Recipe:
Creamy farro with grilled scallions, honey roasted garlic & a poached jidori egg
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 4 oz finely minced yellow onion
- 4 oz white wine
- 3 oz grated parmesan cheese
- 1qt of half chicken stock and half water
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 8 oz Farro
- 4 ea Jidori eggs or any organic egg
- 8 oz honey
- 8 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 8 scallions
Procedure:
Start by sweating the minced onion till translucent in a heavy bottomed pan with the olive oil. While the onions are cooking bring the water-chicken stock mixture to a simmer and keep on stove top. Bring honey to a boil and add the garlic cloves cover with foil and put in a 300 degree oven till it is tender. When the onions are ready add the farro and slowly toast till it becomes aromatic, you should smell for toasted bread, when you have achieved this add the white wine and cook till dry. Slowly add small ladles of the chicken stock to the farro allowing the liquid to evaporate before adding more, cook until the farro is tender and add one ladle of stock and fold in the parmesan cheese. Get a grill or grill pan very hot and cook the scallions till tender. Set up a deep pot and fill with water season with some salt and white wine vinegar, bring to just before a boil. Crack the eggs into individual small bowls and drop gently into the pot of water. Poach the eggs till the doneness is of your liking. In a small soup bowl add farro and place the egg in the middle, place the scallions around the egg along with the garlic.
About Chef Louis Maldonado:
Louis is 27, and is the Executive Chef at Cafe Majestic an elegant 58-seat restaurant on Sutter Street in the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood. "Louis brings a modern sensibility to the kitchen," said Bonnie Birk, general manager of the Hotel Majestic. "He is rooted in culinary traditions, including the French Laundry which is a launching pad for great chefs." For the past year, Maldonado has been working alongside Chef de Cuisine Corey Lee at Thomas Keller's benchmark Napa Valley restaurant. There he developed an eye for perfection and learned that "anything is achievable if you just push harder."
Hotel Majestic
www.hotelmajestic.com
Cafe Majestic
www.cafemajesticsf.com
1500 Sutter Street at Gough
San Francisco, CA
415.441.1280
About The Hotel Majestic:
The Hotel Majestic is located at 1500 Sutter Street at Gough in San Francisco. It is accessible by bus aboard routes 2, 3 and 4 and, for BART riders, route 47. Valet parking is available. Maldonado introduced his menus last week with appetizers such as Shaved Beef Tongue with poached prunes, Brussels sprouts, pearl onions and smoked bordelaise sauce. Entrees, priced between $24 and $32, include Braised suckling pig with quince jam, glazed sun chokes, mustard greens and nicoise olive jus; and slow cooked Japanese sea bass Matsutake mushrooms, Tokyo turnips, perilla and bouillon. Desserts include Valrhona Chocolate Cremeaux with salted Sicilian pistachio brittle and olive oil ice cream; and Kefir Lime Granite with sweet milk sherbet, tapioca and graham cracker meringue.
The Hotel Majestic is San Francisco's oldest continuously operating hotel. It was built in 1902 on bedrock, survived the earthquake of 1906 and provided refuge to many locals who were displaced at the time. Its intimate bar was opened in the 1930s and quickly became a hangout for the city's movers and shakers. It is best known for the rare Asian and South American butterflies that are displayed on its walls.
Cafe Majestic opened in 1979, and was overseen by well-known chef, food writer and San Francisco columnist Stanley Eichelbaum in the 1980's before its final closure. The property was acquired in 2005 by private owners, who spent $1 million renovating the 58-seat Cafe. It reopened in 2007 to rave reviews from San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer, who awarded it a three-star rating and called it "classy, sophisticated and primed for discovery by the food-savvy hordes."
