Peter the eater
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Posts posted by Peter the eater
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I lived at Nelson & Butte and hung out at The Doll & Penny on Davie and The Railway Club upstairs somewhere downtown -- are they
The Railway Club is alive and kicking - an institution in Vancouver. Membership is $10/annum, so nice and light on the wallet.
Good to know, I plan on getting back to Vancouver one of these days after all this Olympic fuss dies down. I don't recall actually eating anything at the Railway Club, just good beer on tap and Sook-Yin Lee's band.
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It's been a rather slow process - cleaning out this freezer.
Kerry, perhaps The Great Freezer Cleanout should include our cars' trunks?
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Interesting, thanks for the report. I'm not in the resto biz but I worked in the city for some of '92 and all of '93 and haven't been back since, not by choice. Consequently, I have strong and nostalgic memories of eating out around that time. I lived at Nelson & Butte and hung out at The Doll & Penny on Davie and The Railway Club upstairs somewhere downtown -- are they still open?
Umberto's was a big deal, I liked the man, the restaurant and the book. No surprise Hy’s Mansion went tits up, didn't eat there but it always struck me as both aloof and desperate. I liked that gimmicky martini joint in the west end, had a woman's name. Quilicum was a flight below street level, no? I would've embraced all that First Nations food if it wasn't dumb-silly expensive. Loved the Grouse Nest after the big hike up, before the cable car back down. Pink Pearl was our go-to dim sum place, hope nobody got hurt in that fire. Recall nice food at the Pan Pacific along with the view. White Spot? Elbow Room?
Ah, the memories. Nineteen years later the place has likely been taken over by whiz kids in diapers!
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Flax seeds are nice on top of soups, deserts, yogurt, etc. The variety I get comes from CanMar in Saskatchewan. The seed gets washed, roasted and milled, then flavored and bagged. Loaded with omega threes.
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Bite-Sized Seafood Brunch
We had a gang come by after two hours of tobogganing at The Granite Springs golf course down the street. Many cups of tea, coffee and hot chocolate were consumed. The hungry bodies outnumbered the chairs so I made some seafood finger foods.
Smoked salmon and cream cheese on a piece of toasted bagel.
Atlantic shrimp with tomato horseradish sauce on a piece of toasted bagel.
Digby scallops and lime avocado on a piece of toasted bagel.
Lobster and aioli on, you guessed it, a piece of toasted bagel.
Four of these square plates got cleared off pretty fast. It would have been a better idea to have just one variety of snack on each plate in order to avoid cross-seasoning. For example, the shrimp is on a horseradish/lemon juice/ketchup sauce with a slice of grape tomato for garnish, along with microplaned dry horseradish which didn't really belong on the neighboring scallops. The smoked salmon didn't need any more salt, and not everyone likes the cracked black pepper as much as I do.
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A classic breakfast for Atlantic Canada could be a scone, a fish cake and an egg, served with hot orange pekoe tea.
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0.414 kg is almost a pound, so that makes it $3.10 for a 7.5 oz duck breast. My grocery store rarely has fresh duck pieces, they sell them frozen, whole and well-traveled.
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Here's what one of the lamb hearts looked like on the plate. The meat had a tender and fine texture, the veg was perfect and the stuffing mostly disappeared into the liquid. All things considered, I think prefer the beef heart.
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An absurdly stupidly cooking questions came up while watching an early episode of Top Chef.
You're doing a surf and turf meal using frog legs -- are they surf or turf?
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With the prices I've generally seen, a pair of duck breasts usually ends up costing more than buying an entire duck. One trick I've recently learned is to score & salt the breasts and then leave them skin side up uncovered in a fridge for 3 or 4 days. The salt & the dry air of the fridge dessicates the skin which leads to more rendering and a crispier skin.
These breasts weren't too pricey. The whole duck that they came from probably would've doubled or tripled the price. That's a good idea, drying them out in the fridge for a few days. I like the skin crispy and the meat rosy and cooked through.
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Lots of wisdom in this topic, time for a bump. I used to think buying a whole duck was the only way to go, and those small packages of breasts and legs are for lazy loners. Not by a long shot. I'm cooking a pair of duck breasts tonight for a family of four and found this inspirational thread for the first time, even though I'd already made up my mind.
There's lots of ways to cook a duck. I've defrosted some locally farmed Pekin breasts that are about to be scored on the skin side and fully cooked on the stove in a non-stick skillet. Unless they're bodaciously over-sized there's no need for a hot oven, in my experience. Serving them with green beans and spuds. Currents, cranberries and possibly blueberries will round out the meal.
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If you go to Quebec you'll find some amazing Haitian restaurants in Montreal. I've been to a lovely one on Rue St-Denis last year -- don't remember the name. The community there is proud and extroverted and loves to share the culture, food, music, history, etc.
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Must be nice not to have to worry about making a living. Unheard of really, to close a money maker like this.
Actors do it all the time, stopping a role when their show is on top but usually not in any other type of business.
I wonder what type of innovations for the making of food products he can or hopes to accomplish ?
What happens to all the people he employes in the the two years ?
My reaction exactly. Surely there's more to the story.
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Oaky white wines. Use to love them. Can't go near them now...they taste fake to me.
I like my reds dry and my whites sparkling. Or fortified.
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Janet, I think we agree ... you're mentioning things that are intrinsic to a dish that have to be added at the time of plating. I understood the question as more about all-purpose additions (like maple butter that you add to just about everything).
Paul, everything is better with maple butter, it's the new bacon. What I'm wondering about are those small touches at the last minute that add a little something. A nasturtium flower, some fennel fronds, oil droplets, whatever. Stuff that's not on the table at Pizza Pizza.
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I have some pork hearts in the freezer: this seems like a pretty good treatment for them.
Pork hearts are definitely on my to do list. Many offal cooks talk about the thymus as the best part, but I think a good case could be made for the heart. I'd be curious to compare the taste of a calf heart to that of a cow or steer. One benefit of a larger heart is the ease of trimming out pure red muscle. These small lamb organs scream "cook me whole".
Speaking of hearts, here's a beef heart photo from this week. The meat is finely cubed, dusted with flour and browned with onions and mushroom. Served on riced russet potato with smoky paprika and black pepper, and dried black trumpet garnish. The trumpets were a bit chewy, I just couldn't bring myself to grind them up. Maybe for Valentine's Day.
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I have some pork hearts in the freezer: this seems like a pretty good treatment for them.
Pork hearts are definitely on my to do list. Many offal cooks talk about the thymus as the best part, but I think a good case could be made for the heart. I'd be curious to compare the taste of a calf heart to that of a cow or steer. One benefit of a larger heart is the ease of trimming out pure red muscle. These small lamb organs scream "cook me whole".
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So here's the plan:
- trim the hearts of fat, sinew, valves, etc.
- sweat some chopped onions in butter
- mix onions with breadcrumbs, rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper
- stuff the hearts, wrap in cheesecloth
- to the the small pots add butter, chopped carrots and mushrooms
- in go the hearts, fill pots up with chicken stock
- 325 F oven for two hours
This is somewhat faithful to the pre-WWII recipe, except I didn't wrap them with bacon, and I used two different breadcrumbs -- one with white and one pumpernickel.
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Have a Heart
A neighbor of mine dug up an old hand-written recipe collection from a box in her garage. She thinks it belonged to her great mother-in-law who's last entry is dated 1939. Between the paper quality and penmanship, it's generally hard to read but the contents are interesting. There's something called "black soup" that, as far as I can tell, uses burnt flour as the base for the soup. There are recipes that over-cook fish and vegetables in a variety of ways, and a few that use offal. The one I'm going to use calls for a pair of lamb hearts to be "stuffed and stewed" . . .
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It's that time of year again . . . Burns Night 2010
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I love Tater Tots, with ketchup.
Ohhh, I forgot about those. Tater Tots with lots of ketchup. And if some of that ketchup accidentally oozes on to my steak, I am happy (ashamed but happy).
Tater Tots are tasty. Here's another level of shame: when you run out, cut a russet into 1/2" slabs, punch out cylinders using your apple corer, soak for an hour in salty water, pat dry then deep fry in canola until golden.
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Rice Krispies now taste inedibly salty.
They've changed, but I can still eat the Rice Krispies. What I cannot handle are all the hypersugary cereals that I once liked. Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, Trix, Cap'n'Crunch . . . Count Chocula. Gag.
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Opening paint cans -- just kidding. There are some small knives that shouldn't be too sharp. I'm thinking of butter knives, those strange-shaped cheese knives, and paring knives like the one you mention for avocado.
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Have you tried this ?
(for four)
Trout with cream
Mix breadcrumbs (1 or 2 cups ? Sorry, I learned and have always done it by eye) with equal quantities chopped parsley and chives (3-4 tablespoons each ?), and season with salt & pepper.
'Poach' trout* fillets (ideally from fish of about 3/4 pound) gently in a couple of tablespoons of water till done. Drain and lay in a grill pan or other wide pan that fits under your grill. Pour on double / whipping cream - 0.5 - 1oz per serving ? Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture over them, drizzle with melted butter and grill (that's broil to you, is it ?) till nicely golden.
Simple and very very good. I credit this recipe to my CB-trained Aunt Moira.
*trout - impossible in Tokyo, in practice. I make it quite successfully with salmon, but trout has its own special flavour, doesn't it ?
That sounds like a winner. . . sweet fillets get creamy sauce and a herby-crunchy crust from the broiler aka overhead radiant heat. Gotta ask what does CB-trained mean?
What should pigs eat?
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
I've raised a handful of pigs in the last few years and I can report that the one intentionally "finished" on apples was the best. The other three were genetically very similar, and raised in the same way on the same farm. My inkling is not scientific, but I suspect diet does have a measurable effect on flavor. My knowledge of the pigs' diet certainly affects my perception of flavor.