Q & A with OCCO Kitchen's Marc Steele

With both a take-out restaurant (OCCO Kitchen) and a sit-down restaurant (OCCO Kitchen Innes) to maintain, chef Mark Steele has become a major player in the Ottawa food scene. Hailing from the east coast, Mark's career includes being the Chef de Cuisine at the Chateau Laurier; the Executive Chef for the Ottawa Hilton, and the Ottawa Marriott hotels; and a teaching position at Algonquin College for the School of Hospitality and Tourism. He has also led a team of chefs representing Ottawa's regional cuisine at the coveted James Beard Foundation in Manhattan; executed state dinners for British Royalty and the President of France; and competed on "Chopped Canada". I had a chance to ask him some questions via e-mail recently, and here's what he had to say:

FRANKLIN on FOOD: What needs to be done to make the Ottawa cooking scene stand out more?
MARK STEELE: I think to help Ottawa stand out we really need to Showcase our local talented Artisans from beer to spirit producers to local cheeses and charcuterie and use those products to create our own dishes that really showcase the region and what it has to offer.

FoF: Why don't more restaurateurs consider the suburbs as a location for their restaurants?
MS: There are definitely some obstacles for restaurants in suburbia that include you really have to be a destination restaurant and have a draw for people to come to you. Staffing can be a real issue.

If your restaurant is centrally located you can draw from a wider area of Ottawa. I personally love Orleans it has its own culture and food scene that I like to think I'm helping develop, its very own Craft brewery (Stray Dog) that has just started their first batches.

FoF: How do you split the time between your two restaurants?

MS: Most of my time is spent at the bigger location, but now it has really found its legs and Ricci Binch our new Chef from Australia is taking the reigns and I'm looking forward to working the take out again like the good ol' days.

FoF: Other than your own places, where would you go for a sit-down meal in either Orleans or Ottawa?

MS: There are many restaurants I enjoy going to and very hard to narrow it down to one but overall I really appreciate when I order a meal and there is passion and craft that has been put into the preparation. 

FoF: What's the one ingredient that you will always find in your kitchens, and why?
MS: The one ingredient you will always find in my kitchen is Mt Scio Savoury from Newfoundland. It is a nostalgic ingredient for me one I was raised with. It is a very unique form of summer savoury that I use in my stuffing and in some herb blends that I use.

FoF: What advice would you give to anyone who wants to become a chef?
MS: Advice I would give anyone who would want to become a Chef would be that you have to love it and love the lifestyle. It can be very long hours, very physically demanding and high stress. Your busiest time is usually when the rest of the world is off having fun, weekends and special occasions are going to be when you have to put in the most work, if your OK with this and your not afraid of hard work and you thrive to create interesting artistic and inventive food that will completely overwhelm your guests then you will never find a more rewarding profession.

FoF: What was the most surprising thing about being on "Chopped Canada"

MS: The most surprising element of Chopped was definitely receiving a baked potato for the dessert round. In hindsight, I can think of a hundred thousand ideas that I could create with it but in that moment when the pressures on it really through me for a loop.

FoF: I remember you said you like to roll around in the prize money if you had won "Chopped Canada:; have you had a chance to make it rain with some $5 bills recently?

MS: Yes I was planning on doing the backstroke through a pool of fives that being said I'm doing OK. I couldn't be happier with the success of OCCO and I'm in planning of the next move.

"Chef" - A Better Late Than Never review

When I heard that the Angry Dragonz food truck were giving away passes to see this movie last year if you tweeted out a picture of something from their menu, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and score some food and bypass the ticket line. While I did enjoy the General Tso Chicken rice bowl with egg roll I ordered, my pictures weren't up to snuff to see the movie for free. Fast forward to this week, and the copy I borrowed from the Ottawa Public library came in. Jon Favreau stars and excels as a high profile chef who starts a food truck business when he loses his restaurant job after refusing to compromise himself anymore. Favreau gets the most out of his collaboration with co-producer and chef Roy Choi as the movie does a good job conveying the frustrations of being a chef working for a controlling owner; the struggles of juggling parental responsibilities and professional obligations; the perils of social media; and the trials and tribulations of getting into the food truck game. This film shows a great love of the art of cooking, and is a perfect blend of indie film making, and big box office star power. Recommended for foodies and anyone who's ever thought about packing it in and doing what they love not because someone is telling them to do it, but because they love doing it.

The new food trends for 2015

Greetings and salutations everyone. Hope the holidays were good, and the start of this new year has treated you well. During my downtime, I ate a lot of good food, hung out with family and friends, and enjoyed the two cookbooks I received as gifts, a reprint of my late mom's beloved "All New Purity Cook Book", and "The Official DC Super Hero Cookbook", the closest I'm going to get to the out-of-print cookbook I loved back in my youth. To get back into the swing of things, I thought my first entry of 2015 should be a comment about this year's predicted food trends.

• The new cocktail ingredient: Tea
  Taking advantage of the millions of tea drinkers in the world, bartenders will be looking for ways to add it to more drinks. This isn't as crazy as it sounds, as several local brewers, like the Dominion City Brewing Company, have made some great beers with tea. The green tea powder matcha will also be appearing it everything from pesto to antioxidant-rich drinks due to its vibrant colour and flavour.
• The new comeback food: Foie gras
  About two weeks ago, a judge overturned California's ban on the sale of foie gras, to the delight of chefs, foie gras producers, and lovers of fatty duck or goose liver everywhere. Because of this, restaurants will soon be making foie gras the centerpiece item of haute cooking again. I'm sure the number of death threats issued against chefs who resume cooking with this controversial food will decrease as the months go by.
• The new comfort food: Uni and guacomole
  Uni is the Japanese name for the edible part of the sea urchin; guacamole is in my opinion the best thing you can do with an avocado.  Together, they are a high-end comfort food combination that makes truffled macaroni and cheese look like last year's Kraft dinner. You might need an in with the chef at your favourite gastropub to get this before it starts appearing on the menu.
• The new cooking trend: Stem-to-root
  Picture cauliflower leaves being sauteed, and served over polenta with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese; carrot tops made into pesto and fennel tops finding their way into a relish; limp celery simmered back to life with ground meat, white wine, and aromatics. With the head-to-tail movement working so well with meats, it seems logically that a similar movement would happen with vegetables.
• The new foodie trend: Taking a selfie with the chef
  Why just snap a picture of your food when you can have a picture of the person(s) who made it? Given how temperamental chefs can be about people in their kitchens, I can't see this catching on, but with all the attempts to make chefs the new rock stars, who knows? Can't wait to see how this plays out at Union613...
• The new food treatment: Pickling and fermenting
  Vegetarians won't be the only ones benefiting from this, expect to see a lot more vegetables getting a bath in either vinegary, herbal or garlicky solutions this year.
• The new kale: Various contenders
  Several vegetables are vying for the chance to replace kale as the trendy choice in the produce department. Root vegetable like kohlrabi, celery root, and parsnips (one of my favourites) is predicted to be appearing in more kitchens, along with radishes and cauliflower. As a parent with poor eating habits, my wife is always looking for new ways to trick my son and I to eat healthier, so having something new on the vegetable side of the plate is always a good thing.
• The new Starbucks order: The flat white
  All the rage in Australia, the flat white is milk poured over two shots of ristretto (the first, most concentrated part of the espresso shot), with a thin layer of microfoam on top. What's the difference between that and a regular cappuccino? Beats me, I'm still uncouth enough to order a pumpkin spice latte in the fall.
• The new taste zone: Sour
  While umami will still get a lot of attention, the use of citrus, mustard, and vinegar will be seen in everything from beverages to entrees to desserts this year. It's about time sour have gotten some of the spotlight, it's an underrated taste. Who don't like a sourball gum every now and then?

Human Library - Chef

Happy 2014 everybody. Hope that the last twenty-four days of the new year have been good to you...

Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of a chef, but don't know one personally? If so, you will want to head to the Ottawa Public Library this Saturday between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to take part in the Human Library event. The Human Library allows you to have a 20-minute conversation with a person to learn about them and their experiences, essentially turning them into a human book. One of people appearing at the Main Branch is Luke Campbell, an Algonquin College trained chef who has cooked for diplomats, senators, and prime ministers, and is credited with bringing Jamaican cuisine to the nation's capital with his legendary Jamaican patties from his old restaurant Spicy Luke's. He probably won't share with people his recipes for this sorely missed treat, so this recipe from jamaicatravelandculture.com/ will have to do.

Ingredients - pastry

 1 lb flour
 1/2 cup ice cold water
 1/2 cup melted butter
 1/2 cup shortening
 1 tsp salt
 1 Teaspoon of baking powder
 1 Teaspoon of curry powder medium hot
 1 Teaspoon on turmeric or 1 drop of annotto

Ingredients - filling
 1 lb ground beef
 1 medium onion
 4 scallion (or 1 more medium onion)
 2 stalks fresh thyme or 2 tsps ground thyme
 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
 1 scotch bonnet pepper (or 1 tbsp curry powder / chilli sauce)
 2 cloves garlic
 1 cup water
 1 tsp salt
 1 tsp pepper
 1 tsp paprika
 1/2 tsp sugar
 1 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and stir in baking powder, curry powder, salt and turmeric.
2. Work the butter and shortening in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Slowly drizzle in the water until the mixture has a dough-like consistency (it should only be slightly sticky).
3. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
4. Cut the onion and scallions into fine pieces. Gently fry so they do not quite get time to brown.
5. Add the ground beef, thyme, garlic, peppers (finely chopped), salt, pepper, paprika, sugar and nutmeg. Fry until mixture is fairly dry, drain off excess fat if necessary.
6. Add water and breadcrumbs, and cook until the mixture has a thick, saucy texture. Set aside.
7. Roll the dough on a floured board until it is about 1/8 of an inch thick. Cut as many circles (about the size of a saucer) out of the dough as you can.
8. Place 1 tablespoon of the meat filling on one side of each pastry circle. Moisten the edges of each patty with water and fold the pastry over to make a crescent shape. Seal the edge of each patty by crimping with a fork
9. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place the patties on aluminium foil, and cook for 35 minutes (or until golden brown) Serve the patties hot or cold.