Restaurant critic Dan Clapson shares his favourite seasonal recipes from the Canadian region.
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[Applause] welcome back everybody our next guest has spend his career writing about the culinary scene in the Prairies including a cookbook celebrating its delicious food today he’s sharing some of his favorite seasonal recipes from the Canadian region so please welcome back to the show Dan clapson thanks for having me I’m excited
To be here okay so Dan you’re all about seasonal eating and so give us an overview of what uh that looks like during a winter on the Prairies because we know Winters out there can look different and there’s nothing wrong with that you know in most parts of Canada can be cold
Unlike right this week I guess it’s quite warm but typically it’s cold there’s not many fresh vegetables left right so we seller a lot of things there’s uh cabbage there’s squash there’s apples there’s pears so I tried to pick some recipes from the book that really highlight that I mean aside for a
Drink which you can celebrate winter with the drink so it’s like cozy Foods we do our cozy cardio the card I like that I love this well you mentioned a drink and that’s what we’re going to start with it’s actually called a caribou cocktail with ties to Manitoba
So tell us the story behind this so this drink is interesting if you’re from Quebec or Manitoba you’re probably familiar with this so Caribou is a drink that you’ll find at a winter festival uh Festival deure in Winnipeg which is happening in February or Carnival in Quebec City so it’s essentially
Fortified wine that’s spiced a little bit so think of it like a extra boozy mold wine oh my God so so it does taste like mold wine and it’s delightful are there is there anything harder in this there’s a little bit of Canadian whiskey um and if you if you follow the folklore
Of this drink uh originally years and years ago allegedly it was made with Caribou Bloods that’s where it gets its name but I I didn’t put any blood in today I thought we keep keep it so interesting like after the Hun so mold wine is something that I don’t haven’t
Had a lot it’s a fun seasonal in ingredient though do you incorporate it also into food because people cook with wine all the time AB tastes good so my favorite thing to do with mild wine is if you’re adding in aromatics like obviously orange is is a natural one but
If you are using things like celed pears and apples that adds flavor to the wine and once they tenderize you can actually remove them from the pot and put them into a dessert so I like to make uh wine poached pear gallette and things like
That even even apples and a pie so think about it getting a double use out of an ingredient which is yeah I feel like it would bring it from here AB here um I’m very excited about the next ingredient that you’re going to highlight which is
Cabbage an unsung hero in my it really is opinion so it’s a seasonal ingredient why did you want to highlight it well first of all cabbage above all else is definitely strongly associated with the Prairies but cabbage is also a very inexpensive ingredient and you can find
It all year round and it’s typically locally grown where you find it and cabbage again the way you cook it whether you have it raw in like a SLO in this application in the soup you sauté it you roast it it has it’s delicious every way and it’s very very forgiving
If you overcook it it’s still delicious feel good you don’t want to you can’t screw it up you can’t screw I love this idea so you’ve used the Cabbage here in this sort of deconstructed cabin roll soup tell us exactly about this dish like how you make it so this dish is a
One p wonder which is always easy less dishes which is nice I mean there’s onions and garlic at its base of course but the interesting ingredients and oh you like it what a relief this is nice it’s like comfort in a bowl you might be getting a little bit of Tang in there
Very much and so that’s coming from fermented cabbage so in the Prairies if probably no surprise lots of Ukrainian and polish uh family roots in the Prairies but we can buy these huge fermented cabbage heads there similar to Sauer CR but think of Sauer cro if it
Was just a full cabbage head just wrapped up so that’s what’s in here diced uped cabbage SAU CRA pardon me can work if you’re in a different part of Canada I also have ground Bon meat bison is a very common meat you can find in the Prairies and and and across Ontario
And Beyond as well and there’s some sage in there as well omash the Prairies presumably if you can’t find bison where you live ground beef would be fine beef is great I mean you can substitute for other meats as well like ground turkey and things like that absolutely for sure
No problem okay so next we’re moving on to an ingredient that’s super trendy for 2024 we’re talking about halumi I I have halumi a lot in the summertime but not so much the winter so why is this a great seasonal ingredient so I was thinking about halumi because I think
It’s an allseason cheese I think it’s perhaps the best cheese in the world I know and that’s that’s not up for debate that but it’s it’s a nice firm salty cheese and I’m sure you’re familiar with it you can Grill it you can roast it and
It it holds its texture so it gets nice and crispy on the outside and has a nice almost like cheese cury inside it does and this salad specifically I thought it’d be nice to Showcase because when we are in the winter we don’t think of eating fresh greens or Greenhouse
Tomatoes but there’s a lot of uh agricultural advances now where you can find locally grown greens at this time of year so I thought this would be a nice example how you can eat something fresh in the winter and the color is pop too right it’s so beautiful this salad
Is gorgeous it’s so never think I’m always looking for good ideas for salad this is beautiful so tell us about why you use white pumpkin seeds in salad a good point too so white pump pumpkin seeds you can find at most grocery stores across Canada and they’re typically actually from Canada if you
The green ones are usually from other countries so if you’re wanting to buy local Canadian ingredients and I would opt for the white pumpkin seed oh they’re very good too I’m still I’m I’m I’m in I’m in stop Sal I love a Sal I feel so validated today it’s great well
Our final dish is a comforting one perfect for cold Winter’s nights so tell us about one of my favorite foods in a new form which is mustard and brown sugar glazed meatloaf there we go yeah it deserves a CL it a CL I love meatloaf too and
Meatloaf was one of the first recipes I learned to cook from my mom so I mean I’ve been cooking it since I was a teenager and it’s it’s it’s a comfort food for everyone but especially for me my whole life um this spin the the major
Spin with it is that I actually use ground up red lentils instead of breadcrumbs it keeps it gluten-free but also as a binder right so yeah it’s really really nice and it’s simple to do a food processor just for a few seconds and it holds it all together you know I
Think a lot of people he the word meatloaf and they think disgusting my mom made it terribly whatever but this is actually really good no offense mom but it wasn’t great um are other things you can do with the mustard and brown sugar glaze M absolutely so it’s
Finished on top with a really simple glaze I use yellow mustard which is a very underrated ingredient in your cabinet as well brown sugar and a bit of butter and it’s great on things like roast vegetables roast chicken obviously I mean even tofu so it’s the the glaze
Itself is a very versatile if you don’t like meatloaf but we like meatloaf we love great it’s great we love meatloaf Dan thank you so much for sharing these beautiful recipes from the Prairies we appreciate youate it’s fantastic hey there what did you think drop your comments below and join the
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