Italian Centre Shop Ltd. - Edmonton

Here is a quick post for the sake of updating this poor neglected blog while I find some words to fit my growing backlog of food adventures.

No, I don't cheer for the Azzurri, but I admire the passion Italians have for the world's beautiful game, and I love how that passion translates to most good things in life; especially food. This Banner was hanging proudly at the front of the Italian Centre Shop Ltd., that I visited while in Edmonton recently for a wedding.

It is hard not to be inspired when walking into this place. All the things that get me excited about Italian cooking were well represented:

The "Essentials" as the Italian grandma assured me when I pulled out
my camera (referring to tomatos, olive oil, and balsamico)

Small representation of the vast assortment of pasta and gnocchi (including gluten free!)

Cheese! They had a section 4x larger than this for Parmigiano Reggiano.
The smell was super satisfying.

And of course, my personal favourite section, Salume!

I wish I had more time (and money) to spend here. Looking forward to next time. Here is the final modest haul that I walked out with:

Sandwich with Mortadella, Capicollo, Genova Salami, olive oil, Ajvar sauce and mild Provolone on an Italian loaf with a fig for lunch, and some pickled mushrooms, anchovy stuffed olives, a nice hot calabrese, and foie gras in a can to try later...(it will be my first).

This section reserved for after I brave the canned foie gras.

Tacos Al Pastor

Tacos al pastor in the sun!

About a year back, I was introduced to tacos al pastor by a good bud while traveling for work. Not Mexico, Vancouver actually. I've been sort of obsessing about them since, and finally made them myself. 

I recently had a very brief stint in Vancouver and as luck would have it, there was a sweet little Mexican joint stationed near where I was staying on Cordova near Cambie: LaCasita. Man, their tacos al pastor were the bomb! 

Sorry for the dark photo, it was dark in there

While I'm particularly proud of mine (first photo), you can see from the LaCasita's (second photo) that I didn't have the meat quite right. The taste was working for me, but it didn't have that crisp shwarma type consistency.

So where did I go wrong? Well, too be honest, I just kind of got lazy and ran out of time. You see, Kenji from the Food Lab has tacos al pastor figure out.

I've mentioned The Food Lab before, and if you guys some how out maneuvered all the links I threw in, and haven't checked it out yet, please DO. Seriously! Really innovative, cleverly written, and reveals the science of cooking in a way that anyone can recreate.

So where did I go wrong? I started the meat a day too late. Let me explain with some pics.

Step 1

Adobo

Marinade

Slice your pork cut of choice (I used pork shoulder) super thin. I did this step after a night at the Saloon so it was pretty thick. Marinade it overnight in an adobo sauce: Essentially chilis, garlic and vinagre. I didn't have a great selection of chilis, dried chilis or even a powder form of the traditional chilis, so I improvised with some ancho, chipotle, chimayo, and pasilla chili powders, some cumin, chipotles in adobo sauce and of course, garlic, vinagre and salt.


I know some of you still haven't checked out The Food Lab so I'm quoting Kenji here so you all know why salt is so important for this marinade.

"Salt is special. See, rather than simply flavoring meat by working itself in between muscle fibers, it actually alters the structure of meat, primarily by causing certain parts of the protein myosin to become dissolvable in water.

What does this accomplish? Well, by dissolving myosin, muscle structure is greatly loosened, allowing it to retain more moisture (this is the principle behind brining), and more importantly in this case, it allows proteins between muscle groups to cross-link, causing them to stick to each other.

This is why, for instance, sausages get a nice bouncy, snappy texture, and why if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry..."

See? use salt!

Step 2

After marinading overnight, you will want to pack your pork into a loaf pan while layering  in some slices of bacon. Cook at 275 F for ~4 hours.

Step 3

After its out of the oven, allow it to cool, and then cover and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, slide it out of the pan and slice it like bread. Then sear it on a pan and serve with some pineapple (braised in the drippings), some onion, cilantro and lime. 

 

Unfortunately I didn't have time to let it sit in the refrigerator so I just scooped it out, seared some pineapple in the drippings, ran my knife through it all, and seared it all together.

 
Tortillas

You may recall from this entry that I tried to make corn tortillas by hand, and instead made corn pancakes (which in my defence were really good and probably also worth making with some crema and green onions). In the post, I also theorized that a tortilla press would solve the main issues I had: Not flat enough, and too hard to flatten by hand without crevasses forming. Turns out I was right, although I have not completely given up on making them by hand yet.

Step 1
Combine 2 parts Maseca/Masa Harina corn flour treated with lime (calcium hydroxide, not the citrus), and a bit more than 1 part water. Also add a good pinch of salt for taste and work it together until it feels like a warm, slightly grainy snowball. I'm terrible at dough analogies. 




Divide into meatball sized balls and place between a folded piece of plastic wrap, in  the center of the tortilla press.

Step 2

SMASH!

Step 3

Carefully remove from plastic wrap, and sear for ~2min per side in an un-oiled non-stick pan on medium - medium high heat. 

They will seem too dry to fold initially but once placed in some tinfoil to re-moisten in their own steam, they become a lot more flexible.

Add a few tortillas to a plate with a good portion of seared pork, top with some onions, cilantro and some lime (and anything else you like, I made a basic mango salsa), and then...

Step 4

Tacos

Belizean Style Hot Sauce

Some of you may recall from this post that I love hot sauces, especially those that use habaneros. I have acquired a lot more sauces since my last little chili inquest:

 Recently, I was lucky enough to get ahold of some habaneros to make my own!

Oh Marie Sharp

Picking a type was a no brainer. Of all my sauces, Mary Sharp's Habanero Pepper Sauce is my favourite. The ingredient list is pretty straight forward so I acquired the few other ingredients besides habaneros and kind of winged it; essentially I did what I would do if I were to make a bbq sauce out of the ingredient list, except keeping the chilis raw in all their painful glory.

A simple Belizean Style Hot Sauce:

Ingredients

- Habanero chilis x 5 small raw ones. Stems removed, but seeds and placental tissue (which holds the seeds) kept in. I'm aware this is where the capsaicin is at its meanest, but I don't get to use these chilis often so might as well bring the pain.

- Carrots x 2 chopped up

- Garlic x 2 cloves

- Lime juice x 2 limes worth

- Onion x 1/4

- Vinegar x 2 tbsp

- Salt x a good pinch

- bit of water to soften up sautee'd ingredients


Directions

1) Chop up onion, carrot, and garlic and sautee until fragrant. Add a bit of water and allow to simmer until the carrots are soft.

2) Add mixture to a food processor along with habaneros, lime juice and a good pinch of salt. Puree until smooth.

3) Add mix to a sanitized jar, add vinegar, seal the jar and give it a shake. Sample for seasoning (and to experience the capsaicin euphoria...after the pain) and store in fridge to mature.

Result

This sauce is one BAD hombre!

Well it was absolutely delicious. The flavour I experience with bottled hot sauces seem to be a little more mellow and complex - probably the result of maturing for a few weeks, but I now firmly believe that every food lover needs to experience a good Belizean style habanero hot sauce while its still warm. The almost tomato-y fruit flavour of the habanero is much more bright and intense and worth celebrating. The colour is also incredible. It was an almost electric orange. The picture doesn't do it justice but it looked like orange gelato served in a dully light bowl. Is capsaicin slightly hallucinogenic?  

Anyways, it wasn't all puppies and sunshine. I'm a man that prides himself in being able to handle some heat, but experiencing this sauce while it was still fresh was something new to me. I had to take my socks off and even just rinsing my hands in luke warm water half an hour later somehow made my tongue hurt.

Here is a gratuitous shot of me in pain

I wasn't lying on the floor, its supposed to be right side up, but I every time I load this pic it ends up this way. Whatever.

Wings in the oven that don't suck

"People go to restaurants because they can't deep fry food at home" - Someone

Well that was the juste of it anyway and obviously I can't remember who said it. For some reason I think it was Morimoto but that can't be right? Back to the point. I agree that I can't deep fry at home or rather, I won't; its messy, somewhat terrifying and the oil seems to permeate everywhere.

The Chief Creative Officer, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, at seriouseats.com also runs a column on the site called the Food Lab which among other things, specializes in finding innovative solutions related to food and drink. As luck would have it, Kenji has figured out an easy way to get my favourite style of wing (non-battered with a dry crispy exterior and moist interior) using the oven.

This post from the Food Lab outlines the fine details of how it works in a much more clever tone than I can write with, so I encourage you guys to check it out. For the sake of just getting the quick and dirty version, here is how it worked out for me:

Wings drying out in the fridge (left) and just
out of the oven and before adding to sauce (right).

Toss about 2 pounds of raw chicken wings in about a tablespoon of baking powder. Read the article if you want to know why, but this is maybe the most critical step.

Station them on a rack to dry out in the fridge (uncovered, is that unsafe?) over night.

Bake at 400F for 20 minutes/side.

Then just toss them in your favourite sauce until well coated, back in the oven under the broiler for ~5 minutes and thats all there is too it.








I made a pretty simple sauce blending together: molasses (Sidney Crosby's fancy molasses of course); lime juice; chipotles (from a can in adobo sauce); a serrano chili; mint and a bit of salt and pepper.

Pickled eggs: take 2

Well I was really excited about trying the pickled eggs from this entry. In fact, a couple of us were and we made a night of it. Then we were all rewarded with sharp vinagre punches to the mouth.

I have big dreams of a jar reading "Monch's eggs" sitting on the counter of a local pub, maybe my own some day, so I'm not giving up yet. I kind of got excited and put too much planning into the flavours, and skipped maybe the most important factor: The pickling liquid.

My original research on pickling eggs resulted in a pretty simple recipe that only used spices and vinagre, but it also called for storing the eggs outside of the fridge for a good month. I stored mine in the fridge so maybe they didn't benefit from the time on the shelf that perhaps mellows them out a little.

At any rate, I don't have any interest in playing around in those danger zones of bacteria growth just yet - I want to get some training, or at least some more books before I put myself or anyone at risk. So I'm trying them again in the fridge, but this time using half vinagre, and half water for the liquid.

For flavours I'm going with the Tavern Style from last entry but with the addition of pickling spice, salt, and sugar, and then I'm kind of messing around with another one:

Tavern style: peppercorns, chili flakes, pickling spice (looks like mostly cardamon seeds and bay leaf to me), salt, and sugar. 

Senior Muchacho's eggs: My favourite habanero hot sauce at the moment: Mary Sharp's Habanero Hot Sauce, cilantro and a lime.

Not idea how this is going to turn out. I'm expecting the first to be the best, but also too safe for "Monch's eggs".

I also kind of realized after the fact that things tend to get hotter as they pickle, or maybe the capsicum can just penetrate deeper into the eggs and then there is no relief: Instead of some heat then the rich protein of the egg cutting it a little, its just a denser form of the heat. Anyways, I put twice as much hot sauce in as what I originally thought would be a reasonable amount and I have a feeling this one is going to hurt.

I'm going to let these sit for a while until my good bud (and pickled egg fan) gets back to town. For now enjoy the pics and I'll write something up again soon.

Garam Masala

Standing in the spice aisle at the grocery store the other day, I was shocked that turmeric is also on the growing list of hard to find food items in the North. Two more relevant thoughts then dawned on me:

1) I probably shouldn't be so shocked to not be able to find an ingredient whose origins could not be much further than my current location, and still being on the planet, and

2) Mass distribution of food products has trivialized food and drink. It has made them too consistent and taken away some of the soul. I imagine a spice bazarr was/is probably one of the most exotic experiences any food lover could take in. An overload of all senses. 

Here I am in the Superstore aisle looking at a bunch of yellow packages that are all identical unless you peep in close enough to read the boring labels. With the exception of a few spices, most even look the same in their stale ground form. Nothing vibrant or exciting.

Anyways, this post wasn't supposed to be a long philosophical piece. It was supposed to be about getting away from my comfort zone a little in regards to spices by trying some whose names I recognize from spice blends, but otherwise have no knowledge of their individual aromas or tastes.

I got together with my brother on a Saturday night and we made our own garam masala. 

Garam masala translates (from Hindi) to hot spices. It also happens to be what most of us North Americans mistake as "curry powder". Some research revealed that there is a lot of room for variety in garam masala based on region, tradition, culture etc. We went with a pretty simple blend.

Ingredients:

- Coriander seeds x ~ 4 tablespoons (not shown in picture, and I'm not sure why?)

- Cumin seeds x ~ 2 tablespoons

- Green cardamom pods x ~ 1 tablespoon

- Fenugreek seeds x ~ 1 tablespoon (I think this one was my favourite)

- Black peppercorns x ~ 1 tablespoon

- Cinnamon x a good 5-6 passes over a grader

- Cloves x ~ 1 tablespoon (I guess you could call them twigs when not in powder form?)

- Nutmeg x ~ 1 teaspoon (grind it like cinnamon if you can find it whole) 

- Dried chiles x 3

- The ginger and garlic weren't part of the garam masala but guess it made for a better pic. We used about 3 cloves of garlic and twice as much ginger, pounded into a paste and added to the dish we made around the same time as adding the garam masala.

Directions:

Not much to it. Just toast each spice individually in a pan on mid-high heat until you can smell the aroma of each spice. Then pound in a mortar. It might seem like not much to it since my bro did all the heavy lifting with the mortar and pestle. If you have a spice grinder, use that instead. 

Garam masala is like crepes in that even the best chefs give the first one to the dog.

    

Butter Chicken, sort of

I realize the irony of that 'philosophical' spell at the start and then using spices from the other side of the planet, (or who even knows where these even come from now?) but I'm giving us a pass on this one because we made a special effort to take in as much as we could from each individual spice while we were handling and toasting them. 

While the spices all worked together later on when we made a very North Americanized version of butter chicken (I know, so much irony), our efforts to experience the spices individually while putting it all together allowed us to pick out the flavours, and think about them, instead of just getting lost in the mess of a stale store bought pre-made powder version.

I was too far into the wine by the end to grab a self picture for this one so I'm re-using an old one that is probably actually a decent representation of my drunkness at the time. Merry Xmas everyone!

Cheers

One Year

Mar. 15th

One year ago today, I started this blog. Incidentally, the anniversary of this blog also happens to be on my birthday so instead of spending all night in the kitchen - or writing, I'm saturating myself in my favourite indulgences: wine and dry-cured meats.

I invited some friends over who share similar cravings and placed some paper and pens around for people to jot down some comments or thoughts about the different wines we'll be drinking.

I'm not sure what the outcome will look like but there are two things for certain that you can count on:

1) I'm going to be wine drunk tonight, and wine hung over tomorrow,
2) I'm eating a lot of prosciutto to myself tonight.

Na Zdrowie!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This space reserved for a very hung over Maciej to post about what happened - if he remembers.

Mar. 17th

This was really fun and worth the hang over - which prevented me from posting this yesterday by the way.

The Aftermath

The Zinfandel (Klinker Brick), Carmenere (Concha Y Toro) and Malbec (Las Acequias) seem to have been the most appreciated, but every bottle was bone dry by the end of the night. Honorable mentions to the vodka which was downed in pretty generous shot sizes with pickles, pickled herring, and spicy Polish mustard.

Heads up that some bits are ilegible and there is some inappropriate language as well.

Name: Alsace Gentil "Hugel", 2011
Grape: Gentil
Region: Riquewihr, France

Maciej's favourite comment:
"I don't know I'm drunk and it was delicious" - anon






Name: Carmen Gran Reserva
Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon
Region: Alto Maipo, Chile

Maciej's favourite comment:
"Solid, Quaffable!" - Drew







Name: Conca Y Toro: Wine Maker's Lot 148, 2010
Grape: Carmenere
Region: Rapel Valley, Chile

Maciej's favourite comment:
"Strong-bold, tasty. This bottle [may have sex with my throat] any night" - Gabe






Name: Domaine De L'Olivette
Grape: Merlot, Syrah, Grenache
Region: South West France, near Carcassonne

Maciej's favourite comment:
"My favorite is the white wine..only booz left
mmm sweet nectar" - Gareth






Name: Gabbiano
Grape: Chianti
Region: Italy

Maciej's favourite comment:
"New world > Old world" - Drew








Name: Klinker Brick
Grape: Zinfandel
Region: Acampo, California

Maciej's favourite comment:
"Most beautiful wine...mellow, gorgeous, divine!!" - Kaori







Name: Las Acequias
Grape: Malbec
Region: Mendoza, Argentina


Maciej's favourite comment:
"My Favorite" - KD






Name: Porcupine Ridge
Grape: Syrah
Region: Coastal Region, South Africa


Maciej's favourite comment:
"Nice legs....;," - anon






Name: Russian Prince
Grape: Potatoes
Region: Ukraine - F#$& You
Editor's note: Its actually form Brampton, Ontario and is probably not distilled from potatoes.


Maciej's favourite comment:
"Terrible vodka [un-recognizable punctuation] but still delivers. What does that say about vodka, or Gabes? 'to the bottom sirs'."


There you have it. Sorry again about the language.