Chicken Fried Gourmet

A few things

Two big announcements, 1 good 1 not so good

You can now find us at www.chickenfriedgourmet.com both addresses should still work but now it is easier to type in.

         

EDIT : I almost forgot - the whole reason for the above change is thanks to Dave who I met through Carla. Thanks buddy :)

and now for the not so good news : one of my favorite restaurants in my adopted hometown of West Monroe is closing. Canards is calling it quits come Friday February 1st 2008. I attribute it to a number of factors, Cory starting his own place, the lack of clientle in the city and just the overall impression of going out to eat in West Monroe. Check out the short article here and see if you can figure out which comment is mine ;)

          

Grilled Chicken with Pears, Balsamic Pear Gastrique and Pear Nectar Foam

A few weeks ago Ann wanted to do a simple Sunday dinner of just chicken with some fresh pears. We were at the grocery store at the time and I asked her if she wanted a salad and she was like, no just chicken and pears - something simple. Immediately my mind started thinking how I could make this more complicated but still just use a few ingredients.

What I came up with is this : Pear nectar and balsamic grilled chicken with sliced fresh pears, pear balsamic gastrique with a pear nectar foam.

It was pretty easy to put together. I bought a couple of cans of pear nectar and used one for each recipe. For the gastrique I combined 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar and about a 1/2 can of pear nectar. I brought it to a boil and then let it reduce to about 1/4 of its original volume. I set this aside to cool.

For the foam all I did was to incorporate some lecithin with the nectar and used a handheld bender to foam it up. Even if you don't have lecithin you could probably do the same thing, just try to incorporate more air into it to hold the foam or just add a little bit of egg whites.

The chicken was marinated in a mixture of olive oil, pear nectar, balsamic vinegar and garlic then grilled till done.

The dish was really good and seemed very light, not heavy at all. Other than my wife's great choice in men(me) she sometimes has some other great ideas. :)

Fizzy Cranberry Vodka Spheres

These were originally planned for the Christmas Eve dinner at the in-laws. I got the idea from Jose andres' Minibar where he does a "fizzy mojito". The 1st round of experiments did not turn out to well. I was able to finally get it right about a week after Christmas. I got most of my information for the idea from the EG Forums and actually from one of Minibar's chefs - Chef T. I originally thought the idea of cranberry and vodka would go well with Christmas and it actually worked out well once I was able to execute it accordingly.

The recipe is a mix of vodka, cranberry juice, and a splash of lime. This cocktail is thickened with xanthan gum and then calcium chloride. It is frozen in a spherical ice cube tray and then put into a sodium alginate mixture to form a shell. This process is referred to as reverse spherification since normally the sodium alginate is added to the internal mixture. This process stops the sphere from continually hardening, the outer shell is firm but the inside is still liquid. Once theu were "spheres" I carefully added them to the ISI and added a little bit of the cranberry vodka mixture to cover(too much it turns out) and then charged them with two CO2 cartridges for 3-4 hours.

They turned out pretty good but they were not as "fizzy" as I thought they would be. The taste was definitely there just not the fizz.

I think I added too much extra liquid which absorbed the CO2 and not the spheres. Oh well, at least I have a base recipe to try out other things.

Christmas 2007

Sorry for the belated post on this one, I have had a lot going on. As anyone with a family and in laws know, Christmas time can be a little hectic. Everyone wants you at their house and sometimes it feels like you are being pulled in many different directions ( alcohol can numb these feelings btw). Luckily we have settled into a routine for the holidays. For Christmas Eve we go over to Ann's parent's house here in Shreveport for a late night dinner with the whole family( about 12 people including spouses). This year we had the idea that each person would bring one dish "tapas sized". Well I could not just settle on one dish so I went with the idea of upscale bar snacks. For Christmas day everyone came over to our house where I was in charge of the whole meal, this may change next year although I feel I will be a little hesitant to relinquish full control. Yes I have issues :)

Lately I have been trying out different flavor combinations and the upscale bar snacks I wanted to try for Christmas Eve were no different. I had heard about a bar in Chicago, the Violet Hour, that served curried rice krispy treats and I knew the minute I saw them I would have to track down a recipe. I came across the recipe I believe on CHOW.com  I also made the cocoa covered corn nuts and maple syrup pork rinds from Jose Andres’ Minibar. I had wanted to make a version of Minibar’s “fizzy mojito” using cranberry and vodka but I could not get the spheres to hold. I made the Passion fruit whiskey sour again and it was a big hit.

For Christmas day dinner it would be a little more involved.

Well for one the fried turkey did not work out. It was unusually cold Christmas day here in Louisiana and it took well over an hour to get the temperature of the oil over 350 degrees. Once I did and submerged the turkey I could not get it back up over 250 degrees. Needless to say the turkey did not cook all the way through and the skin did not even come close to crisping up. It was a major letdown and I was pissed. Luckily every year for Christmas my company gives us Omaha Steaks so instead of turkey we had grill sirloin marinated in rosemary and cane syrup over cheesy grits.

The foie gras crème brulee was interesting. I got the idea from Shola over at Studio Kitchen and he answered some of my questions about it. I had planned on going to Dallas the weekend before Christmas but we were unable to go. Finding Fresh Foie Gras in Shreveport is pretty much impossible. Luckily I had some Foie Gras mousse in the freezer left over from a trip to New Orleans some months back. I am sure that it was nowhere close to the same taste as fresh, but it was good.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Charbroiled Oysters

Foie Gras Crème Brulee

Bourbon Marinated Deep Fried Turkey

Chocolate Ice Cream with Smoked Oreos, Nutella and Orange Oil

not Food related but.................

                     NATIONAL CHAMPS

                                    LSU 38 - OSU 24

                       

                     

By the way, I have family in OHIO and they are BIG OSU fans. Lets see, a few days before the game I received a package from "OSU Santa" which was an OSU shirt that was not worn :) and my grandfather is probably the biggest OSU fan and works at every home game and just this past year was honored on the field for all his service. Gotta say though........................GEAUX TIGERS !!!!!!

and in honor of all things Louisiana here is a recipe for one of my favorite foods to eat courtesy of Nola Cuisine