Curry On Toronto

Eating on the road can sure become a treat when, rather than walking into a boring smoke-smelling hotel room, you walk into a beautiful garden with simple chicken curry cooking on an outdoor stove top...

... chicken, onions, spices, tomato paste and slow cooking.


On another stove, basmati rice cooking with jardin bay leaves along with a strainer filled with black peppers, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon stick.

Kitchen tip: When the rice is cooked, pour it out on a tray to let the steam out and keep the rice kernels separated.

The hostess's father recalls that, when working in Pakistan in early 60's, local cooks would serve curries with all sorts of fresh vegetables as topping.

Following this tradition, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, raisins and coconut were sprinkled on top of the simple, tasty chicken curry.

After a satisfying curry meal, a flown-in somerville kitchen dessert was served including chocolate chips cookies, coconut oatmeal cookies and our unique Mink chocolates. What a lovely way to finish a long travelling day.

Grape Vine Sunday

First there was Cabbage Sunday. Then Chard Sunday showed up. And today, the ultimate Grape Vine Sunday.

The Lebanese word for "stuffed" is "Mehshi" which is also used as a descriptor of today's meal - stuffed jardin grape vine leaves and jardin Lebanese zucchini.

Almost a year ago, I have described the grape vine Mehshi (see Mehshi Warak). Today, and based on popular demand, I will be providing the full recipe for this meal.





First, you go out with your cats and pick up fresh leaves off the vine.

Then, you blanch the leaves. Boil some water, throw the leaves in it, turn them over and take them out. The leaves will turn from the beautiful green you see with cats to a light brown colour - now they are ready to stuff and roll.

Making the stuffing is very simple - 2/3 long grain rice to 1/3 ground beef, spiced up with salt and pepper.





The act of stuffing is more complex. Lay the leaf with the rough side (one with veins) facing you. Put a small thin row of the stuffing. Roll the leaf starting from left to right, then front side rolling over until you have a nice tight rolled leaf.

And they can be as tiny as you like (smaller than a finger as per pic).


While you can just have the grape vines as Mehshi, typically you cook it with stuffed zucchini.

Back to le jardin to pick up fresh Lebanese zucchini. Oh no, there are only three of them and I need four to serve one to each dinner guest.

So I had to resort to one of the non-Lebanese dark zucchini.




As one of the guests said, you can do a taste test to confirm that your beloved Lebanese zucchinis are best.

So the zucchinis were cleaned (with the dark one looking like the black sheep of the pact), but the stuffing process is not that straight forward.




You start with cutting the top off. With an instrument that looks like a thin potato peeler, dig out the inside of the zucchini, rinse it and stuff it with rice & meat.

To cook, use a stove top pot. Start with a layer of sliced potatoes (so nothing sticks to the pan), a layer of chicken thighs, the zucchini and the grape vine leaves.


Cover with a 1/3 lemon juice to 2/3 water until all is covered. Put a plate on top so the rolls don't separate while boiling, cover and bring to boil.

Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Serve warm and enjoy. Delicious!






The grape vine is still packed with leaves. Poor cats, he does not want to see any more chopped off though...

Fraser Street Adventure Part 2

Last Saturday, an Empress, a Lady and a Blogger head out to Fraser Street for a 3-hour exploration. Read the first part of the adventure at Fraser Street Adventure Part 1. Today, the story of the remainder of the adventure, covering the west side of Fraser Street.

Fraser Delicatessen, 6579 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC 604-321-8575

A sweet German store and delicatessen where I was treated to a care package of: Schlaff-nerven tee, a natural herbal tea to put you to sleep, Goldsaft, sugar-beet syrup that is supposed to taste great over toast and Brandt Rusk which, according to my company, tastes great in milk. I think I will like those German breakfasts this week.

Garden Fresh Food & Grocery, 6529 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC 604-325-2444

GF is a mishmash of fresh fruit and vegetables, Indian and Asian packaged goods, bulk spices and grains and frozen goods. It is not necessarily my favourite market on Fraser, but I could not resist the Anita's Organic Mill flours. Wonder if Anita Cakes are all made with those?

Fruiticana, 6387 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC 604-321-9931

This place is always hopping. It has one of the largest selection of herbs and spices I have seen in the city and always interesting fruit and vegetables. Today's discovery is Thai Eggplants - green, perfectly round and look like a piece of art. I wonder if they will taste like a piece of art.

Spice House, 6169 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC 604-323-2529

Now this is my preferred fruit and vegetable store on Fraser street. They always have the basics, along with great eggplants, zucchinis, cucumbers and okras. But today I found something I have not had in decades - fresh chickpeas. Yes, this is how chickpeas grow, and you can open those pods and eat the green tiny chickpeas as a snack.

Deutsches Haus, 4875 Victoria Drive, Vancouver, BC 604-874-3811

Three hours of exploration is hard work and all were hungry. A diversion from Fraser Street to one of my favourite restaurants in the city. Lunch of Jagerschnitzel with potato dumplings and red cabbage along with a Hefeweizen. What a great way to wrap up the adventure. Thank you Empress and Lady for a fantastic adventure.

- The End -

Freezing Peas

Summer is coming to an end and le jardin peas have given and given. Boys had fun with them (see Boys will be Boys and The Miracle of the Pea Trellis).

somerville kitchen cooked and cooked, exhausting summer snow peas recipes (see 100% Jardin Crop Dinner and Jardin & Chow).

Now what to do with all those peas still on the trellis? Let's start by picking them up, which is always fun. Then, like a farmer's maid, start podding them in a bucket.





Now that is a lot of peas when you don't have a clue what to make with them tonight. Well, let's freeze them.

Off to the cookbook shelf for one of the most useful books I have, Will It Freeze? Here is your Kitchen Tip on freezing peas, directly from the book.




Blanch for 1 minute, cool and drain. Open-freeze on trays until hard, then pack in required amounts in polythene bags, seal and freeze.

And there, now I have enough frozen jardin peas for at least three meals. I am glad I bought a freezer!

Arrr Mateys! Yer Ready for Yer Pirate Pak? - By Guest Correspondents

We're the Gluttony is Good Group (A, J and T) - 3 friends who live for, think about and breath FOOD... and it's so fitting that somerville kitchen decided to let us guest blog today. So to get to know us a little bit more... our typical routine... after we get into the office, boot up our computers and get our coffee, we turn to each other and ask "what's for lunch?" Mind you, this is what we usually do at 9 am and from that moment on we dream about what we want to eat while trying to work. There isn't a moment that goes by where we're not thinking about what we want to eat.


Today "A" suggested going to White Spot since they are bringing back their Pirate Pak Day for adults. Boy, were we excited to hear about the Pirate Paks - and it's all for a good cause too - $2 from every Pirate Pak sold will go to Zajac Ranch for children with serious medical conditions. We haven't had one of those Pirate ships since we were 5!

So the three of us decided to go treat our inner child to a Pak and headed down to White Spot. The restaurant was "packed"...excuse the pun! We sat down, scanned the menu, and to satisfy our appetites, all three of us decided on the Bacon Cheddar Bigger Burger. Here's what our lunch looked like.


The burger was juicy and the famous legendary sauce and cheese oozed out with every bite. It was messy... but soooo worth it. The fries were fried to perfection...nice and golden and fresh out of the fryer.

For dessert, we had a choice of Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry premium ice cream. We each chose a flavour and were pleasantly surprised at how smooth and creamy the ice cream was.

The vanilla even had specks of vanilla bean and the strawberry had real chunks of strawberry. The chocolate was just so-so and could have been over the top with the chunks of chocolate. To top it off, the gold coin....ahh... reminiscent of our youth.

Overall, we had a great time there and we look forward to another Pirate Pak day.

Thank you guest correspondents Gluttony is Good Group

Lamb Rogan Josh

I so enjoyed the light curry dish I prepared last week (see Light Summer Eve) that I had to try another one.

The cookbook in sight has no author, is one of Blitz editions, and titled Step by Step Curries. This recipe, Lamb Rogan Josh, is described as a "mild Kashmiri lamb dish". And it turned out mild and delicious.


The recipe is for lamb only, but I needed my vegetables for the day and none are around. The jardin did not disappoint and yielded two freshly dug out potatoes - yum - and more snow peas.

I then remembered some Thai eggplants that I bought during the Fraser Street Adventure (more on this in part 2 this weekend). I now had all I need.


The nice thing about this recipe is the simplicity of spicing. You saute sugar, cloves, bay leaves and green cardamoms, then add the meat and onions. More spices such as chilli, black cumin seeds, ginger paste are added last with the tomatoes. A bit of water and let it simmer away. If you'd like the recipe, please send an email titled Lamb Rogan Josh recipe to somervillekitchenwindow@gmail.com and it is yours.

The smell was heavenly, the spicing perfect, and those Thai eggplants were flavourful.



Now what remains is should we eat it with spoon, fork or chop sticks? Comment below please...

Yet Another Decent Street Food Vendor

The somerville kitchen street food vendors' committee set out today searching for nourishment. The ones we wanted to try were nowhere that they listed themselves to be.

After crossing Hastings street from Jervis to Hornby, we stumbled across a food vendor we have not tried - arturo's mexico to go.
Long line ups were a plus, the guys running the place speaking Spanish with each other was a plus, the wide selection of meals was a plus, so we lined up ready to try.




The special of the day looked amazing... "wild sockey smoked salmon on a corn tortilla, dressed with chipotle aioli, shredded cabbage & fresh mango, pico de gallo salsa and served with a jicama and cucumber salad".

I was drooling, but alas, no luck. They ran out of salmon by 12:50 pm and I was left with the Burrito Salad Bowl.

The salad was fresh, filling, packed with rice, beans, vegetables and shredded chicken. I did like it.





But the highlight of the visit was a nice glass bottle of Fanta. I have not had a Fanta since I was a teenager, let alone a Fanta that came directly from Mexico (all the writing on the bottle is in Spanish).

An enjoyable touch to add to the enjoyable meal, and now I have the empty Mexican bottle as a new gadget for le jardin.

Will I go again? Yes. The ordering process was long with line-ups and food prep, but that is the price one pays for quality food. I just wish I will catch that salmon special next time before they run out of salmon.

We are now up to six street food vendors and the good stuff is starting to emerge. Any suggestions of ones to try, please email to somervillekitchenwindow@gmail.com.



For reviews of other street food vendors, check the label - Street Food Vendors Series - to the right hand side.