Tasting Menu: Fall Memories part. 3

The desserts...

Course 11: Apple Pie and Cheddar Cheese
5-Year Cheddar cheesecake with warm apple cider and lemon cotton candy


Course 12: Riesling Marshmallow

Tasting Menu: Fall Memories part. 2

Course 7: Bean Soup
This was my favorite course to make. As a child I loved fall and winter nights where my mom would serve us bean soup. She would soak white beans over night, then cook them all day the next day with a ham hock, and typically with corn bread. We would wrap up in blankets in front of the TV and eat and fart - those were great times! In my updating of this family classic I started with two varieties of rare beans: Spotted Horse 4-Corner beans and Chaco Canyon River Runners. Both or gorgeous:

I cooked these with La Quercia organic pancetta from Iowa and made my mom's soup. I pureed the soup, finished it with chestnut oil spread it on a sheet (adding some elements to help it keep its structure), added a sliver of summer black truffle, and baked the soup into crackers.

I then cooked a bunch of Niman Ranch bacon and converted the juices into bacon powder using tapioco maltodextrin. At the farmers market I found a rare corn - Hopi White Flint corn. That was roasted, juiced, and made into a soup with a bit of brown sugar, green chile and other cornbready type seasonings.

In the final service I plated the cracker over the powder, and did a tableside pouring of the corn soup. Tyler said that this was one of his favorite courses of the evening.


Course 8: Patè
Having just secured 10 locally raised, freshly processed rabbits, and being gifted 10 pounds of rabbit liver, I set out to make a patè - my first ever. I added some brandy, currants and braised apple. I formed it in a PVC pipe to make a round.


And then served it with a ginger pulp triscuit

and baby carrot candied with palm sugar and sechuwan pepper, and asparagus espuma.


Course 9: Lobster
This was another great tasting dish. I infused a couple of lobster tails in coconut milk with saffron, then did a gelatin/agar mixture to allow me to create a warm "noodle" of the mixture.

Next, I created a chestnut flour w/black truffle pasta, filled it with summer squash

and made ravioli.

The final plating included a squiggle of 25-year balsmico. muscovado smear, and balsamic glazed squash seeds.

Not the prettiest plating, but very good.

Course 10: Rabbit Goat
Speaking of not the prettiest...

No, I didn't serve maggots! This is wild rice that I puffed for a savory granola (celery root, onion and rice). And again, speaking of not the prettiest...

Sous vide cooked rabbit that was later shredded and filled into the granola.

In the final plating: the granola rabbit topped with a sunchoke gratin filled with truffle cheese; fresh tortilla, avocado mousse, goat carnitas and a squirt of juniper berry cream. The plating sucked because we had some dish washing issues, but it was all good, if not a bit much for one plate.

Tasting Menu: Fall Memories

(I'm a few pictures short of the full meal, so I'll add them as I get them from friends, and I'll break up this post into two sections for length.)

It was a super meal - not perfect, but I was very happy with the meal, the response and the staff. First off, I had a new-to-town guy just happen to walk into the store on Thursday asking for kitchen work. I was ready to send him away because we didn't have any work, but he happened to mention a few words that caught my attention. In the end I found out he worked at Shade in Houston as a sous, and then I was thanking the kitchen angels for sending him my way at the last minute.

He served as my sous for Saturday night which freed me up to focus on plating and entertaining. His girlfriend was taking pics for me so I hope to have her pics in a day or two. To recap - this meal was a tasting menu for 18 customers with a theme of Fall Memories, focusing and reinventing meals that came from my childhood in the Fall. As with my previous tasting menu, it was highly locally sourced, organic and modern. My goal is to show people what can be done with local foods.

Course 1: Champagne Toast
I simply gelified some sparkling NM wine and cut it into spaghetti sized noodles. Those were then coiled on a spoon and tossed with pomegranate seeds. A simple amuse to kick off the night.

Course 2: Bread Service
This was my regular sourdough, but made into mini batards and included rosemary and orange zest. I served it with butter formed into madeleines.

Course 3: Borscht
A delicate sour cream scone served with a beet sorbet sphere, lemongrass foam, celery ice. I think this was the most beautiful dish of the evening, and the beet was one of the best tastes of the evening.
(You'll note that I haven't posted any pics yet because I was madly cooking and plating at this point.)

Course 4: PBJ
A childhood favorite: peanut butter and jelly, except mine was a sheet of black sesame paper infused with garam masala and finished with gray salt. The sheet was suspended above the bowl of grape gel made from locally raised concord grapes.

Course 5: Tuna Tempura
My self-imposed signature dish! I started with a little flame set inside of a chile pepper.

This was then enclosed in an oil lamp chimney. On top of the chimney was a skewered, tempura battered prickly pear tuna (fruit) filled with chuchupate (an indigenous herb), white chocolate ganache & blueberry. Its a great dish since it tastes great and folks really think its tuna fish. Both times I've done this there have been table arguments about whether it was tuna fish or not, and I enjoy having that diversion at that point in the meal.

Course 6: Oyster Terrine
Locally foraged oyster mushrooms & morels set in a terrine, served with a savory cocoa soil, basil powder and lemon olive oil pudding.

Not my favorite dish, but the soil is a solid component for me, and that olive oil pudding was amazing! Also in my top taste for the night. It has many future possibilities for me - as many possibilities as there are oil profiles!

For those of you interested in the process of tasting menus, here is my final day's itinerary:

8:30 am Sv wrap rabbit, and put in pot at 150F
Farmers Market: wine grapes, cantaloupe, micro greens, filler greens, carrots?, eggs
Juice grapes and make geleè; dry skins coated in sugar
Shred cheddar for crisps
Make sunchoke gratins in muffin pan
Make corn soup
Asparagus espuma
Olive oil smear (82)
Prepare jujubes
Fix SA droplets
Fix tuna chimney holder
Need fabric for tablecloths
Ingredients for scones

2 pm Carrot sauce for patè

4 Bread out to proof
Brioche out to proof
Cut carrots into babies
Carrot geleè – need acetate sheet

5:30 pm Cotton candy machine on – make, cut, store
Make tortillas
Prep SA grape caviar and bath Bake sour cream scones

6 500 g lemongrass tea, 250 g sugar, 4 ½ sheet gelatin (softened)
Heat in saucepan til dissolved; add gelatin and immersion blend; pour in soda make with 2 charges, chill
Bake bread
Make carrot knots and chill in ice water

6:45 Cut champagne spaghetti
Start ice cream maker with beet sorbet
Bake brioche
7 pm Seat guests
7:10 Spaghetti on fork, in baking dish
Heat corn soup
7:20 Bread service, small plate with butter form
Candy baby carrots in palm sugar and szechwan
7:30 Beet sorbet on sour cream cake set in lemongrass foam with celery ice (fork scraped)
Batter and fry tunas
7:40 Black sesame paper, Chardonnay grap SA caviar on soup spoon, wine on base
Cut terrine for plating
7:50 Tuna Tempura, burning chile
8:05 Oyster Terrine, cocoa soil, fresh cantaloupe shavings, micro greens
8:20 Bean Soup: bean paper hung/covering over bacon powder; table poured hot corn soup
Start frying tortillas
Sunchoke gratins in oven
8:35 Patè: patè rectangle, draped in carrot geleè, topped with brioche slices, carrot droplets, candied baby carrots, textured ginger square, asparagus espuma
8:50 Lobster tea coconut milk ribbon, squash ravioli, caramelized seeds, mucovado mousse, 25-year balsamic
Fry carrot knots
Fry goat shreds
Bake cheddar crisps
9:10 Rabbit with fried carrot knots & jujubes; miso granola, sunchoke gratin; Cabrito carnitas, cilantro foam, juniper crumbles, avocado mousse in tortilla.
9:35 Whiskey Cheddar cheesecake & warm cider soup
9:45 Riesling Marshmallows & cheddar crisps

Tasting Menu: Brief update

I obviously won't be posting much until after Saturday. Here's a quick glimpse into my world:


And a little tease for the dinner:

Recipe: White Chocolate Chestnut Scones

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the roasted chestnut flour that I had. The problem was that the "roasted" was too strong of a flavor for most desserts, but I really didn't want to do the obvious and make it into pasta. Finally I realized that white chocolate would make a nice complement for the smokiness of the flour, and that resulted in this recipe. It was a good scone with higher than normal protein, so a bit more nutritionally useful than a traditional scone. Enjoy!


3 C. All-Purpose Flour
3/4 C. Chestnut Flour
1/2 C. Sugar
1 T. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Salt
1.5 Sticks Butter
1 Egg
3/4 C. Milk
1/2 C. White Chocolate Chips (I used Callebaut)
1/2 C. Cacao Nibs

Oven 375 F

Sift flours, sugar, baking powder and salt together. In food processor, cut butter into dry mixture until course crumbs (Don't over-process). Stir in the chips and nibs. Pour into a bowl, make a well in the center. In small bowl, lightly mix the egg and milk. Pour liquid into well. Using wooden spoon, combine until it just comes together. If it seems too dry, add a bit more milk (It should be dry, but able to hold together).

Put on counter and knead lightly for 30 seconds. You want to keep the butter chunks distinct so they help form the flakiness of the scone. Roll dough out on lightly flour surface. I formed the dough into a square and cut it into 8 triangles, or you can be more traditional and use a round biscuit cutter. Brush the tops with cream (or milk), sprinkle with turbinado (or ground nuts) and bake for 10-15 minutes or until done.

Tres Compliments at the Cafè

1. Woman tells us that her friend drives 50 miles to come get our brownies.

2. Family from France says that our bread is the best they've had since leaving France.

3. Human companion says that my dog treats are the only ones that his dog will eat.

Here's to a great weekend!