Cottage Pie Time

The Scouse Ambassador (see story at Halloween Scouse) sent me this great recipe for Cottage Pie - here it is verbatim:

One makes a stew; strain-off part of the liquid [Save for soup] place mashed-potatoes [Butter and sour-cream] on top with a beaten-egg glaze or grated-cheese; grill it for a few minutes....it’s a very simple palate-pleaser.

Tonight was the night for a palate pleaser. 

I had some leftover Scouse from the weekend. I have planned this at that time and strained off most of the liquid and kept it aside specially for this project.

Despite somerville kitchen being a mashed potato purist - i.e., butter and milk and nothing else, I had to follow the recipe as is.

A thick mashed potato with sour cream and butter covered the stew nicely.

Now came the decision whether to top with beaten egg-glaze OR shredded cheese. A tough decision so I had to go for council.

I was advised to use beaten egg-glaze AND shredded cheese (side by side).

The final product was not only delicious whether eaten from the left or the right side, but also looked like a Mark Rothko original.

Thank you Scouse Ambassador for a great recipe.

 A Mark Rothko Original

Sudanese Foul

A year ago, I bought this calendar with different vegetarian recipes from around the world. I had high hopes for it and plans to try and feature each month's recipes. 

I only managed to make three recipes given that none of the others were that interesting.

But last night I tried the December recipe and it was amazing.

The recipe is from Sudan and the key ingredient is "Foul" (fava beans). For those followers with good memories, you would recall reading about the Lebanese Foul Moudamas - fava beans dressed with a lemon, olive oil, garlic and salt. 

But this recipe is much different and, for some, may be more appealing than the Lebanese version.

The ingredients are simple and found everywhere. You can find fava beans cans in many supermarkets and definitely in any middle eastern, Greek or Iranian stores.

Nothing fancy about the rest of the ingredients even though I think Sudanese will use some other cheese than feta.

Kitchen Tip - I buy dry fava beans, soak them over night, boil them and freeze them. This way they are low in sodium and ready to use anytime.

Below are cooking instructions from the calendar itself. I recommend you add the lemon juice to the beans with the oil.

It sure was popular during the Vegetarian Soiree last night. The combination of cilantro over the beans and the cheese and eggs on the other side sure brought out distinctively wonderful flavours with the beans.

At last I got my money's worth out of this calendar. I will be making this again soon.

Vegetarian Soiree

This is the story of a sweet vegetarian soiree with a sweet vegetarian.

See that almost empty terracotta dish in the back? Well that is a long story that will be told tomorrow night.

The soiree started with the Lumberjack eggs. A bunch of vegetables were hiding in the fridge - parsley, red peppers, zucchini and onions that made it easy to choose the first item on the menu - Mom's Baked Omelette.

Then more vegetables showed up.

Cauliflower, more zucchini and potatoes. What is better than to deep fry them and make a Lebanese specialty of This & That. 

Tune back tomorrow for the mystery terracotta plate item and its recipe.

Accounting Hell's Kitchen - Red Team

Continuation of the Accounting Hell's Kitchen - Blue Team.

The 60-minute timer kicked off for the Red Team (with only one dressed in red) along with their chicken, butternut and risotto (again).

They were running around like a disorganized factory, but yet, they not only finished a marvelous meal, but also cleaned up within their time limit.

An elegant Butternut Squash Soup was presented to the judge. Smooth texture, sophisticated taste with not much salt or herbs.

A wonderful aftertaste of what I thought was orange juice only to realize it was the squash and apples coming together. Well done team.

The main dish was Orange Organic Chicken.

In anticipation I waited for the chicken, wondering what they were up to. Chicken was cut, battered, fried, baked, sauces going on.

I still don't know what secret ingredients they used. But orange and mushrooms were involved to produce a subtle, delicious taste and sauce for their chicken.

The chicken was served with Risotto and Veggies.

The risotto was so white, you'd think you were going to taste steamed rice. But it was rich with yet another subtle wine flavour.




The judge was presented the plate to admire, taste and finalize the score.

And the score was ....(before scrolling down, see Blue Team's score at Blue Team)

91

The judge announced the results and the winning team received an empressingly hand-made trophy, leaving a judge with a 50% popularity rating in the room.

But hold on, the show is not over; a dessert competition was to wrap up the night.

Half a dozen people participated in the dessert competition, bringing in a dessert. And no one more appropriate than the brains behind Anita Cakes was the judge.

The desserts were laid out in individual plates and the judge was blindfolded so she can judge based on taste and taste only. 

There were home made Tiramisu, a store-bought cookie, carrot-cake muffins, fruit-nut crumble and a chocolate crunch. And, hidden in the mix, a not-so-delicious, tease-the-judge, on-the-spot production of bread with hoisin sauce, dill salad dressing, peanut butter and jam. 

Well, I won't go into the details of the fun we had during the judging. But the dessert winner had yet another empressingly home-made trophy.

Thank you Accounting Hell's Kitchen Teams for all the fun!

Accounting Hell's Kitchen - Blue Team

somerville kitchen had the privilege to be invited as a judge at a fun work hell's kitchen competition. Wearing a judge's badge, camera and a timer, I was put to work.

Two teams of 8 - 10 people each, chosen at random by picking a blue or a red piece of paper (thus the names Blue and Red teams), were to compete in a hell's kitchen style event.

The rules were clear:
- cook one main dish and one starter
- spend no more than $100 on ingredients (receipts were required as confirmation)
- make enough to feed 25 people
- prepare a menu that can be executed from beginning to serving in 60 minutes or less
- be heckled by the other team as you cook
- make sure every team member has a task
- have fun

And what are the chances that, by mere coincidence, each of the teams had chicken, butternut squash and risotto as the basis of their meal? It sure made the judging more systematic. 

The judging criteria was:

Meeting timing deadline - 15 points
Presentation - 20 points
Creativity - 15 points
Taste - 50 points

The blue team, all dressed in blue, was set to go. 

Timer in hand: 1, 2, 3 GO!

Working as systematically as an accounting spreadsheet, the blue team were chopping, rolling, cooking, baking - a real amazing team work.

So what did the blue team make?

As starter, they prepared a "Green Salad with Goat Cheese Purses made with true team work".
  
Over two dozens of those fancy-looking goat cheese purses were miraculously ready. But what tipped the scale up was the most delicious salad dressing made of champagne vinegar and dijon mustard. Excellent so far.

The main dish was "Stuffed Chicken with Marsala Wine Sauce made with care".

It was cooking and cooking and the team had to make a judgment call between feeding well cooked chicken or meeting their timelines.

But the highlight of the main dish was the risotto accompanying the chicken. This was "Butternut Squash Rosemary and Chili Risotto made with love". 

The judge was presented the plate. I sure could taste the love in those chunks of squash with every bite, not to mention a sweet-hot chili aftertaste.

I restrained from seconds, realizing a second meal is on its way.

Stomach warmed up and taste buds satisfied, it was time to deliberate on the scores.

Dealing with accountants, I had to be able to support my decision, so it was not easy. But the score was tallied...

86.5

Tune in tomorrow to see the Red Team's score.

The French Table on Main

The talk of the town, The French Table   is a relatively new restaurant on Main Street.

Open for lunch, brunch and dinner, I thought it will be a perfect place for a business lunch today. 

It excelled on quality of food and taste, but portions and service have room for improvement.

For starters, I had the roasted beets with pickled fennel salad. Beautifully presented with a mix of red and orange beets, an excellent ball of goat cheese in the middle topping arugula. The pickled fennel were a novel positive tasting experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it despite how quickly it disappeared off the plate.

For main course, I ordered the vegetarian plat du jour. Again, an amazing taste experience of a grilled thick piece of eggplant held by a bed of chard and covered with goat cheese. But with a 3-inch diameter and four green beans and two slices of carrots, this is barely an appetizer.

I was sure glad I ordered the basket of pommes frites to fill me up. I bet the dessert menu would have been something to try, but our server never came back with it. Would I go back again? I may be talked into it.

 
The French Table

3916 Main Street

Vancouver, BC

www.thefrenchtable.ca

Stuffed Chicken...Breast

Anyone wants to guess what are those on the table tonight?

Okay, I will keep you guessing. But to make up for it, I am going to share with you this simple tasty recipe for stuffed chicken breast I came across.

First you make a stuffing of 4 chopped slices of cooked bacon, 1 cup chopped broccoli, 1/2 cup grated cheddar, 1/4 cup ricotta cheese, pepper.

Then you take a whole chicken breast and separate the skin from the meat, but keep attached at the edges. Insert the stuffing in between the skin and the meat. Heat up some oil and fry the chicken breasts over high heat for 2 minutes on each side. Reduce the heat to medium and cook skin-side up for 10 minutes. Turn over and cook for another 5 minutes.

At somerville kitchen, this was served with a platter of steamed green beans and broccoli sprinkled with toasted almonds, bacon bits and a squeeze of lemon.

And of course the potatoes... which, tonight, were roasted.

Now did you guess what those things on the table in the first picture on top of the page are?