Stuff I haven’t blogged about

But I think looked pretty good:

 Squid and shrimp noodle stir-fry, Thai-style

Horse Meat Balls Stew and Blue Cheese Mac and Cheese

Octopus Stew Provençale with Soft Polenta and Roasted Pepper Squash Purée

First things first, there is not much that is “Provençale” in this recipe past the fact that it is inspired by the cuisine of this region and includes some of its staple ingredients (thyme, capers, olives etc..) Even though Polenta is said to be Italian, the recipe has traveled to France a long time ago and is commonly found in the cuisine of some of the regions of the country (perhaps notably in Corsica where polenta is done with chestnut instead of corn.)

 

According to some sites and chefs, Polenta is a complicated process and takes quite a bit elbow grease. I just think these people are out of their mind. There is a few principles that need to be known: Throw that instant polenta to the garbage, the longer polenta cooks, the better it gets and you need to stir every 5 minutes, not exactly what I think is a difficult operation. To make polenta I simply boil as much water as a big pot can contain, with a bit of salt. Once the water is boiling whisk in as much polenta as you think you need (1-2-3 cups, whatever), lower the eat to low, stir for about 3-4 minutes with a wooden spoon to make sure the polenta doesn’t stick while the pot goes down in temperature. Stir every 5 minutes from now on and cook until you have the consistency you need, more or less if you need soft or hard polenta. Voilà.

 

The Roasted Pepper Squash purée is just as simple. Half and remove the seeds of a pepper squash and generously put olive oil on the meat. Put skin side up on a baking sheet and put in a 400 degrees oven for one hour or an hour and a half. Remove from the oven, let cool for a little bit and scoop out the meat in a bowl. Smash the meat with the spoon you scooped the meat out and add a teaspoon of butter per portion, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Encore une fois: Voilà!

 

Now for another distinction with this recipe: Beer. As you might have noticed in the past, I am much more a beer drinker than a wine drinker, mostly for ignorance reasons. That said, this recipe would work perfectly well if cooked with a nice white wine, preferably with not a lot of acidity. That said I decided to go with a nice Belgian-inspired beer from local Unibroue brewerie. La Blanche de Chambly was meant to be a copy of the Belgian Blanche de Bruges and ended up as a very nice distinctive beer with a terrific citrus character and a very smooth hop flavour.

 

The stew:

 

• 1 lbs of Octopus, in bit size chunks

• 1 big onion

• 1 big parsnip (any root vegetable you have works, combinations work too)

• ½ head of garlic

• ¼ cup of minced smoked herring

• 1 handful of capers

• 1 handful of chopped olives

• 2 hot chilies finely chopped (optional)

• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme

• 1 750ml of Blanche de Chambly

• olive oil

 

For the stew, brown the parsnip and the onion with a branch of thyme well in a dutch oven over high heat. Once nicely browned, add the octopus and the garlic for about 2 minutes, stirring a few times. Add the 750 ml bottle of the beer with the capers, the smoked herring and chilies. Let simmer over low heat for one hour or more until the octopus is tender. Adjust seasoning, the capers and smoked herring will salt the dish a bit so go easy on the salt. Garnish with some fresh thyme and a few chopped olives and serve over the soft polenta.

 

Tunes: Kristofer Ǻström, Loupita. Honestly one of the best folk records I have heard in the past 5 years. Great songwriting, great music and a lot of killer melodies.

Café du Clocher Penché

Café du Clocher Penché

203, rue Saint-Joseph Est
Québec, QC G1K 3B1

Tel:(418) 640-0597

Before the holidays, I was left alone one particular night in Québec city. My brother having abandoned me to the loneliness of this city while he was up to a romantic evening with his girlfriend (can’t really blame him can I? I mean I am good company but she has boobs and she cooks his meal 365 days a year, I don’t think I can compete.) After a long afternoon of buying gift for other people (I tend to try to complete my Christmas shopping way in advance but the family decided otherwise in showering me with request while I was in Québec…) and taking tons of pictures around the city, doing the tourist thing in a city that you lived in for 6 years and you left 7-8 years ago is a bit strange; especially since so much has changed in the interim, I decided to treat myself to a good dinner. I had heard good things about le Café du Clocher Penché and I was about five blocks away at that point.

This “Café” is honestly more of a bistro than anything else and presents food that reflects that. I came into the restaurants and was pleasantly received and taken to a table despite my lack of reservation, although there was only two tables left on that Thursday night. I opened the menu to just about the simplest description possible, no hyperboles or supplier’s names in there: Tartare de cerf, Chevre en Brioche, Bavette de boeuf etc… The menu was also fairly compact so the choice was relatively small: a few meats, a fish, one seafood plate and that was it. appetizers were also limited. It also looked like the menu would be changing regularly depending on the availability and freshness of the products, something you always want to see. My choice was fairly conventional, I needed good comforting grub after all that walking in the cold (yes it was one of those 3 days of cold we have had this winter). Bavette de Boeuf (flank steak) as the main course and open with a Chèvre en brioche (Goat cheese in brioche).

As I know next to nothing about wines and that beer is one of my passion I decided to match the meal with a good pint of brew. The place is serving beer on tap from local micro-brewerie La Barberie. After thinking about it I decided to go with la Cuivré au Coing (Quince coppery beer). The beer had a very strong bitterness to it that would quickly disappear to leave a nice fruity finish and a nice acidity that I enjoyed. The tunes were a little more complicated to choose, I felt laid back but at the same time needed to be comfortable and not too sleepy. In clear: I needed to be entertained, not challenged. I decided to go with an old favorite: Tom Waits. He released a massive collection of incredible work called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards, three discs of songs you have no idea why they didn’t end up on records before. I am incredibly amused by the man and he not only rewards me by with great music but also with incredible storytelling. Great, great stuff. I have seen the three disc thing for 35.99$ and that is more than reasonable, get it.

The brioche came to the table with a certain amount of wow factor in the presentation. Nice geometry and good looking plate to me I was more than ready to dig in. First impression wasn’t so great. The chèvre was lukewarm at best, could have used a minute or two more in the oven and the cheese in itself lacked punch. This is the kind of plate that could have worked very well had the chef/owner chosen a better and more tasty cheese. The brioche was good and complemented adequately the cheese. The brioche came with a tapenade and a little compote of cranberry. All nicely complementing flavour if only the cheese had any….

The bavette came shortly after the appetizer plate was off the table and showed a fairly good portion of the bavette with roasted potatoes, garnished with olives and sautéed minced leaks with thyme and rosemary, and generously covered with olive oil The bavette was nicely grilled, a bit more cooked than I asked. While the meat was tasty, it could have been aged a bit more in my opinion. The execution of that plate was a bit clumsy but was none the less adequate. I mean, this is bistro fare so I am not asking for haute cuisine but this lacked a bit of the rigidity of the plating and overall execution that you see in classic bistro kitchens.

I was overall a bit disappointed by this establishment but from what I have seen, this is a place that definitely has promises, and I will come back to see if I caught them on a bad night.

Holiday pictures

More to come….