Secrets of the Best Chefs

(Kiana) #1

smiles on faces and butts in chairs.


For example, the crab cake. Douglas recalls that when he moved
to Seattle in 1977 from Delaware, “There wasn’t one crab cake on
one menu in this whole town.” Celebrating one of Seattle’s most
precious ingredients—the Dungeness crab—Douglas handles the
crab delicately. “You don’t want to bust up the expensive parts,”
he explains as he feels for shell and adds the fresh meat to a bowl
of mayonnaise, mustard, lemon zest and juice, salt, and Aleppo
pepper.
As he fries up the cakes (after dipping them in panko bread
crumbs), he explains that his restaurants are successful because
they are so of their place. “We want you to know, when you eat
here, that you’re in the city of Seattle. No one else can do what we
do here.” Douglas serves up that Dungeness crab cake with wedges
of lemon (“You want something acidic,” he explains) and hands me
a fork. One bite and I’m convinced.


The food that Douglas cooks is instantly familiar. Like the
spinach salad he makes with bacon, pear, grapes, and curried
cashews. That last bit, the curried cashews, shows his attention to
detail. The red onion he adds shows his deference to customers: “I
don’t like it, but most people do.”
For the big finale, he sautés lamb chops coated in his signature
spice rub (which he sells online) and serves them with a celeriac-
potato gratin plus some Brussels sprouts and mushrooms. “Think
taste, think texture, think temperature,” he tells me. “The creamy
gratin, the chewy lamb chop, the crunchy Brussels sprouts and

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