Trophy Fish And Smoke House Fun

Here's some shots of some the the Pikes and Lakers the Clients have been pulling out of the various lakes and rivers around the lodge. Top 2 picks are 100+cm pike and the bottom shot is a 97cm lake trout! Things are heating up around here!

As well as fishing we are also eating. I've been having fun with my smokehouse. It seems that anything you put in there, tastes like magic when it comes out! The alder and willow have a nice flavor that works well with fatty fish, pork and duck. Ive put together a small film (like 25sec) to show you my smoke house for yourself. Let me know what you think. The pork t-bones are brined with foraged juniper berries and and green coriander. Cold smoked for 5 hours then cooked on a wood fired grill. The duck gets a similar treatment but no brine, just a quick salting (four hours) to draw out access moisture. I like the duck cooked sous-vide to 128f, cooled then I cook it on the skin for 12-15 minutes getting it right crispy! Oh my man. I know I know!

Alder smoked duck breast @128f with very crispy skin, spinach, parnips and smoke cherries

Labrador tea roasted hutterite hens

I was recently at Stacey's the local butcher shop in Whitehorse rummaging around when I spotted a chicken labeled "specialty chicken". When asked what kind of chicken it was, I was told it was a hutteritte raised free range chicken. He gave me one to try at the lodge, so I began thinking how I was going to cook it. Brine, roast the breasts on the bone, sous vide the legs and crisp them up in chicken fat is what I was thinking. Liver and giblet gravy with wild sage....Hell ya! Now to the brine.

Wild Labrador tea is up everywhere out here and is flowering this time of year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_tea Seeing as I love the flavor so much, I thought I would make a Labrador tea brine for the chicken. Holy Sh#$ is all I have to say! Why didn't I think of this earlier? Anyways, here's what I ended up doing. Recipe as follows...

Labrador Tea Roasted Hutterite Hen

The brine:

• 4 liters water
• 225g kosher salt
• 125g sugar
• 3 tbsp coriander seeds
• 8 bay leafs
• 1 big hand full dried Labrador tea leave
• 1 garlic head cut in half

Bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes to infuse, cool down completely. (can be done up to a week in advance)

When the brine is ice cold. You can put the chicken in. Use a weight to keep it submerged if necessary. The chicken will need to be in the brine for approx 12-15 hours (this was a 6 pound bird) When out of the brine pat dry all around and air dry in the fridge preferably overnight to form a pellical and insure good browning in oven. I roasted the breast on the bone in a roasting pan on a rack. Under the rack I poured in white wine and threw in another handful of Labrador leaves to get some vapour action from underneath the breast. I sous vide the legs at 160f for 10 hours then rubbed them with beer mustard, wild sage and buttery bread crumbs and crusted them up in a 400f oven for 15 minutes. Giblet and liver gravy.....Potato gratin, and chicken fried carrots.. The chicken was moist and had a real "chicken" kick to it. Hutterite chicken is definitely worth seeking out!

New Digs!

Ive finally arrived at Dalton Trail Lodge, 40km south of Haines Junction, Yukon. This is where I will be spending my summer cooking and foraging. The other veteran chef Mike has been showing me the ropes the over the last couple days before we get busy with the seasons full wrath. The elevation is quite a bit higher here than in Whitehorse, so you can still see tails of winter about. The smoke house needs cleaning and the bbq pit needs some work but its not by any means in bad shape... Just needs some lovin! The Dalton range is in your face and Dezadeash lake is just behind the lodge where this time of year lake trout are all about! Looks like ill have lots to explore and the terrain should prove to be a bumper spot for ceps and boletus mushrooms! More to come.

Ive suddenly become a bit of a baker since arriving!

From top to bottom, View of the lodge & Country style multi grain bread

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Sorry Relocating And Fishing

Have not had any time for blogging with moving in progress. But have had time to get some very nice lake trout! The 6 and 4 pounders were pulled out Moose lake just outside Valemount B.C. only a week after the ice has broke off the lake. Popping them on the webber tonight with some cedar planks and some birch syrup!

I sprinkle the fillets with course sea salt and leave them for 30 minutes to firm up the flesh and push out excess moisture. Rinse the salt off, pat dry, then put them on cedar planks which have been soaked overnight in water. Im using lump charcoal and paper birch for flavor. Finishing it with a glaze of black pepper, coriander and pure 100 Mile birch syrup! Sides will include webber roasted potato gratin and some steamed bok choy on the side.

I'm Yukon bound as of tomorrow! See you in Whitehorse!

Morel Chat On CBC

Here's a short clip of me on CBC radio spouting off about morel mushrooms and having a good chat with Alan Neal on the All In A Day show. The show was aired on April 28th just a few days before the morels started popping in Ottawa.

Morels With Ramps, Nettles And Lemon

This is what may tastes like in the Ottawa river valley! Serves 2 as a starter

• Good olive oil to coat pan (don't cheap out here!)
• 15 Fresh morels
• 5 Ramps finely sliced, tops roughly chopped
• 1 cup fresh nettle leaves
• 1 lemon/zest
• fleur de sel to taste
• fresh ground pepper to taste
• good chunk of bread (baguette, ciabatta, Belgium or crispy sourdough)

1. Clean your Morels!!! Morel pores are perfect homes for many interesting small critters! If morels are big slice so they are all the same size. Don't forget to inspect the insides of the mushrooms for friends as well!
2. Zest and juice only half the lemon. Remove any seeds from juice and add zest to juice. Set aside.
3. Prep your ramps. Clean them. Remove the bulbs from the leafy tops, slice the bulbs fairly thin and rough chop the tops. keep bulbs and tops separate.
4. Prep your nettles. Use gloves to remove the nettle leaves from plant. Select young new plants with tender leaves. Wash as you would regular lettuce and dry. Combine with ramp tops.
5. You should now have one bowl of cleaned morels, one bowl of cleaned nettles/ramp tops, one bowl of lemon juice/zest, one bowl of sliced ramps, fleur de sel, a pepper mill and good olive oil.
6. Get a large frying pan hot on stove. When hot add olive oil to coat pan. Before oil starts smoking add sliced ramps. Cook for 10 secs, to totally infuse the oil with rampy goodness. Add morels and nettle/ramp mix.
7. Leave on high heat so that any liquid that comes out of the mushrooms will evaporate as its being cooked. Cook until morels have shrunk by almost half and all the liquid in the pan is absorbed back into the morels about 3-4 minutes.
8. Add lemon and remove from heat. Season with fleur de sel and a fresh pepper. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

Note: I sometimes add fresh red chili with the ramps at the beginning for a little extra kick!

Epic Morel Memory Flashback!!!!

Question: What was one of the most memorable morel days of your life.....
Answer: Well now let me see.....ah yes.....and it goes a little something like this.....

One Of My Most epic morel days!

The French gulch burn site summer of 2005. Picking with a good friend chef and local restaurateur Phillip Lamarche of Klondike Kates restaurant in Dawson City Yukon where I was employed at the time. We had a little shroom rivalry going on in the kitchen at work as to who could get the most morels in the shortest amount of time on any giving day. This was the day I was going to change all that. We headed off with a few guys from the kitchen to French gulch for a regular four hour pick. After about 3 hours you can usually find a few people who more or less struck out waiting by the truck for the rest of us lucky ones to finish up picking. Not me though, I was deep in the burn and up to my neck in morels! Forget the Dawson City “Gold Rush” famous in 1898, this was the Dawson City “Mush Rush” of 05! My adrenaline is flowing, arms are flying and the weight on my back is getting heaver. I lost track of time, I lost track of reality. I felt like the guy from fear and loathing when he enters the hotel high on mescaline and everyone turns into dinosaurs! I was completely and utterly in the zone and “the spell of the Yukon” has a whole new meaning to me at this point of time. When I climbed up the 900+ foot embankment I was down I had a trapper nelson full of baskets and four 5 gallon pails full of morel glory! I was completely covered in wood ash, charcoal dust and blood head to toe. I looked as though I just escaped a war zone! When it was all said and done we brought them back to Kates for cleaning grading and scaling. The final weight was 140 pounds of fresh morels, 68 of which came from my buckets in 4 hours of picking. I have since broken that record and know of many mainstream pickers that achieve this regularly. But in that moment… on that day… in French gulch… I’ve never experienced such a out this world experience with mushrooms I have not ingested in my entire life! What a epic day for morels!!

Some of our summer of 05 bounty. Yes those are boxes and garbage bags full of morels from a epic Yukon summer!

Ottawa.....R.I.P.

This party is about to hit the road! Good Bye Ottawa, Hello Yukon....Again. Can't wait to get back up to the mothership! Final prep is in place for the move with only 2 week remaining in O-town.

I will be running a fishing camp for the summer at the edge of Kluane national park on dezadeash lake. Ive contacted farmers and am currently making connections on the coast for seafood/shellfish.

Ottawa its been a slice, but its time to move on. Hoping to get my hands on a few ramps and morels before I leave and finish a few more hams and charcuterie projects I have on the go.
Some of my latest creations. From top left clockwise. Kiebasa, st.canut pork rillettes, dry cured wild boar sausage, heritage breed procuttio, tasso ham, foie gras and heritage breed pork liver terrine