Next week will be my first time working on a station that is just to come up with a new dish everyday. It is a bit intimidating but I think it will be fun. I have had a hard time trying to figure out what to create for specials. My partner has been taking the lead with many of the dishes with just some minor input from myself. I find it hard to create something out of nothing or to create a dish on the spot. However, I chose this to challenge myself and to try to get into the mindset and start to become more creative.
We have a few dishes planned out that I helped bring some components into. One being a tartare that I originally planned to be lamb but will be beef. We will be doing a spiced cured duck egg yolk to microplane over the top. My partner does take lead in most of the dishes which is fine by me because I’m also learning from him. Though I do wish I could come up with more of the dishes. Most of the stuff I’ve brought up has kind of been shot down due to it not being classy or “fine dining” enough for the restaurant. I’m working on tweaking them to fit the category, but it has been pretty hard to change the plating or forms of my ingredients.
We talk a lot about turning things into foams, espumas, and purees but this isn’t really something that I think would work well with what I want to do. I want to be able to make a dish that reflects my heritage to the diners that come in. I want them to enjoy what they are eating and want to explore that kind of food more.
In the end I just want to learn how to turn food that I love into fine dinning for if I ever needed to. I think that these 10 days on this station will help me learn more flavor combinations and plating techniques. I’m excited to see what we do and hope I can figure out my dishes.