Jamie Oliver's Salmon en Croûte

I recently made this recipe for a group of friends and the feedback was positive enough for it to warrant some writing space on my blog. It is adapted from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook (which has great, unpretentious and no-nonsense recipes). It's basically salmon with various toppings including cheese cooked in puff pastry. Salmon has a robust enough flavour to not be overpowered by the savory ingredients of this recipe.

Feeds 6 people
Ingredients

• 800g salmon fillet (I remove the skin but you can leave it on if you prefer)
• 1 package of puff pastry (I use Tenderflake, thawed)
• some flour for dusting
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup of tapenade (black olive paste)
• fresh basil leaves
• 2 ripe tomatoes, sliced
• 4 regular size bocconcini (fresh mozzarella), sliced
• 1 egg

Step 1: Preparing the puff pastry

Preheat your oven to 400°F. It's good to work quickly with puff pastry because keeping the dough cold will yield better results. Roll it out using a rolling pin and some flour to prevent it from sticking. Roll it out to the same size as the pan you will be using, roughly 6" by 12".  

Step 2: Preparing the filet and the toppings

Season your fillet with salt and pepper and a little drizzle of oil.

Place the fillet seasoned side down in the middle of the puff pastry. My fillet is extra big because I was feeding many people. 

Spread on the tapenade.

Then place your basil leaves on the fish, along with the sliced tomatoes and bocconcini pieces. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper and drizzle again with olive oil.

Step 3: Baking your salmon

Gather up the edges of the puff pastry around the salmon fillet and brush the pastry with some egg wash.

Place in the over (middle rack worked fine for me, but Jamie Oliver recommends to put it at the very bottom of the oven). Place an empty pan on the rack above your salmon to protect the top from over browning. Bake for roughly 35 minutes and there you have it!

Crudessence

In an effort to expand my horizons in the word of veganism, I decided to drag my husband down to one of Montreal's most known vegan restaurants: Crudessence. Not only does Crudessence serve vegan only, the food is also completely bio, gluten free, and "alive". Alive meaning raw, or at least mostly raw.

We dined at the Crudessence on Mackay (there is also one on Rachel). We went on a Saturday night and even though we were only two I had made reservations. I highly recommend to do this because half an hour after we arrived, the place was packed.

Drinks

I think that the choice of drinks is one of the best thing about Crudessence. They have a wide variety of selections, including hot chocolate made with coconut butter and cashews as well as teas and tisanes. They also have a fun selection of juice mixes, smoothies, and elixirs, which are not cheap (6.25$ for 9 oz) but totally worth it in my opinion. 

Anthony had the Ruby Lips, which is a mix of apple, carrot, beet, and ginger topped with a watercress garnish. This is a beautiful mix of flavour which worked quite harmoniously.

I had the Kombu Mojito. This juice is more on the acidic side, which I very much enjoyed. It has pineapple, mint, lemon, and kombucha. Now I had no idea what kombucha was, so I looked it up after I had it. According to wikiepida, kombucha is a effervescent fermentation of sweetened tea that is used as a functional food and the kombucha culuture is actually a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast...Yummers! In any case, it was quite tasty and I would definitely have it again. It's good to have a dose of symbiotic bacteria and yeast once is a while.

Appetizer

Not knowing what to pick, we went for the Discovery plate, which is a mix of appetizers to sample.

The two tall shot glasses had the raw soup of the day, which was a carrot and apple soup. It tasted good. You can't really go wrong with carrots and apples though. There was some hummus, and a nut yogurt which, again, good but somewhat forgettable. 

I was also disappointed with the crispy kale. It felt like we had the bottom of the batch with very small broken pieces with little taste. I honestly have done a better job at home with crispy kale than what what served here. 

The maki rolls were good. They were made with sprouts and a vege pâté which tasted like salmon. I also enjoyed the faux-egg pâté, which tasted like the inside of a deviled egg. As you can see, the presentation is quite lovely and very pleasing to the eye. 

Main course

Crudessence is know for the Öm Burger, so my husband decided to try it out.

It doesn't look like a hamburger at all. The patty is a mix of vegetables, mushrooms, flax seeds and sundried tomatoes. The bread is chapati, (Indian flat bread) topped with a caper aïoli sauce which tastes like mayonnaise. For an extra 1.25$ each, you can get a slice of butternut squash cheese and eggplant bacon. For another extra 3.75$, your burger comes with a delicious salad. This dish was very good. You wouldn't mistake this burger for a meat burger, but the flavours were fantastic and satisfying  The salad was worth the extra money as it has many different levels of vegginess to it and is quite fun to explore.

I picked my main course for the specials menu. It's called the Samurai.

You can't tell much from the picture, but underneath all that greenery, there's a generous serving of soba noodles (buckwheat noodles) served with goji berries, kale, arami (type of seaweed), shitake mushrooms, and veggie balls. Unfortunately, I was not overly fond of this dish. The biggest problem were the soggy noodles. They were quite overcooked (so much for raw food) and therefore mushy and unpleasant to eat. The overall flavours were good and I enjoyed the veggie balls, but after experience fantastic Japanese restaurants like Kazu and Imadake, I suppose I was bound to be disappointed with Crudessence's take on Japanese cuisine.

Dessert

First up is the the blueberry un-cheesecake. Again, my husband hit the jackpot with this one. It was fantastic! The cheese is made from fermented cashews (again, yummers) and coconut oil and the crust is made with Brazil nuts and fig. I honestly thought that this tasted better than regular cheese cake, it was that good. I'm going to try to look up a recipe for this and attempt to duplicate it.

Next came my dessert: the Brownie. As much as I raved over the cheesecake, I wholeheartedly disliked this brownie. Raw cocoa, pecan, and walnut based. I suppose the rawness is what made it taste so dry. However, what I think was the most unforgivable about this dessert is the fact that the walnuts were rancid. For a restaurant that prides itself on fresh raw bio ingredients, this was very unfortunate. I'm glad I paid the extra 2.75$ for the ice cream side, because it was very pleasant and a good way to wash down the aftertaste of rancidness.

Service

Overall, the service was okay. Our waitress was very pleasant but overworked due to the busy evening. They only had two waitresses when they would have obviously needed a third. As a result, the service was a bit slow and the wrong dessert was brought to me at first (which, in retrospect, I should have kept). Again, I don't blame the waitress, she was really nice and knowledgeable about the food.

The verdict

Would I go back to Crudessence? Obviously, if I had ordered my husband's menu choices I might have said yes. However, due to mushy noodles and rancid nuts, and a 110$ bill, I have to say that I would not purposely go back at my own initiation. I would gladly try it again if I'm invited and hopefully make better menu choices. I believe Crusdessence has a lot of potential, but is easily a hit or miss experience.

Thai shrimp dumpling soup

This is a long recipe, but worth it. Anybody who likes Thai food and shrimps will fall in love with it. Every time I've done it, it's been an amazing hit, with lots of oohs and aahs from my dinner guests.

This recipe is inspired greatly by the shrimp dumpling soup in the Diva Cooking recipe book from Victoria Blashford-Snell and Jennifer Joyce. Mostly, I've changed the flavour from a Tom Yum soup to a red Thai curry soup. It's relatively easy to make if you have a food processor, but there are many steps involved. Don't be put off by some of the more exotic ingredients, you can find almost all of them in larger supermarkets. And if you have an Asian market nearby, all the better.

Step 1: The curry paste

The base of this soup and basically what gives it it's distinctive flavour is a red Thai curry paste. You can, of course, buy it at the supermarket, but I like to make my own. Believe me, you will taste the difference and there's something very satisfying about making curry from scratch.

Ingredients

• 3 to 6 chilies, seeded if you prefer less heat
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp of cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp paprika powder
• 1 tsp of ground turmeric
• 4 shallots
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 inch piece of chopped ginger
• 4 cilantro roots (make sure you buy cilantro with the roots still attached)
• 2 tbsp chopped cilantro stocks
• 1 tsp of lime zest
• 2 lemongrass stems (trimmed, white parts only) or 3 tbsp of lemongrass paste
• 1 tsp of shrimp paste (found in Asian supermarkets, can be substituted with anchovy paste)
• 2 kaffir lime leaves (you can find these at Loblaws with the GDion spices)
• 2 tbsp of vegetable oil

Kaffir lime leaves

Lemongrass

Toast the seeds on a dry frying pan over medium heat until fragrant and ground to a powder. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor.

Before

Process until smooth. Don't worry if there are still some chunks left, mine never gets completely smooth. You can add a bit of water if it's the paste is too thick.

After

Keep in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to use. The curry paste should last around 2 weeks in the fridge.

Step 2: The shrimp dumplings

What you will need to feed 4 greedy people or 6 regular people.

Ingredients

• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 inch piece of ginger root
• 2 shallots
• 2 pounds of raw shrimps, shell on (very important)
• 2 egg whites
• 2 tsp of cornstarch
• 4 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and pepper

Peel the shrimp and set aside the shells for later. You will use them in your stock.

Place the garlic cloves, ginger and shallots in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it forms a rough paste. Chill until needed.

Yummy shrimp purée!

Step 3: The stock, part 1

Next step is making your stock.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
• reserved shrimp shells
• 8 cups of water
• 2 inch ginger root, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 handful of cilantro stalks, chopped

Heat the oil over medium heat and add the shrimps shells. Cook until shells are pink.

Add the rest of the stock ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Strain the stock into a bowl and discard the solids.

Step 4: The stock, part 2

Now that you have a flavourful liquid ready for your soup, it's time to add that wonderful paste you made earlier along with the finishing touches.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp of Thai red curry paste
• 1x14oz can of coconut milk
• 4 lime leaves
• 2 tbsp of Thai fish sauce (available in Asian section of food markets)
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 cup of fresh mushrooms, chopped (Enoki mushrooms are wonderful in this recipe, but you can use shitakes, brown shimeji, or whatever you like)
• 1 can of baby corn, drained and cut in half
• 1 handful of basil leaves, torn
• 1 handful of cilantro leaves, chopped

Heat the oil over medium heat in the saucepan. Add the curry paste and fry for roughly 1 minute. Add the stock from part 1 and the rest of the ingredients except the basil and cilantro. Bring back to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Now it's time to make the shrimp dumplings. Using a teaspoon and sightly moist hands, form the shrimp mixture into little balls and drop them into the simmering soup. Cook them for a few minutes until the balls float to the top.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with basil and cilantro and you're done! You won't believe how tasty it is, especially after all that hard work. I've tried many soups in Thai restaurants and this tastes just as good if not better.

Savour every bite!

Making and baking a good pizza

I have been trying for so long to make a half decent pizza dough. My standards are high because I'm half Italian and the people in my family make fantastic pizzas, especially my dad. Not bothering to compete with the best, I wanted to find my own unique way of creating a good pizza. And after many, many failures and handfuls of cornmeal scattered around the floor of my kitchen, I can finally say with pride that I know how to make a damn good pizza!

I want to share with you what worked for me and hopefully save some of you the hardships that I had  to endure. Just like any recipe, you have to find out what works best with your tools and your own style of cooking. Please note that the following instructions work best for a thin crust pizza. I think that I have a lot of helpful information in this post, but feel free to experiment and change things up to figure out how to make your pizza even better!

Okay, here goes.

 Step 1: Making the dough

First of all, the flour you use makes a big difference. There's a lot of science behind what makes a flour better than another for pizza dough. One big factor is the percentage of gluten in the flour. Gluten is a protein that will make your dough rise and give it elasticity. In the case of pizza, you need a flour with more gluten than regular white flour, but less than bread flour (which can make your crust too heavy). The answer: TIPO 00 flour.

There are different brands of this type of flour. I used this one and it's works beautifully, but any TIPO 00 should be fine. This typo of flour makes the dough easy to stretch and performs well at high temperatures. It may be hard to find in big grocery stores. I bought this at a little shop on Monkland called Le Garde Manger Italien.

Now that we have the flour covered let's move on to the recipe. I like to use a slightly adapted version of the Neo-Neapolitan pizza dough recipe from Peter Reinhart's American Pie. 

For four 10 ounce dough balls

• 5 cups of TIPO 00 flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar or 1 tablespoon honey

• 3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon instant yeast (same as rapid rise yeast)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 cups room-temperature water

Stir together all the ingredients in a 4-quart bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer until combined.

Fit mixer with dough hook; mix on low speed for about 4 minutes, or until all the flour gathers to form a coarse ball.Let dough rest for 5 minutes, then mix again on med-low speed for 2 more minutes, or until the dough clears the sides of the bowl and sticks just a little to the bottom.

If the dough is too soft and sticky to hold its shape, mix in more flour by the tablespoonful; if it is too stiff or dry, mix in more water by the tablespoonful.

Divide the dough into 4-equal portions; round each piece into a ball and brush or rub each ball with olive oil.Place each ball inside its own zip-lock freezer bag; let the balls sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then put them in the refrigerator overnight.

Yes you read right, you let the dough rise in the fridge for roughly 24 hour. This rising method is becoming increasingly more popular with pizza makers. The theory behind it being that a slow rise will yield a more flavorful dough. I have tried this and it works. Don't worry if your dough doesn't rise as much as it would at room temperature, this is normal. 

Step 2: Baking the dough

The next day, freeze any dough balls you won't be using and remove from the fridge two hours in advance the ones you will use. The dough needs to be at room temperature before using.

If you don't have have pizza stone, you should get one. I'm not saying that you can't make a good pizza without one, because that's completely untrue. However, it does make a huge difference if you're looking for a wood oven style pizza from your dough. Pizza stones are not expensive (I bought mine for 15$). 

Mine is starting to get"seasoned", meaning that a non stick coating is building up with time and usage. On a side note, never wash a pizza stone with any kind of detergent because it will seep into the stone and give your pizza an unwanted je ne sais quoi flavour. Just scrape off any residue and rinse with warm water.

You'll want to preheat your oven with the pizza stone in it. You want your pizza stone to be hot before using it, or else it'll defeat it's purpose. Don't put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven, because it may crack. Crank up your oven to at least 500°F and once it reaches this temperature, wait at least 30 minutes to give the stone enough time to heat up. As for the positioning of the stone in the oven, there are a lot of different opinions about this. Some say if you place the stone too low, the bottom of the pizza will cook too fast and the top will be undercooked. Others say the opposite if you place it too high, so I just put in the middle. I say it all depends of what kind of crust you want and what type of oven you're using.

Another very useful tool is a pizza paddle.

You have no idea how many times I completely messed up my pizza trying to transfer it onto the hot pizza stone (hence the earlier reference to cornmeal all over my kitchen floor, I was using the back of a pizza pan). This baby is a life saver. Just sprinkle some cornmeal on it and you can easily transfer your pizza onto the stone will very little fuss. 

Next, form the dough. Pat dough into flat disk and let it rest to make gluten relax. 

Roll out dough on a heavily floured surface. If the dough starts to retract too much, let it rest for a few minutes before continuing. Shape your dough as you desire and transfer it to the pizza peel. At this point, it's good to have your ingredients ready in advance so that you can garnish the dough quickly. 

If you take too much time, the dough may start to stick to the pizza peel. When you're done, give the peel a few shakes to make sure the dough is loose and slides easily.

Now take you pizza peel and with a few jiggles transfer the pizza onto the pizza stone in the oven. 

Another side note: Don't use parchment paper. It may make it easier to transfer the pizza onto the stone, but the texture of the dough will be affected. Others disagree online, but I've baked two at once, one with parchment paper and one direct on the stone and there was a major difference. 

Bake the pizza for roughly 6-7 minutes, but again this all depends on how crispy you like your dough and how thick it is. Remove from oven and enjoy the wonderful, thin crust restaurant style pizza right in the comfort of your home. Takes 28 hours to prepare, 2 minutes to eat, and it's worth it.

Now that is one fine pizza, booyah!

Duck confit and fried egg pizza

Anthony and I love eggs. We like the marinated soft-boiled egg in miso soup, poached eggs on a Cesar salad, egg drop soup, fried egg on a steak, you name it. So I was looking for recipes online the other day which had a fried eggs and I stumbled upon Emiril Lagasse's Duck confit and fried egg pizza.

This is a super easy recipe to make. Being a week night after the gym, I used flatbreads as my pizza base to save time. The end result was delicious, we didn't want it to end. Serve this with a simple green salad and you're good to go. Here's my adapted version of the recipe.


Serves 4

Ingredients

• extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 pizza flatbreads (or any desired pizza base)
• 4 ounces shredded cooked duck confit
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups baby arugula
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• Truffle oil, for drizzling (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush the flatbreads with the olive oil and divide the minced garlic among them. Place on baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Remove flatbreads from oven.
2. Top the flatbreads with the shredded duck and arugula.
3. Fry the eggs sunny-side up in a skillet. Place a fried egg in the middle of each pizza and sprinkle with parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. 
4. At this point, I slightly broiled the flatbreads to set the top of the egg and melt the parmesan, but this is optional. Drizzle with truffle oil, if desired. That's it!

Bacon wrapped scallops

This recipe is from Les Tapas de Marie-Fleur which is the recipe book of Marie-Fleur St-Pierre, chef of Tapeo restaurant in Montreal. If you never been, I highly recommend it. Great service and fantastic foods if you enjoy tapas. What I love about this recipe book is that you'll find most of the menu items in here.

I tried this recipe a while back and it was quite a success. Although bacon-wrapped scallops aren't uncommon gastronomy speaking, it's the use of fruit jelly that really brings this appetizer to another level.

Below is my adapted version of the recipe.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 8 large sea scallops
• 8 bacon (or prosciutto slices)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp of butter
• salt and pepper
• 100g of peach jelly (or quince jelly if you can find it)
• 1/3 cup of apple juice 
• 2 tbsp of Xeres vinegar of balsamic vinegar

Directions

1. In a small casserole, bring to a boil the jelly along with the apple juice. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes, until the jelly melts. Whisk in the vinegar and add more apple juice if the mix is too thick (it should be fairly liquid).
2. Pat dry the scallops with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Lay out the bacon slices and place a scallop at the extremity of each slice. Roll up each scallop with the bacon.
4. Using a nonstick pan, heat the olive oil at medium heat. Fry the bacon-wrapped scallop roughly 3 minutes. Flip over the scallops and add the butter. Cook for another 3 minutes, lowering the heat if needed.
5. Remove from heat and add 1 tbsp of the jelly sauce and mix gently.
6. Place 2 scallops on each serving plates and add more jelly sauce around the dish. Sprinkle with more freshly ground pepper.

Serve immediately. Trust me just the smell of these babies will have your guests salivating.

I have been Vegucated!

I recently came across a film called Vegucated on Netflix. It’s a 2010 documentary about 3 New-Yorkers with the typical omnivorous diet who adopt a vegan diet for 6 weeks. 

I’ve always been fascinated by vegans. I didn’t understand how they could forgo all animal products including milk, cheese, and eggs. Not to mention how tricky it is to make sure you consume the right combination of plant protein to get all your essential amino acids. It just seemed like way too much trouble.

Well, after seeing this documentary, let me tell you it has become really hard not to second guess my own diet. Although the film follows the experiences of the 3 New-Yorkers and how they adapt to their new diet, its main focus is on educating the viewer on the shocking reality of the animal agricultural industry. It has images which are very difficult to watch, especially for an animal lover like myself.

What’s good about this documentary is that it’s not condescending or passes judgment. It doesn’t expect people who are starving to death to switch to a plant based diet. What it does is gives you a whole new perspective on your own food consumption and makes you second guess how important is it really for us consume animal products.

Although I don’t agree with everything in the documentary I urge you all to watch it (on Netflix). I truly believe it will change the way you look at your food. I’m not saying that I will become a vegan because I honestly don’t believe that I can. But there are definitely some changes Anthony (my husband) and I will make.  

Stay tuned because for one week early next month Anthony and I will adopt a vegan diet. I will post vegan recipes on the blog and relate how well (or not) we adapted to our animal-free culinary journey.