Paul Loduca Dining Chicago with David Lissner, The Food Dude Web: www. diningchicago.com
Scene two we’re in the kitchen with paul ladoka who is making his famous polenta uh and we’re also gonna have a little duck so why don’t you tell our friends outside what exactly you’re gonna do and how you’re gonna do it okay the first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna make
Polenta with wild mushrooms these are portobello mushrooms which are large mushrooms that are grown in italy and we use those and other mushrooms called cremini mushrooms which are smaller more brown cap mushrooms we’re going to grill those with some polenta okay and then serve them with fresh rosemary and a little
Sauce made with dried porcini mushrooms and chicken stock and a little bit of white wine how much do these weigh uh average mushroom will weigh about four or five ounces sometimes they come as big as hubcaps wow this is amazing you could use this as a frisbee cut them up into small little
Wedges and use them for grilling we’re going to grill them cap side down with our rosemary for a couple minutes uh we’ll cook them cap side down because if you cook them the other side down all the juice will come out of it and it’ll
Be very dry so that’s a little trick you see that how about with the big mushrooms the big one’s the same you want to cook the just on the second side for the gills just for a few minutes okay otherwise they’re just toasting our rosemary which you can use for garnish
Okay get a nice color on that now that’s just just for decoration decorations okay the duck breast here we’re rendering first uh skin side down we leave the skin on the breast because it has a lot more flavor to it and we render all the fat off the duck breast
Take this a piece of square polenta like this put it on the grill and we’re going to grill so it gets nice marks on the side so we’re going to remove our polenta okay put it on our plate has a nice nice grill marks what is polenta polenta is like it’s like a
Cornmeal pudding it’s a very poor man’s dish originated in italy about 100 years ago uh made just uh for very peasant-y things you know kind of like our version of mashed potatoes gotcha and i’ve actually i’ve had it several times so i know how it tastes but
Unfortunately no one no one back at home can still really smell this this is just great this is our signature dish we sold a lot of polentas and then we just top it with little sauce now what is it so it’s like a brown gravy sauce the sauce is made with dried
Porcini mushrooms and a little chicken stock and there’s a nice extra mushroom flavor to it okay we just generally put a little sauce around it and then we just serve it like this chef this is a winner okay and now the duck breast is ready we rendered the
Skin down and now we’re going to slice the duck and serve it on the plate with a sauce made out of balsamic vinegar the garnishes for the duck are sauteed broccoli the rabe which is a green bitter green from italy sauteed polenta which was similar to the
Grilled that you saw earlier but this is pan-fried and chipotle onions which are called button onions which are from italy uh they’re caramelized with a little bit of balsamic vinegar also the sauce they’re very sweet those onions yeah these are very sweet onions they’re imported from italy
What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take the duck breast put it on our plate plant it out like so and then we top it with the sauce this is made with balsamic vinegar reduced balsamic vinegar which is an aged vinegar from italy they age in an oat
Cast like they do wine and a little bit of duck stock the duck stock has a little bit of richness to it and the vinegar gives a little sharpness to the flavor with the onions good and it’s uh there’s the dish so that’s great little
Dish yeah chef let’s go sit and talk for a little bit good thank you