Encapsulated Lemon Curd
Fluid Basil
Compressed Gooseberries with Elderflower and Hendricks Gin.
While the process of encapsulation annoys me, these gooseberries are ending up in a cocktail by 3pm today.
Scallop
Kimchee Juice
Tomato Vinegar
Sudachi Lime zest
White Goma
Olive Oil
Ciboulette
Serve it like revenge.
Ice Cold.
Poach Egg.
Liquid Yolk.
Pane Anglaise with panko.
Fry at 325F.
Make emulsion of equal parts hazelnut oil, truffle juice and concentrated chicken bouillon with bamix.
Fill into syringe.
Insert a few cc's into fried "poached" egg above as soon as done.
Serve egg over salted compressed raw asparagus.
Griddled artichoke.
Moliterno Cheese.
Watercress.
Morels would be nice.
My dinner last night, quite delicious for a predictable dish.
The yolk-truffle-hazelnut emulsion is insane.
Yellowfin Tuna Compressed for 2 hrs.
85% Vacuum
White Shoyu
Mirin
Dashi
The fish takes on a "Japanese" flavor without it's delicacy being overwhelmed.
On to the final dish.
I am in the process of upgrading my digicam, you know because the pictures on this blog suck.
While it's a rather basic plate of food with marginal creativity, I just had to slap something together to shoot a picture with the Canon 5D and a seriously good macro lens.
Ragout of Boneless Chicken Wings, Sweetbreads, Asparagus and Morels
Poached Egg
Toasted Hazelnut Infused Chicken Jus
A winter dish pretending to be spring.
oops.....and Benton's lardons.
Definitely winter.
Pork Cheek Tart Tatin
Benton's Bacon Ice Cream
White Chocolate-Almond Panna Cotta
Clear Seaweed Gelee
Ossetra Caviar
Puffed Parsnip
Cuisinart makes it really easy to tenderise nuts.
Pressure cooked pine nuts with water, salt and pine nut oil.
Great texture and better flavor.
Cooked with Leblanc Hazelnut oil, they were fantastic.
Also try Sicilian pistachios with Leblanc pistachio oil, water, salt, sugar.
Leblanc oils can be found at Keller Imports.
Version1.
Milk + Cream infused with cauliflower, sugar and egg yolks cooked as a "creme brulee".
Version2.
Milk + Cream infused with cauliflower, sugar and set with iota carrageenan.
Custard Burned.
Cube of poached pineapple.
Mandarin orange syrup.
Gingerbread soil.
Whipped peach (versawhip).
Version 2 was better, much clearer communication of cauliflower flavor which is a revelation balanced against orange.
Less "eggy" flavor and completely light.
Coming next week.
The Smoked fish platter.
Obviously you can figure it out.
Please tell me someone has tried to make Miso Dulche De Leche before I made some today.
It's ridiculously good.
Steak and Kidney Pie on a bed of creamed Turnips.
The very last ode to winter
Seems like something you would see on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.
Really I am just getting used to my camera again.
Braised Pork cheeks.
Edamame-Truffle Pistou
Potato-Serrano Ham Pave
Paired with 1997 Pommard.
Edamame Pesto is composed of :
Edamame
Truffle Juice
Black Truffle
Moliterno
Olive Oil
Trace amounts of truffle oil
Tondo white balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Playing with Alginate.
Mint Spheres floating in ginger broth.
Some things are so tried and true that there is virtually no reason to screw around with them.
Unfortunately we as chefs have to be creative with excess products.
You thought this business was about food ?
Nope.
It's about money.
I generally don't like to use the word "scraps" in kitchens.
True scraps are destined for the bin but what does one do with the irregular edges of foie gras, chicken legs and wings, lobster knuckles among other things ?
We get creative.
On my list of top 20 things to eat on planet earth before you die is the classic Italian agnolotti of butternut squash with sage brown butter, so good and that's just what I made myself for lunch today. Practice makes perfect my friends, it's good to bang out a batch of fresh pasta that actually works every now and then.
Pic 1.
Squash Puree a-la-Thermonix.
Pic 2.
The aforementioned Squash agnolotti in it's basic form.
Pic 3.
Squash Agnolotti
Foie Gras stuffed chicken wings
Squash Puree
Sichuan Pepper and Fig Vincotto
A bit pretentious yes but absolutely tasty.
I am serving this at my upcoming D Y'quem dinner which might need ambulances on standby for diabetic shock.
Daikon vacuum packed with Fuji apple juice and horseradish subsequently caramelized.
Delicious with pork belly.
Look up.
See that white stuff leaching out of the fish ?
Yup.
it's already overcooked.
What we want is warm sashimi.
Click for the BIG picture.
Spring is coming.
Pineapple Confit
Elderflower Gelee
Mozzarella Ice Cream
Orange and Mint
Olive Oil
Click for a better view.
Potato "Chips"
Avocado
Fuyu Persimon
Peppercress
Smoked Salmon
So our little french toast follies went well.
With no specific plan ahead, our student showed up with a huge tub of Plugra clarified butter which I thought was hilarious.
Brioche from Balthazar which is my favorite next to the ones they used to hand out after dinner at Ducasse's place.
So here is how it went.....
Since the USM lenses with image stabilizers cost a sheet load of money and I do mean "Sheet", I was just at the mint and dollars come out of the printer in large sheets, I decided to take the high tech-low tech approach to some of those tighter macro shots.
Use a remote control to trigger the camera.
Expect some interesting macro shots soon.
Onion Tart Tatin.
In progress.
To be edited later.
I wasn't quite sure what I was trying to achieve, a watermelon based salad or a composed cheese course.
Anyway as I plowed ahead and looked in my pantry and started to taste things, the watermelon itself was rather anemic, a bloody good analogy if I should say so myself.
So what does one do with anemic watermelons ?
Compression.
Into a vacuum pouch with salt and elderflower syrup and full compression for one hour.
It ends up with a deep red color, almost like Saku Tuna for sashimi.
In fact I have an idea for a tuna dish based on this.
The watermelon is trimmed and plated with St Agur, a mildly salty blue cheese and dressed young celery hearts. A few sprinkles of candied olive crumbs and lemon mosto oil finish the dish.
Quite delicious actually but it tastes more like a refreshing summer dish as opposed to a cheese course. Though young celery has an inviting vegetal quality, the dish will benefit from something like Purslane or perhaps young Sorrel.
Cherries in Kirsch
La Colombe Monte Carlo
Cocoa Pebbles
Smoked Chocolate
Pondicherry Pepper
We have an idea where we are going but we will get there tommorow.
Nothing cutting edge.
Just thoroughly satisfying.
Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, a pain in the ass and the better part of 3 days of work but quite excellent.
Turkey Breast Torchon
Turkey Leg Confit Ravioli
Wild Mushrooms
Rainwater Madeira Jus
Edamame. Truffle Pistou
Cranberry Orange Gel
Challah Pancetta Bread pudding
Horseradish Froth
Caramelized Parsnip Puree
Bitter Orange
Lemon Miso Glazed Fuji Apples
My first time actually preparing Unagi from live fish.
Slippery bastards they are ! but much better flavor than the prepared stuff.
This was quite tasty, cool heat at the end.
Chocolate Lily Pads on butterscotch consomme.
Nothing to say.
Playing with food and photo editing.
Chocolate.
Agar.
Gellan Lt 100.
Gelatin.
Work in progress.
Tons of garlic, pimenton, rosemary, thyme, olive oil, sliced onion, Jerez, salt, pepper.
Marinated in vacuum overnight.
Poached in the bag @ 70C 24 hrs.
To be served with gnocchi, candied olives, preserved lemon, marcona almond, fennel pollen.
It's nice to have a day off when you are motivated to start to assemble components of ideas or just play with a few things to see how things work out.
I am not trying to re-invent the wheel here, just getting stuff done and see if it works or not.
On the agenda today:
Carrot Puree .
Sage Oil.
Poached pineapple for a dessert.
Vacuum marinated wings.
Cipollini onions.
Potatoes.
Scallop
Chouchroute of Apple and Fennel
Miso
Yuzu
The menu for the Snackbar dinner was simply composed in a 15 minute conversation in person. Cooks have a unique langauge, we can communicate the sensibilities and flavors desired in the final dish. I have a good sense of John Macdonald's ideas, however at some point we need to "play with the food" to start to make those ideas more concrete. This is the first iteration of the proposed wagyu beef dish.
Wagyu Tri Tip
Oxtail Gyoza
Parsnip
Black Trumpet Mushroom
This may not be the final presentation but at least we now know that the compositions works solidly, all that is left to see is who will be playing it, the Academy of Ancient Music or St Martin In The Fields.
Prawns compressed for 3 hrs wrapped in serrano ham.
Ham subsequently removed before cooking.
Based on a discussion with Talbot.
Lobster stock infused with peppadews and esplette.
Chantenay carrot Juice infused with vadouvan.
Roulade of Kanpachi wrapped in Chicken Skin.
Smoked Eggplant Cream.
Truffle-Almond "Pistou"
Watercress.
Green Herbs Jus.
Butter Poached Lobster
Castelmagno Cheese polenta
Verjus Froth
Brown Butter - Etorki Consomme
Practice for an upcoming Job.
First Trial.
Tasty Components.
Alas I am allergic to lobster thus an objective guinea pig taster has to be found to vouch for the "cohesivenes" of the entire dish.
Togarashi Menthol Marshmallows.
Hot and sweet just like your favourite person.
I can handle the heat.
Can you ?
A strange sensation of spice and heat with a cool finish.
You may approach with trepidation but you definitely want more.
Orkney Salmon
Pork Belly
Pork Shoulder Confit
Prunes in Earl Grey Tea
Turnip-Vanilla Puree
The teleological aspect of culinary creativity does not need to result in a dish that works, it is quite possible in the process to take ideas and preparations for other uses. In this case here is an absolutely revolting dessert of Chocolate-chicory brownies with Roasted eggplant ice cream, smoked chocolate and cumin caramel.
While the assemblage leaves much to be desired, the individual components themselves will be paired with other things. Smoked Eggplant ice cream is intruiging and could do wonders for a Lamb Shoulder tataki if it is cooked on charcoal, paired with some peppery olive oil with arugula in some form.
The cumin caramel eventually led to a delicious "Roasted Chestnuts is cumin caramel" as an accompanient to a muscovy drake breast. Playing with food is fun indeed.
While the anti-griddle was cold (haha), I decided to re-conceptualize a dessert already featured on this blog earlier, the combination of ginger scented peaches, basil, buttermilk and lemon. In the this case, the liquid batter was added into the ring mold half way, frozen completely and then basil oil and syrup was added, also frozen with a final addition of the batter. The old school "encapsulation". The cross section showls the Buttermilk/lemon-basil sandwich on crisp rice with togarashi and drops of the spiced peach puree.
Pancakes, bacon and maple syrup, the classic American breakfast. The classic British breakfast has been made into a dessert by Heston at the Fat Duck. I believe French toast, tomato jam and bacon ice cream. We here at SKblog decided to try a slightly different approach and NOT actually adding bacon to the dessert.
The components of the desert are :
Butterscoth Foam made into pancakes on the Anti-griddle.
Applewood smoked chocolate soil.
Brown butter powder made with beurre noisette, hazelnut oil and Malto.
Blis maple syrup.
It mimicks the texture of breakfast and has that requisite smoky baconness.
Is "baconness" a usable adjective ?
For issues of practicality, I rubbed a bit of grapessed oil on the anti-griddle and covered it with a teflon mat to easy release.
Ring molds obviously hold the "pancake" together.
A bit of a pain in the arse but tasty indeed.
These kinds of dishes are why restaurants have stagiares.....haha!
Pigs trotter croquettes.
Ground seasoned meat and black trumpets wrapped in caul fat, formed into a "torchon" in a round "pain de mie" mold, poached CSV, cooled, unmolded, sliced into 1 inch thick coins, breaded and deep fried eventually.
The skin is cured and cooked alone CSV for about 2 days, cooled, cut into circles and deep fried into "puffs" or "Chicharones".
I am working on a requested Crab Consomme for a Chinese inspired dinner in 2 weeks, the backbone of the broth is a double chicken bouillon which is further infused with roasted dungeness crabs, lemongrass, star anise, chinese celery, leeks and ginger. Shopping in Chinatown is dicey at best.
I went looking for some good chinese sauasage on canal street, daily news reports are slowly turning the American public into Chin-o-phobes. I suspect things may be blown out of proportion as usual.
Cured pork however has not killed anyone yet.
Although it's no big secret that the magic number for soft cooked coagulated eggs is somewhere between 63.8 and 64.0 Centigrade, I thought it would be interesting to see how the eggs evolved along thier journey. While this experiment isnt scientifically airtight, it seems good enough to answer the question I had which is "when is the egg yolk no longer flowing". I got these eggs from Trader Joe's which is like a fancy 7-11, no particular reason other than they were evenly sized brown eggs with odd expiration dates on each egg. Eggs were weighed individually and they were relatively within less than 1 gram of each other. I measured the starting temperature of each eggs's surface with the infra-red thermometer recorded @ 25C. The eggs went into the bath at 63.8 C. After 30 mins, one egg was removed and cracked every 5 minutes. The 5th egg yielded a yolk that no longer flowed when broken and in fact can be carefully harvested whole. That would be 55 minutes at 63.8C. I wish I had recorded the egg surface temperatures after cooking before I cracked them. I suppose I must repeat this at some point to see how other eggs fare.
Edited to add:
The original number of 63.8C was supplied by Alex at Ideasinfood.
Speck on pork skin wafers.
An interesting juxtaposition of textures.
Accompaniment to a shotglass of artichoke soup.
The world of creative output moves from ideas to notebooks,sketches, discussions and execution. In between there is research, tweaking, intuition and opinion. Sometimes things just work and go directly from idea to execution. More often than not they become side projects. My side projects are not designed with a road map, they just evolve as one moves along. Since there is no end goal, there is no fucus on what is right or wrong, you just play and take what you can from the process. Side projects rarely ever result in successful dishes I am happy with but do offer a roadmap and ideas for others. In most cases they are failures but we learn as much if not more from our failures as we do from our sucesses. I call this dish "Osso Buco going nowhere". In actuality what is on the plate is a veal shank with wasabi pea crust, green legumes, lovage-balsamic syrup and a crispy bone marrow croquette. A complete failure but a lot was learned. Remember .............like your first marriage, looks aren't everything.
Edited to add:
On second thoughts, after repeating the dish and
1. Using a handheld heat gun for the crust thus not overcooking the meat.
2. Bringing the croquette to room temp before frying so it was more "custardy".
3. Pulling back on the concentration of the balsamic syrup and using Keltrol to thicken it.
4. Eating it with a glass of Clos de Chenes Volnay.
It is far from a complete failure.
This process will ultimately be applied to brined veal tenderloin.
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