Fresh Corn "Polenta" and Chanterelles
Makes two tasting portions
- 2 ears sweet white corn, ultra fresh
- 2 TB sweet butter
- 1/4 cup fresh chanterelle mushrooms plus another ts butter
- Sea Salt
Clean the corn, removing all husks and threads. Working over a large bowl, grate the kernels off of the cob on the coarse side of a box grater. You will have a very wet coarse pulpy mixture. Combine the corn pulp and 2 TB butter in a small saucepan with a good pinch of Sea salt. Simmer over very low heat, stirring to prevent browning, for about 3 minutes. The mixture is ready when it just begins to thicken and set. Verify and adjust seasoning as necessary. Keep warm.
Sauté the chanterelles in the remaining ts of butter with a pinch of Sea salt. Keep warm.
Divide the corn "polenta" between two wide rimmed bowls, top with a few sautéed Chanterelles.
La Toque
Westin Verasa Napa
1314 McKinstry St.
Napa, CA
www.latoque.com
About Taste of the Nation
When: Monday, August 17, 2009
12 p.m. Golf Tournament and Lunch
5-8 p.m. Grand Tasting, Live & Silent Auction
Where: Silverado Resort, 1600 Atlas Peak Road, Napa
Who: Join the Bay Area's top restaurants and wineries including Bardessono, Benessere, Café Portola, Cakebread, Carneros Inn, Cole's Chop House, Compadres, Cuvaison, Domaine Carneros, Etoile Restaurant, Domaine Chandon Winery, Faust, Franciscan, Go Fish, Groth, Hana Sushi, Hall, Hilton Garden Inn, Illumination, Joseph Phelps, La Toque, Luna Vineyards, Mathiason, Martini House, Meadowood, , Pelican Inn, Raymond, Robert Mondavi Winery, Salute Sante Grapeseed Oil, Silver Oak, Silverado Resort, Simi Winery, Simone Vineyards, Sonoma Cutrer, St. Supery, The Abalone Farm, The Hess Collection, Whitehall Lane Winery, Zuzu and more.
Golf Tournament, Lunch and Grand Tasting: $215
Grand Tasting, Live and Silent Auction only: $100
To purchase tickets, go to: www.tasteofthenation.org/napa_tickets or call 877-268-2783
For more information, visit taste.strength.org
About La Toque Restaurant
La Toque, Ken Frank's landmark Napa Valley restaurant, has moved to the new Westin Verasa Napa. Our beautiful home at the Westin, adjacent to the Oxbow Public Market, is at the heart of a newly vibrant downtown Napa. The innovative design by CCS Architecture of San Francisco, features an elegant, expanded, open floor plan with patio seating as well as a chef's table for six in the spectacular new kitchen.
Our menu evolves constantly to show off each season's finest ingredients. We have developed a network of local farmers and purveyors who supply us with some of the finest foods in the world. We aim to optimize the flavors in these exceptionally fresh products and create dishes that harmonize with great wine. It is a flexible tasting menu, divided into four sections, so you can compose your own meal according to your appetite and your budget.
We've also moved our award winning-cellar and expanded our famous wine pairing program. We choose wines pair particularly well with each dish on the menu. They are offered as "tasting pours", enough wine to enjoy with each course while allowing you to experience a range of exciting wines without overindulging. Of course, full pours of any wine we offer are always available. Our goal is simple, we want to make sure there is always good wine in your glass. In addition, we now have a full bar with fine spirits for you to enjoy before and after dinner.
La Toque is open for Dinner 7 nights a week beginning at 5:30. We accept reservations over the phone as well as online through the link below. Our new telephone number is 707.257.5157.
About Chef Ken Frank
Ken Frank, Executive Chef and Owner of La Toque
When Ken Frank learned there was an opportunity to open a restaurant in The Westin Verasa, Napa, in the fall of 2008 he considered it a good omen. His La Toque restaurant, in Napa Valley's Rutherford, was celebrating its 10th anniversary that year. Moving La Toque to The Westin Verasa, Napa would allow him to embark upon a new era while broadening the menu, providing more choices for diners while staying true to the same style of cuisine for which the chef and restaurant are known.
Since La Toque moved into its new home, it has earned rave reviews and continues to appeal to its devoted following while earning a new group of fans who realize why The Wine Spectator magazine named La Toque one of "America's Best Restaurants."
La Toque is a showcase for Chef Frank's modern French cuisine and his passion for fine wine. This "French chef in a California body," as he likes to call himself, earned a stellar reputation for his personalized style of cooking grounded in the cuisine he grew to know and love while living in France as a teenager.
Frank first achieved national acclaim when he was Chef of La Guillotine Restaurant at age 21 in 1977. He was the original Chef at Michael's in Santa Monica, considered the Los Angeles birthplace of "California Cuisine," which he left in 1979 to open the first La Toque on the Sunset Strip at age 23. After a 14-year run, Frank sold the original La Toque in 1994 and opened the award-winning Fenix at the Argyle before moving north to open the new La Toque in Rutherford in 1998.
Frank, one of the pioneers of using the freshest, seasonal, quality ingredients, continues this tradition at La Toque, where many of the ingredients are organic or sustainable, and where diners will find a number of other special touches including an annual truffle menu.
