A Really Good Griddle

February 9, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Tonight is Pancake Tuesday, which is how Catholic Canadians celebrate Mardi Gras or Shrovetide. If you’re unfamiliar with the tradition, I wrote a bit about it here.

So yes, I’m eating pancakes for dinner tonight, which means I get to use one of my very favourite appliances, my West Bend counter-top griddle.

My parents received this griddle as a wedding present in 1981. It takes 120 V electrical and runs at 1500 W. It is a simple, flat, metal cooking surface, roughly 10″ by 16″, with a shallow trough along three sides, and a deeper, broader trough on the fourth to collect rendered fat. It is supported by hard plastic brackets that hold it above the counter on which … Continue reading.

Eggs

Simmering Eggs in their Shell

February 4, 2016 allansuddaby 1 Comment

Cooking an egg in its shell is proverbially simple. You drop the egg in hot water, set a timer, then remove the egg. That’s it. Commercial eggs are so uniform in size and shape that we can rely on the cooking times dictated by cookbooks. This is a very unique situation, as usually cooking times in cook books are completely useless. For instance, the time required to cook a piece of meat will vary wildly depending on the specific oven, stove, or grill being used.

The ideal characteristics of a hard-cooked egg:

Firm-but-tender white.
A set yolk. The exact texture can be anywhere between soft and gel-like, and firm and granular, depending on the application.
Some say that a centred yolk is

Eggs

Intro to Eggs

February 3, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Eggs are the single most versatile ingredient in the kitchen.

Think about the many diverse preparations that are based on eggs. Of course there are scrambled, fried, poached, coddled, shirred, hard-cooked, devilled, and pickled eggs, and yes there are omelettes and flans and frittatas, but there are also custards like crème brûlée and crème caramel, ice cream, sauces like mayonnaise and hollandaise, and sweets like meringue and angel food cake. Eggs are endlessly mutable because they contain two of the most fundamental building blocks of food – protein and fat – in relatively concentrated, isolated forms, in the whites and yolk respectively.

This post covers some fundamental egg info. Subsequent posts will discuss specific preparations and techniques.

How a … Continue reading.

#ButtonSoupTools, General

Citrus Juicer

February 2, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

This is my citrus juicer.

It belonged to my grandma Suddaby.

It’s made of something called Depression glass, a tinted, translucent glass that was manufactured from (roughly) the 1920s to 1940s, hence the name. It came in several colours, but most commonly funky neon green, or pastel pinkish orange. Those are terrible colour descriptions, but that’s why I cook for a living instead of naming new shades of paint. I imagine these colours were hyper-modern in the 1930s, though I have no source to confirm or deny this. Depression glass was mass-produced and most often distributed as a free gift for people buying groceries or attending a show. In other words it was Depression-era swag. I asked my parents if … Continue reading.

General

Because Flavour Dynamics

January 23, 2016 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Background: I work for Elm Café. We make sandwiches (herein referred to as “sammiches”). Today we made one that I was particularly excited about, so on my personal Twitter account @allansuddaby I tweeted: “Just sampled an @elmcafe sammich: beef shortrib, Brie, port-soaked plums, rutabaga, red wine reduction. Will cure what ails you.” National Post columnist and local wit Colby Cosh responded: “Sounds like the Incredibly Random Sandwich Generator came up with a winner!” at which I literally lol’d. Then it dawned on me that the ingredients in this sandwich are emphatically not random. I thought it would be interesting to explain why they make a great sandwich.

Because Flavour Dynamics: The Sammich Apologist

The sandwich in question is … Continue reading.

Austrian, Cheese, Dairy, Regional

Liptauer

November 26, 2015 allansuddaby Leave a comment

This is a tasty spread I often serve at Austrian cooking classes.

Liptauer is originally from Liptov, in Slovakia, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The dish became quite popular in Austria-proper, and is now considered a classic part of that country’s cuisine.

In Austria Liptauer is made with a soft, fresh cheese called Topfen. Topf is the German word for pot, so Topfen can be translated as “pot cheese”. It goes by the name Quark (pronounced “KVARK”) in many other parts of Europe. Austrians will scoff, but the recipe below approximates Topfen by using a mixture of cream cheese and sour cream.

Besides cheese, the other essential ingredient in Liptauer is paprika, which is ubiquitous in several Eastern … Continue reading.

Meat, Poultry

Chicken Skin

November 6, 2015 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Really you shouldn’t end up with an excess of chicken skin very often. The skin is a delicious and coveted part of fried chicken and roast chicken, and if it’s well-rendered it can also go into some cold, day-after preparations like chicken salad sandwiches.

But if you are shredding leftover chicken to make chicken noodle soup or chicken stew, you may want to set the skin aside for another application.

Here’s how to turn cold, flabby, leftover chicken skin into golden brown, crispy pieces of crackling. Line a sheet tray with parchment and lay out the pieces of chicken skin so they are flat. Place another sheet of parchment on top, and then another sheet tray on … Continue reading.

Game, Meat

Squirrel

October 12, 2015 allansuddaby Leave a comment

Last week I went on a hunting trip with Kevin, and I shot and killed my first animal. It was a squirrel.

I know: that’s not very impressive. I’m sure most boys who grow up in the country have done this by age ten. And I know: you think squirrel is something that only hillbillies or starving back-country adventurers eat. Actually it’s pretty tasty.

Once skinned, gutted, and cleaned, the squirrel carcass looked very much like a tiny rabbit. The meat was shockingly dark. I thought that a small critter with such rapid, twitching movements would have light meat.

The cleaned carcass:

I divided the squirrel that same way I would a rabbit: into forequarters, a saddle, and hindquarters.

I … Continue reading.

General

Drying Herbs

October 5, 2015 allansuddaby Leave a comment

“Fresh is best.”

Armed with this maxim many chefs spurn dried herbs. I’d like to go to bat for dried herbs. Not the dried herbs that have been in your pantry since Harper took office, and certainly not the dried powdered herbs you buy in one pound bags from a bulk store, but the dried herbs that you make from the plethora of fresh herbs you have languishing in your autumn backyard.

I take for granted that you have a plethora of fresh herbs languishing in your autumn backyard.

You should, because it’s important to use lots of herbs in cooking, and paying $4 for a 28 g packet at the grocery store is crazy. You can buy an entire … Continue reading.

Gardening, Vegetables

Horseradish

September 28, 2015 allansuddaby Leave a comment

The gnarly root pictured at left is horseradish.

Horseradish is a hearty plant; it can flourish almost anywhere in our fair city. I remember when I was in culinary school I would catch a bus at the intersection of 118 Avenue and 106 Street, and there was a perfectly healthy horseradish plant living in a crack in the sidewalk.

Horseradish could in fact be described as invasive. It doesn’t spread too fast, but once it’s established, it’s nearly impossible to remove. I hack enormous chunks out of the root system of my plant and it always recovers.

The root has a pungent flavour very similar flavour to its relatives mustard and wasabi. (Actually most of the “wasabi” that you’ve eaten … Continue reading.

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