Chef's Tasting

One of my favorite things to do is create tasting menus for customers. I like it because I get to create things that people ought to taste, but which would never sell on the dinner menu.

Here's the menu from the latest tasting. I will follow up this post with another one discussing the development of this menu from a list of ideas to dishes on the plate.

Creamy Parsnip-Leek Soup with Chive Oil and Parsnip Latke

Five-Spice Duck Soup Wonton with Green Onions, Soy- and Ginger-Braised Black Mushrooms, and House-Cured Duck Confit

Lemon-Oil Poached Filet of Idiot Fish
on Lemon and Thai Basil “Risotto” of Fregola Sarda; Blood Sorrel

Tartiflette—Rose Fingerling Potatoes, Virginia Slab Bacon, and Onions Baked under Réblochon Cheese

Trio of Rabbit Preparations:
Prosciutto-Wrapped Brined Loin with Pan Sauce
Crispy Raviolo of Juniper-Cured Confit with Juniper Salt and Gin Beurre Blanc
Rillettes with Asian Pear and Blood Orange Marmalade

Trio of Goat Cheese Truffles:
Pickled Peach and Cajun-Spiced Pecans
Cranberry and Walnut
Blood Orange and Candied Fennel Seed

Sour Cherry Granita; Cherry-Chocolate Mousse with Kriek Sabayon

Creamy Parsnip-Leek Soup with Chive Oil and Parsnip Latke. I love soup all the time, but never more so than when it is cold and last night, as expected, was really cold for November, in the low 20s. I decided on parsnips because they're in the market now, they are so good, and so few Americans have ever tasted them. Except for the parsnips, this was a classic leek and potato soup. I decided to highlight the versatility of the parsnip by garnishing the soup with a latke. Parsnip latkes are even better than potato latkes.

Five-Spice Duck Soup Wonton with Green Onions, Soy- and Ginger-Braised Black Mushrooms, and House-Cured Duck Confit. I love Chinese comfort food, especially the red-cooked dishes, long slow braises with soy sauce, rice wine, star anise, ginger, garlic, and green onions. I also adore Chinese noodle soups, especially hand-pulled noodles in duck broth with roast duck. This dish then pays homage to Chinese tradition, but as I like to play with dishes and make people think about what they're eating, I took the traditional duck soup and put it inside the noodles, making duck soup wontons.

Technically, this is trivially done by letting the broth congeal and then using that solid form to stuff the wontons—no big secret there. Naturally, the broth melts as you cook the wontons. The garnishes are pulled duck confit, dried black mushrooms slowly braised with soy sauce and ginger, hoisin sauce, white sesame seeds, and green onions.

It's kind of fun for customers to cut into the wontons and have the soup bowl fill up with the soup that was missing just moments before.

Lemon-Oil Poached Filet of Idiot Fish
on Lemon and Thai Basil “Risotto” of Fregola Sarda; Blood Sorrel. After the strong earthy flavors of the previous dish, I felt the need to go light in flavor. Idiot Fish is a delicate, high oil content fish mainly from the Gulf of Alaska. Because it is so delicate, you must handle it gently especially if it is in filets. I decided to seal the fish in a vacuum bag with a lemon-infused oil and gently poach it. I find that lemon (any citrus, actually) works wonderfully with high oil fish. I decided to echo the lemon flavor in the "risotto" of fregola sarda, but to give it a little punch with Thai basil, which adds mint and white pepper notes. Tangy blood sorrel poses its oxalic acid notes against the richness of both the fish and the risotto. We avoided cheese in the risotto: often cheese makes fish taste fishier.

Tartiflette—Rose Fingerling Potatoes, Virginia Slab Bacon, and Onions Baked under Réblochon Cheese. Tartiflette is a modern French classic comfort dish from the Savoie. This rendition is fairly faithful to the original, save that I used rose-colored fingerling potatoes instead of yellow potatoes and that I used Picpoul rather than a local wine from the Savoie. Because of the cold weather, I wanted to do an instantly recognizable comfort dish. And what American doesn't recognize highfalutin home fries with cheese?

Trio of Rabbit Preparations: Prosciutto-Wrapped Brined Loin with Pan Sauce, Crispy Raviolo of Juniper-Cured Confit with Juniper Salt and Gin Beurre Blanc, Rillettes with Asian Pear and Blood Orange Marmalade. After the comfort food of the middle course, I wanted once again to push the customers' boundaries with the next dish. Rabbit shouldn't push anyone's boundaries, but it's not something many Americans have tried or would willingly try, which is why I like to include it on tasting menus: to show people that rabbit is indeed versatile and tasty.

From left to right in the photo, you see classic rabbit rillettes, brined and prosciutto-wrapped loin, and a crispy raviolo filled with rabbit confit. The goal of this tasting was to make use of the entire rabbit.

Rillettes is a classic French charcuterie and what we and the English would most likely call potted meat. It consists of finely shredded or chopped meat mixed with fat (as a preservative) and is typically used as a spread for bread. I braised all the random bits of the rabbit (forelegs, back, breast and side meat, etc.) with thyme, shallots, and white wine. Then I picked and finely shredded the meat and reduced the strained braising liquid to a syrup. Mixing the braising liquid, meat, nutmeg, mace, thyme, juniper salt, rosemary, and a bit of congealed duck fat yielded my version of rabbit rillettes. We served the rillettes at room temperature with a marmalade of blood orange rind and Asian pear.

I trimmed the two loin halves and brined them with salt, sugar, and white pepper for about six hours. Then I wrapped them in prosciutto and seared them. We served them with a pan sauce from deglazing the pan with guinea hen stock (because that's the stock we have on hand right now) and a quick mounting with sweet butter.

To confit the rabbit, I rubbed the rear legs in salt, sugar, juniper berries, garlic, thyme, and allspice and put them in the cooler for several days to cure. Then I slowly poached them in duck fat for about six hours. Finely minced confit seasoned with juniper salt went into the ravioli, which we crisped by frying after they cooked in boiling water. We garnished the ravioli with a gin beurre blanc (like a traditional beurre blanc except that we substituted gin for a portion of the white wine).

Juniper salt is just juniper berries that I ground in the spice mill and mixed with fleur de sel.

Trio of Goat Cheese Truffles: Pickled Peach and Cajun-Spiced Pecans, Cranberry and Walnut, Blood Orange and Candied Fennel Seed. I am a huge fan of cheese. A formal dinner just doesn't seem right to me without a cheese course. And while I rarely eat dessert when I am dining out, I will often order cheese to finish my meal. I used this cheese course to segue between the last savory course and the sweet dessert course by making each of the truffles successively sweeter.

Sour Cherry Granita; Cherry-Chocolate Mousse with Kriek Sabayon. This dessert is about temperature and texture contrast. I wanted to play the crunchy texture of the granita against the smoothness of the mousse and I wanted to contrast the warm kriek sabayon (egg yolks and wine, or in this case, beer whisked over a steam bath until foamy) with the cool mousse. Also, I've never been a fan of sweets, so my desserts tend to be low in sugar. The granita, the mousse, and the sabayon were all barely sweetened.