D is for Dinner: It's art! It's food! It's 'Splat'
CBC News | Posted: October 14, 2018 12:50 PM | Last Updated: October 14, 2018
Marc Lepine, chef at Atelier, shares an original recipe for a colourful dining experience
Ottawa chef Marc Lepine is launching a new cook book delving into the unique recipes served at Atelier Restaurant., which have drawn smiles and raised eyebrows over the past ten years.
At Lepine's restaurant on Rochester Street, the dishes are prepared in unique ways. The chef does not use traditional restaurant equipment in his kitchen, such as an oven.
Instead, the two-time Canadian culinary champion uses equipment like an aquarium pump, liquid nitrogen, a cotton candy machine and heat guns.
Guests at Atelier are served a 12-course tasting menu that lasts approximately three hours, with intricate dishes designed to elicit reactions from diners.
His recipes includes dishes like eel wrapped in chicken-skin and duck-fat ice cream.
His book will be launched on Oct. 20 at Library and Archives Canada.
Lepine shared his recipe for one of his dishes, which can be made at home, with CBC Radio's All In A Day.
'Splat'
Ingredients:
- Buttered beet puree.
- Lemon confit.
- Raw yellow beets, tossed with yuzu.
- Raw shallot slices.
- Lebanese cucumber ribbons.
- Cucumber flowers.
- Cherry tomatoes, sliced.
- Red currants.
- Breakfast radish, sliced thin.
- Nasturtium leaf.
- Tiny garden radishes with leaves attached.
- Feta cheese, cut into 1-centimetre cubes.
- Dill flowers.
- Raw purple cauliflower, chopped small.
- Fennel sprigs.
- Corn flowers.
- Small swiss chard leaves.
- Wood sorrel sprigs.
- Calendula petals.
- Sweet woodruff.
Instructions:
To make the beet puree:
- 2 medium red beets, peeled and quartered.
- 1 T. water.
- 100 g butter, but into 4 pieces.
- Salt.
- Seal beets at full pressure in a vacuum bag with water and cook in simmering water until just cooked through.
- Blend beets in Vita Prep blender and add butter one quarter at a time, waiting each time for the butter to melt before adding the next piece.
- Add salt to taste.
To make the lemon confit:
- 4 lemons.
- 200 g sugar.
- 1.5 g salt.
- Using a vegetable peeler, remove all the peels from the lemons.
- Blanch the peels in boiling water for one minute, then drain.
- Blanch the peels in a fresh pot of boiling water for another minute, then drain.
- Repeat process one more time, again with a fresh pot of water.
- Pat lemon peels dry with paper towels.
- Immerse peels in liquid nitrogen until frozen, approximately 10 seconds.
- Immediately transfer to Thermomix and grind peels into a coarsely chopped texture.
- Transfer the chopped peels into a pot.
- Squeeze the juice from the peeled lemons through strainer into the pot as well, and add the salt and sugar.
- Simmer everything together over medium low heat until reduced by half, this should take approximately 30 minutes.
- Store in refrigerator (this will thicken the mixture up to a syrupy consistency).
To make the yellow beets:
- 1 medium yellow beet.
- 1 tsp. Yuzu juice.
- 1 tsp. lemon juice.
- Slice yellow beets paper thin using a mandolin.
- Cut into 1-inch discs using a cookie cutter.
- Toss immediately with lemon and Yuzu juice and store in the juice.
To prepare the shallots:
- 1 medium shallot.
- Peel the shallot and slice crosswise into paper thin slices.
- Soak slices in ice water for 20 minutes, then drain.
To prepare the cucumber ribbons:
- 1 Lebanese cucumber.
- Use a vegetable peeler to slice the cucumber lengthwise into ribbons.
- Roll up the ribbons tightly like scrolls.
- Cut each scroll in half and se cut side down, with peel facing upwards.
To assemble:
- Using a spoon, splat the buttered beet puree all over the plate in a messy fashion.
- Drop 1 tsp. of lemon confit randomly all over the plate.
- Place three yellow beet disks and eight slices of cherry tomato spaced apart.
- Add relative amounts of all remaining ingredients to cover the plate, but don't overlap any over each other.