After I set the basic flavor combinatition of shiso, ume and sake, start work on other flavor profiles. Originally I wanted to do foie gras two ways, many times dish is composed multiple ways, lamb 2 ways, tuna hot&cold, ducasse do vege 3 ways, pierre gagnaire did langoustine 5 ways, so is chef Laurent's rabbit 5 ways, I have a dish called "squab 9 lives".... I thought if I do foie gras dish, It must be presented hot & cold. Why? Cause cold foie such as torchon and foie chaud is completely different animals. foie torchon is smooth nice delicate texture and usually foie chaud is opposite, crisp outside and inside is melt on the tongue texture. To enjoy having luxurious flavor of foie gras, gotta go two ways and enjoy temperture, flavor and texture differences.
So... I dicided to do seared foie and foie gras torchon. And for foie chaud, I decided to glaze with kabayaki(eel) sauce, harmonize with shiso and ume perfectly and simply I used to make kabayaki sauce every week when I was working sushi.
For torchon, I decided to cure foie gras with white miso. When I was L2o, chef Laurent cured foie with salted cherry blossom, was real cool. But in my mind I thought why don't he cured with miso, so I decided to do myself! As long as I looked up google search, I never find someone did it which was cool. (I bet someone did it before though) So I cleaned foie and straight cured 24hrs, then made a torchon after washed. The result was amazing, I must say was best foie torchon I ever taste!! I never thought flavor of miso and foie match this much was truley bangin!
Anyway, for finalize the dish, I decided to use grilled scallion as garnish, so Japonne, freeze dry purple shiso and croquant crusted sea urchin for torchon.(originally was thinking quail egg, but there is egg dish, so I decided not to). Sake granite, tried couple different flavor and ratio, as conclusion, made with sake, H2o, sugar and yuzu jus, so refreshy. After tasting, final adjustment was adding crispy rice cake under the foie chaud to give some crunch and prevent the foie fat leakin on the glass plate.... Foie gras a la Japonne finished!!
This dish is as I intended, extremely Japanese, I like dishes really twisted up and kind funky, but yet nothing wrong doing traditinal dished done perfectly. This dish reminds me of skate dish alinea had, skate with caper, brown butter and lemon powders. Traditional yet not straight forward. Foie a la Japonne, ce bon!
Final dish from RM upstairs winter menu, "China Pig" next!