Foodie Friday: Bas Rouge
EASTON, Md. – If you’re looking for a unique dining experience, Bas Rouge should be next on your list. It’s a swanky spot with interesting takes on local ingredients, honoring European roots. Chef de Cuisine Phil Lind and Bluepoint Hospitality’s Executive Chef Harley Peet took the Foodie Friday team on a tour of their table.
“We do classic techniques, old-school French, a bit of everything. And, we try to put our own twist on things; try to keep things modern,” said Chef Lind. “We’re bringing a lot of people, especially from the cities, coming down to visit us. We’ve become a pretty popular place.”
“With our own twist,”
Foodie Host Hannah Cechini got to try their hand at marrying an Eastern Shore tradition with an English staple, alongside Chef Lind.
“We’re going to be taking a classic dish, the beef wellington, with our own twist,” said Chef Lind, who hails from the United Kingdom. “We’re on the Eastern Shore, and crab cakes are a very common thing. We’ve taken that style of the wellington, and replaced the meat with a crab cake.”
Chef Lind starts by guiding Hannah through crafting the duxelles with a twist. “This is our zucchini and squash, that is slightly sautéed with some tarragon,” he added as he made the mousse with a twist; scallop. “This is just scallops, a little bit of egg white, and heavy cream.”
Duxelles is typically made with chicken or foie. However, Chef Lind explains that because the star of the dish is seafood, scallops work as a perfect substitute.
“The smells that are coming out of this are just so fresh and beautiful,” Hannah remarked as the duxelles came together.
Next, the pair moves onto crafting the crab cake; a recipe handed down from a third generation Tilghman Islander, complete with local jumbo lump crab, panko, mayonnaise, Dijon, and of course, Old Bay. After the crab cake is lovingly shaped, it’s placed into the pan with a sizzle, for a quick sear.
Making it a Wellington
It’s now time make the crab cake into a wellington. Chef Peet and Hannah work together, each cutting a circle from a sheet of pastry, and feathering the edges with a rolling pin.
“The cool thing about puff pastry is that it looks like it’s just one sheet of pastry. But the reality is that it’s got layers and layers or butter and pastry,” said Hannah.
“Hundreds of layers, as you do the book fold,” replied Chef Peet.
The circle of pastry gets a centerpiece of mousse, duxelles, and the crab cake. It’s then folded around the small tower, using local egg wash from Sherwood.
“We’re taking some serious, local combinations; zucchini and squash, local crab meat, that summertime bounty at a crab picking festival,” said Chef Peet as the he helped Hannah place a lattice pattern of pastry over the soon-to-be-baked bundle. “We’re marrying it all together with a super classic, old world technique, such as a wellington.”
The wellington stays in the oven until it’s golden brown, and perfect.
Richly Unique
Before Hannah can dive their fork into the dish, Chef Peet finishes it off with a completely vegan, roasted vegetable demi glaze. It’s a tempting, warm brown, with a rich aroma.
“The pastry is nice and fluffy, it’s buttery. The crab filling itself – I was saying this while we were making it – the thing you want out of a crab cake is crab, obviously. So, you’re getting nice, big chunks of crab in there. There’s really not any filler going on,” said Hannah as they savored their first bite. “The scallop mousse with the duxelles is pretty subtle. Crab is the first thing you’re tasting in there, but it adds a really nice freshness to it.”
If you told Hannah they were eating an au jus made from beef, they would believe it. “It has such a beautiful, rich flavor. That’s because you guys have taken that time to let it cook down, and let those flavors develop,” Hannah remarked. “It’s velvety, it’s warm, it really ties everything together.”
“This is probably the classiest surf and turf I’ve ever had,” Foodie Photog Mike said with a laugh as he prepared to dig in. “I almost feel bad cutting into this.”
“Go for it,” chuckled Chef Peet. “That’s what we do it for.”
“A good crab cake is subtle. No one’s being heavy-handed with the seasonings,” Mike marveled. “So, you get the buttery notes of the crab. And, I think probably because this is a vegan sauce, all I’m getting is another layer of earthiness that’s revealing things that maybe I haven’t had before.”
Extra Indulgences
Before the team at Bas Rouge let the Foodie team say their goodbyes, they surprised Hannah and Mike with two extra dishes.
The first: grilled head on Louisiana shallow water shrimp, glazed with a lemon vinaigrette. The shrimp sit in a vibrant green pool of aguachile, made of fresh shaved cucumber, radish, and jalapeno. Dotting the dish is crispy quinoa.
Hannah loved the char on the shrimp, saying it offers a nice counterpart to the brightness of the other components. “You can taste just how fresh all of the veggies that are in here are, because it really just pops,” they said.
Then they moved onto a local braised rabbit cannelloni, with a homemade wonton wrapper as the dough. The dish is finished with the rabbit’s au jus, pecorino foam, and local pickled vegetables and morel mushrooms.
“We’re just trying to come up with clever ways to take a local, beautiful product, and spin it into something that nobody in the area probably has seen or tasted,” said Chef Peet. “When you eat the dish all together, you get acidity, richness, crunch, all the necessary pieces to make it go round.”
Hannah never quite had a dish like this before. All of the flavors and textures married in what they thought an unlikely couple, that make the perfect match.
“All of those combinations of flavors are really different. But, when you put them all together, it creates a really interesting flavor,” they said. “I really like it.”
Bas Rouge
Bas Rouge is located at 19 Federal St, Easton, Md. You can call them at 410-822-1637. If you go to check it out, tell the team that you saw them on Foodie Friday.
