Dispatch from the NYCE: Marcus Samuelsson

Posted by Carey Jones, September 23, 2008 at 9:30 AM

Over this past weekend, the New York Culinary Experience—sponsored by New York Magazine and held in the shiny kitchens of the downtown French Culinary Institute—offered two days of cooking classes from some of New York’s most celebrated chefs. With topics running the culinary board from Greenmarket-inspired desserts to Parisian breads to recent wizard-like innovations at wd-50, some classes were much more practical than others. My Modern African class, with Marcus Samuelsson, was one of the more accessible.

Born in Ethiopia and raised by adoptive parents in Sweden, Samuelsson has worked extensively with both cuisines, taking over as the executive chef at Aquavit and winning a James Beard award there—before opening the pan-African Merkato 55 last fall (all well before his fortieth birthday). In this course, the focus was squarely on the flavors of Africa, but the lessons he imparted were just those of a sound chef.

Clockwise from top left: raw tuna, warm tuna tartar, Chicken Doro Wett with mango couscous, Shrimp Piri Piri.

Samuelsson couldn’t stop talking about the importance of spices; how getting to know the flavor “vocabulary” of a country (like the all-important Berbere in Ethiopia) allows even an amateur chef to start working with a cuisine that once seemed inaccessible. He reminded us that spices don’t have to be spicy, per se, but a small amount of chili-based blends could flavor without setting an eater’s mouth on fire. He offered his thoughts on whole chickens, sharing that two-and-a-half pound chickens were generally better than three-pounders, since the latter were usually just waterlogged versions of the former.

And he taught us how to get the most out of a piece of fish, using only h a spoon and a bit of old-fashioned elbow grease. Cutting up a beautiful fillet of sushi-grade tuna for a just-warmed tuna tartar, he let only the perfect, deep red flesh into the bowl. Rather than throw away the fish that clung to the tough, membrane-y bits, he grabbed a spoon and scraped it right off. This, he explained, was a kind of toro, or fatty tuna; and the closer to the membrane, the better it was.

Scraping every last bit of tuna

He also shared his thoughts on finding high-quality ingredients, by cultivating a relationship with one’s local purveyors: “If you’re friends with your fishmonger, he’s not gonna screw you.” And maybe your grocer won't try to sell you a three-pound chicken, either.

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Tags: classes, events, Marcus Samuelsson, NYCE