Chef's Tasting

And now post-Valentine's Day, we start a whole series of tastings. Winter is seriously the most challenging time to do tastings as the showy summer fruits and vegetables are absent. We had fun with this menu making do with what we had on hand.

Smoked Salmon "Latke"

Smoked Salmon "Latke". Tony came up with the idea of inverting the smoked salmon and the potato, putting whipped potatoes on top of a thin pancake of shredded smoked salmon, capers, and dill. A twist on your mom's salmon croquettes.

Potted Rabbit

Potted Rabbit. We're blessed to have plenty of rabbits on hand and sometimes when we have too many, we conserve the rabbit by curing it and slow-poaching it in duck fat, then shredding the meat, seasoning it, and mixing it with the highly reduced braising liquid and more fat, then sealing it in a container under a layer of fat. Sound like rillettes? It is.

Hedgehog Mushrooms on Goat Grits

Hedgehog Mushrooms on Goat Grits. Recently, I've been on a kick of enriching my grits with goat cheese, especially to serve with a high acid red wine. On top is a mix of hedgehog mushrooms, roasted sweet potatoes, and spinach.



Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads. There may be no finer meat to eat than sweetbreads, these from our friends Bill and Holly at Martin's Angus Beef, our regular beef supplier. After poaching in court bouillon, being pressed overnight, and then cleaned, these labor-intensive nuggets have been hard-seared in pancetta oil after being tossed in Wondra and then finished with a splash each of heavy cream and veal glace. Did I mention a bit of black truffles as well? The green is cavolo nero.

Pork Pâté en Croûte

Pork Pâté en Croûte. I made a freaking awesome pork terrine earlier this week from pork shoulder, pork belly, and pork liver and I wanted to serve it for my tastings this week. But I didn't want to do the cold first course kind of thing with it because it has been so cold this week. Tony came up with the idea of wrapping the slices in pastry and then at some later point, we had made this awesome tart apricot chutney that was just hanging out waiting to be used, and so it went inside as well. Served with a whole-grain mustard vinaigrette to help tame the unctuousness of the terrine and the pastry.

Wild Boar Bobotie

Wild Boar Bobotie. I'm just going to say it right here and right now: feral wild boar is wild for a reason; it's barely worth eating. Domestic pork is so, so, so much tastier, fatter, and easier to work with. These big feral bastards from Texas are lean, stringy, chewy, and taste much more like beef than pork. Your idea of a good time? Not mine. So what can you do with it? Mostly, we grind it and add a hell of a lot of fat. And then we try to figure out what to do with pounds and pounds of ground boar. And bobotie, the unofficial national dish of South Africa, is a great way to use ground meat. More commonly made from lamb and/or beef, bobotie is an Indian-spiced mince pie topped with an egg custard. This one contains golden raisins, diced apricots, and diced apple.

Lime Curd Parfait

Lime Curd Parfait. With most of our dessert wines, something light and citrusy is called for, if we are not doing a savory profile dessert. Lime whip, lime curd, crème anglaise, and shortbread crumbles make this a tart and light finish to a heavy winter menu.

Alien Ingredient #39: Sweet Lime

Sweet Limes: Don't Bother

I've tried a lot of citrus in my life and here's one that is new to me: Citrus limetta, the so-called sweet lime. Sweet is right. It is super sweet. And it doesn't have any citric acid to balance that sweetness so it comes off like really insipid orange juice.

The juice has orange juice notes with perhaps a touch of citronella (lemongrass) coming from the rind, but no detectable acidity.

We were going to use these in an upside-down cake just like we use Meyer lemons and blood oranges, but no. These guys went in the trash. Bummer.

Vote: Yeah, nope! No acid, no joy.

Honey-Lime Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta with Blackberries

I have a Chef's Tasting tonight and I developed this recipe for it. I was searching for something small, light, and refreshing enough to serve at the end of a 9-course menu, not an easy feat by any stretch. It takes full advantage of the ultra-delicious blackberries that are in full swing right now.

Panna cotta, which means cooked cream in Italian, seems lighter than most custard desserts such as crème caramel or flan because it is usually made from lower fat dairy products and because it contains no eggs. It is set with gelatin. Panna cotta is really a misnomer: the cream is never cooked; it is merely heated to facilitate melting the gelatin.

Honey-Lime Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta with Blackberries

12 sheets gelatin
2 cups milk
2/3 cup honey
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sour cream
2 cups Greek yogurt
zest of two limes
16 4-ounce custard molds
blackberries, honey, and lime juice for garnish

I have to say that I love sheet gelatin and I despise powdered gelatin. Once you've seen how easy sheet gelatin is to work with, you'll never go back. I use Gelita Silver; it works every time. If you use powdered gelatin, you'll have to figure out the conversion. I think it is four sheets to the standard gelatin packet.

Cover the gelatin sheets in cold water and let them soften, about ten minutes will do. I never time it because by the time I have everything else assembled, the gelatin is ready to use.

Mix the honey and milk in a pan and warm it. It does not have to be super hot to melt the gelatin. Meanwhile, mix the cream, sour cream, yogurt, and lime zest in a bowl.

Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatin and stir into the warm milk. It should melt immediately. Let the milk cool for a few minutes.

Pour the milk-gelatin mixture into the yogurt mixture and stir well, but try to avoid introducing air bubbles to the mixture.

Spray the custard molds (I use disposable aluminum ones) with pan spray. Fill the molds and transfer to a refrigerator until set, about 4 hours should do.

To serve, run a knife around the edge of the mold and invert on a plate. If this doesn't do the trick, warm the panna cotta in a water bath for a few seconds and it should slide right out. Top with fresh blackberries mixed with honey and a squeeze of lime juice.

Kaffir Lime

The Kaffir Lime (Citrus x hystrix) also known by the Thai name makrut is one of the glories of the food world. A kaffir lime is roughly the same size as the common lime, but is easily distinguishable by its bumpy surface, like that of a Seville orange, or in some cultivars, a really warty surface. The rind is highly aromatic and is a common flavor component of many curry pastes.

Maybe I'll get into curry pastes in another post (or series of posts: it's a subject that deserves its own book) but here I want to focus on the true gems of this tree, the leaves, which are known as bai makrut in Thai. And it is the distinctive doubled leaves that are used more often than the fruit.

Once you have smelled the addictive floral citrus aroma of kaffir lime leaves, I promise that you'll be hooked. And you'll know immediately that there is no substitute on this earth for these leaves. Trust me, I've tried every substitute under the sun for them and nothing can come close to that haunting citrus perfume.

I hooked several guests at a tasting last evening when I served pan-roasted halibut on a quenelle of beluga lentils with a highly scented broth poured over it. I cooked the lentils in broth infused with kaffir lime, ginger, lemongrass, and garlic; then drained the broth and reduced it again with more of the same aromatics, then a third time with coconut milk. I used the highly reduced coconut milk to bind the belugas into which I mixed more fresh aromatics. Separately, I made a fumet of halibut scraps, shiitake stock, and more of the same aromatics. After infusing the aromatics, I removed them, reduced the fumet to 1/4 volume and clarified it twice. Before pouring it over the fish, I scattered very fine threads of kaffir lime over the soup bowl. When the hot fumet hit the lime threads, the entire dining room was perfumed.

So haunting was the dish that customers wanted to know all about it and we played show-and-tell with the lime leaves in the dining room. Naturally, all the cooks at the table wanted to know where and how to get them.

Fortunately, kaffir limes are being grown in small quantities in the US, so they are readily available on the market, if rather expensive. Wholesale, a pound of leaves—a small mountain—approaches US$50. You can buy them retail in small quantities via Priority Mail from importfood.com. I did a lot of business with them years ago before the restaurant and they are an extremely reliable small family business. Sorry, UK readers (we have a ton of fans in the UK), I have no clue how you go about getting these gems.

A pound of leaves is a lot, enough to jam a gallon-sized freezer bag, and way more than we can possibly use before they go bad. But fear not, they freeze well. Although they lose their bright color in the freezer, the flavor still goes strong up to a year later. And, no need to defrost the leaves to use them; use straight out of the freezer.

A final word about how to use the leaves. I often use them just like bay leaves, to flavor stocks and soups. I mince them and then pound them in the mortar as part of curry pastes, and very frequently, I cut the central rib out of the leaves, stack them, and chiffonade them into very fine threads which I scatter on dishes at the very last moment.