This summer, while sitting at the dock of Matthew’s beach, one of my chef friends said to me with great excitement, “I think I have constructed the perfect hamachi dish: grapefruit, lavender, fennel-saffron puree, fennel pollen”. I looked at him, wide eyed, and asked him how many times he had tested the recipe. He looked back at me, laughed a little due to my ignorance and said, “No, Stage. It is all up here” as he pointed to his thick head of black hair.
Then, two days ago, only the last Monday I will ever work at Tavolata, I watched as my sous chef started writing down a recipe for braised lamb shanks with farro risotto (or “farroto” ) and pumpkin. Geez. Taking the white and yellow paper from the small printer that prints out tickets, he started listing ingredients and his method of braising. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know how to braise lamb, but I can’t guarantee that my recipe would be good enough to serve to customers in a restaurant. I guess that is why i am just a “Stage”.
Should all cooks should be able to concept a dish in their minds, and have it work on the plate? I guess recipes start to make sense when you know a basic method and then begin swapping ingredients and changing flavor profiles. Each dish, ideally, should be salty, sweet, savory, bitter, and sour. All at the same time. And of course, if you really want to get detailed: mouthfeel, temperature, texture….
I get too caught up in other people’s cooking lessons like David Chang or Thomas Keller to ever want to venture out on my own and trust my instincts. There are just too many new recipes to try to rely on my boring mind to create a dish. I guess it is my “Stage” syndrome of always having someone next to me, telling me what to do. As long as I have Giorgio Locatelli to guide me or Judy Rogers to teach me, I am golden.
Yet, I want to cook for a living. Right? And eventually, I want to have a huge influence on a menu someday. Now I do as I am told, but soon enough, I will be telling other cooks my methods.
Which means, people, I really need to start practicing. So, yesterday, on a whim, I walked around the grocery store picking up random items just like I would if I was creating a dish in my mind: red chard, pomegranate, pancetta, parmigiano, and a pork tenderloin. Trying to find all of the different tastes in the products I picked out.
And boy, did it work. Maybe I did pick the right profession.
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Serves 4
1 16 oz. pork tenderloin
6 slices pancetta or guanciale, minced the same as your onion
1 medium onion, finely minced
1 c. arborio rice
1 c. white wine, plus the other three cups for drinking while making the dish
6 c. good quality chicken stock (homemade is preferable)
Olive oil
Grapeseed oil
1 garlic clove, slice
1/2 bunch of red chard, leaves removed from stems and chopped, stems thinly sliced
1/2 c. parmigiano reggiano
1 garlic clove, skin on and smashed
1 sprig of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
2 tbsp. salted butter
2 tbsp. pomegranate seeds
Kosher salt
Cracked Black pepper
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Take pork out to allow it to get to room temperature. Heat the chicken stock in a big pot on your back burner over low heat until small bubbles appear.
In a wide skillet, or risotto pan if you are fancy, heat up 2 tbsp. olive oil over medium-high heat. Add in pancetta and crisp it until golden. Then add in the onion, and lower heat. The onions should not get any color, but be translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add in the arborio, and toast the rice in the pancetta fat for about 1 minute. Deglaze with the white wine and let the wine completely cook off, stirring the risotto. Then add one ladle of chicken stock, stir to combine, and let the chicken stock absorb slowly into the rice. Repeat.
Meanwhile, heat another skillet over high heat with 1 tbsp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. grapeseed oil. Season the pork generously with salt. More than seems normal. When the pan start to smoke, lay the tenderloin in the pan away from you to prevent splatter. Cook the tenderloin until a carmely skin start to form on one side. Flip the tenderloin over, and immediately place it in the oven for 5 minutes.
Keep ladling your stock into the risotto when the rice has absorbed the liquid. Cook until just slightly al dente.
Get yet another small skillet and heat 1 tbsp. olive oil over medium high heat. I know, I know. Four pots on the stove. Thinly slice (or use a mandoline) one clove of garlic and let it infuse into the oil. Add the chard stems, and saute them. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for two minutes. Then add the leaves and a bit of chicken stock and toss with tongs. Cover the pot with a lid, remove from heat, and set aside.
Keep ladling your stock into the risotto.
Take the pork out of the oven. It should be firm to the touch, but not hard, and put it over a medium-high flame. Carefully, using the same hot skillet, add the butter the cracked garlic and the herbs. Tilt the pan at a 45 degree angle and starting quickly spooning the melted butter over the pork, basting it to finish the cooking. As you are ladling the butter, a foamy layer should start to form on top of the pork. crisping the skin. After about 1 minute of basting, remove the pork to let it rest.
Adjust the seasoning for your chard stems and leaves and once your risotto is cooked, add the chard mixture into the rice. Add the parmigiano reggiano and adjust for seasonings.
Thinly slice the pork. Heat two bowls in your preheated oven for about 1 minute. Ladle the risotto in a pile on the bottom, topped with the slices of pork. Drizzle the pork with a little bit of olive oil and season just the top with salt. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds. Serve immediately.
November 4, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Outstanding. I love the combination of flavors and textures here. We use pork tenderloins A LOT and I’m always looking for new ways to do it. Excellent tip on crisping the pork skin. I will have to try this
November 4, 2009 at 3:22 pm
This dish looks perfect.
I think with cooking, as with dancing (? I don’t know, I rarely dance these days…) the more you learn and practice, the better you’ll get.
November 4, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Hi! I stumbled across your blog, and I’m totally fascinated how you’ve gone from ballerina to gourmet chef. I think I’m a little bit like you, although I’m not sure I could take my cooking that far. I just like to cook, it’s not quite at the love stage yet haha.
Your dish you created looks amazing… pork and pomegranate. interesting combination but life can surprise you sometimes, eh?
I have a question for you: do you miss ballet? or do you feel like that’s a chapter in your life thats done and completed, and this is what you do now? i’m a ballet dancer, but due to last year, im sort of reconsidering what i want to do, yet, of course, i can’t really stop dancing. so i guess im also wondering, what exactly made you feel like it was time to do something new?
thanks
November 7, 2009 at 4:38 am
I can relate with you on getting complacent by using recipes from great chefs like David Chang and Thomas Keller (interestingly enough, I just bought both books this week!). But you did a great job with the pork and risotto! Well done!
November 9, 2009 at 10:58 pm
I love how you wrote “plus the other three cups for drinking while making the dish” because that’s what I do while making risotto too.
November 9, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Kari,
You should come and cook with me a the winery next year, it;s all about what fresh ingredients are available and faking a recipe to feed about 10 to 15 workers and keeping it new every day . Lots of good food and even more good wine!
November 30, 2009 at 4:49 am
Gosh that looks beautiful! I will make it someday, whenever pomegranate seeds present themselves :).