Birdies in the Dining Room

I got a chuckle at lunch last week. An older woman came into the restaurant bitching volubly about the parking job of another customer. The old woman whose parking job was the brunt of the whine very discretely flipped the other woman a bird! Right in the dining room, yet discretely! You go girl!

Vodka Sauce

This winter, I put a pasta with vodka sauce on the lunch menu and because the sauce is so good, we've started cooking our mussels in it as an alternative to the usual à la marinière preparation.

I have always wondered if adding an essentially flavorless alcohol to tomato sauce was just a gimmick. [Vodka pedants, we all know good vodka has flavor, just like good bottled water has flavor, but when compared to tomatoes, it might as well be flavorless, so don't go there!] Qualitatively, I do know that my vodka sauce is really, really tasty. But, what role if any does the vodka play?

I always macerate my crushed red pepper flakes in the vodka before adding it to the sauce to make a spicy red pepper extract, much in the same way that I make vanilla extract by putting vanilla beans in a bottle of inexpensive vodka. Clearly the capsaicins (the alkaloids responsible for the burn) are freely alcohol soluble; the vodka becomes very spicy. If the vodka does nothing else in my sauce, it does promote an even spicing of the sauce. Capsaicins are notably insoluble in water, hence drinking a glass of water does nothing to ameliorate the burn in your mouth.

But does the vodka do anything for the tomatoes?

The popular food literature is replete with sayings such as "the alcohol in the vodka enhances the flavor of the tomatoes." But I can't really find any specific reference in the scientific literature to confirm this. What I do see is that there are several patents for processing tomatoes that begin by macerating the tomatoes in food-grade alcohol (e.g., US Patent 5436022), so I surmise that some of the key flavoring agents in tomatoes must be more alcohol soluble than water soluble.

Sorry for getting so technical. I just want to know why my vodka sauce tastes so damned good! Anybody out there have any ideas what role alcohol plays in tomato sauce?

"I want my money back!"

Cooking an order of mussels at lunch reminded me of a grumpy old man at dinner several years ago.

He came in solo for dinner and ordered an appetizer of mussels for his dinner. Maybe he wasn't hungry; I'm thinking he was looking for an inexpensive (read "free") meal because a minute or two into his mussels, he summoned the server to the table to complain that several of the shells contained no mussels at all and that he didn't want to pay for them, oblivious (more than likely intentionally so) that said mussels had fallen out of the shells to the bottom of the bowl.

I ended up comping him for the mussels (and the three loaves of bread) that he ate knowing that he'd never come back and that he'd go pester some other restaurant. And sure enough, we've never seen him since. I still chuckle about the old guy from time to time when I remember him. He's the kind of customer that makes for a good story at our Christmas party.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I was freezing my rear end off at the farmers market yesterday—it was the 15-knot winds, not the actual temperature—while piling my purchases on the table. Somebody said, "That looks like a picture!" So courtesy of my trusty iPhone, here's part of my haul.


Who said there's nothing to buy at the winter market? From the red cabbage in the upper left moving clockwise, there's curly kale, blushing golden and york apples, butternut squash, savoy cabbage, leeks, and several celery roots, which are mostly obscuring some very pretty turnips.

Caribou Impressions

Caribou, also known as Reindeer when domesticated, is a very large arctic and subarctic deer. Very little of it comes to market because hunting is strictly controlled and most of the caribou in North America are taken by the Inuit for subsistence. I was able to get a very few pounds of caribou tenderloin during the fall hunting season and have been slowly eeking it out for Chef's Tastings ever since. As you might imagine with strictly limited supply and some serious transportation costs, carbiou is very expensive, easily the most expensive meat that we have ever served here at the restaurant.

I had never had caribou before this fall so I approached it as I would any other lean game meat; I have a vast amount of experience with White Tailed Deer, Mule Deer, Red Deer, Fallow Deer, and Elk, all of which I love. The first thing I did, the first thing I do with just about any new meat, is grill a small piece of it to rare. While this is a great way to eat elk and other deer, it wasn't doing it for me for caribou. The texture was very soft and it had no flavor. At the same time, I noticed that the more well done outer bits had both better texture and flavor.

The next experiment was to sear a piece of caribou tenderloin and finish it in the oven to medium. The result was good texture; I'm now convinced that caribou (the tenderloin at least) wants to be cooked more than the average deer. But the flavor was just not there. Flavorwise, it was a not very interesting piece of lean red meat. Flavor to value ratio just not there. For the astronomical sums I paid for the meat, I expected it to both sing and dance on my palate. Bummer.

Henceforth, we have been trying to impart flavor to the meat with marinades and dry rubs. Our most successful essay to date has been to marinate a piece of tenderloin overnight in gin, then rub it in a spice mix strong on juniper berries, and then sear the hell out of it in a hot pan with a final couple of minutes in the oven.

So, I have checked caribou off my list and I enjoyed it, but seriously, a good heritage pork tenderloin for $5 per pound has got it whipped any day. Live and learn.

Photo courtesy of Dean Biggins, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Customer Art

Beth Berry took this photo on New Year's Eve and sent it to me today. I love the dribble of wine on the label of the bottle and the reflection of the olive oil cruet in the glass.

And by the way, for all of you who have wanted to purchase our logo wine glasses, we have a new shipment in, ready and waiting for you.

Roulade of Gravlax

Let's start off the new year with one of the dishes that we served as an appetizer on our New Year's Eve menu, a roulade of gravlax. I cured a side of salmon for many days in salt, sugar, and a lot of white pepper and then dried the salmon for several more days in the refrigerator to yield what I call prosciutto of salmon, for its ham-like consistency. You could substitute any kind of thinly sliced fish or even ham in this appetizer. This post is about the technique; I leave the flavorings up to you. The tiny leaves you see are micro-lemongrass, which echo the lemon zest in the cream cheese filling.

Start by laying out plastic film on your counter top. If you're using narrow film, you may want to overlap two pieces as I did. Lay out your fish in a large rectangle as you see here. In practice, it doesn't really matter how the pieces overlap each other. Patch any large holes with small bits of fish.

Make certain your filling is very soft, otherwise, you'll not be able to spread it on the fish without destroying your layout. This filling is softened cream cheese flavored with fresh dill, lemon zest, minced capers, and white pepper. I didn't add any salt because the ham-like salmon is really salty and the capers add enough salt to the filling. I've also used all manner of seafood mousses as fillings. Experiment and have fun.

Working very carefully, spread the filling over the fish. Take your time. I will be rolling this from the right edge to the left edge. Notice that I start the filling close to the right edge, but leave a large margin on the left side so that I have an extra flap of fish to help seal the roulade. Also leave a bit of margin on the two ends so that you don't push the filling out onto the counter as you roll the roulade.

Obligatory food porn shot number 1. Doesn't this look good? Notice how faded the salmon looks? That's because I salted it for so long; the longer the cure, the paler the fish in my experience. This fish was a fairly typical salmon red to begin with. The fish was in the cure about a total of 7-8 days, which is a long time for salmon. The longer the cure, the drier and saltier the fish, as well. If you cure your own fish, you'll have to experiment to see what you like.

Using the plastic film, turn over the first little bit of the edge of the roll on itself. Once you have turned over the first little bit, use your fingers to tighten up the roll, keeping the film between your fingers and the fish. Use the film to keep pulling the fish over itself, forming a tight cylinder as you go. The film is absent in the subsequent photos to keep the glare down; this is merely for photographic convenience.

Here is the roulade, rolled about half way. Notice how I have tightened the roll up as much as possible. There is a fine line between tight enough and so tight that you start forcing the filling out of the seams. Be gentle; using the film to form the roll helps you keep the pressure gentle. If you do touch the roll with your hands, use the flats of your palms and roll gently. It's not hard to do, but go slowly until you get the hang of it.

Obligatory food porn shot number two in which the photographer feels compelled to give tight, close up shots of highly edible foodstuffs. The ends of the roulade will be naturally a bit ragged as you see here and that's OK. However, it is a terrible shame that you will have to trim and eat these little snack bits rather than serving them to your guests. Poor you!

Here you see the completed (but unwrapped) roll just before I put it in the refrigerator to chill. Notice about a third of the way down that there is a slight void between a couple of pieces of gravlax (where you see the white filling peeking out). This is nothing to worry about or even try to fix: small voids here and there will not compromise the integrity of the roll once it firms up in the refrigerator. The solid filling will bind everything.

Roll the roulade in the film. I discarded one of the two pieces on the counter and rolled the fish in the other. Gently roll it back and forth on the counter to make the cylinder as uniform as possible. Place on a tray and refrigerate for at least four hours and preferably overnight. You want the filling to firm up as much as possible. If you are in a mad rush, use the freezer.

Here's what you are aiming for, a tight roulade with few internal voids. My hints for slicing the roulade: make sure the roulade is very cold, use a very thin knife with cullens such as a gravlax knife or ham slicer, slice directly through the plastic film, and wash the blade in warm water between slices.