Chef at Home

Archive for March, 2010

Well, really it is cured meats. Amaya has taken to our salumi (and cheese) fetish, who could blame her, and demands her fair share whenever and even when it's not available. Thankfully we have friends who know the good stuff, share it and slice it beautifully.

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We have started work on a new project. We are working with chefs cataloging their dishes and approach to food visually. These photographic sessions are like our workshops, customized to the chef and their needs. Aki captured this great shot during a recent session in our kitchen. It speaks volumes to the potential of what pictures will do for chefs, allowing them to create and build their own portfolios.

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We continuously look for efficiency, functionality and refinement in our cooking. Taking a step back to look, tradition can show us things we have leapfrogged or just overlooked. As we continue to examine cooking and why we do what we do, it was necessary to revisit hand mixed and rolled pasta. The textures are different. The process of kneading, rolling and cutting provides time for anticipation to build up to the cooking and eating ahead.

The question now is how do we share this experience with the diner? Will they know the difference or is it something, a pleasure, for only the cook to relish?

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Two recent workshops brought tofu to top of our to do list. Adam was working on a pea and tofu soup and he wanted to incorporate the tofu in a few interesting and subtle ways. Our first runs had us mimicking peas in shape and texture. The initial trials proved positive if not time consuming. A second workshop had us looking at soy bean noodles and lead us to evolving our mozzarella noodles. The end result is tofu sheets which we cut into tagliatelle. We paired them with morels, stems and a hot spring egg. The resulting noodles offer a variety of applications for tofu. A separate result of sheeting tofu led us to revisit tofu crisps and crackers an application we worked on when we first started this blog and an idea worth looking back into.

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I wrote a book recently and in the months long period between putting the last period on the last page and publication, there’s a gathering dread.

What is it I’ve just written?

What’s it about?

Presumably, I’ll have to answer those questions soon — in interviews, on book tour, when the whole machinery starts up again and begins clanking away full-speed. I thought-when I was writing the thing that it was a gentler thing I was making, a reflection of my more……philosophical outlook these days: an examination of the changes in the world of professional cooking (and the changes in my life) in the ten years since I sat down to write “Kitchen Confidential” in a white heat each morning before going in to work at Les Halles.

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We were fortunate enough to be flipping channels one evening when we landed on WHYY playing an amazing concert by David Garrett. David plays the violin like nothing we had heard and plays music some of which you know and some perhaps you have never heard or thought of hearing on a violin. We immediately bought a copy of his concert performance. The album is absolutely incredible and helps usher spring into your step and kitchen. Give it a spin, or check out youtube if you have any doubts.

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Sometimes necessity is the mother of inventions. You want something and you think you have all the ingredients until you’re standing in the kitchen with a toddler on your hip, a small pot of melted butter, and an almost empty bag of cocoa. There definitely isn’t time to run out to the store and frankly you may no longer have the motivation to finish by the time you get back. Fortunately there is a can of Ghirardelli hot chocolate mix in the cupboard so all is not lost. Less than ten minutes later there is a small mess on the counter, hey it’s not easy to mix brownies with a 15-month old helping, and pan of brownies in the toaster oven. Salted pistachios inside the mix and salted caramel sauce drizzled on top to make sure that even if they weren’t perfect they at least would be edible. A day later the brownies are almost gone and according to Alex and Amaya they are addictive and the best brownies I’ve made yet. Can’t ask for a better compliment than that.

Hot Chocolate Brownies

6 ounces unsalted butter, melted

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup hot chocolate mix (quality makes a difference everywhere on this list…)

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cold eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup salted, roasted pistachios

2 tablespoons salted caramel sauce

8×8-inch disposable aluminum pan

Preheat the oven to 325°F

Melt the butter in a medium sized  on the stove or large pyrex bowl in the microwave. Add the cocoa and hot chocolate mix. Stir to combine. Add the sugar and salt and mix well. Add the eggs one at a time using a rubber spatula to fully incorporate each egg before adding the next. The mixture will become, thick, smooth and glossy. Add the flour and and incorporate completely, (50 strokes or so) to make a thick batter that just pours out of the pan. Add the pistachios and stir well to spread them through the batter. Pour into the pan and use a small offset spatula to spread it to the edges of the pan and smooth the top. Drizzle the caramel sauce on top. Bake 40-45 minutes until the cake is just firm and no longer wobbles in the center when you shake it. Let it cool before cutting.

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Matcha or green tea powder looks magical and has a perfume that doesn’t smell like anything else. When it is growing, the leaves are covered from direct sunshine a few weeks before harvest, this causes the leaves to produce amino acid that makes the tea sweater with a deeper flavor. 

We are working on a noodle made with matcha combined with a mix of 00 flour and durum wheat. The matcha used is a reserve shizuoka. The dough is formed with the addition of egg and egg yolk. The result is a dough rich in protein, but soft with the 00 flour and elastic with the durum wheat. When it is freshly made it is extremely green and flavorful, then over the course the day some oxidation occurs. Some color also disappears while the noodle are cooking in water. We tested the dough a few times this week to get to the final result. 

Now we just need to wait for some more green ingredients to arrive, like peas, ramps and fava beans, to finish the dish. The sauce, a combination of green onions, edamame, and green asparagus, reminds me of the flavor of green garlic – that punchiness that put all the components together.

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Getting the right tool to execute a dish is extremely important. In the case of making gnocchi, the depth of the ridges in a gnocchi paddle can make the difference between elegant dumplings and just little lumps. The ridges hold sauces in place and add texture to what is essentially a soft pillow.

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unbound spring.
morning warmth.
a soft sun.
quiet sundays, a semicolon to summer.

`

Grand Central Station.
Iconic.
Marble.
Vibrating today with bagpipes and straight backs and a history forgotten.
There are tears at the edges of my eyes i did not put there.
I am grateful to be on a train today.
Grateful to have heard the music, the complicated instrument.

`

At the edge of Williamsburg, where development meets empty and water.
The city always looks the flattest flat from this angle.
Sunny out, wet underfoot.
Looking for perspective.
And answers that will never arrive.

`

New York is so undeniably itself under grey skies.
Barely perceptible tree buds quietly.
Greenwich Village.
Old streets.
Little corners.
Architectural details.
Brick cleaned by rain.
A whispered vibrancy .even in darkness.

`

the air felt like sea air today.
melancholy.
horizon line promising.
Forgetting.
hands waving at the dock.
fog mist soft wet wool.

`

today is watery melancholy spring
silk bias cut quilted sky
Neither gray nor blue.                             .both

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besotted by spring.

`

First there was a string.
Then there was a knot.

`

Tender.
Flaky.
Rich.
Light.
Supple.
Vegetal.
Herbacious.
Unreal.

`

O No.
Vanilla is the muse of chocolate.

`

Today Brooklyn is Oakland.
Quiet. Desolate. Grey. Vast.

`

Purplish night.
New Jersey lights.
A soft and mercurial Hudson River.
Black dock pylons, broken rows, water eaten wood.
Gulls kibbutzing screaming interrupting.
Eyes refocus:one white bird sits neatly on each black line, like a matchstick.

`

Dusk.
Quilted sky.
Water towers silhouette.
Houston street and all its traffic lights.
Old squats.
Shiny kitchen equipment.
Memoried memories.
Footfalls distinct.

`

new york city winter 2009 – spring 2010

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