Chef Brent Quiggle — Local and Sustainable Ingredients Make a Difference You Can Taste

 

Chefs, at least those who operate kitchens where you want to taste the finished product, put as much effort in to selecting their ingredients as they do coming up with recipes and preparing the dishes. They are artists, they create, and if the ingredients the kitchen uses are below par, the dish itself will be, too.

Chef Brent Quiggle knows what he likes, and he knows what he wants. He has a plan, and everything in that plan is designed to have a certain effect.

Chef Quiggle talks with CRESCENT about local sourcing and sustainability and why we need to pay attention to those efforts for the future.

—————————

Sustainability and local ingredient sourcing are huge right now.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And you’re doing that here.  What do those things mean to you and what is kind of the next level of that going to be?

As far as myself?  Queen Anne’s?  As far as…

What does it mean to you personally? What does it mean to the restaurant?

Sustainability to me is huge.  It’s something that we all have to look at.  If we don’t pay attention to it, it’s like history.  We’ve seen the numbers of what it’s done to certain fish.  How it’s killed populations. So if we don’t pay attention to it, all we’re doing is hurting ourselves.  That’s my…we all have to take ownership and responsibility and do the right thing when purchasing.  It’s so easy to go and buy the $3 fish and make people happy for two weeks or two years, but what happens when you don’t regulate?  When people just go out and write their own rules?  We’ve seen what happens, and it kills off species.  It kills things that we can never enjoy again.  So sustainability, it’s a must.  Where’s it going?  I think it is going farm-raised.  Farming.  We have to learn how to farm fish better.  I love fish.  It’s not popular.   As far as I know…that’s what we have to do.  With a growing population…what are we?

Around seven billion people or so.

Seven billion, yeah.  Within our lifetimes, we’ve seen that double.  What’s going to happen in the next twenty years? Thirty years?  So we as a population, we as a people, we must lead everybody to the well and teach them how to drink.  That’s being, first off, responsible when purchasing and then commit it.  You have to find ways to use every part.  I love grouper cheeks.  I don’t know if you’ve…

I haven’t.

I put them in my fish tacos now.  It’s a part that’s tough to find an application that makes sense, but it’s a great piece of meat. It’s kind of what they use that makes the jaw bone go up and down, but it’s perfect for a little taco.  And I love fish tacos.  In San Diego, I fell in love with fish tacos, and I think we’ve got a great one here now.  What was the second part?  There was sustainability and…

Local sourcing.

Local sourcing.  I’m getting better through Thornhill Farms, through some of the other local farms.  Thackery Farms.  It’s all about learning and educating all the chefs really.  Sean was kind enough to help me along that path for the local end of it and give me the contacts and the people I needed to get in touch with to source my own stuff.

We talked briefly about overhauling the menu last year.  What was your favorite thing that you created for that new menu?  What jumps out and says, “This is the one thing that I’ll walk away smiling?”

I would say, just the whole process in having it done and the awareness of bringing it to the forefront and that is sustainability, local sourcing, that is the one thing that is the most important piece of what we did.  There isn’t one item, there isn’t one “this dish, that dish.” I think it’s the whole…develop the movement that is the most important.  I love the fact that we made a decision because it is not easy and it hasn’t been easy.  It’s hard to have guests who have been with me for ten years who go, “I don’t like what you’re doing any more.”  You know, that’s tough.

Yeah.

It’s really tough. It just wasn’t really something that they particularly cared for but it isn’t that I believed them.  And it’s tough when you have someone…

Well, it’s your baby and you don’t want somebody insulting your baby.

No, no. This is me.  This is ten years now.  I’ve been the only one on the ship and aside from the Neighborhood Dining Group, it’s as simple as somebody liking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and not wanting to try turkey.  Even though turkey’s probably a little healthier for you.  I mean, the immunity part of peanut butter, that’s pretty big but turkey’s still good, pretty good.  So getting involved with Allen Benton, using some of his products.  Using, realistically, having Thornhill Farm just right around the corner.  Getting involved with Maria Baldwin and using their produce and building our specialty menu.  We do a fresh-catch menu that’s new every day.  That’s where we are utilizing most of that stuff at this point.  Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense.  With fish being your favorite, which is your favorite of the fish?

Wreckfish.  I love wreckfish.  I goes along with our motif here.  It reminds me…it’s a deep water bass. It’s like grouper. It’s a white meat, but it’s a deep water bass. It’s an amazing fish…caught right here off the coast, 50 miles out, 2000 feet down. Only a couple of spots in the world have wreckfish, and we’re one of them.  I’ve always done fresh catches. Tonight, there’s going to be seven of them.  It’s pretty wide open.

OK, pop quiz, what are they?

Tonight?

Yeah.

I’ve got Cherry Point clams, I’ve got fresh local shrimp done certain styles, Cobia, I’ll do Lowcountry tonight, I do some salmon.  I’ve got people who will kill me if I don’t do some salmon on the menu.  Honestly, they love their salmon.  I’ve got day-boat scallops.   I’ve got Carolina flounder and the grouper, red grouper.

So you rattled those off, no problem.

Right, right.   And each one has its own design plan behind it.  There…I just love fish, I do.

You passed the pop quiz.  I just wanted to see if you could name ‘em all.

Oh, yeah, I can tell you each style and how they’re done, too, because it’s that important to me.  Do you want to know?

Yeah, because like you said, it is important to you.

The Cobia, I love Cobia, it’s sweet, large-flake. What we’ll do is we use Geetchee  Boy grits, which is a kind of fish and grit thing.  We’ll sauté some okra with a little bit of leeks, some preserved tomatoes, a little veggie broth, some seasonings.  Saute that down, finish it with butter, whole butter and create this buttery glaze with vegetable broth and put that right over the fish.  Absolutely delicious.  That’s normally how I prepare wreckfish.  I’ve gone with that one tonight.

That sounds really good.

The grouper, done over a pimento cheese and pickled ramp grit cake, sautéing it with some clams and some fresh shrimp.  A little lemon butter done à la minute, right over the top of it with some fried arugula to garnish.  If you’ve ever had fried spinach…

Oh yeah.

A little fried arugula.  That’s really cool.  The salmon I do bistro style, which is onion, mashed potatoes, sautéed green beans in brown butter and capers right over the salmon and the onion pureed mash with a little bit of cream cheese in there and, kind of decadent, over the top.  The shrimp I’ll do Blackbeard style.  I’ll make a red rice using onions and pepper and sausage and tomatoes and I’ll just blacken the shrimp,  put them over the top of some fresh tomato salsa and them some lime sour cream, right over the top, kind of a cross between Tex-Mex…well, I like some spice so that’s my spice one.

I was going to say that’s almost like a jambalaya.

It is, it is, but the sausage is minced up in the rice so you can’t even tell.  It’s more about the flavor.  The day-boat scallops, I do garden style, which I’ll take spinach, sauté it with grape tomatoes and button mushrooms and roasted red peppers.  Very light sauté onto it.  It is almost half wilted.  Then I’ll have kalamata olive vinaigrette and then basil oil over the whole thing.  Then I’ll sear off the scallops on a cast iron pan.  Absolutely, just the perfect poach.  This is one of those techniques Sean taught me.  Just sear the heck out of ‘em then use the spoon to throw the oil over them as they’re searing hard and then let ‘em rest and they finish cooking.  And the day-boat scallops are the best. Then we did the clams.  I’ll do in a white wine/garlic/cream sauce.  A little clam juice, as well.  And I’ll put it over bucatini pasta.  Bucatini is like hollow spaghetti.

So your sauce will get in there.

In the noodles, inside the noodles yeah.  Suck it through the straw or whatever.  I’m trying to think, did I go through all seven?  The clams, the shrimp, the scallops, the Cobia, the grouper with the pimento cheese, then the salmon.  Just off the top of my head, what am I missing?  The flounder, I do a crispy fried Carolina flounder.  Basically, I’ll deep fry it, serve it with hush puppies and French fries and coleslaw.  Just kind of your basic fish fry but if people want it broiled, I’ll do that, no problem.  It seems to be…people like their flounder fried.

Right.

It’s not a whole fish presentation but I think…

That’s what people grew up on.

Fried flounder.

Fried flounder.

It’s easy.  It’s delicious.  A little jalapeno tartar, you’re good to go.

• Follow Chef Quiggle on Twitter at @ChefQuiggle.
• Follow Queen Anne’s Revenge on Twitter at @QueenAnnesCHS.
• Visit Queen Anne’s Revenge online HERE.

For Part 1, Click HERE. For Part 2, Click HERE. Stay Tuned for Part 4.

 

 

PHOTO CREDITS: Queen Anne’s Revenge / Neighborhood Dining Group