Acras (Fish Fritters) with Spicy Herb Sauce

The real name of the Spicy Herb sauce is actually “dog sauce”, but since I didn’t want anyone to freak out I chose to baptize it as Spicy Herb sauce. It’s funny how some names translate very badly from one language to another. Anyways, this is one of the few fish recipes that I have made in a long time. I like fish, I just somehow never get around to making it very often. I subscribe to a couple of food magazines and this month Ricardo’s magazine had a recipe for Acras (Fish Fritters) which I really wanted to try since I have a deep abiding love for most fried things. Luckily the recipe is online and in English, you can find it here: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Appetizer/Fish/recipe.html?dishid=10247

As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter but made a few modifications. I’m not a big fan of cod, I find the flavour too strong so I used tilapia instead and skipped the poaching and soaking steps since that is designed to get the salt out. Tilapia is the tofu of fish, it doesn’t taste like much and it easily takes on other flavours. It is pretty cheap, thaws super quickly and is absolutely great to have on hand for whipping up last minute meals.

In the bowl there is Italian parsley, fresh thyme, green onions, garlic, salt, pepper, lime juice (from a bottle because I’m not paying a dollar per lime in the middle of the winter) and a diced jalapeno. Lately my supermarket only brings in jalapenos which makes me cranky. They used to bring in a mixed pack of hot peppers but it seems that I was the only one buying them. If they quit bringing in jalapenos I’m staging a sit-in.

I diced the tilapia and added it to the herbs raw. It cooks super quickly and the fillets are very thin so I wasn’t worried about them not being pre-cooked.

Pastry flour, baking powder and cornstarch went in.

The original recipe calls for whipped egg whites but my mixing bowl and the paddle were dirty and I didn’t feel like washing them so I just added in the whole eggs. I also hate throwing again egg yolks. Egg whites you can at least eat by themselves but an egg yolk omelette is a tad heavy.

All mixed up. When I first started mixing I thought I would need to add some liquid but the three eggs was enough for everything to come together.

In the original recipe the fitters are very small, but since I wanted to make this for dinner rather than for an appetizer I decided to make them a lot bigger. I thought about baking them but I was short on time so frying was the way to go.

After flipping them they were nice and golden.

For the Spicy Herb sauce (Dog Sauce) I mixed green onions, parsley, garlic, lime juice, salt, pepper, boiling water and a bit of oil. I was really surprised to see that the base of the sauce was boiling water. After everything had time to soak however, the liquid was full of flavour.

Yum. I really liked this recipe. It didn’t take a lot of time to put together and tasted great. Next time I will try baking them instead of frying. I loved the sauce; the herbs, lemon juice and green onions were a nice contrast to the hot fritters. Alongside this I made spicy jalapeno rice which was a perfect accompaniment.

Flickr Tags: Acras,Tilapia

Brunch at The Sparrow- Review

I have been known to be rather harsh on restaurants, if there is a culinary weak spot I will probably spot it. This time however, I went to eat at a restaurant where I could barely find anything wrong. I would have loved to say that it was flawless but there was one teensy-weensy thing that could be corrected, but however, as far as restaurants go my meal was nearly perfect.

The restaurant’s decor is rather charming. There is lots of dark wood, framed picture and books shelves with books and knick knacks on them. I loved the wallpaper with the embossed birds on it. The menu is British inspired and it definitely felt as though I had wandered into my non-existent British aunt’s cozy drawing room.

I went to brunch with a group of Montreal bloggers. You can see their happy shiny faces above. It had been a while since our last meet up so it was nice to see everyone again. If you’re a Montreal food blogger drop me a line so we can include you in our next get together.

One thing I have to hand to The Sparrow is their attention to details. I loved the fact that they had lumps of cane sugar and their cream was served in a little jug. Ok, here comes the one bad thing about the food at The Sparrow. The coffee was not very good, but it was not very bad either, it was just mediocre. It tasted very weak. In my books brunch deserves a good strong cup of coffee. But then again, the coffee was included in the price of the food so I can’t complain too much.

Ok, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way you will see that the rest of my review will be positively glowing.

The menu was very minimalistic which can be annoying if the servers aren’t willing describe the items but we had a super friendly waitress who took her time to go through each item and answer all of our questions. The service here was excellent, even though the restaurant was full when we went we didn’t have to wait overly long for our food and our coffee and water were refilled at regular intervals.

I was torn over a few items but decided to order the custard doughnuts and the sausage and egg roll. The French toast made with brioche really tempted me but I will save that for my next visit.

One thing I have to say was that the plates were gorgeous. It added to the feeling of having a meal at a relative’s house, that is, a relative who happens to be a fabulous cook.

The doughnut were nice and airy, not heavy or greasy at all. I had ordered custard ones but I traded one away for a taste of a chocolate doughnut. The chocolate was just ok; I felt the chocolate taste was not strong enough. If they had put in more cocoa powder the taste would have been perfect. As well, the chocolate doughnuts were under filled compared to the custard doughnuts. Ok, so I lied, there were two things that I found that could have been better.

The custard filling was amazing. It almost tasted like crème patisserie and you can even see the little black flecks of the vanilla bean seeds. I could have happily eaten a few more of these.

One thing that I was really impressed by was the fact that all our meals were brought out at the same time and nothing was cold or overcooked. This is especially impressive given that most of us had ordered eggs which overcook and cool down quickly, and as there were 13 of us this was quite the feat. Most places have a very difficult time handling serving a big group at the same time.

Up above is my meal. It was a sausage patty on a soft milky bun, with a sunny side up egg, lettuce, tomato, cheddar and I think mayo or some other kind of sauce.

I am seriously salivating looking at these pictures as I am typing this. This sausage and egg roll was incredible. The sausage patty was perfectly seasoned and still moist and juicy. The egg was was perfectly cooked, the whites were firm but the yolk was runny and perfectly oozy. The cheddar was appropriately strong and the soft milkyness of the bun brought the whole thing all together. A lot of thought and care went into this sandwich. Like I said, this place really pays attention to the details.

I had also ordered bubble and squeak which is a potato and cabbage dish. This was also really good, the potatoes were soft and savoury with an incredible golden crust on top.

The following are the items ordered by other bloggers:

Crumpet with jam. This looked absolutely scrumptious. I’ve only ever had crumpets from the supermarket and this one definitely looked a million times better.

This was baked eggs, celeriac and oyster mushrooms with some toast.

This was the full English breakfast, otherwise known as the meat bonanza: bacon, sausage, blood sausage, beans, bubble and squeak (if I’m not mistaken), eggs and toast. This was most definitely the heartiest of the dishes.

This was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.

This was eggs Florentine with smoked salmon. The slices of salmon were generous and looked lovely.

Doesn’t this look absolutely amazing? As Evelyne said to the waitress as she was ordering this, “you had me at Brioche”. The French toast came with caramelized pears, apples and cranberries all doused in maple syrup. I’m definitely getting this next time.

Perhaps the best part of this meal was the cost. The doughnuts, the sausage and egg roll, the bubble and squeak and coffee with tax and tip was 20$ which was an absolute steal considering the quality of the ingredients and the service we received. I will most definitely be back for brunch again soon, hopefully before the lineups get too long since I am sure this place will keep on getting more and more popular.

Technorati Tags: Brunch,Montreal,The Sparrow review

Duck, Mushroom and Asparagus Vol-au-Vent

The Husband is strictly a meat and potatoes man; give him a bloody steak and he is happy. The only exception to this rule is duck confit. Duck confit is duck which has been poached in its own fat. Sounds strange but tastes amazing. Given how much he loves it I am always on a hunt for new recipes that use this ingredient. I am pretty lucky in that our grocer is marvellously well stocked with wild game so I have no problem finding it on a regular basis. I don’t have a link to this recipe online but you can just eyeball all the ingredients. Since duck can be hard to find and is a tad expensive you could also make this recipe using leftover dark chicken meat or you could cook up some chicken thighs.

Now for the ingredients. First up is asparagus. I use the snapping method to get the ends off. You take an end of the asparagus spear in each hand and then start to bend. It will break off in the right place ensuring that you do not get any woody parts.

Ah, pre-washed, pre-cut mushrooms how I love thee.

Chopped onions. I don’t bother dicing them too daintily.

Chopped baby carrots.

All the aforementioned vegetables get cooked together in a pan along with some olive oil and salt and pepper until they are browned.

Duck confit taken off the bone and with the skin removed. I hate doing this job so I just pawn it off on the husband. This is one of the pluses of being married. Once we have a kid I can get him to take out the garbage and thus avoid doing all the unpleasant kitchen chores. My plan is brilliant isn’t it?

Once the veggies were cooked I added a few tablespoons of flour to the pan and stirred.

I then chucked in some white wine and chicken broth.

A generous splash of cream also went in there.

I then mixed everything until the sauce came to a boil and thickened.

The vol-au-vents are courtesy of the freezer section at the supermarket. While I will spend obscene amounts of time cooking, puff pastry and vol-au-vents are two things that I won’t bother making on a regular basis. I still feel vaguely guilty whenever I buy them pre-made though. I read an interview once in which Jamie Oliver said he used pre-made puff pastry which was a sop to my guilty cook’s conscience.

The Husband being a guy he asked to have french fries with this meal. Given the choice he will always choose potatoes as a side dish in some form. I have to admit I didn’t really get to taste this since I made myself something else but from the tastes I had of the sauce when I was adjusting the salt and pepper it was delicious. The Husband was rather happy with this meal and I was stuck having food envy since I had made myself lentil stew. Isn’t meal envy the worst? It’s even worse when you go to a restaurant and you end up ordering something that is just ok and the person you are with orders something amazing and you have to watch them ooohing and ahhhing over their food. I like lentil but it’s not definitely as good as duck confit!

Technorati Tags: Duck,Vol-au-vent

Pulled Pork Gorditas

I love Tex-Mex food. Oh how I wish there was decent Mexican food around these parts. Every single Mexican food restaurant that I have been to in Montreal is either bland or very bland, unfortunately. Since I had a craving for Mexican food I decided to make Gorditas. I actually made this recipe a few weeks ago so I am sitting here trying to remember what I put in them. Strangely enough gordita means “little fatty” in Spanish. This is also a term of endearment for chubby women (no, I am not kidding. We’re not very politically correct in Spanish). I cannot imagine a scenario in which a man will call his wife “little fatty” in English and not end up sleeping on the couch for a week. The recipe for the tortillas is here.

The tortilla part was easy to make. You mix masa, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

The recipe calls for adding some cotija cheese to the tortillas. Since Italian cheese is what passes off as exotic at my local cheese counter I ended up using feta instead.

I also added some corn kernels. I took some frozen corn and nuked it in the microwave until it was thawed and tossed it into the bowl.

I added enough water to bring everything together so that the dough was stiff but not crumbly.

Traditionally you fry gorditas but I decided to bake them instead. I scooped out the tortillas with an ice cream scoop and patted them down with moistened hands. I put them in the oven at 350 Celsius which the standard temperature that I use when I am baking something which is usually fried.

To top my gorditas I made pulled pork and once it was shredded I mixed it with browned onions that I had cooking on the stove as I took care of the tortillas.

To make a sauce I added in tomato puree, cumin, coriander, chili powder, salt and pepper as well as some Mexican spice mix which I had in the pantry.

I had no idea how long to cook the tortillas so I left them in the oven until they were firm and golden.

To assemble the gorditas I topped them with tomatillo salsa (from a bottle, but it comes from Mexico, Old El Paso’s travesty of a salsa has not yet darkened my doorstep), fresh cilantro, guacamole and some feta cheese. The tortillas were nice and tasty with the sweet corn kernels providing a nice counterpoint to the saltiness of the feta cheese. Tomatillo salsa and guacamole are always winners in my book and they make everything better. This meal was most definitely a repeat. It didn’t take long to make and made quite a bit of leftovers. The only downside was that this is not the kind of thing that I could take to work for lunch, however it made a few excellent meals to have during the week.

Technorati Tags: Mexican,Tex-Mex,Tortillas,Pork