Food In the News

Beans Are Not Just a Musical Fruit
Oh, happy day! Hugh Grant found another way to embarrass himself, this time by pioneering another use for baked beans. They are apparently his weapons of choice for attacking pesky photographers. Here is a wonderful photo of him about to mount an attack. Unfortunately, beFOODled was unable to ascertain whether Grant was successful in his attempt to soil the photographer with the much-loved breakfast legume.

Are You a Cucumber or a Banana?
Better hope that you are a cuke. In Singapore, a pharmaceutical firm and the Society for Men's Health are measuring erectile dysfunction by asking men to arbitrarily rate their hardness on a scale inspired by produce - cucumber :), unpeeled banana, peeled banana or tofu :(. Not surprisingly, the medical authorities are not endorsing this subjective - albeit creative - study.

Soak Up the Sunshine Vitamin
Studies by American scientists are showing that sunshine for 10 to 15 minutes a day may cut your chances of getting some cancers (breast, colon, prostate) by about 50 per cent. Canadians are especially challenged because, when it comes to adequate Vitamin D production, it's all about latitude. If you live near the equator you're laughing, but from October to March the sunlight is just too feeble in Canada for good Vit D synthesis. And it looks like it's better to sun oneself than get it from food. Food amounts are piddly compared to what your skin makes after a dose of sunshine - you'd have to drink about three litres of milk a day, according to the Globe and Mail. As much as I love the stuff, that's just not possible. Now, I just hope that the fake and bakes (tanning salons) will not decide to use this an advertising line.

Rack of Lamb with Couscous

S made this wonderful rack of lamb and couscous over the weekend. We got two dinners out of this meal.

For the lamb:
2 full racks of lamb (2 x 8 ribs)
salt
pepper

Sprinkle salt and pepper on each side of the racks. Place the racks in a saucepan on medium heat and, using tongs, sear the outsides, but keep the insides raw. You just want a thin layer of cooked meat on all sides.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Prepare the breadcrumb crust.

For the breadcrumb crust:
Panko (Japanese) breadcrumbs
melted butter
olive oil
dried basil
chili flakes

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. You want the breadcrumbs to be moist but still flaky. Press the crust onto the seared racks of lamb so that the breadcrumbs adhere. Interlock the two racks together into a tent shape with the bones in the air. Stand them upright in a baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Let rest for 10.

Couscous:
onions, chopped
mushrooms, sliced
olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
salt
raisins
1 C water or stock
1 C couscous

Fry the onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add some salt. Add the raisins when the other ingredients start to brown. As soon as the raisins plump up, add the butter and water. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat. Mix in the couscous. Cover for 5 minutes. Fluff and serve.

Cut the racks into ribs and serve on a bed of couscous.

Spicy Slaw

A spicy dish! This super-easy recipe gives a boring bag of cabbage an exotic makeover. My Dad made it for our Easter dinner. He started by frying ginger, red onions and spring onions in oil, along with some bits of bell pepper that were escapees of a previous dish. Then he added some spices - this time it was cumin, turmeric, paprika, curry powder, chili powder, whole cloves and some cayenne. After a couple of minutes, he added some salt, lime juice and a full bag of store-bought coleslaw. And after another five minutes or so, we garnished it with chopped tomatoes and some fresh coriander. Et voila! A very spicy slaw.

Crispy Nori Chicken and 300

Crispy nori chicken on Flickr by beFOODled.

A few weeks ago, we had our friends Calimocho and a newly-coiffed Squeaky - who has insisted on some star exposure in beFOODled - over for a Japanese-themed evening. The plan was to eat tasty Japanese food and then rent an anime movie, but in actual fact, we finished up in Greece that night, as we all saw 300. A little aside before the food details: I really liked this movie, for the simple reason that it is full of hot abs! (Unfortunately they were all painted-on virtu-abs. Sigh.) Squeaky's favourite line: "THIS IS SPARTA!" 300 has revived my interest in classical civilizations and has led to my discovery of the ROME miniseries, to which I am obsessively addicted. Abs aside, the cinemetography in 300 was great - comic colours all washed over in sepia. I was not expecting an historically accurate epic documentary, so I wasn't disappointed. But S made an intelligent observation that some of the phrases uttered, such as "Freedom doesn't come for free" were obviously pro-Republican propaganda just when the Bush Administration needed it the most. I've since read that the Iranians are angry about the way 300 portrays the Persians. All good points, but I liked it all the same.

And now back to Japan. To start, we had instant miso soup, and for the main course, some crispy nori chicken. I served this with rice bowls, honey-soy carrots and a mint and zucchini salad.

Crispy Nori Chicken
Adapted from Jane Lawson's Yoshoku
Serves 4

1 kg chicken thighs, cut into two-bite pieces
vegetable oil for frying (only a thin layer as this is not a deep-fried dish)
sesame oil

Marinade for chicken:
60 ml soy sauce
60 ml mirin
1 Tbsp sake
2 tsp grated ginger
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Dusting mixture:
1/2 C corn starch
2 Tbsp crushed nori flakes
1/8 tsp Japanese pepper

Marinate the chicken pieces for an hour. Fill a large saucepan with a thin layer - on the order of millimetres - of vegetable oil and add about 80 ml of sesame oil. Heat to 180 C (350 F).

Lightly coat the chicken pieces in the starch mixture. Fry in batches for 6-7 minutes until golden. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Serve with lemon wedges.

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!