EN PAPILLOTE PIKE AND LENTILS A PHOTOGENIC, ENTICING MEAL
Dish uses locally sourced ingredients as much as possible
Local food writer Jenn Sharp is no stranger to The Saskatoon Starphoenix. Her words have graced its pages for several years, most recently in her Flat Out Food column.
Sharp has just released her first book, Flat Out Delicious: Your Definitive Guide to Saskatchewan’s Food Artisans (Touchwood Editions, 2020). It’s a comprehensive handbook to the vibrant local food systems in our province.
Jenn, along with photographer Richard Marjan, went on the mother of all road trips — 20,000 kilometres in total — visiting locales as far north as Dore Lake and as far south as Minton. Spending months on the road, Jenn and Richard visited 167 food artisans; their stories are divided into seven sections in the book. Each section’s artisan profiles are organized alphabetically, with detailed maps telling you where to find the ones that welcome visitors.
There are plenty of travel tips, as well as sections devoted to Saskatoon and Regina, and the accompanying photography is absolutely stunning. I couldn’t help but be grateful that I get to call this land home.
Flipping through the pages of Flat Out Delicious, you’ll be introduced to small-scale farmers, ranchers, beekeepers, winemakers, chefs, and many more folks who are producing incredible food in our province.
Jenn wants us to reconnect with our food, to find out from where it comes and who’s growing it. Her book makes it so much easier to discover who is producing food in your neck of the woods, and rather than buying meat and vegetables from the giant grocery store, consider spending money at a farmgate store, the local farmers’ markets, or purchasing a CSA subscription.
By supporting local farmers and chefs, we’ll help build a local food system of which we can all be proud and from which benefit. This is especially important during and after the current pandemic.
I was truly inspired by Jenn’s journey, and to celebrate her triumph of a book, I made a dish using locally sourced ingredients as much as possible.
“En papillote” is a French term for cooking fish and other items in parchment paper. With the addition of cooked green lentils, vegetables and herbs, this is a light meal in lovely, individual parcels.
Fonos Fish is well known in Saskatoon, and for good reason: the quality is always excellent and consistent. Jon sells his fish at The Little Market Box, Saskmade Marketplace, and Chef de Partie Catering.
I set the pieces of Northern Pike atop some cooked whole green lentils which were grown by Daybreak Mill. This company has been farming organically in Southeast Saskatchewan since 1892, and sells whole grains, pulses, stone-ground flours, ancient and heritage grains, and cereals. I purchased the bag of lentils at Saskmade Marketplace — another hub selling Saskatchewan grown products.
I tucked some slices of zucchini and cherry tomatoes (not local yet!) in with the fish and lentils, along with lemon slices and sprigs of fresh dill. Once everything was assembled and seasoned, I drizzled each package with a little bit of cold-pressed camelina oil produced by Three Farmers, another company based in Southeast Saskatchewan. It has a gentle nuttiness that really complemented the fish, vegetables, and lentils.
The packages take about 20 minutes to cook, and the best part is slicing them open to behold not only a photogenic meal, but an enticing aroma. So that everyone gets to experience that moment, serve the unopened packets on plates and let people open their own.