Chef Ned Bell at Kitsilano Farmers Market Kitchen

I love to visit the Farmers Market, especially when the monthly Farmers Market Kitchen is on! Last Sunday, Chef Ned Bell of YEW Restaurant gave a demo on BBQing salmon.

He started off by introducing himself and his restaurant and how he loves support local food and how we should all donate to the Farmers Market Kitchen. As an incentive, anyone who donated $5 or more received a canned tuna from YEW!
 

The canned tuna is sold for $7 something at the restaurant so everyone jumped at the chance. I got one myself because it's so yummy! Tuna and love are the two ingredients!

Starting from the top, Chef Ned Bell proceeded to show us how to fillet and debone a whole salmon! That above is about a 9lb Spring Chinook salmon.

It was freshly caught, and has its organic ocean tag with tracking number so that you know which boat caught it, where, when and how it was caught. Ned Bell is very passionate about sustainable seafood, as should we all, since if we continue eating the way we eat, there will be no more seafood period! Traceability is important for seafood to know what you are eating. Ask the server where the fish came from, if it is Ocean Wise, if they don't know or can't answer then...well you got your answer. The Four Seasons is the first luxury hotel in Canada to be 100% ocean wise! All the seafood at the hotel is caught, raised, farmed or harvested sustainably and Chef Ned Bell is very proud to be part of that.

 So to fillet a fish:
1. start at the head, score down to the bone then follow the backbone with your knife  = perfect fillet

 2. flip fish, and do the same thing to the other side.

 Chef had his little sous-chef entourage watching him work. =D

You are left with the rest of the fish which you can scrape it with a spoon and use for salmon burger or tartare! Yummy!

3. Take out the belly bones
4. Use a long sharp knife and skin the salmon. He stressed the importance of having sharp knives in the kitchen.


5. Run knife along against pin bones and use good set of fish pliers to pull out the bones and voila! You're done!

To give the fish a great flavour, Chef uses cedar paper, which can be bought from any local hardware store, and cook the fish on it. Just lay it on the tray and put the fish on top of it. It doesn't need to be soaked it if you put it on the tray. It is one use and throw it away, easy, clean. Chef says that one of the most important things of being a chef is to work clean. Working cleaning, being organized means you waste less and make less mistakes.

Add some extra virgin olive oil.

Lots of sea salt like a crust.

Then put it into the BBQ preheated to medium to medium/high heat. Or if you don't have a BBQ, medium/high heat 375 - 400 in your oven. Bake for 10min until the fat, white stuff rise to the top. That's when you know it's done.


While the salmon was cooking, Chef prepared the compote and salad to go with the fish.

Boil crab apples from Vista Dora farms, mix in a cup of honey,  a cup vinegar e.g. red wine vinegar or cider vinegar, salt but balance to your taste. Stir it a little bit to break apart the apples when they are soft enough.

Hannah Brook Farms provided the greens in the salad.

Throw in roasted hazelnuts from Poplar Grove, some extra virgin olive oil, poured some of the liquid from the compote, some sea salt and mix it all together. And you're done your salad. Easy!

Checking on the fish...white stuff is the fat that rose to the top. Take it out right away because it will continue to cook! Juicy and perfectly cooked. Mmm.

 After the demo was done, Chef Ned Bell served up samples to the hungry crowd.

Voila! Cedar baked BBQ salmon with mixed greens and crab apple compote. So yummy! Best of all, all the ingredients can be found fresh at the Farmers Market!

Chef Ned Bell and his sous-chef Max.

The next Farmers Market Kitchen and the last one this season is on September 29 with Chef Eric Arrouzé from UBC Culinary Arts. Make sure to check it out! Please visit eatlocal.org for more information.