A Sneak Peek on the 151st Kentucky Derby Menu

When a full-size tractor trailer pulls as much as the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville it may maintain mainly something wanted to drag off one of many largest single-day sporting occasions in North America. It might be a trailer stuffed with Kentucky bibb lettuce for a single salad on the Kentucky Derby menu.

The grandeur of the annual occasion can’t be overstated. Neither can the size. So, the year-long course of for growing the menu for the oldest repeatedly run sporting occasion in North America should consider logistics for feeding 60,000-plus premium visitors for a whole day whereas offering a singular culinary perspective for a recent expertise every year.

For the operating of the 151st Kentucky Derby on Might 3, which means returning to the roots of the Louisville racetrack, fairly actually.

“This yr we took a extremely good have a look at the seasonality of issues,” Robert Lopez, senior govt chef at Churchill Downs for Levy, tells Meals & Wine. “Lots of people are going outdoors the seasonality of their areas, and we wish to get again to that inside the area.”

Grand plans can solely develop into Derby-day realities in the event that they’re executable at a large scale. The Kentucky Derby hosts roughly 157,000 guests, with greater than half of these in premium areas (not concessions). Every year the cooks develop a base menu to serve 60,000 visitors who will dine, with one other 20 menus to serve even higher-end areas, catering to all kinds of taste preferences.

“This isn’t simply burgers and sizzling canines,” Lopez says, including that greater than 100 cooks from across the nation work the occasion. Levy and Churchill Downs work with almost two dozen native farmers and producers to make it occur. “That is high-quality eating at a mass degree. We’d like expertise to execute that.”

The official 151st Kentucky Derby menu encompasses a pair of salads, three sides, three entrees, and a number of desserts.

The Bluegrass Fields salad is the one with Kentucky bibb lettuce, topped with seasonal berries, toasted almonds, a raspberry, and poppyseed French dressing. The 5,100 heads of lettuce come domestically. “That’s only for one salad,” Braxton Cubero, the produce procurement skilled at Piazza Produce for Churchill Downs, tells Meals & Wine. “We’re additionally bringing in 6,000 kilos of spring combine.” In whole, the occasion will serve 25,000 kilos of lettuce.

The opposite key salad is the grilled corn and tomato salad with child arugula, cherry tomatoes, grilled corn and a creamy pimento cheese dressing. The seasonality of the grilled corn and tomatoes provide freshness, whereas the pimento cheese dressing brings a brand new format for a preferred Southern ingredient.

This yr’s entrees characteristic a pan-roasted rooster breast with native Vidalia onions, a slow-cooked beef tip with Kentucky peppercorn sauce, and an Previous Forester butter shrimp with orzo. Lopez will supply 3,000 kilos of shrimp for the occasion and says he needed to get again to the spring-focused Vidalia onion for its sweetness.

To maintain a menu recent, particularly coming off a milestone one hundred and fiftieth occasion, Lopez gained’t do the identical dish twice. The group creates new themes contemplating culinary tendencies, just like the rising use of duck fats. This yr that comes within the type of duck fats roasted fingerling potatoes with crispy rosemary. 

Extra sides embrace brown butter farro, roasted root greens, and lemon honey harvest brussels sprouts, which requires 3,120 kilos of brussels sprouts.

A part of each Derby menu is the drinks, a menu dominated by the Mint Julep. There’s loads of wine equipped by Jackson Household Wines and cocktails from Woodford Reserve. You’ll see cocktails with delicate nuances of mint and bourbon to match the Julep.

The costlier the ticket to a premium area, the extra shock additions to the menu. In some locations, the bottom menu is the staple, whereas in no less than 20 others it serves as a backdrop. Final yr, for instance, James Beard Award-winning cooks have been cooking dwell in some locations, recent oysters have been served tableside in one other, and high-end components marked others, from wagyu prime rib to bourbon cherry brisket burnt ends and loads of black truffles. “We maintain thriller behind it,” Lopez says about offering new components every year.

Charcuterie boards are loaded with Indianapolis’ Smoking Goose Meatery and Capriole Goat Cheese from Greenville, Indiana. Capriole founder Judy Schad, who was at Churchill Downs the day Secretariat gained in 1973, tells Meals & Wine she’s lengthy had a Derby ardour and has created cheeses, comparable to the favored aged Previous Kentucky Tomme, for the Kentucky Derby. Churchill Downs now makes use of greater than half-a-dozen Capriole varieties throughout the grounds.

With visitors arriving at 9 a.m., cooks begin arriving at 2 a.m. for a day of races earlier than the almost 7 p.m. operating of the Kentucky Derby. The menu will get flipped no less than 3 times throughout the day, however there must be dishes that may be stored recent.

“We attempt to break these dishes,” Lopez says. “We stress-test them to verify they don’t solely final 30 or 45 minutes. “There are plenty of formulation behind scripting this menu.”

The famed trend of the Derby — high-end sundresses, fits, and hats — performs into culinary decisions, as cooks wish to maintain visitors tidy, particularly when high-quality motor expertise might dip after a day of ingesting. So, creating finger-food-style desserts is essential. This yr that features tens of hundreds of Kentucky whoopie pies, mini bourbon muffins, bourbon balls, and the normal jockey silks cookies. Even the cookie will get an improve with a brand new model that the cooks hope individuals style and deem to be higher than the yr earlier than.

Cooks are additionally pondering of Instagram. “Once I sit down and write a menu, I consider my spouse and would she wish to take an image,” Lopez says. Many instances, the hand-held desserts get taken onto a balcony for a backdropped picture that’s then shared on social media. “You wish to get that one merchandise, and go present the world. We wish to make reminiscences.”