Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fruit, fat and sugar

Written on July 26, 2010 by Mr Duess in Uncategorized
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Here’s a recipe just smelling of long, hot summer days, ideally eaten by a cabin on a lake.

And the best thing: you don’t even need an oven for this, making it ideal for cottage cooking.

You’ll need

  • 1 pint of fresh berries, your choice. This being Canada, blueberries rock, but fresh Ontario strawberries (chopped) or raspberries also work really, really well.
  • 1 pint of, well, fat. This can take the shape of crème fraîche, 14% sour creme or even Greek Yoghurt. It really depends on how healthy you want this to be. The first time I tried this I used 14% sour creme and it was so good we ate it all in one sitting.
  • 1 cup of dark brown sugar
  • The peel of one lemon, micro-planed. Seriously, if you don’t yet own a microplane run, don’t walk to the store and get one. It’s one of the most useful tools you can have in your kitchen, ever.
  • Brown sugar, one cup.

Fold together fruit and creme/yoghurt. Put into a shallow, heat proof  dish.

Sprinkle over the lemon peel.

Sprinkle over the sugar.

That’s it. All done with the prep. Now put the dish over indirect heat into a really, really hot BBQ – and we’re talking charcoal here, I can’t see this work on a gas BBQ – and let caramelize for three minutes. Keep an eye on this, as the sugar has a tendency to burn if you’re not careful.

Alternatively, preheat your broiler and broil for about two minutes. Again, keep an eye on things. The first time I made this the sugar blackened almost instantly. I took it out, removed the burnt sugar and back it went, with some fresh sugar, but one shelf lower until the sugar started bubbling.

A really good curry, cooked on an open fire

Written on April 4, 2010 by Mr Duess in Uncategorized
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We have an abiding interest in simplicity, especially simplicity when it comes to cooking. Sure, it’s nice to own a proper range, but what is cooking if not the application of heat to food? And surely our ancestors didn’t own 24,000 BTU stoves with electronic ignition. They cooked stuff in a pot, over a fire.

So when I found this clay and metal charcoal burner at Tap Phong, my favourite Chinatown kitchen store, I had to have it. Some years ago my parents had given me a Le Creuset cast iron wok as a present. As a wok it was useless – it takes way too long to react to heat – but I could see it work with the burner. $24.00 later I was on my way home, excited like a kid the day before Christmas.

I decided to make a curry, a curry I’ve made so many times that I am very familiar with it. This would allow me to learn what is essentially a whole new way to cook without having to worry about a recipe. Here’s an approximate list of ingredients:

  • Chicken thighs, skinned, bone in
  • Potatoes, new, cut into quarters
  • 1 can of tomatoes
  • 2 onions, diced
  • 3 gloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 piece of ginger, about thumb sized, minced
  • 1 tsp of ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp of ground cumin
  • 1 tsp of ground coriander
  • 1 red chilli, or to taste
  • 1 stick of cinnamon
  • 1 bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
  • a handful of curry leaves

Start by frying off the onion in a light olive oil, or ghee if you want to be authentic. I tend to choose olive oil for health reasons and I don’t find it changes the flavour much. The first lesson I learned was that charcoal gets hot – way too hot. I had to let everything burn down until the heat was low enough not to instantly burn the diced onions.

Once that had happend I sweated the onions for ten minutes until translucent, then added the garlic and ginger. Add some charcoal to get the heat up again – almost instantly – then add the spices and fry for another minute or so. Add the tomatoes, crush with a fork and cook until the oil separates. Stir in half the fresh coriander

Add the chicken and the potatoes and add enough water or stock to barely cover. Cook until the chicken starts falling off the bone and the potatoes are done. Take off the heat, remove the bones and shred the meat. Stir in the remaining coriander and serve with rice.

Lessons learned:

  1. The one thing I was worried about the most – will I get enough heat – was never a problem. If anything, I had too much heat at my disposal. The clay of the burner acted like a heatsink, once it was hot it stayed that way for at least an hour.
  2. There’s no precise control. In the end I just went with it, adding some water to cool things down when there was too much bubbling and then just let it reduce again.
  3. It will take time to master the burner, but I am already hooked. It is a very direct, basic way of cooking and the fact that I got a tasty curry out of it without any major mishaps on my first attempt tells me that there’s much goodness to be had this way.

Keeping clean by making your own laundry detergent

Written on April 3, 2010 by Mr Duess in Uncategorized
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This post is a bit of a departure from our usual subject matter, but I believe that it still fits the spirit of this site.

Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Duess don’t think of themselves as hippies. Still, they both share a desire to go back to basics and to understand the origin of the things that surround us all. Things that have become so complex that we often accept them at face value, without questioning or understanding the process that brought them into being. Bacon is one of these things, cleaning materials are another. We all use laundry detergent, but most of us have no idea what’s in these bottles. Is it good for us? Is it good for the environment? Is it fairly priced, or are we just being sold the equivalent of fancy tomato sauce, where a cute label hides cheap ingredients?

It is a sad fact that the indoor air in the average Canadian house is about ten times more polluted than the air outside. Hard to believe on a summer’s day in downtown Toronto, but depressingly true nonetheless. Much of that air pollution originates from cleaning products, including laundry detergents.

Let’s take a look at the list of ingredients found in your average supermarket laundry detergent. Many chemicals in household washing powders and liquids can cause allergies, asthma, skin and eye irritation and increase the risk for certain cancers. Additionally, these chemical compounds are not environmentally friendly and damage the ecosystem and atmosphere.

The ingredient nonyl phenol (NPE) is a general group of synthetic surfactants. This chemical biodegrades slowly and leaves trace amounts in the soil and water. Researchers have found that NPE in water can cause feminization of male fish. It is also thought to increase the risk of breast cancer as it mimics female hormone activity in mammals.

Synthetic surfactants called alkyl benzene sulfonates (ABS) or linear alkyl benzene sulfonates (LAS) are slow to biodegrade and can cause skin irritations and allergic reactions in susceptible individuals.

Another family of synthetic surfactants is called diethanolamines. These compounds are also slow to biodegrade in the environment and react with natural nitrogen oxides and other chemicals in the atmosphere to form nitrosamines which are known carcinogens.

Ethylene diamino tetra acetate or EDTA is a synthetic compound used to reduce calcium and other mineral hardness in water and promote foaming. However, foaming has nothing to do with how well the detergent cleans. EDTA remains in the environment and can dissolve heavy metals in waterways, allowing them to circulate into the food chain.

Phosphates are added to some laundry detergents to soften hard water and help to clean clothes. However, phosphate is a natural nutrient for ecosystems and when drainage water runs into waterways, it can cause excess growth of marine plants. This results in a loss of equilibrium in the ecosystem, killing other plant and animal species.

And while this all sounds incredibly depressing, there is one very easy action we can take: Make our own laundry detergent.

Making your own laundry detergent is surprisingly simple. The ingredients are widely available from supermarkets and health food stores and the results we’ve achieved in the Duess household are on par with commercial products, with none of the drawbacks. White fabrics come out fresh and white, dark clothes stay dark and wool stays soft. Here’s what you need:

Home made laundry detergent for dark fabrics:

  • 2 parts of natural soap flakes
  • 1 part of Borax
  • 1 part of washing soda

Home made laundry detergent for light fabrics:

  • 2 parts of natural soap flakes
  • 1 part of Borax
  • 1 part of washing soda
  • 1 part of safe bleach

That’s it. The ingredients are safe for the environment, and septic systems, and bio-degrade rapidly. They are free for foamers, making them ideal for high efficiency washers and front loaders. In addition, the ingredients needed are typically considerably cheaper than the commercial equivalent, making for welcome savings.

We buy our soap powder from the Toronto Soap Works, which has Borax already mixed in.

Yakiniku

Written on November 1, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in BBQ and Fire, Meat, Mr Stephenson, Uncategorized, fire cooking
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Mr. Duess will love this one, its all about cooking things quickly…again as a way of emphasizing the freshness and quality of the ingredient.

tadon1

Um...yum.

I have been invited to cook the dinner for my brother, Chris’s, wedding. It’s a casual affair with 30 or so people attending. He requested that the meal be relaxed and easy to eat whilst milling about. I, of course, want to do something special. He is getting married to a charming Japanese woman, Hirko, and I thought that there had to be a BBQ tradition of some sort in Japan. I did some research and, low and behold, I found Yakiniku!

Yakiniku is Korean BBQ modified for Japanese tastes, it was brought to Japan by Koreans after the war. I have read that the meat is cut into smaller pieces and the marinades are a bit lighter and less sweet, or the meat is not marinated at all. Consulting with the good folks at Sanko revealed some fabulous accompaniments along with some advice for traditional Japanese wedding gifts – cash.  Yakiniku is described as being more about the softness and texture of the meat than about strong flavours. From what I’ve seen, people use a lot of apple and pear in the marinates.

Torrance Torihei's photo of Ton Toro

Torrance Torihei's photo of Ton Toro - Yum

Mr Duess will also love this, one of the favorite dishes is Ton Toro, which is marinated grilled pork belly! I ran a little test last night with some fresh pork belly.  I have to say that the combo of soya sauce, mirin, garlic and a touch of rice vinegar with grilled bork belly is a real pleasure. It turns out that this is also Hiroko’s favorite so I know I’m on the right track here.

In any event, it is a perfect way to do something casual but a touch fancy for Chris and Hirko’s wedding. Its also very quick to prepare so I will be able to enjoy the party as well as chefing up the meal.

Its going to be an interesting adventure. As a heritage cooking technique, it really involves tracing the lineage of the techniques (I’ve certainly done my fair share of…um…inquiry into Korean BBQ) to arrive at the right set of flavours and compliments to the meal. There is also the further element of our Canadian tastes in this exercise. Yakiniku was developed to make eating the internal organs of the cow more palatable – offal prepared in such a way will still not entice the uninitiated Canadian palette so we are choosing to stick to beef rib – both rib eye and shortrib, pork belly, chicken thigh and shrimp. I certainly know that I won’t be making authentic Yakiniku but I’ll be doing my best to make a tasty and fun interpretation of it.

I will be using what is at hand at the party – a gas BBQ at Chris’s friend’s place. I think that I will supplement this with a small tray of briquettes and some kind of hardwood – alder or oak I think for some wood cooked flavour. Alternately I might build myself a little hibachi or pick up a weber smokey joe – the more I think about this the more I think it makes more sense to do this over coals. I’ve ordered my pork belly and ribs from Windsor Meats who I’ve been told is the best Butcher in Vancouver.

I will certainly be taking my camera with me to the meal and will post some updates of the prep and the meal proper.

Peter Reinhart talks on bread

Written on September 13, 2009 by Mr Duess in Uncategorized
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Ham heaven

Written on August 28, 2009 by Mr Duess in Uncategorized
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Both Mr. Stephenson and myself live on the outer edges of the old Portuguese neighbourhoods here in Toronto.

I am a firm believer in the theory that the Portuguese are indeed the Fins of Southern Europe. I am certain that anybody who has ever listened to the melancholic tones of a Portuguese fado will agree with me, so this proximity makes sense for Mr. Stephenson, who himself is of Scandinavian descent and no stranger to the deep, philosophical introspection so common amongst his people.

For a seafaring nation the Portuguese are exceedingly fond of meat, cured or otherwise, and the best Portuguese butcher on Dundas Street is known to us, affectionately, as the Disco Butcher, due to the plethora of neon lights adorning the building.

The Disco Butcher has recently started curing entire pig legs, then drying them in a temperature controlled room. An entire ham retails for $76 and should last for months in a cool room. A cool room like, for example, my basement in November. Toronto ham, inspired by the best that Parma has to offer.

jambon