Food & Drink
Culinary Eureka
Five of the area’s most inventive chefs tell the stories of how their most popular and tasty recipes came to fruition.
By Dina Cheney, Photographs by Quentin Bacon
Every family has a recipe that came about by chance. Maybe Grandma was planning on making a tomato and bread soup but didn’t follow the exact recipe, and ended up with her now-famous rustic tomato sauce. Or, Dad was out of a few ingredients for chocolate mousse, and his improvisation yielded a two-layer raspberry and almond version. Lest you think recipe serendipity is limited to home cooks, rest assured that it occurs in restaurant kitchens, too. We recently spoke with five local chefs who had all stepped out of their routines when eureka struck. Three were devising menus for catering jobs, another was at home trying to tame a sweet tooth and the last was looking for a creative way to use leftovers. So, free yourself from the grind of short-order cooking. Brainstorm, play around in the kitchen and see what happens. We promise, recipe serendipity will grace all of us, neophytes included.
Michael Urato :: Executive Chef
City Limits Diner, Stamford
Grilled Vegetable Sandwich with White Bean and Sun-Dried Tomato Spread
Michael Urato is living many a cook’s fantasy: Every day, he can choose from among 10 types of fresh-baked bread with which to work. That’s because City Limits Diner bakes its loaves in-house, a scenario that led to one of the diner’s signature sandwiches.
While Urato and one of his assistants were preparing an antipasto-like vegetable platter for a catering order, inspiration struck. “It came to me, right at that moment, to start putting those ingredients together. I grabbed two slices of Bordelaise bread from our bakery, brushed them with extra virgin olive oil, and grilled them for a charred flavor. Then, I started slapping all of these vegetables from the platter onto the sandwich. The sandwich was still missing something very important, so I took the white bean dip from the platter and spread it on. I just threw all of this together like 1, 2, 3, and lo and behold, we got this sandwich.”
Talk about a happy accident. According to Urato, he and his team are frequently feeling pressure to devise more meatless options. “Vegetarians don’t want to eat just steamed vegetables,” he explained, noting that the sandwich has been on the menu for years. “If I take it off, there would be a mutiny.”
Kane Xu :: Owner and Executive Chef
Nuage, Cos Cob
Lobster-Asparagus Soup
Eight years ago, while he owned East, a Japanese fusion restaurant in Milford, Kane Xu received a special request from a frequent diner: a seven-course tasting menu with lobster in each dish. For the fourth course, Xu decided to prepare a soup; however, he didn’t want to fall back on the obvious choice: lobster bisque. “It doesn’t have lobster meat or much lobster flavor,” he explained. Plus, it isn’t a healthful choice, and much of Xu’s clientele prefer relatively light fare.
Wondering how to thicken the soup without resorting to flour or a surfeit of cream or butter, Xu experimented with asparagus and avocado. Xu found the lightness and hue of the asparagus version particularly appealing. He loved how the pink-white color of the lobster meat in the center of each serving contrasted with the “beautiful green” of the soup. In fact, Xu was so bewitched by the dish that he added it to the menu at East and, later, Nuage. “People always ask for it. I can never get rid of it,” he joked.
As for the lobster-avocado combo, it found its way into another dish: lobster ravioli with truffle-avocado sauce. “By working on one dish,” he recalled, “I ended up inventing two.”
Jonathan Brennan :: Executive Chef and Co-Owner (along with wife, Laura)
Plum Pure Foods & Catering, Cos Cob
Turkey and Black Bean Burgers
Five years ago, Jonathan Brennan, then executive chef for a prestigious
catering company, received an odd assignment: Develop a meatloaf entrée for an upscale Greenwich wedding. While Brennan was merely surprised, his managers worried such a lowbrow, pedestrian dish might reflect negatively on their reputation.
Brennan decided to prepare a meatloaf fit for Versailles. He gilded hand-chopped sirloin with black truffles and chanterelle mushrooms, fashioned mini meatloaves, wrapped them in pancetta and seared them. Still, the clients weren’t impressed. “There you went and ‘cheffed’ it all up,” groused the bride’s mother. Brennan went back to the drawing board and created three down-to-earth meatloaves, one with turkey and black beans.
The clients selected a traditional version, but Brennan remained loyal to his turkey recipe. Now at Plum, Brennan has refashioned the loaves into barbecue-friendly burgers. “We wanted a non-red meat alternative for the casual summer parties we cater.”
Mark Medina-Rios :: Executive Chef
Morello Bistro, Greenwich
Creamy Burrata and Pickled Mushroom Salad
For Mark Medina-Rios, leftovers are often the basis of new recipes. “I look at what I have and see what will work together,” he said. “I also consider classic Italian dishes and talk to our customers to see what they’d like.” A few months ago, while surveying the goods in Morello Bistro’s walk-in refrigerator, Medina-Rios came across a few jars of pickled mushrooms that had been prepared to accompany another dish. He also spotted some burrata, an Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. Realizing that its richness would contrast well with the acidity and earthiness of the mushrooms, Medina-Rios combined the ingredients in a bowl. Adding some fresh arugula and red wine vinaigrette, he created a well-balanced salad that has become a customer favorite.
Adam Tessitore :: General Manager
Nessa, Port Chester, NY
Nutella and Banana Panini
Marc and Vanessa Tessitore interviewed more than 80 chefs and tasted countless dishes to develop recipes for their authentic enoteca in Westchester. Yet, one of the most beloved dishes on their menu came about at home in a matter of seconds. Late at night, a couple of years before the opening of Nessa, the Tessitores were craving something sweet.
Rummaging through their kitchen cabinets, they found a large jar of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread. Marc smeared a generous portion on some leftover country bread, chopped up a banana and neatly arranged the slices on top. He then coated the outside of the sandwich with salted butter and placed the treat in a sauté pan over a high flame. Since the couple didn’t have a panini press, he simulated one by setting a large can of tomatoes on top of the sandwich.
The Tessitores were so impressed by the recipe that they wrote it down. “We thought it would be fun to add a sandwich to the dessert menu,” Marc explained. The sandwich, which is cooked on a panini press at the restaurant by Marc’s brother Adam Tessitore, has been on the menu since Nessa opened its doors. “People go crazy for it!” Marc said.