February 8, 2012
A few weeks ago, the weather in Victoria was officially, undeniably awful. There was torrential rain, blown sideways and splattered violently against the windows by the wind, and grey skies so heavy and low that it almost felt claustrophobic to go outside. Since venturing out into the elements was decidedly unappealing, I chose instead to spend the afternoon in the kitchen putting together a dinner with its roots in a much sunnier place: Sicily.
I find Sicilian food to be fascinating. The sun-baked island may be thoroughly Italian, but its cuisine takes subtle cues from classic North African flavour combinations (saffron, cinnamon, couscous and raisins all make appearances in the region’s foods) as a result of Arab domination in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The result? Sicilian dishes are packed with bright flavours and interesting sweet-tart combinations, and they’re definitely different than most people’s perceptions of “classic” Italian cuisine. One of the region’s specialties is caponata, a mixture of fried eggplant, onions, tomatoes, sweet raisins, briny capers, and, yes, even a little bit of chocolate. It’s traditionally served on slices of bread as an appetizer, but I decided to bump this particular caponata up a notch: It would be starring as the main course, topping a slice of buttery baked halibut and accented with a brightly flavourful tomato coriander sauce. The recipe is fairly long on ingredients, but the preparation is simple and the recipe yields a lot of caponata – keep some in the fridge and spread it on crusty bread for a quick, healthy lunch the next day.
Ingredients
- Halibut (or other firm white fish) fillets
For the caponata…
- Olive oil
- 2 medium eggplants, cut into 1″ cubes
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, chopped
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 cup canned tomatoes, crushed
- 1/2 cup green olives, pitted and roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup golden raisins
- 1/4 cup capers (preferably salt-packed), rinsed and drained
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons finely grated unsweetened chocolate
- 1/2 cup finely shredded basil
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the tomato sauce
- 1 cup canned tomatoes, crushed
- 2 – 3 yellow tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon coriander seed
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preparation
First, prepare the tomato coriander sauce…
- In a saucepan over medium heat, simmer the canned tomatoes for about half an hour. Remove from the heat and let them cool.
- In a food processor or blender, purée the cooked canned tomatoes with the uncooked yellow tomatoes until smooth. Stir in the coriander, salt, and pepper, then set aside.
Next, prepare the caponata…
- Heat a generous drizzle of oil in a pan over medium heat (the bottom of the pan should be thoroughly covered). Fry the eggplant, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned. Transfer eggplant to a large bowl and set aside.
- In the pan (you may need to add more oil if the eggplants have absorbed it all), add the onions and the celery, season with salt and pepper, then cook, stirring frequently, until beginning to brown. Add the tomato paste and the crushed tomatoes, and continue to cook for about 10 minutes.
- Stir in the olives, vinegar, raisins, capers, sugar, and chocolate, and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened (about 10 to 15 minutes).
- Transfer to the bowl with the eggplant. Add the pine nuts and the basil, then mix thoroughly.
Then prepare the fish and serve…
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place halibut fillets on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Bake until the halibut is just opaque, about 15 minutes (this can vary significantly depending on the thickness and size of your fillets, so check partway through if you’re unsure).
- To serve, spoon the tomato coriander sauce into a shallow bowl. Place the halibut fillet on top, then finish with a few generous spoonfuls of the eggplant caponata.
February 5, 2012
They say that old habits die hard, and I say that there seems to be some truth in that adage after all. These are the facts: Over three years after graduating from university and leaving the academic life behind, there’s still something about walking into a classroom that transforms me into a tense, nervous version of myself. There’s still that tendency to constantly define new techniques of procrastination and then regret doing so, to feel like the ground is opening up underneath me if I get an answer wrong, and to sit in mortal fear that I might be called on at any moment, that I might have to actually talk, unprepared, in front of all those other people.
A few months ago, I decided that I was going to learn to speak Italian. At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure why I was so wrapped up in the idea of mastering this particular language, future travel practicalities aside, although I told myself that it was the language of food and romance – of pasta, espresso, amore, la dolce vita – and therefore it was a language that I should acquire. After all, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food and also about the noticeable lack of romance in my life, so a language that managed to intertwine these things seemed to be the logical choice. So I picked up an old, used textbook – the first few chapters were full of doodled swirls and flourishes, including a cluster of hearts surrounding a photo of Michelangelo’s very naked David statue – and threw myself headfirst into it.
Characteristically, I’m one of those people who runs spectacularly hot and then icy cold on a new undertaking. I have a history of picking some activity at random (childhood obsessions have included horses, archeology, figure skating and Nancy Drew-esque detective work, although not necessarily in that order) and pursuing it with white-hot intensity and wild abandon for an indeterminate length of time before suddenly losing interest and walking away. Given this tendency, I fully expected that in a few short weeks I’d be reaching for a novel instead of the textbook or picking some other relatively obscure cultural pursuit to fling myself into.
But a few weeks later, I had yet to give it up. I was propping the textbook up next to my plate at dinner (page 65 is splattered with tomato sauce, page 80 may have had an encounter with some risotto), silently reciting lists of verb conjugations while pounding away on the treadmill, and deciphering cooking blogs from Italy as a form of additional practice. Some old habits, at least, do die with time: This was not a pursuit I was about to abandon.
And then I decided to enrol in a beginner’s Italian class, and on the evening of the first class, two things happened. The first thing was that I fell even more in love with the Italian language. There’s something intoxicating about hearing someone speak it out loud, something that textbooks and blogs alone can’t even begin to convey. But the second thing, the thing that brings me back to my original point about old habits dying hard, was that stepping through the doorway of that classroom suddenly brought a tidal wave of feelings rushing over me, old academic anxieties and classroom fears that I thought I’d walked away from when I walked across the stage at my university graduation.
There I was in a classroom that I had brought myself into on an entirely voluntary basis, with no exams looming in the future, no success riding on my understanding of the material, no prerequisites and no required outcome other than leaving each day with a slightly tighter grasp on Italian’s slippery grammar and tenses than I had when I walked in. And there I was, sitting in the front row and then regretting it, feeling my palms grow sweaty and my fingers starting to slide down my pen at the thought of speaking in class; of feeling twenty pairs of eyes fixed on the back of my head as I pondered the proper conjugations of essere and avere. To be, and to have. I am still irrationally terrified of getting things wrong, embarrassing myself and messing up in front of others, but I have a certain degree of confidence that this is something I need to do. And I’m enjoying the class, really, despite the nerves. One month in, I still freeze up when it’s my turn to give an answer, but then I relax a little bit, enjoy the feeling of the Italian words as I say them, relax a little bit more and then tell myself that it’s okay, we’re all here because we know nothing and want to come away with something.
January 28, 2012
I know, I know. You read the word “salad” and you’re instantly wary, likely envisioning endless bowls of deep green leaves or raw vegetables smothered in bland balsamic vinaigrette, and you’re not particularly interested in reading any farther. Fortunately, this salad is anything but bland. In fact, it’s more like a complete meal that just happens to include some lettuce leaves – the overall flavour is rich and satisfying.
This salad gets a kick of deep, porky flavour from the crispy pieces of guanciale – cured, unsmoked pork jowl that’s well-known in Italy but still relatively unheard of here. Your local grocery store probably won’t sell it (in fact, they probably won’t have a clue what you’re asking for), but you might have better luck at an artisan butcher shop or a specialty Italian imports store. And if you still can’t find any, don’t panic. While the guanciale does give the salad its own unique flavour (richer than bacon and packed with explosive savoury flavours but without the overpowering smokey tones), you can swap in bacon or pancetta and still end up with a delicious final result. And the richness from the fish (which has a nice buttery texture) and the guanciale is balanced nicely by the bright flavours of the roasted beets and the bite of the raw radishes, while the dijon mustard also packs a punch of its own. Give this salad a try – I think you’re going to like it.
Ingredients
(Makes about 4 servings)
- 4 small Steelhead trout fillets
- 2 small yukon gold potatoes (or other starchy potatoes, like russets), sliced very thinly
- 3 beets
- 3 – 5 radishes (depending on size), thinly sliced
- 150 grams of guanciale, sliced into small cubes
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 shallot, minced
- 2.5 cups mixed salad greens
- 1/4 cup dill, chopped
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- Olive oil
- Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
Preparation
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove the stems and leaves from the beets, wash thoroughly, then roast until softened, about 45 minutes. Let the roasted beets sit for about 10 minutes, then remove the skins (they should easily slide off) and slice into bite-sized wedges.
- Lay the potato slices out on a baking sheet – they should not be overlapping. Brush thoroughly with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Roast for about 10 minutes, then flip each slice over and roast for another 10 – 15 minutes or until the edges are beginning to turn brown and crispy (this will depend on how thinly you’ve sliced the potatoes – you want to aim for slices about 2 millimetres thick).
- Heat a pan over medium heat. Sauté the shallot until translucent, then add the garlic and continue to sauté for another 1 – 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside. Now add the guanciale to the pan and sauté until crispy, then set aside.
- In a small bowl, stir the the mayonnaise and the mustard until well mixed.
- Place the steelhead fillets on a baking sheet. Brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then bake until no longer translucent, about 10 – 12 minutes.
- In a bowl, combine the salad greens, shallot, garlic, guanciale, radishes, beets and dill. Drizzle lightly with olive oil (or, if you’re feeling adventurous, a little bit of the fat that’s rendered off of the guanciale – it’ll add extra depth of flavour to the salad) then toss to combine. Add a handful of the salad to each plate, then add several potato slices and top with a steelhead fillet. Add a spoonful of the dijon mayonnaise on top, then serve.
