Kickshaw Friday - a little bit of a few things

So it’s Friday night and I want to keep it short, so I thought a few miscellaneous food tips and thoughts would suffice.

First, I made French onion soup for supper tonight and wanted to do the classic baguette crouton with gruyere melted over. (See this recipe from Gourmet Magazine http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/French-Onion-Soup-236714 )

However, I didn’t have enough gruyere or a baguette and did not feel like going out. (This part I am not proud of.)  So I took hamburger buns and cut them in three horizontally to make the crouton.  For the cheese, I had a piece of Pecorino Romano left over from making sugo all'amatriciana, an amazing pasta sauce.  I grated this hard sheep cheese over the gruyere I had and its sharp saltiness added something very interesting to the sweetness of the caramelized onions.

Staying with tonight, I watched half hour of food TV that I really enjoyed.  At 7:00pm Mountain, Food Network Canada premiered Meat Men, a show about the large scale, but absolutely gourmet, meat company run by Pat LaFrieda Jr. (The was orginally shown sometime in April in the States.)  The owner gives great tips on selecting and cooking quality meat, including the fact that all the beef that he sells is good enough that he can tastes it raw first.  The episode was centred on perfecting ground beef mix for a burger to be used by renown New York chef, Michael White.  Pat started with a variety of sirloin cuts for one combination and added brisket with its fat content to another but neither were good enough for White.  So they threw out any budget restraints and went to Pat’s massive cooler of long-term dried-aged steaks.  Having added some of those to the grinder, with the sirloin and brisket, the result was a burger that made the grade.  Overall, there was a little bit of reality show drama but Meat Men is really about informing the viewer about the business of high-end meat, which I appreciate.

Finally, one of my favourite seasons is just about over.  If you live anywhere near British Columbia, try and find fresh peppers from there for a few more days.  I am normally not a fan of stuffed peppers, with the exception of this time of year.  I did a southwestern set of rice and corn stuffed peppers last week and an Indian inspired set yesterday filled with fresh paneer.  But even raw in salads these peppers have dimensions and fruity aromas that I have not found elsewhere.

The pepper display at the downtown Italian Centre Shop in Edmonton.  

So ends my Friday of kickshaws, kickshaw being an older English corruption the French quelque-chose - a little something. It was used as a cooking term with a meaning close to the way we use hors d'oeuvre today.