The Chef: B.K. Park (Arami)The Challenger: Jason Vincent (Nightwood)The Ingredient: Chufa
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B.K. Park, who’d never worked with chufas, couldn’t find them locally, so he ordered them from Spain; they arrived at his Ukrainian Village restaurant looking a little like small, withered almonds. Park originally wanted to grind them into a powder, but that didn’t work. So he decided to stick with what he knows best: “I’m going to make sushi with it,” he said. Park boiled and soaked the chufas with a little butter, then ground them up and used the mixture in place of rice in four types of sushi.
To keep the mixture from getting too gummy, Park opted for a medium as opposed to fine grind. As with sushi rice, he wanted the chufa mixture to have some texture. “Pasta, if you cook it all the way done, is too soft. Sushi rice is the same. It’s not cooked all the way, so it’s got nice texture to it. We have to be really careful about controlling the water amount and the timing and everything.”
He’s considering doing a chufa special sometime soon. “I have a lot left over.”
