October 1, 2018
Roasted Goose Goose doesn’t seem as popular as it was in the past, but it is seeing a bit of a comeback. Goose really is tastier than turkey and while it is fattier than either chicken or turkey, the meat itself is quite lean. And for you dark meat lovers out there (and really that is the only meat that…
September 1, 2018
The funny thing about bouillabaisse is that like a lot of ‘fancy’ foods it has a very humble upbringing. Think of oysters, snails, frogs’ legs, caviar: all these expensive foods started out as very affordable foods. Some were used to encourage drinking (oysters and caviar), others were little better than fertilizer (lobster), and some came to be on the dinner…
July 1, 2018
It’s actually grilling First things first. When you cook outside on the ‘BBQ’ or ‘barbeque’ you are not technically barbequing, you are grilling. There are arguments to be made that grilling is just a fast version of barbequing but we will just leave those aside for the moment. Barbeque is all that smoke-and-low-heat stuff which is its own beast and…
June 1, 2018
Olive a little more, please… Olive oil is a simple product. At its best: perfectly ripe olives, minimally processed, bottled, and on your table as fresh as possible. Olive oil is at its core, just fruit juice, but unlike most fruit juices this one is full of good fats and surprising flavours. For almost 10,000 years this product has been…
March 31, 2018
From simple to complex, the hamburger is a blank canvas Hamburgers, burgers, Hamburg steak, Salisbury steak. Only something so loved and so ubiquitous could have so many names, not to mention the myriad variations: elk burger, veggie burger, roo burger. The history of this modest lunch is a bit murky. Chopped steak and chopped steak sandwiches have been popular for…
February 1, 2018
Soup “Only the pure of heart can make good soup” – Beethoven The history of soup goes back a long way. Some 20,000 years ago archaeologists say the Chinese were making a form of soup, based on pottery sherds found in Jiangxi Province, China. Soup is also responsible for our use of the word ‘restaurant’. The word was first used…
January 1, 2018
Braising There’s no better remedy to winter’s chills than a big, hot kitchen stove. While these wood-fired behemoths once doubled as a home’s main heat source, our modern appliances are often overlooked as a source of warmth during this darkest and coldest month of the year. When I am thinking of warm, comforting, cold weather cooking I am drawn to…
December 1, 2017
Brining is one of those cooking techniques that some shy away from because it sounds complicated, and difficult. But it can be one of the simplest ways to prepare food for consumption. You can brine fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, even cheese. At its most involved there are related techniques like curing and fermenting, which can be challenging. But brining meat…
April 1, 2017
Chef Stephen Hunter shares his journey through some of PEI’s popular food destinations What got you into cooking? I travelled, tasting cuisines from different countries. Then I found myself in Vancouver with $120 in my pocket. So I got a job in my field, aquaculture (salmon farms). I wanted to enjoy all of the flavours I had tried, and couldn’t…