Anniversary dinner / Food Day Canada

As I Twitted Saturday, in honour of both Food Day Canada and my wedding anniversary, I made duck confit for dinner. Food cooked confit-style means it was cooked in fat for a long period of time at a low temperature. Here's the recipe and method I used.

Ingredients: four duck legs; salt; olive oil 

Rub salt into the outside of the duck legs. Put the salted duck legs in a ZipLoc bag and store them in the fridge for several hours.

This will add flavour to the meat and draw out some of the moisture from the legs. After dry-brining the duck legs, wash off the salt. (Or just sprinkle some salt on the legs if you're pressed for time.) 

Place the duck legs in the bowl of your slow cooker and cover them with olive oil. Set the slow cooker to low and leave the meat to cook for anywhere between six to twelve hours.

After cooking, the legs can be eaten with the skin either removed (duck confit shredded on spaghetti, aka duck confit sugo is to die for), or pan seared to crisp the skin up. If you're not going to use the legs immediately, store them in the fridge.

I Scream, You Scream...

...on hot day like this, we all scream for ice cream. If you forgot to pick some up over the long weekend, or if you don't want to chase down the ice cream truck, you may want to try this super-fast way to make a cool treat.

Summertime Sandwich Review

How's your summer been? Mine has been filled with entertaining family and friends. Finally got a chance to bang out a blog post...

Where I work, my lunchtime choices when I'm not brown-bagging it are either the fast-food places around Bronson Ave., or the wallet-taxing restaurants in Little Italy. Luckily I managed to find some alternatives to those places that aren't to far from my office when I want to have a sandwich for lunch, Di Rienzo Grocery and Deli, and Pressed. For what it's worth, here's what I thought of both places:

Atmosphere
Di Rienzo's: A cozy family business. When it's busy, you will be in a lineup that weaves around the grocery aisles until you can place your order. Luckily the lineup moves quickly, which is good as there is no air conditioning in the place.

Pressed: Kitschy, laid back layout, with both table and lunch counter style seating. Performances by musicians are a regular occurrence. A strong commitment to serving organic/fair trade coffee and supporting the use of local ingredients.

Sandwich Chosen
Di Rienzo's: Cold turkey and prosciutto with lettuce, tomato, Havarti, mayo, and spicy eggplant (on request)
Pressed: Warm Chicken Caesar Salad

Sandwich Impressions
Di Rienzo's: The soft crusty bread and the authentic deli meats and cheeses are filling, tasty, and blow anything from Subway or Quinzo's out of the water. Strongly recommend adding the spicy eggplant to any of the 17 different sandwiches available.
Pressed: Fresh crispy lettuce and flavourful seasoned chicken make for one good pressed sandwich.

Time of Sandwich Preparation
Di Rienzo's: About a minute
Pressed: Approximately ten minutes

Cost
Di Rienzo's: $5, all sandwiches, extra for additional meats and/or cheeses.
Pressed: $10; sandwiches range from $7-11

Final Verdict:
If you're in the area, and watch a quick bite, go to Di Rienzo's. If you're looking for a place to impress someone on a lunch date, head to Pressed. You can't go wrong with either taste-wise.

Ottawa ComicCon

The 2012 Ottawa Comiccon opens today, and to honour my love of both cooking and pop culture, I thought I would put the spotlight on something that celebrates both, "The DC Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook".

I discovered this book in my school library when I was in grade 8, and while I was more interested in the superheroes than in the recipes, I loved how it made cooking fun for kids like me, and it was a lot more interesting than the lessons being taught in Home Ec class. I was, and still am, a huge Batman fan, so one of the first recipes I tried was one featuring the Dynamic Duo:

(forevergeek.com)

I wasn't much of a salad eater back in the day, but my parents seemed to like the dressing I had made, or maybe they were impressed with me taking an active part in preparing a meal. At any rate, I was encouraged to try making something else. The next thing I made was from the cookbook was another recipe from the Batman family, Commissioner Gordon's Undercover Vegetables. The recipe was basically oven-roasted vegetables with a breadcrumb coating, but the fact that it was superhero approved made it that much more appetizing to me. There were a lot of good recipes in this cookbook, but unfortunately, the book has been out of print for years. I would have thought with superheroes being all the rage these days this would not be the case, forcing me to rely on images found on the Internet. Maybe I can find a copy of it when I head out to ComicCon this weekend. Excelsior!

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

( http://brandedinthe80s.com )

The Food List Challenge

Hola, amigos. It's been a long time since I've blogged at ya... If you've been on Facebook recently, you may have seen the latest timewaster, the Food List Challenge. For those who haven't, it's an app that allows you to check off items on a list of 100 foods to eat before you die.  I went through the list, and scored an abysmal 24%. While that is a poor score for someone who calls himself a foodie, I am looking forward to trying most of the foods on the list that I haven't eaten in order to raise my score, improve my palette, and boost my foodie cred.

Here's my thoughts on the foods I did try on the list:

• Alligator: Like almost all wild game, alligator has a similar taste to chicken. I liked the Atchafalaya Alligator I had at Fat Tuesday's, but it wouldn't surprise me it was really chicken that I ate.
• Baklava: The first time I tasted it was when someone brought some into the office one day. You can always count on someone bringing baked goods in when you work for the public service.
  
• Barbecue Ribs: Try Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce the next time you decide to cook up some ribs; you're welcome in advance.
• Bellini: Not my first choice for a summertime beverage, but a cool, refreshing drink nonetheless. 
• Calamari: Take my advice, it's better to try calamari at a restaurant that specializes in seafood, otherwise you run the risk of eating something that tastes like fried rubber bands.
• Cheese Fondue: Cheese, meat, bread, skewers, what's not to love?
• Chicken Tikka Masala: I need a find a good recipe for this, I don't go out to eat this often enough.
• Clam Chowder: This runs through my head anytime I eat it:
  
  
• Cognac: I bought a bottle back when Busta Rhymes and P Diddy did the song “Pass the Courvoisier”, I remember it livened up quite a few house parties back in the day.
• Eggs Benedict: For my money, the best Eggs Benedict in the city is at Stoneface Dolly's.
• Frogs’ Legs: My mom denies every eating frogs' legs, despite both me and my father seeing her take one off her plate, pop it in her mouth, and swallow it one time at a Chinese buffet.
• Funnel Cake: A former roommate of mine always used order one with strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream when we went to a nearby rest-o-bar to watch "Monday Night Football",  I decided to try one to see what the fuss was about. As I'm not a big dessert eater, I'll stick with wings and beer when watching sports.
• Gumbo: I recently made some gumbo using a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food: Great Food Fast cookbook.My wife and I loved it, though I wish I had used better sausages and real crab meat instead of the imitation stuff. I'll make amends next time.
• Jerk Chicken: Even though I don't like really spicy foods, I love a good piece of jerk chicken. I don't get people who insist on having the spiciest food just to show how much heat they can endure, you can't enjoy a meal if your eyes are watering and your tongue is burning.
• Lobster: That next time I have lobster, I want to have the Lobster Wellington, a dish I saw featured on "You Gotta Eat Here!", but it looks like I'll have to go Moncton's Catch 22 Lobster Bar for that meal.
• Octopus: This may be a cheat, but I enjoyed the baby octopus that found its way in a plate of calamari I had.
• Raw Oysters: I developed a taste for oysters back when I worked at a local supermarket, I used to take some of the samples that were prepared for the customers. Not bad eating for a guy making minimum wage at the time.
• S’mores: If you haven't had s'mores on a camping trip, you haven't really been camping.
• Snail: The word "snail" doesn't look appetizing on a menu, but call it escargot, you have yourself a delicacy. With enough garlic butter and cheese, anything can taste good.
• Spam: Depending on who you ask, Spam is either something you put in between two pieces of bread and stick in a lunchbox; something that clogs your inbox; an important staple in Hawaiian cuisine; or the keyword in a Monty Python sketch. I preferred the sketch over the sandwich, and I'm not that big a Python fan.
• Sweet Potato Fries: Tasty, but I prefer boring old regular spuds for my French fries.
• Venison: Back in the day a friend of my father's gave him a piece of deer meat from one of his hunting trips. I don't know if frying it a pan with some onions is the proper way to cook venison, but it tasted pretty good to me.

Cooking with the Wild Ace

In honour of Wrestlemania weekend, I'm going to focus on a local pro wrestler I know, the Wild Ace. He used to wrestle in the now-defunct local promotion PCW, Provincial Championship Wrestling. When he wasn't in the squared circle, he was my personal trainer when I could be bothered to go to GoodLife. He also fancies himself to be quite the chef. This is NOT part of his wrestling gimmick.- Check him out in his Cooking Corner.

Who Wants to Host a "Mad Men" party?

The television phenomena "Mad Men" returns on the 25th, and what better way to celebrate the adventures of Don Draper and the rest of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce than to host a viewing party. It's a great way to get into the spirit of everyone's favorite 1960s period piece, and with all the food being served, you don't have to be a fan of the show in order to take part in the fun. When it comes to the food, you can go one of two ways, prepare some of the dishes seen on the show, or prepare something using a recipe from the swinging sixties. A great starting point for old cookbooks is the public library and the remaining Book Markets in Ottawa. It's not a bad idea to going through an old cookbook anytime, really - where else can you get a good grasp of the basics of what are now classic dishes? Foods such as fillet of beef wellington, potato gratin, creamed spinach¹, leg of lamb², or as an alternative, lamb lollipops and Swedish meatballs were featured on various episodes. The spread can be filled out with era specific dishes such as deviled eggs, gazpacho and rumaki³. For dessert, you could go with either a grasshopper pie, or a lime sherbet to complete the retro touch. And what would a Mad Men be without liquor? Put that drink menu you always get from the LCBO to use, and buy what you need to make some martinis and Old Fashioned's. Break out your fancy chip-and-dip bowl, and pretend it's Pete's wedding gift. All that's needed to complete the evening is the wardrobe. Depending on your budget, your best bets are either Value Village, Ragtime, or the "Mad Men" inspired line at Banana Republic to complete the look.

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^{1 "}TV Dinners: Mad Men Menu and Party Plan"
² "How to Throw a Mad Men Party: Recipes, Cocktails and More"
³  "The Mad Men Party: the Food"