Bar Centro at The Bazaar
My favorite meal of the year was at this fancypants restaurant,
The Bazaar at the SLS. A Beverly Hills scene filled with emaciated model types who look like they haven’t eaten in weeks, it’s not really my scene. But the chef, José Andrés, trained under Ferran Adria at
El Bulli and is fantastically talented. He manages to make molecular gastronomy satisfying as well as mind boggling. High-tech fare like spherified olives and foie gras cotton candy are counterbalanced by the more traditional tapas of sautéed mushrooms and Spanish tortilla. Every dish is gorgeously presented and more importantly, delicious.
One of the standout dishes was the papas Canarias, potatoes in the Canary Islands style. Basically it’s baby fingerlings boiled in salty water with mojo verde. They look unimpressive, shriveled with a thin rime of dried salt, but they taste delicious.So when I had some friends coming over last night, I thought, how hard can it be? I tossed handfuls of salt into a pot of water until it tasted as acrid as seawater and boiled some baby potatoes from the farmer’s market in it for 25 minutes. I drained them and let the taters dry in a warm oven. Meanwhile I grabbed some various herb sprigs from the garden for the mojo verde – mostly Italian parsley, a couple sprigs of cilantro, a couple leaves of basil. I added a garlic clove, a teaspoon of lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon, a half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes with salt and pepper and then blended it with 3/4 a cup of extra virgin olive oil.
close enough
Despite perfectly cooked tuna and a grilled shrimp and nectarine salad, the potatoes were easily the hit of the night. Salty on the outside, sweet and creamy on the inside, the potatoes were almost identical to the Bazaar ones. They weren’t quite as salty which is probably a good thing. And I don’t quite remember what the mojo verde was like at the restaurant but my green sauce was tasty to the point where people were dipping tuna, bread and everything else in it. So I’m onto you, Chef José! Next, I’m ripping off your modern Caprese with spherified liquid mozzarella!
I just need some sodium alginate
2 comments:
Dear Bad Marty,
In a moment of impulse and overestimation of culinary skills, I bought a small pack of rendered duck fat. But I don't have any idea of what to do with it. Suggestions please?
(I'm writing this to Bad Marty rather than Good Marty because duck fat seems more like a Bad Marty ingredient.)
Thanks!
Jennifer
Do what we did when we had the duck confit. Use the fat to fry potatoes. Or anything. Eggs. Onions. Anything you want to taste meaty. French fries. It's why fries taste better where they fry them in beef fat. Or in New Zealand where they fry them in sheep fat and you think it's great until you realize that the smell of rendered mutton fat pervades every corner of every city.
If you want to make confit, you'll need a lot more than a little bit and you'll need some duck legs, too.
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