Nevermind the Bollocks! There's a lot to learn from Gordon Ramsay. Part #1

Since I won't be able to work in the michelin star rated restaurants that Gordon Ramsay has worked in. I'll learn from the experiences he's shared with us through his various shows and books and apply them to my kitchen. So far here is what I have learned.

Humble Pie Autobiography

- What makes a three-starred Michelin restaurant? Consistency. Every night must be the same performance-wise.

- I think customers prefer their restaurateurs, as they do their chefs, to remain discreetly in the background.

- The location of your restarant decides a menu, not your cookbooks.

- There are a lot of chefs who are waiting for medals and acclaim, but don't give enough attention to anything to do with the customer. No one should ever forget that, no matter how great their sauces are.

- You can use a book for inspiration - especially some of the older books, like Escoffier and even Elizabeth David, who's absolutely inspirational - but you can't learn to cook from books. That's impossible. There has to be some natural flair.

- We need to get closer to what we eat, to scrutinize it more, to love it and pay it attention.

- Cooking is not like being left handed, or being able to roll your tongue. It's a fucking skill, learnt like any other.

- There is no point in paying too much attention to negative personality stuff. What counts is the cooking.

The Glass House Episode

- never let your mistakes leave the kitchen

- if the chef is not inspired any inspiration the brigade might have will just dwindle away

La Lanterna Episode

- the kitchen should be immaculate after service

- a good manager will stagger the bookings to keep a steady flow of orders coming into the kitchen

Momma Cherries Episode

- if you want to run a business then the terms 'laid back' and 'professional' just don't mix.

- be on time, "if you turned up half an hour late in my kitchen, trust me you'd be home for the day looking for a new fucking job."

- like a beautifully risen cake, successful restaurants only thrive when 3 keys business factors are working in close harmony: 1/3 staff and overhead costs, 1/3 food costs, 1/3 gross profit. Combining all those ingredients into one recipe is how any good business works.

- it's not just about how good the food tastes. Its about how it fucking gets there as well and that is crucial.

- last table goes out just like the first table.

La Riviera Episode

- don't fuck with things that are good. When you got quality ingredients let them speak for themselves.

- sometimes less is actually more, if you have good ingredients do not muddle them with extra flavours.

- everything that goes on the plate has to have a reason, not for the eyes but for the palette.

- Smile... We're supposed to be a restaurant not a Sunday school church service.

- michelin inspectors never reveal their criteria, but I know from experience that beautifully cooked food is not enough. Inspectors look for good quality ingredients, ideally regional and definitely in season and the balance of flavours is crucial.

- first and foremost don't confuse a michelin inspectors palate by putting too many ingredients on a plate. The simpler the better.

- don't garnish plates unless the garnish itself makes sense and is edible.

- make sure the customers are going to be happy with every dish that you ever make them and things like stars from the michelin guide will follow.

- simple can also be special.

- if you get up towards 11 things on one plate call Gordon Ramsay so he can come and kick your arse ... Keep it simple.



Whether you like his tactics or not you can't argue his success. He has 9 michelin star rated  restaurants collectively amounting to 10 michelin stars.  
His principles on running a successful restaurant/kitchen are sound.
Give them a try and see for yourself.

To be continued ...

Produce without stickers.

The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a resistance movement to combat fast food and claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement. The movement has since expanded globally to 100 countries and now has 83,000 members.
As proud as I am to be a member of it, as proud as I am of this organizations existence, it is nothing new.

The SLOW FOOD movement represents an attitude towards food that has withstood the test of time and is now emerging as a force much greater than what we see in the processed food industry.
How has it withstood the test of time?
Well by starters, people still tend to their gardens, and grow their own produce. This will never stop because of its grounding effect. When you plant something, in a small way you give life and that feeling is beautiful. Not all of us plant our own gardens or our own food. But it isn't because we don't want to. Time spent working to make ends meet usually gets in the way of that. But take a look at the homes around you. Do all they have gardens? They probably do.
I highly recommend that you go to your nearest local farmers' market and buy some heirloom tomato seeds.
Plant them for next season and tell me if it isn't the best tomato you've ever had.
If you have enough pots or garden space you can grow enough tomatoes to last the entire
summer. If you get your friends into it you can even trade tomatoes. They also make great gifts when visiting close friends for Sunday lunch. A little tomato salad with heirlooms warmed by the
sun with some fresh oil and salt ... mmm...mmm.

This post is to celebrate the people that still live to produce the finest food. Foods harvested from the land and grown without any artificial tampering just with water, sun and love.
Just the way Mother Nature intended.
The best way to support these is to buy locally and to support your
local farmers' markets and fine food stores that are supplied by local purveyors. Or in other words buy produce without stickers. Only agri-farmers bother putting stickers on their food. Real farmers, from my experience, do not.
Websites like toronto.slowfood.ca and gremolata.com
are great resources and the contacts provided are very helpful with any questions.

Here also is a list of places that I love to shop:
The mercantile,
The Healthy Butcher
Cumbraes
St Lawrence Market (but be careful and stick to the north building on Saturday mornings the south building is more boisterous and fun but there is a lot of poser produce there).
Dufferin Grove park Farmers' market, Thursdays only.
Soma Chocolates

The Slow Food movement exists to protect these simple values and businesses and to promote them. Thanks to Paul De Campo people are starting to listen.
As a result we have the birth of the 2007 Picnic at the Brick Works, presented by Slow Food Toronto and Evergreen evergreen.ca
Which is a celebration of food grown locally and naturally, prepared by Toronto's most talented chefs.
I had the pleasure of attending the event and was amazed at how well organized and well run it was.
The foods on offer were all delectable from the Stop Community Food Center's beef vindaloo with a glass of Norman Hardie's pinot noir,
shown here ...


to Angelo Bean's birkshire pork sausages with a glass of Mill St's organic ale
(Angelo is somewhere behind all the smoke).


Not to mention Soma's chocolate dipped corn nuts. Yum!

This year 850 people attended and it wouldn't surprise me at all if that number doubled for next year. I hope that next year I will be participating as a chef because I too have a few tasty bits that I would love to offer.
But regardless, I suggest you mark your calender and come out next year to support the spirit of good food with those who grow it and those who cook it.

To all the people involved in making this wonderful day a reality,
Bravo!

Mr. Barato! You make GOOD cookies.

This year we're prepping For Santa!
Last year my girls noticed that Santa didn't show.
I told them it was because the cookies they had put out for him the year before were store bought.
You know the ones, Chips Ahoy.
So this year we're gonna do it right and the smell of these cookies will have Santa knocking on the front door instead of sneeking down the chimney.
So I let my mind take me back to the time when Mr. William Mellis Christie wasn't yet producing his famous cookies by steam power and was still making them by hand.
I wondered what it was like to work with the ingredients of his time in 1858.
When the only ingredients one needed to make a good batch of chocolate chip cookies were;
white sugar, brown sugar, flour, a small portion of salt, eggs, baking powder, butter, and vanilla extract.

Unlike today when the ingredients list reads like some formula out of a chemist's text book.
For example,

Ingredients:
Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thamine mononitrate [vitamin B1], riboflavin [vitamin B2], folic acid), semi sweet chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, dextrose, soy lecithin - an emulsifier), sugar, soy bean oil, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, high fructose corn syrup, leavening (baking soda, amonium phosphate, salt, whey(from milk), natural and artificial flavour, caramel colour.

Talk about oxymoron, natural flavour and artificial flavour. Huh?

So after a week of trying many different recipes, I have found one by Regan Daley, in her amazing book The Sweet Kitchen, that is absolutely wonderful and with just a few little
adjustments they are now amazing.
The one missing component to this offering is a good tall glass of refreshing milk. So after some research. I settled on raw milk. Why raw milk?
Simple!
All milk was raw milk back in 1858 just the way Santa liked it. Unlike today, if you want some fresh raw cow's milk you have to buy a cow share from Glen Colton and his waiting list is 3 years long.
Don't ask! Just check out this link http://glencolton.com/
Pasteurization as we know only became mandatory around 1924.



Anyhow, try the recipe and tell me what you think. If you like it share the recipe, I'm not Neiman Marcus. Just be sure to double check your email contacts because my girls and I wouldn't want to accidently send this post to good Ole Saint Nic and ruin his Christmas Eve surprise.
Thanks.


Regan Daley Soft 'n' Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Jason Barato version

250 gr Organic Meadow unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups organic raw cane sugar
2 large free range organic eggs
2 tsp organic vanilla extract
3 cups organic whole flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
16 oz Soma bitter sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped or half and half the amount with white chocolate
-preheat oven to 350F
-heat a large skillet and toast the flour over high heat constantly stirring, to avoid burning, for 10 min until light brown
-spread the flour out a tray and let cool in the fridge
-put the paddle attachment on a mixer set to medium speed and cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy, like the whipped butter that you get at hotel brunches
-then add one egg let it incorporate then add the other all the time scraping down the sides to make sure ingredients incorporate then add the vanilla
-exchange the paddle attachment for a dough hook and add the cool flour, that has been pre sifted with the baking soda and salt, set to low speed and mix
-when dough is fully formed add in chocolate pieces and mix for 1 min
- using a 1 5/8 oz ice cream scoop, scoop out portions onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper making sure the portions are 2 inches apart
-wet your hands and gently press the cookies down, to slightly flatten so that the tops aren't rounded, to cook more evenly
-toss into the oven and bake for 15 min for soft chewy cookies
-enjoy

*use this rule, if you want harder cookies colour them to a golden brown colour and let them bake until firm, or if you want soft chewy cookies cook them so that they have no brown at all and aren't firm

You'll be able to find all the ingredients needed at these fine food stores - the Healthy Butcher on Queen St for the milk http://thehealthybutcher.com/,
Soma in the Distillery for the chocolate http://somachocolate.com/ ask for 70% African ,
and the Mercantile on College St all the other ingredients http://themercantile.ca/.

Mega Slow Mac 'n' Cheese

In Italy it's any tubular dried pasta boiled in milk or water with fresh grated Parmesan
cheese and a touch of butter.
In North America and Britain it's dried elbow pasta with cheddar cheese and bread crumbs
but in my kitchen it's much, much more.
Please read on.

I'm thinking penne noodles and fresh chunks of lobster settled in a rich lobster bisque topped with grated raw milk aged cheddar and fresh oven dried 
bread crumbs baked until the a crust forms.
No Mornay sauce, no besciamella, no roux and no custard? 
No problem.

But let's not ignore tradition. Let us respect it and start our adventure at the beginning.
It's 1802 and Thomas Jefferson is pissed because the pasta making machine he ordered 
from Italy hasn't arrived and there is no sign of it coming. So the great Mr. Jefferson,
puts down his new revision of the bible and decides to make his own pasta making
machine so that he can finally get a decent bowl of pasta without having to hop 
into a boat and row over to Italy. 
This is probably the recipe that he used ( as taken from wikipedia ) ...

'Take six pints of water and boil it with a sufficiency of salt, when boiling, stir in one pound
of paste [pasta], let it boil [about eight minutes], then strain the water well off, and put the
paste in a large dish, mixing therewith six ounces of grated parmisan or other good cheese;
then take four ounces of good butter and melt it well in a saucer or small pot, and pour it over the paste while both are still warm. It would be an improvement after all is done, to keep the dish a few minutes in a hot oven, till the butter and cheese have well penetrated the paste.
It may be rendered still more delicate by boiling the pasta in milk instead of water and put a little gravy of meat, or any other meat sauce thereon.'

Sounds pretty good when you consider the recipe is about 205 years old. It would be a shame and a disservice to Mr. Jefferson, after all his hard work to build his own pasta maker, to
not try the recipe. Now lets see what today's popular recipe looks like.



To prepare the dish, one boils the pasta, and then adds milk, butter and the cheese powder.
Sounds nice and easy.

What we do, to be fair, is to pit my version against the Italian version and the Kraft version
and let the people decide. I myself have never tried the Italian version. But honestly you
know that a plate of pasta with butter and loads of grated Parmesan cheese is going to be
killer.
The same goes for the British North American version which is the same as the Italian one except the cheese is cheddar instead of parma.  Why add lobster to an already amazing dish? Why not! 
The dishes are good, but by adding lobster it becomes a show stopper. 
 
OK!
It's the end of the week I'm hoping I won't have to eat mac 'n' cheese of any kind for a few
months.  I have already polished off about three pounds of the stuff and I'm sick of it.
But that isn't to say that the dishes weren't tasty. 
They were all very yummy, except the Kraft version. 
I, like most I'm sure, have positive memories about Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
But ignorance is bliss and now that I've compared Kraft with top quality versions of the traditional recipe I can't believe people actually eat this shit.
Well to each his own. 
But I strongly urge all of you to try the simple classic versions of macaroni and cheese
and implore you to feed it to your kids. So that one day when your kid is blogging on 
the memories of mac 'n' cheese that they'll be talking about the classic versions 
that they were fed not the boxed powder version.



 
And the winner is .... Lobster baby! Yeah!!
This was a great week. I had an awesome time cooking all of this great food and seeing
how our young Canadian roots connect to Britain and Italy. Cool.
Til next time, Ciao.

Lobster Mac 'n' Cheese
Jason Barato
* note when making this bisque for lobster mac 'n' cheese, slightly under salt it to
compensate for the saltiness of the cheddar

For the Seafood Bisque

4 l seafood stock
3 Nova Scotia lobsters
3 tb oil
4 fresh bay leaves
1/2 l 35%
1/2 cup brandy
2 spanish onions, diced
6 cloves garlic
1 cup white wine
salt
-cook lobster in boiling stock for 4 min, remove lobster let cool then remove all meat and put shells back in stock and puree all ingredients in a blender till smooth, strain and set aside
-heat a separate pot add oil and onion, garlic, bay and cook until golden and translucent add some salt
-add wine, lobster broth, cream, and reduce by half
- season with brandy and salt
- bring back to a boil and puree with a pump blender and strain into a container
-slice the tail meat and toss all the lobster meat back into the bisque and let age over night

Toasted Bread Crumbs
-keep all of your bread ends and toss into the oven on a baking sheet and let dry without heat overnight and pulse until fine using a food processor

to combine
2l water
1 1/2 tbsp salt
2 l lobster bisque  
500 g penne rigate
1/2 cup 2 year old cheddar + 1/2 cup grated 2 year old orange cheddar
3 tbsp toasted bread crumbs

-preheat oven to 475F
-boil pasta for 11 minutes
-heat bisque on medium heat
-when pasta is al dente, strain add to sauce mix in cheeses off heat then ladle onto a large
platter top with bread crumbs and bake for 5 minutes
-serve and enjoy


Classic Italian Mac'n'Cheese
Rigatoncini with Parmesan
Jason Barato
Sept 2007

2l water
1 1/2 tbsp salt
125g unsalted butter
4oz of pasta water
500 g of rigatoncini
1/2 + 1/2 cup grated parmesan
3 tbsp toasted bread crumbs

-combine water and salt bring to a boil add pasta and cook for 11 min
-aside in a large pot combine 125 g unsalted butter with 4 oz pasta water do not heat
-after 11 minutes strain pasta and toss in butter then add 1/2 cup of grated parmesan
cheese incorporate
-plate and top with 1/2 cup grated parmesan and 3 tbsp toasted breadcrumbs
-serve and enjoy

Classic North American/British Mac 'n' Cheese

250g elbow macaroni
2l water
1 1/2 tbsp salt
125g unsalted butter
2oz of pasta water
500 g of garganelli
1/4 + 1/4 cup grated 2 year old orange cheddar
1/4 + 1/4 cup grated 2 year old yellow cheddar
3 tbsp toasted bread crumbs

-preheat oven to 475F
-combine water and salt bring to a boil add pasta and cook for 11 min
-aside in a large pot combine 125 g unsalted butter with pasta water do not heat
-after 11 minutes strain pasta and toss in butter then add 1/4 cup of both cheddars
incorporate
-plate and top with 1/4 + 1/4 cup of both cheddars and toasted breadcrumbs and bake
for 5 min at 475F
-serve and enjoy

13th Annual Burlington Rib Fest

Thank the Lord all mighty for Burlington!

A beautiful city of 150,000 sitting on Lake Ontario 30m west of Toronto off of the QEW. Don't thank the Lord for the wonderful Lakeshore Blvd with its shops and boardwalk. No thank the Lord for Canada's largest most tasty rib fest hosted by Burlington.

As always the Labour Day weekend means a lot of things to a lot of people, the last day at The Ex, the last weekend of summer (although not officially), the end of summer vacation and back to school, or the 13th annual Canada's largest rib fest.

I’m soooo overwhelmed as I write this that I just don't know where to start. The beautiful aroma of sweet charcoal pork that fills my nostrils leading me in all directions, the smell of kettle corn dipped in butter, hot apple pie, hot fudge, baked beans, fresh 'slaw', potato salad and hand cut home fries browned in the biggest cast iron skillets I have ever seen.
Ohhhh I've died and gone to Hog Heaven.

The festival goers could not have asked for a better weekend the skies were clear blue all
weekend long and the breeze off Lake Ontario kept your brow cool as you tried to discern whose racks were best of all.
I must admit as I stepped into the festival to being completely blown away. This was my first food festival of this kind. My former food festival experiences amount to a bunch of Toronto Tastes, and the old Forks and Knives festivals.
But the difference this time around is I wasn't a working participant in the festival I was simply there to enjoy the fabulous food on offer as the 100,000 plus other rib goers consuming 90,000 pounds of ribs had done this weekend. There was a real down to earth feel about the festival. All walks of life were represented, they had a band playin ole country rock and everyone was dirty from walking on the trampled grass and kicking up a little dust everywhere they went.
The heroes of the weekend had to be the 'ribbers', the grill men and women cooking over the hot bbqs all weekend long flipping and 'mopping' every succulent rack. While yelling, 'Folks come try our world famous racks'.


The festival boasted 30 award winning contestants from as far as New Mexico, all proudly displaying there 1st place awards and accolades in the form of trophy tables and banners hoisted up high to coax you into trying there racks. But as usual the best advertising is word of mouth. Or in the case of the festival its the number of people in your line.
For the most part all vendors were busy except for maybe 3 or 4. I tried a vendor that had no line just to get something in my belly and yup the ribs weren't very good. So with my lesson learnt we split up and hit as many lines as possible and met back at the eating area, which offered up gorgeous views of Lake Ontario. Heck there were even people showing up to the festival in their motor boats.

Within 30 minutes we amassed probably 7 lb of ribs and brisket. We agreed earlier that we wouldn't bother with the sides of baked beans, slaw, home fries or potato salad; today we dedicated ourselves to ribs and brisket only. We were split on the vote we agreed that our faves were the "Jack On The Bone" ribs and the "Rib Daddy's" ribs. With Deringer's brisket being the best pork we tasted all weekend.
Not to mention the fresh squeezed lemon aid, the fresh fried Tiny Tom's donuts tossed with icing sugar. Yum!


So for get the Air Show! Forget Canada's Wonderland! Forget going to the cottage, postpone your honeymoon and call up your mates, tell your folks, grab the kids and make absolutely sure that you make it to next year's 14th Annual Burlington Rib fest, you wont regret it. Don't forget to dress like a slob because you're gonna eat like one.
For more info on the rib fest check out this link http://www.canadaslargestribfest.com/
Ciao!