Puttanesca with Fresh Anchovies

Literally, whore's pasta, it's easy and delightful, but you can't catch anything from it

Spaghetti Puttanesca with Fresh Anchovies

650g anchovies (~2 dozen)

4 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves garlic

2 red chilies

32 Gaeta Olives (Kalamata will do)

4 garlic chives

2 tbsp capers

1.5 cups halved grape tomatoes

6-10 sprigs parsley 

1.5 tsps black pepper

Garnish with fresh grape tomatoes and a grated pecorino cheese

Once you've cleaned your anchovies (see below), heat the oil to a high heat, being careful not to let that oil smoke.  Toss in the fish, garlic, and chilies.  Cook, tossing gently, until the garlic begins to brown.  Add in the capers, olives, and garlic chives and continue gently tossing for a few minutes on a high heat.  Add the tomatoes and cook until the liquid has evaporated.  Finish with the parsley and black pepper.  

When you're getting ready to serve the pasta, reheat the sauce, and mix in your al dente pasta with the sauce adding half of your pecorino and tossing on a medium heat until your sauce is fully incorporated into the pasta.

Cleaning the Anchovies

Cut off their heads, slit open the belly and remove the guts.  Next, rip out the spine (preferably after making a clean incision along the spine the whole way down to the tail).  Rinse.  The small bones around the fins won't cause you any problems, but I did remove them from the one's I prepared for my 3-toothed daughter.

Served with: Blanc de Pomme (Casa Breton), a crisp dry cider that resembles a white wine

Japanese Cooking Techniques: Intro

Dear Readers,

To-date I have been posting what are, to me, stock recipes.  Basic every day recipes that I make to feed my family.  I feel as though this blog has not yet lived up to the spirit of my cooking, which is to explore a multitude of foreign food preparation techniques and couple them with local ingredients.  In short, I have been posting random recipes, instead of engaging in a greater discussion about local Quebec foods and cuisine.

I expect that as this new focus for the blog continues, I will continue to post, from time to time, the same lovely food pr0n and everyday kitchen recipes that I have been posting.  This exercise is meant to provide you with a focused investigation into a particular cuisine and help us understand how our local foods can be elevated through their use.

To that purpose, I will begin with a study of the use of Japanese techniques and how to couple them with local foods.  As part of this study, which I expect to continue over the course of several months, I hope to explore the subject of Japanese food in Quebec cuisine through articles on the following subjects:

• Traditional and Modern Japanese Techniques and Cuisine
• Reviews of the local Japanese food scene in Montreal
• Using Quebec Ingredients to create Japanese-inspired dishes with local ingredients
• We're going hard on this one, from local seafood and seaweeds to local rice, homemade vinegar, booze, and hard to find ingredients from regions that don't speak French, just patois.  Happily, Soy Bean is in rampant production in the townships, so it's more or less local
• Knife techniques
• Fish and Sea Vegetable exposés

Green Papaya Salad

The ultimate staple of Thai cuisine (or so many would have you believe): Green Papaya salad.  Like many Thai dishes, it is a balance of sweet and sour, redolent with the heady richness of shrimp, and accented with the heat of chili peppers.  

If you're a vegetarian who doesn't eat fish, it's still a lovely fragrant salad without shrimp.   

Green Papaya Salad

1/2 tsp coarse sea salt 

5 cloves garlic

4 red scuds/birds eye chilies 

1 tbsp dried shrimp

2 tbsps peanuts

12 grape tomatoes

20 green beans 

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp tamarind + 1/4 cup boiling water

2.5 tbsps palm sugar (1/8 lb)

2 tbsps fish sauce

1/2 green small papaya ~2 cups shredded

The tamarind paste that I'm able to secure comes in a brick and it would be hard to fully incorporate into the salad.  I usually add it to 1/4 cup of boiling water in a tall wide glass, and when I'm ready to add it, I shock it into a slush with my hand blender.

Add the salt to the bottom of your mortar and pestle and use it to grind the garlic into a paste.  Next add in the scuds and shrimp, pounding them into a coarse paste.  Crush in the peanuts before adding in the tomatoes and green beans.  Beat the tomatoes and beans enough to bruise them heavily, but not so much that you mash them into a paste.  Add in the lime, tamarind, fish sauce, and palm sugar (make sure this is not too chunky, I usually pre-mash it with the mortar and pestle).  Sear off your shrimp in a pan and combine everything together in a bowl.

Serve immediately, these flavours do not need to blend.  Leftovers and long-standing salad will become wilted.

Help!  My mortar and pestle was a Christmas gift and I can barely smash up peppercorns in it!

If you're lacking a good mortar and pestle (as many of us are), your green papaya salad making ability will be greatly hampered.  The alternative is to finally chop the garlic, chilies, shrimp, and crush the peanuts.  Mix them with the lime juice, tamarind, palm sugar, and fish sauce and let stand for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to blend.  Smash the tomatoes and green beans in a bowl with whatever you have handy to that purpose.

Too Spicy, Not Spicy Enough?

As always, remove seeds to make things less spicy, leave them in to make it more spicy.  And you can always increase/decrease the quantity of peppers.

Limone Gelato (Meyer Lemons)

Meyer Lemons, that unusually delicious cross between a lemon and a Mandarin.  I like to do them up like a Limone Gelato


Meyer Lemon Gelato


1 cup Meyer Lemon juice (6-8 Meyer lemons)
1/2 cup Meyer Lemon peel (6-8 Meyer lemons); not zested, whole peels are good
1 cup Simple Syrup
3/4 cup whipping cream


Bring the first 3 ingredients to a boil and hold at a boil for 2 minutes.  Let cool.  Strain.  Whisk in the whipping cream.  Make into ice cream using the instructions on your ice cream maker.


Note:  Limone gelato is a particularly potent and flavourful gelato.  It makes a great palate cleanser and pairs well with many other fruit gelatos or sorbets.  On its own it is delectable, but I wouldn't scoop out a bowl of it the way I'd eat a whole bowl of ice cream.

Mirin Marinated Mackerel

Serves 2-4

1 Mackerel (2-3 lbs), split as with fillets but with head on

1 cup mirin

1 tbsp red miso

2 drops hickory smoke optional

1 tsp sea salt

Mix all of the ingredients together and blend them well.  It's probably best to mash the miso up with a bit of mirin first, to avoid clumps that will take a lot of whisking or dirtying your blender to incorporate.  Splay your mackerel out, skin side down, and slop the marinade all over the top of it.

Refrigerate for minimum 1 hour.

Barbecue on a high heat, skin side down.  Mackerel is an oily fish, so you should get a way with it not sticking to the grill, if it's hot enough.

Enjoy mackerel, it's a sustainable fish.

Bones  Mackerel are easy to debone, other than the main skeleton, there will be bones around the fins and jutting out from the bottom part of the flesh nearest to the collar.  Otherwise, they have pin bones on the head half of each fillet, right in the center.  Find the pin bones with the edge of a knife and make an incision on either side of them, being sure to keep the knife close to them, to damage the surrounding flesh as little as possible.  

Green Borscht with Salmon

It's St. Patrick's weekend, and while I look quite dashing in my lovely orange sweater, I'm not averse to a bit of green and was feeling a bit celebratory.  Lacking a proper excuse to toss back a shot of vodka instead of Jameson, I made a soup that served both purposes: Green Borscht (with salmon, instead of beef, what with my lenten vegetarianism).

Green Borscht with Salmon

Soak 5-10 dried scallops in 1.5 cup of water for 45 mins (optional)

2 onions

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp chopped fresh ginger

Olive Oil, as necessary

1/2 (1.25 lbs) kilo salmon, large cubes, skin removed

2 cups yams (not sweet potato) or yellow potatoes

1.5 cups chopped fresh dill

6 cups Court Bouillon

1 tbsp black pepper

8 or 1/4 cup chopped Perilla leaves (optional; sorrel is a more traditional herb and an adequate substitute)

1/4 cup lemon balm (optional)

4 green onions

Garnish with boiled eggs, fresh dill, black pepper, sour cream

Serve hot with a cold vodka

Begin by soaking the scallops and putting water on to separately boil the yams and then begin the rest of your prep.  Sweat the onions, garlic, and ginger in a large soup pot, being careful not to let the brown.  Crank the heat to high and pop in the salmon, stirring infrequently to minimize breakage.  After 2 minutes, add the yams, and give a stir.  Let cook another 2 minutes and add in the liquid from the scallops.  Break the scallops up on a cutting board and toss those in as well.

Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 20 mins.  Like most soups, this one is better the day after, so I'd say that the final step would be to let sit overnight.

Help! I can't find dried scallops!  No doubt you cannot, but don't worry, they're optional for a reason.  Most Asian stores that carry dried goods will have dried scallops along with other dried seafood, have you tried there?  Note: Fresh scallops are not an adequate substitute.  In Montreal, you can find them in China town and sometimes at Kim Phat.  I got mine from another hole-in-the-wall Chinese market down in Brossard, next to an awesome Dim Sum place somewhere on Tascherau. They are by no means an easy find in Montreal.

Troubleshooting -- Broth is Too Sour:  It could be your court-bouillon was overly reduced or was simply too sour to start with.  Add a 1 tbsp of sugar and a tsp of salt to your broth before starting, or dissolved in water if your soup is already on the boil.

Vegetarian Stock #2: Court Bouillon

Court-Bouillon is a classic French stock, typically used for poaching as in a Nage, that is used for poaching seafood.  They are less complex than most other stocks, acidulated, and boiled for only a short period of time, typically around 45 minutes.

Court Bouillon

This recipe is for an Asian inspired Court Bouillon, through the inclusion of ginger and green onions

2 carrots
2 onions
1 inch peeled ginger (optional)
Random veggie cuttings (zucchini, green onion ends, fennel is especially good and traditionally added to court bouillon) (optional)
4 peeled cloves garlic
3 garlic chives (optional)
Bouquet garni - 5 sprigs thyme, 15 sprigs parsley, 2 fresh bay leaves
12 cups water (3 quarts; 3 liters)
1 tbsp black pepper
2 cups white wine (I use a very dry still cider)
1/2 cup of a high quality wine vinegar (for Asian-inspired sauces use a high quality rice vinegar)

Saute the vegetables in a bit of olive oil until soft and add the bouquet and water.  Keep at a gentle simmer for 30 mins.  Add the white wine and vinegar and continue simmering for 15-20 mins.

Vegetarian Stock #1: Mushroom Stock

As a vegetarian for 6 years, one craves umami.  Umami, that meat flavour of the Orient as its Japanese name supports, is the ubiquitous and elusive meat flavour we all crave (eventually, strangely isolated by them from seaweed as that terrifying white powder: MSG).   

I disagreed, as a vegetarian, with a large portion of the North American veggie population and never bought into that whole meat substitute craze that uses TVP and a slough of other concoctions to make everything from fake shrimp and chicken, to ground round, to Tofurkey.  Why eat meat when all I crave is Umami?

On the other hand, I loved rich soups and soups like French Onion soup or the Korean Kimchijjigae that were weighty in their meat flavour and light on the meat were perfect targets for my taste-buds.  But, how was I going to make a stock bolstered with enough Umami to make those delicious veggies taste good (like meat).

The Umami Stock for Vegetarians: Mushroom Stock

600g or 7 Portobello Mushrooms

500g or 3 good-sized yellows onions (skins on)

1.5 tbsp black pepper

2 sprigs of sage

4 sprigs oregano

5 sprigs thyme

2.5 stocks celery

2 carrots

2 fresh bay leaves (1 dried)

12 cups water

2 tbsps soya sauce

Dump it all in a pot and simmer for at least 1 hour.  Strain and let cool before bottling.

The soup stock receives its Umami flavour from the mushrooms and the soya sauce, which is rounded out by the heavy herbs, sage and oregano.  Everything else is your stock recipe for stock.

When finished, the stock should be richly flavoured with no bitterness (or maybe a touch from the onion skins) and dark like Guinness.

Now, I was fortunate enough to pick up over a half-kilo of Portobello for $1.50 at a Mediterranean bulk fruit store in Montreal called Sami Fruits, but I have previously loaded up similar recipes with  a cup or two of dried Shiitake mushrooms from the local Asian grocer (also for around $1.50).

White Chocolate Crème Brûlée

Crème Brûlée

Serves 6-8

3 egg yolks

1 egg (or 2-3 more yolks)

1 tbsp sugar

50 grams of white chocolate

2 cups cream

1/8 tsp vanilla

Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler and slowly mix in the cream until it is fully incorporated with the chocolate.  Add the vanilla.  Keep on the double-boiler until the cream is hot.

Add the yolks and the egg to a wide metal bowl.  Whisk with the tbsp of sugar.  When the cream is hot you will begin tempering the yolks, by adding the hot liquid a bit at a time to the eggs, constantly whisking until it is all incorporated.  The goal of tempering the eggs is to form a custard without cooking the yolks. 

Add the custard to some ramekins that you have placed in a large deep dish filled with enough water to come 2/3rds of the way up the ramekin.  This is your bain marie.  

Place the custard in an oven pre-heated to 325F for 20-30 minutes (actually cooking time will depend on the ramekins used).  When the custard is cooked, it should not jiggle in the ramekin.  Actually, it should jiggle a tiny bit in the centre of the ramekin and, if it doesn't, it's probably a bit over cooked.

Let the custard cool to room temperature before refrigerating for anywhere between 1-6 hours.

Remove from the fridge and toss granulated sugar on top.  Shake the ramekin so that the sugar evenly distributes and let sit for 1 min.  After a minute shake off any excess sugar.

Use a kitchen torch in one first pass to melt the sugar.

In the 2nd pass with the torch, allow it to linger briefly in spots to slightly burn the sugar.  This is aesthetic, but also a key part of the flavour profile.

Garnish I used strawberries macerated in a 10 year balsamic vinegar and shaved dark chocolate.

Troubleshooting -- My custard looks like scrambled eggs:  You added the hot liquid too quickly

Troubleshooting -- My custard is super foamy:  You probably used the whole egg and not the additional yolks and then you probably whisked too hard.  You can always use the kitchen torch before the sugar is added to eliminate some of the bubbles, but be careful not to burn the eggs before they cook.

Eggplant Parmesan

When I was in Greece over a decade ago, I had this delicious version of Eggplant Parmesan that resembled nothing of the Italian casserole dish of the same name, but oh was it delicious.

Eggplant Parmesan

Serve 4 appetizer portions

1 large or medium eggplant

1 - 1.5 cups of fresh tomato sauce (or any good tomato sauce is a decent substitute)

Olive Oil

Parmesan and Provolone or Mozzarella

This recipe is not elaborate and it is too simple to require elaboration.

Slice the eggplant thinly and sprinkle liberally with salt.  In a couple of hours most of the liquid will have drained from the slices.  Squeeze out the remaining liquid and then rinse the slices under cold water to remove the excess salt.  Squeeze out as much as the remaining liquid as you can and you should be left with a couple of fistfuls of eggplant flesh.  Disentangle them as best as you are able, although it's alright if they're still clumped.

Toss them into a hot pan with olive oil and toss or stir them constantly until they're browning.  There is no need to fully brown the eggplant slices on each side, you expect them to be clumped.  The key is to achieve a  good enough carmelization to add a certain richness of flavour that eggplant achieves when browned.

Evenly divide the cooked eggplant into 4 ramekins.  Spoon enough tomato to almost cover the eggplant.  Cover with cheese and broil until the cheese is bubbled and brown.

Matane Shrimp and Spinach Fettucini

RJ and Anna came for a visit today and, seeing as how both Maria and Anna are Italian, I focused my vegetarian lunch around seafood (yes, no purist here) whipped up Italian style.  To be honest, one of the other reasons I went for shrimp pasta was because of a terrible shrimp pasta I had recently at le Bistro at Chateau Mont-Ste-Anne, where they saw fit to charge me $30 for 2 shrimp and a spoonful of cappellini.  Yes, quite literally one bite.  So, this is a bit of a fanculo to them.

Shrimp + Spinach Sauce

Serves 4-6

1/4 cup olive oil 
1 cup chopped shallots (4 large french shallots) or 2 med. onions
10 cloves (2/3rd bulb)
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cup of Matane shrimp (any shrimp would do, these are just sweeter and more delicious)
4 sprigs thyme
5 sprigs oregano
1/2 lb spinach, chopped

Juice of one lemon
2 tsps fish sauce
2 tbsps chopped chervil

Pecorino, capers, ground pepper to taste

Easily made, this is just a matter of sauteeing the shallots in olive oil until tender, then adding in the garlic and lemon zest and sauteeing for a few additional minutes, until the garlic has softened.  Add the shrimp, thyme, and oregano, toss and fry until there any liquid given off by the shrimp has been absorbed.  Add in the spinach, lemon juice, and fish sauce and reduce until the spinach is wilted and there is only a little liquid remaining and then add the chervil.  

Toss the sauce in a hot pan with the pasta and the pecorino, pepper, and capers, until the sauce is fully incorporated into the pasta.

Garnish with a bit of chervil, some cherry tomatoes, or cheese.