chadzilla

what if...

What if I wasn't a chef... would I still be a foodie?

I've asked myself that recently for some reason.  The sad yet truthful answer would probably have to be 'no.'  Here are my reasons for it.

• Chefs have access to great food, ingredients, and sometimes make connections to enjoy eating at nice places without the nice food price (and this is not a frequent occurrence).  I probably could not afford such an appetite if these things weren't freely accessible to me.
• I was an extremely picky and close-minded eater as a child.  My mom will testify to it.  Although we lived in an area with unique food culture, I was open only to those foods around us just as most of my family there remains today (my mom is horrified by cilantro).  I could scoop the fat out of a crawfish head and eat it along with the poop line from the tail, but you probably couldn't get me to look at a quiche or something else so widely accepted on the national dinner table.  I nearly gagged the first time I tried sushi (in my twenties).  Things have really changed... from repulsion to addiction.
• I have an incredible energy for streamlining my focus.  If it wasn't 24 hours a day of food thought, it would be something else and food would be thrown to the way side.  Maybe I'd still be trying to play guitar in a rock band and eating marshmallows and Cheerios for lunch.  I'm sure I'd be McLovin it as well.
• I probably would have married a girl from my hometown to insure that I would never have to eat 'strange foods' instead of marrying someone from the opposite side of the Earth.  Yes, food has guided many of my past relationships.
• Like most American red blooded youth, I went through a fast food phase during high school and beyond when my mom started working (Patio burritos from the freezer to the microwave were my daily nutrition).  Working in kitchens soon afterwards opened my eyes to a new world of food, plus it taught me how to cook.
• I did enter the culinary field by accident.  I needed to earn money while trying to be a rock star and the kitchen seemed a little more appealling than my previous job of cutting grass (especially cutting grass for people with dogs that don't clean up after them... ever hit a pile of dog doo on a hot Louisiana summer day with a high speed lawnmower blade... not a good smell).  The enticing aroma of an Italian restaurant kitchen seemed much less nauseating to my stomach.

I'm sure there are more reasons.  Not sure if it's worth taking the time to ponder.  Thank God I'm a chef.  Who knows how drab life would be without a culinary career or what other path I could have accidentally gone down... maybe an animal surgeon?

Was chefness your first goal?

wagyu cheeks

wagyu cheeks, cherry foam, blue cheese soft gel, evoo almond cake, garlic paper

This was the last entré into dessert on Friday night.  The cheeks were seared, bagged with aromatics and demi glace, then cooked at 83º for 8 hours (time and temp reference from Under Pressure).  Afterwards the cheeks were given a quick high temp braise in the oven before resting and slicing.  Connective tissue has to be one of the best things to eat once you completely break it down.  That may partially explain my deep love for beef tendon.

One other note... the garlic paper is based on a recipe from the Alinea cookbook.  I haven't been totally diligent at following the Beard awards or even letting them phase me, but these 2 books came out on top for a reason.  They are landmark publications that offer documentation for a new wave of culinary technique.  I'm convinced that they will be referenced for years to come as modern technique slowly integrates into mainstream cuisine.

yet another interesting food experience

Yes, it was apalling as much as it did spark curiosity.  It looks like something that could be on the menu at Moto... served with class 4 laser toasted bread and edible paper napkins.

One of our Swedish F&B team members just returned from a visit home with tubes full of caviar, seafood, and cheese.  The Kalles brand is the popular (as well as original) choice apparently... when it comes to choosing stuff in a tube that you can squeeze onto a cracker for a quick snack in Sweden.  It's one of those things that you simply just have to experience... then never ever try again.

We first sampled the 3 below.  They are (in order from top to bottom) seafood and cheese with caviar, cheese and caviar, and seafood and cheese (with the possible exception that I screwed up all 3 descriptions).  The Kalles brand 'pastes' were not very good at all.  They had an unnerving sweetness and were not flattering representations of the foods they were made of.  The flavor was actually pretty strange.  The SkagenOst brand was pretty good for the less popular brand.  I mean, I would eat some on toast if it were really late at night and I had partied too much.  Otherwise, I wouldn't touch any of them.

 

These are 2 other Kalles 'flavors.'  The dill is obviously dill, and the original is... well, it's quite original.  The kid's smile is a bit disturbing and creepy.

 

On the other hand, we do have Cheez Whiz here in the USA, so I can't really chastise the Swedish tastebuds.  Actually, it was really nice of Lina to bring these back for us to sample.  Very generous to think of us while you're on holiday visiting family. 

And speaking of Swedes... here is a link to Nils Noren and Dave Arnold's (not Swedish) chef blog, cooking issues.  I know it seems like a moot point to post this in passing after Alex and Aki have already done so (since everyone who reads this, reads their's), but the importance of such a blog must be circulated out of respectful obligation.

peruvian food porn

Well, not really... at least in accordance to the standards of photo quality... but still nice to look at and better to eat.  Great comforting flavors and freshness.  Our controller, who is among the Peruvian members of our team, came in with her family, so we did some family style dishes which are very traditional Peruvian classics.  Yellowtail is a popular fish in South Florida... a beautiful specimen when fried whole.  We typically use it for ceviche on our lunch and dinner menus with a more Latin American presentation.

yellowtail ceviche, sweet potato, yukon gold, huancaina, tomato vinagreta, black olive sauce, cancha, cilantro, lime

tea butter

There was a technique for infusing butter with tea on the website portion of Fabian's Dulcypas book.  Realizing all of the potential uses of such a base element led me to try it.

We vacuum sealed 2 each 1#/453g blocks of butter with 90g of black tea.  It was brewed at 56º for 12 hours, then strained.

An easy application was created by whisking the liquid butter into a cream reduction.  In retrospect, a bit of citrus added to the sauce would have cut the fattiness but the flavor was good (this dish was arguably too rich).

The onions were poached in garlic oil and aromatics at 65º for 4 hours.  They mellowed nicely while still retaining a pleasant 'crunch.'

fried softshell blue, tea butter scampi, pearl onion confit, carrot noodle, dried persimmon

It's kind of simultaneously sad and cute when softshell crabs try to pinch you to no effect.

bananas

Matt Mytro from Stovemonkeys and Jeff Jarrett of the Lockkeepers in Cleveland visited us for this week's Paradigm dinner.  We dedicated this last dessert from Fabian to them... you know, monkeys and bananas.

baby coconut-- coconut gel, cocoa, honey compressed bananas, sweet curry gelato, mango & pea pearls

Fabian made these coconuts out of frozen coconut foam and cocoa.  Having a little liquid nitrogen or a blast chiller would have definitely helped, but he pulled it off without so more power to him.

desserts 050809

Deborah's intermezzo course...

yogurt honey sphere, lemon curd, passionfruit & herb semifreddo, tarragon peppermint puffs

Fabian's finishing courses

chocolate cake-- spiced chocolate cream, grand marnier gel, raspberry fizzy rocks

piña colada-- cocoa gelatin, carribbean 'soup,' linzer cake, pineapple rum granité

natchitoches meat pies

Getting Donald Link's appropriately named cookbook, "Real Cajun," and browsing through it immediately motivated me to make some Natchitoches meat pies.  It's one of the things we all miss about Louisiana food.  Sure, there are the great crawfish pies that are closer to my roots, but those meat pies are just so damn good.  I knew Chef Link's recipe would be a good one to start with... he's obviously an RCA because there's a picture of him dancing with his beer coozy tucked in his back pocket.  I would even bet money that he's cut his lip licking crawfish stew off a bay leaf once or twice.  Sure, this cannot prove it alone, but it's enough for me to take a leap of faith.  Besides, he did name his book REAL cajun which I hope is the first step in a new wave of Cajun cuisine to leak out into the mainstream among the current comfort food incarnations... that is the true food of the bayou.  Forget about blackened fish and gumbo thick as sludge, the real deal is rustic and celebrates fresh seafood and has a tradition of charcuterie and nose to tail eating (and it doesn't all have the obligatory 'cajun seasoning' generic spice sprinkled all over it).  For this reason, I would love to someday meet Chef Link.  He is one of the most successful chefs in New Orleans at the moment, and doesn't do 'touristed' pseudo-cajun food... and you don't have to be cajun to love it, but it helps.

The pie filling is a slow cooked mixture of ground beef, chilies, tomato, and carefully selected dry spices.  I added in a ton of green onion, because you can't cook a cajun recipe and not modify it somewhat.  Modification is actually part of the recipe.

The filling is stuffed inside these butter rich pie dough rounds.  Sure every culture has some form of fried stuffed dough thingy, and this is ours.

Stuffed and crimped and chilling in the fridge.  Let the butter dough harden before dropping in the hot oil.

Fry until the dough lightly browns and flakes up.

I did admit that I changed up the recipe somewhat when it came to the filling, but the dough is really good.  Nothing like fried butter rich pie dough... so soft.  This is one of those projects like rolling eggrolls.  It doesn't make sense to set up the prep to do it and not bang out a bunch to save in the freezer.  They'll fry up fine from frozen... just takes a little extra time in the oil.

brunch crunch

Brunches... love 'em or hate 'em.  Mother's Day remains the pinnacle of the brunchiest days of the year.  Typically, the day we celebrate Mom is grouped with those special days that restaurants refer to as 'amateur day/night.'  It's geared towards those that do not normally dine out.  Kitchen's get slammed with special orders, waiter's get stiffed, it's not the joyous day behind the scenes that it is up front.

That's where the brunch comes in.  It's been quite a few years of doing them, and we are quite good at it.  It's a nice melange of banquet SOP's, restaurant flare, and interdepartmental showmanship.  There's entertainment, action stations, and 'all you can eat' of a decent food spread.  Our ballroom looks warm and inviting with a beautiful view of the Atlantic sea through the long windows curving the circle of our tower.  The weather was perfect, if not just a little too sweltering hot (but it looked good when viewed behind a window with the AC pumping.  Sure, putting out a brunch is a lot of work (although I don't show up at 4 or 5am like I once did), but our team has it down and they make it look good.  Delegation is a beautiful thing.

Maybe I'm reevaluating my perception of the brunch because it was Ming's first Mother's Day, or maybe not.  Either way, here are some random shots of the room set right before we opened to seat our reservations.  This isn't quite everything as I seemed to have missed the entire hot breakfast set-up, omelet station, and the rest of the hot food... but do you really want to see pictures of a bunch of silver-plated chafing dishes?

breakfast pastries, fruit, berries

 

shrimp cocktail, cured salmons

 

your basic salad area

 

churasco and chorizo carving station, ceviche station, tapas style seafood

 

 window sill pie station... 'steal a pie' cooling in the window that our engineering department built for us and which our seamstress did a great job on the curtains.  Fabian doesn't really pull off the role of the happy homemaker baking pies very well.  Steal this pie at your own risk, fool!

 

See you next year, Mom.

4 riffs

These are 4 riffs of traditional dishes worked into the last Paradigm menu.  It's a natural reaction to want to build dishes around existing flavor combinations.  We do it because it gives reference to ourselves as well as the guests.  They also give psycological stability to a diner's experience by constantly bringing them to a comfort zone or giving them a reference point.

chicken & waffles- chicken confit, waffle gelato, maple crumble, candied orange, arugula, chocolate bacon vinaigrette  This was one of Ben's dishes on the menu.  It worked together well, and the components were solid in the comfort zone.

taco yaki- corn batter, ground beef, pepperjack, 'taco sauce,' cholula crèma, iceberg flakes, salsa furikake powder  A play on tako/taco (Japanese for octopus/a mexican tortilla dish popularized in fast food).  Not as good as the original Japanese takoyaki, but pretty good... like a taco flavored hush puppy.

tropical muesli- oat pudding, freeze-dried mango and pineapple, coconut powder, honey crystals, shaved pistachio, yoghurt orb, burnt cinnamon lime meringue, vanilla orange gel  Ben's replication of muesli with tropical flavors

lamprais- sous-vide lamb, 63º egg, banana leaf aromatic tea, mango chutney, 7 minute basmati, spinach infused 83º potato, watercress coconut gremolata, pappadum  Although I couldn't get a good shot of the plate due to the fact that things gained pace within the restaurant, I still wanted to represent Marianne's version of an Indian lamprais.  She had made a traditional version of the dish a couple of weeks before, and wanted to recreate it by separating the elements.  The banana leaf tea was there for aroma alone to signify the olifactory sensation of unwrapping a dish encased in banana leaf.  We wondered whether the leaf's importance in these preparations was more for aroma or flavor... or since the two influence each other very much, maybe those lines are blurred beyond discern.