Restaurant Nicholas' Master Chef and Owner, Nicholas Harary, Cooked For The Crowd At DearBorn Market

MiddletownPatch.com has a nice little story online about Restaurant Nicholas' master chef and owner, Nicholas Harary, cooking for a crowd of devoted fans (myself included) this past Thursday night at Dearborn Market in Holmdel.

Recently, Restaurant Nicholas' master chef, namesake and owner, Nicholas Harary, worked his magic for the public while kicking off the publication of his new book, "Restaurant Nicholas: The Cookbook." Harray and his wife are celebrating the award-winning Middetown restaurant's 10th anniversary.

With the help of his little buddy, four-year-old Nicholas Jr., Harary prepared two unique dishes in front of the audience at Dearborn Farms, Holmdel, as he explained each step of the process.

The first dish was watermelon sashimi, a dish Harary thought up after a fortunate chance meeting of two unlikely ingredients.

"I was at a barbecue at my sister's place and we had a fruit salad with watermelon," Harary recalled. "Somehow, a bit of watermelon and a bit feta cheese wound up on my fork at the same time, and I was inspired to come up with a savory dish using watermelon."

He sliced the watermelon into little rectangles and arranged them to look just like red chunks of tuna sashimi, and then Nicholas Jr. sprinkled feta cheese and black pepper on top. Everyone in the audience was given a taste.

The next dish that Harary demonstrated was a soft-shell crab, lightly fried, and served atop a salad of jicama and red pepper with a sauce made from herbs and an orange juice reduction. One lucky audience member chosen at random got to eat it.

Harary chose Dearborn to hold the demonstration at because he buys much of his restaurant's produce fresh from their farms.

Afterwards he signed copies of his new book, which is for sale at Dearborn.

There isn't much more that I could add to the article, Chef Harary and his family were extremely pleasant and exceptionally charming throughout the cooking demonstration and I did purchase a cookbook for myself that I had signed. The watermelon sashimi that he made for everyone was simple and sublime, my wife and I just loved it.

If you look closely at the photos (#5) that accompany the article you just may be able to pick me out in the crowd. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures for myself.