Thanksgiving is the only truly and completely North American feast that my family celebrates: all others have their roots deep in European ground, and are either specific national dinners like St. Patrick’s Day, or broader Christian celebrations like Easter and Christmas.
Thanksgiving dinner is the most rigidly traditional meal that most North American families share. For Easter and Christmas, families choose between ham and turkey, or possibly roast beef. They may serve scallop potatoes, or mash. Dessert could be any number of pies or cakes. The specifics depend on the family, where they are on the continent, and where their ancestors came from. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is more uniform, and centres on a few distinctly New World ingredients … Continue reading.
The potato salad I grew up on was “creamy”,[1] that is, dressed with mayonnaise. While I remember that dish fondly, I now make a very different type of potato salad, one closer to those I ate in Austria.
The single biggest challenge in making potato salad is having well-cooked potatoes that still hold their shape, and the most important factor in this regard is the variety of potato used. It must be a waxy, yellow-fleshed variety. North American varieties like Yukon Gold are okay, but there are some European varieties, like Linzer Delikatess, that are quite simply made for German potato salad. They have the proper smooth, creamy mouthfeel, and a roughly cylindrical shape that means they slice into … Continue reading.
I think I remember scallop potatoes more fondly than any other form of the tuber. Maybe French fries were more highly prized when I was a child, but truth be told I ate them much more often than scallop potatoes. Scallop potatoes, being a casserole dish, was reserved for large dinners, especially Easter.
At its core the dish is potatoes, cut into rounds (scalloped), then baked in cream and cheese. There are obviously countless variations; I know some mothers who bake their scallop potatoes in mushroom or onion soup mix. There is a classic French dish called pommes à la dauphinois that is identical to scallop potatoes. The addition of grated cheese to the top of the dish would make … Continue reading.
Scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs that are wrapped in sausage meat, then breaded and deep-fried. They’re eaten cold, ideal for picnics and packed lunches. Actually if you watch the original British version of The Office you’ll see that Keith always has a Scotch egg for lunch.
Tonight is Burns Night, and we’re going to be serving little Scotch eggs made with quail eggs, instead of the traditional chicken egg, as savoury bar snacks.
Tourtière is made differently in every home, and can incite intense feelings of loyalty to ones mother. I will proceed cautiously with a definition, but I warn you: there are lots of qualifiers in this post.
Tourtière is meat pie. It is often based on pork, though veal and game are also common. If anyone tells you that it was traditionally made with pigeon, you can politely dismiss their story as folklore. A false etymology has developed because of the similarity between the words for the pie tourtière and the Quebecois word for the now-extinct passenger pigeon, tourte. Certainly many a pigeon has been baked into pie, but the similarity between the two words is entirely coincidental. Tourte also … Continue reading.
Last year I wrote that ham hocks are only consumed in one of two ways in my house: either slowly roasted so that they have glassy crackling, or simmered so that their intense, smoky, porky essence can be collected in a broth.
This ham-hock broth is the distilled essence of eastern Canada, and the foundation of split-pea soup.
Once you have simmered the ham hock and collected the broth, here are some thoughts on making split-pea soup.
After extensive cooking the ham hock itself has very little flavour and seasoning, but it still makes for a good garnish.
I use yellow split-peas, because the green ones look like baby poo once they’re cooked.
Of the handful of places I worked in Austria, Looshaus, near Kreuzberg, was my favourite. Looshaus is a restaurant and hotel with maybe twelve rooms in the mountainous borderland between Lower Austria and Styria.
I didn’t know this at the time, but the building itself is a fairly famous little piece of architecture. It was designed by Adolf Loos, an Austro-Hungarian architect who worked in the first part of the last century. His most famous buildings are the American Bar in Vienna, a short walk from Stephansplatz, and the Goldman and Salatsch building, on Michaelerplatz, also in Vienna. In 1930 he designed an alpine home for Paul Khuner, the Viennese food … Continue reading.
Sugar plums are one of those items that are common in Christmas carols and stories and yet are basically unknown to modern revelers. (Other examples: wassail, yule, and figgy pudding. Furthermore, I’ve never seen mistletoe before, and I just saw real holly for the first time a few weeks ago, at the farmers’ market. I got excited, grabbed the leaves, and stabbed myself.)
My dictionary defines a sugar plum as a small ball of candy, and nothing more. There are not necessarily any plums in sugar plums. The word “plum” is associated with dried fruit, and good modern dictionaries still give one of the many meanings of “plum” as “a raisin.” The most common manifestation of sugar plums is … Continue reading.
The personal website of Edmonton chef Allan Suddaby
Thanksgiving is the only truly and completely North American feast that my family celebrates: all others have their roots deep in European ground, and are either specific national dinners like St. Patrick’s Day, or broader Christian celebrations like Easter and Christmas.
