Knife Skills, Candied Bacon and Lobster 101 - The Kilted Chef Pt 2

Now to the exciting part of my day with The Kilted Chef!  It's time to cook,  there may have been wine involved, but not until we had  learned to use our large, sharp and scary knives. Alain taught us  how to hold the knife, avoid cutting our fingers off and then we moved on to our victims practice pieces which were carrots.  We learned to chop them into different shapes and sizes, a great way to practice using the knives.


Then we were ready for the first recipe: Curried Carrot Soup.  All the carrots we had chopped went into the pot!  I'll be posting the recipes separately when I have made them at home,  I've made some already but for now this is an overview of the fabulous time you can have at a Cooking Class with the Kilted Chef

The Soup is in the big pot that Licia is stirring, later it was blitzed in the Vitamix. Up a the top  Buttery Asiago Bread Sticks (butter soaked bread with a sprinkling of grated cheese then baked in the oven) are being prepared,  these were served with a lobster chowder.   In the pan is Candied Double Smoked Bacon, big chunks of smoked bacon sautéed and coated in maple syrup.

I don't seem to have any photos of the making of the Northumberland Snow Crab Cakes with Dill Remoulade, quite possibly because I had my hands in the crab mixture forming it into cakes and others were up to the elbows in egg or breadcrumbs!


The main course was Slow Roasted Beef Tenderloin  with Maple Ginger Sauce.  The beef is rubbed with mustard and seasoned before searing and then slow roasting.  In the top photograph we are all carefully watching the Maple Ginger Sauce, waiting for the right moment to add the sesame seeds, maple syrup, fish sauce and chilli sauce into the ginger and garlic.
Alain is known for cooking with seafood and so it was time for 'Lobster 101'.  We had already learned how to get the lobsters into the pot, removing the rubber bands from their claws and not getting nipped!  Now it was time for a demonstration of how to get the meat out of the lobster as simply as possible. You can watch a video of Alain doing just that on his website How to Break down a Lobster.

We had a few 'moments', top left is Alain demonstrating how lobsters have sex!  Then once the lobster was deconstructed, I was offered one of the thin 'legs' to suck out the the 'sweet goodness' - you can see I didn't believe it and I have to say it really didn't do it for me, my face said it all and we all ended up laughing, I laughed so much I cried.  We really had a ball.
Dessert was something I had never heard of, let alone tried.  Rhubarb and Wild Blueberry au Poivre,  this pan of gently stewed fruit gets 50 turns of freshly ground pepper into it!  It tastes fantastic and not peppery at all.  I chose to make this as my contribution to our blogger dinner later in the trip, so you will see more of it later.


We were each given responsibility for one course of the meal and served each other at the table. Here is the full menu:



I'd like to thank Alain Bosse, The Kilted Chef,  and his wife Joanne for their outstanding hospitality. I'd also like to thank Licia, Angela, Erin, Heather and Sarah for sharing the day with me and being such good fun. The day was relaxed and fun but at the same time I learned skills that I have brought home with me.  I'll never be able to work with a small knife again and I've managed to keep holding it as instructed which has vastly improved my knife skills.   I am not sure I will ever be prepping lobsters, but many of the other recipes have already graced my table and I'll be sharing them with you soon.

Labels: Beef with mustard, Candied bacon, Crab Cakes, Curried Carrot Soup, lobster, lobster 101, lobster chowder, Nova Scotia, peppered rhubarb and strawberries, The Kilted Chef

posted by Janice @ 18:44 9 Comments

Cooking at the Farm with the Kilted Chef - Part 1

Alain and the 'pepperettes'

Let me take you back to Thursday, 29th May 2014 and the next part of my Nova Scotia adventure.  I was super excited about this part of the trip because, having done some research online, I knew that Alain Bosse, The Kilted Chef, was Canadian celebrity chef , president of Alain Bosse Consulting Ltd, food editor for Saltscapes Magazine, past president of Taste of Nova Scotia and ambassador of all things culinary in Atlantic Canada.

The Kilted Chef offers a culinary journey from the pasture, to the sea to your plate. Cooking on the Farm is a full-day, hands-on culinary experience you will never forget and this is what I was to experience.

I was delighted to be joined on my culinary journey by some of the staff from Nova Scotia Media, who were quite delightful and by the end of the day I felt like I had known them for years!

We started with a short tour of the farm with Alain telling us about how he came to buy it and what plans he has for the future.  The we headed out for our first stop at  The Pork Shop, The Pork Shop prides itself in using only the freshest products available on the market. All spices are 100% pure and contain no MSG, gluten or any other type of filler in them.  


We then headed to Harold Ferguson's Abattoir.  As a farmer with a grandfather who was an old fashioned butcher, the abattoir was not something which phased me, in fact it was a pleasure to visit a place which operated on a small scale with far less stress on the cattle than in a huge modern abattoir.  The abattoir is staffed by retired butchers and also rehabilitates ex offenders and they are all proud of their skill and the excellent meat they provide.  A quick trip into Pictou to Grohmann's Knives the knife supplier favoured by the Kilted Chef and as we all got a set of Grohmann's knives to keep as part of our day cooking on the farm, I can attest that they are extremely good knives.

It was early in the season for fresh produce at Lakenman's Farm, spring had come late to Nova Scotia the asparagus had just finished and there were only a few vegetables coming through in the polytunnel.  We did find plenty of beet tops and Sarah was presented with the 'bouquet' of beets!



Then we were off to check out the lobsters at North Nova Scotia Seafood. North Nova Seafoods Limited is a fish-processing plant locally owned and operated by Paul Logan. The Logan family has been involved in fishing and fish processing since the 1800s. Logan & Roberts were operating a factory and buying station on this same shore by 1903. Russell Logan, Paul’s father, bought and shipped fish until 1962.In 1987, Paul started North Nova Seafoods which buys and processes seafood including Lobster, Herring, Rock Crab, Mackerel and Snow Crab throughout the year.

Labels: bacon, Beef, beets, Grohmanns, Lakenman's Farm, lobster, North Nova Scotia Seafood, Nova Scotia, pepperettes, Pictou, Pork, The Kilted Chef, The Pork Shop

posted by Janice @ 21:40 2 Comments

Atlantic Canada Eats - A Nova Scotia adventure awaits...

Halifax, Nova Scotia

This time next week I'll be on my way to Halifax, Nova Scotia!  I'll be travelling around Nova Scotia to visit local food producers, taste and cook along with local chefs.  I'm one of a small group of food bloggers, all of us passionate about food from countries whose inhabitants emigrated to Atlantic Canada: Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales and France.  We will be guests of the Canadian Tourism Commission, with local hosts,  mine being the Nova Scotia Tourism Agency. 

Pictou

For one week, I'll be eating my way around Nova Scotia starting with some tours of Halifax then driving to Pictou, on the beautiful Northumberland Shore of Nova Scotia.  It's renowned as the "Birthplace of New Scotland" as it was here that the first wave of Scottish immigrants landed in 1773. Part of my brief is to look at the food heritage of the Scottish settlers and see how it translates into modern Nova Scotian cooking, I'll be hosted in Pictou by the Kilted Chef who has been busy this week as part of a group hosting the Royals on their visit to Canada!

Bay of Funday

I'll then head to Truro and the Masstown Market with the opportunity to climb to the top of the lighthouse (not that lighthouse!) for a panoramic 360 view of the mouth of the Bay of Funday. 

Halifax and its Scottish heritage

Finally I'll be returning to Halifax and meet up with my fellow travelling food bloggers.  Karen from Lavender and Lovage who is visiting Newfoundland and Labrador, Helen of Fuss Free Flavours  who is visiting New Brunswick and Aoife of The Daily Spud  who will be on Prince Edward Island but we will all meet up in Halifax for the weekend of 31st May and 1st June where we will share recipes and cooking tips and maybe even cook up a few dishes ourselves!

Follow our adventures from Tuesday 27th May to Sunday 1st June by following on Twitter @FarmersgirlCook #AtlanticCanadaEats and #ExploreCanada

All photographs courtesy of The Canadian Tourism Commission.

Labels: #AtlanticCanadaEats #ExploreCanada Canada, Canadian Tourism Commission, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Pictou, The Kilted Chef

posted by Janice @ 12:00 18 Comments