Peter the eater
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Posts posted by Peter the eater
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I love reading this topic -- every time I check Today's Active Topics and I see there's been an addition, my brain adds an "e" after the Urban.
My municipality has had many heated exchanges regarding chicken coops in the city. I've lost track who's winning. Fifty years ago my garage was full of chickens. They're long gone but we've got some great compost soil.
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There's a Bon Appetit cover recipe for barbecue pizza that I tried in the summer of 1996 and I've be doing it ever since. Make the dough in a mixer, grill one side, flip and add the fixin's.
Should a pizza be round?
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Do we get our love of mussels from the Acadiens, or are they a more recent development?
I think they're still on the rise in terms of popularity. They've only been farmed for a few decades now, so they're also more available than before.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that the first French settlers recognized them immediately as delicious bivalves. I'm pretty sure the First Nations folks were eating them 10,000 years ago.
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Coquille Saint Jacques Nova Scotia Style
This was a fun one to research. There's lots of history and an enormous number of variations for this French Classic, from the dead-easy to the ridiculously complicated. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to use fresh scallops and don't over-cook them.
This version uses farmed Digby scallops, potato, onion, garlic, butter, cream, white wine, flour, flaky salt, black pepper, bread crumbs and chives.
Steam the scallops whole for a few minutes:
Take them out when they're just opening:
Make a white sauce using the flavourful steaming water. Pipe a mash potato circle around the perimeter of the cleaned half shell. Spoon in the sauce and add some scallop meat. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, Salt and pepper:
After a few minutes under the broiler, sprinkle some chopped chives and serve:
They didn't last long:
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How about pale pink?
Boil fresh cut rhubarb with sugar and a little lemon juice, strain, chill, drink. Makes a great granita, too.
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Hey, Peter, do you know if mackeral take flies readily? I am a fly fisher, and it would be really fun to try to catch some on flies. Thanks!
I've never seen anyone using fly gear for mackerel. They'll take anything presented to them so I'm sure it could work. Unlike a lone river salmon, it's all or nothing with these guys -- they travel in numbers. They left my bay this week so I'll have to wait to try a fly. They're pretty good fighters being torpedo-shaped like tuna.
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. . . we found 4 morels growing on the lawn!
That adds a whole new dimension to foraging.
There are many things right under our noses that are perfectly delicious. I grew up battling dandelions with no idea how good they can be, and clover too. I've never seen a morel on my lawn but I get tons of wild strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.
I could probably survive a year living off my lawn, longer if I include the mammals.
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I use my melon ballers to make potato balls.
I knew I wasn't alone. Although, I never thought to boil them first -- that would make it a lot easier to scoop through the flesh.
Similarly, I use the apple corer on raw potatoes after I make thick slices. The result is potato cylinders of uniform length.
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Beautiful presentation. I can almost taste it.
My four year old kids liked it -- particularly the mint sauce.
I just wish this cut wasn't so pricey. We'll have lamb at home at least twice a month, almost always it's a leg. To me, flavor is more important than tenderness when it comes to red meat. To get both takes time and/or money.
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Do you think you could tell the difference between a sardine course cooked by a man and a sardine course cooked by a woman?
Maybe, but I could so easily be deceived. There's no tell-tale Adam's apple or give-away size twelve stilettos.
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I understand completely. For me it's waffles.
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Form a neighborhood cooking collective: Share your ice cream maker, your blow torch, your smoker, your rototiller, your pasta machine.
That's a compelling idea. I'd love a kitchen equipment library where I go and sign out expensive or rarely used objects -- like a Big Green Egg, or a truffle plane.
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Here's an example of a "Green Cooking at Home" guide for seafood. It's a tool to help shoppers make good decisions when buying fish. I applaud the effort and the vision but I don't agree with all the recommendations.
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I was wondering why you bothered to gut and behead them, then. If you're just looking for the fillets, a lot of people seem to just cut them off the sides of the whole fish, and discard the rest. Based on your pictures, you should be able to do that without losing any yield while saving a lot of time.
You're right, it would save time if there were lots of fish to fillet. I only had a few mackerel, and the idea of using the guts in a trap only came to me as I started to remove the innards. The usual bait is canned cat food.
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Do you keep the bodies for anything?
I didn't use the spine and tail this time. I usually cook the fish on the bone with only the head and guts removed. Grilled, poached or baked are all good ways to cook mackerel.
These particular fillets were cured with salt and rice vinegar to make Japanese style shime saba.
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I don't buy lamb racks very often. This has to change.
I found a local rack and took it home, looked up Julia Child's recipe, then spent 20 minutes "Frenching" it.
Coated it with a Dijon/rosemary/oil mixture:
Seared at 500F for 10 minutes, then another 20 at 400F with bread crumbs added:
Rested and sliced rare:
Served with roast potatoes, steamed carrots, peas and tart mint sauce:
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Mackerel
Atlantic mackerel run twice a year in the bay where I live, first in May when they're small "tinkers" and then again in August as mature fish. The school is usually very large -- easily seen from shore as they are pursued by birds, seals, whales and other fish. To catch them I use a mackerel jig -- six unbaited hooks on light weight line and rod. If your cast passes through the school, you get to land up to six mackerels simultaneously. It's very easy to collect several dozen in a half hour.
These fish are delicious, high in vitamin B12, loaded with omega 3 fatty acids, and virtually free of mercury. Even easier than the catching is the cleaning:
Slit the belly from vent to head:
Scoop out innards and rinse the empty cavity:
Remove the head and both fillets with a sharp bendy knife:
Keep the head and guts for the raccoon trap:
Raccoons are total omnivores and can't resist fresh fish guts. This female moved into my garage so we trapped and relocated her to a better place:
ETA spelling
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Maybe too late for tonight's dinner, but all the bready stuff between fresh and moldy here gets converted to crumbs for baking etc. Freeze it, very handy.
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Good topic to bump!
Vinegar, molasses, tomatoes and salt -- that's a good one.
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What an adventure. My brother-in-law worked at Dawson City's Diamond Tooth Gertie's for a year and loved it. He liked Klondike Kate’s Restaurant, but there's lots to choose from in the summer. I'd seek out the wild fish, game, and flora.
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Marlene, that is an outstanding basement bar. Well composed, well lit, and just the right amount of cabinet doors. Breath-taking, really.
You have put the Oak in Oakville.
(Unless I'm confusing you with someone else from Oakville, but you know what I mean)
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Steven, it would've been an entertaining week for an eG Foodblog.
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I drink tea everyday but I don't mix it up very much. I honestly don't think I've ever had a variety of tea I didn't like, as long as it's been prepared with a little care. I'm sure I'll eventually find one that's not my cup of tea. I'll be reading along.
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This question has been rolling around in my head for a week now. I spend way too much time contemplating the design of things, so I didn't want to post a hasty response.
I'm going with the stainless steel stopper in my sink. I believe it's from Krowne but I can't find it in their catalog -- probably because it's been recalled for extreme stupidity.
It's the kind with a catcher so it can go from plug to sieve with a simple twist, or at least that was the design intention. In reality, it's basically impossible to reach down (usually through hot soapy water) and rotate the small nub to drain the sink because there's nothing to grip.
I would've chucked it a few years ago but it came with the stainless steel sink and the two are a matched pair. I use it right-side up for plug, and upside-down for sieve.
Nova Scotia’s Traditional Foods
in Eastern Canada: Cooking & Baking
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You can find it at the grocery store. Try the freezer section at Sobey's or Atlantic SuperStore.