Farewell to Meat - Stella!

Carnival has arrived and with it another Blackened Out Feature. As Carnival traditionally was a time to bid adieu to meat, every week we will profile one of our own and ask them a simple question, "What would be your last bite of meat before Lent?". Peter and Rene will team up to interview, photograph, and write each story. We hope you enjoy it. And now, for the first installment of Farewell to Meat.

Scott Boswell
Chef/Owner- Restaurant Stella!, Stanley, and Scott Boswell Enterprises

The Meat: Kabayaki-Glazed Prime Beef Tenderloin with Seared Japanese Yam, Steamed Baby Vegetables, Wilted Baby Bok Choy, and Sweet Soy-Sake Butter

"Fire one beef."

"Pick up one steak."

Only moments before the kitchen inside Stella! had been quietly humming along, preparing the day's prep work for a Sunday night service. One cook peeled potatoes, another sauteed mushrooms, a third checked on tiny Earl Grey macaroons, all focused on their task. Then Chef Scott Boswell placed an order and like a flick of a switch, the kitchen transformed into an operating room.

On his left, a sous chef placed a sauce pan filled with kabayaki beurre blanc to which Boswell dropped a rare, 7 oz. prime beef tenderloin filet. On his right a sake poached, seared Japanese yam. In front of him, were a set of chopsticks and a tray of roasted winter vegetables. With the precision of a surgeon, Boswell poured the beurre blanc into the bottom of a cauliflower shaped plate, stacked the vegetables, plated the meat, placed the yam, and topped it with a sprig of tempura battered tanno.

"Meat and potatoes," Chef Boswell remarked with a sly grin.

The process began hours before in the kitchen. First a whole prime beef tenderloin is butchered and portioned into 7 oz. increments - 7 being Chef Boswell's favorite number.

Then the beef is seasoned with salt and pepper and left to rest for 10-12 minutes. Then over to the sautee station where the beef is seared in clarified butter set on a thermonuclear range. After a few turns, whole butter is spooned into the pan and used to baste the meat in order to give it color. The milk solids also import a rich, well-rounded flavor to the beef.

After the beef is browned (but nowhere near cooked), the filet is dropped into an ice chest filled with liquid nitrogen to stop the cooking process. After a minute or so of bubbles raging like a jacuzzi on full blast, the filet is put in a plastic pouch and placed in a pressurized chamber for vacuum sealing.

From this point, the individually wrapped filets can be stored in the deep freeze for an extended period of time. Then once an order is placed, the wrapped filet is dropped in one of four immersion circulators set to varying degrees depending on desired level of doneness. This process, known as sous vide, slowly raises the internal temperature of the beef to that of the water.

This technique is not just a parlor trick. As Boswell explains, "The filet comprises 40-50% of our entree sales. The grill cook gets slammed and is always running around with steaks in the oven, on the range, poking, prodding, testing for doneness. If a steak gets sent back overcooked, that can really affect not only the flow of the kitchen, but also the bottom line. This allows to serve a perfectly cooked steak every time."

But there is one more wrinkle to this dish. Once the sous vide process is complete, the steak is thrown into a deep fryer for just a few seconds to give it that "mongolian beef crust." The filet is then coated in the kabayaki beurre blanc. Kabayaki sauce, a traditional Japanese accoutrement to eel, begins its life as a large vat of carrots, onions, soy, sake and sugar. The mixture reduces until a syrup like consistency. The kabayaki then gets added to a class French beurre blanc. After its warm butter bath, the steak is sliced in half, sprinkled with a touch of coarse salt, and plated.

The resulting dish makes us doubt the motives of vegans even more. The sprinkle of salt on the final plating, sweetness and acid from the kabayaki beurre blanc, and slight bitterness from the vegetables all unite to tantalize each taste bud. The yam's texture and taste is similar in some ways to a polenta cake. It is easy to see why, even among returning customers, this dish is a favorite. That goes for Chef Boswell's wife Tanya as well, who always requests extra sauce with her delivery order.

If Chef Boswell were eating this dish he would start with the truffled gnocchi with Iberico ham and end the meal with a trio of creme brulees. His sommelier, John Mitchell, suggests pairing this filet with either an '05 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon or a Domaine Gallet Cote Rotie. But served with a fruit forward Chianti in the kitchen was not a bad choice either.

As for Mardi Gras, Chef Boswell will be hard at work at Stanley which, for the first time this year, will be open on Fat Tuesday. His Lenten resolution, as always, is to abstain from alcohol. It's going to be tough eating this steak without a nice glass of wine, but Lent is always about sacrifice, now isn't it?