Monday, February 15, 2010

X'ocotal Chocolate Fantasia, Silver City, Feb 2010

For once I agree with Larry (I am the chef who never sleeps). Last night I slept 10 hours, something I haven't done since I had strep in 1988. Leading up to this event I did two straight 18 hour days and I was pooped. But, I was very happy with the results. I asked someone to take pics for me so the photos aren't my typical style.

First, the chocolate sculpture. I'll post separately about this in a couple of days.

I prepared some 40 items for 75 people with a mix of sweet and savory. I learned through this event that many, MANY people don't know what savory means. What's up with that?!

These are flourless chocolate Kahlua cakes with fun garnish on top - just tempered chocolate on a texture mat.

Its too bad I didn't get a good pic of this - Cake of a Thousand Faces. I made two rounds of 3" tall Hermé chocolate cake, split each into three layers for a total of six layers. Each layer was filled with goat cheese lemon ganache and soaked lightly with sour cherry syrup. Chocolate buttercream and a miroir glaze. Then I attached fifteen (not quite a thousand) chocolate faces. The faces were made from a molds loaned to me by a local artist.

Wasabi green pea filling with my new transfer sheets and magnet mold. The filling came from Young's new chocolate book which I really do like. You can read a review at TheGastronomersBookshelf.

I can't honestly remember since I made 20 different bon bons, but I think these were orange cream. They may have been white truffle bon bons, or chili muscovado. Not my best ones but I did the colored cocoa butter finger rub thing which was fun.

Saffron or goat cheese and lemon bon bons.

Savory chocolate ravioli.
450 g AP Flour
55 g Cocoa powder
4 Eggs
2 Whites
Knead, rest 30, roll and dry.

Served them with an orange black pepper sauce and dusted with my standard savory chocolate soil.

How about this bad mama jamma - cacao (FT Forestrero 09) encrusted pork tenderloin, sous vide cooked 36 hours and served with a lemon butter sauce. Boy was it tender.

Savory chocolate linguine with gorganzola cream sauce.

Really great combo. And here they are drying.

Worst pic alert! But darn good vittles! Savory chocolate gnocchi (from Young's book) with the gorg sauce again and bacon jus (aka grease).

Cocoa dusted beef tender roast, sous vide cooked for five hours. Look how red that beauty is.

I didn't get pics of everything obviously, but for posterity's sake I want to mention the pâte choux sandwiches filled with Niman Ranch bacon, Gorgonzola and 85% ganache - I couldn't make them fast enough. I also served the same ganache in crepes with fresh berries.

6 comments:

Manggy said...

Love the sculpture, Rob - there's no end to the talents. Can't wait to see how you did it. I wonder how the wasabi green pea filling was received?

Lois B said...

Well done, Rob!

Thanks for mentioning the Niman Ranch bacon and 85% ganache. I'm happy to have more details before I try this on my own.

Yes, Manggy, it was all well received, even the wasabi green pea filling!

Anonymous said...

What were the chocolate ravioli filled w?

Gfron1 said...

What's not to love about wasabi chocolate! But, that's why I put it in the prettiest packaging...like a fly to honey. The ravioli was filled with porcini and panko, and I think i used a bit of bacon fat, and then finished with truffle oil.32

Tri2Cook said...

Nice work Rob. I like that you took the chocolate in both the sweet and savory directions. I did an 8 course dinner for a catering job a couple years ago in which I incorporated some form of the chocolate family into every course. I really enjoyed finding ways to make that happen with the savory dishes (6 of the courses) so seeing how you approached them is a lot of fun for me.

Andrea in ABQ said...

I have some photos to send to you... :-)