¡Ándele! ¡Ándele! ¡Jaiba! ¡Jaiba!

Spring used to come in like a lion 'round these parts, but mostly it just arrives in fits and starts these days, feinting and dodging, teasing and mocking.  Sure, you'll get some warm, toasty days every now and then, but there's sure to be a few bitterly cold days (and nights), too.  And like our friend at the dépanneur down the street says, "You can't be sure of anything until May 15."  And even then...

 fig. a:  printemps québécois

Anyway, signs of spring usually begin sometime in March in Montreal (like most places in the Northern Hemisphere), but, foodwise, it takes a while to see a whole lot of rebirth going on.  With the exception of maple syrup, most of our spring flavours tend to show up in May and June.

Which is why snow crab is of such importance to people like us.  Not only are we enormous fans of crabmeat, but snow crabs are one of the earliest spring arrivals, and snow crab season is really the only time of the year we can get fresh, live, and regional crab here in Montreal.  Officially, the season is said to last from April to November, but our experience has been that in actual fact it's a very short season, lasting no more than about 6-8 weeks.  But, oh, is it ever sweet.  Or, at least, it can be.  And it's going on now.

Just how excited about snow crab are we?

Well, Michelle and Seth have been preparing a lovely snow crab pasta dish as part of their Quebec Spring/Printemps québécois menu at the Foodlab.  It features handmade/housemade tagliatelle cooked to perfection and tossed with a medley of spring vegetables (string beans, peas, shallots, and the first of the cherry tomatoes from our friends at Birri Brothers), herbs (chives and parsley), a generous helping of snow crab meat, and a beautiful crab cream.

And here at home we've been going to town on our very favourite tacos in the entire world:  tacos stuffed with salpicón de jaiba.



 fig. b & c:  crab tacos!

We've featured this recipe before, but it's an absolutely essential one, and a great way to stretch your crabmeat a little further, because, god knows, those snow crabs are tasty, but they can also be quite costly.  Here it is again, revised and updated:

Salpicón de Jaiba 

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup finely chopped white onion
1/3 cup finely chopped celery
2 serrano or jalapeño chiles, seeded and finely chopped
1 cup cooked, shredded crabmeat
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
1/8-1/4 tsp crushed chili pepper blend (some combination of ancho, pasilla, arbol, chipotle, and/or New Mexico grande chiles)
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a skillet and cook the onion gently until translucent.  

Add the celery and sauté for about one minute.  Add the fresh chiles and sauté for 30-60 seconds.   

Add the crabmeat and fry until it is warmed through and begins to brown ever so slightly.  The mixture should be rather dry--remember, you're going to be placing it in a taco. 

Lastly, take the mixture off the heat, add the cilantro, salt, and chili blend, and toss, allowing the flavours to mingle for a minute or two before serving.

Serve with hot tortillas and plenty of fixings, like pico de gallo, sour cream or crema, hot sauce, and limes.

Makes enough to fill at least 8-10 corn tortillas. 

[based on a recipe from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico]

Might seem a little strange to make Mexican tacos with Quebec crab, but, trust me, a little cultural exchange can be a good thing.

 fig. d:  Juan Carlos, the Mexican crab

 fig. e:  Jean-Charles, the Quebec snow crab

Go, Crabs, go!

aj

New Ways to Boost Your Grain Power 3: Oats!

 fig. a toaster, oats

It's funny that this is the last recipe to appear in the New Ways to Boost Your Grain Power series, because in many ways this was the recipe that got me started on this train of thought.

It all started back in about the spring of 2010.  I'd been reading and re-reading issue #82 of The Art of Eating (Fall 2009) for a while, especially its cover story on new bistros and "the casualization of dining" in Paris ("New Ways to be a Restaurant in Paris," by Bénédict Beaugé and Edward Behr).  I was fascinated by its description of the new crop of bistros and micro-bistros in Paris, and the way these restaurants were redefining the dining scene there:  by making it less stuffy and more affordable, yes, but also by highlighting regional cuisines in a way that was helping to expand notions of bistro cuisine. And I studied the accompanying recipes closely.  Very closely, in fact, because there was one recipe that I just couldn't wrap my head around.

It was a recipe for Haferflockensuppe from Nicholas Scheidt of L'Office, and it was billed as an Alsatian specialty.  You see, I'd yet to Boost My Grain Power back then, and it literally took me weeks to decipher what I was reading.  I couldn't figure out why this wouldn't just result in an unusually savoury bowl of oatmeal.  Finally, after going back to that same recipe over and over and over again, it suddenly made sense to me.  I had something of a "Eureka!" moment.  It wasn't just an "oatmeal soup" (as a strict translation of the name would suggest), like every other recipe in this New Ways to Boost Your Grain Power series, the key had to do with the toasting of grains--in this case, the toasting of oats.  You see, it may very well be that mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey, and that's all fine and good, but, here, it's very important that you begin this recipe with toasted oats.

With its combination of butter, bacon, oats, cognac, sour cream, and chicken stock, this might seem like kind of a wintery soup, and it is, but it's actually pretty ideal as an early spring soup, too, especially around here, where the fluctuations in temperature can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride (a cruel one) in March and April.  You see, it's got some of the greens that you're craving, like chervil and spring onions, but it's also plenty hearty enough for an unseasonably brisk day.  (In fact, tomorrow would be an ideal day for Haferflockensuppe--it's predicted that we're going to get 10-15 cm of snow [?!!].)  And it's easy, too, once you have the necessary ingredients, including a good (homemade, preferably) chicken stock.  You just have to take the time to carefully brown your oats to toasty, golden perfection, and everything else pretty well takes care of itself.

I offer you the recipe as it originally appeared in The Art of Eating.  I've found that one can tone down the amount of butter and oil significantly, and still wind up with the desired richness of flavour.  Everything else I'd keep exactly as is, although if you happen to have pumpernickel croutons around, instead of plain old country bread croutons, all the better.

Haferflockensuppe 

75g oat flakes (3/8 cup)
100g butter (1/2 cup)
4 tsp veg oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 thick slice bacon, cut into lardons
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp cognac
1 litre chicken stock
salt and pepper
4 eggs
1 slice country bread, cut into croutons
chervil, 1 bunch, minced
spring onions, thinly sliced
4 tsp sour cream 

Brown the oat flakes in half the butter and half the oil, with the garlic, bacon and bay leaves. Deglaze with the cognac, add stock and simmer 20 min. Remove the bay leaves and season to taste. 

Pan fry the eggs (or poach them for a finer look and taste), season them, brown the croutons in the remaining oil and butter, and season. 

Slide one egg in the bottom of each soup bowl (shallow ones make for a more dramatic presentation), pour some soup around it so the yolk still emerges, sprinkle with chervil, croutons, and spring onions. Finish with a dollop of sour cream.

Is it starting to make sense?  It will when you taste it.

aj

This is what quincaillerie sounds like, 2nd rev.ed.

Stay safe & strong, brothers and sisters--and keep putting your kitchenware to good use.

AEB

p.s.: thanks to nitavideo1 for the footage

p.s. 2: the scene in Montreal on May 22nd

p.s. 3: the scene in Montreal by evening time: "May 22 update #3:  Mile End and perhaps the whole city is banging on pots and pans right now!"

p.s. 4: vive les casseroleux!

p.s. 5:  this is just how big (and beautiful) the casserole movement has become.

Springtime in Montreal

fig. a: lamb roast, Mtl

For those of you who're discovering us for the first time thanks to Donna Nebenzahl's profile of "...an endless banquet" in the Spring 2012 issue of Urban Expressions, welcome!

For those of you who haven't seen the article in Urban Expressions, but would like to know more about springtime in Montreal à la AEB, check it out!   You'll find us waxing poetic about a number of our favourite rites of spring, as well as a number of accompanying photographs by Yours Truly.

You'll also find two springtime recipes:  the Hummus Sardwich with fresh chick peas, and the Gin Tonic.

And if you're interested in some related links, here you go:

ramps 1 & 2

snow crab 1 & 2

fresh chick peas

maple water

sugar shacks 1 & 2

artichokes 1 & 2

Spring came early this year.  Let's continue to make the most of it, Montreal.

aj

Top Ten #24

1. James Villas, American Taste

fig. a: The Taste of Country Cooking

2. Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking

3. pan-fried chicken & cream gravy

4. Helen & Scott Nearing, The Maple Sugar Book

fig. b: the arrival of spring

5. Spring is here!

6. George Eliot, Middlemarch

7. Quebec grass-fed veal

8. George Lang, The Cuisine of Hungary

9. Jeffrey Steingarten, It Must've Been Something I Ate & Jeffrey Steingarten's chocolate chip cookies

10. Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

aj

Finally!

The above photograph may not look like much to you, depending on where on Earth you happen to be as you read this, but for us around here it's of the utmost significance. That, friends, is the Sun, its rays pouring through our storm windows and our screen and filling the living room, and if you look real closely you can see blue sky and wispy clouds too. We haven't seen the Sun in what seems like an eternity, and in the meantime we've been dumped on and lashed by every possible storm imaginable, including a double-action Nor'easter, we've temporarily succumbed to malady, we've watched aghast as news of the world's scandals and atrocities got beamed into our living room, and we've just generally had to batten down the hatches for weeks on end. Then, yesterday, all of a sudden, things started to shift just slightly, and today we found ourselves dressed in our spring jackets, driving around with the windows down, and talking about things like summer drinks and planting our garden. Finally! What a difference a day or two can make.

It's 15º C as we write, the windows are now wide open, and we here at "...an endless banquet" promise to emerge from our doldrums with a battery of posts in the upcoming days. (No more Weather Channel fodder. The real deal.) We've got to ease back in to things, though, so today we've just started with an updated Top Ten list: Top Ten #18. More to come...

--the management

R.I.D. to our brothers and sisters all along the Eastern Seaboard (NYC, MA, NB, NS, etc.) who took the full brunt of that Nor'easter.