Home made ginger ale

Written on July 7, 2010 by Mr Duess in DIY, Recipes
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Ginger Ale, like many sodas, started life in the drugstores of early 20th century America. And unlike the artificially flavoured concoctions often sold as ginger ale today the original didn’t just pack a flavour punch, it also contained all the medicinal properties that ginger is justly famous for.

Thankfully, making your own ginger ale is really, really easy and the end result is one of the most refreshing sodas you’ll ever encounter. For three one liter bottles of ginger syrup – you’ll dilute it about 1:5 – you need:

3 one litre glass bottles with a cap. Clean, then sterilize in an oven set to 200ºF for 30 minutes.
1 kg of ginger, peeled
500 gr of dark brown sugar. We use Redpath Demerara.
The juice of six to eight large lemons.
The peel of one lemon, yellow bit only.
3 litres of water.

Grate or chop your ginger. If you have a food processor, process until chopped but not mushy.
Combine water, sugar, lemon juice and peel and ginger in a large pan. Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.
Skim off any foam that forms and let simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Line a colander with cheesecloth and decant into a large bowl. Fill into your bottles while still piping hot and close. Let cool down. We keep our bottles in the basement. They should theoretically last for at least a couple of months, but especially during summer the ale is so popular we’re making a new batch every two weeks, sometimes more often.

To serve, dilute to taste with sparkling or still water over ice.

Chris and Hiroko’s Yakiniku Extraveganza

Written on November 9, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in BBQ and Fire, Japanese, Meat, Mr Stephenson, Purveyors, Recipes, Sauces, Vegetables and fruits, fire cooking
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Chris and Hiroko’s wedding was lovely and a lot of fun. We had the pleasure of spending a bunch of time with them and a group of their close friends. It was a quick but excellent trip. We arrived in Vancouver on Thursday and spent Friday and Saturday afternoon prepping for the reception meal.

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Ton Toro! It makes excellent rocket fuel when cooked over an open flame.

We planned the BBQ around three different meats: flanken or korean cut ribs (1/4 inch thick), pork belly, and chicken thigh. Hiroko brought some amazing ingredients from Japan, Windsor meats (at Main and King Edward in Vancouver) did not disappoint with the quality of their meat, and we did manage to find a hibachi which we used along with a gas grill for some of the meats.

We put a lot of effort into the sauces. Japanese BBQ is all about the quality of the meat and dipping sauces. I took the opportunity to dig into a bit of history and bunch of different flavours. The array of Japanese sauces, up to this point, had been a bit of a mystery to me. I always love a good ponzu or sweet miso sauce but, other than a number of early experiments, I’ve not sat down to really work through the flavors in any systematic way to be able to taste my way through them from scratch.

To the internet! “yakiniku+sauce” Mr. Google-san. I found a lot of stuff: some history, some more history that contradicts the other history (yah!), some good pictures, and some recipes that looked pretty good along with some that looked awful (I will leave these to the imagination). Looking at the research, it really does turn out that the tasty and ubiquitous Teriyaki is just one flavour among many that one can pair up with the grilled meats.

I started with two apparently traditional Yakuniku sauce recipes that I found. I certainly make no pretense of doing a traditional Yakiniku, but I did want to try to start with something that would be at least recognizable as a Yakiniku flavour. I’m not sure if it was because I was using a dark soy sauce and too much salt, but I found that the sauces were very very salty so made some adjustments to taste by adding more mirin, fruit and white wine. We used pear in the soy sauce based sauce for the rib marinade and a salt, onion, lemon, sesame marinade for the pork belly. Now I know that this is by no means a traditional Yakiniku marinade, but I though that a sweet apple/miso sauce would be nice for the chicken. Again I thought that it was way too salty so in the end I winged it. Check out the Yakiniku marinade recipes posting for an approximation of the sauces that I made. Sheree, as always, upped the game with clear feedback, a sense of direction and talked me off the edge of the cliff more than a few times.

Two afternoon's worth of dipping sauces

A couple afternoon's worth of sauce making.

The plan was to use these sauces for marinade and dipping but I also wanted to make a few more sauces for variation. I ended up settling on ponzu, mustard/wasabi soy, chili vinegar/soy, and ginger soy sauces. This would give guests a range of flavors to experiment with for the various meats and vegetables we were going to be grilling up. The marinade, by the way, was used for a short amount of time, about 45 minutes, as I did not want to overpower the meat.

One of the best Japanese food websites I came across was justhungry.com . In it, Makiko, has put together a very clear survey of Japanese ingredients and cooking techniques from the perspective of personal favorite dishes and family recipes.  She provides a brief and charming overview of the essential flavours used in soy based Japanese dipping sauces and where they are used. As Makiko encourages, these are the basics and one can modulate the proportions of the ingredients to personal taste. This is what I’m always looking for when learning something new – the cornerstone elements, structures and permission to mess about. For your reference, I’ve posted a little summary. If you’re interested in Japanese cooking, I would encourage you to check out Makiko’s site.

Dashi turned out to be a crucial ingredient for thinning some of these sauces out a touch. Rather than using wine, mirin or vinegar to cut the salt of the soysauce, I used dashi which is a broth made from various flavour packed ingredients. I made what is called Kombu (a seaweed) and Katsuobushi (bonito flake) dashi. This is a light but very robust broth that is packed with umami. You can, infact, see natural glutamate crystals on the surface of the kombu, and the bonito has a fabulously meaty aroma.

Chris and Hiroko after the wedding near Kts beach

Chris and Hirko near Kits Beach after the wedding.

With all this talk of Yakiniku, we can’t forget about the reason that we were there in Vancouver – Chris and Hiroko’s wedding! It was quite simply gorgeous. The weather did not really co-operate – we had a bit of a Vancouver fall day (um…rainy and chilly) so instead the planned beach wedding, we all met at the wedding commissioner’s home in Kitsilano. It turned out to be a lovely character home a stone’s throw from Kits beach. Chris and Hiroko looked dashing and the ceremony was to the point and elegant – growing together and taking care of each other was the message. It was touching seeing the two of them tie the knot.

After the wedding Sheree and I went to Chris’s best friend, Colin’s, place to prepare for the reception. It was three hours of mad sauce making, meat, and veg prep. We ended up enlisting the help of a few guests to finish up some of the skewering for the vegetables and the most excellent Ton Toro (pork belly).

Chris’s friend Rachel brought a tremendous set of appetizers including steamed wheat/spelt chinese style buns filled with veg, tofu and some chilies, an amazing artichoke dip with baguette and a lovely vegetable platter. We had a few moments to sample her good work and to pause and mill about as everyone arrived…and then it was go-time.

The cooking arrangement for the evening was an extraordinarily large gas grill – you could easily fit a lamb on this thing – and a little hibachi. I wanted to get some decent coals going on the hibachi for a good wood-cooked flavour, so I loaded it up with natural charcoal and added a half dozen 3″ chunks of oak wood for flavour. I figured that this would be a great place to do the ribs. I thought I would use the gas grill for the veg and the pork belly – being bit concerned that the pork belly would light on fire over the coals.

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Just before the pork-belly-rocket experiment.

It was dark outside and there was no patio light so Colin was good enough to lend me his headlamp. It was a perfect BBQ nerd moment: fabulous meat, coals, gas grill, lots of guests, a giant beer, leather jacket, headlamp. Check and check.

I started with a quick run of ribs and chicken and they received good feedback from the party floor which was encouraging to say the least. I started up some of the pork belly on the gas grill, closed the lid and then tended to the ribs on the hibachi. Within a couple of minutes, flames were shooting out of the BBQ like a rocket – kind of a rookie mistake I realize. It was just a touch entertaining as I quietly moved the BBQ away from the outside wall and quietly asked for the fire extinguisher -  just in case. Pork belly would make an excellent rocket fuel. After about 10 minutes they had burnt themselves out. When I opened up the bbq, there was one tiny, sad little black pork nugget the size of a quarter and hard as a rock. Next round, I resolved to leave the cover open and to move the slices of pork belly around a bunch to avoid another bacon-jet experience. These ones, with the revised cooking method, turned out great and were exceptional with the mustard soysauce and the ponzu.

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An array of tasty treats. Veg, Chicken and Ton Toro in the foreground. Flanken cut ribs on the hibachi in the background.

Vegetable-wise, we did up a bunch of grilled peppers, shitake mushrooms, some roasted garlic, and a corn/shitake mushroom mix in a foil pouch. All of these we splashed on a simple combo of soy sauce, rice vinegar, vegetable oil, and a touch of sesame oil – super simple but a really magic combo of flavours that supported the veg well.

It took about an hour and a half to get everything grilled up. Sheree kept things moving into the party and also brought back some nibbles to share. The feedback from the guests was really great – they were experimenting with different meat/sauce combos and sending back reports of their favorites. This is what I was hoping for. The Japanese contingent were especially digging the apple miso sauce. One of Hirko’s friends said it reminded her of that sauce at a restaurant at home. She asked for the recipe which was the best compliment I could have received.

The evening continued: a few speeches, a stellar slideshow by Colin telling the history of Chris and Hirko’s relationship, some emailed words from our mom who could not attend, and a hilarious party game conducted by Akiko in which we all drew out the answer to a series of questions about Chris and Hiroko’s favorite body parts. The evening then moved on to dancing (Colin actually did the worm), drinking beer poured directly from from a minikeg on high, and – finally- a traditional cocktail fueled shoulder punching match between Chris and I which got a little out of hand and ended up with Colin receiving an accidental jab to the mouth (sorry Colin).

It was a great night and the Yakiniku was the perfect meal. It was casual, easy to eat, tasty and a just the right amount of special. I hope that it helped make the evening a memorable one for Chris, Hiroko and all the guests. It was certainly a real pleasure to prepare and, based on this evening, I think that I will definitely make it again.

Soy Based Dipping Sauce Recipes

Written on November 9, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in Japanese, Mr Stephenson, Recipes, Sauces, Spices
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These are the dipping sauce recipes used for Chris and Hiroko’s Yakiniku extravaganza. You really want to vary the ingredients to taste so use this just as a guide.

Ponzu Sauce

1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
3 tbsp Yuzu Crush (or use lemon juice)
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
1/3 cup Dashi
2 tbsp mirin

Chili vinegar soy sauce

4 tbsp chili paste (i used a chinese garlic chili paste)
3 tbsp soysauce
4 tbsp rice vinegar

Mustard/Wasabi Soy sauce

3 tbsp dry mustard (we used Keens)
1 tbsp wasabi powder
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons dashi to reconstitute the mustard powders
1 tablespoon sesame seed, lightly toasted
1/2 cup soy sauce

I read that people put all manner of dairy – cream, milk, sour cream – and also mayonnaise in this sauce. We did not do this. We kept it as a soy sauce based sauce and I can attest to the genuine yumminess of this with the grilled meats. I would go so far as to say that this sauce was nothing sort of a revelation!

Ginger Soy Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
4 tbsp mirin
one good sized knob of ginger, grated

You need to boil this one for a bit to get rid of the alcohol flavour in the Sake. I would say that, all in all, this sauce was the least interesting. I think I would like to try this with a bit more of a vinegar/mirin vibe. I have to say that I did not really like the sake flavour in this so much.

Kombu and Katsuo Dashi Recipe

Written on November 9, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in BBQ and Fire, Fish and seafood, Mr Stephenson, Recipes, Sauces, fire cooking
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This is the Dashi recipe used for Chris and Hiroko’s Yakiniku extravaganza.

Kombu and Katsuo Dashi

8 inch kombu (dried kelp)
2/3 oz. (I just used a small handful) katsuobushi (dried bonito) flakes
4 and cups water

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain and use as a soup base or sauce ingredient.

Caramalized onion tart with diced bacon and fennel

Written on August 24, 2009 by Mr Duess in Mr Duess, Recipes, Vegetables and fruits
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Could it be true? Dropping temperatures in late August, reminding us that summer won’t last forever. The perfect day for a caramelized onion tart for a late breakfast. This is sweet and savory all at once, the bacon and fennel coming together perfectly on the bed of caramelized onions.

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You’ll need

  • About a cup of very active sourdough starter. If you haven’t got sourdough at hand, substitute commercial yeast.
  • 1/2 cup hand-warm water
  • 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups all-purpose white flour
  • 1 large egg
  • Some good olive oil
  • A good pinch of dalt
  • Fennel seeds, about a tablespoon full
  • 3 pound red or yellow onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • Grated Parmigiano, as much as you like.
  • A good handful of diced bacon

Put 1 1/2 cups flour in a bowl and the add the sourdough starter. Add the egg, 1 tablespoon oil, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Mix, gradually incorporating flour, until a soft dough forms. Then knead, I use a Kitchen Aid for this, adding additional flour as needed, until smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl and coat with a little more oil. Cover and let rise in a draft-free place until doubled, 2 to 3 hours.

While dough rises, gently heat some olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then sauté the fennel seeds until a shade darker, about 30 seconds. Stir in the onions, salt and pepper, then reduce heat to low and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are very tender and golden brown, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.

Knead dough gently on a floured surface with floured hands to deflate. Pat out dough on a large heavy baking sheet into a 15- by 12-inch rectangle, turning up or crimping edge, then brush mustard evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edge. Spread onions evenly over mustard, then sprinkle evenly with cheese. Add the bacon dice.

Bake tart until crust is golden brown and the bacon cooked, 30 to 35 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Fife Flour Sourdough

Written on August 14, 2009 by Mr Duess in Baking, Grains, Recipes, Tutorial, Video
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Mr. Stephenson is a huge fan of Red Fife, an old Canadian wheat that has recently been experiencing a bit of a renaissance, and rightly so. As I was out of rye flour, I decided to try and adjust my standard rye sourdough to Red Fife – Mr. Stephenson made a light but intensely flavoured Fife yeast loaf some weeks ago, so this should be a an interesting experiment.

Recipe: Red Fife Sourdough

Summary: A tangy wheat bread, made with Red Fife

Ingredients

  • 300 g Red Fife flour
  • 200 g hard bread flour
  • 15 g smoked salt
  • 200 g active sourdough starter
  • 350 ml (plus) water

Instructions

  1. Day One

    Take the sourdough starter out of the fridge. Feed generously

    Day Two, morning

    Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the starter and stir in. Start kneading, I use a kneading hook and a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, on speed 2. Add the water, adjust until a shiny dough has started to form.

    Go have a shower, get dressed, feed the cats. Come back after 10 minutes and check the dough. If you can see gluten development – take a little dough and stretch it – you’re done for now. Take the dough and put it in an oiled bowl. Cover, refrigerate, go to work.

    Day Two, Evening

    Arrive home, open a beer. Relax. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature, about two hours. It should have grown a little, but don’t worry if it doesn’t look as if anything has happened.

    After two hours, pre-heat the oven to 500º. Take the dough and stretch and fold three or four times. Put into a floured banneton for the last rise. After an hour, drop the dough into an earthenware cloche or on a pizza stone and bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until the bread has an internal temperature of 200º.

Prep time (duration): 30 minutes

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As you can see, it worked out reasonably well. I didn’t score the dough deep enough before putting it in the oven, so the oven spring forced one side further open than the others, but the loaf tastes great and at the end of the day that’s what matters. The entire rise was done by wild yeasts, with no commercial product added.

I shot a couple of snippets with the iPhone video camera. Mr. Stephenson, who is a professional in these matters, is working on a far better looking solution but until that arrives this will have to do. It should give at least an idea of what the bread looks like at various stages through it’s creation.

YouTube Preview Image

PS: A note about salt, and smoked salt in particular.

Salt and smoke are the enemy of microorganisms, like yeast; that’s why we use them both to preserve meat and fish. By combining salt and smoke we’re making the yeast’s life double difficult. Salt is a necessity in bread, it makes the bread, but too much salt will kill our yeast. Smoked salt adds another layer of flavour, but you’ll have to be careful not to overdo it.

I mix smoked and plain salt in a 2:1 ratio. For 500 g flour (plus whatever starter weight I am using) I use 15 g salt, 10 g smoked, 5 g plain. That sounds like a lot, but the yeast seems to survive it and the flavour is excellent.

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Midweek baking

Written on August 11, 2009 by Mr Duess in Baking, Grains, Mr Duess, Recipes
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When Mr. Duess and Mr. Stephenson talk to friends, and frequently strangers, about their adventures in the kitchen where they bake bread, cure meats and lure unsuspecting lacto-acidic bacteria into carefully prepared habitats there’s one all to frequent question:

“Where do you find the time?”

Now, both Mr. Duess and Mr. Stephenson are far from being retired, years away from sitting quietly on their front porch, pipe in hand and feet beslipperd. Yet they like few things better than a slice of freshly baked rye bread, dipped into a humble dish of peppery olive oil. And to achieve that goal, midweek baking is frequently a necessity. Here’s how to do it:

Day One:

In the evening, take your sourdough starter out of the fridge and feed.

Day Two:

The next morning, prepare your dough. Today we used 180g rye and 320g wheat flower, with about a cup full of very active starter. Salt, water; about 300ml for a (roughly) 60% hydration of the dough. Add everything to your mixer and knead while you’re taking a shower. Take the resulting dough ball and put into an oiled bowl, cover and refrigerate. Go to work.

In the evening, remove dough from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature. Fold and stretch three times, then let rise in a banneton for two hours. After the first hour, pre-heat the oven to 500º. Bake for 45 minutes or until the bread has an internal temperature of 200º. This is the result:

IMGP5638


The loaf had hardly risen in the fridge, and even after three hours at room temperature little had changed. The rise happened almost exclusively in the oven – the so called oven spring, where the yeast goes on one last manic feeding frenzy before being killed off at just over 140º.

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Dry Cure

Written on August 11, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in Curing, Recipes, Spices
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Summary: This is a simple dry cure for meats – based on Michael Ruhlman’s recipe in “Charcuterie”

Ingredients

  • 450g of KOSHER salt – make sure its Kosher
  • 225g of sugar or 425g dextrose (dextrose is less sweet – it cuts the salt without making your meat too sweet)
  • 50g of pink curing salt (Prauge Powder#1 or Instacure#1)

(Dextrose and curing salts are available at The Sausage Maker or Butcher and Packer)

Instructions

  1. This recipe allows you to do a simple “dry box” application to meats that are 2″ or less thick. You simply dredge the meat in the dry cure and shake off all the excess.
  2. if you are mixing spices in, measure out 50g or 1/4 cup per 1.5-4 kg (3-5 lb) piece of meat.
  3. place the dredged meat in a ziploc bag and extract as much of the air as possible.
  4. place in fridge for 3-7 days depending on the thickness of the meat.
  5. remove from cure once the meat is firm and dense rather than squishy and raw feeling.
  6. rinse and hang or dry for smoking – depends on what you’re making.
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Italian Pancetta Spice Blend

Written on August 11, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in Recipes, Spices
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Summary: This is an italian pancetta spice blend

Ingredients

  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp black pepper
  • 2 tbsp juniper berries
  • 4-6 bay leaves crumbled
  • 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  • plenty sprigs of fresh thyme

Instructions

  1. This is a recipe based on traditional pancetta spices. There are as many versions of this recipe as there are bacons in the world so vary it – let your tongue lead. Grind it all up together, mix 1-2 tbsp with your cure and rub it into the pork. Use more if you’re smoking.
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Five Spice-esque cinnamon bacon blend

Written on August 11, 2009 by Mr. Stephenson in Recipes, Spices
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Summary: This is a spice mix based loosly on Chinese Five Spice

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tbsp star anis
  • 1 1/2 tbsp fennel
  • 3 2″ cinnamon sticks
  • 1/2 tbsp black pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp white pepper
  • 1 tsp whole cloves

Instructions

  1. This recipe is a variation on the traditional chinese five spice. As always with the spice mixes – its just a starting point, vary the ingredients to suit your tastes. Roast all the spices in a skillet and then grind up in a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder. I use about 1 1/2 to 2 tbsp per 5 lbs bacon if I’m smoking it. Use less if you’re rubbing a pancetta.
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