SIP Butternut Squash soup / puree

Makes 3 quarts to 4
3 butternut squash halved with seeds removed, scored 1/8th in deep back and forth;
1lb fresh unsalted butter;
4TB plain oil;
2 spanish onions, peeled and diced;
2 shallots sliced thick;
4 garlic cloves smashed;
1 cup white wine;
2 TB  yellow curry powder;
Water, Coconut milk, Chicken stock (light) to cover as needed;
(You may also add an orange if desired durring the second half of cooking.)
Pre heat oven to 400 degrees
Lightly oil a large sheet tray and place squash cut side up.
Lightly brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Place 1 TB butter in each hollowed out section along with brown sugar.
Cover with aluminum foul and bake 1 hour or until almost softened. Remove foil and continue to roast until finished.   Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
Meanwhile,  2 spanish onions  large dice, 2 shallots sliced thick, 4 cloves garlic crushed.  Sautee in 1/2 lb butter and 1 TB oil.  Once clear add 2 TB yellow curry and cook until fragrant.  Add 1 cup  white wine and reduce to sec.  Set aside.  Take squash and scoop off all flesh.  Making sure to save all liquids from roasting pan.  Add squash and juices to pot with onion mix and cook until heated through.  Add water or stock for consistency and bring to a simmer and cook 2 hours very low heat seasoning while making sure to not let bottom burn.  (Coconut milk and some lemongrass could be added at this point rather than the water or stock ).
Once seasoned remove from heat and run batch through vita prep and then chinoise.
Place in new pot and bring to a simmer once more seasoning to taste.  Finish with fresh butter, 1/4lb.  Cool in ice bath and package accordingly.



..

Chicken thigh confit SIP

Clean chickens leaving the thighs together.   Use bones for stocks and sauces.  Chop off all the knuckles as you do with confit.  Main difference between these two recipes is that the chicken we are not trying to cure.  This is just an option to our surplus of chicken thighs in house.
Place thighs in heavy bottom pot or hotel pan and cover with melted duck fat.  1 whole entire head garlic and half a handful of black peppercorns.   Add one bunch of thyme.  Bring to a very light simmer
and cover with foil tight.  Place in oven and cook 6 hours.  Test by pulling on thigh bone.  If it comes loose  than the confit is finished.
You can also cook these thighs on top of the stove slowly at simmer on plancha or there similar.
When finished let cool in the fat completly.
To finish remove legs from fat and place in a hot oiled sautee pan skin side down.  Cool until skin is crispy, drain off fat and place in hot oven skin side down until heated throughout.
Remove from oven place and clean side towel or paper towel to drain off any excessive fat and oil.  Keep warm until needed.

SIP chicken stock (light)

6 chicken  bodies chopped;
2 carrot peel and chop;
1 parsnip peel and chop;
2 yellow spanish onions peel and chop;
1 bunch  celery (washed) chop;
2 qt mushroom stem;
2 fresh bay leaves torn;
1 bunch parsley;
1 large handful black peppercorns;
1 TB sea salt;
1 TB corriander seed(whole);
1/2 TB fennel seeds;
1 head fennel, fronds set a side;
3 whole shallots;
1 whole garlic head;
1 bunch thyme

Place all ingredients except for dry spices and cover with cold water.  Do not over fill.  Do not use hot or warm water.
Lightly toast spices until fragrant, add salt and then add to stock.
Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
Cook 2 hours on small simmer with parchment paper lid.
Pull off fire, add one bunch of thyme, let cool to room temperature and then strain through china cap.
Cool in ice bath, label and date.

*For dark stock roast all ingredients golden brown.  Making  sure to coat bones with oil prior to roasting and scrapping off film.  Save and place in stock.  Do Not roast celery.  Cook 6 to 8 hours, preferably over night.  Strain and follow the last of above.

"Dukkah" Crusted Sea Scallops with parsnips and seasonal mushrooms

Place peeled and largely chopped parsnips in a good quality thick bottomed pan and cover with 40 percent heavy cream, 40 percent milk and 20 percent water.   Cover with parchment lid and cook until soft and process through robot coup.  Use the cooking liquid to get the desired consistency.   Push through chinoise and cool.
for the mushrooms.  Pick out the best looking seasonal mushrooms and clean.  Do not wash.  If they are dirty, use a brush to clean them.
Cut to desired shapes and place aside.   Clean one bunch leeks, using the whites and the light green parts only, slice thin.  About a 6th of an inch.  Wash and dry thoroughly.   Heat some olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan and when hot add the mushrooms.   Season without moving the pan.  Once some of the moisture begins the leave the mushrooms add the leeks and lightly sautee until cooked al dente or your desired consistency.   Drain on paper towels and keep warm.
Plating; heat a small amount if the puree and place we on plate  scallops and mushrooms to follow.  Before placing the scallops on plate, lightly brush with a good olive oil and press them into the nut mixture.  For this recipe keep the Dukkah coarsly ground for texture on the scallops.  Season with fresh thyme leaves and preserved lemon or our meyer puree.
For the scallops;
Clean and lightly score/ season good quality diver sea  scallops.  Preferably u-10's.
Sear on both sides until medium rare and set aside to drain.

Dukkah spice mix

Dukkah is an egyptian blend of different spices.  You can use anything from almonds, pistacio's filberts,  cashew, even pine nuts depending on the dish.  Basic recipe;
Makes 2 and 1/4 cups finished "dukkah".
1 cup nuts.
.5 sessame seed
.5 cumminvseed
.5 coriander seed all toasted lightly just until the oil begins to release.
1.0 tsp sea salt
Fresh black  pepper ( to taste)
once all items are cooled, process them by pulsing in robot coup until desired consistency is accomplished.   Chili flakes,  and anything else creative may be added but the above is the original recipe we stick with.

spices

Peppermint extracts, lavendar, ginger plus an extensive amounts of vinegars. ...

Spices

Spices, seasoning, salts, vinegars, and oils

On my way home last night I stopped at this new kitchen store on north avenue right across from the north avenue apple store to kill some time.  Its amazing what we have to work with these days......

friday food

 Roasted squash soup.  Used 2 different squash, acorn and butternut.  Poured table side with creme fraiche and micro mint.
Roasted the squash in oven 350 degrees with brown sugar, cummin and butter.  Made sure to cut in half with the cut side up.  (if you prefer to keep the Original color you should cover with aluminum foil).
Pan seared loup de mer.  Cauliflower puree and veal demi reduction.  Kind of what I was doing at voltaire but with only filet, not 2.  For the puree, half milk half water and simmer with parchment paper lid.
Seared sea scallops with parsnips and meyer lemon puree/vinaigrette. (Same recipe for lemon puree except much looser and "broken")  Roasted pork belly with peas and crispy bacon
/pomme puffs.  Slow roasted salmon with cauliflower and peas with Mint vinaigrette.  Amuse bouche, cured salmon and dill on brie croutons.

granny apples

Haley brought home some apples for dinner tonight.  We used just a little bit of sugar, cinnamon,  and vanilla bean.
420 degrees for 20 minutes, 340 degrees for another 20 minutes.  Let cool before transfering  from pan.  At least 30 minutes to cool so that the sugars can harden.

recipes cont.

From below in more detail. I've always had the idea for this Group of recipes and wanted to try it out. It makes sense to me to make dressings or even bases/finishings for sauces. As mentioned this is an old one but necessary for the others to come from his process. This is ARTICHOKE. 1/3 lb slab bacon. 3 carrot. 2 spanish onion. 1 head celery. Light chicken stock. Light vegetable stock. White wine/ prefer a mineral/earthy based chardonnay or even better yet something a little sweet, a reisling or pinot gris. But be careful to not use to much of the sweeter wines. 2 fennel bulb. 2 parsnip root peeled. 1 case 24ct Artichokes (peeled and prepped for cooking. This is a very important part of the recipe. One must take the time to turn each choke by hand, remove the bitter seeds, and make sure that all the strands from the base are removed. I use a peeler personally at this point. What ever works best for you. Sweat the bacon and root vegetable until clear. Add some toasted Fennel seed, black peppercorns, bay leaf. Add artichokes and cook 5 minutes. Deglaze with wine. Reduce to sec. Add half and half stocks to cover. Parchment paper lid and cook till desired tenderness. I always pull them 20 minutes before they are done so that I can let them cool in the walkin in their juices. This is preferred if time and space allows. once the artichokes are cooked and chilled remove them from the liquid and use accordingly. For our purposes we want the artichoke broth. Bring back to a boil and strain through a chinois. In a separate clean heavy bottom rondo sweat out some more root vegetables and dry spices accordingly to what flavor your anticipating. Personally im going for straight up artichoke with the background of bacon and wine minerals. Once your vegetables are clear deglaze with white wine and reduce to sec. Add artichoke broth and SLOWLY reduce by half. Make sure to have traditional bouqet with leek leaf and all. Once reduced by half strain through chinois. Cool in ice bath and skim off surface. Bring back to a simmer and add 1/3 total artichoke broth volume of heavy cream. Reduce this by half, again strain, cool, and skim. At this point we should have a very thick jelly like quantity of artichoke and cream reduction. The idea is to use the very minimal amount of cream possible. Its tempting to want to use a whole quart or more to "strech" it out. This is not something that can be streched or short cutted in any way. The end result as you will see is based completly on this theory or process. Whatever you want to call it, ive seen to many guys add 50 percent cream to broth, come out with twice the amount of dressing but wonder why it doesnt taste like artichoke. Very simple, you get what you give. Bring to room temperature and place in vita prep. Slowly emulsify in a good quality olive oil. Use some grape seed or canola oil if your loosing to much flavor. Fresh lemon juice, sea salt and white pepper to taste. Strain through and push through a chinoise into a clean squeeze bottle. "ARTICHOKE DRESSING" is what we have come to. It can be used on any number of dishs as a sauce, we use it on our cold shaved fennel salad as the dressing with the loup de mer in summer time on the coast. Its even been used as a dipping sauce for fried artichokes. (But what a waiste! ) now that we have established this base idea, there are many many directions to go. Its late so we will sleep on it for the night, but this feels like the beginning of something new and unique to use as part of our arsenal in the BOH. Did I mention glazed vegetables???;) .

ideas dressings

Dressings and sauce bases/additions. The idea begins on the artichoke reduction we make when cooking the chokes. Beyond using that reduction for the addition of the mint, ETC for the broth we generally use on the cod dish. It would be taking that broth base and reducing it beyond broth into or around the world of "sec". Letting it cool and then emulsifying with some good quality olive oil and grapeseed oil to control the flavor. Season lots lemon, salt and pepper. The result is a artichoke dressing. Ill try to start a recipe later but where im going with this is a variety of different dressings, but real. Almost anything we braze or even glaze could possibly be an option....

August 2014

So getting back into things there are going to be lots of questions to ask. What kind of kitchen and what direction to go on are the main ones. But also deciding what kind of roll I want to be involved in as well. The next couple weeks will be a lot of recipe's from memory, in fact that's all I hope to be publishing. Recipe's and ideas from memory, post them and then constitute some sort of "menu" or list, of ones to work on or develope. Even if the "ideas" aren't going to be utilized immediatly and they probably won't be, its still good for us to try and remember what dish's we loved and which ones we hoped to love. Keeping things simple, when working with proteins, making sure that once the protein is chossen, before going on to the rest of the plate, deciding how we want to prepare them and how, with what seasonings and what methods. Once that's decided we can figure out what to serve , if with anything at all with them. Example would be ducks. If we are going to be buying whole ducks we will want to figure out the leg and breast prep. Before moving or going to sauces etc, we will get the leg cure together, the breast prep and seasoning together as well. Hoping that by doing this we can keep things simple and get back to basics. Rather than trying to invent absolute new processe's rather try to refine the ones that we have to an absolute. We can leave the new age gastro designing to the other guys, go out and try their food while doing ours. And I'm okay with that.

back to ideas... tomato broth for bass

Tomato/and or saffron broth with white rice seasoned with coconut milk. Also a slow dried tomato on top of the rice that we will re constitute or bring to temp with some of the reduced tomato broth. Did this with black bass filets but maybe we will try something new.

Braised Striped Bass

Original recipe. We have used wild striped bass almost always for this dish. Serves 6ppl. For the broth: 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil  1/2 yellow onion, peeled and sliced  1 small carrot, peeled and sliced  1/2 fennel bulb, cored and sliced  1 celery stalk, sliced  1 shallot, peeled and sliced  Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper  1 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted  1 teaspoon fennel seeds, toasted  1 cup dry white wine  1 cup white wine vinegar  1 quart fumet  3 sprigs fresh thyme  1 bay leaf  3 sprigs fresh tarragon  1 sprig fresh rosemary  For the bass: 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil  Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper  6 6-ounce, skin-on striped bass fillets (about 1 1/4 inches thick)  3 sprigs fresh thyme, plus additional for garnish if desired  PREPARATION: For the broth: Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the onion, carrot, fennel, celery, and shallot and season with salt and pepper. Sweat the vegetables until they are soft, about 20 minutes. Add the coriander and fennel seeds, wine, and vinegar and simmer until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add the fumet, 1 cup water, the thyme, bay leaf, tarragon, and rosemary. Simmer until the flavors in the broth blend, about 15 minutes; set aside to cool.  For the bass: Divide the oil between two large skillets and heat over medium. Salt and pepper the fish and add it, skin side down, to the skillet. Add the thyme and cook until the skin is crisp, about 6 minutes. Turn the fish, then ladle two cups of the broth with vegetables into each skillet, reserving the remainder. Bring the broth to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium-low and gently simmer the bass until it is opaque throughout, about 5 minutes more.  To serve: Bring the reserved broth to a simmer, then ladle it into warm shallow bowls. Place a piece of fish in each bowl, garnish with fresh thyme, if desired, and serve. 

upcoming spring menu and ideas for the bistro

Golden raisin puree Garlic puree(confit) Sous vide duck breast with dry spice rub Revisit pork dish Roasted vegetables roulade Glaze for duck? Honey and truffles? Lamb rack setup.

sherry vinaigrettte/gastrique

Using for lamb rack, duck leg confit. Works well with very fatty proteins. 1 cup sugar 1 cup sherry vinegar 2 shallot brunoise 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced Lamb, duck etc stock-3 qts Unsalted butter, 1tb Place sugar in heavy bottom pot and slowly bringa light caramel color. The darker the sugar becomes the more bitter the sauce will be. Once the sugar is ready, add vinegar. Let dissolve and then reduce by 3/4's. Add shallots, garlic and stock. Reduced to desired consistency. Pull off fire and add butter. Cool slightly.

bistro ideas and thoughts for the weekend

Loup de mer, or bronzino as most call it. Nice fish, 1 and 1/4's,we are scalling and filleting all. Sear skin side down, once cooked drained onto paper towels. To plate, we call it the sandwich, its not aall but it is to us. Place one filet skin side down on seving plate. Spread a layer of parsnip puree and then place on top of that the saiuteed brocolli rabe. Finally rhe last fillet skin side up of course. Deglaze pan with fresh lemon, shallot, garlic, white wine, and butter till colored appropriate. Parsley and cummin. We will tru out the pork chops tomorrow service.

apple fritters

2 recipe for apple fritters: Number 1;1 cup cake flour 1 TB sugar 3/4tsp baking powder 1/4tsp salt 1 egg 1/3cup whole milk 4tsp butter, melted 1TB orange juice 2tsp grated orange peel 1/4 tsp vanilla extract if not using beans 3/4 cup chopped peeled tart apple Fryer oil Mix all dry and mix all wet seperatly. Fold together than fold in apples. Fry at 375 degrees. Drain on towel. Number 2: 1 cup ap flour 1/3 cup sugar 1tsp baking powder Pinch salt 1tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp vanilla 1TB melt butter 1 egg 1/3 cup milk plus more if needed 1 and 1/2 cup chopped(diced apple) Heat oil. Meanwhile, mix all dry and wet seperaly. Gently fold together than in the apple. Do not overmix. Fry and let drain on paper towels.

ideas for and about double cut pork chop, sous vide method for bistro saturday eve

Pork. Roast in pan, de glaze with chicken stock, soy sauce and worchestire. Stir in apricot preserves or maybe the figs reconstituted or the fig/sesame. Sous vide double cuts To serve 2ppl: 1 double cut, bone in about 1 and 1/4lb. Kosher salt and fresh pepper 1TB canola or vegetable oil 2TB unsalt butter Sous vide to 135. I'm going to look and see what we are doing the tenderloins at as it should be around the same. 135 is mr, 140 is medium. Cook for minimum 45 minutes, up to 4 hours. Anything after 4 hours and the proteins begin to break down. Not good. Remove from water and either pat dry and season/sear immediatly or place in an ice bath(while still sealed in bag) to cool down quickly. Sear in oil, butter or a mix roughly 4miniutes on each side, even the outer sides. Let meat rest and either serve whole, or slice and serve. We did a pork porter house before, I'm thinking we will use the above method this time though. As for the rest of the plate... Apple fritters? Apple "demi"? Demi is as follows: 4 shallot peeled and slice thin 4 apples, peeled and cut into half moons 1 cup good quality brandy 1 cup good quality apple cider 1 quart medium pork stock 1/2TB veal demi In rondo melt several tablespoons butter. Add the shallots and cook, no color. Add thr apples and cook until warmed through. Add brandy and burn off liquer, and reduce. Add cider, cook down, all down to almost non then add pork jus and reduce to consistency. Demi to finish. Don't think we are going to us the above sauce, going to go with the figs and sesame idea. The fritter? I'm gonna try it. 5small apple, diced(do not put in water) 3 cups flour 3TB baking powder 1tsp salt 1/2 cup sugar 2tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 4 eggs whipped 12 fluid oz buttermilk(I think it says 12, its either 12 fluid oz or 2 so we will go with the 12) 4 fluid oz apple cider Place all dry in bowl. Mix eggs, buttermilk and cider in another bowl. Fold together. Fold in apples. Use dessert spoon or a fork into hot 350 degree oil till golden brown. Remember is they are to thick they will not cook nicely. Original recipe said on the fritter batter be very careful to not overwork.