And the Special Is…

This week has been a tough one. Chef is vacationing overseas and terrifingly enough, has left me in charge of the kitchen. I have been working lunch and dinner shifts, which is nice as an hourly employee but I am having trouble adjusting my sleep schedule to this change and so… not really sleeping.

I was also given permission to run a couple of my own creations as specials and ran my first one tonight.
What I decided on was a roasted corn and mushroom Mezzaluna with a chive-butter sauce and garnish of fresh, roasted corn kernels.

I made a puree of roasted corn and Shiitake mushrooms, which I used as my flavor base and learned from another cook how to use risotto as a binding agent that would make a firmer filling that would not make the pasta soggy or susceptible to breaking apart. When making the risotto, I felt it best to incorporate the ingredients that I described on the menu – those being corn and mushrooms, so I saved the ears after I removed the kernels for the puree and made a concentrated corn stock that I used with a quick mushroom broth made from the stems as the liquid to cook my risotto. I also added the corn ears to the risotto since they were large enough to pick out but I felt I could extract flavor from them while cooking the rice. I added the rice the corn/mushroom puree and pureed again until I had a smooth charcoal filling pierced with golden flakes from the corn.

I also set some of the corn stock aside to use as the liquid for the butter sauce that I garnished with finely chopped chives and corn kernels.

I decided on the classic Mezzaluna shape because I find them both interesting and the perfect bite size and what I like best about the dish is that the butter sauce provides a richness while the mushroom and corn have an earthy quality and yet together, the dish is light enough and appropriate enough for the weather.

We made 16 servings and sold 11, which I was happy with. Of course, the arrogant, emotionally needy side of me wanted not only sell out completely but have each guest come by the window and sing my praise.

That didn’t happen but the response was good and the servers, knowing this was important to me, would call me to show me each empty plate that they returned to the kitchen – and that felt good. Financially speaking, it was a profit – which is also good.

Tomorrow night, I will try to sell it out and run another special with the remaining chicken breasts. All I know so far is that I want to use baby carrots…