chadzilla

shrimp & serrano ham enceradito

Obviously wrapping things in bacon to grill is one of the great pleasures in life.  For this first course in the McWilliams wine dinner, we took one of Peter Howard's recipes for grilled prosciutto wrapped shrimp and twisted it just a little.

The shrimp was poached in evoo with preserved lemon which is one of our favorite techniques now.  It has become difficult to write a shrimp dish without wanting to subject it to this method.  This time, we left the shrimp a little underdone and wrapped them with thinly sliced serrano ham on a skewer.  That way, we were able to finish them on the grill and shrink up the ham and crisp it a little.  It also causes the serrano to become more salty.  This is because heating a cured meat breaks the salt molecules free from their strong ionic bonds with the elements of the ham... thus allowing the tongue to perceive them with much greater intensity.  This scientific detail was taught to me by an authority (Jorge Ruiz) on the subject in this previous post in the comment section.  (He will also be lecturing at this years EuroChem event with Herve This).

The green sauce is an arugula aioli that is also a recipe of Peter Howard's.  The sharp bite of the arugula in the creamy mayo is a great complement.

The other exciting element on the plate is the crenshaw melon confit.  This has become on of our oldest tried and true applications of the cryovac machine.  The melon is peeled and vacuum sealed under high pressure in a simple syrup.  It is then left to rest overnight, and the sugars transform the texture of the melon into something extraordinary.  Chef K took the whole pieces of melon confit and basically shaved them on a meat slicer.  It is completely transparent, and resembles pickled ginger.  Obviously, it goes well with serrano.

sea espuma

How's this for some natural espuma.  This phenomenon just happened in Sydney, Australia.  All conditions were met for the occurence.  Check out this link to read about it.

mcwilliams hors d'oeuvres

There are quite a few things I want to post revolving around the McWilliams wine dinner we did, so I'll have to break them down into sections.  This event was arranged through Gallo, and featured the presence of Phillip Ryan (chief wine maker for McWilliams wines) and Peter Howard (Australian food writer, chef, consultant, and overall great personality).  It was an honor for both of these men to be here and experience our humble matchings to their wines.  Wines from their Coonawarra series were amazing as we were able to taste them in the kitchen throughout the dinner.  Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Howard were admirable in their appreciation and kind words.  It made our evening truly special.

The first is a showcase and summary of the 4 hors d'oeuvres that were passed during the preceding reception.

seared tuna and cucumber blocks with seaweed sauce and tobiko

These are cut cubes of English cucumber with seared tuna.  We often use the pipettes on hors d'oeuvres and on the night before we had the idea of making a seaweed sauce to fill them with.  I will post this recipe later (when I actually write one) because it came out very nice and the color is exactly what we wanted.  The tuna is topped with a regular tobiko and a wasabi tobiko.  As usual, the pipette acts as a skewer, and the guest is instructed to squeeze the sauce out into the mouth while biting into the food.

tasmanian devilled eggs with candied bacon

This was our moment of cheese... not dairy cheese, but corny cheese.  We used quail eggs which were steamed, peeled, and stuffed with a simple devilled egg filling.  The bacon was actually cured and smoked in a small butcher shop 2 blocks from my home.  We sliced it, packed and pressed it into brown sugar, wiped off the excess sugar, and laid them out to bake until done.  This is something we've done with regular apple wood-smoked bacon in the past.  The nutty sweetness of the brown sugar obviously blends well with the smokey bacon.  We served these in inverted egg cups.

duck liver pate with shiraz wine caviar

You can never go wrong with duck liver mousse.  We simply cut these into cubes and topped them with an alginated shiraz wine caviar.  The method and recipe for these is the same as in this previous post, but with shiraz wine substituted.  To push the lost flavors that unfortunately happen during the algination process, Chef K coated them in a sweet shiraz syrup which was simply a reduction of shiraz and a touch of sugar.  It also helps with the visual suggestion of caviar.  We served extra 'caviar' in little jars on the dish a la 'El Bulli' style.

barbequed mussels with tandoori dressing

This mussel dish was a twist on one of Peter Howard's recipes for grilled mussels with a tandoori dressing.  We basically copied his recipe then I infused it with the smoked juices released by the mussels during the process below.  This is the same oven-smoking method I used on the lamb previously, but this one is unique in how it shows off my ability to operate a digital camera and a blow torch simultaneously.

The fresh dill helps to bridge the mellow smokiness of the mussel with the sharp tanginess of the dressing.

I have never tasted such happy mussels.

bbq lamb

This is the 2nd time I've applied this technique.  We call it barbeque lamb because of the smokiness and also because it's so incredibly juicy.  We also tried coming up with a cutesy name for it, but 'barbe-sous' is cheezy even for us.

We do not have a smoker.  This is not because we don't want one or even because we don't know where to put it.  We just don't have one right now.  However, that doesn't mean that we can't smoke.  All cooks know how to do this in one way or another.  For this particular application, I went with the convection oven smoking method.  That means turning your oven to 'cool down' and torching a pan of wood chips under your meat.  The convection of air keeps the chips smoking.  Of course flare-ups do occur, but just keep an eye out and blow them out when they do.

These lamb loins sat in the oven for about 30 to 45 minutes.  I used a sweet wood blend of apple, pear, cherry, peach, and sugar maple wood chips.  It's not exactly 'cold smoking,' but more like 'warm smoking.'

These are the lamb loins after smoking with the spice blend listed below.  They have not begun to cook, but the outside forms that smoky skin.

The next step is to sous-vide as soon as possible.  I drizzled a little of my new grilled peanut oil into the bags with the smoked lamb.  Vacuum seal the bags then put them in a thermocirculator bath set at 59C (for a medium red/ medium) for at least 1 hour.  It probably won't take that long, but we let our sit in for about 2 hours.

The resulting lamb is very juicy which is one of the big benefits of sous-vide cooking.  It is also cooking in its own natural smoked juices so the flavor is that much more incredible.  It won many great comments on both occasions that we used it. 

Another note... save all of those juices in the bag and marry them to your sauce. 

For this dinner, we paired the lamb with a cabernet jus which was made by simmering some cabernet and demi over the reserved roasted lamb bones from the loins above.  After reducing to a nice glace consistency, we added the natural smoked juices, strained the mixture, and mounted it with a pound of butter.  Afterwards to refine it further, we ran it through a chinois mousseline about 15 times.  This is a technique that Thomas Keller preaches in his books.  It will create a sauce so velvety smooth it's incredible.  Once you get used to doing it, the habit will stick.

I will post the final plate on the McWilliams article with all of the others.  I just really want to show this process however easy it is.  It's just so incredible.  Each time we do it, guests are inquisitive about what smoker we use and they invision a family secret smoking recipe.  The real secret is the sous-vide cooking in a water bath... how's that for BBQ?  When we explore these double-cooking methods and start to think in a new direction, we can take flavors to an entirely new level and truly maximize the flavors.

grilled peanut oil

On my last order to Le Sanctuaire, I added on the above item.  I have a great love for peanut oil.  It's my favorite oil for making a roux (aside from bacon fat), and for general use at home.  It's also so useful in Vietnamese and Chinese foods.  Olive oil was not a pantry staple when I was growing up and the flavor of good old peanut oil is much better than the canola varieties that have replaced it in most homes.

This oil smells just like fresh roasted peanuts and the flavor is incredible.  It's imported from France and the ingredients are 100% peanut oil (I imagine the peanuts are processed by roasting before pressing).  There are many applications I have in mind for this product... but one at a time.

aussie preparation

We have a wine dinner scheduled this coming Monday featuring wines from the McWilliams winery in Australia.  The event is also going to be attended by Peter Howard, who was called the Emeril Lagasse of Australia in our email introduction to him.

This dinner has been coming together in a rather backwards fashion.  We are used to operating in a certain order, but our method this time was forced to be a menu writing, then being asked to pair the wines, then finally receiving the wines (well, almost all of them).  This is a truly backwards direction to prepare for a wine dinner, but we rolled with it.  Most of the wines are easily compatible to the courses we wrote.  There are some nice wines on the higher end Coonawarra label (or Icon).  Obviously, a couple of dynamic Shiraz's, and a bottle of Cabernet which we haven't even opened yet.

The food end was handled a little differently as well.  We received some recipes from Peter Howard through emails although we were not sure how involved he was supposed to be in the dinner.  Most of these recipes are basic or are the kinds you'd find in the weekly food section of the newspaper.  Without knowing how to procede, we took some of the basic ideas and threw some of our own tricks on top of them... of course, twisting up some of them and being corny as we usually are (tasmanian devilled eggs... just couldn't resist that one!)

Australian food is something that none of us in our kitchen are familiar with, and even after a fair amount of researching we were still in the dark except for a few key flavors and ingredients.

I was able to procure some dried eucalyptus leaves from Le Sanctuaire.  They smell like a cross between laurel and mint... but they are dried so that affects the aroma also.  We plan to steep them in an oil although the bag of leaves is rather sizeable, so we will probably end up putting them in other applications as well.

I have really wanted to get a jump on some of this prep (it's a large list) before today, but my focus has been pushed towards banquet operations as well as the restaurant and delegating a small army of cooks.  That is very time and energy absorbing.  We just lost one of our best kitchen team members who is moving back to Minnesota to make the intelligent move of getting out of the hotel/restaurant kitchen and into the food science lab.  We completely support this career shift.  She is very young and still has an opportunity to have a normal life... unlike the rest of us.  I guess there are worse things to be stuck with.

pho bo

There are a couple of food & beverage interns in our hotel from Asia making their rounds through the various departments.  I was surprised and impressed that they both decided to add a bit of kitchen time to their schedules.  Van, who is from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, is in the middle of her kitchen tour of duty and (probably as more of a benefit to myself than to her) I promised that we would make pho bo as part of her time here.  Vietnamese food is hands down my favorite cuisine in the world.  A good hot bowl of beef pho and all of the asthetics that surround it speaks to me with as deep a promise of fulfillment as any other soul food in the world... and maybe even more.

Anyway, after analyzing our schedules I decided that we should make the broth ahead of time and then plan a trip to our local Vietnamese market on one of the following days to pick up the rest of the necessary ingredients.  I have made pho-type broths and soups on various occasions, but it's always a treat to make a dish with someone who is from the same country of origin as the dish.  Especially when someone has been away from their country, the processes and aromas of creating a native dish for them fills them with excitment and anticipation.

We began on Saturday evening.  I made a quick trip to the nearby grocery store to pick up the first 2 key ingredients... the 5# of beef oxtails and some star anise.

First, rinse off the oxtails and put them into a pot and cover with water.  Bring the water up to a boil and pour it off.  Rinse the oxtails again and cover with water again.  At this point, we added 3 each whole star anise pods, brought the water level to the top, and set it on a low simmer to cook overnight.  Leave a note hanging on it that says "Do Not Touch!!!" (in Miami this must be done in at least 3 different languages to ensure that everyone gets it), and wait until tomorrow.  To avoid having too much star anise flavor, remove the pods after 3 or 4 hours of simmering and let the broth continue overnight.

The next step involved a trip to a local Asian market owned by Vietnamese.  We picked up some fresh sprouts (much fresher than the ones we receive through our produce supplier), culantro, hot peppers, beef tendon meatballs, hoisin (or as she says, 'black bean sauce' which she swears is not the same, but I'm a little confused on this ingredient), and sriracha (which she says in Vietnam should be a red bean sauce, but again I'm not 100% on this ingredient either).  My uncertain feelings here are reinforced by the fact that her mother confirmed in a phone call 2 ingredients (ginger and fish sauce) that are very integral to the broth, but which were originally not included at Van's instruction.  All other necessary ingredients are already available to us in our kitchen, so then we begin...

This step was actually one of the only 'new techniques' I had learned today.  Throwing the whole onion and ginger root onto the grill for 15 to 20 minutes to 'release' the flavors.  Afterwards, peel them and add them to the broth.

Here are the beef tendon meatballs that I love in my pho.  Gan is the Vietnamese word for tendon.  Bo is the Vietnamese word for beef.  I actually used to buy gan from a market in New Orleans and boil it for hours (it does take hours... unless you use a pressure cooker) and slice it and add it to my food.  It's very good for your own aching tendons and arthritis (from years of slicing and dicing).

After boiling the rice noodles and cutting up the fresh ingredients for the side, Van prepared the table condiments...

The sriracha chili sauce, hoisin sauce (or black bean as she called it), and satay sauce (my favorite thing to dip the meat into with a little lime juice squeezed on it) all go on the side on the table for diners to add to their bowl.  Then comes the finished product...

Everyone gets a bowl of noodles.  Add in whatever herbs (cilantro, culantro, and basil) and bean sprouts you desire.  Also, whatever sauces or chiles you crave in there... just throw them in.  The sliced beef goes in raw.  When the boiling hot broth (and this is only oxtail broth scented with star anise, ginger, onion, and fish sauce) is poured into the bowl, the beef will cook perfectly.  Some people add chile sauce and lime directly to the broth.  I prefer mine on the side for dipping.  Everyone has their own way to eat pho.  It is, afterall, Vietnamese soul food, and I have missed it so much.

the paco jetsons

... finally it happpened.  We've stepped into the future.

We try to keep up with everything going on in the food world, but it did take quite some time... (and probably would have taken until next year if Chef K hadn't done some creative budget number maneuvering... ahhh, the politics of working in a hotel) but we finally got one.

This is our brand new Paco Jet.  One of the must-have new toys that every chef wants.  Note Fabian's hand lovingly caressing the side of the machine... that's love.

The Paco Jet is an ice cream maker (but much much more) that operates in a different way.  You fill the small canisters with the ingredients you are going to freeze and whip.  It's unnecessary to puree the mix first.  The Paco Jet will do it for you.  Fabian put chunks of banana and mango and the other liquids and sugars necessary for sorbet.  Freeze it in the canister.  Pop the canister into the Jet and click on the amount of servings you want.  Yes, if you need sorbet for two, then you get enough for two and no more.  Fresh sorbet each time and it takes only seconds.  The rest of the frozen ingredients stay in the canister and go back into the freezer for later.  The system operates on a blade the magnetically attaches to the rotor and 'cuts' the frozen product whipping air into it simultaneously.  It's incredible and the texture is so perfect.

Although it can be used for sweet or savoury, the machine will sit in Fabian's kitchen (it's much safer and controlled in there).  The system comes with a nice book of ideas and applications.  Not only ice creams and sorbets can be cranked out, but also pastes and powders.  It's amazing!  Chef K and I reserved 2 canisters for our own experimentation (we don't want Fabian to make ice cream in a canister that may have possibly held smoked salmon... sounds weird, but we actually did make a smoked salmon and honey ice cream quite some years back in New Orleans).  Experimentation will come.  We will show you.  Unfortunately, there isn't much to do with this machine that hasn't already been done.  All we can do is change up the ingredients and ideas.

gumbo logic

I know I blog a lot about home cooking lately, but our new place makes me want to cook more.  It's not even a great kitchen, although its simplicity makes it easy.  Maybe my desire for home cooking overshadows my zeal for cooking at home.  Either way, I have been looking at the art of home food in a whole new light... mixing my background with Ming's and the analytical approach we practice when cooking professionally.

Well, this was a gumbo night.  It wasn't just the satisfaction of cooking and eating at home, but a remembrance of my grandma's gumbo logic.  I had fallen under the obligation to give away some of my gumbo which was to be a typically New Orlean's style (but thinner and without too much of the unneccessary crap) with smoked sausage, chicken wings, shrimp, and blue crab.  However, once I started it in the All Clad pot, I realized I wouldn't have room for much more than the sausage and chicken.  So that's what we did.  Ming and I ate chicken and sausage gumbo, then I took the remains in the pot and added the blue crab with eggs and some shrimp and water.  Now to re-simmer for awhile and adjust the seasonings and bam.  Gumbo for the second day with a different flavor.

This was my grandma's thing.  She always made a simple chicken gumbo the first day, then took the left-overs and added smoked sausage and gumbo file.  It was good to go and stretched out for another day.  I know that people stretch left-overs all of the time, and there is an art to that in itself, but my grandma followed this pattern every single time.  It was so much so that just going through the ritual of it and eating it in that order makes sense on a very deep level for me.  It's an entirely higher level of satisfaction gained from comfort food.

Here is a snapshot of the first run.  I have to say that I took it a whole step further tonight again by adding potato salad right into the bowl of gumbo.  This is truly Cajun... as cajun as putting yellow mustard on white beans and rice.  I don't know if this tradition started because there weren't enough bowls to go around for a family meal (and a gumbo usually is made at bigger-than-usual family get togethers) causing members to put their potato salad on top to avoid an extra trip to the stove.  Whatever way it happened, it tastes good.  Of course, with my ongoing crusade to push umami extremely with every chance I get, I am using Kewpie Japanese mayonnaise in the potato salad.  What a sensation.

This meal was topped over by some incredible peaches and cream.  Ming had bought a couple of doughnut peaches and a yellow peach a few days ago, and must have forgotten about them.  I cut them up, and since they were underripe still, I tossed them in sugar, vanilla, Chinese cinnamon, and some Appleton Estate rum that a Jamaican friend of ours had brought us from Jamaica.  The peaches were topped with some whipped cream sweetened with amber agave nectar.

More soul food to come soon.  I am making a batch of Vietnamese pho with a Vietnamese food & beverage intern in our hotel kitchen.  I cannot wait to write about that one.

hot pot and friends at home

We were fortunate to have friends over for hot pot for the first time in our new place recently.  Chef K stopped over with his daughter, Lil' K, for the interactive dinner experience.  It's always fun to expose children to new ideas in food.  Although I grew up in the cuisine-rich bayou country of Louisiana, I was very closed minded to other foods until I was an adult.  We ate a lot of things unfamiliar to the rest of the USA, but my experiences and my willingness were limited to our native cajun dishes.  It's so cool to see Lil' K be so open-minded to food that Ming ate as a child.  Being the adventure chef he is, Chef K never allowed Lil' K's mind to be closed to any cuisine.  It's great to see mainstream media pushing kids in this direction also... i. e. "Ratatouille."  We are in a golden era.

Before the concept of cooking the food at the table sunk in, Lil' K pointed to the raw beef on a plate and said, "Daddy.  I don't want to eat any of that right there."  True, there was a look of wariness in the beginning, but any kid would be instantly interested in what was going on once cooking at the table began.  The sounds and smells of the meat and marinade on the grill and the increasingly intensifying aroma of the broth only build throughout the meal.  Soon her skeptical looks turned into those of wonder.

Now, we cannot wait until our next hot pot at home.  Ming has become the master of setting this up.  True, we do not eat it everyday or every week, but maybe once a month when the planets align and we end up with the same day off we can kick it again.  It's always a great time for us.  Ming's family restaurant in Taipei, Taiwan (I can't say it in Chinese, but it translates into Bridge Cafe) specializes in hot pot and the experience of it there is even more interesting to say the least.  It's really cool in a way to be a chef and be able to say that we have a restaurant in our family... it's just really really kind of far away.  For now, we can only share our hot pot at home.