Category Archives: Ingredient Focus

Ingredient Focus: Sablefish

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I love fish. I love cooking fish, I love eating fish, I love seeing fish at the aquarium, I love swimming with fish (snorkelling, not Old School Italian Mob style), and I love catching fish. One of my earliest memories is of fishing for Brook Trout in the small streams in the woods behind my grandparent’s home in Newfoundland. Come to think of it, this memory of catching my food, cleaning it, cooking it, and eating it probably played a large role in my eventual decision to become a chef.

One of my favourite fish to cook is Sablefish. Also known as Black Cod, it is a delicate white fish with a mild flavour and firm flesh. It can be poached, seared with a crisp skin, and roasted. It pairs excellently with winter vegetables (at the restaurant right now we’re serving it with a Butternut Squash puree), earthy flavours, and rich sauces.

Do yourself a favour and go to your nearest fish monger and pick up some Sablefish for dinner!

For a bit more technical and scientific data on Sablefish check out this link: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/sablefish.htm

For some recipes from chefs whose names you will recognize follow this link: http://www.canadiansablefish.com/recipes.htm

Ingredient Focus: Infused Salt

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Infused salts are so much fun to use. By infusing salt with other flavours you not only boost the flavour of the salt, you also boost the flavour of what you add to the salt. It might seem like a daunting task, but it’s the easiest thing in the world to do and it will provide an extra boost to your meal. Simply sprinkle it over cooked meat, pastas, risotto, anything.

All you need to do is put coarse sea salt in your food processor and pulse it until you have the size of grain you want. If you don’t have a food processor use a mortar and pestle, please don’t use a blender. After that, all you need to do is add your flavours to the salt. The longer the mixture is left, the more the flavours will develop. Below is a list of some examples of what you can infuse your salt with:

  • thyme
  • rosemary
  • lemon zest
  • orange zest
  • lime zest
  • star anise
  • cinnamon
  • oregano
  • cloves

Recently I infused salt with thyme and lemon zest and put it in small mason jars as Christmas gifts. Everyone I gave it to loved the idea.

Ingredient Focus: Guanciale

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Do you like bacon? If you don’t, please stop reading this blog, never come back, you’re not welcome.

Seriously.

Well maybe not seriously.

But seriously…WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?!

Anyway, back to bacon.

Recently I was watching an episode of Chopped, which is a TV show where 4 chefs compete in a series of 3 rounds of black box competitions. In one of the rounds, an ingredient the chefs got was Guanciale. I had never heard of it before.

Quickly the contestants realized that it was basically bacon but made with the cheek of a pig rather than the belly. It’s cured, smoked, hung, and from all reports is basically bacon. Obviously I had to try it.

The next time I was at the market I saw a piece of it at one of my favourite shops, Oyama Sausage Company. I bought it.

In the next post there will be a recipe featuring Guanciale, but for now I’ll explain it to you.

Guanciale is distinctly porky, tastes very much like bacon and for all intents and purposes, looks like bacon when you fry it up. I find that the fat is not as soft and takes a bit longer to render. In terms of flavour, it is a bit sweeter and not quite as salty. Now of course all of this depends on how each (guanciale vs bacon) are prepared, but I am using a basic Pancetta as my reference point.

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll show you how I used it for lunch today!

Thanks for reading!