Prune

Yield: 4 orders	x16	x20
8 rabbit legs	32	40
4 shallots, thinly sliced	16	1qt.
1 pint cornichons, sliced on bias in halves or thirds	4 pts.	¾ qt.
1 pint brine from the cornichons	4 pts.	¾-1 qt.
1 cup white wine vinegar	4 c.	1½ c.
2 quarts Chicken Stock	4 qts.	4-5 qts.
3 Tablespoons blended oil
1 Tablespoon sweet butter + more for serving
chopped flat-leaf parsley

Pat the rabbit legs dry and season with salt and pepper. In a flat-bottomed rondeau large enough to fit the legs in one layer without crowding, heat mixed fats—more oil than butter. Brown the legs, both sides. Keep flame between medium and medium-high but be gentle; there is no skin to protect the flesh.

Remove the browned legs and deglaze the pan and minimal fond with the shallots; sweat for 2–3 minutes. Add a knob of butter if the pan seems dry.

Add the cornichons, the brine, and the white wine vinegar and bring up to a simmer.

Return the legs to the pan and nestle them in a neat and organized fashion.

Add the chicken stock just short of covering; the legs should look like crocodiles at the surface of the swamp.

Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid; if they are all warped and ill-fitting, then lay in a parchment circle, cover with plastic film and foil for a tight seal.

Set in a 350° oven and braise for 35–45 minutes until they are tender and the small leg joint is flexible.

To plate/finish:

Place legs and vegetables in bowl.

Whisk cold butter into braising liquid until full-bodied and the high acidity tamed but not fully sedated. Shower with freshly chopped parsley on the way to the pass.

Whole Grilled Fish with Toasted Fennel Oil

branzino, 1½ pounds each, scaled and gutted

fennel fronds

lemon slices

Toasted Fennel Oil

blended oil

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Rinse fish well under cold running water, and run your fingernail up in the cavity to break the bloody vein that runs along the spine. Rinse well.

Drain fish well after you have rinsed them.

Neatly dress each cavity with a few sprigs of fennel frond and a few very thinly sliced ½ moons of lemon.

Brush both sides with blended oil and season well with salt and pepper from high up to rain down evenly.

Grill on hot section of grill 4 minutes per side, crosshatching at 2-minute intervals.

Do not lift the fish before you have set a good initial mark on it or you will tear the skin.

Set on large oval and spoon fennel seed oil generously over fish, stirring up the seeds from the bottom of the quart. Stick your finger up into the cavity to be sure you have cooked the fish long enough. It should be hot enough in there to make you quickly draw back your finger.

Expediter will finish with lemon cheek and Maldon sea salt.

**When you have a ticket rail full of whole fish orders and all are fired at once, do not waste any real estate on your tiny grill or you will slow down the line.

Line them up on the grill just 1" apart, heads toward you and angled to the left, like back slashes on a computer keyboard. After 2 minutes, mimic the action of windshield wipers on a car, angling the fish in the opposite direction—forward slash on a computer keyboard—leaving the heads of the fish in virtually the same location they were in when you dropped them on the grill, and by just shifting their bodies and tails to the opposite angle. After 2 minutes, flip in place and repeat on the second side.**

Toasted Fennel Oil

5 quarts	x2 c.	x½ batch
½ cup fennel seeds	1T.	¼c.
½ cup black peppercorns	1T.	¼c.
8 cups blended oil	1 c.	4c.
8 cups extra virgin olive oil	1 c.	4c.

Cover the bottom of the largest cast-iron skillet with fennel seeds and peppercorns.

Over medium heat, shake and swirl the pan and warm the seeds through until fragrant and just barely starting to smoke.

Immediately remove from heat and add 2 cups of the blended oil and 2 cups of the virgin oil, then evenly distribute the seeds and their oil among 5 clean quart containers.

Top off each quart with equal parts blended and virgin oil.

Keep in walk-in for the week.

Braised Lamb Shoulder with Lemons, Tomatoes, and Cinnamon

Yield: 6 orders (+/−)	x20 +/-
3 pounds lamb shoulder, bone out	2 whole (12-14#)
2 cinnamon sticks	6 cinn.
¾ cup garlic cloves, lightly crushed	¾qt.
1 cup lemon wedges, quartered or cut into sixths	1 qt.
½ (750 ml) bottle red wine	1½ bottles
1 (28-ounce) can Muir Glen whole peeled tomatoes, reserve juice	#10 can
	burnt toast?

Look over the lamb shoulders to see if they need any trimming. What Pino sends us rarely, if ever, needs additional work, but on the outside chance that there is some leathery or dark yellow fat, trim it. Generously season with salt and pepper all over.

Brown the lamb shoulder well on all sides in a hot rondeau with a glug of blended oil. Brown one at a time, giving them room to lie open and flat in the rondeau.

Remove the well-browned lamb shoulder from the pan and pour out the dark fat.

Add the cinnamon sticks and garlic cloves and stir around in the pan, kind of toasting and picking up the fond in a way.

Add the lemons and deglaze, loosening and scraping up the fond with the juice of the lemon wedges as you crush them with your wooden spoon.

Pour in red wine and let it hiss and boil, stirring the bottom of the pan with your wooden spoon to get any last recalcitrant bits.

Add the tomatoes, crushing each one briefly in your fist to release juices. Add the juice they were packed in as well. Bring liquid to simmer.

Fold the lamb shoulders back into the shape they had before they were boned out, and nestle both of them into the braising liquid, side by side. Cover with parchment round cut to exceed the circumference of the rondeau so that it really seals in the steam. If you are working with a new pot in good shape, covering with its corresponding lid will do. If you are working with one of the dented, warped ones, seal with film, foil, and a lid for good measure.

Set in middle of 350° oven and braise 3–4 hours until the meat separates easily with just the prodding of a wooden spoon.

This is a heat and serve, but take care. On the pickup, make sure each portion gets a nice soft, cooked lemon, if you can. And take a good look to see that you haven’t given anyone an all-fat portion.

**Taste the braising liquid at the end of the braise, sometimes it can be too astringent from the tomato and lemon, especially if the meat was lean.

If it tastes too bright, heavily char — almost burn — 2 slabs of peasant bread on the grill, and add them to the lamb. Push the burnt toast down into the liquid to soak it, soften it, and eventually break it down. It will add body to the braise and soften the astringency. Taste again later.**

Grilled Ribeye Steak with Parsley-Shallot Butter

prime, dry-aged (30 days) rib-eye steak

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Parsley-Shallot Butter

lemon cheek

parsley sprig

Butcher ribeye to 14–16 ounces each. Don’t shingle, saw, or hack. Use the appropriate tools for the different parts of the job. I often see you using a too-big knife for the finer work of trimming, and a too-small knife for the critical part of portioning.

Try to yield 13 orders from a whole #109; if you can get 14, even better. Sometimes the 7th rib is too thin to yield a full order.

Discard only the funkiest of funky trim, the truly inedible leathery and moldy parts, but leave anything very dark and as close to the edge of palatable as possible.

Save bones and viable trim and contribute to family bin or stock bin.

Rain salt and pepper on each side before grilling. Move steak around the grill a lot to get full crusty brown surface—we do not want the impossibly unnatural Outback Steakhouse crosshatched grill mark weirdness.

Take it from grill to plate and let it rest with the expediter, not in your grill station. She will finish it with healthy schmear of ps butter, lemon cheek, and parsley branch.

This is too expensive to fuck up; know your temperatures—and get a more senior fellow cook’s second opinion if you are new to the station. I’d rather you ask for help than ruin the meat by overcooking.

Cod in Saffron Broth with Leeks, Potatoes, and Savoy Cabbage

Yield: 4 orders

2 pounds cod, filleted, skin on, and butchered to 5 ounces

2 Tablespoons Berbere Spice Mixture

1 cup Fish Stock

1 medium shallot, finely diced

3 small pinches saffron

3–4 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter

clarified butter

2 medium leeks, sliced to ½" disks as far up into green as viable, completely free of sand

generous ½ pound savoy cabbage, cut into attractive wide ribbons

1 dozen Yukon gold baby potatoes, scrubbed, skin on, sliced into ½" disks

1 cinnamon stick

2 thyme branches, long and thin, not the bushy, woody ones

For the vegetables:

Bring 8 quarts of well-salted water to a boil in a large pot. Have a baker’s rack set inside a sheet pan ready at your station.

Add potatoes to boiling water and cook until nearly done, keeping in mind they will carry over residual heat while they drain. Gently remove with a spider and lay out on baker’s rack to cool.

Repeat with the leeks.

And then the cabbage.

When vegetables are cool, pack separately.

For the pickup:

Bring fish stock, minced shallot, thyme, saffron threads, and cinnamon stick to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Let it slightly reduce and come together while you cook the fish.

Heat moderate ladle of clarified butter in flat-bottomed sauté pan over medium-high heat. Weed out the warped and buckled pans before service or they will kill your game all night long.

Season portioned codfish on both sides with the Berbere spice rub. Take care with your seasoning—it wants to be bold and have a point of view, but not aggressive or unbalanced.

Sear codfish, skin side down, in the hot pan with clari and take it all the way on the stove top, flipping once. Get good, crisp, golden brown skin, with opaque flesh. You want the natural flake line to start to open, but don’t take it so far that you lose all that milky enzyme as it weeps into the pan.

To finish broth:

Look at what you have in your saucepot—further reduce or build back up slightly with more fish stock, depending on what you see. You want fragrant, full-bodied, slightly viscous saffron broth that can still receive a few nuts of cold mounted butter, and is still hot and brothy enough to be able to warm through a few ribbons of juicy cabbage, several coins of watery leeks, and a few waxy potato slices without totally thinning out into body-less liquid.

Spoon the finished broth and all the veg into the wide bowl; leave nothing in the pan. Center cod, flesh side up.

Fish out the cinnamon stick and the thyme branch and make sure they are visible in the bowl, like a garnish.

Roast Suckling Pig with Black-Eyed Peas and Pickled Tomatoes

For the pig:

1 small pig, not under 30 pounds and not larger than 40 pounds, at the very last stage of suckling

15 garlic cloves, peeled

kosher salt

blended oil

*Only order the little little guys — 20-pounders — for smaller private parties. For regular service, get the 40-pounders.*

For the black-eyed peas:

2 pounds black-eyed peas, dried, picked through

1 yellow onion, quartered

3 bay leaves

10 black peppercorns

kosher salt

olive oil to taste

red wine vinegar to taste

½ cup cilantro, cleaned, chopped

1 red onion, peeled, neatly diced

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pickled Tomatoes

For the pig:

Bard generously with garlic cloves, some of the cloves cut in half to be inserted more easily.

Rub pig with blended oil.

Season generously with kosher salt. Sprinkle evenly and liberally—it helps crisp the skin—but take care not to make it prohibitively salty as we collect the juices and drippings that form in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Set pig in largest roasting pan or on sheet pan, front legs straight in front, back legs also facing front, exactly like a deep-seated forward bend in yoga.

Roast at 350° in a dry oven until you reach internal temp of 160° in the deepest part of the hind leg, about 3½ hours. If ears start to blacken during roasting, tent them with foil.

When skin is crisp and mahogany, and meat in deepest part of haunch is at 165°, legs are loose at the joints—remove from oven and allow to rest 30 minutes–1 hour.

If roasting overnight, set the ovens to 250° and put the pigs in at midnight so that morning crew can retrieve them at 7 a.m.

*LEAVE A BIG NOTE ON THE OVEN DOOR FOR THE MORNING CREW*

For the black-eyed peas:

Soak peas in double their water in walk-in overnight.

Drain and cook in triple their water, at a constant simmer, until perfectly tender.

Make sure water is seasoned well with salt and a simple cheesecloth sachet of diced yellow onion, black peppercorns, and a couple of bay leaves. I don’t like the way they taste bland if you season them at the end, like a lot of people recommend, and I can’t discern any “toughness,” which supposedly salting at the outset inflicts. But when you go on to work at another restaurant in the future, check how the chef prefers the beans cooked before starting.

Drain when cooked, and while warm, season with oil, vinegar, chopped cilantro, fine diced red onion, and black pepper.

To plate:

Sticky hot suckling pig, pulled with your fingers from the carcass but not shredded. We want slabs and segments, not pulled pork, please.

A spoonful of the pan juices collected from the roasting pans, mixed with a little water if too intense and too salty. Be vigilant not to overdilute in attempt to stretch your mise—I really dislike that trick.

A small raft of crispy skin set on top of the meat.

One large spoonful of room-temperature black-eyed peas, one chef’s spoon of pickled tomatoes, and all of their piquant juices.

Pigeon with Parsley Vinaigrette and Seeded Toasts

Yield: 4 orders	x16
8 pigeons, breastcage and backbones removed, keep livers if attached	32 birds
2 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil	½ c. evoo
generous sprinkle aleppo pepper	aleppo
generous sprinkle urfa pepper	urfa
spare sprinkle chile de árbol	d’arbol
salt	S+P
freshly groung black pepper
zest of 1 grapefruit, microplaned	zest

For parsley vinaigrette:

Yield: 4 orders	x16
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced	4 small
1 cup Italian parsley leaves	2c.
2 cups Pigeon/Quail Stock	12c.
¼ cup cider vinegar	½c.
8 Tablespoons sweet butter, cut in ⅙’s	2#
1 teaspoon aleppo pepper	4tsp
1 teaspoon urfa pepper	4tsp
¼ teaspoon chile de árbol	1 tsp
kosher salt to taste	salt +/-

For the toast:

8 long slices peasant bread, sliced thin

2 Tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

2 Tablespoons toasted poppy seeds

2 Tablespoons toasted millet

2 Tablespoons toasted flax seeds

Butcher birds, removing wishbones first, then proceeding with rib cage and backbones. Leave wings and legs intact. Make stock with collected bones when you have accumulated 15 pounds of bones.

*SAVE WISHBONES FOR BIRTHDAYS*

Collect livers when attached, and marinate collectively, in the same container and manner as with the birds.

Season pigeons with the oil, salt, aleppo, urfa, árbol, and grapefruit zest, and allow to rest overnight in refrigerator. Stay a day ahead on your prep so they have time to take the seasonings.

To pick up:

Grill bird, gentler side of grill, starting breast side down.

Turn gently a couple of times during cooking, for a total of 8–12 minutes. Keep breasts between rare and medium rare but pay attention to leg and wing joints.

Remove birds from grill and let rest on the plate while you make dressing and toast.

If there are livers culled from the butchering, drop one set quickly on the hot grill now and give it a quick 90 seconds to medium rare while you finish the toast and the dressing.

Boil pigeon stock in nonreactive saucepot until reduced by almost half.

Add cold butter and continue to boil until melted and stock becomes “creamy.”

Put shallots and parsley in small stainless bowl and toss briefly with the aleppo, urfa, and árbol.

Pour hot stock-butter mixture over shallots and parsley and let steep briefly.

Season with cider vinegar and seasonings until perfectly balanced.

Toast peasant bread.

Butter generously.

Coat liberally with all the seeds plus Maldon sea salt flakes.

To plate:

Buttered, seeded toasts.

Grilled pigeon liver, if they were attached.

Grilled pigeon on top of toast and any juice from the resting.

Spoon dressing over and around, include the parsley and shallots.

Panfried Softshell Crabs, Jersey Shore Style

softshell crabs—primes or hotels

Wondra flour

chopped garlic

unsalted butter

blended oil

chopped flat-leaf parsley

dry white wine

lemons

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat large sauté pan over medium-high heat.

Add mixed fats—butter and blended oil—generously.

Snip off eyes and gills of live crabs—2 per order.

Dredge in Wondra and when fats in pan are hot and foamy, slip in both crabs, shell side down.

Protect yourself. This is not the time to be wearing a short-sleeved disher’s shirt—make sure you are in a proper chef jacket with the sleeves unfurled to your wrists. Get the clear safety glasses from the toolbox downstairs. Be very careful with your eyes. The liquid boils inside the crabs and inevitably explodes, driving streaking hot fat right at you. Please don’t be macho—I think a cook with too many burns looks like an amateur and does not reflect well on our skills. Take care of yourself.

When crabs are crispy and golden on the shell side, use a fish spatula and flip over onto the belly side. About 2 full minutes per side. Baste with a spoon, over and over.

Remove crabs to the plate. Again, use a slotted fish spatula and not tongs—we don’t want to squeeze or mangle the delicious juices out of the crabs.

Pour out the cooking fat and return sauté pan to the flame.

Add cold butter, chopped garlic, salt, and pepper and quickly swirl around to melt the butter and release the aroma of the garlic. Don’t get color on the garlic.

Hit the pan with white wine until the hissing stops. Swirl and swirl and scrape up the fond from the bottom of the pan. Use a spoon; if I see you doing this with tongs like some hack, you are fired. Look at what you have in the pan—if it’s too loose and bright from the wine, let it reduce a minute until it has body. If it’s already got body, pull it off the heat and finish with a couple more knobs of cold butter, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a good hit of freshly chopped parsley.

Taste your sauce. We want summer at the Jersey shore—that ubiquitous scampi sauce they pour over all the seafood indiscriminately at those bad but great boardwalk restaurants.

Spoon over softies.

Lemon cheek and parsley branch garnish.

Beef Short Ribs Braised in Pho Broth with Condiments

Yield: 4 orders

212 475 8134
5.99/# bone-in

Pho-Style Oxtail Broth

8 beef short ribs, cut at 4 inches

kosher salt

white pepper

braising liquid from ribs

Thai basil

mung bean sprouts

mint branches

limes

For the beef short ribs:

Season ribs with salt and white pepper.

Brown on all sides, evenly and well, in rondeau on stovetop.

Remove ribs, pour off fat.

Deglaze rondeau with defatted pho broth, return ribs to rondeau in neat and organized fashion, and add pho broth just to barely submerge. Crocodiles in a swamp.

Cover with parchment round, foil, and lid.

Braise in 350° oven for 2–3 hours. Check at 2 hours.

We want luscious and tender—return to oven or remove from oven, accordingly.

When you can, lift ribs out of broth and let cool on a baker’s drying rack.

Discard any bones that have fallen off completely, but leave the heavy flap of connective tissue attached to the short rib.

Strain the braising liquid.

Pack ribs away overnight in the walk-in and tidy them up the following day when they are rigid from cold so they won’t shred and fall apart when you cut away the connective tissue and remove any bones that have remained intact.

Yield meaty, full, tidy squares of short rib that you can handle elegantly later in the pickup.

Contribute shreds and lean, inferior ribs to family meal.

To pick up:

Reheat ribs simply and gently in their braising liquid on stovetop, in covered pot.

Reduce broth just enough to give it curves—we want it to remain brothy and full-bodied—not sticky.

Serve in large wide bowl.

Add cold, fresh Thai basil branch; crisp, clean, watery mung bean sprouts; mint branch; and freshly cut lime cheek at the pass.

*Take care with the quality of the sprouts. Keep the water crystal clear and cold and fresh. Do not stick your dirty line cook fingers in there to retrieve them. Use a fork.

AND WASH YOUR HANDS, PEOPLE!

Live Crayfish Boil with Potatoes, Corn, Sausage, and Onions

Yield: 8 orders	x16
1 quart Homemade Old Bay
5 quarts water
4 pounds live crayfish	8# ruby
1½ pounds small potatoes, blanched	3# pots.
1½ pounds sweet Italian sausage, parcooked	3# ital.
3 large red onions, cut in wedges	6 onion
3–4 ears yellow corn, husked	5-6 ears
1 cup Smoked Paprika Butter, softened	-
1 cup sweet butter, softened	-

Boil water with Homemade Old Bay at least 30 minutes before service. Like a savory, powerful tea.

Drop potatoes and corn in first. Let simmer 4 minutes.

Add sausage and onions. 1 minute at full simmer.

Then add crayfish until just cooked through—bright red tails, springy when you squeeze them. 2–3 minutes.

Use a slotted spoon to retrieve and pile attractively but casually into bowl—arrange crayfish, sausage, and onions evenly. Make sure vivid yellow corn is near top.

Slather whole mess with both smoked paprika butter and plain sweet butter, in a kind of luscious marbled effect, and drench the goods with a ladleful of the cooking broth to finish.

*Don’t pick out the seasoning bits from the boil mixture that end up in the bowl — just leave whatever stray garlic clove or cardamom pod as is. It’s part of the deal.

*Taste the boil liquid throughout the night. After too many orders, it gets too salty and powerfully condensed. Start fresh with new batch but be sure to let it simmere 30 minutes before using.

**Run with ruby shrimp from Cape Cod when live crayfish are unavailable but change price on menu accordingly**

Boiled Beef Dinner

Yield: 4 orders	x16
2 pounds oxtail, browned, braised, meat picked—bones/cartilage discarded	8#
8 cups Oxtail Broth	8qts.
1½ pounds trimmed beef tenderloin, cut into 4 equal portions at 6 ounces each	6#
4 small sheets caul fat	caul fat
4 ounces veal heart, thinly sliced	1# ♡
4 ounces cooked veal tongue, in ¼-inch slices across the tongue	1# tongue
4 veal marrow bones, cut in 1 pieces	16 bones
8 carrots, neatly peeled	32 carrot
12 pearl onions, blanched and peeled	48 onion
8 baby turnips, neatly peeled	32 turnip
4 leeks, split lengthwise and triple soaked in clean water to remove any lingering sand	2qts. coin
1 cup fresh or frozen peas (asparagus tips, peeled fava beans, or fiddlehead ferns)	1 qt. peas
4 small stems fresh thyme, leaves stripped, stems discarded	+/- thyme
fresh horseradish root
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
grey sea salt

Bring oxtail broth to a simmer in a 4-quart pot.

Season beef tenderloin on both sides with salt and pepper and a few leaves of fresh thyme and wrap each in a small sheet of the caul fat, creating neat bundles.

Add beef tenderloin and marrow bones to simmering broth and let cook 2 minutes.

Add onions, carrots, and turnips to simmering broth.

Add the oxtail meat to the simmering broth.

Add leeks to the simmering broth and continue cooking for 4 minutes.

Add peas, sliced tongue, and veal heart and cook for 1 minute.

The beef tenderloin takes about 15 minutes to cook from its raw state to a perfect medium rare. The rest of the ingredients have different cooking times; add them in stages from longest cooking to shortest cooking, ending with the peas, so that when the tenderloin is finished, so is everything else, and the finished dish is ready to be served with all of the ingredients accurately cooked.

Place the meats and vegetables with care and grace in the large bowls and ladle the broth around evenly. Reserve the rest of the broth for the next batch.

Season with a few grains of grey sea salt.

Grate a light dusting of fresh horseradish over each bowl.

*Depending on where we are in the frustrating season, use:
fiddleheads
asparagus tips
fava beans
if they are coming in.

During those weeks when the first crops have tapped out, and the second are not yet available, you can happily revert to the frozen peas.

I love them and am not embarrassed (sp?) to use them.

Grilled Lamb Blade Chops

Yield: 6 orders

6 lamb blade chops, 1½ inches thick

2 cups kosher salt

6 branches rosemary

¼ cup black peppercorns

1 gallon water

extra virgin olive oil (Kalamata olive varietal)

dried Greek oregano

Dissolve salt in ½ gallon warm water.

Add ½ gallon very cold water.

Add fresh rosemary, roughed up briefly in your hands to release the oils a bit.

Just crush or bruise the black peppercorns under a cast-iron skillet, then add to brine.

Submerge the lamb chops in brine and refrigerate 24 hours.

Remove lamb from brine.

Rinse and dry.

Let chops rest at room temperature, 20 minutes.

Run with skordalia and Piyaz in cold months.

Run with braised dandies in spring.

Run with Greek Salad ONLY IN SUMMER.

To pick up:

Rub chops with olive oil sparingly.

Season with salt and pepper and dried Greek oregano.

Grill blade chops until solidly medium rare. (Because of all of the muscles that come together across the shoulder, these chops are too tough and chewy any rarer.)

Plate the chop when cooked, let it rest on serving plate for juices to collect. Don’t hold these on a sizzle in your station—I like the rested juices to make their way to the customer, like they would at home.

When you rest your meats on a sizzle plate in the midst of all that greasy soot coming off the grill, the juices mostly evaporate and get crusty on the single plate and I am really repulsed by that. Please get the meat from the heat to the plate without any intermediary shuffling around in your station.

Even though you are a line cook in a busy restaurant, try to cook like you would at home.

Nobody rests their meat at home over a hot, burning, dirty grill and we shouldn’t either.

PLEASE DO NOT:

pre-mark

misfire

poorly time

weight down/press down

flash under the sally

ANY OF THE MEAT HERE.

Skordalia

	x16
2 russet potatoes	8
3 garlic cloves	12
¼ cup Kalamata olive oil	evoo +/-
¼ cup Kalamata olives, pitted, slivered	kalamatas
kosher salt	salt

Peel and boil potatoes in seasoned water.

When a knife easily pierces the potato all the way to the center, remove and leave to cool. Don’t throw away the cooking water.

Grate the cooled potatoes by hand into a bowl, using large teardrop side of the box grater.

Microplane garlic into the potatoes and add olive oil and a little of the cooking water. Mix thoroughly. Check for garlic and salt, adding more if necessary. Garnish with olive slivers.

These are not mashed potatoes. They are more like a condiment and should taste strongly of raw garlic. The word for garlic in Greek is skordo. The Greeks soften their d’s into gentle th’s so at the table, waiters should say “score-thal-ya.” Also, the skordalia should glisten and be nearly translucent due to its olive oil content. Keep mixing and adding olive oil—and a few spoonfuls of cooking water, if needed—until the skordalia reaches this point.

Greek Salad

3 pounds ripe red tomatoes, not refrigerated

1 cucumber with small seeds

1 medium red onion

homemade red wine vinegar, even if still rough and winey

1 firm green bell pepper, seeds removed

12 ounces Greek or Bulgarian feta cheese in fresh salted water

small handful Kalamata black olives, split, pits removed

Cut tomatoes into even, good-looking chunks, without removing the slightly tart cores.

Season tomatoes with kosher salt. Set aside.

Peel the cucumber and slice into thin rounds, then lightly sprinkle with homemade red wine vinegar.

Peel and very thinly slice red onion into rounds.

Remove core and seeds from bell pepper and slice into thin rings.

Combine onions and peppers with tomatoes and add the cucumbers.

Retain all of the juices that have accumulated—this is the “dressing.” Meat juices from the lamb chops will commingle also and tame the vinegar bite.

Cut the feta into slabs and set 1 on top of salad. Drizzle with Kalamata olive oil and a few split olives and a light sprinkle of dried oregano.

Braised Dandelion Greens with Mastixa and Feta

Yield: 4 orders

2 pounds dandelion greens, well-washed, trimmed at stem end

2 whole heads of garlic, as is, paper skin intact, halved horizontally

extra virgin olive oil

salt

1–2 mastic crystals

6 ounces feta cheese

Set large wide pan over medium heat and add a full ¼" of EVOO.

Place garlic halves in, cut side down, and leave them undisturbed. Sizzle until golden.

Add dandelion greens and all of their clinging water from the washing.

Add cold water to just barely cover and drizzle a little more EVOO over the surface.

Season with salt and taste the liquid before proceeding.

Cover with parchment round and lid and simmer on medium-low heat until the toughest end of the stem is tender, 25–35 minutes.

Taste the dandies. If they are incredibly bitter, add more fat and let them steep in it, while still quite warm.

Grind mastic crystals in clean spice grinder with a few grains of salt for traction, and season dandelions with 1–2 teaspoons of ground, powdered mastic. Sprinkle it evenly throughout to try to mitigate the inevitable way it re-forms into crystals.

Hold warm, in batches, in your station.

To pick up:

In small sauté pan, add heap of braised dandelion and some of the braising liquid.

Nestle in several chunks of feta, broken apart with your hands.

Cover and warm through; let feta barely soften.

Tip pan and slide into shallow bowl just as is, without overturning.

Turkish Piyaz

1⅓ cups loosely packed flat-leaf parsley

1 small red onion, paper-thin slices

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons sumac powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Tear parsley leaves, mix with red onions, and break up all the rings.

Season with salt and sumac first and allow to draw the moisture from the onions and wilt the parsley.

Add olive oil and stir together. Mound on top of hot lamb chops as soon you take them from the grill and plate.

Whole Roasted Rabbit with Pan Drippings Salsa Verde

1 (2½–3 pound) whole rabbit

½ cup Salsa Verde

EVOO

Dijon mustard

dry vermouth

1 sparse rosemary stem

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

butter

Tug out the little fatty sac of kidneys from the chest cavity; reserve.

Splay the rabbit out on a ½ sheet pan, legs out front and back. Crack the little front chest plate to get her to lie flat. Just a firm quick push with your hand, like a chiropractor.

Slather with a little Dijon mustard, then drizzle with EVOO and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Set on top rack in the hot oven—400°. Leave it alone for 25 minutes.

Season kidneys with salt and pepper and sauté in mixed fats over medium-high heat, 2–3 minutes; baste along the way. Get some color on them—don’t let them steam to drab gray, and keep them medium rare. Spoon onto small side plate.

Pour off fat, drop heat to medium, and make quick pan sauce with rosemary stem, 1 dab mustard, and 1 hit of dry vermouth. Get all the browned bits up with a wooden spoon, stir in 1 knob of cold butter, and pour over kidneys.

Send kidneys to the table for them to snack on while they are waiting for the rabbit.

Pull out rabbit and check color and mobility in the back legs: No pink. Getting limber.

Slather with a good spoonful of salsa verde and return to hot oven for 10 more minutes. She wants to be moist, opaque, a little golden in spots, and you could almost pull her apart at the joints without using a knife, though with resistance.

Lay out whole rabbit on presenting wooden board. Scrape pan drippings into large ramekin with fresh spoonful of salsa verde and mix together. Set on board.

After waiter presents and returns, break down into 2 shoulders, 3 saddle cuts straight across, and back legs split at the joints. Put back on serving board, neatly but casually—like when they hack up the whole ducks in Chinatown.

Stewed Pork Butt with Creamed Hominy and Salsa Verde

Yield: 4 orders	x16
2 pounds pork butt	10#
½ bunch cilantro, washed	1 bn
2 garlic cloves, peeled	10 cloves
½ bunch scallions, cleaned	2 bns.
6 Tablespoons Chili Paste	2c. paste
5 cups Mixed Meats Stock	12c. stock
4 cups Creamed Hominy	-
6 Tablespoons Salsa Verde	-

Pulse cilantro, garlic, and scallion in Robot Coupe until fine and even textured, but not a completely smooth paste.

Remove any hard rind or skin that might be attached to the meat, but keep the loose fatty connective tissue and white streaks. Cube pork into 2-ounce pieces.

Season meat generously with salt and pepper and brown on all sides in a bit of blended oil. Use a wide flat vessel for browning—there is a lot of meat to be browned—then you can deglaze and braise right in the same vessel. Brown in batches. Remove browned meat to a container to collect all the juice that bleeds out while you are browning each batch.

When all meat is browned, turn it back into the pot with the collected juice.

Add cilantro paste and stir into the meat, scraping bottom of the pan for brown bits. Allow cilantro paste to get warm and fragrant. Then add chili paste and stir in, allowing it, too, to become warm and fragrant before you continue.

Add the meat stock to just barely cover the meat. Bring up to a gentle boil and then reduce immediately to simmer. Cover and let simmer for 60–90 minutes, until meat is tender but still has integrity. Keep in mind it needs to hold up in the reheat during service.

Chill overnight and defat the following day when the thick layer of orange fat has congealed and is easier to remove.

To plate:

Big spoonful hominy—don’t allow to become greasy, separated, or otherwise gross by reheating too hot, too fast. Gentle and finessed reheat, please.

Good spoonful hot stewed pork spooned over, let juices run and pool up.

At the pass, finish with liberal drizzle salsa verde, spooned over meat.

Creamed Hominy

Yield: 6 quarts	x½ BATCH
1 10-ounce can cooked small kernel white hominy, drained and rinsed in colander	1½qts.
2 cups diced poblano peppers, seeds removed	1 c.
1 quart heavy cream	2c. h. cr.
½ pound sweet butter	4T.
kosher salt	salt +/-

Sweat poblanos in half the butter in small rondeau over low heat.

Add drained, rinsed hominy.

Add cream and remaining butter. Stir well and simmer for 30 minutes uncovered over low flame.

Grind ⅔ of creamed hominy in processor briefly, add back to remaining whole kernel batch, stir well to integrate.

Season with salt if needed.

Roasted Wild Salmon with Avgolemono Rice, Two Kinds of Peas, and Scallions

Yield: 4 orders	x16
4 fillets wild salmon, skin on, cut at 5 ounces	10-12# whole
1 cup kosher salt	2c. salt
½ gallon hot water	1 gal. hot
½ gallon cold water	1 gal. cold

1¼ cups jasmine rice	rice
2 cups Avgolemono	avgo
1 bunch scallions	full pint
½ cup shelled fresh or frozen peas	full pint
½ pound sugar snap peas	full pint
extra virgin olive oil	evoo
kosher salt	S+P
freshly ground black pepper

Rinse the jasmine rice and cook pasta-style in plenty of lightly salted boiling water. Ratio of water to rice doesn’t matter when you are cooking it this way, as long as there is plenty of boiling water.

Drain into a colander when exactly cooked, and immediately spread cooked rice out on a sheet pan lined with parchment to cool quickly. Do not pat down or pack the rice—you want it fluffy and able to cool and dry quickly.

*Day-old rice is good here — you can carry your mise to following day if you have extra.

Dissolve the salt in the hot water, then add the cold water and mix well.

Submerge the salmon in the brine for 30 minutes and not longer than 1 hour. Remove salmon and pat dry.

Destring the sugar snaps and cut on the bias into ⅓’s or ¼’s.

Clean and trim the scallions and cut on sharp bias, using all of the white and as far up into the green as is viable. For me, viable is pretty much the whole scallion except for the hollow, fibrous ½" at the top.

To pick up:

Brush the salmon with olive oil, on flesh and skin alike. Season fish with salt and pepper. Set salmon, skin side down, on sizzle plate and put in gentle oven.

Remove when fish is pale pink and opaque at the edges with a ½" swath of translucent orange flesh down the center. 10-15 minutes, but check along the way.

In a small saucepot add full 4-ounce ladle of avgolemono sauce, set on medium-high heat.

Add handful each of scallions and shelled peas; simmer a minute or two until raw bite is gone but both are still bright green.

Stir in ⅓ to ½ cup cooked rice and warm through.

Add handful of sugar snap peas; stir in and simmer just a minute or 90 seconds until they are bright green and their sugars have opened up.

Add another spoonful of avgolemono if needed—we want creamy, luscious, loose Venetian-style rice and peas—not sticky risotto, and not cafeteria soup, either.

Season with salt and pepper.

To plate:

Spoon rice and peas into pasta bowl.

With fish spat, slide salmon off of its skin, and place in center of pooled rice. Skin will stick to sizzle. Drizzle any of the delicious fatty salmon juice off the sizzle plate over the salmon.

Obviously, take care with the temperatures. Keep this beautiful salmon, which only comes once a year, between rare and medium-rare.

*Keep one of the ovens gentle during service for the salmon — no more than 350°.

WHEN YOU BUTCHER THE FISH, PLEASE:

don’t shingle.

leave skin on; tweeze pin bones out.

reserve skeletons and heads for family meal.

donate last 4" of flat, tail-end portions to family.

For the Avgolemono:

Yield: 2 cups	x1½qts. *	x2½qts. **
4 egg yolks	8 yolks	16
2 cups stock	4c.	8c.
½ cup fresh lemon juice	1 c.	2c.
¾ teaspoon salt	S+P +/-	S+P
freshly ground black pepper
	*LUNCH PAR	**DINNER PAR

Bring stock to a simmer.

Whisk egg yolks with lemon juice in stainless steel bowl.

Temper with a ladle or two of simmering stock, whisking constantly. Then whisk egg-lemon mixture back into simmering stock.

Whisk constantly until full-bodied.

Remove from heat immediately; season with salt and pepper.

Farmhouse Chicken Braised in Hard Cider

Yield: 4 orders	x8	x16
4 large whole chicken legs	10#	20#
unsalted butter
extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup slivered garlic	1½c.	3c.
1 cup thinly sliced shallots	2c.	1 qt.
½ cup cider vinegar	1 c.	2c.
1 cup hard cider	2c.	4c.
1 Tablespoon honey	2T.	4T.
1 Tablespoon tomato paste	2T.	4T.
1 cup Chicken Stock	2c.	4c.
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Season chicken legs all over with more pepper than salt.

Brown chicken legs in mixed fats, more butter than oil.

Brown perfectly, on both sides; don’t crowd and don’t crank it, either. Keep heat at medium-high and do a careful job.

Remove chicken, pour off fat.

Add a good hunk of butter, the garlic, and shallots to the same pan, reduce heat, and sweat.

Add tomato paste and stir to fully blend, melt, even toast a little.

Deglaze with cider vinegar and hard cider.

Add the honey.

Simmer to cook off alcohol and reduce slightly, by no more than ⅓. Stir in chicken stock.

Neatly nestle the chicken legs in the pan and be sure to taste the braising liquid for salt, acidity, sweetness. Adjust now or never.

Cover with parchment and tight-fitting lid, if you can find one that isn’t too warped. Check after 25 minutes. You want loose joints but not falling off the bone.

At pickup, reduce sauce per portion, to have body, but not to become viscous.

One leg per portion. Good bit of sauce. Shower with parsley, freshly chopped, at pass.

Panfried Trout with Brown Butter Vinaigrette

butterflied trout, 10–12 ounces each

Wondra flour

unsalted butter

blended oil

Brown Butter Vinaigrette

kosher salt

Rinse trout; keep head and tail intact.

Pat fish dry, both sides. Drape trout over inverted stainless bowl to more easily tweeze out pin bones.

Season gently—salt only—both flesh and skin.

Dredge in Wondra (skin side only—don’t get flour on the inner flesh) and tap off excess.

Heat largest deep skillet over medium-high heat with equal parts butter and blended oil—don’t skimp, you need 4 tablespoons each +/−. (Take a minute before service to find the good flat-bottomed pans and cull out the warped ones.)

When fats are really foaming and headed toward sizzle, lay in trout perfectly flat: skin side down, belly wide open.

Keep flame between medium-high and high, but don’t burn. Press down very gently but firmly with fish spat to be sure skin is making contact with the pan and getting crispy. Let the initial crust form before you start to baste. When you feel the beginning crust form and the limp, floppy nature of the boneless flesh starts to get a little rigidity—about 2 minutes—and you see that the fish can slip around in the pan loose, start to baste the flesh with the fat in the pan, 2–3 more minutes. Lift up the whole fish with your spat and really look to see where you are. We want crisp and golden brown skin—like good toast—not pale blond, undercooked flour.

Use the large slotted fish spat to invert onto plate. And don’t double up: 1 fish per 1 pan. Keep your pans moving on the burners, and when you get many orders called at once, strategize your burner space efficiently.

Slather with brown butter vinaigrette at the pass and finish with lemon cheek.

*only order the farmed stuff from Idaho — it has no muddy taste.

Be specific with Bobby/Pierless when calling in fish order.

Roasted Capon on Garlic Crouton

Yield: 8 orders	x20
1 8-pound capon	2x capon
1 cup kosher salt	2c. salt
½ cup sugar	1 c. sugar
blended oil
1 gallon water	2gal. h₂o
freshly ground black pepper
2-day-old peasant bread
garlic, peeled

In an immaculately clean white bucket—place the sugar and the salt. Add half the water from the hot tap to dissolve the salt and sugar and whisk until completely dissolved. Add rest of water—very cold. Stir the brine and submerge capon in it. Let brine for full 24 hours in the walk-in.

If you get behind or deliveries are late, you can “supersoak” by doubling the salt and sugar, keeping the water quantity the same, and brining the birds at room temperature for 4 hours—but only if you are in the weeds and are going to put them directly into the oven as soon as they come out of the brine.

After 24 hours, remove capon from the brine. Set capon in a hotel pan and glug a little blended oil over, rubbing to coat until slick and slippery. Season all over with black pepper only.

Set the birds in 350° oven directly onto the oven rack—breasts side down. Quickly fill the oily hotel pan ½ way with water and set on oven floor directly under the birds. Take care to place it well to collect the fat and juice that drips down throughout the roasting.

*Let’s not set a fire in the ovens, please’.

You can fit two capons, front to back, so you only take up ½ the oven and leave some oven space for other prep needs. Roast for 2 hours and 10 minutes, until the juices run clear when pierced with a skewer.

While roasting, cut thick slices of 2-day-old peasant bread and lay them out on a baker’s drying rack. Rub each one on both sides with raw cloves of garlic until you have worn the cloves down to nothing—use one whole clove per slab of bread. For the last 40 minutes of roasting, set the croutons still on their rack into the oven, directly under the birds, and directly above the hotel pan of water collecting juices. They will toast here and absorb fat and juice. Check them occasionally to see they aren’t burning and conversely, to see that they are in fact toasting. Some birds are so juicy that the croutons can sog out before they have a chance to toast.

Remove the capons from the oven, carefully. I think it’s best to pull out the rack as far as you can without it tipping and confidently grab them with a clean dish towel folded up in each hand. Place them directly into a waiting hotel pan and let all the juice that has accumulated in the cavity pour out into the hotel pan.

Remove the croutons. Remove the hotel pan of accumulated water/juice and fat from the oven floor and pour through a strainer into a metal bain. Add any juices from the capon cavities. Skim the fat off the top and keep warm in your station.

Butcher birds into 10 parts—2 wings, 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 breasts cut in half creating 4 pieces of breast meat. It’s tricky, but leave skin intact to the best of your ability. Only butcher one bird at the beginning of service. Leave the second bird until second seating, and butcher as needed.

To plate:

Crouton on bottom.

1 dark piece, 1 white, set on top.

1 ladel warm, defatted capon jus over all.

Full sprig parsley.

Obviously, this would be best if we could truss the birds on a slow-turning rotisserie set in front of a wood-burning hearth, and toast the bread in the coals. It is my purplest envy when I see other kitchens—that we work in such a horrible, basement kitchen in a 115-year-old East Village tenement building, with prep tables set up under a bank of electric meters. But do the best you can with what we’ve got—the succulence that we manage to eke out of these birds, under these ridiculous circumstances, is not insignificant.