Tactics and Strategies in the Game of Chefs

There are times where I find the simplest combinations to be unbeatable. For example, I'll take a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie and a cold glass of milk over some over priced lamb chop. Yeah, I love grilled lamb chops and all, but it's up against very stiff competition. I could live off freshly brewed black coffee with some swiss chocolate. Just writing about it . . . . well, give me a minute while I run to the kitchen for some chocolate. Okay, I'm back. What is it I'm writing about?

Right. Combinations. I often experiment with combinations in soups, sauces and salads. Here is where you can try different things and see where it takes you. In fact, in a a previous post for a Carrot Cantaloupe Soup I discuss taking risks. However, there are times where you can make a new soup or sauce using a combination that is usually for a different application.

Am I confusing you?

If I am, think of something (not a soup or sauce) you make often. How about breakfast? You have eggs, bacon and homefries. The Sunday Morning Special at any greasy spoon for $5.99. We all know that potatoes and bacon are so good together -- why don't we mash them together? And wait! Sometimes I make potato skins stuffed with mashed potatoes, topped with bacon bits, cheddar and green onions. Can we take that concept and make a soup out of it? Sure you can.

Potato, Bacon and Cheddar (aka Piggyssoise)

8 Russet or Baking Potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 lb. bacon, roughly cut
2 Cooking Onions, roughly cut
3 Cloves of Garlic, crushed
Pinch of Allspice
150 g Cheddar (your preference of type), grated
1 Green Onion, cut into rings
100 ml Whipping Cream
3 L Vegetable Stock (recipe here)
Dab of Butter
Salt and Pepper to Taste

In a tall soup pot, melt butter until frothy. Add bacon and cook for 5 minutes. Move bacon to the side and add onion, garlic and allspice. Cook for another 5 minutes or until onions have a little colour. Add stock and potatoes. Bring to a boil then let simmer for 10 - 15 minutes (actually, it depends how small or large you cut your potatoes). Using an immersion blender, carefully puree until desired consistency. Add green onion. Whisk in grated cheddar and add cream. Taste then season. The bacon and cheddar have sodium so use salt sparingly.

Serves 10.

A Humble Chef's tip: if you have leftover mashed potatoes, use them for this recipe.

Variation: Bouneschlupp is a soup from Luxembourg that is very similar. However, add green beans and leave the soup as a chowder. Meaning that you should cut everything more uniformly, cook the potatoes in the soup and skip on liquefying it.

Read more »

I Yam What I Yam. A Sweet Potato.

Now that the weather is warming up, it is time to leave the kitchen and start burning propane. When comfortable, you can cook more than burgers and chicken on a stick on your outdoor grill.

Generally speaking, there are three overall methods of cooking: dry heat, moist heat and n0-heat. Within those are all the ways we cook. For instance, dry heat is roasting, grilling, sauteing, deep frying (yes, deep frying is considered a dry heat method) and broiling. Moist cooking is blanching and braising. No-heat would be curing and pickling and these sort of things.

If you can remember that the BBQ is just an oven that is outside, then sky's the limit. Once you have the mindset, you can do braises on your BBQ, or roast beef or chicken or whatever, standard grilling foods like meats and vegetables and even some starches. Heck, desserts aren't even out of the question if you're brave enough. If you have some cedar planks, then you can really treat your BBQ like any oven.

It is unfortunate that sweet potatoes aren't as popular as they should be. Not to be confused with the yam, sweet potatoes are a distant cousin of the common potato we all know and love. Yet, sweet potatoes are high in fibre and complex sugars. Virtually opposite to the delicious cousin. So, why don't we eat more of it? I'm not sure why but I do know that many people I talk to about cooking are often afraid that they are higher in carbs than other potatoes which couldn't be further from the truth.

So stop being a Sweet Potato hater and make the switch. It is brilliant mashed, in a soup, roasted and, of course, grilled. Yum.

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with a Honey Tarragon Glaze

2 Large Sweet Potatoes, cut into 3 cm slices
50 ml Liquid Honey
Small Bunch of Fresh Tarragon, chopped
Juice and Zest of 3 Limes
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Drizzle of Oil

In a sauce pan, combine honey, tarragon and lime juice. Reduce by half to a glaze. Remove from heat.

On your BBQ, heat one side to high and the other to medium low. In a bowl, toss sweet potatoes in oil, salt and pepper and zest. Grill potatoes on hot side and grill for 3 - 4 minutes. Turn sweet potato one quarter to make cross hatches and grill for another 3 - 4 minutes. Flip and repeat. Transfer potato to other side of BBQ and using a silicone pastry brush, glaze potato with reduction. Cook until tender. Usually 5 minutes depending on the thickness of the sweet potato.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

A Humble Chef's tip: you can lay down some foil on your cooler side of your BBQ to prevent burning.

Variation: Sweet Potatoes have an affinity with spices like cinnamon and clove and these sort of things. You can make a sweet glaze using the same method except omit the tarragon and substitute whatever spice you often use in apple pie.

Read more »

In The Pommes of Your Hand

This quick and easy post is here because I promised a class today that I would post this immediately. It is quick and easy recipe for a quick and easy dinner. The only drawback is you need to deep-fry it. It can be baked but it is so much better in oil.

If you do not own a deep fryer, you can use a sauce pan to deep fry. The drawback is that is can be difficult controlling the heat of your oil without a thermometer. I have a deep fryer that I rarely use for a few reasons: very unhealthy way to eat, annoying to clean, wasteful on oil and it stink up your house and clothes. If you use a sauce pan to deep fry, you won't use so much oil and the clean up is considerably easier.

This basic of basic recipes can be fun and interesting to make. The cooked pastry is called Choux. This simplified version should turn anybody nervous in the kitchen turn into a confident chef. Choux can be made sweet or savoury. Here, it is savoury.

Be sure to dehydrate the potatoes after they have been cooked in a sauce pan. The less water the better.

Finally, for those who read my blog, you will know that I prefer to roast my potatoes for making mashed. This is no different, if you have the time. It takes ore than a hour to roast through a Yukon Gold Potato. If you boil them, drain well and dehydrate in the sauce pan.

Pommes de Terre Dauphine

250 ml 2% Milk
250 ml Water
1 Stick of Butter
500 g Flour
4 Eggs
5 Large Yukon Gold Potatoes
Seasoning to Taste

In a deep fryer, heat oil to 350 degrees.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook potatoes in oven for at least one hour;longer if the potatoes are really large. After they are cooked, remove from oven and let cool. After the cooled, using a serrated knife slice potatoes in half. Scoop out innards into a bowl. If still wet, place in sauce pan over low heat to dehydrate further.

In a sauce pan, combine milk and water over medium high heat. Add butter.Once butter melts, remove from heat and add flour. Mix vigorously until dough comes off the side cleanly.

Fold potatoes into choux. Add seasonings. Shape and deep fry until golden; about 7 minutes.

Makes about 20 balls.

Read more »

Root Awakenings

Cooking creatively can be challenging at times. I find I get most inspired in people's homes because I will often find ingredients I don't normally have at home or even in a professional kitchen. I even get much of my inspiration walking through markets and grocery stores.

Fennel is a vegetable that I don't normally have at home because I simply never purchase it. When was the last time you purchased fennel? Or parsnips? Turnip? Rutabaga? It simply rarely goes on most people's grocery lists because we never think of it. Yet these vegetables are easy to cook, easy on the wallet and probably healthier than most things on your grocery list.

I've learned recently that many root vegetables were considered good for feeding pigs. I wonder if this is because blandness of the vegetable or cost?

In a previous post, I have explained the risotto process in more detail. The risotto cooking method should be the same every time, but what you add is what makes it unique and yours.

Sausage and Shrimp with Fennel Risotto

3 Sweet Italian Sausages
16 Shrimp, deveined
250 g Arborio Rice
3 Red Bell Peppers
3 garlic cloves, crushed
A Few Chili Flakes
1 Fennel Bulb, finely diced
1 Red Onoin, finely diced
1 Green Onion, chopped
1 l Chicken Broth
100 ml Sambuca or Ouzo
50 g Marmalade Preserve
Drizzle of Olive Oil
Juice of 2 Lemons
200 g Parmigiana Reggiano Cheese, grated
100 g Butter
Season and Pepper to Taste

Combine marmalade, 1 clove of garlic, chili flakes, lemon juice and olive oil. Marinate shrimp in mixture in fridge for 1 hour.

In a sauce pan, heat chicken broth to a boil then bring to a simmer. Poach sausages for 2 minutes and let cool.

In a sauté pan, heat up drizzle of olive oil. Sauté onion and fennel until lightly brown. 1 minute. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add rice and sauté until translucent, about 1 minute. Deglaze with Sambuca and let reduce by half. Add ladle of broth and stir. As broth evaporates, add more broth by the ladle and stir constantly.

Meanwhile, coat red peppers in oil and char the skin on open flame (BBQ, burner or with a kitchen torch) and place in a bowl and cover. Let steam through for ten minutes. Open and let cool. Once cooled, shed skin, remove seeds and innards and chop up the flesh. In a frying pan, sauté peppers, green onion, and clove of garlic. Add a ladle of broth. Bring to boil and purée.

For the sauage, cut lengthwise, then in half moons and a bias. In a frying pan, heat drizzle of oil. Add sausage and shrimp with the marinate. Cook for two minutes.

As risotto finishes cooking (all your broth should be used up) add butter and cheese and stir. Add seasonings.

In a bowl, pour risotto, ladle pepper purée overtop and garnish with sausage and shrimp.

Serves 4 - 6.

A Humble Chef's tip: check the doneness of the rice before adding the cheese and butter.

Variation: Omit the fennel and through some other onion related veg, like leek or something. Not everybody likes the black licorice flavour fennel has. If you don't like Ouzo, go with Vodka.

Read more »

Just For Pilafs

I just completed my third What's For Dinner moments ago. I gave my blog to the attendees and so here I am writing a recipe for those who didn't have time to write it down.

Rice is so easy to cook and yet so many people find ways to get it wrong. There are some tricks to the trade but keeping it simple works well for rice. Rice Pilaf refers to the cooking method where vegetables are cut up, sautéed with the rice and cooked in the oven with the broth. Obviously, there are several ways to cook rice but the pilaf method is straightforward and usually turns out well.

The class today was a demo of a Chicken Curry dish with sweet potatoes and carrots which was provided for me. Pretty easy dish actually. But I`m not sure if it`s kosher for me to provide the chicken recipe (truth is, all chefs take dishes, change it up then claim as their own) so I`ll stick to the starch only.

When cooking rice, check the packaging for the quantities. I used Basmati which is typically 2 parts liquid to 1 part rice.

Basic Rice Pilaf

200 g Basmati Rice, rinse if necessary
400 ml Chicken Stock
1 Carrot, small dice
1 Celery, small dice
1 Red Onion, small dice
2 Cloves of Garlic, crushed
1 Small Chunk Of Ginger, peeled and grated
Drizzle of Sesame Oil
Dab of Butter
Sal and Pepper to taste

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.

In a small sauce pan, heat up chicken stock. If you have any trimmings, add to stock. Bring to boil and strain.

In a medium sauce pan, heat oil for 1 minute. Add veg, ginger, garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add rice and sauté until translucent. Add stock and bring to boil. Add butter and seasonings. Cover with oven proof lid and cook in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and fluff with a fork.

Serves 6 sides.

A Humble Chef`s Tip: Once the rice has come to a boil, stop stirring the pot and cover quickly. If stirred too often, the starch can bleed out making it gummy.


Variation: Use half tomato juice, half stock, add some chili powder and cayenne and you have Mexican Rice.

Read more »

Not Just Any Salad

I'm sick of writing about soups. They're cheap and easy and repetitive. Every so often I need to make something new.

Well, with spring apparently around the corner, how about a salad. But not just any salad. A potato salad. But not just any potato salad. A German potato salad. But not just any German potato salad. A Humble Chef's German potato salad. But not just any Humble Chef's German potato salad. But A Humble Chef's German potato salad made by none other than my wife, The Closet Optimist herself. That's right readers. My Equality Equation made this fantastic recipe as dictated by me.

I have some esplainin' to do. She has this fear that if I were to unexpectedly meet my end, it would be unfortunately the cessation of my recipe development. She would never be able to eat any of my food again. Ever. So, she wrote down a few recipes while we were working together in the kitchen to preserve her pickle of a husband's legacy (actually, this is why I am writing this blog).

So, I will leave out any notes and go for the jugular.

Not Just Any A Humble Chef's Farinaceous Salad Made In the Style of the Germans

8 Red Potatoes, cleaned and quatered
5 Slices of Bacon Itself, medium chopped
1 Red Bell Pepper, medium dice
1 Green Bell Pepper, medium dice
1 Small Red Onion, finely diced
1 Green Zucchini, medium dice
1 Stalk of Celery, finely diced
3 or 4 Sprigs of Sage, chiffonade (don't you dare ask me what that is)
20 gr Pommery Dijon Mustard
200 ml Mayonnaise (or as needed)
A Few Drops of Worcestershire Sauce

Blanch potatoes until you can eat it. Probably 8-10 minutes. Try to not overcook them. It usually doesn't take very long.

In a sauté pan, fry up yummy bacon until crispy. 5 min. on medium high heat. Remove bacon and add peppers, onion, celery and zucchini until bright. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Season to taste.

Serve warm.

Serves 4.

Variations: Everybody has their own version of potato salad. Add your signature to this classic. I like to add quatered hard boiled eggs myself.

A Humble Chef's tip: Add a few extra potatoes to use as testers. Don't be embarrassed that you have to check your potatoes to see their doneness: everybody does it.

Read more »

The Monster Mash

Mash potatoes. I mean, it's the ultimate isn't it? They go with virtually every meal, it's pretty tough to screw up, you can make them in advance and everybody at any age loves it. No collection of recipes is complete without mashed potatoes. Make too much and it keeps pretty well until the next day. Or, fry it up and serve with eggs and bacon. Hey. It's famous for a reason.

I imagine most people and restaurants simply peel and boil their potatoes and whip with some milk, butter and season and there you have it. 1-2-3 easy as pie. However, there is an alternative.

When purchasing potatoes, ensure there is no green spots. And each type of potato is good for certain type of cooking. Potatoes are generally classified by the amount of starch it contains. New potatoes have high sugar, low starch. Good for salad and roasting. Not deep frying or mash. Mature potatoes like Yukon Gold or Russets have a high starch content and, hopefully, low sugar. Actually, sugar content often relies on the season and/or temperature. So, unless you have Shaman at your disposal, don't fret about sugar and moisture content.

One quick note: some of you may be familiar with Duchesses Potatoes. This is basically Mashed Potatoes with egg yolks. Egg yolks keeps the potatoes firmer and richer, so if you are making this recipe for Sheppard's Pie, adding an egg yolk will enable you to have better control of the potatoes when spreading over the ground meat.

Mashed Potatoes

8 Large Yukon Gold Potatoes, whole
200 ml 35% Whipping Cream
100 ml Butter, melted
2 Garlic Cloves, crushed
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Cook potatoes on a tray until cooked through. Approximately 1 hour, or longer if potatoes are particularly large.

Scald cream and add butter and garlic. Reduce heat and keep warm.

After potatoes are cooked, cut each one into half. Carefully using a spoon, scoop out the innards of the potatoes into a large bowl. Add cream and seasonings. Using a stand or hand mixer, whip potatoes until creamy and without lumps. Do not overwhip.

Serves 6.

Variation: Everyone has their own variation on mash. My personal favourites are adding roasted garlic and goat's cheese in the last minute. I'm not so sure if there is anything that beats it.

Read more »

"It Tastes Like Mushy Rice!"

Going with the theme of building flavours and recipes, the next stage is exploring different types of food to expirement with. For chefs, most (not all) dishes consists of a starch, veg, protein and sauce. Of course there are many exceptions but generally speaking this is usually the case. While proteins and veg are nearly limitless in possibilities starch often poses a problem: it can get very repetitive. Rice, potatoes, pasta. That's often it. Of course there are many alternatives like cous cous, quinoa, wild rice (which has no starch), yams (in the same family as potatoes) or whatever obsure shit you can find. Nevertheless, potatoes, pasta and rice are usualy the popular picks for chefs to have on their menu. It's being creative with those starches that can be challenging.

Risotto is a good alternative. This italian rice is relatively easy, cheap and most people like it - except my brother who always tells me "It tastes like mushy rice." There are different types of rice but arborio is usually the most common. There are some standards to making risotto and then after that, well there are whole cookbooks dedicated to risotto.

The three things critical to risotto are: the rice must be sauted, cooked slowly with a hot liquid, cheese must be added near the end to thicken the sauce and butter to taste for the glaze. The cooking liquid is often chicken broth but can be anything from veg. stock, cucumber juice, beet juice, duck stock, tomato broth, whatever. Parmaggiano cheese the preferred choice but not the required one: asaigo, grano padano, queso manchego to name a few alternatives.

My recipe spawned by accident (many of them do). I had leftover sage in my garden, leftover pears in my fridge, leftover turkey stock in my freezer. I can spend all day talking about risotto but that's enough chit chat. Here's my recipe.

Risotto with Rum Poached Pears and Prosciutto

150 g Arborio Rice
1 l Turkey or Chicken Stock, hot
1 Small Red Onion, fine brunoise
2 Ripe Pears, cut into 6 segments
6 Slices Prosciutto, jullienne
250 ml Rum
150 g Parmaggiano-Reggianno Cheese, grated
80 ml Butter, melted
5 Sprigs of Sage, chiffonade (save some for garnish)

In a small sauce pan, bring rum to a slight boil. Poach pears until cooked through, about three - four minutes. Remove pears from rum and keep warm.

In a large saute pan, melt 20 ml butter until frothy. Sweat onion until translucent. Add rice and stir constantly. Cook for about two minutes until rice becomes translucent. Deglaze with rum and stir until reduced by half. Add ladle of stock and stir until reduced by half. Repeat until stock has run out (approx. 20 minutes). If risotto is still hard, add boiling water and stir to cook through.

Add prosciutto and heat through. Add sage, cheese and 50ml butter and stir. The rice should be firm and sticky.

In a frying pan, use leftover butter to caramelize the pears and heat through. When serving, place pears on top for garnish with sprig of sage.

Serves 6.

Risotto itself can be simply a base that you can add anything to in the last minute to make your dish unique. Try mine as a variation with your turkey dinner.

Read more »