Ingredients of the Year

Spot prawns These sublime Pacific Coast crustaceans only rarely found their way into Canadian restaurants until recently, when a group of Vancouver chefs encouraged local fishermen to bring them in. Now they’re everywhere in Vancouver during their brief early summer season: seared, fried, poached, grilled and risottoed (Voya, where there’s a special spot prawn menu); split-roasted (Cibo); and served with nahm jim, a Thai sauce (Maenam). They’re even in Toronto (The Black Hoof), smoked and accompanied by house n’duja (spicy pork sausage).  

Fava beans These labour-intensive little babies are as good with risotto (Voya, Vancouver) and pork (Cibo, Vancouver) as with a nice Chianti. 

Octopus It turns out the eight-armed invertebrate doesn’t have to be rubbery and flavourless. It’s especially nice served with dots of baba ghanouj and chorizo panisse (DB Bistro Moderne, Vancouver), over fava beans (The Black Hoof, Toronto) and cooked sous vide in olive oil and served with speck (Rush, Calgary).   

Tongue Your bubbie’s tongue went mainstream this year as carpaccio (La Quercia, Vancouver), as an unforgettable sandwich (The Black Hoof, Toronto) and roasted, forestière-style (Le St-Urbain, Montreal).  

Weird pickles Pickle pickles are so 2008. Really bizarre pickles, however, seem to be all the rage in Ottawa. Like pickled milkweed pods and pickled elk’s tongue (Murray Street). And pickled pears (Navarra), floating in the best gazpacho with ricotta that we’ve ever had.  

La Dolce Vancouver For reasons that utterly confound us, Vancouver remained Canada’s capital of inspired modern Italian cooking. The city’s Italian population is tiny compared to Toronto’s and Montreal’s. For years, the city’s greatest contribution to the canon was the Old Spaghetti Factory. And yet this year, Vancouver managed to add not one but two outstanding Italian places – Cibo and La Quercia – to its already impressive roster.