Another Family Favorite :)

Since my family is French Canadian, many of our traditional dishes come from our French heritage. French cooking is known for its culinary art and of course: its butter :). Being in Spain, this can be controversial... I know of a few people that do not know how to cook with butter or have never bought it! My mouth just dropped to the floor when they told me that; come on, some dishes do NOT have the same flavor and texture if cooked in oil. I am not an avid butter user but you do need it for certain recipes and for almost any dessert.

Ok, back to my family favorite. What else could it be than this simmering amazing stew called Boeuf Bourgignon :) The name alone brings water to my mouth. I had only done it a few times but this one really came out the best. I still give the credit to the pancetta I used instead of bacon or lard. It brought that tangy saltiness that was to die for. So here is my simple boeuf bourgignon recipe (I call it simple as it does not have so many steps as others).

Boeuf Bourgignon served with Garlic Egg Noodles

Ingredients:

500grs beef cubes
1/3 red wine bottle (bourgignon if you have, I used a good Spanish Rioja)
2 cups beef broth
100grs pancetta or bacon
500grs egg noodles
200grs mushrooms
100grs pearl onions (not easy to find here so I used regular sweet onion)
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove
4 tbsps butter
2 tbsps flour
1 tbsp sugar
salt and pepper
parsley
thyme
oil

Preheat your oven at 180C.

Cut the pancetta into small pieces. In a pot or dutch oven, add some oil and heat. When ready, brown the pancetta.

When it has browned, reserve and brown the meat pieces. Some people add salt and pepper but I prefer to not add the salt in order to keep the meat moist inside.

After about 10 minutes, remove the meat and reserve.

Add the wine to the pot while scrapping off the meat drippings at the bottom.

Bring to a boil and reduce for a few minutes.

Add the broth and spices (thyme, parsley and bay leaf).

Bring to a boil. When the broth is boiling, add the meat and pancetta. Adding the meat when the broth is boiling helps keep the moisture in the meat as it seals it off. Cover and cook in the oven for about 2 hours.

If the meat is super soft and breaks apart easily, you don't need to cook it more. If it is still hard, put it back in the oven, it will get soft at one point. So just keep on cooking it!

In a pan, add a bit of oil and heat.

Slice the onion or use your pearl onions. Add to the pan with a splash of water, the sugar and a bit of salt. Blanch for a few minutes. (obviously, the pearl onions need more cooking time than the regular onion)

When the onion is ready, remove from the pan and add the the stew.

Add 1 tbsp butter to the same pan, slice the mushroom and add to the butter when ready. Add some parsley, salt and pepper. Cook until tender.

Remove from the pan and add to the stew as well.

In a large pot, bring some water and salt to a boil. You can now cook your egg noodles as your stew is just about ready.

Now, the trick here is to make a nice roux in order to thicken the stew.

In the same sauce pan (I hate washing my dishes as you can see ;) ), add 2 tbsps of butter. When it has melted, add the flour and whisk well together. Cook it a little.

Now slowly, add some of the broth from the stew while whisking.

And there you have your roux. Add it to the stew and mix well.

To make sure the texture is perfect, bring it to a simmer on the stovetop. Helps the roux blend in perfectly and thicken up a bit more.

Drain your noodles and add a bit of butter (to taste, I added 1 tbsp), some parsley and some pressed garlic. Garlic butter egg noodles are the best!!

Mix well.

Serve the boeuf bourgignon on top of the egg noddles and there you have it. Full of great flavors blending in for the perfect match.

I served it with some cooked spinach to add some greens.

Here is a close-up of the stew.

Bon appétit à tous :)

POGOS!

Gotta love those Corn Dogs! I actually had to google to find out the real name since in Quebec everybody calls them Pogo (brand name).

I never thought I would end up making these at home, but, then again, I never thought I would be living in Spain one day! No corn dogs here! We were craving them the other day so off to google I went. Actually turns out they are pretty easy to make. My major concern was the wooden stick as the typical corn dog one is not sold here. I ended up using those disposable wooden chopsticks; worked like a charm!

So here goes my take on the Corn Dog recipe.

Corn Dogs

Ingredients:

20 hot dog sausages (I only made ten but the batter can make 20 perfectly)
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp baking powder
1 1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup corn meal
1 tsp paprika

In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, oil and sugar.

Add the baking powder, salt, paprika, corn meal and flour. (I used 2/3 flour and 1 1/3 corn meal and the texture did not form enough dough around the sausage when it cooked, so I decided to add more flour than corn meal. It worked better for me.)

Take the sausages, and stick a chopstick through each one.

Sprinkle the sausages with flour to prevent the batter from sliding off of them.

Using a glass tall enough to cover the sausages, fill it with the batter.

Take one of the sausages and cover it with batter.

Shake off excess batter.

In a large pan or deep fryer (works a LOT better in a fryer), fry the pogos. I realized that if the oil was too hot, the batter would open up. So don't overheat it.

3 at a time.

Remove from oil and drain with a papel towel the excess oil.

And there you have it! Super easy to make and a lot better than store bought :)

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did :)

The Wonders of Quinoa

Quinoa is a great substitute for rice. It is heatlhy and tastes great. I cooked it a few months ago for David and he actually liked it. Perfect! Another item added onto the good side of the list :) A while back, during one of our numerous food topic conversations at work, a coworker told me that she makes it with brocoli and that it was delicious. I took my try at it, and it turned out great! As a side dish or main one, the mix of textures between the quinoa and brocoli make a perfect blend. So here is my take on the brocoli quinoa.

Brocoli Quinoa

Ingredients:

1/2 brocoli
1/2 leek
2 garlic cloves
1 cup quinoa
1/4 white wine
2 cups of veggie broth
1 tbsp rice seasoning
salt and pepper
oil

Cut the leek and garlic and chop the brocoli into small pieces.

In a pan, add some oil and heat. When ready, add the leek and garlic.

After a few minutes, add the brocoli.

Cook for a few minutes. Add the wine and let reduce.

Add the quinoa and coat well.

Add the broth, rice seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook for about 20 minutes. You can also cover it to cook evenly. (As you can see from the picture, I switched my quinoa to a pot as I used the pan to cook some pork escalopes)

Super easy and quick recipe. You can basically mix in any veggies that you want. Have fun with it! :)

Un Bon Pâté Chinois: Canadian Shepherd's Pie

Steak, Blé d'inde, patate! Pour tous ceux qui ont grandit connaissant La Petite Vie, cette fameuse expression vous est familière. Assez simple non: du steak couvert par du blé d'inde et des patates. :)

Ok, to the rest of Canada, this dish is called Shepherd's Pie. Personally, I don't understand why it is called this way when the French Canadians call it Chinese Pie... There is a pretty interesting and valid explanation for the name of this wonderful dish. Back when the railroads were being built in Western Canada, most of the labor came from China (cheap and close by). In order to feed the workers, they would prepare some sort of stew mixture that included the most available and cheap ingredients in the region: Meat, corn and potatoes. They would mix it together and serve it to the workers. Now, rumor has it that some French Canadians working on the railroads would call it the Chinese Pie as it was made for the workers who were mostly Chinese. They brought the recipe back to Easter Canada as they liked it so much and since then, every French Canadian home has been serving this delicious dish. I think that it is one of the dishes that best represents Canada. Some of the world's best meat, corn and potatoes are found there.

So, David LOVES Pâté Chinois.... He freaking loves it. If it was up to him, we would be eating this meal once a week minimum. Everytime I ask him for advice on what to serve for guests that are coming over, I always have to stop him before he answers and tell him: Don't say Pâté Chinois!!! He laughes and says that, in that case, he has no idea. I personally like this dish but would not serve it to guests (except if we want to make them try a typical Canadian dish) as I find it not fancy enough. Mister was pretty happy when I told him that Pâté Chinois was on the menu thursday night!

I have converted quite a few Spaniard to this meal. Actually, one of my friends does it at home since they liked it so much.

Pâté Chinois

Ingredients:

500grs ground beef
500grs corn
8 potatoes
1/2 onion
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp paprika
2 tbsps butter
1/3 cup milk
salt and pepper
oil

Preheat oven at 200C.

Peel and cut the potatoes. In a large pot, cover the potatoes with water, cover and bring to a boil. Keep boiling for about 20 minutes.

Cut the onion. In a large pan, add some oil. When ready, sweat the onion for a few minutes.

Add the meat and cook while breaking it into small pieces.

Add the spices.

Set the meat aside and let rest for a few minutes to remove the excess broth. Add the meat to an oven dish forming a layer and pressing it down.

On top, add the corn and form a nice layer.

When the potatoes are done (using a fork, check the texture), drain the water.

Add the butter, milk, salt and pepper. Using a masher, mash the potatoes.

After a few minutes and a few sweats, your mashed potatoes are ready.

I use the masher to place it on top of the corn. This way makes it easier to spread without having the corn sticking to the potatoes and mixing into the top layer.

Using a knife, spread it evenly.

Sprinkle some paprika on top. My mom usually adds bacon but I didn't have any...

Bake for about 20 minutes.

Before serving, let it rest for about 10 minutes. First because it will be burning hot and second it will be easier to serve it. Using a knife, separate the pie from the sides and cut into the amount of pieces desired.

And there you have it! A true Canadian recipe :)

Oh, forgot the mention, the usual method to eat this is by mixing it all together and adding ketchup. Don't ask me why, I don't like ketchup so I never add it... but David is a true French Canadian and you cannot serve him Pâté Chinois without his Heinz Ketchup!

Here is a preview of his plate:

Don't get fooled by the picture. This dish is always a winner at the kitchen table. If David could, he would lick the plate :P

One of Spain's Signature Dishes: Spanish Omelette

So when one thinks of Spain and food, the first things that come to mind are Paella, Jamon, Chorizo and of course, the Spanish Omelette. Just the name says it all, the spanish omelette :)

In every single bar you go to you can find this simple yet tasty dish ready to eat as a tapa or pincho. What better combination than eggs and potatoes?! It just blends together perfectly. Yet there still it a bit of technique involved. After my first attempt, I quickly learned that the potatoes need to be realllllllllly cooked and almost mashed in order to get the right texture in the omelette. So here goes my perfected recipe :)

Tortilla de Patatas

Ingredients:

2 potatoes
4 eggs
1/2 onion
oil
salt

The general rule is 2 eggs per potato, so if you want to make more, keep following that rule.

In a small pan, add oil and heat. In the meantime, peel and thinly slice the potatoes. I use my hand blender with the slicer attachment and it gives me a perfect cut. When the oil is ready, add the potatoes and fry.

Finely chop the onion.

Keep frying until the potatoes mash themselves just by moving them around. They need to be really well done. Remove from the oil and place into a bowl.

Add the onion.

Let rest for a few minutes to make sure that when you add the eggs they won't cook right away.

In a small bowl, break the 4 eggs and whisk hard for a few minutes with a fork. David's aunt insists that it be a fork and not a whisk. So you gotta use a fork :)

Add the egg mixture to the potatoes and mix well.

In the same pan, heat the oil from the potatoes. When ready, pour the mixture into it.

After about 10 minutes at medium high, you have to flip it around. I use my wonderful Vuelve Tortilla:

For those not fluent in Spanish it means Omelette flipper. My mom uses it all the time now for any kind of omelette :)

Place the vuelve tortilla face down onto the pan. You can now see why I love my omelette flipper, it has a handle on the back :) Works wonders! You can use a regular plate but it's way easier with this one.

Now, over the sink (just in case it spills a bit), flip the pan around quickly holding the flipper onto it. Return the pan to the fire.

Now slide back gently the tortilla into the pan cooked side up.

Cook for about another 10 minutes. You can check the texture by touching it. It should be pretty firm if cooked.

Remove from the pan and let rest a few minutes.

You can cut it into squares or pie pieces. Whatever suits your style. I went square style :)

Buen provecho!