Jambalaya!

Their just ain't enough smells like a boiling pot of Jambalaya!

I feel in love with this savory spicy dish down in New Orleans where it was an accompaniment to many dishes I ate there. This was the first time I have cooked it myself, and had it since being in New Orleans (barring one occasion at Big Daddies Crab Shack last October).

I was down at the St. Lawrence Market last week buying some sausages, from the Sausage King vendor, for lunch that day when I happened by some Andouille Sausages. I picked them up right away as they aren't the easiest things to find, and knew right then and there, Jambalaya was in my future.

So last night I cooked some up, with some herbed potato wedges and stir fried broccoli mushrooms and garlic.

Turned out well except for the rice in the Jambalaya was slightly undercooked. I tried tasting it ahead of time, unfortunately it was so hot I burnt the living shit out of my mouth and was no closer to tell if the rice was done. So I eyeballed it, and judged by the time that it should be done, in retrospect, it probably could have used another 5 minutes.

I'll Have a Burrito, Everything on it.

So for the first time in a long time I had a burrito. I enjoyed it considerably more then the last time I had one. So as with all culinary treats I enjoy, I try and replicated them at home.

The big road block in my way was having relatively little idea of how to reproduce the barbacoa they used in their beef (even though I was using chicken). The barbacoa at this given place being beef braised for hours (apparently) in a seemingly glowing reddish orange sauce.

So inevitably I jumped in head first spread a Mexican spice blend over my chicken breasts, and browned them in a pot. After browning them all, I deglazed the pan with a bottle of molson ex, and added about 2 cups of chicken stock, followed by 2 chipolte peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tomato, and 1 can of tomato paste. I re-added the chicken breasts till fully cooked and shreddable then removed them. I simmered the sauce down till thick, shredded the chicken, removed the chipolte, and garlic from the sauce, and added the chicken.

Meanwhile I made a roasted tomato and chili salsa, spicy black beans, and some guacamole. Followed by cooking some yellow rice (turmeric and cumin). Now almost ready I shredded some cheese, some lettuce, and made a mix of diced fresh veg.

Salsa

Spicy Black Beans

Diced cucumber, tomato, and scallions

Guacamole

Yellow Rice

The building process ended up looking something like this;

Add Yellow Rice;

Followed by Spicy Black Beans;

Followed by the Chicken;

Some Diced Veg;

Salsa;

Cheese;

Sour Cream;

Guacamole;

And finally the lettuce, wrap in tin foil and place in the oven at 400 for roughly 5 minutes.

Bland Corporate, Peking Duck, Afternoon Jazz, and More!

Now, before getting into this post, I will take a moment to impart of distaste, you may even say disgust or in the right bad mood - hatred of all things corporate. Especially in the world of dining and drinking. It used to be when someone owned a restaurant he took pride in his establishment, and by virtue did what they could to make there establishment the best they could. Corporate avarice is slowly destroying the life force of dining and drinking by taking out the personality and character achieved from a strong hands on touch and presence of a single owner.

That being said, you might ask yourself why I would end up in an Alice Fazooli's. Well the answer is simple; I wouldn't. Or at least I wouldn't as long as I had to pay for it. Christina having 80$ worth of credit at Alice Fazooli's on Richmond brought me a long for dinner. We were seated in the bar area, which was blaring terribly pop music at volumes that could rupture ear drums and drive a lesser man insane. We split and appetizer, a couple of pizza's, and a dessert, all accompanied by a few pints of beer, and a hot liquor coffee as a digestif.

For our appetizer we ordered the Calamari with Salsa Verde Aioli, and a traditional cocktail sauce.

The Calamari was well cooked and well coated, although this isn't an achievement that couldn't be completed by any pub or restaurant worth a damn. The Salsa Verde Aioli, one of the selling points in what made me want to order this dish was an utter disappointment. Whilst not a bad sauce, there was very little in terms of taste that made me think Salsa Verde. In fact the sauce tasted just like any other Aioli you get calamari with. The cocktail sauce tasted pretty much like store bought.

The pizza's we split were a spicy chicken with banana peppers, and a Mediterranean, containing ingredients like eggplant, zucchini, tomato, olives, and feta. The pizza's inevitably were a disappointment, whilst not bad pizzas, for all the boasting of their fresh pizza dough, and specialty pizza ovens, the pizzas reached the table tasting excessively average.

We finished with a raspberry chocolate tartufo. And to be honest I can't say anything bad about this dish. It was tasty, and I have always appreciated the chocolate raspberry combination.

Now for all the disappointments within the food, it was inevitably exactly what I expected from corporate dining. Which is to say fake smiled service, stilted speeches, and the culinary equivalent of a 10$ "Rollex" watch bought off a shady street vendor.

I ended up suffering the consequences of coffee induced awareness till late into the evening, at least until the vodka took over and I could finally sleep around 4am. To my misfortune Christina had to be at a meeting at 9am, so I was to also rise at 8am to a hangover and a trek across town. Whilst she was at her meeting I took a nice stroll down by Lake Ontario, all the way over to the St. Lawrence Market. I stopped in looking for some ingredients for future use, well at least a price check on them. I was happy to have found out all I needed to know, which was Frozen Crawfish tails for 16.99, Gator meat for 14.99, Frogs legs 5.99, prepared frozen Unagi for 10.99, as well as Andouille sausage for 6$ a pack. After achieving my information I popped into the basement for lunch. I went to the Famous Italian Sandwich stand. My lunch consisted of a veal sandwich topped with onions, peppers, mushrooms, hot peppers, and tomato sauce. A bit heavy for my first meal, but to be there on an occasion where their was no line felt like reward enough. The sandwich was tasty, although I regretted not getting cheese on it.

Later in the day to celebrate the good weather we hopped over to Grossman's Tavern for the jazz matinee.

Eventually it got too cold to continue our patio seating, we went in to get up and close with the Jazz. Playing on the stage was Saturday afternoon house band, The Happy Pals, front by Patrick Tevlin (who also leads and plays in 3 or 4 other local Toronto New Orleans Jazz bands and a Ska band). It was a pleasure as always to soak in some good weather and good tunes, and catch up with some people I hadn't seen in a while.

After our music session had concluded we took a walk down Spadina to People's Eatery, to slate our hunger with some Peking Duck. Whilst happy to find out it was substantially cheaper then my regular Peking Duck joint, I was slightly conserned the quality may be sub-standard. After a sufficient (and usual) wait, my concerns were soon relieved, as well as my hunger. A fair sized plate of crispy duck skin served on a bed of crispy noodles, with thin crepes, julienned carrot, scallion, and cucumber, as well as hoisin sauce. Our 2nd duck course, consisting of stir fried duck meat with a heavy ginger and garlic flavour arrived with our other order of Spicy Beef Szechuan Style. I would rank the duck skin on par with my usually Peking place (Peking Man, Sheppard and Leslie) however the 2nd course was far superior. The Spicy Beef was excellent aswell. We washed our meal down with a couple Tsing Tao, then moved back to Grossman's to catch the end of the Happy Pal's set.

Cheers folks, till next time.

It Wasn't the First Time I've Been Called Bitter...

So in light of my string of pub style cooking as of late, and being the month of March with St. Patrick's coming up, I decided a dish of Irish Lamb Stew and Soda Bread was appropriate.

Now the Lamb Stew I used a pretty standard recipe you can find about anywhere (being 1 can of Guinness, beef stock, lamb chunks and root vegetables, and herbs). I also added some of my own additions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and a small bit of sharp cheddar cheese.

The soda bread however has a wide range of different recipes available, caraway seeds, raisins, oats, straight buttermilk, butter and buttermilk, etc etc. Usually I make mine with caraway seeds, this time however I used oats and just buttermilk.

I used to use both butter and buttermilk in my Soda Bread, until making it once I used a recipe requiring 1 stick of butter. Being unfamiliar with stick of butter being an American measurement, I thought it meant to use a full pound of butter. Needless to say my Soda Bread was more like Cake by the end, and whilst tasty, not exactly healthy. I now use just buttermilk as it seems more traditional.

The stew turned out quite nice, with a light bitter after taste. The bread however was a tad over bitter, although I question the integrity of my whole wheat flour.

And finally a word to the wise; If ever your mother asks you what you will be preparing for St. Patrick's Day, replying "Liver Failure" isn't the correct answer.

The Beast

Ah The Beast, apart from a one time, short lived nickname gained from the ability to usually have a good looking woman on my lap despite my grizzled appearance, gruff personality, and occasional drinking problem, it's also become a term of endearment for my home made hamburgers. Tonight, I decided to plate up a few of these beasts. I must admit I was inspired by The Roy's aptly named 'Ultimated Roy', and by this I mean they used cheese buns, and I had some kickin' about without a clue what I was going to do with them. So whilst rounding up the remaining groceries for my pies last night, I picked up some ground pork and beef, and some BBQ sauce.

I started by making my patties the night before, about 4 heads of garlic a splash of worchteshire, salt, pepper, oregano, and equal parts pork and beef.

I went to work by caramelizing 2 onions, and sauteing a half container of mushrooms.

I then sliced some sharp cheddar, put on some bacon, and began cooking my burgers. After flipping the burgers I added some Guinness BBQ sauce, and the sharp Cheddar, I then covered the burgers to melt the cheese.

The building process went like this;

Sauteed mushrooms on the bottom, olive oil on the top half;

Caramelized onions atop the mushrooms;

A slice of Swiss over the onions, then both top and bottom placed under a broiler till cheese bubbly and top browned;

BBQ sauce soaked patty with the sharp cheddar fitted on top;

2 pieces bacon on the patty;

and finally all the fixin's, in this case, lettuce, tomato, pickle, banana peppers on the patty, and mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard on the top.

Now that's a burger.....

that requires napkins!

Pies, Champ and Caesar

Pub food being up their in my enjoyments I finally decided to take my hand at meat pies and champ. I also decided to take another stab at Caesar Dressing, after my last unsuccessful attempt.

Worried about the amount of time it would take me to get everything done I made the Chicken Pot Pie and Steak, Guinness, and Mushroom pie fillings the night before.


Having made good time on the fillings I decided to do my Caesar Dressing the night before as well.

I started with making a base with egg yolk, Dijon, and emulsifying it with olive oil, then squeezing in 1 lemon.

I then added my ingredients, 1 head roasted garlic, 1 large clove garlic pressed, 2 tsp red wine vinegar, 3 anchovies, a splash of worchteshire, Tabasco, and finally some Parmesan cheese. Resulting in something that looked like this;

The next day arrived and I dashed out to get a few remaining ingredients. Upon returning I got hard to work. I started by making my pie crust, which I was using for the bottom, and using store bought puff pastry for the top. I made mini pies in a large muffin tray. I started by filling my Chicken Pot Pies on the left side, whilst I put the finishing touches on my Beef and Guinness mixture (heating and mixing in about a half cup of sharp cheddar).


I then filled the right side with my Beef and Guinness pies and placed into a pre-heated 375 degree oven.

As my pies baked away I diced up a small baguette, coated in olive, Parmesan, and garlic powder, placed on a baking sheet and slid onto the bottom oven rack.

Whilst everything baked away I made my Champ (Champ of course being an Irish mashed potato with scallions, I also add a head roast garlic and parsley) and pan fried my Pancetta for the Caesar. The Pancetta finished around the same time the Croutons finished baking, I diced the Pancetta, and added both to the Caesar along with the sauce.


To my fortune as everything finished off, so did my pies.

Everything turned out for the best. The salad was a vast improvement, all be it, it could have benefited from move anchovies and maybe a second head of roasted garlic. The pies were crusty, the meat was tender, and the sauce was very tasty.

Braised Chicken Thighs & Lemon Grass Shrimp

So sometime around last Sunday I found myself hungover (not to be mistaken for an unusual occurrence) and in need of a quick fix for dinner. And whats quicker then shrimp, and less effort then braising chicken in the oven.

So I brought out my shrimp, added a dash of olive oil, about a tsp of dried lemon grass, half a head of garlic minced (adding half to the shrimp), a pinch of curry powder, a pinch of chili flakes, salt and pepper. I cut up some green and red pepper as well. I heated my wok, added a dash of olive oil, add my remaining garlic stirring till fragrant, then added the peppers till soft, finally adding my shrimp and a dash of soy sauce.

Mean while I seasoned my chicken thighs in salt, pepper, minced garlic, lemon grass, and on half preserved chilies spread on liberally. I then browned the outside, added soy sauce and sherry to the pot with the not spicy ones, and the same plus black bean chili sauce to the spicy pot.

I then placed in the oven at 400 with the lid on for about an hour.

Chicken came out crispy on top and very tender inside. The whole meal was quite tasty.