Chef Joan Roca – Played a Significant Role to El Celler de Can Roca’s Popularity

• Tweet
• Share
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Share

Together with two brothers, Joan Roca is owner and head chef of their very own restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca.  This world-class restaurant owes its spot on the San Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurants to the three brothers, all playing significant role to its popularity.  This year, 2010, sees them at the fourth spot, having climbed one spot higher than last year’s.

As stated above, the head chef of the El Celler de Can Roca is Joan Roca.  He grew up surrounded by the aroma of cooking and scenes of his mother preparing and cooking food not only for their family table but also for their country restaurant that offers traditional Catalan cuisine.  With this much influence that cooking has in Joan Roca and his siblings, it is no wonder then that they will follow the footsteps of their parents.

Chef Joan Roca studied for his culinary training in Giron’s culinary school, and together with his siblings, they launched their own restaurant, the El Celler de Can Roca.  This restaurant can be found in Girona, Spain, right alongside their parents’ country restaurant, which is El Restaurant de can Roca.  When they first opened their business, Chef Joan Roca found it hard to move around his kitchen, simply because the space was too small.  Their restaurant was fairly simple, owing to their modest roots and traditional upbringing, but when their clientele expanded, they had no choice but to renovate and remodel the restaurant, especially Chef Joan Roca’s kitchen.  With the expansion of the restaurant and the increasing number of customers, it was soon noticeable that they were fast outgrowing the simplicity of their country origins.  Pretty soon, Chef Joan Roca began receiving accolades and praises for his superbly done dishes as well as praises for his brother Jordi, who was the head pastry chef, and for Josep, who was the head sommelier.  It was not long before El Celler de Can Roca received its two Michelin stars.

What makes Chef Joan Roca’s stand out the most is because he has the knack for balancing the favors of his dishes.  Although he respects traditions and his humble roots, he does not let it hinder his cooking skills and need for further education, especially when it comes to learning new techniques.  Instead of sticking with the traditional Catalan dishes, he reinvents them, creating beautifully-plated dishes that has the right amount of balance when it comes to flavors.  In fact, his signature dishes are what make him all the more popular to his customers and critics, and one such signature dish that is a favorite of many is his Iberian suckling pig, a dish that is prepared using the sous vide technique.

Chef Joan Roca is also known for his sous vide culinary technique.  This is an ancient technique that came from the Persian Empire, the age of which can be traced back to the 6th century.  Although a very ancient cooking technique, modern technology has made it a lot easier, and Chef Joan Roca is an expert at this.  This method involves placing food in a vacuum-sealed plastic bags and then cooking it under a very low temperature.  The process of cooking food at this low temperature does take a long time, after which the food will be cooled down quickly.  The main advantage of sous vide is that the food is kept moist; plus, there is less shrinking of the portion.  Furthermore, the flavor of the food itself is much preserved.  With his expertise and skill in sous vide, Chef Joan Roca shares his talent and techniques in a book that he has written with his brother Jordi.

Of course, Chef Joan Roca’s dishes are very much complemented by his brothers’ selection of wines and desserts; thus, the numerous awards that they have received.

In 2009, El Celler de Can Roca was nominated into the World’s Best Restaurant where they bagged the fifth spot, and in 2010, they moved up a spot to the fourth place and received their third Michelin star.

Chef Joan Roca’s Iberian Suckling Pig with Caramelized Shallots, Orange, and Clove

Ingredients:

Pig:

• 1 (3.5 kilogram) suckling pig
• Salt
• 6 vacuum bags
• Black peppercorns
• 2 deciliters olive oil

Sauce:

• 400 grams shallots
• 2 oranges
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1 deciliter Cabernet vinegar
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Method:

For Pig:

1. Preheat oven to 85ºC (185ºF). Cut the pig into six pieces (2 shoulders, 2 legs, 2 ribcages). Salt them and seal them individually in the vacuum bag with peppercorns, more salt and olive oil. Cook it for 5 hours, until it is 82ºC (180ºF) in the center. Immediately freeze the bags if you wish to use at a later time.
2. Open the bags, reserving the juice. De-bone the pieces of pork.

For Sauce:

1. Roast the shallots in the oven, then peel them. Juice the two oranges.
2. In a separate saucepan, make a caramel with the sugar, adding the orange juice, cloves, vinegar and pork juice. Reduce it by half and then strain the mixture.
3. Caramelize the shallots with a quarter part of the sauce in a pan over low heat. Add the olive oil and the rest of the sauce. Emulsify it with a hand blender. In a nonstick pan with a bit of oil, place the pork pieces with the skin facing down. When the skin is crunchy, remove it from the heat.

To Assemble and Serve:

Place the shallots and sauce in the center of the plate and the pork slices on top of them with the skin facing up.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Currently 2 comments - But what do you think?

Most Popular Posts

• How Many Online Social Networking Platforms Are You Actively Involved On?
• Chopsticks – The Asian Food Experience
• What to Do with Broken Bones
• The Top 20 Chef Blogs According to Google
• Spicing Up Your Meals with Micro-Greens

• 
• Share
• Tweet

• Digg it
• Delicious it
• Stumble it
• Sphinn it

Sign up here to ensure that you receive our regular ezine, blog updates and the entire chefs package for FREE! Learn more

Free Instant Access »