Docsconz- The Blog

Goose Cassoulet - An Idea in Food

Goose was the one constant going in to the weekend. Knowing that Alex and Aki would be visiting and having had the good experiences that I have had with Mary Pratt's Elihu Farm geese, I thought it would be fun to cook one together. I was right.

The defrosted goose was left to dry uncovered overnight in the refrigerator. I then took it apart to Alex's specifications, separating the wings from the shoulder sockets and the hind quarters from the rest of the carcass while leaving sufficient skin behind to keep the breasts fully covered. I then cut out the neck and the rest of the spine and back, leaving the breasts on the sternum. 

While getting ready to cut the spine into smaller pieces for easier cooking to make a stock, I identified the iliopsoas muscles running along the internal spine and dissected them out. Otherwise known as the tenderloins, these lovely strips of muscle were too small to do anything with other than quickly pan sear them and share the bites as cook's treats. Tasty!

In the meantime, Alex and Aki had set smoked bacon bits to cook on the stove, chopped onion and fennel, cooked the wings and hind quarters of the goose and began their initial cooking of the Rancho Gordo cannelini beans in the pressure cooker. Submerged in water they were cooked on low pressure for 5 minutes in the Cuisinart electric pressure cooker with the pressure allowed to dissipate naturally. The water was drained from the beans and the rest of the ingredients including a large can of LaValle San Marzano DOP tomatoes, the onion, fennel, cooked bacon, picked goose meat from the wings and hind quarters and herbs and seasonings were put back in the pressure cooker with the beans. These were cooked at high pressure for 25 minutes and once again the pressure was allowed to drain naturally.

The goose breast was cooked in it's own fat along with some olive oil and seasonings that included fennel fronds and juniper berries. This was cooked in the CVap at 125ºF for about three hours then seared skin side down in a hot cast iron skillet. Alex then deboned the breasts and sliced them adding three or four slices atop each plated bowl of cassoulet. The result was rich, complex and delicious with plump, creamy beans - a perfect finale for a cold winter night's savory dinner.

Dinner with Friends - Alex and Aki Come to Visit

TV shows like Iron Chef America, Top Chef and Chopped all riff on a theme of spontaneous cooking to varying degrees. Iron Chef America specifies a specific ingredient that must be showcased, Top Chef offers surprise scenarios that must be adhered to and Chopped supplies baskets of disparate ingredients that must all be utilized in a single dish. All of the shows incorporate time limits in their challenges as well. These elements often lead to some fun television, but what is really compelling is the opportunity to take part when true professionals create a delicious meal spontaneously based on what is available.

 

Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of Ideas in Food have, over the years become very good friends of my wife and I. With a presentation and signing of their new book, Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work at Red Fox Books, Alex & Aki along with their daughter and pup paid us an all-too-brief visit, a highlight of which was an informal dinner they cooked for us and a few friends on Friday night.

Summer Fare

A recent dinner at home featured grilled chicken and Sheldon Farm corn on the cob. The corn was rubbed with butter, salt and chipotle powder. The chicken had been spatchcocked, marinated in Big Bob Gibson's white sauce and parcooked for several hours at 150ºF in the CVap oven before a final searing on a charcoal grill. The corn spent about 20 minutes in the same CVap before seeing the heat of the grill for a little smoke. With sauteed fresh haricots vert and tomato, this made for a fine summer meal eating out on our porch.

Starchefs 2009 - Sean Brock Shows His Kind of American Cuisine

Sean Brock and benne - precursor to today's sesame.

I apologize for having been remiss in not finishing my detailed individual profiles of the presentations at the 2009 Starchefs ICC, having only made it partially into Day 2 of the 3 day Congress. I don't know if I will be able to get to all of the rest of them in detail before the next Starchefs ICC comes up in September (It's not too late to sign up for what looks to be another outstanding Congress), but I will do my best to at least get up more photos and as much detail as I can recall from my notes. Given my current focus on Sean Brock and McCrady's, I thought it only fitting to resume (out of order), with some photos and a brief description of Sean's hands-on workshop and his demo highlighting his take on traditional Carolina Low Country Cooking.

In his hands-on workshop on the morning of Day 2, Brock focused on "Bringing Back American Heirloom Ingredients" and demonstrated his "Shrimp & Grits" in the process with the audience separating into small groups to use liquid nitrogen to grind and then combine an heirloom corn variety, Jimmy Red Corn" with South Carolina Shrimp. Once the ground shrimp and corn combination was plated, it was overlaid with a shrimp stock gel, various herbs and flowers and a piece of dried shrimp toast. I was fortunate enough to get a taste of this insanely delicious dish. I had been wanting to visit Sean Brock at McCrady's for some time anyway, but upon tasting this, I made it a priority.

Shrimp & Grits

For his big stage demo, Sean repeated the shrimp & grits, but followed it with two more spectacularly beautiful dishes utilizing heirloom ingredients grown on McCrady's S.C. Farm, Thorn Hill Farm. The first, called simply, "The Garden" utilized pristine root and other vegetables to form a colorful and quite beautiful tableaux. The second was a contemporary interpretation of an old Low Country dish with slave days origins, a rice and beans dish called "Reezy Peezy" or "Hoppin' John," the name it is more generally well known by. Hoppin john is generally a very rustic dish, one traditionally served on New Year's Day. Brock's version, utilizing an heirloom pea called "Sea Island Red" also utilized a variety of techniques that while making it visually unrecognizable compared to the original, still remained true to its ingredients and presumably (since I didn't get to taste it) to its flavor.

The Garden

"Hoppin' John"

Once again, the thrust of Brock's discussion focused on the value and importance of saving heirloom and heritage varieties of the foods that have contributed to the development of an American culinary tradition. His particular area of concern is the South, especially the Carolina Low Country, but his message is to do the same for all the Regional Traditions. Is it any wonder I had to visit McCrady's and that I hope to do so again and again (Husk too!)?

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.

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.

Taste of the Week - January 3rd - 9th - Wild Mallard Duck Breast

I had never had wild mallard duck before, always farm-raised magret. I was recently given some freshly shot and field dressed mallard breasts by my friends Albert and Pat Sheldon. Normally when I cook duck it still has its skin and subcutaneous fat. Since these were field dressed they were skinned rather than plucked. With skin on magret, I score it and cook it skin down in a pan until the fat is rendered and then do a quick sear on the flesh side. This was different though since it had neither skin nor fat. Having sought and received advice on facebook and twitter, I moved ahead and cooked the breasts for an hour at 125ºF in the CVap then did a quick sear of both sides in a little duck fat from the fridge. I served the duck with duck-fat roasted fingerling potatoes (I never make enough of them) and sauteéd shaved brussels sprouts with garlic and raisins. I paired the dish with a 2001 old vines Gevrey-Chambertin from Domaine Bachelet.

The duck was absolutely marvelous. Prior to the CVap, I applied a dry rub of Chinese five spice and sea salt. The duck was not in the least bit gamey. It was tender, rich and delicious. My wife, who is not generally a big fan of duck even enjoyed it and called it "the best duck" she ever had. While I'm not sure that I would go that far, I can't say that I have had much better.

Goose

I recently took the opportunity to buy a goose for the holidays from Mary Pratt of Elihu Farm at The Saratoga Farmers Market. The goose was an American heirloom variety - a Buff. I cooked it following instructions from Julia Child with a variation in that rather than steam it in a Dutch Oven, I cooked it in the CVap oven. As wonderful as the flesh turned out, the fat was even more special. I could not make enough roasted potatoes when they were cooked in the fat along with some salt and ground cumin.

Starchefs 2009 Day One: Chris Young & Nathan Myhrvold: Culinary Engineers

I first became acquainted (virtually) with Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, the former Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft and current CEO of Intellectual Ventures, a firm dedicated to creating and investing in inventions with culinary technology an important component of his and the company's interest, back in the first half of this decade  on the eGullet Discussion Forum Boards. nathanm, as he is known in that forum, made invaluable contributions to those forums, in particular, the topic, Sous Vide: Recipes, Techniques & Equipment, which may have been the genesis of the project he and Chris Young were at Starchefs to discuss. Today the process of sous vide cooking is widely known and used, even in home kitchens. When Dr. Myhrvold first started posting on the topic on eGullet back in 2004, it wasn't so well known and even he came to eGullet looking for information on the subject. as it turned out, at the time, there was not a whole lot generally known on the subject outside of select high end restaurants and industrial kitchens. That eGullet topic became a major source of information for many, largely thanks to the subsequent work and sharing of information by Dr. Myhrvold. His first post on the subject read:

"I am wondering if anybody has sources for recipes for sous-vide cooking - which is to say, cooking done in sealed vacuum bags.

It started out in Europe as a means to do large scale cooking - like airline catering - where food is cooked in a factory and reheated elsewhere. the idea was the cooking was done centrally, and reheating done elsewhere/later.

Some chefs in the US use it that way - for example for late night food at Las Vegas restaurants so a minimal kitchen staff can prepare it. However, there is a clear trend toward high end chefs using it as a tool in its own right rather than simply a means to centralize cooking. Charlie Trotter gave an interview in a restaurant trade magazine saying that 50% of his plates have at least one component made this way. Daniel Boulud and a number of other chefs are using it.

Typically the ingredients are sealed in a plastic bag under vacuum (similar to various home vacuum sealer machines). The bag is then cooked at low temperature - typically at less than boiling (150 degrees), and sometimes even lower. Typical cooking times are long - hours. It is basically a very gentle form of poaching.

I have a vacuum sealer machine, and I got some heat proof sealing bags. So I have been experimenting. However, there are very few recipes out there. This is a bit surprising because it is pretty widely used in Europe. So, one would expect there to be more recipes or even information of a general nature.

There is one book on the topic from Amazon - it is very expensive, and utterly worthless - it is more about industrial processes and gives few if any details.

Art Cullinaire had an issue with several recipes in it in Spring 2002 - for example: http://www.findartic...457/print.jhtml

On eGullet, the only references seem to be to restaurants that use it - like Trio near Chicago.

My questions are does anybody:

- Have any recipes themselves?

- Know of other sources (books, magazines, web sites)?"

The rest, as they say, is history. Fast forward to September 2009 and Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young, a mathematician and biochemist cum chef and architect and former head of Heston Blumenthal's research team at The Fat Duck, are on stage giving a demonstration on some techno-fueled processes they have come up with to make better-tasting food as well as to make cooking more fun.

On the Farm - Mack Brook Grass Fed Beef

Nestled in the hills of Washington County, N.Y., just outside the Village of Argyle, Mack Brook Farm raises grass-fed mostly Angus cattle on approximately 300 or so acres of land with a herd of about 50 at this time. The farm has been family owned since the 1920's, but until 2003 was primarily a dairy farm. Since that time Kevin Jablonski and Karen Christensen have been building a herd and a reputation for finely marbled and delicious grassfed beef - yes, I said, finely marbled grass-fed beef. The cattle feed on natural grass in the warmer months and "bailage" or bailed hay from their farm in the cooler months, a process that Jablonski says results in the marbling. Over time, it has not just been the size of the herd that has grown, but also the size of the individuals within the herd, with their average animal topping out at over 900 pounds dressed weight.

I toured the farm the other day with Kevin Jablonski. Our first stop was to visit the cows, their calves and the breeding bull. While the stock is not entirely Angus (it is mostly so), it does contain a bull who is a descendant of the original Scottish Angus breed. The recently acquired bull was brought in to return the stock to prime grass-eating characteristics. In the United States, corn-fed beef has been bred to be tall and narrow, easier to fit into feed lots and confinement. Traditionally, cattle best suited for their natural grass diets have tended to be shorter and squatter. Mack Brook cattle are nothing if not short and stout! While it can be tempting to think all cattle are alike, this is clearly not the case. In addition to the physical differences between cattle bred to eat corn and those more suited for grass, there is a big difference between cattle bred for meat vs. those bred for dairy purposes. Beef cattle tend to be larger, incorporating their feed into muscle mass and fat rather than pouring their calories into milk production.

From the cows and calves and an overprotective mother, we proceeded to another lush field to visit the heifers (females who have not yet bred) and steers (castrated males - they are castrated by banding their scrotum beneath their testicles at birth, preventing their development). These animals tended to be a bit more skittish, but ultimately proved very curious, slowly gravitating towards us as we stood still in the field. The animals are beautiful with full, shiny coats and powerful muscles evident underneath.

While Jablonski and Christensen have not pursued an organic designation secondary to the expense associated with obtaining it, the animals are raised in an organic fashion. Jablonski and Christensen do not use pesticides, herbicides or non-organic fertilizers on their land nor do they administer antibiotics or hormones to their animals. They do, however, vaccinate their cattle, something that Jablonski said, was enough to turn off one dogmatic potential meat purchaser. The irony is that vaccinating the cattle is safer for them and everyone else without adversely effecting the quality of the meat or indicating any lapses in how the animals are raised. Taking offense to vaccination simply doesn't make sense from either a scientific or humanistic perspective.

The cattle of Mack Brook Farm are extremely well taken care of. One certification Jablonski and Christensen did go through the trouble and expense of obtaining is that of being Certified Humane. This process not only looks at the conditions on the farm, but where and how the animals are slaughtered. Jablonski explained that they bring their animals to slaughter at a slaughterhouse literally five miles from the farm, an important step that Jablonski feels makes a big difference in the ultimate quality of the meat, since stress of travel, which he says has a direct effect on meat quality by reducing the marbling, is kept to a minimum.

When I asked Jablonski if the animals ever stayed in a barn, he told me that they always remain  outdoors on the land and seem to be quite happy for it. Unfazed by the winter cold, the animals are free to take shelter from the wind and the elements in surrounding woods. By not staying in a confined barn, they have a much greater tendency to avoid illness and remain healthy.

Mack Brook beef is not a supermarket product. To get this meat, one has to invest a little effort in addition to a little money. Mack Brook meat is not sold in supermarkets nor do they have a direct presence at Farmers markets. For the time being, they neither ship nor take credit cards. To get this beef, one must either go to the farm, buy it from select stores (Sheldon's Market, Salem Garden Works, Green Pea Local (in Greenwich), Four Seasons (Saratoga), Wild Thyme (Ballston Spa) and The Green Grocer (Clifton Park)) or get it through John Ubaldo's Mountain View Farm, (who brings it to Farmers Markets in Westchester), order it from a CSA through Leweis-Waite farm or get it in NYC through The Farm-to-Chef Express.  One well-known NYC restaurant that has taken the trouble to use Mack Brook beef is Gramercy Tavern.

Growing slowly, Christensen and Jablonski are happy with the pace of their business. While there is room for further growth both in terms of what their land can sustain and what they can personally manage, they are afraid of expanding too rapidly. They would rather sacrifice some potential sales in the short term, to make sure that they are able to provide a quality sustainable product for the long term.

Harold McGee and His Berries: An Addendum

It seems that in my recent post looking at Harold McGee's technique for delaying and diminishing berry mold, I made the situation a bit more complex then it seems it needs to be. In a personal communication, posted here with his permission, Harold wrote to me:

"Hi John, thanks for this, and glad to hear about the cvap solution! But I would never suggest a method in the Times that required an immersion circulator, which a vanishingly small proportion of readers would have access to. I was just writing about a pot of hot water and a thermometer. The temperature change in 30 seconds is minimal, and the exact temperature isn't that critical. Anyhow, nice to hear from you, and hope our paths cross again one of these days--  Cheers,  Harold"

The CVap worked and an immersion circulator would no doubt work, but McGee's experiments used neither. While I will continue to use the CVap for this purpose as it does offer some advantages, there is no need to reinvent the wheel!

McGee's Berries

Yesterday morning, my wife brought home some raspberries from the Glens Falls Farmers market. Given that they were undoubtedly picked the day before and it had been raining all night, it was no surprise to discover mold already encroaching on a number of the berries. It was disappointing though, but then I recalled an article I had recently read in the new York Times.

In this article, Harold McGee describes a way to inhibit mold growth on normally mold friendly berries, a problem that anyone who has picked or purchased fresh berries has no doubt encountered.  McGee's technique:

"I bought pints of various berries, divided each batch into two samples, and heated one by immersing and swishing its plastic basket in a pot of hot water. I emptied the heated sample onto towels to cool down and dry. Then I repacked it, and encouraged both baskets to spoil by wrapping them airtight and letting them sweat on the kitchen counter. After 24 hours I counted the moldy berries in each basket...I tried the same treatment, 125 degrees for 30 seconds, on raspberries and blackberries, and got the same good results. There were many fewer moldy berries in the heated samples."

As the quote above shows, Harold used water heated to a specific temperature, presumably with an immersion circulator. Not having an immersion circulator, I had something else I could try. - a CVap oven! Already set to cook a sirloin roast at 125ºF, I laid the raspberries out on a sheet pan and placed the pan in the oven for 30 seconds. I was skeptical when I removed the pan as I couldn't really discern any temperature change for either the berries or the pan, but I placed the berries in a single layer on a paper towel and covered the container with Press'n'Seal wrap before putting them back in the refrigerator.

I checked the berries this morning and lo and behold, there was not a trace of mold, even though a number of them had mold already present when placed back in the fridge! Unfortunately, I did not take any "before" photos, but here is what they looked like this morning:

 

This is a technique that I will clearly use in the future, especially for raspberries and blackberries. The CVap ws a perfect tool for this and a great substitute for an immersion circulator, but there is the rub. The technique couldn't be simpler for anyone with either of those tools, but I don't know of too many homes that have either of these. I imagine that with careful attention, one could simply heat water to temperature and quickly add the berries before the temperature rises too much further, but I imagine that approach could have a steep learning curve. Anyone with other approaches to this problem?

TGRWT #18: Grilled Veal Chop with Blue Cheese/Plum Sauce

In my first look at the flavor combination of blue cheese and plums as suggested by Trig in his blog, Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef, I kept it very simple, as basic as it could be to see if I liked the combination. I did and decided to take it a step further, although as befits my modest culinary skills, I still kept it relatively simple. 

 

For a luncheon, I marinated 2 inch thick veal chops from Brookside Farm in a sauce of Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue Cheese and a skinned Japanese Redheart Plum that I had combined over low heat on the cook top and brushed onto the chops. I wrapped the coated chops in plastic wrap and cooked them for 3.5 hours at 130ºF in the CVap before finishing them on a charcoal grill to provide sear. To accompany the meat, I made a sauce with additional Rogue Smokey Blue and several more skinned plums, but this time I added the strained cooking juices from the meat and salt and pepper, combining them with a stick blender. The dish of sliced grilled, marinated veal chops and blue cheese plum sauce was well received by our guests. I could see this working quite well with pork or duck too. 

 

I paired the veal with a 1997 Chateaude de la Negly la Porte du Ciel by Chateau de la Negly from the Languedoc, a 100% Syrah, a combination that worked well with the fruit in the sauce. A German or Alsatian Reisling would have been another good choice. The meal was rounded out by fresh green beans with a mint and walnut oil vinaigrette and fresh grilled corn on the cob and my wife's amazing blueberry/gooseberry/sour cherry pie for dessert.

A Pair From 1991 - July 9th, 2009

Today is our son's 18th birthday, his last at home before he goes off to college. To celebrate, we opened a bottle of 1991 Dominus. The wine was beautiful, even though it was still big and bold with a lot of oak and fruit, a Parker special (yes, I'm talking to you, Gerry Dawes!) There are times I enjoy a big, bold, Parker wine and there are times I enjoy something else. After 18 years, this wine is drinking very, very nicely. The tannins are soft, the fruit is intact and the finish is long.

The wine went quite nicely with a dinner of Lewis-Waite Farm filet mignon with shiitake-parmesan cream sauce*, sautéed Sheldon Farms green beans with mint and chopped pine nuts and baked Sheldon Farm potatoes. For dessert, my wife baked a birthday cake.

*Recipe: 10oz. of shiitakes, destemmed and sliced, cook over a low heat without fat. Add one chopped scallion then a little butter before adding enough cream to provide liquid and body. Finish it with S&P and about 4oz of freshly grated Parmesan. Drape over the filet mignon, which has been topped with additional Parm and some balsamico tradizionale di Modena and broiled. I initially cooked the filets in a CVap to a temp of 118ºF then placed them in a hot pan with melted butter. The pan was placed under a broiler for about 4 minutes to sear the exterior and caramelize the parmesan. If cooking conventiomnally under a broiler turn once then apply the Parm to the top of the steaks.

CVap Chicken BBQ

Winston Industries' CVap is not just for professional kitchens, though they are quite popular there, for good reason. I have one even though it was not designed to be in a  residential kitchen. In fact, unless the kitchen is built with a CVap in mind, it is quite difficult to install one in a residential kitchen, especially in a retrofit. This is precisely why, I didn't install it in our kitchen, but in our basement. While it makes the process alittle more unwieldy, it is still quite doable, especially for the kind of cooking for which I most use it.

I took a freshly killed free-range chicken, cut it into sections and cooked it for 4 hours at 150º F in the CVap. I finished it on a hardwood charcoal grill, basting it with an olive oil, garlic, thyme and lemon juice sauce. The pre-cooking in the CVap allowed me to make sure the chicken was sufficiently cooked, while getting enough, but not too much char on the grill. I now do this with most meat intended for the grill. This is particularly useful when cooking for a crowd.