Cooking recipes

A few of years ago, after attending the Stratford Garlic Festival, we ended up growing 9 kinds of garlic. We thought that was a bit excessive, and that we should assess them systematically, and pare down the number. Last year we eliminated 2 of them because they were not healthy, so this year we are down to 7 kinds. (One of them was Music, a bit oddly.) Still a bit much! I cant keep track of them, and just grab one at random. We want to know: which are the best raw? Cooked? Of course, we also have to consider how well they grow in the garden and how good a crop they produce as well.

We are getting ready to plant our garlic within the next week, so it was time to do that assessment and eliminate a few. Is there really much difference between types of garlic? I have to say, while they were all noticeably garlic, the flavour profiles did vary quite a bit. We sampled each garlic raw, and then I cooked a small slice in a neutral vegetable oil for 45 seconds to one minute, until just showing faint signs of browning. One thing that quickly became clear was that our cool, rainy summer had a big impact on our garlic flavour. It was very weak in general compared to other years. Still, we went ahead and rated everything. We seem to get a cool, rainy summer about one year out of every 5, so its not like its an aberration.

We gave everything but Anns Italian a 10 for storage - they were all still just barely showing signs of sprouting and the occasional bad clove when we harvested the new crop in July, except Anns which had pooped out in mid-spring, thus earning an 8 out of 10 points.

We realised that when eaten raw, garlic has 2 noticeable layers of flavour: an initial burst of pungency, or heat, and then the underlying characteristic garlic flavour. The pungency disappears when the garlic is cooked, and the garlic flavour also changes, meaning that garlics can be quite different raw and cooked.

Anns Italian: 
This is an unusual garlic that we chose to grow because it often produces extra cloves further up the stem; a double decker garlic. More interesting to me is that it is a semi-softneck garlic meaning that if I wanted to make a garlic braid, this would be a very good candidate.

The bad news is that in every other way it was at the bottom of the list of garlics we grow. We gave it a rating of 5 out of 10 for production (healthy growth and size of bulbs), that 8 out of 10 for storage, a 6 out of 10 for raw flavour and a 5 out of 10 for cooked flavour.

The flavour ratings may have been slightly affected by the fact that it was the first garlic we tried, but we were shocked by how, well, bland it was. Both raw and cooked it was weakly flavoured, and when cooked it had a slight bitter aftertaste. Raw, it had a good sharp horseradishy pungency to start, but it faded very quickly leaving... not much. It may have been better in a better year, but we both agreed that this was an easy elimination.

Azores (Azores Portuguese):
This one was a complete contrast to the Anns Italian.  The flavour was strong and dark, earthy and almost harsh, but in a good way.The initial pungency was slower to build than in Anns Italian, and lasted longer. It was never quite as sharp, but the flavour, in addition to being much stronger, lingered in the mouth.Cooked, it was still quite strong and earthy in flavour, but well-balanced.

The bulbs were large, and rated an 8 out of 10 for production, an 8 for raw flavour, and an 8 for cooked flavour.

This was one we picked up at the Stratford Garlic Festival (as was the Anns Italian) and I dont know much about it beyond that not surprising fact that it was brought over to Canada from the Azores. We agreed that we will continue to grow this one.

Bogatyr:
Bogatyr is a fairly well-known and popular variety from Russia. The name means "hero" in Russian, and it is said to have originated near Moscow. Its a purple striped hardneck garlic with 4 to 7 cloves, and is one of our largest garlics along with Azores.

In contrast to the Azores, this seemed light and sprightly in flavour, although not weak. Nicely pungent but not too lingering, the phrase we kept repeating was "well balanced". It rated an 8 for production quality, an impressive 8.5 for raw flavour (the highest rating we gave) and an 8 for cooked flavour. Yes, we are keeping this one.

Ferganskij:
Another garlic from the Stratford Garlic Festival, Ferganskij was collected by John Swenson of the Seed Savers Exchange in a Samarkand (Uzbekistan) bazaar. Alas, in spite of this romantic history and source in the original homeland of garlic, it did not generally rate well.

It received a fairly wimpy 5 out of 10 for production, an unimpressive 5 out of 10 for raw flavour - it was surprisingly weak and bland, lacking in pungency - and an amazing 8.5 for cooked flavour: rich, nutty and well-balanced. This was the highest rating we gave for cooked flavour, but a few others were close on its heels, so we decided that did not justify our planting it again, and it was eliminated.

Fish Lake:
Here is a classic garlic, well-known amongst Canadian garlic lovers. Ted Maczka, a Polish immigrant to Ontario after World War II worked as a tool and die maker, but garlic farming was his true passion and calling. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he did much to publicise the fact that Ontario has the climate to produce great garlic, and to provide the necessary material for other growers. He became known as The Fish Lake Garlic Man, and this is the garlic that bears the Fish Lake name.

So, how does it rate? It received a 9 out of 10 for production quality, the highest rating in that category. This is a truly robust and healthy garlic. For flavour, though, it rated a 6 out of 10 raw, and a 6.5 cooked - good, but not great. Fresh, flavour was mild but built slightly. Mr. Ferdzy thought it had a faint bitter aftertaste when cooked. It was similar to Ferganskij in flavour profile, but weaker overall.

Foundling: aka The Meaford Weed:
About 4 years ago, we were driving along a side road just outside of Meaford. "Stop the car! Stop the car!" I yelled. Mr. Ferdzy stopped the car. "Back up! Back up!" Mr. Ferdzy backed up. "GARLIC!" And sure enough, it was. Around the ruins of a long-burnt down house straight scapes topped with garlic bulbils waved above the grass and weeds. We collected the best-looking specimens, and brought them home and planted them. Those first specimens were extremely puny, but they have gotten bigger and better every year as they return to a healthy cultivated state.

Meaford has a history as a garlic growing town; I keep meaning to do some research on when it started and where the garlic would have come from. We have since realised that there is garlic growing in the ditches all over the place throughout town, including just down the street and on our next-door neighbours property.

We gave it a rating of 7 out of 10 for production quality, although we hope it is still improving. For raw flavour it rated a 7.5 out of 10, and for cooked flavour a 7.5 out of 10. So overall, not the best of the garlics but a good solid second tier, and given its local history we intend to keep growing it. Fresh, it had low pungency and an even, balanced yet lingering aftertaste. Cooked, it was mild yet rich and nutty and still maintained a trace of pungency.

Tibetan:
In previous years, Tibetan stood out as tasting distinctly different from any other garlic we grew, being particularly hot and pungent. This year, that pungency just wasnt there. It does make us a little uneasy that in a hot, dry summer our garlic ratings might be quite different. Still, as I noted, its not like cool, wet summers dont happen regularly, so on we go...

Tibetan is up there with Azores and Bogatyr for size, and rated 8 out of 10 for production quality. This year it achieved a 7 out of 10 for raw flavour and an 8 for cooked flavour. Raw, it was mild and even with a lasting flavour. Cooked, it was nutty, well-balanced and fairly strong. Last year we rated it as very hot, but not lingering in flavour when raw - quite different.

For this weekend’s filler clip I’m posting this very amusing bit of video from the David Letterman show, featuring Jamie Oliver. I’m a big Jamie Oliver fan. I like his simple approach and real enthusiasm (unlike many TV Chef’s who just turn on the passion for the camera). Famous Chefs have been going on Letterman for years to plug books, shows, new restaurants, etc., and they all have basically the same experience; as they are trying to cook their signature dish, Mr. Letterman is goofing around, asking bizarre questions to distract them, drinking olive oil, pretending to burn or cut himself, and generally doing everything possible to prevent the poor Chef from finishing his or her dish properly.

It’s basically a running gag by now, and several Chefs will no longer appear on the show for fear of being made to look like a fool again. Well, Jamie Oliver does a great job in this clip of holding it all together. He actually keeps Letterman under control (sort of), finishes the dish (which looked great), got his plug in for the Children’s School Lunch Program he was involved in, and, my personal favorite part of the demo, tells guest Tom Cruise “to be a man.” By the way the dish he was making was a Thai noodle dish that translated to “Fairy Purse.” Insert your own joke here. Enjoy!

If you think that you make first class jam, or even if youd like to see just how your jam fares against other competitors, then you should enter

a global celebration of everyones favourite spread. Now in its third year the competition, which invites jam entries from all over the world, has extended its categories to include team entries, the bairns’ jam, international flavours and a specific section for ladies of the SWRI and WI.


Inspired by the world-class, soft fruit fields of Blairgowrie and the berry pickers of years gone by THE WORLD JAMPIONSHIPS are here to encourage us to preserve our heritage, our recipes and to unite us all in our love of jam. Entries are open to homemakers and artisans, experts and beginners.

Participants are invited to send in, or drop off, their jam entries between May 14th and August 16th 2013. The jam entries will be judged by a small, expert group that includes a chef, two artisan jam producers, a home economics teacher and the resident SWRI expert (full details can be found at www.worldjampionships.com).


 Winners will be announced at Dundee Flower and Food Festival on Friday 6th September.




Jam recipes are included in "Of Culinary Matters", a recipe book written in the first century by the Roman, Marcus Gavius Apicius. The origins of jam however, remain one of our unsolved culinary mysteries as the precise culture and date of its arrival is a matter of historical debate! What we do know is that everyone’s favourite spread is mentioned throughout history and appears to have been enjoyed globally for many centuries.
Jam-making in Europe can be traced back to the 16th century Spaniards who had been preserving fruits for generations. In Britain, jams origins are in Tudor times where there are records of a preserve called a sucket, a cross between candied peel and jam.

Now you are ready to make your own jam, if you have never done so before dont be put off, its really quite simple, just follow the instructions carefully.

BASIC RASPBERRY JAM RECIPE
900gms (2lbs) Fresh Raspberries 900gms (2lbs) Sugar (Makes approx 6x227g jars or 3x450g jars)
Method
Put the raspberries in your pan and cook for 3-4 mins until juice begins to run, bring to boiling point.Stir in the sugar and keep stirring, do not let the jam boil before the sugar has
dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, boil rapidly until set is reached. This can take as little as 5 mins.
Remove from heat once set has been reached, carefully pour into sterilised jars, filling to 4mm of top of jar. Cover with lid or wax disc and cellophane cover.


If you would like to learn how to make the kind of jam that wins prizes you need a copy of First Preserves Jams an e-book by Vivien Lloyd.  This is a great little book full of excellent information about preserving, Vivien shares the knowldege she has gained as a WI judge and prize-winning preserve maker.  It includes Vivien talking you through the process of making Raspberry and Apple jam in a step-by-step embedded video, and a range of recipes.  There is even a chapter on Competitions which gives you all the information about what the judges are looking for, helping you to win prizes.


I have one copy of First Preserves Jams, worth £5.49 to giveaway. This is an enhanced e-book and only available to download to Ipad  if you win you will receive a code and can download the book via  Vivien Lloyd Preserves website.  If you dont win the giveaway and you still want to give your jams the best chance of winning the Jampionships or your local show, then you can buy First Preserves - Jams for £5.49 either the website or direct from Itunes
To win enter follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here are some links to the jam recipes that I have posted on my blog:
Rhubarb and Ginger Jam
Mixed Berry Jam
Gooseberry Jam
Pineapple Chilli Jam
Tomato Chilli Jam
Cranberry Jam 

Jam, Jam, Jam, Jam (with apologies to Monty Python).  I am supporting the Jampionships because I do not want the art of preserving to die out, I have enjoyed homemade jam all my life and would like future generations to have the same pleasure. Thanks to Vivien and Nigel Lloyd for the copy of First Preserves Jam to review and for providing a copy of this excellent e-book as a giveaway.

We dont get into Toronto too often these days, but we found ourselves with a free Saturday there this past weekend. So, bright and early (alright it was 10:00 am) we went off the the St. Lawrence Market, a place I well remember going to as a child. We started in the North Market, which is where the actual farmers market is. It opens at 5:00 am, so we could really have been there bright (dark, actually) and early if we had wanted.


Its not as bustling as it would have been in the height of the season, but there were still a few vendors spilling out onto the sidewalks, and the place was pretty packed.


Inside, it looks very much as it did when I was first taken there in the late 1960s when it would have been brand spanking new, except Im pretty sure it has a lot more vendors, a lot more variety of produce and a lot more customers. Back before the big surge in interest in local food it was looking pretty sad for a while as I recall. Its good to see it so busy and interesting again.

I was also aware that this was probably the last time Ill see the old market building. The market is due to be rebuilt next year, so it will be greatly disrupted and then the year after it will be a whole new thing.


Now you can get all kinds of stuff at the market. Best Baa Farm was there with a selection of sheeps milk cheeses. Didnt have that when I was a kid!


A colourful display of Brussels sprouts and peppers.


There are a few traditional butchers.


Cabbages and rutabaga - its beginning to look a lot like winter!



A great array of winter squash take centre stage, literally.


Lots of baked goods available, including these colourful pizzas.


An amazing selection of more exotic meats: guinea fowl, bison, fallow deer, muscovy duck, pheasant and ostrich.


A large display table was devoted to every product of the beehive, including some very nice candles. I didnt get it at this table, but I was excited to find some melon-blossom honey available. Im getting to have quite a collection of honeys; I should do a honey-tasting one of these days.


Alas, I didnt think to bring my vouchers so I didnt get any cheese from the Monforte stand. (Actually this turned out to be just as well - stay tuned for further details!) However, I was excited to see that they have added a truly scrumptious Gouda cheese to their available cheeses.


Once we were done with the North Market, we went across the street to the South Market, which is an older and more interesting building. Its open every day but Sunday and Monday, but isnt particularly a great source of local produce.


However, there certainly is some! I love all these baskets of veggies with the bright blue wall.


The basement is a warren of fascinating little places, and the scents from this bakery fill the whole place. We didnt get anything here even though the chocolate croissants looked amazingly good because the line-ups were pretty amazing too.


Upstairs is more spacious and filled with cheese and meat vendors, as well as more vegetables and other little food-related boutiques. I swear I remember many of the vendors as having been there when I was a kid, or at least when I was much younger; 40 years ago. The St. Lawrence Market is nothing if not an institution.


These guys are relatively new, though. I always make sure to pick up some Kozliks Mustard when Im at the market.



The hard part - definitely - is picking which one its going to be. There are so many to choose from. Fortunately, you can sample them before you buy.

Of course, you know us; we wondered where food came from in Cuba. We knew that there had been a lot of trade with the Soviet Union prior to their collapse in the 90s; sugar in exchange for, well, just about everything. That meant that after the collapse, Cuba was in a difficult position. But now, there is plenty of food. Here is some of it on the move. We were determined to track it down.


To that end, we asked our hosts at our casa particular if they knew anyone who was growing food, and could arrange to visit. Their nephew lived out in the country, not far from Havana, and he had a friend who was a farmer, so it was arranged that we could go and visit. This is Jorge Feliz Abreo (y?) Malcharde, but everybody calls him Felongo. He has been farming ever since he was young, and he is now a very successful man, especially by Cuban standards.


The soil near Havana - and this farm, near Caimito, is I believe about 20 kilometres out - is very rich and very red, which to me suggests a high iron content. This field has been recently planted with alternating rows of tomatoes and plantains. The tomatoes will produce this year, while the plantains get established. Next year, the plantains will be large, and start to produce. This kind of time-based interplanting seems to be fairly common.


Felongo was quite exasperated about the age of his equipment, and was surprised when I told him a lot of Canadian farmers dont necessarily have anything much newer. In Cuba it is not available at any price, but in Canada the price is out of reach of many.


This is our old buddy malanga. What a beautiful plant it is! And it seems to grow everywhere and at every season. Cubans are not always as enthusiastic about it as I was, no doubt in part because of these qualities. Its a bland, starchy root, and one of the first solid foods given to babies. I suspect people saw an awful lot of it during the special period.

This patch is growing in one of the hedgerows, which were also full of various fruiting trees, although almost all of them were not fruiting or flowering at the moment, it being the driest and coolest part of the year.



This is Emilio, one of the farmhands. Felongo was too busy to walk out to the bean field we wanted to see, as it was about 700 metres away from the farm-house, so he asked Emilio to take us.


And these are the beans. They were a standard Cuban variety of black beans, the kind seen at just about every meal in the form of beans and rice, or Christians and Moors as it is also known.
They were expected to be ready and drying out by the end of February (this was early January) at which point the plants would be pulled up, piled in a heap and either threshed by hand or run over with equipment of some kind, if it was available, and then the beans gathered up. This process would take 5 or 6 men 3 or 4 days.


Emilio shows us a seed malanga root. The field to his side had been planted until recently in malangas, but it had been harvested about a week ago. The largest malangas had been sold, and the smallest roots saved for re-planting. They were stored in loosely woven nylon bags in an airy shed to keep them sound. They will, of course, be planted in a different field next time.


Here are some of the bags of malangas in the shed, carefully placed for good air circulation.



In the complex of sheds there were a number of rabbits in cages. I though suspending them was a clever idea - it makes cleaning up after them a lot easier. There were a lot of small meat animals in Cuba that we saw. Rabbits were slightly unusual, but only slightly. Chickens and turkeys were common. Goats were everywhere. None of these things (except chicken) showed up on any tourist menus that I saw; it was always pork, chicken, pork, shrimp, pork, pork, fish, and a small amount of beef. And pork, did I say?


Heres some of that pork. Like the rabbits, these piglets were in a raised pen to allow for better sanitation and easy cleaning. The pigs themselves were an interesting and attractive landrace rather than a specific breed. Felongo mentioned that he had had Canadian pork. He started off by saying it looked so good - and then he added, and it tastes of nothing. What could I say? He has it nailed, unless you go directly to a farmer who is raising it properly.



I was amazed and excited to see this as we drove back and forth between Havana and Cienfuegos. Yes! Its rice! There seemed to be a few Vietnamese names near the rice fields, so I suspect this is a joint international project. Rice is a huge staple in Cuban cuisine, but I dont think much is grown in Cuba. We didnt see a lot of rice being grown, although on the trip back I realized there was more than I thought - about three-quarters of the rice fields were dry and fallow at the moment, and often had cattle in them, eating the stubble. This makes sense; as Ive said it was the dry season. But you could tell the fields by the stubble, and the embankments around them. I guess people were just starting to replant for a new season.



We had heard much about the small urban vegetable gardens which provide a lot of food for Cubans nowadays. We also saw number of people growing vegetables in their yards, but only in the more suburban areas, of course, as the older denser parts of the cities really dont have any yards. Patios, yes, but they are usually paved and designed to be shady anyway. But here was somebody quite serious about their tomatoes.


After spending an afternoon in Havana looking for Organipónicos and not finding any we were a bit crestfallen. But once we were back in Cienfuegos we took a stroll from our new casa particular and were thrilled to find we were walking right by one! We chatted with someone there, and arranged to come back first thing in the morning for a tour. This is a large organipónico, with 1600 square metres of fixed beds, and an additional 1 1/2 hectares of fields.

La Calzada was a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the north-east of downtown Cienfuegos, and the further out you went along this road, the more organipónicos there were. I believe this was on Calle 60; a busy road serviced by a constant stream of horse-drawn taxis. I also noticed that all those taxis had by-product containment systems (aka shitcatchers) and I imagine that the contents get put to good use.


A couple of the workers were harvesting lettuce, and tieing it in bundles with short bits of telephone wire. We were told there are a large number of varieties of lettuce, but all we saw was a fairly straightforward mid-green softish leaf lettuce. It made a good foil to the ubiquitous cabbage which was the other half of the foundation of every salad we were served.

These kind of vegetables - mostly ones we are quite familiar with here - need to be kept relatively cool and well watered, and so are shaded with a plastic mesh, and grown in fixed beds. Garlic chives are planted along the edges of most of the beds, and clipped regularly and sold, but they also double as insect repellants.


Cubans use large numbers of chiles (peppers) in their cooking, but I would say 99% of them or more are very mild and sweet. The taste for spicy food so prevalent in the rest of the Caribbean and Central America has completely passed them by. I was very much reminded of the food we had in Spain, although with the addition of tropical produce, especially the excellent fruit.


In addition to malanga, another thing I really loved was fried plantains (tostones). I could eat them all night and all day. Happily, they showed up regularly. Here are some nearing maturity, planted in a hedgerow between the more pampered organipónico crops and the field crops.


These are sweet potatoes. We only had sweet potatoes once while we were in Cuba, which I regret very much because the ones we had were absolutely superb. Of course we had them in the form of french-fries, which only adds to my enthusiasm, but they were a pale straw yellow and a bit starchier than most we get here, and just beautifully flavoured in addition to being great for fries.


A fallow field, and more sweet potatoes. It was still quite early in the morning, as you can see by the shadows, but getting warm quickly. This farm had originally been run by Chinese people, but had been abandoned during or after the revolution. (I was not quite able to put together what happened to the Chinese in Cuba. There were once very many, now there are very few. They left, is the official story. It may even be true, who knows?)


Carlos Telles Machado, who gave us the tour and who is the boss of this particular organipónico, and I had a little mutual enthuse over malanga, and then he showed us one of his other favourite things; a kind of bean that grows on large bushes in the hedgerows. Excellent dried in rice as well as fresh and green, he assured us, and gave me a handful of them. Ready in 5 months, he said. I brought them home, so we will see if I can manage to grow them by starting them early indoors. A little research told me that they are, in fact, pigeon peas.


By the end of the tour, the little market booth at the front was being opened, and we bought a few veggies to eat in our little apartment. I was going to buy some vinegar too, but it turned out it wasnt vinegar in those bottles - it was homemade wine. Controls on alcohol sales seem to be pretty much nil in Cuba, but it seems like its mostly just the tourists who make idiots of themselves.



This was at a farm we stopped at out in the country to ask for some directions. As usual there was poultry running around, including these multi-coloured turkeys which interested me very much, as turkeys here in Canada tend to be highly overbred, and consequently not at all self-sufficient.


The other thing I was amazed to discover, is that most of the shrimp (and langosta, usually called lobster) we had been offered on various menus was farmed! I think of farmed shrimp as being terrible; bland and soggy. Certainly all the stuff we get here from Asia is very bad, not to mention notoriously unenvironmentally sound. But the Cuban shrimp tasted wild; firm, sweet and flavourful. I ate it almost at every opportunity. You cant tell from a roadside view, but this farm also did not seem to have done much if any environmental damage, being located on a rocky sea-side as it was.


The main building had this very cute and stylish shrimp sculpture out front, about which I have nothing to say except that it, like just about all the food I ate in Cuba, put a big smile on my face. I left very impressed by the hard work and ingenuity that has gone into solving Cubas food situation, and I hope to go back soon.