Roast Chicken and Greek Salad Tart

We live at the heart of one of Montreal’s snobbier restaurant districts. Pied de Cochon is closer than the nearest grocery store. Our home suits us perfectly, and we have no complaints, but it’s never quite felt like a neighbourhood. What we get in snobbish niche we lose in variety. Most of the restaurants of the restaurants are of a type—French—and they tend towards a need for reservations. We’re missing the accessible, good quality local place you can head out to at a moment’s notice, when the fridge is empty, inspiration doesn’t hit, or you forget to turn on the timer and burn your supper. 

As much as I stand by it, my opening statement does reveal my own snobbishness. It’s that there’s a lot of a certain calibre of a certain type of restaurant here, the kind I want to eat at (the kind I want to eat at but can’t always afford), and that they tend towards French. It’s not that there aren’t others, just none that we’ve clicked with. Truthfully, we’re in the heart of bring-your-own-wine land, and we’ve got no lack of choice. It's just that there’s a big gap between the good places and the mediocre.  

We finally stopped at one of the local Greek options late last week. We won’t be going back, but we took our leftovers with us and nothing went to waste. It was just too close to what we could buy at the store, and we’d been seated in a tight patio section so raucous it made conversation difficult. It left me craving the taste and vibrancy of a good greek salad, lemon and chicken brochettes. 

You can’t get away from tomatoes this time of year. They’re often the first thing seen, if not peaches, when you walk into the bigger grocery stores, and I’ve been obsessing over them. 

I love a roast chicken, too. I did our three-pounder with an onion stuffed in the cavity along with garlic and a few sprigs of thyme. I rubbed the bird with butter, salt and peppered it and tucked some more garlic and chopped thyme under the skin. When I took it out midway to baste with its own juices, I added some thinly sliced lemons to the top of the thing to keep it moist. It turned out well, but chicken really just cooks itself, with a nice hint of the lemon. 

 

 

The salad was a bit more involved, I’ll admit it, but not that hard (mostly since Rujira’s in charge of the bread and crusts in our division of labor). I have a recipe section on my Flipboard news aggregator, and it draws pretty randomly from a few blogs. One of the ones that pops up regularly is How Sweet It Is, and it’s often pretty great for ideas. A recent post was for a salt and pepper heirloom tomato tart with whipped feta (http://www.howsweeteats.com/2014/08/salt-and-pepper-heirloom-tart-with-whipped-feta/). 

I figured I could take this and move it a step closer to Greek salad land with little trouble. 

For the crust, pulse 2 cups of all-purpose, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt until combined. In another bowl whisk a large egg, 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 1/4 cup of ice water. Add 3.4 cups of cold unsalted butter to the food processor and keep pulsing until you’re left with coarse crumbs. Pour the liquid mix over the flour and keep on pulsing until the dough comes together. Take it out, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for half an hour.  

Preheat the oven at 400 and take the dough out of the fridge. Roll it out until it fits your pan. Press it down and poke holes in the crust with a fork. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until golden. Ours shrunk quite a bit, so the sides weren’t as high as I’d like, so don’t trim it too aggressively. 

Let the crust cool before assembling the salad.

The cheese spread was about 1/3 cup of softened cream cheese and about the same of feta, crumbled. I added this and a splash of olive oil and whipped it in the food processor. You spread this with a spoon and your fingers onto the pie crust. 

Adding to this base, you build up as high as you’d like with thinly sliced tomato, cucumber, red onions and black olives. I used a mandolin for everything but the olives, and then topped it all with some fresh basil and my Joe Beef Country Salt Blend. A drizzle of good balsamic and olive oil finishes it off. As usual, there was way to much to eat. 

 

 

The salad kept for a tasty breakfast the next morning, but best to invite friends over and just finish it all right then and there. 

 

Stuffed Zucchini

My daughter’s approaching four and we made meatballs together once. She still talks about it, and it’ll become a staple recipe. If the sauce is ready, the balls themselves are a fun, easy thing to do with a kid who doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. In contrast, I don’t have many memories of cooking as a family.

 

We had a reunion this weekend and on the drive home to Montreal, I found myself thinking about the recipes that’d get handed down generation to generation. As the matriarchs aged, group dinners, Thanksgiving and Christmas aside, have trended towards buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken shared by each (somewhat) nuclear unit. Each of these units gathered with the mass of extended family but clustered around their respective (jealously guarded) buckets. This weekend was Swiss Chalet quarter chicken dinners.

 

It worked, there was less cleanup, and no real headaches.

 

Restaurants were rare when I was young. But cooking wasn’t a job shouldered evenly and it was generally viewed as a chore, so I guess that (and space) explain a slip towards takeout when we can get away with it now.

 

When I consider my daughter, I wonder which meals she’ll grow to love, and which may evolve into traditions. I suspect I won’t have much say in the matter. My best guess is that the dish has to be easy enough to be executed quickly by a novice cook, or divided simply into stages favoring breaks and an opportunity to enjoy the company while preparing it.

 

For myself, back from a hectic week, I was looking forward to cooking. Possible traditions weren’t top on my list when I scoured the fridge and weighed options. But something easy, something fast, and something that could be broken in stages while chatting over a drink most definitely were.

 

Rujira had never really seen, or deigned to notice, a full-grown zucchini before. We still had a couple from our recent market foray. I’m reminded of goldfish or snakes and how my father convinced me they’d keep growing and growing and growing until they filled whatever aquarium they happened to live in. These zucchini had continued expanding in the crisper the week I was away.   

 

We figured stuffed zucchini were the way to go.

 

First I prepared a no-fuss tomato sauce. This one is baked. The flavors are strong, and you can use it as a base to build up from for other things if you want to add more to it. I take a can of whole tomatoes, tip it into a lasagna dish, add 5 or 6 whole, peeled, garlic cloves, salt and pepper, a tablespoon of butter, and whichever spices you prefer. Pulp the tomatoes with your hands. In our case, we added some crushed chili and dried oregano. Bake it for 40-ish minutes at 425. Stir it once half-way through. At the end it should have a jam-like texture. Crush the garlic and roughly stir it all together using a potato masher. Set aside.

 

Enter glass of wine number one.

 

While this was happening I cooked a half-cup of quinoa. We prepare our quinoa with chicken stock whenever we have it, rather than water. It lends a nice flavor.

 

Next I sautéed half of a finely diced large onion in some olive oil. I threw in crushed garlic, along with salt and pepper. Removing the meat of two spicy Italian sausages from their casings, I cut it up and threw it into the mix. This was cooked long enough to brown, but not all the way through.

 

 

 

 

Setting this aside, pouring wine, I halved the zucchini length-wise. Using a spoon, the seeds were scooped out. These and the fleshy bits were aside in case they’d be needed for the stuffing. In the end, I used very little and just mixed in a third of a cup of the cooked quinoa to the sausage and onion mixture. The stuffing was packed into the zucchini, salt and peppered, and topped with a little store-bought Italian-seasoned bread crumbs.

 

The zucchini were placed stuffing up on a baking sheet and covered with foil. They were then baked at 400 for 25 minutes, until the zucchini flesh was soft to a fork but not too tender that they’d fall apart when transferred to a plate.

 

While this cooked I assembled a quick salad. I’m loving Boston lettuce lately, especially to pair with this dressing. Using an immersion blender in a bowl, combine about a third of a cup of olive oil, a tablespoon or two of white wine vinegar, some fresh basil, a third of a cup of fresh parsley, two anchovy fillets, salt and pepper and two finely sliced green onions. Add just a teaspoon of dried tarragon. Toss the salad. I was out of radishes but I did add a finely diced cucumber.

 

 

 

Warm the tomato sauce just as the zucchini is nearing completion and garnish the plated meal with just a bit of it. Remember, the garlic and butter make it very rich, you don’t need much at all.

  

The last glass of wine was poured right about then. While we ate and talked, thoughts turned again to my daughter. I wondered if she’d ever try this recipe with her own friends and family. One day, I’d hope she stumbles on this blog. But above all, I look forward to teaching her the dish on my own.

 

Fred Flintstone Steak and Burrata Cheese

We’ve got a nice year-round farmers’ market in Montreal near Jean-Talon metro. It’s about a 45 minute walk from our place, and so we started out early Sunday morning to beat the humidity and crowds, check out the wares--coffee in hand and pockets stuffed with actual paper money.

 

Frankly speaking, I love a market, but I almost hate going to them. Maybe it’d be different if you lived right next to it, but if you go just once in while I find I’m always coming away with more food than I can cook, and oftentimes weird (though tasty) odds and ends, at that.

 

This weekend was much the same, we went in with one idea and came away with beef. Let me backtrack.

 

It was the last day before I was about to head out of town, and so the idea was nice walk, browse the stalls, get some nice, juicy tomatoes for a simple salad, and a random fish to eat alongside. No leftovers! The plan involved drinking wine on the porch, and maybe even had space for a nap.

 

We managed all of it, but made the walk back burdened with three bags full of food, including nearly a kilo of marinated rib steak. I mean Fred Flintstone steak. A hunk of meat on a bone.

 

 There’s a restaurant we’ve been to twice now on subsequent trips to New York: Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria, the grander Il Buco’s cozier and less fussy cousin. Maybe I’ll review the place later, in another post, but I bring it up now because it was on our first trip there that I was introduced to burrata cheese.

 

We’d ordered a few things off the menu, pasta for her, soup for me, selections of house made charcuterie, and then shared a sandwich as a main. We’d nearly tipped towards a braised short-rib sandwich that walked by, until we saw a heavenly looking six-inch stack of olive-oil drizzled kale stuffed into a bun. I’d been swapping in kale for spinach and other greens for a long time, but I’d never considered a sandwich of nearly nothing but. What they did here, I’m guessing, is blanch quickly, and then assemble mixed with a good olive oil and pasted anchovies, and between the thick layers was also a generous slather of the creamiest, sweetest cheese ever: burrata.

 

Promptly declaring this my favorite sandwich ever, the elusive cheese has since haunted me. When redoing the sandwich at home I’ve come close with ricotta, but never quite to the same consistency.

 

All that to say, this weekend at the market we found burrata.

 

It looks very much like a ball of fresh ball of mozzarella but it’s really soft to the touch. I hesitate to say breast, but will say “water balloon” and you can think what you want. When you cut into it, there’s a thin outer rind and then an inside like a gooey ricotta.

 

All culinary plans aside, what we ended up spending the afternoon doing was taking two of our massive, ripe, awesome market tomatoes and assembling a simple salad. Take the tomatoes and cut them crosswise into four or five sections. Make sure your knife is sharp so you don’t bruise the skin. Trim off the woody bit from the bottom so that it stands better, because you’ll be reassembling shortly, and trim out the stem section from the top of the thing.

 

Start from the bottom and on each layer add some burrata, sea salt, a glug of good olive oil, and some fresh basil. Add the next level, repeat, and repeat till you’re done. I worked slowly, chitchatting, and making sure my Jenga tower didn’t tip. I didn’t use any vinegar, but you can if you’d like. We relied on just the freshness of the tomatoes and the olive oil and salt for bulk of the flavor.

 

 

 

One of the market finds was a jar of Joe Beef’s seasoned “country salt blend.” For about six bucks, it’s a nice little treat.

 

http://www.favuzzi.com/product/1060

 

Each of our tomatoes were bigger than my fist to start and almost twice that reassembled with the cheese. We didn’t make it to the fish, not even to even to the beef. But we did stumble to bed for a good long nap.

Amelio’s

Sometimes you just don’t want to cook. Don’t feel guilty about it. For me, it’s usually because I’m already hungry or tired, and so it’s good to have a couple favorite restaurants in the back pocket ready for emergency booking.

 

Amelio’s is one of my favorite Montreal institutions. It’s cheap, it’s quick (but you can linger as long as you don’t make eye contact with the people waiting in line), it’s cash-only, bring your own wine, and, better yet, at the corner of Milton and Ste-Famille, it’s on the walk home from work. 

 

The place is a family run restaurant that keeps its Italian accented menu lean, focused just on some submarine sandwiches, a selection of pasta, and the pizza. If you come here, it’s not for subs. They don’t even serve fries. You come for the pizza and nothing else.

 

I don’t begrudge people who trend towards a thin crust wafer covered in clever tapas-like toppings, but Amelio’s has perfected the down and dirty thick crust, saucy pie I love. No matter your choice, the toppings are generous and the cheese is an awesome salty alchemical blend that changes flavors as it cools.

 

When we go, we go for what we’re craving, which we’ve whittled down to a large Italian sausage pizza topped with extra hot peppers. It does the trick every time. The cheese is so good, the crust so good, the sauce, just so good, you don’t want to lose yourself in more topping flavor. Over the years we’ve gone from all dressed, to vegetarian, to each with bacon, and each with bacon and hot peppers and sausage. Just too complicated. The parts are so good, you want them to shine.

 

Until this week, when we added bacon. And, man, if our standard wasn’t even the better for it.

 

Damn you, bacon, damn you.

 

 

Nachos & Life, on the Line

A quiet night in can mean one of two things: the time to slowly cook something for a late meal or the time to cook something easy to enjoy on the couch while watching a movie. Each can be relaxing, and each has its place.

 

My current go-to for the couch potato fix is fish tacos and a tinfoil pouch of nachos drizzled in cheese and salsa.

 

The fish can either be grilled or just pan fried, seasoned as basically as with just salt and pepper or a bit spicier with cumin and paprika. Cook it till it flakes a bit but isn’t dried out. We tend towards tilapia because it’s often on sale, frankly, but salmon works just as well. I find you want something with a consistency you can bite into so it doesn’t get hidden under other toppings.

 

Toppings themselves can be whatever you want. I like a bit of diced cucumber or avocado. Mix them with a bit of garlic and sour cream, or not at all. Some sort of hot sauce, or roasted hot pepper puree. And a quick cabbage slaw of thinly sliced red onion, cabbage, fresh coriander, salt and pepper, and a dash of lime juice and olive oil.

 

The nachos are nothing fancy, but do the job. Make an envelope matching your level of appetite out of some heavy duty tinfoil. Do a base of nachos, sprinkle with store bought salsa (I try and go with the chunkier ones so the chips don’t get all soggy), black olives, and cheese, repeat till your tinfoil pouch is full or you’re out of chips. Seal up the pouch and toast it on a grill for just a few minutes. The bottom layer of chips may crisp a bit. That’s fine, you want to leave it on the heat long enough to melt the cheese. Serve with sour cream or guacamole, if you’ve got it.

 

It was sitting down to these humble fixings that we watched, really at random per Netflix’s suggestion, the documentary “Spinning Plates.” This a 2012 doc by writer-director Joseph Levy. It features three very different restaurants and their various successes and failures. It cuts between the stories, and it’s pretty melodramatic at times, waxing philosophical over the place of food and restaurants in a life and a life’s work. But it’s effective and engaging nonetheless.

More to the point, it features Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea. I’d read a longform article about the chef in the New Yorker back some time back right as he was about to gamble everything on experimental cancer treatment to fight stage IV cancer that was affecting most of his tongue, meaning he could no longer taste, and may very well never be able to again, if he even lived. I didn’t put two and two together until Achatz started describing the cancer and the treatment. I’m not one to watch food television, and most chefs are just names to me.

The guy was ridiculously articulate. A perfectionist in the way only a chef can be, and pompous as only someone who’s actually managed a crazy level of success can get away with (if barely). He’s just a year older than me and may end up joining Zadie Smith in my pantheon of personal nemeses. Say what you want, though, Achatz had thought deeply and passionately about what food was to him, whether it was the same for me or you, remains a question. He strives for something somewhat alienating, in a Modernist sense, that forces you to reconsider your stance and assumptions about what food is and how you approach it.

Following the documentary I sought out and read “Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat.” (A pretty big mouthful for someone who specializes in single-bite courses, granted.)

I won’t go in depth with a big review. The book is co-written with Nick Kokonas, with whom he’s opened Alinea and Next. It charts the evolution of Achatz’s palate and his work ethic, his struggle to open Alinea and then his subsequent bout with cancer. The prologue alone is enough to inspire. The rest is less about the craft of food and more about the business of a restaurant, so it depends what you were expecting. It’s an easy enough read, with a lot of drama built right into the subtitle.

If you’re going to read it on a tablet while eating nachos and tacos, I’d suggest just tracking down D.T. Max’s New Yorker article “A Man of Taste: A chef with cancer fights to save his tongue.” It’s shorter, and there’s less chance of spilling half your food. The profile was first published back in the May 12, 2008, issue, and it’s worth tracking down.