Chef Shawn

Spinach Ravioli with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Bocconcini, Basil and Prosciutto

2010-01-06T09:23:00.000-05:00

I've been making fresh pasta for a few years now. It takes two or three attempts to get really comfortable with the process, but after that its a breeze. And there is nothing better than fresh pasta - whether its fettucine, lasagne, ravioli or any of the other wide variety of options.

This time I adjusted the quantity of pasta dough as I was just cooking for me and I decided to make green pasta!

At its core, pasta dough is the simplest recipe - flour and water or some other liquid. Many recipes use whole eggs to give the pasta a more silky texture or just egg yolks for a richer taste.

There are all sorts of ingredients you can add to give the pasta colour or design - black pepper, herbs or beet juice for example. The main thing to keep in mind is that if you are adding a wet ingredient (spinach, beet juice), make sure you leave out an equivalent amount of the egg so that the resulting mixture has the same ratio of wet to dry. I replaced a couple of the eggs with blanched and drained fresh spinach to give the pasta a vibrant green hue.

1 3/4 - 2 cups flour (preferably tipo '00' flour which is finer and easier to work with)
1 whole organic egg
5 - 6 oz spinach (blanched for 2 - 3 minutes, well drained and then run through a food processor)

Kneed the dough by hand for 4 or 5 minutes until the dough has a silky, smooth and slightly elastic texture. Wrap it in cling wrap and pop it in the fridge for an hour. After the dough has sat, cut it into fourths, and work with a quarter of the dough at a time.

I typically put it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting four or five times, folding the ends of the pasta sheet into the middle after each attempt. Then, adjust the thickness setting down from 7 to 6, and run the pasta sheet again, repeating this and lowering the setting each time until you've run it through the thinnest 1 setting. Its a smart idea to keep extra flour on the work surface and to dust the pasta sheet regularly so that it remains easy to work with.

Ravioli is easy to make from here because all you need to do is place one sheet on your work surface, add your filling at evenly spaced intervals along the pasta sheet and then cover with another pasta sheet. Make sure that there are no air pockets within the filling, and then cut them into individual raviolis. Because the pasta is fresh, it should only take 3 or 4 minutes in boiling water to cook.

For the filling you can start with something simple like spinach and ricotta or mint and buffalo mozzarella. For this attempt I adapted a Jamie Oliver recipe and used sun-dried tomatoes, bocconcini, basil and parmesan wrapped in a small prosciutto slice.

Pan-Fried Halibut with Black Beans and Chile-Cilantro Salsa

2010-01-03T17:59:00.001-05:00

I was given the Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone cookbook for Christmas and immediately found a number of recipes that I wanted to try out. I'm also a big fan of his Take Home Chef series, on which many of the recipes in this book are based, including this one.

Not only is this easy to make, but its healthy as well and it makes for a great lunch.

Filet de Boeuf Braisé Prince Albert

2010-01-02T10:36:00.001-05:00

This year I decided to go French for my New Year's Eve dinner, channeling an impressive Julia Child recipe on the main course. The full menu was:

A take on Escargot en Brioche
Twice-baked Cheese Soufflés with spinach salad
Julia Child:

Filet de Boeuf Braisé Prince Albert
Broccoli Gratinéed with Cheese Sauce
Glazed Carrots

Espresso Crème Brûlées (I used brewed espresso instead of instant coffee)

I used foie gras that was brought back from a trip to Reims, France.

The filet de boeuf isn't as difficult to make as its intimidating 2 1/2 page recipe (from Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking) lets on, but it does benefit from some preparation ahead of time.

I had some trouble finding truffles but I used white truffle pate instead (which I marinated in madeira per the recipe).

Browning the tenderloin on the stove top.

With the carrot, onion and beef broth.

This was probably the best roast I've ever had - no surprise when you consider that it's a tenderloin stuffed with foie gras and truffles, cooked in booze and beef stock, with bacon on top.

Ceviche Shrimp Bloody Mary Shooters

2009-12-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

I was ambituous, probably overly so, with the menu for this year's Xmas drop-in. In addition to the standard fare, I prepared a number of appetizers and several amuse bouche which were partly of my own creation.

The entire menu consisted of:

Shrimp ceviche Bloody Mary shooters
Spinach artichoke dip
Hot bean dip
Cranberry brie puffs
Tomato orange soup with seared scallop shooters
Spring rolls
Chipotle cornbread bites
Cranberry glazed meatballs
Rosemary-skewered Mediterranean grilled chicken
Seared beef sushi
Lamb & feta cigars
Egg nog fondue

I had an appetizer similar to this at a party in L.A. and wanted to recreate it for my drop-in party. It is really very simple. There are many Bloody Mary recipes online - so choose the one that you like best. For the Bloody Mary mixture I adapted a recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Maze cookbook (the original receipe is actually a Bloody Mary sorbet).

Purée 1 shallot, 1/4 cucumber, 1 small red pepper, 8 ripe tomatoes (cucumber, pepper and tomatoes de-seeded). Strain and add 2 tbsp each of fresh lemon juice and tomato paste, and a couple of shots of vodka and mix thoroughly.

Place your uncooked deveined shrimp in a small Ziploc with enough fresh lime juice to cover and leave them 5-7 minutes so that they cook in the juices. To serve put some of the Bloody Mark mixture in a shot glass, with one shrimp and sprinkle with chopped cilantro. Bottoms up!

Where have all the good sushi gone?

2009-12-16T02:15:00.000-05:00

After an unfortunately long absense from sharing my food experiences I've decided to renew focus by dedicating an entire blog to making great sushi at home. Please check it out here: http://www.sushichefshawn.com/.

The Best Baked Potato Ever

2009-03-07T12:04:00.007-05:00

I made these Jamie Oliver baked potatoes last night to go with a roast leg of lamb. Bacon makes everything taste better. Add anchovy, sage, garlic and lemon zest to the mix and of course the potato is going to have amazing flavour.

These are super easy to make and they taste great. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Take an apple corer to medium sized white waxy potatoes and core all the way through. Save the core for later.

Place the following in each potato: a half slice of raw bacon, a big sage leaf, an anchovy fillet, a couple slices of garlic and a little lemon zest. Use a half inch of the potato core to plug each end.

Coat the potatoes in some olive oil, sprinkle a little sea salt over them and bake for 60 minutes. Anchovies turn many people off, but when you bake them for this long they just disintegrate and add great flavour, so don't leave them out!

Chocolate Cookie Cheesecake

2009-02-28T14:49:00.007-05:00

I've eaten many a cheesecake in my day, but I've never had the opportunity or inspiration to make one myself until now. The catalyst was when I was commissioned to make a dessert for my friend's staff meeting. After a little browsing I came across this chocolate cookie cheesecake recipe.

I always love when something you make for the first time turns out great. Not that cheesecake is a very difficult dessert to make, but it's still rather satisfying.

For the cookies I used Mr. Christie's Chocolate Wafers, and I followed the above recipe fairly closely, with the following exceptions:

I found that I needed more than 2 tbsp of butter to get the crust to a consistency where it would sufficiently stick together. I used two to three times as much.

I used a fresh vanilla bean instead of extract in the cheese mixture, another bean in the sour cream mixture, and a 3rd in the chocolate sauce. It sounds a little over the top, but it adds tremendous flavour. Plus I think that it's great when you see the vanilla spots in a dessert.

Instead of a solid coating of chocolate sauce, I used a sauce bottle to decorate the top, and then added some milk chocolate shavings for a little extra presentation.

Fresh Clearwater Lobster

2009-02-24T18:38:00.008-05:00

I lived in Halifax for 4 years and there's no better place for great, fresh seafood. I was back in town recently for business and took advantage of the Clearwater shop conveniently located in the Halifax airport. Clearwater ships fresh lobsters worldwide, and if you happen to be passing through Halifax they will package a live one up for you. You carry it right on the plane and when you get home you've got fresh lobster for dinner!

The biggest discussion around lobster always seems to involve the most humane way of killing them. I'm a fan of Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver (Naked Chef) and Curtis Stone (Take Home Chef) and watch a lot of their shows. Both Gordon and Jamie advocate the knife-to-the-back-of-the head approach. To pull this off, place the lobster on your cutting board right side up, locate the cross mark toward the back of the head, place the tip of the knife at the intersection and then push down confidently in one motion. They can freak you out a little when they try to waddle away, which is why you have to be quick and confident about it.

The approach Curtis espouses is a little different. Curtis tells you to place the lobster in the freezer for 30 minutes prior to cooking. This apparently puts the lobster into a deep state of sleep so that they aren't totally aware when you place them in a pot of boiling water.

I'm no expert on this by any means, and while I agree the freezing temperature would make one quite sleepy, boiling water is bound to wake you up fast. Execution style seems more violent, but its quick and painless, and it's the approach I prefer to take.

Regardless of how you do the deed, lobster is damn good fresh. This time I parboiled the lobsters, split them in half, removed and coarsely chopped the meat, then mixed the meat with fresh garlic butter. I put the lobster meat and garlic butter mixture back in one half of the lobster and filled the now empty half with the remaining garlic butter and baked for a few minutes in the over. Aside from a fabulous tasting meal, it also makes for some creative presentation.

Fast Food: Spicy Chicken Sandwich

2009-02-01T13:37:00.013-05:00

These days I really do make an effort to cook using quality, fresh ingredients instead of eating out. This is always easier said than done, of course. When I was a little younger I spent my weeks driving and flying most days, which made home cooked meals a challenge. However, since I moved to Ottawa I've acquired a little more stability and established a semblance of routine. Part of that routine is making sure that all meals - not just dinner - are made fresh, and unhealthy fast food is avoided as much as possible.

This spicy chicken sandwich is something I concocted a few months ago as an alternative to boring deli sandwiches, for those days when there is no leftovers from the evening before. It is simple to make, filling, and worth the few minutes of effort that it takes to cook.

Ingredients

Chicken breast

Bacon

Hoagie bun, kaiser or something similar

Spicy seasoning

Cheese

Tomato

Mayonnaise

Equipment

Oven

Cast iron pan

Cookie sheet

Sharp knife

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375°F / 190°C. While the oven is heating up, place a cast iron frying pan on medium heat.

Prepare your chicken breast. Take your knife and cut the breast in half lengthwise. This makes for a thinner cut of meat, which will cook more quickly, and also make for a more appropriate lunch portion. If you get a breast from a full-figured chicken, the split breast will be a perfect size for your sandwich. You can often buy split chicken breasts which are already prepared this way.

Pour a glug of olive oil in the cast iron pan and when the oil is hot place throw in the chicken breast.

Season the top side of the breast with spicy seasoning. I think it is a great idea to always have a few different all-purpose seasonings pre-mixed in the kitchen. For the spicy chicken sandwich I use a variation of Emeril's Essence Creole Seasoning. Use the measurements as a guideline; you can adjust the cayenne up or down based on your tastes.

Fry the chicken breast for a couple of minutes until there is a little colour, then flip the chicken and season the other side as well. Take the cast iron pan and place it in the oven to continue cooking. It should take between 12 - 15 minutes to fully cook depending on the thickness of the cut.

Place another frying pan on medium heat and add two strips of bacon.

To check doneness on the chicken just cut into it with a knife and ensure there is no pink. When cooked, take out of the oven. Turn the oven off and turn on the broiler at the second highest level.

Cut the bun in half and place both halves, cut side up, under the broiler. You want to lightly toast both the top and the bottom of the bun, so that its not soggy when you place the chicken breast on top. When the bun has sufficiently browned, take both halves out of the oven.

Cut the cheese into short, thick slices. You can use any type of cheese you like. In keeping with the spicy theme, I usually favour Jalapeño Monterey Jack. Place the cooked chicken breast on the bottom half of the bun, layer the cheese on top, and put back under the broiler to melt the cheese.

In the meantime spread real Mayonnaise on the top-half of the bun and cut two thick slices of tomato.

When the cheese is melted, take the chicken breast out of the oven, top with the sliced tomato and bacon slices.

This is my version of the Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Eat your heart out Wendy's!

Great African Fusion Meal

2009-01-30T13:27:00.012-05:00

This past weekend I joined good friends for some homemade African food. It is always a privilege to have someone else cook a meal, especially when it is something new, and particularly when it turns out as tasty as this did.

Guest Chef Enid (it is fitting that Enid is "Dine" backwards) created a menu of Beef Stew served on Injera bread as an appetizer, Arctic Char with Sakay seasoning and Toasted Almond Tamarind balls - faithfully executed by Guest Chef Matt - for dessert.

Injera is the Ethiopian bread that you typically get in an African restaurant. It is a flatbread style bread with a spongy consistency, which is torn into pieces and used to grab the salads or stews that are served on top of the bread. This was the most challenging component of the meal to cook. Because of a gluten-free requirement, the Teff flour was mixed with a wheat flour, with some results that were initially crumbly. After 3 or 4 throw-away attempts however, we figured out that by cooking the Injera "pancakes" to a bit of a crisp on one side would help hold the bread together better. From there we were set. The beef stew that was served over the Injera had a great flavour and worked very well as an appetizer for the half-dozen guests.

I call this "African Fushion" because the main course was Arctic Char, which I doubt is found in abundance there. However, the fish was combined with the wonderfully flavourful Sakay - which is a mixture of various spices such as paprika, cayenne, ginger and garlic. The power of the Sakay works very well with a mild fish like the Arctic Char. The result was likely the best cooked fish dish I've ever had. The fish was paired with a mango and vegetable couscous.

For dessert we enjoyed tamarind balls (tamarind paste mixed with a little ginger and lime) with toasted almonds in the middle. A simple, but surprisingly filling end to an amazing dining experience.

The Inauguration - What is President-Elect Barack Obama Having for Lunch Tomorrow?

2009-01-19T20:27:00.014-05:00

Per tradition, the inauguration of a U.S. president happens on January 20th following an election. The Inaugural Luncheon follows the swearing in of the new president and usually features cuisine that reflects the origins and tastes of the incoming head of state.

In a Chef Shawn exclusive (okay, its not really an exclusive, but still pretty interesting) - here is the menu and the recipes for the Inauguration Luncheon for the 44th President of the United States of America:

  - Seafood Stew
    paired with 2007 Duckhorn Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

  - Duck breast with Cherry Chutney

  - Herb Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice Stuffing
    paired with 2005 Goldeneye Pinot Noir

  - Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes

  - Winter Vegetables

  - Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake
     paired with Korbel Natural "Special Inaugural Cuvée" California Champagne

You can find the full recipes and more information about the Inauguration Luncheon here.

Squash Soup with Parmesan Croutons

2009-01-17T18:44:00.013-05:00

I have made this superb Jamie Oliver soup on a few occassions and it has been a crowd pleaser every time. I first tried it at the cottage this summer, but nothing goes better with the bitter winter cold than a warm root vegetable soup.

The soup itself is very easy to make. The fried sage adds great flavour to the vegetables as they are sautéing and makes for a good garnish. This time around I used a half butternut and half buttercup squash, but I've also made the soup with just butternut squash.

My favourite part of the soup is the homemade parmesan croutons. They are so simple to make - just cover the bread slices in grated parmesan and a little olive oil and fry them enough to get a little colour.

Homemade Chicken Stock: Kitchen Staple

2009-01-17T15:06:00.012-05:00

Six months ago I started regularly making my own chicken stock. I love making soups (who doesn't love soup in weather like this?) and I've also been making risotto more regularly as well, so chicken stock has fast become one of my kitchen staples. I can buy beef, chicken, veal or vegetable stock at the Glebe Meat Market but its often late in the evening or Sunday when I find I need it, and the market is closed. Also, stock goes for $3.00 for a 1/2 litre - so if you're going to be using stock often it is definitely worthwhile to make your own.

The ideal opportunity to make chicken stock is when you happen to have a chicken carcass laying around. However, since I don't make roast chicken dinners all the time, I got in the habit of buying a whole chicken instead of individual chicken breasts. I carve out the chicken breasts, which I can wrap up in herbs and prosciutto or coat in Cajun spices for dinner, and then use the rest of the chicken for the stock.

Simple Chicken Stock

You can make very flavourful chicken stock with some very basic ingredients that are likely to be in your kitchen. Put the chicken bones in a stock pot with the following roughly chopped ingredients:

A couple of carrots

A couple of onions

A couple of sticks of celery

A leek

A half dozen garlic cloves, halved

And some seasoning:

15-20 black peppercorns

A bay leaf

A sprig of thyme

Handful of chopped parsley

Fill the stock pot with cold water so that the ingredients are covered, bring to a boil, and then simmer for an hour. You want to add cold water as it causes the fat to rise to the top, allowing for easy skimming as the water heats up. Strain the resulting stock and put it into Ziploc containers for later use. I usually make enough to do me for 3 or 4 dinners, pour the stock into Ziploc bags in pre-measured quantities - 4 cups (risottos) or 8 cups (soups) - and freeze it. When I need some stock I just run the Ziploc bag under hot water for 30 seconds so that the bag comes off easily and then reheat it on the stove.

If you use Ziploc bags to freeze your stock, a useful tip is to put the bags on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they are solid. This way the bags don't freeze in awkward shapes that can make getting them out of the bag, or even out of the freezer, very difficult. I've had to wrestle many a bag of stock from the wire racks in my freezer.

Dark Chicken Stock

I received a couple of Gordon Ramsay cookbooks for Christmas this year. Being a recent convert to the religion of homemade stock, a recipe for dark chicken stock in Kitchen Heaven intrigued me, so I made it this week. In this approach, you roast the chicken bones for 20 minutes at 400°F, which kicks up the flavour and also adds a darker colour. While the bones are roasting, sautee the vegetables, thyme, garlic and bay leaf in olive oil for a few minutes until golden brown. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree and sautee for another 5 minutes. Throw your bones in with the veg, top with cold water, bring to a boil, skim the fat, and simmer for an hour.

For a little extra work, the stock is much richer in colour and sauteeing the veg and herbs brings out even more flavour. Gordon suggests that the darker chicken stock is ideal for French onion soup, but I also found it worked great in the squash soup I whipped up last night.

Chicken Soup with Chirizo

2009-01-13T21:26:00.008-05:00

If you enjoy spicy, Cajun inspired food then you must know Emeril Lagasse. Emeril has starred in multiple cooking shows, published many cookbooks and owns some amazing restaurants. I had the pleasure of dining of his restaurant at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas a number of years ago. Even better, however, he also publishes all of his recipes online at emerils.com in a searchable database.

An extremely simple soup that I've made a number of times is Emeril's Caldo de Pollo with Chirizo, or chicken soup with sausage for the bilingually challenged. You want to make sure you have some chicken stock on hand. I started regularly making my own chicken stock a few months ago and freezing it in small Ziplocs so that I always have some on hand in case I need it for a soup or risotto, but you could use good store bought chicken broth as well.

Soups are great because they usually take very little time and are dirt simple to make, and this soup is no exception. The great flavour of this soup comes from the sautéed sausage, which also provides the only heat in the dish. Chirizo is good and spicy, but if your tastes veer towards the tamer side, you could substitute in a milder smoked sausage. My local market was out of chirizo so I kicked it up a notch with their "hot as heck" sausage.

With the weather dropping to a brisk -37°C / -35°F with windchill tonight, I am really enjoying this soup.

Jamie Oliver's Hunter's Lasagna

2009-01-13T20:24:00.013-05:00

Good friends of mine just had their second child - a baby boy named Jackson Thomas. Congratulations Ruthanne & Shawn! Instead of sending flowers I decided to cook for the first week. I mean, who doesn't love food being dropped off, at the best of times? Add to the mix one toddler, a newborn, and a lack of sleep, and I figured Chef Shawn's "Meals on Wheels" would be a welcome gift.

For the first few meals I decided to make some good comfort food - a hearty beef stew derived from this Curtis Stone recipe that I make regularly, and a lasagna. The lasagna was actually Hunter's Lasagna from Jamie's Italy, an Italian cookbook that I've been going back to more and more lately. Aside: if you combine Curtis Stone (the Take Home Chef) and Jamie Oliver (the Naked Chef) into one meal, do you get the Take Home Naked Chef?

Being a hunter's lasagna, the recipe called for whatever game you happened to have on hand - rabbit, duck, squab, quail. So I sent my trusty Chocolate Labrador Retrievers outside to see what they could find. They came back with with a chewed up marrow bone and a chunk of ice, so I decided that I'd make the lasagna with chicken this time around.

It's not the quickest of meals to assemble, but I'm hoping the work was worth it. The chicken is first roasted, shredded and then added to the simmering tomato sauce with garlic, rosemary and bay leaves. The white sauce is a Mornay sauce (milk, flour, butter and grated Parmesan) flavoured with onion, parsley, peppercorns and nutmeg. The alternating red and white sauces are layered between fresh pasta sheets. And in final dash of decadance the entire assembly is topped with torn fresh buffalo mozzarela and sage leaves.

Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to taste the final product; the photo at the top of this post is all I have to remember it by. It made for a great drop-off dish as you can finish the lasagna to the point where it is all assembled, package it up and deliver. On the other end you pop it into the oven for the final 45 minutes of baking and perhaps a few minutes on broil to brown the cheeses.

Vegetable samosas

2009-01-10T22:42:00.018-05:00

This year my friends and I celebrated the start of 2009 with a proper Indian feast. Indian is a cuisine that I haven't dabbled in much in the past, but I'm always up for a challenge. I'm not known for eating early and New Year's Eve is the ideal night to try something new as its pretty much assumed that your guests are in it for the long haul.

Our New Year's Eve dinner consisted of a number of Indian dishes:

Vegetable samosas

Lentil soup

Butter chicken

Lamb curry

Vegetable korma

Rice with spices, raisins and pistachios

The pièce de résistance, in my opinion, were the samosas, and they are surprising easy to make from scratch. The filling was simple - in this case sautéed diced vegetables - with traditional Indian spices such as curry powder, coriander, tumeric, mustard seed and a little chili. The pastry was flour, water, ghee and a little lemon juice - which I rolled out with a wine bottle (unlike a rolling pin, there always seems to be one of those on hand).

The best thing was that I could make them in the afternoon and store them in a Ziploc with a damp towel, frying them for a few minutes in hot oil after the guests had arrived. The result was a crispy, tasty app, and not overly doughy like the ones you get from the local grocery store.

New Year's Flashback

2009-01-10T13:58:00.018-05:00

As I prepare to write about my New Year's Eve dinner, I decided to take a look back at what we did last year to ring in 2008. I'm a fan of small gatherings at New Year's over large parties, probably because it gives me an opportunity to cook a special meal for my closest friends. Having a more intimate dinner for New Year's Eve also allows you to pull out some special wines without the fear that they'll be consumed before you have a chance to enjoy them!

A year ago I hosted one such dinner with four of my friends. As it was Jamie Oliver who first inspired my culinary escapades, the meal was fittingly based around some of my favourite Jamie recipes:

Tomato soup with basil and chili

An amazing Asian inspired seared beef carpaccio

Homemade tagliatelle pasta with seared scallops, butter and white wine

Eton Mess

The evening included many highlights for me. It was the first time I made fresh pasta. My consummate "well-done" friend tried, and enjoyed, nearly raw beef. The Eton Mess dessert - crumbled meringue with cream and fresh fruit - was also a hit. And we enjoyed many fantastic bottles of red wine, including the prize of my collection at that point - a 1991 Sterling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon.

Iron Chef America Revealed

2009-01-09T20:54:00.008-05:00

I'm a huge fan of Iron Chef America; I'm positively addicted to the show. Despite how far out of my league the Iron Chefs are, I hope to pick up the slightest bit of inspiration from their culinary display. I often have it on in the background while I work, apparently in the hopes that I may subliminally learn how to make a killer rémoulade or a blueberry reduction sauce while I churn out PowerPoint decks and tweak Excel spreadsheets.

So I was very hesitant when my older sister shared this article with me, threatening to shatter the very core of my Iron Chef faith and reminiscent of when she outed Santa Claus.

I know these are some of the top chefs, but I was always a little cynical as to whether they could come up with 5 dishes based around a surprise ingredient at the drop of a hat. Nevermind that the pantry would have to be impractically stocked up to serve their whims. It is still an incredible feat that these chefs pull off, and in the end this doesn't diminsh my appreciation for the event.

Spinach Artichoke Dip

2009-01-09T20:15:00.015-05:00

I think there is no better way to start off my new blog than with a crowd pleasing warm appetizer that I field tested no less than 3 times over the holidays!

I've long made a habit of trying out the spinach artichoke dip at the various restaurants I visit in the course of travel - unfortunately the majority are oily and unappetizing. I was challenged to come up with a menu of strictly appetizers for a friend's holiday drop-in. I insisted on at least a few warm dishes, and the spinach artichoke dip was top of my list.

The dip I made was largely based on this Emeril Lagasse recipe. It has cream, Brie and bacon - how can you go wrong? The cayenne gives it a nice subtle heat. I made it beforehand, and reheated on-site for 10 mins in the oven with a couple of minutes under the broiler to brown the parmesan. Thinly sliced baguette worked great as a dipper.