Gelatinous Dove And Squab Salad With Smoked Chestnuts, Mushrooms And Beet Vinaigrette With Truffle

Martín Berasategui loves being a perfectionist. He is a reformer that went so far as to reform himself. It is perhaps one of the aspects that best define his work: he does not shy away from this characteristic of himself, far from it. He is proliferate and eclectic, diverse and complex, and welcomes these qualities with open arms. In the last few years alone he has consecrated dozens of recipes. The number of Dishes of the Year that he has received from the Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía guide is sufficient testimony: 10, among which his caramelized mille-feuille of smoked eel, foie gras and apple and his warm vegetable marrow salad with lobster, razor-shell clams, cockles, lettuce cream and iodized yolk are here for all of posterity. If we had to choose a “primus inter pares”, this latter would certainly be the one.
Martín is now reorienting himself using his greatest success as his inspiration. The same structure is used in this dish: flat integrity in a square form. The vegetables and shellfish are replaced by autumnal meats, dove – or another type of fowl depending on what can be found in the marketplace –, with chestnuts, mushrooms, truffle vinaigrette and, of course, herbs, sprouts and flowers. The result is beautiful, immaculate, precious, with endless nuances and very refined. Curiously enough, it can cause the guest to wonder whether it is a salad in the form of a game dish they are enjoying or a meat dish with marvelously refreshing attributes. A wonderful preservation of identity and gastronomic memory.