Chicken Fried Gourmet

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

                    

Why I love Pork Belly

Pork Belly - I know it sounds gross or weird but trust me it is not. Pork belly is basically uncured bacon. Its flavorful, very versatile and damn tasty. Its not healthy by any means but if you eat it in small portions you can convince yourself you are doing good on your diet. I have only discovered pork belly over the past year and I have used it in many different ways. I am not ordering the really good stuff online but rather have found it very accessible at my local Chinese grocery - like $ 4 accessible. So seriously go out and find some, experiment and enjoy that porky goodness..........

you will be glad you did :)

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" :)

Pork Belly Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche won something

Last year around this time I entered a small bite contest for an appetizer to be featured in a tasting menu put on by Joe DeSalazar from Foodie NYC. I entered a Crawfish Grits Croquette with Creole Mustard Foam and green onion "dust". I didn't win. This year he had the same contest but not for small bites. I entered my Pork Belly PBDDL that I made from the excellent Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche from Blake of BlakeMakes.com. I did clear it with Joe that I could submit a previously blogged about dish beforehand.

Well guess what....I won. You can see the write up here FoodieNYC. I was so excited that I won although I could not claim the prize - a seat at one of Joe's upcoming tasting menu dinners :( since I will not be in NYC anytime soon.

I did however find a person that I thought would thoroughly enjoy it - Lisa from HomesickTexan. She happily agreed to take the invite off my hands.

If you want to find out more about PBDDL go visit Blake Makes, you won't be disappointed. Today is is his birthday and he has some exciting news as well.

I also have to credit Joe with having such great taste to finally pick me as a winner....j/k but in all seriousness he did introduce me to one of my most listened to albums of the past year : The National's Boxer......people go check out this album.

Alright that is all for now, I have to go finish dinner and continue to work on my bubble gum recipes, yes you read that right :)

Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche from Blake Makes and Pork Belly

A little while back I came across a blog on the Seriouseats.com website named Blake Makes. What caught my eye was that he was from New Orleans. Since then we have traded emails and I would have to say we have formed an “internet friendship”. Blake’s blog is fairly new but the content on there already is amazing. He has some great things coming up for his site as well that I am excited about.

About two weeks ago I get a message to check out his site. I do, and find that he is giving away a batch of peanut butter dulce de leche that he had made. It arrived on my doorstep about 4 days later. The idea behind this promotion, SOOPZ, is to get a product out there and have people cook with it, then blog about it. Pretty good idea, but I would not expect any less from a guy who runs his own marketing firm.

I wanted to do something different with the PBDDL (surprise) and not follow the usual theme of making a dessert with it ( no offense to all the others – those brownies look great). My first thought was pork belly. The inspiration came from Sam Mason's Tailor, where he does a miso-butterscotch pork belly. As you can tell from previous posts this is one of my favorite meats to prepare recently. I wanted to do just simple flavors with the PBDDL so there is really not a lot of things going on with this dish other than the usual accompianents.

I started by marinating the pork belly in a mixture of PBDDL, bourbon, fresh garlic and olive oil. I then vacuum sealed it and put it in the fridge for 3 days. From the start the dish was made to be of smaller proportion. Originally we were going to have this on Saturday night with friends where we all made two small dishes. It would sort of be like Tapas but not Spanish themed. Everything was on track till Louisiana’s crazy weather sidelined two of the couples with flu like symptoms. Since I had already spent so much time on the dish I decided to just go ahead and make it the main course.

                   

I wanted to have as few ingredients as possible in order for the PBDDL flavor to come through. I settled on some micro arugula dressed in balsamic dressing with crushed peanuts to top it off. I added a “paint” of the PBDDL under the belly and added 3 drops of balsamic syrup to cut the sweetness of the PBDDL. All day Friday I kept obsessing on if I should add a “base” to the dish. My old standby of grits would take away from the idea of the dish and besides I wanted something new, something that would stand out. I came up with two ideas and actually made them both. Right before I plated the dish was when I made my decision. The two ideas both involved sweet potatoes as I assumed they would balance well with the pork and the PBDDL. The 1^st idea was a sweet potatoe and ancho foam that would sit under the belly but on top of the paint.The foam would have more of a consistency of a very light whip cream rather than a froth. The 2^nd idea, and the one I went with, was a sweet potatoe ice cream. It follows a basic ice cream recipe but I add two roasted sweet potaoes then strain before making the custard. Looking back I would have added more sweet potatoes for a more pronounced flavor. It was still good though.

This dish was a hit. It was filling but not to the point where you felt like you had to save up to go see your cardiologist. The ice cream played well with the sweetness of the PBDDL and the savoriness of the pork belly. Other than adding more sweet potatoes to the ice cream, I would not change anything about this dish. Much thanks go out to Blake of BlakeMakes.com, I look forward to what he has to offer in the future and hope to contribute myself. If you can get your hands on some of his Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche I highly recommend it. The possibilities are endless.