Laurier's chicken shack

I have this friend with whom I like to lunch. We have sort of become the ladies who lunch. Not that we have the time or the money to do so, but hey, you only live once, so why not shirk responsibilities and throw down the credit card once and a while? Not that this meal was expensive; I am rapidly learning that lunches are way cheaper than dinners. The same held true during our excursion to Gordon Ramsay's re-hauled Chicken Shack on Laurier, in Montreal. It's not so much a chicken shack as a classy rotisserie. The decor was pretty much the antithesis of the "before" looks on Kitchen Nightmares. Whitewashed wood on walls, dove grey banquette seats and lovely brown exposed beams. The place was spotless. I also really enjoyed the oversized pickle jars on each table to eat to your palate's content. I am a huge fan of pickles.

My companion and I both decided to get the prix fixe lunch menu. A very good deal for 14.95$, plus you don't really need to eat for the rest of the day! Choice of soups or salad, many chicken and non-chicken mains, and amazing homemade deserts.

We both decided to go for the salad. How many times have I watched Gordon verbally bitch-slap bad restauranteurs for the quality of their produce? Too many. But he obviously takes his own advice.

The salad was perfect. Nice touch with the shaved fennel.

Nice thigh! The chickens are local, grain-fed and presumably have a life before becoming sustenance for my body.

Everything tasted awesome. The service was courteous and prompt, except they forgot to bring our drinks before the food came. Give 'em hell, Gordon!

There was a great selection of homemade deserts. This here is the chocolate cream pie. It was crazy good!

I would go back just to have another taste of the bread and butter pudding. 

Check out those caramelized pecans! 

curry in a hurry

Greetings fellow eaters. I made a veggie curry, wanna see?

 The veg in question. Later I added mushrooms and frozen peas, because my dad loves frozen peas and he was partaking in this particular curry. That, and my mom asked me if I would put peas in for my dad 130,004,287 times during the making of this curry.

Chop the veg up. Put some effort into it!

Stir fry the veg (I like to use coconut oil) starting with garlic and ginger. Then add the firmest veggies in first, such as potatoes and carrots. After frying and softening the veggies a little, I added the curry paste.

I like to doctor the jarred sauce with a variety of India spices. It makes me feel like I actually cooked rather than mixed things around. Anything to boost the self-esteem, people!

Time to add in the softer veggies like peppers and mushrooms.

I love mushrooms in curries.

Yes, I finally added the peas, minutes before serving this on some quinoa. Quite the satisfying meal, and even tastier the following day!

pho fantasy

If there is one soup I can't ever live without, that brings so much hot, slurpy, soupy pleasure to my life, and has even brought a tear of joy to my eye, is the mighty, unequivocal, irresistible pho. I love this soup. No, you don't understand. I LOVE this soup. Ever since I tasted what I consider to be the original pho back in 2009, I have dreamed of trying to recreate it; that full, deeply flavourful broth, the green, lively herbs brightening up the taste of the soft and yielding rice noodles, the paper thin beef slices cooking instantly from the ladles of hot broth showered on them... I could write an ode to this soup. But instead, as is customary on this blog of mine, I will show you how I made some pho 'fo my fine self!


Using and adapting a recipe found on epicurious.com, here's what happened.
 

Charring onions and ginger. I imagine that back in the day, pho would have been made over an open fire, thus making it quite easy to blacken the onions and ginger. The modern version saw me broiling these guys until they got smokey and black. Then I peeled them and they went into the stock pot.

Toasting the spices to go into the broth. Do not underestimate the power of a medium heat applied to fragrant cloves, anise seeds and cinnamon. By throwing this trifecta of deliciousness into a hot pan, you release all of its oils and somehow, the secrets of the universe come wafting into your nostrils. You smell this, and you just KNOW it's going to taste good. These spices go into cheesecloth and basically brew in the beef stock, elevating a beef bone tea into delicious pho juice. 

Starting the broth. Beware, this blog is becoming very very non vegetarian. After a visit to the local butchers, where we bought some beef bones, some flank roast, and some sirloin, we came home and started the broth.

The broth takes hours, people. Hours wherein you skim the scum and fat from the liquid, transforming bones and bringing them one step closer to some Vietnamese fantasy.

 
Repeat after me: Pho juice! Pho juice! Pho juice! The broth's been strained, the cheesecloth with spice trifecta has been removed, and it's piping hot, ready to be made into pho.



This isn't just about the beef broth and the noodles. Oh, no. Pho is all about the garnishes. When I ponder the mysteries of the beautiful pho, I realize that it's the perfect combination of soup AND salad in one bowl. 

 
When I was in Vietnam I was amazed at the variety of greens that you could throw into your bowl: mustard greens, dandelion leaves, mint, holy basil, coriander, beansprouts...and those greens just kept on coming, appearing in huge wet piles on white plastic dinner plates. 

 
You mustn't forget about balancing the flavours with some lime, chillies, hoisin and hot sauces too!





Steamed some properly cut (lengthwise!) baby bok choi to add even more greenery to the pho.

 
Pho assembly line action. Getting all the ingredients in the bowl before pouring the broth.

  That flank roast bubbled away in the stock pot for over four hours. It tasted like heavenly cows. Please note the raw, paper-thin sirloin. Just a bit in the bowl, save some for the others!



My bowl, post-garnishing. I was so excited to finally taste it!

Ah...perfectly nourishing, just the right amount of heavy and light, of crisp and soft, of spice and sweetness. If this soup was a gesture, it would be a hug.

Holiday Food Recap 2011

Welcome to 2012! Last year certainly was delicious, wasn't it? This year I resolve to grab my camera and take the time to photograph more meal-making. Either that or find a way to acquire a fancy smart phone so I can upload photos more easily to the blog.

Here's a look at all the yummy food I made and ate over the holidays.

New year's eve appetizer. Malpeque oysters with a white onion mignonette and some bubbly.

New year's eve dinner. Drake Qwacker the Third got roasted up with some baby potatoes and organic carrots. I am such a non-vegetarian now.

Sushi with my oldest friends. That is some mighty futomaki!



My hometown sushi joint is expanding into the realm of Korean food. Some spicy soup with kimchi. It was pretty awesome.

My lovely cousin made these gingerbread cookies.

My grandma's petes de soeurs (nun's farts) and some "Davy Crockets" AKA peanut butter balls.

Made some veggie curry for my family on a whim. No biggie. Thanks Patak's paste, you make me an adequate Indian cook.

Here is the first attempt at making pho, from scratch, including boiling bones for beef broth. Not bad, not bad. One step closer to recruiting a broth whisperer to make me bases for my soups.


Highlights of the holidays included:
-making pho for the first time
-having a dinner party with my parents
-my dad's emotional cosmo drinking
-adding the adjective "christmas" to every action or thought, such as "christmas annoyance", and "christmas tension"
-looking at ducks
-eating ducks
-roasting a duck for the first time
-cuddling

I hope that the holidays left you with some warm and fuzzy memories. Now it's get back to work time, and I will be posting the epic pho times very soon!

Bonne Année! xo

green goddess stirfry

So fall is upon us, as is the time for heartwarmingly delectable stirfries. This here recipe is taken from the People's Potato cookbook and comes highly recommended by my taste buds. What's especially tasty about this stirfry its heavy reliance on peanuts and peanut butter. Sign me up, son!
I used a variety of green vegetables: broccoli, snow peas, cabbage, and leek. Use whatever you've got, though! You'll also need a couple cloves of garlic, minced, and a dice sized piece of minced ginger. Use some protein, like this nice chunk of organic tofu.

Put on some music and get choppin'.



This bowl of condiments is what makes the stirfry extraordinary: awesome sauce
- 3 big plops of peanut butter
- 1 plop of hoisin sauce
- 2 glugs of rice vinegar
- hot sauce to taste

Start seasoning your tofu cubes with salt and pepper. Fry until golden in coconut or olive oil. Set aside. You could totally add the tofu at any time during the stirfry process, but I like mine nice and crispy so I do it first.

Then,stirfry your veggies in coconut or olive oil starting with the most dense ones. I added the cabbage and leeks at the end because I like to keep things crispy around here.

When everything is nearly tender; between 10 and 15 minutes of stirfrying over medium heat, add the garlic and ginger, and the awesome goddess sauce. Add in a few glugs of water and stir well. Garnish with peanuts and enjoy!

Happy autumn, everyone!

Brunch at Fabergé

Last month we took our fine selves out to brunch at Fabergé. I found this place by accident when I sat down on a bench outside the resto to eat a sorbet in the Mile End. A lovely waitress came outside and suggested I check out their herb garden in the back. I wasn't even going to eat there, but she said it was alright so off I went down the alley and found an oasis of herbs and flowers in a sunlit corner.

There I met chef André who was more than happy to show me around the garden. He was extremely knowledgeable about his herbs, and shared with me all the wondrous ideas he has for these lovely ingredients.

They even have a pond with a resident turtle.

They're growing stevia by the bushel to use in their shakes. I broke off a leaf and tried fresh stevia for the first time! So herbal and uber sweet.

All kinds of peppers to make all kinds of spicy deliciousness.

Ah, one of my favourite herbs. The mighty lemonbalm. Picks you up and mellows you out, all at the same time. That goes into their epic fruit shakes, along with the stevia.

After spending a lovely time in the garden, I vowed to make it back to check out their brunch.

It was nearly harvest time in the community garden.


We brunched on a quiet Monday afternoon. Fabergé is all about breakfast, hence the name (get it? Fabergé eggs?) There were a couple of flat screen TVs playing old school cartoons. Perfect for the pre-breakfast hunger bitchiness, you can actively ignore the people around you and wait for your food. Or something.

There are comfy booths with pillows, and a perfect open window view to the outside world.


First up. I had to get that smoothie in me. It did not disappoint. Fruity, herbal and sweet, I felt amazing after drinking this and I was tempted to order a second one.

Trying not to chug it back...it was so good!

Next up, we ordered food. Since we were both on a cleanse, there was no bread joy to be had. Fabergé has all kinds of amazing bread, from cheese to raisin, to banana. To be honest, there were quite a few things on my "avoid" list, so I stuck to the basics: omelette!


Here we have a roasted red pepper and tomato omelette, with a side of salsa. Some potatoes and fruit finish off the meal.


The omelette was fresh and fluffy, with a slight sweetness from the roasted peppers. Seeing as I was on a cleanse, I found the potatoes a little greasy. I'd like to see them do a roasted potato rather than throwing them in the deep-fryer. No complaints of the fruit salad though, there was a nice mix of more exotic fruit like pineapple and strawberries.

Overall, I am super pleased I found this place. The service is friendly, prompt and laid-back, the menu is not so huge as to be overwhelming (think typical breakfast fare with a twist) and they offer vegan options. Do check it out!