Chef Brian Henry

Chef Brian Henry Blogspot

Welcome to Chef Brian Henry's official blogspot where you'll find occasional information about different events I'll be taking part in, information about catering, Ice-Sculpting, our cooking classes, various recipes and more.

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I update my blog at random when ever so inspired… I write about local food, with a focus on unpretentious recipes with an approachable sense to our somewhereness. Check in regularly to see what’s going on…

Follow on twitter @ChefBrianHenry, Google+, Pinterest or on facebook depending on what your thing is…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gastronomically yours,

Fiddleheads   Fiddleheads are the young wild fern shoots that are harvested from the forest floor before they uncurl and grow into long leafed ferns. Their shape is comparable to a scroll or the head of a violin, after which they are named. Fiddleheads have been a seasonal mainstay in diets for centuries throughout Asia, [...]

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  May is “Love your Lentils Month”Gotta Pulse?   Legumes are any plant that produces fruits that are enclosed in a pod. Common examples of legumes would be fresh peas or peanuts. Pulses are any member of the legume family whose seeds have been harvested and dried. Chickpeas and lentils are the most common selections [...]

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Sticks and Stones   Who cannot resist the aromas of a BBQ? We cannot deny that when we smell foods licked by fire and smoke that our appetite is whetted and we start to salivate. This ancient method of cooking dates back to the days of cave dwellers cooking chunks of meat over a fire. [...]

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I’ve had the pleasure of judging many food related competitions over the year’s but none of them compares to judging yesterday’s Butter Tart Taste-Off at the Flavour Festival held in Peterborough, Ontario. Searching for the best crust, best filling, most creative and best overall was a daunting task.  Ontario.choose the best crust, best filling, the most [...]

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The smell of Spring   I love the aromas produced by foods being prepared in a kitchen. One of these favorite culinary induced aromas I can only smell in the bathroom. It is the smell of metabolized compounds found in asparagus. These sulphur based compounds give our urine a distinct perfume within 20 minutes of [...]

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You be the Judge   Geographical regions are often defined by their terroir or their sense of place which is personified through its geography, environment, culture and cuisine. This weekend our region will display all of its characteristic qualities that define our somewhereness here throughout the Kawartha and Northumberland counties at the Flavour Festival being [...]

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Go(a)t Milk?   Goats are one of the earliest animals to be domesticated by humans in the mountains of Iran over 10 000 years ago. Since then goats have been harvested for a variety of purposes in the kitchen. Their flesh has been consumed in braised or roasted preparations. Their hides have been used for [...]

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Baaad to the bone…   As a kid growing up in Ontario I came to associate the goat as a satanic symbol that could be found scavenging their meals from discarded garbage. I remember hearing stories of goats eating licence plates, garbage and tin cans.  Little did I know that goat meat is the most [...]

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Tofu or not Tofu that is the question Tofu is a highly concentrated form of protein that resembles whose form is similar to cheese. Its origins are disputed as to whether the Mongol’s or Chinese discovered the tofu making process but it is believed that this food staple entered the culinary world somewhere between the [...]

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Gotta Pulse?   Legumes are any plant that produces fruits that are enclosed in a pod. Common examples of legumes would be fresh peas or peanuts. Pulses are any member of the legume family whose seeds have been harvested and dried. Chickpeas and lentils are the most common selections of pulses. Although lentils come in [...]

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Kelp Caviar   I want you to visualize swimming in a lake on a hot summer day. You’re floating freely, looking at the sky completely relaxed when you feel some aquatic plant brush against your leg causing you to thrash about screaming seaweed. I can only imagine how you may react if I served up some seaweed [...]

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Sheer Pleasure Cooking lamb has never really received the recognition it deserves. When it comes to eating lamb, I am always amazed at the number of people who fervently proclaim their distaste for the idea. It appears that many people have memories of eating the strong tasting mutton that was left in the field to [...]

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Maple Wine   The very first harvest of the year is Maple Sap, and this year my kids and I have collected over 200 liters of sap from our humble maple farm. This we have boiled  down into approximately 4 liters of pure maple goodness. As the season has just begun our first 3 liters [...]

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Ten degrees of separation   I truly enjoy tasting the first run of sap as it is being rendered down into maple syrup. To me it’s a double celebration of which I’m not sure as to which is more worthy of celebrating. You see the maple syrup harvest is like a reward or prize for [...]

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  Liquid Gold Rush When the nights are below freezing and the days are mild you can be sure of some things, like the coming of spring, the deadline for filing your tax returns and a new season of local harvesting. This seasonal change in the weather makes the sap flow and represents the region’s [...]

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  You calling me a Wise Guy? Father Valentine was martyred after being beaten and beheaded by order of Roman Emperor Claudius on February 14, 269 AD. The story kinda goes like this… Claudius the Cruel was a warring ruler who was recruiting soldiers for his armies. Enlistment  was down, and Claudius blamed this on the [...]

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Carrots – A bowl of Liquid Sunshine   Archaeologists have found traces of fossilized carrot pollen that is carbon dated back some tens of millions of years. They have been a cultivated staple ingredient in our diet since 8th century BC with their seeds having been found in a number of sites around the world. [...]

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Kitchen Patois   So what’s in a name anyway? Well there can be a lot of history to the origins of our lexicon…for example ‘cuisine’ comes from the Latin word ‘coquna’ and is now a French term meaning the manner or practice of food preparation.  The word restaurant originally meant ‘food that restores’ and pertained [...]

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Full of Beans   Beans are edible seeds classified differently from lentils and peas.  The more than 400 varieties of beans are cultivated all over the world and have sustained us for over a thousand years. Provincially, Ontario and Manitoba produce the bulk of the annual Canadian bean harvest which is sold for domestic and [...]

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  Wild Sweets® By Dominique & Cindy Duby Recipient of 2013 Best Chocolatiers & Confectioners in America Awards   January 11, 2013 (Vancouver, BC). We are pleased to announce that Wild Sweets® By Dominique & Cindy Duby is a proud recipient of the 2013 Best Chocolatiers & Confectioners in America Awards from TasteTV and the International Chocolate Salon, an organization based in San Francisco, [...]

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Auld Lang Syne   New Year’s Eve is one of the most celebrated holidays the world over. Culturally there are many traditions surrounding this celebration all of which symbolize renewal while bidding farewell to the problems and concerns of the previous year.   Many cultures rejoice in this annual inauguration by eating foods that are [...]

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Ho Ho Hold the Turkey!   Ah yes! The festive season of over indulgence is upon us once again. Say good-bye to your diet and workout routines and bring on the Turkey Dinner, the home baked goodies and all of the vices that give us those hallucinations of sugared plums dancing in our heads. On [...]

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Enter the Deep   The frying pan emerged from Mesopotamia somewhere between the Bronze and Iron Ages. This kitchen gadget seemed revolutionary as it allowed for foods to be cooked very quickly. The frying of food is the humble cooking process that involves either partially submerging or completely submerging foods into hot fat or oil. [...]

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Nothing cooks like a Deer Venison is a term used to describe any meat harvested from moose, elk, and caribou. Antelope and gazelles also fall under the name of venison. Venison is a dark red, fine grained meat. It is exceptionally lean and what fat it does contain is quite high in polyunsaturates. As a [...]

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High on the Hog The North American meat industry took off in the late 1700’s as millions of expatriates immigrated to the New World. Pigs were the primary source of domesticated meat at this time as they were easily processed into foods that could be stored for long periods of time before the invention of [...]

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Smashing Pumpkins   The pumpkin has become synonymous with Thanksgiving and Halloween. Beyond the pumpkins symbolism most of us know little about this fruit and leaves most of us reaching for this product in its store-bought canned form when it comes to cooking. Its symbolic presence of the autumn harvest has made this fruit a [...]

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Ghostly I have to confess that I’m afraid of ghosts. This fear has nothing to do with Halloween being only a couple of weeks away. It has to do with the Naga Bhut Jolokia also known as Cobra or Ghost Pepper. A pepper’s heat is measured in Scoville units or SKU. For example a jalapeño [...]

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Turkey Lurkey Time     Poultry is a collective term used to describe any bird that is domesticated and destined for human consumption. This category of proteins includes chickens, ostrich, duck, emu, and turkey. The turkey has been flying around our planet for over 20 million years. Wild turkeys and heritage breed turkeys can fly [...]

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Tomato sonata   My kitchen is over flowing with tomatoes of every imaginable shape, size and colour. Some are from my garden, others my neighbors garden and more yet from the farmers market. It’s like having my own little tomato orchestra to conduct a culinary symphony with that would highlight the classic preparations  composed with [...]

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Santa Clause is coming to town   Melons have been cultivated since around 2000 BC with the early varieties being grown throughout the regions between Egypt and India. The finest melons in the world are harvested in Afghanistan as the climate and soil conditions are perfect for this cultivar.  As people moved about the planet [...]

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Chef Brian’s $100k Fish Batter Recipe   3.5 cups of pastry flour 3 tbsp. baking powder 2 tbsp. salt ¾ cup Buttermilk 3 cups of cold water   Sift together all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Gently whisk in the buttermilk and water until the batter reaches uniform consistency with no lumps. Do [...]

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Vegetable Marrow   Squash originated in South and Central America over 10,000 years ago and were cultivated for their seeds which were usually roasted and ground into pastes that were used to flavor and thicken regional sauces’.  These early varieties of squash contained little flesh and were generally hollowed out and used as cooking utensils, [...]

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   Here Comes the Bride   The ritualistic trading of nuptials throughout society carries many traditions. From the ring to the veil and the colour of the brides dress all of these traditions have a story behind them. All evolved over time depending on many historical influences.   Wheat and grains are considered by some [...]