Don Genova's Blog

Pacific Palate - Sambal and Ginger

This week on Pacific Palate, a visit to Sambal & Ginger, an Asian grocery for Western Kitchens in central Vancouver.  Lynn Santiago opened the shop a few months ago when she realized people in that area needed an easy and friendly place to find basic ingredients for all kinds of south Asian cooking.

Lynn grew up in a Filipino household on dishes from her country and the West, but when she got out on her own, she realized she didn't know how to make all of her mom's dishes that she craved...and so began her learning process.  Now she teaches others at the shop.

Her main sections include all the essential flavours of China, India, Japan, the Phillipines and Indonesia.  There is also a line of cookbooks that feature great descriptions of basic ingredients along with photos so you know what you're looking at!  Sambal & Ginger is at 731 W. 16th Avenue in Vancouver.

Lynn usually features a different recipe every month in the shop that uses ingredients available there and this month is no exception.  Pictured here is my rendition of a Japanese-style somen noodle salad.  It's a cold salad, and tastes better the more chilled the ingredients are, so don't rush into eating it!  The recipe calls for cooked prawns or shrimp, and a final sprinkling of Shichimi Togarashi, a spicy powder.  I had raw prawns, so I sprinkled them with the Togarashi and quickly fried them.  Delicious!

Here's the recipe:

Somen Noodle, Prawn and Cucumber Salad

2 Lebanese (short cucumber) or 1 Firm English Cucumber
1 Tbsp Dried wakame seaweed pieces
100 g (3.5 oz) Dried somen noodle
12 Cooked Prawns/Shrimp, peeled, deveined and cut in half lengthwise
3 Scallions, thinly sliced on diagonal
Shichimi Togarashi (option to serve)

Dressing:
185 ml Hon tsuyu (a Japanese soup base)
2 Tsp Ginger, finely grated
½ Tsp sesame oil

Cut cucumbers in half lengthways (keep 3 inches in length), scoop out seeds, slice very thinly on slight diagonal.  Put cucumber in colander, sprinkle with salt and set aside 10 minutes, rinse, drain and gently squeeze out as much water as you can.  Chill in fridge until needed.  Meanwhile, soak wakame in cold water 5 minutes, drain well and chill.  Mix all dressing ingredients together, chill.  Bring large saucepan of water to boil then reduce to simmer.  Add noodles, cook 2 minutes or until tender.  Quickly drain and rinse under cold running water until noodles are completely cool.  Combine cucumber, wakame, noodles, prawns and half scallion in large bowl.  Pour dressing and toss.  Serve immediately, garnish with remaining scallion and sprinkle with shichimi togarashi.

Pacific Palate - UBC Food Services

This week Pacific Palate takes a look behind the scenes at UBC Food Services, the division responsible for feeding thousands of people every day on campus. 

If you are a freshman or a parent of a student and you’re concerned about eating getting out of hand, I did come across a great book called The Dorm Room Diet by a junior at Princeton University in New Jersey named Daphne Oz, and it’s designed to give some help to students leaving home for the first time and confronted with the choices and stresses of first-year university life.  (by clicking on the title you will go to amazon.ca, where you can save 24% off the cover price!)

Pacific Palate - Sardines

                                         Tuesday, September 5th: Pacific Palate returns to the airwaves of the Early Edition this week with a report from the BC Sardine Festival in Steveston.  The sardine population in BC started picking up again around 10 years ago, fitting right in with a cycle of about 30 years that scientists have discovered.  To read much more about BC Sardines and the current fishery, visit the Canadian Pacific Sardine Association website.

Fisherman Glenn Budden of the MV Ocean Venture was on hand to answer questions from the crowd watching cooking demonstrations, and he also sold about 8500 pounds of fresh sardines!  People were lined up for hours to get quite a good deal:  10 sardines for $5...and these jumbo sardines weighed about half a pound each.  To view a PDF file of retailers and restaurants offering BC Sardines, click here. (you'll need Adobe Reader to view it)   Three chefs did cooking demonstrations with fresh BC Sardines, including cookbook author and consultant Stephen Wong, Karen Barnaby from the Fish House in Stanley Park, and Kosta Zogaris of The Salmon Shop and Screaming Mimi's at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. 

I've already tried two of their recipes, Karen's Pan-Fried BC Sardines with Maple Balsamic Glaze, and Stephen's Grilled BC Sardines with Spicy Tomato Black Bean Sauce.  Both recipes worked well, and I surprised myself by being able to clean and fillet the sardines for Karen's recipe without making too much of a mess of the fish!

Stephen says you have to be careful when grilling sardines because they have a high fat content. (which makes for good Omega-3 fatty acid levels), but I didn't have access to a barbecue for this edition of 'Test Kitchen', so I just used the broiler in the oven with good results.

If you want to try some of these recipes you will find them opening as a Word document when you click on the links:

Grilled BC Sardines with Spicy Tomato Black Bean Sauce

Pan-Fried BC Sardines with Maple Balsamic Glaze

Pacific Palate Returns!

Hey everyone, Pacific Palate returns to the airwaves of The Early Edition for another new season!  I'll be on the air around 8:20am on Tuesday, September 5th with a report from the Sardine Festival being held in Steveston this Saturday.  It will be great to be back on the air with Rick Cluff and the whole gang.  Rick, I hope you like sardines!

Some of you know that I own a house in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.  In the September issue of Saveur magazine, the Valley  figures heavily in a major feature about southern Vancouver Island.  It's a great article, and will no doubt bring more tourism and investment to this little slice of heaven.  As long as it doesn't result in traffic jams!

Pacific Palate - Salmon, Wasabi and Strawberries!

This week on Pacific Palate, I answer the riddle, why do farmed salmon and wasabi go together?

Bruce Swift raises pan-sized coho salmon in tanks on his farm in Agassiz. But he uses the waste water from the tanks to grow wasabi roots and leaves. The wasabi root is grated or macerated to produce a greenish paste, that has much more flavour than you get from that toothpaste style-stuff you get at most Japanese restaurants, which is made up of regular horseradish powder, not wasabi.

He also uses the water to grow crayfish, which will be sold to Vancouver restaurants when he can get enough of them to grow to market size.  Bruce is part of the Agassiz Circle Farm tour.  Check it out!

I also talked about Fraser Valley Strawberries this morning.  Yes, they are now in season, and they are delicious!  Find out more by visiting the Fraser Valley Strawberry Growers Association website.

Pacific Palate - Fraser Valley pt. 2, cheese

Tuesday on Pacific Palate I paid a visit to The Farmhouse Natural Cheeses in Agassiz.  We tasted brie, caemembert and blue cheese style offerings.  Yummy!

Farmhouse Natural Cheese is part of the Agassiz Farm Circle Tour, a great day trip from Vancouver, or you can stay somewhere overnight like I did, at the Harrison Beach Hotel, a relatively new property that has fantastic views and is right on the beach at Harrison Lake.

Oh, and if you can't make it out to the Valley but you'd still like to try some of the cheeses, you can find a selection of them at the Les Amis Du Fromage locations in Vancouver and West Vancouver.

Pacific Palate - Hazelnuts

If you're looking for the 'Planking Secrets' contest page, click here.  This week on Pacific Palate, I talked about hazelnuts, specifically those that come from Canadian Hazelnuts in Agassiz.

The farmer, who was a hazelnut 'hobby farmer' up until a few years ago, is Pentti Hanninen, a former Air Canada pilot who purchased a large hazelnut farm and processing plant a few years ago, and is now the single largest hazelnut producer in BC.  At the shop at the plant, you can purchase all kinds of organic hazelnut products, including hazelnut oil and chocolate-hazelnut spread, just to name a couple. 

Canadian Hazelnut:  6682 Loughheed (#7) Highway  604-796-2136

e: canadianhazelnut AT telus.net

The plant and orchard are part of the Agassiz Circle Farm Tour in the District of Kent, and the tour is an easy day trip from Vancouver. But you might want to make a weekend of it and like I did, stay at the Harrison Beach Hotel at Harrison Lake.  Thanks to general manager Matthew Lynam for his great hospitality, and apparently his son is a big fan of mine!

I made a recipe for the show this morning but I wasn't that happy with it so I won't reproduce it exactly here.  It was from a book I picked up in Oregon, North America's largest hazelnut producing region, called Hazelnuts & More Cookbook, by Lucy Gerspacher. 

The recipe I made called for chopped hazelnuts to be combined with chopped green onions, then coated onto fresh oysters that you have already dipped in egg, then flour. Then you fry them in butter and olive oil until crisp.  I don't think I ground the hazelnuts finely enough, and ended up with quite a mess in the frypan, although the oysters tasted pretty good, I'm not giving this recipe the Pacific Palate Test Kitchen 'stamp of approval'.

In fact, many of the recipes in the book seem to be of the sort, 'hmmm, let's see what classic dishes we can make, then add hazelnuts to at the last minute.'

Pacific Palate - Planking Secrets - Win This Book!

This week on Pacific Palate, I talked Planking Secrets with Ron Shewchuk.  Ron is a North Vancouver barbecue and grilling guru.  Planking Secrets is his second book, in which you will find out how to grill with wooden planks for great barbecue flavour!  Ron's advice for grilling pork tenderloins on a cedar plank is listed below, and you'll note that some of the advice uses techniques and ingredients from elsewhere in the book.  So, you can enjoy all of Ron's Planking Secrets by clicking here and ordering through Amazon.ca, where you will save 24% off the cover price. 

CONTEST!  (contest is now closed, winners announced on June 13th!)

You can also try winning one of two copies, generously provided by Whitecap Books, by entering my contest.  All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a short entry which tells me about your favourite barbecue or grilling recipe.  Mine is now "chicken-on-a-beer-can" in which I coat the outside of a chicken with a spicy rub and slow roast it on the grill, stuck on top of a beer can half full of beer to keep things moist.  Here's a pic:

In this case I am using a special chicken 'throne' to hold the chicken.  Contest closes on June 12th.

Planks and Pork Tenderloin: the Perfect Marriage (from Planking Secrets, reproduced by permission of the author)

When I set out to research this book I knew that planking worked great for fish and for summer fruits like peaches and pears, but I had no idea what a perfect match this cooking style is for pork tenderloin. These little cylinders of tender, juicy pork are a staple of Chinese cooking and are great on the grill, but they are ideally suited to planking. Their size allows 2 or 3 to fit nicely on a plank, and they have just the right amount of surface area to cook quickly without losing moisture. They go with all flavors of smoke, from cedar to mesquite. And they take to marinades and rubs extremely well. Here are some basic techniques and a little collection of ideas for how to flavor pork tenderloin, but use your imagination and experiment with your favorite rubs, marinades and basting sauces.

Technique:

1.   Marinate and/or rub the tenderloin and have it ready to go before you start the grill. (Three tenderloins is usually enough for 4 servings.)
2.   Preheat the grill on medium-high for 5 or 10 minutes or until the chamber temperature rises above 500°F/260°C. Rinse the plank (which you’ve soaked in water overnight or for at least an hour) and place it on the cooking grate. Cover the grill and heat the plank for 4 or 5 minutes, or until it’s starting to throw off a bit of smoke and crackling lightly.
3.   Reduce the heat to medium and place the tenderloin on the plank. Cook for 10 minutes, turn, and cook for another 5 to10 minutes, basting if you like, until the pork is springy to the touch or has an internal temperature of 140°F/60°C. (This will give you juicy pork cooked to a medium doneness. The internal temperature will come up slightly when you let the meat rest.)
4.   If you like, just before it’s ready you can move the tenderloin from the plank onto the cooking grate and char the outside, or caramelize it if it’s coated with barbecue sauce.
5.   Take the tenderloin out of the grill, tent it in foil, and let it rest for a few minutes before serving. Carve the tenderloin into 1/2- to 1-inch/1- to 2.5-cm medallions and apply whatever sauce or garnish is called for.

Tasty Tenderloin Treatments (the recipes for all the rubs, sauces and marinades mentioned below are in Planking Secrets, but you can substitute your favorite versions):
Classic Barbecue: Coat with ballpark mustard, sprinkle with Championship Barbecue Rub. Cook on a hickory plank till nearly done and finish with a light glaze of Ron’s Rich, Deeply Satisfying Barbecue Sauce. Serve more sauce on the side for dipping.
Easy Asian: Marinate with Easiest, Tastiest Steak (or Anything Else) Marinade and finish with a coating of Asian Barbecue Sauce.
Spice-Crusted: Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with oil and coat with minced garlic, toasted fennel and cumin seeds, and a little cinnamon.  Serve with chopped cilantro and your favorite chutney.
Balsamic: Coat with balsamic reduction. Marinate overnight. Sprinkle on some chopped fresh rosemary and granulated garlic. Serve with a drizzle of the balsamic reduction and some chopped fresh mint.
Harvest Time: Season with salt and pepper and coat with a rub made with light brown sugar, powdered ginger, a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg, a pinch of clove and a little cayenne pepper. Baste with melted apple jelly and serve with Plank-Baked Apples with Rum-Honey Sauce.
Southwestern: Flavor using the same seasonings as Spice-Crusted Pork Blade Steaks and serve with some salsa and cornbread.

Ron's first book is called Barbecue Secrets, and I use it all the time. You can save 34% on this book by clicking on the link above and ordering from Amazon.ca.

Pacific Palate -EAT Vancouver and Indian Elements

This week on Pacific Palate I offered a look-ahead to the EAT Vancouver show taking place this coming weekend, and introduced you to a new product that helps you make authentic Punjabi-style dishes, from the people at Indian Elements.  I made the two dishes you see here, a chickpea and tomato stew, along with a potato and cauliflower dish called Alu Gobi.  It's called Punjabi Palette, and its core is a dish of highly concentrated, cooked-down mixture of garlic, ginger and onions.

Both dishes were very easy to make and delicious, according to the members of my weekend test kitchen panel!

Eat Vancouver is a huge foodie's paradise of a consumer show that takes place this time of year at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver.  Graze to your heart's delight and meet celebrity chefs, ice sculptors and more!

Pacific Palate - Ethiopian and African Food

This morning on Pacific Palate, a stalwart of the ethnic dining scene in Vancouver moves from Kitsilano to Main Street, with delicious results.  I spoke with Assefa Kebede, chef and owner of the Nyala African Restaurant.  It's just moved to Main Street, a little south of King Edward on the east side of the street, after years at his location on West 4th Avenue.

Here is Assefa with 'a little snack' he made for me yesterday. A platter lined with Injeera (Ethiopian flatbread)  and covered with a refreshing beet and potato salad, a quickly-cooked lamb dish, and a long-simmered goat stew, all delicious.  On the show this morning Stephen Quinn got to sample Assefa's excellent vegetarian dish, split peas and mushrooms, as well as some new African dishes on the menu, a South African-style sausage and merguez sausage, which is made with lamb.

At certain times you will also be able to order a Moroccan tagine, which is a lamb or beef stew made with dried fruits or preserved lemons, then served with couscous.  It's cooked and served in the unique dish you see here, but the kicker is that Assefa is also a potter, and he makes all of the tagines!  If you speak nicely to him he will let you buy it.