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Caramelized fennel & onion scarpinocc
For this pasta dish at Oak at Fourteenth in Boulder, Colo., chef Peter Ho caramelizes thinly sliced fennel and onion in oil with rosemary. Then he discards the rosemary and blends the vegetables with onion and toasted breadcrumbs. He stuffs that into Scarpinocc, an egg-rich pasta from Lombardia in northern Italy, which he boils and then tosses in butter with rosemary, Parmesan cheese, and brown butter breadcrumbs.
Price: $24
This savory dish that’s served after the sushi courses at Money Cat in Houston was developed by pastry lead Sarang Marek, who starts by heating together cream, milk, Santa Barbara sea urchin (uni in Japanese), the restaurant’s passion fruit ponzu sauce, sugar, and salt until it just starts to steam. Then she whisks in gelatin and blends it all together with Greek yogurt until it’s smooth. That mixture is poured into a stone-shaped silicone mold and frozen.
Once the panna cotta is set, it’s unmolded and placed in a specially designed bowl meant to resemble a sea urchin. The panna cotta is topped with chopped wakame seaweed, passionfruit ponzu jellies, trout row, and micro basil. That’s garnished with crackers made with nori seaweed, flour, salt, water, and oil. The dish is finished with a piece of fresh Hokkaido sea urchin and a gentle blast of cherrywood smoke.
Price: $18
The Chinato
For this signature cocktail at Chinato, a bar on New York City’s Lower East Side, co-owner and bar director Ray Zhou infuses Cocchi Barolo Chinato wine with bayberries, Ming River Sichuan baijiu with goji berries, and Woodford Reserve bourbon with black tea and lychee. He combines four parts of the wine with one part each of the baijiu and bourbon. That’s all stirred with ice and strained into a chilled tulip glass.
“Barolo Chinato [is a] very complex aromatized wine that offers ripe fruity notes, some spice, and a little bitterness,” Zhou said. “We paired that with widely used Chinese ingredients like goji berry and lychee, as well as baijiu. It’s a bold and complex spirit that lingers with notes of fruit and anise.”
Price: $19
Colorado trout Benedict
At Yampa Valley Kitchen in Steamboat Springs, Colo., executive chef Joseph Campbell makes this mashup of avocado toast and eggs Benedict, with the addition of local fish. He butters brioche on both sides, toasts it and tops it with mashed avocado seasoned with salt and lime. That’s topped with smoked Colorado trout, two poached eggs and a classic hollandaise sauce.
Then marinated cherry tomatoes are placed around the eggs, and the dish is finished with trout roe, chives, and a crispy piece of trout skin. It’s garnished with hot smoked paprika and a chervil sprig.
It’s called the California Dreamin’ Benedict on the menu.
Price: $23
Deviled crab fritters
At Millers All Day in Charleston, S.C., executive chef Jeff Allen prepares a hushpuppy batter of Marsh Hen Mill heirloom cornmeal, eggs, all-purpose flour, baking powder, milk, and butter. Then he folds in blue crabmeat, pepper jam, pimento cheese, his house seasoning blend, Meyer lemon, dill, parsley, and chives. Those are fried into fritters and finished with slightly spicy rémoulade and chopped scallions.
Price: $15
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