The inspiration = BC Spot Prawns
Spot on colour coordination.
Hair and MUA by Anita Lee‘s artistic team Tammy Lim & Bonnie Chan
Fun! So much fun!
What an honour to be able to feature one of BC’s favourite ingredients: The BC Spot Prawn.
It all started a couple months ago when Gusto TV asked me to host an episode for “The Great Canadian Food Show”. The six episode series features six different ingredients across Canada, following them from harvest to someone’s plate… and I’m happy to say that plate ended up being mine!
I don’t remember the first time I ate a spot prawn, but the most memorable experience I have with it is when I went fishing for them with Dr. David Suzuki & Organic Ocean. I didn’t think anything could top that, or even come close to it, but this was on par… and perhaps even better because I didn’t have to wake up at 5 am in the morning to go out.
It was such a coincidence too because the spot prawns for this episode were actually from Steve at Organic Ocean who supplies chef and co-owner Rob Clark at The Fish Counter. I don’t want to give the episode away, but you can expect to see both these boys in it too. And if you haven’t visited either, you really should because they have excellent sustainable seafood available all year round.
When I found out I was hosting the episode I assumed I was going to be going around town showcasing spot prawns at restaurants, but then I was given a curveball. The story was not only the journey of the prawn, but the journey of these prawns with the final destination as a BC spot prawn party on the beach. I guess I was the one who suggested beach after restaurant got vetoed, so I set myself up for the challenge. Luckily it wasn’t so challenging though thanks to amazing friends and sponsors.
I seriously feel so lucky to have such supportive friends and one of the biggest rewards of starting this blog is meeting the talented chefs. A big thank you to chefs Angus An of Maenam and Ryan Stone for preparing and cooking 20 lbs of spot prawns.
Angus made a delicious Thai style spot prawn salad with mint, lemongrass, cilantro, kaffir lime leaf, ginger, crispy shallots and more.
I also picked up some fresh local wasabi and premium organic Japanese soy sauce from South China Seas on Granville Island to use for spot prawn sashimi. I could actually have the prawns naked with no sauce at all and it would still be delicious, but the Ohsawa Organic Nama Shoyu is a fantastic product and same with the wasabi.
Hair and MUA by Anita Lee of Helmet & Co. Salon
Of course to wash all this down I went with Pure Leaf. All the flavours went fine with the prawns, but once again the Green Tea with Honey was a crowd favourite. Perhaps it was all the Asian flavours we were getting from the seasoning on the prawns, but regardless it was a refreshing drink of choice. You can even marinade some of the prawns in the tea!
This was actually one of the drinks at the party some of my friends were inspired to make after trying it at a Pure Leaf event hosted in Vancouver earlier this month. It was a Raspberry Mojito which is ideal for the summer (recipe below).
Thankfully all my friends love to eat, so along with prawns was a feast! And along with this feast were two beautiful cakes! Thank you to the amazing Christophe of Chez Christophe for bringing an incredible hazelnut and chocolate cake, and his summer feature the Myrtille Vanille Cake (vanilla mousse with a heart of blueberry with sponge soaked in blueberry).
And last but certainly not least, thank you to OpenRoad The BMW Store for sponsoring the sexy Spot Prawn colored BMW M3 – BMW’s high performance sport sedan. It’s not even edible and you can sense my excitement! It was so much fun to drive and you can find the actual car at the store now… unless it’s sold by now which it most likely is. Luckily there’s no “end of the season” to this car though unlike our precious spot prawns.
Episode to air this fall – date TBC! Check back for updates!
