Pan Roasted Duck Breast w/ Spicy Sunchoke Soup

Sort of a random experiment since I have limited experience with duck and am just looking for an excuse to cook with sunchokes. Found some Bell & Evans duck breasts at whole foods that looked good and low maintenance. For the duck, just started the breasts skin side down in a hot pan until the fat rendered and the skin crisped up.

Then, duck into the oven at 250 for 30 minutes (until an internal temperature of 165 is achieved). I added some thyme to the oven about 10 minutes in.

For the sunchoke soup, I thinly sliced about 3/4 pound of sunchokes leaving the skin on, then quickly sauteed in butter until they just started to sweat.

Then added 1 quart chicken broth, 1 clove of minced garlic, some cayenne, black pepper, and kosher salt. I simmered for 40 minutes then blitzed in a blender.

Return the puree to the pan and finish with a 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Season to taste, should be somewhat spicy on the finish, but not too much heat to cover up the beautiful sunchoke flavor.

This combination was simple, relatively quick, and the flavors worked together well. I took a few pictures I'll add soon.

Coming soon - Iron Chef Denver

This weekend my friend Eric from work and I are going head to head in a mini Iron Chef event, sort of the suburban Denver version. While he has dubbed it "Iron Chef Highlands Ranch" because he is a city boy from the trendy Highlands neighborhood and he thinks anything out south is in the HR sprawl. I'll call it Iron Chef Denver for the moment, maybe Iron Chef Suburbia would be more appropriate, but we're definitely not in highlands ranch. While the people at food network probably never intended this to happen, I think of events like this as the male equivalent of a cooking club. Guys don't join cooking clubs really, but guys can get away with doing the same thing you do in cooking clubs as long as there is some competitive element. Eric is looking forward to kicking my butt I'm sure, in any case it will be fun and hopefully we'll get some good food out of it for my wife and her girlfriend who will be the judges.

Rules still have to be worked out, but so far we've settled on a list of "secret ingredients" from which my wife (the chairwoman) can choose. Here's the list ...

fennel
shrimp
winter squash
rosemary
corn
garlic
bell peppers

More on this sometime this weekend, we'll see who can stand the heat in the kitchen, and if we both fold, there's always the pizza place down the street.

Second Home in Denver

Our friend Che is the Executive Chef at Second Home, a new restaurant opening next week (March 3rd) in the Cherry Creek JW Marriott Hotel. Che is a pretty cool and amazingly talented guy, and he was very gracious in extending us an invitation to the "soft opening" for friends and family. A soft opening is basically a trial run to get the staff tuned up for the real deal. Each party is given a randomized prefix menu to order from that, across all the guests, will give the team a real workout on all the dishes on the menu. It's also helps the waitstaff and managers work out the kinks in service. Here is a sneak peak of the menu (sorry, taken with my blackberry).



We had a great time and enjoyed some very good food. The menu is themed on home away from home cooking, and I'd characterize it as some Old and New American fare with some Italian and Asian flair. For our menu, we enjoyed the beer battered artichokes, white clam pizza, rotisserie chicken, miso glazed black cod, reverse rootbeer float, and the apple crisp. The menu is inventive and approachable. The food was very yummy, and we were very impressed by the artichokes and white clam pizza. The pizza was served with butter clams in shell, accompanied by some sea salt and red pepper flake, simply scrumptious. The staff was very friendly and attentive. I see very good things in the future for this place, it could quickly become a favorite haunt of cherry creek locals and visitors alike.

Hotel Food Sucks, Well Mostly

Is it me, or is the food in hotels sub par, and by sub par I mean like no better than Furr's Cafeteria. I recently was on a business trip with a wicked cold but my palette was still intact. I ordered room service from a fairly high end Hilton resort restaurant, my meal consisting of a "Prime" burger on brioche with tomato relish, and sauteed polenta with gorganzola. The burger was made with really poor quality beef (no way this was prime), overcooked, dry, and unseasoned. The brioche was nothing close to the real deal, verging more toward being an egg bun than anything. The "relish" was chopped tomatoes and a pickle, and the polenta was obviously cut from a precooked log, burnt on the edges, and covered in a very harsh mountain gorganzola, as opposed to gorganzola dolci. With a beer, the meal cost $38 + 20% mandatory gratuity + tax. I felt completely ripped off, just horrid. The only good thing to come of it was that it was so bad that I started thinking about how many bad meals I've had in hotels ... and really, almost every meal has been poor and barely making the grade as cafeteria food. Hilton has been consistently poor in quality and outrageously over priced. The only meals that were ok to good from Hilton were in Sri Lanka, where the Hilton basically is the only identifiable western hotel in Columbo, and about half of its six restaurants had decent food. Actually the food at the Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, Sri Lanka was good as well; Australian beef & lamb, french wine, etc. On my honeymoon in Aruba, we only ate one meal in the hotel and it was not good, though in general the restaurants in Aruba are exceptional for a beach vacation destination; I'll have to write about that sometime.

When I think about other restaurants in American hotels such as Westin, W, Hyatt, even The Four Seasons, there's only been a couple exceptions where I'd actually eat there again. Notably, Hotel Monaco, despite the sometimes gaudy interiors, generally has good restaurants inside of or closely affiliated with their hotels. Panzano in Denver is excellent, as is, by reputation, the restaurant run by Jan Birbaum inside the downtown Seattle Hotel Monaco. If anyone knows of any other hotel restaurant gems, let me know I'm all ears ... but until I get some good advice, I'm done with subjecting myself to crap hotel food unless I'm at a Kimpton / Hotel Monaco restaurant.

Recipes I Want to Try - February Edition

Here are a few I've run across that are on my list to try / experiment with...

• Maple Marcona Almond Bacon Brittle - hungrymag.com


• Sweet Potato Croquettes - hoasabi.com


• Twice Cooked Fennel - divinacucina.blogspot.com

Great Cooks Blogroll

I'm still pretty new to this blogging thing, and I'm not at all sure I'm any good at it yet, but I've entertained enough people who liked my cooking that I thought it might be fun to share some recipes, musings on technique, and just interesting or funny stuff I see in food culture. The site has been coming along and I've been looking for some ways to drive some traffic to it, when I came across the Great Cooks Blogroll. In addition to maintaining the Great Cooks Blogroll, Jill also has her own blog at SimpleDailyRecipes which features some really good eats. Just wanted to say a quick thank you to Jill for including me on this growing group of culinary minds. If you're a food blogger, you can sign up here.

2008 Golden Clog Award Nominees

So I just ran across a very funny "awards" list that Michael Ruhlman and Anthony Bourdain have conceived (yes just these guys). It's a brutally honest commentary on food culture that had me chuckling and occasionally cackling as I read it. Here's an excerpt of the 12 or 13 awards they're giving out ...

THE ALTON
For being on Food Network and yet, somehow managing to Not Suck

Nominees: Duff Goldman for Ace of Cakes--and for his relative low visibility and seeming lack of cooperation in the usual knuckleheaded FN Holiday co-branded clusterfucks; Ina Garten for actually cooking just about everything impeccably--and for (like Duff) being nearly invisible elsewhere on the Network; Giada diLaurentis for doing everything (but the food) wrong and yet....still cooking consistently better than she has to.

THE MARIO
For the chef/restaurateur who best multi-tasked, multi-platformed, merchandised, whored himself, or opened multi-units (either while impaired--or not) and yet STILL managed to protect the quality of the mothership--while continuing to make valuable contributions to the restaurant landscape

Nominees: Tom Collichio, Thomas Keller, Mario Batali

THE ROCCO
For worst career move

Nominees: Gordon Ramsay for the cruel and pointless freak show that is Hells Kitchen; David Burke for the "Hooters in a Hula skirt" non-charms of Hawaiian Tropic Zone in Times Square; Tyler Florence for Applebees, Applebees, Applebees


The full nominee list is on eater.
I really appreciate the dark humor here, kudos to Bourdain and Ruhlman for having the balls to say what most people who "get it" are thinking.

Bourdain in Cleveland

So it took two attempts in the last few months to watch Anthony Boudain's No Reservations episode in Cleveland. The episode starts with Bourdain meeting Michael Ruhlman and then eating at some chain restaurant where they eat something awful covered in cheese and chili, I don't have more details because I just couldn't bear to watch this part ... fast forward, next Tony is meeting up with this creepy comic book guy who was the subject of the movie "American Splendor", again they end up eating something that scared me, it kind of looked like perogies and was most certainly of Eastern European origin, but at this point I just was like ... ick, people eat weird crap in Cleveland, and I turned it off.

On the second attempt to watch this show, several months later, I tried to ignore everything from above as I tapped away on my computer and my wife watched the show. Then she asked me if maybe they'd have Michael Symon on there, to which I responded, "I don't think so, I've seen this one and the food was pretty scary as I remember". Then, moments later, Bourdain is talking about going to Lola, Symon's restaurant with the remaining living member of the Ramones. COOL! Symon brings out all kinds of interesting things, many revolving around his favorite meat (and Tony's too), PORK. After watching this, Crispy pigs ears actually sound pretty good to me. Tony then visits a German butcher, has a southern / eastern european fusion meal with Symon at some BBQ restaurant, and finally goes to a farmers market with Ruhlman. Bourdain and Ruhlman then cook up a feast at Ruhlman's house, including a pate made by Ruhlman and Cassoulet made by Bourdain. Looked like very good eats. So I guess on balance, Cleveland might have some good food, but it took watching it twice to get past the crap.

I'm not sure of all the history between Ruhlman and Bourdain, but they seem to give each other a fair bit of crap in good fun. Also, one of the funniest blogs I've ever read was posted by Bourdain as a guest on Ruhlman's blog. It is an irreverent assault on Food Network personalities.

Molecular Gastronomy / Micro Gastronomy

Another excerpt from my old food journal, this one on molecular gastronomy. Incidentally, the book that turned me onto this subject is "On Food and Cooking", which digs into the scientific underpinnings of numerous culinary techniques.

So this subject is an occasional curiosity for me, some samples of what this is all
about...

• Why Beer shouldn't come in clear bottles


• Beef can contain good fats


• The science of beating the tar out of egg whites


• Cooking with cooling hot water


• Food chemicals that can kill you


• Using fruit pectin as a foaming agent

Thanks to my friend Jeni for giving me Harold McGee's book and getting me
interested in the science of cooking, Thanks again Jeni!
http://books.google.com/books?id=iX05JaZXRz0C&dq=on+food+and+cooking&...

Pairing Aglianico

So I've been pondering a pairing for this wonderful caparone aglianico that a friend turned me onto ... anyway, played it safe and went for northern italian in the form of fettucine and bolognese ... great pairing, the aglianico's acid held up to the richness of the sauce and the austerity of the garlic was contrasted by the fruit-forward nature of this Californian take on an Italian grape. The wine is a must try for wine geeks ... sort of a very fruity valpolicella is the best analogy I can come up with ... This was a throw-it-together meal that turned out well, I had a splitting headache during the day but this was a welcome distraction from it.

Pasta Bolognese (quick version) - 45 min
2 large white onions small dice
2 carrots shaved
1 bulb (yes bulb) of garlic medium chop
2 tablespoons parsley
2 large cans of crushed tomatoes w/basil
1 cup aglianico
1 cup fresh beef broth
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
salt / pepper to taste
3/4 pound freshly minced beef (chuck roast is what I used)
1 lb fettucine

Inspired Minimalism

I think sometimes my wife thinks my cooking adventures in the kitchen favor complexity, though I might say while I have some eclectic and occasionally sophisticated tates, I also really do appreciate straightforward, simple and elegant flavors. Below is an excerpt from a food diary I was keeping before I took to blogging (Gastronomic Guesswork is my new food / cooking journal). Look for a few more old cooking journal excerpts in the future. Incidentally, after reading and re-reading the book Culinary Artistry mentioned below, I have to say there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from it, albeit conflicted wisdom.


So I'm trying to get off the shneid with cooking and get back in the
kitchen, so I've been reading some excerpts from culinary artistry ...

anyway, good book but it's basically a somewhat organized book of
chefs' opinions and nothing was standing out (other than some of the
egos) ... then suddenly there was this little piece quoting George
Germon telling a story about how he watched this little 5 year old
girl cook herself some tomato soup (using just tomatoes, butter, salt,
and cream) ... Germon was floored with how good the soup was with just
4 ingredients ... long story short, my little literary sojourn on
minimalist cooking got me off to sunflower market at 9:30 pm
tonight ... came back with two potatoes, one giant onion, some chives,
cream, and italian parsley ... and a few tomatoes ... by 10:30 i had
finished 2 minimalist soups that anybody could whip up in no-time (the
little girls tomato soup + chives, and a potato-onion-parsley soup),
ate a cup of each, and cleaned everything up, and they were darn
good ... wow, I can't believe how productive and fun that hour was....

thanks mr. germon for getting me excited about cooking again, I'm
looking forward to visiting al forno someday!!

Brasserie Julien in Paris

Back in October I was at a conference in Freiberg, Germany, and afterward I took the opportunity to spend a day in Paris which was about a 3 hours train trip away. For dinner I dined at Julien which is a throwback to turn of the century Paris. I enjoyed escargot in garlic butter, my favorite picholine olives, sinfully decadent Chateaubriand, and very nice Bordeaux. It's a visually and socially fun place with excellent food in the old tradition before cuisine nouveau. The wait staff are highly attentive, and the crowd is a lively mix of businessmen, locals, and counter-culture youth. Highly recommended!

Mizuna in Denver

Recently I was being recruited to a startup software company. As part of this, the CEO took my wife and I to Mizuna for dinner. While I've decided not to pursue the opportunity, I'm very grateful to them for their consideration and the wonderful meal. Mizuna is in my opinion the best restaurant in Colorado. I've eaten at a handful of Michelin 1 and 2 star restaurants in Europe, and I still believe this is the defining standard for cuisine worldwide. In my opinion, Mizuna is at least a 2 star Michelin restaurant. The chefs there are simply culinary geniuses, their creativity is without peer in Denver, and the technique is so good that Mizuna seems out of place in the Denver restaurant scene. I'm not dismissing the many good chefs and restaurants out there in Denver, but Mizuna is really operating on another plane, and could easily thrive in markets like New York or Los Angeles.

If you get the chance to go, please splurge on the Chef's tasting menu along with the accompanying wine pairings. This will provide you with a 6-7 course perspective on how good these chefs are. It's a bit of a splurge, but the tasting menu will be a very memorable adventure and a great value guaranteed.

In our latest trip, I didn't want to break the bank for this startup, so I avoided the tasting menu and chose the seared ostrich with sweet potatoe fries. My wife enjoyed a scrumptious beet and goat cheese tartlet, and shimp paella. Our dining companion started with the lobster mac & cheese with marscapone (the only signature dish for mizuna which rotates its entire menu every month), and also had the ostrich. The food was once again perfect and demonstrated to me how much I still have to learn as a cook and chef.

Casablanca Cafe in Fort Lauderdale

On a recent business trip I was lucky enough to stay within walking distance of a little place right off Fort Lauderdale beach that is worth a visit. Casablanca Cafe is a little place that seems very popular with locals and tourists alike. While their website claims they are a romantic place with piano bar, I found it to be very noisy and hectic. I just sat at the bar, had a beer and then enjoyed some great calamari with aioli and shaved scallions. I followed this up with the chili dusted scallops in an orange caramel sauce with crispy plantains and whipped herbed potatoes. The scallops were exceptionally fresh and massive, one of the six was as large as a petite filet mignon. While the ambiance was not attractive, the food was great. The bartenders were friendly despite being really overworked. I definitely would recommend this place to any weary traveler, but be prepared for a wait; as I left, the line outside stretched around the corner.

My Favorite Knife

So while my heart, in general, belongs to the Wusthof Classic line of knives because they fit my hand so damn well and are just so reliable, my NEW favorite knife is the 6" Shun utility knife. The shun is a razor blade, you could shave with it, really (ok well I haven't tried this, but maybe that's for another post). Its handle is either right or left handed like many Shun, the blade is a high carbon damascus steel, meaning it's got a beautiful wavy appearance from all the layers that have been successively folded atop one another. Well at least it LOOKS like damascus steel, technically damascus steel is a formula lost to the ages for the sharpest swords known to man, which many charlatans and artisanal knife makers have attempted to reproduce. Essentially, this knife is just really sharp, but somewhat frail at the same time. It will rust unlike my wusthofs, and it is a more brittle steel. What is great about this knife is the light weight, super thin bolster, and just all around precision you can get with it. I can mince garlic in a flash, slicing it nearly transparently thin on the first pass. Anyway, like any good knife, don't let it stay wet. I've got a very small nick on mine where a drop of water remained after my wife used it and didn't quite get it dry. With the amount of use it is getting, I can't imagine it will last more than 4 years, but apart from my 8" and 6" chef knife, all the other knifes are jealous of the attention it gets.

Roast Beast, Mashed Golden Yams, & Butter Poached Carrots

Sometimes the simple things make my day. Tonight my wife is out of town so the girls and I cooked up some good old American good eats, with a little twist.

Roast Beast
Keep it simple with a nice chuck roast, coat the top with kosher salt and black pepper and add a little olive oil. Roast uncovered for 15 minutes at 400F, removed from the over. Add a quartered white onion and throw in a few cloves of garlic. Cover and return to the oven at 275 (medium) to 325 (medium well) for an hour. Doesn't get much simpler than this, and the juices make the base for a fantastic gravy.

When you return the roast to oven, put in 3-4 golden yams to bake, resting on the oven rack. These are hard to screw up, typical cooking time is 40-60 minutes at 325-375. Skin should start to separate when they are ready. Peel the skins while still hot and mash, adding a little salt and milk or cream.

For the carrots, add just enough water to cover the bottom and 1 1/2 sticks of butter to a 3 qt saute pan. Add a bag of peeled baby carrots, a little salt, and a teaspoon of herbes de provence. Bring to a simmer on medium-high heat, cover and reduce heat to low. Keep an eye on it and remove the lid if it starts to boil, making sure that all the carrots are covered. Cook for 60-90 minutes until very tender. Remove the carrots with a slotted spoon. While this might sound like a really bad for you meal, keeping the temperature low and using butter locks in all the goodness of the carrots. Steaming is the normal way I cook carrots, but these little poached ones are amazing, my girls kept asking for more.

New Toys

For my birthday I got a couple really nice additions to my collection of tools and knives. Both were gifts I've wanted for a long time. First, I received a flexible boning knife. This will be so handy for fabricating meat and filleting fish. Second, I received a tapered pastry rolling pin. This thing is great for getting dough really thin and maintaining a near perfect circle, as the tapering allows you to rotate it very easily without lifting it up.

Lavender & Honey Pork Tenderloin, tuscan beans in pancetta cups, & bruschetta w/ porsciutto, tomato concasse & white balsamic foam

For the pork tenderloin, roast covered for 45-60 minutes at 400 covered, with 1 chopped onion, a tablespoon of blue lavendar flowers, a little sage & provencial herbs, salt / pepper, and olive oil. Just before the end, coat with alfalfa honey and remove the cover to glaze. Separately, saute some slices of granny smith apple in a tablespoon of butter until just starting to become tender and just slightly browning on the edges, coat with a couple tablespoons of the honey dripping from the pan. Serve slices of the pork over the apples and drizzle a little bit of the honey sauce over the pork.

To prepare the beans, roast thinly sliced rounds of pancetta at 400 in a little olive oil for about 10 minutes, turning once. The rounds will curl to form a small shallow bowl. Place some additional chopped pancetta in a saute pan and bring to a sizzle for 3 minutes, add a can of cannelini beans and some black pepper, reduce the heat to low and cover, cooking for about 10 minutes. Then add just enough water to coat the bottom of the pan and cook covered for another 10 minutes or so. Serve the beans in the pancetta bowls and garnish with fresh Italian (flat leaf) parsley. Drizzle a few drops of fine balsamic vinegar and serve.

The bruschetta was just something I dreamed up that turned out really well. I served this as an appetizer on valentines day. In a 400F oven, toast a few medium slices of Italian bread for 10-15 minutes after spraying these with olive oil. Place a slice of prosciutto on each crostini. Prepare a tomato concasse by seeding and chopping 4 medium vine ripened tomatoes, flash sauteeing the tomotoes with a little salt and a dash of sugar, in a little extra virgin olive oil. For the foam, blend cup of heavy cream with a 1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar and 1-2 tablespoons of finely grated parmegiano cheese. Whisk by hand or in a mixer until the foam becomes slightly airy. Add the concasse, slightly drained, and top with the foam. It's a sweet and fresh start with a lot of texture.

Chianti Restaurant in Denver

So my wife and I had dinner at one of our favorite little haunts recently. Chianti is a little Italian restaurant in a suburban strip mall. But don't be shy because of the surroundings, this place has some very authentic Italian cuisine. The carpaccio is a favorite to start, then we usually get a pasta dish each and split an entree, finishing with a salad. My standby favorites are the duck ravioli in gorganzola sauce and the vitello San Gimignano. I've been going there for many years now, and am always greeted by a waiter / manager who exchanges a few Italian phrases with me and always has an iteresting story and a joke. Chianti has received numerous local awards and is no longer our little secret, but on a weeknight, it's easy to get a table and the food is always fantastic. On balance, Chianti is one of the best authentic Italian restaurants in Colorado. It has a sister restaurant called Venice which is also very good, but Venice's service has been spotty and it's not as cozy, nor does it have my favorite waiter. Chianti brings me back to Tuscany with it's food and atmosphere. I remember asking once for Vin Santo, and our waiter pulled some out of his own stash to share with us since they didn't have it on the menu. Truly personal and very friendly service.

Tojo's Sushi in Vancouver

So after a couple tiring days of work in Vancouver, we finished our trip with a sushi dinner at Tojo's. I learned of Tojo's from Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" show a few weeks ago. Bourdain and Tojo are friends, so I figured that was good enough to prompt me to try the place out. Before embarking, several people commented on how this was the best place in Vancouver, a city which apparently boasts some of the best sushi on the west coast. One person even attributed the creation of the California Roll to Tojo. I have no idea if that's accurate, but this was the best Sushi I've ever had. Everything was artistically beautiful and exceptionally good eats, especially the fresh grated wasabi, something I've heard about but never come across to this point. It was really sweet and fruity, much less bitter and spicy than the wasabi I'm accustomed to (i.e. the powdered variety). At the end of the meal, Tojo was gracious enough to pose with us for a picture. After two fantastic meals, I can't wait to get back to Vancouver and explore this city to see what else it has to offer a foodie.

Five Sails Restaurant in Vancouver

After a marathon meeting here, our host treated us to a spectacular meal overlooking the harbor here in Vancouver. The Five Sails restaurant is apparently a very renowned venue, attaining 5 stars from AAA, and recognized as a Dirona Distinguished Restaurant of North America. Our meal was pre-fix with a few choices of appetizer and entree. I started with the PAN SEARED WEATHERVANE SCALLOP with port wine reduction & seared foie gras, sautéed baby spinach, & tangerine orange foam. For the entree I had the PRIME ALBERTA BEEF TENDERLOIN “ROSSINI” wrapped in double smoked bacon - truffle infused Madeira sauce, seared foie gras, sautéed Swiss chard & golden potato galette. For dessert we had the CHOCOLATE BLISS!, a silky chocolate mousse with hint of spice, red wine gelée, warm essence of chocolate & homemade ice cream. This was high cuisine, well prepared, beautifully presented. Five Sails was also host to a summit between President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin back in 1993. It's a spectacular venue with amazing food. I definitely got my fill of foie for a while.

Guajillo Rosemary Short Ribs w/ Blackberry Balsamic Gelee, Poached Sunchokes in Horseradish Creme, Roasted Carrots & Parsnips with Meyer Lemon

So my cooking time has been severely limited by my travel and work schedule, but took the time to cook on Sunday afternoon.

Guajillo Rosemary Short Ribs
2 lbs beef short ribs
3 tablespoons guajillo chile powder
2 red onions quartered
5 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons french thyme
1 1/2 quarts beef stock
salt to taste
Braise covered at 200-250 for 4 hours, keeping it at a simmer; reduce to 150 until ready to eat


Blackberry Basalmic Gelee
3 small shallots
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
sweat the shallots for 3-5 minutes
add 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (the cheap stuff)
reduce by 1/3
add 1/4 cup blackberry preserves (seedless)
stir to combine, remove from heat once it has gotten a little thicker than a gastrique (i.e. just barely taking on a sauce-like consistency)
reheat briefly when ready to eat, finish with a little freshly ground black pepper.

Sunchokes in Horseradish Cream
Poach 1 lb sunchokes with the skins removed in salted water over medium heat for 1 hour, keeping the heat below a simmer
In a mixer with a whisk, fluff 1 cup heavy cream with 2 tablespoons horseradish (the kind you find in the refrigerated section is best, should not contain eggs) and a pinch of salt. Place a base of the whipped cream on the plate and then place the sunchokes on top

Roasted Carrots & Parsnips with Meyer Lemon
So ideally find small organic carrots and parsnips, in this case I skinned the parsnips which were larger and not the carrots, lay these out whole on a cookie sheet with a dash of olive oil and salt, cover with meyer lemon slices.
Roast for 1 hour / until the meyer lemon and carrots start to show signs of caramelization.

Heirloom Pasta Fresca, Braised Tenderloin Head Roast, Currant Glazed Stuffed Dates

Found some nice heirloom cherry tomatoes and had a leftover head roast from Christmas, so decided to make use of these in last Sunday's dinner.

For the pasta I used an organic artisan linguine, roasted the heirlooms at 300F for about 30 minutes with a little salt and olive oil, sauteed some sweet yellow onions and then combined the two with a little crushed garlic. Finished with a little pasta water and warmed the combined pasta and sauce before serving.

For the roast, I seared this then braised it with a quart of beef stock (store bought, kitchen essentials), 3 chopped shallots, a tablespoon of kosher salt, and 2 teaspoons dried french thyme, cooking at 300 for about an hour.

For the dates, i sliced half way the length to open the tops up, stuffed them with some good hot italian dry sausage. Then I twice flambéed the dates with some Cassis Liqueur (black currant) after warming them in a bit sweet cream butter.

I'm not a sweet fan in general, but the dates paired wonderfully with a glass of Petit Sirah, while my wife actually found them to be too sweet (she wasn't partaking of wine that evening, which I think made all the difference).

I'm really glad we have a cooking hood as I think I've overcome any fear of the Flambe technique at this point, and find myself doing it once or twice a month to something.

Morimoto is nearly perfect

So in a recent episode of Iron Chef America, Chef Masaharu Morimoto came as close to perfection as you can scoring a 59 out of 60 possible points in battle Kampachi. I've only had Kampachi (or sometimes you'll see it as Kanpachi) as Sushi / Sashimi. I believe some people call it a "young yellowtail" but I think it's actually related to amberjack. One dish in particular that stood out was Morimoto's beautiful array of suaces with Kampachi tar tar in a beautiful presentation, the judges seemed semi-orgasmic after consuming this dish.

As an avid fan of the series, I have 3 favorites among the 5 recurring iron chefs for different reasons. What I most want to eat is the food of Mario Batali, the chef that is stylistically most similar to me is Michael Symon, and the chef who makes things that are totally amazing and foreign to me is Morimoto. To me Bobby Flay and Cat Cora are second tier, not criticizing, I really respect their cooking but there's definitely a step change in the talent between these two and my favorites, that's my opinion at least. A tale of the tape on all these chefs' performances on Iron Chef America demonstrates I might be all wet in my subjective assessment ...

Iron Chef	Specialty	Wins[2]	Loss	Ties	Total
Mario Batali	Italian	19	4	0	23
Bobby Flay	Southwestern	16	7	2	25
Cat Cora	Greek & Aegean	11	5	0	16
Masaharu Morimoto	Japanese	16	7	1	24
Michael Symon[3]	Mediterranean	2	0	0	2

That translates to the following winning percentages (using a hockey-like scoring system, 2 for a win, 1 for tie, 0 for a loss, with 2 points possible)...

Mario Batali 82.6%
Masaharu Morimoto 68.8%
Bobby Flay 68.0%
Cat Cora 64.7%
Michael Symon 100% (but only two battles so far, let's see how he's doing after 10)

Looking at this data, the step change is between the crowd and Batali, clearly one of the best chefs in America. A little while back I was lucky to see one the "Iron Chef - Battle of the Masters" episodes between Wolfgang Puck and Morimoto. I have a warm spot in my heart for Puck, his provencial roots in cooking and his unreal knife skills are probably the reason ... I remember watching him on "Cooking Class with Wolfgang Puck" and he routinely would be chopping a julienne of something while looking at the camera, crazy. Anyway, Morimoto was really impressive, but just had no chance against Puck who assembled one of the most incredible meals I can imagine in Battle Egg. I'd put Puck and Batali on the same tier professionally at this point, with Morimoto close behind. I think Symon might be in that top tier too some day.

Flying Fish Restaurant in Seattle

So on a recommendation from a friend who ate there 5 years ago, my wife and I visited Flying Fish for dinner on our trip to Seattle. Oh my, what a perfect meal from a truly amazing chef in Christine Keff. We started with the seared black cod w/ chestnut spaetzle in a basalmic sauce with pancetta. I can't say I seek out fusion cooking experiences in general, but this dish might make me change my mind. The balance and layered flavor harmony were quite remarkable, truly one of the most elegant dishes I've had in recent memory. We followed this up with the salt & pepper crab, which was rustic, messy, simple and scrumptious. The service was impeccable, the wine list strong. For dessert, coconut cake that I'm still hearing praise for from my wife a week later.

My wife loves dishes that have clean distinct flavors, and while I do enjoy great ingredients that a chef allows to speak for themselves with all but subtle enhancement, I zeal in finding harmonious, eclectic, and complex dishes. I think this is due in part to my love of cooking as when I eat something like the black cod, I recognize the experience, hard work, artistry, and technical talent that's required to come up with something so good it's almost impossible to improve upon the impression it leaves to linger on your senses. I really got goosebumps as I enjoyed the black cod and contemplated how many other dishes she had to cook before this chef could achieve this composition. I can only conclude she is a magician with pasta and flavors.