Fruits have a role in savory dishes, too
This is as good as the farmers markets get. All across Chicago, in your local green market, you'll find rows and rows of berries, cherries, peaches, plums, apricots -- I could go on and on.
This is what chefs all across the city look forward to every year. We're fruit fanatics. The simple joy of picking up a sun-drenched peach, taking a bite and having the still-warm juices run down your arm, is intoxicating and can take anyone back to their childhood days. For a (lucky) chef, this is where it starts, at the market, talking to the farmers, seeing, smelling and tasting the fruits of their labor. As a cook, it's exciting and inspiring.
This is how we begin the fun process of developing recipes for Sepia, at the market. We go possessing ideas and looking for inspiration, and right now, it's all about the virtues of cooking with fruit. In our kitchen, we're bursting with ideas to create savory dishes highlighting the summer's bounty; Cindy Schuman, our pastry chef, can coax the natural sweetness of peaches in a beautiful peach and cherry crisp she bakes daily, but what could my sous chefs and I do with similar ingredients?
So naturally, we think backward. The first thing we think about is the end result, the finished product so to speak. As any cook worth his or her saute pan knows, it's all about balance. The sweet apricot, with its delicate aroma and relatively short peak season, pairs nicely with another stone fruit, the tart cherry. The tartness of the cherry rounds out and complements the sweetness of the apricot, and when the two are slowly cooked together, their flavors marry together well.
Now how do we bring these sweet and tart flavors to the plate? With a beautifully roasted lamb leg, for instance? We tie it in with acid and spice. Acid from bright vinegar or citrus juice and spice with pepper, or in the recipe that follows, mustard. The long and slow process of roasting a leg of lamb is echoed by the apricot-cherry glaze to further intensify but also to pull out the meaty notes intrinsic in the lamb. Served with a simple accompaniment of farmers market vegetables and greens, you can have all of summer's bounties in one exceptionally inspiring dish.
Kendal Duque is the executive chef at Sepia, 123 Jefferson.