The chef of the Alma Mater restaurant explained at Madrid Fusión how rice with vegetables can taste so good and deep, or how a chocolate, a truffle and a churro end up coming out of three Murcian cheeses
Juan Guillamón, owner and chef of the Alma Mater restaurant in Murcia, decided one fine day, when he was studying business administration, to drop everything and go to London to wash dishes. Years later, he had traveled the world and cooked for Arab sheikhs and his wives (many), and for some of the world’s richest businessmen, as chef for the Ferrari team. This meeting between his international training and the landscape and the pantry of his land has led to a cosmopolitan cuisine based on local products. And yesterday he told those attending his presentation on the multipurpose stage of Madrid Fusión how rice with vegetables -with Calasparra rice, the first DO rice in the world- can taste so good and deep, or how three Murcian cheeses of excellent quality end up with a chocolate, a truffle and a churro. In a good way, the latter.
The setting could not be more suitable for a Murcian chef in the capital: a huge frontispiece of fruits and vegetables surrounded the speakers. Guillamón used a Ruperto cheese, “from San Javier, a coastal area, where they make their products with cow’s milk, one of the few Murcian cheese factories that do not use the Murcian-Granadian goat.” He made a cream that he encapsulated in a sphere and dipped in paprika cocoa butter. And at the time of the totanera pumpkin, it is accompanied with totanera pumpkin jam. Three elements in a very Murcian dish. The luck of those attending the multipurpose stage was that the chef asked several spectators to come up and try the snacks. The next elaboration was a small truffle with the Tallante cheese with a sorrel leaf; and the third, a hollow churro made with rice and cheese from the Ruano cheese factory in Lorca, which is filled with cream and accompanied by borage flowers. He took advantage of Guillamón to make a passionate defense of the Murcian-Granada goat and suckling kid meat, which he considered typical of haute cuisine. Three bites with which the chef heads his tasting menu and which are paired with an infusion of rosemary, ginger and apple.
Calasparra
And from cheese to rice. From Calasparra, of course. “Recently we were in Dubai and there we swelled up to make a cauldron with our rice,” said the chef, explaining that the difference with respect to other rice “is that Calasparra is a high-altitude crop, almost in the mountains and on terraces, of in such a way that the water does not stagnate and the plants are washed away». And from here, those attending the presentation received a master class on what is done in Murcia with rice, taking advantage of the fact that the two Calasparra varieties require a third more liquid than the rest of the varieties, which contributes to transmitting more flavor. The version of its vegetable rice starts from a base that looks similar to a dark meat background, but made exclusively of vegetables. Pure umami without touching any animal protein. A captivating and addictive taste. But to achieve this you have to know how to cook. Like our grandmothers… or like Juan Guillamón.
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