STUDIOKITCHEN

Smoked Lentils

Smoked maple Glazed Lentils.

Smoky lentil cooking water is later infused with toasted cumin and Xantanised @  to yield a delicious silky sauce that works with fish and shellfish.

Lentils above are served with Pork or Duck.

The Root Of The Matter

Fall is upon us with roots in all their glory. Composing a plate of properly cooked root vegetables makes us rethink just how complex a dish should be. Carrots, Beets and Radishes cooked separately and dressed with Hazelnut oil and Moscatel Vinegar. A sweet tang that still lets the flavors shine through.

Smokin Shrooms

Its been a whirlwind week of cooking and travel without much time to hold a camera let alone blog anything, the typepad application for the I phone is quite useless. Today I finally broke open the smoker and smoked some rather large royal trumpets. My plan is to evenly slice them on a meat slicer, cut into strips by hand for a relatively uniform dice. You guessed it I am trying a smoked mushroom risotto inspired by the riceless kind at Elements below. I bet it would be delicious with pieces of confit duck folded in and toasted pressure cooked pine nuts.

Eating Out For Inspiration.

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Dear Philadelphians (or anyone else between the Washington DC and Philadelphia), THIS  is the best restaurant between you and the Holland Tunnel. last night we visited SCOTT and his team on a quiet tuesday night for what was a spectacular meal. Don't take my word for it, run don't walk to Princeton and eat some of the most flawless delicious food I have had in a long time. The highlight of the meal was the riceless risotto of mushrooms which was brought to my attention by our favorite eater and hilarious internet trouble maker Mr Plotnicki . That is a joke Steve, you rock and I love reading your detailed verbal sparring matches. Anyway the dinner was special.

Tofu . Ginger . Scallion . Shiro Dashi

Apples and Alliums

Cardoon Soup . Black Truffle

Uni . Mango . Whipped Lardo . Mustard

Hare Pate

Oyster . Ponzu . Persimon

Kindai Toro Tasting plus Cheek

Parpadelle . Late Summer Vegetables

Sturgeon . Kimchee . (Something Else I forgot)

Wood Pigeon . Green Beans . (Forgot)

A5 Wagyu . Broccoli In Different Forms

Bacon French Toast . Smoked Maple . Brioche

Malt Ice Cream . The Best Snickers Bar You Ever Had.

Game On 11.19.09

It's time to cook soulfull seasonal food again so I am making my next event a game dinner.

Fortunately all manner or birds, animals and waterfowl are available this time of year which should make things quite easy.

The menu is below.

5 Courses of meat, 1 gratuitous fruit dessert to lighten things and some chocolate to close the deal.

The date is November 19.

The cost is $90.

You can book HERE.

MENU.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup . Confit Of Duck . Yuzu Poached Asian Pear . Celery

Foie Gras and Smoked Chocolate Terrine . Cinnamon Toast . Olive Caramel . Quince

Braised Rabbit Escabeche . Snail and Butter Ravioli . Pimenton . Smoked Eggplant

Scottish Wood Pigeon Croquette . Black Trumpet Mushroom . Celery Root . Apple

Wild Boar Belly . Puy Lentils . Stonefruit Chutney . Marchand de Vin

Pineapple Scarves . Crispy Orange . Liquid Basil . Lemon-Brie Ice Cream

Smoked Chocolate Cake . Roasted Banana Sorbet . Olive Paper

The Things We Take For Granted

PARCHMENT PAPER isn't such a big deal unless you need it and have none, it is one of those indispensable things partly because you buy 1000 sheets at a time and one day poof no parchment. Notice I did not say rolls, rolled parchment is an annoying waste of time. Even when cooking in teflon lined pans, an individual tart tatin cannot survive the adhesive properties of caramel. Parchment to the rescue.

 

Old School Frenchie Desserts Are Still Quite Good.....well sort of if you lighten em up.

When was the last time anyone had a Clafouti. It appears they are still bloody delicious.

 

YUM !

Standardization of Cooking Equipment

I was asked a few days ago in a comment details about pressure cooking times. I tried an experiment yesterday in which I cooked the same thing in both a traditional stove top pressure cooker and the above machine, the results despite all time correlation calculations were vastly different all 3 times. I will thus advise anyone who is trying to reproduce the results of what I post regarding pressure cooked items to buy the Cuisinart electric pressure cooker otherwise you will get mixed results.

Chocolat Demi-Sel Croquant

Chocolate Salt for Ice Cream Below.

Steamed Miso Toffee Pudding.

Steamed Miso Toffee Pudding . Caramel Ice Cream "Demi-Sel Croquant au Chocolat". Smoked Chocolate

Steamed Puddings are very moist, perfect for cold days and result in a different texture from dry baked traditional cakes. If cakes could have Umami this is it. There is in fact a small amount of 100% atomized chocolate in the cake but only to reinforce the caramelized miso flavor which is nicely offset by caramel Ice Cream with crunchy bits of Chocolate Salt spun into the ice cream. The acid test-if a 5 year old asks for seconds, the dish works.

Why F With Perfectly Good Italian Food.

Butter Roasted Potato Skins Infused Into...................Raw Milk

Curdled with Rennet and Lipase = Roasted Potato Whey.

Which Is Currently Draining into Roasted Potato Ricotta. (Yummy by the way)

 

To Make Tommorow:

1.   Roasted Potato Gnocchi . Roasted Potato Ricotta . Pesto

2.   Roasted Potato-Roasted Potato Ricotta Gnocchi . Brown Butter . Parmesan . Sage

Why mess with perfectly good Italian food.

Because all avenues must be explored.

We wont know unless someone goes there.

It is possible to play and still honor the simple principles of Italy.

The Importance Of Visiting Ethnic Foods.

More often that not inspiration in the modern age seems to be incubated by the current, what's hot or on the current pulse of every art form. We however sit on a treasure trove of history which can propogate many ideas. 10 years ago you had to get on a plane or live in a very diverse neighborhood in America to be exposed to some measure of authentic food pathways. Thanks to the internet, increased immigration and the proliferation of ethnic immigrant food, the landscape of food is much more interesting. The question at the end of the day is how much effort is it worth. I woke up early this morning and decided to make SHAKSHUKA, simple enough but also complex in it's spice profile. At the end of the day it forces you to realize shakshuka is neither salsa or marinara sauce, it is shakshuka. Delicious in it's own right and certainly a plate of eggs that will wake you up happily this winter.

You can find a funny recipe HERE. which was pretty good but I adjusted with Za-atar, Zhoug and Aleppo Pepper.Serve with warm pita.

Carpaccio Starting From Medium Rare.

Does raw meat really taste taste that good.

I say no.

Tartares are loaded with strong ingredients for which the meat mostly is a textural afterthought as are most carpaccio.

Could a somewhat cooked carpaccio be even more tasty, after today yes.

Hell yes.

Above are rosemary whey marinated grass fed veal tenderloins cooked in the cvap to an even medium rare.

They will be shaped in cling film to an even round cross section, vacuum sealed and frozen.

Sliced to order on the meat slicer. They are already redolent of a hint of rosemary, meat flavor and a complex lactic flavor almost as if you are eating what the cow ate.

A carpaccio that lets the meat shine, simply with some Reggiano, Liquid Pistachio-Anchovy Praline and bits of super peppery Arugula.

Served cold it is sublime.

Served warm simply by heating up the plate in a 250F oven for 20 Minutes thereby letting the meat be cooked by the warmth of the plate is stunning.

Marmalade Miso

 

Pressure Cooked Shiro Miso . Orange Juice . Orange Zest. Sugar

Incredibly delicious.

What to do with it.

Easy To Find Cheese You Should Be Eating

ETORKI

Green Tomato Mostarda

Red Vein Sorrel

New Rule #55 Associated Flavors Are Not Intrinsic Flavors.

New Rule #55

OLD BAY SEASONING IS NOT CRAB.

So last week I go this unnamed place  and everyone says you have to try the crab fries, So I sit back waiting for a heaping bowl of fries covered with crabmeat, provolone cheese and doused with Americaine sauce (ha ha) but instead I get french fries covered with Nasty Old Bay seasoning. There is nothing I despise more than old bay, in fact for that reason when I go to Washington DC I have to fly so I am not anywhere remotely near Baltimore or the Chesapeake Bay. Makes me gag.

Anyway they should be called old bay fries since there actually is NO crab in it. Obviously we have visited this conversation ad-nauseum with the truffle oil discussion.

So there.

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Not Chocolate Cake

Today I baked the first iteration of the "Chocolate" Cake using Miso-De-Leche in place of chocolate, results were excellent. Although this was done in true "genoise" style with no chemical leavening agents like baking powder or baking soda, there is room to adjust the evenness and durometer of the cake using the latter method. The flavor however was excellent, a deep umami caramel burnt flavor that lends itself to multiple counterpoints.

Here it is paired with a butterscotch ice cream, smoked chocolate soil and Ginger Streusel.

Flavors were on point, now to work on texture.

Profoundly Delicious Fried Chicken

Sadly while your chances of experiencing this are slim to none unless you decide to make lipase enhanced mozzarella whey, the best fried chicken EVER resulted from marinating the chicken in SALTED MOZZARELLA WHEY overnight instead of BUTTERMILK. It was not exactly a leap of faith, logic dictates lactic enzymes would tenderize the bird but the flavor of the mozzarella whey fried in peanut oil can only be properly described with profanity.

Next is whey poached chicken fried steak with green tomato pickled green grape tempura.

Mi So Wrong.

By the way another reason you should pay close attention to your ingredients, I am about to make a better large batch of miso-de-leche and decided to spring up $$$$ for super high quality miso, while this is an excellent brand I have used in the past I noticed something odd when I got back to my kitchen. What is wrong with this picture.

Perhaps if you click it and blow it up you will see.

Flourless Miso De Leche Cake

New Rule #54

PRESSURE COOK EVERYTHING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

Dulce de Miso or Miso de Leche a.k.a. "Simulated" Chocolate

New Rule #54 which will be posted above this explains the motivation behind this exciting discovery.

In the last few weeks I have been pressure cooking everything after conversations with Alex T and his experiments with caramelized white chocolate and coconut milk. My original intent was simply to use it as a time saving vehicle in making miso-dulce-de leche for a pork dish. The approach was simply to caramelize condensed milk and add some miso for a depth of savory saltiness. Everything worked perfectly, milk was caramelized and then put in a blender, thinned out with some water and augmented with miso to taste, great balanced caramel-salty flavors.

The second time I made it, I decided to save time by just putting everything in a  mason jar and caramelizing.

2 Random ratios were used not for any specific reason but to have a baseline of the results.

Jar1  170grams Condensed Milk-50grams aka miso

Jar2  120grams Condensed Milk-60grams aka miso

Jars 3 and 4 used same ratios with the only deviation being "shiro" miso.

All 4 jars were pressure cooked for 1 hr at high pressure.

Water was filled just below the rim of jars.

After cooking and letting the jars cool down sufficiently by convection, you get a frightening looking mush of caramelized milk and miso which made me sad at first because I just felt like I wasted time and product but the next logical thing to do was to emulsify and see what happens. I poured everything into a thermomix blender, turned on the heat function and pureed. The mixture emulsified somewhat but still looked a bit grainy so I started adding hot water a little at a time and presto it became silky smooth.

The true revelation however after opening the blender lid was it smelled almost like chocolate but tasted exactly like a bittersweet chocolate ganache in the 68 to 72% cocoa content range but there was absolutely no cocoa in it.

I tuned on the blender again and adjusted with a bit of caster sugar and ultratex-3 and gave it to 4 very seasoned people to say what it was without telling them.

They all said .......duh....chocolate!

The possibilities opened up by this are huge. Tonight I am working on a flourless cake made in the syle of St.Nizer, basically a flourless savory "Miso de Leche" cake which would work with Pork, Duck and Squab among other things.

Imagine a "Miso de Leche" cake with pickled or brandied cherries paired with Foie Gras.

How about Smoked "Miso de Leche" on chicharones.

I already have a Miso De Leche Ice Cream freezing for the Pacojet.

The introduction of nut oils like hazelnut or peanut would be insane.

The Miso De leche ended up last week with the pork belly at Breakfast For Dinner.

So there you have it.

Making "Chocolate" without any Cocoa Involved.

Where is your food from.

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Blue Moon Acres New Jersey.

Fall Cooking Series V. 1.0 Foundations and Modern Influences

My Fall cooking instruction series starts this Saturday 10/24/09.

The first class will be titled

THE FOUNDATIONS OF FLAVOR AND THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN TECHNIQUE.

The focus of this class is to return to the basic building blocks of flavor development and introduce you to the influence of modern technique as a vehicle to amplify and preserve flavors.

We will concentrate of 4 dishes which will be discussed in detail and theory, executed by me and consumed by the attendees.

It is more important that you take advantage of the information and pay attention to the details than to actually expect to cook. You will be supplied co-incise recipes to cook with at your leisure.

The goal is to help you be a better cook by understanding the theory and techniques behind flavor development as opposed simply being able to follow recipes.

Interested parties can sign up HERE and details will be sent to you.

This event will take place in Philadelphia.

Simplicity and Refining Classics.

I was very surprised by the reaction this got at the breakfast dinner, who knew people would be raving about fish eggs on chicken eggs on dehydrated fried parsnips.

Apple

While the tomato crop clearly left a lot to be desired, apples are doing fantastic. It is hard to avoid them at this time of the year. I am working on a dish of apples  cooked by different methods. So far in the bath are Granny Smith, Gala, Honeycrisp and Cortland. Perhaps others will be involved.

The Forest And The Trees.

Looking out my window 7:12 Eastern Standard Time Continental United States.

Non edited picture.

Simply nature showing it's chops.

Though this picture has nothing to do with food,I put it up because at the time it was taken I was thinking about the importance of stepping away from the kitchen to remember other aspects about life around us, people, nature, music, architecture, humor among many other things. A tunnel visioned focus on creativity does not in fact result in creativity in it's most profound sense, sometimes we need to stem away from the forest to see the trees, after all it's just bloody food.

Let Them Eat Canele.

I found these online HERE.

You can get yours in Philadelphia at Pumpkin Market, Headhouse Farmer's Market, La Colombe and Clark Park Farmer's Market.

Deliciously addictive with my sunday morning coffee.

Aldea

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George's BLOG

George's RESTAURANT

Tremendous food, I quite enjoyed it. Reminded me very much of VERNON MORALES who was the best chef in the city when he was working in Philadelphia. We could use a restaurant like this in Philly.

Breakfast Dinner 10.16.09

The breakfast dinner was a lot of fun to cook, certainly not the most complicated or inspired thing I have ever done but at the end of the day the flavors were solid and most of the dishes made a strong case for being inspired by breakfast.

Hotate . Breakfast Radish . Chamomile-Apple Gelee . Celery

Obviously no one eats radishes for breakfast and that was just a play on words but the idea was more inspired by serving tea. While this dish was cold, it is possible to warm it up with an agar gel and barely warmed scallops.

 

Marble Rye Ice Cream . Smoked Char . Sorrel

While it was tempting to add pickled red onions or capers to this, the idea of a smoked salmon sandwich works better in this form as just those two components, the idea of an onion-caper streusel would elevate the dish.

Egg Salad "Chiboust" . Caviar . Puffed Parsnip

Basically eggs on eggs, the eggs were boiled perfectly, separated and then combined with horseradish, lemon zest and juice into an unsweetened Chibouste cream yielding a lighter fluffy rendition of egg salad.It could simply have been served on toasted brioche but the parsnip puffs were perfectly textured for it, the perfect single bite.

Rainwater Madeira Oatmeal . Roasted Matsutake . Parmesan

I am surprised I had not thought about this sooner, this is probably the ultimate comfort food. Essentially the dish is a variation of a mushroom risotto with refined touches to enhance the earthy flavors and opens up a whole new world of savory oatmeal. Imagine a chestnut oatmeal with Squab or candied black olive and fennel seed oatmeal with Lamb.

Toasted Croissant Soup . Cheddar Whey Froth . Bacon Wrapped Andouillete

Quite silly indeed but one of the best flavor combinations of the evening, this is essentially your croissant bacon-egg and cheese sandwich. Just as good for a hangover.

 

Spanish Mackerel . Tomatoes . Chermoula

The logic started with making a case for one of countless frightening interpretations of breakfast in England. The Brits love fried fish and tomato in the AM. Kippers are as salty as the dead sea and even after properly cooking mackerel and tomatoes, it was still boring. I quickly made some Chermoula which perfectly completes the dish. While considering this breakfast may be a stretch, one can certainly agree that without foreign influences British food rarely has a leg to stand on.

 

Meadow Run Farm Egg . Triple Chicken Bouillon . Whipped Foie Gras

A simple pristine egg with little competition, the broth and liver just added Umami but the star was the slightly salted egg just as breakfast should be.

 

"La Ratte" Potato-Oxtail Terrine . Potato-Egg Yolk Foam . Oxtail Jus

Steak and Eggs sort of.

It rocked.

 

Old Spot Pork Belly . Dulche de Miso . Apple . Fennel . Celeriac

Good old bacon.

Have you ever had bacon with Nutella.

Try it ................Fabulous.

Caramel Corn Puffs . Celery Root Milk . Corn Sorbet . Mint

Your standard breakfast cereal.

Celery root milk is a revelation achieved by cooking a light ice cream base  in the bath infused with fragrant celeriac.

Frozen Butterscotch . Smoked Chocolate . Roasted Banana Sorbet . Bourbon Maple Glazed Benton Bacon

This one speaks for itself.