Miso-Roasted Oysters

Oyster MotoyakiI know it seems like I throw miso in everything – like Jamie Oliver with all that damned rosemary – but if you’re a fan of oysters stay with me. If you have friends and family that are a little oyster-phobic this is the recipe that will turn ’em around. It’s that damned good!

And that’s impressive because there aren’t many things that people eat more polarizing than oysters. Shuck a couple and half the people at your dinner party will gag while the other half dig in with wild abandon.  My wife was one of the former (an unrepentant hater of oysters and most other bivalve mollusks) up until only recently. Now she tolerates a few raw oysters now and then but only if they’re the size of a dime and the larger ones get only scornful looks unless they arrive slathered in miso mayonnaise.

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Poached Chicken and Rice

poached-chicken-and-riceI just realized our kitchen calendar was still on August and flipped it over, revealing the stereotypical picture of golden hued oak trees and a dilapidated barn that always accompanies September. Ugh… Here on the Westcoast September would be more accurately represented by a grey sheet of rain.

Yep, autumn has come just like it always does; like a switch is flipped, the sun just surrenders and the rains begin like the final act of Seven Samurai… And as usual most of my friends, family and co-workers are getting sick.

So the calendar goes back up on the wall, I fire up a big pot on the stove and pull one of my secret weapons against autumn depression from the freezer: Master Stock! I know it sounds like Master Chief’s little brother or a particularly corny GI Joe villain, but it’s not. It’s a broth made from simmering a whole chicken with Asian aromatics and then, over the course of many uses and multiple chickens it condenses into a powerful, gelatinous flavour bomb for use in soups, stews and sauces.

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Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

Blueberry Muffins 1If I had to list my favourite summer food experiences, eating blueberries right off the bush would definitely be in my top five. It’s right up there with the smell of fresh peaches and backyard BBQs, the taste of a good saison and picnicking amongst goats. Yes my friends, the only thing better than a blueberry is a blueberry baked into a muffin… And the only thing better than that is a muffin that I didn’t have to make.

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Sesame Tuiles

Sesame TuilesMaitre D: “And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.”

Mr Creosote: “No.”

Maitre D: “Oh sir! It’s only wafer thin.”

  • Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Don’t Youtube it… You’ll lose your appetite!)

A tuile is not a mint, but it is the very definition of “wafer thin”. Half way between a cookie and a cracker the classic tuile is a sugary almond snack from France (“Tuile” means “tile”) that looks exactly like a Pringles potato chip and is traditionally served with sweet cream. Nowadays tuilemaking embraces both sweet and savoury flavours and is molded into a wide variety of shapes for stuffing, decoration or just eating out of hand. Read More