Lex Culinaria

Homemade lemon curd

I started making lemon curd in 2000. I was living in a gorgeous little cottage around the back of an old 1930's townhouse complex. My little cottage had a small and sweet front garden with the biggest nicest lemon tree ever. It was literally raining lemons in my front yard most every day that I lived there - admittedly a short period of time as I was living with the craziest roommate on earth. But I very swiftly grew to love that tree. And the discovery that I could make homemade lemon curd so tart and fresh and divine, that it resembled the bottled stuff not at all. Sigh.

For Australia Day last week, the local Antipodean social club  -  the Downunder Club of Edmonton - got together for a great barbie bash at a local pub. Complete with a pavlova contest. How could I say no to a pav cookoff? I tell you, I was up at the crack of dawn (well, maybe not the crack of dawn, but easily 6:45) to get my meringue in the oven. Pavs are traditionally made with kiwi and strawberry (or passionfruit) for the fruit topping, but technically any in-season fruit will do. bear in mind though, that the meringue base is pretty sweet, so a tart fruit is the best bet. We're just starting to get Mexican rasperries here, and I do love a good lemon tart with fresh raspberries, so I whipped up a batch of lemon curd to go with the meringue and cream and berries and it sure went down a treat.

Even if you're not making pav, give this lemon curd a go. It makes a great tart filling if you add an extra yolk or two.

• 375 ml fresh lemon juice
• 4 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 whole large eggs plus one egg yolk
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, soft

Beat all ingredients, except butter, together using an immersion blender. Heat over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisking occasionally. When mixture starts to get hot, whisk in the butter. Continue whisking until mixture thickens significantly to the consitency of warm custard. Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh seive to remove the larger bits of zest. Chill by pressing cling wrap to the surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Andouille and Grit Cakes

Have you got any idea how hard it is to find crawfish meat in Edmonton? No? Well, it's darn hard. Being the Prairies and all. So I am lucky I had my wits about me a couple of months ago when I spotted the frozen crawfish tails in the Swedish food market in Ikea.

I grabbed 3 packets at the time and socked them away in my deep freeze. And thank god. Because I couldn't find a single place that carried frozen crawfish meat when I was out procuring provisions for last week's New Orleans feast nite! And believ me, I looked everywhere.

Since all we had available to us was one pound of treasured crawfish, we didn't have enough to make Randy's Crawfish Pie, which is the main dish that we prepared and ate on our actual New Orleans Feast night a year ago. But, honestly, we didn't feel like reliving the 10-pound-apeice-weight-gain we experienced in New Orleans either. And Randy's pie is calorific. Plus, there was no way were were going to skip the bbq shrimp - and that calls for an ungodly lot of butter!

However, I think the deciding factor in tyring this recipe was that I couldn't find a way to work grits into the meal if our main dish was going to be crawfish pie.

Polenta cakes are quite nice with stew-y type stuff on top, so why not a nice crawfish etoufee on top of grit cakes?

While I was mulling this over, I stumbled upon Emeril's recipe for andouille grit cakes with spicy crawfish on top and they seemed the perfect thing.

The grit cakes were my favourite part, expecially since Joan was able to find actual andouille sausage. If you can't find Andouille where you're located, a spicy Chiorizo or hot Italian sausage will do the trick. The grit cakes would be a great accomaniment to all sorts of things and I reckon they'd be fantastic in place of the standard mini risotto cakes if you were after something finger-foody. They hold together really well and, because I used Panko, the outside was super crispy.

I wasn't too crazy about the crawfish stew on top. It was pretty unsightly - sort of a creepy violent salmony colour and honestly, didn't taste any better or more interesting than a prepackaged etoufee you might buy in the supermarket. These  hard-to-come-by crawfish tails should have been done greater justice with a different preparation, alhtough I haven't quite worked out how yet. It also really gets under my skin that Emeril's recipe calls for "Emeril's Essence", which is one of his commercially packaged spice blends, as its primary seasoning. And, frankly, when celebrity chefs do that sort of thing, I it offputting as it takes away my ability to judge what I want in the recipe according to my own tastes and it seems like a shameless way of making more money by forcing people to buy a product they otherwise would have little use for when it's probably no more innovative a seasoning than all the rest of them.

I've adapted the grit cakes recipe to suit my own tastes. Because that's what I do with recipes. If you have a crawfish etoufee recipe that you particularly like, I'd say use that instead of the topping recipe on Emeril's recipe page. These cakes deserve better than that.

For the grit and sausage cakes: (will make 6 quite large ones)

• 1/2 pound cooked andouille sausage, chopped quite fine
• 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1-2 teaspoons salt (depending on how salty your broth is)
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 cups coarse white grits
• 1 cup grated white cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup panko
• 2 eggs, beaten with 2 tablespoons of water
• 1/2 cup canola oil

Combine sausage, broth, salt, cayenne, and butter and bring to a boil. Stir in the grits and reduce the heat to medium. Cook, covered, for 25 to 30 minutes (or whatever the cooking time is noted on the package), until the grits are tender and creamy. Add the cheese and parsely and stir through. Pour the grits into large flat tupperware (large enough so that the grits form a layer about an inch thick) and use a large spoon or your fingers to even the layer out and smooth the top. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. You can make the grits ahead of time and just leave them in the fridge until you're ready. Using biscuit cutter, cut the grits into six rounds. Season the flour and breadcrumbs with salt and pepper. batter the cakes by coating each first with flour, then with egg and finally with panko. Set the coated cakes aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large, deep pan, such as a stir-fry pan, over medium heat. When the oil is hot enough that a few panko crumbs start to brown when you drop them in, Add the cakes. Cook each side until nicely browned, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove cooked cakes from oil and place on a paper towel to drain. You can place the fried cakes on a cookie sheet in a 250F oven to keep warm for up to 25 minutes while you prepare the remainder of the meal.

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!

I woke up this morning feeling very patriotic about my adopted second home. Hardly surprising given the outcome of the recent election here, eh? Political commentary aside, I did wake up this morning with the tune of Advance Australia Fair running through my head!

And do you know why, possums?

It's Australia Day.

In honour of Australia's birthday, I coked up a great Australian snack tradition: Lamingtons. And I have the burnt fingers to prove it!

Purportedly lamingtons were invented as a way for good Aussie housewives to use every last scrap of the left over cakes that might have gone a little stale. How all these Australian households had these acres of left over cake at risk of going stale is beyond me. In our house, cake never lives long enough to even contemplate getting halfway to stale.

I am not quite sure how this part of the history of the lamington - as a thrifty housewive's trick - meshes with the other part of lamington history - that it is named after Baron Lamington, but there you go. I'm sure it all fits together very neatly in an Australian sort of way. There may be beer involved.

Essentially, lamingtons are little squares of sponge cake sandwiched together with jam in the middle, coated with a chocolatey fondant icing and rolled in coconut. Sound easy? Let me explain the burnt fingers.... You see, it's virtually impossible to get the icing onto the little squares of cake - the cake is crumby, the icing is sticky. If the icing is too thick, it tears the surface off the cake. If its hot enough to be thin, you'll burn your fingers on the sugar. That is why, although I started with 60 little nude lamingtons perched hopefully on the counter, only 30 of the little buggers got chocolate and coconut coats. I give up. Besides, it's hard to dip the little cakes in chocolate when all your fingers are covered with massive heat blisters.

Lamingtons are tasty little treats, but very sweet. So unless you've got a real sweet tooth, or you're a fair dinkum Aussie with a lamington addiction and are on a huge nostalgia trip, the burnt fingers may not be worth it...

If you're still keen to try your hand at these - have a go at this recipe, but I'd suggest slightly more milk (or some rum or vanilla) in the icing mix so that it's a little runnier without being too hot. If the icing in the pot starts to set up while you're still working, just bung it back on the stove for a minute or two to melt it up a little.

I've been to cities that never close down
From New York, to Rio, and old London Town.
But no matter how far, or how wide I roam
I still call Australia home...

-Peter Allen

Annual N'awlins Feast!

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? - the Dixieland Ramblers

Last Friday marked the one-year anniversary of my trip to New Orleans. I feel truly blessed to have been before Katrina, and I know I'll be back soon to do my part to help her recover. You see, I fell in madly in love with her. I had suspected I would for years before I went, so it was a bit like coming home when it actually happened. Kind of like falling in love with an old friend that you've had feelings for for years, but never had the opportunity to act on and when you finally do...WOW! I can't imagine not seeing her again. I've been thinking about her a lot lately. I've been checking the Times-Picayune's website regularly, just to see how she's coming along.

Strolling with Cakes and our friends, Joan and Kevin, from our lodging on Esplanade Avenue to the French Quarter I could (and did) spend days wandering the streets, in awe of the gorgeous buildings, the friendly and easygoing people, the beautiful food, the special New Orleans feeling of celebration of all that is beautiful in life. Sure there's a gritty side to New Orleans, but that's part of her charm too - the paint peeling from buildings 150 years old and the dark little alleyways. I don't mean to intimate that the city's social problems are quaint, because they're rather more horrifying than quaint, but there's a real and alive texture to New Orleans that you don't find in uber-sterile thoroughly modern cities. It's rather like the difference between sugar-free, fat-free ice cream and the real thing, made slowly, with plenty of cream and without a thought given to calories. Eating the first kind might allow you to live longer, but the second one is a hell of a lot nicer to eat and, provided you show a little restraint once in a while, the improvement in your enjoyment of life is more than worth the cost of those extra few days tacked on before you die.

In memory of the afternoon Joan and I spent in Randy's kitchen and the fine, fine Southern meal we got to enjoy with some of our dearest friends as a result - Joan and I got together again this weekend to recreate that meal  (with a few modifications).

The menu this year consisted of:

Randy's Sinful BBQ Shrimp (based on Randy's recipe, but with only 1/4 pound of butter plus the juice of 1 lemon)

Grits and Andouille Sausage Cakes topped with Spicy Crawfish Sauce (recipe coming soon!)

Green Salad with Glen's Mamma Ro's Salad Dressing.

Randy's bread pudding (this stuff is like crack!)

And was every bit as tasty as the supper we made with Randy. Although we missed his fun ole' self in the kitchen...

I've had a few emails from Glen and Randy recently, letting me know how they are doing. They're back in New Orleans and their B&B was relatively undamaged, but business is slow and, like everyone else in that beautiful city, they're tyring to get back on their feet. If you're planning a trip to New Orleans, give them a call to see if they've got room. Glen's breakfasts are out of this world and their warmth and hospitality (not to mention killer Bloody Marys) will make your stay more special than words can say. And a free tip: if Randy & Glenn recommend a restaurant? Go. And have what they tell you to have.

Meme of Sevens...

...with bonus picture of the cutest cat in the whole of Western Canada...

I've been tagged by Tania of Candied Quince for the Seven Meme, for whom it was a first meme. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what a meme is, just click here.

7 Things to Do Before I Die:

1. Write a book.
2. Help as many other people as possible.
3. live to work instead of working to live.
4. Buy a chunk of heaven on Vancouver Island, Tasmania or by the Andaman Sea.
5. Have a donkey as cute as Dan.
6. Become a better person.
7. Spend the time to get really good at yoga (well, as good as my gimpy shoulders will let me).

7 Things I Cannot Do:

1. Sit still for more than 5 minutes.
2. Understand how some people can be so rude.
3. Imagine life without my husband.
4. Accept that it's 'part of life' for people to be hungry or homeless.
5. Stomach Ralph Klein.
6. Bear to return things I've bought.
7. Stomach John Howard.

7 Things that Attracted Me to Blogging:

(actually, this is more a list of things that keep me blogging rather than the initial reasons that started me blogging - which, I think is more enlightening)

1. It allows me an outlet for my modest amount of creativity.
2. The interaction with other food bloggers - some of whom I've learned a great deal from.
3. The kick in the arse to step outside my kitchen comfort zone.
4. The inspriation to refine my cooking and photography skills.
5. The flexibility of the medium - I can engage in my hobby when it suits me.
6. It's an easy way to communicate with akll sorts of people I wouldn't have the means to connect with individually.
7. A ready-made community that shares my interests and laughs at my stupid jokes.

7 Things I Say Most Often:

1. “I can't help you if won't tell me what's wrong.” (to cat)
2. “Who loves his mummy?” (to cat)
3. “I'll just be five minutes.” (to husband)
4. “Why did they cancel Earth 2?” (to self)
5. “I miss Melbourne.” (to self)
6. “At least it's a dry cold.” (to anyone who cares to comment on the fact that, climactically speaking, my choice to move from Melbourne to Edmonton is, at best, baffling.)
7. “Where's Fish-Fish?” (to cat)

7 Books I Love:

1. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
2. Village of the Small Houses by Ian Fergusson
3. Mao's Last Dancer by Lee Cunxin
4. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
5. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
6. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
7. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

7 Movies I Watch Over and Over:

1. “Bridget Jones' Diary”
2. “Apocalypse Now”
3. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone”
4. “Pirates of the Caribbean”
5. “Fargo”
6. “Cinderella Man”
7. “the Matrix”

7 Bloggers I’m Tagging:

I seem to have caught the tail end of this one, so I'll just leave it open.

Herb and Garlic Roast Chicken

One recipe you can count on every Western food lover having in their repertoire is a great, standard roast chook recipe. Everyone's got a different twist:

• Do you stuff onoins or lemons or abnsolutely nothing up it's bottom?
• Do you baste or not?
• Do you slip some extras fat, butter or oil between the skin and the breast?
• What herbs and spices do you use, or are more of a good ole' salt an pepper cook?
• Do you cook long and low or hot and fast?

There are lots of different ways to make a great roast chook. Mess around and see what you like best. Maybe it's time for a change from the same old roast chook recipe you've been using since time immemorial.

I love a good roast chook. Especially an organic free-range happy chicken, like our friend Ron sells at the Strathcona Farmer's Market. I've had a few standard roast chook recipes that I've used through the years, and they're all great, but I'm feeling the need to shake things up a bit so I tried a new method this time around.

This one delivers a crispy skin and juicy interior without any basting at all, which, in my books already puts it ahead of the rest.

• 1 - 5.5 lb organic free range chicken
• 1/3 cup soft butter
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 + 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 large sprig thyme
• 2 garlic cloves, bruised
• 1 jumbo shallot (or 6 regular shallots), peeled and quartered

Allow bird to come to room temperature by removing it from the refrigerator 2 hours before you intend to start cooking it.

Preheat oven to 450F.

Rinse the bird and pat dry inside and out with paper towels.

Use your hand to loosen skin from breast of chicken. Cream together softened butter, minced garlic, minced thyme and rosemary and 1 + 1/2 teaspoons salt. Use your hands to distribute the butter mixture evenly between the breast meat and the loosened skin.

Combine 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Use your hands to apply it to the inside of the cavity. Stuff cavity loosely with thyme and rosemary sprigs, shallot and bruised garlic.

Truss the chicken.

Sprinkle an additional 1 teaspoon salt over chicken. Place in roasting pan, breast side up.

Roast chicken for 90 minutes.

Great Dining for $10!

The restaurants of Original Fare have come up with a winning recipe guaranteed to help Edmontonians top up their winter padding through the dark, cold months of January and February.

From January 22nd to February 2nd, select Edmonton Restaurants will be offering special $10 dishes from Sunday through Thursday nights! Before you convince yourself that a $10 meal couldn't possibly be worthwhile - some of these restaurants are my very favourites and serve some of Edmonton's best food!

The participants (and their $10 Fare) offerings for this great event are:

The Blue Pear - Main Courses $10 or Five Course meal $30. Must specify which offer when making reservations

Blue Plate Diner – All Main Courses $10

Col. Mustards – Not Participating

The Creperie – All Crepes $10 & two daily features at $10

The Dish – All main Courses $10

The Free Press Bistro – offering three different entrees at $10 when an appetizer is purchased. Entrée choices are: Lasagna, The Cuban Pressed Sandwich or Smoked Salmon Pasta.

Il Portico – details coming soon!!

Jack’s Grill – Main Courses $10, with the purchase of an appetizer & dessert

Manor Café – Offering 5 different entrees at $10 with a purchase of an appetizer or 1/2 salad. Entrée choices are: 1/2 order of Osso Buco, Full Schnitzel, Manor Pasta, Roast Pork or Salmon feature of the day

Parkallen Restaurant – Offering 4 different main courses for $10 with the purchase of an appetizer. Entree selections are: Parkallen 6oz. Steak Sandwich, Atlantic Salmon, Free-Range Chicken Breast, or Linguini Marinara.

Red Ox Inn – All Entrees $10 with purchase of Appetizer & Dessert

Savoy Lounge – All Entrees $10

Suede Lounge – All Main Courses $10

Wild Tangerine – All Daily Specials $10

Now get out there and show your support for great local food by stuffing your gob full of great food at a great price.

Click here to see the full details.

*Lex Culinaria takes no responsibility for any increase in the size of reader's asses as a result of following this advice.

Retro Blog Party: a very special, very retro treat for you!

I love a good Blog Party and I promised Stephanie I'd bring something special tonight making use of the thoughtful Christmas present of Spam I received from my Sister and her fiance. How could I resist a special request from the Blog Party hostess herself?  If you're not familiar with Blog Party, click here for more details about this event and how it started. It's all a good bit of fun. And Stephanie is a most charming and gracious hostess.

I used the Blog Party opportunity to peruse my recently acquired version of Retro Food Fiascos. I wondered what to make: Spam and carrot jellied salad? Not exactly finger food. Roast spam loaf with cloves? Naw. More of a main dish. Vienna sausages in blankets...we're getting closer, but it doesn't call for Spam.

Then it hit me while in the car on the way home tonight... to the tune of Hava Nagila.... Spam-a-kopita, Spam-a-kopita, Spam-a-kopita.....

Okay, you get the drift. I'd best shut up before everyone who reads this descend into my own very special hell involving not being able to stop humming that tune!

Basically, It's just like spanakopita but with Spam, pineapple and cheddar cheese replacing the traditional feta spinach filling. They're not bad considering they're made with Spam. And how much more retro can you get than Spam and Pineapple? Not much, I tell you.

Although I wanted more than anything to continue the Spam theme by making the Spamshake (Spam, anchovies, tomato juice...I think I need to lie down a minute...I feel slightly woozy...) gracing the pages of Retro Food Fiascos, I'd used up all my Spam on the on the Spamakopitas.

I did, however, manage a retro drink that ties beautifully into the festive tropical party pineapple theme by making the most retro cocktail of them all - the Mai Tai. Can you say "Aloha?"

I used this recipe from Epicurious and I've got to say, they are quite yummy.

I hope Stephanie likes the Spamakopitas and Mai Tais. And I hope she doesn't mind all the fillo pastry crumbs on her floor!

Luckily, tomorrow night is Cakes' geek night with the BioWare boys and I'm sure they'll be thankful for the unscheduled gift of two dozen Spamakopita leftover from the Blog Party cleverly disguised as Orc-meat turnovers!

Khanom Kluay: Thai Steamed Banana Cake

It's hardly fair. The Thais do such a great job of savoury dishes, it hardly seems fair that they excel at sweets as well. Among my favourite deserts are some standard (and not so standard) Thai ones - sweet sticky rice and coconut milk with mango, black sticky rice pudding, water chestnuts in tapioca starch and pandanus sugar syrup. Like Thai mains, the deserts are made with a heavy emphasis on fresh produce (mangoes, bananas, pineapple, coconut) and coconut milk, which to me is pure heaven.

Another of my favourite Thai sweet recipes is this yummy and easy steamed (or baked) cake. It's got a very dense, moist texture and is very puddingy, so only a small serving is required. If you can find fresh coconut, or even if you can but can't be bothered to grate it, you can use dried unsweetened coconut. To use dried unsweetened coconut instead, all you have to do is soak it in warm water for 10 minutes before using it in this recipe.

Like the clear Thai soup I made earlier this week, I adapted this recipe from that given to me at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School (vanilla isn't really used in Thai cooking, but I can't seem to wean myself from it). I made this in individual servings inside plain white Chinese tea cups and it looked adorable! The tea cups offer just the right amount of this filling dessert for a single serving.

Make sure to lightly grease your baking dish(es) before puring your batter in!

Serves 6

• 2 large bananas
• 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 1 + 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (or half a vanilla bean, seeds scraped into the batter)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups grated coconut (fresh, or dry coconut that has been soaked)

Preheat oven to 400F.

Break up the bananas into a large bowl and mash well using a fork, or a mixer. Add in all the remaining ingredients, reserving a tablespoon of the coconut. Mix well until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined.  Pour the mixture into a one 8 x 8 baking tin, or several smaller baking dishes. Place baking tin(s) in a larger pan and fill the outer pan with hot water until the water level reaches halfway up the sides of the baking dishes. Bake for 28 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle the rest of the grated coconut on the top. You can also steam this cake in a pudding tin if you have one.

You can serve this hot or cold. I do prefer it hot! Maybe that's just because I can't stand to wait.

Western Canadian Food Bloggers in the Press!

Check out the latest issue of Western Living Magazine to get the scoop on some of Western Canada's food blogging community including:

Lex Culinaria, 

Pacific Palate,

Waiter Blog,

VanEats,

Wine & Vine,

Gismondi On Wine,

I Like To Cook,

Truffle Mutt and

Savour Life.

The article by Andrew Morrison of Vancouver, features some great recipes including Lex Culinaria's Asian Braised Short Ribs!