Heyy everyone!! sorry for the very long silence but my computer has been out of commission for the last couple months, one problem after another you know?? And as such i have been using the guest account on my boyfriends to survive, unfortunately this left me without the ability to post much of anything because I didn't have access to the files on this computer. 

So to earn your forgiveness for my long silence I post 2 recipes and 3 dishes ( technically 5 dishes, but meh, who's actually counting ) along with 1 dessert that will be easy and quick to make. And if i can part with it my chocolate chip cookie recipe......though no promises there, I've guarded it like a mad woman for years.

Also it would be GREAT if you could all wish me luck !!! why you ask?? I've recently been considered for a job at the Burrowing Owl Vineyards restaurant, The Sonora Room. This is in Oliver B.C. Canada, and is one of the best opportunities I've had in my short career so I'm praying to whatever's out there to hand me a stroke of luck on this one. I'll be driving up there this Sunday night so that I can work with them on Monday and find out if I get the job or not, if I do get the job then I'll be moving up there on the Sunday after and kissing Vancouver good bye for a good few months ( until the wine season is over ) as well as getting some amazing things to share with all you guys !!!

Well I'm going to peace out since it's getting kinda late for me now, and I need to head out early morning, so this is chef signing off and hoping your all having wonderful food, and Oli if your reading this.....I'll get you to eat cheese yet !!!!!

Tuna tasting plank

Hey everyone. How are you guys today?? hungry?? I know I am, and also really craving some serious penne alla carbonara right now.

What I do want to do is apologize for the less than stellar photos today, the light just wasn't working with me when I took them is all. I hope you guys can forgive me.

What we're looking at right now is 3 styles of tuna, all ahi ( blue fin ) that I got for a great price at the public market.

Recipe I'm going to share with you today is the cedar plank baked tuna, but first i'll go through a description on each one.
The first one on the menu is the crusted tuna. This is crusted with a rosemary sesame paste that I made with a mortar and pestle and then seared on a very high heat for roughly 45 seconds on each side, serve sliced or whole.

The second one is a tuna tartar. This is mixed in with rice vinegar, grainy dijon, and fresh squeezed blood orange juice, simply season to taste and serve cold for the best results.

Now it's going to get fun, time for some cedar plank baked tuna. The trick to this is baking in the right flavours, so what we're going to do before we bake this is marinate it. The marinade I used is super simple, all it is is dark soy sauce and sesame oil.

What you want to do is cut 6-7 slices of tuna, as thick or thin as you want and then set them aside. Now preheat your oven too 350, after that prepare you marinade.

For the marinade it's 50/50 sesame oil and dark soy sauce.
Just whisk this together until it forms a solution and then place your tuna in and let sit. The Tuna slices should be ready when the oven is warmed up.

Now that the oven is fully heated lay your fish out on the cedar plank and, using a spoon, pour some of the marinade over it as well, if it's separated at all the give it another quick whisk before you pour some on.
Now that your ready to go place it in the oven. Depending on how thick you slice the tuna it should take 10-15 minutes to cook properly.

While the tuna is cooking you should have just enough time to prepare you 3 garnishes.
3 chives
1 lychee nut
julienned rhubarb

With your chives you just want to chop them as small as possible, this is also known as a bruiniose, and set aside. With the lychee nut peel it and then cut in half to remove the seed, afterwards cut each half into 4 pieces and then put them with the chives. Now with the rhubarb all your going to need is 1 inch of the stalk, fairly simple, just slice it up so it looks like long thin sticks.

At this point your tuna should be ready to come out of the oven, so check and then pull it out. When you pull it out it's still going to be pretty hot so give the tuna 2-3 minutes to cool down before you garnish it. When it's cooled off enough, garnish and serve.

This is a great dish to serve at a dinner party or family gathering I've always found, it goes over well and makes a great appetizer. Both light and summery but you can change the garnishes to suit any season easily or even try a different wood to cook with. I love this dish because it's as flexible as it is, and that's what makes it great for me because I'm always trying to mix things up, as a chef that's my job, right??

I really hope you guys all give this one a try and end up loving it as much as me, check back in if you do try it and let me know how it goes for you !!!! I'll be posting again soon so I'll be seeing you around, but until then this is Chef wishing you all great food and good days.

Beef Tartar

Grainy Dijoin and brandy Beef Tartar seasoned with fleur de sel and cracked black pepper on top of a avocado salsa, garnished with a fried quails egg and accompanied by a caprese salad.

Muscle a la Vino Bianco

How's everyone doing today? I really hoping you're all doing great and enjoying all your meals.

What I want to share with you today is a fairly simple dish that anyone can make at home.

Mussels in a spicy white wine cream sauce with bacon

1 1/2 Lbs muscle
( With the muscles try to get them fresh out of the tank at your local super market )

For the sauce :
1/2 a sliced Serrano pepper
1/4 cup diced bacon
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tbsp brunoise shallots
1/2 cup white wine
3/4 cup heavy cream

The first thing you want to do is fry up your bacon until it's fairly Al dente then throw in the garlic, shallots, serrano and muscles. Saute this until the muscles start to just slightly open and the garlic lightly colors then hit it with your wine and a small glob of butter. After you deglaze with the wine quickly dump in the cream and place a lid on your pan and leave to reduce and cook. The sauce and muscles will be done in about 3-5 minutes or when all the muscles are open.

Some advice for safety is that if a muscle doesn't open or only opens a very very small amount it that it's most likely dead so don't eat it, just toss it out.

This is a simple a delicious dish !! and one of my personal favorites when it comes to Muscles. It's savory with just the right amount of spice to cut through it so it wont be too heavy on your stomach, great to make if you want to impress your friends or if you just want something simple and light. That's another thing that's highlighted with this dish, the simplicity that any and all food should be created with. I wish i could say that this is a completely original dish but muscles have been done in a 1000 and 1 different ways and I'm sure that some  restaurant in my city or yours is making something similar in their kitchen, but that doesn't make it any less amazing. So try this one at home and enjoy !!! I need to go cook my dinner now so this is your Chef signing off and wishing you luck with this one !!!

Sable fish

Let me know if you want the recipe for this everyone and I'll be happy to put it up !

This is a pan seared sable fish fillet with a warm cheesy potato salad, also including eggs, bacon, sautéed onions, and diced tomato served with a dill crème fraiche and garnished with bull's blood micro greens.

Uni preparation

Heyy guys !! It's here as promised, Step by step instructions on how to prepare Uni and a recipe afterwards so you can make something of your own.

Now the first this you want to do is rinse your Uni off.

After that let in sit to dry for a few minutes.

After you've let in sit to dry for a while take a pair of scissors and cut around the mouth of the Uni, roughly 1 cm away from the circular mouth, use the mouth as a guideline. The gross stuff you will see inside is only plant matter and some guts, it's the yellow roe attached to the sides that we're after.

Now that we've opened it all up get a container of cold water and a spoon ready. What you need to do now is scoop out everything around the roe into the water without damaging it. After you have everything scooped out you want to take the roe out and into the same water. To do this you take your spoon and start at the bottom of the shell and slowly scoop up and underneath it to remove from the wall of the urchin.

Now prepare another bowl of cold water. Remove the roe from the dirty water and place in the clean water then proceed to clean all the bits and pieces of seaweed off. Don't worry if white or yellow liquid starts to ooze out, that's just coming from the centre on the roe and is something that adds to the natural flavour.

I didn't get many other pictures after this one. But what you need to do now is pull all the Uni roe out of the water once fully cleaned and set aside on a towel or paper towel to dry.

And here we go !!!! Like I said I'll be giving you guys a recipe for this so I'm going with something simple and easy to do, tempura Uni with spicy frites.

For the tempura batter:

1/2 cup flour

1 TBSP corn starch

1 TSP baking powder

1 ounce sake

1 egg

2/3 cup water

Mix all your dry ingredients together, then take your egg and sake and mix. Now fold it into dry mixture.

With the water your going to want to be careful, you wont need all of the water but it's good to have a little measured out just in case you want a thinner consistency of the batter, slowly fold in the water until the batter looks almost like reduced heavy cream and it's smooth with no chunks floating around in it now that that's all done place in the fridge and pray it wont split and tempura batters made at home are known to do. if you've folded the batter properly as opposed to mixed it it really should be fine, the key to a good batter is mixing or moving it as little as possible. 

At this point I'm hoping you all have a wok at home, if you don't it's easy enough to get one at your local Chinese super market. So if you do have a wok fill it just a little under 1/2 way with oil and turn onto a medium high heat so it's good for deep frying.

While your oil is heating up make your frites, for this you need 2 small-medium potatoes and a japanese mandelon ( about 45$ at your local kitchen store but will last you a life time) and take the medium teeth and screw them in then proceed to cut you potatoes into frites. place them in a bowl under running cold water to clean them of starches and dirt of any kinda, drain and set aside until needed.

Now it's time to cook your Uni. Take your batter out of the fridge and test the oil's temperature take a small dab of the tempura batter and drop it into the oil, it's should begin to fry within a matter of seconds, if not then wait a few more minutes until the oil is hot enough. Once the oil in hot enough give each piece of Uni a good coating of the tempura batter and fry. The Uni should be done once it's golden brown and floating at the top. once all your Uni is done set aside on a paper towel to drain of excess oil. Now all you need to do is your frites, this it fairly straight forward. All you need to do is drop the raw potato slices into the oil and let them cook till golden then quickly scoop them out with a slotted spoon and into a bowl, once in the bowl toss with paprika and salt to taste. Now plate your frites and Uni, serve with japanese mayo if you prefer.

This is the dish pictured above if you haven't taken a peek already, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did !! Time for me to say good night because it's getting a little late for me over here so I'll be wishing you all a great day and and amazing food, Chef is signing off.

Uni appetizers

This is home made fish n' chips style Uni made with a thick tempura batter and shoestring frites tossed in smoked paprika and served with Japanese mayo. I'll be giving you the full recipe when I post on how to clean a sea urchin. 

What your looking at is torched uni with julienned radishes and pineapple, cauliflower purée. On the top is Bulls Blood micro greens and some toasted black sesame seeds. All of this is covered with a small drizzle of sweet and sour yuzu sauce.

A good lunch

First of all let me start off by saying YEAH WOHOOO GO CANUCKS!!!! IN YOUR FACE SHARKS!!!!

And now that that's out of my system I want to apologize for the less than stellar picture, but seeing as it's a French onion soup and grilled cheese for lunch on this lesson it's hard to have a pristine plate with the cheese melting to the bowl.

This lesson was to teach basic knife skills as well as recipe and cook times.

For the soup:

5 sliced large yellow onions

handful of thyme

2 bay leaves

3 litres of beef stock

2 cups of red wine

for the top:

slices of bread

grated smoked Guyere cheese

The first thing you need to do is put your oven on too preheat at 400 and move one rack to the second last placement. While the oven is heating up put all your sliced onions into deep pot heated to medium with oil. Sweat your onions off until they are soft and pliable then turn it up to a higher temperature so you can caramelize them properly, the best is a golden-dark brown. Now is a good time to throw in your thyme and bay leaves. Stir in your aromatics for at least 5 minutes before you pour in your wine. Let the wine reduce by half then pour in all your beef stock and season to taste then let simmer for about 1/2 an hour stirring every 3-5 minutes.

With the bread you'll be making croutons so cut the bead to fit into the top of your bowl then place on a cooking sheet and sprinkle olive oil and salt on them. Place in the oven until dry and slightly golden brown. After you remove them from the oven turn it onto broil so you can melt your cheese.

Now that you have everything ready make your grilled cheese !! I personally use Applewood smoked cheddar. Make this about 5 minutes before the soup is read to come out of the pot and just lightly colour both sides of the grilled cheese then place on the bottom rack of the oven. 

What you should do now is ladle your soup out into bowls according to your preferred portion size, place a crouton on top each one and then cover with a generous amount of Guyere cheese then place in the oven on the top rack while it's on broil too melt the cheese, them take it out as soon as it's fully melted but use a dry towel as the bowl with be very hot.

Right as your placing the soup/s/ in the oven you should be taking out your grilled cheese.Cut your grilled cheese and place on the plate, then put the soup on the plate after it comes out as well and enjoy !!!!!!

I love french onion soup so much because it's such a traditional thing, so simple and beautiful also such classic that I cant help but enjoy !!! Actually I think I'm going to make some more right now, so this is your chef saying have a good one !! and wishing you all great food !

scallops

Jumbo Baja scallops with blackberry compote, cannellini bean purée, crushed candied wasabi peas

fried leeks and a single chive to garnish.

Delicious dinner, eh?? and I made it all at home.  

Home made stuffed pasta

What this is is a combination of two different styles of stuffed pasta, Cappelletti and Tortelli. Both are amazing on their own in shape and size but I just love how the combination has come together, don't you?? These are stuffed with a four cheese bechamel sauce. The cheeses are Mascapone, Asiago, mozzarella, and Pecorino.

I'm sorry to say that when I made this dish I didn't write down the the measurements of all the ingredients that i used, but i can give you the guide lines and hope it help you out.

In a pot melt about 1/3 a cup of butter and toss in some garlic and thyme and cook until the garlic gets soft, then start to cook in flour until you have a nice thick roux, cook the roux until golden brown and then mix in your milk and cook until thick and you cant taste the flour, then use a hand blender to just blitz it all up. Now your ready to start mixing in your cheese. You can make a choice in how much you want to put in, whether it's a little or alot it should be fine. Once the bechamel has cooled down fill your pastry bag and tie off then place in fridge to chill and so it will become a little thicker. It's ready when it keeps it's form when you speeze it out onto a flat surface.

The pasta dough is much simpler.

6 egg yolks

2 cups of white flour

1 teaspoon of kosher salt

Place the flour on your pastry board and sprinkle the salt over it, use your fingers to create a well in the and place the egg yolks in. Now whisk them up without spilling them everywhere and start to mix them into the flour slowly. Once mixed in start to knead the dough, and keep kneading until it's nice and smooth.

Now what you need to do is set up you pasta machine to roll it all out. and remember to roll it out one chunk at a time on a heavily floured machine or the dough might stick. Once it's all been rolled out take your filling out of the fridge and cut all the pasta sheets into the right size with a scalloped pasta cutter. Now place a large dollop of the filling in the middle of each sheet and brush the pasta with an egg wash so it will "glue" together and fold it over and press down. not that you have your "Tortelli" done it's time for that last fold. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it for you guys, but it's fairly simple, just take the two corners at the folded side and squeeze down on them hard to press them together. Now all you need to do is cook them for 6-8 minutes in a pot of salted boiling water.

The sauce is simple a delicious.

In a pot, tomatoes, basil, oregano, peppercorns. Cook until the tomatoes become soft, add some chicken stock and then take your hand blender to blitz it all up, then leave to simmer on the stove stirring every 5-6 minutes until you reach your preferred flavour.

The basil oil is easy, just put basil and olive oil in a blender and put it on high. the oil will be ready when there's steam coming off of it. Tape a coffee filter into a bowl and strain it that way.

now all you need to do is plate !!! and don't forget you reggiano to top everything !!!! 

You know, all this typing has made me hungry...so have a great day every one and have a great meal!!! I hope you have as much fun making this as I did, let me know how it turns out for you. This is your Chef De Cuisine say see ya.

Pineapple Cherry stuffed Steel Head Trout

Hi everyone !!! Who`s as stocked about the Canucks as I am ? what an amazing game today, and to think I passed up free tickets to make dinner at home this evening. At at least dinner was well worth the sacrifice, I just wish my TV didn't glitch out on me right in the middle of second period.

What we`re looking at today is a Steel Head Trout stuffed with quinoa, pineapple and cherries, a fennel and dill salad dressed simply with lemon juice and olive oil all on a bed of pea shoots, lemon slices to garnish.

For Quinoa salad:

1/4 cup white Quinoa

1/3 cup finely chopped Pineapple

1/4 cup finely chopped cherries

The first thing you should do is rinse your quinoa, then set onto a medium-high heat with 1 part quinoa and 2 parts water ( just like rice), while the quinoa is cooking chop your pineapple and cherries up nice and small. When the quinoa is done cooking take off the heat and mix the fruit into the pot and set a side for later use.

Fennel salad and dressing:

1/2 teaspoon dijon

1/3 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

salt 

about 1/2 cut of chopped fresh dill

1/2 fennel bulb

Just toss all of this in a bowl and whisk it up into a nice dressing. As for the fennel, I hope you have a japanese mandelon at home to slice it if not then i recommend getting one because it will be such a big help to you. Now all you want to do is slice this as thinly as possible and toss with your vinaigrette then set aside in the fridge to let in marinate until it's time to plate.

( This is a japanese mandelon )

For the Trout:

fillet knife

kitchen shears

Fabrication tweezers 

butchers twine

First you nee too preheat your oven to 400. 

It's simple once you have some practice but de-boning a trout is never fun. The first this you want to do is when your at the super market is make sure the fish has been gutted and de-scaled properly. Now too prepare it for stuffing you need to use the fillet knife to cut the rib bones away from the spine, and then slice the meat away from the spine as well.

Next take your shears and slowly snip the spine out

After you've removed the spine take your tweezers and remove all the tiny rib bones.

Now all you need to do is stuff and tie it up so that you wont lose all the filling.

Once it's stuffed and tied up season with salt and pepper while heating up your pan, use a generous amount of oil to cook the fish. First sear on one side until the skin is crispy and then flip gently. Once flipped sear for two minutes and place your 3 lemon slices on top of the fish then throw in the oven for 12-15 minutes. 

When you take the fish out of the oven place a small bed of pea shoots on the plate, and the Fennel salad on top of that, finishing with the Trout. I really hope everyone will give this a try, I just loved this dish to death and cant wait to make it again, but I'm going to have too because I have a lot of chicken in the fridge I need to do away with today and tomorrow...hmmmm maybe a chicken burger of some kind?? I'm open to suggestions if any of you know what i should have for lunch tomorrow then let me know !! For now I have a few things to take care of so this is Chef De Cuisine wishing you all a great day and great food !!

Paprika Chicken

Okay, so for the last couple days I've been giving my older brother a crash course in the culinary arts because he's considering going into the industry as well. Basically going over knife skills, basics on cook times, butchery, ect...

Today was focused on quartering ( butchering ) a chicken and how to make a proper vinaigrette. What you see is a paprika dusted chicken breast that has been freshly butchered, fennel and radish salad dressed with a orange dijon vinaigrette, and super tender wild rice. to garnish there is orange reduction and sweet pea shoots.

the preparation for this dish is:

wild rice

salad

vinaigrette

chicken 

 So with wild rice it's a lot different from regular rice in that it's not a 2:1 water to rice ratio, one cup of this stuff takes about 2- 2 1/2 litres of water (crazy eh?? ) and also take about 45 minutes to boil and cook until properly tender. You'll know it's done once it's kinda exploded like popcorn, and when you taste it it should still have a little bite left to it, but not too much other wise it'll just taste like sticks. Once you've cooked it properly, strain it and then mix in some salt and butter for flavour.

So as soon as you put your rice on to cook turn your oven on too 400 and lay both of your chicken breasts on a plate skin side up and season with salt and pepper, afterwards dust with paprika. Wait until you have 15 minutes left in the rices' cook time then heat up a pan to just past medium with some olive oil and place skin side of  the chicken down to get it crispy, sear it for two minutes then flip and sear for another two minutes. Now put it in the oven , pan and all, for 14 minutes, flipping them at the 7 minute point to cook it evenly. These will be ready when you can poke it and it's firm with only a slight bit of give.

Now for this part, do it after you season the chicken and before you put it in the oven. So that should give you about half an hour to get it ready.

Vinaigrette 

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

1/4 cup blood orange vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

salt&pepper

All you need to do is whisk this all together in the same bowl until it forms a solution and it's done, it should take 3 minutes or less.

For that actual salad, you just slice half of a fennel bulb and 4 radishes as thinly as possible and wait until the rice and chicken are done before you toss it with the vinaigrette. To garnish this dish just use a small bunch of pea shoots. 

For those of you who try this dish, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did !!!! this is Chef signing off and hoping you all have a great day with great food !

an all appetizer dinner

Heyy !!! how is eveyone?? I've had a pretty epic day today, so what better way to  finish it off then with an epic dinner, am i right??

We decided to keep it simple tonights so Wwat you see here is oysters, a caprese salad, and a cured halibut carppaccio, all made right at home !! for oysters we have the classic kusshis' are very popular in vancouver because they're small and have a really clean flavor. Grown by Keith Reid, a oyster farmer in Deep Bay, "Kusshis are grown in floating trays and tumbled very aggressively. This breaks off the thin growing edge and forces them to deepen and thicken their shells. The resulting oyster, called a Kusshi, Japanese for “precious,” is almost as deep as it is long—just over two inches." 

The next oyster we had was kumamoto, grown in California. They are very well known for the appearance of their shells, which is dark and fluted. These are similar to kusshi in flavour, but a little bit more briny with almost a melon flavour after taste, larger ones are also very meaty at times.

The last one we had were Prince Edward Island Malpeque. This being one of Canadas' most consumed oyster, and one that is good both cooked and raw. This is one I would recommend to eat with a little bit of lemon juice, the meat has a very mild flavour and is also very tender. Easy to eat, easy to swallow. The brine is a little strong and on the pungent side, the combination of both flavours create a clean and delicious flavour!

Now we move on too one of my all time favourite salads, a traditional caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, buffala mozerella and basil seasoned lightly with sea salt. Some what self explanatory so i wont spend too much time on it. What I can say on the subject is that if you can get your hands on some nice balsamic vinegar then keep some in a small bowl on the side for dipping your bites in.

Last but not least, the halibut carpaccio. This is a dish that i've been working on for a few months, and have finally perfected ( there will be a full recipe posted soon ).

Again very simple but not as simple as the others. I took a piece of halibut fillet and rubbed spices on it, then wraped it tightly with plastic wrap, then froze it, it needs to be frozen in order to be able to slice it as thinly as needed. After it's ready, slice thinly and place on plate, once on the plate it's time to cure it., in this recipe it's a spicy citrus cure. The garnishes are caper berries, diced rhubarb, and a small arugula salad, and last but not least you need some sea salt a la minute so it wont melt into the cure/sauce. This adds a necessary saltyness and texture that the dish wouldn't be complete without.

I hope you will take inspiration from any one of these dishes and enjoy you meal times as much as I do, this is Chef signing off and wishing you all great food !!!