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.

Early March Tastings

Here are photos from a series of tastings we've done this week, playing games with what we have on hand.

Salmon Tartare. There's [sc]eviche, tartare, crudo, poke and all manner of other names for raw fish dishes. I'm calling this tartare and not seviche because the citrus juice goes on seconds before the dish hits the table so that there is no discoloration/firming of the flesh. Any time that we have a fatty fish belly, you can rest assured we're making a similar dish, whether or not it appears on the menu. It makes a great chef snack. This one contains red and yellow peppers, capers, green and red onions, Meyer lemon juice, and extra virgin olive oil. And as an accidental metaphor for the list of ingredients, note kitchen sink in background.

Mussels with Coconut-Yuzu Sauce. Finally, some good lighting in a kitchen picture! Sure I'd love to have a reflector behind this, but the quality of light on my cutting board versus on the main plating line is much nicer. Note to self. This is mussels steamed in coconut milk with yuzu juice and the sauce finished with a touch of fish sauce, lime leaves, and sugar. Grated lime zest and green onions over.

Grilled Shrimp. This all started early in the week when a customer inspired us to create a Provençale style pasta sauce. On the plate are two tiny wedges of a duck egg frittata made with roasted red peppers and goat cheese. These are the sops for a sauce of grilled peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, caperberries, black olives, fennel fronds, and orange zest. Propped up on all this is a grilled shrimp, marinated in black olive, garlic, and orange zest paste.

Duck Salad. This dish was really an exercise in how to use a new bottle of butternut seed oil. We're experimenting with it and naturally, it crossed our minds to make a dressing from it and Meyer lemon juice. The dressing is delicious. From there it's just a matter of building a salad around the dressing: local mesclun tied with Meyer lemon rind, duck confit, duck cracklings, duck fat croutons, orange segments, and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Rabbit Loin. Rabbit and fennel were made to go with each other: it's a magical combo. We've pounded out rabbit loin, dusted it with fennel pollen, and stuffed it with goat cheese mixed with fennel fronds and confit of fennel. Then it's rolled and wrapped in prosciutto, seared and finished in the oven. Purée of fennel and celery root down with a few cubes of fennel confit. We made the fennel confit in duck fat rather than olive oil.

Mushrooms and Bacon. We received a lot of brown beech, white beech, and pioppini mushrooms this week; you see them here featured with slab bacon on top of polenta. Nothing earth shattering or fancy about this, just plain old comfort food.

Teriyaki Royal Trumpet Mushrooms. In with the rest of our mushrooms this week were a few large royal trumpets, a mushroom that I like best when grilled and glazed with teriyaki sauce.

"Arancino." Here's a little play on food. When you hear arancino, you expect the deep-fried Sicilian risotto ball, perhaps stuffed with cheese or maybe even a ragù. But I doubt you expect our Northern Chinese Style pulled lamb stuffed into a fried rice ball. A little local bok choy to complete the dish.

Pork Belly. We were playing with the idea of Chinese steam buns stuffed with pork belly. But I'm not big on the texture of steamed dough, so I grilled it. There is something magical about tucking into a slab of pork belly with freshly cooked bread!

Here you see two different presentations. I'm not super happy with either presentation. The flavor was excellent, but the presentation is still lacking.

Jackfruit and Meyer Lemon Granita. This is a dish that had customers raving. The combination of the hyper-tropical flavors of the jackfruit with the lemon-orange tartness of the Meyer lemon yielded the best sorbet/granita I have ever tasted. Topped with a touch of amarena cherry mosto cotto and set on a piece of sinful coconut French toast.

Truffles. So every now and again, we make truffles. They're a fun way to end the evening. These are rolled in toasted coconut and in crushed candied walnuts. Plated with raspberry coulis and fried salted rice paper for a little texture.

Japanese Dinner

Here are the photos from a recent Japanese-themed dinner. The customer came to us with a menu in hand, so there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room.

Salmon Sashimi with Pickled Daikon. Just a quick 24-hour pickle on the local daikon; thickened house-made ponzu on the plate. We let our ponzu brew for 48 hours before taking out the kombu and the hana-katsuo. We decided to use limes for the ponzu rather than bottled yuzu: fresh fruit tastes better, though limes taste different than yuzu.

Mushroom Mini Pizzas. The customer, having just returned from two weeks in Japan, says that mini pizzas are all the rage right now. We wouldn't know, but we do know how to make pizzas. You see hon-shimeji mushrooms (actually a mix of brown and white beech and pioppini) sautéed with a touch of garlic and ginger and finished with a splash of tamari. The sauce is soft tofu blended with ponzu. We thought it was a delicious touch bringing both creaminess and acid to the pizzette.

Yakitori. You see both chicken thighs and hearts skewered here, brushed with our house-made taré. We put the chicken in a soy- and ginger-based marinade for 48 hours. The taré sauce, based on chicken bones, took 48 hours to make and it has such a rich meaty sweetness. I couldn't find any cockscombs on such short notice; that would have been really cool as part of this dish. As it was, most of the guests didn't touch the hearts, which we happily snacked in the kitchen. The hearts are definitely the best part of this dish.

"Chirinabe". How do I tell a customer who is in love with a menu that we are not equipped to do a traditional nabe? I don't and I wing it, hence the quotation marks around chirinabe (fish hot pot). We just don't have the equipment to put communal hot pots on the tables (and the American customers would have freaked out at a communal pot anyway), so we blanched the vegetables and poached the black sea bass before plating them with a cup of boiling stock and small dish of ponzu for dipping. The garnishes, clockwise from the snow peas, are snow peas, daikon, enokitake, shungiku, sea bass, napa, tofu, and lotus root.

Purple Yam Custard. I wanted to finish with rice and then some fresh fruit. Customer wanted a dessert. So here is a pan-Asian dessert: a brûléed custard of Okinawa sweet potato, sesame seed brittle, and some fresh jackfruit in simple syrup. At least I managed to keep the dish non-sweet and sneak some fruit in too. The white flecks are sesame oil powder.

Alien Ingredient #17: Jackfruit

These watermelon-sized fruits with the horned rinds (similar to Durians) are intimidating looking beasts, now that I see one in person. I've seen canned jackfruit in markets all my life, but when I try a fruit for the first time, I want to try the fresh version. And jackfruit has just become available at the local market.


The first thing that struck me about the fruit is the outstanding nose, perfumed with pineapple, mango, and banana. It is a simply beguiling smell. The flavor is—I don't know how to put it better—of straight up Juicy Fruit gum with a sweet banana finish. I can't explain Juicy Fruit to non-Americans because it's something you have to taste, but try to imagine a symphony of every tropical fruit you know.

So, how to attack one of these monsters, the largest tree fruits? I bought a quarter of one, about 5.5 lbs (2.5kg), already cut. Whole ones are easy enough to split and quarter with a sharp knife. When working with jackfruit, you definitely need to be mindful of the latex that the core oozes when cut. It can make a sticky mess, but I had no problem washing it off with hot water and soap.

I cut the core out of my quarter and this exposed the individual fruits (technically I think they're called arils, but really, who cares?). This is a fruit with training wheels: it is obvious how to disassemble it. The edible fruits are yellow and the stringy pithy white stuff surrounding them is not so good. Inside the fruit, you find a big seed that you discard. What's left is good, really good.


The texture of the fruit is unique in my experience; it compares to nothing in my vocabulary. The fruit is totally dry with no discernible juice. The texture is somewhat waxy and somewhat yieldingly crisp; it is not unpleasant though, but I just don't have any words to describe it.

Note: the next day, after we had pulled the fruit from the husk and refrigerated it overnight, the tropical complexities had dissipated and we were left with a fruit that tastes remarkably like cantaloupe with none of the sweet banana finish. Go figure.

Vote: Wow! We really like this fruit and the price is right!