chadzilla

pejibaye

As long as I've used heart of palm, I never gave much thought to it's origin.  Obviously it is the center 'heart' of a palm tree that was somehow removed, processed if necessary, dropped into cans, and shipped out to kitchens everywhere to be generically used in thousands of nouvelle dishes.  But this was long before I had ever used a fresh palm heart.  We tried to find some recently for our Heart of a Chef menu (an obvious choice ingredient for such a theme), but came up with dead-ends all around.  I was miffed at how an ingredient couldn't be found in a heartbeat when we live on a peninsula with palm trees out the freakin' wazoo.  It never dawned on me that they come from a palm that is not grown in the United States.

The pejibaye grows only in Central and South America and is known by a laundry list of names depending on which country it is found.  It is also known as the peach palm.  This entire train of thought came to a conclusion when I tasted another part of this tree which is far more exciting than even the fresh heart.  Roger at Red Dragonfruit Company let me sample the nut (or what is actually the fruit) of the pejibaye at the Heart of a Chef farmer's market.  The flavor is nutty, starchy within reason, and very potato-like.  It's incredible.  I cannot wait to use it, and Roger promised me some as soon as he gets them.  He has been busy lately contracting land outside the US to grow it.  The fruit cannot be imported raw into the United States, and can only be bought cooked (boiled).

heart of a chef

The end event for the American Heart Association "Heart of a Chef" charity was an auditorium of wine tastings, demonstrations, farmer's market, food tastings, and a television reality chef cook-off competition.  Chef K and I were there to do a demo/lecture titled "Chef's Gone Green."  Although we are not 'green,' we used to forum to advocate doing anything possible... our point being that "at what point do you become green."  There is no line in the sand that by changing that one light bulb to an energy saver or by purchasing that sack of carrots from the farmer down south instead of getting it shipped from Carrot Land, USA you will finally achieve green-ness.  It's not easy being green.  There are many shades of green.  Be a greenish tint of whatever other color you are.  It's the blessing and the curse.  Everyone's focused on it because the customer is beginning to demand it, but because the customer is demanding it... the label is bound to be mis-used.  Be as green as you can, and strive to be greener.

It was a good topic, and one that we were not fully prepared for after the previous days' events.  We learned how to approach it, pulled it off, and will do it 10 times better next time and a 100 times better the time after that.  Here are a couple of pictures from that day.

Our boy, Ralph Pagano.  He was in competition against Howie Kleinberg from Top Chef, but unfortunately lost.  The competitions were pretty well organized and were set up with Whole Foods mystery bags.  Each chef had an hour to create 1 dish.  The final competition featured tofu as a main ingredient which proved to be interesting... but wasn't.

Sean Bernal of Oceanaire with his enlightening demo on purchasing sustainable fish... the how's, why's, and where's.

Ralph is a hell of a personality onstage.  Give Bertha our prayers, Ralph.

pot au pho

We just finished a weekend of events to benefit the American Heart Association.  Saturday night consisted of a mystery dine-around in which all participants drew lots at a cocktail reception and were divided into different limo's.  Each limo was driven to an undisclosed participating restaurant for dinner.  Typically, we never pull from our regular menu for such events as they give us opportunity to throw out different ideas... and basically to just play around.  I'll post more interesting points of the event throughout the week.

The wording for pot au pho came from Chef K as we were brainstorming ways to incorporate living herbs or micros right on the table.  The overall focus or chefs from last year to this year went from heart-healthy to just plain green and sustainable and organic with an emphasis on eating what you like, but eating less of it (afterall, what's good for the soul can be good for the heart).  The play on words for the dish was a twist on French pot au feu with Vietnamese flavor (try pronouncing 'pot au pho' with the correct French and Vietnamese accents and it can be a tongue twister).  The pot was further taken to symbolize the living plant instead of the cooking vessel.  We received a great array of micros and herbs from Tropical Delights in Homestead Florida.  Ms. Yvonne and her brother, Andrew, don't take on too many clients so we try to utilize their product as often as possible for support.  She has gone out of her way many times to insure that we are happy with their efforts.

Understandably, Andrew was concerned about having actual 'dirt' on the dinner table... not because of a general concern over accidentally consuming soil, but because his soil is a super organic soil that is the result of lots of tweaking and manipulating (it's top secret and he protects it like his child).  Andrew teaches agriculture and horticulture on the university level and to hear him talk can make your head spin.  Much thanks to him for taking the time to work with us on this project.

The concern over soil on the table required a suitable substitute soil to go on with the initial plan... enter, the spent coffee grinds.

Although definitely gimmicky for your average meal, the chef needs to know how to play to the crowd and stick with a theme.  I think this dish works from this perspective.

The overall concept was a Vietnamese duck pho broth (I smoked both the carcasses and the meat for this to give extra depth to the flavor) to be frenched over sliced duck breast and ginger flower.  The plate consisted of small scissors so that the diner could snip the living herbs (we used some micro cilantro, basil, and pea tendril) and drop them into the hot broth.  Traditional Vietnamese pho comes with a basket of fresh herbs and bean sprouts on the side... this is the 'living' representation of that.

It also goes into a point that we brought up to the table about keeping growing herbs at home.  Recently while shopping around at Whole Foods (which is a sponsor of the event) in the produce aisle, I noticed that a tiny package of basil leaves costs $2.50 while a nice bushy basil plant costs $2.99.  Why pay for leaves that are going to die in your fridge and are 'less green' due to the packaging?  If I do not use all of my basil plant, then I can leave in on the sill, water it every couple of days, and I'll have fresh living basil leaves for a few weeks that look exactly as they did at the time of purchase.

swan & dolphin james beard dinner

The chef team from the Swan & Dolphin Resort at Disney in Orlando recently went to New York's James Beard House for a dinner themed in colors.  The event consisted of passed hors d'ouevres themed in color pairs then plated courses themed in individual colors.  Chris Windus of bluezoo sent pictures and descriptions of the dishes to me.

Yellow and Black

64.5 degree egg yolk, pressure cooked meyer lemon and vanilla puree, meyer lemon oil, golden beets, perigord black truffle caviar(agar and oil method), johnny jump up

Blue and Purple

Brittany

blue lobsters, shaved purple cauliflower hearts, purple cauliflower puree, opal basil,

Adirondack

blue potatoes, we coated them with aspic made from the turbot so they wouldn’t spin on the metal picks

Brown and Gold

Duck demiglace, morel agar disk, golden raisin

Chantilly

, duck croquette rolled in gold powder

Green

Compressed cucumber and honeydew, baby fennel puree, honeydew caviar tossed in mint oil, brunoise fava beans, spring pea puree (under the bruoise fava in a parisienne cut out of the honeydew), micro mint and chervil

Red

Foie torchon, gastrique of zinfandel vinegar with honey then mounted with foie fat, blood orange and strawberry salad, bulls blood, strawberry rhubarb gelee.

White

Turbot (brined, sous vide, cuisine solutions method), turnip gratin, pomme fondant (stuffed with white bean, white anchovy and mascarpone puree), topped with julienne poached hearts of palm, and a micro white carrot.

Pink

72 hr veal cheeks, guava and pink grapefruit vin, guave and beet sabayon, baby candy striped beets, bacon beet powder, micro amaranth

Orange

Orange greek yogurt mouse, confit kumquats, carrot crisps, orange saffron vanilla soup

The Swan & Dolphin Chef Team

Left to right...

Greg Shimoda (complex garde manger chef), Arnaud Violtat (complex executive sous chef of restaurants), Howard Stilianessis (complex banquet chef), Laurant Branlard (executive pastry chef), Robert Ciborowski (complex executive chef), Chris Windus (executive chef bluezoo restaurant).

banh mi burgers

This falls into the home cookin' category... although not sous-vide home cookin'.

Vietnamese saigon subs with grilled pork have been one of my favorite sandwiches for years.  There was a bakery out in New Orleans East that sold them for under a buck each.  The sandwich is a simple balance of flavors, textures, and heat.  A few years ago, I decided to make banh mi burgers while barbeque'ing at home.  The simple idea was to make a burger patty of seasoned ground pork and serve it on a bun (instead of French bread) with the traditional dressings.

The is almost a universal rule among the apartments and condos of the greater Miami area that prevents anyone from barbeque'ing or operating a grill for fire-hazard reasons.  I've never lived in a place where this was a reality, but I'm slowly adjusting to my grill-less life.  To compensate somewhat for the loss of grill flavor, I used a smoke gun to put a little smoke on the raw pork patties before searing and cooking... but feel free to light up your grill and take this one outside if you live in a free country and not in Miami.

This is just like the traditional sandwich in every way except for the form of the meat.  Buy quality ground pork and mix it with minced onion, garlic, green onion, cilantro, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and a touch of sesame oil.  Shape the meat into burger sized patties.  The other sandwich ingredients can be arranged on the side... sliced cucumber, pickled juliennes of carrot (rice vinegar and salt), thinly sliced jalapenos, cilantro sprigs, shredded iceberg lettuce (not traditional, but it is a burger), and mayonnaise (kewpie if you've got it!) and soy sauce.  For the bread, I kept more with the traditional bread texture and went for Chicago hard rolls instead of softer burger buns.

This is really simple, and probably not totally post-worthy... but it is the beginning of summer, and if I had to submit a 30 minute meal for the season this dish would top the list.  Side items may consist of anything from a simple broth soup to an Asian themed slaw to green papaya salad and most definitely an ice cold Heineken or 33. 

The needle on the comfort meter is pegged out on this one.

dropping the candle

I received quite a few comments and emails on the candle making experiment.  Without going into addressing each question and suggestion, here is a follow-up...

Pulling this off while still maintaining some sort of 'culinary value' is possible, but with some severe limitations.

First of all, it was naive of me to think a water-based gel candle would work.  There needs to be fuel for the flame to survive.  Since candle wax itself is a fuel and is categorized as a lipid, no other modifications need be made for a wax candle... however, who wants to eat wax... even edible wax.  No culinary value here.

A water-based gel candle can possibly work if there is fuel incorporated into it.  More than one of you implied that there should be at least 80% fat (or oil) for this to work.  The candle above was made with ras al hanout scented apple gel (a fluid gel made from gellan) that had argan oil emulsified into it.  I used no where near 80% oil and the emulsion was already unstable.  This flame burned for a bit longer than the previous experiments before fizzling out, but it was no where near successful.  Besides, this candle is not fully in solid form, and the melting effect is impossible.

The only real way to accomplish this is with an all saturated fat candle.  I mentioned that we achieved success some time back with a butter candle.  A couple of people also mentioned rendering foie gras fat or infusing the flavor into a fat.  Both of these open small doors of possibilities.  It is my belief that these candles would indeed work... but you are limited to a candle made of pure flavored fat.  There is only a small amount of culinary value there.

Other suggestions of utilizing alcohol within or even possibly a gelled alcohol... but that may just completely burst into flame.  Don't ever go near the stove after using antibacterial gel on your hands or you will find out why this is not a good idea.

There was one suggestion that really sparked my interest (although I have not tried it).  Use tapioca maltodextrin to turn a fat or oil into a powder.  Compress that powder into a candle form around a wick.  Light the wick.  The question is whether or not the TM will allow the oil or fat to revert back to a liquid state and thus melt.

This should encompass most of your ideas.  The candle is temporarily dropped.

sous-vide at home

Science versus Tradition.

I finally have my home kitchen set-up for sous-vide cooking.  This is something I hope to see a lot more of in the 'not so far off' future.  Even as chefs, we often draw a distinctive line between the food we can cook at work and the food we cook at home (at least it is if you utilize modern cuisine techniques at work).  Other labels are thrown on home cooked food such as comfort food or just good old home cooking... but what can be more comforting than an incredible piece of meat cooked using sous-vide methods.  Why should this experience be removed from the home.  True... there have been 'meal in a bag' type products in the past, but when we say sous-vide we mean controlled.  The ability to control a water bath to the degree is necessary.

So, what do you need to accomplish this.  Basically, 3 things.

A rice cooker or slow cooker as a heat source.  I am using this Black & Decker Rice Plus which has a great steam-lined look, holds 24 cups (ample water bath is important to control fluctuations in temperature as well as providing room enough to cook larger items when desired), and has a convenient little hole on top.  I tried a 'crock pot' type slow cooker before this one, and the rice cookers work better because the heating element is on the bottom and it can recover temperature drops more quickly.

The hole is important to the 2nd piece of necessary equipment... a PID (proportion, integral, derivative device).  This controls the amount of power going to the cooker while monitoring the temperature of the water bath.  The hole makes for a convenient place to slip the sensor wire.  The set-up allows the PID to keep the water at a constant temperature.  I am using a device called Sous-Vide Magic which I purchased from Fresh Meals Solutions.  Frank Hsu, who is president of FMS, went out of his way to back up his product.  He emailed me several times with information, and called me when I had minor issues with the device.  There is no lack of customer service at FMS.  Mr. Hsu also recommended the rice cooker that I am using above.

The last necessary equipment is a vacuum sealer.  In order to cook in a water bath, you must be able to seal foods in waterproof bags.  The Food Saver has made it's way into the American kitchen by being sold in most major retail stores (places that sell kitchen wares).  Although they promote it as a 'food saving' device (hence the name), hopefully we will see it used more as a vessel for preparing foods for sous-vide cooking.  Although the power on the Food Saver is not enough for compression techniques that we often use commercial vacuum sealers for, it does eliminate almost all of the air from around the food.

There is a certain appeal to what can be done with sous-vide once home cooks become familiar with the concept and practice.  It can even fall into the 'fix it and forget about it' category.  There is the power of control and 'fool proof' cooking that comes with this method.  There is the possibility of really reproducing restaurant food because you reduce certain uncontrollable factors.

This set-up can be added to your home kitchen for a small price.  $130 for the PID.  $50 for the rice cooker.  $100 for the vacuum sealer.  That's $280 for the whole system... when a Polyscience thermocirculator costs almost 3 times that.  It's tax refund time... go for it.  The home system actually does not circulate the water... but I've cooked several things in it already, and it does the job.  Imagine dropping eggs in before going to sleep and waking up to perfectly cooked eggs that only need to be pulled out of the water and cracked open.

So... with this leap, what are some other things that can be taken from the modern professional kitchen and brought into the home with interesting results?

... growing your own micro herbs and other edibles.

sousa phone

I am taking great pleasure in pointing out a promising new chef blog... Salt of the Earth.

We first met Kevin Sousa at a Taste of the NFL event here in Miami a couple of years ago (when the superbowl was last held here).  At first we were intrigued by the guy who decided to haul a 5 foot tall LN2 tank all the way down from Pittsburgh and was using a Home Depot Wagner paint sprayer to make a frozen dust made out of horchata (correct me if my memory fails, Kevin).  The point is that we just had to meet this guy.

Kevin took an interesting route with avant garde cuisine... he explains it in his own words on his blog.  He basically built a restaurant within a restaurant to do the sort of food he wanted to do.  With the right diners supporting him, a great waiter and support staff, and a little press (plus the obvious time and patience), he soon built Alchemy (there was a great website for this venture, but I think it may have been shut down along with the restaurant)... the first stepping stone to where he is now.

So, where is he?  He's currently opening a new restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Red Room with an accompanying lounge, R2.  The expression of ideas and the thoughts behind the food will soon take place in his blog... there are only 3 posts as of now so start reading from the beginning!  It will be interesting to see Kevin's blogging voice develop parallel with the vision of his own kitchen.  He has made a niche by exploring many techniques and creating great food around them.  We met Kevin again last year in New York and he is as humble as he is driven.

Best of luck!

holding a candle

I have an idea that I may or may not be able to achieve... to make an edible candle.  True, there are edible candles in the sense that you can technically eat them (i. e. soy wax), but I want to make a candle that the diner will want to eat, not just have the ability to digest.  To my knowledge, this has never been done before (I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong).

The first seed of this idea was born before chadzilla (the blog, not me!).  We were doing a dinner for the Chaine des Rotisseurs and the main course was lamb.  Being the Chaine, the courses were kept within the borders of traditional flavors... but where to take it from there.  We had the idea (and were able to successfully pull off) a candle made of rosemary mint butter that was lit and served on the plate.  As the wick burned down, it melted the butter into... let's say a 'sauce.'  The plan was to instruct the diners to either dip there morsels of lamb into the flavored butter, or simply pour it onto the meat.  Although we used votive glass holders, it is definitely possible to use a candle mold to create a free-standing candle that would melt onto the plate.  Everything worked out great, the Chaine was impressed (they later voted our dinner 'Best Meal of the Year'), and we all patted ourselves on the back.

Fast forward... present day.

Although the butter candle is interesting on its own, I am still haunted by the idea of creating a candle made from a water-based gel (at this point the gel can be of any flavor within the realm of infusing into a liquid) that would 'melt' into a sauce as the candle burned.

I tried an experiment with 5 different gelling agents (given that they all produce unique textures and have different melting and gelling points).  Sounds good on the surface, but they all just fizzled out when the flame neared the gel.

Is it because the gels are in fact, water based... and fire doesn't like water?  There is water in butter, but also a high amount of fat.  Wax is a lipid (in case you were wondering what in the hell wax is in relation to cooking).  It is sometimes used to smooth out chocolate or coat cheeses.  The simplest forms of wax are actually methane and then octane.  The solid waxes we are familiar with are more complex and take the solid form we all know.  There is also something called gel wax (which sounds like the right road to take here), but it is made from a mixture of wax and mineral oil... still not appetizing when you think about it.  Is there any combination or amount of gel that would work here... a gel mixed with an oil?

If it weren't for the fact that the butter candle actually worked, I would abandon the idea.  Does the candle have to be limited to fats alone (there were also milk solids, water, and flavoring herbs in the mix).  If so, I have some nice snowy white Berkshire fat sitting in the walk-in.  Great possibility, but how would a guest react to having a shot glass of melting lard on their plate?

Where to go next?  Any suggestions?

buffalo frog leg breakfast

This is a salute to Keith Micas.

Not that it's an unusual food preparation, but I was lucky that Chef K sent me a text message on my day off to let me know he had some seafood samples in the cooler.  One of the items was really fresh frog's legs.  Being from South Louisiana, and not having them for quite some time, I really just wanted to deep fry them.  The next thought after that was to toss them in buffalo sauce.  Although the idea is not strange or even original, it was home style food.

Any google hits to Keith Micas generate only references to country music artists, but Keith is no country musician.  He was an eccentric cook (one of a spectrum of strange characters) back in my early days working at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans.  We did seafood brunches every Friday, and Keith was most proud of his buffalo frog legs like it was the most original idea ever conceived.  He put them out there everytime the chef let him and showed them off to us PM cooks when we wandered in.  Sure, his mannerisms were strange and his use of language was unique (Ah Ah) and he became even stranger after his attempts at writing children's books about hippos and adventuring into stand-up comedy... but we all hope his life's calling finally granted him peace and happiness.  Never seen the routine, but I can only imagine what it consists of and the audience's reactions.

I guess days off send you reminiscing.  I don't think about individual characters from the past on normal days, but somehow Keith is responsible for my breakfast this morning.  There will probably never be a time or place in my career again that was so full to the brim with strange personalities as my early days in that kitchen were... or even in New Orleans in general.  Anthony Bourdain could write 3 more versions of "Kitchen Confidential" with some of the things we did and got away with back then.  It is ironic now... that there would be hell to pay if we caught any of our cooks today doing the same stuff.