Click to enlarge.

A lovely lady named Jennifer Reynolds gave me a few bags of cleaned Sea Cucumber last Sunday when we were both finishing up at the Catch Seafood Festival.  Jennifer had spent some of the weekend cooking up this mysterious creature of the sea, and kindly offered me some to take home and experiment with.  My first thought was to treat it like conch and make a stew, but I opted to make a soup with the sea cucumber that incorporated some of my favorite pantry items; coriander, garlic, limes and chilies.

Doug and I sat down to our steaming bowls of sea cucumber soup and were pleasantly surprised by the taste and texture.  I hope that if anyone out there can get their grubby lil’ paws on any of this plankton eating creature, that they do so and experiment with it as I did today!  It has a sweet flavor similar to a clam, but without the saltiness and has the texture of one of my favorite foods, tripe (specifically honeycomb tripe). The following is the recipe that I came up with that stars the sea cucumber in the leading role.

Sea Cucumber Soup

• 1 onion chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic; sliced
• 1 scotch bonnet chili; minced (optional for heat lovers)
• 2 red peppers; diced
• 2 plum tomatoes; diced
• 1 cup chopped coriander – stems included
• 2 potatoes; diced
• 3 cups broth (chicken/fish/vegetable)
• 3 limes; zest and juice
• 2 cups cleaned sea cucumber
• salt & pepper to taste

Sweat the onion, garlic, chili and peppers in olive oil until translucent.  Add the sea cucumber and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the remainder of the ingredients and bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender.  Finish with a little more fresh coriander a squeeze of lime and some Matouk’s hot sauce (if you can handle it!)

Click to enlarge.

Click for more images.

I was also involved with Taste Of Nova Scotia, and spent Saturday and Sunday doing on stage demonstrations.  For both of my demonstrations I decided to make a simple salad with golden and candy cane beets, celery root, radishes, walnut oil and smoked mackerel from Willy Krauch. I felt that this recipe was a success. Not only was is super simple, but it was very crunchy and fresh!  I was lucky enough to have great interactive crowds on both days that were kind enough to chuckle at my horrendous jokes!

Beet and Smoked Mackerel Salad Recipe

So, a shout out to all those suppliers, organizers and volunteers that made Catch a great place to be..Merci!

Peeling some beets.

Zoe giving me a pep talk before my demo.

This is one of the salads from Catch.

I recently did some demonstrations at the Catch Seafood Festival on the Taste Of Nova Scotia Culinary Stage.  Here is an adaptation of that recipe witch includes golden, candy cane and bull’s blood beets.  Hope you “beet” it up!

Beet and Smoked Mackerel Salad

• 1 candy cane beet; peeled, quartered and thinly sliced
• 1 golden beet; peeled and julienned
• 1 bull’s blood beet; peeled, quartered and thinly sliced
• 1/4 of a celery root; peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 Jonagold apple; julienned
• 6 radishes; thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup basil; roughly chopped
• 2 lemons; zest & juice
• 1/4 cup walnut oil
• Salt & pepper
• 1 cup micro-greens
• 3 fillets of smoked mackerel; flaked

Thinly slice your beets and radishes on a mandolin if possible; I use a “Benriner” which is a Japanese mandolin.  Mix all your ingredients together in a bowl and serve.