Eric Yeager, CEC, AAC, MSIHM, Executive Chef of Cedar Point Club in Suffolk, Va., says his salmon belly lox and Neufchâtel terrine recipe is an example of his ability, through 35 years of consistent learning, to create a dish using both classic and modern techniques and styles.
“One of the things that has always been true through the years is that food can be both beautiful and taste good,” he says. “The dish is not too modern, not too classical. It incorporates a bit of both. It is beautiful without compromising the ingredients; there is still respect for the materials. It’s flavors are recognizable and approachable.”
Club + Resort Chef (C+RC): What was the inspiration behind this dish?
Eric Yeager (EY): I was simply inspired by the beauty of the salmon belly as I was butchering the fish. We process a lot of animals and reserve most of our ‘off cuts’ for future use. We currently reserve all of our salmon bellies for things like sushi, sausage, pate, terrine, tacos, etc.
We have a wine dinner coming up; one of our hors d’oeuvres is lox and blini. I figured I would cure the belly and see how it turned out. A few days later, after seeing and tasting the final product, I was sure it would work for the hors d’oeuvre. Now, needing an immediate outlet for it, I decided to use it for something creative. That’s how this dish came about.
C+RC: How would you describe the flavors?
EY: It is a modern interpretation of a simple, classic pairing: lox and bagels with cream cheese, capers, dill, caviar, pickled garnishes. This combination is very popular, approachable and well-known. I try to utilize as many of the classic flavor profiles as I can in some combination on each plate. This one is not only classically driven in use of ingredients, but also combines a good ratio of sweet and salty, balancing the sweet Neufchatel with the salty umami of the cured salmon, the smoked salmon and the pickled garnishes and caviar.
C+RC: What makes this a successful dish?
EY: The success of the dish is utilizing our modern techniques and styling to create something beautiful. That, of course, is meaningless if your membership or consumer has no idea what it is, or may even be hesitant to try it based on its visual appearance. In the case of this dish, I was able to incorporate modern technique and plating style while showing the ingredients in natural color, form and perceived flavors. While it does not look like your traditional lox and bagel, it sure does taste like it.
C+RC: Do you think other chefs might be inspired by this dish?
EY: At the end of the day, it’s really just lox and cream cheese with bagel chips. I would hope that the inspiration is in taking a concept that simple and classic and implementing just enough modern technique and styling to bring it into this century without being pretentious. Hopefully, the inspiration is that food can be ‘Instagram-worthy’ and still taste good, food can be beautiful and approachable, food can be modern and classical. Those things do not have to be mutually exclusive.
