Tasting menu 74

I have some interesting projects coming up in the next couple of weeks. I have been asked by the miracle fruit company I work with to come to New York on the 12th of February to help them at the NY Academy of Sciences. We will present the miracle fruit along with some samples of products you can take with it. I am very excited to go knowing that Harold McGee will be there. I also received a email this week from http://www.countrybobs.com/ asking if I would try and wright about their product. First of all I am a steak sauce freak. My favorite is mixing a little Heinz with A-1 and a little ketchup. I swear that Bob has nailed that flavor combo in this bottle. I don't think he had a flan in mind when he sent it to me but I will do his sauce proud. I am also getting ready for my Will Powder demo this next week

Sous-vide pork
Smoked sugar, apple, fried sour cream

Peanut butter daqoius
Grape jelly gastrique, line caught tuna, compressed watercress

Floating kampachi sashimi

Tenderloin-New York-Ribeye-Lamb chop-Sirloin steak
Country Bob’s steak sauce flan, parsnip, asparagus powder

Flexible raisins and carrot foam with cream cheese ice cream
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Tasting menu 59

Last week sucked. Hopefully this week I will have a little more time to get some stuff done. I am doing a demo at my other daughters school today. We will make strawberry noodles with watermelon ice cream, blueberry pop rocks and fizzy whip cream. We had a great event at Strings on Sunday. It was nice to see Aaron and his crew. We ended up making foie gras tacos with Peking duck and hoison tomatoes. We have a lot of reservations for the tasting menu this week. If you are coming in late please specify that you want the tasting menu. We have been running out and I want to make sure I prep enough for everyone.

Last tomatoes from my garden
Prosciutto cream, hazelnuts, balsamic textures

Carbonated black plums
Berbere shrimp, yuzu, yogurt powder

Port Space Foam

Sou-vide New York and truffle salt
Pepper butter chap stick, stewed cipollini in duck fat, tarragon

Pineapple and candy ginger ice cream
With baby kiwi made table side
With liquid nitrogen

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We have a few chefs coming up this week to hang out and check out some techniques. It looks like I will be teaching a demo at The Cooking School of the Rockies on November 2. I will post more information when I get a final date.

Tasting menu

Confit organic chicken
Colorado corn waffle, shattered jalapeño whipped cream, maple air

Watermelon consommé
Sou-vide shrimp, black garlic dumpling, scallion pearls

Chicken skin wrapped tenderloin
Béarnaise blanket, beets, flexible asparagus

Chocolate éclair
Crispy choux paste, pastry cream dippin dots
Ganache ice cream made tableside with liquid nitrogen

New menu

We have been working on a new menu this week. There is a lot to coordinate in this hotel. Tastings, Costing, Pictures, Recipes, Prep schedules, Sourcing ingredients, Training, Printing of menus ( house and room service), Menu roll out, Quality control, Basically a lot of shit. Twice as much if I was in a independent. Here menus must be costed to the penny, at a independent I usually took the price of the protein and made a educated guess about the rest. I never took pictures in a independent because I was always there when we were open. Room service is a whole different animal. 300+ rooms with no kitchens and high expectations. Anyway I have been busy. Here are some examples of some molecular techniques that we are doing on our new menu:

Sou-vide salmon with edamame flan and curry carrots

123 degrees for 40 minutes with yuzu dill butter. Sear in hot oil to order

Colorado trout with beans, pancetta and whipped maple 7 oz pure maple, 1 oz molasses, 1/4 cup apple juice, 1/4 tsp xantham, 1 tbl. virsawhip 600

Fried baby artichokes with warm walnut mayo, cotija cheese, elephant garlic chips
6 eggs, 6 egg yolks, 1 cup walnut oil, 1 1/2 cup oil blend, 2 tbl Dijon, 2 tbl. Sherry1 tbl. salt, 1/2 cup parm grated fine, 1 Co2 charge, place in water bath of 120 degrees

Mojo jelly side sauce with oysters2 cups fresh lime juice, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup corn syrup, 8 sheets gelitan, 4 tsp. agar, 1/2 cup fresh mint chopped. Bloom gelitan, boil sugar, syrup, agar 2 minutes. Add gelitanand cool. Place in blender. Whip for 10 seconds. Remove and add mint

Southern peach sorbet made table side with liquid nitrogen with Merlot caviar and frozen thyme. 150 grams Merlot syrup, 50 grams water, 2 grams aliginate, 2.5 grams calcium chloride, 500 grams water. Place syrup, alginate and water in quart container and mix with hand blender. Place in a squeeze bottle. Put second water and calcium chloride in a different court container. Blend with hand blender. Drop small balls of Merlot syrup in calcium water. Remove after 2 minutes and rinse. Marinate in Merlot syrup.

Tasting menu 12

Very busy with parties in banquets this week. Hotel restaurant life has been truly opposite then independent. December has always been my money month but here it is one of the slowest. We are getting a nice local following though keeping the tasting menu busy. We will use our circulator a lot this menu.

Tasting menu 11

148.8 degree egg
Mushroom ravioli, pine nut glass, tarragon pesto

Green Beans
Pancetta oil, Cippolini skins, Whipped maple

Truffle Sou-vide Scallop
Edamame Gnocchi, Burnt vegetables, Foie gras Hollandaise

Liquid Nitrogen
Almonds, yogurt, honey, olive oil cake

Curry Bubble Gum

Marshmallow

There are alot of marshmallow recipes on the web. The one that I have been making for the last 3 years involves whipping egg whites with cream of tartar and adding boiling corn syrup and sugar mixture over the top in a mixer and whipping until it was set. This was a gelatin free recipe. I then came across the french laundry version that has gelatin. I liked the results from the french laundry's better. Versawhip is a chemical that is used in confectionery products to increase volume. I did not know when to incorporate the virsawhip until I found a pdf on http://www.kerrygroup.com/. They say to incorporate the virsawhip with the sugar and corn syrup before you cook it. We achieved about 20% more volume with the virsawhip. We made a yuzu pomegranate marshmallow.

Recipe:

21 g Gelatin

1/2 cup Cold water

2 cups Sugar

2/3 cup Corn syrup

1/4 cup Water

1 g Versawhip 600

10 oz Yuzu syrup

6 oz Pomegranite syrup

Place the gelatin and water in the mixing bowl of your kitchen aid. Add the sugar, corn syrup, water and virsawhip to a heavy duty saucepan. Cook until 250 degrees. Slowly pour in the sugar to the bowl while the beater is mixing. After 2 minutes add the yuzu juice. Layer in a glass casserole dish that is buttered and sprinkled with a lot of powdered sugar. Repeat the recipe adding the pomegranate syrup this time. Pour over the yuzu marshmallow and allow to set for 2 hours. Remove from dish and cut.