Mia Stainsby
Sun
Chef Frank Pabst of the Blue Water Cafe in Vancouver, with a copy of his new cookbook and a plate of swimming scallops. Photograph by: Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
Vancouver has lured many a French chef with Michelin-starred experience to come and stay a while. Frank Pabst, chef of Blue Water Cafe, is one of them.
In an inter-continental co-incidence, he and two other chefs whom he worked with in a Michelin-starred restaurant in in Nice moved here, years after they’d lost touch.
“It’s hilarious,” says Pabst, of discovering Jean-Yves Benoit (chef/owner of Mistral) and Jean-Francis Quaglia (chef/owner of Provence Mediterranean Grill and Provence Marinaside) were also in Vancouver. “The world is so big.”
Pabst is chef at Blue Water Cafe, but has also worked as sous chef at Lumiere during the Rob Feenie era. It’s an auspicious year: Blue Water recently took the Best Seafood Award at the Vancouver Magazine restaurant awards and Pabst’s first cookbook, Blue Water Cafe Seafood (Douglas & McIntyre), was recently released.
The cookbook features more than 80 recipes from dishes served at the restaurant, including from the Blue Water sushi bar, run by chef Yoshihiro Tabo.
You see evidence of their influence on one another.
“He does his thing and I mine, but when he brings in ingredients I’ve never seen before, I figure out how to use them for myself. And it’s also interesting for him when we get things like wild or white asparagus,” says Pabst.
“It’s influenced me just a little bit, but I’m French-trained and lived in south France so that’s been a big influence.”
Pabst has simplified some dishes for the home cook — but not all. The Gazpacho and Zucchini Blossoms Stuffed with Dungeness Crab sounds summer-delicious, but it involves making the gazpacho, steaming zucchini flowers with a scallop/crab/zucchini stuffing as well as zucchini blossom tempura. Not for novices!
On the other hand, Pink Swimming Scallops with Tomato-Lemon Compote is a simple and excellent way to take advantage of local scallops in the shell. And anyone could handle Wild Spring Salmon with Braised Fennel, Vanilla and Green Olives or the Manila Clams, Steamed with Sake, Ginger and Ponzu.
The cookbook acquaints you with fish you’re not so friendly with but should be.
They’re part of Pabst’s “unsung hero” list of local seafood that’s sustainable and under-used — squid, octopus, herring, sardines, sea urchin and mackerel.
His job is to make them enticing and move our collective attitudes: Cured Herring Tartare with Granny Smith apple, Red Onions and Coriander is one such dish and Grilled Octopus with Carrot-Anchovy Salad and Parsley Sauce is another.
Restaurant dishes are about 90-per-cent Ocean Wise, he says, referring to a sustainable seafood program and guide and other ingredients are about 80-per-cent regional. “It’s challenging to stay sustainable and still be interesting.”
Well, the critics have spoken and, judging by the Best Seafood restaurant designation for the year, he’s met the challenge.
– – –
PINK SWIMMING SCALLOPS WITH TOMATO-LEMON COMPOTE
Pink swimming scallops are available right now at the False Creek Fisherman’s wharf and this is an easy way of making use of these local shellfish. From Blue Water Cafe Seafood Cookbook by Frank Pabst.
20 fresh pink swimming scallops
12 Roma tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
1 clove garlic, sliced
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon chopped capers
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Pinch of sugar
2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
Shuck scallops, keeping bottom shells and discarding top shells.
Remove the beard and dirt sack from each scallop, but leave the scallop muscle and roe intact. Fill a pot with salted water, add scallops and allow to rinse for 5 minutes.
Fill a bowl with ice water. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil on high heat. Add tomatoes and blanch for 10 seconds, then plunge them into the ice bath. Peel and seed the tomatoes, then dice the flesh.
In a medium saute pan, heat olive oil on medium heat. Add shallots and garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes and lemon zest, then reduce the heat to low and cook until tomato water has evaporated, about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, add capers, parsley and sugar, then season with salt and pepper.
Melt butter in a saute pan on medium heat. Add bread crumbs and cook for 1 minute, or until golden brown. Add thyme leaves and mix well to combine.
Turn the broiler on. Place the scallop shells on a baking sheet, then onto each scallop shell, spoon 1 teaspoon of the tomato-lemon compote. Top with a scallop, then sprinkle the scallops with the bread crumb mixture. Broil for 3 to 4 minutes, until bread crumbs are golden and the scallops are cooked.
To serve, divide the scallops evenly among 4 plates.
Makes 4 servings
WILD SPRING SALMON WITH BRAISED FENNEL, VANILLA AND GREEN OLIVES
There’s an unexpected ingredient in the braising liquid — vanilla. It heightens the fennel experience and adds a really neat side note to salmon. From Blue Water Seafood Cookbook by Frank Pabst.
Braised fennel:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 bulbs fennel, trimmed and cut in 6 pieces each
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 large shallots, chopped
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 cup dry, crisp chardonnay
3 cups chicken stock
24 small, organic green olives, pitted
2 Roma tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped but pod reserved
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
12 grape tomatoes, halved
Salmon:
4 fresh, wild spring salmon fillets, 5 ounces each, skin removed
2 tablespoons olive oil, for searing salmon
Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, for garnish
Braised Fennel: Preheat the oven to 375 F. Heat olive oil in a large ovenproof sauté pan on medium heat. Add fennel, garlic, shallots, thyme and bay leaf and sauté for about 5 minutes until fragrant. Season with salt and pepper.
Deglaze the pan with wine and chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and stir in olives and Roma tomatoes. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and braise in the oven for about 20 minutes until vegetables are just tender. Use a slotted spoon to transfer fennel and olives to a second oven-proof pan and set them aside.
Add fennel seeds and vanilla bean, both seeds and pod, to the remaining liquid and cook it on medium-high heat on stovetop until it has reduced by half, about 12 minutes.
Discard the vanilla pod. Purée the braising mixture in a blender, then pass the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean bowl. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Reduce the oven temperature to 200 F.
Add parsley and grape tomatoes to the fennel and olives. Pour the sauce over the fennel mixture, toss well to combine and keep warm in the oven.
Salmon: Heat a sauté pan over high heat. Season fish with salt and pepper, then add olive oil to the pan. Reduce the heat to medium, add the salmon and sear for 2 minutes on each side.
To serve, place three pieces of fennel in each of four large, shallow bowls. Add a quarter of the sauce, then top with a fillet of salmon and finish with a drizzle of olive oil.
Makes 4 servings
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
