Trip Report: Montreal - La Montee de Lait

La Montee de Lait
371 Villeneuve Est (just off Rue St. Denis), Montreal, 514-289-9921 (reservations recommended)
Metro: Laurier or Mont-Royal

La Montee de Lait is a tiny place. 12 tables fill the space and a banquette runs down one side of the room. The menu is only available in French but is conveniently posted in the window, so we spent a few minutes deciphering everything before we went in for our reservation.

The restaurant serves a four-course prix fixe menu for about $40 (Canadian). You select any four items from the menu to create your meal (the portions are all about the same size, and while they looked small, we both we quite satisfied by the meal). We took quite a traditional path through the menu: seafood, pasta, meat, cheese, then dessert, but you don't have to be that rigid. Get four salads if you want, or four desserts!

The wine list is extensive but did not have anything we recognized on it. We relied entirely on our server's recommendations for our wine choices and were extremely happy with them.

For our first course, we had two seafood dishes. One was an incredibly thick piece of swordfish, sear-roasted and placed over roasted chanterelle mushrooms and an aioli. It was garnished with a tempura-battered scallion. The swordfish was incredible: juicy throughout and cooked properly. The other was a "Nicoise scallop": a seared scallop served with green beans tossed with tapenade, cherry tomatoes and a hard boiled quail egg. The platings for these dishes (all the dishes actually) were just gorgeous.

Our second course was two pasta dishes. The first was a bowl of ricotta-stuffed gnocchi served in a "bacon broth" (I don't know else what was in it, but it was really delicious). The other dish was a mimolette ravioli with roasted tomatoes, parsley and onion rings.

The third course was two meat dishes. We had a rabbit terrine (served at room tempertature) with a foie gras mousse, arugula salad and a red berry jam. We also had quail, the leg was given a confit treatment and served with morels, the breast was stuffed and served with flash-fried carrots.

We finished the night with a cheese plate and dessert. One cheese was a camembert and I do not recall the name of the other. They were served with poached apricots and toasted pecans.

For dessert, we shared a caramelized fig tart with ice cream (I recall the ice cream was a very interesting flavor. Ricotta? Goat's milk?).

This meal was really the highlight of our trip. The service, the room, the food and the wine were all excellent. Everyone else seemed to be having as lovely a meal as we were. I can't thank the folks over at ... an endless banquet enough for this recommendation.

Week of September 9

What a strange weekend, weather-wise. On Saturday it was 95 hot and muggy degrees but as I write this on Sunday morning it's 65 and not expected to get much warmer than that. I am going to take advantage of this cooler weather and heat up the kitchen with the oven and pots of boiling water.

On Sunday I will:

• Make chili (some will go in the freezer)
• Bake shortbread
• Prep my "broccoli blend": this is equal portions of broccoli and broccoli rabe. I will cut up and blanch the vegetables. Then on Monday they will just need to be sauteed before serving.
  
• Make polenta
• Make pickled slaw
  
• Make macaroni and cheese (some will go in the freezer)
  
• Make Sunday dinner

This looks like an aggressive plan, but it's actually not so bad. The chili and macaroni and cheese are things I have made many times before, so I don't really have to puzzle over those. I use my food processor to do all the chopping and cheese grating; while I don't mind knife work, it is much faster (although my cuts aren't too clean) when the Cuisinart is used. I use an oven method to make the polenta and as a result it's almost completely hands-off. The hardest part of this plan is that I need my large pasta pot for three items (boiling macaroni, blanching broccolis and cooking up the chili).

Week of September 9
Sunday
Chicken rollatini with parmesan and swiss chard
Roasted potatoes & tomatoes
Lemon verbena shortbread with roasted figs and cantaloupe sorbet

Monday
Grilled sausage and broccoli blend over polenta

Tuesday
Dinner out

Wednesday
Chili
Pickled slaw

Thursday
Macaroni and cheese with swiss chard and cauliflower

Friday
Grilled hot dogs (I have found a good source for Pearl all-beef hot dogs, boy are they good)
Pickled slaw

Drink of the Week: Bourbon

Some nights, you just don't want to mess around. Tonight was one of those nights.

Bourbon

In a rocks glass, pour bourbon over four ice cubes (optional). If you don't want to feel like a complete derelict, toss in a few drops of bitters (I have been informed derelicts don't use bitters).

Consume.

Corn Pudding

I love corn on the cob. I do, I really do. But after my hundredth cob of the summer I start to crave fresh corn in a different form.

This corn pudding will become a new staple in my repertoire. It's a little fussy (scraping all the kernels off those cobs) but it's really good and allows the flavor of the corn to shine.

Corn Pudding (adapted from Saveur magazine, July 2007 )

• 12 ears of corn (this corn must be fresh and sweet - find a farmstand and get freshly picked corn)
• 2-3 tablespoons butter (original recipe used twice as much butter - try if you like, but I didn't think the dish needed the extra richness)
  
• salt to taste

Heat the oven to 400.

Shuck the corn and cut the kernels off the cobs. (I find that my mandoline is great for cutting off the kernels and much neater than using a knife.) Using the back edge of a knife, scrape the cobs: you want to get all the remaining pulp and milk off the cobs.

Put the kernels and juice/milk/pulp into an 8x8 baking dish (it will look a lot like creamed corn at this point). Dot the butter over the top and sprinkle on salt to taste. Bake for about 40 minutes. The top will caramelize (you will fight your tablemates for the browned bits on the edge of the pan) and turn all golden and lovely. Really fantastic.

Serves 4-6 people.

Steak, Caveman Style

For those who like a steakhouse-style piece of ribeye or sirloin, Dirty Steak is a revelation. The technique is basic, if dramatic: Build up a charcoal fire and let it burn down to coals. When it is "honkin' hot" (in the words of my grillmaster) you lay your sirloin or ribeye directly on the coals. I kid you not. Have faith and be rewarded.

I first heard of this style of cooking steak on Julia Child's Cooking with Master Chefs program. The chefs at Al Forno in Providence, RI developed the technique and dubbed it "Dirty" (I have seen this style elsewhere as "Terrorized" - I think Dirty Steak sounds more fun). Go here to find a link to the original video with George Germon, Johanne Killeen and Julia Child (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Dirty Steak (adapted from Al Forno's technique)

Take your steaks out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before cooking to help them lose their chill. I recommend ribeyes or sirloin/strip-type steaks, cut an inch thick. Use good-quality beef. (My local Shaw's supermarket carries Prime beef and you can really taste the difference.)
Make a charcoal fire (do not use briquettes, please use real hardwood charcoal which you can find easily at any Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. For charcoal ratings, take a look at the Naked Whiz's Lump Charcoal Reviews).

Let the fire burn down until the coals are red hot and covered in grey ash. (If you put you hand a foot over the fire, the fire should be so hot that you need to pull your back within a second.)
Dry the steaks well with paper towels and then salt and pepper them generously. Using tongs, put the steaks directly on the hot coals. You will have left all the fat on the steaks so they will smoke a lot, this is a fine thing unless you get a snootful of smoke.
After about 3-4 minutes turn the steaks over. Knock off any charcoal that sticks. Cook the steaks for another 3-4 minutes or so.

3 minutes a side will give you rare, 4 minutes a side will be medium-rare. (See below for a medium-well/well variation.) Let the steaks rest, uncovered for about 5-10 minutes, slice and serve. The exterior of the steak will be crusty and charred and the interior will have a great smoky flavor. What's amazing about this technique to me is that considering what it's just gone through, the steak does not taste burned at all.

For well-er done temps: Take the steaks off after 4 minutes per side. Put them in an oven safe pan or skillet and place them in a 400 oven for about 5-10 minutes, depending the thickness of the steaks and your desired doneness.