What’s New on the Plate for 2020

Israel Alvarez, chef du cuisine at Victoria’s Breakwater Tasting Room, is trumpeting organic heirloom corn. “ImportingMexican corn to Victoria changed my career as a Mexican-Canadian chef,” says Alvarez, who for years couldn’t find a decent tortilla anywhere when he first moved to Canada. Now sourcing single-origin corn from Oaxaca and Jocotitlan, Mexico, Alvarez showcases“the real flavour, texture and aroma of tortillas” using four different organic landraces of corn in yellow, white, red, and blue. In alabour-intensive and traditional process known as nixtamalization, he soaks the corn kernels in an alkaline solution for 16 hours, then rinses, hulls and hand-grinds the corn into masa. The resulting hand-pressed tacos and tostadas on his menu transport culinary and cultural mashups such as duck confit carnitas, mezcal gravlax, wild mushrooms and epazote, or snapper al pastor.

Sourcing from an organic farm in Cawston, BC, Lisa Ahier of Tofino’s Sobo loves to start a meal with a plate of charred shishito peppers with basil, olive oil, and salt. “We run them on the special board every night when they’re in season,” says Ahier, “sometimes with Manchego and almonds.” At other times, she’ll serve them in potato salads or on pizza with squash and fresh Qualicum cheese. “They’re simple to prepare and fun to introduce guests to,” adds Ahier. She also makes a relish called “Texas caviar,” a combination of black-eyed peas and shishitos that her restaurant serves with warm, fresh-fried tostadas. “Topped with basil and olive oil, of course.”

Shelome Bouvette of Vancouver’s Chicha, uses bright yellow Peruvian aji amarillo chili paste whenever she can. “It’s bright like sunshine and so versatile,” she says. With a mild chili heat, it’s more about the flavour and colour for Bouvette. She uses it in hollandaise, to make bright yellow gnocchi, and in whipped potatoes, or causa, for the crab and shrimp dish on Chicha’s Peruvianinspiredmenu. She predicts, “it’s going to be a very up-and-coming ingredient in restaurants, especially in ceviche.”

Madeleines

Baking soda, “an inexpensive, egalitarian ingredient,” is the jam for KarenBarnaby, chef, author, columnist,and product development consultant.“Asian cooks and my favourite Israeli restaurant had told me a long time ago about using baking soda to achieve crispness, snap, and softness,” says Barnaby. “But I was too snooty at the time to really listen.” After trying many ways to get ultra-crispy skin on pork belly at home, and without a combi oven, she finally caved in and tried the baking soda and salt method. “I’m now a convert,” she admits.

She goes further to mention it aids in creating a perfectly crispy crust on potatoes, softens driedchickpeas for stellar hummus, and gives flaccid prawns a snappy texture.

Warren Barr of Pluvio in Ucluelet is phasing out store-bought vinegars and replacing them with housemade vinegars, citing that it’s a great way to preserve the flavours of the season. “We had great success making raspberry, strawberry,and peach vinegars,” says Barr. “We just took offa huge batch of vinegar made with Island-grown ginger from Courtenay, and I have about 30 litres of blackberry vinegar bubbling away as I write this.” His favourite so far was made with apples that grew in the backyard of the restaurant and hotel, using the resulting vinegar “with a little homemade garum (fermented fish sauce) to glaze the pork belly on our menu,” he states. “Our vinegars have lots of flavour and act like a snapshot of the season, preserving the flavour of the fruit.”

Clark Deutscher, of Nowhere *a restaurant and Hank’s looks to Badger Flame beets for inspiration. Specifically grown for the restaurant by Fierce Love Farm in Cordova Bay, “they have all the sweetness of beets but none of the earthiness,” says Deutscher, who cooks the elongated beets in different forms, highlighting textures and techniques. He showcases their orange and bright yellow flesh served raw and in a beet stuffed pasta dish in which he layers textures and tops the dish with a chewy, dehydrated beet slice, one that is crispy fried and a few marinated slices. In production: a beet and chocolate cake finished with beet dust.

Kristian Eligh, chef of the new and (at time of writing) unnamed Toptable Grouprestaurant in Victoria, digs yuzukosho. A paste blend of chili peppers, yuzu citrus peel, and salt that’s slightly fermented, “It’s a delicious, spicy, citrusy condiment,”notes Eligh, “a flavour profile that encompasses everything I love.” The Japanese seasoning will be Eligh’s secret weapon on the restaurant’s opening menu.

Betty Hung, pastry chef and co-owner of Beaucoup Bakery in Vancouver, is inspired by Valrhona’s Inspiration yuzu couverture chocolate for “its intense aroma and flavour.” Using a high-quality, freeze-dried yuzu juice from Japan, the result is an intensely floral and citrus chocolate that is both gluten-free and vegan. Hung uses its sandwiched in between coconut or jasmine sablés (a type of French shortbread) citing that they’ll “complement each other well by adding a floral yet tart flavour to the buttery richness of the sablé.”

Charred shishito peppers

Fermenting dairy is on the roster at Wild Mountain in Sooke. By adding kefir grains to 36-percent-fat organic cream, Oliver Kienast creates a culture with a level of acidity less sharp than yogurt—a sweet, clean, and tangy quality. Once set,the culture is whipped slowly until it separates into butter and buttermilk. The butter is served with their red fife sourdough bread with Sooke sea salt, and the milk is run through a whip charger and served with the restaurant’s warm honey cake.

Madeleines, the small, shell-shaped French sponge cakes, drives DominiqueLaurencelle’s inspiration at Victoria’s Boom + Batten. Infatuated with their versatility, the pastry chef uses them as the blank canvas on her dessert menu, with flavours from classic lemon, vanilla, lavender, honey, orange, and toasted sesame seeds, to savoury delicacies such as rosemary-parmesan or chorizo and smoked cheddar. “They also glaze really well,” sprouted grain sourdough, for a flavour, notes Laurencelle explains, “which adds another flavour level.” Earl Grey tea madeleines glazed with caramelized white chocolate is one example from her repertoire to be rolled out this spring. “The possibilities are endless.”

Barley koji is an “absolute blessing” for Matt Martinat Liquidity Bistro in Okanagan Falls. Locally sourced barley replaces the usual rice in koji making. Once steamed,it is inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae spores and incubated controlled temperatures. The kitchen then makes different misos with puréed fava beans, corn, sunflower, or pumpkin seeds and their own “soya sauces” with local ingredients like pine mushrooms or rye kernels. It’s also used as a flour for breading and added to the house sourdough, producing sweet and nutty characteristics. Once mixed with salt and water, the resulting “shio koji” is also used to cure meats at Liquidity. “The enzymatic benefits help break down and tenderize meats while curing,” says Martin, “adding complex flavours.”

Aji amarillo chili sauce/paste

At Pilgrimme on Galiano Island, Jesse McCleery is taking sprouting grains a little further. Roasting and drying them slightly, the then-malted grains are used to create umami-rich syrups highlighted by their natural sweetness. “It’s a simple, low-cost process that creates some pretty versatile building blocks in our kitchen,” says McCleery. “We can take the syrups and add wild fermented vinegar or seaweeds to create glazes and so on.” The spent and sweet caramel-y grains that are leftover are then incorporated into their sprouted grain sourdough, for a flavour, notes McCleery, “similar to a Danish rugbrød.”The other bonus for McCleery is, “when we roast the sprouted grains, the kitchen has such a nice sweet warm yeast smell—just like a microbrewery.”

For Neil Taylor of Home Block at CedarCreekEstate Winery in Kelowna, Spanish Iberico pork is in the chef’s top five food revelations after 20-plus years of cooking. Known for its great fat and marbling—but better known for its use in charcuterie, such as jamon and chorizo—Taylor has recently been able to access the uncured, fresh meat from the same Spanish Iberico pigs. "It's perfect for our wood grill at Home Block." says Taylor. "It's very unique and lives up to its hype." He loves the pork's great flavour and fat content and serves it medium-rare. "When I first tried it, I was blown away," admits Taylor. "The fat almost pops in your mouth - in a nice way - when you eat it. it's like no other pork I've ever tried!"