Pasta with smoked salmon and crème fraîche

A question from Nicole prompted me to do some research into the making of crème fraîche (since we can't get it in the stores here). After doing a bit of research I decided to follow the "recipe" from Harold McGee's "On Food & Cooking: The Science & Lore of the Kitchen". It took a bit longer than it was supposed to, possibly because of the cooler temperature in my air-conditioned house. Still, it seems to have worked.

Apparently this all started because Nicole had a pasta dish at Miro Bistro with smoked salmon and crème fraîche. I have also had this dish before (in fact, it was the second dish I have ever had at Miro). So I decided to try making it, and it worked wonderfully: some fettucine, crème fraîche, smoked salmon, dill, a few capers, topped with a small scoop of caviar (the cheap lumpfish caviar seems to be all I can find, but maybe I can get some large salmon roes from a Japanese store). Anyway, the dish worked out great though the crème fraîche was not that thick and needed reduction.

I have never seen "real" crème fraîche in stores before so I don't know what it is supposed to look or taste like, but what I have made now seem to match the description in Wikipedia.

Cooking with Lesley 2

It's been a while since I updated my blog...I'm just been too busy (and away) too much.

I had another cooking session with Lesley. For starter, Lesley made some Thai shrimps with lime and chili (not pictured). We also made some mussels with spiced rice (cinnamon, allspice, chili powder):




For the main course, we made herb and lemon stuffed steelhead trout baked in a salt crust, some raosted vegetables, and a couscous salad (strawberry tomatoes, mint, lemon zest). The fish was extremely moist and tasty. We had a bit of a nervous moment when the crust didn't seem to form, but it worked out well at the end. It may have been better if we had use finer salt. I also made some saffron aioli to go with the fish.

Out of the oven:


After the crust is removed:






Dessert was made by Paddy: lemon vanilla cake and chocolate mint brownies.



It was a great meal, and we had a lot of fun. I have wanted to try cooking fish this way for a while and it's a really great way to cook fish. Flavorful and moist.

Penticton Winery Tours

I just got back from my short vacation in Penticton. Apart from the main event (bridge), I went to tour a few winery and had lunch at a restaurant at the NK'Mip winery. Here is a dish I had:




This is a dish with bison tenderloin and caribou sausage, with a merlot mushroom reduction, topped with truffle butter. It was very good. We didn't have any wine, though...we drank too much during the tours already, and we still had to play bridge!

Anchovies fried rice

It's been a while since I have updated my blog, and my next entry may not come for a while as I will be away for a week...never knew that having a blog is such a responsibility.

Anyway, I had this idea that anchovies are very similar to the Chinese "salted fish" that is commonly used to flavor fried rice, so I gave it a try. It actually worked very well. Okay, there is nothing fancy, it's just a little experiment.

3 days of feasting

I had a visitor this past long weekend, who I will refer to as "K". Naturally I cooked a few meals.

Friday night we had some Chinese dumplings with shrimps, shitake mushrooms, and wood ear mushrooms. This was served in a chicken broth that has been "enhanced" by shrimp shells. We also had my favorite ice cream: black sesame ice cream.

Saturday morning K made some scrambled eggs...I have never seen it done this way: the yolks and egg whites were whipped separately and then folded together before scrambling. It worked out very well. Maybe I'll try that some time. In the afternoon we went to Frank Slide and had a picnic there. We had some deep-fried dumplings and also spanakopita from K's mom. It was a very nice picnic.



Saturday evening was the big feast: we started with a leek and Stilton flan with leek fritters, followed by roasted chicken with my scalloped potatoes, and finished with a ginger creme brulee. Unfortunately I had some trouble with roasting my chicken evenly---the breast was slightly overcooked while one of the legs was not quite cooked. Also, the brined chicken was still a little too salty. I guess the solution (pun intended) is to use less salt in the brine. The first and last courses were perfect, however.





We had leftovers for brunch on Sunday, and for the evening we made mussels in a saffron mustard sauce (and fries) followed by a Port wine sorbet. Those were very good.




Finally, for Monday brunch we had spaghetti with anchovies, ratatouille tarts, and more ginger creme brulee. It was a little bit of a screw-up: I added too much salt for the first two courses and they ended up a little too salty. It was not horrible, but it could have been so much better. Oh well. And the ratatouille is made by K, and improperly seasoned by me.




Overall, it wasn't my best work but it was reasonable. Maybe next time...

Roast Chicken

I tried brining a chicken for roasting tonight. It was flavourful and very moist. I followed the recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon book. I did have a couple of problems: the skin was too salty and the bird did not brown evenly. The first problem happened because I did not know how to adjust for brine when I salted the skin. Next time I'll use less salt. In terms of the browning problem, it is probably due to the fact that I roasted the chicken in a sautee pan. Next time I'll use a roasting pan and turn on convection on my oven. That should make the browning more even.

I'm back

I never knew that having a blog is so demanding...people expect me to constantly post new stuff.

Anyway, I'm back from my trips and I made spaghetti with onion and anchovies tonight. It's a dish that I had in Italy last year and liked very much, and I have had reasonable success in replicating it. It's not easy to find good anchovies in Lethbridge, though...I got a big jar from Edmonton this time.

That's all for now...will do some more experiments this weekend.