3. Alex Atala, chef for D.O.M in São Paulo, Brazil
A champion of Amazonian rights, indigenous food cultures, and feeding the needy by repurposing food destined for waste, Chef Alex Atala is a South American hero. Deciding not to try to cook “French,” which was the cuisine in the vast majority of fine dining restaurants in Brazil, he turned his energies to embracing pure Brazilian cuisine and ingredients – Amazonian fish pirarucu, to hearts of palm, to ants.
Before it was trendy, Atala would hunt and use the entire animal in his dishes, thanks to a childhood education by his father and grandfather, who were fishermen and hunters. Atala treats even the humblest of ingredients with utmost respect, further supporting his passion for the purity and essence of what is locally grown and caught.
“It is necessary to cook and eat like a citizen” is Atala’s mantra, giving preference to ingredients grown by small farmers, riverside communities or regional products.
Chef Alex Atala gave FOUR’s International edition a recipe for palm heart fettuccine with coral butter and glazed shrimp.
Palm Heart Fettuccine with Coral Butter and Glazed Shrimp (Serves 4)
Ingredients:
Coral butter
- 500g of shrimp
- 30ml of olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves
- 400g of creamy butter
- 300ml of water
Fettuccine
- 1.3kg of palm hearts in the form of fettuccine
- 12 cleaned big shrimp with the tail
- Salt
- Black pepper
Method
- Mince the garlic then fry it in olive oil before adding the shrimp heads.
- Mix the heads until they release their coral (which adds colouring and flavour to the butter). Continue this process for 5 minutes.
- Transfer the heads to a deeper pan and de-glace the frying pan well with a bit of water and add to the deeper pan.
- Add the rest of the water to the deeper pan and cook for approximately 20 minutes. Cool down the recipe and corporate the creamy butter. Mix until it’s a homogenized mass.
Fettuccine
- Peel the bark around the palm heart and slice with a Japanese mandolin to make long strips like fettuccine in the length. The thickness must be around 1mm.
- Put salt in a pot with boiling water. Add the fettuccine portion for about a minute until they soften.
Finalization
- Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add the blanched fettuccine and season. Stir the hot pan in circular movements until the sauce thickens.
Shrimp
- Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and grill then in a very hot frying pan until they are bronzed. The centre must remain uncooked.
- Glaze the shrimp and serve.
