Chef Tetsuya Wakuda – Pushing Tetsuya’s to the Top with His Culinary Skills
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Although Chef Tetsuya Wakuda came to Australia armed with a limited English vocabulary and little knowledge about the country, he has created a very big name for himself when he pushed his restaurant, Tetsuya’s, to the top with his culinary skill. This year, his restaurant is at the 38th spot, a little low compared to last year’s 9th spot. However, Tetsuya’s is still the best place where you can get some of the best fusion cuisine that is a perfect blending of French and Japanese influence.
Chef Wakuda was born on the 18 of June 1959 in Japan’s Hamamatsu City. He was, as a child, a “dreamer,” and one of his dreams was to travel. At the age of 22 years old, he decided to follow and his dream and visit Australia, and the inspiration to visit this continent came from watching a documentary. Even though he had a little grasp of the English language and just as little knowledge about the country he is about to visit, he went to Australia without hesitation.
In 1982, he arrived in Sydney and started to look for a job to sustain his stay in Australia. His first job in the city was a kitchenhand post in Surry Hills’ Fishwives. After a one-year stay at the Fishwives, he found a job in another restaurant where he worked with Chef Tony Bilson’s Kinsela’s as a sushi chef. It was during his stay at Kinsela’s that Chef Wakuda began to study French cooking style, and it was also here that he realized that his true calling was to become a chef.
Chef Bilson urged the young Wakuda to study the cuisine and make his own experiments to come up with his own culinary identity. Chef Bilson not only nourished Chef Wakuda’s need to learn traditional French cuisine but he also fostered the latter’s drive to become who he is as a chef, encouraging him to discover and experiment with the ingredients to create unique dishes of his own. In fact, it is through Chef Bilson that he created his very own fusion cuisine that speaks mainly of French and Japanese cooking.
In 1983, Chef Wakuda left Kinsela’s to open up his own restaurant, and together with the head waiter, they launched Ultimo. Ultimo served as his training ground on what it takes to become a head chef and what is needed to become a good restaurateur. His efforts paid off, and in the late 1980s, Chef Wakuda opened the eponymous Tetsuya’s.
Opening and managing his own restaurant was hard. In fact, he taught his wife dish presentation and cold larder duties to help him in the kitchen, and they also have to make do with the limited space that their restaurant offers. It was all worth it though as Tetsuya’s enjoyed a steady stream of clients of loyal fans that they later had to move the restaurant to another location to offer more seats as his clients and the demand for his cuisine increased.
Today, Chef Wakuda’s Tetsuya’s is enjoying numerous awards and is considered as one of the best dining hotspots in the country. It is also enjoying a spot in one of the most prestigious lists, the San Pellegrino’s top 50 World’s Best Restaurants.
Chef Tetsuya Wakuda’s Slow-Roasted Lamb with Miso and Snow Pea Leaves
Ingredients:
- 2 medium witlof cut into quarters lengthwise
- Sugar
- Sea salt
- White pepper
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
- 500 ml chicken stock
- 4 small racks of lamb with 6 cutlets per rack, trimmed of all fat
- sea salt extra
- White pepper extra
- 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil for lamb
- 1 large bunch fresh Thyme
- 100 g Japanese White Miso paste
- 15 g Blue cheese
- 1 teaspoon Soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon mirin
- 1 teaspoon Ginger grated
- 1 large bunch snow pea shoot leaves, blanched in boiling water for 1 second
- 1 tablespoon green onion finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon chive finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon black sesame seed
Directions:
1. Place the witlof into a small baking dish and cover two thirds of the way with chicken stock.
2. Add grapeseed oil and season with a pinch of sugar, sea salt and white pepper. Cover with aluminium foil and cook for 1 hour in an oven pre-heated at 220C.
3. Remove from oven when witlof is tender and set aside covered.
4. Reduce oven temperature to 130C for lamb.
5. Season the outside of each lamb rack with salt and pepper.
6. Heat grapeseed oil in a frying pan until it gives off a haze, seal lamb quickly over high heat until golden.
7. Remove lamb from frying pan and place onto an oven tray with thyme stalks under each lamb rack.
8. Place into pre-heated oven and roast for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked to your preference.
9. Meanwhile, bring remaining chicken stock to the boil, reduce to a simmer and add miso paste.
10. Stir until completely dissolved.
11. Add blue cheese and continue to stir until dissolved and sauce thickens.
12. Add soy sauce, mirin and ginger, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and strain sauce through a fine meshed sieve. Taste and adjust seasoning to your palate.
13. Once lamb is cooked remove from oven.
14. Remove the meat from each rack of lamb in one piece by slicing lengthwise along the bone.
15. Discard bones. Slice lamb into thick medallions.
16. To serve, arrange blanched snow pea leaves in the centre of serving plates, top with braised witlof and lamb medallions. Spoon over miso sauce.
17. Garnish with green onion, chives and sprinkle with black sesame seeds.
Servings: Makes 4 to 6.
Image Credit: taste.com.au
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[...] attended as well such as French Chef Michel Bras, Italian Chef Heinz Winkler, and Japanese Chef Tetsuya Wakuda. These chefs held cooking exhibitions to demonstrate not only their culinary talents but to also [...]