Dish Deconstructed with Christian Graves

Conscious cooking, that’s what we file Christian Graves’ Jsix menus under.

The executive chef is all about local farms, seasonal ingredients and tweaking his recipe for butternut squash ravioli, the most regularly appearing item on the urbane restaurant’s ever-shifting menu. Mostly Graves unveils new dishes, like this peasant-inspired fine-dining one.

Jsix's Italian-sausage-stuffed quail - entree $24, appetizer $13.

On the overall dish: Introduced in December, and there’s no fancy name for it. “I just don’t think food needs it, to be honest,” says Graves, a chef too laid back for menu marketing. The original idea was to have beans, grilled veggies and quail in a bowl, like a soulful stew. “It got tweaked-out to be more fine dining. But it has roots in peasantry.”

On the quail: Graves gets this coturnix breed from a Vermont farm. Coated in a little bit of bacon fat before cooking (“It adds this smoky sweet flavor”), this white-meat game bird is meatier and fattier than your average quail. “They’re a supercool product,” says Graves, who crisps the birds up in a tilted saute pan, pooling the juices to one side so he can spoon a cascade of hot fat over them.

On the anise sausage: Instead of going with a predictable corn bread stuffing, Graves chose this for his quail filler. “We make these little bullets of raw sausage out of Niman Ranch pork butt,” Graves explains. “I’m just really rediscovering anise in general.”

On the lemon-laced cranberry beans: “They’re ending their season right now, and this is when you’d start to dry them and cellar them the rest of the year.” A little Graves tip: “Never salt beans on the stove, because it cracks the skins. You season it after.”

On the thyme jus: Graves fills out the plate with this house-made, theme-appropriate poultry stock.

Read Keli Dailey's full Dish Deconstructed dining review and more on utsandiego.com

Pictured: Chef Christian Graves' sausage-stuffed quail — Earnie Grafton