Chef Shane Chartrand

Whatever dish Chef Shane Chartrand creates, it’s guaranteed to be inspired by his background. “My latest dish that I’m continually working on is four directions on a plate, maybe in the slight style of four tastings. It’s Indigenous inspired food, but also Canadian Northern inspired,” he explains. “Canada is world class!”

A member of the Enoch Cree Tribe from Treaty 6 Territory, he recently established his own business and is now the Executive Chef of Neyhiyaw SC Cuisine. Ingredients such as bear fat and wild onions are high on the list of his favourite, but elk tops it. “Elk is part of my childhood. My family hunted it, and we ate it a lot.”

Chef Shane describes elk as rich, but delicate, and says care must be taken when preparing it. “Elk is wild game, and it’s very lean. And like any wild game it can be overcooked. Treat it carefully, and be mindful of the animal.”

Seared Elk Rack with Purple Onion, Crushed Haskap Berry and Apple Sauce

Serves 2-3

3 small green apples

2¼ cups (560 mL) grapefruit juice

28 g cinnamon

Pinch of allspice

Pinch of nutmeg

1 cup haskap berries

1 whole elk rack

To taste kosher salt and fresh cracked

black pepper

50 g minced garlic

1 cup (250 mL) sunflower oil

2 whole bulbed purple onions

1. Poach the apples in the grapefruit juice with cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. Once fork tender, blend all the ingredients to create a light apple sauce with a hand blender or processor.

2. Take the haskap berries and squish them flat and strain off the juice leaving just a nice meaty, sweet berry. Add them to the cooled apple sauce and gently mix.

3. Season the rack of elk generously with salt and pepper and rub with minced garlic.

4. Heat up a heavy cast iron pan and add 50-75 mL (3½-5 Tbs) oil. Sear in a heavy cast iron skillet to create a dark crust on the elk loin. Take elk off, set on a heavy tray or heavy pan and put in a 400º F preheated oven. Cook about 15 minutes until it reads 125º F on your thermometer.

5. Take out of the oven and rest for 15 minutes.

6. Coat the bulbed purple onion with oil and roast in the oven with skin on until lightly soft. Peel off the skin, rough chop, sauté and set aside.

7. Cut the rack of elk in to chops. On a long rectangle plate nape apple sauce all the way down diagonally. Then add the onions and the elk chop on top evenly down the plate and enjoy.

Restaurateur Inez Cook

Salmon N’ Bannock

Restaurateur Inez Cook is a member of the Nuxalk Nation, from Bella Coola, BC. A child of the Sixties Scoop, Inez was taken away from her Indigenous family as a child and adopted by a nonIndigenous family. Growing up, she says there was always something missing. “I grew up without my culture, without my heritage, without my biological family,” she explains. “I was yearning for my culture my whole life.”

Having an early start in the restaurant industry, she dreamed of having her own restaurant one day, but her career took a different direction – several, in fact, as she eventually began working in the airline industry, living in Saudi Arabia, Africa, England, and India. “Once I had all of this knowledge of culture from all around the world my dream was to take people on a journey through food.”

Eventually she established Vancouver’s only Indigenous restaurant, Salmon N’ Bannock. It wasn’t an easy journey, but the best ones never are. Inspired by her world travels, much of the menu reflects Inez’s global inspiration and palette, created with local, Indigenous ingredients.

“Recently we came up with the idea of following the diet of bears in Bella Coola. So, what we did was infuse blueberries with buffalo sage, and then use that as a marinade for salmon.” She shares that recipe with us here.

Sage Blueberry Smoked Salmon

Serves 4

1 cup frozen whole blueberries

1 cup mashed frozen blueberries

2 cups (500 mL) water

1 cup sugar

5 g buffalo sage (in a disposable tea bag)

4 sockeye salmon fillets

To taste salt and pepper

A little buffalo sage to smoke

1. Combine the whole blueberries, mashed frozen blueberries, water, sugar, and sage (in a teabag) and bring to a boil. Set aside.

2. Once cooled down place sockeye salmon filets in a shallow pan and immerse with three-quarters of the sage blueberries.

3. Add salt and pepper to taste and cover with foil. Marinade in fridge 4-12 hours.

4. Heat oven to 400º F and bake salmon for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven.

5. Take a ramekin and place some buffalo sage in it, light it and cover pan with foil for 10 minutes, then serve with rest of sage blueberries heated up for garnish.