The Guy's Kitchen

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Yesterday was a big day here at TGK.  There were 65 page views.  Which I know is a tiny drop in the bucket for some of the bloggers out there.  But for me, that’s my biggest day yet.  Thank you to everyone that stopped by and took a look, I hope there was something that interested you, and hopefully there was enough to get you to come back.

I am working a few ideas about “theme’ days around here.  Some of my favourite blogs (Food related and others) have certain types of posts on certain days of the week.  Actually that is where I got my idea for the round up yesterday.  I’d like to do something like this:

Monday – Recipe post

Tuesday – Something Gadget related

Wednesday – Recipe post

Thursday – Blog Round up

Friday – Wine Review/suggestion (might be other drinks too, beer spirits etc)

Saturday/Sunday – Recipe post but something directed towards entertaining/hosting a dinner party.

These are just some ideas I have had kicking around in my head for a while.  And obviously it’s going to take some work and a lot of commitment on my part to come up with 6 quality posts a week.  Ultimately though it’s going to be up to you my readers to let me know what you think.  So please leave a comment and let me know what you think about my idea.  Am I being too ambitious, is there something better I could be writing about?

*Update*  I noticed that the feed link at the top of the posts was not working.  I have set up the RSS feed for TGK with feedburner, you should be able to click either the RSS link to the upper right of the page or the WWSGD plugin link and pick up the feed.

I thought I might share some of the things I have read and found interesting today.  That’s because I was kind of lazy last night and didn’t do anything food related when I got home.  But these are still really good articles! 

Wine tours are a great time, I have gone on a couple in the Niagara on the Lake area of Ontario.  You can find some amazing wines for very reasonable prices and also find things you will never see in the LCBO.  Gabi over at BrokeAss Gourmet went on a tour of wineries in the Alexander Valley region of California, sounds like she had a great time!

Kitchenhacker is not a fan of Anthony Bourdain.  I have to say I can see his point though I have been really big fan since I started watching Cook’s Tour on FoodTV.  I also read Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour the book Anthony wrote after filming Cook’s Tour.  I can see how someone might have the same opinion as Kitchenhacker.  Bourdain does often come across as a grumpy old man sometimes.

I have been looking for a baked bean recipe for ages.  I even tried without much success this past summer to make my own up.  I think I may have stumbled upon the recipe I am looking for, Tangy Barbecue Baked Beans over at Pithy and Cleaver.  These sound amazing, and I know what Shiv is talking about with the beans taking forever to soften.  Working with dried beans is tough, though very rewarding when you it get it right.

Looking for apple-y things to make, I found Apple Cider Doughnuts over at smittenkitchen.  I have never been brave enough to try making my own doughnuts.  I have vague memories of my grandmother making fried doughnuts when I was a very little boy.  Growing up I was always a cake doughnut kind of guy.  Once the first Krispy Kreme opened up here in Canada though I started to see the reasoning behind raised or yeast doughnuts though.  These Apple Cider Doughnuts are cake doughnuts and they sound delicious.  I think Deb’s description of the Autumn walk with warm cider and warm doughnut sounds perfect.  Autumn has always been my favourite season.  The leaves changing colour, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the air starts to turn that cold crispy-ness.  This recipe sounds like Autumn embodied to me and I think it has given me the courage to try frying my own doughnuts.  Also Deb’s baby is super cute!

So just a few of the things that I have been reading this week.  Hope you find some of them interesting and get inspired like I have been.

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.

This past weekend I was at a friend’s family place in Muskoka.  They have a wood pellet bar-b-q, like this one .  I am dying to get one of these.  It is the best of both the gas and charcoal bar-b-q’ing worlds.  Fast and easy to start and maintain a set temperature like a propane or natural gas grill, and all the amazing smokey taste of a charcoal bar-b-q.

I smoked some back ribs for 6 and a half hours.  This was after they had spent about 12 hours in my own custom dry rub.  I don’t have specific measurements, not being in my own kitchen, I kind of had to work with what was around.  I just threw some things together, there was brown sugar, kosher salt, freshly cracked pepper, chipotle chili powder, granulated garlic, dry mustard, cumin and something else I am forgetting right now.  This mixture was liberally spread over the ribs after they were cut into smaller 2 and 3 bone segments.

While the ribs were smoking it was time to create a bar-b-q sauce.  The sauce is still a work in progress and could end up making my millions so I am not going to say much, but there was stout in the pot.

After 6ish hours, I started brushing on the glaze.  At this point care must be taken, the sauce can very quickly burn.

The wood pellet bar-b-q stayed between 225 and 240 degrees the entire time and I didn’t have to add more charcoal or play around with air holes at all.  One dial and a thermometre is all I needed.

Friday night I did Flank steak on the same bar-b-q.  The flank steak marinated over night and then a quick high temp searing on the grill.  Since Friday was my first time on the wood pellet stove I actually cooked the steaks to medium/medium well, which is more than I like to do flank steak.  But it had really great flavour.  And made great steak sandwiches when reheated for lunch on Sunday.

I can’t think of a Bar-b-q that would be more useful to have in my backyard.  If I have to get a part time job I am getting one of these.

Yesterday I made a really big pot of Irish steel cut oatmeal.  The long sloooow cooking stuff, not the instant cook for 3-5 minutes kind that is good for oatmeal cookies.  Though they are really great oatmeal cookies.

So you bring some water to a rapid boil and then you stir in the oats.  These oats look nothing like the ones with the old dude in a hat on the package.  They are not flat and pasty white.  The steel cut oats are a more of a golden brown colour and they look more like some kind of bird seed.  Once you have added the oats you stir alot until the liquid becomes milky and the oats have started to swell.  Everything becomes really thick and then you reduce the heat and simmer it for 30 minutes, stirring occassionally.  Once they were almost done I added a pinch of kosher salt, a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, some cinnamon, raisins and little bit of maple syrup.  I don’t like my oatmeal too sweet so you should be tasting while doing this.  I wanted to add apples, but ours were going soft.

This oatmeal is the best I have ever had.  It’s almost like a risotto, the grains of oatmeal are all still individual, but it has this creamy consistancy just like . . .  a risotto.  I have all kinds of ideas of different oatmeals, you could go tropical, add mangoes and bananas, or all berries, almonds, walnuts and more maple syrup.  And probably what will be considered the craziest idea, make a really savoury oatmeal, some sausage, bit of onion maybe.

Because I made such a big pot, I had a lot of left overs.  So I have brought some with me and I am eating it at my desk.  I popped it in the microwave and it’s still really good.  It is less creamy than it was yesterday, but once again my risotto comparison holds, if you have ever microwaved left over risotto, it is never as smooth and creamy as when it is served fresh.

So it looks like I have solved my breakfast at work problem.  I will just make up a really big batch of oatmeal every few days.  And if you have never tried the steel cut oatmeal I highly reccommend it!