Lately and The Delicious Project: Mushroom Risotto

As most food-lovers will agree, at meal times, you must have your camera ready. When I dine out, I frequently have my camera sitting in my lap, with the appropriate settings turned on to capture the perfect moment. It's especially awkward however, when the table is small, there's only a smidgen of space between me and the next diner and I have the urgent need to whip out my DSLR. I know they stare at me in bewilderment, I know they're judging, but I do it anyway. It's critical to document these meals ykno? 

So here are the places and things I've been eating. There was a real yum and affordable classic French food at L'Avenue, I went with a food-lover friend, she got the buttermilk fried chicken and I ordered the croque monsieur, all I can say is I can't wait to go back.

 

There's also been a family potluck in which my cousins who also happen to love food (it runs in the family), prepared not one, but two desserts. There were apple blossoms plus apple and cheddar pies. I'm not even a fan of warm fruit but I was smitten over the blossoms which were deliciously comforting (besides, its fun to say apple blossoms over and over again)

 

 

I had an friend visit from California last week and was eager to try Toronto cuisine. I don’t even know what that is. Thankfully, she did some research and found The Black Hoof, I'm still unsure if it's considered Canadian, but this place is definitely worth talking about. I peeked at the menu online and my heart skipped a beat when I saw roasted bone marrow. Ohmygoodness. I was already excited. At promptly 7pm, we surveyed the cocktail selection, settled on sangria (which to be honest, wasn’t very good and disgustingly overpriced) and chose four dishes from the chalkboard menu and waited.

First, came the cheese platter with complimentary jams, chutneys and homemade raisins, followed by the roasted bone marrow (sigh!) served with salsa verde and flakes of sea salt, I’m happy to report that it was exactly what I envisioned: smooth, silky, and unctuous on grilled bread, I could have eaten five plates of it. But I didn’t, we shared it and moved on to the next dish, burrata and asparagus salad, splitting it into three equalish portions (Terroni wins for making an oozier, creamier burrata). The most surprising thing however, was the beef heart with mussels.

I was expecting a slab of bloody meat and a bundle of steaming mussels to arrive at our table, but when the cute waiter set down a neat plate of slivered beef heart, topped with tender mussels (out of their shell) along with a creamy sauce, a scattering of breadcrumbs and frisée tower, I was blown away. This is serious business folks. The most intriguing part wasn’t the tattoos that snaked along our waiter’s arms and legs, but how the heart was seared just on the outside yet retained a decent chewy texture and you couldn't detect any peculiar beefiness, it was mildly meaty and yet still gracious. 

We didn’t have space to stomach another morsel, so we made our way to the Bier Markt, which I think was the smartest idea ever. Overwhelmed with a dizzying selection of beers, we took our time and chose our first round: Lindeman’s apple beer, Muskoka’s Mad Tom India Pale Ale and Rochefort Trappist Achel Ale. I’ve only just started to enjoy beer and now I’m tempted to go back and try more, the ale was complex, rich and fruity, a far cry from the regular beers I've had. It even smelled good. On our second round, I had the Muskoka Mad Tom, as I was immediately drawn to the floral yet bitter flavours. And as if our big dinner wasn’t enough, we ordered the smoked meat poutine which was so darn tasty, a fellow patron walked by, curious to know what we ordered. I highly recommend it.

 

The following day, I went to Ennismore with a good friend to visit another good friend. We’ve been getting together since the beginning of the year for a girl’s night, and this time, we showed up at our friend’s house near Turtle Bay. Despite the sad, gloomy sky hovering above us, that didn’t stop us from by mixing very strong mojitos and dining on the patio with BBQ salmon and creamy potato salad.

  
Afterwards, we took our drinks and sat by the dock. It was quiet and peaceful, something that I rarely take time for. Buzzed and a little lightheaded, we made our way back to the house for some dessert: Eton mess, a beautiful mixture of vanilla yogurt and heavy cream topped with broken up meringue cookies and berry compote.

On the same busy weekend, I rushed off to meet up my fellow food-lovers for our third Delicious Project, this time taste testing mushroom risotto. But first, Lisa bought pastries from La Boheme to kick off our epic taste test, we shared croissants, almond croissants, chocolatines, danishes, and vanilla custard filled croissants. Then came the serious work, photographing risotto ingredients and sampling four types of risotto (life is really hard), Lisa has documented the results here. I’d say my summer is off to a great start. 

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Recipe here!

Marble Cake

Years ago when I lived in Shanghai, my parents and I would go to the Westin hotel for lunch. There weren't a lot of dimsum restaurants back then and a twenty minute taxi ride wasn’t too bad. Besides, this place was pretty decent, there was good service, velvet curtains that hung from the tall windows, soft piano music played in the background, and the manager came by our table to exchange pleasantries. Of course, what kept us going back were the juicy shrimp dumplings, steamed BBQ pork buns, and spare ribs with black bean sauce that the chef consistently pumped out every time.

After lunch, we walked down to the bakery on the second floor and pondered over thick crusty loafs of rye, sourdough breads, and baguettes, some dressed in sesame seeds or in a flurry of sunflower and poppy seeds, or just baring it all naked. On the other side of the room were homemade chocolates, heaping boxes of truffles for Valentine's day, chocolate bunnies wrapped in pink, yellow, and baby blue foil for Easter, plus little packets of orangettes, chocolate-covered mint patties and chocolate-covered almonds perfect for gifts.

There was also a table teeming with quickbreads, though they might as well have been called cakes, given the generous ratio of butter to flour. There was coconut bread, banana bread, pound cake, carefully arranged on display and each wrapped in cellophane, adorned with a gold label, tied with blue ribbons curled at the end like ringlets. We usually took home the marble cake, a heavy, nine-inch loaf with a gorgeous golden colour, an irregular crack running down the middle, and the mysterious curves of vanilla and chocolate that hypnotized me on the ride home.

I don't remember how it tasted, but I do recall my mom cutting me a piece for breakfast. Really, that's all I had. I hated milk back then, yogurt was out of the question, I didn't even eat fruit unless it was peeled for me (I'm a wee bit spoiled). The nutritional content of my morning meals were the least of my mom's concerns back then-- time was far more important. School mornings were a mad dash, she had to rouse me awake at six am, make sure I didn't 'accidentally' crawl back under the warm covers when I was supposed to get dressed, then she had to put breakfast on the table and usher me to the bus stop lest I miss it and shamelessly cab it to school, wasting $17 (a hefty sum in China).

 

The recipe is pretty simple: A basic white cake mix is prepared, chocolate added to some reserved batter, and then silky scoops of vanilla and chocolate batter are dumped into the loaf pan like a checkerboard. The best part is the twisting and twirling of the two flavors; a moment to pretend to be a famous artist, using a knife to swirl the batters all around the pan…Et viola! An edible impressionist cake masterpiece!

My mom likes loves LURRRRVES marble cake. She's been urging me to make this cake whenever she spots me rolling up my sleeves and take out the flour the pantry. So being the awesome (albeit sometimes spoiled) daughter that I am, I baked this cake not once, but twice in a week. Once for her birthday celebration with her friends and a second time for her real birthday. You would make this cake everyday if you could. The cake is velvelty smooth, buttery and rich, yet not too heavy that it fills you with regret, in fact, just one slice is enough to satisfy the sweet tooth that never seems to go away.

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Recipe here!

Chocolate Guinness Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I was intrigued when I first saw this cake in Nigella Lawson’s book, then it popped up again on Athena’s blog in which I was redirected to Design Sponge and ding ding! that’s when I knew it was a sign for me to make this cake. A cake like this beauty, reminiscent of a tall glass of stout, a cake with a glowing halo above it begs to be baked and frosted and shared among friends.

Despite the inky, lava-like batter threatening to overflow my mixing bowl, the cakes turned out beautifully. I did make one booboo though. One cake pan was actually larger in diameter than the other, so when I stacked them on top of another, it turned out wonky, not to mention that the cake itself is quite delicate and as I transferred it to my brand spanking new cake plate, I nearly split it in half. I’m not one to have the patience over layered cakes, I’m the kinda girl who prefers her desserts simple and rustic, but it’s always fun to have beautiful cakes, especially for birthdays (like me and my mom’s). 

For the first time in my life, I used fancy cocoa powder. By fancy, I mean I-treated-myself-as-if-I-were-the-Queen fancy. I went to the Delicious Food Show on Friday with a classmate and walked away with a kilo of Cacoa Barry Extra Brute cocoa powder and a spring in my step. I know that ideally, the best quality chocolate should be used in baked goods, though sometimes I can’t afford to buy expensive ingredients, there was something about the dark, musky scent of cocoa that lured me to splurge and splurge I did.

Nigella describes this cake having a “resonant, ferrous tang” and Katie deems it “one of the best chocolate cakes recipes out there” so come on, isn’t that enough to urge you to make it too? 

This cake is dreamy. In the oven, the signature bitterness of the Guinness evaporates, replaced with a cake that is moist, dense, with a soft, delicate crumb. This cake could be a fatal cavity-inducing treat in each bite, yet the beer adorns it with an unmistakable dampness, leaving it not overly sweet, but just right. 

I suspect the use of fancy cocoa powder amps up the richness of the cake. The white frothy frosting gives a striking contrast to the dark, charcoal layers and on your tongue, there’s the undeniable twang from silky cream cheese. And when the sparkler candles went off, it was a like a mini fireworks show. But nothing beats a chocolate birthday cake more than a night surrounded by the kindest, the funniest, the sweetest friends you could ever hope for.

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Recipe here!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

When I was young, way before I learned to cook or even had the slightest interest in food, I had a small list of favourite snacks. Among them were peanut butter cracker sandwiches, really nothing special, just Skippy peanut butter squeezed between saltine crackers. Its taste was far from my concerns, rather, it was the sheer fun of playing with food that kept me making them, one after another, slowly and quietly in the hot, stuffy kitchen.

 

As the only child, I’ve learned early on to find ways to keep myself amused and making these square sandwiches was one of them. There was the ritual of opening the cracker package, I gingerly tore apart the thin, plastic wrapping, determined to keep the conjoined crackers intact. When I succeeded, I broke apart two crackers and with one swift hand, a thick, glossy layer of peanut butter covered one cracker; just enough to fill the sandwich, but not too much that it would squeeze out when pressed together. Finally I aligned another cracker on top, adding just enough pressure for the peanut butter to seep through the cracker peepholes but not too hard that it broke the layers.

I’d proudly stack 5 or 6 sandwiches on a plate, make my way to the living room, change my mind and rearrange them into a flat circle, lest they topple over. Sometimes, I’d make extra and save them for my dad, who like me, loved snacks and his eyes lit up when he found the leaning tower of crackers by the bedside table. I think that was one of the earliest moments where I recognized the satisfaction and pride in watching someone eat something you made.

Aside from the methodological measuring and mixing of flours, creaming butter and sugar to create air, baking is more than a science. It’s soothing, de-stressing and a little magical. My heart flutters like a butterfly when I watch my friends sink their teeth into a cake I made, the satisfied sounds that erupt, the empty dessert plates, the crumbs on the floor, a smear of icing on the nose, baking is all about sharing.

I take any opportunity I can to honour a special occasion, and what says happy birthday better than a chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting? I like cakes with a bit more heft, denser and strong in flavour and these cupcakes hit the spot. Based on Jill O’Connor’s recipe for Devil’s Food Cake, there’s a hint of coffee in the batter to enhance the chocolate flavour and brown sugar to give the cake dark and richer notes. I adjusted the amount of white sugar and replaced a little with malted chocolate powder.

For the first time, this frosting won me over. I find frostings too sweet, burning my throat, but this frosting from the popular Baked stole the show. The cream cheese gives it that tangy, lush quality, yet the peanut butter manages to tone down the cloying sweetness. On top of cupcakes, it’s like they were meant to be: chocolate and peanut butter.

At my friend’s birthday party, we held our cupcakes high in the air and toasted. There were moans, groans and big sighs of satisfaction, compliments flew my way and I smiled. I can feel the magic.

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Recipe here!

Chai-Spiced Apple Crumble

In my undergrad years, my roomie and I lived on the Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice herb tea. It was caffeine free, ergo, bedtime beverage approved. We went through a box in just a week, infusing our breaths with the comforting, homey scents of cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom. It’s a surprise we didn’t empty the box sooner, since Montreal winters are famous for plummeting to -40°C. 

 

I was inspired with the idea of a chai spiced dessert using the bounty of apples this fall. But I’m not too keen on warm fruit. Warm pies make me cringe. Grilled pineapples make me shudder. Hot crepes with soft banana slices make me gag. There’s something about the texture of cooked fruit that I have major issues with, I prefer eating fruit plain and cold.

I can’t say I never cook with fruit, since I like to showcase the best of what the season has to offer. If I do bake with fruit, I make sure that the dessert is served at room temperature, like this blueberry galette or this peach clafouti.

But I digress. This apple crumble goes beyond the usual addition of cinnamon in the crumble mixture. Here, a flurry of other ground spices joined the oat-crumble topping: ginger, cloves, and cardamom, similar flavourings as the Bengal Spice tea. When I massaged butter into pea-sized bits with the rolled oats, puffs of flour filled the air, tickling my nose with the spices. I chopped up apples, tossed in sugar and cornstarch (to help thicken the sauce), dumped the crumble mixture on top and baked it at 425°F. In half an hour, my nose was more than just tickled; it was seduced with the sweet perfume of apples and spices.   

The pan bubbled and squeaked with hot fruit juices as I pulled it out of the oven. I waited impatiently for it to cool, but unfortunately, the apples turned out too syrupy sweet (from excess of sugar, but Eureka! Apple crumble dolloped on plain yogurt makes a superb breakfast!). On the bright side, the topping transformed into beautiful crunchy, nubby bits of gold, the pungent mix of spices hugged the apples in all the right places, giving it that exotic zing, that hit of something different other than the old stand by of cinnamon and apples. 

I wonder if I make crumble only for the topping, which I could eat all day long, especially if it’s spiked with chai--I just couldn’t refuse.

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Recipe here!