After playing in snow at Grouse Mountain, warm up with Spencer Watts's ramen
It’s been a few years since Spencer Watts has gone skiing, but the North Shore resident is eager to get back on the slopes. Since he became chef de cuisine for the Grouse Mountain resort six months ago, Watts has been eagerly anticipating his first snow season there.
During a chat with the Georgia Straight at Altitudes Bistro—one of three restaurants, the others being Lupins Café and the Observatory, that he helps oversee—Watts says the opportunity to ski or snowboard is a perk that many staff members appreciate.
“I started out skiing, then I went to snowboarding and back to skiing. I haven’t done it in a while, but we’ll see how I feel. Skiing is coming back, I think. Skiing’s the new snowboarding.”
Growing up in Surrey, Watts got his start in the kitchen while attending Lord Tweedsmuir secondary school by entering a gingerbread-house competition.
“It was open to a bunch of schools in the Lower Mainland and I ended up getting second place, and so in Grade 9 I was like, ‘I’m going to cook for the rest of my life.’ I’m 32 now, and I haven’t stopped. It’s kind of been the only thing I’ve ever done,” Watts says.
While his parents were grooming him to take over the family business manufacturing underground-sewer fittings, the aspiring chef was determined to live his life in the kitchen.
“I remember on my lunch break [at work] I went to the Keg with my résumé and said, ‘I’m not leaving until you give me a job.’ I literally didn’t leave, so they said, ‘Okay, go, we’ll call you,’ ” Watts recalls. “They called me that night and I started at the Keg when I was 17. That was my first cooking job.”
After the Keg, Watts attended the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts before working at the now-closed Beachside Café, followed by the Westin Grand Hotel and C Restaurant. Those experiences prepared him for the Observatory, Grouse Mountain’s fine-dining restaurant, which focuses on local ingredients.
“If we can’t get raspberries from the Lower Mainland, we take them off the menu—it’s that detailed,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s frustrating, like, ‘I just want strawberries, come on!’ But you kind of get used to it and you work around it, which makes it totally special.” He says that planning a menu based on what’s available is both “sheer bliss and ultimate terror”.
The Observatory’s high standards have rubbed off on the chef in his home kitchen as well.
“Maybe it’s a little bit of insanity, but when I go home, even if I’m supertired, I’ll roast a whole chicken,” Watts says. “I want to go home and have a glass of wine and a nice dinner, not eat Froot Loops.”
In the winter, Watts enjoys making ramen, mainly because it’s versatile. (He prefers to use soba noodles.) The chef encourages home cooks to experiment with different flavour combinations and ingredients once they’re comfortable with this recipe.
“I like ramen and Asian ingredients because it’s full of salt, sugar, vinegar, and umami. You take one sip or bite, and every sense on your tongue is overloaded,” he says.
To pair with the dish, Watts suggests a light, crisp beer.
Spencer Watts’s pork belly ramen
Ingredients
2 lb (908 g) pork bones or chicken bones
4 oz (115 g) pork fat
1 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
4 green onion stalks, thinly sliced, plus extra for garnish
1 thin slice ginger, plus extra for garnish
16 cups (4 L) water
½ sheet dried kombu seaweed
3 pinches bonito flakes
Soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, miso to taste
Nori seaweed for garnish, to taste
21 oz (594 g) soba noodles
Braised pork belly (see recipe below)
Method
- Preheat oven to 375 ° F (190 ° C).
- Place bones in a roasting pan and roast in oven for 15 minutes, or until bones turn a darker colour. Remove from oven and set aside.
- In a large pot over low heat, melt the pork fat. Increase the heat to medium and add onion, garlic, celery, green onion, and ginger. Sauté vegetables for 3 minutes, or until slightly translucent.
- Add water, bones, and kombu seaweed, and increase heat to high. Once liquid comes to a rolling boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered for 1.5 hours.
- Add bonito flakes, wait 5 minutes, and strain broth through a mesh strainer into a bowl. Add soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, and miso to taste.
- Bring a separate large pot of water to a rolling boil. Add noodles and cook according to the package’s directions. Drain and discard water.
- To serve, divide noodles between six bowls, top with pieces of braised pork belly, and ladle hot broth over top. Garnish with thinly sliced ginger, green onion, and nori seaweed.
Braised pork belly
½ cup (125 mL) coarse salt
2 Tbsp (30 mL) sugar
4 cups (1 L) water
2.8 lb (1.25 kg) pork belly
7 cups (1.75 L) water
2 cups (500 mL) soy sauce
¾ cup + 1 Tbsp (200 mL) maple syrup
1 cup (250 mL) minced ginger
¼ cup (60 mL) minced garlic
¼ cup (60 mL) diced onion
1½ tsp (7 mL) five-spice powder
1 star anise
1 bay leaf
Method
- Start preparing the pork belly the day before you want to serve the soup. Brine the pork belly by filling a sealable, food-grade plastic bag with salt, sugar, and 4 cups (1 L) of water. Place the meat in the bag, seal, and put in the fridge for six hours. Remove meat from bag, pat dry with a paper towel, and place on a plate to allow the meat to come up to room temperature.
- In a large pot over medium heat, add soy sauce, maple syrup, ginger, garlic, onion, five-spice powder, star anise, and bay leaf to 7 cups (1.75 L) of water. Cook for two minutes, stirring continuously. Submerge pork belly and simmer uncovered for three hours.
- Remove pork belly and discard braising liquid. Allow meat to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for 3 hours minimum before using.
- When you’re ready to use pork belly, preheat oven to 375 ° F (190 ° C). Cut pork belly into bite-sized cubes, place on baking sheet, and heat in oven for 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with ramen as described above.
Yield: 6 servings.
Recipe has not been tested by the Georgia Straight.
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