Throwback Thursday - Autumn in Canada and a Cold-Weather Stew

The view from the top of Montmorency Falls, just outside of Quebec City

As the rest of the US continues to suffer through it's long winter I thought I would commiserate with a nice cozy-weather dish, inspired by Bon Appetit. I saw their recipe for Indian-Spiced Chicken and made a few tweaks here and there to make it my own.

The daunting staircase to walk up to the top of the falls

I began with a whole chicken and broke it down into parts and then proceeded to brown the chicken in a little vegetable oil. Once browned, set aside. Then in the same lovely pot add 1 diced onion, 4 cloves minced garlic and a thumb-sized piece of ginger, minced, and saute until your onion is soft and golden. Next add in 2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste and 2 teaspoons each of garam masala, cumin, turmeric, 1 teaspoon coriander and a hefty dash of cayenne, depending on how spicy you like it, and let all that marry for about 5 minutes.  

 Add in 8 cups chicken broth, 1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, 1/2 cup cream, chicken and a bunch of carrots (roughly chopped if you please). Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover partially and reduce to a simmer, cooking for about 2 hours. Add 1 pound of sliced yukon gold potatoes and continue cooking for another 45 minutes until the taters are cooked through. I served over a bed of rice with a hefty dollop of yogurt and some fresh cilantro.

Oh Canada - Une Tarte Tatin

Mont Royal Park in Montreal

The boat house in North Hatley

It's been much too long since I've posted anything but better late than never, I guess. I just wanted to share a few photos from the first leg of our Canada journey and to accompany the photos I made a yummy autumnal tarte tatin. I hope you enjoy the photos and the recipe (adapted from Smitten Kitchen). 

Casa Bianca - our lovely b&b in Montreal

North Hatlley in the Eastern Townships

Montreal

I think the key to this tarte tatin is making your own dough - it is so buttery and flaky and caramelize-y and just YUM. The original recipe uses a food processor but as I don't have one of those I turned it out by hand and it came out just dandy. To begin mix 1.5 cups flour and 1 tablespoon sugar together. Cut in 10 tablespoons of chilled butter until the mixture resembles very coarse meal (with some butter pebbles). Then drop in 3 to 6 tablespoons ice water (I generally end up using 5ish) just until your dough comes together (don't overwork it). Roll out the dough so that it will cover whatever pan you are going to cook your apples in (I go with my grandma's cast iron skillet). Then cover with plastic wrap and set it to chill while you make the filling. 

The beautiful fall colors in North Hatley

For the filling:  Cut up a pan-full of apples (peeled, cored and quartered) I used 4 enormous honeycrisp apples and then 1 extra for later, so 5 total. Melt a stick of salted butter (I like the salt factor in this sweet dessert) in your skillet of choice. Remove pan from heat and stir in 1 cup granulated sugar. Spread the sugar mix evenly in the pan and then arrange your apples in the pan so they are snug up against one another (they shrink in their initial cooking so you can later fit in your extra apple, or two). Once positioned, return the pan to high heat and let bubble away for 10 to 15 minutes, until you get a nice dark caramel color. Then flip all your apple slices (so each side gets nice and caramel-y) and add in your extra apples to fill out your tarte. Cook over high heat for another 5. 

Notre Dame du Montreal

To finish: Place the chilled pie crust on top of your apples and tuck in the edges. Pop into a 375 degree oven for about a half an hour or until your crust takes on a nice golden hue, et voila! Let your pie rest for a half hour or so and then turn out onto a plate and admire.

Lake Massawippi

Cause for Celebration - Rack of Lamb

We have many reasons to celebrate - in addition to good health and being surrounded by good friends we have had milestone birthdays and work triumphs. Apparently, in a nod to the momentous occasion, there was a sale on some beautiful racks of lamb and I gobbled one up, literally. 

Lamb is one of my favorite special occasion foods - it is generally what I request for my birthday dinner - so I jumped at the chance to make my very first rack of lamb. I went a fairly traditional route, serving it with a breadcrumb crust - it was perfectly simple and delicious. I served it with an Indian summer panzanella complete with a decadent amount of burrata. Everything was perfect and we enjoyed it all with a celebratory bottle of wine, a highly recommended accompaniment.