Tiramisu

Meals for two

I haven't posted for three weeks (I feel very guilty, and will resume) because somehow I've been feeling lassée-d about cooking. It's slightly nerve-wracking to cook for real people. Has anybody noticed this? Still, I am trying to get into it again; I have much, much, left in my myriad cookbooks that I would like to explore. That, and new things I'd like to try, off the top of my own head, for no reason in particular. But, as I say, I feel nervous about taking risks. So...

Cooking for two people is a fine balance. First, there is portion size to consider. When there is an excess of leftovers, there is always a slight discouragement when the eaters realize what a small dent they have made in the victuals. But the trimming of servings can easily be overdone, so both sides--"too much" and "not enough"--are worth watching. Then there is complexity to consider. Of course, dinner/lunch/breakfast/tea for two fits a large number of circumstances, and ambitiousness dish-wise depends on your company. When I'm not too soucieux of impressing my companion, however, I feel two people are a good guinea pig for cooking experiments.

The one I will describe here is somewhat sub-par on the “It’s a million to one chance, but it just might work,” scale, but experimental nonetheless. (Keep in mind that, especially for spur-of-the-moment innovations, a key feature of Something New is the prior possession of all relevant ingredients.) Am I the only one to feel that kebabs are somehow fun, regardless of circumstance? (Quite possibly, I do realize.)

Although brochettes (including satays, etc.) often require marinating, an interesting (and more spontaneous) way to make them is with a spice rub. Combine some powdered substances in a bowl and toss them around with pieces of meat. Thread these coated chunks onto a skewer. The best part is that you can throw anything into the mix. Dried (or fresh) herbs, chopped garlic, grated ginger, whatever ingredients strike you as flavourful and harmonious in your current mood. When the meat is grilled, it will be slightly infused with these flavours, and come out with a light crunch on the outside. (I have an indoor grill; without one, I’d try searing, but please look this up.) It won’t have quite the same juiciness as marinated meat, but will be nicely texture all the same.

Here are some guidelines. You should have some notion of how your meat goes with your spices. Anyone ever heard of cumin and chicken, really? My favourite meat to use is pork tenderloin, but whatever is in the house. Unless you’ve really got a lot of meat, don’t make more than a few tablespoons mix. And keep it (relatively) simple. 1/8 tsp. of sixteen different spices does not equal sixteen different flavours. In fact, it equals an awkward mix of tastes, plus a few distinct hits of the strongest, most distinctive spices (like cumin and chilli pepper).

Good backbones for spice rubs include cumin, ginger, and dried herbs (rosemary, say, or basil). Once you’ve picked your predominant flavour, select things you think will taste interesting with them. Good spices always to add (except in some cases, of course) in small quantities include salt and pepper (obviously), garlic, and chilli pepper flakes (when spiciness is desired, although keep in mind that enough black pepper has an interesting effect too). The combo I tried was the following: 1 tsp cumin, ½ tsp ground ginger, ½ tsp ground coriander, ¼ tsp chilli pepper flakes, and approx. ½ tsp salt and pepper each. It worked well, although I must be careful to be sparing with the chilli, because it overpowers easily.

In short, spice-rubbed kebabs are an excellent way to play with what’s kicking around in the spice drawer. They don’t require forethought, they’re experimental, they’re easy, they go with most things. I suggest you try it.

Café Myriade

Mon Dieu, quel temps enivrant, hier! C'était drôle, à vrai dire : il ne faisait point si chaud que ça, mais le Tout-Montréal se prélassait sur les terrasses, manteaux ouverts et faces tournées vers le soleil et le ciel azur. Puisque nous n'avons guère eu d'hiver véritable, j'étais surprise de sentir moi-même cette euphorie du printemps. Mais moi, comme tout le monde, je l'ai sentie, et je ne peux m'empêcher d'espérer que ce premier jour solitaire de beau temps annonce le réel printemps.

Qu'ai-je, alors, fait de cette belle journée-là? J'ai visité un nouveau café, un café que j'aurais dû visiter bien avant, étant donné sa célébrité. Il s'agit de Café Myriade. Au dire de ceux qui semblent savoir, Café Myriade sert le meilleur café en ville (avec le plus charmant « art latté »). Bien que j'en aie déjà entendu parler, je supposais qu'il se situait quelque part dans la Petite Italie -- l'autre Mecca des accros de caféine. On m'y avait invitée et j'ai alors découvert qu'il niche aux alentours du Métro Guy-Concordia. Il ne constitue pas non plus un de ces cafés m'as-tu-vu. Il n'est pas entouré d'adresses chics : il est plutôt serti d'humbles dépanneurs, de restaurants asiatiques et d'un grand immeuble peu excitant de Concordia.

Lorsqu'on ouvre la porte d'un café, on reçoit un indice initial de quels et quelles types fréquentent l'établissement. Cette impression est importante, soit-elle correct ou non, même si le clientèle est bien plus dynamique qu'il ne le semble d'emblée. N'importe, il est clair du premier coup que Café Myriade est une adresse cool, jeune, vibrante , si l'on peut dire. Une musique forte et assez récente, sans être la torture lente des DC de Second Cup, assaille l'oreille à l'entrée. Le coin est petit, il ne doit pas y avoir plus qu'une dizaine de tables. Décor et atmosphère du côté bohème, brun, accueillant d'une drôle de manière. De derrière le comptoir se laissent voir maintes rangées de sacs hermétiques de café. Une vitrine de délices point prétentieuses, mais qui ont l'air sucrées et goûteuses se dresse à gauche de la caisse. Ici un menu général (une gamme de cafés, de chocolats chauds, de divers), là une carte de thés (top sélection et qualité), d'autres cafés.

Bien sûr, j'ai commandé un thé, leur seul Wulong, un Wu Yi. Mon amie a bu un chocolat chaud. Les deux confirmaient l'impressionnante réputation de la place : délicieux. Qu'en puis-je dire d'autre? Il y avait du « latté art » même sur le chocolat chaud. C'est gentil, ça, de faire plaisir aux gens qui n'aiment pas le café. Le thé me fut servi en un pot généreux. Un infuseur avait été utilisé (en acier inoxydable avec plein de trous minuscules), mais c'est mieux, quand même, qu'un sachet.

Il est possible que je sois la seule dans la ville qui n'ait pas visité ce café. Mais si ce n'est pas le cas, permettez-moi de suggérer à tous ceux qui étaient comme moi il y a deux jours de visiter, de fréquenter si possible, ce café. Je clique mon verre avec celle de mon amie, Café Myriade --à vous!

Hot & Sour Soup

A member of my family does not like Asian soups. I can never believe this, because I think Asian soups are exquisite; I've never particularly cared for Western ones. This is why, in any case, I make Asian soup whenever aforesaid flesh & blood is not around, and recenty this came to pass. As always my best resource for Asian recipes is Flatbreads & Flavours.

I've mentioned the cookbook Flatbreads & Flavours before. It's one of my favourites, and I strongly recommend it. Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid are the authors of several other cookbooks, also highly acclaimed, notably Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, and Home Baking. All of them are based on the same idea: the married couple has a passion for food and travel. If you go the right places, of course, the two are easy and delicious to combine, and this is just what they do. Taxiing, biking, backpaking, their peregrinations take them from the big city to the remotest, most mountainous parts of Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Their books are rife with quasi-travelogue-style stories of people they meet. They get around, telling stories of a solitary Kirghiz family tucked between moutains and dunes, huge naan ovens in Afghanistan, a tireless chapatti street vendour on the island of Penang. The tales are of hospitality and culture. (Actually, I would appreciate some embarrassing flukes or mishaps. Surely there are jerks in Asia too?)

Europe and America are not neglected, although preference is indubitably given to the Orient. A favourite recipe of mine is their French ladder bread; a partially-whole-wheat dough with olives is stretched to a sort of flat, oblong ciabatta shape then slashed crosswise at intervals, hence the name.

The two Ontarians of course have the not insignificant souci of making breads baked on hot sand, by huge furnaces, or in portable clay ovens, and fitting them into a Canadian kitchen. The westernization is an avowed trial-and-error process. Frequently they mention that they happed upon some strategy and found that it reproduced their Asian experiences to a T. These serendipitous methods sometimes involve switching from griddle to oven at every bread or using an upside-down wok to cook lavash. I find the nonstop roll-cook-flip-roll-cook (or some such) rhythm challenging, especially since I have given up on ever rolling round chapatti. It's interesting, though, and comes with practice.

The Duguids, quite naturally, stress the importance of good flour. Flour is an immensely complex thing. Far from ending at white and whole wheat, in both kinds there are important gradations of gluten content; in brief, "hard" has more, and will help create a resilient texture, whereas "soft" has less and results in a tender crumb. Then there are other grains such as bulgur(and actual flour grains--someday, I really want to try sprouting wheatberries). It goes on and on. Often flours are combined in the same recipe for flavour and textue purposes. All in all, some of the required starch is very difficult if not impossible to find. I substitute and hope for the best quite often, and I'm still okay, so you could go ahead with it.

It's important to remember, though, that F&F is not only a bread book. Many recipes accompany each bread, for meats and kebabs and salads galore--serving recommendations for bread are kindly given. On, then, to the featured recipe. I adore hot and sour soup, and as I say, do not get it at home. At restaurants, I'm never sure exactly what I'm getting. There's that viscous stuff, tasty with lots of mushroom and more sour than hot; there's the more limpid soup, also sour but slihgtly hotter and packed with garnitures. This is the kind I make at home. It's not actually that difficult, although it requires various ingredients.

Here's how it goes. First, shred pork tenderloin. Marinate half with soy sauce, water, corn starch, rice vinegar, sugar and loads of ground pepper; simmer the other half in water for fifteen minutes, in order to make a sort of stock. Meanwhile, pour boiling water over the dried ingredients, namely tree ears (a kind of Chinese mushroom) and black mushrooms, a odd-looking Chinese fungus found only but commonly in ethnic grocery stores. (Lily buds, too, or "golden needles" are needed, but I have not yet found any.) When these are hydrated, cut out the tough bits, slice, and/or dice. Next, add the meat, mushrooms, tofu and more cracked pepper to the stock. Let this continue to simmer for ten minutes longer. Add six tablespoons of rice vinegar (more than a fourth cup), a mixture of water and soy sauce thickened with cornstarch. Finally, whisk an egg and pour it into the soup, stirring to break apart the strands. Serve.

This soup is absolutely delicious. The spicy comes mainly from the copious amount of black pepper, and the sour from the vinegar. There are plenty of chewy mushrooms and the meat is tasty. Recipes of this soup abound, so I highly recommend you try one out. (By the by, don't be afraid to leave out or add soup contents. As long as the basic stock and most essential fillings are more or less respected, you can toss anything solid into the pot.)

À propos du bibnat

Allant, après tout, très souvent à Camellia Sinensis, je ne puis faire autrement que de connaître un peu la région Berri. Or, quel "attrait", si l'on peut dire, se situe non pas seulement dans le coin, mais adjointe au Métro?

La BANQ!

L'acronyme est quelque peu mystérieux, mais bien connu: Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec. Moi, j'ai tard découvert ce nom de B-A-N-Q. Je préférais, et je préfère toujours, l'appeler la BibNat, ou Bibliothèque Nationale lorsque j'ai le goût d'être spécifique.

Un post parlant de bibliothèques, dites-vous peut-être, est hors sujet sur un blogue thé/foodie. Pas tout à fait: j'espère faire quelques liens, mais commençons par ça. Si vous n'avez pas de carte à la BibNat, obtenez-en un et plus vite que ça. Les abonnements sont disponibles pour n'importe quelle personne vivante au Québec. Apportez des preuves de résidence et d'identité, faites le pied de grue une quinzaine de minutes, et vous serez l'heureux récipient d'une carte en plastique vert et blanc munie d'un code-barre et d'un numéro de client.

C'est aussi facile que ça. Chaque vois que j'y vais, je vois une file considérable devant le comptoir des abonnements. Des gens âgés de quinze à quatre-vingts ans, de tout métier, de tout région, sont constamment en train d'obtenir leur membership, et pas pour rien.

La BANQ, c'est cinq étages remplis à déborder de livres et de "autres", c'est-à-dire de musique, de périodiques, et tout et tout. Leur collection est énorme, comprenant du matériel du plus didactique jusqu'au plus populaire. Leur criticisme littéraire fait rêver un académique en herbe. (Particulièrement leur criticisme Tintin--la quantité en est incroyable.) De l'autre côté, ils ont toutes les livres de cuisine qu'on pourrait désirer. Les romans policiers/mystères prennent grande place, mais les livres de mathématiques sont également fascinantes.

Il n'y pas que des livres non plus dans le grand beau édifice. Les bureaux sont nombreux, faits pour s'asseoir et passer quelques heures à lire. Leur labo de langues--des ordis en bibli sur lesquels sont installés de logiciels d'apprentissage de langues--m'occupe bien souvent. La Collection Nationale est une sorte de bibliothèque dans une bibliothèque: elle contient du matériel pour consultation sur place, des publications québécoises pour la plupart, notamment des manuels. Ils ont un mini-musée, et du Wifi gratuit. Si vous venez d'emprunter un livre qui ne peut pas attendre, installez-vous au café. (Bon, là, le café n'est pas le meilleur, mais qui irait là-bas avec Cam Sin à côté?)

Ils sont bien à jour. Le nouveau album d'Andrea Lindsay, Les Sentinelles Dorment, est déjà disponible, bien que je sois onzième dans la queue des réservations. Onze exemplaires dont un enregistrement sonore (tous prêtés et réservés--moi, je suis soixante-dixième) du nouveau romand de Marie Ndiaye, ayant rapporté le prix de l'Académie cet été, sont disponibles. Toutes les saisons de Buffy the Vampire Slayer y sont (très populaires, ceux-là).

Ainsi de suite. Pour le foodie et l'amateur des grands crus, checkez la section boissons et cuisine.

Je résume ce poste en une simple phrase: "Quel plaisir d'avoir une bibliothèque énorme au bout de ses doigts!" Car c'est vrai que la BibNat a tout, et que vous devriez l'investiguer.

Tea Workshop

I ought to be doing this post in French, but that would mean enfeebling my poky English-French alternation.

I have long wanted to attend an "Atelier de Thé" at Camellia Sinensis. "Initiation to Tea" is the prerequisite for the other, more exciting and thematic ones. This was the one I took, partly as key to the door of more advanced workshops.

The small, discreetly paneled back room had been reconfigured. The small tables had been consolidated into one big one, surrounded with those comfy blue armless chairs, and centerpieced with a gaiwan, kyusu, and Yixing. There were nine people there; a varied lot, tending towards the young, hip, and new on the tea scene. Two French-French women who had come together, a curious Quebecois guy, three Anglophones with varying degrees of French who seemed to know each other, a curious (although I think a tad skeptical) couple, and me. The tea professional there was a typical handsome twenty- or thirty-something tea-sherpa, who I recognized vaguely from the teashop. (He, however, recognized me: when he was going round the table, asking whether people came to the shop often, said, "Vous, c'est pas la première fois." I was extremely flattered.)

A place had been set for all of us, with a glass of water and a black folder containing a print version of the information that was to be told us.(A free folder! That's bang for your buck.) We were welcomed with a small cup of Bai Mu Dan, a delicious traditional Fujian white tea, not mind-numbingly subtle like some. Fruity with the lightest touch of acidity, like donut peaches.

The atmosphere was friendly if very quiet. We listened, mainly, although Jonathan did solicit our questions and opinions every now and then. He started by introducing himself and asking us all how we'd come to tea, then describing the teashop, its proprietors, and its origins. Part one as a whole was a well-delivered lecture (lecture in the positive sense) on the history, manufacture, and terroir of tea. After a short break, we moved on to part two: tasting and brewing.

Before he joined in Cam Sin team, Jonathan, it seems, had worked in restauration for years, coming to Camellia Sinensis to get away from his stressful life. At the time, it was a humble, hippie, shisha-and-tea place, with cushions on the floor and indian music wafting psychedelically overhead. Slowly, the tea gained importance, the boutique opened next door, and the demand for shisha trickled out. The owners began to source their teas, first from top Parisian and Dutch purveyors, then (partly in the name of thrift) straight from the fields. He described the tea team as motivated and cool and his tea education as ongoing. My dream job.

During part one, I discovered, among other things, that the milk-and-sugar habits of the Brits probably stem from a time when green tea fermented and spoiled in the humid depths of cargoes that hauled them to England from distant ports. The flavourings masked the taste of the rather "off" tea. (Ah-hah, you false tea-loving UKers.) Through the beautiful slides of far-off tea field, he showed us how to differentiate between Japanese, Chinese and Indian plantations. In Japan and only Japan, bushes are trimmed to a convex surface, to increase plucking area. Look for flat "tea tables" and spaces between bush rows to identify China. In India, there are no spaces between rows of bushes, in order to maximize yield. While discussing Kenyan and CTC teas, he also suggested an experiment to make use of old tea bags. Brew one teabag in its bag, and open another to brew it loose. Compare the two. Apparently (I haven't tried yet) the loose one will actually be worse. Teabag tea is chosen to go with the bag and its constituents (glue, staples, string, paper). It masks these flavours by orchestrating with them, weaving them into a thick black cloak of acrid tea. (My words, not his.) As a result, without the bag, the tea has lost its intended accompaniment, and is oxymoronically even more repulsive than a plain Tazo teabag.

Although I was a little surprised to hear teabags even mentioned, it was relaxing, to be among people whose brewing habits were still quite largely Western. I admitted without fear of repudiation that I had started off with an English approach to tea, brewing Lapsang and Earl Grey in great big mugs. He described, without a trace of scorn, how to optimize this kind of brewing, adding that the reason he drank in small cups was simply that it allowed him to devote his whole mind to the tea.

Notwithstanding the tolerance of Brit brewing, in which careful meditation on flavours does not play a part, the tasting section was fascinating. He emphasized the importance of retronasal olfaction, that is, smell captured from the mouth. Few scents are forthcoming when plainly sniffed, but more appear when they wander into the nasal passages from the throat. To ensure proper tasting, he also advocated a silly-looking but effective sipping method. Noisily slurp your tea, as if you were eating soba noodles, in order to cool and oxygenate it. Swoosh it around in your mouth conspicuously, swallow, then breathe out noisily, to coax lingering smells into your nose. To describe the tastes you experience, start by check-listing the five flavour; bitter (all tea, he said, will be slightly bitter, so start there), sour, sweet, salty, and finally the painfully foodie-hip umami or savoury. Expand on these impressions to more specific gustative signifiers. If you can link the smells of the tea to a memory, go with it, and go further. (They do say that smell is a powerful memory trigger.) Narrate the tea: differentiate between its beginning and end. And so on.

I enjoyed the experience immensely, but it really was an initiation. As such, I was familiar with most of the basic content. The material I knew was well-presented, though (besides, a review never hurts) and interspersed with anecdotes and things that hadn't shown up in The Story of Tea. In any case, it affirmed my confidence that Camellia Sinensis is sincere in its desire to spread tea to all and sundry, for their maximum enjoyment.

If I had heard some things before, here and there, picked them up from the discerning blog posts of the tea masters, it was simply much more effective, and enchanting, to have them told to me in person, shown, shared. That was the advantage of coming to the shop on a Saturday morning to learn what could be read in a book. It was well worth the effort. The experience was zen, informative, and fun, and, any and all of my personal prejudices aside, I recommend it. We shall see what future workshops have to offer.

Au festin de Babette

Ce café rue St-Denis tire son nom d'un film danois qui met en vedette une chef célèbre qui a fui le Paris pour se retrouver dans un village isolé au Danemark. Elle s'engage, désespéré, comme cuisinière à deux soeurs villagères. Lorsque Babette (la chef) gagne la loterie, elle se décide d'élaborer un éblouissant banquet dans le style de ceux qu'elle conconctait à Paris. Le film met en scène cet évènement extravagant et les réunions amoureuses qu'il occasionne.

Déjà, avec cet établissement, on ne va pas mal.

Je décris souvent dans mon blogue les restaurants. Pour la plupart, les repas que j'y prends sont des sorties, des occasions. Bien entendu, je ne mange pas chaque soir au resto. Par contre, il ne se passe rarement une journée où je ne fréquenterai pas de coffee-shop (ou de teashop, bien sur). À ne pas déduire que les cafés sont les pis-aller du bistrot. Premièrement, faut pas nier le nécéssité d'une petite tasse, le matin. Mais deuxièmement, les cafés sont des endroits merveilleux, variés, le confort et plaisir de tous les jours. Lieux d'étude, de jasage, de repos, de découverte même, les coffe-shops sont simplement tout ce qu'il y a de bon.

Mes éloges poétiques de ce genre se produisent souvent, ici. Désormais j'essaierai de réduire leur fréquence, mais celle-là est écrite sincèrement. Quand je suis allée au Boston, ville sans doute aux autres vertus nombreuses, le manque de cafés était vraiment frappant. Des Starbucks, il y en avait certes, nichés dans des librairies et glissés entre boutiques : et il y avait des bistrots servant des dîners chers et des bières recherchées, sans oublier les "sandwich joints". Mais dans ces endoits, après avoir mangé, on part! Quelle idée! (J'exclus Starbucks, qui n'a pas d'âme). Pas de traînage relax à sa table en écoutant subrepticement la conversation du voisin.

C'est un des grands amours que j'ai envers Montréal. Les Seconds Cups, il y en a assez, mais à la fin, on trouvera bien un petit coin original et sympa où boire un verre. De ces coins-là, je pourrais nommer une douzaine à l'instant. Mais revenons à Babette.

Le café joue la double fonction de boutique de douceurs alimentaires et coffee-shop. L'atmosphère y est éclectique, amicale, peinte en couleurs acceuillantes. Sur un mur sont juchées des théières et bouilloires de toutes sortes. Sur un autre se trouve un étalage d'huiles d'olive et de petites jarres précieuses et fascinantes. Une étagère propose du matériel à lire aux clients en besoin (les livres sont plutôt "lefty", tout comme la librairie d'à côté). Très belle assortiment de chocolats et de truffes que j'ai encore à entamer. Bref, lieu comfortablement chic.

La nourriture y est excellente et pas chère. Mon préféré serait le brownie au gingembre (les croissants sont également délicieux). Ils offrent un sélection impressionant de thés en vrac, dont de divers types non parfumés et de bons oolongs. Ils font bouillir l'eau au lieu de l'extraire de cette sombre machine utilisée dans les Second Cup qui donne de l'eau tiède. On vous donne un théière en acier inoxidable : pas optimal, mais mille fois mieux que ces contraptions en aluminium qui coulent et se chauffent comme une cuillère en argent.

Je déteste le café, ce qui constitue un obstacle au bilan complet d'un coffee shop. Shaïka sert apparement du café médiocre, mais personellement je l'estime pour ses biscuits double-chocolat, ses sandwichs, sa clientèle. J'ai le mot d'autrui que le café d'Au festin est, lui, bon.

Le film du même nom que cette place illustre des débauches gourmandes parisiennes dans un paysage nordique et neigeux. Ça vous dit quelque chose? Si Au festin de Babette le petit coin montréalais est un lieu plutôt de charme et de délices raffinés que d'extrêmes et chères gourmandises, moi, je suis heureux de m'y réfugier hors du vent.

Génoise

La Chimie du Dessert has the following definition to offer for génoise cake: "A sponge cake confectioned from whole eggs beaten to a froth with sugar. To ensure the cake's proper rising, the eggs are whipped extensively, until they have tripled in volume and fall gently off the beater in ribbons and form ribbon-like ridges when poured into the pan. At this stage, the mousse is thick enough to retain air bubbles. Flour and sometimes melted butter are then added. (The butter moistens the crumb and makes the cake keep longer.)"

This is in translation, of course. In any case, I don't think I can be the only one to get kinds of sponge cake (angel food, which uses no yolks, for instance, or chiffon cake, which uses baking powder) mixed up. It may also be that the definitions themselves are less than crystal-clear. In Craig Claibourne, an out-of-print, Joy-of-Cooking-like favourite cookbook, génoise beats the eggs and yolks separately, then folds the former into the latter, with flour added. This is the exact definition that Chimie gives for sponge cake. The craig citation is from a bûche recipe, whereas Chimie endorses génoise and sponge for rolling purposes. Maybe these are my misnomers, but maybe this is just a mixed-up world for those who can't find a copy of Larousse Gastronomique.

This diatribe on the futility of sponge cake classification has nothing to do with anything. (Purely and self-indulgently tangential paragraphs are a perk of having a blog nobody reads.) My point here is that sponge cake is a fascinating thing. With its myriad forms and facets, it has as many uses as labels. My personal favourite is the bûche de noël, or any roll-up cake. This kind is made with génoise, sponge, whatever, and frosted or at least rolled with something or other. A proper bûche as I've always made it involves mocha cream frosting and rum syrup. The less festive jelly roll's virtues are exually extolled (I doubt their veracity myself, but who can tell) and other prosaic rolled, frosted cakes are of course common.

Your average cake or tea-cake of this kind is baked on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet, rolled, rested, unrolled, frosted, rerolled, and frosted some more. A fair amount of work, depending on the occasion, goes into this sort of thing. I've seen various spins on the concept: rolled with jam, frosted inside/outside, unfrosted except with decorator's, etc. I admit that the whole shape and assembly is mostly a sleight-of-hand presentation deal. Easier than, say, making chocolate curls (I CANNOT do this) but harder than putting a cherry on top. You want to make a jelly roll? Make a square cake, slice it latitudinally, put jam on the bottom one, and you have a (more visually blah) jelly roll. You want mocha cream frosting on your génoise? Use a regular old 9" by 9" and slather it on.

Rolling cakes is about presentation and occasion: a one-dimensional Christmas log just doesn't do the trick. That means, however, that rolled or not, sponge cake is a star. It's one of those versatile kitchen staples. It's easy to perfume with lemon or citrus rind, notably, although I would like to try--just, you know, to see--using ground tea leaves or matcha. It takes whatever frosting you like (try a simple emulsion of orange juice, rind, a little softened butter and masses of confectioner's sugar to thicken). Brushing with alcoholic or plain sugar syrup adds a pleasing crunch. It can be a foil for fresh fruit or homemade jam.

(N. B. Sponge cake and its affiliated confections are not to be confused with butter cake, though the two have similar-looking end products.)

Besides complicated rolling and slicing procedures, sponge cake follows a basic structure: eggs beaten to maximum fluffiness (the eggs and the yolks are whipped either separately or together, depending, as I've said, on the type of cake), then stabilizing and flavour-giving ingredients (flour, cream of tartar, butter) are delicately folded into the mixture. Think of sponge cakes as sturdy soufflés. Both rise by the same graceful chemical feat, but génoise and its relatives stay souffléd with the help of starch.

Sponge cake (and chiffon, angel and génoise cake, under their correct names or not) recipes are available at every virtual and physical page-turn, so try one and see what happens. They can backbone a show-stopper or be modest, plain and unassuming. Recipes tend to be forgiving, provided the egg whites whip properly, and you can think of them as beginner's soufflés. They're sweet and fluffy, people. Life is short.

Divers

Salut à personne!

Je viens de faire mon premier cha xi indépendant, c'est-à-dire sans le bias du tea-shop. Pour Noël, j'ai reçu les quelques instruments clés dont j'avais besoin. Je suis maintenant tout équipé de théière, wenxiangbei, balance digitale, thermomètre à lecture instantanée. Malgré cet ensemble impressionnant, il est évident que j'ai bien des choses à apprendre. Mes ustensiles se trouvent toujours un peu épars. Toujours y-a-t-il un gadget qui m'escamote : l’eau bout avant que j’aie eu le temps de sortir le thé lui-même.
L'eau pose un véritable obstacle, puisque, nonobstant les éloges des tea-bloggers au sujet de l’eau de source, ou faute de cela, de l'eau filtré, je continue à bouillir de l'eau directement du robinet. Avant, je le faisais couler même chaud. Si j'ai racheté mon péché jusque-là, il reste le fait que l'eau n'est pas filtré et que la bouilloire est en aluminium.

De plus, il me semble que mes dispositions zen de mes ustensiles laissent fortement à désirer. Toujours avec une tendance vers l'improvisé, mes arrangements sont généralement en pagaïe dès que je les touche.

Bon. Le temps m'apportera de l'habileté, je l'espère. Parlons du nouveau livre Thé de Camellia Sinensis.

Le livre a eu assez de publicité, non seulement chez Cam. Sin., mais dans le Gazette. Il existe une ou deux autres ouvrages séminaux sur le thé (citons L'Histoire du thé et le livre allongé orange qu'on voit chez Renaud-Bray), mais pas assez. Trop de prétendus guides de dégustation et histoires culturels ne savent que décrire la façon de boire britannique, et n'offrent même que de faibles invectives contre les sachets de thé. Heureusement, je crois que le breuvage asiatique vient graduellement en vogue. Nous verrons.

Mais je détraque. Le livre Thé: histoire, terroirs, saveurs, est une livre pas tout à fait de référence. L'Histoire du thé, lui, par exemple, raconte l'histoire (passionnante) du thé en détail. Thé esquisse plutôt cette histoire. Je ne le lui reproche pas. Il a un but différent.

Beau livre, pleine d'images de terroirs, feuilles fraiches de thé, et d’artisans au travail, Thé, de ses trois dits sujets, se concentre sur terroir. La majeure partie du volume est classée par pays: thés de Chine, thés de Japon, d'Inde, de Taïwan, etc. La livre a l'organisation basique régionale. Pour les auteurs, la région particulière, traditionnelle et unique d’un thé en fait le caractère. Ce traitement domine le contenu du livre.

Il y a d'autre choses, bien sur: une section très utile mais bref portant sur la dégustation et son rhétorique spécialisé, ainsi qu'une richesse de tableaux et analyse chimiques du thé. J'apprécie bien ce dernier. Les beaux tableaux sont uniques, faciles à comprendre, et fascinants. Un classement de 25 thés par mg de caféine dans 100mL montre l’impossibilité de dire tout court, "Le thé vert a moins de caféine que le thé pu-erh," ou n'importe quoi. Ça dépend du thé et non de sa catégorie.

J'aime beaucoup ce livre. Son but n'est pas d'être complet, mais de toucher par-dessus tout au pays et aux artisans. En outre, tous les thés qu'on mentionne sont essayables au teashop.

Tasso, mezze bar

A few days ago, I was migrating haphazardly down St-Denis from Dix Mille Villages in the general direction of Camellia Sinensis. It was snowing lightly, as it had been all day, on and off. Everything was deserted on the dark cold Sunday night--we were the exceptions to deserted, but not to cold. Window-shopping the empty stores, we passed Tasso--mezze bar. It had a lighted menu outside and looked pleasingly warm and candle-lit. I've passed a lot of restaurants on St-Denis and promised to go to them someday, this one being no exception. Because of the aforementioned circumstances, however, the lure of a light meal was too great, and in me and my party went.

Mezze is, to but it bluntly, a Mediterranean version of Tapas. (Tasso serves Greek food, but mezze itself is not exclusively Agatean.) The two are of course wildly different, because the cuisines are totally unrelated, but the idea of many small plates is the same. Flatbreads and Flavours (by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid) portrays it ideally as a cornucopia of savoury delicacies, meant for a large group, abnudant with flabreads and everything else from olives to kebabs.

This kind of place always looks deceptively cheap, at 7 or 8 dollars a dish (saving the occasional 12-buck exotic seafood dish). But small is not a misnomer, and two or three dishes are required to amount to a normal serving. We were, however, on the lookout for a light meal. As such, we ordered only one plate each. It was less than we'd have liked to eat, so mouth-watering proved the menu, but such is life.

The place was all but empty upon our arrival, but friendly nonetheless. The tables are cork and the ambiance classy. The white-washed walls and idyllic fishing pictures are meant to recreate, to the lowest common denominator, of course, a gleaming Greek fishing village. Cork is a decorative theme. I approve. The service, I will take the time to say, was extremely good: speedy, courteous, informative, enthusiastic. I do not think waiters should make or break a restaurant, although they can earn significant bonus points. The main idea is the food, and here we go.

The meal was started off, for free, with bread and olive oil. It was an extremely promising beginning. The bread was really, really good. I would guess, in my fangirl way, that it is baked in-house, then toasted before being served. The toasting is clearly done on the grill, a significant asset. Nor was the olive oil unworthy of its recipient. We were given the choice of two kinds, even; the waiter gave us the skinny on the "light" and "dark" oils and bid us choose. The description was detailed and accurate: its finish was indeed peppery, its body in effect smooth, its flavour fruity. Olive oil is yet another liquid, if not a beverage, that begs a root to stick -philia onto.

We ordered a selection of dips as our first "course". We ate them with more bread. There were four kinds. The tzatziki, a dip we're all familiar with, was excellent and somehow different from store-bought or even home-made kinds. The chef apparently uses ouzo (an anise-flavoured Greek liqueur) to pull the flavours together. It's something I'll have to try. It gave it an unparalleled roundness, almost sweetness. There were three other dips: a delicious, creamy black olive tapenade, a puree of feta and red peppers called tyrokafteri (good, but my least favourite; it tasted like feta cheese transposed to a smoother texture and slight pinkishness), taramosalata, a real delicacy made of red caviar and various flavourings, superbly light, thoroughly delicious.

We ordered grilled quail, too. Because, I presume, of the rarity of the main ingredient, the serving was really pretty puny. (The presentation was cute, though. The pieces were propped against each other on a mini cast-iron skillet.) Still, the meat was succulent and the skin perfectly crispy.

I loved the fried eggplant and zucchini with garlic sauce. Both vegetables were their respective -ish adjectives, and were sliced very thinly. The fragility of the pieces perfectly matched the airy batter in which they had been deep-fried. The garlic sauce, not dissimilar to the the tzatziki, was exquisitely creamy and flavourful.

We also had vine leaves. They were a little disappointing. The rice didn't seem up to snuff with the ethereal-quality standards of the meal, and the leaves were a little tough. They would be my only complaint about the restaurant, but a minor one. Vine leaves are so ubiquitous that I hardly think they necessarily reflect a Greek restaurant's quality. In this case they didn't.

The plates may have been small, but I was actually quite satisfied, and had a truffle instead of a scone at the teashop afterwards. After all, when you've only got two beautifully browned quail wings left to eat, you find yourself at no small pains to eke out every last morsel of grilled deliciousness from the tiny bones. Eating slowly fills the mind--it's the placebo effect for the stomach. Besides, with enough bread, dips are really very filling.

I will go back here, and as soon as possible. I enjoyed it immensely.

En vedette : le « lemon curd »

Ai-je dit qu’il était l’hiver, le dernier poste? Je le répète, puisque la ville a maintenant le paysage et le service de bus qui siéent vraiment à la saison. Pour l’instant, je trouve encore la neige belle. Et je profite du moment de l’année pour acheter des pommes grenades et des agrumes.

Le « lemon curd », bien que j’en aie entendu parler auparavant, m’a été introduit par Le Chimie du Dessert, une livre que j’adore. Pleine de recettes, d’astuces, de labos et d’explications scientifiques, elle rassasie ma curiosité sur les aspects chimiques de la cuisine. Bien des choses qui m’étaient jadis des mystères (les confitures, les biscuits à l’avoine, la crème pâtissière) me se sont expliquées, le « lemon curd » inclus. Il s’agit de quelque chose qu’on tartine sur n’importe quoi, les rôties, les scones, la crème glacée. Il est délicieux car il contient deux bonnes cuillérées à soupe de zeste et trois quarts d’une tasse de jus de citron et de lime. Ce choix-là de fruits est le plus traditionnel sans être le seul. À date, j’ai fait un « curd » classique et un à l’orange-pamplemousse, mais je tiens à en faire un avec des oranges sanguines ou peut-être des clémentines, puisque nous en achetons tant.

La première étape est de zester et juter vos agrumes. Ça prend du temps, plus même que la préparation actuelle. (Les limes, moi, je trouve ça impossible à zester—la pelure est trop mince et elle déchire plutôt que de rendre la surface du fruit savoureuse et parfumée voulue.) Ensuite, il faut y mélanger des jaunes d’œuf et du sucre et fouetter le tout pour obtenir un mélange lisse.

Pour cuire et épaissir la crème au citron, vous avez le choix entre une casserole sur feu doux ou un bain-marie (c’est la méthode que je préfère). Une fois sur le feu, ajoutez-y le beurre coupé en dés. Il fondra au fur et à mesure que vous remuerez. La cuisson complète prend une dizaine de minutes à peu près. Il faut remuer constamment pour éviter les grumeaux. N’attendez-vous pas à ce que le curd devienne épaisse comme une crème anglaise. Il devrait tout simplement napper l’arrière d’une cuillère en bois. Ce n’est pas en vérité grand-chose, et le mélange, à ce stage, est encore un liquide dans lequel. Votre fouet n’y fera pas de spirales. Si vous avez un thermomètre pour bonbons (ou à lecture instantanée, etc.), vous pouvez l’utiliser; lorsque vous lisez 185°C, la cuisson est finie.

Pour conserver, laisser tiédir le mélange avant de le réfrigérer dans un bocal bien scellé. Il se conserve pour un mois à peu près, et il se congèle bien. C’est après la réfrigération que le curd adoptera une texture de confiture. (Le beurre ajouté se solidifie.)

À quels fins utiliser ce curd? Il sied aussi bien à un muffin anglais le déjeuner qu’à un dessert élégant. Moi, j’adore ça sur la crème glacée et sur les scones, mais sur les meringues, c’est incomparable. L’effet est encore plus joli et savoureux si vous saupoudrez quelques graines de pomme grenade sur le dessus. Amusez-vous : ce délice est aussi versatile que savoureux.

Lu An Gua Pian

It's winter, folks. The season for which we are famous has begun in its usual fashion, if a little late. There is always one early, slushy, rainy snow in mid-fall. (Remember it? It was the one where everyone groaned with cries of "It's not even November yet!" while clambering about the drippy window, being glad they weren't outside.)It snowed in earnest last night, though, with big fat snowflakes ideal for tongue-catching, swirling in the street-light's glow, blanketing the late-night world with quiet, and all that rot--the silver-bells ambiance fading when the snow stopped, just in time to prevent people from actually wearing boots. Today it settled down to a more familiar bleak. Little stingy snowflakes sticking to the sidewalks just enough to make them slippery, cold, grey, dusky, the whole package.

That said, what better time to enjoy, oh, say, a fig-chai oatmeal cookie and a Chinese green?

Camellia Sinensis has changed its menu. None of the pages are falling out anymore; there are no more "épuisé" stickers (although I shouldn't imagine it'll be long). The pictures are different, and the technique this and that photos are in color. (The tea-sorting baby orangutans from Darjeeling or possibly Assam are gone. Pity.) The menu has been switched around quite a lot really. Some teas are the same, but there's a large percentage have been removed and replaced. The pu-er selection is half-again bigger and includes two vintages from '80 and '76. I'm dying to try them although they're splurges at 12$ a pot. The black teas are quite different, and few of the oolongs remain the same. Some Vietnamese greens have set up shop, and the range of Japanese greens is wider.

I'm pleased. A few of my favourites got the ax--Cingshin 1991, for one, but some, like Sencha Ashikubo, were kept. The menu is neater, and has some really great-looking stuff. It's got me flipping through the pages, reading the descriptions over and over, deliberating endlessly, just like I did when I first walked into the store.

The Lu An Gua Pian I had today is new on the menu, of course. Its leaves are lovely. Blue-tinged green with a sheen of silver. Rolled, ridged, smallish leaves, no stem or twig, medium-sized leaf sections. They smell invitingly spicy. Once unrolled, tiny insect bites are visible--a sign of quality, as Teamasters has taught me. They retain their sea-greenitude when wet.

The tea is a nice yellow. Its texture is thinnish but smooth and genteel. The smell of the rising steam carries out the description's promise: sweet, vegetabley. I shied away from a professed "vegetable character" until recently, fearing sharpness or astringency. Not so, at least in most cases. In this case it communicated freshness and soupçons of avocado. ("Avocado" is from the mouth of Cam. Sen. They always seem to be able to pick specific vegetables. I never seem to, but I'm trying.)

The liquor has sweetness and a good kind of sour, not citric but like an underripe plum or something. My main vegetable pick is asparagus (cooked) and raw stringbeans for the aftertaste.

The second and third infusions are similar but bitter. My fault: the tea likes short infusions. 10s and 15s produced better results. The sourness receded and the throat presenced filled out. Some of the sweetness of the smell seeps in while crunchy string-bean character takes precedence.

This was an excellent tea. The leaves really are things of beauty. The tea itself is very tasty and mild with the theanine--a good evening tea.

(It didn't upstage the fig-chai cookie, but then, what could?)

Vous savez que vous êtes montréalais(e) si...

...vous vous demandez si Algorithme Pharma va bien cesser son étude clinique une de ces décennies.

... « BonjourHi », « AlloBonjour » et « Puis-jevousaiderCanIhelpyou » sont pour vous des mots parfaitement propres et nécéssaires dans la vie quotidienne.

...l'obtention d'une siège sur le métro ou sur le bus est un art qui nécessite le plus développé des sixièmes sens.

...vous maintenez une relation amour-haine avec la STM. Même si vous avez parfois l'impression qu'elle forme une cabale contre vous, vous laissant choir quand vous en avez le plus besoin, même si votre carte opus s'est déja cassée trois fois, même si vous haïssez la saleté des cars de métro et les graffitis sur les fenêtres des autobus, même si vous avez marre du « Mouvement collectif », eh bien, ...eh bien, vous avez comme une familiarité avec elle.

...vous parlez souvent à une caissière ou autre personne semblable dans votre langue secondaire, une action de politesse, croyez-vous, (vous aviez été trompé par son « BonjourHi ») et découvrez subséquemment que c'est la langue secondaire de lui ou elle aussi--mais rendu jusque-là, vous vous sentiriez con à changer de langue.

...votre sens de la géographie de la ville a plus à voir avec les quartiers francophones et anglophones que les noms de rues et les points cardinaux.

...vous vous gardez d'utiliser le mot "malade", car vous ne savez pas, même à cette date, si elle est censée être une bonne ou mauvaise chose.

...vous savez distinguer les clientèles distinctes des cafés. Java U, par exemple, se voue aux jeunes branchés qui payent les salades et sandwichs chers et les patates frites délicieuses. Starbucks accueille des types plus variés et plus pressés, même chose pour Second Cup, avec une emphase sur les étudiants. Caffe Italia est rempli d'Italiens, de shoppeurs à Jean-Talon, et d'enthousiastes de café. Café Art Java, lui, sied aux gens de McGill, glissant une pause café-travail dans leurs horaires chargés. Shaïka réunit les jeunes artistes, musiciens, gens cool, et riffraff de la région. Café Crème attire les aisés de Westmount, les propriétaires de chiens, et des amis réunis pour causer. Ainsi de suite.

...vous vous obstinez: Mont-Royal n'est pas une colline, c'est une montagne.

...vous adorez inconditionnellement votre ville.

High tea: part 2

I'm getting a little depressed by the fact that I'm all alone out here in cyberspace. Nobody's going to read me, ever. Ah, well. I can't keep up with all the trendy chemist-photographer tea bloggers out there. It's life.

I'm not actually sure if "high tea" is the correct terminology. There's some sort of complex arrangement with high and low and afternoon and somewhere-in-between tea being different things. I stick with high out of habit, and I never get around to making sure it's correct.

Tea things should be set up around scones. As such, make them well, as you would a central meat or veggie dish. Serve them with good jam and butter. (Smuckers? Not so much.) If there are homemade spreads, so much the better. Try making apple butter (quite simply a cooked-down apple sauce with the texture of butter). Quebec apples, I love you. I wish you never had to go out of season. Lemon curd is a classic. And jam, if you can cope with the whole canning thing.

That said, scones are the middle course. Start with savories. It's a broad term and covers everything from pâté de foie gras to cucumber sandwiches. There are a lot of recipes out there for little onion and beet confits and various arcane things involving asparagus tips. They're fun. But itsy-bitsy sandwiches, well, they just have this glamour, you know? Here are three "recipes".

1. Cucumber. I don't like cucumbers, but I like good cucumber sandwiches. The secret is to slice them über-thin. Use a vegetable peeler. For these, a light buttering is fairly key. The bread, to keep it classic, should probably be white sandwich, although I have resorted to challah and ciabatta in absence of non-Wonderbready type stuff. A light crack of salt and pepper. If flavourings are your dish, pulverize some mint leaves and put them in; they go well.

2. Stilton & pear. These are actually DELICIOUS. Stilton is a creamy-crumbly Brit blue cheese. With a slice of Bartlett, they're a treat. Here, any bread is fine: baguette is always nice, but "normal" white sandwich is fine too. These sandwiches tend to fall apart because the bread won't stick to the pear. For that reason, I'd recommend lightly buttering the top slice.

3. Apple & cheddar. It's a classic combo. Just make is all sandwichy. A thin-ish slice of apple on top of a cheddar slice of the same thickness between grain-product slices and you're golden. The sandwich doesn't hold together too well, but I don't like it buttered so much; I'd rather just have it be a little topply. Any bread is fine here. Something firmer, however, is preferable; baguette, say, or even matzoh, which offsets the textures rather nicely.

I think there will have to be a part three to this post.

High tea: part 1

British tea drinking is sort of odd. I mean, mostly your real intense fanatics have left big pots and flavoured teas waaaay behind them on the road to tea zendom. But it isn't that big-pot, sugar-added brewing is contemptible; far from it. I always feel that, well, Asia is where tea comes from. They know how to handle it best. Regardless, though, and hypocritical as it sounds, the tea I drink most often is Lapsang Souchong; and the pot I use most often is big enough for two and a half large mugs'-worth. Those are my 'daily brewing needs,' as I would say if I was annoying.

So if you, like me, drink in mugs more frequently than tiny cups, only make sure you do it right. Use good looseleaf tea. Try to avoid companies like Mighty Leaf and Twinings. I'm grateful to the former for their drinkable coffee shop teabags, but I don't turn to them for actual tea. They don't REALLY understand it. Go to a teashop. Buy from an online site. Whatever, but bear in mind that supermarkets to not harbor good tea. Otherwise, boil from cold; rinse the pot with almost-boiling water, then put the tea leaves in, then pour over the water (with the exception of flower tea, which should be put in after the pot is full); never ever use an infuser or a cheesecloth sachet; brew it not too dark and not too weak; warm your mugs; and don't forget it on the countertop to cool down and overbrew. I do this once a week. It's very wicked.

If you feel that your peace of mind will be materially disturbed by the non-addition of sugar, well, I suppose it's not for the pedants to decide for you. But, I mean, come on; after that, it tastes only like sugar. You aren't drinking tea gratia tea-is. If, ah, you see what I mean.

The fun part of the 'British tea ceremony' is the food. I think the comment 'Yaaaay scones!' might be appropriate at this point. I'm a scone purist, in practice if not particularly in principle; the thing I disapprove of is dried cranberries. They are so pointless. They're dry, sad, forlorn, tasteless. Anyways. Here are the keys to good scones, in order of importance.

1. Cold butter. Everyone's been told this many times for things from piecrusts to shortbread; it makes a difference. (Always. Use. Butter. 'Nuff said.)
2. Do not knead. Whatever the recipe says, don't knead the dough. Mix it with a wooden spoon until it comes together or just shy of it; quite a number of smidgens of flour can be left, unmoistened, at the bottom of the bowl. And even if the dough comes apart a bit when you're cutting it, it doesn't matter. Just squish them a little bit and place them on the baking sheet intact.
3. You really don't need to cut it the butter that finely. In other words, don't cut the butter up fine--or else. I find that a pastry cutter works wonders. If there are any heterogenous lumps, just break them up à la main.
4. Hot oven, cold dough. It's a pretty good rule of thumb for quick breads.
5. Do it by hand. With practice, there is no time loss, and you have that much more control over the forming of gluten and butter creaminess.
6. Finally, remember that your liquids have the major role in flavouring your scones. I use a beaten egg and skim milk. Cream will be richer. Buttermilk scones have a following. More eggy, less milky, whatever. Experiment a bit.

Next post, I'll explain a bit about my favourite meal to put together, because generally it only involves baking: a complete high tea.

Cingshin 1991

Café, fumée de feu de camp, senteurs d'épices rôtissant sur le feu: ainsi se fait le résumé du Cingshin 1991, un thé qui compte parmi mes préférés.

Comme d'habitude, j'exécute l'infusion avec un ensemble gong fu cha. Le thé s’agit d’un wulong roulé cuit. (Bizarrement, je ne l’ai pas pu trouver sur la boutique en ligne; puisque j’ai oublié de noter les infos sur la carte des thés, c’est tout ce que j’en ai à vous dire.) La petite théière est blanche, ce qui sort un peu de l’ordinaire. Ce choix a bien donné un effet, car les feuilles sont noires. Elles reluisent pratiquement de noirceur. Elles seraient belles ne soit-ce que pour le drame. Heureusement, elles sont attrayantes en forme aussi : serrées en jolies boules, avec quelques brindilles plus dorées ici et là. Plus tard, quand les feuilles se sont déroulées, elles se sont montrées immenses et entières. À date, c’était très bien, les feuilles.

Par contre, il faudra que je décrive leur parfum pour justifier cet énoncé : les feuilles sont l’aspect le plus épatant de ce thé. Ce n’est pas une odeur qui se hume délicatement en petits coups. C’est une de celles qui n’attend pas, mais qui frappe le nez, le dépasse, atteint vite la bouche et remplit tout de suite les poumons. J’ai cité auparavant quelles étaient ces odeurs, mais je les redirai : fumée, tabac, épices, café. À la suite de quelques infusions, le petit pot évoquait presque le brûlé, tellement que ces feuilles n’abandonnent pas. Le cuit est présent, ainsi qu’une petite amertume de rien du tout. Je n’avais pas peur qu’elle se développe en quelque espèce de café instantané.

La soupe? À la première infusion, brun-orange, mais c’était le résultat d’une erreur de ma part. Lors des prochains essais, je l’ai plus « poussée ». (Je me croyais en danger de me retrouver avec quelque chose d’imbuvable.) La « vraie » couleur est un beau rouge-brun foncé.

Les toutes premières impressions de la tasse d’odeurs n’avaient pas grand-chose à dire. Vaguement céréalières, les notes hautes présentent seules de lointaines indices de café et d’épices. Cependant, il n’y avait qu’à attendre. Les arômes de toast deviennent riches, rondes, basses, si bien qu’on se croirait déjà en train de boire.

Pourtant, quand je le bois réellement, c’est un peu décevant. Les fragrances m’avaient trop raconté à propos du spectacle à venir. Non, mais, il faut simplement pousser ce thé pour obtenir un breuvage honnête. À ce moment-là, eh bien, c’est soyeux, c’est énergétique, c’est des rôties et du café pour déjeuneur dans une bouchée—ces saveurs laissant derrière elles des subtilités épicés délicieusement entremêlées au cuir.

Flexible, ce thé! Il supporte bien les temps d’infusions longs. J’ai développé une phobie de trop laisser tremper les thés; tant d’eux se transforment en monstres.

Le qi, bien qu’il ne soit pas l’attrait qui attirera la foule, me réveille mais me relaxe.

En conclusion, il me faut une quantité de ce thé. Je l’ai siroté chez Camellia Sinensis, où j’ai mangé un scone poire-gingembre si fin qu’il faudra peut-être que je parfume mes propres scones de même. (Il a très mal allé avec le thé, mais c’est la vie.) Ce fut un vrai plaisir de rencontrer ce thé qui offre tant sans menaces. Ça me réchauffe déjà de pense à en boire pendant les longues soirées hivernales qui s’en viennent.

Mushroom Risotto

Risotto is very in right now.

No, I'm kidding, actually. It's just that I've only now discovered it. What with the white wine and octopus, I was inspired to make my own.

(Sidenote: most of the ingredients for this were procured on a trip the Little Italy/Jean-Talon area, among others the Milano Fruiterie. This is due for another post because it's too much intenseness to deal with here.)

My first reference for Italian cooking is always Marcella Hazan. She's a bit of a god. The first good and still the best person to write an Italian cookbook in English, she brought real Italian food, and some of its values to America. Thank you. She has lots to say about risotto, including that it's pretty unique. True enough. Every cuisine seems to use rice, from Morocco to Japan. Understandably, since it's one of the great things in life. But Italians have taken rice and made it risotto and made it their own; good thing too.

So. Risotti have a sort of fascinating basic mode d'emploi. First, sauté finely chopped onions and anything else solid that will flavour the risotto in butter (or olive oil--depends). Of course, some delicate things won't stand up to this and must be added at the end. Octopus is an example. In such a case, the brine or juices, etc, would be added at the beginning and the actual flesh a little before the rice finishes cooking.

Anyways. The rice must be short-grain, which is to say it must be cultivar destined for risotto. The popular, all-purpose variety is called Arborio, by far the most renowned. I'd no idea there even were any other suitable kinds of rice until Marcella told me so. (They are Carnaloni and Vialone Nano. Arborio is much easier to find.)Once you have all this rice stuff sorted out, proceed to sauté the rice with the onions and miscellany until the rice is thoroughly coated with delicious butter stuff.

The difficult part about this is the stirring. When they say stirring constantly, folks, they sure aren't kidding. Not only that, but a wooden spoon will not cut it. You need a firm spatula that's powerful, heat-resistant and can get that pan circumference where the rice will stick. You must keep the motion constantly; stirring, scraping, folding, and doing it fast as you can. Marcella says the bottom of the pan must be completely scraped every ten seconds. It is so, so true, but also kind of fun, so don't freak out.

So, after you've made the flavour base and added the rice, the time has come for the liquefaction. Or something. Risotti generally have beef/chicken/veal/whatever stock as their main liquid. Many have wine. Some have seafood juices, etc. The point is to give the rice soup some serious flavour.

Side note about stock: I was very wicked here and used bouillon. It's a total and complete cop-out, and I hang my head in culinary shame. But the risotto came out beautifully, so I think it's reasonable to think of it as means to an end. Next time I really will make stock, though. For anybody else, my experience was that bouillon is an acceptable substitute.

The catch about adding the liquid is that it must be added about a cup at a time, no more (although it's not necessary to measure--just eyeball it). Liquid. Stir madly until the rice has absorbed it all. Liquid. Stir madly until they it desoupifies completely. Liquid. And so on, until the desired texture has been achieved, depending if you want your risotto thick or thin, etc, etc.

A tip to make the stirring easier is to really add the next cup of liquid right after the rice has absorbed. As the dish progresses, stirring the rice without new stock makes it stick to the pan much faster and easier.

Okay, then. Say you've added all the liquid the recipe calls for, more or less, according to taste. You continue to cook the rice (um, I got a little exhausted, but that's the price to pay) for twenty more minutes approximately. Don't let up on the stirring! The same rigidity applies. Everywhere you go, they say the rice should be cooked slightly al dente. Cook it how you want it. The risotto will probably be better if it has a bit of a bite to the grain, preserving more of the dish's unique texture, but if you want it soupier, go ahead. Even more al dente? Fine. It's a matter of preference and various variables.

The final step is called mantecate. It's very simple: you simply take the pan off the heat (I used a dutch oven for its heat-conducting and heavy dutiness) and add some more butter and some grated parmesan. Cool to palatable and enjoy.

Remeber that there are more different risotti than you can possibly imagine. Some sound really weird and un-italian, but here are some ideas, just to give you an idea of the diversity: spinach & curried veal, red wine, lemon and pomegranate (okay, that sounds incredibly bizarre, I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I'm getting these off random sites), mushroom, asparagus, with raisins (?), sausages & leeks, basic tomato... I could go on forever. All of them will probably have their deliciousnesses. Try some out.

My risotto was excellent. I made it with a combination of shiitake and portobello mushrooms (the two together are supposed to resemble the flavour of porcini mushrooms, which I can't find) in the flavour base. Chicken stock, some dry white cooking wine, arborio rice. Yummy. It had a great texture (it might have been a tiny bit gummy, so more liquid next time) and was one of those things that's very very flavourful, although what flavour exactly it's difficult to say. Mushroom flavour, I suppose. Delicious. Try it yourself. Good luck!

St-Denis and awesomeness

I'm not quite sure how to go about this city blogging part. I haven't got a specific place to review, but just some wandering on St-Denis; but I suppose that's Montreal, and that's bloggable.

Of course, the reason I head to this stretch is Camellia Sinensis. So no, I don't mean the Mont-Royal to Sherbrooke station drag. This is the span from Sherbrooke to about Ste-Catherine. Yes, it's short. But it gets really dense in there. You can pack a lot of city into two blocks and then have pointless expanse for miles--elsewhere. Chinatown is proof, although I think it's just a Chinatown thing. Whether Chinatowns/International Districts/whatever are big or small, there's more of it per square foot than there is of the Main (well, in a different way). Maybe it's a cultural thing.

Anyways, back to UQAM area. Don't you just hate the construction around Quartier des Spectacles? The 80 bus has been derouted and it took me forever to find it this one time I was going to a cupcake place on Park. (It was closed. Apparently, it's really good, but I can never catch it at the right times. Cocoa Locale, I will get to you someday. Maybe.)

Anyways. If you go the long underground way out of the Berri Metro, you come out on the stretch I was talking about. There's some attractions around there. Cinémathèque Québecoise, for one thing; and the Cinéma Robothèque. And some normal movie theatre, right across from C. M. The profusion of movie theatres may be why some of the Festival du Films du Monde is there.

When you turn onto St-Denis from St-Catherine, there's a little green space in front of a building--part of the UQAM campus. There's a cool thing going on there right now. The design school is doing something it calls 40 ans, 40 chaises; I assume it's celebrating it's fortieth anniversary. And yes, with chairs. They have perfectly normal metal framework chairs, just without seats (I guess there are forty. I didn't count). But they've woven seats into the chairs, so that they're actually quite comfy. It's done with some kind of red seat-belt material. But it doesn't end there. The chairs are woven in to the place--into the storm drain here, the chairs connected by one woven-round strap. The trees are tied full of them. Some is woven into the upper balcony, some into the ironwork fence. And mixed in, tied in, woven in, are pretty neat, bright red chairs. You should really go check it out.
Right across, there's that neat church building that's attached to a newer bâtiment. Entering through the pretty old front-of-a-church brings you to it.

The next stretch is the nice part. It's a lot of old, colourful, beautiful houses, except filled with stores. That's past and present meshed if I've ever seen it. They remind me of the houses outside of Square St-Louis (the most awesome place ever. If you've never looked at the houses around it, do). The awnings, the terraces, the people, the narrow street, the cars. Somehow it's very, very Montreal. The kind of place you bump into someone and they'll say 'Scusez and you'll say Sorry at the same time and you'll both understand each other. It has the coffee shops and the sketchy shops and the shisha places. This is the Plateau. Je suis bien au Quartier Latin. It's pretty damn difficult to get better than this.

Le Commensal--a famous buffet-style vegetarian restaurant--is here. There are a lot of cool restaurants; this place is mostly restaurant, in fact. Part of what makes it so pretty is the color, and the levels. That's what always strikes me. These shops don't make a row, they make a commotion.

There's a little Tibetan hole-in-the-wall clothes shop north of Emery. It's really small, but it's really nice; I just got a gorgeous headband there for 8$. The prices are all reasonable, and the clothes are all gorgeous, if not all wearable. There's interesting Tibetan traditional stuff, but also bags, wallets, pretty things.

That's really all I have to say. I hope the first Montreal post is all right.

Soufflé au citron

Je me sens tellement Gordon Ramsay en ce moment.

Là, j'exagère. Mais je ne peux m'empêcher de sentir qu'un soufflé réussi constitue un milestone dans mon éducation culinaire. À vrai dire, c'est un tout petit peu triste que je n'en avait fait aucun à date. Aucun réussi, plûtot: même si j'en ai fait quelques-uns au chocolat, ils manquaient le drame essentiel du soufflé, et en plus goûtait l'amidon.

Peu importe. Je préfère toujours le citron au chocolat. C'est plus facile d'arriver à un goût intense. Le chocolat, quand c'est réussi, whoa! c'est réussi--mais si c'est ça moins, alors je resterai agrumoholique. Mais il est vrai qu'avec des quantités généreux de zeste et de jus, vous êtes pratiquement garantis un bon dessert. Souvenez-vous en.

Cette recette n'était pas tout à fait conventionnel. Une autre recette de Cook's Illustrated (elles sont toujours intéressantes à essayer, mais parfois un peu surcompliquées) avait pour but de démystifier et apporter au peuple le soufflé qui éclate de prestige. En faisant, on a totalement éliminé la base de crème pâtissière. Je n'en suis pas trop dévasté. Mes skills ne couvrent pas 20/20 la crème pâtissière parfaite. La raison principale pour ça serait d'éliminer le risque de starchiness et de permettre au saveur citron de briller sans être soumis au lait.

Alors: mélange de jaune d'oeuf et de sucre, ajouté ensuite de zeste, jus, et farine. Rien d'autre, sauf les blancs d'oeufs monté en neige. Petite indice, particulièrement quand les blancs d'oeufs devront être incorporés à quelque chose d'autre. Battez-les à main, avec un batteur d'oeufs, ou à mi-vitesse sur un malaxeur. Comme ça, les bulles d'air seront plus petits et moins facile à éclater: plus stable.

En tout cas. On fait fondre du beurre dans un poêlon de dix pouces. Faut que ce soit ces dimensions exactes pour assurer la cuisson bien arrangée. Une fois fondu et chauffé, le soufflé et cuit sur la poêle à peu près 2min, durant quel temps les cotés prennent et forment un peu des bulles. Ce n'est qu'après ça qu'on glisse notre futur soufflé dans le four.

Si le soufflé n'avait cette hauteur incroyable qui me fait toujours rêver dans les photos des lives de recette, c'est à cause du poêlon. Il forme un dome merveilleusement doré, avec un peu la surface d'un lemon meringue pie, sauf plus jaune. Il s'est bel et bien gonflé. Une cuillèrée confirme que le goût était loin d'un échec lui aussi. La texture va presque sans dire. La seule plainte que j'ai pu avoir, c'est qu'après plusieurs minutes sur mon assiète, la texture s'est comme dégonflé. Pas gommeux, exactement, mais certainement avec une lourdeté dans la bouche. Probablement que tous les soufflés ont ce destin. Vaut la peine d'en faire, par contre. Vous allez vous sentir tellement Gordon Ramsay.

White wine and octopus risotto

I went the Claremont (5032 Sherbrooke) recently. I know it's been a Westmount institution for ages. That means it's good, established, chic, and expensive. I don't mean Toqué or Buona Notte expensive--far from it--but just that you will pay more than fifteen for a main course. This meal was worth it, though; a real treat. You may be wondering about the title of the post. I'll get to it.

The menu is surprisingly short. This place seems to describe itself as an eclectic urban bistro, and while that's a pretty pompous thing to describe yourself as, "eclectic" certainly fits. We have "Claremont Poutine" right next to shrimp cocktail with chili and horseradish sauce. I would say that the majority is probably something like Italian; pizza, pasta, are creative, but not world fusion in any big way. They have different burgers, and various weird and tempting pastas, but I am attracted to Risotto of the day, which has an excitingly mysterious market price. I am actually kind of ravi by risotto as an of-the-day. I'm not above thinking it's downright nifty. Anyways. Today's risotto is the aformentioned white wine and octupus. Well. I could hardly pass that one up, especially on enthusiastic recommendation from the waitress.

I had actually never eaten risotto before. I know what it is, vaguely: a sort of Italian stew made from short-grain arborio rice gone all épaisse and crémeux and gloopy. I sort of had the impression it always involved tomatoes, but apparently this couldn't be farther from the truth. The plate presented me was lovely sort of lilac color. It was smooth with the unique texture of the rice grains in there. I'll have to try making it on my own. It had, as all restaurant dishes should, a sprig of parsley and a lemon wedge. I remember very distinctly that my first bite was phenomenal (don't worry, the subsequent bites were phenomenal, too). I feel like I need a new interjection of deliciousness, but yum. Laced with coriander (I think), interspersed with lots of delicious bits of octopus, sweet and seafoody, but with the delicate astringency of white wine without a trace of its alcoholy tang, and with a melt-in-the-mouth texture, this. dish. was. awesome. The portion wasn't gigantic, but it suited me perfectly. I ate every bite.

So! Go here, I guess, when you want a nice meal out. I'm not a big fan of the music, but then I never am. Other people at my table had a burger, which they enjoyed, and mussels in red thai basil sauce, which I tried (the mussels were excellent and so was the sauce; however, I don't know the briny mussels really needed the curryish sauce, or vice versa). Nice service, nice place, institution. I certainly had an exceptional meal here.