Garde Manger, The Art of Scavenging

Compressed watermelon and heirloom tomato "salad" in balsamic oil

"The person responsible for working with cold food, or the station preparing the cold food in restaurants, is called garde-manger. Often left-overs or unused meats, fish, and vegetables from various parts of the kitchen are funneled to garde-manger station. Sometimes the garde-manger is meant to hunt scraps on his or her own and must be a deft scavenger. The term itself means to keep what is to be eaten." (Excerpt from the book "The Soul of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman).

Although the modern day garde-manger or the pantry cook is often seen as the soup and salad guy/girl, the original skills and purpose of the garde-manger still applies to the kitchen I work in. What I've learned from manning this station is the true art of scavenging, turning parts of meats, starches, vegetables, and fruits into something presentable and tasty. Here are more images of things scavenged, re purposed, and presented in the dining room:

Salt, brown sugar and fennel cured salmon belly turned to Lomi-lomi salmon, dressed in sesame oil, with tomato, red onion, kaiwari sprouts and crisp fried rice paper.

Bacon-sesame brittle over hazelnut crusted chevre

Brandade (cod cheeks and collar, potatoes) turned to fritters with romesco sauce.