Drake Hotel Watermelon Eating Contest

I totally forgot to post this little video I made from 86’d last Monday.  Check ‘er out!

Quiche Maraîchere w Pumpkin – Cooking with Pumpkin (Series)

This is part two of my series regarding pumpkins and how to cook an entire one without any waste.

Today I’ve made a vegetable quiche with a few modifications. Maraichere refers to market-fresh produce.  I snuck in pumpkin which doesn’t add a lot of flavour, but does add a lot of nutrition (if you’re into that sort of thing).  The substitution of yogurt instead of heavy cream gives this dish a nice tartness and smooth texture.

Printable Recipe

Pictured is a basic balsamic reduction. 1/2 cup balsamic vinager, 1/2 cup water, reduced to half.

Woodlot Restaurant, 293 Palmerston Ave, Toronto

Woodlot, Woodlot, Woodlot.  All the foodies are talking about Woodlot.

We went last night to this wonderful little restaurant/bakery with very great food and unfortunately dismal internet presence.  They have a vegetarian menu and a meatatarian menu, which I think is a fantastic idea.  My friend Adam is the barista during the day there, so go check out his handsome face while you buy a coffee and pastry.

The wine list is affordable.  They also offer two beers at the $5 price point.

What did I eat?  Some tasty, tasty plates.

Click ‘more’ for the food porn photos I quickly and embarrassingly took while hiding my camera under my coat:

Behind the Scenes: Pork, Apple and Braised Red Cabbage Pies

Image from the Bourque Street Bakery book.

I’ve had a few requests for the “secret” to my prize winning pies I cooked for 86’d at The Drake .  There is no particular secret, but a practiced technique that work every time.  An experienced cook memorizes techniques and ratios rather than recipes.  Memorize the patterns in your favourite dishes and before long you’ll see what I mean.

The Bourque Street Bakery book is a fantastic companion.  It is gorgeous and I recommend getting yourself a copy.  Today, I’m writing about my modifications and tips.  Here is what most recipe books won’t tell you:

Making pie/tart shells is a lengthly and time sensitive project.  You have to chill your dough before rolling it and chill it after it is rolled and cut.  You have to work quickly to make sure the chilled dough doesn’t stretch from the heat of your hands (which will cause shrinking in the tart shell).  For this particular instance I used buttered and floured muffin tins instead of French rings, which worked very well.  I made sure to take the shells out of the tin as soon as I could handle them and put them on a cooling wrack. My “secret” in this case is using vinegar instead of water in the tart shell.  Vinegar or any briny substance will cause the shell to flake nicely.  Going half and half on lard and butter works nicely too.

The second issue was the braised meat.  A lot of people argue about searing a piece of shoulder or simply placing it into the pot.  I personally find that searing meat generates far more flavour.  This particular book instructs to put the meat on top of the gently cooked vegetables.  Instead I seared the meat, removed from the pot and cooked the vegetables on top of the meat and deglazed with liquid. I’ve literally written a one page recipe in that previous sentence.  Follow it and it will treat you well.

Thirdly, taste your food.  Taste your food in the beginning, in the middle and the end of the process.  Taste, taste, taste.  Taste your raw dough. Know what is happening in that pot!  Jesus murphy, just do it.

When I tasted the filling from the book it wasn’t right.  I know I’d done everything to the letter, but it wasn’t ground breaking.  There wasn’t enough tartness to the sweet, fatty meat.  What’s the perfect contrast to hot, sweet fat? What’s sour, crunchy and cold?  A pickle.  Et voila.  Added a pickle to the bottom of the tart.

Use your imagination when you cook.  Have fun!  There are no secrets.

***

PS:

Food and Workers of Brickworks Slowfood Picnic 2010 – A Photo Essay (via Good Food Revolution)

Ivy Knight and I put together a photo essay for the Brickworks last weekend.

Photos by Kristina Groeger, words by Ivy Knight Smoked trout from Milford Bay with fresh horseradish from Red’s Chef Mike Steh and Poissonier Matthew Simpson. This salad was responsible for making the sun come out. -Ivy Knight The queen of local sustainability and biodynamics Lauren Wilton, served a mean minestrone soup from Enoteca Sociale.  Unfortunately for you, her outfit was not see-through or animal print.  – Kristina Groeger Ivy poses with … Read More

via Good Food Revolution

California Caviar Company

The California Caviar Company, (purveyors of indulgence) have introduced infused sustainable roe. CCC has such flavours as Bourbon Trout Roe, Sake Trout Roe, Truffle Whitefish Roe, Saffron Whitefish Roe, Lemongrass Whitefish Roe and Bacon & Eggs.

The caviar is at a cost of $15 an ounce.

The Mast Brothers Chocolate – Brooklyn

Brothers, Michael and Rick Mast are making incredible chocolate in Brooklyn, New York.

Their chocolate is made meticulously by hand sorting every bean, using laser thermometers.  They only use two ingredients, cocoa bean and sugar to achieve a pure product.

Even their equipment is unique.   An aerospace engineer friend of the brothers helped make an original device to break up the beans.

Their craft style chocolate is brought in by boat via Brasil and Dominican Republic.  Now, that makes me hungry for chocolate!

via Coolhunting

Virgin Airlines’ New Menu

As early as June, Virgin America’s six new aircrafts are flying from Toronto (Pearson YYZ) to LAX and SFO.  The Virgin fleet is known for their mood lighting, free in flight wifi and delicious menu.

So, what’s on the menu? Check it out:

Shut Up Foodies

I found a really funny blog today that I thought I would share with you.

Do you know someone who would spend $300 on a hybrid apple, or buy three cartons of umame powder because it was the cool thing to do?  Do you know of a restaurant that offers a $30.00 bottle of champagne for $175 – just because they can?  Are you sick of hipsters and their cupcakes?  Snacktime, Meatball, and Julia Childless write about annoying eye rolling food trends and the obsessive-compulsive people that follow them.

Shut Up Foodies sums it up in their about column:

Attention, locavores, omnivores, urban butchers, backyard beekeepers, cheese fanatics, and conspicuous consumers of consuming: Your chickens won’t save the world and we don’t want the life story of everything on the menu. We don’t care what you eat–we just want you to lower the volume. Also, please stop talking about ramps.

An interesting read.

Sanagan’s Meat Locker

I finally had the chance to get myself to Sanagan’s Meat Locker in Kensington Market this weekend.  Sanagan’s is the type of diamond in the rough butcher you hear about from a friend (and a food expert).  The man behind the block, Derek was incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and eager to answer any questions.

Don’t expect to come into Sanagan’s with a specific recipe. The meat they have is received directly from the farm.  This is the type of place you go to first before you buy your vegetables.  A few Woodbridgesque women came in directly after me looking for ground turkey for their South Beach diets.  They didn’t have any.

I bought a whole chicken, several pounds of ground beef, two peices of beautiful osso bucco and a gorgeous piece of bison shoulder.

Here’s what I did with the meat (recipe):

Perfect day for

Popovers

-KG

Posted via email from Internet Delights by Kristina G

CRFA Show 2010

Ah, the CRFA show.

In a nutshell, it’s a packed showroom with everything relating to the restaurant world that you can imagine. Food competitions, tilt skillet retailers, kangaroo meat companies, snow cone makers, popcorn machines, banquette resellers. The list goes on and on.

The best part of course, were the beer “samples”. “Can I have one, oh and one for my friend?”. Thanks to Amsterdam and Mill Street Breweries. The sad and tired looks on your faces didn’t go unnoticed, despite our coming back to your booths two hundred times.  If a person could get a liquor license in that joint I am certain they would make a fortune. Everyone was lining up for alcohol thinking it was the %#@ food and wine show!

Lauren and I got up on the stage with Rob Montgomery to receive a lesson on mixing a perfect whiskey sour.  Kevin Brauch and his rosy cheeks had left earlier to proceed onto another event.

We saw Chef Lynn Crawford do a demo on Berkshire pork from Black Bow Farms Inc.  What lovely people.

Here are some photos from the event:

Umami in a Tube

Well, it seems like this week’s theme is tubes!

A lot of people seem confused by the Japanese term umami (the fifth taste). It’s what happens when something in your mouth is so good, you have to close your eyes. A food-gasm if you will. It’s an experiential process that is personal and unique.

If you’ve ever been unable to stop wolfing down a bag of Lay’s BBQ chips or maybe can’t stop adding MAGGI to your soup, this is a chemical reaction caused by MSG. Although MSG is not the only substance that can cause umami, it is probably the most common in North America. You can also cause umami from having a perfect balance of salt, sweet and sour flavours.

Behold Taste No5 invented by Laura Santtini. Umami in a tube.

Unfortunately it’s only available at Selfridges and Waitrose and La Grande Epicerie. C’est domage. I’d probably brush my teeth with it.

Terroir Toronto, 2010

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending Terroir at the Hart House (U of T). Terroir is: “A celebration of the hospitality industry, celebrating diverse professionals creating forums and venues where industry members can come together and support each other”.

We begun the event at the insane hour of 7:30am. Insane for a cook, at any rate. Breakfast was brought to us by Hart House, Vertical Restaurant, Crush Wine Bar, Cheese Boutique, Ancaster Old Mill, Langdon Hall, Local Kitchen, The Only on King, and last but not least Niagara Street Café.

Breakfast:

We had an hour long talk about the design of the restaurant in the Yankee Stadium (from II by IV) followed by a panel of top food journalists talking about elevating our positions in the culinary world.

My afternoon was spent in an interactive discussion on how to create a local menu. We listened to Jamie Kennedy, Scott Vivian, Mark Cutrara, Joshna Mahraj and Kevin McKennan. We were talking about food. We were talking about food and again, hungry.

Lunch was fantastic. I did lose my menu card, unfortunately and embarrassingly enough. Let the photos put water in your mouth.

Highlights of the day include meeting John Gundy, creeping on Corey Mintz’s -really- soft cardigan, noticing how good JK smells (with Ama), begging David Mitton for Macallans on his whiskey list and making trouble with Ivy Knight and Lauren Wilton.

Gourmet Food and Wine Show, 2009, Toronto

Ah, alcohol samplers.  What an amazing time we had.

We sampled wine from China, Turnip flavoured Greek tree sap liqueur, 20 year old port and cognac.  The best value was the TAG booth in which you could have a full glass of beer for one ticket.

I think we should just delete the word food from the event.  I think the only thing I ate here was a deep-fried, vermicelli wrapped prawn. Whenever I attempted to access some food, a wall of drunken people stopped me.  I was more interested in maintaining my buzz.

This night was also my first time at the Black Hoof (I know, finally).  Yes, it’s as good as they say.  I had the peanut butter and jelly foie gras.  I’m glad after all that alcohol that I can remember the dish.  It takes a lot of deliciousness to poke through the cloud of memory loss that is the Gourmet Food and Wine Show.

Photos: