Over-sharing

Menus are excessively verbose. That, in a uncharacteristic burst of straightforwardness, is the thesis of this week's post. Reading a modern menu is an absolute onslaught of adjectives and ingredients and verbs and animals and adverbs. The whole experience of sitting down and choosing a meal is wrought with a veritable avalanche of information about origin and method and accompaniments. It all serves only to confuse, and I say this both as a chef and a diner. No one is really to blame, these things often have a life and momentum of their own. I have to list most of the ingredients in a dish, when I write a menu, because the customers expect it; customers expect as much because every other menu they read has the same. Every menu is crammed with information because it is the new convention. Some of my patrons, after reading a dish description which might include only (only!) half a dozen items, ask the waitress: “What else comes with the Snapper?”

The down-side of all this verbosity is threefold. First, it is confusing. No one really wants to know about every single herb used to marinate the quail. Too many ingredients are too difficult to combine mentally, and the patron can't, generally, imagine what their meal might taste like. The highlight reel is better.

Second, it encourages overconfidence. If I give you a list of foods and sprinkle over the top a handful of culinary verbs, customers build expectations. Now, it is well known that the major job of the wait staff is to let people know what they are in for. “Just so you know, there is a half-hour wait on food.” “The squid is more of an starter size...” Building expectations. If customers are left to form their own expectations, well, they are almost bound to be disappointed in one way or another. Knowing every bit of what you are about to eat only serves to form a too-precise image of what is to come, and any disparity spells heartbreak, no matter how great the meal might be.



Third, the practice of listing every ingredient of every dish is So. Fucking. Boring. What happened to mystery? Why should I have to tell every single patron how I execute every single step? Actually, I don't. When I tell you it is a roast ½ chicken, for example, I mean it is a confit leg and pan-roasted breast. There is no reason you, as the diner, needs to know that. Be pleasantly surprised by how good your meal is. When does oversimplification become dishonesty? I don't know. However, I do know that I'd rather a bit of mystery in lieu of over-sharing.

Mystery and surprises are, actually, precisely what I love when writing a menu. And I am not the only one. Some fine dining restaurants are going to the opposite extreme, providing one or two words to describe a dish. I'd like to live somewhere in between, writing a menu that offers enough information to sell the meal, whilst leaving plenty or room for interpretation. It's inside this wiggle room where chef's get to have a bit of fun. For example, I often list ratatouille as a side for various proteins, and customers expect to see stewed Mediterranean-style vegetables; instead they get a pretty little parcel of those same veggies, wrapped in char-grilled eggplant, zucchini, and red capsicum. It is, I hope, something that makes people smile.

I've never served the dish in today's post in the restaurant, but if I were to, I'd call this collection of five different tortellini, each with a different vegetable filling, and brown butter, simply “Roast Vegetable Tortellini” and let the customer discover what's inside each one. Fun!



Roast Vegetable Tortellini

You'll need some fresh pasta for this one, which we covered a few weeks back. Roll the pasta out to the second thinest setting on your machine.

To make tortellini, cut the pasta into 6cm disks. Place a teaspoon of filling into the center of the disk, wet the edges with a bit of water, and fold them over into half circles, pinching gently to seal. Gently grab the two corners and bring them together, giving a half twist so that the edge of the pasta turns up like a little collar. Pinch the two corners together where they meet.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and blanch each type of tortellini separately. Not because they have different cooking times, but because this will help you tell them apart. Cook each batch for about 3-4 minutes, until the torts float and stay on the surface for a minute or two. Drop the tortellini into an ice bath to stop them from cooking. Drain and set aside until ready to serve.

You'll need to make one of each tort for each serve, and you should be able to make about 4-6 serves with the quantities below.

Caramelized Carrot Purée

Right. Purée is a bit of a misnomer here, as it is not nearly smooth enough. The goal with all five of these so-called purées is not so much smoothness as thickness. They need to be firm enough to stand up in a spoon. Caramelized carrots are a favorite of mine, and I have featured them on this blog in the past. Carrots require nothing but a bit of salt and patience to become richly sweet.

1 large carrots, peeled
1 tsp butter

Slice the carrot as thinly as possible (using a mandolin or the slicing blade on a food processor). Heat a small, heavy based pan on medium heat. Add the butter and, when it starts to foam, add the carrots and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, scraping the bottom to prevent sticking, for 140 min – 1 hour. The carrots will break up, dry out considerably, and deepen in color. When the mixture is deep orange and richly caramely sweet, Remove from the heat. Mash with the back of a spoon, or pass through a ricer if you like. Texture is just fine here. Taste and season liberally. Cool and refrigerate.

Parsnip Purée

I love parsnips. They have a vague spice flavor that I can't quite place. They are great roasted, mashed, and boiled. I simply blanch a parsnip here until it is just cooked, and then pass it through a ricer or mouli.

1 parsnip, peeled, roughly chopped

Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Drop in the chopped parsnip and simmer until the pieces can be easily pierced with a knife. Drain. Pass the cooked parsnip through a ricer or mouli. Season the resulting rough purée well. Cool and refrigerate.

Roast Tomato Purée

This is actually tomato fondue – a concentrated tomato paste of which I have written a few times before. This is a recipe, as I keep saying, which you should know and love.

3 large ripe tomatoes, (about 500g total)
½ brown onion, peeled and chopped
1 heaped tsp tomato paste
½ clove garlic, cracked

Remove the core from the tomatoes and slash an x at the bottom of each one. Plunge them into a boiling pot of water for 30 seconds to loosen the skins. Remove and shock in an ice bath to cool. Peel away the skins. Cut the tomatoes in half along the horizontal and roughly squeeze out most of the seeds. Roughly chop the remaining flesh.

In a heavy-bottomed, stainless steel (aluminum is a reactive no-no for tomatoes) pot on medium heat sweat the onion in a bit of oil with a pinch of salt until soft and translucent but not colored. Add the tomato paste and cook until it splits, that is until the oil and tomato separate. Add the ½ garlic clove and then add the tomatoes. Cook over low heat for 1-2 hours, stirring frequently to prevent it catching, until the fondue is very thick and smells of deeply roasted tomatoes. Remove the garlic and season the fondue.

Roast Beetroot Purée

Beets, or as they are called here in OZ, beetroot, are not one of my favorite vegetables. I might have mentioned that before. Something about sweet dirt. That said, beets do have a distinctive flavor and amazing color.

1 beetroot

Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Wrap the beetroot in foil with a pinch of salt and a dash of oil and roast, on a tray, until cooked through – about an hour. You'll be able to easily pierce the beet with a skewer through the middle when it is cooked. Remove from the oven and the foil and cool completely. When cool, peel away the skin with your hands (I suggest gloves) or a pairing knife. Cut the beetroot into cubes and then pulse in a food processor until it is a fine kibble. Without the addition of liquids or oil, the beetroot will never become a perfectly smooth purée. Remember, a bit of texture is a good thing.

Pea Purée

Ok. Confession time. I use frozen peas. In fact, I often use frozen peas. Fresh peas, unless you grow them yourself, are wildly variable. The problem is that peas don't fare well once picked (they become less sweet and more starchy over time). Frozen, sadly, for those of us without a garden, are the best alternative.

½c peas, blanched

Drain the blanched peas. Pulse them in a food processor until they form a very rough paste. Season liberally.

Finishing the Tortellini (With a Brown Butter Sauce)

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Drop one serve (that's one of each type of tortellini into the water. Boil 2-3 minutes and remove with a slotted spoon.

Meanwhile, in a small pan on medium heat, melt a tablespoon or two of butter. Allow it to foam up and then subside. Remove the butter from the heat at the moment the milk solids (that is, the yellow flecks which separate out when the butter foams) begin to brown. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to the pan to arrest the cooking and keep warm.

Toss the cooked and drained tortellini in the butter and arrange in a bowl. Sauce with the remaining brown butter and add a herb or two, possibly a bit of ricotta, maybe a few shavings of parmesan, as garnish.