Highly Irrational

Your Kitchen Team has been having a lot of fun utilizing the gorgeous summer bounty at our disposal. We’ve been really excited to work with local producers that are absolutely killing it despite epic droughts and poor economic conditions. Over the past few months, our Irrational Menu items have featured some of the finest products that these producers have to offer, creatively and deliciously crafted into dishes that most people wouldn’t expect to see coming out of a brewpub kitchen.

We’re getting a good amount of produce from Johnson’s Backyard Garden, as well as our other suppliers, that is of superior quality. Such great quality, in fact, that we don’t want to mess it up by overdoing it. We really try and keep it simple, and let the flavors of the produce really stand out. A week or so ago, we ran a Summer Garden Consommé, that used fresh organic zucchini, squash, and leeks from Johnson’s, as well as fresh purple hull peas from Oak Hills Farms in Poteet. This dish was really simple, but had a lot of depth of flavor from the chicken comsommé, itself.

We’ve also gotten some really amazing figs from Dan Gonzales. Dan is not a farmer, he’s just a guy with a lot of heavy producing fig trees. I met him last year, when he called me at Wheatsville out of the blue offering figs. Products like this are truly special: he’s only selling them to Wheatsville and Black Star. That’s about as small scale and local as it gets. So far Dan’s figs have been used to braise chicken, adorn salads and have a future in ice cream and preserves. If you see us running a special with these figs, you should treat yourself to it, as these supplies are extremely limited.

Single sourcing is also something we have dabbled in. A month or so back we ran an Irrational item that had been completely sourced from Green Gate farms: Pork Jowls. This dish featured fingerling potatoes, garlic scapes, fried collard greens and pork jowls all sourced from the same farm. That’s as close to experiencing the concept of terrior in food as you can get. Add some Dublin Dr. Pepper reduction, and you have a delicious meal, that evokes the taste of Spring on the farm.

Moving forward into the Summer months, we are looking at lightening or fare, offering more Summer salads, and bringing in some new vendors such as Homestead Land and Cattle, from up near Waco. One of our cheese mongers, Marc Kuehl—who produces the Brazos Valley Cheese we love—turned us on to them. John Walsh produces gorgeous and delicious organic grassfed beef. We’ve gotten some samples in and were really impressed with the quality, flavor and marbling of his product. Anyone familiar with grassfed beef knows that it is often a bit more on the lean side than grain-finished beef, but what it lacks in fat it makes up with flavor. This beef defies that, and comes with beautiful striations of fat within the meat. YUM.

Keep your eyes on the Irrational board for our newest collaborative creations, and eat locally owned and sourced. Cheers!