Leek and Bacon Tart

My mom and I have a deal. Once a week, I make dinner. Usually it’s Sunday when I have the time to ponder over what I want to eat. It usually begins with what my tastebuds are craving, or sometimes I zero-in on a single ingredient and the meal gets planned around that. In this case, I had the sudden urge for leeks. I don’t usually cook with them, but I’m a sucker for their silky texture when they get caramelized.

I always have a mental idea what to make, though it’s usually not concrete till I get to the grocery store and see what options I have. This week it was pretty easy, I knew I wanted something handheld and crispy and a tart seemed like a good choice. As most of my recipe searching goes, I Google recipe ideas and keep clicking till I find something that hinges between simple and interesting. This tart seemed only a natural pairing and the best part, it calls for only a handful of ingredients and is easily customized to whatever you like. 

I cooked down the leeks with bacon, infusing the green and white ribbons with salty meat, layered it over puff pastry, sprinkled it with cheese and added more bacon so that it would crisp and curl in the oven. I’d add fresh thyme if I had any on hand too.  My oh my, was it deliiiicious.

This past weekend, Milos, a good friend of mine from Montreal was visiting and what better way to welcome someone than with a lovely dinner? I made a different version of this tart using caramelized onions, cheddar cheese and cherry tomatoes, serving it with roasted zucchini and mustard salmon. Everything disappeared quickly, a testament to how tasty it was, even though the tomatoes made the tart soggy. Next time I’d roast them first, releasing their juices before adding them to the tart. My mom preferred the leek and bacon version, but continued to tear off just the edges of the tomato tart despite my encouragement to take the whole slice.

Milos was eager to recreate the tomato-based tart with his girlfriend back home, and asked what other ingredients he could use. I haven’t tried it before, but I’d suggest spreading the pastry with pesto, sundried tomato paste, tapenade, or goat cheese, and topping it with sautéed vegetables (as long as they’re not too soggy) would be equally wonderful. If you find someone who dislikes crispy, cheesy, vegetable-y eat-with-your-hands food, let me know and I’ll gladly have their portion.

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Beer Chicken and Potatoes with Salsa Verde

 
I've never liked the taste of beer. I have a high school friend who deemed it was like drinking “carbonated piss”, but ever since last summer, I found myself slowly enjoying the bubblyness and developed a newfound respect for pee beer.

A few weeks ago, we got a taste of summer—in March. It was sunny, blue skies, I even drove to work with the window all the way down, letting the warm air blast through my hair. As the temperature continued to rise, I switched on the air-con at home, which would have been effective if I didn’t cook coconut lentil soup for dinner. Apparently burning hot dishes are better left for a cold winter’s night.

I still don’t know the difference between the various families of beer/ale/lagers/pilsners and always look up each one on Wikipedia when curiosity strikes, but I do know one thing’s for sure, beer makes food, both sweet and savoury, taste freaking awesome. 
 

This beer chicken, adapted loosely from Laura Calder’s French Food at Home, is a fine example of how an ordinary can of an everyday beverage can convert you. It’s a simple recipe, so simple in fact, I bet you can do it blindfolded. All you need is chicken pieces (I used chicken thighs—I’m a dark meat kinda girl), wash and pat them dry, then tuck in some bacon and plenty (and I mean plenty) of garlic cloves between the skin and scatter it over the roasting pan. Pour beer over the pan and stick it in the oven for about forty-five minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. 
 
Trust me, fifteen minutes in, your home will smell like a garlicky bacony microbrewery. You will wonder what took you so long to make this dish. You will find it hard, excruciatingly painful even, to wait for the chicken to cook, because at this point, it will smell so damn good. The good news (I promise there’s always good news) is you can crack open the same beer and lounge on your balcony, enjoying the beautiful sunset while your dinner bubbles away in the oven. 




If you’ve ever had drunk chicken, this is what the meat tastes like with a distinct bitter flavour. The chicken is exactly how it should be, moist, tender, juicy, laced with sharp garlic and smoky bacon. I highly recommend you eat this double-fisted, with your elbows on the table, chewing loudly and with a second (or third, or fourth, why stop there?) glass of cold beer on the side--it's the only way.

The words salsa verde have always allured me, its fancy name slides off the tongue like a slick dance move. I used Molly’s recipe which is a slurry of lime juice, cilantro, olive oil, jalapeno and lots of raw garlic, drizzled over plain baby potatoes to give it a kick. It’s not only pretty, but the acidity brings out the brightness in the beer chicken. In other words: try it. If were like me and think beer tastes like fizzy piss, this might just change your mind.

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Boeuf Bourguinon and Steamed Baby Potatoes in Parchment

This stew would have been much easier to make if I wasn’t distracted by Charlize Theron’s charming good looks. Let me explain. I don’t own a fancy wine opener, the only one I have is a cheap one I purchased at the LCBO a few years ago, it’s fairly dependable given I’ve successfully uncorked a number of wine bottles since then, but then I learned that when an awesome movie like The Italian Job is playing on TV, my focus should really be on opening the wine.



The wine opener I had was a simple metal corkscrew with a little lever that leaned on the bottle’s lips to lift up the cork. If I was smart enough, I would have began twisting at the cork’s centerpoint, but alas, Ms. Theron took my breath away and I had started twisted the cork to the side. When I tugged it out, there was a loud crack and I was left with a broken corkscrew in one hand and the remaining metal stuck snuggly in the cork (enter loud swearing).

I looked on YouTube, Google, and Chowhound on ways to solve my problem. Nothing. So for the next painstaking 93 minutes, I dug through the cork with a knife, scattering cork debris all over the kitchen instead of marinating the beef and vegetables for the stew. It took me the full length of the movie (and commercial breaks) to get through the damn cork. I hate cork.

But I don’t hate boeuf bourguinon. It’s miraculous how the simplicity of time can make everything taste so much better (except mold, I suspect that’s not very delicious, except I suppose cheese, since it is technically “mold” but I digress). From Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate and Zucchini (who I had the honor of pouncing on meeting), comes a beef stew that makes all that stubborn cork-fighting worth it.

I first made this in university, when I was discovering my love for food and all things culinary. As I danced in my slippers filling the kitchen with the salty, irresistible smells of bacon from my roomie’s fire engine red Le Creuset dutch oven, I was intoxicated from not the whole bottle of wine that marinated the chunky meat overnight, but by the sheer excitement of cooking something new, something different. I remember tucking into a steaming bowl of bourguinon hours later, sopping up the juices with a hunk of bread, oblivious to the loud, raucous behavior from nobody other than my drunk neighbours.

 
This time I was just as thrilled to make bourguinon, there was also dancing around the sizzling pot and The Weeknd blasting in my apartment for added effect (music makes food taste so much better, you should try it). I gave the bourguinon a Canadian touch and sweetened it with maple syrup instead of chocolate as Clotilde suggests. It’s marvelous. Even though I don’t have a super palate and can’t distinguish the syrup, the sugar is a must to tease out the complex layers of fruity wine, earthy carrots and sweet onions (and Ruth Reichl gives additional tips on how to bring your stew to the next level).

 

As a side dish, I bought baby potatoes (Purple! Potatoes!) and used David Tanis’s recipe for an alternative to roasting them. Coating them in olive oil, sea salt, and a slurry of herbs, you wrap them up in parchment paper and steam in the oven to allow those simple flavours to meld and infuse. It’s so good it’s ridiculous. Although the purple potatoes are surprisingly bland and drier compared to the red skinned variety, I still love their color and they make a beautiful accompaniment to the boeuf bourguinon. In fact, I can’t get enough of them.

As with most stews, this bourguinon tastes even better with age. They made delicious leftovers the following day, I didn’t even offer my coworkers to sample a taste, I hoarded it all to myself (and that’s saying a lot since I often share). Just don’t be like me and screw up the wine opening ceremony, unless cork-stabbing is your favorite thing to do.

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