Glass
May 24, 2017
Gal Ben Moshe was already ordering trout as a child
Cooking is a science. And if we are to accept that premise, then Israeli chef Gal Ben Moshe is a professor in the kitchen. And what he creates in his restaurant, Glass, is spectacular. When he was only three years old, he already knew what he liked to eat. Back then he famously ordered a sophisticated fish dish at a restaurant and the chef himself came out to meet the child with the highly-developed taste buds. At the age of 15, he took a job at a fish factory. Later, he attended cooking school and worked in Tel Aviv, London, and Chicago. Finally, in 2013, he started his restaurant Glass in Berlin.
Glass in Berlin's Charlottenburg district
When he came to Berlin in 2012, he had already been thinking about opening a restaurant. While hunting for a space, he found a former fitness studio and decided to renovate it. Since then, it's been a place in the western part of the city that draws diners for many different reasons.
Turbot with freekeh (Palestinian smoked green wheat)
Ingredients:
- 4 top filets of wild turbot, skinless (about 100 g per piece)
- 100 g butter
- 20 g peanut oil
- 4 okra
- 1 radish
- 1 shallot
For cauliflower purée:
- 1 head cauliflower
- 250 g milk
- 250 g cream
- Salt
For freekeh:
- 250 g freekeh other type of wheat
- 500 g brown beef stock
For tomato confit:
- 100 g cherry tomatoes
- 20 g olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
- Black pepper
- Salt
Preparation:
Soak freekeh in water overnight.
Cut cauliflower florets off stalk and slice as thinly as possible. In a medium saucepan, add milk, cream, and sliced cauliflower. Season with a pinch of salt. Simmer until soft (about 10 minutes). Allow to cool completely. Place cooked cauliflower in a blender and add as little cream-milk mixture as is required for the blender to purée. Strain purée and keep warm and covered.
In a medium sauce pan, simmer freekeh and stock for 30 minutes or until wheat is fully cooked. Keep warm.
Slice cherry tomatoes in half, place in a mixing bowl with seasoning, mix until evenly coated, and roast in 150°C oven for 30 minutes.
Heat pan until smoking, add peanut oil to pan, and place filet and okra in the pan. Let fish sear for one minute. Add butter to pan and baste fish and okra with butter until butter browns. Remove okra and keep warm. Add a little water to pan, lower heat, and cover. Fish should be fully cooked in four to five minutes. Cut okra in half lengthwise. Season fish and okra with sea salt.
Slice radish and shallots very thinly into ice water.
Spoon cauliflower purée into the middle of a round plate. Add a spoonful of freekeh on top. Garnish with tomato confit, shallot slices, and radish slices. Place fish on top of freekeh.
Restaurant Glass
Uhlandstraße 195
10623 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 54710861