Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

I got this simple tomato sauce recipe from Orangette. I made it to go with some pasta on a weeknight, and it was great. I used real butter and suffered no ill effects (though it was cultured butter, I should specify). It’s important to use the best-tasting canned tomatoes that you can find, but I’m not recommending a specific brand; they don’t have to be imported from Italy! This makes enough sauce for 4 servings of pasta.

2 cups whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juices (about one 28-oz. can)
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half
salt, to taste



Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter and the onion halves in a medium saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, at a very slow but steady simmer, adjusting the heat as necessary, for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free from the tomato. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and salt as needed.



Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta.

Movies for spring - Part 2

I decided to write a little update to my Movies for spring post. I just recently saw Waitress, a sleeper hit from 2007 (I was busy!). I really liked it, and not only because of all the food porn! Keri Russell plays a waitress who is unhappily married, gets pregnant and has an unlikely affair, all while making amazing pies named after various situations in her life. It’s a light movie, sure, but very enjoyable.

For those of you who’ve seen it and liked it, let me also recommend Away We Go: it’s about a couple that visits several cities (including Montreal!) to decide where to raise their unborn child, and they learn about various types of parenting on the way. This was a lovely film, really.

On the funnier, more impressive side: please don’t miss How To Train Your Dragon: this was absolutely awesome. Not overly cutesy, very funny, and only a little clichéd (muss less so than Avatar). You don’t have to see it on the big screen, but see it! The sequel is already planned for 2013.

As long as we’re talking animated, I’d like to recommend all of the 2010 Oscar nominees for Best animated feature film: Coraline (really, really excellent), Fantastic Mr. Fox (which I’d already mentioned), Up (wonderful, but bring a box of tissues), The Secret of Kells (I absolutely loved it) and The Princess and the Frog (which is the return of the quality 2D animation I like so much; the soundtrack is great, and I think you’d really enjoy this one).

Finally, I have to mention Iron Man 2: it’s not quite as good as the first one, but it’s a great action movie. It was great to see all these Oscar-calibre actors give good performances in a lighter movie. I’m looking forward to the other Marvel movies coming out in the next few years! (For the record, I am mostly a DC girl myself, but despite rumours, I don’t see a JLA movie coming out anytime soon, so The Avengers will have to do. Still waiting for the New Teen Titans, Nightwing, anything!)

Chocolate Seduction Cake

I didn’t come up with this title, I’m just repeating it. I thought it was a delicious chocolate cake, and the Engineer called it “playful and fluffy”. I don’t think it should be served with a frosting; you could perhaps dust it with confectioners’ sugar or decorate it with fruit, whipped cream or ice cream (or your favourite lactose-free substitute), but I loved it on its own. The top did collapse a bit, because it’s mostly held together by whipped eggs (this cake happens to be gluten-free, but it’s hard to tell); it was only aesthetic, though, and still tasted wonderful.

10 oz quality chocolate (I used Callebaut semi-sweet)
5 oz unsalted butter at room temperature or lactose-free margarine
1 oz cognac (optional, I didn’t use it)
6 eggs, separated
¾ cup sugar, divided
½ tsp salt



Preheat the oven to 350 °F.

Line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper and grease.

Gently melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler; set aside.




Whip the egg yolks with ½ cup sugar until light and fluffy.





Add the cognac to the chocolate and butter mixture (if using) and fold very gently into the whipped egg yolks and sugar.



Whip the egg whites with ¼ cup sugar and the salt until soft peaks form, then fold into the chocolate and egg yolk mixture.




Put the batter in the cake pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Let cool.

Tokyo Sushi

The Engineer and I tried this restaurant last Saturday, at 1805 Sainte-Catherine West (it’s the same owners – and menu – as Nagoya Sushi and Thai & Pho), the location of the late Saffron. It serves Japanese food and Thai food. We were hoping to take advantage of their all-you-can-eat lunch special for $13.99 per person. We were given a table, but then had to reach over to the neighbours’ table for the menu – and another time for the little pieces of paper and pencils to fill out our order. Not invasive at all! And as is to be expected, the menu is littered with typos in both languages: “appetizer” has even been made into a verb, “appeterize”, which is identical in French.

Our first go-around was a learning experience. Apparently, one order corresponds to one piece. So we had one dumpling, one little unagi nigiri, one avocado nigiri... We rectified that with a second order. I’ll spare you the details, here’s the abridged version: the meal took so damn long that we actually had to cancel our afternoon plans (and it’s not like the restaurant was full by 3pm, believe me). The food wasn’t good, either. I’ve said this before about Asean Garden, but I feel like most restaurants that do every type of food end up doing nothing particularly well. The difference is that I can actually enjoy a meal at Asean Garden.

In this case, if you want a lunch deal for sushi, spend an extra $3.00 and go to Odaki a few doors down (1836 Sainte-Catherine West); it’s better, faster, and you have a conveyor belt as a bonus.

My new favourite chocolate

I tasted one of Lindt’s Excellence chocolates recently, and I’m head over heels. It’s the Sea Salt flavour, made by combining dark chocolate (47% cocoa, so not too dark) with a sprinkle of fleur de sel. I just LOVE it! The combination of sweet and salty is perfect in this bar, whether you chew it or let it melt smoothly in your mouth. I’m going to treat myself to this one more often! (I mean, sometimes I like a chocolate, but I don’t necessarily seek it out after I’ve had it once; but this one will be sought after, believe me). Unfortunately, it contains traces of nuts and peanuts, but if you have no allergies, I thoroughly recommend it.

Dandelion Muffins

This is quite probably the fastest turnaround I’ve had while posting: I made these muffins this morning and just had one for dessert. There’s normally a much longer lag between the time I make a recipe and the time I post about it, but this is different, because it’s a very seasonal recipe. If I only post about it when I get around to it, it might be too late for people to make it this year.

So, dandelion muffins. I read about this on Tea and Cookies, which linked to Fat of the Land for the recipe. Dandelions are edible, of course, and the leaves are often served in salads, but it had never occurred to me to use the flowers for baking. So early this morning, having decided it was now or never, I picked a bunch of dandelions of the front lawn of the building in which I live and got to work. I plucked the yellow petals from the center, pulling up some fluff along with them (just make sure not to include the green parts). The recipe calls for 1 cup, but that’s not set in stone: a little more, a little less, it’s fine.

These muffins were easy to make, very original, quite fun, beautiful and really good. They’re not sweet (only ¼ cup of honey for the whole dozen), so you could serve them as bread rolls with a meal if you want. I just had one served with butter and honey, which was delicious, and I plan on having some with jam for breakfast tomorrow.

2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup dandelion petals
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup honey
scant 1 ½ cups (lactose-free) milk





Butter a muffin tin and preheat the oven to 400 °F.

Combine the dry ingredients in large bowl, including the petals, and mix. Make sure to separate clumps of petals.




In a separate bowl, mix together egg, oil, honey and milk.



Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and stir. The batter should be fairly wet and lumpy.



Pour into the muffin tin. Bake about 20-25 minutes (check doneness with a toothpick).

Ginger Fried Rice

I found an inspiring fried rice recipe on Smitten Kitchen and ended up adapting it. You see, I had some leftover green onions and tofu, so I figured this would be a perfect use for them – even though the recipe doesn’t actually call for them. So I’ll give a loose recipe here, for what I did, and feel free to play around with it. It was absolutely delicious, though! The Engineer and I both agree we should make this again soon. We had four generous servings, so we made eggs two at a time – right before eating. You can cook them all the way through if you want, but I prefer it when the yolk is a little runny here.

½ cup canola oil, divided
2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp minced ginger
tofu (optional)
salt
Korean smoked dried pepper (optional)
2 thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts only
4 cups cooked rice
4 large eggs
2 tsp sesame oil (for some heat but the same awesome flavour, use hot sesame oil)
4 tsp soy sauce
sliced green onions (optional)

In a large skillet or wok, heat ¼ cup oil over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned. Add tofu and season as you wish (I was afraid of my tofu being bland, so I threw in some Korean smoked dried pepper, sesame oil and soy sauce). With a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels and salt lightly.





Reduce heat under skillet to medium-low and add 2 Tbsp oil and leeks. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until very tender but not browned. Season lightly with salt.



Raise heat to medium and add rice. Cook, stirring well, until heated through. Add the tofu mixture.

In a nonstick skillet (it just makes it easier), fry eggs in remaining oil, sunny-side-up, until edges are set but yolk is still runny.



Divide rice among four dishes. Top each with an egg and drizzle with ½ tsp sesame oil and 1 tsp soy sauce. Sprinkle the green onions over everything and serve.

Various desserts

This is a mish-mash post of various desserts we had over the course of the past few months, as well as a few sweet finds.

First, a recipe that failed on two counts. I had found a recipe for four chocolate cupcakes with a whipped egg-white frosting. I wanted to add it to my repertoire for two reasons: it makes only four cupcakes, so it’s great if you’re watching your weight; and the frosting reminded me of the seven-minute frosting I like so much, but easier to make. Well, it was a disappointment on both counts. The cupcakes, though promising at first, failed. And the frosting failed too, it was never fluffy like it should have been. So I’ll just stick to my regular cupcake recipes for now. (You know, as long as I’m going to have a cupcake, I should enjoy it.)





Then, there was a maple-coconut blondie recipe that was calling out to me. I love maple syrup, I love coconut, I love blondies. What could go wrong? Well, these were too sweet, mushy, and for blondies, really not that good. So again, a failure. (I think my motto is reminiscent of Pepperidge Farm’s; if you’re going to have dessert, have dessert; don’t half-ass it with a substitute you don’t enjoy.)





Luckily, Cocoa Locale came in handy (see here for the website, here for my previous review). I popped in there once and got to try the vanilla-lavender cake, which was delicious (it’s on my list of things to replicate eventually).




Then, finally, there was Reema’s famous red velvet cake (you know me and red velvet). It was very good! Unfortunately, her website does not list the availability of the flavours; if it’s any help, I bought it on Saturday, March 27th.





Then, you probably remember when I mentioned Paul, a famous and lovable cartoon character in Quebec literature. It turns out he now has his chocolate! I found this bar at Renaud-Bray; it was quite good (I wouldn’t go out of my way for it, but it’s a nice treat if I happen to see one).



Also, I finally found some decent blood oranges (better than the last ones I found, but still not quite like the ones I see online). They’re out of season again, though, so maybe next year I’ll try my luck again.

Moishes

I recently had the opportunity to celebrate a special occasion at Moishes with the Engineer and his father. It was actually my first time there! While I very much enjoyed my dinner, I must admit that the sides were more interesting to me than the meat.

Once you order, waiters place bread and butter, pickles and coleslaw on your table. The bread was fresh and the butter tasted great (the Engineer didn’t notice anything, though, so it may just be that I’ve been avoiding it for too long!). I’ve never been a fan of pickles, but both the Engineer and his father were raving about them. But the coleslaw, oh my goodness! It was delicious! I usually don’t care much for coleslaw (and in most places, it just sits on my plate, untouched after the first few bites). But THIS coleslaw is really something; I went back for more twice. Luckily, it is also sold in supermarkets, so I can buy it without paying for a whole dinner at Moishes (which is not cheap). I’ll look around for a recipe, too.

As a main course, I had the filet mignon, and while the inside was done as per my specifications, the outside was too charred for my taste. It was good, of course, but certainly not the best steak I’ve ever had. The French fried onions, though... Totally worth it! And do try the famous Monte Carlo potato: even though it’s not lactose-free, it’s a worthwhile splurge with some Lactaid.

There’s also a dessert menu that looks quite good, but by the time we finished our main courses, we were stuffed and couldn’t have handled anything else.

I’m really glad I was finally able to go to this Montreal institution! Next time, though, I’ll probably try something other than the meat. Maybe something light, so I can have room for dessert!