Friday Night Service

Last two courses. Lamb "Moroccan" style with Couscous and Yoghurt. We made a spice blend for the lamb and also infused some spice mix into the "Fage". I like the dish with the lamb and spice, maybe even the zucchini mint puree, not a fan of the couscous though. This dish is something that I have done before but just Lamb. Last we did a angel food cake with fresh raspberries and chantilly cream.

Friday Night Service

Fourth and Fifth Courses. Sea Scallops A'la Planca with Corn Pudding (again, josh made the corn pudding. We pureed the corn in the Vita prep, seasoned it, and gradually heated it up. As the corn warms the natural starch brings it together, straight from a pan to the plate, preety cool, I'd never seen that before). Black Sea Bass with Fennel and Oranges. Also in the salad that was cold were some olives and red onion.

Friday Night Service

First 3 courses of taisting menu tonight. Hamachi Crudo with Jalapeno and Grapefruit. Bibb Salad with Tarragon and Sourdough (Josh came up with the idea to make the croutons hold the lettuce, preety cool). And Foie Gras, the same prep as A'la Carte.

Green Herb Sauce

The other day I went through a lot of old recipies. This one we are working with today, is from Bouley a couple years ago.
1 Cup Good, strong White Veal Stock (hot) or 250ML
1/2bnch raw picked parsley
1/2bnch blanch tarragon
1 bunch blanch basil
1 bunch raw chive
1 bunch blanch chive
7 leaves of lovage
Blend stock with raw herbs, then add blanched herbs. Emulsify in 1/2 cup Olive Oil and season with salt, sugar and pepper. Onion Puree, Garlic Puree and Celery Puree.

Pea Soup

My pea soup:
2 onions
2 shallots
1/8cup EVO
3TB Butter
4 zuchinni squash
2 qts sweet pea, peeled
1/3 bottle california or american chardonay
2 quarts chicken stock, light
2 quarts water or vegetable stock, light

sweat onion and shallot in butter and olive oil. Season with lots of sugar and salt. Once clear, add wine and reduce to sec. Then add 2 qts chicken stock and 2 quarts water or vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and then add zuchinni. Cook for 2 minutes until soft at simmer and add peas. Cook one or two more minutes and then add to vita prep. Puree until smooth, push through chinois into ice bath and chill quickly as possible. Season with lots more sugar, salt, white pepper and olive oil of a good variety. Chill and check consitency and seasoning the next day.
At the Rabbit we are serving this with pancetta now, but were using shrimp confit previous. It's really great served warm, but until tomatoes come we will use this as our chilled soup.

Chocolate Cake

800 grams chocolate 61 percent
400 grams butter

Melt butter and chocolate

400 grams sugar
12 eggs
8 egg yolks
180 grams flour

Once the chocolate is melted, off the fire wisk in the sugar. Then the eggs, egg yolks and finally the flour. Pipe into desired molds and bake at 210 degrees celcius for 5 to 8 minutes until they are the consistency you desire. We like the center to be soft so we cook ours about 6 minutes.

Banana Mousse

4 banana
250ml whipped cream
3 tsp rum
1/2 lemon juice
2 egg white, whipped
Sugar depending on the sweetness of the bananas.
Add all ingredients except whites and cream and puree. Once smooth fold in cream. Then finally whites. Use as much lemon as you need to retain the color.
We use this recipe with the preceding one for our banana profeteroles.

Pat au Chou

500 grams flour
720 grams water
320 grams butter
12 eggs
4 pinch salt
12 tsp sugar

Place water, butter, salt and sugar in heavy bottomed pot and bring to a simmer. Fold in flour carefully, on very low heat until all incoporated and smooth. Turn heat to medium and cook out all water until the batter binds into a ball. Be carefull to not cook too long or the butter will break out. Place batter in kitchen aid with paddle and add eggs one by one.
The batter can be piped onto sheet trays and stored for days if they are covered. Brush with a egg wash, and cook in the convection at 410 degrees for 15 to 18 min, rotating half way through. Low Fan.

Chocolate Sauce Recipe

200 Grams Chocolate
250 ML Cream

Salmon Tartar

We have started using our baby vegetables...

Staff

Finally we have our staff put together. Lot's of people in a small space, it's even more crammed when i am in the photo!

Foie Gras

This is what we ended with today. Couple things. Will peal the peaches so the color is not so off. Also, wondering how to make the torcheon more attractive instead of looking like a hokey puck. Aware that most restaurants do, but it's really bother me. Anyways here it is:
Hudson Valley Foie Gras with Peaches, Pickled Red Onion and Brioche.

Peach Gellee

For the Peach Gellee:
6-7 peaches pureed with lemon juice, vanilla bean(fresh), pinch sugar and salt. You can peal the peaches if you want a more "white" color but I liked the red. Once puree'd with some water, push through a chinois and measure out 2 cups. Every two cups of this liquid (which is much thicker than water) get's 3 sheets of gelatin. Then once it's all cooled down in a quart, i use a spoon, break it up, place in a pastry bag and again, should be ready to go!
2cups fruit puree=3 gelatin sheets.

Foie Gras

Tonight we are changing the foie gras. Because yesterday I recieved some really awesome peaches and couldnt help to wonder why we dont have more fruits on our menu. Last night i kept thinking about this (actually this is what i fell asleep thinking about) and today we will try it. Some peaches with be made into a gelle with a spicy red pepper infused. With the gelle will be diced peaches, pickled red onion(cold pickle with cinammon and corriander) ancho chili, greens and a brulee'd peach. The brulle works well alaminute because it kind of runs off into the "sauce". I want the entire plate to look like a little garden with a nice beautiful slice of marinated foie gras that has been poached in champagne. Hopefully there will be success and photo's to follow!

Busy

We have been getting busier and busier as the week progresses. These are images of Thursday's service. Last night (friday) was much more composed, yet still busy. Lets see what tonight is like...

Baby Vegetables

These are the baby vegetables we finally have recieved! I saw them last year at a food show and have been searching for them every since. Josh found them through one of our local purveyors. Baby carrots, beets, leeks and turnip. We will use them on the terines right now. We spoke about possibly pickleing them for the burger, but may be holding off on that.

Scallop Crudo

XP last night. Scallops, Lime, Caviar, Olive Oil.

Pig Head

This is what the beggining of my terrine looks like. Have done this before, hoping to be able to leave a detailed procedure for this. Starting with one pig's head, 4 trotters. Rinsed well, cooked with 1 bottle of white wine, mire poix, dry spices and water. Cook 3 to 4 hours until tender.

Service

Is starting to come together. I was really happy with the food we put out last night, some really nice stuff.

new...

Busy

Kitchen staff is always busy. We have been putting in a lot of hours, most people are working from 9a.m.(the last person is in at 12 and leaving around 12a.m.(first person to leave is midnight. So 15 hours per person per day, we work 630 man hours a week. :)

Ideas for the week

We are going to use a lot of pork this week, trying to get ready for the new guys comming in next week. Pork belly and watermelon salad with goat cheese. Pork short ribs with a tamarind glaze, maybe with some nice orange confit. Head cheese terrine! I had wanted to do this orginally, but now have the staff and time. I have a pig's head comming in tomorrow and also 4 trotters. It'd be nice to offer a terrine "board" Only difference between us and everyone else doing this is ours are made in house and awesome. Potato chips with mustard powder. Welsh rarebit, and my croque madame. Finally with all the duck legs confit we have, chef is going to make sausage with them. Sounds great to me, as now they are going to family meal every day. We will see how everything turns out, we start fabrication tomorrow.

Pastry

We haved hired Jamela to come in and help us with our pastry program. She is doing a wonderful job. So far we have: Warm Chocolate Cake that's runny on the inside, a way better lemon tart (shown) with italian mergingue, my original creme brulle with pink peppercorns and finally banana profiteroles! Awesome, they are so good and I love bananas, a perfect breakfast every day!

Eater.com

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2010/06/peeking_inside_rabbit_in_the_moon_opening_to_the_public_friday.php

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/dining/16off.html

STAFF MEAL

Everyday before service we serve staff meal.

Kitchen Staff

Our kitchen staff is finally comming together. Great news since we open next Sunday! Still missing a few spots but they will come together this week. Everyone that we have hired has great pottential and attitudes towards the food we are doing.

Salmon Tartar

This is our salmon tartar dish. Finally! Avacado and Oranges. We are using cucumber to hold everything together that has been sliced thinnly on the mandoline. For the XP's we use caviar on the oranges, for everyone else, potato chips.

Black Bass Ceviche

Foie Gras

Foie Gras, same as I did at luxembourg. This recipe is awesome. It's best to let the foie sit for 2 days before slicing, also I've found that it is best to skip the milk marinade (since we are using grade a and b it's not necessary) and double up the time in the sweet wine marinade. Sugar, Salt, White Pepper. Also, dont forget the corriander in the gastrique.

Lemon Tart

This is where we have ended (and started). The crust is made from pine nuts, but I feel like there is not enough "flavor" from them, so we added the brittle, unfortunatly it added more sweetness than pine nut flavor.

Market

Today we are going to the market, really really early in the morning to see what they have for us. Last week it was a bit bleak so hopefully they have some goodies this time. We want to find garnish for lamb, filet, ribeye, foie, rabbit. Apparently wednsday is the day to go so we will see. Enough apples and potatoes!!!

red wine vinaigrette

This is what we will use tomorrow for our sturgeon salad. I thought about bacon and may still go that route...
1TB dijon
2 shallot mince
.25 cup red wine vinegar
.5 lemon juice
1.5 cup olive oil

tempura

We also messed with a few recipies for this batter today. Not sure if there is an older one on thsi thread, I will look tomorrow. For now:
.5 cup flour
.5 cup corn starch
1tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1tsp sugar
.5tsp salt
1 egg
2/3 cup ice water

pastry cream

I messed with a couple recipies, this is the only one that is stiff enough to be layered. I decided to fold in the cream at the end to lighten the original recipie. 2.5 cups mile
1 vanilla bean
6 egg yolk
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1/4 cup flour AP
6TB (40grams) corn starch
1 cup whipped heavy cream (with sugar)
Mix sugar and egg yolk, then add flour and starch.
Bring milk and vanilla to a boil. Gradually add together. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly for 60seconds, being careful to not scramble. Strain and cool. After chilled fold in the whipped cream. Also, important to cover imediatly or a skim forms on the top. Makes about 3 cups.

Knives

Today we went to Korin to pick up some new knives. I got a new slicer, chef knife and this really cool boning knife that is crazy sharp. Sorry it took me a while to figure out how to put things up on this pc, after using a mac all the time.