the last few weeks, i've been having my sous chef scott make some of his own specials. the only involvement i really had was in the planning stage and maybe some of the prep via his direction. i know that when i was working for someone else, when i had the chance to create things on my own it not only helped to boost my self esteem, but it taught me to be creative. and to make mistakes. without mistakes you will never learn.
last week, scott wanted to do a lancashire hot pot with the left over lamb shanks. so as we talked through it, he decided to deconstruct it. i think it was an excellent idea. to deconstruct a dish, you take all the elements in the traditional dish and essentially tear it apart and put it back together. a hot pot is traditionally stewed with lamb, potatoes, carrots and onions served with pickled cabbage. so he took all those elements and presented them in a different way.
first he marinated the lamb for a few hours in a mix of herbs (mint, chives and thyme if i remember correctly...) and olive oil. then it was roasted low n slow. i think 250 degrees for about 12 hours.
i have to say, when i arrived that morning the kitchen smelled freaking awesome.
for the potatoes and carrots he cut shoestring fries. pickled his own red cabbage (again, mistakes lead to lessons learned. now we BOTH know malt vinegar is NOT a good one for pickling cabbage.) we needed a sauce for this to bring it all together. so a caper mint cream sauce was decided.
here's the final product.
this week..scotty did an asparagus and goat cheese frittata with wilted spinach and an herbed aioli. that stuff flew outta the kitchen. i didn't get a lot of pictures of the process because...well, i don't know. i just didn't. either way, well done scotty. well done.
so, giving credit where its due... scott, you rocked this shiz out. high five brother. i'm proud of how far you've come since you started and i'm honored to work with you!
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