Category Archives: Cooking

If you’ve cooking for yourself for the first time even the most basic cooking may seem more high comedy than art. Here are some of the basic ideas than every cook knows, but I somehow missed in Home Economics.

After my first tin of banana bread slithered out of the pan and on to the floor when I tried to take it out of the pan, I learned that one pound of butter is equal to 2 cups.

Buy a few sauces – I got soy, barbecue and sweet Thai chilli. Now you don’t have to eat the same old fried chicken every night. You can make exotic yakitori (Japanese), Thai sweet and spicy and New Orleans barbecue. Try mixing 2 or three together!

When flavoring something like soup a tablespoon of salt is an awful lot! With emphasis on AWFUL. Think in terms of pinches of salt. Flavoring a personal omelet for one person needs a maximum of 1 clove of garlic. If the garlic has a green shoot growing out of cut it out or risk dieing from this poisonous member of the night-shade family – according to Mum. The Hemlock Society refused to confirm this.

When you come home from the market take fruits and vegetables out of the plastic bags. Vegetables need to be able to breathe. If you wrap vegetables in newspaper before storing them in the fridge they’ll stay fresh much longer.

Except for potatoes. Keep them in a dark, dry spot. Mine go in a paper bag under the sink.

I still think in pounds. Canada lives in metric limbo half-way between heaven and hell with a weird mixture of metric and English units. Prices can be displayed in pounds but charged in kilos at the cashier You need to remember two cheats. Say you’re in the deli 1 pound of sliced ham is about 450 grams. In the fruit and veggie section, you can convert pounds to kilos by multiplying by 2.2.

You need to get some measuring spoons (teaspoon, tablespoon) and measuring cups (1/3, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 cup) for measuring dry stuff like sugar or flour. And a glass Pyrex measuring cup for measuring liguids.

Time to stop channeling Heloise and cook supper. Let me know your tips. If you’re in Vancouver, I’m open to dinner invites.

When I get lonesome for Paris I make mousse au chocolat and forget the drenching November rains of Vancouver. I’m transported back to walking Rue Mouffetarde, jogging alont the Seine and drinking at the Cafe Lucky. Mousse is everything bad for you whipped into a foam and served chilled. Somehow it tastes like heaven.

You need:

4 ounces of unsweetened baker’s chocolate

3 tablespoons of unsalted butter

3 eggs

oil

1 cup of whipped cream

Step 1: The hardest part of the recipe is avoiding burning the chocolate when you melt it. So I use a double boiler. Add a couple of litres of water to a pot on the stove and turn the burner on high. When your water reaches a rolling boil turn the burner off. Put a metal pot on top of the first one. Throw your squares of chocolate in this second pot and add your butter. Wait for a few minutes while the steam from the first pot melts the chocolate and butter. Add your sugar and use a wooden spoon to make sure every thing is well mixed. Congratualtions, you’ve just made cocoa butter.

Step 2: Now separate the eggs whites and yolks into two bowls.

Step3: We need to wait until the cocoa butter cools for about 10 minutes. Use the time to whip those egg whites mercilessly until they’re stiff. (When you take the whisk from the bowl the stiffened egg whites should adhere to the whisk.) Beat the whipping cream with an electric mixer until it forms peaks, but isn’t grainy.

Step 4: Mix the yolks slowly into the cocoa butter from step 1 beating all the time. Then mix the stiffened egg use long strokes. Finally mix in the whipped cream. The whole idea is to get as much air as possible into your mousse. Don’t overmix or you’ll destroy all the foam and mouuse au chocolat will turn into soupe au chocolat!

Step 5: Wait! No matter how tempted you are to sample the velvety chocolate foam resist the urges. Put it into the fridge for 12 to 24 hours to let the subtle flavor to develop to it’s peak.

Enjoy! It makes 4 medium size servings. Or two piggy size servings.