hi my name is Sean Noir I'm an executive
chef with restaurant services at the
Nova Scotia authority today I want to
talk a little bit about fiddleheads it's
that time of year again it's the end of
April beginning of May the Sun starts
start to warm up the Sun comes out and
these nice little delicacies come out of
the ground so the fiddlehead itself is
actually the new frond of the ostrich
fern so they come out of the ground
different areas so depending on the
weather if it's cooler they'll come out
later so you can get them across
different parts of the province at
different times so you're going to rinse
them under cold water you're going to
make sure you get any dirt that might be
in there and of course since they are
harvested independently you want to make
sure they're nice and clean with you
before you cook them out now cooking
them is fairly straightforward but you
do want to cook them because if you
can't eat them raw they're not like a
celery or anything like that you're
going to make sure that you cook them
really well because there is a substance
in them that can cause some foodborne
illness so you want to make sure they're
well cooked there's a couple ways to
cook them you can steam them usually
takes about 10 minutes to steam them or
you can boil them for about 15 minutes
after you boil them you plunge them into
cold water and then they're ready to go
for whatever you want to use them for so
you can use them for anything you can
use them for soups you can use them for
salads they go really well they're nice
and crunchy
similar to asparagus so you're going to
get kind of the same taste this
asparagus that kind of nice spring
spring taste so what you want to do when
you're cleaning your fiddleheads you
want to make sure that there's no papery
substance to left on them anywhere I
want to get in there and cleaned out any
of those make sure there's no dirt or
anything in the leaves
so these are some fiddleheads we just
cleaned so we have about a couple liters
of water here we just want to boil them
and they take about your boil them they
take about 15 minutes
steaming all those steaming those faster
if you do have a bamboo steamer you can
use that that takes about 10 minutes to
do that
so once you're done boiling for 15
minutes you just want to drain all of
them and then you just want to plunge
them right into some cold water just to
stop the cooking and then once they cool
down so they're ready to use okay so
here we have a few fiddleheads that have
been already cooked off and ready to go
blanched and cooled now once they're at
this point again you can use them in
pastas salads a little vinaigrette on it
your favorite vinaigrette works great
wonderful with these so one of the ways
I like to do it is really just a simple
saute so what we're going to do is we
have some garlic some olive oil a little
lemon and a little seasoning and that's
all that it takes so well we start as we
get our pan up to temperature about
medium-high heat and then we're just
going to put a little bit of oil in
there so as you can see that the oil
will start to melt down you don't want
it smoking but you do want to have it
nice and hot before you put your
fiddleheads in so we get that to a good
temperature and then we just add a
little bit of garlic up too much just
enough to give it a nice flavor so you
cook your garlic a little bit just give
that a little stir and once that just
starts to brown up just a little bit so
you don't want that raw garlic taste you
want to be able to have a nice nutty
garlic flavor so once that brow starts
to brown up just like that then we just
add our fiddleheads in that's exactly
what you want to hear you want to hear a
nice sizzle
you want to give it a nice stir fry
so takes like about two minutes though
two minutes you're just making sure
they're nice and hot before you continue
and then what you want to do once
they're nice and hot is you just want to
give them a nice square root of fresh
lemon juice not too much so just give it
a little squeeze that'll give it a nice
fresh lemony lemony flavor and that's it
it's very quick it's very easy it's a
nice way to have fiddleheads fresh from
wherever you want to get them from your
grocery store if you want to pick them
yourself one thing when you do pick them
for yourself you want to make sure that
you do have the right firm so if you're
not sure make sure you go with somebody
who's done it before and that way you
don't get the wrong ones too some of
them are toxic so you want to make sure
you do get the right fit for us and then
to serve that we'll just put this on the
nice serving dish and then we'll
sprinkle it with a little fresh lemon
zest there you go it's a beautiful side
nice fresh spring goes with the barbecue
and it's only around a couple weeks out
of the year so you want to take
advantage of them while you can
you