Canada Day in Victoria was a blast. There were free trolley rides up and down the main streets, an international food market by the harbour, and with only a small morning shower on an otherwise sunny day, performers and vendors were all out on the streets of Victoria.
Bastion Square was also bustling with vendors, including a large stand full of fresh vegetables, bakery goods, and a variety of colourful food jars. I was drawn to the table full of morel mushrooms, one of the most delicious mushroom varieties I have been able to try.
This food market is a product of The Island Chefs Collaborative, ICC, a group of Vancouver Island chefs that share the same vision of food sustainability and have a desire to help out local farmers. Formed in 1999, this was really a major step in building a strong relationship between chefs and farmers. The Bastion Square food market is up every Thursday and Friday from 10am to 5pm and gives local farmers a chance to have their products available to the public. It differs from regular farmer’s markets in that the farmers don’t have to sell their products themselves. Instead, ICC drives around and collects produce from farms all over the Saanich Peninsula to bring to the market, which is then looked after by ICC volunteers.
On this particular day, however, many of the farmers were in the Square for a very special presentation. Ken Nakano, president of ICC and Executive Sous Chef at the Fairmont Empress Hotel, was here to present grants to select farmers living in the Capital Region District. They are given out by ICC each year to help relatively new farmers with their equipment and operations cost.
The grant money was raised this year through a fundraising festival held at Fort Rodd Hill in May called “Defending our Backyard”. It was clearly a success, with a total of $10,000 in grants being given out this year to seven farmers. One farmer, Jana McLaughlin from Rare Earth Organics, is in her 6th year of farming and in addition to having her produce sold in Bastion Square, also sets up a booth at the James Bay Market on Saturdays. She will be using her grant money to build a multi-season greenhouse to grow hot crops in the summer and provide warmth and protection from the elements for winter growing.
If you’re in the Victoria area, come drop by Bastion Square and support our local farmers!
What comes to mind when you think of Victoria, BC? If you said poutine, you may have been one of the lucky people who caught the poutine competition on May 13th. A serious, but friendly, battle took place between two hotel giants in Victoria: The Fairmont Empress Hotel and Inn at Laurel Point.
The location: the grand front lawn of The Empress Hotel. The prize: the Golden Curd and bragging rights!
For those who aren’t familiar with poutine, it’s a heart-stopping dish that originated in Quebec which involves three ingredients… fries, chicken gravy, and cheese curds. The fries should be crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside and the cheese curds should be fresh and squeak when you bite into them. Lastly, the gravy should be poured onto the dish right before serving to prevent the fries from being soggy. That would be the purist version, but the dish has been enjoying a sort of explosion of interest in the past couple of years and you can now find upscale restaurants putting their own take on it with non-traditional premium ingredients such as lobster, foie gras, and truffles.
The Empress Hotel’s entry for the competition was Tiger Poutine, which was topped with their signature butter chicken/curry.
The Inn at Laurel Point came back at them with their Duck Poutine, topping their version with crispy duck confit.
In all honesty, both poutines were incredibly good, I finished both servings clean to the last fry, sauce and all. Judging for best poutine was based on five criteria including the all-important cheese stretch and grease load! There was quite the debate on whether a high grease load should be rated good or bad. We’ll leave that up to personal preference to decide! I won’t get into too much detail of who had the better poutine, but the general consensus was that Team Laurel Point had superior fries while Team Empress won significantly more points in the cheese stretch category.
In the end, the Golden Curd trophy went to… Chef Ito and Team Empress!!
It was a super tight race, with Team Empress coming in just ahead of Team Laurel Point. They were gracious in their defeat and egged on by Downtown Victoria Business Association Manager, Ken Kelly, declared to all present that “Our poutine is definitely not as good as your poutine!”
It was a beautiful afternoon in the Victoria causeway and it was great to meet all the other twitter judges who came out to revel in poutine goodness @lacouvee @toots11 @seedtocup @FlygirlWS @cqwww . We also got to meet Auntie Vie, great aunt to Pamela Anderson. She was so sweet to talk to and looked very refined with her lovely red hat.
Both teams made enough poutine that day to feed the crowds of people who stopped to join in on the fun. If you missed it, not to worry because both poutines are available at their respective hotels. The Empress Hotel’s Tiger Poutine can be found at The Bengal Lounge and Laurel Point’s Duck Poutine is on the menu at their restaurant, Aura. I definitely encourage you to taste both of them and let us know if you do!
Thanks to Fairmont Empress for letting YouCook use some pictures of the event that we didn’t manage to catch ourselves!
Regional Tasting Lounge is an interesting restaurant in Yaletown that features cuisines from a region of the world for a few months at a time. Right now, R.TL has a South American theme for their menu. They have some ceviche dishes on their menu and Chef Darryl Crumb offered to show us how to make his Salmon Ceviche with a Mango and Orange Dressing! Ever since my Peru trip last year when I had ceviche, I’ve always wanted to make it at home so I was definitely excited to learn from him!
Along with ceviche, they have quinoa salad (which we also have the recipe for) and Peruvian chicken so go try it out before the menu changes.
Summary
Preparation Time: 10 min (skinning, chopping)
Cook Time: 5 min
Servings: 1 serving
Cost: $8
Meal type: Appetizer
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients
4 oz Fresh Sockeye Salmon (Sushi grade) – $5.00
2 medium oranges – $1
1/2 lemon – $0.60
1/2 lime – $0.40
1/2 mango – $1.00
1/2 chili pepper – $0.10
Salt to taste
Sprinkle of chopped cilantro
Instructions (Video)
Chef Darryl Crumb walks us through how to make Salmon Ceviche.
Instructions
1. De-skin salmon if necessary. 2. Cut fillet into strips. 3. Cut into small cubes of salmon. 4. Season with salt in a bowl. 5. Cut orange in half and squeeze both halves juice into bowl. 6. Squeeze half a lemon juice into bowl. 7. Squeeze lime into bowl. 8 De-seed a chili pepper and finely dice. 9. Dice mango and combine into bowl. 10. Supreme an orange and dice it. 11. Mix ingredients in bowl. 12. Serve immediately on a plate of spinach. 13. Top with chopped cilantro.
Results
Ceviche is so simple and tasty!! The fresh orange and mango sauce really compliments the wild sockeye salmon! This dish takes very little time to prepare and is such a treat with fresh ingredients. I’m hoping to get some fresh fish in the coming weeks and will definitely be making some into ceviche. I also can’t wait to try all the other ceviches that Chef Darryl Crumb is making at R.TL.
We spent some time at Central Bistro with Chef Robert Erickson learning more about his delicious vegetarian dish on the Dine Out menu which has been quite a hit that it’s making its way to the regular menu! Grilled Mediterranean Olive Polenta Cakes with Macedonian feta, charred tomato & marinated portobello mushroom in a roasted pepper emulsion and spiced parsley coulis.
The recipe is split up into different parts: the olive polenta cake and roast pepper emulsion sauce. The vegetable sides include: marinated portabello mushroom, blistered tomato, parsley coulis and roasted asparagus.
I didn’t realize that polenta, cornmeal, grits are essentially the same. I have to admit, I am not used to this as an ingredient in any of my cooking so I looked it up. Bulk cornmeal that you find here is typically too fine to be called polenta. Polenta is coarse stone-ground cornmeal. It is traditionally known as peasant food and originated in Italy. It is gluten free, so if you can’t deal with wheat, you might want to try polenta out.
Summary
Preparation Time: 30 min.
Cook Time: 3 hours.
Servings: 8 portions
Meal type: Main
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients for Olive and Polenta Cakes
1/4 cup mixed olives
1/8 cup chopped thyme
1 cup polenta
2 shallots finely dice
4 Tbsp butter
3 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup cream
1/8 cup flat leaf parsley chopped
Instructions for Olive Polenta Cakes
1. Heat pot and sauté shallots in butter until clear 2. Add olives and stir for 30 seconds. 3. Deglaze with vegetable stock and bring to a boil. 4. Whisk in cornmeal and continue to stir for 10 mins making sure not to let the polenta stick. Chef’s tip: If cornmeal becomes too heavy add a little more vegetable stock. 5. Add cream and continue to stir until until the gritty texture has left the polenta. 6. Finish with salt and pepper to taste 7. Place on parchment covered baking sheet with spatula spread evenly and place another piece of parchment on top. 8. Take a baking sheet the same size and place on top of that then add weight and press for 2 hours in refrigerator. 9. Cut into rounds or sticks of desired size.
Ingredients for Roast Pepper Emulsion
3 red peppers
1 onion, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, finely diced
4 Tbsp thyme, chopped
3 Tbsp oregano, chopped
2 Tbsp rosemary, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1 Tbsp sugar
1 large can pureed tomatoes
3 Tbsp butter
Instructions for Roast Pepper Emulsion
1. Roast 3 peppers on the grill or in the oven. 2. Place in a bowl and cover with saran wrap for 10 min to steam. 3. Peel skin and remove seeds. 4. Place in a blender and puree . Set aside. 5. Heat up a pan and sauté onions until clear. 6. Add garlic and sweat for 1 minute. 7. Add thyme and rosemary. 8. Deglaze with white wine and sugar. 9. Add pureed tomato and cook on medium heat for 15 minutes. 10. Add pureed roast peppers and cook for 10 minutes. 11. Add oregano and remove from heat. 12. Pour ingredients into a blender and puree. 13. Slowly add butter to finish.
Vegetable Sides
For Central Bistro’s dish, Chef Robert Erickson accompanies it with: 1. Roasted portobello mushroom marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and thyme for each portion. 2. Oven roasted roma tomatoes marinated in olive oil, maldon salt and fresh cracked black peppers finished on the grill. 3. Salt and peppered grilled (lightly charred) asparagus. 4. Parsley coulis – pureed parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, honey, paprika. 5. Frisse salad with lemon juice and salt.
Serving the dish
1. To serve, preheat oven to 375 degrees. 2. Put the polenta in an oven safe pan, add sauce, a good pinch of macedonian feta and a pinch of parmesan. 3. Reheat for 20 minutes. 4. If the tomato and mushrooms need reheating, do that in a separate pan in the oven. 5. Combine ingredients on plate, finish with a dollop of parsley coulis, balsamic reduction, and frisse salad.
Results
Polenta has regain some popularity amongst chefs lately and it makes for a delicious vegetarian meal. I really enjoyed the red pepper/tomato sauce in this recipe. It works well with the polenta cakes but I can imagine it being delicious with pasta too. Nothing beats accompanying the dish with fresh in-season vegetables like mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus.
This recipe has a lot of parts to it and it was really time consuming to prepare this dish from scratch. I would definitely recommend to try it out at Central Bistro.
The Donnelly Pub Group is offering an awesome Dine Out deal for $18 at The Calling and Cinema with food from executive chef Michael Knowlson. Cinema only opened last month and it was the first time I got to check it out! It’s beautiful, spacious and right on Granville Street. See for yourself…
We were lucky enough to get the recipes to an appetizer, entree and dessert from their Dine Out menu! So if you’ve eaten there and wondered how to make the Beef Carpaccio, Maple Glazed Salmon or the warm Mixed Berry Pie – you’ve come the right place!
Summary
Preparation Time: 10 min
Servings: 1
Meal type: Appetizer
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients
75g of AAA Alberta beef tenderloin
50g of Baby Arugula
Truffle aioli – garlic mayo with truffle oil
15g of French Vinaigrette
Shaved fresh parmesan cheese
Sea salt, Fresh ground pepper
2 crostini
Instructions
1. Cut beef into thin slices. Chef’s tip: Cut the beef along the grain. Wrap in saran wrap into a cylinder shape and freeze it over night. This makes it easier to cut the beef into thin slices. 2. Place thinly sliced beef around the plate, sprinkle with salt. 3. Dress with arugula and the French vinaigrette. You can find a recipe for French vinaigrette here. 4. Use a spoon to drizzle the truffle aioli around the plate. Even if you don’t have a truffle aioli, sprinkle on some truffle oil for the smell and flavour. I never tire of how truffle oil complements food. For a truffle aioli recipe, here’s one I found. 5. Place the crostini on top of the salad. 6. Put shaved parmesan on the crostini. 6. Season with salt and pepper.
Results
Seriously delicious appetizer. The arugula and truffle oil go very well with the thin beef slices. I don’t recall tasting much of the French vinaigrette or parmesan cheese on the dish. Let us know where you buy your AAA cuts of meat for Carpaccio!
I spent some time with Chef Todd Bright in the Wild Rice kitchen learning about how creative his desserts are for Vancouver Dine Out this week. The restaurant takes pride in using local sustainable meats and high quality ingredients. I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in town that you could fresh coho salmon wontons or sloping hill pork made into char siu in-house.
Chef Todd is from Australia where he worked at a Cantonese restaurant. He’s obviously passionate about food and finds creative ways to use all the ingredients he’s working with.
Two of the desserts on the $18 Dine Out menu are the white chocolate and red bean steam buns (which we’ll show you how to make) and the teacup chocolate pudding (which is vegan – tofu instead of gelatin!). I was lucky enough to try both and they were both decadently good.
6 oz (1 cup) Red bean paste
* Wild Rice uses this brand – this one can be found in T&T for $2.17
Instructions for the White chocolate and red bean filling
1. Put a pot on low heat. 2. Combine the white chocolate and red bean paste until the chocolate is melted. 3. Cool in the fridge until the mixture slightly hardens and the mix is ready to use.
Instructions for the Steam Bun Dough
1. Add yeast to a bowl of warm water. 2. Add sugar and leave it sitting for about 15 minutes. 3. Once activated you’ll see the mixture bubble. 4. Put the flour in a bowl and add the yeast mixture to form the dough. 5. Let the dough sit for about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the temperature of the kitchen. A warmer kitchen is ideal – a cold kitchen could take longer. Chef’s tip: Be sure to cover the dough with saran wrap. Air will make the outside crust of the dough harden and you don’t want that. 6. Once the dough has doubled in size it is ready. 7. Roll out the dough to get it about 7mm thick or as thin as you prefer. 8. Sprinkle with baking powder and fold the dough as if you were making a puff pastry. Leave it sitting for a few minutes. 9. Once again roll out the dough to 7mm thick and use a pastry cutter to cut out rounds. You can decide if you want small buns or bigger sized ones, so pick the size that you prefer. 10. Stuff with the white chocolate and red bean mixture and make sure the bottom is well sealed. See the series of pictures to learn how it’s done.
11. Steam the bun for 4 minutes. Unfortunately at home we don’t have a dedicated steamer, so I usually heat up a wok to boil then use a bamboo steamer or just a plate balanced on the wok with a metal stand. 12.Plate and enjoy it fresh with some raspberry coulis.
Results
I didn’t realize how easy it was to make your own steamed buns. As for the filling, red bean is such a typical filling for Asian desserts but the addition of white chocolate makes it even better!! The white chocolate really compliments the red bean – kudos to Chef Todd for coming up with this great combo. Also with the thickness of the dough you can control how thick you want your buns to be. The frozen ones in stores always tend to have a lot of dough and not too much filling – the advantage of making it yourself means you can control the thickness.
I went to visit Darby’s since it was one of the deals ($18) that stood out in the Vancouver Dine Out listing. Darby’s has always been the neighbourhood pub to go to to watch hockey games but I never heard anything about the food here. Darby’s has been undergoing major changes to their food menu, spear headed by Chef Alex Rotherham.
I met Chef Alex Rotherham and tried his Cottage Salad and Hangover Burger (both on the Dine Out menu!) and was thoroughly impressed by how all the sauces – vinaigrette, salsa, hot sauce – were made in house and how creative and passionate Chef Alex is about food!
The burgers have rectangular 100% beef chuck patties made in-house. Kudos to Chef Alex for coming up with the shape, both to fit in a ciabatta bun meant for sandwiches and to subtly show customers that the patty aren’t mass-produced. Stay tuned for how to make the Darby’s hangover burger in another post.
It was great to hear from Chef Alex about his experiences at Macaroni Grill, opening his own restaurant, and frequent travels to London. Alex is really bright and creative and is using his skills to enhance restaurant menus by keeping things simple and fresh. His word of advice for new home chefs is to keep it simple. Use no more than 4 or 5 ingredients and don’t try making complicated things like soufflés until you’re ready.
I know it’s a little odd to be coming to the bar and ordering the Cottage Salad, but you must try this one – broccoli, chickpeas, cottage cheese, cranberries, and salsa prove to be a healthy and tasty combination. It might balance out that beer you’re drinking. Don’t take my word for it – try it as part of Dine Out…or try making it at home first because we got the recipe for you below! Combining the salad is the easy part – making the individual ingredients might take some time. Chef Alex makes the cottage cheese, salsa and herb vinaigrette from scratch and has been kind enough to show us how. In case it’s too time consuming, you can always buy these things at the grocery store. Just keep in mind how much sodium and preservatives are in the store-bought version versus making it at home with fresh ingredients!
Here’s a video of Chef Alex making the Cottage Salad:
Summary
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 5 mins (blanching) The times are assuming that the chick peas are cooked, and salsa, cottage cheese and herb vinaigrette are already made. See the sub-recipes for how long those take.
Servings: 1 large salad entree
Meal type: Side or Entree
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients for Salad
2 cups (~200g) broccoli
1/4 cup cooked chickpeas
1 Tbsp of sun dried cranberries Chef’s tip: Sun dried and dried/dehydrated cranberries are not the same – get sun dried if you can. You can blanch cranberries before serving too.
1. Bring a pot of water to boil. 2. Put broccoli florets into water for 15 seconds. 3. Remove and soak in cold water immediately. This is how to blanch the broccoli so that it’s cooked but still crunchy. 4. Put all ingredients in a salad bowl and mix evenly. Try not to overcoat the salad with the dressing.
Results
We have yet to make this recipe at home and regret that we don’t have pictures of each of the ingredients in the salad but wanted to share the recipe with you for the start of Dine Out. We did get to try the cottage salad at Darby’s after Chef Alex demonstrated it and it was really good. The broccoli, chick peas, salsa, cottage cheese, and vinaigrette give the salad a lot of different textures and flavours that all work together. We could see this becoming part of our weekly meals!
Below are recipes for each of the home made ingredients to the salad provided by Chef Alex Rotherham.
Home made Cottage Cheese
I didn’t realize how simple it is to make cottage cheese at home. Chef Alex informed me how much preservatives and salt is added to the cottage cheese you buy in the grocery store. He wanted to experiment with making cheese last year and created this salad to go with the cheese – these instructions look so easy! Make sure you get skim milk, not whole milk – whole milk has chemicals that specifically don’t allow it to separate. I haven’t tried this yet, but will soon.
This cheese will last 2 weeks if kept refrigerated.
Ingredients for Cottage Cheese
4L of skimmed milk Chef’s tip: ONLY use skim milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tsp of sea salt
Instructions for Cottage Cheese
1. Set up a mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water. 2. Put salt and milk into the mixing bowl. 3. Heat milk to 80°C. The milk must reach this temperature but be careful not to go any hotter than that because it will scorch. 4. When it reaches that temperature, slowly add lemon juice and vinegar. 5. Gently stir with a rubber spatula. 6. It will take a few seconds for the milk to separate and cheese to form a large mass, stop stirring and remove from heat. Note: the liquid will all turn yellow. This is normal. 7. Allow curds to settle to the bottom of the pan (about 5 minutes) 8. Strain off the liquid. This can be used for cream soups and cream sauces. 9. Place curds into a fine strainer or several layers of cheese cloth. 10. Cool the cheese in the refrigerator for 25-30 minutes. 11. Once fully formed, turn out onto cutting board and cut into small cubes at 1oz per serving.
Fresh Herb Vinaigrette
Home-made vinaigrettes don’t last very long, but they are surely more flavourful, fresh and don’t have all the salt and preservatives like the ones that are store bought. If fresh herbs are in season, it is definitely cheaper to make this at home, not to mention more rewarding.
This makes a 500mL (16oz) bottle of dressing.
Ingredients for Vinaigrette
2 cups of canola oil
1 cup (40g) of basil
1/2 cup (20g) of arugula
1 1/2 cup (60g) of parsley
2 tsp of honey
1/6 tsp of cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp of sea salt
1/2 cup of vinegar
Instructions for Vinaigrette
1. Combine all ingredients, except for vinegar, in a blender. 2. Blend and slowly pour vinegar while blending. 3. Transfer into bottle and store in the fridge.
Fresh Salsa
This recipe from Darby’s also uses a home-made hot sauce recipe, which isn’t provided. I find that store bought salsa is either never hot enough or too hot for my taste so I do enjoy making my own salsa. You can also make it as chunky as you’d like.
This recipe will yield about 2.5 cups of salsa.
Ingredients for Salsa
1 can (2 cups, 14.5oz) Diced tomatoes
1 medium onion (1 cup) diced red onions
6 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tsp hot sauce
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions for Salsa
1. Combine all ingredients into a stainless steel mixing bowl. 2. Mix well and transfer into a container to refrigerate.
We found some recipes on the Thai House website. There are many restaurants in Vancouver under the Thai House family and many of them are participating in Vancouver Dine Out this week.
Many of the recipes call for getting curry from Thai House which is a major time saver! We decided to try one that didn’t require curry. Here’s a beef salad recipe that was quick and easy to make. Thai House, thanks so much for posting some great recipes on your website.
Summary
Preparation Time: 15 mins (cutting veggies)
Cook Time: 15 mins (preparing the sirloin steak)
Servings: 2 as a full meal, 4 if served as a side
Meal type: salad
Grocery Cost: $10.50
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients
1 lb of top sirloin beef ($6.00; I bought slightly more than 1 lb)
1/4 head of lettuce ($0.30)
1/2 cucumber ($0.60)
1/2 onion ($0.50)
2 whole tomatoes ($1.40)
1/2 shallot ($1.00)
3 fresh red chilli peppers ($0.20)
5 mint leaves ($0.10)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro ($0.20)
3 limes ($2.00)
1 tbs white or palm sugar (I used brown sugar because that’s what I had in my cupboard)
4 tbs fish sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
Instructions
1. Barbeque or grill the beef. The method I always use for making steaks is to pan-fry at high heat on a cast-iron skillet to get the outside browned and then stick the entire pan in the oven at 500F to cook the inside.
2. Cut the beef into thin almost bite-size pieces.
3. Thinly slice the red chilli peppers. I remove most of the seeds, but you can leave them in if you want. 4. Wash all vegetables and then slice them into bite-size pieces. 5. Add all the vegetables into a mixing bowl along with the sliced steak. 6.In a separate small bowl, mix the fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Add to the mixing bowl. 7.Cut the 3 limes in half and then hand squeeze the juice over the salad. I squeezed the juice in with the other sauce ingredients in the small bowl so I could taste it and adjust accordingly. It turns out that I only needed 1 decent-size lime and it was enough to balance out the saltiness of the fish sauce and soy sauce. I think 3 would have been too much for me, so you can experiment and see how much lime juice and sugar you need to balance everything out. 8.Toss everything together and enjoy!
Results
WOW, I was kind of surprised how easy it was to make this salad! I’ve ordered it before at two different thai restaurants in Victoria and Vancouver and enjoyed the combination of flavours. I think the mint and cilantro are really important in giving this dish it’s distinct taste. Although the recipe only asks for 5 mint leaves, I actually added more like 12 and it was good. I think 5 would have been too little for this much salad. I may have also added a bit more cilantro than called for! As a variation, I actually put half of the chopped red onion and shallot on the skillet for a bit as well to cut down on the sharp red onion and shallot flavour, which I find overpowering sometimes.
This salad is easy to make and a really good switch from your regular everyday salad. I would definitely make this again!
Vancouver is world renowned for it’s fresh sushi and Japanese restaurants. In the downtown core, you can find a Japanese restaurant on every block so it is very hard to differentiate. Miku Restaurant was opened by Seigo Nakamura in October 2008 and has since been the talk of many foodies, bloggers, and media in Vancouver.
Miku is participating in Vancouver Dine Out April 26 – May 6 so you can see for yourself how special this restaurant is.
I was excited to come in to learn more about Japanese food and cooking from a Japanese chef/business owner! As an added highlight to the day, I also met Chef Takuya Motohashi. Chef Takuya Motohashi is from Victoria where is parents ran a Japanese restaurant. He trained in restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka before returning to Vancouver and joining Miku. Thanks Chef Takuya Motohashi for translating and showing us how the food is prepared at Miku.
Seigo Nakamura took over the family business (Tora Corporation) of nine traditional sushi restaurants in Japan and wanted to do something different and innovate as he expanded to North America. Seigo decided that the restaurant would specialize in Aburi sushi. Aburi style is when fish is partially grilled topside by a blowtorch. In order to keep the gas smell away from the food, they add charcoal.
There are no other restaurants in the world that serve and primarily feature Aburi sushi. The sushi is also served in block form, using an oshibako. This kind of pressed sushi is called oshizushi and is popular in the Kansai Region.
Interview with Seigo Nakamura
What is your inspiration for Miku?
I want to use very traditional techniques and styles. But as a business strategy – innovate and do something different.
What do you cook?
I love to cook everything! My job is company management but cooking is my hobby. I like to cook for my family and my partners and employees and invite them to my home. Chinese, Japanese, Italian…everything.
What is your advice for people that starting to cook home?
Don’t be afraid to take on the challenges. You’ll make food that tastes bad sometimes. You have to keep cooking and learn and work at it. There will always be people who will eat your food, so don’t worry if it tastes bad.
You should enjoy it. Enjoy is best!
What is your favourite tool in the kitchen?
My hands. My hand is very very important…
What’s next?
We will be opening another restaurant in North America by end of this year.
Chicken Nanban
From our talk with Chef Takuya and Seigo Nakamura, I learned that sushi is not commonly eaten in most Japanese households but only saved for special occasions. I wanted to learn more about what is cooked at home in Japan. Miku features a common comfort food dish from the Miyazaki prefecture called chicken nanban. It’s deep fried chicken served with different sauces like tartare or mayonnaise-based sauce which can be found everywhere in Japan and Vancouver. The Chefs informed me that what makes the Miku one special is that the chicken nanban is marinated after it is fried. Also, it helps that Tora Corporation comes from Miyazaki where it is their featured regional cuisine.
Miku Secrets
Sauces are important at Miku and also a secret. The unique thing about eating sushi at Miku is that the pieces are seasoned enough that you don’t need to use soy sauce or wasabi. We could not get our hands on the special Miku sauce recipe which is found on many of their dishes. Seigo informed us that he came up with the sauce by accident when trying to make something else. They can tell us the ingredients but the process of making the sauce takes special care and effort. Even at the restaurant, not all the chefs know how to make the sauce.
Another closely kept secret at Miku (and all other Japanese restaurants and households) is the Rice. I noticed that the rice texture at Miku is very different from other restaurants and asked about it. Our sushi rice is very traditional. The method has been passed down from generation to generation. It doesn’t change and only a few of the chefs know the exact recipe. The amount of water, the amount of time, the temperature – everything has been calculated and done like we do so in Japan.We get the rice directly from Japan which is more expensive but it’s such an important component of our sushi. It’s so special that not everyone here is allowed to cook it.
I found a great blog post on how to make rice like the Japanese do and it sure is way more time consuming than making Uncle Ben’s minute rice. There’s a lot of time and care taken to soak and clean the rice. I asked Chef Takuya if they get Shinmai (newly harvested rice) but he said that it’s not the only factor in making good rice and does not necessarily make the best tasting rice.
One more not so secret recipe for success at Miku are the fresh ingredients. Miku participates in Ocean Wise and indicates which fish is Ocean Wise certified on their menu. They also get fresh fish right from the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo! If only we could get such fresh fish at home…
During Winterlicious, YouCook checked out Four for lunch and was pleasantly impressed with the Tofu Enchilada. I’ve had very authentic enchiladas in Mexico and San Diego and always thought that meat was an essential part of an enchilada – whether it be ground beef or chicken or pork. The other essential part of an enchilada is the cheese, guacamole, sour cream! Which resulted in me never ordering an enchilada if I was watching what I was eating. Well…that was the case until I tried Chef Matt Rosen’s Enchilada. Actually Melody ordered it and I stole a big piece.
The inside of this vegetarian enchilada include tofu, black beans, corn, tomatoes. The sauce was tomato based. It was served with a Tomatillo Pico de Gallo Salsa and Jalapeno Crema and some Pepperjack cheese. I modified it at home with the ingredients that I could find and it was still delicious. For example, I couldn’t find a Tomatillo anywhere so I used vine tomatoes nor did I have time to make the Jalapeno Crema (Here’s Bobby Flay’s version ) and decided to serve it with strawberry yogurt.
There are essentially 3 recipes in this post – the enchilada filling, sauce and salsa. If you follow the recipe like I did, you’ll find yourself with enough filling for 20 7″ enchiladas – enough to feed a family of 2 for 5 days. Right now the filling is in my fridge, but I’m tempted to roll all of them and freeze them since I don’t plan on eating 1 or 2 a day for the next 10 days. The problem with making less than this serving size is that you’ll end up using only some of your canned beans, tomatoes, chipotle, tofu, etc.
It took a few tries at several grocery stores to find everything that these recipes required. Putting everything together wasn’t as difficult as the grocery shopping experience. I am glad I spent the time to make it.
Summary
Preparation Time: 1 hour Servings: 20 enchiladas Meal type: Main
Recipe Rating:
Ingredients for Enchilada Filling
¼ cup + 1 ½ tsp Vegetable oil I used 1/4 cup of Olive oil
0.454 kg Tofu, diced I used 1 piece in a standard package of medium firmness tofu
2 ¼ cups Canned black beans I used the entire can of black beans
1 ¾ tsp Ground cumin
1 ¾ tsp Garlic powder
1 ¾ cups diced red onions
¾ tsp Mexican chili powder I used chili flakes since I didn’t have Mexican chili powder
1 tbsp Minced garlic I used 3 cloves of garlic
¾ cup Frozen corn kernels I used 1/3 can of corn kernels
Canned chipotle, pureed Unfortunately I couldn’t find canned chipotle and used 1 fresh chili pepper instead
6 cups Canned tomatoes (whole or diced) I bought one large can of whole tomatoes
1 ¾ tsp Onion powder I only had garlic powder and used this instead
Procedure for Enchilada Filling
1. Heat oil in pot. 2. Cook garlic until brown. 3. Add red onions and cook for 5 min or until lightly browned. 4. Add chipotle, cumin, garlic, chili and onion powders and cook for 2 min. 5. Add all remaining ingredients and cook for 10 min. I unfortunately put in some liquid from the tomato can and black bean can. I had to drain this out. My advice is to drain the ingredients of the can beforehand 6. Remove from pot and allow to cool.
Ingredients for Enchilada Sauce
½ cup Vegetable oil
3 tbsp All-purpose flour
¾ tsp Mexican chili powder I used chili flakes since I didn’t have Mexican chili powder
½ tsp Ground cumin
½ tsp Garlic powder
½ tsp Onion powder I only had garlic powder and used this instead
3 cups Water
2 cups Tomato sauce
1 tbsp + ½ tsp Salt
Procedure for Enchilada Sauce
1. Heat oil in pot over medium heat. 2. Add spices and flour and cook for 2 min, stirring constantly. 3. Add water and tomato sauce, bring to a boil while stirring constantly. 4. Cook at a low heat and simmer for 5 min until sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. 5. Remove from pot and allow to cool.
Ingredients for Tomatillo Pico de Gallo Salsa
1 ¼ cup Tomatillo, diced I could not find tomatillo so I used 1 red vine tomato instead
2 tbsp Green onion, sliced
2 tsp Jalapeño-seeded, chopped I used half of a Jalapeño pepper
1 ¼ tsp Coriander
½ tsp Salt
3 tbsp Lime juice I used the juice from half a lime
½ tsp Sugar
Procedure for Tomatillo Pico de Gallo Salsa
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. 2. Store in fridge until ready to use.
2 tbsp Jalapeño crema I did not have sour cream at home but had some yogurt. I decided to use this instead and it did the trick of providing a creamy/milky taste
Procedure for Enchilada
1. Preheat oven at 450°F. 2. Using a ladle, lightly coat the bottom of a baking dish with sauce. 3. Lay tortillas on a flat surface and evenly distribute filling in each tortilla. 4. Roll tortilla so it is in cigar shape and the filling is evenly distributed. 5. Place rolled enchiladas in the baking dish on top of the sauce. Chef’s Note: line multiple rolls in dish until full, layering sauce and cheese overtop accordingly. 6. Ladle a small amount of sauce over the middle section of the rolled enchilada and sprinkle cheese over mid-section. 7. Cover baking dish with foil and bake at 450°F for 12-15 min or until enchiladas are browned on the edges. 8. Place on plate, and garnish with the jalapeño crema and salsa.
Results
I really enjoyed making this dish. I’ve got to admit, it was a little intimidating for me to go get all the ingredients and not being able to find everything. Spending the hour on this dish meant that I had lunch for the entire week and more. I’ve eaten the enchilada with regular salsa and sour cream on another day. I pair it with a spinach salad. It’s a great dish and I’m so happy to know that for something so flavourful, theres are not that many calories in this dish!
#gFoodie Seems like organic food will likely not ever be as cheap as non-organic. The good news is that it's getting easier to get organic.03:41:44 PM January 14, 2012from TweetDeck
What is your inspiration for Miku?
