Another Trip to the ER

We work in a very dangerous profession. I have had some bad kitchen accidents. My major accident happened when I was 17. I was breaking the line when another cook dropped boiling pasta water down my leg. As I peeled my pants off my skin went with it. I spent 2 days in the ER and 2 months in therapy. I have also had numerous stitches and third degree burns in my career. Yesterday I was making pumpkin noodles for the tasting menu. When I was filling a tube the hot mixture exploded into my eye. I ended up with second degree burns to my cornea. Normal people would take the day off but I have a VIP party today and the competition tonight. My Halloween costume has been decided for me this year. I will be a pirate hahahahaha

Coffee Bubbles

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I have a competition this week at DU on Thursday. It should be pretty fun, we did it last year and had a great time. We are going through a lot of changes in the hotel. We have a new F&B director and our GM just gave notice. There seems to be a lot of tension here. It is certainly not the same hotel I started to work at 3 years ago. It has been tough for me here because I do not share the same philosophies as other managers here. It is hard to build something up only to see it fall apart when you are not there. Hopefully something will give in the next couple of months??

Mignonette Jelly
House smoked trout, caper bubbles, lavosh cream

Apple Cider Consommé
Pumpkin noodles, floating sage, chicken and bacon

Kombu space foam

Green olive braised short rib
Marinated tomato sheet, anchovy aioli, eggplant

Trick or Treat ice cream
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Mckinley-Thatcher Demo

The proudest moment of this demo is when I asked the class how they thought I made the strawberry noodles. After hearing some very interesting answers, my 7 year old daughter told the class verbatim how I made them for her 1 1/2 ago. I was a bubbling dad

Chapstick Compound Butter

I love a good compound butter on steak. The problem is if the kitchen or waitstaff timing is off, you might end up with a pool of broken butter by the time it reaches the table. I wanted to make a container that would allow the guest to control when the butter was applied to the steak. I thought about a chapstick container and how you can regulate how much product comes out. I got some clean chapstick tubes and filled it with the compound butter. Now the guest can control exactly how much butter goes on their steak

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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

Lucky Charms Ice Cream

I read an article recently when Heston from the Fat Duck talked about how are memories effect how we enjoy our meals. It is impossible to know how a persons eating habbits are when they are growing up. What did their mom make for a after school snack? Did their mom like shake and bake or was she more of a griller. I have served a dish to people who swear it taste like something their mom used to make. As chefs we either build a food memory or remind someone of a meal in their past. It is amazing how one meal can effect someone so much. Along those lines lucky charms is a food memory for me. This week we will do a breakfast dessert with this lucky charms ice cream that is garnished with nitro cereal.

Fox 31

I did a quick demo about the space foam course for project pave on Sunday. I like doing live TV, you never know what will happen or who you will run into. I was waiting in the green room to go on and in walks Stifler from American Pie. He was a pretty funny guy, he ended up doing a weather segment that was hilarious.

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We have a very busy week ahead. I am doing a demo on Fox news in the morning. We have the legacy foundation event here at the hotel on Friday. We have a separate 125 person dinner that we are handling in a banquet room on Saturday. I also have the passed app course at Strings for Project pave on Sunday. We are beginning to work on some Fall menus this week.

Smoked olive oil poached line caught tuna
Black garlic pesto, macadamia nuts, pea shoots

Roasted plum vinaigrette sheet
Portabella, dry corn powder, mache

NY wrapped tenderloin
Blueberry, pumpkin au gratin, chocolate

Sugar poached egg on French toast
Lucky charms ice cream
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Coconut bubble gum

Banana Split

Brulee banana, maraschino cherry sphere stuffed with whipped cream, frozen chocolate-vanilla-strawberry powders, caramel dipped cherries

Foie Gras Taco Shell

I have been on a taco shell kick the past couple of months. I think it is a form that everyone is comfortable with. I wanted to make a shell using foie. I used a old tweel recipe and substituted some foie for butter. The trick is keeping ever thing emulsified and adding the egg whites in stages so you don't break the batter. The batter must be chilled overnight and spread very thin when it is cooked. I had to use a ounce scale for the recipe, my new gram scale should be coming any day.

Recipe

4.8 oz Foie, cleaned

1.6 oz Butter,soft

2 ea Egg whites

.2 oz Honey

1 tbl. Black pepper

1 oz Powder sugar

.5 oz Oatmeal ground

3 oz Flour

1/4 tsp. Salt

Place the Foie gras in a small mixing bowl with the butter. Beat with a paddle attachment until the mixture is soft. Add 1 egg white at a time so it does not break the batter. Add the rest of the ingredients and whip for 1 minute. Cool and spread on a silt pad. Bake at 325 for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Mold over a whisk handle to get the taco shape

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I am finally ordering my commercial vacuum sealer. It only took 15 months of constant harassment to our controller. It is a 4000$ piece of equipment so I understand why it took so long. I had to show him that it was not a toy for me to play with but a necessary piece of equipment to extend shelf like of products. I made the case and my sealer should be here (to play with) in a couple of weeks. We went to the Shamrock food show today. I go to check out any cool new products. The only thing I saw was a berry that taste just like a kiwi. It was amazing, I will get some in for the tasting next week. It blows my mind that it is the same crap every year. They just add another flavor and put the same product in a different box.

Kampachi sashimi
Tobiko noodles, rice wine foam, soy dippin dots

Compressed ratatouille vegetables
Spicy octopus, fried olives, yogurt aioli

Blood orange space foam

Sou-vide truffle honey and organic chicken
Artichoke macaroni, brussel sprouts, tarragon air

Coffee crepe filled with amaretto mousse
Served with brown sugar ice cream
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Pre-school Demo

I like to cook for kids, more then grumpy adults. They are so open to trying new things. We made strawberry ice cream and 40 second chocolate cake for the kids in my daughters pre-school class. I always wonder what will these kids eat when they are my age. Will we still have all of the choices we enjoy today?

Key Lime Pie

Baked key lime foam wrapper, graham cracker ice cream,

cream cheese mousse, dehydrated tropical fruits, coconut powder, mint gel

Tobiko and White Soy Noodles

Hatch Chili

This is my favorite time of year. It is starting to get a little colder and the hatch chili stands line Federal here in Denver. All you do is pull into one of these road side stands and pick your chili. They usually have around 10 different kinds. They then load them in a giant propane tumbler and roast them to order. They put the roasted chilli's in a giant plastic bag and send you on your way. The smell is the best part, earthy and sweet. You can freeze the peppers and have them all through the winter. My favorite is putting them on flat bread with scrambled eggs, caramelized onions and siracha.

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We are doing a course to honor Paul Newman's passing this week. I had the chance to meet him ounce when I was a young kid. I will always remember how nice he was. On those same lines my wife and I were talking about some things we can do to give back. First I am going to start making the rounds at some local schools. I think it is a great way to get kids involved in the arts. If you know of any class that might be interested in a molecular demo please email me. The next way is to utilize all of our 1/2 acre property at our house next year by growing as much produce as we can. We then plan to make soups and hand them out at the mission downtown. We will freeze most of what we make so we can give during the really cold months. It was nice to be able to bring some produce in for my specials but it will be even better to hand out a warm bowl of soup to someone that really needs it.

Smoked Tasmanian pepper sausage
Homemade ricotta, onion jelly, Guinness reduced romas

New Mexico hatch chili’s
Dover sole, Spanish rice flan, avocado jel

Newman’s own popcorn space foam

Warm foie gras mayo
Crispy crab, shitake, zucchini

Goat’s milk and Mexican vanilla ice cream
Rolled in crispy tortilla with frozen caramel powder
Made table side with liquid nitrogen

Yogurt with Avacado and Strawberry

The Sausage Experiment

I have not done a lot of charcuterie since culinary school. I wanted to make a sausage using some new ingredients that I have been playing with. In this recipe dry milk has been replaced with butter powder. Eggs have been replaced with methocel and I am using Tasmanian peppercorns to achieve a earthy spicy quality. These sausages will cure for 48 hours and then we will smoke them in Cherry wood.

Recipe

2 lb Lean beef trimmings ground

1.5 lb Lean pork ground

1.5 lb Pork trimmings ground

1.4 oz Salt

2 oz Butter powder

1 oz Sugar

.05 oz Nutmeg

.3 oz Tasmanian black pepper ground

.05 oz Cardamon ground

2 oz Elephant garlic roasted and pureed

100 g Water

12 g Methocel SGA7C

1/16 tsp Sodium nitrite

3/4 tsp Sodium nitrate

Sheep casings

Heat the water and add the methocel. Pulse with a buerre mixer for 3 minutes. Let it stand for 5 minutes and pulse again. Add all ingredients in a mixer and mix on low speed for 3 minutes. Place in a bowl over another bowl of ice to keep mixture cold. Fill the casings and leave them to cure in the walk-in for 2 days. To finish, poach the sausages for 20 minutes and then cold smoke them for 1 hour

Basil Taco Shell

When I am making a menu I think about items that I have made successfully before and how they can be changed into a texture that I want. I wanted a crispy basil shell that can be picked up and eaten. When I make the onion glass recipe from Ideas in Food, I come up with a slightly taffy like texture. To get the crispy texture I want I added crumiel (honey) powder instead of honey. This will hopefully give me a crispier texture. After experimenting with ratios a few times, this is the finished basil shell

Recipe

200 grams basil picked from the stems

100 grams sliced onions

30 grams crumiel powder
50 grams glucose

3 grams salt

50 grams water

3 grams Green sosa natural food coloring

100 grams water

Place all ingredients except the 2nd water in a saucepan. Reduce on medium heat until all of the water is cooked out. Place the solids in a blender with the second amount of water pulse for 3 minutes. Cool in the walk-in for 1 hour. Spray a silt pan and spoon a small amount of paste onto the silt pad. Work into a circles with a spatula. Cook in a 210 degree oven for 2 hours. Remove and place over the end of a whisk to get the taco shape.

A day off, finally

Took a few days off this week to try to settle the voices in my head. Chefs love to golf, it is a chance to get out and hit something really hard. On my attempt to play this week I did something I have never seen before. A hole in one, yea right. How about hitting a ball so high that it almost buried itself in the green. Wouldn't this be a cool dish??

Sorbet dish being frozen

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I am posting the menu early this week because I am going to take a few extra days off. I will be here for service on Thursday. It is football time again which means a lot of pro and college teams in the hotel. I can't believe how much food these guys pack away. We had a offensive line guy that put away 8 full omelette's one morning. Has anyone used alum powder? Ratios, recipes?

Heirloom cherry tomatoes
Basil taco shell, yogurt powder, blue cheese jelly

Smoked salmon caviar
Potato latkes, hot sour cream ice cream, pear salad

Minted earl grey sorbet
Made tableside with liquid nitrogen

Chimichurri sheet
Berbere pork, baby corn, red pepper

Miracle fruit pill
Citrus segments, mascarpone, soy bubbles

The miracle fruit pill

I obtained some pure miracle powder off the black market when I ordered my pills fromhttp://www.miraclefruitworld.com/.

Today I got some neutral fizz powder fromhttp://www.le-sanctuaire.com/Whats next? How about a gelatin pill you put in your mouth. As it dissolves the fizz powder is released on your tongue and the properties of the miracle fruit go to work.


The powder I got was very wet. In order to dry it out I added tapioca maltodextrin and gave it a few turns in the blender. I then mixed it with the fizz powder and loaded my pill machine. I will pair the pill with some citrus surprises for the next menu.

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The 40 second chocolate cake recipe comes from El Bulli. It is a cake batter you add to a isi container with a charge and foam it into a plastic cup that is microwaved for 40 seconds. My wife and I had a great meal at Black Pearl last night from James. It looks like he will be gone soon though. Hopefully we can hook up and cook some day, He is very talented.

Ripe plantains
Guava, aged provolone, scallop ceviche

Pork and champagne pate
Caper sphere, Gewürztraminer foam, alder smoked honey

Sou-vide Snapper
Nitrogen broken vegetables, tobiko powder, yam noodles

40 second cake
Chocolate textures, Lime ice cream made table side
With liquid nitrogen

Mont Blanc field trip

Michael Szyliowicz invited my wife and I to his office on Colfax. We did not know what to expect, was it a factory or a tasting room? To my surprise and delight it was a lab. Here Michael and his mom come up with the ideas for new products. They give there ideas to Nina who is a product development specialist. She uses computer programs and her knowledge of product development with companies like Kraft to invent their chocolate syrup line that is used by some of the largest coffee shops in the World. I talked to Micheal about everything from packaging to distribution to ingredients sourcing. It was inspiring how they picked 1 product and how they make that product the best in the world. If I concentrated on one of my ideas would I have the same effect? They had a whole wall of bags of powders that looked very familiar to me. It was very interesting talking about how my molecular work and product development are so closely related.

Michael gave me a line of their products for a dinner that the company will have here in December. Can't wait to play around with these flavors. I can say this is a carrer that I would love to go into in the furure

http://www.montblancgourmet.com/index.html

Isomalt garnishes

Here are 2 easy garnishes that give dramatic effects to plated desserts or buffest. We heat isomalt with a small amount of red food coloring and water. We cook the mixture to 320 degrees. We then pour the sugar mixture into a pale of sugar and a bucket of ice. These are the shapes you get. Store these garnishes in a air tight container with limestone. Humidity will kill your sugar work.

Frozen champagne foam

Display ice

When I first came out of high school I was a practical joker. I use to freeze other cooks knives, clogs or uniforms into a solid block of ice on their days off. They would see their suspended items sitting in their work area when they came in. I found in my playing around that if you use hot water you get a clear frozen block Here at the hotel to garnish our raw bar we would freeze muscle shells, pineapple tops or whatever else that was going to be thrown away. Now we color the ice with food coloring. Each night we take the left over unmelted blocks and freeze them into each other. We yield these amazing rainbow patterns that catch your eye when you walk-in. The best part is that there is no cost involved. You could also make a ice plate the same way to present a cold dish or dessert.

September 11 2001

I will always remember that day. I woke up and got ready to go to work at the Hilltop cafe. I was holding my 3 month old daughter as I turned the TV on. As many other people did, I dropped to my knees and watched in disbelief. My thoughts and prayers today are with the famlies of the workers from Windows on the World.

Green bamboo rice pudding won tons

Frozen sweet soy powder

Yuzu blueberry sorbet

Nitro berries

Jason Sheehan's take on miracle fruit

http://blogs.westword.com/cafesociety/2008/09/unusual_things_ive_put_in_my_m.php

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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