Project Foodie - Alinea: Hot Potato Cold Potato

Alinea: Hot Potato Cold Potato

Photo by Lara Kastner

Today's featured Chef recipe is provided by Alinea located in Chicago, IL. Alinea is the creation of Chef Grant Achatz and what a creation it is! Rated as the #1 restaurant in the US by Gourmet Magazine and labeled the "got-to-go-to restaurant in the country right now", Alinea is hot. Dining at Alinea is a true experience where they have redefined not only the process of going out to eat but also eating itself. Each dish is a piece of art that when combined with the other dishes creates your meal and defines your experience.

Today's recipe, "Hot Potato Cold Potato", is a perfect example. To call this dish a soup would be much more than just an understatement. As served at Alinea, a custom-made paraffin wax bowl is pierced with a pin on which a truffle topped potato and parmesan cheese hover over the hot potato soup. To eat, one pulls the pin through the wax releasing the truffle, potato and cheese into the hot soup thereby completing the creation and perfectly intertwining the hot soup and cold portions. This process creates, as Gourmet magazine says, "an astonishingly intense experience that engages all your senses". But don't just take their, or our, word for it - try it out for yourself….

Hot Potato Cold Potato - black truffle, parmesan

Chef Grant Achatz, Alinea

Yields: eight servings

Prep Time: 40 minutes, plus chilling time

For the Potato Soup:

3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, medium dice
2 c. black truffle juice
4 c. heavy cream
3 T. salt

Combine all ingredients in a medium pot. Bring to simmer, and simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender.
Puree ingredients in a blender until smooth and strain through a fine chinois.
Season to taste, and chill until very cold.

For the Garnishes:

Potato