Docsconz- The Blog

Red Roses

In honor of my sweetheart on our 24th wedding anniversary. I love you!

   

 
 

White Roses

In honor of those who have fallen for our freedom, may it never be in vain.

 

 
 

 

Firin' Up the Grill

It's Memorial Day Weekend - traditional grilling season! On today's menu - grilled leg of chevon (kid) from Sweet Springs Farm via the Saratoga Farmers Market.

Happy grilling to you and yours!

Celeriac

From Kilpatrick Family Farm at The Saratoga Farmers Market

Paccheri with Oyster Mushrooms, Pancetta, Green Garlic & Chives

I first had paccheri in a small restaurant outside of Positano, Italy on the Amalfi coast. They are large tubes of pasta that go well with nearly any chunky sauce. I recently bought some in NYC at DiPalo's. I thought they would be the perfect complement to a pasta sauce featuring the oyster mushrooms I bought from Zehr & Sons.

I started cooking the oyster mushrooms (about 12oz) dry in a non-stick wok over low heat. As they started cooking down, I raised the heat to medium and added a tablespoon of olive oil, thinly sliced green garlic from Kilpatrick Family Farm purchased at the Queensbury Farmers Market and 12 oz. of thinly sliced pancetta.  In the meantime I had been cooking the pasta in rapidly boiling, heavily salted water. I finished cooking the pasta in the wok. Once this was cooked through, I added chopped chives from my garden including the beautiful purple flowers and 8oz of freshly grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano. This was a keeper!

Study of an Oyster Mushroom - Part 2

Study of an Oyster Mushroom - Part 1

This spectacular single-stalked mushroom was purchased at the Saratoga Farmers market from Zehr & Sons.

TGRWT#21 Sage and Roasted Peanuts - My Dish

The blog Humbling Attempts at Creativity is hosting the current round of TGRWT, a cooking exercise devised by Martin Lersch through his blog: Khymos, designed to pair possibly disparate-seeming ingredients using a pairing profile that predicts compatibility between ingredients. Greg chose to pair sage and roasted peanuts, not really an intuitive combination - at least to me. Upon further reflection, I thought, why not? What are some things that sage goes with and that roasted peanuts go with also. One protein that popped immediately to mind was "chicken." Guess what? Yes, that's right, I decided to do a dish with sage, roasted peanuts and chicken. Very clever, no?

I skinned a whole chicken, reserving the skin (you didn't think that I would waste something so potentially delicious, did you?) and deboned the breasts and removed the femurs from the thighs, leaving the leg bones. Pounding the breasts to flatten them, I then applied salt, pepper, sage leaves and ground peanuts before rolling up the breasts and wrapping the,m in plastic wrap. For the thighs, I stuffed them with the same ingredients before rolling them in plastic wrap as well. The chicken was then cooked in my CVap for three hours at 150ºF and browned in ghee on my cooktop.

I served it with asparagus, celeriac puree, baked (325ºF convection for 45 minutes) chicken skin seasoned with peanut oil, soy sauce, powdered sage, salt and pepper and a satay like sauce that I concocted using chicken stock, smooth peanut butter, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and sage. Chopped peanuts were scattered on top of the chicken and asparagus. The plate was garnished with fresh pea shoots.

Overall the dish was pretty tasty and the ingredients did work well together. Both of my sons who had it enjoyed it. The sauce went very well with the asparagus as well. As might be expected, the thigh/leg preparation was moister and more satisfying than the rolled breasts, which though moist and adequately cooked out of the CVap,  had dried out in the browning process. The most satisfying element of the dish was the crisp chicken skin. All the ingredients came together amongst a very pleasurable crisp bite. It was amazing to see how much the skin had shrunk in the oven (sorry, no photo!). If I were to do this again (I might), I would think about not cooking the breasts further or  not using the CVap for them.

Fresh Chicken

Freshly killed chicken from Brookside Farm purchased at the Saratoga Farmers Market:

 

Sage

From Denison Farm purchased at The Saratoga Farmers Market

Blog Find: Matthew Kayahara: Canadian Food Done Differently

I have known Matt Kayahara virtually for some time now originally via eGullet. I just discovered his superb blog, which is now covering a trip to Japan. Despite the title of his blog, his interests are not limited to Canadian food (though there is plenty there) as interesting a subject as that is. Check it out!

A Saturday Night Dinner at Home

I like to go out for dinner on Saturday evenings, but I like to eat and relax at home too. After a busy week, sometimes it is just easier and more satisfying to do the latter. It doesn't need to be fancy, but it might as well be good. This past Saturday night was just such a night.

With an afternoon little league game for my son, I kept it simple, cooking some Lick Spring Farm beefalo tenderloin steaks in the CVap for several hours at 125ºF, finishing them on the cooktop in butter on high heat in a cast iron pan. I cooked shallots in butter and pan drippings and deglazed the pan with some red wine.

With asparagus being at their best right now, I made an asparagus and feta salad using asparagus from Saratoga Apple and feta from Long View Farm. The asparagus were peeled, microwaved for 3 minutes and cut into 1" sections. These were mixed with feta cubes and marinated with olive oil, salt, pepper and a little Minus 8 vinegar.

To accompany the meat and vegetables, what else but potatoes? Cumin scented roasted red potatoes never fail to charm. They are simply delicious. In this case I peeled Sheldon Farm red potatoes, added ground turmeric and whole cumin seeds along with salt and olive oil, mixing them thoroughly so that the potatoes were coated over their entire surface. They roasted in a convection oven at 325ºF for about 75 minutes, reaching a lovely crisp, golden brown surface and meltingly soft interior.

To wash all of this down, I opened a bottle of 1997 Phelps Insignia. This wine was down right delightful. It was deep, rich and full of fruit, but with a still strong tannic backbone and adequate acidity. It was a totally marvelous wine drinking superbly at that moment with no sign of fading.

Saturday night is alright

The Totality of Tocqueville

Though it recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, I had never made it to Tocqueville, the lovely Union Square area restaurant, until recently, when my wife and I were taken there by our good friends Joe & Donna Bavuso.

Tocqueville is not a large restaurant with a large number of tables. Though the ceilings are high and the room feels spacious, the restaurant is small, cozy and intimate feeling. The sense of intimacy does not come at the price of a loss of privacy, though, as the tables are set discreetly apart. With a mostly Brazilian music set list playing courtesy of Pandora, the space emitted a relaxed, tranquil vibe that belied the controlled busy-ness occurring around the beautifully appointed dining room as the waitstaff went about their business.

After a short wait for our table at the bar (where I had a very generously poured Brazilian Manhattan - Sagatiba Velha Aged Cachaça, Sweet vermouth and awesome House Brandied Cherries), we were led to our table, a plush demi-banquette in the back of the dining room in front of one of the tall, golden-hued drapes. It wasn't long before we were greeted by Jo-Ann Makovitsky, the co-owner of Tocqueville along with her husband and Executive Chef, Marco Moreira. Ms. Makovitsky was utterly charming and welcoming, setting a tone that was echoed by her wait-staff throughout the evening.

We opted for the 5 course Tasting Menu valued at $95pp along with wine pairings for an additional $60pp.We were started with a couple of amuses including beet root canneloni stuffed with goat cheese and luscious truffle-scented croquetas. The amuses were paired with a nice bubbly from the Loire, NV Cremant de Loire Brut from Chateau l'Aulee. At this point, we learned something about the quality of the service at Tocqueville. I dropped something on the floor to my left. I bent to pick it up and leaned on the end of the table to raise myself up. In one of those slow motion cinematic moments in which one oh-so-slowly shouts "nnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooo!", the table tipped and the champagne glasses (fortunately mostly, but unfortunately not completely, empty) teetered, tottered and ultimately toppled with the remaining sparkling white spreading itself over the table. The waitstaff reacted with speed, aplomb and best of all, pleasant humor, quickly cleaning up the spill and setting everything to right almost as quickly as it happened in the first place. While embarrassed, I and my dining companions were mightily impressed. For the remainder of the meal, we never encountered anything to lesson our impression of the service.

The menu started with a bang, but of a better kind. Japanese yellowtail crudo was served three ways: with grapefruit mostarda, with jicama and with lychee. Paired with a lovely rose from Provence, the 2009 Côtes de Provence from Chateau de Rouet, the totality of this course was refreshing. Each component hit the right notes, leaving a satisfied smile on our lips and a sense of anticipation for the next course.

Hudson Valley Duck Foie Gras with green gage plum, watermelon radish and prune gelee followed, paired with a luscious 1989 Riesling Spatlese from Rudesheimer Berg Roseneck in Erhard, Rheingau, Germany. The foie gras was not groundbreaking in any sense, but it was tasty and satisfying. The wine, not found on their on-line wine list, was, for me, the real star and the real treat of this course. It did what wine is supposed to do: it elevated the dish to a level beyond what it would have been on its own and made the course stand out.

Local Fluke a la Plancha with kohrabi confit, puree of black trumpets and caviar gribiche was my favorite course of the evening. In addition to the seductively creamy puree of black trumpets, the dish also contained enoki mushrooms that were paired with the kohrabi confit. That latter pairing made the kohlrabi into a worthy companion for the rest of the dish. On its own, it was somehwat bland, but it meshed beautifully with the enokis. The fluke was perfectly cooked and delicious. Once again, the wine pairing was a stroke of mastery. This time, we were served another German wine not on the online list, but it was not a wine typical of Germany. It was a pinot noir, but it wasn't the kind of pinot noir I typically think of when I think of the grape. It was a blanc de noir from Hahnmul in Nahe, Germany from the 2007 vintage and it too was delicious with exquisite balance.

The final savory course was good, but for a meat that I ordinarily adore, I found it to be surprisingly "ok." Spiced California Squab Breast and Leg Terrine with rhubarb, charred escarole cream and baby turnips lacked conviction. While I enjoyed the leg terrine, the breast, normally one of my favorite things to eat in the world was rather tame without any distinguishing elements. Even the wine, another well-selected beauty, the 2003 Finca Elez "Escena" from Manuel Manzaneque, couldn't elevate the dish beyond mediocre.

We were treated to a lovely cheese course, an earthy, delicious blue, whose name escaped me and a 2003 Vintage Port from Quinta Portal that quickly put the meal back on track. Accompanying the cheese were toasted candied walnuts.

Each of us was served a different dessert. Given that we are all good friends, we passed them around to share. I received the Coconut Pannacotta with spiced pineapple and Thai curry ice cream, which turned out to be my favorite of the four. It was a knock-out combination of flavors with great acid balance. The other desserts were also excellent. The others included a combination of chocolate, banana and truffle, a Sicilian blood orange cheesecake and a Vanilla-Caramel Roasted Bosc Pear with pear and cranberry charlotte and ginger ice cream - all excellent as were the mignonettes at the end.

We had a thoroughly wonderful time at Tocqueville. The food was indeed very good. It wasn't the star of the evening, but it was more than good enough in conjunction with outstanding service and hospitality, a beautiful, relaxing room and a truly interesting and delicious wine pairing. The totality of the experience at Tocqueville was such to make me want to return. I could see, if I lived in NYC, being a regular here.

Lamb Meatballs with Shiitakes in a Curried Yogurt Sauce

For the annual Slow Food Saratoga Region Meeting and Potluck I decided to do something a little different, while still incorporating some of the area's finest product. I liked the idea of making meatballs, but as I have been eating a lot of distinctly Italian-American food of late, I decided that the only tradition I would use would be that of the technique for actually making the meatballs themselves.

For the meatballs, I took two pounds of ground lamb from Elihu Farm, mixed it with a third of a cup of water soaked, crustless whole wheat bread, three pullet eggs (also from Elihu Farm), a third of a cup of toasted pine nuts, three cloves of minced garlic, diced shiitake stems, about a quarter cup of loosely packed chopped fresh spearmint from our garden and salt and pepper. The meatballs were formed to about 1.5 inch diameter, coated in all-purpose flour and fried in canola oil at about 350ºF until they were golden brown all the way through. I set the meatballs aside on paper towels to drain and cool.

In the meantime I had sliced Zehr & Sons fresh shiitakes, reserving the stems for the meatballs, sauteed them dry in a non-stick pan until they had wilted, added a large skinned, chopped Shushan Hydroponics tomato and cooked it over medium heat until the tomato had broken up. Next, I added 8 oz. of Argyle Cheese Farmer Whole Milk Plain yogurt and a teaspoon of Penzey's Majarajah Curry blend. Once the sauce was ready, I added the meatballs and heated it through.

A Birthday Celebration Brooklyn Style

It was also Mothers' Day when my family celebrated my wife's milestone birthday. Other than celebrating several important events at the same time, the fact meant that there would be major traffic around the New York metropolitan area. After a night staying with friends in Manhattan, we drove out to La Guardia Airport Sunday morning to pick up our son, who had flown up from New Orleans. With time to kill before our 3PM early family dinner at L&B Spumoni Gardens, we decided to take a ride out to Jersey to pay a visit with my father-in-law. Having had a nice visit, we left for Brooklyn with what we thought would still be plenty of time even accounting for some traffic. Unfortunately, we had forgotten what holiday traffic could be like around NYC. A trip that should have taken less than an hour took over two.

My siblings and I have had a tradition when each of us or our spouses turned 50 of treating each other and our spouses to dinner at a restaurant of the birthday celebrant's choosing. Past restaurants have included Aldea, Il Mulino, The Four Seasons, Jean-Georges, Molyvos and Windows on the World amongst others. Despite the illustrious names mentioned, my wife didn't want anything too fancy, elaborate or expensive. What she desired was a restaurant that would bring back memories of family dining experiences we shared back in the '80's when we were dating. My family would get together to share meals at some Brooklyn Italian-American classics like Monty's in Carroll Gardens. They were meals at which we could enjoy good food and each other's company and they were good times that brought my non-Italian-American wife into the fold.

We were late thanks to the rubber-neckers in Staten Island and food was already on the table. My tension from driving through stop-and-go traffic started to dissipate as I dove into the baked clams, LB's famous Sicilian style pizza, fried shrimp, mozzarella en carrozza and amazingly good marinated roasted artichoke hearts. At this point, I didn't bother with the salad, as spaghetti with white clam sauce and another pasta with a Bolognese came to the table for, what else?, family style service. With great comradery with family and friends (including family friend Tommy Accariello and his family), plenty of fine food and a relaxed environment, we toasted my wife for her birthday and all the mothers of the family present and not for Mothers' Day with a special magnum of Pol Roger 1990 Millenium Special Edition I brought for the occasion.

Appetizers and pastas are not enough for an Italian-American family on a special occasion. These were followed by halibut francese, veal marsala and grill-roasted steaks to rival the best NYC steakhouses. Sides accompanied these dishes including mashed potatoes (more starch!) and Swiss chard. Reeling from all this food, we were still powerless to stop the onslaught of dessert, spumoni, ice cream, whipped cream, cheese cake, mud cake and a special Italian custard cake from Tommy!

The food was wonderful (we bought two pizzas to bring home and freeze) and the nostalgia was strong. My wife got what she wanted - a dinner to be enjoyed as a family, to reminisce and to create new memories.

Today is my wife's actual birthday. Happy birthday, my love! I love you so, so much!!!!

Scott Boswell's Louisiana Part 5: A Conversation at Stella!

During the time I spent in New Orleans with Chef Scott Boswell, we had an opportunity for a chat on camera. Here Scott tells me about how he became a chef, what he did before he changed careers and his approach to food at Stella!

Scott Boswell's Louisiana Part 5: A Conversation at Stella! from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

Today also happens to be Chef Boswell's birthday. Happy birthday, Scott!!!

Music for the video is Kermit Ruffins' "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner" from his Basin Street Records album, The Big Easy, courtesy of Basin Street Records.

Morning Light - Happy Mothers' Day!

To all mothers everywhere, may your entire day be filled with the special brightness of morning sunshine!

Happy Mothers' Day!

Scott Boswell's Louisiana Part 4: Breaux Bridge Boudin

I've already written about our visit to Breaux Bridge with Chef Scott Boswell. Here is a little background on his favorite Breaux Bridge Boudin.

Scott Boswell's Louisiana Part 4: Breaux Bridge Boudin from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

Blog Finds: Czech Us Out & Spring in Prague

I have been following Czech Us Out and Spring in Prague since their inceptions earlier this spring. Both blogs are team written. Each one has two young female Dartmouth College students as their principle authors and photographers and each is chronicling the same basic experience - a Dartmouth College Geography Foreign Study Program based at Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic. Each reflects very well the viewpoints of its authors and each is worth reading. Though my initial reason for following these blogs was very personal  as my son, L.J., is partaking of the very same program (In fact, he has just posted a guest piece on the Czech Us Out blog chronicling the last day of a short side trip to Istanbul - expect more here from L.J. when he gets the chance to detail some of his culinary experiences in Istanbul, especially a visit to the acclaimed restaurant Mikla), I have come to really enjoy each as they are both well written with good photography and provide an interesting and entertaining view of a part of the world previously relatively unfamiliar to me. The program ends at the end of this month, but I hope they all continue to blog! Should you read the blogs, I think you will hope so too!

A Birthday Dinner - 51

I turned 51 this week. It wasn't a milestone, but I figure it is better to celebrate it than not have it. The last few years, I have been able to celebrate my birthday with dinners at well known restaurants. Three years ago, I had on my 48th birthday one of the most memorable meals of my life - my second visit to elBulli. It was a dream! Two years ago, for my 49th, I had another wonderful meal at Alinea, with whom I share a birthday. Last year for my 50th, I ate at home (it was a Monday night), but the weekend prior I enjoyed two incredible meals - one at Studio Kitchen for the first collaboration between Alex Talbot and Shola Olunloyo and the other at Aldea, a restaurant that anyone who reads this blog with any regularity will know is one of my absolute favorites. Though some good friends took my wife and I out for a lovely dinner this past weekend, the dining wasn't quite up to my recent high standards, but then very little is.

This was to be a quiet birthday, one to cook at home for. While my meal, again, was not quite of the caliber of those previous birthday meals, it was a meal I enjoyed very much nevertheless. We started with some pan-seared merguez sausages from Dancing Ewe Farm. They were reminiscent of a good chorizo, though made of lamb rather than pork. The sausages were extremely tasty, as one would expect of sausages made from a recipe personally given to the farm by Daniel Boulud himself.

My next course was pappardelle with fresh shiitakes and Sheldon Farm ramps in a Parmesan cream sauce. While any number of mushroom varieties would work well here (morels would have been particularly seasonal), the shiitakes were outstanding. Zehr & Sons Farm grow terrific mushrooms that they sell at the Saratoga Farmers Market. I had originally wanted their beautiful oyster mushrooms, but they had already sold out by the time I got there. Regardless the dish was a delicious and a big hit.

I followed with a CVap ostrich fan roast (via D'Artagnan) that had marinated in olive oil, garlic, rosemary and Parmiggiano and was finished on a natural hardwood charcoal grill. I cooked the ostrich for about 4 hours in the CVap at 125ºF before searing it on the grill. The CVap cooked the meat to uniform perfection and was one of the most umami rich and delicious pieces of meat I have had in some time - probably since Fabio Trabocchi's lamb at The Four Seasons. The ostrich was served with Parmiggiano dusted roasted Saratoga Apple asparagus - the first of the season for me.

The nice thing about having a dinner like this at home is that I can break out some outstanding bottles of wine and not worry about breaking the bank as that bank had already been broken! On this night I opened a 1982 BV George de la Tour Private Reserve Cab to accompany the merguez and the pasta. The color was a classic brick red, but the wine was still drinking beautifully with soft tannins and a remarkable retention of fruit. For the ostrich, I opened a 1997 Gaja Barbaresco, a wine that was nothing short of brilliant. Full of black cherry and other red fruits it held just a touch of wood, great acidity and perfect balance. This proved a perfect bottle for the evening.

A birthday dinner is not complete without a birthday cake. My wife made a wonderful one for me - Julia Child's Queen of Sheba cake - a complex chocolate cake made with pulverized almonds, unsweetened Bonnat chocolate and a few other ingredients. Having to work the next day, we refrained from a dessert wine (hey, I'm not getting any younger!).

Even though I didn't dine in one of my favorite restaurants, this was still one of my better birthdays. It was nice to relax and to cook and I was quite pleased that the dinner came out as well as it did. Fifty-one wasn't so bad after all.