Madame Benoît et Moi

Cookbooks from the Edge of Time - Winning Recipes (1998)

2012-01-15T10:59:00.001-05:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

Kicking off another year of blogging with this compilation of healthy recipes published for Swimming Canada.

I was in the mood for something healthy this morning (you know, for a change!) and I had all the right ingredients at home to whip up a Mocha Banana Shake from the "Breakfasts & Breads" chapter. In short: skim milk, bananas, and varying spoonfuls of instant coffee, cocoa and sugar. Hit it with the blender and pour. Easy and a bit fancy too.

This cookbook contains a lot of meat recipes to feed one's protein requirements, including the chunkiest chili I have ever seen. Plenty of vegan-friendly recipes too. There's a odd one for broiled oranges that I might try out of curiosity.

Not sure if this book was published for Swimming Canada only, or if it was a template book offered up to other sports organizations. It's got that generic feel to it, although some of the photos show plates of food as if they were poolside, or floating in the water, so I could be wrong. Nice photography though.

Anyway, hoping to get back into the swing of things soon with Madame B. Stay tuned, my babies!

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - The Trout Point Lodge Cookbook (2004)

2011-11-08T20:47:00.013-05:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

Alright, one last shot of Nova Scotia before we move on.

One place I wish I had visited during a recent trip there is Trout Point Lodge. There, a trio of foodies from Louisiana set up shop, operating a Creole cuisine haven in the middle of the Acadian wilderness that spawned Louisiana's French culture in the first place.

It was a kind of reverse immigration, from the Bayou back to Acadie, and they brought their Creole cooking with them. In 2004, they published this cookbook, a fantastic collection of Creole-Canadian cuisine that fuses classy French-inspired techniques with local ingredients.

This cookbook is a recent acquisition of mine, but I already love it.

At Trout Point, they are big on seafood (obviously!). I recently whipped up a batch of succulent Seafood Gumbo over rice. I think Madame B. would have been dee-lighted! Other highlights of the book include a solid soups section, and some "wilder" options like mussels cooked in pine needles.

If you plan on travelling to Nova Scotia someday, that name again is Trout Point Lodge.

If you just want to get your hands on the cookbook, it is widely available online, at the usual online book-buying places.

Nova Scotia - Caramel Bread Pudding

2011-10-31T18:38:00.002-04:00

Recipe:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg beaten
2 slices heavily buttered bread
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Pack sugar in a buttered casserole, cut bread in small pieces and place buttered side down on sugar. Mix egg, milk and vanilla and pour over mixture. Put in oven and bake until nicely browned. Serve with or without cream.

Review:
Bread pudding. A classic dish, simple and delicious. I enjoyed a fantastic bread pudding in Halifax recently, and when I got back this recipe leapt out of The Canadiana Cookbook. Madame B. didn't even bother with an intro for this one, so let's get right to it.

Well, there isn't much to say, really. It's ridiculously easy to make. I ended up using three slices of buttered multigrain bread, to fill an 11 x 7 inch pan. I also snuck some rum into the liquid mix. Not too much, just a little splishy-splashy!

Baked it for 40 minutes in a 350F oven and it came out lovely as you can see above. Beneath the soft, creamy bread was a layer of golden brown, stick-to-your-teeth caramel. Wonderful stuff.

Conclusion:
Probably the easiest dessert that anybody can make, using the most basic of household ingredients. Can't wait to make this again!

Review - Eating Seafood in Halifax

2011-10-31T18:18:00.001-04:00

I recently spent a week in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

When in the Maritimes, what else are you going to eat but seafood? Here are some of the eateries I visited, and what I ate there.

[cue "Sleepy Maggie"]

Economy Shoe Shop Café and Bar - 1663 Argyle Street
(pictured above)
economyshoeshop.ca
From the outside, this place is a quaint, European looking café with a quirky name. When I showed up for lunch, the front patio was packed, but there was plenty of room inside. There, it's a labyrinth of spaces and levels, trees and foliage. Fantastic place, and the food was decent too. I had a trio of fish cakes with a side of french fries. They came with a yummy garlic mayo for dipping. Drank several beers. Can't go wrong here.

Café Chianti - 1241 Barrington Street
www.cafechianti.ca
Classy Italian joint, just south of the downtown core. A sprawling series of rooms, all tastefully decorated. Plenty of staff tending to the diners, yet still a relaxed, casual atmosphere. Had the Linguine Pescatore, a plate of soft pasta bathed in olive oil with scallops, mussels, shrimp and lobster. Delizioso! Went a bit overboard on the wine here, downing several glasses. Actually, things got nuts here. Ended up finishing off with a glass of port over dessert, which was a generous handful of figs soaked in Black Sambuca, served over vanilla ice cream. Memorable decadence.

Hamachi Steakhouse - 1477 Lower Water Street
www.hamachirestaurants.com
Was rambling along Halifax's excellent waterfront trail when I found this place. The name is a bit deceptive, because they offer all sorts of, er, offerings to please visitors. Mind, it's in a very touristy area of town, so expect a touristy-place sort of experience (busy place, slow service). On a brilliant late summer day, I grabbed a table on the patio. Ordered the Lobster Club Sandwich. It was pretty good, but the people-watching and sun-soaking were more memorable.

The Henry House Restaurant & Pub - 1222 Barrington Street
(pictured above)
www.henryhouse.ca
Located in a historic building along Halifax's main drag, the Henry House serves both traditional Maritime and classic British pub fare. Great location, great building, and a very friendly atmosphere. I stopped by for dinner on a rainy evening, and ended up enjoying my best meal in Halifax. The pan-fried haddock was outstanding, as was the micro-brewery beer, Granite Ringwood Ale. Dessert was a bread pudding to die for. If there is one place in Halifax to eat at while you are here, I'd say this would be the one!

Yes, We Take Requests - Madame Benoît's Mousseline Sauce

2011-10-27T08:16:00.002-04:00

A reader in Santa Barbara, California, wrote asking for Madame Benoît's recipe for Mousseline Sauce.

Madame B. makes her Mousseline Sauce by starting with a basic Hollandaise, and then folding in a couple of stiffly beaten egg whites. The recipe is not included in The Canadiana Cookbook, but it does appear in Madame B's massive, phone-book-sized Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine.

As always, she favours the simple approach:

Madame Benoît: "The hollandaise, which to so many of you, appears to be so filled with mystery, is in short the easiest sauce to make, when it is known that it must cook with the minimum of heat, as it is only an emulsion of butter and egg yolks. I do not wish to advocate the double boiler and melted butter methods. Here is the most simple and fastest method of making hollandaise sauce."

Recipe:*
1/4 to 1/2 cup very cold butter
2 egg yolks
juice of 1/2 lemon, or less (to taste)
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Place in a frying pan, the very cold butter, egg yolks lightly beaten with a fork, and the lemon juice. Place the frying pan over very low heat and stir constantly until the mixture resembles creamed butter. If the frying pan becomes too hot, remove from heat and continue to stir. In many cases, depending on the thickness of the saucepan used, the heat of the pan is sufficient to finish cooking the sauce.

Should the sauce separate, quickly add 1 tablespoon ice water or an ice cube and beat hard, until it becomes smooth again. If water is not sufficient, heat a fresh egg yolk and add the separated hollandaise to this egg yolk, beating over very low heat.

Making the Mousseline:

To the hollandaise sauce, add the two stiffly beaten egg whites. To make a very fluffy sauce, fold in the egg whites only when ready to serve.

Review:
Yes, the method is as simple as it gets. The only thing you need to add is a little elbow grease.

Over very low heat, the butter and egg yolks come together to form the sauce. Once that happens, go at the egg whites with gusto, then fold into the sauce.

The result is a light, fluffy Mousseline Sauce that you'd be proud to serve the lady herself!

Conclusion:
The asparagus pictured above did not last very long after their photo session. The sauce is quite ethereal, a unique experience when you want to try something other than the usual Hollandaise or creamy sauces.

Keep those requests coming in. We aim to please!

* Recipe taken from Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine (De Luxe Edition) by Mme Jehane Benoît. Published by Canadian Homes Magazine, 1963. Lift with the legs, not the back.

Nova Scotia - Apple Blancmange

2011-10-24T19:03:00.003-04:00

Madame Benoît: "A homemade applesauce gives something special to this old-fashioned dessert."

Recipe:
2 cups milk
2 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
few grains salt
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup prepared applesauce

Scald 1 1/2 cups milk. Mix cornstarch and sugar with 1/2 cup cold milk. Pour the hot milk over the cornstarch mixture, stirring until smooth. Cook over low, direct heat until thick and smooth. Add the salt. When nearly cold add the vanilla and stir in prepared applesauce. Turn into individual moulds which have been rinsed with cold water. Serve with cream, or other desired sauce. A variation of this dessert is to put the blancmange into a serving dish; when firm, top with applesauce and whipped cream.

Review:
Here's another recipe that caught my eye as I flipped through the Nova Scotia chapter of The Canadiana Cookbook.

Before Jello, there was blancmange, the milk- or cream-based sweet that is thickened, set and served chilled. The recipe is old school, what with the scalding of milk and all. I spent an hour yesterday heating and stirring the ingredients together. Overnight in the fridge, it had set nicely.

Not having any fancy blancmange moulds, I found Madame B's "serving dish" suggestion useful. My collection of big Belgian beer glasses came in handy. The result was a sweet, appley treat for an Autumn evening.

Conclusion:
I'd definitely try making this again, especially if I ever get some proper blancmange moulds. Still, there's nothing wrong with a fancy Belgian beer glass!

Nova Scotia - Crabmeat Chowder

2011-10-20T12:11:00.001-04:00

Recipe:
3 slices salt pork
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 cups sliced potatoes
1 1/2 cups hot water
2 cups hot milk
1 - 1 1/2 lbs. frozen crabmeat
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. savory
2 tbsp. butter

Cut the salt pork into 1 1/2-inch squares. Melt and brown over medium heat in a large saucepan.

Make alternate layers of potatoes and onion slices in the pan. Add the hot water. Cover. Bring to a boil and simmer from 10 to 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add the milk, crabmeat, salt, savory and butter. Do not mix, simply keep warm until ready to serve.

Review:
Hello my babies! Back after a long absence. I spent some time in Halifax last month and loved it there. Especially loved dining there.

Obviously, Halifax is all about the seafood and I ate a lot of it! I'll try to throw together a post listing the places where I dined.

When I got back home, I found myself flipping through the Nova Scotia chapter of The Canadiana Cookbook. One of the things I didn't get around to ordering in Halifax was a crab dish, so Madame B's recipe for this crabmeat chowder caught my eye.

It's simple to make, and very authentic with only a handful of ingredients. They all go together very well. Don't be stingy with the crabmeat -- load it up for maximum flavour!

Conclusion:
Quick and easy. Makes for a nice light chowder. You can add to it as you like, eg. corn, spices, cream, herbs, etc. Recommended!

Alberta - Hot Pepper Steak

2011-07-25T17:58:00.003-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The western 'he-man' cracks his heaping tablespoon of black peppercorns very coarsely so that his steak has 'branding fire' (however, you need use only 1 teaspoon of peppercorns.)"

Recipe:
Choose a good porterhouse or sirloin steak about 1 3/4 to 2 inches thick. Trim excess fat and score remaining fat. Half an hour before cooking the steak, press 1 tablespoon coarsely cracked pepper into the meat with the heel of your hand. The pepper must be freshly cracked.

Pan broil by rubbing cast-iron frying pan with a piece of beef suet. When the pan is very hot, place the steak in it and cook 5 to 10 minutes on each side, turning only once. When the steak is turned, lower the heat slightly.

Just before removing the steak to a hot platter, pour 1/3 cup brandy or whisky over it. Flame. Pour pan juices over meat. Salt and serve.

Review:
Well, there it is, the carnivore's delight. Fiery pepper steak. Madame B's "5 minutes each side" recommendation will give you a well done steak. If you like it bloodier, reduce the cooking time for each side by a couple of minutes.

Blood, meat, fire, pepper, whisky. That pretty much sums up Alberta in a nutshell.

My secret confession: after the photos were taken, I placed a slice of bleu de chèvre on the steak and let it slowly melt down into a creamy blue cheese sauce. Oh my!

Conclusion:
If you eat meat, this is one of the highlights of The Canadiana Cookbook. Steak, simple and délicieux!

Saskatchewan - Corn Fried Chicken

2011-07-13T10:49:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "I have never seen chicken cooked quite this way in the East. It was served at a women's group luncheon, and I was assured it was typically Saskatchewan. Whatever it is, it is good."

Recipe:
1 3-lb. chicken
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. sage
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup bacon fat or butter
1 cup light cream

Cut the chicken into individual pieces. Blend the milk with the turmeric, salt, pepper and sage. Roll the chicken in this milk, then in cornmeal, until well coated.

Melt the bacon fat or butter in a large cast-iron frying pan. Fry the pieces of chicken in it, over medium heat, until light brown on both sides.

Then pour the cream over all. Cover and simmer over low heat for one hour. The cornmeal thickens the sauce and makes a beautiful gravy. It was served with small onions slowly cooked in butter until golden, then set in a nest of peas.

Review:
Who could be bothered cooking in July? I just want to eat salads for lunch and ice cream for dinner.

Yesterday, I felt some protein was required, so I reached for The Canadiana Cookbook and found this quick recipe for fried chicken, Saskatchewan style. It calls for a whole chicken cut up, but I bought a package of drumsticks instead.

Mix, dip, roll, fry, simmer. Easy as that. I'm not a big fried chicken fan, especially in home cooking, but this turned out pretty well. As the drumsticks simmered, I basted them a couple of times with the creamy gravy that was forming below. After an hour, they were done -- and still soft and juicy enough that the gravy wasn't all that necessary in the end.

Served these up with some simple cooked peas. Done. Delicieux!

Conclusion:
A good recipe for some quickie fried chicken, without all the drama that deep-frying entails. Recommended!

Québec - Parsnip Soup

2011-06-21T18:21:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "My mother always cut the unpeeled parsnip in 3 pieces, placed them in a saucepan and poured boiling water over them. She boiled them for 20 minutes, then drained, peeled and sliced them. The parsnip stayed creamy white with a most delicate flavor."

Recipe:
3 cups parsnips
1 cup potatoes
2 large onions
5 tbsp. butter
boiling water
1 cup cream
2 cups milk
3 tbsp. butter
1/4 tsp. savory
1/4 tsp. pepper

Peel and slice the parsnips and potatoes. Peel the onions and slice thinly. Melt the butter. Add the onions. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes over low heat.

Add the prepared vegetables. Pour enough boiling water over them to cover completely. Salt. Cover and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender (from 20 to 30 minutes). Add the milk, cream, butter, savory, pepper. Heat without boiling, and serve.

Review:
Got to admit, I wasn't expecting much from this soup. Turnips? Potatoes? Enough butter to choke a horse?

Well, let us not be hasty. Although I could live without the savory -- it's not an herb I like -- the soup itself was surprisingly good. Yeah, it's turnips and potatoes swimming in a pool of butter. But damn, it was tasty. Filling. Simple to make, and a bit out of the ordinary.

According to Madame B, this recipe hails from the great north of Québec, and I can see why this hearty brew would go over well.

Conclusion:
Try it, you'll like it! Just ask me!

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Fat-Back & Molasses (1977)

2011-06-16T07:54:00.003-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

This classic cookbook, subtitled A Collection of Favourite Old Recipes from Newfoundland & Labrador, has proved popular enough to earn multiple reprintings.

The book was compiled, edited and printed by the Rev. Ivan Jesperson for the 25th anniversary of Newfoundland's entry into Confederation and first published in 1974. He gathered recipes from contributors at his church and from others who wrote in and offered up their best family recipes.

And it's all here. A plethora of cod and brewis, numerous takes on flipper pie, and endless dessert ideas no doubt handed down over generations. For the hardcore Newfie, there are also recipes with eye-catching names like "Pork Cake" and "Vinegar Pie".

This is a very old-school collection, loaded with stuff you don't hear about anymore. It's as fascinating for its unheard of dishes ("Squirrel Cake", anyone?) as for the window it opens into another time and place.

Best of all -- and I love when this happens -- the copy that I acquired had a couple of handwritten recipes tucked in between the pages. They were for "Baked Squid" and "Cod Fillets a la Betty".

I whipped up a fixing of Betty's cod fillets the other night, a simple baked cod smothered in tomatoes, onions and peppers. It was effortless and turned out great. A little taste of Newfoundland discovered by chance.

So thank you Betty, wherever you may be!

New Brunswick - Cottage Cheese Biscuits

2011-06-12T17:33:00.010-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Lightly textured inside, crispy and crusty on top, these biscuits can be served for breakfast, with fruit and salad or soup -- or with the main course instead of bread."

Recipe:
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp. milk
1 cup cottage cheese, any kind
2 tbsp. butter, melted
2 scant cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced

Preheat the oven to 450F. Mix the egg, milk, cottage cheese and butter thoroughly.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and parsley. Add to the first mixture and blend with the fingertips. If necessary, add more milk, a few drops at a time, to make the dough hold together.

Turn onto a floured board and knead for 30 seconds. Pat into a shape 1/2-inch thick, then cut into 18 squares.

Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Review:
I was curious to see how these would turn out. To avoid any mishaps, I followed the recipe with absolute precision. The reward was a batch of light and crusty biscuits as promised. The only thing I did differently was to cut them into "soldier" shapes rather than squares. They still puffed up nicely.

The chunks of cottage cheese are still evident when you bite into these biscuits. The parsley bits give it some colour. Overall, these are nice little biscuits that could go with almost anything.

Best of all, I managed to avoid making a disaster zone of the kitchen, and I have to say my dislike for baking has been tempered by this success. Maybe I'll have a go at another "bakey" recipe soon!

Conclusion:
If this is a staple of the New Brunswick table, I can see why they are a happy lot. If not, it should be.

Nova Scotia - Finnan Savory

2011-06-07T20:16:00.010-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Old Country people use leftover Finnan Haddie for a creamy breakfast dish, or they serve it on toast as an after-dinner savory. Use chutney or curry powder to flavor the breakfast dish and cayenne for the savory served on squares of hot buttered toast."

Recipe:
1 - 1 1/2 cups Finnan Haddie, cooked and flaked
1 tbsp. butter
cayenne to taste, or
1/2 tsp. curry powder
2 tbsp. cream
1 tsp. capers
salt, to taste
fresh parsley, chopped

Melt the butter, add the cayenne or curry powder. Stir until the butter is light brown, add the flaked fish, cream and capers. Simmer over low heat until the fish has absorbed most of the cream. Add salt to taste and sprinkle with parsley.

Review:
One of the things I love about The Canadiana Cookbook is that no matter what kind of lousy day I've had, there's always a quick and tasty recipe to be found here, just by flipping at random. That's how I came to this one.

To be sure, my maniacal vision is to prepare every single recipe in Madame B's epic compilation, but apart from making sure the provinces are spread out as evenly as possible, there isn't any rhyme or reason to the order in which I'm approaching this great project. I cook whatever I want, when I want!

Okay, back to this, and here's another lovely thing about this cookbook: it is packed with recipes for Finnan Haddie, the classic Atlantic smoked haddock of legend ("legend" being a bit of an exaggeration, but I do love a smoked haddie!).

Are we done with the boisterous digressions? For now.

I ignored the recommended chutneys and curry powders and reached for the cayenne for this one. I love the heat, so a half teaspoon of cayenne powder went into the mix, along with a dash of smoked serrano powder to really liven it up. Mais oui!

In short, an easy recipe that is full of WIN. Oh Madame Benoît, I love you!

Conclusion:
Makes an outstanding savory or hors d'oeuvre, or keep the whole thing for yourself and enjoy! Damme!

Québec - Sugar Pie

2011-06-01T12:12:00.007-04:00

Madame Benoit: "Every summer, requests pour in for this sugary, yet creamy pie. People who travel, eat it in restaurants, then look for the recipe -- which is almost as old as Canada. The following is made the way grand'mère taught me, though there are all kinds of recipes."

Recipe:
pastry of your choice
1/2 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups maple syrup
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup dark brown sugar
pinch nutmeg
1/3 cup butter

Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry. Stir soda and vanilla into syrup and pour into pastry. Blend remaining ingredients with your fingertips until mixture is crumbly, then spread over syrup. Place a piece of foil under pan, because the pie often bubbles over. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes and let cool -- it is best cold.

Review:
Rustic. That's what this recipe is. Rustic. I like that word. It evokes a simpler time, when food was made from scratch and folk didn't fuss about whether it looked perfect on the plate.

So I'm clinging to rustic here, to explain why you see a photo of a finished Sugar Pie still in the baking tin. I tried to cut two perfect slices out of the thing, but they both smooshed and crumbled before they got out of the tin. That was even after a night in the fridge got everything to solidify. So to hell with it, I snapped a photo of the remaining pie instead. That's rustic.

The recipe itself was simple, almost fun. I imagined Madame B's grand'mère rolling the flour-sugar dough in her fingers, then spreading it over the maple syrup concoction.

The taste: crazy sugar. Mental sugar. It is, after all, Sugar Pie. And it is, of course, délicieux!

Conclusion:
Recommended as a rustic treat. I hope you have better luck with the slicing.

Ontario - Onion Custard

2011-05-27T08:20:00.004-04:00

Madame Benoît: "A feathery, creamy and delectable way of serving onions. This is excellent with seafood, chicken, veal or turkey."

Recipe:
1/4 cup butter or margarine
6 medium onions, diced
2 beaten eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
pinch of pepper
pinch of nutmeg or curry powder

Melt butter or margarine in a saucepan and add onions. Stir until well coated with butter, then cook over medium heat until golden here and there.

Combine remaining ingredients. Add to onions and pour into a buttered 1-quart casserole. Bake uncovered 25-30 minutes at 375F, or until set like a custard.

Review:
Well, here's a cutesy way to serve up onions as a side dish.

Although Madame B's recipe called for the whole mixture to be baked in a large dish, I decided to split them up into individual ramekins. The result was a bunch of cute little onion soufflés. Perfect to go along with almost anything, really.

I think this was one of those recipes that Madame B. really wanted to include in The Canadiana Cookbook, and it just happened to get slotted into the Ontario chapter. Glad I found it there yesterday, I really liked these.

Conclusion:
An interesting way to serve onions. Definitely recommended.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Done Like Dinner: Tiger in the Kitchen (1987)

2011-05-01T16:14:00.002-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

Seeing as only one Canadian team remains in the hunt for the Stanley Cup this year, I figured I'd better get to this entry sooner rather than later.

Tiger Williams! A Canadian Legend! The NHL's career leader in penalty minutes. Who'd a thunk he'd sit himself down and publish a cookbook? Well, with the help of Kasey Wilson he did, presenting a collection of hockey-themed recipes that would be perfect for this time of year.

One look at Done Like Dinner: Tiger in the Kitchen, and this book wins the award for best cookbook with a knife-wielding maniac on the cover. There are more hilarious photos inside, showing Tiger in his hockey gear, posing with various dishes and munching on some.

Many of the recipes have whimsical names that will bring back memories. Montreal Omelette, Zucchini à la Zamboni, Richard Brodeurburgers, and Gordie Howe's Legendary Rice.

I decided to whip up a Swift Current Casserole, which is a deluxe mac and cheese loaded with green onions, peppers and a rich cheese sauce. Tiger swears he lived on this stuff when he played in Saskatchewan. One bite and I'd want to live on this stuff too.

GO CANUCKS!

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Celebrate Yukon Food (2006)

2011-04-12T14:31:00.001-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

And we're back.

I was looking for vegetarian recipes from the great white north, but unfortunately The Canadiana Cookbook didn't have much to offer. So it's time for another installment of Cookbooks From the Edge of Time.

Celebrate Yukon Food was published by the Fireweed Community Market Society in Whitehorse. The society promotes local food production and consumption, but this cookbook enables everyone to taste the goods. Organized in seasonal chapters, the book offers traditional and personal recipes from members of the society.

Most of the recipes are vegan friendly, and lean more towards the creative/exotic side of things.

I tried the kale strudel recipe. I'm not the baking sort and had never worked with phyllo pastry before, but the recipe is idiot proof. Despite some mishaps with a few phyllo sheets, I managed to assemble and bake three nice strudels to perfection. Tasty, savoury stuff. The book also has a recipe for rhubarb strudel, which may be my next project.

British Columbia - Sour Cream Cucumber Sauce

2011-02-17T11:53:00.000-05:00

Madame Benoît: "This is a classic accompaniment for cold, boiled salmon."

Recipe:
3 medium cucumbers, peeled and sliced
salt
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. onion, minced
1/4 tsp. sugar
pinch of pepper

Peel the cucumbers and slice them as thinly as possible. Sprinkle with salt and mix well. Refrigerate for 1 hour, drain carefully and cover with ice cubes. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Just before serving, mix the sour cream, lemon juice, minced onion, sugar and pepper. Add the cucumber slices and mix well together. Serve chilled on bed of lettuce leaves, sprinkled with parsley.

Review:
Good lord how I hate Winter. Hate the cold, hate the snow, hate the gloom. So it was with an eye towards the coming of the warmer months that I prepared this dish.

It's a simple cucumber side salad, but man did it bring summer to mind. Easy to make, can be enjoyed with almost anything. I skipped right over the "chill it in the fridge" step, and just peeled, sliced, mixed and devoured.

Come on, Equinox!

Conclusion:
A classic Canadian summer dish. If you hate Winter, this will brighten your day.

Newfoundland - Turnip Salad

2011-02-03T16:04:00.000-05:00

Recipe:
5 cups turnips, peeled and grated
1 large red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 tbsp. maple sugar or brown sugar
2 tbsp. fresh grated horseradish (optional)

Mix together the vinegar, salt, pepper, maple or brown sugar and grated horseradish.

Pour this mixture over the vegetables. Stir well. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours before serving.

Review:
One thing about The Canadiana Cookbook is that the recipes I have least looked forward to preparing have often been the ones that I liked the most.

Take this one. Turnip salad. Not the most inspiring name, certainly not the most inspiring vegetable. But, grated like slaw and spiced up with red onion and horseradish, this turned out to be a tasty side dish. Certainly memorable. More kick than cole slaw, and just as easy to make.

In fact, this salad turned out quite fiery thanks to the horseradish. If you don't like things too hot, you should cut down on it.

Conclusion:
Unique and interesting. Worth a try when you just can't bring yourself to make cole slaw again.

Prince Edward Island - Green Potato Salad

2011-01-26T12:39:00.009-05:00

Madame Benoît: "This actually is a speciality of Nova Scotia and a very interesting one. Use only the leaves of the spinach and make sure the water is truly boiling."

Recipe:
Pour boiling water over one pound cleaned spinach. Let stand exactly 3 minutes, not over heat, and uncovered. Drain thoroughly, wrap in absorbent paper if necessary. Chop lightly, add 3 to 4 cups cold sliced potatoes and 1/2 cup long thin slivers of mild cheddar cheese. Dress with 3 tablespoons sour cream and the juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper to taste.

Review:
Potato salad is a very personal thing. No sooner do you mention it, than someone harkens back to their mom's or grandma's awesome recipe. The eyes go distant, the mouth waters. There is no right way to make potato salad, but everyone you ask will have their own right way of doing it.

So I tried this recipe, a bit of a curiosity with items I wouldn't normally associate with potato salad: spinach and cheese. It was certainly different, the wilted spinach hugging each piece of potato and the cheddar cheese adding a bit of zip to the mix.

For some reason, this just didn't work for me. As Madame B. points out, this variation is popular in the Maritimes, so maybe I'm writing heresy.

Now, if folks could only try my mom's potato salad, then they'd know what's good and what's what!

Conclusion:
Different. Colourful. Cheezy and Spinachy. There you have it!

Nova Scotia - Forty Fathom Corncake

2011-01-23T09:09:00.002-05:00

Madame Benoît: "This thin crisp corncake served with cod is a century-old recipe I copied from an old battered notebook one night when I had supper at a fisherman's house in Nova Scotia. It was a wonderful potluck meal."

Recipe:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup flour
3 tsp. "tartaric and soda" (baking powder to us)
1 egg, beaten
1 cup rich milk (I use cream)
2 tbsp. melted butter or bacon fat

In "steady succession" mix 1 scant cup yellow cornmeal, the dark brown sugar, salt, flour, "tartaric and soda" (baking powder), beaten egg, rich milk (or cream), melted butter or baking fat. When these have become "thoroughly acquainted" pour in a thin layer in a greased pan, top with small pieces of crackling (if none available use diced bacon or omit altogether). Bake 25 minutes at 350F. Unmold and serve hot with a "mess of creamed cod" (fresh cod peached in a medium white sauce flavored with onions and lots of parsley.)

Review:
Warm, comforting corn bread. This is essentially what I got from this recipe. I may have added a bit too much baking powder and milk. Instead of ending up with a "thin, crisp" corncake, I got a moist, puffy loaf of corn bread. Delicious!

I have made corn bread in the past and it always wins. Best of all is that the basic recipe above invites all sorts of creativity and experimentation.

One variation that I have made in the past and intend to try again soon is this: substitute the milk or cream with a can of coconut milk, and sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of shredded coconut into the mix. A fantastic combination!

Conclusion:
Délicieux! Full of win! Go make this now!

Alberta - Sour Cream Cabbage

2011-01-15T09:03:00.003-05:00

Madame Benoît: "On a large sheep ranch I was served this cabbage for lunch along with a mess of sausages. My hosts referred to the cabbage as Chuff-Chuff cabbage."

Recipe:
1/4 cup butter or bacon fat
4 - 6 cups chopped cabbage
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup sour cream

Melt the fat in a large frying pan. Add the cabbage and cook over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring every now and then. Add salt, pepper, sugar and sour cream, stir until the ingredients are well blended in the cabbage but do not let it boil. Serve very hot as soon as it is ready.

Review:
Well, it was the only recipe in the Alberta chapter that was in keeping with our veggies-only theme this time around, so here it is.

Sauteed cabbage is neither difficult nor particularly regional, unless Albertans love to smother theirs in sour cream.

Sauteed cabbage on its own makes a nice sweet side, and there isn't really a need to add more flavours to it. To be honest, I would have left out most of the other ingredients, or tried adding something else. It does go great with sausages, tho.

Conclusion:
Do with it as you will. I like this dish without the sour cream, usually with just a dash of pepper or a sprinkle of seasoning mix. The cream just weighs it down in my opinion.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - 65 Ways to Make Vegetables Interesting to Children (1937)

2011-01-10T20:37:00.001-05:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

Who among us hasn't issued the plaintive cry, "If only there were some way to make vegetables interesting to children!"

You are not alone. In fact, way back in 1937, this question was addressed by "Eminent Child Psychologist" Angelo Patri in a booklet published by Fine Foods of Canada.

Patri's thesis was simple: "Eating should be a pleasure." If parents presented their children with food that was attractive to the senses, then they would eat it happily and thrive like weeds! He recommended food that was pleasing to the eye, nose, and mouth. This combination would guarantee empty plates at mealtime.

Take, for example, the lowly potato or turnip. Normally, boiled to oblivion, it could be instead presented as a hollowed out shell filled with tasty vegetable niblets of peas, corn and carrots. Serve this and watch their little eyes light up!

Sounds good, but... if you look at the credits, you would see that this publication by "Fine Foods of Canada" was a front for Green Giant Brand foods, which sold (shock!) vast quantities of peas, corn and carrots in niblet form.

Still, the idea is commendable. Anything that makes vegetables more interesting to children cannot be that bad, can it?

Ontario - Tomato Scallop

2011-01-04T21:29:00.002-05:00

Madame Benoît: "When fresh tomatoes are out of season, take the tomato flavor out of a can."

Recipe:
1 20-ounce can of tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. oregano
dash of rosemary
1 cup bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/3 cup grated mild cheddar cheese

Combine tomatoes, onion, sugar and seasonings. Top with bread cubes and grated cheese. Bake at 350F until bread cubes are browned.

Review:
You can taste the Italian influence in this dish. Tomatoes, onions, some herbs, bread and cheese. Call it pizza, bruschetta, pappa al pomodoro, or the astonishingly bland "tomato scallop", but the taste result is the same -- delicioso!

Are tomatoes ever really out of season? You can always get fresh ones at the market. In case you happen to be utterly lazy, you can always get canned tomatoes too. Just be sure to drain them well. This dish is best when not swimming in its own juices, trust me on that one.

And now, a shocking revelation: I used to hate tomatoes. Could not stand them! Used to pick them off my bruschetta. Embarrassing. Thanks to Madame B. I seem to be getting over this ludicrous phobia. Before embarking on this cookbook journey, I would never have imagined making -- and enjoying! -- a dish like this.

Merci, Madame Benoît: my culinary muse and goddess!

Conclusion:
Besotted raving without so much as a glass of wine. This dish is recommended, especially for the tomato hater in your life. Change is possible, my babies!

Manitoba - Bohnenikra

2010-12-31T10:07:00.001-05:00

Recipe:
18 cups cut wax beans
6 cups onions
1 cup vinegar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 tins tomatoes
1 bottle ketchup

Precook beans and slightly fry onions. Cook all ingredients together, but not too long. Put in sealers and seal.

Review:
This entry is somewhat of a mystery.

Madame B. gave it no intro or explanation. The recipe is minimalist to the point of vagueness. As for the name of the dish, a Google search comes up with nothing.

The word "bohnenikra" and the recipe itself, as well as its Manitoba designation, leads to the assumption that this is a Ukrainian or Russian dish. Making it for the first time, I drastically reduced the amounts and made it as a single-meal side.

The vinegar-oil-sugar combination created a kind of Slavic sweet 'n' sour sauce, which was quite tasty! The ingredients are all the type of thing you'd likely have in the house already, so it makes for an interesting variation on plain old yellow beans.

Conclusion:
Making a big batch of this and preserving it in jars might not be a bad idea next time. I could not stop eating this!

New Brunswick - Squash Bake

2010-12-26T14:31:00.001-05:00

Madame Benoît: "I like it hot for a light lunch or as a vegetable with roast pork. It is best at room temperature with cold cuts."

Recipe:
3 cups diced uncooked yellow squash
1/2 cup diced celery
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cups medium white sauce
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Arrange vegetables in a casserole in layers. Top with white sauce. Sprinkle with the buttered crumbs. Bake at 375F. about 1 hour or until squash is tender.

Review:
I love this dish. It takes the basic roast squash and loads it with complimentary flavours. Enlist your imagination or employ your favourites to make the recipe all your own.

For the "white sauce", I made a basic sauce of butter, flour and milk, and spiced it up with some smokey ground serrano chili and a generous pinch of nutmeg. Baked with the veggies and breadcrumbs, it turned into a luscious sauce.

While there isn't much here to make it a particularly regional dish, this squash bake can be enjoyed year round. Like I said, add your own twists and touches and you'll love it.

Conclusion:
A classic squash roast with a fantastic sauce. Can't go wrong.

Québec - Mashed Turnip Petits Pois

2010-12-19T10:08:00.001-05:00

Madame Benoît: "This combination will be liked even by those who never eat turnips. However, the turnip must not be overcooked."

Recipe:
1 large turnip
1/2 tsp. monosodium glutamate
1 tsp. sugar
3 - 4 tsp. butter
1/2 tsp. pepper, freshly ground
juice of 1 lemon
2 cans or packages of frozen French green peas
salt to taste

Don't peel the turnip until you're ready to cook it. Remove the peel thickly enough to eliminate the colour line that is clearly seen between the turnip and the rind: this is where the bitterness is. Slice the turnip and scald with just enough water to generously cover it. Then add the m.s.g. and sugar.

Boil rapidly, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Prolonged cooking darkens the colour of the turnip and gives it a strong flavour. Drain and wash, add the butter, pepper and lemon juice. Mash and beat well and fold in green peas, making sure they have been well drained. Salt to taste and serve.

Review:
They happened to have some rutabagas (yellow turnips / swedes) at my local market, so instead of turnips, I picked up one of these waxy biggies for this dish. Close enough.

With the butter and the lemon and the peas, you end up with a side of surprising complexity. The hit of lemon really brings this dish to life, but the butter and peas could hold their own.

Will it be liked even by those who never eat turnips? Well, you certainly end up with a colourful side that just might tempt the most reluctant of eaters. G'wan, have a bite. G'wan, g'wan, g'wan!

Conclusion:
A colourful change from mashed potatoes. Perfect for the Oakland A's fan in your life.

Saskatchewan - Corn-Stuffed Green Peppers

2010-12-16T08:33:00.001-05:00

Madame Benoît: "A natural union, as both are at their best in the early autumn. This light, custardy corn filling is the best I know for green pepper."

Recipe:
2 1/2 cups corn cut from the cobs
6 green peppers of equal size
4 eggs
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp. savory
1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper
pinch of nutmeg
1 cup fresh bread cubes (no crusts)
3 tbsp. butter

Cut a slice off the top of each pepper. Remove seeds and membrane carefully. (My mother always pared away the thin outer layer of the pepper with a sharp knife. I use a potato peeler. This is not necessary, but it makes for a delicate stuffed pepper that never has any bitterness.)

Place prepared peppers upright in a shallow buttered baking dish.

To make the filling, beat eggs and cream slightly in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Blend well and use to fill each pepper. Bake 40 minutes in a preheated 325F oven. Sprinkle top with paprika and serve in a nest of cooked and buttered or plain rice.

Review:
You would expect all manner of interesting corn recipes to come from the fields of Saskatchewan and here's one: green peppers stuffed with a filling of rich and creamy corn.

If you are not a fan of savory, you can use whatever seasonings you like. The paprika on top gave a nice little hit of spice, but again you can rack the heat up or down to your liking.

The peppers cooked to perfection as per Madame B's recipe, and I served them on a bed of brown and wild rice. Good stuff! Too bad about them Green Riders, eh!

Conclusion:
Green peppers stuffed with yellow corn is about as Saskatchewan as it gets.

Newfoundland - Blueberry Roly-Poly

2010-12-13T12:09:00.002-05:00

Madame Benoît: "Not an English steamed Roly-Poly, but a Newfie loaf pan type, sort of steamed in the middle, crusty brown all around. All types of fruits can be used. The frozen type, thawed and drained are satisfactory. Make a sauce with the juice or use 2 cups of grated unpeeled apples mixed with 1 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice."

Recipe:
2 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
4 tbsp. margarine
3/4 cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. bottled lemon juice

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the margarine and add just enough of the milk to make a soft biscuit dough. Turn on a lightly floured board. Knead lightly for a few seconds and roll to a rectangle about 9 x 12 inches. Spread with the following mixture: blend together the blueberries or another fruit of your choice, the sugar and the lemon juice.

Then roll the dough like a jelly roll, sealing ends and edges well. Place in a greased 9 x 5" loaf pan. Bake in a 400F oven 35 to 40 minutes or until deep brown on top. Serve with cream or vanilla sauce.

Review:
I don't know why I procrastinated so long before making this dish. I'm not the baking type, and this is the first "bakey" thing I've ever made from scratch.

Having scraped through the ordeal unscathed, it seems silly to have put this off for so long. The recipe couldn't have been easier -- none of that scary yeast business. Despite some harrowing moments with the dough, the result was not too bad for a first effort. The end product actually resembled what Madame B. described, so consider it a success.

You get a thick, buttery dough to work with (lesson learned: roll it flatter than you think you should).

For the filling, I mixed fresh blueberries, sugar, lemon juice, and a couple of tablespoons of blackcurrent preserve. Hit it with an immersion blender for a few seconds and it produced a most delicious spread! Unfortunately, a lot of the spread was lost during the rolling process (dough was too thick), but it made for a perfect topping afterwards.

Conclusion:
An easy recipe that anyone with rudimentary baking skills can pull off. Should turn out better with practice. Recommended for anxious first-time bakers.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Oilers Favorite Recipes (1980)

2010-12-03T20:03:00.002-05:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

In this installment, we roll into the second month of the current NHL season and look back at the 1980-81 season.

This time of year usually finds my best friend and I commiserating over the woeful status of our respective favourite hockey teams. In my friend's case, it is the Edmonton Oilers, who currently languish dead last in the Campbell Conference.

This cookbook captures the seminal days of the Oilers Stanley Cup dynasty of yore. In 1980, the team published a charity cookbook in the format of a media guide, complete with player photos, stats, and favourite recipes.

There is a smattering of cakes and chicken dishes, and plenty of beef. The Scandinavian component of the Oilers' roster provides some exoticism in the form of Jari Kurri's Karelian Ragout and Matti Hagman's Salmon Pie. Mark Messier serves up some carrot cake and Dave Semenko delivers Ukrainian pyrohys.

What about the Great One? Wayne Gretzky provides an MVP recipe for Stir-Fry Beef and Tomatoes, pictured above. Devastatingly simple, but delicious. This kid's going places!

Prince Edward Island - Sunshine Potatoes

2010-11-04T17:22:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "These quick, crunchy, golden brown potato cakes can be served with bacon and eggs for a quick top-of-the-stove luncheon."

Recipe:
4 large potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
salad oil

Peel potatoes, grate them on a large grater (new potatoes can be scrubbed with a stiff brush, then grated with the peels left on) and mix with salt. Pour enough salad oil into a large iron frying pan to cover the bottom and heat.

When hot, pour grated potatoes by spoonfuls into the oil. Spread as thinly as possible with a spoon. Brown on both sides, turning once only -- they take just a few minutes to cook.

Review:
Madame B. poses this recipe as a substitute for hash browns for a breakfasty kind of meal, but it is versatile enough to make a simple side dish at any time of day.

The spoonfuls of grated potato need just a bit of care when first hitting the oil. By the time you shape them into nice flat rounds, they start to hold together. A few minutes, one flip, a few minutes more, and they are done. Don't overcook, dammit!

On the Canadiana scale, I wouldn't really rank these grated potato cakes too highly. Variations (more like exact copies) of this recipe can be found among many other cuisines. I tried to up the Canadiana quotient by grinding a maple 'n' pepper spice mix into the raw grated potatoes before frying. It helped, a bit.

Conclusion:
Makes a nice change if you get sick and tired of hash browns.

Alberta - Beef Pancake

2010-10-25T16:18:00.003-04:00

R.S. Konjek: "You might be thinking 'Oh those carnivorous Albertans, is there anything they won't make out of beef?' Truth is, I have seen a similar recipe for this dish in a French-Canadian recipe book, and the dish is so straightforward that it's hard to see what makes it uniquely Albertan. Madame B. remains silent on this one, so it might be a case of her slotting it into a particular province at random."

Recipe:
2 onions, finely chopped
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
2 - 3 cups boiled leftover or roast beef, chopped
3 tbsp. meat fat
2 cups milk
3 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup flour

Mix together all the ingredients in given order and pour into a buttered baking dish. Bake in a 375F oven 25 minutes. Serve with a tomato sauce. This dish resembles a golden pancake easily unmolded. Sliced thin and served with a green salad, this pancake makes an excellent cold dish.

Review:
Regardless of its true origins, the recipe itself is straightforward enough. Chop, mix, pour, bake.

I have made this dish before and it always turned out great. This time around, I gave it a pan-Canadian twist: instead of roast beef or ground beef, I chopped up some Montreal smoked meat and some porcini mushrooms for the mix. It turned out fantastic and kept well for the next day.

The basis of the recipe could serve as the foundation for all sorts of regional variations, whatever your mood or whatever you have at hand. Go nuts!

Conclusion:
A Canadian quiche without the pastry shell? Yeah, I guess, but it's good regardless. Recommended!

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Cuisine Cooked with Beer (1960)

2010-10-21T19:55:00.001-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

In this installment we celebrate Canada's National Drink, beer!

We also take this opportunity to celebrate the publishers of this slim little recipe book, Brewers Warehousing Company Limited -- better known in Ontario by their contemporary names, Brewers Retail, or simply The Beer Store.

The company began in 1927, built on the shattered wreckage of that failed experiment in social engineering that was prohibition. The Ontario government decreed that beer would be sold through a single network of stores. However, the government did not want to operate this network itself, as was done in some other provinces. Ontario's brewers were free to organize themselves as a corporate entity, and Brewers Warehousing was born.

Back in the 60s, Brewers Warehousing produced this cookbook, a compilation of 32 recipes that include beer. Most of the recipes call for ale or lager.

Some of the recipes take on a hoity-toity international flavour. You could try whipping up some Black Forest Beer Soup, Lobster Amandine, or Lamb Chops Flandrienne. For less ambitious tastes, there are recipes for Scallops in Beer Batter, Beer Dip, Beer Glazed Spareribs, or (shudder) A Crown of Wieners.

I played it safe and tried the recipe for Shrimp in Beer. Essentially, fried shrimp and onions in a beer-and-butter sauce, served over rice. The beer used in this recipe was Sleeman Honey Brown Lager, provided courtesy of my own damn self cos I ain't got no sponsors like!

Grousing aside, the dish was tasty good. How could you go wrong with a nice honey brown? Hail Beer!

Manitoba - Honey Crunch

2010-10-18T20:09:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Similar to apple crisp, only the combination of honey and fresh lemon juice makes it something quite special. The first time I ate it in St. Boniface it was covered with thick farm cream. With it our hostess served black coffee with a stick of cinnamon in it."

Recipe:
6 - 8 medium apples
juice of 1 lemon
8 whole cloves
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup honey (buckwheat when available)
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup salted peanuts or plain walnuts

Peel and core apples, cut into thin slices. Arrange in generously buttered baking dish. Pour lemon juice on top, sprinkle with cloves and cinnamon. Then drizzle over all 2 to 3 tablespoons of the honey. Bake uncovered in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cream together the brown sugar, butter and flour. Add remaining honey. Stir in the peanuts or walnuts. Spread over hot apples. Place dish in broiler 6 inches from source of heat, broil until topping melts and browns. Cool 20 minutes. Serve with cream or ice cream.

Review:
As with any baked apple 'n' cinnamon combination, this one quickly fills the home with mouthwatering aromas. You know you're getting something good out of the oven with this one.

The honey-butter-sugar-walnut topping poured over the apple slices without any fuss. About ten minutes under the broiler transformed it into bubbling brown goodness.

Once out of the oven and having sat for 30 minutes, the hot caramel topping cooled and solidified. I guess this is the "crunch" Madame B. was referring to. Because everything underneath was soft, gooey, appley sweetness. Oh, Madame Benoît, c'est délicieux!

Conclusion:
In case there wasn't enough drooling in the above review, let me drool some more.

Warm from the oven, this dish was fantastic. It would make the perfect accompaniment to ice cream. Cool out of the fridge the next day, it was even better (always the case!). Highly recommended, makes you look like a pro without much effort.

British Columbia - Very Special Salmon Patties

2010-10-13T21:32:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "These were served at a luncheon party given on a fishing boat. I told the chef I had never had such salmon patties, so he gave me the recipe, and added "but the fish must be freshly caught." He's right! But even with canned salmon these patties are good."

Recipe:
2 cups salmon, flaked
4 eggs
2 tbsp. rich cream
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs, cut fine
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. cold water*

Combine the salmon, 2 of the eggs slightly beaten, cream, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper. Stir with the hands until thoroughly blended. Then shape into 12 flat cakes -- they are not big as they would be difficult to cook. Refrigerate for one hour.

Beat the remaining eggs with the cold water. Dip cold patties into the eggs and roll into fine dry breadcrumbs. Sauté in butter, over medium low heat, until well browned on both sides, turning only once.

Serve them as the chef did -- with a cup of chutney stirred with 3 tablespoons Scotch whisky -- or with a white sauce garnished with diced celery and parsley.

*My chef used 2 tablespoons whisky instead of water.

Review:
I'm a big fan of fish cakes, and looked forward to preparing this recipe out of The Canadiana Cookbook.

Once I got down to business, tho, there didn't seem to be anything particularly "special" about the ingredients. I used canned salmon, and did include the whisky in the egg bath as per Madame B's suggestion. Other than that, it was pretty straightforward.

Cooking for myself, I halved the ingredients and ended up with four decent sized salmon cakes. It was more than enough for a filling dinner, served up with my favourite homemade chipotle mayo and a couple o' lemon wedges.

Fish cakes are great, because you can make them according to your own taste: more spice, more herbs, whatever you like. Next time, I would make these spicier. But that's how I ride.

Conclusion:
Soft, moist, tasty salmon cakes. A bit of assembly required, but worth it!

New Brunswick - Sausage Bake

2010-10-10T09:47:00.003-04:00

Madame Benoît: "This is the name the Welsh give to this dish, which is served at what they call a 'big feed', an expression also used by New Brunswickers referring to a lobster or chicken beach party. The Germans also prepare Sausage Bake, using frankfurt sausages."

Recipe:
1 lb. fresh pork sausages
prepared mustard
nutmeg, salt and pepper
2 cups thinly sliced cooked beets
1 cup beer, preferably ale

With a sharp, pointed knife, split the port sausages lengthwise, just enough to open them. Spread each with prepared mustard, then sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. Place them in a shallow baking dish in a single row, then cover with a thick layer of beets. Pour the beer over all and bake at 400F for 30 minutes.

Serve with toasted or hot buttered French bread and a side dish of buttered green beans.

Review:
This dish seemed doomed, or at least dubious, from the start. Pairing sausages with mustard is a given, but things get weird from there. Beets, beer, nutmeg? The thought of these flavours all coming together was both fascinating and ominous.

I sliced open the sausages and layered on the toppings as per the recipe. Set them down in a fireproof pan, poured some brown ale over the whole thing, and into the oven it went.

A half hour later, there emerged something resembling that which had gone in. The beer was gone, soaked up by the sausage, leaving blackened remainders in the rest of the pan.

The whole thing looked... well, the photo speaks for itself.

As for the taste? It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good either. This one gets a failing grade and a recommendation of "stay away!" We have our first nasty recipe of The Canadiana Cookbook!

Conclusion:
I shan't be making this dish ever again, nor should you.

Ontario - Apple Omelette

2010-10-06T15:07:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The apples may be replaced by peaches, pears or other seasonal Ontario fruits and prepared in the same manner. The recipe is easily doubled."

Recipe:
2 apples
1 tbsp. rum or lemon juice
4 tbsp. fine granulated sugar
6 eggs
1 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. cold water

Peel and core apples and slice paper thin (the thinness of the apples is important as they barely cook). Add the rum or lemon juice and sugar. Mix well and let stand until ready to use.

Beat eggs with the sugar and cold water, then add the apple mixture. Cook according to directions, fold and serve.

Review:
I had a long debate with myself once, the point of contention being whether or not omelettes could be eaten at any time of day. Omelettes strictly for breakfast? Omelettes for dinner? Omelettes for late night snacking?

It was happily resolved that omelettes are A-OK, any time of day. (And the observing members of the egg marketing board punched the air!)

I have made fruit omelettes using other recipes before, but this one is the most basic, honest of them all. Apples, eggs, sugar, that's it. A splash of rum, but I'd barely call that a splash.

The paper-thin apple slices cooked through just fine, smothered in sweet eggy goodness.

Conclusion:
This omelette rocks hard. Looking forward to trying this simple recipe with other varieties of apples, pears, etc.

Nova Scotia - Lunenberg Dutch Mess

2010-10-03T16:56:00.002-04:00

Recipe:
1/2 lb. salt dry cod
6 large potatoes
2 oz. salt pork
butter, size of egg
2 onions
1 tbsp. vinegar
2 or 3 tbsp. cream

Tear cod in small pieces. Wash thoroughly and soak in cold water 3 or 4 hours. Peel potatoes and cut in six or eight strips. Remove fish from water and cook potatoes in water in which fish has been soaked. When potatoes are half done add fish and cook until potatoes are tender. Drain.

Place on platter and sprinkle with pepper. Dice pork into small pieces and fry until brown. Add butter, vinegar and cream, let come to a boil and pour over fish and potatoes. Serve with applesauce.

Review:
So long as you have enough time to soak the salt cod in advance -- I like to give it a good overnight soak at the minimum -- the rest of this recipe is easy to whip up.

Everything goes well together here. You end up with a tasty combo of soft potatoes, mellow cooked cod (not salty at all), tiny pork bits (there's your salt) and the creamy onion topping. I used baking potatoes cooked just long enough for them to start breaking into smooshy pieces.

Pile the whole (Dutch) mess onto a serving dish and let your diners have at it!

Conclusion:
Comfort food doesn't get more comforting than this. Recommended!

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - Les Producteurs toqués de l'île d'Orléans (2006)

2010-09-30T10:36:00.001-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

This dual-language cookbook is entitled Farmers in Chef Hats in English.

While relatively recent (only a few years old), it joins the Cookbooks From the Edge of Time because it is one of my favourite recipe books, ever.

This cookbook celebrates the bounty of food and drink produced by all manner of farmers, fishermen, vintners, brewers, chefs and other wonderful people who live and work on the island of Orleans, just outside Quebec City.

I have been lucky enough to visit the island twice in as many years. It is a paradise unto itself. I have eaten there, drank there, and gone for epic bike rides and late night drives all along the 66km perimeter road that ties the island together.

This is a great cookbook, packed with locally-derived recipes using the best local products. The ones that I keep coming back to are Jos Paquet's fish ragout, La ferme d'OC's duck breast with blackberry honey, and Ferme Louis Gosselin's creamy Brussels sprouts (yes!).

Best of them all is Chantal Nolin's baked pumpkin soup, a deliciously creamy-cheezy-pumpkiny stew baked right inside the pumpkin. Délicieux!

More info can be had here.

Québec - Pâté Chinois

2010-09-27T17:51:00.002-04:00

R.S. Konjek: "Another recipe for which Madame B. provided no comment, but Pâté Chinois plays a big role in popular Quebecois cuisine and deserves some introduction.

"Known throughout the English-speaking world as Shepherd's Pie, the simple beef-corn-mashed potatoes combination is known as Chinese Pie in Québec. This name has been around for so long that no one can pinpoint the exact origin.

"There have been book-length studies written about this dish and its origins!

"Restaurants host festivals in its honour!

"Pâté Chinois truly enjoys popular status in Canadian cuisine. One sample and you'll know why."

Recipe:
1 - 2 cups cooked left-over beef, chopped, or 1 lb. minced beef
3 tbsp. meat fat
2 large onions, minced
1/2 tsp. savory
salt and pepper to taste
1 can creamed corn
4 cups mashed potatoes

Melt the fat and brown the onion over high heat. Add the cooked or raw meat, savory, salt and pepper. Stir over medium heat 3-4 minutes.

Place in a baking dish. Pour the corn over the meat and top with potatoes mashed with milk. If you like, a small piece of butter may be added. Smooth top with a knife, making pretty designs and dot with butter. Bake in a 375F oven for 20 minutes.

Review:
I must confess, about 15 years ago I had a serious shepherd's pie problem. Some might call it an addiction. Whenever I was out for dinner or down at pub, I'd order it, luxuriating in the perfect combination of savoury meat, sweet corn, and soft mashed potatoes.

I had to give the stuff up cold turkey or risk turning into a shepherd's pie myself. It has been years since I've had the stuff.

A decade of abstinence was finally ended on a recent trip to Québec. One bite, and the passion was reignited like something akin to a propane tank explosion. Oh, pâté chinois... where did our love go? Let us never again be apart!

The recipe is a no-brainer. I nailed it pretty good on my first attempt. Hard to screw up three basic components layered in a pan and warmed through.

Conclusion:
Another Canadian classic.

After a decade of abstinence, the shepherd's pie fast is broken. I CAN LIVE AGAIN!

Saskatchewan - Saskatoon Applesauce

2010-08-15T18:51:00.001-04:00

Recipe:
Wash and cut in four, 6 to 8 apples, place in saucepan with 1/2 cup water and 1 1/2 to 2 cups Saskatoon jam or jelly. Cover. Simmer until tender. Pass through food mill or sieve. Serve cold with ice cream or whipped cream.

Review:
No message from Madame B. for this recipe, so here's a bit about Saskatoons, which are a kind of blueberry that grow throughout western Canada.

Native Canadians used these berries to make pemmican. The name derives from the Cree word misâskwatômina, and it was these berries that gave the city of Saskatoon its name. I have been told that Saskatoons are comparable to the wild blueberries that grow in other parts of Canada.

Outside of western Canada, frozen Saskatoon berries are available in select markets, and the Saskatoon jam used in this recipe was easy to find.

The recipe was quick and simple, and yielded a good quantity of sweet, purply applesauce. It was great over ice cream.

Conclusion:
This applesauce makes a nice change from the usual. Looking forward to trying it with a roast of meat.

Ontario - Peach Sour Cream Pie

2010-08-08T20:28:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "An equal quantity of canned peaches can be used for this open pie in the winter, but the velvety texture and blush color of fresh peaches will be lost."

Recipe:
1 cup dairy sour cream
grated peel of 1/2 an orange
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks, well beaten
unbaked 8-inch pie shell
2 tbsp. flour
2 1/2 cups peeled, sliced peaches

Blend the sour cream, peel, brown sugar and salt, then stir in the egg yolks. Sprinkle bottom of pie shell with 1 tablespoon of the flour.

Pour in peaches and sprinkle with remaining flour. Pour sour cream mixture over all. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350F and bake 30 minutes. Let cool.

Review:
It's peach season in Canada. You can't walk into a market without falling over baskets of them. Local peach festivals are kicking off from one province to another.

This week, I finally got around to preparing this pie recipe from The Canadiana Cookbook. An entire basket of fresh peaches was sliced up and packed into this pie. The sour cream mixture was delicious enough on its own and made for some quality bowl licking action.

Despite almost triggering the fire alarm in the early going (don't ask), I pulled it off! After baking, I chilled the pie in the fridge for most of the day and sampled a slice after dinner. Then another. The pie was delicious, sweet and creamy. Another winner from Madame B!

Conclusion:
There's still plenty of time for you to make this pie with fresh peaches. Go now!

Québec - Sucre à la Crème

2010-08-02T13:02:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "In French Québec there are as many recipes for this maple fudge as there are bean recipes in Boston. This one is superb."

Recipe:
1 cup maple syrup
3 cups light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp. baking powder
1 cup milk and 1 cup 35% cream
-or-
2 cups 15% cream
pinch of salt
1 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
nuts to taste

Place all ingredients except the last three in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. The syrup will swell at the beginning of the cooking, but it will soon go down.

The fudge will be done when a candy thermometer reaches 240F, or when a drop of it in cold water remains soft. Let the fudge cool, then add butter, vanilla and nuts, and stir until creamy. Spread into a buttered pan.

Review:
So there I was, stirring this concoction for maple fudge as it warmed on the stovetop. As per the recipe, the syrup did indeed swell up, all the way to the top of the large saucepan... and over. Sugary goo ran down the sides and onto the stove.

Then it began to boil.

Despite a constant stirring effort, the boiling syrup began to pop and leap and splatter everywhere. The stove, the counter, my hands and clothes, and the floor. Can't say I don't have me some wild, sticky times with Madame B!

In the end, the syrup cooked down into a thick, taffee-like substance. I think I let it cool too long -- by the time it got into the pan, it was starting to harden. I packed it down and left it to cool all the way. Turning my attention to the large saucepan, I scraped out every last bit of the delicious fudge and devoured it.

A few hours later, I cut into the fudge. "Superb" is just the start of it! Sweet, rich maple fudge. This is one of those "once you've tried it, you can't stop eating it" dishes. If it were any less dense you'd want to smear it all over.

[long pause]

Line crossed?

Conclusion:
Big mess, Big taste! Totally worth it. And the clean-up wasn't so bad, all things considered.

Nova Scotia - Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

2010-07-31T08:06:00.018-04:00

Madame Benoît: "A Nova Scotia specialty which has a feeling of spring. Use with thinly sliced cucumbers or fresh garden lettuce."

Recipe:
3 tbsp. cider vinegar
4 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 cup sour cream

Mix until well blended. Keep refrigerated. Blend into salad or cucumbers.

Review: It's cuke season and my mom's garden is bursting with them. Whenever I visit, I get to take home armloads of the little green guys.

I'd almost run out of ways to prepare them until discovering this quick 'n' easy salad recipe. It took all of two minutes to whip the dressing together, and it tasted great.

To remove some of the liquid from the cucumbers, Madame B. suggests that you slice them thinly, then press them under a heavy weight for a couple of hours. This squeezes out the cuke juice and leaves them nice and dry. I prefer chunky-chunks.

Conclusion:
Homemade salad dressings are a no-brainer. Ditch the store-bought crap and keep it real.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - French Recipes North Americans Love Best (1977)

2010-07-25T20:12:00.001-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

Pour the Pernod, you lovers of French cuisine. Here's a collection for the serious gourmand.

In the 1970s, French cuisine was at the height of its powers, and French restaurants were the height of the gastronomic scene. Montréal-born cook and caterer Pamela Sancton invited fifty of her city's great French chefs to submit recipes for the dishes that their customers liked best. It took over three years for Sancton to compile and personally test each recipe, but the effort was worth it. Her resulting cookbook (subtitled "Montreal's great chefs share their most popular dishes") is a treasure-trove of French cuisine.

The big-name dishes are all here: Coq au Vin, Cassoulet, Frogs' Legs, Escargots, Onion Soup, and four different varieties of soufflé.

You can see I tried one of the soufflé recipes, this one from Chef Joseph Séguin of Le Jardin Saint-Denis, which in 1977 was located at 1615 Rue Saint-Denis (the restaurant is long gone, the location is now a chocolate shoppe). A simple ham and cheese soufflé, it turned out lovely. Chapeau, Chef Séguin, wherever you may be!

I look forward to trying many more of the recipes in this collection, overindulgence in butter be damned!

Northwest Territories - Moose Stew

2010-07-20T08:39:00.002-04:00

R.S. Konjek: I have to be upfront and admit that this recipe actually calls for reindeer meat. However since none was readily available, and moose meat was, I made the substitution.

Recipe:
1 1/2 to 2 pounds moose (or reindeer) meat
2 tbsp. salad oil
1 tbsp. butter
1 large onion, minced
1 tbsp. flour
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup white wine
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 cup water or consommé
1/8 tsp. pepper
a pinch of rosemary
a pinch of thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Cut the meat into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes. Chop the onion. Mince and crush the garlic with the salt using the flat of a knife.

Heat the oil in a heavy metal saucepan, add the butter. When it is bubbling, add the meat and brown quickly over high heat. Remove from the fat and set aside. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Add the onions to the fat remaining in the pan. Stir over low heat until coated with the fat. Add the flour and stir until a good brown color. Remove from the heat.

Add the garlic, wine, tomato paste, water or consommé, pepper, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. Stir over medium heat, until boiling. Add the meat and the parsley. Cover and simmer 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is tender. Serve with mashed potatoes or boiled rice, garnished with parsley.

Review:
I have cooked a lot of stews over the years, and this is one of the simplest recipes. Don't keep the meat in the pan for too long when browning at the start. Moose is already a tough meat to begin with, and reindeer probably is too. Overcooking at the start will result in shoe-leather stew.

Despite the many ingredients involved, they didn't overpower the meat, which "tasted much like beef," as they say. It's got a strong meaty flavour, but not too gamey. Remember to give the meat a thorough washing first to get all the blood out.

The thing about moose meat is that it cannot be sold in markets (in Ontario, anyway). You have to hunt it yourself, or be fortunate enough to know someone who does, or knows someone else who does -- that's how I scored some. To try it at least once is worth befriending your local moose hunter.

Conclusion:
It doesn't get more Canadian than this. I loved it!

Alberta - Clifford's Pioneer Omelet

2010-07-16T17:44:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "In the summer he serves this with a bowl of minced chives. In the winter he uses tops of green onions, chopped fine."

Recipe:
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. salad oil
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
4 - 6 slices bacon, cut in four
4 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the butter and salad oil. Add the potatoes. Cook over medium high heat, stirring often, until they are golden brown. Add the bacon. Stir until bacon starts to brown. Add the cheese. Mix and pour on top the eggs, seasoned to taste and beaten with a fork. Cook, pushing the eggs toward the middle as they cook. Serve as soon as ready, with a bowl of chives and homemade chili sauce.

Review:
There's a section in the Alberta chapter of The Canadiana Cookbook where Madame B. presents a selection of recipes that were given to her by men. Men! From Alberta! Most of the recipes are rudimentary, like ol' Clifford's bacon and eggs dish above. The notion of rugged western men in the kitchen must have been an indicator of monumental progress at the time.

Scrambled eggs was one of the first things I learned to make, and this dish was a no-brainer. Don't worry, there are nightmarish things like head cheese still to come, so I don't mind an easy-peasy recipe once in a while.

I like how ol' Clifford slid in a batch of "homemade chili sauce" at the end of his recipe. Having none at hand, I crumbled in a couple of dried little red chilis for a heat boost.

Conclusion:
Eggs, bacon, potatoes, cheese. Get these into a heated pan in any combination and they should turn out fine.

Manitoba - Honey Bran Muffins

2010-07-13T07:42:00.001-04:00

Recipe:
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup cooking bran
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup liquid honey
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix dry ingredients. Combine egg, honey, milk and melted butter. Make a depression in dry ingredients. Pour in liquids and stir quickly until just mixed but still lumpy. Fill well greased muffin tins two thirds full. Bake at 400F until browned (20 to 25 minutes).

Review:
A recipe so simple that Madame B. didn't even write an intro for it.

One thing I'm enjoying about cooking through The Canadiana Cookbook in its entirety is the variety of dishes. I've never baked muffins before. Hell, I've hardly ever baked anything before, only the occasional loaf of homemade bread. So it was fun giving this recipe a try.

This has got to be one of the easiest recipes in the book. The end result was a bowl of happy little muffins in less than an hour's time from start to finish. The measured ingredients above produced nine of them.

Conclusion:
Perfect recipe for home bakers or lesser mortals, whether for breakfast, brunch, etc.

Newfoundland - Cod Tongues and Cheeks

2010-07-10T07:09:00.019-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The heavy jowls of the cod have in them lots of good meals, such as the tongues and cheeks. These rolled in cornmeal or fine breadcrumbs, fried in bacon fat or butter until light brown, are quite a treat. Did you know that the tongue is not really the tongue, as a Newfoundlander taught me, but the blob of meat at its base. The cheek is the meat that is cut from the jaw bone. When fishermen fry the cheeks they call them 'pork chops'".

Review:
Either I'm an oblivious fool (and it wouldn't be the first time this fact was borne out) or cod cheeks and tongues are just not the sort of dish that folks outside the Maritimes eat a lot of. Either way, it's a shame.

Having picked up a bag of cod cheeks -- about a pound -- from a local seller, I prepared them the other night. First, I rolled them in a mix of corn meal and flour with a dash of cayenne. In a medium-hot pan of 1/2 butter and 1/2 light olive oil, I fried the pieces for a few minutes each side. That was all it took.

The end result was a plate of delicious fish nuggets. The cheeks were solid chunks of white meat, not flaky, totally awesome. It's a shame that it took me so long to discover this wicked little snacky treat -- or a full meal if accompanied by salad/fries/slaw/whatever.

(In a regrettable attempt at decorative presentation, I laid the cheeks down on a bed of spinach leaves with some small tomato halves. Yes, I need to stop attempting decorative presentations and stick to the basics!)

Conclusion:
Oh Madame B, another winner! This dish -- for sure this dish -- is one I will definitely make again and again.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - A House Full of Grits (1988)

2010-07-07T08:02:00.007-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

In this installment we travel back to commemorate the biggest landslide in Canadian political history.

In October 1987, the New Brunswick Liberal Party led by Frank McKenna won every seat in the provincial legislature, wiping out every other party. In effect, New Brunswick was briefly a one-party province. The only other time a single party won every seat was the 1935 PEI provincial election.

What better way to mark this ultimate triumph than with a cookbook?

The New Brunswick Women's Liberal Association compiled recipes from each of their elected members and produced A House Full of Grits: 118 Favourite Recipes from New Brunswick's 58 MLA's.

The collection is a mix of the regional cuisine of New Brunswick (lots of seafood and traditional Acadian dishes), the genuinely unique ("Bottled Deer Meat") and the mind-numbingly mundane (two different recipes for Caesar Salad).

For fun, I tried one of Premier McKenna's recipes (I mean seriously, look at that photo, those bedroom eyes, who could resist?). His recipe for Savory Scallops was simple and tasty, the scallops breaded and baked in a pan swimming in a mix of melted butter, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Mmm... savory scallops...

Prince Edward Island - Spring Vegetable Potato Cakes

2010-07-05T13:16:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Delicate and tasty prepared with fresh potatoes, also nice to give zest to leftover mashed potatoes."

Recipe:
4-6 (3 cups) mashed boiled potatoes
1 tbsp. melted butter
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
3 green onions, minced
2 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
6 tbsp. all-purpose flour

Mix all the ingredients together. Knead lightly and shape into oval balls. Place on buttered baking sheets and bake in a preheated 400F oven until golden brown.

Review:
A neat little recipe for potato cakes you can make year-round despite their name. Baking them in high heat gives them a quick browning while keeping the insides mooshy soft.

I used a special ingredient to add some more KICK: some ground Naga Jolokia, reportedly the hottest chili pepper in the world. And boy did it add kick.

These turned out to be Flaming Hot Spring Vegetable Potato Cakes. But I love it spicy, so they turned out grand.

Conclusion:
Something different from the usual mashed potatoes. You could mix in whatever you like and make them your own.

British Columbia - Molded Salmon

2010-07-01T06:01:00.024-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Not the usual jellied mold - creamy, gentle, beautifully flavored."

Recipe:
1 tbsp. unflavored gelatine
2 tbsp. cold water
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. curry powder
grated rind of 1/2 a lemon
2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup milk
2 cups cooked salmon, flaked
1/4 cup minced parsley

Sprinkle gelatine over cold water, let stand 5 minutes.

Combine egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, curry powder, butter in top of double boiler. Add the milk gradually, while beating. Cook over hot water for 6 to 8 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. Add gelatine and stir until dissolved. Add salmon and parsley. Pour into a well oiled fish mold or 1-quart mold. Refrigerate until firm, then keep covered until ready to serve. Serve on a nest of lettuce.

Review:
Something special for Canada Day. A Devoted Reader from Riverside, Illinois sent me a gift of fudge in a maple leaf-shaped container. After devouring the fudge, I kept the container and used it here as a mould for this classic Anglo-Indian-inspired dish.

This was easier to make than I thought it would be, rudimentary homemade double boiler and all. Chilled the salmon mixture overnight and tucked in the next day.

Oh Madame B, would you ever steer us wrong? Jamais! This is delicious cold curried fish, perfect for sandwiches, salads, you name it. This might be my favourite recipe so far.

Conclusion:
Make this dish. Make it for your next potluck. Make it for your next garden party, dinner party, wedding party. Whatever. It's awesome. Happy Canada Day!

New Brunswick - Fish Roe

2010-06-29T08:07:00.003-04:00

Madame Benoît: "It is difficult to find a good explanation of 'how to' when it comes to fish roe, but you can trust these. Fish roe, which consists of thousands of tiny eggs clustered together, is an excellent food and generally considered a delicacy. Shad roe is best known but that of other fish is also good."

Recipe:
BAKED ROE: Dip the roe in milk. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roll in dry bread or cracker crumbs. Dot generously with butter or other fat and bake in very hot oven (450F) for 10 to 15 minutes.

BROILED ROE: Brush the roe with melted fat and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on greased broiler and cook about 5 minutes, turning once.

FRIED ROE: Sprinkle the roe with salt and pepper. Roll in flour. Dip in beaten egg, roll in crumbs, and fry in deep fat 360F for 3 to 4 minutes. It may also be pan fried. Serve with lemon.

Review:
Having never eaten any sort of fish roe before, there was a lot of hemming and hawing about how to approach this one.

Ultimately, I found a can of pressed cod roe at a local all-things-British shoppe and went with the basic fried roe recipe above.

I pan fried it like a crab cake (one very hefty crab cake). The breading was nicely browned in no time, so I lowered the temp to let it cook through for a few more minutes. Served it with some generic cole slaw in a bag (embarrasing!) and a couple of dollops of homemade chipotle mayo.

Inside the breading was a very delicate fish pâté, light pink in colour. The taste was also light and not overly fishy. The best description I could give is that it was like eating very soft fish pâté. Rather snooty, Major. Not hard to see why Mme B would describe this as a delicacy.

Conclusion:
Surprisingly tasty. This would make an excellent spread.

Saskatchewan - Succotash

2010-06-22T21:45:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The famous Indian pudding made with lye corn and fresh corn combined in a white sauced flavored with lots of fresh parsley."

Recipe:
2 cups corn cut from the cobs
1 can lye or hominy corn
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
pinch of sage
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup milk or cream
2 tsp. cornstarch

Put the corn, lye corn or hominy, butter, salt, pepper, sugar, sage and water in a saucepan. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat, 8 to 10 minutes. By then, the water should be partly evaporated and the corn tender. Gradually add the milk, mixed with the cornstarch. Cook until creamy.

Review:
For anyone who has ever wondered about that famous line from Looney Tunes, here it is! And I still have no idea what that line means!

Anyway, long before Mel Blanc came along, succotash was a simple way to cook corn or beans. Essentially, it's creamy boiled corn. Today, foodies have seized upon this classic Native dish and come up with all manner of succotash variations using different vegetables, but here, Madame B goes with the basic corn succotash.

I used white hominy corn to give the dish that "peaches and cream" look. Threw in lots of finely chopped parsley and dug in. Holy creaminess. This is a heart attack in a bowl, meant to be eaten sparingly! Would make a wicked little side dish, tho.

Conclusion:
Délicieux! (almost too much so)

Ontario - Celery Soup

2010-06-20T22:09:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Made with crisp, deep green celery."

Recipe:
3 cups celery (stalks and leaves)
2 potatoes, medium-size
4 cups water or consommé
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup parsley, chopped fine
3 tbsp. butter
1 cup hot milk

Dice the celery fine. Grate the potatoes. Bring the water or consommé to a boil. Add the celery, potatoes, pepper, salt, parsley and butter. Cover and simmer for one hour over medium heat. When ready to serve, add one cup hot milk.

In the old days, celery soup was flavoured with 1/2 teaspoon anise, added with the salt and pepper.

Review:
"There's one thing you never underestimate if you're smart -- one thing you never, ever underestimate... SOUP."

I totally underestimated this soup.

First off, it was far too easy to make. Heat some stock, throw in some celery, potatoes and butter, (and having no fresh parsley, I went with chopped chives). Cover and simmer for an hour, then finish with the hot milk.

I'm a huge fan of soup, but this one seemed too basic, too easy. Come on... celery soup? Would something like this really be the sort of thing worth rediscovering? I was skeptical.

My skepticism began to wane when the aroma of the soup wafted out of the kitchen. Wow! It was fantastic!

Suddenly the minutes began to drag. Anticipation grew. After one hell of a long hour, it was finally time to dive in...

O, Madame Benoît! C'est délicieux!

This soup rocked. The only thing disappointing about it is that I cut all the ingredients in half and now there's nothing left. A fitting punishment.

Conclusion:
Never, ever underestimate soup!

Nova Scotia - Apple Bread of the Valley

2010-06-17T06:49:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The unpeeled grated apple gives the flavor and replaces the liquid. This quick bread will keep for 1 month wrapped in foil and refrigerated."

Recipe:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup grated apple with skin left on
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup walnuts

Cream shortening, sugar and eggs together until very light and creamy. Add grated apple and sifted dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir in walnuts. Bake 1 hour at 350F. Cool on rack. Serve with butter and marmalade.

Review:
Nova Scotians love their apples, especially in the Annapolis Valley. This is a hearty bread, ready to take on as much butter, cream or jam as you want to spread on it.

A few minutes after the dough went into the oven, my home was filled with a warm, appley-nutty scent. My salivary glands switched to "lupine" setting as the anticipation grew!

I went all-brown for this bread: brown sugar and brown flour. The result was a thick, brown bread with lots of walnut flavour. The apples didn't really come through as much as I thought they would, but that served to highlight the walnuts. You could almost call this a walnut loaf with a hint of apple.

Conclusion:
As Mme B said, this is the kind of bread that could last for a long time if wrapped well. Solid bread, this.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - From Saskatchewan Homemakers' Kitchens (1955)

2010-06-14T21:01:00.002-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

In this installment we travel back to the Fabulous Fifties.

In 1955, the Saskatchewan Homemakers' Clubs produced this cookbook in celebration of Saskatchewan's golden jubilee as a Canadian province.

This 2004 reprint of From Saskatchewan Homemakers' Kitchens contains many familiar features of community cookbooks from bygone eras: the charming handwritten recipes, the wildly inappropriate ethnic caricatures, and the complete and total disregard for health-conscious eating. It'll razz your berries, cats.

Check out the chapter on salads for a classic trip to Fiftiesville. Marshmallows, mayonnaise, Jello... all everyday ingredients for a solid salad back in the day. These items keep reappearing, page after page. The mind reels!

...and eventually curiosity takes over. Just for kicks, I tried making a couple of the "salads". First, Cottage Cheese Salad. A big scoop of cottage cheese mixed with chopped cherries and walnuts, placed on a pineapple slice and served atop a leaf of lettuce. Simple, tasty fun.

Then there was the Jellied Potato Salad. Holy moly. Diced cooked potatoes, a slice of hard-boiled egg and some chopped little hot peppers, all encased in a dome of lemon Jello.

I could stare at that thing for hours, my sensibilities wracked in a maelstrom of fascination and revulsion. Eventually, I tried a few bites...

See ya later, alligator!
After a series of grotesque, feverish nightmares, crocodile!

Québec - Apple Pork Chops

2010-06-12T07:15:00.002-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The apples keep the chops moist and tender. I sometimes use 6 to 7 apples, then use 1 tablespoon sugar. Serve very hot."

Recipe:
6 pork chops
pork chop fat
2 tsp. butter
salt and pepper, to taste
3 unpeeled apples, with cores
1 tsp. sugar
cinammon or ground cloves

Cook the chops using melted fat trimmed from the meat and 1 teaspoon of the butter. Season to taste and set on a hot platter. Keep warm.

Slice the apples 1/2-inch thick and add to the pan with the other 1 teaspoon of butter, the sugar and a few pinches of cinammon or cloves. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, turning once or twice, until some of the apples are browned. Arrange them around the chops and serve.

Review:
Get ready to toss the applesauce. This recipe is the way pork and apples were meant to be eaten. Old school!

Good pork chops are a no-brainer -- I did a couple of rib chops in their own fat, three minutes per side over medium-high heat. The extra time they spent under wraps ensured they got cooked through. They turned out perfect.

Can't say I've sautéed apple slices before, but I can say that these slices made a great accompaniment to the pork. I might slice the apples just a bit thicker and let them cook even slower next time. And there will be a next time. This is a great dish, quick, simple and...

Conclusion:
Délicieux!

Yukon - Max Gussie's Wild Goose

2010-06-09T08:01:00.002-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Max Gussie's Wild Goose is a perfect guide for birds, and how to cook them. The following is adapted from his recipe which he sent me."

Recipe:
To roast your goose, cut and core as many unpeeled fresh apples as needed to make 5 cups or use 3 cups dried apples soaked 1 hour in cold water to cover.

Take a large brown paper bag. Make several holes in the bottom of the bag to allow grease to drain out.

Fill the cleaned bird with apples. Salt and pepper inside and out. Make a thick bed of apples in bottom of bag and sit goose in it. Close bag. Place in a large pan -- at home bake 3 hours in a 275F oven; at camp cook 2 hours over grey coals. The bird will brown nicely without basting because of the holes in the bag.

Review:
I've never roasted an entire bird before. There I said it. As a dashing bachelor, there's just no call for it. No turkey, no chicken, and goshum no goose.

Certainly, I never imagined my first time roasting a bird would be like this, sticking the thing in a paper bag like some illicit substance. (Jumbo paper bag provided by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, one free with the purchase of...anything.)

Hokay, I chopped the apples and stuffed the goose and chopped some more apples and filled up the bag, poked it with holes and put it in the oven. After three hours, what would emerge? A pale, sickly looking thing? A burnt cinder? Something entirely indescribable?

At the appointed time, I cautiously tore the bag open to reveal (shock!) a golden goose, all juicy on the inside and laced with audacious fattiness throughout. Max Gussie, wherever you may roam, I give you thanks for a goose perfectly roasted.

Conclusion:
One could put on quite a show of placing the bagged dish before a table full of dinner guests, tearing the bag open with a flourish, and demonstrating some deft carving skills for the delight of the audience. A very alpha dish.

Northwest Territories - Potted Char

2010-06-06T15:40:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Here is my own creation, which is very good as a spread or for cocktails."

Recipe:
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. char
1 cup clam juice or white wine
1 cup water
juice of half a lemon or 1 tbsp. bottled lemon
1 small onion, chopped
1 carrot, diced
1 tbsp. parsley, chopped
1/2 to 1 cup, melted butter

Clean fish. Place in saucepan with the clam juice or white wine, the water, lemon juice, onion, carrot, and parsley. Simmer 20 minutes. Cool in bouillon. Remove skin and bones, break into pieces. Place in earthenware pot. Pour melted butter on top. Cover and bake in 350F oven, for 30 minutes. Cool, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Potted char will keep two to four weeks refrigerated.

Review:
It's a three-step process of simmering, baking and chilling this fish, but well worth it. At the end of it, this simple recipe leaves you with a nice pot of fish and butter ready to eat.

I took Madame B's advice and spread the fish over halves of toasted garlic bread, topped with some red onions and capers. Oh, Madame Benoît! C'est délicieux!

Not sure if I would leave this dish in the fridge up to four weeks, but then again it's going to be gobbled up pretty fast, so preservation is not a concern.

Conclusion:
One char produces plenty of spread to go around and it tastes great. Looking forward to a char sammy tomorrow for lunch!

British Columbia - English Poached Salmon

2010-06-02T08:09:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "A most attractive way of serving salmon for a buffet supper or garden party."

Recipe:
4 - 6 lbs. fresh salmon
2 cups milk
2 cups water
1 tbsp. salt
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. dill seeds
1 cup mayonnaise
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 peeled lemon, thinly sliced
2 carrots, finely shredded

Wrap salmon in a cheesecloth. Bring the milk, water, salt, bay leaves, parsley, basil and dill seeds to a fast boil. Boil 5 minutes. Add salmon and simmer, covered, over medium low heat, for 20 to 35 minutes.

Let fish cool in its water. Then remove from water, but do not unwrap. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

To serve, unwrap, remove the skin, place on a silver platter, garnish by spreading mayonnaise and making a long line of overlapping lemon slices on top. Grate the eggs and sprinkle them over the whole fish. Place the finely shredded carrots all around to form a red crown.

Review:
Vegetarians and professional photographers are surely recoiling at the horrific image above. My apologies for this dark scene.

Anyway, here's a big cold fish on a platter -- a cherished symbol of our nation's British origins!

Starting from the top of the salmon's back, it bears a coat of hard-boiled egg slices, a spread of homemade chipotle mayo, lemon slices, and a lunatic's pastiche of dill, baby carrots and MORE LEMON SLICES. I was almost too embarrassed to post this photo, but we must accept no defeats and press forward!

About the salmon: it was delish. Nothing in the poaching liquid left a distinct imprint upon the fish, so the salmony flavour stood out with every bite. The meat was very soft, and I must say... after a few bites of this fish, one might find themselves drifting off into their own little Edwardian garden party reverie, like certain Anglophile food bloggers who shall go unnamed.

Conclusion:
Bring a massive poached salmon like this one to your next buffet party and it will assuredly get everyone's aunties clucking. God save the Queen!

Mmmm... Beer and Butter Tarts!

2010-05-30T11:12:00.003-04:00

Madame Benoît et Moi has been added to Beer and Butter Tarts - a Canadian Food & Drink Blog Aggregator.

Run by Sheryl Kirby and Greg Clow (publishers of TasteTO.com), Beer and Butter Tarts promotes Canadian cuisine and the folks who write about it, by compiling content from food and drink blogs across Canada.

The site presents a fantastic cross-section of news, info, recipes, commentary and more. Check it out!

Alberta - Beef and "Red Eye"

2010-05-29T10:02:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "I remember my mixed feelings the first time I was served a superb slice of roast prime rib surrounded with big baked beans in Calgary. I wondered how I could possibly eat them together. One bite of each made me understand the why of this luscious Western fare."

Recipe:
2 lbs. large navy beans or red kidney beans
1 cup tomato ketchup
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. dry mustard
2 cups canned tomatoes
1 lb. fatty salt pork, in 1" cubes
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tsp. salt

Wash the beans, cover generously with cold water in a bowl and soak overnight. The next morning, pour beans and water into a saucepan, adding more cold water so they'll be well covered. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat 30 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients, bring back to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat 2 hours. Uncover and cook over medium heat 1 - 1 1/2 hours, or until beans are tender and sauce is thick, then taste for seasoning.

These beans freeze very well and can be kept 3 - 4 months. Place uncovered and still frozen into a 375F oven until hot.

Review:
An easy-peasy recipe for a kind of Alberta-style chili.

These beans would make a solid meal all their own. The sweet tomato sauce really makes them "luscious." It is slightly alarming that this hearty dish requires beef on the side. Beef on the side - only in Alberta!

I made some short ribs rather than prime rib. Using a recipe provided by the fabulous Marcia Spence of Toronto, I braised the ribs first in water with a dash of vinegar in a 350F oven for just under an hour, then spread some of the bean sauce over them. Nice.

Conclusion:
A hearty and very filling meal, Alberta style. A good idea if you want to cook a big meal if you don't want to make a massive roast. Glad I made enough beans for freezing.

Saskatchewan - Butter Balls Chicken Soup

2010-05-26T23:04:00.004-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The butter balls, very tiny dumplings, are called rivels in the West and dropsley in Ontario. This combination makes a perfect light supper. I sometimes replace the chicken soup in this recipe with a can of consommé and an equal amount of water."

Recipe:
3 lb. chicken
1/2 cup chopped celery leaves
1 bay leaf
10 peppercorns
1 tsp. salt
5 cups hot water
1 cup diced celery
2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

2 tbsp. butter
2 eggs
5 - 6 tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. salt

Cut chicken into portions, place in a saucepan with celery leaves, bay leaf, peppercorns, the one teaspoon of salt and the water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for about one hour, or until chicken is tender. Strain, then return broth to saucepan. Cut chicken into small pieces, add to broth with celery and parsley, then simmer.

To make the butter balls, cream butter, add eggs and beat. Gradually add flour and the 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Beat hard until whole is like a very soft batter. Drop by 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoonfuls into broth, cover and let stand 5 minutes over low heat.

Review:
I daresay that homemade chicken soup is a cornerstone of western civilization. I also daresay that I am prone to hyperbole on a tummy full of homemade chicken soup.

My mom makes a soup just like this (who's mom hasn't at some point?). It is simple, using the most basic ingredients already stocked in most kitchens, and the result is delicious.

The so-called butter balls, known by as many names as there are languages to bestow a name to them, are a fun addition. I used whole wheat flour, and yes, may have gotten carried away when forming them. No, Madame B, those are not "very tiny" dumplings.

I also lowered the salt content to my own preference, and this soup turned out great.

There is no need to rescue this dish from the mists of time - it has never lost its popularity.

Conclusion:
Anyone who doesn't like this soup is a bad, bad person. No seriously.

Manitoba - Pemmican (Chippewa)

2010-05-24T12:39:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "I found this way of making this early Canadian food on the Prairies in the Prairie Pantry cook book. I had some venison smoked at a local smoke house, but dried beef, when you can find a good one, also works very well."

Recipe:
1 lb. dried beef or smoked venison
3/4 lb. dried crushed chokecherries*
1/2 lb. fresh beef suet, chopped fine
1/2 cup light brown or natural sugar

Pass all through meat grinder, except the sugar. Add the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Pack in a bowl and keep covered and refrigerated. Serve with sourdough bread.

*I dry my own chokecherries in a 200F oven. They are usually easy to find in Health Food stores. Dried currants can replace them, or fresh lingonberries when available.

Review:
A lot of grinding, mixing and mashing goes into making this traditional Native Canadian dish. Pemmican - dried ground meat mixed with animal fat and sweet berries - was a staple of the Ojibway (Chippewas) and Cree of central Canada. European traders picked up on the fact that it could be packed, stored and conveyed over great distances with ease and without going bad.

Got in a light evening workout putting everything through the meat grinder, then mixing in the sugar and mashing it all into a pastey consistency. By the following day, the Pemmican had firmed up.

I served it in a bowl, scooped out in spoonfuls almost like ice cream. It was sweet, meaty and filling. Heavy on the protein and sugars (maybe a little oversweetened with that brown sugar). Good thing I topped it with that light salad. And lots left over - I'll be eating this stuff for days.

Conclusion:
Fun to make (he says now). Interesting to try. Now I can say I did it.

Newfoundland - Pickled Cod

2010-05-21T06:56:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Pickled and marinated fish, should be prepared with fresh fish. Frozen fish do not give satisfactory results. In this recipe, halibut or cod steaks can replace the fresh cod."

Recipe:
3 lbs. cod
pepper
flour
1 cup salad or olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
10 peppercorns
3 bay leaves
1 cup pitted olives (green or ripe)
1/2 cup cider or wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt

Rub the fish on both sides with pepper, then dredge with flour. Heat the salad or olive oil in a large frying pan and quickly brown the fish. When the fish is done, arrange it in a symmetrical patten in a deep glass dish.

To the oil left in the pan, add the onions, peppercorns, bay leaves, olives, vinegar and salt. Simmer for 3 minutes, then pour over the fish while still hot. Cover, cool a little and refrigerate at least 24 hours. Garnish with tomato wedges, lime or lemon quarters and parsley and serve with mayonnaise to taste.

Review:
Oh the mythical cod, the fish that launched a thousand ships. Here you are, all floured and fried and marinated and chilled... and delicious!

Can't say I've ever eaten cold fish before, but this dish was surprisingly "unfishy". There was no strong odour from the cod once plated, and the taste was very subtle beneath the rich pickling liquid.

I strayed from Madame Benoît's recipe and used whole black olives, unpitted. Now, some of you may bristle: "Seeds? COME ONNNN!" But I love these olives, and they brought a nice punch to the dish. The onions you see smothering the cod were great too, having soaked up all that briny goodness.

The only unexpected after-effect was from all the salt that went into the marinade. I try not to cook with salt whenever possible, but after gobbling down a lot of this fish, I woke up terribly thirsty in the middle of the night and had to chug an entire glass of water.

Conclusion:
This one's a keeper, and I'm looking forward to the next codly encounter.

Cookbooks From the Edge of Time - The Cook Not Mad (1831)

2010-05-19T07:20:00.008-04:00

An occasional look at other Canadian cookbooks from the past.

In this installment we have a cookbook that was published back in the days of Upper Canada.

The Cook Not Mad bills itself (deep breath): "a collection of original and selected RECEIPTS, Embracing not only the art of curing various kinds of Meats and Vegetables for future use, but of Cooking, in its general acceptation, to the taste, habits, and degrees of luxury, prevalent with the CANADIAN PUBLIC, TO WHICH ARE ADDED, Directions for preparing comforts for the Sick Room – together with sundry miscellaneous kinds of information of importance to housekeepers in general, nearly all tested by experience."

The publishers of this reprint copy declare that The Cook Not Mad is "Canada’s First Cookbook." It's a dubious claim, as they then reveal that this cookbook was basically a rip-off of a cookbook published in the United States the year before.

More intriguing however is this, from the publishers' introduction:

You will delight in the turn of phrase, the literary flavor (sic) of The Cook Not Mad. We cannot give the same whole-hearted endorsement, however, to the flavor of the food resulting from these "receipts". The reader will note that by present-day standards the instructions are very sketchy indeed. Moreover, our ingredients are different, our flour and sugar are much more refined, our eggs are larger, and our tastes are more sophisticated. For these reasons it is inadvisable and hardly possible to use the receipts as is in the 1831 edition of The Cook Not Mad.

Fact. This isn't so much a practical cookbook as it is a historical artifact. Many of the recipes are just a list of ingredients, without any indication of what to do with them.

The "sundry miscellaneous" household tips fall somewhere between common sense (No. 254: The only sure way to stop the blaze of a female's dress when accidentally caught on fire) and the bizarre (No. 266: To expel nameless intruders from children's heads).

Fortunately, the publishers were kind enough to adapt 22 of the old receipts into recipes to try at home.

I tried the recipe for "A Tasty Indian Pudding," a big baked custard with corn meal and molasses. As you could imagine, this was a hard core Britishy pudding of yore -- the sort of dessert that walks into the dining room on its own and defies anyone to take issue with its corpulence. Thick, heavy, but also tasty. As with most things, even better the following day.

An interesting glimpse into the past, this.

Prince Edward Island - Best Mashed Potatoes

2010-05-17T07:46:00.002-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Through the years, I've tried many ways of preparing mashed potatoes. These are my winners, very smooth, white and creamy. I prefer to pressure-cook my potatoes, but they can also be boiled."

Recipe:
8 potatoes, peeled and halved
4 tablespoons instant skim milk powder
1/2 to 3/4 cup commercial sour cream
1/4 teaspoon savory
1 green onion, minced (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

Boil the potatoes until they're tender, then drain and put pan back over heat until the potatoes are dry. Put them through a potato ricer over the cooking pan, add the remainder of the ingredients and beat until light and smooth.

Review:
The P.E.I. chapter of The Canadiana Cookbook offers up 19 different ways to make potatoes. Nothing else! Bit of a raw deal for the Island, but I'll try to match up the various potato recipes with interesting "sides" as we go along.

First up is Madame Benoît's favourite recipe for mashed potatoes. May is the month when fresh fiddleheads hit the markets, and you couldn't ask for a more evocative Maritime veggie combination than spuds 'n' fiddleheads. I sautéed the fiddleheads in butter and garlic.

These are white, fluffy potatoes, and the taste of the sour cream jumps up right away. In fact, I would have added even more.

Conclusion:
These spuds won't do you wrong.

New Brunswick - Pâté à la Râpure (Rappie or Râpé Pie)

2010-05-14T07:40:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "Râpé in French means grated, so in either case 'râpure' or 'rappie' indicates that fact. A great deal of French and English is mixed together in the Acadian language."

Recipe:
5 - 6 lb. fat boiling chicken
5 lbs. potatoes
2 medium onions, chopped
1 celery stick, diced
1 carrot, grated
1/4 tsp. thyme or 1 bay leaf
salt and pepper

Cut chicken into individual pieces. Place in a saucepan. Cover with cold water, bring to boil. Add onions, celery, carrot, thyme or bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until chicken is tender.

Peel and grate potatoes over a bowl of cold water. When chicken is cooked squeeze 1 or 2 cups potatoes at a time in a piece of cotton until quite dry. Place in a saucepan. When potatoes are all squeezed dry add as much boiling broth from the chicken as needed to almost cover the potatoes. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Salt lightly. Simmer over low heat about 10 minutes.

Grease generously an 8" square baking dish. Spread half the potatoes in the bottom of the pan. Bone the hot chicken and spread over the potatoes, cover with the other half of the potatoes.

Mince one small onion very finely, add 1/4 teaspoon pepper and two slices fat salt pork cut into very small dice. Blend well together. Spread on top of the potatoes. Bake 1/2 hour in a 350F oven or until top is golden brown and crisp. Serve hot.

Review:
Rappie Pie is an old-school, Acadian comfort food. It's a kind of chicken pot pie, minus the pie -- the grated potatoes take the place of the pie crust.

With all the grating and chopping and squeezing involved, not to mention the scraping of one's knuckles on one's grater, and the ouching, the whingeing, and the sighing at the inexorable march of time as one stares at one's simmering pot of grated potatoes, you want to give yourself plenty of time to prepare this dish.

Is it worth it?

Oh, Madame Benoît, it is! It so very, very is!

What you end up with is a pan packed with tasty chicken pot pie filling. Go nuts!

A truly Acadian touch is to top your pie with molasses.

My only error was that the potatoes came out still looking very grated and not nicely blended with the chicken-veggie filling. Should have cooked the potatoes on higher heat and mashed them up more before baking, I think.

Conclusion:
Rappie Pie is unique outside the Maritimes, and definitely worth trying, but give yourself several hours to get it right. I am serious. I am calm.

Nova Scotia - Porridge Meat Loaf

2010-05-11T07:20:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "This is an excellent way to use up leftover porridge. You may find it worthwhile to cook extra porridge just to make this tasty, moist Aberdeen specialty."

Recipe:
1/2 lb. minced beef
1/2 lb. minced pork or veal
1 finely chopped onion
1 thinly sliced leek (optional)
2 cups cold porridge
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. savory
1/8 tsp. thyme
1/2 cup consommé or red wine

Thoroughly mix all ingredients in a bowl. Grease a loaf pan, sprinkle with flour, and shake out excess. Pack in mixture and place in a pan filled with hot water until water comes 1 inch up side of loaf pan.

Bake at 325F about one hour, or until top is golden brown. Serve hot or cold.

Review:
Learning all the time! It was easy enough to mix all the ingredients together according to the recipe. After one hour of baking, there was no browning on top of the meat loaf, so I kept an eye on it and let it bake for another half hour. After 90 minutes, it was nicely browned on top. Even then, it was still bathing in its own juices. Moist indeed.

In the excited haste to plate and photograph the loaf, I neglected to let it sit after coming out of the oven. Wielding spatulas, I dove in and raised the loaf out of the pan... only to see the bottom half disintegrate. AIIEEEE!

So what you see above is a carefully reconstructed porridge meat loaf in the background, with the presentation slice heavy on the TPOH (tactical placement of herbs). When's the last time you saw a parsley sprig that size? Draped so brazenly, it's almost obscene.

Conclusion:
The meat loaf itself was very flavourful and very moist. Leftovers the following day tasted even better -- the flavours of the porridge and the leek really came through. If I had to do it again, I'd let it bake just a bit longer, and LET IT SIT.

Ontario - Trout in Corn Husks

2010-05-08T15:47:00.000-04:00

Madame Benoît: "This recipe is an old idea, learned from the Indians who were masters at cooking small fish in this marvellous way. I found the recipe in a fascinating book with a long title: The Family Doctor, containing a description of the principal diseases to which most persons in this country are liable, together with their treatment and cure supplied so that every man can be his own doctor. To which is appended the best health recipe for Upper Canadians by the doctor's Cook woman. It was published in Toronto in 1874.

"Because this is an open-fire cooking technique, it is suitable for the modern-day backyard barbecue as well as open fires on camping trips. You can use trout, or any pan fish, such as perch."

Recipe:
Clean and scale the fish, and place a lump of butter or melted salt pork in the cavity. Sprinkle with black pepper. Wrap each fish in a whole husk of corn, from which the corn and silk have been removed. Smooth down the husk and tie at the silk end. Place at edge of fire. Cover with live coals. It cooks to perfection in 15 minutes.

Review:
Find a reason -- any reason -- to bake corn husks in your oven. This is what I did, in my best attempt to replicate an open fire in my small condo kitchen. I baked some husk-wrapped trout fillets at 400F. The smell of the baking corn husks was amazing. Never mind apple pie and gingerbread. Find a reason to do this.

As for the trout, they came out beautiful in 15 minutes, nicely steamed and juicy. Having used no salt, the soft flavour of the trout stood out on its own. Boiled corn on the cob rounded out the meal.

This is probably one of the oldest and most local recipes in the entire Canadiana Cookbook. I wish I had a Mohawk flag as it would have been more appropriate for the photo.

Conclusion:
Smelled and tasted great!

Québec - Soupe aux Quatorze Affaires

2010-05-06T08:02:00.001-04:00

Madame Benoît: "The true pea soup, slowly simmered to perfect goodness, was so named because fourteen ingredients had to be used to make it perfect. Part of these ingredients were the famous 'herbes salées' which some still make. Freezing improves the robust pleasant texture and flavour of this soup."

Recipe:
1 lb. salt pork, lean and fat
1 tbsp. dry mustard
1 lb. dried peas
8 cups cold water
1 large onion, sliced thin
1/2 tsp. savory*
1/4 tsp. wild or dried mint*
1/8 tsp. thyme*
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced*
1 clove garlic, minced
1 can hominy corn
1 cup dried bread chips
1 tbsp. coarse salt*
1 tbsp. butter

Rub the salt pork with the dry mustard. cover and refrigerate for 12 hours. Meanwhile sort, wash, then soak the peas in the cold water for 12 hours.

Place in a soup kettle--the peas and their water, the pork, onion, savory, mint, thyme, parsley and garlic. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer from 3 to 4 hours, or until the peas are tender and the soup appears to be creamy. Add the hominy corn and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the bread chips, salt and the butter. Taste for seasoning and serve.

*These five ingredients may be replaced with 1/4 cup salted herbs.

Review:
First recipe in the book, a classic Quebecois pea soup. I've been making variations of this soup for years, adding or omitting ingredients along the way. Sometimes I might add some barley, or maple syrup, or a dried chili -- each item adds a different element to the soup.

One thing about Madame Benoît's recipe: the hominy corn almost overpowers the peas. Hominy is a big, muscular corn with a lot of corny flavour. A little goes a long way. Next time I wouldn't use the entire can. Nonetheless...

Conclusion:
A most excellent soupe!

A Trip Through Time and The Canadiana Cookbook

2010-05-05T08:06:00.001-04:00

In 1970, Jehane Benoît published The Canadiana Cookbook.

At the time, Madame Benoît was recognized as the Julia Child of Canadian cuisine: a French-trained cook, food researcher and cooking show hostess. One of her ambitions was to prove that Canada – one part British, one part French, one part American, and dusted with a sprinking of other cultures – had a unique culinary heritage worth preserving. She gathered recipes from each of Canada’s ten provinces and (at the time) two territories and brought them together in a single volume.

In the pages of The Canadiana Cookbook, Madame Benoît presented recipes that would reveal “the most appealing features of traditional Canadian cooking.” Soups, meats, vegetables, sweets, something from every corner of the Dominion.

I have no idea how well this cookbook was received, nor how many copies were sold. It is 40 years since it was published, and 23 years since Madame Benoît herself passed away at the age of 83. A quick online search reveals that it has fallen into obscurity, and it doesn’t seem to be a pricey collectible either, but for the delusions of a few online booksellers. Sadly, the cookbook seems lost to history. I admit, I bought a used copy some years ago, slid it between a couple of other cookbooks, and promptly forgot about it.

But what about the recipes? Are they worth forgetting about? Do they describe a Canada lost to the present, something best consigned to history – or something worth rediscovering?

Let’s find out!

I will cook my way through Canada’s past, with Madame Benoît and The Canadiana Cookbook as my guide.

Stay tuned for recipes, reviews and photos.