Brining free Range Chicken in Olive Brine for Sous Vide Cooking. The brine is straight from a jar of HQ cerignola olives adjusted with garlic and rosemary.
I expect to brine for 24 hrs, CSV @62C for about 45 minutes and finish with a sear basting with brown butter.
As for the rest of the plate, gently cooked fruits and vegetables, very thin "loose" Chermoula.
That is dinner tommorow.
Freeze an Egg Yolk in a silicone demi-sphere.
Wrap with a ball of firm brandade (yes with potato).
Crust with instant mashed potato.
Fry.
Served with
BlackBread-Prune Anchoiade.
Arugula.
A lovely day in Central Park today, after a quick client consultation and a nice chat on the benefits of CVap VS Rational Combi Oven with JOEL , I decided to get out of Manhattan for dinner.
A short scenic drive to the barnyard.
Very good food, great philosophy.
I suggest you go if you haven't already.
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Sorrel Margarita with Arugula Salt.
Who knew ?
Compressed Turnip and Pork Terrine
Spicy Lemon Curd
Apple . Peppercress
Very intense lemon curd + yuzu kosho + keltrol.
Slow Roasted Pork Belly
Miso Butterscotch
Daikon
Watercress
Almond-Sansho
I had the Char with Passionfruit at Tailor in New York which inspired the following.
Certainly an interesting combination though I did think I prefer it less cooked and more tart.
Something magical happens with the combination of slow cooked Char, Trout or Wild Salmon and tart citrusy flavors.
Wild Salmon here is CSV'ed with passionfruit nectar, lemon mosto oil and a sprig of thyme at about 48C. You basically just want to warm it through.
If the fish turns barely white from the coagulated proteins, it isn't quite as delicate. It was also cured for about 3 hrs with salt, sugar and lemon zest.
The poaching juices emulsified with a few drops of hazelnut oil make a fantastic sauce.
It will be served with cauliflower puree made with almond milk and a few leaves of wild rocket.
The mostarda making binge continues, next celery.
Basically peeled chopped celery cooked 3 times in 32 degrees Baume syrup.
The final liquid's viscosity is changed with Keltrol TF....I believe means Transparent -Fine mesh.
It makes more sense to control the viscosity with Keltrol since if you do it with the sugar it will be waaaaaaay too sweet due to syrup density.
The mostarda is tasty.
What to do with it next ?
Complete immersion in food creates tunnel vision, every now and then one just has to stray into another artform to see a different creativity index. Architecture is an excellent inspiration in terms of conception, construction, flow and form. On of the more intersting people I have met on my cooking journeys is Winka. The "Wylie" of architecture in terms of modernism.
More ?
Autumn is finally upon us, time for some butternut squash among other gourds in multiple preparations. I love the classic Japanese beef stew with Kabocha. Coming soon.
I was recently handed a bunch of dried Japanese condiments by an undisclosed source, which would ordinarily be available in liquid or pasty form. "Why" is never the question, the question is "what" to do with it. We shall see as time goes on.
Preliminary success with the mostarda project.
The fennel was shaved gently on a japanese mandolin, I used a poching syrup @ 20 degrees on the Baume scale, simple syrup is 28 degrees on the scale. 20 degrees isn't copiously sweet and 4 drops of Senape was plenty. While delicious, it isnt quite up to Italian mostarda standards.
The next batch will be made in 4 different successive batches of new syrup with perhaps an addition of Pernod to get that syrupy gooeyness of Italian mostarda.
Inspired by Yellow.
Prawns gently roasted with paella spices
Horseradish - parsnip
Preseved lemon - Tomato Jam
Spiced Carrot Juice.
Every now and then you hear about a particular chef's signature dish, something so unique with a very particular flavor or texture that defines the chef's philosophy. For several years now I have heard people rave about the Arpege egg in Paris, a combination of a coddled egg with sherry vinegar, maple syrup and whipped cream. One never quite knows what these dishes taste like though I can mentally assemble the flavors. After coming across a recipe in a Saveur article, I decided to try the dish. It sounded easy enough and I actually had all the ingredients in my posession.
Continue reading "Chaudfroid d'Oeuf au Sirop d'Erable a.k.a. Arpege Egg." »
Compressing vegetables works well in amplifying flavor and changing texture. This squared off firm but ripe yellow low-acid tomato is compressed with the liquid left over from pickled peaches and a bit of olive oil.
The resulting "peach-tomato" will be semi frozen, wrapped with serrano ham and served with leaves of super peppery arugula.
At the end of the day, similar to countless variations of hams and fruits but again raises the question of whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable.
One of the most frequently asked questions is how we as chefs balance flavors. In many ways we work with the same intellectual thought as practitioners of other disciplines such as music and architecture. In the same way musicians can weave different layers of tone, structure, harmony and percussion or how clever architects weave the environment into the visuals and mechanics of a building, we balance flavors, temperatures and textures. Music is a much more easily understood analogy, the Miles Davis quintet of 1959 to 1964 generated the best selling jazz album of all time.
Every properly made soup should taste like the third track on Kind of Blue .
When you listen to Blue in Green, it's like tasting a soup without it's garnish for the better part of two minutes, Miles is rolling along with a muted horn while Wynton Kelly provides texture with the piano. When you taste the garnish if there is one, it should complement the soup but still retain it's distinct character, that happens at 2.29 minutes when Coltrane or Adderly add the tenor saxophone. What was already perfect gets even better.
Balance is what we seek, to let everything and everyone shine.
For the record, an equally interesting example of the musical analogy is Mahler 2 C minor/Marilyn Horne/Kiri Te Kanawa/Boston/Ozawa.
Chefs to some degree "crib" ideas from other chefs. Inspiration and precedent are components of creativity, one gets an idea, looks at established protocols (in the case of cookery, known flavor affinity) and ties the elements together. The line between inspiration and plagiarism is pretty clear, credit your sources, acknowledge your inspirations. These rock shrimp were gently cooked at 52C with Cardamon Oil and sea salt. The sorbet base is carrot juice infused with Vadouvan. Tender leaves of young celery complete the dish. Inspired by Providence..
While eating pork buns at Momofuku last week, Rae commented that the sauce almost had a butterscotch quality to it. I have gotten used to Asian sauces with a sweet-savory flavor, Hoisin, Saikyo-Miso and Nobu's Mustard-su miso sauce. Pairing miso with butterscotch seemed logical if properly balanced.
Sugar+Water=Caramel.
Caramel+Cream=Toffee to some extent.
Toffee+Brown Butter= Butterscotch.
Butterscotch+Miso= Miso Butterscotch.
A deliciously sweet salty paste that pairs well with pork.
Here it is served with a piece of Berkshire pork, apple compote, cider vinegar froth and water spinach.
Various grades of miso were used, I settled for the whitest Shiro-Miso, adjusted with sake and mirin all purchased at Sunrise Mart.
Perhaps the most common question those of us in the creative arts get asked is "what inspired you" or sometimes "what were you thinking ". Cooks are sorrounded by inspiration, most of us posess the tools or knowledge to buy, prepare, preserve and present the fruits of our labors. Deliciousness only happens when good food meets poeple who get it . The French had a pattern of naming dishes after the vessels in which the were prepared or served, Savarins, Tarts, Cocottes and such. The humble tall shotglass is incredibly inspirational ....
"Chicken Scallops"
On either side of the back bone structure of a chicken, there are two tiny nuggets of meat so lucious they are sometimes referred to as "Chicken Scallops". It got me thinking why not pair Chicken with Scallops.
Speaking of Tomato Water, here is another application of the superbag.
A chilled Tomato Broth garnished with raw Tuna, a sorbet of Brandywine Yellow Tomatoes and Mint Oil. The broth is accented with Gegenbauer's Tomato Vinegar and Elderflower Syrup. The jaded may sublimate this into another one of countless variations of "Tuna Tartare" however the flavors are balanced, bright and refreshing, just a great summer dish.
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