Slow Braise and Short Days

With the winter solstice just past the days will be getting longer and we can look forward to all the fresh fruit and vegetables that come with the spring and summer season. In the meantime we will have to make due with the wide array of root vegetables readily available this time of year. One of my favourite cook books I received last year was Michael Smith’s Chef atHome. His simple recipes are easy to follow and have a good base of knowledge that you can apply to other recipes. It was from this cookbook that I started checking on his website quite frequently and one of his recipes of the day last week was Beef Stew. This incited a craving for the slow braised beef and rich red wine and tomato sauce that accompany it. It also has a wide variety of vegetables, of which we have been lacking lately.

Recipe @ http://chefmichaelsmith.com/Recipe/beef-stew/

 I altered this recipe in a few a ways. First I removed all of the vegetables that Katie isn’t a fan of: Peas, Parsnip and pickled baby onions. Second, I found that the sauce did not thicken naturally over the cooking time, so at the end I mixed 2 tbsp corn starch with ¼ cup red wine and added this to the stew to have a thick gravy like sauce.

Mike's Traditional Poutine

As far as I know there is no French Canadian heritage in the family, but today I was drawn to making Poutine. I have actually had the idea for awhile with a half empty bag of frozen French fries in the freezer as inspiration, but today was the day I broke down and made the greasy delicious meal. Since I wasn’t making traditional gravy from a roast I created a rue as a thickening agent and built my gravy up from there.

Gravy good enough to drink

Ingredients

1 tbsp Butter

1 heaping tablespoon flour
1 cup beef stock
¼ cup red wine
A few sprigs thyme
Pepper to taste

Method

Melt butter over medium heat and add flour until it forms a ball. Cook the rue for several minutes until slightly browned. Add stock and wine and bring to the boil, whisking to evenly distribute the rue. Add thyme sprigs whole and simmer until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Remove thyme sprigs  and add pepper to taste.

Poutine Assembly

I cooked the fries as per package instructions, placed the cooked fries in a corningware bowl, sprinkled shredded cheddar/mozzarella on top and put under the broiler for a minute until the cheese melted and was slightly crisp. I removed from the oven and a quarter cup gravy.

Lemon Loaf

My Nanny was a natural cook and baker, and many of the things I bake are inspired by her recipes. She often had lemon loaf in the freezer just waiting to be eaten. The recipe I make is almost identical to the one she used to make. It is super easy and usually a big hit, it just takes a while to bake. Here is the link.

No Need to Knead

A month ago I made the classic Jim Lahey No Knead bread highlighted in his book “My Bread’ and available on his website. This recipe offers a consistent quality artisan bread that is great for serving alongside pastas, with dips or for a really great sandwich. Having tried many bread recipes and having more failures than successes I find the Jim Lahey recipe works every time, you just need to give it the time to rise. The one piece of equipment he calls for is a cast iron pot to create a steamer oven within your oven. By enclosing the dough in a cast iron pot you allow the steam to surround the bread making a crisp, crunchy, delicious crust that you would find on a professional loaf.

The Obvious Secret to Great Pizza

Over the last couple of months we have had a great deal of pizza, from our humble home baked pizza to the finest of Italian thin crust pizzas. We have been trying to break away from the frozen pizza aisle at the grocery store and experiment with various pizza recipes we find in one of our many cook books or on the internet. Below is a variation of the pizza recipe offered by Jim Lahey in his book ‘My Bread’. The key to this recipe is cooking the pizza at a very high temperature resulting in a crispy crust, and golden mozzarella baked on top. I think this pizza is close to wood oven quality, and is easy to put together.  I altered the original by substituting in whole wheat flour and reducing the cooking time. Due to the longer rising time for the dough I would have to relegate this recipe to a weekend though, as I am not willing to spend 3 hours on a weeknight to have dinner on the table.

Pizza Dough

2 cups all purpose flour

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

2 1/2 tsp yeast

Table Salt ¾ tsp

¾ tsp sugar

1 1/3 cups water

Oil for pans

Mix ingredients until a smooth ball forms, cover and let sit for 2hrs

Preheat to 475 f

Roll into ball and divide into 2 sections, cover with moistened clothe for 30 min

Stretch out pizza dough across 2 oiled baking pans sprinkled with semolina flour (or cornmeal)

Top with pizza sauce, your favourite toppings and good quality mozzarella (or if you’re like, us the kind that is on sale)

Bake for 20 minutes

Ratatouille alla Pixar

A few months ago I came across the recipe for Ratatouille from the Pixar film Ratatouille. The heart warming tale of a rat following his dreams to become a professional chef is easily my favorite Pixar film and making the namesake from the movie instantly intrigued me. Having recently received a Mandoline Slicer as a wedding present I was easily able to slice the vegetables in a matter of minutes. I made only a few alterations for ease of assembly: 1^st I substituted canned San Marzano tomatoes for the 3 tomatoes I was supposed to peel and chop for the Piperade, 2^nd I forgot to reserve some of the Piperade to combine with the vinaigrette at the end and instead substituted a tablespoon of tomato puree, and lastly the recipe is intended to serve 4 but we stretched it to 6 with the addition of buns and a side salad. I really enjoyed the recipe and I would easily make it again. I would say I prefer the flavours in this dish to other Ratatouille’s I have made, which have more emphasis on eggplant than the subtle mix of zucchini, tomato and eggplant here. One thing to note that given that this is a Thomas Keller recipe it is fairly time intensive, as most of his seem to be but in the end it was worth the effort.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/dining/131rrex.html