MARTIN PICARD’S SUGAR SHACK
gets an autumn twist with a focus on apples.
On the drive up in late spring to the Au Pied de Cochon sugar shack in Saint-Benoît-de-Mirabel, you see snow-covered fields, naked trees, boarded-up barns and steely grey roads. The inevitable feast is worth the grim drive, but there’s no denying the only beauty you’ll be captivated by in sugaring off season is the sight of a swirl of maple taffy on a trough filled with snow.
And yet what a pleasure it is to head to chef Martin Picard’s sugar shack in these late summer days, when fields and farm stands are laden with corn, cauliflower and especially apples, apples, apples. When at first I heard that Picard wanted to feature an apple menu at his sugar shack instead of the usual classic cabane à sucre menu, I thought why not blueberry, corn or pumpkin? But look around at the neighbouring farms and you’ll see that apples abound, so much so that the apple cider Cryomalus, is made right down the street.
It’s also logical that Picard found inspiration in Quebec’s magnificent apples, for like his beloved maple syrup, it lends itself well to his cuisine. Created in collaboration with souschef Vincent Dion Lavallée and pastry chef Gabrielle Rivard-Hiller, Picard’s apple menu is an orgy of excess starring ingredients like foie gras, braised beef, salmon, whelks, homemade pickles and preserves, as well as head cheese and ham made from pigs raised on the property.
The menu begins with the most velvety squash soup gratinéed with homemade amaretti cookies, followed by fresh sheep’s milk cheese, and perhaps the pièce de résistance of the dinner, a pig’s skull draped with head cheese and whisper-thin slices of ham. Dressed lightly with a bracing vinaigrette, Picard’s homegrown and home-cured ham ranks among the best I’ve ever tasted.
Next up comes a mix of cavatelli and liver-filled ravioli enriched with a semi-sweet, apple-enriched sauce that tasted almost Chinese in its sweet/ sour makeup. Mixed in a hole in a wheel of Parmesan, this pasta duo is further enhanced with nuggets of sous-vide cooked foie gras. Whoa.
As the next dishes are set on the counter, I can’t deny, my appetite has already been satiated, so it’s a bit of a struggle for me to finish off plates like fabulously creamy whelk and potato stew, the hearty braised beef with carrots and oysters, or the newspaper-wrapped and baked salmon layered with basil and apple slices. All sublime, but tough to enjoy after you’ve wolfed down three bowls of that amazing squash soup!
There is no denying it’s also best to go easy on main courses when you want to indulge in dessert. And here, there are four, including a rustic apple torte filled with caramelized apples, a mix of soft served ice cream with apple sorbet, a swoon-worthy apple soufflé layered with chocolate ganache, and a gingerbread-like sticky toffee pudding baked in a can and unmoulded at the table alongside a jug of caramel sauce. Fans of the Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon are sure to recognize this very same cooking method from the restaurant’s signature dish (well, one of them, anyway), duck in a can.
Watching many customers leaving the restaurant with take-away containers in hand leaves little doubt that this menu is close to impossible to polish off with gusto. In a way, a meal in Martin Picard’s hands is part dinner and part performance art: looking at it all arrive and being set up in front of you is always half the fun.
After tasting Picard’s latest creations, one wonders whether the chef will be penning an apple cookbook next as a follow-up to his acclaimed and self-published Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack cookbook launched last spring. No way, says Picard, who is not ready to write a new cookbook any time soon and whose recent plans focus solely on finishing up this season (the apple menu runs until Oct. 28), overseeing his Montreal restaurant, and working on his new TéléQuebec show, Un chef à la cabane. Focused on his production of maple syrup, the show is slated to begin in January. Though his last cooking show, The Wild Chef, ran on the Canadian Food Network, Picard was discouraged when the Toronto-based channel passed on the English version of the maple syrup show. Looking somewhat discouraged Picard said, “I really liked the idea of showing people across Canada how maple syrup is made.” Food Network Canada, please reconsider!
But for now, apples are his focus and his team has been busy adapting recipes to follow each variety’s growing season. For instance, right now Rivard-Hiller is making her apple pie with Lobo apples, yet when they come into season next week, she’ll switch over to a mix of Cortland and McIntosh.
There are a few seats left on Thursday nights for the remainder of the Au Pied de Cochon sugar shack’s apple menu, and there is a waiting list worth gambling on for a seat for one of the Friday to Sunday reservations as well. Yet for those who can’t make it, see the accompanying recipe of the apple pie for a taste of Picard and company’s latest creations.
Want to make the apple pie from Au Pied de Cochon’s sugar shack? See the recipe on Page B2.
Au Pied de Cochon sugar shack,
11382 rang de la Fresnière, Saint-Benoît de Mirabel, 450-258-1732. For reservations go to: www.cabaneasucreaupieddecochon.com