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You want me to what? Ok, if you insist.

Step one: Lots of heat

When my family and I visited London last year, a friend insisted that we go to Nopi. He told me that we could sit anywhere – even the basement was fine. And so we made reservations and went. We did end up downstairs, sitting at a massive marble table, surrounded by racks of storage for the kitchen.

Dinner was amazing. I remember being totally blown away and even the kids thought it was great.

We came back to Vancouver and at some point in the following months I ordered the restaurant cookbook.

I might have been in a bit of a funk, post-London. It might have been the grey fall weather. Maybe I needed some new eyeglasses. Possibly all three, but in any case I found the cookbook really unimpressive. I looked through the recipes and nothing jumped out at me at all. It felt like the entire volume was not to my palate.

But I decided I had better try something, so I settled on the ‘Burnt Green Onion Dip with Curly Kale’.

Holy cow. I was absolutely amazed. Other recipes have followed and they have been roundly incredible. The only drawback is that if you want to cook any of the meals you had best read the recipe really carefully several days in advance because some things take several days to create. The ‘Strained Ricotta with Blackcurrant Compote and Rhubarb’ takes a week to make, I swear. It’s worth it, but man, days pass.

But I’m writing about the burnt onions. The intro to the recipe states:

“One important point to remember: there’s no such thing as overcharring your onions, so hold your nerve at the grill… The more burnt they are, the better and more smoky they will taste.”

After charring my pizza, this was music to my ears. I love recipe instructions like that.

Getting there – need a bit more time

I love the idea of not being able to go too far when cooking something. I guess it’s like roasting eggplant. More is better.

Of course, I do wonder if maybe I should have kept them on the grill for longer? There always seems to be something to improve upon.

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Tea Biscuits

Just add some milk and hey-presto, just like mom used to make.

My wife has a blue recipe book. In it are all her family recipes – well, not all of them, but a bunch of them, including several of her mom’s family recipes.

Many are written out by hand. Some in my wife’s hand; some in my sister-in-law’s hand; some in my mother-in-law’s lovely writing. The binding is shot. There is a large oil stain that starts at Whiskey Chicken and goes clear through to Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. Just in case you’re wondering, the recipes aren’t in alphabetical order.

I see a sticker from an Australian Navel orange; a little illustration on the Ginger Cake recipe… Some of my mom’s recipes… Heck, my Cranberry Sauce is in there. Hadn’t seen that before.

And then there is the Tea Biscuits recipe. Right above Plain or Fruit Muffins and right across the page from a piece of paper with a fresh pasta recipe on it a note about Cornmeal Muffins and 9 Grain Bread.

The tea biscuits are epic. Super easy to make – without question the most used recipe in this book.

There is more to the book, though. The recipes in here represent a big part of my wife’s childhood… And now that I think about it, a bunch of me growing up, too – with her and enjoying a bunch of these meals together.

Funny how meals can imprint themselves like that on us. I remember some fantastic meals I have had like they were yesterday. But I also remember meals that were as pedestrian as they come. Usually the memory is because of something other than the meal, but that cornmeal muffin recipe I referenced above is from my mom. I haven’t thought about it for probably 30 or more years. But I remember how they taste like it was yesterday. Sometimes the mind is a strange place.

  • 2 cups flour
  • 3 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 cup shortening or butter
  • 2/3 cup grated cheese.
  • 1 cup milk

Oven to 450 degrees. Mix everything together. Add the milk until it makes a sticky dough – don’t over-mix. Dump on to a floured countertop, roll to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut out rounds with a drinking glass. Assemble on a greased baking sheet. 12-15 minutes.

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Eggs on Toast I

Breakfast favourite at our house

I’ll be brief. Eggs. Toast. Salt. Pepper. Breakfast.

And a little background… Empires have been torn apart over the appropriate way to boil an egg. Do you put the egg in cold water and bring it to the boil? Or drop it into boiling water? 3 minutes? 7 minutes? Both techniques have pros and cons (cold water won’t break open a cold egg and have it spill everywhere; water that is already boiling doesn’t have to be watched so carefully to see when it’s actually boiling before you start the clock.

Wait. Maybe I’m not making sense.

Two egg cooking techniques exist:

  • One is where you put an egg into a pot of cold or lukewarm water. You turn on the heat and once the water starts boiling, you set your timer for 3 minutes. This is how my father and my sister boil an egg.
  • The other is where you boil the water and then drop in the egg for 7 minutes, while the pot simmers away. This is my wife’s technique.

I use my wife’s technique, because I see her in the morning more often than I see my dad or my sister.

But the rest of the recipe is easy. Good piece of toast – hot out of the toaster (unless you’re my dad who likes his toast cold) bit of butter… Peel the egg, chop it roughly, sea salt and pepper. Enjoy.

Breakfast of champions because it’s almost as quick as a bowl of cereal and it’s different than cereal. Variety being the spice of life and all that…

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