David Posey, chef de cuisine at Blackbird, challenged Vie executive chef Paul Virant to come up with a recipe using spirulina for this installment of our weekly feature
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Told about spirulina’s history, Paul Virant complained, “Basically, David Posey has given me excrement to use? That’s bullshit. I called him, too, after I got the ingredient, and I was like, ‘Are you serious? I don’t even know what this stuff is.’ He said something like, ‘It’s a superfood. If you can come up with something really badass, you’re going to be a superhero.’ I’m not so sure about that.”
The problem with all of those attempts, Virant said, was that while they weren’t bad, they didn’t really taste like spirulina. “I’m a big advocate of highlighting whatever the ingredient is,” he said, adding, “But I’m not so sure I want to highlight this.”
Virant was unenthusiastic about the potential of the spirulina itself. “I’m not convinced that the fish is going to be good, but I’m convinced that the sauce with the wine is going to be good,” he said.
Virant denied any knowledge of Zimmerman’s dislike of lamb fat: “I thought he was cool like me and liked all fats. That would have sealed the deal, though.”
Salt
1 cup clean oyster mushrooms
