Whiskey Planked Rabbit Ribeyes
I love Whiskey, its one of my favorite things in life. I was very fortunate when my friend Michael from Templeton Rye gave me some used whiskey barrel pieces from his operation in Iowa. Templeton Rye is one of my favorites! I love it neat with a water back, mmmm I might need to have one right now. In early may Stephanie Izard, Guiseppe Tentori and I came together for another dinner this time featuring rabbits. Its always fun to cook with other chefs, especially in a neutral kitchen, that way no chef is the host, they don’t have to worry about making sure we have everything etc. We just cook and have fun catching up on what is going on in the industry, farmers and each other. I knew I wanted to use the ribs for something but what? I looked at my sous chef Dino and said “should we french them like we used to at the Dolphin?” in translation that meant “Dino start frenching these 30 rabbit racks”. I saw his face and heart just sink, this was a task he mastered 10 years ago when we worked together at Green Dolpohin Street, after about 40 seconds of making him sweat I told him I was kidding. To understand frenching a rabbit rack, you must take all the meat and sinue off the small delicate bones so that the bones are completely clean and the eye of the loin is the only part left attached, in other words its the biggest pain in the A$$! Then again anything food related that is “frenched” pretty much is a time consuming process, I think sometimes that it really translates into “Pain in the A$$” hehe.
To make heat the barrel pieces for 30 minutes in a 450 degree oven, toss the rabbit chops in salt, pepper and vegetable oil. Place the chops on the hot barrel pieces and return to the oven for approximately 10 minutes. Remove from oven and toss in whiskey bbq sauce. Serve on more planks that are only warm, you dont want your guests burning their fingers. The fun part of this dish is that the whiskey flavor roasts into the rabbit meat, think of this as a new version of cedar planked salmon.
Chicago Green City Market Chefs BBQ
This past Thursday Chicago Green City Market held its annual Chefs BBQ, it was an honor to cook at this event. We had a great time as expected; the best was to see the smiles on our farmer’s faces and their families. We see them every week and the market is usually crazy busy so it’s nice to see them not working and enjoying themselves!We topped our table off with sod which we later planted at the market in a bare spot by a bench. Our Himalayan pink salt served as our landscape blocks containing our herb garden featuring sweet basil, opal basil, rosemary, lavender and sage all from Nichols Farm. Some hand tools from my backyard, a few flower pots, Templeton Rye bottles and the usual business cards etc… We were ready to go and had about an hour and a half to kill so it was great to walk around and talk with other chefs and catch up before starting to cook. We grilled 35 day dry aged ribeyes and served them with a German style potato salad made from what we dubbed Nichols farm “cobblestone potatoes”, knob onions, bacon and Templeton Rye whisky. Smoked river valley shiitake mushrooms and Green Acres super sexy carrots shaved into a slaw. It was a fun night and a huge success, we brought enough plates for 700 servings and ended up serving over 850 servings, I’m glad we prepped extra!
DandyID
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