Tag Archives: eggs

Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe

Posted on January 17, 2009 | Leave a comment

I make a really simple, but really tasty, tomato sauce. It consists of tomatoes, garlic, basil, salt & pepper, and a bay leaf. With such a simple recipe, it’s really important that you’re using the absolute best ingredients. And, since tomatoes are the star of this sauce, you’d better use the best tomatoes you can find: San Marzano tomatoes.

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Posted in Food science, Homemade

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Family treasures: soya sauce chicken

Posted on January 14, 2009 | 2 Comments

I’m an only child, so I’ve never had to argue with siblings over who got the newest toy, or who got to sit where, or whatever siblings argue about. See? I’m such an only child that I don’t even know.

When it comes to family treasures, the thing I want most is my mom’s marinade for soya sauce chicken. She has two jars of dark, dark brown sauce in the freezer that are older than I am. It’s essentially a braising liquid for any kind of meat (usually chicken) or, my favourite, hard-boiled eggs.

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Posted in Homemade

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Ottawa: Vietnam Noodle House

Posted on January 11, 2009 | Leave a comment

When I first moved to Ottawa, the first restaurant that I ate at was Vietnam Noodle House. It’s outside of the main clump of Vietnamese restaurants, and is a lot bigger than most. It’s a large, clean and surprisingly bright space in the basement of an otherwise nondescript commercial building.

The family who runs it is phenomenally nice. Their pho is nothing remarkable, but their main dishes are really good. They have a selection of “broken rice” dishes, which feature grains of rice that are, indeed, broken. They’re cooked al dente and topped with a variety of meat (preserved pork, barbecued chicken or pork, ham) and often a fried egg. Yum.  

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Posted in Restaurant reviews, Travel

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Edible ornaments, chestnut smoke…

Posted on December 30, 2008 | 2 Comments

(This is my last Christmas post of the year, I swear.)

While snowed in this Christmas, I was lucky enough to catch Heston Blumenthal‘s Christmas special on TV. I’m already a huge fan and can think of nothing better than having dinner at The Fat Duck, but had I not been a fan before, I would have been converted. Blumenthal is one of the few people (aside from the Adria brothers) who can get away with the wacky stuff he does.

For instance: bacon ice cream. In a normal person’s hands, it’s probably disgusting. In Heston Blumenthal’s hands, it’s probably pure bliss.

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Jiffy Pop!

Posted on December 6, 2008 | 4 Comments

The Well-Tempered Chocolatier is nominated in the Best of 604 awards!  Click here to vote!

Having lived my entire life in North America, I don’t think twice about how much corn is in our diet.  Michael Pollan’s book  The Omnivore’s Dilemma talks in great detail – probably more than you want to know – about how much corn and corn by-products are in the North American diet.

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Posted in Food science

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