sticky fingers

Cycle Logik Party

2011-03-20T06:58:00.001-07:00

Here is a fun pic of the prep going into our canapes set up for Friday nights Cycle Logik spring sale event. This was a little different than the normal art show party. But it was fun none the less.
Not in my usual chef garb. It was little more informal on Friday. And really after setting out the bites I really wanted to enjoy the party. If you weren't there, be sure to attend the next one. It's always fun.
Menu:

Shrimp and chorizo paella cake with romesco
Tuna tartar in Lebanese Cucumber with avocado and chili
Pork shoulder confit with polenta and Caramel apple BBQ sauce
Ratatouille in phyllo with goat cheese mousse
Seared rare tenderloin with black olive, blue, and fennel candy

Cheers

Turkey thigh with morels and black trumpets

2011-03-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

Seems I have trumpet and morel mushrooms around a fair bit lately. Leftovers for chef dinners are always nice. This one was tasty.

Do you know what I am?

2011-03-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

The first person who can tell me what this is, gets it. Go.

Sundays

2011-03-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, Sundays are all about the left overs cringing in the corners of your fridge. For me it's especially so, as Essence is usually closed on Mondays, so lots to get rid of. Today I had to get a pork shoulder that was curing into the oven. At the same time I did a quick scan of food lurking in my commercial fridges.
I think I came away in spades. Another easy Sunday of cooking for the family. Today we nosh on polenta lasagna with pancetta, 6cheeses, sundried tomato cream, chili stewed cherry tomatoes, and a sweet balsamic reduction.
Was pretty freakin tasty. I hope you enjoy your Sunday meal.

Roasted poblano avocado sauce

2011-03-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I stumbled onto this idea a couple of weeks ago. I had read somewhere about a sauce with poblanos and avocados and it just stuck in my head. I needed to try it out on something. Well the pork belly the other night was just the right moment. And boy was I glad I did. This is my new fave sauce. Tangy, smokey, really great mouthfeel, and a consistency that allows for alot of different plating techniques. It was perfect with the pork belly as it cut through the unctuousness of it. But I had a bunch left over. What was I to do with it.
The first idea was to see how it would do as a pasta sauce. The thought was to just add a little cream and check it out. DAMN. You need to make this sauce.

1 poblano, blistered over a flame and peeled.
1 lrg. avocado

Pretty simple no. Put the peeled and seeded chili in a container with the avocado. Blitz with an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper. If you ar egoing to use it as is as sauce for a meat or seafood dish, just give it a small squeeze of lime and maybe a pinch of smoked paprika.
If you are using it as a pasta sauce, add enough cream to reduce to a sauce that will stick to your desired pasta. Omit the lime. Opt here for a squeeze of lemon at the very end.
Enjoy. I have, and will continue to make this sauce. BTW it's even good cold.

Pork Belly

2011-03-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

I love pork belly. I mean I really love pork belly. Cooking it just makes me happy. These days I have two preparations that I seem to fall back on over and over. Both start with a salt cure. Usually 3parts salt 1part sugar, and the addition of some flavours based on the finished product. For this one we had a cure with hickory smoke flavouring, garlic, and an assortment a ground dried chilis. After 24 hr cure it was rinsed and dried. From there it went into the sous vide bag and into 180degree water bath for 14hrs.
The finished product was sublime. Brushed with a glaze of rum bbq sauce
We paired it with a creamy center polenta cake. Sauteed aspiration. And the most awesome sauce of roasted poblanos and avocado. This sauce was sheer beauty. What a nice tang and mouth feel. Thinking tomorrow we are going to make it into a pasta sauce.

Shrimp Gnocchi

2011-03-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

So in keeping with our new format of POST POST POST. Here is a dish we did up for dinner from left overs from this weeks events. We had these stellar shrimp that our fishmonger told us we had to try. Only guy in town with them. Patagonian sustainable (though it is being trucked form Patagonia, so prob. not environmental) jumbo shrimp. According to him they are the closest thing to prawns he's seen. I think if I want prawns I don't go looking for shrimp alternatives, but hey, they're free so we need to make something of them.
I was going to use some leftover chicken thigh confit, which was truly deliscious. The idea was something quick and sinful. Gnocchi with gorganzola cream sauce, some left over black trumpet mushrooms, the ever present pancetta. We now subbed the shrimp for the chicken.
Super tasty. And a little lighter than the chicken would have been.

New office/dining room

2011-03-10T07:06:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since my office was in my kitchen space at Essence. Going back and forth from home to kitchen has taken a huge toll on me over the last 5 months. BUt there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I can actually sit at my desk and work now. BLISS.
I know it may seem silly to be this happy about an office, but if you saw my old office, you'd understand.
Right in the middle of doing the finishing I had a vision of the room more as a multi use space then just an office. I really wanted a space to bring my customers for consultations, brides for tastings, and ok a place for me and the boys to have our games nights. BUt I hadn't really thought of using it as a small dining room. It is still not altogether finished in this respect, but it is very close.
Essence will have a slick space with audio visual capabilities, food (obviously), and an all round very cool vibe. It will sit 8-10 very lucky people. It has everything on casters and can be rearranged to suit your needs.
We look forward to our evolving definition of what we do and offer to our customers. The other bonus is that having my office and computer right beside me at the kitchen means bloggin will be a whole new ballgame from here on in. Look forward to our finally being consistent in our approach to providing you with food porn.

Some things we are working with this week

2010-11-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

I happened to be early for a cocktail party yesterday in Rockliffe Park. Not wanting to be ridicualously early, I stopped at a little food shop on Beechwood. Jacobsons was a really nice little shop. Tons of preserves, jams, chutneys and the like. They also had a decent cheese counter, with lots of nice products available. Not wanting to leave without something new to play with, I picked up some Wild blueberry syrup, Lime vinegar, and sloe and apple gin jelly. These should produce some fantastic new sauces, but we shall have to see what I can come up with.
I happen to be partial to Gin and tonics, and have been working on a gin and tonic bite for what seems like forever. Have had a few successes, but they were too similar to ones I had already seen. With the apple jelly, some new avenues of thought have been opened. I am now thinking and appple based bite with overtones of gin and tonic and an effervescent finish is now possible. Anyone have green apple pop rocks, or better yet, neutral flavoured ones I can mess with....
On the way home from the set up of the party. Yes I set up just about every party, and then leave the servers. I stopped at the LCBO for some ice wones and late harvest vidals. I turn these into our ice wine bite. In this case two different versions. Ice wine is not a cheap raw ingredient, and as such produces a fairly expensive little bite. But I am working on a way to extend the flavor profile without diluting the taste. Expensive experiments, but someones gotta try it.
IF you'd like to try an ice wine bite, why not attend Cycle Logiks, Rumour has it, art sale. Everyone purchasing a piece of art will receive an ice wine bite. Sorry if you don't buy one, but you can't have one. So don't ask. I will though have several other contemporary bites out to nosh while you drink.

Nov. 26th Dinner

2010-11-16T06:09:00.000-08:00

So with only a short time available to put this dinner party together, I decided that posting the menu here is probably the easiest way.

So.....

Kataifi wrapped shrimp with fermented black bean and tomato
Fois gras mousse profiterole
Pork belly confit with Maple BBQ sauce frosting

Roasted beet with blue cheese mosaic, candied walnuts, arrugula

Seared salmon with fois gras and black trumpets, braised leeks

Duck confit, pomme salardaise, swiss chard, cranberry

Beef tenderloin, smoked pomme puree, cepes, chipotle honey

Flourless chocolate cake, smoked oreo, vanilla custard ice cream, cherry

Ice wine bite with raspberry and mastic

$85.00 per person

We can do a wine pairing or allow you to bring suggested wines. This will be decided amongst those who reserve a seat.

Please email : chef@essencecatering.ca or twitter to @chefjayl

Only 10 seats available. Booking needs to be completed by Friday Nov17 for this meal to go forward.

Thank you.

Quick Moroccan Beef Stew

2010-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

I get asked all the time for quick family friendly meals. Till now, I haven't really given much thought to it. But all things change given time. Today while doing all kinds of chores that needed attention, the boys and their friend demanded some food. Looking around, I realized I was going to need to make something. What am I to make?
Looking around the fridge I found some beef tenderloin scraps from jobs at work, black olives (the good one that are sun dried with orange zest), chickpeas, stock, basil, and some misc. veg.
Ok how fast can I take these ingredients and make something really tasty and healthy. Settled. Moroccan beef stew on cous cous. The prep is simple enough. Chop your veg into 1/2-3/4" pieces. Cut beef into 3/4" cubes. Measure out your dry and liquid measures for cous cous. Get it all together in one place. Biggest mistake people make is not to have all prep (or mise en place if you prefer) together before they start cooking. So you will need:

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 pounds beef tenderloin I use the "CHAINE" or the scrappy part running the length of the tenderloin
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1/2 red pepper chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
4 roasted garlic cloves, whole (from the tomato sauce)
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cup basic tomato sauce (recipe follows)
1 1/2 cups beef or chicken broth
1/2 cup halved pitted sun dried black olives with orange zest
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
3 green onions sliced thinly
2 tbsp chiffonade of basil

Sear the beef in 2 tbsp olive oil till nicely browned on all sides. PLEASE, don't put it all in the pan at once. Divide it up so you never crowd the pan. If you crowd the pan the meat will reduce the temp of said pan, and you won't be searing, you'll be boiling.
Remove the meat to a plate and season with salt and pepper. Pour off the oil and replace with last tbsp of oil. Saute onions, peppers, celery, and garlic cloves over med heat. When it starts to brown add chickpeas and spices. Cook for another minute or so, till you smell the fragrance of the spices. Then add both the tomato sauce and the broth. Raise the heat a bit and cook till the pan is almost void of liquid. Pour back the meat into pan along with raisins and olives and green onions.
Place cous cous on plate. I am not going to tell you how to cook cous cous today. So let's assume you know. Or you purchased a box of it with a recipe. Spoon some of the stew over and put a pinch of basil on each.
Enjoy. My kids did, and most importantly, so did I. Really tasty.
Cheers

Tomato sauce: (this is the basic sauce I have been making for 10yrs)

4 can whole tomatoes (pref. San Marzano)
1 head garlic peeled
About 2 cups good quality olive oil. (you can decide how much you like. I like it greasy)
Salt pepper and sugar.

In a pot crush tomatoes with your hands. NOt too much or too little. You'll figure out what you like best. Taste the tomatoes and adjust for their sweetness or lack there of. I use no less than4 tbsp and no more than 6 or so of sugar. Pinch (good pinch) salt and pepper.
Cook on low for about 2.5 hrs
In a small pot place garlic cloves and oil. Cook on low heat till garlic is soft and oil is infused. If the garlic is brown or God forbid darker. Throw it out and start again. This time use low heat. People always get this part wrong. And yet it is so easy. Oh well.
When the garlic has infused the oil, pour most of it in to the tomato sauce and continue cooking till done. I usually make more oil than I need, as I can now use this for dressing or cooking veg. Cloves of garlic should be kept aside for other recipes, like the one above. Keep in the oil covered in the fridge.

Enjoy, this tomato sauce is the basis for so many dishes we make. You will make it all the time. And really it is so easy and basically cooks itself.

Dehydrator

2010-11-07T06:20:00.001-08:00

Last week while doing some errands and popping in to Rainbow Foods, I cam across a nice looking dehydrator. I needed a new one, as my previous one was borrowed and no longer with me. To be honest I wasn't overly happy with the previous one, as it was one of the round ones with a big hole in the middle. It just wasn't suitable for the applications I wanted to use it for at the time. Mainly I wanted to make fruit and vegetable based sheets to roll up various ingredients. The hole in the middle proved too daunting to overcome.
So when I saw this flat tray style unit with 6 trays and under $200, I was sold. Right from opening the box we put it to use. I started with some grape tomato halves for a garnish to a bite for the following day. Worked perfect. What next? Well as part of my cravings yesterday, I really needed to make some beef jerky. I had cleaned up a tenderloin the day before for some of our bites, and had a bunch of trim and the "chaine" to use up. Why not slice up what I could and dehydrate it. Not wanting to just use salt and pepper, I rubbed half with our BBQ spice blend and the other got a marinading in soy, garlic, ginger, and chili sauce.
Into the dehydrator it went and about 6 hrs later the dry rubbed beef was done. It took another couple for hours for the marinaded beef to be ready.
Today I am going to raid my neighbors chili garden. They have been drying on the stem for a few weeks now, and if not picked will rot in short order. She has some great chilis to work with and drying them just let's us use them for the rest of the winter.
This unit has worked flawlessly so far. Coming up this week we are going to work funkier applications such as; green tea and yuzu sheet for wrapping up ginger spice cake. And perhaps some savoury vegetable sheets for a new take on Nori and sushi making. We shall see where it all goes. But new equipment usually inspires some new directions and ideas.

Cravings

2010-11-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday mornings usually start the same way. I go the supermarket to pick up the last remaining items for the nights party. This morning I found myself at Loblaws, and on entering I was hit with the smell of RIBS. I do so love ribs, but these were not smelling so great. Ribs are hard not to be good, but these only made me want to make some, not eat the ones on offer. So what to do? If you're me, you go home and make some ribs.
I have a pretty good smoker at work and a kettle style BBQ for smoking at home. These are my stand byes. I use them a lot. But today I wanted to recreate the ones I had smelled in the morning, only better. So today, baked ribs. Now now, I know we are wading into some pretty opinionated waters here. DO I bake them or braise them? Here is my simple take on that age old question. I want the taste of my pork, in my pork and not in the water in the pot. PERIOD. Now I have had some great tender ribs that were braised or cooked in a crock pot. But really, if you do them right in your oven, they win hands down.
So some basics to follow. Temperature, time and well, LOVE. The first two are pretty easy. An oven temp of 280-300 degrees will be satisfactory. Time, well, depends on your ribs and their size. Baby backs cook faster than say, side ribs. But it really doesn't make a difference. The ribs cook, until they are done. Simple. For the back ribs I had on hand, 3-3.5 hours is probably going to do it. Can't say for 100% certain as they are still in the oven. And killing me by the way, with their olfactory rhapsody. Soon. Soon.
Love. Now this is a bit more difficult. Everyone is different, so all types of love are going to be admissible here. For me, today, love is a rub with a mix of (in no particualr order)
Smoked paprika
Ground chipotles
Garlic powder
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Ground yellow mustard
Salt
Pepper
Brown sugar
But this mix is by no means the only suitable kind of love. Make sure to experiment, because you never know where love is going to come from.
One thing I find a lot of people forget when dealing with ribs, is the silver skin on the bottom side of the rib. If you bake or smoke with this on, you will end up with ribs that don't quite fall apart as they should. Or have a strange papery substance on the bottom. I have always wondered why the butchers don't automatically take this off. But they don't, so you need to. Easy enough. Take a knife and run it down the middle of your rib, tail to tip. Work your finger under the cut, and pull the silver skin off. Next take your rub and work it well into the ribs. Really massage the love in here. I usually let my ribs sit in the fridge over night with the rub on, but this is optional.
Get the oven going and wrap your ribs in foil tightly. This will help them not burn and slightly steam them at a certain point. At about the 2.5 hr mark, I usually take the foil off. I do this so I can see the ribs, and allow the heat at the end to be a dry heat. With back ribs, they are done when the meat start to pull away from the bones. Seeing white bones means they are done. I will usually take them out of the oven and cool them down. Only to cook them on the BBQ later with a slathering of secondary love, BBQ SAUCE. But today, they are going under the broiler to finish. Ofcourse they are going to get a bit of BBQ sauce just before.
I will post some pics as soon as they come out.
One craving out of the way.
Next up some beef jerky. Not sure why I am craving this today as well, but while the ribs worked, I made up some jerky. They will come out of the dehydrator much later tonight. But damn do I love some good jerky.
Cheers.

Wow it's been a while

2010-11-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

I never seem to be bale to stay on top of the blog. Like everyone else things come along in life that get in the way of things you want to do. I get told over and over, you have to pay mroe attention to your blog. It's true I do. But what do I give up to do it? Should I not develop that new menu/recipe? Not play with the boys? Maybe let things slide with my personal life? It's a hard balancing act. We all have our miss givings about the things we want to do, but can't. Alas I am no different.
With Christmas coming fast. And a new crop of cooks in the kitchen, I am hoping ot have some more time each day to photograph some of our experiments. Not all are good. and likewise not all are bad. But it is how we develop our new bites and plates. I have also started working on some new service pieces. This I do love to do. But find it is most time consuming.
WE also renovated our kitchen/office. This was in bad need of attention, and we are well underway to completion. Hopefully we will have some pics of the new office as it continues (albeit slowly) towards completion. I do look forward to the day when I will enjoy spending time in my office as much as the kitchen. Also having my office and computer beside the kitchen should make updating the blog and other social media easier, as it will all be right there.
We shall see....

Random food shots

2010-10-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is what we've been up to lately. Sadly there isn't always time for pictures. Especially when the plating is intricate. But these are some of the plates that went put lately.
Enjoy.

Fresh Ricotta

2010-10-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

It would seem that I have been bitten by the cheese making bug. Not sure where it came from, but bitten none the less. My neighbor showed up the other day with a liter of raw milk from a friends farm. What to do with this windfall. Well you guessed it, cheese. In particular ricotta. Pretty easy to do and almost instant gratification.
Raw milk into a pot, some lemon juice, a strainer and some cheesecloth, done. I added a bit of salt and some lemon rind for a fresh ricotta that was almost perfect for my tastes.
The first dish I made with it was a free form lasagna with charred green tomato sauce, balsamic reduction, and some lovely wild mushrooms. This was super tasty and not too bad on the eyes either.
Now that I have the bug I have moved on to fresh mozzarella and it's sublime cousin Buratta. Stay tuned for more.

Franken Food Cocktail Party

2010-08-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

October 31st. 8pm.
430 Parkdale Ave "The Engine Room"
Cost: $50.00 All inclusive

Come celebrate Halloween with Essence Catering. We will be holding a cocktail part reception featuring "Franken Food".
This may sound outrageous, and it probably will be. We will be creating bites with some serious wow and scare. It will surely be a cocktail party to remember.
Make sure to dress up. No costume, no food for you!

Direct message me on Twitter for your reservation @chefjayl

See you there.....

MORE FROM "SMOKE"

2010-08-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

PIcs from "SMOKE"

2010-08-09T06:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics from Thursdays dinner. Hope you enjoy.

Smoke Dinner

2010-08-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

Ok so here's the rundown of Thursday night's menu: SMOKE. This dinner will be performed by myself and Micheal Hay of the courtyard. We brainstormed last night over a few too many beers and came up with this menu. We do so wish you like it.
Remember this explores smoke as a flavour/aroma/ and a visual cue.

Canapes:

Black tea smoked salmon sashimi with carrot and daikon, lemon and soy

Smoking jacket a la tobacco blackberry

1st

Smoked and seared diver scallop/ avocado mosaic/ margarita/ lime cells

2nd

Smoked corn chowder

3rd

Vanilla parsnip sorbet with smoked salmon roe

4th

Brined and roasted pork belly/ edamame wonton/ smoked ham hock broth

5th

Smoked and seared duck breast/ smoked fingerlings/ plum/ pistachio/ and scallion

6th

Fruit salad/ many textures and flavours.

It will be held in the courtyard at 430 Parkdale ave. Being that there seems to be a bit if rain in our forecast, we will set up a tent for cover. OUr first dinner of this supper club will be free of charge. If you were lucky to get a seat, well count yourself as lucky. This should be a meal to remember. And a great one tog et the ball rolling on this new venue for myself and Essence Catering. We will not be hosting a bar this time around and will ask all patrons to bring something they would like to share with those attending. I will not be doing a pairing for this one. Rather I would like to see what shows up. Lets keep it light and fun. Also there will be another function on site this evening as some of the artists are part of the walking tour.
Also please keep in mind there is not parking enough for all on site. It would be better to park either on Wellington or at the Parkdale market and walk up. Less than a block. OUr sign will be out front, and you won't miss it.
Also please give Micheal a big thank you on twitter @michealthehay , he deserves it. This was fun to plan. I only hope the implementation is as fun.

See you there,
Cheers,
Jason

Blog out loud Ottawa

2010-07-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

So the other day, I attended Blog out loud Ottawa, at Irene's pub on Bank St. An event I was attending because one of the "readers" was presenting an article he and his wife wrote for their Blog. To my astonishment the article was written about local chefs who give back to their communities. I had more than a passing byline in this article (or blog post). I was not surprised by the reading as I had been told before that they were going to read this particular piece. Still to hear it was a new experience for me. Let's say it's something you can get used to in a hurry.
We arrived early, to an empty room. It was more than just a little hot, where's the air conditioning? At least we got to choose a great set of seats near the front of the stage. Within about 15min. some bloggers started to show up. And pretty soon we were awash in a sea of bloggers of all types. Funny I didn't really know of anyone who blogged about anything other than food. Is it possible that people use this medium for anything other than food commentary? Well apparently there are those out there with diverse interests and most were not food related. The room was soon overflowing and getting hotter by the minute.
The schedule for the evening was distributed and the bios of each of the readers was scoured thoroughly. Funny, not only do I blog under a few different names (all food related at this time), but I also have become an addict to TWITTER. And to this end I met so many people from this social media venue. It was great to put faces to the avatars or handles. And can you believe it we all still conveyed our messages to each other in 140 characters or less. Ok I just couldn't resist that one.
Some highlights for me this evening were;
Pauline of Brightest blue. Her recounting of art class hell was truly entertaining.
Brie of Capital mom. Her short entitled "close your eyes" touched a spot in my heart and I thank her for that.
Nat from Nat's brain. Her telling of "waspagedon" was very very funny, F-bombs were levied with an alarming frequency, and I truly loved this one.
Foodie Print (Don and Jenn). Well they are the reason I was here. Their post "food and generosity" was a proud moment for me. It is especially nice when someone(s) take notice of what you are trying to help with. They too foster an ideal of community in their blog and twitter personalities, and should be lauded along with the rest of us in the food industry.

Thank you to all for opening my eyes to something so authentic. Everyone's voice was unique and interesting. I will certainly be back next year, and hope to be able to read something of my own. Though I would like to read something non food related, I will have to write some. Hopefully soon.
Cheers,

Random food shots of the week

2010-03-29T06:14:00.001-07:00

Some random food shots from this past week. Have not had a lot of time to develop any new dishes lately. Hopefully this week we will be able to work on some new bites.

Keller's Quail in a Jar

2010-02-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

Creativity ebbs and flows. And when I am in an ebb or down time, I will go to the bookshelf. From there I grab a book by either Keller, Trotter, Blumenthal, Adria, Achatz, Richards, Mina, and a bunch of others I have. Blindly open the book, and providing I haven't made it before, make it. I have found that this method usually works at breaking the log jam of creativity. When I am really lucky it involves methods or techniques I've never employed.
Such was the case today. Keller's sous vide book provided a new technique. Something I have never done, but have seen in some recipes. Just never thought of actually doing it. Cooking in a mason jar. Sure it's reminiscent of preserving. But oh so different. I started with a quail. Deboned it leaving just the wings and legs intact. Stuffed the cavity with foie gras. Wrapped in cheesecloth and into a mason jar. Filled with duck stock, and cooked at 147 degrees for one hour. I am somewhat worried in that it did cook at 156 degrees for a few minutes during the hour. We'll see the results in a few days. I still need to reduce the cooking stock with port. Add to that some gelatine and make a glaze. Then slice, and hopefully have a beautiful presentation for a cold appetizer.
This cooking method was fun and relatively simple. It also opens up some other avenues. LAtely I have been reading a lot from both Shola (Studio Kitchen) and Alex (ideas in food) as they have been doing lots of different things with mason jar cookery. We'll see if I go down some of their roads. But that's the point of this exercise. Breaking the rut by trying new things.
So once again it seems to have worked. But what will come of it.....

Sturgeon

2010-02-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

How happy am I to have received this nice package from "King Of Caviar". Will have to make some fun bites for sure with this.

Nuked Foie Torchon!?!

2010-02-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

This was a WTF moment for me. When I first decided to become a caterer and leave the restaurant kitchens, I had no idea how I would make my food "bite" friendly. I read every catering book I could get my hands on. One I really enjoyed was "Bite Sized" by Francois Payard (SP?). IN it he made food that was reminiscent of plated course in small scale. I loved it, and it remains a go to book for me.
In it there is a recipe for foie torchon made in a microwave. PURE BLASPHEMY. This went against my view of foie and how to treat it. But at the end of the day, everything I had made based on this book was great. SO why not try this one as well. Am I glad I did! This makes my life easier for small bites of foie without a lot of hassle. Which helps me bring the cost down.
I start with adeveined lobe of foie. You can marinate it with sauterne if you like. For my presentation on Vday. I chose Amaretto to go with the shortbread and pistachio crumble. Obviously you need some salt as well. This was left in the fridge for 2 hrs. It was then wrapped up in plastic wrap torchon style. Then vacuum sealed (I just used a ziplock emptied of as much air as possible). I allowed this to chill for another hour. Then 40 seconds in the microwave on high. Scariest 40 seconds of the last few weeks for me. And then right into an ice bath.
I can tell you at this moment I still did not know what to make of this recipe. I would not know until the following day, when I began to slice it. The smile on my face was obvious. Silky smooth and beautifully coloured. Phew. was worried.
Here is a repeat pic of the dish from last night. Well worth the trouble of 40seconds in the nuke.
Go on try it. Mess with it and send me a pic. I'll add it here.
I should mention here that a lot of the presentation of this dish was inspired by a dish I saw in the Keller sous vide book.
Cheers

Scenes from Valentines Menu

2010-02-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

These are a couple of the dishes featured in our take home Valentine's meal. Hope you enjoy.

Pics and Bites

2010-02-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Fennel and cumin chicken
Celery root and chayote pancake
Tomatillo
Creme fraiche
Bacon

Tasty bite

What would you do with me?

2010-02-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

Restocking the Pantry

2010-01-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have always liked to have a fairly well stocked pantry. With it you can always come up with something to cook. And with the right pantry you can take ordinary dishes to the next level with very little effort. Today I restocked chutneys, preserves, jams, and pickles. By taking a little time and humble ingredients you can make condiments that really help to make your dinner shine.

On our list today:

Preserved mushrooms
Kumquat blood orange and long pepper marmalade
Red onion and cranberry jam
Fennel and port jam
Curried grapes
Cippolini jam
Mustard infused raisins
Marinated Lebanese Cukes
Pickled red onions
Preserved Meyer Lemons

All of these make their way onto our corporate and private dinner menus. Our cocktail menus also rely heavily on these condiments. In an easy work day, or at home, you can make decent quantities of these. Most are variations in one form or another from Keller, Chang, Trotter, and Boulud. They have served me well, as I am sure they will for you. I will post some recipes here in coming weeks. Maybe one per week, we'll see. I still have a few newer ones to complete first.
cheers,

Fun ideas to play with

2010-01-25T15:46:00.001-08:00

Thes etwo bites are slight variations on two other dishes I saw recently. One being by Grant Achatz. Reen olive, kumquat and akquavit and carraway. Interesting bite. It inspired a similar bite we made with Kumqaut, vodka and Oj cream, limoncello pearls.
And the other is an ice wone gelee with raspberry, and mastic foam and long pepper. Inspired by C food. A cookbook I scanned at the local bookstore. I liked this one quite alot. But I would mess with the Hydrocolloid. My aim is to get mouthfeel but also cuttability. The gelatine based cube is best when left to come close to room temp. Just out of the fridge the gel is too rigid.
Anyhow inspiration continues....

Asparagus, quail egg, duck breast, miso butter

2010-01-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

I was leafing through David Chang's book, Momofuku, and saw a recipe I just needed to make. Miso butter. What a great idea. I have been playing with miso and incorporating it into all kinds of different dishes. Right now I am loving Dens Miso, which is just miso mixed with saki, mirin, and sugar. It gets cooked down somewhat for our applications and cooled. I love this stuff. It is just the right mix of salty and sweet. So why not incorporate this into miso butter. Soft but still solid butter is mixed 50/50 with miso. Mixed well so there are no discernable chunks of either component.
For this dish, I wanted to work on an app for an upcoming dinner. I wanted to pair duck and asparagus. So I borrowed much of the concept from Chang's dish. Starting with broiled asparagus, topped with some of our aforementioned puny duck breasts. The miso butter in a quenelle, and the quail eggs just poached.
Very tasty, but for the final dish I think we will change: 1. Better duck breasts obviously. 2. I would change the three quail eggs to a single smallish duck egg. and 3. I would have a mix of white and green asparagus.

Chocolate and chili pot de creme

2010-01-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

For dessert the other night I prepared some pot de cremes. I make these from a recipe I found online a few years back, and then refined. It is full proof with a nice creamy consistency, with plenty of bite. We served it with chocolate pain perdue, cajeta sauce, and a cinammon bavarois (not seen because I ate it all at the dinner). For this one I have some cocoa nibs and pistachio brittle. What I really love about this bite is this. Each bite of it can be different. You can drag the pain perdu through the caramel with or without the chilis, and then dunk it in the pot de creme. Or any combination thereof. Anyhow seriously good eats.

2 cups whipping cream
1 cup half and half
1 Chipotle chili, seeded
1 Ancho chili, seeded

1/8 teaspoon salt
6 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp dark agave nectar
6 1/2 oz dark chocolate (preferably Mexican Ibarra mixed with dark chocolate 50/50)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

sprinkle of smoked paparika

Combine cream, 1/2 and 1/2 and chilis in a pot on med.
Bring to a simmer and remove from heat. Let stand 15 min.
Strain
Beat eggs, salt and sugar to ribbon till pale and increased in volume.
Strain cream mixture into eggs add agave nectar and vanilla and cook over bain marie for 5 minutes.
Strain into container with chopped chocolate.
Use immersion blender to ensure good mixing and consistency.
Pour into espresso cups.
Pinch of paprika on top of each (but very little).
Makes about 10, based on my espresso cups.

The Manhattan Project

2010-01-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

Come out and visit us at Wallspace Gallery on January 30th. We will be serving food to compliment Andrew King's (my favourite local artist) newest collection...
Andrew King
The Manhattan Project

January 30 to February 22
Artist Reception: Saturday, January 30, 6-9 p.m.
Wall Space Gallery, Westboro Village

Wall Space Gallery is excited to launch this highly anticipated show, featuring new work by admired Ottawa artist, Andrew King.

"After a busy summer and fall, I needed to recharge the creative batteries and thought there was probably no better place to do that than New York City. Packing a suitcase and without much of a plan, I boarded the historic “Adirondack” train. Having never been to the Big Apple, I arrived at Penn Station on a Friday night with a sketchbook, a pen, and a desire to explore.

Traveling alone is a unique experience that allowed me to do and see things that brought me much inspiration and many ideas for artwork. After a week in Manhattan, I had a great collection of sketches, concepts and emotional connections to a city that changed my life.

The Manhattan Project is a culmination of these ideas and emotions. It is a unique glimpse into my travels to the Big Apple...”

Please join us in celebrating our first show of 2010.

www.wallspacegallery.ca

We will be creating food that is inspired by some of his pieces. Be sure to not to miss it.
Jay

Jr. tasting menu

2010-01-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

By junior I mean the staff. I was called upon by a great family of customers to provide the food for a 40th birthday dinner. The catch. It was important that the kids be a part of the service. Hmmm. That's a new one for em. Most people want to have all the bells and whistles when spending allot of money on dinner. But for this meal the kids were to shine as much as the food. To say I had my reservations would be an under statement, you know working with kids and animals and all that. But I can say it went off really well.
Most of our food is pretty time and temperature sensitive. Over time our service staff has figured out how to get the food to the guests in the most timely manner. That wasn't the case this evening. Food did have a tendency to sit while the wine service was handled. Thankfully this was not a concern to anyone. The show the kids put on for their parents was more important. The last course of the evening, usually our strongest dish, tonight was the weekest. Too much fussing with things not plate related, but still tasty. And really by this time I was caught up in the pageantry of the service and not the food.
The night would not have been the same were it not for one of the younger servers (yes I had a few), Alyssa (sp?). She was the one who anounced each dish. And she did it with flourish. She was also very interested in each of the dishes and how they were made.
Again a really fun meal was had with a group of family that I am really enjoying serving. I wonder what we will be doing next time. Whatever it is I am sure it will be lots of fun.

Canape 101: Japanese Eggplant

2009-12-29T19:58:00.000-08:00

In Ottawa about a third of the dishes we serve are vegetarian. Being a staunch carnivore, I always look for vegetarian dishes that can make converts of even the staunchiest of carnivores. (Is staunchiest even a word?) This is one of those dishes. It is always somewhat amusing to hear what people think they are eating. But one thing is for sure, they always love this one. It also doesn't hurt that it is prepared very easily and quickly. Of course, that is compared to the pork belly dish that requires days on end of anticipation.

Grilled Japanese eggplant with dens miso and candied lemon

2 japanese eggplants. Look for ones with a consistent cylindrical shape.
1 tbsp five spice powder.
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup white (shiro) miso
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup sugar

Eggplant
Cut eggplant into slices about 1.5" thick.
Mix with spices and oil in a bowl.
Allow to sit for about an hour
Grill for about 1 minute per side. Just long enough to create some sear marks, no longer. You want the eggplant to have some body left and not be all mushy.
Allow to cool and refrigerate till needed.

Dens Miso
Combine the sake, mirin and sugar in a small sauce pan. Cook until sugar is dissolved.
Add miso a little at a time.
Continue cooking over med/low heta until miso is thickened considerably. The more you cook out the moisture the nicer your finished product will be. Remember that it will burn very easily so keep stirring. This could take upwards of twenty minutes.
Remove from heat and store in a squeeze bottle. This will keep for up to 3 months in the fridge.

Candied lemon
2 lemons with bright yellow skins. Washed

Using a citrus channeller tool cut the skin from the flesh. You could also use a vegetable peeler, but a zester produces too small a lemon shaving.
Cut all white pith from the peel.

Bring lemon peels in a small sauce pan of water to a boil. Simmer for 2 minutes and drain.
Do this procedure 2 more times with fresh water each time. This is necessary to get rid of the bitterness of the peel.

Prepare a simple syrup by mixing 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil and drop in lemon peels. Cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool.

Take 1/2 cup sugar and place in a bowl. Drain the lemon peels from syrup and dust in the sugar.
Reserve in an airtight container.

Assembly
Squeeze a good dollop (about 3/4 tbsp) of dens miso on top of eggplant.
Decoratively place one lemon peel in the miso.

We finish with a sprinkling of grains of paradise on top.

Pics to come....

Canape 101: Pork Belly

2009-12-29T19:22:00.000-08:00

Pork belly. mmmmm. How I love thee.

Pork belly (also known as bacon when smoked) is truly one of the wonderful cuts from the pig. Curing it and then finishing as confit is truly amazing. Prepared properly it will just melt in your mouth, leaving nothing but a smile.

This recipe requires a few days of patience but is well worth it. Not a dish you whip up at the last minute. Try to start 5 days before you want to serve it. IF you can leave the finished product longer in the duck fat, all the better. The flavours will deepen and concentrate giving you even more porky goodness with time.

A whole pork belly is a large and cumbersome thing for the home cook. Have your butcher prepare you a half or even a quarter belly for this recipe.

1/4 pork belly
2 cups salt
5 tbsp sugar
2 heads garlic cut in half
3 bay leaves
4 tbsp black pepper whole
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp cumin and coriander

Mix all ingredients in a bowl to combine. Rub all over pork belly and cover in a suitable container. Leave in the fridge for 48 hours.
Remove and rinse off all seasonings. Dry well with paper towel.
Use a pot or pan that will just hold the belly and be tall enough to completely submerge. Remember the larger the pot/pan the more duck fat you will require to submerge the belly.
Generally for a 1/4 belly I would use about 4 cups or so duck fat.
Oven should be heated to 200 degrees.
Cook belly making sure it is completely submerge for 3-4 hours, or until very tender.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Before the fat starts to reset, remove belly to a sheet pan.
Cover with plastic wrap and top with another pan and weight down with several cans of whatever in your kitchen. Leave in the fridge over night.
Once compressed you can slice into 1.5" wide strips.
At this point I remove the skin layer, leaving a nice creamy white layer of fat on top.
Preheat a cast iron pan to medium and place the belly fat side down in the pan.
Cook until you have a nice brown crust on the top.
Turn and sear the other sides, but not as long as the top.
Remove to a cutting board a cut into nice bite sized cubes.

The belly can be kept submerged in the duck fat in the fridge for several weeks.

Daikon and apple slaw
1 cup daikon (asian radish) julienned
1 cup green apple julienned
1 clove garlic minced
1" piece of ginger minced
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp lime juice

Allow all ingredients to marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.
Remove and strain the liquid.
Mix in a bowl with:

1 tbsp cilantro finely chopped
2 tsp finely chopped chives
Salt and pepper to taste

Maple BBQ sauce frosting
This one requires a ittle bit of ingredient sourcing. So we will do an abbreviated version. For our original we use a starch called Ultra-Tex3. It is a fantastic starch that can absorb a huge amount of liquid. Fantastic for making sauce or even puddings as in this sauce. Without ultra tex we can use cornstarch and cooking down our BBQ sauce.
In the kitchen we make our own BBQ sauce base, but I would suggest you use a sauce you already like.

1 cup BBQ sauce
4 tbsp maple syrup
6 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 6 tbsp water

Mix BBQ sauce and maple syrup in a small sauce pan and reduce by about a third over medium/low heat. Depending on how much you reduced your sauce and what consistency it was to begin with your cornstarch amount will vary.
Slowly add slurry (corn starch mix) to your simmering BBQ sauce. It should thicken very quickly. You are looking for the consistency of pudding.
Remove from heat and cool.
Store in a squeeze bottle

If you can find tapiocca starch or even arrowroot starch both produce a sauce that has more shine, which looks great on the finished product.

Serve this bite skewered on a fork with the slaw behind and a squeeze of the sauce on top of the pork. Alternately you can use a chinese soup spoon with the slaw on the bottom, topped with the pork and finished with a squeeze of sauce.

Pics to come...

Canape 101: Black Tea Smoked Salmon Sushi

2009-12-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

The CBC asked me to talk food tomorrow afternoon. Specifically we will be talking canapes, and how we make ours. We thought this would be a great time to do an online demo of some of the processes we use. So follow us for the next few posts about 3 of our different canapes. Each one is easy to produce with products that are easily available. We will also show you how we take a dish and embellish it and take it to the next level. Feel free to try some of these added twists or leave them as is. Either way you are sure to wow your guests when you serve these.
Also stay in touch as we had a ton of fun putting it all together and figure we should give away more of our secrets in the coming months.

Black tea smoked salmon pressed sushi
This is a dish that has evolved over the past couple of years. It started with regular smoked salmon and a very simple pressed sushi recipe. What I originally liked about the canape was the fact that a good number of bites could be produced in a reasonable amount of time. Some time last year we bought a toy called the smoking gun. It is just like what the name entails, a gun that smokes. It kind of also looks like something the city of Ottawa gives out to crack addicts, but alas it is not, and no we don't use it that way. If I remember correctly smoked salmon is the first thing we tried with our new toy. And thus we tried smoking salmon with all kinds of different flavorings. But in the end I always seem to come back to Lhapsang Souchong tea. I has an incredible smokey character to it. For this dish you can try to smoke your own salmon or use just regular smoked salmon.

You will also need the following:

10X10 square pan
Plastic wrap
Cardboard cut to fit pan and covered with plastic wrap

2 cups sushi rice, rinsed well
5 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbso mirin
10-12 smoked salmon
Pickled ginger to taste (shredded makes a more attractive presentation here)
Wasabi paste to taste
Finely cut chives
Toasted white and black sesame seeds
Masago or tobiko
Optional:
Soy lime pearls (more on these later)

Cook rice in a ratio of 1 1/4 cups water to 1 cup of well rinsed sushi rice
Prepare sushi vinegar by mixing vinegar, sake, sugar, mirin in a small pot and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste.
Mix sushi rice and vinegar mix and combine thoroughly. You may not need all the vinegar.
Cover your pan with plastic wrap, making sure to leave some overhang on two sides.
Lay out 1/2 of your rice in the bottom.
Sprinkle of sesame seeds and cover with nori cut to fit
Lay out the rest of your rice and cover with a brushing of wasabi (you can omit if you do not like wasabi)
Top this with another layer of nori.
Cover nori with smoked salmon, cut to fit snuggly. Remember this will be visible so make sure to have an eye for presentation with the salmon.
Top with ginger, masago/tobiko, chives, and sesame seeds.

Soy Lime Pearls
Digital scale
Cajun meat injector or squeeze bottle
A container that is deeper than 3 inches filled with neutral flavoured oil. We use grapeseed. Keep it in the freezer till needed.
Mesh strainer

1 cup soy sauce (light)
1/4 cup lime juice
4 tbsp agave syrup (or brown sugar)
1/2 cup water

Bring the ingredients to a boil and let reduce slightly. Check to make sure your sauce is not too salty or too sweet. Adjust accordingly.

1.2 grams agar agar (powder form)
0.6 grams locust bean gum

Mix both powders with the soy mixture and bring to a simmer for 2 minutes. Making sure to properly whisk in the powders. You will now fill your injector or squeeze bottle with soy mixture. Allow it to sit for about 5 minutes to cool slightly. You will squeeze out the liquid being careful to create small balls into the very cold oil. Allow them to sit for about 5 minutes and strain and rinse gently under water.
They can now be stored till you are ready to use them.

For the salmon dish above I put a small spoonful of pearls on top of the salmon with some ginger, masago, and some chives to finish.

Pictures to come...

foie two times

2009-12-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

By way of missmanaged delivery intake, we ended up with two lobes of foie gras that needed using. Unfortunately we had no parties where this would be of use this week. So I needed to do something with them for myself. Every Christmas day my wife and I invite our friends to drop by with their families and enjoy a bit of the afternoon. Of course I always manage to get something put onto the table. Never too much trouble, as I really would prefer to unwrap presents and play with my kids then cook. So we usually put ut a nice spread of artisinal Quebec and Ontario cheese. This year it looks as though we'll put out some charcuterie as well.
I had intended this year to prepare alot more charcuterie than I actually did. We mused at the idea of opening a restaurant devoted solely to charcuterie and cheese. But sadly the idea never came to fruition. Charcuterie to me is one of those things you just have to make to fully appreciate. The first time you make a terrine or a dried and cured meat, you will be hooked for life. It is a bit a history and reconnecting with your roots to prepare charcuterie.
So with our two lobes I decided a torchon of salted foie (no poaching) and a simple foe terrine would rounds out a nice cheese course and some simple meats and olives.
The salted foie is dead simple. Clean and devein one foie. Of course this is always easier said than done. The advice I can gove on this proceedure is this:
1. allow the foie to sit at room temp for about an hour so it is maleable.
2. use a butter knife or just your hands to get the veins out.
3. don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.
Once cleaned I layered everything on a sheet pan covered with parchment. I lightly salted the foie and drozzled some white port over the top. This was left for a few hours. I then cut a large peice of cheese cloth and laid it out in front of me on a cutting board. I clumpe the foie into a rough cylinder shape and start to roll tightly in the cloth. Tieing off one end and rolling the other to acheive a uniform shape. tie off the other end and lay out on a bed of kosher salt. Cover with copious amount of salt to cover.
Leave for 24 -48 hours. Unwrap. Slice thin and enjoy. You cn also rewrap in pastic and leave in the fridge for another couple fo days. Delicious.
For the terrine I used the same salted and port infused base. Using a small terrine tin, start layering the foie. Make sure to use the smooth side down on the bottom. Be careful to season with salt and white pepper as you layer. When you reach the top make sure to use the smooth side out on the top. Cook in a bain marie for about 30 minutes at 200 degrees. At this point the terrine needs to cleated of some of the fat the a=has accumulated (please keep this liquid gold for later). Wrap in plastic and wieght it down to compress. Leave in the fridge over night. the next day all I do is take off the plastic and melt the reserved fat.
I pour this over the top creating a fat seal. The terrine is returned to the fridge to firm up till ready. Simply unmold and cut into slices.
Both recipes (although similar in starting flavors) took no longer than an hour of prep time. Yet your guests will feel it must have taken for ever to produce something so sublime. I will try to post some pictures of the platters as I present them on the 25th.

Seasons greetings and Merry Christmas.
j

New Arrivals

2009-11-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

With the cost of shipping across the US border. Buying some of the products we use to achieve the textures and finshed products we have on our menu, gets very expensive. DC Duby, the pastr chefs extraordinaire of BC have a line of products that they sell. So having found them I acquired some of their wares.

First thoughts are: Great a Canadian company selling some of the stuff I crave. But unfortunately the sizes are pretty small and the line is limited. That means I still have to order from the States where I can get the stuff I need in sizes that make more sense.

I have not had sodium alginate or calcium gluconate for quite some time in the kitchen. So this seemed like a great time to buy some. We will have to see what fun stuff I can make from these. In fact instead of some of my ow creations (which undoubtably we will do) I have been waiting for calcium gluconate for a while so I can make some of the stuff from Heston Blumenthals book.

Well next down day in the kitchen looks to be a fun one for sure.
Cheers.

St. Jacques Dinner

2009-11-29T10:32:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the hosts of a party we catered last night. Some random shots of the dinner taken from my phone. We had a last minute vegetarian show up. Some dishes needed modifying to make this happen. Thankfully their fridge adn pantry was relatively well stocked.

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Gold Medal Plates

2009-11-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

Congrats to Chef Carmicheal of 18 and Social for his third place finish at the National Gold Medal Plates competition. I hear he won the black box competition hands down. Ottawa has much to be proud of for him. Really well done Chef.

Upcoming Events

2009-11-23T05:59:00.001-08:00

This week we will be providing food for Candlelighter Foundation event at WallSpace Gallery. The jewelry show is beneffiting children with cancer. So get out and buy some unique jewelry for that someone special. And enjoy some bites that we try and make jewel like in their presentation. THursday evening from 6-8pm at WallSpace Gallery.
On Dec. 5 we will be serving canapes at one of our favourite ongoing events. Cycle Logic hosts an evening of art, alcohol, and comeradery, and of course food as beautiful as the art and the bikes that line the walls. the event runs from 8- till the art is sold and the food and booze are gone. Ok so the food never lasts till the end. If you want to eat some of our very best bites come early. And don't forget to support our local artists at the same time. And hey who doesn't need another bike.
Enjoy

Leftover tuna

2009-11-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

One extra portion of Sushi tuna to use up.
Seared tuna with prickly ash, grapefruit, citrus butter, and quick pickle (green papaya, carrot, daikon, red onion)
Really tasty with a big hit of menthol or maybe camphor from the prickly ash coating. Really opens up all the buds on the tongue. I like this one. Will make it again, but a stellar wine pairing is needed.
ANY THOUGHTS????

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Some new reading

2009-11-16T05:19:00.000-08:00

I have picked up some new books in the last week. Time to get that last bit of reading in before I am too busy until New Years. Momofuku and Ad Hoc at Home. Keller and Chang. Made for an interesting weekend of reading. First off, Thomas Keller can make the most inspiring creations from what may be lurking in your refrigerator. It is certainly inspiring to remember that family meals can be every bit as tasty and elaborate (in preparation not presentation) as any of the fine meals I serve. Some interesting methods for the home cook. A book I would give to friends or good customers as a thank you. Highly recomended.
Chang's Momofuku is alsoa fun read. One part Korean cookbook one part Anthony Bourdain styled commentary. A really good read. And to find out he has been purchasing pre made steamed buns. His buns have been called the best there is. Funny that all kinds of restaurants have had the best there is, just a phone call away. Who knew. The recipes rock. I have always had a predilection towards Asian food. You cook what you know and that's what I ate growing up. I will have to make a couple of my faves from this book and post them here. Aside from some time preparing and doing the smoking, much of this book is simple and straight forward. Easily done from the average home kitchen and cook.
Almost forgot I also picked up Maze by Bozo the Clown (ok it's really by Gordon Ramsey). The TV persona and the real chef are quite a bit different from each other (but no less brash and abbrassive). This book actually impressed me. I really like his clean straightforward food presentation. Simple rules the day, ofcourse with elaborate preparations. This book would be welcome in the seasoned home cooks bookshelf. IF you like seafood I find his fish preparations are simpe, clean and pure of flavor. I will also have to make one or two of these recipes and post them.
Heres hoping Santa finds a few gems in the bookstore and puts them under my tree.
Happy reading and cooking.....
Jay

Fall food

2009-11-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

With the fall in full swing and winter just around the corner. It's time for some more hearty foods. This is really my favourite time of the year. So without further ado, it's time for confit of everything. Starting with both pork belly and duck legs.
Here is a pick of some curing duck legs. What we will do with it remains to be seen. Check back often as I will be using them relentlessly.

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crab cakes

2009-11-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

Just messing with crab cakes today. Had some left over from a dinner, and you just can't let that go to waste. Nice appetizer dish. Will try to make chinese soup spoon size for a canape. Hope it still works as the taste was great.

Golden tomato gaspacho
Chili spiked crab cake
Avocado mousse
jalapeno

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10/30/09 tasting dinner

2009-10-31T07:58:00.001-07:00

Last night we had the pleasure of serving a tasting menu from a beautiful kitchen, to a great group of people. Here are the dishes (sorry for the crappy pictures. They were taken from my phone). We hope to be serving them again in the near future.

Confit of pork belly with little neck clams and a saki spiked dashi broth
Seared spice crusted Salmon, tataki style with avocado sorbet, jalapeno and red onion salsa, cilantro jus and avocado pudding
Cappuccino of sweetbreads with roast porcini, veal stock glaze, and porcini foam
Roasted root vegetable salad with mixed greens, blood orange vinaigrette, and fried parsnip
Spiced butternut squash soup shooter
Foie gras poutine (because sometimes you just need a poutine, albeit a very expensive one).
Bison tenderloin cooked sous vide with sunchoke puree, fava, corn and tomato salsa and cabernet reduction
White chocoalte and cranberry pavee with pistachio sorbet, pistachio brittle, white chocoalte snow and creme anglaise

Was a great success. even with the great kitchen set up, I still could have used a couple more burners. Can't have everything I guess.

Thanks to our hosts.
J

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Quinoa

2009-09-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

I love quinoa. IT is on regular rotation for my catering as well as at home. Tastes great as is and is super nutritious. Lately with corn being in great abundance I have been making a fair bit of quinoa and corn piaf. Dead simple. Sweat one onion finely diced and a couple of cloves of garlic until soft. Add 2 cups quinoa ( a mix of white and red is great or either on their own) to the pot. Get all the grain covered with oil and add water. 3 cups water (or 1.5 times volume). Water is fine, you do not need to use stock but can if you feel it necessary. Simmer for about 25 minutes and set aside to cool.
Meanwhile shuck 4 corn and remove kernels. Sautee with some butter (a couple of tablespoons), salt, pepper, and some chili spices. I use my own seasoning of a blend of chilis and spices, but use whatever makes you happy. Some bright assertive flavors are what you are looking for here.
Add to your pilaf and finish with cilantro and mint to your taste.
It's nuttiness and flavor are unique and should make it's way to your plate real soon.

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wheat berry salad

2009-09-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

Simmmer wheat berries for 50-60 or so minutes. They should still have a little firmness to them.
Nuts and dried fruit to taste. In this case roasted pistascio and pine nut with goji, cranberry, and raisin.
Fresh herbs and a dressing that matches up to the flavors you are serving it with. Mix it in to wheat berries while they are still warm and leave to cool. Same as the last orzo salad. Just different grain. Was destined for a party that didn't want the orzo.
Sorry for the poor quality of the pic...my phone.

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Pig Roast

2009-09-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

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Here are some pictures from our pig underground cookout. IT was a great time had by all, and special thanks go out to Paul and Sherryl for the use of their property. We plan on doing a much larger roast next year so stay tuned.....

orzo salad

2009-09-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

This week I find myself making a whole bunch of different grain based salads. Every time I make one, I get asked over and over how I made them. So for the next week or so (as long as I continue to have these outdoor buffet style parties), I will share the recipes I use for each of them.
This week I start with orzo salad. I really like orzo as a faux grain (because it's pasta), but looks like rice. I usually cook it it in water alone, but chicken broth or vegetable broth would be great as well. This one has a mix of goat cheese, dried fruit (golden raisins, dried cranberries, goji berries, pine nuts, pistachios, and fresh herbs to taste.
A very simple vinaigrette of lemon is what ties it all together.
Zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp grainy dijon mustard
1 tbsp agave syrup (you can substitute honey)
1 clove garlic minced
salt pepper
2 tbsp good quality champagne vinegar
1/4 fruity olive oil
Roast the nuts. chop the herbs and mix it all together. You may not need all of the vinaigrette you have made so start out conservatively and keep adding to taste. Allow the flavors to mellow for a couple of hours and serve cold with your choice of meats or seafood.
Quite tasty. I had it today with grilled salmon.

New ingredients and dishes

2009-06-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I played with some new ideas in the kitchen. After a slow start to the year, things have ramped up to be as busy as I would want. Which of course leaves little time to come up with new dishes. Well after a week of studying some of my favorite blogs, I have come up with some ideas I would like to explore. From Playing with fire and water I found freeze dried corn bars. These would be unbelievablel as a base to pulled pork (I know summer and BBQ really taints my brain). Cut into small circles wrapped with pancetta and topped with some twice cooked pulled pork. MMMMM. I hope it tastes as good as it sounds.
From Chadzilla I foud his idea on Sour cream fluff had lots of potential again as a base to a canape. I was thinking of a flavored smoked salmon (using the smoking gun) could be topped over the fluff with a grating of frozen jalapeno. This one seems a little more experimental but we shall see.
I hope to have some time this afternoon to work on these. We shall see.

New Goodies.

2009-06-25T06:27:00.001-07:00

I have been known to make frivilous kitchen purchases over the years. but this one was not one of them. While walking through Home Depot the other day, I stumbled by the BBQ section. Not one to buy BBQ's at box stores I only half paid attention, until. What was that I just saw. A Webber with a nice sized composite side table. Hmmm. Must check this out. What! Are you Kidding! This thing lights the charcoal for you. NO WAY. Brilliant. Someone has finally addressed all the issues most people have with charcoal. This really is a great Q and for the price it's my pick for best all round Q under $800.00 (and this one costs about half that). Will post pic soon. Well worth investigating and investing in one.

BBQ Classes

2009-06-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well another year of BBQ classes have begun. We have had two grilling classes to date, and they have both been great. We will still offer up 2 more grilling classes and two more advanced classes. One will be on smoking and all the things you can do with this wonderful method. And the second will be an advanced grilling class that will allow the participants to create an entire plated meal from their Q. I have many requests for recipes from previous classes( I am getting to it Mario). I will be posting these recipes and more on the this blog in the coming week. So stay tuned.

blog templates

2009-03-26T05:21:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know where I can get better blog templates? I was up late trying each and everyone out. None made me particularly happy. I am trying to get some color into the blog and maybe some more interesting format.
Do let me know if you have advice.

Squab or hmm do I dare say pigeon

2009-03-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

squab
Squab is just a really nice way to say shit hawk. But not just any shit hawk,one raised with the love and nurturing this rarified bird deserves. Ok who are we kidding here. Pigeon has been farmed and hunted (hopefully outside of the downtown core) for a long long time. This pigeon came to us from Maripossa Farms and if Ian or Suzanne thought I was making fun of their wares I probably wouldn't be able to order from them any longer. So enough with the jokes.
I really wanted to cook the bird in two parts, both sous vide. The leg I wanted to confit, and had been wanting to try confit sous vide for it's practicality. For one it uses far less fat than traditional methods. And the fact that cooled down in the bag and stored, I no longer had to pry some confit from a large container, usually breaking a piece or two in the process. The breast is always hard to cook or should i say cook properly in a traditional manner. Because of it's size it goes from medium rare to medium well in a surprisingly short period of time. And really this bird needs to be served medium rare for it to truly be appreciated. I had been playing around with several different mole sauces when we pulled out the birds. So I just decided to go with it. The legs cured for 3 hours in a standard confit cure with cocoa nibs added and a little bit of cumin and coriander. After a good rinse and dry the legs went into the bag with only a few tablespoons of fat (in this case duck fat)
The breasts were treated to a brine with cocoa nibs, cumin and coriander. And then dusted with cocoa powder and into their bag with a little EVOO (just checking who;s paying attention here. Does anyone really like Rachel Ray? Phil?) Cooked in a water bath for about 30 minutes and then lightly seared to crisp the skin a bit.
The mole is fairly standard but with lots of chocolate. Oh yes and what was supposed to be a Dr Pepper gel (unfortunately I bought cream soda in what can only be described as a grocery store rage incident). Thankfully it still worked but probably not as well. Tucked in underneath was a nice fluffy polenta cake and sauteed kale)
Really tasty. And I love the fact that it just cannot be overcooked in this cooking fashion. And can be kept in the water bath for a fair bit with no heat just ambiant temp in the bath. Just take it out when ready to serve and crisp them up.
I will have to do a sous vide for technologically disadvantged. It can be done in a pot o water on your stove and a good temp probe. Maybe next week.

Jay

Signature Drinks

2009-03-25T18:47:00.001-07:00

As the wedding season descends upon us, we have many requests fro signature drinks. Are there not enough standard drinks out there to choose from? Maybe I missed something. No. There's lots of drinks to choose from. So now we must come up with all new drinks, served up in interesting new ways. Please keep in mind that I ma a chef and not a mixologist. But I do have a penchant for the bizarre and twisted. Two things I think will serve me well, on this new journey. Over the coming weeks we are going to scour the liquor cabinet and the pantry to come up with (and in some cases just blatantly rip of ideas I like) some pretty neat, fun, and always different drinks.
After spending like 2 hours tonight scouring the internet for inspiration, I really need to start with some basics set down from those better than I. On you tube I happened to see a blue margarita with lime air that looked like a fun place to start. As I haev made more than my share of margs over the years, and am no stranger to airs and foams, this looks like a good place to start.
I also have litchi liquor in the cabinet just calling my name. It's funny this last issue of the LCBO magazine had gelee shots with booze set with gelatine. this is something I haev done many times but not with booze. The recipes there seemed ok enough but lacked refinement and presentation. We will have to see where all this goes over the coming weeks.
Stay tuned, stay thirsty, and if you happen to be getting married why not give us a call (yes a shameless plug). And maybe we can come up with a signature drink for you as well.
Cheers
PS i just put two videos from You Tube in the video bar showing a couple of the drinks we are going to make.

Cupcake foolery

2009-03-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

Is foolery in and of itself a word? Hmm, well you'll get my drift I'm sure. I was approached by an acquaintance who wanted to compete in a cupcake competition. Sounded good to me. How could we make it somewhat Essenceish (another nice word I think). She really wanted to incorporate interesting flavor combinations so as to win the creative cupcakae division. Well now she was talking my language. What could we put in a cupcake that really shouldn't be there , but still taste great. Hmmmm. I know curry. How about a curry cupcake. Yikes that sounds like shit doesn't it. Well we now had a starting point. A quicl look to the Food Pairing website gave us all kinds of possible combos to go with. We settled on Sweet potato, curry, apricot and hazelnut (the last three were from the Alinea cookbook). Caitlin managed to make a great sweet potato cupcake, nice airy but still dense and chewy. What could we do with all these disparate ingredients to go totally over the top. We settled on an apricot gel inside the cupcake. Top it with curry cream cheese frosting (I know it sounds strange but trust me). And the final component nutella powder.Some tweaking of the amount of each in the final product and we have........Hopefully a winner
PS. the frosting rocks. Who knew. I will find more uses for it in the future.
We will make the cupcakes for the competition on Saturday, so stay tuned and I'll post some pics.
Jay

Exam grading.

2009-03-18T14:51:00.001-07:00

This week I had the pleasure to grade student exam dishes at Le Cordon Bleu. I graded Superior cuisine, Basic Pastry and Superior pastry. Of the classes the superior pastry class as a whole was probably (not it was) the best class as a whole I have ever graded. Not a single bad dish. And really most were very creative and a very keen eye to the little details. I wish I could say that of the other two classes. One is just beginning and therefore did fine. Better even than I did in my first year pastry class. The Superior Cuisine class though has no excuse. I shouldn't say anything bad so I'll stop here.
Was glad to do it again.
Cheers

2009-03-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

I hadn't posted any seafood dishes in a while and felt today was the time. We had some great stripped bass on hand and needed some inspiration to go with it. A look through the pantry and fridges really didn't inspire me. I flipped through some books on the shelves and came up with a Micheal Mina dish I liked. He coats the fish in tapioca starch and fries in clarified butter. Well a nice crispy fillet sounded great to me. We decided that Indonesian Long Pepper was going to be our aromatic. I have a real love of long pepper. I can't stop putting it into stuff. Today we made a long pepper seasoning a la Morimotto. And a smoked maldon with long pepper and coriander. We plated the fish with sauteed swiss chard and a sauce of sweet bean and chili paint infused with garlic chives.
The flavors all worked well and the fish tasted great, with a nice crunch to it. Will have to make this one again some time.
Cheers

PB&J

2009-03-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

We have been making this bite quite regularly of late. We like to call it PB&J. It's a fun take on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sans bread. Pretty simple dish actually. The chocolate domes are purchase in flats which are perfect for transport. To that we add a peanut butter mousse made with mascarpone and peanut butter. Some peanut brittle on top, peanut butter powder, peanut flavored puffed rice, and cherry sauce thickened with ultratex. We finish it with some vanilla maldon salt and place on a spoon.
I always find it amusing to see the looks on people faces when something looks strange but tastes familiar.
The only drawback is the social backlash on peanut products. But it sure tastes good to me.
We are working on some other domes with similar ideas. One which is still being tweaked has a white chocoalte dome with cherry tobacco gel inside and topped with fermented black bean soil. Maybe we'll finish that one off next week. And another which is a play on Heston Blumenthal's chocoalte caviar. It has the white chocolate dome filled with caviar and topped with something I haven't figured out just yet. We'll see where it takes us.
Cheers

Back to Work

2009-01-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

Well the New Year is here now and it's time to go back to work. OUr Christmas season was our best yet, and we hope thats a great sign for '09. With a little time off to restart the batteries, I feel we are going to create some really interesting dishes this year. We finally got our order from Le Sanctuaire. It was full of a lot of great products that we haven't had the chance to play with yet. If you have tried any of these, let us know how it went...
sorbitol
ultratex 3
ultrasperse
purecoat
maltrin
citric acid
a whole pile of tapiocca maltodextrin (used this alot)

I look forward to coming up with all kinds of new bites for our cocktail menu with these. And what will be our inspiration? Well we got "The Big Fat Duck" cookbook, and it is full of info on not just the dishes themselves but the thought process that went into each dish. We continue to call the Alinea cookbook "The New Testament". And another find (my sous chef got this one) DC DUBY's book. THis one has many great and simple ideas and techniques to play with.
My New Years resolution was to post more regularly. We are now devoting Mondays to new dishes and blog posting. So there should be more activity on the blog this year. We hope to get a new digital camera for better pics.

Stay tuned.....

Smoking Gun

2008-12-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

smokedsalmon, originally uploaded by essencecatering.

teasmokedsalmon, originally uploaded by essencecatering.

salmonbite, originally uploaded by essencecatering.

It's about time that we get to play with this thing. We've had it in the kitchen for a couple of weeks now. Just sitting on a shelf taunting us to go and give it a try. Well today that moment arrives. We are going to lightly smoke some salmon sashimi and then roll it up with some carrots and daikon. Then it goes on a stick, like all good food should. The flavor for our smoke will be Lhapsang Souchong (a Chinese black tea), it has a smokey flavor to begin with and should complement our salmon sashimi. The carrots and daikon will be seasoned with some mirin, ginger, shiso, and sesame oil. Top it all off with a sauce of teryaki and balsmic, Hawaiian black salt and grains of paradise. Perfection....maybe not , but tasty all the same. Sorry for the crappy pics, still figuring out how to take good ones.
Whatever will we do with this thing next?
Jay

Cycle Logic

2008-12-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

This is one party i really look forward to. A combination of my food and art on the walls. I always feel really goof to put my food into those settings. We try and go the extra mile to compete with the other artists present. This time was no exception. The feedback was great and fun was had (and still being had) by all. I would like to thank all those present and of course my friends from Cycle Logic (who really know how to throw a party). PHG (only those following my triathlon traininng blog will know him) has been a real positive influence in my life lately and for that I make sure he gets the most for his dollar. I thank you as always Ian. I hope you had as much fun as I. And really where do you get all those really great looking bartenders anyways. believe me a total joy to show up again. Till next time.
jason

Ermite, Douanier, Riopelle, oh my.

2008-11-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Really this is quite a pig out of beautiful artisan Quebec cheeses. It just makes me smile to see it. Producers who really care about the product they produce. These are just fantastic cheeses in their own right. In no particular order they are :
Duanier
Riopelle
Ermite
Clos de St Ambroise
Chebrie
Du Village
Le Cendrillon
and Cendre De Lune

Small fortune for a customer's cheese course. I hope they are as happy as I am at the sight of these cheees.

Jay

Pushing Further

2008-11-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

After making the Tobacco Blackbery dish by Grant Achatz several times in the past few weeks, I finally found what I wanted out of this dish. To me (and I don't have anything on the originator of this dish), this dish was missing something. It took quite awhile to figure it out. We were discussing how this dish gave you a sense of having just had a glass of red wine and a fine cigar (providing you use a good one for the dish). What more could there be? Well for us it was more about the wine then the cigar. Something to balance that tinge in the back of the throat you get from this dish, much like an actual cigar. What was the elusive idea.
Port.
Really think about. Any cigar (of quality) that I have ever had was accompanied by a fortified wine. Port mainly. Having made the dish again today, I ws struck with the idea of incorporating some port. Some ways we will try tomorrow will include a port foam. This is not my favorite idea, as there is already a foam or air on tomorrow's menu. But also due to the fact that it would possibly obscure the blackberry's visual glory. Another would be to make a port reduction and sweeten slightly to be used as a glaze or sauce to be plated under or squeezed over the disc of tobacco on a chinese soup spoon. And then an idea we won't get to tomorrow, but the one I feel will yeild the best result. Simply a layer of port gelee through the middle of the tobacco. This way the port becomes an intricate visual presence, but also give just the right flavor balance (I hope) to the bite.
We shall see.

Progress

2008-11-30T13:47:00.000-08:00

I really liked the idea of the oreo stick, but have come up with a more refined version we will start working on tomorrow. It will start with a dense chocolate brownie. It will be cut into a small cube and topped with a cherry gelee with a creme de cacao cherry set in the middle of it. We can then cut a shape to match the brownie. Not done yet I say. Really if it was just that well who cares, but... We then will make a cream foam incorporating the insides of a dozen oreos. And of course the smoked oreo cookie crumb.
Can't wait.

Smoking Gun

2008-11-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

I just got my hands on the "smoking gun". Yes I know what some of you are thinking. But really and truly I won't use it for that. I am though excited to find some time this week to smke everything I can. Starting with chocolate and maybe some tuna belly. Any how stay tuned for fun smoked food.

Jay

Experimentation

2008-11-30T13:34:00.000-08:00

So after perusing the pages of Alinea the cookbook for the last month or so, it was time to make some of my own concepts and not just work on Grant Achatz food. TO start with I was going to try and come up with a use for some vanilla vodka we had made some time ago. The regular Smirnoff stuff you can get at the liquor just wasn't vanilla enough for us. So we took all the scraped vanilla beans we had on hand and put them into the vodka. 2-3 weeks later.....voila, a nice brown liquid that is overwhelmingly scented by vanilla.
While passing ideas around I was struck by the idea to make a "screwdriver" with this wonder liquor. And wouldn't you know it, it tasted just like one of those orange julips I got as a kid at that big orange thing in Montreal. Only this one had booze. So the only logical thing for us to do was make an orange julip bite.
We started with setting some vanilla vodka spike OJ with agar. We filled a mold only half way and let this set. We also prepared an orange cream, also set with agar to go over the first layer. Once the two layers had fused we removed them from the mold and finshed the dish with Kumquat jam and orange foam.
Wow. It tasted really great. We will deffinitely be amking this again.

Enjoy.

Food... Stick... Good

2008-11-17T20:43:00.000-08:00

Pretty much says it all doesn't it? I mean really how long was I going to wait to open the ffridge and find something to put on a stick. Well not long enough to finish dishes actually.
Fumbling around in the fridge I come accross some rounds of brownie and the chocolate stewed cherries for the top. One more thing or two. Smoked oreo soil and some smoked vanilla maldon. Hmmm. Yummy
The second has some red cooked pork belly with miso butterscotch and grains of paradise. Pig on a stick with salt and sweet, what more can you want.
We shall have to see.....

New Kitchen Tools

2008-11-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

Never thought I would have one of these in my kitchen. Well with more time on my hands for other things. Fun projects get to be finished I always try to come up with new ways to present food. One method I found was really neat. And involved eating food from a stick. Something everyone loves to do. C'mon you know you like it....
One inch plexi with holes cut to fit standard bamboo skewers. The look is really sleak. I wanted to make one kind of industrial, hence the plexi. And one rather organic with wood and angular skewers coming off of it. More like nature, and use both in one service to highlight two distinct bites. Maybe to art as food. I don't know, but it was a cool idea in one of my more contemplative moments.

Now how many cool bites can we put on sticks?

New Avenues

2008-11-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

With the arrival of the Christmas busy season, and our second year coming to an end. It was time to start getting the ducks in a row and marketing ourselves better. To accomplish this task we have hired a new catering director. Someone who will help make the Essence name more known. She has a wealth of experience at helping service industry companies take the next step. And we are proud to have her on our team. Look for continued good things from our team. And with more time on my hands some really fun new food and service ideas. All of which will be posted right here as we accomplish them.
Oh yeah who is she....well stay tuned and see for yourself.

Jason

Cube Gallery

2008-11-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

Last night we had the pleasure to cater a party at Cube Gallery. Absolutely amazing setting for our food. The reception was for a retirement party. Great fun was had by all. We hope to be back there soon, as the venue really does justice to our service. Thanks to all who attended and of course a big thanks to our host for having Essence take care of the food.

Governal Generals awards cocktail party

2008-11-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

Just getting back from a party for a Governal General awards receipient. Lots of fun, and some interesting bites:
Wild mushroom cube on polenta with goat cheese and crispy leek
Grilled chipotle shrimp with avocado and serano
Seared beef on tapenade and crostini, parmesan and micro greens
Pan roasted cubeb pepper chicken on parsnip and celery root fritter
Red cooked pork belly bites with daikon and apple slaw, miso butterscotch
Plantain beignette with cajeta and sugar spice.

All fun bites with lots of bold flavors.
We also worked on one we have been testing for a while now. House duck prosciutto wrapped fig with double smoked duck bacon and gorganzola. Finished with a sherry vinegar reduction. The picture is a little fuzzy but you get the idea. Really tasty.

Be sure to check out our pictures in the Citizen next Saturday in the "Arts" section.

Later

New Bites

2008-11-05T07:16:00.001-08:00

With all the new reading material, we have been working hard on some new bites. This one is a hard sell as it's raw beef. But we couldn't resist. The dish was born out of the need to use some quail eggs that were cooked sous vide at 66 degrees. The texture of the yolk is melt in your mouth luscious. We decided that some organic beef tenderloin would produce a nice tartar to contrast the texture of the yolk. A little parmesan and some black truffle and voila, a very fun little bite.

Where does the time go

2008-10-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

July 20th was my last post. So much for regular postings on my blog. Busy, busy, busy summer. Well I am here now, so whats new?
I just received my copy of Grant Achatz's book. WOW is all I can say. I haven't played this much with food since school. The ideas are never ending and the photography is really clean. Well worth the cost of the book. I have to write down all the ideas spinning in my head from just about every page. I will hopefully receive Thomas Kellers book very soon, followed closely by the Fat Duck cookbook.
Essence has been very busy this sumer and getting busier each week as we get closer to Christmas. The quality and presentation of our events keeps getting better and better. We now have a few extra bodies around to help with innovation and service. Bringing others perspectives into play has really helped the creative process. We will have a camera at the kitchen from nnow on and will keep pics of our dishes as we come up with them.
Until next time.....
PS here is the first dish I tried from the Alinea cookbook. Tobacco, blackberry and nasturtium. I changed it a bit in the garnish department but all in all a great bite. The tobacco gets you in the back of the tongue with a camphor or menthol quality just like smoking a cigar. Really neat bite.

Bar B Que class.

2008-07-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

We just completed our second in a possible three course summer series on BarBQue. My wife and I entertain alot. And it usually focusses on BarBQue in the summer. It's easy to set out large quantities and it keeps us from heating up the house (NO AC).
Over the years I had been asked to teach some classes on BarBQue basic, and it wasn't until this summer that I figured I'd give it a shot.
Well, thanks to all who have attended the first two classes. I ahev to say they were a real treat to teach. It also did't hurt to eat a whole mess of meat and veg from the Que. Our class focussed around these items:

Smoked ribs (both beef and pork back ribs)
Smoked pork shoulder
Grilled tandoori salmon with cauliflower steaks
Grilled bison flank with two rubs (Ginger cinnamon and North African garlic, cumin and carraway)
Beer can chicken (easy and full proof juicy chicken everytime)
Sesame ginger salmon
Star anise and coffee rubbed beef tenderloin
Grilled carrot and onion salad
Sweet potato mash
grilled portabellas
And last but not least pizza from the grill (my absolute favorite tasting pizzas especially the blue cheese, sundried tomato pesto and fig pizza).

Some minor changes from one class to the other, but basically the same. To those who missed the class, we will host one more this year. For those who have already attended please post your feedback. And keep an eye out for next years advanced class.....The Hawaiin luau (sp?). That is sure to be a BarBQueing day to remember.

I have some notes for those who did not get everything. There was alot of material not covered by the outline. After the second class I put some info together on some of the topics that were discussed either through questions or my own ramblings. I will post them here in the near future.

Thanks to all who made both events a great success. And here's hoping you have all mastered you Ques a little more.

Cheers

Bordeaux tasting menu

2008-07-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate to be asked to do a tasting menu centered around the Bordeaus a group of collectors were going to open. Never to miss and evening of fine food and wine, I jumped at the chance. Working with my customer on the menu was very straight forward with little alterations. They were to open several bottles for a tasting and others with the meal. I had to keep in mind all of the nuances of each bottle for the meal, but provide only a couple of amuses for the tasting.
The bottles being opened for the tasting were:
Cos D'estournel '86,90 and 95
Pavie Maquin '89 and 2000
A white Margeaux (the year I cannot recall)
A nice glass of bubbly to start and a really nice sweet white (again this one eludes me, which is unfortunate as I got to try it and really liked it.)
The '96 Cos Destournel was opened with the main course dish.
Food was:

Salmon tataki
Fried nigiri
roasted tomato and fermented black bean

Seared foie
Grilled peach
Vanilla and port syrups

Pan roasted magret
lemon pepper risotto
fried quail egg

Beef tenderloin
Braised short rib ravioli
Parsnip puree
Wild mushroom ragout

Dessert and a salad course were provided by the customer. I still couldn't resist plating them our way and maybe helping them along a little.

A cheese course consisting of:

Les petit vieux. A great raw milk cheddar with a nice pungent rind
Sauvagine. A beautiful semi soft goat milk cheese. Reminiscent of a very flavourful brie but much nicer.
Cendre de Lune. A very nice vegetable ash covered soft ripened cheese. The rind is nice a bloomy with blue veining.
Fig and port chutney, Art is in Bakery breads.

Of all the dishes the risotto was nota great match with the wine, but a nice dish none the less. But as it was a dinner centered around the wines being opened this dish fell flat. I have taken notes on the parings and would likely not make that mistake again(for those who haven't already figured out the flavor imbalance, it was too much lemon competing with the Bordeaux).

It was a great evening and one I would love to be asked to do again. And to add to the fun for me a local hockey favorite was in attendance. I won't say who, but it was a real pleasure to have served him. Hopefully I can hear from him in the future (you know who you are). A great meal from the grill for a team building afternoon would really make my year. Only I would have to work and not be too hockey star struck.

As for the customer and the rest of the guests, it was a real joy. Thank you again.
Jason

Wow it's been a while....

2008-07-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

I guess I shouldn't complain that I have been too busy to write much in the past while. But it has pained me not to write here more often. And to not have pictures for long ago posts, very bad indeed.
Well it's time for a change. I really need to devote more time to my blog and on top of that coming up with new dishes to try out. When all you do is production, production, production, a little new inventive creativity is really needed. For the next few weeks I am really going to try and develop some new dishes and ideas. If one looks good to you or you feel you can add to something, please feel free to post.
After a couple of camping trips and some fishing, I feel refreshed and recharged. Because of this, serving some of my stand by faves just won't do anymore this summer. Time to really focus on summer's bounty and go even more local than i currently am.
Hope you all enjoy then next couple of months, I know I am.

Kitchissippi Kitchens

2008-05-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

I just realized I was winging it at spelling kitchissippi. Hope I got it right. Anyhow, feel free to visit us at Tom Brown Arena on June 2nd. We would love to see you there.

OAG auction

2008-05-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we provided food as one of the restaurants and caterers in Ottawa helping in the OAG (ottawa art gallery) fundraising auction. Several artists donated peices of work and 15 or so restaurants and caterers took part. For us at Essence this was our second year to help out. As it was last year, this event was very fun. I had the pleasure to meet some new people, discuss new ideas and then go peruse the art I could not afford. Oh well maybe next year.
This year we served 2 dishes. The first was a fig with blue cheese mousse and fig chutney in a Phyllo cup with 20 year old port reduction. The second was vanilla potato foam on whiskey sweet potato mousse also in a phyllo cup. The cup for this one was supposed to be a house made sweet potato pringle, but alas I ran out of time. We had 2 events and 1 drop off for the same day.
All in all a fun evening. And to all those I met for the first time, I hope to see you again next year.
Jason

Don't eat dirty snow......

2008-05-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

Have you been down Bayswater ave. lately? Well if you have not you probably have not noticed the BIG UGLY pile of unmelted snow covered in chemicals and debris. And if this sight doesn't bother you then maybe a quick glance North on the horizon is the Ottawa River. A mere few blocks. Sad really that not only is the area where they pile this snow unfit for public recreation (when the snow is not present) but that as it melts (which will surely run into June or even July) and fouls everything in it's apth. Ultimately ending at the river. Where we have had record closure days on our beaches for the last couple of seasons. Gee I wonder why.
And that snow is just sitting there melting. Why? Someone please tell me there is a better way to deal with this. Surely world water shortages are going to hit close to home soon. Better to have a plan now, than wait till it's upon us and too late. As we are prone to do. I feel pretty certain that there is a fair bit a grey water just sitting there begging us to do something constructive with it.
The picture pretty much says it all for me.
What do you think?

My garden

2008-05-21T08:19:00.001-07:00

It's funny how you change as you grow older and hopefully wiser. When I first started as a chef, I didn't inquire as to where my food came from. Let alone was it organic, free range, and so on. Now some 12 years later, I need to know everything I can about the food I use, and feed to my family. If you know me you would know that I am slowly becoming a food activist. Not over the top or anything, but seriously concerned about our food chain. There are just too many disconnects for my liking.
So this year I started my own garden. Nothing grand. Just a raised bed measuring 4'X8' and several buckets for tomatoes. I have planted runner beans, cucmbers, red onions, chili peppers, fennel, and several lettuces. I am about to figure out how to pest proof my little Eden. Any suggestions from those at this longer than I would be greatly appreciated. I will hopefully post pics of my progress throughout the growing season and maybe just maybe get to harvest my bounty.
Wish me luck...

More TGM fun

2008-05-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

I recently made some shrimp chorizo. These were made using the basic ratios outlined at "Ideas in Food". I wrapped them in a prociutto skin. The one on the left has been poached and cooled an the other raw. The taste was really smoky form the smoked paprika and other spices I used. I will have to try actually smoking one to taste the outcome. The prociutto creates a really nice crust when slowly roasted. All in all a fun little exercise. Even crusted a piece of Sable fish with the raw chorizo. The fat melts down into the fish and creates a really nice flavor and texture.
The chicken was just an attempt to make a tighter ballotine in different shapes. Skin on both the top and bottom> I would next time cover the sides too. It was slow roasted and sliced. Served with various garnishes left over form an event that day. I just can't stop having fun with this enzyme.

Herve This

2008-05-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough yesterday to attend a lecture by Herve This. For those who are not aware of him, he is a French food chemist. He is also the person who coined the term "molecular gastronomy". Which he asserts can only be performed by scientists and not chefs. His lecture was very engaging and informative. Not really what I thought it would be, but rather a looking back to look forward. I have read his books and found them to be excellent reads. Even tweaked the way I do a few techniques to ensure a better product with less failure.
One thing that did stick with me was a statement he made. "Kowledge without sharing is not worth knowing" or something to that effect. He encouraged the chefs in attendance to start their own group to search out answers and to ask questions about food and food culture. Wow that really hit home for me. So I am proposing to haev anyone who wants to know more about all facets of gastronomy to meet once per month. At these meetings we will discuss and experiment with a different technique, tool or product to see what we can come up with. I have been doing something similar for a couple of months now with friends, but would like to open the doors to more people.
If you are intersted in attending, just leave a comment or email me. We will set up a date when we have more people involved. Hopefully we can do it on the same day each month.
Cheers.

Where's the bees?

2008-04-23T05:39:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else alarmed that in the past couple of years we have seen such a drastic reduction in the numbers of bees worldwide. It is pretty alarming considering all the hard work they do for us. And I don't mean just honey production. Bees account for the majority of crop polination with respects to fruit trees. Something called colony collapse syndrome is causing the bees to leave the hive and not return. There are all kinds of insight into the reasons why, but no concrete answers. Our ecosystem is just that, a system. And currently it's broken, and we don't either seem to care or notice. Sad.

transglutiminase fun

2008-04-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

On Friday I had the pleasure of working with another chef in the kitchen. We decided to play around with some TGM. Unfortunately the last package I have left. We made some salmon gnochi and rolled a rib eye cap. I had a luncheon that day and had some scallops and halibut left over, so we bonded them to chicken skin. All in all alot of fun and pretty tasty too. We only just put a dent in my TGM so I have about 3 weeks now to finish the rest. Look out for more frankenmeat in the near future.
Oh yeah, thanks Pat for all the input. It was lots of fun.
Jason

A good read

2008-04-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "In Defence Of Food", by Micheal Pollen. A really must read book for any disallusioned eater in the food chain. I cannot do it justice save to say I have changed some of the eating habbits I have had my whole life. The title pretty much says it all. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Read it....you'll get it.
Cheers

more pics

2008-04-12T18:39:00.001-07:00

Back to the blog

2008-04-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have just finished a very hectic time for myself and my wife. Time for the blog over the last month and a bit has been nil. Well that should change as we get into a schedule for awhile.
Just posting some recent pics from events or parties.
Hope you like......More rants to come....

Are you manic for organic?

2008-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a program on the Food Network. It was about a somewhat manic organic who brings fast food loving folk to his his farm in an effort to help change their ways. After seeing a couple of commercials previewing the show, I had to see it. It was very well done, and the host was quite amiable. A lot of info for the average person to gobble up, but the point was well made. After just one short week several of the shows participants shied away from mass produce poultry altogether. That was really great, providing it would last into the future (they were revisited a month later and were still on the bandwagon). Pity the show is airing at 11pm, well after most people have gone to bed. You would figure if they wanted to have an impact they would air it in prime time. Who really needs to see another kitchen makeover anyways.
The whole thing got me wondering how many of you out there actually shun the mass produced food industry and what percentage are buying free range and organic. I have for several years now tried to feed my family and my customers a higher quality product. But price is something we all deal with in our own ways. In the show organis is shown to be as cost effective as the mass produced product. But that cost effectiveness only kicks in if you purchase whole birds and use it ALL. Something I believe is hard for the average 2 income family to achieve coming throught the door at 5 or 6pm, and wanting to eat near instantly. It is a dilemma that affects us all.
So what do "you" do? Do you spend the extra money on an ethically raised or grown product? Does the fact that on almost all cases it's a more healthful foodstuff make a difference to you? I really want to know. I am trying to make my company's focus all organic. But as I said before it comes at a price, that inevitably the consumer will have to pay for in the end. Your participation here will help me, and hopefully others to serve to a higher standard.
Thank you

Double cut flank steak

2008-02-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of an idea I was working on from a Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food. They had cut and stacked a skirt steak with Transglutiminase. I had a while back glued a flank steak in a similar way. Today I revisited the idea in 2 different forms. Both dishes had all the same elements, but one became a soup or starter course, the other a small main. Smoked chilli rubbed double cut flank with corn and lima succotash, black beans and avocado quennelle. I really liked the taste both ways. You decide.

Practice, practice, practice

2008-01-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

Just some more playing with my food. Have lots of engagements coming up and need some new interesting dishes. Can't seem to get away from the vanilla parsnip combo, and I still haven't gotten to use it with scallops or lobster. I am sure they will be coming soon. Once again some venison, osso bucco, with stellatine (mini pasta) and saffron, and some snap peas for crunch and color. Second dish is foie with braised duck ravioli, vanilla parsnip puree, blueberry zinfandel sauce and vanilla maldon salt. I really really loved this one. It will surely get served sometime in the future. All vegetables for these dishes were in my weekly basket from BRYSON this week.

Seafood fun

2008-01-16T18:20:00.001-08:00

Just working on some dishes for an upcoming seafood dinner. If you have suggestions please feel free.....
Scallop sashimi with ginger jalapeno dressing, avocado mosaic, pea tendrills, goji berries.
Seared trout with oven roasted tomato salsa, oven roasted fingerlings, braised sweet potato and fennel.

Vanilla parsnip revisited

2008-01-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you play with your food. SOmetime you come up with something that really goes down well. Case in point bananas foster new style. Ok so not much of a name but it sure tastes good. Maybe I'll call it vanilla parsnip gnudi, bananas foster style. I don't know, but it's a work in progress for an upcoming dinner.
Vanilla parsnip puree sweetened with agave and bound with ricotta and transglutiminase. Sliced to resemble bananas and satueed in vanilla brown butter. Bananas were flambeed with rum and maple brown sugar.
It came out better than expected than expected but requires a little something more......

Venison ravioli

2008-01-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

I received some nice venison from a friends father (thanks Josee). It's been in deep freeze for a while now..... My friend wanted to know what I did with it so here it is. The idea is now a work in progress. I really like the flavors. Next up with the parsnip puree and a seared foie gras, same blueberry sauce. Anyhow, the venison was great Josee, thank you and your dad once again.
Cheers

Parsnip gnudi

2008-01-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Vanilla parsnip gnudi. Bound with transglutiminase.
White miso and ginger gnudi.
Both with 1% tgm by wieght.
One for a trout dish the other some kind of dessert.
Bye for now.

Vanilla parsnip puree

2008-01-06T15:48:00.001-08:00

I get quite a few parsnips in my "Bryson" bags during the winter months. It is a truly beautiful vegetable, deserving of much more acclaim then it receives. I make it into all kinds of concoctions, like this puree of silky smooth parsnip with a sweet side and the hint of vanilla on the finish. Simple to make, very easy to eat and pair with many mains.

2 lbs parsnips peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup milk
pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper
1 vanilla bean scraped and pod included
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup cream

Cook parsnips in milk and enough water to cover by 1-2" for 25-30 min at a gentle simmer. Till a knife tip pierces the flesh with no resistance.
Mean mix butter,cream, salt/pepper, and vanilla in a saucepan over low heat.
Drain parsnips and allow to dry. A 350 degree oven works well if the parsnips are soggy. The idea is to create as dry a parsnip as possible so it will soak up as much cream and butter mix as possible.
Transfer to a food processor.
Add cream mixture (not all at once)
Blend but do not aerate. You don't want to overwork them as they will get gluelike.
Check for seasoning and enjoy.

I have some venison a friends father got on a hunting expedition that needed using so stay tuned to see where this goes.

Gnudi... should we turn the lights out?

2008-01-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

I saw an article just recently about gnocchi, and it got me to thinking about gnudi (I tend to think laterally and segueway into new trains of thought at a moments notice). It had been awhile since I had made any, and now seemed like as good a time as any. So just what are gnudi you ask. Well I'd love to tell you that it's something you need to turn the lights out for, but alas that just isn't the case. Although I do beleive it is italian for "in the nude", it is really just a reference to the filling of a raviolli et al but no pasta. They are quite light and ethereal, and made properly are really a wonderful starch.

I will make two versions. One being a traditional (although I do not know how long these have been around so traditional may be somewhat nonsensical). And one method that would be perceived as Nouveau American, using Transglutiminase as the bonding agent and not flour or eggs.

Traditional:

1 lb ricotta (and none of that reduced fat or skim crap)
1 egg
1/3 cup parmesan finely grated
Salt/pepper
3/4 cup AP flour

Strain the ricotta in a fine sieve or a colander with cheesecloth lining for 1 hour. This helps extract the excess liquid.
Put it into a bowl.
In a seperate bowl mix cheese, salt and pepper and egg
Mix in the ricotta.
Mix in 3/4 of the flour adding more in small increments until you have a cohessive mass.
Cover and let stand one hour in the fridge.

Line a baking sheet with a coating of flour.
Cut the paste into 3 and with floured hands and a well floured surface roll out one ball into a long rope 3/4" in diameter.
Cut the paste into 3/4" peices and place on floured sheet pan. Refrigerate for another hour.
Cook as you would regular gnocchi.
This method produces a stellar light and very very delicate gnudi. Do not try and pan fry or heat too much or they will crumble.

Method 2. This method is adapted from one at "Ideas in Food" (thank you Alex for the info)

Drain 1 lb ricotta (remeber the note with the first method)
Weigh the drained ricotta.
measure out 1% by weight of transglutiminase and add.
Salt and pepper.

Mix well and fill into a pastry bag. 3/4" plain tip
Pipe into a long log on a sheet of plastic wrap.
Roll the wrap up and secure the ends, tightening as you go. Creating a sausage shape.
Allow to set in the fridge over night.
Remove from plastic wrap and cut into 3/4" lengths.
This gnudi is substantially more stable to high heat applications and can even be braised.

Tonight I made the traditional method. In that I have been cooking at home alot these days I am cleaning out the fridge of produce from Christmas time parties. So here we have gnudi with two tomatos, boccancini, lemon, chives, and Hawaiian red clay salt. Very tasty.
tomorow I will experiment with the TGM gnudis. Perhaps then we'll turn out the lgihts.
A demain.

Bryson Farms Video

2008-01-05T19:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a short video I just saw on where my family's vegetables come from. Just look at the farm and the hard work that goes into producing top quality "CERTIFIED ORGANIC" produce. Get your name on their waiting list for home delivery or see them during the summer at Parkdale market. You won't be disappointed.