When summer sun starts to warm the air, a festive spirit takes hold in Quebec. It’s partly because, all year long, we are haunted by the big winter chill Gilles Vigneault sang about: “Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver” (my country is not a country, it’s winter). Quebec’s first summer holiday, St-Jean-Baptiste Day on June 24, launches a season of intense pleasure in the outdoors. We watch for the first lettuce and radishes to push up in our gardens, plan barbecues and picnics, and dine on restaurant terraces. It’s not unusual to see a cyclist wheel by with a baguette and bottle of wine or families clogging highways with campers as they head to Quebec’s big parks on rivers, lakes, or the ocean.
The first food to cause a summer celebration is the early strawberry—small, red, juicy, and as sweet as candy. In fact, the sweetest foods of summer are our most anticipated. After the first strawberries comes the first corn on the cob, sweet and dripping with butter. At mid-summer, field-grown tomatoes arrive, heavy with sun-warmed juice. Early varieties of apples provide sharp contrast to all this natural sugar.
By mid-summer, Italian-Quebecers have produced lush gardens of seemingly every vegetable, both fence and trellis of their front gardens or backyards draped with tomato and grape vines, even though many will buy American grapes to make their wines.
It’s an efficient business, growing Quebec’s food. I remember a day on a huge lettuce farm at St-Rémi south of Montreal, when workers were harvesting romaine. Men were trimming big heads down into the pale-green cones that have become a new lettuce fashion. Gentler in flavour than the deep green outer leaves, these skinny cores are sold washed and packaged. As the truck moved along the rows of tall, bushy heads of romaine, the workers slashed away at each head, tossing aside enough big, dark leaves to make countless salads. Remonstrating about waste to Clermont Riendeau, the farm owner, I was soothed with his explanation that the trimmings would be ploughed under the rich, black soil to make green fertilizer for the next crop.
The blueberry farms (“bleuetières”) around Lac St-Jean or in the Abitibi region keep their crop well hidden. The dusky blue berries, called “wild” to distinguish them from the larger, cultivated variety, are produced by a system of wild blueberry management to make the wild plants produce plentiful amounts of fruit. By late August, when all the fruit has been harvested, machines chop the plants down to about 3 inches (7.5 cm) in height and the field is left alone for two years, the better to encourage big crops.
Each summer’s fruit is sorted, washed, and frozen in a highly automated plant at Dolbeau-Mistassini, later to be trucked to distribution points for transfer to about 30 countries around the world. Quebec, second only to Maine in “wild” blueberry production, freezes 90 per cent of its crop for food manufacturers.
In early August, there is so much fruit, Dolbeau-Mistassini stages an annual blueberry festival that includes baking an enormous blueberry pie. Blueberry pies are summer favourites and they never look or taste better than when the berries are combined with peaches from neighbouring Ontario.
ÎLES DE LA MADELEINE SCALLOPS WITH LOVAGE SAUCE
CURRIED LOBSTER APPLE SOUP WITH THYME
SCALLOP AND SMOKED DUCK MOUSSE
HALIBUT STEAKS WITH FRESH TOMATO, AVOCADO, AND SHRIMP SALSA
SKIRT STEAK WITH GORGONZOLA SAUCE
WARM SALAD WITH BRAISED VEAL CHEEKS, WILD MUSHROOMS, AND NEW POTATOES
FENNEL, HAM, AND CHEESE CASSEROLE
SUMMER TOMATOES WITH CIDER-CHIVE DRESSING
ROASTED TOMATOES WITH FRESH HERBS
CREAMED CORN WITH CORIANDER AND FETA
RASPBERRY JELLY WITH FRESH BLUEBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES
As the St. Lawrence River widens east of Rivière-du-Loup, the waters turn salty, there’s a whiff of salt water in the air, and the local people refer to the river as the sea. Chefs along both the north and south shores consider the river’s mouth and the Gulf of St. Lawrence a principal source for food. Scallops are only one of the seafoods they like to cook. Colombe St-Pierre, daughter of a lighthouse keeper at Le Bic and chef-owner of Chez Saint-Pierre in the village, prides herself on serving foods native to the gulf region, such as big scallops from Îles de la Madeleine. She uses lime juice to “cook” the scallops, ceviche style, accenting the flavours with lovage, the celery-flavoured herb.
8 large scallops
1 cup (250 mL) fresh lovage or celery leaves
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut in chunks
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup (125 mL) whole milk
1/3 cup (75 mL) olive oil
1 teaspoon (5 mL) Dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
Grated peel and juice of 2 limes
Pinches salt and freshly ground pepper
Rinse scallops and pat dry with paper towels. Place in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.
Plunge lovage into a saucepan of boiling water. Boil for 1 minute, then rinse under cold water, squeeze dry with your hands, and pat dry with paper towels.
In a blender, blend lovage, cucumber, egg yolks, milk, oil, Dijon, garlic, lime peel, salt, and pepper until mixture liquefies. If desired, strain sauce through a sieve. Set aside.
About 30 minutes before serving time, sprinkle scallops with lime juice and pinches of salt and pepper, and refrigerate.
Pour cucumber liquid into 4 soup bowls and add 2 scallops to each.
The Charlevoix cheese called Le 1608, launched in 2008 by Laiterie Charlevoix to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec, is made with the milk of Quebec’s first cows, the Vache canadienne. The cheese has been welcomed by chefs, who like to cook with it. Marthe Lemire, chef-owner of Crêperie Le Passe-Temps in La Malbaie, uses it for her sauce for snails and mushrooms in this rich and delectable appetizer.
2 tablespoons (30 mL) butter
8 ounces (250 g) mushrooms, minced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 small shallot, chopped
Pinch ground nutmeg
Pinches salt and freshly ground pepper
1 can (4 ounces/125 g) snails (about 24), rinsed and patted dry
1/2 cup (125 mL) dry white wine
1 tablespoon (15 mL) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 tablespoons (60 mL) grated Le 1608, Emmenthal, or Gruyère cheese
Have ready 4 ramekins or individual baking dishes that hold ½ cup (125 mL) each. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat and cook mushrooms, garlic, and shallot, stirring constantly, until mushrooms release their liquid, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Add snails and wine. Reduce heat to low and simmer mixture until liquid has almost evaporated, about 10 minutes. Stir often near the end of cooking.
Stir in parsley and divide mixture among the ramekins. Sprinkle each ramekin with cheese. Arrange the ramekins on a baking sheet. Preheat the broiler and broil snails just until cheese melts, 1 to 2 minutes. Do not let cheese burn.
Ramekins can be filled and topped with cheese up to 6 hours in advance, then covered and refrigerated. Bring to room temperature before broiling.
Serve these easy hors d’oeuvres made with fresh chopped tomatoes and goat cheese with a well-chilled rosé wine, suggests Fabienne Guitel. She runs La Fromagerie La Suisse Normande with husband Frédéric near St-Roch-de-l’Achigan, in the Lanaudière region, northeast of Montreal. Le Barbu, a soft goat cheese with a bloomy rind, has more flavour than Le Crottin, a fresh goat cheese. Fabienne likes to marinate Le Crottin in olive oil to give it a Mediterranean touch. Both their goat cheeses and others made of cow’s milk reflect her French heritage and his Norman background.
8 slices baguette
2 tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
2 green onions, finely minced
1/2 yellow or orange bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) salt
2 rounds Le Barbu or Le Crottin cheese (3 ounces/85 g each), or 1 round aged goat cheese
Toast baguette slices.
In a strainer, mix together tomatoes, green onions, and bell pepper and set in the sink. Sprinkle with salt, let drain for 30 minutes, then pat dry with paper towels.
Spread mixture on baguette toasts. Cut cheese into 8 slices. Place a slice on each bruschetta and arrange on a baking sheet.
Preheat the broiler and grill bruschetta for 1 to 2 minutes, just to crisp and melt the cheese. Serve at room temperature.
The bruschetta can be assembled in advance and broiled just before serving.
Quebec has cheesemakers in every region, and each has its own flavour for the visitor. The most gratifying cheese places to visit, in my opinion, are goat farms, because the goats seem so intelligent and friendly, pressing forward to greet visitors, even nuzzling your hand. Sheep, particularly with a full coat of wool, are probably the most appealing in looks, but so timid that they keep their distance. Cows add to the sylvan scene, whatever their breed.
Thinking of my most satisfying visits to cheesemakers, I am reminded of Fromagerie Lehmann in the Saguenay–Lac St-Jean region of northern Quebec. The Lehmanns are Swiss-born, and have a herd—appropriately—of Brown Swiss cattle, beautiful gold-coloured animals. The cows were lazing about their pasture when I came to call one sunny August day. Cheesemaker Jacob Lehmann, a lean and bearded veteran, was on the job, but his wife, Marie, running the farm boutique, appeared and sold me their three washed-rind, semi-soft cheeses and took the time to explain how they changed from making their Kénogami, Pikauba, and Valbert cheeses with raw milk to using a method of part-pasteurization of the milk called thermizing, combined with a 60-day aging to destroy all harmful bacteria.
Only 18 of Quebec’s cheeses are made with unpasteurized milk, and about half that number with completely raw milk. Makers of these cheeses, mostly soft or semi-soft products, have over the years attracted the attention of federal and provincial health authorities. They regulate and watch over such food-safety factors as the bacteria in milk, be it from cows, goats, or sheep, and the production and sanitation standards that are maintained in cheese plants, large and small.
Connoisseurs believe that if these specialty cheeses are made with raw milk, they likely have the best flavour. Government regulations are strict. To make sure any unwanted bacteria are killed, these cheeses must be stored in the controlled conditions of maturing rooms for at least 30 days. Another group of these cheeses is made by thermizing, a method of milk pasteurization wherein, instead of heating the milk to the pasteurization temperature of 159.8°F (71°C) for 15 seconds, the cheesemaker heats it for the same amount of time to between 143.6 and 154.4°F (62 and 68°C). The lower temperature allows more flavour than if the milk were pasteurized, goes the theory. If a cheesemaker thermizes the milk, the cheese must be stored for 60 days in order to kill unwanted bacteria before it may be sold.
Since 2008, Quebec’s agriculture department has allowed raw milk cheeses to be sold only if the milk used is no more than 24 hours old and strict regulations are adhered to concerning microbiological content. Tests must be conducted regularly and records kept for government inspectors. If a cheesemaker uses milk from his or her own animals rather than buying it, the animals’ health must be monitored by a veterinarian.
Health Canada warns that raw milk cheeses may present a risk of food-borne illness. Its recommendation is that these products not be consumed by children, pregnant women, the elderly, or people with weakened immune systems. To help consumers, Quebec requires that these cheeses be labelled as unpasteurized. Quebec cheeses sold outside the province must have a federal permit indicating they are in compliance with all standards and inspection requirements.
Dominique Labbé mixes milk from La Canadienne cows to make cheese at Laiterie Charlevoix.
Quebec’s lobster season runs from May through June, but chefs find lobster sources in various regions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence until early August. Alain Labrie, chef-owner of La Table du Chef in Sherbrooke, likes to use local products such as trout from nearby trout farms. But lobster remains a favourite from the time he trained at the Gaspé’s Fort-Prével chef school. His soup stretches one lobster into a soup for six, using Quebec’s exceptional cooking apple, the Cortland, and livening up the flavour with thyme and curry.
2 lemons
12 firm cooking apples, such as Cortland or Golden Delicious
1 tablespoon (15 mL) butter
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons (30 mL) fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon (15 mL) curry powder
8 cups (2 L) chicken stock
2 large potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 cup (250 mL) light cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Meat from 2 cooked lobsters (1 to 1 1/4 pounds/500 to 625 g each), in bite-size pieces, at room temperature
6 sprigs fresh thyme
Using a vegetable peeler, remove strips of peel from lemons. Squeeze juice from 1 lemon and set aside. Place lemon peel in a small saucepan of cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, drain peel, fill saucepan with more cold water, and bring peel to a boil a second time. Drain again, immerse in cold water, and when cool, drain again.
Peel, core, and chop 10 of the apples coarsely, reserving remaining 2 whole. In a large, heavy saucepan, melt butter over medium heat and cook onion and chopped apples with lemon peel, thyme leaves, and curry powder, just until apples and onion are tender, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add stock and potatoes, and simmer gently for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Use a blender to purée soup until smooth; you will need to do this in batches. Transfer mixture to a large, heavy saucepan. Stir in cream.
When ready to serve, reheat soup. Chop remaining 2 unpeeled apples finely and add to soup with the reserved lemon juice to taste, and salt and pepper.
Warm 6 wide, shallow bowls. Divide lobster between the bowls and pour hot soup over top. Decorate each with a sprig of thyme.
The soup can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 1 day once the cream has been added.
Quebec’s tomato season is a time for celebrating over a feed of sweet, juicy tomatoes from the fields, unadorned and preferably still warm from the sun. But there are those summers when the sun won’t shine hot or long enough to turn green tomatoes red. Sutton chef Christian Beaulieu combines green tomatoes—either unripened red or his favourite green- and yellow-striped zebra variety—with bell peppers and cucumbers in this easy soup. His customers at Bistro Beaux Lieux like the combination.
8 medium green zebra tomatoes or unripened red tomatoes
1 green bell pepper, cut into small pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into small pieces
1 clove garlic, peeled 1 shallot, quartered
1/2 cup (125 mL) mix of fresh mint and basil leaves
3 tablespoons (45 mL) olive oil
Dash hot pepper sauce or sambal oelek
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 ball buffalo mozzarella cheese (3 1/2 to 4 ounces/100 to 125 g), cut into 8 slices
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
In a large food processor, pulse all the ingredients except cheese to a purée consistency. (If your food processor is small, purée mixture in batches, placing some of each ingredient, except cheese, in the food processor and pulsing until smooth.)
Pour soup into a bowl or pitcher and refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve. Serve in chilled bowls, each topped with a slice of cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.
Chefs are skilled at preserving food at its best. Chefs Marc de Canck and his son-in-law Olivier de Montigny of the Montreal restaurant La Chronique offer this soup as a signature dish in and out of corn season. Marc, Belgian-born, flash-freezes kernels of summer cobs to use throughout the year. The two chefs like to pour the soup over a single scallop that’s then covered with truffle shavings and surrounded by sautéed leeks. This recipe is their adaptation of this dish for the home cook.
4 tablespoons (60 mL) butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 pounds (1 kg) fresh or frozen corn kernels
4 cups (1 L) chicken stock
2 cups (500 mL) whole milk
2 cups (500 mL) whipping cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Large grilled scallops, cooked shrimp, or cubed cooked crab or lobster meat (optional)
Thinly sliced fresh chives
Melt butter in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until softened. Add corn and stock, bring to a boil, and boil gently until reduced by half.
Add milk and cream, and reduce heat to low. Cover and barely simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. Do not let mixture boil or milk will curdle.
Purée half the mixture in a blender or food processor. Return to remaining soup and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve hot in warmed bowls, each topped with your choice of cooked shellfish (if using) and chives.
Two-colour corn, sometimes called peaches and cream (the name of one popular variety) because its kernels alternate between yellow and cream, is the big seller in Quebec. Only a minority of corn lovers continue to buy the all-yellow cobs of yesteryear, believing they offer more flavour. Bicolore corn, as growers term the two-colour type, is sweet, tender, and bred to stay fresh longer. Organic grower Ken Taylor explains: “The bicolore has a super-sweet gene, which protects the conversion of sugar to starch.” Yellow corn goes stale faster, becoming starchy in a matter of hours. But, if you can obtain it fresh and enjoy it right away, it offers considerably more flavour, say connoisseurs.
Only a few growers still produce yellow corn, and those with stands at Montreal’s two big public markets have their faithful customers who know to wait out the first corn pickings for a few weeks until the slower-ripening yellow cobs come into season. At Atwater Market, Gaétan Prairie from the South Shore community of L’Acadie grows both kinds. His wife, Céline, who remembers when two-colour corn came into fashion in the late 1980s, sells more of the two-colour variety but welcomes the yellow-corn faithful when that variety ripens. At Jean-Talon Market, dubbing himself “Le roi du maïs sucré” (The king of sweet corn), is Georges Deneault, another grower offering both two-colour and yellow corn. He usually has a pot of boiling water on the go and will cook you a free cob as an enticement to load up.
Denis Mareuge always has a specialty mousse in the takeout counter of Boulangerie Owl’s Bread, an Eastern Townships headquarters for fine food. The French-born chef feeds Quebec’s love of pâtés and rillettes, smoked salmon, and foie gras. A baker at heart, he offers a daily assortment of traditional French loaves at his store and restaurant in Mansonville, and at the summer Saturday farmers’ market in Knowlton. His logo is an owl—inspired by nearby Owl’s Head Mountain—holding a loaf of country bread on a baker’s traditional wooden paddle.
7 ounces (200 g) fresh scallops
1 egg
1 ounce (30 g) smoked duck breast, trimmed of fat, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Unsalted butter, for greasing
1 cup (250 mL) whipping cream
Balsamic vinaigrette
2 tablespoons (30 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon (15 mL) fine balsamic vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Rinse scallops and pat dry with paper towels. Place in a food processor with egg, smoked duck, salt, and pepper. Pulse until smooth, using a spatula to scrape down the sides of the food processor as necessary. Cover mousse with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, butter 8 ramekins (1/3 cup/75 mL) each. Cut parchment paper to fit the bottoms of the ramekins and butter the paper. About 15 minutes before serving time, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
Blend cream into scallop mixture, then scoop into the ramekins. Set ramekins in 1 or 2 baking pans and pour boiling water around the ramekins to three-quarters of the way up the sides. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until a knife inserted in the centre of a mousse comes out clean.
Meanwhile, prepare balsamic vinaigrette: In a cup, combine oil with balsamic vinegar. Beat in sea salt and pepper to taste.
Remove pan from the oven and remove ramekins from the pan. Loosen mousse from ramekins by sliding a knife around the edges, then unmould onto 8 serving plates. Serve with vinaigrette.
The mousse can be cooked several hours in advance, then covered and refrigerated. Shortly before serving time, warm mousse by placing ramekins in a large, stovetop-safe pan, adding cold water to a depth of about 1 inch (2.5 cm), and setting over high heat until water boils. Remove from heat and unmould.
This version of the traditional soup of Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean is a third-generation favourite with food writer Monique Girard-Solomita. She comes from Roberval, on the shores of Lac St-Jean, and was for many years my counterpart in covering food news at Le Journal de Montréal, Montreal’s French tabloid newspaper. Her mother, one of the northern region’s large Gagnon clan, always made the soup, having learned the recipe from her mother. When the big, fat, green gourgane beans come into season each August, Monique gets out her soup pot. “We even enjoy it in hot weather,” she says.
2 tablespoons (30 mL) vegetable oil
2 onions, finely chopped
12 cups (3 L) water
2 chicken stock cubes
2 to 3 cups (500 to 750 mL) shelled fresh gourgane or broad beans
7 ounces (200 g) salt pork, cut in large pieces
1 tablespoon (15 mL) dried savory
Freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup (75 mL) pearl barley, carefully rinsed
1/2 cup (125 mL) coarsely chopped celery
1/2 cup (125 mL) coarsely chopped carrots
1/2 cup (125 mL) yellow string beans cut in 1/2 inch (1 cm) pieces
Finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Finely chopped green onion
In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat and cook onions just until tender but not browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Add water and stock cubes and bring to a boil. Add gourgane beans, salt pork, savory, and pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 1 hour.
Add barley and simmer for another 30 minutes. Add celery and carrots and continue simmering for 25 minutes. Add string beans and cook for 5 minutes.
Check seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with parsley and green onions.
I had an inkling of what to expect when I visited my first gourgane bean farm near Lac St-Jean, in northern Quebec. That bean, a cousin of the fava and broad bean that dates back to medieval times, makes a traditional thick soup that’s a basic August treat in both the Saguenay and Charlevoix regions. Remembering the soup from years back when I took a French immersion course in Jonquière, and aware that the fat, green pods appear in Montreal markets each August, I once bought a packet of gourgane seeds and planted them in my garden. It was a Jack-and-the-beanstalk experience. Allowing the seeds a space about the size of a card table, I soon had to provide trellises to support what ended up as waist-high plants. My harvest? Once shelled, I had only about two big handfuls, enough for a single batch of soup.
Walking the tall, leafy rows of gourgane plants on the big Grandmont bean farm in St-Gédéon, near Lac St-Jean, I plucked handfuls of pods from tree-like stalks that were thick with dark green leaves. My little harvest survived two days’ travel back to Montreal in a cooler. I then tried to replicate the beans I’d enjoyed at Auberge-Bistro Rose & Basilic in Alma, a town in the centre of gourgane country. Chef Mathieu Gagnon had served them alongside a crumb-crusted fillet of lamb, the bright green beans resembling large, firm, fresh peas. He shelled them, steamed them, and flavoured them with lamb stock, then added crumbled crisp bacon. They were delicious. Shelling gourganes is easy if you first blanch them for 30 seconds, he told me, and then slip off the skins. He was right. Fresh gourgane beans are imported from Mexico a good part of the winter and spring. Chez Nino in Montreal’s Jean-Talon Market is one specialty store that carries them.
T to Costas Spiliadis, Greek cuisine has a certain style and, ever since 1980, when he opened Milos in Montreal, the goal of this Greek-born restaurateur has been to bring that style to the Western world. His dedication to fresh food in its season has made him Quebec’s most influential promoter of quality fresh ingredients, known for tracking down the finest foods from as far away as the mountains above Thessaloniki (for wild greens) to as close as a goat farm in Ontario (for goat yogurt). Called “a crazy man” for his food principles, Costas has been helping set Quebec standards for the best fresh foods for more than three decades.
Offering the finest products takes detective work, determination, and money, says the restaurateur, who has cloned his Montreal restaurant in New York, Athens, Las Vegas, and Miami’s South Beach and has plans for London. His chefs strive to obtain Greece’s wild greens, or get enough of My Sister’s Olive Oil as he calls his own brand, or find a certain fish for his lavishly stocked fresh fish counters, or enough wildflower honey to drizzle on thick Greek yogurt. Costas never stops fighting distance and time to find the foods he remembers from his childhood. “Sometimes,” he explained to me once, “I am talking on the phone to a fisherman who has just found octopus in the Mediterranean off Tunisia. He hasn’t caught the fish yet but we both know those waters are the cleanest in the Mediterranean. I buy in that phone call and the next day those octopus are grilling in my restaurants.”
His cooking style is simple. His zucchini and eggplant slices, called Milos Special, are cut paper-thin, battered and deep-fried until crisp, and served with salty fried saganaki cheese and tzatziki. His potatoes are simply quartered, brushed with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkled with dried oregano, salt, and pepper and baked until tender. Costas decided to go upscale when he opened New York’s Estiatorio Milos in 1997 and left those potatoes off his menu. “But Montrealers would come to New York and ask for them, we’d do a special order and the New Yorkers would see them. I ended up putting them on the menu,” he said, grinning. They are also offered in his Miami restaurant.
Those potatoes were on his mother’s menu when he was growing up on the Aegean island of Patras. “Food at home was, for us, the single element that brought the family together,” he says, remembering happy hours at table with parents he describes as “fanatic” about good food. To hear him reminisce is to wonder if his mother, Evridi Theodoridou, ever sat down between food shopping, growing vegetables, and cooking. “Her moussaka took her seven hours,” said her son.
The Greek salad, established on Quebec salad bars, must never contain lettuce, he maintains. When tomatoes ripen in Greece, it’s too hot for good lettuce to grow, he explained. “So only people who have no idea of anything will add lettuce to a Greek tomato salad.”
Ideally, he wrote, that salad has tomatoes still warm from the sun, the wild greens called purslane, Greek fleur de sel, extra-virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, small Santorini capers, Greek feta cheese, cucumbers, green peppers, sweet red onions, and dried oregano. The only allowable extras: a coating of the vinegar on the cucumber slices, some sun-dried Greek olives, and some flat-leaf parsley.
Olive oil, quality and quantity, is more than an oil. It’s a seasoning and one to go big on, in his view. “Just close your eyes and pour,” he says, quoting his mother.
Costas, who immigrated to the United States at 18, and then studied for a degree in sociology at Montreal’s Concordia University, was first a broadcaster; he helped to found Radio Centre Ville and ran its Greek programming. But he was disturbed that, to Montrealers, Greek food appeared to be souvlaki and no more. Nostalgic for his mother’s cooking, he opened Milos. One of the actions fellow Greeks called “crazy” was to use his car, an old taxi, to drive twice a week to the Fulton Fish Market in New York to buy fresh fish.
Costas preaches patience when waiting for foods such as tomatoes to come into season. “A tomato is worth waiting for. When you get it, you treat it with respect, like the marble on the Parthenon.”
His perfect meal? Fresh grilled fish and, for dessert, a fruit platter with watermelon. Just as his mother would have served it.
Costas Spiliadis prides himself on his fresh fish counter at Milos restaurant, Montreal.
It’s not surprising that Chef Daniel Gasse specializes in fish and seafood at his little restaurant, La Broue dans l’Toupet, on the north coast of the Gaspé in Mont-Louis. A fishing and lumbering village dating back to the 17th century, the place had a reputation as an ideal spot from which to fish for cod. When that species ran out, Daniel adapted his cuisine to others, in particular the plentiful scallops and shrimp. He uses the freshest catches in this meal-in-one soup.
2 tablespoons (30 mL) butter
2 shallots, minced
1 small leek, white part only, finely chopped
1 teaspoon (5 mL) finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon (5 mL) grated fresh gingerroot
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 to 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 cups (1 L) fish stock (page 136)
1 1/2 pounds (750 g) fresh salmon or halibut, cubed
4 large scallops
4 tiger shrimp, peeled and deveined
12 mussels
1 or 2 ripe tomatoes, seeded, peeled and chopped
1 or 2 green onions, chopped
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
In a large, heavy pot, melt butter over medium heat and sauté shallots, leek, garlic, gingerroot, and cayenne for about 3 minutes.
Add potatoes and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until potatoes are almost cooked.
Add salmon and continue cooking for 5 minutes. Add scallops, shrimp, and mussels and cook just until shrimp turn pink, scallops are becoming tender, and mussels have opened. Discard any mussels that do not open.
Serve in large, warmed bowls, topped with tomatoes, green onions, and parsley.
2 tablespoons (30 mL) butter
1 medium onion, cut in large chunks
2 carrots, cut in large chunks
2 stalks celery, coarsely sliced
5 to 6 mushrooms, cut in chunks
1 pound (500 g) fish bones and heads
12 cups (3 L) cold water
1 bouquet garni (2 bay leaves and sprigs of fresh thyme and flat-leaf parsley tied together, or tied in a cheesecloth bag)
Grated peel and juice of 1 lemon
Pinch salt
4 whole peppercorns
In a large, heavy saucepan, melt butter over medium heat and sauté onion, carrots, celery, and mushrooms just until softened, about 5 minutes.
Add fish bones and heads, water, bouquet garni, lemon peel and juice, salt, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes, partially covered. Strain. Set aside or refrigerate, covered, for up to 1 day.
This long, thin, mild-flavoured member of the onion family is a staple in Quebec kitchens. Produced in huge quantities on several farms, it has a different look when compared with imported versions. A Quebec green onion has a little bulb on the end, rather than a skinny base. Grower Olivier Barbeau, who runs a green onion farm in St-Michel, south of Montreal, thinks his onions have more flavour than imports from California or Mexico. Their bulbous end is an advantage because the onions can be pickled.
Essential to the salad bowl, green onions can add flavour to many cooked dishes, say Quebec growers. Olivier likes to cut them into lengths of a few inches (10 cm or so), fry them in butter until lightly browned, and add them to a grilled cheese sandwich. Steven Lemelin, of Les Fermes du Soleil, in Ste-Clotilde, lays green onions on a hot grill, then adds his steak. He finds the onions prevent the meat from burning. He adds olive oil, salt, and pepper and enjoys the onions with the meat.
The wildest of flavour combinations came to Stanstead, a sleepy southern Quebec town a stone’s throw from the Vermont border, when film producer Bashar Shbib opened Millie’s Diner. The cuisine of his Syrian father and German mother received a boost when Bashar immersed himself in Middle and Far Eastern spicing. Farmed trout, zapped up with fresh gingerroot and coriander, licorice liqueur, and cardamom, was a favourite on his eclectic menu. He’s moved on to other ventures but still gingers up his trout.
1 whole trout or Arctic char (2 pounds/1 kg)
4 or 5 sprigs fresh coriander
1 cup (250 mL) coarsely grated fresh gingerroot
1/2 cup (125 mL) finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons (30 mL) finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons (30 mL) honey
1 tablespoon (15 mL) sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoons (7 mL) coarse salt
1/2 cup (125 mL) ouzo, arak, Ricard, or Pernod
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) freshly ground cardamom
Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and set a rack on it. Position oven rack 4 inches (10 cm) from the broiler and preheat the broiler.
Rinse fish and pat dry with paper towels. Cut fish lengthwise along the belly and clean, removing guts and bones. Place coriander inside fish.
In a bowl, combine ginger, garlic, and onion and spread mixture inside fish, on both sides. Close fish, insert 5 or 6 toothpicks along each cut side and lace fish closed by hooking kitchen string around the toothpicks. Place on the prepared baking sheet. In a cup, combine honey and sesame oil and brush over fish, then sprinkle with salt.
Broil for 10 minutes per inch (2.5 cm) thickness of fish, probably about 20 minutes total, turning halfway through.
Remove fish from broiler and immediately pour liqueur over top. Sprinkle with cardamom. Pour pan juices into a gravy boat and serve with fish.
Don’t cook the fish on the barbecue, as juices will be lost.
Thick fillets of salmon are immersed in a creamy white sauce in this time-honoured recipe for a luxury comfort food. Part of the pleasure of this dish is fishing into the depths of the sauce for pieces of hard-boiled egg. My daughter Claire, who lived for some years on the Bay of Chaleur, introduced me to this East Coast tradition with a recipe she adapted from one she obtained from Wanda Keys of Fleurant.
2 pounds (1 kg) thick salmon fillet
Court-bouillon (page 136)
1/3 cup (75 mL) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons (45 mL) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (125 mL) boiling court-bouillon or water
2 cups (500 mL) whole milk, heated
Salt and whole peppercorns
1 hard-boiled egg, cut in 6 pieces
Place salmon in the court-bouillon and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes per 1 inch (2.5 cm) thickness of fish if you have 1 thick fillet, a little less for 2 fillets. Remove fish to a plate, reserving the cooking liquid.
Alternatively, cook salmon wrapped in aluminum foil in an oven preheated to 450°F (230°C) for 10 minutes per 1 inch (2.5 cm) thickness of fish if you have 1 thick fillet, a little less for 2 fillets. Transfer cooked fish to a warmed plate, covering it to keep warm.
In a stovetop-safe casserole dish, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add ½ cup (125 mL) of boiling court-bouillon and continue cooking, stirring for 3 to 5 minutes, until mixture is smooth and thick.
Stir in hot milk and continue cooking just until sauce is creamy. Season with salt and peppercorns. Add egg gently so as not to break up the pieces.
Cut fish into 6 portions and place on 6 warmed plates. Serve topped with sauce.
A single thick fillet can be replaced by 2 thinner fillets, but they will need a shorter cooking time. Check for doneness after 8 minutes. The fish will be cooked when it flakes easily with a fork.
Folles Farines (crazy flours) is typical of Quebec’s little bakeries flourishing across the province, the bakers using untreated flour and making bread with the long rising time prescribed by Raymond Calvel, the late French bread reformer. It’s a cheerful yellow-painted bakery in the village of Le Bic, on the south shore of the lower St. Lawrence River. Seeing through its big windows the loaves on traditional wooden racks, I went in, to be greeted by the aroma of serious baking wafting from the rear. I loaded up with a baguette, both “levain” (sourdough) and “rustique” (unshaped) loaves, a slab of pizza for lunch, and a chocolate croissant. The owners are not unusual; Quebec artisanal, or craft, bakers tend to be a little crazy about what they do. Claude St-Pierre and Valérie Jean opened the bakery in 1996 after changing careers and learning how to bake in order to stay in this beautiful part of eastern Quebec. Another headquarters for superb bread is Boulangerie Owl’s Bread in Mansonville, in the Eastern Townships, close to the U.S. border. Driving past, one could easily miss this modest delicatessen and café where French-born chef Denis Mareuge makes the best bread in the region, plus classic pâtés to go with it. His trademark refers to the nearby ski mountain Owl’s Head: it’s an owl holding the traditional baker’s paddle with loaf and includes the towers of the nearby St-Benoît-du-Lac Trappist monastery, makers of exceptional blue and semi-soft cheeses. I once served as a baking contest judge with this chef at the venerable country fair held annually in the village of Brome. Being French, Denis regretted the lack of butter in some loaves. But he really came down on the lack of salt. “People think it’s healthy to reduce salt in their cooking,” he says. “But bread is heavy without salt. It needs it to rise properly. If you’re making bread, don’t skimp on the salt.”
Halibut, fished in deep waters along the north shore of the lower St. Lawrence River and off Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is a popular fish in the Gaspé region. Chef-owner Desmond Ogden of Auberge William Wakeham, in the town of Gaspé, finds this fish makes light, firm fillets, which go well with a fresh salsa rather than a heavy sauce. He suggests his salsa recipe could also be seasoned with fresh dill or coriander, plus lemon juice and olive oil. When he has a whole halibut, sometimes weighing up to 30 pounds (13.5 kg), he reserves the cheeks, which have a texture similar to scallops and skate, for a special meal with his wife. He cooks the cheeks in butter, then seasons them with lemon juice and freshly ground pepper.
Salsa
3 firm ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 firm ripe avocado, diced
Juice of 1 lime
4 tablespoons (60 mL) olive oil
Pinch Espelette pepper or cayenne pepper
2 or 3 garlic scapes, sprigs fresh coriander, or flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
4 ounces (125 g) cooked Nordic (Matane) shrimp, thawed if frozen, rinsed and patted dry
Pinches salt and freshly ground pepper
Fish
2 tablespoons (30 mL) olive oil
2 tablespoons (30 mL) butter
1 1/4 pounds (625 g) halibut fillets, cut in 4 equal pieces
In a resealable plastic bag, mix together tomatoes, avocado, lime juice, oil, Espelette pepper, garlic scapes, shrimp, salt, and pepper. Seal the bag and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.
In a large, heavy frying pan, heat oil and butter over medium heat until hot. Place fish in the pan; do not crowd (you may need to do this in batches). Cook for about 3 minutes. Carefully turn fish and cook for 1 minute. Turn off heat, leaving fish in the hot pan to finish cooking.
Place fish on 4 warmed serving plates, coloured side up. Spoon salsa around fish and top fish with a little oil from salsa.
Serve with a green salad or couscous salad.
Espelette pepper is French cayenne pepper, available in specialty shops.
The salsa can be prepared up to 4 hours in advance. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Use unsalted butter when frying fish, because salted butter burns quickly, warns Montreal chef and fish specialist Jean-Paul Grappe. He recommends that if you want your home completely free of fish smells, fry fish and seafood in equal amounts of peanut oil and unsalted butter.
Dishing out the latest nutritional advice in his column in The Gazette, on CJAD radio, and in his many books, McGill University chemistry professor Joe Schwarcz decided he should make his mother’s Hungarian goulash a healthier dish. Instead of the meat she favoured, either Debreziner sausages or chunks of beef, he substituted firm tofu, which he browns in canola oil and sprinkles, crouton-style, on top. His goulash is loaded with summer vegetables and seasonings. Joe advises adding only a modest dollop of sour cream.
2 tablespoons (30 mL) sunflower oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 cup (250 mL) water
10 red-skinned potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 Roma or plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 cup (250 mL) green beans cut in 1-inch (2.5 cm) slices
3 bell peppers (1 each green, red, and yellow), seeded and coarsely chopped
8 ounces (250 g) mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 or 5 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons (30 mL) Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon (5 mL) salt, or to taste
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon (15 mL) sour cream (optional)
Tofu
2 tablespoons (30 mL) sunflower oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound (500 g) firm tofu, wiped dry and cubed
1 teaspoon (5 mL) Hungarian paprika
2 bell peppers (1 red, 1 yellow), seeded and chopped
Fresh flat-leaf parsley
In a large, heavy frying pan, heat oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions just until they begin to turn golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Add water and potatoes and boil gently for 10 to 15 minutes. Add tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring often, for another 5 minutes or until vegetables and mushrooms are softened. Stir in garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper and cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream (if using).
In a large, heavy saucepan, heat oil over medium heat and sauté onion and garlic just until they start to turn golden, about 5 minutes. Add tofu and cook, stirring constantly, until tofu begins to turn crisp and golden.
Add paprika and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add bell peppers and cook until tender. Taste and add more paprika, if desired.
Ladle goulash into shallow, warmed bowls and sprinkle with the fried tofu. Sprinkle generously with parsley and serve.
Quebec is dotted with neighbourhood restaurants with faithful clientele. One such establishment is Alex H, in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district. Many a Tuesday night Jacques Hendlisz, a gifted, French-born amateur cook, drops in to help the Syrian owner-chef, Alex Haddad, in the kitchen. This lively beef dish is one of his specialties.
1 1/4 cups (310 mL) dry white wine
1 cup (250 mL) whipping cream
8 ounces (250 g) picante or plain Gorgonzola cheese, or other blue cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon (15 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly grated nutmeg
Olive oil or canola oil, for frying
6 skirt or flank steaks (6 ounces/180 g each)
In a small saucepan, heat wine over medium heat until reduced by half. Add cream and reduce mixture by half. Reduce heat to low and add cheese, mixing well. Cook, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted. Add Parmesan and nutmeg and set sauce aside, keeping it warm.
Place the oven rack in the lowest position. Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C).
Heat 2 large, heavy frying pans over medium heat. Add enough oil to each pan to oil lightly. Cook steaks for 2 minutes on each side, then place the pans in the oven and cook steaks for 5 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let steaks rest, covered, for 5 minutes at room temperature. Slice on an angle.
Transfer steaks to 6 warmed serving plates, spoon pan juices over each steak, then spoon about 2 tablespoons (30 mL) cheese sauce over top.
Veal cheeks are an expensive cut of meat, valued by chefs because they keep their flavour and silky texture during long braising. Sutton chef Christian Beaulieu likes to liven up his recipe with mushrooms and sherry vinegar. Combining small pieces of freshly cooked hot meat with chilled greens is popular in Quebec restaurants. Chicken livers are often served in this fashion.
8 veal cheeks (about 20 ounces/600 g), trimmed of fat
2 to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 mL) Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons (60 mL) sunflower oil or other oil of your choice
4 tablespoons (60 mL) cold butter
1/2 cup (125 mL) dry white wine
2 cups (500 mL) fond de veau (page 56)
8 new potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
2 shallots, coarsely chopped
4 ounces (125 g) mushrooms, preferably wild
2 tablespoons (30 mL) sherry vinegar
Mesclun or baby salad greens, to serve
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Brush meat with Dijon. In a large, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat, heat 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the oil and 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the butter and brown meat quickly on all sides. Transfer meat to a plate.
Deglaze pan by adding wine and scraping up brown bits from the bottom. Reduce heat to low and simmer until mixture is reduced by half. Stir in fond de veau and heat until simmering.
Place meat in a heavy 2-quart (2 L) casserole dish and cover with fond de veau. Cover casserole dish and bake for 1½ to 2 hours, depending on the size of the veal cheeks, until meat is tender to the fork. Remove meat from its liquid and set aside.
Meanwhile, cook potatoes in boiling salted water just until tender, then drain.
In a large nonstick frying pan, heat remaining 2 tablespoons (30 mL) oil and cook shallots, potatoes, and mushrooms until lightly browned. (Be careful not to overcook wild mushrooms, if using.)
Add meat to vegetable mixture and continue cooking just to warm all ingredients. Remove from heat, add vinegar, and stir to incorporate brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Thicken sauce by whisking in remaining 2 tablespoons (30 mL) butter, a tablespoon (15 mL) at a time.
Serve on a bed of mesclun or baby salad greens.
Fond de veau is thickened veal stock. It is sold in cartons, and fresh or frozen at butcher shops. A powdered base that is mixed with water is also available at specialty stores and some supermarkets.
Lamb is a specialty in the Charlevoix region, where La Ferme Éboulmontaise, a big lamb farm in Les Éboulemonts, has acquired Quebec’s first attestation de spécificité, a designation of a unique regional product modelled on Europe’s AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée). This recipe is from Charlevoix chef Régis Hervé, a native of Tours, in France’s Loire Valley, and chef for many years in a lamb restaurant. His lamb burgers are seasoned with mint, olives, and onions.
1 pound (500 g) ground lamb
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 tablespoon (15 mL) Dijon mustard
10 fresh mint leaves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt
Freshly ground pepper
4 sesame kaiser rolls, cut in half horizontally
Soft butter, for spreading
4 tablespoons (60 mL) green olive pistou
4 tablespoons (60 mL) onion confit
Fresh spinach and mint leaves
Sliced tomatoes
In a mixing bowl, combine lamb, shallots, Dijon, chopped mint, salt, and pepper. Shape mixture into 4 thick patties. Grill on a hot barbecue or under a hot broiler for 5 minutes per side. Set burgers aside and keep warm.
Toast and butter rolls. Spread roll bottoms with olive pistou and roll tops with onion confit. Layer spinach and mint leaves on roll bottoms, then stack on hot grilled burgers, tomato slices, and roll tops.
Specialty food shops sell green olive pistou and onion confit. You can substitute green onion paste or green olive tartare for the green olive pistou. Make your own onion confit by sautéing sliced onions gently in butter with a little sugar until they are of marmalade consistency.
Lamb produced on a big farm in the Charlevoix region made Quebec food history in 2009 when the government gave it the province’s first attestation de spécificité, the Quebec version of France’s appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC). This system of identification of a food or drink as unique to a region has flourished for years in France and Italy. It was initiated in Quebec only after years of study by the agriculture department. On the list for future accreditation are three products considered unique to their areas. Ice cider, the apple version of ice wine produced in Quebec apple orchards, is one. Cheeses made from the milk of the first Canadian cow, known as the Vache canadienne, are another. And the Chantecler chicken, a superior breed, is the third expected to be named by a committee of agricultural scientists and university professors. SlowFood Canada, part of the international organization trying to protect unique foods, maintains its own list of unique specialty products. Quebec is represented on that list by the Chantecler chicken, the Vache canadienne, the Montreal melon (see page 176), and ice cider (see page 382).
The chicken, a large and hardy bird that produces plenty of eggs and flavourful meat, was crossbred a century ago by a Trappist monk at Oka. The cow arrived in the colony of New France from northern France in 1608, became nearly extinct, and is on a comeback because of the discovery that its rich milk is perfect for cheesemaking.
One of the most noteworthy cheeses in Quebec is believed to be the first to be made in North America. It’s a fresh farm cheese called Le Paillasson, from Île d’Orléans, near Quebec City. The cheese is made using a method that has been traced to 17th-century French farm cheeses. Reintroduced in 2004 and using modern cheese technology, it’s sold fresh on the island but is so perishable that the handful of cheese shops in Montreal and Quebec City that offer it sell it frozen. Mild-flavoured, the cheese is delectable when melted on a baguette or pizza, or in a fondue, gratin, or sauce.
Today’s makers of this cheese are Jocelyn Labbé and his wife, Diane Marcoux, who dress in 17th-century costume to add colour to the story they relate at their little cheese plant and café in the village of Ste-Famille. Gérard Aubin, a long-time island resident, was the last man still making the ancestral cheese. But then his time-honoured method was judged unsanitary by a Quebec agriculture department inspector. The elderly farmer and others before him had always made their fresh cheese at home, curdling raw milk, adding salt, filling moulds, draining whey from the rounds of cheese, and then setting the cheese to lose part of its moisture on mats made of reeds that grow along the shores of the island.
These mats, key to the flavour of the cheese, would be set near the stove in farm kitchens. The cheese was produced from October to May, when it was cold outside but warm in the kitchen, and the dry air helped give the cheese its desired texture. To mature it, it was stored in a maple box and placed in the cellar. A far cry from today’s hygiene standards.
The restoration of the historic cheese began when the inspector recommended the elderly farmer consult Jacques Goulet, a Laval University cheese technology professor. Working with Laval graduate food science student Hélène Thiboutot, Jacques looked for a way to identify the microorganisms from an aged cheese produced by Gérard Aubin. Two yeasts were shown to be the dominant microflora, and they were presumed to come originally from the reeds along a shoreline washed by saltwater tides.
The scientists, experimenting with yeast instead of the usual lactic bacteria used in cheesemaking, succeeded in recreating the cheese in an aseptic, stainless-steel plant.
Although approved by both health officials and gastronomes, this cheese will not appear in supermarkets, says Jocelyn, even though it won a prize from the prestigious American Cheese Society in 2011. “We have no desire to become big. This cheese is artisanal, from our heritage.”
Then he grinned. “But it’s the best cheese I’ve ever tasted.”
Michelle Gélinas likes recipes that can be assembled completely in advance and then cooked at the last minute. This recipe the Montreal food specialist also makes with asparagus instead of fennel, blanching the asparagus briefly before rolling the spears in the ham. This treatment of fennel accents its full flavour and differs from Michelle’s usual method of grilling it or adding it to a salad.
2 fennel bulbs, trimmed
8 small slices or 4 large slices cooked ham
Dijon mustard, for spreading
4 tablespoons (60 mL) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons (60 mL) all-purpose flour
1 cup (250 mL) light cream, heated
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) grated Allegretto or cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons (30 mL) chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons (30 mL) chopped green onions, green part only
Place the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Slice fennel bulbs in half vertically and place in a large saucepan of cold salted water. Bring water to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low, cover, and cook fennel for 20 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup (250 mL) cooking water.
Spread ham slices with Dijon and wrap each piece of fennel in ham so it is covered completely. Arrange wrapped fennel in a shallow baking pan just wide enough to fit it in a single layer.
In a small, heavy saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook mixture, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Stir in reserved fennel cooking water and cream, bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer gently, stirring often, for 10 minutes.
Pour sauce over fennel, sprinkle with cheese, and bake for 30 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and lightly browned. Serve sprinkled with thyme and green onions.
The darker the green, the more nutritious the salad. This recipe contains four dark green vegetables, dressed with a ginger-garlic vinaigrette. It’s lively in flavour, and crisp and crunchy. The recipe is from Israeli-born chef and cooking teacher Gigi Cohen, who runs a tiny vegetarian restaurant in Monkland Village, at the heart of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of west-end Montreal. Gigi’s café Juicy Lotus and her cookbook, Nourishing Friends, reveal her travel discoveries. Vary the greens to suit; alternatives Gigi suggests are cabbage, zucchini, cucumber, mustard greens, arugula, and watercress. She is an organic food advocate; if preferred, replace the organic cane sugar with granulated sugar, and the tamari with regular soy sauce.
4 cups (1 L) chopped Swiss chard and kale
2 cups (500 mL) chopped green cabbage
2 cups (500 mL) small broccoli florets
1 green bell pepper, diced
Dressing
3 tablespoons (45 mL) olive oil
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon (20 mL) organic cane sugar
1/4 cup (60 mL) minced fresh gingerroot
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon (15 mL) toasted sesame oil
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons (30 mL) tamari sauce
2 teaspoons (10 mL) sesame seeds
Cut spines from Swiss chard and kale and discard. Rinse, dry, and cut up Swiss chard, kale, cabbage, broccoli, and pepper. Toss together in a salad bowl and put in the refrigerator to chill.
For dressing, in a bowl or a food processor, combine oil, sugar, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, cayenne, and tamari sauce. Whisk or process just until smooth.
When ready to serve, toss salad with dressing and serve, sprinkled with sesame seeds.
The dressing may be made in advance and left at room temperature for several hours or refrigerated, covered, overnight.
Peggy Regan’s cooking reflects her Irish-Scottish background. She likes potatoes in many ways, including this refreshing mashed version. The combination of butter and lemon gives the potatoes a distinctive taste. Peggy, who runs a Montreal tearoom and bakery called Gryphon d’Or, likes to use the best butter available in all her cooking, and she uses it with a generous hand.
5 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup (60 mL) butter, at room temperature
Grated peel of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons (30 mL) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper
In a medium saucepan, cover potatoes with cold, salted water and boil over medium-high heat, uncovered, just until tender. Drain potatoes, return to the pan, and set on the burner with the heat turned off.
Add butter, tossing until potatoes are coated. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice, and parsley. Mash very coarsely with a potato masher; do not use an electric mixer or food processor, as it would make the potatoes too smooth. They should be chunky and drier than regular mashed potatoes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve at once.
This recipe works with either peeled potatoes or new potatoes with their skins left on.
When tomatoes are at their ripest and best, simple slicing is all they need to make a salad. Experimenting with varying the formula during Quebec’s tomato season, caterer Jane Livingston of Knowlton adds a lively dressing flavoured with cider and mustard seeds.
Dressing
1/4 cup (60 mL) apple cider
3 tablesproons (45 mL) finely chopped chives
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons (30 mL) sunflower oil (or half sunflower oil, half pumpkin seed oil)
1 tablespoon (15 mL) white wine vinegar
Salt
5 ripe large red tomatoes, sliced or cut in wedges, at room temperature
Using a mini food processor, purée apple cider, 1 tablespoon (15 mL) of the chives, and mustard seeds. Pour into a bowl and mix in oil, vinegar, and salt. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Arrange tomatoes on a platter and drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons (30 mL) chives and serve.
The varieties of tomatoes our grandparents grew have come back into fashion. Raymond Tratt of Montreal, a heritage-seed saver, has spent years growing an assortment of tomato plants for nurseries and friends. My favourite of his 45 varieties is Dufresne, a Quebec tomato dating back to 1936, when two Dufresne brothers identified and named this big, red, extra-sweet treat. Tratt’s choice is a sweet, pink variety he named Douceur de Doucet, bred by St-Hyacinthe agricultural scientist Roger Doucet, Tratt’s mentor.
Organic market gardener Ken Taylor is another tomato specialist to favour the Dufresne tomato, with the Brandywine a runner-up. The latter, an American heirloom type, is pink with wine-coloured flesh and a sweet and spicy flavour. Ken grows it at his Windmill Point Farm on Île Perrot, west of Montreal. “One slice can fill a whole sandwich.,” he says.
Gwynne Basen is another tomato specialist working to bring these heirlooms to public attention. A writer, filmmaker, and member of Seeds of Diversity Canada, the heritage seed organization, she grows about 50 varieties at Mansonville, in the Eastern Townships. While these tomatoes, some brown-skinned and brown-fleshed, some zebra-striped green and yellow, are conversation pieces, their advantage to the home gardener is that they are hardier than the mass-produced types. Another plus factor is their names, such as Mortgage Lifter, a big red one, and Tula, dark red with brownish flesh.
Kelly Shanahan, who owns the Sutton shop La Rumeur Affamée, one of the best delicatessens in the Eastern Townships, makes this dish when the tomato crop ripens. She likes it with grilled or roasted chicken or sausages, or as a topping for grilled sea bass or cooked rice or quinoa. To make it into a soup, she purées the mixture in a blender or food processor. To make it into a pasta sauce, she removes 1 to 2 cups (250 to 500 mL) of the tomatoes and strains them, reserving the liquid, then chops the tomatoes coarsely and combines them with the reserved juice.
1 bag (10 ounces/284 g) pearl onions
1 tablespoon (15 mL) cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon (5 mL) salt
1 teaspoon (5 mL) granulated sugar
1 large head garlic
4 pounds (2 kg) ripe red tomatoes
1 container (6 ounces/180 g) yellow grape tomatoes (1 1/4 cups/310 mL)
1 container (9 ounces/254 g) large cherry tomatoes (1 1/2 cups/375 mL)
1/2 cup (125 mL) olive oil
8 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon (15 mL) balsamic vinegar
1 cup (250 mL) loosely packed fresh basil leaves
In a pot of boiling water, blanch onions for 1 minute. Drain onions, cool in cold water for 10 minutes, then peel.
In a cup, mix together pepper, salt, and sugar.
Place garlic root end down on a cutting board. Press with the palm of your hand to loosen the cloves. Separate cloves, and peel.
In a large pot of boiling water, immerse red tomatoes for 15 seconds. Drain, peel, and cut in half horizontally. Using a small spoon, remove seeds and squeeze out juice; discard both.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place half the prepared tomatoes, cut side up, in a rectangular roasting dish just large enough to hold them side by side. Scatter pearl onions and garlic over tomatoes, sprinkle with half the pepper mixture, and the grape and cherry tomatoes. Cover with remaining red tomatoes and drizzle with oil. Place rosemary on top. Sprinkle with vinegar and remaining pepper mixture.
Bake for 1 hour or until softened, checking after 45 minutes to be sure tomatoes are holding their shape and not collapsing into a sauce.
Remove tomatoes from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes, then sprinkle with basil.
This is a perfect potluck dish because it can be made in advance, transported easily to the party, and served warm or at room temperature. It’s a favourite with my Gazette colleague and friend Susan Schwartz. She also likes fresh-cooked beans with an Asian vinaigrette of vegetable or olive oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. You can use one colour of beans, but she prefers the contrast of two colours.
1 pound (500 g) fresh green and yellow string beans, trimmed
1 red onion, sliced in thin rounds, or 2 shallots, minced
1 tablespoon (15 mL) olive oil
1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) coarse salt
Pinch freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon (15 mL) balsamic vinegar
Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Line a large baking pan with parchment paper.
Place beans, onion, oil, salt, and pepper in a resealable plastic bag. Close the bag and turn it several times to mix ingredients well.
Spread bean mixture in the prepared baking pan in a single layer and roast, stirring three times, for about 20 minutes, until beans start to soften (but are still a little firm) and develop brown spots, and the onion has begun to caramelize.
Remove the pan from the oven. Sprinkle beans with vinegar and mix well. Transfer to a platter and serve warm or at room temperature.
Mansonville chef Denis Mareuge invented this lunch or supper dish for vegetarian customers at his restaurant, Boulangerie Owl’s Bread. He also likes to serve it with Italian cold cuts, grilled lamb, or veal cutlets with lemon. If the tomatoes lack flavour, which can happen when summer sun is scarce, the herbs and cheese will conceal the fact, says the chef.
1 large eggplant, cut in half lengthwise, then crosswise into 1/2-inch (1 cm) slices
Olive oil, for brushing
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 cups (500 mL) peeled, seeded, and chopped Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons (30 mL) herbes de Provence (or 1 tablespoon/15 mL each chopped fresh thyme and rosemary)
1/2 cup (125 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat the broiler.
Brush eggplant slices with oil and set on a baking sheet. Broil close to the heat, without flipping, just until eggplant is golden.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
Transfer eggplant to a baking pan just large enough to hold all the slices in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic. Cover evenly with tomatoes. Sprinkle with herbes de Provence and bake for 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and drain off liquid in the pan with a baster. Sprinkle cheese over tomatoes and broil under a preheated broiler just until the cheese is melted and lightly browned.
Laval chef and caterer Franca Mazza is of Italian background, and dedicated to using fresh food in its season. She likes to keep her recipes simple but distinctive. Her salad combining fruit and vegetables accents both with a slightly sweet-and-sour dressing.
4 cups (1 L) baby lettuce greens (5 ounces/150 g)
1 red onion, minced
1 cup (250 mL) fresh raspberries (8 ounces/250 g)
4 tablespoons (60 mL) raspberry vinegar
2 tablespoons (30 mL) sunflower oil
1 tablespoon (15 mL) honey or maple syrup
Sea salt or coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
Fresh mint leaves
Place greens in salad bowl and add onion and raspberries, turning gently to mix. In a measuring cup, combine vinegar, oil, and honey. Pour over salad. Gently toss to mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Trim with mint leaves and serve.
Nothing beats fresh corn on the cob when corn is in season. Americans, with their longer corn season, are good sources of variations on this vegetable, says caterer Jane Livingston of Knowlton. She remembers finding this recipe in a Florida magazine and adapting it. She likes to serve this dish with caramelized chipotle chicken or barbecued ribs or steaks, and a tossed green salad. It could be made with frozen corn kernels, but she warns it won’t have the same delicate sweet taste. And, she says, sheep’s milk feta cheese gives the best effect because it is lighter in taste.
3 tablespoons (45 mL) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) chopped green onions
12 cobs corn, kernels removed, or 1 package (26 ounces/750 g) frozen corn kernels
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) each salt and freshly ground pepper
2/3 cup (150 mL) whipping cream
2 teaspoons (10 mL) cornstarch
1 large clove garlic
6 ounces (180 g) feta cheese (goat’s, cow’s, or sheep’s milk), crumbled
1 cup (250 mL) fresh coriander sprigs, chopped
In a deep, 12-inch (30 cm) frying pan, melt butter over medium heat and cook green onions until softened, about 5 minutes. Add corn, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.
In a small bowl, thoroughly combine cream and cornstarch. Add mixture to corn mixture and simmer, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.
Place 1½ cups (375 mL) of the corn mixture in a blender, add garlic, and blend until smooth. Return mixture to the pan and cook, stirring constantly, until heated through. Transfer to a large serving dish, sprinkle with feta and coriander, and serve.
When Quebec’s corn crop is in full season in mid-summer and the kernels have their fullest flavour, this is the time to preserve some of the pleasure of this sweet and crunchy vegetable to enjoy later in the year. Michelle Gélinas, a Montreal food specialist, was inspired by American-style corn relish and experimented with several recipes before coming up with this one. It contains a lively blend of seasonings and chopped red bell peppers, which give colour.
15 1-cup (250 mL) preserving jars
8 cups (2 L) fresh corn kernels, about 16 medium cobs (or frozen corn kernels)
2 cups (500 mL) cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) granulated sugar
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
4 cups (1 L) peeled and coarsely chopped red bell peppers
3 tablespoons (45 mL) yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon (15 mL) salt
1 tablespoon (15 mL) celery seeds
1 tablespoon (15 mL) ground turmeric
1 teaspoon (5 mL) sambal oelek, or to taste
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup (250 mL) water
To sterilize jars, place them in a large pot, preferably a preserving kettle, and cover with water. Heat to 180°F (82°C). Turn off heat, cover the pot, and let stand until corn is ready to jar. Place the lids in a small saucepan, cover with water, and heat to 180°F (82°C), then remove pan from heat. Wash the metal rings; it is not necessary to sterilize them.
Cook corn kernels in boiling water just until tender (if using frozen corn, thaw it but don’t cook it). Drain.
In a large, heavy pot, combine vinegar and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add corn, onions, celery, and bell peppers. Bring to a boil, stirring often.
Stir in mustard seeds, salt, celery seeds, turmeric, sambal oelek, pepper, and water. Simmer mixture, covered, over low heat for 15 minutes.
Using tongs, remove jars from hot water. Fill each jar with corn mixture, leaving a ½-inch (1 cm) space at the top. Insert a clean knife in mixture to release air bubbles. Clean the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel. Add the heated lids and screw on the metal rings without forcing them. Place the jars on a rack in a large pot of water deep enough to cover them by 1 inch (2.5 cm) and set over medium-high heat. Bring the water to a boil and boil the jars for 15 minutes.
Using tongs, remove jars from water and set on a rack to cool for 24 hours.
If properly sealed, disc part of lids will be concave, indicating a vacuum seal. Jars with lids that do not curve down after boiling should be refrigerated once cool and used within 1 month. Properly sealed, the jars can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 1 year.
Coloured bell peppers—the term “coloured” is used for any colour but the basic green—must remain on their plants an extra two weeks to ripen, which is a reason they are usually priced higher than their green counterparts. Red, yellow, and white bell peppers are the sweetest, so are best appreciated raw in a salad or on a crudité platter. Purple and black peppers, which seem to taste the most like green ones, should definitely be used raw because they turn green when cooked and the extra money you spent on them is lost.
Most of Canada’s peppers come from Ontario, where long, hot summers allow more than three times the Quebec production. But Quebec produce suppliers maintain that Quebec peppers have thicker walls and therefore offer more crunch and hold up better in cooking. They’re easy to spot when they come to market each autumn because they are usually shaped irregularly, in contrast to the symmetrical peppers produced in greenhouses in Ontario, Mexico, and Holland.
When Montreal chef Derek Dammann opens a box of wild foods fresh off a bus from the Gaspé, he often needs an introduction to the foraged products within. Later that day, his customers at Maison Publique, a pub and restaurant in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood, will find the bounty of a remote coastal forest on their plates, whether it’s as a snack, decoration for a salad, ingredient in a meat sauce, or flavouring for an omelette or quiche.
A fresh box of mushrooms, plus wild plants, flowers, herbs, and fruit, comes once a week, from the time of summer’s first chanterelles and lobster mushrooms until the first frost. Tender products are replaced in cold weather by dehydrated mushrooms. The delicacies come from Gaspésie Sauvage Produits Forestiers near Douglastown, the boxes filled and dispatched by transplanted Belgian mushroom forager Gérard Mathar. Gérard never knows, day to day, what he’ll find when foraging in his woods.
“There will be weeks when I’ll look in the box and think, ‘Those look scary,’” Derek says, remembering mushrooms that were bright orange and red, with what he calls “an Alice-in-Wonderland look.” They turned out to be the obelisk variety, and delicious after the chef had followed Gérard’s directions to blanch them three times in boiling water before cooking. Another time, the fungi had been harvested high in up in trees and were as black as charcoal. They turned out to be chaga mushrooms.
Alongside the mushrooms come wild fruits such as highbush cranberries and sea buckthorn. The latter is picked in winter when the fruit is frozen. Wild vegetables include fresh seaweed and sea lettuce. “Gérard goes out into the ocean chest-deep, reaches underwater, and pulls the sea lettuce, covered in barnacles, off rocks, and that water is cold,” Derek says. Fried in hot oil “until crisp like a chip” and then trimmed with toasted sesame seeds, salt, and sugar, the sea lettuce “tastes like white truffles,” says the chef.
Everything Gérard sends is guaranteed safe, for this forager is experienced at how to select approximately 80 edible varieties of “champis,” as he nicknames champignons. Some poke up near tree trunks, others nestle under fallen leaves or are half-buried in the rich soil in what he calls “a symbiotic relationship with nature.”
Spotting spruce trees, Gérard will expect to find porcini mushrooms. Near poplars, he anticipates morels. Close to a birch grove, the mushrooms are more likely to be boletes, a variety so delicate he often dries them. “You can even make ice cream with boletes,” he says, describing a favourite mixture of these mushrooms with caramel, dark chocolate, and dried fruit or chestnuts.
He recommends generally cooking mushrooms in grapeseed oil. “It improves the mushroom taste,” he says. But some varieties, such as lobster mushrooms, go well with seafood and are best sautéed in butter. Others, such as chanterelles, are good cooked in hazelnut oil with garlic and served with whitefish or chicken. “Chanterelles are called the chicken of the woods,” Gérard says.
He has trained upwards of 100 foragers, who scavenge the woods of Quebec’s east coast, south into the Atlantic provinces, in the Gatineau hills north of Ottawa, and as far away as British Columbia. They know to look in the woods because, as Gérard explains, “everywhere you have trees you have mushrooms.”
Danny St-Pierre, chef-owner of Auguste and Chez Augustine, in Sherbrooke, likes to liven up old Quebec recipes. He adds a layer of fresh raspberries to pouding chômeur, the economical dessert named for the unemployed—poor man’s pudding. The pudding, a cake batter and sweet sauce baked together, is believed to date back to Britain’s steamed or treacle puddings. In the mid-19th century, when English-speaking workers joined French Quebecers in the factories of Montreal, recipes were shared. Years ago, maple sugar, now a luxury ingredient, was used. Later, molasses or brown sugar became the sweetener. Whatever the variation, this old-time dish remains one of the most popular desserts in Quebec.
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (265 mL) maple syrup
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (265 mL) whipping cream
1/4 cup (60 mL) butter, softened
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking powder
Pinch salt
1/4 cup (60 mL) whole milk
1 cup (250 mL) fresh raspberries (6 ounces/180 g) (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Butter an 8-inch (20 cm) square pan.
In a medium, heavy saucepan, combine maple syrup and cream and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, being careful mixture does not boil over. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, then remove from heat.
In a mixing bowl, blend butter and sugar together with a hand-held electric mixer. Beat in egg and continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
In another mixing bowl, use a fork to stir flour with baking powder and salt. Add ½ cup (125 mL) of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, using a wire whisk to blend. Whisk in milk, then whisk in remaining dry ingredients.
Arrange raspberries (if using) evenly on the bottom of the prepared pan. Pour batter into the pan, then pour in maple mixture. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
An air of mystery surrounds this heritage fruit, once prized at Montreal’s best restaurants and considered a delicacy at the Plaza and Waldorf Astoria Hotels in New York. The Montreal melon is now a challenge to the few amateur gardeners who try to produce it in the five months it requires from seed to maturity. Grown and enjoyed in 19th-century Montreal, it’s a cousin of the Green Nutmeg melon and has made it onto the Ark of Taste of Canada’s SlowFood movement, even though no commercial grower produces it and there are few sources for its seeds.
This melon is a giant, weighing from 8 or 9 pounds (3.5 to 4 kg) to as much as 24 pounds (10 kg). It has a soccer ball or torpedo shape, and a thin, ribbed peel, green flesh, and—as old-timers remember—a fine, sweet taste. It was so delicate that growers of the 1880s, such as the Décarie farming family of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal, would put these melons on the train for New York strapped into large, woven baskets so they wouldn’t bruise on the trip.
The seeds for this melon were once listed in the Burpee seed company’s catalogue but were discontinued after World War II. They had disappeared until 1996, when Mark Abley, a reporter at The Gazette in Montreal, tracked them down at the U.S. agriculture department’s National Seed Storage Lab in Ames, Iowa. Obtaining a small packet of seeds, he persuaded an organic market gardener to grow the melons. The gardener, Ken Taylor of Île Perrot, west of Montreal, produced a random assortment of melons from the seeds. He then selected the melons that resembled historic descriptions, grew some more, and ended up, so he thinks, with the Montreal melon so celebrated a century ago.
Another part of Quebec’s melon history is the Oka melon, developed when Trappist monks at the Oka monastery west of Montreal crossed a Montreal melon with a banana melon, and came up with a large variety with orange flesh. It’s also prized and rare.
Spending our summers near lavish patches of wild raspberries in southern Ontario, we children were taught early on to combine country walks with serious raspberry picking. Mum liked the fruit plain, with very little sugar and thick cream from a neighbour’s cows. But she also made raspberry desserts, jam, and jelly. This family recipe plays up the full taste of the fruit with the help of red currant jelly.
Pastry for single-crust, 9-inch (23 cm) pie (page 336) (or ready-made thawed pie shell)
1 cup (250 mL) or 1 jar (8 ounces/250 g) red currant jelly
2 cups (500 mL) fresh raspberries
Place the oven rack in the lowest position, then place a pizza stone or a cast-iron frying pan set upside down on it. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Roll out pastry on a floured surface to fit a 9-inch (23 cm) pie pan. Fit it into the pan and crimp the edges. Do not prick the bottom with a fork. Set the pie pan on pizza stone and bake shell for 10 to 12 minutes, until pastry is crisp and golden brown. Transfer to a rack to cool.
In a small saucepan, melt ⅓ cup (75 mL) of the red currant jelly. Using a pastry brush, brush pastry shell on bottom and sides with melted jelly. Arrange raspberries in shell.
Melt remaining jelly and, using the pastry brush, paint berries with jelly. Let stand just until set, then serve right away.
Chef Marcel Bouchard serves this crimson fruit jelly on the breakfast buffet at his inn, Auberge des 21, in La Baie, in the Saguenay region. But it could just as well be served as a dessert with a generous dollop of plain yogurt, or cut in cubes and layered into parfait glasses with yogurt. Late-season raspberries, crossbred by Quebec fruit scientists, have extended the raspberry season to the end of September.
1 package (20 ounces/600 g) frozen raspberries
1 package (1/4 ounce/7 g) gelatin (for a firmer jelly, use 2 packages)
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1 cup (250 mL) fresh blueberries (6 ounces/180 g)
1 cup (250 mL) fresh raspberries (6 ounces/180 g)
Fresh raspberries for serving
Plain yogurt, for serving
Thaw frozen raspberries in the refrigerator (not at room temperature). Strain and measure juice, reserving fruit.
Sprinkle gelatin over the raspberry juice. Let stand for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, pour the same amount of water as you have juice into a saucepan, add sugar, and bring to a boil. Add juice mixture, stirring to dissolve gelatin.
Mix together thawed raspberries and fresh blueberries, add juice mixture, and refrigerate, stirring occasionally so fruit is distributed in juice as mixture gels.
Serve with fresh raspberries and a dollop of plain yogurt.
Here’s a simple way to serve blueberries. Take a box of blueberries, rinse and dry the fruit, divide into serving bowls, drizzle generously with maple syrup, and top with thick cream or plain yogurt, plus a little maple sugar or brown sugar. The idea comes from Chef Marcel Bouchard, who owns Auberge des 21 in La Baie, an inn and spa on a fjord of the Saguenay River in northern Quebec.
Baker Jacinthe Ouellet poses with blueberry folk art on her lawn at Dolbeau-Mistassini.
Blackberries grow wild in Brome County, a rural Eastern Townships region where the fruit ripens quietly on the edges of fields and woods. It takes a sharp eye to find them, for the bushes look quite like raspberry canes and hide their black harvest well. Blackberry pie is a category in the annual baking contest held in conjunction with Brome Fair each Labour Day weekend in the village of Brome. Diane Croghan of nearby Foster has made a reputation for herself and also for her son and daughter as expert pie bakers, often winning prizes for their fruit pies. Diane knows where to go to harvest this precious fruit, as well as how to make it into a succulent summer pie. Her other prize-winning pies are made with blueberries, raspberries, and black raspberries.
Pastry for double-crust, 9-inch (23 cm) pie (page 336)
1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
4 tablespoons (60 mL) all-purpose flour
4 cups (1 L) fresh blackberries
1 tablespoon (15 mL) cold butter, cut in pea-size pieces
1 tablespoon (15 mL) fresh lemon juice
Place the oven rack in the lowest position, then place a cast-iron frying pan upside down, or a pizza stone, on it. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Butter an 8- or 9-inch (20 or 23 cm) pie pan.
Roll out half the pastry on a floured surface and fit it into the pan.
In a mixing bowl, stir sugar and flour together. Place half the blackberries in pie shell and sprinkle with half the flour mixture. Add remaining blackberries and sprinkle with remaining flour mixture.
Dot with butter and sprinkle with lemon juice. Roll out remaining pastry and place over berries. Crimp pastry at the edges to seal, then cut 3 small steam vents in crust.
Place pie on top of the frying pan in the oven. Immediately reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C) and bake pie for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until pastry is crisp and golden brown.
Let cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Eastern Townships pie baker Diane Croghan invented this pie some years ago when she was running a restaurant in Knowlton. By chance, Omega Medina, at the time a CBC radio reporter, dropped in, enjoyed the pie, and mentioned it on the air. A star was born, and the pie became a regular on the menu.
Pastry for double-crust, 9-inch (23 cm) pie (page 336)
4 cups (1 L) fresh rhubarb cut in 1/2- to 1-inch (1 to 2.5 cm) pieces
3 to 5 orange segments, cut in small pieces
2 teaspoons (10 mL) grated orange peel
1 1/4 cups (310 mL) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (15 mL) cold butter, cut in pea-size pieces
1 tablespoon (15 mL) fresh lemon juice
Place the oven rack in the lowest position, then set a cast-iron frying pan upside down, or a pizza stone, on it. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Butter a 9-inch (23 cm) pie pan.
Roll out half the pastry on a floured surface and fit it into the pan. Roll out remaining pastry for the top crust.
In a mixing bowl, mix together rhubarb, orange segments, and orange peel.
In another bowl, combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle fruit mixture with half the sugar mixture, tossing to coat fruit well.
Spoon fruit into pie shell and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture. Dot with butter and sprinkle with lemon juice. Cover with top crust and crimp pastry at the edges to seal. Cut small steam vents in crust.
Place pie on the cast-iron pan. Immediately reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C) and bake pie for 45 to 50 minutes, until pastry is crisp and golden brown.
Let cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
If using frozen rhubarb, thaw it only enough so you can separate the pieces.
It took about 4,000 plants a year and several years of testing to breed the Quebec strawberries that now ripen beyond the original June-July season right through into October. Food scientists from McGill University and the federal agriculture department joined with enlightened growers, working to create varieties they liked. Only then did they seek patents, and encourage growers to start planting the new strawberries, launch them on the market, and persuade the public to buy them.
Federal fruit breeder Shahrokh Khanizadeh led the effort to develop what’s usually dubbed Quebec’s “autumn” strawberry. Over the years, he has developed nearly a dozen varieties. Some, such as the Chambly, because it resists bruising; others, including the bigger, mid-July variety called Oka and hardy mid-season and late-season varieties Saint-Pierre, Harmonie, L’Acadie, Clé des Champs, Yamaska, and Orléans, because they ripen throughout August and September. The latest to appear is a July strawberry called Variété d’été. These berries were all developed by traditional crossbreeding methods. The result has been a non-stop supply of sweet and juicy fruit that comes to market through August and September from huge strawberry farms, most of them on Île d’Orléans, near Quebec City, and in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, northeast of Montreal.
Scientists call these strawberries “day-neutral,” and they have been such a commercial success that Quebec strawberry production has increased to the point that only California and Florida grow more of this popular fruit.
Paralleling strawberry inventions are new varieties of raspberries, which have been given the same extended season. Shahrokh’s favourite, popular with Île d’Orléans growers, is his big, firm, late-season raspberry called the Jeanne d’Orléans, named for Jeanne Delisle, a pioneer of small-fruit cultivation on Île d’Orléans. Top-quality local raspberries are now available from early July through September.
Louis Gauthier, fruit grower and researcher, at L’Authentique Les Fraises de l’Île d’Orléans.
The Eastern Townships was the source of this recipe, says Micheline Mongrain-Dontigny of St-Irénée, in Charlevoix. She has spent years researching Quebec’s traditional and regional specialties and publishing collections of the recipes. Fresh strawberries are a must for this cake, she says. Although she does freeze the fruit at its peak for later use in strawberry puddings and sauces, she never uses her frozen strawberries for this cake, because, when thawed, the fruit contains too much liquid. Thanks to Quebec fruit scientists, fresh strawberries have been crossbred to be available from June through September.
Topping
1/2 cup (125 mL) graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (125 mL) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (60 mL) shredded unsweetened coconut
1/3 cup (75 mL) cold butter, diced
Cake
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup (125 mL) whole milk
4 tablespoons (60 mL) melted butter
2 cups (500 mL) thickly sliced fresh strawberries
Place the oven rack in the centre position. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Butter an 8- or 9-inch (20 or 23 cm) square cake pan.
In a mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and coconut.
Sprinkle with diced butter and blend in with a pastry blender. Alternatively, pulse in a food processor, then return to bowl.
In another bowl, use a fork to blend flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt. Break eggs into a measuring cup, add milk and melted butter, and whisk with a fork.
Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients and beat well. Pour batter into the prepared cake pan. Cover batter with half the strawberries, then sprinkle with half the topping. Repeat with remaining strawberries and topping.
Bake for 30 minutes or just until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean. Serve warm or cooled from the pan.
When strawberries are at their best, Jane Livingston of Knowlton makes a variation of this recipe by replacing the blueberries with 4 cups (1 L) strawberries, rinsed and hulled, for a strawberry torte.
Crust
3/4 cup (175 mL) butter, softened
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
2 cups (500 mL) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) salt
Topping
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 cups (500 mL) sour cream
1/2 cup (125 mL) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (5 mL) vanilla extract
Filling
4 cups (1 L) fresh blueberries
1/2 cup (125 mL) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (60 mL) quick-cooking tapioca (instant or minute)
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) finely grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) ground cinnamon
Pinch ground nutmeg
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan with parchment paper.
In a mixing bowl using a hand-held electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Gradually beat in sugar, then beat in egg yolks until mixture is fluffy. In another bowl, use a fork to blend flour with baking powder and salt. Gradually beat dry ingredients into butter mixture.
Press 2 cups (500 mL) of the crust mixture onto the bottom of the prepared springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C). Press remaining crust mixture 1½ inches (4 cm) up the sides of the pan.
In a medium saucepan, mix together blueberries, sugar, tapioca, lemon peel, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Let stand for 15 minutes. Then cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until bubbling. Spoon into crust in the springform pan.
In a small bowl, blend beaten egg yolks with sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Spoon over blueberry filling.
Bake cake at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes or until firm. Cool and refrigerate to chill well before serving. Torte will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Montreal has its own fast foods, and each has a legendary past. Proof of their popularity lies in their many imitations around town and beyond. Here are the favourite four, with suggested sources.
Schwartz’s, also called Charcuterie Hébraïque de Montréal (Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen), at 3895 St-Laurent Boulevard, is a joint in the full sense of the word, a modest, well-worn little diner on the Main, as St-Laurent Boulevard is known. Patrons often line up along the street, waiting for a seat to enjoy tender, spiced brisket of beef that’s been cured and smoked the same way since 1928. If you peer over the sandwich counter, you’ll see slabs of blackened, spice-coated Alberta beef that’s still processed just as Reuben Schwartz, the Romanian Jew who founded the place, decreed. This place insists on individual hand-slicing of the meat and takes orders for four grades: lean, medium, medium-fat, and fat. I recommend the medium-fat. Trained slicers will cut the brisket across the grain of the meat, their eye assessing the percentage of fat. “If you slice the wrong way, your meat will be stringy,” says Jason Lebrun, who has been on the job for more than a decade. Yellow mustard is optional with your sandwich, typically ordered with french fries, a dill pickle, and the traditional black cherry soda. Smoked meat sandwiches sell all over Quebec, but most can’t compare to Schwartz’s because their meat, say insiders, is pumped with a watery cure rather than dry-cured, as Schwartz’s is. The spicing is secret; I once gained access to the smoking room, a dark, redolent lair of a place, and learned that the briskets spend 10 to 14 days dry-curing in barrels under a coating of seasonings before being smoked for six to seven hours. Those seasonings? “More than four spices” is as close as the restaurant will reveal.
La Banquise, 994 Rachel Street East, is a one-time ice cream shop that now specializes in a celebrated Quebec snack. It’s a combination of hot french fries, fresh cheddar cheese curds, and hot barbecue sauce or chicken gravy. This succulent mixture should be served in a dish (china or Styrofoam) deep enough to encourage the cheese to melt into fondue-like strands from the heat of the potatoes and sauce. Shun any place that serves poutine on a flat plate, is my advice. Poutine began at rural fast-food stands in the region southeast of Montreal in the late 1950s. As the story goes, the proprietor served french fries and offered bowls of fresh cheese curds on his counter. The patrons started combining the two, and then asked the proprietor for some of the gravy simmering on the stove for his hot chicken sandwiches. A popular dish was created. It’s now served all over Quebec and beyond, and chefs, even in top restaurants, will offer their version of poutine, including a duck foie gras variation.
Montreal Pool Room, a century-old institution at 1217 St-Laurent Boulevard, formerly across the street, is a spotlessly clean diner that long ago cancelled its billiard tables. Specializing in hot dogs, either steamed (the celebrated “steamie” wiener with steamed bun) or toasted (called a “toasté,” a grilled hot dog with a toasted bun), the place offers the popular coleslaw topping, plus all the usual condiments—yellow mustard, sweet relish, and ketchup. This easy and economical menu is usually completed with a little brown paper bag of french fries, and these are Quebec-style, soft and moist, according to specialists, rather than the crisper so-called international fries. The red-shirted servers, who do all the cooking at the long counter, appear to be veterans. One has been there since Mayor Jean Drapeau, who ruled Montreal for decades until 1986, would send over for steamies from his office at 3 a.m.
In the Mile End district of central Montreal are two bagel bakeries that vie for first place in bagel popularity. Each hand-rolls the dough, dips the uncooked bagels in honey-flavoured water, then bakes them in wood-burning ovens. Their histories are linked, their competition courteous, their product hailed as first-rate. Some customers favour the Original Fairmount Bagel Bakery, at 74 Fairmount Avenue West, which dates to 1919, when Isadore Schlafman, a Jew from Kiev, in Ukraine, opened the Montreal Bagel Bakery. He made the bagels in a shack on a lane behind St-Laurent Boulevard and transported them in a wheelbarrow to a vending stand on the street. Other bagel shoppers patronize St-Viateur Bagel, headquartered at 263 St-Viateur Street West, where the tender rings of dough come in three versions: plain, with poppy seeds, or with sesame seeds. In contrast, Fairmount makes 19 varieties, including flaxseed, chocolate chip, blueberry, and a miniature size. St-Viateur’s founder was Myer Lewkowicz, born near Cracow, Poland, and a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp. He immigrated in 1953 and worked at Schlafman’s bakery before setting up his own shop in 1957. Descendants and long-time bagel-making staff are part of each bakery. Both produce the crisp-tender, slightly chewy rings of lightly sweetened yeast dough, baking them in the original Eastern European fashion. St-Viateur’s current owner, Joe Morena, who started working at the bakery at age 15 and has been at it for half a century, doesn’t mind comparisons with Fairmount, since the two specialize in the same product. “A good day,” he once said, “is when they taste the same from either place.”
