There’s nothing like the thrill of an Asian food find for an eater like me. Especially when the food is found in Victoria. In the rain. On Yelp. When we least expected it.
FOO Asian Street Food (769 Yates Street) is not a fancy place. Like many of its Vancouver Island brethren, this funky hole-in-the-wall demands lining up before you can order and snag a seat. At FOO the seating is slim: no more than a dozen stools line the perimeter of the order/waiting area.
Emma and I dashed in from out of the rain and were instantly slammed (in a pleasant, food-lover’s-way) by the smell of the place. The air was thick with stir-fried oil, Thai basil, chillies, toasted seaweed and Jasmine rice. FOO’S menu, along with daily specials, were in big print on the blackboard. Reading it was veritable candy to my Asian-cuisine-starved eyes: curries, noodles, stir-fries, dahls, sweet and sour soups, and crazy specials like poutine with Szechuan peppercorn gravy or fries done up Togarishi-style with spicy house furikake and fermented chili mayo.
Better still, the woman at the cash taking our order was mean. She had an edgy, crowded city attitude that delights masochistic and hungry metropolitans like me.
We ordered hot fried bread and chutney to whet our appetites along with two local brews: a can of Fat Tug (Driftwood IPA) and a tall bottle of Hoyt Pilsner. 
Because our stools were squished near the cash counter, I leaned over, smiled senior-sweetly and asked the Cash Lady if the fried bread contained chickpea flour.
She could barely contain her disgust.
“Chickpea flour?!” she scoffed. “We’d never do that, ever.” Then she guffawed.
Okay, maybe I should have guessed turmeric. I know they secretly tuck something into these professionally deep-fried triangles of golden-hued, super moist bread. Each bite took the edge off our hunger.
Next up, seared morsels of rare, albacore tuna were spread out like a deck of cards over a tangle of cold soba noodles and cucumber ribbons bathed in a sesame-miso vinaigrette. Pad Thai was ratcheted up a notch with charred scallions instead of plain old green onions. But it was the Curried Noodle Stir-Fry that stole my foodie heart, with morsels of cha siu bbq pork, succulent shrimp and truly al dente Shanghai noodles. 
I lied. It was the Sweet and Sour Pork Belly with tamarind glaze served with spicy green beans that stole all our hearts. Each one of these pork mouthfuls had us groaning, its flavourful fat such a yummy counterpoint to the salty pork.
Just below the blackboards manning the open kitchen, two young chefs in black T-shirts slammed, shook, tossed and sautéed non-stop. Working eight unrelenting gas burners on super high, each like a blow-torch, these guys have no time for comments or questions from Plebeians like sweet, little old me. I watched them ladle in sauces, drop in handfuls of noodles, sprinkle fistfuls of shrimp, pork or tofu and slide steaming contents into one big white bowl after another. It was an endless stream of expert deliciousness overseen by the Cash Lady managing both the line-up and take-out call ins.
“You can pick up in an hour,” she told one caller, “Want it sooner? Try McDonalds.”
Luckily, we experienced no wait. We were at the front of the line both visits and food arrived swiftly. After the first FOO visit, we started plotting our return, despite the more than hour drive into Victoria over a mountain pass, no less.
It was the Ground Lamb Curry’s fault. I didn’t tell you, dear reader, about its rich and layered meat sauce, redolent with a dozen spices and so superbly satisfying. The blackboard advertised it as “Indian spiced lamb” but it was so much more than those three words. I swear those line cooks had pulled every flavour out of their toolboxes to create this glistening, gravy infused lamb creation, sweetly offset with green peas, lying on a soft white bed of basmati.
There were four of us all fighting over the Ground Lamb Curry on our second visit. It was a magical flavour equation that I had to recreate in my kitchen.
As every cook will attest, ingredients are 90 per cent of a recipe’s success. I jumped on two packages of frozen, farm-raised ground lamb from the Yesteryear stall at the Duncan Farmers’ Market. Later, I pounced on fresh, very unwrinkled turmeric root at The Community Farm Store, also in Duncan. My spice drawer had recently been supplemented by a happy, inaugural stroll through Sabzi Mandi Supermarket in Nanaimo. The finishing green garnish would be a handful of mint from the burgeoning mass under our willow tree and another, from a clump of cilantro in the raised beds. (Miraculously, cilantro (fresh coriander) self-seeds here on the island.)
And because I am so humble, I attest that the only difference between my Ground Lamb Curry and Foo’s is me. I am the final 10 per cent of this recipe’s success.
Herd Road Ground Lamb Curry with Peas and Mint
This is the same and different from Foo Asian Street Food’s ground lamb curry.
2 cooking onions, quartered
6 garlic cloves
2 inches ginger
2 inches turmeric
Peel and chop onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric. Whirl into a paste in a food processor, adding ¼ – ½ cup water.
In large frying pan, heat two tablespoons oil and saute onion paste until golden, about 3 minutes.
In a small mortar and pestle, crush:
1 hot dried pepper
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
½ tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp black peppercorns
1 ½ tsp coarse sea salt
Add to onion mixture and saute 1-2 minutes.
Add:
4 tbsp tomato paste
½ cup coconut milk
Bring to a boil and simmer gently for a few minutes.
Add
2 lbs ground lamb
3 tsp garam masala
Cook on medium heat until lamb is brown. Add 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and simmer on extreme low for 20 minutes
Add:
1 ½ cups frozen peas
2-4 small fresh green hot peppers
2 tsp anardhana (dried pomegranate) * optional
1 tbsp lemon juice
¼ cup chopped fresh mint leaves
¼ cup chopped fresh coriander
Simmer until peas are tender. Serve on steamed basmati rice.
Sarah really understands flavours and how to pair them. A former rose horticulturist with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, this woman knows and loves blossoms, buds, roots, seeds and fruits. She bakes like a true artist and luckily for us, she’s written down all of her highly novel, well-tested creations. Who would have thought to make popovers with spring chives and dandelions? Or pair cocoa-spiced pork with rhubarb in a pot pie?
Full disclosure: I have a thing for amaretti. They are classic among Italian sweets and like most classic things, vary wildly from cook to cook, region to region. I’d made it my calling to sample them all, be it fresh from a bakery or ripped out of a supermarket package. Yet all the recipes I’d baked were abysmal. I was resigned to never finding my dream amaretti recipe until that fateful day in Rocca’s kitchen.
Rocca delivered it the next day in a text, taking a photo of Lucy’s typewritten recipe. It was short and sweet. Only five lines of ingredients and a very brief sentence of instruction below. The title read “Almond Cookies.”
“Oh, throw in a teaspoon of baking powder,” said Rocca flippantly. Were these Puglian sisters in collusion?! What other ingredients were somehow missing in this recipe meant for mangiacake me?
“Be careful,” said Rocca, relieving my paranoia slightly. “The almond flour is not cheap. I was so shocked the first time I bought it: Fourteen dollars! And don’t buy blanched flour. Whole almond flour tastes best.”
As to the cocoa powder, the taste is negligible. The cookie batter is dark but bakes out into a light brown cookie. This single teaspoon seems to counter that entire bottle of extract.
Truth be told, my problem was the eggs. I really didn’t like them plain. If I’d practiced with a bowlful of very frothy, very beaten eggs, and had let them slide into a buttery, perfectly heated cast iron pan, they might have had a chance. They just needed time and singularity, so their eggy selves could focus on setting rather than accommodating all those interlopers.
So I moved over to poaching. Again, I was saved by a gizmo. This time it was my grandmother Nonnie’s poaching pan, a lovely deep, copper bottom saucepan fitted with a rack in which four egg saucers nestle inside. One fills the pan with water, covers with the egg rack and follows with a lid. Once the water comes to a boil, the hot little saucers are ready to be buttered and loaded with a freshly cracked egg.
for this because it contains lamb-loving turmeric and other warm spices like cinnamon and cloves. This is a curry that must include potatoes and I was happy to toss in three different organic varieties, starring a dark, red-skinned beauty with deep purple flesh. Lots of green herbs should swim through every Thai curry. I always keep a stash of lime leaves in my freezer and wished I had fresh Thai basil to toss in, too. I improvised with half a frozen cube of homemade basil pesto and was happy with the results.
layer of parchment paper tucked over the curry before it is lidded. The parchment paper layer prevents any drop of fragrant moisture from leaving this slow-cooked beauty. Just before serving, I brighten these heavy flavours with tamarind paste, fresh mint and coriander. Cooking time varies depending on the cut of lamb and whether it contains bones or not. Don’t stop braising until the meat is fork tender. Enjoy!
Dutch ovens or Lodge Pan combo cookers: When Jim Lahey of Sullivan St Bakery published his 
Bannetons and baker’s linen: Artisanal bread dough is risen in baskets to preserve the shape and to create a pretty swirling flour pattern on the finished crust. You plunk the shaped loaf in bottom-side-up, let it rise, then place a parchment-paper-lined paddle or rimless baking sheet over it and flip the loaf back over, right side up. I dust my bannetons liberally with rice flour which prevents sticking and also creates nice, white contrasting lines on the finished crust. I never wash my bannetons, because moisture encourages mildew. I use a natural bristle brush to clean the bannetons and store them in a dry, airy cupboard. Round bannetons should be no wider than eight to nine inches in diameter or your loaf will be too big for the combo cooker. Another option is baker’s linen liners that can be fit over medium sized bowls.
Razor blades and lamés: Just before your risen dough goes into the oven, it is time to score. A score allows hot air to emit during the bake without tearing open the crust. Bakers traditionally scored loaves in distinct patterns but nowadays it has become an art. The angle and depth of a score will affect the final shape of the loaf. I like to hold a slightly curved sharp blade between my thumb and index finger but others like to use a handle for the razor called a lamé. A sharp, serrated knife can do the trick, too.
Digital scale: I cannot bake without a scale, I am so used to weighing versus measuring flour, starter and water. You need a scale that can “tare” back to zero so that you can put an empty bowl on the scale, tare to zero, add a pound of flour and tare back to zero, add 8 ounces of water and tare back to zero and so on. Zyliss makes a light, flat scale about the size of an Ipad.
Just three ingredients: Flour, water and salt: Organic flour makes a big difference. I buy unbleached organic hard white flour by the 10 kg bag and am happiest when it is locally milled and has a date stamp to guarantee freshness. Locally grown, freshly milled whole rye, kamut, spelt and red fife all make incredible sourdough bread.
Salt. Avoid iodized salt and choose sea salt. I like the big bags of coarse grey French salt from Ile de Noirmoutier that I found at Thrifty’s.
So very British of them, I thought in disdain, but their marmalade reverie was so very infectious, slipping deep into my flavour brain.
Here they were, half-ripened in my dark, unfinished basement and I could not ignore them. Nor could I forget that bag of organic lemons I’d bought recently…
I had three and a half pounds of SunGolds the size of marbles. They looked so dainty and pretty as they tumbled into the pot alongside cups of sliced lemons. I cranked the gas up high. In just a minute, liquid started to form in the base. After a short, five minutes the mixture was sloshing about. I dumped in the organic sugar and all that fruity sweetness shimmered to a gloss.
I ventured into this recipe carrying the baggage of a failed gel-maker. After the first ten minutes, I pulled out the Pomona’s Universal Pectin. I even filled a small bowl with sugar, ready to mix with the pectin powder to prevent that nasty clumping and frothing. I started to calculate, figuring this batch would need four teaspoons each of Pomona’s calcium water and pectin.
Tony and I were on a first name basis ever since I interviewed him for a newspaper column and he revealed that his Rosedale customers didn’t really care about price (!) All they wanted, he claimed, were tidy piles of the best looking bounty from every corner of the globe.
Did I know? 
Now who was I kidding? Both me and my saner-self had seen the timer. It was just 30 minutes into the one-hour bake. One jiggle of the pie sent yellow, eggy waves a coursing. Dinner for eight was doomed. If the quiche didn’t stay in the oven, despite the smoke and my concurrent mania, I’d have nothing to show for.
Despite better judgement, I continued to bake and smoke and bake, making a frenzied relay from front door to back, swinging doors madly until I saw The Flames.
The guests arrived 10 minutes later. The table wasn’t set. The salad and its dressing had to be made. The kitchen was a disaster zone: dishes, food, crumbs everywhere, not to mention the air drenched in smoke. I needed a valium but found a glass of wine instead.
But back to the muffin. The Mars muffin. It was big, filling and dotted with plump, fat raisins. They were served hot from the oven, sliced in half with a large pat of cold butter wedged inside and fully melted in seconds. Diners, breakfast eggs, take-out baklava and percolated coffee played large in my coming of culinary age. These gigantic muffins were new to diners in the 70s and customers would line up in front of the cash register hoping to leave with half a dozen of these towering –no, glistening – babies stuffed inside a Mars embossed, white cardboard box.
But back to the muffins. I made some today in my West coast kitchen as the rain pelted across a gray, foggy horizon in a day-long deluge. I searched through my baking boxes and pulled out a bag of wheat bran, which now looks oddly old school next to newer fibrous fads like chia, flax or hemp. I found some spelt which adds such friendly nuttiness to any baking equation.
1 lb ground lamb or beef
But that night, after the guests departed and a very full dishwasher rumbled in the kitchen below, I lay sleepless, fearing Donna had left my precious offspring in the trunk of her car, or indoors in a smelly closet, or amid cobwebs in an attic storage room.
What Donna should do next is enough to fill a book. I’ve been kneading and mixing and pulling lovely mounds of dough for almost two decades and am still transfixed by the mystery of it all.
After each feed, Donna will get to know her starter better and better. She’ll know how many surface bubbles appear, how high it can rise and that critical moment just before it drops and deflates. After one to three days of consecutive feeding, she will watch her starter grow to its fullest potential within 8 hours. Now it’s ready to use.
