Category Archives: snacks

Green onion cakes

Posted on by bruleeblog

Summer in Edmonton means festivals, and festivals mean food. There are certain food items that you usually expect to find at Edmonton’s festivals, one of which are green onion cakes. It always baffles me why people insist on standing in long lines for this. I can understand if they’re looking for the puffy kind that you can usually find in restaurants, but more often than not the kind that I see people eating are the flat ones. Don’t they know that they can easily make them at home themselves?

Just a warning – this is not a “how to make green onion cakes from scratch” kind of post. Screw that, I don’t have the time! This is my patent-pending “how to make green onion cakes the quick, cheap and lazy way” recipe.

Green onion cakes

Ingredients
1 package of frozen green onion cakes, can be purchased at any Chinese grocery store
a neutral cooking oil like canola or sunflower oil

my favourite brand of frozen green onion cakes

my favourite brand of frozen green onion cakes

Directions
Heat a non-stick frying pan somewhere between medium and medium-high. Add oil to the pan. You will need more oil than you think; I usually use a bare minimum of one tablespoon (and sometimes more) per side for each green onion cake. The dough will soak up the oil very quickly so if you don’t add enough oil the cake won’t cook properly and if you add too little the cake will be too oily.

Stick your still frozen green onion cake in the pan. (I don’t recommend defrosting them because the dough will stick together and then you will have one very tall green onion cake blob instead of multiple green onion cakes.)

partially cooked green onion cake

partially cooked green onion cake

The green onion cake will start to change colour from white (frozen), to partially translucent (defrosted), to golden brown (cooked). Flip it once one side has lightly browned. Make sure to check on them as they cook, as they can easily burn. Once both sides are nicely browned, slide them onto a plate and you’re all done!

fully cooked green onion cake

fully cooked green onion cake

Be careful of eating them right out of the pan because they will be piping hot and you will burn your fingers and/or mouth. Eat plain, or serve with your favourite condiment (Sriracha, etc.).

Momofuku cookbook – fresh oysters and pickled Asian pears

Posted on by bruleeblog

Gong hay fat choy! Happy Chinese New Year! And happy Valentine’s Day to you as well! I’ve got a special treat for you today as a present from me to you, with help from Valerie and Beavie over at A Canadian Foodie. When Valerie found out that I got a copy of the Momofuku cookbook by David Chang and Peter Meehan for Christmas, she had a great idea for us to pick out recipes and do them at the same time in order to compare our experiences.

Momofuku cookbook

Momofuku cookbook

A quick flip through the cookbook told me one thing – David Chang doesn’t do simple recipes. At first glance they may seem simple but this initial impression is deceptive as most of his main recipes comprise of 2+ recipes combined together. Some of them can take days.

I had first choice, and I wanted to start with something simple, so I picked fresh oysters with a pickled Asian pear and black pepper mignonette.

The book has a fairly detailed section on how to choose, clean and open fresh oysters (pages 131-133). I was already familiar with most of these rules, but I thought one rule was a great reminder for myself: smell the oyster before you serve it and see if it smells clean and fresh and sweet – of the sea but not fishy.

I chose some lovely (but small) Malpeque oysters from Prince Edward Island. I gave them a good scrub under cold water, and kept them in the fridge until I was ready to shuck them.

Freshly scrubbed oysters

Freshly scrubbed oysters

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Mascarpone Stuffed Dates

Posted on by bruleeblog

This is an easy and tasty recipe for entertaining and potlucks. The sweetness of the dish makes it a great finger food dessert, or a sweet appetizer. Key to this recipe is the use of Medjool dates, which are plump and meaty. I experimented with mixing the cinnamon into the mascarpone, but the cinnamon flavour wouldn’t come through unless I placed it on top of each date.

Mascarpone stuffed dates

Mascarpone stuffed dates

Mascarpone Stuffed Dates

Ingredients
Medjool dates
mascarpone cheese
pecans or walnuts
cinnamon

Directions
With a sharp knife, make a small slit lengthwise across the top of each Medjool date. Do not cut all the way through the date! Carefully pull out the seed.

Take a small spoon (or use a filled piping bag) and place a small dollop of mascarpone inside the opening of each date.

Push a nut into the mascarpone. I used pecans but you can easily use walnuts. Dust a sprinkle of cinnamon over each filled date.

Kale chips

Posted on by bruleeblog

The kale I’ve seen in grocery stores over the summer has been limp, pathetic and unappealing. So last weekend when I saw some gorgeous kale at the Sundog Organic Farm at the City Market, I immediately grabbed two bundles. They were $4 per bundle, but seeing that the bundles were quite large they ended up being only slightly more expensive than kale sold at the grocery store and much more healthy looking.

I stuck some in a soup (this one, but without the beans). And the rest went towards my kale chips experiments.

kale chips

kale chips

I’ve seen kale chips on many blogs, and I was dying to try it out myself. I tried varying some of the measurements but I’ve found that keeping it simple is best. I made about four trays that night. And another two the next day. They’re horribly addicting! And once you master this version you can try variations like adding dried chili flakes, or making salt and vinegar chips.

Kale chips

Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil per baking tray
One bunch of kale leaves
Salt

Directions
Wash your kale, rip or cut into potato chip sized pieces, and dry throughly. The more dry the leaves are, the better. (I spun them in a salad spinner, and then ended up leaving them to air dry for a while.)

Preheat your oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 Celsius.

On a lined baking sheet, spread out a single layer of kale leaves. Drizzle 2 tsp of olive oil over the leaves. This may not look like a lot, but any more than this and your end product may be too oily.

Very lightly sprinkle the leaves with salt.

Pop the baking tray into the oven for approximately 10 minutes. The kale will turn a rich forest green colour during the baking process, but don’t take them out until they start to brown! If you take them out too early the kale won’t be crispy.

Once the leaves start browning, remove from the oven and enjoy. You can add more salt at this point if you think you need it, but I find that less salt makes these taste better.

How do you know that they’re done? Try picking one up. If it’s crisp enough they will crumble in your hand if you’re not careful because they are very fragile and similar in texture to deep fried parsley.

Cranberry Apple Bran Muffins

Posted on by bruleeblog

I felt like baking over the long weekend, so I whipped up some muffins to take for this week’s breakfast. They’re a great way to get some bran into your diet if you’re looking for more fibre.

Cranberry apple bran muffins

Cranberry apple bran muffins

Cranberry apple bran muffins
Adapted from a Kelloggs All-Bran recipe.
Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients
1 cup/250 ml All-Bran Buds or Original cereal
1 cup/250 ml light plain soy milk or skim milk
1 egg
1/4 cup/50 ml vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup/300 ml whole wheat or all-purpose flour
2/3 cup/150 ml granulated sugar
2 1/2 tsp/12 ml baking powder
1/4 tsp/1 ml salt
5 ml/1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp/pinch of ground nutmeg
3/4 cup/175 ml chopped fresh or frozen cranberries, or dried cranberries
1/2 cup/125 ml peeled and diced apples

Optional topping:
1 tbsp/15 ml granulated sugar
1/4 tsp/1 ml ground cinnamon

Directions
Mix the cereal and milk together and let it sit for a few minutes until the cereal has absorbed as much liquid as possible. Beat the egg and add it and the oil to the mixture and stir.

In another bowl, take the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix throughly. Add this to the cereal mixture and stir until combined. Add your cranberries and diced apples. (If you use fresh or frozen cranberries, your muffins will be moist. If you use dry cranberries the muffins won’t be dry, but you may want to eat them with a glass of milk to wash everything down.)

Preheat your oven to 400 °F (200 °C). Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the topping and temporarily set aside.

Grease or line your muffin pans and fill with the batter. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar topping if desired.

Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes or until firm.