Bookchan Soon Dubu

Bookchan Soon Dubu is unanimously the best place to get soft-tofu stew (Soon Dubu) in Toronto. And maaaan it is so good. There's always a line to get in to the restaurant, but it's so worth it. Two days after Miwako and I went for the first time, we were already craving it again!



The banchan they provide: Not a lot, but it's all good, especially the kimchi - sweet, fresh and not sour, but not too fresh - just perfect.
This is the second time we went - I ordered the vegetable soondubu (ab0ve), and Miwako got the kimchi, beef and pork soondubu again.


They give you rice in stonebowls, then they take the rice out of the bowl for you, and fill the stonebowl with water, which you can mix up with the rice left in the pot and eat afterwards if you like.


This was Miwako's bowl by the time she was done.


This was my bowl by the time I was done. Dry as a bone. Miwako now aspires to learn how to eat soondubu like I do. Every time we go, we're gonna keep a tally of how much dryer her bowl is at the end of the meal...

The Bloor Street Diner

We went here to celebrate Allison's birthday - I got the tortellini at near the bottom and it was good : ). I also forced everyone to le tme snap shots of their food before they started eating. Miwako and I shared the "Chocolate explosion" at the bottom of the page - you can't tell from the picture, but there are chunks of cheesecake mixed into the cake.






I thought that food wasn't bad, although Miwako didn't like her fish very much. A downpoint - our waitress was clearly in a bad mood.

Messis

Dad came to Toronto today, and took me out for dinner - we went to Messis, a restaurant that's very close to where I'm staying on Harbord Street.

For appetizers we had:



A goat cheese and walnut phyllo bundle, with cranberries and a raspberry viniagrette. I liked it, although I think I prefer my goat cheese more simply prepared.

Grilled soya-orange marinated calamari. I don't usually eat calamari, but I did try a piece, since Dad said it was very good. I don't know, I just can't properly appreciate calamari.



For an entre I had roasted chicken breast stuffed with pancetta, with mushrooms, zucchini, onions, sweet potatoes and sun-dried tomatoes in a gorgonzola sauce. I thought it was very good - the chicken was moist and the vegetables were tender. I thought I couldn't really taste the gorgonzola in the sauce, but then I dipped some bread into it and ate it that way. Mmmm, gorgonzola.

Dad had a grilled veal chop with market vegetables and a roasted garlic potato gratin. The veal was very good (so said Dad, although I prefer my meat, you know, with either bacon or pancetta in the vicinity) but he said he found the gratin too rich. I'm not that big a fan of potatoes, so I couldn't say.

Dessert, pictured at the very top, was a nectarine tart with vanilla ice cream. The ice cream was really good - sweet, rich and creamy, with flecks of vanilla and caramelized sugar. The tart was also good - not too sweet, and the nectarines still had a fresh fruit taste (because sometimes with fruit tarts, the fruit is cooked so much that it mostly just tastes like sugar - that wasn't the case here. I could clearly taste the nectarine.) If you look at the picture above, you'll notice my weakness with dessert: this was the only dish that I started mauling with my fork before I remembered to snap a picture. Although I hadn't yet taken a bite when I took the picture though. Clearly I am improving in my willpower.

Overall I enjoyed the dinner quite a bit, and thought the service was good too (although it wasn't that busy). Would I go back? Probably, if it weren't for the fact that there are about a million other restaurants in Toronto I'm dying to try first : )

Polkrainianish Paska Bread???

I read somewhere that making bread with your own hands is supposed to be good for your soul. I have no idea whether or not that's true, but I do know that baking bread with faulty cooking equipment bought from Dollar-ama is a rather educational experience.

I'll say this: Just because the dry measures you bought from Dollarama say "1 cup" and "250 mL," don't assume that they actually measure out to "1 cup" and "250 mL." I was a bit dubious, as the measuring cups looked rather large, but I figured that I just didn't remember how large a cup was. But no. My measuring cups are indeed the wrong size. (As confirmed by comparision to non-dollar store equipment.) Which explains the large extra amount of flour that I could not coax the dough into accepting.

The Paska Bread recipe I found here at Allrecipes.com. Besides having halved the recipe, I also didn't have any lemon zest. Now for everything else I've been making so far, I've been substituting green chilies for whatI don't have, but don't worry. I didn't do that here[1].

Instead I used Chinese 5-spice powder. Hopefully that is less horrifying to you.

As I was randomly googling"paska bread" during one of the (four) rising periods[2], I saw references to Paska bread being both Polish and Ukrainian (and Russian). The recipe I found says Polish although Wikipedia says Ukrainian. Whatever they are, it seems like they're often decorated with braids, so I decided to try and do that as well.

[My shaped loaf with decorative braid- prefinal rise]

[the shaped loaf after baking - yeah, I ripped off the braid and ate it practically as soon as I took it out of the oven, as per the picture up top]

The recipe called for 45-50 baking minutes to make 3 large loaves, but as I cut the recipe in half, and made four mini-loaves out of that half, I only baked it for around 22 minutes. I think it could bake a little longer, but not too much, because the braid on top was starting to get too brown for my liking.

As for how I liked the bread, I thought that the taste was a little bland - I thought that the bread would be much sweeter, more like chinese chan bao, however the texture was amazing! Right out of the oven the top was crispy, and the inside was soft, light and steamy. If I make this again (and I might, even though I still have three miniloaves in my freezer right now), I will probably put more flavouring in it - I don't think the couple shakes of 5-spice powder made up for the flavour you'd get with lemon zest.

[freezing the three other loaves - along with my frozen packets of rice!]

NOTE: I've eaten two more of these loaves - after taking the loaves out of the freezer, all you need to do is microwave them on 10% power for 8 minutes, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then microwave it again for 8 minutes at 10% power. It will defrost and expand at the same time, and then you can bake it. It tastes better with savoury things (like cheese) because then the slight sweetness comes out.
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[1] Yet another reference to my never-ending attempt to finish off the pack of green chilies I got from Koreatown. But on that note, is there such thing as a spicy sweet bread? And if there was, would it be any good? I mean, I like red chili jam...

[2] I had assumed, like an idiot, without fully reading the recipe, that it would only involve two rising periods. But yeah. This bread actually required four rising periods.

Trying to use up the massive package of green chilies...

So in an attempt to use up the package green chilies I bought from Koreatown, I've just been slicing up a green chili and tossing it into whatever I'm making for dinner. Witness below:
Steamed eggs - usually this comes with pork, but my version comes with green chilies.Steamed Tilapia with Blackbean sauce on a bed of ginger and carrots- usually this comes with green onions, but my version comes with green chilies.

Yeah, there's a big heat difference between using one green chili in a dish that gives me enough leftovers for four days, and using one green chili in the above dishes, where there's only enough for one meal. Didn't quite feel like I was dying, but man, who knew that carrots could soak up so much spiciness? The fish didn't take up as much spiciness as the carrots, thankfully.

Oh, I also got a recipe for Oyakodon from my Japanese suitemate today! Well, a very rough recipe, as she didn't seem to measure anything, but it looked and smelled just as good as what I've had in restaurants. She said the sauce is mostly bonito stock, soy sauce, sweet ricewine (or japanese sake) and sugar. You cook the onions in the sauce, then the chicken, and then add the egg in last. Apparently there are even special pans to make Oyakodon, made specially so that you can just slide the topping onto the rice.

Ricecooker Bread

So I bought a demibaguette from Whole Foods a while ago, and was cringing at the price. It was a dollar something, nearly two, for half a baguette! I also checked at Dominion, the local grocery store, and they charged something like $1.79 per baguette. Which seemed about normal, but of course I wasn't satisfied and decided to see if I could make my own bread.

Yeeaaahhhh, I'm having mixed feelings about that now.

I have no baking implements. No pans, no trays, no measuring cups. But I decided to try anyways, following this recipe for "Bread in a rice cooker."

I tried to gauge the amounts of water and milk according to the mL graduations on my Nalgene bottle, and used regular soup spoons as teaspoons and tablespoons.
Er, I may have put in too much milk, as the dough seemed more like mush than dough, but that's nothing that more flour won't fix! And I heard that the amount of flour you put in bread is not that important – it will differ according to the humidity of the atmosphere, often by several cups.

So it all seemed to go pretty well until I added in butter. It seemed like a ridiculous amount of butter. This is what the instructions said:

Add butter to the dough ball. It might be easier to cut the butter into small pieces. Also the butter should be soft and at room temperature. The butter will also help to grease the rice cooker bowl, so that the bread will not stick to the sides. Knead the butter into the ball until the butter is completely absorbed into the dough and has no lumps.

But the dough would just not accept the butter! I was left with half of the butter left in my hand, and the dough was SO buttery that it wouldn't even form a ball anymore – the sides were too greased to stick together into a ball. I ended up only using half the butter, saving the rest for my breakfast (two improvised crepes with strawberry jam : D) I think I stared for a good minute at my dough, which resembled brain more than it resembled a lump of dough, but undaunted, I put that sucker into the ricecooker, let it rise twice, and then started ricecookering baking it.

Now the recipe warned me that different rice cookers work differently, and that I'd have to watch it. It also suggested that you jam an eraser into the rice-cooker switch, because the rice-cooker would probably turn off once it reached the temperature at which rice is cooked, and bread requires a higher heat.. I didn't have an eraser, but I did have a heavy bottle of soy sauce that would do the trick though. Unfortunately, I probably shouldn't have listened to that tip. That bread burned. It was way more burnt than my peanut butter brownies.

Luckily, it only burnt on one side, and I learnt my lesson for the other side of the bread. The trick for my rice cooker is to hit the switch, let it turn itself to the 'keep warm' for a while, and then when it's cooled down too much, then you hit the switch again. Rather time-consuming, but as I'm supposed to keep an eye on the ricecooker anyways (for fear of burning down my suite by using a rice-cooker in a non-conventional way) it's not so bad. It tastes ok - it's certainly not the best bread I've ever tasted, or even made, but it was certainly edible, and pretty good with that Bleu D'Auvergne. I don't know if I'll try and perfect this method though– I think I might just get a loaf pan or baking sheet ,and try making bread the old-fashioned way : )

Bleu D'Auvergne

I discovered something important this summer: I love blue cheese.

Now, everyone in my family loves cheese, but we are split on the issue of blue cheese. One one side of the ring we have me and my dad, advocates of the beautiful, sharp, tang of blue cheese, which bursts in your mouth like a flavour explosion[1]. On the other side you have my mom and Kim, who decry the sharp flavour of the blue-veined dairy product. Somewhat in between are Kristal and Michael. Kristal is tolerant of blue cheese, and will try it. And Michael is so unprejudiced in matters of cheese that he will just eat any type of cheese, no matter what its origin, type or flavour.

I had said something about having OD'd on cheese over the summer, and cutting back on cheese while here in Toronto (being on a budget and all) but a week has passed, and I find that I simply can't not take advantage of the superior selection of cheeses in Toronto. It would be a shame. That's my justification anyways. They practically have the same amount of selection at Whole Foods here that they have at the specialized cheese shop back home, and like Les Amis du Fromage, they let you sample. And this isn't even touching the ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous amount of cheese I saw at the St. Lawrence Market. That being said, I'm seriously contemplating trying a new cheese every week.

This week I got Bleu D'Auvergne, which is a soft, french blue cheese made from cow's milk. It's creamier than the blue cheeses I have tried so far (with the exception of Cambozola) and not as sharp (again with the exception of Cambozola). Still good though, with the flavour explosion. However, the mildness of the Bleu D'Auvergne means that I could probably just eat it on its own. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

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[1] Sorry for the over-used cliche, but really, blue cheese is nothing if not flavourful.

Ukrainian Zabava: Pyrohy/Varenyky and Nalysnyky

I walked down to Harbourfront Centre today, where they were having a Ukrainian festival. It was centred around the theme of a Ukrainian wedding. I got there much too early to do most of the things, but I hung around long enough to take a pyrohy/varenyky tutorial. We didn't get to make the dough or filling, because there wasn't enough time, but we got to roll out the dough, and form the pyrohy. I snapped a picture of the ones I made - this is right before they went into the pot of boiling salted water. [I don't know if they're supposed to have the ruffled edges, but I was afraid that they'd fall apart in the water]

I don't have a picture of the dumplings once they came out, because everyone's dumplings went into the same pot, and we didn't get the same ones we made back. The ones I got back were chintzy on the filling and oddly-shaped, so I didn't bother to take a picture. Here's the recipe that was given to us:

Dough

2 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 egg, or 2 egg yolks
1/2 c. water
2 tbsp oil

To assure tenderness, add 1/2 c. cold mashed potatoes and 1 tbsp melted fat.
Mix above and knead on a floured board until smooth.

The lady doing the tutorial told us that the common potato and cheddar perogies you see all the time are actually a rather new innovation that developed among the Ukrainian immigrants. There are a lot of different kinds of traditional fillings, but cottage cheese is supposed to be quite popular. Also, since several people doing the tutorial were actually of Ukrainian origin, they all gave their input on what their mothers/grandmothers did while making pyrohy, and it seems like the recipes vary widely. Some people only use sour cream and flour to make the dough. Some insist that eggs should never go in the dough. Some don't use any oil.

Since I'm not Ukrainian, and don't have the spectre of tradition hanging over me, I was wondering what they'd taste like filled with refried beans.

We were also given the recipe for Nalysnyky, which I understood to be something like a Ukrainian crepe. I thought I'd post it here, 'cause it'll be harder to lose that way : )

Nalysnyky

2 eggs
1/2 c. milk
3 tbsp water
1/2 c. sifted flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil

Add liquids to flour and salt, beat until smooth. Use a small frying pan or crepe maker, about 6 inches in diameter. Pour a few tbsps of the batter into the pan, just enough to give it a very thin coating, spreading the batter evenly. Cook the cakes over a moderate heat. When lightly browned on the bottom and firm to the touch on top, turn the cakes over onto the round side of a cereal bowl. This will shape the edge for rolling in the filling.

Spread the cakes with a sweet or savoury filling, rolling with the browned side on the outside. Arrange the rolled cakes in a buttered baking dish. Bake in a moderate oven for several minutes to warm and serve hot.

They also gave us the following links for Nalysnyky recipes

http://foodgeeks.com/recipes/recipe.phtml?recipe_id=17632

http://www.recipezaar.com/200574

Pyrohy/Varenyky links

http://www.recipezaar.com/107814

http://www.allthingsukrainian.com/Recipe/Varenyky/VarenykyFillings.html

http://foodgeeks.com/recipes/recipe/19781,ukrainian_zeinas_potato_varenyky_perogies_pyrohy.phtml

Hoisin-braised Pork, Mushrooms and Green Beans on Noodles

I got two cheques in the past two days and decided to celebrate ... by eating meat! Oooorrrrr, you could argue that it took me about two weeks to work up the courage to cook with meat. Who knows? Who cares? Look at the lovely chunks of pork in the picture!

Anyways, I was basically following this recipe that I found on Epicurious, modified, of course, according to what I had in my fridge : ) And according to the simple fact that I'm too lazy to do imperial/metric conversions. Epicurious calls it 'asian-style' but I've tagged this post as ' chinese' since it uses chinese ingredients

Basically the recipe involves rolling chunks of pork around in chinese 5-spice, adding salt and pepper, then tossing the pork in flour followed by frying the pork in a pot. Afterwards chicken stock, sliced mushrooms, chopped green onions, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and some ginger is added, and everything is brought to a boil. The pot is then left to simmer for approximately 50 minutes, until the pork is tender. Then green beans are added, and the pot simmers for 5 minutes covered, and then 5 minutes uncovered. Noodles are boiled during this time, drained, and then tossed with sesame oil. After all that is done, the noodles are topped with the hoisin pork, and then more chopped green onions. My substitutions were as follows: I didn't want to buy green onions, since I already had so much stuff I don't know how I'll use in my fridge, so I just used onions instead. I also had a bunch of zucchini and green chilies in my fridge, so I added a zucchini along with the green-beans, and put in one diced green chili (seeds removed of course) near the very end of the simmering process. The recipe also called for egg linguine, but I decided to go for some noodles I found in chinatown instead, since I was already there to get the chinese 5-spice[1]. The package says 'ho fun' on it, but it didn't seem quite like the ho fun I'm used to - maybe it isn't rice-based or something. Above is what the package looks like, and below is what the noodles looked like (after having tossed them with some sesame oil)
All in all, I thought it tasted pretty good! The sauce was sweet, rich and savoury, while the green beans were crunchy and refreshing. And the noodles were smooth and a little resistant, not too soft. I probably could have put in another green chili though, to kick it up another notch, but I was very satisfied with what I made. My only regret is that I didn't pull the fat off the pork first (I bought the pork already in chunks, the package said "for stew") since I had to pull it off while I was eating, and it's not like the sauce lacked for flavour.

As for how cooking it went - it all went pretty smoothly, except for the fact that I lack kitchen tools. First of all, I didn't have a bowl big enough to toss the meat with the spices and flour in...until I realized I that the inside of the rice-cooker would suffice. I also realized that those awesome ziplock tupperwares that mom gave me, the cylindrical ones, actually have both metric and imperial measurements on them! Yes! No more guessing what 350 ml is! I also had to borrow a pot from my suitemate, to boil the noodles in, since my pot was occupied with the pork. But in the end....Yay! I cooked with meat and nothing went wrong! And I managed to use up all of my zucchini! Although it doesn't look like I've even made a dent in my chilies...

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[1] I also ended up buying tofu-fish (which I'll keep in the freezer for later) along with 1kg of Milo. Muahahahha. I could pretend I bought it for the iron-content, but one could also make an argument that I just like chocolate milk drinks...by the way, chinatown is no better than koreatown with respect to buying green chilies. They only had the massive packs at the chinatown grocery storry too...

Doenjangjjigae - Tofu Soybean Paste Stew

Ok, I faked you out. I didn't make MaPo Tofu, because I was watching korean drama[1] last night, and started craving korean stew. So instead I made Doenjangjjigae, following (somewhat) this recipe from My Korean Kitchen.

I say that I only followed it "somewhat" because

i) I didn't quite get the right ingredients (is anchovy soup stock the same thing as anchovy powder?), and

ii) I realized I don't have liquid (or dry, for that matter) measures, so I had guess how much 350mL of water was. Ahahahah, I think I overgauged it, and so had to add an extra tsp of anchovy stock, so it wouldn't be too bland. (Or maybe anchovy powder is more potent than anchovy stock?)
Shopping for the ingredients was an interesting experience - the recipe calls for half of one green chili and half of one red chili. Now, I don't know if it's just because I was shopping in Koreatown, but I went to three different places, and at none of these places can you buy chili peppers in quantity less than about TWENTY chili peppers. They seem to only come prepackaged in amounts of 20 (or 40 if you want the big package). I couldn't find a lone chili pepper anywhere! And I'd be damned if I bought one package of 20 green chili peppers, and another package of 20 red chili peppers. So I just bought one package of green chili peppers, and used one whole green chili. I'll be eating chili peppers in my food for probably the next two weeks as it is[2].
Oh, but I'm so glad I didn't skip out on the chili pepper. The stew was so satisfyingly savoury, with the wonderful kick of spiciness that I was missing so much when I had my Blackbean Tofu. And one chili pepper was just right for me and my weak-sauce threshold for spiciness. I had the stew ladled over rice[3]. Mmmmm, so good. It doesn't look as good as the picture on My Korean Kitchen, but it tasted good : )

Up next: Whatever I can make using up the leftover chili peppers, zucchini, onion, carrot and green beans...
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[1] Incidentally, I have only two more episodes of Coffee Prince to go...
[2] And I'll be having a lot of zucchini and shiitake mushroom while I'm at it. Along with trying to finish the giant bag of green beans I'm slowly working away at - they only had one size of bag at the chinatown market!
[3] I'm still trying to figure out the rice-cooker and rice/water ratio though. The rice was too wet - it wasn't mushy, but it was kind of wet. Luckily I was having it with soup anyways.

Black BeanTofu on Rice

[My dinner: Blackbean Tofu on rice, with steamed green beans and a white peach for dessert]

Blackbean Tofu was my first attempt at cooking for myself in Toronto - I chopped up a potato and a carrot, started, er, cooking them in a pan, and then I added in a chopped onion and garlic clove. I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to put the things in according to a certain order, but I figured potatoes and carrots take a longer time to cook...

Anyways, I added in two teaspoonfuls of garlic blackbean sauce, and then added in the extra-firm tofu, which I had chopped up into cubes. Then I mixed some cornstarch into cold water and poured it over the mixture, then cooked while stirring until the sauce thickened. I tasted it, and then added in another teaspoon of garlic blackbean sauce because I liked it saltier :) Especially if I'm going to have it over white rice.

It tasted okay, although I think that since I'm so used to eating korean food, it felt a little off because it was neither sweet nor spicy!

So, did I forget anything vital? I wish I had bought pepper before I made it - I think a little spiciness would have given it a nice kick : )

Next up: MaPo Tofu...I'm going to attempt...to cook with MEAT!!!!!

The Canyon Creek Chophouse in Toronto

For the first post, I'll talk about our dining experience at the Canyon Creek Chophouse on Front Street in downtown Toronto [1]! We were there on 2007-08-23 [2].

First came the appetizers - the garlic bread and bacon-wrapped scallops. The garlic bread was so good - it was soft and warm, while still being crusty on the outside, and there were 3/4 cuts all along the top of the bread. The slits were filled with a lovely, gooey, melty cheese and the whole thing was topped off with nice garlic-y bruschetta.
I don't know how good the scallops were, since I don't eat seafood - but Mom and Michael seemed to enjoy them.


We really enjoyed the entrées too. Notice I didn't manage to get a picture of our entrées before they were gobbled up. The descriptions from the menu will have to do : ) Between four of us we ordered:

i) the Double-bone Pork Chop (with side vegetables and rice pilaf)

"Lightly spiced, slow roasted and grilled to order. Served with lingonberry sauce."

ii) the Filet-mignon (with side vegetables and a baked potato), and

" Centre-cut filet wrapped in Applewood-smoked bacon, grilled to order and brushed with butter."

iii) the Broiled Lamb Chops (with rice pilaf and mashed potatoes - Michael likes his carbs)

"3 thick double-boned chops marinated in herb oil and served with fresh mint jus."

[attempt at taking picture of entrées: failed!]

I was a bit more successful with the desserts: pecan pie and cheesecake - although I only managed to snap a picture half-way through the dessert. The pecan pie was delicious - smooth, buttery and sweet, and topped with whipped cream. Gah, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. The cheesecake was just your average cheesecake [3] - it was also covered in a seasonal-berry icewine compote.

[attempt at taking picture of dessert: good effort]

All in all, a very satisfying dining experience. I think we would definitely go back.
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[1] Because I already have pictures, since I had planned to torture Kristal and Dad with the pictures...
[2] "We" being me, Mom, Kim and Michael.
[3] i.e. Kim's homemade blueberry cheesecake, and Kristal's homemade eggnog cheesecake are better...