Salt Fat Acid Heat | Four Elements | Four Epitourists

Mastering the elements of good cooking!

This is not "your typical cookbook". Colourful charts and whimsical illustrations (rather than photographs to free the reader from the idea that there's only one perfect image for every dish!). The hows and whys content truly reflect Samin's energetic and creative self!

Menu

Pasta alla Puttanesca

Salad of Roasted Beet, Preserved Lemon and Tahini-Yogurt
—with Smoked Mackerel

Maiale al Latte with Roasted Squash, Sage and Hazelnut Panzanella

Amalfi Lemon Tart

Theme cocktail: Caesars!

The four elements celebrated!

Kaarina | SALT

Samin's Pasta alla Puttanesca

I settled on Samin’s own recipe for Pasta alla Puttanesca to showcase layering of salt in a dish. This Italian classic features salt in several guises — anchovies, capers, olives and (optional) parmigiana — each delicious in small doses. All together, all at once, they make a big statement. Huge umami delicious, salty statement.

Having spent the last 30 years searching for ways to reduce my salt intake, drawing Salt as my assignment was a challenge. Yes, of course I agree that salt is essential in good cooking, the basic seasoning for pretty much everything. But little goes a long way. I experimented for a month, following Samin’s directions but never quite got the knack of it. I found her approach with salt way too heavy handed and will return to using the salt grinder, shaker and a measuring spoon.

There’s nothing subtle about Pasta alla Puttanesca, so a bold wine is in order. California’s Seven Deadly Zins was up to the task. A rustic Primotivo from Puglia would be equally appropriate.

California's Seven Deadly Zins Old Vine Zinfandel!

Caroline | ACID

"Acid is salt's alter ego. While salt enhances flavours, acid balances them." 

Roasted beets with preserved lemon and tahini-yogurt from our beloved Ottolenghi's Simple (and he's on my menu two nights this week)! The preserved lemon and tahini-yogurt blanket the roasted beets with layers of acidity. As per the chef's recommendation, I serve this with a smoked mackerel. Wine pairings are Sancerre -- Henri Bourgeois Les Baronnes and a Mailly Exception Blanche Grand Cru Brut Champagne 2007! After all, Christmas is just around the corner. The acid component of the salad pair well with the Sancerre and highlight the wines butteriness. The Champagne takes the smoked mackerel to heaven! Interesting exercise in pairing.

Roasted beets with preserved lemon and tahini-yogurt

Diane

Michael Pollan, one of my favourite food writers, wrote the introduction to the book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and revealed Samin gave him some cooking lessons after she attended his class on food writing. His observations on sauteing an onion: "...there was an intricate evolution unfolding in that pan as the rectangles of onion went from crisply acidic to clean and sweet to faintly smokey as they caramelized and then bittered slightly as they browned. Samin showed me how half a dozen distinct flavours could be teased from that humble ingredient, all depending on how you managed principle number four, heat."  

That insight motivated me to buy a copy of Samin's book and choose the element of Heat for the Epitourist feast. 

At the end of every one of her Heat classes, Samin shares a finished braise with her students. The book dedicates more than a few pages on classic braises and stews from around the world, however the dish I ended up preparing was a braise of pork in milk: Maiale al Latte, as it seemed we were trending to Italian flavours. Slow cooked over two and a half hours, the aromas wafting from the oven created a wonderful background to festivities.

Maiale al Latte!

Laura

I really enjoyed this month’s theme, which diverted from our usual focus on regional cuisine. All four of us really enjoyed Samin Nostrat’s Netflix series and wanted to delve more into the themes and recipes.

I was tasked with exploring fat. In her book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Samin writes, “Fat adds its own unique flavor to a dish, and it can amplify the other flavors in a recipe. Simply put, fat makes food delicious—and one of the most important things any cook can learn is how to harness its magic.” I wanted to explore this idea by detouring from the obvious meat fat. I chose to make a salad and focus on using butter instead of oil in the dressing.  I wanted to make a hearty salad that would reflect the season as well as working well as a side dish, so I chose her Roasted Squash, Sage and Hazelnut Panzanella. Browning the butter adds another element to the flavour of the fat, and it stands up well to the bold flavours in the salad. The recipe for the croutons and vinaigrette is here https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/warm-winter-panzanella-d-is-for-dinner-1.4983972. You’ll have to borrow or buy the book for the rest of the recipe. Failing that, just roast squash in the oven, sauté chopped kale in olive oil with some onion and garlic, toast some chopped hazelnuts and fry some sage leaves. Then put the salad together using the method in the link above.

Roasted Squash, Sage and Hazelnut Panzanella

Caroline

As this was a sleepover dinner, dessert was in order. I stick to my assigned element and opt for an Amalfi Lemon Tart from Oliver's Jamie Cooks Italy. The crust calls for 1/3 cup of Greco di Tufo white wine. It is a new wine for us. And as Jamie suggests: "If you're feeling the Italian vibe, a little slice for breakfast with a black coffee is a real treat." And so, the next day for breakfast, a little tart was enjoyed with an expresso and a tasting of the Greco di Tufo.

Andalusian Discoveries

Plaza Rib Rambla, medieval Granada'a main square

Kaarina 

Mike and I were sipping a glass of Rioja at an outdoor cafe across from our hotel in Granada’s ancient Plaza Bib Rambla when our waitress surprised us, placing a slate of mysterious golden fritters on our table. We hadn’t ordered food but tucked right in, happy that we had stumbled on a traditional taverna like El Laurel, which still serves a complimentary tapa with a drink, a custom that is quickly vanishing across much of Spain. That night was our introduction to Berenjenas con Miel Cana — an Andalusian specialty that has its roots in southern Spain’s 700-year Moorish history. Deep fried aubergine, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside and drizzled with a dark brown cane honey. Eggplant has never tasted so good. From the first bite it was clear that this was going home with me to our next Epitourist lunch.

Deep fried eggplant drizzled with cane honey

Before I left on my October tour of Spain’s major Moorish sights, the Epitourists had agreed that we would cook an Andalusian feast on my return. So I was on a mission to find dishes I had never tried before but could take home and cook in my own kitchen.

Ronda - Puente Nuevo was built almost 300 years ago

I found the second dish for our menu in Ronda, the stunningly beautiful Andalusian White Hill Town that straddles a deep 390-foot gorge. Restaurante Las Maravillas’ tapas menu translated Carrillada as “braised pork cheeks.” Who knew the tenderest, tastiest cut from a pig fits into the palm of your hand? I pledged, on my return to find pork cheeks (aka jowls) in Toronto. (Order ahead from Sanagan’s Meat Locker / in Kensington Market.) I used a Nigel Slater’s Pigs Cheek recipe from the Guardian  with good success.

Pork cheeks and company!

Meanwhile, my Epitourist mates were researching Andalusian cooking online. Diane found a stew using spinach and chickpeas, ingredients that — like aubergines — were brought to Spain by the Moors. She mentioned the dish in an email, and that evening I spied Espinacas con Garbanzos on the menu at what had already become our favourite tapas bar in Sevilla: Las Teresas, a three-minute stroll from our hotel through narrow “kissing streets” of medieval Barrio Santa Cruz. 

Sevilla's Kissing Street and Las Teresas

Las Teresas’ Espinacas con Garbanzos was quite good, of course, but paled in comparison to the delightful dish Diane meticulously constructed in my kitchen in Toronto and served promptly as soon as the spinach was cooked.

Diane's Espinacas con Garbanzos

Diane

My research led me to the Hola Foodie site and a dish described as ‘bueno, bonito y barato’, which translates into ‘good, beautiful and cheap.’ Like many other peasant recipes from southern Spain, chickpeas and spinach are a fine example of how to make the most of simple and humble ingredients. Andalusian Chickpeas and Spinach somewhat surprised me as I don't quickly connect southern Spain with either of the main ingredients. Plain food, but so delicious when seasoned with the cumin, garlic, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper. The recipe noted frozen spinach was acceptable, but fresh was definitely more appealing.

Andalusian Fall Feast

A salute to Jerez!

Kaarina
 
Our late October feast opened with a salute to Jerez, Andalusia’s most famous wine region, in the southeast corner of Spain. A tasting of three dry sherries, accompanied by toasted almonds and orange-stuffed olives, segued to mushrooms in sherry, braised pork cheeks, spinach and chickpea “stew”, braised bulls tail and culminated in sweet tortas and Spanish cheeses. The three sherries — Lustau’s Almacenista Fino, Manzanilla Deliciosa en Rama from Valdespino and an Amontillado, also from Lustau — are all dry, although the Amontillado might be considered a little less so. Oxidization imbues it with nutty and dry fruit flavours appealing to red wine drinkers, which indisputably we are.

 

As the meal progressed, we learned to appreciate the contribution this golden libation plays in Andalusian culinary tradition — not just as a sipper but as an indispensable ingredient.

¡Hola! ¡Olé!

 

Roasted almonds and olives are the most common tapas offered — often gratis with a drink — in tavernas across southern Spain. We were fascinated how each changed the taste of a sherry.

Diane

 

Although I didn’t hop on a plane and ramble la Alhambra, I did explore the recipes of Spain to prepare for the Epitourist gathering. Hola Foodie was a great source for salivating over the possibilities. Sunny Andalusia, home of Seville oranges and olives, inspired this natural pairing for Orange Stuffed Olives  I let the olives marinate several days before stuffing them, and although they were wonderful pops of flavour, I can't help but think our readily available ingredients pale in comparison to the real thing.

Laura

 
It’s no secret I love mushrooms, and living across the road from a gourmet mushroom farm is close to nirvana for me. I often sauté them up in butter and some white wine and serve them with crusty bread. When researching my Andalucian tapas contribution, I came across several references to mushrooms cooked with sherry, or Jerez to be properly Spanish. 

Blue oyster mushrooms, olive oil and sherry!

 

There’s not really a recipe, it’s more of a cook-by-feel thing. You’ll know what I mean when you’re making it. Here’s what I did: Thinly slice one large onion. Heat a good glug of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the onion until it’s turning golden brown. Then add one pound of mushrooms. I used some beautiful blue oyster mushrooms from Kelly’s Gourmet Mushrooms on Wolfe Island. Oyster mushrooms just need a bit of a trim on the stem and then can be pulled apart into pieces if the caps are large. Smaller ones can be left whole. Keep the heat quite high and don’t crowd the mushrooms in the pan. The aim is to sauté them until they are golden. Then add in sherry. I used Emilio Lustau Los Arcos Amontillado. I’m not sure how much I added. I started with about a quarter cup, let it evaporate, and then kept adding more, along with salt and pepper. Turn down the heat to low. Cook, allowing the flavours to meld together for about 20 minutes until it’s a lovely soft, golden mixture. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if needed. Serve with sliced baguette or other crusty bread.

Caroline

 

With their bull fighting tradition, Rabo de Toro (bull’s tail stew) is deep-seated in the Andalusian food repertoire. I looked to Chef José Andrés to guide me. Kaarina introduced us a couple of years back through his 

Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America cookbook.

 

Unlike most Rabo de Toro recipes that I came across, Chef Andrés’ calls for half a bottle of sherry as well as the usual full bottle of Spanish wine. The addition of the sherry is well worth it, making the sauce both sweet and savoury. Typically, fried potatoes would be served with this stew. For a lighter “more tapas” fare, I opted for Chef Andrés suggestion of fresh bread as a side to sop up the rich sauce. ¡Buen provecho!

 

Rabo de Toro

 

Laura

 

We rarely have room for dessert at these feasts, so I decided to try making tortas de aceite. These slightly sweet, crispy cracker-like biscuits are a specialty of Seville. They are often served with a glass of sherry. They were the perfect end to our meal paired with Diane’s Spanish cheeses, more sherry and wine. 

Torta de aceite, a perfect finish!

 

Diane

 

I couldn’t resist a visit to Alex Farm Fresh cheese for Spanish cheeses.  Strong flavour profiles appealed. The product notes for Montenebro read: "A rind composed of ash and mold means insistent flavor... the damp, cakey, acidic paste near the rind is fierce, with unmistakable overtones of black walnut. Inside the core remains salty, lactic, and soothing." I also selected  Valdeon, "a Spanish blue cheese, wrapped in either sycamore, maple, or chestnut leaves. It has a very intense blue flavour."

In addition to the sherries, we enjoyed an elegant Rioja from the old vine master Marques de Riscal and a full-bodied Tempranillo Cabernet Sauvignon Balbas Reservas 2006 from Ribera del Duero.

 

Balbas Reservas 2006

 

Boat Food

Diane

If Rob and I are Yondering...

Even when I have my cooking mojo working for me, I appreciate the ease of pulling together an appealing plate without needing to turn on the stove or fire up the barbecue. Especially if Rob and I are Yondering for a ten hour day, or have just dropped anchor after a long sail, I'm glad to have some cold cured meats, cheese, crackers, nuts and pickles for a refreshing quick bite.

So for my course, I chose a charcuterie board. As this was the Epitourists, I provisioned at St. Lawrence Market, with stops at Scheffler's Deli, Future Bakery, and Kozlik's mustards, to pull together a charcuterie platter:  saucisson (truffle and blueberry); salami (hot and not); provolone wrapped in sundried tomato; prosciutto wrapped feta; marcona almonds; pickled garlic, onions and mixed vegetable; hot gherkins; roasted artichoke; pretzels; and a selection of mustards (dijon, honey mustard, balsamic fig and date, triple crunch).

 

To accompany, a quick cocktail with lots of ice: Whisky Soda.

Kaarina

Medina, our 30-foot Ticon Sailboat

I learned early on that we like to eat on the boat the same kind of food we eat at home. But that hasn’t cured me. Spring after spring I carry a carefully curated supply of cans and packages of dried foods onto the boat. And every fall I carry the same cans and packages off the boat. Most of the stuff simply doesn’t get eaten.

We like our food fresh.

On Medina, our 30-foot Ticon sailboat, dinner has become a ritual, especially when we’re at anchor. I plan, shop and prep. Mike barbecues. The menu is simple: Meat and a salad, mini potatoes or fresh corn in season. Lots of tomato salads. Grilled peppers. Guacamole.

Wilted Spinach and Carmelized Onions with Feta Dressing was this summer’s new favourite. It’s quick - 10 minutes - to make. Simple, fresh and quick! No fancy ingredients required. Except for the sherry vinegar, everything is available in most supermarkets. Onions, spinach, olive oil, feta cheese. (You can substitute balsamic for the sherry vinegar, which has become hard to find. I picked it up at St. Lawrence Market, lower level.)

 

Wilted Spinach and Carmelized Onions with Feta stands up on its own as a salad course, which is how Epitourists had it on Ruby Tuesday. I also like to serve it together with a steak, pork or lamb chops and I’ve carted it off to potlucks on land and on the water.

Caroline

AB is a good ol' boat!

Seven consecutive weeks on the water this season! The more you do, the more things happen. And happen they did. A small shroud popped while I was under sail. It was more like a very loud bang. Needless to say, it scared the bajesus out of me. That put an end to the race around Waupoos Island. We managed to duck out without incident, lower the sails and limp back to the anchorage. Dang. Good thing she's keel stepped. Dave, the owner of Marine Outfitters had her fixed up in no time. He even gave me the keys to his car so I could re-provision. And then, she sprung a leak in her exhaust pipe. Carbon monoxide is a bad thing in a confined space like a boat. Had to get that fixed too. What can I say. AB is a good ol' boat. I will admit that madness overtook me and I put her up for sale and bought me a trawler. Yup. A trawler.

I do digress. This is suppose to be about Boat Food. Yes. I looove to cook onboard. The space is small and like a maestro conducting an orchestra, I can put together a fine meal while standing in one spot. I have, over the years, compiled a yummy repertoire of boat foods. Some from scratch while others are just plain cheatin'. And plain cheatin' is what I chose for our September Epitourist lunch onboard ma new trawler Ruby Tuesday (semi cheating... I did bake dessert.) This boat food is a no-brainer. It comes ready made. In a box. Requires no refrigeration. Keeps forever. Will overwinter nicely inside your galley pantry. Calls for a glass of ruby wine or two, fresh bread and a simple salad and like Bob's your uncle, dinner is served. What is it you ask? It is cheese fondue in a box! Dipping ingredients consisted of fresh sourdough bread, grape tomatoes, roasted baby potatoes and cauliflower florets, Granny Smith apple slivers. For libation, I experimented with cider but must say that the ruby won hands down!

Our Epi Lunches go on for a forever long time! After five hours of sipping and noshing, dessert is the last thing on your mind. BUT, I was very excited about this finale. I will admit that Ruby Tuesday is lacking a decent oven. Decent ovens on boats are hard to come by. On AB, I had an oven but could only cook/bake ingredients that stood no taller than 4 inches. Well, Ruby has, wait for it, a toaster oven! HA! Yes. I kid you not. Have oven will bake (but only when connected to shore power 😶). So, in my little toaster oven, I baked an Orange and Black Olive Chocolate Cake. Rich, moist and a flavour combination that will blow your mind! Try it. You will like it.

Salad Days

Summer solstice. The longest day of the year. The first day of summer! Light is at its peak with the longest day. Time for gratitude. From here to December 21, the days get shorter and shorter. Reason enough to get the most out of every summer's day.

I chose this date and time for hosting the Epitourists lunch, with the theme of Salad Days. In the culinary sense, not the literary: fresh, colourful, appealing, healthy, with a touch of ease and an element of surprise.

Caroline and Kaarina co-creators on the feast.

Home made sourdough foccacia fresh from the oven! Fresh burrata with grilled grapes! Fresh chèvre with basil! Grilled cheese!

Our meal was stretched over 6 hours, with courses that were light and fresh and full of greens and herbs. The most important ingredient overall: deliciousness.

Menu

Burrata with Grilled Grapes

Grilled Radicchio Salad and Sherry Mustard Dressing with 

Grilled Miso Glazed Scallops

Chargrilled Asparagus, Zucchini and Manouri

Green Herb Salad

Sourdough Foccacia

Coupe Colonel and Affogato

Kaarina

I said I’d come up with an amuse-bouche but really I just wanted an excuse to splurge on some decadent creamy burrata to enjoy with friends who appreciate the indulgence as much as I do. The beauty of Ottolenghi’s Burrata with Grilled Grapes is that it can be entirely prepped ahead.

The grapes marinate in olive oil, sherry vinegar, garlic and crushed fennel seeds for a few hours before they go on the BBQ or the grill pan. The resulting nectar is drizzled over each serving and is so heavenly that it threatens to eclipse the burrata as star of the show. Caroline’s freshly baked focaccia was just the thing for mopping up every last drop. 

Diane

For my course I prepared a grilled radicchio salad with sherry mustard dressing from Bon Appetit that had captured my interest. I tested it out with my family first, and although they initially scoffed at the idea of grilled lettuce, they enjoyed the mix of flavours. Kaarina and Caroline appreciated how heat had ramped up the flavours and brought a nutty taste to the plate.

Served alongside grilled scallops with a miso glaze. The course was paired with Garden Booch, (1.8 oz of Seedlip garden topped with ginger kombucha, on the rocks, garnished with fresh lemon verbena).

Caroline

We’ve come a long way from iceberg lettuce days. Growing up, a salad consisted of chopped iceberg lettuce tossed with sliced cucumber, tomato and shredded carrot dressed with white vinegar and Crisco vegetable oil. Thank goodness we have made progress. Nowadays, any vegetable can be made into a salad. Grilled asparagus are simply delicious. Generously tossed in salt and oil, they take no time to do up on a hot grill. Al dente and nutty, they are irresistible. Good ol' Otto strikes again with Chargrilled Asparagus, Zucchini and Manouri.  Manouri is uncommon. I had to make a special trip to the Danforth to find this Greek cheese. In a previous attempt, I used halloumi and found the end result too salty. This salad is elegant and delivers big on flavours.

Bread being a perfect accompaniment to this dish, I put a new obsession to good use and baked a Simple Sourdough Focaccia from The Perfect Loaf. 

 

Kaarina

My dream was that each forkful would be a different taste in my mouth - and that was pretty much how it turned out. Ottolenghi's Green Herb Salad was the first thing I thought of when Diane proposed Salad Days. What better time to pinch and pick through my garden than Summer Solstice when all the herbs are at their peak freshness?

Six herbs came from various pots and the raised herb box that runs along the sunny side of my ramshackle old garage: parsley, coriander, mint, dill, sage and tarragon. I added store-bought arugula (rocket in the UK) and watercress (to replace the purslane in the recipe). The slivers of snow peas (mange tout) added fresh crunch and the toasted sliced almonds and three kinds of seeds each contributed more texture and a new flavour explosion to each mouthful. 

The Herb Salad was the perfect palate cleanser served on its own just before dessert. We agreed that with its bright lemony dressing the salad could be a fitting companion for simply panfried fish. I might also try replacing the lemon in the dressing with red wine vinegar and serving it with thinly sliced rare filet mignon.

Diane

Dessert was simple and refreshing, with a choice of Coupe colonel (zesty lemon sorbetto with a splash of Ciroc) or affogato (bourbon vanilla bean gelato drowned in espresso). We decided to try both.

Literary Spring

Of course the Epitourists love to eat, but we also love to read. May’s gathering on Wolfe Island was a melding of food and literature welcoming the green of spring.

Menu

Spring Soufflé with Creamy Mixed-Cheese Sauce

2016 Alsace Pinot Blanc L'ami des crustacés classique

Kaarina's Sprout Salad and Elizabeth on the 37th Crab Cakes

Kunde Chardonnay from Sonoma County

Rhubarb Spritz

Chinese Pork and Shrimp Dumplings with Scallion-Soy Sauce

Madeleines



Caroline

The bones of my dish came form Jamie Cooks Italy / Spring Soufflé with Creamy Mixed-Cheese Sauce. I struggled with which spring vegetables to use. His recipe includes asparagus, peas, mint and sadly, zucchini. At my first attempt, I included the zucchini and found that it made things watery (besides, save the zuke for fall!). I excluded it the second time around. I must admit that Oliver’s spring trio of choice makes for a lovely mix: asparagus, peas and mint. But when Emilio-the-forager handed me a kilo of freshly picked fiddleheads, things changed again. Would a trio of fiddleheads, peas and mint work? No doubt it would.

We wait for them with excitement: Ontario grown asparagus! Upon seeing my first bunches “…tinged with ultramarine and pink, finely stippled in mauve and azure…”, I couldn’t resist: asparagus, fiddleheads and spring onions it would be. Forget the peas. And without peas, what’s the point of mint?

We wait for them with excitement:
Ontario grown asparagus

What makes this soufflé SO delicious is the sauce served on the side for pouring over. I chose whole goat’s milk, parmigiano reggiano and taleggio cheese to make mine. Divine! I paired my dish with a Pinot Blanc 2016 from Alsace: L’ami des crustacés classique.



Le soufflé et sa sauce!

 “…but what most enraptured me were the asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and pink which shaded off from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible gradations to their white feet–still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed–with an iridescence that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form and who, through the disguise of their firm comestible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare’s Dream) at transforming my chamber pot into a vase of aromatic perfume.” — Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way

My Spring Soufflé with Creamy Mixed-Cheese Sauce



3 spring onions

3 tbs olive oil

250 g asparagus

250 g fiddleheads

6 tbs pinot blanc

6 large eggs



Sauce

1 1/2 tbs unsalted butter

3 tbs all-purpose flour

2 cups whole goat’s milk

100 g parmesan cheese

freshly grated nutmeg

100 g Taleggio cheese



Preheat oven  to 350 F. Finely chop the onions and asparagus. Place in a large frying pan on medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of oil. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the wine. Cook for 5 minutes.

 For the sauce, melt the butter in a sauce pan on medium heat. Stir in the flour until combined, then gradually whisk in the milk until smooth. Simmer for 5 minutes. Finely grate in 75 g of the Parmesan, nutmeg and Taleggio. Season to taste. Pour half the sauce in with the vegetables and mix, then leave to cool to room temperature. Put the remaining sauce aside for now. 

Separate the eggs, stirring the yolks into the vegetable mixture. Beat the whites until stiff then fold through the vegetable mix. Generously butter 4 ramekins and divide soufflé mix. Garnish with blanched asparagus spears and one fiddlehead. Sprinkle with the remaining 25 g of parmesan. Bake 25 minutes or until golden and puffed up. Warm the remaining cheese sauce and serve on the side for pouring over.

Kaarina



The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill inspired my crab cakes. Sam Fraunce prepared them for Aminata when she arrived in Manhattan on the first leg of her journey to freedom.

"He said the way to make a decent crab cake was to roll just a touch of bread crumbs, melted butter and cream into the crab meat. It was so good that you wanted to treat it tenderly.
 (...) 'Crab is not something to overpower with energetic spicing,' he said. 'Crabmeat wants to melt quietly on the tongue.' "

I’ve never forgotten that advice.
 I rejected dozens of crab cake recipes trying to find one that met Sam’s exacting standard. My crab cake recipe is based on one from a Savannah, GA restaurant — Elizabeth’s on 37th.

The challenge is keeping the crab cakes from falling apart. I can never do it. Now I just push them back together to reshape and serve. I’d rather preserve the taste and texture than the shape.



In a salute to Wolfe Island spring, we picked dandelions from Laura’s Back 40, where just that morning I spied four deer grazing on the dew-kissed grass. The dandelion leaves added a bitter kick to the sprout salad accompaniment to the crab cakes.



The dandelion leaves added a bitter kick to the sprout salad

Kaarina's Sprout Salad

1 tsp garlic finely chopped

1 tsp fresh tarragon finely chopped

1 tsp honey

3-4 tbsp champagne vinegar

1⁄3 cup (125 mL) canola oil

Salt and pepper to taste
3-4 cups of sprouts (such as pea and radish) and bitter greens (arugula, dandelions, escarole, watercress

3 green onions, thinly sliced

A dozen violas for garnish (optional)



MEASURE the first  6 ingredients into a small jar and shake hard to emulsify (or use a blender). Toss with greens.



A lightly oaked or unoaked Chardonnay, such as the Kunde from Sonoma County, pairs well with the crab cakes. And a rhubarb Spritz is just the ticket if lunch runs into cocktail hour!



Rhubarb Spritz

 (from our very own mixologist, K)

1 tbsp rhubarb compote

1 oz Hendricks gin

2-3 oz Prosecco

In a champagne glass, stir rhubarb compote and gin. Add 3-4 ice cubes. Top with Prosecco. Stir.

Rhubarb Spritz

Laura

“Back home, I told the cook girl to boil enough pots of water and to chop enough pork and vegetables to make a thousand dumplings, both steamed and boiled, with plenty of fresh ginger, good soy sauce, and sweet vinegar for dipping.” – The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan

I love dumplings! They’re easy to make but time-consuming. The filling and pleating is relaxing when you have a chunk of time to devote to the process.

Dumplings and Scallion-Soy Sauce

And no literary feast is complete without a nod to Proust’s madeleines.

A perfect end with madeleines!

Literary Feasts

 From Diane's blog.

The theme for this month's Epitourists started with spring and then morphed to literary greens and settled in nicely to literature.

I was trying to decide on the dish I would bring to Wolfe Island when I realized Rob and I also had a commitment to visit friends in Ottawa/Quebec. Darn! I know this will be a great feast and it would be wonderful to see the Island greening in the spring.

Still I have been participating in spirit and trying to choose my dish.

Green eggs and ham? A tea party, à la Alice? Dare to eat a peach?

One of the first literary foods that sprang to mind was from David Eggers book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, when he wrote about slicing the circles of an orange and placing them on his younger brother's plate, to brighten up a canned food dinner and add some vitamin C. Funny how that image has stayed with me for so many years!

In my research I came across a book called Pleasures of the Table, A literary anthology compiled by Christina Hardyment, and spent a few hours at virtual feasts: Roman bacchanals, domestic dinners, picnics with Peter Rabbit. A "spare feast! a radish and an egg" savoured by the fire in The Task by poet William Cowper.

Memorable: MFK Fisher writing in Serve It Forth about the secret pleasures of crisped tangerine sections:

Almost every person has something secret he likes to eat.
...It was then that I discovered little dried sections of tangerine. My pleasure in them is subtle and voluptuous and quite inexplicable. I can only write how they are prepared.
In the morning, in the soft sultry chamber, sit in the window peeling tangerines, three or four. Peel them gently; do not bruise them, as you watch soldiers pour past and past the corner and over the canal towards the watched Rhine. Separate each plump little pregnant crescent. If you find the Kiss, the secret section, save it for Al.
Listen to the chambermaid thumping up the pillows, and murmur encouragement to her thick Alsatian tales of l'intérieure. That is Paris, the interior, Paris or anywhere west of Strasbourg or maybe the Vosges. While she mutters of seduction and French bicyclists who ride more than wheels, tear delicately from the soft pile of sections each velvet string. You know those white pulpy strings that hold tangerines into their skins? Tear them off. Be careful.
Take yesterday's paper (when we were in Strasbourg L'Ami du Peuple was best, because when it got hot the ink stayed on it) and spread it on top of the radiator. The maid has gone, of course - it might be hard to ignore her belligerent Alsatian glare of astonishment.
After you have put the pieces of tangerine on the paper on the hot radiator, it is best to forget about them. Al comes home, you go to a long noon dinner in the brown dining-room, afterwards maybe you have a little nip of quetsch from the bottle on the armoire. Finally he goes. You are sorry, but -
On the radiator the sections of tangerines have grown even plumper, hot and full. You carry them to the window, pull it open, and leave them for a few minutes on the packed snow of the sill. They are ready.
All afternoon you can sit, then, looking down on the corner. Afternoon papers are delivered to the kiosk. Children come home from school just as three lovely whores mince smartly into the pension's chic tearoom. A basketful of Dutch tulips stations itself by the tram-stop, ready to tempt tired clerks at six o'clock. Finally the soldiers stump back from the Rhine. It is dark.
The sections of the tangerine are gone, and I cannot tell you why they are so magical. Perhaps it is that little shell, thin as one layer of enamel on a Chinese bowl, that crackles so tinily, so ultimately under your teeth. Or the rush of cold pulp just after it. Or the perfume. I cannot tell.
There must be someone, though, who understands what I mean. Probably everyone does, because of his own secret eatings.

And this recipe from the 1770s, To Raise a Salad in Two Hours, from The Art of Cookery made plain and easy:

Take fresh horse dung hot, lay it in a tub near the fire, then sprinkle some mustard seeds thick on it, lay a thin layer of horse dung over it, cover it close and keep it by the fire, and it will rise high enough to cut in two hours.

Italian Spring

Kaarina

As our bitter winter dragged on into April, I frequently found myself thinking of our spring holiday to northern Italy a few years ago. What I wouldn’t give to be back at Corteforte Winery and B&B in Fumane, north of Verona, and the adjacent Enoteca Della Valpolicella where we dined three nights in a row. The food was that divine. Fresh peas and pasta. Beef braised in Amarone, served with creamy polenta. Zucchini blossoms bathed in pesto. Each dish matched to a regional wine.

The divine food of Enoteca Della Valpolicella

Revisiting those memories was the inspiration for our April Epitour: Italian Spring.

Italian food is deceptively simple — most recipes are limited to half dozen ingredients or even less. But it’s all about those ingredients: Fresh. Seasonal. Preferably local, which is what makes Italian cooking at its best regional.

I chose Artichokes alla Romana as my welcome-to-spring antipasto, which along with some salumi, marinated olives and pane rustica kept us content while Laura worked her magic with the primi - homemade mushroom tortellini. Next Caroline amazed us with a dandelion torta. We finished with a spring classic - fried lamb chops with puréed radicchio and a simple fennel salad.

Artichokes alla Romana

The recipe for Carciofi alla Romana is simple as is the method of cooking and marinating them. The challenge is finding fresh globe artichokes. Ours come from California and the season is short in the rare Ontario grocery stores that bother to carry them in the early spring. Just as challenging is getting the choke out before cooking the hearts. The first time is a nightmare but it gets easier. (Google or You Tube will show the way.) The taste is worth every minute of the prep.

Laura

I rarely take the time to make fresh pasta, but whenever I do, I find it such a satisfying thing. I especially love making filled pastas.

I chose to make tortellini. And of course I wanted to use my neighbour Kelly’s Gourmet Mushrooms in the filling. They grow shiitake, lion’s mane, and blue oyster varieties. I used a combination of all three.

I usually use Marcella Hazan’s recipe for fresh pasta. Her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is my bible for Italian cooking. The ingredients are simple: 1 cup of all-purpose flour and two eggs. And a little bit of milk added when making dough for a filled pasta. But this time I decided to try the pasta recipe that went along with the Serious Eats mushroom filling recipe I’d chosen. It uses a combination of whole eggs and egg yolks. The eggs came from my next-door neighbour and the yolks were so yellow, they turned the pasta a lovely deep hue. However, I think I will return to the tried-and-true Marcella recipe. I found the “Serious Eats” recipe quite stiff and hard to work at first. Luckily it softened up during it’s 30-minute rest and was ok to roll through the pasta roller.

I chose to serve the tortellini with a very simple browned butter, grated Parmesan, a splash of white truffle oil, and a few micro greens for a springtime touch.

Simply delightful mushroom tortellini!

Caroline

When lunch themes are announced, I’m certain that our foursome goes into a deep period of culinary reflection. Routines are broken. Daily chores are ignored. Partners are neglected. Once breakthrough is achieved, a grocery list is compiled and it’s a run to a “carefully selected purveyor of ingredients”. We then enter the testing phase which is most likely to occur over the course of two to three dinners with our significant others — who, at times, ogle our creations with a reluctant eye.

Dandelion greens came to mind when Kaarina launched her Italian Spring theme. I pass these lovely bunches in the produce section knowing that bitter greens are not enjoyed by all. I have acquired a liking for them over the years and have learned to disguise their taste to make them palatable for the more conservative palates.

I decided to modify a favourite recipe, a Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Torta from the northern Piemonte region. Layered crespelles — Italy’s version of crêpes — and besciamella sauce are delicious examples of the French culinary influence on this region. Of course the erbe would be dandelion greens and two fistfuls of rapini to give the tart more volume. The addition of a couple of uncased Italian sausages truly makes this a “one-pot-meal”. The layering begins and ends with buttered breadcrumbs mixed with garlic, grated fontina and parmesan cheese. Perhaps a little labour intensive but, this torta is deliciously worth it.

Delicious tart of dandelion greens

Kaarina

Artichokes are notoriously difficult to pair with a wine but it seems that the  northeastern corner of Italy — Friuli-Venezia-Giulia — produces whites that somehow defy the odds. Surprising even to me, I found a bottle in my own cellar that had been gifted to me years earlier. Marco Felluga Russiz Superiore Sauvignon Collio 2010 had the full body and the acidity to take on the artichokes.

Caroline met the double challenge of matching a wine to bitter greens and creamy richness of the torta. The ripe dark fruit and velvety tannins of Bogle Essential Red 2015, a California blend of Old Vine Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Syrah paired perfectly and went on to compliment our secondi — fried lamb chops.

Two stars!

Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking has been my everyday home cooking guide for many, many years, but for this Epitourist adventure I sought fresh inspiration from the Great Italian Chefs. What a fun website! Bios of chefs, links to their restaurants, features on regions and regional foods, and of course, recipes. Tons of recipes, from their restaurant menus and their family kitchens.

This is where I found Filippo Trapella’s grandmother’s fried lamb chops. It’s a family Easter favourite in Bologna.The radicchio purée is borrowed from a duck recipe created by a 30-something Michelin-starred chef Lorenzo Cogo of Vicenza, who infuses traditional with international influences for a fresh take on Italian cucina. The simple fennel salad is a long-standing favourite from my guru Marcella: Thinly sliced fennel tossed with the best Extra Virgin Olive Oil you can afford and salt to taste.

Fried lamb chops on radicchio purée

With no thought for dessert, we sipped on a little grappa — a barrel-aged Ducale Grappa Stravecchia Reserva — for a fine end to a fine afternoon.

Fine ending!

Epi T.O.: A Two Day Epitour

It was time for a road trip to shake off the lingering cabin fever plaguing us after a long brutal winter. Last spring we sampled the delights of Montréal. This year we decided on a two-day "epitour" of Toronto, which is quickly catching up to the City of Saints when it comes to all things food. 

We met at St. Lawrence Market, treating ourselves to the antipasti bar at Scheffler’s Deli, an institution at the market since 1955, before heading to Liberty Village for the first of two bakeries on our list.

In the following posts, Laura reports on the bakeries, Diane savours the cocktail choices at Drake Hotel, Kaarina reviews dinner at Laissez Faire, a new King St. W. restaurant, and Caroline takes us on a romp through the Assembly Chef's Hall, a Richmond St. “food court” with a difference.