Chef at Home - The Jolly Maritime Giant

You can't really miss Chef Michael Smith for two reasons. 1) He is on the Food Network Canada 10 times a day and 2) he's a full 6'7" of chef-ness.
I honestly didn't have too high hopes for this class. When Michael Smith cooks on tv, it all looks very simple, tasty and fun. But the translation into book just doesn't do it for me. But that's not his fault.
Due to the popularity of the Chef at Home, I had to do a class on the newest book. I have to tell ya, everything came out awesome! Everything from the soup to the dessert was very tasty and simple to make.
Here is what we did.

Maritime Clam Chowder
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Southwestern Bean Salad
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Cornmeal Crusted Salmon with Basil Mussel Broth
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Bread Pudding

The Clam Chowder was simple. Canned clams, vegetables, some cream and milk. It took all of 20 minutes to put together. It was creamy without being thick and rich like some other chowders. I prefer mine thin so I put in a bit more milk that cream.



The next was a simple bean salad done "Southwestern" style. I used a mixture of Black Eye Peas, Black Beans, and Red Kidney Beans, along with blanched green beans, red pepper and some corn. It was brought alive with a very simple lime vinaigrette. The difference with how I did it was I used dried beans rather than canned which is what the recipe calls for. You get a better texture that is not mushy like canned beans can be.


The main course was probably my favorite of the night. Simple crusted organic salmon with cornmeal with a mussel broth. The cornmeal gives an amazing crunchy texture to the salmon and the broth from the mussels was full of flavour. The hardest part of this recipe was after cooking the mussels, you have to remove the mussel meat from the shell. But once that is done, it's a simple preparation.The broth is mixed with some pesto and I added some baby spinach to it. The salmon was crisp and the broth was full of basil and mussels. Very nice.



Dessert on the other hand wasn't my favorite. But that could have been my fault. I think the bread i used wasn't the best. It was a fairly dense levain like bread that being day old was even more dry and hard. I'm more accustomed to using croissant for bread pudding. Also, I'm not too keen on putting raisins in bread pudding. But that's just me.

The Best of Chef at Home is a pretty good book. Loads of recipes for the family, comfort foods with simple preparations. What I think most people will like about this book is Michael Smiths easy going attitude and unpretentious recipes. Your week night cooking just became a lot more tasty!