is an item on Tony’s menu. To embolden the taste of the humble, albeit tear-producing onion, some clever person a long time ago shredded a big, sweet onion, seasoned it, packed it into a loaf shape, deep-fried it, and served it up with barbecue sauce. Now that’s onion! Being that restaurant chains make a regular habit of coveting and stealing the good ideas of other restaurant chains, I was assigned to find out how Tony actually did his onion loaf, so that our chain could do it too. So one night in Palm Springs, after my request for the recipe was turned down, I ordered a loaf, and as I deconstructed/ate it, I made notes. It was a good start to my assignment, but not willing to miss the finer points, I called the restaurant the next morning and told a long, deceitful story about how I had suffered all night after eating the loaf — demanding to know the exact ingredients, how they were combined, and how the loaf was cooked. Sympathetic to my feigned grief, and perhaps sniffing a lawsuit, the guy at the other end of the phone told me all. And armed with copious onion-loaf notes, I flew home to help introduce a near-enough version of Tony Roma’s onion loaf to the Canadian market. It’s one way that new foods emigrate from one place to another, and demonstrates what we can do to make good food bolder and better. As I was saying, we gravitate always to flavour, in our foods, and in our wines. And with onions and all kinds of other things, we share the best stuff around the world. Food magic is dictated by imagination, by
braised pears with a soy ginger glaze 42 // February/March 2013
availability, by the seasons. Sometimes things make it, and other times we taste and say, “Nah.” But for appies, soups, sauces, mains, and even desserts, it’s rare that we settle for tastes that are thin and wispy. Big is better. Bold, intense and ideally, easy, is where we like to go. At the end of her gardening year, my daughter presented me with a couple of mid-size pumpkins that were superfluous to the Hallowe’en season. For the longest time, I simply savoured their decorative orange-ness — a complementary colour in the living room. Then one rainy weekend before Christmas, despite their colourful cuteness, I figured it was time to sacrifice one of them to a soup. I cut the pumpkin in half, scooped out the seeds, then cut it into quarters, and then in chunks. I preheated the oven to 350˚F, placed the salted and oiled chunks on a tray, and roasted them for an hour or so. Then, like skinning a fish, I slid the flesh away, and mixed it into a slosh in the blender with half a cup of cream. Then I transferred the slosh to a pot, added a litre of store-bought cream of tomato soup, a diced and fried-wilted onion, and half a teaspoon each of chili powder, cumin, paprika, coriander and nutmeg — and let it all simmer together. I served it with a generous dollop of sour cream, and just for fun, a glass of Jacob’s Creek Sparking Shiraz. As I was saying, we gravitate always to big flavour. In our quinoa, our onions, our pumpkins and our wines. You’ll enjoy the peppery notes of the Shiraz.
I have a pear tree in my garden that produces three different varieties, thanks to carefully grafted additions. At harvest time, it’s great to see Anjou, Red Anjou and Bartlett all ready for picking at the same time. Sometimes I can them, but not always. Try this kicky recipe to accompany pork, chicken, or a grilled breast of duck.
4 3 1
tbsp melted, unsalted butter tbsp soy sauce tbsp grated ginger root ½ cup packed golden brown sugar
¼ tsp cayenne pepper 4 firm pears, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cored 2 tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
1. In a 10-inch sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the soy
sauce, ginger, sugar and cayenne pepper. Stir until the sugar is melted and the ingredients are well combined, then reduce the heat to medium low. 2. Add the pears, cut side down, and simmer, basting frequently, until the pears are tender when pierced with a knife — about 8 to 10 minutes. 3. Transfer the pears to a serving dish. Bring the liquid in the pan back to a slow boil and add the vinegar. Simmer the sauce until it is thick and syrupy — about 3 minutes. 4. Pour the sauce over the pears and serve as a savoury side.