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Spring Menu
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- mise en place
MEEZ ahn plahs
A French term referring to having all the ingredients necessary for a dish prepared and ready to combine up to the point of cooking.
April 1st, springtime begins. Atleast on the new menus. After a week of talking about what dish is selling well vs. poorly and what different ingridents are coming into season, any good resturant will adjust it's main dishes for varitey sake.
The menu I work from can change on a daily basis. We run a Fish(poisson), Salmon(saumon), Pasta(pate), Chicken(poulet), Liver(foi), Salad(salade), Soup and Sandwich, "Du Jour". Really though we plan for most items to run a week.(Soup and Salad change everyday)
So when it comes to menu overhaul its quite easy for us. Just the stables are in need of fine tuning. Instead of Pears on the Endive Salade, we go with grapes. We remove wintery items like a Terrine or a Trout salade and replace them with more inventive items.
At any rate that was what today was, and it was busy. Here's an item from today's mise en place.
Saumon Salade with Roated Cumin and Honey dressing
Salmon (we use a 7oz portion)
Citrus Fruits (Lime, Orange, Blood Orange and Grapefruit)
Vegtables (Aparagus, Green Bean and Brocolli)
Dressing:
Whole Cumin 1tbsp
Honey 2tbsp
Paprika 1tsp
2 egg yolks
Olive Oil
White wine vinegar 1oz
Salt
Preperation:
Roast the whole cumin in a pan, you'll notice it's done with your nose. It smells great. Bust it up! A coffee grinder works great for this things. Into the blender with the 2 egg yolks, add just a bit of salt and the paprika. Blend away on high. When its good and mixed add the honey, then the vinegar. Here it takes more paitence, slowly add olive oil until you have a good thck dressing, careful too little and it wont hold the flavor and too much it's gonna taste like oil! Add more salt if you like at this point. Give it a Taste? Does it need more love? perhaps some more honey or cumin you be the judge it's your love.
Your vegtables should be cut into eatable sizes, removing unessisary parts. Blanche them, don't over cook! You want a crunch still not soggy mess. For a single portion I suggest about 10 green beans, 5 Asparagus (cut in half) and palm of brocolili. cool them in ice. All this goes into a mixing bowl.
Your fruits need to be peeled. I bet you guessed that though. cut them into whats called "supremes", think about the canned variety of pinneable you get on a pizza...thats "supreme". For a single portion its about 1/4 of each fruit. Once they are clean and cut, into the bowl with them.
Then into the bowl goes the dressing. A decent amount here, when you mix the fruits and vegtables everything should be covered well with extra sauce for the Salmon. Hey throw some love in that blow! Salt to taste, diced parsley, or cilantro, maybe sage if it kicks you that way.
I suggest grilling your Salmon with olive oil, salt and pepper. This can be down in a pan as well, finish the cooking in the oven until its the desired texture you like your salmon.
That's it, simple.
On your plate place a nice heeping of your salade mix, on top of this stack your salmon. Hopefully it impresses someone, if not yourself.
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Tomorrow, because it's the weekend, we'll take about brunch food.
Feel free to hit me up with any questions.
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