It doesn’t say, ‘Go exactly 147.3 feet from this exact coordinate.’ Instead, it’s a dot-dot-dot around the tree, around the rock, by the beach, over here is the treasure.” This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow the recipe if you like doing that, but it’s also OK to feel it out.Įven so, know your True North. It’s like an old-school treasure map,” he says. Valette says this is definitely one of those recipes. Except with baking, which requires precision, the truth is that most recipes are open to a measure of interpretation through the lenses of personal preference and market availability. This recipe is more hand-painted treasure map than architectural rendering. (If you do use a more modest wine for cooking, you can always freeze the leftover wine in ice cube trays for later cooking use-just don’t expect it to be drinkable on its own after freezing.) Just be sure it’s something you wouldn’t mind drinking. But if you can’t bear to divert that much fine wine away from your glass and into the saucepan, that’s OK it’s unlikely anyone will notice or care if you choose to use a middling-quality bottle instead. He’d never cook with a rare or extremely costly bottle (holster that 1982 Mouton-Rothschild), but better-quality wine does sometimes beget better-quality food, particularly if the recipe calls for a fairly large quantity of it, or if the wine is not cooked (such as in oysters with a splash of Champagne), in which case the flavors and texture of the wine will be more apparent in the food.īecause this recipe calls for a good 3/4 cup wine, the tannins and acidity of a well-structured Pinot will actually help balance the sauce. To cook with the good wine, or not to cook with the good wine? On the ever-controversial topic of whether to cook with the wine you’re drinking or instead use a “lesser” bottle, Valette says the answer varies. Here, Valette shares his tips on how to make the dish really shine. With a big splash of red wine and a pat of butter, the berries cook down to become a jamlike sauce literally made for pairing with red wine. Chef’s Notesįresh red currants add a tart burst of summertime to this otherwise savory, roasty herbed lamb dish. A perfectly tuned plate is a sight he says he never tires of: “So much of food comes right before you take that first bite.”ĭustin Valette says to use the recipe as a set of guidelines, but let the fresh ingredients in the market drive your final decisions. It’s hard to argue with Valette’s planet-twiddling when you take in the results. “The structure is fantastic, and I wanted to play with that had acid but also had depth of flavor.” The zingy currant sauce is the key: “It’s that little fresh textural snap that hits the highlight of the wine.” Valette created the lamb dish as a pairing for one of his favorite expressions of Sonoma Coast: Benovia’s juicy, berry-driven Tilton Hill Pinot Noir, made from grapes grown on sandy loam soils in a very cool microclimate of the appellation. Today, she provides an array of vegetables to the restaurant. A recipient of Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence, the restaurant spotlights small, boutique California wineries, and the brothers’ long history in the area has helped them develop strong relationships with nearby farmers such as Myrna Fincher of Early Bird’s Place farm, who babysat Valette when he was 2 years old. Valette and his brother, co-owner and general manager Aaron Garzini, both Healdsburg natives, built the restaurant on their dream of showcasing Sonoma’s wine and food community. “So much of this comes from trying to design that perfect bite,” he reflects. Add more butter in Venus and its richness could tip the whole system out of orbit to reimpose harmony, Valette might dial up the currants in Jupiter, letting tart berry cut through mellow fat until the stars realign.Īn affable guy with a booming laugh, Valette is well aware of how kooky his process may sound, and he’s completely OK with that. The goal of the visual is to find balance. All these different elements are intertwined with that main flavor, and they’re all connected with these little invisible strings.” “You have Jupiter, which would be the currants, and you have Mars, which is the cipollini onions. In the case of his lamb loin with currant sauce, caramelized onions and lamb’s lettuce, shown here, “Lamb is like the sun-that’s the driver, the main force,” he explains. The chef-owner of Valette restaurant in Healdsburg, Calif., develops each dish by mentally mapping a solar system in which every element on the plate is a planet with a gravitational pull. Dustin Valette is on a cosmic quest for delicious.
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