- Do you know how you
recognize a good cook?
It's when he whisks,
but it's not, you know.
- Dancing--
(upbeat music)
- We are here, Restaurant Daniel.
Super excited to cook with Chef Daniel,
a little bit nervous to be honest.
This restaurant has been at the forefront
of French fine dining in New York City
and today, we're going
to step into the brains
of the operation to see how
Chef Daniel and Chef Eddy Leroux
have developed and created
their version of ormeau,
which is abalone to you and me.
I'm so excited, let's go.
Salut, Chef.
- Welcome.
- Thank you.
What type of abalone is this?
- [Eddy] So, these are are
sourced from Northern Japan, Ezo.
- Ezo?
- And they're farm raised
from Kona, Hawai'i.
- Okay, would you consider this
the sort of best abalone, you'd say?
- Well, the best
farm-raised we have found.
- Best farm-raised.
Is it its own unique flavor
profile or similar to a clam?
- It's briny.
- Briny.
- As it cooks, it's sweet
so it's more briny when it's raw.
We came up with a very good compromise
of you know, French technique
and sort of Japanese influence
so it's really a combination
of the brininess of the sea
and the earthiness of the land.
- Excellent.
- Eddy's gonna show you,
he's got a big iPad Pro
where every dish is broken down as well.
- It looks just like a
photo, Chef. (laughs)
So, this is my notebook.
I like to fill the books
and then I just keep them.
So, the dish we're gonna do today
these lines here, is this
something you do with the--
- It's the puff pastry.
- Okay.
- Which is cut, actually,
with a scalpel, and--
- With a scalpel?
- Scalpel, yes.
If anybody needs surgery, or there's a--
(laughing)
We're ready.
- So, you use the scalpel
and sort of make these
incisions over the top.
- Absolutely.
- So, it's very clean, awesome
and we have the rocks around the outside.
- What's interesting
is that the puff pastry
carries a little bit like that, also.
- Okay, over the top
and then in the middle,
like, under the puff pastry
is sliced abalone, under here.
And then the--
- Crushed potato.
- Crushed potato on top?
- On the bottom.
- On the bottom of, okay
like, inside here.
- Crushed potato with the seaweed.
- With seaweed?
- They cut just along to
remove the puff pastry
and put the sauce over.
Yeah, it look very much like your--
(laughs)
Good drawings, it's right there.
- Excellent (Nyesha clapping)
So, we get to bring this
dish to life now, right?
- Yeah, yes.
- Awesome.
Look at this abalone, little baby.
Okay, so, what is the best way to clean.
- [Eddy] With a spoon it's
very easy to scoop them out.
You slide it under the muscle
removing the guts and everything from here
and then with a gilt, so, you go around.
- [Nyesha] So, what are you scrubbing off?
- You know where it's like, kind of an ink
like you can find with a squid.
- Okay, okay, this is the part you cut?
- Exactly, yeah.
- All the way around, all the way?
- All the way, yep, perfect, very good.
- [Nyesha] (laughs) Putting
me to work (giggles).
- [Daniel] Are you doing good?
- [Nyesha] I'm okay, Chef (laughs).
- Yeah, watch out that stomach
because sometimes they burst.
- It'll explode, huh?
- They burst and they make you smell.
- Yeah, a little juice.
- But no Chanel.
- For sure, so, we wash
these and save them to plate.
- So, yeah, so we're going
to blanch in salty water
to use them as presentation.
- Okay, amazing.
Chef, so, do people in
France eat a lot of abalone?
- [Daniel] Yes, but not
so much all over France.
I think in Brittany more, Paris
but it has never been such
a widely popular item,
it's an acquired taste.
I think here, the way we prepare it
if you never had abalone,
you understand it
and you feel that it's delicate
and it has a great texture.
You want to taste a piece raw?
- Yes, I would love to.
- [Eddy] It's almost like texture
of geoduck, sashimi-style.
- It's so tender.
- It's sweet, huh?
It's sweet, it's very tender.
- That's not what I was expecting
I was expecting it to be extremely tough.
The texture of the
abalone raw is impeccable.
It's almost like eating a--
- Geoduck, or conch, or--
- Exactly, like, super
soft, tender, delicious
almost like a light liver
flavor like on the back end,
very light, in a beautiful way.
Abalone babies.
- Then we're going to braise them.
So, mariniere is a classic
cooking with shallots, onion.
You put your shells right in
then deglaze with white wine
make a steam covered and you
cook, usually, very, very fast.
Then we'll add some light
chicken broth, or parsley
but we'll be cooking
for two to three hours
depending on the size of your abalone.
- Beautiful.
You really have the flavors of this dish
carry throughout the experience, right
you use this as a sauce?
- Exactly, that's why--
- Kinda compounds the flavor, right?
- Concentrate, yeah, exactly.
- [Nyesha] We're gonna
blanch the seaweed, correct?
About how long?
- Two to three minutes.
- Two to three minutes.
- You have three
different kinds of seaweed
mastocarpus, dwarf
rockweed, and cat's tongue.
- I love this.
Oh my gosh, look at the
color, how it changes.
- Yeah, it changed a lot.
- So cool.
What is the purpose of
blanching the seaweed?
- It's tenderized a
little bit, the seaweed,
like something gelatinous
but still too soft.
Then we shock in ice water
to preserve the color.
- Shock in ice water
to preserve the color.
You have no idea, I'm really
actually super passionate
about seaweed
so, like this is really exciting to me
and you know what I do
is I soak the seaweed
and then you use the seaweed
water as a facial toner.
- No, really?
- Yeah it's really good.
- Here I had the potatoes who cooked also.
- Potatoes.
- So, we cooked them
also with seaweed inside.
- Oh, nice.
- I'm gonna put you on the potato.
You know, I'll bring
you back to your youth
as a young chef.
So, how French are you
when you're cooking?
- How French? Oui, oui chef,
oui, oui, allez, voilà.
The most Chef, I'm like so extra.
- Okay, we have enough potatoes,
we have the parsley, we have the broth
the abalones are cooked.
- Dish is coming together.
This is so amazing, I have to say.
- I'm gonna melt some seaweed butter
to melt it down to put with your potatoes.
- Okay, Chef.
- And I did put also the seaweed
you want to taste my seaweed butter?
Oh, it's so good.
- Where are you sourcing
the butter from, Chef?
- This is from Bordier
and the seaweed butter to me is a gem.
- It's delicious.
- It's just so gourmand and so unique.
So, very melted and you can see
in the butter there is
all the seaweed as well
which has nourished that butter
yeah, we're gonna zest some lemon with it.
So, you see our abalone cooked
and they shrunk a little bit.
- Wow, you really smell all
of those amazing flavors
the celery, the leeks, shallots, thyme.
- Exactly, it's very gourmand.
- Oh, it's so beautiful.
- I want you to taste the potato,
the combination of the black pepper
there's the seaweed, the lemon.
I had a golden spoon for you.
- My favorite.
- It's good?
- Chef, it's so beautiful.
- It's peppery.
- And it's the way the
black pepper comes in
and sort of intermingles with the potato
and the creaminess
and then a beautiful touch of lemon zest
it brightens everything up.
- So, Nyesha if you
wanna slice the abalone?
- Yes.
- So, you fill the shell with some potato
generously we're going to compress.
- Okay, potato in, this
is gonna be so delicious
- And then we compress.
- Okay, sure.
- You're doing a beautiful
job, the top muscle.
- Okay, yes.
- So the more bold side goes on top.
It's a wonderful dish because
for every slice of abalone
there is a spoon of potatoes and seaweed
and I think, it's the
quintessential sort of
land and sea preparation.
It's our surf and turf.
Looking good, I think, we can charge
25 bucks for it or 30.
- No, no it's part of your prix fixe.
Puff pastry, of course
we all know what it is
and Eddy made some small
discs of puff pastry.
The stuffed abalone now, the puff pastry
and you place it right
in the center nicely
and you start to really fold
just the edge of it underneath.
So, you can crush it underneath
but you don't want to
touch it on the bottom.
So, I think what we like with puff pastry
is first time, we are
using only the top after
because we're gonna cut
through the shell around.
It's just the delicate, nice,
because there is butter also
with the potatoes inside.
I think it really works well.
- So, now we're going to put the egg yolk,
we're going to flash
freeze for five minutes
for the dough to be firm
and then we're going to make incisions.
- With the scalpel?
- With the scalpel.
- Let's taste the broth, you know
where the abalone cooked for
three and a half hours almost.
- I could drink that, this is--
- It's the finest soup we can make.
So, we strain this over
so yeah, the stock, the parsley
the lemon juice, the heavy cream.
- And then we're going
to it put back in the pan
to make the roux. You have it here.
(blender starts)
- So, we have the roux.
I'm gonna put a good
tablespoon of a roux like that.
- May I?
- As you see, the sauce has
a little bit of thickness,
not much but enough to do
a little bit of a coating
and it's green but
because of the lemon juice
it will be difficult to
keep it like fresh green.
It's more like a pistachio green.
(blender starts)
- So, from there.
- So, after we add the cartridge
what does that do to the sauce?
- Right now the sauce has a
sort of a certain thickness
but it's still liquid like this
and of course with the canister
it's gonna make it a little
more foamy, delicate in a way.
- Oh my gosh, everything in
the kitchen is so important,
it's like to the minute, to the second,
it's a big production.
- So now, Eddy is gonna do surgery.
- Okay, so, the abalone
is out of the freezer,
they're cold?
- So, you hold it like this
and then we're going to make stripes.
So, every two millimeters
you go almost all the way through.
- And what's the purpose of this?
- Well, just for decoration.
- Here's your scalpel.
- This is literally the first time
I've used a scalpel in the kitchen.
I'm such a doctor now.
- So, we are putting like a little footing
a little riser footing
so this way they can bake
underneath nicely as well.
- Now, 427, voilà.
- Bye abalones.
- See you.
Okay, the abalone is almost cooked.
I'm pouring a little bit of Chablis.
- Oh my goodness.
- That'll be the perfect match.
Time to celebrate Nyesha at
Daniel for the first time.
(oven buzzing)
Somebody's calling you.
Beautiful, yeah? Attention.
Oui, Chef.
Abalone en croute.
- En croute!
(gentle music)
- This is just water and
flour, it's a sticker.
- So, it doesn't slide around?
- Exactly, okay, you
put your stones around.
(gentle music)
The beautiful black plate,
the lava rocks, the abalone
there is such a sense of place
and then you put your cap back, super.
(instrumental music)
The sauce.
(gentle music)
Voilà.
- Here we go.
A little bit of potato,
a little bit of sauce.
I think, this is the best
thing I ever tasted in my life.
This is impeccable.
It's amazing how much
the abalone transforms
from the sweet nuttiness
when it's in its raw form
and then very elegant
and soft on the palate
with the potato.
Happy, my soul is so happy, right now.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
- Hope to see you soon.
