Vinaigrette, aka Salad Dressing

Don't ever buy salad dressing.

1 part vinegar : 3 parts oil                     Shake.          Thats it.


Now you can get interesting. You can use any vinegar with any oil plus any flavouring you can think of, that's a lot of options.

Often add 1/2 part sweetener.

To make a nice thick dressing, add everything but the oil and then using a hand blender slowly drizzle in oil. You could even add an egg at the beginning, and have a mayonaisse based dressing, like caesar.

Add salt. Most people don't season their leaf enough if at all.

Squeeze two lemons into a mason jar. Add a spoon of honey and a spoon of mustard. Slowly add grapeseed oil while blending with hand blender. Keep adding oil slowly until dressing thickens. Add a chunk of chevre goats cheese and fresh picked thyme. Taste all the time, at the beginning with no oil it's very sour, when finished the flavour should be balanced and delicious.

Or think of something yourself..

Try adding herbs, spices, raw, dried or cooked fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds......

Confit

Confit. If you see this on a menu, order it. Don't question it and don't be silly. Order. Confit means love.
Actually it means cooked in fat, preferably it's own, but that's not always possible. Food is usually cured with salt and or sugar and aromats before being submerged in fat and cooked very slowly until tender. What more do you want?
Because confit foods are covered with fat, they are not in contact with oxygen and are therefore preserved. This style of cooking was a necessity before refrigeration. Originally referring to fruits cooked and preserved in sugar, the French perfected the art with meats like duck and goose.
Making Duck confit is easy and amazingly delicious. You would be really cool if you actually tried this.

Liberally cover the skin of your duck legs (thighs attached) with cure. 2 part rock sea salt : 1 part sugar + aromats, (traditionally bay leaves, garlic, thyme, black pepper, juniper berries, I like a whack of herbs too and pulsing in the food processor before adding the salt and sugar) leave in fridge loosely covered 24- 48 hours. Wipe off cure and submerge duck in fat. ( If you can't find duck fat you can use oil, but you should really go find duck fat). Put in oven below 300F. Duck is done when thigh bone can be pulled out with ease, 3-5 hours ish. Cool. Back in the day they'd sort of just keep this downstairs for months but I suggest the fridge. When you want to eat it, which is pretty much always, when you're actually ready to eat, make a pan hot. Gently (always gently (hands of a lesbian, tender yet firm)) remove duck from fat, and place duck skin down in hot pan. Don't move it. (Hot means when the duck hit the pan it goes spttzzzzzzz instantly but not so hot your pan is about to melt and everything goes black). Put pan in 350F oven for 10 min or so. You want the skin all super crispy. That's when it's done.. Put a little salad on a plate, put the duck down, drizzle with a gastrique. Wow.

Oil

All oils have a set temperatures at which they will begin to smoke, flash and burst into flame. When oil smokes the healthy molecules break down becomes carcinogenic.  FYI

You need extra virgin olive oil. It's health benefits have been promoted for centuries and it is used for most western based cooking and dressings EXCEPT when you DON'T WANT TO TASTE OLIVES, or you need HIGH HEAT. Olive oil has a very low smoke point, so don't use it for searing.It is good for sauteing but is the healthiest unheated.

Grapeseed oil. This stuff is great. It has pretty much no flavour and a high smoke point, so it's great for searing. Use anytime you don't want to taste olives. Anything Asian and olives is almost always weird and not so pleasant. (So don't use olive oil to make Asian food).. Grapeseed oil makes wicked salad dressing because you only taste the other ingredients.

Sesame oil. There are two types, made from roasted or raw seeds. By far the most common is the roasted, usually used for flavour rather than cooking. Be careful, a little goes a long way.

Some nuts make great salad and baking oils like walnut and hazelnut, but what you need is nice extra virgin and grapeseed for pretty much all your cooking.

Polenta

Polenta is quick, easy, cheap and ya, Delicious and Nutritious..
Polenta is cooked cornmeal. It's made delicious with butter and cheese. I love cheese.

Shop  cornmeal, (optional( right)) cheese, (whatever you like, parmesan, piave, mascarpone, gorgonzola), butter and the preserved lemon in your fridge...

1 part cornmeal 4 parts water. Boil 1 litre of water with a teaspoon of salt. 'Make it rain polenta,' (250mls) gently shake it into the water while whisking, like so..

Once you have whisked in all the cornmeal switch to a wooden spoon and turn heat to low. Cook stirring often for about 20minutes. You can tell it is done by putting it in your mouth, the bits of cornmeal should not be hard and when stirred vigorously it pulls away from the sides of the pot (somewhat).. Add a whack of butter ( I like a lot of butter on my corn, 1/4 Cup is coool..) hand-fulls of cheese, finely chopped preserved lemon, juice from one lemon. Taste it, add more salt and lemon probably... Now you are at one of the natural cross-roads of life. You can either eat your polenta as it is or you can pour it into a BUTTERED dish of a size that your polenta will be an inch and a half or so thick, let it cool, cut it and fry until crispy in a medium hot pan with oil.
That's it.

Preserved Lemon

Preserved Lemons are a staple of North African food. All you have to do is heavily salt lemons and leave it on your counter for a month. I like to use 1 part sugar to 2 parts salt. Classic aromatic flavourings are cinnamon, star anise, black pepper, bay leaf, chili. Leave spices whole.
Usually lemons are quartered lengthwise with the cuts not going through so the lemon is held together at the bottom. Cover each lemon with your cure (salt, sugar, spices) and pack into a jar. Agitate daily and the lemons will release juice that mixes with the cure to form the brine that not only keeps lemons edible for months in hot African sun, but makes them absolutely lemony delicious. You can use them anytime but they are really ready after a month or so, when they should be refrigerated. What you're really after on these little suckers is the yellow part of the skin. The white pith is really bitter. To use remove a lemon from the brine and give it a quick rinse. 'Filet' a quarter with a sharp knife so you have just yellow skin. This can be tricky. So here's a better way...

Wash lemons. Peel them with a vegetable peeler into a jar. Try to get just yellow, no white. Cut in half and juice lemons that now have no skins through a sieve into the jar. Add a Tablespoon of unrefined sugar and 2 Tablespoons of sea salt PER LEMON! (about). Add any aromats you like. Shake it. Leave it. For at least a week. Chop it up really small and mix into grain salads, put on vegetables, use with meats or to finish stews*...

*Citrus peel becomes very bitter when cooked too long, it's a finisher..

Happy Birthdaiye!!

Here's the menu from a birthday I did for a friend. We started with started with four little bites and then had some snacks..

 Asparagus, Proscuitto, Thyme Goat Cheese

Smoked Duck Breast, Cider Gel

Smoked Salmon, Pickled Beets, Lemon Dill Fraiche

Mushroom Crustini

Chicken Sticks, Peanut Sauce

Root Beer Beef, Polenta

Lamb Chop, Black Fennel

Garlic Prawns, Sweet Chili

Veggie Cakes, Rouille, Red Onion Jam

Scalloped Potatoes

Green Bean, Broccoli, Sesame, Onion

Farro 

It was Nutritious and oh so Delicious.. I'll post some recipes, if you want more just ask!

Caesar?

Mayonnaise is really easy to make. It is basically oil and an acid, (vinegar, lemon juice), which would normally separate when combined, held together by egg yolk. The trick is to add everything but the oil, blend on high with a hand blender on a stick and then slowly drizzle in the oil while blending.

AIOLI = MAYONNAISE WITH GARLIC IN IT. THAT'S IT.

SHOP LIST eggs, oil, vinegar or lemon juice, any flavourings you like, garlic, chili, herbs, pickles, spices, fruit, whatever...

Put three yolks in a mason jar. (Or something that's sorta tall and skinny that you can fit your hand blender into(that's not hand in blender please)). Add 75ml, 5Tablespoons, or a couple shots of vinegar, flavours (like garlic, anchovy, caper for Caesar dressing), blend. While blending drizzle in about 1Cup, 250mls oil. *be careful using too much olive oil, it can taste quite strong. I like half and half grapeseed and olive oil. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it. Finish with blending in herbs or mixing in chopped pickle or whatever. Use for anything you can think of ...

Vinegar

Wow. This stuff is amazing. Wild sour fermentations. Delicious. And Nutritious. I eat a lot of vinegar. It's great straight and amazing when slowly reduced with some aromatics and sometimes sweetener. French food has gastrique sauces, Chinese have sweet and sour, Indians chutney. We have... ketchup. Do not misunderstand. I love ketchup. But kinda weak...

VINEGARS YOU SHOULD HAVE AT ALL TIMES...

Apple cider vinegar
White wine vinegar
Red wine vinegar
Rice vinegar
** 'white' vinegar is for cleaning, keep away from your mouth

...go for it

Try this. 2Cups apple cider vinegar, 1/2Cup honey, dried chili, fennel seed, mustard seeds, little cinnamon stick, 2 cloves. Bring to boil and reduce slowly 40ish minutes, strain and continue reducing slowly until thickened slightly. Add finely chopped peeled apple. Adjust sweetness. Spoon over pork, duck, chicken....

Pancakes, Crepes

One of the things that got me into cooking.. I love crepes. They are quick and easy, sweet or savory and definitely Delicious and Nutritious.
Simple.
Crack 5 eggs into a large jug. Using a hand blender (blender on a stick, get one of these) blitz the eggs. Add 2 Cups of milk, blitz. Add 1 1/2 Cups flour, a pinch of salt, spices, (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cardamom, coriander) blitz. You might need a touch more flour. For thicker pancakes you need a thicker batter, for crepes a thinner batter works better. Crepes are better. Now comes the best part. Beurre Noisette. Browned Butter, awesome stuff. Put a whack of butter in a small pan, something between  a couple Tablespoon and a 1/4 Cup. Medium heat. Cook until butter turns light brown, just a few minutes. Don't burn it. If it goes black don't use it, it's disgusting and unhealthy. Let the butter cool slightly and pour into batter while mixing with blender. Let the batter rest 10 minutes or more. This lets the flavours meld and helps the batter hold together a bit more when cooking..
Large pan hot. Small amount of frying oil, make it hot. Add a 1/2 Cup of batter to the pan. Either swirl the pan so the batter covers the bottom or use a pastry cutter to spread the batter. Cook for a minute or so, flip once.
Butter it and do your thing, maple, chocolate, jam, yogurt, whipped cream, ice cream, fruit, whatever...
Yes they are very good but you really should share...

Lamb Stew

Stew is the best. It is a braised product. Read the Braising Guide. Braising is one of the best ways to cook; using tough cheaper cuts of meat, made deliciously sweet from thorough caramelization and then tenderized and infused with the cooks imagination with slow cooking.. Bloody delicious..


Make large cubes out of a lamb shoulder. One piece of meat per person size.. Make a cure by warming in a pan until fragrance is released a combination of fennel seeds, mustard seeds, chili, cumin seeds, anise seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, allspice. Take it easy on the last three. Otherwise up to you. Pulse in coffee grinder with 2 Tablespoons of rock sea salt and 2 Tablespoons of unrefined cane sugar. Rub the meat with the cure, be generous but not ridiculous.
Let the meat hang out in the fridge if you can and when ready to cook make a large pan nicely medium hot. Add oil to lightly cover the bottom and make it hot. Add the meat. Read the Braising Guide.

Add onions, garlic, ginger, caramelize. Add celery, carrots, tomatoes and stock. Boil, place in 350F oven. Cook 1 hour and add potato. Cook 1 more hour or until everything is tender. Serve over rice.

Braising

This is one of the best ways to cook. If you serve people braised food they will love you. It is economical, personal, delicious and nutritious. Use cuts of meat that have many small muscles held together with connective tissue. Pieces like shoulder and shank, if just cooked briefly on the BBQ are amazingly tough. The way to tenderize them is to cook in liquid until soft, usually about 2 to 4 hours. This is not boiling in large amounts of water, but using just enough flavour-full liquid to barely cover and left in a low oven until perfect. If you boil something in water the water will taste like your something and your something will taste like water. This is a guideline to braising. Like a guide to say BBQing, the options to interchange ingredients are endless. It is never the same and always a miracle. Use the ingredients you like, add a little more or less here or there, trust yourself.

General Guidelines

Season your meat with salt (sometimes sugar) and spices if you like (more about spice later). If possible let meat hang out in your fridge for a while, up to a week if you can keep it on a rack with air circulation. Don't use too much salt if leaving for over 48 hours. When you are ready to cook make a large pan quite hot. Dry off the meat if necessary, use a kitchen towel (it's ok, you can wash it). Put oil in the pan to cover the bottom and let it get hot. Put your meat in the pan gently, not overlapping. Don't overcrowd the pan. Really. Don't do it. Cook in batches if necessary. Now do nothing. Let your meat become very crispy on the first side before touching it. Now turn and make the other side crispy. Do this to all sides. Use medium heat so the meat can caramelize without burning. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP!!!! Do not rush. You do not rush braising. Be a big person and wait.

Once your meat is really actually very crispy you can add everything else. This consists of aromatic ingredients to flavour and liquid to flavour and tenderize. Common aromatics include onions, garlic, ginger, celery, carrot, leeks, fennel tomato and most fruits, herbs and spices. These can be cooked for a while in the pan to deepen their flavour before adding liquid or not.
Add liquid. Use anything you have in the house in combination. Vinegars, beers, wines, spirits, stocks and juices. Balance the sweetness. If you use a bottle of vinegar it will be sour as ...    but if you use a jug of apple juice to braise a pork shoulder you could use a cup or more of apple cider vinegar..
Bring the whole kit and kaboodle to a boil and then fire it into the oven at 325 F or so. Doesn't really matter. You can add potato, sweet potato, squash or yams, but generally they need half the time the meat does. This all depends how you cut them. Tiny little bits of potato cook in 15 minutes, while you can cook a whole potato for a couple hours. Cook until everything is tender, somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Keep tasting all throughout the cooking process. It is done when it's tender. If the meat is not tender it is not done. When it is done, eat it.
**Braised meat wants to cool in the liquid it was cooked in. The heat in the oven forces juices out of the meat, while it cools in the 'braissage' it sucks all that tasty liquid back in.
The very best thing to do is let it cool over night. Remove the congealed fat on the top. Warm the meat back up in the liquid, then reduce until it thickens slightly.

Meat

Generally speaking there are two categories of meat. Tender cuts of meat, pieces like yes, you guessed it, the tenderloin and the rib eye, striploin, sirloin and a few others. These meats will be cooked to a determined internal temperature. If you take a piece of beef and make the entire thing 55 degrees celsius, it will be a rare piece of beef. If you increase the temperature to 60 degrees celsius it will be a medium rare piece of beef. Another 5 degrees and it will be medium and so on, 70 degrees is well done beef and much beyond that you are making charcoal. This is non-negotiable. These pieces of meat are expensive. They should have nice marbled fat, but very little connective tissue, which is usually removed prior to cooking. Don't over-cook them. A helpful way to do that is to use high heat at first, making the outside crispy delicious and then finishing the inside at more gentle temperatures.

Now we can talk about tough cuts of meat. The world is confused. These pieces have more flavour, are more tender when finished and are cheaper. They just require a little technique to prepare. Easy. Use pieces  of meat with a lot of small muscles held together with connective tissue. Pieces like shoulder and shank. If one were to cook such a piece to a particular temperature like 60 degrees celsius it would certainly be medium rare but as tough as Chuck Norris. These meats need to be braised. Some people like to boil them do not ever do that. If you boil meat either stop now or stop reading. Braising is an amazing way to cook. You should try it. These meats are always well done and tender.

What does that mean???

This is for anyone who gets confused reading recipes. I'm sure you will still get confused reading recipes, but this could help.. This will will be an ongoing post.

Aioli = mayonnaise with garlic. Old school no egg.

Bake = turn your oven on between 200F and 400F. Put something in it. Now you are baking.

Broil = only the top burner of the oven is on, things burn very quickly here. Good for tuna melt and such.

Boil = drop it into a pot of boiling water. ya. Very few things get boiled. The violent water activity makes food look like you chewed it for people.

Braising = cooking food, usually meat which has been seared, in just enough liquid to barely cover in the oven. The slower the better. One of the best ways to cook. Thorough searing is the key.

Caramelize = cook food until it turns golden brown. Only occurs during the absence of water. A boiled potato will never turn golden crispy...

Dice = cut it into squares, small medium and large sizes

Simmer = the sexy option to boiling. Temperature is just  few degrees below boiling but the water doesn't destroy your food.

Saute = fry pan, stove top. Medium high heat. Food should 'jump' when it hits the pan.

Sweat = cook food without any browning

Sear = fry pan, high heat. Usually used to develop flavour by crisping food and then followed by another cooking technique.


TBC...

Salmon

Salmon is the s*^t. Awesome. This will be one of many.

I like to use skinned salmon filet for this recipe, ask your monger to pin bone it< We use large flathead tweezers. Don't serve people fish bones, you might kill them.
Into a pot add 1/4 Cup of each- maple syrup, mirin* and fish sauce, one of the most amazing ingredients ever.. anyone ever heard of garum?? so tight
Add a splash of soy sauce and put in whole peeled crushed garlic, ginger and chili
Bring to the boil and simmer for 15min. This will release more flavours eliminate the ethanol (alcohol). Everyone knows what pure ethanol, rubbing alcohol, smells like, yes?

WHEN COOKING WITH ALCOHOL, BURN OFF THE ALCOHOL. IT DOESN'T TASTE VERY NICE>>

when the concentration of alcohol is high enough it will burn, but only about 60% will burn off, simmerling gently for about 20 minutes will do the trick though. Alcohol boils at 78 degrees Celsius. If you gently simmer you will be able to remove the alcohol without reducing your, in this case, marinade too much.

Cool the marinade. If you put it in a hot marinade it will cook ya? Cover salmon in marinade. It will absorb enough flavour within a few hours, but can be kept for up to three days. (In the fridge please)

Bake briefly in oven, about  its done when its warm, there's only two people out there who like dry fish; old people and...

Most seafood really doesn't like very high heat, it overcooks very quickly so what I like to keep in mind is that once it is warm, it is done. That's it. Really.

I like to eat it with garlic and chili fried broccoli and wild rice salad.


Mirin is a sweetened Japanese rice wine used for cooking. It is delicious and is used to season many nutritious things like sushi rice and terryaki sauce.

Snapper

This is a quick and easy dish I learned from some Phillipinos while working on the SS Delphine in the Mediterranean. It's apparently quite traditional and though I have not been there yet I can tell you it is Delicious.... and Nutritious>

Crispy Snapper in Tomato Sauce

Dice some onion, chop garlic and ginger and chili, sweat in grapeseed oil. Once the onions are soft you can add tomato, fresh, canned or both, or you can cook onion mixture until caramelized for a deeper flavour. Up to you. Season liberally with fish sauce and a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. Cook for 30 min or longer, medium heat.
While tomato sauce cooks cut snapper filets in half after removing any bones. Season lightly with salt. Make a large pan hot, add enough oil to thoroughly cover the bottom. Make it hot. Add snapper and don't do anything. You will flip the fish once only, when it is very very cripsy on the first side. Seriously, don't touch it.

The key to this dish is making the fish really very extra super crispy. Cook it until it is crispy. But not burnt, not too high heat. Burnt is not crispy, burnt is bad and gives you cancer.

Once your fish is crispy add it to the sauce. Simmer a few moments. Serve over rice, or tonight it's quinoa.

Bon appetite

Breakfast Smoothy

Anyone ever find themselves rushing out the door in the morning skipping breakfast?? This might help.

Buy a nice blender.
Put in a big handful of granola, add healthy sprinkles like flax seed, chia seed (great for long-term energy and making you feel full), hemp harts, add coconut, almond or rice milk to cover, (cows milk is for baby cows and making cheese and butter, but we'll talk about that later), make into a paste. You can add other crazy things like bee pollen, kale, spinach or parsley...if your wife makes you..
Add whatever frozen fruit, banana, yogurt and top with any juice and blend on high.
You might want sweetener, use something natural like maple syrup, agave syrup, or honey.
Enjoy your Delicious & Nutritious Smoothy.

Hello Hungry People!!!

Be careful<< this could make you hUngry..

My name is Boyd Simmerling and I have been a professional cook for ten years. I have worked and traveled throughout Canada, Australia, the Mediterranean and Central America.

I really, really love food. I love expensive food like foie, truffles and Kobe, but who doesn't? Even the most expensive ingredients can be ruined by improper preparation, poor company or the wrong atmosphere. What I'm always searching for is the perfect meal. It doesn't have to be expensive and can be found seemingly anywhere. 

For me a perfect meal is that exact combination of food, drink, company and environment. I've had many as I'm sure you have..

Hot lobster, melted butter, keg lager, in the sun, by the water..

Street tacos after wandering out of a tequila bar in Mexico...

Fresh Oysters and Champagne..

A thick piece of seared foie gras with some kind of fruit gastrique(sweet and sour), shaved truffles warmed in butter, on spiced frogbread..

Kobe Tartar..

GyozaKing, datenight with the wife.

Pupusas, after surfing all day in el Tunco, made by little old ladies laughing at you for ordering your twelfth.

Shepherd Pie after skiing all day. With Ketchup.

Anything. 4am.


I love all food so far except for gruel, nasty porridge. Disgusting. I love to learn about new food and share with people what I know.

Everyone I have met has had something to teach me about food.

PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN TO COOK.

I can help. Ask questions.

I love to make dinner and you are welcome to join me but if you can't make it maybe something here will help you make a Delicious & Nutritious dinner all on your very own. You're Special.

This will be about the many things I know and the infinite questions there are about food.

Blessings on the meal.