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You know what sucks about being married? Sharing my poutine. That’s about it, but still.
Kris at To Be Mrs. Marv asked SiS for tips on how to make poutine, so Hanne and I have begun our investigation. We ate two halves of two poutines each before we left for Christmas. More accurately, I greedily ate about 2/3rds of both while Hanne tried to snap a good shot. I darted my fork in after each camera click, making off with great gooey gobs before she started eating. She either didn’t notice or didn’t complain, which is why I married her.
What is poutine, you ask? Poutine is, like, the greatest. It’s comfort food that will make your arms feel weak and your heart thump lugubriously. Glump glump. It’s a clusterfuck of fries, gravy and cheese. But no ordinary cheese. We grew up in Alberta where so-called poutine is mangled by a mess of cheap melted mozzarella cheese. You can’t do that. You just can’t.
A real poutine needs fresh cheese curds. Finding them fresh is likely the biggest challenge in making a good homemade poutine. The fresher the better as curds lose their springiness quick. Poutine is all about textures: crispy fries and teeth squeaking curds swallowed in a salty goopy gravy.
My favourite Montreal poutines can be found at the 24hr La Banquise (they have two dozen variations, but I’ve only tried the original pictured above) and at La Belle Province on St-Laurent Boulevard just above Prince Arthur. La Belle Province is a mediocre chain, but by some miracle combo of fries, curds, good gravy and typical Montreal inconsistencies, this particular location nails it. I’ve stolen into many a winter night out of that joint with a piping hot tin plate balanced on my hand (see the spoils in the picture below).
The best poutine in the world can be had at Au Pied de Cochon. I had hoped that their cookbook would hold the secret to their silky gravy, but unfortunately their poutine recipe tells me to pick up a can of PdC gravy from the restaurant. Secretive protectionist bastards! I’ve heard they emulse foie gras into their gravy. They also serve a poutine with a slab of foie gras on top for twenty bucks a plate. That plate alone is enough to convince me what side of the foie gras debate I’m on.
So Hanne and I will continue our investigation. We’ll eat more of this heavenly sludge and then test some recipes. When we come up with the right concoction, we will share it with you here. Kris has a head-start on us–check out her perfect fries here.
Hello world,
I know I know. We neglected to mention we were shutting off the blog for for a few weeks. It’s because Hanne and I had planned on posting over the break. We spent a week and a half in Edmonton with family and friends and had a big plans on posting recipes for the Christmas food Hanne and I grew up eating. But instead of spending time in our parent’s kitchens we were on the freeway between their homes and balancing schedules. Married life is tough, I tell you.
Excuses! Both of our families had new ice cream machines and a few SiS requests for us, so we fine tuned our stout ice cream and corrected a major mistake on the pumpkin one. Really though, if anyone out there was gullible enough to put 14 teaspoons of salt in their ice cream instead of a 1/4 teaspoon, you got what you deserved. Just desserts. Heh heh.
We also had big plans for the second half of our trip in Los Angeles.
But there’s no internet on the beach.
Our camera is gagged on gigs of photos of great food. We also hauled a suitcase full of citrus, booze and various ingredients back over the border to Montreal. So we’re now set to get back to work on SupperInStereo.
Did you miss us? Not as much as these guys did:
Above is Sophie-Cat making sure the duffel bag stays empty. The second picture is of Presto Petman, who attached himself to my leg for the better part of the afternoon. Worked for both of us. He got to feel that he was preventing me from leaving him (ever) again and I got to kick back for a couple hours with some new books and a dry martini Hanne made.
The martini recipe is from the back of this Fee Brothers bottle. The flavour of Orange Bitters comes from the oils of orange skins. It smells like orange soda and tastes like mandarin orange peel. The citrus taste cleaned up the mouth smack of the last drop of old vermouth that was sitting on our bar since before we left. Recipe goes:
1 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. Dry Vermouth
3 dashes of Orange Bitters
CHEERS!
Here is Hanne’s Mom’s oft-requested recipe for overnight buns. I just scanned the original recipe to send back to friends out East. We’re home for Christmas now, which is why we’ve been absentee bloggers. We’ll do our best to mine and publish our parent’s secret recipes to a) share with you and b) keep this blog semi-active over the holidays.
These fist sized rolls are great for sandwiches and burgers or for filling out your Christmas feast. Enjoy! We’ll be back soon.
We’re spying on you. Our last clementine box hack, where I used the box to ripen green tomatoes, got attention from those of you who, like me, feel bad throwing away these sturdy little cartons. When the snow comes citrus fruits come into season. Clementines and mandarins become fruit’s front line, stacked up like ammo boxes at the entrances of supermarkets.
When clementines get cheap, Hanne and I consume them at a ridiculously rapid rate. I stash the empty boxes under the kitchen sink until spring when Hanne tells me I have to throw them out. But until then they sit, accumulating, waiting for inspiration that will make them suddenly useful.
Here’s one I came up with last year that helps keep our “everything” drawer in order. Instead of all the small miscellaneous kitchen tools getting sifted down to the bottom or bullied to the back of the drawer, the clementine box keeps them hemmed in and easy to find.
To save you from going google-y eyed, here’s a list of relevant resources that the search term “clementine box use” turned up, including SiS’s last super fantastic invention at number 6:
A good lunch gives a bored desk jobber something to look forward to. And nuking the office with a spice packed chicken curry? It warms my cantankerous heart. This one raised such a stink that it cleared the dead aired office, making the rest of the staff hungry and heading for the basement cafeteria.
Here’s Vij Family’s Chicken Curry from Vij’s Indian Cuisine. This one got so much attention coming out of the work microwave that I messaged Hanne at home and told her to quick take a picture before she finished her leftovers. Like most Indian recipes, it’s ingredient and step intensive. But it’s well worth the effort. Serves 4-6 or 2 dinners + 2 next day lunches.
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups chopped onions
3-inch stick of cinnamon
3 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp minced ginger
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp garam masala (def. worth making your own from scratch)
1/2 tsp cayenne
3 lbs chicken thighs, bone-in
1 cup sour cream, stirred
2 cups water
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Have all the above set up, ready to go (your mise-en-place). If you’re a quick knife, it may not be necessary, but at least get your spices measured out in a cup (same cup, they all go in at the same time). If you have a large deep-bottomed pan, use it–the surface area will help cook your chicken faster. If not, a small pot will also work.
First you’ll prepare the masala:
- Heat the oil on medium.
- Add the onions and the cinnamon stick and sauté until the onions turn golden (5-8 minutes).
- Add garlic and cook for another 4 minutes.
- Add ginger, tomatoes and your spice mix (salt, black pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala and cayenne). Cook for 5 minutes or until the oil separates.
Now in with the chicken:
- Skin the chicken thighs and rinse them (you can do this while the masala cooks).
- Add chicken to the masala, turning and coating the pieces well.
- Cook for 10 minutes, until the chicken starts to brown.
- Stir in the sour cream and water and increase the heat to medium-high.
- Wait for a boil, reduce heat and cover. Cook for 15 minutes or until chicken is completely cooked, being sure to stir the pot a few times.
And now the hard part. When your chicken is cooked, remove the pan from the heat. Fish out the cinnamon and let your food cool for 30 minutes or more. Yes, you’re hungry, but be patient. While we waited, Hanne made some jasmine rice to go with the dish.
Next, the annoying part. You need to remove the chicken from the pot and its meat from its bones before adding the meat back into the masala. I nearly skipped this step, but I stuck with the recipe. It’s either going to get messy now or messy while eating. Your call.
Before serving, heat it all up again on medium heat until it starts to simmer. Cut the heat, stir in cilantro, serve, pack leftovers for lunch, tease your coworkers.
Montreal’s best and biggest market, open year round, is Marché Jean-Talon.
Locally grown garlic. This stall ruined cheap supermarket garlic for us.
Great big batches of leek + The Silver Spoon = perfect leek soup.
Artichokes. Tomatoes. Word.
Produce galore: Cabbage, Bell Peppers, Parsnips
Quebec grown apples and cranberries.
The farm eggs we should be buying more often.
Marche Jean-Talon is Montreal’s mothership market. For food tourists, it is a destination not to be missed. Like I said, it’s open year round but with the first bit of snow that just hit, it will go into semi-hibernation. Most of the good local stalls will take the winter off, but there’s still some great food to be had indoors. Not only does Montreal have a few year round markets, but there is also a mini-market open 24-hours during the summer at Metro-Montreal.
There are, count them below, 13 markets in Montreal.
Ah Creton! I snapped the above with the work camera during lunch and saved it as a backup post in case we got ourselves into a jam in our quest to keep up with NaBloPoMo. Well, we’re one day past the halfway mark and I’ve tapped our reserve. Hanne’s post yesterday probably disqualifies us* anyway, although being at the top of Booze Stereo on Google ought to make our blog totally famous.
That this is a reserve post is not to say that creton doesn’t deserve SiS’s attention. Creton is one of many reasons that Quebec doesn’t need to worry about losing its identity to the rest of Canada. The day Quebec smartens up and starts protecting its food with the same fervency they protect their language is the day I find a marker, an old Bloc Quebecois campaign sign, some duct tape and a hockey stick and take to the streets. I had never heard of this delicacy before moving here and I suspect it can’t be found anywhere else.
So what is it? Well I don’t know exactly. Let’s just say it’s a good thing the camera at work is not so hot, because this food is none too pretty. In fact, the less you look at the grey matter mush (not to say it’s brain… although…) the better. This is a case you best not “eat with your eyes.” Man, I hope it’s not made out of eyes.
All I know is that creton is meat. Pig, particularly. And it’s fatty. Which is the part that makes it great, of course. The meat paste is best served on a round of baguette. Although at work I further alienated myself (as if eating this stuff at lunch wasn’t bad enough and, uh… “why is Carlo taking a picture of it his lunch???”) by running my finger around the inside of the container.
And it tastes like….
I just went to consult Hanne and our friends on that one. “Fatty, salty, porky,” is all they had. Thank a lot guys.
Each creton producer puts their own spin on the spread, each using a unique blend of spices. The one above had nutmeg and cloves.
The best creton I’ve had in town was served by the best restaurant in town, Au Pied Du Cochon. Actually, their creton is tied for first with the stuff you can get at La Queue de Cochon. The tie is probably because it’s the same creton. I was just told that QdC supplies PdC some of their prepared meats. QdC can be found on Laurier Ave. just east of where Hanne and I are now, which is our friends’ place, which I know doesn’t help you much. But too bad. You’re on your own. Blogging from your friends place is not only extremely unsociable but is also costing me my fair share of cheese. Damn you NaBloPoMo! 16 days down.
Link to Creton on Wikipedia, included so you don’t ruin my mystery meat in the comments section.
*Hanne’s Edit: Yesterday’s post was TOTALLY valid. Jerk.
Youtube made Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. a smash over the summer. The song is infectious. Virulent even, sticking its noxious hooks in your ears. The schoolyard imperative shouts “Do the dance!” And you do. And you should. It’s a great song.
But I thought for sure that I’d broken it over the summer. That “do the d-a-n-c-e, 1-2-3-4-5″ would quit repeating in my head. Pop hits are usually toast by late summer. But Justice’s sugar pop had been taking its licks well into the fall.
Now finally the clincher–the antidote for those of you still spellbound by D.A.N.C.E.’s ABCs. This is the song performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live:
Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, Prince and Rick James all on one stage? It’s like when you get your slurpy straw just right and you get ALL syrup concentrate, sucking the slush into a chunk of flavourless ice.
And if that video didn’t make you lose your lunch, then here’s Simian Mobile Disco’s Hustler:
Saturday morning SupperInStereo original! It was good, real good. To serve two, this is all you need:
- 2-3 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium sweet potato
- 1 medium onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (chile powder also works)
- 3 Tbsp chopped, toasted pecans (optional, but awesome)
- 4 eggs
- Salt, Pepper to taste
For the (quick) Hollandaise Sauce:
- 1 egg yolk
- Splash of lemon juice
- Pinch of salt
- Pinch of smoked paprika (cayenne also works and is more standard, but we’re on a smoked paprika kick)
- 1/3 cup butter
Instructions:
- Heat oil over medium heat in a large frying pan.
- Grate sweet potato. Roughly chop onion. Mince garlic.
- Give garlic and onion a head start in the pan, cooking them until golden before adding the sweet potato.
- Cook until browned. Don’t stir too much or it won’t get crispy. About 20 minutes.
When sweet potato mix is almost done:
- Poach eggs (not sure about that link’s last recommendation, saran wrapping the eggs)
- Add toasted pecans to the sweet potato hash.
While eggs are cooking:
- Melt butter in small frying pan.
- Whisk egg yolk, salt, smoked paprika and lemon juice together until creamy.
- While whisking, slowly pour the melted butter into the mixture. It will thicken into a rich sauce.
Serve poached eggs on a bed of sweet potato hash. Generously (more than pictured above) drench plate in Hollandaise sauce. Eat.
Quick! Before the frost hits, harvest all of the green tomatoes left on your plants. Make sure the tomatoes aren’t touching (to prevent rot) and keep them in a dark warm spot. I stowed mine in a clementine orange box. I shoved half an egg carton inside to keep the small rolly cherry tomatoes apart. I stuck the clementine box on top of the fridge (a warm spot) and put a cardboard box over top to keep the light out. Approximately three weeks later I have ripe tomatoes.
Above is the alternate video for Kanye West’s Can’t Tell Me Nothing, created by and featuring comedian Zach Galifianakis.
Kanye West’s official video sucks. The video is shot on a desert with long dusky shadows. It trades cuts of a woman in a billowing dress dancing in the wind and West rapping and gesticulating wildly. The video ends with a Lamborghini pointlessly spinning out, raising a huge plume of dust. The title of the Youtube video should read “Kanye parks car on the set of an Enya music video.”
Zach Galifianakis’s lip-syncing farmer video is not only better than the original, but gives Kanye’s angsty lyrics some weight. Kanye says that it is he who is “way more fresher, with way less effort” and that “when you try hard, is when you die hard.” Ironically on Zach’s bushy silent lips, the lyrics backfire poignantly on Kanye and his empty headed video.
Notes: Galifianakis’s red shorted hoedown homey is indie-darling Will Oldham (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy). The video was shot on Zach’s farm in North Carolina. And dude drives a mean tractor.
Here’s Zach at it again, with Fiona Apple:
This is a Rick Bayless recipe from our dog eared copy of Mexican Everyday. The page in question is being held together by green painter’s tape, which is a good indication of how often Hanne and I have used the Chipotle Shrimp recipe. This dish comes together quick, making it a great weeknight meal. Bayless recommends fire-roasted tomatoes. Take his advice if you can track them down. Or better yet, roast your own!
Using two chipotles in this recipe makes for a strong steady burn. Three and you’ll be smacking your lips happily (I’m a sucker/masochist for spice) or manically searching for that ill-advised glass of water (doesn’t work. Soothe your sad gummy tongue on a gob of yogurt, wimp). Don’t even think about using one chipotle.
This dish is also a great reheater. Double up the recipe and you have leftovers for lunch. It’s not a fishy dish, so it won’t stink bomb your work’s microwave. Not that you should really care.
Serves 2
1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water
1 drained 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes
2 canned chipotle chiles (or 3, tough guy)
1 tablespoon chipotle sauce (from the can)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Approx. 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
Approx. 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1 pound (or so) of shrimp, peeled and deveined (leave the tails on to make this a quick recipe)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro for garnish
Step 1) Get your rice steaming. Your sauce will be ready by the time it’s done.
2) Blend tomatoes, chipotle chiles and sauce until smooth.
3) Heat oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and cook until golden.
4) Pour in tomato mixture. Be sure the pan isn’t too hot or your white shirt is screwed. Cook for 5 minutes.
5) Add broth, making sure to keep the sauce saucey, not soupy. Salt it.
6) Add the shrimp. When they pink and curl they’re done (about 4 minutes). If your sauce is too thick, add a bit more broth or water, if you used up the broth in step 4. If it gets soupy on you (not sure how, but this happened to me. The frozen shrimp probably released moisture), then remove the shrimp and cook the sauce down.
7) Serve garnished generously with cilantro. I recommend serving this dish on a bed of long grain white rice.
Rick Bayless, the lovable Yogi, is not Mexican. But he’s one of America’s top Mexican chefs and cookbook writers. We visited his restaurant in Chicago a couple years ago. It was really good, but honestly? We’ve gotten better results at home using his recipes. This is either a testament to Bayless as a great cookbook writer or having gone soft like a week old plantain on his kitchen staff. Probably an effective chef should let Yoga be.
Seriously though, if you love Mexican food and need quick recipes for weeknight meals, get this book. Equally seriously, skip the page picturing Bayless on his head, doing Yoga. And uh, don’t eat refried beans before your Yoga class.
Our fridge has been saddled with a bumper crop of fall ingredients the past week. We’ve spent the last few days eating nothing but vegetables. This weekend we did our best to polish off a stubborn batch of cabbage and leek soup that had been holed up in our fridge, refusing to disappear. Too much veg!
This morning I decided we needed a meal we could sink our teeth into. Something our guts could grab hold of and mull over. So this morning Hanne and I dragged our veg laden stomachs around the corner to Reservoir, our neighbourhood microbrewery and bistro that puts on a wicked brunch every Saturday and Sunday.
Reservoir serves no ordinary brunch. It’s both fancy and casual, a mashup of French bistro food and British pub grub, complete with mystery meat. It’s the kind of food that goes well with either a glass of wine or a house brewed stout.
On a Sunday morning Reservoir is packed with Franco and Anglo post bohemian hipsters, creative types with real jobs and accessory-babies that are as meticulously put together as they are. I think some of them even do their kids’ hair. Turnover is fast and you can get a seat fairly quickly, especially if you grab a couple stools at the bar like we did this morning.
We started off sharing a cream of mushroom soup topped with truffle oil. This guy says that restaurants use truffle oil only to charge more for their dishes, but at five bucks a dish I suspect Reservoir used truffle oil on this soup only because it tastes so good. The soup had a smooth creamy texture and the nutty aroma of butter browned in a pan. Most of the mushroom was pureed, but the morsels left behind were tightly packed flavour bombs. This, my friends, is the right way to start your Sunday:
It took Hanne and me a while to figure out what to order next. If there’s something weird like cow’s tongue or pig’s feet on the menu, it’s Hanne’s dish. Me? I tend to order food that makes a mockery of my choking arteries while on its way down to my gut. The problem today was that the weirdest dish up for grabs was also the biggest and fattiest piece of meat. We both spotted it as the waiter scooped one from the kitchen behind the bar and walked past us. Hanne called dibs and stole the beef cheek right out of my mouth. Because Hanne and I are plate swappers, we’re unable to select the same dish, so I tried to do Hanne one better. I ordered the blood sausage, which I knew had the potential to out-weird her order. Take that, beef cheeks!
BLOOD SAUSAGE
VS.
BEEF CHEEK(S)
The beef cheek was topped with a poached egg and came on a bed of pureed squash. The meat was braised, and the juice and fat had massaged the meat to perfect tenderness. I didn’t notice the poached egg, but Hanne let me clean the remaining squash and meat juice off her plate with the crisp, buttery bread that accompanied our meal. Hanne admitted the dish wasn’t all that weird, but she was happy nonetheless.
The blood sausage, on the other hand, was very weird. It was the first time I tried the dish and I’m happy I took the risk. It had a similar thick texture to liver, without the dry pastiness. The flavour reminded me of red wine. I’m not sure if it was flavoured with wine or not, but I can’t imagine anything else that would make blood taste so good. Its maroon colour reminded me more of a cooked beet than the gushy redness of blood I’m more familiar with. The flavour of the sausage was rich and heavy on the tongue, well complimented by the sweet carrots and snappy white radishes. The sausage casing was crispy and blackened, its charred flavour so good that I continued enjoying it even after considering that I might be chomping on the equivalent of scab. Delicious! No, seriously!
Don’t be turned off by Reservoir if blood sausage and beef cheek are too unusual for you. The menu changes every week, but there are always plenty of dishes with more everyday ingredients. On previous visits, I’ve enjoyed the two-egg dish, served with lard fumé, which is kind of like bacon but thicker, better-tasting and likely worse for you. You can also order the tomato and three cheese omelette or an apple and endive salad. The dish in the thumbnail at the top of this post is wild mushrooms with onion tempura and fresh mozzarella. I hope it’s still being served next time I visit Reservoir.
Check out the full menu below:
This food hack was passed down from Hanne’s parents. Simply add some cilantro to your store bought salsa. Not only will you add depth of flavour, but cilantro also gives your salsa some muscle. Have you noticed how cilantro makes spicy spicier?
Sorry for the circa 1980s cookbook photo. We’re working on improving our presentation and equipment. Any tips or camera recommendations?
Originally posted May-20
My friends came to the rescue last night, putting an end to my all-meat, all-grease, all-beer all-world diet. An odd dish, they told me, that they picked up on their Buenos Aires excursion: rigatoni with a spicy mushroom cream sauce topped with ricotta, black olives and mint. Cooling the beers for the next game, I decided to get a bottle of wine.
Overwhelmed at the SAQ, I grabbed a bottle of Mateus Rosé, the first bottle I recognized. The confusion that set in at the liquor store is indicative of the problem I’ve faced the past two weeks home alone. I’ve figured out it’s not cooking that’s my problem, it’s grocery shopping. Last week I stepped into one shop, spotted a major queue and turned on my heel. I walked down the street to another grocer, which was less crowded. I picked up Parmesan cheese, put it back, groped the produce, got fed up and left for home and another cheeseburger. After confessing this to Hanne over IM the next day, she sent me this link (via Baking Bites) about guys being useless in grocery stores. Bad move Hanne. I’ve filed the fact away under excuses and will use it against you.
Luckily, the wine I nabbed worked out last night. Great food and conversation and as a bonus our friends were good enough to leave me the leftover ingredients, which are being used again tonight for Hanne’s welcome home supper.
The apartment is vacuumed and arranged. The pizza and burger boxes hit the curb yesterday for recycling. The hockey game is over and I’ve cleaned up the empties and I’m wearing pants. If it wasn’t for this blog, Hanne would be none the wiser. There are no physical signs of my week of sloth or the congealed mess of burger grease in my gut. The guise is on and the food is ready to go and Hanne is in the cab heading home from the airport.
So quickly, here’s the recipe. I left out the olives because… uh… that was the only ingredient not left over from last night and I, well, couldn’t be bothered. The food looks and tastes great anyway.
If you’re a quick knife, you can prep. and cook the sauce in the time your water boils and pasta cooks. If you run behind, keep an eye on the pasta! Better to have it a bit cool than mush.
Ingredients to serve 2:
- 250-300g of Rigatoni
- 2-3TB butter
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- 2-3 finger chilies (minced)
- 150g mushrooms (quartered)
- 150mL table cream
- Salt/Pepper (to taste)
- Garnish with ricotta and loosely chopped/ripped mint
1- Grab a large sauce pan. Don’t use a small sauce-pot, sauce-pot. You want surface area so that the cream thickens nice and quick.
2- Medium-low heat and throw 3 TB or at least enough butter in the pan to cover it evenly. As it melts, chop garlic and chillies. Also, quarter your mushrooms. Quick! You want your butter melted and golden in colour, not burnt.
3- When butter is golden and just starting to froth, hit it with the garlic and chillies. Once the garlic gets starts to turn (a minute or so) toss in the mushrooms, making sure to get them nicely coated.
4- Be careful here, as you don’t want your garlic to burn. Leave it be for about a minute or two, depending on how hot your pan is cooking.
5- Once your garlic is right, pour in the cream add a bit of salt and pepper and let it come to a light simmer–you may need to drop the heat a bit. Cook down the cream to viscous, saucy slop. You don’t have to dote on it, but periodically move the cream so that it doesn’t stick too much as it cooks. Scrape up the parts that inevitably do stick, making sure it’s in the sauce and not plastered to your pot. Not only will clean-up be easier, but the browned-off parts add flavour. Taste the sauce and correct with salt and pepper to taste, if necessary.
6- Your pasta should be el dente. If you’re waiting on the pasta, make sure to remove the sauce from the heat before the mushrooms loose all their moisture. You want their meat to retain spring, so that they pop a little between your teeth.
7- Serve up two generous portions of pasta, covered in the mushroom sauce. Again, get that pan clean by getting all the good browned bits onto your plates.
8- Generously garnish with ricotta and mint and you’re good to go.
—————————————————————————————————-
Update 6/22: Last night we asked our friends for more information on the restaurant from which this recipe originated. It’s a Buenos Aires restaurant called Tipo Casa. Coincidentally the restaurant, like this blog, combines food and music. Tipo Casa offers music pairings for each dish, complete with music menus. Strangely enough, music pairing is something we’ve considered for supperinstereo. We’re still trying to figure out exactly how to integrate music into a food blog, hoping that something crops up naturally. Maybe this recipe being our blog’s first is a sign.
Originally posted May 19th.
Tonight I’m off to barter a 6-pack of McAuslan’s St-Ambroise Pale Ale for my coworker’s friend’s pasta. This Quebec brew has been my beer of choice for the past two years in Montreal, especially during the NHL playoffs. I wrung many McAuslan necks last year cheering (like this nutter via Deadspin) my Oilers to game 7 of the heartbreaking Stanley Cup Final. I nearly wrung the neck of a fellow hockey watcher (not fan) when he figured cheering for the Hurricanes and sharing my beer was an acceptable combo. I told him to put my beer back in the fridge, that cheering for the ‘Canes because their city is closer to Montreal than Edmonton was ludicrous and finally, childishly, that ‘Canes captain Rob Brind’Amour gave even the French a bad name (here’s his ugly mug under the beautiful one…I still hurt). It was a bad night. Maybe my surrogate Sens will fair better this year.
Anyway. I should have figured out this whole beer for food deal sooner. Tomorrow, friends recently back from a long trip in Argentina are coming over, WITH FOOD. All I have to do is hit my corner store (called dépanneurs or deps here) for some beer and dinner’s served. Only two days to go until Hanne gets back and I’ve finally gotten the hang of feeding myself.
Originally posted May 18th
My wife left for a family trip about a week and a half ago. Since then, it’s been beer, cheeseburgers and NHL playoff hockey. I’ve roasted asparagus under the broiler as a side. That’s cooking, right? Whatever dude. Anyway. If I’m not eating frozen pre-packaged burgers (meat pucks), I’m tapping my freezer’s reserve of store bought pizzas, ignoring the homemade crusts Hanne left for me to eat (with instructions and suggestions for toppings).
Sure, it sounds and actually has been great, but I’m wearing down, my fast metabolism be damned. Also, I had big plans (which didn’t include trying to pass Zelda before the wife returns), cleaner arteries and an apartment that didn’t reek of meat before I was left to fend for myself. I was hoping to prove, by starting this food blog, that I could take care of myself. Turns out I can feed myself, but taking care of myself has taken on a sinister tone.
So instead, here is my low point, complete with a wicked picture of my someone else’s day-old meat-caked George Foreman Grill, snapped amateurishly with my camera phone stolen from this blog because I can’t find my usb cable. Hello world! Seriously, this food blog has nowhere to go but up!
Check out the rest of Receding Hairline’s Fat Cat vs. George Foreman pictures here. I feel your pain, Fat Cat.
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