Back to Jerusalem

Yesterday was a bitterly cold day, with winds and biting air reminiscent of winter in Edmonton. Started the day with some leftover polenta and eggs. Lunch was a green salad with beets, stilton cheese and the nutty vinaigrette from the last post. Got some bad news regarding a job I was interested in, which drove me into the arms of a Tim Horton’s doughnut that someone had brought into the office. It didn’t help. 

For dinner, I defrosted a lump of mystery ground meat (likely a mix of beef and veal, a byproduct of a long ago Bolognese sauce) and put together a version of Yotam Ottolenghi’s braised eggs with lamb, tahini, and sumac, deviating from the recipe in the choice of meat and the method for the eggs (I poached mine separately). I also stirred in some spinach for a little greenery. This version wasn’t as good as the original, which is one of my favourites so far from “Jerusalem.” If you haven't picked up "Jerusalem" or its vegetable-centric cousin "Plenty," I would highly recommend doing so.

Simple perfection.

The new year dawned cold and grey, the kind of day best spent tucked up indoors. Glad I planned ahead and stocked up: beef bacon and poached eggs for breakfast; long, slow-cooking pork carnitas for dinner. The smell of pork shoulder melting into a chili- and citrus-spiked broth in the oven filled the apartment all day, chasing the chills away. Simple perfection for a lazy new year’s day.

Take a three to four pound piece of pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into big cubes and toss it into a Dutch oven with a half cup of orange juice, a quarter cup of lime juice, some peeled and crushed garlic cloves, spices ( a bit of cumin, chili powders, cinnamon if you want, salt definitely) and enough water to almost but not quite cover the pork. Cook uncovered in a 350 degree oven for a good three or four hours, turning occasionally until the liquid has mostly evaporated and the pork is happily falling to shreds. Remove from oven and place the pot on the stovetop on medium high heat and cook until the remaining liquid has vanished and the pork is acquires a crispy character. Serve with fresh corn tortillas, avocado, pickled red onions, hotsauce, Mexican crema or sour cream and ice cold beer.

Settling in

Well we moved. Moving sucks, but as these things go, this wasn’t too bad. We had lots of time to prepare and plenty of help with the move, so really the hard part has been just getting the place set up. It’s quite a bit smaller than our last place, so the big challenge is figuring out where to put everything, especially cook books and certain pantry staples (as a non-baker I question the need for so many baking supplies).

Ssäm of these days

It’s probably fair to say to say David Chang, founder of the Momofuku empire, is probably the most influential figure in the food world. When I think about some of the places I’ve eaten at in the last few months (like A-OK foods and OddSeoul here in Toronto or Talde in New York) or big name places I haven’t (Mission Chinese Food, Pok Pok PDX), it is difficult to imagine them even existing if Chang had blazed a trail for hipster takes on Asian fusion cuisine. Heck, you'd certainly have to give Chang a fair amount of credit for the ubiquity of pork over the past few years.

Bangers and the blues

They call this stuff comfort food for a reason.

Lighten up

Like everyone else in the universe, we’re starting off the new year by trying to eat a little healthier. Nothing extreme, mind you: our diet isn’t all that bad to begin with, but it never hurts to be more mindful of the things you are putting in your body. So we’ve been spending the last few days trying to eat lighter and drink less.

The warmest part of the winter

As I write this, it's about 11 degrees here in Toronto and raining. The kind of weather that makes you think about spring cleaning and digging your shorts out of storage more than stringing up Christmas lights. Call me crazy, but I'm not a fan. I like my seasons seasonal, you know? If you're in a place where it's actually looking like proper winter, you might find these recipes handy.

A sandwich truth

In my 30-plus years on this earth, I have spoken lies and believed untruths. But I say this to you now believing, knowing it to be so: you can't go wrong with a bacon sandwich.

Fry me a river

July was cruel. Day upon day of sweltering, suffocating heat. Cook? Blog? Dude, I could barely move. But I'm back now. And look: I made fries!

Dan Dan duo

Travel to just about any small town in the praries and chances are you'll find, tucked in among the post office or hardware store, a Chinese restaurant. These usually kitschy, lantern and dragon-festooned little outposts of the exotic are both interesting historical quirk and accidental multicultural success. Many of these small, family run places can trace their roots back to the Chinese labourers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway and subsequently spread out across the country and for whom cooking was one of the few businesses opportunities afforded them.

These places served a mixture of western food -hamburgers, pork chops, french fries and the like-but over the years they began including heavily westernized "Chinese food" (another quirk was calling these places "smorgs" after the Scandinavian "smörgåsbord" buffet.)  For many Canadians, sticky, saucy and sweet dishes like lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork and ginger beef were their first and sometimes only encounter with any form of ethnic cuisine. (This article from the Walrus at explores the history of Chiense food in Caanda and the authenticity debate a bit further.)

The prairie Chinese smorg is slowly vanishing, but you can see a similar process of the cultural exchange that gave us chicken balls at work in the work of places like San Fransisco's Mission Chinese Food (helmed by a Korean-born American who re-interperets Chinese dishes for western palates) and in home kitchens of people like me and the Swedish Chef. Just last week, we both ended up making versions of dandan mian, a classic Chinese Sichuan noodle dish. Two differnt white guys making two different recipes derived from the same dish; what happened?

Not baaad.

When I was growing up, lamb was not fixture on our table. Hell, I’m not even sure I even tasted lamb until I was well into adulthood. It just was never an option. Is that weird?

Heart of Darkness chili

Photo source

Back when my office was a little further uptown, I’d frequently stop in at a popular local lunch spot called Delica for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. On days when it was cold, grey, wet or snowy, I’d opt for their chili, which was a rich cocoa-infused concoction full of tender chunks of stew meat that never failed to satisfy. I’ve since moved offices downtown, but the memory of that chili stayed with me. It was/is, as far as I’m concerned, the Platonic ideal of chili.

I was chuffed to see that the folks at Delica were good enough to include the recipe on their website. So I made it at home (with a few tweaks) and spent the next few days telling anyone who would listen all about the best chili ever. Just try it. It might be the last chili recipe you ever need.

Cabbage patch

I should like cabbage. I’m part-German, part-Ukrainian. I should love cabbage. But I don’t. I associate cabbage with sauerkraut, cabbage rolls and kimchi, dishes I’ve never actually tasted because of the olfactory similarities to hot garbage.

Recently, though, I’ve started to realize that maybe it’s not the cabbage itself that’s the issue. Don’t hate the vegetable, hate the method. So, when half a head of Napa cabbage appeared in our fridge one day, I gave it a tentative sniff and decided to give it a shot.

Market Mondays

Last week, D. had a pretty brilliant idea for the seemingly impossible task of making Mondays less crummy: instead of heading home after work to cobble a meal together out of whatever is in the fridge, we would rendezvous with our friend and sort-of neighbour Jessica at the local farmer’s market and pull together a dinner from whatever we find there.

Chop to it

I guess I’m on a bit of a pepper kick (if two posts with dishes involving pepper can be called a kick).

I spotted the original recipe for this on Serious Eats this a day after I stumbled across the downtown location of Cumbrae Meats a week after reading about the latter in the Joe Beef cookbook. I love maple and black pepper and had been craving a good pork chop for a while, so it seemed like synchronicity at work.

Signature move

My first cookbook was the Reader’s Digest 30 Minute Cookbook. If I recall correctly, it was a gift from my sister, a way to keep me from starving after I finished college and took my first trembling steps towards becoming a grown up (a process that continues today). Truth be told, I don’t know if I’ve made more than a half dozen recipes out of it in the decade-plus it’s been in my possession, but I’ve kept it around, its unabashed plebeianism setting it apart from the Julias and Marthas on our cookbook shelf. Why?

I, meatball

This was not only probably the best tomato sauce I've ever eaten, it was probably the best thing I've had in the last month. And I didn't even make it.

Moving on up

Those who know us will be aware that we’ve had some issues with our current apartment. It’s been decent enough first stop after a cross-country move, but there are a few things about the space and location we're not loving. So for the past few months we’ve been looking around for better digs, a search that, in this city, can be an exercise in total frustration. The horrors that people pass off as living spaces in this town and the prices they are demanding beggar description.

Western Swing

The vacation I mentioned a few weeks back has come and gone. Here’s a few of the food-related highlights from our trip to Edmonton and Vancouver.

Basement meat report

Sad news today from our experiment in charcuterie. A recent spike in temperatures resulted in our little ducks developing a unpleasent growth of mold, so we've had to bin them. Boo. We're going to try again, but I'm thinking about looking for a small used bar fridge so we can control the environment a bit better. Stay tuned.