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Month: February 2009

FineDiners.ca: Leftover Risotto Fritters

My latest post over at FineDiners.ca is an instructional on what to do with leftover Risotto.  Answer: Risotto Fritters.

“In Italy there are only two legitimate uses for yesterday’s risotto:  Risotto al Salto (risotto pancakes) or Suppli di Telefono (Risotto Fritters).  I made some Mushroom Risotto last week, and surprisingly had a little leftover the next day, so I decided to try my hand at making the fritters.”

FineDiners.ca is a food-oriented blog where myself and a few others write about restaurants around Ottawa, recipes we’ve tried or want to try, general food preparation techniques and other food news, reviews, and kitchen experiments.

I do not recommend this

Mike Nelson (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame) is going to eat only bacon for a month:

Now for the fine print: “Bacon” shall hereafter refer to the cured and smoked fatty cuts of pork, either back, side or belly. In other words “American bacon”. No “Canadian bacon”, which is really just lunchmeat. No pork chops. No turkey bacon. No “tofacon” or any such horror. Just bacon.

No condiments allowed. No syrups, or hot sauces, or pureed vegetables in the form of ketchup. No sauces at all. Just nature’s finest bacon, all by its dignified self.

I am making allowances for the following beverages: beer, wine, martinis and water. No juices, no V8, nothing that could be construed as “healthy”. This is somewhat arbitrary, I grant you, but one bit of madness at a time, is my reasoning.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to our Recipe Box feature here at FineDiners.ca will know that we are nothing if not big fans of Bacon around here.  But this guy is insane.  Absolutely mad.  But also awesome.  A true Bacon hero.

What’s so great about The Wire?

UC Berkeley is offering a course on The Wire:

“Discerning critics and avid fans have agreed that the five-season run of Ed Burns and David Simon’s The Wire was “the best TV show ever broadcast in America”–not the most popular but the best. The 60 hours that comprise this episodic series have been aptly been compared to Dickens, Balzac, Dreiser and Greek Tragedy. These comparisons attempt to get at the richly textured complexity of the work, its depth, its bleak tapestry of an American city and its diverse social stratifications. Yet none of these comparisons quite nails what it is that made this the most compelling “show” on TV and better than many of the best movies. This class will explore these comparisons, analyze episodes from the first, third, fourth and fifth seasons and try to discover what was and is so great about The Wire. We will screen as much of the series as we can during our mandatory screening sessions and approach it through the following lenses: the other writing of David Simon, including his journalism, an exemplary Greek Tragedy, Dickens’ Bleak House and/or parts of Balzac’s Human Comedy. We will also consider the formal tradition of episodic television.”

Loved this show!  It really is the best thing that’s ever aired on tv.  [via Kottke]

Butchery 101 – Strip Loin

Originally posted on FineDiners.ca by Eric Rochon

The Money Shot
mmmm… steak

Busy night in the Kitchen – I was supposed to make Veal Stock.  When I was working for Biagio’s they used to dispose of the VEAL bones, so I took some home one night and froze them.  The freezer was full so I decided to make Veal stock – to my surprise, one of the two bags I pulled from the freezer was full of Chicken carcasses.  So I ended up making chicken stock – I guess I’ll post about the Veal stock another time.

Anyways, onto the butchery.  I love Costco’s meats.  Today during my shopping I purchased a Strip Loin. The Costco meat section offers Canada AAA grade beef. When purchasing the strip, I always look for good marbling. It’s sometime hard to see through the Cryovac, but if you look closely at the ends you can see the content. The strip is one of my favorite parts of the “beef”.  It’s fatty, flavourful and tender. I almost prefer this over the tenderloin. You can prepare it in several different fashions. In this article I cut NY style strip steaks and I also cut “Faux Fillets”.

Play Food & Wine

Play Food & Wine

This is my first post @ finediners.ca

Just got back from Play food & wine, Stephen Beckta’s new “entreprise”.

This was it’s second day open to the public. The setting is quite stylish.

Being an industry person (cook) I immediately made my way to the kitchen to check it out. The kitchen is open concept, with all the bells and whistles. Spoke with the Chef (Michael Moffat and his crew). They were excited, told them I was looking forward to “play with their food”