chadzilla

peanut 'butter' and an avocado block

... not traditional Skippy-type peanut butter, but butter infused with peanut flavor.

peanut 'butter,' bitter chocolate biscuit, late harvest wine jelly

 

PlayingWithFire&Water recently posted a tutorial on making cultured butter.  I'm not going to go into that process (but feel free to check it out here- pdf recipe with pictures at the bottom of the post).  One of the ideas thrown out was infusing flavors into butter by first infusing them into the cream.  Chef K took the cream right below the pasteurization temperature and steeped chopped roasted peanuts into it at 70ºC.  The cream was cooled and allowed to sit with the peanuts for 2 days refrigerated.  After straining, the buttermilk was added and the butter process began.

After creaming and washing, we were left with a beautiful peanut scented butter which acted as a sort of bread service/amuse bouche... why not.  Going through the process did answer the reverberating question of why don't restaurants make their own butter.  Well, at least not this hotel kitchen.

It's great when we can all draw inspiration from each other in different parts of the country via the internet.  We were up in the air as to what type of avocado element to add to a foie gras panna cotta dish.  The revolving flavors were foie gras, avocado, banana, truffle.  After seeing Chris Windus' lobster dish here, we used the same method but added the other elements.

truffled avocado and carmelized banana block

'kool' confit

We made a liquid base of water, menthol, sugar, and sucro to pipe smoke bubbles into... like menthol cigarette smoke, but better.  The bubbles were spooned over shredded goose confit.  The idea of menthol cigarettes as a flavor element on a plate sounds kind of nasty, but it was subtle and pretty... 'kool.'  We used peach wood for the smoke.  The other plate elements were an herb-infused whipped cream and orange pudding cake.  The cream was made by steeping cream with herbs at 70ºC, chill, infuse 24 hours, strain, whip.  The orange pudding cake was riffed from Michael Laiskonis' lime pudding cake... who riffed it from Michelle Gayer and Charlie Trotter.  It seems we've utilized versions of Laiskonis' recipes on many dishes for 'savory' chefs, but as a whole of they are a great on-going reference with lots of techniques and solid formulas.

... still playing with ratios of sucro and sugar in the bubble mix.  Not quite there yet.

corn 'cobb' salad

Got a few fun dishes from tonight.  Here's the corn egg used with cobb salad elements.  It's the blue plate special.  Funny to see everyone look at it as a sliced boiled egg.

yellow corn & popcorn milk egg, avocado buttermilk ranch, bacon & blue cheese

 

Download Corn Egg

Download Avocado Buttermilk Ranch

an egg

Eggs remain one of the quintessential symbols of Spring since ancient times.  Eggs became one of the benchmarks of a chef's skills as observed in Escoffier's day.  Eggs have been the sole subject of cookbooks.  The egg was re-created by Wylie Dufresne and Marcel sparked controversy in the modern genre by incorporating the same ideas in a magazine article.  What about this guy?  Alex and Aki demonstrated a false egg based on the various gelling temps of methylcellulose in a rare video post.  Is it all just slightly acidulated water under the bridge?  The egg is a single cell, the basis of life, and life-sustaining.  What would Easter be without them?  What would breakfast be?  What would a cobb salad be?

 

I had a weird idea to make a boiled egg completely out of corn (that's the only claim to originality I'm making here).  That in itself can by symbolic, as corn is already used to make up pretty much everything available that we eat in the USA.  Maybe corn supercedes the egg as the modern symbol of life.  Maybe not.  Aside from getting the obvious yellow and white parts down, I wanted to get similar textures as well.  I did this by considering the mouthfeel of the base elements and by varying the percentages of agar agar.  The end result looks like a sliced boiled egg.

The yolk:  Yellow corn juice gelled with 0.45% agar and a little added saffron for color reinforcement.

The white:  Popcorn-infused milk gelled with 1.2% agar and 0.25% xanthan.

 

Wilton egg molds available at your local Wal-Mart!!!

still smokin'

It's not Cheech & Chong, but it's destiny to come around to circles again... and this is my 500th blog post or some ridiculous number, so 'Cheers!' everybody!

When we did our first Paradigm dinner the very first course was titled 'smoke & mirrors' (raw oysters with mignonette gelée smoked under glass on a mirror garde manger platter) and it was our way or poking fun of the gimmickery of the modern food movement... the type of gimmickery that allures many guests and media into one night stances and would later torment chefs like Achatz who seek constant new validity to the craft and make us question the raison d'être of modern food.  Well, the process and freedom afforded by the new movement has broken down many doors of perception and birthed thousands of new techniques and ideas that will fill many cookbook pages in years to come once the dust settles.  We want respect, but still desire to entertain... "like picturing Jesus in one of those tuxedo T-shirts that says, I want to be formal but I'm here to party."  In the end, we will all be the better for it, simply because we stretched our brains and decided not to be content with the status quo.

Sure, we have been known for quite some time (even before modern water-bending trickery and Willy Wonka-vision) to be overly corny or cheesey with menu descriptions.  We tend to entertain through whimsy as much as feed you something tasty.  It's hard sometimes not to fall into the 'smoke & mirrors' trap of modern cuisine, but if Richard Blais can still present 'smoke under glass' like it's the next new thing and maintain a lucrative respected career on it, then we are allowed some leeway.  Share the wealth.

 

I know it has been done in some form or another, but I've always wanted to put smoke bubbles on a dish.  A sweet base of 100g water, 50g honey, 1.5g sucro provides a base with which to trap it... sweet sweet smoke.  The only real catch here is using the Polyscience Smoking Gun of which I love and hate.  I love what it can do, but hate that it's a gamble on whether it will work or not under crunch time.  I still have my home-made model which I use at home to smoke meats before cooking.

So what gimmicky cheesey cool thing can be done with smoke bubbles... we'll find out on Friday night.

sweetbread confit

This was Chef K's second trial at making sweetbread confit.  The first attempt a couple of weeks ago proved to be overly salty from the cure time, but the texture and underlying flavor made it something that should definitely be revisited.

sweetbread confit, date purée, late harvest wine jelly, chocolate shortbread, mustard paper, cilantro

 

A couple of internet searches provided very little information for turning sweetbreads into a confit.  That left almost no starting points and a bit of experimentation.  Chef K was fully responsible for taking it to the point we are now.  It's a great way to present sweetbreads and was very well received by the guests... definitely to be manifested into many more dishes down the road (different cooking flavors, different presentations, different component pairings).

Veal sweetbreads are cleaned, excess blood line and membrane removed, 24 hour soak in sparkling water, pat and allow to fully dry on a rack in the cooler.  Make a salt cure of kosher salt, nitrite, sugar, and pohnpei peppercorns.  Allow the sweetbreads to sit on the cure refrigerated for a maximum of 6 hours.  This time can be cut to as little as half depending on the desired salt level, but over 6 hours will definitely be too salty (the glands are like salt sponges).  Fully rinse all salt from the meat and clean off any remaining membrane.  Allow to chill and dry another 4 hours.

Place the sweetbreads in vacuum-sealed bags with duck fat, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.  Cook at 64º for 1 hour.  Remove and chill in the bag.  For service, remove the sweetbreads and brush off excess fat.  Warm or sear to serve.  The sweetbreads may alternatively be pressed or molded before chilling to create a different presentation.  We like the additional flavor added by searing.

gelled emulsions

I posted a few weeks ago about using a gel (such as an agar or gellan fluid gel) as a base for an emulsion.  I've also had scribbled notes for much longer on creating an emulsion in a gel.  This has been done before with some circulated recipes for olive oil gels in which a gelled water-based liquid serves as a network for the oil to remain suspended when gelled solid.

The recipe I worked out is for a simple vinaigrette using 1 part oil to 3 parts vinegar (actually vinegar and water) instead of the traditional 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.  By heating the extra virgin olive oil first and adding glycerin, the emulsion becomes more stable.  I shear agar, locust bean gum, and xanthan into water in a Thermomix then turn up the heat.  White balsamic is then added, and finally the oil.  While still warm, the emulsion is poured out onto a silpat and allowed to set.  It can then be carefully lifted and used as a veil for a salad.  There are many other possibilities such as a vinaigrette custard or soup element.  Instead of a vinaigrette, any water and oil combination may be achieved.  The texture is very soft and supple and quite flexible... although, difficult to work with due to it's softness.  I just need to tweak it a little bit more due to the acidity in the gel.  The great texture is definitely worth pursuing.

demonstration

Demonstrating a technique, idea, process, or whatever takes a certain train of thought.  You always analyze your crowd.  You look for a theme or motivational aspect of the event.  The connotation of demonstrating something automatically implies that you will be teachning, but how to manifest it into something that will be most beneficial to your group takes more than just selfish showmanship.  We have been lucky enough (or unlucky) to do 2 very different demonstrations this past week for 2 very different groups.

The first demonstration was titled "What's on Your Plate?" and was directed to a group of our coworkers during our management staff meeting.  We're still not fully sure why a demonstration was deemed to be part of this week's meeting as they usually are not.  Either way, we wanted to fit an appropriate theme to the gathering.  The idea of "What's on Your Plate?" was geared towards perspective and perception.  We challenged other managers in other departments to look at their day-to-day and resist conforming to normal channels of running their areas.  This could also be implied as 'thinking out of the box' when it comes to cut-backs and saving revenue during this upcoming slow period.  As we expected many of them to not be motivated by culinary techniques or doing a 'how to cook this at home' recipe, we presented a very traditional plate of melon and jamon then showed briefly how we took every single element and altered it into something texturally different.  Same old thing dressed up in a different suit.  Same message, different messenger.

 

All of these techniques are nothing new to the readers of this blog, but it gave us an opportunity to not only show what we do... but to challenge others to relate it to their environments.

The other demonstration we did was at our local Whole Foods Market and was given in conjunction with the Florida Heart Research Institute for our upcoming Heart Association fund raiser.  The foods were donated by Whole Foods (so we tried to promote as many of their signature products as possible) and they were also expected to be heart healthy.  We chose 2 dishes with a lot of versatility that would provide springboards for ad-libbing if necessary.  We did not receive many details on logistics, and we wanted to remain as flexible as possible.

The first dish was a salmon panzanella.  Panzanella salads have enjoyed some prime time play for awhile, but it also raised the question of "what exactly can a panzanella be?"  We chose elements such as king salmon (for it's common place in many dishes and for its high ratings as a heart healthy protein), spinach and fresh herbs, olive oil and balsamico, Jennifer's Homemade rosemary flatbreads (for it's low fat and because it's locally made), slow roasted tomatoes, sliced candied ginger, raw organic cocoa nibs, and kettle corn (yeah, I know... kettle corn again, but it's great texture on a dish and it's still rated as a relatively healthy snack in moderation).

 

The second dish involved the use of meat in conjunction with chocolate and fruit.  We presented it as part of a broader meal as opposed to being a complete meal on its own (although technically it could be).  New Zealand lamb rib loin was chosen for its tenderness and low fat (we use domestic lamb in our restaurant simply because of the higher fat, but it wouldn't have played out as appropriately here).  The idea of using a chocolate and olive oil fondue as a plate component highlights chocolate's consistent placement as a heart healthy food... good for the body and spirit if not boggled down by excess fat and sugars.  A mix of Venezuelan and Belgian chocolate provided the right amount of sweetness to bitterness.  The fruit elements were based on what was currently available.  We showed not only that fruits could be utilized, but the many culinary techniques that could be applied to fruit.  Asian pears were compressed with simple syrup and citric acid.  Nectarines were tossed with a little olive oil, lime juice, and black pepper, dried dates, blueberries (one of the highest ranked heart healthy foods).  We prompted the crowd to throw some fruit on the grill the next time they barbequed this spring.

All in all, both demo's went fairly well.  They are always good practice and help to hone very valuable skills... skills that the chef does not get to practice everyday.  Besides, if some of your local crowds are anything like ours, then one of the biggest virtues that gets practiced is patience... lots and lots of patience.

plugs

Every morning as the coffee brings me from the stages of sleep into the awakened and conscious time period of my day, I try to get through my daily blogroll.  This list of bookmarked links has grown over time.  I try to peruse them each at least once every 2 or 3 days.  Yes, everyone of these.. although some of you need to post more consistently.  Some sites are well-known, others not.  Each one is browsed for different reasons... some to 'keep up,'  some for inspiration, some as affirmation, and all of them to get my brain clickin' and focused on the day ahead or as a push in a different direction.  There is something to be learned around every corner.  If there is any lesson to be taken from modern cuisine, it is the desire to learn and share and apply knowledge.  The goals have never changed.  The reasoning varies, but ultimately it all heads in the same direction.  In response to my last post, the state of modern cuisine is in no jeopardy.  Things just need to level out.  Even nouvelle cuisine years ago served the needed purpose of breaking from the previous mold of haute cuisine.  The ideal had to be questioned.  The perspective twisted, but the goals remained... to translate happiness through food and uphold a rigid high standard of what is good.  If we examine the explosion of CGI graphics in the movie industry over the last 10 years, things are very similar.  The technology has certainly been abused simply to explore the realm of what can be possible, but when applied with restraint in a meaningful artistic manner the result is amazing.  We all learn at some point that just because we have the capacity to do something does not equate to the reasoning that it should be done.  In the end we will all take what we've learned, and incorporate it into something much higher than what has been.  So, whether it's an historic 4 star restaurant in France or a recent temple of modern gastromony in Chicago, the standard is to create that what is perceived as good.  Human tastes and desires may reach new bounds but our human physiology remains the same... it's all still the physiology of taste.  Some things are as relevant as ever.

So, in no particular order... here's my surfing path:

Star Chefs website- interesting articles, great organization.

Ideas in Food- Alex and Aki were pioneering the chef/blog medium long before any of us were thinking about it.  It's so enlightening to see what they've built and what has transpired from their efforts and persistence.

Playing with Fire and Water- Linda's informative posts offer knowledge and inspiration.  She has the capacity to always throw my mind a curve ball.

Ping Island Stike- Sean doesn't post often, but he is a chef that cannot be ignored for his passion, creativity, and drive.  Considering how much food he personally takes from earth to plate explains the infrequency of his blog posts.  He defines, in many ways, what a chef should be in this culinary era.

Salt of the Earth- Kevin Sousa always cracks me up, and gives me something to think about.

Michael Ruhlman- Simply for the good reading and tips.

Gratifood- Uwe is a guru of sorts... sitting high in the mountains speaking to the burning bush.

Michael Laiskonis' blog and workbook- If you cook, you cannot do without reading these.  The insight and solid almost daily recipe downloads are worth it alone.

Bluechef- Chris Windus and his team... a great chef and friend at Todd English's bluezoo in Orlando.  Please check it out.

Food 102- Ian Kleinman pushes things far.  Whether it's relative to your style or not, the man is thinking.  He also proves what is possible for a hotel chef to accomplish.

Curious Cook- Harold McGee... required reading.

Steamy Kitchen- Jaden Hair's increasing food travels and steamy Asian recipes.

New York Times food section- because it's an epicenter.

Khymos- blog and website.  Martin in Norway posting taste pairings and some really good graphs and illustrations to spell it out for us.

Offal Good- Chris Cosentino's guide to good guts.  Some political edge as well.

All Purpose Dark- Sara's guide to Miami's social scene.

Richard Blais- blog.

The Ironic Chef- Ethan Ray in Kentucky.

Miami (dot) com- Restaurant page.

Ain't No Rocket Surgeon- David Quintana... "I'm just a cook."

Line Cook- In the '415.'  Candidness in the kitchen.

Chef X- Patrick Helwick in Montana.

Big Water- J. Henry Smith.

L2o- Laurent Gras in Chicago.  New perspectives and techniques.

Town House Blog- John Shields and Karen Urie in Chilhowie, Virginia.

DocSconz- The blog.  Finally a public place for all those great photos.

Alineaphile & Alinea at Home- both are equally good.  Like an in-depth book review.

Obama Foodorama- for all things interecting the current administration and food (with a little unnecessary fluff added for flavor).

New Orleans Menu- long time critic, Tom Fitzmorris' frequently updated guide to the state of dining in the Crecent City.

Ryan Zimmer- Western pastry in the far east.

Strictly Fine Dining- Craig Dryhurst.

The Humble Chef- more food from Virginia.

The Stevenswood Restaurant blog- interesting, but needs to be updated.

Appetite for China- Diane Kuan's blog on Chinese food poured through various ethnic filters.

Just Food- Kosta's dabblings.

Food Fashionista- for all of Mika's food travels.

Tasting Menu- half of which is Dana's... definitely someone to watch.

New Mountain Cookery- more from Virginia.

Elements Restaurant- bookmarked ever since Alex and Aki suggested it.

The Pickled Tongue- Philip Foss and his team in Chicago.

Chez JJP- Jonathan from Star Chefs, and his upstart website design business for chefs.

Kim Sunee- Because she speaks straightforward about food without the usual pretention of others in her postition (book author, food magazine editor, Iron Chef judge).  If you're near Alys, FL check out her upcoming class on memoir writing.

The Atlantic- food section... mainly the 'Back of the House' articles by Grant Achatz.  Also, Alinea Mosaic, which I heard is open to anyone now... and if not, just go on and finally order the book.  You're missing out.

Food for Thought- David Rosendorf's insightful interpretations of his dining experiences.

Our friend, Ralph Pagano's Irish episode of Pressure Cook... a day late for St. Paddy's.

Hope I didn't leave any out.

question of the hour

...or 'the most question marks I have ever had in one post'

It seems that there is a contagious vibe, wave, progression/regression, shift, stirring, (insert more synonyms) to question various sides of the state of modern cuisine.  I have both felt it and been confused over it simultaneously while feeling energized that there are so many out there asking the same or similar questions.  Is it a longing to have boundaries or resistance to boundaries?  Are things just all over the place or have they been pigeonholed to an uncomfortable extreme?  Just what is the standard now?  Questions on what defines creativity, inspiration, passion, soul... are they an action or reaction, and if so to what exactly?  Is it a need for a stable solid set of standards or the desire to once again break away, and what in the hell does 'breaking away' mean exactly?  Has cuisine been in it's 80's pop music stage and we are experiencing a grunge movement, or have we just witnessed the commercialization of grunge and are longing to go back to the garage?  Sometimes we have to kick ourselves for being the brick-layers to those walls just as much as the journalists, writers, critics, and bloggers who piled on stone after stone.

Truth- there is no modern Escoffier setting the new standards in stone for all us pee-on's to follow.  That's not the way cuisine works these days.  Realistically, you can do whatever the hell you want.  Tradition used to be the rigid border based on repetition of classical preparation.  Was there creativity in that?  Would a great chef 90 years ago even be concerned over his creativity level? ... or how well he reproduced that classic technique?  Was he an artist or craftsman?  Did it matter to him?  Does it matter to you, and if so why?  As long as you get satisfaction from the end result, it shouldn't.  His success was measured on a different set of standards and even the way those standards intertwined with the service, room setting, choice of flatware, how many and what wines were in the cellar, etc.  That leaves us with even more questions today.  Questions about the necessity and definition of fine dining arise?  Should we still put linens on the table?  Does bread service make sense?  How does some European standard created before my grandma was born matter when this is not my grandma's food.  'Should I use the square spiral plate or the funky one with the wave design?' seems a little more fivolous and less functional of a question than 'does this need a plate or a bowl?'  Is creativity the invention of a technique or the invention of a dish founded on pre-existing technique or maybe a unique use of ingredient and where are those lines drawn?  Should we even lose sleep over it?  Should we have another drink while thinking about it?

It's strange how certain well-known chefs have made a mark by breaking down boundaries only to find themselves restricted by new and unanticipated ones.  Nature abhors a vacuum, but does she also despise the lack of restriction?  After going half-crazy focusing on all of the above questions, the question of 'what next?' will surely do away with the remaining half.  When we compose a Paradigm menu, we find ourselves over examining the courses.  Many times, the question of 'does this dish have enough technique on it?' will arise, and as stupid as it is... there is a necessary reason to ask it.  We've created a situation where our guests expect something unusual to be there.  Afterwards, we must still ask if it is unusual enough or will whatever level of that expectation the guest has be reached.  Why?  Could I really stand out there and explain a dish by saying, "Here's some chicken that I roasted.  I put a lot of love into it and babied it as its skin crisped and the juices centered themselves deep within the muscle fibers.  I didn't use any methocel when I marinated it and there's no foam or froth spooned over it, but I think it just tastes really exceptional.  I did use some granulated garlic on it... oh wait, that's a powder.  Does that count as modern?"  Shouldn't there really just be one question... 'is it good or good enough?'  I know none of these questions are new, and I often wonder if they should dare even be asked publicly.  Perhaps it's part of the big re-evaluation of everything brought on by the current economy... inventiveness sparked out of necessity... or just survival mode kicking in.

Then, at the end of it all, I remember that it's just cooking.  That's all it should be.  Even if I'm heating up left-overs from the fridge at 12:30 in the morning and trying to re-capture that initial goodness of what it was fresh, using my intuition to elevate it with the resources at hand, it's all just constant evaluation and analysis (and realizing how at ease and happy I was while doing it... and how good it feels to actually be good at it in a modest sense).  It's trying to make stuff as enjoyable as it can be whether on an emotional, comforting, intellectual, or technical level.  It's reminding myself how much I just really love to make food.  It has nothing to do with those diners sitting around the restaurant and absolutely zero to do with if what I am putting on the plate is good enough to post a picture for all of you to see.  It's a journey.

Recently, I've reflected on my early days and the overwhelming feeling of trying to take bite by bite out of the vast culinary knowledge in the world.  Wow, there was so much to learn.  That was before foams, spheres, and powders were on every menu.  How much more there is now, and how thrilled I am that I will never know even half of it.  Thank God for it.  It's great to feel inspired.  It's really all that matters.  These countless questions are exponential.  Once you start asking them, they ping out in every direction like an atomic explosion.  Maybe we are all half crazy... but that's where my best ideas usually come from.  Where are your ideas born?  Sanity is boring.