Traditional Scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs, peeled, wrapped in loose sausage mix, breaded, and deep-fried. They’re awesome, and I’m putting one on the menu at Ernest’s.
The Eggs. For our style of service, where most guests get three courses, I plan for most of the appetizers to have an edible portion size of 6 oz. For this reason I brought in small chicken eggs, which are about 40 g, instead of large, which are 50. I hoped this would also decrease the total cook time and expedite service. Cases of small eggs will be ordered at least a week before I think we’ll need them, as older eggs … Continue reading.
Dry-Aged Duck Breast with buttered grains, beets, and sour cherries. Served at Ernest’s Dining Room Winter 2024.
It was the dry-aged duck at The Naramata Inn (RIP) that inspired me to start dry-aging at Ernest’s.
When properly scored, seared, rendered, and cooked, fresh duck breast is good. But the dry-aged duck at the Inn was excellent: the skin brittle and crisp, and the meat brawny and tender, in a way I hadn’t experienced before. The Inn was buying dry-aged crowns from Yarrow Meadows,[1] but one of the chefs, Macia, gave me some tips on doing it myself.
Crowns are duck carcasses that have had the wing tips, wingettes, legs, and the lower portion of the spine removed. At … Continue reading.
Parsnip & Pear Agnolotti with brown butter, sage, and parsnip crisps
Another gem of a technique taken from The Naramata Inn (RIP). I’ve seen root vegetable chips in many forms, but they are often either not fully crisp, or too dark in colour and flavour. At the Inn they used a simple procedure for perfectly brittle, vibrant crisps of parsnip, beet, carrot, and other root vegetables. The technique works well for fried shallots, too.
First, get the thinnest possible shaves of vegetable. It’s tedious, but in my experience a peeler is best. A mandolin on the thinnest setting works too.
Next, dredge the product with cornstarch. It is critical to add the absolute smallest amount of cornstarch while still coating … Continue reading.
A chive vinaigrette made with chive oil and chive flower vinegar.
For the few weeks they are in bloom, I put chive blossoms on everything. Even so, I struggle to use them all before they go to seed and cast their thousand black specks across the yard like confetti. They have to be picked before this time or my entire yard would be chives.
One year I tried drying the flowers to use through the winter. I had recently had a lamb tartare that was garnished with dried onion blossoms. The meat was good but what I really took away from that dish was the dried onion blossoms. I thought, “Wow! These are fantastic! Really beautiful and flavourful. I can … Continue reading.
To be totally transparent, it is a dream of mine to invent a popular cocktail that people order by name long after I’m gone.
How does a cocktail become a classic? Obviously it needs to be delicious. This is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient: bartenders make delicious new cocktails all the time, and very few become classics. I suggest that there needs to be something else about the drink, as a concept, that engages people and says something about them or their current time. I am hoping that Alberta’s general dislike of Premier Jason Kenney can be just such an underpinning for my bid to invent a famous mixed drink. Allow me to present the case for … Continue reading.
There is a recipe for rice crackers in the Eleven Madison Park cookbook that really caught my eye. In a nutshell: over-cook some sushi rice, then roll it into a thin sheet between two pieces of parchment. Next, dry out the sheet of rice in a low oven or dehydrator. Once it is nice and hard, break into desired shapes and deep-fry. I was fascinated by this recipe because the procedure is identical to chicharrón but applied to a wildly different ingredient. What other starches or grains could this be applied to? Lentils? Pearl barley? Pinto beans?
My first attempt at the recipe was only a moderate success. As the sheet of rice dried several cracks developed. The final dried … Continue reading.
Another variation of an Eleven Madison Park offering, one I call the “Tuna Sandwich” hors d’oeuvre. In the EMP cookbook there is an hors d’oeuvre comprised of a “tuna coin” sandwiched between two rounds of fennel. Like these galettes, it is a very striking presentation that caught my eye immediately. The EMP version has the tuna brushed with lemon oil and the fennel garnished with pollen.
My simple variation uses lightly pickled daikon rounds as the “bread” in this sandwich. The tuna is brushed with sesame oil. Each piece is garnished with cilantro, serrano, and cilantro blossoms.
I’m curious to know how stable the EMP version is. I found that a small amount of oil or mayonnaise helped the … Continue reading.
In culinary school I was taught that beurre blanc, while not a mother sauce, is a sauce of great importance. Interestingly, though it bears resemblance to Hollandaise, it doesn’t have nearly the same number of variations or “lesser sauces”. In my culinary text there were only two beurre blanc variations: herb butter sauce (throw some chopped herbs into your beurre blanc), and beurre rouge (use red wine in the initial reduction instead of white).
Lemon Beurre Blanc. Using a lemon reduction instead of wine and vinegar. I haven’t made the EMP recipe yet, but it calls for an insane volume of 1 cup lemon
There are a few terrines and pâtés in the Eleven Madison Park cookbook that are capped with gelée. One that especially interested me is rabbit rillette topped with violet mustard gelée. I had only ever seen rillette topped with rendered lard, not a gelatin-rich liquid. Also I had only seen rillette presented in a ramekin, or perhaps shaped into quenelles, or spread on toast; I had never seen it treated more like a terrine, sliced into tidy rectangles. It’s a great example of the finesse that distinguishes these dishes from ones you would get in a bistro or brasserie. I set out to make my own version of terrine de rillette with gelée.
Yotam Ottolenghi is one of the most influential chefs in the world right now, for both home cooks and professionals. His books Jerusalem and Plenty are entirely vegetarian, and must-reads for contemporary cooks. They are great because the techniques are simple, but he takes them further than usual and produces brave, vibrant dishes. By giving vegetables simple treatment and then going wild with nuts, fruit (fresh and dried), spices, herbs, and cultured dairy, he has provided a watershed repertoire and vernacular for professional chefs who want to feature vegetables more prominently. Some of his dishes have been wholesale adopted as modern classics by small-plates restaurants. His Moroccan Spiced Carrots and Yogurt dish alone I have seen variations of at Hawthorn, … Continue reading.
The personal website of Edmonton chef Allan Suddaby
