As winter kicks in my new found obsession with braised meats only seems to intensify. The italian conversation ender on this topic is osso bucco. I can’t seem to think of anything funny to say about slow cooking a baby cow’s leg. Rice isn’t funny for an entirely different reason. Cute over boring, it’s all a treat though, eat it up.
Indian Food. Where spices hide all sins. I mean that in the best possible way. Any culture that can make goat taste good, can certainly make vegetarian taste good. Chana Masala may possibly be the easiest Indian dish I’ve ever made, certainly amongst the quickest. In my opinion this is the penultimate chick pea dish, second only to the mighty hummus. Before making, there is a tip to making Indian food that an Indian friend once gave me. Close all closet and bedroom doors before starting. This frankly, should be the first lesson in any Indian cooking class.
So far, the only role alcohol has played in this blog is just before I start typing. Maybe well before I start typing, but this is worth a look. The old manhattan is something that my grandfather probably sipped back in the sixties while moaning about all the beats and the hippies. With Mad Men being as cool as it is, I think this drink is ready for a resurgence. The trick to this is to mix, then freeze overnight. No rocks required and it ends up pouring as thick as syrup.
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This recipe is so easy it may actually be cheating. Now, ingredients are important, the better those are the better the results. For instance, you might think the honey you’ve been eating out of a teddy bear is real honey. Well that honey has been lying to you. The North American market has been pasteurizing honey for no actual reason. Well, no health reason anyway. Unpasteurized honey tastes better, and contains enzymes that are good for you. Fact.
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So I may have slagged off the Canadian side of my family regarding the turkey in my last post. I can only offer this as evidence that holidays were not a pure culinary disaster. This is in fact the king of holiday sides. No matter the dish, no matter the holiday, this is a requirement. In fact it was once remarked by an 73 year old woman, “this tastes like winning the Nobel prize for chemistry while at the apex of an orgasm.” I’m pretty sure that old lady never had an orgasm, but it’s certainly not an inaccurate description.
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Growing up half Canadian and half Italian lent itself well to exposing turkey for the sham that it is. Half of the holidays were spent eating the bird with all the variety of being served ‘cold’ or ‘warm’, while the rest of the holidays were spent eating things that generally had flavour. It is only fair that I went on to marry an English girl who simply demands that thanksgiving revolve around a bird too lazy to fly. A bird so lazy it makes you sleep after you eat it. A bird so lazy you can use it’s name to express discontent with other people, you turkeys! My point is that it barely seems fair. So for several years I’ve used all manner of techniques to attempt to make this bird as great as people make it out to be. This year, I think I have.
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I went to a Croatian-style pig roast this past summer and it was real good. Now that the cold weather’s here – I wanted that taste again…real bad. How could I achieve this without a pig? I pondered and pondered until I saw a real cheap cut of meat at the grocery store and thus came up with a solution: Pig Roast Style Roasted Loin of Pork served with mashed taters and Red Cale with apples and walnuts…..yum.
I’ve been watching a lot of Mad Men lately and really had a hankering for some of Betty Draper’s pork roast. I’ve been using this technique for roasts lately. Gets them all crusty and well seasoned without burning the herbs or garlic. Every time someone burns garlic on a pork roast a pig angel loses it’s wings. Then the human angels get bacon, which they like, but it’s no good for you and your family.
I could go on all day, and I encourage you to comment with your own, but what’s even funnier is adding cream and spices and calling it a meal.
I heard the words Apple Turnover for the first time in years the other day was instantly transported back to the age of 11, rolling out those heavily processed Pillsbury jam filled evil excuses for food. Despite the nauseous twisting I feel in my stomach at contemplating eating those again, the craving persists. I did some quick research and discovered that Apple Turnovers were first created in seventh century Poland by Jonas Turnover, a wealthy apple farmer. I assume we both know that when I say “research” I mean that I fell into a deep peyote induced dream. I was quite sober for the tasting however, and the light amount of work involved yields a really great treat.