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Archive for the ‘Gold Medal Plates’ Category

A little bit more Yorkshire

09 Jun

There's a welcome in the Dales...

This sign was spotted in the front window of the Green Dragon pub in the Yorkshire Dales. I imagine it’s a joke as I can’t believe anyone in that idyllic part of the world would harbour such a grudge against the flower people. Then again…

As predicted, dinner at the Wensleydale Heifer proved spectacular. My roast hake was especially good, a perfectly timed slab of the soft white fish, its texture somewhere between that of plaice and haddock, its flesh juicy beneath a crisp skin. The chef had set it above a ragout of chopped chorizo sausage, white beans, red pepper and brown shrimp – a merry-go-round of flavours that still allowed the fish its due – so simple but very delectable. Gastronomically this meal was the highlight of the week, an opinion with which our guide, Mark Reid, concurred. He ordered fish and chips and pronounced them to be some of the best he had ever had. From a Yorkshireman that is high praise indeed.

On the following evening I encountered another unique treat at a restaurant called Chaste, in Hawes in Wensleydale. This was a liquid treasure, a “gin” made from cider apples by a gentleman called William Chase, creator of the famous Chase vodka. His tale is an interesting one. A potato farmer, Mr. Chase provided the raw material for Tyrrell’s crisps, a popular brand of potato chip. Alas, there was a row with the supermarkets that sold the crisps and Chase found himself with a great many potatoes on his hands. He turned them into a vodka that went on to win the prize as Britain’s best vodka. The apple gin is his latest venture, a clear spirit with some of the sweetness of Calvados but unaged and laid over with juniper and other traditional gin botanicals. It’s rich, fruity, nicely spiced and rather powerful at 48% alcohol by volume. Brilliant with tonic.

Bolton Castle, glimpsed from the maze

Forgive the dashing about in this posting, the lack of linear narrative, but now I will whisk you miles up Wensleydale to Bolton castle, towering above the village of Castle Bolton. It’s open to the public but our Gold Medal Plates group was fortunate enough to have a private tour from Tom Orde-Powlett, whose family has owned the castle since it was built in 1399. Parts of it, including the rooms where Mary Queen of Scots stayed, are in remarkably good nick and there is a handsome little garden and falconry demonstrations involving a number of different owls and raptors. To the delight of our party, lunch had been laid on in the Great Hall – a feast of smoked salmon followed by a fabulous selection of local pies and cheeses including the creamy, subtle, Jervaulx Blue, a local cheese that tasted like the suave younger brother of a Stilton. One eats so much when everything is within reach and I had no room left for the finale – a goblet of strawberry Eton Mess. I ate it anyway.

venison, duck breast, ox tongue, scrumptious pies and Wensleydale cheese - all part of lunch at Bolton Castle

The last event of our week was a demonstration out on the sunny terrace of Simonstone Hall in which I attempted to explain the reasons why it matters what goes into a Pimm’s. I tried to paint a vivid picture of the origins of the drink, how young James Pimm, a tenant farmer’s son from Newnham in Kent came to London to seek his fortune not long after the battle of Waterloo. He set himself up with a barrow from which he sold oysters in the streets of the City but by 1823 he had parlayed that into an oyster bar that became a popular lunch spot for London’s businessmen and financiers. Seeking a gimmick that would set him apart from his rivals he began to mess about with signature cocktails and finally ended up, circa 1840, with Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, a tankard of chopped fruit, lemonade and the unique elixir he had created from gin infused with spices and fruits.

Life was good for Pimm. His drink caught on, sold door-to-door by boys on bicycles and new “numbers” were introduced – No. 2 Cup (based on Scotch) and No. 3 (based on brandy and still made today as a spicier version called Pimm’s Winter Cup). Eventually Pimm retired, selling the oyster bars and the secret recipe for Pimm’s to a fellow called Frederick Sawyer who sold it on to Horatio Davies, the future Lord Mayor of London. His dreams were bigger than Pimm’s and soon the stuff was available all across the Empire, wherever Englishman lifted a tennis racquet or an oar. Other “Numbers” followed in the 20th century, based on rum, rye and vodka, but the 70s and 80s were a time of hardship for the drink. Just as I was discovering its glories, most of England was turning away. The oyster bars disappeared and so did most of the Numbers. Even at places like the Henley Regatta, the drink was poorly made – something warm and flat and sticky by the end of the afternoon, attractive to wasps but otherwise useful only as a crude tool of seduction.

A mighty drum of Jervaulx Blue

Today all is once again happiness and light! A good Pimm’s remains a super drink on a hot day. Some people have their own ways of making one, using ginger ale or Champagne instead of fizzy lemonade and that’s fine, as is the normal (rather puny) ratio of 3 parts pop to 1 part Pimm’s. But this is the recipe I favour: Slice up one cored green apple, one orange, 12 strawberries and a four-inch piece of unpeeled cucumber (slippery seeds removed) and tip them all into a jug. Pour on one 750-mL bottle of Pimm’s and a fistful of mint leaves. Add 1.5 L of ice-cold fizzy lemonade such as Sprite or Seven up. Give it a quick stir (but not enough to lose the fizz) and pour over ice cubes in half-pint tankards, letting lots of the fruit slip in with the liquid. Garnish with tiny blue borage flowers. Drink swiftly and have another one right away.

 
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Posted in Drink, England, Events, Gold Medal Plates, Life in General, Spirits and Beers, Travel, Treats

 

The Coronation of Martin Juneau

13 Apr

Chef of the day at Newtown, Montreal

Last night I was in Montreal to help present chef Martin Juneau with his trophy as Canadian Culinary Champion, a title he won in February at our Gold Medal Plates final. Juneau is chef of Newtown, the restaurant and bar once owned by Jacques Villeneuve – or rather chef of the chic, modern restaurant on the second floor of the four-storey property. His jurisdiction does not extend to the bar and terrace and the whole enterprise is overseen by Executive Chef Daren Bergeron who has often competed in Gold Medal Plates from his other location, Decca 77.

But last night belonged to Juneau and a bunch of us gathered to hand over the engraved cup that will be his for the next 10 months and the superb silver-and-gilt plate, both designed and created by BIRKS, which he is entitled to keep for ever. GMP Montreal Senior judge Robert Beauchemin was there; so was GMP Ottawa-Gatineau Senior judge Anne DesBrisay (who took these pictures) and a surprise guest, Sinclair Philip of Sooke Harbour House on Vancouver Island, who was in town on Slow Food convivium business and stayed to show the support of the west. The tone of the evening was set by Juneau himself, who tends to hide his heartfelt emotion behind a casual, laid-back manner, but the applause was long and loud for the champion and the two sous-chefs who competed alongside him in Kelowna, Laurent Roy Julien and Nicolas Point.

When we had done our happy duty, half a dozen of us stayed for dinner, ordering family style with the food set out in the middle of the table for all to share. We began with bison carpaccio sliced so thinly it almost painted the plate. One could have dragged a fork across it and left half behind. Juneau had seasoned it with a grinding of a spice that seemed uncommonly aromatic and exotic but was merely very fresh black pepper. Beside the meat stood piped dots of intensely flavourful grano padano cream, a salad of diced raw zucchini, and another of arugula topped with grated padano.

Scallops, seared to take them beyond gumminess but so briefly that their juices had barely seized, played a game of camouflage alongside braised cippolini onions in a potato foam; poached quail eggs provided a third example of soft, round, white delectability.

Quail breast rolled around a gently spiced boudin noir was cooked sous vide to give it a rare, trembling texture not found in nature. Beneath the meat were slices of raw Granny Smith apple and under them, a purée of browned onions with a deep, sweet flavour that balanced the boudin noir beautifully. A mound of lightly stewed apple and fennel served as a soft condiment.

Beefy beef cheek cheeky with carrots

Juneau loves to take a single, often humble vegetable and use it in several ways on a dish. He also likes involving a raw ingredient to provide freshness and texture, especially when the main protein is rich and unctuous. The dish with which he won the Championship – crisp-skinned St. Canut piglet belly glorified with various iterations of beetroot and Granny Smith apple – was one case in point. Another was last night’s beef cheek, the first of three main courses we also shared. The big chunk of meat proved marvellously tender and unctuous, set over carrot cut and cooked like fettucine and sauced by the beef’s seeping juices. Buttery mashed carrot shared the plate and the whole thing was smothered with ribbons of raw carrot. Bugs Bunny would have had a field day but for me, it was one carrot too many.

“Rabbit three ways” was delightfully inventive. The leg meat had been shredded, wrapped around the bone and then breaded and fried in a crisp panko crust like a pogo. The liver and kidneys were skewered and grilled. The tiny rack was cooked sous vide so that one could draw the soft meat off the toothpick-sized bones merely by sucking. The vegetable component was an unexpected but rather brilliant match – firm little edamame with wasabi mayo and a final sprinkling of shredded nori.

Halibut represented the denizens of the deep, a quivering fillet topped with tomato gratin and sliced chorizo, sitting on a mound of sweet, partially oven-dried tomatoes, baby kale and rapini. The waiter closed the deal by pouring a chorizo broth into the bowl. The dish ended up tasting much more of chorizo than of halibut, but perhaps that was the point.

Fragments of a dessert

Three desserts appeared, each of them consisting of distinct elements lined up on long, elegant plates. The first involved gorgeously moist, fresh apricot financier cake, moments of passionfruit foam and of yuzu curd, smiles of fresh orange injected with vanilla and slender white fins of meringue. The second starred fresh Quebec strawberries, almond sorbet, morsels of lemon cake and dabs of vanilla fromage blanc. The third envoi featured a chocolate mousse tartlet, julienne of fresh pear, pecan sorbet, brown butter cake and large dots of salted caramel cream that almost flirted with the flavour of bacon.

Newtown is at 1476 Crescent Street in Montreal (514-284-6555), a beacon of elegance and sophistication in a street better known for its balconied pubs and serious celebrations whenever the Canadiens play at home.

 
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Posted in Canada, Canadian Culinary Championships, Events, Gold Medal Plates, Life in General, Restaurants

 

St. John’s Gold Medal Plates

19 Nov

Gold Medal Winner Jeremy Charles

Well, there you have it… The 2010 Gold Medal Plates campaign is officially concluded, the wonderful envoi a tremendous do in St. John’s, Newfoundland – and no, there is nowhere on the planet where better shindigs are thrown. So many highlights to remember, especially Jim Cuddy and Anne Lindsay playing along with Alan Doyle and Sean McCann of Great Big Sea… Stupendous energy, but it was the quality of the food that blew me away – the best of the campaign. Senior Judge Karl Wells did a magnificent job winnowing down the possible competitors. We had eight chefs giving their all tonight, and I do not exaggerate when I say that any of the top four or five of them would have won in three or four of our other cities. The bar was raised fifty feet tonight in Newfoundland. (And the bar was razed at the after-party at the Majestic, a lovely club just down the street from the Convention Centre. I’m quite sure they are still rocking on as I write.)

Roary MacPherson's dish won bronze

The bronze medal went to chef Roary MacPherson of Oppidan who told us he had created his dish based on flavours and recipes from his childhood. There was a dark block of local pork belly braised in molasses and anise, the texture rich and heavy, as pork belly should be, the flavour savoury-sweet and profound. He set the meat over a smooth, pale purée of bubble-and-squeak made with potato, cabbage and a hint of salt pork. Shavings of house-made gouda sharpened with bakeapple added extra richness while a trace of partridgeberry-cherry syrup contributed an elusive sweetness and picked up the cherry aromatics of the wine. A ragout of tender white beans in a soft stewed apple matrix was a delectably down-home starch while the garnish was an ethereal macaron flavoured with traditional Newfoundland mustard pickle (we call it picallili in England). Chef chose a wine from the west to compliment his creation – the Haynes Barn Merlot-Cabernet from Prospect Winery in B.C.’s Okanagan valley.

Tak Ishiwata took silver

The silver medal was awarded to Tak Ishiwata of Basho. He prepared a ceviche of lobster, scallop and whelk, each tasting as if it had been in the ocean moments before, the textures unique and distinct, the tender morsels wrapped in a pashmina of raw sea bass fillet. Instead of cilantro and lime, he used yuzu juice and shiso to cure the flavourful marine elements, and finished the dish with a sprig of shiso florets, the basil-menthol aroma creating a herbal aura around everything. There was a tart, intensely sapid jelly of grape tomatoes beside the benthic bundle and a dark brown stripe of preserved plum on the plate to boost the acidity. Shredded daikon cooled things down; pomegranate juice brought it up again. The garnish of a small, crunchy deep-fried shrimp chip added a different texture. Chef offered a cocktail with the dish – a sweet concoction of local Shiver vodka over muddled cucumber, melon and yuzu, the glass prepared with a shiso-sugar rim. It was delicious, fruity, but needed more acidity to reach out to the flavours on the plate.

Jeremy Charles's golden plate

Chef Jeremy Charles of the bran-new restaurant Raymonds won the gold medal by a unanimous decision. As I added up the marks for his dish – presentation, texture, taste, originality, wine-match, wow factor – I realized I had never awarded such a high score to any chef’s work in any regional, national or international competition I had ever judged. Try as I might, I could find no fault with his dish. Raymonds has assembled a dream team in the kitchen, including last year’s St. John’s champion Ivan Kutyukchev and the brilliant young baker from Ravine winery in Ontario, Erin Turcke. But this was Charles’s dish. It began in the wilds of the province with the trapping of some 60 wild rabbits. Wild rabbit meat is dark and flavourful but also lean and delicately textured. Charles used the complete lapin. The tiny ribs were frenched and cooked as if they were a rack of lamb – elfin but succulent. The livers were turned into a rich, creamy, silken mousse fashioned into a teaspoon-sized quenelle and set upon a coin of fresh brioche. A purée of Jerusalem artichoke grounded a rich but refined ragout of local brussels sprouts moistened with rabbit jus and spiked with rabbit bacon. A crisp little ravioli held braised rabbit meat, local chanterelle duxelles, a hint of date for sweetness and Canadian feta for salty tang – a spectacularly complex mouthful. Then there was the roulade of confited rabbit meat enhanced with duck fat, juniper and chives and pressed around the wee loin – an impeccably tender roll. Against such a doll’s-house display of miniaturist technique, a firm, thimble-sized turned carrot soused in honey and butter seemed positively butch. The harmonies were in perfect pitch, the wine match – a 2008 Merlot from Ravine Vineyard in St. David’s, Ontario – faultless.

Jeremy Charles won silver last year when he was chef at Atlantica. Next year, he is hosting the pan-Canadian Chefs’ Congress here in St. John’s. I think he will be going into the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna as a very serious contender for the ultimate prize.

Before signing off, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer a heartfelt thankyou to all the judges across the country who so generously volunteered their time and expertise to Gold Medal Plates. Our Senior Judges are invaluable, playing the major role in choosing the chefs who will compete in each city and coming together to form the adjudicatory panel for the Canadian Culinary Championships. In Vancouver, two men share the duties – writer and international food and wine judge Sid Cross and food writer and editor Andrew Morrison. In Edmonton, it’s Chef Instructor Clayton Folkers, former captain of the Canadian National Culinary Team. In Calgary, author, food writer, teacher and broadcaster John Gilchrist is our Senior Judge. Food writer, editor and broadcaster CJ Katz covers Saskatchewan for us. Food writer, editor and columnist Sasha Chapman is our Senior Judge in Toronto. Anne DesBrisay, revered restaurant critic for the Ottawa Citizen, heads our Ottawa-Gatineau panel. Robert Beauchemin, author, teacher and gastronomic journalist is our Montréal Senior Judge. Food writer and broadcaster Karl Wells leads the team in St. John’s.

One other duty we ask of each of our Senior Judges is that they guide us in assembling a panel of judges in their city – food writers, chef instructors, chefs, restaurant critics, all of them professional culinarians – to adjudicate the Gold Medal Plates regional events and award gold, silver and bronze medals to the successful competitors. These judges, volunteering their time, provide the backbone of credibility that makes our Gold Medal Plates events more than just fund-raising galas. They have now become the most significant gastronomic competitions in Canada.

So a huge thank you to our judges across the country during the last campaign: in Vancouver, John Bishop, Barbara-Jo McIntosh and Lesley Stowe; in Edmonton, Liane Faulder, Gail Hall and Chris Wood; in Calgary, Michael Allemeier, Susan Hopkins and Michael Noble; in Saskatchewan, Trent Brears, Amy Jo Ehman, Vince LaPointe and dee Hobsbawn-Smith; in Toronto, Christine Cushing, John Higgins, Anita Stewart and Lucy Waverman; in Ottawa-Gatineau, Pam Collacott, Margaret Dickenson, Chris Knight and Judson Simpson; in Montréal, Julian Armstrong and Lesley Chesterman; in St. John’s, Bob Arneil, Tom Beckett, Kitty Drake and Cynthia Stone. Mes amis, let’s do it all again next year!

 
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Ottawa-Gatineau Gold Medal Plates

17 Nov

Michael Moffatt's golden dish - the plate top left has the duck draped over the kimchi; the plate in the foreground is as yet unblessed.

On the road again… I love my involvement with Gold Medal Plates. Crossing the country as we do makes me feel as if I’m in some kind of rock band, swinging into town, doing our show, then moving on. I get to see my fellow culinary judges and catch up with what’s cooking in their communities, hobnob with real heroes and heroines from the worlds of sports and entertainment, and relive golden moments from Canada’s recent Olympic and Paralympic triumphs. And I love the cause. By the end of the year we will have raised well over $5 million for our athletes and also, I like to think, tightened the national network of culinarians, chef instructors, chefs, food writers, winemakers, brewers and distillers that GMP has built up over the years in this gastronomically engaged but far-flung country.

Last Tuesday night, it was Ottawa-Gatineau’s turn as we blew in to the National Arts Centre in the heart of the nation’s capital for the penultimate event of the regional campaign. I don’t think another guest could have been squeezed in but the mood was merry and energetic, enlivened by the 100-or-so sous chefs, cooks and accomplices who manned the chefs’ stations and then lined the mezzanine balcony, looking down on the splendour of the celebration tables. It’s the first time we’ve ever had a “peanut gallery” but it was a great place to enjoy the show put on by the athletes (led by Alexandre Bilodeau) and our genius troubadours Jim Cuddy, Anne Lindsay, Holly Cole and Aaron Davis.

The evening began with the VIP reception where last year’s local champion (and Canadian Culinary Championship bronze medallist) Matthew Carmichael served superb spot prawn tacos (divine with our Ontario bubblies). Then, promptly at six o’clock, the serious eating began. Without exception, this year’s dishes were imaginatively complex, elaborately garnished and beautiful to look at. The judges, sequestered for once in their own lair, were divided about the eventual order of the gold and silver medallists – but when the marks were finally totalled a clear winner emerged.

Ross and Simon Fraser won bronze

Our bronze medal was awarded to Ross and Simon Fraser, brothers, co-chefs and owners of Fraser Café. Their dish consisted of two major elements. To the right, a well seasoned, pan-seared fillet of ling cod was admirably moist and fluffy, sitting above a lightweight but appropriately spicy curry of fenugreek and brown mustardseeds in a delicate coconut sauce. Cubes of juicy white melon mitigated the chili heat in the curry. A crisp miniature papadom sat on the fish like a jaunty hat. On the other side of the plate, the chefs had julienned a cool, crunchy slaw of cucumber, carrot and radish and crowned it with a plump B.C. spot prawn – a delicious mouthful. While the two parts of the dish were unabashedly distinct they shared a most attractive balance of flavour intensities. The chefs chose the crisp, aromatic 2008 Artist Series Gewurztraminer from Hillebrand Estate Winery in Niagara, Ontario.

Caroline Ishii's vegan silver creation

Taking the silver medal, Chef Caroline Ishii of Zen Kitchen presented the first-ever vegan dish in Gold Medal Plates history. It looked spectacular, topped with a crisp tube of fried, applewood-smoked yuba (dried soy milk skin) filled with fermented macadamia curd that tasted like richly nutty cream cheese. The principal element was a ragout of exotic mushrooms from local grower Le Coprin set over a truffled mushroom sauce, and a drum of polenta, creamy within, golden and crispy on the surface. A thin disc of beet-and-red-pepper aspic crowned the drum, which sat on two little sheets of seared green kale dressed with a kombu-plum wine vinaigrette. A conserve of fruity passilla peppers finished a most seductive dish. Chef Ishii’s wine was the crisp, refreshing 2008 Archangel Sparkling Pinot Noir from Angels Gate winery in Niagara, Ontario.

Our gold medal was won by Chef Michael Moffatt of Beckta Dining & Wine, who also won gold in 2007. His dish consisted of three separate components and Chef explained the order in which they should be eaten. To begin, a slice of bacon-wrapped rabbit terrine sat on a crisp horseradish cracker. “Making terrines is becoming a lost art,” pointed out one of the judges, but Moffatt has clearly mastered it. This one was packed densely with lean, tender meat and crowned with a little relish of pickled watermelon rind and some opal basil seedlings. The second part of the dish was a fork upon which was impaled the super-tender tentacles of a grilled squid which were wrapped tightly with freshly made herb linguine dressed with a rich, velvet-textured bonemarrow butter sauce. “When you’ve eaten it, use the fork for the third element,” instructed Chef Moffatt, referring to slices of duck breast, seared to give just the right amount of texture to the skin while rendering down the fat beneath it but leaving the tender flesh attractively pink. Hidden beneath the duck lay some crunchy, intensely flavourful kimchi of cabbage, green bean and garlic scapes. Chef Moffatt turned to a generously fruity, off-dry aromatic white for his pairing – the 2008 Pinot Gris from Fielding Estates in Niagara.

So our team of gastronomic gladiators for next February’s Canadian Culinary Championship is almost complete. Martin Juneau from La Montée in Montreal, Andrew Fung from Blackhawk Golf Club outside Edmonton, Robert Clark of C in Vancouver, Dan Walker of Weczeria Food and Wine in Saskatoon, Frank Dodd of Hillebrand Winery restaurant in Niagara, Duncan Ly of Hotel Arts Raw Bar in Calgary and now Michael Moffatt of Beckta Dining & Wine in Ottawa will line up against whoever emerges as the winner of our last event in St. John’s on Thursday night. The excitement grows.

 
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Calgary Gold Medal Plates

13 Nov

Chef Duncan Ly's gold-medal-winning dish

After two years at the Round-up Centre, Gold Medal Plates returned to the Hyatt Regency for its Calgary jamboree on Friday night. With yet another sold-out crowd on what is proving to be a record-breakingly successful campaign, the great ballroom was buzzing with energy. Jim Cuddy, Anne Lindsay and Colin James played as superbly as ever and Alexandre Bilodeau was greeted with a standing ovation as we remembered his awesome gold medal – the first gold ever won by a Canadian on Canadian soil. Indeed, the entire video of highlights from the Vancouver Olympics had the whole crowd cheering (and quite a few people becoming misty-eyed with patriotism).

Gastronomically, it was also a most memorable occasion. Former Canadian Culinary Champion Hayato Okamitsu was in the audience – he’s now teaching at SAIT – and last year’s Calgary gold medallist, Jan Hrabek of Crazyweed in Canmore provided delectable canapés for the VIP reception before being inducted into the Gold Medal Plates Hall of Fame. Standards were as high as we could remember among the ten competing chefs and only a fraction of a percentage point separated fourth place from third.

Chef Justin Leboe's bronze-medal dish before the saffron cream was poured on

Our bronze medallist was chef Justin Leboe, whose new restaurant, Model Milk, is about to take Calgary by storm. He made a confit of steelhead trout, setting a square fillet of the meltingly tender fish against the side of a bowl and dusting it with fine black ashes made from charred leek and celery. A salad of tangy chanterelles, soft leek and miniature potato crisps was strewn with chopped dill, chives and marigold petals then a warm saffron potato cream was poured into the bowl from a jug to finish the beautifully presented and colourful dish. Chef Leboe’s interesting choice of wine – the rich, limpid 2009 Chardonnay from Laughing Stock winery in British Columbia – provoked a good deal of discussion among the judges.

The silver medal was awarded to chef Shaun Desaulniers of Belgo who has won both silver and bronze in years gone by. This time, he worked with Nagano pork tenderloin from Quebec, slow-cooked at 180 degrees until it was pink and trembling. The thick slice of meat was crowned with a wedge of St. André cheese so meltingly ripe it was almost a sauce. Tiny crunchy little sticks

This dish won silver for chef Shaun Desaulniers

scattered on top looked like crisped potatoes but turned out to be Macintosh apple and there was more apple, chopped as a brunoise, among the perfectly cooked, bacon-flecked brown lentils that served as a pillow for the pork. A lovely apple cider gastrique had the sweet-tangy flavour to freshen the entire dish and worked very well indeed with the wine Chef Desaulniers chose, the 2007 Pinot Noir from Noble Ridge in B.C.

Our gold medallist had also stood on our podium twice before, earning silver in 2007 and 2009: chef Duncan Ly of Hotel Arts Raw Bar. The main event on his plate was a perfectly crisp, piping hot beignet stuffed with a rich, tangy mixture of tender braised beef cheek spiked with the intensity of sour cherry. While the flavour combination reminded Senior Judge John Gilchrist of classic Persian cooking the entire judiciary was full of admiration for the technical feat of making 550 beignets of such impeccable texture. The other major element on Chef Ly’s dish was some sleek, thickly sliced salmon gravlax cured with coriander and citrus zest and served over a lightly dressed salad of grated celeriac. Braised beef and gravlax? It was a courageous pairing that looked downright odd on paper but it somehow worked marvellously well thanks to a bridge ingredient – the finely minced shallots in a tomato confit vinaigrette prettied up with pink flower petals. The wine was also an effective ambassador between the meat and the fish – a great choice – Tantalus 2008 Pinot Noir from B.C.

I wish I had been able to present the gorgeous etched-steel 18-karat gold winner’s plate to chef Ly up there on the podium but he had already left the building, rushing home to be with his wife and their first baby, born just 24 hours earlier. Sous chef Colin Metcalfe accepted the trophy on his chef’s behalf.

So now we have six champions lined up for the Canadian Culinary Championships next February in the Okanagan – with only Ottawa-Gatineau and St. John’s remaining in what has been, in this reporter’s opinion, the most exciting Gold Medal Plates campaign ever.

 
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Toronto Gold Medal Plates

05 Nov

Lorenzo Loseto won silver, Frank Dodd won gold, Michael Steh won bronze

Was there ever a better-organized party than the Gold Medal Plates gala in Toronto last night? Long before the VIP reception began, every i had been dotted and every t crossed. Those of us who usually bustle about asking for last-minute things to happen had nothing to do but wait for the fun to begin. And the fun was intense. Alongside Edmonton, this was the biggest party GMP has ever thrown, with 775 guests in attendance in two of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s vast halls. We began the VIP reception with a super selection of Canadian bubblies chosen by National Wine Advisor, David Lawrason, and two delectable little dishes from last year’s champion, David Lee, one of them an awesome boudin noir and beans, the other a reprise of his famous chicken-skin-and-cartilege sensation from last year.

Meanwhile, the chefs had set up their stations in the adjoining hall, some of them going to enormous decorative lengths. But it was the food on the plates that counted where the judges were concerned. The dishes generated a great deal of discussion and the overall vote for the gold and silver contenders was by no means unanimous. In the end, however, our worthy gold medallist had both the majority of the judges’ opinions and the highest marks, albeit by a narrow margin.

Dazzling Olympian Marnie McBean assisted at Chef Steh's station

Taking the bronze medal was chef Michael Steh of Reds Bistro & Wine Bar who credited his mother and also one of the judges, chef David Lee, his former boss, as his inspirations. Chef Steh worked with rabbit in a number of ways. He made a ballontine of the saddle, stuffed with a soft spicy blood sausage, and set a slice of it on the plate beside a slice of firm, garlicky smoked rabbit kolbasa. A third “round” was a confit as soft as rillettes which he formed into a tiny puck, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Baby vegetables glazed with verjus freshened the flavours and a sliver of armagnac-poached prune was an unforgettable condiment. Baby chanterelles starred in a rich, dark sauce flavoured with Madeira and mustard seeds. Chef Steh’s chosen wine was a particularly successful match, the 2007 Baco Noir Reserve from Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery in Niagara, Ontario.

Our silver medal was awarded to chef Lorenzo Loseto of George, who also won silver in 2007. He built his dish around a slice of Tamworth pork belly, impeccably cooked, crisp on the surface and meltingly soft fat beneath it. The same textural contrast was echoed by some exquisite baby artichokes, soft and yielding inside a crispy crust. Matsutake mushrooms provided a different mouthfeel as did perfect little ricotta cavatelli while the sauces were a reduction of juiced red pepper with a hit of miso and an elderberry compote. It was a luxe and extremely delicious plateful and Chef’s chosen wine, the 2008 Estate Chardonnay from Hidden Bench Vineyards & Winery in Niagara, Ontario, served as a delectable antidote to the richness.

Lorenzo Loseto's delectable offering took silver

Our gold medal winner was Chef Frank Dodd of Hillebrand Winery Restaurant in Niagara. He drew on his long-standing relationship with local meat supplier Dingo Farms to present a trio of pork preparations, one hot, one cold, and one frozen. The hot element was very hot indeed, a demitasse sealed with pastry and containing a beautifully lightweight broth made from ham hocks and prosciutto with diced yellow squash adding its own earthy sweetness to the recipe. Beside it was a triangular slice of dense, meaty head cheese wrapped in prosciutto, the light and dark meat in attractive contrast. The third element was a bacon ice cream served on a teaspoon and crowned with a tissue of bacon sugar. Simultaneously sweet and savoury, the ice cream drew murmurs of admiration from the judges, not least because Chef Dodd somehow prevented it from melting even though it stood next to the piping hot demitasse. Not surprisingly, he paired his dish (very successively) with a Hillebrand wine – the 2008 Trius Red, an elegant blend of Bordeaux varieties – and reduced some of it to a syrup to serve as a sauce for the terrine. So now we have five champions eager to compete at the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna next February. Three cities remain: Calgary, Ottawa-Gatineau and St. John’s. I can’t wait to see what transpires.

Frank Dodd's gold medal winner: you can't go wrong with bacon ice cream!

 
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Gold Medal Plates Saskatchewan

31 Oct

The gold medal winner

 

The Gold Medal Plates team blew into Saskatoon on Saturday, knowing that we had a sell-out crowd of 550, a great venue at the TCU Centre and an irresistible show to offer with Jim Cuddy and Anne Lindsay, Barney Bentall and Colin James providing the music. Comedian Ron James was in very fine form, keeping the audience in stitches (plenty of whispers of “I can’t believe he said that!” amidst the laughter). Saskatchewan’s own superstar Olympian Catriona Le May Doan emceed the second half of the evening and interviewed gold medallist Alexandre Bilodeau on stage. By then the crowd was feeling very well fed but none of us on the team knew how the auction might go. In the end, it was the most successful evening in Gold Medal Plates’s history and by a wide, wide margin as around $400,000 was raised.

I was just as happy where the food was concerned. Our ten chefs came from Regina and Prince Albert as well as Saskatoon, making this a true representation of Saskatchewan and it’s one million population. And I was thrilled to see and taste a huge range of local product from farmed steelhead trout to lentils, black pansy syrup to haskap to the world’s best wild chanterelles, awesome lamb to local venison, wild boar and duck.

The bronze medal winner

Our bronze medallist was Chef Anthony McCarthy of the Saskatoon Club. He braised Berkshire pig cheeks to the point of tenderness and sauced them with the braising liquid and a pork demi-glace made from the pig’s bones. The lean meat stood beside a small and elegant pirozhki filled with a purée of semi-dehydrated Prairie Sensation apples, touched by a subtle hint of black truffle. A fava bean purée added lovely colour to the plate and a delicate apple cider cream picked up the flavour of the pirozhki. Chef had twisted a very crisp, lightweight strip of crackling into the Q of a pig’s tail and the dish was finished with a couple of perfect little golden chanterelles foraged in the Whitefox area by a gentleman called Lorne Terry. “Call it ‘pork and beans,’” said McCarthy. So we did. The wine was a good match – the dry, aromatic 2008 Pinot Blanc from Peller Estates in B.C.’s Okanagan valley.

The silver medal was awarded to Chef Ryan Marquis of the Delta Bessborough hotel in Saskatoon. Front-and-centre on his plate stood a hen’s egg shell filled with a spectacularly luxe foie gras crème brûlée that many of the judges deemed to be the single most delicious item of the evening. Beside it stood a big square-cut slab of smoked pork belly with a maple molasses glaze and more dots of the black, deeply flavoured glaze decorated the platye. A stripe of parsnip purée and a crisp parsnip chip represented the vegetable kingdom. Chef’s wine choice worked well – the awesome 2008 Nota Bene from Black Hills winery in the Okanagan, British Columbia.

The silver medal winner

 

Taking the gold medal by a unanimous decision of the judges was Chef Dan Walker of Weczeria Food and Wine in Saskatoon, by far the smallest restaurant in the competition. His strip of wild boar belly was perfectly textured – crisp where it needed to be, unctuous elsewhere, and richly flavoured. An almost undetectable scattering of crumbled pecans added an extra dinension. Beneath the belly we found some pulled leg meat from the boar, moist and sapid from a well-seasoned marinade. Two purées – one of carrot, the other of jerusalem artichoke – were delightfully lightweight but also full of flavour, matched by crisps made from the same vegetables. Two soft, pan-fried potato gnocchi were exemplary in texture and useful for mopping up a finishing flourish of green herbal oil. The winning wine was a great match – a wine that has already captured gold elsewhere in this year’s campaign – Rockpile 2008 from Road 13 winery in the Okanagan.

So our first venture into Saskatchewan was an unparalleled success in every way. Chef Walker will be coming to Kelowna in February and it’s fascinating to see that competition beginning to take shape now that four of our champions have been chosen.

 
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Gold Medal Plates Vancouver

31 Oct

On Friday night, in the friendly confines of the Sheraton Wall Centre, Vancouver, where the finals of the 2009 Canadian Culinary Championship were once decided (seems like yesterday), a little bit of Gold Medal Plates history was made. A very merry crowd, primed by excellent food and wine, the spectacular music of Colin James, Jim Cuddy, Barney Bentall and Anne Lindsay, the knife-sharp stand-up of comedian Ron James, and the smooth-as-satin martinis made with our new best friend, locally distilled Victoria gin, bid and bid and bid on the auction prizes, raising a new record sum for a single GMP event, well over a quarter of a million dollars.

The culinary side of of the evening also set a record as the gold, silver and bronze medallists crossed the finish line in what the judges deemed to be very nearly a dead heat, all three separated by no more than 1.5 percent. All ten chefs surpassed themselves on an evening when the gastronomical standards were uniformly high, but when the numbers were crunched, and the judicial brows mopped, here’s how it went down.

Taking the bronze medal was Neil Taylor of Cibo Trattoria. He made specatcular use of local, seasonal ingredients with a carpaccio of wild venison, tender and smoky, dressed with slices of superb pine mushrooms (the best in the world). A tangy, earthy black truffle and celeriac aioli, smooth as a Jim Cuddy lyric, grounded the dish while paper-thin shavings of red-wine-soaked pecorino pushed the flavours skyward. Wild watercress added the “green” to the flavour and colour spectrum of the dish. The wine pairing, with Foxtrot Vineyards awesome 2007 Pinot Noir from the Okanagan vineyards, was the most precise and seductive of the night.

The judges awarded the silver medal, for the second year in a row, to Dale Mackay of Lumiere, who pipped Neil Taylor by about half a percentage point, in true Olympic fashion. Chef offered the archetype of baked B.C. black cod – a small but perfect fillet that broke into moist, glossy petals at the touch of a fork. Morsels of smoked tomato lay on its surface and beneath it was a jumble of corn kernels, finely shredded kale and button mushroom, all textures and flavours distinct and bold. Mackay finished the dish by pouring on a little consommé made from barbecued pork spiked with a beautifully judged combination of spices like a smoky version of five-spice. Just to make the point, a bowl of those spices was set down on the judges’ table to add to the general atmosphere and the chosen wine seemed to pick them out of the dish – a big, off-dry, fruity, petrolly 2009 Riesling from Tantalus in B.C.

The gold medal was awarded to chef Rob Clark of C restaurant, who also won gold in 2006. He presented a demi-tasse of translucent, pure tomato consommé as a palate cleanser. Then, having primed our taste buds, pow! A slice of a delectable terrine made with Fraser Canyon rabbit was as moist and rich and sapid as rillettes, with spot prawns as hidden treasures in the luxe matrix. Subtle, sweetly pickled chanterelles were one delightful counterpoint; another was a slender tuile, simultaneously peppery and sweet, providing textural crunch. His chosen wine was a great match, finding all sorts of nuances in the rabbit – an aromatic 2009 Viognier from Black Hills estate winery in B.C.

This was an incredibly closely fought contest and all the medallists deserve huge applause, but it’s chef Clark who will be going on to Kelowna next February to compete in the Candian Culinary Championships for the second time.

 
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Edmonton Gold Medal Plates

28 Oct

Chef Andrew Fung's gold medal gyoza

Last night saw a brilliant party at Edmonton’s Shaw Centre as the Gold Medal Plates campaign soared onwards into the fall. We have never welcomed a bigger crowd – 775 guests – and, as always in this generous city, the welcome was warm and the auction bidding lively. Alexandre Bilodeau was the inspiring keynote speaker, allowing us to all to relive his gold medal moment from Vancouver with emceeing duties provided by the ever-charming Terry David Mulligan and dashing paddler Adam Van Koeverden. Irresistible music from Jim Cuddy, Colin James and Anne Lindsay kept energy levels high as a kite.

The ten competing chefs had also come to win, bringing first class ingredients and delicious imagination to their dishes. Such is the strength of Edmonton’s culinary scene these days that seven of the ten chefs were competing at Gold Medal Plates for the first time.

Taking the bronze medal was Chef Shane Chartrand of L2 Grill, the new restaurant at Fantasyland Hotel. He created a delectable roll of rich, soft, foie gras-scented steak tartare, rolling the finely ground raw beef in a crunchy, peppery crust of dried squid ink. At the heart of each slice lay a morsel of moist white monkfish. Two sauces complemented the protein – one a purée of sweet pea enriched with bone marrow, the other a tangy, sweet orange caramel sauce that served as a brilliant bridge into the wine. For that, Chef Chartrand went to Ontario, pouring the Wayne Gretsky No. 99 Estates 2005 Vidal Icewine, VQA Niagara Peninsula, a bold decision that paid off handsomely with a great match in terms of texture and weight.

Chef Michael Brown's silver medal study in crab

The silver medallist was no stranger to the podium: Michael Brown, execuitve chef of Share in the Westin Edmonton hotel, won gold in 2006 and another silver in 2008. This year he gave us “a study in crab,” complete with some poetry he had written especially for the dish. Each guest received a small cocktail glass of rich, thick, intensely flavourful crab bisque topped with a corn espuma spiked with a hint of jalapeño and scattered with crunchy, colourful motes of beetroot crisp. Beside the glass lay a spinach crepe wrapped around a salad of Alaskan red king crab, the flavour cool and delicate but unmistakably crabby. A single parmesan gougère was the third element, its rich cheesiness leavened slightly by a garnish of micro firestix flowers. An elegant yellow beet tuile was perfectly crisp, earning the applause of the chefs on the judging panel. Chef Brown paired his dish with an appropriately aromatic Tinhorn Creek’s 2009 Gewurztraminer from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia.

Our gold medallist last night, by a unanimous decision from the judges, was Andrew Fung, chef of Blackhawk Golf Club, who presented a duo of Alberta beef. A plump gyoza, piping hot on the warm plate, was filled with a mixture of red-wine-braised short rib, caramelized onion, balsamic and foie gras mousse – a rich mouthful indeed. A lip-sticking veal reduction enhanced it from one direction while a tartly refreshing Granny Smith apple purée leavened the effect beautifully. Lolling over the top of the gyoza was a piece of garlic-and-thyme-infused, oven-dried roma tomato. The second part of the creation came in a miniature bowl – slices of very rare beef tataki, using the hanger steak cut. Seared for seconds then sliced against the grain, the meat was spectacularly tender, dressed with shaved asiago cheese, olive oil and – in a surprising but very successful combination – a tangy ponzu sauce. The wine pairing was particularly well achieved, with chef choosing Road 13 2008 Jackson Pinot Noir from the Okanagan Valley in B.C.

Congratulations to all our competitors and thanks to our valiant judges! Now Chef Fung will start planning for the Canadian Culinary Championship in Kelowna next February. We look ahead to a busy rest-of-the-week with GMP events in Vancouver on Friday and Saskatoon on Saturday.

Chef Shane Chartrand's bronze medal steak-and-monkfish tartare

 
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Gold Medal Plates Montreal

20 Oct

 

Gold medal winner Martin Juneau

The 2010 Gold Medal Plates campaign got off to a delicious but unconventional start yesterday in Montreal. Our usual method, as some of you may recall from previous years, is to hold a spectacular party with great chefs cooking in competition with each other, delectable Canadian wines, amazing live music, inspiring athletes, and a crowd of 600 or more to enjoy the evening and raise money for Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes. That will be the pattern in other cities as the autumn progresses but it was not how we did things yesterday. Montreal had already thrown its great Olympic party and parade of champions in April and the powers that be in Canada’s Olympic movement felt one major event was enough this year. Which left us with a predicament, as we needed to be able to find a new Gold Medal Plates champion from Montreal who could compete in the Canadian Culinary Championship in Kelowna next February. What to do, what to do…?

Our solution was to gather our esteemed group of judges, rent a luxurious and spacious vehicle and spend the day traveling from restaurant to restaurant, zigzagging across Montreal. At each restaurant, the competing chef presented us with his competition dish and accompanying beverage. Other than water, that was all he was allowed to offer. The judges took absolutely no notice of the décor, service or anything else, concentrating solely on the dish and its beverage, awarding marks for presentation, texture, taste, originality, the compatibility of food and drink and also for “wow factor,” a category that allows us to award a few extra, very subjective points for the immediate effect the dish produces.

It was a gloriously sunny day as the judges convened in the calm of the library-like lobby of Le Centre Sheraton hotel. This year, our posse of palates included senior judge Robert Beauchemin of La Presse, Julian Armstrong, former food editor of The Montreal Gazette, Lesley Chesterman, fine-dining critic and food columnist of The Montreal Gazette, Chef Mathieu Cloutier who won both Montreal’s GMP event and the Candian Culinary Championship last year and was therefore obliged to judge, not compete, this year, and yours truly. Also with us was Gold Medal Plates CEO Stephen Leckie, our admirable logistics star Claudette Dupras, who organized the day, and two gentlemen from the Canadian Olympic Committee - Jean Gosselin, Senior Advisor, Public Affairs (and no relation to the competing chef) and Jacques Cardyn, Chef de Mission for the 2011 Pan American Games.

This dish won the silver medal

Our chariot was a sturdy black minibus with darkened windows that looked from the outside like the sort of vehicle that takes prisoners to and from the courthouse. Inside, however, it was furnished with soft leather horsehoe banquettes and all sorts of other pleasures. Off we went… Eight hours later, well-fed and happy, the judges compared their scores and our gold, silver and bronze medallists were confirmed. It had been a fascinating day, notable for the fact that so many chefs had chosen to use the glorious little piglets from Gaspor farm, also known as St-Canut, and the abundance of squash in the dishes.

Here are the chefs who took part in the competition – in alphabetical order: Darren Bergeron of Decca 77, Derek Damann of DNA, Alexandre Gosselin of Bar & Beouf, Martin Juneau of La Montèe de Lait, Alexandre Loiseau of Cocagne, Francis Pouliot of Laurie-Raphaël, Michel Ross of MAS Cuisine and Marc-Andrè Royal of Le St-Urbain.

The scores were very close.

Bronze medal winner Michel Ross of MAS Cuisine

Taking the bronze medal was Michel Ross of MAS Cuisine, a very small, unpretentiously decorated restaurant in the Verdun area of town that the local judges told me was always packed. He made an amazingly tender confit of pork shoulder “en crepinette” topped with a pressed cep cap. Beneath it, he painted a broad stripe of bright green arugula puree and a thicker brown puree of the richly flavoured ceps. Two tiny turned turnips had been poached in Gamay until they turned a deep purple colour and took on the fruity acidity of the wine. A spoonful of toasted savoury granola added plenty of textural crunch to contrast with the soft purees while the morsels of dried fruits in it formed a bridge into the wine. Chef Ross finished the dish with a foamy emulsion of oat milk and a piece of the piglet’s crispy crackling, deep-fried like chicharron. It was a beautifully thought-out and harmonious dish and it worked very well with the wine Chef Ross chose – Malivoire 2008 Gamay VQA from the Niagara peninsula in Ontario, its lightish body bringing intense fruit flavours and refreshing acidity.

The silver medal was awarded to Marc-André Royal of Le St-Urbain, a former fruit store in the up-and-coming Ahuntsic area. The menu and wine list were written on huge blackboards and the place had a delightfully casual feel. Chef Royal’s dish starred a cylindrical mound of blood pudding with a gorgeous texture – light, moist, almost crumbly and not at all gummy. It was seasoned with five-spice and cardamom, finished with a caramel gastrique glaze and topped with some crushed almonds. Next to it stood a perfectly cooked scallop, medium-rare but seared to a golden crust on one side. A luxe puree of smoked yellow squash flecked with chives lay beneath the boudin and a little more of it had been dried and turned to powder to decorate the side of the plate. The sauce was an unctuous, fabulously rich bordelaise made with soft cubes of smoked bone-marrow and the dish was finished with a white parsnip foam. The wine match was dazzlingly good with the blood pudding – a spicy, elegant Osoyoos Larose 2006 VQA, a Bordeaux blend from the Okanagan valley in British Columbia.

The team Le St-Urbain

 

The gold medal was awarded to chef Martin Juneau of La Montée de Lait in Mile End. This is the third incarnation of the restaurant, a cheerful space with a blue pressed-tin ceiling and red vinyl banquettes. As you can see from the picture, the presentation of this dish was most dramatic. A stripe of pink-purple beet puree streaked the plate and more of the multi-coloured beets (from legendary Laurentians grower Monsieur Bertrand) lay beneath the meat, some cooked, others raw and sliced paper-thin. The meat was belly pork from a St-Canut piglet, glazed and stained purple with beet juice, superbly juicy and topped with a beet-glazed square of crackling. Little cubes of soft green-apple jelly and counters of fresh green apple dotted the plate while the pork was crowned with a crunchy knot of beet crisps. There was plenty of subtle sweetness in the dish, brilliantly paired with an intensely flavourful, full-bodied and potent still cider, La Face Cachée de la Pomme Dégel réserve cidre tranquille from Hemmingford, Québec.

So the Gold Medal Plates campaign has begun. Chef Juneau is the first champion and will be heading off to our finals, the Canadian Culinary Championship, to be held in beautiful Kelowna, B.C., next February.

 
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