• 24Jan

    Clarity in Vienna, Virginia has specials that change throughout the week. Tomorrow evening, there will be a guest chef cooking the food of Ghana, but the event is already sold out. This Thursday’s specials will be Dry-Rubbed Cherry Wood Smoked Barbecue Grass-Fed Brisket and Heritage Pork Ribs; Balsamic Pineapple Barbeque sauce comes on the side with either dish. I’m keeping an eye out for when Chef Jonathan Krinn makes pho again, since we missed it last time.

    Clarity’s Smoked Beef Brisket Chili

    We were happy to pick up Chef Krinn’s Smoked brisket Chili special today. It came with sun-dried tomato corn bread. We also got to try three mini breads: baguette, garlic, and herbs de Provence. We didn’t take the sour cream of cheddar cheese, since we don’t use them.

    The chili was very good but a bit spicier than we generally eat. We did add onions, scallions, and rice (with garlic) at home, which helped a bit with the spice level, as did the corn bread. I had planned on adding chopped tomatoes, but figured there was already enough going on the plate.

    Sun-Dried Tomato Cornbread

    Chef Krinn’s father does the baking, and he is extremely skilled. Herbs de Provence was our favorite of the 3 mini breads, although all of them were quite good. The corn bread was tasty too. You should pre-order dad’s baguettes or gluten-free bread (for Thursday pickup), or his stuffed crust pizza when it comes up as a special again. This week’s baguette flavor will be “everything.”

    Three Mini Breads

    My dining partner pickup up the food, and said Clarity has a great upscale NYC restaurant type of vibe. She was impressed.

    -JAY

  • 07Jul

    By Johnsu - http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnsu01/3286038831/

    This is one of those dishes that just crept up on me – building from a variety of ideas drifting through my head all day, looking for purchase.  I’d had the sprouts for a while, and they needed eating.  I’ve been roasting the sprouts with garlic, to lovely effect, but knew even when I bought these that this time, I wanted something different.

    Watching Bourdain scarf down a gorgeous-looking soy green soup with chili sauce in Shanghai, I wanted chili sauce.

    Here’s what I did:

    Clean and halve the sprouts.  Toss them in a pan with about 1.5 tablespoons mirin, over medium heat, and cover.  Leave them to caramelize, stirring every 5 minutes, until they’re almost done.  Now toss in your garlic.

    While cooking, add about 3 teaspoons of chili sauce and equal volume cream to a glass or small mixing bowl and stir like hell to emulsify.  Add fish sauce if you’re so inclined (I did).

    Turn up the heat on your pan to medium-high (maybe a bit more) and stir in the sauce – it’ll scald fast, and that’s good.  Let it cook till it’s just a sticky coating on the sprouts, and they are just barely done.  Transfer to a serving vessel, and cover.  Now, deglaze your pan with rice wine, letting it reduce about 3/4 to a nice rich sauce.  Pour that over your sprouts.

    I ate mine over scrambled egg whites, because I felt like it.  The eggs sopped up the extra sauce, which was lovely, and also made me feel better about all that cream, by not having yolks.

    – MAW

    (Photo by Johnsu)

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