happenings in the kitchen of phillip foss
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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

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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


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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.

pheasant-1

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.

pheasant-2

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

scallop-pine

Lola Duck a l’Orange – Chard Purse, Flageolet Beans, Assorted Olives, Caramelized Orange

duck a l'orange-1There are few dishes that can take a diner back to the 70’s (or an outdated restaurant today) faster than duck a l’orange. Back in the day, it the sauce was finished and bird was carved table side. This does the flavor profile justice if not the showmanship.

Though not in view as they are in the chard purse, I am crazy about the technique I’ve developed for cooking beans. It starts like most versions in that they are soaked overnight in a large quantity of water. The next day they are drained and covered in chicken stock and large pieces of onion, carrot, tomato, split garlic, and a bouquet of thyme, rosemary, and sage are bound between branches of celery. Once brought to a boil and skimmed, the heat is lowered and the beans cooked at a soft boil until tender. They are then drained and cooled slightly in a wide surfaced pan. The broth is reserved and returned to the pot. Next, the vegetables and bouquet are all picked from the beans with tongs and added back to the broth. This is then reduced down to a glaze. In the meantime, the beans are seasoned (if the salt is put in at the beginning of the cooking process, the beans will never feel as though their cooked), and in this case tossed with some rendered duck fat. When the cuisson has reached the right consistency, all of the ingredients with the exception of the bouquet are passed through a food mill using a coarse die and added in. The seasoning is then adjusted if necessary and that’s it.

The orange is sprinkled with sugar and caramelized in a cast iron pan, and the sauce (bigarade) is made with caramel, red wine vinegar, orange zest, savory herbs, and duck stock.

Barely Warm Gigha Island Halibut & Laughing Bird Shrimp – Brandade, Shaved Zucchini, Bouillabaisse Jus

gigha halibut

This is another phenomenal fish we were turned on to by Carl Galvan and is farmed by the good people of CleanFish. Now that I’m looking at the photo, not only is the Gigha Island (pronounced Gee-ha) halibut from them, but also the laughing bird shrimp. I’ve written before about all of the ingredients I have used of theirs so won’t go into another long rant, but let it be said that I really appreciate the product they bring to the table.

This halibut is much smaller than the wild one that is available most of the year and required some ingenuity to achieve the right portion and yield out of. Because it is so skinny, yet too long to simply use one side/portion, I decided to slice the pieces on the bias and cook them very slowly in a 180º F oven, on a plate, with plastic wrap directly on top of the fish. The menu description mentions that it is served ‘barely warm’ and the server mentions that it is a sushi grade fish. Aside from that, the ingredients from a recent halibut dish I had on the site are pretty much in tact if not slightly re-arranged. There is another version of the same fish here that I feel does a better job of accentuating the unique cucumber like aroma/nature of this fish.

Getting Started Young

noa refrigeratorFirst take out the vegetables…

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… then peel the zucchini until nothing remains.

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Coat the chicken with flour and shake off excess. Then place (not throw!) the chicken in the egg wash.

47853970Next put the flour in your hands….

47854127… then clap!

M Magazine Feature

m magazineI wish I could’ve been there to see Mom’s reaction when this showed up in her mailbox… anyhow, the article for Milwaukee Lifestyle magazine is here.

Blood Sausage of Hare – Potato Puffs Fried in Duck Fat, Black Beluga Lentils, Wisconsin Cranberries

hare sausageThis dish does not look as cool on the plate as it does in the picture, even if the ingredients are the same. One of the fun aspects to this blog  is to challenge myself with the way a dish is photographed while still being honest to the way it is presented. Sometimes though, I’ll goof simply for the sake of it. The way we serve this is vertically on a lipped rectangular plate with the lentils covering the bottom. The sausage is sliced like in the photo and sitting on top of the duck fat fried potato puffs (whose name sounds more fun  than the potato dauphine that they really are).  The cranberries – made with a good maple syrup, onion, celery root, parsnip, and orange zest – and the civet sauce from a special I had run a while back – finish off the presentation.

This was my first take making a traditional or untraditional blood sausage and it wasn’t either a complete success or a complete failure. Making a blood sausage by eye is a challenging undertaking for an under seasoned sausage maker like myself, and this didn’t bind  as well as I would have liked. The flavor on the other hand is very good – and gamey as it should be – and it pairs very well with the accompaniments.

Rushing Water’s Rainbow Trout – Celeriac Slaw, Pears, Brussels Sprouts, Walnuts, Caramel Shallot Sauce

trout 3

This is a preparation that went onto the menu and has re-appeared spottily as it’s been difficult to gauge the quantity I need to pre-order from the Chicago Fish Dude. The problem has not  been because the dish doesn’t move because we continue to sell out of it… the problem is my timidity in gauging how much  fish I will need 3 days before I need it.
I could order and then cancel, and am pretty sure Carl would be ok with selling it to someone else. I dislike this idea because, A) I don’t like imposing, and B) if I forget to cancel it then I’m stuck. So if you’re in for dinner you may or may not see this on the menu.

Trout is a fun fish that can lend itself to robust ingredients as these when roasted with the skin on. Additionally, the skin – and the savory herb mousse stuffed in the cavity – allows the cook some forgiveness in cooking it. This particular trout is a pristine, naturally raised, farmed fish from Rushing Waters located in the beautiful Kettle Moraine region of my native Wisconsin.

Note – I recently found out today that the trout is off the market for now as the supplier will be smoking everything they get for the coming holidays. Too bad for everyone.

House Cured Magret Duck Breast & Leg Rillettes – Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Black Garlic, Gel of Forbidden Forest Tea, Satsuma Mandarin

duck - mandarin-2

I’ve done a couple of versions (here are Take 1 & Take 2) of this great and amazingly simple cured duck breast from Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie. I believe this version trumps both of my previous efforts. This time of year is not great for much fruit other than citrus, and this dish took root in some satsuma mandarins I randomly brought in last week. The desire to pair them with the duck and lavender came next. First I cooked the mandarins down confit style and finished them with a very good lavender honey. Knowing though that this would not bring enough of the lavender flavor in, I called on friend/supplier Rod Markus who sent samples of 2 separate teas when I couldn’t decide which I preferred. The first was a Forbidden Forest Lapsang Souchong that was smoked with fallen pines, and the second was a Wild Himalayan Lavender. The Forbidden Forest was a little too smoky and the Himalayan was too strong in lavender, so I just combined the two and gelled them. The Forbidden Forest got the shout out in the title because it simply sounds so Hobbit-esque.

Once the smokiness was introduced, the black trumpet duxelle I made out of some sub-par mushrooms we received (and later were credited at half off) entered into the flavor profile. This was made with duck fat, shallots, black garlic paste and sherry vinegar.

The plating took some trial and error and I knew that considering our limited task force (and still no sous chef to fall back on), the duck breast would need to be sliced before service. The plating above is nothing like what I had in mind when starting out, but the cylindrical ‘Napolean’ works well enough. The bottom is toasted country bread, followed in order by the duck rillettes, the tea gel, and the black trumpet duxelle. Regarding the breast, at first I sliced it directly onto the plate, but I felt it became buried under the other ingredients. The next progression was to form it into a ‘rosace’ and drape it over the top. The frisée – tossed with a 3 vinegar vinaigrette – rounds it off.

duck - mandarin