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Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crab. Show all posts
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Chef's Tasting
Here are photos from last night's Chef's Tasting. Appearing for the first time this year are cherries, summer squash, sockeye salmon, new potatoes, and red raspberries. This is likely the very last tasting of the year to feature strawberries and asparagus: only the weather knows for sure.
This dish is the happy coincidence of foie gras and duck eggs. You know, the late afternoon, between shifts conversation on the deck that goes like, "What happens if we mix foie gras into a deviled egg?" The result is so rich that it can only be eaten in tiny quantities. Notice the relative size of the cornichon fan to the egg-foie mousse. We kept adding more and more pickle brine to the mousse to balance the fat and the acid. The olive-looking critter in the center is a truffled pickled immature peach.
Over the years, I have done many takes on a dish of salmon and Thai curry and this is another. The sauce is a green Thai curry and the green dots are a curried avocado mousse. In the center of the plate are cubes of deep-fried salmon and avocado, topped with some tobiko for crunch and a little Thai basil.
Not much to say here except the salad is awesome. It's a mix of Beth's mesclun, bean sprouts, carrots, Thai basil, cilantro, and green onions tossed in a dressing of vinegar, sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, chile paste, and garlic. Very Vietnamese and very cooling and refreshing.
Gorgeous! The first new potatoes of the year down in a ring with grilled asparagus over and then topped with a sauté of peas, asparagus, and morels in a white wine and shallot butter sauce. A quail egg gilds the lily. These peas are so amazingly sweet that we probably ate more than half of what we shelled. They are addictive!
This is a quick taste of summer in an otherwise late spring menu. Because of our crazy spring, everything is running 2-3 weeks early, including these awesome pattypan squash that we sliced, grilled, and stacked with rounds of fried goat cheese. The goat cheese is an amazingly creamy product that was made locally on Wednesday (and served on Friday). We mixed it with roasted red pepper before forming it into rounds and breading it. A drizzle of pesto and some borage blossoms complete the garnishes.
We love cherry season! Sorry this photo is so dark. All hell was breaking loose in the kitchen at the time: the dining room was full and our ticket rail was overflowing onto the counter. We were in hyperdrive, which lends itself not at all to decent photography. On the left there is a pork cheek, braised, chilled, sliced, and crisped in a steel pan, topped with a cherry-celery salsa. Cherries and celery, sweet and bitter, yin and yang, awesome! In the center on top of the grits is a piece of our pork belly topped with the remains of our dried cherry olivada, a tapenade-like relish. On the right is a salad of microgreens and pork confit threads. We cure the pork confit and age it under duck fat. For this dish, we shredded it and deep fried it, then mixed it with greens and tossed it in a cherry vinaigrette. All our pork is certified Berkshire.
This is a fun and light way to celebrate the end of strawberries and the beginning of raspberries. Their seasons only ever overlap for a week or two. I baked some oatmeal tuiles and layered them with a lemon meringue and fresh berries. Simple, light, and a fitting ending to a late spring menu.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Guajes and Smoked Octopus
We keep on playing games with food here and some things work and are worth repeating and others get relegated to the it-was-interesting-but-not-that-interesting file. Here are photos from our latest Chef's Table, our regular 6pm 6-course tasting that we hold every Thursday evening.
California Roll Salad. We decided to deconstruct a California roll and present it as a salad. Honestly, though I am sure that the flavors are all fine, I'm underwhelmed by the result in the sense that it is probably not as good as a straight up California roll. I think there is too much going on here, something that I am not often guilty of: avocado, sesame seeds, wasabi, guaje seeds, yellow tomato, puffed wild rice, crab marinated in yuzu vinaigrette, tobiko, and slivers of nori. All fine ingredients but fails to adhere to less-is-more and I'm not wild about the presentation either. Minor fail.
Skate Cheeks. Everyone who eats seafood should try skate cheeks at least once. They are such wonderful morsels of pillowy goodness. You see them here in a sautée of artichokes hearts and pancetta, finished with white wine, herbs, and butter. Life is very good after you eat this dish.
Rosemary-Smoked Octopus. For me, this was the highlight of the dinner. I have never had smoked octopus before and not sure what prompted me to smoke it this time, but I am hooked. This is a really good dish. We poached the octopus in court bouillon until it was tender and chilled it overnight, then I cold smoked it lightly over cherry wood and fresh rosemary. At service, I tossed the octopus in unfiltered extra virgin olive oil and fleur de sel and warmed it on the grill. You see it sitting on an orzo, feta, and oregano custard. The dish is garnished with more olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and the tiniest of sprigs of oregano that are just now popping up outside the restaurant. This dish is a winner, hands down: well conceived, well executed, nicely presented, and outstandingly delicious.
Grilled Brined Pork Tenderloin. We had some leftover trimmings from a pork tenderloin entrée, so we decided to brine and grill them to show off our dried cherry olivada and amarena cherry mosto cotto. The brine is salt, brown sugar, allspice, and pepper. The "olivada" is a tapenade-like condiment consisting of dried cherries, olives, anchovies, capers, garlic, thyme, oregano, lemon juice, and extra virgin olive oil. We colored a parsnip purée with spinach for contrast on the plate. Very tasty.
Local Lamb Rack Roulade. I removed every other bone from a large lamb rack and then butterflied and stuffed the rib-eye with a mixture of brunoise of sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke), rosemary, Dijon mustard, panko, and goat cheese. Then I rolled the rib-eye back up, tied, seared, and roasted it. Here you see it with a wild watercress pesto and a glazed lozenge of celery root.
Baked Alaska. How often do you see Baked Alaska at a restaurant? When made correctly, it's a light and whimsical ending to a meal. On a base of sliced pineapple, we mounded our jackfruit and Meyer lemon granita and then piped on a layer of coconut Italian meringue made from the whites of all the local duck eggs that go into our pastries.
California Roll Salad. We decided to deconstruct a California roll and present it as a salad. Honestly, though I am sure that the flavors are all fine, I'm underwhelmed by the result in the sense that it is probably not as good as a straight up California roll. I think there is too much going on here, something that I am not often guilty of: avocado, sesame seeds, wasabi, guaje seeds, yellow tomato, puffed wild rice, crab marinated in yuzu vinaigrette, tobiko, and slivers of nori. All fine ingredients but fails to adhere to less-is-more and I'm not wild about the presentation either. Minor fail.
Skate Cheeks. Everyone who eats seafood should try skate cheeks at least once. They are such wonderful morsels of pillowy goodness. You see them here in a sautée of artichokes hearts and pancetta, finished with white wine, herbs, and butter. Life is very good after you eat this dish.
Rosemary-Smoked Octopus. For me, this was the highlight of the dinner. I have never had smoked octopus before and not sure what prompted me to smoke it this time, but I am hooked. This is a really good dish. We poached the octopus in court bouillon until it was tender and chilled it overnight, then I cold smoked it lightly over cherry wood and fresh rosemary. At service, I tossed the octopus in unfiltered extra virgin olive oil and fleur de sel and warmed it on the grill. You see it sitting on an orzo, feta, and oregano custard. The dish is garnished with more olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and the tiniest of sprigs of oregano that are just now popping up outside the restaurant. This dish is a winner, hands down: well conceived, well executed, nicely presented, and outstandingly delicious.
Grilled Brined Pork Tenderloin. We had some leftover trimmings from a pork tenderloin entrée, so we decided to brine and grill them to show off our dried cherry olivada and amarena cherry mosto cotto. The brine is salt, brown sugar, allspice, and pepper. The "olivada" is a tapenade-like condiment consisting of dried cherries, olives, anchovies, capers, garlic, thyme, oregano, lemon juice, and extra virgin olive oil. We colored a parsnip purée with spinach for contrast on the plate. Very tasty.
Local Lamb Rack Roulade. I removed every other bone from a large lamb rack and then butterflied and stuffed the rib-eye with a mixture of brunoise of sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke), rosemary, Dijon mustard, panko, and goat cheese. Then I rolled the rib-eye back up, tied, seared, and roasted it. Here you see it with a wild watercress pesto and a glazed lozenge of celery root.
Baked Alaska. How often do you see Baked Alaska at a restaurant? When made correctly, it's a light and whimsical ending to a meal. On a base of sliced pineapple, we mounded our jackfruit and Meyer lemon granita and then piped on a layer of coconut Italian meringue made from the whites of all the local duck eggs that go into our pastries.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Another Tasting
I found some photos today while housekeeping. These are from a tasting back in March, the last tasting I was able to photograph before my old Nikon died. For us, this tasting was a chance to play with technique and answer some of those nagging "How do we do this?" kinds of questions. There are a couple of things here worth remembering.
Four Citrus Scallop Seviche. This is a very straightforward scallop napoleon meets seviche dish. In this case, we pickled only the vegetables and then layered them with the seared scallop. The four citrus zests—yuzu, lemon, lime, and orange—combine with the cumin, garlic, cilantro, and ancho paste to yield a complex seviche.
Steelhead Trout. This is a play on an appetizer that we serve at the restaurant from time to time: crispy salmon nuggets in green Thai curry. We have scattered on the plate a green Thai curry sauce, Thai basil leaves, crispy steelhead nuggets, a steelhead skin crisp, gravlax of steelhead, and an excellent salmon roe caviar. I was not happy with this presentation—too sparse—but then we run that risk when we plate novel dishes all the time.
Crab Mango Cocktail. This is the offspring of a mango soup shooter with crab fritter amuse that I wanted to do crossed with the mango cocktail that Travis wanted to do. It ended up as an intermezzo. The mango cocktail comprises mango, coconut milk, lime juice, dark rum, and red Thai curry paste.
Brussels Sprouts with Crispy Duck Confit Threads. This dish was an effort to bring a salad to the menu and was more so an exercise to see what we could do with temperature contrast in the salad dressing. You see blanched brussels sprouts petals and threads of duck confit that we have deep fried to crispy goodness, all tossed in warm duck fat, then surrounded by a granita of watermelon vinegar, locally produced vinegar made from watermelon juice.
Refried Beans. I was looking for a foil for wild mushrooms and I think I found it in refried Sea Island Red Peas. We cooked the red peas with bacon and mirepoix, then puréed them and refried them in duck fat. Garnishes are chives, black trumpet mushrooms, pimentón sauce; and puffed wild rice.
Waldorf Salad. We were looking for a cool, refreshing intermezzo course and came up with this summer roll meets classic Waldorf salad. A thin sheet of cucumber is rolled around a salad of apple and celery julienne, crushed walnuts, and a walnut oil vinaigrette. Garnished with more vinaigrette and candied walnuts.
Lamb and Peppers. This was an exercise in using up lamb. We get frequent deliveries of lambs and are constantly finding ways to use the off cuts: the spareribs, necks, foreshanks, etc. One great way is to braise (red cook) them in Chinese fashion in soy, rice wine, brown sugar, green onions, star anise, cinnamon, garlic, and ginger for hours until the meat is tender. Then we pull the meat and reduce the defatted sauce, mixing them along with sesame seeds and green onions. This is a wonderful accompaniment to a fruity red such as our local Chambourcin or a Paso Robles Syrah.
"Smoked" Duck Noodle Soup. My favorite dish at Thai Winchester is the Roasted Duck Noodle Soup, a pan-Asian pho-like soup. This is my upscale homage to that dish. In the bottom of a soup plate, I put a smear of leek ash paste. Then you see a tradtional pho broth redolent of star anise, cinammon, ginger, and lemongrass in the bottom of the bowl. The broth is highly reduced to concentrate the flavors and then clarified. We rubbed a duck breast with leek ash to simulate its having been smoked, cooked it medium rare and put it over the broth. Then the traditional table salad follows: Thai basil, cilantro, green onions. And finally, we deep fried the rice noodles and placed them over for garnish. We were playing around with leek ash here and it was an OK result, but we would have been better off simply to cold smoke the duck breasts. Live and learn, but still a great dish.
Apple. We decided to play with apples in all their forms and see what ended up on the plate. There is a highly reduced apple cider syrup, apple sauce granita, dried apple, and a ring of apple in the center of which we baked a tiny crème brûlée. Garnishes are a white chocolate-cinnamon-pink salt bark and an appletini—mainly apple cider, Calvados, and bitters, rimmed with cinnamon sugar. I've got to say that baking those crème brûlées was tricky, tricky, tricky.
Four Citrus Scallop Seviche. This is a very straightforward scallop napoleon meets seviche dish. In this case, we pickled only the vegetables and then layered them with the seared scallop. The four citrus zests—yuzu, lemon, lime, and orange—combine with the cumin, garlic, cilantro, and ancho paste to yield a complex seviche.
Steelhead Trout. This is a play on an appetizer that we serve at the restaurant from time to time: crispy salmon nuggets in green Thai curry. We have scattered on the plate a green Thai curry sauce, Thai basil leaves, crispy steelhead nuggets, a steelhead skin crisp, gravlax of steelhead, and an excellent salmon roe caviar. I was not happy with this presentation—too sparse—but then we run that risk when we plate novel dishes all the time.
Crab Mango Cocktail. This is the offspring of a mango soup shooter with crab fritter amuse that I wanted to do crossed with the mango cocktail that Travis wanted to do. It ended up as an intermezzo. The mango cocktail comprises mango, coconut milk, lime juice, dark rum, and red Thai curry paste.
Brussels Sprouts with Crispy Duck Confit Threads. This dish was an effort to bring a salad to the menu and was more so an exercise to see what we could do with temperature contrast in the salad dressing. You see blanched brussels sprouts petals and threads of duck confit that we have deep fried to crispy goodness, all tossed in warm duck fat, then surrounded by a granita of watermelon vinegar, locally produced vinegar made from watermelon juice.
Refried Beans. I was looking for a foil for wild mushrooms and I think I found it in refried Sea Island Red Peas. We cooked the red peas with bacon and mirepoix, then puréed them and refried them in duck fat. Garnishes are chives, black trumpet mushrooms, pimentón sauce; and puffed wild rice.
Waldorf Salad. We were looking for a cool, refreshing intermezzo course and came up with this summer roll meets classic Waldorf salad. A thin sheet of cucumber is rolled around a salad of apple and celery julienne, crushed walnuts, and a walnut oil vinaigrette. Garnished with more vinaigrette and candied walnuts.
Lamb and Peppers. This was an exercise in using up lamb. We get frequent deliveries of lambs and are constantly finding ways to use the off cuts: the spareribs, necks, foreshanks, etc. One great way is to braise (red cook) them in Chinese fashion in soy, rice wine, brown sugar, green onions, star anise, cinnamon, garlic, and ginger for hours until the meat is tender. Then we pull the meat and reduce the defatted sauce, mixing them along with sesame seeds and green onions. This is a wonderful accompaniment to a fruity red such as our local Chambourcin or a Paso Robles Syrah.
"Smoked" Duck Noodle Soup. My favorite dish at Thai Winchester is the Roasted Duck Noodle Soup, a pan-Asian pho-like soup. This is my upscale homage to that dish. In the bottom of a soup plate, I put a smear of leek ash paste. Then you see a tradtional pho broth redolent of star anise, cinammon, ginger, and lemongrass in the bottom of the bowl. The broth is highly reduced to concentrate the flavors and then clarified. We rubbed a duck breast with leek ash to simulate its having been smoked, cooked it medium rare and put it over the broth. Then the traditional table salad follows: Thai basil, cilantro, green onions. And finally, we deep fried the rice noodles and placed them over for garnish. We were playing around with leek ash here and it was an OK result, but we would have been better off simply to cold smoke the duck breasts. Live and learn, but still a great dish.
Apple. We decided to play with apples in all their forms and see what ended up on the plate. There is a highly reduced apple cider syrup, apple sauce granita, dried apple, and a ring of apple in the center of which we baked a tiny crème brûlée. Garnishes are a white chocolate-cinnamon-pink salt bark and an appletini—mainly apple cider, Calvados, and bitters, rimmed with cinnamon sugar. I've got to say that baking those crème brûlées was tricky, tricky, tricky.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Seafood and Root Vegetables
Root Vegetables. They're just not that cool, but that's pretty much what is in our cooler right now, it being the middle of winter. And when a couple from Warrenton engaged us to do a tasting menu for them last week, that is all we had in house to work with. They also requested no meat for their menu, but they love all manner of seafood, so we used that as our starting point for their custom menu.
While planning their menu, I had this slightly whack idea: why not pair a different seafood with a different winter root vegetable for each course, except for dessert? So we randomly paired each of six seafoods with six winter root vegetables used this as the basis for our menu. Doing the menu this way proved to be a great intellectual challenge: pairing seafood with root vegetables is rarely ever done. Here are the results of our brainstorming.
Scallops and Parsnips. We took our cue for this dish from brandade de morue from the south of France. The modern interpretation of brandade is a silky paste of salt cod, potatoes, olive oil, and garlic. We decided to try it with salted scallops and parsnips instead. And topped with a seared scallop, it worked extremely well. We're very pleased with this dish.
Crab and Sweet Potatoes. This is a complexly flavored sweet potato bisque seasoned with kaffir lime, green curry paste, Thai basil, and coconut milk. I no longer remember the genesis of this soup, but I think we have done similar sauces in the past. The bisque is topped with crabmeat marinated in a kaffir lime vinaigrette. We liked this so much that it went directly on to our nightly menu as an appetizer.
Oysters and Celery Root. We've done a lot of celery root purées this winter already and were looking for different ways to showcase this delicious vegetable, especially for a way to highlight it in its raw form. Immediately springing to mind was a celery root rémoulade that I had at Tujague's in New Orleans about 20 years ago. From here, it was an easy leap to an oyster Po Boy topped with celery rémoulade. The celery root fries were a last minute addition and the answer to the question to my cooks, "Does celery root make good fries?" Indeed, it does not. It makes outstanding fries. Live and learn.
Lobster and Leeks. This is what happens when we take our shrimp and grits from the lunch menu and amp it up with lobster, leeks, and truffles. The grits are Anson Mills as usual, but amended with a lot of creamed leeks. Truly decadent grits. The lobster is just along for the ride when compared to these grits.
Mussels and Red Onions. I confess that I went really overboard here. I am the one chef that you can generally count on not to mess with the form of an ingredient and here I go making mussels into a musselwurst. I have done every form of fried, stuffed, baked, and steamed mussel imaginable over the years and for some reason, I decided to just go crazy. So we have a mussel and caramelized red onion sausage on a bun with caramelized red onion mustard, caramelized red onions, and pickled red onions. It was a damned good seafood sausage if I say so myself, but my bun, to be polite, sucked.
Fish and Daikon. And finally, we deal with daikon. There's a ton of daikon at the farmers market now and I've been using a lot of it. Daikon led me to free associate with sablefish because sablefish is very highly prized in Japan. The natural application for daikon is raw and done in an Asian theme, so I wanted to stay away from that. I kept saying to the cooks, "Let's do something classic and French." We tried a bunch of things from grilled daikon, OK, to red wine-braised daikon, horrible, when Chris said, "Daikon Pommes Anna!" So we have seared sablefish on a daikon "pommes Anna" with wild mushrooms and a beurre rouge. The daikon pommes Anna was very tricky to pull off; daikon does not have the starch that potatoes do, so getting the cake to hold together was a problem. Once the technical issue was resolved, the result is a beautiful and classically European take on ingredients that are typically treated in an Asian style. Mission accomplished!
While planning their menu, I had this slightly whack idea: why not pair a different seafood with a different winter root vegetable for each course, except for dessert? So we randomly paired each of six seafoods with six winter root vegetables used this as the basis for our menu. Doing the menu this way proved to be a great intellectual challenge: pairing seafood with root vegetables is rarely ever done. Here are the results of our brainstorming.
Scallops and Parsnips. We took our cue for this dish from brandade de morue from the south of France. The modern interpretation of brandade is a silky paste of salt cod, potatoes, olive oil, and garlic. We decided to try it with salted scallops and parsnips instead. And topped with a seared scallop, it worked extremely well. We're very pleased with this dish.
Crab and Sweet Potatoes. This is a complexly flavored sweet potato bisque seasoned with kaffir lime, green curry paste, Thai basil, and coconut milk. I no longer remember the genesis of this soup, but I think we have done similar sauces in the past. The bisque is topped with crabmeat marinated in a kaffir lime vinaigrette. We liked this so much that it went directly on to our nightly menu as an appetizer.
Oysters and Celery Root. We've done a lot of celery root purées this winter already and were looking for different ways to showcase this delicious vegetable, especially for a way to highlight it in its raw form. Immediately springing to mind was a celery root rémoulade that I had at Tujague's in New Orleans about 20 years ago. From here, it was an easy leap to an oyster Po Boy topped with celery rémoulade. The celery root fries were a last minute addition and the answer to the question to my cooks, "Does celery root make good fries?" Indeed, it does not. It makes outstanding fries. Live and learn.
Lobster and Leeks. This is what happens when we take our shrimp and grits from the lunch menu and amp it up with lobster, leeks, and truffles. The grits are Anson Mills as usual, but amended with a lot of creamed leeks. Truly decadent grits. The lobster is just along for the ride when compared to these grits.
Mussels and Red Onions. I confess that I went really overboard here. I am the one chef that you can generally count on not to mess with the form of an ingredient and here I go making mussels into a musselwurst. I have done every form of fried, stuffed, baked, and steamed mussel imaginable over the years and for some reason, I decided to just go crazy. So we have a mussel and caramelized red onion sausage on a bun with caramelized red onion mustard, caramelized red onions, and pickled red onions. It was a damned good seafood sausage if I say so myself, but my bun, to be polite, sucked.
Fish and Daikon. And finally, we deal with daikon. There's a ton of daikon at the farmers market now and I've been using a lot of it. Daikon led me to free associate with sablefish because sablefish is very highly prized in Japan. The natural application for daikon is raw and done in an Asian theme, so I wanted to stay away from that. I kept saying to the cooks, "Let's do something classic and French." We tried a bunch of things from grilled daikon, OK, to red wine-braised daikon, horrible, when Chris said, "Daikon Pommes Anna!" So we have seared sablefish on a daikon "pommes Anna" with wild mushrooms and a beurre rouge. The daikon pommes Anna was very tricky to pull off; daikon does not have the starch that potatoes do, so getting the cake to hold together was a problem. Once the technical issue was resolved, the result is a beautiful and classically European take on ingredients that are typically treated in an Asian style. Mission accomplished!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Crab Cakes
Several years ago, we had a spate of complaints about our crab cakes. They were all along the lines that our crab cakes have no flavor, that they're tasteless. After several years of no complaints, we've had another recent rash of similar complaints.
Our crab cakes are made from the best blue crab we can buy, mayonnaise, celery, parsley, panko, salt, and white pepper. That's it. Over the years, I've tried every binder known to man for holding crab cakes together (béchamel, fish mousse, scallop mousse, egg whites, sour cream, etc.) and the best binder hands down is a mayonnaise made with a neutral oil.
Crab meat has a very delicate flavor that is easily overpowered by other flavors. This is why I especially despise crab cakes containing any form of assertive bell pepper or, God forbid, Old Bay seasoning, which reeks of celery seed. Some people actually like to taste bell pepper or celery seed rather than the $18 per pound crab. If that's your preference, fine; it's not mine though.
The complaints come from one of two kinds of people. The first is someone who actually prefers to taste bell pepper and celery seed to crab. I don't understand their point of view, but they're entitled to it. I just wish they'd allow that my crab cakes are well made, just not to their taste.
The second complainant is one who does not perceive the value of expensive fresh blue crab bound with just as few additives as are necessary to hold the crab meat in a cake. These are the ones who tell me that the frozen crab cakes (that are short on crab and long on filler) at Costco are as good or better than mine. I wish these people, rather than pick on my crab cakes, would just say that mine are too expensive for them. That's really what their gripe is, so why not just say it?
In any case, the complaints are few and far between and for each, we have served thousands of other customers who have loved the crab cakes. And I'm not changing my recipe regardless of what anyone says.
Friday, November 6, 2009
A Fall Chef's Tasting
I really love composing and cooking tasting menus for a lot of reasons. In building a cohesive menu from scratch, I have a strong sense of engagement and I enjoy and welcome the intellectual challenge. Also, I get out of the rut of cooking the same old crab cakes and filets mignons that pay our rent month in and month out. And I enjoy cooking for people who are willing to have their palates challenged. This frees me to not only show off the bounty of local ingredients with which we are blessed to work, but it also lets me serve delicious things that wouldn't sell well on the main menu, and it lets me experiment to a certain extent by taking some risks that I wouldn't under normal dinner circumstances. Did I also mention that this is how I like to eat? When I go out, I just want the chef to send out small bites every 20 minutes or so.
A lot of restaurants have tasting menus and many of them run a tasting menu for a fixed period of time, such as a week or a month or a season. Each tasting menu that we do is custom designed for a particular client. Even if we are doing tasting menus for multiple parties simultaneously, they will be having different menus. Admittedly it's a crazy way to run a restaurant, but then my sanity escaped to the ether some years back. But in this way, the cooking is very personal. I am cooking for a specific client and not just for anybody who walks in off the street and happens to order the tasting menu.
I don't post many of the Chef's Tastings that we do simply for lack of photographs. It's often too busy to photograph our work or because we're in a rush, photos for a certain course just do not turn out. Shooting macro shots by handholding in a busy kitchen on reflective stainless steel tables under really crappy fluorescent lighting is somewhat short of ideal, especially when I brace the camera against the table and someone down the line hip checks the table at the same time I'm shooting.
But the pace and karma Saturday night all aligned perfectly and I got some good shots, good enough for blogging, at least. Not great, but good enough considering the terrible lighting. They follow below.
I was pleased that the clients actually encouraged me to pair this menu with Virginia wines. Often I have to cajole some clients into letting me show off some of our local wines. The following is a highly seasonal menu, one that screams late fall, exactly what I was aiming for:
Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras. This dish started with a lobe of foie in the cooler that I needed to use and with the local Chrysalis Petit Manseng that I wanted to serve. Americans seem always to want the sweet wines at the end of dinner instead of as an aperitif, so I wanted to buck that by serving the sweet wine up front. I wanted to add some sweetness to the dish to work with the wine and initially I was thinking about brûléeing a slice of foie, and from there it wasn't a huge leap to crème brûlée. The maple syrup was almost an afterthought, mainly a liaison with the maple leaf garnish on the plate. To offset some of the richness, we just barely poached fresh cranberries in simple syrup. We served this warm out of the oven and I have to say that it was a brilliant dish.
Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon. I had a really clear piece of Opah that I wanted to feature and the first local daikon of the year just arrived in the farmer's market the morning of the tasting. I put a slight pickle on the daikon, for a salty and acidic counterpoint to the barely seared Opah. The flavor combination of the two and the texture contrast between the two were fine, but in the end, I'm not crazy about this dish or the presentation.
Stone Crab Claws. Stone crab season just opened so I wanted to celebrate that with this dish. I feel like I went out on a limb here a little putting stone crab claws on a parsnip purée. Garnishes are a vanilla beurre blanc and salad burnet. I felt the combination of the slightly sweet and herbal parsnip worked amazingly well with the vanilla and the crab. This dish is a winner and visually appealing too.
Veal and Rabbit Terrine. This is another one of my terrines; there's always one in the cooler. While I generally don't use liver in my terrines (because of knee-jerk customer reaction), I used the livers out of four rabbits along with a good splash of cream to bind this terrine. A touch of Cognac doesn't hurt either. Interior garnishes are black truffles, pistachios, dried cranberries, veal tongue, green peppercorns, and rabbit loin. Really a very tasty effort. I opted for the artsy photograph here so the interior garnish is tough to see; pity. In the foreground you see that our nasturtiums haven't given up the ghost yet and in the background you see the last of the local cucamelons, lightly pickled.
Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck. Selling ribs in a fine dining restaurant is an exercise in futility, a real pity because they are so good. We have to sell the ribs somehow, so they most often end up on tasting menus. I am a huge fan of braised dishes (slow-cooked with a little liquid) and especially of the style called red cooking from northern China. We rubbed the lamb ribs in garlic and five-spice powder and braised them with soy sauce, white wine, brown sugar, hoisin sauce, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, and green onions, then let the ribs stand in the braising liquid overnight. We pulled the rib meat and minced it, defatted the braising liquid and reduced it slightly (soy is very salty!), augmented the braising liquid with a little hoisin and sesame oil to make a sauce, then mixed the minced lamb with the sauce, bias-cut green onions, and white sesame seeds. We then brushed a crêpe with the sauce and stuffed it with the minced lamb. This is absolutely delicious and much more flavorful than duck done the same way.
Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin. Caribou is a mild and delicious deer that under the best of circumstances is difficult to obtain, so I was happy to be able to get a little bit for this tasting. This dish is all about fall: lightly grilled caribou over a nest formed from local spigarello (a leaf broccoli) and filled with a sauté of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes and fresh matsutake mushrooms from Oregon. We finished this with a few dried blueberries and a demiglace augmented with local elderberry syrup and black truffles.
A Study in Local Apples. I'd be really remiss here in the heart of Virginia's apple country not to do a dessert of local apples. I had wanted to do a separate cheese course, but the menu was starting to get a little long so we combined the dessert and cheese courses into a single course. Cheese and apples, especially apple pie, is a natural combination at least in the school of traditional southern cooking in which I was raised. A big slice of sharp Cheddar (rat cheese as we called it) was a must with apple pie.
When I was at the farmers market on Tuesday last week, I was getting some green tomatoes for fried green tomatoes. In the next bin were some green apples causing me to flash on fried green apples. I did an instant market survey ("Hey, what do y'all think of fried green apples as a dessert course?") and the conclusion was that it couldn't be bad, so I came back to the restaurant where Chris and I started to experiment with apple thickness, coatings, and seasonings. After a half a dozen samples we got it right. You see fried green apple under the cheese and the crêpe in the photo above. We removed the core of the apple and plugged it with a piece of apple so that the whole would be edible.
On the plate from left to right you see apple compote (Golden Russet apples) cooked down with local honey and kaffir lime, topped with a blade of vanilla grass. Then the fried green apple with the cheese wedge. The crêpe holds wedges of Empire apples roasted with honey and cinnamon, along with grated cheese. The crepe was warmed in the oven to melt the cheese, then topped with a bit more cheese. Under the fried green tomato you see a syrup that we make by straining and reducing local cider until it is syrupy. On the far right, you see a small serving of apple granita, made from 8 varieties of apples and almost no sugar. I'm really happy with the flavors, but the presentation is a bit monochromatic.
Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”. I didn't want another dessert wine with this menu (remember, we started with one) and I had a couple gallons of local cider on hand in the cooler, so I mixed up a cocktail of cider, Calvados, lemon juice, vanilla syrup, and some bitters. The glass is rimmed with cinnamon sugar. The apple slice is from a sweet Fuji; the cider is naturally sweet so a tart apple would have been unpleasantly mouth puckering.
A lot of restaurants have tasting menus and many of them run a tasting menu for a fixed period of time, such as a week or a month or a season. Each tasting menu that we do is custom designed for a particular client. Even if we are doing tasting menus for multiple parties simultaneously, they will be having different menus. Admittedly it's a crazy way to run a restaurant, but then my sanity escaped to the ether some years back. But in this way, the cooking is very personal. I am cooking for a specific client and not just for anybody who walks in off the street and happens to order the tasting menu.
I don't post many of the Chef's Tastings that we do simply for lack of photographs. It's often too busy to photograph our work or because we're in a rush, photos for a certain course just do not turn out. Shooting macro shots by handholding in a busy kitchen on reflective stainless steel tables under really crappy fluorescent lighting is somewhat short of ideal, especially when I brace the camera against the table and someone down the line hip checks the table at the same time I'm shooting.
But the pace and karma Saturday night all aligned perfectly and I got some good shots, good enough for blogging, at least. Not great, but good enough considering the terrible lighting. They follow below.
I was pleased that the clients actually encouraged me to pair this menu with Virginia wines. Often I have to cajole some clients into letting me show off some of our local wines. The following is a highly seasonal menu, one that screams late fall, exactly what I was aiming for:
Chef's Tasting
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras
poached cranberries, bread crisp
Chrysalis Petit Manseng Virginia 2007
------
Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon
lemon zest, fleur de sel
White Hall Viognier Virginia 2007
------
Stone Crab Claws
parsnip purée, vanilla bean beurre blanc, salad burnet
Glen Manor Sauvignon Blanc Virginia 2008
------
Veal and Rabbit Terrine
quick-pickled local cucamelons; whole grain honey mustard
Swedenburg Pinot Noir Virginia 2008
------
Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck
Fabbioli Chambourcin Virginia 2007
------
Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin
duck fat-sautéed matsutake mushrooms and sunchokes; dried blueberries; elderberry and truffle demiglace; local organic spigarello
Linden Claret Virginia 2005
------
A Study in Local Apples
Cheesy apple crêpe, apple granita, apple-kaffir lime compote, fried green apple with apple cider reduction; Kerrygold Ivernia cheese
Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras
poached cranberries, bread crisp
Chrysalis Petit Manseng Virginia 2007
------
Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon
lemon zest, fleur de sel
White Hall Viognier Virginia 2007
------
Stone Crab Claws
parsnip purée, vanilla bean beurre blanc, salad burnet
Glen Manor Sauvignon Blanc Virginia 2008
------
Veal and Rabbit Terrine
quick-pickled local cucamelons; whole grain honey mustard
Swedenburg Pinot Noir Virginia 2008
------
Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck
Fabbioli Chambourcin Virginia 2007
------
Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin
duck fat-sautéed matsutake mushrooms and sunchokes; dried blueberries; elderberry and truffle demiglace; local organic spigarello
Linden Claret Virginia 2005
------
A Study in Local Apples
Cheesy apple crêpe, apple granita, apple-kaffir lime compote, fried green apple with apple cider reduction; Kerrygold Ivernia cheese
Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”
Crème Brûlée of Mapled Foie Gras. This dish started with a lobe of foie in the cooler that I needed to use and with the local Chrysalis Petit Manseng that I wanted to serve. Americans seem always to want the sweet wines at the end of dinner instead of as an aperitif, so I wanted to buck that by serving the sweet wine up front. I wanted to add some sweetness to the dish to work with the wine and initially I was thinking about brûléeing a slice of foie, and from there it wasn't a huge leap to crème brûlée. The maple syrup was almost an afterthought, mainly a liaison with the maple leaf garnish on the plate. To offset some of the richness, we just barely poached fresh cranberries in simple syrup. We served this warm out of the oven and I have to say that it was a brilliant dish.
Fan of Tataki of Opah and Local Daikon. I had a really clear piece of Opah that I wanted to feature and the first local daikon of the year just arrived in the farmer's market the morning of the tasting. I put a slight pickle on the daikon, for a salty and acidic counterpoint to the barely seared Opah. The flavor combination of the two and the texture contrast between the two were fine, but in the end, I'm not crazy about this dish or the presentation.
Stone Crab Claws. Stone crab season just opened so I wanted to celebrate that with this dish. I feel like I went out on a limb here a little putting stone crab claws on a parsnip purée. Garnishes are a vanilla beurre blanc and salad burnet. I felt the combination of the slightly sweet and herbal parsnip worked amazingly well with the vanilla and the crab. This dish is a winner and visually appealing too.
Veal and Rabbit Terrine. This is another one of my terrines; there's always one in the cooler. While I generally don't use liver in my terrines (because of knee-jerk customer reaction), I used the livers out of four rabbits along with a good splash of cream to bind this terrine. A touch of Cognac doesn't hurt either. Interior garnishes are black truffles, pistachios, dried cranberries, veal tongue, green peppercorns, and rabbit loin. Really a very tasty effort. I opted for the artsy photograph here so the interior garnish is tough to see; pity. In the foreground you see that our nasturtiums haven't given up the ghost yet and in the background you see the last of the local cucamelons, lightly pickled.
Local Lamb Ribs in the Style of Peking Duck. Selling ribs in a fine dining restaurant is an exercise in futility, a real pity because they are so good. We have to sell the ribs somehow, so they most often end up on tasting menus. I am a huge fan of braised dishes (slow-cooked with a little liquid) and especially of the style called red cooking from northern China. We rubbed the lamb ribs in garlic and five-spice powder and braised them with soy sauce, white wine, brown sugar, hoisin sauce, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, and green onions, then let the ribs stand in the braising liquid overnight. We pulled the rib meat and minced it, defatted the braising liquid and reduced it slightly (soy is very salty!), augmented the braising liquid with a little hoisin and sesame oil to make a sauce, then mixed the minced lamb with the sauce, bias-cut green onions, and white sesame seeds. We then brushed a crêpe with the sauce and stuffed it with the minced lamb. This is absolutely delicious and much more flavorful than duck done the same way.
Lightly Grilled Caribou Tenderloin. Caribou is a mild and delicious deer that under the best of circumstances is difficult to obtain, so I was happy to be able to get a little bit for this tasting. This dish is all about fall: lightly grilled caribou over a nest formed from local spigarello (a leaf broccoli) and filled with a sauté of just-dug Jerusalem artichokes and fresh matsutake mushrooms from Oregon. We finished this with a few dried blueberries and a demiglace augmented with local elderberry syrup and black truffles.
A Study in Local Apples. I'd be really remiss here in the heart of Virginia's apple country not to do a dessert of local apples. I had wanted to do a separate cheese course, but the menu was starting to get a little long so we combined the dessert and cheese courses into a single course. Cheese and apples, especially apple pie, is a natural combination at least in the school of traditional southern cooking in which I was raised. A big slice of sharp Cheddar (rat cheese as we called it) was a must with apple pie.When I was at the farmers market on Tuesday last week, I was getting some green tomatoes for fried green tomatoes. In the next bin were some green apples causing me to flash on fried green apples. I did an instant market survey ("Hey, what do y'all think of fried green apples as a dessert course?") and the conclusion was that it couldn't be bad, so I came back to the restaurant where Chris and I started to experiment with apple thickness, coatings, and seasonings. After a half a dozen samples we got it right. You see fried green apple under the cheese and the crêpe in the photo above. We removed the core of the apple and plugged it with a piece of apple so that the whole would be edible.
On the plate from left to right you see apple compote (Golden Russet apples) cooked down with local honey and kaffir lime, topped with a blade of vanilla grass. Then the fried green apple with the cheese wedge. The crêpe holds wedges of Empire apples roasted with honey and cinnamon, along with grated cheese. The crepe was warmed in the oven to melt the cheese, then topped with a bit more cheese. Under the fried green tomato you see a syrup that we make by straining and reducing local cider until it is syrupy. On the far right, you see a small serving of apple granita, made from 8 varieties of apples and almost no sugar. I'm really happy with the flavors, but the presentation is a bit monochromatic.
Local Apple Cider-Calvados “Martini”. I didn't want another dessert wine with this menu (remember, we started with one) and I had a couple gallons of local cider on hand in the cooler, so I mixed up a cocktail of cider, Calvados, lemon juice, vanilla syrup, and some bitters. The glass is rimmed with cinnamon sugar. The apple slice is from a sweet Fuji; the cider is naturally sweet so a tart apple would have been unpleasantly mouth puckering.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Chef's Tasting
Last week, Brandon and I did a Chef's Tasting for two of our longtime customers and two of their friends. Sometimes we go all out with technical tricks (soup filled dumplings, spherical piquillo peppers, etc.) but we just weren't feeling it for this tasting.
The day before the tasting, we had the first tremendous flood of local goods of this growing season and so we just decided to showcase what awesome food products we had and leave the technical tours de force for other tastings. I think these dishes show my less-is-more philosophy: just enough ingredients on a plate and no more.
Shrimp Cóctel
This is a pun, a wink at Luis Uno-Ojo, and an Americanization of a Mexican version of an American dish. Whew! Many years ago, my friend Luis from Guadalajara (Jalisco) introduced me to a soup that he calls cóctel (cocktail), a cold tomato and beef bouillon soup garnished with poached shrimp, avocados, cilantro, and so forth. His cóctel is a soup version of Cóctel de Camarones, the American classic Shrimp Cocktail. I reverted the soup to a true cocktail of beef consommé, tomato juice, and a good shot of that Jaliscan joy juice, tequila. I always serve it up in a martini glass as you see here, rimmed with cumin salt and finished with a fun garnish including shrimp. This version is garnished with a shrimp skewered around a piece of chorizo, then grilled. Putting the fun back in dinner and the cocktail back in Shrimp Cocktail, Guadalajara-Style!
Blue Cornmeal-Crusted, Crab- and Lemon Zest-Stuffed Softshell Crab with Grapefruit Beurre Blanc
After our brief trip south of the border, we brought things right back to Virginia with some local softshells, the first of the year from the Chesapeake Bay. The lemon zest and crab stuffing is a flavor idea that I stole from a crab cake appetizer from Tracy O'Grady at Willow (Tracy, your crab cakes rock!). A little organic blue cornmeal from a local mill gave a bit of crunch and the grapefruit beurre blanc brought the dish in line with a really grapefruity Sauvignon Blanc.
Chicken with Morels and Haricots Verts
I got a perfect pastured chicken and it was easily the highlight of this particular dinner. I loved the resulting dish so much that I've already blogged about it. Classic French technique meets impeccable local American ingredients, paired with Jim Law's equally impeccable Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay.
Local Veal Skirt Steak, Blue Cornmeal Hoe Cake, and Poblano Crema
Upscale fajitas anyone? I had a lovely local organic veal skirt steak in the cooler along with the remnants of a case of poblano chiles that had seen better days. I've replaced the corn tortilla with an organic blue cornmeal hoe cake (cornmeal, garlic-infused butter, salt, pepper, and boiling water) and converted the rather limp poblanos to a roasted poblano crema. The skirt steak is lightly marinated in garlic, fresh baby cilantro, and kaffir lime, then lightly grilled to medium rare, rested, and sliced across the grain.
Lamb Samosas with Apricot Chutney and Red Wine Rosemary Demiglace
One of the things about working with local lamb is that we only get so many cuts off of each lamb. With each batch of lamb, we get chops (rack and loin), shanks, ribs, leg and shoulder (usually in kebabs), and then all the scraps go into ground. Needless to say, we have a lot of ground lamb to work through, so we're always having to find ways to use it.
Somehow, Brandon and I were both thinking samosas at the same time, so I made a bunch of them. We decided to stay away from traditional Indian spices and go with a more or less traditional Shepherd's Pie filling: lamb, mirepoix, herbs, garlic, gravy from lamb stock, and mashed potatoes. A quick reduction of Grenache and rosemary bound with demiglace gave us a sauce and then a sweet and spicy apricot chutney (what would be called a pickle in India) finished the plates that you see Brandon setting up here.
And the finished plates. I'm OK with white/negative space on a plate, as you can see here. Oh yeah, the samosas were banging—like little lamb empanadas. Yum.
Red-Cooked Bison Short Ribs with Local Spinach and Fried Rice Cake
Here you can see the fried rice cake and the spinach down in the soup plate, before we add the bison. The fried rice cake is merely fried rice bound with egg and fried into a pancake. Easy as can be and a crowd pleaser. We have this beautiful whole local spinach, cut off just above the roots, so we blanch it, toss it in butter and then curl it on the dish, in this case on top of the rice cake.
And here is the final dish with the bison on top and the sauce over and around. Red cooking is an awesome braising technique that you should have in your arsenal. I need to do a blog post just on that. In short, it's a classic Chinese braise in which the meat is cooked in a sweet and spicy liquid made from soy sauce, white wine (Shaoxing is typical), brown sugar or caramel, ginger, garlic, green onions, and sweet spices such as star anise, black pepper, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon or cassia, and so forth.
We braised the bison ribs in such a liquid, then strained the liquid, refreshed it with fresh spices, green onions, garlic, and ginger, reduced the sauce, strained it, added a bit of hoisin sauce, and brought it down to final sauce consistency. In China, the sauce is often used over and over to braise new dishes; at the restaurant, such practice, no matter how delicious, would certainly raise red flags at the Health Department.
Frozen Strawberry Soufflé with Lemon Verbena-Mint Shortbread Cookies
Finally, local strawberries arrived after 11 months of being gone. Throw together strawberry purée, Italian meringue, and whipped cream and what do you get? A frozen strawberry soufflé if you're patient enough to wait for it to freeze. The mint and lemon verbena are from our herbs growing outside the front door of the restaurant.
The day before the tasting, we had the first tremendous flood of local goods of this growing season and so we just decided to showcase what awesome food products we had and leave the technical tours de force for other tastings. I think these dishes show my less-is-more philosophy: just enough ingredients on a plate and no more.
Shrimp Cóctel
This is a pun, a wink at Luis Uno-Ojo, and an Americanization of a Mexican version of an American dish. Whew! Many years ago, my friend Luis from Guadalajara (Jalisco) introduced me to a soup that he calls cóctel (cocktail), a cold tomato and beef bouillon soup garnished with poached shrimp, avocados, cilantro, and so forth. His cóctel is a soup version of Cóctel de Camarones, the American classic Shrimp Cocktail. I reverted the soup to a true cocktail of beef consommé, tomato juice, and a good shot of that Jaliscan joy juice, tequila. I always serve it up in a martini glass as you see here, rimmed with cumin salt and finished with a fun garnish including shrimp. This version is garnished with a shrimp skewered around a piece of chorizo, then grilled. Putting the fun back in dinner and the cocktail back in Shrimp Cocktail, Guadalajara-Style!Blue Cornmeal-Crusted, Crab- and Lemon Zest-Stuffed Softshell Crab with Grapefruit Beurre Blanc
After our brief trip south of the border, we brought things right back to Virginia with some local softshells, the first of the year from the Chesapeake Bay. The lemon zest and crab stuffing is a flavor idea that I stole from a crab cake appetizer from Tracy O'Grady at Willow (Tracy, your crab cakes rock!). A little organic blue cornmeal from a local mill gave a bit of crunch and the grapefruit beurre blanc brought the dish in line with a really grapefruity Sauvignon Blanc.Chicken with Morels and Haricots Verts
I got a perfect pastured chicken and it was easily the highlight of this particular dinner. I loved the resulting dish so much that I've already blogged about it. Classic French technique meets impeccable local American ingredients, paired with Jim Law's equally impeccable Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay.Local Veal Skirt Steak, Blue Cornmeal Hoe Cake, and Poblano Crema
Upscale fajitas anyone? I had a lovely local organic veal skirt steak in the cooler along with the remnants of a case of poblano chiles that had seen better days. I've replaced the corn tortilla with an organic blue cornmeal hoe cake (cornmeal, garlic-infused butter, salt, pepper, and boiling water) and converted the rather limp poblanos to a roasted poblano crema. The skirt steak is lightly marinated in garlic, fresh baby cilantro, and kaffir lime, then lightly grilled to medium rare, rested, and sliced across the grain.Lamb Samosas with Apricot Chutney and Red Wine Rosemary Demiglace
One of the things about working with local lamb is that we only get so many cuts off of each lamb. With each batch of lamb, we get chops (rack and loin), shanks, ribs, leg and shoulder (usually in kebabs), and then all the scraps go into ground. Needless to say, we have a lot of ground lamb to work through, so we're always having to find ways to use it.
Somehow, Brandon and I were both thinking samosas at the same time, so I made a bunch of them. We decided to stay away from traditional Indian spices and go with a more or less traditional Shepherd's Pie filling: lamb, mirepoix, herbs, garlic, gravy from lamb stock, and mashed potatoes. A quick reduction of Grenache and rosemary bound with demiglace gave us a sauce and then a sweet and spicy apricot chutney (what would be called a pickle in India) finished the plates that you see Brandon setting up here.
And the finished plates. I'm OK with white/negative space on a plate, as you can see here. Oh yeah, the samosas were banging—like little lamb empanadas. Yum.
Red-Cooked Bison Short Ribs with Local Spinach and Fried Rice Cake
Here you can see the fried rice cake and the spinach down in the soup plate, before we add the bison. The fried rice cake is merely fried rice bound with egg and fried into a pancake. Easy as can be and a crowd pleaser. We have this beautiful whole local spinach, cut off just above the roots, so we blanch it, toss it in butter and then curl it on the dish, in this case on top of the rice cake.
And here is the final dish with the bison on top and the sauce over and around. Red cooking is an awesome braising technique that you should have in your arsenal. I need to do a blog post just on that. In short, it's a classic Chinese braise in which the meat is cooked in a sweet and spicy liquid made from soy sauce, white wine (Shaoxing is typical), brown sugar or caramel, ginger, garlic, green onions, and sweet spices such as star anise, black pepper, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon or cassia, and so forth.We braised the bison ribs in such a liquid, then strained the liquid, refreshed it with fresh spices, green onions, garlic, and ginger, reduced the sauce, strained it, added a bit of hoisin sauce, and brought it down to final sauce consistency. In China, the sauce is often used over and over to braise new dishes; at the restaurant, such practice, no matter how delicious, would certainly raise red flags at the Health Department.
Frozen Strawberry Soufflé with Lemon Verbena-Mint Shortbread Cookies
Finally, local strawberries arrived after 11 months of being gone. Throw together strawberry purée, Italian meringue, and whipped cream and what do you get? A frozen strawberry soufflé if you're patient enough to wait for it to freeze. The mint and lemon verbena are from our herbs growing outside the front door of the restaurant.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Eggs One Block West
Yesterday was Mother's Day and each year, I make breakfast for my wife, usually with the help of my daughters; however, they were nowhere to be found this year. This year, I had no time to plan, so I brought home a couple of things from the restaurant to make Eggs One Block West.
Eggs OBW, in the fuzzy picture to the right (sorry, my Nikon battery died, so photo courtesy of my daughter and her little point-and-shoot), is my version of Eggs Benedict (which I don't really like at all). I used to run this as an elegant tapa or appetizer, but now I mainly do it for demonstrations. If we did brunch here, which we will never do, this dish would feature prominently.
Eggs OBW comprises a round of corn pancake flavored with finely minced Surry sausage, a crab cake, a round of prosciutto, a 3-minute poached egg, and pimentón sauce.
There's not too much I can give you in the way of recipes here because this is really a wing-it kind of dish, but I can give you some pointers.
For the pancake, mix 3/4 cup corn meal and 3/4 cup flour with a half teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, an egg, a minced Surry sausage, and enough milk to make a smooth batter. Tips for cooking pancakes: a batter that is a little more fluid will spread better in the pan; use moderate heat and give the pancakes enough time to cook in the center before flipping: you'll see the bubbles forming in the batter as it cooks.
Everyone has a crab cake recipe. Mine are a mix of lump and jumbo lump because without any other filler, I depend on the lump to take on the role of filler. Crab cakes made only of jumbo lump don't hold together well. I add celery, parsley, salt, white pepper, and eggs. I bind my crab cakes with mayonnaise* and the tiniest bit of panko (bread crumbs).
Eggs OBW, in the fuzzy picture to the right (sorry, my Nikon battery died, so photo courtesy of my daughter and her little point-and-shoot), is my version of Eggs Benedict (which I don't really like at all). I used to run this as an elegant tapa or appetizer, but now I mainly do it for demonstrations. If we did brunch here, which we will never do, this dish would feature prominently.Eggs OBW comprises a round of corn pancake flavored with finely minced Surry sausage, a crab cake, a round of prosciutto, a 3-minute poached egg, and pimentón sauce.
There's not too much I can give you in the way of recipes here because this is really a wing-it kind of dish, but I can give you some pointers.
For the pancake, mix 3/4 cup corn meal and 3/4 cup flour with a half teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, an egg, a minced Surry sausage, and enough milk to make a smooth batter. Tips for cooking pancakes: a batter that is a little more fluid will spread better in the pan; use moderate heat and give the pancakes enough time to cook in the center before flipping: you'll see the bubbles forming in the batter as it cooks.
Everyone has a crab cake recipe. Mine are a mix of lump and jumbo lump because without any other filler, I depend on the lump to take on the role of filler. Crab cakes made only of jumbo lump don't hold together well. I add celery, parsley, salt, white pepper, and eggs. I bind my crab cakes with mayonnaise* and the tiniest bit of panko (bread crumbs).
*I have tried many kinds of binder including egg whites, béchamel, sour cream, fish mousse, scallop mousse, crab mousse, etc. and I have yet to find a better binder than mayonnaise.
Sometimes I place the rounds of prosciutto between two sheets of parchment paper between two sheet pans and bake them in the oven to crisp them, but I am actually happier using raw prosciutto in Eggs OBW.
I poach eggs in gently shimmering water acidulated with a splash of vinegar (and a dash of salt for flavor). To my taste, three minutes is just the right cook time.
Finally, my pimentón sauce is a traditional mayonnaise flavored with bittersweet pimentón.
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