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.

Braised Bok Choy with Blood Sausage, Horseradish and an Onsen Egg - An Idea in Food

When Alex Talbot saw the blood sausage in the deli case at Oscar's Smoke House in Warrensburg, he couldn't resist it. We had already bought the bok choy and eggs earlier that day at Kilpatrick Family Farm and had previously planned on cooking the goose that my wife and I had purchased from Elihu Farm. The dish came together rather easily and quickly in Alex's ever-whirring mind and became the second course at this dinner.

Alex peeled the sauseage and cut it into small chunks.

Goose bones were browned and made into a quick stock using the pressure cooker.

The bok choy was cooked with the goose jus from the pressure cooker along with horseradish and the blood sausage.

The eggs were cooked in a water bath at 75ºC for 13 minutes and peeled.

Chef Kevin London of Farm House at Top of the World in Lake George, a dinner guest, was enlisted to help plate the dish.

Perhaps my favorite dish of the night, this dish had it all. The bok choy was well braised, but still vibrant with enough horseradish to provide a little zing but not so much as to make it over assertive. It played a great supporting role. The jus was rich and warming and the blood sausage added spice, flavor and texture to the dish, which was unified by the silken coating of the perfectly cooked whites and the oozing European orange yolk of the egg. The dish was greater than the sum of its parts, but the ingredient that set it apart from other similar dishes I have had was the inspired use of the fortuitously found blood sausage. Later in the weekend, per a suggestion from Alex, I cooked some more blood sausage along with fresh eastern L.I.clams, parsley, onions, garlic and white wine served over linguine - another Ideas in Food winner!

Smoked Trout Brandade - an Idea in Food

Not every idea that comes out of Alex and Aki, the couple behind the blog and book, both called Ideas in Food is cutting edge. They are both as well versed with traditional cooking techniques and dishes as they are with the ultramodern. Their idea for the first course  of our Friday night dinner was just such a tradition based idea - a brandade, but instead of using salt cod, they would use smoked trout. I must admit, this was not an idea that I found initially appealing when Alex first proposed it, but I've learned to trust his judgement and skill. I'm glad I did. As with any dish, the quality of the ingredients is important. Here the key element was the smoked trout itself. Purchased that afternoon at Oscar's Smoke House in Warrensburg, N.Y., it was of pristine quality.

The first step was breaking up the fish. Aki did that, reserving the skin and the head.

The skin and head was used to infuse a quarter pound of melted Cabot 83% butter.

The next step was cooking the potatoes (yellow potatoes bought that day at Kilpatrick Family Farm) along with the peeled garlic cloves. My son, Michael peeled the garlic. The potatoes and garlic were boiled in water in a standard fashion. Once cooked they were riced together in a warm pan and mixed with the trout, the trout=skin infused butter, cream and some minced parsley.

The end result was magic. I may not have found the idea all that appealing, but the actuality was wonderful - silky smooth potatoes, moist, smoky meat and sheer pleasure.

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.

Blood Sausage

This delicious blood sausage came from Oscar's Smoke House in Warrensburgh, N.Y. We ate it last night in a dish prepared by Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of Ideas in Food. More detail's on the dish along with the rest of the dinner coming soon.

Lyon is for Lovers: Chocolate Heaven

 

Valentine's Day is a day that celebrates love, both of the romantic kind as well as the Platonic. The holiday has a few specific icons associated with it including Cupid, red roses and not least amongst them, chocolate. I happen to love chocolate and it is my favorite icon of all those associated with Valentine's Day.

 

Finger Limes

I first noticed these wonderful little Australian citrus fruits in L.A. in early December. They appeared in dishes at a Wolvesmouth dinner, in cocktails at The Library Bar at The Roosevelt Hollywood Hotel and again at Providence, all to great effect, working like a burst of lime caviar to accent the dishes with both flavor and texture. Since then, I've noticed them n a number of menus and had them at Roberta's in Brooklyn. I bought some at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. The limes in the photo are some of the last remaining from my purchase. They held up well as I used them yesterday in a dish of piquillo peppers stuffed with turkey, chevre, saffron, peas and citrus and covered with Hollandaise. I would not be in the least surprised to see finger limes become the hot ingredient of 2011 much like hay and pine were in 2010.

My All-Time Favorite Dish

In the animated film Ratatouille, the feared food critic Anton Ego, was won over by a dish that transported him back to his childhood and to a dish made special to him by his mother. This is that dish for me. Bucatini with crab sauce was my favorite dish when I was growing up. My mother would make it for me on my special days, such as my birthdays or when I came home from college. The blue crabs impart a slightly sweet and complex flavor to the long simmered tomato sauce. I still love it more than any other dish. The very first time I ate at elBulli, I had a dish made with crab that reminded me of it. The crab dish made an already incredible meal that much more so, even though it resembled this dish in no other way. Do you have a dish that transports you?

Top 5 Dishes of 2010

I already posted my Top Pasta Dishes of the Year here. At this point, I'm pretty much done dining out for the year, so I think it is reasonable to post this now, even though the year is not quite over yet. I ate extremely well in 2010 with a number of exceptional dishes. Here are the most memorable. I did not select more than one dish from any particular meal.

1. Mackerel Pickled in Hay with Green Tomatoes - Restaurant AOC - Copenhagen, DK - this dish was simply stunning on every level. Mackerel is not my favorite fish, in general, but this was made with perfect specimens and treated in such a way that it achieved perfect balance, deep rich and wonderful flavor. In addition, the plating was spectacular, using a limited but pure color spectrum and subtle, but supremely beautiful plating.
2. Chilled Vegetable Minestrone - Town House - Chilhowie, Virginia: Another extraordinarily beautiful dish, Chef John Shields provided deep and total flavor, coaxing every last bit of wonderfulness from these gorgeous, multicolored vegetables. I wrote, "Consisting of 19 different vegetables sliced into thin ribbons, rolled into cylinders and stood on end in a bowl with a vegetable consommé poured around it table side, the dish was equally impressive on the palate combining a myriad of flavors playing off each other. This was a home run on the first pitch, one of the more spectacular courses I've had anywhere."
3. Beet Salad - The Oval Room - Washington, D.C.: How can a beet salad make my top 5 dishes of the year? When it is this beautiful, colorful, original and absolutely delicious it can. I wrote, Chef Tony "Conte's salad, 'roasted organic baby beets, passion fruit gelee, horseradish, Minus 8 (vinegar) shallot dressing & micro arugula,' blended brilliant color with brilliant flavor. The passion fruit and minus 8 provided a nice acid kick, while the horseradish added a bit of spice."
4. Walnut and Blackberries, Cream and Powder - noma/Corton- Copenhagen, DK/NY, NY: I had a slew of wonderful dishes at noma, but this one stood out the most for me, taking ingredients that I could normally not care less about and turning them into one of the most delicious desserts that I have ever had. I wrote, "I'm not sure that I have ever tasted a better dessert than Walnut and Blackberries, Cream and Powder, despite the fact that I am generally not terribly enthusiastic about either walnuts or blackberries. Walnut is incorporated into an ice cream and a powder. The powder is made using walnut oil and maltodextrin. The dish includes frozen cream and dried blackberry. Minimalist in appearance, the flavors are anything but, achieving great depth and perfect balance. I loved this when I had it in NY at the Corton dinner and I loved it no less here."
5. Roasted Parsnip - Blue Hill at Stone Barns - Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Sometimes, apparent simplicity can be deceptive. This dish was simply delicious, but all the more mind-boggling to come from an ordinarily non-descript parsnip. I wrote, "We were presented with an item that appeared to be some sort of meat or ham, though it was unlike any meat or ham I had ever seen before. Flattened and slightly elongated, clearly roasted with beautiful exterior browning, we were told that it was a parsnip, a very, very large parsnip that had just been harvested after having been planted the previous March. Almost one year in the ground, this massive parsnip was left in the cold ground to encourage the root to convert its natural starches into sugar to help prevent freezing. To assist even further development of the root's sugars and their caramelization, Barber roasted the parsnips under the weight of bricks. Once presented to us, the roasted parsnips were returned to the kitchen to emerge just a short time later fully transformed. Furthering their pork-like impression, the parsnips re-emerged in a form that, to me, resembled a strip of suckling pig meat under a rich porcine gravy. Served alongside the parsnip was a red cabbage ketchup. As sweet as the parsnip was, the dish, thanks largely to the "gravy" was very much a savory dish. Unfortunately, I never did get what the "gravy" was comprised of. It tasted of pork or even turkey, rich and meaty with plenty of umami, but could this dish really have been served with anything but vegetable components? To me, this dish was a sterling example of a trompe l'oiel style of cooking. It was a veritable faux pork dish. This parsnip was superlative in every way - delicious, beautiful and down right mind-boggling and fun. It was Barber at his absolute best, taking an ordinarily mundane ingredient and without any overt tricks transforming it into something truly remarkable. I could not imagine a parsnip being presented as a parsnip being any more enjoyable than this was." 

Next week, I'll be coming out with a listing of my Top 25 Restaurant Meals of 2010.

My Top Five Restaurant Pasta Dishes of 2010

It's in my blood that I love pasta. To me, pasta is one of the most satisfying dishes that I can have. I cook it a lot and I eat it a lot in restaurants. I had plenty of outstanding pasta in restaurants this year, traditional and creative. The three most memorable and most sensationally delicious pasta dishes I had in 2010 were:

1. Trofie, Squab & White Truffle - Roberta's - Brooklyn, N.Y. Pure decadence. Forget the freshly shaved white truffles for just a moment. This dish would have been killer without them. Carlo Mirarchi takes squab that he ages himself and minces the meat and the organs using the whole squab and then makes a Bolognese type sauce, which he uses to flavor immaculately cooked, perfectly al dente trofie to create an umami rich, textural tour de force of pasta. Now add an intoxicating, freshly shaved snow of white Alba truffle and the transport to heaven is complete. (No post yet).
2. Roasted Potato and Parmesan Gnocchi with Iberico Bellota Ham, Morel Mushrooms, Fava Beans and Local Scallions - Stella! - New Orleans, LA.  More decadence. Perfect, light and fluffy gnocchi, some of the finest ham in the world, fresh favas, Parmiggiano and incredible morels all executed without a flaw by Scott Boswell and his crack kitchen team - this dish simply rocked.(see here for the whole dinner)
3. Baby Goat Agnolotti, sweet carrot and spicy paprika - Brooks Headley (Del Posto) - Pastry Chefs at Aldea Dinner - NY, NY. If the pastry chef at Del Posto is making pasta this wonderful, what must the Chef Mark Ladner be doing? I must find out! (see here for the whole dinner)
4. Whole Wheat Pici, Shaved Matsutakes, Toasted Hazelnut & Rosemary - The Oval Room - Washington, D.C. Tony Conte's perfectly cooked and seasoned pasta supported the terrific, savory sweetness of the shaved mushrooms leaving the rosemary and hazelnut to play accent notes. (see here for the whole dinner)
5. Miso & Yuzu Kosho Casarecce with Crab - Alex Talbot & Aki Kamozawa (Ideas in Food) - The Alchemy of Taste and Smell Dinner at The Astor Center - N.Y., N.Y. Served with chopsticks that had been twice sprayed with a scent of coffee, black pepper and nutmeg, the combination of the perfectly ala-minute-cooked, bright tasting pasta, the lusciously rich crab and the pepper-rich scent made for an impeccably balanced, deeply delicious and soulfully satisfying dish. (see here for the whole dinner)

Goose, Sour Cherry, Juniper

I don't understand why goose is not more popular than it is on American dining tables whether it be at home or in restaurants. Like duck and ostrich, these are very meaty, beefy birds. The breast meat is every bit as red as beef or lamb and the fat is simply the best. If one considers the rich deliciousness of a goose egg too, I would think they would be amongst the most popular menu items out there. Somehow, that just isn't the case, though.

For the second holiday season in a row, I bought a freshly killed goose from Mary & Bob Pratt of Washington County's Elihu Farm (more information below *) at the Saratoga Farmers Market this past Saturday. Last year, I roasted it whole in my CVap. It was delicious. This year, I decided I would try something different. I butchered it to cut out the boneless breasts from the carcass and separated the wings and the thighs with the legs  as well. I took the skin and most of the fat to render the fat and make goose cracklings.  I used the fat to confit the thighs and legs and am making a prosciutto from one of the breasts. The carcass and neck are being saved to make a goose stock.

For the remaining breast, I cooked it in my CVap Cook and Hold for 2.5 hours at 135ºF on a cedar plank with browning off. I then finished it on the cooktop searing it in a little butter. The meat was perfect! To complement the rich goose I made a sauce using Red Sour Cherry Preserves & Topping from Chukar Cherries. The cherry preserves were too sweet to use on their own, but with the addition of a generous helping of freshly ground juniper berries, salt and the juice of half a lemon, they made an excellent sweet and sour sauce to complement the meaty goose.

Yes, when I eat something as delicious and reasonably easy to make (I realize that there are few CVaps outside of restaurant kitchens. The breast with skin and fat attached can be seared just like a duck breast to the same wonderful end), I don't understand why it isn't more popular. Is it just a question of opportunity? If so, then I suggest that opportunities be found or made. goose is that good!

*From Elihu Farm:

Raising the Geese. The goslings, all gray and white Toulouse (a heritage breed), arrived onelovely morning in May as day-olds, peeping away in four large boxes at our local Post Office. Right away,we dipped their bills in fresh water as we counted and transferred to larger containers. Then it was off tothe sheep barn for “goose starter,’ grain mix, and lights for warmth, and more water, water, water.

They soon learned we were t-h-e meal ticket, and chattered away when we were nearby. As theygrew, their pen grew, until they were large enough to explore the grass near the barn. Geese love grass,and are excellent lawn mowers.

In a short time, we ‘weaned’ from the brooder, and soon put them to pasture all the time,surrounded by electric netting for protection. Vigorous healthy birds, they love their grass, and love theirwater and more water and more water. They still eat some grain for carbohydrates to keep them warm.

Goose for Dinner. There’s nothing quite like the flavorful dark meat from goose, which is lower infat than beef or lamb. The fat is semi-solid, containing over 50% of the beneficial monounsaturated oleicfatty acid, an Omega-3. Rendered goose fat is excellent for sautéing vegetables or roasting potatoes. Weexpect our geese to be leaner than conventionally raised birds.

Ordering. The geese run from about 7-1/2 to 10 pounds, dressed, and cost $7.95/lb. Pick up onthe farm or at the Saratoga Springs Farmers’ Market. Delivery to Albany may be available. Contact Maryand Bob Pratt, [email protected], 518-753-7838, 518-744-3947.

noma Now...and Then - A Look Back During Lunch

 

The end of a great meal is always a bittersweet experience. I am exhilarated by the meal I just had, but saddened that it is done. Such was the case when Scott Boswell and I finished our dinner at noma. Our sadness, however, was considerably tempered by the fact that we would be returning to the restaurant in just a few hours for lunch, this time accompanied by our wives and my one-day-shy-of-eleven year old son. In addition, we would get to experience some of noma's culinary history. Our dinner consisted of noma's current menu and some of its newest dishes. The lunch would consist of a collection of dishes from the last three years. We left our dinner at noma the night before quite happy. We had eaten an amazing meal and were coming back for more!

The snacks we had at lunch were the same that we had at dinner the night before. A discussion of them with photos can be found here.One dish that requires a little further discussion is the live fjord shrimp. For his age, my son is a very experienced and adventurous diner, but I knew that he would be challenged eating the live fjord shrimp and he was.Rene Redzepi told us that about 90% of the people to whom he serves it are challenged by it. He says, "It's because of the eyes...an oyster, no problem, it doesn't look at you and move, but essentially it's the same thing." My son did eat it, but didn't really enjoy it and unfortunately, it put him a little on edge going into the rest of the meal. Happily, his raised defenses soon began to melt away.

 

At dinner, Scott and I very much enjoyed the wine pairings using the wines of the Loire Valley. Since many of the same wines would be paired with lunch, I opted to experience another side of noma that I had heard about - their natural juices, and had my lunch paired with them. Another reason for choosing the juices was that I would be having dinner later that night at Restaurant A.O.C. and wanted to limit my alcohol to remain fresh for that - or at least as fresh as possible. That didn't stop me from trying noma's own Pilsner style beer to start my meal. It was golden, hearty and refreshing.

Cucumber Juice 

 

Cucumber was the unifying bridge between the first full course and the paired juice. We were served a salad, but a salad unlike any that I had ever had before. Called "Gem Salad and Hazelnut Milk, White Currant and Juniper", the main part of the salad was the leaves and the  root of a gem lettuce that had been cooked in an aromatic tea made from "wild plants." The root was then sliced and arranged on the plate looking like little white coins. The cooked leaves were arranged around the salad with a perimeter of nasturtium leaves, while the plate was dotted with sweetly tart white currants. This all rested on a small pool of hazelnut milk and was dressed on top with a vinaigrette of green juniper oil from Gotland and apple vinegar. Each plate also held a cucumber blossom that added a bit of cucumber flavor and a touch of color to the dish. The juice was a cucumber juice, which truly tasted of the essence of itself and mingled nicely with the faintly sweet salad. The dish was a lovely study in texture with no element proving overly assertive, but each adding subtle nuance. 

 

Invasive species can be a real problem. Sometimes, however, an invasive species can be an improvement - at least culinarily. The razor clams in the next dish, Razor Clam and Parsley, Horseradish and Dill, are Pacific razor clams, which have invaded and overtaken the native variety. Chef Redzepi prefers these clams to the native North Atlantic variety, stating "they are quite larger, do extremely well in our cool waters and are extremely tasty." Not having a basis at hand to directly compare the two varieties, I can't personally confirm the differences, but these clams were certainly quite tasty, quite large and quite beautifully presented, wrapped in a shiny parsley sheet next to  grated frozen horseradish with a swirl of clam and dill juice poured onto the plate. Chef Redzepi, who serve the dish, urged us to use the spoon and the fork to get each of the flavor elements in each bite. He was right about that too.

 

I have certainly had pineapple juice before, but this was the first time I ever had apple pine juice. The next juice pairing was apple juice infused with pine. It was a remarkably delicious combination, tart, sweet and with added depth from the pine. It was paired with another dish that I had a version of in NY at the Corton dinner, Tartar and Sorrel, Tarragon and Juniper. 

 

One of the oldest dishes still in their rotation, the development of this dish has an interesting story. Chef Redzepi explained that when this dish was first conceived, it seemed that most new dishes were being prepared with some type of new machinery and/or new chemical. While he has nothing against either of those things, he and his crew wanted to see if they could " make a dish where we only used our hands and still make it feel innovative." They used to make this dish with a mortar, but now they do use a blender. At the Corton dinner, I was enthralled by Redzepi's skillful use of sourness, especially with sorrel. In Copenhagen, the sorrel was even more sour, but the dish was even better. As Chef Redzepi explained to us, in Denmark he is able to get wild woodsorrel, which grows in shade in forests. By virtue of being relatively sun deprived, the wood sorrel, a type of oxalis, becomes even more sour. While I enjoy sour, too much can be unpleasant. With this even more sour wood sorrel, I was even more amazed by Chef Redzepi's balancing skill. He had instructed us to pick up a little of the meat and and a little of the sorrel with our hands, dip it in crushed juniper then in a tarragon emulsion before eating it. Eating this dish was as much fun as it was delicious and it was quite delicious. The apple pine juice made a perfect pairing.

 

There are few things I enjoy eating more than langoustines. I was thrilled when I saw them come out on the next plate. I use the term “plate” loosely, as the langoustines were served on large stones. Nevertheless, or more likely, as a result of the stones, the dish, Langoustines and Söl, Rye and Parsley, was particularly stunning and dramatic. Once again, we were instructed to eat the langoustines with our hands, picking them up and dipping them in beads of “mayonnaise,” which was actually an emulsion made from Pacific oysters and seaweed. The protein rich oysters are simply blended with a touch of oil before the seaweed is added. The result is a deep, rich, primal oceanic flavor. The langoustines, small, but extremely flavorful, were, according to Chef Redzepi, alive just a couple of hours before. They are fished from very deep waters from a specific area of the Faroe Islands, which are located in the North Sea between Iceland and Norway, to the northwest of Scotland. They were magnificent.

 

Potatoes and Milk Skin, Lovage and Yogurt was really a study in potatoes, with the other ingredients used to highlight the essential potato-ness of the dish. In the center of the plate lay a very smooth potato puree made only from potatoes and potato stock without any fat. To add a little creaminess to the dish, the kitchen layered milk skin on top. Some slightly cooked small potatoes were scattered around the plate to provide textural contrasts, while chervil and watercress stems were placed to add color, flavor and visual drama. The dish was finished with a sauce made from yogurt whey and lovage oil. It was a surprisingly complex dish with many subtle nuances of flavor and texture. It was my son's favorite savory dish of the meal.

 

A pairing with a crazy good, flavor saturated celery juice couldn't have been better.The celery juice was carried through to the following course, King Crab and Leek, Ashes and Mussels.

 

The king crab, from the north of Norway, was plated next to the leeks, which had been covered in hay ash. The small logs were then bathed table-side with a foamy sauce of mussels. The plate was then sprinkled and finished with fried bread crumbs. One might think that the ash would impart a burnt or at least strongly smokey flavor to the dish, but somehow it doesn't. The overall gestalt of the dish was similar to the langoustine dish from earlier and the oyster dish from last night, incorporating very elemental and primal sea flavors and eliciting a very specific taste memory. Ash coatings seem to be a growing trend. According to the noma staff, the use of ash in food was a Viking tradition. More recently, I first became of the creative use of ash in modern cooking via Andoni Luis Aduriz, who presented his ash coated beef at Madrid Fusión several years ago. This particular dish, was put in service at noma over the past three years or so and Redzepi may have used ash before then, so it is not clear to me, if one has come from the other's influence or if they were arrived at independently. I have since seen ash used elsewhere, most recently prior to this meal at Town House in Chilhowie, Virginia, where leek ash was used in a lamb dish. This would also not be the last meal I would encounter an ash coating on this trip. The ash is certainly visually striking and all the dishes I have had with it, have been outstanding, yet I have so far been unable to discern more than a subtle flavor contribution from the ash in those dishes. Based on the evidence, I have had so far, though, I am happy to continue exploring its continued evolution.

 

Like the celery juice before it, noma's carrot juice spoke of the essence of the very best carrots. This was poured more for fun to taste it then it was to be a specific pairing for the next dish, Turbot and Stems.

 

The turbot was spectacularly delicious, served with a sauce of elderberry capers, white wine and roasted turbot bones and accompanied by celeriac, puree, beach cabbage leaves and a variety of stems and herbs. Though the plating could not be considered so, this dish, was perhaps the most classical of all that we had. It is also one of the oldest noma dishes that we had, as it has been served using different fish and accompaniments seasonally “for a long time.” This was another of my son's favorite dishes. In my estimation, fish doesn't come any better than this.

 

Sea buckthorn is a flavor I had been totally unfamiliar with prior to this trip to Scandinavia, but it is a flavor that I will now seek out when I can. The next dish was accompanied by a sea buckthorn juice, that was bright, tart, refreshing, addicting and colorful. Its flavor seems like it should come from a tropical fruit rather than a berry from very northern latitudes.

 

The parade of seafood continued with Lobster and Red Currant, Rosehip and Salad. The lobster was sauteed and served with a lobster cream that used the lobster coral, lightly cooked lettuce leaf, roasted salad root, pickled rose petals, sorrel leaves and a creamy red currant wine sauce. The lobster, barely cooked, was sweet and tender. Sorrel leaves added a nice, piquant component while the rose petals added a touch of sweetness. The dish was pure, luxurious decadence.

 

Our last savory dish moved away from the sea. Beef Cheek and Verbena, Pear and Endive. The cheek from ox was braised in hay at 72ºC for 24 hours and served with chicory (endive) cooked in red currant wine sauce, pear, verbena, a verbena and spinach puree and a sauce which had been cooked with chicken and brown butter and poured table-side. This dish really reflects Redzepi's pairing talents, utilizing ingredients that most mortals would not consider to be intuitive combinations such as ox cheek and pear and performing culinary alchemy to create something absolutely marvelous.

 

Lingonberry juice worked well with the dish. It had a flavor and mouthfeel reminiscent of cranberry juice, but deeper, fuller and more robust.

 

The forest in summertime was the theme of our first dessert, a noma classic, entitled simply, Blueberries and Wood Sorrel. The dish contained wild Danish blueberries, a blueberry sorbet, a pine granita layered on top to look like forest moss, a pine flavored sorbet, wood sorrel leaves, wild thyme flowers, brioche croutons for crunch and pine oil to finish. This dish, marvelously creative, fully reflects the Scandinavian basis of Redzepi's cooking.

 

Elderflower liqueur has become quite fashionable in recent years and with good reason. The juice at noma, served with the first dessert supported it - refreshing and delicious.

 

I'm not sure that I have ever tasted a better dessert than Walnut and Blackberries, Cream and Powder, despite the fact that I am generally not terribly enthusiastic about either walnuts or blackberries. Walnut is incorporated into an ice cream and a powder. The powder is made using walnut oil and maltodextrin. The dish includes frozen cream and dried blackberry. Minimalist in appearance, the flavors are anything but, achieving great depth and perfect balance. I loved this when I had it in NY at the Corton dinner and I loved it no less here. 

 

It was paired with sorrel juice, which really, really grew on me the more I drank it. Outstanding!

 

Our final dessert, based on a Danish breakfast called Øllebrød, which basically means "beer bread", consisted of a small porridge made from rye bread and ale. The bread had been soaked in the ale for a while then pureed. Underneath there was milk foam and skyr sorbet. This dessert straddled the boundary between sweet and savory, reminiscent of Sam Mason's Beer and Pretzels dessert that he served at Tailor and I most recently had at a Sam Mason retrospective dinner at Aldea. Both desserts are definitely designed for adult palates and work extremely well for them.

 

Based on the previous night's dinner and the day's lunch, it is interesting to try to gauge how noma has changed over these recent years. While delicious proteins were served throughout both dinners, it struck me that over the past three years the emphasis of the plates has shifted away from the central proteins and more towards the supporting elements or vegetables as the main element on the plate. At lunch two of the savory courses lacked any visible or central animal protein, while at dinner there were four and those dishes that did possess significant animal protein, seemed to use them in more integrated ways, such as The Hen and the Egg, The Oyster and the Sea and the Dried Scallops with Watercress and Biodynamic Grains. As the animal proteins appear to have receded from their centrality, the dishes have also become even more sophisticated. Of course one dinner and a lunch is not enough evidence to commit to such a sweeping conclusion, but these are the impressions I was left with after our too brief journey into the cuisine of noma.

I was left with even more impressions and thoughts about this wonderful restaurant. The food at noma is delicious, original, beautiful and of a place. The service is friendly, warm, efficient and extremely professional. The space is warm, inviting and comfortable. It is no wonder that Rene Redzepi and his restaurant have become popular, but I believe that what makes it resonate so deeply with its diners goes beyond that. noma merges modern sophistication, elegance, luxury and comfort with something more elemental or even primal. With an emphasis on such things as roots, rocks, seaweed, raw food, red food, marrow, eating with hands, skins on the chairs, woodsy interior, foraging, pine, berries, wildflowers and more, noma taps in to atavistic tendencies that run deep in our collective psyche. It strikes a deep chord. That it is done so well helps that chord ring loud and true, making for a very powerful and visceral response from most diners. In a sense, as modern diners, we have a restaurant in which can have our cake and can eat it too. We have a very sophisticated restaurant that comfortably allows us to deeply respond to deep primal culinary instincts.This time we left noma not having the consolation of returning for yet another meal there in a few hours. That was indeed very sad, but we still had some other things to look forward to.

Chris Lilly's Alabama Pulled Pork

I have never had a better pulled pork sandwich than the one I had at Big Bob Gibson's at this year's Big Apple BBQ Block Party. With a little bit of their habanero bbq sauce, it had great texture, moisture and great balanced pork flavor. It is easy to see why Chris Lilly and the Big Bob Gibson's stand has been one of the most popular stands at teh Big Apple BBQ from its inception.

In this video Chris Lilly reminisces about the 1st Big Apple BBQ Block Party and puts on a show chopping pork!

Chris Lilly: Pulled Pork the Alabama Way from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

Burgoo and Mutton BBQ - Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn

There are no slouches serving BBQ at The Big Apple BBQ Block Party. The best of the best serving various regional styles come to represent their genres and regions. Most of the stands have been making this an annual tradition. New to the Block party this year and a stand-out for both the quality and uniqueness of their Q was Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn from Owensboro, Kentucky. Mutton BBQ is big in Kentucky, more so than anywhere else, while burgoo was recently named the state dish of Kentucky.

I happened to be visiting the Moonlite Bar-B-Q booth at the same time as Danny Meyer, the CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group and the founder of The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, which this year celebrated its 8th year. Mr. Meyer graciously let me record his conversation with Moretta and Ken Bosley of Moonlite. Thanks to all three, with this brief video, I hope that you will learn a little more about these wonderful regional foods and the most well known maker of them.

Moonlite Bar-B-Q at The Big Apple BBQ from John Sconzo on Vimeo.

noma at Corton: Redzepi Meets Liebrandt

We arrived at Corton for our 9:30PM reservation to find a festive atmosphere. When Mario Batali arises from his seat at the next table to pull out the chair for one of my dining partners and intones, "Welcome to Corton," you know it is bound to be a wonderful evening! Indeed, scanning the room to see Drew Nieporent (of course), Jeffrey Steingarten, Daniel Humm, Anya Von Bremzen, Christina Tosi, Jon Bignelli (WD-50 Chef de Cuisine), Batali and others, I was awed by the company we were in. But then scanning my own table, I was awed by the company I had there. Along with my wife and two eldest sons, I was joined by Alex Talbot and Linda Anctil, two good friends of mine and a couple of the absolute finest bloggers and culinarians out there. It was a social crowd too, as people took the time to chat from table to table as well as amongst themselves. It turned out that I was sitting directly behind one of the world's great bon vivant's, the admirable FoodSnob, to whom I was introduced by none other than Rene Redzepi himself.Food Snob had come from London for this dinner and was sitting with a number of gentlemen who had traveled even further - from Australia. His account of two recent meals at noma is amongst the most salivatory meal accounts I've ever read. The fun and revelry continued as I got to meet and taste some of the personal wines of the generous Eddie Milstein. Adding to the scheduled wines of the evening, I got to enjoy 1981, 1985 and 1989 Krug Champagnes in addition to the wines served with the meal.

 

While the camaraderie was fun and helped make the evening even more special, the center of the evening remained the food. While my son, L.J. had eaten at noma, none of the rest of us at the table had. We all had high expectations. Often that can be a signal for a let down. Fortunately, on this evening it was not.

 

The meal opened with terracotta pot with Cru de Te's, Small vegetables," a new noma classic. The dish consisted of a whole radish "planted" in herbed yogurt with crunchy "dirt" that was comprised of roasted malt. This was a clever, fun and tasty start to the evening. It was paired a "Blanc Souverain Champagne from Henriot (NV). Had I not just been spoiled by the Krugs, this would have been a very attractive champagne.

A sensible conceit was that the plates were served by staff from the restaurant of origin. Redzepi's dishes were served by his staff and Liebrandt's by the Corton staff. Not only were the respective staff members better able to present the dishes, the practice also provided a clue to the dish's creator, which may not have been otherwise evident to the uninitiated, such as my son Andrew, who had previously never been to either noma or Corton. For those who had been to either, the styles and ingredients were give-aways as the the styles of the chefs are distinct. While they may be different in terms of how and what they put on the plate, Redzepi's and Liebrandt's cooking is not at all uncomplimentary to each other.

 

The next dish, Tar-tar of Beef and Wood Sorrel, was distinctly unlike anything I have ever eaten in a fine dining restaurant. Other than the unusual request that we scoop up the beef and sorrel with our fingers and mix it with the green sauce and ground juniper, the flavor profile highlighted a deliriously wonderful sour element from the sorrel and yogurt based sauce. This element of sour was much stronger in Redzepi's food than I have encountered anywhere else so far in fine dining, but while present and strong it wasn't overpowering or off-putting. I loved it. It was well balanced with the rich beef and the forest-evoking elements of the juniper and wood greens. While the radish was clever and tasty, this was brilliant in its sheer power, taste and audaciousness. The dish was well-paired with Domaine Weinbach Sylvaner 2008 from the Alsace, which also carried over to the next course.

Continuing with some wonderfully muted sour notes, this dish, Cooked Grains and Watercress, Dried Scallops, was also a textural tour-de-force.  The scallops had been sliced razor thin and slowly dried, maintaining their inherent sweetness. Combined with the hardy texture and depth of flavor of the grains and the spicy sharpness of the watercress, this was another sensational offering from this spring's noma menu.

Corton's waitstaff brought the next plate, Foie Gras, Cherries, Fresh Chamomile.  Paul Liebrandt has made his foie gras encased in beetroot gelee into a signature dish and a very worthy one. It has been fun to watch (and taste) its evolution since I first saw it at the initial Starchef's ICC in 2006. Its most recent iteration has been as a sort of culinary trompe l'oiel, playing off bing cherries. It's a dish that works very well, especially when the cherries are the quality of those on the plate, which came from Frog Hollow Farm in California. The addition of chamomile in the cherries to the dish's palette made for a brilliant twist to the the sweet cherries, while the slightly acidic apple orb in the center of the plate provided a tart counterpoint. The course came with a side plate of brioche with morel butter. My son, L.J., found the dish to be perhaps the best he had ever had.

The next course was the last savory course from Redzepi. The Slow Roasted carrot with Sorrel Stems and Truffle Sauce used a rare heirloom Scandinavian "blue" carrot. Much like the parsnip, I had earlier this year at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a typically humble root vegetable was elevated to something truly special. While difficult to photograph, the dish was not at all difficult to eat - rich, savory, green and ultimately sublime. It paired nicely with a deep, bitter Mikkeller India Pale Ale "Cascade Single Hop" from Denmark/Belgium, a unique microbrew using European technique and Washington State hops brought by the noma crew for this purpose.

 

Liebrandt was not going to be outdone. He served the principle protein of the evening, Elysian Fields Farm Lamb, Yogurt Gnocchi, Spiced Mole that also came with a lime foam and a side plate of a hot sweetbread served with arugula and a "Mint Ice." a disc of frozen peppermint cream, that melted atop the sweetbread. The lamb was extraordinary. It had a bone marrow cap on it. Shown to us at the table prior to portioning, the lamb was tender and deeply flavorful. The molé added a little bite, while the yogurt gnocchi added a diverse flavor element while also cooling the palate.

Redzepi's dessert, Dried Berries and Walnut also contained an ice cream. Sweet, but not too sweet, the walnut flavor was in perfect harmony with its surroundings. Not ordinarily a nut favored by me, this dessert shone it in a new and stunning light.

 

Robert Truitt's Gold Bar with chocolate, Pedro Jimenez and smoked caramel ice cream completed the menu. Truitt is one of the most talented pastry chefs out there and this delicious and beautiful dessert showed it.

 

Another piece of evidence of Truitt's outstanding pastry talent is the amazing petit-fours that come from the Corton kitchen including the gelees, macarons and chocolate bon-bons. I had to taste each despite being quite full.  The most amazing ones though (and I don't know if these were from noma or Corton) were "marrow" bones filled with smoked caramel. The bones were quite real, but the caramels were unreal - heavy smoked balanced the sweetness beautifully. These were a revelation and a fantastic way to finish a fantastic evening.

Corton has been one of my favorite restaurants anywhere since I first dined there shortly after it first opened. It has provided me with some of the finest meals I've had over the past few years. This was no different. While my interest in dining at noma was high before, it is raging now. I can't wait to get there!

ed. note: Corton's usual no photos policy was waived for this event. Even Drew Nieporent was walking around with a small hand-held video camera!

Ferdinando's Fabulous Focacceria

 

Ferdinando's Focacceria has seemingly been around forever. While it has existed since well before I was born, it has  been in its current site on Union Street in Brooklyn only since 1904. I grew up with the place and its classic street food directly from Palermo and I am more than happy to say that while the neighborhood has changed considerably, the food at Ferdinando's hasn't. It is still wonderful and more unique in NYC than ever.

 

Visiting the area with my son, L.J., to attend the Omnivore events at The Invisible Dog on Bergen Street between Smith and Court, we slipped over to Ferdinando's late this past Friday afternoon for a quick snack. The decor is not a retro throwback from an earlier era - it is the earlier era, harkening to the neighborhood's 20th century mostly Italian-American roots. There is nothing fancy about it, but it is honest. Indeed, while we were there, there were a couple of older men from the neighborhood, sitting, eating and speaking Italian dialect to each other.

 

The temptation to get more than a snack was great, but we stuck to our guns and shared a panelle special sandwich and a huge arrancino. The panelle special sandwich from Ferdinando's is pure comfort food to me. Fresh, crisp fried panelle (flat chick-pea flour fritters) are bedded on a hot, crisp sesame roll and covered in fresh ricotta and shaved cacciocavallo cheese. The blend of textures, flavors and temperatures makes for an incomparably delicious sandwich.

 

The arrancino (rice ball) made from risotto Milanese rice balled around chopped meat ragu and fried to a crisp golden brown is preternaturally large. How these don't fall apart in the process of cooking is a small miracle, but they most certainly do not.

 

 We were tempted to eat more, but we had dinner plans with friends, so we grudgingly refrained. I hope Ferdinando's will be there forever. It deserves to be.

 

Turkish Pistachios

My son, L.J., just returned from  an extended trip studying Geography at Charles University in Prague.  During his nearly three months there he seized the opportunity to travel and explore as much as he could. One of the more fascinating places he visited was Istanbul, a city he absolutely loved. Though he did not bring me a t-shirt, he managed to bring something a bit better - Turkish pistachios. These pistachios are different than any I have ever had before. They are smaller, very flavorful and quite buttery on the finish. I'm not sure that I can say that I prefer them to some of the best pistachios I have ever eaten, such as those from Bronte in Sicily, but I can't really say the reverse either. It never fails to fascinate me, how one thing can be so different when it comes from different places. While terroir is certainly a hallmark of great wines, it is less commonly considered in other areas, but it is no less profound. It is diversity like this within a species as much as diversity between species that help keeps life interesting

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.

Sam Mason's Greatest Hits at Aldea

Sam Mason first came to my attention when he opened WD-50 with Wylie Dufresne. At the time Sam was the pastry chef and was combining savory elements into his desserts in amazing ways, blurring the lines between them, but always maintaining a focus. After a few years at WD-50, having built a reputation as one of the most creative and best pastry chefs in the business,  Mason left to open his own restaurant, Tailor, this time as the head chef. The food remained creative as ever with Mason now incorporating sweet elements into traditionally savory parts of the meal as well as his trademark of savory elements into the sweet, doing both with consummate balance and style. Along with an exceptional, creative cocktail program, Mason's food and the ambiance at Tailor made it into one of my favorite restaurants. Every aspect of a meal there was delicious and fun. Somehow though, the restaurant still didn't survive. Mason left it last summer  and both the restaurant and bar have since closed. Since  Mason left, he has been busy with a cable tv show combining his love of cooking with his love of music and he recently announced plans to open a casual bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As of now, Mason is not letting on as to whether he harbors plans to get back into the restaurant business. For this night though, he would be performing some of his greatest hits from Tailor at Aldea, the restaurant of his good friend, George Mendes. Helping him out would be a few of his old kitchen band-members from Tailor including Francis Derby, Mason's opening kitchen partner at Tailor and Ryan Bartlow, the former sous chef at Tailor and current chef of Bar Carrera. In addition to the kitchen connection, another connection is Heather Laiskonis, the former GM of Tailor and current GM of Aldea.

The night would start with a cocktail hour featuring two of the most famous cocktails from Tailor, The Waylon and the Smithers featured alongside canapes from Chef Mendes' Aldea repertoire. The uni toast, shrimp alinho, oysters, steelhead trout roe and other goodies did a wonderful job of satisfying my acute hunger, while the yuzu-based Smithers and smoked-Coke based Waylon quenched my cocktail lust. Those cocktails were wonderful and fully representative of the cocktail prowess of Tailor and its former head Mixologist Eben Freeman. The one Tailor cocktail that stood above all others for though was the Huitlacoche Margarita, which sadly for me was not on the menu. No matter, though, for the two that were were well beyond satisfying.

As the cocktail hour wound down, we were seated at our table facing the kitchen, which was a beehive of activity, as one might imagine given they would be feeding approximately 70 or so people from a set tasting menu.

 

I had eaten at Tailor a few times over the course of its existence. A few of the dishes, but not all were familiar to me from those times. The others were like exciting new cuts on a greatest hits album. The wines were of Iberian origin, primarily Portuguese, fusing some of Aldea's culinary personality into Mason's.

The first dish, scallop with red papaya, spice bread and tarragon was new to me and a delight. The fruit added a touch of tropical sweetness, but not too much, a hallmark of Mason's cooking. I generally don't like foods that are unbalanced towards sweetness, but with this dish, as it was throughout the meal, the level of sweetness was always spot on - enough to provide depth and balance, but not so much as to dominate or overwhelm.

Foie Gras with cocoa, peanut and pear is a Mason classic. This dish once again provided superb balance, but also displayed Mason's expert and appropriate use of hypermodern technique. This was apparent not only with his treatment of the foie gras, which was somewhat reminiscent of a flour-less chocolate cake, but also with the desiccated and pulverized peanut butter accompaniment. The other significant embellishment to this dish was the presence of green peanuts, which added textural contrast as well as a relatively unusual treatment of an otherwise overly familiar ingredient. The 10 year old Bual Madeira from Cossart Gordon was a perfect accompaniment.

The arctic char with passion fruit, lime pickle and coconut was another old favorite from Tailor . The sous-vide cooked char melted with the sweet-tart passionfruit in a way that was swoon worthy. The added layers of dried coconut enhanced the tropical treatment of this cold-water fish as did the lime pickle. Served along with this dish was a chilled Periquita, Terras dos Sadas red from JM Fonseca. The high acid wine  from a tropical clime, suffered its chill well and provided an admirable pairing for the fish.

Mason's Pork Belly with miso butterscotch, artichoke and green apple is a spectacular dish and perhaps his most well known. The piece of belly on my and my tablemates' plates was simply beautiful and delicious, amply illustrating Mason's skill of balancing flavors, ingredients and textures. Interestingly, we had some different viewpoints at our table regarding the details of the dish and the kinds of flavors we were encountering. In particular, whether there was much or any sense of smoke within the ingredients as well as whether or not the artichokes had been pickled. The point is that as delicious as the dish was, it was also quite complex and surprisingly difficult to pick apart even with experienced diners. This was wonderfully paired with another JM Fonseca wine, this time the Moscato from Setúbal Peninsula.

I'll never forget the first time I had Mason's Beer and Pretzels at Tailor. I was with my wife and our sons. The dish was shockingly good then in the way it not only picked up the flavors, but enhanced them so that even in the form of ice cream and foam, the dish was better than any beer and pretzels I'd ever had. It still is!

Has any single food item been more prominent over the last five to ten years than bacon? Mason's tribute to the salty and smoky combination of protein, salt and fat added some sugar, flour fun to come up with his Bacon Cake with cornbread ice cream, blueberry and maple served with El Maestro Sierra 15 Años oloroso Sherry. The precise balance and pleasure of this dessert provides a clear example of how nobody combines the sweet and the savory better than Sam Mason.

Our final nibble of the night was perhaps the most intense for me and the clearest example yet of the mastery that Mason holds over the balance of flavor. A simple looking, one bite chorizo caramel provided the absolute essence of one of my favorite flavor combinations and did so with only the faintest hint of sweetness. This was the perfect bite to end this meal with as it combined Mason's magic touch with the Iberian essence of Aldea.

 

With two of my favorite people and chefs in the kitchen of one of my favorite restaurants, this was a dinner I was looking forward to from the moment I first heard it was happening. With my wife and two more of my favorite people, Joe Bavuso and Linda of Playing With Fire and Water joining me, I looked forward to the evening even more. Since I started this blog, I have been fortunate to have dined several times at Aldea and have chronicled those meals here. Unfortunately, I didn't get to chronicle my meals at Tailor on this blog as they preceded the blog. On this evening, I was lucky enough to experience,enjoy and chronicle both! To me, the evening was priceless. That the cost per person was only $110 including all food and beverage but exclusive of tax and gratuity made it an absolute steal. It was more than worth that plus the three hour drive each way!

George Mendes and Aldea are making beautiful culinary music right now and George is compiling many of his own greatest hits. I hope and expect that those hits will continue to mount over time. I very much enjoyed this time to re-experience the culinary hits of Sam Mason.I now look forward to the time he gets back in the kitchen to create more culinary music. I certainly hope to be there when he does.

Crawfish Right as Rayne

One doesn't find a restaurant as representative of its place as much as Hawk's very often. Hawk's,located  in Rayne, Louisiana and  open only five months of the year during crawfish season, is, in their own estimation, "in the middle of nowhere!" While it is not the easiest place to find, it is most certainly located somewhere and that somewhere is in the middle of Louisiana crawfish country. Scott and Tanya Boswell brought us there to fill out our Louisiana experience.

Another hint of how much this restaurant speaks of its place was the spurs on the boots of a number of the regular customers, both male and female. This is a restaurant the locals come to for their crawfish. The room is large, spare and for the most part unadorned. Incongruously for a family oriented restaurant, one must go through the bar to get to the rest rooms. This would not be such a big deal were it not for the sign posted by the entrance to the bar stating "no children allowed."

Needless to say, the draw here is the crawfish, big, plump and flavorful. Unlike most places that purge their crawfish only briefly in salt water, Hawk's does so for up to a full 24 hours using a system developed at Texas A&M and put into place at Hawk's by the late L.H. "Hawk" Arceneaux, who first opened the restaurant in 1983. Previously, the family had farmed crawfish, but soon after the restaurant opened, they put all their energy into that. Many of the crawfish they use still come from the property they once owned, however. The result of their purging efforts, which use clean, local non-chlorinated groundwater, is non-gritty and non-muddy, full flavored crawfish. These crawfish form the basis of their boils, which they offer three ways, mild, hot and with jalapeño. We ordered the hot. These were delectable and addictive. We started with a five pound platter, quickly moved through that and followed it with another. The advantage of ordering them to follow one another is to keep them fresh and hot. The spice mix was just right.

Our 10 y/o son, not knowing what to expect asked for fried crawfish. These were very good too, but the real stars were the boiled ones, something he learned very quickly once they arrived and he tried one. Potatoes and corn were also available a la carte. We stayed away from the potatoes wanting to save precious room, but the corn, served initially too hot to eat, was a delicious and satisfying adjunct to the spicy crawfish.

Bread pudding for dessert also rocked. This place is the real deal, serving great, down home food, albeit a little out of the way for anyone who doesn't actually live in Rayne. I haven't tried enough crawfish boils to say definitively that this is the best there is, but I find it hard to imagine that there could be better or more fun places for it. Open from January until about mid-May (until it gets too hot and the crawfish start burrowing) from Wednesday to Sunday - evenings only.