Food

Recipes

Very Vanilla Shag Cake

For this recipe, you’ll need three 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans, an 8-inch cake board, a rotating cake stand and piping bags with plain round and #233 icing tips (usually used for “grass” or “fur” effects). To get the “shag carpet” look, we recommend practicing first on the outside…

Recipes

How To Make Seedlip’s Alcohol-Free Peel Cocktail

UK-based brand Seedlip is making mocktails cool again with their line of non-alcoholic spirits. The company shares another must-try recipe for their citrusy Peel mocktail. Distilled from oranges, ginger, peppercorn and lemongrass, Seedlip’s Grove (approximately $45) — which launched last summer — adds a fresh flavor to mocktails.

Recipes

Ask A Chef: Brown Butter Blondies

Chef Brad Long of Toronto’s Cafe Belong shares his recipe for Brown Butter Blondies. Q: My Saturday morning visit to Evergreen Brick Works farmers’ market isn’t complete unless I stop by Cafe Belong for a cup of tea and a delicious brown butter blondie. I’d love to…

Recipes

Green Olive Dressing

“I love the simplicity of it: this olive dressing on green-leaf lettuce. That’s it!” says Matty Matheson, the executive chef of Parts & Labour. “The very first time I went to my future wife’s house for dinner, her mom served this salad. It was perfect. And I’m a guy…

Recipes

Matty Matheson’s Chicken Soup

“Chicken soup is something everyone should know how to make,” says Matty Matheson, the executive chef of Parts & Labour. “It’s one of those dishes that’s healing. All you need is chicken and water. Serve it with grilled-cheese sandwiches or just by itself. It’s good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Add…

Recipes

Matty Matheson’s Pot Roast

“A good pot roast is something special,” says Matty Matheson, the executive chef of Parts & Labour. “My Nanny would make this on Sundays after church. She would get the roast going in the morning, and by the time she would get home, she would just have to finish the…

Recipes

Yuzu–Marinated Cucumber And Radish Salad

“This dish is fresh and bright from the yuzu and has just enough spice, making it the ultimate summer salad,” says Matty Matheson of this family recipe. Matty notes it only takes a few minutes to prepare. “It goes with anything coming off the grill, including fish, lamb and pork.

Recipes

Trish’s Hello Dolly Squares

“This is my all-time favourite dessert,” says Parts & Labour chef Matty Matheson of his wife Trish’s Hello Dolly squares. “Fresh out of the oven, it’s to die for — a perfect storm of molten chocolate chips, crunchy coconut and graham cracker — but it’s still delicious the next day, too, when the…

Recipes

Valentine’s Day Cocktail: Amour Fou

Get Toronto restaurant Coffee Oysters Champagne’s recipe for their Amour Fou champagne cocktail. With its rosy hue, delicate flavor and romantic name (which translates to obsessive or uncontrollable passion in English), this beverage perfectly pairs with chocolate and a bouquet of roses on Valentine’s Day.

Recipes

Chile Garlic Chicken Wings

Excerpted from the cookbook, Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen. Nibbling on chicken wings with an ice-cold beer is a great way to nosh Vietnamese style, but I don’t get out the fryer to make the wings. Instead, I coat them in our spices and oil, and roast…

Recipes

The ShackBurger

Excerpted from the cookbook, Shake Shack: Recipes & Stories by Randy Garutti and Mark Rosati. Okay, here’s our sacred cow! Like all deceptively simple things, it took us years to get it right, but now you can master burger perfection in five minutes.    …

Recipes

Try Versatile Recipes From Mark Bittman’s New Cookbook, Dinner For Everyone

If some of your family or friends are vegan, it can be tricky to come up with a meal that everyone can enjoy. Acclaimed cookbook author Mark Bittman checks every box with his latest cookbook. He takes classic recipes — think coq au vin or pasta Bolognese — and offers…

Recipes

Skillet Chicken Parm With Spicy Breadcrumbs

Try this Skillet Chicken Parm With Spicy Breadcrumbs recipe from the cookbook Dinner For Everyone. There’s your red-checkered-tablecloth-restaurant red-sauce standard, and then there is this dish. Skillet Chicken Parm With Spicy Breadcrumbs has all the components of the original dish, minus the pounding or frying. When you go vegan, lots of…

Recipes

Caramel Salmon

Try this Caramel Salmon recipe from the cookbook Dinner For Everyone. Few techniques are as magical as cooking in a sweet and savory caramel sauce, a technique I first learned while traveling in Vietnam. Melting sugar stresses people out, but the directions in all the recipes are detailed so as to…

Recipes

Fluffy Japanese-Style Pancakes

To make these pancakes, you’ll need four 3-inch x 1 3⁄4-inch metal ring moulds, which can be found in kitchen and restaurant supply stores. You’ll also need a nonstick pan with a domed lid.