Steak Frites

 This is the first time I`ve ever make a video recipe for one of my dishes so i hope you find it easy enough to follow. My camcorder really isn`t that great and neither is my photography so the quality isn`t amazing, but i think you will find that the content is there.

Ingredients
-1 Rib eye steak
-1 Russet potato, peeled
-Oil for deep frying and Pan searing
-4 Garlic cloves
-1/2 cup of good quality olive oil
-Salt and pepper
-a few sprigs of thyme
-4 Tbs balsamic vinegar
-2 Tbs of grated parmigiano
-2 Tbs finely chopped parsley
Method
1) Cut potatoes into french fry shape and submerge in cold water for at least 30 minutes, but preferable 24 hours.
2) Put your olive oil and garlic in a small pot and cook over low heat until the garlic is golden. Remove the garlic and  strain the oil. Set aside to cool.
3) Preheat your oil to 250 degrees F. Blanch them in the oil for 3-4 minutes. remove them from the oil and set aside while you cook your steak.
4)Pour the Balsamic vinegar into a sauce pan with 1 garlic clove and a few sprigs of thyme. reduce by 2/3. set aside
5) Preheat a pan on medium-high heat for a few minutes to get it nice and hot. Season your steak well on both sides. Place in the pan and sear for 4 minutes. Flip over and turn the heat down to medium. Cook for approximately another 4 minutes for medium rare. This is just a guideline, depending on the thickness of your steak it could take longer or shorter. Once finished set aside under some tin foil to rest
7)Heat your fryer oil to 370 degrees F and finish your frites until they are golden and crispy. Drain them on a paper towel in a bowel and toss them with the garlic oil, cheese, salt, pepper, and parsley.
8) Assemble the remaining components and serve

Left over chicken?

I think everyone looks for things to do with leftover food from the night before that tastes as good if not better than the original product. I just recently made this recipe for exactly that. I had some left over roast chicken this morning and I felt like some eggs, so i somehow decided to put the chicken into my eggs and see how well it went. The picture above really doesn't do this recipe justice as the flavors were really, really good. The chicken really flavored the eggs and tasted stronger than it originally did. Texturally this dish was also really interesting on the palette, crunchy bacon, soft scrambled egg, bite from the chicken meat, and some crunchy chew from the English muffins under it. This recipe is so easy and delicious, I really recommend trying it.

Ingredients
-1 Hand full of leftover Roasted chicken in chunks, or some other type of leftover that would go with eggs
-2 Eggs, beaten
-1 Strip of bacon
-1 English muffin cut in half and toasted
-A knob of butter (your choice on how big this is, i used one the size of about a dollar coin)
-Salt and pepper
-1-3 Tbs water, depends on how much deglazing you need to do

Method
1) Cut bacon into small lardons (strips), place them in a saute pan then put the pan on medium low heat until the bacon is crisped. Remove the lardons and reserve on a paper towel.
2) Place your chicken chunks into the pan, if it sizzles remove it from the heat and throw enough water in to deglaze the bottom of the pan. If the chicken does not sizzle, which it should, leave it on the heat until it begins to sizzle, then deglaze with the water. Remember to scrape the bottom of the pan with a spoon (wooden is the best but if you have stainless steel pans you can use metal) to get all the little caramelized bits off of the bottom.
3) Once all the water is gone from the pan, put in your eggs and butter and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Once your egg is fully cooked, about 2 minutes depending on your stove top (The egg should be fluffy and look like the egg in the picture above, not overcooked and dry) remove from the heat and quickly plate before the egg overcooks. Pour the mixture over top of the two English muffins, garnish with the lardons and... Enjoy.

Kerrisdale's New Restaurant

The Mac Shack, situated on west boulevard in Kerrisdale is a restaurant serving exclusively mac and cheese, with a few twists. I had the opportunity to eat here earlier today and I was honestly impressed by how good it was, when you take into consideration the mediocre at best selection of decent, affordable eats in Kerrisdale. The prices are pretty decent, a fairly large bowl of mac and cheese can cost anywhere from $6-$12 depending on what you get in it. I personally had the Lobster Mac and cheese ($12+taxes) and I also ate some of my friend's Four Cheese Mac (forget the price, but I think it is $6 for a regular, significantly cheaper than lobster mac). Both dishes tasted really good and I personally like the whole cast iron skillet type presentation. That being said, the problem with serving something in a hot cast iron skillet is that it overcooks as the diner eats it, and with pasta, that's a pretty big deal. The pasta arrived almost perfectly cooked, only slightly overcooked, but as we ate I noticed the pasta get softer and softer. This is really just nit picking though as it's mac and cheese, nobody ever said it was supposed to be al dente. The sauce on the Lobster Mac was creamy and garlicy (in a great way) and there were small (I mean SMALL) pieces of lobster in it. The dish also came with oyster mushrooms in it and while I love mushrooms, these ones were very very bad. They were undercooked, and hadn't been sautéed at all which was a disappointment. I also ate some of my friends four cheese mac which was also really good tasting. You could make out 3 of the four cheeses, which makes sense because the 3rd and 4th are both cheddar. The servers were nice and actually brought us our food, something virtually unheard of in Kerrisdale (exception: Fish Café, also a very good place to eat). Overall, The Mac Shack offers really good macaroni and cheese at decent prices. Some suggestions I would offer would be: Turn off the music or change it to something more neutral, take lobster off your menu and replace it with crab, we are in Vancouver, our crabs are world renowned + you have to import lobsters, crabs u can just go get, sauté the mushrooms before they go into the dish to make sure they are cooked and have great flavour.

Food: 8/10
Service: 10/10 (can't really complain in any way)
Ambiance 8/10 (Restaurant looks nice, but annoying music)
Verdict: You should definitely go and eat there at least once, they are quite good and i don't think you will be disappointed. 

                                                             Lobster Mac and Cheese




<a href="http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/1611970/restaurant/Kerrisdale/The-Mac-Shack-Vancouver"><img alt="The Mac Shack on Urbanspoon" src="http://www.urbanspoon.com/b/link/1611970/minilink.gif" style="border:none;width:130px;height:36px" /></a>

Sunday Fried Chicken

Fried chicken is one of the greatest inventions in food. Salty, Crispy, Juicy, fried chicken has it all. This recipe in an amalgamation of 3 or 4 other recipes I've seen online and I've got to say, this is better than any fried chicken you are going to get at any fast food joint. Sure it takes a fair amount of time, but the end result is fantastic.I used a deep fryer for this, but you can manage with a dutch oven full of oil or a cast iron skillet with oil in it; there are videos for both of these techniques on the internet (i.e. food wishes).
Ingredients (For 4)
Chicken
- 8 pieces of chicken (I went with 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks, no breasts because they are flavorless.)
- 500mL of buttermilk
- 1 Tbs Salt 
- 3 tsp. Paprika
- 2 tsp. Cayenne
- 1 tsp. Dried Oregano
- 1 tsp. Dried Thyme
- 1 tsp. black pepper (FRESHLY CRACKED!)
- 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
- Oil for frying
Dredge
- 2.5 cups of flour
- 1 Tbs Salt
- 1 tsp. Paprika
- 1 tsp. Cayenne
- 1/2 tsp. Black Pepper (see above)
Method
1) Combine the buttermilk and the salt. Mix the spices and herbs together (Only the ones that are for the chicken) then sprinkle all of them directly on the chicken, mix until all the chicken is well coated with the mixture. pour the buttermilk and salt mixture over the chicken. Cover and refrigerate for 8-12 hours.
2) Combine your flour and spices in a bowel. Set out a plate to set your dredged chicken. Set your oil to 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Take your chicken out. Using thongs take your chicken out of the buttermilk and dredge in the flour really, really well; once done place the chicken on the plate. Fry your chicken, possibly in batches until it is crispy and brown on the outside and fully cooked on the inside. Times will vary depending on your chicken pieces, I had relatively small chicken pieces that were done after about 10-15 minutes, but if you have pieces from a 5+ pound chicken, they can take as long as 25 minutes. Use a probe to make sure your chicken's internal temperature is 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Once your chicken is done drain it on paper towels and set to rest on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy! 

Some of the last burgers of the summer.

This is my first blog post, both on this blog and ever... so i guess an introduction is in order. I'm a 17 year old high school student and i really love everything to do with food. I thought about starting a food blog to share some of my recipes and dining experiences a long time ago, but i never got around to it. Just now though my friend linked me this site and i figured i could give it a shot; so this is my first attempt at an attempt of a semi-decent blog. =P
These burgers are really, really, awesome. So simple, but the flavour of the beef really comes through. They are topped with a bacon onion jam and a couple of slices of a Swiss gruyère. I recommend grinding your own beef for these as it really makes for great flavour and allows you to cook your burger medium rare. You can do this in a food processor, and buying decent beef at your local wholesaler (one that may have the word Cost in the name) isn't hard. Buy meat with a relatively high fat content, No chuck or tenderloin. Brisket works very well, short ribs, steaks that have marbling, all these are good choices. Another tip for burgers, is always use a plancha grill, or other flat top surface like a pan.
Ingredients (4 people)
- 2 pounds ground beef, self ground or otherwise
- 4 buns of your preference
- slices of  cheese
- 1 small sweet onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- 6 strips of bacon
- 2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 Tbs Cider Vinegar
- 1 Tbs Maple Syrup
- Salt and Pepper(FRESH CRACKED!)
- Oil (any cooking oil, i used a light olive oil that could hold up to heat)
Method
1) Preheat a dutch oven on the stove over medium high heat. Chop your bacon into lardons (strips) and throw them into the dutch oven. Lower the heat to medium. While your bacon is rendering and crisping, brunoise your onion and mince your garlic. When the bacon is almost perfectly crispy (as in you would eat it at breakfast crispy) throw your onion and garlic in and stir like mad for a few seconds. let the onions caramelize, and i mean really caramelize, i'm talking like auburn colored. It's hard to give a timing on that, so just let it happen. Once they have caramelized sufficiently, add the vinegars. Let the acid (acetic acid for those who are curious) cook out, it will smell kinda nasty at first, but after about a minute they acid will be gone. Then add your maple syrup. Stir in the syrup and set aside.
2) Preheat your cooking surface (plancha or pan) over high heat for about 5 minutes or until it is hot enough to properly sear meat. Form your meat into 8 oz.(1/2 pound) patties about an inch thick. Season really well with the salt and pepper, these are big patties so don't under season them. Oil the cooking surface lightly. Place the patties on the surface, you should hear a good sizzle if your surface is hot enough, if not, remove the burger quickly. Turn the heat down to medium. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side to have a nice pink middle, but if you're using store bought ground beef 6-7 minutes a side should cook it through, just be sure to check. This is a good technique video here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZpDzROtxIc
After you flip your burger for the first time, place your cheese slices on the top of the burger. Set it aside to rest for 5+ minutes wrapped up in some foil. Just BTW, foodwishes is an awesome site.
3)While your burgers are resting toast the buns. once they are done resting, assemble your burger: bottom bun, patty, jam, top bun. Enjoy!