Chef adds twist to Christmas cooking
Lucy Morrow has developed a passion for East Coast cooking — something that propelled her to success on a national cooking program earlier this year.
She grew up in a rural South Shore community in Nova Scotia, graduated from the Culinary Institute of Canada in Charlottetown in 2014, and worked for several years in Prince Edward Island before recently heading to Newfoundland this summer to work at the Number 4 Cathedral Restaurant and Bar in downtown St. John’s.
Her commitment to sustainable kitchen practices and buying local have helped Morrow become one of eastern Canada’s most dynamic chefs.
“Cooking is a great way to tap into where you’re from and show off the bounties of the East Coast,” said Morrow, a contestant in the most recent season of the Food Network’s Top Chef Canada, where she was the runner-up in Season 8. “Many people in this part of the country grew up around the sea and spent time on the water. Or they worked in the woods or grew up on a farm. You can show a little bit of who you are and what you’re proud of through a dish, especially in Nova Scotia, P.E.I, and Newfoundland, where people forage for food.”
She said Atlantic Canadians have a passion for the land and the sea because, in many cases, they are upholding a family tradition that goes back generations. That helped her on the show, she says.
“I was able to tap into the flavours I’ve been familiar with my whole life,” she said.
For example, she won the P.E.I. challenge on the show with a dish she called Brussels and mussels that combined Brussel sprouts with deepfried and marinated mussels with black garlic and burnt honey.
“They are all East Coast items, elevated a little differently,” she said.
She said it’s easy for people to use East Coast flavours as they prepare their holiday menus.
“I would start off by shopping locally. You’d be surprised and amazed at what kind of inspiration you can get from fresh produce and seafood,” Morrow said.
Morrow understands this year will be a different one when it comes to preparing for Christmas, but despite the challenges in cooking the traditional Christmas dinner, she feels it’s very possible to pull it off.
“The big thing is to plan early and think about your budget. People can do really nice things without really breaking the bank,” she said.
Morrow is preparing Christmas boxes in advance she can send home to friends and family. One of the cool things about being a chef is she can make dried pasta and send it home via the mail.
Morrow developed her love of the culinary arts at a very young age when she worked beside her mother in her Lunenburg kitchen. She began meal preparation when she turned 10 and not long after that, she was in the kitchen flexing her culinary muscles.
An avid soccer player growing up and collegiately, she learned very quickly there are similarities between sports and the kitchen.
“I played a lot of soccer growing up and once I found cooking was a lot of muscle memory, just like soccer was, it made a lot more sense to me. I took all those things I learned from soccer and applied them to cooking,” she said.
After finishing school, she went on to become executive chef at Terre Rouge in Charlottetown and spent this past summer at the helm of Terry’s Berries food truck alongside the Lone Oak Brewing Company in Borden, P.E.I. before accepting the position in
St. John’s.
LOBSTER MAC & CHEESE MORNAY
Yields 4 litres
250 grams of flour
250 grams of butter
4 litres of whipping cream
2 cups of cheddar cheese
1 medium-sized onion (peeled and large sliced)
1 bulb of garlic
1/4 teaspoon of cloves
1 teaspoon of peppercorns
Salt to taste
Melt butter, then add flour, stir with a wooden spoon and cook for three to five minutes in a six-quart pot. Slowly whisk in the cream (it will get thicker before it gets thinner), then add the rest of your ingredients. Cook on low heat for one hour or until it no longer tastes like flour. Strain, then add cheddar and season with salt to your liking.
Noodles Yields 2 litres
1 litre dry elbow noodles
4 litres of water
Salt to taste
In a six-quart pot, salt your water until it tastes like the ocean, then bring to a rolling boil. Add noodles and cook for eight minutes, stirring well at minute four. Strain, coat in vegetable oil and cool them down.
Assembly Yields 1 portion
1 cup mornay
1.5 cups noodles
4 ounces of lobster
2 tablespoons of cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
Salt to taste
In a pan, gently warm up the mornay (you may need a little cream to thin it out/help it melt). Then add your noodles, lobster, cheese. Taste to see if it needs additional salt. Stir well and make sure everything is evenly coated and warm. Transfer macaroni into an oven-safe bowl and top with breadcrumbs. Bake at 350F for five minutes. Let cool for five minutes before diving in.