RAHM OFFERS PLENTY OF DETAILS ABOUT HIS MASTERS CHAMPIONS DINNER MENU
The Champions Dinner menu for reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm was revealed Tuesday. Rahm, the captain of LIV Golf expansion team Legion XIII, offered plenty of details regarding the menu during a virtual press conference held later in the day.
Here are Rahm’s comments (click here for a look at the menu):
“With the help of José Andres, the chef who I feel like needs no introduction for a lot of people, we made what would be a northern Spanish Basque country Bilbao menu and basically put in all of my favorites and even included a dish from my grandma. He called my grandma for the recipe. If somebody doesn’t like it, please just don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone actually. It means a little bit too much to me to hear it.
“But it’s something I didn’t know that we have a cocktail reception at first, so there’s quite a few things that people would know as tapas or northern Spain called pintxos that come in there.
“We have Gernika peppers. Gernika is a town in the Basque country. Some people who know about history might know what it is. There’s some green peppers from there. You usually know them here in the U.S. as Shishito peppers. It would be similar to that.
“Gildas, which is an anchovy skewer with more pepper and olives.
“A lot of things are not people’s favorites, but it’s something that’s very common in the Basque country.
“Then Spanish ham, jamón. I think a lot of people will expect that. And then a similar version, which is lomo, which is pork loin. It will be somewhere between jamón and chorizo, one of my family’s favorites. Definitely my brother’s favorite.
“Then it’s chistorra, which I guess is spicy Basque chorizo. I don’t even know how to explain it to be honest. It’s wrapped in potato. That was José’s doing. I don’t know exactly what he means. I’m going to trust him on that one. But if you want to look it up, it’s a type of chorizo that’s a little spicy. It’s usually served in similar serving sizes. I love chorizo that has a kick and spice to it, so that’s why we went with that one.
“Then we went with local cheese, Idiazábal cheese, which by the way, I hope they can provide you guys with a way to write things down because if I start having to spell everything we might be here a while, so I’m going to try to keep it quick.
“Then croquettes. I don’t even know — most people know — it’s a breaded creamy chicken fritters, a lot of times with ham, as well. It’s whatever is your favorite.
“Then we have scrambled eggs with what would be some mushrooms. It’s not really mushrooms. I don’t know how to translate, and I don’t even know what he has written here. I can’t even translate it myself. It’s just scrambled eggs with mushrooms but not really mushrooms. It’s a little bit different. From the same family, though.
“Then main course would be a salad, and then you have two options. It will be turbot fish with white asparagus. It’s a white fish, very local from where I come from, which actually most common is cod or sea bass, but I don’t like cod so I refuse to have something I don’t like at my dinner.
“Then finally, it would be what in northern Spain is known as chuletón, which is basically a ribeye that is seared on basically a regular grill with a bit of coal, basically smoked and seared. Usually traditionally they will basically serve it to you already cut up and then you have a hot plate that you can cook it up to your temperature. Most people in northern Spain go about as much as medium rare. If you go past that, you’re going to get a weird look just because that’s how we are. Very proud people of what we do, and meat usually is high quality.
“That would be essentially what’s my favorite. Every time I go back home I try to eat it. It’s in a serving size, so usually those steaks are about four pounds, and you’re searing it. It’s not single service. You’re searing it with at least three or four people. They usually also come with peppers, sometimes fries, sometimes a little salad; this is lettuce, onions, olive oil and vinegar.
“Then dessert, the translation from Spanish, which is Milhojas, would be 1,000 leaves. It’s basically a puff pastry with custard and just very little layers. It was basically Kelley and I’s wedding cake. It varies a little bit where you’re doing it in Spain, but it’s absolutely one of my favorites.
“Then with the wine selection, we have a Basque white wine from Vizcaya which is called Txakoli. It’s not regular white wine. It’s a little bit drier.
“Then the red wine, it’s called Imperial. It’s pretty much the same — actually I can do you a favor and show you right here. That’s the name right there. Definitely a different year, obviously.
“For those of you wondering why the heck I have a wine bottle in my office, I have two of them. Those two were owned by my grandpa. It’s a special edition they did in 1994, the year I was born, with the soccer team I grew up with in Bilbao, and it was one of my grandpa’s prized possessions. It was his favorite wine, and we are partnering with them. We’re also going to have a little different label for the dinner partnering with them to have the wine there as one of my favorites in Spain. May not be the most famous one but it’s actually a very high-quality wine.
“I wanted to put a little bit of my heritage and my family into this dinner, which is going to make it even more special.
“Hopefully I get to do it again, but I wanted to make sure the Basque Heritage was there. I know José has done it twice, but where he’s from and where I’m from is a little bit different, so I wanted to put a little bit of my essence into it, and I’m hoping they really like it.
“It should be quite special, and they’re going to try a few things that they maybe haven’t seen before that are really quite tasty.
“I feel like I did a horrible job at explaining that. I’m sorry. I’m actually quite nervous for some reason talking about this. I can’t explain why.”
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