Dessert By Candy

To Have And To Hold

Since I started cooking and baking with other bloggers at French Fridays with Dorie, I’ve steadily accumulated a pile of photos from our weekly recipes. I skipped a few weeks here and there but I have been an active member of the group since November 2010. As much as I like the portability of having my photos readily available from online and offline storage, I still long for that tangible feeling of holding a photo album in my hands.

About a year ago, I made an impulse purchase at Photobook when there was an irresistible sale for large format 11x11 hardcover filled with 40 pages. Obviously I conveniently forgot how much work it would require of me to put together not one, but two, albums. 80 blank pages to fill with photos that I style, shoot, curate, edit, and lay out…my head spins at the mere thought.

Selective memory in the last 12 months shielded me from the consequence of my impulse purchase. It was only a couple of weeks ago when I realized with panic that my vouchers were about to expire at end of April. Fortunately, most of the photos I took of the dishes from Around My French Table are already edited to some degree. Putting together photo albums of my French Fridays experience was the least labour-intensive subject I could think of. A few nights of hard work later, I’m ready to submit my books for print.

Put An Egg On It

Asparagus signals the beginning of spring as much as the much-lauded wild leeks. How appropriate that French Fridays with Dorie is cooking Asparagus with Bits of Bacon this Easter weekend! I suppose it would actually help if the weather in Ontario is warm enough to harvest asparagus. Since it is not (brrr!), imports from our southern neighbour would have to do. My inner locavore chided my shopping decision but since I already broke the rule, I might as well go with Wellshire Farm bacon all the way from New Jersey.

In my attempt to balance out the “foreign percentage” of my breakfast plate, I paired the smoky savoury side with a fried duck egg from my CSA and a couple slices of Seeduction bread from the local Whole Foods. Bacon and egg with green vegetable and whole grain bread? This sounds like a wholesome breakfast to kick off the long weekend. Breakfast is by far my favourite meal of the day. Sure the asparagus would make a fine addition to any Easter feast (ham! lamb!), but I can’t think of anything but breakfast.

Opportunity Missed

When I learned of this week’s Grapefruit Crab Salad for French Fridays with Dorie, I banged my head on the desk. I just came back on Wednesday from South Florida, the land of citrus and stone crab. I can’t believe I managed to miss a golden opportunity to create this ingredient-driven salad when the best that money can buy was just around the corner! My disappointment was quickly set aside though because Greenspan’s recipe inspired something equally delicious yet much friendlier to the wallet. I want to share with you my recipe for Pomelo Mango Shrimp Salad.

Lump crabmeat is a luxury item and spending oodles of money on pasteurized crabmeat in a can up here in Ontario makes no sense to me. Poached shrimp is a great seafood alternative without breaking the bank. Pomelo is my trusty standby for citrus salad. If you read Greenspan’s direction for segmenting and drying grapefruit, I’m sure you’ll agree with me on my choice of citrus. Pomelo tastes like a sweeter version of grapefruit yet the pulp is sturdy enough to be broken into chunks without spilling juice all over the place. I also prefer its crunch. This native southeast Asian fruit is commonly used in Vietnamese and Thai cuisine. I decided to take my salad down that culinary direction with addition of sweet champagne mango, cilantro, scallion, and basil tossed in an oil-free dressing made with fish sauce, lime juice, rice vinegar, and Sriracha. It’s a refreshing combination.

Anything For A Good Deal

I was skeptical about cooking Mussels & Chorizo for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie. This is a dish with every ingredient and flavour I love yet my impending training sojourn means I really ought to clear my kitchen of perishables instead of buying more fresh items. That sensibility was torn at the same time by the urge to cook along with the group for just another week before I have no access to my beloved home kitchen. Neither of those two arguments was louder than the other. In the end, it was my inability to refuse a good deal that gave me such a beautiful meal.

Succulent mussels and smoky chunks of chorizo sausages were steamed in a tomato broth fortified with roasted red pepper, fennel, onion, garlic, Pernod, and Aleppo pepper. It was a dish that kept on giving. On day one, I enjoyed a finger-licking feast of plates piled high with mussels in their shells. Every sip of the flavourful broth warmed my body from the inside. On the second day, leftovers turned into a light sauce to toss with tangles of spaghetti. Plump mussels were extracted from the shell and generously studded the pasta dish. It was the most luxurious post-run recovery meal I enjoyed in a long time.

Allure Of Homemade

The resurgence of homesteading has many of us puttering around the kitchen canning, preserving, baking, and cooking many things from scratch. My parent’s generation rejoiced in the convenience of processed food and all the free time it afforded them to do so much more. It’s funny how things have come full circle and we’re now clamouring for all things homemade.

How far would you go to reach that elusive homemade label for what you put on the dining table? This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Nutella Tartine. At its heart, we have a slice of butter toasted brioche topped with marmalade, Nutella, toasted hazelnut, and fleur de sel. It is so easy to put together that a kid can do it in less than five minutes for a quick afternoon snack. But we’re on the topic of making things from scratch, aren’t we? Do you bake your own loaf of bread? Grab a jar of marmalade from the larder that you lovingly canned at the height of citrus season? And that Nutella! Does it come from hazelnuts that you toasted and skinned and grinded with the best quality chocolate you can get your hands on? It’s amazing how a five-minute recipe can stretch into a multi-day cooking extravaganza.

Who Doesn’t Eat Quiche?

Sometimes I wonder how our culture arbitrarily assigns gender stereotypes to food, of all things. Obviously I’m guilty of categorizing girly food and manly food too. But “real men eat quiche”? I really don’t see how quiche deserves this unjust stereotype implying it is not masculine enough. Is it because it’s fussy? It’s no more fussy than a wedge of pie which apparently is the way to capture a man’s heart. Is it because it’s French? Last time I checked, French food is very well-liked in North America. Is it because of its ingredients? Egg, cheese, and cream are hallmarks of hearty breakfasts. Seriously, unless you’re a fake man made of plastic and graces store windows as your reason of existence, you really ought to eat quiche.

After that little rant, you would think I devoured my Apple Goat Cheese Quiche with Leeks for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie. Actually, not a single bite. Who doesn’t eat quiche? Athlete with aspiration to go to World Masters Championship in exactly 100 days. Yes, an opportunity landed at my doorstep to represent Canada as a masters (35+) inline speed skater. Of course I want to do everything I can to prepare for the race and that includes getting back to my race season peak shape. A treat made of tender buttery pastry, rich custardy filling, savoury goat cheese, and tart apple dices has no place on my plate.

So You Think You’re Hungry?

Ever since I brought to life my concept of reimagined in-flight meal, I have been meaning to follow up with my version of TV dinner. The idea has been sitting at the back of my mind for almost a year but I’m pleased to at last unveil Dessert By Candy’s Hungry-Man TV Dinner!

Rather than your run-of-the-mill Salisbury steak or fried chicken or roast turkey, my hearty TV dinner (1lb. of food!! Of course it’s hearty) takes plenty of culinary influence from North Africa. A juicy piece of sesame lamb burger is served with garlicky tahini yogurt sauce and sprinkled with dukkah. It is paired with crushed new potato & pea salad in mustard seed dressing, sour cherries Israeli couscous, and flaxseed sesame lavash. Are you hungry yet?

Classic Butter Cake

I procrastinated on making the classic French butter cake quatre-quarts for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie. This is a close cousin of the North American pound cake relying on equal parts butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. The technique is what sets the two apart though I’ve made both so many times in the past the excitement has left me long ago.

As I reluctantly scaled out my ingredients, I knew that I could not follow the recipe as written. I would be bored and baking without passion does not give me joy. I don’t bake because somebody made me do it. I bake because it makes me happy. So how can the simple quatre-quarts recipe make me happy? Try beurre noisette, brioche molds, and rumtopf.

Say No To Pale Chicken

What promised to be a dish of easy sophistication can sometimes backfire into a string of complications. Around My French Table has a recipe for M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken involving roasting a whole chicken and vegetable with the pricey spirit inside a dutch oven. The goal is that the chicken stays juicy yet everything is infused with the taste of Armagnac. Seems easy enough, no? Not so fast. It’s a golden rule in cooking that when you trade off complexity, your ingredients better be of exceptional quality to stand up to the spotlight.

As a regular shopper at farmers market, I am confident in the quality of my potatoes, carrots, onions, and chestnuts. My first obstacle was getting a good chicken. Quite simply put, I vote with my money. Over the last few years, I’ve been feeling more uneasy about my food living a life of captivity before landing on my plate. Long story short, I needed to get a free-run chicken for the recipe. Luckily, a quick jaunt to Whole Foods got me a $16 roaster already cleaned and trussed.

Next was Armagnac. For ten years, I’ve carefully avoided any recipes calling for this pricy spirit. I come from a family of non-drinkers and shelling out $50 for a full size bottle is definitely out of the budget. I was ready to roast my chicken with either Grand Marnier or Poire Williams, both of which I use on a regular basis. My nagging suspicion is that the flavour would be jarring so I dropped by the liquor store in hopes to find reasonably priced substitute. What do you know? They do carry 200mL bottle of Cognac! Obviously it is not the kind I would serve as post-dinner tipple but for all intents and purposes, it would do. That would be $18 please.

Accidentally Perfect

Overcooked custard is a shame, a waste of quality ingredients. If I go through the trouble to procure organic cream, whole milk, and duck eggs, I have every reason to give them the attention they deserve. Unfortunately, undivided attention was exactly the missing ingredient when I made crème brûlée from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. A scheduled 60 minutes of baking time in a low 200F oven stretched into a 6 hour marathon. In the mean time, I was sound asleep totally oblivious to the transformation inside the oven. So did I cheat this week by cobbling together an enticing photo with food styling tricks? No. Did I crumble under the shame and made the dessert again? No. What I have is in fact the most accidentally perfect crème brûlée I can imagine. From the silky smooth custard to the thin crackly caramel top that shattered under the tap of my spoon, this dessert is textbook perfect, except for one minor detail.