Sukhothai Noodles

My girlfriend and I went to Sukhothai, Thailand for Loi Krathong. It's a Thai festival which takes place around the 12th full moon. This year it was the weekend of November 17th. The festival supposedly started in Sukhothai when it was the capital of Thailand about 600 years ago. Loi means 'to float', while krathong refers to a container which floats on the water.

Lighting Krathongs

A krathong is decorated with  banana leaves, flowers, incense sticks, and a candle. A small coin is sometimes included as an offering to the river spirits. On the night of the full moon, Thais launch their krathong on a river, and make a wish. The krathong floats away taking the misfortune and sin of the owner with it.
 At Sukhothai Historical Park there were also fireworks, martial arts displays, dances, and a great selection of different regional Thai foods to try. you can see more photos of our trip in Sukhothai at my photo blog.

Krathong Vendors

Krathongs can be made of many things including banana stalks, wood, lotus, and bread. The key is that the components are edible or bio-degradable as to reduce waste in the rivers and ponds. We saw many elaborate and beautiful ones for sale on the streets, as well as at the Sukhothai historical park. There seems to be 100's of different types. If you would like to make your own krathongs you can learn how at this website:
http://www.thepassagesamui.com/blog/make-krathong-guide/

No.4 guesthouse

We arrived a couple of days before and checked in to a cool place called No.4 Guesthouse. Very atmospheric and secluded but close enough to the centre of town that you could easily walk. It was kind of a hassle to get to, because the taxi drivers will insist it doesn't exist. We persevered and they finally drove us there. I think it's a payola thing. The pancakes with mango were so delicious we had them for breakfast everyday.
 One of the things I wanted to try in Sukhothai was Kuaytiaw Sukhothai. A noodle dish that is supposed to originate in this town. So after a bit of sight seeing we walked about 1km or so out of town to Jay Hae a roadside restaurant that is famous for the dish. It's not much to look at, but judging by the size of the parking lot many people must stop here. There's no English menu, but the servers assume you want kuaytiaw sukhothai, Mia and I both ordered it naam, which means with broth.

Jay Hae Restaurant in Sukhothai

The Sukhothai noodles came with slices of roast pork, little meatballs, pork rind, thinly sliced green beans and herbs, as well as peanuts and ground chili. The noodles themselves are the very thin rice noodles called sen lek,
The first thing you notice is the sweetness. Palm sugar is one of the main flavourings. Lime juice, tamarind and the chili balance the dish out. I didn't add any of the standard table condiments because the dish stood on its own. The noodles are nice and chewy and you can't really go wrong with roast pork!

Kuaytiaw Sukhothai at Somsong Pochana

When I got back to Bangkok and started writing this article, I wanted to try kuaytiaw sukhothai again. I found a place people recommended called Somsong Pochana and coincidentally it was about 20m down the same small soi my guesthouse was on in Phra Nakhon. I stayed at Donkey Dude Guesthouse for almost 2 weeks and Somsong Pochana became my go-to breakfast spot. I got to try the dish both "wet" and "dry" several times. Sukhothai noodles have really grown on me and I hope to make it back in Copenhagen when I return. 

Bangkok Glutton has produced a nice little video of Sukhothai noodles being made at Somsong Pochana:

It seems pretty simple and the ingredients are easily available so I'll try it out at home. When I get the taste down I'll add my recipe to the post.

Butter Tarts- An Ontario Original

Butter tarts are delicious. If you haven't tried one you need to. I've been eating them my whole life, and have just assumed everyone knew what they were. A mixture of butter, brown sugar, corn syrup,  maple syrup, and egg are poured into a flaky pastry and baked. There very sweet and addictive. Butter tarts are considered one of the few recipes that originates in Ontario. They are similar to the American pecan pie, the French tarte au sucre, and the Scottish Ecclefechan tart. So much so, that I find it hard to see what makes the butter tart a unique Canadian recipe, except that they are incredibly popular here, and are found everywhere. Some families even put butter tarts out for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve in place of cookies.
Even in Ontario there doesn't appear to be any specific recipe that people can agree on as authentic. Some tarts have a firm filling, while others are runny. Many people add raisins, others add nuts, and some add both. The crusts vary from family to family and some recipes use a crumbly shortbread style crust, while others use a more firm and flaky pâte brisée. Here is a CBC Radio show that has a panel of guests discuss what a butter tart is. http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/lifestyle/food/my-canada-includes-tourtiere/what-makes-a-great-butter-tart.html

Wellington County in Southwestern Ontario has a Butter Tart Trail where you can travel on a self guided tour of the area's most popular places to try butter tarts. Personally I like my butter tarts to have a translucent softness that barely holds it's shape,with some nuts on top. The toasted nuts help cut some of the sweetness. The recipe I use is from Canadian Living Magazine with the addition of maple syrup and pecans in place of raisins.

Butter Tart Recipe

Dough

• 1-1/2 cups (375 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) cold butter, cubed
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) lard or butter, cubed
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp (5 mL) vinegar
• Ice water

Filling

 1/2 cup (125 mL) packed  brown sugar

• 1/2 cup (125 mL) corn syrup
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) butter, softened
• 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
• 1 tsp (5 mL) vinegar
• 1 pinch salt

 In large bowl, whisk flour with salt. With pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in butter and lard until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger pieces.

In liquid measure, whisk egg yolk with vinegar; add enough ice water to make 1/3 cup (75 mL). Sprinkle over flour mixture, stirring briskly with fork until pastry holds together. Press into disc; wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour. Make-ahead: Refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Filling: In bowl, whisk together brown sugar, corn syrup, egg, butter, vanilla, vinegar and salt until blended; set aside.

On lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to 1/8-inch (3 mm) thickness. Using 4-inch (10 cm) round cookie cutter (or empty 28 oz/796 mL can), cut out 12 circles, re-rolling scraps once if necessary. Fit into 2-3/4- x 1-1/4-inch (7 x 3 cm) muffin cups. Spoon in filling until three-quarters full. Top each tart with 2 or 3 pecans

Bake in bottom third of 450 F (230 C) oven until filling is puffed and bubbly and pastry is golden, about 12 minutes. Let stand on rack for 1 minute. Run metal spatula around tarts to loosen; carefully slide spatula under tarts and transfer to rack to let cool.

Cullen Skink in Ullapool

Sometimes when you travel as a chef you end up in places you never expected. I had never heard of Ullapool before I took a job as the sous chef of a small boutique hotel there in 1989. I found the job posting in an employment office in Glasgow, and took the position on a whim. A week later I was in the west highlands of Scotland, working in a town with less than 1000 people.
Ullapool is a pretty little place with quite a large fishing port, and is a popular tourist stop in the summer.

I can't believe I lived here once

After spending a couple of days settling in and figuring out what my job entailed, I set out to explore Ullapool's nightlife. I wasn't the only foreigner in town, but a new face is immediately noticed and I was soon drinking and chatting with locals at the "Calley". I eventually ended up on a pub crawl of every place in town. After last call I made my way home along the main street and came across a group of teenagers drinking and playing guitar around a fire on the beach.

I joined in and had a great time for a while, when one of the girls asked me if I knew how to swim. I bragged a lot and told her I used to be a top swimmer in Toronto in high school, so she challenged me to a race across to the nearby pier. I accepted and we stripped down to our underwear and ran into the loch. I swam about 20 feet before the over powering smell of diesel and fish stopped me and I looked back to see everyone standing on the shore laughing! Despite how beautiful Loch Broom is, it's still a fishing port and not a place to go swimming near the pier. I was covered in a thin coating on oil that stung my eyes and I smelled of gas for 2 days. Needless to say, I was well known in town by the next morning.

One of the dishes we made at the hotel was cullen skink, a traditional smoked haddock, leek and potato chowder which is popular all over north Scotland. It is a great flavoured hearty soup that I recently used as the base for a fish special in my restaurant. Baked cod is placed on a thick cullen skink sauce and topped with a poached egg and horseradish mousseline. The smokiness of the soup works great with the cod, with the egg making the dish richer, and the horseradish adding sharpness.
There are many variations of cullen skink, but this is the recipe as I remember we made it in Ullapool.

Recipe for Cullen Skink

This makes about 4 portions of soup or enough for 6 as a base for my cod dish.

500g smoked haddock or other smoked oily fish like mackerel , skinned and deboned
2 bay leaves

1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 leek, washed and cut into pieces
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
500ml water

200ml 35% cream

1. Make a quick stock with the water and the skin and bones of the fish simmered for 10 minutes

2. Sweat the onions and leek in some butter until softened.

3. Add strained fish stock, potatoes, bay, and thyme and simmer until potatoes start to dissolve.

4. Add broken up pieces of smoked fish and the cream. Simmer for about 5 minutes

5. using a hand blender, pulse soup until it is incorporated, but still has some potato and fish chunks

6. Add cracked pepper and test for salt.

Painting by Ann-Cathrine Loo 1990

Working in a small hotel is hard work and usually requires split shifts. I worked breakfast from 6am until noon, and then came back for dinner service from 5 until 9pm six days a week. I was pretty tired on my first day off, but one of the staff suggested I take a walk into the surrounding hills. He gave me a pre-rolled joint and I set out with my walkman and some snacks. The north highlands are truly beautiful, and soon I felt far from the town, walking by a stream in a misty valley between the mossy hills. I sat on a big rock and smoked the joint. I heard some noises and out of the mist came 3 wild horses, slowly walking down the riverbed grazing on grass as they went. They didn't seem to take much notice of my presence, and continued by, passing just a few feet in front of me before disappearing into the mist again. It was magical. One of those perfect moments you remember vividly for a lifetime. I walked up one of the hills and looked out over the fjord towards the open sea. My walkman started busting out "Xanadu" by Rush and as the heavy guitars crescendoed and the wind blew in my face, I knew it was going to be a special summer.

Scotch Eggs - A Story

 

When I finished my apprenticeship in Toronto in 1988 I moved to Scotland. I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought it would be cool because The Jesus and Mary Chain were from there. Maybe because my family is originally Scottish, I wanted to check it out. I don't really remember, but when I was 21 years old I arrived in Glasgow with no friends, no money and no idea what was going on.

I quickly met some people in a psychedelic punk club called "Helter Skelter" on Sauchiehall St. and slept on their floor for a while until I found a job and a place to live. It only took a week or so before I was living in a bedsit in St Georges Cross and starting at my new position of Chef de Partie at the Central Hotel.

  The Central Hotel is a large grandiose hotel built above Central Train Station in the heyday of Victorian train travel. The first day I was taken to the basements where there were changing rooms and a storage area. what I found was an amazing example of what professional kitchens were like in Escoffier's time. Obviously unused for decades, were room after room of giant wood fired ovens big enough to roast a whole cow. Iron chains and weird rotting wooden blocks were strewn about in rooms shin deep in black water. Soot stained stone passages would lead into pitch black areas where no one had been in living memory. I could imagine in the old days dozens of cooks boiling geese in cauldrons, stoking fires, making bread, and butchering pigs by gaslight with no ventilation or refrigeration. It was scary and amazing. I don't know if it's still like that, but it would make a great horror movie setting.

Upstairs were the modern kitchens where me and about 20 other chefs worked. I was assigned to the Carvery, a part of the kitchen which prepared the roasts and hot dishes for the evening buffet. This was a disaster from the start. In Toronto I had spent 2 years working in one of Franco Prevedello's first restaurants making modern Ital-Cal cuisine. Stuffing duck breast with shrimp and ginger, veal medallions with scallops, mako shark carpaccio with wasabi, that kind of stuff. Now I was in charge of cooking 6 kinds of roasts and hams everyday. I had no clue. I had never butchered and prepared large roasts in my life. Everyone spoke Glaswegian, not English, and used strange words like "gammon" and "capsicum". A Sous Chef tried to help me out for the first couple of days, but I was quickly moved to the Entremetier station. This is where things started getting ugly. Every morning the Head Chef would march into the kitchen flanked by his sous'.

" 2 soups and veg bouquetiere for 80 people room C at 2pm"

" 1 soup and veg bouquetiere for 50 people room A at 3pm"

" consume and veg bouquetiere for 175 people Main Ballroom 5pm"

It went on. Plus mise en place for the a la carte dinner service. 

I was in charge of 3 apprentices, of which 2 were older than me. Because word had got around that I bombed on the Carvery, I was given no respect. Every time I turned they were in the receiving dock smoking. When I asked them to do something they'd reply " Shut yer geddy, ya fukin' trunk monkey" or something similar. I was always behind. The Sous Chefs yelled at me everyday. I was close to tears, and wondering why I ever came to Glasgow in the first place. Then I was moved to Garde Manger. An older woman ran the place and she told me I needed to make 900 Scotch eggs. I made about 300 before I was called into the Chefs office and fired. It was over... almost.

The day before one of the cooks had ₤50 stolen from his locker. 50 pounds was a serious amount of money in the 80's. A weeks wage for an apprentice. The head dishwasher called a meeting at 5pm in the basement to sort out what had happened. Mutterings and accusations ensued as we were individually called upon to explain where we were and who we thought took the money. I quickly realized several people were pointing the finger at me. I professed my innocence, but it was no use. I was a foreigner, and I had just been fired. It was a kangaroo court and I was going to get beaten. Luckily I had already changed. I slowly backed away while discussing the situation with the other cooks. When I saw my chance I bolted. "donae lit hem gettae wey!" someone shouted. I was running like a madman through the maze of basement hallways with the kitchen team in pursuit. I burst out of the employee entrance into the main reception area, and out the revolving front doors. I had escaped!

I never returned. A month latter I was working in Ullapool in a much smaller and friendlier place.

Recipe for Oat Crusted Scotch Eggs with Lingonberry

Scotch eggs are pretty simple to make. Just hard boil and peel some eggs, wrap in your favourite sausage meat, egg wash, bread and deep fry. I used a 50/50 mixture of panko and steelcut rolled oats as the breading on these ones. A mustard mayonnaise is traditional for dipping, but lingonberry jam is an interesting alternative that I think works great. 

P.S. In case someone reads this who was working at the Central Hotel Glasgow in those days, 

I didn't take the money.

Smoked Mackerel Pierogi

I'm working at a Polish bar on Roncesvalles in Toronto. It allows me to experiment with a cuisine which is often ignored in contemporary restaurant kitchens. Italian, French, Japanese, Latin, etc, are all well represented in various forms around the globe but, Polish, Ukrainian, and the cuisine of the Baltic states tend to be the reserve of neighbourhood restaurants serving traditional food to locals looking for an authentic taste of their homeland. The restaurant is not quite as traditional as most Polish places in the area, so I can play around with dishes like pierogi or cabbage rolls and create my own interpretations.
Pierogi are popular all over Northern Europe. They have different names eg. vareniki in Russia or
pirukad in Estonia, and have various shapes, but tend to have the same 4 or 5 traditional fillings. Meat, cheese, sauerkraut, spinach, or fruit. I bought some smoked mackerel and decided to do something with a French Languedoc twist. "Smoked Mackerel Pierogi with Swiss Chard in a Sundried Cherry Walnut Beurre Noisette".

The recipe for pierogi dough is from a cookbook I found in the basement of my work. It has many good recipes and I'm experimenting with several.

 Pierogi Dough:

 2-2½ cup flour

1 cup water

1 egg

salt to taste

put flour in a bowl, create a well in the center and add egg, water, and salt. Mix and knead ingredients well to create a soft and slightly sticky dough. I used closer to 3 cups of flour in the end to get the right consistency.

roll out a manageable portion thinly and cut out 3-4 inch rounds with a small bowl or cutter

Smoked Mackerel Filling

1 cup boiled diced potato

½ cup smoked mackerel carefully picked of the bones

1 onion diced

1 clove garlic crushed

tbsp chopped chives

salt and pepper

Saute onions and garlic in a little butter until soft and slightly browned

transfer to a bowl and add potato and mackerel

roughly mix until larger chunks are broken up but individual components are still visible.

place some filling in the center of the dough rounds, fold in half and crimp the sides together tightly. Boil in salted water for 8 minutes and let cool.

Sundried Cherry Walnut Beurre Noisette 

Here is a video on making beurre noisette:

 

once you have the beurre noisette, warm in a pan with very finely slivered garlic, chopped toasted walnuts and a handful of sundried cherries , salt, and cracked pepper

I fry the pierogi in half butter half olive oil until golden brown and place on a bed of Swiss chard. Top with warmed beurre noisette and a drizzle of sour cream.