Chef at Home

Archive for July, 2009

This dish received mixed reviews. We served the verbena infused sweetbreads with pickled watermelon rind, which was also kissed by the lemon verbena. It was light and rich, with a brightness and clarity that was woven together by the threads of the herb. Sometimes you go out on a limb for flavor combinations that suit your palate. Discussing the dish with Aki she pinpointed the dual use of verbena as the issue. She thought that using it twice would be overpowering because it is such a strong floral essence. My take was that the unusual presentation of sweetbreads as a light dish threw people off. No way to know who was right. Still I stand by the dish and the flavor profile. Is there room for improvement? Almost always, but if you you don’t love the flavors in the first place there’s no point in making the dish.

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A frozen piece of tuna can generate idea other than a great tuna salad for family meal. In fact, Nathan though about shaving this piece with the Hawaiian shave ice machine that we usually use for sweet shaved ice. Without too many manipulations, we came out with a fast and good result. We have used the tuna snow for the amuse on a couple of nights, but so far have not come up with a dish. That is going to be a project now, amount many others, but we should have something before the end of the summer for sure.

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Alex had dinner at One Market while he was in San Francisco and one of the things he tasted was their “fresh polenta” essentially a scraped and cut corn gently heated with its juices and finished with a touch of butter and salt. It tasted like summer corn at it’s peak. The texture was amazing, close to that of soft polenta, with the gentle texture of corn kernels against the tongue. He was smitten and proceeded to describe the dish to me in great detail several times. Fortunately local corn is just coming into season around here. It was no surprise when Alex walked out of a kitchen store with the American Corn Cutter to try and reproduce those results. Now I’m mostly a purist when it comes to summer corn at home. When the corn is really fresh and cooked properly, each kernel bursts like caviar releasing the sweet corn essence on my tongue. Nothing more seems necessary. Alex was not daunted by purist beliefs. He cleaned the corn and happily decorated the patio with corn silk. At least he husked the corn outside. When Alex came in, he methodically scraped and cut the corn from the cob. Once all the cobs were bare he put the corn and its juices in a pot and gently warmed his bounty. As the heat cooked the corn, the natural starch in the juices thickened the mixture. A pinch of salt, a dash of cayenne and a knob of butter finished his fresh polenta. At least until he looked in the fridge and decided to gild the lily by adding fresh snipped basil. I have to say, as a purist, that fresh polenta is an admirable use of summer corn. Yet another staple to add to the repertoire especially since Amaya gives it two thumbs up.

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You can read Ruth Reichl on Twitter describing making blueberry pie, nudge your wife a bit by showing up with a large container of blueberries, and somehow, magically, the aroma of pie fills the house and breakfast pie is there for the eating. Since pie is on the breakfast menu I must confess I like my pie with vanilla ice cream. It is very important to know, in my world fruit pies get ice cream, other pies are accompanied by whipped cream, and crostatas require both. Just in case you happen to invite me over for baked desserts…

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The show not about a place, or even places, per se. It’s certainly not a well-rounded introduction to the food scenes of Baltimore or Detroit or Buffalo. And it’s probably not what the respective chambers of commerce of these three fine, noble and deeply troubled American cities would like us to see right now. Baltimore, arguably, isn’t even really a “Rust Belt” city.
I like to think that tonight’s episode celebrates that particularly American character — who proudly survives and thrives in places like late era Baltimore, Detroit and Buffalo. And it does introduce a few quirky indigenous specialties.

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The difficulty with summer is that the heat really puts a damper on my enjoyment of cappuccinos. Pouring hot espresso on ice waters it down. Pouring hot foam on ice cubes melts the cubes and deflates the foam. An iced cappuccino is a disaster waiting to happen, inherently flawed based on the steps needed to create them. In order to come up with a great iced cappuccino we began with the vision of a perfect cold cappuccino and backed into the preparation.

We started the cappuccino with a espresso consomme. We used .25% agar to clarify the espresso which we seasoned with a bit of salt and agave nectar. Once we were satisfied with the coffee, we took a portion of it and used some xanthan gum (.15%) and versa whip (1.5%) to whip it into a cloud. The foam has the body and texture of the traditional steamed milk while amplifying the coffee flavor. The two elements  came together to become the icy cold cappuccino I have longed for on these hot summer days.

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Pumpernickel and Pastrami
a delicious marriage,
a slightly different preparation and presentation

We used flat iron pastrami in this dish although traditional pastrami will probably produce tastier results for next time. It was a good idea that didn’t live up to expectations. Trials take time. Originals are such for a reason. As for pumpernickel pasta, it fills both roles, traditional and trial. Pumpernickel pasta as a base for a non-traditional reuben? Delicious.

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Which is good to know because we are cooking an incredible dinner with the team at restaurant Elements, in Princeton, NJ on August 10, 2009. The dinner will feature both cured and fresh Mangalista pig. The dinner will also blend communal dining and family style dishes with a tasting menu and an exploration of be all that it can be can be pig. The Mangalista is renowned for its fat. We will certainly play to its strength while looking at what is possible beyond the rich decadence which is its main attraction. A number of cured preparations are already in development, interpret that as aging, a necessary step for maximum flavor.

Some ideas in the works at our end: blood sausage and corn soup, sweet and sour pork consomme en gelee with lardo and raw fish, pork and clams (duh!), sausage and peppers (again duh!), pasta…of course, powdered lardo, bacon oh bacon, prosciutto ice cream with Sardinian chestnut honey and a fig financier, pig ear confit with gremolata, green eggs and ham, cracklings in the style of Cracker Jacks (a la Aki), and who knows what Scott and Joe are bringing to the table…it will be a night to remember, for us and the pigs.

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