happenings in the kitchen of phillip foss
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Gallantine of Slagel Family Farm Baby Chicken – Fennel Veloute, Black Truffle

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There really is a ton to catch up on… photos from the birthday party and the trip to New Orleans to give them names. But they will have to wait for another day or 2. Here’s one from the vault for the meantime.

Do The Right Thing

A promise is a promise.

So seeing as how I just won this challenge and $500 for the above linked Moose Island scallop dish and bare bone account of my competitive nature, I will be donating the $500 prize to a charity.

And as a gesture of good will to the pursuit of heavy partying and Chef Art Smith – who’s throwing his 50th birthday  party with his Common Threads group on the evening of my 4oth blowout - I have bought 2 tickets and am officially auctioning them off for the world of Phil-anthrophy.

2/28/ Update - As I was cleaning dishes this morning, I recalled reading about a benefit for a member of the hospitality industry who had just fallen on hard times. So thanks to Tatianna who is an old friend from my first tour of Chicago in 2000 that now goes under the name of The Gourmet Rambler, I learned that the family of the former Paramount beverage manager, Shawn Koch was in need. And then I also recalled a local business that is on the market (considering for my wife’s venture). The owner of the business has been forced out by cancer and whose business is being liquidated. I haven’t spoken with either of the families yet, but will split half of the donations to their respectful families. I have a hard time believing it won’t be accepted, so help anyway you can.

3/1 Update – Seeing as how Oprah just donated $250,000 to Common Threads, I am happy that the proceeds to this have been redirected. Then again, we have only one responder after about 1000 views of the post! And that was for $100 by a friend who I know needs his funds likely as much as I could’ve used the $500 in the first place.
As such, this $100 starting bid for the pair of tickets.  I encourage anybody and everybody to donate even $1, and I will be donating my tips from the bartending night to these 2 families in desperate need.  Be generous. As a member of the food service industry, this strikes very close to home, and I can’t help sounding like my Mom when I write, that there but for the grace of God go I.

FINAL UPDATEOk, this whole concoction has been very fly by night and I’m making it up as I go. I have reached out now to parties close to the families and will have the names of the funds to donate to. So – if you are looking to, just send me a quick email to thepickledtongue@gmail.com and I will get back in touch as soon as possible. What is likely to happen is that a facebook group will be formed, but be please be patient.
Additionally – If you’re planning on bringing gifts to the party tonight, bring green as this will go directly to these soon 2 be formed funds. Finally, as the guest bartender gets tipped out at the end of the night, my portion received from gratuities will as well, so be sure to invite  Benji, Jack, and Andy to the party!

The tickets for the event are officially gone!

A very big thank you must also go out to Carl Galvan and Supreme Lobster Carl is a true artisan that is always pushing the envelope, and has  brought me more close to more great product than any fish purveyor I’ve known in my 23 year career. A very big thank you also goes to Eleanor Leichenko of Common Threads for being so understanding of my being a weasel, and to the incomparable Louisa Chu for getting the whole thing turned around so fast.

So – for all the times I’ve either entertained or repulsed you on The Pickled Tongue blog – I would like for my 40th birthday gift from you to be remembered as the day good was done. So please be generous.

And many thanks to all who have been part of my first 40 years in this crazy thing called Life, and most of all to my family!

Foss at Forty

Birthday Invite Final

Dear Thirties,
You were so very, very good to me. You will be remembered so very fondly.
Love,
Phillip

If I had the time right now, I might reminisce here.
But I don’t.
Even if there are many good stories to be told… Brazilian authorities, terrorist attacks, jilted spouses, so on and so forth…. But not now.
If there may be one resolution I can make going into my next decade in this game of life, it will be to say that my 40’s should be a more mellow variety of exciting. All in all, I’m bona fide stoked in many facets to how it looks like the 40’s are going to get started, but that’s as far as I’m elaborating on that.

The concept of my 40th birthday party is 3 fold.

  1. I’m the guest bartender at Pop’s for Champagne.
  2. Since this is the final day of the Jewish holiday of Purim, I thought about a costume party. This in turn opened up the possibility of rubbing shoulders with Chicago’s fine food critics with whom it may be deemed inappropriate to meet under non-costumed pretenses.
  3. Finally the idea of pairing my signature drinks with the miracle fruit came into my head. Then I had a mini conversation on Twitter with Homaro Cantu on the subject. Next day I received an email from Charles Lee of mberry,who stated that he wanted to donate some of the product. So here we are.

The party should be able to hold it’s own to Art Smith’s 50th birthday party going on earlier in the evening. If not, I will take back the above resolution and start getting less mature as fast as I can.

Below are the drinks and above is an open invitation for all who may wish to join in the festivities. All guests in costume will receive 4 mberry packs (while supplies last) to take home that evening.

The first 2 drinks were designed with John Kinder of Death’s Door Spirits to pair with the miracle fruit. The other 2 are The Hummer (I take all blame for the name) which was designed with Adam Seeger of Hum Spirits, and the final one is this crazy concoction of cachaça, guarana, cocoa, cinnamon, and condensed milk. I remember (in the vague sense) getting wacky on this on the streets of Bahia during Carnivale.

Ok, maybe time for one story from the Carnivale. I think it was the 3rd day, and I was in the middle of the madness when I had one girl I had just met pulling my arm in one direction. About a minute later 4 more girls saw me and started pulling the other way. A tug of war ensued and the 4 girls easily won and we started dancing. A minute later the single girl jumped back out of the crowd, grabbed me, and we lived happily ever after (for that evening). I don’t foresee anything like this happening to me in my forties.

The Pickled Tongue
Served with Mberry – Death’s Door Gin, Cucumber, Yuzu, Koval Ginger Liqueur, Powdered Pineapple

Berry Balsamic
Served with Mberry – Strawberry & Rare Tea Cellars Pu-erh Infused Death’s Door Vodka, Balsamic Vinegar, Black Pepper

The Hummer
Sparkling Wine, Hum Botanical Spirits, Pomegranate, Aloe Nectar, Wet Kiss

Brazilian Capeta
Cachaça, Guarana, Condensed Milk, Cocoa


Moose Island Day Boat Scallops – Strozzapretti Pasta, Fried Cauliflower, Putanesca, Gremolata

scallop; putanesca-20

Seeing as how this has been on the menu for about 3 weeks – and more is said about it with fewer words – this post has been sitting behind the blog’s walls. As today is the final day for entries to the Supreme Scallop Challenge  (which happened to threaten the Trojan Wars for the Guinness title of, ‘Longest Continuously Run Contest Since Forever’), I’m pouncing on the opportunity to free the chains that bind it and submit it to the kind judge’s discretion.

What Else Do You Knead?

I’m really sorry to all of you who are here looking only for new dishes… on second thought, no I’m not… There are plenty of new things to come soon, but I’m stepping back for a moment to display the best my meager existence has to offer.

Talia Kneading 2.10-4

Talia Kneading 2.10-6

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Talia Kneading 2.10-16

Though my first daughter is most likely to have my wife’s touch in the bakery, the little bundle below has more of Daddy’s ‘hot line’ mentality.

Noa & Daddy

Done Well & Well Done – Beef Wellington

Wellington-13This consumed a couple of hours of my very busy day today and was born out of a guest request. I could easily enough have said no, but I try to avoid that at all costs. Perhaps if I ever open a fast food concept I can adopt a “Soup Nazi” philosophy, but as long as I am striving to over achieve, the answer more frequently than not from my kitchen is yes. Most of the time I feel good about it in the end, but this was an exception. A group of four came in tonight having requested the Beef Wellington earlier in the week. So I left home roughly an hour before I would normally have to so I could get this done amidst the huge laundry list of tasks after getting taken to the cleaners the night before. Hmmm, one would surely think that if I was taken to the cleaners  my laundry list would be short, but strangely it’s the opposite. Anyhow, here’s the process:

Clean the tenderloin, season and sear.

Wellington-1Stem, wash, season, and flash steam a lot of individual spinach leaves just until pliable. Lay out on clean toweling and arrange as displayed below.

Wellington-2Top this with a duxelle made from (in this case) hedgehog mushrooms and micro planed black truffles.

Wellington-3

Season and sear foie gras slices and place on the duxelle.

Wellington-4Top this with the seared filet mignon.

Wellington-5Top with more truffles and duxelle, wrap completely in the spinach, and compress with a kitchen towel to remove any excess moisture.

Wellington-7Wrap this in puff pastry and be as soft, cuddly, and sentimental as you can on Valentine’s Day… brush with egg wash.

Wellington-8

Par-bake in a convectional oven at 375º F for about 8 minutes and finish on order for about 12 minutes.

Wellington-10And finish plating with sauce bearnaise and bordelaise.

Wellington-11

Send it out to the dining room…

Wellington-12… and have it returned because all four guests want it cooked WELL DONE!!!!
Whatever.

Flash Seared Tuna & Foie Gras – Potato Roesti, Caramel Onions, Wilted Frisee, Sherry Vinegar Sauce

tuna&foie3This is a preparation I picked up from the brief time I was with Oceana Restaurant when they opened in the legendary Le Cygne location  in 1992. I was incredibly green at this stage in my career and this was the third kitchen in a short period of time in a little triangle in midtown Manhattan.

The first restaurant was Lafayette Restaurant in the Drake on 56th between Park & Madison. Jean Georges Vongerichten had just left to open up his first restaurant (Jo-Jo’s) and had taken pretty much his entire kitchen staff with him. All of New York wanted to work with him (and most still do) and I was pretty psyched even to be in the restaurant he had just vacated. His experiments with using juices in place of demi based sauces was as cutting edge as anything going on at the time, and I recall one of the cooks who had not yet left showing me some of the tricks and being blown away. Jean Georges’s shoes were way too large for Chef Pascal Bonhomme – who came after him – to fill. As for myself, I was nothing but a CIA grad whose ego was far larger than the repertoire of my skill set. Even worse was that I was placed in the responsible position of chef de partie of the garde manger station. The 16 hour days were par for the course, but the fact that I was belittled and berated from the beginning to the end of the day by a stereotypical French chef was rough.

That brings back a little story to segue into: I had just met a girl – that I’d later marry and divorce – who I invited to my place for dinner to show her how masterful a young cook she was getting involved with. The confines of my NYC apartment –  and my wildly ambitious menu – had my kitchen cluttered like a third world chicken coup. So when I went to move a small pot of boiling water from the stove with a pair of tongs, there was no place to put it down other than on the edge of the table. In case you didn’t know where this was going, it fell off the table and doused my feet which happened to be as bare as a baby’s buttocks. So despite having some sympathy sex that night – and beginning what would be 5 years that truly seems like someone else’s life – it only made my long hours at work more painful in the more literal sense of the word. Until one day about 3 months later that I was unceremoniously fired – just after receiving the happy news that Chef Pascal had been.

The second angle of the triangle was the eponymous, Quilted Giraffe on 55th and Madison.  Though the dining room had the feel of the Star Trek Enterprise, the approach to the cuisine was very whimsical and Japanese focused, and I had more tutelage to draw from. In 1992, I was sneaking tastes of the real Kobe beef long before it would be bastardized 1 million ways and become as commonplace as crooked politicians. Though this was much better suited for a young cook, I didn’t feel there was a great deal of substance to the cuisine and I jumped ship just before the restaurant closed its doors for good and as Oceana just opened on 53rd and Park.

Oceana was not a good move for me. The amount of pressure and focus on a place in the beginning was more than what I had bargained for, or was skilled enough to handle. Oddly as it is, the week I really started to ‘get it’ was the week I got sacked. Disenchanted and a little beaten down, I stepped aside from kitchens for a season and sold wine at Garnet Wine and Liquor. By the time a position opened up at Le Cirque, I was hungry to get back into the kitchen and determined to make it work. I recall walking back into the kitchen at Oceana and gloating a bit when I was promoted to sous chef. The only time I recall as more rewarding an ‘in your face’ than that, was bumping into a chef who turned into a salesman that was trying to sell me product. I worked under him when I was 17 and he then told me I should consider another line of work as he fired me. I made it a point to remind him of that as I sent him out of my kitchen with no sale. The taste of vindication is sweet!

Though modified somewhat from the original, this is the only dish I recall off  of that opening menu from Oceana, and I still love it. Most guests are surprised with how well the tuna and foie gras play off of each other, but I really like how the sweetness of the onions, the spice from pepper, the bitterness from the frisee, and acidity from the vinegar play off of each other.

Royal Miyagi Oyster Enveloped in the Scent of a Woman – Aloe, Pomegranate, Ginger

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This is a course I am planning on for Valentine’s Day for which I’ve built a recipe. The essence of the dish is to create a spectacle at the table where the aromas from rose water open the doors to the senses for the oncoming flavors & menu. To be honest, I’ve been building a lot of recipes but am only letting this one out because in the filming of this video for LXTV, I had told the producer I would include it here. As it happens, editing of the piece showed only a quick snippet to the dish, but my word is my word.

Since it is unlikely you will have the exact same vessels at your disposal, use your creativity regarding the medium. Just remember that the point is to have the evaporating dry ice spilling all over the table and releasing the aromas contained within like a flood. Figure this out before getting started to avoid last minute scrambling.

Some more notes before starting: First, you want to keep some sort of a buffer between the dry ice and the serving plate as the extreme cold can freeze the ingredients to the bottom of the plate; Second, you need to leave space to pour the hot tea onto the dry ice; and finally, do not touch the dry ice with your bare hands as it can burn you in the opposite (yet equal) manner as boiling water.

Here’s the recipe for Oyster Enveloped in the Scent of a Woman

Steelhead Belly Tartare & The Pickled Tongue’s Caviar – Potato Blini, Beet, Grey Goose Creme Fraiche, Dill

Steelhead Caviar-20

This – as a shockingly great deal of the fish items that are being featured here – are making their way from the sea to the table via the Twitter feed of Carl Galvan. So much so that I’m really tired of referencing it. You understand… right, Carl? Just keep sending the great product.

The shocking aspect is that I’m getting fish through social media. I don’t recall the first time I heard about the medium, but I started up on it the same week that I opened my profile on Facebook. My wife had been bugging me to sign up for Facebook for a while, but I resisted. I finally broke when our PR company was adamant about it around the spring of  last year. My wife helped me set up the account and had her friends become my friends. In the matter of less than a year, my wife now makes fun of me for the amount of time I devote to each of the mediums, and is simply stunned by how many friends &  followers I have. To me, it is not nearly enough. She says Twitter has replaced the blog as my wife… which she says replaced her when it began. I assure you all they haven’t.

I will say that ‘Crackbook addicts’ or ‘Twit-aholics’ bug the hell out of me. If your ‘tweets’ take up my entire screen and I have to click ‘more’ to see what someone else is up to, I will ‘unfollow’ you. And there is  no need for anybody to know everything you’re doing. There are some out there who would consider tweeting on the mundane like, ‘Just finished wiping my butt. Really good poop!’ I insist on having at least an occasional sense of humor with my updates. And though I’ve never ‘unfriended’ anybody on Facebook, I now disdain those who keep asking me to join their groups after I’ve ignored them 20+ times.

But I digress… after all, I made caviar for the first time and it’s a pretty cool process.

Here are the whole sacks that Carl sent me to play around with (the dinner fork is to give an idea of the size):

Steelhead Caviar-2

As the eggs are very delicate, it should be said to treat them gently during all stages of handling. That said, the first thing to do is to make a brine with 3 quarts of lukewarm water (100º F) : 1 cup of salt and soak the sacks for 30 minutes. Remove them and gently rinse under a soft stream of lukewarm water for about 5 minutes.
Next, over the top of a pan with a small amount of water in it, very carefully remove the eggs from the membrane.

Steelhead Caviar-4Once all of the eggs are broken out of the sacks, the empty sacks will resemble a used condom… please discard this in a waste receptacle immediately!

Steelhead Caviar-7Next, strain the eggs through a sieve again and pick through carefully to remove any additional membranes that are present (like in the photo below).

Steelhead Caviar-10Run the eggs again under a soft, steady stream of lukewarm water for 5 more minutes. After straining again, the eggs became very cloudy.

Steelhead Caviar-11The final process is to pour the brine back over the top of the caviar. I’d like very much to hear what Harold McGee has to say about this, as the eggs became clear again almost immediately after coming into contact with the brine.

Steelhead Caviar-12And then immediately strain for the finished product.

Steelhead Caviar-14

This process took the better part of 2 hours with a few of the usual distractions. The pop and salinity from the caviar is fantastic. I also took the liberty of putting a splash of Grey Goose vodka into the caviar as well. The presentation came together quickly. My thought was to serve it with the same fish, but when told I wouldn’t be able to get any for the weekend, Carl suggested a very fatty, Faroe Island steelhead. I decided to cure the fish, but took off both bellies to make the tartare. This was  seasoned with lemon mosto oil, capers, cornichons, and salt. The beet puree was made from some roasted beets and the Grey Goose-créme fraiche is pretty self explanatory.  Our poissonier has gotten the hang of the potato blini that we were using on the scallop dish that just came off of the menu, so I turned him loose on that as soon as he arrived. Below is the dish before the créme fraiche and caviar pictured above. And yes, it is a lot of caviar… it was a sample though so why not pass on the luxury to the guest?

A Light Moment at Lockwood

Light Moment in Lockwood-1

Black Sea Bass, Laughing Bird Shrimp Dumpling, Baby Squid, Brandade, Braised Leeks, Fennel Cream

black sea bass-4

Black sea bass is one of my favorite fish. Light and flaky, but still with enough backbone to stand up to many ingredients. The biggest issue with it is that it makes it to market with little consistency, making it hard to menu plan with it.  The last time I cooked with it I developed an alternative method without browning the gorgeous color of the skin. It really isn’t that complicated (after all there is no sous vide machine or thermal circulator in my kitchen). What I do, is take a plate, rub it with extra virgin olive oil, place the fish skin side down, season the top, brush the top with a little more of the olive oil, place plastic wrap directly on top of the fish, and bake it for about 10-12 minutes at 200º F. The fish always stays nice and moist. And since one of my pet peeves is over seared fish, this takes the possibility out of the equation.

The other ingredients on the plate are a fennel cream, braised leeks, brandade, and some beautiful baby squid and shrimp dumplings. To mesh the flavors together a bit, I started with a little garlic and shallots in a pan with olive oil. Once sweated, the calamari and shrimp dumplings were added along with a splash of white wine, the fennel cream, and a little chopped parsley.

The photo below was my dinner. For this I filled the fish with the raw shrimp dumpling mixture and wrapped the entire fish in plastic and cooked it in the 200 oven for about 20 minutes on the plate. This oven and technique has become my answer to a lack of more modern slow cooking methods.

black sea bass; shrimp dumpling-5

Chef's dinner with the shrimp dumpling recipe filled inside.

Cheek to Cheek – Half Acre Over Ale & Prairie Breeze Cheddar Soup, Homemade Sauerkraut, Pretzle


cheek to cheek-3
This plate has not been what I consider a success on the menu. True that it may not be refined enough for our dining room. Or perhaps there are too many words describing the soup when beer & cheddar might have been a little more user friendly. But I think that is only a partial answer. I think it’s more that the cheeks – both monk and beef – are simply a tough sell with our clients.

I just tasted it again and the flavor is there. The sauerkraut is KILLER, the two cheeks work very well together without overwhelming each other or the other ingredients, and the pretzel bun serves to soak up the perfectly balanced soup made with the artisan beer and cheese. Oh, well… can’t win ‘em all.

I sent out the below dish for a tasting menu while the beef cheeks from Dietzler Farm were cooking. Once the cheeks were done, I chose to ditch the more upscale sweet potatoes and endive & dumb it down to make it more ‘pub-like’. The below preparation is: Monkfish Cheeks, Lobster, & Foie Gras – Braised Endive, Sweet Potato Fondant, and Rosemary.

foie, beer, cheddar-1

Moose Island Day Boat Scallops, Potato & Lemon Blini, Heritage Prairie Farm’s Spinach & Pickled Vegetables, Fried Wild Mountain Capers, Candied Marjoram

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This scallop dish is my offering to Carl and the folks at Supreme in response to a competition they have put forth. At first I didn’t want to put my food out there for a contest or a reward, but Carl convinced me by saying that if I won I could donate the money to a charity. How could I say no to that?

The real reason I didn’t want to enter is because I hate the prospect of  losing. When I was a kid, I not only cried when I struck out and/or my little league baseball team lost, but I also cried when the Green Bay Packers or even sometimes when the Milwaukee Brewers lost. This was troubling to me then and it drove my Dad nuts. But the more I seemed to fight it, the worse it seemed to get. And then it just went away. I don’t remember how or when, but all of a sudden it became easier to put winning and losing into the proper perspective. Then it resurfaced in a strange way that brought it right back (albeit without tears).

During my first stay in Chicago (2000-2001), there was an evening when my beloved brother/roomate and I went out on the town. I had been flirting with some girls on and off that evening and he met a gorgeous girl who took to him right away and went home with him. And I had nothing to show for myself that evening other than a worn out adult film. I recognized these old feelings coming at me as we were walking home, and knew the emotions were way out of place. I tried to fish out an answer from my depths. I mean, why wouldn’t I be happy my brother was getting it on in the next room? And what’s wrong with adult film? It’s not like I wasn’t having my share of fun back then.

The answer I believe to both, is that I am by nature ultra-competitive. I am happy for other people’s successes as long as it isn’t something I was after. Oh sure, I can clap my hands and say congratulations. And I will always come around. But immediately I will almost always either feel like I was ripped off or inferior. Not that there is any real way to gauge it, but I despise  that I don’t put forth what I consider to be the #1  food in the city. A mantra of mine is that the 2nd best is only the 1st of the worst. People who know me outside of the kitchen find it hard to believe I’m as intense & competitive as I am inside of it. And for the most part –  at least in contrast to most of the chefs I know or have worked with – I am even pretty mellow in the kitchen. The one thing that brings out the ‘killer instinct’ in me is when I am threatened. That is probably the reason I thrived in New York; if you didn’t have that instinct you were floating shark bait. I’m no shrink and really don’t know if any of this correlates, but I’m feeling kind of naked as I sit here and write this… not sure if it’s the reference to the crying of my youth or the adult flicks. Anyhow, whatever the results of the competition, I promise not to cry – or do anything else – if I lose. But I’m sure it’ll sting a little.

Is there still food to get to? Wow… I don’t think I can do it tonight. It’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow. For I am the master of my domain name and I’m too farmished (Yiddish for mixed up & exhausted) to talk food now.

The next day:
Now that I’ve cooled the above verbiage down about the equivalent of going from the Sahara to Siberia for the sake of those concerned, I’ll get onto the food. Scallops are kind of a  mainstay on my menu because great product is consistently available, guests love them, preparing them is easy, and they match well to a multitude of food. So when Carl came to me with these scallops, I started thinking of doing something new again. My head jumped from capers, to potatoes, to lemon, to pickled vegetables, to marjoram… in other words, Greece. The next part was just figuring out the fine details. Heritage Prairie Farm provided the fantastically sweet spinach and the ingredients for the pickled vegetables; including black and watermelon radishes and carrot. The cauliflower was already in house and is also the puree under the spinach. Rod Markus provided us with the amazing wild mountain capers which were fried crispy. The marjoram – which in my eyes which really looks more like ungodly crystallized illegal herb – gives a unique sweet and powerful herbaceous character to the dish to complete it. The blini recipe is directly from The French Laundry Cookbook with some lemon zest micro-planed in.

On Coveting Pigs & 4 Preparations of Southern Style Pig – Bourbon & Cola Barbecue Sauce, Collard Greens, 3 Sister’s Grits & Candied Pecans

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There is something disturbing and over-the-top regarding Chicago’s collective love of the pig. It seems to me so much more exaggerated than what one sees in other major cities. Do they love pigs elsewhere? Of course. Religious preferences aside, what’s there not to love about it? In my eyes however, the Chicago dining and cooking community takes the love and passion beyond admiration. Coveting may be a better descriptive. Why? My best guess is that the winters here are so cold that anytime we can get pig fat to stick to our bones and warm us up, the happier we are.
Personality wise, I believe it easy to relate to them as well. They’re more intelligent than dogs, make good pets (a friend of mine had one), love eating, and are more turned on by the aroma of truffles than we are. Personally, though my home is kept kosher (my wife’s mantra), bacon is without a doubt on the top five (maybe even #1) on the food stuffs I would bring with me for life on a desert island. Better yet, I won’t have to share it with  my wife and kids!
There is no denying that ounce for ounce it is the most flavorful animal in the carnivore kingdom. From head to toe, it is also the most approachable & reasonably priced meat we consume. That said, there is still something Tim Allen (Comedian/Home Improvement) “OOH-OOH-OOH” kind of creepy about our collective ape calling to great pork dishes. Though superlatives and other moans of pleasure are surely squealed for the sake of other great food, the tone for a wonderful pig dish is much more guttural. So although this post is hypocritical in that it is another dish I hope to hear plenty of “OOH-OOH-OOH’S” over, it is meant to be in homage to all of those pigs who bring Chicagoans and humans everywhere gustatory ecstasy.

The seed of this dish is owed to a chef I hold in great esteem, Chris Cosentino. I am very particular about ham. When I was a kid, my paternal Grandma used to make these amazing miniature Ham & Swiss sandwiches for Easter (my Dad’s side of the family’s Catholic). Aside from these – and I haven’t had them in decades – I really don’t eat ham at all. I can’t recall how I came to it, but once I saw this recipe, I suddenly got the urge to get Southern. No, I didn’t use the Red Bull cola, but just Coca-Cola. And the bourbon used was from a bottle of Maker’s Mark I was given that’s been sitting on my shelf (only recently have my high school memories of bourbon faded enough for me to approach it, but it still is not my drink of choice). I didn’t use the recipe, but prepared the sauce my own way. Nonetheless, I found the idea of a bourbon-cola bbq sauce very enticing. The ham I used is a Leoncini Ham. This delicate ham was brushed with the sauce and baked slowly while basting frequently until heated through. It was then cooled completely. The next day, I trimmed off almost all of the delicious glaze on the skin and cut the ham into squared off portions about 2″x2″x1″ thick. The outside was put through the grinder and used to flavor the collard greens. The pork shoulder and the ribs are from Slagel Family Farm, and the tenderloin was brought in to give the dish a little refinement. Each of the ingredients (including the ham) are basted with the sauce before cooking. The incredible, organic and coarse cut cornmeal and pecans are from 3 Sister’s Garden.

Pheasant Cordon Bleu – Chestnut Veloute, Compressed Sunchokes, Black Truffle

pheasant-3In the present economic climate – and considering I do my best to run this restaurant and other venues here as though I’m the proprietor – I will only splurge for the luxury of truffles for New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day. Even then I will only bring in black and not white. I’m sure there will be plenty of detractors to this statement, but I don’t believe they are worth the price point. Although we could afford them (though not make money on them), I simply cannot get past my conscience. Obviously there are plenty out there who believe it’s worth it, otherwise they wouldn’t be nearly as expensive as they are. But seriously!!! Upwards of $1000/# for black truffles (France is having a very difficult season) and $2500/# for white truffles! I was certainly wrong in thinking that prices might go down with the recession. It has actually been the opposite.
True, I am crazy for the flavor and aroma. I recall fondly the days at Le Cirque when we would be the first kitchen to get the white tuber every year. And how the air from the walk-in cooler would smack you in the face with their aroma as you opened the door and walked in. And how you’d ‘accidentally’ make too much white truffle fettuccine or risotto for an order, hide the remainder under your station, lunch on it like a mischievous pig in heat (truffles are an aphrodisiac to the pig after all), and then justify yourself by how little you were paid for how much work you were doing.
And yes… for nostalgic purposes the first thing I did when the truffles came in was to micro plane a little and sandwich them in some warm bread with a little butter. And no, I won’t deny that every time I take them out of the cooler I lean my head in and deeply inhale their intoxicating aroma.  Ahhh… the memories of the olfactory senses… they are special… but I do digress….

This was a course for our New Year’s Eve tasting menu and a concept I’ll be “dumbing down” for a winter chicken dish. At times I don’t know how I’m going to approach an idea when it first takes root, and this was such a time.

Originally I wanted to use some bluefoot chickens, but it was too late to get my order in for New Year’s Eve. I wound up bringing in pheasant, but because it is more lean than chicken, I didn’t have enough skin to wrap it in like I had planned. The way I improvised was to remove the skin altogether and to turn the sinewy leg meat into a sausage. Next, the breast was lightly pounded , covered with sliced truffles, topped with Crave Brothers ‘Les Freres’ Farmstead cheese, and La Quercia prosciutto. Once this was rolled, the sausage was spread out on plastic wrap and wrapped around the breast. It was then rolled and placed in the freezer for about 30 minutes to make it slice-able. The photo below is the result. This was then breaded.

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The chestnut soup is one of my favorites. To give it extra body, I roast an entire chicken cut up in small pieces along with a mirepoix of celery root, shallots, a little golden delicious apple, and white mushrooms. Before pureeing, I pick out all of the heavy bones with a skimmer and tongs, discard them and return the meat to the soup. Next it is passed through a fine sieve on a food mill and then blended in the VitaPrep. To order it is finished with some truffle juice.

The compressed sunchokes were made using an equal mass of the sunchoke and potato and preparing them as one would for potato gratin. The differences are that the hotel pan needs to be lined with buttered parchment. They are then slowly baked while wrapped, cooled to room temperature, and then topped with another pan along with weights. The next day they are inverted and removed from the pan, and then cut into portions. To serve them like a normal gratin, simply crisp both the top and bottom in a pan. Because of the crispy texture of the pheasant – which was pan fried in duck fat – I didn’t crisp them.

As soups are difficult to pair with wine because the tongue gets coated with the soup, I decided to go with an amontillado sherry from Emilio Lustau.

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Thoughts on Chef Blogging

A recent chef/stagier recently posed this question to me in a letter:

If I was interested in starting a blog of my own, how would you recommend that I go about it?

My response:

Don’t be afraid to speak your mind & be on the edge in regards to the balance of right and wrong. Even bad publicity is still publicity. Don’t be afraid to ruffle some feathers. Those you alienate will likely be replaced by those who admire you for your stance. But be careful not to put HR or union issues on the line if you are in the belly of a hotel. They can be to the blogger what the FCC is to Howard Stern.

For people to read your blog, you have to put your personality into it and give people a reason to come back. A quote I recall appreciating (and is cleaned up gently for the sake of the ‘FCC’)  is, “opinions are like (tushie)holes… we all have one and we all think everybody else’s stinks.” So why would someone you don’t know want your opinion?
The answer – Take ownership of your blog by revealing your personality, experiences, and character, but be sure what you write is interesting to others. Otherwise you’re better off keeping a journal because a blog can also reveal your flaws. Luckily in our field, cooking and being a chef is pretty interesting to many, but don’t take that for granted because that alone isn’t enough. Be well spoken and think and write about the industry from the stance of somebody who knows very little about it.

Also, whether it’s the food, your thoughts, or a combination of both, it’s a good idea to post consistently. I would say no less than once a week. It may not sound like a lot now, but with all the other responsibilities a chef has, it is.

Finally, proof read your work thoroughly (though frequently that’s not enough!) and get a good camera to take good photos of your food. This is your image! Your PR firm will lead journalists here. I’ve already been amazed at how much great publicity and other incredible things have come to me without their help. As a matter of fact, I believe this blog has kept me more on the map than they have.

From the culinary standpoint, I have found that I conceptualize the food (taste and presentation) more thoroughly when it is going to be out there for all to see. And this in turn is obviously not only beneficial for your blog & education, but more so for the guest. And don’t be afraid to share your failures.

Also come up with a good/unique name. This can lead to many more views through Google searches and gives the site more of a veil of mystery. I just looked at the ‘all time stats’, and see I’ve received more views from people searching for the traditional ‘pickled tongue’ than anything else. I’ve even copyrighted the name. Now I couldn’t tell you how many of those visitors immediately hit the ‘back’ button, but as with a business, it doesn’t really matter how the customer gets to you, only that they get to you.

Finally, have fun and a sense of humor with it! This more than anything is what will engage the reader. They will feel the enthusiasm and passion as you paint your masterpiece with words. And I don’t think any laughter is more spontaneous or better than that while reading silently.

Umami Oyster – Beets, Apple, Leek, Finger Limes, Creme Fraiche, Bacon, Osetra Caviar

oyster; umami-2When I think of an ‘out of the norm’ flavor combination – or when I simply am stuck on finding accompaniments for a particular ingredient – I will pull out what has become my most valued book, The Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenbug and Karen Page. There is nothing flashy about the book in terms of photos or design, and it doesn’t even have any recipes (though I rarely will use a recipe from a book anyhow). What it is, is an alphabetical dictionary of ingredients. Underneath a particular ingredient is then a list of other ingredients that would pair well with it. Then, if it pairs very well with an ingredient – like fish and fennel - it appears in bold. And if the pairings are made in heaven – like truffle and pasta – they appear in bold and capital letters.
In addition to ingredients, the book takes on entire cuisines and flavor sensations, and features the descriptions of what some big name chefs (no, I am not one of them?!) are doing on their menus with those ingredients. And though I will generally pick up the book when I am at a stand still in conceiving the next flavor to introduce into an idea, there are times I will be taken in an entirely different direction just by paging through the book. Anyhow, it is a rare breed of book that is suited both for the professional and amateur alike, and this one is definitely in that class.

In this concept however, I veered down my own path. My idea was to serve bacon with caviar, so I looked up ‘caviar’ in the book to see if by some chance I’d find it there. Not to my surprise, I didn’t. Considering both bacon and caviar are cured, it would kind of be in contrast to say that they could pair well together. Then when you consider the smokiness of the bacon, there is a good chance that it would do nothing more than mask the flavor of the caviar. Nonetheless, I took the leap since I wanted to add another element of salinity (aside from the caviar and the oyster) in a way that would also bring more ‘body’ to the dish. Not really too terrible of a leap though as I’m sure you’d find bacon (probably in bold) under the heading of oyster!

I decided to proceed cautiously so that I wouldn’t kill the expensive caviar. Several factors were taken into consideration: First, the accompanying ingredients (which I had already decided on) needed to have ‘legs’ to carry the flavor through. They did…. the earthiness of the beets and leeks, the sweet & sour crispness of the granny smith apple (likely the most vital ingredient), the strong acidity from the finger limes, and the velvety crème fraiche. These all needed to provide plenty of amusement for the mouth on its own. Last but not least, I took into consideration how the guest was most likely to eat it. I wanted the caviar and the oyster to be the first sensation, and the remainder of the ingredients to come in after, but without dominating the finish. The key was to only serve a couple of slivers of the bacon, to blanch and shock it (instead of cooking it crisp), and toss it with a little lemon vinaigrette. This removed some of the smokiness.

The finger limes I was introduced to by Curtis Duffy when he brought one from his kitchen as we were heading out one recent evening. To open them, tear the rind away with your fingernails and then pinch at the base of the lime. To my intrigue that evening, ‘caviar’ sized bits of sweet lime came out. Leave it to Curtis to find all of the cool stuff and for me to be the Johnny Come Lately!

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Marrow Crusted Sturgeon – Pulled Osso Bucco, Parsnip & Other Winter Vegetables

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Several fish on the market are rich and fatty enough to hold up to land grazing animals and sturgeon is one of them. This particular fish is a sustainable, farmed American White Sturgeon brought to market by the good folks of CleanFish (via Carl).

The veal shank was braised whole and in a rich veal stock flavored with white wine, mirepoix (with copious amounts of garlic), savory herbs and orange zest. Once the veal is tender, it is removed from the bone and the meat is pulled. Next, using a long skewer and/or banging the bone forcefully on a cutting board, the marrow is extracted and mixed back in with the meat. To this, a small dice of onions, carrots, and celery root are sautéed with some of the reduced sauce and added in with the pulled shank meat. It is then all further moistened with some additional sauce.

The marrow crust is a matter of trial and error to get right, and I did build a recipe for it this time around. Unfortunately I won’t be making that public material until I get a cookbook out. And if that doesn’t happen I’m taking it to the grave! Essentially, it is made with extracted bone marrow that has been soaked in cold water for 3 days (changing the water each day). It is then passed through a grinder and combined with some softened butter, Dijon mustard, herbs, and enough breadcrumbs to bind it. This is spread over the fish before it goes into a 325º F oven. Once cooked, it is then is browned under the salamander. To keep the bottom of the fish from overcooking, we cook it on a small piece of raw potato.

The parsnip is cooked down in cream and blended in the VitaPrep.

And as Forest Gump says, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Yule Log – Chestnut Cream, Egg Nog, Cranberries, Candied Pine Needle

yule log (1 of 2)We came up with this when petitioned by Janet Fuller of the Chicago Sun Times for a piece she was doing on yule logs. Fabrice Bouet – the pastry chef of the hotel – prepared the yule log with the chestnut cream and I did the rest. We might have had it ready in time for the article had I not unexpectedly been out of the office last week. But that is what it is and that’s all I have to say about that.

As a result, this is making a quick cameo on the menu… so Merry Christmas.

Seared Sea Scallops – Cauliflower, Quince, Olives, Pine Nuts, Pine Bubbles

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