My Fishy, My Whole Fishy

My blog is a bit behind the times, considering I'm going to talk about my dinner from a whole week ago. But, school takes up a lot of time. Last Saturday, I bought myself a whole rainbow trout for dinner because I like to eat whole animals, so I quite like to cook myself a whole fish. I tried to make one once before, and I think I overcooked it a bit and didn't quite make the most of it. This time, I looked around a bit to find a recipe, not so I could follow it, but so I could get a good cooking time and method. I think I did a pretty decent job, so I'll tell you what I did and show you what a real fish with a head and tail looks like.

I decided to go with a baking method. So, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees F.

I seasoned the inside of the fish with salt and pepper (or actually I should have but I almost forgot until the fish was stuffed so I sprinkled some on then). I stuffed the fish with thin slices of lemon, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, one or two chopped green onions and some capers.

Then I put the fish on an oiled baking sheet. Here's the fishy before he went in the oven:
I baked the fish for 20 minutes at 400 F. It came out pretty nicely cooked, at least it wasn't dry and overcooked. The fish flaked nicely and went well with the tartness of lemon juice I squeezed on it. The sea-like briny capers really complement fish, although I guess this is a freshwater fish (maybe it's not right for it to be briny). There were some presentation problems, though. I guess I didn't use enough oil on the pan because the fish skin stuck a little, not that that's a huge problem when I'm serving myself. But, it could be embarrassing when serving guests. If you want to be sure your fish won't stick, oil generously.

The cooked fish found his way to my plate and looked different and more eatable than the raw fish:
I had a great time tearing the fish apart getting out the good edible parts while removing the head, tail, bones, and skin. I really like the way fish flakes. I think it makes it more fun to eat than meat, sometimes. Is that a weird thing to say? Does anyone else think eating fish is fun?

Trying New Things: Chayote

I like new foods. I pretty much want to try anything, especially fruits and vegetables, because that's totally guilt free. It's not like trying say, Southern fried chicken. I honestly can't remember ever having eaten that. But, I have eaten chayote. I found it sitting amongst the ordinary produce at Safeway and could not resist. It was pretty inexpensive, too. I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money when I don't know something will be good. Here's what it looked like before I got to cooking it:
It was light green, firm, and pear shaped.

I wasn't really sure what chayote was like or how to cook it. But, that's what the Internet is for. I found this promising recipe on Epicurious. By a twist of fate, I had all the ingredients on hand. It's not that surprising though, since you only need chayote, garlic, parsley, green onions, and of course salt and pepper for seasoning. Basically, it's a quick saute to yield crisp tender results. I included the pit and skin because I read that both were edible and I'm all for eating the whole thing.

It looks pretty good, don't it?

The flavour and texture were superb. There was a nice crispness to the texture, almost like a perfect apple. The flavour of the chayote was sweet and accented perfectly by the sweetness and richness of the butter. It was plenty buttery and I used less than the recipe recommends. So, you can cut back a little. . . or you know go nuts. The garlic added a nice, garlicky flavour, that complemented the sweet chayote. It should not be skipped. The green onions and parsley seemed more like garnishes, which I suppose they were. But, they look and taste good.

Trying new things is fun and rewarding, especially when you take a chance on something as tasty as chayote. According to Wikipedia, it's a member of the gourd family and is an important part of the Mexican diet. But, Wikipedia claims the flesh is "mild." I'd say it has a pleasant subtle sweetness. Moral of the story, if you see chayote looking all nice in a store or market, but it and try it. You won't be disappointed.

Squid: Prepping and Cooking Sea Monsters

That's right, squid. It's an ingredient Albert, a Korean, was concerned my Italian family would not be able to stomach. But, we like it and have ordered plenty of calamari appetizers. You know what we don't do? Cook it at home. But you know who did?

That's right me. And the squid I cooked didn't come cleaned and prepared. To make my squid salad, I had to clean and cut the squid. Why did I buy squid? Because I like it, because it was cheap (less than 2 dollars), and because I was inspired that I could do it based on an episode of Alton Brown's show Good Eats on squid of course.

Prepping squid is not for the faint of heart. I could see how the whole process might dampen a weaker, more squeamish appetite than my own. But, I was not deterred. Here's how to prep squid:

First you have to pull the tentacles from the tubes. Next, you can chop the tentacles from the body and maybe cut them in half. I like to eat tentacles, mmm, tentacles. Then, you prep the tube by fishing out all the guts with your clean fingers. Yes, they're slimy. Make sure to remove the quill, which is cartilage I think. It should slide out. Finally, you need to skin the squid tube by peeling it with your fingers. You may need to slit the skin with a knife. Pulling off the fins on the side is optional. The squid can then be cut into rings or strips with a sharp knife.

But cutting the squid isn't half as important as cooking them. Squid will become rubbery unless they are cooked either very quickly or for a very long time. I went with fast cooking, partly because I couldn't find any slow recipes.

I boiled the squid for my salad for about 1 minute then drained them and put them in an ice bath. This stopped the cooking process rendering my squid very tender. They tasted of the sea and complemented a salad of greens, tomato, red bell pepper, green onion, and homemade croutons perfectly. I dressed it simply in red wine vinegar and olive oil. I was pretty impressed with myself for cooking squid. Here you can see a little of my salad:

The following day, I cooked the remainder of the squid by seasoning it with soy sauce and stir frying it for about a minute. It wasn't quite as tender as the day before, but it wasn't bad either.

If you're a squid lover and not squeamish, try cooking squid. It's an adventure in every package. Besides, the sea is full of them, so it's a sustainable choice.

Little Italy, A Little Risotto, and My Little Sister

Wednesday afternoon was a really enjoyable, really foodie time. Once classes were over, my little sister and I met up to shop for and cook dinner. I've been meaning to check out the Italian Centre Shop in Little Italy for quite some time. I'd heard it was awesome with so much Italian food and excellent prices. It was a bit of a journey from the University on the LRT and a really old-school electric bus. We thought it was like a journey back in time what with the old bus and the state of the Little Italy neighbourhood, which is maybe a touch run down. The store was absolutely awesome, though.

There was a lot of food you don't see elsewhere like goat stewing meat. There was a ton of dried pasta in every imaginable shape, a pretty much exhaustive selection of Italian cheeses and cured meats, and an olive counter. I found treasures like cheap figs and fennel bulbs in the produce department. There were also piles of Italian cookies and chocolates including single Bacci chocolates available at the checkout counters.

My sister and I bought ingredients for a recipe by Giada Di Laurentiis for Dirty Risotto, that features pancetta, hot Italian sausage, mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, and Italian flat leaf parsley. For the two of us, we prepared essentially half the recipe with a few alterations. We used less than a tablespoon of butter and one approximately 4 ounce link of the Italian Centre's fresh hot sausage. We skipped the white wine due to the expense and the fact we wouldn't drink the rest but added a chopped clove of garlic with the vegetables. We also didn't add any salt. . . but that's a matter of taste. Leslie was a fantastic sous-chef and the dish came together beautifully. She even cut all the mushrooms really, really carefully into slices.

Here's our masterpiece:
The pork products added a ton of flavour to the risotto, which was also wonderfully creamy and starchy. Both my sister and I like starch so we really enjoyed this. The bits of sausage were very tasty, clearly the Italian Centre knows what they're doing making it. I think it was comparable to what I tasted in Southern Ontario. Freshly grated Parmesan also added delicious flavour.

I think this was my sister's first risotto and she liked it. As a side dish we had a plate of heirloom tomatoes with pepper and basil. It was an excellent choice to cut some of the starchy richness of the risotto. All in all, it was a really successful shopping trip and supper with my sister.

Harvest Time And A Bonus Recipe!!!

I'm back in Edmonton, now, and I'm finally starting to accept summer's end and the coming of fall and winter in the far, far North. This may not be Iqaluit but it's as far North as I ever go. My return to Edmonton brought a return to gardening in the Campus Community Garden, which is of course coming rapidly to an end for the season. (There's a frost warning tonight that should spell the end.) Perhaps because I know it's about to end, I've really been enjoying the last of the garden's bounty. In the last week or so, I've enjoyed cucumbers, summer squash, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, Swiss chard, and herbs from the garden. I've also participated in a massive planting that will turn into a virtual garlic farm next summer.

The summer squash and cucumbers are gone now and I will miss those sweet, fresh veggies. I don't know why, but I really like summer squash.

Swiss chard was something I tried for the first time from the garden last summer. I really enjoy the unique flavour and the virtuous knowledge that I'm eating dark, leafy greens. Last Saturday, a large crop of chard remained to be picked on the garden's farm plot. I couldn't bear to leave it there, so I took a couple of big bags home, mostly for freezing as fellow gardeners suggested. I'm not sure how that worked out, but I blanched and froze 4 good-sized packets of chard that I plan to make veggie lasagna and soup with. I also enjoyed some of the chard fresh, sauteed into a veggie mixture to top my favourite smoked chicken tortelloni from Safeway. It actually looks pretty good:

It was good, as I really like my stuffed pastas. The green flavour of the chard went well with the acidity and sweetness of garden fresh tomato and the freshness basil (from the garden of course), onion, and garlic.

Alas, we've torn up all the basil and tomatoes in an effort to avoid losing it to frost. I took a number of green tomatoes home when we ripped out the tomatoes on Saturday that looked like this:

Despite my best efforts to ripen them in my apartment, which is rather lacking in sunlight, only some of these tomatoes have ripened. The ones that have ripened have displayed the dramatic variety of what a tomato can be. With the focus on heirloom varieties in our tomato patch, I've gotten to try some rather unique specimens. The ripe colours range from reddish brown to "tomato" red to yellow. I suppose my taste buds are poorly developed because they all taste like good, sweet, slightly acidic tomatoes to me. Maybe yellow is a little more acidic than red, but I couldn't be sure. The shapes of the tomatoes range from round cherries to long "sausage" tomatoes. Even the tomato skin texture varies with one variety having not the usually smooth skin but peach-like slightly fuzzy skin.

I wanted to share my modest bounty of heirloom tomatoes with my sister, so when we cooked together today, I had her prepare this plate of tomato slices with basil and black pepper as a "salad." She was surprised that all the fruits I gave her to slice were tomatoes and even slightly afraid of the brownish one that I think she found tastiest. Here's a picture of her tomato arranging handy-work:

I think it looks awesome, Leslie has lots of patience for making things look good. I am so thankful for the opportunity to explore heirloom and unusual varieties and just vegetables I wasn't raised eating through the garden. I've met some interesting people and some real food people there too.

Even the carrots at the garden were unusual since we grew some red carrots. I cut into one fat red carrot and was surprised to find its yellow flesh:

The red carrot joined fingerling potatoes from the garden, garlic, mushrooms, and parsnip in a roasted root vegetable side to steak. It was very tasty, so I'm going to share my method.

Root Vegetable Roast

Ingredients

1 large button mushroom cut in quarters

1 medium carrot cut in large chunks

1 small parsnip cut in large chunks

4 fingerling potatoes, larger ones halved (or chunks of ordinary potatoes)

1 large garlic clove, cut in half

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, some with leaves removed, some whole

salt

black pepper

olive oil

Method

Toss the vegetables and garlic with some olive oil and thyme in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Put in an oven safe dish. Here's mine:

Roast uncovered for 50-60 minutes at 400 F, stirring once, until tender. It will serve one with a small steak and look like this:

Obviously, you could make more if you are lucky enough to have an eating companion.

It's delicious because the oven caramelizes the outsides of the vegetables while on the inside the carrots remain crisp while the potatoes get soft, creamy, and starchy inside. Those fingerling potatoes were delicious, too bad I have none left. And the garlic, oooh that soft, mild roasted garlic. It is so good.

Winter is coming, so appreciate the harvest while you can. Although you might have a lot more time than I do in the frigid North.

Cookie Monster's Cookie Variations

I suppose there isn't much of a new story to this, since I've talked about this basic recipe before. Then again I did make some changes and take some pretty pictures, so I suppose it warrants a new post. For the food porn alone:There's nothing quite like looking at a tin of freshly baked cookies. These are oatmeal cookies, clearly and are based on Nick Malgieri's recipe that David Lebovitz blogged about. I've also blogged about them here. Anyways, like I said I made a couple of changes when I baked up the cookies for Robyn's barbecue.

I found my initial batch too sweet so this time I used 1/4 cup of granulated sugar instead of 1/2 cup. They still seemed sweet enough to me. I also used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white all-purpose flour in place of 1 cup of white flour. I really don't think I could tell the difference with this, but I guess it made them even healthier. I also added a bunch of zest from an organic orange to the batter in the wet ingredients. This added a intriguing dimension to the cookies with orange flavour and fragrance that I really think goes well with raisins and oatmeal. It had my friends wondering just what that intriguing flavour element was. I baked the cookies for 9 minutes on an ungreased, non-stick cookie sheet and got a yield of 30 cookies.

The cookies were pretty popular and all the ones I brought to the barbecue got eaten. But, I saved a few for myself and for my sister, the zest-aholic to try. They're frozen now. I actually really enjoyed eating the previous batch straight out of the freezer. Is that weird? Nothing like a frozen cookie on a hot day, not that there are any of those left. (Hot days, not cookies.)

Here's a bonus close-up of one of these scrumptious soft, slightly chewy cookies:

Visits To Some E-Town Favourites

While my parents were up in Edmonton recently moving my sister back to residence, we partook in 3 meals at some of my go-to Edmonton restaurants.

First, we went to Dadeo on a Sunday night. My dad had the Combo Dadeo of meat jambalaya, barbecue beans, and blackened chicken that he enjoyed last time. He nearly finished it, which is quite impressive. My mom and sister went with po'boy sandwiches and sweet potato fries. I partook in some of the fries, which were as good as ever. They seemed to enjoy the sandwiches they chose: blackened catfish for mom and Andouille sausage for my sister. I have yet to try either but I think I'll have the catfish on my next visit, with fries of course. I had the shrimps creole. It will satisfy any shrimp craving with a generous blend of larger and smaller shrimp on rice in a sweet and slightly spicy tomato-based sauce. I enjoyed it, being in a shrimpy mood. It's definitely better than the seafood jambalaya.

The next day, I took my parents to Chinatown for lunch at Pagolac, my go-to Vietnamese restaurant in Edmonton. It was as good or better than I remembered and quite busy on the holiday Monday. We started with the Vietnamese spring rolls. They were meaty and tasty in that lovely fried way and served with the usual sweet and sour Vietnamese sauce and sambal oelek chili paste. I ordered the special beef pho with all those lovely bits of cow again. It was really good again. But other things look so good I might have to order something else next time. My parents had noodle soups with sate sauce and beef. They really liked them and our visit to Chinatown. We left absolutely stuffed with delicious food for quite little money.

For dinner that night, we went to the Sugarbowl near 109th Street. I hadn't eaten lunch or dinner there in a while. I wanted to try the bison chili that some of my classmates had when we were celebrating after a lab exam. It looked good. It still does look good. Unfortunately, it was bland with a level of spice well below what I expect from anything called chili. My mom's bowl of chicken curry suffered from the same problem. The pita bread on the side was pretty good, though. The chili also wasn't quite hot enough temperature-wise. The one entree that didn't disappoint was my dad's lamb burger with Gouda cheese. He really liked it, I think. I know I liked it when I had it.

There was redemption for the disappointing chili, though. It came in the form of a very, very stupendous dessert. It was the Sugarbowl souffle made with Callebaut chocolate. It takes 15-20 minutes to be made but is, unsurprisingly worth every moment of waiting. The souffle is very rich in deep, dark chocolate flavour while being fairly light in texture. It was very warm on arrival and I nearly burned my mouth. The texture ranges from a little crusty (in a good way) on the outside to oozing with molten chocolate goodness on the inside. Everyone tried a bit, while I finished it off and all were impressed. It is perhaps the best thing at the Sugarbowl and one of the best desserts ever.

Tapas in M.H.? Seriously Twist-ed

My parents took my sister and I to a new restaurant in Medicine Hat. It was a new Spanish Tapas place downtown called Twist. The space used to be my beloved Vietnamese Submarine*, but is now virtually unrecognizable with its classy makeover. We sat at a tall table for four with a banquette on one side and tall chairs on the other. We ordered a number of tapas dishes including mushrooms with sherry, rosemary-yogurt flatbread, lamb meatballs, patatas bravas, a special salad, and two orders of chorizo sausages. It was too much sausage, but that didn't stop us from sharing a Spanish orange cake for dessert.

The meal began with a small dish of various delicious olives and bread. The olives were very good and my dad is now very into olives. The bread was okay, but pretty ordinary white baguette. It continued to come with pretty much every dish including the potatoes, talk about starch on starch.

The meat balls, mushrooms, and flatbread arrived first. The meatballs were deliciously moist lamby tasting and came with a garlicky dip. The mushrooms had a delicious taste of sherry and were also very enjoyable. The flatbread was warm and beautifully charred in places with flecks of rosemary. It was really good, much better than the complementary baguette and worth the extra couple dollars in my mind.

Next we got the patatas bravas and the salad. The patatas were well browned with a golden crust and soft, starchy innards. Served with the same garlic dip as the meatballs, they were close to potato heaven. I really wanted to order the potatoes, because I think they are one of the tapas I liked in Barcelona about seven years ago. The salad included greens, creamy morsels of blue cheese, sliced pear, and large pieces of pecan. It was nicely dressed and perfect for the pungent blue cheese lover in me.

Finally, we got our two dishes of chorizo at a time when we really only needed one dish. They were garlicky and rich with oils, really tasty in general although the meatballs may have been my favourite meat dish.

By this time we were fairly full but debating getting a slice of their rich, flourless chocolate cake to share. My family had tried it on a previous visit. But, when we inquired after a slice, we were told it was unavailable. However, we easily agreed to try the Spanish orange cake. Personally, I'm glad we did because it was a unique cake in my cake eating experience and quite enjoyable. My sister, newly in love with citrus zest flavours did too. The cake was richly orange flavoured, moist and not too heavy, unlike what I heard about the chocolate cake. The neat thing about it was its granular texture, which I hypothesize is due to the use of either cornmeal or semolina. Either way its was excellent and we devoured it along with the smooth, creamy counterpoint of vanilla ice cream. I think it's worth saving room for dessert at Twist.

Twist seems like an excellent addition to downtown Medicine Hat, which was really wanting for restaurants until a few recent openings. It's certainly unlike what's available elsewhere in town. You'll probably meet the friendly owners if you go.

*If anyone can point me in the direction of a good banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) in Edmonton, I would be super happy with you.

Dad Isn't Afraid of Yeast: Making Pizza

In my last post I conquered my fear of separating eggs and whipping egg whites. I still haven't started making food requiring yeast. My dad on the other hand uses yeast enough to have a brand preference so strong that he'll make a separate visit to a different supermarket just to get some of the right brand. But hey, that's okay with me if buying yeast means he will make one of my favourite foods. . . PIZZA!!!!

I think I request pizza pretty much every time I'm at home now, but really who doesn't want pizza? He made extremely loaded pizza for Christmas Eve. That was pretty traditional pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. But this time, he was up for an experiment in the form of an attempt to recreate a Murrieta's flatbread he had once in Canmore at home. Needless to say he was impressed by the restaurant's creation. I believe it must have been the "Chorizo" with sun dried tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, black olives, and goat cheese. Incidentally, he must have forgotten about the mushrooms since he didn't suggest including any. But, what do you expect from a guy who persists in calling chorizo "chorozo"? Anyways, mushrooms or none, my dad makes a mean pizza and the experiment was a success.

I was semi-involved in the process so I'll tell you more or less how it went down:

My dad prepared a sauce of fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. He put it in the fridge until we were ready for the pizza making. He also cooked up some Spolumbo's chorizo sausages and sliced them and let them brown nicely. I think these were also chilled until the main event.

Next, came the magic I know not as he made a whole wheat pizza dough crust. This was actually the first time I had his pizza in it's new whole wheat form and it was a winner with more flavour than a white crust. I also know that the crust utilized the fine buckwheat honey we bought at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in place of sugar. The honey flavour was too subtle for me to notice despite using the "Guinness of honeys," buckwheat honey.

The oven was preheated to 450 F with a ceramic pizza stone inside while the pizzas were prepared. The tomato sauce was spread over the dough, which was shaped by hand. Next the topping were arranged on top including sausage slices, strips of sun dried tomato, and pieces of kalamata olive. Finally, large crumbles of soft goat cheese were added. We to reconstitute the sun dried tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes and pit the olives. To pit the olives my dad smashed them with the side of a knife like you would with garlic. It really makes the pits easier to remove.

This is the pizza before baking on a sheet metal pizza paddle with cornmeal for easy transfer to the stone in the oven:
And this is the delectable pizza after baking. . . a little longer than my dad wanted to 'cause I like a crisp crust:
It was really good and different from the usual pizza. There was much less cheese but the cheese that was on the pizza was creamy, tangy, perfect goat cheese. The crust was crisp and tasty with it's light smearing of fresh tomato sauce. The toppings: olives, sun dried tomatoes, and chorizo were all very flavourful. Needless to say, I did my part in eating the pizza. My dad was disappointed with the minimal leftovers with me home and eating pizza.

For the record, my mom also makes great food. I couldn't get enough of her Caesar salad the night before we returned to Edmonton.

Macaroons

My general approach to picking recipes for baking had long included avoiding anything that would require me to separate egg whites from yolks and especially anything calling for the magic of whipped egg whites or yeast for that matter. At school, I don't have an electric mixer so I avoid any recipe requiring whipping. But, at home with an electric mixer at the ready, I got gutsy. . . sort of. . . and it was time to conquer my fear of separating eggs.


I did so with a recipe from this very '80s cookbook:Many of my parents' cookbooks are "classic" like this. I decided to make the "french coconut macaroons." I prepared half the recipe due to a limited supply of coconut.

Here's how it went down:

I separated two eggs with my (clean) hands. (The yolks were remarkably reluctant to burst.)

I whipped the egg whites with a hand held electric mixer until (miraculously) stiff peaks formed. (I think they were stiff peaks, they didn't fall when I moved the beater. The whites whipped really easily, kind of like when I discovered that it's easy to whip whipping cream. That's why it's whipping cream, I guess.)

I added a half teaspoon of (my parents' artificial) vanilla extract. I beat it some more. I added 1/2 cup of icing sugar in several additions, beating well in between. I beat the whites some more until they were stiff and glossy.

I folded in a quarter cup of (whole-wheat) flour and a cup of coconut flakes.

I dropped 14 cookies onto a greased and floured cookie sheet and popped them in a 325 F oven. The recipe said to leave them 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Mine were brown after about 15 minutes and looked like this after I let them cool a little and lifted them off the sheet with a spatula.

These disappeared rather quickly as my family enjoyed their light, soft texture and coconutty flavour. I think they were pretty successful and the perfect way to conquer my fear of separating eggs. I still don't know if I could whip the whites by hand though. . . perhaps I will find out.