I’m rather impressed with how beautifully renovated Alberta turned Atlantic Trap and Gill at the corner of Robson and Beatty Street into their home for two weeks.
YouCook was invited to a media event at Alberta House to taste the creations of Brad Smoliak.
Brad does Food Product Development all over Canada and came up with a very well executed menu to serve 20,000 people at the Alberta house (plus more on the Alberta Train but more on that later). We had four special tastings which were dishes created by Brad incorporating ingredients from all regions of Alberta.
Along with Brad we met Cindy Ady, the Alberta Minister of Tourism and Jack Hayden, Minister of Agriculture.
Wild Boar Bacon Vodka Caesar
We started the tasting at 10:30am, yes just in time for a Caesar. I didn’t realize this but the Caesar was invented in Calgary, Alberta in 1969 – 41 years ago at Calgary’s Westin Hotel.
As a twist on this classic drink, Brad infused vodka with bacon. Instead of celery, he included a thin strip of Wild Boar Bacon. Wild Boar Bacon has an amazing sweet taste (and if you can believe it, it tasted lighter than regular bacon). The combination of the sweet fatty boar with the caesar was sooooo good. Words don’t do this justice, you’ve got to try this or make it at home.
Prairie Chowder
Happily intoxicated, we moved on to the Prairie Chowder.
All my life, I’ve associate chowder with seafood. To my surprise, this dish was completely vegetarian. Brad is truly an amazing chef and food product developer. He combined ingredients from all the growing regions in Alberta: honey from the North (Peace country), potatoes from the South, three types of mushrooms from the Northeast, prarie barley from the Northwest, cream from the Central, and beans and potatoes from Southern Alberta. It was a delicious blend of flavours making this one of the best vegetarian soups I’ve ever had. I’ve asked for this recipe so stay tuned after YouCook learns how to cook this. I will never make clam chowder again after I get this recipe!
By this point, I could’ve gone home happy to blog about the food experience at the Alberta House. However, two more courses to go!
Cowboy Trail Chili
Brad created this dish to represent the hard working people that work on the ranches along the The Cowboy Trail is a 700km route along Highway 22 between the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian prairies. The first cattle was brought into the province in 1876 and now Alberta is the largest cattle producing province in Canada. Alberta Beef is quite famous and tasty because of it’s high quality feed grain. The chili had both ground beef plus chunks of Alberta beef along with beans, carrots and other vegetables. I’m not sure which herbs and spices were in this chili but the combination was flavourful and a little spicy. The beef chunks were tender and delicious. This definitely wasn’t just a regular chili and again showed me how creative and skilled Brad and his team is.
Homestead Gingerbread Cake
Finally to finish it off, we had a Gingerbread cake with hot caramel sauce and Saskatoon berries. The ingredients for this dish represents the historical Indian House Trade Store in Fort Edmonton where Aboriginals would barter for European goods, which included molasses and spices such as ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. Alberta has the last sugar beet refinery in Canada which is what molasses is made of. At first instinct, I thought this was a carrot cake. However, it was the cinnamon, nutmeg and molasses that threw me off into that thought. Nope, no carrot in this cake. Again, the combination of flavours, sauce and berries really bring out this dish.
Alberta House was one of the final hospitality houses on my Olympic food coverage and I think I did save the best for last. During the tasting, I was informed that there are a few media seats on the much sought after Alberta Train to Whistler the next morning departing at 6am-9pm. The Rocky Mountaineer train is a luxurious train with 6 full size kitchens. Best of all, Brad Smoliak created the menu for the train as well ! It was sincerely my dream come true and you’ll hear more about it in the next post.
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Tags: Alberta, Barley, Beans, Brad Smoliak, Caesar, Calgary, Chili, chowder, cinnamon, Cowbow Trail, gingerbread, Highway 22, Homestead, honey, Mushrooms, Nutmeg, potatoes, Prairie, Rocky Mountaineer, Vodka, Wild Boar Bacon
