Recently in Christophe Eme Category
December 19, 2007
Secret Sauce welcomes Chef Christophe Émé, Executive Chef and Owner of Ortolan in Los Angeles. Recently awarded an impressive 1-star rating in the Michelin Guide in LA, this celebrity chef is ready to share one of his favorite simple dishes and the top-secret recipe!
Says Chef Émé, "I love this recipe for Tomato Parfait because I want to show how you can eat tomato differently than just drizzling it with olive oil and serving it with basil. This is an easy way to eat tomato while showing off the complex flavors, and also creating a nice presentation."
Create this beautiful tomato dish in a cinch tonight! Here's how:
Procedure:
- Peel, boil and slice the tomatoes into large cubes.
- Cut the red bell peppers into large cubes as well, after removing the seeds and the white areas.
- Peel the celery stock and cut into quarter inch pieces.
- In a medium saucepan combine the tomatoes, red bell pepper and celery, the tomato paste, saffron, thyme, 3 basil leaves, garlic and sugar. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and simmer uncovered for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
- Mince the tarragon and the 2 basil leaves.
- Once the tomato purée is ready, pass it through a strainer and measure the liquid extracted. You should have about 3.5 oz. of liquid remaining. If there is excess liquid, reduce it by cooking longer until 3.5 oz. remain.
- Make sure the tomato purée is still hot and mix in the gelatin well until it dissolves. Add a splash of Tabasco, the ketchup, tarragon and basil and let it cool down before adding the cream.
- Add first a fifth of the cream by mixing vigorously, and then the remaining more delicately, slowly incorporating with the rest of the mixture.
- Refrigerate for about 6 hours.
Serves 6.
About the Chef:
From the time he was just a boy, Christophe Émé found satisfaction in the kitchen, helping to cook for his family while growing up in France’s picturesque Loire Valley. Since then, Émé’s passion for food has taken him around the world, in a career path illuminated by Michelin stars. After two decades of cooking at some of the world’s finest restaurants, Émé had struck out on his own, showcasing his impeccable and artful cooking at Ortolan in West Hollywood, a restaurant that sets the tone for the next generation of French restaurants. Shortly after Ortolan opened in 2005, Émé was honored by Food & Wine magazine as one of the 10 Best New Chefs. John Mariani of Esquire has also designated Ortolan as one of the Best New Restaurants of 2005.
Émé arrived in the United States in 2001, briefly working in New York, before moving on to Los Angeles to cook at the venerable L’Orangerie. There he introduced his signature brand of modern French cuisine, which eschews heavy, cream-based sauces in favor of intensely flavored emulsions and natural jus. For Émé, L’Orangerie’s traditional formality was no longer relevant to the culture of contemporary Los Angeles; he yearned for a more informal, welcoming forum in which to showcase his haute cuisine.
With the encouragement of wife and business partner Jeri Ryan, the concept for Ortolan was conceived: A restaurant where Émé’s impeccable standards need not be compromised, but where Angelenos would feel more at home and better able to fully appreciate his refined cuisine. As the chef explains, “Ortolan is designed to be sophisticated and unpretentious... I prepare the same haute cuisine as before, but in a setting that is more modern and casual.... it’s a place where you can wear a suit or come in jeans.”
And despite the sophistication of the cuisine—and the frequent appearances of caviar, foie gras and truffles on the menu—Émé concentrates on simplicity of flavors derived from the world’s greatest ingredients all presented with a classic, unfussy execution. In regard to his aesthetically stylish presentation, utilizing unconventional serving plates and surfaces, he explains, “I wanted to do something different, to develop my own style in my own restaurant.” The 37-year-old Émé adds, “but I’m no artist...I’m just a chef.” To anybody who has dined at Ortolan, that self-assessment ranks as one of the world’s great understatements.
