Author Archive for marc

Steamed Curry Fish Cakes in Cucumber Water

Published
by
marc
on July 12, 2008
in Appetizer, Seafood, Southeast and Summer
. 9 Comments

This is another one of those weird ideas that came to me in a day dream about food. When I get these ideas I send them to myself by email so I don’t forget them, then when I have a bit of time (or the right ingredients) I can give it a go. It’s been so long since I thought of this I can’t really remember where I was or what I was thinking, but this is a reinterpretation of the Thai fishcake dish Tod Mun Pla.

Tod Mun is traditionally a fried golden brown fishcake that’s loaded with spicy red curry and fragrant kaffir lime leaves. Inside they are soft and juicy with with crunchy bits of Chinese long bean and they’re usually served with a sweet and tart sauce that has chopped cucumbers and red onions in it.

While I love the original, I wanted to experiment with something lighter and more fluffy, floating in a sea of cool cucumber water and topped with a tart crispy red onion salad. To achieve this, I added baking powder to the fish cake to give it some fluff and steamed it instead of pan frying for a lighter taste. The cucumber water is essentially strained cucumber juice that would make a wonderfully refreshing cold soup on it’s own and the thai chili sauce and onion salad make for sweet and tart accents that round out the dish nicely.

I reserved the pulp from making the cucumber water and mixed it with some plain yogurt to make a nice cooling dip for Lamb and Veggie Kebabs.

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Strawberry pavlova with white chocolate mousse

Published
by
marc
on July 10, 2008
in Dessert and Fruit
. 16 Comments

I’m back from a long weekend of gluttony in Montreal the details of which I’ll share in another post, but first I wanted to follow up on the promise to deliver a strawberry recipe. This is my interpretation of the most delicious dessert I’ve ever eaten. It was served for dessert as part of our seven course “gourmet menu” at Restaurant Toqué in Montreal.

Since my first visit over 5 years ago, I’ve held Chef Normand Laprise’s cuisine in the highest regard. I’ve even called Toqué my favourite restaurant of all time. Since that first visit though, I’ve had the opportunity to try many wonderful restaurants and I worried that I’d be disappointed on my return. That concern was quickly put to rest after a course or two and I walked out practically glowing. While every course struck the perfect balance between creative and delicious, the dessert was the real humdinger.

It was a bowl of fresh strawberries covered with a white chocolate foam, crumbled meringue flakes, aerated maple candy and topped with a scoop of strawberry sorbet. It was sweet, tart, creamy, fluffy, refreshing, fruity, cool and crisp all at the same time. Definitely something that would be a part of my last meal on Earth.

With this version, you get thin layers of crisp meringue with rich creamy dollops of white chocolate mousse and maple sweetened strawberries. It’s not quite the same, but it was simple enough to prepare on a weeknight and almost as tasty.
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Who’s the Top Berry

Published
by
marc
on July 3, 2008
in Events
. 16 Comments

One of the perks of food blogging is getting to eat lots of good food. One of the perks of being a FoodBuzz Featured Publisher is getting invited to food events.

On Tuesday the California Strawberry Commission put on a “Top Berry” luncheon at the Culinary Loft in SoHo with “C.J” from Top Chef season 3. While I have to admit I’ve never actually watched the show (I’m not much of a TV guy), he was smiley and affable and seemed like a nice guy.

We started off with a plate of strawberries accompanied by powdered dashi, roasted radicchio, balsamic vinegar, jalepenos, and salt. The idea was to pair the berries with umami, bitter, sour, spice and salt to see what combos worked and what didn’t. Although it sounds pretty weird, I actually liked how it tasted dipped in dashi powder. It smoothed over some of the astringency and really rounded out the flavour of the strawberry (look for something featuring strawberries and dashi here soon).

For the main course we had some amazing lamb chops with hazelnuts, fresh strawberries, and a strawberry gastrique. Beyond the fact that the flavours worked well together, the lamb they used was nicely marbled and incredibly moist (way to pay attention to the details). For that matter, the entire event was well organized with lots of little touches that made it more personal than your average industry event.

They brought out two strawberry farmers from California, who both seemed genuinely passionate about what they do, talking about the focus on small family farms in California despite a global trend towards massive corporate farming. Another interesting tidbit was that there are many cultivars of strawberries being grown in CA, some of which are proprietary to a brand (which explains why I’ve always been a big fan of Well-Pict Berries, they have their own cultivar).

As we were headed out the door, we were handed signed copies of the Top Chef Cookbook, which was a sweet end to a sweet event. A quick flip through the book reveals bios of the contestants and episode recaps from seasons 1-3 along with recipes of the dishes the contestants made.

Some strawberry facts:

  • Strawberries are an excellent source of vitamin C, rivaling a glass of orange juice while much less caloric.
  • Strawberries are loaded with cancer preventing compounds including quercetin, a phytonutrient that’s shown a propensity to destroy cancer cells.
  • An average strawberry has 200 seeds
  • 85% of the strawberries in the US come from California

Here are some strawberry recipes I’ve posted in the past. I’m off to Montreal for a long weekend, but I promise I’ll post some fresh strawberry recipes when I get back.

Danish Braid with Spicy Strawberries and Lillet
Strawberry Buttermilkshake
Strawberry Rhubarb Crostata with Lavender Crust
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

P.S. One last cool thing about these events is meeting people in the biz. I had the pleasure of sitting at a table with a few folks from various magazines as well as Nichelle from Cupcakes Take the Cake.

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Slow roasted whole snapper

Published
by
marc
on July 2, 2008
in Dinner party, Mediterranaen, Roast and Seafood
. 8 Comments

After my success with a slow roasted sockeye fillet, I decided to apply the technique to a whole fish.

This is one of those dishes that is very impressive looking and yet requires almost no work at all. The perfect dish for a dinner party. If you get the fish monger to clean and scale the fish for you, all you need do is throw all the ingredients in a roasting pan and stick it in the oven for about an hour and a half. It’s all done in one pan making it’s own sauce to boot

If cooking whole fish isn’t your thing you could probably do this with a fillet although you’ll need to adjust your cooking times and you may want to par boil your potatoes.
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Chirashi Sushi

Published
by
marc
on June 29, 2008
in Japanese and Seafood
. 14 Comments

For those of you that have never had it, chirashi sushi i a bowl of vinegared sushi rice topped with a bunch of colorful stuff. At most sushi restaurants this means covering the rice with slices of various raw fish, but that’s not always how it’s made.

Growing up my mom used to make a vegetarian version with simmered shitake mushrooms, carrots, egg, sugar peas and benishoga (red ginger) for any potluck or party we’d go to. It makes for a great party dish because it’s something you eat at room temperature and the ticker-tape-confetti of toppings makes it look very festive.

My rendition is a bit more decadent, capturing the essence of the sea. The ingredients aren’t cheap, but it’s still cheaper than going to a local sushi restaurant and it isn’t nearly as hard to prepare as it looks. I made this in about an hour, but if you make some of the stuff ahead of time it can be assembled in even less time.

If you’re squeamish about uni (or any of the other ingredients) you could obviously sub them out, but steamed uni is not nearly as off-putting as the raw kind they have at sushi restaurants. Cooking it gives it more structure making it more cheese like in texture (though not flavour) while retaining its sweet creaminess.
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