Gamba Roja de Denia al Polvo de Carbón Vegetal, Americana Traslúcida y Brotes de Soja

Gamba Roja de Denia al Polvo de Carbón Vegetal, Americana Traslúcida y Brotes de
Quique Dacosta Restaurante
Chef: Quique Dacosta
Country: Spain
City: 03700 Dénia (Alicante)
Address: Las Marinas, km. 3
(+34) 965784179

Quique Dacosta está conquistando el Olimpo de los Gorros Blancos. Accede por haber sido capaz de concebir una gastronomía propia y de nuevo gusto en sintonía con la filosofía que ha llevado a la culinaria española a situarse a la cabeza intelectual de mundo. Sus fórmulas transmiten vivencias juveniles en las que la naturalidad aparece radiante, como un valor absoluto, también la liviandad y con el inmenso mérito de llevar incorporadas las contraposiciones sápidas mágicas. Coquinaria con propuestas cada vez más esenciales, que logran equiparar dos protagonistas estelares: el producto 10 con el sobresaliente valor añadido de los tratamientos y aderezos. Siempre con el enfoque de una perspectiva artística, que sabe inspirarse en la lejanía y en la proximidad, hasta el punto de estar haciendo una obra que bien podemos definir como alta cocina de autor valenciana y de vanguardia. No existe un producto que ofrezca su tierra alicantina que no le haya inspirado nuevos mundos. Un ejemplo más, y quizás el mejor, lo tengamos en el manjar por excelencia de su pueblo, la Gamba de Denia. Que si desde hace muchos años ofreció cocida, buscando volumen, frescor y técnica de hechura, hasta convertirla en la mejor del país, ahora logra cumplir uno de los sueños de su vida, una fórmula que colma sus aspiraciones creadoras: conseguir un plato elaborado tan bueno como la gamba cocida y, además, sazonado de genialidad. Una escusa para comerse dos visiones de un mismo marisco. Esta aporta el crudo y caliente, con lo que cambias la textura y el sabor, más dulce. Aportan un consomé que ratifica y recrea su profundidad marina. Aportan un polvo de carbón, ennegrecido de arroz y té, que recuerda a la plancha y viste con elegancia el marisco. Aportan una guarnición vegetal, germinado de soja, a la manera de unos fideos, que embellece, refresca y suma complejidad. Y aporta una estética artística; preservando los jugos de su cabeza y mostrando la delicadeza de sus carnes desnudas.



The Recipe



Americana Translucida

Ingredients
  • 70g young onions
  • 50g carrots
  • 100g white sections of leeks
  • 5g paprika from La Vera (Spain
  • 25g cognac
  • 200g ripe roma tomatoes
  • 2g garlic from Las Pedroñeras (Spain)
  • ¼ cayenne hot pepper
  • 5l water
  • 15g salt
  • 50g olive oil, mild flavor
  • 100g short-grain rice
  • 4 fresh tarragon leaves
  • 10 chervil leaves
  • 5 fennel seeds, crushed
  • 1kg white mantis shrimp
  • 4 wild lobster heads
  • 500g red prawn heads
Method

Dice all of the vegetables evenly (2cm on a side) to control the poaching.

In a saucepan over low heat, lightly brown the garlic in the olive oil. Once golden, remove the garlic and add all of the vegetables except the tomato. Sauté well until golden brown, then add the tomato and poach until it loses all of its water. Add the cognac and allow to evaporate, then mix in the crustaceans and stir well for about 5 minutes. Pour in the water to cover the mixture. Sprinkle in the rice and leave for 2 hours at 90ºC, enough so that all of the ingredients give off their flavors and the soluble solids in the rice dissolve to thicken the broth. In the last three minutes, infuse with the chervil and tarragon leaves, as well as the crushed fennel seeds.

When the 2 hours have passed, strain through a fine-mesh sieve, clarify (traditional method) and salt to taste.

The translucent blanket is the element that fuses the dish and the medium for infusion of the charred vegetable powder, described below.

@. (During the 2 hours of cooking, part of the water will evaporate. For the desired result of the preparation, there should be 3 liters of stock left from the 5 liters of water initially added.)

The bean sprouts

Ingredients
  • 40 bean sprouts (mungbean)
  • 4 white dandelion buds
  • olive oil, mild flavorli>
Method

Just before serving, and when the prawn needs 20 more seconds in the oven, sauté the sprouts and the dandelion buds in a hot lightly-oiled non stick pan for only three seconds. Drain on a plate with a paper towel, then move to a hot deep dish for serving. Arrange the sprouts and dandelion horizontally in the middle so that the prawn lays on top of them.

Charred vegetable powder Ingredients 1kg rice bran 200g China Tarry tea (with a smoky flavor) Method In a conventional oven (electrically heated rather than convection, or in the best case a wood-fire or charcoal oven), place the rice bran well spread out on trays. The rice bran should take on a completely black color without becoming bitter, so the temperature should be 120ºC; leave in the oven until you obtain this color. Once blackened, allow it to cool, then mix it with the China Tarry tea (a very special tea, with a noticeable vine charcoal smoke fragrance that we have weakened with the rice bran—it would be too strong otherwise). Grind to a powder using a blender. Sift it nevertheless and set aside in a fine mesh shaker (a small steel cup capped with very fine mesh to ease sprinkling but keep aromas in) until serving, at which point you evenly dust the warm Denia red prawn. @. The concept of this dish and the creation of this new charred powder is to bring the grill to the prawn rather than the prawn to the grill. It is merely a question of delicacy—firstly, the prawn endures a lot with the force of the grill, and secondly the tail cannot hold up to the temperature or the time that the head can. (In conventional grilling, the head would be raw and the tail, as a result of being thinner, overcooked.) The Denia red prawn Ingredients 4 prawns (19 per kg) (1 per person in the tasting menu) olive oil, mild flavor icing salt (salt ground in a blender to give it the texture of icing sugar) Method Preheat an oven to 80ºC and 15% humidity. Set the prawn, lightly brushed with olive oil, on a steel tray. Place in the oven for 2 minutes, enough so that the heat is transferred to the center of the meat and head but the prawn remains completely raw. Remove from the oven after the two minutes and immediately, on the same tray, dust the prawn first with the icing salt (lightly salt) and the charred vegetable powder. Dry the underside to remove excess oil and position it on the plate. @. Icing salt: Fine salt, as in icing sugar. We make it ourselves and it can be made from any kind of salt. We use it for those recipes in which we want to salt something without the salt being noticeable to the teeth; it could be for a salad, a roast, a crustacean, a fish, etc. ASSEMBLY: We try to serve all of our dishes in the simplest way possible—we virtually limit ourselves to leaving the ingredients to support themselves on the plate. This is the case here, with the peculiarity that the prawn tends to fall in the position shown in the photo. Our presentations are simple, but in the preparatory steps we are much more complex and recherché: cooking levels, precision in temperature as well as in the treatment and quality of our raw materials are almost an obsession. While the prawns are in the oven, warm the translucent blanket to 80ºC and, as previously described, sauté the bean sprouts and dandelion for 3 seconds. Arrange the sprouts and dandelion in the center of the dish with the prawn on top, once dusted with icing salt and charred vegetable powder. At the table, pour the translucent blanket over the length of the prawn so that it covers a good portion of the charred vegetable powder and produces the tea infusion; this aromatizes the broth and the ensemble, leaving the fragrance of a char grill, without the grill.

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