Sunday, July 17, 2011

Deep Fried Egg Topped Poutine @ Saus



I'm Canadian, so I know a good poutine when I see/ingest one. This is my second time dining at Saus, but the first time that I noticed the deep fried egg on the menu. I envisioned a battered and hard boiled egg that was dipped in the deep fryer, but boy was I wrong.

E made the order and got us a Belgian Poutine topped with aforementioned egg and a waffle with salted caramel sauce.

Such a pretty deep fried egg! My guess is that they cracked the egg into the oil and then the white got all crazy and the yolk stayed intact and was cooked to a medium hard boil. We had to be careful carrying it over to the table so that it didn't topple over.

As soon as L saw it she started yelling, "more more"! Which in toddler-ese means "gimme". She was a fan of the fries, but not so much into the curds. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get cheese curds in New England. You can special order them at most fancy cheese shops, but this didn't help me when I was planning the menu for my Canada Day party only 2 days in advance of the event.

Waffle was also delicious. Salted caramel is delightful and waffle perfectly crispy. One of the staff showed us their waffle iron which is cast iron, gets super hot and helps the crispness by the sheer weight of the iron. He said they heat it to 190 degrees Celsius which I bet could result in some pretty serious occupational hazards.

Saus does a brisk late night business as you may well imagine since it is situated right next to a bunch of bars close to Quincy Market. Many drunk poutine purchases on the weekend I suspect.

During the day it's quite family friendly with nice clean tables and no worries if you drop fries on the floor or make squawky noises! Bon appetit!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Does American Chicken Taste Like Wood?

Two of my co-workers are originally from China. They both mentioned to me over lunch the other day that when they first moved here, they thought that the chicken here tasted like wood. In order to get yummy tasting chicken they would often resort to buying fresh killed chickens from stores in Chinatown, such as Wings or Ming Kee. You can also get t-shirts from this place in Cambridge, Mayflower Poultry.

To test out this theory, I asked X. to help me buy a live chicken this week. We walked over to Ming Kee which is only a block from our office and she helped me pick out a nice 3 pounder. She speaks Chinese, which helps as the workers there were limited in their English communication. My feathery friend came to $8.75 and they de-feathered him and separated all the giblets for future use.

I polled the Chinese people in my office (n=2) and decided to opt for cooking it by boiling with green onion and ginger. It takes about 1 hour, but the process is pretty easy because it just involves throwing everything into the pot.



I've got my eye on you!!! This is a little creepy. But delicious. I think it is the combination of the skin, dark meat and giblet bits that makes it extra tasty and so non-wood-like. I also saved the broth for other tasty recipes.



It was served with a green onion, ginger and sesame oil dipping sauce!