Dinner 02-12-2012

Monkfish was being sold at the grocery story.  That meant opportunity to try this (as it turns out) slightly sweet, mild, and meaty fish.   Not knowing about it, I turned to Thomas Keller for guidance.

The French Laundry Cookbook has a dish pairing the fish with a braised beef cut (oxtails).  Wow...fish and a rich braise.  This must be some fish, I thought.  Sure enough, it really holds its ground and pairs well with the sauce.  A lot of earthy flavors in this dish, with the salsify (another new ingredient for me), and porcini mushrooms.  All in all, pretty easy to do, and worth the effort since I had a lot of sauce left over and enough fish for a second meal.

I also have been trying to play with sugar decor.  I haven't gotten the results that I wanted (not pictured), but I did something simple, which you can see above.  This is simply a caramel drizzled onto a silpat in a pattern and then folded over on itself.

I whipped up a simple chocolate cookie wafer and had some pistachio gelato in the freezer, which I framed with the caramel decoration.  Fun stuff.

Dinner 01-20-2012

Roasted beet  salad, marinated in grapefruit juice and red wine vinegar, with chopped tarragon, chives, shaved red onion, and a drizzle of olive oil.  Sweet and refreshing as always. 

 

I think braising is my favorite technique. Makes a great sauce, and tenderizes cheap, tough cuts of meat. Beef short ribs pan seared then braised. Braising liquid starts with sweated bell pepper, jalepeno, onions, garlic. Then added san marzano tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 cups of strong coffee. Sauce is finished with a cup of unsweetened chocolate. Garnished with chopped cilantro.

This dish was great.  I like things that really concentrate their effects on the nose rather than fooling you into thinking tastes are on the palate. The coffee and chocolate give this dish a mysterious aroma  that pairs extremely well with the browned meat.  The red bell pepper you don't taste directly, but I think it adds a very subtle sweet highlight, which accentuates the chocolate aroma.  The cilantro and jalapeno give this dish an earthy/spicy balance.

Gateaux aux amandes. So tender and light in texture. Elegant flavor of almond. Served with a spoonful of a strawberry-rhubarb compote like thing, and whipped cream (siphon method).

Merveilleux

I do love to make (and eat, of course) desserts.

Merveilleux, a French confection. Two sweet meringue cookies with a layer of chocolate mousse, then covered with vanilla flavored whipped cream and shavings of chocolate.

Start by forming a french meringue.  I used two egg whites, a quarter teaspoon of citric acid, and about 200 grams of sugar.  In the mixer, I whipped the eggs and acid to a froth, then added the sugar all at once.    I then let the mixer go on high speed until stiff peaks.  Once the meringue reaches the right consistency, I put it into a piping back with a 1 cm plain tip.  

The whipped cream is made in similar fashion, but no acid.  I put a cup of heavy cream with a half teaspoon of vanilla extract and maybe a third of a cup of sugar.  I let this whip until stiff peaks as well.

The chocolate mousse I made by melting chocolate in a steel bowl over a saucepan with simmering water.  I added some cream and whipped like mad over an ice bath.  

Now that the components are made, time to bake.  The meringues were piped into 4 cm disks on parchment paper and baked at 195 F (90 C) for 1 hour, then 185 F (85 C) for another hour. I cut one open to make sure the centers were baked through.  If not (mine were not since I made them a little thick), bake for 10-20 minutes more.  Let cool completely

To finish, I spread chocolate mousse on one disk and placed another disk on top.  I covered the meringue sandwich with whipped cream using an offset spatula.  Finally, roll in chocolate shavings.  

Apple Pie

Lemon Meringue

When we lived in Houston, there was a 24 hour pie shop nearby.  Any time of day or night you could get delicious pies.  One of the best there was lemon meringue.  So, when I was choosing what pie to make, this was  natural choice.

There's nothing particularly complicated about making a pie like this.  I did this to get some practice.  The meringue is fairly labor intensive if, like me, you don't have an electric mixer.  Come to think of it, I don't have electric devices in the kitchen besides a blender.  Anyway, the pie dough is made first.  A simple mixture of flour, butter, and water (dash of salt for flavor).   The ratio seems simple enough, but I'm not completely sure whether it scales well.  3:2:1 is the ratio, by weight for flour:butter:water, at least in US measures.  Since I like using metric in the kitchen, the ratio is still roughly the same, but with small adjustments  2.88:1.88:1.   This is something I'm noticing more and more, but the ratios seem to be more often nice and neat (i.e. rational) with "US" measures (pounds and ounces)  than when using metric.  I'm not sure why this is.

The dough is chilled so the butter can firm up again, it is scaled to about 284 grams per crust and rolled out into a rough circle.

If you've made any sort of custard or pastry cream before, the filling is pretty much the same sort of thing.  Instead of a cornstarch thickened milk/cream mixture, you have cornstarch thickened lemon juice, zest, and water, egg yolks, and sugar.

The topping is a basic sweetened meringue.  A little more sugar than I'm used to using (e.g. for macarons), but still the same sort of thing.  For this, it is 2:1 sugar:egg whites.  

I had a little trouble getting mine to stiff peaks.  It seemed to want to stay in a ribbon stage after getting opaque and silky, almost like a cooked italian meringue. I think I still got decent results, though.

Macarons

My latest batch of macarons, with framboise pastry cream

It is really hard not to succumb to macaron madness. They still cross my mind every other day--should I try to make more, will this time mean days or weeks of confectionary torture?

I caved a couple days ago.  I had 7 egg whites left over from the dinner last Saturday (they freeze well).   Since my brain has been rewired to equate egg white with macarons (these are infectious confections), what else could I do?

I first attempted these a while back.  On my first attempt ever, I was stunned they turned out so well. Macarons have a reputation for being extremely difficult to do. I did 3 batches in the oven and they all had 80-90% success rate. A few lumpy ones, a few oblong, but all had a shiny shell and well developed foot. That said, here is some evidence of what can go wrong. What a massacre.  Thankfully, this doesn't happen anymore.  That day was humid and I did not adjust my recipe for this fact.  Now I know better.

The recipe is simple, involving a few ingredients.  The execution is not so simple.  These are delicate confections, and they will test your mettle.

The recipe is:

100%     Egg White
140%     Almond Flour
140%     Confectioner's Sugar
140%     Granulated Sugar
 33%     Water


Preparation


You'll need a couple bowls, and a small sauce pan.  A thermometer and a kitchen scale.


Divide your egg white into two equal parts, e.g. if you have 100 grams of egg white, separate them into 2 small bowls 50 grams in each.


Line a baking sheet or two with parchment paper or silpat


The sauce pan should be very small because you have very little water.


Steps


1.  Combine Almond flour and Confectioner's sugar and pulse in a food processor to mix and mill them to a fine powder.  Set aside in a medium sized (1-2 liter non-reactive bowl...steel or glass)


2.  Set Granulated sugar and water in a small sauce pan.  Heat over low heat, stir only once or twice to help dissolve the sugar. 


3.  Meanwhile, whip half the egg whites to firm peaks.


4.  When the syrup reaches 245 Fahrenheit, take off the heat and, working quickly pour it in a thin stream into your meringue.  Whisk constantly.


This cooks your meringue and turns it into a opaque white mixture that should be silky and fall like ribbons.


5.  Add the remaining egg white to the almond flour-sugar mixture and then fold in the cooked meringue.  You can add flavorings (extracts of vanilla, almond, etc) or food coloring.


Stir to incorporate.  Don't overstir, just enough to remove lumps


6.  Put the batter into a piping bag fitted with a plain half inch opening.


7.  Pipe 3/4 inch mounds of batter, separated by 1.5 inches.


8.  Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 285 F.


9. Bake for about 20 minutes.  


10.  Let cool completely before you try to remove them.

Dinner 11-19-2011

When I received the French Laundry cookbook, I wasn't sure what to make of it.  The food was refined, but familiar.  It had Keller's spirit in it, which I experienced from trying things from his Bouchon cookbook.  But, TFL was a whole 'nother level.  It has a reputation for being quite challenging, so maybe I was a little intimidated.

So, when the opportunity to make dinner for some guests arose, I quickly turned to TFL to try my hand at some of these things.  This dinner was by far the most technically challenging I've done so far.  Many of the recipes have few ingredients, which really puts the emphasis on great execution.

I think I pulled it off.   I'm proud of myself that I executed each dish without any major fails.  Judging from what I've seen elsewhere on the web, when people attempt a single dish from TFL they find it very difficult.  I offered my guests a multicourse meal cooked and served alone.  I do mean to gloat.

As guests arrived, I offered champagne (well, sparkling white wine) from Napa Valley.  I tried some, and I think it went very nicely with the initial round of food.  First up were gougères, little balls of pâte à choux.  These were mixed with grated Gruyère.  The water in the batter causes the dough to hollow out.  This is the same stuff used to make the eclairs from a while back (minus the cheese).

Next up were white truffle custards with black truffle ragout and chive chip.  The tastes and textures are great in this one.  Crispy and silky at the same time, it also had a striking aroma.  At the same time pungent and sweet.  Intensely meaty with a delicate structure.  That aroma....oh truffle, you are awesome.  Nobody had tried truffles before, so it was new for everyone.  I think they liked it, judging from the happy sounds from the dining room.

For a small package, this was by far the most time consuming dish.  First, make stock, then make a remouillage from the bones and aromatics.  Combine the two batches and reduce, reduce, reduce.  Once I have a concentrated stock, which took on a rich brown color and amazing flavor, I make the ragout by finely dicing some black truffles and reducing to a thickened sauce.  The last step is to swirl in some butter and a few drops of vinegar.   

The chive chips worked on the first try, which surprised me.  I'm so glad I bought a benriner mandoline. This allowed me to make paper thin slices of russet potato, which were used to create a little chive sandwich, brushed with clarified butter and baked between two silpats.  

The eggs to hold the custard.  We have a standard custard flavored with white truffle oil, salt, and white pepper.  The egg shells were fun to make, but difficult to do without the right equipment.  After some trial and error, I came upon a good technique to make them.  I used a serrated knife and carefully cut perforations around the shell before slicing through.  This method helped to prevent the egg shell from shattering as I cut into it.

After the custards, I gave people yet another dish they hadn't had before: bone marrow.  Served with parsley, garlic, caper, with olive oil and lemon juice vinaigrette, homemade baguette slices brushed with garlic infused oil and seasoned with green salt, and a line of yellow and brown mustard powder. This of course is a great tasting dish.  I totally get why Anthony Bourdain loves it.

Rather than roasting the marrow this time I soaked it and pulled (really, pushed) the marrow from the bone.  They'are then diced and seasoned with salt and covered in flour before being fried in oil.  The marrow is mostly fat, so if the oil is too hot you can burn the flour.  If it is not hot enough, you can cook away the marrow before it has a chance to crisp. While the presentation isn't great, this is a difficult dish to execute.   I nailed it.

Now we start on the "mains."  First was a dish you won't find in TFL, Bouchon, or Alinea, but it has elements from all three.

The pasta is a chestnut-white truffle agnolotti.    Served with nutmeg creme fraiche, fried sage leaf, and thin celery strips.

This was a lot of fun to make.  The pasta was a standard ratio of flour to eggs (3:2).  The chestnuts are from a local farm. They're roasted, then simmered in vegetable stock and pureed.  The filling is finished by mixing in some mascarpone cheese (which was easy for me to make), and white truffle oil.

The creme fraiche I've made before, documented on this blog.  It was simply whipped with freshly grated nutmeg and a little salt.  

The celery strips, pretty cool thing from an Alinea dish.  Showing that you can get great texture, color, and flavor without anything fancy.  The celery is peeled to get the stringy bits out.  Then with a vegetable peeler, I cut thin strips.  Soaking them in ice water causes them to crisp and curl.

 It is a soup course too.   I thought the flavors would pair well here, so I combined the TFL/Alinea-inspired dish with the butternut squash soup recipe from Bouchon.  I think this knocked people's socks off.  It got great feedback.  

Next was the "fish" course.  This is pretty much straight from TFL.  Butter-poached lobster tail atop red beet juice reduced and enriched with butter.  The lobster is resting on a thinly sliced round of leek which was blanched for a minute and chilled.  Topping off this tower of deliciousness was a piece of "pommes maxim."  As TFL notes, this potato crisp was created in France first.  It is made by taking paper thin slices of yukon gold potatoes and tossing them in clarified butter, then layering and baking until crisp.

This dish is what I had in mind when I said execution is so important.  So few ingredients to produce an amazing combination.  This is definitely a great dish that Keller has developed over years and years of serving it.

Next up was duck breast spiced with fennel, coriander, and cumin.  Served with a port-wine and sherry vinegar reduction.   None of my photos turned out, so I'm reusing this from when I served this for dinner a little while back.  I wanted to get feedback from folks, so I put it on the menu.  Best I got was that it was done perfectly.  People compared it to the duck they had in some truly great restaurants.  The sauce they said paired well with the duck, and it was a hit.  I think I served too much meat though, as some mentioned it felt like a lot on the plate.  I have some ideas to improve this dish in the future.

For a palate cleanser, I went with a dish from Alinea.  This is my rendition of "Cranberry Frozen and Chewy".  It is tart and sweet, and melts in your mouth as you chew it.  It has a creamy texture without any fat added.  This is achieved through the use of two cool techniques.  First, the cranberry stock is mixed with Ultratex-3, a modified starch that helps thicken and prevent large ice crystals from forming.  Second, the mixture is flash frozen in a balloon with liquid nitrogen.  Lacking liquid nitrogen, I had to figure out a way to make a super cold liquid that won't freeze at the temperatures I needed.  I decided to use isopropyl alcohol and dry ice.  The dry ice drives the temperature of the alcohol down to the point where the alcohol turns to slush (close to -173.2 degree Fahrenheit).

Dessert, finally!  This is also straight from TFL.  They call it "Coffee and Doughnuts".  The doughnuts were fun to make, basically a simple sweet dough fried and covered in cinnamon sugar.  These are light and airy, and just wonderful fresh from the fat, still warm.

The coffee is a frozen coffee flavored mousse.  Topped with a hot milk foam.  I'm proud of my solution for the milk foam.   I don't have a frother or steam thingy you see in coffee shops.  I do have an iSi Siphon, however.  Charged with nitrous oxide, I could get the microfoam, but they would disappear almost immediately.  So, I tried adding xanthan gum to stabilize the foam.  That worked, but the foam disintegrated when I heated it (I couldn't start with hot milk because the siphon isn't designed for use with hot things).   So, I knew I needed something that would be stable at high temperatures...I happen to have gellan on hand, so I used that.  Success!   Thanks to khymos.org, I was able to zero in on a good concentration of these hydrocolloids to produce a good produce that was heat stable.

So, that was dinner.  I was exhausted by the end, and quite happy with the result.  I think 6 people, 8/9 courses is about my limit right now.  Still, I executed well, but felt like I was falling behind, and I did.  I thought the dinner would clock in at 2.5 hours and it turned out to be closer to 3.5 (yikes!).  I need to work on speed and efficiency, but not at the expense of good execution.  I think I did something I can build on and learn from.

Raspberry Napolean

Used  puff pastry dough I made a while back. Laminated doughs like this are fun to make, but take a while.  This was easy since I had some left over from the pork belly dish.   Baked this between two silplat mats to weigh down the puff paste.  Once it was cooked, I glazed it with some light corn syrup and put it back in the often to create caramelization on top.  Then the puff paste is cut into planks after allowed to cool.  Finally,  layered with a Framboise Lambic infused pastry cream I made while the dough was baking and fresh raspberries.  Final touch is a dusting of confectioner's sugar.

Not the greatest presentation in the world, but it tasted very good.

Puff Paste wrapped banana, butterscotch sauce, fried apples, dried apricots, coconut ice cream, vanilla salt

The combination of hot/cold in your mouth is fantastic. Add to that the sweet/salty combo and it is already great. Never mind that the flavors work so well together.  Do not try this at home, you may go into convulsions

Dessert tonight. Used some of the remaining puff paste to wrap a banana. Baked @ 425 F. Made caramel sauce (melted sugar + cream). Fried apple slices with sugar and cinnamon. Dried apricots. Quenelles of coconut ice cream. Dash of vanilla salt. Sinful plate.

Tobacco cream, fennel, cranberry; Pliable ganache & teas; Vanilla ice cream, sesame, coffee

Three desserts shown together. Foreground to background: Vanilla Ice Cream, Chocolate Ganache, and Layered Gelee

Component one of "Three Desserts"

Quenelle of vanilla ice cream atop a sesame tuile and dusted with nescafe freeze dried coffee. Paired with another tuile and a garnish of lavender air.

Component two of "Three Desserts"

4 Teas and Chocolate Ganache

Pliable chocolate ganache recipe from Alex Stupak of wd~50, which he developed at Alinea. The use of agar-agar is what makes the ganache stretchy/twistable.

I wanted a tea component, so I made four of them. From bottom to top: rooibos tea, lemongrass tea, rose hip & hibiscus tea, and lavender tea.

I included pistachios for salt & crunch.

Ok, so...chocolate...it was awesome. 'nuff said. The teas added a nice herbal component, but the flavor needs to be concentrated more. They were nicely paired with the chocolate, though. Chocolate ruled them all on the palate, so that needs to be tamed some how.

Component three of "Three Desserts"

Layered gelee & Tobacco

First layer is gelee of home made cranberry juice. Second layer is home made fennel juice. Third is tobacco cream I made, adapated from Alinea, but instead of a gelee I made a whipped cream out of it. Topped with lime zest

This was the best of the three. The flavors were surprising, harmonious, and together made something better than the individual components.