"I don't want to be a luxury McDonald's; I'm committed to spontaneity in the kitchen"

As the maestro José Carlos Capel said in his presentation on stage, 'Camarena is the best chef in Europe, and therefore in the world. His technique is marvellous and his seasonal cuisine is a cuisine from the heart. He has a dialogue with food like no one else. And indeed, as a result of this dialogue, the prestigious Valencian chef moves diners in all his restaurants with overwhelming sincerity.

My cuisine is intuitive and I don't give up on changing my mind when the product demands it. For me, the idea of perfection is not to repeat the same thing over and over again, but to adapt my approach to the life of the product and to be always ready to change,' he began emphatically. And as for Ricard, movement is demonstrated by walking, he has cooked the hake to the maximum expression, even taking advantage of the scratches on its head, to show, on the one hand, his famous technique of preparing broths without water, which he has written down in a book "that we are thinking of republishing because now my idea of the unity of the product is better understood", and, on the other hand, his creative agility, his confidence and the courage that comes from doing things well. I want to have a different vision of things every day, because spontaneity can characterise our work in the restaurant. I don't want to be an upmarket McDonald's,' he says.

An exceptional and multifunctional hake soup

He set to work by putting a head of hake in a pot with a splash of his anchovy and vegetable brine, marketed under the Letern brand, and plenty of olive oil. He cooked it under pressure for half an hour, trying to extract all the fish, "preventing the steam from escaping, so as not to lose the aromas, because the taste is in the smell". With the result, Ricard proposed two dishes, one of which he had invented yesterday, almost on the spur of the moment, using the strained boiled fish. He used it to make a "consommé clarified almost 100% in 5 minutes, a technique that can be applied to any consommé containing protein, such as beef", which he poured onto the plate with a whole cococha at the bottom, accompanied by two or three pieces of figs pickled in vinegar and fig oil, two or three artichokes peeled and fried, and a few almonds. He finished this dish, a first for Andorra Taste, with a few drops of fig leaf oil. Bravo, Ricard!

And he did all this to show how to use the hake broth he needed to make another eye-catching dish, this time from the menu of the Ricard Camarena Restaurant**: a beautiful courgette flower stuffed with hake mousseline. A mousseline made only with meat and fish stock, without a trace of cream, achieved by working hard to create an exquisite velouté "with an intense flavour and a pleasant texture in the mouth, as it offers a very slow aromatic passage as it covers the upper part of the palate". With the muslin, he stuffed a beautiful courgette flower, brushed it with garlic oil and sprinkled it with dried parsley stem powder before steaming it for a few minutes. On the plate, she bathed it in a preparation of the original velouté, mixed with a tasty parsley pesto and amontillado.