Thinking of all the kitchen tools we cooks get excited about, I got to thinking what  tools other trades go gah gah over. Do plumbers get excited about new monkey wrenches? I know my mom LOVES her pink scrubs. I brought in a ceramic vegetable peeler I had purchased on sale a few days before, and we definitely talked about it for a decent 5 minutes. Now donned the space peeler, I can’t deny that I was pretty excited to test it out on a big, fat tuber when I got to work. (update: the space peeler with a lifetime guarantee definitely broke and more or less “pets” the skin with its dull blade, rather than peeling it off the vegetable).

I guess it’s the equivalent to new office supplies. That new box of pens really kicks off the week, no? Everyone gets excited about new office supplies. Mostly because you don’t have to pay for it, and you could scan through the company’s supplier’s website and pretty much buy anything you “need” in any ridiculous color you want, just because you can. But they’re a cheap, simple solution to break up the routine and offer a bit of change. Even if the conversation drifts into pointless discussions on ceramic swivel heads and if they are, in fact, the answer to consistently perfectly peeled vegetables. Sometimes, that’s all you need to get through the day…

That, and breakfast is at 12 pm, lunch is at 5 pm, and dinner is at 12 am. Always. Fucked, right?

Duck Liver Pate, Lemon Zest Ricotta, Parsley Salad, Bruleed Figs  & Crostinis

Sundays are the best, because you’ve just come down from a high off of working 2 crazy back to back nights (200+ covers). Sunday is literally, the day of rest. My weekend is usually Monday and Tuesday, so having only about 50 covers, plus an opportunity to play around with food and make something of my own, is kind of the perfect way to cap off my week.

I don’t know if I actually explained what Sunday Supper is, but it’s essentially a 5 course tasting menu offered alongside the regular menu on Sundays only. Whoever wants to participate (granted it’s approved), gets to create 1 of the 5 courses (5 being dessert). On Sundays, most of the staff comes in at 3:00 pm to prep for service that begins at 6:00 pm. Your dish needs to be ready by 5:30 pm, but planned out by 3:00 pm (so the menu can be typed up). You can imagine what kind of harried predicament that leaves those a little less seasoned in the art of improvisation. If you’ve decided that you’ll be contributing a course in the upcoming Sunday, you’ll want to start thinking of your ingredients probably around Thursday or Friday. But considering you have regular service to be concerned about (and the 200+ people per night), you really don’t have that much time/concern for what’s going to happen 3 days from then. And, when you come home at 1 in the morning, brainstorming about MORE food, is kind of the last thing you want to do. Sooooooo… basically I’m all kinds of flustered, but somehow every Sunday, 5 great dishes come together and people seemed to be happy with what they’re getting. We’ve toyed with the idea of trying to coordinate all five dishes into one theme. And hopefully we can find a balance of time and energy to do so at some point. But when everyone’s schedules change weekly, and ingredients seem to be missing or overly abundant at the end of the week, you just kind of have to bang it out.

My favorite part is the collaboration and group critique, and the personalities that shine through each of the dishes. When you know and understand the people you cook with, it’s a great thing to see what they can create and the creative energy they send through the preparation and execution of their food. It’s finally the time during the week when your cooking is art, not your job, not a craft, not technical, not mindless. There are the risk-takers and the play-it-safers, there are those that take upon past experiences and those that look towards current trends. It’s all solidified into a product that is edible. And I might be biased, but I think that’s the best kind of fuckin art.

Love,

Diane Lane Stewart

(photo credit: Amadeo Holstein)

Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad

From Judy Rodgers, “Zuni Cafe Cookbook”

For the chicken

• One small chicken, 2-3/4 to 3-1/2-pounds
• 4 tender sprigs fresh thyme, marjoram, rosemary or sage, about 1/2 inch long
• Salt
• About 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• A little water

For the salad

• Generous 8 ounces slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough)
• 6 to 8 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil
• 1-1/2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried currants
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, or as needed
• 1 tablespoon warm water
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered
• 1/4 cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part
• 2 tablespoons lightly salted Chicken Stock {page 58} or lightly salted water
• A few handfuls of arugula, frisée, or red mustard greens, carefully washed and dried

DIRECTIONS
Seasoning the chicken (Can be done 1 to 3 days before serving; for 3-1/4- to 3-1/2-pound chickens, at least 2 days)
Remove and discard the lump of fat inside the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat very dry inside and out. Be thorough-a wet chicken will spend too much time steaming before it begins to turn golden brown.

Approaching from the edge of the cavity, slide a finger under the skin of each of the breasts, making 2 little pockets. Now use the tip of your finger to gently loosen a pocket of skin on the outside of the thickest section of each thigh. Using your finger, shove and herb sprig into each of the 4 pockets.

Season the chicken liberally all over with salt and pepper {we use ¾ teaspoon of sea salt per pound of chicken}. Season the thick sections a little more heavily than the skinny ankles and wings. Sprinkle a little of the salt just inside the cavity, on the backbone, but don’t otherwise worry about seasoning the inside. Twist and tuck the wing tips behind the shoulders. Cover loosely and refrigerate.

Starting the bread salad (Can be done up to several hours in advance)
Preheat the broiler.

Cut the bread into a couple of large chunks. Carve off all of the bottom crust and most of the top and side crust. Reserve the top and side crusts to use as croutons in salads or soups. Brush the bread all over with olive oil. Broil very briefly, to crisp and lightly color the surface. Turn the bread chunks over and crisp the other side. Trim off any badly charred tips, then tear the chunks into a combination of irregular 2- to 3-inch wads, bite-sized bits, and fat crumbs. You should get about 4 cups.

Combine about 1/4 cup of the olive oil with the

Champagne or white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss about 1/4 cup of this tart vinaigrette with the torn bread in a wide salad bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.

Place the currants in a small bowl and moisten with the red wine vinegar and warm water. Set aside.

Roasting the chicken and assembling the salad

Preheat the oven to 475. Depending on the size, efficiency and accuracy of your oven, and the size of your bird, you may need to adjust the heat to as high as 500 or as low as 450 during the course of roasting the chicken to get it to brown properly. If that proves to be the case, begin at that temperature the next time you roast a chicken. If you have a convection function on your oven, use it for the first 30 minutes; it will enhance browning, and may reduce overall cooking by 5 to 10 minutes.

Choose a shallow flameproof roasting pan or dish barely larger than the chicken, or use a 10-inch skillet with an all-metal handle. Preheat the pan over medium heat. Wipe the chicken dry and set it breast side up in the pan. It should sizzle.

Place the center of the oven and listen and watch for it to start browning within 20 minutes. If it doesn’t, raise the temperature progressively until it does. The skin should blister, but if the chicken begins to char, or the fat is smoking, reduce temperature by 25 degrees. After about 30 minutes, turn the bird over — drying the bird and preheating the pan should keep the skin from sticking. Roast for another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size, then flip back over to recrisp the breast skin, another 5 to 10 minutes. Total oven time will be 45 minutes to an hour.

While the chicken is roasting, place the pine nuts in a small baking dish and set in the hot oven for a minute or two, just to warm though. Add them to the bowl of bread.

Place a spoonful of the olive oil in a small skillet, add the garlic and scallions, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until softened. Don’t let them color. Scrape into the bread and fold to combine. Drain the plumped currants and fold in. Dribble the chicken stock or lightly salted water over the salad and fold again. Taste a few pieces of bread-a fairly saturated one and a dryish one. If it is bland, add salt, pepper, and/or a few drops of vinegar, then toss well. Since the basic character of the bread salad depends on the bread you use, these adjustments can be essential.

Pile the bread salad in a 1-quart baking dish and tent with foil; set the salad bowl aside. Place the salad in the oven after you flip the chicken the final time.

Finishing and serving the chicken and bread salad

Remove the chicken from the oven and turn off the heat. Leave the bread salad to continue warming for another 5 minutes of so.

Lift the chicken from the roasting pan and set on a plate. Carefully pour the clear fat from the roasting oven, leaving the lean drippings behind. Add about a tablespoon of water to the hot pan and swirl it.

Slash the stretched skin between the thighs and breasts of the chicken, then tilt the bird and plate over the roasting pan to drain the juice into the drippings.

Set the chicken in a warm spot and leave to rest while you finish the bread salad. The meat will become more tender and uniformly succulent as it cools.

Set a platter in the oven to warm for a minute or two.

Tilt the roasting pan and skim the last of the fat. Place over medium-low heat, add any juice that has collected under the chicken, and bring to a simmer. Stir and scrape to soften any hard golden drippings. Taste-the juices will be extremely flavorful.

Tip the bread salad into the salad bowl. It will be steamy-hot, a mixture of soft, moist wads, crispy-on-the-outside-but-moist-in-the-middle-wads, and a few downright crispy ones. Drizzle and toss with a spoonful of the pan juices. Add the greens, a drizzle of vinaigrette, and fold well. Taste again.

Cut the chicken into pieces, spread the bread salad on the warm platter, and nestle the chicken in the salad.

Capitalizing on leftovers: Strain and save the drippings you don’t use, they are delicious tossed with spätzle or egg noodles, or stirred into beans or risotto. You can also use them, plus leftover scraps of roast chicken, for the chicken salad which follows.

Duo of Carrot Brown Butter Dumplings in Tom Yum Soup

Tom Yum Broth

Bring to a boil 4 cups of chicken stock, preferably home-made + 2 stalks of lemon grass pound and cut into 1-2 inch stems + 2 tbsp of coarsely chopped galangal root + 8 lime leaves + 3 cilantro stem roots + 1/4 cup of fish sauce

Bring back to a simmer and add  4 Thai bird chilies coarsely chopped + juice of 1 lime  + 1 tbsp of palm sugar+ nam prik pao (thai chili paste) to taste ( about 1 tbsp)

Let it simmer for at least 45 minutes/until you can taste the flavors developing. If too salty, add more palm sugar. If not acidic enough, try adding equal parts lemon juice to your lime juice to add a more subtle acidic kick in addition to a little sweetness. If not enough, add more lime juice. Strain through a fine chinoise.

Flavors should be equal parts sweet, salty, sour, and delicious.

“the great virtue of the cook’s time-tested, thought-less recipes is that they free us from the distraction of having to guess or experiment or analyze as we prepare a meal. On the other hand, the great virtue of thought and analysis is that they free us from the necessity of following recipes, and help us deal with the unexpected, including the inspiration to try something new.”

This is the goal: to satisfy the mind, not only the body. To allow my interest in food to lead me to new ideas and wonderful explorations. To pursue unlimited knowledge in limited time.

That’s all.

…the white cords around the yolk you see when you crack an egg are called the chalazas. They help anchor the yolk to the rest of shell and help it stay suspended in the middle of the egg.

…there are 3 different grades of eggs according to the USDA. the highest being AA to B.

…an old egg will float when suspended in  water because its air cell will have expanded and have gotten less dense.

……you’ll get creamier scrambled eggs if you add vinegar as you scramble them? The acid helps tenderize the eggs by  lowering the egg’s pH (thus reducing the negative charge) and helping the egg proteins coagulate much earlier on in the cooking process. At this point, the proteins are still balled up and haven’t fully unfolded and thus do not intertwine as tightly to each other as they would if no acid were present.

This is what I’ve been doing for the past month. Reading about eggs.

1. Pickled beet and Persian feta salad with duck confit and crostini

2. Korean-spiced foie gras dumplings with a pork consomme and snow pea sesame salad

3. Seared scallop with a warm salad of bacon, grapes, and frisee

4. Duck and foie gras ballotine with braised lentils and cabbage, and marinated potatoes

5. Vanilla and black olive semifreddo with a passionfruit curd, chardonnay sorbet on an almond tuile “spoon”

created by me!

I originally thought of combining black olives with vanilla when I had a black olive ice cream back at Sona in Los Angeles. Then drawing inspiration from the countless hours I’ve spent peeling soft-boiled quail eggs for work, I thought it’d be a clever idea to mold the speckled ice cream into eggs. I had to purchase the egg molds at a cake shop on my own, and the entire process ended up taking a few days, but it was worth it. I had to make the top and bottom of the semifreddo separately so I could fill each half with the custard, then fuse them together once they hardened a bit. Then I cut them in half with a hot knife as they came to order.

“Quail Eggs”

Some people were turned off with the idea of tart black olives being in their vanilla semifreddo, but I was also surprised to hear that a few thought they were chocolate chips when I asked them what they thought the black specks were. I loved the idea of biting into tart bits of saltiness in a sweet and creamy dessert, but never thought to think of cocoa nibs as having the same effect.

I was initially going to make another batch of eggs with the white wine sorbet and pair it alongside a whole semifreddo egg, but due to the lack of time and extra egg molds, I thought against it. Although my initial reason for using the white wine was for its color, it ended up giving a nice refreshing contrast to the creamy vanilla semifreddo.

The almond tuile came last minute when it was noted that I needed to add another textural element to the dish. After trying several options (crumbled pralines, toasted slivered almonds, blueberry compote…), I opted to make some tuiles a few hours before service started. I loved the idea of creating spoons out of the tuiles and having being able to lift the sorbet in one lift (or at least conceptually). I designed the shape I wanted out of a plastic lid and spread the tuile batter on the baking mat (sorry, no picture.. unfortunately. snapping pictures of your work is considered mildly unprofessional).

So there you have it. My first official dish. Now, to tackle something savory. Just give me a week to unload my brain.

]]> http://foodyi.com/2009/08/21/sunday-supper/feed/ 5 foodyi IMG_0814 IMG_0808 IMG_0817 IMG_0819 IMG_0820 IMG_0833 IMG_0822 IMG_0831 http://foodyi.com/2009/07/22/im-a-nerd-really/ http://foodyi.com/2009/07/22/im-a-nerd-really/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:36:45 +0000 foodyi http://foodyi.com/?p=1241 ]]> I’m staring at a mirror leaning against  the wall behind my desk, with a post-it from my roommate that says, “You’re a nerd (really).” I’ve kept the note in plain sight so I can see it every morning when I get up to use my computer. I like it keep it there because it’s a reminder of how I’m completely obsessed with my new profession.

One probably shouldn’t need to be reminded of their “passions,” but sometimes when you’re scrubbing grills or your knees start to give a little, a neon-yellow reminder can definitely brighten your day. In a weird roundabout way, the statement reinforces how proud I am to be a food nerd. I’m completely obsessed with the idea of becoming a food professional and knowing everything there is to it. To that end, I’m single-mindledly focused on food for the majority of my time. It’s an obsession that guides my desire to not only be the best cook, but also to absorb as much knowledge about food as possible. My desk is laden with food magazine tear-outs of recipes, cookbooks I’ve barely opened, and one study guide that I’ve been meaning to rip the plastic off of and start working on. How I manage to have the time or the curiosity to do all this is still beyond me.

One of the pangs of having an obsession, is that you’re never satisfied.  There is a constant air of frustration because you can never meet your expectations. But how can you, when they’re always changing? The violinist, Isaac Stern, once stated that the more you practice something, the more impossible your standards become because of the endless possibilities you set yourself up for. And of course, there in lies the motivational danger in one’s pursuit: the obsession will cripple the work itself.

This also speaks to the idea that it’s not so much one’s technical skills or “talent” that helps you succeed, but something a little more inherent. That’s why success stories are so inspiring-because people can succeed by channeling a motivational drive that is more deeply-rooted and self-induced than knowledge you gain from a book or learn through years of training. It’s what gives us hope and let’s us believe the “anything is possible” spiel. 

The key to maintaining a healthy motivational drive whilst not driving yourself insane with endless standards and criticism is to organize your obsession and “keep it in check.” Don’t let minor flaws deform your work. Think “big picture.” Understand that imperfections are not failures. Believe that emotional rewards will always outshine tangible compensations. Then, you’ll be perfect.

For example, I had a dream the other night I went to a Chinese restaurant with a couple of friends for dinner. There was a pre-fixed menu and for our 3rd course, the waiter swooped in from behind and presented me with my plate. The plate consisted of two bright red, gigantic lobster claws perfectly placed to face each other on each side of the plate and a mountainous pile of lobster meat in the center. I was horrified.

Another example was when I walked into a shoe store to pick up some socks before work. I was on Broadway so it was undoubtedly swarmed with tourists. I noticed the socks were all the way in the back of the store, but my path was blocked by Europeans jibber-jabbering about who back at home needs a new pair of shoes. Already late for work, I rushed in head first and without thinking, started saying, “behind” every time I tried to squeeze behind someone. “Behind” is kitchen jargon for “excuse me.” It probably comes from when a cook had to walk behind the other line cooks during service and had to warn them they were walking behind them because the hot stoves were on the other side of them. Anyways, they probably thought I was being quite the rude American yelling strange words inside of a discount shoe store.

The last example was when I had to go to the bathroom during work and right before I opened the door to go back to work, I knocked on the door 3 times.  I really did catch myself by surprise with this one. You see, our walk-in fridge is right next to the pantry so in order to not slam the door on someone when walking out, you’re supposed to knock on the door to warn anyone perusing the pantry that you’re coming out. With all the trips to the walk-in throughout a shift, you can imagine, knocking on a door becomes quite the common practice. Sometimes I have the energy to shell out 3 distinct knocks. Other times I just throw my palm at the door hoping any indistinguishable sound is sufficient.

Aside from the body aches and sore muscles I get every morning, these instances are revealing just how much my life will change in the coming months/years (?!). No more jokes about Excel or stories about the time So & So forgot to put himself on mute during the company conference call. Now we joke about the difference between jam and jelly (trust me, the answer isn’t sweet at all) or my artistic ineptitude when it comes to plating.

Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work.