m u g a r i t z

THE MUGARITZ

EXPERIENCE

INSPIRATION

THE RECIPES

GLOSSARY

INDEX

8 5

123

18 5

2 04

23 8

82

126

182

204

238

INTRODUCTIONC O N t E N t S

BEGINNINGS

NATURE

A NEW LANGUAGE

COOKING AND

SCIENCE

8

18

3 2

5 4

6 3

8

18

32

5 4

68

6 m u g a r i t z

NATUREN at u r E

9N a t u r E

‘ m u g a r i t z ’ is also the road leading up to the restaurant, the countryside that can be seen from the car and that, bend after bend, fuels the expectations of everyone that pays us a visit. Mugaritz is also its setting. It is that oak woodland over there, the largest in Guipúzcoa; it is the orchards and farmhouses, the local human, animal and plant environment, which dictated our way of doing things right from the outset. We live according to the rhythms marked by the seasons: we accommodate our creations to what nature has to offer at the time, without daring to push for anything else. We like to think that the restaurant is not confined to the limits of the room but is projected through the large windows; in the same way that we believe that our surroundings are an extension of our small vegetable garden. Everything that can be glimpsed behind the windows is also Mugaritz...although it might not have turned out that way.

at t h E b E g i N N i N g we were idle. In 1998, we had just opened the restaurant, but there were no customers, so we spent the day waiting for the phone to ring, staring into the distance, at the hills and meadows, at that indistinguishable expanse of green that surrounded us on all sides. We were city dwellers – we still are – the asphalt of the city was our natural territory, so that pervasive greenness stretching out before our eyes seemed never-ending, without even the slightest variation in shade. It was a green that could only be described as total, categorically and undeniably green. The hills were green; and so too were the trees sprouting from a bed of grass in which every blade was also green. In those days we were still talking about ‘blades of grass’ rather than ‘herbs’.

i N h i S b O O k The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan accurately describes this ‘uninformed’ way of perceiving nature – the only way that existed then:

How much do you really see when you look at a patch of grass? The colour green, of course, perhaps a transitory recording of the breeze: an abstraction.. Grass to us is more ground than figure, a backdrop to more legible things in the landscape: trees, animals, buildings. It’s less a subject in its own right than a context.

t h E ‘ g r a S S b aC k D rO P ’ began to lose its status as a context and turn into ‘a field of herbs’ the day we decided to go out there (after admitting we had nothing better to do) and pay a courtesy call to our new neighbours, the plant inhabitants occupying the field opposite us, with a view to paying our respects and trying to get to know them better. Suddenly light was shed on some of these areas: the continuous expanse of green began to offer up shapes and hues which until then had been invisible to us. Here and there, we were struck by glimmers of light homing in on us from various sides – as if clamouring for closer analysis, vying with one

F E R N S ,W E E D S

A N D B A B Y

C A R R O T S

P r E v i O u S P a g E S andoni aduriz in the dining room at mugaritz.

O P P O S i t E P a g E Plants local to the area around the restaurant.

F E r N S , w E E D S

a N D b a b y

C a r r O t S

8 m u g a r i t z

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?O P P O S i t E P a g E

Edible leaves growing in the greenhouse at mugaritz.

another to be afforded greater attention. We began to gather a few leaves and sprigs of herbs. We snapped them off and smelt the fragrance, sometimes we chewed them, wondering whether or not they were edible, suspecting, sensing that it might be an idea to think about using some of them as ingredients in our dishes. We delved into books on botany and saw that the herbs that were considered to be ‘culinary’ were those that contained a large number of essential oils. Then there were the ‘medicinal’ herbs, those herbs that had proven curative or palliative powers on human beings. But something didn’t add up: is it only the aroma that determines whether a herb is not just medicinal, but also edible? This question was followed – and continues to be followed – by many others. So we began to do some tests, cooking with herbs that were, theoretically, ‘non culinary’. Trips into the hills in pursuit of wild herbs turned into an obsession. When we discovered a new, apparently edible plant, we felt like we had won the lottery. We ran with our treasure trove to the Sociedad de Ciencias Aranzadi (Aranzadi Science Society) (where they looked at us as if we had just come from Alpha Centauri), to request the botanists’ help in identifying them, in verifying their degree of toxicity and whether there was any history of their use in the kitchen.

w E r E a l i S E D t h at even what is closest to us can be made to seem exotic and mysterious, merely on account of ignorance, because even though we are surrounded by a specific environment, we’ve never really lived in real contact with it. Tradition has brought peppers, tomatoes, potatoes to our plates – products that not so long ago were foreign, and came from the other side of the ocean. That tradition was instilled thanks to the socialisation and repetition of formulas that were carried out using produce that was on hand all year round and that was commonly considered good and nutritious. Fuelled by our passion for wild herbs, we decided to carry out a test: to skip the practicalities and attempt to establish a new tradition based entirely on hedonism, bringing seasonal products from our surroundings to the table that tradition had completely overlooked. This is how we created a dish with pumpkin, cottage cheese, fern and hay, in which the latter served as a powerful, evocative spice. All the elements in the dish represented our environment perfectly, yet those who tried it considered it to be extremely foreign, innovative, radical, avant-garde. No one identified it as being something that was their own, local or familiar. Quite the contrary: it was a dish that caused tension.

C O N S C i O u S ly O r u N C O N S C i O u S ly, we began to recreate landscapes in our dishes, trying to capture images, aromas, sensations within the boundaries of the dish. Something that also ended up being reflected in the names of the recipes that sometimes reflected the place or the season when the ingredients flourished: Beech Forest Salad, Sun-ripened Garden Red Fruits, Memories of a Spring Morning.

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b O t t O m l E F t a N D r i g h t gathering local plants.

C E N t r E

the exterior of the restaurant in Errenteria.

N E X t Pa g E

the restaurant interior.

What we were really doing was exploiting the natural resources from a different perspective: the perspective of someone who has all their needs covered. Our neighbour, Luis, who lives right next door to us, sees nature through the eyes of someone that knows it like the back of their hand. He draws everything from it that he needs to survive. For Luis, it is a space he has learnt to master and tame to suit his own requirements. We had really very little knowledge of nature and approached it meekly, adopting an attitude of seeking rather than demanding, with an emphasis on the symbolic and poetic aspects, instead of more practical matters. We were putting a lot of effort into gathering herbs. These were not obtained in large quantities nor did they offer us a taste that surpassed the quality of cultivated varieties...However, in itself such effort had a real sentimental and testimonial value. The symbolism that these species acquire by becoming ingredients goes far beyond their sensory significance. The gesture of including a charred fern leaf in a dish generates a kind of pleasure that goes beyond the skills of the palate and the demands of the stomach.

O F C O u r S E , Luis thinks we are crazy! Every time he sees us picking the sorrel and dandelion beneath his apple trees, he looks at us as if we’re insane. In his opinion, there is nothing more exotic ... and they grow no more than twenty metres from the door of his house. However, if you show him a pineapple, he would not take even two seconds to identify it as a pineapple, even though it only sneaked into our diet a few decades ago and grows ten thousand kilometres away from the door of his home, in Costa Rica, from where it continues to be imported. It is clear that today exotic is no longer associated with distance. Today, exotic is synonymous with the unknown. And the unknown, or mysterious, can be hiding right next to us, under that apple tree.

aC C O r D i N g tO l u i S , the purslane that grows around his potatoes, beans and peppers is a weed, something he rips out and throws away, an evil that must be eradicated. What he doesn’t know is that in other places it is cultivated in greenhouses, which other cultures consider as having added-value. They are only ‘weeds’ because that’s what people have told him, that’s the way he learnt, not because they really are. The fact that some time ago we asked his permission to use them in one of our dishes did nothing but confirm that we were not right in the head, although he was grateful that we saved him the work of ripping them out. The dish was called Red Prawns Submerged in Hay-Infused Tea, ‘Garden Weeds’, which was a pure provocation, but also offered a surprise. Challenging someone to eat the weeds opened a door to the unknown; it introduced an element of risk in the menu, a certain tension. But it also surprises you with something so familiar. Instead of trying to wow with the most extraordinary tropical fruit, from some remote corner of Southeast Asia,

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— 700 g tomato— 500 g cucumber— 100 g onion— 80 g green pepper— 10 g garlic— 15 g salt— 1.5 l mineral water

— 1 kg cucumber — 20 g salt

— 200 g lactic acid fermentation creamy goat’s cheese

— 40 Corsican mint leaves (mentha requienii)

thE gaz PaChO Peel the onions, garlic and cucumbers. Remove the stalk from the pepper and tomato. Cut all the vegetables into medium-sized pieces and put them in container with the water and salt. Leave to macerate for 4-5 hours. Next, process the vegetables in parts in a blender or using a handheld blender. Pass the liquid purée through paper filters or a very fine mesh strainer. Collect the liquid that has filtered owing to the weight of the actual purée without applying any type of pressure.

thE CuCumbEr Slice the cucumber into 4-cm cylinders. Peel them vertically with a pointed knife and with only one continual movement of the wrist so that there are no uneven edges.Place the cucumber in a container and sprinkle it with salt. Let it sweat for 10 minutes, rinse with water and leave to dry. Pour the translucent gazpacho into a vacuum-sealed pot and add the cucumber cylinders. Impregnation will occur at room temperature by opening and closing the airflow of the pot. As the cucumbers are immersed in the gazpacho, whenever they need to recover air removed by the vacuum, they will absorb the surrounding gazpacho, fully soaking it up. If you do not have this type of pot, put the cucumber into an airtight bag with the gazpacho and try to remove as much air as possible from the interior. Leave the cucumbers to macerate and absorb the liquid for one day. In either case, once the impregnation has occurred, set aside half the well-filtered, cold liquid and keep the cucumbers immersed in the other half until serving.

thE ChEESE Put the cheese into a baby’s bottle and let a few drops fall into a container with liquid nitrogen so that they acquire the shape of a teardrop. Strain and store the frozen teardrops in the freezer at -18ºC.

thE miNt Cut the tiny mint leaves carefully and rinse them in cold water with food disinfectant. Run them under cold water and keep them between damp paper towels in the refrigerator.

Store plates with a slight dip in the freezer to hold the gazpacho consommé. Place the cucumber on the cold plate and place a few cheese teardrops on top. Scatter a few mint leaves and finish off by serving a little of the cold gazpacho consommé.

i N g r E D i E N t S P r E ParatiON

P r E S E N tat i O N & F i N i S h i N g

C u C u m b E r i m P r E g N a t E D w i t h g a z P a C h O w a t E r , F r O z E N D r O P l E t S O F g O a t ’ S C h E E S E a N D r E Q u i E N i i m i N t l E a v E S

F O r 8 P E O P l E

r E C i P E S

S P E C i F i Cat i O N S

Binding: HardbackFormat: 290 x 250 mmExtent: 240 ppNumber of images: 150 colour illustrationsWord count: 60,000 wordsISBN: 978 0 7148 6363 4

Phaidon Press LimitedRegent’s WharfAll Saints StreetLondon n1 9pa

Phaidon Press Inc.180 Varick StreetNew York, NY 10014

www.phaidon.com

© 2011 Phaidon Press Limited

m u g a r i t z : a N at u r a l S C i E N C E O F C O O k i N g is the definitive book on Mugaritz, the ground-breaking restaurant in the Basque country, northern Spain, which was recently voted the world’s third best restaurant in the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards. Spain has long been at the leading edge of culinary creativity, and with his refined, intelligent cooking and inspired approach to creating new dishes, head chef Andoni Aduriz is at the forefront of the movement. The book contains 70 definitive recipes and photographs for his signature dishes, as well as six chapters explaining the creative development and innovations behind the exceptional food, fully illustrated with photographs, archival images and diagrams. For the first time, the definitive account of the creative process behind the signature dishes is available to inspire all chefs, food-lovers and anyone interested in creativity.

a N D O N i a D u r i z is one of Spain’s most innovative chefs. Having trained under Ferran Adrià at elBulli, he is widely recognized as one of Ferran’s most talented protegés and the chef at the vanguard of Spain’s culinary future.

22 m u g a r i t z 23N a t u r E

36 m u g a r i t z

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37N a t u r E

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P E r H a P S t H E f i r S t creation that exemplifies this kind of relationship with the environment was “Roasted and raw vegetables, wild and cultivated shoots and leaves”. Almost since the beginning, we have had a little garden in which, in addition to flowers and herbs, we also used to grow vegetables: pumpkin, courgettes, Jerusalem artichokes, asparagus ... For this dish, we wanted to take a giant leap: we would not use our vegetables but we would go and search for them in the surrounding area, which since then we have considered as an extension of our garden. Not only did we not have enough space to produce them, but we thought that by buying them from producers in the area we were supporting our local area. The dish was composed of dozens of different vegetables, so we started knocking on many doors; we visited many small local markets… We started talking to farmers about our obsession with textures, that we needed the best pods, but picked just at the moment when they begin to sprout. Carrots, of course, but we wanted tiny baby carrots, pulled from the earth when they are so small and delicate that you can eat eight at a time. Gradually we found producers who were open to adapt to what we asked of them, even though they thought we were delusional. Sometimes, they were the ones who provides us with their know-how and expertise, which established the guidelines that we should follow. It was not easy. No farmer in his right mind harvests his vegetables before they have reached a minimum profitable size: the heavier they are the more money. This is why many of the unique producers with whom we work today share a common denominator: profitability is not their main objective. They use what they grow for their own consumption and that of their family and bring the rest to market or sell us their surplus, but they do not earn their living from it. The guy who supplies us with baby squid goes fishing because he enjoys doing so. The same goes for the person who comes to our door with a basket full of xixas (wild mushrooms) after having spent a fantastic evening in the forest. For all of them, profitability comes fifth or sixth in the list of values they demand from their products. Quality tops the list. After all, it is what they themselves, their children or grandchildren are going to put in their mouths every day. And that maximum quality, that excellence is precisely what we are looking for. Quantity doesn’t matter to us: we want those carrots, xixas, cuttlefish, and we don’t care if it is one kilo, two kilos or twelve. We know that behind exceptional produce lies insecurity, the comfort, regularity and the constancy that the market of supply and demand offers makes all products more or less the same, it eliminates their uniqueness, and it provides substandard produce. We want those peas. We know that they are not always going to be available. but we also know that when we have them, they will be extraordinary, even if we have so few that half the diners will not be able to sample them.

f ro m a P r aC t i C a l point of view, this has always marked our proposal and in recent years even more radically: it has forced us to work with

RECIPESr E C i P E S