Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese

Catchy title for a blue cheese!  This cheese is named for its pungent aroma and is just one of the amazing cheeses made by Willem and Maja van den Hoek, owners of That Dutchman's Farm in Colchester County, Nova Scotia.  Originally it was Maja's homemade bread that supported the business until the cheese making found its footing.  Their website is attracting tourists from around the world to come to their farmstead which the van den Hoek's estimates 15,000 visits annually.  Their prized Farmstead Gouda is another popular item tourists come to taste.  Consumers are searching for quality and uniqueness that comes from the hands of a skilled, passionate craftsman and it's these skills that draw visitors from around the world to see and taste for themselves the van den Hoek's fine farmstead cheeses.

The Culinary Chase's Note:  Their blue cheese is spicy with a smooth texture (or at least the one I picked up did) with a bit of brine oozing through!  I love how this cheese is dipped in black wax.  It's almost like opening a gift, wondering what's inside.  I'll have to make a note next time to visit the Farmer's Market on Saturday and try their prized Gouda as I bought the Dragon's Breath from Pete's Frootique in Halifax.

Lemongrass and Coconut Braised Beef Ribs

Ribs covered in a rich, sticky glaze means finger-licking goodness!  You might want to start out using a fork and knife but eating with your fingers is the only way to really enjoy these beauties.  The ingredients are oh, so Asian and the air in our home was filled with this lovely fragrance.  Beef ribs are tender and meaty which make them ideal for braising.  You can also buy meaty beef short ribs that can also work but are more suited for the bbq.  Galangal is related to and resembles ginger but there is little similarity in taste.  It has a citrusy, earthy aroma, with hints of pine and soap in the flavor.  If you can't find fresh galangal, then omit from this recipe.  Ginger has a long tradition of being very effective in alleviating symptoms of gastrointestinal distress (also effective in preventing the symptoms of motion sickness, especially seasickness).  Using ginger has also known to help many people with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis experience reductions in their pain levels and improvements in mobility.

Serves 4-6
recipe from Donna Hay magazine
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1.2kg rack beef ribs
all purpose flour, for dusting
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 stalks lemongrass, white part only, chopped
5cm ginger, sliced
5cm galangal, sliced
2 whole star anise
4 small dried chillies
2 x 270ml cans coconut milk
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
60ml (1/4 cup) fresh lime juice
125ml (1/2 cup) beef stock

Preheat oven to 180c (355f).  Dust the ribs with flour and shake off any excess.  Heat the oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over high heat.  Add the ribs and cook 2-3 minutes each side or until browned.  Remove from the pan.  Add the lemongrass, ginger, galangal, star anise and chili to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes or until fragrant.  Add the coconut milk, sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, beef stock and ribs to the pan.  Cover with a lid and roast for 90 minutes.  Remove lid and cook for a further 30 minutes or until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.


The Culinary Chase's Note:  Oh my gosh!  The meat really was fall-apart tender but still clung to the bone.  Simply delicious!

Broccolini and Rice Soup

Cooler weather somehow always conjures up memories of eating homemade soup from my Mom's kitchen.  She was always making sure we had something to warm us up and a hearty soup invariably did the trick!  Broccolini is a green vegetable similar to broccoli with small florets and long, thin stalks.  It is a cross between broccoli and kai-lan, Chinese broccoli.  This plant has a sweeter flavor than broccoli and it can be prepared in many ways, from sautéing, boiling, or steaming to stir frying. It has similar nutritional value as broccoli, with a slightly sweeter taste.  It's a great source folate, vitamin A and potassium, as well as some iron, calcium, vitamin B and fibre and offers as much vitamin C as orange juice.  

Serves 4
recipe from Australian Good Taste
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20g butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
100g pancetta, coarsely chopped
1 brown onion, finely chopped
275g (1 1/4 cups) arborio rice
240g broccolini, coarsely chopped
1.5L (6 cups) chicken stock
1 bay leaf
30g (1/4 cup) shaved parmesan
extra virgin olive oil, to serve
crusty bread, to serve


Heat the butter and oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the pancetta and onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the pancetta is crisp.  Add the rice and broccolini, and stir to coat.  Add the stock and bay leaf.  Bring to a simmer.  Cover,  reduce heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes or until the rice is tender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Ladle the soup among bowls.  Top with parmesan and drizzle over oil.  Serve with crusty bread.

The Culinary Chase's Note:  If you want the broccolini to be al dente, add during the last 10 minutes of indicated cooking time.  This is comfort food at its best and is so easy to make.  Delicious!

Fisherman's Stew

I enjoy preparing this sort of meal but I was shocked to see that the shrimp were imported from Thailand!  Surely with the Atlantic ocean on our doorstep I could find it locally.  The Nova Scotia Fisheries and Acquaculture site show that shrimp fishing is alive and well in Nova Scotia.  "The Scotian Shelf shrimp fishery takes place in waters off eastern Cape Breton, primarily in the Louisbourg, Canso and Misaine holes.  The season is open year round, however, most fishing occurs from mid-March to July. The TAC is expected to be 5000 tonnes in 2006 and may increase to 6-7000 tonnes in 2007/08. The estimated value of the fishery is $4-6 million."  Even though this statistic is 3 years old, I don't understand why the local grocery stores don't buy from the local fishermen.  There is a Fisherman's Market in Bedford which carries an assortment of fish and seafood (wholesale and retail) but why should it be that consumers have to travel 30 minutes to buy locally? This makes the seafood purchase a special one and not one that you can do on a regular basis. I just found out that there's a new ( I should say new to me) place called Local Source Market.  Local Source Market works with local food producers to bring Halifax healthy, real food.  Still, Nova Scotia pretty much is fish yet I'm having a deuce of a time trying to find a daily fishmonger on the peninsula. Is it because local fisheries are busy selling to international markets and that the small boutique market isn't another area worth thinking about?  Is this wrong to want this, where one doesn't have to travel a distance, where its nutritional content helps my family stay healthy and at the same time allowing for a small business to remain open?  Perhaps we need to take stock of the 100 Mile Diet (local eating for global change) and bring that local food consciousness to seafood!


Serves 4 to 6
recipe from The Food Magazine (Katie Lee's Kitchen)
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3 tablespoons olive oil
2 anchovy fillets
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
28oz. can whole tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsely
500g (1 lb.) firm white fish fillets (cod, halibut, or mahi-mahi), cut into large pieces
6-8 little neck clams (rinsed well)
6-8 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
6-8 sea scallops
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

In a large skillet, over medium heat, heat olive oil.  Add anchovies, bay leaf, and red pepper flakes.  Cook until anchovies begin to dissolve (about 2 minutes).  Add the garlic, onions, salt and pepper.  Saute until onions are translucent (about 10 minutes).  Stir in tomatoes and parsely.  Use a wooden spoon to crush the tomatoes into bit-size pieces.  Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes to blend the flavors.  Return heat to medium.  Season fish with salt and pepper.  Add the fish and clams and gently stir to combine.  Cover and cook 4-5 minutes.  Add the shrimp and scallops and gently stir to combine.  Cover and cook an additional 4-5 minutes.  Stir in the lemon juice and serve immediately.


The Culinary Chase's Note:  These flavors tickled my taste buds and I loved how the seafood wasn't overshadowed by the tomato sauce.  Yum!

Shrimp Scampi

Shrimp scampi is a deliciously decadent Italian seafood dish. It is a rich, buttery treat and is simple to prepare. According to the culinary research published on the Food Timeline, “The earliest reference to shrimp scampi in The New York Times is a restaurant advertisement published May 9, 1956 for The Tenakill Restaurant in Englewood NJ.” This dish may have evolved from another Italian dish where the shrimp is sautéed in olive oil, with garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice.

Serves 4
recipe adapted from Dean & Deluca
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1/2 head of garlic
20 shrimp, peeled and cleaned
2/3 cup butter
500g linguine
¼ cup chopped basil
¼ cup chopped parsley
1 ¼ cup white wine
zest and juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

Roast garlic. Cook the pasta, rinse in cool water.

Heat a large sauté pan. Squeeze the cooked garlic from the head out to one side and place in the pan with the white wine (the garlic will come out as a roasted paste). When the wine has reduced to half add the butter, a spoonful at a time whisking as you go, then the basil, parsley and pasta. As soon as the pasta is warm turn off heat.

Pan fry the shrimp for 60 seconds each side or until pink. Divide the pasta and sauce on four plates and place shrimp on top of each plate.

The Culinary Chase's Note: If you don't have wine or don't want to use it, add an equal amount of the pasta cooking water to thin the sauce a bit. Scrumptious and very easy to make.

Easy Pork Pies

My husband, who's English, introduced me to these pies a long time ago. It's one of food items we look for when we're in England.  I love them and the pork pies from Australia are also scrumptious!  Having had my share of these little beauties over the years, I said I would some day make them.  So, this day has come and I am very pleased to report that making the pies were as Jamie would put it, 'easy peasy'!  My daughter didn't believe I made them, ouch!  Anyway, I took her backhanded compliment in stride.

Makes 4 small or 2 big pies
recipe from Jamie magazine
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• Olive oil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• A few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
• 400g best-quality English-style pork sausages
• A pinch of ground allspice
• Freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 egg, beaten

Pastry

• 150g lard or butter
• 500g plain flour

Preheat oven to 180c (350f).  In a pan, heat some olive oil and sweat the onions.  After 3 minutes, add the thyme, cook 2-3 minutes, or till soft and sweet, then take off the heat.  


Put the lard into a saucepan with 250ml water and a teaspoon of salt, and bring it to a boil.  Meanwhile, sift the flour into a bowl, then make a well in the middle.  Pour in lard mixture and mix until it forms a dough.  Leave it until it's cool enough to handle but still warm.  Divide dough into 2 or 4 equal balls.  Take a quarter of each ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Roll out the bigger bits of pastry until you have circles to line your ramekins, with a little over.  Gently tuck pastry circles into each ramekin, making sure you push it into the bottom of the ramekin so there are no air pockets.  Trim the pastry so it just hangs over the top edge.


Pop the sausages out of their skins and mix the meat with the cooled onions, allspice and a good grating of nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper.  Divide between ramekins, pressing right down to make sure that they're well filled.  Roll out the reserved pastry to be just larger than the ramekin tops.  Brush the pastry around the top of a ramekin with beaten egg and then place a pastry circle on top.  Press down around the edges to seal, then trim off any excess, use your finger and thumb to crimp it into little waves.  Cut a 1cm-diameter circle in the middle of each top.  Cook for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little, then loosen around the edges with a knife.  Covering your hands with tea towels, carefully ease the pies from the ramekins, put the pies back on the tray and brush with beaten egg.  Place in oven and cook for another 20 minutes until golden brown.  Cool completely before serving.


The Culinary Chase's Note:  Cover the tops of the pies with foil if you don't want them to get too brown when you put them back in the oven.  Even better the next day if you're lucky enough to have any leftover.  Delicious!! 

Old-Fashioned Devil's Food Cake

It has been a very long time since I made this cake and having just purchased KitchenAid's 90th anniversary stand mixer, I wanted to christen my new appliance. KitchenAid started in 1919 with the stand mixer and the design is the same as it was 90 years ago. The anniversary stand mixer comes in candy apple red (inspired by vintage automobiles) with a glass bowl and it looks stunning in my kitchen! KitchenAid's durability and versatility are reasons why it's been around for 90 years. My Mom had a KitchenAid stand mixer back in the early 1970's (she had the white version) and she passed it on to my younger sister who still uses it today.

Serves 10-12
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2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
2/3 cup solid vegetable shortening, room temperature
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large eggs

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
6 tablespoons (1/3 cup) butter, room temperature
1 pound (2 cups) icing sugar
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1/4 to 1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180c (350f). Measure all ingredients (except buttercream frosting) into a large mixer bowl. Mix a low speed for 2 minutes. Scrape sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Mix at high speed for 2 minutes, scraping side of bowl if necessary. Divide batter evenly between two greased and lightly floured 9 x 1 1/2 inch round baking pans.

Bake in oven 25-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on racks.

To make the buttercream frosting, combine all ingredients except the milk in a large mixer bowl. Beat at low speed until sugar is blended in. Increase to medium speed and gradually add enough milk to making frosting the desired spreading consistency. To assemble, trim any uneven surfaces with a sharp knife. Place one cake on a cake dish and spread some of the frosting on top. Top with the other cake and frost all over.

The Culinary Chase's Note: This is a delicious, moist, dark chocolate cake and to top it off, it's a no-fuss recipe. Enjoy!

Beef Noodle Stir-Fry

This one dish meal is so easy to make and is loaded with vitamins and minerals. Red bell peppers are excellent sources of vitamin C and vitamin A (through its concentration of carotenoids such as beta-carotene), two very powerful antioxidants. These antioxidants work together to effectively neutralize free radicals, which can travel through the body causing huge amounts of damage to cells. Free radicals are major players in the build up of cholesterol in the arteries that leads to atherosclerosis and heart disease. Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family, and is closely related to cauliflower. Its cultivation originated in Italy. Broccoli is an excellent source of vitamin A, C, and K.

Serves 4
recipe from Australian Good Taste
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440g flat rice noodles
80ml (1/3 cup) chicken stock
60ml (1/4 cup) hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice
1 tablespoon peanut oil
500g minced beef
1 bunch broccolini, coarsely chopped
1 small red bell pepper, halved, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 large carrot, peeled, halved crossways, cut into matchsticks
2 large shallots, trimmed and thinly sliced

Prepare the noodles following packet instructions. Combine the stock, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger and Chinese five spice in a small bowl. Heat a wok over high heat and add half the oil and heat until smoking. Swirl to coat. Add the mince and stir-fry for 5 minutes or until the mince changes color. Transfer to a plate. Heat the remaining oil in the wok. Add the broccolini, red bell pepper and carrot. Stir-fry for 2 minutes or until the broccolini is bright green and tender crisp.

Add the stock mixture, mince, noodles and shallot to the wok. Stir-fry for 2 minutes or until the noodles are soft and heated through. Divide among serving bowls and serve immediately.

The Culinary Chase's Note: The flavors were nice but I think it was missing some heat so next time I will add chopped chili peppers to give it a bit of a bite. You can also substitute the minced beef for chicken strips and change the hoisin sauce to oyster sauce.

Spicy Oregano Chicken

I don't think I've ever tried a chicken recipe that didn't turn out the way I wanted it to and this dish didn't disappoint. The ingredients call for 16 thigh fillets but don't fret if you are only a family of four as this recipe freezes easily. Oregano is a member of the mint family and is widely used in Turkish, Greek, Spanish and in Italian cuisine. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, used oregano as an antiseptic as well as a cure for stomach and respiratory ailments. It is high in antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity against food-borne pathogens. Both of these characteristics may be useful in both health and food preservation.

Serves 4
recipe from Donna Hay magazine
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16 x 150g chicken thigh fillets, trimmed and halved
1 tablespoon ground coriander (cilantro)
1 tablespoon chili flakes
1/3 cup oregano sprigs
250ml (1 cup) lemon juice
250ml (1 cup) chicken stock
160ml (2/3 cup) olive oil
sea salt and cracked black pepper

Place all ingredients in a non-metallic bowl and mix well to combine. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to marinate. Heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Cook the chicken, reserving the marinade, 3-4 minutes each side or until cooked through. Remove from pan and keep warm. Add marinade to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes or until thickened slightly.

To freeze, allow to cool, divide the chicken and sauce into 4 and place in zip-lock bags or airtight containers. Freeze up to 3 months. Before reheating, place the chicken in the fridge and allow to defrost completely.

The Culinary Chase's Note: This dish has a bit of heat and the lemon not only adds a bit of zing to the chicken but it also helps to tenderize it. Defrost and add veggies! Beautiful!