As much as I love the butter tart recipe here, I am so happy that I’ve finally found a delicious butter tart recipe that doesn’t use corn syrup and that, in the true Canadian spirit, uses maple syrup. In case you didn’t already know, butter tarts are a Canadian dessert. This pastry was beautifully flaky and airy, but it was a bit too delicate for my taste. I prefer the still flaky yet slightly sturdier crust of my other butter tarts (recipe here).
When I attended the Great Canadian Cheese Festival (see post here), I had the privilege of attending celebrity Chef Bob Blumer’s demonstration on how to grill pizza. His recipe for grilled pizza can be found in his cookbook, Glutton for Pleasure. His grilled pizza really was delicious. I am sharing his instructions for how to grill a pizza on a BBQ here. Note that he used an 8 burner BBQ that had a built in thermometer.
Bob Blumer
I made beef ribs using this dry rub twice in one week, because my brother and John couldn’t get enough of them. You could also use it on beef brisket. Feel free to substitute any of the ingredients with whatever you happen to have on hand. For example, you could try omitting the nutmeg or adding ground mustard or ground cumin to switch up the flavours every now and then. (See here for my favourite dry rub recipe for chicken.)
Papaya milk made with 1 cup of milk
My family and I love the Chinese drink, papaya and milk (木瓜牛奶). There is only one vendor that we buy it from, because most places do a terrible job of making this. Often vendors or restaurants will add ice or, more commonly, use papaya that is not nearly ripe enough. I’ve recreated our favourite vendor’s papaya milk drink. The most important thing to remember when making papaya juice or papaya milk drink is that the papaya must be overly ripe, to the point where it is almost starting to going bad, as shown in the photo below. The ripeness of the papaya not only affects the flavour of the drink, but also the texture of it.
Whenever I cook with ingredients that I don’t use regularly, I almost always end up with extra ingredients that I can’t find the time or purpose for. I hate to waste food. So, very early on, I learned how to make the freezer my best friend. Below I’ve shared a list of fresh and canned ingredients that freeze beautifully for months to a year, without a change in texture or taste. Let me know if you can think of anything else! I will add to this list as I discover new freezer friendly ingredients. Also, I’ve posted many many freezer friendly recipes throughout the years. Just look to the end of each recipe for freezing instructions, as applicable.
I love almost all fruit, and mangosteen is, by far, my favourite. If you haven’t tried purple mangosteen yet, I highly recommend that you do as soon as the opportunity presents itself. When I was in Malaysia, I ate an entire bag and every day that I’ve been back, I regret not eating more. That was a year ago!!! Mangosteen are grown mainly in Southeast Asia and the best ones that I’ve ever had were from Malaysia. Disappointingly, in North America, mangosteen can be quite expensive and often not very fresh. So be sure to choose ones with a fresh and green coloured stem, because there are such things as bad and so-so mangosteen.
The purple fruit shown in the middle are the mangosteen
The purple outer shell is inedible. To open a mangosteen, crush the purple shell between the palms of your hands and then pull it apart to open it. But be very careful not to stain your clothes, because the purple dye is almost impossible to wash out. In fact, many hotels in Southeast Asia ban their guests from bringing mangosteen into their rooms. The white flesh on the inside of the fruit is soft, moist, juicy and refreshing and light tasting. Also, there are large seeds within each lobe of the white flesh.
If you get the chance to try a mangosteen, let me know what you think!
Kueh is one of my favourite Malaysian desserts. It is steamed, mildly flavoured, soft, chewy, and slightly sticky. Here is a recipe for a 7, 8, or 9 layer (your choice), 2 colour kueh. The main flavours to this kueh are coconut and pandan.
Note that the noodles should be a bit darker in colour. I didn’t have dark soy sauce at the time.
Char kway teow is a stir fried, flat rice noodle dish. I’ve now had delicious char kway teow in Brunei and Malaysia. My favourite is Penang style. This recipe is a recreation of my preferred version of Penang style char kway teow.
I am in love with Hong Kong style milk tea (see recipe here), and on a trip to Malaysia, I discovered that I love Malaysian pulled tea, teh tarik, just as much. The delicious teh tarik, which means “pull” tea, is made using sweetened creamer. Some people add evaporated milk as well. What sets teh tarik apart from other teas is the process of pouring the prepared tea back and forth between two containers until the tea tastes and feels smooth, silky, and light in weight. Apparently, you’re also supposed to develop a good froth. The further the distance between your two containers while you’re pouring the tea back and forth, the better your tea will be. Be careful not to get splattered by the hot tea, and wear clothes that you don’t care about, because the tea stains are hard to wash out.
Outside of Malaysia, it can be difficult to find the best tea leaves for making teh tarik. But luckily, I have been surprised by how good some of the instant teh tarik powders are. The brand Boh is very popular in Malaysia and is quite good. My favourite is Aroma Ipoh’s instant ginger milk tea. I found it in a Chinese grocery store in Toronto, ON.
This is another great recipe from the cookbook, The Modern Baker. At first, I was doubtful that this cake would be flavourful enough for my taste, but I was very pleasantly surprised. This sophisticated, citrusy cake is a great finish to a heavy meal. I made it for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone that tried it really enjoyed it. Even John’s mom, who isn’t normally a fan of cake, liked it. I love that this cake is moist, easy to make, and relatively healthy since it uses olive oil as opposed to butter or vegetable oil. Also, I love the crunchy and slightly sticky crust. This is served as a one-layer cake, but the recipe makes two layers, so you can make these in advance and freeze them for future dinner parties.
Most people love smoked salmon, so I knew that smoked salmon hors d’oeuvres was a must-have when I was designing the menu for John’s housewarming party. Lemon and cream cheese or mascarpone cheese are standard toppings for smoked salmon and cucumber canapés (see my smoked salmon and lemon mascarpone crostini recipe here). I wanted to use something lighter this time, so I was planning on topping my canapés with sour cream. But in the mad rush to get all of the food out as guests started to arrive, I accidentally piped something else onto my hors d’oeuvres. I didn’t even realize the happy mistake until the end of the night, when I was putting everything away. I lost count of how many of these we made, and we had none leftover. People loved and complimented these, thinking that I had used a light and airy cheese topping. Even I didn’t notice the swap (shame on you, palate). It turns out, that just a small dollop of unsweetened whipped cream works absolutely beautifully (if not better than sour cream, cream cheese, and mascarpone) atop smoked salmon and cucumber. Here’s a toast to happy accidents! I plan to use whipped cream for these hors d’oeuvres again in the future. Now… what am I going to do with all of the sour cream that I bought?
For John’s housewarming party, I made three types of puff pastry tarts: caramelized onions with gorgonzola (see recipe here), prosciutto, arugula, and cherry tomatoes with goats cheese, and arugula and cherry tomatoes with ricotta cheese, shaved parmesan, and balsamic reduction. I love the contrast of lightly dressed, fresh greens on rich cheese and puff pastry. I cut these tarts into small squares and served them as finger food, but they would make a great starter to a sit down meal as well.
Cooking with Alison 