I’m waiting for the vaccination campaign to go fast and the Spring time to go further and, in the meantime, I keep spending my free time at the cooker!
Canadian cuisine is rather the expression of French influence and Anglo-Saxon culture that come together in very tasty and appetizing dishes. Here are some Canadian recipes to be made using some typical products such as maple syrup, salmon and wild rice.
I always try preparing a dish that combines sweet and savoury ingredients for a triumph of taste and also because this combination is very much different from anything we have in our national cuisine back in Italy.
A favourite of mine? Pork in maple syrup sauce! It is a second course and it is very easy to prepare. You just need to marinate the meat and cook it on a hot plate or on the grill.
Or if you have pork chops you can just add the maple syrup to the gravy you have made like below ****
Also the typical cured meat dish from Calgary, the Calgary Beef Hash, usually accompanied by beans and barbecue sauce, is a must try.
To accompany these main courses of meat, there is nothing better than a typical recipe like that of poutine which I had already talked about in a previous blog, basically fries with curd cheese and gravy.
Among the Canadian staple foods I cannot fail to mention is the Thousand island sauce, also known overseas in the old continent. The sauce takes its name from the archipelago of the same name in Lake Ontario, on the border with the United States.
This sauce is very popular also in the United Kingdom and that’s why I was familiar with this one before moving here as I used to use it to dress my salads back when I used to live in Scotland.
The Thousand Island sauce is made from mayonnaise enriched with many other tasty ingredients, and is used to dress salads but it is also excellent for sandwiches or to accompany fish or fried meats.
Other than the desserts I have already spoken about in my previous blogs, I have recently tried making a new one with a recipe I found in a magazine and it was delicious!
I can just tell you it’s a maple syrup mousse, very easy to prepare even in the layered variant for a more elegant presentation.
Basically it’s a mousse with a white cream base and with maple syrup added to it. Based on the concentration of maple syrup you add to it the colour of the mousse changes and so does its consistency…once you put the mousse in a glass the layered effect with the different nuances of brown will look very cool!
But I don’t have the copyrights to give you a recipe I have found on a magazine so here below I’m leaving you instead my housemate’s recipe for his version of his Thousand Island sauce instead. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
250 g of mayonnaise
80 g of ketchup
1 shelled hard-boiled egg
a small white onion
1 tablespoon of black olives
1 tablespoon of jalapeño peppers
1 clove of peeled garlic
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
1 teaspoon of Worcester sauce
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
It’s super easy!
Just put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend them until smooth.
Try this sauce with French fries, meats, fish burgers like below***, in sandwiches, etc.
