Poisson en Papillote (Fish in a Bag)

Hello foodies!

Recently, I took a bistro classics cooking class at The Urban Element.  The class was taught by Patricia Larkin, the chef at The Black Cat Bistro, a restaurant specializing in French bistro fare. The class taught us to make a number of the items which appear on The Black Cat Bistro's menu, dispelling fears that all French food is fussy and demanding, and out of the reach of most home cooks.  While I don't see myself often throwing together a brioche here at home, one of the dishes I have put into regular rotation is the poisson en papillote.

This is my fish from the class:

There is much about this dish that appeals.  The vibrancy of the colours.  The gorgeous aroma as you open the packet.  The fact that it is really quite a healthy dish.  And, most of all, its versatility.  Every single pickerel en papillote made that night was a little different in the end because each person put their own together, based on their own preferences.  A dish that I can change based on my mood and on what ingredients are available appeals greatly to me.

Essentially, the dish is a piece of fish, generally a white fish, resting on a bed of vegetables and aromatics, then loosely sealed in a parchment paper bag and baked in the oven until the fish is just cooked.  Cozy in the parchment paper bag, the fish steams, taking on some of the flavours of what is sealed in with it, liquids are released from fish and veg, blending with the dab or oil and/or butter to form a heavenly broth/liquor in the bottom of the bag.

 

To start, you need small pieces of vegetables, something that will cook enough - but not overcook - in the 20 minutes or so it takes for the fish to cook.  If you want potatoes in your bag, you'll need to parboil them.  Using the julienne setting of my peeler (pictured), I made zucchini strings as my base.  (Momentary digression:  I LOVE this peeler.  I generally detest peeling vegetables and resist making any dish that will require me to peel.  This peeler is causing me to rethink my position on peeling.  Comfortable in the hand, it makes quick work of peeling, and has different blades for different effects.  The end.)

 

To the zucchini strings, I added fennel, spinach, arugula, shallots, cherry tomatoes, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Right before laying the fish on it's bed, I added a couple of dill fronds.

 

I used halibut when making it at home.  A fairly thick filet, known for its firm, fine texture.  But pretty much any white fish would do.  A pat of butter (olive oil works, too, or even a bit of both), more salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon or lime.

 

To seal, fold the parchment paper over, and start rolling and crimping to work your way around the open side.  You don't want it too tight, but you do want a decent seal so that the steam and liquid won't escape, letting the fish dry out.  350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so.  Thicker fillets may need longer time.  Something thinner, like sole, would not need as much.  If you're not sure, it is easy enough to cut a small slit in the back to check the doneness of the fish.  If it needs more time, pinch the slit closed and slide it back in the oven.

It is quite easy to slide it from the parchment packet onto a plate.  Or you can simply serve it in the packet and eat it from the bag.

As we head into summer, when vegetables are at their height, I imagine what delightful variations I can make on this dish.  I think sweet corn kernels may go quite nicely. Celeriac might work.  Baby carrots.  Ginger might work for some flavour, depending on what else I put in it.  A splash of wine or liquor instead of a squeeze of citrus.  The possibilities are endless.

For updates and observations, follow me on Twitter!  @culinarykira

Raw Meat

Hello foodies!

There is so much to write about!

In preparation for blogging, I transferred pics to my computer so they'd be poised for upload.  In doing so, I noticed a theme:  I like raw meat.  Beef, specifically.  Lots of people, of course, eat their beef medium, medium rare, or even blue.  Many say eating beef any more than medium is an insult to the animal that gave its life.  I don't completely agree with this assessment.  A rare boeuf bourguignon is not a good thing.  Lamb is also often enjoyed medium or medium rare.  Game birds as well - duck, goose, quail - also don't have to be cooked through.  Modern thinking even allows pork to have a trace of pink in the centre.  But there is a difference between the pink, or even reddish centre, and purely raw.

Steak tartare and beef carpaccio is where the line is drawn.  Tartare, finely minced (but not simply ground beef - best done by hand), wonderfully textured and beautifully seasoned.  Carpaccio, thinly sliced and cured with a hit of acid, like lemon juice.  These dishes have never seen a lick of heat.  This is where you get beef at its purest.  Its beefiest.  This is where you can't hide mistakes. Unimpeachable quality is required. Exemplary food handling is essential. And, if making it yourself, excellent knife skills are the starting point.

I feel at this point, we need a picture.

Isn't that pretty?  This is the tartare I made at a recent cooking class at the Urban Element, a local foodie hotspot where I have spent many a delightful hour learning new techniques and connecting with the local foodies.

Now, some exposition.

Steak tartare.  Minced beef, traditionally done by hand.  Seasoned with shallots, cornichons (gherkins, for those unused to French terminology), Dijon, capers, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, oil, plus a variety of other seasonings dependent on the particular tastes of the person making it.  Chives.  Soy sauce. Tabasco.  Chili flakes.  Parsley.  It is really a flexible and forgiving dish.  Also essential to a proper tartare is egg yolk, which binds and adds a luxurious unctuousness.  Served with some delivery method that gets the beef from the plate to your mouth:  melba toast, toast points, potato chips, etc.

Beef carpaccio. Thinly sliced beef, artfully arranged, dressed simply.  An acid element, such as lemon juice. an oil.  Salt and pepper.  Shavings of parmigiano, or some other cheese with character.  Often a crunchy element is on the plate.  Chip, crispy onion strings.

This is the carpaccio from Brother's Beer Bistro.  The crispy elements are pie crust and mushrooms. Freshness comes from the cold, smooth root vegetable cubes and the sprouts.  Olive oil, lemon, and a beer based sauce round out the dish.

These dishes exist at the meeting point between creativity, excellent technique and quality ingredients. They are not out of reach for the home chef.

First, you need an excellent meat supplier. A mainstream, chain grocery store simply will not do, since you have no idea what has been needle tenderized.  Unless a meat is going to be cooked to a minimum temperature (not raw), you need to be confident that its structural integrity hasn't been compromised.  Many, if not most, chain grocery stores receive their meat pre-packaged from meat packaging plants.  Needle tenderizing, where needles are forced into the tissue, depositing whatever bacteria are on the needles or the surface of the meat, is widely used.  Labelling requirements are inconsistent.  If you are going to try a raw preparation, you need a purveyor you can trust.  In Ottawa there are several:  Glebe Meat Market, Saslove's, Aubrey's.  A hint:  if quality restaurants use a butcher as a meat supplier, it is a good sign that they are reliable. There may be others, but those are my go-tos.

There are a variety of cuts you can use, but in general, they are among the more tender.  Traditionally, tenderloin is often used.  But striploin, rib, or even heart are appearing on menus.

Second, an excellent knife.  Sharp.  German or Japanese. Many get suckered in to a butcher's block filled with mediocre knives.  There are few you truly need: a chef's knife, a paring knife.  If you're interested in your own butchering, maybe a boning knife, although, seriously, I seldom find myself reaching for anything other than my 8 inch chef's knife.  Where knives are concerned, you want quality over quantity. Personally, I go German.  Wustof, Henckels.  I look for balance.  Feeling right in my hand. A certain weight. I'd rather spend $120 on one awesome blade that I will use constantly than $120 on a panoply of crap that looks cool on my counter.  Invest in a proper sharpening steel to keep them honed between more formal sharpenings. Either learn how to sharpen yourself using a whetstone, or get your blades sharpened professionally on a regular basis.  Treat a good blade properly, and it will last you for decades.  From a safety perspective, though it is counter-intuitive, a sharp blade is safer than a dull one.  The sharper the blade, the truer the cut. The less likely it will jump, slide, or otherwise misbehave.  And it won't shred.  If you happen to cut yourself, you'll appreciate a knife that cuts cleanly rather than one that shreds your skin.

Third, the meat, when cutting, either the mince for a tartar or the thin slices for a carpaccio, should be very, very cold.  Putting it in the freezer for 20 minutes helps.  This helps it to maintain its structural integrity when cutting. As much as many don't like to think of it, the meat we eat is muscle tissue.  It breaks down and becomes mushy with excessive handling.  Working with very cold beef helps to protect the texture of the meat, which is a huge part of the appeal of either tartare or carpaccio.

After that...  It's up to you.  You need some acid.  You need some fat.  You need some crunch.  But the world is your oyster.  Or, your plate of raw beef.

When I do carpaccio, I sprinkle salt on the meat, wrap it tightly for an hour or so to impart flavour and cure while in the fridge.  Transfer to the freezer to firm up, slice thinly, and serve with lemon juice, walnut oil, shaved parmigiano, and thinly sliced onions dredged in cornstarch and dry fried.

The best tartare I ever had was at the Ottawa Wine and Food show a couple of years ago, an offering by the Wakefield Inn.  Then, it was a bison tartare, but what sticks in my memory were the little balls of soy sauce, created by molecular gastronomy wizardry.  As they exploded in my mouth along with the perfectly textured, flavourful bison it was a game changer for me.  The best bite of that particular food and wine show, and since then, when I make tartare at home, I include a splash of soy sauce to recreate that taste.

A couple more pics...

My own carpaccio at home.

Aperitivo's tartare

For updates and observations, follow me on twitter!  @culinarykira

Brother's Beer Bistro

Hello foodies!

The Ottawa restaurant scene has become more exciting over the last couple of years.  I have a list of restaurants I am making my way through.  New places I want to try always being added as others get crossed off. Today, I want to talk about Brother's Beer Bistro.

The atmosphere is relaxed.  Big windows, so the space is fairly bright (I was there for lunch both times), exposed brick walls for that factory/industrial vibe.  Servers are friendly.  It can be a little slow, particularly when waiting for the bill, but that is really my only (small) complaint.

As you may be able to guess from the name of the restaurant, Brother's is all about the beer.  They have an extensive beer list.  They make beer cocktails.  Each dish has a recommended beer pairing. Every dish has beer as an ingredient in some way (although they can make many of their dishes beer-free to accommodate dietary or religious restrictions).  Their website has a blog about beer.  So if you like beer......

If you don't like beer, I'd argue that you just haven't tried enough of it, because as this place so ably demonstrates, there is a beer out there for everyone.  The servers are extremely knowledgeable, and are more than happy to make a recommendation.  The server I had for both my visits gets extra points because he explained what I could expect flavour-wise from the recommended pairing:  banana.  To me, this is an abomination. But the fact that he explained the product so thoroughly allowed me to nix the standard pairing, and I was completely happy with the alternative he provided.

Now, the food.  It was interesting and creative.  On my first visit, I ordered short rib carpaccio.

This dish has a lot going on, and all of it good.  First, there is the meat.  Cold, flavourful, quality beef short rib sliced paper thin.  Beautiful texture (I find with raw preparations of both meat and fish, texture is almost more important than taste).  Excellent olive oil.  Little sprouts.  There were little cubes of cold root vegetables: carrots, parsnips, they provided a nice counterpoint.  Most interesting was the crunch aspect: crispy pie dough. As someone who often finds the crust the best part of a pie, this appealed.

On a different visit, I opted for charcuterie:

Visually beautiful, I appreciated this dish greatly.  It was an excellent combination of unctuous fat from the meat, aggressive acidity from the various pickles, and cooking neutrality from the cheese.

Another dish I tried was the smoked mackerel panzanelle:

 

Lots of interest here.  What is most interesting is what is missing:  the bread/crouton.  A panzanelle is, by definition, about the stale bread.  They handled the mistake well, offering to remake the salad.  I declined, as I had a later engagement.  And really, the salad was great even without the bread.

Returning to my first visit, there was the dessert:

 

The PB&J.  As I have mentioned before, I am not a dessert person. But, on m first visit I ordered only one dish, so I felt the need to order dessert for blogging purposes.  The dessert gets mixed reviews.  The chocolate and peanut butter pot au creme was amazing.  Lovely texture.  Nicely complimented by the salty caramel corn.  The cookie with strawberry jam was less successful.  It didn't match conceptually or texturally with the pot au creme.  It was a distraction from the main event.  The pot au creme was truly lovely:  smooth texture, intense flavour.  The cookie and jam just didn't add to the dessert as a whole.

All in all, Brother`s gets a positive review.  When I am looking for a place for an evening out, it is now one of the places I automatically check.  Therefore, I recommend that you check it out, too.

Follow me on twitter: @culinarykira

Atelier

Hello Foodies,

Molecular gastronomy.  Modern food.  Food where creative chefs play with techniques to create the unexpected.  Different textures and shapes.  Surprising combinations.  Food that looks like one thing but tastes like another.  Stunning presentations.

For the last few years, Atelier has been serving up this kind of food.  It is my favourite special occasion place in Ottawa.  When you arrive at the building, it is a little confusing.  There is little to nothing commercial around it.  There is also no helpful sign indicating that you've found the right place.  The restaurant is small - it only seats around 20 people.  There are reasons for this.  Each dish is highly technical, with many different components.  The small, intimate setting allows for careful, attentive (but not intrusive) service.  The combined effect of the unsigned building and the limited seating creates a sense of exclusivity, like you're a part of a secret club that is in the know.

Atelier serves a 12 course prix fixe menu.  There is no standard menu to order from.  The diners do not choose what they eat - they are in the chef's hands. Atelier will accommodate allergies, dietary restrictions and strong food preferences by adapting the necessary dishes if you provide notice when making the reservation (and reservations are essential).  The dishes have witty, whimsical names that always get a smile out of me.  The menu card does not have descriptions of what you will be eating.  Sometimes you can tell from the title of the dish what one of the components will be - for example, Feeling Crabby.  Sometimes you cannot, as with A Relative Nature of Existence.  The server explains each dish in detail when it is brought to you.  For the adventurous, this lack of foreknowledge of what is come, the lack of control over what you'll be eating is exhilarating.  For others, it can be stressful.  This is not an inexpensive meal, so an open mind going in is a must.

And now, the food.  There will be many pictures and few words.

The amuse:

On the right is a sphere of liquid with pop rocks on it.  To the left, a little cornmeal cake and some ham.

Feeling Crabby:

A Relative Nature of Existence:

The same dish in two sizes.  Scallops, radishes, creme fraiche and other goodies.

Denzel Squashington, a butternut squash soup, with sweetbreads and other delights in it.  The bowl with the additions is brought to you, and then the soup poured in at the table.

Squid Pro Quo.  Particularly interesting because of different squids used - one meaty chunk was Humboldt squid.

Dashi Through the Snow, another two-parter, where a dashi brother is poured over sablefish and accompaniments.  For the dashi/sablefish combo, my favourite is still Blue Water Cafe in Vancouver.

Next, Carroty Chop, a rustic carrot salad served on a tree section.  This was actually two servings, shared with my dining companion.

Porks and Quarks.  A fun dish to look at and eat.  Buried under that nesty looking thing (a spaetzle or sorts) was some very nice tenderloin.

Winner Winner, another multi-component meat dish.

Next, and interesting dish called Bisontennial.  Served under a cloche to maintain the smoke, the cloche is lifted giving you a rush of fragrance and the most perfectly cooked bison.  Something new for me in this dish was crispy, puffed tendon.

Moving into dessert, we have This is a Stick Up.  A nitro-frozen lollipop-style dessert, served sticking out of a peculiar pine cone.

Fifty Shades of Brown.  Peanut butter, chocolate, caramel, little dollops of fruity puree.

And finally, Clove Minded.  A deconstructed apple pie/crumble of sorts.

I must say, I didn't post this nearly as soon as I should have - it was in November that I went.  And now, reliving the evening through the pictures, I want to go again!  Now, the menu would be mostly, if not completely changed, as we start to move in to spring.  I have to set up another visit soon.

Follow me on Twitter. @culinarykira

Afternoon tea

Hello foodies,

Yesterday, I enjoyed an elegant, traditional tea at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier.  In addition to providing luxe accommodations and overall service, many of their locations also serve an afternoon tea.  Tea, scones, clotted cream, jam, pastries, and small savoury sandwiches. Yes, it is pretentious.  And girly.  But if you enjoy an upscale atmosphere with a light repast and a companion whose company you enjoy, it is a delightful afternoon.

I have enjoyed several Fairmont teas across the country.  Lake Louise (unparallelled scenery), the Royal York, Mont Tremblant...  It is always a pleasant time.

Sunday was no exception.  The lounge where the tea is served has high ceilings, large windows, comfortable seating. Pristine linen table cloths and napkins, fine china.  Soothing instrumental music is played. All the expected details are there.  There is nothing to interfere with witty conversation that inevitably rises to the occasion.

There are three choices as far as service goes:  the traditional, the Canadian tea, and, for children, the prince or princess tea.  Since no children were involved on this outing, I can only speak to the traditional and Canadian teas.  I opted for the Canadian, my friend A for the traditional.  The main difference between the two were the opener:  my strawberries marinated in ice wine and A's basic melon laden fruit cup.

The strawberries were perfect.  None of the greenness, hardness or tastelessness you expect of strawberries in January.  The ice wine was subtle, not lending the often harsh alcohol content often experienced when there is no cooking involved.  All in all, this was a perfect start.

Then arrived the tea.  There is a wide tea selection.  Blacks, herbals, greens, fruit teas.  During the week they actually wheel a cart around the dining room, but on weekends it is often to busy to accommodate this. I, as always, chose Lapsang Souchong, a somewhat unusual Chinese black tea with a distinctive, smokey flavour.  I am not a big tea drinker.  I generally find herbal teas to be either bland, slightly flavoured water at best, or unpleasant boiled grass at worst (I despise chamomile), or, where black tea is concerned, it is often overpowered with tannin.  For me, the Lapsang Souchong offers a pronounced, yet pleasant flavour.  I take my tea without accompaniments.  No milk, no sugar.

Then, the traditional tea tray.

Scones on the bottom, then savouries, then sweets.  I was too determined to get to the scones and actually forgot my picture taking obligations, so here you see only one scone.  In reality, there were two:  one blueberry, one plain.  A's tea came with a cranberry and plain.

Served with clotted cream and delightful strawberry preserves, in my opinion, this is the culinary highlight of the meal.  The cream is not sweet, and is heavier, more buttery than the whipped cream we're all familiar with, and works well with the strawberry jam, which has a lovely berry flavour, but is also not overwhelmingly sweet.  The scones themselves are a perfect tender texture.  All in all the trio is perfectly balanced for maximum enjoyment.

Generally, the next step would be the savouries.  But I am a student of the school of save the best for last, and for me, dessert is never the best part of a meal.  So after the scones, I moved on to the sweets.

Here we have a berry and custard tart (my favourite), a maple tartlet (far too sweet for my personal taste, though I can see it being a delight to many), and a tea cake (not bad at all - nice blend of textures through the layers, with coffee and maple flavourings).  My sweets differed from the traditional tea in the maple flavouring.  A's tray also had a berry tart, but other offerings.

I ended with the savouries.  A's tray contained the more traditional "salad" sandwiches, mine, for $7 more, had more luxurious ingredients.

The cucumber and cream cheese (lower right hand) is a nod to the traditional.  Going clockwise from there, there is a medium roast quality beef with a pickled onion and horseradish sauce, a curried chicken salad (curry chicken very nice - not overwhelming, but present and satisfying), and smoked salmon with caper.  Cucumber was my least favourite, the other three all had things to recommend, though a day later, the curried chicken sticks most firmly in my mind - good texture, excellent flavour.

Afternoon tea is a bit of a splurge.  $32 for the traditional, $39 for the Canadian.  But it is also An Experience, and one that, if you have a venue in the area offering it, is well worth checking out of you have an afternoon to spare.  For me, it is an annual indulgence.  I am lucky to have a couple of friends who enjoy the tradition as much as I!

For updates, follow me on twitter! @culinarykira

Let it go, man! Or, polenta success!

Hello foodies,

Last summer, in this blog, I identified mastering polenta as one of my cooking objectives for the coming winter.  And now, I am happy to report that as of January 13, 2014, I have achieved the desired result!

Soft, creamy polenta, the starting point, has never been the issue.  Soft polenta is incredibly easy to make.  A 4:1 ratio of water:cornmeal, then add whatever butter, cheese, seasonings you want.  Yes, there is labour involved; it needs to be lovingly stirred to get a nice texture.  But the requirement to stir does not equal difficulty.  Where I had, previously, consistently, failed is in making a crispy polenta.  While I like soft polenta, I LOVE crispy polenta.

Last weekend, wanting to take my brand new enamelled cast iron dutch oven, a Christmas gift from baby brother K, for a spin, I made braised beef short ribs.  To accompany them, I went with a soft polenta and wilted chard.

I was very pleased with this dish.  On top of being fairly pretty, the three components worked well together. Ribs, browned and braised with red wine, bacon, carrots garlic, leeks, onion, thyme, rosemary, and a bit of hot sauce, were tender and flavourful.  The wilted chard, slightly crisped on some edges, was both fresh and refreshing.  The polenta, enriched with an (un)healthy dose of butter, plus a good chevre (goat cheese), was tangy, corny and delightful  Really, the meal was an unqualified success.

(Aside: cast iron casserole/dutch oven is AWESOME.  Excellent, even cooking, easy to clean. Mine is Lagostina, and oval in shape.  While round might be more ideal, I still cannot rave enough about the virtues of an enamelled cast iron casserole.)

After this delectable meal, I was left with some polenta.  As anyone who has ever made polenta before knows, as it cools, it firms up.  So even a soft polenta, a 4:1 ratio, as I made, cools to a fairly solid mass.  A mass that can be cut into slabs and fried to golden, crispy perfection.

The key, I have found, after much trial and error, is patience.  On several previous occasions, I have cut slabs of leftover polenta, popped them into olive oiled pans, or under broilers, and hoped for a crispy result.  I had been consistently disappointed until Monday.  On Monday, after placing the slabs in a heated pan with some olive oil, I became distracted and left the pan longer than I had historically.  I returned, worried that I had ruined the polenta, only to discover that the pan-facing side was perfect.  The desired crispy golden crust was achieved, reinforcing the structural integrity needed to flip the slab without it dissolving into a shapeless, oily mess.  I left the other side to cook a comparable length of time, and the result was my polenta holy grail: crispy and textured on the outside, decadent and creamy on the inside.  The key to the perfect crispy polenta was to just let it go.  Don't fuss with it too much when it is in the pan.  Have the confidence to let it establish its crust, and then flip and let the other side go.  The result is a delightful side that is treat with many meals, and an alternative to the potato-pasta starch dichotomy.  Polenta is cheap and versatile; seasonings and cheeses can completely alter the flavour profile, making it a constant adventure.  If it is not part of your repertoire, I recommend going forth and experimenting.

Simple instructions:

4:1 ratio, water to cornmeal

Bring water to a boil.  Pour cornmeal in using a thin stream, whisking all the while.  Reduce heat to medium, and stir regularly to avoid lumps and achieve the desired consistency.  As it cooks, add salt and taste to achieve the desired seasoning.  Once the desired consistency is reached, stir in equal parts butter and cheese of your preference to taste.  With 1 c of cornmeal, I used 1/3 c each of butter and chevre.

Polenta is fairly forgiving.  Experiment with butter, cheese, herbs and spices to get your personal perfect polenta.  It can be made stiffer by using less water, and to this you can add chunks of sausage or other savoury ingredients.

To fry:

Let chill and then cut into slabs approximately 2 cm (a little less than an inch) thick.  Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan, then add the polenta cakes and let cook 7-10 minutes per side.  Season to taste and enjoy!

For updates, follow me on twitter!  @culinarykira

The Courtyard

Hello foodies,

Once again, I have been remiss.  But the busy holiday season is over, and I hope to post on a more regular schedule.  Rest assured, though I haven't been posting, I have been eating and taking pictures, and noting the thoughts that I want to share.

Today, I would like post a review of one of my favourite special occasion spots in Ottawa - The Courtyard.

I have been to The Courtyard intermittently over the years.  It has always been a place with nice atmosphere, good food, and good service.  Nice for a special occasion, but doesn't break the bank.  A few years ago, after a kitchen fire, they took the opportunity to refocus on creative, beautiful food, as I discovered on a trip there in January 2012.  That particular meal remains a highlight in my great meal memory bank.

On this most recent visit, I enjoyed the dinner.  It didn't reach the stunning heights of previous meals, but I still appreciated the quality ingredients, diverse cooking techniques, and attention to detail.

A word first on location and ambiance - to set the stage, so to speak.  The Courtyard is located in the Byward Market, in, you guessed it, a courtyard, where the open space is shared with Social, The Black Tomato, and Mama Grazzi's.  The Courtyard itself is located in an old stone building that features as part of Ottawa's haunted walk due to a history of people glimpsing a wandering Victorian woman in an upstairs window, supposedly the ghost of a woman who died in a fire many years ago.  The stone walls and high beamed ceilings give that exclusive, old world feel inside, and there are several different dining areas that run the gamut from cozy and intimate to open and spacious.

On this night, back in November, I went with frequent dining companion, L.  First up, my appetizer:

Beef cheeks in a bordelaise sauce, red wine braised onions and chives, confit potatoes, and salt cured foie gras.  The portion, as you can see, was small, but that was more than okay because of the layers and layers of richness involved.  At the bottom, you see the beef cheeks.  They had a soft, melting texture, and a great, beefy flavour.  The cheeks of almost any animal are one of my very favourite cuts, because, being a working muscle, they are so very flavourful.  Particularly suited to long, slow cooking techniques, in this case, they were cooked sous vide - that is, vacuum sealed in plastic and immersed in a water circulator at a low temperature for a long, long time: 12 hours.  Atop that, the confit potato, crispy, taking on the flavour from the duck fat in which it was confited, added texture to an otherwise all-soft dish.  The the red wine braised onions and chives, the sharpness of the onion cutting through the richness of the rest of the dish.  And finally, the jewel in the crown that was this dish, the foie gras.  Cool, creamy, unctuous.  I am a sucker for foie gras on a menu.

L's appetizer was scallops, with Jerusalem artichoke, watermelon and onion puree.  It looked beautiful, and L reported that the scallops were perfectly cooked and the dish was overall satisfying.

Normally, I try to balance my meal - if I go heavy and rich with the appeitzer, I try to go lighter and more acidic with the main.  Or I try to significantly change up the proteins to get a more varied experience.  This time, I was seduced into staying in the same vein by the words "sage polenta," which accompanied the elk (along with duck fat roasted carrots, Brussels sprouts, and onions, and a sour cherry sauce).  I've mentioned before my passion for polenta.

This was also a great dish, though, like the appetizer, rich and heavy.  Elk can be tricky - it dries out and toughens if it is cooked a moment too long, or not rested appropriately.  It is a very lean meat, and the leaner the meat, the more unforgiving it is to cook.  This was done very well, the elk moist and flavourful, the sour cherry sauce a nice counterpoint to the richness of the meat and duck fat roasted veg.  The polenta was soft, and the sage fit beautifully with the meat and sauce.  It wasn't the best polenta I have ever had, but it was a solid and satisfying version.  The polenta also had pecornio cheese, a hard sheep's milk cheese that is, increasingly, one of my favourites - blasphemy though this might be, I prefer it to parmigiano-reggiano.

L's main was somewhat of a disappointment to her.  The halibut was well cooked and delightful, but she found the risotto to have a cheez-whiz texture and flavour that was out of place and off-putting.  Visually, I would agree that it was the least appealing plate of the night, with that medium brown stripe of onion puree running across the plate.

The Courtyard is one of the few places where desserts routinely tempt me.  This is because of the interesting combination of flavours and textures on their plates, and the regular inclusion of herbal elements that, for me, are an essential counter to all the sugar.  Tonight, I went for the roasted plum and port semifreddo, with spiced balsamic reduction, candied pecan crumble, basil, and maple caramel biscotti.

You can see the attention to detail that goes into the plating.  L thought the semifreddo looked suspiciously like spam, but since I have never encountered spam in real life, this did not bother me.  The taste of the semifreddo was sharp and tart - aggressively so, but also refreshing after the richness of my earlier plates, and the basil nicely neutralized that sharpness between bites.  I found the portion far too large - one log of semifreddo was quite enough for me - and I was not fond of the jammy bits you see in the picture.

All in all, it was a very good meal.  Not the very best I have had there, but there were so many things that were done so well.  I recommend the tasting menu for people who are adventurous (that is what I had during my January 2012 visit).  In addition, they have a very affordable lunch menu for those not sure they want to commit $60 per person to dinner (without liquor).  I truly do feel that this place is under-recognized for the creativity and flair they exhibit, and I, personally, place The Courtyard among Ottawa's very best restaurants.

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