FoodFunk.ca

Once upon a time, well, an hour ago, I was driving three year old Alexandra home from nursery school.

She had a great time, playing today in the gym instead of outside because of the rainy weather and had worked up quite an appetite since breakfast.

“We’ll go right home and I’ll make some spaghetti with pesto and tomatoes,”  I happily told her.

“No!”, she shot back.  ”Spaghetti and meatballs…….please?”

As luck would have it, I had about 3/4 of a pound of fresh ground beef leftover from last night’s dinner of barbecued burgers on fresh made buns, so meatballs was actually going to be possible.   And using some quick tricks, I could have in on a plate in 30 minutes flat too.

I like meatballs that are on the softer side which is acheived in one of two ways – long stewing or mixing with bread crumbs.   Because of time, I went with the latter, quickly whizzing up one of the fresh buns from last night in my hand mixer’s processor attachment.    I already had a sauce pot on medium-high heat with a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in it to receive the meatballs as I made them.

Using garlic powder saved a bit of time but do so ONLY if you have good quality garlic powder.   I have a $4 can of Szeged garlic powder that I got at the gigantic imported food store Starsky in Mississauga a while back.   Good stuff.

I make good use flavour enhancers like Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and cooking sherry to add depth to the dish without the hours of simmering it would take to do otherwise.

Once the meatball mixture is mixed, you can take a good handful of the mixture and quickly squeeze out clumps of the mixture between your index finger and thumb, like pressing it through the “okay” sign with your hand.   Forget about using spoons, scoops or other tools to make the meatballs.  Get your hands in there and get it done.  Doing it this way, I had all the meatballs in the pot less than two minutes after the mix was made.   Add a bit of chopped onion, then add and fry up some tomato paste, then a can of tomatoes and seasonings and you’re on your way.

I like this dish topped with tonnes of parmesan cheese because it reminds me of eating in restaurants when I was a kid and put about $4 worth of parmesan on my $2 plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

And now, not surprisingly, this classic is one of my daughter’s favourites.

I started cooking at 11:52 am and the dish pictured was on the table for 12:25 pm.   Alexandra’s potty break cost me three minutes.  That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Daddy’s Spaghetti and Meatballs

Spaghetti for two (get a good brand like DeCecco or Barilla)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3/4 cup good quality ground beef

1/3 cup fresh bread crumbs

pinch each of dried oregano, thyme and basil

1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon or so garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons tomato paste

28 oz can tomatoes, run through a food mill, or a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon cooking sherry

salt and pepper to taste

tonnes and tonnes of parmesan cheese

Heat a sauce pot over medium high heat while you assemble your meatballs.   Mix together the beef, bread crumbs, dried herbs, worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and a good seasoning of salt and pepper.   Use the technique above to separate the mixture quickly into clumps, then use both hands to roll the clumps into neat little meatballs.   Add the meatballs to the pot as you roll them, giving the pot a shake once in a while.  Chop the onion and add it to the pot.  Stir and shake for another minute then add the tomato paste.   Stir and shake for a couple more minutes then add the can of tomatoes or diced tomatoes, the cooking sherry, more dried herbs and a bit of salt and pepper.   Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently until your pasta is ready.    For the pasta, fill a large pot to the top with fresh cold water and add a few tablespoons of salt.   Bring to a boil and add the spaghetti.  Boil until it’s al dente (not too far – you don’t want it crunchy, but you also don’t want it mushy.  It should have a bit of a bite), about 10 minutes.   Drain well and place the spaghetti back in the pot.   Drizzle with a couple teaspoons of olive oil, toss, then plate it up with buckets of parmesan cheese, or as desired.

Aquaculture has been around for a few years now and most people are familiar with how it works.

Atlantic salmon are grown in large cages off the shores of Charlotte County in New Brunswick and harvested for the local, regional, national and world markets.   It’s an industry that has humble roots but today accounts for more than $120-million in annual revenue for a number of players in Southwest New Brunswick.   It’s an industry a lot of New Brunswickers have good reason to be proud of.

With that growth came a number of growing pains and challenges, from fighting disease in the farmed fish, particularly in the late 90s, to dealing with environmental concerns with an industry that at a time couldn’t grow fast enough to fill the hungry market for Atlantic salmon.

It’s easy to understand why True North Salmon, the processing, distributing and marketing division of Cooke Aquaculture was so enthusiastic to roll out it’s new Seafood Trust Certified Eco Label Salmon at a lunch dinner in St. Andrews on Wednesday, September 23 at Fairmont Algonquin resort in St. Andrew’s, just a short drive from the company’s home base in Black’s Harbour.

Cooke Aquaculture has a 25-year history in the region and it’s new certification was awarded to True North by Global Trust Certification (www.gtcert.com).

Under its guidelines, salmon are grown in their natural habitat and in their normal growth cycle of about two years.   The farms are carefully situated in areas where currents ensure optimal growing conditions.

“Seafood Trust Certification meets the highest standards for credible certification and eco labeling programs (ISO 65) including the 2008 technical guidelines established by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for aquaculture certification,” the company wrote in its release.

Essentially, getting this certification involved a whole lot more than just filling out some forms.

Cooke Aquaculture CEO Glenn Cooke described the process as nothing less than a “cultural change” throughout the company on its path to work under the strict new guidelines.

Sustainability was the word of the day for this event and it’s a quality in food that an increasing number of consumers want to know about when choosing the food they buy and eat.

It’s a path that you’ll see more companies follow in the future as the public demands it more and more from the products but for now, True North is the leader.   It’s the first company in North America to offer Seafood Trust Certified Eco Label farmed Atlantic Salmon.  I suppose it’s one more thing for New Brunswickers to be proud of.

Executive Chef Ryan Dunne.

Fairmont Algonquin executive chef Ryan Dunne put together a nice little menu to feature the Eco Label salmon for the lunch on Wednesday.   It started with a “Bay of Fundy Smoked Salmon & Porcini Mushroom inside out roll”, pictured above.  It was served with “torched” hollandaise, chili spiced oil and green pea coulis.   A wonderful little appetizer that resembled a sushi roll but featured flavours that worked great with the delicate smoked salmon.

That was followed up by an entree of Maple Marinated Salmon Filet, which was served with roasted fall beet and truffle emulsion and crispy garlic potatoes.  Sounds fancy but was really just a perfectly cooked filet of salmon paired with some classic other savoury flavours that work well with fish.   The salmon was nicely carmelized thanks to the maple marinade but still buttery moist inside.  A true delight.

One of the other media members at my table commented that she couldn’t tell the difference between this salmon and regular salmon to which I replied “you can taste the sustainability!”.

The salmon went over better than my sense of humour.

Pasqualli’s is an “American Italian Restaurant” in a beat up old hotel in Amsterdam, New York, about 60 km west of Albany. We took a little ride around the “city”, population just under 18,000 as of the 2000 census, and it’s a ghost town. It has been for many years, according to a local we spoke to. There are many, many gigantic buildings, old carpet factories among other things, that are now deserted. The whole place looks horribly rundown and many businesses are boarded up. This all happened years ago when the economy in the U.S. was doing just fine. Then the recession hit…..ouch.

So after checking on the Internet for restaurants that were not chain crap, we decided on Pasqualli’s. We walk in…..and there’s not a soul to be seen…not even an employee. We walk around the place, really tired old building that’s definitely seen better days and seats a good 100 easily, wondering what we should do. We can’t eat here, can we? Is there even anyone here? Did they leave the door open by mistake? Suddenly, a woman pops out from the bar attached to the restaurant which we become aware of at the same time. There’s three people in the small bar. “Welcome, would you like a booth?” she says, and we plop ourselves down. She quickly grabs a couple of menus for us and then says, “first, I have to explain a few things to you.” Oh boy….

“There’s no steak, there’s no clams, there’s an entire section on pizza but there’s no pizza, there’s no pork chop, no veal, no strip loin,” she says.

“is there pasta?” we ask. “Yes, there is pasta,” she says with a laugh. Like Pasqualli’s wouldn’t have pasta. Ha. Um. Ha.

Lisa orders the ravioli and I order the angel hair pasta with meatballs. Each order comes with a side salad. I also order a Saranac Imperial IPA, a local microbrew that they have on tap.

The beer was very good. We’re off to a good start – a good hoppy dark ale that I’d say is similar to Pumphouse S.O.B. Really nice. The salads come and despite the fact that the place could not be more empty, the greens, onions, cucumber and cherry tomatoes that make up this simple plate are all really crunchy fresh and delicious. Then come the pastas. A huge plate of pasta with deep red tomato sauce and meatballs for me, a pleasantly arranged plate of ravioli with tomato sauce for Lisa. Alexandra would get a bit of both of our plates. Both pastas were sublime. Perfectly cooked and we’re pretty sure the ravioli, stuffed with ricotta cheese, was handmade. None of the meal had any indication of factory-produced stuff at all. Even the tomato sauce was a really pronounced tomato flavour with none of the synthetic saltiness you’d get from a canned sauce. This was simply some fantastic food made with pride in a town that sadly had very little left.

The final bill, which included a gin and tonic, two beers, both fantastic pastas, salads and a bowl of bread with butter came to $30.89.

Our server happily pointed out that she took 10 per cent off our bill because we were staying at the hotel. I quickly corrected her by saying we were not staying at the hotel where this restaurant was, but rather at a hotel on the other side of the Interstate.

“You’re staying at ‘A’ hotel,” she says. “You’ll get 10 per cent off.”