Sarsaparilla smoked squab breast, red wine beet pasta, duck confit foie gras filling, roasted garlic spinach puree
, squab jus, sugar cured orange pancetta marmalade
, squab jus, sugar cured orange pancetta marmaladeThe sarsaparilla smoke was concieved during the planning of an Ancien wine dinner. The Pinot Noir that was being paired had notes of licorice and root beer. Jason and I have ambitions of making a from scratch root beer syrup. We had the sarsaparilla root in the office which inspired the idea of cold smoking fowl.
To make the red wine beet pasta, we reduce down beet juice and red wine into a concentrated syrup, which was then folded into our traditional pasta recipe. The end result is a brilliant red home-made pasta that also pairs well with an earthy red wine.
The orange pancetta marmalade is one of the most complex yet simple recipes that we have recently created. The pancetta is home-made from a whey fed Berkshire pig. The procedure for the oranges is explained in the following video. I had never tasted these oranges before, only heard of them through colleagues. It has literally taken me 3 years to finally figure out how to make these delicious candied oranges.
Pan seared Bluenose grouper, star anise beef tendon broth, poached baby bok choy, seared mushrooms, mixed radish shaved beef tendon salad
When I was in Manhattan, I had the privilege of eating at Chef David Chang's Momofuku; I highly recommend it. One of the most memorable dishes was a shaved beef tendon salad with a white soy vinaigrette. I had very little experience with beef tendon up until that point. Naturally, I was determined to figure out how they made this salad. Through beef tendon r&d we became very intrigued with the gelatinous property of the braising liquid, which then turned into the star anise broth for the grouper.
Bittersweet chocolate beet cake, raspberry creme anglaise, beet reduction, chocolate hazelnut sauce, candied beet chips
This chocolate beet cake was one of my favorite dishes that came out of The Madison Club's pastry kitchen this past winter. At first I was a touch skeptical of the idea when I tried the beet cake on it's own. The cake carries a lot of the typical earthy notes that you would expect out of a beet. The beet cake becomes a very dynamic dessert when paired with an acidic berry sauce, chocolate sauce, and a creamy anglaise or ice cream.
Originally this dish was devised to pair with an old vine zinfandel. We have been playing around quite a bit with wines outside of the traditional dessert designation to pair with desserts.
