Vegetable Tian
From Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten

SERVES 8 (change servings and units)

Ingredients

* olive oil
* 2 large yellow onions, cut in half and sliced
* 2 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 lb medium round potato, unpeeled
* 3/4 lb zucchini
* 1 1/4 lbs medium tomatoes
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
* 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leave, plus extra
* fresh thyme sprig
* 2 ounces gruyere cheese, grated (if you measure you are silly)

Directions
1 Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2 Brush a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking dish with olive oil.
3 In a medium saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and cook the onions over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until translucent.
4 Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Spread the onion mixture on the bottom of the baking dish.
5 Slice the potatoes, zucchini, and tomatoes in 1/4-inch thick slices.
6 Layer them alternately in the dish on top of the onions, fitting them tightly, making only 1 layer.
7 Sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme leaves, and thyme sprigs and drizzle with 1 more tablespoon of olive oil.
8 Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
9 Uncover the dish, remove the thyme sprigs, sprinkle the cheese on top, and bake for another 30 minutes until browned.
10 Serve warm.

In the excitement of our first dinner party in Copenhagen we ambitiously decided to prepare an Italian style salt encrusted fish dish. With wonderful whole Norwegian Red fish, bought at our local fish monger, we set home with the intention of stuffing it with parsley, lemon and black pepper. Unfortunately we failed to realize our considerable lack of knowledge and experience cleaning fish. Thank god for you-tube and people with a lot of experience and excellent knives. Despite a dull, almost spoon like knife, we de-gilled, de-scaled and hand scooped fish entrails with relative ease and surprisingly tremendous success. The fish was succulent and moist if perhaps a little salty. Next time I will use egg in the salt to enhance the solidity of the crust and keep it from crumbing onto the fish.

I should know better than to experiment on any kind of scale. But I got so excited reading this cured salmon recipe and so taken in by the amazing photos, that I went straight to Granville Island Market and bought the nicest side of wild salmon that I could find. I thought it was too simple to screw up. I was wrong.

The obvious thing about curing fish is that the salt pulls the water from the flesh. But I did not anticipate the amount of water that would come out, nor have a plan for dealing with this. So the fish sat in this salty brine and did not cure properly. The end result looked mostly right but the fatty belly was slimey and I could tell it was just not quite right.

But I tried some just the same, a slice that looked amazingly delicious. It was outrageously salty and the taste was not good. I also tried an edge bit that did not sit in the water, and which was quite delicious with the citrus taste standing out well. But the single slice of salmon made me feel mildy sick for about 30 hours and I am still not 100%. Disaster. I don’t think I will be going anywhere near salmon for a while now, but I will be back. In the new year.

Side Note: If you are keeping track, that is two foodandtell.com disasters in one week. Impressive!

I bought this fabulous mix of dried wild mushrooms at Granville Island Market. You can find the stand in the South West corner, by the food court, where they also sell dried seaweed. The guys who run the stand are very happy to talk shop, and they told me that most of their product comes from Vancouver Island.

I soaked the mushrooms in boiling hot water for 10-12 minutes.

After sweating out some shallots in olive oil, I melted some butter and poured the mushrooms in, with all of the water they were soaking in, and sauteed them down.

When the mushrooms were the consistency I wanted, I added finely chopped parsley and garlic, a small amount of flour, and some more butter and water and stirred the sauce until it became thick. The end result was rich and delicious, with the various textures and tastes of the mushrooms standing out very boldly.

]]> http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/11/30/mushroom-butter-sauce/feed/ 0 http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/09/02/bacon-explosion/ http://www.foodandtell.com/2009/09/02/bacon-explosion/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:39:03 +0000 jonathan http://www.foodandtell.com/?p=1108

It is hard to come up with a suitable reaction to this recipe, this outrageous recipe, from the BBQ fanatics who run the website BBQ Addicts. In it they detail how to make a weave of 2 lbs of bacon, cover it with 2 lbs of italian sausage, season it with a jar of BBQ sauce and a jar of BBQ rub, and roll it all into some kind of insane, life altering (or possibly life ending) sausage. Before I saw this article, I thought I loved bacon and I thought I loved BBQ, but these guys are serious.

The recipe and more photos here.

Thanks Sean

Contestants of Top Chef would be advised to check out this website, showcasing recipes with only fast food ingredients. Of course, the results look revolting, and the top chef contestants have fared much better overall. The photo is of McSteak & Potatoes (Fancy Big Mac). Blech.

www.fancyfastfood.com

Thanks Jess.

So after eating (and totally falling in love with) the Orange Spice nuts from Sweet Obsessions on 16th Ave by Mcdonald (”they’re heavenly with a glass of cold white wine” the cashier told us and boy was she right!) my friend Anne and I were all of a sudden moved by a desire to make yummy nuts of our own.

The heavens opened up and all the possibilities shone down us: curry nuts, bar nuts, candied nuts, filberts, almonds, cashews. It was all so exciting.

First things first. Step one: What nuts to make.

So Anne had found a drool-worthy recipe in Vij’s cookbook which we decided we had to try. Next some web recipe searches came up with a couple doozies. First, the award-winning Union Square Cafe bar nuts, which mixed sweet (brown sugar) with hot (cayenne) with fat (butter) with salt tossed with some fresh rosemary – we halved the amount of salt in the recipe for the better I’d say. Second, some candied bacon nut mixture that was a smash hit at this New York Times contributor’s wedding. By her account they nearly eclipsed the romantic and momentous event at hand.

Then there were my friend’s spicy maple candied walnuts that get gobbled up in seconds flat come xmas time when she gifts them. The recipe calls for a candy thermometer, maple syrup, brown sugar, salt, cayenne, and cinnamon. The result is a nut covered in fudgey goodness with kick.

We settled on Vij’s nuts and the spicy candied walnuts. But then at the last minute threw in the Union Sqaure nuts – I mean how can you turn your back on the nuts that won the title “best bar nuts in New York” from The New York Press.

Step two. Where to buy nuts.

After researching and chatting to friends we had it narrowed down to Famous Foods over at Kingsway and King Ed and Galloway’s in Richmond.

But then at the last minute someone mentioned that the walnut haves at the sliver of a bulk food store Weigh To Go (3534 41st Ave. at Dunbar; Phone: 604-266-6206) were the best in the city. Sadly for us Weigh To Go threw us a curveball by being closed on Sunday (not entirely shocking given its sleepy location) so we foraged at IGA across the street which worked decently .

Step three. Booze.

We bought some Becks, Brooklyn Lager, and a bottle of the Blasted Church’s fun chirpy white Hatfield’s Fuse as liberal accompaniment.

Step four. Toast and mix and toss and bake (below are Vij’s spicy almonds after coming out of the oven).

Step five. Feast.

Going clockwise from the upper left corner we have: Vij’s spicy toasted cashews, ditto with almonds, spicy candied pecans (that go great chopped up and tossed in a salad with honey mustard dressing), union square magic nuts, spicy candied walnuts.

All of them were winners. The Union Square ones were the easiest but were very much superior fresh.