i haven't update in a long time. a really long time, in fact.
i shall, though. and soon. this i promise.
a lot of events have been taking place and as cliche as it may sound, I've just been really busy and haven't had a lot of free time.
here's the short version:
-i left the oceanaire after 14 months
-i took the chef position at a wine bar
-i've changed the menu rather drastically in an attempt to increase our revenue and overall number of customers
-i've been doing some catering as well
-non-food related: i bought a mini cooper
-tried some new food places near my condo in scripps ranch (mostly unimpressive results, sadly)
there's a lot of updates to come. next week, i swear (or the week after that... no one really reads this thing anyway)
Monday, December 22, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
pepitas, pie, ravioli, seed oil, tempura, halawa yaqtin...
So, I don't normally carve jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween, but for the sake of my lovely girlfriend, I decided to give it a shot. Here is the the result of my labor:
What is it, you ask? Let me enlighten you (would "illuminate" have been too cliche?):
It's-a me, Mario!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
stuff I have to write about at some point in the near future.
-making gyoza
-making gazpacho
-judging a cooking competition at SDW&CC
-eating at Arterra
also, one of my friends and I have decided to take the "KFC $10 Challenge"; that is, we're going to attempt to make a 7 piece fried chicken dinner with a side (mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, cole slaw, etc.) and some biscuits for under ten bucks.
-making gazpacho
-judging a cooking competition at SDW&CC
-eating at Arterra
also, one of my friends and I have decided to take the "KFC $10 Challenge"; that is, we're going to attempt to make a 7 piece fried chicken dinner with a side (mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, cole slaw, etc.) and some biscuits for under ten bucks.
Worse Than a Cat in a Roomful of Rockers
So, the little lady and I went to Claim Jumper a while back and I decided to chronicle the wondrous adventure for the world. Now, I realize that Claim Jumper isn't the "nicest" of restaurants (the words "high-class Denny's" may have been thrown around), but I'd never been there before and I hadn't heard anything bad about it, so I decided to expand my culinary horizons and check it out.
Now, for those of you not familiar with CJ (that's what the cool kids call it), a lovely history can be found here.
When we got there, there was a short wait (10 minutes or so), so we sat with our pagers and pieces of paper with old-timey prospector type language on them. To be honest, I can't remember exactly what they said, but I remember they were definitely interesting. I didn't know why we got them, so I asked and I was told that it was in case our pagers didn't go off, they could call us by our "names" over the intercom. Paging Calamity Jane to the host station. Yeah. Awesome.
So we sat and I finally got to gaze upon the menu in all its glory. They actually have a pretty big and extensive menu with a decent amount of variety. I'm not quite sure how everything fit into the whole Gold Rush theme, but I guess prospectors could have possibly dined upon buffalo wings, cabernet-braised beef short ribs and Jamaican sweet potatoes.
I wanted to try to get a feel for the whole menu, so we decided to order some things and split them. After being seated, no one really paid any attention to us for the next 10-15 minutes, which was a bit odd since we had to wait to sit down and we were put in a relatively empty section. Maybe they were understaffed that night, but I digress.
Our server appears like a phantom and we get about to ordering. For our app, we started off with something that (it would appear) is somewhat of a CJ specialty: crispy shrimp taquitos. Shrimp wrapped in corn tortillas and then fried. It came with 2 dipping sauces. Interestingly enough, the menu didn't say what the sauces actually were. Using some crack sleuthing, we determined the sauces were something in the way of a vague citrus sauce (I'm guessing citrus juice, maybe vinegar, cornstarch... I'm not entirely sure) and the second sauce was an oddly-spiced avocado ranch-y type thing. We definitely preferred the citrus-based one. All in all, it was a decent dish. Not something I'd expect to get in a fine dining restaurant, but this was decidedly not that type of restaurant. This is something I'd want to make for a picnic or barbeque. Thumbs up on this course.
Oh, yeah, they also came with what our server called a "spicy asian slaw". I didn't really get any "spicy" or "asian", but it tasted good. I likened it to a pile of shredded cabbage mixed with pico de gallo.
Next we had to decide between a salad or soup. None of the salads were that exciting (bleu cheese and iceberg wedge, "asian" salad, caesar: pretty standard fare), so we went with soup. The missus isn't a very big soup person, so although I initially wanted the French onion since I haven't had it in a long time and wanted to see how they went about making it, we ended up deciding on the baked potato cheddar soup. It was decent, if not a little... chunky. It was a fairly thick "broth" if you could call it that. It was almost like a heavy bechamel. Also, there were pretty big chunks of potato in the soup which got a little cumbersome to deal with. I have no problem with pieces of potato in a potato soup, but these were verging on the ridiculous. Bigger than the spoon that came with the soup. The soup was garnished with "baked potato crisps" which appeared to be a fancy way of saying "french fries." Not that it was bad, per se, but I don't think it's something I'd order again.
Naturally, entrees came next. They had a pretty big selection, but for some reason I didn't really feel like having a real "entree" type of a dish. Nothing like the roast chicken, ribs, sauteed fish or scallops really seemed to appealed to me that night. They had a nice selection of burgers and sandwiches, and for some reason that page seemed to be calling my name. The first thing I saw was a chicken-brie panini that looked good, but then I saw a tri-tip dip and well... I love beef. Oh man do I love beef. If there is anything on this Earth as perfect as beef, I have not found it.
My lovely companion ordered the "widow maker burger" which was a standard burger (lettuce, tomato, onions) with bacon on it. They give you a choice of different sides. I went with a green salad (I really don't eat enough salad at home, so I figured I had to sneak it in there somewhere). She got "grilled" mashed potatoes, which were actually croquettes.
To be honest, I don't think you can mess up a steak sandwich. You just can't. And neither can Claim Jumper. It wasn't the best I've ever had, but... well, it was beef. There were caramelized onions, chiles and gouda on top of the meat. It came with jus (beef stock, basically), a pickle and a giant, forest-sized bunch of kale.
Here's a question, does anyone eat the piles of curly parsley or kale that comes with their food? I've heard of some people chewing parsley at the end of the meal as a breath freshener.. but the kale? I've yet to meet the man who truly dives in and devours that lovely green.
The sandwich was good. The salad was good. Overall, it was good. Not great, but acceptable (and pretty cheap at $13). As I don't eat bacon (yes, let the verbal bashings begin), I didn't try the burger, and the mashed potato cakes weren't anything spectacular, but given the setting... the entrees were good enough.
We both wanted to try a dessert, but we were pretty full by this point. Luckily for our gluttonous mind-sets, they have a small desserts section on the menu. For the entirely reasonable price of $2,95, we split a single red velvet cupcake. On the first bite, we both thought it was a little dry, but then for some reason, any hint of dryness went away and was overtaken by a wave of delicious deliciousness. It was a really good cupcake. And the size was spot on for what we wanted.
After everything was said and done, the total for our lovely 4 course meal was barely $50. I think this would be a good place to bring a family or a date (if you're broke... or 16), but I don't know that I'd make this one of my usual stomping grounds.
Note: pictures are from a camera phone. i apologize. i'm seriously considering taking photography courses and investing in a decent camera. as always, feel free to contribute to that endeavor in a financial sort of way.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
my mom says I'm special
So, I ran an appetizer special tonight at work and it worked out better than I expected.
What did I make, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The dish had, including the garnish, 4 components:
-slipper lobster ravioli
-cognac shellfish bisque sauce
-candied onion jus
-blue lump crab and chive
I made everything from scratch myself, which took me like 2 hours (which was about an hour longer than I thought it was going to take). Thankfully, we had an extra person on the line and he helped set up my station so I could work on the special.
I ended up making 48 pieces total, which made 16 portions (3 ravioli per order). Normally, a special on the weekend (this particular day was a 400 reservation Saturday) would get about 30 orders, but I didn't have enough product. Still, 16 is a decent number. Except for one thing: we sold out an hour after starting service. Now, while this does kind of make me look good because people ordered my dish, I also heard quite a few "you didn't make enough" comments throughout the night.
Either way, I heard that the guests reacted to the dish positively and I get to run the special again, so that's pretty rad. It's been over a year working there and while they've used my ideas on certain menu/dish components, I've never had a dish that was all me (line cooks don't really get to add anything to the menu; it's mostly the sous chefs).
What did I make, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The dish had, including the garnish, 4 components:
-slipper lobster ravioli
-cognac shellfish bisque sauce
-candied onion jus
-blue lump crab and chive
I made everything from scratch myself, which took me like 2 hours (which was about an hour longer than I thought it was going to take). Thankfully, we had an extra person on the line and he helped set up my station so I could work on the special.
I ended up making 48 pieces total, which made 16 portions (3 ravioli per order). Normally, a special on the weekend (this particular day was a 400 reservation Saturday) would get about 30 orders, but I didn't have enough product. Still, 16 is a decent number. Except for one thing: we sold out an hour after starting service. Now, while this does kind of make me look good because people ordered my dish, I also heard quite a few "you didn't make enough" comments throughout the night.
Either way, I heard that the guests reacted to the dish positively and I get to run the special again, so that's pretty rad. It's been over a year working there and while they've used my ideas on certain menu/dish components, I've never had a dish that was all me (line cooks don't really get to add anything to the menu; it's mostly the sous chefs).
SDW&CC
So, aside from working the line at a seafood restaurant, I from time to time do special events at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center. Depending on what a client wants/needs, there are a number of different things that we do. Most of the events that I'm involved with are corporate team-building exercises. Classes usually are centered around one of the following activities:
-A cooking demonstration: I cook. They watch. They eat.
-"Iron Chef": They receive mystery baskets and have to come up with creative dishes.
-Cooking competition: Teams make the same series of dishes and are judged on a number of criteria.
-Hands-on cooking demonstration: I show them how to cook a series of courses, then they (both individually and as a group) re-create the dishes and eat them with wine pairings.
That's what I did recently: taught a hands-on cooking demo.
This particular class: 18 female attorneys.
Alright, I'm done with colons. That didn't sound right.
Aaaanyway, the dishes we prepare for these events aren't usually all that complicated. First off, there are time restrictions and some things just cant be made on the fly. Secondly, rarely do the participants have any experience in the food industry and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to make them tourne carrots and then sous vide them.
A lot of the time, the participants of these classes are from out of state and aren't always super excited to attend, since it's technically a work-related activity. A combination of me being extremely witty and charming and copious amounts of wine tend to change most people's attitudes. The majority of the fem-torneys were pretty willing to learn and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on. All-in-all, the class went smoothly and as planned. Our menu was the following:
First Course- Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Blue Cheese Balsamic
Second Course- "New Orleans Style" Shrimp with Grilled Baguette
Third Course- Parmesan-Panko Crusted Paillard of Chicken
Fourth Course- Classic Creme Brulee with Faux-Macerated Berries
Like I said, nothing ground-breaking. All the dishes turned out well, though, and a lot of techniques were new to many people there. Not many people had grilled lettuce before. And surprisingly (to me), almost no one had made a vinaigrette before. I really like teaching people fundamentals they can really use, so that was cool. The shrimp dish was a saute of shrimp and vegitation mixed with a sweet and spicy spice mixture (there was literally like 18 ingredients in it), that was deglazed with wine and vinegar and then mounted with butter to form a sauce. I'd never made this exact dish before and was pleased with the result. The chicken was a pan-fry, and was a basic dredging. We served it with a locally-made strawberry-based barbeque sauce. Simple, but still new to some people. Lastly was the creme brulee. I showed the technique for properly brulee-ing (aka burning) sugar and we made the berry topping by mixing fresh berries with wine and sugar and tossing. Not quite maceration, but a decent facsimile in 30 seconds.
Sadly, I forgot my camera that day, so I didn't get to chronicle everything, but hopefully my words are a literary masterpiece and you can see it all in your heads.
After the class, we cleaned down and I was hungry, so I did a pantry raid and found a couple random things (arborio rice, chicken stock, roasted red peppers) and we had a decent amount of leftover shrimp from that course, so I made the staff of SDW&CC shrimp risotto. I'm pretty sure I scored points with that one. I'm trying to do a lot more events, mostly because then I'll make more money, but also because I really like working one-on-one with people and working the line 5 days a week can drain your energy pretty fast.
So, if anyone wants to sponsor a cooking class or wants to do a dinner party, I'm the guy to go to. Help a brother out.
Random: I went out to eat at Arterra the other day with some friends and had one of the best meals I've had in a long time (foie gras, bone marrow, beef short ribs and sweetbreads... in one course), but my camera wasn't taking the best quality pictures, so as soon as I get some of the pictures my fellow diners took, I'll be writing a quite lengthy post about that. Stay tuned.
-A cooking demonstration: I cook. They watch. They eat.
-"Iron Chef": They receive mystery baskets and have to come up with creative dishes.
-Cooking competition: Teams make the same series of dishes and are judged on a number of criteria.
-Hands-on cooking demonstration: I show them how to cook a series of courses, then they (both individually and as a group) re-create the dishes and eat them with wine pairings.
That's what I did recently: taught a hands-on cooking demo.
This particular class: 18 female attorneys.
Alright, I'm done with colons. That didn't sound right.
Aaaanyway, the dishes we prepare for these events aren't usually all that complicated. First off, there are time restrictions and some things just cant be made on the fly. Secondly, rarely do the participants have any experience in the food industry and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to make them tourne carrots and then sous vide them.
A lot of the time, the participants of these classes are from out of state and aren't always super excited to attend, since it's technically a work-related activity. A combination of me being extremely witty and charming and copious amounts of wine tend to change most people's attitudes. The majority of the fem-torneys were pretty willing to learn and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on. All-in-all, the class went smoothly and as planned. Our menu was the following:
First Course- Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Blue Cheese Balsamic
Second Course- "New Orleans Style" Shrimp with Grilled Baguette
Third Course- Parmesan-Panko Crusted Paillard of Chicken
Fourth Course- Classic Creme Brulee with Faux-Macerated Berries
Like I said, nothing ground-breaking. All the dishes turned out well, though, and a lot of techniques were new to many people there. Not many people had grilled lettuce before. And surprisingly (to me), almost no one had made a vinaigrette before. I really like teaching people fundamentals they can really use, so that was cool. The shrimp dish was a saute of shrimp and vegitation mixed with a sweet and spicy spice mixture (there was literally like 18 ingredients in it), that was deglazed with wine and vinegar and then mounted with butter to form a sauce. I'd never made this exact dish before and was pleased with the result. The chicken was a pan-fry, and was a basic dredging. We served it with a locally-made strawberry-based barbeque sauce. Simple, but still new to some people. Lastly was the creme brulee. I showed the technique for properly brulee-ing (aka burning) sugar and we made the berry topping by mixing fresh berries with wine and sugar and tossing. Not quite maceration, but a decent facsimile in 30 seconds.
Sadly, I forgot my camera that day, so I didn't get to chronicle everything, but hopefully my words are a literary masterpiece and you can see it all in your heads.
After the class, we cleaned down and I was hungry, so I did a pantry raid and found a couple random things (arborio rice, chicken stock, roasted red peppers) and we had a decent amount of leftover shrimp from that course, so I made the staff of SDW&CC shrimp risotto. I'm pretty sure I scored points with that one. I'm trying to do a lot more events, mostly because then I'll make more money, but also because I really like working one-on-one with people and working the line 5 days a week can drain your energy pretty fast.
So, if anyone wants to sponsor a cooking class or wants to do a dinner party, I'm the guy to go to. Help a brother out.
Random: I went out to eat at Arterra the other day with some friends and had one of the best meals I've had in a long time (foie gras, bone marrow, beef short ribs and sweetbreads... in one course), but my camera wasn't taking the best quality pictures, so as soon as I get some of the pictures my fellow diners took, I'll be writing a quite lengthy post about that. Stay tuned.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Gotta Catch 'Em All!
Here's a random thought:
You know that card game/videogame/seizure causing cartoon Pokemon? Where a kid goes around catching all these different animals with different elemental powers and then battles them against other peoples pokemon?
I've never heard of a regular cow or chicken mentioned anywhere... so do they eat the pokemon?
Do they have bbq's and make pikachu burgers?
Also, do the wolf-like pokemon attack and devour the bovine pokemon?
Think about it, people.
You know that card game/videogame/seizure causing cartoon Pokemon? Where a kid goes around catching all these different animals with different elemental powers and then battles them against other peoples pokemon?
I've never heard of a regular cow or chicken mentioned anywhere... so do they eat the pokemon?
Do they have bbq's and make pikachu burgers?
Also, do the wolf-like pokemon attack and devour the bovine pokemon?
Think about it, people.
Grant Achatz is a sick bastard.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: Let me 'splain:
Grant Achatz is a chef from Chicago. He was formally a sous chef at The French Laundry, then he went on to be the chef of Trio in Chicago. After some time at Trio, he opened his own restaurant, Alinea. Alinea is known for being heavily involved in "molecular gastronomy" and related food preparations. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's basically a way of using science in order to understand how food works and then changing the way it's prepared to come up with new results (things like fruit "caviar" and flavored foams and instantly-frozen sorbets and ice creams). It's not necessarily all that easy to do and it requires a lot of specialized ingredients and equipment. Adding to the complexity, Alinea offers a 28 course tasting menu daily.
Anyway, he recently wrote and released The Alinea Book.
This book is ridiculous.
I mean that in a good way, but with just a hint of negativity. First off, it weighs six and a half pounds and it's over 400 pages. That's a lot for a book, especially a cook book. Even for the Encyclopedia Britannica that's a lot.
Let me say that I own nearly all of the different chemicals called for in the book (things like sodium alginate, tapioca maltodextrin, agar-agar, xanthan gum and soy lecithin), and I still wouldn't be able to recreate even a quarter of whats in there. Mostly because he uses custom-made, highly expensive equipment to achieve very precise and refined results. I don't own an immersion circulator, pacojet or anti-griddle and I can't think of anyone else I know who does either. I don't even know of any restaurants that do (except for those specializing in this type of cuisine).
Don't get me wrong, the book is beautiful. The photography is exceptional. There's 400 different recipes which chronicle individual steps as well essays by many people (including the chef himself) explaining the ideas and processes behind the food, but I think it just makes me a sad deep down inside to know I'll probably never be able to create most of the dishes in the book. [Although there is a woman who is going to attempt to make every recipe in the book, cover to cover. That'll be interesting to follow.] Incidentally, on Amazon, it's only $30, which is an awesome price for what you get. if nothing else, I figure I can use it for reference.
If anyone out there wants to donate money to the "Help Nargi Buy Really Expensive Kitchen Equipment Fund" let me know and I'll point you in the direction of my bank account. Or maybe Grant will invite me into his kitchen. I suppose only time will tell.
For a more detailed account of the life and times of Mr. Achatz, I direct you HERE.
Also, his book has its own website.
Lastly, here's a really great thread about someone's dining experience at Alinea, complete with many photos. I belong to this "food community" (eGullet) and it's proved an invaluable resource.
Grant Achatz is a chef from Chicago. He was formally a sous chef at The French Laundry, then he went on to be the chef of Trio in Chicago. After some time at Trio, he opened his own restaurant, Alinea. Alinea is known for being heavily involved in "molecular gastronomy" and related food preparations. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's basically a way of using science in order to understand how food works and then changing the way it's prepared to come up with new results (things like fruit "caviar" and flavored foams and instantly-frozen sorbets and ice creams). It's not necessarily all that easy to do and it requires a lot of specialized ingredients and equipment. Adding to the complexity, Alinea offers a 28 course tasting menu daily.
Anyway, he recently wrote and released The Alinea Book.
This book is ridiculous.
I mean that in a good way, but with just a hint of negativity. First off, it weighs six and a half pounds and it's over 400 pages. That's a lot for a book, especially a cook book. Even for the Encyclopedia Britannica that's a lot.
Let me say that I own nearly all of the different chemicals called for in the book (things like sodium alginate, tapioca maltodextrin, agar-agar, xanthan gum and soy lecithin), and I still wouldn't be able to recreate even a quarter of whats in there. Mostly because he uses custom-made, highly expensive equipment to achieve very precise and refined results. I don't own an immersion circulator, pacojet or anti-griddle and I can't think of anyone else I know who does either. I don't even know of any restaurants that do (except for those specializing in this type of cuisine).
Don't get me wrong, the book is beautiful. The photography is exceptional. There's 400 different recipes which chronicle individual steps as well essays by many people (including the chef himself) explaining the ideas and processes behind the food, but I think it just makes me a sad deep down inside to know I'll probably never be able to create most of the dishes in the book. [Although there is a woman who is going to attempt to make every recipe in the book, cover to cover. That'll be interesting to follow.] Incidentally, on Amazon, it's only $30, which is an awesome price for what you get. if nothing else, I figure I can use it for reference.
If anyone out there wants to donate money to the "Help Nargi Buy Really Expensive Kitchen Equipment Fund" let me know and I'll point you in the direction of my bank account. Or maybe Grant will invite me into his kitchen. I suppose only time will tell.
For a more detailed account of the life and times of Mr. Achatz, I direct you HERE.
Also, his book has its own website.
Lastly, here's a really great thread about someone's dining experience at Alinea, complete with many photos. I belong to this "food community" (eGullet) and it's proved an invaluable resource.
The eternal sound of country music.
Last weekend I attended a wedding. The thing is, I didn't know a single person there. Now, I wish this could be a tale of Wedding Crashers-esque shenanigans, but alas, it was merely because it was a childhood friend of my girlfriend's. As I'm sure you can surmise, this was quite the experience. Since this blog is about food, I'll spare you the details of the wedding, and we'll head over to the reception.
The reception was held at the Lake San Marcos Country Club (a place in northern San Diego county). The venue was nice, if not a little small. Since we were all instructed to head to the reception well ahead of the wedding party (so that they could take pictures), there was a lot of people just sort of sitting/standing around. After finding our seats (and by that I mean we all just sat wherever the hell we wanted to), I noticed something pretty cool. Each table had it's own mini-cake. But I'll get back to that later.
After 15 minutes or so, I noticed a line forming for what I can only assume was food. After waiting and sort of spying on what people were carrying, I noticed it was sort of a snack tray area. They had simple things like assorted cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit, and mango salsa (which ran out very quickly). Not wanting to wait in a long line for crackers, I just sort of surveyed the area and one of the servers of the event brought me a drink.
Did I mention they had an open bar?
First time I've ever actually encountered that. It wasn't a huge variety or anything (domestic beers, "well" liquors), but still, it was free, son. So I nursed my scotch and soda while I waited for the line to die down. Once it seemed relatively short, I got up to grab some snackage and I realized... it was all gone. They assured us more would be coming soon and indeed it did.
After snack time, they announced the new couple... and said the wrong names, which was pretty hilarious. After everyone was seated, dinner began:
Wedding food, how I love thee not. Now, while I can't complain since it was free, I will say that this wasn't the most refined or imaginative meal I've ever consumed. Still, I am a man of artistic integrity and honesty, so I feel it is my duty to recount all of the many culinary nuances.
First course (of 3) was a salad course. Caesar salad. Soggy, overdressed Caesar salad. A girl at my table had probably dozen croutons. I had zero. Not the best way to start out a meal.
Did I mention they had free booze?
The entree came next, which was chicken. Oven-roasted chicken breast, with a sort of "piccata" sauce. At least that's what I assumed it was trying to be. It had lemon and butter and capers. So I'm gonna go with piccata. There were steamed, mixed vegetables (that were actually cooked quite well, if not actually seasoned. I added a lot of salt to this entire dish). The final component of the dish was mashed potatoes... from a box. Delicious and classy.
Once again: free. booze.
Alright, remember those cakes I mentioned? Those were actually pretty bad ass. Each table had a cake that was probably about a foot by a foot by a foot and to up the cool factor, each cake was different, in both outward appearance and filling. There was probably a good 20 tables and I can't remember seeing any duplicates. That was a nice touch. Here's ours:
And instead of a big wedding cake, the bride and groom had a cake similar to the others, except slightly larger with bride and groom toppers.
They went with the whole "ball and chain" theme.
I'm not quite sure what their cake was (flavor-wise), but I'm assuming it was probably some sort of a neutral/vanilla white cake, judging from when they smashed it all over each others face. Ours was a strawberry cream, which was outstanding. Talking to some other guests there, there was mocha, more than 1 kind of chocolate, and some mixes involved as well. I tried to find out who made the cakes for about 15 minutes to no avail and I didn't think it was all that classy to ask the bride and groom while they were carrying on with their wedding business.
Cake was eaten, toasts were given, and then came the dancing portion of the evening, which brings me to the title of this post. These people really, really liked country music. A lot. They played nothing else. It was not the highlight of the evening in my opinion. Still though, free booze.
Next up: a cooking demonstration I did for 18 female lawyers. Stay Tuned.
The reception was held at the Lake San Marcos Country Club (a place in northern San Diego county). The venue was nice, if not a little small. Since we were all instructed to head to the reception well ahead of the wedding party (so that they could take pictures), there was a lot of people just sort of sitting/standing around. After finding our seats (and by that I mean we all just sat wherever the hell we wanted to), I noticed something pretty cool. Each table had it's own mini-cake. But I'll get back to that later.
After 15 minutes or so, I noticed a line forming for what I can only assume was food. After waiting and sort of spying on what people were carrying, I noticed it was sort of a snack tray area. They had simple things like assorted cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit, and mango salsa (which ran out very quickly). Not wanting to wait in a long line for crackers, I just sort of surveyed the area and one of the servers of the event brought me a drink.
Did I mention they had an open bar?
First time I've ever actually encountered that. It wasn't a huge variety or anything (domestic beers, "well" liquors), but still, it was free, son. So I nursed my scotch and soda while I waited for the line to die down. Once it seemed relatively short, I got up to grab some snackage and I realized... it was all gone. They assured us more would be coming soon and indeed it did.
After snack time, they announced the new couple... and said the wrong names, which was pretty hilarious. After everyone was seated, dinner began:
Wedding food, how I love thee not. Now, while I can't complain since it was free, I will say that this wasn't the most refined or imaginative meal I've ever consumed. Still, I am a man of artistic integrity and honesty, so I feel it is my duty to recount all of the many culinary nuances.
First course (of 3) was a salad course. Caesar salad. Soggy, overdressed Caesar salad. A girl at my table had probably dozen croutons. I had zero. Not the best way to start out a meal.
Did I mention they had free booze?
The entree came next, which was chicken. Oven-roasted chicken breast, with a sort of "piccata" sauce. At least that's what I assumed it was trying to be. It had lemon and butter and capers. So I'm gonna go with piccata. There were steamed, mixed vegetables (that were actually cooked quite well, if not actually seasoned. I added a lot of salt to this entire dish). The final component of the dish was mashed potatoes... from a box. Delicious and classy.
Once again: free. booze.
Alright, remember those cakes I mentioned? Those were actually pretty bad ass. Each table had a cake that was probably about a foot by a foot by a foot and to up the cool factor, each cake was different, in both outward appearance and filling. There was probably a good 20 tables and I can't remember seeing any duplicates. That was a nice touch. Here's ours:
And instead of a big wedding cake, the bride and groom had a cake similar to the others, except slightly larger with bride and groom toppers.
They went with the whole "ball and chain" theme.
I'm not quite sure what their cake was (flavor-wise), but I'm assuming it was probably some sort of a neutral/vanilla white cake, judging from when they smashed it all over each others face. Ours was a strawberry cream, which was outstanding. Talking to some other guests there, there was mocha, more than 1 kind of chocolate, and some mixes involved as well. I tried to find out who made the cakes for about 15 minutes to no avail and I didn't think it was all that classy to ask the bride and groom while they were carrying on with their wedding business.
Cake was eaten, toasts were given, and then came the dancing portion of the evening, which brings me to the title of this post. These people really, really liked country music. A lot. They played nothing else. It was not the highlight of the evening in my opinion. Still though, free booze.
Next up: a cooking demonstration I did for 18 female lawyers. Stay Tuned.
Burger King strikes again
Apparently, this is a somewhat common phenomenon (kids drive around and mess with Burger King signs). Either way, it's still funny.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Gnocchi a la Thomas Keller AKA manna from Heaven
Last night I was up late. Really late. I suppose it ended up technically turning into early rather than late at some point. Anyway, when I'm up and can't sleep, I tend to do two things: clean and cook. Having cleaned my entire living room, dining room and kitchen and still not being tired, I decided to cook something.
"What should I cook?", I asked myself unnecessarily. Who asks themselves questions?
It dawned on me while flipping through my many tomes of culinary instruction: gnocchi.
Potato gnocchi, specifically. Gnocchi (or the singular gnoccho) means "lump" or "little lump" in Italian, depending on who you ask. Although in the past (mostly due to a prep job I had), I used to make gnocchi multiple times a week, it's probably been a good year since I've made any. I wanted to find a trusted recipe, something with credentials (not because I forgot how to make it, but moreso just to mix it up a little. I like to live on the edge, people). I looked through some internet recipes and I eventually decided upon a standard recipe by Mario Batali. Mario Batali is badass at Italian food, so why wouldn't a classic dish be equally badass?
Then something occurred to me: I own over 100 cookbooks and I rarely, if ever, make anything from them. Now, I'll admit I use them extensively to find inspiration and for ideas, but I almost never cook a recipe directly out of one of them. So I flipped through a few to see if any had gnocchi recipes and I happened upon my shiny, barely used copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. There are not many recipes in this cook that one can make without 3 days of prep, some grade A foie gras and an immersion circulator. This book is intense, but there are a few recipes that are pretty simple and relatively quick. Potato gnocchi is one such recipe.
Having decided what I was going to cook and how I was going to cook it, I set out to make said potato dumplings. The ingredients were simple: potatoes, eggs, flour, salt and a few specialized pieces of equipment (a ricer, board scraper). I won't chronicle what I did step-by-step (maybe in the future... plus there's the whole copyright issue and I can't afford to be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point in my life), but I will say two things. First off, these took a little over two hours to make, start to finish (more than half that time is cooking the potatoes). Secondly, let me just say that these gnocchi were awesome little fluffy pillows of culinary sexiness. Like I said, I didn't take pictures of the entire process, but if you want to see a detailed video (not mine, obviously) of the whole technique, Click Here.
They were easily the lightest, and dare I say "best," gnocchi I've ever made or even eaten. I'm thinking about making them en masse and shipping them to my friends and family.
Now according to the book, this recipe makes 20 dozen gnocchi. That's 240. That's a lot. Apparently, The French Laundry uses tiny gnocchi because I made maybe half that amount and mine weren't particularly gigantic. Even so, I can't really eat that many gnocchi at one time and everyone else in the house was sleeping, so I IQF'd the whole mess for later (a picture of which is at the top of this post). Gnocchi is one of those foods that can be frozen and re-heated fabulously without any real loss in quality.
You may notice that my gnocchi don't have the characteristic grooves often associated with potato gnocchi. Well, there's a good reason mine don't have them: I'm lazy. And plus they're pretty soft when they're fresh, so it was kind of a bitch trying roll each one on the tines of a fork (as I don't have a fancy $3 gnocchi board).
Number of times the word "gnocchi" appears in this post: 16, not including the text immediately proceeding this tally.
...something I forgot to mention (or, "the one criticism I have"): for every 2 pounds of potatoes, this recipes calls for 2 tablespoons of salt. I found this to be a bit much. I'd suggest cutting it back to maybe 1 tablespoon of salt and don't even bother salting the cooking water.
"What should I cook?", I asked myself unnecessarily. Who asks themselves questions?
It dawned on me while flipping through my many tomes of culinary instruction: gnocchi.
Potato gnocchi, specifically. Gnocchi (or the singular gnoccho) means "lump" or "little lump" in Italian, depending on who you ask. Although in the past (mostly due to a prep job I had), I used to make gnocchi multiple times a week, it's probably been a good year since I've made any. I wanted to find a trusted recipe, something with credentials (not because I forgot how to make it, but moreso just to mix it up a little. I like to live on the edge, people). I looked through some internet recipes and I eventually decided upon a standard recipe by Mario Batali. Mario Batali is badass at Italian food, so why wouldn't a classic dish be equally badass?
Then something occurred to me: I own over 100 cookbooks and I rarely, if ever, make anything from them. Now, I'll admit I use them extensively to find inspiration and for ideas, but I almost never cook a recipe directly out of one of them. So I flipped through a few to see if any had gnocchi recipes and I happened upon my shiny, barely used copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. There are not many recipes in this cook that one can make without 3 days of prep, some grade A foie gras and an immersion circulator. This book is intense, but there are a few recipes that are pretty simple and relatively quick. Potato gnocchi is one such recipe.
Having decided what I was going to cook and how I was going to cook it, I set out to make said potato dumplings. The ingredients were simple: potatoes, eggs, flour, salt and a few specialized pieces of equipment (a ricer, board scraper). I won't chronicle what I did step-by-step (maybe in the future... plus there's the whole copyright issue and I can't afford to be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point in my life), but I will say two things. First off, these took a little over two hours to make, start to finish (more than half that time is cooking the potatoes). Secondly, let me just say that these gnocchi were awesome little fluffy pillows of culinary sexiness. Like I said, I didn't take pictures of the entire process, but if you want to see a detailed video (not mine, obviously) of the whole technique, Click Here.
They were easily the lightest, and dare I say "best," gnocchi I've ever made or even eaten. I'm thinking about making them en masse and shipping them to my friends and family.
Now according to the book, this recipe makes 20 dozen gnocchi. That's 240. That's a lot. Apparently, The French Laundry uses tiny gnocchi because I made maybe half that amount and mine weren't particularly gigantic. Even so, I can't really eat that many gnocchi at one time and everyone else in the house was sleeping, so I IQF'd the whole mess for later (a picture of which is at the top of this post). Gnocchi is one of those foods that can be frozen and re-heated fabulously without any real loss in quality.
You may notice that my gnocchi don't have the characteristic grooves often associated with potato gnocchi. Well, there's a good reason mine don't have them: I'm lazy. And plus they're pretty soft when they're fresh, so it was kind of a bitch trying roll each one on the tines of a fork (as I don't have a fancy $3 gnocchi board).
Number of times the word "gnocchi" appears in this post: 16, not including the text immediately proceeding this tally.
...something I forgot to mention (or, "the one criticism I have"): for every 2 pounds of potatoes, this recipes calls for 2 tablespoons of salt. I found this to be a bit much. I'd suggest cutting it back to maybe 1 tablespoon of salt and don't even bother salting the cooking water.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Cooking Class #1 - Scallops
note: I apologize ahead of time for switching back and forth between "we" and "i" in this post.
Alright, so this isn't (or wasn't) a cooking "class" per se, but it was an... instructional exercise. Anyway, here's how it went down:
Every so often, a friend of mine wants to learn how to cook something. Basically, my friends are all greedy bastards and want to steal my over-priced culinary education that I SLAVED OVER FOR TWO LONG YEARS!! Er, sorry. What I meant to say is that they wish for me to share my vast culinary experience and knowledge with them, so as to improve their quality of life.
So, yeah. A few years ago, I showed a friend of mine how to properly pan-sear fish. After doing that for some time and becoming increasingly interested in making something a little different, he wanted to learn how to make sauces to accompany said pan-seared foodages. I wanted to try to showcase different flavor profiles, but utilizing the same protein. I also wanted it to be fairly easy, so that he would actually try and make them again. So we went to the grocery store and I told him to pick out a protein and we'd come up with a few preparations around it. His first pick was ground beef, but we ended mutually agreeing that we didn't want meatloaf two ways, so he decided to go with scallops. The store we were in didn't carry scallops for some reason, so we called around and found one that did. After coming up with a few base ideas for preparations in my head, we walked around and tried to get "inspired" with whatever the store had to offer. I was originally planning a dish with figs, but the store didn't have them fresh or dried, so I switched it up, since I realized that I could now get butternut squash. Butternut squash season, oh how I love thee.
We got the things we needed (supplemented with my pantry at home) and set up our two dishes. I decided to go with something a little "nicer" and something more rustic, once again to try and capitalize on the whole "duality" idea I had going. We ended up doing a duo of pan-seared scallops: one prep was with a raw corn salsa and a crispy julienne of corn tortilla, and the second was a roasted butternut squash puree, balsamic brown butter with crispy pancetta and a garnish of fuji apples. This is how we did it:
I started out by cleaning my entire kitchen top to bottom. Let me just say, when you decided to start any sort of cooking project, clean the crap out of your kitchen. Empty sink, empty trash can, empty dishwasher. It will save you infinite amounts of time and frustration.
After all that business was concluded, I got all my mise en place for the dishes and separated them into their respective preparations. I laid out the mise for the butternut squash prep first, because it was going to take longer, so I wanted to knock it out first. I laid out my scallops (coincidentally, I actually had some scallops already in my fridge, so that boosted what I had to work with), squash, apples, butter (both for the sauce and for the squash), lemon and balsamic reduction. Also, I forget to take a picture with the rest of it, but I pulled out some pancetta. The balsamic reduction was previously made, but I'll include the recipe with the rest of it. I wanted to start the puree as soon as possible, since that was easily going to be the longest cooking item on the menu.
We started off by peeling the squash, scooping out the seeds and roughly dicing it.
I tossed it with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and put it in a baking dish in a 350 degree oven.
Next I took the pancetta and did a medium-ish dice on that and put it in a saucepan with a little bit of water over medium heat. The reason for the water is that it allows the fat to render out of the meat without coloring/cooking/burning. The water slowly evaporates and then the meat fries in its own fat. Delicious.
I let that go and set my sights on the apple. We sliced it into slices on a Japanese mandolin then julienned the slices. To prevent it from browning before we assembled our plates and to add a hint of acidity, we put the apple in a bowl of water spiked with a wee bit of lemon juice.
Side note on oxidation: what prevents things like apples and avocados from browning? Ascorbic acid, which is found most easily in two sources: vitamin C and citrus juice. I don't feel the need to crush my vitamins and mix it into water, so I went with the lemon.
We put the apple in the fridge and set our attention on the pancetta once again. The water had evaporated and the meat was frying nicely. Once it was brown and crispy and delicious, we drained the fat (but didn't throw it away! oh no, we have plans for that deliciousness) and set the meat aside.
The nice thing about these dishes is that all of the prep could easily be done at least a day ahead of time without any discernible loss in quality. That said, next we did the sauce, which if you've been paying attention is a balsamic brown butter. We put the butter in a pan over medium heat and let it melt. Once it started to bubble and then the bubbling subsided, the solids that settled on the bottom of the pan started to brown. Once the solids were golden brown and the butter gave off a nutty aroma, we removed it from the heat, squeezed in a bit of lemon juice (warning: watch out for bubble-over and splattering - use a big enough pan and hold it at arms length when doing this) and set it aside.
The only thing left for this prep was the squash, and that was still roasting away, so we set up the mise en place for the other part of this dish:
We cut the tomatoes and onion (I had a shallot, so I used that) into a small dice, shaved the kernels of corn off the cob, roughly chopped the cilantro and sliced the lime in half and juiced it. All of this got tossed in a bowl with some salt, pepper and olive oil. At first taste it was a little acidic and I didn't think the onion flavor was pronounced as I would have liked, so I added a bit more shallot and then some salt to counteract the acidity. Yes, salt does that.
The finished salsa went into the fridge to marinate, and the only other component to this dish was the crispy tortilla strips. I poured the vegetable oil into a pan and heated it to about 350 degrees. Now, I'll be the first to admit I rarely use a thermometer when I deep-fry at home. I probably should. You definitely should. I can usually just test the oil and know when it's at the right temp. For those of you without thermometers, here's a few ways that tend to work fairly reliably:
-before you turn the heat on, place a small chunk of raw potato at the bottom of the pan. once it turns golden brown, it's right around the proper frying temperature.
-once your oil is heated, it should take a piece of bread about 15 seconds to become golden brown. if it does, you're right around 350.
Anyway, while the oil was heated, we cut a few tortillas in half (so we had half-circles), then sliced those width-wise into a fine julienne. You'll notice my lovely Italian-flag themed cutlery - people liked to steal things when I went to school, so most people marked their knives.
When the oil was ready, I put about half of the tortillas in and let them fry away. Once they were golden brown and crunchy, I removed them from the pan with a spider onto a plate lined with paper towels. Right after I took them out, I seasoned them with salt and pepper. I fried the second batch, then set the whole pile aside.
About this time, the squash was lightly browned on top and was cooked through. Let me just say that a lot of books and tv shows advocate using a pairing knife to test cooked vegetables for doneness. Knives are sharp. They cut through things. They can cut through an under-done vegetable. See where I'm going with this? I use a spoon, and it hasn't failed me yet. The squash went into my trusty food processor, along with a pinch of salt and about a tablespoon of butter. That's it. No nutmeg. No cream. Just butternut squash-y awesomeness. I let that puree for about 30 seconds, scraped down the sides of the bowl, then pureed for another 30 or so seconds. The end result is creamy and smooth and fantastic.
So all of our prep was done and waiting (and by this point it was like 10pm), so the last thing we had to do was cook the scallops. Generally, when one pan-sears something, they take a stainless steel pan (NOT non-stick), heat it over high or medium-high heat, add some fat, wait for the fat to smoke, then put the thing being seared in the pan. This time was no exception, except for one thing: usually the fat of choice is (at least in restaurants) an olive oil blend or clarified butter. Remember that pork fat we drained off before? Oh yes, we cooked our scallops in lots of porky goodness. All the scallops were on a plate so I cracked some pepper over the top and seasoned liberally with kosher salt and set to searing. Originally I planned to do the cooking in 2 smaller pans, half with oil and half with pork fat, but due to the fact that some of the scallops weren't in the best of shape and well, I'm lazy, I decided to just move it all into 1 big-ass pan so I could knock it all out at once and keep an eye on everything.
small pan:
big pan:
Just to reiterate, here's the rundown on pan-searing:
1. Heat a stainless steel pan big enough to hold your food without crowding over high heat.
2. Once it's reasonably hot (not super hot or the oil might burn instantly... I've seen it happen), add enough fat to the pan to create a shimmer across the entire bottom of the pan. Not enough to where your food is swimming in fat, though. That's called frying.
3. Pat your protein dry and season with whatever tickles your fancy.
4. As soon as the the fat starts to smoke, carefully lay the food in the pan, away from you so as to avoid splashing hot fat all over your face... I've seen that happen too.
5. Leave the food alone. Don't poke it. Don't shake the pan. Let the food get a nice crust. Remember folks, color equals flavor.
6. Once the bottom side is nicely browned, carefully flip it over to cook the other side.
7. If the food you're cooking is particularly thick, you can do 1 of 2 things here. You can turn the heat down once you flip your food. This will allow the heat to cook through to the center without burning the outside. Alternatively, once you flip the food, you can throw the whole she-bang into a hot oven (350 or so will do nicely) until it's cooked to your liking.
Alright, so our scallops are cooked, and by cooked, I mean nicely seared on the outside and more or less raw in the center. This is the only way to enjoy scallops. I'm pretty sure the French have some sort of law about this. They're serious about their food. All of our components are ready, so now we plate:
Dish one goes like this: We put a spoonful of squash puree on our plate, lay a couple scallops on top, then drizzle some brown butter over and around the scallops. Around the plate goes a little balsamic reduction and crispy pancetta pieces. On top of it all, we make a little nest of (drained) apple and that's all she wrote.
Dish two is a lot easier: Scallops, salsa, tortillas. Done.
Here's the final shot with both dishes together.
So that was the first of hopefully many cooking... demonstrations, if you will... to come. For those of you interested, here's the recipes for what we did. I made all of this up on the spot, so these will be rough guidelines.
Pan-seared diver scallops with butternut squash puree, balsamic brown butter, crispy pancetta and fuji apple
8-10 large diver sea scallops, preferably dry-packed
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil, vegetable oil, or reserved fat from pancetta
1 whole butternut squash
1 stick, plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 pound pancetta, proscuitto or bacon
1 fuji apple
1 lemon (squeezed, about 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon juice)
balsamic reduction:
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 tablespoon butter (optional)
combine vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and reduce over low heat until syrupy in consistency. do not allow the mixture to boil or it may burn. once reduced remove from heat and stir in butter, if using (this will give it a sheen and will give it a bit more unctuous mouthfeel).
Pan-seared diver scallops with raw corn salsa and crispy tortilla strips
8-10 large diver sea scallops, preferably dry-packed
1-2 large roma or heirloom tomatoes
1 medium to large shallot, or 1/2 small red onion
1 bunch cilantro
1 ear fresh corn in husk
juice of 1/2 lime
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
5 corn tortillas
vegetable oil, for frying
For instructions, just scroll back to the top and read this whole thing again. :D
Alright, so this isn't (or wasn't) a cooking "class" per se, but it was an... instructional exercise. Anyway, here's how it went down:
Every so often, a friend of mine wants to learn how to cook something. Basically, my friends are all greedy bastards and want to steal my over-priced culinary education that I SLAVED OVER FOR TWO LONG YEARS!! Er, sorry. What I meant to say is that they wish for me to share my vast culinary experience and knowledge with them, so as to improve their quality of life.
So, yeah. A few years ago, I showed a friend of mine how to properly pan-sear fish. After doing that for some time and becoming increasingly interested in making something a little different, he wanted to learn how to make sauces to accompany said pan-seared foodages. I wanted to try to showcase different flavor profiles, but utilizing the same protein. I also wanted it to be fairly easy, so that he would actually try and make them again. So we went to the grocery store and I told him to pick out a protein and we'd come up with a few preparations around it. His first pick was ground beef, but we ended mutually agreeing that we didn't want meatloaf two ways, so he decided to go with scallops. The store we were in didn't carry scallops for some reason, so we called around and found one that did. After coming up with a few base ideas for preparations in my head, we walked around and tried to get "inspired" with whatever the store had to offer. I was originally planning a dish with figs, but the store didn't have them fresh or dried, so I switched it up, since I realized that I could now get butternut squash. Butternut squash season, oh how I love thee.
We got the things we needed (supplemented with my pantry at home) and set up our two dishes. I decided to go with something a little "nicer" and something more rustic, once again to try and capitalize on the whole "duality" idea I had going. We ended up doing a duo of pan-seared scallops: one prep was with a raw corn salsa and a crispy julienne of corn tortilla, and the second was a roasted butternut squash puree, balsamic brown butter with crispy pancetta and a garnish of fuji apples. This is how we did it:
I started out by cleaning my entire kitchen top to bottom. Let me just say, when you decided to start any sort of cooking project, clean the crap out of your kitchen. Empty sink, empty trash can, empty dishwasher. It will save you infinite amounts of time and frustration.
After all that business was concluded, I got all my mise en place for the dishes and separated them into their respective preparations. I laid out the mise for the butternut squash prep first, because it was going to take longer, so I wanted to knock it out first. I laid out my scallops (coincidentally, I actually had some scallops already in my fridge, so that boosted what I had to work with), squash, apples, butter (both for the sauce and for the squash), lemon and balsamic reduction. Also, I forget to take a picture with the rest of it, but I pulled out some pancetta. The balsamic reduction was previously made, but I'll include the recipe with the rest of it. I wanted to start the puree as soon as possible, since that was easily going to be the longest cooking item on the menu.
We started off by peeling the squash, scooping out the seeds and roughly dicing it.
I tossed it with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and put it in a baking dish in a 350 degree oven.
Next I took the pancetta and did a medium-ish dice on that and put it in a saucepan with a little bit of water over medium heat. The reason for the water is that it allows the fat to render out of the meat without coloring/cooking/burning. The water slowly evaporates and then the meat fries in its own fat. Delicious.
I let that go and set my sights on the apple. We sliced it into slices on a Japanese mandolin then julienned the slices. To prevent it from browning before we assembled our plates and to add a hint of acidity, we put the apple in a bowl of water spiked with a wee bit of lemon juice.
Side note on oxidation: what prevents things like apples and avocados from browning? Ascorbic acid, which is found most easily in two sources: vitamin C and citrus juice. I don't feel the need to crush my vitamins and mix it into water, so I went with the lemon.
We put the apple in the fridge and set our attention on the pancetta once again. The water had evaporated and the meat was frying nicely. Once it was brown and crispy and delicious, we drained the fat (but didn't throw it away! oh no, we have plans for that deliciousness) and set the meat aside.
The nice thing about these dishes is that all of the prep could easily be done at least a day ahead of time without any discernible loss in quality. That said, next we did the sauce, which if you've been paying attention is a balsamic brown butter. We put the butter in a pan over medium heat and let it melt. Once it started to bubble and then the bubbling subsided, the solids that settled on the bottom of the pan started to brown. Once the solids were golden brown and the butter gave off a nutty aroma, we removed it from the heat, squeezed in a bit of lemon juice (warning: watch out for bubble-over and splattering - use a big enough pan and hold it at arms length when doing this) and set it aside.
The only thing left for this prep was the squash, and that was still roasting away, so we set up the mise en place for the other part of this dish:
We cut the tomatoes and onion (I had a shallot, so I used that) into a small dice, shaved the kernels of corn off the cob, roughly chopped the cilantro and sliced the lime in half and juiced it. All of this got tossed in a bowl with some salt, pepper and olive oil. At first taste it was a little acidic and I didn't think the onion flavor was pronounced as I would have liked, so I added a bit more shallot and then some salt to counteract the acidity. Yes, salt does that.
The finished salsa went into the fridge to marinate, and the only other component to this dish was the crispy tortilla strips. I poured the vegetable oil into a pan and heated it to about 350 degrees. Now, I'll be the first to admit I rarely use a thermometer when I deep-fry at home. I probably should. You definitely should. I can usually just test the oil and know when it's at the right temp. For those of you without thermometers, here's a few ways that tend to work fairly reliably:
-before you turn the heat on, place a small chunk of raw potato at the bottom of the pan. once it turns golden brown, it's right around the proper frying temperature.
-once your oil is heated, it should take a piece of bread about 15 seconds to become golden brown. if it does, you're right around 350.
Anyway, while the oil was heated, we cut a few tortillas in half (so we had half-circles), then sliced those width-wise into a fine julienne. You'll notice my lovely Italian-flag themed cutlery - people liked to steal things when I went to school, so most people marked their knives.
When the oil was ready, I put about half of the tortillas in and let them fry away. Once they were golden brown and crunchy, I removed them from the pan with a spider onto a plate lined with paper towels. Right after I took them out, I seasoned them with salt and pepper. I fried the second batch, then set the whole pile aside.
About this time, the squash was lightly browned on top and was cooked through. Let me just say that a lot of books and tv shows advocate using a pairing knife to test cooked vegetables for doneness. Knives are sharp. They cut through things. They can cut through an under-done vegetable. See where I'm going with this? I use a spoon, and it hasn't failed me yet. The squash went into my trusty food processor, along with a pinch of salt and about a tablespoon of butter. That's it. No nutmeg. No cream. Just butternut squash-y awesomeness. I let that puree for about 30 seconds, scraped down the sides of the bowl, then pureed for another 30 or so seconds. The end result is creamy and smooth and fantastic.
So all of our prep was done and waiting (and by this point it was like 10pm), so the last thing we had to do was cook the scallops. Generally, when one pan-sears something, they take a stainless steel pan (NOT non-stick), heat it over high or medium-high heat, add some fat, wait for the fat to smoke, then put the thing being seared in the pan. This time was no exception, except for one thing: usually the fat of choice is (at least in restaurants) an olive oil blend or clarified butter. Remember that pork fat we drained off before? Oh yes, we cooked our scallops in lots of porky goodness. All the scallops were on a plate so I cracked some pepper over the top and seasoned liberally with kosher salt and set to searing. Originally I planned to do the cooking in 2 smaller pans, half with oil and half with pork fat, but due to the fact that some of the scallops weren't in the best of shape and well, I'm lazy, I decided to just move it all into 1 big-ass pan so I could knock it all out at once and keep an eye on everything.
small pan:
big pan:
Just to reiterate, here's the rundown on pan-searing:
1. Heat a stainless steel pan big enough to hold your food without crowding over high heat.
2. Once it's reasonably hot (not super hot or the oil might burn instantly... I've seen it happen), add enough fat to the pan to create a shimmer across the entire bottom of the pan. Not enough to where your food is swimming in fat, though. That's called frying.
3. Pat your protein dry and season with whatever tickles your fancy.
4. As soon as the the fat starts to smoke, carefully lay the food in the pan, away from you so as to avoid splashing hot fat all over your face... I've seen that happen too.
5. Leave the food alone. Don't poke it. Don't shake the pan. Let the food get a nice crust. Remember folks, color equals flavor.
6. Once the bottom side is nicely browned, carefully flip it over to cook the other side.
7. If the food you're cooking is particularly thick, you can do 1 of 2 things here. You can turn the heat down once you flip your food. This will allow the heat to cook through to the center without burning the outside. Alternatively, once you flip the food, you can throw the whole she-bang into a hot oven (350 or so will do nicely) until it's cooked to your liking.
Alright, so our scallops are cooked, and by cooked, I mean nicely seared on the outside and more or less raw in the center. This is the only way to enjoy scallops. I'm pretty sure the French have some sort of law about this. They're serious about their food. All of our components are ready, so now we plate:
Dish one goes like this: We put a spoonful of squash puree on our plate, lay a couple scallops on top, then drizzle some brown butter over and around the scallops. Around the plate goes a little balsamic reduction and crispy pancetta pieces. On top of it all, we make a little nest of (drained) apple and that's all she wrote.
Dish two is a lot easier: Scallops, salsa, tortillas. Done.
Here's the final shot with both dishes together.
So that was the first of hopefully many cooking... demonstrations, if you will... to come. For those of you interested, here's the recipes for what we did. I made all of this up on the spot, so these will be rough guidelines.
Pan-seared diver scallops with butternut squash puree, balsamic brown butter, crispy pancetta and fuji apple
8-10 large diver sea scallops, preferably dry-packed
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil, vegetable oil, or reserved fat from pancetta
1 whole butternut squash
1 stick, plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 pound pancetta, proscuitto or bacon
1 fuji apple
1 lemon (squeezed, about 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon juice)
balsamic reduction:
1 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 tablespoon butter (optional)
combine vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and reduce over low heat until syrupy in consistency. do not allow the mixture to boil or it may burn. once reduced remove from heat and stir in butter, if using (this will give it a sheen and will give it a bit more unctuous mouthfeel).
Pan-seared diver scallops with raw corn salsa and crispy tortilla strips
8-10 large diver sea scallops, preferably dry-packed
1-2 large roma or heirloom tomatoes
1 medium to large shallot, or 1/2 small red onion
1 bunch cilantro
1 ear fresh corn in husk
juice of 1/2 lime
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
5 corn tortillas
vegetable oil, for frying
For instructions, just scroll back to the top and read this whole thing again. :D
Sunday, September 14, 2008
semi-quasi-mini-quick blog
So although I previously said I had no intention of doing so, I think I might want to start another, separate blog where I cook through a book, start to finish. The twist (if you can even call it that) is that it's not going to be anything fancy, anything seemingly impossible or anything revolutionary. I just want to find a book, a good book, and start cooking. I was thinking something like Think Like A Chef, Simple To Spectacular, or Amuse Bouche (or it can be a book I don't already own... as long as I can get it). Something people are familiar with, but nothing crazy like The Professional Chef or one of my random big books that are nothing but Italian or Thai classics. I'd really appreciate some ideas or comments (if anyone out there actually reads this thing).
Saturday, September 13, 2008
mmm. ribs.
So today is going to a be a 2-post day: prepare yourself. These will both be firsts (for this blog, that is). The first of which is a culinary adventure in the form of eating at a local San Diego eatery: Phil's BBQ. I went with a couple of friends of mine, but for the sake of anonymity and in order to attempt to be kind of funny, I shall call them Don Juan and Seankykong. It's a rare occasion that we all have the same day off, so we decided to take advantage of that fact by going out and eating some bad-ass barbecue.
Phil's is somewhat of a(n) SD institution. It has lines out the door all day, and the portions are more than generous. While it's not dirt cheap (it's not crazy expensive either), you definitely get your money's worth. We showed up around 3 and there was line out the door and around the corner of the building. I would have included a picture, but I didn't want anybody to attack me. Here's a picture of the inside as soon as you enter the building and the line splits into two sections: to-go/phone orders and dine-in. There's generally never anyone in the to-go section, as least as far as I've encountered.
Both outside and inside, there are multiple menus plastered all over the walls and hanging from the ceiling. It seems a bit excessive, but it really helps the line move more quickly. They don't have an extensive menu, but they have a number of different variations of what they do offer and this leads to a pretty long menu in the end (there's quite a few side dishes to choose from as well).
We really only had to wait 10-15 minutes, despite the length of the line, which I've found is pretty typical. In addition to our food, I got some food for my gf (to go) and the total came to right around $70, with drinks (for you math majors out there, that's less than $2o a person). I got a "full rib" baby back ribs dinner (yes, I'm a gluttonous bastard), as did Don Juan, while Seankykong went with the more waistline friendly "half rib" dinner. I figured I'd have some leftovers to take home, so the sheer amount of food I was about to receive didn't worry me as much as it could have. I've been here before, so I'm relatively familiar with the menu and while I think the ribs are fantastic, I'm not super gung-ho about most of the sides. Consequently, I got a large order of macaroni salad, inside of two small sides.
Don Juan got mac salad and fries (with ranch) and Seankykong got baked beans and potato salad.
As I'm sure you can assume, it was freakin' fantastic. We more or less all demolished our plates in a timely fashion, all while watching one of the many strategically placed flat-panel tvs strewn about the place (for those of you interested in that sort of thing, Perdue was playing Oregon. football. fun stuff).
Drinks and to-go boxes (along with silverware, wet-naps and other amenities) are pretty much all self-serve, but there's still a number of employees walking around, clearing dirty plates, wiping down tables and making sure customers are more or less comfortable. It's a fun atmosphere and the food's really, really good. They even sell their bbq sauce in jars and you can buy Phil's BBQ clothing. If you live in SD or if you ever visit for one reason or another, this is definitely a place you should check out.
Phil's BBQ
3750 Sports Arena Blvd
(at Hancock St)
San Diego, CA 92110 (619) 226-6333
www.philsbbq.net
Hours:
Tue-Thu 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Fri-Sat 11:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m.
Sun 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Closed Mondays
Hours:
Tue-Thu 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Fri-Sat 11:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m.
Sun 11:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Closed Mondays
The Alpha and the... Alpha.
Alright, so you're here. The question then beckons: why am I here?
The answer is actually quite simple. And by simple, I mean unnecessarily not simple. I like food. I like cooking food. I like reading about food. I like watching things concerning food. Food is more or less "my life", as it were.
Let's suspend this little tirade for a moment, shall we? Just for good measure, let us discuss who I am. I know you don't care, but hey... maybe you'll learn something (or waste valuable minutes of your life that you will never get back). So, my name is Mark, I'm a quarter century old and I am a cook. I cook a lot. I cook at work, I cook at home, I cook at other people's homes. It's what I do. My girlfriend says I'm "obsessed." I simply like to think of it as I'm a dedicated professional. What was I doing immediately before writing this blog? I was reading other food blogs and flipping through some cookbooks... yes, I'm a freak, but dammit, I likes me some food.
Back to the whole "why am i making a random blog about food when there's a million others out there already, most of which are probably more well made and have an actual point?" issue. I noticed while flipping through many of the food-related blogs out there that they all tend to have some sort of theme. There's one dedicated to the Bravo reality show Top Chef. There's one where the blog writer does nothing but make recipes from The French Laundry Cookbook. Now, even though these blogs are and will probably continue to be vastly superior to mine, this type of blog is not my intention. I just want to be able to write a bunch of random things about food. I want to learn new and exciting things, and then I can share them with you, the valuable reader.
So here's the plan: I'm going to eat at random places, both in San Diego and elsewhere. I'm going to cook food, both at home and at work. I'm going to teach classes on how to cook food. I might even have a guest blogger and/or cooker from time to time. I'm going to document all of these exciting adventures here, with as much full color, fancy photographic imagery as possible. Some may even be recaps of things past, because frankly, I don't get out a lot and I need to fill up space. That's the idea... let's all pray that it works. So formally and officially let me just say:
Greetings and Salutations, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get ready for some mind-blowing food-gasms.
Authors Note: Here is some random information I didn't think fit into all that stuff up there very smoothly, so I have presented it here in the form of helpful endnotes.
name: nargi
profession: cook, cooking class teacher, fun guy
where dost thou cook?: oceanaire seafood room, san diego wine & culinary center
education: art institute of california-san diego
"style": japanese, italian, new american, modern ("molecular gastronomy"... ugh)
location: san diego
age: 25
marital status: "single" for tax purposes, a girlfriend for other purposes
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure all of this stuff is in my profile... if you're interested. To make sure you come back, I've included a lovely picture of a cake I made (for the aforementioned girlfriend on her day of birth):
The answer is actually quite simple. And by simple, I mean unnecessarily not simple. I like food. I like cooking food. I like reading about food. I like watching things concerning food. Food is more or less "my life", as it were.
Let's suspend this little tirade for a moment, shall we? Just for good measure, let us discuss who I am. I know you don't care, but hey... maybe you'll learn something (or waste valuable minutes of your life that you will never get back). So, my name is Mark, I'm a quarter century old and I am a cook. I cook a lot. I cook at work, I cook at home, I cook at other people's homes. It's what I do. My girlfriend says I'm "obsessed." I simply like to think of it as I'm a dedicated professional. What was I doing immediately before writing this blog? I was reading other food blogs and flipping through some cookbooks... yes, I'm a freak, but dammit, I likes me some food.
Back to the whole "why am i making a random blog about food when there's a million others out there already, most of which are probably more well made and have an actual point?" issue. I noticed while flipping through many of the food-related blogs out there that they all tend to have some sort of theme. There's one dedicated to the Bravo reality show Top Chef. There's one where the blog writer does nothing but make recipes from The French Laundry Cookbook. Now, even though these blogs are and will probably continue to be vastly superior to mine, this type of blog is not my intention. I just want to be able to write a bunch of random things about food. I want to learn new and exciting things, and then I can share them with you, the valuable reader.
So here's the plan: I'm going to eat at random places, both in San Diego and elsewhere. I'm going to cook food, both at home and at work. I'm going to teach classes on how to cook food. I might even have a guest blogger and/or cooker from time to time. I'm going to document all of these exciting adventures here, with as much full color, fancy photographic imagery as possible. Some may even be recaps of things past, because frankly, I don't get out a lot and I need to fill up space. That's the idea... let's all pray that it works. So formally and officially let me just say:
Greetings and Salutations, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get ready for some mind-blowing food-gasms.
Authors Note: Here is some random information I didn't think fit into all that stuff up there very smoothly, so I have presented it here in the form of helpful endnotes.
name: nargi
profession: cook, cooking class teacher, fun guy
where dost thou cook?: oceanaire seafood room, san diego wine & culinary center
education: art institute of california-san diego
"style": japanese, italian, new american, modern ("molecular gastronomy"... ugh)
location: san diego
age: 25
marital status: "single" for tax purposes, a girlfriend for other purposes
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure all of this stuff is in my profile... if you're interested. To make sure you come back, I've included a lovely picture of a cake I made (for the aforementioned girlfriend on her day of birth):
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