Before I get sucked back into the vortex that is Battlestar Galactica (how did I not watch this show years ago??), I thought I would tell you about a cooking event I attended this week.
I have mentioned before how much I love cooking competition shows. Consistently one of my favourites is Chopped, where competing chefs get a basket of mystery ingredients they have to make into a creative, cohesive dish. This has always been appealing to me, and The Urban Element, an Ottawa company offering various cooking classes and culinary experiences out of a converted fire hall on Parkdale put on just such an event, giving me the opportunity to test my skills.
Making the event particularly fun, I was joined by my friend, S, who arranged a little family vacation in Ottawa to coincide with the event. Class attendees work in pairs, and this event had 6 pairs, and two different baskets, reducing the risk there would be 6 versions of the same dish. The chefs running the event (Anna and Devin) gave some tips at the beginning, and then each pair claimed a workstation and the chefs handed out the baskets. Our basket immediately pleased me: scallops, corn, and the curve ball, white miso paste. The other basket was trout, fennel, and ruby red grapefruit.
In addition to the mystery ingredients, there was a very nice pantry available, containing herbs, spices, some lovely veggies, rices, grains, vinegars, liquors, and almost anything else you might want.
It is interesting how your mind starts spinning when confronted with a challenge like this. I have been eating a lot of corn soup this summer, and I thought maybe a miso glazed scallop, playing on one of my favourite dishes, miso glazed black cod, but then that didn't seem cohesive enough - it would be two separate things, rather than a composed dish, and how would we plate? A scallop swimming in soup? With some discussion, we decided on seared scallops, corn salsa, and a ginger miso broth, garnished with scallops' (and everyone's) good friend, bacon.
Once that was decided, we kicked into high gear. We started the water for the corn, S diced the bacon (showing meticulous knife skills) and started it rendering in a pan, while I got working on the salsa. Shallots, cute little bell peppers, juicy heirloom tomatoes, salt and pepper, lime juice. It seemed to be missing something, but I wasn't sure my go-to salsa herb - cilantro - would go with the the overall dish. With the way I have been eating this summer - Mexican, Mexican and more Mexican - I connected cilantro with that style of food, not known for its use of miso. But one of the chefs pointed out that cilantro also plays a big role in Asian cooking, so in it went, as well as some lime zest, and that brightened the salsa nicely.
We had shellfish stock available to us, and as I fiddled with the salsa, S got going on our ginger miso broth. Rough cut ginger into the warming broth to infuse, and as it started to simmer, in went the miso. After we tasted it, we decided that the miso was a little too subtle, and doubled our previous amount. Better.... but still missing something. So we added lime juice, and that was the key. It added a bright zing to the taste, and tied it in so well with the flavours in the salsa.
Our last cooking task was searing the scallops, which we left as late as possible. Scallops are delicate, a matter of seconds can overcook them, leaving them rubbery and disappointing. I had thought maybe using the rendered bacon grease would be a good vehicle for searing, but the chef said that it wouldn't work - you can't get it hot enough. So, a thin coating of canola oil in a screaming hot heavy pan, and in went the scallops, which we seasoned simply earlier with salt and pepper. I think where people go wrong with something like searing scallops is in being too fussy and concerned. Let them go until they detach themselves from the pan. At that point, they have a nice crust and are ready to flip. Just a few seconds on the other side and then out. Always remember that proteins continue cooking when taken off the heat, so always take them off before they're done the way you want them. Our scallops were perfect - nice crust outside, still translucent in the centre.
Our dish was supposed to be beautiful as well as tasty. These were small appetizer servings, so we plated in a small bowl. There was a mound of corn salsa rising from the centre, with crispy cubes of bacon on top. We had to make 13 bowls with 11 scallops, so we quartered the scallops to apportion them out. It worked out particularly well because one of the other pairs was unable to eat pork, so they got a little extra scallop to make up for the lack of bacon. They rested on top, with a garnish of a slice of hot red Thai chili, and a fresh green pea shoot. The broth, strained and still warm, was gently spooned around the salsa mound.
Our finished product:
The cooking took about 90 minutes, including planning and plating. After the cook, we took our seats at the bar ringing the kitchen, and the UE staff served us our choice of red or white wine. Given the seafood focus, I went with white. The UE house wines are made by Stratus, a vineyard in Niagara on the Lake, and one of my favourites in Ontario.
We started with what was my favourite of the trout dishes, a fishcake that used mashed potatoes as a binder, with sauteed fennel and a ruby red grapefruit based sauce, garnished with a fennel frond. The fishcake was great - excellent texture and moisture level, well seasoned. This was a cohesive dish, rather than a series of unconnected components on a plate, everything fit, and I liked the colour contrast introduced with the sauce. It was definitely one of the most popular of the night. I have since made a trout fishcake using potatoes as the binder, and it is definitely something I will make again.
Next was ours, which was, in my opinion, the best of the scallop dishes. Naturally, I am going to favour ours, but, objectively, it was the most cohesive, with everything working together in harmony. S noted that, while she had thought that some of the individual components were too strong, or not to her taste, when you put everything together it worked and tasted really good. To me, that is exactly what we wanted. The components were better together. There were colour and texture variations, all of the mystery box ingredients were distinct, yet worked harmoniously with everything else in the dish. Another pic to remind you:
There was another scallop dish that was, conceptually, quite similar to ours: corn, tomatoes, broth, seared scallops and bacon. In my view, however, this was the weakest of the scallop dishes, largely because the addition of sesame oil overpowered all of the other flavours on the dish, making it feel heavy. We completely lost the sweetness and beauty of the fresh corn. To handle the 11 scallops to 13 plates, they sliced the scallops into disks, but then overcooked them. The corn was grilled rather than boiled, but didn't have much char. The bacon was paler, not rendered as much, and therefore didn't offer either texture or colour to the dish. The dish seemed beige - no pop.
The third scallop dish had what I consider the most creative choice. Scallop ceviche, and the impressive creativity was in mixing miso with avocado and lime juice, with a corn salad on the side. The dish was very fresh and pretty, and the ceviche was well done, but there was a little too much of the avocado-miso mixture relative to the ceviche. The corn salad was also very good, but seemed a little unconnected to the ceviche/avocado-miso. I think the corn could have been incorporated effectively into the ceviche for a more cohesive dish.
That left the last two trout dishes. The first was a baked trout over a potato croquette, with pickled fennel shoots on top, a pickled fennel and shallot slaw on the side, and a ruby red grapefruit salsa. The trout was well cooked, though a little under-seasoned. The potato croquette, using both white potatoes and sweet potatoes was excellent. Both the slaw and the salsa were also good, but it added up to a lot of acidity and pickle on the plate. It also seemed a bit like unconnected components on a plate rather than a truly cohesive dish.
The final dish used some different flavours - Middle Eastern flavours. Za'atar, sumac. The fennel was mixed with yogurt for a cooling sauce The trout was baked over a bed of sliced grapefruit, keeping it moist and infusing flavour. And they made little potato chips for texture, and, as they said, who doesn't like potato chips? Each component was good, and it was a pretty dish overall.
The idea was that the 6 small appetizer portions would add up to a large appetizer bordering on main course. After, they served us a salad with bitter greens (which I love), some chevre, candied pecan, and a nice vinaigrette, followed by a strawberry rhubarb crumble with coconut ice cream for dessert. the ice cream was subtle in its coconuttiness, which I prefer.
This was a super fun event. Exhilarating. I feel accomplished coming up with a dish I think is top notch. In fact, I am making it again this weekend, this time with shellfish stock made from scratch. Although the class description said that the class was for advanced cooks, I think that intermediate cooks can do well, too. Even a relatively inexperienced cook (as S is), when paired with an advanced cook (like me). The chefs are there to make your time fun, and are a great help if you need a little steering in the right direction, help with a technique, or a suggestion on how to perfect a dish.
A few words on The Urban Element... I have been taking recreational cooking classes here for several years, and recommend it to anyone who has a love of food and likes to spend time learning new recipes and techniques with like minded people. Most classes have a theme - a skill, an ingredient, a style of food - and I have picked up both skills and recipes that I have incorporated into my daily cooking. There are also demonstration dinners, where you gather around the kitchen and watch as a noted chef works wonders with an ingredient. They post their class schedule in 4 month blocks, and the September to December schedule is now available.
For observations and updates, follow me on twitter @culinarykira !
