Both Hands Cooking

Summer Drinkin' cont'd

2007-03-31T07:33:00.000-07:00

I went to a southern food potluck last night and need to share two things that will make my summer great:

Lynchburg Lemonade

1 3/4 oz. Jack Daniels
1/4 oz. Triple Sec
lemonade (fresh squeezed is best)

Optional: lemon-lime soda

Just mix all the ingredients and serve over ice in a tall glass. If you need me, I'll be on the porch swing sipping Lynchburgs and strumming my banjo (someone please buy me a banjo).

Coconut ambrosia salad (taken from allrecipes.com)

1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
3 1/2 cups frozen whipped topping, thawed
2 cups shredded coconut
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup milk
1 cup maraschino cherries

In a large bowl, combine the oranges, pineapple, whipped topping, coconut, marshmallows and milk.
Mix together well and chill 1 hour before serving. Garnish with cherries.

The Whisky Sour

2007-03-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Wondering what to do with the left over whisky from St. Patrick's Day? Think whisky sour. There are a lot of recipes on the web for this classic, so I'll list what seem to be the most standard/popular:

The Whiskey Sour

3 parts whisky
2 parts lemon juice
1 part sugar syrup/ tsp powdered sugar

Shake ingredients over ice.
Strain into a sugar-rimmed glass.
Garnish with a lemon curl or a cherry.

Optionals:
a dash of fizzy water
a dash of egg white (ewwww)

Crusty Bread

2007-03-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

I love fresh bread. It's not packed full of enzymes to keep it fresh, it's full of flavour and you can use it in just about everything from onion soup to bread-y desserts.

Here's an altered version of Nigel Slater's bread. It makes a loaf about 10" around and quite high.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour
1 envelope quick-rise or instant yeast
2 tsp salt
2 cups water
Roughly 2 more cups flour.

Method:

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Add the water and mix, resulting in an extremely soft and sticky dough.
Generously flour your cooking surface and tip the dough onto it.
Flour your hands and sprinkle some more flour onto the dough, enough so that it doesn't stick to you.
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, adding flour when it gets too sticky.
After ten minutes the dough should be only a little tacky and form a neat ball, place back in the bowl and let rise covered in a warm place for an hour. (don't forget to flour the bowl a little to reduce sticking).

After an hour, bring the dough onto the floured surface again and knead a bit more - 2 or 3 minutes - and shape into a roundish, flattish ball.
Place it on your floured pizza stone or cookie sheet.
Dust it with flour, cover it again, and let it rise again for another hour. Heat the oven to about 500 degrees.

Once it has risen, uncover it and place it in the oven.
Bake at 500 for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 and bake another 20-25 minutes.

Once it's out of the oven, put it on a rack to cool and let stand for at least 10 minutes to settle.

I'd suggest then spreading some butter or margarine on it and eating it while still warm.

Chin-chin!

Fiddlehead pasta

2006-06-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

We've been eating well as the spring earth comes alive and gives us material to work with, not the least of which is fiddleheads.

Earthier and more complex but similar in nature to asperagus, these little shoots mesmerized me as a child. It's only this year that I've been introduced to them as an ingredient, though.

Here's the pasta we ate last night:

Fiddlehead Pasta

Ingredients:

1 cup fiddleheads
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 or 2 large tomatoes, diced
1 pint of mushrooms, chopped
2 tbsps virgin olive oil
1 tbsp buttter (or olive oil)
Tarragon, Basil, Oregano and Thyme to taste.
Salt and Pepper to taste.
Parmesian Reggiano for topping.
Cappelli d'Angelo Pasta for two people.

Method:

Trim and set the fiddleheads to steam in your steamer. They need to steam properly for about ten minutes.

While that's going on, heat oil and butter in a pan. Add the onions and garlic, and mushrooms with a bit of salt to sweat them. After they've become transparent/browned, add the tomatoes and the spices. Let cook on medium-high for a few minutes, then reduce the heat to medium low and cover. Cook until the tomatoes have melted and it's of a "saucy" consistency.

While the sauce is reducing, throw on the pasta. Angel hair pasta takes only a few minutes of boiling, so time it well.

TIP: If you add a tablespoon of oil and a shake of salt to the water before throwing in the pasta, it won't stick together or leak liquid on your plate.

When the pasta is almost ready to be drained, remove the fiddleheads that have been steaming, dice them and add them to the sauce. Let cook another minute or two, then add the drained pasta, mix and serve with plenty of parm and a nice wine. And garlic bread, if possible.

Chin-chin!

Shortbread cookies

2006-01-25T09:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Robbie Burns' day, everyone!

Scottish short bread cookies:

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. flour
2 tbsp. corn starch
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla.

Cream the sugar and the butter, then add the flour, salt, cornstarch and vanilla.

Work until it comes together. Then roll it out on a lightly floured surface, use cookie cutters or the rim of a glass to cut out the cookies, and bake at 325 for 10 - 15 minutes, carefully.

Chinchin!

Bacardi Cake

2005-12-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Here it is: the most delicious way to get drunk:

Ma's Bacardi Cake

Cake:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
1 3 3/4 oz package of vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 crisco oil
1/2 bacardi rum

Glaze:
1/4 lb butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bacardi rum

Cake:

Use a 10" tube or bundt pan.

Pre-heat oven to 325 F. Grease and flour the bundt pan.

Mix all the cake ingredients together. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour.

Cool on rack 10 minutes, then invert on serving plate. Brush glaze evenly on top and sides of the the cake.

Glaze: Melt butter in a saucepan. Stire in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum.

I also use extra glaze as a sauce on individual servings.

Chinchin!

Eggnog

2005-12-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it has come to this: I'm too lazy to go to the store to satisfy my eggnog craving.

But the upside is that it's unbelievably easy and cheap to make your own. I don't know why i even bother with that store bought crap.

NOTE: Storebought anything is never, ever, as good or as healthy as homemade / done fresh. So go wash your hands and start cooking.

Jadenog:

Pour about 750 mL of milk into a sauce pan over medium heat

In a bowl mix,

2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp real vanilla extract
3 tbsp honey (or to taste... experiment often)
1 tbsp brandy, rum or other such holiday booze.

Pour egg mixture into the milk, stirring constantly. Reduce heat.
Taste-test here. These are your flavours. Not sweet enough for you? Add a little more honey/sugar.

In another bowl, beat 2 egg whites until light and frothy. Fold into cooled milk mixture.

Put in a jar and refrigerate. It's delish. Grind a little nutmeg over the top of each glass you serve, from a real nutmeg if possible, not that pre-ground-to-dust crap (see note above).

Chinchin!

Corn Fritters

2005-11-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

I just had a craving today for corn fritters. I've never made them before but they were a success. This is what I did:

Corn Fritters:

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

2 eggs, separated
1 can of corn nibblets

Oil for frying (about 1.5 inches deep in your pan)

Put the egg whites in the fridge while you're doing steps one and two. It will help to have them cold when you're beating them.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Then mix the egg yolks with the corn in a separate bowl. Add the flour mixture.

Then beat the egg whites until almost stiff and fold into the mix.

Heat the oil until it's quite hot.

Tip: To know when oil is hot enough to fry in, stick a wooden chopstick into the centre of the pan. It ought to take under two seconds for bubbles to form around the chopstick.

Using a large tablespoon, spoon the dough into the oil. It should be about thirty seconds a side, if the oil is hot enough. Just flash fry them and put them on paper towel to drain.

Enjoy with maple syrup.

Chinchin!

Easy as Pie

2005-11-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

To welcome a new family member to the NT crew, one Scrapperton McGregor, I'm making a pie to bring over for a welcome feast.

The best thing about pie - aside from the obvious benefits of pie, for god's sake! - is that it's never as difficult as you imagine and provided you use crisco, it's a vegan delight. Mm-mm vegans.

Here is a basic pastry recipe:

Basic Pastry for Pie

1 cup crisco
1 cup cake and pastry flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt

Put all ingredients in a big bowl and cut with a pastry cutter or two cold knives (slicing scissor-like) until a crumbly, roughly pea-sized crumb is the most prominent fashion.

Then add as little ice-cold water as possible to make the dough come together. This will almost definitely be under 1/4 cup.

Divide the dough into slightly unequal parts and form into little balls. Remember the less you handle your balls, the better. If you handle them too much, your dough will be tough. Put them into plastic bags and into the freezer (or fridge, if you're preparing the pastry days in advance).

Meanwhile, prepare whatever fruit you're going to put into your pie. Four or five large apples, peeled and sliced work for my 10" pieplate. I used three and a bag of frozen berries from the supermarket.

If you're using frozen berries, remember to defrost them in a colander or sieve, so as to get as much liquid out of them as possible. Personally, I like to do this over a bowl, and then use the leftover juices as a cocktail.

Tips:

In pastry, the colder the better. Cold pastry will roll out more smoothly, and be easier to handle. Cold hands will keep the pastry cold. Cold cold cold.

Be generous with sugar. This is pie and it's meant to be indulgent. Always more than you think.

Especially important with berry pies, a little bit of cornstarch sprinkled over the fruit with the sugar will keep everything from turning into soup.

Pastry stores. If you have a bowl big enough, make a lot of pastry and freeze it. Then when you want to use some, simply defrost over night in the fridge and voila!

You do not need eggs, vinegar or anything else in your pie crust except what's listed above.

Pie makes a great breakfast.

Tempura

2005-11-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

Last night Roderick took me to I Love Sushi! (or I Heart Sushi, depending on your sources) and an excellent foreign film screening (the Franz Lang movie "Spies!"). The restaurant was stiflingly quiet and I couldn't shake the feeling that I should whisper. It was really nice, though. Intimate. The sushi was commendable, and the tempura brought me back a ways.

I love tempura. Mom used to make it when I was young. You can use anything in your fridge for this. I like sweet potatoes, mushrooms, broccoli and green onion and carrot mushed together. Just peel, slice, dip, fry and eat!

Tempura Batter

1 egg
1 cup cold water
1 cup flour

Don't mix it too smoothly, leave some lumps, and don't put too much batter on the veggies.

It's deep fried, but with the oil hot enough and the water cold enough, they don't actually absorb all that much bad stuff.

Chinchin!

Green onion chinese pancakes.

2005-11-04T18:19:00.000-08:00

One of my earliest memories is the smell of these little beauties cooking. I'm still working on the exact recipe, but here's what I've got so far:

Green Onion Pancakes.

Finely chop four or five green onions. I use my minichop. It takes five seconds.

In a bowl, mix about
3 cups cake four
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Add enough hot water to create a soft, slighty sticky dough. Knead it for a bit, then roll it out on a floured surface into a rectangular shape, about 1/2 inch thick.

Brush the dough with seasame oil, just enough to cover it lightly.

Sprinkle the green onions evenly over the dough, like a pizza. Then roll it up into a sausagelike tube and pinch the ends closed.

Cut the tube into chunks about three inches long. Pinch the ends of each peace and twist them until they are sealed. Then gently roll them out into pancake-thick patties and fry over med-high heat until golden brown.

Optional: At the beginning, cut bacon slices into 1/2 inch strips and cook. Add them along with the onions

Coming soon

2005-11-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

Banana bread, corn bread, squash!

The Pleasures of Two, Cooking

2005-10-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

The other night a friend of mine called me up, wanting to do something. I was tired and broke, so invited him to share a meal with me.

The pleasures of two, cooking are wonderful. First of all, the warmth, light and comfort of a kitchen are perfect for casual banter and occasionally R-rated jokes. And figuring out what to make, and having someone else cut the onions makes me so happy.

The dinner was fine, a simple tortellini recipe and apple crumble for dessert. But he told me his version of the I-don't-want-to-cook pasta, which is:

Pasta, the type you love,

Olive oil

Diced tomatoes and onions, stewed on the stovetop with spices, and

Feta crumbled on top.

I think a nice addition would be black olives to make it truly Mediterranean.

But this entry is more to emphasize the point that the best part of cooking is the sharing, and working together, and enjoying a meal with someone you care about.

So even if it's just noodles and veggies, the meal can be made with the right company.

Chinchin!

French onion soup and my first attempt at bread-baking!

2005-10-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

Last week was the 200th anniversary of the battle of trafalgar. Kaya called me to say that she and historian hubby were cooking an English roast in celebration.

I liked the idea of a theme dinner, and being a poor student, was thinking more along the lines of Bangers and Mash rather than a full-blown roast.

However, I didn't get to the store (such things happen) and ended up getting very absorbed in baking my first loaf of bread. I used Nigel Slater's basic white bread recipe from his book Appetite.

Like Nelson's battle at Trafalgar, my attempt at bread-baking was an unqualified success. The loaf was just exactly what you would want it to be: crispy, soft, fragrant, warm and big. I even halved his recipe, since I am not a huge bread-eater, and figured a small loaf would be enough. I was right. So here's his recipe, halved (makes one loaf).

Nigel Slater's White Bread

4 cups of white flour (plus extra for kneading)
1 envelope of rapid-rise active dry yeast
2 tsps of salt
1 1/2 cups water

Put the flour, yeast and salt into a large mixing bowl.
Pour in almost all the water and mix to a sticky dough. Keep mixing for a minute or so, the dough will become less sticky, then add a little more flour until you have a dough that is soft and springy and slightly sticky to the touch.

Flour a large flat work surface and scoop the dough out onto it, and knead for ten minutes.

Place the ball of dough back into the bowl, cover it with a clean tea towel and let it rise until it's doubled in size, about one hour.

Then flop the dough out again, and knead for another two minutes. Bring the dough into a ball again, and put it on a floured baking sheet. Dust it heavily with flour and return it to it's warm place covered in the tea towel to rise again. Again, it should roughly double in size.

Set the oven to 500 degrees F.

Once the dough has risen (or spread) very carefully fold it back into a high ball and place it in the oven. Don't slam the door.

After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 425 and let it bake another half-hour. When it's done, it should sound hollow when you tap it's bottom, like a drum. Let it cool completely before eating.

What do you do when you have an excellent, fresh loaf of bread sitting on the counter? You don't waste time making bangers and mash, (sausage, gravy, carrots, onions and mashed potato), you do onion soup au gratin(ish).

French onion soup, au gratin(ish)

1 tbsp butter, plus a bit of oil
1 large spanish onion (or 1 - 1 1/2 cups of diced onions)
3 cloves garlic
2 ounces brandy
1 cup stock
water to measure
Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1 tsp peppercorns, optional

Saute the chopped onions in the oil and butter in the saucepan you use for soups. Add a bit of salt while doing this to "sweat" the onions, and encourage them to give up their delicious juices.

Add the chopped garlic and saute a little more.

Once everything looks juicy and fragrant and delicious, add the cup of chicken or beef or vegetable stock, and then enough water to just cover the onions. You can also add the peppercorns at this point.

Add the brandy. Bring to a weak boil, then let simmer until the onions are very soft.

Add a fair amount of Parmesan cheese to taste. I used my reggiano, and grated it freshly, which makes an enormous difference. I think it was maybe a tablespoon into the soup, and then more at the table.

To serve, pour the soup over a hunk of good bread in a bowl, then add plenty of cheese to the top.

Enjoy it with a bit more brandy.

Chinchin!

Apple Crumble and Red Chicken with Rice

2005-10-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

Talking with my friend Shayne today, I told him how excited I was to have made an Apple Crumble, using organic, local apples at peak time. He went on to say his mother makes a crumble which she insists is a crisp. Now, I had to ask: What exactly is the difference?

According to Shayne, a crisp has a pie-like crust underneath, and a crumble only has a topping. Go figure.

Tonight I may or may not make the chicken I had planned (half an apple crumble does not do wonders for the appetite). But I'll include the recipe. It's sort of approximate and messy, but great with rice.

So here they are:

Apple Crumble-not-Crisp

Take 5 -8 medium small apples, peel and slice them, throw them in a deep, ten inch pie plate, like my new Jadeite* one I got for my birthday! Squeeze half a lemon over them.

In a bowl, mix:
2 handfuls of oats
1/2 cup of butter, grated (you'll need very chilled or frozen butter)
2/3 of cup of finely chopped walnuts
2/3 cup of brown sugar
1 dash of cinnamon

If you're wondering what a dash is, imagine taking the spice,and with a flourish of the arm, add a generous amount for as long as it takes to say "dash". I guess it's a couple of teaspoons, maybe a bit more...

Sprinkle the mix over the apples, and bake at 350 degrees until the kitchen smells like apples and the sides of the pie plate are bubbling with appley juices. Serve warm with cream. Please.

Red Chicken and Rice

In a pan place your chicken, thighs are good and cheap. Make sure it is a pan that you can bake and use on the stovetop.

In a bowl, mix
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup vinegar
1-2 cups water or chicken stock, or a mix of both
2/3 cup brown sugar
lots of garlic, finely minced - at least a clove per person, and one for the pot.

The consistency should be about the same as tomato soup, so if you need more thickness, add ketchup. If you need more liquid, add a bit more stock.

Pour over the chicken.

Bake at 350, for between 45 minutes and an hour, turning the chicken once.

If the sauce is thin, bring it up onto the stove top and reduce it until it is the consistency of sticky gravy.

This dish simply has to be served with fluffy white rice and a good salad. It can be enjoyed with a lighter red wine, I had a chillean cab-sauv-merlot that did the job. I'd imagine a good shiraz would also do the trick.

Enjoy!

By Lord, Think Before You Eat! Local cuisine

2005-09-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Alright, the fact that I'm even writing this is a testament to forethought when absent-mindedly throwing something in your mouth because you're bored. It is late. Very late by Halifax standards; why, it just struck midnight!

Now normally, after ten days of virus and some serious bouts of insomnia, I would be sweetly off in dreamland by now. Instead I'm here because I didn't think this morning (and afternoon). All through the lectures I was nibbling on chocolate-covered espresso beans that I purchased on sale at second cup.

Yeah, the first hit's always cheap. That's how they get you.

So I see this as good a time as any to talk about the local cuisine here on the East Coast.

It's not your lobster and cahd, me b'y.

When - if - you think about the Atlantic provinces, romantic images of lobster traps, salt cod and oh, maybe mussels, served in warm, inviting pubs full of salt-o'-the-earth, fiddle-and-drum type locals. Though I'm sure that these scenes exist somewhere, I can tell you one thing: it ain't in downtown Halifax.

No, the real cuisine the 'Fax is famous for is two particularly nontraditional dishes: Wings and Donairs.

The wings are fairly straight-forward: every bar - and there are a lot of them - has a wing night, and most compete for the cheapest, hottest buffalo wings in town. Hey, I'm not one to fight healthy competition!

Donairs are a Halifax invention (creation is just not the right word). Basically, the idea is along the lines of your basic Shawarma, but with a bit of pizza-attitude thrown in there. You can get anything on them, including pizza toppings. I just don't get this craze, but I haven't had one, so I'll report back once I have and who knows? I may be a convert!

Here are some recipes I found on the internet:

Donairs

Hot wings

Chinchin!

I-Don't-Want-to-Cook Pasta and Basic Vinaigrette

2005-09-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

This pasta is for those nights (say when you're sick and stuffy) when you really really don't feel like cooking, but you know you should eat. It's ready as fast as noodles can boil and it will always be a welcome plate.

I-Don't-Want-to-Cook Pasta

Open the bottle of red you've got lying around. By the time dinner's ready it will have had ample time to "breathe". Not suggested, however, if you are fighting a fruit-fly invasion.

Throw some capellini or spaghettini (you know, the skinny noodles!) on to boil in salted water. A nice serving, for reference, is about 3/4" - 1" in diameter, dry and held in a bunch.

While the noodles are cooking, heat 3 -4 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan.

Chop some walnuts, using about 1 - 2 generous tbsp of chopped nuts per serving.

Do the same with some garlic. I like to use a clove per serving here, too, but tastes differ. The whole point of this recipe is use whichever pasta, nut and cheese you prefer. The possibilities are endless!

Toss them into the hot olive oil and don't let them burn. Let them mingle.

At this point you can add salt and chili flakes to taste.

Once your pasta is done, drain it and throw in the nut mixture. Pour the wine.

Grate some sharp cheese over the top of your nutty pasta, I like reggiano parmigiano personally, but old cheddar is also good if you're on a budget.

And that's it. Of course, if you want to be fancy and/or healthy, you'll throw together a quick salad to balance out the oil, starch and protein you're consuming (not to mention salt!).

If you really don't want to cook at all, slice a tomato and just have it on the side.

Just in case you do make a salad, here's a basic vinaigrette:

Basic Vinaigrette

Combine:
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard

Add:
3 tbsp olive oil
garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Shake it! Then pour it!

Chin-chin!

Cures what ails you: Carrot Ginger Soup and Hot Toddies

2005-09-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

So I've been fighting this cold for a few days. It's nothing major (although I think I had a temperature walking downtown the other day), but best to nip these things in the bud before they get established in my system.

Of course, the first step to that is to make sure you've got all the ingredients in your diet right so you have the resources to fight the virus. Ridiculously expensive, I went to buy some multi-vitamins at the superstore. I got the "Strong" version, thinking it will guarantee I'm getting enough zinc and B-complex - two things you absolutely need to fight illness.

A couple of years ago I was in a particularly bad way. I was barely making sense and just exhausted from coughing etc. So I turned to Kaya and pleaded "Would you please pass me the Mighty Vultamins?" I think that Mighty Vultamins are much more effective then multi-vitamins. Now I can't refer to them as anything but Mighty. Anyway, that's just a funny story. Here's what I cooked myself when I was feeling my worst this week:

Carrot and Ginger and Garlic Soup

This recipe was passed on by Kaya, who had it in one of her cookbooks. I've altered it somewhat.

In your sauce pan:

Melt 2 - 3 tbsp butter

Add and let soften
1 onion, chopped or minced
1 stock of celery, finely chopped.
2 - 3 cloves of garlic (optional, but not if you're sick).

Once soft and smelling great, add:
1 medium-sized potato, grated or finely chopped
1-2 tbsp minced fresh ginger (the knob would be about the size of a walnut in its shell)
4 or 5 average carrots, grated or finely chopped.

To this mixture add enough stock to cover the veggies and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and puree with a hand mixer or blender. Then add:
1/2 - 2/3 cup heavy cream
and a sprinkling of fresh cut dill.

Serve warm with parsley as a garnish if you're fancy.

Ms. Fraser's Hot Toddy:

Take the juice of one lemon, add a spoon or two of unpasteurized honey (to taste) and hot water. Finally, add just a drop of brandy. If it's available, add a clove or two.

It's important to get the darkest, unpasteurized honey you can find. The darker the honey, the more nutrients it will contain and pasteurization kills all the antibacterial properties of the stuff, so make sure you get unpasteurized. It will coat your throat with antibacterial goodness. Once I had unpasteurized honey as dark as fancy molasses. It was an eye-opening experience.

The Fanny Farmer and Denver Chocolate Cake

2005-09-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

My first and ultimate cookbook was and always will be the Fanny Farmer Cookbook. Throughout my childhood, this battered (in both senses) old book, without cover but with decades of love and cooking pressed into its pages. If you browse through the pages of that particular relic, you'll see old scratch and sniff stickers and pressed flowers from my childhood, and every single nail on every single hand in the illustrations "painted" with red marker.

I just received the updated version of the Fanny Farmer (My sister, Kaya, insists mom's is the 11th edition. I will pay good money for it, if you have one.) and it omitted a wonderful, easy chocolate cake that creates it's own sauce and is needless to say, delicious.

The recipe is so simple, it's perfect for people who don't make cake. Even my dad makes it on occasion. I think of it today when the chill in the Atlantic air brings back that Canadian need for warmth and comfort. Here it is:

Denver Chocolate Cake

Sift together:
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt.
Set aside.

In a pan over low heat, melt together:
2 tbsp butter
1 oz unsweetened chocolate or 3 tbsp cocoa

Add to flour mixture, then stir in:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Pour into a buttered baking dish about 9" x 9".

Over the top of the pan, scatter without mixing:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
4 tbsp of cocoa

Pour over the top 1 1/2 cups cold water or cold coffee.

Bake 40 min at 350 and let stand until cool.

I like to serve this warm with a dollop of softly whipped cream (floppy cream), late at night.

A note about technique: it seems counter-intuitive to simply sprinkle sugar over a batter without mixing, and then just pour the water (or coffee) on top of that. It will look like a muddy, chunky puddle. But something mystical happens in the oven, the water sinks down, and the sugars and cocoa melt into a thick, creamy, perfectly smooth sauce resting at the bottom of the pan.

It's more of an upside down cake, you want to serve it straight from the pan, and invert the pieces to have the sauce on top. You could also garnish with maybe clemantine segments, raspberries or keep it simple and just serve as is.

My Favourite Ham and Zhen's Chinese Potatoes

2005-09-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight I did up some left over ham steaks the way I usually do: I threw them in a frying pan, added chopped garlic, sliced fresh ginger, a sprinkling of brown sugar, some soy sauce and a touch of rice vinegar. I let that simmer over med-low heat while I cooked my side dish.

The side dish tonight was a suggestion from my roommate Zhen. A very popular way of preparing potatoes in China, it is basically feathery light, fried potato with green onion. The savoury/sweet aroma, paired with the crisp texture, made me wish I had much much more. Here's the gist of it:

Chinese Fried Potatoes

Grate a couple (or more) potatoes into a bowl and rinse under cold water to remove most of the starch.

In a frying pan heat some oil and add chopped green onion (an onion per potato works for me).

When you start to smell the aroma of green onions, add the rinsed potato shreds. Make sure there's enough oil for them to fry, and that it's quite hot so they don't get heavy.

Add a bit of rice vinegar, and a fair amount of sea salt to taste.

Cook until golden brown and delicious.

I had this with a 2002 Californian chardonnay. I liked it, anyway.

Note: When in doubt, you can't go wrong with a combination of garlic, fresh ginger, and green onions.

A Fantastic Sauce for Salmon

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This sauce is a staple at my mother's table. We normally serve it over baked salmon and basmati rice, though i think it was originally intended for gravlax.

Mom also uses it as a salad dressing, though I find it rather rich for that.

I served this meal to Scott last night, as part of my ongoing pursuit of cooking for others. It was well received.

Dijon and Dill Sauce for Fish and Rice

Dissolve 1 1/2 tbsp sugar in 1 1/2 tbsp unseasoned very mild rice vinegar (a substitute can be diluted white).

Slowly drizzle 1/2 cup olive oil into the mixture while whisking.

Gradually add 2 - 5 tbsps of smooth dijon mustard.

Once emulsified, add about 1 tbsp of chopped, fresh dill.

The amount of dijon is an approximation. You need to keep whisking until it emulsifies into a rich, creamy sauce. It will be separated and thin until just the right amount of mustard is added, and then all of a sudden it will transform. Don't give up! Have faith in yourself, it will happen. Just go slowly, and I wouldn't suggest measuring every tbsp for the dijon. That's just tedious.

Welcome to Both Hands Cooking

2005-09-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

A blog for cooking inspiration, food education, and culinary anecdotes.

Most of what will follow is taken from my own experience as a young cook, my family's cooking and some excellent advice and recipes from Nigel Slater's book "Appetite" - a highly recommended read for anyone interested in becoming comfortable in the kitchen.

Enjoy.