Saturday, January 31, 2009

SuperBowl!!

Chef Kevin Sousa's Puffed Sauerkraut

Check out this link to some far out SuperBowl snacks!!!!
wired.com.




Saturday Night Dinner

Hera are some pics from our Saturday Night dinner service. The pics kinda suck...
Sorry I am struggling with the camera!!!





Hiramasa, dashishoyu, shiitake, squash. radish, cucumber



Potato gnocchi
Farro from Anson Mills


Duck confit terrine. Served warm with rare duck breast.
Confit was c-vapped for 16 hours sous vide. Then pressed using Activa RM.



Mo duck...


Cape Cod Oyster Roast




Scallops, potato gnocchi, brocolli buds, crispy potato skin
garlic milk puree, country ham



Beef Tenderloin
crispy potato silk, porcini mousse

Ducky...
duck breast, said terrine, farro, sunchoke puree, apple confit,
beet.. a trick fro SB and the McCradys gang...

Mo duck...
Man we need new china!!!













I Robot

Broken...
Had to kick it Old School!!!







The technician just scratched his head...



Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Bites

Cocktail bites at the club
Beef, truffle, lambchopper, thyme, purple mustard


Beef up close...

Popcorn, brown butter , dill

Hiramasa, squash, shoyudashi, cucumber

Clams, but scallops!!!

Crispy squid, yoghurt, lemon

Buffalo wing... the sauce is on the inside!
Cold smoked salmon, paddlefish roe, creamy potato cube, creme fraiche









Thursday, January 22, 2009

They said it best...

A statement...

The world of food has changed a great deal in modern times. Change has come especially fast over the last decade. Along with many other developments, a new approach to cooking has emerged in restaurants around the globe, including our own. We feel that this approach has been widely misunderstood, both outside and inside our profession. Certain aspects of it are overemphasized and sensationalized, while others are ignored. We believe that this is an important time in the history of cooking, and wish to clarify the principles and thoughts that actually guide us. We hope that this statement will be useful to all people with an interest in food, but especially to our younger colleagues, the new generations of food professionals.
Three basic principles guide our cooking: excellence, openness, and integrity.We are motivated above all by an aspiration to excellence. We wish to work with ingredients of the finest quality, and to realize the full potential of the food we choose to prepare, whether it is a single shot of espresso or a multicourse tasting menu.We believe that today and in the future, a commitment to excellence requires openness to all resources that can help us give pleasure and meaning to people through the medium of food. In the past, cooks and their dishes were constrained by many factors: the limited availability of ingredients and ways of transforming them, limited understanding of cooking processes, and the necessarily narrow definitions and expectations embodied in local tradition. Today there are many fewer constraints, and tremendous potential for the progress of our craft. We can choose from the entire planet’s ingredients, cooking methods, and traditions, and draw on all of human knowledge, to explore what it is possible to do with food and the experience of eating. This is not a new idea, but a new opportunity. Nearly two centuries ago, Brillat-Savarin wrote that ‘the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”Paramount in everything we do is integrity. Our beliefs and commitments are sincere and do not follow the latest trend.
Our cooking values tradition, builds on it, and along with tradition is part of the ongoing evolution of our craft .The world’s culinary traditions are collective, cumulative inventions, a heritage created by hundreds of generations of cooks. Tradition is the base which all cooks who aspire to excellence must know and master. Our open approach builds on the best that tradition has to offer. As with everything in life, our craft evolves, and has done so from the moment when man first realized the powers of fire. We embrace this natural process of evolution and aspire to influence it. We respect our rich history and at the same time attempt to play a small part in the history of tomorrow.
We embrace innovation—new ingredients, techniques, appliances, information, and ideas—whenever it can make a real contribution to our cooking.We do not pursue novelty for its own sake. We may use modern thickeners, sugar substitutes, enzymes, liquid nitrogen, sous-vide, dehydration, and other nontraditional means, but these do not define our cooking. They are a few of the many tools that we are fortunate to have available as we strive to make delicious and stimulating dishes. Similarly, the disciplines of food chemistry and food technology are valuable sources of information and ideas for all cooks. Even the most straightforward traditional preparation can be strengthened by an understanding of its ingredients and methods, and chemists have been helping cooks for hundreds of years. The fashionable term “molecular gastronomy” was introduced relatively recently, in 1992, to name a particular academic workshop for scientists and chefs on the basic food chemistry of traditional dishes. That workshop did not influence our approach, and the term “molecular gastronomy” does not describe our cooking, or indeed any style of cooking.
We believe that cooking can affect people in profound ways, and that a spirit of collaboration and sharing is essential to true progress in developing this potential. The act of eating engages all the senses as well as the mind. Preparing and serving food could therefore be the most complex and comprehensive of the performing arts. To explore the full expressive potential of food and cooking, we collaborate with scientists, from food chemists to psychologists, with artisans and artists (from all walks of the performing arts), architects, designers, industrial engineers. We also believe in the importance of collaboration and generosity among cooks: a readiness to share ideas and information, together with full acknowledgment of those who invent new techniques and dishes.
Heston Blumenthal, Harold McGee, Thomas Keller and Ferran Adria.

Always Smiling!

There is always someone in your kitchen that is never down. Never ever. This is Nicole. Makes me smile too!

Back to basics... sort of!


Had to open a bottle of wine after a long day and go back to tried and true convention and ready these lamb shanks "ossu bucco" for their mission in the C-Vap. 12 hours or so at 85C. Vino rosso for me and Dan... Vino rosso for the shanks!!

Lamb Osso Bucco

Ok... this is the lamb ossu bucco from an earlier post. Cooked s/v for 48 hours ar 55C. Did I like the results? Not so much. The texture was a little weird. Like something cured in a way. The flavour was excellent, it wasn't dry by any means, and the medium rare temperature was very good. It certainly was tender. But i just think that this cut is perfect for a braise. So braise it will be!!! Braise and glaze as they say!!!

Tempura Sweet Onion

White beer tempura batter aerated in a siphon with 2 charges. This is a battered sweet onion. Part of a "fritto misto". Seasoned with balsamic salt.

Not Just the belly...

Pork cap bacon... part of a dish where the whole rack was utilized. More to come.

Bacon

Bacon we made with the fat cap of a Berkshire pork rack. There is a lot of meat in there!!!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

StarChefs ICC

Earlybird tickets are on sale now!!!
If you do anything this year, attend this!!!
New York City baby!!!
Just ask Chef Michael Madsen how much fun this is!!!

Fun Times Ahead!

Le nitrogen liquide est arrive!

Lamb Shank Osso Bucco


Lamb Shanks

cut osso bucco style by the fine folks at Grand Western

cuit sous vide at 55C for 48 hours or more?? On the dinner menu at OC on Saturday

King Crab

Dutch Harbor King Crab
celery caviar, tomato, horseradish, lemon