Category: General

General

Homemade Sicilian Cannoli

Though unfortunately I don’t live in Sicily that won’t stop me from make traditional cannoli.

A bit of a laboured dish it provided a fun weekend challenge. The dough was made traditionally with Marsala wine so that it had plenty of bubbles during frying. I also added a bit of cocoa powder to add a different colour to the shells. The filling was made with drained and sweetened ricotta blended both with coconut and chocolate. Lastly the finished cannoli were coated with home toasted coconut shreds.

Lots of work but worth the effort and sat perfectly under our Christmas tree once completed.

Focaccia

A quick and easy classic rosemary focaccia is staple dish. Not much to note other than the fresh rosemary that add a perfect touch. Great on its own straight out of the oven or with some refreshing toppings.

Hazelnut Financier

Known as my “Feel Good Cookies” my hazelnut financier are exceedingly addictive. A combination of hazelnut flour and browned butter make this a supercharged nutty explosion. I coat the baking mould with butter and sugar to give it a “sugar glazed” finish. Overall a 10/10 recipe that always makes you feel good.

Bison Steaks

I found a reasonably priced cut of Bison and decided to give it a try. It was not the best quality and being that it was a round steak it was a bit tough. I decided to sous vide the steak to get the best process window and got pretty acceptable results. I didn’t notice much of a different flavor probably because it was ranch raised and went pretty well with roasted potatoes.

Vacuum Filtration

As a follow up to my recent cactus juice post https://adam-s.ca/drink-cactus-juice-itll-quench-you/ I wanted to share my experience with vacuum filtration and it uses in the kitchen.

I recently purchased a vacuum filtration setup with a Büchner funnel and a vacuum pump for ~50$ in an effort to speed up some of my kitchen filtrations. I didn’t buy any filters and opted to use coffee filters instead as a cheap alternative. Initially this equipment was a success for most fruit juices (apple and peach) but cactus juice posed a significantly large problem. Due to its viscosity and polymer like nature it took a much longer time to filter but still proved effective.

Custom 3D Printed Pasta Roller Attachment

With a bit of 3D design iterations I was able to convert my manual hand cranked pasta roller into an automatic Kitchen Aid attachment. This was specifically made with Siraya Tech Blu-Tough Resin which is one of the best 3D printing resins for functional parts. I had to take a few measurements but this project ended up working quite well. One of the unforeseen challenges was once completed I was seeing some grinding between the plastics that was making it into the pasta. To solve this I took the easy way out and added some Teflon tape which was actually very effective at reducing wear.

Campfire Cooking

Though modern cooking techniques have provided almost unimaginable amounts of control there is something primal about cooking over a campfire. Though a bit messy with the amount of left over soot it was effective at boiling water and general cooking.

Easy Duck Confit at Home

Though traditionally made by slow cooking duck in its own fat to preserve it, the traditional method is a bit cumbersome at home. A simple workaround is using a sous vide and duck fat which allows you to replicate the process in a much controlled and easier way.

For this recipe I use a duck leg as they handle the process much better and then salt pepper and rosemary. There were all place in a vacume sealed alongs a couple table spoons of duckfat so that the duck leg was completely covered in it s own fat. This was then slow cooked for 12 hours and finished in the oven to get perfectly crispy skin. 10/10 classic dish.

Braised Short Rib and Polenta

I recently had this at a restaurant with asparagus as a side but felt that I might be able to do better with Brussels sprouts. Everything was done typically but the major bonus of this dish is drizzling the brazing liquid over the polenta and allowing it to soak it all up 10/10 dish.

Mis en Place

Brussels Sprout

I was at the farmers market looking for Brussels sprout for a recipe and was able to find an entire stalk worth of sprouts. The most shocking thing about them is that the largest ones were fist sized at which point I would call them mini cabbages rather than Brussels sprouts.