Homage to a carrot, homage to a chef

Thoughts on produce, process, inspiration and creativity

‘The meal began with the French Laundry’s signature amuse - tiny little coronets of salmon tartare, served in a cone rack like at Baskin-Robbins. We all knew they were coming. We’d seen them in the cookbook… In addition to being delicious, it’s psychological manipulation at its most skilful. You can’t help but be charmed. These cute little cones press long disused buttons in the sense-memory section of the brain. You feel like a kid again, your appetite jump starts, and a breathless sense of anticipation comes over you. You want - you need - to know: What’s next?’ 

Anthony Bourdain, A Cook’s Tour, page 247 (2001)

(Watch Tony’s reaction to the cornet here, taken from the TV series ‘A Cook’s Tour’)

I first read these words in 2005, fresh out of university: excited but adrift and desperately in need of some direction. For Christmas that year, inspired by Bourdain’s words, I requested a copy of Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook and hungrily pored over its pages from cover-to-cover and back again, trying to imagine how these intricate creations tasted and the processes (and time) required to put them together. And, of course, at the front of the book there it was: the salmon cornet. A tiny bite of genius to kick things off, one that says: ‘don’t worry, you’re in safe hands - we know what we’re doing and we want you to have fun’. An entire philosophy encapsulated in a canapé. How much fun would it be, I thought, to be able to share something like that with people? 

Nearly twenty years on, that’s exactly what I get to do. Vanderlyle is now in its sixth year and I’m constantly seeking out ways to make the food better, more delicious, more surprising. Turning the focus towards plants was something I was hesitant about initially, concerned that it was too limiting and restrictive - I was worried it would be like painting with only a few colours, the rest of the rainbow tantalisingly out of reach. The opposite was true. Those self-imposed restraints presented new opportunities for learning. I had to completely rethink dish creation and menu design. It’s impossible to rest on the crux of animal protein if there is none available, so I needed to consider new ways to make dishes both satisfying and tasty, to make sure diners felt they had enjoyed an experience with a degree of familiarity, coupled with surprises. 

When crafting new dishes I always ask if what we are seeking to achieve is a produce-led creation or one defined by process. More simplistically: are we looking to make an Italian influenced dish, where the ingredients are left to speak (more or less) for themselves, or a French one, where the voice of the chef speaks louder (the veracity of this perceived split is a discussion for another day - sometimes reductivism can be useful)? 

For me, a balanced menu relies on a sensible split between the two approaches, a balancing act between allowing exceptional produce to tell its own story, without leaving the diner feeling like they’ve eaten a menu of dishes they could easily recreate themselves.

This is a good time of year to explain this theory: spring produce is typically some of the best, most vibrant and exciting and the inclination is to mess around with it as little as possible, thereby preserving its integrity. Cooking methods tend to be simplistic. However, a plate of steamed asparagus - no matter how perfectly cooked - is easy to replicate in a home kitchen. It therefore becomes necessary to embellish the dish with complexity, either in terms of additional elements or unusual flavour combinations that might not be immediately obvious to a home cook. 

Process-driven dishes come from another starting point, one that asks different questions in an effort to reach a surprising conclusion. Often processes can alter over time - they evolve as new methods are developed or old ones are improved. I sometimes wish I could taste two versions of the same dish side-by-side, one in its initial stages and one after six or 12 months of tiny tweaks and changes compounding over time into something truly special. Alas, the march of progress is in one direction only. 

In this respect, can it be said that a dish is ever finished? Can they ever evolve into their final, complete form, refined to the point at which the artist would scrawl their signature on the canvas and walk away? As cooks, we don’t have that luxury - there is an intangible impermanence to what we do, which makes it both alluring and frustrating. Alluring because there might always be a better way, frustrating because we can never call something complete. Two sides of the same coin which encourage us towards a finish-line permanently in the distance. 

Our smoked carrot tartare is a dish that encapsulates the process-driven approach and one that has gone through various iterations since its initial inception about 18 months ago. The production process itself has become increasingly lengthy - not necessarily overly complicated, but certainly time-consuming. 

Peeled carrots (we cook between 10 and 20kg at a time) are steamed with seaweed at 84 degrees before being dehydrated for several hours at a lower temperature. The resulting carrot “jerky” is intensely flavoured, but too chewy to be pleasant - so it is rehydrated for two days in heavily reduced carrot juice, itself flavoured with seaweed. What results is a carrot that has the texture of cured fish: this is then minced and cold smoked with oak or applewood before being seasoned. The resulting yield is about 20-25% of the volume of carrots we started with: from an entire 10kg sack of carrots, around 2kg of finished carrot tartare.

This element has most often appeared as a plated dish, pressed into a ring mould in the manner of a traditional tartare, and garnished accordingly. In the past we’ve taken inspiration from Scandinavia by pairing it with horseradish, creme fraiche and chives; France with a rich egg yolk puree, cornichons and shallots; and Thailand with chillies, lemongrass, ginger, lime and coriander. 

But my favourite version is the one we are serving now, not only because I feel that the process has become refined to the point where it may remain unchanged (at least for now), but because it pays homage to the dish that started it all: Thomas Keller’s salmon cornet, which so delighted Anthony Bourdain who, in turn, so delighted me and, without even knowing it, set me walking down a path I continue to tread with such pleasure.

It’s all there: the cone, the sour cream, the red onion and the tartare - but it’s also all made entirely from plants. The tartare is pleasingly rich, somehow reminiscent of smoked salmon. There is sour cream but made from sunflower seeds. Sweet Roscoff onion, finely diced and rinsed for a few minutes to sweeten it. Minced chives and a crown of seaweed caviar, all in a tiny pastry cone, small enough to eat in two dainty bites at the beginning of the menu. The only thing that’s missing is a signature, which I’d happily scrawl on there, if I could - after Keller - of course.

Thank you, as always, for reading my words. June tables at Vanderlyle will be available to book from midday today, Tuesday May 7th.