Seduction by Dinner: Asado Negro with a Salad of Palm hearts and Avocado

Tamils say love begins in the eyes. We have terms of endearment that involve use of the word "eye." It's the same with Mandarin. I suspect other languages probably make the linkage between the eyes and love - even English does with its idiomatic phrase "apple of my eye." It's not particularly fair to people who can't physically see, but maybe it's the metaphysical eye they're talking about. The third eye that sees things your physical eyes cannot.

I think this plate of asado definitely inspires fierce love even though the photograph hardly does justice to all the other things about asado that appeal to the senses - the long wait while it transforms into something divine, the intensely aromatic waft of slow-cooked meat, caramelized vegetables and vinegar cooked down to a muted punch. Asado is the best pot roast you could ever eat - the meat is perfectly tender, the texture is heavenly, and the darkened, fulsome and robust flavour of all the things it's cooked with goes right to the centre of each bite. It defies description.

Inspired by my recent return from South America and its extraordinary parrilla restaurants (grilled meat restaurants) and mighty outdoor chivito (baby goat) fire-side grills, this blog post is about my first attempt to make asado negro (black roast). Asado is a generic term for a range of barbecue techniques or can be used as a verb to describe having or attending a barbecue. 

More importantly, it's easy to make and as long as you don't let on, you'll come across as an absolute culinary genius when you serve this to your closest friends with some strong dark beer or a decent zinfandel (or Malbec).

Cooking asado negro is a process that requires a bit of committment. It's the sort of recipe you tinker with on a Sunday afternoon while you drink a fine Chilean wine, or one you frantically prepare on a Friday afternoon to impress someone (in my case, Ck). I adapted my recipe from the New York Times, who got its recipe from the Mohedano Restaurant in Caracas, Venezuela. You begin the entire process by browning off your roast in a dutch pan. Ck couldn't locate a bottom round roast, so I worked with the top shoulder roast he dropped off the night before. After that was done, I browned the leeks, onions and the rest in the pot.

 As the object of the game was to impress, I had to do candied nuts. After a careful inspection of all my recipes involving nuts, I settled on doing a variation of the famous Union Square Cafe nuts. As the meat browned, I popped the pecans into the oven. The recipe was a bit funny - the sugar went all runny and it appeared for a while that the nuts were cooking in sugar soup. Not so. The sugar seized when they were done and these, my dear, were delicious to nibble on as I finished doing dinner. It was difficult to save some for Ck.

I had decided on a meringue sort of dessert for the asado dinner. My meringue was mostly ok looking as I piped it out, but it wasn't perfectly perfect. Here's what it looked like going in.

 

There was far too much eggwhite leftover after piping the shape out, so I made the rest into little baby meringues while the leeks took their time to soften the way they should.

 

I made a little salad with baby tomatoes, artichokes, palm hearts and avocado with a simple lime and olive oil dressing. As the asado cooked in the oven for the requisite number of hours, the air filled with the acidic vapours of the vinegar. My eyes burned. No one warned me about this. However, let me assure you, it was well worth it. When the asado was nearly done, I popped a small pot of rice of the stove to serve with it.

And we finished off with a little sweet dessert - the chocolate meringue swirl topped with blueberries and fine little threads of orange peel, cooked very quickly with a bit of Cointreau and melted apricot jam.

 

Here's the recipe I used for Asado Negro with some of my notes:

1 cup white sugar

2 teaspoons brown sugar (I used a 3/4 cup of chopped up gula melaka or palm sugar instead of both sugars. You can also find piloncillo - unrefined cane sugar - at the Mexican House of Spice on Douglas Street in Victoria)
2 cups white-wine vinegar (don't be scared - you really do need all of this)
1 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 pounds beef bottom-round roast (or top round)
5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 large Spanish onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 leeks, white and light-green parts only, washed well and thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
1⁄3 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and thinly sliced


1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the white sugar and 1 cup of water in a heavy saucepan and cook, without stirring, over medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves and turns dark caramel, 8 to 10 minutes (don't need to do this for as long if you use gula melaka). Carefully add the brown sugar, vinegar and wine, and cook, stirring, until all the caramel has melted. Set aside.

2. Heat a Dutch oven large enough to hold the meat over medium-high heat. When hot, add the canola oil and butter. When these begin to shimmer and foam, sear the roast on all sides. Transfer the meat to a platter and set aside.

3. Add the garlic, onion, celery, leeks and bay leaves to the Dutch oven and cook over medium-high heat until they have softened and almost begun to brown. Add the Worcestershire and soy sauces and stir to incorporate, then return the meat to the pot and season with salt and pepper. Cover with the bell-pepper slices and pour the caramel sauce over the top. Cover, place in the oven and cook for approximately 2½ hours — basting and turning the meat every 45 minutes — until it is very tender.

4. Remove the meat and allow it to stand on a platter, tented in foil, for at least 30 minutes. If the sauce is not syrupy and thick, remove the vegetables (discard the bay leaves) and arrange them around the meat, then place the Dutch oven, uncovered, over medium-high heat and allow the sauce to reduce. My vegetables were almost melted, but the sauce was too runny. I cooked everything together on the stove and the result was this marvellous molten sauce.


5. When the sauce is ready, slice the meat and return it, along with the vegetables, to the sauce and reheat in the oven or, covered, on the stove. Check the seasoning. You're supposed to serve this garnished with cilantro, but I don't like it so I didn't do it.  Serves 6 to 8. 

Toronto Foodie: Ian's Delicious Retro Popcorn

I recently went to Toronto to see a friend get married. Along the way, I visited other friends and indulged in Toronto's culinary offerings.

Of all the places I've lived in Canada, Ontario wins the prize for the loveliest fall. Ontario experiences autumn in a vast array of piquant scarlet, orange, yellow and faded green hues just as Victoria experiences spring in every shade of pink imaginable.

On precisely such a day like this, I made my way to Ian and Maggie's house. They live on a quiet Toronto street that's lined with late 19th century row houses that look very much like the ones in this photograph.

I should note that lugging a small suitcase filled with gift jars of peach marmalade I made this summer and bottles of raki is not the best idea on the subway.

I should also note that I should have brought a pair of gloves. Despite the sun, it was nippy that morning.

Since I was feeling chilled, Ian made tea for me and coffee for himself on the vintage gas stove.

I admired the shelves of legumes and spices while the coffee pot burbled away on the stove.

Ian is a fabulous cook. Creative and unfettered by convention, he whips up amazing dishes at a moment's notice. He also bakes impressive bread. Ian always sighs with regret when I reluctantly pass up opportunities to sample his baked wares. Wheat allergy. What can I say.

It just so happened to be Ian's birthday when I was visiting. After a day of me running about, we celebrated that evening in simple style with some of the fresh dates I bought and a gin or two.

In the middle of a conversation about the mayoral election in Toronto, Ian hopped up from the table and found the mason jar full of popcorn kernels. Little did I know what was in store for me.

My transition to accepting a wider range of what could be loosely called "health foods" (I quibble about this term. That's another post, however.) or hippy food has been slow, at best. However, due to people like Ian and Ciaran with vegetarian leanings, the transition has been accelerated. Sure, I've eaten things like tofu for decades, but that's because my parents grew up in Malaysia. Back to the popcorn.

Ian stove-popped the corn, tossed it into a bowl, and after sprinkling the snowy kernels with some olive oil, he dressed it with nutritional yeast. Yes. What had been all the rage in the 1970s and 80s was well and alive in Ian's kitchen.

Before you revolt and stop reading because the notion of yeast in anything except your bread is too disgusting for you, let me sing paens to popcorn that has this unfortunately named substance on it. With this yeast, the ordinary flavour of buttered popcorn transforms into something utterly divine; it has all the bite and sharpness of cheese, the nose parmesan presents, an ever so slightly nutty taste, a slightly rounded finish, and yes, I fell in love immediately with it. The ancient Egyptians loved it. So do I.

Ian's Delicious Retro Popcorn 

1/4 cup popcorn kernels
Olive oil
Paprika
Nutritional yeast
Salt

1. Add enough oil to cover the bottom of a medium-sized sauce pan with a lid that fits well. Swirl the oil around. Add a 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels to the pot. Cover the pot and put the pot over a medium to high flame. If you have an air popper, use it. The stove top method is more useful for entertaining your friends with your culinary showmanship.

2. Shake the pot occasionally to prevent the kernels from burning and to keep things circulating. As you near the end, shake the pot more frequently and listen for the sounds of popping that's slowing down. Depending on your stove, this could happen a bit more quickly or a bit more slowly.

3. Dump the popcorn into a good-sized bowl. Drizzle the popcorn lightly with olive oil, moving the popcorn about to ensure even coverage. Don't go too crazy with the oil.

4. Start with a generous handful of nutritional yeast and break the flakes up in your hand as you sprinkle it over the popcorn. Season with paprika to taste. I'd suggest this involves about a 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of paprika. Add a bit of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Thyme is also surprisingly good.

5. Taste your popcorn. If a bit more salt, pepper, yeast or paprika is necessary, drizzle a tiny bit more oil over the popcorn and add what's necessary. Then let me know how much you love it.

For my Victoria readers, nutritional yeast can be purchased at the Market on Yates in the bulk food section. Nutritional yeast has the bonus of being a low-fat, low-sodium, kosher, non-GMO food.