Winter is the perfect time for mac 'n' cheese and pot pies, but that doesn't mean comfort foods have to be shabby. To find out how home cooks can put an elegant spin on comfort foods, we've gone to the pros at the Fairmont Banff Springs at the 20th International Festival of Wine & Food, where Jean-Paul Comte, Chef de Cuisine at The Banffshire Club and his team prepare Canadian fare with seasonal and sustainable ingredients.

What are some great dishes that home cooks can make for entertaining?

The home cook really has a wide variety of dishes to choose from in recent years for entertaining. There is a very unique cheese from France called Vacherin Mont d’Or that's great for a quick and hassle free fondue. Simply leave the cheese in its spruce box, make a small slit down the middle, add a little bit of dry Riesling, and bake for 15 minutes (depending on the size of the cheese). You can serve this with traditional fondue accompaniments like boiled baby potatoes, crusty bread, and cornichons.

What are some good slow cooker recipes?

I think any kind of tough meat is a great candidate for slow cooking because they have many strong fibres that need to be broken down to make them tender. A five-pound beef brisket, cooked on low for six to eight hours, is wonderful. For a deliciously cheap and fun meal, simply brown the meat in a large sauté pan with mirepoix [mixture of carrots, onions, and celery], a can of tomatoes, and half a bottle of questionable wine. Place everything in a slow cooker and cook for seven to eight hours on low. Toward the last two hours of cooking, add some small potatoes and pearl onions.

How can home cooks take elegant dishes and make them work at home?

Start with the best ingredients and go from there. Show off where you got the ingredients: prime steak, heritage pork, and farmers market vegetables. Cooking at home and making an amazing dinner is all about the attention to detail and having fun. Recipes are so hit-and-miss in most cookbooks and magazines that if something isn’t working, then experimentation and spontaneous cooking is in order.

What are some of your favourite ingredients to work with?

I love heritage pork and wild Coho Salmon! They seem like opposite ends of the culinary spectrum, but there is such a unique relation between them. Both can be smoked, cured, slow cooked and made into many unique different and delicious dishes. At our restaurant we get whole salmons in during their brief season during the summer, but we use every part of the fish, the collar, loin, belly and bones to make a delicious fatty stock. The pork we get is free range Berkshire from southern Alberta, and it is by the far the best pork I have ever tasted, heavy marbling and clean and delicious fat and meat. The belly and picnic shoulder are our favourite cuts to use in the restaurant, utilizing each in a lot of different applications from sausages to terrines to cured delicious scotch infused bacon.

What are some of the most common cooking mistakes people make at home?

I find that home cooks tend to over analyze and complicate the dinners they want to make. Sometimes the best dishes come from the simplest ingredients and cooking techniques.

Where do you like to travel to for good food?

I honestly love the west coast of British Columbia. In the summer months, there is nothing in the world as good as fresh fish and seafood from either the end of my fishing rod or from fisherman’s wharf just outside of Granville island. In the fall and winter, oysters are the key for me.