Works in Progress

I've been working on a big post for a couple of weeks, but because work and Other Things are keeping me quite busy at the moment it's blowing out into a project with no clear end in site, so I've decided to put up a little something in the meantime.

Thanksgiving was last Thursday, and I missed you guys a lot. As nice as it is to have it with my family (and not to have to cook two bloody turkeys and my weight in stuffing), it will never be as fun as it is in Sydney. The warm weather, the franticness (franticity?), the running all over Erskineville with half-cooked birds because my oven died in the ass... they were fucking good times.

Anyway, a couple of people e-mailed me saying that at this time of year they missed my pumpkin pie. I figured that this at least is something I could provide from the other side of the world, so long as you-all promise not to miss me any less because you can make it without me. :)


XOXO

Best Pumpkin Pie
(Cook’s Illustrated)

2 cups (16 oz/4.4 kg) butternut pumpkin puree*
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup double cream
2/3 cup milk
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400˚F (205˚C). Blind-bake pie crust in pie pan for 5-10 minutes or until just a touch golden.

Process first 7 ingredients in a food processor fitted with steel blade for 1 minute.

Transfer pumpkin mixture to a 3-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring it to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook pumpkin, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, about 5 minutes.

When crust is done, whisk heavy cream and milk into pumpkin and bring to a bare simmer. Process eggs in food processor until whites and yolks are mixed (about 5 seconds). With motor running, slowly pour about half of hot pumpkin mixture through feed tube. Stop machine and scrape in remaining pumpkin. Process 30 seconds longer.

Immediately pour warm filling into hot pie shell. (Ladle any excess filling into pie after it has baked for 5 minutes or so — by this time filling will have settled.) Bake until filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around edges, and center wiggles like gelatin when pie is gently shaken, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour, and serve with homemade whipped cream (not ice cream - it doesn't seem to work well).

*To make butternut puree:
Peel and cube fresh butternut. Boil in lightly-salted water until soft but not breaking down. Drain off water, then mash or blend pumpkin until very smooth (it should look like baby food). Do NOT add any additional salt or other ingredients, as that will stuff up the rest of the recipe.

Alors, ma petite, vous êtes un cochon.

Many of you will have heard me rant about Canada. The rants aren't serious; I'm either suggesting they're a nation of nice-but-boring types (because they're too polite) or a nation of serial killers (because they're too polite), but underneath it all I have a lot of respect for them, what with their enlightened approach to socialised health care, human rights, and thermal underwear. But I'd never been. It didn't really interest me - most of North America doesn't really interest me - and apart from Lynley and Suze's wedding, which I had to miss for budgetary reasons, there was no great event pulling me across the border.

Enter Lynne and Laura.

Thanks to these fine ladies' intervention, I can say with certainty (and minimal ranting) that Montréal is awesome. I loved the Frenchiness of it, the pointy noses and pointy architecture set against a version of the language so old as to be all rounded edges. I loved the history and the pretty sunsets, the baked goods, the debaculous Habitat '67 that ruins an otherwise gorgeous view across the river. I loved their way with offal and their adorable 12-year-olds (of course I loved their adorable 12-years-olds, and for real, I have got some kind of problem and I need help). If it weren't for their weather, I'd seriously consider it.

Having two mad Australians to run around with helped as well. By the end of our three days there, Laura was able to say that she didn't speak French (or at least, make an interesting enough stab at it that they quickly got the point) and Lynne had more or less stopped driving us into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, each was quite strong where the other struggled, so I feel confident that they'll make it through Québec City intact. Me, I contributed little to the proceedings apart from a patchy high school-French vocabulary and an occasional plaintive murmur of 'you're drifting to the right again pull left pull left pull left [sob]' from the back seat. Oh, and I got to tell an 'ugly American' type to fuck off, loudly and in the middle of the street. Always satisfying.

Thanks for a great trip, girls. I'm going to cook my ass off for you on Thursday. :)

My destiny calls.

I wanted to avoid turning this into a food blog: there are already so many of those, and eating habits can be an unreliable source of material. No one wants to read about your having eaten leftover spaghetti at lunch for the third day running, you know?

On the other hand, I love food. Lurrrrrrve it. And one of the great things about moving to a new place - even when it's an old new place, like I'm in now - is discovering the yumminess on offer. Furthermore, Constable Parker has already demanded more specifics about what I've eaten, and far be it from me to refuse an officer of the law. So....

Yesterday I ate the kind of lunch that makes you happy to be alive.

El Oriental de Cuba is one of those places that has never made it into my high rotation, despite being local and excellent. Hear me now, that is changing: I intend to become a regular.

I've only been in the restaurant once or twice before, but we used to order from there occasionally when I worked at Brookside (lo those many years ago). The ropa vieja is beautiful, and the first time I ever tried yuca it was from there. (I didn't love that but that's not on them, I just don't like yuca much for the same reason I don't especially care for taro: there's something kind of gluey about them that I just can't come at.) But yesterday I had something very specific in mind: I wanted a Cuban sandwich.

When you examine the ingredients, a Cuban sandwich probably doesn't sound particularly special: ham, pork, Swiss cheese, mustard, and dill pickles on crusty bread, grilled in a sandwich press. But this is a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts: the flavours meld to become something spectacular; the pickles and the crusty bread give texture to counterbalance the meatiness. It all just works.

The Cuban bread is a big part of the awesomeness. It's crusty like a pane di casa, but with a soft inside that feels to me more like damper. It's beautiful. I got to eat a lot of it yesterday, as I had an appetizer* of chicken soup that came with a basket of grilled, buttered Cuban bread for dipping. It almost eclipsed the soup, and that's saying something: this was proper chicken soup, with big knuckles of chicken meat (on the bone, natch), huge chunks of potato and carrot, and bright yellow egg noodles. This soup could cure most things that ailed you, including a broken heart and leprosy. Of course, because I haven't yet acclimated to American food sizes, I figured that a small soup and a sandwich would be an entirely reasonable lunch. I began to rethink this when I saw the 'small' vat of soup and the half-loaf of bread that accompanied it. But let it never be said of me that I am easily daunted.

I had almost finished the soup when my sandwich arrived. It can be argued (and is, at length - check Chowhound) that El Oriental's version is less traditional, as it also includes lettuce, tomato, onion and mayonnaise, which are common additions in South Florida but were not part of the sandwich as it was originally made in Cuba. I skipped the tomato myself, but left the lettuce and onion because I think they add a nice crunch. So awesome, all of it. So awesome. I kept giggling to myself with how delicious it was, especially when I chased a bite of the sandwich with a piece of the Cuban bread left from my soup. It just made everything better.

I left the restaurant about an hour after I'd first walked in, feeling just on the fungry! side of the fungry!/hull line and grinning from ear to ear. I'll be back but quick.

XOXO

* FYI, in an attempt to adjust to the local dialect I'll be using the American terms 'appetizer' for entrée and 'entrée' for main course. I know that 'entrée' for main course makes absolutely no bloody sense; the link du jour is a stab at the etymology that seems reasonable, even if I still disagree with the result.