gratifood

tongue pastrami steam bun

2012-01-05T21:57:00.011-05:00

Tongues make me happy. Underutilized, scorned and tossed to the side, they provide the underdog turned champ flavors and textures that no other cut can. When on the road, one of my professional jobs is to seek and enjoy the different roles it plays. Just getting back from Dallas, we hit up a carniceria on the east side, having a lingua taco that still has me floating a few inches off the ground. This thing had a halo on it, glowing supernaturally, as tongue hit my tongue.

Now back home, my friend Dr. Farkas hooked me up with some all natural, grass fed, organic, pasture raised beef tongue and cheeks from Essex Farm. Just looking at the goodies, you can tell they had a life far from a factory life. The energy effused from these gifts, keep you on your toes as to not mess them up. And so...I hope I was able to do them justice. Thank you small farm for coming back to the community!

beef tongue pastrami

crock fermented jalapeno sauerkraut

pumpernickle steam bun

smoked hoisin mayo

8-4-11 tomato day

2011-08-04T13:59:00.011-04:00

You have your birthdays, anniversaries, last day of school, payday and so on. Days you're really looking forward to. Then...then, there's the big day. Swimming in the swoon, the sweat ring o'plenty dog days of summer, the proffer comes. The big pay off. Months of anticipation. The Carley Simon/Heinz anticipatory moment. The gestation, is done. It's time. Let's do this...

1st tomato of the season, 10 seconds off the vine
adirondack sweet corn biscuit, about 2 minutes out-the-oven
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shave the clams

2011-07-06T11:20:00.022-04:00

Picked up some razor clams, or more appropriately, Atlantic jackknife's, the other day at the local Asian market. By local, I mean I had a two hour ride home to daydream about how to play with my new bounty, the ensis directus. These are a different genus than their name sharing Pacific cousins, the larger, more eliptically shaped shelled clam the siliqua patula. Jackknife's are also known as bamboo clams, so by the time we got back to our mountain kitchen, I guess it's legal to say we went bamboo.

First the clams were chilled in salted water and Thai basil for an hour. Next they were vacuum sealed with more basil and a red chile.

Having razors/jackknifes in front of me, it wasn't a far journey to go with a shaving theme. I had also picked up a banana blossom at the market. To make "hair", the blossom was shaved thinly and pickled with rice vinegar, fish sauce, palm sugar and star anise. For the shaving cream, kaffir lime leaf was added to coconut milk, shaken silly, allowed to infuse, and then added to an isi.

The clams were cooked sous vide at 65 C for 8 minutes. Then we opened the doors to our new Asian barber shop...

thai basil sous vide razor clam

pickled banana blossom hair

coconut-kaffir shaving cream

shaved pop's ham

pandan oil

zilla sighting

2011-06-09T14:13:00.012-04:00

There comes a tide in the affairs of man, where that one, enigmatic wave, unique from the lot, comes rolling in. Recently, after years of chatting it up cyberly, I finally got to meet said wave face to face.

Chadzilla is a blog known for being a leader of the food blog pack. His hook is telling it like it is, as a chef from deep within the guts of the industry, that is, within the hotel kitchen industry. Which is a whole other beast unto itself.

Generally speaking. I repeat, generally speaking, the majority of FoodBloggersville's residents can be found on one street. Yummy Potato Sprinkle Cupcake Here's My Favorite Color Street. A diary of sorts, a slumber party chronicle, with a Martha-tron embodiment at the helm, exposing emotional details of today's supermarket trip. Kind of a blog form of day time soaps. This is all good. The world needs and enjoys different flavors.

As an industry man, in an outpost in the middle of nowhere, I need my dose of the trenches. Frontline action, changing the food scene, not pushing the envelope, but inventing new concepts of what an envelope can be. Chadzilla is the one who develops that envelope.

It was great to hook up after so long, to finally meet the man. It didn't hurt, that he busted out my favorite meal on the planet, fried chicken. Not to mention, he graced us with his c-ass gumbo, complete with his folk's DNA signature of adding potato salad to it. Louisianan roots honoring my Texas roots. Now that I'm living 45 minutes from Canada, it was a blessing to be in a Southern aura, getting my needed fix.

We rapped about our own coming up in the biz and where that biz is now, and where it's headed. We were fortunate to work while the economy's wild spending and opulent habits garnered us to push exotic into galactic, restaurant-scene-wise. Now that the economy has tanked, we've watched how the restaurant scene has dug in further to remember its origins. We've gone womb-ing and emerged spiritually better, I think. From over the top decadence and formal service, to passionate food lover's growing, harvesting, networking, sharing, butchering, honoring-reawakening fermentaion, aging, smoking and curing again. Going back. Using our formal training and going guerilla. Using our chops, to deliver a message to more of the public, so that "we can all eat amazingly and feel completely nourished, together".

Now that you can get liquid nitrogen easier than sinus medicine, what was once lab food, can now be enjoyed to enhance a braised tongue taco. I'm watching my chef friends evolve their craft over the years, from once a year/lifetime dining institutions to more casual experiences, to even lunch counter/food hawker incarnations. It seems the lack of money, or I should say, the redistribution of money, has brought us closer to our hearts again.

Soul food is what we align to naturally, from wherever it comes from on this juicy planet. It only takes so many reality tv shows to break you, to be really real again. To go back home and cook what makes you happy. To ride in and experience the culinary frontier and come back to enhance our own roots. Gastronomic astronauts. Gastronauts. Whatever you call it, we can take the knowledge from bona fide astronauts, who've unanimously conveyed, you appreciate Earth much more after a few orbits around it.

Even our blogs have changed. From luxury reports to more of a culinary commune. Let me share so that you can become better. We've come a long way from that one trick pony chefism, that was the dogma of the industry. We've gone from, look at me, to, look at us. Now stir in your talent, to make this better.

Hanging out with Chad has given me insight in where to go in my own cooking vortex. The foodies where I live, are literally in the woodwork. Tucked away, off road, in the woods. When I do my thing, we attract them, like buck bait attracting a doe. You see it happening all over America. Rogue chefs gathering people to support great food, instead of egos. Building food communities instead of institutions.

So tune into Chadzilla to find out what is happening in the belly of the food scene.

Chad, it was an honor to be with you and your family. (Sorry it took so long to git this out!) Looking forward to evolving together and more importantly, as Hendrix reminds us to do, "Play on brother, play on."

from russia with love

2011-03-25T14:53:00.011-04:00

There’s a czar that runs our famed Olympic mountain community. Not of the autocratic nature that you’re used to hearing about, but a different flavor of a person exercising great authority or power in a particular field. This brilliant soul is the czar of compassion. The most loveable leader you’ll ever meet.

He doesn’t have his finger on the pulse, he is the pulse incarnate. The rhythmic undulation of vitality. Like Oprah, Prince and Sting, he is represented by a mono-moniker. Of course, I’m speaking of our beloved Dmitry.

His story is the epitome of all things oppressive gone mainline freedom. From excessive poverty, tyrannical political strife, years of a bean diet (which would drive the average person to an asylum), serving in the Soviet military, defecting through a fissure in the Iron Curtain, to liberation. Liberation not just from imperious surveillance, but that of the heart. Not just his, but those who are graced enough to be near his luster. If compassion happens in this community, it’s happening because D has shone in that direction.

Heck, I could solely love the guy just for being the one who single handedly inspired, and currently curates, the perennial international BBQ festival here. Not only is it staged in a culinary void, but smack dab in the center of Yankee territory, by a Russian! Two, maybe three, Universal laws are broken here, in the name to promote world class BBQ. This is what a hero looks like.

When he’s not at his day job as the heart, soul and voice of our USA Olympic luge team, he’s my personal dealer of ethnic food obscurities. To this day I still can’t pronounce any of the global foodstuffs he’s unconditionally gifted me. Recently he materialized a locally grown, organic bone-in leg of lamb and 2 liters of kvass.

What in the spanky spangler is kvass? Like a true dealer, he kept hounding me to drink this concoction. I’m thinking he must want to watch me trip out or something, with all his unrelenting pressure for me to imbibe some.

Turns out, it tastes as ancient as its malt beverage roots get. The actual trip came from the flavor and not from the low alcohol content. Kvass is the people’s beverage. It’s made most oft from black, rye or whole wheat bread, water and a little help from passer-by yeasts. This means anyone can partake, no matter how under the thumb regimed your government is. Bread and water are the global staples. This meant that peasants could join in the fun of imbibing. Once monks got wind of the beverage, they began to stylize kvass back in the 800’s.

The flavor is dependent upon the bread used. Sweeteners such as honey, fruit (dried or fresh) and herbs are added to broaden its flavor profiles. So if you had day old pumpernickel, water, yeast, honey, raisins and mint, you’d be a happy camper in about 15 hours. These days it’s sold like Coca Cola ® all over Russia. In fact, Coke’s now in on the game, producing their own Russian/Slavic model of kvass. From hovels to the Kremlin, kvass is the blood of beverages in Central Asia.

This version that D gifted me tasted of malt, prunes, German chocolate and strawberry jam.

So with those attributes, I marinated the leg of lamb in kvass, onions, garlic, caraway, coriander and cracked black pepper for 2 days.

It was then warm smoked, along with the kvass marinated prunes , with oak for 7 hours.

I made a stock of potatoes, the bone marrow from the lamb and the smoked prunes, added methocel and aerated it for a “pillowy sauce”. I took some of the lamb drippings, kvass and caraway and reduced it down to a caramel to bring the kvass on the plate into 2 dimensions.

Happiness ensued. And to whom do I owe this pleasure? To the most giving, personable and saintly czar on the planet. Nostrovia!

kvass smoked leg of lamb
aerated potato-bone marrow-smoked prune

borscht

kvass-caraway caramel

dill oil

big patty loves you

2011-03-17T18:26:00.005-04:00

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Salud to all folks on the planet on this smashingly glorious St. Patty's Day.

blood sausage, potato and cabbage stuffed brown bread topped with duck fat, cheddar and scallions...and...some beer

peru: part 3

2011-02-28T16:48:00.029-05:00

ancient wisdom is here. listen.

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alpaca centerfold

agricultural stronghold for the incas

cuy quarters, like a lobster tank, you get to choose

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legendary pisac market

hands of experience

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the sacred heart

best bread to ever caress your lips

like easter eggs, the tuna (prickly pear fruit) is mesmerizingly beautiful

chile heads rejoice

home sweet home...for 14 hours

heaven

sallqantay peak-20,574ft. -that's where we're headed

looking north of the summit

trail summit-15,253ft.

you see this and wonder why "reality tv" exist

i thought i knew vast from living in montana, but this is looking across the universe. then again, so is looking at your fingers.

abandoned glacial abode and stable we commandeered for lunch. notice the veranda butting against the boulder, marking the entrance to a cave dwelling.

carlito.
he's materializing epic meals on top of the world, out of thin air, with minimal ingredients and even less equipment. while sprinting up and down glaciers, slicing through jungles at 4 times your speed, setting up camps several times a day before you get there, and serving you hot tea in your sleeping bag at 4:30am, his mission is to give you the best experience of your life. a true saint humbles you in his presence. salud my friend.

riehs...party of two please

carlito's lunch entree after the sopa andea (peruvian quinoa soup). a stunning feast on this divine alpine trek. remember, we're in the middle of absolute nowhere. who makes grilled chicken with fresh vegetables, pasta salad, papas fritas and boiled eggs at 14,000ft for a quick lunch made in minutes? carlito does. that's who. it was an honor to be in his presence the entire journey!

the mind blowing segue where glaciers meet the jungle.

machu picchu awaits...

peru: part 2

2010-10-09T12:20:00.011-04:00

the original water purifier

chifa - cuisine created by 19th century southern chinese immigrants coming to peru using local peruvian ingredients such as aji rocoto, aji panca and aji amarillo chiles, cuy (guinea pig), potatoes, sausages and now peruvian asparagus. this was the best chifa joint we explored.

alpacas at 13,000 feet on the journey to chivay

best restaurant of the entire peruvian trip...complete native authenticity in the middle of absolutely mars-like nowheresville. this spread would take me a month to put together even if i was surrounded by the best farmers markets. unbelievable!

chicken with rocoto chiles, beans and sausage, alpaca with dried potatoes, cuy with pasta

the spread. an oasis of grace

the hotel in yanque

view from our room. best view from any hotel i've ever stayed in. complete with incan terraces and trout stream.

canyon de colca - from it's high peak, down to the river it's 11,000 feet deep, twice as deep as the grand canyon. just around the corner it's 500 feet deeper, making it the deepest canyon in the world.

andean condor - largest wingspan and heaviest of all land birds

don't move...just keep smiling

canyon de colca

rush hour

another great spread

floating reed islands on lake titicaca

the uros and aymara tribe members who inhabit this man made island of reeds

whipping up some guinea pig raised in the hut behind me

busting out some indigenous folk songs

tequile island on lake titicaca-the highest navigable lake in the world. the mountains in the background are in bolivia.

lunch at an indigenous taquilernos home. look how blue the skies get here.

when's the last time you were greeted to eat with a smile like that?

sopa andena-quinoa, peruvian potatoes, ancient squash

our beloved host showing off her perfect caramelization

lake titicaca pan seared trout, papas fritas, arroz, beet-papaya ariquipa salad cooked with tons of love and one heck of a view. amen.

next stop: the glaciers of salkantay...

peru: part 1

2010-07-23T21:18:00.013-04:00

Out of the 1000 or so shots of our 3 week Peruvian honeymoon and food tour, it was hard to just pick a few to share. There will obviously be several parts to this Peru gallery. My mouth was agape at the stunning beauty of the people and of Panchamama that grew them. Rebuilding the Heartline that runs from the tip of South America, up to the top of North America, is our duty to help the situation we're in and heal Panchamama. As our life passes with blinks of our eyes, place your intentions wisely with the few blinks we have left. It's amazing to pass through millennia of our ancestors in a glance. We're all connected. Let's live like we are. Forever.

sandboarding in ica

nazca mummy

plane ride above the nazca lines
the tree of life with trapazoid (landing pad) in background

nazca lines - the astronaut (center, on side of peak)

After seeing the nazca lines and figures, if you believe Earth is the only place with life on it in the Universe, you do not have a pulse.

best aji de gallina and cabrito of the trip

peru - underground surf mecca

papaya arequipena

passion fruit arequipena

quinoa

tamarillos

arequipa

alpaca turnado with lupine seed sauce

yellow papas fritas

turn & burn

misti volcano 19,097 feet

from restaurant montenero

vicuna near chimboya pass

ampato volcano 20,629 feet

sabancoya volcano 19,606 feet

habas

yellow peruvian potatoes

3999 more varieties to go

rainbow powder

The next post will be on colca canyon and our glacial trek from Salkantay peak to Machu Picchu.

Namaste.

bbq tour: part 69 ½

2010-06-23T12:44:00.030-04:00

BBQ is my blood. This here is a picturesque sojourn through my bloodstream. All shots were taken from my last jaunt to the Texas Hill Country and the legendary mom & pop joints that blossomed from loving hearts sharing their beloved heritage.

I keep my comments to a minimum. This post is for drinking in the beauty of a waning art and sating way of life. It is not for the brain. It is not for mental regalia or the attempt of conquering knowledge via 20 second web browsing. This one is about the love within your blood. The stuff that doctors can’t find with a microscope. The stuff that makes your heart beat. The aliveness that stops you in your tracks between taste buds and neural pathways.

fresh axis venison sausage flavored schulenburg style

best hot links on the planet

legends norma and edgar black jr.
oldest family run bbq joint in texas
god bless

By the way, if you are in Upstate New York in the Lake Placid region, BBQ is coming to you. National champs are coming to light it up for the I Love BBQ Festival and let you taste what BBQ is all about. Renowned zydeco artist CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band are there to lay down some bayou boogaloo to boot. And the best part, part of your hard earned dollars goes to support the Shipman Youth Center. Now that's love.

having pho-n

2010-06-15T19:38:00.011-04:00

Serendipitously growing up in a Vietnamese hood in Dallas, there’s one thing I truly miss; that perpetual jones for umami, sweet, sour, salty and hot, and the ultra convenient fix a block away. It's pretty much the same everywhere, there’s the boon, but there's also an opportunity cost for being there. Fast forwarding...living in the sticks is opportunely about the sticks. The rub? There’s no place to light up your culinary buzz. Sadly, my nearest Pho shop is 2 hours away in Montreal.

Whilst daydreaming of a pho-nominal experience, I came across a daikon in my fridge. Soon, I was thinking of a dish of beef braised with daikon and ginger from the old days. A glance to the left beheld Thai basil and sprouts. This sighting began to rev up my daydream of pho again. Instead of braising the daikon, why not use the daikon as the banh pho or rice noodles?

First the daikon was shaved into sheets. Then dipped into a reduced pho broth.

Next, the sheets were compressed with a little basil. After refrigerating 3 hours or so, the daikon was shredded into thin noodles. Shortly thereafter, my mouth began to have some pho-n.

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diakon pho

jalapeno

soy sprouts

thai basil

coriander

fennel

star anise

cinnamon

pho broth demi

back from tejas

2010-05-19T13:56:00.007-04:00

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I've just emerged from Texas like a caddis larvae from the bottom of a stony river bed...wings anew and free from the need to be free. The Texas Exotic Game Safari is an annual gig I do and it proved once again to be just what the good doctor ordered: A very cathartic event full of creativity, non stop laughter and a pushed in plunger of Southern hospitality. This trip was a well deserved sojourn from the litany of minutia of my quickly approaching wedding.

Here's a menu of the event:

After the gig, I was able to sure up my roots and my best man and I embarked on another mind melting-belt popping BBQ tour of Texas. That's what the next post will be all about, that is when I can git a moment to eke one out.

cold smokin'

2010-04-29T11:36:00.007-04:00

Living in the mountains has its ups and downs. Flowing with Nature is the crest. Skiing, kayaking, flyfishing, cooking on a 12 foot fire pit in your front yard, a front yard sans a Camaro on blocks. Although back in the day, I had a friend who said his Camaro was so clean he could cook a chicken under the hood.

In contrast, the only flow in Nature that I would consider to be the trough would be mud season and a 3 week growing season. Mud season comes when the permafrost thaws, and our ¼ mile driveway turns into 1320 feet of mushroom soup for a month.

So, yesterday, I was making 30 lbs. of some Texas Hot Links and Yucatan Plantain Sausage for eats at my wedding. It was 65 F outside and I wanted to put some cold smoke on the sausages for a finishing touch. The little voice said, “I wish it was cooler out, so that the fat would remain solid during the smoking phase.” Nature responded, and lo, the temperature dropped quickly.

After seeing some green grass, buds on the trees, birds coming back, I had turned the page on Winter. To see how chilly it was going to get, I checked the weather report and they said 6”-14” snow. “Really? April 28th?” said the big voice, I had a yummy mouthful of Spring and wasn’t spitting it out. Then I looked over at the sausage. The sausage looked back. We winked at one another. A few hours later, we was cold smokin’.

behold, I am not of your world

2010-03-17T23:58:00.004-04:00

After 2 years of waiting, plus 2 ½ months of trickle smoking with 4 different types of wood, Pop’s ham is here. The Old World process of piping in smoke from a fire chamber is alive, well and thoroughly welcomed. As you’ve seen in older posts, it’s been several years since he’s been able to get back on track after moving to his farm.

The balancing of sweet fruit woods with those of more prominence, gives it a lucid spectrum of flavors that linger gracefully. It’s not even fair to compare this to your normal supermarket hams. This is the power of schinken. You also don’t get the marbling, which melts in your mouth like sweet cream.

On my first bite, my mind was awash with some old Funkadelic lyrics as my taste buds aligned with my emotions: “Dedicated to the feeling of good, and Baby I’m good, at being good…and nothing is good, unless you play with it.”

know where your banh mi is

2010-02-09T12:32:00.003-05:00

If you're a banh mi junkie, and you like to know where and when your next hit is a'coming, there's help. Rolling stones, gypsies and culinary hobos celebrate, for we now have a website we can log into when we find ourselves on the road again. It all starts on the pages of battle of the banh mi. No worries, there is no such thing as battle when it comes to banh mi, only delicious and deliciouser. Click on the directory and cross your fingers that a location is upon your sojourn. May your inner sanctum be filled with bliss...

whispers in the smoke

2010-01-25T07:16:00.012-05:00

It is until you are in the presence of a true master that you are reminded of your own innate powers. That moment of grace vibrates inside you when you observe another person’s craft. Just being around them in their zone is a special moment. That flow of juice that’s really igniting our heartbeat shows itself, revealing the ultimate you, the you that’s usually stashed behind your unending construction site of limitations.

Around a master, there’s obviously the getting amped about learning. Like clockwork, the business of scatty thoughts starts running the show. Aiming at gobbling up more data to improve your skills, you giddily unload your quiver of questions. It’s at that time we could take a breath and see what’s really happening.

No matter if it’s cooking, gung fu, carpentry, painting or scrubbing the tub, there is an “a-ha” awaiting you. It emerges when gravity pulls you from inquisition into silence. The reward is juice. Good old fashion juice from Source. It comes in many flavors. One of the most delicious is that fearless voice that directs you when you take a few steps back onto the shore, from your constant stream of thoughts. On shore, the indomitable you, that has nothing to do with your doings, but your beingness, can communicate.

Recently, I was hanging out with my Pop, The Smoke Whisperer. I went to visit him as he had finished his new house on his old farm. He hasn’t been making sausages, hams and the like for a few years now, since he was busy remodeling, selling, remodeling, selling and building, building and some more building. But now that the house is done, the craft is unpacked and making its shiny new geographical debut.
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I was able to witness the mammoth moment that this year’s hams came out of the cure and went into the smoker. I took it for granted growing up, but now that I’m not around as much in the homeland, I was reminded of how beautiful the art is. I’ve known the mechanics forever, but it was in the silence of stepping back and just witnessing his 70 years of essence. The absorption of the craft through different centuries on different continents is fully alive in that moment. The nonlocal experience that defies space and time just kicks in the door on our construction of limitations.

It doesn’t matter the craft, allow the silence to do the talking for a change. It is here that we'll be able to hear the whispers in the smoke.

insalata caprese

2009-12-14T23:19:00.007-05:00

Stop throwing out your Parmigiano-Reggiano rind.

Here’s one idear to save the parm:

Add to water and large tapioca.

Simmer until tender.

The tapioca has a textural chew similar to fresh mozzarella.

Roll in powdered basil crackers.

Roll in dehydrated heirloom black tomatoes.

basil, tomato, parm tapioca

pomegranate balsamic

root beer smoke

2009-12-01T12:28:00.013-05:00

I was bread and spread a few clicks from the original Dr. Pepper plant. The Dr. is my personal go-to soda, that is, when I partake in soda. It’s just a fact that’s hard wired in my cellular memory. Although, when I think of ingrained mentalgasms, especially in the world of soda, I have to go back to my Grandma’s café where the glass soda bottles were placed on massive blocks of ice in the real live ice box, which was as long as the 50 foot bar. Inside, awaited circusly good, ice crystal laden bottles of Nehi, RC and Frostie Root Beer. An icy cold Frostie, with frost sliding down the bottle, on a 110 F (plus humidity) Texas summer day, with cicadas rattling in the live oak trees, and a smoker effusing smoke whilst brisket and the such chrysalised in its belly, makes for a really really really good memory.

Adding soda to your BBQ goes way back. Basting and mopping your slow & low masterpieces kept them from drying out, while recycling flavor back into the meat. Many times, when engaged in this 4-16 hour process, one became languid and/or drunk and used whatever lubricant that you where holding in your hand. Born was blissful flavor combinations. Many angelic moments have been evoked through the art of smoke since then. And unto your beloved grace, Archangel Frostie, this one’s for you.

root beer imbibement of apple and cherry chips

soak overnight

root beer smoked venison backstrap harvested 200 yards from the house

root beer-bourbon-cranberry sauce

smoked puya chiles

root beer chips

torch chips just before service

love day…everyday…from now on

2009-11-26T11:35:00.007-05:00

Thanks for giving Y'all,

Perhaps we could be this grateful everyday of the year! Bliss to every heart on the planet, without judgment or conditions, forever.....

Live your divinity always,

Uwe
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charcuterie-o-rama au quebec

2009-11-03T14:46:00.019-05:00

intensement ENRAGE!!!!!

1/2 kilo of regis herves' famous lamb creton from my engagement dinner

real bread, herves' lamb creton, fresh coriander seeds

beer pate was ultra tasty

pork belly, liver sausage, unbelievable ham

strongolino-wine cured dry sausage- amazing complexity

this is where I oozed into a puddle

it's not what it looks like- this is a suisse sausage: pork, bacon and emmenthaler that has been smoked until a charred look is composed. grilled and served on ultra fresh real french baguette with sweet-spicy mustard. this is a texas love letter.

fresh sausages to-go:

suisse

knackwurst

merguez petite

tourguez

provencale

agneau souvlaki

les saveurs oubliées

2009-10-19T16:07:00.008-04:00

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Last weekend was the best weekend in the Universe, ever. I was 6 hours deep into Quebec, deliquescing in a Chateau in La Malbaie overlooking the St. Lawrence Seaway. I got up, slipped into the car and began leisurely meandering through the sublimely neon gold/evergreen coastal mountains, dotted with circa 1700’s French farm houses, barns, moose and trout emboldened lakes. Scenically stoned, I had reached the boat launch, already primed/sated. Of the boats cruising around the fjord and seaway, the one with the five big golden hearts and an arrow going through them arrived shortly thereafter. I knew this was my boat. Forty minutes later, the boat was surrounded by seals and minke whales. Next, the second largest animals on the planet, the fin whales, appeared, twisting, smiling and showing their bellies. And then the largest and most conscious animals on our planet, the blue whales came popping up around the boat. It was at this point that I became we, for this was the moment that I proposed to my fiancé.

That evening we left the Richelieu and headed into the landscape for dinner. Racing through the Charlevoix twilight, we curiously imbued ourselves into the French insignia’d countryside and pulled up to the two silos. As we got out of the car and headed towards the farmhouse restaurant with wine bottles in hand, we heard “baaaaa” several times, confirming that we were going to have some very fresh lamb.

This establishment was the creation of Chef Régis Hervé. Fresh. Fresh. Local. Ancient tradition. Fresh. Reality. His institution is called Les Saveurs Oubliées, “the forgotten taste”. He was the first in North America to create a provincial brand for his lamb, bearing its regional status from the land it was raised on, like France, Italy and Spain have been doing with their unique cheeses, hams and wine for centuries. The designation that comes from his farm is known as Charlevoix lamb.

I wanted ultra romance for my engagement dinner. I didn’t want to pay $400 for ideas tonight. I didn’t want to imagine anything. I just wanted grandma essence grounded in love. I wanted to experience the soul food completeness that my grandma gave me in her café 30 years ago. I wanted to taste the offsprings of Mother Earth and Father Sky, our planet and sunshine, photosynthesis and aliveness, salinity and terrior. Not in search of, but found. Not what’s next out there, but what’s eternal in here. Cuisine that holds you in its arms and whispers to you that you’re home. We came to the perfect place.

To sprinkle more romance on the evening, no one spoke English. Parts of the menu and everything said around us was mostly shrouded in that mysterious curiosity. It was all about leaving one of the senses behind, communicating in another gear and letting it all go. And what serendipitously emerged from the lingual fog, came the best meal I’ve had in five years.

First came the bread. The crusty caramelized array of country bread. It arrived with a tour of fresh butter, mint-late harvest white wine gelee, pepper-pear sweet & sour compote and the creton. Creton is a country style pate that is coarse and spreadable. It’s usually made entirely from pork and pork fat. You might as well call the person you buy it from your dealer, because this stuff is straight up French crack. Although, the first bite of this version sent me reeling down another canal of ecstasy. This my friend, was fresh lamb creton. To sum it up in early 80’s vernacular: Word.

I didn’t take pictures of the meal because I didn’t dare encroach on anything that would unplug me from my omnipotent juiciness of unison called my engagement dinner. But this is what was on the menu and nourishing our cells:

pan seared farm lamb’s liver
farm lamb merguez, onion confit, cranberry conserve

foie gras torchon
toasted pumpkin-anise brioche, violet-chablis gelee,

spiced black salt, calvados

onion-tomato soup
duck and chicken renderings, chervil

crispy duck breast
cassis-pear gastrique

farm lamb chops grilled with farm herbs
pear-cardamom chutney

fresh farm goat’s cheese cake
farm raspberry glaze, farm blackberries

warm orchard apple pie
flakiest crust on the planet, farm cape gooseberries, warm anglaise

We were the last ones to leave the restaurant and I asked if there was any way that I could purchase some of the chef’s ayahuasca hallucination style lamb creton. After a few communication vollies with the chef, he reappeared and asked if I wanted a kilo of it. I knew right then and there it was officially a drug. I opted to go halvsies with him. A few moments later, I left the restaurant with my fiancé, a big ass smile and a demi-kilo of lamb creton.

Fin.

whiteface mountain goat cheese

2009-10-07T19:51:00.009-04:00

I loves me some cheese, hence another nicknomer of mine, Queso. Lately, I’ve been fondly swayed by a delicious local fromage which bolsters a ton of flavor. We all know that in America, we’re giving a handicap with having to pasteurize our cheeses, proffering a cheese that has the wildness spanked out of it. Luckily, artisan cheese makers are taking every step to entice the original spirit despite our inspection system.

Asgaard Dairy, down the street from our house, has come through with a soft ripened goat cheese channeled straight from France’s Loire Valley. Much like the Sainte Maure cylinders produced in Touraine, sans the straw running through the center, this cheese is aged to create a beautiful complexity.

Asgaard uses Alpine and Nubian goats on their farm, which garner a high butterfat content. As the cheese ages, it forms a brie like skin with a fine grey-blue dusting of edible mold. Once you cut into it, the textural circus reveals itself. You have the thin natural rind with a walnutty essence, enveloping a ring of runny, buttery, succulence surrounding a core of smooth tasting crumbly youngness that adds a touch of tartness. This is the best thing to happen to my hood in a while.

I tried not to overpower the cheese with companions. Fruit and floral tones were all that could be added, as to honor this champ.

whiteface mountain goat cheese
lavender laced rosé reduction
thai basil buds

Although, I am giddily anticipating the hitting up of numerous cheese markets in Quebec City and Montreal in the near future, to once again, happily plunge myself into unpasteurized heaven. .

what's next?

2009-09-24T17:43:00.002-04:00

Celebrate. You get to choose your next thought! Will it be happiness or grievance?

jalapeno umami

2009-09-11T12:47:00.006-04:00

ancient.
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simple.
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take these.

make this.

yummy.
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freak out (optional).
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steak & yard lobster

2009-09-02T15:08:00.006-04:00

I’m proud to say that I’ve got Hypomyces. Well it’s actually something called Hypomyces lactifluorum. I’ve got a good case of the lobster mushrooms. And they’re growing in my front yard, over by the mint.

Lobster mushrooms are actually a parasite that overtakes a Russula or Lactarius shroom, converting it like that aqueous liquid metal persuasion found in such flicks as The Matrix or T2. Sans evil metallic properties, this conversion is prodigiously more blessed and most delicious.

When you sauté them in olive oil, the oil turns lobster color as well, making a vegetarian lobster oil. Deeply hued of burnt umber and meaty tasting from caramelizing the fungus, this is a byproduct that should not be left to fall between the cracks.

When one thinks lobster, up springs one 50’s style flashback scenario; the luxurious iconic duo of steak and lobster. It falls back on that era of Rat Pack svelte-ness. Adding steak for that hip, savory buzz. This time, the steak is all grilled ribeye, that’s been dehydrated and crushed.

The white powder is not a Rat Pack follow through. It’s that coconut imbued chicken fat from the previous post, gone to powder land. It adds a melting fat texture to the mouth where the steak juiciness is no longer.

As I look out across my paddock at this time of the year…I can truly say, I likes my yard.

lobster mushrooms
dehydrated beef ribeye
chicken fat powder
fig foam
mustard green blossoms
lobster mushroom oil

fried chicken and watermelon

2009-08-18T18:09:00.009-04:00

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Placing your awareness on the names fried chicken and watermelon brings forth the absolute. Completeness. In that, I don’t need to slobber or wax wordzy about two perfect gifts that have been bestowed upon this good Earth.

Git to the point: Chicken skin, coconut milk, fish sauce and sambal went sous vide’ing at 58C for 6 hours.

Looks like a rough evening, but this is truly a new goddess of the larder. Chicken skin which has surrendered it’s renderings to the coconut milk, chiles and garlic. One fingertip embossing of this stuff, touching your tasting mechanism, leaves you totally emotional and helpless. The possibilities for this are mind melting.

The skin, it was dehydrated and then deep fried, making a crackling, scented with coconut milk, umami and chiles. The watermelon orb is a throwback to Adria and the lineage, yet the addition of a jalapeno slice made it all so brand new and shiny to me. Served spoon style, the crispy/bursty textures couldn’t be more circus-like on the spectrum. Taste wise…it’s all…fried chicken and watermelon.

coconut-sambal chicken crackling

watermelon-jalapeno burst
thai basil

coconut powder

chanterelles

2009-08-13T23:49:00.008-04:00

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The woods are alive with the sound of fungus. Since April, it’s been unseasonably cool and rained 94% of those days. In fact, we’ve only had 5 days of summer, which, just so happened to be the last 5 days.

In this moist mesh of fertility comes inspirational bursts of sun that call forth the spore nation. Shrooms unfold their microscopic selves upward from the humus and begin fruiting. Once visible, the hustle is on, swaying the fungiholics from their dens. Bounty hunters hunting bounty. Symbionts harvesting symbionts.

My new mycologist, Linda blessed me with her front yard findings on Silver Lake. Happiness comes in the form of fungus that doesn’t kill you and smacks of apricot and spicy tones, reminiscent in plants such as arugula and nasturtiums. So here’s to you L, and your yard, for being so good to me. We’ll see you in mine in a few days.

With pure flavor of the woods, you don’t want to wrastle or dominate it with a thousand textures or components. To swing with the peppery notes of the chanterelles, I sautéed them in a euphorically spiced Ethiopian butter called nit’ir qibe. Which is not only a post in itself, but a book should be devoted to honor its gustatory exotica. This is complemented with toddler arugula and arugula blossoms. It’s these kinds of moments that allow you to relinquish to nowness.

yard chanterelles

nit'ir qibe

toddler arugula

arugula blossoms

jalapeno umami salt

when are you?

2009-08-01T13:01:00.004-04:00

You’re pretty sure of who you are. You know you’re this and you’re definitely not that stuff. You wear this and you bring home this much, which determines who you are. If you tell me I’m something else other than what I THINK I am, you better be sure I’m going to defend my thinkings. We all defend our appearance, or I should say apparent’s. Because we are a society of we only believe what we see. We cling to things that are only apparent to our eyes, and this, leaves us extremely short sighted.

We depend upon our eyes to believe. Yet eyes are only interpreters of reality. They’re shotty interpreters at best. They see a very small sliver of the light spectrum. You can’t see in the dark, infrared, radio waves, electricity, microwaves, etc. And as we get older we need glasses and sometimes loose our sense of “eyes” all together. So why do we keep trusting in them so much that we determine our reality from them?

If you take a powerful enough microscope, you can see atoms. With more power you see that those atoms are not made of solid stuff like we were told in school. There is more than 95% emptiness in atoms. And the “solid” parts inside are made of tiny particles with space in between them. These particles are not really stuff. They blink in and out of existence thousands of times a second. And nobody has been able to find out where they go and why they come back. Because you can’t see this with your all knowing naked eyes, doesn’t mean it’s not happening…always.

Today, for a few seconds or maybe five, be aware that it’s not so much what you are, but when you are. There are more atoms in an average cell than stars in our Milky Way. We are composed of 70 trillion cells. Each one of us is made of 70 trillion Milky Ways, blinking in and out of existence, thousands of times a second, billions of times a day. In reality, you are being recreated billions of times a day. So the next time someone asks you “What’s up?”, smile and ask them, "When?"

umami at your fingertips

2009-07-28T23:21:00.007-04:00

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The most common theme to “aha” moments and revelations is always distilled into the holiness of simplicity. That thing in your hands, right now. That ever familiar thing you see that you just haven’t “seen” yet.

I’ve been making flavored salts for almost 20 years, and the one that has eluded me is the most palpable. I’ve used this ingredient as a steady flavoroid in many salt concoctions. I’ve used its cousin, MSG for my own musings in such guttural things like making “The Original Recipe”. But why not use a cleaner, tastier version without the tongue torque of uber-glutamating. Enter, salt imbued with fish sauce. If I’m not using salt, I’m using fish sauce. How obvious.

Now I can’t keep my hands out of it. It has reached the Grail level in my spice trove. Add fish sauce to salt, toss, dehydrate, and “Behold (lot’s of shiny stuff and rays of light are bursting in all directions) …sel de nam pla”!!! I’ve always been scared of interventions. But the Divine ones can always have their way with me.

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morsel

2009-07-19T22:26:00.001-04:00

"If you can't feed one hundred people......feed one."
-Mother Teresa

berbere rhubarb-b-q

2009-06-25T12:20:00.007-04:00

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My yard is sweet. Real sweet. Come spring, still in the clutches of snow and ice in the Adirondacks, the maples begin running their deliriously enchanting nectar. My neighbor Mike ardently foraged 30 gallons and reduced it down to veritable liquid gold. The color may be more on the amber side, but the flavor is bar none, worth its weight in gold. One taste of this nano batch of artisanal maple syrup and it’s got me looking at the trees in my yard saying, “I’d tap that”. Mike, you’re a sick puppy, and I’m forever grateful.

Now that rhubarb is back in the mountain landscape, its tang and tartness has me hankering for a sweet foil. Once you go tang and sweet, the BBQ mothership comes and hovers over your house, whispering to you, it’s time for some smoke. Knowing better not to disobey, some of the precious maple was smoked with oak and peach wood. The rhubarb was then vacuum sealed with the smoked maple for a few days.

Instead of straight up Texas, Memphis or Carolina style BBQ, I decided to go Ethiopian style. Volcanically spiced, chasing a trail of floral fragrance, and leaving you euphorically rooted, it was time to apply the African bird’s eye chile spiced berbere rub to some awaiting pork shoulder. Believe me, at this juncture, smiles prevailed. What happened next left me in a state of bliss. One Shazaam style bolt of flavor later, and the revelation erupted. It was in this one bite that I realized…BBQ season has officially hit the mountain tops.

berbere pork shoulder
rhubarb-smoked maple carpaccio
powdered strawberry oil
infant mustard greens

birthday bar food

2009-05-19T12:29:00.009-04:00

My gorgeous lady’s birthday was last weekend and we decided to stay in that evening. We’re headed to a beautiful resort in Canada to celebrate it in a few days though. So for the “It’s your birthday, it’s your birthday, we’re gonna party, we’re gonna party, do some body shots, do some body shots” soliloquy, we refined it a little. Grown folks style.

Two birthday desires: You want to go out and grab some drinks, but you also want to get’chur homeslice birthday on. No worries, we got’chur night on the town cookies and ice cream right’chere.

beer nut florentine-chocolate malt-vanilla stout ice cream sandwiches
toffee malt powder
espresso salt

By the way, if you are into kettle corn like I am, this is the formula for your new fetish.
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beer nut florentines

100g unsalted butter
90g sugar
1g red chile powder
30g corn syrup
45g heavy cream

Combine and heat over medium heat until creamed, 2-3 minutes.

75g corn nuts, ground
15g flour

Whisk in dry ingredients until incorporated. Spoon 1T onto silicon mats or parchment lined sheet pans, 3” apart. Bake for 8-9 minutes until caramelized and lacy. Remove silicon mats to cooling rack. Cut or shape if desired at this point, before the cookies cool. Makes 20 3” cookies.

mole cock’s comb with coffee chilaquiles waffle

2009-04-26T15:59:00.010-04:00

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Cock’s combs came onto the scene recently and disappeared. Sadly, it was kind of the let’s do it once and move on scenario. A culinary “hit it and quit it” if you will. That’s fine for a dish, but for a whole ingredient, it seems that a climax was never reached. And as you know, when reached, the big "c" always entices a repeat experience.

From what I could tell, the common instinct was to fry them. First because “me man, me like to fry all thing”, and second, frying is the Siren song for a new and unknown ingredient about to be experienced. I personally wanted to see more variations, but it appeared that the deep fryer was the end of the road for the ole comb.

This spurred a flicker as to what other techniques could couple with the supple texture lying in waiting. Slow cooking, sous vide and confit techniques are all requisites to pull out the gelatinous treasure that the comb is about. I think duck fat confited comb on toast, dotted with herbs would replicate the traditionally stellar beef marrow set up. But it’s the combination flavor of the comb with caramelized bread texture that generates the whole package. The toast and jelly, chips and dip, the fried comb. Gel on its own, most of the time, needs a counterpart. We needed crispy to join the party, and the temptation to fry is overwhelming. My man cells are welling up. “Must…try…not…to….fry…at…normal…rate…”

I had just a done a gig where I made black bean chilaquiles, let them set up in the fridge and cooked them in a waffle iron for maximum crispy texture on the outside. This allowed a toasted brioche dual-textural experience, yet the airy/gooey inside was composed of tortillas, sauce and cheese. This made perfect sense as a crispy dynamic to pair with the comb.

This chilaquiles was accented with Columbian coffee, which made the decision for a slow cooking technique for the cock’s combs very easy. Hello mole.

chile negro-dried plum mole cock's comb
coffee chilaquiles waffle
queso fresco-yogurt crackling
tomatillo-agave juice

archangel bbq

2009-04-20T10:36:00.027-04:00

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The Pearly Gates and Lockhart, Texas. Each one of you has to go there once in this lifetime.

I’ve lost count of the cross-country tours I’ve done of the lower 48. Growing up in BBQ lineage, my chromosomes constantly advise me that my real job is to taste BBQ wherever I go. They especially remind me, even want to battle me, when I’m on business trips. Oh, those silly chromosomes and their lust for greasy pits.

Like-I-say, my grandma ran shine, grew cotton, picked it with the help of sharecropper’s and had a soul food cafe. The German settler, African cooking technique and Spanish injection of bovinity and porktasms to the Americas sure makes for a tasty way of life. A perfect storm for slow and low charcuterie.

After my gig in Texas two weeks ago, I spent another week on a full-on food tour. A five year absence had me jonesing for genetic satisfaction. So much so we hit up 3 BBQ places before noon on one of the days. This was a tour of roots. There wasn’t a sous vide bag, foam, air, rain, vapor or LN2 for scores of cactus and barbwire garnished miles. Nor was there any chain glitz or hyped out venues that we visited.

This journey was all about the continuous family businesses perfecting their craft, generation after generation. 125 year old buildings with over 80 years of smoke, rocks, brick and iron work effusing an olfactory crack that can only be experienced and never bought. Time soaked walls which barely reflect the straw hued light from above. The kind with that murmuring buzz, which illuminates a path for the spirits of Old West pioneers to meander as they please. Rusty signs of products that are now only memories, old photos of the pit masters who knew they were culinary sorcerers bringing satiety to their sparse communities. This is the real deal. Old school. Perfect. Let me say it again. Perfect.

I could have written a review on each place we visited like other writers do, and you would have missed the real essence of each place. You would have zoomed through and forgot what you just read here by the time you clicked on the next blog you’re about to read. That’s why I’d like for you to slow down and peer into these photos of an amazing culinary history. In these pictures are the generations of pit masters who produce the best brisket, ribs, BBQ sauce and hot links that will ever touch your soul. I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who allowed me into the belly of your last-of-its-kind, touchstone establishments. Keep the dream alive, it’s in your hands. God bless.

journey to the center of the texas

2009-04-13T12:06:00.004-04:00

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I just got back from my gig in Texas late last night. Click on the micromenu above to see some of what went down. I'll upload some riteous post-gig pics of some archangel level BBQ next. Completely grateful for all your support, Uwe.

april fools! um...two weeks ago

2009-04-13T11:31:00.007-04:00

Food player, Chadzilla, Martin, Kevin, Doc, Ian, Phillip and myself were trying to stir up a little fashizzle on April Fools. We collaborated on the whole "ORGASMIC" pseudo moniker. I posted at 3:49 in the morning as I was checking out of a hotel and that was the last technological contact to blog until now. So....uh.......April Fool's. I kind of feel like I just told an open ended knock knock joke. Oh well......Happy Easter....um......yesterday.

food porn is legalized

2009-04-01T03:49:00.010-04:00

Somehow when the culinary blowhole spewed the latest celebratory revolution in edible artistry, it came with a moniker which subtracted the human essence from eating, with the descriptor known as “molecular gastronomy”. Very anticlimactic. Yes, a scientific attunement is needed to produce these new techniques, but a “science fair” sounds sexier than molecular gastronomy. "Science Diet" the dog food could easily be confused with molecular gastronomy and if you were in a hospital and the doctor said we'll have to give you molecular gastronomy, your first thoughts may be that he's offering you a gastric bypass. Not the most enticing nomer for describing one of the most mind blowing movements in the history of food.

Spanish spawned, the journey that this evolutionary/revelationary cuisine takes you on is a total physio-psycho-participatory experience. It physically pushes a sixth sense occurrence into your dining perspective. So why such a cloddy name?

Well, according to my buddy Billi Rubin, who is attending a grand summit of the world’s most cutting edge chef’s in Costa Brava, Catalonia, the term “molecular gastronomy” is being formally discussed and undergoing a heretic makeover. Something that better represents a heightened sensory alteration is finally being chewed upon. He reports, “The consensus seems to be leaning towards ORGASMIC, an acronym for ORganoleptics, Gastronomy, Art, & Science Meet In Cuisine. A final vote is scheduled for tomorrow morning, followed by the unveiling at a press conference”.

Finally, we’ve arrived. What I’ve always wanted my guests to experience at the table is literally being spelled out before them. The processed microwavable substances passed by the FDA as food has commercials that take on a porn theme to sell them. Why not a movement that actually wants you to dance back and forth over the foreplay line get a little jiggy in its name. Let me know your thoughts on this emission launched from Catalonia.

why is my chicken always wearing a diaper?

2009-03-25T23:30:00.005-04:00

I’ve never seen pictures of a real chicken, pig or cow wearing a diaper, so it’s kind of funny after 19 years of cooking that I’ve had to discard thousands of them stuck to my food just to start cooking. I must say having a Pops who grew up on a farm has made me a lucky man. I’m reminded of the facts of life and that decisions we make should be made from responsibility.

Stop for a second. Take a deep breath. On the exhale say silently or aloud, “I am responsible for my thoughts.” For most of us, we’ll be too distracted by trying to rush to the next moment in the future. But for those who actually experience the present moment for 3 seconds or so, will break the habitual narcosis of the same streamlined thought pattern, and enjoy a, “Hot damn! I do get to choose what I think.” We have over 65,000 thoughts a day. The sad part is they’re mostly the same few thoughts over and over. One of them is removing the plastic and styrofoam from the food you eat and thinking that Nature always does that. Stop and say, ”I am responsible for my thoughts” again, except this time see your chicken wearing a diaper.

With this, if you are one of those people who eats food, try once to grow it or harvest it. Be responsible for just one meal you eat. You will suddenly have gratitude each time your teeth touch it. When’s the last time that happened? If you like vegetables, go grow a carrot or some mustard greens. If you like meat, pick out the chicken or pig you want and harvest it yourself. You will stop the drone thoughts. You will get high on you taking responsibility. You will amorously be grateful for every morsel. You won’t have to remove a diaper.

gratitude beaming tom khaa kai

carvi sauvage

2009-03-15T15:09:00.002-04:00

If you can step to Montreal to get away…Do it. It’s hard for me to see why people in upstate are willing to drive a few hours to a mundane city in the vicinity. Why not immerse yourself into a different country for the same amount of gas money. What’s in it for me, you ask? Real, unabashed, traditional European foods that will flip your lid.

Here’s just one reason. Carvi Sauvage. The French caraway imbued raw sheep’s milk cheese. This semi-firm, yet heavenly creamy aged cheese with a breeze of sweet, subtle nuttiness will line drive you into love. In an involuntary instant, you will stop, close your eyes, appreciate the living simplicity that has been around for eons, and let the millions of reactions that compose the power of taste, all have their way with you. Within this gasm you know that you are blessed to be able to taste the ancient roots of a cuisine. These rare moments leave you in a desireless state for egoic augmentation.

Eating this at a market just miles from where the cheese was made, with the up and bustle of thousands of foodies, the auspicious gluttony of Creton-the French country loose pork pate and the whole air dried leg of Jambon de Bayonne, being meticulously sliced so thin as to look like stained glass, all this swirling around you within arm reach …… well ..… it’s in this moment that you realize your lid has just been flipped.
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singapore noodle

2009-03-09T19:22:00.005-04:00

Seaward travel betwixt China and India includes being flanged down between some islands and the mainland peninsula of Malaysia. This little alleyway is called the Strait of Singapore, and it’s akin to an oceanic toll booth. When you have a trade route between the culinary giants of the Far East and Southern Asia with a rest stop in the middle, you’re pretty much talking about culinary unicorns and phantasmagorical edibles. No Sbarro in this food court, this is of the likes of a supreme paradise where you’re greeted with the lifting of a glass from Mr. Roarke and Tattoo.

The spice trade ebb and flow through this Strait gave birth to many a dish, but one in particular utilizing China’s pasta and India’s curries, known as Singapore noodle. Rest of ingredients: Magic.

fried rice noodles dusted with singapore noodle powder

shrimp-pork-chicken crackling

whipped shrimp-pork-chicken stock

thai basil

After teaching a Singapore class, I was eating popcorn, daydreaming of endless flavors that popcorn could benefit from. As the daydreams came back around to the ingredients that were in my fridge, it started to play itself out. Other than popcorn, what has a light as air texture and is practically flavorless? Think the foundation of Thai mee krob or American mid-80’s salad garnish and you’ll have fried rice vermicelli. After raw noodles and the fryer kissed, our foundation was laid.

Next, actual finished Singapore noodles with shrimp, pork and chicken where dehydrated, ground and mixed with maltodextrin. This umami power powder was sprinkled over the fried noodles creating puffed Singapore noodles.

Phase 2: Shrimp, pork and chicken were marinated in the Singapore noodle sauce, pureed, strained, sheered with agar, spread out into thin sheets, oven roasted until cooked through, with a little touch of caramelization. This was transferred to the dehydrator until crispy. The goal was to have that crispy duck or pork skin experience including shrimp and chicken flavors. It came out pretty close to the initial idea, and I’m really looking forward to more experimentation in the future.

The base for the Singapore marinade contained a team stock made from shrimp, pork and chicken stocks. This was whipped with methylcellulose for an aerated stock, but not too airy, so that the noodles when mixed into it, become lubricated with one of the most grounding flavors there is; homemade stock.

Mixed together, it’s all Singapore noodle, without the textural reference. It’s funny how you eat popcorn and then this happens. We live in a wonderful world.

tindora

2009-03-02T16:37:00.005-05:00

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I received a few emails asking about the tindora gel. Tindora, (Coccinia Grandis) is a pinky finger sized gourd grown from a creeper vine that’s native to Southeast Asia, which migrated to Southern Asia, to the big mama of foodology, India. Throughout the tindora belt, you’ll find this pygmy green/white striped watermelon look-alike curried, stir fried, masala’d, stewed and deep fried. When it ripens it turns a scarlet color, but it is commonly eaten green. Known for its easy assimilation of vitamin A & C, calcium, iron, phosphorous, beta carotene and low glycemic index, it has become an every other day staple in many households. The roots, leaves and shoots are also used.

We see it in the States under another perception. We know it as a nuisance. Here, well more in the South, it’s that weed that takes over the backyard, better known as the ivy gourd.

I think if more people knew that you could fry it and stew the greens, we'd have a new best friend living in the backyard.
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Tindora is great for digestion, liver (bile secretion), blood detoxifier, mucus expectorant, blood glucose regulator and pore opener to expel toxins.

All this, plus it’s really fun to eat with a smoking curry leaf on the plate.

thums up

2009-02-22T23:23:00.000-05:00

One sip. Kerplow. Dream sequence begins.

It was all started by the unmitigated audacity of a Thums Up soda, a beverage offered by Coca-Cola’s Indian division. I was at an Indian market, after about 6 different stops, and needed a blast of giddy-up. I looked over, and there I saw the ice cold sodas in the old school bottles, like the ones my grandma served in her soul food café. Piloted by nostalgia, my arm reached involuntarily, and went for a cola.

It was like the old Mean Joe Green commercial, but for chefs. What got me was the wonderfully balanced essences of fenugreek, coriander and the aura of a deliciously composed curry in a soda. I was a bit jealous that I hadn’t thought of it. I checked out the soda’s website and instantly had adapted their mantra: “…known for its strong, fizzy taste and its confident, mature and uniquely masculine attitude. This brand clearly seeks to separate the men from the boys.” Sweeeet.

Next thought….BBQ. Recently chefs have been using sodas as braising liquids, mops, glazes and what-not. I myself, even have a smoked root beer glaze with some bourbon massaged pork chops in my book. My personal inspiration wasn’t sparked by today’s gastronmicon of trends, but by my relatives who have been using the unique sweetness and secret recipes of sodas in their marinades, baths and BBQ spa treatments since the 50’s. Naturally, Thums Up and boneless country pork ribs were about to hook up.

boneless country pork ribs and thums up prepared for sous vide

thums up sous vide pork rib

thums up oil

tindora gel
smoking curry leaf

saag powder

what is soul?

2009-02-10T17:13:00.000-05:00

what is soul?
soul is a hamhock in your conflakes

what is soul?
soul is the ring around your bathtub

what is soul?
soul is rusty ankles and ashy kneecaps

what is soul?
soul is chitlin foo yung

what is soul?
soul is you, baby

-george clinton, 1970

what is soul?
soul is smoked and air dried sausage orchestrated from a centuries old recipe made on the farms of my lineage that only exist in history, from the old world to the new, from great great great grandfathers to my pops, a living essence that transcends physical digs, passed on to unite the most recent generation with the sublime.

what is soul?
real unpasteurized european sheep’s milk farm cheese so creamy and luscious that there is no distinction between the melting of it on your tongue and your tongue.

-uwe, 2009

what is soul?
soul is you, baby

-george und uwe…………..

relax…don’t worry…have a hopebrew

2009-01-30T16:22:00.000-05:00

“Relax…don’t worry…have a homebrew.” These immortal letters were assembled in this order like a treasure map to get you to the gates of bliss. These words were formed by master alchemist/shaman/ fermentation tsar/ romancer of all things beer, Charlie Papazian. Please, the guy’s got papa in his name. Any other words needed? I say nigh.
.

Charlie inspired a group of young rebel chef apprentices back in 1989 to spelunk into the depths of grain, water and yeast. Our little band of gypsies produced a formidable array of happy serum. There was homebrew coming from every direction. The labels, many better than the beer itself, will line the halls of infamy in my yeast stained mind.

Now, making beer is a vested sport. There’s plenty of time for it to absorb your intentions. Patience and love are the key ingredients. My brother, Tater brewed up a special batch to pop open on the inauguration. Alloweth tis to be knowest, this post is not a political message. This is about the love of what you do, smattered with a borderline freak out of passion from the source of all passion.

.

Upon bottle opening, the “Shhhhhttttt” sounded of an elevated expression of joy. Not surprisingly, this juju filled the room. The brew commanded all attention. A frosty bottle containing a top fermenting ale. Pouring it was heavenly. The nutty, amber-brown taste and depth of aroma performed perfectly. You could taste the billions of organisms that came together as one, transmuting who they were, to assimilate the all for one and one for all mantra. I could of swore that the yeast asked me, “Don’t it feel good to be loved?”

Again, beyond politics...at the same time I was sipping, I looked up at the screen and saw billions of organisms coming together, reaching out once again. Waking from slumber, activated by a catalyst, powered by well-being, converting what was into what is, being our being. This brew that we’re all tasting is delicious. Don’t forget it. Ingredients: love, giving, compassion, forgiveness, integrity, wellness, everyone.

the shift

2009-01-20T14:49:00.001-05:00

I slowly came up for air. Emerging like a pupa from the depths. My lips just above the pulsating prism of teal blue water, an intake of prana, and under the Mother’s milk I go again. Sublime. No…the heart of sublime. The trinity of my Selves, fully activated, exuding grace. Moments before I was in a cavernous nook, a living pulpit, veiled by the thunderous triple waterfall. I dove into the blast of this vertical river and let it have its way with me. I was radically plunged deep, and I mean deep, into the twilight hued void. I drifted downward into the peace that awaited under the detonating water and ions above. Compassionately suspended…in the womb…floating in the profoundness of Mother’s milk. After what seemed hours, my physicality started tugging my Spirit’s shirttail, reminding me that air might keep my physicality going a little longer. Oh, this wasn’t the first time, I had been doing this all afternoon. I just liked being stoned from the inside-out on womb juice. She liked it too, even though She had to keep reminding me that I needed to breathe.

As I came up for the last time, The Voice, in It’s full-on clarity, came through, and said with beyondness, “You’re the one, you’ve been waiting for.” This, a moment I had been waiting all my life for, had just given birth. “I Am the One I’ve been waiting for.”

I waded over to my best friend Victor, who was enjoying his infusion with the skirt of this gracious waterfall. Channeling the message, my mouth opened and revelation became audible human words…“Buddy, you’re the one you’ve been waiting for.”

Again, there’s a big difference between witnessing from the outside, always looking to the outside for the answers rather than being a Witness, living from inside the answer. On this round, I was ripe to be a Witness. As revelation spewed, we were standing under Mom mist, as Father sky blazed from behind, showering us in infinite refracting holographic droplets of blessedness. We both smiled like babies, in the epiphany that we are being showered by Source at all times, if we just take a moment to shift.

Today, January 20, 2009, is a moment where we are all Witnesses. We are no longer waiting. “We are the One.” The Shift that has been spoken of is here. We are now on the inside. The world is here. We are all piloting, operating on our original software, the heart.

The Hopi elders have pleaded for us to not just hear, but experience “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.” There have been several emissaries throughout history exposing this insight. There’s an old parable about the mustard seed, which I will translate in my perception. If we would just have faith in who we really are, what we are really made of, even if that faith were only the size of a mustard seed, we would all Witness, and expose the lusciousness of our real ineffable power.

For so long we let outdated thoughts, patterns of nonsense, and traditional beliefs have their way with us. Beliefs that have ridden us collectively into submission. We’ve been paralyzed over beliefs that were taught to our parents parents, our parents and unto us, only to never be questioned, like militant orders, for life.

Self-paralysis is not the answer to help your brother and sister. A self imposed life sentence, while the cell door has always been wide open, is a sign that we’ve already determined the verdict of guilty upon ourselves without an incident even occurring.

Each moment you have a blank slate to fill with a totally new thought. The shift is here. You’re the one you’ve been waiting for. Now that we’re on the inside, let You choose each moment of grace and not the verdict of old misperception.

This shift is born from the invisible, but you can feel it like a tingling mist on your face. A clarity behind your cells, manifesting instantly through your cells. We’ve made a choice within instead of the choice without. We elected our heart and saw the effects inaugurated today. This choice came from within you, the One you’ve been waiting for. This is not about hope or wishes, this is about clarity, and taking one more step to expose who we really are…One. Play on brother, play on sister. Share the realness inside.

we the mustard seeds

vietnamese au poivre

2009-01-18T23:38:00.000-05:00

Instead of immersing you in a wash of genetic slather on peppercorns, I’ll just say that other than salt, they’re responsible for the discovery, connecting and desecration of more countries than religion, not to mention the uniting together with salt created the female hip hop movement in Queens. Even though she spelled it Pepa, we all know we could feel the omniscient burning spiciness within.

fresh vietnamese peppercorns

Born in India, peppercorns gained passage to just about every fold and crevice on the planet. To date, Vietnam now holds sway on the production of peppercorns. Although they’re not known for producing the most elegant and exotic variety, when lips come into contact with these herbaceous fresh peppercorns, you’ll immediately be humbled by the pungency, and realize why the fuss was made over this aromatic fruit for millennia.

peppercorn vodka

After crushing a peppercorn between my fingers and imbibing the explosive burst of piperine, I slid into the belly of the old school. In this moment, it was obvious……it was steak time. Then the rekindling of ribeye and a bloody mary bubbled up. On this round, Vietnamese peppercorn vodka was instilled. A play date with Asian bloody mary powder was next, and the steak chosen, was the luscious garnet hued loin of wapiti. Today is a good day.

vietnamese peppercorn vodka

cast iron seared wapiti loin

asian bloody mary powder

scallop tenderloin

2009-01-02T23:51:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the furious flow of life doesn’t allow for adequate time to research and see if a technique or an ingredient has officially had it’s coming out parade. For myself, the word scallop and the word tenderloin merged together on my ticker and I wanted to see if it was viable.

If my recollection is being responsible, I believe when Activa was introduced to regular Joe cooker man, there was a lil’ som’n som’n in the ingredient profile about gluing a few scallops together. I think everyone tried it and moved on. A few years later, I guess the ‘bigger is better’ chromosome kicked in and the word tenderloin just painted a smile across my face.

I applied said Activa, in the non-slurry method, just sprinkling it on the dry sea scallop. I figured since scallops never seem to be potty trained, they’ll make their own slurry. Next, they were vacuum sealed and rested overnight.

A cocoa-annatto rub was applied and the tenderloin was fire roasted in the wood stove, rested and sliced. The flavor and texture was right on. I liked the segmented look as if it were a real tenderloin that had been tied. And the bias cut, getting 3 different scallops in one slice was unusually pleasing. Although, the prognosis as a static menu item in production would be a tad tricky. One would have to use their Shaolin training to gracefully maneuver the tenderloin or the forces of Nature will taunt you with a little game of scallop musical chairs. As always, more playing with our food will unleash another deliciously delicious deliciousness. I love my job.

just good eatin'

malted yogurt crackling

2008-12-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

Vanilla malt……The most popular spice in the world + Ice cream + Caramelized barley sugar. Pure honesty, exuding distilled decency. The Opie-Taylor-red-white-and-blue-gene is immediately strummed at the mere suggestion of one. Wholiness for mankind. Vanilla malt was originally in the Pledge of Allegiance, but was later removed because it caused too many day dreams during pledge time.

Yogurt. Not quite as persuasive in taking a plunge into decadence, but delivers cozy on another level. Yorgurt’s potentials are close to infinite, but I still become partial to a few convenient ones. My hand definitely tends to listen to a raisin more when it’s covered in yogurt.

The other day I was making a batch of malted yogurt, letting her ferment in my dehydrator. As she arrived unto doneness, I peeled the skin off that had formed on the surface and began to dehydrate it further. As the yogurt skin was turning crisp, the malt thing and those covered raisins had done started dancing all up in my brow.

malted yogurt crackling

raisins tipsy on tuaca

Red grapes where dispatched in a solution of Tuaca vanilla liqueur and vanilla seeds. They lounged and slurped the surrounding bath until they could take no more. The grapes were then transferred to the dehydrator to make spiked vanilla shrouded raisins.

To wrap it up, I got my vanilla malt and my yogurt covered raisins. Although, the bonus this time was the malt was crunchy and the raisins spewed vanilla essence where their penchant for that isn’t normally encountered. Where to from here? Individually robed raisins in crispy yogurt, crispy raisin sheets enrobing yogurt, carbonated yogurt and raisin ice cream float, raisin and yogurt gels parfait with malted pop rock powder…Good times….good times.

homemade malted yogurt

5 cups milk

In a medium sauce pot, heat milk to 185 F. Cool to 110 F.

6 oz plain yogurt or yogurt starter
3/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup barley malt powder

Whisk in yogurt, dry milk, and barley malt powder. Transfer to a container, cover and maintain at 110 F, undisturbed, for next 4 hours. Overnight is best. Chill 2 hours for yogurt to set before stirring. Keeps for 2 weeks, refrigerated in an airtight container. Makes 4 1/2 cups.

fried gumbo

2008-12-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

Neural networks are memory freeways. Voluntarily constructed, ethereally built out of protein and ether. The more you cerebrally commute on the same route, you find yourself admiring the scenery of something called a belief. A little more believing, with the aid of some stubbornness, delivers unto you the big H. Habits are more solid than concrete, but when you literally open up the brain, there’s not a thought to be found. Not even a worn out one. Not to worry, your roots will always expose what you’re driving down your freeway. Here’s what’s careening down mine.

Texas has one foot in the bayou and the other in the desert. A vast, make that a vast vast void, gluing the deep South and the deep West together. The consequence? It’s a most delicious osmosis.

As the left toes wiggle, the stretchy tingle of gumbo effervesces. As the right toes wiggle, the cathartic release of a relleno enters like a woobee warmed by a wood burning stove. As most people find lint in the nooks of they’re pockets, I pretty much find fried okra. I see it as being blessed. As my toes and fingers find themselves meeting, the roots just got themselves seen again on an old and soul packed route.

okra

blanched and cleaned okra

gumbo ingredients:
okra
shrimp
smoked pheasant
smoked pheasant stock with roux
andouille

gumbo crusted with poha (indian flattened rice)
sassafras fleur de sel

satiscracktion

2008-12-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

Be it the munchies, boredom or the typical holiday omnivory, the tendencies to abate rambling new creations is fruitless. You long for the classics every year, yet while you anticipate, prepare and chew the victuals, the mind is playing hopscotch with other random connections. Many times, the new spirited idear, could just arrive as stumbling happenstance.

puffed farro

I was just grazing on a kaffir lime leaf for the fantasy fruitiness of it all. Y’know how we compose a synthetic substance from all things good coming from the rain forest? I’m pretty sure the nucleus to compose Fruity Pebbles came from the kaffir of Thailand, and not Bedrock. Anyhow, whilst kaffir essential oils lavished my mandible, I reached into that ubiquitous tin bucket that mysteriously shows up annually and grabbed a handful of it’s innards. Out comes another handful of caramel popcorn. Pow. No wait. Shazaam!! All of a sudden, this time is totally different. Are you kidding me? Kaffir caramel popcorn? It’s a full-on misdemeanor. That recipe to come out soon.

red curry farro

coconut farro

green curry farro

kaffir lime leaf

Randomness sets in. It’s late. I’m still hungry. Cereal or coconut curry? Kaffir caramel corn? The Munch has begun. I want to create a cereal of puffed wheat. Farro has just been called upon. Better known as emmer wheat, it comes in your typical wheat berry fashion. I steam it like rice till it’s all fluffy. Then she goes into the dehydrator. From this point, I flash fried the crunchy morsels until they puff up, like Sugar Bear cereal. Intermittently, curry’s still whispering into my ear. Yesterday, I had just gotten through dehydrating Thai red and green curry pastes into powder…….and all of a sudden the Munch can be quelled. A new snack or amuse or whatever you feel the urge to mold it into. I call it….Satiscracktion.

fig-galangal-lime leaf cranberry sauce

2008-11-26T21:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks everyone. I’m very grateful for all your support, thoughts, ideas and laughter over this last year. May your Thanksgiving truly be filled with gratitude. Live as you would if you only had a few hours left on this physical plane. May forgiveness, compassion, understanding and spontaneous laughter from the center of your heart have its way with you all day long.

This here sauce sounds busy, but after it sits and cools for at least 4 hours, it rounds third and starts sliding into smilesville.

1 T canola oil
1/2 onion, medium dice
1 1/2 t galangal, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced

In a small sauce pot over medium high heat, sauté onion, galangal, and garlic in canola oil. Cook until garlic begins to caramelize.

1 1/2 cups cranberry juice

Deglaze with cranberry juice.

2 T balsamic vinegar
1 t chile garlic paste
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 t kosher salt
1/8 t ground cinnamon
1/8 t ground allspice

Stir in vinegar, chile garlic paste, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil.

8 oz fresh cranberries
1 cup dried figs, sliced thinly

Add cranberries and figs. Bring back to a boil. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for a minute or so after all of the cranberries have "popped".

1 t lime leaf, minced
3 T cornstarch
3 T water

Mix cornstarch, lime leaf and water in a small bowl or cup. Stir into cranberry mixture and keep on stirring. Cook until juice returns back to its original transparent fuscia color. This will make sure the cornstarch is cooked thoroughly. Cook until you achieve a jelly consistency. Cool down and refrigerate until needed in an airtight container. Keeps for 4 days.

mole ravioli

2008-11-13T23:24:00.000-05:00

Born in South America, the cassava plant is the life line for many, from villages to high rises. Also known as manioc or yuca, it has been bred and spread throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. From this starchy root emerges a product that we’ve all come to love or hate. And that product just happens to be tapioca.

blackened plum mole ravioli
lamb machaca pasta
charred satsuma plum reduction
toasted cacoa nibs

This here ravioli is made from encapsulating a blackened plum mole with a dough made from tapioca flour and lamb machaca. If you’ll remember from an earlier post, machaca is a Native American/Mexican style air dried meat that is pounded into delicate threads, like light and fluffy, mouth melting meat filaments. The machaca was spun in a spice grinder and the tapioca flour was added to make a lamb flour so to speak. Water was added to form the dough and pulled into disks, which were then used to encompass a dollop of chilled blackened plum mole. After a brief steaming, viola…one of the most enchanting dishes on the planet is enveloped in a film of air dried lamb.

the original grocery store

2008-10-29T17:23:00.000-04:00

The woods are bellowing. The guttural sounds of igniting gun powder are ricocheting off the mountain faces, and it’s decidedly apparent, we are in the full throes of hunting season. Lately, as a flyfisher, you wonder if you’ll catch more than just a fish. Perhaps a little stray lead may find itself wandering across the river at subsonic speed. After growing up in the city and hearing gun shots, it’s a little less unnerving this time around, at least there’s fewer worries that you were the intended target.

whitetail jerky with smoked hoisin bun thit nuong marinade

Before styrofoam, plastic wrapping and professional labeling conditioned us into thinking food was born and raised in a refrigeration unit at your local gargantua-market, the woods were the original grocer. As hunter-gatherers, we harvested with respect to create a balance between the worlds of the visible and invisible. Knowing that everything is interwoven in the Universal fabric.

With man-sprawl providing massive shifts and the decline in the original environment, natural predators have found themselves fewer and fewer in number. Those that man doesn’t deem near as pesky, don’t get eliminated near as quickly, therefore the populations of these animals mimic, well, man-sprawl. That’s the impetus of why hunting season was implicated, to reduce starvation and help maintain “natural” balance without “natural” predators.

During the season, I luck out by not having to do the dirty work. I usually get called for my knife skills and break down the local harvest into cuts people can recognize. Offering my services this way helps to sustain the “balance”, and add more natural foods to my table. Food that comes from my front yard and not shockingly cultivated 1400 miles from here.

Whitetail deer is characteristically sweet with an affinity for the not-so-savory of flavorings. As well, smoke is a definite escort to whitetail when it comes to eliciting its inherent deliciousness. When these sweet and smoky profiles come together, my habit for Bun Thit Nuong, Vietnamese rice vermicelli with char-broiled pork, has to naturally jump onboard. The tougher cuts from the haunch were sliced thinly, mounted with the obligatory Vietnamese marinade for charbroiled pork- rarely used on venison –laced with peanuts and dehydrated into jerky. There’s one problem though. Jerky is well known as a preservation method, but this particular batch is already well on its way to becoming a one-night stand.

love your new consciousness, it's delicious

2008-10-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

In response to Zilla’s exploration & time…about the new food movement.

Ahhh… the boundaries of our linear space-time continuum. It’s hard being consciousness trying to fit consciousness into a 24 hour time slot. The very first thing I learned in chef school was, “The clock is your enemy.” Truly old school verbiage, but in this physical realm, timing and exactness are the skeletal system of chefdom. Without it there would be no structure, mechanics or forward movement. And molecularly, worlds of flavor exist between every second that food experiences from ground to plate. Yet beyond time, who we really are, our formlessness, is surfacing in this new era of consciousness, and now we are seeing a new world emerge through us.

This newness is something we’re all wanting to communicate now. We’re starting to wonder “how does our boundless consciousness fit into the square hole of time?” Throughout history, artists, it seems, are the ones who apparently have more anguish over communicating from the sweet spot. As pioneers exploring the inner heart, and having to deliver our findings through our mental lens, the frustration of trying to put the infinite into words has always caused a ripple. The passion of the artist and his perfectionism always tears the seams of time, allowing the viewer (or eater) to take a bite of his own timelessness. That’s why artists have always been the voice of society, the mirrors of our consciousness, the scouts of evolution.

The new food movement is expansion. All inclusive, for it is based on its roots, net separated. It’s the secondary Big Bang of the food world. Now that it’s exploded into our reality, it can never be totally conquered or bagged. The fact is, it can never be accomplished in our space-time reality. It now moves forward in all directions. There’s so much information available to us about new cuisine, techniques, ingredients, molecular synergies and the vastness of taste, that our physical constraints and 5 senses are holding us back. It’s like the love/frustration trip a dog on a leash goes through when it wants to play with every dog that walks down the street. We can’t sniff ‘em all, but at least we get to sniff those that we draw into our range. We should revel in gratitude for that, invite as many to the party as we can, and enjoy the sharing. The concept of crossing the finish line is an old crumbly archetype. Letting go is our new paradigm.

In the 18th century, food consciousness had its first explosive movement, but it really only applied to the phantasmagorically regal. The distribution of wealth made it available to just a few small niches. With convenience upstarts here and there, like the “space age” of TV dinners and drive-thrus, nothing has really changed energetically in the past 200 years. Chefs were of noble caliber and they were few and far between. They coveted their findings and kept information under protective scrutiny. Again, before our very eyes, we are watching another archetype crumble.

The familiar cemented grasp that we’ve contentedly had our feet in, exists only in memory, and we’re culinarily finding ourselves almost taking our first steps into the unknown. Learning to embrace 360 degrees of possibility and openly sharing ideas is all still really new to us. We should all celebrate the new food movement, for it is an effect of our new consciousness. A product of our evolution.

Yes we may distill chicken into vapor, turn chicken skin into foam, and sip this from a vessel which sits on a pillow of caramel air, yet when we go home, we’re elbows deep in a bucket of fried chicken. As we build new neural networks in our minds about perspectives of food, our roots keep us anchored, tempering our exploratory balance.

The gigs of information that our brains process could be much much more, because we only file familiar information that applies to our identity. As we openly share with our brothers and sisters, the infinite becomes more and more real. We begin to see reality as opposed to only the familiar. We also see that what’s real cannot be owned. As we’re finding out who we really are consciously, we’re realizing that the narrowness of the “King of the Hill” mentality is dying. It is a washed up option. Again, trying to cram consciousness into a square hole. The openness of the new cuisine movement is a mark of us emerging into our Oneness.

Play on brother, play on sister.

shrimp cocktail

2008-10-20T23:31:00.000-04:00

Part of finalizing the garden was drying, canning and flavoring liquids with the harvested booty. One of my favorite projects was fortifying white rum with lime basil and lemongrass. This fragrant libation just smacks of Thailand. First I wanted to concoct a cocktail and then, shrimp wanted to get all up in there. Who am I to deny tiger shrimp of they want?

The flat screen in my noodle, flashed a picture of a Thai inspired jello shot. The first step was to create the shot. The shrimp was wok seared with fried red chile oil and kaffir lime leaves. The alcohol level of the lime basil-lemongrass rum was toned down with a little water, sugar and a dash of fish sauce. The shrimp and rum were married and set with agar.

Now a cocktail, she needs a little garnish. A martini has its olive, a Manhattan has its cherry, a pina colada has its pineapple wedge, and all are working the spectrum from salty to sweet. I chose all of the above, well at least on the flavor regions of the tongue. Lychees were calling out with their sweet exotica and I wanted to excite them with a little salty afterglow, like chocolate or caramel with a sprinkle of finishing salt.

Baking in a salt crust was the answer. Kosher salt, sugar, green curry paste and egg whites were spun together and packed into small bases on the roasting pan.

Next, the lychees were laid on top each base and a healthy dose of green curry salt was mounded into a dome, encasing each lychee. They were baked in a 330 F oven for 25 minutes until golden on the outside. Each dome was cracked open to reveal the curry cured fruit. To compliment the theme, carnation was added for its spiciness and clove aromatics.

This was a fun departure from the always-a-beer-with-Thai-food pairing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just saying…

lime basil-lemongrass scented rum with wok seared shrimp
lychee roasted in green curry salt crust
fried red chile oil
carnation

pb & j

2008-10-13T22:55:00.000-04:00

I picked up some concord grapes at our local farm/orchard stand the other day. As one tastes concord grapes, you can’t help but be transported back to a time of après goo goo ga ga delights. After the boob, pb & j reigned victoriously over all else.

First on the concord agenda was to juice them. After letting the juice hang out for a bit, the skins begin to release their inherent enzymes and take interest with the natural pectin. Coagulation ensues. This process is a diorama of the “cap” in the world of wine making. I’m reminded of what foodplayer did with her cap when she juiced blueberries. As we had both recently posted about making ricotta, her blueberry experience picked up on that trail again, superimposing the congealing qualities of fresh juice as somewhat of a fruit “cheese”.

This rouses me even more, for grapes make wine and wine loves cheese. As thoughts of cheese massaged my brain, risotto and parm hit the bullseye. I could use our grape “cheese” to help creamify and finish risotto instead of parm. This giving the risotto a tannic sweet note with fruit reverb.

Alls well in Risottoville, but the undertow of pb & j is getting stronger. The shadow cannot be ignored or it will only become more intense. Cheetos, Doritos or BBQ chips are the only companions that are worthy in the presence of, or in the bed with, so to speak of the creamy/crunchy nutty fruitgasmic sugared gellee god and goddess, evoking magmatic dreams within the mantle of mankind’s most ethereally primal birthright, the joy of bread. Crust on or without…

sea scallop mounted with bbq potato chip powder
concord grape sushi rice risotto
peanut butter pebbles
bread crust threads

get back to where you once belong

2008-10-08T22:50:00.000-04:00

Growing up in the Beefophilia Republik of Tejas, I’m privy to a little known fact about BBQ that most aren’t. Sure, it’s the cowboy that dons the front cover of your mental imagery, but the reality is that beef isn’t served 3 times a day in (all) Texas homesteads. For the rest of the nation, and those Texans still bent on annexation, there’s been a brainwashing command to think of BBQ in these bridled terms: Pig=Southeastern US…Beef=Texas…or die.

Here’s a fact, in the typical farm scene, it was a lot cheaper to raise and eat pork than beef. Between slavery and the poor homesteaders, pork was what was for dinner. From whiskers to bladder, every spec of the pig was utilized. And over the long years since homesteading, slow ember cookery has become an exactitude, an almost Navy seal-like operation for taste bud supremacy. Between pig and embers, there’s no way to escape the thralls of divine swine.

To up the ante, the influx of Asian culture, due to the Gulf Coast fishing industry, has injected its exceptional flavor into the foodie jugular. My neighborhood growing up was primarily Vietnamese and secondarily Mexican. My best friend’s mom, who was Vietnamese, would show me the ins and outs of how to make ordinary food taste stellar with chiles and umami boosting proponents.

This bone-in pork shoulder is nothing but roots BBQ, a symbiotic marriage of Texas and Vietnam. First it was injected with Nuoc Mam Cham, the ubiquitous chile laced fish sauce-sugar-rice wine vinegar-lime juice concoction that graces every Vietnamese table. It contains many of the flavor profiles as Louisiana hot sauce, yet with a much more subtle delivery of heat and acid. Next, the whole shoulder was roasted on a rotisserie for 7 1/2 hours over hardwood, harvested from within 50 yards of the pit, and constant coal adjustment. TBC w/ TLC, if you will.

Throughout the cooking process, I applied dried mint and basil stems between the embers and shoulder for a fortification phase of smoking, to perfume the meat with an additional essence of Vietnam.

Cooking at a snails pace in slow rotation, the tissues constricted ever so slightly, pushing out the Nuoc Mam Cham and rendering pork fat from under the skin. This self-basting technique coats the shoulder uniformly, creating an intense Maillard reaction over 100% of the surface. The crispy skin is the largest benefactor of this method, encapsulating the supple juiciness of the Vietnamese inoculated flavors, all the way to the bone.

nuoc mam cham injected pork shoulder
rotisserie crispy skin
peanuts, shiso, cilantro blossoms

The first beverage of choice would have been an ice cold Singha, yet there was none to be had in these parts. Luckily there was a 06’ Yelcho, Chilean Carmenare that gloriously charmed the table, uniting smoke etched pork and spice to an ethereal, yet rootsy altitude.

a story of perfection

2008-10-03T13:26:00.001-04:00

farro out

2008-09-28T01:48:00.000-04:00

The summer…she’s gone. The temperature has already dipped into the early 20’s, and my garden has mere hours left in its season. As we crank out the autumnal garden agenda, I’m eyeing my herbs, and naturally, the dehydrator is being revved up. But in addition to drying out, lubing up is on the menu as well. Extra soon-like, herb laced boozes, tinctures, vinegars and oils will keep this year’s herbage alive during the next 7 1/2 months, as my front yard goes arctic.

Oooew Nelly, did I just say booze? Well now, things are different. Now that booze has entered the scene, let me back up here. Now I'm beginning to think of what booze is. It is basically grains and/or potatoes that are distilled. After distillation the original base is a mere memory when it comes to flavor. Why don’t we taste the grain used or the type of potato used? Distillation. Beer is undistilled alcohol that uses different roasting treatments on barely and wheat, to bring out the unique flavors of the grains. Ye ole light bulb has turnethed on. Why not roast the original ingredient used to make booze and add it to the finished product?

toasted farro and roasted potato vodkas

On this trial, I decided to go vodka, the clear, colorless, almost odorless unaged liquor made from potatoes, and sometimes from corn, rye, wheat or sugar beets. Potatoes come to mind first, so I baked potatoes Julia style with Hawaiian red salt, cracked black pepper and a rub of grapeseed oil. Next, the flesh was scooped out and the skins were further roasted for extra caramelization and umami development. After they cooled, vodka was poured over the skins. The flavor of the vodka is absolutely satisfying. It is umamirific-ultra savory-feel-good with roasted black pepper and toasted sea salt coming though whole heartedly. This would be straight up stellar with caviar. Any potato pairing, using the vodka to sound off an alternate set of cousin taste buds. Any red meat pairing, eggs, green chiles, dairy, the list is endless…

The next take on ingredient inspired vodka was toasted farro, used to tie into the original grain used in distilling wheat based vodka. Farro is the Italian word for emmer wheat, sometimes mistakenly called spelt, which is another type of wheat. The farro was dry toasted in a large skillet over medium heat until rich and deeply golden in color. I toasted it to match the flavor of caramel malt used in homebrew. Adding the toasted farro to the vodka gave it instant legitimacy. The robust nuttiness and toasted caramel flavors reverberated to the core of the vodka. Once again, the delicate process of removing the clues to the vodkas origin was blatantly perversed. Vodka once again screamed ‘I am wheat, who are you!’. This grain version too can be paired with anything using wheat to announce its deep rustic characteristics; obviously breads, pastas, pastry, etc. But using it as a tasting in lieu of wheat products makes this as versatile as they come.

Booze fortified with their original ingredients after distillation is a frontier that makes me smile. Enter the land of endless potentials. As of now, I’m off to roast some corn to go into my bourbon…and oh ya, next, are those herbs in the garden. Fricken’ booze.

venison with tapioca marrow

2008-09-23T00:22:00.000-04:00

In my last saunter through Montreal, I picked up some large tapioca pearls with no vision in mind. Just as a pantry toy to play with in the future. Then the other day, Alex and Aki brought up an interesting discussion about the texture of bone marrow and bananas. I thought clearish soft texture and fruit combinations, and like a genie, a momentous bubble tea incident that occurred in a Taiwanese market, wooshed into my medulla. Bingo. And the next thing I knew, my tapioca was a’boiling. Except this time, instead of litchi, we were flavoring it with venison demi glace.

pearl tapioca cooked in venison demi
tater bone
gremolata oils
oregano blossoms

I simmered the tapioca in a reduced venison stock, and overcooked said tapioca, so as to relieve it of its ‘gumminess’. Along with now being tender, the neutral flavor profile of the pearls where saturated to the point of actually taking on the demi flavor, leaving impressions of ‘marrow’.

Since we was talking about marrow, it was obviously edible bone making time. Potatoes, parsnips and jicama I’ve done before, but I thought how about daikon to cut some of the richness with a little zing. After both parboiling and frying, daikon proved to be unworthy for using as a structural component. So tater it was. I thought ho hum, but after glazing it with some of the demi, steak & tater impulses were firing off next to the genie in my medulla.

For a little pick me up, I made gremolata, but in oil fashion. Lemon oil with a combination oil using garlic chives, cilantro and basil created the piquing action desired.

For fun, I had to whip up a venison bubble tea. At first it was in the name of kitshe, but I can definitely see an alternate application of bubble something in the future. I wish I would have had a bubble tea straw to slurp it down in the conventional manner. (That’s a bit ridiculous for me to just shimmy on down to the ole’ mountain market and pick up some straws that gargantuan.) In time...in time.

shrimp steak with whipped 'bacon'

2008-09-15T21:50:00.000-04:00

One of my mentors, Marc Cassel, was one of the first defectors of fusion. His sense of humor and rock n’ roll mythos commandeered his style with the handle, “collision cuisine”. And this here episode falls right into his culinary thunderdome.

Two stalwart flavor combinations that are about as solid and comforting as they come are bacon wrapped shrimp and prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe. On buffet platters, they compliment one another nicely, giving the host/ess a most assured feeling about their display. Put ‘em in your mouth at the same time and the underwear just comes right off.

shrimp steak
whipped pop’s ham
cantaloupe pearls
opal basil syrup

To achieve the smoky reverence of sir bacon and the flavor that only the unhurried cure of prosciutto can put forward, we used Pop’s ham. This ham has a swagger with its multiple fruit and pecan layered slow smokings. In fact, it could seriously be called bac-ham. It was shaved into a chiffonade and rendered slowly to mahogany crispness. The renderings were pressure cooked with about a cup of water. This stock was thickened with xanthan and whipped with E4M methylcellulose.

The shrimp was seasoned, tossed with Activa and compressed in a vacuum sealer. Next it was cooked at 66 C for 10 minutes until just opaque. The cantaloupe was seasoned with a few drops of sriracha and Hawaiian sea salt, then set into pearls with traditional spherification. (Wow, did I just say traditional?)

The aerated smokiness, the silky shrimpness, the diffusing summer meloness and the herbal sweetness of the opal basil all really played together about as friendly as it gets. This plate made for some genuine closed eye happiness.

sprouted sango radish

2008-09-10T14:44:00.000-04:00

“Santa Maria, its Sango!” Birthed from the mustard family, these lil’ flamingo hued sticks of wasabi-like dynamite will grab your attention. Subtlety is not a virtue of Raphanus sativus. Not only are we talking about in appearance and taste, but as a free radical eliminator. Owning this title comes easy, due to its high anthocyanin content.

When chewed, sango takes on a commando role, as isothiocyanates are formed and deployed throughout the body. Known for their anti-carcinogen, anti-cancer, anti-heart disease and detoxification attributes, these stimulating compounds restore health and deactivate the effects of stress on your cells. In ayurvedic terms, it helps to balance and smooth out an over-sluggish, complacent state of those that are leaning too much on the kapha side of being.

Taste budily speaking, the flavor of young sango begins with a juicy nuttiness, which immediately turns into the inferno spiciness of mustard greens^3 (cubed). Happy are we who relish in the daily life of the piquant. I’m certain that chileheads will embrace this non-capsicum without hesitation.

I see my future containing raw sango sprouts with powdered butter, stir fried with smoked oyster sauce glazed monkfish, micro sango gel topped with sashimi , grilled beef ribeye with sango crème, roasted cashew-garam masala lamb sous vide with sango raita, etc.

There’s a recipe in Gratifood® for a salad of shaved radish, jicama and orange with fried pasta para duros (Mexican vegetarian pork skins). This could be easily revisited, substituting micro sango for shaved radish.

Again, I reiterate, to those who dine on lava, to the spicy spined, to the arc welded tongued, to the plasma incinerator palates…the future is ours people.

anna the shroom hunter

2008-09-04T11:39:00.000-04:00

We’ve had constant rain showers in the mountains almost everyday for 2 months. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to have shrooms growing from the walls of my log cabin. If I could only sow the precious edible spores, then it would be okay. It might be embarrassing, perhaps a little bit too hobbity, when my girlfriend’s friends came to visit, but to my chef cronies, it would be the cat’s pajamas.

In this ‘saturation point’ in time, serendipity has united me with a very passionate mushroom hunter. She’s got the inner fervor of Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter, but with a Shaft kind of smoothness in her assured demeanor. Her instincts are so aboriginal, it cracks me up as I watch her spot edible shrooms in the woods from a car at 60mph. My friend Anna is from Poland and breathes the breath of European alpine tradition. She comes from the original school that the woods heal us and that our well-being is found in the very first supermarket, Nature.

The taste of all of these foraged shrooms makes cultivated grocery store mushrooms taste like packing pellets. Each variety has an inert profound message to your olfactory bulb and taste buds. The meatiness experience merged with the knowingness that this is alpine birthed fungus, makes you close your eyes with full-on contentment. Knowing that these are born and die within a day or so, really makes this harvest precious.

Here’s some pics of our bounty, picked on a Moorish early morning, high in the mountains. If the names look like they're Polish or something, that's because they are. The names are given from the native tongue of Anna and couldn't be translated.

Do not, by all means…again...do not use this as a guide in any way to pick wild mushrooms for yourself.

podgrzybki

zajaczki

osaki

kozlaki

These next mushrooms are my favorite for they turn blue when you cut them, yet when they’re sautéed, they turn yellow again. This caramelized, mountain umami, will blow your lid off.

przydrozki

old school snackin’

2008-08-19T09:43:00.000-04:00

My neighbor hooked me up with a fabulous piece of some very local venison. When the magical question of “You want some deer meat?” merrily reverberates throughout the alpine panorama, one’s mind almost always releases the velvety curtain, revealing a luscious mural of a perfectly glistening, mahogany colored, submarine-shaped tenderloin, illustriously known as the backstrap. On this occasion, the selection was a little different than the usual autonomic fantasy. This time it happened to be a much more underutilized cut, usually destined to be ground into burger or sausage; the neck.

Since animals are always on the look out, the neck is nearly always employed in muscular activity. This making the neck a tougher cut, I decided to apply treatment as if it were a beef brisket. I sliced off the bottom of the neck into 2 inch slabs to reenact the iconic shape of the brisket. This was vacuum sealed with a corning liquid for 5 days.

In the long wait for the brine to take its chrysalis effect on the meat, I went ahead and gave the rest of the neck a wet rub and warm/hot smoked it for 10 hours with freshly chipped apple wood from the front yard and a little hickory. The pink ringed results made one think s/he was slurping Q at a Texas BBQ cook-off.

Note: This is deep. Public occurrences such as this are a very very uncommon sensation witnessed in the culinary vacuity of the Adirondacks. Unfortunately, there is no food scene…these things happen privately, behind closed doors. Up here soul food experiences are akin to if actual flavor itself was a wormhole destination, like where lost socks mysteriously vanish to. Nobody seems to know where this place is.

Oh ya, let’s finish the corned venison. After the spicy notes in the aromatic brine thoroughly imbibed the meat, it was cooked sous vide for 12 hours at 54 C. The customary addition of salt peter was omitted, that is why it doesn’t have the compulsory corned beef hue. The venison neck worked seamlessly as if it were the original go-to cut used for corning.

corned venison neck
spreadable caraway-emmenthaler set with agar
homemade sauerkraut
grilled pumpernickel

With this round of cooking, I wanted to reproduce my fortunate upbringing of having a charcuterie jedi as a father and all the presents that that manifests. For snack time, cured cuts of meat, home made/smoked cheeses, bread/crackers, homemade kraut/pickles, sliced onions and/or tomatoes from the garden, beer and bottled sodas seem to grace the hunger in the mid-afternoon. These sessions were true smile generators. In life, the roots are what affect the fruits. This snack is a tribute to the generations that taught the next genetic class, and so on, and so on…

the other cfs

2008-08-12T14:32:00.000-04:00

Once transglutaminase hit the forward thinking realm of flavor-texturism, it was like having the hubble dial in on the galaxy of protein. We were finally able to observe dishes that unleashed us from the customary focal point on the plate. The once one-dimensional stars had now taken on checkerboarded, striated, columnar tubeulations of boundary melting possibilities. From “gluing” rib bones to seafood, fish on fish, beef on chicken, game on game, surf on turf, chicken on egg, the (almost kinky sounding) culinary safari continues into new terrains.

The other day, as I received some gifted Activa from a lovely pal of mine, it donned on me that I haven’t seen my obvious roots played out yet. My DNA codons had a slot reserved for this dish as soon as the winning sperm parlayed entry to the amatory egg. Even more so, this dish has the directions right in the name: Chicken fried steak.

chicken skin fried steak
white cream-black pepper gravy
“peas”

After one bite of this mod outtake, I think my genetic code wiggled. For I grew up with steak that had been “chicken fried” with oil that had been used for frying chicken. You were tasting a cross-over technique with the added essence of chicken flavor in tow. But this round was the unabashed explosion of fried chicken skin securely embracing rare-to-mid rare beef ribeye. For myself, that bite was 38 years in the making.

The gravy pylon was made from dehydrating white cream-black pepper gravy and creating a powder using maltodextrin. Another welcomed guest to the CFS, as it reconstituted itself into salaciousness, as imminent saliva happily came to join it.

Of course, sweet peas are an obligatory must with this set up. Seeing how we were already on an apparent theme of sperm-egg-sexiness, it was time to apply it to the peas. Refining the pea skin texture was where I was headed. With this, these peas were made by juicing sweet pea tendrils, adding a few drops of lime juice, agave nectar and made into spheres using the caviar technique.

This dish had a little extra meaning for me. When the eyes were closed and the neuropeptides were flowing, my DNA and I were having a long awaited family reunion.

organic lamb confited in coffee oil with cantaloupe capellini

2008-08-07T19:58:00.000-04:00

Using coffee as a savory accessory was hip for a while there. Back at the turn of the century, I helped my buddy do a Beard House dinner with coffee-red chile grilled beef which floored the crowd. Within a year, even coffee rubbed dingleberries made everyone go goo goo. Now that the mod haps of flesh and coffee have greatly subsided culturally, it feels good to break it out again. In fact, in my book, there’s a smoked coffee South Texas axis venison that works really well, but it maybe a little passé by the time of release. Or then again, it maybe hip again. There’s always the option of smoked axis with coffee tortillas that puts a little jiggle back into the mix.

With coffee and meat pairings tasting so great, despite its fashion status at this precise moment, it was time to play a different song with the same notes. A friend of mine gifted me some fresh organic local lamb. The tender meat resounded with brick red hues and the attitude of being Adirondack farm raised. I asked the leg meat what character it wanted to play on stage, and she said, “Confit me into silky lusciousness…now, big boy”, and thus the play had officially begun.

“smoked” coffee oil lamb confit
crispy cantaloupe capellini
smoked ancho powder
confit oil

The lamb was seasoned with smoked ancho powder and seared until crispy. Next I made coffee oil by steeping ground roasted Arabica coffee with canola oil. I placed a few drops of pine shoot smoked oil in for an additional twist. The seared lamb and instantly “smoked” coffee oil was vacuum sealed and cooked at 54 C for 11 hours. Once the lamb made it's way to the plate, a push of the fork collapsed the cellular make up and the free range goodness dissolved on the tongue. If I must say, our little leg received precisely what she asked for.

The capellini was made by spinning ripe cantaloupe puree with methylcellulose, a pinch of lavender and chipotle. This mixture was dehydrating until firm but pliable. The cantaloupe sheets were run through a capellini press and baked at 325 F until just beginning to caramelize, about 15 minutes, and served immediately while still crisp. The coffee and cantaloupe really performed well together, and there will definitely be future posts with these gorgeous elements playing together once again.

peking pheasant with sambal marshmallow

2008-07-26T15:06:00.000-04:00

With a pheasant in hand, the question was, as always, what do you get to taste like next. Since the skin is thick, more like a duck than a chicken, the temptation was first and foremost to go crispy. The pheasant was marinated in a 5-spice spiked maltose-smoked hoisin mixture overnight. Instead of air drying the marinade infused pheasant in front of a fan, it was placed in the dehydrator to achieve an accelerated arid atmosphere. It air dried for 6 hours, until dry to the touch, and roasted in the oven at 375 F until crisp.

peking pheasant
sambal marshmallow
scallion-jasmine snow
roasted star anise kickstand

Spiciness and crispy have been in chorus since chiles met the ember roasted wild boar. Aligned eternally to this mantra, I sought after heat with a new texture. More of an airier texture than the traditional mu shu pancake usually served with Peking duck. Spice and lightness led to the fluffy sting of this sambal marshmallow recipe:

240 g water
60 g sugar
20 g (1T) sambal or chile-garlic paste
1/2 t Thai fish sauce
1/2 t rice wine vinegar
1/4 t kosher salt

Bring water, sugar, sambal, fish sauce, vinegar and salt to a boil. Cool for a few minutes.

6 g e4m methylcellulose

Stir in methylcellulose. Blend with immersion blender. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until thickened. Beat on high speed with electric mixer until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Spread out on silicon mat, parchment or mold. Bake at 300 F for 6-8 minutes or until set. Unmold or cut into desired shape. Use a blowtorch or broiler to brown the top. Serve hot/immediately as the marshmallow soon deflates.

To stay aligned with traditional Chinese flavors of herbs and tea, scallion oil was made into a powder via maltodextrin and a very floral jasmine tea was ground fine and sifted in. It looks like herbed snow, which I’m sure many manifestations with that name will appear here in a shortly.*

*(“In a shortly” is a Strangers With Candy reference for all you comedy moles.)

shrooms shrooms shrooms

2008-07-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

This episode of shrooms is purely a visual journey into microfungi, from the moist-o-plenty realm of my front yard. It’s a glimpse of how incredibly beautiful Nature is and some of the inspirational designs She has up her sleeves.

Some of these are edible and some are not, but yea to allst thy peeps in the sphere of blogs, this is by no means a taxonomy session or to be used as a shroom identifier. This is strictly a gathering of photos illustrating the phantasmagorical wonders of fungi.

chicken fried rice

2008-07-12T20:18:00.000-04:00

‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ For centuries, over-thinkers have bent their noodles regarding this existential tug-o-war over the chronological order. Perhaps “who cares” would be the best answer. I say go look a chicken deep in her eyes and let her telepathically enlighten you. And listen carefully before she puts you in a trance. The chicken and the egg themselves will tell you: “Why don’t you just ask aliveness, then first place or second place loses its magnitude”.

chicken and egg roulade with dehydrated fried rice crust
smoked oyster sauce
sweet pea tendril oil
garlic leek

Foodwise, I get all jiggendicular when it comes to serving chicken and its egg on the same plate. I don’t know why, it’s just one of those chef things. One of the finer examples of this paring is chicken fried rice. Delicious. Simple. Complete. Life cycle included.

I tried a few times seeing if I could Frankenstein raw egg and bind it to raw chicken using transglutaminase. I used gelatin and methylcellulose to give the raw egg structure, “glued” it to a flattened chicken thigh, and then went into roulade mode for added visuals. It cooked via sous vide, but had issues with the chicken jus trying to interrupt the raw egg’s binding proteins as it heated. I will visit this technique later.

Success came when the obvious idea of cooking the egg first and then transglutaminasing it to the chicken. The egg absorbed the chicken jus as it cooked, resulting in mucho flavor. The cooked roulade was brushed with smoked oyster sauce and rolled into dehydrated fried rice. Alls I could say was “Ooooo mommy”…I mean…umami.

omg-smoked oyster sauce-bff

2008-07-08T16:39:00.000-04:00

Having been Texas-ly chromosomed, I thought I had smoked everything. Geocentrically speaking, I grew up where the meat spectrum from oxtail to cock’s combs has been through the valley of smoke. As I moved around, the smokers I frequented saw the likes of veg, fruit, dairy, spices, sodas, fish sauce, soy sauce, umiboshi paste, balsamic, red wine, Adirondack maple syrup, grits, black eyed peas, lentils, flours, sugar, potato chips, and as time goes on, the list continues to eke out more potentials.

I revisited my Asian pantry and loaded up the smoker, adding oyster sauce, hoisin, mirin, sweet chile sauce, and rice wine vinegar.

The results; the latter two didn’t do much for me. The mirin has great potential and the hoisin…wow. But from a smokster’s view I ask myself, “How did I ever miss smoked oyster sauce?” We smoke oysters. We slurp smoked oyster jus. The synapse is already there, but for some reason I haven’t been firing that one. Well, no matter, I’m making a holster and smoked oyster sauce and I will be on the journey together for a long time to come. I’ll drive if I can’t take it with me on the plane. I feel a little weird, this being my first time and all, but we have easily become, bff’s.

hot buttered sweet corn

2008-07-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

“4th of July. Butter dribbling off the tip of each kernel, the whole cob satisfied from bursting its shuck and silk, ye knaweth raw to exhume the latent sweetness of its milky dew…or ye house shallst be takeneth upon the ownership of the State.” It’s in the constitution. Look over at the bottom right hand side and there’s a whole paragraph on Ben Franklin’s obsessive maizeophilia and the repercussions of nonindulgence on said Independence Day. A genius indeed, but a total freak to boot.

husk steamed sweet corn
black bean butter lava
cilantro-jalapeno-mescal nuggies
epazote oil

Upstate sweet corn is hot off the stalk and I’m minutes from the fields. There’s still another 5 weeks till ultimate perfection, but smiles abound, for we’ve waited 47 weeks for this first official batch of the season that proffers legitimate corn enchantment.

Unity consciousness abounds. I was thinking corn blanket and Aki and Alex just took care of that one on their latest menu. Southerness points me to corn pudding, but so as does Linda, with her cream cheesealiciously recrowning the belle of the ball. Little electrical pulses promoted visuals of Wylie’s foie gras with nori caramel innards. I bite. Indigenous Americas style it is, with the exception of the Old World cilantro.

Here the corn is a straight forward natural sweet corn cream accented with shallot, garlic, annatto oil, pureed, and set with methylcellulose. A small sphere of chilled black bean compound butter was suspended in the corn and then steamed over husks until set. Once the corn is pierced, the butter does its ubiquitous buttery majik.

This leads us to more lava possibilities: carrot cake with pea lava, emmenthaler crouton cake with French onion soup lava, peanut butter and jelly…...

the earth speaketh

2008-06-25T16:25:00.000-04:00

The headline reads "Reports from the homeland reveal massive produce." World famous sausage maker, Pops, has unveiled some bountiful and almost offensively huge dimensioned, aka Texas-sized, groceries.

This tomato is an heirloom variety that dates back to my grandmother’s farm when she was my age. There’s been 58 generations of this same varietal hatched from the ground in more than a half century’s time. It’s a little jeering, for the tomatoes in my own personal crop are no larger than my thumbnail. His tomatoes will becomingly enlargen into more supple juiciness.

One glance at this garlic and an official renaming is in store. This puppy is beyond elephant garlic. I’m thinking whale garlic does this a tad more justice.

This one bulb weighed in at half a pound.

Note: I’m not exactly sure why this particular can was used for scale sizing purposes. I know that 100+ F weather is normal, but I’ll have to inquire if the contents went into the grower or the dirt that makes this produce excessively hearty.

machaca

2008-06-16T13:54:00.000-04:00

Machaca is one of the oldest methods of preserving meat and is a regional technique used in the northern parts of Mexico. Both reluctantly and disappointingly, it has nothing to do with the monkey boy on the old Saturday morning show “Land of the Lost”.

Also known as carne seca, this preservation technique was used before refrigeration to safeguard against spoilage after harvesting an animal (usually beef). Adhering to pretty much the same methods as the Native Americans used for drying meat or modern jerky, machaca is mixed with spices, chiles and lime juice (if available) and dried. From this point, it’s poised to take a couple routes in preparation. 1.) It can be rehydrated and pounded in a molcajete (a mortar and pestle made from volcanic stone) until tender or 2.) pounded while dry and added as-is to boost flavor of multiple dishes with its dynamically concentrated flavor.

My buddy’s grandma used to hook me up with a baggy of machaca that was prepared in the latter technique. It resembled dried tobacco and could be enjoyed in many ways. One of my favorites was just taking a little pinch between my cheek and gum. Her machaca dissolved in your mouth like umami butter and left you satiated for what seemed hours, just from one pinch. Adding it to eggs, vegetables, cheese, or even a steak to provide exponential layers of flavor, made everything taste soul injected.

For this edition, locally grown lamb leg was used. It was taken one more preservation step further by marrying it with smoked pine shoot oil and slowly simmered, metamorphosing into confit. The lamb confit was then drained, gently shredded with a molcajete and dehydrated. The confit-dehydration technique proved to be worthy as an honorable offspring of my buddy’s grandma’s machaca. Viva la abuelita!

pine shoot smoked oil

2008-06-09T01:13:00.000-04:00

My girly and I needed some us time. So we packed up and went kayak camping for a few days out in the wilderness. We had crossed two lakes by the time we finally reached the lean-to. This was well worth the jaunt, because we had the second lake all to ourselves. Well, there was us, plus the massive explosion of spring time mountain flora and fauna.

What does every expedition center around? The campfire. Whether it’s enjoyed from a tailgate or backpack, it’s the heart of the excursion. And why does the food taste so good in the woods? First and foremost, gratitude. Your senses are all lit up, your awareness is heightened and you’re thankful for a lot of reasons: Your eyes are loving that you’re not staring at the living room wall, you have a limited amount of food so you cherish what you have, your olfactory bulb is not smelling that old sofa, and you’re psyched that you haven’t rendezvoused with something that can eat you for dinner.

On my return, I was thinking about how to replicate the camp aura indoors. What are the elements that create the camp taste? The woods and the smoky wood embers. What could you add a sprinkle or splash of to anything to make it taste like a sojourn in the woods?

Pine and spruce oils, whether in liquid or powder form, have blanketed the modern scene lately. Smoked oils have emerged, even garnishing product lists by boutique oil producers, giving us more real estate in our playground. Yet, combined together, they are refinements replicating the outdoors.

This oil was made by picking fresh pine buds that burst open the day before, capturing the most alive essence of the pine needle’s life. The oil was infused and vacuum sealed. When fragrant, the oil was smoked with hickory for a classic, but not overpowering smoke flavor. I found that obtaining smoke from the pine needles alone created acridness, taking away from the purity of the infused budded needles. Letting the smoked oil sit for a day or so, also makes for a more balanced and developed flavor. It’s better to make a powder from this oil after it has had a day for the flavors to bloom. Happy camping.

love powder

2008-06-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

A while back, an undisclosed person and I finally agreed upon something. I was a bit excitable and driven to buck the system, while the other was a warden of the universe, making sure that every molecule had to be where this person said it better be. Together we were about as compatible as a fork in a microwave. But one gorgeous summer day, we had an experience that would supersede our outposts and vantages.

While manning the line, after recently sending out a special menu to be catered in the middle of the woods, the “microwave” reappeared, humbly reentering through the back door. She said there had been a little accident in route and that one of the menu items had bit the dust. Quickly, I inquired which item she was alluding to. Upon hearing her response, I involuntarily retorted with “Oh God, no…no, not that.” She had said the “g” word. She revealed that the fallen was indeed, the gravy.

Now you and I know that gravy is a precious, time slurping, slow titillation that can only be evoked by a generous helping of T, intravenous flow of L, and baby, a whole lot of C. You don’t just whip up a batch of gravy. You make relations with it.

Well, the only thing to do with a full board of tickets and a call to reanimate a venerated man down, is to channel. I looked like Vishnu with all fours arms engaged, flying around that kitchen trying to step out of linear time into the gap where time no longer exists, determined to pull this all off.

After reentry into this realm from the land of miracles, I called her over for a validating taste. As the viscous spoonful melted in our mouths, we looked into each other’s eyes, I think for the first time, and I said, “Gravy = Love”. And she sealed this thought with a warm sigh of verification. From then on, the very mention of gravy was the one bridge where we could meet receptively in gratitude.

It is many years later, and gravy has taken on a new form for me. The love imbued during Thanksgiving and Christmas can now be shared months later, with just a sprinkle. The extracted brew from the tasty bits could now fortify anything. Any dish calling for a jump start can undergo instant gratification. This gravy was made with roasted turkey bones and smoked neck meat, dehydrated into sheets and spun in a spice grinder. It was then transferred to a food processor and pulsed in a ratio of 4 parts gravy dust: 1 part maltodextrin. And viola, love powder. Let me know what you do with yours…

buffalo balls

2008-05-16T14:16:00.000-04:00

The chef’s palate on his/her own time is much less cerebral than most think. From the outside, one would think that we chug an array of airs through a beer bong, inhale atomized grains of paradise with yuzu zest or do lines of freeze dried sheets of lychee and micro shiso that have been crystallized to get off. The reality is our shelter is constructed of comfort food. Whether it's from across the planet or in our own backyard, or a mix of both.

Zilla showed us a while back with his breakfast of champions of how your own roots draw the most gravity when it comes to roots cuisines. It’s usually in the euphoria of inducing comfort food that we become inspired to tweak and refine. How do I maximize this rush of satiety, with the face and hands dripping in sauce even 10 napkins later, into one bite that’s clean and focused on essence?

Living near buffalo wing epicentral, I’ve seen my share of contenders and descendants. It was in my own indulgence that yet another tweak of one of society’s omni-faves was birthed. The use of caviar is pretty standard these days, but the question of how to create crispy caviar was my stump. We could gelatin-clarify a reduced chicken stock for the flavor, but how about the texture? Please let me know if you’ve accomplished crispy spherification other than with the use of liquid nitrogen.

I thought if I made an ultra-rich reduced chicken stock with the chicken fat included, and let Israeli cous cous imbibe this goodness, I could be spared the body scarring from the caviar’s fluidal centers popping in a fryer. Like a foie gras treatment, the cous cous sat overnight to draw in as much of the fatty stock as it could handle. Next, it was egg washed, floured and deep fried like its fiery sauced ancestors. This was tossed with caviars made with celery juice, blue cheese and a hot sauce toned down with the rich chicken stock and a little agave nectar. Texturally this is a winner. The crispiness, swirled in with the fusion of liquidy sauces bursting on your tongue, emotes a fresh space within an old satiety.

ribeye and a bloody mary

2008-05-08T22:54:00.000-04:00

On a recent dinner menu, we had a beef ribeye with a deconstructed bloody mary to reign in not one, but two comfort icons. This was an approach that we took so that we could have a menu with a modern theme and satisfy the local clientele as well. Modern is still a tough sell in the boon docks, even in 2008. I would say that we were serving a bloody mary, but since no one ever eats the celery, we decided to garnish it with a fat juicy steak.

The set up featured a grilled slab of prime rib. The societal go-to punch to accompany prime rib is unequivocally horseradish cream sauce. We took the thread that gives large beef cuts and a bloody mary it’s ferocity, the horseradish, and combined it with a fabulous local chevre. This was most likely the best goat cheese I’ve ever tasted and needed to be showcased.

Doing so extracted the horseradish element from our bloody mary, leading to the deconstruct. In it’s absence, we added an Asian twist to it by substituting oyster sauce in lieu of Worcestershire, and sriracha instead of Tabasco. This was reduced down to a syrup and oil drizzled over it to create a broken oil. Separately, the flavors of all the players on the plate were bold, yet when swirlage of the components occurred, the symphony of intricacies erupted.

grilled beef ribeye
horseradish goat cheese
bloody mary
celery-grilled ribeye gellee

I felt it was time to revisit this comforting combination, but in a less guttural, less of a Sunday morning elixir deployment, and more of a refined couple of bites for a tasting menu. The ribeye was grilled as usual, to mid-rare. I minced most of it and placed it in the dehydrator until the flavors were concentrated. The rest of the ribeye was made into a broth, reduced and given the gelatin clarification treatment. This clear stock was then infused with celery juice and set up again with gelatin. The horseradish goat cheese was dehydrated along with the bloody mary reduction. The results screamed bloody mary and a fat juicy steak in an extremely soft whisper that said, do it again.

rambutan robed cantonese spare ribs

2008-05-05T01:54:00.001-04:00

How much for just one rib? Be it pork, beef, wild boar, buffalo, elk, moose, caribou, antelope, gator, or the multiple forward thinking rib innuendos that have bubbled up as of recent, ribs are without a doubt, sticking to our ribs. Texturally, when it comes to ribs, our frontal lobe is tuned to the frequency of meltingly fall-of-the-bone tender. Crisp is a rarity in the rib realm unless you’re in the southern regions of the US and China.

rambutan robed char sui rib tip
fried rice powder-zen garden style
szechuan pepper macerated cilantro stems

When it comes to that soul shack feeling, char sui or cha siu Cantonese style spare ribs deliver. With the star anise perfumed caramelization propagated by sumptuous hoisin, rounded with the base toned tingle from the shoa xing wine, plus you add the aural bonus of molten pigment, you’re just asking for a cup full of serotonin. But what if you added the crisp properties of another dim sum hero, the crispy fried rib, to our char sui intoxication?

Instead of frying, I went with a thin blanket of methylcellulose. To add even more esoteric value, I used the Southeast Asian anemone-esk fruit exotica, the rambutan. First, I pureed the inner flesh of about 6 fruits with a little light simple syrup and methylcellulose. Next, it was dehydrated until firm, but pliable. I then wrapped the ribs and baked them at 350 until crisp, about 10-12 minutes.

If you really want to take your fried rice fetish to a new level, powder it. Dehydrate it and spin it in a spice mill. It is full on fried rice concentrate. A formidable flavor rivaling any bouillon. It also makes for an incredible crust when there’s a call for a sauté or frying application.

For the cilantro stems, just mortar and pestle Szechuan peppercorns to release their oils and sprinkle over stems. Cover with ice cold water and let infuse for a few hours. This creates a peppery bite that is redolent of watercress or nasturtium, only numbier, from its content of hydroxy-alpha-sanshool.

thai tea bites

2008-04-12T16:30:00.000-04:00

Home is where the heart is. And tea is your ambassador. Ultra cheesy? Oh ya. True? You bet’chur sweet bippy. In most cultures of the world, transcendent of your social role, tea is not a thing, but a gesture. It’s a symbolic transaction of sharing and gratitude. Whether it’s a “hey ya’ll” or “me time” moment, tea is an extension of noticing right now. A celebrative sip of “what up”.

In this here country, we don’t see tea practiced much anymore except below the Mason-Dixon line, and serendipitous or not, it’s served in a Mason jar. I’ll leave the forensics here to someone else. Within the Mason jar, emotes a concoction and a blessing known as sweet tea. It’s really homemade Gatorade, before Gatorade was a gleam in someone’s eye. I really believe that Southerners share the David Copperfield gene, because there’s always a bottomless pitcher of sweet tea cocked and ready to refill your jar anytime, anywhere, eternally.

Another culture that finds sweet tea as a boon is the Thai. Amongst the explosive subtleties living in the immaculate expression of Thai cuisine is their version of iced tea known as cha yen. Thai iced tea formats the bitter hues of black tea as most do, with a fine dose of sweetness. The kicker here is the addition of a floater of dairy. Be it cream, half & half, condensed milk or a combination thereof, it’s a delicacy so comforting to all your cells, that it makes you weep with approval, regardless how leathery your bravado may be.

Here, I’ve taken one of my favorite beverages on the planet and made bite size blasts of aromatic Thai tea with the dairy suspended within. Upon the top is shiso chiffonade.

450 g water
7 g Thai tea
20 g sugar
1 cinnamon stick, crushed
1 star anise, crushed
Bring to a simmer, cover and steep for 20 minutes. Strain through fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth several times. Blend 200g warm tea with:
2 g sodium alginate
Combine mixture with remaining tea. Chill in refrigerator.

175 g warm half & half
1 g sodium alginate
Blend half & half and sodium alginate. Chill.

6 g calcium chloride
900 g water
Dilute calcium chloride with water.

With a syringe or small spoon, drop pearls of half & half mixture into calcium bath for 30-45 seconds. Rinse with cold water. Pour tea mixture into a dosing spoon and add a half & half pearl. Place spoon into calcium bath until it forms a skin and tilt. Let sit for 2 minutes until skin can support itself. Rinse with cold water. Repeat.

yucatánning bed

2008-04-05T16:59:00.000-04:00

I’m watching the alpine air grip its toes around another new snowfall. It’s surfing once again in its own seemingly eternal hallucination, the one where it thinks it’s still winter. Apparently, it doesn’t want to sober into spring. Physically the falling snow can do what it wants, because my culinary Being is long gone. I just arrived in Tacotown and it’s hot, muggy and the ivory shoreline is slurping up the waves like a dehydrated kid with a pitcher of blue Kool-aid.

Achiote, orange, hibiscus, chiles and pineapple. The Yucatán loves us. I also have some various cuts of organic pork and plan on spreading the love, in a tacolicious pentameter.

pork mole verde
smoked pineapple pickled onions
yucatán grilled pork
hibiscus tortillas

I used the ubiquitous achiote-orange-lime combination with the addition of sweet piloncio in a marinade for half of the pork, and grilled it in the wood burning stove. I smoked the pineapple and sliced it thinly, marrying it with finely sliced white onions. Then I pickled them with the smoked pineapple juice, coriander vinegar, lime juice, salt and sugar. Pickled vegetables are the go-to piquing agent in Latin American gastronomy. More simply, it carries your taco to the lips of bliss. With the remaining pork, I stewed it with pumpkin and sesame seeds, various green chiles, tomatillos, spices, cilantro and romaine until the tenderness is proven; when the tongue can melt the pork between it and the roof of the mouth.

Alas, the magic carpet of vehicles was to be summoned. The tortilla. The spiritual escort, living in the sacred space within the heart of Latin American culinaria. As with any vehicle, it was soon to be pimped…spiritually, of course. How about with electric fuchsia? Hibiscus smacks of citrusy tartness. Tacos love citrus. So hibiscus tortillas are now waiting at the curb. Like I said, the Yucatán loves us. Chad, viva el Cerdo!

ham straight skippy!

2008-03-28T17:26:00.000-04:00

Today is ablaze with that special feeling. A rare and very chromosomial ingredient has passed through the ether and into my hands. It’s sent me into acute euphoria. Like gauze placed over the camera lens to blur the shot, I can almost see that trolley from Mr. Roger’s protruding through the wall from the land of make-believe. Except this land is all culinary and no make-believe. And the trolley is delivering the most prized of gastronomic heirlooms. The ingredient: My Pop’s ham. It’s known by my peeps throughout the industry as The Magic Ham. It’s about this time that I become everyone’s best friend again.

This recipe comes from the old-school German charcuterie brought over by my great grandparents who settled in Central Texas. This knowledge was passed down to my grandparents and then unto my Pop, jedi style. This juju was already pumping through him as an embryo. He exercised his skills as he worked the farm and butchered as the generations did before him, back in the Old World. Without electricity and obviously refrigeration, preserving had to be mastered for survival. And no bits went unused. Such as the blood for sausage and the bladder for a soccer ball.

This particular ham is German smoked schinken, as supple and elegant as the finest prosciuttos and hams of Spain and Italy. Over the years, nothing has changed. Except in this edition, he uses the loin instead of the hind quarter. The cured marbling is as luscious as larding with duck fat. It’s over a three month process to make the ham and you can taste every hour put into it. Upon the ham, sits some cured links. This is the sausage that’s made after butchering and smoked until cured, to add longevity to the bounty. Machts güt!

coconut-peanut shrimp cakes

2008-03-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

Coconut powder. Oh, salacious pow pow, how I love thee. Wantonly, the mind unleashes the possibilities on how to build off of it. But my compulsion for Thai coconut curries won’t let go. So to Thaisville it is. And this edition of a brothy bowl of curry has been warped into salad formation.

coconut-peanut shrimp cakes
red curry pickled onions
infant arugula
kaffir-candied ginger vinaigrette
coconut powder
goji berries

While building the coconut curry salad, I started racking up a lot of components, yet when they merge on the tongue, they meltingly unify as one.

Curry and shrimp, the answer to many issues, emerged. And shrimp cakes crossed the finish line first. They’re basically crab cakes, but just substitute raw or cooked shrimp pulsed in a food processor. If you’re using raw shrimp, make the cakes in micro fashion so as they’ll cook through without overcooking the crust. That’s the technique used here. Ground peanuts and coconut powder were added to the mixture to send these babies out in lala land. The crispiness of the cakes is a match made in heaven with the infant arugula.

The curry aspect came through via pickling onions in rice wine vinegar, sugar, fish sauce and Thai red curry paste. The vinaigrette was all about olfactory plushness. Candied ginger, kaffir lime leaf, lime zest, rice wine vinegar, lime juice and the oil effortlessly weaved all the textures of the salad together. There seemed to be one more thing needed to put this over the top. Although they did not come from Thailand, the exuberance of Himalayan goji berries seemed to proffer a super antioxidantal crescendo. And when everything is swirled into the coconut powder…well…I need say no more.

white wedding

2008-03-16T17:02:00.000-04:00

We’ve dehydrated. We’ve alchemically converted liquids into powder. We’ve tried to bring out the essence in ingredients by minimalizing additions. All in the hopes to not dilute the primary flavor. But sometimes we find that distilling or concentrating an essence has already been conveniently done for us. More oft than not, our brains skip these products because it’s too obvious and easy. When our frontal cortex reinvestigates our impulse to ignore them, sometimes we find ourselves beamed up in an “ah-ha” moment. We relinquish our faculties to the beauty of ready-to-use products, letting them nibble our earlobes, with that goofy grin in-tow.

Enter powdered coconut. It doesn’t get any better than this. Nothing need be done, except tear off the top of the package. No hammers, drills, shell shrapnel, hairy workspace, runaway nectar, grating, lost flesh or nails, peeling, slicing, dehydrating, pureeing, roasting, reducing, hydrocolloidial dabbling, etc. Just straight up powerhouse coconut. Substitute wherever coconut is used, be it fresh, dried, sweetened or milked. Caution to those in a relationship, this stuff could really horn in on your affection.

green chile goat ricotta

2008-03-07T23:33:00.000-05:00

I’ve received many requests on how to make the green chile ricotta for the watermelon short ribs. I feel compelled and honored to reveal the recipe. Not just because of the share factor, but because we’re talking about cheese. You see, my love for the dairylicious usurps much of my day. Apparently, so much so that as a funk and jazz dj, my moniker is DJ Queso. It was originally Queso Blanco, but then I considered this choice to be tainted with prejudice. I knew that I wasn’t honoring the other varietals such as queso azul, queso amarillo, queso de cabra, well basically the rest of the global ring of cheese. This would certainly come back to haunt me. So I had to represent. I surrendered the labels and dedicated myself to the non-egoic denomination of Queso. I must confess though, the name was co-inspired, not only from buttery creamdom, but my disciplined attunement to super dry wit, gauche humor and chronic buffoonery. In my eyes, deciding to go with just Queso, was whey cool.

green chile goat ricotta

makes 3 1/4 cups

2 qts whole milk
2 qts whole goat milk
1 qt buttermilk

Combine milks in a large stainless, ceramic or non-reactive pot. While stirring bottom of pot frequently to keep milk solids from scorching, over medium-high heat, cook until temperature of mixture reaches 175-180 F. Once temperature is reached, the curds will separate from the whey. Turn off heat. Using a fine mesh strainer or slotted spoon, scoop milk solids into a chinois or multi-layered cheesecloth lined colander. Set inside a medium mixing bowl to catch whey draining from cheese. Drain for 10 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

1 1/2 t kosher salt
1 poblano, roasted, peeled, seeded

Break up cheese and sprinkle salt evenly over it. Transfer a cup of cheese to food processor. Add green chile and spin until chile is pureed into cheese. Fold mixture back into rest of cheese until thoroughly combine. Place mixture back into chinois or colander and rest for another 20 minutes to firm up. Keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

roasted banana vindaloo lamb

2008-03-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

No matter how many times you enter an Indian restaurant or home, you still get slapped by that Xanadu-esk fragrance. It’s like going down the olfactory rabbit hole. You wind up in a comforting dimension where you just know everything’s gonna be okay. A happy place, that’s so salivatingly correct.

I was wanting to get all Indian up in my lamb and decided to go Goan. Goa is the smallest state in India, off its west coast. Said lamb was getting the vindaloo treatment. Vindaloo was brought to India via the Portuguese. To extend the life of pork for journeys or homebound eating, they would preserve it in wine or wine vinegar. The pork would then be slowly stewed to effuse the tang into a subtle richness, developed by the fat of the meat. Vindaloo received its Indian marriage contract when they introduced their aromatic arsenal of spices.

roasted banana vindaloo lamb
potato saag
smoked tomato-cardamom raita
goat cheese cracklings

In my version, I wanted to inject another exotic richness into my marinade. I oven roasted a few bananas until they turned black and the skin began to split, removing them just as the roasted banana juice started to seep out. This loveliness was then pulsed into the marinade. I rubbed the lamb and vacuum packed it overnight. The next day, I cooked it in my wood burning stove.

Saag always blows my doors. It’s a must have when I go Indian. If you’re not familiar, the most basic honky translation would be akin to creamed spinach. Saag literally means greens. Feeling the need for saag with that “gotta have meat and taters” thing tugging on my shirttail, I made potato saag by stewing collards, mustards and spinach. I found these cool micro green chile pappadums and used them as a halo for the saag. My buddy from India showed me how to roast them over an open flame to pull out their flavor, producing that tandoor char on them like naan.

I rounded the dish by making a traditional accoutrement, raita. I actually made the yogurt this time, but the twist performed here was adding some peach wood smoked tomatoes and blending that until ultra smooth. I added a little xanthum to it to give it structure. Next, I dehydrated goat cheese until it was crunchy. This makes for an extremely formidable essence of goaty decadence with the crunchiness of cracklings. A perfect balance to the sweetly laced chops of lamb.