Try these Kitchen Scraps
Published Saturday October 31st, 2009
Cookbook from young chef mixes wit with great recipes
VANCOUVER - What do you call a cookbook that whips up one part wit with a heavy helping of illustrations akin to SpongeBob characters and recipes introduced with blurbs like "The Bastard Child of Mr. Croque?"
Let's just say "Kitchen Scraps: A Humorous Illustrated Cookbook" (Whitecap Books, $29.95) is a different kind of culinary book that could well find foodies glued to the non-recipe material instead of hopping off to the kitchen to do some actual cooking.
You won't find any fancy food photos here.
Instead, personalities such as Mr. B. Russell Sprout, the illustrated banker type donning a limp green tweed suit and bowler hat, take centre stage.
Sprout, like the rest of the crew, is the invention of Calgary resident Pierre A. Lamielle, who puts his passion for cooking and illustrating into action with laugh-out-loud musings that could well make the cookbook's rightful place the coffee table.
As far as Lamielle's concerned, people take the whole business of cooking way too seriously, so he set out to create something off-beat and irreverent.
"This is a non-invasive, unpretentious, inviting, entertaining way to get into cooking, where you don't necessarily feel like you're getting into cooking," he said during a recent visit to Vancouver.
Lamielle, 29, is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, which he says sounds pretty impressive, and led to his cookbook deal after a few earlier rejections.
As for putting his culinary skills to work at a restaurant, Lamielle isn't interested in such high-burnout gigs.
But he sure loves teaching uptight accountants and engineers -- unlike those "laissez-faire" human resources folks -- at a Calgary "cooking demo theatre" that apparently requires no theatrical performances.
"They have to adhere to the numbers," he says of the accountants' penchant for measuring every morsel to the nth degree. "They will not loosen up and just cook. We try and lubricate them with a little bit of alcohol and that helps."
Lamielle, who has developed a curious fondness for rutabaga, grew up in Vancouver and started cooking as a kid who hung out in the kitchen with his mom.
He says his skills have come in handy for picking up women, including his current girlfriend, whom he met at a Calgary market.
Lamielle's recipes range from breakfast fare like oatmeal with wheat germ, flaxseed and dried fruit, countered with another oatmeal recipe that includes whisky, complete with the expected line about boozing Scots. Comfort food includes four-cheese mac and cheese, "totally-baked-out-of-their-minds potatoes" and several versions of eggs Benedict -- one particularly enticing one with fennel seeds.
Half-Baked Pot Brownies
Dudes and dudettes alike can delight in this dreamy treat that’s mixed and baked in one pot.
125g bittersweet chocolate 4 oz
125 ml sugar 1/2 cup
125 ml cold unsalted butter, in pieces 1/2 cup
2 large eggs 2
125 ml flour 1/2 cup
50 ml cocoa powder 1/4 cup
1 ml salt 1/4 tsp
Preheat over to 180 C (350 F).
In a medium-sized pot with a metal handle, melt chocolate over low heat. As soon as chocolate melts, remove pot from heat.
Add sugar and mix with a wooden spoon until grainy but incorporated. Add cold butter a bit at a time while continuing to mix.
Add 1 egg at a time and mix until smooth.
In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add dry mixture directly to the pot a third at a time, stirring after each addition. Use a spatula to scrape down sides of the pot so nothing burns on the edges.
Place pot in oven for 35 to 40 minutes. It will still be nice and gooey in the middle. If you want it to be firmer, bake for another 5 to 10 minutes.
Let brownies cool on the stovetop. Be careful with the hot pot handle.
To serve, use a big spoon to scoop out individual servings. Or if you have the munchies, grab a little spoon and start eating.
* From Kitchen Scraps
Vampire Slayer’s Garlic-Laced Chicken
6 heads of roasted garlic (see note below on roasting) 6
2 free-range chicken breasts, skin on 2
Salt and pepper, to season chicken and for sauce
5 ml vegetable oil 1 tsp
15 ml butter 1 tbsp
1 shallot, minced 1
1 glass of white wine 1
125 ml heavy cream 1/2 cup
Small handful of parsley, finely chopped
Sprig of tarragon, leaves only, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 200 C (400 F). Roast garlic and set aside to cool. Pat chicken dry with a paper towel and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set a large ovenproof frying pan over medium heat. When pan is hot, dribble in oil, place chicken breasts skin side down, and leave them to let the skin get golden and crispy, 8 to 10 minutes.
Flip chicken and immediately transfer pan to oven to roast for 10 to 15 minutes or until chicken in cooked through. Prep remaining ingredients, which are for the sauce, including squeezing cloves of roasted garlic into a bowl and picking out the stray bits of papery garlic skin.
When chicken is done, remove pan from oven and transfer chicken to a plate to rest. Using an oven mitt, set pan back on the stove over high heat to start making the sauce. Add butter to the residual chicken fat and quickly sweat shallot until translucent.
Add white wine and cook until boozy smell evaporates.
Add roasted garlic and roughly mash with a fork to incorporate it with sauce. Pour in heavy cream, along with juices from plate where the chicken is resting, and reduce to thicken sauce. Remove from heat, adjust flavour with salt and pepper to taste and finish by mixing in herbs rightbefore you spoon it generously over the plated chicken. Serve with big chunks of baguette to sop up the sloppy sauce or go with boiled potatoes.
Makes 2 servings.
To roast the garlic, preheat oven to 200 C (400 F). Trim off pointy tip of unpeeled garlic heads to expose cloves.
Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, wrap it in foil and toss it in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes. When cool, squeeze out the cloves.
* From Kitchen Scraps
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