TOP CHEF'S HUGH ACHESON DISHES ON HIS NEWEST COOKBOOK (OUT TODAY) + A RECIPE
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| Hugh Acheson/Photo by Emily B. Hall |
That very
question was, in effect, the impetus for the book, after a neighbor found the
unfamiliar, knob-like German vegetable in his home-delivered produce box and
hit Hugh up for ways to craft it in the kitchen.
On the
spot, Hugh offered a couple of ideas that included slaw and a lobster and
curried butter blend, both of which are included in The Broad Fork. However, forever fascinated by connections between food
and community, he began to think more about creative and uncomplicated ways to make
the most of seasonal crops.
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| Kohlrabi, Lobster, Fennel and Curry Butter Hugh Acheson, The Broad Fork Photo by Rinne Allen |
Similar to his other two cookbooks - A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen, which took home the award for Best
Cookbook in the field of “American Cooking” by the James Beard Foundation in
2012, and his canning swatch book, Pick a
Pickle - The Broad Fork quickly dispels the notion that Southern food is an
endless stream of cornbread, fried chicken and biscuits with its use of pure,
regional ingredients.
Hugh is adamant
that the Southern table isn’t one of convenience food, but,
rather, an agrarian reaction to the season that exists. That's why it's most important to
him to understand one’s surroundings.
“So if I live in Northeast Georgia I know that in September I can drive
20 minutes away and buy local apples," he says. "And
I understand when corn season is and what fish are in season along the coast of
Georgia. It's connecting the dots in
your community.”
The new 200-recipe
turner, which travels across the four seasons with three pared-down recipes and
one that is more in-depth for each of the 50 ingredients showcased in the book, is an all-out harvest love fest. Spring bites deploy classic cabbage kimchi and roasted
pork tenderloin with bok choy, tomatoes and avocado. Summer rounds out with raspberry cobbler with a drop
biscuit topping and seared scallops with corn, spinach and bacon. Hugh delivers fall with lamb loin and root puree,
pomegranate and celery vinaigrette while winter is homey with chicken thighs over barley Brussels risotto and a side kale salad with crisp shallots and caper dressing.
As the
guy who grew up in an academic family, but hated school and doesn’t boast
formal culinary training, yet is considered one of the country’s star chefs and
restaurateurs with four critically-acclaimed eateries in his adopted state,
Hugh comes across as a little bit quirky rebel (in a nice way) and all
down-to-earth. He’s also been dubbed the
Jamie Oliver of Southern Cooking, drawing reference to the English celebrity
chef who campaigns globally for food education and reform.
“You know
what I like about Jamie?” Hugh poses. “I
think he's a really good chef and I think he's been amazingly successful at business. But he cares. He really, really does
care. He cares because he has kids
and he cares about his community.
Unfortunately we convinced America and everyone in the U.K. to put sugar
in everything we eat and nobody ever notices.”
Hugh’s
solution to get America to stop relying on fast food is to teach them how to
cook again and make sure it's fun.
“And cooking
should be fun!” he shares.
“The best times in your life are cooking with your family in your
kitchen and enjoying yourself. Because I always say this: Nobody has a life
moment over a pizza pocket.”
Outtakes:
On why he doesn’t like the New
Southern cooking label sometimes thrown on him:
“I’ve
never been a big fan of the New Southern cooking thing. I think it fails to
properly take credence to a lot of things in our past we need to own up
to. It moves on too quickly from the
fact that we need to come to terms with what we call Southern food is the food
of West Africa. We owe it to the African
Americans in the South who basically are responsible for our food. We can change it, we can evolve it, we can
make it better with their help, but we have to come to terms with it didn't
start on the plantation main house table.
It started in the slave quarters.
And that's kind of a painful thing.
So I think that the term ‘New South’ sort of glosses over it.”
On balancing creativity and
entrepreneurial efforts:
“The
bottom line that I always need to realize that I'm a pretty much a restaurateur
now as opposed to an executive chef. But you know I also have two kids who are
10 and 12 and need taxiing around everywhere they go. And that's fine and we enjoy it. I'm beyond the point of working at one
restaurant for 90 hours a week. But I
love the business aspect of it and I love the really intriguing aspects of how
you build something that people want to go to and how you create a brand and
how you continue it and what you do to encourage people. That requires building a team and I also love
that building of team. I love – love
– delegating to other people. More so, I
like to be surrounded by people who are better than me at a lot of things. Because I'm not pompous enough to think that
I'm the best at all this. I need help and down in Savannah (at his restaurant,
The Florence), Kyle's better at executing Italian food than I am. He's there for a reason. A lot of executive chefs and restaurateurs
don't have the ability to give up those decision making things and you've gotta
give these people control.”
On the books he wants – and
doesn’t want - to publish:
“I never
wanted to publish a book that people would not dirty up the kitchen. The books I do I want people to actually
use. I love a book. I treasure it. I'm a professional chef so I'm always looking
for different ideas that people have in the high end of dining, but that's not
what I want to publish. I want to publish
something that people say, ‘Geez, man, we make that salad of yours every week
and that vinaigrette has become a staple in our house.' That's what means the
most to me.”
On feeling connected to his
adopted community:
“I really
enjoy being part of the community I live in and I have for 20 years. I think that if I lived in Cleveland I would
feel the same. Whatever community you're
in immerse yourself in it, get to know your neighbors. And respect it. Make it better. You have nobody to blame but yourself if you
complain about your environment.”
Check out more on Hugh Acheson at http://hughacheson.com or www.bravotv.com
Recipe share of that beauty of a kohlrabi dish above:
SKILLET KOHLRABI, LOBSTER, FENNEL, and CURRY BUTTER
Makes
1 cup
Recipe share of that beauty of a kohlrabi dish above:
SKILLET KOHLRABI, LOBSTER, FENNEL, and CURRY BUTTER
Hugh Acheson | THE BROAD FORK
Make
sure you buy lobsters alive and kicking, and buy them when they are in season. They
really don’t take that long to cook. I usually figure about 6 minutes per pound
in boiling water, and onto the table. In this recipe, we cook it a little
further in the pan, so I shorten
the boiling time, to 4½ minutes per pound.
Serves
2 as an appetizer or a light main course:
3
tablespoons Curry Butter (recipe follows)
½
bulb kohlrabi, peeled, halved and sliced into ¼-inch-thick half-moons
½
fennel bulb, cored and thinly sliced
2
garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1
live lobster (1¼ to 1½ pounds), boiled for 4½ minutes per pound and cleaned and
cut into pieces (instructions follow)
Kosher
salt
2
scallions, thinly sliced on the bias
1
teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
In
a large sauté pan, melt half of the curry butter over medium heat. When it
begins to bubble and froth, add the kohlrabi and the fennel. Cook for 5 minutes
to soften the vegetables. Then add the garlic and the lobster pieces. Season
with kosher salt to taste.
Cook for 3 minutes, to warm through
and finish cooking the lobster pieces. Then add the scallions, lime juice, and
the remaining curry butter, stirring well to fully incorporate the butter,
beautifully glazing the vegetables and the lobster.
Spoon the contents of the pan onto a
platter, and serve. Maybe a chilled white Burgundy will appear if you think
nice thoughts.
CURRY BUTTER
¼
pound (1 stick) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
1
tablespoon minced shallot
1
teaspoon ground ginger
1
teaspoon curry powder
1
teaspoon lime juice
Melt
the 1 tablespoon of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it
bubbles and froths, add the shallot and cook for 2 minutes. Add the ginger and
curry powder and cook for 1 minute more. Then add the lime juice, stir to
combine, and remove from the heat. Set the mixture aside to cool to room
temperature.
In a small bowl, mix the remaining
stick of butter with the sautéed shallot, ginger, and curry. Mix well, then place
the mixture in a jar and refrigerate.
HOW to COOK a LOBSTER
I
remember my family committing culinary atrocities with the classic Canadian
lobster. Boiling it for too long in insipid water made for a less than regal
end for the poor little
crustacean.
To me, lobster is an attainable luxury, so one should know how to turn it into
an impressive meal.
Makes
1 lobster
2
tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning
1
lemon, thinly sliced
3
sprigs fresh thyme
4
bay leaves
Sea
salt
1
live East Coast lobster
Pour
2 gallons of water into a large stockpot set over high heat. Add the Old Bay,
lemon slices, thyme sprigs, bay leaves, and enough sea salt so that the water
tastes pleasantly like the ocean. Bring to a boil and then add the lobster.
Cook for 5 minutes per pound—so a 1¼-pounder will take 6 minutes—and then
transfer it from the pot to a platter (if you are going to eat it then) or to
an ice bath (if it is for later use in a recipe.) If it’s the former, get a
bib, some claw crackers and picks, and go to town. If the latter, then let’s
clean that lobster up:
Place the lobster on a couple of
paper towels on top of a cutting board, and twist off the tail. Using poultry
shears, cut off the outer side of the tail’s shell, being careful not to
actually cut into the flesh. Twist off the claws and knuckles, and cut the
shells on those too and remove the meat. (Sometimes it is safer to use a claw
cracker than shears. I leave this to you.) Inside each claw is a sheer piece of
shell that runs inside the meat. Pull this out from the back of the claw meat.
It will look like a little translucent boomerang. Take all the meat you have freed
from the shells and rinse it quickly under cold water to remove the white stuff
that accumulates on the cooked meat. This is hemolymph, which is kind of what
the lobster has instead of blood. Chop the shells and carcass up for a bisque
or stock, and chop the reserved meat into pieces or prepare as your recipe
indicates.
“Recipes reprinted from The Broad
Fork: Recipes for the Wide World of Vegetables and Fruits. Copyright ©2015 by
Hugh Acheson. Photographs by Rinne Allen. Published by Clarkson
Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.”
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