- 6 minutes ago
Bon Appétit spends a day at Elder, a modern British Indian chop house that brings together British dining culture with Indian culinary heritage. Head Chef Iqbal Siddique takes us behind the scenes as his team prepares food for hundreds of guests later in the evening. From custom-ordered sumptuous steaks and Buffalo Milk Paneer, to the Chicken Roulade and Celeriac Wellington, follow Iqbal and his team as they navigate a day at one of NYC’s finest chop houses.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:02Elder is a modern British Indian shop house.
00:06Shop house is very different than the regular steak house.
00:09If a guest wants a filet, but if they want it a little bigger or smaller, we can always cater
00:15that.
00:15We try to use our steaks, but with the techniques of Indian cuisine.
00:20We do a 32-aged ribeye with a nahari, which is very traditionally Indian.
00:25Stewed broth. I'm the head chef at Elder.
00:28I've got to learn how to open a restaurant,
00:31how to bring in people and the creative ones and the most skilled ones
00:35and create a team which I can work with and move forward.
00:46Good morning. It's 9 a.m. in the morning.
00:49I'm Iqbal Siddiqui, head chef at Elder. Please come on in.
00:55We are doing 100 covers tonight, so we need to get prepared.
00:59Welcome to our kitchen.
01:01This is a huge kitchen. We work with around 15 cooks.
01:05We are going to do the meats or the proteins for the day.
01:13Right now we have a Buckshire pork chop over here.
01:15Our chop house is better than most of the steak house.
01:18What we do is custom every order.
01:21If the guest wants it, maybe 60 ounces.
01:23We weigh them out and we cook it accordingly.
01:26That's what we expertise and pretty much giving what guest wants.
01:31We take a little bit of fat off.
01:33It's more about how we make a simple ingredient shine better or look better.
01:38And on a plate, it looks just fantastic like the white bone coming off the grill.
01:42After the pork chops dry aged, we brine them in brown sugar and a little soy
01:48and then cook it on the grill.
01:51We let it rest on top of the vindaloo, which is like a very Portuguese gravy from India.
01:57So it adds a little wine, a little vinegar, a little chili.
02:01It's definitely a little spicy dish than the rest, but it's one of my favorites.
02:06If you see like the bones coming off clean and nice, that's what makes a difference.
02:13You have to chop your knives every day because it makes your work way easier.
02:17Most of the big knives cannot go through just because they are big and long.
02:21I use a peri knife because again, it can go through right seemingly in between the bones
02:25and it makes the cut much more cleaner and sharper too.
02:29And it's easy to maintain.
02:32So we are done with the pork and now we are just going to wrap it.
02:35I'm very tedious about like how we wrap our pork.
02:38I want no wrinkles when it comes to wrapping.
02:41It gives you a little edge over like how your work ethics flows in the kitchen.
02:45And it just makes your walk-in look better.
02:48Once the pork is fired, what we do, we take over it to the grill.
02:54Then we're nice, really good sear.
02:56Two minutes on each side.
02:58If you look at the grill, it has both the charcoal and the fire.
03:02It generates more of a heat, which is more even.
03:05If you see the racks inside, there are different levels to it.
03:08We can definitely rest some of the meats over here or let them dry or get them a little more
03:14colored than the usual.
03:15And it gives a lot of flavor to the meat.
03:18Now we are going to work on our paneer, which is made up with buffalo milk.
03:27The milk comes in a big bag like this.
03:30If I can lift it up, it's too heavy.
03:33Yeah, that's like a five gallon of milk, which is maybe run through half of the week.
03:40We don't use the regular milk because of buffalo milk having a lot of high density and fat and cream.
03:46We use, what we are going to do is layer the paneer like a lasagna with a little bit of
03:50filling in pistachio.
03:52And other nuts like cashew, a little spices from India.
03:56Serve it over like a saag, which is another very traditional Indian gravy.
04:00This is Siddharth, this is my morning sous.
04:02So he's basically worked with me almost for three or four years.
04:06Pretty much he knows me better than I do.
04:08We have a huge tiltings pan, which can hold up a liter of 30 gallons.
04:13That's a lot of liquid cooking or simmering.
04:16We can cook in it and tilt it down too.
04:20And that makes it much easier to get the milk or any liquid out of the tilting, like cooking pan.
04:27It's quite mechanical. It's fun.
04:30We'll let the milk simmer to separate the whey from the water.
04:34What we do, we add a little vinegar and it cuddles up right away.
04:37You can see the difference of water and the whey separating.
04:40We need to press it as fast as possible and cool it down to get the even shape.
04:44If you're too slow, you won't get the paneer at the right time for the service.
04:48So we see we even out all the paneer, make sure there's no air bubbles.
04:52So we try to use the same pans with regular sizes.
04:54We put on a little weight, we press it down so that the water gets dripped on
04:59and brought at the bottom.
05:00Let's cool it down. We have a blast chiller.
05:02We'll throw it in for like, say about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then put it back into the cooler.
05:07Jared over here, my sous, he's trying to help me out with the paneer.
05:11As soon as you put the weight, you see the water gushing out.
05:15That's what we want, but in the pan, not out of the pan.
05:19The paneer is all set.
05:21Meanwhile, I have all my sous chefs coming in.
05:24Let's have a little shit chat with them and then move on with our whole day.
05:30Where it is, my evening sous, where Siddhar is my morning sous.
05:33We'll get a little brief on how the day looks like.
05:36We are definitely waiting on the ribeye.
05:38So as soon as the ribeye comes in, we'll jump onto that too.
05:41Yesterday, we had a little problem with the boiling water next to the pasta.
05:45So make sure that the water is already salted, ready to go.
05:49My sous chefs are involved in everyday, daily to daily cooking.
05:52It's a really, really tough job because we work almost like 12 or 15 hours every day.
05:57And we have to be on our point.
05:59You can get on with the other stuff.
06:00My beef delivery is here.
06:05We got our steak.
06:06I think this is the time to break it down.
06:09So 32 ounces and 30 ounces are standardized weighing.
06:13We definitely want people to choose what they want.
06:16If they want the whole rack, we give them the whole rack.
06:19I am trying to get the sinwa out.
06:21And we want that beautiful white bone shining over the ribeye.
06:25I sharpen only my tip of my knife.
06:27Sharpness on the edge.
06:28So I can go back and forth with my finger.
06:30And that gives me, if I want to go too deep, I can go either hold my knife back forth
06:36and then go too deep.
06:37Or when I want to go a little sharp, so I'm not puncturing the meat all the way through.
06:42Perfect job.
06:43Take the oxidized meat and we'll use it, some of them, which is a little cleaner for our sauces.
06:50Now, as you see, these are really heavier steak than the rest of them.
06:55We will keep it to dry edge a little longer.
06:59Maybe do a 42-day aged ribeye.
07:01If somebody wants it, we custom clean it and then we give it to them on the table.
07:06We definitely do a taste check.
07:07Just the salt to check the quality.
07:10We salt it really hard.
07:12Remember, it's 32 ounces ribeye.
07:15Last week, we sold our ribeye 72 ounces.
07:18There was a table for eight people and they took the whole ribeye.
07:21When we call out a chop house, what we exactly mean.
07:25Like if our guest wants it, we deliver.
07:27Really, really market really well.
07:30And you see the smoke.
07:31That builds up like the whole flavor.
07:34The grill marks.
07:35I like it like a criss-cross.
07:37It just makes the whole presentation much more better.
07:39So our steak is well grilled.
07:41You need a little charrness, a little nuttiness.
07:44That brings out the whole flavor of an aged ribeye.
07:47We'll do a little bast of tallow.
07:48Tallow is a great lubricant for any steak and it adds up more of a nutty flavor.
07:54It enhances the aged ribeye and it has a high melting point or a heat level.
08:00Put it in the oven, cook it to temp and then we see how it's done.
08:04Put it on the side.
08:05Nahari is like a thick broth made out of lamb stock and a lot of spices and yogurt.
08:10And that looks like a wonderful steak.
08:17We are doing a very classic roulade out of chicken with Indian spices and flavors.
08:23This is like the integral part of British shop house.
08:25The filling is more Indian and the terrine or the roulade what we make is more British.
08:30By itself, it's like a very cohesive dish on a mukni.
08:34So it's pretty much the whole elder together in one dish.
08:38This is ivory chicken from upstate New York.
08:40It has the right amount of fat to a meat ratio.
08:44Just because if you see, most of the birds won't have under like the skin fat.
08:48So that keeps the chicken much more moist and tender.
08:51I try to break it down from the back.
08:54The history goes back either from the canoleal region or even from France.
09:00But it's more of a technical drum.
09:03Like where you make a roulade is like rolling up anything or any meat.
09:07But we made it our own just because this dish was taught by Chef Sujin.
09:13And then even I bought in a little idea that why don't we do the whole chicken rather than doing
09:17just half a chicken or like a full chicken.
09:20Every roulade is like a full chicken folded into one whole roll.
09:24It requires a lot of strength and skill.
09:28I did martial arts for a little while.
09:30That gets me a little more strength to butcher this chicken.
09:34I stepped away from fighting.
09:36I still love it.
09:37I'm still passionate.
09:38I train every day.
09:39There are so many commonalities with fighting and cooking.
09:43So you have to be disciplined.
09:45You have to put in your hours.
09:47You have to train every day to get your skill right.
09:51You're mostly like 15 or 18 hours away from your family doing it every day, every day out.
09:57Imagine on a holiday where you want to sit, have a cup of coffee, chill with your friends and family.
10:03You're working.
10:03But I love it.
10:05I love every aspect of it.
10:06You have separated the breasts and the skin.
10:09It's going to be noisy.
10:11So just a heads off.
10:13This is where my martial arts skills comes to play.
10:15I'm just kidding.
10:16You want to pound it to the point where it stays together but it's flattened out.
10:21So I don't use all the time the tip of it.
10:23I use the other side of it.
10:25If you see why we use the clean wrap because it clings.
10:29And so it's easy to maneuver everything on intact.
10:32I have a little slurry made out of cornstarch and salt.
10:38It's kind of a natural glue.
10:39What we did over here with the leg is made of like I would say a filling for the chicken.
10:45This just got made yesterday from the other chicken we butchered.
10:48So it goes through the grinder.
10:49And then we add a lot of spices.
10:51A little bit of cilantro.
10:52A little fat.
10:53So it keeps the chicken moist as well and more flavorful.
10:56Make sure the roulade filling are firm and filled in a proper size.
11:01I use a slicer.
11:02Longer and efficient to roll it up.
11:05Now we encase it in the skin.
11:09We'll roll the clean wrap.
11:12This is the trickier part.
11:14So we want our chicken to be tight.
11:18We take out the air because if you see it has like air bubbles or air gaps.
11:23When you cook it, that will cook much faster than the other stuff.
11:27So it bulges up, which we don't want.
11:29In service, we sear it to golden brown.
11:32We cut it into pieces and lay it out on a maknae, which is a very Indian traditional tomato sauce.
11:42We do a briefing every day just to make sure that everybody is lined up knowing what they're doing.
11:48Today we have 85 plus 20, 105 on the books.
11:55Make sure there's no allergens on the table.
11:58The rush we are getting around 6, 6.35.
12:01Then the second rush would be around 7.30 or 7.35.
12:04Okay.
12:05We have Chef Sujan.
12:07Pretty much very busy.
12:08He's my mentor.
12:09He's the chef too.
12:10Everyone is happy.
12:11That's good part.
12:12Okay.
12:13We are getting busier now.
12:15So we have to pull out our air game.
12:17That's what it is.
12:18Yeah.
12:19Thank you, guys.
12:20And I'll see you in the evening.
12:21Thank you, Chef.
12:23One, two, three.
12:25There you go.
12:25Good job, guys.
12:30Me and Siddhartha are going to jump into because I think we are really low on it.
12:33Celeryak is a root vegetable like piece between a cassava and a potato.
12:38The consistency is much more thicker than a potato.
12:41We talk about Wellington from England or Wellington from Europe.
12:45Everybody thinks like Wellington can be done by a meat or a tenderloin, but we want to showcase like how
12:51authentic we are to our cuisine.
12:53We do a very traditional Indian method, which is like doing a kebab out of it.
12:58We do a duxel, which is very British.
13:00And then we do a confit celeryak cooked in a very slow heat of oil for say about two hours.
13:06We wrap around with the filo, layering it up.
13:09We'll start the Swiss chard around the bowl.
13:12So we'll take one by one.
13:13We'll try to place the other ones over here.
13:16The idea was to do a Wellington, really good Wellington, incorporate the British chateaus in what's new and what's different.
13:23Do a celeryak, which gives you more room for the vegetarians coming in to a steakhouse, which is quite repulsive,
13:32like for a vegetarian or a vegan.
13:34But we made it sure that we have enough dishes on the menu that they can come to a steakhouse
13:40and enjoy vegetarian dishes.
13:42We'll hand it over to the pastry department and they're going to finish it up for us.
13:46This is our Chagun and our pastry chef.
13:49Me and her have been working for many other restaurants.
13:51So I know her really well.
13:52She's like my sister.
13:54This is for you, Wellington.
13:56Bye for today.
13:57And then we can continue tomorrow.
13:59Yeah. Thank you so much.
14:12So I'm going to set up for my station, which is the expo.
14:15Keep all my mise en place or little garnishes.
14:18This is like a walnut crunch.
14:20We do it with a little panko walnut.
14:22This is like a crispy garlic.
14:24And this is, we call it like a walnut dukkah.
14:28Basically a nut mix with a little bit of cumin, fenugreek, spices mixed with it.
14:32And this is the barista, which is very traditional in India.
14:36We just shallow fry them.
14:37I would say like more caramelized onion, but it has the sugar breakdown really well.
14:41And it tastes like a little umami and sweeter on any meat.
14:45We are going to go in service in like 10 minutes.
14:47Basically I stand here, call out the tickets, manage everything, taste everything, plate everything.
14:52I would love to have you over here, but I think it's time to leave.
14:56Have a good day. Bye.
14:57Bye.
14:57Bye.
14:58Bye.
15:00Bye.
15:00Bye.
15:01Bye.
15:02Bye.