restaurant quality pan seared scallops at home

It all began this afternoon. Actually, it all began about two weeks ago when midterm projects and exams began. That was around the same time that J came down with a wicked cold. I remember because it started the day after Yom Kippur and the day before Thanksgiving. The Jewish holy days always come with lots of traditional foods. Yom Kippur is different because it comes with the denial of food for 25 hours followed by a huge binge. I think this was a bit of a shock to poor J's system. This was his first fast and I was very proud of him for making Yom Kippur meaningful in his own way and in his own time. Le sigh.

Anyway, J started to come down with something the day of his mom's family Thanksgiving and spent half of the day trying to sleep in his old bedroom, avoiding his nieces and nephew. Since then, I've eaten more soup than any span of time in recent memory. I took very good care of J making soups from turkey bones, beans, and squash. My dad always told me, a good soup always starts with a mirepoix and a frying pan.

As you might expect, I eventually caught J's cold and had to continue the soup cycle for another week. J made a weird soup that kind of didn't work. I think he just make the mistake of putting too many things in it. One night I tried the Chinese take-out counter down the street, Mirama. Great chicken noodle soup. Cheap and cheerful soy sauce chow mein. Got a couple spring rolls for J and the three things came out to $11. Visit their website by clicking on the link for a take out menu and the number to call. Free delivery over $10! Cash only...

Today was a special day. It was the first day in two weeks that neither of us had an exam or paper and both of us were feeling on the better side of this cold. We walked down to Monkland Village. I am thrilled to say that the bad days are over and the coffee maker that I broke has been replaced with a lovely french press, a grinder, and some freshly roasted Kenyan beans. The coffee came from Le Maitre Boucher, 5652 Ave. Monkland (between Harvard and Oxford), (514) 487-1437. As did a most surprising assortment of goodies.

The shop was very crowded and there were all kinds of treasures inside. I spotted them out of the corner of my eye. In a little, see-thru plastic container, nestled in an open refrigerated case, there sat protected from the world, ten beautiful scallops from Nova Scotia. I should have taken a photo of them all cozy in the package together, each one a beautiful, clean tasting morsel of the sea.

I had to think of a plan fast so I went for some strong, crumbly, sweet blue cheese and a large, firm pear. They will end up in some sort of bruleed masterpiece when I figure out how to use my new blow torch. We quickly dropped off the precious ingredients at home and I leafed through old copies of Cook's Illustrated. I remembered a sweet pea puree that I had seen used under some halibut recently. I know I've read articles about how to complete perfect pan-seared scallops at home, if only I could find the issue.

Out the door again, this time to the supermarket for frozen peas and a couple other key ingredients. Cream for our new coffee. The baby bok choi also looked fresh so we picked some up and figured we'd find a way to cook it later.

The pea puree was very easy to make and left one huge but simple component complete and at the ready. The scallops needed little more than salt, pepper, vegetable oil, and unsalted butter. I wasn't sure of the exact order of what to do when, but I was sure I had read an article about it this summer. I kept looking through the magazines and couldn't find it. That's when I remembered my online membership. I was on the recipe faster than a flash in the pan.

Inside of a minute I had found a cross-referenced article about sauces for scallops and settled on a lemon-herb brown butter sauce. J came into the kitchen when things started to smell good and made himself useful as photographer, sous-chef, and dish boy. The penne aglio olio never would have happened without him.

Next time I make this (which will be at a dinner party near you) I would do a couple of things differently. Rather than boiling them in a high walled frying pan I would blanche and then stir fry the bok choi in ginger and green onion.

I would also add more liquid to the pea puree when I blended it.

We have enough leftovers to turn this into an appetizer for us tomorrow night. If they don't get eaten cold from the fridge as an afternoon snack during the day.


Pistachio ice cream for dessert.

exploring a new kitchen and a new city

When we arrived in Montreal the air was warm and the sun was shining, already a dramatic departure from where we had been. The last month in Edmonton was too busy to recollect in any great detail. Sisters returning home from far away lands like Berlin and the mountains of Appalachia; days and nights spent on a hillside listening to guitars a-plenty; plumbing the depths of my organizational skills as I packed up one life to begin another. Suffice it to say that the events of this past summer will take a while to sink in.

When we arrived in Montreal, we picked up our rental car and made our way to J's best friend's house, which would become the base of our operations for the next week or so. As hard as I tried, I couldn't find us a place to live from the other side of the country, so in that first week we had an important task at hand - find an apartment within our budget and geographical constraints. It was essential that I find a place close to my classes if I was going to make it to any of the ones that start before noon. By some divine intervention or alignment of the stars, we found our place at the corner of Madison and Somerled in just two days of intense looking.

The Madison is a cool building, dating back to 1951. There are a few little retro touches here and there, most obviously the vintage customized welcome mat at the front of the building and art deco steel railings through the stairwells. Our little home had just finished being refurbished with a brand new kitchen and bathroom and refreshed paint and hardwood throughout. There is more than enough space here for J and I to have our own separate work spaces, and miracle of miracles, my office is just off the kitchen with a door that leads out onto our balcony!

The best part of this kitchen, without a doubt, is the brand new gas range. I've never cooked with gas before but I know after just a little over a week that I'll have a hard time going back to electric. The heat is instantaneous and the flame gives a clear read on the actual temperature. No more guessing based on the glow of the coil. J has been something of an angel helping me to make sense of the space. He has a much keener eye for design and somehow found all sorts of clever ways to make my work space (both culinary and academic) function well.

Somerled Avenue is already proving to be an untapped well of gastronomic delights. The other night J, his brother, and I had a late dinner on the terrace at Anancy, a Jamaican restaurant that seems to be a mainstay of the community. Amazing fish and unforgettable festivals. We've found super cheap and delicious calzones at Molisana, the Italian bakery, and delicious food and good conversation at the deli and fromagerie Tranzo. The day we moved in we were also amazed by the expansive menu and friendly service at B & M restaurant. It's sort of a weird throwback to another time. The place looks and feels like an old deli/luncheonette sort of joint. Two senior couples were mulling over their scrambled eggs and toast at around 3 pm. Breakfast, we learned, is served daily until 4. The dessert option was jello or chocolate cake. But they serve wine and smoothies and my meal consisted of homemade chicken noodle soup to start and the daily special of mussels in a garlic and white wine sauce and we were brought hot, fresh baguette while we waited. An enigma, to be sure, and certainly a place I will have to report back on at greater length another time.

To summarize, I am happy, healthy, and well fed. This place is already feeling like our home. I already have the start of a pretty wicked herb garden growing in our living room window (thanks to future mom-in-law slash gardener extraordinaire) and I'm back to blogging again. I hope such a long hiatus will not happen again.

Until next time...

things I want to eat when it's raining...

For more than a solid month now we've had unprecedented amounts of rain, night after night. Summer is a sham. We're all feeling hopelessly weary and other than cauliflower farmers, the rest of us are quite unhappy with this weather.

Cauliflower, it seems, grows well in moist conditions. Bully for cau
liflower. I want the ice cream man to grow well.
I think back to hot, dry summers of watermelon, Taber corn, walking with my grandparents to Dairy Queen for blizzards and pineapple sundaes (Zaida's favourite).
But this summer it feels like droopy escarole soup and heavy vichyssoise are the soup of the day and there just will not be enough bike rides.
One night and I got out from under the thunderclouds above by wandering in to Irie Foods on Whyte. On the other side of the tracks, this little unsuspecting hole in the wall took our breath away with warmth, hospitality, and good good island cuisine. I'm glad I only ordered one side order of dumplings because we could barely finish the food. J and I are fans of sharing so we started with beef patties - flaky golden pastry and spicy ground meat steaming inside. Then we had the plantains - there may have been a fork battle that arose over the last bite. For our main we ordered the red snapper with beans and rice. It came with soup or salad. Our delightful server (who, by the way, kept the red stripe stubbies coming all night) highly recommended the chicken noodle, and as the rain pounded down the sidewalk outside we heartily agreed.
I've never had a whole fish before. Eyes and all. That took some getting used to. But the fish itself was fantastic, infused with delicate but sumptuous flavour. Working around the bones was part of the fun, as I was better at it than J.
Everything about that place was a marvel. I was so glad we happened upon it that evening. If, on another such stormy night, you and a special someone are hungry and looking to escape the galoshes blues, paddle over to the island for a while, and let Irie Foods take you there.

Irie Foods is located on the north side of Whyte at:
10152 82nd Avenue
Edmonton, AB

down with cheeseburgers!

As you may recall, I have a rather feeble, albeit feisty, grandmother. For the past week she's been in hospital, as multiple doctors and medical stakeholders determine whether there is anything they can really do to help her. She's a trooper, and with only a few outbursts, has taken this entire experience in stride. It's us that are a mess. My aunt and uncle and cousin and my parents, sister, and me have been with her almost constantly. Spending so much time in hospital, one scarcely has time to put together any decent meal at home. Mostly we've been subsisting on melted cheese on toast and Chinese leftovers. These are some of my favourite foods, so other than the lack of leafy green vegetables, I take no real issue there.

The problem isn't what we eat at home. The problem is what is on offer at the hospital. I am sorry, but a burger chain, really? Yes, Tim Horton's is available some times, but more often than not, the only open vendor is the hospital run White Spot. Now don't get me wrong, I love burgers as much as the next red-blooded, meat-eating gal. But to see patients and their family members sullenly gumming down soggy, tired, alarmingly delicious patties is unacceptable. Can't we demand better? Isn't there something in a code somewhere that states that people who are in an institution to try to recover their health and heal their wounds ought to be provided with sustenance that nourishes and sets an example on how to go about feeding oneself outside of the institution? It seems completely wrong. Moreover, it seems like it is part of a greater conspiracy to keep the North American population debilitated my obesity and riddled with heart disease. The status quo is unacceptable.

Rant over.

Now, given that I've been spending what little free time I have at the hospital, it follows that I have not had a chance to do any cooking for quite some time. So on Saturday, I treated myself to an hour or so at one of my favourite places - the Strathcona Farmer's Market - and wandered up and down the aisles looking for inspiration. I didn't make it to the market until nearly the end of the day, so vendors were sweetly giving away their wares, just so that they wouldn't go to waste. A lovely Norwegian man with a big, white beard gave me twice as many leeks. I had a pound of potatoes already at home from the nice little Chinese ladies that grow organic veggies at the corner stall with the banner Peas on Earth.

After filling up my bag with other delightful treasures (a pot of irises and a couple bunches of tulips - one for my house, one for my Baba's hospital room) I returned home with renewed resolve to stay in the kitchen until I felt a bit better. Cooking is, for me, a cathartic expression of whatever I feel inside me. And, since for the past week I've been feeling a great big ball of half-digested cheeseburger inside me, I decided to chop, sauté, and boil a big healthful simmering pot of potato leek soup. I found a simple recipe on epicurious.com and went to town. With my music playing and the space all to myself I felt more at home and more comforted than I had done in a long time.

Even better - I had something tangible to show for my time. My soup was finished without much mess and will enough to take a large container of it over to my aunt and uncle's house. They too have been suffering from the hospital burger sickness. What's more, I did it all with locally grown produce that was tended to with love and care that seemed to infuse every spoonful. I hope my Baba gets out of the hospital soon. I'd very much like to take her to the market. Late in the afternoon is a good time to go. And the vendors would clamour to offer her their delicious wares. She's too precious to let pass by without offering her something. If only she were well enough for a bowl of my soup... imagine the healing that would bring.

Ode to the Half Moon or What to do with dinner party leftovers

Well the roast chicken from last night's dinner party was just a wonderful mishmash of recipe devotion and devil-may-care improvisation. By devotion I mean the way in which after revisiting a recipe from a book so many times that you know the exact page by its wrinkled appearance as it sits in the book when it is shut. You revisit the steps so many times that if you stray from a letter here and there, you know your efforts are still in the spirit of the word. These great books are the sacred texts of our practice. Ours is an ancient art and meditation.
After spending an evening cooking, drinking, recounting and laughing, I was amazed the next morning to find that I had had the presence of mind (and helpful friends) to put away all the leftovers. The first items to be portioned out were care packages for both of my guests. They had braved a blizzard to come and eat a meal with me, and in return I was able to keep our dinner party going for at least another meal or two. This is an important part in the ritual of our practice. Sharing dishes with each other, stories that we haven't told, a bed when the snow blows too cold, and the promise of another good meal down the road.
Of course, to me, sharing also happens in the preparation of the meal. Opening each other's wine and teaching each other's recipes is such a vital part of cooking. And if your life (or at least what you believe in) is cooking, then you must, I am sure, be aware of this basic principle. to truly consider oneself a cook, one must love to share one's bounty, and impart knowledge, understanding it as part of that wealth.
A couple of things to note from this tremendous and beautifully collaborative meal:
Though my challah is not as high or uniformly shiny as the bakery version, I think mine is lovely and rustic. It tastes just as sweet, if not a bit sweeter for the honey (don't use sugar if your recipe suggests it. Honey all the way. The local-er, the yummier!). Bread is about the manifestation of something coming from your physical labour. It is truly the most personal thing you can make to eat. Not only do you have to manually work to bring it to life, you have to get to know your dough and your surroundings to gauge where to add and take away. These multiple varying elements could be the flour, water, temperature, humidity, altitude, and let's not forget the peculiarities of your oven. The art and spirit of baking bread is disappearing. It takes a while to get good at it. But once you do it will be a lifelong skill you can preserve.
Also, I would like to pay tribute to some wonderful books that inspired what became a feast of legend, if only to a very small number.
Modern French Classics, again featured prominently as the main source with their Oven-Baked Chicken with Garlic (Poulet aux 40 Gousses d'Ail). That's right, you read correctly, 40 cloves of garlic! Even if you don't eat it, and there is certainly no reason why you shouldn't, the garlic has now been roasted in the loving company of a very juicy bird. Save it and use it in pasta sauce, lasagne, hamburgers, or even spread on crostini as an appetizer.
I also learned some very interesting things about roasting a chicken from Pim Techmuanvivit. I was reading her book, The Foodie Handbook (The Almost Definitive Guide to Gastronomy), and she describes learning how to roast a chicken as the very first lesson. One tip she ascribes to a Mr. Harold McGee, is to stuff the inside of the bird to keep the inside from overheating and thus drying out. In particular, it is breast meat that we worry about drying out. So just to make sure this doesn't happen, when you take it out of the roasting pan, flip it upside down to rest to that as all the juices run back into the meat, the breast will collect extra moisture and flavour.
I did end up serving those avocado chocolate muffins. They would have been cupcakes if I had time to whip up some interesting icing. Again, they were found at: http://ysolda.com/wordpress/2008/02/04/chocolate-avocado-cakes/

Now, more to the point of this story... what do you do when your guests go home and you are left with some many delicious leftovers crowding your refrigerator?
Well to start you should put on a big pot of water to boil and salt it. Take those carrots and celery that you know you always have in your vegetable drawer for just such opportunities, and clean and slice them both in half-moons, being sure to keep them separated as you set them aside. The carrots will have to be sliced vertically the length of them, first. I bought beautiful purple shallots at the market last week so I did the same to them to make more half moons.
Sauté the shallots in a hot pan with some olive oil, about 1 Tbsp, then add the celery and sauté for a couple of minutes until they begin to give off a tasty aroma. Then add the carrots, stirring as you go.
When the water is boiled, make sure the contents of your chicken have been taken out and then place it carefully into the pot of boiling water. Make sure it if fully submersed in the liquid and return the pot to a boil.
When the vegetables start to become soft, bump up the heat and pour in about a 1/4 C of Port. If you don't have this, cooking sherry, brandy, or sweet red wine will also do just fine. Stir this all together and simmer briefly before tossing it into the pot. Roughly slice some of the set aside roast garlic from the chicken and add to the now vigorously bubbling broth. Add a Bay leaf and a pinch of red saffron, if you have some. I also added a few leaves of rosemary from the plant on my counter. My dad is very proud of this plant. It has stayed alive through a transplant from the yard to the kitchen counter and continues to thrive even with the few hours of warm light from the window.
Let the soup bubble gently on the stove with the lid off to let the flavours boil down and concentrate. You may need to turn the chicken in the pot so that it does not dry out. Don't forget to salt the soup as you go and add some freshly ground black pepper to help the other flavours emerge.
The sun may have been set for hours by now. As it went down over my city, I watched it set the frosty trees of the river valley ablaze. It is it that exact colour that I've recreated in this broth of half-moon wonders. This is what is so wondrous about this practice, this cooking, this witchcraft, the spells you cast and the potions you concoct very truly alter the imbibers, spreading its magic through others.