Fish & Shrimps

So many things happened in our kitchen on Sunday. [get mind out of gutter] There was yeast that was actually active and caused bread to rise, there was yogurt cooking, there was deep-frying, and there was also one obscene mess of dirty dishes; the kind of mess where you come home and you smell the kitchen before you even walk through the door and your hang your head in anticipated exhaustion of cleaning the mess and ask your partner if maybe you could just go out for dinner forever. Messy. Instead, we opened a beer and that made it easier to clean. Then we started cooking again. This time, it was Halibut with Sambal Vinaigrette and Wasabi Cream, Celeriac Mash, Herb Salad Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce and Monday Night Football: Colts vs. Steelers. And more beer, duh. This was kind of an odd meal to prepare because each part on its own took only minutes to prepare but trying to do them all at once was more confusing than I would've guessed. I started the celeriac boiling while Marc prepped the shrimp for the salad rolls. Then I julienned the salad roll vegetables while M. measured ingredients for the peanut sauce; I de-boned the halibut while Marc softened the rice noodles. I made the sauces then seared the fish. Marc mashed the celeriac and started assembling the salad rolls. Miraculously, and with no planning, we managed to get everything completed at precisely the right time. Genius! (or accident, whatever.) The first bite yielded tender, perfectly seared and roasted fish though it didn't deliver quite the wasabi-bang I was expecting. Then another bite. And another, mixed with a little celeriac to ferry more sauce to mouth. If the first bite was pleasing, the second was delightful and the third was delicious. The rest of it was chair-dance delicious. The salad rolls were curious. I know Marc initially wasn't all that pleased with the consistency of the noodles and the first attempt at assembly yielded a somewhat "schlong" shaped roll (Marc's choice of words). However, I thought they were marvelous, especially the peanut sauce which was a perfect blend of sweet and spicy. We ate copious amount of that sauce- too-firm noodles be damned!
The Colts won. We drank all the beer.

Future Re-run

The other day, Marc noticed that since we started this blog in August, we have not made the same thing twice. How extraordinary. This is about to change. Mushroom risotto! I never would have anticipated such a delicious, earthy, complex meal from this simple recipe. I admit that America's Test Kitchen made it seem very tasty but paired with a good red and a bright, little salad, it was definitive bistro fare. I will absolutely make this again- as a main course for company even! The recipe included both crimini and dried porcini mushrooms and just those two things (plus the secret ingredient of soy sauce) made for some deep and fantastic flavours. I am decidedly impressed. Marc contends that risotto is not very good when re-warmed and I disagree. A verdict is forthcoming. The wine we tried with this was Undurraga Riserva, a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. I thought it was quite enjoyable; I don't recall what Marc thought, though I'm quite certain he would've said something if he had disliked it. Also, it's worth noting that while eating this dark, earthy, creamy meal, we were watching Megacities: Paris on the National Geographic channel. Of all the magical elements of the city of light, they chose to profile the sewer system; this included some pretty disgusting, though quite interesting and informative footage. The point is, even though we were watching gag-worthy, educational TV, the risotto was still outstanding. I can only imagine how good it would have been had it not been consumed in the presence of a "slurry of raw sewage". Oh yes, the croutons! Success at last! I put something under the broiler and I actually didn't forget about them or anything. They came out perfectly, married the salad and lived happily ever after.

Hierarchy of Food

If such a thing existed, I would argue that Osso Buco is near the top of the Hierarchy of Food. In my mind, it qualifies as one of those old-world, classic, handed-down-through-the-generations, hard-to-perfect type of recipes. It's like Coq-au-vin or Bouillabaisse or Vin Diesel; they are intimidating and can seem complicated but, when you get down to the nuts and bolts, are really quite simple. Marc has been wanting to try this for a while now; I've been kind of hesitating because it would be an expensive dish to fuck up, but it was de-intimidatized* thanks to two factors: America's Test Kitchen made it so we could use their recipe, and the label on the package of veal shanks that we bought said "Ossco Bocco". Honestly, if the veal people are misspelling it, than it cannot be that big of a deal. Turns out, I had my knickers in a twist about nothing; this thing was dead easy. Maybe it acquired its daunting reputation when people still used wood-burning ovens and the tricky part was maintaining a steady temperature for a long period of time. Even though we did screw up on part of it (added the tomato juice with the tomatoes) and I burned the palm of my hand on the pot, we ended up with a more than decent Sunday-night supper. Too, there was polenta to coat the bottom of the bowls and soak up the rich sauce; sauce is the bee's knees. However, I regret to say that this classic, smarty-pants recipe can't beat braised lamb shanks – much like Vin Diesel cannot, under any circumstances, beat James Bond. There's something about James/lamb shanks that add an exquisite, tasteful edge to what would otherwise be simply a decent Vin/Osso Buco. Even if you try to dress up the Vin/Osso Buco with a tuxedo/gremolata, it's still the same piece of plain, old meat underneath. Plus, which one goes better with martinis? Uh-huh. And we all know that martinis are at the top of the food hierarchy. * The Simpson's taught me that I can make up and use any word I like, as long as the context of its use explains the meaning, i.e. "A noble spirit embiggins the smallest man."

The Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables

I borrowed this title from one of my new favourite sites on the Interweb: Gallery of Regrettable Foods. The dreadful, primarily gelatin-entombed foods pictured here are accompanied by delicious comments by the author of the site. A particular favourite was the gelatin mould of meat(?) which was described as "bleached, washed, plucked Skull of Klingon". Also of note in the category of foods intended to disgust is the 30,000-calorie sandwich. The maker of the beast explains the impulse to attempt this world-record of gross by writing "Damn, I was hungry, though." Oh! Well, gee, that explains everything! No wonder you made a $47 hoagie with enough calories to clog the arteries of a horse- you were hungry! In the meat category alone, there is bacon, ground beef, corn dogs, ham, turkey, pastrami, roast beef, bratwurst, and braunschweiger. Ah, gluttony; the meatiest of the deadly sins. Would you care for a glass of evil with that? In the decidedly un-gross category, we have our Friday night supper of Pork Medallions with Mustard-Chive Sauce and Butternut Squash Risotto.The pork, I have made before and it was enjoyable. (Though next time we make pork, I'll be tempted to try to replicate the mustard-sherry sauce from the Wildwood.) It was the risotto that I was anxious to try because just reading the recipe made me hungry. Unfortunately, we got a little carried away with the quantity of squash and because we added so much to the risotto, the rice was a little undercooked. But that didn't detract from the ginger's ability to shine through from the depths of the dish. Altogether, these two recipes made enough to feed two of us for three meals and still that pales in comparison to the Sandwich of Sin.

Beg Me

Before I start writing about the Lamb Stew with Couscous, I have to know: what exactly is a cous? A Grain? A Seed? Is the noun in singular form, indeed, the 'cous'? O Mighty Internet, please answer my questions! (Ever notice that you never see God and the Internet in the same picture? Uh-huh. Think about it.) The American-centric definition was found to be thus:

What is couscous? Couscous is a coarsely ground semolina pasta. The grain is a staple in many North African countries. Over the last decade, it's cropped up on American menus and dinner tables.

I couldn't find a clear answer on the whole singular vs. plural thing but did find a brief description of the etymology of the word from etymonline:

1600, from Fr., ult. from Ar. kuskus, from kaskasa "to pound, he pounded."

Which begs the question, could it be used as a verb? Could a person be couscous-ed? Anyway, the Lamb Stew. This was another recipe from my favourite cookbook, bought on a whim from the clearance rack at 80% off, Food & Wine's Quick from Scratch cookbook. There is a whole series of these cookbooks but I can't find the one I have online anymore. Too bad, it's a brilliant book. Basically, it was a stew of tomatoes, cauliflower and chickpeas (also a confusing element as it is neither chick nor pea) with Moroccan-spiced lamb meatballs. For a quick little meal, it was great. It made a lot of stew so there was plenty leftover – an excellent quality in a recipe. We had a bit of a hard time trying to find ground lamb, though. Luckily, we have a great butcher – Second to None Meats, 2100 4th Street S.W. – who ground some fresh lamb while we waited. I don't think I've ever had ground lamb, it tastes different because of the need to cook the meatballs all the way through. It actually came off a bit gamey in the first bite but after getting used to a new version of lamb-flavour, I liked it. Sammy, on the other hand, LOVES lamb more than anything else (except for maybe cheese and car-rides) and did his very, very best begging in order to get a taste. However, I was in my Responsible Owner character so cruelly denied him the pleasure. Probably he'll get some of the leftovers, though. As my Dad says, "That dog lives better than half the free world." Look at him, being the life party…