We don’t pretend to fully understand all the technical details, but the latest issue of Scientific Reports (a division of Nature) includes a somewhat mind-bending study that takes all the recipes from Epicurious, Allrecipes.com and Menupan (a Korean site), and throws them in a blender with a computational model of food chemistry (don’t ask) to arrive at (something like) the fundamental difference between North American cuisine and East Asian cuisine. Whereas North American cooking tends to pair ingredients that share a lot of flavour compounds (like butter and vanilla), Asian cooking tends to do the opposite, pairing ingredients that don’t taste a whole lot like one another (like soy sauce and scallion). Confused? The paper has all sorts of fancy visualizations to explain things. Read the entire story [Scientific Reports] »
The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
All stories relating to recipes
Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from roller skaters to deep-fried taters
Read the rest of this entry »
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from the debt of nations to male gyrations
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from bookshops to protest flops
Read the rest of this entry »
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from an autumn walk to the King of Rock
Read the rest of this entry »
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from Steve Jobs’ fashion to Jesus Christ’s passion
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Hot Fuzz: how to make Grace’s peach-topped gingersnap cheesecake tart
(Image: Edward Pond)
“Grace’s owner, Lesle Gibson, has a family orchard in Newcastle, so I have access to all kinds of wonderful fruit. The recipe will work with plums, too, but peaches are my absolute favourite. They pair so beautifully with the spicy gingersnap crust—it’s the perfect combination of summer and fall flavours.”
—pastry chef Tina Kim
Weekly Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, including centrepieces and budget squeezes
Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family (that’s the company that owns us, by the by). Check them out, after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
A gourmand’s guide to haute dogs for the grill
Innovative butchers are digging up old family recipes and mixing exotic meats with offbeat flavourings
(Image: Christopher Stevenson)
DIY Gourmet: how to make La Palette’s Platonic French onion soup
(Image: Edward Pond)
The secret to La Palette’s peerless French onion soup is chef Brook Kavanagh’s slow-roasted beef bone broth
“French onion soup is a classic for good reason. The ingredients are straightforward and cheap, but if the broth is done right, the result is deeply flavoured and totally comforting. I like to make my stock from organic shank bones for an intense and meaty taste. I started testing out recipes as a 14-year-old working in a butcher shop—I would take bones home with me—and 15 years later, I’m still tinkering as I make four or five batches of the stuff every day.” Read the rest of this entry »
Googling gets more delicious with Recipe View
Continuing its never-ending quest to make searching marginally easier, yesterday Google introduced the pretty awesome Recipe View. Of course, Google is already the go-to resource for amateur chefs looking for the perfect recipe, but this new feature now refines the search to make it even easier, allowing users to narrow results to show only recipes; this means no more searching for dishes and turning up definitions or other non-food-related sites. On top of that, Recipe View can filter search results based on ideal ingredients, cooking time and calorie count. The filter also includes clearly marked ratings and pictures for each recipe.
Read the rest of this entry »
How to make the Queen and Beaver’s New World cobbler
Read the rest of this entry »
“Growing up in Tottington, near Manchester, I came across a meaty cobbler practically every day, whether at home, school or down at the pub. This is one of my favourite seasonal dishes. It has everything: the gamy venison, the smokiness of bacon, the wine, brandy and port, all brought together with bittersweet chocolate and crowned with plump, cheesy scones. For our expat patrons, this is familiar cooking. They take ownership of it, the same way they do with the old English china on our tables. We sometimes hear, ‘My mother needs just this one piece to complete her set,’ at which point we say, ‘It’s yours.’ ”—chef Andrew Carter
How to make Buca’s transcendent eggplant parmigiana
(Photograph by Edward Pond; Illustration by Jack Dylan; )
“Italian food is all about the ingredients. You can’t, for instance, use just any tomato—it’s against the rules. Tomatoes are sacred. Every August, Italian families, mine included, gather to preserve the crop for the year. It’s a serious undertaking—perfect tomatoes are the key to making a perfect sauce. And so I couldn’t put this eggplant parmigiana on Buca’s menu until I’d preserved enough tomatoes for the restaurant. Last spring, I asked my friends John and Barbara Orofino, who live outside of Barrie, to plant 1,000 nova plants (a fleshier, juicier roma hybrid) for me, and they kindly obliged. Here’s what to do.”—Rob Gentile Read the rest of this entry »
Q&A with René Redzepi: the “world’s best chef” leaves Toronto with a good taste in his mouth
René Redzepi in the courtyard of Victoria College, University of Toronto (Image: Taku Kumabe)
René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of the world’s best restaurant (at least according to San Pellegrino’s 2010 rankings), was in Toronto over the weekend to promote his new cookbook, Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine, at the Isabel Bader Theatre. His Copenhagen restaurant, named Noma, has taken the global culinary community by storm despite being a small operation (40 seats) that uses ingredients from the Nordic terroir (98 per cent are foraged from within a 100-kilometre radius). We caught up with the 32-year-old chef as he sipped a double cappuccino from Manic Coffee—he liked it so much that he returned for more before his flight out—to discuss why he hates being labelled “new Nordic,” how the Ontario pawpaw is a revelation, and how Canada and Denmark are really alike.
Read the rest of this entry »
Follow Toronto Life on Twitter, Facebook and via RSS