Thai in Toronto at Linda's

On our third night in Toronto we went to a really nice Thai place called Linda's on Yonge Street. It's a cozy and elegant room decorated in hardwood and brick, and with a huge Buddha mural on one wall. It's above another busy, brightly-lit Thai restaurant called the Salad King, which is owned by Linda's husband.

We had this very tasty appetizer, called miang kum. The leaves in the foreground look like spinach but are actually aromatic leaves called cha-plu. You take one and add a small dollop of each of the ingredients - lime, chili, red onion, dried shrimp, dried coconut, peanut and the sweet sauce - and wrap it into a little packet of hot, sour, salty and sweet flavours. It was delicious, and the chilies really made it pop. The service here was good too; a woman who we think was Linda came over to make sure we liked the food. We also had a calamari appetizer, four mains and a bottle of wine. The whole meal came to about $38 per person.

Linda's
335 Yonge St. (corner Dundas)
Toronto, ON
416.971.7041

Ematei - a Japanese Restaurant in Toronto

Agedashi dofu and beef tataki at Ematei in Toronto on Flickr by beFOODled.

Last week I was fortunate to make it back to T-dot, this time accompanied by S and two of our friends. We found a great Japanese place called Ematei, just a few steps away from Queen Street. We ordered my favourite appetizers, agedashi tofu and beef tataki (both pictured here), and shared a tonkatsu (a deep-fried, breaded pork cutlet) with rice and miso soup. We also got some sushi: unagi (BBQ eel and my favourite), hamachi (yellowtail and S's favourite) and also sake (tuna). To drink we had 2 Sapporos. Japanese beer always comes in two sizes - the standard sober 341 mL, which yours truly ordered, and then the whoopass super-jumbo bottoms up! size of 650 mL that S ordered. It was a really tasty meal and we weren't far off the estimate of $90 per couple in my iN Guide. The service was good too.

Ematei
30 St. Patrick St. (corner Queen)
Toronto, ON
416.340.0472

More Girl Food

Last weekend, I went to Toronto to visit with some friends and to go to an Oscar party. We went to this restaurant on Queen St. that sells roti takeout. I'd never had roti before but my friends just rave about it, so I was really excited to try this. It's basically a big flatbread bundled around your favourite curry. Both D and I got the mutter paneer and I decided to get medium instead of mild, a decision which turned out to be a big mistake! It was so hot, I had to follow every mouthful with water. S, who got a medium too, tried mine and agreed that it was indeed insanely hot. In the end D gave me some of her mild because I just couldn't finish it, what with the back of my throat being on fire. But once I could finally taste it, I had to admit that it was great!

And last night, my friend Ella hosted another girls-only dinner party. It started out as an afternoon at the spa, followed by a fantastic dinner that totally reminded me of springtime, and a raucous game of Cranium to end the night. Ella prepared this really tasty linguine with asparagus and red pepper that had a kind of alfredo sauce, and served it with goat's cheese on baguette slices. It kind of reminded me of a pasta primavera (which means "spring" in Italian), which is made with young spring vegetables. The salad was amazing too, and so so simple: spinach, tomato and tasted walnuts tossed with a sweet dressing of green pepper jelly (you could also use red), balsamic vinegar, olive oil and mustard. It was so tasty and a really big hit with my friends.

Hurray for girls' nights!

Yakitori Skewers and Rice

Here's a nice Japanese recipe from a few weekends ago, when S and I made a yakitori plate. I adapted this recipe from Jane Lawson's Yoshoku and a really fantastic website called VideoJug. It has video how-tos on all kinds of recipes and other hilarious things from how to get out of a car without showing your knickers and how to be the perfect boyfriend. To all that I say, it's never to late to learn!

But anyways, for the yakitori, the first thing to do is to marinate chicken thighs (whatever you have from 300 - 500 grams) in the following sauce recipe courtesy of VideoJug's How to Make Yakitori.

Marinade for chicken:
100 ml soy sauce
50 ml sake
50 ml mirin
2 Tbsp sugar

The VideoJug recipe recommends marinating for at least 5 hours, but I did it for one, used teriyaki sauce instead of the sake, and it turned out fine. (If I cooked this again and was sakeless once more, I would add more mirin instead of teriyaki, as mirin is more like sake by virtue of being an alcohol).

Mise en place:
Bamboo skewers, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes.
For chicken skewers:

• marinated chicken thigh fillets, on fillet cut into three pieces
• 2 baby leeks or fat spring onions, white part only, cut into eight short pieces

For asparagus skewers:

• 4 thin bacon rashers, pre-cooked for a few minutes and cut in half
• 8 5-cm lengths of asparagus

Thread 5 morsels on the chicken skewers starting with chicken, then leek or onion, then chicken, then leek or onion and ending with chicken. Thread two asparagus bundles wrapped in bacon per skewer. Arrange skewers on foil on a baking sheet, and fold the edge of the foil over the bare ends of the wooden skewers to keep them from blackening.

Cook in a hot oven (I did it under the broiler) for about 15 minutes, turning and marinating from time to time with a commercial teriyaki sauce. Serve with rice.

A Mediterranean Menu in February

Without further ado, here's the scoop on my first dinner party in a long long time. Some friends and I get together every so often and this time it was my turn to entertain. It was mid-February and pretty cold and snowy, so to warm things up I cooked a bunch of Moroccan and Mediterranean dishes. On the menu: baba ganoush, hummus, bread and pita triangles to start; Moroccan chicken and a Tuscan green bean salad as the main; and maple-poached pears for dessert.

I made this baba ganoush using a delicious recipe of my boyfriend's mother, and it goes like this:



Baba Ganoush

1 large eggplant
2 teaspoons tahini
juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, minced
salt
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

Peel the eggplant and quarter it. Salt the quarters and let them sit for an hour until the water comes out. Rinse the quarters. Slice thinly and lay in one layer on a baking sheet. Brush with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and bake in oven for half an hour at 375 F (or you could microwave for about five minutes). Mash with a fork and serve on a plate (more authentic) with olive oil drizzled on top and toasted nuts and chopped parsely.

This next picture is of the moroccan chicken with tomatoes and saffron-honey jam, a recipe I found on Chubby Hubby's website, originally published in Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons. It goes well with couscous, but I served it with a similar grain called quinoa (pronounced "keenwa") because one of my guests had a wheat allergy:



I served it with a Tuscan green bean salad, from Dana McCauley's Pantry Raid. I use this book a lot because most of the recipes are less than 10 ingredients - and they are all really tasty!

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
juice of half a lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp EVOO
1/3 C diced pecorino or asiago cheese
1/2 lb green beans
salt and pepper

Whisk lemon peel with juice, garlic, salt and pepper, EVOO and cheese. Wash, trim and cut green beans in half. Blanch in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking process and keep the bright green colour. Combing with cheese mixture.

The best thing about these recipes is that I made them all in advance! I made the chicken a week in advance and froze it. The baba ganoush and the maple-poached pears I made the night before and the green bean salad I made a couple of hours before my guests came.

Welcome to beFOODled!

Welcome to my foodie blog. Here be adventures with food - successes, failures, embarrassing moments of pure befuddlement. I am not a professional chef, just someone who loves to cook and learn about the history, culture and science that surrounds all foods.

I have tried many different recipes in the past, but I'm at the point where I'm pulling mystery fare out of my freezer, finding it pretty tasty, but forgetting how I made it. So this blog is going to be a kind of cooking diary, so that I can keep track of all of my favourites.