Hits & Flops
Six chefs rejoice in their menu victories and eulogize dishes vanquished by dim bulb diners.
Juliet Glass reports.
Pierre Reboul pastry chef Thor New York City
They loved it!: One-bite chocolate lollipop with malted shake. “Make a dark chocolate shell about one inch in diameter and fill with a ganache of gianduja and bittersweet chocolate. Put chocolate shell on a six-inch bamboo skewer; dip in a basic beignet batter of eggs, butter, flour, and sugar; fry. We serve three of these skewers sticking out of a wooden cube along with a malted shake made from house-made ice cream, milk, and Ovaltine powder. It’s not really challenging but it’s chocolate, and it’s a fun presentation so everybody loves it.”
What do they know?!: Homemade yogurt with Black Mission figs & New York City rooftop honey. “I think most diners looked at this as more of a breakfast dish than a dessert. We use honey made by Berkshire Berries; their beekeeper harvests honey from beehives that he keeps on rooftops in the city. For the yogurt, we use pasteurized, but not homogenized, milk. Mix whole milk with powered milk; bring to a boil; cool to 100 degrees; add live cultures; let it sit at that temperature for four to 12 hours; refrigerate overnight. Slice the Black Mission figs; cover with plastic wrap and pound into thin rounds. For service, layer fig slices over yogurt; drizzle balsamic vinegar on top; serve a spoonful of honey on the side.” ‰
Jay Caputo chef/owner Espuma Rehobeth Beach, Delaware
They loved it!: Slow roasted deckle of prime beef with creamed spinach ravioli, maitake mushrooms & Madeira jus. “The deckle, or cap, is the best piece of meat on the cow [see Recipes & Tech niques, Food Arts, July/August 2004, page 115]. We serve it with traditional steakhouse accompaniments, but with a twist. When we first started, we couldn’t give the stuff away. Now it’s so popular we had ‘Got Deckle?’ T-shirts made. For the creamed spinach ravioli, make a thick black truffle bé cha mel; squeeze the water out of blanched shocked spinach; chop finely; sauté in butter with shallots; add the béchamel; season; stuff into half-moon shaped homemade pasta. For service, boil and toss with beurre monté. Sear maitake mushrooms in ca no la oil until golden to bring out the nuttiness; add minced shallots and chopped fresh thyme; season with salt, pepper, and a splash of Sherry vinegar. For Madeira jus, caramelize mirepoix in canola oil; add dried porcini mushrooms and Madeira; reduce; add roasted chicken stock; strain through a chinois; season. Season deckle; lightly sear in sauté pan with canola oil and butter; add chopped thyme and rosemary; baste it for three minutes; put in a 325 degree convection oven until medium-rare; let rest; slice. For pickup, place three ravioli and some sautéed mushrooms in the center of each plate; add a little jus; top with sliced deckle.”
What do they know?!: Pan-roasted Mediterranean merluza with oven-dried tomatoes, roasted red onions, broccoli raab & saffron/lobster essence. “Merluza is the Spanish name for hake, and I think that threw people off. Halve and core tomatoes; toss with olive oil, smashed garlic, salt, pepper, and thyme sprigs; roast overnight at 200 degrees with the oven door ajar. For the roasted red onions, heat a sheet pan in a hot oven; leaving a bit of stem on, halve red onions and then quarter each half; toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper; put on heated sheet pan to roast; remove and toss with a splash of red wine vinegar to balance the onions’ sweetness and brighten their color. Blanch trimmed stems of broccoli raab. For the saffron/lobster essence, sweat chopped garlic, Spanish onions, and carrots in butter; add some chopped tomatoes, lobster bodies, and a pinch of saffron; cook until red; deglaze with white wine; reduce by half; add some lobster stock and a fresh bay leaf; simmer; discard lobster bodies; puree lobster essence; strain through a chinois. Cut a whole merluza into six- or seven-ounce portions, leaving the skin on; scrape the skin with the back of a knife so it crisps up when cooked. Season with salt; sear skin side down in canola oil, basting it constantly; cook it 90 percent on the skin side and for the last minute, flip, add a little butter, and finish it in the pan. Heat the tomatoes in the oven with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. In another pan, sauté some chopped garlic in olive oil; add blanched broccoli raab and roasted red onions; season with salt and red chile flakes. To serve, make a pile of broccoli raab/red onion mixture in the center of each plate; depending on size, put three to five tomato halves around the broccoli raab; spoon on sauce; top with merluza.”
Richard Blais executive chef ONE.midtown kitchen Atlanta
They loved it!: Pâté melt with mustard ice cream & liquid cornichon. “The inspiration for the name is ‘patty melt,’ and it sells. Make a classic country pâté of ground pork, veal, and pork fatback seasoned with allspice, cloves, and salt, using bread crumbs and eggs as a binder. Put mixture in a terrine and cook in a water bath. I make caramel out of Isomalt because it’s less sweet than sugar. Heat two parts Isomalt to one part water until it just starts to color; spread it out very thin on a Silpat nonstick pad, almost like cellophane; sprinkle with caraway seeds while still hot. For the mustard ice cream, make a custard of milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, a little sugar, and honey; once cool, fold in Dijon mustard; process in an ice cream maker. Run cornichons through a juicer; strain through a chinois; thicken liquid with xanthan gum. To serve, use a torch to melt a piece of the caramel over a slice of the pâté; transfer to a plate that has a stripe of cornichon liquid on it; place a quenelle of mustard ice cream off to the side; garnish with a thin, almost transparent slice of bread and a salad of arugula, peppercress, or watercress dressed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.”
What do they know?!: Arugula tartare with liquid goat cheese. “This one is really basic and the flavors are familiar so I’m surprised it didn’t sell that well. I think the word ‘tartare’ might have been misleading since people think it has to be a raw piece of meat. But it’s really just a chopped salad with goat cheese dressing. Wash and dry arugula and mince very finely; dress with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a couple drops of lemon juice. I use Laurel Chenel’s chèvre for the liquid goat cheese. Process the chèvre in a blender with milk until it’s a liquid; add gellan gum, which will make it gel enough to deep fry. Heat the liquid goat cheese to 140 degrees [to activate the gellan gum] until it gels; punch it out into squares; dredge in egg wash and panko. For pickup, deep fry goat cheese so it’s crispy on the outside but liquid in the middle. Place a ring mold of arugula salad on a plate; garnish with diced roasted beets; put the fried goat cheese off to the side.”
Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani co-chefs/owners Ame, St. Regis Hotel San Francisco and Terra St. Helena, California
They loved it!: Orange risotto in a brandy snap with passion fruit sauce, grapefruit & orange. Doumani: “This took a little hand selling at first because people weren’t accustomed to a sweet risotto. Now I have to put it on the Terra menu every winter. For the orange risotto, bring half-and-half, sugar, vanilla bean, and orange zest to a boil; add Arborio rice; return to a boil; cover; cook in the oven like a rice pudding. When it’s still al dente, remove from the oven and enrich with egg yolks, then refrigerate. Make a brandy snap batter, adding a small amount of ground ginger; once cookies have baked, form them into cannoli shapes. For the passion fruit sauce, add some orange juice to the pulp and whisk vigorously to separate out the seeds; reserve seeds; strain pulp and sweeten to taste. For service, mix whipped cream into the chilled risotto base; put it into a pastry bag and pipe into brandy snap cylinders. For service, put a light covering of passion fruit sauce on a plate; place a risotto-filled brandy snap in the center, and on either side alternate blood orange and grapefruit suprêmes like butterfly wings; dab passion fruit seeds around the sauce.”
What do they know?!: Sautéed forest mushrooms on fontina polenta with cotechino sausage. Sone: “I think it was the word ‘cotechino’; it was just too unfamiliar. Ame guests who knew that it’s a type of sausage really loved it, but it just didn’t fly with other diners. Cook polenta in water with a pinch of salt; add butter, fontina, Parmesan, and salt. Make a rich game stock of roasted duck and squab bones, mirepoix, bay leaf, garlic, thyme, and tomatoes; deglaze with water; simmer; strain through chinois. Cut a mixture of wild mushrooms into bite-sized pieces; sauté with shallots in olive oil and butter; deglaze with the stock; finish with chopped parsley. We make the cotechino in-house with ground pork, fatback, the skin from pig’s feet, salt, and pepper. Instead of casing, we roll it into a two-inch cylinder in foil and then steam it so it looks almost like a tube-shaped pâté. For service, warm two thick slices of cotechino in the mushroom sauce; put hot polenta in a bowl; top with cotechino and mushroom sauce; sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan.”
Amanda Freitag executive chef Sette Enoteca e Cucina Brooklyn, New York
They loved it!: Pan-seared duck breast with pine nut/sage relish, broccoli raab & roasted butternut squash. “People love the sweetness and tanginess of the relish, and duck breast is always popular. For the relish, reduce white balsamic vinegar until syrupy and golden, almost like caramel. Add pine nuts, finely cut fresh sage, and a little cayenne to cut the sweetness. I use one full Long Island duck breast per serving. Score the skin in a cross-hatch pattern and season; cook skin side down in a medium-hot pan, removing fat as it renders. When all the fat has been rendered, flip and finish in the oven until medium-rare. Sauté blanched broccoli raab with chopped garlic in olive oil; season. Halve squash and deseed; season with salt, pepper, honey, and olive oil; cover with foil; cook in the oven until soft; pass through a food mill. Right before service, brown butter in a pan and stir in some of the relish to heat through and make it saucy, adding water to thin if necessary. To serve, put a wide ribbon of squash on a plate; top with broccoli raab; cut duck breast into six slices; shingle it open a bit while maintaining its shape; top with very hot relish; finish plate with a small amount of veal stock and olive oil.”
What do they know?!: Olive oil–poached red mul let over couscous. “Initially we billed the fish as triglia, its Italian name, but people didn’t know that so we switched it to red mullet on the menu. That didn’t work either. I think it was a combination of the fact that people were unfamiliar with the fish, that it was served at room temperature, and that olive oil poaching sounded like it would be too fatty. For the couscous, my ratio is one part couscous to one part water: mix the couscous with salt, olive oil, diced red pepper, diced fennel, and diced shallots; add hot water; cover; uncover and fluff with a fork; stir in olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, and salt. To poach the fish, we make a seasoned olive oil with whole cloves of smashed garlic, rosemary and thyme sprigs, salt, and pepper. Bring oil to a simmer, turn it off, and add red mullet fillets. They cook quickly, so remove when almost done and they’ll finish cooking outside of the oil. Once the oil cools, return the fillets to the oil so they don’t dry out. To serve, place two fillets of room temperature fish on top of a ring mold of couscous and garnish with pitted and julienned Cerignola olives.”
Thomas Moran chef/owner Thomas Moran’s Petite Syrah New Preston, Connecticut and Thomas Moran’s Forsythia New Milford, Connecticut
They loved it!: Apple cider braised pork belly with chili glazed pork tenderloin & Swiss chard. “People love the different cuts of pork, contrasting textures and flavors. Make some bacon from the pork belly: cut a few strips off, cure them in salt, and smoke them over apple wood. Cut into lardons and sauté until crisp; reserve rendered fat. For the braised pork belly, cut it into two-inch cubes; sear; add apple cider, bay leaf, fresh thyme, cloves, and a cinnamon stick; braise until the meat is tender and buttery; strain braising liquid; skim off fat; reserve. Make a paste of sea salt, chili powder, red pepper flakes, five-spice powder, cumin, star anise, balsamic vinegar, and honey; rub onto tenderloin and marinate overnight. In a cast-iron skillet, sear off tenderloin in superhot canola oil and cook until medium. For chard, remove and julienne the large rib; tear leaves into manageable pieces; sauté in reserved bacon fat with shallots; season. To serve, drain chard and place in the center of each plate; put several medallions of tenderloin on top and pork belly next to it; garnish with lardons, a drizzle of the braising liquid, and julienned Granny Smith apple.”
What do they know?!: Saffron/shrimp risotto with olive oil “bouillabaisse style.” “I cannot sell this dish to save my life. It just doesn’t move. Peel and devein jumbo shrimp; reserve the shells. Make a stock by sautéing the shells in olive oil in a stockpot; add mirepoix, garlic, fennel tops, tomatoes, thyme, peppercorns, bay leaves, and saffron; deglaze with white wine; add water; simmer; strain through a chinois. Sauté diced onion in canola oil; add Arborio rice; parch; add stock until al dente; finish with butter and olive oil. Sauté shrimp in canola oil with salt and pepper; when almost done, add minced garlic and finely diced seasonal vegetables such as fennel, carrots, fresh peas, and tender green beans; finish with a little stock. Put the rice in a bowl; top with shrimp, vegetables, and a couple ladles of broth; garnish with Italian parsley.”
