PASTA PERFECT
How hard can cooking restaurant dishes be
As an enthusiastic home baker, cook and pasta maker, I was happy to try my hand at making a meal that could pass as restaurant standard tucker.
When The Fat Farmer head chef Dwaynne Blackett said we were making pasta, I instantly thought I had a good shot as I’ve kneaded my share of pasta at home.
But I soon learned that overconfidence could leave me stuck in my ways of making somewhat grittier pasta than the silky dough made at the Hokowhitu restaurant.
Blackett’s recipe uses finelyground flour and more eggs than a usual pasta, which makes it smooth and easy to roll out.
We made two lots of pasta, one plain and one with squid ink, which was slightly saltier and had a rich charcoal colour.
Combining the doughs to make multi-coloured fettuccine is a trick I’m bound to use again in an attempt to impress dinner guests.
The pasta is just one element of a dish that smells and tastes of the seaside.
With a bit of practise and help from Blackett, the plan was to rustle up fettuccine with seafood broth, jalapeno butter and confit salmon.
Making a broth has been high on my ‘to do’ list for years, but it’s one of those things I’ve always said I’ll get to later.
I imagined an array of vegetables cooking off in some oil and a few herbs and spices, but instead crabs are pulled apart by the legs, the shell is ripped off and thrown into a pot. The meaty body is kept as a staple for another dish.
Thick-cut vegetables, vinegar and a few other ingredients are added before a splash of brandy is set alight.
The flames cook off the alcohol and, as they subside, the broth is left to simmer.
Before I knew it, the hard yards were done and it was time to plate the food.
I had a go at plating the dish before Blackett showed me how he would present it.
Mine was rustic with salmon scattered through a huge pile of pasta.
Blackett’s pasta was neatly constructed into a nest in the middle of the bowl, leaving enough room for the sauce to swim around the edge.
He wanted to showcase the salmon so he left it in larger pieces.
The saucier meal was definitely packed with more flavour.
With all the help I got from Blackett, my dish seemed to be at a restaurant-quality standard, but attention to detail and balancing the different components were skills I couldn’t learn in a few hours in a commercial kitchen.
Filling pots the size of swimming pools and having more elements than what I’d put on for a home-cooked meal made it hard to juggle.
The experience gave me a new appreciation for the hard work that goes into cooking for others.
And although it was fun, I think I’ll stick to juggling a wine in one hand and a fork in the other when I visit The Fat Farmer next.