Lexington, KY - Though you might not know it from looking at her seasonally rotating menu at Holly Hill Inn in Midway, Ky., with items like leg of lamb, beef tenderloin and rabbit molÈ making appearances, executive chef Ouita Michel got her culinary chops working with vegan fare when she first moved to New York City to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Her dishes at Holly Hill Inn probably look a far cry from the plates at The Health Pub, a macrobiotic restaurant where Michel first worked after answering an ad in the New York Times in the late '80s, and while a lot of readers are probably thinking, "Thank the Lord," right now, that style of cooking had a tremendous influence on her approach to preparing food.
"I started running around with all these crazy vegans. At that time, especially in the Lower East Village, there was a growing vegan/macrobiotic movement. So I got pretty involved, though I never became vegan myself," Michel laughs. "I could never make the leap, but I really enjoyed all the different kinds of cooking. It's a very interesting exercise in cooking; it makes you think carefully about what you're doing and how to prepare things without dairy and stuff like that. So I loved it."
Other people must love it, too. Later this year Michel and her husband, Chris, who co-owns the restaurant (along with Wallace Station, also in Midway), will celebrate 10 years with the Holly Hill Inn -
an impressive milestone considering Michel almost went to law school.
Raised in Lexington near the University of Kentucky and the Chevy Chase neighborhood, Michel got a degree in political science from UK. As a student she was very involved with the debate team, which traveled to different parts of the country for tournaments and first introduced Michel to true ethnic cuisine.
"I remember the first Indian restaurant I ever went to was in Boston at the Harvard debate tournament," Michel said. "The first Cuban restaurant was in Atlanta. We started this love affair with restaurants and ethnic cuisine, a lot of debaters have deep interest in food - at least a lot of my old debate friends."
Michel began to seriously entertain her simmering love affair with food, and when the time came to choose between continuing her education or completely derailing it by going to chef school, she found herself in New York, where she eventually enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America.
She met her husband there, and after graduating, they both moved back to Lexington to get married in the early '90s. Serendipitously, the location of her bridal shower: Holly Hill Inn.
In Lexington, Michel worked at Dudley's restaurant, then she and her husband opened and operated Emmett's restaurant when it was in business on Tates Creek Road. One night, when a local writer was doing a piece about the restaurant, he asked if there was any other restaurant Michel would leave Emmett's for. There wasn't, she answered, except for Holly Hill Inn.
Coincidentally, that writer and his family just happened to be the owners of the establishment ("Hermosa," as it was once called, before becoming an inn and restaurant in 1979), and by the end of 2000, Michel and her husband became the owners of the structure that was built in the mid-1800s.
At first, the couple considered running the business as a bed and breakfast and restaurant, but the logistics soon changed their minds. "When we thought about trying to maintain the upstairs for guests, it would have cost more to put in private bathrooms than purchasing the inn cost," Michel said. "I hate doing laundry anyway. I said we'll just put tables up here."
She didn't want to think about guests' comfort anyway - at least not how they were sleeping. She wanted to think about their stomachs. And Michel knew, given the traditional reputation the restaurant previously had, a few stomachs were going to rumble.
"I was pretty brash. I wanted to respect the tradition of what the inn was to the community, but at the same time I knew what we were going to do would be substantially different from what people were used to," Michel remembered. "And I got some hate mail. This one woman came in expecting fried chicken and corn pudding and got seriously pissed off (at the changed menu). I saved the letter."
In the end, of course, good food is the quickest way to anybody's heart, and Michel's incessant mantra about a heavy reliance on regional food has made Holly Hill Inn a locavore corner stone.
Later this year, the Michels will open their first restaurant in Fayette County, Windy Corner (the original name of the old country store in the same location), at the corner of Muir Station and Bryan Station Roads. The restaurant will be similar to Wallace Station, but they plan to offer plates, not just sandwiches, and serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Naturally, Michel plans on putting a personal touch on the recipes. "I call it hippie gourmet. My mom raised me on wheat-berry salad and stuff like that. It'll be very informed by that cooking. I'm sure all the farm hands are going to love that," she said with a hint of sarcasm.
Spring Lamb Navarin
This seasonal dish is currently on the Holly Hill Inn menu
Lamb
1 boneless leg of lamb, approx. 3 lbs. (we use Nancy's Bourbon County Lamb)
1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 rib celery, roughly chopped
1/2 cup tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2-3 good sprigs of thyme or rosemary
3-4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups red cooking wine (we use Franzia wines for cooking)
2 quarts chicken stock
Vegetables
1 bunch asparagus
2-3 baby carrots per person
2-3 mushrooms (your choice) per person
1 lbs. little green beans
1 1/2 cups fiddle head ferns (optional)
1 cup pearl onions (optional)
Method
1. Cut the lamb into three equal pieces, trimming excessive fat. You can tie the little roasts or leave them.
2. Preheat oven to 400-425 degrees. Mince garlic and rub lamb with freshly ground black pepper and garlic.
3. Combine chopped carrot, celery and onion in roasting pan and lay lamb on top. Brown for 20 minutes in oven then pull pan out and rub lamb roasts in tomato paste. Place back into oven for another 10-15 minutes.
4. Remove pan from the oven; reduce temperature to 300 degrees. Add wine, chicken stock, bay leaf and herbs to the pan. Cover and cook for another 2 hours.
5. Lamb should be falling apart and tender, remove from juices and keep warm while finishing sauce. Strain jus from pan into sauce pot, skim as much fat from top as possible. Gently pull lamb into large shards and cover in sauce. This will hold until vegetables are ready (you can do this the day before and reheat beautifully).
6. Cut asparagus into sections, discarding bottom 2 inches. Trim green beans, clean mushrooms, blanch and peel pearl onions (if used). Plunge green veggies into boiling salted water for 3 minutes, then into ice water. Do the same with baby carrots. Gently sautÈ the vegetable medley with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.
7. To serve, place a serving of lamb in the center of a plate, spoon some vegetables around and the sauce over. We also serve this dish with a potato crepe. Serves six.
Potato Crepes
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 eggs
2/3 c. milk
1/3 c. water
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. dill
Filling
2 lbs. peeled Russet potatoes
2 ounces butter
1/2 c. hot cream or butter
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. minced fresh chives
Method
1. Combine all the ingredients for the crepe batter into a blender and frappe for 1-2 minutes until well combined. Hold in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour before using. Also great made a day ahead.
2. Heat a non stick 6 inch omelet pan, wipe with a little butter or spray with pan spray. Ladle a scant one ounce of batter into the pan swirling it about until the bottom is covered with a thin layer. Using heat resistant fingers or a rubber spatula, turn the crepe over once it has set-just for a minute or two and flip out onto a tray to cool. The crepes can be made ahead and stored wrapped and stacked in the refrigerator.
3. Cover the peeled potatoes with water. Bring to a boil. Simmer until tender. Drain and keep the potatoes warm.
4. Place the potatoes into the bowl of a stand mixer with the butter, salt and pepper. Whip on a low speed and add the hot milk or cream until you have a light, fluffy and creamy consistency. Check the seasoning and adjust. Add the chives or any other flavoring agent at this point. The potatoes can be made ahead, chilled and used upto a day later.
5. To assemble the crepes: Lay them out on a board. Scoop a heaping 2 ounce scoop full into the center of the crepe. Pleat the crepe around the potato filling, press closed just a bit and place on a cookie sheet pleated side down. The crepes can all be filled and made a head at this point.
6. To serve the crepes: If you are serving a large number-we've done them 100 at a time-baste the tops of the crepes with melted butter and roast in a 375 degree convection oven until golden brown and hot in the center.
To serve as a singe portion as part of an entrÈe-sautÈ the crepe in a little clarified butter- finish in the oven briefly.
Undoubtedly, though, the farm hands will like it, and probably everybody else too -
that's what you can expect when you have been a semi-finalist for a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast three years running, as Michel has.
Along with Michel, three other chefs from the Bluegrass region were up for the prestigious title (including Lexington chef Jonathan Lundy of Jonathan's at Gratz Park), an indication that the area's cuisine is starting to emerge on the national scene.
"I feel people here really want and crave that kind of cultural and culinary identity. Part of our cultural identity is what we eat, and what we eat should be made from what we grow," she said. "That forms a unique culture in an area."