Aaron Ruble, Executive Chef, Sycamore Hills Golf Club
At Sycamore Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne, Ind., Executive Chef Aaron Ruble and his culinary team are always cognizant of diners with dietary restrictions. Each season, the menu features several selections that are vegan or gluten-free by nature—plus at least one option that’s both, such as the sweet potato gnocchi, paired with local oyster mushroom, seared Brussels, maple oat milk, toasted pepita and fennel frond.
“I find myself saying things like, ‘It’s not bad for a vegan/gluten-free dish.’ But my goal as a chef, and an attitude I intend on instilling in my team, is that ‘not bad’ means ‘not good enough,'” says Ruble. “I had the opportunity to work with the incredibly talented Matthias Merges during a charity event in 2022, and we would taste the prep together. I would say, ‘not bad’ or ‘pretty good,’ and every single time, he asked me, ‘sure, but is it great?’ This dish was a success during our fall season because my team and I were not satisfied with pretty good—it had to be great.”
This dish is a little on the sweeter side, Ruble notes, especially for a dinner entrée, but it can be easily balanced by tossing the vegetables in a splash of vinegar or a spritz of lemon juice and allowing the salty pepitas to bring it all together.
“I am proud of this dish because of the number of failures that went into development before we figured it out,” says Ruble. A little too much tapioca, and you have a gummy mess; too much sorghum, and it just crumbles. Some recipes poofed up the way we wanted but tasted like garbage; others wouldn’t develop a nice sear, they would just burn. Testing and retesting are my favorite parts of any dish, and this one required a lot.”
“I encourage anyone to take what I wrote here and play around with it,” he adds, “change a few variables and see what happens. In my opinion, that’s the whole point of being a chef!”
