Kobe Desramaults is the head chef at In De Wulf (what a great name!), located in Danrouter, Belgium. Lambickx pairs perfectly with his dish of lightly cured sea bass, radish, shellfish broth, and sloeberry vinegar. But until Wendy returns to the US with Kobe’s cookbook in hand, we are recipe-less.
But in place of a recipe, I thought I’d share a few facts about Kobe’s culinary genius. In De Wulf sits in the place of Kobe’s childhood home, which evolved from a cottage, to a brasserie, to an inn. Kobe studied under some of the world’s best contemporary chefs - Sergio Herman and Carles Abellán – then returned home to transform his mother’s restaurant into a Michelin-star winning establishment. In De Wulf received its first Michelin star in 2005, making Kobe the youngest Michelin starred chef in Belgium; to date, In De Wulf now boasts two Michelin stars. Recently, Kobe has been named one of the top 100 chefs in the world, and at 31, he is among the youngest.
Kobe’s cooking focuses on bringing out the best in local ingredients, no matter the season. In his own words:
“Every day there’s something changing. It’s to be found in some little things like the scent of the first elders bringing me directly back to my childhood, the wild dock leaves in the talus, the glance of the first blackberries…
It’s the same feeling a want to reflect in my kitchen. The menu doesn’t change every season but when the time is right. I call it ‘organic kitchen’ because I have to adjust it to the things happening around us. The menu never changes from dish to dish… I see it as a never ending project. Every day there is worked and puzzled on. Adapted but never feigned. It especially has to be ‘real’, sometimes brutal, soft, just natural. Being honest of who we are and where we are as the biggest challenge.”
In Kobe’s spirit, why not improvise a dish out of local ingredients? Let us know what
amazing dish you have created, and since Lambickx dazzles with most food pairings, try it with your creation and let us know what you think!
Follow Kobe on Twitter (@kobewulf) and prepare to be tantalized, scintillated, and culinarily inspired by both his tweets and this beautiful video of In De Wulf’s offerings:
Herb Roasted Chicken:
Contessa is one of the very few Italian craft beers to earn 5 stars from Slow Food’s Guide to beer. In addition to beautiful prosecco-style bottles and kegs of Contessa, Claudio and Gennaro Cerullo sent a special shipment of Vecchia Doppia Bastarda for us to share. There are an exquisitely small number of these 30 liter kegs just now making their way to the market. By all means grab some if you see it. This is the beer that convinced us we had to import the beers from Amiata.
The Monte Amiata has long been considered the ideal for the cultivation of chestnuts, so much so that since the fourteenth century statutes imposed on communities around Mount Amiata provided strict rules for the protection and exploitation of the chestnut resource, both for the collection of fruits and for the production of timber. The combination of the acidic soil, deeps aquifers and balanced microclimate give the Amiata chestnuts unique organoleptic characteristics. The protected status of the chestnut forests means trees are not treated with synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. The chestnuts are harvested by hand or with suitable systems to maintain the integrity and quality of the product.
Stews and braised dishes, cooked with beer itself. Wild boar or venison stew, turkey stuffed with chestnuts, sausages and cheeses, perhaps to be consumed with the approaching of chestnut honey. Lamprey. In Corsica the chestnut beer is particularly popular in combination with blue fish grilled or barbecued. Among the desserts are to be combined: sweet chestnut polenta with ricotta, chestnut cake, panna cotta with chestnut Mont Blanc.
Ingredients (yield: 16-20 pancakes)
Ingredients:
