The Atelier challenge: Bring on the weird ingredients, and we’ll make dinner

Above, Atelier chefs ponder a disparate assortment of ingredients customers were asked to bring in Monday to help chef/owner Marc Lepine prepare for a mystery black-box competition Feb. 9 to 11 in Kelowna, B.C. L-R is chef  Luis Calero, owner/chef Marc Lepine, chef Murray Wilson and sous-chef Jason Sawision. Jason will be joining Marc at the national competition next month.

JAN 18 12 – 12:01 AM — Acclaimed Ottawa chef Marc Lepine surveys a disparate collection of dinner ingredients that his customers want him to cook Monday night at Atelier restaurant, and wonders what in heaven’s name he’s going to do with such a motley mix.

Kale, tapioca, mussels, yuca root, sticky syrup — even crispy (but hard) barbecue corn kernels that, one imagines, could cost big dental work if someone happens to have a loose crown.

Above, pre-dinner hors d’oeuvre of sturgeon tartare with crème fraîche, crispy shallots, lemon juice pickles, capers, radish, lemon rind, crispy lotus root chip.

Yet that’s precisely the challenge he was presented, as it was Lepine himself who invited customers to provide the strangest ingredients they could imagine to help him prepare for a national culinary challenge next month in Kelowna, B.C.

“We told them to bring anything they want,” Lepine said, moments before being handed a challenging medley of foodstuffs. “We’re going to have to think on our feet extremely quickly.”

Another one of the four hors d’oeuvres served Monday night: Colville Bay oysters presented on a rock with seaweed salad, mignonette gel (red wine vinegar, shallots, lemon, pepper) with horseradish suds.

As odd as it may seem, the special menu was serious practice to help Lepine and his sous chef, Jason Sawision, prepare for culinary battle on a national stage. Joining them in the kitchen, as usual, were Atelier chefs Murray Wilson and Luis Calero.

As the November winner at Ottawa’s Gold Medal Plates competition, Lepine (assisted by Sawision) will go against nine other regional victors from across Canada vying for the title as Canada’s top chef during a series of tough contests to take place over three days.

Two of those upcoming competitions, in the style of the popular Food Network show Chopped, involves using secret ingredients hidden in a box to create dishes that are conceived, prepared and plated within very tight time limits.

Chef Marc Lepine learns of his nine secret ingredients … Then it’s off to menu planning!

Now, chefs are among the first to lament their customers can be pretty demanding. But rare is the day, if ever, patrons are invited to turn tables on a restaurant by bringing their own grab bag of mystery ingredients.

Other gems on the eclectic list brought in was Earl Grey tea, 14 Chinese sausages, and stiff Pan di Spagna (Italian sponge cakes). The saving grace was, Atelier also allowed itself access to duck, fish, fruit and assorted vegetables from the pantry to round out the menu.

Above, the rough menu created in 10 minutes using secret ingredients supplied by restaurant customers.

“What better way to prepare than to subject ourselves to a live black box dinner at the restaurant, where our guests bring us the secret ingredients?” Lepine said, when he issued the challenge through social media in early January.

“Bring us any ingredient you want — lamb necks, corn flakes, whatever — and we’ll craft a menu using all of them!”

Within little more than a day after announcing his challenge, Lepine sold all 23 seats at $100 a pop. Each of eight tables was asked to contribute an ingredient — one offered two items, making nine in total.

First course: Two poached muissels, shrimp, lemon, pickled ginger, coconut milk, nitro-chili dust, coloured tapioca cooked in simple syrup, dehydrated bacon, sesame oil powder, pea shoots, kaffir lime, ginger sauce. As you may have gathered, the plates at Atelier tend not to be simple.

The first time Lepine laid eyes on any of it was at 6:30 p.m. when customers arrived for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres – and their surprise contributions. The deadline was tight, as Lepine gave himself just 10 minutes to figure out what to do with everything, leaving less than an hour to get the first course on the tables by 7:20 p.m.

Dinner was over by 9:30 p.m., except the dirty dishes.

The behind-the-scenes rush to plate is on! L-R Luis Calero, Murray Wilson, Marc Lepine.

No stranger to quick thinking, Lepine has captured national acclaim for his out-of-the-box, 12-course tasting menu, some plates with as many as 50 different items, since he opened Atelier in late 2008. He specializes in what’s known as “deconstructed” dishes, a.k.a. molecular cuisine, in which bacon can be reduced to powder, vegetable oil can be transformed to dust, and liquids can be gelled into shimmering cubes, or foamed.

To that end, Atelier’s small but efficient kitchen is stuffed with assorted gadgets and chemical catalysts that would do any sorcerer’s apprentice proud: From an insulated Dewar flask holding liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze anything edible, to a pressure cooker that raises the temperature above the normal boiling point to make quick work of tough meat, or machines that can whiz and reconstruct liquids or solids with dizzying efficiency.

Second course: Parsnip purée, purple basil, roasted kale, shrimp chips toasted with togarashi chili, polenta chip, espelette pepper, mini tangerines, Noilly Prat vermouth, seared halibut encrusted with dusted corn nuts and panko.

Where most restaurants may use the ubiquitous griddle to cook chops and eggs, Atelier frequently relies on an “anti-griddle” that quickly chills — not fries — foodstuffs to the delight of enthused patrons. (Lepine was once refused permission to board an aircraft with his anti-griddle because it contains compressed gas, and attendants were not certain it was safe.)

Of all the challenges that evening, Lepine felt the stale sponge cake was the most thought-provoking. “These Italian cakes would be used to make tiramisu,” said Deborah French, who brought the Pan di Spagna with her husband, Guy.

“But, of course, tiramisu is so obvious they’ll have to avoid it,” she said.

Above, chef Marc Lepine quickly consults a recipe …

On opening the package, Lepine found all three layers of stiff cake were hopelessly fused together. “It was impossible,” Lepine said later, “so I knew I had to moisten it.

“Murray suggested using Frangelico, which worked well with the apple we wanted to use.” The result: Stiff spongecake was doused liberally with boozy liqueur mixed with Lyle’s Golden Syrup (another surprise contribution), then flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen that allowed Lepine to break the chunks into little bits on the plate.

The dessert was finally served with apple cider caramel, caramelized chunks of white chocolate, liquid apple cider encapsulated with white chocolate, apple balls and traditional tapioca in rosemary syrup, apple slices deep-fried in tempura, Lyle’s Golden Syrup, eggless meringue, brown butter custard and lemon balm.

Hey, no one said it would be simple.

Above: Third course of sous vide duck breast (53 C at 1 hour, then sear finish in oven), Earl Grey game sauce with truffle oil, marinated raw golden beet cut with a Japanese turning slicer to resemble spaghetti, chestnut, roasted sweet potato purée, beet sauce, yucca chips, Chinese sausage powder.

“It was so exquisite,” French pronounced, after sampling her dessert contribution. “Tiramisu is so pedestrian compared to what we’ve been presented here.”

No less enthused was Perrin Beatty who, you may recall, in 1979 was the youngest person to be appointed to a Canadian cabinet post under former prime minister Joe Clark. He and his wife, Julie, brought the tapioca.

“I thought of Kraft Dinner but then I thought no chef could be that creative with it,” Perrin said. “So we chose tapioca. After all, the goal is to test the chef and see how creative he can be.”

Finally, dessert: Apple cider caramel, chunks of caramelized white chocolate, apple cider encapsulated with white chocolate, apple balls in sweet rosemary syrup, traditional tapioca pearls in rosemary syrup, sliced granny smith apple deep-fried in tempura, crumbled Pan di Spagna stale sponge cake with Frangelico liqueur and Lyle’s Golden Syrup, eggless meringue, brown butter custard sphere, lemon balm. Try to make that at home.

The tapioca, too, proved a toughie for the kitchen. Ultimately, chefs mixed the smaller multi-coloured pearls with simple syrup that appeared as a flavour accent in the first course with poached mussels (contributed by Aaron and Aviva Hofmann Shaw), while the larger white tapioca pearls were immersed in syrup and popped up on the dessert plate.

“It’s infinitely better than anything I could do,” Perrin opined. “It’s tasty, colourful. He’s done a great job with not-an-easy ingredient.”

Mario Bricault was impressed that chefs sliced and deep-fried his yuca as a garnish, like a potato chip in the third course with sous vide duck breast, among myriad other elements. “Very nicely done,” he decided.

As for some remaining ingredients: The sausage was flash-frozen and pulverized, the kale roasted until crispy, corn nuts were pulverized and wound up in a panko breadcrumb crust on the second-course halibut. And, through it all, the ongoing pandemonium in the kitchen that night could best be described as orderly chaos, if that could ever be imagined.

In the calm after the storm, Lepine said he’ll continue his practice sessions before the big contest, now just three weeks away.

“I was expecting worse, more difficult ingredients,” Lepine said.

“The yuca wasn’t difficult — I knew instinctively we’d make chips with them, and the same with kale.

“The biggest challenge was combining so many diverse ingredients and flavours into a series of coherent plates.”

Most other meals may not be as complicated, but at the end of the day interesting flavours and textures is all that really matters.

reade@ottawacitizen.com

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