The Guy's Kitchen

I spent this past weekend at my brother’s place out in Burlington. We took advantage of the amazing weather on Good Friday and spent the afternoon at a conservation park, Mountsberg I think. They had some Easter events for the kids, and a Raptor area with several birds of prey. It was a great time! While we were out I had three racks of baby back ribs in the oven at 225 degrees slowly becoming mouth watering goodness.

Before loading up the oven I made a dry rub and liberally applied it to the ribs. Then into a roasting pan and into the low oven for approx 5-6 hours. When we got home the smell was heavenly! I made a quick coffee bar-b-q sauce and put the ribs out on the grill with the sauce and let them caramelize before serving.

The rub was:

Kosher Salt
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon
Garlic Powder
Cayenne Powder
Cumin Powder
Dry Mustard Powder
Ground Black Pepper

Sorry I don’t have amounts, I was hurrying so we could get to the park and didn’t have time to measure. I also usually include Allspice in my rubs but my brother didn’t have any at their place.

The sauce was:

Finely chopped onion
Unsalted Butter
Olive oil
The rest of the rib rub
Ketchup
Plain old yellow mustard
Cold Coffee from breakfast
Chipotle tabasco sauce

Started sweating the onions in the butter and olive oil. Added the spices and wet ingrediants and simmered for 20-30 minutes. Then I basted the ribs with it on the grill. I only had them on the grill for a few minutes per side, just to get some colour on the sauce.
The only thing missing from the ribs was smoke flavour. If I had been able to use the grill I would have added smoke packs and most likely a few of them as they burned up. The ribs were tender and juicy, with a pretty decent “bark” on them, the meat came away from the bone easily and cleanly though the ribs held their shape. Even my 9 year old nephew who won’t try anything new like them!

I admit it, hot wings are a weakness of mine.  When done right they are cripsy, spicy with just the right amount of sauce on them.  They have to be hot enough that you know you are eating hot wings, but not so hot that you feel like your face is going to melt.  I like to make my own hot wings with a variety of spices/flavours, and depending on what I have on hand and what I feel like this can be wildly different from one batch to the next.  Here is the basic idea:

Chicken wings split into flappys and drummys

Flour I generally use a cup for every 2 lbs of wings

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground thyme

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon chili powder

*Optional spices*

Curry powder

Allspice

Dry mustard

Different chili powders, chipotle, ancho etc

Hot Sauce

2 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons hot sauce (I usually use Frank’s Red Hot, but any “Louisana style” hot sauce will work)

splash of soy sauce

splash of sesame oil

I mix all the seasonings and spices with the flour and put it all in a large zip top bag.  I dredge the wings in this mixture.  Then I deep fry the wings for approx 8-10 minutes to make sure they are cooked all the way through, this time will vary depending on your fryer and the size of the wings.  Once I have removed the wings from the fryer and drained them of any excess oil I toss them in a large metal mixing bowl with a couple of spoons of the sauce.  The wings should be covered, but not totally saturated with the sauce.  You should need a napkin when eating them but not a complete set of coveralls. 

I usually fry in canola oil, but this will work with any high smoke point oil.  The sauce is also something that you can play around with and I have played with lots of different flavours.  The equal parts butter and hot sauce is the traditional “Buffalo Wing” sauce once you have that you can let your imagination run wild!

Saturday night I was in the mood for some risotto.  I haven’t made any risotto is a quite a while, and it is usually something I whip up fairly frequently.  It’s a great dish to make because once you have the basic method down you have endless possibilities.  Also for all you guys out there, this is a sure fire win on a date night.  Nice bottle of wine, good risotto, candlelight dinner and that romantic comedy that just came out on DVD/Blueray that the wife/girlfriend/SO has been bugging you to watch.  Who doesn’t like someone cooking them a fancy dinnner?

Ok so here is the basic risotto that I use:

1 cup of Arborio rice

3 cups of liquid, any combination of wine, water, stock

finely diced shallots or onion

1-3 flavouring agents such as mushrooms, sausage, bacon, peppers sweet or hot, seafood scallops shrimp etc, chicken, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts.

freshly grated parmesean or grana padano cheese, please do not use the dried stuff that comes in the little plastic container.

a couple of tablespoons of butter and canola or olive oil.

Kosher salt and Fresh ground black pepper

Here is how it all comes together.  Melt the butter with the oil of your choice in a large saute pan.  Add the finely minced shallots and or onions.  Time to start the seasoning as well, a pinch of Kosher salt and few grinds of pepper, I often will add some ground thyme though you can certainly use fresh here as well.  Stir these around until the bits soften and start to turn translucent.

Next add your flavouring agents.  If you are using something like sausage or bacon you will want to have the pieces be uniform size and fairly small, you want them cooked before moving on.  if you are using scallops. shrimp or other delicate seafood you might consider cooking them till they are almost done and then removing from the pan until later in the risotto process.  Keep layering in the seasoning as well, you should add another pinch of salt and pepper.

Once the flavours have all had a chance to meld together you add your rice.  This step is instrumental in the risotto building procedure.  You want to get all the rice grains coated in the flavours that are in your pan.  You want to heat the rice and keep stirring until the edges of the grains actually start to turn translucent just like the onions before.

Now the liquid, I will add about half a cup or so of the wine I plan on serving with dinner.  This is a Food and Wine pairing trick, it makes for an instant match when the wine you are drinking is in the food you are eating.  Add the wine and stir around you are “deglazing” the pan and picking up all the stick on bits in the bottom of the pan.

Ok so here is the part that makes risotto the labour intensive scary dish.  The liquid needs to be added in small doses over a 20-25 minute period.  I use a ladle to add maybe 1/3 of a cup of stock or water at a time to the rice dish.  As you add each addition of liquid you stir the rice and wait for the liquid to be almost totally absorbed by the rice, then you add some more and repeat the process.

Now depending on your rice, the humidity in your kitchen, the other ingredients you have added you may need more or less liquid than 3 cups.  Once you are about 2 cups into this process try the risotto.  See how it tastes, do you need to add any seasoning.  The will most likely still be crunchy at this point but you want to gage it and see what it is like.  The finished product should be creamy but the rice grains should still have some firmness to them, think el dente pasta.

Once you get to the point that the rice is done and the consistancy is thick and creamy you add the grated cheese.  Add this to taste but remember the cheese will help to bind up the risotto and if you add too much you are going to get a stodgy mess.  If you go a little over board on the cheese just add a little more stock and stir until the risotto thins back out a little bit.  It shouldn’t hold it’s shape when you put it in a dish but you are not making soup either.

Ok so my Mushroom Risotto with Crispy Beef Strips:

2 cups of arborio rice (I was cooking for 5 adults)

6 cups of beef stock

2 cups of sliced cremini mushrooms

half of a med-large white onion finely chopped

1 cup of grated grana pandano

1 cup of red wine

Kosher Salt and black pepper

ground thyme

allspice

1.5 tablespoons of butter

1.5 tablespoons of canola oil

Fairly thinly sliced left over steak from the night before

I followed my method above for the rice.  I pan fried the steak strips making them caramelized and crispy.  When the rice was done I served it in a bowl with a few crispy steak strips on top.  I served it all with a 2006 Cab Sauv, the same wine I added to the rice.

I have always wanted to keep a wine journal.  I like to try new wines whenever I can and I very often forget what I have tried and what I like.  So I am going to try and get at least one Wine tasting article up here every week.

Last night I opened a bottle of 2004 Hollick Coonawarna Cabernet Sauvignon.  I have had this sitting around in my “cellar” for a while now, I think I picked it up for Christas 2008 and just never got around to drinking it.  Last night I cooked up some striploin steaks with mushrooms and a quick pan sauce and I used the wine in the sauce.  So here is my attempt at a wine tasting:

Opening

First sniff: Berry aromas, and a bit of alcohol.

First taste: Strong spice, mostly pepper, there is a slight metallic flavour, the fruit taste is muted.

Served with: Pan seared striploin steak with sauteed mushrooms and pan sauce.

After eating

Second sniff: The alcohol aroma is gone, can really smell the spices now strong black pepper, not much fruit anymore.

Second taste: much smoother now, there is a ton of spice to this wine now, and the wine has a nice long finish.

Notes: Since this is a 2004 I think the wine benefits from some breathing time, I would even go so far as to say it would be good after decanting.  It’s a classic Cab Sauv, big big flavours, full mouth feel and strong finish.  It’s a great wine to serve with food, Steak, Lamb, Roast Beef.  The spicy-ness of the wine goes well with the steak I made, I like a generous amount of black pepper as well as allspice on my steak and the wine compliments these flavours very well.  The wine has a lot of “umami” which means the steak and mushrooms and are ideal to pair with it.

I really enjoyed this wine.  If I had tried it closer to when I had purchased it I would have gone back for another bottle or two to hold on to.  I am trying to build up an actual wine cellar, and I think this wine would have made a good addition.  It has enough flavour and tannins to handle aging well I think.

I am going to try and stick to this kind of format for each wine I try that way I will a good idea of each wine and I will be able to compare and remember what I like.

I will also try and make a point of posting the foods that I am pairing with the wine.  I will get my steak and mushroom recipe up soon.

Every year at Thanksgiving I make this soup, well except for this year, we had Thanksgiving at my brother’s home and he didn’t want me to make anything.  I found the original recipe in the LCBO’s Food and Drink magazine, the Holiday 1997 edition.  I have misplaced the magazine and now I just wing it when making the soup.  The recipe is something like this:

4-6 med/large sweet potatoes chopped into 1 inch cubes (about 6 cups)

2-3 leeks chopped, white and light green parts only (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 large carrot chopped (1 cup)

6 cups of chicken or veggie stock

1 tablespoon of cumin

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons of fresh ginger chopped

Zest of 2 limes chopped

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup of cream (for a very rich soup use 18% cream, for more healthy use half and half)

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of canola oil

Kosher Salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste

The vegetables can be very roughly chopped, this soup is pureed so you do not need to worry about presentation at this point, you just want everything to cook at the same time.

Melt the butter with the canola oil in a large stock pot.  Once melted add leeks, carrots, a pinch of kosher salt (maybe a half teaspoon or so) and about the same of fresh cracked black pepper, you are not looking to add colour to these just want them to be soft and start to go translucent.  Add the cumin, cayenne, lime zest and ginger and sweat a little longer.  Once you can really smell the spices add the sweet potatoes and stir them around getting them coated with all that leeky spicy mixture.

After 3-5 minutes add the chicken stock, you want to just cover the vegetables, if you need to you can add some water.  Bring to a boil and if necessary skim the crud that can float to the surface.  Reduce heat to a medium simmer and let it cook until the potatoes are nice and tender, approx 20-30 minutes.  Test for seasoning at this point.  Depending on how salty your stock is you may need to add some more salt and pepper.

Once the soup is cooked it’s time to puree.   You can use an imersion or stick blender if you have one.  Make sure you get all the big chunks, you want the soup to be smooth.  If you are using a traditional blender be very careful when pureeing the soup.  Do not fill the blender to the top I wouldn’t go much over half full, and when you start the blender up make sure you put a folded kitchen towel over top of the lid.  Hot liquids expand when you blend them and not only can this make a huge mess, it can be dangerous!  Puree the soup in batches until you have it all smooth.

At this point you can cool and store the soup in the fridge, I often make this the day before Thanksgiving dinner.  When you are ready to serve slowly heat the soup, over med-low heat.  The soup is really thick and the bottom can get super hot and then start to spurt out of the pot.  I burned my hand during a soup geyser incident one year.  Stir the soup as it is heating to prevent this.

Once the soup is hot and just before you serve it, add in the lime juice stir it in to incorporate well. You can add the cream to the whole pot of soup and stir it in, or you can add a little to each serving and do a little swirl pattern.

This soup is always a huge hit at our Thansgiving/Christmas dinners and there are rarely any leftovers.

Ugh instant coffee, brings up images of watery, weak tasting, dirty dish water looking cups of steaming yuck.  My parents used to drink instant, Tasters Choice I think it was.  For the first 10-12 years of my life that was my only exposure to coffee.  Those little innocuous light brown crystals, the way they would almost sizzles as the boiling water hit them.  Foaming just a little bit as you stirred, almost in a taunting, “you could be having a decent espresso” kind of way.  Still makes me shudder.

These days I take my coffee very seriously.  I buy whole bean, I grind just before brewing, my french press is my preferred method of brewing, I even roast my own beans sometimes.  So then why am I writing about instant coffee?  The no name Mac’n'cheese dinner of coffee?  Well I tried the new Starbucks Via instant coffee, and while it is easily distinguishable from real brewed coffee, for an instant it’s pretty good.  Starbucks was doing taste test challenges as a promotion when it was launched at beginning of the month.  Side by side with a cup of their regular brewed coffee, there was just no comparison.

If you want to have something on hand that is quick and easy, that has a much longer shelf life than roasted beans, then this is the stuff.  If you make it in the correct ratio that is.  The packets state 240 ml of liquid and if you go over that, it is quickly back to the standard watery crap that instant is famous for.  The interesting thing is that Starbucks claims that since it is “microground” you can mix it with cold liquid, i.e. milk if you wanted an iced coffee stat!  I haven’t had the chance to try this yet, but the coffee mixes into water really well.

I am not going to start drinking this stuff exclusively, but on a day when I haven’t roasted any beans, or haven’t gotten out to the store to buy more beans this is a reasonable substitute.

Last month we had a pot luck at work.  Our entire floor was involved, say just over 100 people.  We decided to divide up the teams and each team was to decorate and bring food from a region of the world.  Since my team decided I would cook, I got to pick for our team and I choose France/French.  I decided to do a Salade Nicoise (recipe to be published at a later date) and Coq au Vin.  Plus we picked up a bunch of French cheeses.  The chicken got raves reviews, in fact it disappeared fast and people kept coming back looking for more.  I have been asked for the recipe by a few people here at the office so I decided to try and re-create it here:

4 lbs skin on, bone in chicken pieces (I used drumsticks but I think this actually works better with all the parts)

1 cup of flour

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground thyme

3-5 tablespoons canola oil (you may not need all of this)

2 cups of button mushrooms

1 cups of pearl onions peeled

1 cup of Red wine (to be authentic you should use a Cote du Rhone, but any medium bodied red will work)

2 cups chicken stock

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Sift together the flour, salt, pepper, thyme and garlic powder.  Dredge the chicken in this mixture.  I find this is easiest in a large zip top type bag.  Put the flour mix in, add a couple of pieces of the chicken, toss about until well coated, repeat.

In a dutch oven or other thick bottomed large pot (that is oven safe) heat 2 tablespoons of the canola oil over med-high heat.  Once the oil is hot start browning the chicken in stages.  Do not add too much of the chicken at once or you will lower the temperature of the oil too quickly.  You also want to have the chicken in just one layer in the pot.  You want to just brown and crisp the skin here, you are not cooking it all the way through yet.  It should take maybe 2-3 minutes per side.  Take the chicken out of the pot and set aside while you finish browning the rest.  Add more of the canola oil as required.

Once the chicken is all done, make sure you have about 1 tablespoon of oil left in the pot, add a little more if you need it and put the peeled pearl onions in the pot.  Stir them around, you want them to caramelize.  Season with salt and pepper.  Watch the heat once you have finished with the chicken you may need to reduce the heat a little bit, you don’t want to burn the onions.  Once there is some good browning on the onions, add the mushrooms.  Depending on your mushrooms you may need to add a little bit more oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Normally you would do some bacon lardons at the same time, for the work potluck I left out the bacon as we have people in the office that do not eat pork.

Once the mushrooms and onions are good and brown add the cup of red wine and deglaze the pan.  Make sure to stir with a wooden spoon at this point, you want to scrape up all the brown bits off the bottom of the pot.Reduce the wine by about 50% and then add the chicken stock.  Reduce this by about 25% or so, and then add the chicken back into the pot, stir everything to incorporate and the put on the lid and place in the preheated oven for about 2 hours.

After the two hours is up, check the chicken, make sure it is cooked through.  The juices should run clear and there should be no sign of pink to the meat.  If you have one you could check the meat with a thermometre, you want to at least 160 degrees.

You can serve this with rice, potatoes or noodles.  I like mashed potatoes because then you can pour the gravy over the potatoes.

Enjoy

I was watching Grill It on Saturday morning and Bobby Flay made a clam boil using grilled shirmp and andouille sausage.  So later that day while I was out at my brother’s house I decided to take a shot a recreating it.  Here is what I used:

1 Lb mussels

1 Lb little neck clams

1 Spanish hot chourizo sausage – the store I went to did not have andouille

8 Shrimp, these were 8-12 count I think

Half a large sweet onion diced

6-8 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons butter

Juice of a lime

Olive oil

White wine

Ground thyme

cayenne pepper

“Boil” seasoning – “Old bay” or something like that

Salt

Pepper

First peel and if necessary devine the shrimp.  Put in a dish with lime juice, olive oil, salt & pepper, a 2 lightly crushed cloves of garlic.  Let sit for 30 minutes or so.  Cut the sausge in to managable lengths for grilling.  Get your barbq nice and hot.  Grill sausage and shrimp until almost totally cooked.  Meanwhile, in a large stock pot over med/high heat start melting the butter and add approx an equal amount of olive oil.  Add onions and stir until they start to go translucent.  Add remaining garlic minced and keep stirring.  Once you can really start to smell the garlic add your clams and stir getting them coated in the onion/garlic mixture.  Pour in 1/3 to 1/2 a bottle of white wine, and put a lid on to trap all the steam.  Let cook for 3-4 minutes.  Remove lid and add the mussels, stir to mix everything up and put the lid back on.  Cook for another 2 minutes or so.  Add your previously grilled sausage and shrimp, stir to get everything evenly distributed and cook for another 60-90 seconds.  Serve with really good crusty bread, you will not want to leave behind the juices!

When I did this at my brother’s it was for four of us, so I made sure everyone got 2 shrimps, 2 clams and some sausage.  There were plenty of mussels so I didn’t have to worry about those.

Yesterday a group of us from work went to Hero Burgers for lunch.  I have been a fan of Hero for a while.  And it’s a good thing it’s a bit of a trek to get to the nearest one to my work, because I would most likely eat there way too often if it was as close as say, Craft.  We had a “buy a combo get a free burger” coupon, so we were motivated to go for the walk.

Hero makes their burgers from 100% Canadian range fed, hormone and antibiotic free beef.  I think they are in the top two of burgers in Toronto.  Lick’s being the other on that short list.

The burgers come in 4, 6 and 8 ounces.  You can get just the plain burger, the signature burger or a peameal bacon burger, the signature is cheddar cheese and a really yummy mayo like sauce, and the peameal is cheddar and peameal with the signature sauce.  Then you can add from a very wide assortment of toppings, both gourmet and the regular burger fare.  Everything from sauteed mushrooms, brie, and goat cheese to chipotle bar-b-q sauce, creole mustard and red onions.  Personally I find you don’t want to overdo the toppings, it makes for a really messy meal if you do.  The “gourmet” toppins cost extra, either 59 or 99 cents each.  The “regular” type burger toppings are free.

One of the best things about a Hero burger, is that the hamburger patty does not get lost in the bun.  In fact it tends to overhand the edges just a bit.  The meat is juicy and tastes like a burger is supposed to.  You don’t get that kind of cardboardy taste of a frozen patty, and it’s beefy, no filler in these burgers.  If you do add one or more of the gourmet toppings you can actually taste it on the burger.  I have been to places that charge extra for “special” toppings and then when you get the burger you cannot even tell if it is on there or not.  Of course with these big beefy patties you don’t have to worry about overpower the burger taste.  Even if you pile on the brie, sauteed mushrooms and chipotle bar-b-q sauce you still know you are biting into a hamburger.

The fries are really good, bringing back my memories of really good English fish and chips.  Though I will say that Craft Burger quite possibly has very slightly better fries.

I had a signature burger and fries for lunch and then took my free burger home and had it for dinner.  Even cold it is still a really good burger!

Hero Certified Burgers is still in the top two burgers places that I have been to in Toronto.

I have been roasting my own coffee at home for the last couple of weeks.  This has a few benefits:

1. Cost, a pound of green beans, free trade single origin, Costa Rican Tarrazu beans cost me $6 pound.  Gourmet roasted coffee is at least $12 a pound, and quite often much more.  Starbucks special release beans are usually over $15.

2. Taste, coffee made from freshly coffee beans is so much better than the stuff you get from the local coffee shop.

When I first started drinking the coffee I was roasting at home I found there was something really different.  At first I even thought that maybe I wasn’t roasting the beans long enough.  The difference was that there was no stale bitterness to the coffee.  The coffee is smooth and rich, I can actually drink this coffee with nothing added.  And I have always been a cream and sugar guy when it comes to coffee.

I have been using a hot air pop corn popper to roast my beans.  For $19.99 it is a very good investment.  The cheapest counter top roaster I have seen is over $100.  The only drawbacks are that I can only roast 1/2 cup of beans at a time, and that the cover seems to be starting to melt since roasting the beans takes longer than popping some popcorn.

It takes approx 8 minutes to roast a batch of beans.  I have been letting the beans cool for 10 to 15 minutes before grinding some up and brewing in my french press.  French press is my favourite way to make coffee.  Some people do find that the coffee from the french press is a little strong.  I have started just adding a little bit of hot water for anyone who is having coffee to lessen the strength a bit.

This is a trick I learned from a food and wine show that had a Merchants of Green Coffee booth.  And from watching the Good Eats “True Brew“coffee episode.  Something like 7/10ths of coffee are water soluable and there are a lot of bitter compounds.  Overextraction is what causes bitter coffee.  I use 2-3 tablespoons of coffee for a 12 oz mug of coffee.  This is perfect for me though you may find you prefer more or less.  Remembering of course that you can always add some hot water if you find it too strong.

I have gone through all my beans and now I need to head back to the coffee store.  The Green Beanery is close to where I work and is where I got the Costa Rican beans.  I will be making a trip this week, and trying some other beans.