FISH AND EXPLOSIONS: A love story

"The year 2010 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten"

This is very embarrassing. I haven't blogged in over a month. The entire month of March went by and nothing. Nada. Zilch. I could makes excuses about how busy I was or how I was held hostage by the Hells Angels in Montreal for unsavory (PUN!) seafood dealings (that didn't happen for the record. I know it's hard to tell sometimes because I live such an exhilarating life) but I won't. I'm just bad at this blogging thing. And frankly I haven't even been cooking lately, which is even worse than not blogging. I guess that has to do with the fact that it was paper season and Mad and I barely saw each other anyhow. When you spend so much time at the library (Mad) or lab (me) you end up eating on campus a lot more. McGill's Oasis cafeteria has delicious ciabatta bread sandwiches by the way. Apple and brie? Yum. Regardless, before school took over my life, Mad and I did manage to pull off one amazing cooking day, which I probably already told you about, dear reader.

I was a Friday: mild, clear with a slight breeze (that's a lie. I don't remember). It was a day like any other, EXCEPT on that day three friends would embark on an amazing and dangerous journey. It would take all of their skills and charm to pull off and they had to keep their wits about them. This, dear reader, is because the three friends were signed up for the most challenging and perilous of all competitions; they were contestants in an Iron Chef tournament!

You get the idea.

Anyway here's the deal: SSMU (the student's society of McGill undergraduates) decided to use some of their left over money to throw an Iron Chef competition some time last month. Since our friend Theo (who you may remember for the Thanksgiving post) is dating one of SSMU's head honchos he heard about the competition as soon as it was announced. Knowing us as well as he does, he immediately telephoned Madeline and I to ask if we wanted to participate with him. I mean, really? Did he even have to ask? What are my favourite things?

1. Archaeology
2. Mammoths
3. Winter
4. Food
5. Cooking
6. Competition
(Family, friends and and being in charge are somewhere on there too. Don't bother me with details. I also really like video games. )

What I'm trying to say is that a cooking competition sounded like too much fun to pass up. Plus we were given $100 to spend on supplies and would receive $500 if we won. SPOILER: we didn't.

In an Iron Chef competition generally the point of the game is to create a meal around a secret ingredient. We spent the week leading up to the competition trying to guess what the secret ingredient would be. Truthfully is wasn't very hard. It had to be cheap, transportable, in season and vegan friendly. As we predicted it ended up being Canadian maple syrup which is lucky because of how incredibly easy it is to cook with syrup.

During our team meeting we brainstormed ideas for recipes. Madeline decided to call her parents (HI MR. & MRS. SINCLAIR) because they had family friends who happen to be really great caterers. They suggested a salad and braided salmon for two of the courses and the other two we found online. The internet is seriously, the easiest place to find recipes. I'm huge fan of it (the internet, obviously)

This is an accurate representation of what my computer looks like every time I use the internet.
Every. Time.

But I digress.

We cooked for like, literally (CONTRADICTION!) 6 hours straight. It could be more or less; I don't really remember because it was so long ago. I do know we spend the whole day stuck in my tiny kitchen which was sort of torture. Let me paint you a picture: I can open the fridge, cooks on the stove, wash dishes, answer the door and sort through my cupboards at the same time without moving an inch. Well, ok that would be true if I could use my feet as hands like a monkey, and also had an extra arm, but you get the idea. Here, I've attached a to scale diagram.


It's kind of hard to tell but the squiggly red lines are the stove. The big black thing is the fridge. Blue stuff is counter space and the other thing is the sink (DUH). Anyway now imagine an elephant stomping around in the middle of all of that and I mean a BIG elephant. That's how I feel when I cook in that kitchen. Actually here's another diagram. The elephant represents an elephant and the box with a K in it represent the size of my kitchen. I'd like to point out that this one is also labeled 'to scale'. A diagram wouldn't lie to you. Neither would that adorable elephant.


But I digress again.

We decided to make a frisee salad with lots of fresh fruit like blueberries and raspberries for the appetizer. It also included candied pecans which Mad made from scratch and the most delicious dressing in the world which was a mixture of red wine vinegar, maple syrup, mustard and shallots. Again, I'm sorry I don't have the recipe for it :(. We were pleased with how pretty it turned out.


For the main course we decided on a salmon because: a) we weren't paying for it and b) salmon is delicious and we were hoping to eat some. I had a moment in the grocery store, at the seafood counter when I panicked. I was on the phone with Madeline trying to figure out what type of salmon to buy. I mean, how am I supposed to know? I don't ever buy seafood and there is so much pressure. The guy at the counter sits there, practically breathing down your neck while simultaneously boring holes into your back with the lasers he happens to have where eyeballs should be. I almost bought trout twice because it looks so much like salmon. Finally I just grabbed the two biggest looking fillets and fled the scene, trying to avoid eye-to-laser contact with the seafood counter man.

Because the secret ingredient was maple syrup we decided to make a cedar planked, braided, maple butter salmon. This meant that we had to coat the salmon in maple butter for about 20 minutes before baking it in the oven (planked). From what I remember the maple butter consisted of 1/2 cup Canadian Rye/Whiskey, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and 1/2 pound butter, softened. We covered it in more maple syrup before placing it in the oven though. I'd now like to draw your attention to our secret weapon of the night: BRAIDING!



We knew that at least a few of the other teams would be using salmon, because let's face it, salmon and maple are damn good together. We figured we would get an edge, however, if our salmon looked better than anyone else's. And let me tell you, our salmon was the Britney Spears to their K D Lang (if either of those women were fish). Let me clarify: Miss Spear before she shaved her head. Actually can I change that? Our Salmon was like Jackie O: classy as crap! Geez, I'm having a hard time staying on topic today. The point is we braided our salmon for presentation purposes. Once we figured it out the salmon actually looked really beautiful. I figured out the trick is to buy long fillets, which unfortunately I neglected to realize. In any case, to braid salmon you have to cut it into 5 long strips, then take the center strip and fold it over both strips on the left side. Repeat with the new center strip, folding it over to the right hand side this time. Continue until you run out of strip.


The last course of the meal was actually the most difficult to make by far. We decided to bake spice cakes with a maple butter cream and homemade maple candies. I say that these were the most difficult for a few reasons. For starters the spice cakes themselves involved way way way too many steps and spices for your average baker. We got the recipe off of epicurious (which is a website I adore by the way).

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spice-Cake-with-Caramelized-Pears-and-Maple-Buttercream-355980

For spice cake:

• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 5 large eggs

For caramelized pears:

• 2 1/4 pounds Bartlett or Bosc pears (about 5)
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons brandy

For maple buttercream:

• 4 large egg whites at room temperature 30 minutes
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup maple sugar
• 1 1/3 cups pure maple syrup (preferably Grade A dark amber)
• 4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons and softened

• Equipment: 3 (8-inch) round cake pans (2 inches deep; see cooks’ note, below); a candy thermometer

I think we spent half the budget buying the spices for these cakes! Maybe a normal household would have whole nutmeg but we sure didn't. I mean, come on! We're university students! It's also practically impossible to buy small quantities of spices as well. You have to buy enough to get you through the next bout of the Cold War (which according to my calculations should be just around the corner. That was sarcasm.) Any way I let Madeline handle the cake baking. It took her a horribly long time but they turned out really yummy. A bit dense but still good.

Make spice cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour cake pans.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Stir together milk and vanilla in a small bowl.

Beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with milk mixture (begin and end with flour mixture) and mixing until just combined.

Divide batter among pans, smoothing tops, then rap pans once or twice on counter to eliminate any air bubbles. Bake until pale golden and a wooden pick inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Run a thin knife around edge of pans, then invert cakes onto racks. Reinvert and cool completely.

To go on top of the spice cakes we made caramelized pears and butter cream. The pear? Pfft they were a BREEZE compared to the butter cream.

Caramelize pears:
Peel and core pears, then coarsely chop.

Heat butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until foam subsides, then sauté pears, stirring occasionally, until just beginning to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in sugar, lemon juice, and brandy and cook over high heat, stirring, until juices are deep golden and pears are tender, about 5 minutes.

The butter cream was the nemeses for that night. It started off fine, despite the fact that we didn't have cream of tartar. What in Betty Crocker's name IS cream of tartar anyway? We can never find it at Provigo so we always end up making a mock version.

Like I was saying, the butter cream was going well until I made my first mistake. I didn't read the directions carefully enough and used double the maple syrup instructed because I misread maple sugar as maple syrup. Strike one.


My next mistake was less of a mistake and more of a common problem of mine. I have a hard time whipping up meringue. I once used an entire carton of eggs trying to whip just three properly. I don't know why, but meringue is my baking Achilles' heel. After trying to whip for around 20 minutes I got a tiny bit frustrated and tossed the electric mixer down on the stove and turned around to fiddle with something on the cutting board. All of a sudden there was a humongous bang, followed by a crack. I turned around to see a shower of sparks coming from the stove-top and a few tiny explosions. I jumped away as if in slow motion. It was kind of like that part in a movie where the hero jumps away from an exploding helicopter or terrorist bomb. Only cooler, because I was wearing a floral apron.

That reminds me of this video. It was exactly like this:

After I blew up our electric mixer the butter cream started looking really...gross. I was about to give up on it but let Theo have a try on it. I kid you not within ten minutes it actually looked like food again. It was like he was Theo Meyer: Dessert Whisperer. I imagine it was because he is stronger than me and thus better with a wisk, but I prefer to pretend it was a last minute miracle.

I also made some maple candies to put on top. They were relatively easy to make, I just boiled maple syrup and poured it into an ice cube tray. They turned out sort of adorable though, if I do say so myself.

In the end, we went last in the competition so our food was cold when the judges ate it, but they still seemed to really like it. One of the judges actually asked to keep his cake so he could finish it. I consider that a success. Here are photos of the finished products:


We finished third out of ten teams so in all it was a pretty productive day. We learned some new and very important cooking skills, like how to cook fish (and how not to blow yourself up in your own kitchen). I'd write more but I've been at this for nearly two hours and I'm tired. Whaaaaaaa (that's the sound of me whining). Sorry this was kind of incoherent. I've a very distractabe person. I'm write next time I cook more than just a turkey sandwich wrap. I don't really have to stress though because I doubt that will be any time soon.

XOXO Class Mansion

P.S. Here's a picture of some gingerbread cookies we made months ago. We also ate them months ago so don't worry.



P.P.S. The last post started with a quote from Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)'s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.