Do Your Magic Gougères

When I was little, my mom made cream puffs as a special treat. I loved how she filled them with clouds of whipped cream that gushed out all over my face and fingers. I thought they were magic. Now that I'm a big kid, I can make that magic myself. And it's really quite easy! Only now, I'm more inclinded to make them savoury with cheese rather than

Gooo-zjere on Global TV

Nice French accent, Kevin! Actually, it's Gougere, a snappy little French party app that's quick to make a tastes great. Global TV's Kevin Stanfield and Eric Beck were in my kitchen cooking for the holidays. The segment aired on Global Saskatoon this morning.
Click here to watch. Thanks for stopping by, Kevin!

 

Cheddar Gougeres
1 cup water
6 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
Few grinds fresh pepper
1 cup flour
4 eggs
3/4 cup cheddar cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, heat the water with the butter, salt and pepper until the butter is melted and the water is just simmering. Dump in the flour all at once. Stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pot and forms a ball. Remove from heat.

Beat the mixture with electric beaters or turn it into a stand mixer and beat 30 seconds to release the heat. Rest two minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing quickly and thoroughly between each egg. Mix the two cheeses together. Add 3/4 of the cheese to the dough and mix in well.

Using a small spoon, scoop up walnut-sized balls of dough and place on baking sheets. Sprinkle each one with a bit of remaining cheese. Bake at 425F for 10 minutes. Turn heat down to 375F and bake another 20-25 minutes. Puffs should be nicely browned. Eat warm or cool, with a filling or not.

Feel free to use different cheese, as long as it's a dry cheese. Traditionally the French use Gruyere and perhaps a couple teaspoons of chopped chives. A dash of chili powder or paprika added with the flour is nice, too. You can enjoy them just as they are, or break them open and fill the centres with chicken or ham salad. Bon appetit!

Prairie Kitchens - Welsh Rarebit

When Canadian troops came home from World War II, they brought close to 48,000 new brides with them, mostly British but also French, Belgian and Dutch. As they settled in across the country, these women were struck by the abundance of food in Canada. Most of them had endured five years of food rationing, scarcity and hunger. Even so, there was much they missed from home.

Hilda Duddridge, a Welsh lass who married a fellow from Hanley, missed the seafood (cockles and mussels) and laverbread, a dish of seaweed and oatmeal. Needless to say, she could not get some of these ingredients in Saskatchewan in 1945.

Hilda's new husband, Lew Duddridge, had a Welsh mother (a war bride from World War I) but even so, he quickly informed her that he did not much like Welsh (or British) cooking. Luckily, Hilda found a few traditional favourites that Lew could love, such as Welsh Rarebit, a savoury cheese toast.

Picture and story of Hilda and Lew, Victoria Times Colonist

Years later, she was interviewed about her experience for a Master's thesis, Deliciously Detailed Narratives: The Use of Food in Stories of British War Brides' Experiences, available online.

To help these young women in the kitchen, the Department of National War Services published the Canadian Cook Book for British Brides which informed them, for instance, that their Canadian husbands preferred pie of any sort over suet pudding and took cream in their coffee, not hot milk. As you might imagine, it does not include a recipe for Welsh Rarebit.

Welsh Rarebit
4 slices of sturdy bread
2 cups grated sharp cheddar
1 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp mustard powder
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup ale or milk
2 egg yolks

Toast the bread on one side under the broiler. In a saucepan, mix the cheese with the flour and mustard powder. Add the butter, Worcestershire sauce and ale. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the cheese is melted and the mixture is thickened and smooth. Do not boil. Remove from heat for 3 min. Whisk the egg yolks and, after 3 min., whisk them into the cheese. Blend well.

Spread the cheese onto the untoasted side of the bread and place under the hot grill. Do not use the top oven rack or the bread might burn before the cheese is cooked. The cheese should be lightly browned. Eat hot. It is also traditional in Britain two swipe the toast with chutney before putting on the cheese.

Do you have prairie recipe with a story? Send me a comment. Follow twitter.com/prairiefeast.

This food column first appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

Rosti for Breakfast

My favourite breakfast for a cold Sunday morning. Our boiler quit working overnight, but we lit a warming fire and ate rosti while we waited for the plumber to arrive.

Rosti is a national dish of Switzerland. Cooked potato is grated into an oiled pan and fried on both sides, then topped with a bit of melted cheese. Add a dash of salt, too. Potatoes do love salt!

This rosti was made with fingerling potatoes grown on my brother's farm, so it's good, cheap food, just like the old peasant foods of Switzerland where rosti began. Here's another version with bacon and scallions from Bon Appetit.

Learning to make Cheese

My husband grew up in Wisconsin, in the heart of dairy country, where farmers sell cheese made from the milk of their own cows. Whenever we go back to Wisconsin, my favourite road food is a bag of fresh-made squeaky cheese curds. For me, that is the taste (and sound) of Wisconsin.

Here in Saskatchewan, John does some business with a sawmill at Rosthern and learned that the owner's wife, Rachel, makes cheese with milk from the family's herd of goats. Rachel and Vernon have six boys, and the oldest are responsible for milking the goats every morning. She makes cheese just about every week.

In the interest of my foodie tendencies, John asked if I could visit Rachel on a day she was making cheese. So, on a rainy Tuesday, I went to their farm to observe the cheese making process. It's certainly not hard, though it is time-consuming. Now I'm ready to buy supplies and try it myself. If only I could find a source of fresh farm milk...

Rachel and her youngest, Brent, stirring in the rennet.

Scooping out the fresh curds.

Cheese for lunch -- This cheese was made last week.

Fresh and squeaky cheese curds. Yummm.

Where is your dairy from?

Here's a snapshot of the dairy products in my fridge. Each one carries a number identifying where it was packaged. So, where have they travelled from?

Dairyland Cremo (4015) - Saputo, Saskatoon, SK
Formost Milk (3907) - Formost, Winnipeg, MB
Apetina Feta (3610) - Amalgamated Dairy, Summerside, PEI
Dairyland Sour Cream (4015) - Saputo, Saskatoon, SK
Bari Ricotta (1900) - Saputo, St-Leonard, QU
PC Bocconcini (1900) - Saputo, St-Leonard, QU
Astro Yogurt (1545) - Parmalat, Toronto, ON
No Name Mozzarella (1680) - Saputo, Mont-Laurier, QU

Check what's in your fridge with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Cheese Please

Finally, I got my hands on some of the lovely cheeses made by Chapel Cheese of Ravenscrag, down in southwest Saskatchewan. Thanks to a chain of hand-delivery (3 degrees of separation from the farm) I sampled the Heritage Havarti and Coulee Caerphilly last night.

Here they are pictured with charcuterie from Pulvermacher Butchers in Bruno and Model Meats in Watrous. I'm a huge fan of Pulvermachers pepperoni (on the left).

At Chapel Cheese, Jim's herd of heritage breed cows will begin milking again soon, so there'll be a new batch of cheese to sample. I smell a road trip on the horizon...

Signs of spring - RICOTTA CHIVE PIE

Yes, the chives are up! So I did what any fanatic kitchen gardener would do – I snipped them off and ate them. Not right then and there in the garden, but later that day, baked into a Ricotta Pie. I also included a few little thyme leaves from the garden, some rosemary from a plant on my kitchen table and some store-bought parsley.

RICOTTA CHIVE PIE
3 tbsp. breadcrumbs
butter for greasing pie plate
4 eggs, room temp.
1/4 cup flour
1 tbsp. fresh chives and other herbs
1/2 tsp. salt and a dashe of pepper
2 cups ricotta cheese
3 slices of crispy-cooked bacon

Oven 400 F. Grease a deep pie plate with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs to coat the surface. Shake out excess crumbs. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks lightly with the flour, salt, pepper and herbs. Stir in the ricotta cheese and the bacon. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the ricotta mixture until it is loosely mixed. If it’s too stiff to mix, add a bit of cream or milk. Spread into the pie plate, smoothing the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a brown crust has formed and a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Newspaper - SWISS CHARD PASTA FILLING

This article appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix on 26 April 2006.

I am just coming off a very successful diet. I didn’t lose weight, but then, I didn’t set out to. But it’s been good for my health, good for the economy and good for the planet. Oh, and it tastes good, too. For the past year, my husband and I have been eating an all-Saskatchewan diet. From asparagus to zucchini, and the jelly in between, just about everything on our dinner table is a product of Saskatchewan.

Why, you ask? It seemed like a fitting project for Saskatchewan’s centennial year. But there were loftier motivations, too. I wanted to eat healthier, support the local food industry and reduce the environmental impact of my eating habits. Most of the foods we eat travel more than 1,000 kilometres from the field to the fork. To some, that may seem like a marvel of modern transportation, but to me it seems like an absurd waste of energy and fossil fuels.

If Saskatchewan prides itself on producing food for the world, why aren’t we eating more of it right here at home? I decided to put my money where my mouth is and eat locally. My Saskatchewan culinary adventure began last April, just as the tender chives were poking through the garden...

Spring fever
All winter, I planned this experiment in local food consumption. I decided to begin the first day I ate something fresh from my garden in Saskatoon. It was the chives. The date was April 16. I chopped the chives and sprinkled them on a hot German potato salad, served with sausages from the farmers’ market and my mom’s pickles. It was the first of hundreds of all-Saskatchewan meals to come.

I sat down and made a list of Saskatchewan foods in two columns, those I already purchased and those I would seek out. The first column included things like eggs, chicken, beef, tomatoes, apples and asparagus. The second list included things like cheese, lentils, cherries, rolled oats and mushrooms. Needless to say, it is hard to find "Made in Saskatchewan" in the local grocery store, so I had to find alternative sources.

One day in spring, the mailman left a parcel card in my mailbox. I went to pick it up at the postal kiosk at the neighbourhood drug store. "I hope you drove here," said the postal clerk, "because it’s heavy." She heaved the box from the back room onto the counter. "Books?" she asked. "No," I said. "Lentils."

It was, in fact, 15 kilograms of organic lentils and split peas from the Cerridwen Farm at Medstead. Over the past year, I have bought food in unusual places from flea markets to gas stations and even from the trunk of a car. Very quickly, I had to adapt my food habits. Instead of planning a meal and dashing out buy to the ingredients, I had to consider the available ingredients and plan a meal around it. I shopped at farmers’ markets, bought direct from farmers and read labels carefully in the grocery store. I went to the Saskatchewan Made Marketplace, which sells only local goods. I kept a garden and swapped produce with family and friends.
It’s a little more time consuming than a visit to the grocery store, but it’s a lot more fun!

For me, a sure sign of spring is the day in March when the Grandora Greenhouse lettuce and cucumbers arrive at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market. So, with lentil soup and fresh salads, we got our Saskatchewan diet off to a very good start...

Summer passions
Our Saskatchewan diet moved outdoors. Hamburgers, grilled vegetables, pizza on the BBQ, green salads dotted with edible flowers. The official summer drink on our patio was the Mint Julep, an icy sipping cocktail made with lots of fresh mint. In July, I issued a challenge to my bookclub. We usually have a potluck when we get together. Since we were reading a book set in the south of France, I decided the theme of the potluck would be Mediterranean foods made with Saskatchewan ingredients.

"Help! What on earth do you mean?" came a quick email reply from Susan. Well, think of the foods we associate with the Mediterranean. Pasta, pesto and pizza from Italy. Greek salad and spanikopita. Middle eastern pita bread, falafel and tabouleh salad. Fish and eggplant on the French Riviera. Lamb and honey in Morocco. The principle ingredients of all of these dishes are produced right here in Saskatchewan.

The potluck was wonderful, proving that an all-Saskatchewan meal doesn’t have to be meat and potatoes and rhubarb pie. Foods produced in Saskatchewan lend themselves to a range of world cuisines from Mexican tortillas to Chinese stir-fries.

I keep a small garden in Saskatoon which is usually designed with dinner in mind. It’s full of good things to eat within minutes of picking. But this year was different. I had to plan ahead.
So, I planted more beets and spinach and squash. I froze peas and corn. I grew lots of basil for pesto and dried the rest. I stewed rhubarb and made apple sauce. I even pickled asparagus from the farmers’ market.

In July, I picked saskatoon berries at Manitou Beach. In August, I picked mushrooms at La Ronge and cherries at the Yoanna Orchard near Radisson. In September, I picked pears from a tree on Temperance Street. Whatever we didn’t eat immediately was put away for winter months. As summer waned, my panic waxed. Could our Saskatchewan diet survive a long Saskatchewan winter? Or would we emerge pale and hungry with the spring thaw...

Fall comforts
To celebrate Saskatchewan’s centennial in September, I decided to recreate the dinner served to dignitaries the day the province was created. I obtained the menu from the Saskatchewan Archives Board in Regina. Although there were several courses, the menu was quite generic. Cream soup, spring chicken and tomato salad could be prepared any number of ways. So, I consulted a cookbook that was popular in 1905, the Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book first published in 1896. Then I invited two great friends, Heather and Murray, for dinner. Here’s the menu:

Imperial Cream Soup, chicken with spring onions, lamb in parchment paper, tomato salad with horseradish sauce, steamed asparagus, Potato Bells, sponge cake with champagne sauce and fresh strawberries.

By now our friends were all aware of our Saskatchewan diet. Whether from pity or concern, they began offering us gifts of Saskatchewan food. One day, there was a knock at the door. It was our friend Jeff, an avid hunter, with a box of frozen moose, cut and wrapped. "How do you cook moose?" I asked. "Like beef," he advised.

So, I delved into a food magazine and found a recipe for Portuguese beef stew. Substitute moose and it was delicious. I began stocking food like a crazy chipmunk who puts away enough for three winters. Before long, my freezer was full. Another friend to the rescue–offering space in his freezer and a key for quick access. And so, as the snow began to fly, we were comforted with baked beans, hearty soups and slow-cooked stews...

Winter greens (and reds)
Winter brings with it several special meals, and I aimed to prove that Saskatchewan foods could rise to the occasion. For Christmas dinner, we had squash and pear soup, baked ham, baked beans, coleslaw and a cherry tart. For New Year’s, the menu was grilled pork chops, mushroom barley risotto, red pepper salad and for dessert, a saskatoon pie. For Valentine’s Day I prepared a "red" meal including BBQ steaks, beet salad and a pink cake with cherry sauce.

I must admit, by February I was craving some fresh greens. I love coleslaw, but enough is enough! If I wanted fresh Saskatchewan greens in the middle of winter I was going to have to grow my own! So, I placed an order with Mumm’s Sprouting Seeds of Parkside. Seeds don’t need much space (just a jar in a window) and you’ve got vitamin-rich greens in just a few days.

Traditionally in prairie culture, winter was not the lean season. It was early spring, when the winter stocks had run out but the new growing season had not yet begun. As winter gives way to spring, we are using up the frozen tomatoes and opening the last jar of canned pears. I’m already out of dried oregano and pinto beans. Tonight, we’re roasting the last of the free-range chickens.
We did not starve–not in quantity or quality–on our Saskatchewan diet. The year is up, but I suspect we won’t celebrate the end of this diet because it’s become a habit for life.

For Saskatchewan menus, recipes and food sources please go to homefordinner.blogspot.com.


SWISS CHARD PASTA FILLING
I make this stuffing in the summer when Swiss chard is abundant and freeze it for winter pasta making. We usually make a large batch of ravioli and freeze what we don’t eat right away. I make the dough and my husband rolls it. (We have a Pasta Queen pasta roller and a ravioli press, which make the task quite easy.) To make the dough, I blend 2 cups of flour with 3 beaten farm eggs and a spot of water. After mixing with a fork, I work it into a ball with my hands, wrap it in a plastic bag, and leave it in the fridge at least an hour before rolling it.

If you don’t have a pasta maker or a ravioli press, you can use this stuffing inside purchased cannelloni. It can also be made with spinach. So, if you don’t have any fresh or frozen Swiss chard, feel free to substitute fresh or frozen. For the tomato-basil sauce, see the recipe in the August 2005 archives. To make your own ricotta cheese, see the recipe in the April 2005 archives.

1 pound Swiss chard, parboiled and squeezed dry. (or thawed and squeezed)
1cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 large egg
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp each fresh thyme and fresh rosemary (or half as much dried herbs)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together well and stuff something!

Week 9 - RICOTTA PIE

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week from 15 June.

Breakfast – Pancakes with stewed rhubarb
Lunch -- Bread with tomatoes and asparagus spread
Dinner – Ricotta pie, caramelized onions, green salad

Ricotta Pie














This is an Italian dish that can be served as an appetizer or a light meal. It's good warm or room temperature. Make your own ricotta cheese (see recipe here).

2-3 tbsp breadcrumbs
butter for greasing pie plate
4 eggs
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
2 cups ricotta cheese
3 slices of crispy-cooked bacon or equivalent ham
Butter a pie plate and sprinkle with breadcrumbs to coat the surface.

Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks lightly with the flour, salt and pepper. Stir in the ricotta cheese with the bacon or ham. (For a vegetarian version, add herbs instead.)

Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the cheese mixture until it is loosely mixed. Spread into the pie plate, smoothing the top. Bake at 400F for 25-20 minutes, until a nice brown crust has formed. I like to serve it with chutney or onion gravy.

Week 1 - RICOTTA CHEESE

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week - April 18.

Breakfast – Sprouted wheat bread with honey.
Lunch – Bread with buffalo salami and mustard, raw carrots.
Dinner – Homemade ravioli filled with ground pork, ricotta cheese and rosemary.

Ricotta Cheese
Ricotta cheese is very easy to make at home. (Okay, it's not real authentic ricotta, but it sure looks and tastes just like it). You will need a cooking thermometer and a double-thick piece of cheesecloth for draining the cheese. Acidity can be obtained from either fresh lemon juice or powdered citric acid, which can be purchased at a drug store.

16 cups whole milk
1 tsp citric acid stirred into 1/4 cup cool water, or the juice of six lemons
1 tsp salt

Put the milk in a thick-bottom stockpot. Stir in the citric acid (or the lemon juice) and the salt. With the burner on very low, heat the milk until it reaches 190F stirring occasionally so the milk doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot.

At 185F, you should start to see the formation of curds. When the temperature reaches 190F, take the pot off the heat and let it sit for ten minutes.

Pour the milk into a colander lined with the muslin, set over the sink. Tie the corners of the muslin together to encase the cheese, and suspend it to drain for an hour. (I hang it from a cupboard knob over the sink.) Refrigerate. You can use this cheese to make ricotta pie (see recipe at Week 9). Note: sometimes I save the leftover liquid and use it to make bread.

Sources: milk from a local farmer.