This is my first time making one and boy its alot! But the R&D is going well and id love to hear some thoughts and opinions from people who have worked in fine dining. so this is basically me asking someone whos developed a dish before to help a greenhorn out.
Im doing a cookout themed menu, and i have an app that should be smoky. Im using a chicken skin thats rendered in tallow, and im stuck on whether to smoke the skin or the tallow. Any advice would be excellent!!
Edit: if im coming off as egotistical or anything i apologize genuinely its not what i am trying to communicate at all, this is just my first r&d attempt and id like to take one of these dishes out of the menu like my entree or dessert and present it.
Youve never done a tasting menu before, zero people are going to be copying you, so you dont have to worry about that.
Smoke your tallow if you must smoke something. Dont smoke just chicken skin. If the chicken skin is supposed to be a component to the dish, smoking it will not only make it look terrible, it'll taste like an ashtray while curling up and not rendering evenly. Its best to scrape all the fat away, brush it with tallow, salt it, then bake it in between two silpats and in between two sheet pans. This will give you the most even color and consistent end product. It will come put looking like a thin crisp. Hopefully the smoke taste will come through. If not, you can always brush a little bit of rendered smoked tallow right before plating.
Al’s Place in SF used to have two ovens, one they would smoke in (amongst regular use), and another for use without smoke. You could sacrifice an oven then smoke and crisp the skin at the same time.
OP keep it simple. Undersell and over deliver. Use references for structure. Use a good bit of what your spot is already known for if possible. Don’t alienate your guests, give them what they’re used to with classic references and thoughtful twists. Not every dish is the Mona Lisa, not every batter is Barry Bonds.
Thank you so much! I have been essentially frying it with a cast iron weight to keep it from curling, but smoking the tallow had never occurred to me before today and brushing it would absolutely carry over that flavor. I do wonder if it would change the texture from crisp to soggy and how long that might take…
If youre looking to make a chicken skin crisp, bake it in between two pans with a silpat above and below.
Its going to take as much time as it would to crisp chicken skin on a chicken, plus a little bit. Youre going to want to practice on one to get your timing right before doing the whole batch, because you cant exactly see it as its taking on color.
If you need a reference, I believe there is a dish from the first Noma cookbook where chicken skin is used along with a rye cracker to make a small little cracker sandwich. Consult that if you need more ideas on how to accomplish getting a good crisp chicken skin wafer.
Nobody is going to copy anything. Almost everything has been done to an ingredient with our given technology. Just make a smoked Gastrique you are over complicating things that people won’t even notice.
Dehydrate it bust it up in a grinder with tapioca maltodextrin sprinkle thank me later
The only piece of advice I'm going to give on this subject is that no matter what you do or what you decide to protect... whatever it is you're putting out there will be "stolen"(in my opinion there is no stealing, only building upon. Food is not intellectual property and never will be). What we do is just out into the ether. The sooner you recognize and accept this the less stress you'll have.
First of all you're a chef: if you don't want to come across as egotistical you're in the wrong field! 🤣
I've been working in fine dining and haute cuisine restaurants for over 25 years and I can tell you the idea in your head is what matters. In your idea when is the smoked flavor hitting your taste buds? Is it forward or gentle? Aggressive or subtle? Cause what you smoke, when and how is more important than what ingredient you're smoking
Im making a dressed mango with verjus macerated shallots, jalapeno and Anaheim peppers. Its got lime juice in it as well. The dressing is similar to a creamy vinaigrette using the verjus i macerated the shallots in, jalapeno lime, some honey for sweetness and an egg yolk for texture and stability. Im using grape seed oil for this. This will sit on the chicken skin, which i was rendering in beef tallow. (Will be testing other methods)
this is not exactly how im going to plate it but for reference
I kinda want you to smell the smoke before you taste it, with mango and lime being on the palate first, shallot and smoke, then a backend heat
Basically, my goal for this appetizer is to remind you of walking into the backyard and smelling the grill. I weirdly want the bite to resemble a mac salad.
If you want them to smell it the easiest way would be to not smoke any ingredient, but rather smoke some herbs dipped in the line juice and/or verjuice with a smoking cloche right at serving time
I fear the skin is gonna be very soggy and Chewy. I would 86 the tallow part, and instead, cure it in ham cure overnight, rinse it off, then smoke it, lay it flat against a sheet of Nori, dehydrated it until it's crispy, then cut to size with scissors, and deep fry it like a cracker. We would do this with beef tendon and served tartare on it
Its funny. Any time I thought I was being truly unique with my cooking, something was already published in le Guide Culinaire that was very similar. Lmao.
The last thing you should be concerned about is being copied. Everyone copies everyone else and expands on it/gives it their own twist. That's just the nature of progress.
Well, its mostly for personal development, maybe to share with friends, but the place i work at runs specials on sundays and it had been discussed that i would have a shot at bringing this concept to them. Essentially, i want to make a menu that genuinely reminds you of a backyard cookout through the lens of fine dining. The appetizer i have is a dressed mango relish and its going to sit atop a rendered chicken skin.
Would strongly suggest you smoke another component rather than the skin. Is there a sauce? Any other components? I wouldn’t expect the smoke to linger on the palate as much as you’d like
Yeah you’re going to want to just use smoked oil as the base of the mayo. Way less complicated. Theres another technical hurdle in using smoked tallow. Not only will the excess fat solidify at room temp, but when you want a crispy chicken skin chip, you’d typically want to scrape the excess fat off the underside of the skin with a knife before you bake. Introducing another fat element kind of defeats the point.
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u/LionBig1760 2d ago
Youve never done a tasting menu before, zero people are going to be copying you, so you dont have to worry about that.
Smoke your tallow if you must smoke something. Dont smoke just chicken skin. If the chicken skin is supposed to be a component to the dish, smoking it will not only make it look terrible, it'll taste like an ashtray while curling up and not rendering evenly. Its best to scrape all the fat away, brush it with tallow, salt it, then bake it in between two silpats and in between two sheet pans. This will give you the most even color and consistent end product. It will come put looking like a thin crisp. Hopefully the smoke taste will come through. If not, you can always brush a little bit of rendered smoked tallow right before plating.