My favourite little Mexican Kitchen: Amaranto

Restaurant Amaranto

5974 De Monkland Av. Montreal, QC H4A 1G8
(514) 510-1225

Tacos al Pastor

It is time for a long overdue mention of one of my favourite restaurants ever. EVER. 

Restaurant Amaranto is a lovely Mexican restaurant just down the street from where I live. It is a small, cute restaurant with five tables, an open kitchen and a friendly, lovely couple that run the whole show. 

They have a small, simple menu featuring an array of delicious tacos: Al Pastor, Chorizo and Cactus being three amazing tacos. There are also, quesadillas, sopes, queso fundido (a fondue of delicious Mexican cheese), a couple enchilada dishes and an amazing cactus salad. They also usually have a couple specials, an  appetizer and a one or two mains.

A winner, when it is there, is always the Avocado soup which is an incredible soup of a guacamole in a chicken broth, sprinkled with home made tortilla bits, cilantro and pomegranate seeds. They will use diced tomatoes during the pomegranate off-season but it's still so yum.

Notice that the ingredient list is quite small and simple. They let the food speak for itself through their fresh ingredients. Oh, and they give you home made tortilla chips with red and green salsas to dip them in. Why am I writing this now? I am oh so hungry for Amaranto now...

Avocado soup

Chile Rellenos

This restaurant was actually one of the first places I walked into when we first moved near the Monkland area. After a long day of moving large boxes into our new apartment, we were hungry for supper and I was nominated to go find some take out. Strange, considering that the votes were even. 

So I wandered down our street, past 'The Monkland Grill' and 'Le Gout d'Inde (Taste of India)'. I peered at the menu to 'Le Caveau Szechwan' and finally opened a door that lead down little Amaranto. I was smitten by the cuteness of the restaurant and asked if they did take out to which they reply 'Yes'.  Now, I had just spent the entire day moving things here, so I had no idea what I was thinking. I looked around the restaurant again and I said 'Actually I just moved here today so I really want to come back with my wife and eat in your restaurant!' I dashed out, order some not-so-great take out beef and broccoli from 'Le Caveau Szechwan' (to which I have never returned). What a terrible mistake!

Fast forward to about a year and half later in December. I have been back to Amaranto many times but this time while I'm paying for my meal, I was talking to the owners, they asked me how I liked living in the neighbourhood.

 I looked slightly confused and said 'Yeah, it's great!'

 They must have must have noticed my confused look because they then said 'Because you have lived here for a year now, so what do you think?'

At the time, I was touched that they remembered that I moved there a year ago, but let's think for a second. Who is going to forget the weird Asian guy that walks into your restaurant, asks if you do take out then proceeds to walk out saying he really wants to eat there but doesn't. Yeah, I'd hate me too.

However, I bring everyone I know and their dog to the restaurant when I can because A) I think everyone should experience it and B) I can always use more excuses to go.

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The Joy of Baking Nanaimo Bars

I've been baking a lot. What does that mean? Maybe it's because I keep looking at the pictures on www.joyofbaking.com and I get inspired. 

My wife's favourite dessert EVER is the Nanaimo Bar. I saw a recipe on joyofbaking.com and figured that they couldn't be that hard to make and it turns out they merely require a lot of waiting in between steps which makes the process seem longer.

The Nanaimo Bar is named after the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia but was apparently invented in a town south of Nanaimo called Ladysmith on Vancouver Island in the 1950s. They were sold in Nanaimo though, and tourists from the US would refer to them as Nanaimo Bars (oh those clever tourists). This is all according to the Nanaimo Bar Wiki article, so take what you will. I also knew that there was a peanut butter flavour of Nanaimo bar but my wife did not think so. 

These bars aren't anything super fancy, they all generally consist of a graham cracker/chocolatey crust, a sweet yellow custard/icing centre and topped with melted semi-sweet chocolate. If that isn't really selling them then remember that I'm not a dessert guy and I do think that they are pretty good, so that's something.

Two ingredients for the crust: Walnuts and Coconut

I changed nothing in the recipe except for the fact that I used an 8x8 pan, since I just learned we don't have a 9x9 pan. My bars ended up being extra thick! So please check out the Joy of Baking's Nanaimo Bar recipe!

The crust.

The crust with custard on top.

Nanaimo bars in hangin' in the kitchen.

joy to the fishes
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Vietnamese Beef Stew (Thịt Bò Kho)

My family recently compiled a digital cookbook with some of their very best recipes, some of which are Vietnamese dishes (surprise!). We are fairly open-minded when it comes to food and I think the book actually features more non-Vietnamese dishes but they all look quite good. Of course I submitted a few recipes, most of which I've written about here.

Speaking of family, one of my aunts asked me if I wanted to have a cooking lesson from her because she felt it was her time to be featured in this blog. This was all to happen during the Easter weekend a couple weeks ago but plans were all changed and our next family get together will be sometime in May. So, I found her recipe for Vietnamese Beef Stew in our cookbook and set forth for ingredients.

My second helping! First helping eaten before pictures were taken.

Let's get something straight here, everyone in my family has their own speciality and this is one of Di Huong's. So this is the real deal here. I can't actually remember having this a lot growing up (my mom might scold me for this and tell me we ate it all the time) but the last time we had it at Thanksgiving, it was delicious! We ate it out of styrofoam cups (don't ask) and mopped up the sauce with crusty French bread. This time, I had just made fresh Goi Cuon (fresh spring rolls) with salmon so I had a lot of vermicelli leftover which I decided to try with it. I wondered how it would be possible that a stew with vermicelli would taste better than French bread. Well, it really does work quite nicely though I can't say it's better than fluffy bread...

I will give you the true recipe, but I added in some sweet potatoes, and probably did some other things that would mark me as a bad nephew cooking apprentice. The sweet potatoes were good though! Also this recipe is definitely Vietnamese family sized. I used about half the amount of beef (although mostly the same measurements for everything else) and the two of us were eating Bò Kho for days.

Vietnamese Beef Stew (Thịt Bò Kho), From Bác Hương
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 pounds of stewing beef or beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes
2 stalks fresh lemon grass or Tbs dried lemon grass
2 fresh chile peppers, seeded and minced
Black pepper
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp curry powder
3 Tbsp fish sauce
2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp veg oil
1 med onion, chopped
6 gloves garlic, minced
2 med carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks
¼ cup tomato paste
2 med-potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 small daikon or 2 med turnips, peeled and cut into1-inch chunks

This is after we ate a couple servings...

If you are using fresh lemon grass, discard the outer leaves and upper half of the stalk. Slice paper thin and chop very fine. If you are using dried lemon grass, soak in warm water for 1 hour. Drain and finely chop.

In a bowl, combine the beef with the lemon grass, chiles, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, curry powder, fish sauce, black pepper, and 1 tsp salt. Let stand for 30 minutes.

Heat 2 Tbs oil in a large, heavy saucepan over high heat. Add the beef and marinade and stir quickly to sear, about 2 minutes. Remove the meat to a bowl.

Add the remaining 1 Tbs oil to the saucepan. When the oil is hot, add the onion and garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and stir for 2 minutes. Add the beef, star anise, the remaining 1 tsp salt and 4 cups of water. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and simmer until beef is tender, about 1-1/2 hours.

Add the carrots and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and continue simmering for 10 minutes longer. Add the daikon and cook for another 10 minutes.

Serve with rice noodles or with French baguette.

Obviously this would have been much nicer had we could have done some cooking in person but she recently was visiting Montréal with her daughter who is considering going to McGill. Naturally, I told her I would keep her well fed!

i guess i got my swagger back

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White Chocolate Brownies = Hot Blondies?

A few years ago when I dabbled in baking, I somehow managed to make a batch of white chocolate brownies (or blondies) that tasted really, really good. The recipe I found online used hazelnuts and had a raspberry sauce that I never bothered to try and make. I'm fairly certain I undercooked the blondies and they ended up being amazing. It happened twice! 

Recently I decided to make them again because I felt bad for baking something not so good. I wasn't going to tell the story, but here it goes now because I even have pictures. While in one of my classes, one of my students (yes, the baking queen herself) was looking at the joyofbaking.com while taking a break from her work. Being the great teacher that I am, I peered over her shoulder, admiring all of the pictures of delicious baked goods. 

"I'm going to bake something tonight, Eunji. You have inspired me." I say, feeling the need to declare this to her.

"So will I." she replies but then hesitates "Wait." She opens her agenda and checks what homework she has. "Yes, so will I." 

There is a silence in which we both clearly agree to exchange whatever we make.

Unfortunately for me, I tried to make coconut macaroons which I love but clearly messed up. See, before they went in the oven, everything looked fine. Afterwards, I couldn't even stand the thought of taking a picture! It's a recipe from a colleague of mine who brought them to a potluck we had once and they were amazing. It will be shared soon...

Looking good and ready to go in the oven...

I couldn't come to school empty handed, so I brought one in a plastic baggie. I handed it to my nemesis and she took it without a word. Later during my science class, she wordlessly hands me this beautiful cupcake!

Chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese filling

My feeling of guilt lasted for about as long as it took to eat the cupcake, which wasn't very long. Don't worry, I waited until after my class left. Of course, I felt guilty enough that I needed to go home and redeem myself which brings us to ...here.

White Chocolate Brownies, adapted from Critical Mastication

Printable Recipe

Ingredients 

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

12 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped (One package of baker's chocolate has six 1 oz, pieces of chocolate)

8 tbsp (1/4 cup or 120 mL) unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla or half a vanilla bean

Optional: 1 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Optional: Raspberry sauce (see original post)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9x9 baking pan. Sift together the flour and salt, and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs at high speed until frothy, I do this by hand but you can use a mixer if you like. Gradually add the sugar, and beat for about 3 minutes, until thick and pale. In a double boiler, melt 7 ounces of the chocolate and gently fold into the egg mixture. Add the melted butter, vanilla and stir well; the mixture may appear curdled. Add the flour and salt, and mix thoroughly. Fold in the remaining 5 ounces of chocolate. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until a tester or toothpick comes out not-quite clean. It could take up to 30 minutes to bake, but the edges start to brown before the centre. My last batch came out quite gooey in the middle and most of the time they set to a delicious, soft brownie. Let cool in the pan and cut into squares.

My 'double boiler', a pan on top of a pot of water.

Gooey blondies

bouquet of lovely words


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