Kobe in Montreal

Werner at Atlantique in Cote des Neiges has informed me that he will soon be able to get Kobe beef. "Now that there's an embargo on Canadian beef because of Mad Cow, the stuff destined for Japan (read: the "Kobe" steak that's actually raised here, then sent to Japan for finishing) has been rerouted to distributors here in Canada."

He warned me that it will be expensive. $50 a pound? Maybe, he said. "You'd be better off buying a whole cut — say, half a loin, which we could cut into steaks and then vacuum-pack. Then you could freeze them. I could give you a lower price because I'm getting rid of them so quickly."

But he was defiant about his own steaks. "I trim them to perfection, then dry-age them for five weeks. You just can't get a better steak in Montreal." The Steakathon seemed to prove he was partially correct.

I'm off to Japan on Thursday. I'm not sure I can actually get some Kobe steaks but I'll film everything and do my damndest to return with something. Let's see if I can pull off yet another trip in First Class!

Stir-Fried Thai-Style Beef with Chiles and Shallots

with Spicy Marinated Cucumber Salad and Jasmine Rice

The key to this dish is twofold: first, get Thai basil. It is a cross between mint and fennel — the taste is indescribable. Second, get tamarind concentrate (or paste.) It gives an authentic touch that is difficult to duplicate with substitutes. Palm sugar is good, but brown will do. Piquin chiles are good, but serrano or even jalapeños are okay.

Serves 4 with rice

Beef and Marinade

1 T tamarind concentrate
1/2 tsp. ground white pepper 
1 tsp. palm sugar 
2 T fish sauce (Nam Pla)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 T minced garlic
2 T lime juice
2 pounds Boston or New York steak , trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips

Stir-Fry
2 T Nam Pla 
2 T rice vinegar 
2 T water 
1 T palm sugar 
1 T Asian chili-garlic paste 
4 medium cloves garlic , minced (about 2 tablespoons)
3 T vegetable oil 
10 Thai bird chiles (piquin), halved, seeds and ribs removed, chiles cut crosswise 1/8 inch thick
3 medium shallots , trimmed of ends, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and layers separated
1/2 cup Thai purple basil, in chiffonade
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped coarsely
1/3 cup chopped unsalted roasted peanuts 

Lime wedges for serving

1. For the beef and marinade: Combine marinade ingredients in large bowl. Add beef, toss well to combine; marinate as long as possible. Overnight is good, minimum is one hour.

2. For the stir-fry: In small bowl, stir together fish sauce, vinegar, water, palm sugar, and chili-garlic paste until sugar dissolves; set aside. In small bowl, mix garlic with 1 tsp. oil; set aside. Heat 2 tsp. oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until smoking; add one-third of beef to skillet in even layer. Cook, without stirring, until well browned, about 2 minutes, then stir and continue cooking until beef is browned around edges and no longer pink in the center, about 30 seconds. Transfer beef to medium bowl. Repeat with additional oil and remaining meat in 2 more batches.

3. After transferring last batch of beef to bowl, reduce heat to medium; add remaining 2 tsp. oil to now-empty skillet and swirl to coat. Add chiles and shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until beginning to soften, 3 to 4 minutes. Push chile-shallot mixture to sides of skillet to clear center; add garlic to clearing and cook, mashing mixture with spoon, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Stir to combine garlic with chile-shallot mixture. Add fish sauce mixture to skillet; increase heat to high and cook until slightly reduced and thickened, about 30 seconds. Return beef and any accumulated juices to skillet, toss well to combine and coat with sauce, stir in half of mint and cilantro; serve immediately, sprinkling individual servings with portion of peanuts and remaining herbs, and passing lime wedges separately.

Spicy Cucumber Salad

1/2 cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. sambal oelek, sriracha or garlic-chile paste
dash lime juice

Combine thoroughly, marinate for a couple of hours in refrigerator. Serve.

Jasmine Rice

2 cups jasmine rice
2 1/3 cups chicken broth
Stick cinnamon
3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
Ghee (clarified butter)

Wash rice until water runs clear. Soak in water for 2 hours, drain. In large sauté pan on medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil. Fry spices for a couple of minutes. Add drained rice. Stirring constantly, fry for about five minutes, or until glassy. Add hot chicken broth, stir to combine, reduce heat to minimum, cover with aluminum foil and pan lid. Let steam for 18 minutes or so, remove from heat and let rest for 10 more minutes. Remove lid. Remove whole spices and fluff up. Serve.

Mission Statement: Burgers

I originally started this off as a steak blog, but now I realise I will have to fold hamburgers into it. After all, what is a hamburger but chopped steak?

But there are hundreds of dedicated burger blogs, and Montreal is not a burger paradise, so the entries will be far fewer. But to get you started, here's the biggest burger in the universe.

Also, a great burger blog to visit is A Hamburger Today.

And I promise that long-awaited Burger Shoot is coming up . . .

Supper of the Steaks by Barry Lazar

The cow, so I do believe,
offers us her roast of beef,
the chuck for stew, the head for cheese,
the lung to do with as I please;
but when need comes to truly dine,
the eye of rib and loin are mine.

Last night we ate the best of meats
Two sirloin strips of Kobe beef
Alberta ribs air-dried six weeks
And filet mignon to sink our teeth

Beneath the grill I laid a fire
and seared these cuts till they perspired
bleeding slightly red and (this too matters)
I let them rest on heated platters.

The edges charred, they sat warm and rare
Nick served twice-baked potatoes previously prepared;
Sonya thickened a port and shallot sauce with cream
Josh open a Graves to share with the team

And then I brought out these succulent three
mignon, rib steaks, and the Kobe
No pepper, no salt, no virgin oil
We bit into each slice, letting flavours roil

The filet was tender but needed the sauce,
The Alberta beef had a mineral gloss
which filled the mouth with an excellent savour
but the Kobe beef had the most marvellous flavour

Image a steak, that first beefy taste behind
then buttery overtones, the tongue starts to unwind
There is a hint of grass, and my mouth is awake.
Kobe brings Alberta steel to mignon's tenderest flake.

The final results, once the voting was in,
The women chose ribs
But it was Kobe for men
Although Celina did mention that she could relate
To a Kobe-bred air-dried inch-thick rib steak.

The night unravelled as, with full compliance,
we ate with gusto, not just in the interests of science.
We opened more wine, and with each piece we did chew
I thanked the gods we're not Hindu.

At Last: The Steakathon

The Great Montrealfood Steak Challenge came and went last night. I wanted to see how the Kobe steaks I bought in California held up against the presumably "best-of-the-best" local fare.

It was conducted at Barry's house, he being the only one of this little montrealfood band to possess an actual grill. Josh brought along two filets "tres mignon" (meaning "very cute") from Metro Boucher in N.D.G. and I brought the two Kobe NY steaks purchased in California, along with two dry-aged "rib steaks" from Atlantique, a highly-regarded butcher in Côte-des-Neiges.

There was other food going on: Barry baked a fantastic sourdough "boule," a round, crusty country-style loaf that can't be bought at a store.

There were 1/4-inch-thick slices of great grilled salami. Josh brought a sinfully-rich triple-cream brie cheese called Brillat Savarin (after the famed gastronaut) and there was wine from the dot.com era and all sorts of good times to be had in Barry's rambling N.D.G. home.

The big question was, how would these steaks fare in competition? Would the famed Kobes trounce the hallowed dry-aged and mignons? (It must be noted that all participants of this feast are avowed steak lovers, and all prefer their meat medium-rare to blue, leaning towards the blue, so the proving grounds were all at the same level.)

Barry's house is cool, even for Montreal, and especially for a food lover. His cookbook sconce alone is worth the price of a visit. Who among you stocks a cookbook of recipes for medieval cookery? I rest my case. So it's hard to explain his choice of a grill. No 12,000 BTU Viking grill for Barry. Nope, it's a bomb-shaped thingamajig from a dust heap, as far as I can tell. But he has this beast well trained. For example, to keep the lid half-off, he runs a broom handle through the lid holder and suspends it on the corner rails of his balcony.



Josh brought two robust reds, a Chateau de Callac Graves 2000 and a "black" wine from Cahors. The Savarin cheese with Barry's crusty loaf were brilliant appetizers, but I really didn't want the preliminaries to interfere with the finals, so I kept the noshing to a minimum.

Barry piled all the contenders on the grill at the same time, with some nice blocks of home-made applewood charcoal. It was amusing that his little stone-knives-and-bearskins contraption cooked up steaks as well as a $4,779 Lynx Professional, but I'll take Barry's any time (it also makes a mean burger.)

So what was the verdict? Josh, Barry and I preferred the Kobe for its unbelievable flavor. "I think it has something to do with all the massages, beer and women," Josh quipped, "Very 1950's experience." The ladies preferred the ribsteak from Atlantique; no reasons given. The filet was great, but it was like all filets: buttery, tender and with absolutely not a proton of flavor.

See the video here. (Warning, 90MB file)

Bavette with Mustard-cream Pan Sauce & Mushrooms, Oven-Roasted New Potatoes

Okay, so this picture doesn't do it justice. It looks like a mess, but it was delicious. I went to the French butcher (from France) at Boucherie de Paris on Gatineau. He's a tiny operation opposite the park and Université de Montreal. I never knew how he survived, being on a side street like that, until one day I saw the students. I was going there to get some steak and there was no room to get in the door, with a line outside.

Seems the U of M students like his sandwiches. "Sometimes we make 300 a day," he says. I tried one once. It was good, nothing spectacular, but it's made right in front of you from stacks of ingredients on the wall, cut fresh daily.

Anyway, he is the one I go to when I want some mystery meat. I only call it that because everything goes by some arbitrary French name. I'm not sure if it's a French name from Montreal or from France. There's "Steak Boston." To this day I have no idea what cut that is, but it sure is great for melt-in-your-mouth stews and curries, as well as grinding for hamburgers. Then there's the Onglet, but now I think I've confused that with Bavette, because when I went in there to get some, he said he didn't have any Onglet, which leads me to believe I was buying Bavette all along, thinking it was Onglet. And then there is the Faux-filet, which I take to be the ribeye, but I can't be sure, since he doesn't speak English and doesn't know the English terms.

In any case, Bavette (I've seen it called an unappetizing "Flap steak" but I suspect it hangs around with the Onglet quite often and maybe messes around with a Strip or two occasionally) is a somewhat stringy-looking, striated slab with no marbling, really not very tasty-looking at all, but it cooks up really well. You just have to make sure it never gets past medium-rare. It's a peasant cut with really no class, but it rewards with an exceptional beefy flavor and melting interior.

It was about 3/4 of an inch at the thickest part, so I pan-fried it with shallot-butter and olive oil for about 4 minutes per side, and it turned out just lovely. It goes well with a starch or two, so I did some oven-roasted potatoes with thyme and some leftover fried rice. Here's the sauce recipe. It still isn't what I wanted, so you may have to do some tinkering.

Mustard-cream Sauce with White Wine and Mushrooms

1 large shallot , minced (1/4 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 or 6 large mushrooms, sliced thinly
1/2 C dry white wine
1/2 C cup chicken broth
1/2 C heavy cream
3 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
4 T shallot butter
2 T olive oil
Table salt and ground black pepper

While steak is coming to room temperature, melt 2 T of the butter and the 2 T olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots, cook until glassy (about 5 minutes.) Add mushrooms. At first they will dry up the pan completely, but after about 5 minutes they will start to release liquid. Add the garlic, cook another 5 minutes or so. Set all pan contents aside in bowl. Add the wine. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. Add broth. Simmer another ten minutes or so until noticeably reduced. Add back mushroom mixture; cover and set aside off heat.

Cook steak (see above) in skillet. Remove steak from skillet to rest. Add all ingredients from the sauce pan, stir with steak juices to combine and bring up to heat. Add cream and slowly whisk in mustard. At last moment, add in last 2 T butter. Stir to combine and bring to boil, adding pepper and salt to taste. Simmer 2 minutes, remove from heat and serve atop sliced steak.