Chicken Fried Gourmet

Cocoa Crusted Flat Iron Steak, french fry "onion rings",rosemary olive oil pudding with other stuff.....

This is what we had for Father's Day last weekend. I had the butcher at Kroger slice a Flat Iron steak thinly and then I combined it with Activa, rolled it up then marinated it with a mixture of cocoa, worchestire, garlic, olive oil and a few other things. I made french fry "onion rings" a rosemary olive oil pudding inspired by the Alinea cookbook and a reduced beef stock red wine jus. For an appetizer I made the Mango Soy Bonito dish from the Alinea cookbook as well. Since it calls for a piece of equipment that is obviously out of my range for purchasing - an Anti-Griddle- I improvised and used a sheet pan on top of a piece of dry ice. With the leftover dry ice I just threw it in the pool....cool...smoke :) The frozen mango puree is topped with soy sauce pudding and shaved/dried bonito ( I skipped the sesame oil). This was a really interesting flavor combination and one I would like to experiment with other flavors. For dessert we had fresh watermelon topped with tomato sorbet, reduced balsamic vinegar and a basil sweet syrup.

Dinner party with friends - Pork belly Scallops Chorizo Miso Caramel cheese smoked chocolate

So does the title of this post have you wondering how in the heck all these things go together? Well they do and they don't, let me explain.

The Monday before Christmas we had a dinner party with some friends. We have been planning this for it seems like months trying to coordinate everyone's schedules and a location. I have been thinking about the menu for some time as well while constantly tweaking the recipes, coming up with new ideas and dishes and generally second guessing myself the whole time.

There were a few dishes that either did not make it on the final menu because of time constraints, amount of prep or just the fact that they did not work during execution.

Back in October my wife bought me the Alinea cookbook by Grant Achatz. This is no ordinary cookbook by any means, it is also not for everybody. It can be a source of inspiration and frustration ( in a good way) at the same time. I find myself reading it on a daily basis as it stimulates my food way of thinking and leads to new ideas. I have tried a few of the easier recipes in the book with mixed success. One of the great thing as about this cookbook project is that Grant Achatz and his partner in Alinea, Nick Kokonas, have added a companion website, Alinea-Mosaic, where some recipes are posted as well as a forum where you can share ideas, ask the chefs questions as well as interact with others who are enjoying this "not just a cookbook".

The way I cook is to constantly try to find new ideas, new ways of cooking something,and to always try to push myself to make restaurant caliber/quality meals in my home kitchen. I consider myself a pretty ambitious home cook and am actually working on a few projects that should push me into the professional cooking arena but not tied down to the usual culinary career.

For this dinner I decided to use some stand by recipes with a little tweaking, some new ones that were safe and some that were just out of my league at the moment.

The menu as planned follows:

Miso Caramel Apples coated with crushed Wasabi Peas ( this idea I got from Chef Jonathan MacDonald formerly of SnackBar in Philadelphia and currently at Pub & Kitchen)

"Cheese Crackers" ala Alinea.... oh so good but messy this time.

Chorizo crusted Scallops with Granny Smith Apples, Micro Cilantro and Manchego Cheese broth - this is one where I have seen components of this dish go together and I combined it with flavors I thought would work well as well as new techniques ( broth). The chorizo is frozen then shaved on a microplane over the scallop once cooked.

Peanut Butter Bourbon Pork Belly with Sweet Potato,Bourbon Gel, Peanuts, Micro Arugula & Balsamic.

Pineapple Bacon "bite" ala Alinea - this dish did not work out for multiple reasons, the biggest is that I do not have the right equipment :( I tried to improvise and make a pineapple "caviar" and serve it over the bacon powder but I used to much sodium alginate and it was too "gelly" if that makes sense. You can go HERE to see someone else who had better success with it. I am going to keep trying on this one.

For dessert I made a chocolate ganache with gelatin that just did not set up right. It was difficult to cut and tended to spread too easy. It was tasty just not what I expected,maybe more gelatin next time. I served it it with smoked oreo crumble which is basically just the chocolate wafers scraped clean of the creme and cold smoked then put through a food processor. I have made this before but this time they cooked a little too long and had a burnt smell to them. I served this with a  blackberry cabernet sauce that was thickened with Ultra Tex3 to give it some body but without taking away from the natural taste of the blackberry. I sprinkled some Maldon Sea Salt on top of the chocolate. This dish did not photograph well at all,maybe next time.

I had a few more ideas for this dinner but time and resources did just not permit them to happen. I was okay with this meal but not impressed. I tend to be my own worst critic and everyone else loved the meal, or so they said ;)

Overall I felt good about the dinner to a point and had a great time with our friends who we have not seen in awhile, I am btw especially proud of the Chorizo & Scallop dish. There are some tweaks to be made to how I did things and I will definitely try and refine some of the dishes that just did not work out. I don't know..... what do you think of it, any questions ?

On a side note there are two people ( that I am aware of) that are cooking their way through the Alinea book. Much too ambitious for myself but I commend them for it - Martin at Alineaphile and Carol at Alinea at Home.

                   

Sneak peek - Pork Belly - Peanut Butter - Arugula - Peanuts - Sweet Potato - Bourbon Gel

                    

Dinner party with my wife's department

My wife, Ann, hosted a company party for her department at our house about a week ago. I was “volunteered” to cook so I set about to make up a cocktail style menu with my usual twist on ingredients and techniques.

I wanted to make food that was out of the ordinary that would make people stop and think. I was limited to a certain budget and actually came in well under the approved amount. The dinner was set for a Sunday night ( why, I do not know) so we used pretty much the whole weekend to get our house together and prep all the ingredients.

For the longest time we have been meaning to get curtains for our living room and dining room, this seemed like as good a time as any. We (Ann really) also recovered our dining room chairs. The whole weekend seemed like a blur and Sunday evening came quick. There were so many things that we wanted to do to the house that were left undone. We had a whole bag of new towels and bath rags sitting in our office that never made it to the bathroom .

The evening was a success as far as I know, everyone liked the food and seemed to have a good time. As much as I hate all the hours Ann puts in,the company she works for has a good group of people working there and I always have a good time at their functions(especially when I am not catering them ;)

The menu is as follows :

Rosemary and Black Pepper Popcorn (not pictured)

Miso Caramel Apples with Wasabi Peas

Pickled Grapes

Meatball Sliders with micro arugula

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho with pappadums crostini

Caesar Salad with Asiago Cheese

Nutella "sponge" with sea salt and parmesan cheese

Parmesan Ice Cream with Nutella Powder - I was scared that this dish would be looked at sceptically, it was a hit:)

Passion Fruit Marshmallow

Crawfish Cheesecake

Patton ave Block party with Pork belly and Mini-Burgers

This past weekend our street had its annual Block Party. We moved in here about two months before Ethan was born and he is now four years old. Over this time we have never been able to make it to one of these parties for one reason or another. This year was different. At first we started to get worried because usually we receive a flyer about a week before but eventually one made its way to our door.

For this party, you are asked to bring whatever it is you want to eat plus stuff to share. They say grills will be provided but I, like most people, prefer to grill on their own. You can also chip in $10 and get some crawfish as well. I am not sure where they got them but there is a place at the edge of our neighborhood in an old gas station that sells them. On a windy day, even though I can no longer eat crawfish(long story), the smell in the air is intoxicating.

I wanted to do something that would show off my culinary skills a well as be approachable and finger food. I decided on pork belly (surprise) with ancho bacon bbq sauce and a play on corn on the cob. I also cooked mini burgers from a recipe I found HERE that is basically 50% sirloin and 50% untrimmed brisket. People, go out and buy a meat grinder, you will N E V E R buy ground meat again. Trust me on this.

For the play on the corn on the cob, I pureed fresh and grilled corn with garlic, butter and heavy cream. I strained this mixture, seasoned it then put it in a ISI foamer. It is the consistency of a very light whip cream with all the taste of corn on the cob. It was served on spoons. The picture I had to do at home does not look appetizing - I know but it tasted damn good.

Some of the pictures had to be recreated at home due to a number of factors - lack of table space, getting dark, the amount of beer consumed etc......

Anyway my two neighbors on our end of the street brought their grills as well. They both cooked chicken and it was great. I did not get a picture of the chicken that Teddy made (SORRY) but it was really good as were the stuffed mushrooms.

The rest of the offerings are pretty self explanatory from the pictures.

All in all we had a great time and made some new friends, I look forward to future get togethers and hope I am not labeled the "freak down the street who does weird things with his food" :)

Easter 2008 : Figgy Ham, carrots and pasilla, watermelon Oysters

Last year for Easter I experimented with some molecular gastronomy techniques I was just learning. This year I decided to rely on old favorites as well as trying new recipes, but nothing too out there.

You would think that living in the South you would be able to find rabbit meat pretty easy, well guess what - you cannot. For the past two years every time I visit this one store (who btw has great mexican ingredients) I see a whole cut up rabbit in their freezer section. Well knowing my luck, when I decide to go buy some two weeks before Easter they are out. I called the meat market manager and he said he has had trouble getting it lately. Is there a run on rabbit meat I do not know about???

I started calling around some places and you would not believe the responses I got. One place I called which bills itself as an upscale meat market basically thought I was speaking a foreign language( this is the same place I asked about duck confit and they were clueless). Another "meat market" I called was highly offended that I even asked for rabbit. They then proceeded to tell , before I even asked, "and no I do not know where you can get some". Excuse me, do you think those cows or chickens go gracefully? They sure as hell aren't lining up screaming "pick me,pick me" like you did in elementary school when the teacher asked the one question you knew.

Well to make a long story somewhat short I was unable to find rabbit. I did have one more option I was thinking of but the few people who I asked said it would be completely wrong to go to PETCO and asked for the "fat" rabbits. The dish I had wanted to do was a beer braised rabbit leg over fava beans and garlic aioli. It would have been good but oh well - maybe next year.

So without further suspense :) here is the menu that I settled on for Easter 2008

Carrot and Pasilla Soup shooters - two ways

Grilled Oysters with Watermelon Foam

Ancho Fig glazed Ham sandwiches with fig jam, garlic aioli and buttermilk biscuits(that did not rise)

Chocolate mousse with candied Kumquats and whipped cream

I did make some sauteed fava beans but they did not turn out so well :(

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

TCHO Chocolate from Blake Makes.com

A couple of weeks ago I was able to procure some free TCHO chocolate from Blake Makes. The only thing I had to do to get some of this free chocolate is sit at my computer around 8pm and hope to be one of the few people to be the first to comment on Blake's site. Once I was able to "win" this chocolate all I needed to do was sit and wait by the mailbox(impatiently I might add)to arrive and blog about it once it did.

Well it is here now and it is good. Well I say it is good, I have not tried it yet but it smells REALLY good. When I opened that little brown package I smelled chocolate like chocolate is supposed to smell - this is no Hershey's bar for sure.

I was told to just write about the taste and what not, I did not have to cook anything with it. Well I cannot just bring myself to do that, so my mind has been constantly spinning about what to do with it.

What do you think I should try?

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Togarashi,Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche, Pretzel Ice Cream,Corn, El Bulli chocolates,ravioli, corn nuts,steak and BBQ sauce

Okay so I haven't really had time to create new posts although I have been cooking quite a bit recently. For now I would just like to leave you with some images to tide you over till I am able to make some proper posts. I have been experimenting with new ingredients, different flavors and have even just ordered a bubble gum making kit. Watch out world !!!

I realized after sitting at my computer and compiling all these images that it took just as long if not longer to make this post than it would a regular one. Oh well.

I do have some exciting news coming up, still working out the details.

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.