FoodFunk.ca

The smell of boiling lobster hit us like a fragrant blanket the instant we got out of our car on a side street in St. Andrews, New Brunswick today.

Just a block away, a local church group had two huge kettles going full blast with up to 20-pound bags of lobster, precision -timed so the prized local crustacean would come out just perfect.   About 20 people lined up at the boiling station in the punishing New Brunswick heat – about 24 degrees Celsius, hey, it’s New Brunswick – to get their batch of lobsters boiled, just minutes after buying them on the St. Andrews waterfront dock for a steal-of-a-deal $6 per pound.

That was our first welcome to the St. Andrews Seafood Festival, a five-day, town-wide buffet of all things seafood.

Further down the street to the Town Square, it was indeed a festival atmosphere as vendors sold everything from ocean-inspired jewellery to, yes, seafood.   There was a guy selling sausages.  He looked lonely.

I got my hands on a $14 pack of Wolfhead Smokers Ltd. cold-smoked Atlantic Salmon.  A quick sample of it was all the convincing I needed.  Really nice stuff.

The main attraction for me though was to take in some of the chef demonstrations that were happening through the morning and early afternoon.   I’m not one for really fancy food and thankfully the chefs doing the demos this day kept things simple and accessible, probably because they know their audience (primarily home cooks).

Jean-Francois Fortin, the Executive Sous-Chef at the Fairmont Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews did a demonstration on how to make salmon and smoked sturgeon tartar with kelp salad.   Loads of local stuff in a recipe that takes under 30 minutes to make and is a jaw-dropper for flavour.   It’s one of those dishes that reminds you that you really should eat more seafood.  It can really be crazy good.

Salmon and Smoked Sturgeon Tartar with Kelp Salad

by Jean-Francois Fortin, Executive Sous-Chef, Fairmont Algonquin Hotel

Yield: 4 portions   Preparation time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 pound Salmon

1/4 pound Smoked sturgeon

1 shallot

1 teaspoon fresh dill

1 pound fresh kelp

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper

1 lemon

1 orange

Method:

Fish:  Finely dice salmon and sturgeon.  Add minced shallot and fresh dill.

Mayonnaise:

Put the egg yolk and dijon mustard in a mixing bowl and emulsify with EVOO.  Add half the juice of one lemon and half the juice of one orange.  Mix the fish and mayonnaise together and add the zest of one orange plus salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy with your favourite greens.

Note:  In the demo, Chef Fortin used a small ring mold to plate up some of the fish tartar, then topped with the kelp salad.  Here was one of the samples, served up on a crouton toast.

After all that, we made our way down the end of the huge wharf in St. Andrews and got ourselves five pounds of lobster.  We walked that over to the church group that was doing the cooking and headed back home, continuing the festival around our own dinner table.

Other images from the day:

Alexandra, 4, squeezes some fresh lemon on a P.E.I. mussel we had just before we headed back to Rothesay.

A P.E.I. mussel, fresh and steamed to perfection.

Chef Fortin dices some smoked sturgeon for his tartar recipe.

Another of St. Andrews’ biggest seafood fans, a seal at the Huntsman Aquarium.

Barbecueing, not grilling, a lovely steak from Dean’s Meats in the Saint John City Market. Dry aged beef. Beautiful stuff. Simply seasoned with salt and pepper. Nothing else needed for such great beef.

A little bit of funk with that food.  I had to set my DJ gear back up today after a gig in Saint John, New Brunswick, last night and thought it was a good opportunity to get to know my new Nikon D90 camera which is capable of 720p HD video.  In the future, you’re likely to see some food HD.  That’ll be cool, eh?

I got home at noon one day and had no idea what to have for lunch. I whipped together a little bread-type dough then got to the idea to top it with some stuff I had in the fridge. Initially I thought of deep-frying the concoction but in the end, I just baked it in the oven. I haven’t come up with a name for it yet, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve invented.

BEANS AND WIENERS!!!  I had made a batch of baked beans one day, then remembered I had a pack of hot dog wieners in the fridge (we had bought some to barbecue one day but they were not the right kind for grilling).  A match made in heaven.  Or in a small pot, one of the two.

An egg that had been cooked in smoked tomato sauce and topped with parmesan cheese, along with two slices of bacon.  Simple, satisfying light breakfast.  That smoked tomato sauce would later be an inspiration for the flat bread-with-toppings thing that I invented above.

Chicken and potaters. Heat oven to 400 F. Put chicken and two potaters in a cast iron pan. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of thyme. Cook for an hour and a bit. Ram into face. Keep it Simple Sally.

A ham sandwich with mustard, mayo and a local mix of various sprouts that I bought at the Kingston Market. Nice healthy mix and a great addition for a sandwich. I dressed it simply with some pepper and extra virgin olive oil.  No one wants to see your naked sprout.  Dress it for heaven’s sake.

Pork souvlaki barbecued over charcoal.  Yes, it was as good as it looks.

A burger and a cob of corn.  The burger was topped with bacon, cheese, pickles, mustard and ketchup.  For once, I didn’t make the bun myself ( I know, I know, what kind of monster…yadda yadda).  This one came from the new Cookie Crumb bakery in the Fairvale Mall in Rothesay.   Nice bun and good alternative to a home-baked bun, for those of you who have long wondered what a store-bought hamburger bun tastes like.  The corn, although from Florida, was surprisingly good.  Nice and sweet and fresh-tasting.  They were $2.99 per half dozen at Cochrane’s Market in Rothesay.

Slow-roasted charcoal chicken. I bumped up some barbecue sauce with white wine vinegar, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, thyme, oregano and pepper. I grilled the chicken with just salt and pepper for a bit to crisp up the skin then began applying the sauce about every 15 minutes while the chicken cooked in the covered charcoal barbecue. Drop. Dead. Awesome.

Two “Italian Bratwurst” and a Hot Italian sausage over charcoal. Served up with NB sauerkraut. So good.

A seafood chowder I made at my parents place in Smith’s Cove, Nova Scotia.  Thick enough to stand a spoon up in ‘er wah!  That’s Nova Scotia talk for “thick enough to stand a spoon up in ‘er eh?”

A stack of pitas fresh from the oven.   Cheap and couldn’t be more fresh.  Alexandra got a kick out of them puffing to a big round ball in the oven too.   Mere pennies worth of ingredients.  Even if you factor in the electricity for the oven at NB Power rates, they still only cost about six dollars. [/political food joke].

First, bring a pot of chili to the boiling point.  Meanwhile, assemble your hot dog.

Apply the hot dog to the chili mixture.  Let simmer for 5 minutes.

Occasionally check for doneness, enjoy.