Recipe « YouCook.ca – bringing recipes into your home.

Recipe

Black Cod with Vij’s Ginger Tomato Yogurt Broth

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

black cod curry
For the inaugural first official YouCook night of 2011, I decided to make something from one of my favourite recipe books of all time (and one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to): Vij’s. I had a craving for seafood and remembered the last time I was at Vij’s I had a halibut and spot prawn curry dish that was deliciously fresh and unforgettable. So flipping through the book I found a grilled sablefish in tomato-yogurt broth recipe.
black cod curry
On my trip to the grocery store, I saw a beautiful piece of Black Cod that was simply calling for me to buy it, and so I did. I didn’t exactly follow any steps in the recipe to prepare the fish but did stick to the broth as mentioned in the book. Instead of the tomato broth, I used Ming’s home-made tomato sauce. As for the grilled sablefish called for in the recipe, I marinated with a similar mix of spices but pan fried the black cod instead. To be honest, I made a whole bunch of mistakes not following the recipe, not marinating it for the 3-4 hours it called for (just 1-2 hours in my case) but it was seriously one of the most memorable meals I’ve had in a long time. The ginger, tomato, yogurt broth really complimented the fish like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. Really, everytime I eat at Vij’s or now cook from the cookbook, I fall in love with Vikram and Meeru all over again – they are really culinary geniuses when coming up with these recipes.

Summary

Preparation Time: 10 min for the fish before leaving it to marinate.
Servings: 3-4
Meal type: Main
Cost: ~$40.

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients for the fish

black cod curry

2 lbs of black cod cut into 2 inch x 3 inch pieces ($30) – original recipe calls for 1lb 5 oz sablefish. Cutting them into chunks really helped reduce the cooking time and let the fish cook evenly.
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon of salt – I find usually reduce a lot of Vij’s recipe for salt, so its up to your tastes
1/2 teaspoon of paprika
1/2 teaspoon of garam masala – I used just a bulk brand of this. Actually, the recipe didn’t call for this in the fish but I screwed up while reading the curry instructions and added the garam masala anyways.

Instructions for fish

I’m going to stick to what I did with the black cod, if you’re curious about how to prepare sablefish, you should buy the elegant and inspired Vij’s book.
1. Mix oil, cayenne, salt and patrika in a mixing bowl.
black cod curry
2. Add the fish and mix well, making sure the black cod is well covered in the marinade.

Actually, I ended up cutting the fish into pieces after marinating because it took me a while to accept that I was going to cut up that perfect looking piece of black cod.

3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap an refrigerate for 3-4 hours. I did it for an hour and feel that like was sufficient to bring out the flavours.
4. I went on to making the tomato-yogurt broth while waiting.
5. Lightly coat the black cod in flour.
(Keeping in mind that this is still winter with no access to a BBQ, pan frying was the next best thing. )
black cod curry
6. I put a pan and oil on medium heat. When it’s hot, add the pieces of fish.

I split it up into 3 rounds of fish so that I could pay attention to their cooking time. It doesn’t take too long to cook, you can tell when the fish is done when you press into it with a fork and it flakes off easily.
black cod curry
The texture changes from slimy/squishy into flakey. You also don’t want to over cook it.

7. As soon as it’s ready, cover with sauce and serve with basmati rice. I didn’t get a chance to get naan but that would taste delicious too.

Ingredients for the curry

1 cup plain yogurt, stirred (4% milkfat is recommended, I could only find 3%) ($3)
1 1/2 tablespoon of garam masala
1/2 tablespoon of salt – again I can’t let myself put that much salt
2 teaspoon of paprika
1/2 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup canola oil
2 1/2 tablespoon of chopped garlic – this was one whole garlic
3 tablespoon of finely chopped ginger
2 1/2 cups of tomato broth – we used 3/4 jar of home bottled tomato sauce

Instructions for the curry

1. Mix yogurt, garam masala, salt, paprika and cayenne in a bowl.
black cod curry
2. Chop garlic and ginger.

Oh and here’s a trick I learned from Youtube of how to peel the ginger skin – just use a metal spoon and scrape off the ginger skin, it comes off easily.

3. In a pot, heat oil on medium heat and saute garlic until golden brown.

4. Add ginger and saute for 1 more minute.
5. Add tomato broth and then yogurt mixture. Here’s where I think I screwed up because some of the yogurt curdled.
black cod curry
If you have any tips on how not to let this happen let me know. Mix well is my only advice.
6. Stir well and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes.

7. Serve this with the fish!

Results

black cod curry
What really makes this dish was the fresh black cod in addition to the simple combo of spices. I’m very glad about the decision to pan fry the fish as it added another element (crispiness) that you wouldn’t get when grilling. The ginger, tomato, yogurt really worked well with the fish and it was definitely a hit – we all fought over the last pieces! Add some wine, basmati rice and really it was an enjoyable meal that I’d make again.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Restaurant / Seafood — View Comments
13
Jul 10

Hapa Izakaya’s Spot Prawn Sashimi

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Hapa Spot Prawn Sashimi
Last month in the midst of spot prawn season in Vancouver, I enjoyed the creativity of different chefs and how they used spot prawn in their cooking. In my humble opinion simple tastes best and Hapa blew me away with how simple and delicious their spot prawn sashimi dish was. I have always enjoyed amaebi (sweet shrimp) sashimi and was pleased to discover how juicy and sweet the spotted prawns were.

The next day, inspired by the dish, I went to the fishing boats at Granville Island and bought 1 lb of freshly caught spot prawns and brought it home for a feast with some friends from out of town.

We didn’t have all the fixings that came along with the Hapa dish (lemon, radish slices, dill) but we did have the main ingredient: fresh spot prawns. We were all smiles after our feast.

Anytime you have a chance to get fresh spotted prawns or even the side striped prawns, try eating it sashimi style – you won’t regret it.

Summary

Preparation Time: 5 min (cleaning, peeling)
Servings: 4
Cost: $12/lb
Meal type: Appetizer

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

1 lb Fresh spotted prawns
Slices of radish
Slices of lemon
Sprigs of dill
Soy sauce and wasabi

Instructions

1. Wash prawns
Fresh Spot Sashimi
2. Peel prawns

3. Serve with lemon, dill, radish
4. For the brave, the head is definitely edible. Many people like to pan fry or deep fry the head before eating.
5. Dip with soy sauce and wasabi.

Results

Hapa Spot Prawn Sashimi
I thoroughly enjoyed how delicious and fresh this dish was. Thanks to Hapa Izakaya for the inspiration.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Appetizer / Darryl Crumb / Vancouver Dine Out — View Comments
18
May 10

Regional Tasting Lounge: Salmon Ceviche

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Salmon Ceviche

Regional Tasting Lounge is an interesting restaurant in Yaletown that features cuisines from a region of the world for a few months at a time. Right now, R.TL has a South American theme for their menu. They have some ceviche dishes on their menu and Chef Darryl Crumb offered to show us how to make his Salmon Ceviche with a Mango and Orange Dressing! Ever since my Peru trip last year when I had ceviche, I’ve always wanted to make it at home so I was definitely excited to learn from him!

Along with ceviche, they have quinoa salad (which we also have the recipe for) and Peruvian chicken so go try it out before the menu changes.
r.tl

Summary

Preparation Time: 10 min (skinning, chopping)
Cook Time: 5 min
Servings: 1 serving
Cost: $8
Meal type: Appetizer

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

4 oz Fresh Sockeye Salmon (Sushi grade) – $5.00
2 medium oranges – $1
1/2 lemon – $0.60
1/2 lime – $0.40
1/2 mango – $1.00
1/2 chili pepper – $0.10
Salt to taste
Sprinkle of chopped cilantro

Instructions (Video)

Chef Darryl Crumb walks us through how to make Salmon Ceviche.

Instructions

1. De-skin salmon if necessary.

2. Cut fillet into strips.
3. Cut into small cubes of salmon.
cube salmon
4. Season with salt in a bowl.
5. Cut orange in half and squeeze both halves juice into bowl.
orange squeeze
6. Squeeze half a lemon juice into bowl.
7. Squeeze lime into bowl.
8 De-seed a chili pepper and finely dice.
9. Dice mango and combine into bowl.
10. Supreme an orange and dice it.
supreme orange
11. Mix ingredients in bowl.
mix
12. Serve immediately on a plate of spinach.
13. Top with chopped cilantro.

Results

ceviche
Ceviche is so simple and tasty!! The fresh orange and mango sauce really compliments the wild sockeye salmon! This dish takes very little time to prepare and is such a treat with fresh ingredients. I’m hoping to get some fresh fish in the coming weeks and will definitely be making some into ceviche. I also can’t wait to try all the other ceviches that Chef Darryl Crumb is making at R.TL.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Vancouver Dine Out / Vegetarian — View Comments
17
May 10

Central Bistro’s Grilled Mediterranean Olive Polenta Cakes

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

polenta

We spent some time at Central Bistro with Chef Robert Erickson learning more about his delicious vegetarian dish on the Dine Out menu which has been quite a hit that it’s making its way to the regular menu! Grilled Mediterranean Olive Polenta Cakes with Macedonian feta, charred tomato & marinated portobello mushroom in a roasted pepper emulsion and spiced parsley coulis.

The recipe is split up into different parts: the olive polenta cake and roast pepper emulsion sauce. The vegetable sides include: marinated portabello mushroom, blistered tomato, parsley coulis and roasted asparagus.

I didn’t realize that polenta, cornmeal, grits are essentially the same. I have to admit, I am not used to this as an ingredient in any of my cooking so I looked it up. Bulk cornmeal that you find here is typically too fine to be called polenta. Polenta is coarse stone-ground cornmeal. It is traditionally known as peasant food and originated in Italy. It is gluten free, so if you can’t deal with wheat, you might want to try polenta out.

Summary

Preparation Time: 30 min.
Cook Time: 3 hours.
Servings: 8 portions
Meal type: Main

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients for Olive and Polenta Cakes

1/4 cup mixed olives
1/8 cup chopped thyme
1 cup polenta
2 shallots finely dice
4 Tbsp butter
3 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup cream
1/8 cup flat leaf parsley chopped

Instructions for Olive Polenta Cakes

1. Heat pot and sauté shallots in butter until clear
2. Add olives and stir for 30 seconds.
3. Deglaze with vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
4. Whisk in cornmeal and continue to stir for 10 mins making sure not to let the polenta stick.
Chef’s tip: If cornmeal becomes too heavy add a little more vegetable stock.
5. Add cream and continue to stir until until the gritty texture has left the polenta.
6. Finish with salt and pepper to taste
7. Place on parchment covered baking sheet with spatula spread evenly and place another piece of parchment on top.
8. Take a baking sheet the same size and place on top of that then add weight and press for 2 hours in refrigerator.
9. Cut into rounds or sticks of desired size.

Ingredients for Roast Pepper Emulsion

3 red peppers
1 onion, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, finely diced
4 Tbsp thyme, chopped
3 Tbsp oregano, chopped
2 Tbsp rosemary, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1 Tbsp sugar
1 large can pureed tomatoes
3 Tbsp butter

Instructions for Roast Pepper Emulsion

1. Roast 3 peppers on the grill or in the oven.
2. Place in a bowl and cover with saran wrap for 10 min to steam.
3. Peel skin and remove seeds.
4. Place in a blender and puree . Set aside.
5. Heat up a pan and sauté onions until clear.
6. Add garlic and sweat for 1 minute.
7. Add thyme and rosemary.
8. Deglaze with white wine and sugar.
9. Add pureed tomato and cook on medium heat for 15 minutes.
10. Add pureed roast peppers and cook for 10 minutes.
11. Add oregano and remove from heat.
12. Pour ingredients into a blender and puree.
13. Slowly add butter to finish.

Vegetable Sides

For Central Bistro’s dish, Chef Robert Erickson accompanies it with:
1. Roasted portobello mushroom marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and thyme for each portion.
2. Oven roasted roma tomatoes marinated in olive oil, maldon salt and fresh cracked black peppers finished on the grill.
3. Salt and peppered grilled (lightly charred) asparagus.
4. Parsley coulis – pureed parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, honey, paprika.
5. Frisse salad with lemon juice and salt.

Serving the dish

1. To serve, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Put the polenta in an oven safe pan, add sauce, a good pinch of macedonian feta and a pinch of parmesan.
3. Reheat for 20 minutes.
4. If the tomato and mushrooms need reheating, do that in a separate pan in the oven.
5. Combine ingredients on plate, finish with a dollop of parsley coulis, balsamic reduction, and frisse salad.

Results

Polenta
Polenta has regain some popularity amongst chefs lately and it makes for a delicious vegetarian meal. I really enjoyed the red pepper/tomato sauce in this recipe. It works well with the polenta cakes but I can imagine it being delicious with pasta too. Nothing beats accompanying the dish with fresh in-season vegetables like mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus.

This recipe has a lot of parts to it and it was really time consuming to prepare this dish from scratch. I would definitely recommend to try it out at Central Bistro.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Cookbook / Restaurant / Vegetarian / Vikram Vij — View Comments
13
May 10

Vij’s: Jackfruit in Black Cardamom and Cumin Masala

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Curry
I love Vij’s and having recently gotten to know Vikram and Meeru through interviews, I’ve really developed a great deal of respect for them, their philosophy, their food, staff and restaurants. I was delighted to be invited to come in and cook with Vij’s kitchen staff. We made a vegetarian dish that I absolutely love ordering at Vij’s, the Jackfruit in Black Cardamom and Cumin Masala. In traditional Vietnamese cooking, Jackfruit is a fruit that’s eaten as a snack or dessert. I’ve never attempted to eat young green Jackfruit before. I learned from Vikram Vij that green jackfruit is commonly used as vegetarian meat in India. In fact, his mom used to feed it to him telling him that it was meat until he tried real meat. The texture and thickness of the green Jackfruit allows for it to absorb spices and curries quite easily.

This recipe can be found in their award winning cookbook: Vij’s Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine.

I have to admit that I have not ever shopped for so many Indian spices before. I figure now that I own the Vij’s cookbook, it was time to stock my pantry with Indian spices. I went to Safeway and Save-on-Foods bulk sections and could not find all these spices. I found a great selection of spices at Famous Foods but only found the yellow ripe jackfruit in a can here. I went over to Sunrise market and happened to find the green young jackfruit needed for the recipe.

Video

Watch how it’s done in Vij’s kitchen.

Summary

Preparation Time: 1 hour (dry the jackfruit, deep fry jackfruit)
Cook Time: 45 min
Servings: 6 servings
Cost: $29.60 – $4.93 per serving.
Meal type: Main

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

*Note: I’m going to include the cost of the entire packages of spice to give you an idea of how much it costs to get started in Indian cooking. The bad news is that it’s pretty expensive when all things are added up. The good news is that these spices will be required in many Indian dishes.

3 cans of young green jackfruit – $6.09
6 black cardamom pods – $1.49*
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 Tbsp cumin seeds – $2.59*
1 cup finely chopped onion (1 large onion) – $0.50
1 Tbsp chopped garlic – $0.10
6-8 whole dried red chilies (broken in half with seeds) – $2.29*
2 cups crushed tomatoes – $2.50
1/2 Tbsp ground black mustard seeds – $1.69*
1 tsp ground fenugreek seeds – $2.29*
1 tsp turmeric – $1.99*
1 tsp mexican chili powder – $2.59*
1 tsp paprika – $1.99
1 tsp ground cumin – $1.50
1/2 Tbsp ground coriander – $1.99
1 Tbsp salt
1 cup water
6 cups canola oil for deep frying

Preparation Instructions for Jackfruit

1. Line 2 baking trays with dry tea towels.
2. Place jackfruit on the tea towels for 30 minutes to drain.

I drained both kinds of jackfruit (green and ripe) to compare how both absorb the curry and which tastes better. If you want to stay authentic to Indian cuisine, use the young green jackfruit. I found that the ripe yellow jackfruit that I’m used to is a lot sweeter and I like it a lot but it might be too sweet for a savoury curry dish.
You can continue on to make the masala while the jackfruit is drying then return to the next step after the masala is put together.
3. The jackfruit should now be drained and ready for deep frying. Line a baking tray with paper towel.
4. Deep fry the jackfruit on high heat for 5 minutes.
Chef’s tip: You can tell if the oil is ready if you drop a small piece of jackfruit in and it immediately floats to the top.
5. Scoop out jackfruit and cool for 15 min.

Instructions for Masala

1. Break black cardamom pods, remove the seeds and discard the pods.

2. Heat a pan with oil on medium-high heat for 1 minute.
3. Add cumin seeds and fenugreek seeds, cook for 3 seconds or until it sizzles.
4. Add onions and sautee for 8-10 minutes until brown.
onions
5. Add garlic and broken dried chilies and sautee for 2 minutes.
crushed dried chilies
6. Add tomatoes.
I used a can of Hunt’s Crushed Tomato and found it to be of a much thicker consistency than when we were cooking in Vij’s kitchen. It looked a lot more like a spaghetti sauce than curry so I had to stir and add in a cup of water before it looked as watery as the one in the restaurant. This is in addition to the water called for in this recipe to be added in step #10. There’s probably another brand of crushed tomatoes that is not so thick.
7. Add the rest of the spices: black mustard seeds, turmeric, mexican chili powder, paprika, ground cumin, ground coriander and salt.
Spices
8. Stir well and reduce to medium heat.
9. Stir regularly for 10 min until oil separates and masala glistens.
10. Stir in water.
11. Turn off heat and cover the pan.
12. Stir jackfruit into masala gently so that the pieces do not break.
jackfruit masala
13. Turn the heat back to medium.
14. Once the masala is boiled, mix and reduce the heat to medium low.
15. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes and remove the lid to avoid over cooking it.
16. Serve immediately.

Results

jackfruit in cumin masala

I remember having this dish for the first time at Vij’s and our whole table argued if it was pork or beef or jackfruit. This is definitely a great (and healthy) substitute for meat which does not taste like tofu. I think that if I had more time, I would soak the jackfruit in the curry for 30 min before serving to get it to absorb more curry flavour. Both kinds of jackfruit tasted really good in the dish. We served the dish with basmati rice and naan. It was a hit – between the 5 of us, we finished off the entire pan of jackfruit masala.

I will definitely try to make other curries with jackfruit instead of meat. I’m so happy that I have all the spices now which provide a good basis for more Indian dishes to come!

Thank you so much Vij’s for all your help.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Restaurant / Seafood / Vikram Vij — View Comments
7
May 10

Vij’s::Prawns in Coconut Masala

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

I live in Toronto and while I’ve never been to Vij’s in Vancouver, I had heard a lot about it from my friends in Vancouver. It is consistently ranked as the top restaurant in Vancouver. So I decided that since I couldn’t easily go there myself, I could do the next best thing – bring Vij’s into my home by cooking his recipe. I chose the Prawns in Coconut Masala recipe because I love prawns, and the simplicity of the recipe. Here’s some words of advice from Vij via the Vancouver Sun: “This can be served as an appetizer or as part of a meal with naan or rice. You can substitute canola oil for ghee, but you’ll lose some of the flavour. The recipe follows a French style of cooking, where the prawns are cooked with the sauce.” I used canola oil instead of ghee because I didn’t have time, but I will definitely try ghee next time as the flavour was a bit subtle.

Summary

Preparation Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Servings: 6 servings.
Meal type: Appetizer / Main

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

30 prawns, shelled and deveined
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons ghee or canola oil

Chef’s Tip: You can substitute canola oil for ghee, but you’ll lose some of the flavour. I used canola oil. See below for the recipe for ghee.

½ teaspoon cumin seeds
2 large onions, chopped
3 large ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
2 tablespoons coconut milk, stirred
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped green chilies
3 bunches green onions, white and green parts, chopped

Instructions

1. Place prawns in a colander and rinse under cold water. Allow excess water to drain. In a bowl, combine prawns and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the refrigerator while you are making the coconut masala.
2. In a large frying pan, melt ghee on medium-high heat (or heat oil for 1 minute). Add cumin seeds and allow them to sizzle for 30 seconds.

3. Add onions and saute 5 to 8 minutes, or until dark brown but not burned.

4. Stir in tomatoes, coconut milk, vinegar, chilies and the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook for 5 minutes or until tomatoes are cooked through. Add green onions and stir well.
5. Add prawns, stirring constantly, until they become pinkish orange. This will take about 3 minutes. Immediately remove from heat.

6. To serve, place 5 prawns on each of six small shallow plates. Top each serving with one-sixth of the coconut masala. Alternatively, divide the coconut masala evenly among six small shallow plates, then top with 5 prawns per plate.

Recipe for Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Ingredients

1 pound unsalted butter

Instructions
1. Melt butter in small, heavy pot on medium heat. Once melted, reduce the heat slightly and boil gently for 5 minutes.
2. Using a small sieve, scoop out the solids that are floating on top. Continue gently boiling butter and scooping the floating solids every 3 minutes. Scoop carefully so you remove only the solids and not the actual ghee that is forming. You will notice the butter changes slowly from a creamy light yellow to a clear golden liquid with fewer solids.
3. After 10 to 13 minutes, the ghee will start to foam. Using the sieve, scoop through the foam to make sure you have removed all of the solids. Once the foam reduces, you will have a clear golden liquid. This is ghee. Turn off the heat and allow ghee to cook for abut 20 minutes.
4. Pour ghee into a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Once it is completely cool, refrigerate. It will keep refrigerated in an air-tight container for 3 months (or longer).

Variations

I liked this a lot for shrimp, but I could see this working with other types of seafood too, such as white fish and scallops. I actually found this recipe similar to Caju’s Moqueca Stew.

Results

The Prawns in Coconut Masala was very good, but I found the flavours a bit too subtle when served with rice. I usually like very strong flavours in my stews and curries when pairing them with rice since rice is so bland. I think this would be better served as an appetizer on its own. I found the recipe really easy and simple. I think next time I make this to serve with rice I may add more spices to it but it’s great as an appetizer!

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Appetizer / Vancouver Dine Out — View Comments
3
May 10

Cinema: Beef Carpaccio and Arugula Salad Recipe

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

carpaccio
The Donnelly Pub Group is offering an awesome Dine Out deal for $18 at The Calling and Cinema with food from executive chef Michael Knowlson. Cinema only opened last month and it was the first time I got to check it out! It’s beautiful, spacious and right on Granville Street. See for yourself…
Cinema
We were lucky enough to get the recipes to an appetizer, entree and dessert from their Dine Out menu! So if you’ve eaten there and wondered how to make the Beef Carpaccio, Maple Glazed Salmon or the warm Mixed Berry Pie – you’ve come the right place!

Summary

Preparation Time: 10 min
Servings: 1
Meal type: Appetizer

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

75g of AAA Alberta beef tenderloin
50g of Baby Arugula
Truffle aioli – garlic mayo with truffle oil
15g of French Vinaigrette
Shaved fresh parmesan cheese
Sea salt, Fresh ground pepper
2 crostini

Instructions

1. Cut beef into thin slices.
Chef’s tip: Cut the beef along the grain. Wrap in saran wrap into a cylinder shape and freeze it over night. This makes it easier to cut the beef into thin slices.
2. Place thinly sliced beef around the plate, sprinkle with salt.
3. Dress with arugula and the French vinaigrette.
You can find a recipe for French vinaigrette here.
4. Use a spoon to drizzle the truffle aioli around the plate.
Even if you don’t have a truffle aioli, sprinkle on some truffle oil for the smell and flavour. I never tire of how truffle oil complements food. For a truffle aioli recipe, here’s one I found.
carpaccio
5. Place the crostini on top of the salad.
6. Put shaved parmesan on the crostini.
6. Season with salt and pepper.

Results

Seriously delicious appetizer. The arugula and truffle oil go very well with the thin beef slices. I don’t recall tasting much of the French vinaigrette or parmesan cheese on the dish. Let us know where you buy your AAA cuts of meat for Carpaccio!

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Dessert / Vancouver Dine Out — View Comments
28
Apr 10

White Chocolate and Red Bean Steam Buns at Wild Rice

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

red bean and chocolate steam bun
I spent some time with Chef Todd Bright in the Wild Rice kitchen learning about how creative his desserts are for Vancouver Dine Out this week. The restaurant takes pride in using local sustainable meats and high quality ingredients. I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in town that you could fresh coho salmon wontons or sloping hill pork made into char siu in-house.

Chef Todd is from Australia where he worked at a Cantonese restaurant. He’s obviously passionate about food and finds creative ways to use all the ingredients he’s working with.
todd bright

Two of the desserts on the $18 Dine Out menu are the white chocolate and red bean steam buns (which we’ll show you how to make) and the teacup chocolate pudding (which is vegan – tofu instead of gelatin!). I was lucky enough to try both and they were both decadently good.

Summary

Preparation Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 10 min
Servings: 20 bite sized pieces
Meal type: Dessert

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

1.5 cups warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 Tbsp yeast
3.25 cups flour
4 oz (3/4 cup) Callebaut white chocolate
6 oz (1 cup) Red bean paste

* Wild Rice uses this brand – this one can be found in T&T for $2.17

Instructions for the White chocolate and red bean filling

1. Put a pot on low heat.
2. Combine the white chocolate and red bean paste until the chocolate is melted.
3. Cool in the fridge until the mixture slightly hardens and the mix is ready to use.

Instructions for the Steam Bun Dough

1. Add yeast to a bowl of warm water.
yeast to bowl
2. Add sugar and leave it sitting for about 15 minutes.
3. Once activated you’ll see the mixture bubble.
bubble
4. Put the flour in a bowl and add the yeast mixture to form the dough.
5. Let the dough sit for about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the temperature of the kitchen. A warmer kitchen is ideal – a cold kitchen could take longer.
Chef’s tip: Be sure to cover the dough with saran wrap. Air will make the outside crust of the dough harden and you don’t want that.
6. Once the dough has doubled in size it is ready.
dough double
7. Roll out the dough to get it about 7mm thick or as thin as you prefer.
rolling pin
8. Sprinkle with baking powder and fold the dough as if you were making a puff pastry. Leave it sitting for a few minutes.
roll dough
9. Once again roll out the dough to 7mm thick and use a pastry cutter to cut out rounds. You can decide if you want small buns or bigger sized ones, so pick the size that you prefer.

10. Stuff with the white chocolate and red bean mixture and make sure the bottom is well sealed. See the series of pictures to learn how it’s done.

11. Steam the bun for 4 minutes.
Unfortunately at home we don’t have a dedicated steamer, so I usually heat up a wok to boil then use a bamboo steamer or just a plate balanced on the wok with a metal stand.
steamed bun

12.Plate and enjoy it fresh with some raspberry coulis.

Results

Finished
I didn’t realize how easy it was to make your own steamed buns. As for the filling, red bean is such a typical filling for Asian desserts but the addition of white chocolate makes it even better!! The white chocolate really compliments the red bean – kudos to Chef Todd for coming up with this great combo. Also with the thickness of the dough you can control how thick you want your buns to be. The frozen ones in stores always tend to have a lot of dough and not too much filling – the advantage of making it yourself means you can control the thickness.

I’m sure this will become a YouCook favourite.

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Alex Rotherham / Chef / Vancouver Dine Out / Vegetarian — View Comments
27
Apr 10

Darby’s Cottage Salad by Chef Alex Rotherham

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

cottage salad
I went to visit Darby’s since it was one of the deals ($18) that stood out in the Vancouver Dine Out listing. Darby’s has always been the neighbourhood pub to go to to watch hockey games but I never heard anything about the food here. Darby’s has been undergoing major changes to their food menu, spear headed by Chef Alex Rotherham.

I met Chef Alex Rotherham and tried his Cottage Salad and Hangover Burger (both on the Dine Out menu!) and was thoroughly impressed by how all the sauces – vinaigrette, salsa, hot sauce – were made in house and how creative and passionate Chef Alex is about food!

Darbys Burger
The burgers have rectangular 100% beef chuck patties made in-house. Kudos to Chef Alex for coming up with the shape, both to fit in a ciabatta bun meant for sandwiches and to subtly show customers that the patty aren’t mass-produced. Stay tuned for how to make the Darby’s hangover burger in another post.

Alex Rotherham
It was great to hear from Chef Alex about his experiences at Macaroni Grill, opening his own restaurant, and frequent travels to London. Alex is really bright and creative and is using his skills to enhance restaurant menus by keeping things simple and fresh. His word of advice for new home chefs is to keep it simple. Use no more than 4 or 5 ingredients and don’t try making complicated things like soufflés until you’re ready.

I know it’s a little odd to be coming to the bar and ordering the Cottage Salad, but you must try this one – broccoli, chickpeas, cottage cheese, cranberries, and salsa prove to be a healthy and tasty combination. It might balance out that beer you’re drinking. Don’t take my word for it – try it as part of Dine Out…or try making it at home first because we got the recipe for you below! Combining the salad is the easy part – making the individual ingredients might take some time. Chef Alex makes the cottage cheese, salsa and herb vinaigrette from scratch and has been kind enough to show us how. In case it’s too time consuming, you can always buy these things at the grocery store. Just keep in mind how much sodium and preservatives are in the store-bought version versus making it at home with fresh ingredients!

Here’s a video of Chef Alex making the Cottage Salad:

Summary

Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 5 mins (blanching)
The times are assuming that the chick peas are cooked, and salsa, cottage cheese and herb vinaigrette are already made. See the sub-recipes for how long those take.
Servings: 1 large salad entree
Meal type: Side or Entree

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients for Salad

2 cups (~200g) broccoli
1/4 cup cooked chickpeas
1 Tbsp of sun dried cranberries
Chef’s tip: Sun dried and dried/dehydrated cranberries are not the same – get sun dried if you can. You can blanch cranberries before serving too.
1/2 cup cottage cheese*
1 Tbsp of herb vinaigrette*
1/2 cup salsa*

Instructions for Salad

1. Bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Put broccoli florets into water for 15 seconds.
3. Remove and soak in cold water immediately.
This is how to blanch the broccoli so that it’s cooked but still crunchy.
4. Put all ingredients in a salad bowl and mix evenly. Try not to overcoat the salad with the dressing.

Results

We have yet to make this recipe at home and regret that we don’t have pictures of each of the ingredients in the salad but wanted to share the recipe with you for the start of Dine Out. We did get to try the cottage salad at Darby’s after Chef Alex demonstrated it and it was really good. The broccoli, chick peas, salsa, cottage cheese, and vinaigrette give the salad a lot of different textures and flavours that all work together. We could see this becoming part of our weekly meals!

Below are recipes for each of the home made ingredients to the salad provided by Chef Alex Rotherham.

Home made Cottage Cheese

I didn’t realize how simple it is to make cottage cheese at home. Chef Alex informed me how much preservatives and salt is added to the cottage cheese you buy in the grocery store. He wanted to experiment with making cheese last year and created this salad to go with the cheese – these instructions look so easy! Make sure you get skim milk, not whole milk – whole milk has chemicals that specifically don’t allow it to separate. I haven’t tried this yet, but will soon.

This cheese will last 2 weeks if kept refrigerated.

Ingredients for Cottage Cheese

4L of skimmed milk
Chef’s tip: ONLY use skim milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tsp of sea salt

Instructions for Cottage Cheese

1. Set up a mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water.
2. Put salt and milk into the mixing bowl.
3. Heat milk to 80°C. The milk must reach this temperature but be careful not to go any hotter than that because it will scorch.
4. When it reaches that temperature, slowly add lemon juice and vinegar.
5. Gently stir with a rubber spatula.
6. It will take a few seconds for the milk to separate and cheese to form a large mass, stop stirring and remove from heat.
Note: the liquid will all turn yellow. This is normal.
7. Allow curds to settle to the bottom of the pan (about 5 minutes)
8. Strain off the liquid. This can be used for cream soups and cream sauces.
9. Place curds into a fine strainer or several layers of cheese cloth.
10. Cool the cheese in the refrigerator for 25-30 minutes.
11. Once fully formed, turn out onto cutting board and cut into small cubes at 1oz per serving.

Fresh Herb Vinaigrette

Home-made vinaigrettes don’t last very long, but they are surely more flavourful, fresh and don’t have all the salt and preservatives like the ones that are store bought. If fresh herbs are in season, it is definitely cheaper to make this at home, not to mention more rewarding.

This makes a 500mL (16oz) bottle of dressing.

Ingredients for Vinaigrette

2 cups of canola oil
1 cup (40g) of basil
1/2 cup (20g) of arugula
1 1/2 cup (60g) of parsley
2 tsp of honey
1/6 tsp of cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp of sea salt
1/2 cup of vinegar

Instructions for Vinaigrette

1. Combine all ingredients, except for vinegar, in a blender.
2. Blend and slowly pour vinegar while blending.
3. Transfer into bottle and store in the fridge.

Fresh Salsa

This recipe from Darby’s also uses a home-made hot sauce recipe, which isn’t provided. I find that store bought salsa is either never hot enough or too hot for my taste so I do enjoy making my own salsa. You can also make it as chunky as you’d like.

This recipe will yield about 2.5 cups of salsa.

Ingredients for Salsa

1 can (2 cups, 14.5oz) Diced tomatoes
1 medium onion (1 cup) diced red onions
6 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tsp hot sauce
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Instructions for Salsa

1. Combine all ingredients into a stainless steel mixing bowl.
2. Mix well and transfer into a container to refrigerate.

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Beef / Recipe / Side Dish / Vancouver Dine Out — View Comments
26
Apr 10

Thai House: Yum Nua

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Veggies

We found some recipes on the Thai House website. There are many restaurants in Vancouver under the Thai House family and many of them are participating in Vancouver Dine Out this week.

Many of the recipes call for getting curry from Thai House which is a major time saver! We decided to try one that didn’t require curry. Here’s a beef salad recipe that was quick and easy to make. Thai House, thanks so much for posting some great recipes on your website.

Summary

Preparation Time: 15 mins (cutting veggies)
Cook Time: 15 mins (preparing the sirloin steak)
Servings: 2 as a full meal, 4 if served as a side
Meal type: salad
Grocery Cost: $10.50

Recipe Rating:

Ingredients

Veggies

1 lb of top sirloin beef ($6.00; I bought slightly more than 1 lb)
1/4 head of lettuce ($0.30)
1/2 cucumber ($0.60)
1/2 onion ($0.50)
2 whole tomatoes ($1.40)
1/2 shallot ($1.00)
3 fresh red chilli peppers ($0.20)
5 mint leaves ($0.10)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro ($0.20)
3 limes ($2.00)
1 tbs white or palm sugar (I used brown sugar because that’s what I had in my cupboard)
4 tbs fish sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce

Instructions

1. Barbeque or grill the beef. The method I always use for making steaks is to pan-fry at high heat on a cast-iron skillet to get the outside browned and then stick the entire pan in the oven at 500F to cook the inside.

Pan-frying the steak

2. Cut the beef into thin almost bite-size pieces.
Slice the sirloin steak

3. Thinly slice the red chilli peppers. I remove most of the seeds, but you can leave them in if you want.
4. Wash all vegetables and then slice them into bite-size pieces.
5. Add all the vegetables into a mixing bowl along with the sliced steak.
6.In a separate small bowl, mix the fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Add to the mixing bowl.
7.Cut the 3 limes in half and then hand squeeze the juice over the salad. I squeezed the juice in with the other sauce ingredients in the small bowl so I could taste it and adjust accordingly. It turns out that I only needed 1 decent-size lime and it was enough to balance out the saltiness of the fish sauce and soy sauce. I think 3 would have been too much for me, so you can experiment and see how much lime juice and sugar you need to balance everything out.
Making the dressing
8.Toss everything together and enjoy!
Combine

Results

Yum Nua

WOW, I was kind of surprised how easy it was to make this salad! I’ve ordered it before at two different thai restaurants in Victoria and Vancouver and enjoyed the combination of flavours. I think the mint and cilantro are really important in giving this dish it’s distinct taste. Although the recipe only asks for 5 mint leaves, I actually added more like 12 and it was good. I think 5 would have been too little for this much salad. I may have also added a bit more cilantro than called for! As a variation, I actually put half of the chopped red onion and shallot on the skillet for a bit as well to cut down on the sharp red onion and shallot flavour, which I find overpowering sometimes.

This salad is easy to make and a really good switch from your regular everyday salad. I would definitely make this again!

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Recipe

Summary

Ingredients for the fish

Instructions for fish

Ingredients for the curry

Instructions for the curry

Results

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions

Results

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions (Video)

Instructions

Results

Summary

Ingredients for Olive and Polenta Cakes

Instructions for Olive Polenta Cakes

Ingredients for Roast Pepper Emulsion

Instructions for Roast Pepper Emulsion

Vegetable Sides

Serving the dish

Results

Video

Summary

Ingredients

Preparation Instructions for Jackfruit

Instructions for Masala

Results

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions

Recipe for Ghee (Clarified Butter)

Variations

Results

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions

Results

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions for the White chocolate and red bean filling

Instructions for the Steam Bun Dough

Results

Summary

Ingredients for Salad

Instructions for Salad

Results

Home made Cottage Cheese

Ingredients for Cottage Cheese

Instructions for Cottage Cheese

Fresh Herb Vinaigrette

Ingredients for Vinaigrette

Instructions for Vinaigrette

Fresh Salsa

Ingredients for Salsa

Instructions for Salsa

Summary

Ingredients

Instructions

Results

Support Our Project

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Tags

Meta

Blogroll

Find us on facebook

Recent Trackbacks