wylie is a cut-up.
for the times impaired viewer --
By ELAINE LOUIE
FOUR years ago, Wylie Dufresne, 32, the chef who later opened 71 Clinton Fresh Food on Manhattan's Lower East Side, had an epiphany. He saw a tool that changed his life.
Mr. Dufresne was visiting Singapore, and there, in the Club Chinois, he watched as the Chinese chefs, each wielding a simple cleaver, deboned chickens, hacked ducks into perfect quarters and whacked garlic so that the peel flew. Using the same cleaver, they slivered ginger into pale golden threads, sliced celery so thin it was translucent and minced shiitake mushrooms into tiny, precise squares.
At that moment, Mr. Dufresne, who was trained at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, saw a difference between East and West.
"In France, there are hundreds of knives," he said, "and I have hundreds of knives. But the Chinese chefs did virtually all of their work with cleavers. I was amazed. They were on to something."
When he returned to Manhattan, Mr. Dufresne went to Chef Restaurant Supply on the Bowery and bought a No. 2 stainless-steel cleaver for $12.95. "The Chinese have three different cleavers, at different weights and sizes," he said. "But at the end of the day, I like this one. It's the smoothness of the handle. It has a nice long blade. I can do fine work using the front."
At his apartment near Union Square, Mr. Dufresne slivered basil leaves into wavy wisps of green. He cut a scallion at a 45-degree angle, creating slender, pointy ovals, which make straight-cut scallions look crude. His movements were so quick, so rhythmic, so effortless, that the chopping could almost be missed in a blink.
The handle of the cleaver is welded onto the blade so that it is a sturdy, balanced instrument. "I can chop bones from here," Mr. Dufresne said, running his finger back from the center of the blade. "I've taken apart 25 ducks. I butcher chickens with it. You don't need anything else."
Well, maybe the Chinese don't, but he does. "I have not yet reached the level of manual dexterity of the Chinese chefs," he said. "I still reach for a serrated knife. I need a paring knife. And even this can't fillet a fish. You need a point."
A great cutting tool needs the right chopping board, and Mr. Dufresne found it in the most logical place: in the hands of another chef. Paul Kahan of Blackbird in Chicago introduced him to Boos Blocks, made since 1887 by John Boos & Company in Effingham, Ill. The board is a 10-pound chunk of maple, 20 by 15 inches and an inch and a half thick.
"I love the weight of it, the height of it, and it doesn't slide," he said. It makes other boards look ill proportioned. And unlike resin boards, this one does not nick deeply. (It sells for $54 at www.johnboos.com.)
In October, Mr. Dufresne will take his cleaver and board to WD-50, his new restaurant at 50 Clinton Street. There, he will turn out some of his signature dishes, like marinated hamachi topped with duck cracklings and drizzled with walnut oil, and begin, cleaver in hand, to invent new ones.
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- dave 8-07-2002 6:57 pm
for the times impaired viewer --
By ELAINE LOUIE
FOUR years ago, Wylie Dufresne, 32, the chef who later opened 71 Clinton Fresh Food on Manhattan's Lower East Side, had an epiphany. He saw a tool that changed his life.
Mr. Dufresne was visiting Singapore, and there, in the Club Chinois, he watched as the Chinese chefs, each wielding a simple cleaver, deboned chickens, hacked ducks into perfect quarters and whacked garlic so that the peel flew. Using the same cleaver, they slivered ginger into pale golden threads, sliced celery so thin it was translucent and minced shiitake mushrooms into tiny, precise squares.
At that moment, Mr. Dufresne, who was trained at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, saw a difference between East and West.
"In France, there are hundreds of knives," he said, "and I have hundreds of knives. But the Chinese chefs did virtually all of their work with cleavers. I was amazed. They were on to something."
When he returned to Manhattan, Mr. Dufresne went to Chef Restaurant Supply on the Bowery and bought a No. 2 stainless-steel cleaver for $12.95. "The Chinese have three different cleavers, at different weights and sizes," he said. "But at the end of the day, I like this one. It's the smoothness of the handle. It has a nice long blade. I can do fine work using the front."
At his apartment near Union Square, Mr. Dufresne slivered basil leaves into wavy wisps of green. He cut a scallion at a 45-degree angle, creating slender, pointy ovals, which make straight-cut scallions look crude. His movements were so quick, so rhythmic, so effortless, that the chopping could almost be missed in a blink.
The handle of the cleaver is welded onto the blade so that it is a sturdy, balanced instrument. "I can chop bones from here," Mr. Dufresne said, running his finger back from the center of the blade. "I've taken apart 25 ducks. I butcher chickens with it. You don't need anything else."
Well, maybe the Chinese don't, but he does. "I have not yet reached the level of manual dexterity of the Chinese chefs," he said. "I still reach for a serrated knife. I need a paring knife. And even this can't fillet a fish. You need a point."
A great cutting tool needs the right chopping board, and Mr. Dufresne found it in the most logical place: in the hands of another chef. Paul Kahan of Blackbird in Chicago introduced him to Boos Blocks, made since 1887 by John Boos & Company in Effingham, Ill. The board is a 10-pound chunk of maple, 20 by 15 inches and an inch and a half thick.
"I love the weight of it, the height of it, and it doesn't slide," he said. It makes other boards look ill proportioned. And unlike resin boards, this one does not nick deeply. (It sells for $54 at www.johnboos.com.)
In October, Mr. Dufresne will take his cleaver and board to WD-50, his new restaurant at 50 Clinton Street. There, he will turn out some of his signature dishes, like marinated hamachi topped with duck cracklings and drizzled with walnut oil, and begin, cleaver in hand, to invent new ones.
- dave 8-07-2002 6:58 pm [add a comment]