Originally from South Korea, Chef Alex Kim grew up working on his grandparents’ farm in the summer. Those summers have inspired many of his culinary creations.
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Resting on a bed of small smooth black stones and flanked by seashells, a kusshi oyster looks like the star of the plate. But bite into the shell on which the oyster sits and you’ll taste and feel where the real wow factor lies.
The oyster tartlet, with its edible shell, is one of three plates, or elements, that helped Alex Kim win both the Gold Medal and People’s Choice awards at this year’s Great Kitchen Party Culinary Championship in October, a regional contest to select representatives from each province for the Canada Culinary Championship in Ottawa at the end of this month.
Along with the tartlet, Kim’s winning entry A Taste of Pacific Northwest features a sushi-roll-size wheel of Cortes Island scallop and Haida Gwaii sablefish, and an elegant light-pink mandu (Korean dumpling) of Dungeness crab and Okanagan apple wrapped with poached side-stripe shrimp.
For the wine pairing, he and sommelier Sarah McCauley chose Tinhorn Creek’s Blanc de Blanc.
This year marked the Five Sails/Glowbal executive chef’s first time competing in the event, though he “used to help out my chefs back in Edmonton” when the competition was known as Gold Medal Plates. Kim has also worked in kitchens at the Fairmont and Shangri-La hotels.
Originally from South Korea, the chef grew up working on his grandparents’ farm in the summer. Those summers have inspired many of his culinary creations.
“They had chilies, pears, rice, grapes, apples,” says Kim. “And my grandma used to make everything, even condiments.”
For the oyster tartlet, he used a miso fermented for six months.
To prepare for the regional qualifiers Kim spent “about six months not only just making good food with good texture” but also scrolling through childhood memories for inspiration.
“I wanted to have a story behind this dish, why I chose each of these elements and what they mean to me in my life. Once I finalized my idea, I had to make it into a great flavour and textural combination.”
For the Canadian Culinary Championship he’ll have to do more than just prepare A Taste of Pacific Northwest for guests at the Grand Finale on Feb. 1. Before presenting their dishes to judges and gala attendees, competitors face two challenges.
In the first, and with the help of his sous-chef Jitin Kapoor and sommelier McCauley, he will have to come up with a dish to pair with a mystery wine.
“My sous-chef and sommelier have to taste it and then kind of analyze what this wine is. And the next day I go shopping for 300 people, and then I have to create a fish that pairs as well with this label as wine.”
The next day, the intrepid chefs each face a black box of seven ingredients that they then have to use to create two dishes of 12 plates each in one hour.
To prepare for the first, he and McCauley tasted several wines.
“We started with five reds and five whites of the most produced wines in Canada, then low-quality, mid-quality, high-quality. Then we paired them with basic ingredients like lemon, cheese, brown sugar, white sugar, just enough to see what flavours paired well.”
To prep for the black box challenge, Kim had one of his chefs at Glowbal put together seven surprise ingredients for him to work with.
“We were practising day and night to create a similar environment so I can feel comfortable with the process.”
At a preview of A Taste of Pacific Northwest for the media at Five Sails, the seafood trio was bookended by a tuna crudo and bison wrapped in pastry à la beef Wellington, all accompanied by Tinhorn Creek wines.
Five Sails pastry chef Daria Andriienko contributed petit fours, including a honey cake and pistachio macaroons.
“For the gala, I’ve just been improving each and every element of my entry using feedback from the original judges,” Kim said.