2013 March | Sybaritica

Date of Visit: March 11, 2013

I was tempted to visit this place on a couple of past trips to Ottawa and finally got around to it on my most recent excursion to the capital. I really wasn’t sure if I was going to like it or not, having perused their website a few times, but I actually had a very nice time and enjoyed a really pleasant meal… Read more

In my post back on March 9, I mentioned that I would be leaving in two days for a trip to Ottawa. It was a very pleasant trip, with lots of restaurants visited and interesting food purchases made, but my return, less than a few hours ago, was not quite as nice. My wife left for a business trip to the western Arctic a few days ago and sometime following her departure some dickhead broke in to our house…

Thankfully, there is very little damage, just a bit of mess from drawers and cupboards being searched, and only a few things taken. Our Blu-Ray player was stolen, as well as a bottle of wine and some cigars, but other than those things and some food, little else is missing as far as I can tell. The miscreant (and this has all the hallmarks of a single individual entry) tried to take our television (it was sitting in the hallway) and it is evident that he gave up the attempt as too much effort. Anyway, I have notified the police but I don’t imagine too much will come of it… Read more

In Chinese cookery, a ‘master sauce’ is less a ‘sauce’ than it is a complex and re-usable, aromatic broth that is used to serially cook various meats and other foods, thus both giving and developing its own new depths flavor. With each use, the stock becomes richer and can be prolonged (as long as certain care is taken to prevent spoilage) for a very long time. Whether strictly true or not, it is claimed that there are master sauces that have been in continual use for generations.

The Chinese word for master sauce is:

The first character, ‘鹵’, is pronounced ‘lǔ’ and means brine, while the second, pronounced ‘shuǐ’, means ‘water’. Together, the two characters are most frequently translated as ‘marinade’. For today’s post, I am simply going to begin a batch but, over the next few months, I shall be using the result to cook a series of meals and will keep you posted as to the development of the sauce over time…

When I featured a commercial brand of Tum Yum Soup Paste in a recent post, it struck me that the paste, in addition to a number of non-soup applications, might be nice flavor base for fried rice and, since I had half a fresh pineapple, I thought I might combine the two.

Serving fried rice in a pineapple shell is not uncommon, especially in Thai restaurants, and, besides being attractive, it is the sort of dish that permits an almost endless range of permutations. Some of the pineapple flesh is always included of course, and shrimp seems to be quite a popular addition. Sometimes, the rice is very plainly seasoned but I also see Thai curry pastes being used as a flavor base and, for this exercise, the Tom Yum paste should work admirably as well. Instead of shrimp, I am going to use some Cuttlefish flesh I have frozen from a previous purchase, along with black mushrooms, some diced ham, and a little green and red bell pepper… Read more

Well, no real post today; more of a brief rant and an announcement…

This past week, I don’t mind telling you, was the court circuit from hell. Last Saturday, my colleague and I, along with two Crown Prosecutors, flew up to Hall Beach, and then, later in the week, decamped for Igloolik for the regular court sittings. It was grueling work with long hours and a great deal of frustration.

The gentleman with the hat pulled over his eyes is my co-defense counsel, Christian Lyons. He is pictured here deeply absorbed in mentally planning his cross-examination in one of the many trials we each faced in the upcoming week (at least, I think that is what he was doing). The woman behind is Delinda, a ‘fly-in’ Prosecutor from Ottawa and she, and Christian and Barry (the other Prosecutor) helped to make the very trying week somewhat more bearable… Read more

After featuring Chinese Dried Scallops in a recent ‘Foodstuffs’ post, I decided to use some in a very simple vegetable preparation that beautifully illustrates how this basic, yet flavorful ingredient can enhance an otherwise plain dish. Baby Bok Choy is a favorite vegetable in our household and the succulent greens really do well when treated this way… Read more

Preserving pork and other meats is quite common in cuisines around the world but this particular Chinese product, essentially a fattier cousin of the more familiar of jerky, is a favored treat in my kitchen. The appeal for me is that pork belly, when cured with salt and sugar, takes on a wonderfully fragrant sweetness that mimics the flavor of dried-apples. It is a fatty treat, to be sure… a fact which might make some cautious about eating it… but, in fact, since the cured rashers are typically used in small amounts to flavor other ingredients, you still may wish to give it try.

By the way, curing pork belly in this fashion is not that difficult in the home kitchen and, sometime in the coming months, I promise to do a post on the topic. For now however, I just want to feature one of the many commercial products available in most Asian groceries… Read more

In my recent ‘Foodstuffs’ post featuring Jack Hua Brand Sour Soup Paste, I promised that I would use the versatile paste in a pork dish rather than the typical Tom Yum soup for which it was designed. I had been meaning to do a stir-fry using pork tenderloin but, since I also planned to use fresh pineapple (as opposed to canned) along with the pork, I had to put the experiment on hold until the fresh article turned up on our store shelves again. I thought of substituting something else instead of the pineapple but I was pretty sure that the Tom Yum Soup paste would go nicely with the rich sweetness of the fruit… Read more