Just by chance, today I caught the first episode of the new Food Network show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. The star is Anne Burrel, who's the whimsical sous chef to Mario Batali on Iron Chef America. It was totally unpretentious, insightful, and fun. Anne is really likable funny gal who knows a heck of a lot about cooking. The first show she covered bolognese sauce and I have to say I learned something for sure, browning mirepoix, who knew?
I like her transparency and how she dishes on the inner workings of a restaurant, like how there's a lot of salt compared to what we might see on other cooking shows ... you have to season your food. I've definitely adapted my style in this area, it's not about oversalting anything, but being opportunistic about when you season and doing it enough. I'm looking forward to the next episode as I'm a total donkey with lamb shoulder.
Kudos to Food Network for putting out a new product that speaks to me, and probably a lot of other foodies and home chefs out there.
Gastronomic Guesswork ... yah this is my blog, my culinary journal, the record of my successes and failures in the kitchen ... 97 posts, 50 Recipes so far ... a good ratio I think ... So I'm still figuring out what this blogging thing is all about. This blog has thus far been about cooking adventures, frequent experimentation, some interesting things going on in the culinary world, and a few rants. After a little over 6 months, I've accumulated 50 recipes ... When I think about it, I'm kind of proud to have put out that many different things ... not everything has been completely successful, but there's some really good food in there ... the remarkable / lucky part of this is that most of these are inspired things I haven't cooked before, more often than not these are just conceived on my feet at the store ... the inspirations come from all manner of media: blogs, magazines, books, tv, a memory ... sometimes there's a spin on something else I've seen, sometimes I'm dancing on the wire without a net ... all of it though is a labor of love, I like cooking and learning about cooking, and really like entertaining friends and family ... anyway, thanks to all you (friends, family, the curious gastronomes, and the simply curious) for reading! ... with a couple new mandolines in hand, I'm looking forward to lots more gastronomic guesswork.
So my twins love to dip things, so I crafted my meal concept around giving them some dipping options and also thought it was a good excuse for doing some gastronomic guesswork with multiple sauces. I used center cut pork chops which were coated on one side with chopped shallots, a liberal amount of guajillo powdered chiles, and kosher salt. These rested at room temperature for 90 minutes.
The mango chutney was intended to be a medium for a new chile / hot pepper I'm experimenting with, called urfa (also known as the Isot Pepper) which has a smoky, caramel raisin flavor with a late attack of heat. Like good wine, I'm finding that chiles have different moments where their flavors present themselves, but the same is true of their heat. Guajillo has an immediate and slow prolonged heat of lower to moderate intensity. The urfa chile is fruity like ancho but really evokes a caramelized earthy note, and the heats late attack plays very interestingly with the guajillo ... its like the burn comes soft & slow, soft and slow, getting a lot hotter, ooh that's pretty hot, smokey and fruit still there but heat fading, soft and slow... It's like the two of them together tease you into thinking there's not a lot of heat, but then scares you like you've got something really hot in your mouth, but then it gently fades without quite reaching raw jalepeno hot.
Anyway, the mango chutney was composed of the peeled flesh of 2 mangoes that were run through a few pulses in the blender to achieve a slightly chunky but wet consistency. To this I added some finely chopped scalions and the urfa chile flakes, a dash of sea salt, then served this at room temperature.
The cilantro cream was just 1/2 a bunch of cilantro, 1 cup of lite sour cream, a little sea salt, and a few splashes of high quality sherry vinegar. The vinegar should just be a background note, which play very well with the cilantro. I blended this on frappe to give it an airy consistency and refrigerated until ready to serve.
For the kiwi lime foam, I blended 4 peeled kiwis with the juice of 3 limes briefly to just liquify. Then strained and added crytaline fructose, a pinch of kosher salt. I then blended with a little bit of lecithin granules to emulsify in some air ... really I was going for an "air" here, but wasn't able to find a good mix of lecithin that would produce the textural results. Rather than ruin the flavor by overdoing the emulsifying agent, I settled for a loose foam.
The three sauce were all successful in flavor, and I'll keep working on that last foam to get the texture right. The cilantro cream seems to be very versatile for other applications, simple and scrumptious. The mango chutney stole the show for me, that urfa is something I'll have to experiment with a lot more, very interesting flavor. The pork chops were served with onion rings and broccoli. The onion rings were a good idea, as these were also fun for my kids to dip.
A trip to the farmer's market last week yield some artisan fruit pasta, flavored with lime, tangerine and plum. I thought this would be a fun treat for our girls lunch and decided to keep the theme with a warm coulis of Peaches and Strawberries.
To balance this out, I braised some cipollinis with a little sherry vinegar and a little smoked paprika. A healthy dessert-like lunch to be sure, my fruit lover devoured this like it was ice cream.
For the coulis, I blended 4 peeled peaches and 1/2 lb of strawberries, strained, and then warmed the mixture with a little crystaline fructose and a touch of salt. The cipollinis were roasted for 10 minutes in a little olive oil and sea salt, then a few splashes of the sherry vinegar were added and the little onions were covered and braised at 350F for another 10 minutes.
Although I'm more of a savory guy, this was a fairly healthy and yummy dish, not too sweet, very fruity and different. The acid from the onions was a nice contrasting note to this light lunch.
Cafe Juanita is a tour de force in haute cuisine. Simply amazing food and service. The extraordinarily personable staff is nearly without rival. The only service that compares is my experience at Ristorante Bitone in Bologna, Italy, wherein the Chef / Owner spent at least 30 minutes at our table, cooked multiple off-menu items for our indulgence, and sent us home with a bottle of his family estate's wine ... tough to top that in a lifetime.
Chef Holly Smith bedazzled me with scrumptious food fare. I had started at purple that night on a business trip and was fortunate to grab a 9:00pm reservation on a Thursday table at the newly annointed James Beard Best Chef in the Northwest winner's restaurant. My intent was to explore her version of Northern Italian high cuisine by sampling what I perceived to be her signature and seasonal specialty dishes. I was soooo not disappointed.
To start, I enjoyed the singularly most incredible and peerless representation of foie gras I've had in my gastronomic lifetime. What incredible pleasure, almost sinful, that Holly's foie gras with coco nibs, rubarb chutney, and candied ginger brought me. When I told my gastronomic cohort Alan about this dish, he instantly asked about it being over constructed. So too was my thought when I read it on the menu ... coco nibs, how could she possibly make that work.... well I must say that nothing compares to this dish.... nothing. I have not eaten anything so well conceived in a single dish at any restaurant, Michelin rated or otherwise. I heard from my incomparable waiter that the rich and famous come from all parts of the west coast seeking this foie, and I now understand why.
I followed this transcendently gluttonous concoction with another starter, veal sweetbreads, morels, pancetta, and fava beans. The seasonality of favas had escaped my timing on this one and peas were substituted ... an accomplished dish, but humbled by the imposing shadow of the foie gras.
Next, I enjoyed a seasonal Parmagiano Reggiano soup with shaved Wagyu Beef. Incredibly delicate, well conceived, and intrinsically Northern Italian.
Finally, I savored another seasonal variation with the fresh porcini en Tagliatelle. Again, another very great dish, but the simplicity was somewhat envious of the the straightforward but complex soup that preceded it.
In sum total, Holly Smith and Cafe Juanita left me with one of the three best meals of my short and somewhat gastronomically educated life. I'd only place Bitone (Bologna) and Mizuna (Denver) in this elite company.
Without a doubt, Cafe Juanita represents an excellent example of destination-worthy cuisine that should command 2-3 Michelin stars.
What a happy place Boka is in Southwest downtown Seattle. The food was semi-pretentious but solid. The drinks, worth a trip if you're in the neighborhood. We enjoyed the Boka poke, short rib sliders, wagyu burgers, and mac & cheese from the Urban Bites menu. Very upscale bar food that delivered satisfaction and value.
Boka is a good place to hang out and enjoy a grapefruit mojito, some urban bites, and do some people watching. Fun times for travelers for sure.
So the caveat to this one is the previous night was spent at Cafe Juanita enjoying one of the three best meals of my short life.
Restaurant Zoe has some buzz in the Belltown district on the Northern end of downtown Seattle. Frankly, I found the buzz to be undeserved. This was style over substance with high price tags and a hip venue. For the nouveau riche, a perfect abode.
My business companion and I sampled the cold fois gras palmex foie gras torchon and the kurobuta pork belly confit . The fois gras was sold to us by our waiter as being much like pate, but the reality was that it was like eating a disjoint stick of butter and some crunchy bits. The fois gras portion was generous, but the preparation was ill conceived.
The pork belly was no longer pork belly, and instead we were given an rib of pork meat that in no way told me it was confit of any manner. While flavorful, I felt gypped, pork belly was the draw here and we got something else.
We ended the pain quickly and set off to Boka to rescue a failed culinary adventure. Zoe has good intent, but needs to be imbued with a bit of culinary wisdom before I shall return.
If you don't know who Chris Cosentino is and you're a foodie, you need to get to know this guy. He was a finalist in The Next Iron Chef, a competitor against Mario Batali on Iron Chef America battle Garlic, and he's a great chef and food activist on his food blog Offal Good. He was also interviewed by Chow and the video was nominated for a James Beard award. Chris is an open book, at first maybe a lot to take for some, but I really like the guy's passion for cooking and food. He's in your face and is out there challenging the crap he sees with the USDA, PETA, and meat processing plants. Basically, if you eat meat, Chris will tell you some things you might want to know about what you're putting in your mouth.
Rising Star Chef - Gavin Kaysen (Café Boulud, NYC)
Best Chef Northwest - Holly Smith, Cafe Juanita, Kirkland, WA
Best Chef Southwest - Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, Frasca Food and Wine, Boulder, CO
I recently was privileged to eat at Cafe Juanita and will post about it soon ... IN-CRAY-EEEE-BLAY!! The Meat Book is on my wishlist, he's the guy that Gordon Ramsay consults with on rearing animals in his back yard on the BBC program "The F Word" ... smart cat, apparently the book is half cookbook, half reference on animal husbandry. I was psyched for Achatz and Kaysen, and will finally have to check out the buzz on Frasca.
Had some special guests in town for work who we entertained this week. They had a long trip from Vancouver and had been such great hosts to us on our trip, I wanted to make sure they were well taken care of in Denver. We ended up at Brooks who was able to accomodate a last minute reservation for 8, luckily it was a Monday night. It had been a few years since I'd eaten there, but I consider it one of the best steakhouses I've ever eaten at. The ambiance is a little old boys club, but the food and service is usually excellent. In our party, we started with appetizers such as seared ahi, escargot, crab cakes, and coconut shrimp. The standouts were the escargot and ahi, both very fresh and well seasoned. For entree, several of us enjoyed the beef filet "Oscar Style", which was a generous 14oz tenderloin portion topped with fresh king crab leg and hollandaise. This is the dish I think of when I think Brooks, certainly a signature dish they've built their great reputation upon. Others enjoyed the Ahi steak, surf and turf with lobster, and lamb chops. The lobster was great, but the lamb was astoundingly good. We were like little kids, grown men trading portions of food with one another. Everything was sooo good we didn't care about formality. Our meals were complemented with Turley Old Vine Zinfandel (a classic Zin producer with a reputation for a breadth of incarnations of zin) which was subtle for a zin and blanced, somewhat reminiscent of a fruit-forward pinot noir; really elegant. Next we enjoyed the La Mission from Lalande de Pomerol region of Bordeaux. This is one of my favorite basic Bordeux regions, a right bank wine that has Merlot as the identifying grape. What makes this region great to me is the very unique terroir. It's definitely got some barnyard going on, musty straw, just an earthiness I'd more closely associate with vintages from Provence, or Mourvedre varietals.
This was a feast that I think helped welcome our guests, Brooks only further solidified its place on my short list of great restaurants in Denver. Certainly I'd place it in the top tier of steakhouses I've eaten at anywhere, at least a tier above the more meat and potatoes driven Del Frisco's, and several rungs above Morton's (which won't be seeing any more of my business).
When cooking started taking on an importance to me greater than basic sustenance, I went out and bought a wusthof knife set and block. If I had to do it over again I'd probable piece together a set from multiple manufacturers, but I am very happy with the performance of wusthof; their knives are sturdy, balanced and fit my hand great. Henckels is one I'd avoid in the future, I have a couple from them but think the quality is at least a tier below wusthof. Anyway, this trip down memory lane is leading to how getting good knives eventually meant using them, and over a period of 8 years, learning to use them well. I remember first opening that box and pulling out the 8" chef's knife, feeling the laser sharpened edge, and thinking "holy crap, I could definitely lose a finger with this". I was more than a little scared, but I fumbled my way around with them for the first year and gradually gained a little confidence after slicing my finger, thumb, etc about a dozen times. The accidents lessened with time, pain is a great teacher. Anyway, after 2 or 3 years of this I realized I was a total donkey with using these knives still and decided to learn how to use them a little better. I watched a cooking show here and there anyway so just started being more attentive with how the people on TV used a knife. What I found was that many of the cooks, not so much chefs, really weren't much better than me with a knife. But I thought "certainly there has to be some technique to this". I looked online and found a few sites with some basic pictures of different cutting techniques. I started with the onion, one of the most essential base ingredients in cuisine to street food around the world. Dicing, that would be the first technique I took on, but I really didn't do it well, I was slow and sliced my finger on the first go, and the second. What the heck was I doing wrong? Well the task lost its appeal for months, but eventually I became determined to get better. I started watching more closely how chefs did this on TV, and figured out a few tricks. The most basic of which was using the onion root to hold the thing together during chopping. Still I couldn't quite get the whole technique of keeping my hand holding the onion out of the way and moving fast. Well after purchasing a book from the culinary institute of America on knife skills, watching many more chefs chop onions, and a lot of practice, I think I've got it down pretty well. I'll never be able to do things like Wolfgang Puck, who can watch the camera while mincing onion, garlic, whatever ... I'm sure he could do such tasks blindfolded just as easily, but as I was pulverizing some white onion for guacamole tonight, I thought how I wished someone would have just given me a really good example of how to do it so I could have saved all that time.
After digging into youtube for "extreme knife skills", I found this example of chopping an onion...
The first part of the video demonstrates the elegance of movement you develop with a lot of experience. The basic technique here is slicing through the top, then the middle, then chopping. So my opinion here is the angling of the knife is inefficient and somewhat dangerous, though someone with a lot of practice can pull this technique off I'd say don't do it this way.
The next example I found was more basic, not as flashy and impressive, but utilitarian and approachable for the newcomer.
Another, which actually demonstrates really bad technique, but the speed of the knife is fast. I think this really illustrates that even if you're doing it wrong, you can do it fast, but you have to really buy into feeling the knife and guiding it with your non-chopping hand with fingers folded under (the knife slides its back 2/3rds of girth over your fingers between the second and third knuckle.
While this next one doesn't show a dice, this is a demonstration by Hung (winner of Top Chef season three). He's pretty much badass with a knife; notice that he mentions how 90% of his knife work is with one knife; makes you think do I really need that set of 8 knives? If you want to emulate someone, you could do a lot worse than this guy.
The closest to the technique I use which I could find on youtube was this one. The only difference between how I do it and this is that I make the lateral cuts into the onion first, then the vertical slices, then chop. Also, one thing not clear in any of these videos is what they are doing with the root. My recommendation is slice off the top of an unpealed onion, halve through the root (leaving the root intact), then lateral, vertical, chop. Your cuts should not penetrate the root, there will be a slight bit of waste, but nothing more than what you'd lose if you chopped the root off at the beginning. This makes everything stay in place much better and you can go really fast. I'm not as fast as Hung or Wolfgang, but I'm not too far behind, so if you want to become automatic with chopping an onion, bookmark this post and that last video and don't do what the guy in the first video does unless you like bandages, gauze, emergency rooms ...
One parting note, get a forged blade if you're serious about going fast. Don't use a stamped blade, dull blade, or forged blade without a full tang. Stamped blades are generally not well balanced and the knife can bounce or slip on you easily. You will cut yourself at some point, cuts with sharp blades heal more quickly than dull, if you don't believe me, imagine how many stitches you'd need if you took a wood saw to the back of your finger versus a sharp blade; you're much more likely to end up with hamburger with the former. Forged blades generally have a full tang, meaning the but of the blade metal goes into the handle. This helps to make the knife balance in the hand appropriate to the tasks it is suited for, but again, if there's only a partial tang you will slip, balance is never the same in my experience, even if it's perimeter weighted. Happy chopping!
For father's day, my wife got me the French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller. After spending an hour going through this, I am stunned at the level of technique that Keller brings to the table. The pictures and dishes are nothing short of food ecstacy, some going well beyond the point of practicality for the most ambitious home chef. However, there is some amazing depth of experience in some relatively simple techniques. This will surely lead me to many experiments and a great deal of learning in the near future. Expect to see more posts on technique and some gastronomic guesswork gone good and bad.
Mint and Lamb, well no duh. A little different than mint jelly though as my wife really dislikes the texture of jelly. I rubbed the lamb with chopped shallots, garlic, salt, and marinated at room temperature with a little sherry vinegar for an hour. For the mint, I rehydrated a bag of mint in 2 cups of boiling water, and strained. After marinating, I quickly sauteed both sides of the lamb chops. Then I balanced each chop on the bone, added the mint essence, covered the casserole pan, and placed it into a 400F oven for 15 minutes. I plated the lamb with a little of the mint jus. I'll have to play around more with lamb and mint, but I think here that the essence was intense enough that it would have been overpowering if I braised the lamb directly in it, rather than letting it mostly steam in it.
For the yellow carrot puree, I steamed the carrots until just fork tender. I then blended these with cream, a few pinches of dried ginger, a few pinches of sweet smoked paprika, and some sea salt.
The rapini was steamed for about 8 minutes. I garnished with garlic chips, which were quickly fried in a 1/4" of hot olive oil for about 45 seconds.
The rapini and garlic was very bitter, intentionally so. This was offset by the sweetness of the puree, which some might find too sweet on its own. The lamb was good, not spectacular, but particular interesting on this plate as the protein was the most delicately flavored feature. The mint was subtle, then the rapini was exhilarating and domineerin, and finally the puree brought everything to equilibrium and a happy ending.
In last week's Iron Chef America battle between Bobby Flay and Bob Iacovone (from New Orleans), Alton Brown and myself were both surprised to learn of a little sauce that apparently is a New Orleans classic. It's not the BBQ sauce you buy at the store by any means. Essentially, it's a steeped and reduced mix of garlic, rosemary, worcestshire and lemon juice. For my version, I substitued freshly squeezed lime juice. Attempting the sauce was total guesswork based on the few seconds that food network showed the challenger Iacone's sous chef making it. I used 8 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped, 4 sprigs of rosemary leaves (fairly woody stems) chopped very finely, a few good splashes of worcestshire, the juice of 2 limes, and some water to keep the mixture steeping rather than sauteing.
The pork chops were sauteed in olive oil after being brined in water, salt, and sugar. The sauce turned out great, my wife remarked "that's a keeper".
Too bad for Chef Iacone, but he was bested by Flay. I thought Flay did really well in this battle, but I thought the scoring from the judges was wacky, as Iacone's plating was pretty interesting, but netted some negative comments from Andrew Knowlton and fairly poor scores in an otherwise close battle. I really like Knowlton, he's a heady and talented food critic obviously, to be at the helm of Bon Appétit, but in this instance I think he was showing some Steingarten-esque curmudgeon-liness. Still, hope to see more of Knowlton judging ICA in the future.
When I think white beans, I usually think cannellini or great northern beans and tuscan bean soup, well all Italian anyway. In the past (like 4 or 5 years ago) I remember cooking a soup that was plated with a divider, on one side a black bean soup, on the other a white bean soup. I'll try to remember the recipe as it was very good and visually enticing, but what I do remember is that these were Mexican flavors. So I decided to guess at what a mexican white bean dip could be. In most white bean dips and hummus, lemon juice is a principal ingredient, so I started by thinking I could use limes for a mexican version. It had to have a little spice, so I settled on a contrast between ancho and chipotle.
- juice of 2-3 limes - 2 cans of organic great northern beans, rinsed and strained - 1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder - 2 dashes of chipotle flavored tabasco - 2-3 tablespoons olive oil - sea salt - sliced scallions for garnish - celery cut on a bias into 1 1/2" dipping apparatuses / apparati (kind of going for the parallelogram version of the golden rectangle as I thought this would be pleasing to the eye) ... obviously the kindageeky pseudonym is apropos - all the definition links are for you Sa1amander ;-)
The only trick is balancing the acidity of the lime and the salt. Blend everything (adding a little water to help emulsify the oil), plate, garnish and enjoy.
My love for cooking, quality ingredients, and eclectic flavor compositions is something I hope to pass on to my daughters. I decided shortly after they were born that I would endeavor to create two pasta dishes that were standouts in flavor and uniqueness, but mostly two dishes that were good enough to bear their names. While Pasta Genevieve was discovered about 6 months into the lives of our twins, Pasta Charlotte would not come so easily. After 2+ years of experimentation, I give you Pasta Charlotte.
- 1 quart organic free range chicken broth - 1/2 large white onion, medium dice - 3 celery stalks, finely chopped - 3 cloves of garlic, minced - 1/2 cup fresh sugar snap peas (painstakingly separated from 1/2 lb of pods) - 6 thin slices of high quality prosciutto, sliced into 1 1/2" x 1/4" strips - 8 oz can of Organic Muir Glen tomato sauce - 1/2-3/4 cup of heavy cream - smooth ziti dried pata
In a large saute pan, bring the chicken broth to a simmer. Add the onion and celery and reduce by half. Add the garlic and reduce by 3/4; so the net of all this should be 1/2 cup of very intensely flavored liquid (7/8ths total reduction from the quart of broth). Strain the reduction. Stir in the tomato sauce and cream. Drizzle the cooked ziti (al dente, cooked in slightly salted water) with the sauce. Layer on several strips of the prosciutto and top with the fresh peas (uncooked). The combination of peas and prosciutto is not new, but leaving the peas raw was a revelation in fresh flavor, it completely evoked spring to me. The key to the sauce is using organic tomatoes, something you really trust, and only warming it with the reduction, then softening the intensity with the cream. I'll say it again, I've made dozens of tomato cream sauces, but this was really a revelation, this is an instantpersonal classic. The best part ...Charlotte loved it too!
As a kid I hated cauliflower & broccoli, probably because I hardly ever had it, the only time I did it was at my grandma's house, it was boiled to mush and coated in campbell's cheese soup ... bleckkk! Well since then, I've warmed up quite a bit and found how great a technique steaming is with vegetables like these, as it leaves the flavor in tact while retaining a slightly crisp texture. Usually, I don't even season steamed broccoli since the flavor is so great.
So I found some T-Bones on sale at Sunflower (I'm becoming a pretty big fan of their all natural meat selection) and decided to dress 'em up with some beautiful yellow cauliflower. Yellow cauliflower is a relatively recent invention that is loaded with beta carotene (the good vitamin A). Its flavor is a little sweeter and its texture a little creamier than the white varietal.
For this dish I decided to steal a technique from Jose Andres that I saw on Iron Chef America (kudos food network for getting a Ferran Adria disciple / El Bulli graduate on the program, who apparently is good friends with Bobby Flay, but this didn't stop him from giving Bobby a beating in kitchen stadium). Incidentally, Andres has been nominated for the Outstanding Chef of the Year Award by the James Beard foundation. Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea fame has also been nominated. Achatz's culinary talents can be viewed here; I'd describe these pictures to be pure culinary erotica. The awards will be announced on June 8th, I'm pulling for either of these guys as much of their work with food is simply mind bending. Andres can also be seen on the PBS program Made in Spain, which I have started watching and have been so far very impressed with the flavor pairing knowledge displayed by Andres, though I'm hoping some of the dishes he attempts will reveal a little more of his journeyman / inventive technique in the future.
Back to the technique with cauliflower that I stole ... basically, this was to trim the very outer edge of the cauliflower with a paring knife to yield just little tidbits of the flowery outside. Once I did this, I decided there was no way I'd let all that remained go to waste, so while my intention was to saute the bits, I'd steam and puree the remaining stems. For the hash, I had braised black pork belly strips in pomegranate molasses, garlic, and sriracha. Black pork belly usually comes from Berkshire pigs which are considered an heirloom breed, and are prized for their flavor and texture. I took some of these strips and rendered out any remaining fat in a saute pan, then drained and toasted them to a light crispness, finally salting and chopping these into small crisps to match the size of the cauliflower bits. I browned a couple tablespoons of butter, caramelized 2 medium minced shallots, and then tossed in the various bits until a consistency like corned beef hash was achieved (the cauliflower bits should just start to soften a bit, again no mushiness). For the puree, I steamed the stem pieces for about 8-10 minutes and then blitzed them with a little cream, sea salt, and white pepper. The broccoli followed the cauliflower and was steamed for about 6 minutes.
Parsnip puree with steak is simply addictive (see the Christmas 2007 Menu in the archive), but this cauliflower puree was fabulous. I'm inspired now to play around with purees a little more in the very near future. The hash was great comfort food and strikingly different in texture and flavor to the puree, but the two married wonderfully on the plate. I'd never tasted pomegranate molasses before, but on a lark I grabbed it as a variation on blackstrap molasses (often used to make good bacon) at H-Mart (the Asian food super store I frequent) and am really glad I did. It has a bittersweet round fruit flavor with an acidic edge, which needs to be integrated with other flavors to be fully appreciated. The flavor seemed remarkably foreign to my palette at first, but became a craving shortly thereafter. Extremely good eats on this one.
just a developer (and amateur sommelier / winemaker / domestic chef) continuously finding out about how much he doesn't know, who occasionally rants about stupid crap he's seen, and is always making mistakes that he learns from (occasionally) ... my software influences include Eberhart Rechtin, POSA, Erlang, Google, & Amazon ... my wine influences are regional italian, classic french, single vinyard zins, and rhone ... my cooking influences include provencial french, regional italian, and molecular gastronomy techniques
