Text 16417, 104 rader
Skriven 2007-06-07 09:23:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av CAROL BRYANT
Ärende: Re: Have you heard of thi
=================================
-=> Quoting Carol Bryant to Ian Hoare <=-

 CB> Check this out.

 CB> http://howithappened.com/2007/05/underground-menu-at-lenclume.html

Amazing. Over the top, perhaps, but compelling all the same. I'd
like to eat at a place like that at least once in my lifetime.

More innovative stuff:

From today's NY Times, the latest from the meatball universe...

Certain chefs lavish as much care and attention on meatballs as they
do on foie gras. Some even combine the two. At 112 Eatery in
Minneapolis, Isaac Becker grinds top-quality chicken with foie gras,
rolling the blend into little spheres that are poached and served by
the dozen over fresh tagliatelle. And at A Voce, Andrew Carmellini
brushes duck and foie gras meatballs with a dried cherry mostarda,
rooting them to the plate with a slick of celery-root puree.

Whether the interpretations are classical or modernist, one thing is
certain: there's never been a better time to order meatballs in
America.

The dawn of the meatball enlightenment may have occurred five years
ago, in 2002, when the diamond-merchant-turned-restaurateur John
LaFemina, who was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, opened Epizz on the
Lower East Side of Manhattan. He took his mother's recipe for veal,
beef and pork meatballs, and tweaked it heavily, tripling the
meatball's size to that of a softball, coring it like an apple and
stuffing the cavity with whipped ricotta and Parmigiano-Reggiano
(leaving a beret of the mixture on top), and giving it a smoky
finish in a wood-fired oven. An immediate signature dish, it spawned
a memoir, "A Man and His Meatballs" (Regan Books, 2006), but more
important, Mr. LaFemina showed that simple, rustic food could be
over-the-top decadent.

By about 2004, the dining public was primed to gobble meatballs up,
a fact that Nate Appleman, executive chef at the San Francisco
restaurant A16, discovered almost by accident. On a Monday shortly
after opening his restaurant, which serves food inspired by the
cuisine of Campania, he had a bunch of scraps lying around and
decided to make meatballs. "I thought, no one's going to buy these,
they don't even come with a pasta," Mr. Appleman said. In fact, they
sold out by 8 o'clock, ushering in the tradition of Meatball
Mondays. And though he has cycled through about 30 different
meatball recipes at the restaurant, Mr. Appleman has settled on a
Monday night recipe: pork, ricotta and pancetta meatballs braised in
San Marzano tomatoes.

But the name that trips off the tongue in any meatball discussion
among New York chefs is Marco Canora, who put on the bar menu at
Craftbar a recipe inspired by the chicken meatballs he learned to
make while working in Florence for Fabio Picchi at the restaurant
Cibrèo. "I changed my recipe to veal and ricotta, and added a ton of
grated Parmesan," Mr. Canora said. "They're delicate and super-light
with a subtle cheesiness."

Mr. Carmellini of A Voce said. "And we started to have some fun with
it. We came up with a list: lobster, shrimp, tuna. Duck and cherry
seemed like a natural combination." But the duck and cherry pairing
was just the beginning. Through multiple tests, Mr. Carmellini found
his formula: duck-leg meat, pork shoulder and fatback, ground
together and enriched with fresh foie gras that has been strained to
a pasty consistency. Eggs and breadcrumb, both dry and fresh,
provide the binding for the meatballs, which are baked, then brushed
with a mostarda. Mr. Carmellini makes this classic Italian condiment
of fruit and mustard extract from dried cherries, grappa, red wine
vinegar and Japanese mustard paste. A creamy, aromatic puree of
celery root fixes the meatballs in place on the plate and offers an
herbal note, a tonic respite from all that meaty matter.

At 112 Eatery, Mr. Becker's foie gras meatball, slightly simpler
than Mr. Carmellini's, came about from a similar experiment. But at
the testing stage, he was somewhat apprehensive. "I had no idea
whether the foie gras would melt into the poaching broth and become
mush or what," he said. Not only did the meatballs hold together,
but the fat that liquefied into the poaching stock helped form an
intense consomme that became the foundation for the dish. "I just
heat the meatballs up in that stock, add a little parsley and
butter, and that's it," he said.

Akhtar Nawab at the E.U. in the East Village [...] The cumin, fennel
and coriander-spiced pork meatballs Mr. Nawab serves are roasted in
butter and oil, and served on a skewer, drizzled with two sauces: a
sweet-tart slurry of shallot, mint and sherry vinegar, and a yogurt
sauce made of thick Greek yogurt emulsified with olive oil and fired
up with toasted ground cumin.

[end]

Some of these sound fantastic. I may try to eemulate them.



Cheers

YK Jim


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