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French laundry restaurant sf11/11/2023 ![]() By then you've probably generated enough kinetic energy to power the lights outside." 6. That's 3,000 moves, not counting the brushing and the cooking. Not to mention another 1,000 moves for the parchment paper (to separate the discs before cooking), and another 1,000 moves for the second parchment paper. That's 1,000 moves just for the potato portion. He discards many throughout the process, sifting out the irregular ones and saving only the perfect ones.īreeden does the math: "If we made 100 pieces, it's at least 10 slices each. He slides dozens at a time through his weathered fingers, deftly feeling each one individually to make sure the thickness is uniform. Only 10 go into each pommes Maxim, so roughly 1,000 are needed for the next step - the formation of the larger disc he makes about 1,500, just in case, counting each one. In a single morning, commis Phillip Sayles will slice thousands of potato "coins" exactly 2 millimeters thick and 1 inch in diameter. A cornstarch/egg white slurry binds it as it is carefully cooked in butter on the stove. It consists of 10 potato "coins" formed into a bigger circle about the diameter of a baseball. These days, it's back to a fairly traditional interpretation. Over the dish's evolution, the potato component has been spiraled, latticed, fried and mashed. Pommes Maxim originated in Maxim's in Paris nearly a century ago. For this version of the dish, the horseradish was a last-minute addition from chef de cuisine David Breeden.īreeden uses Maldon salt on all seafood in this dish, the large crystals atop the lobster add crunch. The horseradish comes from the French Laundry garden or nearby Peter Jacobsen Farm, and has been preserved with salt and Champagne vinegar. Given its delicate nature, the watercress is the first plant to be harvested in the morning. Like other microgreens, the watercress plants are snipped and put directly into water. Microgreen watercress is used as a garnish and takes about two months to grow in Keefer's garden flat. Prior to plating, they're trimmed a second time and seasoned. ![]() Then they're shocked in an ice bath, trimmed and slowly caramelized on the stove with clarified butter. Marthaler also preps the leeks, which are par-cooked by using a favorite Keller technique, big-pot blanching. In all, there are four preparations of beets: roasted, sous vide, freeze-dried and juiced/reduced. Some will be whole-roasted in the oven alongside orange, orange leaves, thyme and whole butter in a small and traditional cocotte. Beets times four, plus leeksĬhef de partie Aaron Marthaler washes, trims and seasons the other beets. The beet juice reduces, but the color stays bright. Keller devised a technique he dubs "rapid reduction" - heating multiple pots simultaneously on the stove and pouring the liquid from one hot pot to the other, until it reduces to a small amount. Originally the sauce was a reduction of beet juice, which intensifies the flavor but can darken the color. A fellow commis will make beet powder with the freeze-dryer. Once the beets get to the kitchen, David Dreifus - one of seven commis, or low-level cooks - will spend two to three hours making juice. Keefer also maintains a small herd of goats to weed the garden. "You want the soil to be wet when you first wash it off, because if that first initial cake of soil dries on, you're never going to get the root as clean," Keefer says. Then Keefer and his crew harvest vegetables the next morning by 7 a.m., before the sun warms the soil. At their late-night meeting, the chefs riff off the garden ingredients and write the next day's menu. Keefer gives the kitchen an ingredient availability list every night after dinner service. The leeks for the dish - medium to large - are planted about 110 days out. French Laundry culinary gardener Aaron Keefer and his staff - Haily Stiers, Kate Olen, Marlon Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez - start planting five varieties of beets 60 days out.
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