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The Twelve appetizers of Christmas: Week 2

Squamish beer bread, Whistler winter pudding and emberton poutine

The Sea to Sky corridor has three major population centres, so this week we check in with three talented chefs from each of the main corridor communities.

The holiday culinary adventure this week starts with Randy Jones of Mile One Eating House in Pemberton. He likes to use left-over turkey in poutine. His dish, he says, works well on Boxing Day for lunch or as an afternoon snack.

"It's great after a day of skating on the local pond or a day of cross-country skiing or skiing on the mountain," says Jones as he prepares the dish in the Mile One Eating House kitchen.

The dish can be prepared quickly and easily — one reason why it's a popular choice.

"It's (easy) if you're utilizing your leftovers and you're methodical with the dish," says Jones.

His recipe includes dark turkey meat, gravy left over from Christmas turkey feast the night before and Pemberton beets. While Jones enjoys it on Boxing Day he notes that it makes an excellent holiday appetizer any day through the festive period.

Nick Cassettari from Alta Bistro challenged us a bit with a unique salad he likes to prepare during the holidays. It includes eggs, milk, goats cheese, sourdough bread and butter in addition to beets and celery. The full recipe can be found at www.piquenewsmagazine.com.

The abbreviated version, published here, is the pudding portion of the dish, which goes well on its own with traditional holiday meat offerings.

"The sunchoke pudding, if you just make that it's a really good side to roast beef instead of mashed potatoes or cauliflower gratin," says Cassettari speaking from Saskatchewan while enjoying a family vacation.

The dish is one Cassettari put on the Alta Bistro menu a year ago and it is one that helps it achieve its goal of using all the ingredients that come into the kitchen. The sourdough bread used in the recipe is baked at Alta Bistro and the bread used for salad is from the baguettes that don't get used for croutons.

"They have a home now," says Cassettari of the leftover baguettes at the recently renovated Alta Bistro.

This culinary tour of the corridor makes its final stop in Squamish with beer bread from the inn and brew pub by the water at the end of Cleveland Avenue. Chef Brendan Cooke from Howe Sound Inn and Brewing offers up Honey Pale Ale Beer Bread to serve guests in advance of a holiday feast. He recommends serving the warm slices, slathered with melting butter threatening to fill up diners forcing them to forgo the main course.

Whether the menu highlight is turkey or ham, roast beef or duck a slice of warm beer bread is the perfect warm-up act to any traditional holiday meal.

"It's served with all our soups," says Cooke from the brewpub kitchen.

Cooke and his team serve the warm beer bread as an appetizer in the restaurant at the Howe Sound Inn.

Whether you are in Pemberton, Whistler, Squamish or anywhere else in the Sea to Sky corridor... have a merry Christmas and happy eating this holiday season!

Holiday Leftover Turkey Poutine

By Randy Jones - Mile One Eating House

Ingredients

  • 4 large Pemberton Yukon gold potatoes
  • 1 large Pemberton golden beet
  • 4 pieces smoked bacon, sliced thick
  • 2 cups leftover roasted turkey dark meat (picked from the bone)
  • 2 cups leftover turkey gravy
  • 1.5 oz Pemberton Distillery Whiskey (optional)
  • 2 cups Okanagan cheese curds
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • Fresh rosemary
  • Salt & pepper
  • Canola oil

method

  1. Cut potatoes into wedges no more then one inch thick. Coat wedges in canola oil, season with salt and pepper and a few fresh rosemary needles/sprigs.
  2. Roast wedges in oven at 350 degrees until slightly browned and tender.
  3. Peel beets and follow same process as wedges, however no need for the rosemary and cut beets slightly smaller, approximately half an inch thick.
  4. Beets can be roasted on same pan as potatoes, however keep separate as the beets should cook faster.
  5. Dice bacon into quarter inch pieces, brown lightly in fry pan with one tablespoon of butter. Add turkey meat to fry pan and coat with bacon/butter mixture, gently warming turkey.
  6. Warm gravy in a saucepan, once at a boil add the Whiskey (optional), simmer for one minute, remove from heat and stir in one tablespoon of butter.
  7. In oven-friendly individual serving dishes arrange one potato worth of wedges, and a quarter of your cheese curds.
  8. Place in oven until curds soften slightly.
  9. Remove from oven; garnish each dish with roasted beets, warm turkey/bacon mixture, and ladle over a nice portion of your whiskey gravy.

Enjoy!

Sunchoke pudding

By Nick Cassettari – Alta Bistro

  • Serves eight to 10

Ingredients:

  • 75 g butter for sweating the onions
  • 500 g diced parsnip
  • 150 g diced white onion
  • 75 g honey
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 325 ml milk
  • 325 ml cream
  • 7.5 g salt
  • 3 yolks
  • 2.5 whole eggs
  • 500 g of sliced French sourdough baguette (Sliced half a cm thick and then each slice is lightly buttered)
  • Half pound of butter for the sourdough
  • Temperature probe
  • Blowtorch

method

  1. Preheat oven to 415F.
  2. Butter the inside of an 11 x 7 baking dish then layer the slices of buttered sourdough in the dish. Be sure to lay the sourdough slices across each other to cover every surface of the dish. Fill the dish evenly and mostly full.
  3. Melt 100 grams of butter over a medium heat and add salt, garlic and white onions.
  4. Turn the heat down and sweat the onions for 15 minutes being careful not to colour them. Add the diced parsnip and repeat the same process stirring often. The parsnips should be soft and creamy.
  5. While this is happening place eggs in a large metal bowl.
  6. Once the parsnips have cooked (about 15 minutes) add the honey, milk and cream and bring to a simmer (continue stirring).
  7. Pour the hot mixture into a blender and blend for thee minutes until it is very smooth.
  8. Pour the hot mixture over the eggs in a thin stream while whisking.
  9. Now pour the mixture over the sourdough. The mixture will sit at the top and will take about 15 minutes to fully soak into the bread. Move the batter around with a spatula to make sure every gap is filled.
  10. Once you are sure the batter has soaked into the bread press some parchment paper on to the top of the pudding. Cover the dish with aluminum foil.
  11. Pour enough hot water into a water bath to go two-thirds of the way up the sides of the baking dish. Place the sunchoke pudding into the bath and then straight into the oven.
  12. Rotate after 12 minutes and then rotate every 10 minutes after that.
  13. Place the temperature probe into the centre of the pudding — it's done once it reads 62 Celsius. This should take between 30 minutes and one hour depending on your oven.
  14. To finish the pudding give a generous and even coating of granulated sugar over the top. Then take a blowtorch and torch the top of the pudding lightly, as if you were toasting a crème brûlée.

Honey Pale Ale |Beer Bread

By Howe Sound Inn and Brewing

  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons baking powder
  • 12 ounces of Garibaldi Honey Pale Ale
  • 2 tsps salt
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preparation:

  1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt with sugar.
  2. Add the beer and egg both at once and stir. You may have to knead the last of the flour in with your hands.
  3. Place in a greased nine-inch by five-inch loaf pan and bake at 375 degrees until done — about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
  4. Remove from pan immediately and cool.
  5. Slice and serve with butter.

Yield: 1 loaf of beer bread