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Skirt steak sandwich with Calabrian chile aïoli
At Pizza Serata in Washington D.C., chef Chris Morgan recently added this sandwich to the menu. He seasons the skirt steak simply with salt and pepper, grills it to medium rare, lets it rest to four to five minutes and then slices it against the grain into 2-to-3-inch strips.
He brushes the restaurant’s house-made focaccia with garlic infused olive oil, toasts it on the flat top and brushes the bottom slice with aïoli spiked with Calabrian chiles and a little honey. He lays the steak on top of that, finishes it with a little Maldon salt and then dresses it with salsa verde made with capers, a 7-minute egg yolk, lemon zest and juice, parsley, garlic, Sicilian olive oil, salt, black pepper and anchovies.
Price: $19
Chicken Ballotine
At the Hartstone Inn in Camden, Maine, executive chef Dustin Shockley makes his own version of the classic French presentation using transglutaminase RM, sometimes called “meat glue” to ensure evenness. He bones a whole chicken, leaving it completely intact otherwise. He slices it in half lengthwise and removes the leg and thigh, as well as the breast tender, chops it all and combines it with eggs, salt, and mirepoix (carrot, onion, and celery) in a blender to turn it into a farce. He finishes it with a little foie gras fat.
He lays the rest of the boned chicken skin-side-down on plastic film sprinkled with a little transglutaminase RM and seasons it with kosher salt and another sprinkling of transglutaminase RM. He pipes the farce evenly onto the chicken and rolls each half tightly in its own sheet of plastic, sealing it with a little more transglutaminase RM.
He uses leftover farce to fill ravioli, make meatballs, or in other applications.
He cooks the chicken in sous vide at 65° Celsius for 90 minutes, pats it dry, sprinkles it with salt, crisps up the skin in a pan and finishes it in the oven. He lets it rest for five minutes before portioning and serving it. He garnishes the plate with micro-herbs from Morning Dew Farm in Waldoboro, Maine, and pearl onions that have been blanched and then glazed in chicken jus reduction.
Price: $28
Power Mojito
At the new Alfresco Tap and Grill in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., chef Israel Bartoli developed this recipe, for which 5-6 mint leaves, a tender kale leaf, a peeled lime, a peeled kiwi, and an ounce of agave syrup are all spun together in a blender.
That’s all shaken with 2/3 ounce dark rum and crushed ice, poured into a glass, garnished with a kiwi slice and a mint sprig, and topped off with a splash of seltzer
Price: $12
Kangaroo Tucker
For this dish at Isla & Co., which has two New York City locations — one in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Williamsburg and the other in Midtown Manhattan — Matt Foley, chef of Parched Hospitality Group, which operates the restaurants, coats kangaroo tenderloin in a traditional Australian spice rub that includes garlic, shallots, sumac, cayenned, coriander, salt, brown sugar and tamarind paste. He cuts that into bite-sized pieces, skewers it, grills it and serves it over a bed of tahini with cilantro, mint, Thai basil, and other spices as well as marinated cucumbers, pickled onions and fried lentils.
Tucker, pronounced tukkah, is Australian slang for “food.”
Price: $18
Pear poached in red wine
For this dish, another classic French preparation, at Rosette at Brooklyn Winery in the Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood of Williamsburg, executive chef Shaun LaFountain poaches peeled Bosc pear in the winery’s own 2016 Zinfandel seasoned with orange peel, vanilla, cloves, and cinnamon. It’s plated with crumbled streusel and a reduction of the poaching liquid.
LaFountain said “the warming spices ride the coattails of the Zinfandel, accentuating the already prominent jammy and oaky flavors of the wine. The relationship is infused into the pear with very little loss in texture as a result of its gentle preparation.
The chef said the dish is both complex enough to work as an appetizer, but also sweet and rich enough to be a dessert. Either way, he said it pairs well with Shropshire cheese.
Price: $9
