IDEAS IN FOOD

Brittle Cashews

My problem with peanut brittle is its allure to many others, it sticks in your teeth for days.  The taste and flavors are great, I just hate picking the stuff out of my teeth.  Well, we were working on a dish which in my mind needed peanut brittle and Aki took some liberties.  She made a curry flavored cashew brittle.  I tried it and was really pleased with the tastes and spices and balance in flavors.  The only problem is that I am still picking it out of my teeth.  So, when she left the kitchen I took some liberties.  I ground the brittle into a fine powder and melted it back together into brittle cashews.  The picture here is me demonstrating why I destroyed Aki's brittle.  The actual usage of the brittle will be a thin wafer to be served with some shrimp, clear buttermilk and celery leaves.

Tomato Salad

I grew up eating a tomato salad flavored with sliced onions, basil, a little olive oil, crumbled blue cheese and a splash of vinegar.  We have taken this Sunday night summer dish and adapted it.  We used an assortment of young tomatoes which we dressed with chives, salt and olive oil.  We then used young marjoram and nasturtium leaves to add herbal punches to the tomatoes.  Finally, we poured Roquefort water over the dish to add the blue cheese element I find essential to this tomato salad.

Grilled Potato Ice Cream

Sometimes flavors come together and they just pop.  I was inspired to make grilled potato cream after reading through the comments about my steak quandary.  I was not sure what the heck I was going to do with grilled potato cream, but I knew I needed to make it.  I took some raw Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced them thick in their skins and grilled them till they developed a crispy charred exterior.  I then simmered the potatoes in cream with a solid pinch of salt.  When the potatoes where tender the cream and potatoes were both absolutely delicious.  I could not believe how tasty the two ingredients had become.  I chilled the potato-cream mixture and then passed it through a food mill.  The mixture resembled a potato porridge.  Aki tasted it and said ice cream.  I was game and grilled potato ice cream came to be.  I flavored the porridge with some agave syrup for a bit more sweetness and thinned the mixture with some skim milk.  I put the base in a Paco Jet container and today we had the now infamous grilled potato ice cream.  The resulting ice cream is really tasty.  I cannot get over how good it is.  And yet, I can make it better.  Perhaps I do not need to use heavy cream to cook the potatoes.  I think the fat in the cream might mute the grilled flavor a bit.  I could be wrong.  Well and the current ice cream really is tasty.

Here is how we used it tonight, though it could easily play a sweet roll as well.

June 13, 2006

Smoked Steelhead Trout Roe
grilled potato ice cream, zucchini soup,
crisp apricot

Shrimp a la Chitara
porcini mushrooms, shaved jalapeno,
nasturtium leaves

Warmed King Salmon
young sorrel, king trumpet mushrooms,
jack's black lime catsup

Buffalo Mozzarella
smoked and marinated tomato, manni olive oil,
sandy and ground olives

Mascarpone Cheesecake
raspberries, smoked cider vinegar,
green tea crumble

As a side note, you may have noticed Jack's Black Lime Catsup.  That is the same catsup which was inspired by Jack of Fork and Bottle fame.  The fun ingredient, besides jalapeno, which sparks this catsup is Indian black lime, a truly under utilized ingredient which has quite a character.  More about the catsup soon.

Mother, Mother

It looks like my stout vinegar project is a success.  Over the past several weeks I have left my vinegar barrels alone and today I had the opportunity to check on the vinegars growth.  I began by tweaking our tequila vinegar with a tequila-water-agave syrup supplement.  Our port and maple vinegars are happily aging in their respective barrels.  I emptied a few unfinished bottles of wine into our every wine vinegar and then put some cider vinegar in the smoker for another project.  I almost forgot about the gallons of stout vinegar I had started several weeks ago until I knocked the glass barrel which holds our small batch of stout vinegar.  Something moved in the barrel.  I pulled the vinegar out into the kitchen and removed the cheese cloth cover.  There was something thick floating on the top of the stout.  Look what I found.  mother.  The stout had been converted into vinegar.  I then ran back to check the five gallon buckets I had also set up to make stout vinegar.  Three containers, three mothers, plenty of rich decadent stout vinegar.  Now I need to find the right bottle to put all this vinegar into.  And there is also all the opportunities to use this vinegar.  I may start by making a stout-ketchup sauce.  We shall see.

Tasty

Some dishes just take a long time to go from idea to execution.  The timing has to be right, the ingredients exact and the memory functional.  This dish is simple.  It speaks, if a dish could speak, for the need for clearing your head and figuring out how to combine tasty, with tasty and tasty.  We received some impeccable white asparagus from Bel Canto.  We  peeled, seasoned with salt and then braised the asparagus sous vide for an hour and a half at 84 degrees C and then iced them down.  The chilled asparagus will be featured in a number of dishes in the next few days.  The braised  asparagus is sweet, silky and smooth on the palate with just a hint of bitterness.  Our first dish paired the asparagus with a topping of smoked steelhead trout roe mixed with tapioca flavored with our own maple vinegar.  The dish is accented with fresh lime.  The elements are on their own are tasty, we just got lucky enough to get them all together in one dish.

Chocolate Ambition

Chocolate truffles and candies are interesting.  The quality of chocolate and the ingredients used vary by maker, and the chocolates themselves vary in quality from the waste of an idea to a truly decadent indulgence.  Besides the ingredients used in chocolates, size plays an integral role in the chocolate experience.  If the chocolate is too small the flavors, textures and qualities of the product become short lived.  On the other hand, if the chocolate or derivative there of is too large, your palate goes into overload.  The pleasure of chocolates from truffles to candies is encompassed by the variety of ingredients and the combinations of flavors.  The balancing act of creating truffles becomes ever more difficult as individual chocolates become varietal in nature and have specific and distinctive flavor profiles.  Each unique chocolate then becomes not only a vehicle for flavor but a complex flavor unto itself.  Now these distinctive chocolates can be paired, accented and juxtaposed with the global palate of ingredients and techniques that has become available.  What I find particularly interesting is what particular ingredients are combined with chocolate as well as the amount of the ingredient used to create a flavor profile.  The alchemy of combining flavors is what allows each individual chocolate to succeed or fail.  The same combinations can turn out to be sublime or deadly depending upon the skill of the individual chocolatier.

Improved Knowledge of Ingredients

I woke up this morning and the sun was shimmering on the evening's frost which blankets the meadow in front of our house.  Today is a good day.  I began making coffee and getting ready to see what was going on in the food world(Wednesday is paper day, digital in our case)  As I sat down to begin reading the phone rang and the words "did you see" started the conversation.  As it turns out, The New York Times did a well deserved piece on Diane St Clair, her incredible cows and work ethic.  Diane, for those who do not know, makes Farmstead butter from scratch and with an undying love of quality.  That is the key.  Diane should get more attention and press.  Every guest that comes through our doors gains an intimate knowledge of Diane, the cows and the work she puts into providing us the worlds best butter.  Her picture with three of the cows resides in our kitchen for all to see.  View this photo Sometimes, it even parades around the dining room.  Without our relationship with Diane, we would merely be serving butter on the table.  Instead, our guests get an improved and inspired knowledge of ingredients.  At the end of the day that is what is so incredibly special.  Diane did not set out to be famous, she set out to be perfect, and we are lucky enough to be able to share her gifts.

Ask How? Not If!

I spend a good portion of my day asking questions.  For me, questions stimulate thoughts and spark ideas.  This morning I looked aside at my post-it riddled desk and a small note caught my eye.  The note contained the phrase ask how, not if.  That is all.  I had forgotten about some past discussions Aki and I had; from which emerged the vocalization of this important statement.  In asking how, we begin the process of looking for the solution.  In asking if, there already exists doubt; not a very good first step in the execution and pursuit of ideas.  Also, in asking how we begin to challenge ourselves in our daily actions.  The ability to be continuously challenged enables us to overcome obstacles, push internal limits and expand our own knowledge base.  What is even more useful is that we are able to ask each other these questions--further pushing our boundaries and achievements.  Tomorrow we will make hot chocolate gnocchi.

Just Enough Is More

I chose not to finish the post Less is More.  It demonstrates my point.  A rarity when words can act as a pictorial of a point.   For a reader or diner, we are talking food, the post was incomplete.  It provided less.  It took less time to write, read, and think about.  And yet where is the more.  Gone, it vanished.  Like the magic trick without an outcome.  The more never existed.  We need to focus on stripping down, refining and polishing everything to provide the more.  Just enough is more.  We could go over the top with quantity and show and flourish and pampering and by the end guests will say enough!  The layering of excessive on top of excessive leads to gluttony.  We need to pick the points, refine and adapt as we go along to provide just enough in each experience so individuals feel completed, not short changed or over burdened.  The hardest part is knowing when doing anything to say when, like pouring a glass of wine or serving a plate of food.  Saying when for guests without having them have to make the decision is an art form we are slowly trying to learn.

Less is More

In conjunction with the Casserole of Ideas, I needed to share another underlying and driving concept.  It began with the principle less is more.  While at first glance and in the sing song voice of selling ideas, concepts, thoughts or a great meal less is more rings true, under closer examination it misses its mark.

Less is not more.  It never can be, it is less.  Less of anything from a glass of milk and an Oreo cookie to a well written novel does not give you more.  Think about it, a balance occurs, a relationship an intermingling which when less is given more cannot be had.  If

Ramp Kimchee

Somehow irony and abundance influence the development of dishes.  Ironic how ramps--the sign of spring--are sought after and coveted yet more often than not half the ramps, the top, end up discarded or wilting in a refrigerator with no use in sight.  Yes, there are some and as it turns out more chefs using ramp tops, though the vast excess of the top in conjunction with the time consuming nature of cleaning and picking through them places them low on the culinary totem pole. 

Our current use for ramp tops is kimchee.  They already have an intense garlic-onion flavor so that mixed with an array of spices and vinegar allows for the development of a versatile product.  Furthermore, the mixing and packing of ramp tops reduces there size to something manageable.  Once the ramps are wilted we can jar them and use them over the rest of the year in our basic larder of ingredients.  The pickled ramp, a staple of today's kitchens will no longer hog the lime light.

Next on the agenda is ramp nori

Dr. Pepper in The Smoker

Finally got around to putting Dr. Pepper in the smoker.  Looking forward to the resulting syrup generated from smoking and reducing in the smoker.  First on the list of uses is to pair it with grilled giant white asparagus and preserved summer truffles (gently cooked in a sherry-maple broth)  Here is the Dr. Pepper as it went into the smoker.

Three Chords, Five Senses, Five Tastes; One Dish

Seth Godin, new style marketing writer, struck an instrumental note which is essential to our evolving culinary developmentss. How may a writer on forward thinking marketing influence the world of food and wine? Simple, he borrowed an example from the music industry. The imporance of his anecdote struck home for it referred to musicians I enjoy, the Beatles. The stripped essence of the story is that the Beatles and other musicians spend hours, no days getting to, establishing, creating or fashioning the first three chords of a song. The rest of the song is not an afterthought though it must fall in line behind these essential three chords.

We have previously focussed on the elements of dishes and the necessity to capture diners with just a single bite. Godin's reference brought this idea to the forfront of our own culinary conversations. In order to continue to capture the senses we focus on three chords in dishes. Similarly, we must express five tastes or the essence of them in three chords. The combination of these chords, srtinging senses and tastes together helps unify complexities in the simple arrangement of three chords as one dish.

Our Alchemy

The alchemy of flavor

alchemy: any seemingly magical process of transmuting ordinary materials into something of true merit

flavor: taste, especially the distinctive taste of something as it is experienced in the mouth; a substance or extract that provides a particular taste; flavoring

It is after defining our approach to cooking that we can then delve into the alchemy of flavor. This is where we put the practicality of our culinary approach into use; pushing and pulling ingredients so as to make them shine. Most ingredients have underlying flavors or parts of flavors. In creating dishes or garnishes we highlight or spotlight parts of these ingredients elemental flavors.