The Zen of emerging chefs

Dave Loan, manager of the five-year-old restaurant on Somerset Street, has started something he calls “the emerging chefs series” and has invited three untrained vegan home cooks to preside over the kitchen for one night each.

“I was noticing through the summer a number of people getting into different approaches with vegan cooking, starting their own businesses,” says Loan. “I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to get them in as guest chefs.”

First up is Erika LeBlanc, who turned 17 earlier this month, and who will be in charge of Zen’s kitchen and menu next Tuesday evening.

“I was pretty shocked when he called me,” says LeBlanc, who is in Grade 12 at Rockland District High School. “I’m pretty ecstatic.”

Loan became aware of LeBlanc this summer when she started selling fancy cupcakes, organic apple pie cookies and other vegan baked goods at the Rockland farmers’ market, near her home. She also has a Facebook page called erikasvegancatering. She advertised her new catering business at her stand and now has so many events lined up — a half dozen in the last week alone — she no longer has time to bake for the market, where she often sold out within hours.

She has made a vegan Spiderman cake for the birthday party of five-year-old who is lactose intolerant, vegan sweet-and-sour “meatballs” and a “bling cake” for a retiring vegan public servant who loves splashy jewelry, and has accepted orders for custom creations, including vegan peanut-butter-and-jam ice cream, for which she made the jam from scratch. All on top of a full Grade 12 course load and doing almost all the cooking at home for her Mom, Dad and older sister.

When interviewed last week, LeBlanc was still pondering exactly what she would put on Tuesday’s four-course chef’s tasting menu at ZenKitchen, but thinks her favourite dish — vegan mac ‘n’ cheese — will almost certainly be featured, perhaps with a smoky twist.

“Also, I want to incorporate ice cream in my dessert — I make all my ice creams with coconut milk.”

Loan, who was formerly ZenKitchen’s owner, recently stepped in as its chef after the restaurant closed and then re-opened under new ownership this summer. He isn’t at all nervous about putting his 38-seat restaurant in the hands of a teenager.

“We’ll all be here to assist her. It’s always a team. What I want to stress is that we’re not going to influence her too much. We’ll help her take her recipes from home cooking to doing them for 38, but the vision is Erika’s — I think that’s key.”

November’s “emerging chef” will be Melanie Boudens, 24, who this spring started a business called Grow Your Roots, selling vegan burgers, sausages, deep-fried avocados and baked goods at the Carp Farmers’ Market. She plans to serve a traditional British menu at ZenKitchen, including a hearty stew, bangers-and-mash and banoffee pie — all made from vegan ingredients (the sausages, for example, will be made from organic pinto beans).

January’s chef will be Vincent Guihan, 41, who works in marketing in the Ottawa area by day, but is active in local vegetarian groups and who wrote a book called New American Vegan that includes 120 recipes, mostly of mid-western flavour (he grew up partly in the Chicago area), from apple pie to stuffed squash.

Erika’s mom, Kelli O’Brien-LeBlanc, is so proud of her daughter, she gets choked up when she talks about her.

“People can’t believe it — especially her age. I used to think I was a good cook, but Erika has pretty much taken over. At the age of 12 she asked us for a KitchenAid for her birthday, and then she spent her birthday baking cakes for her friends. She took over the kitchen like she owned it.”

With the exception of the dad, the LeBlanc family has been vegan for many years; ZenKitchen has long been a favourite destination for special meals.

“I’m pretty excited because I love this restaurant and to be able to cook here is pretty cool,” says Erika, who hasn’t taken any cooking courses, but says she’s learned a lot from YouTube and cooking shows on TV.

“My inspiration is Julia Child. I even get teased because I talk like her. I say ‘one-fourth’ instead of ‘one-quarter.’ I like the way she cooked because she was passionate about it. She wasn’t like the chefs on TV now who seem like they’re more into the acting part of it.”

LeBlanc says she doesn’t have many cookbooks and has all her favourite recipes in her head — she writes them out by hand in a big notebook only so she can share them with others. One of her favourites is her Salted Caramel Sauce, which she discovered by accident when she was trying to make fudge.

Erika LeBlanc’s Salted Caramel Sauce

Makes: about 3 cups (750 mL)

Preparation time: about 30 minutes

1 cup (250 mL) white sugar

1 cup (250 mL) brown sugar

1/4 cup (60 mL) maple syrup

1/3 cup (80 mL) vegetable oil

1/4 cup (60 mL) salted caramel liqueur

Salt to taste

1 tbsp (15 mL) vanilla

1. Combine sugars, syrup and oil in small saucepan. Bring to a boil; add salt to taste and stir in vanilla. Boil mixture, whisking constantly to prevent scorching, about 20 minutes or until all the sugar crystals dissolve.

2. Pour mixture into a stand mixer and, using the whisk attachment, beat on high until sauce becomes thick and sticky.

3. Serve warm over ice cream or other treats.