Interviewer: Everyone welcome back to Le Gourmet TV. Today were here with Chef Michael Smith, Prince Edward Island’s Food Ambassador.
Chef Michael Smith: Indeed.
Interviewer: So, what this being Prince Edward Island’s Food Ambassador entail?
Chef Michael Smith: You know it entails doing what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years just being an ambassador and a fan for all of the great ingredients and all of the wonderful culinary opportunities on Prince Edward Island, all of the great places to visit and eat, our food community, our agricultural community—it’s just all about sharing what were up to and just being an advocate for them, and again doing what I have been doing for all this time.
Interviewer: So, you’re going to cook for us?
Chef Michael Smith: I am. I’ve got a simple dish for you.
Interviewer: Okay.
Chef Michael Smith: This is a simple pasta dish that’s inspired by the flavors of the island.
Interviewer: Okay.
Chef Michael Smith: This is the sort of dish that you can make on Saturday night when you’ve got guest coming over, or you can make this on Tuesday night when you just need a quick supper. Because this is a fast and easy dish and it tastes good too. What I have here is some pasta.
Interviewer: Okay.
Chef Michael Smith: That’s being cooked off and today we are using penne but this could use as easily be any pasta, whatever you happen to have in the pantry or in your cabinets, any pasta at all. And I’m going to leave just a little bit of water in the pot, not much, just maybe—say, a quarter cup, just to have to sort of keep it a little wet. And here is why, here is the trick—every recipe got to have tricks. So, pasta goes back into the wet pot and here is the trick cream cheese.
We are making a Smoked Salmon Pasta dish, we are going to serve smoked salmon with all the ingredients that are typically served with smoke salmon, and of course cream cheese is one. And the nice thing about cream cheese is that it’s melts very easily. With all that hot water, all that hot pasta in there, I’m making an instant sauce right now. All I have to do is stir this together, the cream cheese melts and we get the sauce. Every recipe has to have a secret ingredient. This one, it’s the cream cheese.
Interviewer: Okay.
Chef Michael Smith: And one of the nice things about cream cheese is how creamy it is, another is it melts very quickly.
Interviewer: Very quickly.
Chef Michael Smith: So, it is made the sauce. It’s summer time, I just want to eat and I don’t want to make a sauce today. And then I just throw in everything that goes with smoked salmon. Of course, this is Prince Edward Island Smoked Salmon so the best in the world. This is made by a friend of mine. And typically, I like to serve it with things like green onions, some chopped fresh dill, lemon juice is always nicely with it, lemon seeds even. And all the things that you liked to eat with smoked salmon, that’s really what inspired this dish. I’m even like to put a little bit of the mustard in with my smoked salmon.
Interviewer: What does the mustard bring to the party?
Chef Michael Smith: It’s got that nice sort of vinegar sourness to it, a little bit of flavors and pungency to it. Of course, there is always salt and pepper, I really like this dish because I think epitomizes what cooking on Prince Edward Island is all about. Just great local ingredients, a community of ingredients, and typically when you are cooking on the island, at least one or two of the ingredients that you’re working with, you know the person who produced them. Not just where they came from but the person that actually produced them. Some capers, they always go nicely with smoked salmon and then you just stir it all together and it’s on the table in 60 seconds flat.
Interviewer: So in real time, if we hadn’t been talking, under a minute, you can have that?
Chef Michael Smith: Under a minute and it’s done. And as I said, because it’s smoked salmon of course, we think of it as special occasion ingredients. So, it’s a kind of thing you would serve to your family when you’ve got friends and neighbors or visiting guest at the table. But it’s also the kind of thing that you can just serve on a Tuesday night when we just need to slap together a quick dinner because you have to get the soccer practice, or it’s time to go to the beach or whatever it is that your doing.
Interviewer: And your family is going to think you just made it for hours?
Chef Michael Smith: And they are and we don’t need to tell them that part. Awesome, should we have a tray?
Interviewer: We should, yes.
Chef Michael Smith: Prince Edward Island Smoked Salmon Penne Pasta. Oh, it’s a winner, isn’t it?
Interviewer: That’s really good, I like that.
Chef Michael Smith: Telling about that cream cheese.
Interviewer: Thank you very much.
Chef Michael Smith: My pleasure, see you on the Island.
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