Archives for posts with tag: supper

sushi-style late-night meal… something weird from my kitchen

By natashahenderson
February 22, 2011 //
4

not seaweed. not white rice.

Last night I really wanted to eat something cute for supper, while at the same time using up things from my pantry and freezer. I don’t know why I felt compelled to eat something cute, but such is life. I decided to make “sushi” out of brown rice, potatoes, eggs, frozen spinach, and a bit of avocado. I like normal sushi, but I don’t have seaweed (though I like it) nor did I feel like making and eating white rice (though I’d have eaten it gladly if someone else had made it) and I didn’t have wasabi nor pickled ginger nor soy sauce. Oh, and I don’t have a sushi mat.

Having recently been inspired by making “fake sushi” out of felt, I thought why not use my own ingredients to make edible, fake sushi? Something formed like sushi, that looks (possibly) a little like sushi, but certainly isn’t sushi…

To start, I boiled up some brown rice… about a cup or so. While it was finishing up, I added in two small, sliced potatoes. This was to make a starchy mash. I boiled this for a few minutes, then just covered and let stand for about ten minutes.

chopped up, rolled fake sushi is ready for the oven

In the meantime, I also boiled a few little frozen-spinach pucks. You could use about a half block of frozen spinach, if that is how your frozen spinach is sold to you. Once it had loosened, I placed it in a casserole dish. Then I cracked a couple of eggs into this dish, and stirred it around with the spinach. I pressed this down with a fork (yes, and my hands too), then popped it into the oven (about 350 F) for fifteen minutes.

I used this spinach/egg combo as my “seaweed”. I took it out of the oven, loosened the base with a spatula, and let it cool a little. Then I spooned some of the smushed-up potato/rice blend onto the half closest to me. On top of that, I laid out some thin slices of avocado.

Next, I rolled up this “sushi”. I popped it back into the oven. I cooked it for about five minutes in roll format, then took it out again to slice it into little rolls. I then placed them flat in the casserole dish, and baked an additional thirty minutes or so.

edibly delicious

This was quite delicious, however it honestly could have used a little sauce, home-made ketchup, or chutney. For a very late Monday night meal it did, however, completely fill the bill! Leftover mashed potato/rice and avocado worked deliciously scrambled into eggs the next morning. For the breakfast mash I added a large amount of chili powder and pepper, and this was so good that next time I will try this blend in the “sushi” too.

Natasha Henderson, Montreal

Advertisement
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Food, recipes

fish gratin with parsley

By tammyschmidt
November 23, 2010 //
0
Cooks remove racks of herring from a tradition...

Cooks remove racks of herring from a traditional smoke house

The following recipe was adapted from one found in Nigella Christmas.  I love Nigella Lawson’s recipes because they are fun to read.  She takes the complication out of cooking.  When I follow her recipes, I end up making quick and delicious dishes.  It is the opposite of the early Martha Stewart Living recipes that seemed to assume we all have kitchen staff and abundant time to cook elaborate meals.

For the most part, Nigella’s recipes are great, but this one had a gross error in it.   My spidy senses were tingling the first time that I made it.  I already knew that I needed to make some modifications by inverting the recommended amounts of smoked fish and white fish.  The recipe recommended 300g of white fish and 750 g of smoked fish and I used the 800 g white fish and 200 g of smoked fish on the first round.  This was still too salty.  The second time, I decreased the smoked fish even more and increased the other seasonings and finally, it turned out.

Since it took a couple rounds to figure out, I am happy to share the recipe with you!

Ingredients

50 g unsalted butter

50 g flour

2 tablespoons dry white wine

1/4-1/2 tsp ground mace or nutmeg

1 tsp dijon mustard

350 ml whole milk

1 onion

75 g of italian flat leaf parsley (approximately 1 bunch of parsley)

100 g Digby smoked herrings, roughly chopped

800 g haddock or another firm white fish, fresh or frozen, cut into 2 inch pieces

400 g baking potatoes (approximately 2-3 potatoes, I used yukon gold), sliced thinly, perhaps using a food processor.

1-2 tbsp olive oil

white pepper or black pepper

  • Preheat the oven to 400’F
  • In a sauce pan, melt the butter and then add the flour.  While stirring, allow this to bubble for a minute.  Take off the heat and stir in the white wine, mace or nutmeg and mustard.  Whisk in the milk and return the pan to the heat and continue to whisk as it thickens.
  • In a food processor, mince the peeled onion and then add the parsley and pulse til minced.  Add the coarsely chopped smoked herrings and pulse once or twice to chop until the fish is in approximately 1 cm pieces.  Pour the onion, parsley and fish mix from the food processor into the sauce in the sauce pan and stir the two together.
  • Pour the combined sauce into a 9.5″x13.5″ casserole pan.  Put the fish pieces on top of this.
  • Arrange the sliced potatoes on top of the fish pieces, covering the entire casserole.
  • Pour the olive oil into your clean hands and quickly apply olive oil to the potatoes.  Grind pepper over the top.
  • Bake for 1 hour at 400’F.  Serve with buttery petits pois.

By Tammy Schmidt, Montreal

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Food, recipes

Trois Experiences: Trying To Eat Vegetarian In Meat-Loving Restaurants.

By natashahenderson
November 11, 2010 //
0

Experience Deux: La Bistro Sur La Rivière.

by Natasha Henderson, Montreal

Le Bistro Sur La Rivière… it is a small bistro. It is a bistro that takes pride in its meats, in its generously overflowing presentations of food. It is a bistro that is on Larivière, the street that is behind my massive studio building.

The Quebec Flag

My first experience eating here was on the eve of the first La Virree des Ateliers event. I was new to the Grover Building, I was one of the rare anglophone artists who rented there. I felt a little foreign, and that these open-studios could be an opportunity to break into the new culture in which I felt myself surrounded. I’d have a chance to make new friends, new connections, and learn new things very soon. I was right, in certain respects, on all accounts.

Anyhow, on that eve in May, I went in for a delicious sandwich and frites with accompanying salad and beer to celebrate the future. Since that date, I’ve been back twice, once because I’d recently sold three paintings, another time just because I was hungry. As a semi-vegetarian, I received upon my first visit a sandwich with a bit of ham in it, when I’d thought I’d ordered a simple tomato and cheese sandwich. I didn’t kick up a fuss. I am “semi”-vegetarian, and I knew that my Francais was pretty rusty… so I was willing to bend. Since going back two more times, though, I’ve found the wait staff to be supremely giving and forgiving. It is a predominantly Francophone neighbourhood, complete with the de rigueur fleur-de-lis on the front door of the place. It’s one of those places that, as I enter, I couldn’t help but put up my guard, just a little. They might all stare at me if I try to talk! However, upon further experience, I’ve had some very nice chats in a blend of Franglais with the people who work there.

Sandwich of My Dreams

Oh, and the sandwich that I order… it’s good. It is very, very good. I don’t know how certain restaurants are able to make a sandwich into such a special experience. For me, at home, when I make a sandwich it is a utilitarian expression. I have bread, and I have something to put in between two slices of that bread. A good restaurant’s sandwich, that becomes something of a capital “E” Experience.

So, the sandwich to order at Le Bistro Sur La Rivière is the tomato and brie and pesto on Baguette. Please order that, when you go there. It is divine, a perfect blend of tastes and textures. The house salad and frites with mayonnaise that come with it are just the icing on the cake. Cake? Who needs cake after such an incredible, fresh, fantastic meal? No, no cake. This will do. Perhaps an Oatmeal Stout beer to go along with… or a coffee after. The wait staff is always keen to refill your water-glass, and they always check in to see how you are enjoying your meal.

This Bistro has an extensive menu, and, upon discussion with the workers there, they do have a vegetarian plate for Supper-time, too. The stuffed pasta… does look pretty good! Some day, perhaps, I will order it. But the tomato/brie/pesto sandwich… oo la-la!!!

Find Le Bistro Sur La Rivière at 2263, rue Larivière, Montreal, QC. Find Natasha eating there soon.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Food
%d bloggers like this: