Canada’s Great Kitchen Party: Edmonton
Gold: Davina Moraiko, chef de cuisine, RGE RD
Silver: Serge Belair, executive chef, Shaw Conference Centre
Bronze: Scott Downey, chef/owner, The Butternut Tree
Gold Medal Plates raised over 15 million for Olympic athletes over a decade. Now, Canada’s Great Kitchen Party has taken over where Gold Medal Plates left off and will continue to celebrate Canadian excellence in food, drink, music and sports. This year’s inaugural event, October 17, featured six returning and four new competitors all vying for a spot at the national Canadian Culinary Championships.
Davina Moraiko’s dish was deceptively simple—in cool greens and browns—a round of blood sausage studded with pearl barley and lardo, in a pool of eggy, cidery hollandaise, surrounded by a tangle of lightly-fermented crisp green cabbage. Tiny honeycrisp apple cubes added crunch and sweetness along with a really delicious gel of kale and roasted onion. The dish was superbly balanced and complete, wanting for nothing, paired with the 2016 Red Rooster Riesling, a full-bodied Alsation-style wine which found its home in the richness of the dish and the sauerkraut-like cabbage. (My top pairing.)
“When they said gold, I said what?” says Davina. “I went into it wanting to stay true to what I do every day. That blood sausage? I have been working on it for about a year. Super proud of it, super proud of the team.”
Serge Belair’s dish was true to his Quebecois roots, featuring pork, maple syrup and tourtière. He brought the house down with the crisp pastry-wrapped, golf ball-sized nuggets of moist tourtière deliciousness (I hope the Shaw sells these by the dozen this Christmas). The Bear and the Flower pork is dry aged in the Shaw’s special room; chef served it as a lovely slab of lean and tender maple-glazed loin on a velvety celeriac puree.
Chef Scott Downey’s Haida Gwaii sable fish was impeccably cooked, with the layers falling away at the touch of a fork (that is hard to do for one person; imagine doing it for over 600 people?) and tasting of both woods and sea. The poaching butter, infused with chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, woodruff and sea truffle was then dried, providing crunchy little bits of flavour. Potato, both sautéed little cubes and a wonderfully silky purée nestling the fish and strands of citrusy samphire finished the dish. All in all, heaven for fish lovers.
There was a lot of variety on the plates this year and, surprisingly, no beef. Two dishes featured octopus, by rising stars JP Dublado of Seorak and Levi Biddlecomb of Why Not Café. And the judges were wowed by the playful and beautiful rosy pink goat cheese dish (entirely coloured by beets) by Buco Windermere’s Medi Tabtoub, named for his daughter. He had us at Mon Joséphine.
Monies raised from Canada’s Great Kitchen Party supports Community Food Centres Canada, which helps at risk children learn about healthy eating and food careers; provides musical instruments for 20 children each year through MusiCounts and creates funding for elite amateur athletes and their coaches via the sports non-profit, B2ten.
Davina Moraiko will compete against the other regional winners at the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna in February. Go Davina!