02.21.07

MY First Review!

Posted in The Story, Greatest Hits, Recipes at 2:01 pm by Chef Matt

This story requires us to go back to several previous posts, so please bear with me regular readers (all four of you) as I recap for the newly-initiated. Back in December, we were reviewed by the Washington Post, and it was a very favorable review. However, seeing as how this reviewer visited Vero before I was an employee, I could hardly take any credit for the praise we received. Quoting myself:

“I want to be clear about this review though. I claim absolutely ZERO credit for this glowing review. All of his visits occurred before I was an employee, so there is no way my additions for the past two and a half weeks had anything to do with what Mr. Nicholls experienced at Vero.”

The business at the restaurant really picked up as a result of that, and I was proud to be working in such a well-liked and busy restaurant.

As time has progressed on though, I have had more ability to flex my own “creative muscle” in the kitchen, and come up with some of my own dishes to serve to the public. The first addition to the Restaurant Vero menu I created was a trout and persimmon salad in Belgian endive that, while good, was ordered by exactly nobody. The road that must be climbed to reach culinary recognition is indeed a steep one…

Fast forward now to two weeks ago, and you may remember the incident where I was actually able to start a fire in the kitchen using only a stove, a pan and some cranberry juice. Well, further down in that post I mentioned that the redeeming moment of the day was how I invented a spinach and mushroom stuffed calamari braised in a tomato-basil sauce that was served to some local restaurant reviewers. Quoting myself once again:

“One of [the reviewers] ordered my recipe for stuffed calamari. I was nervous of course, but all the same, I wanted to know how it would be received. After that round of dishes came back, the server reported to me that this particular reviewer said that the stuffed calamari “exceeded all his expectations”…I [choose] to believe that this meant he felt that my creation was really something special.”

Well, yesterday Veronica showed me the review they wrote about their visit to Restaurant Vero.

This is another great review for our restaurant - and I especially liked the jab they took at the Post reviewer’s “wimpy palate”, with which I took umbrage as well. However, nestled in this review - if you don’t want to read it all - is the following comment:

“The special of SPINACH & MUSHROOM STUFFED CALAMARI Braised in TOMATO BASIL SAUCE with Endive, Watercress & Daikon Salad was also a gem with tender whole squid stuffed to perfection.”

I did an image search for “gem” and surprisingly, the results included zero pictures of squid…

Yes, this was my dish they were talking about, and I am still on cloud nine that the words “gem” and “perfection” were used in conjunction with a dish I invented, cooked and plated myself.

But again, I can hardly take all the credit for this. Look at all the other amazing dishes they mention, and the fantastic service as well! If you take no other point away from reading my blog, please take this one:

Working in a kitchen is a TEAM effort! Nobody can go it alone and expect to achieve any sort of success!

So while my one addition was well-received, and even achieved “gem” status, I give all thanks to my bosses for taking the chance to allow me to be creative, my fellow cooks for letting me - the salad chef - take up space on the stove and in the bain marie for the creation of this dish, and to the servers for getting it to the right people at the right time. The seeming success of one in the kitchen is really the success of all - which may be yet another reason why “celebrity chefs” annoy me so much.

The road to culinary recognition may be a steep one, but with the help of my great co-workers, I think I may have finally taken my first step!

Matt

P.S. Allow me to beat the rush of those of you who are going to ask me for the recipe and give you the recipe for these stuffed calamari here:

Again, these are not my calamari, since I didn’t have a camera on me in the kitchen, but this is what they should look like.

Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Calamari with Tomato Basil Ragu

• In one pan, sauté 2 cups of sliced mushrooms (a mix of them is nice) with olive oil, a clove or two of minced garlic and some chopped rosemary. Cook until most water is out of them, place in large bowl off heat.
  
• In another pan, sauté a bag of baby spinach with oil and some more garlic until wilted down. Press excess water out in a strainer, and place in bowl with mushrooms.
  
• To the spinach/mushroom mixture, add salt, pepper, lemon zest, parsley and finally some bread crumbs to give it a little “body”. You are not looking to turn this into a bread stuffing, but you want something there to bind it together.
  
• In a large pan - like a Dutch oven - heat a few tablespoons of oil, sauté a minced garlic clove until fragrant, then add one can of whole tomatoes and their sauce. Bring sauce to a boil, and crush the tomatoes with a potato ricer/masher in the pan. (Can use a metal spoon for this too…) Add about 10-20 leaves of roughly chopped basil, a pinch of sugar, and let simmer gently while stirring occasionally for about 30 min.
  
• While the sauce is cooking, stuff the calamari. This recipe should fill about 6-8 tubes of calamari, depending on their size. Make sure the “tip” of the tube is closed, and if it isn’t, close it off with a toothpick. Fill the tube only about 1/3 - 1/2 with the stuffing, and seal off the big end with another toothpick.
  
• Slip the calamari into the simmering sauce, cover pot, and cook for a total of 45 min to an hour, flipping the tubes every 15 minutes.
  
• When serving, please be sure to remove the toothpicks first - they could be a nasty surprise otherwise…

Stumble it!

Permalink