Saturday evening, May 20th, I’ll be the master of ceremonies at the Night of Artists at the Leonardo Da Vince Centre on Bay Street in Victoria. This is a very fun fundraising effort, this year supporting The Lifecycles Project.
It’s an evening of music, food, art sales, silent auctions, performance art and more. Would love to see you there. For more info visit the Night of Artists website.
This afternoon on So Much On My Plate, I welcomed David Feys of Victoria’s Feys & Hobbs Catering. He’s celebrating his 10th anniversary of the business, and had some long weekend tips on entertaining at the barbecue. His recipe for cedar-planked pork tenderloin is below.
On another note, please join me tomorrow night (Saturday, May 20th) at the Night of Artists event in Victoria. I’ll be your master of ceremonies for the evening, which includes music, food, and of course, art. Find out more at the Night of Artists website.
Cedar Plank Smoked Turkey Tenderloin with Grilled Potatoes & Rhubarb Chutney yield: serves 4
Cedar plank cooking on the BBQ is very popular today ~ so for a change, try this low fat, easy to prepare recipe using turkey tenderloin instead of fish! There is no trimming, skin or cutting to prepare the turkey ~ it’s ready to go! Adding the grilled potatoes and another grilled vegetable will make it a complete, efficient dinner ~ no running back and forth to the stove to check other menu items!
Try our Rhubarb Chutney with this recipe.
2 Turkey tenderloins
2 tsp. olive oil
1 tbs. Fresh tarragon or other tender herb
fresh ground pepper and sea salt, to taste
1 cedar plank
——————————————————————————–
2 medium sized Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed
1 tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tbs.fresh summer savory, parsley or other tender herb
fresh ground pepper and sea salt, to taste
——————————————————————————–
1 green or yellow zucchini
2 tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tbs. balsamic vinegar
fresh ground pepper and sea salt, to taste
Method:
1. Soak the cedar plank as directed ~ usually about two hours. When the cedar plank has soaked, prepare the other ingredients.
2. Preheat BBQ to medium high heat.
3. For the turkey: place tenderloins in a non-reactive dish, add the fresh herb, olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Turn the tenderloins to coat well with the herbs and seasonings.
4. Place the prepared tenderloins on the cedar plank and set the plank on preheated BBQ set to medium high heat. Close the cover and allow the turkey to cook for about 12 minutes. Check the turkey occasionally to ensure the plank does not ignite ~ keep a water spray bottle handy just in case. Meanwhile, prepare the potatoes.
5. For the potatoes: slice the potatoes about 3/8" thick and toss in medium sized mixing bowl with the garlic, herbs, oil and seasoning.
6. Place on other section of the preheated BBQ set to medium heat and cook for about 7 minutes, turn over and finish cooking on the second side. Check for doneness by poking potatoes with a skewer or tip of a pointed knife. They should be tender.
7. For the zucchini: slice the zucchini about ½" thick and toss in a medium sized bowl with the olive oil, seasoning, vinegar. Cook for about the last 7 to 10 minutes of total cooking time.
8. To check the turkey for doneness ~ it should feel firm and a bit springy at the thickest point. If unsure, cut into it slightly and check that it is white coloured though to the center. The meat will be very juicy.
9. Divide vegetables amongst four warmed plates; slice the tenderloin into ½" slices and serve immediately with Rhubarb Chutney on the side!
Today on Food For Thought I interviewed Gael Greene, renowned New York magazine restaurant reviewer and now author of her autobiography, Insatiable, Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess.
Clicking on the link above will take you to Amazon.ca, where you can save 34% on the list price.
While the book is very detailed in its description of the New York City restaurant scene as it developed in the late ’60’s through to today, and we also learn about Gael’s dalliances with celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood, it is great reading for anyone who is interested in how the restaurant industry works, especially in a city like New York. To listen to Food For Thought in streaming Real Audio, click here.
Hi everyone…my BBQ Buddy, Ronnie Shewchuk, is launching his latest cookbook, Planking Secrets,on Tuesday night, May 16th at the Hamilton Street Grill.
He wants you to come along for the fun! He’ll have some great cedar-planked salmon to offer, along with a keg of beer and even some Appleton Rum cocktails.
What’s the catch, you ask? No catch, just a lot of fun. Tuesday night, 6-8pm at the Hamilton Street Grill, 1009 Hamilton Street, in Vancouver’s Yaletown.
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.
The sun is setting on Good Friday in the city of Trapani, western Sicily. It’s not too far from where my father’s parents came from, and they probably came to watch this procession a hundred years ago just like I am today.
Every Good Friday for hundreds of years the people of Trapani have carried the Misteri through the streets of the city. They are huge wooden sculptures depicting the Passion and the death of Jesus. They are carried on the shoulders of men who stamp out their slow steps to the music of the bands.
While the procession itself is somber, the atmosphere around it is like a carnival, as Christians get ready to celebrate Easter with much feasting.
8 o’clock Saturday morning. I’m at the Trapani fish market, a covered warehouse close to the fish docks. Local buyers poke and prod at the catch to make sure they get the freshest possible. There are huge swordfish on display, and tiny needlefish called cigarillos. Red mullet, anchovies and sardines figure prominently in Sicilian cuisine. It’s not tuna season just yet, but at some stalls you can find tuna steaks carved from a carcass frozen at sea. Or something called bottarga, which the compressed, salted and dried eggs of the tuna. It can be sliced or grated on to cooked pasta for a salty kick.
From the fish warehouse I stepped out of a narrow doorway right into a raucous open produce market. This time of year there were huge bulbs of fresh fennel, artichokes, still attached to their long stems. Fava beans, and oranges from nearby provinces were also on display.
The fennel and oranges are thinly sliced, and with a little bit of chopped celery, olive oil, and salt, make an excellent salad.
The artichokes are put in any imaginable dish. My favorite is Jewish-style, where the artichoke is flattened, then deep fried until crisp, then laced with a liberal dose of salt. The leaves get so crunchy they can be eaten like potato chips.
Later that night at dinner I tried a Trapanese specialty, fish cus cus. This is a dish brought to the region by the Arabs when THEY ruled Sicily in the 9th century. Delicately scented tomato broth containing poached fish and/or shellfish is ladled over couscous, small grains of durham semolina pasta. The broth is scented with cinnamon and nutmeg, which is very Arabic in nature.
Just to the south of Trapani are vast expanses of land just barely covered by the sea. They are salt flats….where hot sun and backbreaking labour slowly produced sea salt. Salt used to be a much more valuable commodity. Wars were fought over it, taxes levied on it; Roman soldiers were even paid in salt. Looking across the abandoned flats, you can still see windmills dotting the landscape, which were used to pump sea water into the flats, and also to grind the salt into finer crystals once it had dried.
One of the windmills is part of a salt museum that documents the history of the industry in Trapani. Water is still pumped into some of the flats to be evaporated, leaving the salt crystals behind. I was able to buy a kilo of Trapani salt for about 75 cents at a local grocery store.
There is much more to Sicilian food than I can tell you here now. The special pecorino cheeses made with sheep’s milk, the smooth and fresh ricotta cheese that goes in everything from pastries to pasta, the almonds that are turned into Marzipan and sculpted into incredibly detailed portrayals of fruits and vegetables. And my most lasting impression from this trip…driving through fields and fields of orange trees, and drinking in the sweet aroma of the blossoms. I felt like I belonged there, and now have a better understanding of the lives my grandparents led so many years ago. To try the recipes I mentioned today, visit this Pacific Palate posting from today.
To listen to today’s program in streaming Real Audio, click here.
