12
foods Canada has given the world
1.Butter
Tarts 7.Tourtiere
2.Beaver
Tails 8. Saskatoon berry pie
3.Nanaimo
bars 9,McCains's french fries
4.Fish
and Brewis 10.Maple Syrup
5.Figgy
Duff 11.Split pea soup
6.Canadian
Bacon 12. Poutine
1.Butter
tarts:
It’s true! Butter tarts are Canadian through and through. In
fact, these crumbly, almost shortbread-like pastry shells—oozing
with butter, sugar, syrup (maple ) and eggs—date back to the
early 1600s,when they provided sweet sustenance for our pioneers.
There’s a great deal of variation today—some bakers add
raisins, nuts of varieties and others pecans
Recipe
Butter
tart filling
( 24 depends on the size of tarts )
225
ml butter
75 ml maple syrup |
| 1 kg brown sugar |
| 10eggs |
| 25 ml Vanilla
|
15
ml vinegar
Pinch salt
|
Mix
at low speed for about 10 to 15 minutes rest for about 15 minutes and
our into unbaked tarts shells
Butter Crust (
24 tarts Shells )
Ingredients
800
mL all-purpose flour
2
ml salt
120
ml cold butter, cubed
120
ml) lard or butter, cubed
1
egg yolk
1
(5 mL) vinegar
Ice
water
1.
Mix same as you would pie crust
2.
Flour, butter and lard when it looks like nuggets blend in the cold
water
3.
Rest for at least 20 minutes before using and making tart shells
Beaver
Tails:
The Ottawa-based company that came up with the idea of hand
stretching pastry shaped like beaver tails, then frying it and
topping it with sweet confections like whipped cream and berries,
has been dishing out their treats since 1980
Recipe
(yield
8)
Ingredients
For
the Dough:
125
ml warm water
5
ml dry yeast
pinch
of sugar
250
ml warm milk
85
ml sugar
7
ml. salt
5
ml vanilla
2
eggs
85
ml oil
11/4
kg unbleached all-purpose flour
oil
for frying
granulated
sugar for dusting
cinnamon
Method
1.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the yeast, warm water and pinch
of sugar. Let stand for a couple of minutes to allow yeast to swell
and dissolve.
2.
Stir in the remaining sugar, milk, vanilla, eggs, oil, salt and most
of flour and mix to make soft dough. Knead for 5-8 minutes (by hand
or with a dough hook), adding flour as needed to form a firm,
smooth, elastic dough. Place into a greased bowl.
3.
Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise in a warm
spot about 30-40 minutes. Gently deflate the dough.
4.Pinch
off a golf ball sized piece of dough and roll it out into an oval.
Let it rest, covered with a tea towel, while you are preparing the
remaining dough.
4.Heat
about 4 18 to 20 cm of oil in heavy dutch oven, wok or deep fryer.
The temperature of the oil should be about 195 C. Test by tossing in
a tiny bit of dough and see if it sizzles and swells immediately. If
it does, the oil temperature is where it should be.
5.Stretch
the ovals into a “tail”, thinning them out and enlarging them as
you do. Add to the hot oil 1 or 2 at a time, depending on your fryer
size (do not crowd).
6.Turn
once to fry until the undersides are deep brown. Lift beaver tails
out with tongs and drain on paper towels.
7.Fill
a large bowl with a 500 ml to 600 ml of white sugar . Toss beaver
tails in a sugar or sugar/ cinnamon mixture, shaking off excess.
Alternately, toss in white sugar, sprinkle a little cinnamon and
then squeeze some fresh lemon juice over it .
8.Other
ideas: Spread with Nutella, Maple butter, Apples mixed with
cinnamon, Cream Cheese Frosting.
Nanaimo
bars:
It’s no wonder these ultra-sweet bars consisting of a chocolate
top layer and a wafer-crumb base, which perfectly sandwiches a
custard-flavoured centre, have fairly contested origins. But since
the late 1950s, Nanaimo bars have become staples at every bake sale,
not only in British Columbia but across the country.
Ingretients recipe
30
m thick make app. 16 squares
125 ml butter, softened
65 ml white sugar
75 ml unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten
375 ml graham cracker crumbs
250 ml flaked coconut
125 ml finely chopped almonds
(optional)
125 ml butter, softened
50 ml heavy cream
30 ml custard powder
500 ml confectioners' sugar
4 ( 28 gr )squares semisweet baking
chocolate
30 gr butter
1.In the top of a double boiler,
combine 125 ml butter, white sugar and cocoa powder. Stir
occasionally until melted and smooth. Beat in the egg, stirring until
thick, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the graham cracker
crumbs, coconut and almonds (if you like). Press into the bottom of
an ungreased 20 x 20 cm pan.
2.For the middle layer, cream together
125 ml butter, heavy cream and custard powder until light and fluffy.
Mix in the confectioners' sugar until smooth. Spread over the bottom
layer in the pan. Chill to set.
3.While
the second layer is chilling, melt the semisweet chocolate and 30 ml
butter together in the microwave or over low heat. Spread over the
chilled bars. Let the chocolate set before cutting into squares.
Fish
and brewis:
The Italians can keep their baccalà, and the Portuguese can have
their bacalhau. Canadians prefer our salt cod to be served along
hard bread, soaked overnight in water and scrunchions fried bits of
salted pork fat, thank you very much. The traditional Newfoundland
dish, which was probably created by sailors who needed good
sustenance out at sea, differs from door to door, but it’s always
certain to fill you up.
Ingredients:
(4 servings)
4
cakes hard bread, broken in pieces
500
gr salt cod, pieces or boned
6
slices salt pork thick
1
med onion, finely chopped
Method
1.In
two separate containers, soak salt fish and hard bread in cold water
for approx 6-8 hours or overnight. In the morning drain and replace
both with cold water.
2.For
the fish; bring to a slow boil and let simmer for approx 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and drain. Skin, bone and flake fish – set-aside.
3.For
the hard bread; in a saucepan, place hard bread and cover with enough
water. Bring to a slow boil and simmer for approx 5 minutes. Remove
from heat and drain. Squeeze out excess water from the hard bread and
mix in flaked fish. Blend well.
4.In
a skillet, low heat, fry salt pork until all fat is extracted. Remove
rendered pork. Add onions and cook until golden brown. Spoon fat and
onions over fish and brewis. Garnish with scrunchions (rendered salt
pork). This meal is excellent with a cup of good steeped tea and
fresh homemade bread with molasses.
Figgy
duff:
There are many variations of this Newfoundland boiled pudding, but
most contain flour, butter, sugar, molasses and raisins, which used
to commonly be referred to as figs on the Rock. So its name fits,
sort of. Coincidentally, figgy duff bears a striking resemblance to
another of the world’s funniest-named sweets, the British spotted
dick.
True Canadian Figgy Duff
Ingredients (Serves
8
)
500 ml flour
125 ml sugar
30 ml baking powder
80 ml melted butter
175 ml milk
10 ml vanilla extract
250 ml raisins
Method
1.Sift together the flour
sugar and baking powder. Add the raisins and toss well.
Add the milk, melted
butter and vanilla.
2.Mix all together with a
wooden spoon just until a soft dough is formed. Put dough into a
pudding steamer or a wet heavy cotton pudding bag, tying the bag with
a piece of butcher string but leaving about an3 cm of slack at the
top to allow the pudding to expand.
3.Boil for approximately
1½ hours. This is most often done in the pot with the boiled root
vegetables, cabbage and salt beef included in a Jiggs Dinner but can
be done in a pot on its own as well.
Note: you can substitute
the sugar for 125 ml molasses and adjust the milk accordingly to form
the proper consistency of the dough. Spices like 5 ml cinnamon and 3
ml allspice can also be added as variations
Traditionally served
with a roast dinner or Jiggs Dinner (or boiled dinner) but also
served as a dessert with a rum butter sauce.
6.Canadian
bacon:
We call it peameal bacon but the rest of the world lovingly refers to
it as Canadian. And here’s the thing: it’s just lean, boneless
pork loin that’s been brined and rolled in finely ground cornmeal
.Once
you find how easy it is to make Canadian Back Bacon home, you’ll
never buy supermarket Canadian bacon again. Some of the brine can be
injected into the meat at 4 or 5 places, if desired. Enjoy slices
cooked on the grill (that’s the traditional Canadian way), griddled
or cooked in a frying pan.
1 to 2 kg pork
loin, trimmed but leaving a bit fat cap
For
the Brine:
1 liter water
250 ml real
maple syrup
250 ml salt
75 ml brown sugar
50 ml Cure salt
45 ml slightly
crushed peppercorns
5 cloves garlic,
crushed slightly
4 bay leaves
For
the coating:
Coarse ground
cornmeal
Trim
any visible silver skin off the pork loin, and trim any excess fat on
it down to about a 1 to 1 ½ cm layer. If the pork loin is really
long, cut it in half.
Brine
by combining the water and remaining ingredients (except for the
cornmeal) together in a medium pot. Place over medium heat and whisk
until salts and brown sugar are dissolved. Allow to cool.
Place
a
plastic bag in a tall container. Place the loin pieces in the bag,
standing them on end, if you can. Pour the cold brine over the meat
to cover. If needed, add cold water to the brine to ensure the pork
loin is immersed.
Pressing
out as much air as possible, zip-seal the bag. If the meat wants to
rise, weight it down. The meat must be fully immersed in the brine.
Refrigerate,pot
and all, for 4 to 5 days, depending on the thickness of the loin.
Remove the pork loin from the brine and rinse, then pat dry. Roll the
meat in a dish of cornmeal, pressing it in until a nice, even layer
sticks.
To
make
slicing easiest, wrap the peameal bacon in plastic wrap or aluminum
foil, then put it in the freezer until firm, but not frozen, about 1
hour. Return the bacon to a board and slice to whatever thickness you
prefer.
Refrigerate
the
bacon until ready to cut and serve, or freeze .
To
cook:Snip
the fat in a few places so the bacon doesn’t curl, then pan-fry in
a heated skillet along with a little oil, just a few minutes a side.
You know when it’s ready when the fat is brown and sizzling, and
the meat is pink.
Tourtière:
This traditional Québécois double-crusted meat pie may be
traditionally served at Christmas, but there’s a good chance
French Canadians eat it all year long. While they can be packed with
a combination of pork, veal and beef,
French
Canadian Tourtiere
(22
x 4 or 23 x 4 cm pie plate)
Ingredients
350
gr lean ground pork
350
gr lean ground beef
1
medium onion small diced
2
garlic cloves minced
150
ml. water
8
ml. salt
3
ml. thyme
2
ml. sage
2
ml. ground black pepper
1
ml. ground cloves
Pie
crust recipe to follow
Method
1.
Preheat oven to 220 C.
2.
In a saucepan, combine pork, beef, garlic, water, salt, thyme, sage,
black pepper and cloves.
3.
Cook over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil, stirring
occasionally.
4.
Reduce heat to a low simmer until meat is cooked 5 minutes or so.
5.Spoon
the meat into the pie crust. Place top crust on top and pinch the
edges to seal. Cut top crust so steam can escape.
6.For
better result cover top of pie with aluminum foil for about 10
minutes then remove foil and finish cooking for about 20 to 25
minutes until golden brown... When cooked let stand for about 10
minutes before serving. Serve with rich brown sauce Gravy
Short
Pastry Crust
Ingredient
600
ml. all-purpose flour
2
ml. salt
150
ml. butter cubed
150
ml. lard cubed
80
to 100 ml cold water
1
lemon juice
Method
1.
In a food processor, combine the flour and salt .Add the butter and
lard and pulse for a few seconds at a time until mixture is the size
of peas.
2.Add
the 90 % of the water ,lemon juice and pulse again until the dough
is right to form add more water if need be or until ready to form
.Remove the dough from the food processor and rest for about 10 to 15
minutes
3.
Form 2 discs one for top and one for bottom of pie
Saskatoon
berry pie:
Many a prairie native has childhood memories of filling pails with
these sweet, fleshy-fruited berries to fill double-crusted golden
pies. And even though the shrubs that bear them are grown from
western Ontario to British Columbia and the Yukon, they’re
especially dear to the people who live in the city that shares the
berry’s name.
OLD FASHIONED, TRADITIONAL
SASKATOON PIE
A scrumptious, easy and traditional
Saskatoon pie recipe
Serves:6
INGREDIENTS
1 liter of Saskatoon berries
(sometimes called pigeon berry or even service berry )
125 ml of white sugar
5 ml white sugar
3 ml cornstarch
pie crust for one 9 inch pie
1 egg for brushing the top
15 ml of lemon zest
Method
1.Gently toss together your Saskatoons
berries, sugar and cornstarch,until the berries are coated.
Place your bottom crust into the pie
plate.
2.Pour your berries into the pie plate.
Add butter on top if desired.
Cover with your crust.
3.Brush your pie crust with the egg
then sprinkle the sugar on top.
Pinch the seams together and mark your
pie vents as you like.
4.Using the lowest rack of your oven,
bake temperature to 190 degrees and bake for about 50-55 min or more
Remove from the oven and cool on a
baking rack.
Pie crust to follow:
Butter Flaky Pie
Crust
700 gr all-purpose
flour
3 ml salt salt
300 ml butter,
chilled and diced
150 ml ice water
1.In a large bowl,
combine flour and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse
crumbs. Stir in water, a bit at a time, until mixture forms a ball.
Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.
2.Roll dough out to
fit a pie plate. Place crust in pie plate. Press the dough evenly
into the bottom and sides of the pie plate.Fill with mixture and
place a top and egg wash
McCain’s
french fries:
We may not have invented the humble french fry, but Canadian-owned
and operated McCain’s has been making frites for more than 50
years. At last count the company, the world’s largest producer of
french fries, was dishing out more than 20 products.
McCain’s
french fries:
We may not have invented the humble french fry, but Canadian-owned
and operated McCain’s has been making fries for more than 50 years
Founders
of McCain Foods, Harrison and Wallace McCain were the sons of Andrew
McCain, known as A.D. - a third generation farmer who turned to
potato and seed exporting in the early 1900s. It was A.D. who founded
McCain Produce, a seed production business that we still work with
today.
After A.D. passed away in 1953, McCain Produce was run
by his widow and mother of their six children, Laura. Their oldest
sons, Andrew and Robert (Bob), worked for Laura and Andrew went on to
become president of the produce business.
Harrison and Wallace
had already decided in their early 20s that they would go into
business together, but they were yet to find their business venture.
After three years of searching and not quite finding the right
opportunity, it was their elder brother Bob who suggested the frozen
food business. Harrison and Wallace had no knowledge of the frozen
food industry, an industry that at the time was in its infancy, but
the brothers did know that their father's Canadian-grown potatoes
were exported to Maine where they were then processed as fries and
frozen - so why not process and freeze Canadian potatoes in
Canada?
The more the brothers learned about the frozen food
industry, the more interested they became. They liked the thought of
being innovators in a new era of food processing - and it seems like
the right idea at the right time. Harrison said it seemed natural and
that he and his brothers would earn their livings in the potato
business, "Our father was a potato dealer and a farmer. Our
grandfather was a farmer. Our great-grandfather was a farmer" –
and it was he who started growing potatoes. And from there, McCain
Foods was born.
Maple
syrup:
Canada produces a whopping 85 % of the world’s syrup .Gilbertson
Maple Syrup Producers of Joseph Islands Ontario Canada producer is
one of the largest maple syrup producer in the world
A
History of Maple syrup
No
one is really sure just how long people have been practicing the art
and science of making this wonderful product from the sap of a tree.
However, there are two basic schools of thought about the origin of
maple syrup.
The first group identifies with Canadians legend
and lore that maple syrup and maple sugar was being made before
recorded history. Canadians were the first to discover
'sinzibuckwud', the Algonquin word for maple syrup, meaning literally
'drawn from wood'.
The Native were the first to recognize the
sap as a source of energy and nutrition. They would use their
tomahawks to make V-shaped incisions in the trees. Then, they would
insert reeds or concave pieces of bark to run the sap into buckets
made from birch bark. Due to the lack of proper equipment, the sap
was slightly concentrated either by throwing hot stones in the
bucket, or by leaving it overnight and disposing with the layer of
ice out which had formed on top. It was drunk as a sweet drink or
used in cooking. It is possible that maple-cured bacon began with
this process.
Before the advent of Europeans, the Natives used
clay pots to boil maple sap over simple fires protected only by a
roof of tree branches. This was the first version of the sugar shack.
Over the years, this evolved to the point where the sugar shack is
not only a place where maple syrup is produced, but also a gathering
place where a traditional meal can be enjoyed.
However, some
historians maintain that the Natives did not have the technology or
tools to perform the necessary boiling of sap to make either product
let alone both.
The first white settlers and fur traders
introduced wooden buckets to the process, as well as iron and copper
kettles. In the early days of colonization, it was the Natives who
showed French settlers how to tap the trunk of a tree at the outset
of spring, harvest the sap and boil it to evaporate some of the
water. This custom quickly became an integral part of colony life and
during the 17th and 18th centuries, syrup was a major source of high
quality pure sugar. Later, however, they would learn to bore holes in
the trees and hang their buckets on home-made spouts.
Maple
Sugar production was especially important due to the fact that other
types of sugar were hard to find and expensive. It was as common on
the table as salt is today.
Even if production methods have
been streamlined since colonial days, they remain basically the same.
The sap must first be collected and distilled carefully so that you
get the same totally natural, totally pure syrup without any chemical
agents or preservatives.
Early maple syrup was made by boiling
40 gallons of sap over an open fire until you had one gallon of
syrup. This was both time consuming and labor intensive, especially
considering that the sap needed to be hauled to the fire in the first
place.
The process underwent little change over the first two
hundred years of recorded maple making. However, Mid 1850's, the tin
can was invented. The tin can was made of sheet metal. It didn’t
take syrup makers long to realize that a large flat sheet metal pan
was more efficient for boiling than a heavy rounded iron kettle which
let much of the heat slide past.
Virtually all syrup makers in
the past were self sufficient dairy farmers who made syrup and sugar
during the off season of the farm for their own use and for extra
income. These farmers were, and continue to be, folks who look at a
process and say to themselves, 'There has to be a faster, more
efficient, easier way to do this.' Then, in approximately 1864, a
Canadian borrowed some design ideas from sorghum evaporators and put
a series of baffles in the flat pans to channel the boiling sap. The
ideas continued to flow. In 1872 a Vermonter developed an evaporator
with two pans and a metal arch or firebox which greatly decreased
boiling time. Seventeen years later, in 1889, another Canadian bent
the tin that formed the bottom of a pan into a series of flues which
increased the heated surface area of the pan and again decreased
boiling time.
For the most part technology stayed at this
point for almost another century, until the 1960’s, when it was no
longer a self sufficient enterprise with large families as farm
hands. Because syrup making is so labuor intensive a farmer could no
longer afford to hire the large crew it would take to gather all the
buckets and haul the sap to the evaporator house. During the energy
crunch of the 1970’s, syrup makers responded with another surge of
technological breakthroughs. Tubing systems, which had been
experimented with since the early part of the century, were perfected
and the sap came directly from the tree to the evaporator house.
Vacuum pumps were added to the tubing systems. Pre-heaters were
developed to "recycle" heat lost in the steam.
Reverse-osmosis filters were developed to take a portion of water out
of the sap before it was boiled. Several producers even obtained
surplus desalinization machines from the U.S. Navy and used them to
take a portion of water out of the sap prior to boiling. In fact, one
is still in use by a producer South-East of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Split
pea soup:
This Québécois, rib-sticking delight with a base of dried yellow
split peas and a ham bone, or smoked ham hock, is probably our
best-known food export.
A
French-Canadian staple, pea soup can be eaten as a full meal
or
as a side dish. Most often, however, it is eaten as lunch dinner
on
weekends, especially in Newfoundland. Newfoundland’s pea soup
can
consist of peas, turnips, and carrots, whereas Quebec’s pea
soup
is simpler, usually made of just yellow peas and pork. Adding
dough
boys, a dumpling made of flour, water and baking powder is
common
in Newfoundland.
Canadian
Yellow Split Pea Soup with Ham (
Serves
6 )
600
ml yellow split peas
1 ham bone with some meat
4 carrots, diced
1/2
large Spanish onion, diced
5 stalks celery, diced
10 ml
dried thyme
1 bay
leaf (optional)
10 ml
kosher salt
1
pinch ground black pepper, or to taste
2 Lt
vegetable stock or as needed
1.Place split peas, ham bone,
carrots, onion, celery, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper into a
large pot; pour in water.
2.Bring mixture to a boil and
skim off any foam with a spoon. Reduce heat; place a lid on the pot
slightly ajar to allow some evaporation.
3.Simmer, stirring occasionally,
until peas are tender and soup is thick, about 3 hours.
4.Remove
ham bone from soup; strip meat from ham bone, chop meat, and return
it to the pot.
5.Cook
for a few minutes and serve
Poutine
,
originating in the province of Quebec, made with French and cheese
curds topped with a light brown gravy This fast food dish is
typically found across Canada and in some places in the northern U
S., less often elsewhere and is still considered 'exotic' in such
places.In Canada, it is sold in small ( sometimes called greasy
spoon) type diners and pubs , as well as by roadside chip wagons
and in hockey arenas,
also
sell mass-market poutine in Canada .
True Canadian Poutine
( serves 4 )
1 liter vegetable oil for frying
300 gr gravy (rich beef )
1 kg potatoes cut into french fries
250 gr cheese curds
1.Heat oil in a deep fryer or deep heavy skillet to 185
degrees C. While the oil is heating, you can
b begin to warm your gravy.
Place (dry not wet ) the fries into the hot oil, and cook until
light brown, about 5 minutes. Make the fries in batches if necessary
to allow them room to move a little in the oil. Remove to a paper
towel lined plate to drain.
Place the fries on a serving platter, and sprinkle the cheese over
them. Ladle gravy over the fries and cheese, and serve immediately.
