Michelin Star Recipe Design

Dish
“Mid-Winter Aurora”
A transient bite of the polar night: spruce-ash cured scallop, sea-urchin & white-chocolate snow, black-garlic parsnip “soil”, pickled pine-bud glass, spruce-wood smoke encapsulated in a hot caramel sphere that melts tableside to release the aroma of a burning yule log while the sauce—fermented birch sap & roasted kelp—changes color from indigo to moss-green when it meets the residual heat of the plate.

Concept narrative
The dish is a 45-second performance that compresses an entire Nordic winter into one spoon journey. The diner sees a pristine white landscape (scallop/sea-urchin snow) interrupted by dark earth (parsnip soil) and a translucent frozen lake (pine-bud glass). A server arrives with a miniature glass cloche filled with glowing, caramel-hot smoke; the sphere is cracked tableside, the smoke escapes upward like the aurora, and the sauce is poured last—its pH-driven color shift mimics the moment polar twilight turns to night. Umami, sweetness, resinous bitterness and cold smoke arrive in successive waves; the plate is stone-cold when set down, so the sauce warms it to exactly 28 °C, the temperature at which raw scallop begins to relax and the urchin fat turns liquid.

Unusual pairing
White chocolate + raw sea urchin (the cacao butter binds the urchin’s poly-unsaturated fats, creating a silky “snow” that tastes neither of chocolate nor roe, but of fresh tide.)

Advanced techniques

• spruce-ash cure using pH-shift to keep scallop translucent
• alginate/pine-bud “glass” with negative-degree setting bath
• hot caramel sphere blown with spruce smoke, calibrated to shatter at 35 °C
• anthocyanin color-change sauce (red cabbage extract buffered with fermented birch sap)
• plate pre-chilled to –18 °C, then warmed by sauce to 28 °C in 20 s (time/temperature mapped with FLIR camera)

Component specifications

1. Spruce-ash cured Hokkaido scallop
   Sourcing: Live day-boat Hokkaido scallops (Aomori prefecture), winter harvest only; spruce ash from 150-year-old Finnish sauna boards (aromatic, food-grade).
   Technique:
   a. Burn spruce boards to pure white ash; sieve < 50 µm.
   b. Mix ash 3 % w/w with sea salt, 0.5 % glucose, 0.2 % malic acid.
   c. Shuck scallop; reserve coral. Cure loin only, 6 min at 2 °C.
   d. Rinse in 2 °C birch water; pat dry. Slice to 4 mm thickness; keep on 0 °C black ceramic tile until plate-up.

2. Sea-urchin & white-chocolate snow
   Sourcing: Live purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), Santa Barbara, CA; 72 % cacao-butter Valrhona “Ivoire” (no milk solids).
   Technique:
   a. Harvest urchin tongues within 30 min of death; centrifuge 3 000 g, 4 °C, 5 min to separate membranes.
   b. Blend 60 g urchin roe with 40 g melted cacao butter, 0.1 % xanthan, 2 % trehalose; pass through 100 µm chinois.
   c. Aerate in siphon (N2O, 1 cartridge) into liquid nitrogen bath to form micro-meringue “snow”; store at –40 °C.
   Flavour target: briny front, lingering white-cocoa butter finish, no perceptible sweetness.

3. Black-garlic parsnip “soil”
   Sourcing: 90-day fermented Korean black garlic; parsnip heritage variety “Tender & True”.
   Technique:
   a. Dehydrate parsnip peelings 12 h at 60 °C; fry in rice-bran oil 180 °C until blond; drain.
   b. Blend with 15 % black-garlic pulp, 2 % mushroom tyrosinase (for color), 0.3 % salt; dehydrate again 4 h.
   c. Pulse in Robot-Coupe to 1–2 mm crumble; reserve with silica gel pack.

4. Pickled pine-bud glass
   Sourcing: First-spring buds of Pinus sylvestris, Lapland (food-certified, frozen within 2 h).
   Technique:
   a. Blanch buds 5 s in 2 % salt, shock in –8 °C brine.
   b. Vacuum-infuse with 1 % malic acid, 3 % spruce honey, 0.5 % calcium lactate.
   c. Make 0.8 % low-acyl gellan bath, 65 °C; dip-infuse buds 30 s, pull out to form 40 µm film.
   d. Set on convex silicone mould at –12 °C; once set, punch 4 cm disc, keep frozen.

5. Hot spruce-smoke caramel sphere
   Sourcing: Isomalt, spruce essential oil (food-grade, molecular distilled).
   Technique:
   a. Cook isomalt to 165 °C; add 0.05 % spruce oil, pour into 3 cm silicone half-sphere moulds.
   b. Before fully set, inject 2 ml spruce smoke (from cold-smoking gun) into each half; fuse halves with micro-torch.
   c. Hold at 60 °C in low-humidity warming drawer; sphere remains glassy until surface hits 35 °C.

6. Fermented birch-sap & kelp sauce (pH-shift)
   Sourcing: Silver-birch sap, Hämeenlinna, Finland; sugar-kelp (Saccharina latissima), Faroe Islands.
   Technique:
   a. Ferment birch sap with Zymomonas mobilis 48 h at 12 °C to 2.5 % ABV, pH 4.1.
   b. Roast kelp 140 °C, 20 min; cold-infuse in sap 6 h; pass through Superbag.
   c. Add 0.2 % anthocyanin extract (from red cabbage) → deep indigo at pH 4.1.
   d. Just before service add 0.05 % sodium bicarbonate buffer so that when it hits the plate (now at pH 5.8) it shifts to moss-green within 15 s.

7. Plate & service ware
   Custom stoneware slab 18 cm × 10 cm, 2 cm thick, pre-loaded in blast chiller at –18 °C.
   Under-plate concealed Peltier cell can hold –10 °C for 8 min on battery; removed before sauce pour.

Plating choreography (90 seconds)

T – 90 s
Remove plate from freezer; place on service tray with dry-ice cartridge underneath to maintain fog.

T – 60 s
Using chilled tweezers, lay five overlapping scallop slices in a loose S-curve (mimics snow drift).
Spoon 1 tsp black-garlic parsnip soil at the head of the curve.
Position pine-bud glass disc so it bridges soil and scallop, hovering 2 mm above surface (supported by a hidden 1 mm frozen drop of birch sap that melts in 20 s, letting the glass settle gently).

T – 30 s
Pack 2 tbsp sea-urchin snow into a chilled micro-copper ring; demould onto centre of scallops.
Spruce-smoke caramel sphere is transferred from 60 °C drawer onto a 1 cm pedestal of snow (so it sits 1 cm above plate; the latent heat will not transfer until cracked).

T – 0 s
Plate leaves kitchen.
At table server lifts glass cloche; sphere is cracked with demitasse spoon; hot smoke billows upward.
Server then pours 35 °C birch-kelp sauce in a thin stream starting at the soil; color change spreads like an aurora across the plate.
Diner is instructed to take first bite within 10 s while snow is still –18 °C and caramel shards are warm—simultaneous hot/cold contrast.

Wine pairing
1996 Dom Pérignon “Plénitude 2” served at 9 °C in black-stemmed Zalto. Champagne’s autolytic brioche echoes the white-chocolate fat, while high acidity cuts through urchin and prepares palate for the next course.

Left-over philosophy
All trimmings are combined, lacto-fermented 7 days, and become the base for the staff-family “family-meal” pancake batter—zero waste.

Chef’s note
The dish is meant to vanish quickly; the snow sublimates, the glass dissolves, the sauce warms the plate so that by the time the diner finishes, the ceramics have reached room temperature and the aurora is over—leaving only the memory of a winter night.