The Curious Blogquat

Vegan Love

2012-01-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

I'm one of the few restaurants in town that go out of my way to serve vegetarians and vegans. Typically they are able to get a sauteed vegetable pasta or a hearty salad, but there's so much more than that. One of my recent favorites is cashew cheese.

Not really cheese per se, but a simple little concoction that serves as a base for many other items. Take enough cashews to half fill your food processor. Add any seasonings that you like - I've tried Indian, Southwest, Jamaican and a few others, then add boiling water, slowly, until you get a thick slurry. Don't over-process so the cheese has some texture. Taste, adjust and then let it sit for about 30 minutes to allow the moisture to absorb into the nuts.

Next you can either use it as a filling (think samosa, egg roll) or shape it into a ball and coat it. And finally fry or bake fry. The salad above is our current vegetarian/vegan option - a Thai seasoned cashew cheese, fried, served on local organic greens with fresh mango and a sweet and sour vegetarian fish sauce.

Recent Dishes

2012-01-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

A "simple" little dessert - chocolate sablé, 3 layers of dark chocolate cake soaked with espresso liqueur, Hazelnut dacquoise, Tanzanian coffee ganache, dark chocolate mousse, passionfruit.

Part of my new chocolate line-up: Passionfruit coconut, Tanzanian coffee, Fiery Maple, Tahini/Honey

Pastry Frames

2011-12-30T18:09:00.000-08:00

I've had a set of 1" aluminum pastry frame bars for quite some time thanks to the Chocolate Doctor - Kerry Beal, but recently I had our local glass shop make me these:

I can't remember the material but its not plexiglass. I think the material was like polycarb. They weren't cheap. The set of three (notice two different thicknesses) ran just about $175.

Recent Dishes

2011-12-26T18:02:00.001-08:00

This was my 2011 signature Christmas dessert. Back in June I made a cacao based mincemeat that was macerated in three boozes until last week. The mincemeat was served with a fresh ginger ginger cake, passionfruit coulis and orange creme anglais.

The week before I served this: chocolate sablé, almond dacquoise, passionfruit bavaroise, dark chocolate mousse, coconut gelée

I've also been playing around with colored chocolate. Here is an attempt at a frog with red and yellow speckles and gold luster. I'm really wanting my airbrush now.

A savory dish for my friends at Bauscher - Moroccan spiced fermented cashew cheese, spiced beets, piñones and pumpkin seed streusel

Last week's dinner special - leek ash ravioli filled with local goat cheese and my own preserved lemons.

Curious Kumquat

Book Review: The Art of Eating Cookbook

2011-11-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

Recipes that are timeless. Recipes that have endured. Recipes that hold enough cultural significance that they’ve adorned the pages of Art of Eating magazine. The Art of Eating Cookbook is a no fuss, no frills anthology of recipes that work, taste great, and are doable by any level of cook.

You can read the full review HERE.

Book Review: Momofuku Milk Bar

2011-11-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

What has become my most attention grabbing review to date, below is my lukewarm coverage of a cult following cookbook.

Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook is the American reader’s chance to jump back to his or her youth with memories of being raised on Cap’n Crunch and Corn Flakes. In a follow-up to David Chang’s best-selling Momofuku Cookbook, his pastry chef, Christina Tosi, presents her most popular recipes including the famed Compost Cookies and Crack Pie. But beware of her overly sweet recipes if you prefer your desserts a bit more subtle and understated.

Read the rest of the review HERE.

My Thanksgiving Gift to You - Passionfruit with Spiced Pumpkin

2011-11-21T07:03:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving week I've prepared this special dessert and am sharing the recipe here for you to make at home. Its not as complicated as it may look so give it a try.

For gluten-free-ers, this should be on your menu because the base is a dacquoise - a meringue based nut cake. Start by deciding how you want to present the dessert. You might want to try a 9x13 for your final shape, or you could do this in a wine glass - or a highball glass would make a fun presentation. If you are going to put it in a glass, then simply bake the dacquoise as suggested and cut the final shape needed to be fitted into your glass.

Dacquoise
70 g Hazelnuts, ground
100 g Powdered sugar
90 g (3) Egg whites
3 T Sugar
1 C Hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Sift ground hazelnuts & powdered sugar together & set aside. In a bowl whisk egg whites until foamy then gradually add in sugar and whisk until stiff peaks. Fold hazelnut mixture into the whites then spread mixture evenly onto a 9x13 baking pan lined with parchment paper. Scatter hazelnut halves on top then press down slightly. Bake in a preheated oven of 330ºF for 25-30 mins or until browned. leave to cool. If you are going to make the final dessert in the 9x13, then remove the dacquoise so you can slip off the parchment and return to the pan. If you're going to use glasses, then remove the dacquoise and cut into shape placing in the bottom of the glasses.

Ganache
75 g Cream
100 g Chocolate (I used 65%)

Heat cream in glass measuring cup in microwave until just boiling, set on counter and add chocolate, letting rest about one minute. Stir until glossy and smooth. Spread the ganache on the dacqoise.

Passionfruit Curd
250 ml Passionfruit juice or purée
112 g Butter
3Yolks
3 Eggs
150 g Sugar
2 Sheets gelatin (silver) (or 1 T powdered gelatin softened in 4 T warm water)

Combine juice and butter in saucepan and heat until simmer. In mixing bowl, combine yolks, eggs and sugar and whisk until just combined. Temper egg mixture with hot juice and return all to stove cooking until thickened. Remove from heat and add softened gelatin and strain. Pour onto ganache.

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse
1 Large can of pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
30 ml Lemon juice
90 ml Root liqueur or spiced rum
7 Sheets gelatin (or 4 T powdered in 16 T water)
180 g (6) Egg whites
198 g Sugar
103 ml Corn syrup or glucose
517 ml Cream whipped to stiff peaks

In saucepan warm pumpkin and then add lemon juice and liqueur. Soften gelatin and add to purée stirring to combine thoroughly. Let rest to cool.

In mixer, whisk egg whites until frothy. While whisking bring sugar and syrup to boil cooking to 248º F (120ºC). Slowly pour the boiled sugar into the whites and beat until stiff peaks are formed and mixture has cooled.

Fold pumpkin into whipped cream and then egg whites into the final mixture. Spread into 9x13 or glasses.

Passionfruit Gelée
150 g Passionfruit juice or purée
350 g Mango juice or purée
25 g Glucose or corn syrup
1 T Vanilla (I like to use vanilla paste for this recipe)
25 g Sugar
5 Sheets gelatin

Warm the two purées and corn syrup. Add vanilla, sugar and softened gelatin, gently stirring until the gelatin in melted. Remove from heat and bring to room temp. Pour over the top of the dessert, chill until you're ready to serve.

I hope all of you have a nice Thanksgiving (for my US readers) and a nice holiday season for all!

Late Summer Foraging Workshop - Part 4 (Final)

2011-11-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

And now our final installment of the foraging workshop with Doug Simon. Right near his home we found a jujube plant. Doug assumed this was planted since it shouldn't be found wild in our area but he wasn't sure how many generations ago it would have found its way here. Super nutritious and meaty. Harvestable through September and with a juicy date-like flavor. Left on the plant they'll dry out but retain their sweet flavor.

A big surprise to me was that we had wild currant in the area. Doug says that we have red and black but today we found black alongside the river. They were coming to an end so early September is the time to look. The red is available in June and July.

Another of my favorites from this workshop is wild prickly poppy.

As of today the seed pods are still closed in our area, but once they open I'm going to gather as many as I can. Great potential for texture in chocolates, but of course you could go with the old standbys of poppyseed dressing or muffins. Bring gloves to harvest.

And lastly is Lambs Quarters. An edible green that is best cooked and best picked young in Spring to early Summer. Its nutritious with a nice flavor and is comparable to purslane except that its available earlier in the year.

A couple of closing thoughts. This is our last workshop with Doug although we'll happily facilitate anyone who wants to get in touch with Doug. My next step is to start documenting my use of these plants since I'm doing modernist recipes which I haven't seen around too much in restaurants and I think it would be fun to share those recipes.

Doug recommended that anyone in our area get Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains by Harrington for further reading. I hope you enjoyed and found these write-ups useful.

Late Summer Foraging Workshop - Part 3

2011-11-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

In our next installment...let's start with Devil's Claw.

Not normally thought of as food, Devil's Claw had a texture and flavor similar to okra. The key is getting the pods when they are very young otherwise they turn woody very quickly. Just steam the pods for a few minutes until they become tender.

Alongside many of our streams and rivers you'll find Comphrey.

Comphrey is a nice, if not fairly neutral, edible green. Raw is best, but cooked is okay.

Mallow has become one of my favorite hiking snacks because of its capacity to moisten my mouth and its unmistakeable shape.

Better known as Scarlet Globe Mallow, the leaves really should be steamed for best results. The plant grows year round and has tasty little flowers.

The seed pods are also edible but used more for nutrition than flavor.

On the other end of the spectrum is our abundance of flavor-packed wild grapes.

These are the hardest for me to find since I'm always looking down for plants. Every now and then I think to look up and sure enough is the tangled mess of grapes. After the first frost these will turn to raisins. Doug recommends stripping the whole vine versus plucking individual grapes.

Another prolific plant in our area is Sumac.

Locals call it lemonade plant - the sour flavor is a great infusion for a number of applications.

The final installment will come shortly.

Late Summer Foraging Workshop - Part 2

2011-11-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with our recent foraging workshop. Doug took us to an area that had acres of wild sunflowers. Not as large as what we're used to seeing but still a good food source. I didn't find them ideal for the restaurant setting except maybe grinding them into a praliné or possibly the old pickled mustard seed trick.

You can see they're very small but full of flavor and oils. Harvesting time is early September through early October. Simply pull the heads and set them to dry in the sun until you can crush the seeds out with your hands.

Here's one that might be new to you - bullrush.

Found in marshy areas and they look like lemongrass stalks with Johnsongrass heads. Pull the stalks straight out and eat raw. I found the flavors underwhelming but filling.

Next Doug covered cattails. We had seen these in our previous workshop but this time Doug pulled one for us to enjoy the corm and root. So he waded in...

...and rinsed his harvest in the river...

...trimmed it up a bit for us by removing the small hairlike roots...

...and cleaned it a bit more by trimming any rot, rough root, dirt...

...and finally cutting about 2" above the root system. There are a few components of this section of the cattail. First is the corm - the tubar section, next is the roots which are the smaller hairlike threads, and finally are the starter shoots. The tubar is best enjoyed raw and is almost cucumber in taste, and in fact, is how I use it - to simulate or replace a cucumber component. They make great martini twizzlers. The long tubar roots are where you get cattail "flour" for breads. This is an old-time technique. Doug explained the process as crushing the roots on a rock then putting them in cold water. Using your hands squish and coax the roots and watch as "flour" comes out which will eventually settle on the bottom of your pot. Simply strain and dry and then you can use it in breads. The starter shoots are great for a quick snack or on salads - trim, clean and serve.

Evening Primrose was coming into full seed during the workshop. It has ample essential fatty acids but has to be fresh.

The flowers are delicious but don't eat the callick - the green that holds the flower as its very bitter. The plant is a biannual.

The seed pods have four chambers and are full of tasty seeds. The flavor actually starts off astringent but then switches over to a buttery or eggy flavor - interesting potential!

The primrose leaves are good but need to be prepared properly. Pull out the whole plant cleaning off the dead leaves. Clean the roots and then cook for two hours in lots of water, changing the water once. The leaves will boil down into a sludge which I recommend for quiche, omelets and such.

On the walk we stumbled upon Poor Man's Mustard.

Not much to say except it tastes like mustard and would be nice in salads. Its really too small and not prolific enough for me to look at doing much more than that with it.

My favorite plant of this workshop was purlsane.

Amazing crunch and abundant through our monsoon season. That said, I have only seen it on the day of the workshop. Doug also called this plant porthulaga but I can't find any references for that name - probably the Spanish colloquial word for it.

Another of my favorites - Fourwing Salt Bush.

Some day I'll write more about this since I've been using it as a salt source for my food for the past year. I don't know that its any healthier than table salt but the more subtle flavor is great with almost everything. I like wrapping fish is salt bush branches and steaming them.

Part 3 coming soon...

Two Reviews of Foraging Books

2011-09-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

At a certain point many foragers grow hungry for bounty beyond mushrooms and cattails. They seek meat – raw and wild – yet making the leap from acorn gatherer to elk killer is a daunting one that seems beyond grasp. Hank Shaw’s Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast narrows that gap with an entertaining, informative and approachable perspective on all forms of wild dining.

Read more at The Gastronomer's Bookshelf

Curious Kumquat

Late Summer Foraging Workshop - Part 1

2011-09-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Winter Foraging Workshop Report - Part 1
Winter Foraging Workshop Report - Part 2
Foraging Ethic

This past weekend Doug Simon conducted his late summer/early fall workshop. He started with the trendiest of the wild foods - Chia (Salvia Hispanica). This is one of the main foods noted by indigenous Mexican endurance athletes as a strength giver, and is incredibly high in Omegas.

Chia falls into the Labacia family of plants which includes mint. A distinctive feature is a 4-sided/square stem and paired or opposite leaves. The seed is what you're looking for which will be more abundant by the end of October through the end of the year. The seed has a mucous texture and taste similar to fish oil. The leaves are also edible but have a lower level of fatty acids and are not quite as tasty but still valuable for a nutritional perspective. The flowers are small and blue.

Next we moved on to mallow. Mallow is commonly found near farmlands but is also prolific in the wild even in drier areas.

I found the leaves a bit too similar to other plants but the seed pod and flower are very distinctive.

The leaves actually moisten your mouth and have a squishy texture, and are best eaten raw. The seed pod itself is good to eat, but if you wait til it dries then the seeds are quite good as well. The flower is a pink and white. The seed pods are shaped like a 5-point star, and the seeds are shaped like little marshmallows.

We covered the amaranth plant in our winter workshop, but now we got to see it green and preparing to go to seed.

Amaranth leaves are best enjoyed in July and August and are noted by their red stalk. The seeds are the most enjoyable part of the plant (collected in October through February). Simply cook the seeds like pasta with plenty of water and no lid and they will expand up to ten times their size.

Johnson grass has been one of my harder sells. It lies in the Sorghum family but its not a lot of bang for the buck. Seeds should be gathered in September and allowed to full dry.

Doug recommends placing the top of the stalks in a heavy canvas bag and the dropping a fiery hot stone in the bag. The stone will burn off the chaff and toast the seeds. You can then blow the chaff debris away and enjoy the seeds. The tubar roots are also enjoyable in the spring.

Next we looked at yellow dock (aka lemon dock). Leaves can be steamed or boiled and are extremely high in iron. Bring your water to a full boil, then add the greens and leave the lid off to allow the unpleasant flavors to escape.

Typically dock is found near water sources. The seed is edible but is a bit too astringent for most palates.

There will be at least one if not two more installments on this report in the upcoming days.

Enjoying right now: 2008 La Sauvageonne Les Ruffes Coteaux du Languedoc

2011-09-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

91 pts Wine Spectator

Tastes like a quality Châteauneuf du Pape, which is not surprising when you consider it's made from the same grapes, on similar soils and under the same southern French sun.

This rich, refined red is very pure-tasting, showing mineral, smoke, dried cherry and sandalwood flavors, with powerful undercurrents of currant and French roast. The long finish echoes spice and roasted meat.

Something of an undiscovered gem here. Containing all the elements that make a superb French red, this wine has the makings to become a true star. Definitely one of those wines that should be a stable in everyone's wine rack. You would be mad not to buy it now before everyone else finds out and the price goes through the ceiling. Expect tons of dense berry fruit and enjoy.

*from various websites
Curious Kumquat

Book Review: Odd Bits - top book of 2011?

2011-09-26T06:36:00.001-07:00

While I am sure many will pick up Odd Bits as an “Iron Chef meets teenage boy dare meets Fear Factor episode”, the reader will be swiftly and joyfully swooped up into one of the top books of 2011. Jennifer McLagan’s final stage of her trilogy, including the much lauded Bones (2005) and Fat (2007), is a comprehensive exploration of those animal parts that are ignored or tossed in the bin, and the word fascinating would be the ultimate understatement in describing this book.

Read the rest of the review at The Gastronomers Bookshelf.

Curious Kumquat

My latest Bauscher submissions

2011-09-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is a tough dish to work with but has plenty of potential.

Bread Course: Brown butter hazelnut financier, black sesame tuiles, smoked butter, piñon panna cotta, foraged wood sorrel.

BBQ in the Park: Mustard kulfi, deviled quail eggs, baked bean shards, acorn dust.

Curious Kumquat

Foraged Possibilities

2011-09-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

For all of my foraging friends if I suggested eating young, green acorns, what would you assume would be the taste experience? Probably astringent or tannin, right? These were green acorns off of scrub oak, pulled straight from the tree. I nibbled on one on the trail and was surprise how mild it was. I went back and pulled a bag full, braised them in a Chardonnay and then finally finished them with soy as they were cooling - the result was a tender, yet al dente nut with mild umami flavor. I added them to my current oxtail dish for texture and a bit of sharpness to counteract the richness and it worked very well. The nice thing is that there's plenty more available right now. My theory is that the tannins become more pronounced as the acorns mature, so I'll continue to test this theory as the season progresses.

Curious Kumquat

Poiré Cidre

2011-09-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

I recently enjoyed a bottle of this French pear cider for dinner. I hadn't previously seen this but my new beer distributor has a few and they're quite nice.
Curious Kumquat

Electrolux MagicMill - Repair Lesson

2011-09-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've bragged about the Electrolux MagicMill Assistant many times before. Its a work horse. It makes my KitchenAid Pro look like a scrawny Freshman trying to do a pull up. But it does have some minor flaws. One is that there is no on/off switch, rather there is a timer that turns it on and off. The problem is that if you want to stop the machine before the time runs out you need to manually turn the timer off. Not a problem except that it loosens and ultimately detaches the knob.

Well, I finally had to disassemble mine to fix it, so here is a pictorial on fixing this problem.

UNPLUG YOUR MACHINE

Notice the knob on the left turned past the off label. In fact, I could turn the knob back and forth a full inch or more before anything happened, and in the end the knob was clearly not attached to anything. I had assumed that I had broken the spring, so it was time to crack it open.

Start by pulling both knobs straight out - be careful to not torque them to the side - straight out. Then, if your nuts and washers are still in place remove them and remember how they attach.

Take a butter knife and pry from the side seam. Note that the bottom will pop out first. There are three flexible arms with catch triggers on the end on the bottom edge, while the top has three anchor points that will disengage once the bottom is off.

We can now see that it is a very simple mechanism inside. Be careful to not loosen any wires. The knob holder peg will stick out and just off to a side is a small pin. When the pin is in place the mechanism will sit at roughly 20º so don't expect it to sit horizontal to the machine.

See the little peg 2mm to the left of the knob holder?

Return the mechanism to its place, lock in the knob holder with a washer and nut. Be sure its tight and that the mechanism is no longer moving. Return the face plate by settling the three top anchors into their slots. Then snap the three flexible arms on the bottom into their slot. Double check your knob holder, and if its stable, return the knobs to their holders and give it a try.

Curious Kumquat

Winning Dish

2011-09-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Here is our winning entry in the Farm2Chef Challenge - Foraged Crawfish Cake, Greens (Frisco Farms), Cucumber (Gone Fishin' Farm), Garlic flower, nasturtium, borage (our own garden), tomato (Blythe), house cured bacon, raspberry vinaigrette, horseradish aioli, foraged watercress and wood sorrel. I think there was more but these were the highlights.

Curious Kumquat

Recent Dishes

2011-08-18T18:50:00.001-07:00

Don't miss the link at the bottom. Here are my pics:
"Mojito" - Foraged mint gelée, burnt sugar crema, brown butter hazelnut financier, spiced rum granité.

Morning Melon Ball - Acorn, chardonnayed canteloup, tomato gelée, fresh basil, black tea sablé, sweet juniper, goat yogurt sphere, nasturtium blossom

Foraged Seafood - Green apple, nasturtium, wasabi espuma, cucumber gelée, foraged crawfish, foraged watercress

Bread Course/Milk & Honey - Brown butter hazelnut financier, smoked butter, pine nut panna cotta, black sesame tuile, local corn and tomatillo salsa, paprika oil

Check out a professional photographer's take on my food HERE.

Cattails - Summer Consideration

2011-07-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

A quick search of my blog will show you that I love using cattails on our restaurant menu. As a kid I was raised around cattails every time we drove to our cabin near Ste. Genevieve, MO. Along every roadside in the ditches, surrounding every slimy pond, and lining every sewer runoff there were cattails. At that time my only goal was to wait for them to become mature and puffy so I could whack them with a stick and make them explode into a million little parachutes (no wonder they were everywhere - I was dispersing the seeds). But now as a chef I have a different appreciation.

Back at our Winter Foraging Workshop, Doug Simons introduced myself and my foraging team to cattails as food. We had all heard of it being eaten, but we had never actually tried. At that time our focus was the root systems which Doug suggested be cooked into a porridge of sorts. I tried it once with no success (I later strategized that I needed to dehydrate, grind and then reconstitute it). But then came Spring. All of a sudden little shoots were coming up around all of the old dry stalks...and I pulled a few up and nibbled! Cucumber. Water chestnut? Baby corn? The flavors were familiar yet alien, but good. The raw cattail shoots quickly joined my menu both as garnish and centerpiece. But those shoots have grown and are practically inedible.

With summer comes the next phase of cattail eating - the heads. Below are a series of pictures (all from the same day) showing the cattail heads in various stages of development. My goal on this day was to gather pollen which I did quite successfully.

Here is a head still in its paper sheath. This will be ready for pollen or "cob" eating in just a few days.

Next, you can see a cob starting to poke its head out. The head (what we think of as the brown fuzzy part) is considered the female, while the little stick poking its way out above the furry brown is the male. The male drops its pollen on the female and the cycle begins anew. This plant I allowed to continue to mature.

This is maybe another day older...still not quite ready although I certainly could pop this off and gnaw on it or better yet, saute it.

Bigger, older, completely ready for gnawing...but I'm more interested in pollen today. Time to pop that hoodie off sister!

And, now too late. Once its the big, brown, beautiful cob that we all know and love its not really palatable. Doug said it was edible, and I've heard of people cooking it into bread and such, it doesn't fit my criteria for food worth foraging. So I leave it for people making Thanksgiving centerpieces.

And here's my prize for the day. See the stalk on the left? Notice that there's a top and bottom? That's the male and female. The female can be eaten although I left it to do its work. But the male was generous with its pollen giving me plenty and keeping enough for its vertical courtship.

And unlike most of my foraging trips, my faithful companion, Lexi, couldn't care less. She just wanted to play in the pond.

When we get to fall, the cattail will change in its usefulness once again. And until then...

Book Review: The Wild Table

2011-07-26T05:37:00.001-07:00

Connie Green and Sarah Scott’s The Wild Table: Seasonal foraged food and recipes is the latest in a string of books capitalizing on the foraged (also called wild crafted) food movement. Just as the movement has evolved and matured, Green & Scott’s book is a step above all others.

While in America the “foraged” ingredient restaurant craze is exploding, the concept has been around as long as restaurants have existed in the rest of the world. The country most known for such food would certainly be Italy, which developed the Slow Foods movement, but slow food is not necessarily about wild, foraged foods. France certainly could argue its place in history, but so could many other countries full of chefs who head out on a crisp Autumn morn to gather the day’s new bolets. Although this is a new fad on the American restaurant scene, the practice is obviously not new.

You can read the rest of the review at The Gastronomers Bookshelf.

Expanding my Jura Horizons

2011-07-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

I recently enjoyed a bottle of this wonderful dessert wine. I bought it because of my love of Vin Jaune and this bottle definitely did not disappoint. From KL Wines where I purchased it:

Coming from the wonderful Domaine de Montbourgeau, producers of top notch Vin Jaune, Etoile, etc, comes this most bizarre of treats. Made in a similar fashion to Pineau des Charantes, Montbourgeau takes the fresh pressed grape juice (Le Moût) and adds about 1/3 Marc du Jura. In a classically vague explanation from the Domaine, the cepage is listed as "Chardonnay, quelques Poulsard." The flavors are altogether unexpected and significantly different from Pineau. Showing intense quince, orange essence, and hazelnut on the nose. The palate is like the most incredibly delicious Sweet Tea, with barely a touch of the funkiness prevalent in many of the dry wines of the region. Fresh, high-toned, and balanced, the Macvin is a perfect aperitif for the adventurous or a great pairing from fruit tarts and confections.

Curious Kumquat

On safety, competition and sales

2011-07-05T11:09:00.001-07:00

I'm on vacation this week, and with idle mind time comes thoughts that actually string together to help me learn something.

On Saturday I hosted my latest tasting dinner. These differ from my nightly meals in that they are at least 10 courses, and prepared for a set seating. Back in the good ol' days before I was working 60-80 hrs in the kitchen I had the down time for my mind to be playful, and that led to really cool dishes - although with risk. Sometimes the dishes failed, but other times they were huge hits. Rarely were they in the middle.

But on the last two of these tasting dinners I opted for safer routes with my menus. More classical flavor pairings using more accessible ingredients. The results...even Tyler said this last meal was good, but no memorable.

I've made it no secret that I believe that we should get serious James Beard consideration. This last menu, while leaving no guests unsatisfied, will not achieve that goal. Carving out the downtime to allow for my playful menu creation will find its way back into my life. If not, my guests won't be wowed, and my soul won't be fed.
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Turning the page to competition. A restaurant recently opened in town that shot to the top of all of the online reviews. "Amazing," "Best ever!" "Remarkable." Sounds impressive. Well, in the end its a sandwich shop housed in a gas station building. The food is fine, ingredients are as fresh as any grocery store's, but each reviewer is a first time reviewer and so it was clearly not an objective response. I rarely review other restaurants publicly in my town, but I did for this one titling it "Friends don't let friends review restaurants." It really is unfortunate that this has become part of the restaurant business.

On a healthier side of competition. We've always said that 106 and Shevek and us are the top 3 restaurants in town. You can go to any one of us, and depending on your style, you'll have a great meal. We're all very different but doing great things. Part of our shtick has always been that we're going to use local foods (and of course now foraged). We emphasize that because other restaurants state on their menus that they "support the slow food movement." But, the same Sysco truck backs up, or we see each other at the mega-grocery store. Cooking from scratch is only part of the Slow Foods movement. And this is why we've always listed where our ingredients come from - every day on every menu. We don't do this to be better, but because our guests have the right to know. So I was happy to read that Shevek is starting to list his providers. This is where competition is good for everyone!
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And a final thought as I dig into my vacation. My intention is to knock out the first two sections of a cookbook that's been swirling through my mind. I'll be sharing parts of it here and appreciate your comments and criticisms.

and btw, if you were wondering what the picture is - I've been trying to make my own malt balls...without much success.

Random dishes

2011-06-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

I must be waxing nostalgic as my current menu winds down. Here are a few more old dishes that I've been serving.

Someone gifted me with kumquats so what's a guy to do...candy them of course. I still had some kumquat chutney from a previous batch so these just got a long candying and have been finding their way onto my menu in various places.

One place has been this dish which I call Gila Fields. The Town of Gila is 30 minutes North of us and is nestled along the Gila River. Great soil and so a number of my foragers and growers come from that area. This dish includes baby purple potato coated in kaolin clay, mushroom cake, sherry gelée, caper powder, piñon, lemon and sweet juniper.

Another iteration of the same in a beautiful Bauscher dish:

I called this pop-tart. Foraged mint, sweet pea tartlet on a Tafelstern Showpiece Bambu plate.

Not the best picture, but sweet potato, celery root, roasted tomato, sous vide radish and sweet pea, mushroom soil

That same Gila Fields with some flower bling and piñon oil powder

An early version of my cashew tower: Celery root, 14 day fermented cashew cheese, Salvadoran spiced roasted vegetables, cactus skin, black tea infused lentils

Cleaning House: More Recent Dishes

2011-06-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more dishes that I've done as I clear out my photo album.

This is an old amuse bouche of acorn crema, mushroom soil, goat yogurt, purple carrot and parsley

An old version of a current dish: Cattail, cucumber, acorn

A dish so popular that it will surely make a comeback: Goat cheese cake, beet, dandelion

Recognize this? Another old variation: Goat yogurt, acorn, Jerusalem artichoke, wild grapes

Acorn, goat, piñon

Curious Kumquat

Bauscher and the Spoon

2011-06-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Many of you know of my relationship with the Bauscher Corporation who makes some of the most beautiful restaurant dishes. And many of you have seen my contributions to their Deep Plate Blog where they highlights chefs' creations using their dishes. For next month I was sent the perfect piece for my style of cooking.

Here are a series of my dishes that I refitted to the Tafelstern Showpiece Bambu collection:

Crispy duck, sweet potato, forest berry, cashew cheese

Cattail, cucumber, mint, garden flowers, acorn

Mushroom cake with cholla infused caramel

From my creepy eyeball collection: late harvest Torrontes infused local goat yogurt, butternut, shallot jam, sweet juniper

Curious Kumquat

Curious Kumquat News

2011-06-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

Two recent news worthy bits:

We have our next modernist tasting dinner scheduled for Saturday, July 2nd at the Curious Kumquat. I have already committed 2/3 of the seats and haven't even advertised it yet so I wanted to make sure that all previous attendees knew of the event before it completely sold out.

For this dinner I will be going back to my roots. For the past couple of meals I've focused on venues and themes and strayed from my foray into modernist techniques. Not so for this meal. Once again I'll be pushing the experimental fronts that I most enjoy, bringing you new flavor combinations, new cooking techniques and new scientific materials.

Ian McKay will once again serve as our sommelier for the evening. The dinner will be at least 10 courses with 5 wine pairings. Dinner will begin promptly at 6 and costs $75. The dinner with wine pairing upgrade is $85 (great value). We will also offer a very limited Super Flight wine pairing ($100) which will pour the original 5 wines plus 3 additional pairings of an upper tier wine (let's just say rare and fancy).

If you are interested, please call Marsh at 534-0337.
======
If you blinked you missed it. Overnight our desolate cheese case became bursting at the seams. It is not a secret that we've struggled to keep the cheese case full over the years. That was part of a very complicated delivery system. We're now trying something new that gives us much faster access to our cheeses. So...let's see if this works better for all of us. Here are just a few of the new cheeses & meats:

1. Cambazola: German mix of blue cheese and brie.
2. Fontini: Not rare, but its impossible to get a high quality version here in town.
3. Brie: Ours is a 60% from France.
4. Livradois: A morbier style semi-firm cheese with ash layer.
5. Mimolette: French yellow cheese that's great for summer grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.
6. Leicester: British cheddar-like cheese.
7. Gruyere: Simply the best for melting.
8. Roaring 40's Blue: Australian best seller.
9. Maytag Blue: The quintessential American blue cheese.
10. Apricot Stilton: Blasphemous to do this to Stilton (but in the summer we still love it).
11. Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog: Creamy goat. Firm goat. Ash. All in one.
12. Delice de Jura: Super creamy and a bit funky.
13. Garrotxa: Firm Spanish goat cheese.
14. Ardi Gasna Lait: Nutty ewe's milk cheese.
15. Crottin de Champcol: This is what French goat cheese is famous for.

Olives, Butter, Meats:
1. Ligurian Olives
2. Isigny Ste. Mére: French salted butter
3. Echo Falls Smoked Salmon
4. Venison sausage with merlot and blueberries
5. Rabbit sausage with white wine
6. Olive Oil crisps from Spain
7. Spanish chorizo - hot and regular
8. Harissa seasoning in tube

Curious Kumquat

Foraging Ethics

2011-06-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

I was recently sent a link to THIS article in a Sacramento magazine. "Everybody does it" is not an acceptable excuse for foraging on private land, nor is it acceptable to grab greens from the roadside without consideration of the effects of car exhaust on your customers, nor is it acceptable to pick greens adjacent to vineyards that spray pesticides. Like all trends that start as fads, foraging restaurants need to speak loudly about what is acceptable and not.

Book Review: Pastry in Europe 2011

2011-06-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

A glaring pink book seeking the spotlight, giving us the whirlwind European tour from Michelin restaurants to back alley holiday fairs, Pastry in Europe 2011 provides a snapshot of the state of pastry across the diverse continent. You’ll be delighted with the cutting edge ingredients, old-school techniques, and the slew of chefs sharing what they’re doing right now. While the 2011 book has made greater strides than its two predecessors, it has yet to take center stage.

Read the rest of the review HERE.
Curious Kumquat

Foraging Ethics

2011-05-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have a secret cattail grove. I'm not telling you where it is. But, our area hasn't seen any precipitation since 2010 and plant life is not flourishing right now. But my cattail grove is doing fine because its spring fed. As I harvested last night at the grove I wondered if I could do some transplanting of cattails further up stream. I'm posting this because I'm not sure about the ethics of transplanting. I mean, at what point does foraged food become harvested/cultivated food? And if nature hadn't already moved the cattails upstream, what makes me think I should. Just a question I'm pondering because I could up my production. But what would that do to the other flora? And would there be an impact on fauna?

Torta de Mil Hojas

2011-05-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

My Chilean intern wanted a special cake for his mom for Mother's Day so I made them a Mil Hojas (1000 layer cake). Puff pastry layered with dulce de leche.
Curious Kumquat

Chocolates All Around

2011-05-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

I've been busy as always the past month, but in particular, now I'm selling chocolate bon bons.
This is my first collection of flavors and I'll grow it over time. But for now I have a traditional muscovado ganache filling, green cardamom and jasmine, rosemary salted caramel, Moroccan olive and saffron, ancho, matcha green tea and sambuca with foraged mint.

For Easter I did some eggs which were fun.

And just last week we had our professional bike race in town so I whipped up a chocolate sculpture.

Now things will settle down a bit and I'll get a few cookbook reviews posted (PIE 11 and The Art of the Cake).

Wednesday's Drool

2011-03-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

My current high school intern is from Chile and so I've been dabbling in Chilean cuisine. Most recently dulce de leche and alfajores. In this picture I simply put some dulce de leche in a pastry shell and later topped it with chocolate mousse. I just love the glare in this picture.

Odd things in my kitchen...aka Justin Bieber decapitated

2011-03-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a glimpse into my kitchen from a non-food perspective. First, let's start with Justin Bieber's head.

Why is Justin's head on my cup of local bee pollen? Well, remember my Chocolate Fantasia chocolate sculpture from a month ago? I created an homage to Willy Wonka and I needed an Augustus Gloop. If you remember he was a portly lad, so when I went shopping for a portly doll, as you can imagine, there weren't any. So then I looked for beefy...GI Joe or a wrestling doll. Oddly enough, Justin Bieber's doll was the beefiest of them all! Well, the end of the story is that I had to decapitate poor Justin to make it all come together.

Next is a gift from one my servers.

Yes friends, next to my Valhrona white chocolate is a penis lamp. Not sure how to defend that one. If you look just to the right you'll see a small penis that customer gave me hoping it would fit on the lamps "switch." It was too small.

Good luck.

A customer brought me this good luck talisman. I think it was from Korea but I can't seem to remember, but it looks over our kitchen.

I gave my first python cooking lesson recently which led to a friend suggesting Revuelta's poem/chant Sensemayá which led to me overplaying the YouTube of the corresponding orchestral piece.

And finally, here's Justin's pants. Just don't ask why his fly is ripped. Some secrets are best kept in the kitchen.

Book Review: Design Culinaire

2011-03-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Some people design couches. Others design cars. Stéphane Bureaux designs food. And what’s a food designer to do when he wants a collection of the best contemporary food design? Why, design a book to feature food design of course! Design Culinaire is a collection of notable design intended to document and inspire food artists.

Read the rest of the review at TheGastronomersBookshelf.

My recent foraging trip

2011-03-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I don't get out much anymore. I used to get the dogs out for a good walk almost every day and sometimes twice a day. But with my kitchen duties increasing I have much less time out in our wilderness. About a week ago I went to one of my favorite spots - a favorite because there are rarely other hikers, but also because of the marked change in flora and fauna...an ideal spot for me to forage. The trail is call Tadpole Ridge and has a true Southern and Northern side leaving one side sparse of tree and thick of thorn, while the other side is a netting of moss and pine and often berries.

After about a 10 minute uphill section you come out into an area with this view:

The area had suffered a forest fire a few years back (maybe 8 or 9 years ago) so the ground is cleared with the exception of thorn and charred debris.

But after just a few minutes of the thorns the oasis appears and my dogs, Lexi and Lucia, turn back to make sure we're heading in.

Lexi, the hound, is my hiking buddy. Lucia, the minpinpoo, is the cleanup girl (meaning she eats lots of crap and dead animals). Lexi is keen to keep us on trail but will quickly head off-trail with me, as I tend to do.

On both sides of the ridge there is beauty at every turn.

and right now a bit of snow which turns Lexi into a maniac.

The North side of Tadpole is also where we tend to scent the most bears and commonly find fresh scat. And look who's caught a scent.

And when a scent is found, look who's runnin' to papa! That's no jack rabbit.

But this is a post about foraging for our restaurant. The trip brought up more questions than answers. Like, what about this moss - very plentiful and thick...but that in itself suggests a problem. Why aren't animals eating it. I'll pass for today and do more research.

Or what about this one? I think this is lichen, but I'm bad with my terminology. Same questions and concerns but I'd sure like to fry this bad boy.

A couple of years ago I took the very risky (aka - do NOT try this at home) step to eat ferns. In general ferns are poisonous. But its not fair because Northeasterners have fiddleheads and I wanted my own version. So I took the youngest of the baby tips of ferns and lightly sauteed them. Very good taste and texture but ultimately too risky to do again. I always find it odd though that there are so many ferns on the exposed section of Tadpole.

And just when I was ready to head back, Lexi reminded me that there are edible ingredients in some of the most obvious, but not acknowledged places. She loves eating the snow!

I did end up with two types of pine needle tips both with great taste and texture, and neither with the astringency or sappy texture. I served them fresh in this past week's dinners and will work on cold infusions next week as I'm worried about heat pulling out the bitter oils.

Hope you enjoyed the trip.

Scrap

2011-03-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

We try to be eco friendly on our ends of our operation. One way is by recycling our food waste. We used to provide compost to a local organic farmer but we were going through too much citrus which was damaging their compost. So now we're working with our UPS driver (and my doppelganger) to feed his pets - domestic pigs that went ferile and then returned to domestication. They look like our wild javalina but we've been assured that these are domestic pigs. And no, they will not be eaten. They are pets.

Foraged: Popotillo & Salt Bush

2011-03-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

With our foraged dinners, I'm attempting to take the concept as far as possible. I want to move beyond simply using mushrooms and garnishes to intense manipulation of the ingredients - just as I would standard ingredients. So when the foraging team brings me a new item I walk myself through a process.

My first thought after tasting the item is: powder, liquid, gel, ice, oil? And then I typically will work the foraged ingredient into each of those forms to see what happens. In some cases, the simplest is the best. Take for example my current Duck Pot Pie. I found that the salt bush was a great seasoning, but it did best in water. Likewise, the popotillo performed best in water (which makes sense since its also called Mormon tea). So, I lightly warmed the duck with the salt bush and popotillo and let them rest for an hour to infuse. Then I poached the duck until tender and done.

This picture is an older version of my dish where the duck is then sliced, set in a pine cone tip infused savory cream with green onion and savory granola.

I'm looking forward to the foragers venturing out a bit further and bringing me some new items as the weather becomes a bit warmer.

A little drool and the requested chocolate cake recipe

2011-02-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Sherry wine poached pear tart with almond cream

My March submission to the Deep Plate blog: East meets Old West
Four wing salt bush brined fried shrimp, napolitos, daikon, elm bark panko crust

Some really puffy croissants that I made last week

and that chocolate cake...

Makes one 9" round or two loaves
1/3 C plus 1 T (40 g) Cocoa powder
3 1/2 T (35 g) Potato starch/flour
1/4 C (35 g) Cake flour
5 1/2 T (75 g) Butter, melted and cooled
9 Yolks, room temp
1 1/4 C (150 g) Sugar
5 Whites, room temp

Butter your cake pan. Oven to 350º.
In bowl whisk cocoa, potato starch & cake flour. In mixer with whisk attachment whip yolks and half of the sugar. Whip until very light and fluffy and leaves strong trail in mixture.

In 2nd mixer bowl, whip the whites and remaining sugar, adding the sugar gradually, until whites are at firm peak.

Gently fold dry ingredients into yolk mixture. Take a dollop of this mix and whisk it into your butter. Add the butter mix into the yolk/dry mix - folding very gently. Finally, take a quarter of the whites and gently fold into the yolk mix and finish by adding the remaining whites and fold them in very gently.

Pour into your pan, smooth and bake about 35-40 minutes depending on your oven.
At altitude I go 40 before I even open the door. Touch the center and if it feels firm remove and cover with a towel until cool. I always error on the side of over baking this cake.

Book Review: Ideas in Food

2011-02-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

If a book’s worth can be measured by the number of dog-eared pages, then Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work could turn around the international financial crisis. In fact, my copy has so many turned page corners that I’m expecting a ‘Cease and Desist’ order to arrive at my home any day now. Well over 75 pages are marked as requiring my re-reading and note taking. And lest you think I’m a chronic book destroyer, a quick scan of my most favorite and used books show less than ten dog-eared pages in any one book.

This is one worthy book for anyone who cares about the inner workings of their food or for anyone who wants someone to do the homework for them so they can simply follow instructions and put out great dishes.

Read the full review at The Gastronomer's Bookshelf.

A few interesting things

2011-02-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

For one of my dishes, I wanted to add flavor without adding food, so I've been making my own lip balms for the customer to apply prior to eating the dish. The primary food is cauliflower and the lip balms come in cocoa, caraway or geranium. It gets mixed reactions but more to the concept than the flavor. The lip balms are bees wax based with a bit of Vitamin E, cocoa butter and essential oil.

At a recent tasting dinner the salad was dressed with cacao infused black truffle vodka. Huge hit!

Here is my new chocolate bar mold. This one contained peanut praliné with nori and soy sauce.

A little drool for your week

2011-02-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

A few recent dishes

2011-02-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

I'm still struggling with my new camera :/ but here are some recent dishes:

My vegetarian entree: madras curry butternut squash, yellow beet, whole wheat fillo, pine cone tip infused savory cream, rosemary.

Duck Pot Pie: Popotillo poached duck breast, savory granola, cholla cream, chives. The plating on this dish has changed dramatically in the past week. I'll get the new pic up soon.

Dessert Sampler: Passionfruit mousse, chocolate bavarian, candied pecans, chocolate soil, chocolate acorn jelly

And simply cholla powder for some future use - I'm thinking meringue.

Winter Foraging Workshop Ethics and Thoughts

2011-01-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

One of the lynch pins to our foraging program will be a strong statement about ethics and sustainability. While it would be great to find that fantastic stand of cattails, to wipe it out so it won't be around next year does no one any good. So, below are some thoughts that I've had and others that were shared by Doug.

1. Forage only established groves/stands/plants; and
2. Forage only enough so that you don't wipe out the plant; and
3. Consider what role that plant may play with the area wildlife; and
4. Do no harm in approaching the foraging area; and
5. Don't pick anything from the side of the road

Doug's guidelines for whether a food is worth while:
1. Tastes great
2. Digests well
3. Gives good energy
4. Abundant
5. Easy to harvest
6. Easy to process
7. Easy to prepare

He also suggests:
1. Mix your foraged foods with foods you like to find a balanced diet
2. Wild foods are often "strong," "bitter," or "excessive ruffage"
3. If you're into mushroom foraging read David Aurora's books

Winter Foraging Workshop pt. 2

2011-01-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

As our foraging workshop continued, Doug took us to a field that had what I thought to be overgrown grass. We see it everywhere here in the desert Southwest...its called forest fire kindling. But as we looked closer there were a few different edibles among that weed.

Cattails are gathered for many parts of their body and have strong spiritual use among Native Americans. At this time of year only the root or korm is gathered for drying and grinding into flour. Another part to the plant is the stalk. Imagine pulling the top out of a piece of field grass - the type you might pull to chew on, where the inner stalk pulls from the outer sheath. Cattails have the same structure. This piece is similar in texture to water chestnuts and requires no preparation. There is little fiber so it is easy to eat or cut up for stir fry or stew. Its important to not over harvest this plant as it is somewhat fragile in the Southwest. The pollen is also edible:

Beautiful bright yellow pollen is gathered in late spring from the top of the plant. The large fuzzy brown section is the female part while the stick above the fuzzy section is male. Gently bend the stalk over and tap the pollen into your gathering container. The pollen can be eaten without preparation. My intent is to dust goat cheese and age it.

Doug next shared Elm bark with us - not the tough outer bark, but rather the fibrous, paper-like inner bark. The texture is mucous (rather unpleasant) and the flavor mild. Doug was very excited about this for me but it didn't spark much energy for me. He suggested it could be used as a thickener or to bring out sweetness in a dish. The leaves, when young, are also edible as are their flowers.

Evening Primrose is rich with essential fatty acids from the seeds. This is a biannual so the seeds will only come up in the second year. These are gathered around November after the first freeze. At first they will taste bitter but quickly turn to an egg-like taste. This might be fun to do a playful creme brulée dish. The plant can be identified by its small yellow flower which is also edible and quite delicious.

The primrose leaves themselves are also good and are typically gathered at the root of the stalk. The baby leaves are fine raw and the larger leaves should be cooked in water for about an hour or until soft to remove the caustic quality. The roots can also be gathered, smashing the meat off from the woodiness and cooked into a porridge. The root is no good in its second year. Doug said this and sweet clover were his two favorite winter roots.

Wild sunflowers are plentiful in our area and have a 45-day harvest window. Any given stand of sunflowers will have a two week window. When the flower gets to full color but has not released its seeds, pinch off the flower, dry it, stomp on it in a sack and winnow. This can be eaten ground, shell and all. Doug said, "Shells have always been the stopper for people with wild foods. But they're completely edible."

The plant that garnered the most excitement was Wild Amaranth. I remember amaranth being very common on my trip to Oaxaca last year, and found it similar in use to quinoa. You can in fact cook it just like quinoa, but Doug explained the process of popping it. Simply heat a cast iron pan without oil and add the grain. If its hot enough the grain will pop within seconds. If its too hot the grain will burn.

The seed is gathered after the first frost all the way through March - so a very long season if you can beat the winds. Simply snap off the heads, drop into a canvas bag and stomp. Remove the large stems and pour the remainder into a second bag. Stomp. Go back and forth a few times then lay the grain on a tarp in the wind. The wind will blow away the waste and leave the seeds. Doug showed us a smaller version of winnowing in his hands. "Winnowing immediately connects you with the ancestral world." Here is the grain after stomping:

And the seeds after the wind:

Nice flavor and something I am asking my foraging team to find for me. Amaranth is an annual and when young (12") the greens can be steamed or boiled until just bright.

A Lambsquarter plant lay a foot away from our amaranth plant. The greens are edible especially when young. It is similar to Yellow Dock and Curley Dock which have big bold flavors. Bring water to a full boil and cook for a short time with the lid off until you smell the bad flavors boil off. The seeds can be gathered similar to amaranth. Some lambsquarter varieties have grey coated seeds which are not quite as good as the black seeds, but are edible albeit bitter.

Sycamore tree paper bark is a great tea but don't consume too much or drink it too hot.

Mesquite is a classic food in the Southwest. Great for firewood, the pods/beans are edible and very tasty. Doug calls this a "main food" meaning, plentiful, easy to gather, easy to prepare and easy to digest. The plant is also a nitrogen fixer which allows other plants to grow in the soil.

The beans are too bitter when green, but once the green is gone they are ready to be enjoyed. Similar to carob, the bean can be chewed easily when no longer green but still young. It is best to gather these off the ground noting that each tree will have a different flavored bean. Its best to taste test before gathering the beans - if its not sweet, don't gather. You can simply eat as a snack (worms are just a given with these), or you can boil the pods for 45 minutes, mash them, dilute and run through a screen. Discard the wood and enjoy the porridge, or reduce the porridge until it becomes molasses. Another way of using the pod is to grind it once it is fully dry but not before the sugars release and use the flour. Finally, you can heat on a hot stone (or cast iron) and toast for about 20 minutes and enjoy them like potato chips.

Popatillo/Mormon Tea are another prolific plant in our area.

This one had been chewed up by deer but I think you can imagine what it looks like. It has a very high mineral content and is enjoyed by a short 5 minute simmer in water and then steep to taste.

Junipers are tricky. They are everywhere but not all are good. There are three functional categories of juniper: the small berries, the larger (Alligator juniper) and the shaggy bark juniper. The small berries are more medicinal but 8-12 berries can be used in marinade. The Alligator berries are not very tasty and have too many volatile oils (astringent). The shaggy bark berries are the best - sweet with only one seed. Typically found on Southern slopes, the drier you gather the berries the better the taste. Simply crush and remove the seed or cook in water and use the juice.

Finally, we look at the Nopal and rickly pear tuna. The tuna is ripe when it falls off or is easily knocked off. It has known diabetic remedies and cooling properties. To juice simply smash them in a 5-gallon bucket, add water, strain into a second bucket, add more water and strain.

You can make a great vinegar with the juice by letting it sit in a jar covered in cloth. Age the juice for about 20 day until a white film forms, remove the film and finish for another month and a half.

The fruit can also be quartered and dried in the sun for a snack fruit.

The paddles are cleaned by rubbing two rocks in a circular motion on either side. Then break off the paddle and use the rocks to continue cleaning it. With a knife, cut along the edge to pull the paddle in a mirror imaged two halves. Gather the gel. Using a fork and then a spoon, scrape and remove the coral. The gel can be added to cornmeal, water and salt for a bread, and there is no need for an egg nor milk. Just be sure the bread is fully baked or you'll get a stomach ache. If the batter is aged overnight the flavors will be even more enjoyable. Baby paddles can simply be cleaned and eaten. The meat can be added to soups and stews. The classic Mexican treatment is in eggs. The slime can be removed with cold water.

Foraged - Possibilities

2011-01-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here is a dish that I'm playing with using foraged ingredients. My foraging team has been bringing new things in every day so lots of fun to come.

Roasted acorn powder, sweet juniper berry, wild olives, rosemary and pine cone tip infused goats yogurt.

Similar treatment

Current Menu: Winter 11

2011-01-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

Here is our current menu before I incorporate the foraged items. Pics coming soon.

Jan-Mar 2011 Menu

Amuse
Mimbres Valley goat yogurt with pine cone syrup and acorn

Course 1
Lamb or Veg: Cauliflower cube with lip balm roulette
Porchetta or Duck: Local goat cheese bavarian with beet foam (green heads, beet gelée, nuts, beet smear)

Bread

Course 2
Lamb or Veg: Watercress soup with olive oil
Porchetta or Duck: Curried cauliflower soup with yogurt drizzle

Entree
Lamb: Risotto & arugula, salad
Porchetta: Potato cylinders, salad
Duck: Pastry shell, savory granola, gelée sheet drape, chives, savory pine needle cream
Veg: Beet steak, butternut steak, layered with filo, filled with cream

Dessert
Passionfruit mousse, guava panna cotta with kumquat black tea gelée and hazelnut financier, milk foam, acorn tuile

Winter Foraging Workshop pt. 1

2011-01-18T17:45:00.001-08:00

This past Monday we held our first of three foraging workshops in the hopes of developing a team of locals who will forage for the restaurant throughout the year. Basically we're asking folks to keep their eyes open while they're hiking and bring back items of interest that we can use in our menu. Many of the items we learned about were foods that we already knew about but the depth of knowledge from our instructor, Doug Simon, in how to identify, process and prepare was invaluable.

I am documenting our workshop but not including all of the information since Doug is always willing to host workshops for other interested groups. If you would like to stay on our list to attend the Spring and Fall workshops, just let me know through the comment section.

In a later post I will talk about our ethical criteria for foraging, and our plans for use. In the meantime, here's Doug preparing us with a sage ceremony.

Doug has lived in or around the Gila Wilderness for 20 years with many of those years living exclusively off the land. We started with something that my regular readers know I have been dabbling in - acorns. There are 20-30 varieties of acorns in our area but the most interesting are the Emory Oak and Grey Oak because these two varieties don't need leeching to remove the bitterness. Here are the Emery acorns:

You'll note that they are little narrower than what you normally find. These were softer with a slight bitterness and an almost citrus flavor. The texture bordered on chalky but not unpleasant. There was plenty of meat inside:

These can be eaten shell and all, or ground with or without the shell. Here are the Grey:

Greys tend to be more bitter unless found following a wet season. They are harder and milder. As I learned in my recent exploration into acorns, acorn worms are to be expected. Doug suggested that the worms are actually quite nice with their high protein and acorn taste. (I'll probably leave those off my menu for now.) Acorns should only be gathered off the ground.

To process acorns place acorns in a heavy canvas bag, place it on concrete and stomp on them. Winnow them by blowing on them or leaving them in the wind. You can also winnow in water by placing the acorns in a deep pot of water and gradually pouring off the debris.

Doug suggested Bushy or Brock Canyons for a great source of the preferred acorns, especially in late July and August.

While we didn't see any on this trip, Doug confirmed that there were indeed morels in the Gila. They can be found in the mountains from early April to late May in river valleys among willow leaves and also around cottonwoods. Doug suggested David Arora's books on mushrooms.

Next we turned our attention to Hackberry. This tough barked tree with a dense nettle of branches tends to grow near water. These trees will be loaded with their dried fruit until march.

The berry itself has a sweet outer layer with an inner wooden sheath and a nut center. The taste is similar to a date with the fruit first appearing in August. Besides eating straight off the tree, you can grind these for a sweet and nutty flavor. The leaves are identifiable because they are grainy-almost like a cat's tongue. I would like to infuse these into a liqueur and see what happens.

Next up was hoarhound. Known for its incredibly bitter quality, historically this plant has been used in candy. I may explore this at some point just to see what happens chemically to turn a bitter into a sweet. Hoarhound also has medicinal uses as an expectorant.

If you remember my previous foray into nocino, you'll know that I have no fear of the astringent bitterness of green walnuts. Here we look at the fallen walnuts that are common in our area. Identification of walnut trees is aided by the distinct smell, the darkness of the bark and the leaf clusters. Here it is best to use only walnuts fallen to the ground, although if I find a bumper crop I may try the nocino again with local walnuts. The nuts can be collected from the first of the year through may and then again toward the end of August. Using a rock the shell is easily cracked and the nut meat picked out.

A new one for me was Johnson Grass and its edible seed. I'm not sure if I could identify this again in the wild, but toasted and ground makes a nutty, smokey and rich powder. There is also an underground portion that is crunchy and very sweet.

In the Gila there is an abundance of wild grapes. Each should be taste tested as every plant is going to give different results. The fruit will range from very small to grocery store size. The fruit has a caustic quality and will numb the mouth at excess.

The grapes can be eaten, juiced (not caustic), cooked with a bit of water, or dried on the plant for a more pronounced flavor. Dried fruit can be soaked in water the night before to rehydrate the fruit. The leaves are easily enjoyed when alive, and are most tender when they are young. Larger/older leaves can be brined for dolmas or shredded and cooked. Doug suggested the cooking the shredded leaves with rice, cooking both at the same time. For me the dried leaves had a nice tang that could make an interesting tea.

Piñones are plentiful in our area and should always be picked from the ground being careful not to gather animal scat in the process.

Possibly the most common foraged food in our area is the cholla.

One benefit of cholla is that the fruit will stay on the cacti for a long time. The fruit is edible from the point when it is green all the way through yellow. When it is fully ripe the fruit will fall off the plant or be easily dislodged. The texture is slightly mucous with a subtle sour flavor.

Doug recommended roasting the fruit, pricking them first so they don't explode, and taking them til soft but not burnt. Next cut the fruit in half and remove the seeds - the seeds are edible but a matter of taste. Chop the fruit to size and cook in water. At this point you can make a stew base similar to tomatillo, but not as tangy. Doug also suggested processing as above but then cooking with rice.

Using the older fruit, you can rehydrate in cold water. The flower is also edible but only the petals not the base. This is plant is very high in calcium.

Another plant that that I look forward to finding is the sumac. Unlike in other parts of the country, sumac in the Gila are always edible and non-poisonous. Sumac is also called the lemonade tea plant and is tangy but sweet.

The twigs, buds and berries are all good in tea when dry. The plant can be found near water

Coming in a few days - the second half of the workshop.

A few new dishes...and wild olives I have known

2010-12-20T14:36:00.001-08:00

Nothing too exciting here, but I wanted to test a few pics with my new camera and see if TasteSpotting likes them better.

First, these are wild olives that one of our foragers brought us. These are the size of capers and came from a tree that hasn't fruited in nearly a decade.

PBJ - Hazelnut dacquoise, strawberry gelée and peanut butter mousse

Chocolate cocoa cake, peanut butter mousse, chocolate mousse

Foraging Workshop January 17th, 2011

2010-12-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

As I get deeper in the foraging aspect of our restaurant, I've sought the assistance of Doug Simons, a man who lived in the Gila Wilderness for many years. Doug lived exclusively off the land and when he finally stepped back into civilization he started teaching workshops. Doug will be teaching an Edible Gila Wilderness workshop on Monday, January 17th from 10-4. The workshop is free for anyone wanting to forage for me, and $25 for all others. The workshop will have follow-ups in May and October as the seasons change. I'm also working on an agave roasting workshop in the spring. Any out of towners I'll throw in a free dinner at my place.

My latest dishes

2010-12-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned previously, currently I'm looking at indigenous foods and historic Apache diets. Naturally I'm twisting them in my own way, but I think its a good place for me to be right now as I settle into my dinner menus. I'm beginning to work with area experts on indigenous foods and Apache diets, so those will make an even stronger mark in the months to come.

Squash, lavender pudding, cacao bean, gruyere, parsley, bee pollen

I have two soups - roasted chayote with pepper and cilantro oils; and tea smoked duck consomme

One of the first pictures taken with my new camera - butternut frites, three sisters (squash, corn and white teparary beans), and white truffle oil powder

Elk osso bucco, creamed corn, wilted arugula, baby corn

Beef cheek, blue cheese grits, wilted arugula, spiced caramel corn - not my best plating

Deconstructed relleno - farmers cheese wrapped in whole wheat fillo atop three sisters, with roasted peppers, squash disk, powdered bean soup and mango coulis

Tea smoked duck breast, acorn blini, duck foam, three sisters, juniper infused goat yogurt, duck reduction

My current intermezzo - figs that have been soaked in limoncello for four weeks, Point Reyes blue cheese, candied pecans, agave nectar

My current dessert - bison mince meat, pecan praliné mousse, saffron infused pistachio butter, cacao

Needless to say I'm glad to have my camera back and I seem to be getting the hang of it. I used to have a simple point and click, and now I have an EOS Rebel XTi with my lenses from back in the film days. The photos above with black backgrounds were taken with the new camera AFTER I read the manual, so I think I'll get better the more I play.

Been busy...and refocused menu

2010-11-29T13:28:00.000-08:00

So much has happened in the past month and I'm putting in long hours refining my menu and philosophy. Since we started dinners I have always featured local ingredients with a smattering of foraged foods. Heading into winter my local growers are diminishing and I continue adjusting the menu to match the foods that they're bringing me. The challenge of less grown foods is only pushing me to find an even more sustainable process.

Enter indigenous.

I live in the lower 48s largest wilderness area. That means boundless possibilities, right? If we look at the history of the area we see Mimbreano and Apache people living year round in this area and surviving. Its possible that it was more meat base, but I suspect through my readings that it has to do with preservation and planning. So I've been spending my free time gathering a team of foragers, preparing a code of ethics for my foragers, and exploring the historic Apache diet (which is very different from the modern Apache diet). That's a big part of why I haven't been able to post in a month...that and I dropped my camera in a pot of oil!

But, new camera in hand (although I'm still learning how to use it) and a few weeks of my new menu behind me, I'm gearing up for even greater dishes on the menu and better pictures. Here's a start (pics taken while I was reading the manual).

We've been working with La Buena Vida Farms just south of us to raise chicken and turkeys. There are no other poultry options in our region, and our co-op sells factory raised "free range" birds...we all know that means very little when considering health and ethics. The difference can be three or four times the cost, but when we eat poultry at least we'll know how it was raised. On our recent visit to pick up the Thanksgiving turkeys we also bought some of their heirloom squash. The first one they gave us was a Douglas Squash.

Let me tell you, this was one tough cookie that did not want to give up its fruit! I have never had to hack at a vegetable before, but I took my sharpest cooks knife and gave a few good machete swipes before I could split it open.

Beautiful webaline structure inside with plenty of seeds.

Gutted and cleaned and tossed in the pan with a cup of New Mexico Riesling and a bit of chile and salt. 45 minutes later I had a succulent flesh held by still rigid skin.

For Thanksgiving I wrapped some in whole wheat fillo with feta and made cigars, and topped the rest with nuts and cheese for a quick casserole. Wonderful flavor and texture and worth planting. The farm said that they only watered twice at the beginning of the seed process and never again. The plants grew to nearly six feet tall and they're in the dry part of the dessert!

Dia de Muertos Chocolate Sculpture

2010-11-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to practice my chocolate sculpture skills so here is a Day of the Dead sculpture I made for an offrenda to my dear RuthAnn - best dog ever.

A quick update and ethical conundrum

2010-10-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

First the ethical conundrum. Actually, its not an issue for me at all. On this blog I've gone above and beyond to appropriately credit. In fact, I only remember one recipe that I simply couldn't recall the source and stated so. But recently a chef emailed me asking me to credit their work which I photographed. The interesting question (at least to me) is that this chef was working in another chef's kitchen and had a peer assistant chef. The two assistants are the ones who created the work, but in the lead chef's kitchen. I can only assume that the lead provided guidance and possibly even direction, and possibly even a hand on. Whose work is this? I'll credit whoever wants to be credited, but wonder who really "owns" this work.

For the update. We're smack dab in the middle of restaurant award pre-season. Our on-line reviews continue to glow, and having dined at many award winning restaurants I'm comfortable stating that we're worthy of a nomination. A win...well, that's up to someone more experienced than me. But, we're definitely operating in the same caliber as other James Beard and Food & Wine magazine nominees. Our rural location will certainly not work to our advantage, but I'm keeping my knives crossed that some in-the-know food writer will stumble upon us and enjoy a good meal.

Today I wrap-up my next dinner menu which will launch in two weeks. This next cycle will focus on indigenous ingredients and historic Apache diets. Its been fun research to say the least.

2010-10-17T06:26:00.001-07:00

Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine by René Redzepi is the culinary equivalent of one of those books you find in a museum gift shop – impressive, beautiful, inspiring… but not likely to get opened much after its first reading. And yet, this book will fill you with hope in our culinary future, inspire you to expect more out of your local restaurants, and re-examine the food on your plate.

Read the rest of my review at TheGastronomersBookshelf.

Recent Bauscher Submissions

2010-10-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest round of pics for the Bauscher company dishes:
A new salmon mousse, lemon granite, powdered herbs, dried capers, dried candied lemon

Chocolate hazelnut

Armagnac soaked prunes, grevenbroeker blue cheese, acacia honey

Carrot mousse, lemon curd, ginger cake, caramel glaze

Another version of the salmon mousse

The Case of the Mummified Quabbit

2010-10-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

I vaguely remembered a mummified dish in Under Pressure and it recently motivated me to come up with my own gruesome spin. Dig around in the bottom of the freezer and sure enough I happened to have bags of rabbit livers from my last batch of 4-H rabbits. Dig around in the top of the freezer and sure enough - quail. In my own Dr. Frankenstein manner...I've created Quabbit!

I started by making my house paté with the livers and painstakingly deboned the quail. The liver was piped into the quail and I did my best to reconstitute the quail to look somewhat birdlike. Not being a plastic surgeon, I wrapped the quabbit in a gauze, tied it into shape, incanted a few jumbled words and hoped for the best.

The quabbit victim was then stuffed into a canning jar with some duck fat (might as well go for the turkducken homage), added some quail consommé, and finally closed them up for cooking.

A quick flick of lightening and I unwrapped my first child.

I returned the quabbits to the consommé and fat and let cool.

He looked a bit peeked so I thought maybe some glaze would be appropriate for that healthy glow. The glaze was the reduction with a spot of dark muscovado sugar and about 10 shellackings.

Having that healthy glow, I returned the quabbit to its home, blew in some cherry wood smoke and off to the table for the townsfolk to stab with their pitchforks.

The first night of customers weren't so sure about this little creation of mine, but it quickly became the highlight of the menu and is now out of stock...its alive!

Recipe: Carrot Spice Tower

2010-10-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

Carrot Spice Tower
Serves 12

Spice Cake
3 g Salt
125 g Bread flour
125 g Cake flour
8 g Ground ginger
3 g Freshly ground cinnamon
2 g Freshly ground cloves
1 g Freshly grated nutmeg
440 g Eggs
250 g Dark muscovado or dark brown sugar

Line half sheet and preheat oven to 320º/160º. Sift the flours and spices together. In mixer, whip eggs and sugar until ribbon stage. Carefully fold the dry ingredients into the sugar/egg mixture. Pour into pan and bake about 15 minutes. Once cooled, freeze. *Note: For soaked cakes I prefer to use a cake that does not have a fat included as it tends to soak better and have a better texture.

Lemon Curd
500 ml Lemon juice
225 g Butter
6 Yolks
6 Eggs
150 g Sugar< 2 Sheets gelatin (silver) Combine juice and butter in saucepan and heat until simmer. In mixing bowl, combine yolks, eggs and sugar and whisk until just combined. Temper egg mixture with hot juice and return all to stove cooking until thickened. Remove from heat and add softened gelatin and strain. Pour onto lined sheet pan and freeze.

Carrot Mousse
4 Carrots
30 ml Lemon juice
30 g Sugar
4 Sheets gelatin (silver)
30 ml Rum or Brandy
350 ml Cream

Cook carrots with lemon juice in covered saucepan until soft. Add the sugar and cook uncovered for an additional 2 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Soften the gelatin and clarify. Add gelatin and liquor to the carrots and process til smooth. Strain and hold. Whip cream to soft. Fold carrot mixture gently into cream mixture and hold in piping bag.

Caramel Glaze
8 g Salt
40 g Water
30 g Corn starch
495 g Sugar
125 g Water
415 g Cream
4 Sheets gelatin (silver)

In mixing bowl combine salt, 40 g water and cornstarch. In saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar and 125 g water. Cook to caramel (about 338º/170º). Heat cream and add carefully to the caramel, whisking. Add the salt/corn starch slurry to the pan and cook until thickened. Remove from heat and add softened gelatin. Cool to room temp.

Candied Nuts
150 g Unsalted walnut pieces, lightly toasted
100 g Sugar
45 ml Water
Pinch, salt
Pinch cinnamon

In saucepan combine nuts, sugar and water. Heat until the sugar liquefies then begin stirring. Continue stirring as the nuts crystallize and continue until the sugar re-melts, coating the nuts. Once completely melted and all nuts are evenly covered, remove from heat, stir in salt and cinnamon and turn out onto silpat to cool.

Assembly
Pipe carrot mousse into pastry form. Cut curd and cake to size. Press in frozen curd disc. Press in frozen cake disc. Soak cake with lemon simple syrup. Smooth form and freeze. Once frozen, pour caramel glaze over mousse. Garnish with candied nuts.

[Note: Thank you to Carla for recipe testing at sea level for me.]

Recent Dishes

2010-10-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm still recovering from this weekend's dinner so here is my lazy post. In a day or two I'll post a new dessert that (if everything goes as planned) will be published in Pastry & Baking North America.

Braised oxtail in tempranillo on puff pastry

And its a beautiful puff isn't it?

Goat mofongo, fried plantain

Long Island Cheese squash soup, habañero, cranberry, olive oil powder, beets, lemon granite

A flavor goof around: Apple, balsamic, stout, pomegranate leather, fennel, leek and orange

Balsamic Harvest Dinner Preview (Monticello, NM)

2010-09-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Any foodie worth their salt has been to or put on a balsamic tasting dinner (okay, actually I never have), but rarely do you get to experience that on the farm that the balsamic has been grown on. I've previously reported on the Darland's organic balsamic farm and next weekend I'll be putting on a 10-course tasting dinner to feature their amazing vinegar.

Maybe its my own personal insecurities, but I always feel like I need to say, "I know what you're thinking...New Mexico...balsamic...but you just need to trust me on this one." I remind you that I sell 25 year balsamic from Modena and the Darland's rivals if not surpasses those $200 bottles.

I won't say it again. Your skepticism will be your loss! As I type this entry the Darlands are out in the field picking their blend of grapes and by the time we get to the farm next Saturday, the fermenting room will be ripe with black gold.

(Here are their vines from two weeks ago, covered to protect against bugs.)
But this farm is much more than balsamic. An amazing array of both culinary and non-culinary lavender fill nearly an acre.

You feel like your in the south of France (or a Bed Bath and Beyond shop).

And the vegetables - oye! Here are some beautiful peppers.

And even as staunch of an anti-smoker as I am, I was impressed by Steve's stash of heritage tobacco. If I recall, he has three plants, one will be used for the wrapper and the other two for the filling.

They gifted me with these shashito peppers. All the rage at the Sante Fe farmers market, these little peppers aren't very spicy hot (one out of ten will kick your rear), but addictive when flash fried and seasoned.

Simply throw them in a hot wok with some oil - I used peanut oil. The Darlands swear by saffron salt.

And the farm is littered with other bounty - so much so that I don't even remember what this is, but I know its important because I took the time to take a picture (oregano bud maybe?)

And Long Island Cheese squash...wow, I immediately made that into a spicy soup and served it back to the Darlands for dinner - beautiful color and fantastically rich flavor.

But enough about the farm, dinner (which is sold out) will begin at 6 pm. My tentative menu is:
Tomato beignet
Fig and grape salad
Cashew ravioli
Grilled apricots and balsamic foam
Goat cheese terrine
Cantaloup carpaccio/duck prosciutto
Portabello mousse
Pheasant
Braised pork belly
Carbonated watermelon with balsamic dimple
Balsamic ice cream and dulce de leche napoleon

I'll be sure to post pics next week.

What if Alinea was opened in Omaha?

2010-09-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

Would one of the world's most famous restaurants be famous if it were opened in Omaha? What if the French Laundry had opened its doors in Boise? When a restaurant opens in a location that is not known for having a conglomeration of foodies, can it find its potential?

Lately I've been thinking about when Alex and Aki were in southwestern Colorado at a little known lodge. I used to live in that neck of the woods so I know that its at least five hours to the nearest major airport and hence major metro area. They found fame through the internet and dedicated followers, but surely it was a tougher road to take than if they had lived in NYC or San Fran where food writers and bloggers could highlight the work they were doing. Now living in the northeast, they have widely known fame and a much anticipated book.

But they were just a couple of passionate chefs doing their thing. They weren't a restaurant trying to make its mark on the American restaurant scene (they may dispute this).

So what if Grant Achatz decided to stay in small town Michigan? His skills surely would have drawn the attention that would lead to greatness, but would it have been the same if it weren't in Chicago? For that matter, what has Alinea done to elevate Chicago's status as a foodie city? I would suspect that Alinea would be a destination restaurant, but not to the degree that it has become. Grant may have thrown in the towel and headed to a bigger market in hopes of staking his claim.

As the human psyche ponders the cost-benefit of a great meal versus a three hour drive from the airport for the meal, few would make the trip I suspect. I wouldn't visit Boise or Omaha just for a meal...well, unless Alinea opened up in one of those cities. Maybe.

Book Review: Foods of the Americas

2010-09-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Recently released in paperback version, Foods of the Americas: Native Recipes and Traditions, brings renewed life to this James Beard Foundation book award winner of 2005 (originally published in 2004). Numerous books have been written about native or indigenous cooking in the Americas, but most focus on a small subset of people, and are rarely written by accomplished chefs. Fernando and Marlene Divina, in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, have created a book that documents important cultural history, and thankfully convert it into a useful culinary tool.

Read the rest of the review HERE.

Need a recipe tester

2010-09-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm working on publishing a dessert recipe and need someone at sea level (or at least not a mile high) that can test a recipe for me. Any takers? Please email me or leave a comment. Thanks.

Mooncake Festival 2010 falls on September 22

2010-09-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

I know that my local Asian restaurants won't have the gumption to celebrate mooncakes, so I'll have to become the mooncake capital of Silver City. I'd love to get some tried and true recipes if any readers want to share them. I'll send a box as a thank you :)

Upcoming Event: Balsamic Farm Banquet

2010-09-07T18:11:00.001-07:00

As usual, my apologies to my regular readers. I'm in the middle of creating a new dinner menu and have been busy planning a very exciting event. Some of you may remember our visit earlier this year to a New Mexico balsamic producer HERE. We've negotiated a behind-the-scenes visit to their farm and I'll be preparing a sumptuous balsamic-themed banquet. I hope you'll consider joining us on Saturday, October 2nd starting at 3 pm.

HERE is the link to their farm website.

And here is more information about the event:

Join hosts, Rob & Tyler Connoley, as they introduce you to one of our
local great food producers - Steve and Jane Darland of Monticello, who are producing truly world class balsamic vinegar. We believe their vinegar rivals even the 25- year old, $200 per bottle variety that we sell at the store. Its stunning in its maturity and flavor complexity.

Chef Rob will be creating numerous dishes throughout the day culminating in a multi-course balsamic-focused feast. The meal includes all wine pairings and other beverages. The Darlands will offer an exclusive behind-the-scene tour of their farm, the fermenting room and the aging attic - sure to be the highlight of your visit.

Transportation will be available for those wishing to come for just the day, and the Darlands have two guest cottages for those who wish to make it a weekend (minimum of two night stay please).

You are being invited because of your support of the Kumquat and your passion for great food. We believe this very unique opportunity is something you simply have to experience. Please join us for $95 per person. RSVP quickly and feel free to invite friends. Limited to 30 guests.
Call 534-0337 or stop by the store to register.

Two ends of the spectrum

2010-08-23T21:09:00.001-07:00

This is my latest dessert - hazelnut cake with a very thin layer of tempered milk chocolate, creme brulee, milk chocolate rum mousse, sprayed with milk chocolate, garnished with a caramelized hazelnut and an aerated chocolate sphere.

On the other end of the spectrum...a hummus platter that we sent out at lunch. I don't know why, but when the customer asked for a double serving with no tomatoes or olives, it just struck me as funny.

Current Menu a few dishes: Summer 10

2010-08-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of my current dishes. This menu is less technical and more focused on flavor balance.

Inspired from my favorite food when I did a climbing expedition to Peru a few years back - papas rellenos. A seasoned potato cube filled with picadillo, garnished with mango, minted sour cream and molé.

Cuitlacoche (Huitlacoche) Salmon with braised brussels sprouts. The plating has improved since this pic.

Showing off some Bauscher Contour plates, here is an unagi filled squash blossom.

Bacon wrapped bacon with my pork belly reduction on grilled cornbread planks.

100 Layer Pear - From our back yard, 100 layers of pear with ginger and ricotta cheese.

Book Review: Pastry In Europe 2010

2010-08-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last year I reviewed the inaugural PIE09 both here and at eG, and it was the first time a publisher took the time to express their displeasure at my review. The basic gist of my summary is that the book is inspirational, packed with interesting ideas, but needing of a serious edit and organizational structure. Knowing that the publisher had received this feedback (not that I should be the voice of reckoning for any publisher), I have to note that there is nothing different in this edition.

Over 250 pages with over a hundred recipes ranging from molecular gastronomy-based dishes to historically important pastries, PIE10 still avoids serious consideration. I've now tested over 20 recipes - half worked fine, almost half needed some minor adjustments to work, and a handful were simply failures. I cook out of enough books from across the globe to account for regional variations in ingredients and the subtle nuances of recipe linguistics, and even so found this edition to be too problematic for me to invest much more time in.

Harsh? Yes, and I'll still be buying the 2011 edition. Why? Simply put, I think this is a stellar concept. The breadth of chefs, recipes and regions is sure to inspire any chef. However, the simple addition of a true Index would do wonders for this book. The 2010 edition has an Index, but it is in fact what most books call at Table of Contents. And that ToC is simply a list of the chefs. The chef is not my attraction (in most instances), rather it is the dish. An index would allow me to find the recipe I am seeking without flipping through 250 pages. Its a simple request - shoot, I'll do it for them for a free copy of the book! (And we all know that I'm anal retentive enough to do a good job at it.)

Let me put my views more directly. I think everyone should buy this book and attach a note with your payment saying, "I will not buy the next book unless you have your recipes tested and an Index included." I think that should make the point clearly enough.

(Note: The best value is to buy this book directly from the publisher with their reasonable shipping costs.)

Love Notes

2010-08-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned some of my favorite compliments before, and we've had some amazing tips (cash and non-cash) from people showing their appreciation for our efforts in the restaurant. On Friday, we were left a couple of notes. The back story is that two young women came in and dined separately and alone. They were just a couple of tables apart and their courses were almost aligned in timing. With that said, enjoy the notes they left for us...

and this from Virginia...

Short Rant: Sous vide v Immersion circulator

2010-07-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

In my previous post you'll see a pick of the asparagus dish. One of the preparations included an egg yolk. I asked the server how it was prepared and she went to the kitchen to ask. I told the table that it was mostly likely sous vide preparation. The server came back and got into some mumble jumble about 147º and 149º - the temps at which yolks and whites cook respectively. I asked again, but helping her understand that I was talking about the actual technique. She retreated to the kitchen again. The revised answer - Immersion circulator.

I said, "You mean, sous vide?" She repeated the circulator.

This was interesting because I've heard this answer on cooking shows, from other peers and even at the pastry forum from another classmate. So am I wrong? The circulator is simply the machine that circulates the water in your water bath. The process is called sous vide? Right? I sous vide without a circulator (for lack of funds) and get the same results. What's up with this? If I'm wrong I really want to know. If not, why is the circulator being used to describe the process? Its not about the water moving, its about heating under water. Thoughts?

Restaurant Review: Bloom, Grand Rapids, MI

2010-07-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm doing my own restaurant, writing reviews of other restaurants is very difficult. I don't think I have much interest in reviewing restaurants that I don't like, yet am comfortable offering critique, just as I would like to receive objective critique of my work. This shift really started after I reviewed a local restaurant - 1Zero6 on eGullet a couple of years ago. The review was highly critical, but ultimately said it was a good restaurant worth visiting. Those critiques are hard to hear when its about yourself and something that you put your whole heart into. So its with that overlay that I offer this review of Bloom in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Following the World Pastry Forums we took a week and a half of vacation to get out and see family and friends. Near the end of the trip we wound our way into Grand Rapids to see the godkids and their parents, and even though we were cash strapped, I pleaded for a stop at Bloom. Bloom seems to be my distant relative - locally sourced, slow foods, prepared with unique flavor combinations and presented artistically. I thought it misfortunate that their logo bears a resemblance to BP, but it was kind of funny to me.

The inside had a nice color palate and a space that wasn't overdone or pretentious. The tables are a gorgeous wild grass - the server couldn't remember the name, but I'll be looking into them for a future purchase. The chairs (similar to mine) were uncomfortable for a longer dining experience.

We were the only table seated for our early dinner at 6:30. By 7:30 a few more tables strolled in, but was definitely not going to be a busy night for them. Chef started by sending out an amuse of seasonal melon and other items that I've forgotten. It was the combination of sweet melon and pickled vegetables. An appropriate amuse, although not memorable.

Now, here's my warning. Your entrees (if they're like ours) will be huge and appetizers, salads, etc are going to be too much. I think this type of restaurant begs for the customer to eat a variety of things and the entrees should be scaled down by about 40%. Not knowing this at the time, and nursing some fun cocktails, we started with roasted fingerlings and truffle mayonnaise. Light on the truffle and far more potatoes than we could eat, this was a nice start to the meal.

Next we had foccacia, housemade preserves and ricotta. I enjoyed this, Tyler didn't. Again, portions should have been much smaller, but I enjoyed the ricotta and preserve combination and will be borrowing from it for my new menu.

For starters we had the carrot soup with sweet pea panna cotta and pepper tuile. This was the first slip of the night. The soup was poured tableside, but the carrots were so thick that the server had to vigorously shake the pitcher to get the carrots into the bowl. That aside, the taste was enjoyable and fresh.

Tyler had the Symphony of Asparagus. For a slow foods restaurant this should have left their menu by now as asparagus is no longer in season in the US. The most notable of the four dishes was the cous cous salad which popped with flavor. Again, too large of portions for Tyler.

When the entrees arrived, we were all despondent knowing we would barely dent these monsterously sized dishes. First was the seared whitefish with multiple carrot preparations. Gaff number two - the bacon. WTH!? A more creative presentation is really needed. I'm not sure if the bacon is locally made, but it was not interesting and didn't deserve top billing in the plating. I would use Niman Ranch any day if there wasn't a suitable local alternative. Just one fillet would have been plenty.

I had the lamb neck. Huge. Monsterous. Gigantic. But really, really tasty and well prepared. The farro was perfectly prepared and the sauce fantastic. I didn't really get the cornichons, but Tyler enjoyed them just fine.

Tyler had the hanger steak which he enjoyed...but only enjoyed a couple of pieces before he gave up. Very well prepared.

Our fourth entree was the pork belly. This is what I wanted to get just because I'm on a pork belly kick, but I talked our least decisive friend into it. Well done - perfectly soft, moist and crisp at the same time.

None of us wanted dessert, but I had to because...well, because I'm me. Here again the tableside pouring was disastrous. My guess is that the chef hasn't seen the end result of his pours. Again the server violently shook the rhubarb soup onto the rhubarb bavarian and sorbet. Flavors were good but not notable, but after all of that food we may have not been able to taste any more.

Terrible review, right? No. I really enjoyed Bloom, and would order differently next time. I think two people should order one line of dishes and share them and then the sizes will be appropriate. If for some reason this was an off night, don't blame me, just know that my food alone could have fed more than two people. The flavors were all really quite nice. The presentation was unique and for the most part spot on. The gaffs that I've noted wouldn't have negatively impacted my experience of the meal, so really they are just peer critiques. I would be surprised if there were a better restaurant in GR.

Ginger Cookies

2010-07-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Giant Gingerbread Cookies (credit to Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard):

* 2 1/4 C all purpose flour
* 2 t baking soda
* 1/4 t salt
* 3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
* 3/4 C packed light brown sugar
* 1/4 C sugar, plus 1/3 C for dusting
* 1 1/4 t ground ginger
* 1/2 t ground cinnamon
* Pinch of ground cloves (optional)
* 1 large egg
* 1/4 C blackstrap molasses
* 1/2 C crystallized ginger, chopped (I omitted these, since I didn’t have any)

Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, the 1/4 C sugar, the ginger, cinnamon and cloves for 1 minute at medium speed. stop the machine, scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle/beaters, and add the egg and molasses. Blend at medium speed for 1 minute, then scrape down the bowl and paddle. On low speed, add the sifted dry ingreidnets and then the crystallized ginger. Mix for 30 seconds.

Place the 1/3 C sugar in a bowl. Lightly flour your hands. divide the dough into 16 pieces and roll into balls about 2 inches in diameter. Roll in the sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. (I made mine smaller and ended up with about 3 dozen).

Bake, one sheet at a time, for 12 minutes. Rotate the sheet from front to back and bake for another 5 to 7 minutes, until the cookies are light brown around the edges.* Remove from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool.

2010-07-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest contribution to Bauscher's Deep Plate blog using their Tafelstern platter: Pumkin seed oil cake with lemon curd.

World Pastry Forum: Final Thoughts

2010-07-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Back when I was the Pastry host at eGullet, each year in June people would post comments about how they wanted to go to the forum but were afraid that their skills weren't adequate. Having now been through the process I can answer definitively. If you want to do the demo classes, any skill level will do just fine. The more experience you have the more you will get out of it, but everyone is so friendly if you don't understand basics, then just ask and someone will help. A good example of this - because I have cases of disposable pastry bags, I've never, that's right, never made a paper piping bag. We needed them in the sculpture class, I asked, and now I know.

For the hands-on classes, a bit more consideration is necessary. The registration form called for "professionals only." We had some that weren't professionals and they did fine. However, in many instances we worked in small groups. When we did the finishing work on our sculpture I had to let Sarah do the bulk of the work since I had never done that. I held my own in most areas, but was aware that I was slowing us down - that is unacceptable in a professional kitchen. So gauge your abilities and ask yourself "if you were in a small group, would you hinder your group or help them?" Your desire to learn should not impact your partner's $2000 investment in their own growth. If your partner is having to teach you, which they will be willing to do, then you are hurting their learning opportunities.

So, that said, anyone with some decent skills, even if only home skills, should consider the forum workshops.

On a more political note. I will not attend this workshop again if it is in Phoenix, and Arizona still has their immigration law. I don't get political in this blog, but think about how heavily dependent the food services industry is on the Hispanic community. To hold a conference in a state where a large portion of our employees would be at risk or uncomfortable is ridiculous.

Thanks to our fantastic instructors and I hope you all enjoyed the report.

World Pastry Forum: My Chocolate Showpiece

2010-07-05T08:57:00.001-07:00

Here's the base that I carved:

And some leaves formed from molds, flowers and airbrushing by Sarah

Flower detail.

and remember...all chocolate.

World Pastry Forum Days 4-6: Chocolate Showpiece

2010-07-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

In the showpiece workshop led by Stephane Treand, MOF, we just dove in and started creating. He offered us one core technique which was how to form your base sculpture. Start by having a theme or vision for where you want the sculpture to end up. Next sketch out the figure, and once satisfied, draw the figure on paper in the final size. Lay a second paper over the top - preferably a waxed butchers paper and pour a bit of tempered chocolate along the lines in the sketch. Remove the sketch paper so you can see it and press cut strips of poster board into the chocolate to hold the shape of your form.

Once the chocolate sets - which will be just minutes, then pour tempered chocolate to the depth that you want your final form.

This needs to rest preferably overnight. I was working with Sarah Kosikowski, the Executive Pastry Chef at Trump Tower in Chicago. She and I turned out to be a great team because we brought complementary skill sets. We busted out a bunch of molded garnish, purposefully making more than we would use because we wanted to have plenty of options when it came time for assembly. I started carving away at our chocolate figure while Sarah made oodles of flower petals. My goal was to do as my old high school art teachers used to say - its not just a matter of what you add on, but what you take away, and so both Sarah and I were very aware of our negative spaces and details, as well as our relief sculpting.

But let me show some of Chef's creations (for the record, in the time it took us to make our one showpiece, Chef created eight or ten...I lost track). Here Chef inset a small DVD player into a chocolate frame decorated with metal bolts (all chocolate of course).

This concrete technique is a 50/50 mix of granulated sugar and tempered chocolate - its crucial that the chocolate be in temper or the seizing will be unusable. Chef then attached some chocolate bars dusted with bronze luster.

I'm going to have to ask more about this technique to figure out the coloring...maybe a classmate knows.

Here Chef created an oversized ring that he industrialized with bolts...again, all chocolate.

and the final piece with the sugar diamond mounted on top.

Here's granite that was done by two of Chef's volunteer assistants (Masumi and Jessie) - They started with a medium size bowl of white tempered chocolate, added a small amount of chef rubber blue sapphire for the lightest color- poured out 1/3 to crystalize. Added more blue sapphire for the next color - poured out 1/3 to crystalize, added more blue and red for final purple color. Once all of the chocolate was fully crystallized they pulsed each color and some dark chocolate separately. Melted cocoa butter, added white diamond color and mixed by hand. Next day the block was evened out on a warm marble and buffed with a dry cloth. They used a foam core mold made with duct tape. I like this pic because you see the chocolate granite in front of the real granite. In the end, mix the chopped pieces with cocoa butter and pour into your mold. Rap the air bubbles out and let set.

A few more of Chef's showpieces:

Tyler's favorite...look at the detail - even the Guess logo embossed in the heel.

I'll post my sculpture in the next post.

World Pastry Forum Day 3: Chocolate & Confections Finishing Work

2010-07-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

After we had made the hundreds and probably thousands of chocolates and confections it was time to coat them. Fortunately we had an enrobing machine. Cost - $47,000.

This machine tempers, enrobes, blows the top of the bon bons, vibrates the excess off, then sets the bon bons off on a conveyor belt to be boxed by a bunch of chefs.

We sent through the liqueur filled sugar shells.

and got these...

We hand cut the caramels and wrapped them by hand.

Some of the bon bons had nuts placed on top.

Some were coated, nuts set on top, the chocolate holding the nuts before running them through for a second coating.

Some were garnished with saffron threads as they came out of the machine.

Some had a fork tong touched, pulled up slightly then drawn back toward the fork handle.

Others had a texture sheet layed on top with a bit of pressure to ensure that the texture took

Others had a grid pressed onto the top

Nice finish...

and ultimately we set up the buffet station with all of our creations...

all of which were devoured within an hour.

World Pastry Forum Day 2: Feuilletés Pralinés

2010-07-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

Before I show all of the finishing work we had a demo of Feuilletés Pralinés candies. For anyone ambitious enough to try these, here is the recipe:

Duja
330 g Hazelnuts, toasted
250 g Confectioners sugar
70 g Hazlenut paste

Process these ingredients well, place in bowl and set under a heat lamp to keep them warm, mixing from time to time. The bowl should stay at 50-60ºC.

Sugar
1000 g Cane sugar cubes
330 g Mineral water
150 Glucose DE38
2 g Tartaric acid
8 g Cinnamon extract
2 Vanilla beans
Food coloring of your choice

Combine sugar, water and glucose in large saucepan and heat to 159ºC. Add the acid and cinnamon.

Pour sugar onto silpat with the vanilla beans.

Add your first food coloring remembering to go from lightest to darkest. Swirl in the pan to mix.

When the sugar is firm enough to handle, but still very warm, start stretching and folding.

Do this with all of the colors you wish to use. Ultimately roll out the white sugar in a light box keeping sugar warm but solid at all times.

Spread the duma in the sugar, quickly seal the edges well, trim excess.

Next take logs of the colored sugar and line up.

Lay on the filled section and again stretch and fold a number of times being careful not to damage the skin and cause leaking.

And through some candy magic and a cool confectionary toy...

quickly laying your logs on the toy cutting quickly...

You'll have these gorgeous candies.

World Pastry Forum Day 2: More Ganache & Paté de Fruit

2010-07-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Here's the wrap-up of the ganache recipes. First were some bars using Hazelnut Praliné bon bons:

1300 g Hazelnut praliné
120 g Milk chocolate
125 g Mycryo cocoa butter

Melt chocolate, add cocoa butter and mix in with the praliné.

Pour mix into pre-poured bar shells dusted with shimmer powder.

Cap off the bars and let set up overnight.

Kona Coffee Ganache
550 g Cream
100 g Soribitol powder
215 g Dextrose
160 g Butter
220 g Glucose
5 g Lecithin liquid
640 g 65% chocolate
235 g Kona coffee, rough crushed
20 g Mycryo cocoa butter

Start by steeping the beans with the cream, sorbitol, dextrose, glucose and lecithin for at least 10 minutes, but not more than 30.

Strain beans out and re-warm the cream. In food processor crush chocolate, add warm cream and then cocoa butter. Blitz until smooth and glossy. Pour into your frame until set.

Coriander Praliné bon bons
1500 g Almond praliné
120 g Mycryo cocoa butter
120 g Milk chocolate
7 g Coriander seeds, crushed
A drop of coriander extract

Make ganache as in the previous recipes with the addition of the coriander powder and extract at the end.

For this batch we tempered the mix on the marble before pouring it into our forms.

As before we poured the ganache into forms that were previously lined with tempered chocolate on acetate.

Enough making ganache...you get the idea and the technique. After the ganaches set for the night we pulled out the guitar cutter. We received a good reminder to double check our guitar settings since when we went to box the chocolates they were too big to fit into their cavities.

Then the team set to separating the bon bons...and eating lots of trimmings.

And separating and labeling before we forgot which was which.

Hold that thought and we'll switch to paté de fruit. First is Lemon paté de fruit.

1200 g Lemon juice
330 g Pear puree (for texture)
120 g Granulated sugar
33 g Yellow pectin
405 g Glucose powder
1275 g Granulated sugar
3 g Lemon extract
9 g Tartaric acid
6 g Water

In a saucepan, combine the lemon and pear. In a bowl combine pectin and the 120 g sugar and whisk well. In another bowl combine the 1275 sugar and glucose. Set your frames lined with acetate on a marble. And finally, combine the tartaric acid with the water and dissolve. Cook on high whisking energetically until you feel like your arm is going fall off. Cook the juice and puree to 45-50ºC, then add the pectin sugar mix and cook two minutes. Add the second sugar mix and cook a minimum of 15 minutes.

The mix will sputter and splatter, but keep whisking until your refractometer (reads sugar concentration) reads 72 brix. If you don't have a refractometer you can cook to 105-106ºC.

Finally, add the tartaric acid mix and whisk well. Pour into the frames immediately. On one of our batches we delayed in pouring the mix and when it came time to cut the paté they cracked and were unusable.

This lemon paté was poured and then topped with an earl gray ganache.

Part two coming shortly.

World Pastry Forum Day 1: Caramels

2010-07-01T07:29:00.002-07:00

Apparently I got no good pictures of caramels so here are the three recipes.

Pecan Crunch
350 g Pecans, rough chopped
350 g Granulated sugar
250 g Water

Bring sugar and water to just a boil and add the nuts. Continue boiling 2-3 minutes and pour through a sieve to remove the syrup. Chef pitches his syrup, I say use it in ice tea or bourbon. Oven to 360ºF. Nuts on a silpat and in the oven for 10 minutes, spread the nuts and return to the oven until toasted and fragrant. Bring to room temp.

Vanilla Pecan Caramels
1 g Soy lecithin liquid (available at Whole Foods or co-ops in the supplement section)
368 g Granulated sugar
25 g Sorbitol powder
68 g Glucose DE38
268 g Cream 35%
2 Vanilla beans
185 g Milk
1 g Baking soda (for color)
3 g Fleur de Sel
318 g Butter 85%, diced
125 g Pecan Crunch

Combine the cream, milk, soy lecithin and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, remove from heat. Place the sorbitol in a pan and heat to melt. In a small dish combine the salt and soda. Add the sugar in three stages to the melted sorbitol. Then add the vanilla until fragrant and the glucose. Once it hits the desired color, add the hot cream mix and boil until the caramel melts off of the whisk. Remove the vanilla bean and cook to 112ºC. Add the butter and cook to 118º. Be careful to not stop the boil when adding the butter so you may need to add it in two or three additions. Finally add the salt and soda mix and whisk. Then add the nuts, pour into your frame and cool overnight.

Coffee Caramels
368 g Granulated sugar
25 g Sorbitol
68 g Glucose DE38
268 g Cream 35%
185 g Milk
1 g Baking soda
2 g Sea salt
318 g Butter 85%
62 g Coffee paste

Cassis Caramels
800 g Cream
520 g Granulated sugar
200 g Glucose
370 g Cassis puree
60 g Butter
50 g Mycryo cocoa butter
4 g Citric acid

World Pastry Forum Day 1: Nougat

2010-07-01T07:10:00.001-07:00

We made two nougat to close out the day. First was a chocolate nougat:

380 g Honey
310 g Granulated sugar
90 g Glucose
120 g Water
100 g Egg whites
260 g Cocoa pure paté, melted and cooled
200 g Green pistachios, toasted but still green
300 g Almonds, toasted
75 g Orange confit peel
10 g Vanilla extract

The key is to have your honey and sugar mixture hit the right temp at the same time so Chef started the sugar mixture first. Combine sugar, glucose and water in a sauce pan and cook to 170ºC. When the sugar mixture hits 110ºC then start the honey which you take to 121ºC.

At this point I am coveting his induction burners for their speed. Also when the sugar hits 110-115º put the whites in a mixer and start them on slow. Meanwhile, set up your frames - no need to oil them according to Chef. Dust the base with dextrose. As the mixtures get closer to temp, add 15 g sugar to the whites and make a meringue. Mix low-med speed until fluffed almost firm.

While whipping on low, add the honey first and once fully incorporated, then add the sugar mixture. Both must go in at the correct temperature so if you need to slow down the eggs, just adjust the speed. Scrape down the sides and finish the mix. Warm the bowl with a torch or heat gun and continue mixing until the meringue dries a bit - this was demonstrated by the meringue peeling away from the sides in a very obvious dry way. Now add the chocolate and mix until combined.

By hand fold in the nuts and fruit.

Press the nougat into the frame and dust with dextrose. Now it won't be sticky so press with hands until nice and smooth. This will rest on the counter overnight.

White Soft Honey Nougat

345 g Honey
435 g Sugar cubes
145 g Mineral water
90 g Glucose DE38
72 g Egg whites
15 g Granulated sugar
120 g Mycryo cocoa butter (helps it hold its shape)
350 g Hazelnuts
150 g Dried apricots, chopped
4 drops of lavender extract (Terra spice has a nice one)

Follow the same process where the honey goes to 121º and the sugar mixture goes to 156º. The extract and cocoa butter are incorporated at the point of the chocolate in the previous description.

World Pastry Forum Day 1: Ganache

2010-06-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

You can see why I was getting bleary eyed by mid-afternoon. This post will focus on the numerous ganaches that we made. First, Chef introduced us to a cool way to prep ganache frames. He has a bunch of 1/2" thick plexiglass that is cut to the size of his sheet pans. We then wiped those with a moist towel and lined them with acetate. Tempered milk chocolate was then thinly wiped over the acetate just wider than the frame. The frame is then set into the chocolate firmly and since its tempered seals the frame to the base making it water-tight.

With that set-up you'll see all the different ganaches we made. All of them follow the same basic process. Here's Mexican Vanilla Ganache:
630 g Cream 35%
120 g Butter 85%
8 Mexican vanilla beans
50 g Sorbitol
40 g Dextrose
400 g 65% Chocolate
215 g 38% Chocolate
20 g Vanilla extract
10 g Mycryo cocoa butter (1% of total weight)
1 g Soy lecithin liquid

Split beans. Put cream and butter in a sauce pan. Many say butter should go in at the end, but Chef disagrees. There is no structural reason for leaving it til the end and Chef believes that adding it now increases the emulsification process. Warm and add the dextrose, sorbitol and vanilla beans and extract. Ideally, steep covered for 24 hours then re-warm. Melt the chocolate and then add the warm cream mix and process in a food processor or with a stick blender. Mixing by hand can lead to separation. Finally, add the mycryo and pour into the frame, leveling and removing air bubbles.

Pistachio Marzipan
500 g Marzipan
135 g Simple syrup
25 g Kirsch
165 g Pistachio paste
115 g Mycryo cocoa butter

In processor, add each ingredient in order until smooth and homogeneous.

Chef then covered the pistachio marzipan with Lemon Ganache.
360 g Cream 35%
256 g Butter 85%
300 g Lemon juice
40 g Lemon peel
150 g Sorbitol powder
288 g Pasteurized egg yolk
65 g Inverted sugar
396 g 38% Chocolate
840 g 65% Chocolate
60 g Mycryo cocoa butter

Mojito Ganache
350 g Cream
180 g Lime purée
20 g Sorbitol
200 g Inverted sugar
175 g Butter
810 g 65% Chocolate
85 g White rum
8 g Mint
10 g Cocoa butter

Kona Hawaiian Coffee Ganache
550 g Cream
100 g Sorbitol powder
215 g Dextrose
160 g Butter
220 g Glucose
5 g Lechithin liquid
640 g 65% Chocolate
235 g Kona Coffee
20 g Mycryo cocoa butter

Earl Grey Tea Ganache
650 g Milk
80 g Tea
600 g 38% Chocolate
300 g 65% Chocolate
110 g Butter
95 g Sorbitol powder
50 g Dextrose
25 g Mycryo cocoa butter

I'm crashing so I'll finish up tomorrow with caramels and nougats.

World Pastry Forum Day 1: Nuts

2010-06-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

This next section was the most mundane and yet the most memorable for me - we candied nuts. But we didn't just candy them, we turned many of them into pralines and marzipan.

Almond Praliné
560 g Almond with skins
240 g Almond without skins
850 g Granulated Sugar
260 g Water
1 Vanilla bean

Hazelnut Praliné
800 g Hazelnut with skin
675 g Granulated sugar
195 g Water
1 Vanilla bean

Both follow the same process. Boil sugar and water to 118ºC. Pour over the nuts and return to a flame. The mixture will sizzle and the sugar will crystallize.

Then we toss and fold over the heat.

And toss and fold...

and toss and fold til you feel like your arms are going to fall off. Once the sugar remelts and caramelizes then be sure the sides of the bowl are scraped down to get all of the sugar crystals melted. When the nuts have a good color and great smell, pour the mixture on a silpat to cool. Cut one nut in half to make sure that it is toasted all the way through - if not there will be moisture and textural problems later.

Above is the almond that became praliné and below is the soon to be marzipan whose recipe is below.

Marzipan
525 g Almond without skins
75 g Granulated sugar
475 g Cane sugar cubes
150 g Water
90 g Glucose DE38
Almond Essence

Process the almonds and granulated sugar. Place cubes, water and glucose in a pot and cook to 116ºC. Add the almond mix to the sugar mix and combine quickly before it crystallizes. Spread the mix on a silpat and rest to cool. The nuts will crystallize and crumble.

Pop them in a food processor and grind them as well as you can.

Then pull out your $8000 dual granite wheel praliné processor and go at it for about 45 minutes.

But the work is worth it. Each time you run the the nuts through the wheels you tighten the wheels another notch. Ultimately the friction from the wheels presses the oil and makes the nuts into a smooth, moist paste. Here's the hazelnut.

And here's our marzipan.

The final step is to put this back into the processor and go until its liquidy like peanut butter.

You'll note that we used a copper bowl which distributes the heat more evenly.

World Pastry Forum Day 1: Liquid Center Bon Bons

2010-06-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

The next five days I'll be slamming the blog with posts mostly to record my memory before its lost. We're covering so many recipes and techniques, and so many off-handed tips are being thrown out that I won't remember many, but these posts will try to capture and share what I'm learning.

My instructor today was Jean-Marie Auboine who just recently took over the pastry lead at the Bellagio. A very down-to-earth chef who clearly has a mastery of confections but also instruction.

Today we did a ton of prep that will show fruits tomorrow, but here it is:

While we were all setting up our mis-en-place Chef was preparing frames full of cornstarch. He started by whisking the starch to remove lumps and fluff it up a bit.

Then he scraped it down to make it a smooth surface.

And then imprinted it with the size cavities that we would be filling. Previously Chef had covered the tables with cling wrap to make clean-up easier.

Here's how the box looked before filling...don't sneeze!

I had first seen this technique in Torreblanca 2 where he used it to create bb sized liquid balls as garnish.

Cognac or Raspberry Liquor Candies
500 g Sugar - chef only uses cube because he says they have less impurities than granular
170 g Mineral water - again for impurities
200 g Cognac or Raspberry liquor (all liquor must be 40% minimum alcohol)

Cook sugar and water to 120ºC. Add cognac warmed to 50ºC and pour back and forth between two bowls - do not whisk or stir - this prevents crystallization. Cover with a west towel and rest 5 minutes. Fill starch mold three quarters of the way- make sure portioner/pourer is warmed to 50ºC.

Above are the raspberry liquors and below are the cognac. One filling technique that Chef demonstrated is to run the portioner non-stop and the starch will roll the liquid forward with the momentum and allow for much faster filling and less risk of crystallization.

Sprinkle starch on top of liquids and rest three hours (less for smaller molds).

That's part one...next up is ganaches and starting our bon bons.

My Getaway Reading List

2010-06-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

Rarely a week goes by when someone doesn't bring me a book or article to read and with my time so short, they just stack up until that special moment comes. And now I've got three weeks to get caught up!

Some of you will recognize the Big Fat Duck Cookbook in there and I see José Andres peeking out from below this Garrett Oliver Dude. Below them are:
A re-read of Blumenthal's In Search of Total Perfection
Flower Confidential - a behind the scenes look at the flower industry
Coming Home to Eat - politics of local foods
Food of the Americas
Hermé's Macaron
My Search for the Seven Molés
Two back issues of the Art of Eating - still my favorite magazine/journal
Preserving
Greweling's Chocolates and Confections
Pintxos - tapas
Cooking with Prickly Pears
and a slew of articles from New York and New Yorker magazines
oh yeah, and a recent review our our dinners HERE.

World Pastry Championship

2010-06-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

If anyone wants tickets to the championship, gala dinner or awards ceremony, I won't be able to use mine. I will be attending the forum and the first day of the competition, but can't stay for the final day's events. Let me know if you would like them.

Book Review: Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen

2010-06-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

[Note: As you've noticed, I've been incredibly busy with our dinners. That's good news of course. The down side is that I've had less time to play and find interesting things to post here. Next week I'm off for the Pastry Forum Workshop on Competition Pastries so that should provide good fodder with Stephane Treand as the instructor. In the meantime, here's a new book that I highly recommend.]

For those readers old enough to remember when parental warnings were placed on certain music, you might remember how that music became the ‘must have’ CDs and records for your collection. Vineet Bhatia opens his recently released Rasoi: New Indian Kitchen with “This book is probably not for the novice cook.” Such sweet warnings are rarely uttered in culinary books.
Read the rest of the review at The Gastronomer's Bookshelf.

A few more recent dishes

2010-06-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm wrapping up my current menu with only two more weeks, then all of the current dishes will go away. I love the evolution of dishes over time - Csíkszentmihályi's flow - where my confidence and abilities align to create the dish that was created in my mind long ago. Here are a few to retire...

Gazpacho. Served in a double wall sake glass with Idiazabal cheese, sunflower sprout holding Balinese pyramid salt, rose petals from our garden, bottarga and arbequina olive oil.

Cayenned cucumber sorbet. Cucumber noodle. Red cabbage sprout. Spicy white chocolate.
Recipe added for Sharlene: 2 C cucumber juice, 1/4 C agave nectar (honey or corn syrup), juice of one lemon, a pinch of salt, pinch of cayenne. Blend, strain, freeze. How's that for simple.

Crispy cheese ball. Garlic khadichi rice. Red cabbage sprouts. Mozzarella. Spicy chili garlic sauce.

Asparagus Forest. At the restaurant staff is instructed to say, "Too many ingredients to describe." Contains herb leather, saffron orange leather. Three mushroom paper. Salt cured egg yolks. Dill sauce. Mixed sprouts. Roses. Orange mousse. And a few more things depending on my mood that night.

Bison Tongue Pain Perdu (ala Keller)

2010-06-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Riffing off of Keller's Under Pressure, I pickled a bison tongue about six weeks ago. I had to look at that ugly thing for six long weeks, all along hoping it was staying edible and not knowing if it would be any good at all.

After I removed it from the brine and dried the tongue I set about to clean it.

Trimmed some edges, removed the skin and membrane, cut it in half to make it easier to work with.

Then ran it through my slicer to get it as thin as I could.

Next, I took some day old brioche and lined an 8x8 pan snugly.

Soaked the brioche with a savory custard.

Added a layer of overlapping tongue slices.

More custard.

More brioche, more custard and then baked til puffed, set and brown.

Following Keller's lead I chilled the pain perdu, then used a 3" round cutter to cut crescents which were browned in a skillet with butter and held til service. At service they got 5 minutes in a 350º oven to warm. Very, very good stuff. Too bad you have to plan so far in advance.

Rootbeer Float published in Dessert Professional

2010-06-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't subscribe to Dessert Professional, I had a recipe published in the current issue. The original blog post can be found HERE.

Electrolux Magic Mill DLX 2000 Follow-Up

2010-06-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

Here we are nine months later and I'm still loving my Magic Mill. Since my previous post about this machine gets the most retrospective comments from readers, I thought I would share a more critical insight into my past nine months of usage.

That picture is my six batard sourdough morning batch. Total dough weight is 2130g. I will often do a double batch in the machine which is 4260g. The machine has no troubles with either, but the double likes to climb up the roller more readily. I've learned to keep sturdy but not hard pressure pushing the roller against the wall to control dough climb. Not an easy skill to teach my staff. The dough climb can be seen in my #3 circle below. This is no different than my old Kitchen Aid except it is easier to resolve on this machine since the top is accessible during operation versus the lifted bowl of the KA.

The number one circle shows how dough likes to slip under the side bowl scraper. I normally will hold the scraper arm with my left hand while leveraging that against my right hand on the roller arm. At times I'll just let it all go hands free, but that normally doesn't give me a very positive outcome - ie, it is more efficient for me to have both hands active in the process. It seems over time that my scraper is letting more dough underneath than it used to. This is still much better than my KA bowl walls.

The number two circle shows how dough likes to pull the scraper away from the side. Once this happens your mixing efficiency drops to nil.

My biggest problem is that their instruction manual seems inaccurate as to what tool to use for what job. I use the roller wheel for my bread and most other doughs, and the whisks for creams, but I have yet to find a good use for the dough hook. I've tried the dough hook many times on my bread, but it doesn't work well. Maybe someone can enlighten me on that.

So, my summary...this is still a workhorse showing no signs of letting down. Because of the design there really is no reason for the motor to burn out. On the contrary, since my last post, my KA died a third time doing far less work. I had to pay for this repair versus the first two which were covered by KA.

Even so, there are some design flaws as I see them. First, I'd like the side scraper to hold itself in place. Second, I'd like to see the roller bar arm lock keep the arm from moving inward versus outward (not sure why they thought it was useful for the arm to be locked from moving toward the outside of the bowl). Third, I'd like to have a hands free experience so I can do things other than babysit my machine.

That's my summary for now. I expect my fellow Magic Millers to chime in with their experiences.

Scam Alert...200 gyros

2010-06-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I read a message on eGullet about hearing restaurants receiving calls through hearing impaired relayers with large orders. These were always last minute and when the time came for the food to be picked up, no one would show. A quick google search shows that this is a very common scam.

I got my call just on Saturday - order for 200 gyros for mom's birthday on Tuesday. The caller gave the email

wsusan1128@gmail.com

which is googlable for the scam as well. They were willing to give a credit card but the scam messages say that the card will swipe fine but be deactivated before the money hits your bank. So where's the scam? No one gets any money or food, the restaurant is just out the expense of the prepared items.

Just a stupid prank? I don't think so since its been going on for years and with common emails and phone numbers. Since I'm conspiratorially minded I would like to know if the restaurant distributor is a commonality. I sure hope not but someone has to be getting something out of this.

Dream analysis and the smoking unagi

2010-05-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up in mid-dream. I was laying on the floor of an old house trying to get to sleep. I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye up near the top of a very tall wall. When I looked more carefully I saw that it was a tiny little bat clinging to the wall near the ceiling. Another flutter out of the corner of my eye and another bat clinging to the wall. Almost immediately there were four huddled together hanging. Huh. Not good for me getting to sleep.

I shined a flashlight in the eyes of one of them to see if I could get them uncomfortable so it would fly away. When I did the bat was startled from the light and all of a sudden a flurry of bats filled the room - hundreds of them all fluttering around heading toward the wall, and finally all of them clinging to the wall above where I was trying to lay.

I obviously decided it was time for me to get out of there and sleep somewhere else. As I started to gather up my bedding, one bat flew toward me and I realized that they weren't tiny bats, but huge bats - the size of large papayas. AND, not only were they large, but they were wearing Mr. Roger's periwinkle blue cardigan sweaters! Not quite sure what that was about. Right at that moment, Tyler's alarm went off and I woke up.

So, what's this all about? We've been packed almost every night, but we're having very few reservations. Last night we had two reservations for two people and so I assumed it would be a slow night with maybe six or eight total joining us. That was nice since I just finished another week of 18 hour days. I've been running on caffeine and sugar just to make it to the end of the shift. (My prep cook's grandfather died and he had to go back to Boston for the week. He'll be back tomorrow so my more sane hours will return.)

It appears to be the norm that I can triple or quadruple our reserved number now to estimate how many will show up. I told Tyler about this dream and he said when he was a server back in college he had dreams like this all the time - stress dreams about rushes of customers flooding in. But, I still don't know what the deal is with the Mr. Roger's sweaters.

Moving on...one of our most popular dishes has been the smoking glass. Its actually evolved a number of times and probably will again this weekend and I regroup, but the basic concept is unagi (sauced broiled eel) in the bottom of a glass, smoke blown in and capped with a savory tuile, a quennelle of white chocolate savory risotto and a bit of caviar. The customer taps the tuile with their spoon, releasing the smoke and combining the flavors. Its a fun dish that always brings laughter (and sometimes shrieks) into the kitchen. Always the highlight of my night.

Book Review: Black Pudding & Goie Gras

2010-05-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting on this book review for months and months because, quite frankly, this may be my favorite cookbook ever...but one I'll never use.

Andrew Pern and the Star Inn in Harome (near Helmsley (in Yorkshire (in England (I think you know that's in Europe)))) is a Michelin gastropub for the past 14 years.

In 2008 Pern self-published Black Pudding & Foie Gras as a sort of celebration of their work. This is no regular cookbook. Sluffing off the shackles of the publishing world, Pern has created a book that is ripe with graphic ingenuity, poetic wanderings and even a cover coated in brown velvet.

You want to curl up on a damp English night next to the fireplace, glugging your dark ale, reading this wonderful ode to food romantics. Pern shares the story of how he came to own The Star Inn. He writes about all of the local suppliers of his ingredients and how seasons effect his dishes.

And naturally he delves into a hearty list of recipes, the vast majority of which you won't ever make because of his use of regional ingredients. I've played with a few of the recipes, but what's the point when you can't get the great seafood that he has access to.

But that's hardly a concern for me. This is still my favorite cookbook. Every time I touch it, my foodie loin tingles and titters as I find some new hidden gem - normally a quote, a short poem or beautiful picture of the English countryside. For cookbook collectors, this is a must. For passionate foodies and romantics, this is a must. For someone wanting to recreate a Michelin starred-restaurant's dishes...don't bother.

Omakase

2010-05-15T19:00:00.001-07:00

Any serious sushi connoisseur knows that Omakase means "I put myself in the hands of the chef." Literally it means "Its up to you." I would love to have a collection of comparable phrases in other languages. Anyone want to help? If you speak another language, or if you know someone who does, could you post a reply with the phrase in the other language that someone could use in a restaurant to tell the chef that you trust them and will eat whatever they want to serve you. Thanks.

Book Review: Ready for Dessert

2010-05-15T08:18:00.001-07:00

I come from the school of thought that says rock bands shouldn’t release their Greatest Hits album until their career is complete. Likewise, chefs should restrain themselves from re-releasing their favorite recipes until their career enters a culminating phase. That said, David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes will be excused since some of his previous books are no longer in print, and his greatest hits truly are classics worth reprinting.

Read the rest of this review at The Gastronomer's Bookshelf.

Recipe: Campton Place Pancakes

2010-05-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I love breakfast - the sweet kind with a side of bacon, but it is really hard for me to make breakfast with all of my other cooking. Last week, knowing I had a long day coming, I stopped to make some hearty pancakes from one of my cookbooks. Turns out that they were some of the best pancakes I had ever had:

1 C AP flour
1 C Cake flour
¼ C Whole wheat flour (btw, mesquite would be very nice here)
3 T Sugar
2 t Baking powder
1 t Baking soda
¼ t Salt
¼ t Cinnamon
2 Eggs
2 C Buttermilk
1 t Vanilla
2 oz (half a stick) Unsalted butter, melted

Sift together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, then whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla and melted butter. Whisk in the flour mixture and combine well, but do not overmix. As you can see I also added blueberries which were tossed in the flour mixture before adding the liquid.

Menu 2.0 cntd

2010-05-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more of the dishes from our current dinner menu. You saw this in the previous post on salt cured egg yolk - poached asparagus, enokitake mushrooms, cured yolk.

Roasted walnut tossed chickpeas, cous cous, feta, sunflower sprout, roasted red pepper.

Here's a cool one for ya - fired goat cheese croquette, picked beet, but then look the left. That goat cheese is about 1" across. See the little blob? I have a local farmer who has a chicken laying runts. The egg was no more than a half inch across. I sous vide soft poached the eggs, and then cracked them into the dish - very tasty! Let's hope that chicken keeps under performing.

Clay baked purple potatoes, olive oil pudding, basil pesto, parmesan cream, parmesan strips. This was prettier than the pic lets on to.

Roasted vegetables with almond espuma.

Raw tuna, wasabi crema and caviar.

Technique: Salt cured egg yolk

2010-05-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here's something new for many of you - salt cured egg yolk.
Why you ask? Well...in my world, just because. But more practically this is a unique condiment and a good outcome for that large meringue that had you wasting a dozen yolks. I found the technique over at StarChefs and have incorporated it into my current menu.

Start by making a Swiss meringue of 85 g Egg white, 38 g Sugar and 87 g Salt. Huh?! 87 g Salt? Yep...salt cured is what I called it, right? Combine all three ingredients, set over a water bath and whisk like any other Swiss meringue, then remove from the heat and whisk until stiff. Line a muffin pan with some of the salty meringue and gently, very gently lay a yolk inside the pillowy next.

You can use any old egg, but goose eggs are good for this one. The fresher, the darker, the better. Cover the yolks with the remaining meringue and set in the fridge for 12-18 hours. Repeat this process one more time. After this cycle, remove the yolks from their nests. They should be relatively firm, but a bit tacky to the touch.

Put the yolks in your fridge overnight, uncovered so they can dry out a bit. Mine were still tacky so I put them in the dehydrator and that really did the trick (an oven set on the lowest temp would work too). Then grate over your dish as you might bottarga or any other salty condiment. I serve it on poached asparagus with sauteed enokitake mushrooms.