Kathleen CeI Photo
Maintain lavish 2008 eating habits in a dismal 2009 economy: Three of New Haven's top chefs show us how.
Times are bad. Unemployment is up, the stock market is down and it looks like the next Great Depression may be upon us. For food lovers this is a particularly unpalatable notion, since it raises the possibility that we'll have to forgo lobster and organic, hydroponic, locally-grown mesclun mix in favor of boiled shoe leather and tossed grass clippings. At the very least, we fear it might mean giving up fancy restaurant dinners and cooking cheap, bland meals at home.
These dark days call for a Gastronomic Stimulus Package, a plan for the nation that will allow the American people to eat well on a budget. Spurred by a sense of civic duty to provide just such a road map to inexpensive gustatory delight, we laid the following challenge before three of New Haven's top chefs: Show us how to make a delicious dinner at home for four people for less than $20.
Joining us were New Haven chefs Chris Sanseverino from Caseus (93 Whitney Ave.), Manuel Romero from Ibiza (39 High St.) and Jeff Ghazali from Bentara (76 Orange St.). The rules were that we would take them shopping and then to a normal home kitchen to cook up something grand.
All three chefs rose to the challenge, preparing delectable budget feasts.
New Haven native Chris Sanseverino, Caseus' mohawked head chef, took us step-by-step through making sweet-spicy homemade pork sausage with fennel seeds, served over orecchiette (pasta shaped like little ears), broccoli rabe and fresh ricotta. We finished the night with sizzling bananas topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream.
Manuel Romero imparted the secrets of making a Spanish paella, loaded with enough chicken, shrimp, chorizo and mussels to feed six people. Romero, a native of northern Spain, insisted that the dish was not a real paella, since it didn't have real saffron. It was close enough for us.
Malaysian-born Jeff Ghazali whipped up a five-course meal of crisp spring rolls, Thai chicken curry, baby bok choy with Chinese mushrooms, pan fried noodles and Bentara menu?favorite two-soy chicken. As if that weren't enough, we managed to fit in sticky rice glazed with brown sugar and bananas for dessert.
(For those of you tallying up the totals: We only figured in the cost of ingredients that we actually used. For example, if we bought a pound of butter but only used a tablespoon for the dinner, we counted only the price of that tablespoon.)
Cooking with three professional chefs on a budget, we soaked up a ton of useful information on how to make gourmet cuisine on the cheap. We've compiled the lessons learned into a handy guide for you, dear reader, to ensure that you won't be boiling your boots anytime soon.
