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For the seasonal dish at The Noortwyck in New York City’s West Village, chef and co-owner Andrew Quinn peels white asparagus below the tip and blanches it in boiling water until just tender before shocking it in an ice bath.
He puts cracked black and white pepper in a sauté pan and heats it until it starts to smoke. Then he pours in chicken stock, brings it to a rapid bowl and drops in the chilled asparagus followed by butter, swirling it to emulsify and coat the asparagus and reducing the liquid by two-thirds. Then he removes it from the heat, adds some lemon juice and then grated Pecorino Romano cheese, swirling it in the pan to melt it. Then he seasons it and serves the asparagus, plates it, finishes it with a fresh grating of Pecorino Romano.
Price: $33
For this dish on the new menu at Bellota in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, chef Gonzalo Tecuaque cures pork belly with salt, sugar, bay leaves, allspice, cumin, and coriander and braises it for two hours with mirepoix and garlic.
For the rice, he sweats onion, garlic, piquillo peppers, and saffron in olive oil and then adds Bomba rice, cooking for another two minutes and then deglazing with white wine and ham stock made with mirepoix, fennel seeds, garlic, coriander, saffron, white wine, chicken stock, and bay leaves as well as ham bones. After that simmers for 10 minutes he finishes it with butter and finely grated Manchego cheese.
He portions the pork belly into two-inch squares, sears them and serves them over the creamy rice.
Price: $22
For this premium cocktail at Knife Italian, a John Tesar restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas, Las Colinas, that opened in March, a porthole-shaped vessel is filled with half a lemon peel, 20 grams of corn kernels, two sliced and fanned out strawberries, three basil leaves, 4 basil flower tops and 15 grams of Rare Tea Cellars Vintage Caramel Dream Pu-erh Tea leaves.
Separately, an ounce of Fusion Verjus Blanc is mixed with an ounce of water, ¾ ounce each of Wyoming Double Cask whiskey and High West Campfire whiskey, plus half an ounce of Nixta corn liqueur and ¼ ounce of simple syrup. That’s poured into the porthole container and served with a Nick & Nora glass for guests to pour the drink into.
Price: $37
Christopher Weathered, chef and co-owner of Mill and Main in Kerhonkson, N.Y., offers his own version of a dish that’s popular among West Indians in New York City, who drew inspiration from their Italian neighbors and their noodles to develop this dish.
He starts by sautéing thinly sliced red and green bell peppers and red onions in olive oil, then adding tomato paste and dry jerk seasoning (thyme, allspice, cloves, chili powder, cayenne, sugar, and pimiento).
Once the tomato paste browns and coats the peppers and onions, he deglazes with white wine, cooks it for a minute or two and then adds heavy cream followed by shrimp.
Once the shrimp is pink he adds rigatoni pasta, binding it together with a little pasta water and finishing it with salt and pepper. He plates it with a lime wedge and cilantro.
“This menu item is personally special because it truly embodies who I am culturally and as a cook,” Weathered said. “My background is Italian, Colombian and West Indian. I love pasta and the flavors of the Caribbean, so being able to showcase such a meaningful dish here is very unique and also an unusual one for our customers to experience.”
Price: $25
For this dessert at Packard’s Steakhouse, which recently reopened after a renovation at the Innisbrook Resort in Tampa Bay, Fla., culinary director David Morris developed a unique sugar mixture for these fried sourdough balls developed by pastry chef Tori Dublino.
The dough rises chilled (between 36 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit) for 72 hours, allowing for a slow fermentation as the flavors develop. Then its shaped into silver-dollar-sized balls, and fried in rendered wagyu beef fat, which Morris said "honestly just tastes better" than other fats.
Then its rolled in a combination of Florida Crystals Golden Organic Raw Cane sugar and powdered cardamom, anise, cayenne pepper, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon, and fennel pollen and served with melted dark chocolate, salted caramel, and Meyer lemon curd for dipping, although those sauces can change seasonally.
Price: $16
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