While I can usually reproduce a dish off taste alone – intuitively – sometimes it’s fun to have to reverse engineer something. A good example of this was my homemade wine slush mix. For that, I took clues from the ingredient list and nutritional information on the existing package, and used it as the base for my formulation. For instance, vitamin C amount per serving helped me ballpark the proper amount of citric acid to use, after figuring out a few conversions.

This sort of problem solving comes in handy for today’s blog.

The other day, one of my tweeps – a fellow Canadian – brought up honey garlic sauce. It’s a popular sauce back home, made by VH. Super cheap, available everywhere… SO not healthy, but SO tasty. Yum. It’s not available here, so I end up missing it. Where my last taste of it was around 5 years ago, it makes it a bit harder for me to replicate on taste. Memories get fuzzy over time, and specific flavor profiles melt into general feelings about the taste. I could take a wild stab at it and come up with something that tastes great, but it may not be super close to the original. Without the source material on hand – or at least cataloged in RECENT memory – all I can do is “inspired by”. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I can’t use science, math, and logic to ensure a good step in the right direction!

A quick search online turns up a few key bits of information: nutritional info, and the actual ingredients list. Between tidbits such as calories, sodium, and sugars per the specified serving size, knowing what the commercial version had in it – and in order of quantity – and a good memory of the appearance and approximate viscosity… I’ve got a good set of base parameters to start with!

Here’s the concrete information that I am starting with:

Per 85 ml (1/3 cup): 260 calories, 540 mg sodium, 64 g carb, 55 g sugars

Ingredients: Sugar, Water, Honey, Molasses, Dehydrated Garlic, Salt, Caramel, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Corn Syrup, Glucose-Fructose, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate

So here’s how I break it down:

1. Figure out what each ingredient contributes to. This is not only in nutritional terms – say, carbs – but also function:

Sugar: Volume, carbs, sugars, flavor, viscosity
Water: Volume
Honey: Volume, carbs, sugars, flavor, viscosity
Molasses: Volume, carbs, sugars, flavor, viscosity, color, slightly to sodium
Garlic: Flavor
Salt: Flavor, sodium
Caramel: Color
Hydrolyzed Soy Protein: Emulsification / thickening
Corn Syrup: Carbs, sugars
Glucose-Fructose: This is what “high fructose corn syrup” is called in Canada. Carbs, sugars.
Citric Acid: Flavor
Sodium Benzoate: Preservative, to impede microorganisms

2. Knowing all of that, I need to narrow the ingredients down for home use.

What we’ll be keeping: Sugar, water, honey, molasses, garlic, salt

What we’ll be ditching:

- Caramel: It’s unneccesary
- Hydrolyzed soy protein: Not accessible for home use
- Corn syrup: Unneccesary – was used as cheap alternative to honey
- Glucose-Fructose: Comparable to honey in many technical ways, it’s used as a cheap way to “stretch” honey out in commercial use.
- Citric Acid: There are more accessible alternatives
- Sodium Benzoate

What functionality we need to replace:

- Hydrolyzed soy protein: Emulsificiation
- Citric acid: Flavor

3. Figure out the base of the recipe, volumetricly

Canadian food labelling law requires that all ingredients be listed in “descending order of proportion by weight”. Knowing that, I can look at the list and figure out where the cutoff would be for ingredients contributing significantly to the volume of the sauce.

Knowing from experience that there is a fair amount of garlic in the sauce, I would normally consider that the “final” ingredient in our initial problem solving. However, since it contributes only to flavor, I’m going to ignore it for now. That means that for the volumetric base of our recipe, we are focussing on sugar, water, honey, and molasses.

4. Figure out weights and measures

A quick search online reveals that 1 cup of sugar is generally understood to weigh 7 oz, or 200g. One cup of water weighs about 8.3 oz, or 237 grams. One cup of honey weighs about 12 oz, or 340 g.

For the sake of ease, I’ll convert the nutrition facts to reflect 1 cup of sauce: 780 calories, 1620 mg sodium, 192 g carb, 165 g sugars

Make some rough guesses as to quantities

I’ll be honest here – I once failed an algebra test. I’m not even talking an honorable fail, I mean an epic fail – I got 26% on it! It’s not that I don’t understand the problems, it’s that I couldn’t work the problems out on paper. To this day, I don’t get the whole tables thing – it’s easier to just work it out in my head. I can tell you how old Jenny is if she’s twice Bob’s age and 1/3 of what Doug’s age was 4 years ago, blah blah.. but don’t expect me to tell you how I figured it out!

While name/age is fairly straightforward and linear, figuring things out like ingredient proportions in this recipe is a bit more complex. Where a name will be linked to one quality (age), we have to figure out more of a matrix of qualities here – say, volume, sugar, and sodium. For something like this, I like to make a fairly good guesstimate on proportions, and work the math out to tweak it from there.

Knowing what I do from past experience with the sauce, I can tell you that the volume of molasses in the sauce is far less than the other three primary ingredients.

If we were to use equal quantities of sugar, honey, and water as a starting point, the nutritional info for one cup of it would be:

595 calories
158 g carbs
147 g sugars

Not bad, but off by a little. I suspect the proportions for the actual product would look a little more like:

1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup honey
2 Tbsp molasses

… which adds up to 1.3 cups. If I add up the calories, etc, and then divide down to find the per-cup information on this mixture, we have ROUGHLY:

570 cal
150g carbs
144g sugars

… which is close enough for me to get to the kitchen and start tinkering around. Well, after we figure out the sodium, anyway!

Looking at the sodium (1620mg per cup in the source material):

The base ingredients don’t contribute significantly to sodium content – about 13 mg total – so this will pretty much be coming straight from the salt we’ll be adding. The container of salt I’ll be using indicates that it contains 590 mg of sodium per 1/4 tsp. Due to the commercial nature of the source material, I’ll be aiming low – 1/4 tsp, or 1180 mg – and will add extra salt only if needed.

As it turns out, I was pretty much bang-on for those proportions, and the recipe turned out amazing*!

On first taste, it hit my memory *just* right, and I was transported back to my apartment, circa my early 20s. To quick stir fry meals thrown together cheaply and easily, when I bothered to take the time. I was SO busy back then, I’d sew for 16+ hours in a day, skipping meals often. Convenience foods like these bottled sauces were go-to meals, as I had NO time to “properly” cook.

This is not high cuisine, and I have NO idea how it would fit on the American palate – us Canadians tend to have a ridiculous sweet tooth! Maybe there’s a reason it’s not available here? Who knows! For an Ex-pat Canadian, though… the nostalia that this food evokes brings it to “comfort food” levels, even as a condiment. Isn’t taste-memory a funny thing?

Now that you’ve read through all of that, let me present you with the SUPER simple recipe that resulted. This sauce is great as a stir fry sauce, or to cook meatballs or spare ribs in.. yum! For our first use of it, we simply browned some pork chops, added sliced peppers to the pan, and cooked it for a few minutes. Then we added about 3/4 cup of the sauce and let it cook a few more minutes, and served over rice. Fabulous!

Honey Garlic Cooking Sauce

1 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup honey
4 Tbsp molasses
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
8-10 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
1 tsp corn starch

Combine sugar, 1/3 cup of water, honey, molasses salt, lemon juice, and garlic in a saucepan. Heat to a boil, stirring well to dissolve and combine ingredients. Once mixture boils, turn heat down and simmer for 5 minutes.

Whisk corn starch into remaining 1/3 cup of water, add to saucepan. Stir until well incorporated and mixture starts to thicken. Remove from heat.

At this point, you can use the sauce right away, or put it in the fridge for use within a couple of days. Strain out the garlic, or don’t – it’s up to you!

*… although, at $1-something a bottle, I suppose that bribing someone to mail me some could have been an option. Where’s the fun in that, though?

Inspiration really can come from the weirdest of places. Remember the story of how my French Martini Upside Down Cake was conceived? Jann Arden, an auto-correct Fail, French Canadian culture, and talking pineapples… oh my! Sometimes the most simple thing can spark an idea… and that’s what happened with today’s post. About a week ago, I posted my blog entry on How to Carve a Watermelon, Caladium Style… Caladium being a pretty variety of plant with large pink, white, and green leaves. As with all my blog posts, after I finished publishing it here, I posted links on Facebook. Now, as an out-and-proud Canadian immigrant, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the following comment was posted as a reply: “Ok, when I first read the title of the post, I *swore* it read “How to Carve a Watermelon Fruit Bowl – Canadian Style!” ” So, thank you for the inspiration, Sarah Elizabeth! Once I read your response, I knew I *had* to go out and make a Canadian style watermelon bowl – Canada Day IS just around the corner, after all!

To my Yankee friends and readers – no worries, I have a “Stars and Stripes” version coming right up!

First of all, I didn’t get the best in-progress photos, so go and read my earlier Watermelon Tutorial for a general idea of what we’ll be doing here.

Here is what I did:

1. Found a clipart graphic of a maple leaf (Canadian Flag style), and sized it down to a few different sizes I liked. Printed them off and cut them out.

2. Cut the bottom off the watermelon, to make it more stable.

3. Using the paper maple leaves (As a Canadian, I have to admit – I did spell that “Leafs” before catching myself!) and a sharpie, draw a border of overlapping maple leaves around the watermelon.

4. Unlike my Caladium design, I designed to do most of the design carving before doing the major carve. The maple leaf design is so intricate and fussy, I figured it would be the smartest idea.

5. After deciding that I would alternate red and white leaves, I set about carving it all out to outlined white leaves. Keep a close eye on what leaf is going where, it’s easy to cut out a piece of green – that you didn’t mean to! – by accident.

6. Once all of the leaves are done up as plain white leaves with outlines, carefully carve off the top of the watermelon. I aimed for all of the peaks/high points of my design, but you can aim a bit higher if you’re not feeling that confident. You can always carve more away, but it’s hard to add watermelon if you’ve carved away too much!

7. Using a sharp knife – I used a good paring knife – carefully carve out the outer edge of your leaf design. Aim to keep your knife straight in, at a 90 degree angle to the surface you are carving – you’ll taper the edges later.

8. Once you’ve carved and removed the very top, scoop out some of the watermelon – for this design, I left about 1″ of red around the side walls. This was to allow for the red design to show through in the middle of some of the leaves. Because there is no need for extra watermelon flesh on the very bottom, I scooped it out almost down to the white rind.

9. Once the outer edge has been carved, go back over it and carefully taper the edges in a bit. Clean up any rough edges on the green rind, and taper inward from there – creating a gentle, rounded edge to the white rind, into the red. Don’t taper it in at too shallow a slope, though – you’ll want plenty of red behind the middle of the leaf design!

10. If the white part of your rind is relatively shallow, carefully carve it out of every second leaf, being careful to leave the outer outline intact.

If, like me, you managed to pick a watermelon with a very, very thick white rind? Just cut the insides of every second leaf right out. Position large pieces of carved-out watermelon behind each new opening, and it’s all good!

Position your fruit bowl on a serving platter (the bottom will very likely leak moisture), and fill with your choice of red and white fruit. Be sure it’s all ripe and sweet, NOTHING is worse than less than ripe fruit in such a display! For ours, we used watermelon, red grapes, strawberries, cherries, and peeled/sliced pears.

Set it out and enjoy!

In closing… a little theme music…

Ok, so “best ever” is a pretty big claim to make, but I feel pretty secure in making the statement.

As an Irish Canadian, I’ve eaten my fair share of Shepherd’s (Cottage, to be more accurate) Pie. As a chef, I’ve tinkered with the recipe many, many times. I’ve done a “Thanksgiving Leftovers” version. I’ve made a cottage pie with moose meat, partridgeberries, and wine. Boeuf bourguignon hybrid pie, cottage pie with caribou meat… yeah, you could call me a connoisseur!

So, when I say that this is the best ever – know that there’s a lot of experience behind the claim!

First, a quick distinction: The vast majority of what people call “Shepherd’s Pie” is actually “Cottage Pie”. Cottage pie that uses lamb for the meat is “shepherd’s pie”. Sheep, shepherd… you know. This recipe was developed to be a shepherd’s pie, but was changed to a cottage pie at the last minute. After a morning of shopping for ingredients, I chose convenience over nomenclature

Anyway, that little bit of pedantry aside…

I created this cottage pie for our recent “St Pi-trick’s Day” party. As every food had to be Irish themed and round, I sized this recipe around a 12″ round cake pan, big enough to serve our party. Should you want to be a bit more traditional with it, and make it up in two 9 x 13″ pans.

In keeping with the Irish theme, I didn’t make this “American Style” – you’ll notice there is no creamed corn, and no cheese. Instead of the more common choices of corn and frozen peas, I decided to go more “Irish Canadian” with it, using carrots, parsnips, and turnips – a very popular set of veggies on the East Coast of Canada, which is heavily Irish. For many/most people out that way, those root vegetables are served at least weekly, as part of “Sunday Dinner” – very traditional. If you have a food processor with a grating attachment, getting these veggies ready will be a snap. If you have to grate them by hand – trust me, it’s worth the effort in the end!

As an additional nod to the Irish-Canadianness of it, you’ll notice the use of savory. Savoury, as we spell it back home, is an extremely popular herb in east coast Canadian kitchens… for good reason. The savoury that grows in the hills of Newfoundland is the best savory I’ve ever had. It’s commonly used in soups, on poultry, in stuffing/dressing, on pork… yum. If you’re a foodie and have a chance to get your hands on some Mt. Scio brand savoury… send me some, too! While shepherd’s pie really isn’t anything elegant to look at, no matter what the ingredients, this one has an elegant taste to it. The use of the root vegetables in combination with these seasonings provides an awesome merge of flavors… truly, I think I’ve come up with the ideal cottage pie here! Enjoy!

Cottage Pie Recipe / Shepherd’s Pie Recipe

4 lbs russet potatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground pork
1 lb lean ground beef (Substitute ground lamb for true “Shepherd’s Pie”)
2 carrots, peeled and grated
2 parsnips, peeled and grated
1 small turnip, peeled and grated
1 medium onion, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, minced, finely grated, or pressed
1 ½ cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp corn starch
1 tsp pepper
½ tsp salt
1 tsp rosemary
½ tsp savory
½ cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 ½ cups sour cream
1 – 1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Peel potatoes if you have to (I don’t!), chop into 2″ chunks. Boil in a large pot of water until tender.

While potatoes are boiling, combine oil, ground pork, ground beef, grated veggies, and garlic in a large pan. Cook on medium high heat, stirring and breaking up meat chunks frequently.

Once meat is cooked through and veggies are tender, whisk together chicken broth and corn starch until smooth. Pour over meat and veg mixture, season with pepper, salt, rosemary, savory, and parsley. Stir until well combined and broth mixture starts to thicken. Remove from heat.

Once potatoes are tender, drain and transfer to a large bowl – I like to use my stand mixer. Mash/whip for 30 seconds or so, until potatoes have broken down a bit. Add butter, chicken broth, and sour cream, continue to beat until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat broiler to high.

Transfer meat mixture to pan(s) – I used a 12″ round cake pan, 2″ tall. (Two 9 x 13″ pans would also work!) Spread potato mixture evenly over the meat mixture, broil until potatoes are as browned as you would like them.

Serve immediately, or cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, and chill.

Remember last week, when I got my kitchen back and went a little nuts over it – making a Gluten Free Tourtiere, amoung other things? Well, the time has come to blog another of those “other things”. One of the things I’d been looking forward to making was a theoretical gluten free butter tart. In fact, I facebooked a plea to ” the god/godess in charge of kitchen renovations” that I would make a tasty gluten free butter tart HAPPEN, if the remaining kitchen repairs-to-useable went quickly and easily. I keep my promises The crust on these is not bad at all for being gluten free… and – given how snobby I am about gluten free stuff – that’s actually high praise!

As is, this recipe is quick and easy to make. Of course, Murphy’s Law kicked in while I was getting prepared, and things got a little … depraved. See the very end of this blog post for details!

Gluten Free Buttertarts Recipe
(Makes about 18-20 regular, or 10-12 giant butter tarts)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8oz) brick cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp sugar
2 3/4 cups all purpose Gluten Free flour
1/4 cup corn starch

1/2 – 1 cup raisins
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 large eggs, whisked*

Beat butter, cream cheese, and sugar until well mixed and soft. Slowly add flour and corn starch. Once all flour is added, turn out and knead until well incorporated and smooth. Form a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 mins.

Lightly flour your work surface, roll chilled dough out pretty thin – 1/8″ to 1/4″, depending on your tastes – some prefer a thinner shell, some thicker. Cut 4″ rounds from the pastry – you’re aiming for 12.

Carefully transfer the pastry rounds to a muffin pan. I like to flatten the bottom against the tin, and work out from there, flattening the whole round to be flush with the muffin pan cavity – it holds the most filling! Feel free to get decorative about it – flattening the bottom of the dough against the muffin pan, gently ruffling the edges… it’s up to you! Chill the pan of prepared tart shells until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C)

Divide raisins among tart shells – I personally like to have a fair amount of raisins in my buttertarts, so I use 1-2 cups. (1/2 cup is probably closer to average!). Set aside.

Combine butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in a medium saucepan. Beat until smooth. Add in eggs, beat once more until well combined. Heat mixture on medium, stirring constantly. Bring mixture JUST to a boil, remove from heat. Carefully pour mixture into prepared tart shells.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until filling has set and the pastry is lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool. These are usually served at room temperature, but some prefer them chilled!

* I like my butter tarts slightly runny. Add an extra egg for a firmer filling.

Now, what follows is an example of what happens when sheer desperation takes over. My sincerest apologies for the crappy cell phone photography. My husband/photographer was not home, and I was NOT about to wait!

After I made the dough and pulled out the ingredients for the filling, I realized that I had NO idea where all my muffin pans were. I couldn’t find them in our “temporary necessities” pile of kitchen stuff in the dining room, so they were likely packed away for longer term storage (Until the shelving is done). So.. I haven’t seen them since the May 22 tornado.

As I already have way more muffin pans than anyone could ever use (short of owning a cake business!), there was no way I was going to buy any more. Our “long term storage” is in the roof crawl space right under where the tree hit though. I’ve seen the gigantic bugs that came in from not having a roof for several weeks, so I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of going in there. Ugh. *shiver*. No one should ever be able to mistake a bug for a MOUSE.

So… I MacGuyvered a solution from tin foil, and it worked out VERY well! I love super deep butter tarts, so this was a bonus.

First, I pulled out a piece of tinfoil that was roughly square. I folded it in half one way, then in half again – making a smallish square. I molded it down over the bottom of a glass, rolling what would become the top edge of the tart cup a bit to give it some more stability.

I divided the dough into 12 equal pieces, flattened each pieces out in my hand, and carefully set it in the makeshift muffin cup. Then, working from the middle, I pressed the dough out, flat against the bottom, snug into the bottom edge, and evenly up the sides.

Each giant cup was able to take a pretty big handful of raisins – I went though almost a pound of them!

If you do it this way, increase your baking time by 5-10 minutes, checking often to prevent burning.