Steamed veggies on hot plate

We saw all locals were having a hot plate dish so we copied as well. I thought it is a hot-plate grilled dish, but to my surprise, it is steamed cabbage with bits of chicken and glass noodles. The plate is not too thick. The portion looks big but it is very healthy and light dish. Taste OK.

Ethiopia House

I don’t know really why I am addicted to Ethiopia food. The first time I tried it was about 3 years ago in Toronto and ever since I craves it every week.
Ethiopian cooking is very spicy. In addition to flavoring the food, the spices also help to preserve meat in a country where refrigeration is rare. However the restaurant in Canada has been adapted: not all dishes are spicy. I recommend everyone to try it! Over the years, I tried other Ethiopia restaurant, but this one always has consistent quality.

http://www.ethiopianhouse.com/

I normally get veggie and meat combo for two. It includes beef, lamb or chicken, lentils, beans, cheese, etc. The food is slow cooked with savory flavor. All food is served on a large soft sourdough flatbread. My favorite part is the bread soaked with meat sauces. Heavenly!
Don’t ask for forks. No utensils are used as their tradition. And it is great that they encourage peoples try their way in the restaurant. Not like in Chinese restaurant, they gave forks to all non-Asians, even for those who knows how to use chopsticks.

“Ethiopia was under Italian military control for a period (1935–46) when Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) was in power. Except for that time, Ethiopian culture has been influenced very little by other countries.”
http://www.foodbycountry.com/Algeria-to-France/Ethiopia.html

Salicorne – sea asparagus

Salicorne (French word) is a wild, succulent plant that grows along the seashore and in salt marshes. It comes in bushes of crisp and juicy twigs that are harvested in late spring to early summer and can be eaten raw, cooked, or pickled.

I tasted fresh green salicorne in Jean Talon Market in Montreal. It is taste of summer by the sea. It is slightly salty with a fresh, crunchy, not overpowering, herbal taste.

Cactus Burritos at Johnybanana

I am surprised that I can eat cactus in Toronto. I don’t know which kind I was eating (maybe from Mexico?) but it is very soft like Aloe. Check out Johnybanana at Queen and Bathurst Street. For a large cactus burritos cost $6.99 CAD.

http://www.johnybanana.com/

A list of best burritos in Toronto:
http://www.blogto.com/toronto/the_best_burritos_in_toronto/

OX-heart tomato

What an interesting name! My first time saw those tomatoes was in a Rome’s supermarket. Their color and interesting shape surprised me. They are big tomatoes with a bottom-heavy shape. Very meaty flesh contains few seeds making this a favorite for slicing and for sandwiches. Good flavor and productivity keep gardeners growing this heirloom variety.

Cheese Salad - Crottin de Chavignol (Brussels)

A perfect flavorful balanced lunch salad with raisins, nuts and cheese: Crottin de Chavignol. I am starting to love the cheese!

“Crottin de Chavignol is the most famous goat cheese of the many varieties produced in the Loire Valley. This cheese is the claim to fame for the village of Chavignol, France, which has only two hundred inhabitants.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crottin_de_Chavignol



And I like their mineral water bottle design.

Vegetarian in Madrid

After eating many days of meat and seafood, I am so happy that a friend took me to a vegetarian restaurant. It is close to the city center metro stop SOL.
http://www.yerbabuena.ws/

I like the interesting combination of fresh ingredients and their presentation. I had wheat tortilla cannelon (pic left down): mushroom, zucchini, asparagus, spinach, broccoli and touch of curry over oregano-seasoned tomato sauce wrapped in a rice & poppy seed tempura with a coating of coconut and seeds sauces. It is delicious and it is vegan!

For dessert I had Crema Catalana (Spanish version of Crème brûlée”): a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. It is a bit too creamy for me. But since I had a healthy lunch, it is ok to indulge a bit. Not sure it is vegan.

Greek Salad

When food leaves the country, it always changes to adapt the new culture. It is quite important to have a real Greek Salad while in Greece. I ordered it in a local restaurant in Athens, so I suppose they use all standard ingredients. It is surely different than the ones I had in Toronto. The cheese is super fresh. The green pepper is not spicy but very salty. I made a mistake of eating the whole green pepper in one bite. I should have cut it into pieces.

American-style "Greek" salad is quite different:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_salad

Murrell Mushrooms

A wild edible mushroom whose cone-shape cap has a honeycombed appearance. The cap ranges from two to four inches tall and the mushrooms stem is hollow. The different varieties of morels vary in color from light yellow to dark brown. The darker the mushroom's color is, the stronger its flavor becomes. They have a nut-like taste with a crisp, chewy texture that makes it a good choice for light cream sauces, pastas and egg dishes.

It is one of the first mushrooms to appear in the spring, even before all the snow has disappeared. They should never been eaten raw because this may cause acute gastrointestinal illness. Morels are sold fresh, which are available seasonally, and dried, which are available throughout the year. They are also known as sponge mushrooms and yellow morel mushrooms.

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--822/all-about-mushrooms.asp

I have never seen fresh ones in Toronto, but I saw the dried ones in supermarket Metro. They are expensive even in Europe. But it is very tasty and worth the effort.

Deep-frying Zucchini Flowers (fiori di zucca)

Everyone knows zucchini as a vegetable. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower. Zucchini is Italian in origin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini

My first time trying fried zucchini flowers is in Montreal food festival. For 4 dollars they sell 2 pieces with nothing stuffed inside of the flowers. I told my friend in Rome and he laughed at me. Such a rip off!

Luckily he is good cook and he prepared me the best fried zucchini flower I have ever had. It is quite easy. He put mozzarella and anchovy fillet inside of each flower and then coat with egg batter. When served hot, outside is crispy and inside melt in your month. Mozzarella and anchovy are the perfect combination. As for zucchini flower itself I am not sure what exactly is the taste, but it gave some texture. Anyway it is exotic for me. I want to eat more flowers!

Italian Radicchio

“Radicchio is a leaf chicory (Cichorium intybus, Asteraceae), sometimes known as Italian chicory. It is grown as a leaf vegetable which usually has white-veined red leaves. It has a bitter and spicy taste, which mellows when it is grilled or roasted.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicchio

I had it all the time in salad and do not really like the bitter taste. It was interesting to see the Italian radicchio in Venice Market. They look like a flower rather than the round melon ones we have in Canada. They also have medicinal properties: a blood purifier and an aid for insomniacs.

“In the same way that the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese-makers of Parma, Italy, have sought to protect the name "Parmesan" to signify only cheeses made in their region under the supervision of a regulating body, so too have the radicchio farmers of the Veneto sought to protect the names of some radicchio varieties, including Tardivo(see pic).”

“…the modern radicchio with its rich wine-red white-ribbed leaves was developed in the 1860s by Francesco Van Den Borre, a Belgian agronomist who applied the techniques used to whiten Belgian endive to the plants grown around Treviso…”

http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0094.htm

That site also has some cool links to radicchio recipes.

Sunflower????

I saw them in the market. The sign says: sunflower. But they do not look like sunflower to me. Or Italian sunflower is different?
Very interested to know what is it and how you eat it?

Traditional Sicilian food

Wanting to try more local food, a friend took me to a traditional food place. It is not a fancy restaurant; instead, it looks like a “Fast-food” place. All food is precooked displaced behind glass window. You can order a combo with 4 items (1 meat) or 6 items (2 meats). With a history of poor people food, I do not judge food on where or how they are served. But unfortunately, because those places are selling for cheap food, so the quality is not that good. I picked everything traditional, just like my friend said: everything here is traditional. Unfortunately nothing is done especially amazing. They grilled the meat after we made order, but their quality not very good. Although at lunch hour, it was packed with people.

Veggi dish

Tuna salad in a local restaurant near Tamarindo beach.
What can I say. It is not what i imagined at all. The tuna is from canned tuna, with some over-cooked beans.

I missed my green veggies!

Ilios – Greek restaurant in Montréal

Just a bit south of laurier street and St. Denis street, there is a Greek restaurant called Ilios. While I was waiting for friend coming from far away, I end up in that restaurant alone eating dinner at 6:30 pm Friday night. I have to admit it is not much fun to eat alone in a quiet restaurant.

For $18(before tax) I ordered one of their special menu, which include : Pikilia (various sample of food, see below) and fried calamari.

Pikilia includes:

Tzatziki – yogourt, cucumber & garlic (very refreshing)

Taramosalata – mash potato with carp eggs (it looks orange, maybe because of the carp eggs)

Dolmadadia – wine leaf with rice inside

Eggplant salad –(my new discovery! I love it! Never thought it can be so refreshing)

Skordalia – mash potato, garlic with vinaigrette

The calamari dish only comes with a little calamari, with rice and fried potato on the side. It is good but nothing special. It also comes with Lamb Bean stew with tomato sauce, which it is my first time. The bean is really soft and starchy; the tomato sauce adds a lot of flavor. I am wondering why it is called Lamb Bean?

Hong Kong Shrimp Paste –fishy smell to get rid of unwanted guests

Shrimp paste is made by grinding up salted, fermented shrimp and has a strong, salty, fishy flavor. I have never had it until I came to Canada (from most Cantonese restaurants). It is commonly used in South Asia cooking. Since I grow up in east china, I totally missed out many years of shrimp paste consumption. I have to make up for it from now on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimp_paste

Shrimp Paste can be bought in most Asian market. The bottle (see pic) is a travel souvenir from Hong Kong. Tiny shrimps are sun dried and made into paste on some small Hong Kong islands. There are many brands you can choose in Toronto’s Asian supermarkets also.

In Cantonese restaurant, I always order Xia Jiang Tong Cai (Tong Cai – certain kind of veggie with hollow stem, See Pic). The dish is about $12. The strong shrimp paste adds lot of flavor to the blank vegetable. Tong Cai is in season during the summer about $ 1 per pound in china town. They sell 2 kinds: the darker green is soil-based and lighter one is water-based. I prefer the greener ones for better nutrients.

Since I love it so much I started cooking it at home with shrimp paste and garlic. There is no extra salt needed since the shrimp paste is already salty. The paste adds a very strong fishy flavor to the dish, not everyone will love it. After cooking the whole house smells fishy, therefore is not recommended if you don’t have good ventilation. Some people will think the smell is repulsive. Look at the bright side: if you don’t want someone come to your home, e.g. your mother-in-law, you can try to cook the shrimp paste.

I am interested to know how other counties use shrimp paste. Wait till my next trip to South Asia.

King Oyster Mushroom- Eryngii

King Oyster Mushroom - Eryngii

I don't know why that I have a special feeling about mushrooms. They are so beautiful and delicates, comes with so many varieties and flavors. The other day I bought 2 packs ($6) of King Oyster Mushroom in Korean supermarket. It is interesting to find out that mushroom is also grown in part of Asia. But I never had it when I was a child.

It has many other names, check out the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_eryngii

The entire king oyster mushroom is edible. I cooked it with butter and white wine, some salt and fresh grounded black pepper. It is meaty and has a chewy texture. Of course the butter gave the mushroom a lot of flavors. I find another receipt on the net, which I will try next time.

http://www.insidetoronto.ca/news/Centre/Column/article/42934

There is interesting video on YouTube about a Korean female entrepreneur growing King Oyster Mushroom in Korean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX3RpD1M4EA

I have a dream of growing my mushrooms, but after watching that video, I think I am giving up.