Brooks Headley and No Age Make Bruciato al Cioccolato

Welcome back to Sound Bites, an Eater original video feature in which footage of the city's most badass chefs crafting their signature dishes is paired with tunes from up-and-coming musicians. Regarding the volume: turn it up.

Today, the Sound Bites crew visits Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich's four star Italian spot Del Posto to catch of glimpse of pastry chef Brooks Headley making a vegan dessert called Bruciato al Cioccolato. In a first time ever event in the four month history of this feature, the band, in this case No Age, stops by the kitchen for a cameo. Watch up above and read Headley's description of what he's doing down below.

On the soundtrack: No Age's song "Boy Void."

When I first started at Del Posto in 2008 Mark Ladner approached me about a seven course vegan tasting menu. Of course, I thought the idea was awesome.

I came up with this dairy-free version of a chocolate creme brûlée, made with silken tofu. We call it a Bruciato ('burnt' in Italian) and garnish it with chocolate-friendly fruit, salted olive oil croutons, torn mint, orange zest, extra virgin olive oil, and toasted almonds.

I burn a crackly sugar crust on it using pure cane organic sugar (yep, vegan). The silken tofu in the base actually stabilizes the chocolate mixture and allows me to smear it free form on the plate and not melt when I torch it. Very cool. I tell my staff to make it look like a skate ramp.

I'm currently using Mast Brothers chocolate from Brooklyn for the base, and the strawberries are tristars from Franca at Berried Treasures at the Greenmarket. I totally ripped off the base recipe from the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook from the late 70s. Total hippie commune vibe book, lots of beards and overalls, recipes for tempeh stroganoff, etc. Haha. My personal copy is stained and dog eared.

The Tahitian vanilla beans I'm using are fair trade. They come from a very cool company called Singing Dog. Vanilla production can be downright evil. These guys rule.

It's a really simple dish. The ingredients just kind of speak for themselves. It's a fun dish for folks that are vegan or have a dairy allergy. No Age are my pals. They're vegan. They ate it.