PATÉ CHINOIS TWEAKED

In English it’s called Sheppard’s Pie but for me it’s significantly different and I keep calling it Paté Chinois even in English which means Chinese Pie. But it now way is a Chinese dish but rather what was fed the Chinese workers who built the Canadian railway. It was a cheap-to-produce meal for these workers that were closer to being slaves than workers but that’s another story. The Québecois railway workers adopted it into their families and community. Paté Chinois remained as part of Québecois culture.

Normally prepared with a bottom layer of ground beef, topped with creamed corn and then a layer of mashed potatoes and baked for a good 30 minutes at 350. Most people love it to eat it with ketchup.

Well I decided to upgrade it a little, maybe tweak it would be a better word. I began with the meat. Ground beef is delicious but I wanted something more. Instead I decided on ground beef, ground veal and ground pork. But that ain’t everything. First I sautéed 2 large but finely diced carrots with a pinch of brown sugar. I then added a finely chopped onion and cooked till translucent. Drop the ground meats into the pan and sauté until well done. It doesn’t stop here either. Now ketchup isn’t bad but I thought I could make something better. So I cracked open a small can of tomato paste and mixed it into the meat mixture. Boy we’re talking flavor explosion here.

Of course there’s the creamed corn in the middle, nothing changed here. There’s nothing to change… I love creamed corn.

I made the mashed potatoes from Yukon Gold potatoes for added flavor. I mashed them with cream instead of milk and a nice portion of butter.

I then added a fourth layer. Nothing insane, just a beaten egg on top for taste and color. As mentioned earlier, baked at 350 for 30 minutes.

• 2 large carrots, diced
• Pinch of brown sugar.
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 onion, finely diced
• ½ pound of ground beef
• ½ pound of ground veal (the young always taste better)
• ½ pound of pork (because it’s pork damnit… pig meat is the best)
• 2 large cans of Creamed Corn
• 5 medium to large Yukon Gold potatoes.
• Cream
• Butter
• 1 beaten egg.

The end product is one tasty messy slop of Paté Chinois:

The thing simply did’t survive as a nice square piece. Taking out the first portion from a oven dish is near impossible.

Pulled Pork Madness

The other day drooling for some good Pulled Pork but unwilling to trek to Mesquite, I decided to make a Pulled Pork meal. I of course wanted Pulled Pork but needed some sides. Having no fryer, I had to come up with something different. I opted for Potato Skins but I went a little nuts. And I also wanted some Mac n Cheese which is a classic southern side in BBQ.

First the pulled pork. Here is something rather easy to prepare: Apply dry rub, let it rest in the larder over night then stick in the over for 6 to 7 hours. Can something so delicious be any easier to make?

Dry Rub:

• 3 part paprika
• 1 part garlic powder
• 1 part brown sugar
• 1 part dry mustard
• 3 part coarse sea salt
• 1 (5 to 7 pound) pork roast, preferably shoulder or Boston butt

Yeah that’s it. Just apply the rub on all side and pack it on heavy, don’t be shy because once to pull it apart you the rub to blend in with the meat. Now for the BBQ Sauce.

Cider-Vinegar Barbecue Sauce:

• 1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 cup yellow or brown mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 to 4 garlic cloves, smashed (I love garlic)
• 1 heavy pinch salt
• 1 pinch cayenne
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
• Pan drippings from the pork (yum)
• hamburger buns
• Pickle spears, for serving ( I prefer the sweet to the dill but this is up to you)

Yeah this sauce was kinda of a miss for me. I wanted to go for a not-so-sweet BBQ sauce as is traditional in the south, but I guess I just prefer the sweet BBQ sauce found more often in the North-East. Next time I’ll concoct one of those instead. Cider vinegar and yellow mustard in those quantities was to acid for me.

Mix Vinegar, mustard, ketchup, sugar, garlic, cayenne and salt and pepper in a sauce pan on medium heat and make sure the sugar melts or dissolves the reduce to low heat until ready to serve. Once you remove the pork from its pan, take the drippings and poor into the sauce for added flavor goodness.

Remove the bone and large fat chunks (trust me during the cooking, a lot of it went into the meat anyway) and then pull the meat into small shreds using a fork to hold the butt in place and the other to pull the pork. Once done, pour the BBQ sauce into the pork and mix. Just put enough to have the pulled pork stick together so your sandwich doesn’t fall apart into a gooey mess.

A pulled pork sandwich is nothing without some tasty slaw. This is where I cheated a little as I purchased the cabbage and other veggies already prepared to save time on grating all those veggies. But it was tasty anyway.

Cole Slaw:

• One pack of prepared cabbage, carrots and red cabbage
• 2 green onions (white and green parts), chopped
• 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar (again with the Cider Vinegar…again a mistake)
• 1 lemon, juiced
• Pinch sugar.
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed. (I wasn’t too sure about this, but damn it made the slaw)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Well it was a mistake to go with the Cider Vinegar in the slaw also. Even in this small amount I could taste it. But it was pretty and once slapped into the pulled pork sandwich…well.

Potato Skins:

This was easy. Take 3 big russet potatoes and bake them with a dredge of olive oil and coarse sea salt until done. Once done, let them cool a little, just so you can handle them with screaming in pain. Cut them in halves and hollow them out. Take the flesh (in a bowl) and add a heaping helping of Sour Cream (oh yeah) and then… wait for it… add some chopped bacon into the mix (drooling just thinking about them taters). Potatoes, bacon…what could possibly be missing? Well cheese of course. I added a pile of grated Cheddar and Jack in there. This just rocks. Mix well and add more sour cream if the mix is to stiff and then fill out your skins and broil those suckers until well browned.

• 3 large Russet potatoes.
• Olive Oil
• 6 slices center cut bacon, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 scallions, chopped
• Sour cream
• shredded cheddar cheese
• shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• Salt and coarse black pepper

Oh yeah the bacon is prepared in a pan and quickly before pulling from the heat, add in the scallions. Tasty stuff. And don’t fear the bacon, life has no meaning without bacon.

Mac n’ Cheese (Baked)

I can’t get enough of Mac n’ Cheese but instead of stove-top preparation I wanted to make on baked. Get the water boiling for the pasta, I prefer rotini for its ability to have a heavy sauce really stick to it (it’s all about the helix).

In a sauce pan start a roux. A roux is about equal-parts butter and flour. Stir in to mix over medium heat until the butter is melted and just as the roux begins to brown ever so slightly, add in about 3 cups of milk – none of that skimmed or 2% crap, we’re making Mac n’ Cheese here so hit the whole milk I even make it with cooking cream sometimes but that’s insane. And keep stirring until the milk has become thick. Don’t forget to salt and pepper to taste.

While you’re prepping this béchamel (yeah that’s what you just made, I just didn’t tell you) take an onion and chop finely and then drop that sucker in the sauce. Add a good portion of paprika for flavor and color. Then mix into the drained pasta and then its cheese time. Dump your grated cheese and mix until melted and saucy. Put the mix into a deep oven dish or casserole dish and add the breading on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Now the breading is simple. Melt 2 or 3 tablespoons of butter and then drop in a cup of breading and mix until the breading is well coated with the butter. Add more butter if to dry.

• About a pound of rotini
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 3 cups milk
• 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
• 1 or 2 pinches paprika
• Cheddar, shredded. (I eyeball the cheese until I like it)
• Salt
• Fresh black pepper

Topping:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup bread crumbs (panko if you can find it – in my area it’s impossible)

Now when you serve, serve up some Pulled Pork sandwiches, a portion of Mac and a Potato Skin. It kinda looks like this:

Arlequino Pizzeria Reviewed

In the animal world, some animals don’t evolve and haven’t evolved since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Take the alligator for example, a living dinosaur. It’s a perfect survival machine for its environment so it didn’t need to evolve, become more complex. Why bother when you’re king of the swamp and food will just eventually drift by for you to kill it without much effort? Well let me tell what else doesn’t need to evolve. PIZZA.

I could be wrong but…

Pizza is to me, just like Italian food, simple, fresh, unpretentious (there’s that word again) peasant food filled with warmth and soul. Most Italian food rich, filling and made from basic ingredients that keep coming back from one recipe to another but the flavors always vary and it’s got some punch to it. It’s no surprise that Italian food is the most popular ethnic food the world over. Pizza has become the ultimate comfort food that everyone loves. Flatbread, tomato and cheese as the base, what could possibly go wrong?

Wolfgang Puck went wrong that’s what. He popularized the California Pizza (or Gourmet Pizza) and really the fancy nancy foods they serve in those restaurants are both bland and lifeless, but hey it sure looks pretty. And of course it went through North America like a prairie fire.

Arlequino Pizzeria’s Manufactured Pizza

Arlequino opened its doors this year on Drummond. The website still isn’t live and very little history is known about the place. But this is of little consequence because as soon as I stepped inside the restaurant I knew this place was all about form over function…again. A lot of empty space not used to seat diners but to show off a wall of wine incased in glass – which for its location alone is pretentious crap. When you are in the heart of downtown, one should maximize the space because there are a lot of hungry people looking for seating and a quick lunch.  The entire experience is staged. Tuscan colors everywhere, chalk board menu with fine dining table setting. But sadly the service staff was uneducated and knew nothing of spices and peppers as denoted when my fellow diner asked a basic question about the spices. And also it is one noisy restaurant. I couldn’t hear my fellow diner speaking to me from all of 2 and half feet from me. Antipasto served on a mini cutting board – an attempt at rusticity that fails on many levels I won’t go into here – but it just wasn’t antipasto to me.

But I was there with my team, manager and director and our work is driven by urgency and availability so no time for starters and such things. We went straight for the Pizza. My initial reason for going into this restaurant blind was the appeal of wood-oven baked pizza. This was dashed immediately when I received my Bari pizza. The idea sounded good on paper. Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Rapini, and Sausage. Again I ask, what could possibly go wrong? A great many things it seems.

Cheated

As soon as I received my pizza I noticed 2 things. The glory of wood-oven baking is that TASTE OF WOOD. But this pizza was aseptic. Where were the burnt edges? Where was the powered and blackened bottom? No where to be seen. This pizza was picture perfect. The cheese unbrowned, perfectly leveled, perfect topping distribution, everything a pizza should not, especially if you wood-oven baked that baby. The second item I noticed was the sausage and immediately I knew something had gone wrong. There was nothing Italian about this sausage. To begin with it was so tiny in size, the content was puré and not chunky goodness. And it had been sliced with a slicer, in other words purchased as is. No better than Domino’s except in flavor. I would have loved handmade sausage, cut unevenly and thick. The Rapini had been steamed with nothing added and this sucked the entire flavor that would have been available out of the pizza.

Now don’t get me wrong, the pizza wasn’t all that bad once they added to oil and I added a pound of salt on it. So much for fine dining. At fine dining establishments salt and pepper should not even be made available on the table because the food is supposed to be salted and spiced adequately. And after eating this circle of blandness, I was not satiated – which as you know is the whole point of scarfing down some delicious pizza. Bland, soulless, un-filling and yet pretty damn pricey for Italian staples on dough.

A twelve inch very thin pizza ranges from 14 to 16 dollars. 3$ for barely a handful of extra olives. A pizza and a Coke cost me 22$ (not including tip). I can get 2 slices (which will be more pizza than I was served) and a coke for under 12$ at more down to earth pizza shops in Montreal. Pizza doesn’t need to be fancied up, it’s perfect the way it was meant to be and it in no way should be so expensive. But rich pricks seem to think paying a lot of money for food is important. I won’t be found dead anywhere I can get a burrito for a dollar but I don’t think a 12 inch paper thin pizza cheaply topped is worth 16$. Don’t get taken in by the cool sounding word Rapini, it’s cabbage. A tasty cabbage, but still just common cabbage that can grow anywhere. It’s said that pizza is like sex, even when it’s bad, it’s still good. While true in this case, it was like being stuck in the missionary position with an unskilled high-priced hooker.

The pizza wasn’t horrible but I won’t be going back. 2 pizza pies out of 5.

Arlequino Pizzeria
www.arlequino.ca
1218 Drummond
Montréal, QC H3G 1V7, Canada
(514) 868-1666

P.S. Don’t Test Drive restaurants with non-foodies. Cameras make them nervous and their lack of passion for new restaurants really drives the momentum down.

Arlequino Pizzeria Reviewed

In the animal world, some animals don’t evolve and haven’t evolved since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Take the alligator for example, a living dinosaur. It’s a perfect survival machine for its environment so it didn’t need to evolve, become more complex. Why bother when you’re king of the swamp and food will just eventually drift by for you to kill it without much effort? Well let me tell what else doesn’t need to evolve. PIZZA.

I could be wrong but…

Pizza is to me, just like Italian food, simple, fresh, unpretentious (there’s that word again) peasant food filled with warmth and soul. Most Italian food rich, filling and made from basic ingredients that keep coming back from one recipe to another but the flavors always vary and it’s got some punch to it. It’s no surprise that Italian food is the most popular ethnic food the world over. Pizza has become the ultimate comfort food that everyone loves. Flatbread, tomato and cheese as the base, what could possibly go wrong?

Wolfgang Puck went wrong that’s what. He popularized the California Pizza (or Gourmet Pizza) and really the fancy nancy foods they serve in those restaurants are both bland and lifeless, but hey it sure looks pretty. And of course it went through North America like a prairie fire.

Arlequino Pizzeria’s Manufactured Pizza

Arlequino opened its doors this year on Drummond. The website still isn’t live and very little history is known about the place. But this is of little consequence because as soon as I stepped inside the restaurant I knew this place was all about form over function…again. A lot of empty space not used to seat diners but to show off a wall of wine incased in glass – which for its location alone is pretentious crap. When you are in the heart of downtown, one should maximize the space because there are a lot of hungry people looking for seating and a quick lunch.  The entire experience is staged. Tuscan colors everywhere, chalk board menu with fine dining table setting. Antipasto served on a mini cutting board – an attempt at rusticity that fails on many levels I won’t go into here – but it just wasn’t antipasto to me. But sadly the service staff was uneducated and knew nothing of spices and peppers as denoted when my fellow diner asked a basic question about the spices.

But I was there with my team, manager and director and our work is driven by urgency and availability so no time for starters and such things. We went straight for the Pizza. My initial reason for going into this restaurant blind was the appeal of wood-oven baked pizza. This was dashed immediately when I received my Bari pizza. The idea sounded good on paper. Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Rapini, and Sausage. Again I ask, what could possibly go wrong? A great many things it seems.

As soon as I received my pizza I noticed 2 things. The glory of wood-oven baking is that TASTE OF WOOD. But this pizza was aseptic. Where were the burnt edges? Where was the powered and blackened bottom? No where to be seen. This pizza was picture perfect. The cheese unbrowned, perfectly leveled, perfect topping distribution, everything a pizza should not, especially if you wood-oven baked that baby. The second item I noticed was the sausage and immediately I knew something had gone wrong. There was nothing Italian about this sausage. To begin with it was so tiny in size, the content was puré and not chunky goodness. And it had been sliced with a slicer, in other words purchased as is. No better than Domino’s except in flavor. I would have loved handmade sausage, cut unevenly and thick. The Rapini had been steamed with nothing added and this sucked the entire flavor that would have been available out of the pizza.

Now don’t get me wrong, the pizza wasn’t all that bad once they added to oil and I added a pound of salt on it. So much for fine dining. At fine dining establishments salt and pepper should not even be made available on the table because the food is supposed to be salted and spiced adequately. And after eating this circle of blandness, I was not satiated – which as you know is the whole point of scarfing down some delicious pizza. Bland, soulless, un-filling and yet pretty damn pricey for Italian staples on dough.

A twelve inch very thin pizza ranges from 14 to 16 dollars. 3$ for barely a handful of extra olives. A pizza and a Coke cost me 22$. I can get 2 slices (which will be more pizza than I was served) and a coke for under 12$ at more down to earth pizza shops in Montreal. Pizza doesn’t need to be fancied up, it’s perfect the way it was meant to be and it in no way should be so expensive. But rich pricks seem to think paying a lot of money for food is important. I won’t be found dead anywhere I can get a burrito for a dollar but I don’t think a 12 inch paper thin pizza cheaply topped is worth 16$. Don’t get taken in by the cool sounding word Rapini, it’s cabbage. A tasty cabbage, but still just common cabbage that can grow anywhere. It’s said that pizza is like sex, even when it’s bad, it’s still good. While true in this case, it was like being stuck in the missionary position with an unskilled high-priced hooker.

Mac N Cheese Upgraded

I was in the mood for some comfort food last night and my favorite quick and dirty comfort food is good old Mac N Cheese. But I decided to go a little off-road and upgrade it a little, which is normally heresy to me, something akin to desecration, but these days I’m bored and need to try new stuff and if this means making a travesty of my untouchable comfort food well so be it.

Sausage and Tomato Mac N Cheese

I began by cutting some sweet Italian sausage. I sliced them in half along their length and then chopped them into quarter inch thick slices. I sautéed them in my trusty Air Canada copper pan with a little olive oil until golden brown with a slight crisp to them and then I added the crushed tomatoes and let the mix simmer for a few minutes while I took care of my pasta – simple elbow macaroni, though I prefer rotini because sauce sticks to it better.

Meanwhile I prepared the cheese orgy… I mean sauce. Pour in the cream, add the butter and melt. I was out of flour so no flour this time but it turned out ok anyway. Pour the cheddar and the Mozzarella in and stir until melted. At the last minute I decided to add parmesan so I grated it over the sauce pan but it was approximately 1/3 of a cup. Mix in the sausage and tomato and stir. Salt and pepper to taste.

When the pasta is ready, empty in the colander and then immediately put the pasta back in the pot. And this is important for all pasta dishes. Always remove the water but don’t shake the pasta or rinse it, you will remove the glue that will make the sauce stick to the pasta and a lot of its flavor. If you have water in your pasta dish, your pasta is either over-cooked or you screwed up your sauce.

Pour in Tomatoey cheese sauce and mix. During taste I decide to lop in some cream cheese also. It might have been too much after eating though so maybe withholding it would be better. And you are done. Some folks add bread crumbs and oven bake their Mac N Cheese but by the time I’m done mixing in the cheese I want to eat it NOW. I love it that much. And Voila:

Bon Appetit

Sausage and Tomato Mac N Cheese ingredients:

• 1 big bag of elbow macaroni.
• 1 cup of shredded cheddar
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella
• 1/3 cup of cream cheese
• 1/3 cup of shredded parmesan
• ¼ cup of butter
• 1 ¼ cup of cream
• 4 italian sausages
• 1 cup of crushed tomato (canned)
• Salt and Pepper

A Vegetarian Walks into a Deli…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. But there’s no point I need to get this off my chest. And for full disclosure I was formerly a vegetarian and never, ever did I do this and always hated hearing vegetarians for doing it and still do, more so now that I’m back on the sauce…or the meat.

This weekend I’m at my favorite Deli, Reuben’s, trying out what turns out to be an awesome sandwich for the first time, the Delmonico Steak Sandwich. Just some yummy artery blocking goodness. Sitting next to our table is a young couple of would-be nerds and the girl orders a plate of pickles. I guess she likes her pickles but by the time we ordered, received and eaten our chow, they remained undecided. Who takes over half an hour to decide what they want to eat?

Well vegetarians of course. But who walks into a DELI and expects vegetarian fare? Vegetarians of course. Vegetarians expect to be accommodated for their unnatural eating habits… in a DELI?  Pardon my French but what the fuck was she thinking? I would never go to a Jewish restaurant and expect my proclivities for pig meat to be accommodated – and yes there are Jewish restaurants in Montreal where I was served turkey based bacon for a corporate breakfast. Why do vegetarians have the balls to come into a DELI and expect to be served vegetarian fare?

It’s no secret that a DELI is an altar on which all that is meat, greasy and bad for you are worshipped with religious vigor. It’s not about getting a salad. Hell even the salads here are mountains stacked with meat. But there were some options that are quite delicious with no meat, usually starters from which she could have picked but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO she had to make her vegetarian statement loud and proud and let everyone know that she was a veg-head and argue with the waiter who mocked her and tried to convert her to the meat side – kudos to him. Come on would you go to a Hot-Dog joint and ask for salad?

What’s worse is that she’s a fake vegetarian because she ordered the tuna sandwich. Last I heard tuna was an animal. So I had to go through her whole spiel about vegetarianism so she could order the tuna sandwich?  Get the fuck out of here. I kept having flash back of Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain mocking vegetarians. These people should just stick to Commensal and Indian buffets or just order the meatless options from the menu but for all that is good in the world, shut the fuck up.

I am reminded of the single greatest quote, in my opinion, by Anthony Bourdain about vegetarians:

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I’ll accommodate them, I’ll rummage around for something to feed them, for a ‘vegetarian plate’, if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”

* From Kitchen Confidential, p. 70.