Tiny Bites Consulting » Recipes

Tiny Bites 2009: a year in review

Karen Hamilton — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:00:05 +0000

As 2009 winds down to a close, I’d like to share the most memorable stories, experiences, and images of our threesome’s year in food.

Key Moments

What a time of transition. A new business, new contributors, and a new life to welcome into the world. 2010 is gonna be huge.

Dining Out

These are just a few of the places that Bruce, Degan, and I adored in 2009.

Events Around Town

As a newly occupied parent, I’m sure that I’ll have to bow out of and/or delegate many of the events that we had enjoyed in 2009. This list is mostly for me to dwell in nostalgia as I tend to my little one in 2010.

Home Cooking

We sure did a lot of cooking this year!

Culinary Travel

I’m not going to be able to do nearly as much jetsetting in 2010 as our trio did in 2009. Here are the highlights of where we’ve been.

Bites of Asia Series: dining along the edge of a volcano (Philippines)
Celebrating Chinese New Year around the Pacific Rim (Macau / Hong Kong)
A tale of two Daniel Boulud cities (Las Vegas, NV)
Tiny Bites does the Langley Circle Farm Tour circuit (Langley, BC)
A taste of Victoria with Coast Hotels & Resorts (Victoria, BC)
High Tea Series: The Empress Hotel (Victoria, BC)
Battle of Chicago deep dish pizzerias (Chicago, IL)
Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?) (New York City, NY)
Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City, NY)

Favourite Visuals

With so much going on this past year, it was difficult to write about everything we experienced. Consequently, these became hidden gems in my Flickr photostream. Here they are again for your viewing pleasure.

Favourite Discoveries

These people, events, and treats helped make 2009 an even yummier year. Please check them out.

My mother-in-law’s Christmas Eve tourtière recipe

Karen Hamilton — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:00:10 +0000

Since my husband will miss two Christmases in a row with his family in Winnipeg, I decided to surprise him at dinner tonight with the meal that his mother serves the family every Christmas Eve: greek salad and tourtière.

I had to call my mother-in-law for the recipe this week. It was one of those family recipes that hasn’t really been documented. Technically, she does have her notes jotted down somewhere, and I’m sure it was based on someone else’s recipe once upon a time, but my MIL does this savoury pie with her eyes closed nowadays. I hope I can do it justice and transport my husband if only briefly to his mother’s dinner table tonight.

For the pastry

You could always buy pastry shells from your local grocer, but for me and my family, Christmas is about making everything from scratch!

5 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 lb of (Tenderflake) lard, very cold
1 whole egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 cups ice cold water

Mix first 4 ingredients above in a large bowl. Integrate the lard using a pastry cutter.

Using a cup measure, break in 1 whole egg and add in 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Add enough ice cold water to make 3/4 cup liquid. Sprinkle this liquid over the lard mixture and toss together.

Divide into 5 equal pieces. For each pie you’ll make, roll out 2 pieces large enough for your pie plate. Shape remaining pieces into flattened discs and wrap in wax paper. You can freeze these in a large freezer bag for 3-6 months.

For the filling

2 lbs lean ground pork
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper (generous grind)
1/2 teaspoon each of thyme, savoury, sage (optional)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (1/3 teaspoon adding optional spices)
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic (optional)
1 cup boiling water (kettle)
1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

On medium to high heat, crumble pork into frying pan. Add water, garlic, onion, and spices. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes.

Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. If there’s more than a 1/2 cup of fat in the pan, take out all but a 1/4 cup.

Mix in 1/4 cup of fresh bread crumbs and let cool completely.

Final Assembly

Lay one piece of your rolled out dough into pie pan. Fill to the brim with the meat mixture.

Lay the second piece of rolled dough over the pie. Press edges down with tines of a fork and cut excess off with a knife. Make Christmasy shapes to top pie with the excess dough. My mother-in-law does holly berries and leaves.

Brush top of pie with heavy cream or egg mixture (1 egg and 1 tablespoon water, beaten together). Lay down pasty dough decorations. Brush decorations very lightly with the cream or egg mixture.

Bake in oven at 375F for 30-40 minutes . You know it’s ready when dough is golden brown and sticking a knife into the very centre of the pie comes out piping hot.

Making ahead

If all you want to do on Christmas Eve is pop a pie into the oven, you can prepare everything in advance. As mentioned above, the pastry dough will keep 3-6 months in the freezer. You can make the filling up to a week in advance and assemble the final pie for the freezer.

To do so, wrap your uncooked pie in 2 layers of saran wrap and a layer of foil and place in your freezer. Thaw in the fridge the morning that you plan to serve your tourtière at dinner.

Bon appétit and have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

On the making of an edible Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

Karen Hamilton — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:30 +0000

My 30th birthday called for another Birthday Cake of Immortality project. This time, we decided to re-create Ghostbusters’ Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in – of course – homemade marshmallow. No corners were cut: it was 3D with a little bit of help from my large cutting board to stay upright, with legs made of marshmallow fondant so not to collapse in an immediate heap during the party.

What you’ll need to make this yourself

Ingredients per marshmallow batch (2 batches made a week ahead)

We needed two batches of marshmallow for this project. The first gave us the first dome halves of the head and body plus Mr. Stay Puft’s hat. The second gave us the other halves of the head and body with enough leftover batter for a mini-muffin pan that would mold us cute little arm segments.

1/2 cup white/light corn syrup or the equivalent in liquid glucose
2 cups of granulated sugar
Two separate 1/2 cup measurements of very (ice) cold water
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 egg whites
2.5 tablespoons of gelatin (~47.5mL)

Ingredients for marshmallow fondant (1 batch, split into several colours, made days ahead)

Since we needed a denser base for the legs of our marshmallow man, we decided to employ marshmallow fondant for the legs. We also reserved a bit of this fondant, tinged with the appropriate food colouring, to give us Stay Puft’s clothing and hat detail.

1 16 ounce bag of mini marshmallows
2 tablespoons water
2 lbs confectioners’ or icing sugar (~8 cups)

Ingredients for royal icing (1 batch on Assembly Day)

We used royal icing to glue together all the body parts. In retrospect, we should have allowed the body to set in the freezer so that the icing froze or dried before we made the cake upright. Keep this in mind if you re-attempt this project.

3 ounces (pasteurized) egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ or icing sugar

Supplies

Most marshmallow recipes call for a 9×13 baking pan, resulting in about 96 cubes of 1″ marshmallow goodness. Since we were creating a monster, we had to figure out how to mold our creation into round shapes instead. This is the arsenal we wound up collecting for this project:

Parchment paper
3 round bowls for molds – we used 2 stainless steel mixing bowl for head + body and a tiny ramekin for the hat
Mini-muffin pan or piping bag for arm segment molds
Piping bag for marshmallow fondant / icing detailing
2 large cutting boards
A heckofalot of icing or confectioner’s sugar at the ready (at least one package, but have 2 just in case)
Cooking spray or vegetable oil
Vegetable shortening
Stand mixer with balloon whisk attachment
Hand mixer
3 quart saucepan
Candy thermometer (one that works!) and knowledge of what the candy soft ball stage looks like

Making the marshmallow

Grease molds with oil and line bottom with parchment paper. Sprinkle crazily with icing sugar till it looks like a blanket of snow. Better to have more icing sugar than you need, because marshmallow is extremely sticky.

Pour 1/2 cup of ice cold water into your stand mixer’s bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin on top and let bloom while you move on to the next step.

In your (small to medium sized) saucepan, stir together the sugar, salt, corn syrup or glucose, and remaining cold water with a wooden spoon. Set element to low heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to medium and stop stirring, using a combination of your candy thermometer and cold water tests to stop at the point where your sugar syrup reaches the soft ball stage.

Don’t rely just on a thermometer reading like we did for our first batch. Your syrup should be clear, around the 230-240F mark depending on your altitude, and should form a pliant ball when dropped into cold water. You’ve gone way too far if your syrup turns colour.

Pour your sugar syrup over the bloomed gelatin. It’ll start to bubble and froth so just be careful not to get hit by the candy splatter.

Set your bowl into the stand mixer and gear your whisk up to high (8-10 on a Kitchenaid mixer), starting slowing from Stir and making your way up to high speeds in increments. This will let your super hot sugar cool without splattering you and your home with liquid that will burn your delicate spots.

Once up to speed, whip for approximately 6 minutes until your mixture has tripled in volume, turned marshmallow white, and starts to pull away from the edge of the mixing bowl like chewing gum from the underside of a desk.

During those 6 minutes, whip your egg whites in a separate bowl with your hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Don’t do this step any earlier or you’ll find that your egg whites will deflate or re-liquidate on you.

Slip the vanilla and whipped egg whites into your stand mixer batter and whip just long enough to incorporate the three together into one silky smooth batter of marshmallow yum. It should look like this:

Pour into your readied molds, using a spatula if you need to, but try not to get anything else in the batter — it’ll stick to everything!

If you have extra batter left over, pour it into a prepped rectangular baking pan sized small enough to contain the batter in an inch-high layer.

Dust with another generous layer of icing sugar and place in your fridge, uncovered, at least 3 hours or overnight.

When your molds are set, take out your icing sugar and an airtight container system that you can use to store your marshmallow in the fridge. Dip a small, sharp knife into icing sugar and pry the marshmallow out of the molds. Remove the parchment paper from your marshmallow and dust the areas that were in contact with the mold with more icing sugar. Close your container and place in your fridge until assembly. These babies will keep like this for up to one week.

Making the marshmallow fondant

I don’t have pictures of this process as Jason had followed this recipe and this two-part video tutorial from the comfort of his own home. Hayley, our resident fondant expert, did email the following steps and tips to share with you:

Prepare a workspace: Using shortening, grease a counter top or cutting board large enough to knead the fondant. Keep shortening accessible and in a container from which you can scoop out additional shortening with your fingers (I usually put about 1/2 c. in a small bowl). Open your bag of icing sugar.
Put entire bag of marshmallows in a microwave-proof bowl and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of water.
Melt marshmallows in 20-30 second intervals, stirring between each.
When all the lumps are melted, start adding icing sugar in intervals, stirring gently to incorporate.
After several additions of icing sugar, the dough will become stiff enough to knead. You will use almost the entire bag of icing sugar.
You are now ready to start kneading. Grease your hands generously! Front and back of both hands plus in between your fingers.
Remove mixing spoon and with greased hands, begin kneading in the bowl until all the incing sugar from the bowl has been incorporated.
Remove dough from bowl and knead on greased cutting board/counter top, adding additional icing sugar as needed.
Keep your workspace well greased! Until your dough comes together, it will be very sticky and re-greasing of both your hands and kneading area will be necessary.
If your fondant looks tough or dry, add additional shortening.
Knead until the dough comes togther and is smooth in texture.

Your end product should be smooth and even in texture, very pliable but strong. Rub fondant with a small amount of shortening on both sides and cover well in plastic wrap until ready to use.

Game Day finishing touches

Piecing together the head and body

Prepare a batch of royal icing using this Alton Brown recipe or something similar. Spread a layer of icing on each of the flat sides of the 4 domes you have for the head and body. Form a large sphere for the body and a smaller sphere for the head.

Unlike what we did, place spheres uncovered in the fridge or freezer to let the icing harden as you assemble the rest of Mr. Stay Puft.

Marshmallow fondant and icing details

Based on the size of your body, warm up and shape flattened discs of marshmallow fondant to create 2 stacks of fondant legs, like above. We used 75% of our fondant batch to form 6 discs.

The rest of the fondant was then tinged generously with blue food colouring and rolled out into a 1/8 or 1/4″ thick layer, from which we cut a large rectangle for Stay Puft’s bib and a long stripe to wrap around the base of his hat. We draped the bib over the top of the body and piped lines of white royal icing to achieve his sailor panache.

We bought a tube of brown gel and red icing paste to paint on eyes, a mouth, and the red ribbon at the bottom of the blue bib. You can do the same or choose different methods to attach these details to your marshmallow man.

Final assembly

On a cutting board wrapped in cling film, we attached the head, body, hat, and fondant legs to each other using the remaining royal icing. We pierced the body with two bamboo skewers where the arms should go, and stacked the arm segments from our mini-muffin molds onto the sticks until we achieved an arm length we liked. The final arm was not skewered through all the way and was stacked with the non-flat side out to imply ghostly fingershapes.

It’s Alive!

Throughout our house party where we served him up, Mr. Stay Puft remained horizontal on said cutting board until we were ready for dessert. We then used two cutting boards to get him upright for 5 minutes – long enough for our guests to take rounds of photos with him intact.

Before long, our hunger and the non-set state of our royal icing caused our dear marshmallow man to be pulled apart and knifed into 1″ segments, to be served on the cutting board along with graham crackers and mini-Rolos for a s’moretastic cake alternative for my 30th birthday.

Birthday cakes of immortality

Karen Hamilton — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:00:05 +0000

My extended family has a strange birthday ritual. Every year, my cousin and her brother toast each other with red wine on their birthdays, declaring,

To our immortality and amateur vampirism…the secret is eating babies.

I cannot fathom how this inside joke was ever spawned, nor do I fully understand their propensity towards the macabre, but ever since my cousins described this rite to me a few years ago, a spin-off ritual emerged. We’ve become known for holding baking days for Birthday Cakes of Immortality: concept cakes that do not cater to mainstream tastes.

Have you run away yet? No? Then take a look at the three cakes that we’ve concocted in my kitchen to date.

The Baby Cake

The first Birthday Cake of Immortality evolved out the discovery of my cousins’ birthday ritual. We pondered how to append the “eating babies” part of the toast to the act of drinking red wine without getting arrested for indecency, cannibalism, or worse. The answer: rounds of sponge cake layered with strawberry jam; flesh-coloured buttercream frosting; licorice umbilical cord. A friend belatedly suggested a strawberry Jell-o placenta.

Of the 5 witnesses present on this day, only myself and my cousin Leanne were able to dig in. Team member Jason could only stomach the cake bits that were shaved off the final product.

I know I will look back at this project after birthing our daughter in January and throw up in my mouth a little.

Operation ‘Operation’

My 29th birthday was the occasion for trying a cake that looked and acted like one of our favourite Milton Bradley board games. Dubbed Operation ‘Operation‘, the project called for a gigantic dessert in the shape of a man under surgery. Jason, Leanne, and I again formed the core cake-making team. Four red velvet cakes layered atop a large wooden cutting board formed the basis of the body and flesh-coloured fondant was rolled on top. Marshmallow fondant bones were precisely shaped by our guest contributor, Hayley.

We took this cake to Boneta and had a blast playing and ingesting this edible board game with our dinner guests and curious kitchen / front-of-the-house staff.

The Bacon Cake

Our latest project focussed on Leanne’s favourite ingredient: bacon. I had long wanted to make her a cake infused with pork — can you think of a better way to pay compliment to a Filipino?

The logistics fell into place as Leanne, Jason, and I toured the grocery store on Baking Day for inspiration. The cake base would be savoury rather than sweet, the cornbread recipe coming from the new cookbook by Memphis Blues (my cousin’s favourite eatery). Use of maple syrup and Pralines & Cream ice cream would eliminate the tedious task of making and applying frosting. My recently acquired skill of bacon weaving would be leveraged to top the cake with the star ingredient; the remaining bacon slices in the pack were crumbled up and inserted as layer filling along with a generous drench of maple syrup.

The outcome was divine. It was like breakfast, lunch, and dessert rolled into one.

Brainstorming for October 28th

The next Birthday Cake of Immortality will be for my birthday around the Halloween season. We’re currently at a loss for what to make, but there’s still time to think of something. Any ideas? Please share.

And you are more than welcome to participate in the next round…as a baker, eater, or both.

Three more prize winners announced for Blogathon 2009

Karen Hamilton — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:20:38 +0000

Did you help Team Tiny Bites raise $2365.01 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society during Blogathon 2009 this past weekend?

Jason Lau did, and he not only won the Tiny Bites Grand Prize, worth $450, but a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies to boot.

After I shared the good news with him yesterday, he pointed out a few things:

He is already a happy Lifetime Member of Rouxbe and its Online Cooking School
He is already getting a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies as part of the Grand Prize
He’d like to bake a bundle of goodies himself to give away to a fellow Blogathon 2009 contributor.

That means that we have 3 more draws to do from our pool of donors!

Jason’s baked goodie bag

Congratulations to Mark B. for winning 3-4 varieties of baked treats from Jason Lau, who I can attest to be a baker extraordinaire. We’ll share pictures and recipes here once Jason passes them along.

Winnipeg Folk Fest cookie bag

Congratulations to Scott W. for winning a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies, baked by yours truly. I’ve posted the recipe for those of you that wishes to try it in your own kitchen.

One-year premium membership to Rouxbe

Congratulations to George F. for winning this 1-year premium pass to Rouxbe’s Online Cooking School, worth $99. We hope you get as much value out of it as Jason and I already do.

Rouxbe Cooking School Series: fun with pho, part 2 of 2

Karen Hamilton — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:30:05 +0000

I took the pho that I made from scratch (care of Rouxbe’s recipe, featured in Part 1 of this topic) on a little road trip to The Workspace, where several Blogathon 2009 participants were happy to volunteer as taste testers.

A few notes about how I prepared the final soup for my tasters:

I had trouble sourcing certain ingredients from my immediate grocers, so not all of the garniture matches the recommendations from Rouxbe. Bruce helped me to find substitutions to create a “poor man’s pho” – re-purposing of the broth meat instead of getting sliced tenderloin, bean thread (glass noodle?) vermicelli that proved too difficult to find at H-Mart, and a abstinence from the recommended serrano chilies, since they were nowhere to be found.
Because I made the broth last night and finished it this afternoon moments before heading to the Workspace, I didn’t do the extra step of chilling the broth in order to remove most of the oils and fat. This makes my broth oilier than it should probably be; I will update you on any differences once my husband and I complete this step for the broth that remains in our kitchen.

Feedback from my fellow Blogathoners

Four Blogathon participants that neighbour me here at The Workspace have this to say about my pho attempt:

Victor, in support of the Developmental Disabilities Association:

The pho was great. The broth was lighter than the usual pho I’ve had, but the flavor was a little bit different. It was a bit oilier, but didn’t have the MSG flavor to it (a good thing). Unlike other pho, I didn’t feel very thirsty immediately after drinking the broth.

The noodles were different than regular pho, but I actually liked the difference. It was a refreshing change.

Only thing I would change is a little bit more flavor to the broth, but overall it was very yummy!

Lorraine, in support of the Federation of BC Writers:

The Pho was delicious, especially the broth, which was rich with subtle flavours without being heavy. I enjoyed the noodles too.

Raul, in support of the BC Cancer Foundation:

This Pho tastes a tad too delicate, almost too light. The flavors are smooth but not characteristic of a Vietnamese pho. My belief is that there is a lack of richness and complexity of flavor (something we would expect in a Vietnamese pho).

Karen, in support of the Vancouver Public Space Network:

The broth meat and sprouts added great texture. The soup was very tasty and rich with tendon taste, and the herbs perked up every bite.

Thank you all for your donation of your tastebuds and stomachs, and best of luck with your Blogathon efforts!

Giveaway time – 1 more annual Rouxbe premium membership

Another sponsored gift from Rouxbe for the Tiny Bites Blogathon effort, this time going to Raf A. (YaletownYuppie). Congratulations, Raf!

Feel sad that you’re missing out on all of these giveaways? Donate to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society before 5:30am on July 26th to qualify for the $450 Tiny Bites Grand Prize. Every $10 you donate gets you one entry to the draw.

Of course, you can also go for the gold and top Dawn D.’s $175 donation to win Top Donor bragging rights and an incredible 3-restaurant progressive dinner for two.

You decide.

My mother-in-law’s recipe for Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies

Karen Hamilton — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:30:47 +0000

My mother-in-law in Winnipeg is an amazing cook, and I am so thankful that she shares her recipe trove with her family and friends. One of my favourite cookies that she makes in the summer is her Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies, so named for the music and hempy festival that occurs in the city around this time of year.

As she says, “These are not the official cookies of the Winnipeg Folk Fest, but they are so wholesome and hippy-like that they should be!”

I baked a batch of these to share with our fellow Blogathoners at The Workspace, and another batch will be made for the Tiny Bites Grand Prize (that you might win if you donate before 6am!)

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup flax
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup grated coconut

Directions

Mix butter with sugars.
Add eggs, water & vanilla and mix well.
Add all the dry ingredients and stir.
Chill dough for 30 minutes.
Drop by the spoonful onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 350F for 12–15 minutes.

When done, they should be lightly browned and firm to the touch. Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

Giveaway alert!

Another unannounced giveaway for all you generous Blogathon 2009 donors. Please give a round of applause for Jason L., who has won a batch of these Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies, made with love by yours truly.

It’s not too late to get in your donation to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and for the last 2 prizes left to draw: the $450 Tiny Bites Grand Prize and the Top Donor dinner for 2, traipsing through the culinary excellence of Blue Water Cafe, CinCin, and West!

My recipe for Lumpiang Prito (pork and vegetable spring rolls)

Karen Hamilton — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:30:29 +0000

Lumpia is one of my favourite Filipino foods to eat in the summertime. There are several types of lumpia, ranging from the fresh lumpiang sariwa to the meat lover’s lumpiang Shanghai. I myself am partial to lumpiang prito, which typically comes in the format of vegetables (and optionally pork) stir-fried, stuffed, and deep-fried in large egg roll wrappers.

You can get creative with the vegetables you choose. Sometimes we put in potato matchsticks, diced water chestnuts, chopped celery, green beans sliced on the diagonal…but the recipe below is our standard base and the one that our guest prefer.

Ingredients

3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1″ matchsticks
1 head of chinese cabbage, shredded
600g of bean sprouts
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
30 large egg roll (wonton) wrappers, thawed
Oil for frying (canola, grapeseed, sunflower)
1 lb of ground pork

Directions

In a large wok, sweat garlic and onions over low heat until fragrant.
Increase head to medium-high and sauté ground pork until meat is no longer pink.
Add soy sauce to taste.
Toss in carrots and stir-fry for at least 5 minutes or until slightly softened.
Add shredded cabbage and stir-fry for at least 5 minutes or until colour perks up.
Rinse and drain bean sprouts and add to wok, stirring until incorporated. Taste mixture and season with soy and/or fish sauce till you are satisfied with the flavour.
Drain mixture of excess moisture and transfer to a storage container. Refrigerate until cool. This will be the filling for the lumpia.
Wrap 1 tablespoon of cooled filling in each egg roll wrapper. Place in a single layer on a large flat surface and let dry. If you are going to cook them right away, let them be; if you will keep them for later, store them in a single layer in the freezer until you’re ready to cook them up.
In a deep fryer or pot, heat oil to 180C and maintain at this temperature.
Drop a single layer of lumpia into the oil and cook 3 minutes on each side or until a very light golden brown (they will darken to golden brown as they dry).
Drain on a plate of paper towel and serve promptly.

Makes 25 – 30 lumpia.

Rouxbe Cooking School Series: fun with pho, part 1 of 2

Karen Hamilton — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:00:51 +0000

As the end of my Rouxbe cooking school membership approached, an irresistible recipe for pho cropped up to test my newly acquired broth-making skills. I am a fiend for pho, but to date, I’ve been more than willing to commute to East Vancouver and fork out $6 for a bowl that has been made with mastery. (Indeed, pho is one of the few things that will cause me to drive anywhere – I prefer to walk.)

Until Rouxbe stepped up to the plate, Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen had been my go-to person for learning how to cook Vietnamese fare. He guided me through the process of making rice paper rolls during April’s Social Bites dinner, and has described his preferred ratios for the ideal nuoc cham over many a meal together (one of these days, I must remember to write it down!).

Now that Bruce has shared his family’s pho recipe, let’s see whether Rouxbe’s version passes for the real deal. The guinea pigs: my husband, the Tiny Bites team, and the various blogathoners that volunteer their mouths here at The Workspace.

The Rouxbe recipe

Head on over to Rouxbe and take a gander at their pho recipe. Before you attempt either of the pho recipes we’ve presented, I highly suggest that you sign up for a trial run of Rouxbe’s cooking school and get yourself brushed up on stock and broth 101. Don’t worry – it’s free.

My cooking commentary

I posted all my live cooking notes on Twitter, so here it is for your reviewing pleasure:

Tossed beef bones, beef ribs, and oxtail into a 20 quart stock pot. Covered in cold water to blanch over med-high heat.
Wow, this aluminum stock pot gets super hot! Definitely need oven mitts before touching those handles again.
1hr later: stock pot still hasn’t come to a boil. Upped the temp to maximum heat. Started on onion, ginger prep while I wait.
Water at a boil. Transferring meat to next size pot in order to pour blanching water out. Trying not to burn myself.
Stock pot insides lined with goop. Husband donned oven mitts to scrub it out in sink before we start the proper broth.
10″ of ginger peeled. 4 large onions peeled and quartered. Put under broiler on high to char.
Meat returned to cleaned stock pot and filled with ~12 quarts of cold water. Bringing back up to a simmer.
Cut off blackened bits of broiled onions + ginger and sliced ‘em. Setting out cinnamon, cloves, garlic, peppercorn, star anise.
12 quarts of water in stock pot. That means correct salt ratio would be 1/4 tsp x 12 quarts water = 3 teaspoons.
Broth made ~10qts. Seasoned 8 quarts of it with 8 tablespoons of fish sauce, 4 teaspoons of sugar, tasting after every 2 tablespoon / 1 teaspoon addition, respectively.
The broth is most of the work – adding the garnish and putting the pho together is almost an afterthought.

In short: the recipe was easy to follow, required little babysitting, and makes a ton for your freezer if you’re willing to dedicate an evening for broth-making every now and then.

The verdict? Keep an eye out for Part 2!

Check back later to see what our taste testers at The Workspace say about this pho.

Giveaway alert: premium access to Rouxbe.com

Anyone that has donated to our fundraiser to date was entered for this unannounced prize: a 1-year premium membership to Rouxbe’s online cooking school.

Please help us congratulate Mojgan for winning this sponsored membership from Rouxbe!

Are you sad that you didn’t win? Don’t worry – we have one more Rouxbe membership to give away tonight and another is part of the Tiny Bites Grand Prize. If you haven’t donated yet, you still have time to earn chances to win.

Rogers’ Chocolates Soda Shoppe and days of yore

Bruce Nguyen — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:00:20 +0000

Located in prime tourist real estate at the base of Government Street, approaching Victoria’s Inner Harbour, Roger’s Chocolate Soda Shoppe has set up shop.

The layout is split into two physically separated areas, soft serve ice-cream sundaes in the larger corner space, and hard, scooped ice cream in the smaller adjoining space. Also served are ice cream floats, malts, cookie ice cream sandwiches, splits, and a host of other related treats.

The store sign itself promotes “Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Concoctions” and I haven’t quite made up my mind whether the interior décor is ironic, an avant garde take on retro, or just confused. Old time charm is attempted to be blended with modern design ethics; LCD screen menus are side-by-side with stained glass light fixtures and signs in “Olde English” at the same time that wooden accents merge into bold granite fixtures. Although I have to admit, I am a fan of the uniforms. It’s the hat that does it, really.

I tried one of the more conservative sundaes on their menu. Yes, the drooling beast in the image below would be considered conservative in terms of number of toppings – vanilla soft serve ice cream rimmed with nuts, a Rogers’ chocolate medalion, and finished with caramel, whipped cream, and a marachino cherry.

My favourite part of the sundae was actually the nuts. But I’m an odd fellow who claims his tongue is abnormally full of too many sweet receptors. It wasn’t until after I was happily crunching on my sundae toppings that I noticed a sign advertising cookie ice cream sandwiches. That’s one childhood indulgence that has stayed with me all these years.

Looks like I’m going to have to make another trip to ye olde soda shoppe sooneth.

Rogers’ Chocolates Soda Shoppe
801 Government Street | Victoria
(250) 382-4249
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