Chef's Tasting

Friends came by recently for a tasting and here is what they ate. Although it wasn't intentional, there's a bit of an egg theme going on here, with quail, duck, and goose eggs featured. It's just a good thing that the birds are laying again!

Salmon Three Ways

Salmon Three Ways. We were just looking for something bright and fresh to start the meal with and we just happen to have some beautiful salmon on hand now. I made a quasi tartare sauce with cornichons, capers, dill, and finely minced gravlax that I topped with a nice piece of fatty belly and then that with a brined, pepper-crusted, and smoked piece of salmon.

Duck and Maitake Mushroom Frittata

Duck and Maitake Mushroom Frittata. We made a simple frittata of duck confit, maitake mushrooms, and duck eggs and then paired it with a daikon and cucumber kimchee, to have something bright to offset the richness of the frittata. This dish sounded fine on paper, but it seems an incomplete thought to me.

Breakfast

Breakfast. There have been many breakfast variations on our tasting menus over the years, because it is just such a damned good dish. This version was designed to show off my latest sausage: ground pork shoulder, Mangalitsa pork belly, and prune purée. The maple syrup is now local from Gene Nowak at Mayfair Farm.



Rabbit Loin with Fennel-Chestnut Sauce

Rabbit Loin. This dish doesn't look all that bright, but I guarantee it was the best dish of the meal. The loin is rolled in fennel pollen before seeing the grill for just long enough to mark it up. Rabbit and fennel is a sublime combination and this sauce that I created last week with caramelized fennel and chestnuts is simply amazing. Note the rabbit loin cooked only to medium; that's how you have to do it.

Lamb Sausage, Moroccan Carrot Slaw, Chickpea Cake

Lamb Sausage. I like the vibrant spices and flavors from northern Africa and tried to bring them together here on a plate. The herbaceous and garlicky lamb sausage is mixed with a carrot slaw made from a fiery harissa and julienned carrots. I made this harissa rather heavier with caraway and fennel than I usually do. The chickpea cake is flavored with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and some of the preserved lemons that we put up last fall.

"Duck à l'Orange"

Duck à l'Orange. When we break down ducks, legs for confit and breasts for grilling or roasting, we collect the so-called breast tenders, the little muscle that sits atop the breast bone beneath the breast itself. These we pounded out and schnitzled in a crust of panko and five-spice powder. Garnished with orange brown butter, orange suprêmes, and a little salad of micro arugula and tiny mint leaves from our bed outside the restaurant.

Chocolate Peanut Cake, Cayenne Peanut Brittle, Goose Egg Anglaise

Chocolate-Peanut Cake. This is merely chocolate ganache, peanut butter, and goose eggs baked in a water bath until somewhat set, then gently rewarmed so that the center is very gooey and nearly runny. Garnishes are a goose egg crème anglaise, cassis jam, and a peanut brittle that I have made with a lot of salt (salty caramel, yum!) and cayenne pepper. Surprise!

Another Tasting

And the fall dishes keep coming. This tasting is all about two things: comfort and flavor. No boundary pushing, no fancy food, just pure flavors, simple presentations, and awesomeness of ingredients.

Chowder/Lentil Shoots/Scallop/Black Truffle Beurre Blanc

Duck Confit Pupusa/Orange Salad

Crispy Cavolo Nero/Grits/Quail Stuffed with Cannellini, Smoked Sausage, and Sage/Cacciatore Sauce

Corn-Thyme Crème Caramel/Pickled Figs/Duck Breast/Tiny Green Beans/Tasmanian Pepper Syrup

Orange Polenta Upside Down Cake/Coconut Sorbet/Crème Anglaise

Root Vegetable Recipes

One Block West is a seasonal restaurant and so our menu changes daily in response to what we find at the market and what our growers bring us. And what we get in the winter is root vegetables, lots and lots of root vegetables. And so we have become quite skilled at incorporating them into our menu, even into desserts such as Parsnip Crème Brûlée and Almond, Cranberry, and Sweet Potato Florentines. In wanting to pass along my love for root vegetables, I chose that as the topic for my first class of my new series of cooking classes. Here then are the recipes from my recent Root Vegetables class. I hope that you find them useful. If something is unclear, feel free to post a comment or send me a direct email and I will clarify it.

Céleri Rémoulade. This is my take on the French classic. Often in France, cooks grind the celery root with a Mouli, which gives a very soft and flaccid feel to the dish. I prefer to julienne the celery root which gives it a lot more texture. This salad is best prepared several hours ahead of time or even the day before to give the celery root a chance to soften. I love this slaw as a garnish for pulled pork. I love the mustardy quality of this dressing; feel free to modify to your taste.

2 pounds celery root, peeled and julienned
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Make the dressing by whisking the egg, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, and salt together. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking, making a loose mayonnaise. Add the celery root and toss well. Adjust to taste. You could certainly add some fresh herbs to this for both color and flavor.

Parsnip Latkes. We make so many latkes at the restaurant. They make great bases on which to display other foods and more importantly, who doesn't love a good latke? Parsnips are our favorite right now, but we make latkes from almost all root vegetables including potatoes, carrots, celery root, and sweet potatoes. Hint: if you're using sweet potatoes, use a lower flame. The sugar in the potatoes wants to burn before the latke is cooked.

4 large parsnips
1/2 small onion
2 tablespoons minced parsley
2 tablespoons flour
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch black pepper
canola oil

Peel the parsnips and grate them using the coarse side of a box grater into a large bowl. Unlike potatoes, you do not need to squeeze the water out of the parsnips. Grate the onion into the bowl. Add the parsley, flour, egg, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Heat a sauté pan over medium high heat and film with oil. Drop a bit of the parsnip mixture into your pan and flatten into a pancake. A heaping tablespoon yields silver dollar size latkes; three tablespoons yields a 4-inch latke. Cook until golden brown on the bottom and flip. Finish cooking and remove to paper toweling. Sprinkle with kosher salt. Eat one and congratulate yourself on a job well done!

Turnip Bacon Purée. I don't understand why people frown on turnips so much. They're sweet and they're excellent anywhere from raw to puréed. I developed this dish as a silky accompaniment to roast heirloom pork. The sweetness of the turnips and the smokiness of the slab bacon meld deliciously with pork.

4 ounces slab bacon, in small dice
1 pound small turnips, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons heavy cream, optional
salt and pepper

Start cooking the diced bacon in a small sauce pan over medium flame to render some bacon grease, but do not cook the bacon through. Turn up the flame and add the turnips. Brown the turnips slightly. Then cover with water, reduce the flame to medium, and cook until the turnips are soft. Transfer to the food processor and purée. Add heavy cream if you like for richness (I did not do this in the class as I am lactose intolerant) and season to taste.

Fennel Orange Salad. I figure a lot of people have seen fennel in the grocery store and have no clue what to do with it. I wanted to show how friendly and easy this vegetable is. This salad combines oranges, fennel, roasted olives, and a touch of feta cheese.

1 large fennel bulb, julienned
2 tablespoons fennel greens, finely sliced
zest of one orange
3 seedless oranges, sectioned
1/2 cup roasted olives (recipe follows)
1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Season to taste. I covered how to section citrus fruit some years ago. See this post if you are unfamiliar with how to do it.

Roasted Olives

1/2 cup mixed olives, pitted
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
4-5 fresh rosemary needles, minced
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 pinch black pepper

Toss all ingredients and place on a sheet tray. Heat in a hot oven (400F) until sizzling, about 10 minutes. You can also do this on the stove top over a low flame (which is what I did in the class).



Bourbon Flambéed Sweet Potato Hash. This is a quick and fun take on hash that is wonderful with game and it sure wouldn't be bad for Thanksgiving either.

4 ounces slab bacon, diced
1 medium sweet potato, about a pound, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ounce bourbon
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 cup toasted pecans
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a sauté pan over high heat and add the bacon and sweet potatoes. Cook 2-3 minutes, stirring to keep from sticking. Add the onions and cook until translucent 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the bourbon and let it burn off. Check a sweet potato for doneness. If it needs to cook a bit more, add a couple tablespoons of water to the pan to help the sweet potatoe steam. When the sweet potatoes are done, add the cranberries and pecans, mix well and season to taste.

Wellness Festival Recipes

Today, I was invited to give a demonstration of some healthy recipes at the Community Wellness Festival. My talk/demo today hit the same three points that I made last year when I cooked at the festival: 1. Include more fresh/raw vegetables in your diet. 2. Make smart ingredient choices without sacrificing flavor and texture. 3. Get most of your protein from beans, legumes, and fish.

First up was a raw salad of fennel and oranges: healthy for you, tasty, and very crunchy. Second was a hash of sweet potatoes with dried cranberries and pecans, showcasing the carotenes and potassium of sweet potatoes, along with the goodness of fruit and nuts. Finally was a salsa, bright and tasty, that I incorporated into a bean salad with Sea Island red peas and that I put into a whole wheat wrap with pan-roasted catfish, for a tasty and healthy take on a fish taco.



Fennel Orange Salad. I figure a lot of people have seen fennel in the grocery store and have no clue what to do with it. I wanted to show how friendly and easy this vegetable is. This salad combines oranges, fennel, roasted olives, and a touch of feta cheese.

1 large fennel bulb, julienned
2 tablespoons fennel greens, finely sliced
zest of one orange
3 seedless oranges, sectioned
1/2 cup roasted olives (recipe follows)
1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Season to taste. I covered how to section citrus fruit some years ago. See this post if you are unfamiliar with how to do it.

Roasted Olives

1/2 cup mixed olives, pitted
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
4-5 fresh rosemary needles, minced
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 pinch black pepper

Toss all ingredients and place on a sheet tray. Heat in a hot oven (400F) until sizzling, about 10 minutes.



Bourbon Flambéed Sweet Potato Hash. This is a quick and fun take on hash. I often make this with slab bacon at the restaurant, but omitted the bacon given the health-oriented nature of today's presentation. Sweet potatoes are fairly nutrient dense and are a reasonable choice instead of standard potatoes, but they do have a fairly high glycemic index.

1 medium sweet potato, about a pound, diced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ounce bourbon
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 cup toasted pecans
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a saute pan over high heat and add the sweet potatoes. Cook 2-3 minutes, stirring to keep from sticking. Add the onions and cook until translucent 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the bourbon and let it burn off. Check a sweet potato for doneness. If it needs to cook a bit more, add a couple tablespoons of water to the pan to help the sweet potatoe steam. When the sweet potatoes are done, add the cranberries and pecans, mix well and season to taste.



Basic Grape Tomato Salsa. I introduced this because every seems to love salsa and despite it being simple to make, nobody seems to make it at home, relying instead on terrible store-bought salsa. I also wanted to highlight salsa as a great means of introducing flavor and texture to dishes, without adding calories.

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 small red onion, finely diced
3 green onions, sliced
2 tablespoons minced cilantro
2 garlic cloves, minced
juice of one lime to taste
1 small hot pepper in fine dice to taste
salt to taste

Mix the tomatoes, onions, cilantro and garlic. Add lime juice, hot pepper and salt to taste.

For ideas of what to do with salsa, I cooked a small catfish filet and put it in a whole wheat wrap with lettuce, cilantro, and salsa for a quick and healthy take on a fish taco. And I mixed salsa with cooked beans, in this case, Sea Island red peas, a heritage pea from Georgia (see photo below). You can use any canned or cooked bean for a quick bean salad.

Blood Orange Tarte Tatin

I wish you could smell this!

Chipotle-Glazed Coho Salmon

In response to a reader request, here is the recipe to accompany my October post about the Chipotle-Glazed Salmon we were then serving. Note to readers: wild salmon is out of season right now.

Like most restaurant recipes, this one has several components: there's a base of lentils, the broccolini, the fish itself, the chipotle glaze, and the orange salad. None of these recipes is inherently difficult and you shouldn't be daunted by the length or number of recipes. You should be able to carry this whole meal off start to finish in under an hour, which is how I am going to approach this post. The quantities specified here serve four people.

We'll start with the items that take the longest and work towards the items that take the shortest, which is always how we cook in restaurants. If you ever watch Iron Chef, you'll see that they start with the basic prepwork and the long cooking items first. That's just the normal progression of things.

The two long items are the beluga lentils and the chipotle glaze.

Apricot-Chipotle Glaze

2 cups apricot nectar
1 tablespoon adobo from a can of chipotles, or to taste

Most chipotles come packed in a rich smoky tomato sauce called adobo; that's what you want to use for this recipe. Alternatively, you can seed some chipotles and blend them to a paste. Reduce the apricot nectar in a non-reactive sauce pan over medium flame until it is reduced from two cups to about a half a cup. Stop reducing when you have a nice glaze. Stir in the adobo from the chipotles. Add more to taste.

Beluga Lentils

Beluga lentils are very small, quick cooking black lentils that remain whole and become shiny when cooked, resembling beluga sturgeon caviar.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small onion in fine dice
1 small carrot in fine dice
1/2 stalk celery in fine dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup beluga lentils
1 quart water or stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon sweet butter
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan and add the onion, carrot, and celery. Sauté for a couple of minutes until the onion starts to become translucent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the lentils, water, salt, and bay leaf. Simmer the lentils until soft enough for your taste. 25-30 minutes is usually enough for me. Remove the bay leaf, drain the lentils and reserve warm. When you are ready to serve them, add the thyme and butter and bring them back to temperature. Season to taste.

Orange Salad

2 oranges, segmented
1/2 small red pepper, sliced into thin strips
2 green onions, sliced into 1/2" segments
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients and let stand at room temperature while you prepare the rest of the meal. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Salmon

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 salmon filets
salt and pepper

Heat a heavy sauté pan over high flame and film with the oil. Season both sides of the salmon filets. Sear the top side of the salmon until well browned, about 2-3 minutes. Flip the salmon and sear the bottom side. Brush the top side with the chipotle glaze while the bottom side is cooking.

When you stop cooking is a matter of personal preference. I would stop at the point at which the salmon is still medium rare in the center. If you would like to cook it more, place the fish into a hot oven and cook until as done as you like.

Broccolini

1 bunch broccolini
1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Once you have started the fish cooking, drop the broccolini into the water and cook until as tender as you like it, 2-4 minutes. The natural sequence would be: start the fish, start the broccolini, flip the fish, stop cooking the broccolini. While the broccolini is cooking, heat the butter or oil, garlic, red pepper, and a pinch each of salt and pepper in a small pan until the garlic is cooked. Remove the broccolini from the water, drain, and toss with the butter or oil. Reserve warm.

Assembly

Refer to the photo above for how you want the finished dish to look. In the well of four large soup plates, make a disk of lentils using about a 4" diameter ring mold. If you don't have a ring mold, just spoon the lentils into the bowl in neat piles. Place 3-4 pieces of broccolini over the lentils and the fish over the broccolini. Brush the fish with more chipotle glaze. Mound a little orange salad on top and drizzle the plate with more glaze.

You can help me write better recipes by posting any questions you have.

Terrific Tapas Dinner

Last night, we hosted our monthly wine dinner, this month featuring the wines of Spain along with tapas. I've never worked on such a short deadline before. I finally tasted the wines two days before the event and then threw together a really quick menu, one that customers were apparently pretty happy with. It's a shame that we were too slammed—we were full, in addition to the wine dinner—to get photos of the plates.


Mussels with Parsley and Garlic; Mayonesa Verde
Shrimp in Escabeche on Rustic Olive Bread
Cavas Castillo de Perelada Blanc Pescador NV

The Blanc Pescador is a delicious, slightly sparkling vino de aguja that is a slam dunk with shellfish. I cannot eat tapas without eating mussels, so I made this dish of marinated steamed mussels for me. After steaming the mussels, I reduced the mussel liquor with garlic and parsley, then used it as a base for a light vinaigrette. The green mayonnaise brought a fresh herbal quality to the dish.

Tapas, at least here in America, are no longer totally the province of Spain, witnessed by this classic Peruvian escabeche of shrimp, shrimp poached in a court bouillon and marinated in a red wine vinaigrette with sweated carrots and onions, oregano and parsley. I love cold seafood salads when the weather turns warm and the weather just turned warm.

Wild Mushroom Canapés
Tortilla Española with Porcini Mushrooms; Herbed Goat Cheese Mousse
Cavas Castillo de Perelada Tinto Crianza Empordà 2004

Originally, the wine distributor wanted to place this wine near the end of the tasting, but it is a very light-bodied red with black and red cherry fruit, reminding me of a Burgundy or Sangiovese in weight and texture. I detected a slight smoky note in the wine and thought to amplify this by pairing it with mushrooms.

Canapés are a classic tapas form. I sautéed a big batch of Yellowfoot Chanterelles with shallots and thyme and topped grilled slices of baguette. For the tortilla, I riffed on the traditional potato tortilla that you will find in every tapas bar in the world. In my reworking of the dish, I rehydrated dried porcini, then strained and reduced the porcini broth to a few tablespoonfuls. I mixed this broth in with the eggs and lots of fresh thyme. I built the tortillas by layering potatoes, porcini, thinly sliced yellow onion, and local Everona Dairy Piedmont sheep cheese.

Paella Cake; Pimentón Sauce
Piquillo Pepper Stuffed with Spicy Chickpea and Olive Salad
Finca El Paso Monastrell Jumilla 2005

This Monastrell is a full-bodied, fruity red that can stand up to pretty much any red wine food that you can throw at it. I thought that the fruit would like a little spice to play against, so I spiced up the Piquillos del Lodoso just a bit.

The best part of a paella is the socarrat, the crust at the bottom of the pan, so I devised a way many years ago to get lots more crust. I make a basic paella, without the large meat ingredients, bind it with eggs and grated sheep cheese, form it into cakes, and crisp both sides in a pan. The inside is creamy and the outside is crunchy: irresistible.

We are well known for stuffing piquillos—I say they are the world's best sweet red peppers—with just about everything imaginable. Customers had requested bacalao, salt cod, picadillo dulce de cordero, sweet and sour lamb, and just about everything in our repertoire. I wanted to do something that none of the regulars had tasted before and I needed to keep this course vegetarian, so I made a salad of chickpeas, red onion, and green olives dressed with pimentón, olive oil, garlic, and chile paste.

Grilled Banderilla of Potato, Olive & Chorizo; Picada
Albóndigas of Wild Boar Picadillo Dulce in Romesco Sauce
Ribas del Cúa Adras Roble 2004

The Adras is another full-bodied red, so I decided to throw some flavor its way. I've been making banderillas (anything on a small skewer, designed mainly to be eaten as a single bite) for years, but have only recently been designing banderillas to be grilled. These were a tiny local fingerling potato, a large queen olive, and a round of chorizo. The picada is a green sauce that I associate with the Basque regions of Spain (as opposed to France).

And here's the picadillo dulce that customers were clamoring for. The twist this time, wild boar rather than lamb, and rather than stuff it into piquillos, I formed it into traditional meatballs and slow-cooked them in romesco sauce, a roasted red pepper sauce. I wing my picadillo each time that I make it, but the basic idea is that ground meat is seasoned with garlic, herbs, onions, Poblano (green) chiles, sweet spices, almonds, white raisins, and made sweet and sour with brown sugar and apple cider vinegar.

Pinchitos Morunos of Wild Boar; Blood Orange Picada
Smoked Duck with Rioja Blood Orange Risotto
Finca La Emperatriz Rioja Crianza 2003

My first impression on tasting this Rioja was of orange peel, so I decided to emphasize that in the tapas. I boned out a boar shoulder, cut it into bite-sized cubes (pinchitos), and marinated it in various herbs, spices, blood orange zest, and olive oil. We then grilled little skewers of the pinchitos and drizzled them with a green sauce augmented with blood orange juice and zest.

The smoky flavors in the duck were a natural for this elegant and restrained wine. I used the same wine to make a risotto (yes, once very Italian, but increasingly well known throughout Spain) flavored with blood orange juice and zest. I actually had to add just a touch of sugar to tame the acid in the wine and orange juice. To serve, we placed a fan of duck breast down on the plate with a quenelle of risotto over.

Local Everona Dairy Piedmont Sheep Cheese; Dried Cherries; Membrillo
Cavas Castillo de Perelada Cava NV

With a sparkling wine coming last, I had to keep the sweetness down or the wine would come across sour. Here, I riffed on the classic French Basque brébis (sheep cheese) with black cherry jam. I didn't want the sweetness of the jam, so I substituted some perfectly balanced dried sour cherries, and then added a slice of quince paste for just a touch of earthy sweetness.