chadzilla

83C

This was a test run at the magic cooking number of 83C.  The controlled cooking yields incredible textures with vegetables (especially potatoes) because it breaks down the starch while leaving vital structure-maintaining pectin intact.  I tried a variety of starches that we normally utilize... the most exciting part of the results was that even after a long 7 hours of cooking, the potato texture was never compromised.  Overcooking was virtually impossible... perfect potatoes in 2 hours or 20 hours.

These are bars of sweet potato cooked with orange juice (a typical Peruvian application).

Some boniato with roasted garlic oil and salt.

Yuca cooked with mojo... this was unfortunately the big dissappointment of the trials.  I really wanted to achieve a firm texture of yuca with all of the starch broken down into creaminess... didn't happen.  After 7 hours of cooking, the yuca was still too hard and had a raw bite to it.  I fried a piece for a short time afterwards out of curiosity.  The result was so/so, but not 'get all your hopes up' promising.  The idea was to achieve a great texture through sous-vide (with mojo flavor infused) and keep the pieces in mis en place to fry a la minute.

This next photo was an attempt to create a solid Peruvian causa, which is a cold potato dough.  I bagged the Yukon gold cubes with aji amarillo, lime juice, olive oil, and salt.  This method would allow 'causa' to be made out of whatever shape we decided to cut the potato and use it in ways that typical causa could not be used.  Just chill after cooking.  The result... very good.

The very last trial was not based on potato, but on corn.  After seeing Bruno Bertin make polenta with sous-vide cooking (of course, he used a CVap), I could not get the idea of cooking grits out of my head... for professional and personal reasons.  After gaining the benefit of waking up to perfectly cooked eggs, I felt that waking up to perfectly cooked grits would be like the gap-toothed dixie fairy paid us a visit overnight.

The results of the grits were simultaneously promising and dissapointing.  If you want the most creamy melted down grit feel, then it's a dissappointment.  The promise was an entirely new texture.  I modified Bertin's recipe a bit to be more compatible with the American southern palate.  The texture was soft, but pliable.  These were grits that you could scoop up with your hands and shape like clay.  Chef K mentioned that it was reminiscent of cornbread to an extent... perhaps with some ingredient changes this direction could be interesting.  He is right that the texture is of a batch of cornbread that did not fully cook in the center.  I did learn that (as much as I want to thrown it into the mix) butter doesn't fair well in the bag at 83C... it broke down, and had to be re-kneaded in afterwards by massaging the bag.

We'll see where we go with this in the future.  At 7 hours of cooking time, these definitely are not the instant grits that no self-respecting southerner would ever admit to eating.

tropical delights, pt. 3

Here is the wrap up from the walk about at Tropical Delights.

I guess I assumed that the micros we get grow in green houses.  Wrong.  There are no glass walls or ceilings here... just rows on tables and a brief shading from the sun.  The rest of it grows almost wild... or as Andre pointed out new terminology to us, wild crafted... like the celery growing wild below the micro celery and cilantro.

These are what we call pea tendrils, as Andre also pointed out to us is wrong horticultural terminology.  Chefs and growers have different ideas about what a tendril is.

Bulk organic soil.

White sapote.  Abundant.

Lo quat tree.  This brought back more childhood memories.  We called them Japan plums.

The appropriately named ugly lemon.  Imagine how much zest you could get from this thing.

A super-potent South African pepper.  Can't remember the name.

Cuban long neck avocados... very Salvador Dali.

Sweet little tomatoes.  Some of these came home with us.

Mango tree.

Papaya tree.

A wild black raspberry.

Jack fruit.  Female on the left.  Male on the right.

A long mulberry before ripening.

Andre climbed this tree to pull some wax jambu (or java apple) down for us.  What generosity.

This is supposed to be like the tallest carambola in the whole freakin' world or something... not sure.  I just know it's pretty damn tall.  Check out the hyacinth bean flower vines in the forefront.

And some green carambola from a different tree.

And a palm (or palmetto... is there a relation) that is used to make beer somewhere.  I don't know the name of it, or the type of beer made, or what part of the world this happens but just the beer factor alone warranted a picture.

~fin~

tropical delights, pt. 2

... continuing on our trek through the farm at Tropical Delights with Andre.  There were so many pictures and names that I'm going to categorize a little here.  This post will consist of herbs, floral, and aromas.

Rosemary flowers.  Floral sweetness and pine flavor.

Cat mint and sage.  I had never heard of cat mint, which is different from catnip... but then again, there were many things here I had never heard of.

Rose grass.  This grass had a scent and flavor like rose petals, just not as intense.  Supposedly, this is used in the manufacture of perfumes more than actual rose petals are... makes me wonder about the rose water in our pantry.

I can't remember the name of these, but they are a rare sunflower.

Marigolds.  A substitute for saffron... although not a very good one I'm sure.

This is Jamaican mint, an extraordinary herb if you're not familiar with it.  The mint has a great flavor and is sturdier than your average mint due to its healthy thick little leaves and woody stem.

... and to show you how large the shrub can get...

Garlic flowers.  There is something justifiably profound about a flower the smells like garlic.  What a flavor as well.  I could have eaten an entire row of these.  The stinking rose...

Zahtar, the herb.  We have used the spice blend before, but have never come in contact with the herb itself.  The aroma and flavor was bitterly intense.

Thai basil.

and another variety of basil from the Orient.  I was not aware that basil originated in Indonesia (probably of a similar variety to this one).  It makes you wonder about Italian cuisine as we know it... if basil comes from the east, tomatoes from Peru, noodles from China (ok, that one is a fight-starter).  What was Italian food like before Marco Polo?

Wild mountain arugula.  This is an ancestor to modern arugula.  The bitterness reminded me of the first time I ever tasted arugula.  After years of loving it and eating it, it somehow seems like the flavor has mellowed.  This variety brought that 'ka-pow!' back... like a junkie looking for a stronger fix.

Micro cilantro... the same ones we get every week.  Notice the seeds hanging on to the tops.  Andre simply sprinkles his seeds over the top soil, not buried... maybe that's the mistake I'm making with some of my horticultural endeavors.

Mexican tarragon.  I was not aware that there was a Mexican variety of tarragon, but Andre assured us that it was not related to common tarragon.  This sparked an entire conversation on how finite and infinite flavors are.  How plants that are not related can have similar flavors.  I guess it's the randomness of nature... why else would combinations like white chocolate and caviar share similar dominant flavor molecules?  It's like we are putting together pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Chicory.

Hyacinth bean flower.  Roll that beautiful sweet bean footage...

Shell ginger flowers.  They'll be plucked once they open a little.  Vibrant colors inside.

A red leaf hibiscus, although not actually related to the hibiscus (another odd piece of the jigsaw puzzle).

Micro shiso.

... to be continued one more time.

tropical delights, pt. 1

One of the local growers that we depend on had invited us over to the farm many times.  We finally took up that offer and made the 1 hour drive (which got extended to about 2 hours when we got lost) to Homestead, Florida... land of farms, feed stores, and taqueria's.  Tropical Delights grows and delivers the microgreens that we use regularly between the restaurant and catering.  We are fortunate to be able to support them.

The farm consists of the rigging that makes a happy home for the micros, but even moreso the rest of the land which is a botanical zoo.  Andre walked us around the trees and garden beds and showed off his many rare specimens like a proud parent.  It was like taking a stroll with a living horticultural encyclopedia.  Like other growers in the area, Andre can point to any plant there and give you its name, scientific name, origin, and some fascinating story about it.

This will be a photo essay of the wonderful things we saw and tasted.  Most of it is Andre's words and descriptions within a margin of error equal to the capacity of my tea-stained memory.  Let's walk...

We started with a beautiful scent from a flower (and I cannot remember the name) whose sweet odor is one of the main ingredients in Chanel #5... and if it isn't, then it could be.

Baby Florida avocados... these are everywhere in Homestead.  We have been blessed to get some in season and fresh picked a couple of times.  The flavor is sweeter and lighter than the California variety, and although not as popular, equally good.  Imagine cutting into an avocado so fresh that it could sit in your fridge for almost a week before beginning to brown.

Mamay Sapote (sah-POH-tay)... Andre has at least 3 varieties growing here including the white sapote and the chocolate sapote... which is the flower in the following picture.

There is a grove of lychee trees scattered about the land.  Chef K volunteered us to help with the picking come harvest time for the lychees.  That should be interesting.  Here are some baby lychees in various stages (one covered in spider's web which insures there will be no bugs in them).

This is what a lychee tree looks like, to give you an idea of its size.

Andre speaks of the volunteers on his farm.  These are not extra hands that willingly come over to help with the chores... they are plants that decided to grow here on there own.  Sometimes he transplants them and helps them to survive.  Some of the volunteers are not native to south Florida and are not supposed to be capable of surviving the hot climate... but they grown anyway.  Maybe they're just happy living here with Andre.  He jokes about growing up with tropical fruit like mango, sapote, carambola, lychees, and how it gave him a love of 'plain' fruit such as apples and pears... which were appropriately exotic to him.  Here are some of the more ordinary specimens...

A peach tree... which is not supposed to grow in such hot weather.

Asparagus... these tasted so sweet... the best I've ever tasted.  Of course, it was only out of the ground for about 10 seconds which obviously had a lot to do with it's amazing flavor.

Wild celery.  The flavor of this variety is much more astringent than the supermarket type.  Great to chew on while walking around.  These grow out of the ground under the table rows where the microgreens grow.  These are also not supposed to survive here which probably partly accounts for their bitter flavor.

Brown Turkish figs.  Just being around a fig tree and smelling the aroma it gives brought back memories of my childhood.

And finally modern traditional fennel...

... growing right alongside a fennel plant that is the ancestor of the modern day fennel.

And an X-rated carrot...

The carrots are usually fed to the 2 dogs, Jack and Jill.  For some reason they love these.

To be continued... there is much more to see...

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).

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.

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.

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.

sharing

We showed out in a little different way for an event yesterday to benefit Kampong Gardens in South Miami.  It's a beautiful location that runs right down into the sea.  Lots of other cool chefs and commrades and the surprising nice weather made for a great event.

Since it was just Chef K and myself, we tried to keep things simple.  As newly self-appointed 'ham'bassadors to the world, we spread the good flavor of Jamon Iberico to all who wandered by our table.  The table was set up with a loose tapas bar feel.  Our pitch line was that Spain is finally sharing their jamon with the rest of the world.  We feel so blessed to be able to bring in such a great product, that now we're sharing with everyone else.  Buen provecho!

This is the jamon presentation.  It was served with a piquillo pepper gel, smoked almonds, and olive streusel.  We could have easily kept it as simple as using whole piquillos, toasted almonds, and olives to keep more with tradition, but we've realized that techniques should be thrown in there whenever they fit. 

In no way am I implying that techniques should be used for the sole purpose of technique alone.  Each technique should still comply with the jist of the dish or add a complementary element to it.  It's actually just like 80's big-hair band guitar solos...  there was an unwritten code in 80's metal bands that the guitar player had to go off in at least one or two bars of the solo... usually at the end.  The solo could be very melodic, and of course had to fit the overall feel of the song so that the listener could cheese out with maximum effect, but it was definitely obligatory to throw in a line of hammer-on trills or rolling arpeggios, or at least some lightening fast run up the frets somewhere to show everyone that you had been practicing your minor scales.

That's basically what's going on when chefs feel the need to include an element that throws the dish for a loop.  It's just the really fast part of the guitar solo.  These twists are our minor scales.  They are in tradition with a pop culture phenomenon that transcends all mediums of art... you can even play air guitar to it if you'd like.

For good tapas measure, we also offered some beautifully marinated white anchovies and mixed olives.  These threw people off for some reason, and we're not sure quite why.  As popular as alici has become, it's still not common enough to enthrall the bulk of the population at these events.

The Kampong event requires that each table also present a drink concoction to accompany their food.  To keep with our theme, we created an Albarino sangria spritzer.

The albarino was spiked with a tangerine honey and lime mixer and fresh peaches.  The mixer was 'spritzed' into the wine with CO2, and the peaches were compressed with a bit of the mixer before being diced up... more minor scales.

One final image... have you ever seen Jamon Iberico when it sits at Miami temperatures outside for 3 hours and the fat is transfixed in some sort of solid melted state that will dissolve into liquid gold the second it hits your tongue...

Damn, I'm so blessed.  Thank you Jose Andres, and thank you Fermin.

Rock on!

bring on the pig!

Yesterday, I must have died and gone to pork heaven.  It was like many little curly-tailed angels sat on my shoulder and blessed me with the flesh of their earth-bound breatheren throughout the day.

I first ate breakfast at home that partially consisted of breakfast sausage sent to us by Heath Putnam at Wooly Pigs.  Much apologies to Heath, as he did send us a box full of great pork products and we have been horrible procrastinators about trying them and offering feedback.  Just for the record, the Wood's sausage was a perfect way to start the day... nice hints of sage and quality pork flavor.  Bring it on!

The next pork angel came in the form of a package from Uwe at Gratifood.  Uwe sent me some of Pop's Magic Ham which is made by his father, a 3rd generation expert at the art of German charcuterie (resettled in Central Texas).  The ham was packed in a food-saver bag and survived the trip perfectly.  The scent of sweet smoke wafted up after slicing the bag open and the flavor was a hundred-fold of that.  He interestingly used the pork loin, which was slightly miniaturized through the dry-aging (6 months), and yielded very thin uniform slices of perfect texture.  The high amount of fat wasn't missed because the muscle meat more than made up the difference with flavor that wouldn't die.  Thanks for the great gift, Uwe.  It's definitely appreciated.  Bring it on!

Here are some of the slices wrapped around sake compressed green apple, maple vinaigrette and wattle seed powder inside, and shaved fennel slaw on top.

The pork adventure continued later when an aquaintance, Ralph Pagano, stopped in to let us sample some incredible cow's milk mozzarella which is hand-crafted in Pompano Beach, FL. 

We had met Ralph several times lately at various events around Miami and Palm Beach (he just keeps popping up).  If his picture doesn't ring a bell with you, his voice surely would.  His thick New Jersey Italian accent has bellowed on episodes of Iron Chef (against Bobby Flay) and Hell's Kitchen (where he made it to the final 2).  He also has his own show now on the MOJO HD network called Pressure Cook... where he is flown to an undisclosed location, and has to hustle in kitchens to make enough money for a plane ticket back home.  If he loses, he has to eat some really nasty surprise dish...  basic reality TV.  It's great to have him as a neighbor.

What's the pork connection here?  Well, we sliced up and shared some Jamon Iberico and Serrano Paleta that had just arrived from Spain.  Chef K seems to be all about bringing in these amazing jamons after his trip to Madrid, so bring it on!  These flavors are something you can never get too much of.  Besides, eating some of those slices alongside Ralph's mozzarella was like having a greased up pig in your mouth.

Thanks, Ralph.  Hopefully we'll meet you for that burger at Le Tub soon.