Chris Robin is a former professional chef and experienced food eater. He has worked the front of the house and the back of the house, and was instrumental in bringing foodie culture online in San Francisco via The Well, a venerable text-based community. In 1996 he created one of the very first website destinations for lovers of food and wine, featuring an early web-based BBS. This hugely popular site offered a fine bottle of wine, an interview with a star chef, or a succulent new recipe served fresh every Friday and was the recipient of numerous awards. Chris returns to his roots in his hometown Madison with "Fresh Foods."
Repetition and Inspiration, or, Be the Daft Punk of Your Kitchen
christopher_robin | 6/18/2008 9:54 am | Christopher Robin's Fresh Foods
Even if you haven't written it down, as a chef you keep recipes stored away in your head, and each time you repeat the execution of that recipe you fine-tune it slightly. For example: as I refined my recipe for spinach salad over many years, originally drawing inspiration from the classic French preparation, I got it down to a precise science.
This preparation isn't too far off from where mine was:
After hundreds of repetitions, the proportions were always perfect, but it ceased to be interesting to prepare. That's a good state of affairs for a line cook, but not too much fun at home.
When we got our first CSA box last week, a nice big bag of beautiful fresh spinach was one element, and another was a package of garlic plants which had not yet developed bulbs.
Inspiration struck! I sliced up the garlic, washed the spinach, and sliced some fresh yellow tomatoes. I added kidney beans and covered and chilled these vegetables, still separated.
Next I got out some turkey bacon, and began frying it up in a pan.
Then, with inspiration flowing, I cubed 3 fillets of free-range organic chicken and pan-seared them along with a little rosemary, salt, pepper, and a lot of thyme.
I minced the turkey bacon and added it to the chicken. Then I started breaking rules. I chopped more garlic and added it to the mixture. Next I quickly prepared an aioli and added just a little bit of it into the mixture.
Next I got four eggs hard-boiling.
The bacon, chicken, garlic and aioli looked good enough to try as an appetizer on miniature fresh hamburger buns, so we did. Dynamite sandwich!
Returning to my original plan, I removed the chilled veggies and added the hot chicken and bacon, to the spinach, creating a wilting effect, stirred it all together, and finally added sliced hard-boiled eggs, finishing the plate with drizzled balsamic vinaigrette.
Stupendously tasty, and all inspired by the garlic plants from our CSA box. A single ingredient can transform a dish you've refined through practice, and it's tremendously satisfying if it works.
Draw on the masters, but stay inspired: be the Daft Punk of your kitchen.
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go to Christopher Robin's Fresh Foods
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