Veal Shank With Sour Cherries

Here's PB and J's recipe for the veal shank they cooked for the Gastronati's former USSR evening. They served it with egg noodles, but it would also go well with potatoes or rice.

Veal Shank With Sour Cherries

1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 Tbsp butter
4 slices veal shank
salt and pepper to taste
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1/2 cup chopped carrot
10 green cardamom pods, crushed (you can also use white cardamom)
One 16 or 17 ounce jar of sour cherries with their juice
1 cup veal stock (beef or chicken will work, too)
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Combine oil and butter in skillet at low heat and brown the outside of the veal shank on medium-high heat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Reduce heat to medium and remove the meat. Add the onions and carrots, cook and stir occasionally until the veggies soften. Stir in the cardamom, then the cherries and finally the juice along with the stock.

Return the veal shank to the skillet and cover. Cook until the meat is very tender and pulling away from bone (at least 90 minutes). Stir occasionally and turn the meat.

If the sauce is thin, remove the meat and turn the heat to high to thicken.

Stir in the lemon zest.

Borscht

This is the borscht I brought to the Gastronati's Former USSR dinner. The recipe is courtesy of my Russian friend from French class. It turned out chunky and wonderful and people loved it - thanks Vlada!

I have heard of blended versions, but I chopped my ingredients into relatively large pieces, which gave the soup a great texture.

Borscht
serves six

1 lb beef (I used stewing beef cubes)
about 10 cups water
2 carrots, chopped into a large dice
1 large onion, quartered
1 small onion, chopped
10 small beets (or four large)
1 potato, chopped in large cubes
1 small green cabbage head, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
fresh dillweed
sour cream

In a large stock pot, cook the meat and onion quarters for 2 hours in about six cups of water until very tender. I started with six cups of water, but added about four more during the course of the recipe.

Take the meat out and set aside. It will be very tender. Shred the cubes a bit with your fingers when cooler. Discard the onion quarters, but reserve the cooking liquid.

Sauté the chopped onion and carrots in a skillet. Set them aside with the meat.

Add the beets to the reserved cooking liquid and simmer until soft, about 15 to 20 minutes for small beets. Take them out and quarter when cooled off. If your beets are small, leave the skin on. If they are large, remove the skin before chopping them.

Cut up the raw potatoes and raw cabbage. Put all the ingredients - the sautéed mixture, meat, beets and raw ingredients - back into the pot with the broth. Boil until the potatoes are done, about 30 minutes. Add the red wine vinegar.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of fresh dill!

The Gastronati have an Evening in the Former USSR

Why did the Gastronati choose the former USSR? Well, we were originally going to do a Russian night, but then we extended it geographically speaking, so that Squeaky could make cabbage rolls. From top to bottom in the photos, we ate borscht, cabbage rolls and mushroom casserole, and then veal shank with sour cherries, and washed them down with infused vodkas. J, who is a designer, even made us little place settings with our names in Cyrillic!

This has been S's favourite Gastronati so far and with good reason because it was truly fantastic! We surprised ourselves! S made the mushroom casserole and I made the borscht. I used a recipe belonging to my Russian friend in French class.

I learned that no ingredient is off bounds in cooking from this part of the world - there are fruits in savoury dishes where you wouldn't expect them, and other surprising ingredients. PB and J who hosted this time, made the veal shank with sour cherries, and also blackberry- and peach-infused vodkas. And Squeaky's cabbage rolls had a sauce made from ginger snaps!

Stay tuned for some feature recipes later this week!

Secrets and Shortcuts: Salads 3.0

Iceberg lettuce? Romaine? Dullsville. Bags of designer lettuce? Expensive. Short-lived. I was watching Jamie at Home today, and he inspired me with some sage advice about salads.

Basically, save all those boring varieties for the rabbits, or skeet-shooting if you are Jamie Oliver, and get yourself five or six interesting salad greens, such as:

• endive
• arugula (rocket)
• watercress
• red-leaf lettuce
• green-leaf lettuce
• baby spinach
• radicchio (Italian chicory)

You can also use fresh herbs as salad leaves if you keep the leaves whole instead of chopping them. Some herbs that work well this way are:

• mint
• tarragon (goes well with arugula)
  
• basil
• parsley

When you get them home, wash them in the sink in cold water, and then spin dry in a salad spinner filled halfway each time. Tuck the leaves gently in a giant, tea-towel-lined tupperware container, and store them in the fridge where they'll last for about four days.

Stay tuned for some nice salad and dressing ideas using these ingredients, coming soon!

Ichibei — the best Japanese restaurant in Ottawa

Ichibei is my favourite Japanese restaurant in Ottawa. I get so excited! It's one of the first places S and I went to together, and where I discovered that Japanese food went far beyond sushi and tempura. Clockwise from the top is our recent meal of sukiyaki, Japanese pickles (eggplant, cucumber and daikon), sushi and an appetizer of tuna and natto (fermented soy beans that I'm slowly developing a taste for).

Ichibei has extremely tasty food and a well-balanced menu. The agedashi dofu and beef tataki pass my "favourite Japanese appetizers test" with flying colours. There's also a harusame salad appetizer that I just can't get enough of. If only I knew the recipe! I've tried to ask but understandably they won't tell me. From what I can tell it has bean thread (harusame) noodles, julienned carrots, crab meat, possibly cucumber and egg, and a spicy mayonnaise dressing that's so light and refreshing.

It's a tiny restaurant, but tastefully decorated. The tanukis (Japanese raccoons) in which they serve sake are just too cute. We always ask for one. You have probably noticed that our tanuki is posing with every dish in the photos :).

My friends at Ottawa Foodies have also noted that Ichibei is the place where the Japanese Embassy takes its guests from Japan, which suggests the food is quite authentic!

The only things I don't like are the small sushi portions, which is unfortunately the norm in Ottawa. The sashimi plate in particular has ridiculously tiny pieces for a price tag close to $25. This especially disappoints S, who spent many years in Vancouver where the portions are more than a mouthful to say the least.

We usually order a medium bottle of sake, two miso soups, two à la carte appetizers, a hot bowl food like sukiyaki or don buri and four pieces of sushi. It comes to about $100 for two people.

Ichibei
197 Bank Street, corner Gloucester
Ottawa, ON
613.563.2375

Secrets and Shortcuts: Braising

I am a great collector of helpful tips and sage advice when it comes to cooking and food preparation. My friends, family and favourite Food Channel chefs often share such valuable tidbits.

So, to document all of this great cooking lore, I've just created another new occasional feature on beFOODled, called Secrets and Shortcuts. Stay tuned for many more coming soon :)

Secrets and Shortcuts: Braising
Braising means to cook slowly in a small amount of liquid, so if you are cooking vegetables in a braised dish, be sure to cut up them up into biggish chunks, like quarters or a large dice, so that they don't lose all of their nutrients and flavours throughout the long cooking time.

Thai Salmon

Today I found a definite keeper in one of S's cookbooks. It's another way to do salmon besides my usual mahogany marinated recipe. This one's a Thai-inspired recipe that I adapted from Jill Dupleix's Good Cooking: The New Essentials, and it's really delicious. The chicken stock I used was a commercial one with a high sodium content, so I didn't use any extra salt anywhere, but you still can and I've indicated where in the recipe.

Thai Salmon
Serves 2

2 salmon fillets (I used one large fillet and sliced it in half after pan frying)
1 Tbsp fish sauce
1 lemongrass stalk
2 shallots, finely sliced
1 small red chilli, finely sliced with the seeds removed
4 mushrooms, sliced (I used shiitake)
about 40 g of baby arugula leaves (you could also use baby spinach)
500 ml chicken stock
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp grapeseed oil (or any vegetable or olive oil)
1 Tbsp lime juice
salt and pepper
fresh cilantro for garnish
rice

Put the rice on. Marinate the salmon in the fish sauce in a bowl in the fridge while you cook the rest of the recipe.

Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan. Add the chilli, mushrooms, shallots, lemongrass and sugar. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat (level 5 on an electric element). Add the salmon fillets skin side down, and cook for 3 or 4 minutes until the skin is crispy and golden. Turn over the fillet and cook the other side for a minute or two until also golden brown. Ideally, the salmon is still pink inside. Let rest on a plate or cutting board. Season with salt and pepper if the stock you used isn't high sodium.

Divide the arugula leaves among two shallow bowls. Place the salmon on top. Spoon the hot broth mixture around the salmon. Squeeze the juice of half a lime over each bowl and top with fresh cilantro. Serve with a bowl of rice on the side.