sous vide beets with horseradish gel and ginger snow
I've been telling people that I'm in my simple food era.
One trend that's endemic in fine dining food these days is deceptively simple food- dishes that consist of 4 main components with 17-so sub components and sub recipes that are simplistically plated, but contain an array of flavors and textures and ideas. Often it can be good, sometimes, however, it becomes a victim of what many people rightfully point out is a flaw in fine dining-elevating the conceptual above the reality.
One reads of chefs eloquently explain their thoughts behind a dish, what each component is meant to provide or do and how hey are meant to come together, of dishes and ideas thoughtfully deconstructed into individual components and reimagined into new textures- but often they simply don't provide what they are meant to. The citrus gel is too muted to provide the necessary acidity, the veil of dashi gelee under the crab tartare doesn't provide the salinity and umami it's meant to. Cool techniques doubtless, but unless perfected, they add nothing but blandness and unfamiliar textures.
I spent much of my days as a very young cook absolutely obsessed with much of this. Finally getting a stage at Alinea was one of the happiest days of my life (though the work there managed to somehow be a perfect mixture of mind-numbingly mundane and ridiculously stressful) Working with chefs here in Philly where i got to work with so many of the same things-sous vide circulators, vacuum sealers, and all the cool powders, I realized what i think i actually prefer is restrained use of these things, rather than using them almost as a means to their own end. By that, what i mean is sometimes, the theme of challenging diners, making food that is meant to make people think or rethink food or experiences, becomes an end rather than a means. I prefer to never put the words foam or gel or sous vide or similar words on a menu ever, because if it's that important for people to know that before they eat the food, than the food has failed in it's true main purpose-to taste good and make people feel satisfied. I prefer for it to be a surprise. I might put passionfruit gel set with xanthan and Ultratex on a chocolate cake set with nitrogen frozen meringue- But they don't need to know that before they eat it. Maybe they don't even need to know that during or after. They just need to know it tastes good.
Valrhona chocolate cake with passionfruit gel, nitro-frozen tonka bean meringue, and vanilla powder.
The way i cook these days is a balance i like. It's more focused on precision and what gives the best results or best flavor. Maybe sous vide is the best way to prepare poached halibut, but maybe a traditional court-bouillon is the best way to prepare a poached langoustine. Maybe the best way to prepare a smoked tomato and black garlic broth for a dish is to agar clarify it and then thicken with xanthan, but I'll make a roasted jus by roasting the components and slowly reducing and skimming till 12 quarts of water turns into 2 quarts of rich sauce. We'll serve a dish with a vadouvan curry foam made with lecithin and xanthan that also has the most absolutely traditional porcini risotto you've ever tasted, and honeynut squash cooked confit in an oven like anyone would (assuming anyone else is micro dicing honeynut squash and cooking it confit) We'll make the most traditional pasta ever, but our Sauce Americaine is actually stock infused with a ridiculously long list of aromatics with butter emulsified in so it thickens better as it reduces without breaking.
The aforesaid vadouvan curry and porcini risotto
To me, that's true deceptively simple food. True, there's a lot of technique in that risotto- Making a stock of roasted mushroom trim, mirepoix, veg stock, and dried mushrooms that have been precisely measured by weight, making a French mushroom ragout with seared porcinis and shiitakes, finely minced shallots, thinly sliced garlic, fresh thyme, brandy, and that rich mushroom stock- and then making a risotto. None of it is particularly modernist or new. But it's absolutely not truly simple. Food that's delicious so people know true work and professional technique went into it, people would not imagine what it actually took to create those results. But the result of an addictively delicious dish is more important than any particular technique.
The food we will be making in the future at the new place is much like this (actually most of the dishes i've talked about will be on the opening menu) It's the kind of food that people will instinctively think is'nt that exciting or cool-Until they eat it.
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