Recipes Roasted Sunchokes with Buttery Bagna Cauda 4.0 (2,672) Add your rating & review Sunchokes, a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes, are nutty-tasting and can be eaten raw or cooked. When roasted, they make a great change of pace from the usual crudités served with bagna cauda, the Italian olive oil, garlic and anchovy sauce. Recipes for Spring Produce By Mike Lata Mike Lata F&W Star Chef » See All F&W Chef Superstars Restaurants: FIG, The Ordinary (Charleston, SC) What dish are you most famous for? At FIG, it’s a chicken liver pâté. We use a really old-school process that isn’t used very often, where we emulsify the pork fatback and the chicken livers with bacon. It is as smooth as smooth can be. The pork fat balances out the chicken livers so perfectly. It almost tastes closer to foie gras than chicken livers. It’s really ethereal. What ingredient are you currently obsessed with? Seafood. We opened The Ordinary because I have such a passion for it. The culinary community has been so pork-centric for the past several years that seafood cookery has fallen by the wayside. With all the innovative techniques and approaches that chefs have taken though, I think that if you apply that culinary discipline to seafood, you can come up with some pretty amazing, fresh new things. What will we always find in your fridge? A disproportionate amount of eggs to other ingredients in the fridge, always. My egg farmer has the strictest standards, the eggs are so delicious. We have a one-year-old son and he loves them, too. So we’re always cooking eggs in the morning. What do you eat straight out of the fridge, standing up? Every single time, it’ll be deli meat rolled with a piece of cheese and some kind of mayonnaise. What is your favorite cookbook of all time?A Return to Cooking, by Eric Ripert. I’m a big fan of French cooking. There’s something about the technique and the driven discipline. When I think about how to express myself, how to constantly strive to execute your vision, I look to that book. It inspires me to keep focusing on how people view my cooking. He’s translated his elegant brand into a casual cookbook, it’s genius. It’s important as a chef to have a brand. For me, personally, I want it to be based on good sensibility and strong technique. What’s the most important skill you need to be a great cook? I don’t have a pastry chef at my restaurants because I’ve found that teaching cooks to run the pastry department teaches them the discipline of mise en place, time management and organization. You can’t really hide behind a baking accident as much as you can with savory cooking. To be successful, you have to have discipline, great mise en place, good timing, good organizational skills. If you can do those things successfully, then I think you have a much better chance of becoming a successful chef. Do you have any pre-shift rituals? I try to walk off a lot before a shift. I take a lap around the block. I clear my head and get one good thought before service, which might be “Let’s focus on one certain dish” or “Let’s focus on attitudes” or “Let’s stay positive.” When I come back into the kitchen, I try to keep that one thought in my head through service to help give us some focus. What is your hidden talent? I love to race dirt bikes. I’ve got a couple Ducatis and I’ve spent many Sundays and Mondays in the mountains of North Carolina with my friends, blowing off some steam. A little travel therapy, if you will. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on May 23, 2017 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: © Paul Costello Active Time: 20 mins Total Time: 45 mins Yield: 8 side-dish or starter servings Ingredients 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 pounds young sunchokes, scrubbed and halved lengthwise 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 4 large anchovy fillets, minced 2 large garlic cloves, minced 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice Salt Freshly ground pepper 1 tablespoon chopped parsley Lemon wedges, for serving Directions Preheat the oven to 400°. In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Add the sunchokes, cut side down, and cook over moderately high heat for 1 minute. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until the sunchokes are golden brown and tender. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add the anchovies, garlic and crushed red pepper and cook over low heat until the anchovies are sizzling, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Stir in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a shallow bowl and keep warm. Spoon the sunchokes onto a platter. Garnish with the parsley and serve with the warm bagna cauda and lemon wedges. Rate it Print