We tried to make sesame paste out of sesame seeds, but there was always a bitter finish that bothered me. So we sourced sesame paste, black and white, directly from Japan. We use in recipes from time to time. The latest recipe is the combination of both in a macaroon. The shell use white sesame flour and white sesame paste with, of course, the basic ingredients (almond flour, egg white and icing sugar), while the filling is a bitter sweet ganache with the addition of black sesame paste and Murray salt. Nathan spent some time making both recipes work and the result is a very intense sesame flavor enhanced by the salt. I almost forgot to mention that he sprinkles a dust of black sesame flour on the shell . That was the ultimate touch that we always like.

Go to Source

Polish Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

1000 gr AP flour
1000 gr water
4 gr yeast

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together and place in a warm place for 12 hours.

Potato and Garlic

Ingredients:

800 gr Yukon Gold potato
100 gr garlic
20 gr sea salt
40 gr olive oil

Method:

Season the Yukon Gold potatos and whole garlic with sea salt and olive oil. 

Bake in a combi oven at 140C for 45 minute with 10% humidity. 

Press the garlic though a sieve to get the pulp. 

Peel the potato and mash.

Dough

Ingredients:

1400 gr AP flour

100 gr sugar

400 gr butter

12 gr yeast

44 gr sea salt

400 gr Yukon Gold potato pulp

50 gr garlic pulp

300 gr water

200 gr whole milk

120 gr olive oil

2000 gr Polish dough

Method:

Mix the AP flour, sugar, butter, yeast, potato pulp, garlic pulp, water, milk, olive oil and Polish together for 4 minutes. Add the salt. Mix for 4 more minutes in slow and 1 minutes in fast. 

Place the dough in a bowl and let rest for 30 minutes. Punch the dough and roll it. Leave it rest for another hour. 

Divide the dough into 20 gr pieces, roll them and let them rest for 30 minutes. 

Roll them again and place them in the cannele mold, already brushed with butter. Let the dough rise for one hour. 

At this point they are baked at 250C for 15 minutes, removed from the mold and let cool down over a rack.

 
 Yukon Gold Potato Bread Post I

Yukon Gold Potato Bread Post II

Go to Source

Green papaya salad combines the freshness of the various ingredients used, but the real flavor for me is the dressing. I’ve visited Thailand on several occasions and each time I always went to the market to taste the dressing, made of course with a homemade fish sauce. Fish sauce is usually made with anchovies, salt and water that is fermented giving it a very unique strong salty, fishy flavor. It is a recipe of southeast Asia. In my hometown Antibes, we make a pissalat sauce with fresh anchovies, using the same technique. The pissalat is used to flavor the cooked onions of the pissaladiere (a kind of a foccacia covered with onions and black olives). 

But going back to the dressing for the green papaya salad, it combines palm sugar, garlic, fish sauce, Thai chili, lime juice and water. In Thailand the dressing is extremely spicy and you have to make sure you have a couple of cold local beers in hand to help. But the ingredients of the salad usually cool down the heat . We currently use shredded green papaya, jicama, star fruit, radish, pickled red onions, fried shallot, lotus root chips, kulantro and Thai basil.

Go to Source

The final dish combines fresh strawberries, marinated in the strawberry juice  to enhance the natural flavors, frozen strawberries filled with aloe vera or strawberry sorbet, preserved aloe vera diced into cubes, a black sesame seeds croquant and few drops of black sesame paste. The strawberry juice is poured table side over the fruit. A white sesame bun is served on the side.  

Go to Source

Once we have the strawberry juice, it is filtered and set with agar, then liquefied to become a gel at a liquid stage. The strawberry molds are first seasoned with grounded black pepper to recreate the natural strawberry seeds on the outside of the fruit. The molds are filled up with the liquid strawberry gel. After being tapped upside down, only a fine layer will remain on the inside of the mold. The molds are frozen to set the gel. Some molds are filled with a strawberry sorbet, made with a mixture of fresh strawberry pulp and strawberry juice. Others will be filled with an aloe vera sorbet, made out of aloe vera juice.

Go to Source

Go to Source

 If somebody does not like sashimi, then he will like fluke. The meat is extremely soft and delicate. It has also a mild flavor and does not require lot of seasoning. The silky effect in your mouth is really enjoyable. I like it best with salt, a touch of olive oil and lemon juice. Japanese fluke, from Tsukiji market in the picture above, is usually wild fish with a very high quality level and freshness. In Japan, the Japanese flounder Paralichthys Olivaceus is common. While flounder has both eyes situated on one side of the head, fluke is not born this way; it is a different kind of fish. Their life involves metamorphosis. During metamorphosis, one eye migrates to the other side of the body so that both eyes are situated on the upward-facing side of its body. Fluke and flounder lie on one side on the ocean floor, either the left or right side might face upward depending on the species. Fluke and flounder sizes range from five to fifteen inches, though they sometimes grow as large as three feet in length. Their breadth is about one-half of their length. Fluke and flounder are ambush predators and their feeding ground is the soft mud of the sea bottom. Their diet consists mainly of fish spawn, crustaceans, polychaetes and small fish.

 In the picture above the skin has removed from the flesh. It is sliced lenghwise into very fine strips to be rolled as a one bite piece of sashimi.

Go to Source

The bamboo box is the container for all of the various components needed to prepare and serve the Matcha green tea.

The waitress will enter the tatami room with a closed box and will use the cover as a serving tray to make the preparation. She will place the box on the tatami mat, and make the tea next to the guest.

The contents: a tea pot for the hot water which is served at 85-degrees Celsius, super premium Matcha (hand picked leaves, smooth and mellow with a deep taste and excellent noble aroma), a tea sifter, a small spoon to measure the tea, a bamboo whisk with a whisk holder, and lastly, the serving bowl. The tea is first sifted to remove all of the clumps. Four serving spoons per serving cup are place in the cup, then about 20 grams of water are poured over the tea and whisked to dissolve the powder into the liquid. An additional 20 grams of water are poured over to fulfill the measure and whisked again until the mixture becomes frothy.

Japanese tea sifter

Bamboo whisk

 
Matcha measuring serving spoon or Chashaku

Tea pot or kyusu. It has been created by a hand skilled artisan, Mr Futoshi Sawada in the Tokoname region in Japan.

 Bowl or Roku yaki made at Shohraku kiln. It feels very soft and warm to the touch by hand or mouth.

Go to Source

Go to Source

The classic recipe from the Parker Hotel in Boston, with the mini version in the restaurant allows us to serve it as a one-bite dish, or simply to eat several of them over the course of the meal and serving them warm the whole time.

Sugar, salt and dry yeast dissolved in whole milk, lightly warmed. Combine with whole egg and AP flour. 

The dough is covered and left to rise. Punch down, shape, re-proof and then bake.

A touch of Murray salt over the top before baking, and of course melted butter brushed on top after baking to make it really wonderful.

The softness of the roll combined with melted butter and served warm can become a meal on its own with few accompaniments. 

Below they are served as a lobster roll amuse bouche, with a chopped lobster filling, condiment and mini potato chips.

Go to Source