Home cooking

The first bit of home cooking over here was a pot-luck bread pudding which BH created a few days ago to use up some left over bread, a pudding which she ended up cooking in the microwave for reasons beyond her control. Pot-luck in the sense that she had neither recipe, all of the ingredients nor scales. But it tasted fine.

The second bit was a more regular stew from myself today. Start by visiting the Sausage Kitchen in Byward Market and selected what was described as garlic sausage and which I was assured was already cooked. We got three to the 500g, so rather larger than Manor Green Road sausages. They came wrapped in brown paper, something I now only come across in the UK in ITV3 period drama. Buy onions and cooking tomatoes, that is to say the big ones, more than two inches across.

Heat some (new to us) soya oil in a saucepan. Add about four medium onions, coarsely diced and fry for a bit. Add two large tomatoes, coarsely diced. Stir in maybe a level desert spoon of dried basil. Bring back to heat and simmer for about half an hour. Slice two sausages, about 0.5 cm to the slice, and add them. Simmer for a further ten minutes, to the point where there is not much loose water left.

Serve with a baguette from the Murray Street French baker and a green salad, without dressing. To drink, tap water and a Niagaran gewürztraminer, from Strewn, via the LCBO, of which more in due course, both without ice.

Very good it all was too. Garlic sausage meaty, with a good strong flavour. Not as lumpy & chewy as a kabanos, but more like one than the sort of garlic sausage one usually gets in the UK.

PS: wikipedia tells me today that kabanosy should be made from a young, male potato fed pig. Despite having eaten plenty of them in my time, I don't think I ever knew this about them.

Reference 1: http://www.sausagekitchen.ca/index.html.

Reference 2: http://bennysbistro.ca/bakery/. The baguettes which sit between the ordinary ones and the full on artisinale ones are very good, as was this morning's raisin pastry. A thin variation on the Chelsea bun theme.

Reference 3: http://www.lcbo.com/content/lcbo/en.html#.VERIR_nF_uI.

Reference 4: http://www.strewnwinery.com/english/home/default.asp.