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Gracie’s Chosen Again to Showcase Rainier Cherries for Northwest Cherries’ Tree-to-Table

by David Dadekian July 20, 2012

written by David Dadekian

Gracie’s Rainier Cherry dessert: Almond Nougat Semifreddo, Dark Chocolate Mousse, Balsamic Rainier Cherries, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Cherry Ganache and a Chocolate Balsamic Drizzle

For the second year in a row, Northwest Cherries has commissioned Gracie’s restaurant in Providence to represent Rhode Island while celebrating the Rainier cherry. As part of the annual Northwest Cherries’ Tree-to-Table event one restaurant in each state is asked to create a unique menu offering featuring Rainier cherries. The cherry is regarded for its “crisp bite and pale yellow flesh bursting with exceptional sweetness.” Gracie’s is incorporating Rainier cherries into a specialty cocktail as well as two dinner selections, all of which will be available for the month of July and through August, as long as this year’s Rainier cherry crop lasts.

Gracie’s Executive Chef Matthew Varga loves using the Rainier cherries, calling them, “little pieces of sun-kissed perfection.” Varga added, “The Rainier cherries are excellent. We’re really honored to be selected again for this year. We were thinking about how were we going to use them again. Last year we used them on one of the entrees, the duck. I really wanted to work them into a first course. Typically we do a tomato salad first course this time of year. I thought I could play around with the same flavors with the cherries as with the tomatoes. So I went backwards. I started with what would I do with tomatoes and then I switched it.

“So we have arugula, which Jeffrey grows just for us, the stracciatella cheese is from Fiore Di Nonno in Somerville, Massachusetts, Marcona almonds and balsamic vinegar add that acidity and nuttiness. I like the play of the Rainier cherries and the Bing cherries. You get the sweetness and crunch from the Rainier cherries and you get that really nice soft texture, sweet and almost tart from the Bing. They really play well with each other and as you can see the colors are just amazing. The almond butter is Marcona almonds and milk, cooked in a pressure cooker and pureed. The balsamic pearls and balsamic gel are set with agar, a seaweed gelatin, and they act as the vinaigrette. There are whole Marcona almonds toasted in olive oil, and also on the plate as a nougatine, cooked in a little bit of sugar and corn syrup. It sets like a brittle and then it’s blended.

“You’ve got creaminess, sweetness, acidity, nuttiness and nice pepperiness from that arugula. You don’t need a lot of it because it is really spicy, but when you pick it up with the sweetness of the cherries and the creaminess of the cheese it really works well. I use a single estate extra-virgin olive oil from Tuscany, not too spicy, a little grassy.”

Gracie’s owner Ellen Gracyalny also offered this about the Rainier cherry event, “It’s such a great time of year to promote Rainier cherries in Rhode Island because it’s Providence Restaurant Week. We have had so many people coming through the doors who love Rainier cherries. One table the other night ordered the cocktail and both dishes as part of their three-course dinner.”

Gracie’s Pastry Chef Melissa Denmark created the Rainier cherry dessert pictured here (above and below). It’s a beautiful plate composed of Almond Nougat Semifreddo, Dark Chocolate Mousse, Balsamic Rainier Cherries, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Cherry Ganache and a Chocolate Balsamic Drizzle.

Jason Wessel, Gracie’s Wine & Spirits Director, has used the Rainier cherries to create the Mt. Rainier Cocktail. “Classic flavors of caramelized apricot in the Cognac complemented by the subtle sweetness of a dash of Herring cherry liqueur and cherry bitters. Stone fruit flavors fortified and softened by a slightly sweet portion of apricot liqueur. All fruit spirits invigorated by fine bubbles generously added with Cava, a dry sparkler from Spain.”

Wessel’s cocktail recipe follows at the end, after these photos of the Gracie’s dishes. You can find photos of last year’s Rainier cherry dishes from Gracie’s here.

Gracie’s Rainier Cherry Salad featuring Stracciatella cheese, wild arugula, aged balsamic, and Marcona almonds

Gracie’s Rainier Cherry dessert: Almond Nougat Semifreddo, Dark Chocolate Mousse, Balsamic Rainier Cherries, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Cherry Ganache and a Chocolate Balsamic Drizzle

Gracie’s Rainier Cherry Salad featuring Stracciatella cheese, wild arugula, aged balsamic, and Marcona almonds

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July 20, 2012 0 comment

chefs & restaurants news

Gracie’s Offers Kids’ Tasting Menu for the Holidays

by David Dadekian December 1, 2011

written by David Dadekian

Local Catch Fish & Chips with triple cooked potatoes, cole slaw and green tomato tartar sauce

Gracie’s restaurant in downtown Providence is now offering a three-course kids’ tasting menu during the holiday season. Executive Chef Matthew Varga and Pastry Chef Melissa Denmark designed the kids’ menu using the same philosophy behind Gracie’s main dining menu: “offering the freshest ingredients to reflect the flavors of the season.” Varga said, “I always have a blast cooking for kids because we were all kids once. My inspiration for this menu is all the things I loved to eat when I was a kid. Broccoli Mac & Cheese—I grew up on that. Meatloaf—my father, he’d be very proud of my meatloaf. And my mother [would make] fried mozzarella. That’s a thing we always had around when I was growing up. The menu’s really reliving my childhood. It’s a great time.”

In order to check out that “great time,” my family went to dinner at Gracie’s this past weekend to sample several of the kids’ menu items. My daughters are a bit young to clean their plates, which was fine with us adults since that meant we could get a taste of all those childhood memories. From an adult perspective I offer these notes on the menu items my children had. The Mozzarella Arancini, fried mozzarella with a marinara dipping sauce, was a big hit and from the adult perspective, beautifully presented. The Chicken Noodle Soup was really hearty and the croutons added a wonderful crunch alongside the abundance of noodles.

I could’ve made a meal out of the mozzarella and a big bowl of the soup alone, but then I would’ve been very sad to have missed the Mac & Cheese that was so homey and crunchy. There was broccoli in the dish for health and color, as well as lots of big chunks of bacon for, well, bacon! The other kids’ second course we tried was the Meatloaf which my father and I could have easily polished off had it not been my daughter’s dinner. It may be a kids’ menu item, but the whole plate said Gracie’s with perfectly peeled and cooked carrots and onions, and deliciously creamy mashed potatoes.

As for the third course, desert, unsurprisingly I didn’t manage to get a bite of either the Milk & Cookies or the Brownie Sundae. My daughters enjoyed everything which would be the endorsement I’d want. Pastry Chef Melissa Denmark had the best last remark when I asked her about the menu, “It’s a good time to be a kid.”

There are three choices in each course of the kids’ menu: First Course of Baby Greens Salad, Mozzarella Arancini or Free Range Chicken Noodle Soup; Second Course of Rotini Mac & Cheese, Local Catch Fish & Chips or Blackbird Farms Meatloaf; Third Course of Milk & Cookies, Brownie Sundae or Gracieʼs Crème Brûlée. The cost per child is $25. For more information or to make a reservation, see www.graciesprov.com.

Mozzarella Arancini with San Marzano marinara sauce, micro basil

Milk & Cookies with choice of milk, chocolate milk or hot cocoa

A table at Gracie's with Mozzarella Arancini and Free Range Chicken Noodle Soup with aromatic vegetables, homemade focaccia croutons

Baby Greens Salad with housemade buttermilk ranch dressing, Yukon potato chips

Blackbird Farm Meatloaf with smashed red potatoes, roasted carrots and onions, thyme gravy

Rotini Mac & Cheese with cheddar mornay, broccoli, house smoked bacon, herb crust

December 1, 2011 0 comment

cooking

Charcutepalooza July: Blending: mortadella

by David Dadekian July 15, 2011

written by David Dadekian

cross-section of mortadella

I’ve discovered an interesting ratio between my love of photography and my love of cooking, more specifically, my love of cooking all these excellent Charcutepalooza projects. The more I enjoy a project and have fun doing it, the more I think to stop and pick up my camera to make photos. When I’m as thoroughly frustrated as I was making this month’s mortadella, and last month’s sausage, making photos isn’t the first thing to come to mind—and I make photos almost every day.

To make matters just slightly more down this month, while I and my family loved the June project’s end result of duck sausage and spicy Italian sausage, none of us really liked the mortadella. It’s not that it was bad at all. It’s just that for the amount of work and mess I created, I was hoping for something that tasted a little better than just really good bologna. Especially since I don’t really enjoy bologna. I have had mortadella many times in the past and never thought much of it, but I was really hoping making it myself with good, locally raised, pastured pork would make it great. Greatness, while achieved with several other Charcutepalooza projects, was not within my grasp this time.

Instead of regaling you with more tales of my stuffing clumsiness and emulsion-making-mess woes (I’ll just say emulsified meat does wash out of children’s hair and leave it at that), I’ll move on to what I did with the final product. As you can see from the photo above, I chose not to use pistachios or other “mix-ins” in my mortadella. I never much cared for nuts in it in the past, and my wife Brenda doesn’t love olives. In thinking about it now, that may have been my mistake, because the only time I’ve ever really enjoyed mortadella is in a muffuletta, which of course is always loaded with an olive salad.

So I’m looking at this gigantic round of mortadella that I’ve sliced in half to take the above cross-section photo and, besides that weirdly unnatural pink color, I see a lot of fat, beautiful pork fat that I was kind of cursing myself for wasting inside this emulsion. All the while Brenda was washing and spinning greens and, after tasting the mortadella, declaring she would prefer not to have that on her salad. I thought, but what if it was a crispy lardon? Look at all that fat. It’s got to render and crisp up nicely.

Out came a frying pan and in went 1/2″ cubes of mortadella (see last photo, extremely zoomed in for effect). Fifteen minutes later and we had the below salad. Then I went the extra step of deglazing the pan with balsamic vinegar, creating a rough 3:1 ratio of rendered mortadella fat and a little olive oil to the vinegar, stirring in some Dijon and cracked black pepper, and we had a vinaigrette.

I’m going to sound like a complete downer, but I still didn’t love it. I know, perhaps there was something wrong with me. Just to be on the safe side I had a chicken skin club sandwich with homemade bacon today. It was fantastic, so thankfully my taste buds still work. I’m not about to give up of course, especially not since I already know that next month’s challenge involves terrines, which I love making, so I’ll see if my photo making ratio theory holds up.

Thank you again to Cathy Barrow and Kim Foster, and I do mean that sincerely. Maybe it wasn’t my cup of tea, or cup of emulsified meat, but it was a new experience for me to stuff a bung (did you really think I’d get through this whole month’s post without mentioning bung once?), and new experiences are always much appreciated.

salad with mortadella "lardons"

close-up exploration of a cube of mortadella

July 15, 2011 0 comment

chefs & restaurants news wine & drinks

Tini’s Spring Cocktails Are Here, Along With Two New Dishes

by David Dadekian April 1, 2011

written by David Dadekian

The new Spring Cocktails at Tini, from left to right: (verb) my Green Bikini in (place), A Classy (noun), (noun) on the Horizon, (verb) the White Dog, Make Her (verb) This Time

After this winter, it seems as if everyone is working hard to bring about spring. When I asked bartender Alicia Canning about working on the five new drinks for Tini‘s Spring Cocktail Line she gave kind of a sly smile. I’ll just say bringing about spring at Tini can be intoxicating and leave it at that. It can also be delicious, as proven by Chef Darius Salko’s two new dishes. When I received Salko’s message mentioning a fried chicken skin sandwich you could almost see the swooshing, curly speed lines behind me as I rushed to Tini.

Orange Dream Salad (larger version at end of piece)

First, the food. In addition to the fried chicken skin sandwich, which is more properly called The Crackling Club, there is the Orange Dream Salad. I’ll confess, when Salko told me what was in it—orange and grapefruit segments, dates, Bulgarian sheep’s milk Feta cheese, red seedless grapes, torn mint, cinnamon and pomegranate seeds—I wasn’t sure how that combination would work. But I’ve learned to have faith in Salko’s method of putting together good, fresh ingredients in clean, simple ways that create hugely flavorful dishes. Salko told me, “We serve it with two tortillas and you kind of just have a ball,” and he was so right. I highly recommend ordering the Orange Dream Salad, especially if you’re going to also have The Crackling Club, which as you might imagine, is so good (and only a little bit “bad”).

The Crackling Club (larger version at end of piece)

While you might think a fried chicken skin sandwich sounds hedonistic, again, in the Tini style of fresh and simple, it’s really a somewhat light sandwich. I say somewhat because it is a club sandwich, so there’s also house cured & smoked bacon, Allen Farms red mustard greens, sweet cabbage, pickled shallots, bread-and-butter pickles and house made mayonnaise, along with the two chicken cracklings. It’s all piled beautifully on their house made brioche. The chicken skin is perfectly crisped and slightly puffed so the effect is really a somewhat light spring-like club sandwich and not something heavy.

Now, the cocktails. Canning prepared five beautiful drinks for me to play with making photos of, and then of course I got to try them all. The Spring Cocktail Line is called “Ad Lib” and the names of the drinks require the person ordering to fill in some key words, in the style of a favorite childhood written word game. Sure the missing spots in the cocktail names could all be filled-in with words loaded in innuendo, but then who didn’t do that with Mad Libs anyway (0r skipped the innuendo altogether and just went straight to the gutter)? The cocktails are:

White Whisky, Muddled Cucumber = [verb] the White Dog
Cachaça, St. Germain, Basil = [verb] my Green Bikini in [place]
Belvedere, Framboise, Lemon, Champagne = A Classy [noun]
Genever, Maraschino, Violette, Mint = [noun] on the Horizon
Maker’s Mark, TINI Grenadine, Thyme = Make Her [verb] This Time

I really enjoyed the “[verb] the White Dog.” It uses Death’s Door White Whisky which is fermented in stainless steel and finished in uncharred oak barrels so it never gets the caramel color or smoky flavors of a traditional whisky. Personally, I wouldn’t call it a whisky, or maybe label it with an asterisk, because it’s a delicious drink and people who aren’t fans of whisky might pass it by. The “Make Her [verb] This Time” was also a favorite. The thyme and a little touch of salt in it really brings out some subtle flavors. All the drinks were perfectly balanced and should be big hits.

In addition to the new drinks and dishes, Tini is now serving late on Wednesdays with live music. Salko posted, “It’s the Tini Show starting at 10 p.m.! 3 excellent musicians, amazing cocktails, $15 wine bottles, late night grub until 11 p.m. You can’t go wrong! Tini Weenies and Fries will be served for the Music Lovers!”