Q & A with Daniel Boulud
How do you go from plucking chickens on a small farm in France to becoming one of the most accomplished chefs in the world? That’s what I asked Daniel Boulud. After forty years in the business, he’s built a global empire of nine thriving restaurants and six cookbooks. He moved to New York at the age of twenty five and was awarded four stars as the executive chef at Le Cirque and earned the restaurant the title of, “best restaurant in America.” In 1993, Daniel Boulud made his solo debut, opening his own restaurant, Daniel. and The International Herald Tribune named Daniel one of the top ten best restaurants in the world. Boulud was raised on farm-to-table French cooking. The oldest of five children, his after school chores involved picking haricot vert from the family garden. Forty years...
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BLT’s Blue Fin Tuna Tartare
By Chef & Owner Laurent Tourondel (Serves 6) People are dining out less right now, so we thought we’d spend the next few months featuring the recipes for some of our favorite restaurant dishes. So now we can cook like the city’s best chefs in our own kitchens… Ingredients: Crispy Shallots: Peanut oil for frying 3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots 2 tablespoons Wondra flour Fine sea salt Dressing: 1-1/2 teaspoons wasabi powder 3 tablespoons reduced sodium (light) soy sauce 2 tablespoons white mirin 1 tablespoon mustard oil 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar 1 teaspoon honey Freshly ground black pepper 18 ounces fresh tuna, trimmed and cut into 1/8-inch dice 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 ripe Haas avocadoes, peeled and diced Toasted sliced ciabatta bread Preparation: Fry the Shallots Pour the oil into a small saucepan to...
Read MoreQ & A with Scott Conant
At age eleven, when most of us were still mastering the art of the Easy Bake Oven, Scott Conant was enrolled in cooking classes and well on his way to becoming a chef. Conant wasted no time. While attending the CIA, he did his externship at San Domenico, then took a brief hiatus to open a restaurant in New Orleans. He returned to New York to graduate and went onto work at both Chianti and City Eatery, where he receiving glowing reviews and critical praise. In 2002, L’Impero opened and Conant officially arrived on the New York dining scene and changed the way we looked at Italian cooking. He elevated a simple bowl of spaghetti and tomato sauce to an opulent plane, and in doing so, garnered a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. He followed L’Impero...
Read MoreThe Little Owl's Gravy Meatball Sliders
By Chef & Owner Joey Campanaro (Serves 12) Ingredients: 1 lb. ground beef 1 lb. ground pork 1 lb. ground veal 1 cup freshly grated pecorino romano cheese 1 cup panko bread crumbs 2 cups cold water 3 large eggs l ½ cup Warm water 2 Tbsp. molasses 1/4 oz. fresh yeast 1 1/2 tsp. salt 2 Tbsp. olive oils 4 Cups all purpose flour 2 bulbs of whole roasted garlic 1 chopped Spanish onion 1/4 chopped fresh garlic 1 bunch fresh basil 1 bunch fresh parsley (reserve 1 Tbsp. of chopped parsley) 1 # 10 can of whole peeled tomatoes 1 Tbsp. fennel seed 2 cups vegetable oil for cooking Salt/pepper Preparation For the dough/buns: In an electric mixing bowl using the hook attachment, mix the warm water, yeast, olive oil and molasses. Add the flour and the...
Read MoreQ & A with Ignacio Mattos
Nearly every good young chef knows how to roast a pig in New York these days. But how many can say they’ve roasted one in the middle of a city street? A fashionable one at that. Ignacio Mattos did just that for the annual Sagra del Maiale event at il buco . It might sound like the place you’d find a guy raised on a dairy farm in Uruguay. But Mattos had it all figured out by the age of 16. His cooking teacher was his grandmother. Milk and vegetables went from the family’s farm straight to their table. A locavore before his time, Mattos packed his bags and traveled the world with his friend, Chef Francis Mallman. Last stop on this journey was Chez Panisse in San Francisco and then to New York’s The Spotted Pig. Whatever you...
Read MoreThe Stanton Social's Caramelized Apple Quesadilla
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to cook at home more. Perhaps we should ease into 2009 with simple, delicious recipes from some of New York’s finest chefs? Chef Chris Santos has a wonderful way of transforming finger food into something decadent. The proof: Stanton Social’s packed reservation book. Santos’ quesadillas are a perfect start to the year. Quesadilla “wedges” of caramelized apple, smoky bacon, brie & truffleBy Chris Santos INGREDIENTS: 6 flour tortillas; 6″ each 6 strips of good quality, thick cut, smoked bacon 1 ½ cups brie cheese; at room temperature. 2 cups fresh apples, sliced 1/4 ‘ thick ¼ cup butter 1 tbsp olive oil 1 bunch thyme, chopped 1tbsp white truffle oil PREPARATION:This recipe makes 2 quesadillas to cut into 8 small wedges each. For bacon, cook in 400-degree oven until crispy and...
Read MoreQ & A with Gael Greene
40 years – Most queens don’t rule for that long. But that’s how long ago Gael Greene arrived on the NYC restaurant scene, changing the way we think about food. She reigned as a New York Magazine’s chief restaurant critic for thirty-four years and stayed on until just recently as the magazine’s Insatiable Critic for six years. Greene was notorious for her wide-brimmed hats, passion, and documented affairs with the likes of Clint Eastwood an a chef from Le Cirque chef. Greene created her very own brand of culinary sensuality, sharing every detail of her professional and personal life in her memoir Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess. Two erotic novels, non-fiction guides, and one sexy memoir later, Gael Greene isn’t showing signs of slowing down. Greene bends with the times, adapting to a new world order of...
Read MoreApotheke's Holiday Spirit
The Pine ManhattanBy Barkeep Orson Salicetti Ingredients: 2 oz Pine-infused bourbon 1oz sweet vermouth House made pine bitters Sour cherries marinated in cherry Jerez wine. Preparation: Served up with a pine-rubbed...
Read MoreJohnny Utah's Black-eyed peas with black kale and smoked kielbasa
Chef Marlon Manty Apparently, it’s good luck to eat black-eyed peas to ring in the New Year. Apparently, Marlon Manty is a tad superstitious. Lucky for us, he’s also a chef with a recipe for the occasion. Ingredients: 2 yellow onions, diced 4 cloves of garlic, chopped 4 bunches Tuscan black kale 2# smoked Kielbasa sausage cut into rings 2# cooked black eyed peas, liquid reserved 1 bay leaf Zest of one lemon Red chile flakes Salt and pepper Preparation:This is as easy as it is good. The hardest part of this recipe is cooking the black-eyed peas. As the beans are cooking, or the cans are being opened, thoroughly clean the kale and take out all of the stems. Blanch the kale in really salty boiling water until it has no bite and strain well. In a Large...
Read MoreQ & A with Toshio Suzuki
When sushi chef Toshio Suzuki opened up Manhattan’s SushiZen in 1984, he was up against a lot of skepticism. The very notion of eating raw fish was still a novel concept to New York. Iron Chef Morimoto learned his craft from chef Suzuki. Back then, Suzuki was a radical, daring customers to order “trust his omakase” and brave his live fish preparations. Befoer that, hetrained in Tokyo under Master Chef Nakanori. To think, Suzuki first set out to become a Buddhist monk. These days, the kitchen is his temple where he creates dishes like eel chirashi sushi- a combination of steamed eel, shrimp, salmon roe, chestnuts, ginko nuts and lotus root, over a bed of rice. Single/Married/Divorced?Married with 2 sons. What did you want to be when you grew up?A Buddhist monk. What was your first job...
Read MoreJimmy Bradley's Baked Fontina With Olive Oil & Rosemary Focaccia
(From The Red Cat Cookbook, chef and owner of The Red Cat and The Harrison) Ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs. Italian Fontina, soft, brown rind trimmed and discarded, cut into 1-inch dice 1/4 cup olive oil 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon thyme 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary Salt Freshly ground black pepper Sliced country bread or rolls Preparation:Preheat the broiler. For individual servings, divide the Fontina among four 6-inch cast-iron pans. Drizzle olive oil and scatter the garlic, thyme and rosemary over the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. For one large pan, use a 12-inch cast-iron skillet and follow the same directions.Broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly, 6-7 minutes.Serve each person an individual pan, setting it on a trivet or napkin, or serve the 12-inch pan from the center of the table. Pass the bread alongside for...
Read MoreQ & A with Patrick Connolly
Bobo’s always been a looker. But there’s more to a restaurant than a glittery chandelier and well-dressed dining room. Especially when you’re hungry for dinner. This West Village restaurant has had its share of chef shuffles. But Patrick Connolly is hoping to change bobo’s reputation. Connolly may have won round 1 of Eater’s Hottest Chef Competition, but he doesn’t intend to coast on his good looks either. Connolly got his start working at a family-run pub to pay back his student loans. After dropping out from Johnson & Wales, he went on to work at several restaurants in Providence and Boston. He quickly rose to Executive Chef at Radius in Boston—a modern French restaurant—where he has spent the last four years. This past summer, he received the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northeast. Just recently, the young chef moved...
Read MoreMarket Table's Foolproof Roasted garlic and thyme mashed potatoes
By Chef Mikey Price Ingredients 2 lbs. peeled and chopped Idaho potatoes 1 cup half and half 2 tbsp. butter 1 head roasted garlic (halved and meat removed) 3 sprigs fresh thyme (slightly toasted in 1 tsp. butter) PreparationBoil potatoes in salted water until fork tender. Drain off water and allow to rest for minute. Put potatoes through a ricer while still piping hot. Heat half and half with butter, roasted garlic, and thyme. Add to mashed potatoes along with salt and pepper to taste and mix with a rubber spatula being sure not to over...
Read MoreQ & A with Franklin Becker
It’s a brave chef who would try to rescue a sinking restaurant. That’s just what Franklin Becker did when Gary Robins abruptly abandoned Sheridan Square a few months ago. Unfortunately, both the restaurant and its sister tapas bar, Tierra, were already too far gone and both soon closed. But Franklin Becker isn’t new to the chef shuffle or the sometimes fickle industry. Over the years, he’s managed to earn praise for his cooking at a number of restaurants. With Becker in the kitchen, Capitale was named one of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants of 2007. Tribeca Soho Grand soon followed suit. How many chefs would kill to cook at Le Cirque? Not an easy audition to get, but Becker was just recently a candidate. What did he cook? An eight-course menu that included a salad of exploding bleu cheese croutons,...
Read MoreQ & A with Ryan Skeen
Ryan Skeen made quite an entrance with his lamb burger at Resto. Admittedly, some chefs are one-hit wonders. Not Skeen. This chef transformed Irving Mill — a restaurant that opened to universally negative reviews — into a respectable house of offal. The young chef first honed his skills at Cafe Boulud under Andrew Carmellini. But Resto’s Belgian menu gave us just a glimpse at Skeen’s potential. Irving Mill is a bigger stage stage and a much more formidable undertaking. Here, Skeen has done away with most of the menu, replacing it with an army of porcine plates. The charcroute plate comes with housemade sausages and crispy pigs’ feet or a crispy pig’s ear salad with raddichio, escarole and a poached egg. And it wouldn’t be a Skeen menu without a burger — the Irving Mill patty is a mix of flap...
Read MoreQ & A with Heather Bertinetti
Heather Bertinetti used to clean bathrooms in a patisserie. Now — she’s the head pastry chef at Convivio. Not bad at all. Bertinetti studied at the Culinary Institute of America before landing jobs at Gramercy Tavern and per se. Nowadays, Bertinetti works alongside Michael White at both Alto and Convivio, juggling haute and rustic desserts. At Alto, she layers a homemade torrone with nougat semifreddo, hazelnut cake, and chocolate sauce. At Convivio, she takes a polished approach to Southern Italian with a pistachio tartaletta, garnished with blood orange sorbet and candied pistachios. Single/Married/Divorced?Single. What did you want to be when you grew up?I always wanted to be a pastry chef. What was your first job in food and what did you learn?This little pastry shop in New Jersey called La Petite Patisserie. I learned how to build, make and...
Read MoreJohnny Iuzzini's Thanksgiving Dessert
By Pastry Chef Johnny Iuzzini Ingredients: 65 g Flour 1 tsp Baking soda 1/2 tsp Salt 3 Tbs Ginger, peeled, minced 2 Tbs Candied ginger, minced 3 Tbs Hazelnut crunchies 1 tsp Saigon cinnamon 1/2 tsp Allspice 1/2 tsp Clove 1/2 tsp Nutmeg 170 g Butter, room temp 110 g Sugar 100 g Brown sugar 2 ea Eggs 250 g Molasses 200 g Milk Ingredients for pumpkin mousse: 1200 g Roasted pumpkin pure 4 tsp Saigon cinnamon 1/2 tsp Nutmeg 1/4 tsp Cloves 1/2 tsp Salt 1200 Pumpkin puree 500 g Simple syrup 600 g Cream 12 ea Gelatin sheets Ingredients for cranberry crisp: 520 g Cranberry, fresh 250 g Water 1 % Methocel A4M Ingredients for salted pumpkin seeds:250 g Pumpkin seeds24 g Olive oil2 g Salt50 g Butter Preparations for gingerbread sponge:Sift together the dry ingredients....
Read MoreBobby Flay's Pepper-Pomegranate Molasses Glazed Turkey
(Serves: 6-8) Ingredients: 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature 4 cloves roasted garlic 10 fresh sage leaves, chopped 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 1/2 cups pomegranate molasses ¼ cup prepared horseradish, drained 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard ½ teaspoon kosher salt 1 ½ teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper 1 fresh turkey, about 15 lbs 1 stick unsalted butter, softened Salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 cups homemade chicken stock or low sodium canned broth Preparation:1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. 2. Combine the butter, garlic, sage, salt and pepper in a food processor and process until smooth. 3. Whisk together pomegranate molasses, horseradish, mustard, salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Set aside and let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before using to allow the flavors to meld.4....
Read MoreAn All-Star Thanksgiving
Wish you could cook like America’s top chefs on Thanksgiving? You can come pretty close. New York’s most talented chefs have graciously share their best holiday recipes with us. From turkey to stuffing and dessert, we’ve Thanksgiving covered. First up… Stuffed Pumpkin with Swiss ChardBy Chef Daniel Boulud – adapted from a recipe prepared by his mother, Marie(Serves 10-12) Ingredients: 1 cheese pumpkin, approximately 10-12 pounds 1 kabocha squash (or butternut squash) 2 tbs. olive oil 1 small loaf sourdough bread 1 clove garlic, peeled 3/4 lb. apple wood smoked bacon, cut into match sticks 1/2 cup toasted and chopped pecans 1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds 1 bunch chives, sliced 1 lb. Gruyere cheese, grated 5 cups half and half 4 tsp. Daniel Boulud’s Thanksgiving Spice blend Salt and pepper to taste Preheat oven to 350˚F. Slice the...
Read MoreAlain Ducasse's Simmered Autumn Vegetables with Pork Belly
This is the very dish I learned to cook with the chef just a few weeks ago. INGREDIENTS:(Serves 4)Vegetables 1 celery root 1/2 butternut squash 1/2 rutabaga 2 large sunchokes 2 carrots 4 fingerling potatoes 12 chestnuts 2 salsify 6 porcini mushrooms 1 lb trumpet mushrooms 12 pearl onions 8 breakfast radishes 1/2 Savoy cabbage 1 head of garlic Fruits 2 Fuji apples 1 Bartlett pear 1 bunch seedless green grapes 1 quince Other Ingredients: 1 lb. pork belly Extra Virgin Olive Oil Xérès Sherry Vinegar 5 teaspoons unsalted butter 2 cups beef or chicken stock Fleur de sel Freshly ground black pepper Equipment Cast iron cocotte Mandolin Preparation for the vegetables & fruitsPeel the celery root, butternut squash, and rutabaga, cut into 8 pieces of the desired shape and reserve in cold lemon water. Peel the sunchokes and...
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