The Food Chain

RIA’s Danny Grant Can’t Stop Thinking About the Guinea-Fowl Terrine at Daniel

The Guinea fowl terrine at Daniel.
The Guinea fowl terrine at Daniel. Photo: E. Kheraj

Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last week, Annisa’s Anita Lo praised the sea scallop and octopus with hakkurei turnip served by Danny Grant at Chicago’s RIA. Now we want to know which dish has lately captured Grant’s attention. The answer is straight ahead.

Who: Danny Grant, executive chef of RIA, in Chicago
What: Guinea hen terrine with foie gras, black truffle, and turnip
Where: Daniel, New York

“This was the first dish my wife and I had after a long day of working and traveling, and we couldn’t have been more excited to sit down and have a great meal. The terrine was incredibly balanced in flavor and equally as intricate and appealing in presentation. It is one that has stuck with me ever since and that I will remember for a long time.”

Daniel executive chef Jean-Francois Bruel responds:

“We change the terrine every month and a half or two months. It looks like a checkerboard, so usually I use daikon radish for the vegetable, and the protein varies — it can be guinea hen, it can be duck. And then the foie gras is always foie gras. The guinea hen we slow-poach so that it stays very, very moist. The vegetables we blanch in the guinea hen consommé so you have all the flavor, and then we use the guinea hen consommé for a little bit of gel to hold everything together.”

RIA’s Danny Grant Can’t Stop Thinking About the Guinea-Fowl Terrine