a smooth paste. Add the melted butter and blend again.

5. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, force the mixture through a seive. Pour into a mould or ramekins, and top with the chopped nuts.

figgy toffee pudding

2011-12-31T02:04:21Z

It has been a busy and eventful year full of discoveries, adventures, lessons learned, time spent waiting and time spent catching up. It was also a year where we took a break from the blog, and late in the year, returned to it with fresh eyes and a slightly different approach.

We are now approaching this blog as a place to explore and discover new foods, ingredients, and ways of cooking and enjoying what we eat. Rather than the eternal search for the prefect plated shot of chocolate cake, we’re taking a more elemental approach to food and finding the various secrets new ingredients can yield. Or finding new ways of using ingredients we have already come to know.

Case in point: figs. A new use of figs around the holidays that we had never tried before was the classic English figgy pudding – something that was not really a part of my childhood despite my grandfather having emigrated to Canada from England. Add a little toffee sauce and – shazam – you’ve got a Christmas classic.

Looking back at the year, one of the big lessons learned has the art of simplicity. Rather than over-doing it, over-reaching and trying too hard, sometimes the answer lies in knowing just when to pare back, when to use three or four ingredients rather than a dozen. Chopin said “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

So we would like to wish thanks our readers for following us on our culinary journey of discovery, and wish you all a happy, healthy, and simply delicious 2012.

Figgy Toffee Pudding
From “Forgotten Skills of Cooking” by Darina Allen

Serves 8 – 10

8 oz chopped dried figs
½ pint tea (optionally: hot water)
1 stick unsalted butter
¾ cup fine sugar
3 organic eggs
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon espresso coffee (optional)

For the hot toffee sauce

1 stick butter
1 ¼ cup sugar
10 oz corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

8 inch springform pan, or 8 ramekins

Preheat the oven to 350^oF. Brush the cake pan with oil and line the pan with oiled parchment. Soak the figs in hot tea for 15 minutes.

Whip the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then fold in the sifted flour. Add the baking soda and baking powder, vanilla and coffee to the figs and tea and stir into this mixture. Turn into the lined pan and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

To make the sauce, put the butter, sugar and syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and melt gently over low heat. Simmer for about 5 minutes, remove from the heat, and gradually stir in the cream and vanilla. Return to the heat and stir for 2-3 minutes until the sauce is very smooth.

To serve, pour some sauce on the plate, put the figgy pudding on top and pour on more sauce. Serve with whipped cream.

roasted figs

2011-12-25T00:42:48Z

Here is an ace up your sleeve for the holidays. This uber-simple Martha Stewart recipe is more of a technique or treatment: you take dried figs, toss them in honey and olive oil, and roast them with a little salt. Sound interesting? Wait until you see what happens to them in the oven.

Dried black Mission figs. Spooky, and reminiscent of black pearls.

The heat of roasting brings the dried figs back to life. Some of them will puff up to form almost perfect globes. The honey and oil mixture gives them a thick, shiny gloss that hardens slightly as the figs cool. They come out of the oven looking like something you want to put on a Christmas tree.

On top, the unroasted figs; the roasted ones below. We included some miniature Shiraz figs, and sprinkled them all with a little gold leaf when they came out of the oven.

We like to put these little jewels on a cheese board after a festive dinner, alongside our favourite nuts and some good dark chocolate. They’re especially good while they’re still hot.

Honey-roasted salted figs

Martha Stewart

1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C honey
10 oz. dried Turkish figs
10 oz. dried Black Mission figs
1/2 tsp. coarse salt

NOTE: You don’t need Mission figs to make this. Flake salt and fleur de sel work really well here, they look like a fine dusting of snow.

Combine the oil and honey in a large bowl, and toss the figs in the mixture. Spread them on an oiled sheet, sprinkle with the salt, and roast for 12-17 minutes at 400F, giving the pan a hard shake after about 8 minutes. You know they’re done when they’re puffed and roasted looking. You can let them go quite dark, but be careful not to burn the sugars. If you’re not serving them right away, be sure to loosen them from the pan when they come out of the oven, and again after a few minutes of resting.

quince – essential eating

2011-12-07T23:04:54Z

“It’s like a pear that has spent the night making love to a rose,” is how Rob described the enigmatic aroma of quince. We brought six quinces home from the market two weeks ago. Like some magic fruit of legend, as they lay ripening on the counter, they slowly started to drive us quince crazy.

Quince and vanilla with five spice: fennel, cloves, Szechuan pepper, star anise, cinnamon as well as licorice root.

They are a mysterious, ambiguous yellow-green. The fragrance is sweet and floral, but with a hint of animal musk. And their shape is suggestive, evoking the voluptuousness of Rubens, or the bordello paintings of Degas. Luxuriant. Tempting. Forbidden.

It all lends credence to the hypothesis that the apple of Eden would likely have been quince. It invites you to take a greedy mouthful, but you’ll be punished if you do: the raw flesh is strongly astringent, and requires patient cooking to yield the flavour suggested by its perfume. As you simmer it, the fruit slowly flushes with colour and sweetness, and softens to a texture that’s somewhere between poached pear and raw scallop. The transformation is dramatic.

Jelly is one of the many uses for quince, here infused with star anise.

The Quintessential - a new classic.

Inspired by David Lebovitz’s recipe, we poached some quinces with some home-made Chinese five-spice, to which we also added licorice root. The resulting spiced fruit was amazing with seared duck breast, but we’ve eaten quite a lot on its own, with our hands. We also mixed some of the poaching syrup with a little white rum and a splash of tonic to make a cocktail that tasted like the nectar of a tropical flower. A teaspoonful in a flute of sparkling wine is also, in a word, lush. Martha Stewart’s quince jelly with star anise – our first ever jelly (not so gel-y) – was a sensational foil for chicken liver mousse. We’ll surely be bringing home more before the season’s through, even if it’s just to look at and smell them.

preserved lemons and limes

2011-11-29T19:52:09Z

We’ve been bitten by the preserving bug. Nearly every available surface in the kitchen is occupied by a growing collection of carefully stacked jars. It’s starting to look like a laboratory. Mason jars of every shape and size, and now Weck jars, too. We got our first cases of Weck jars in the mail last week and have been reeling with the beautiful possibilities they propose.

Preserved lemons seemed like a simple and useful thing to fill them with, and since we’re out of lime pickle, we started some limes as well. If you’ve never tasted a preserved lemon, think of the smell of lemon wood soap, and then imagine that fragrant golden aroma as a flavour. It’s the essence of lemon, stripped of all sourness. It is used in classical Indian and Moroccan cuisines, but adds radiant flavour in almost any circumstance where a savoury lemon flavour is appropriate: with fish, stuffed into a roasting chicken, in risottos and pastas, vinaigrettes and mayonnaises… It’s in the same category as a good artisanal salt: versatile, inspiring, and vaguely magical.

Part of the magic is experiencing how the combination of two simple and primal things – citrus and salt – combine over time to produce a complex and exalted third. We’re looking forward to warming the winter with the luminous flavour we’ve captured in these jars.

Here’s the technique: slice the citrus almost in quarters, leaving one end intact. Open the quarters up and sprinkle a generous teaspoon of salt into them. (For heaven’s sake don’t use industrial table salt.) Pack the salted fruits tightly into a jar, pressing down to release some juice. If you prefer, you can halve or quarter the lemons, this sometimes allows you to put more in the jar you’re using. Then you can add whatever flavours you like: bay, coriander and black pepper are simple suggestions. Close the jars and leave them at room temperature overnight – the fruit will exude some juice. If necessary, in the morning, add enough juice to cover the fruit in the jar. Refrigerate for 2-3 weeks, inverting the jars once or twice a day to distribute the juices. These preserved fruits will keep for a couple of months or so in the fridge. Make lots, and give some away.

a little relish

2011-11-22T01:01:29Z

Anyone who is interested in or curious about the food culture of Montreal will be thrilled to lay eyes on Chantelle Grady’s latest edition of A Little Relish.

Chantelle is a stylist, photographer, designer and author who has been involved in a number of wedding and lifestyle publications in Australia and Canada over the years. She’s also the creator of both Little Things, her blog, and A Little Relish, a gorgeous new digital publication that focuses real insight and talent on the true flavour of a city.

Issue number one gave us mouth-watering glimpses of Brisbane, and issue two features Montreal, her new home. Chantelle asked us to contribute our point of view on what gives this city such a unique flavour – and of course we were thrilled to share.

We hope you enjoy this insider’s tour of what we think is the most delicious place in the world.

Photo by Chantelle Grady

home-made ricotta

2011-11-20T17:24:13Z

Here’s a post for those curious readers who have asked – where are the recipes that didn’t work out? We’ve been curious about home-made Ricotta since tasting some a year ago at a Sunday Suppers event, and being told how simple and quick it is to make. After looking at a few recipes, we tried one from a brand-new, red-hot cookbook whose title and author shall remain nameless. The recipe as written did not work.

Ricotta on toast with olive oil, dried thyme and Maldon salt.

We sourced some really great milk for this attempt, and Rob was quite inspired by the idea of an all-white visual concept, which as you can see worked really well. The recipe promised that the combination of milk and buttermilk would form thick creamy curds once it reached 170°F, and as we watched the temperature soar past 180, 190, we realized something was wrong. Maybe we had the wrong kind of buttermilk? Or we’re stirring it too much?

A recipe with two ingredients: whole milk and buttermilk. When heated, the acid in the buttermilk causes the curds and whey to separate.

We stuck to our guns and decided to just see what would happen if we kept heating the mixture. Finally at around 210°F, the curds appeared, and we strained them out. Unfortunately, they had turned to rubber, which I guess is a result of such a high temperature.

Of course we’ll be trying this again. It seems like many people use a combination of milk, cream, and either lemon juice or citric acid. Have you ever made Ricotta at home? What technique did you use?