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Grouper Crudo Naranja
At Jaja, a modern steakhouse in Cleveland, chef Brian Whalen shaves blood orange into thin round slices, coats them in turbinado sugar and torches them to caramelize the sugar.
Separately, he thinly slices black grouper fillets, sashimi style, and does the same to heirloom tomatoes.
He makes lime “caviar” by blending lime juice with parsley, cilantro, citric acid, and sodium alginate and drops small beads of it into a calcium chloride bath in a process called “spherification” developed by Catalonian chef Ferran Adrià.
To plate, he shingles the blood orange and grouper slices, puts the tomato slices over the grouper, and spoons the lime beads on top. He finishes it with a drizzle of chile oil and sea salt.
Price: $19
Red Shrimp Carpaccio
At Scarpetta in New York City’s NoMad neighborhood, Chef Jorge Espinoza peels and cleans sweet and buttery Argentine shrimp and then places the raw meat between plastic sheets and flattens it. It’s cut into a circle and chilled.
He takes the shells and cooks them with garlic, tomatoes, celery, crème fraîche and brandy. He strains and chills that. At service he plates the shrimp circle and garnishes it with the shrimp cream, sliced kumquats, Szechuan pepper, citrus oil, and micro greens.
Price: $29
Guava Pâté
Carolina Gonzalez, beverage manager at Woodwind in the Chicago neighborhood of Streeterville, describes this as an artisanal cheese plate in cocktail form. She combines in a shaker with ice 1.5 ounces of Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple rum with an ounce each of lemon juice and guava jam, ¾ ounce of Aperol, and ½ ounce of Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur. She stirs it until the jam is dissolved, then shakes it and double strains it into a glass over pebble ice. She garnishes it with a mint bouquet, a strip of fontina cheese and dots of guava jam.
Price: $16
Coche y Pepe
For this dish at Destino, a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., chef Robert Aikens pays tribute to Mexico’s influence on Italian cuisine.
He starts by braising rabbit legs in white wine and water with onions, garlic, and a sachet of thyme, epazote, bay leaves, and cilantro, plus sliced cremini mushrooms along with a sachet of dried mushrooms to enhance the flavor and a little charcoal to deepen the color.
He removes the rabbit before it’s completely tender so it’s not dry, cools it and picks the meat. He strains the braising liquid and cooks it down to around a quarter of its original volume, and then adds the garlic and onions back in.
At service he reheats the rabbit in a pan with butter, olive oil, and the reduced braising liquid. He boils spaghetti and adds it along with some of the pasta water to the rabbit, plus grated pecorino Romano and cotija cheeses, lemon juice, epazote, and, at the last minute, huitlacoche. He plates that in a bowl with black pepper, pickled finely diced Fresno chiles, and more cotija and pecorino Romano.
Price: $31
Wagyu Beef Rendang Wellington
Marvin He, manager of Phat Eatery in Katy, Texas, thought up the idea of this dish and worked with chef and owner Alex Au-Yeung to create it. They served it as part of their Thanksgiving dinner and it was so popular that they’re keeping it on the menu through the holidays.
They use American wagyu banana shank from Rosewood Ranch in Ennis, Texas, and braise it in the restaurant’s signature rendang curry sauce. Then they coat it in a duxelles of diced mushroom cooked with shallots, wrap it in prosciutto, a roti canai brushed with their curry, and puff pastry, which they score and then bake.
Price: $39
