Sumpoogi aghtsan - Armenian eggplant salad

2 to 4 eggplants, altogether about 2 lbs
1 green pepper
½ red pepper
1 small onion
4 tomatoes, chopped
2 to 3 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ to 1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon chili pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 to 6 teaspoons olive oil
juice of 2 lemons (1/4 cup)
olives and cheese (optional)

The best way to prepare the eggplants is by grilling over fire, but you can also just bake them or microwave them until they are soft when poked. Remove them, make a slit at the bottom and place them on a cutting board, slanting it towards a plate so some of the bitter juices, if any, can drain. When cool enough to handle, cut each one in two and gently cut and lift away the flesh. If grilled, you have to pick the charred skin off in bits, then rinse off whatever is left on the eggplants. Cube the cleaned flesh and put in a large bowl. Add the peppers, tomatoes and onion, chopped very small (size of a corn kernel) as well as the parsley, and mix them. Don't worry if the eggplants get mushy a bit in the process, it is to be expected.

In a separate bowl mix the spices and garlic with the oil and lemon juice. Pour it over the veggies and stir it well. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary. You can also add some olives and some grated hard cheese, like Kaseri.

Foie de veau provencal

I found a little piece of paper among my forgotten recipes with this recipe on it. I remember when we had this dish at the Le Petit Gaston, on Baldwin St. here in Toronto. I am not even sure whether the restaurant still exists or not. This dish was made by its original owner, Gustav Schwalb.


According to Schwalb, the dish can only be its best if we use Provimi liver for it. For a long time I did not know what he meant. Now, thanks to the internet, I was able to figure it out. Otherwise the recipe itself is quite simple.

2 tbs soft butter
1 tbs finely chopped fresh parley
1 large clove garlic
1/2 lb liver
2 tbs dry white wine
salt, pepper, oil

In a small bowl mix together thoroughly the butter with parsley and garlic, and season it with salt and pepper to taste.

In a heavy frying pan heat 1-2 tbs oil to medium heat, then add 1 tbs of the butter mixture. When the butter melts and begins to sputter, add the liver slices and cook for 3 minutes on each side. Remove the liver from the pan and place it on a warm serving dish.

Pour off the cooking juices from the pan, put it back on the stove, pour in the wine and add the rest of the butter mix. Scrape up the browned bits from the bottom with a spatula (deglaze), then pour the hot sauce over the liver.

Quickly arrange on the plate whatever you want to serve it with and serve immediately. The recipe gives you two portions.

Since I did not prepare this dish right now, I looked around for a temporary picture until I will snap one of my own. The one I found on flickr looks pretty close, I hope the owner won't mind. The way Schwalb served it, if I remember well, was simply with some mashed potatoes, and sliced fresh tomatoes and cucumbers drizzled with a balsamic vinegar based dressing. Very simple fare yet very tasty.

Mandarin chicken (New World style)

We love Chinese food, the authentic kind. But today I was hit by a wave of nostalgia, I remembered the first time we, my husband and I, ate Chinese food soon after we arrived to Canada. A new friend invited us out who, poor as we all were in those distant student years, wanted to treat us. What could have been cheaper and tastier than Chinese food? In those days (early 70's) it was REALLY inexpensive. He took us to Dundas, east of Spadina, to a small greasy spoon. Spadina itself wasn't Chinese yet. We were impressed by his expansive knowledge of Chinese cuisine. :) He ordered General Tsao chicken, some greens in oyster sauce, I forget the rest. But quite for a while after that, when just the two of us ventured into a Chinese restaurant we dared to order only their Dinner for Two. Refinement of the palate came with the gradual increase of the contents of our wallet.

Today I was looking around for dinner ideas when I chanced upon the recipe of General Tsao Chicken. I enthusiastically rolled up my sleeves and started to prepare it, only to find that I remembered it wrong, I did not have any canned pineapples in the pantry. Instead I found several of those small cans of Chinese mandarins. So what can one do in such a situation, I replaced the pineapple juice by the mandarin juice. And guess what! It turned out just great.



1 pound chicken breasts (cut into 1" pieces)
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 c. sugar
1/8 c. low sodium soy sauce
1/4 c. mandarin juice (drained from a can)
1/8 c. white distilled vinegar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. fresh ginger, finely grated
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp. cornstarch, mixed with 3 Tbsp. water
4 green onions, sliced

Dredge chicken in cornstarch and fry in a wok or a teflon skillet over medium heat until golden brown and crispy. Sprinkle cayenne over the chicken and keep warm on low heat. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine sauce ingredients (sugar, soy sauce, juice, vinegar, garlic, and ginger) and heat gently. When sauce is smooth and sugar has dissolved, take it off the heat, add cornstarch mixture and back on heat stir constantly until sauce has thickened. Now pour the sauce in the wok and stir to coat the chicken. Serve with hot rice, as well as green onion and hot red pepper flakes on the side, so people can add some as they like it.

I fancied up our rice with chopped celery leaves, white pepper and grated lemon zest. For the greens we had steamed kale in black bean sauce.

Fast and easy way to rid the house of ants and fruitflies.

I found the best way - at least for me - to successfully get rid of these buggers. And the solution is... tra-rah... the vacuum!

It started with a recent invasion by giant ants. No matter how well I cleaned the kitchen, they kept coming. Eventually they got so bold that they tried to climb up to the counter via my leg. In my frustration I grabbed the recently used vacuum hose still lying at my legs and sucked the bold warrior off my shin. And then the idea stuck. I started to vacuum up the other ants, too. The strategy proved to be successful. It seems that there were less ants then I first estimated, I must have kept seeing the same few returning again and again. Well, the bunch is gone now! Apparently they suffocate very quickly inside the bag.

And then it occurred to me that this may work for fruit flies, also. This actually turned out to be an easier task than the hunt for the ants. Ants are fast and smart. Fruit flies are slow and dumb. They like to perch on the wall just above the garbage can in a crowd. When I vacuum them, they just sit and wait for their turn. They can also be sucked up in mid flight.

Not only did I manage to reduce the pesky cloud of fruit flies in the kitchen, I also reduced the number of those that infest our compost can in the back of the house. There obviously was a connection...!