The Kitchen Essentials of Brooklyn’s Top Chefs
Zahra Tangorra, Amelia Hall
This rustic Italian restaurant/grocery store/perfect place to eat and shop and just enjoy life. And that exuberance for every aspect of cooking and, well, living is evident in the list of kitchen essentials that chef Zahra Tangorra and pastry chef Amelia Hall devised.
Emiliomitti Pasta Maker: We turn out a LOT of tagliatelle for dinner every night and this machine makes the process very efficient. Our model is a bit unnecessary for home use, but there are really great affordable home models (you can even get a motor attachment!). Don’t be scrrrrd of pasta making at home, it’s very simple when you get going. If you’re looking to get started we offer a pasta class once a month.
Locatelli Romano Cheese: Every chef has their favorite finishing ingredients. At Brucie, we use Locatelli Romano both for finishing and as a component in a few dishes. In the Pecorino world, Locatelli is King. Salty, nutty, amaze. Everything has its place, so sometimes Parmigiano Reggiano is called for, but Pecorino is our go-to hard cheese.
Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Ovens: These are great heavy-duty Cast-Iron pots. They can really take a beating and last forever. We bake our house-made country bread in them… and they’re also great for knocking your husband over the head when he comes home too late from being out with his gumar.
Hobart/KitchenAid: We do things in seriously high-volume so we use an industrial Hobart 80-quart mixer to mix pasta dough, meatballs, etc. We use it for grinding meat for our house-made sausage. This thing weighs about 1000 lbs and it took 4-300lb men to get it down to our basement. It’s a monster! As a home cook you can do every thing the Hobart does (and more!) with the home version, a Kitchen-Aid mixer, and it’ll be way easier to carry.
Dance Moves: WE GOT ANTS IN OUR PANTS AND WE JUST WANNA DANCE. We’ve been working on our Night Moves, we’re Dancing With Ourselves. There’s no way to better reconnect with your restaurant friends (front and back of house) than a good end-of-service boogie-oogie-ooo. After all, we just cooked for people and showed them a great time and we just want to celebrate. We’ll even throw in a choreographed break-down here and there.
Goofiness: At Brucie, the food is the most important thing. It’s taken very seriously by all the cooks. We value our beautiful ingredients and traditional old-world cooking methods. But we also know how to have a blast. Scott Stapp impressions, practical jokes (nothing TOO mean), the occasional belting out of The Circle of Life. The good times that we have permeate into the front-of house staff and the dining room. Everyone feels in on the joke and that’s part of the fun at Brucie.
Smoked, Pickley, and Roasted Things (Season’s Best): To change up our menu every day with only the available produce of the season we look to Smoking, Pickling and Roasting to enhance the flavors of what’s for dinner. Brucie’s sous-chef, Jennie, is always finding an interesting thing to smoke or pickle (smoked celery! pickled cheeseburgers (jk lol!)!) and roasting will turn the lowliest parsnip into a sweet bite.
George: George is essential. George makes the sun rise and the stars shine. He makes boiling pasta into an amazing slapstick routine and slicing bread into a samurai exercise. Having a fantastic cooking buddy makes the long shifts shorter and intense dinner services less painful. George is our rock. He listens to our problems and helps us solve them. He is always ready to party. He is CAPTAIN HEAT and our line cook extraordinaire!
Brucie; 234 Court Street, Carroll Gardens
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