Calçotada Mosaic: Hours of prep for 15 seconds in the mouth and a new guests’ favorite
As some of you reading this may or may not know, I have a kitchen in Palma where Private Chef Mallorca events are mise-en-placed out, my days are spent prepping, day and night for the busy event season that comes around every summer. But it’s more than just a prep space; it is my laboratory, my meeting point for local purveyors, and the home of my Chef’s Table.
Every winter, I mend the idea of a lost season by patching together private events and teaching chef courses to release my constant need to be in the kitchen, to feed people. Occasionally, I even host seven-course tasting menus designed to guide guests through the seasonal flavors that inspire my "experimental mind." I call it The Chef’s Table. Just me and you, and your guests that you want to impress and love through food.
Recently, a group challenged me to create a vegetable-forward winter menu. It was their mother’s birthday and it needed to be special. I asked them a few questions about what their mother’s favorite foods were and then off I went to create something unique and bespoke to them.
It was a joy to lean into the earthier side of the season and focus the dishes around vegetables…meat and fish become smaller elements —from a Dry-Roasted Mushroom Agnolotti with truffle cream to a Roasted Beet Whipped Feta and Citrus Salad and a modern, table-side Winter Vegetable Pot-au-Feu.
However, the undisputed highlight of the evening was a deconstructed Ashed Leek Mosaic. Inspired by the Catalan Calçotada that I just had experienced during my road trip through northern Spain and France, I reimagined the traditionally messy rustic dish into a refined plate featuring ash-rubbed calçots, black garlic aioli and a smoke-kissed romesco.
For the last few years I have been following a pattern of including a mosaic dish on certain menus where I needed a complex looking but easy to serve dish that neither had to be ice cold or piping hot. For a chef, during a multi-course dinner where you are alone (you are every station and every chef of a Michelin star restaurant embodied in ONE person), you always are looking for show stopping dishes that can be served in very few steps. The prep time that goes into the dish could be several hours or in this case a whole day, but plating it in front of guests takes seconds, one minute tops. This way, you have a break in the action where you can regroup, and spend some time on a more complicated plating later where the dish needs multiple stages of cooking and attention.
The mosaic concept is a lifesaver:
Calçotada Mosaic
Day Before Prep (4 hours):
Wash and clean Calçots from any dirt
Trim the roots and remove any dry tops
Grill over white hot flames or embers of coal
Reserve any burnt calcot top for later use
Remove once completely black and charred and steam in newspapers for 30 min
Cool and reserve for up to one day tightly covered to prevent drying out
Carefully remove outer layer of charred calçot skin and trim the green tops
Dust apx 11 calçots in the ash that you reserved from grilling
Wrap tightly in several layers of cling film plastic wrap until tight and cylindrical
Reserve first least 4 hours and chill
Slice each mosaic with a super sharp knife so that the plastic cuts clean
Reserve covered until plating
Make black garlic aioli
Make romesco sauce
Roast and chop hazelnuts
Make and siphon green cabbage espuma
Cook polenta
Plating (1 minute):
Drop polenta cubes into fryer for 1 minute
Remove plastic from room temp calçot mosaics and reheat in a hot oven for 30 seconds
Spoon Romesco sauce, Fried polenta, charred cabbage espuma onto plates
Carefully place calçot mosaic
Garnish with roasted hazelnuts, spicy chorizo oil, and black garlic aioli and fried polenta
Serve!!
When everything comes together you have an incredible plate. What was inspired by a simple, rustic, traditional dish manifests into something memorable. And sometimes you have to explain to your guests this philosophy or else it goes directly over their head and your intentions are wasted.
With this in mind I always take one dish from my menus and explain everything before I even start to plate it. In this way, my guests can follow my actions and remember the steps in their mind as if they are part of the kitchen team themselves.
“The hours of prep for 15 seconds in the mouth” – It's a colorful metaphor we chefs use all the time, but it's so true… every time. When the hot dish lands in front of my guests, there is no lengthy explanation left, they can dive right into the experience, calçots hot off the fire!
To hear guests call it "one of their favorite bites of all time" is exactly why I do this. It’s a powerful reminder that I am exactly where I’m meant to be on this culinary path. I look forward to welcoming more of you to my Chef’s Table in the years to come.