Coffee on your steak

Here's the video of Trish Magwood demonstrating how to make an easy chili coffee steak rub.

And here is my Ingredient column on the subject.

Ingredient - the video

I've always wanted to have a video demo accompany my Ingredient column in the National Post. Finally, my team and I have finally completed our first one. I invite you all to check it out and tell me what you think. The video is about my guided tour of the fish counter at T&T Supermarket and a quick demo about how to make Cantonese-style steamed green bass. You can also read the column here.

Thank you to producer Maryam Siddiqi for making this project happen.

Allez cuisine! The Gold Medal Plates black box competition

Last night, I attended the first night to the The Gold Medal Plates competition. Part culinary triathlon, part Olympic fundraiser, the GMP is a meeting of seven top chefs from across the country and they duke it out over three days in a series of challenges. The first event was yesterday's Iron Chef-like black box competition: The chefs are handed a mystery box of six ingredients and then given ten minutes to devise a menu of two dishes that use all the ingredients. They then announce their menu, submit it to the judges (comprised of food writers and chef-instructors), and create two dishes within the one-hour time limit.

James Chatto, food critic for Toronto Life, is the head judge of the competition and was responsible for choosing the six mystery ingredients. Five of them were local – organic flank steak, Georgian Bay whitefish, celery root, honeycomb and Ontario-grown peanuts – and one was the exotic import – plantains. Why this combination? "I wanted to make it difficult but keep it local," he said. "I added plantains because it can be both used as something sweet and as a starch." One of the competing chefs – Paul Rogalski from Rouge in Calgary – announced he had a peanut allergy upon declaring his two-dish menu. I asked Chatto later if he ever thought of the nutaphobes in his ingredient-selection and he blushed a bit. "It never crossed my mind."

The event took place at the culinary school at George Brown College. There were about 50 guests and judges, crammed into the school's kitchens, watching the chefs sweat out the challenge. It was like watching Iron Chef live, sans commentary and multiple camera angles, so it was a bit difficult to see what was going oe. Also, there were a throng of chefs, restaurateurs and foodie hanger-ons who were more amped about the free wine than about watching the competitors sweat it out, which made it even more difficult to decipher what was going on.

The chefs who took part:

· Anthony Walsh of Canoe (Toronto)
· Martin Ruiz Salvador of Fleur de Sel (Halifax)
· Roland Ménard of Manoir Hovey (Montréal)
· Melissa Craig of Barefoot Bistro (Vancouver)
· Paul Rogalski of Rouge (Calgary)
· Judy Wu of Wild Tangerine (Edmonton)
· Michael Moffatt of Beckta Dining and Wine (Ottawa-Gatineau)

Check out my preview of the GMP competition.

Also, here's a video of Anthony Walsh declaring his menu after his ten minute brainstorming period.

Gong hay fat choy

Is the myth of the second Chinese-only menu at Chinese restaurants truth or fiction?

Truth indeed. Check out my story about it here. Truth be told, I've been meaning to write explain the secrets of the second menu for a while and it just so happened that my editors have been just as eager to read about now.

A few footnotes:
- the Chinese-only menu is called "to chan" and prounanced "TOE chan." If you want to see the menu, ask for the "TOE chan DAN."
- Unfortunately, I didn't get to lament the sad state of North American Chinese cuisine. Chinese cuisine on this continent needs a massive marketing overhaul but it's so hard to find at times. Nina and Tim Zagat – the founders of the Zagat guides – complained about the how far North American Chinese food lags the real thing.
- My dad has yet to give me his opinion of what I wrote.

Comer mangu de plantano.

My Ingredient column this weekend was about plantains and the Dominicain sidedish of Mangu, a mash of plantains that is served at breakfast with a Full Dominican breakfast (eggs and sausage - similar to a Full English) or as a starchy accompaniment for dinner.

I chatted with a few Dominicans about their cuisine and with one man, the conversation went from mangu to smoked pork chops to langoniza and finally to sancocho, the hearty stew that uses seven different kinds of meats. After expressing his delight over the heavy food – it's the greatest cure for a hangover, he tells me – he added that sancocho is an imperative part of the mating ritual of Dominicans. The three elements: First sancocho, add a bottle of rum and end with sex. "We call it the 1-2-3," he laughs. Stewed goat meat + pork ribs + rum = powerful aphrodisiac, apparently. I imagine the rum is the most important element.