Eric
Porterhouse, Morel, and Potato
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Category Archives: Beef
Steak, Demi/Beecher’s Veloute Mashed Potatoes, and Asparagus
It looks so simple and boring. Mission Accomplished!
Eric
Beef Marrow, Beecher’s Veloute, Caramelized Cippolini, and Ciabatta
Additional ox tail/morel broth served table side.
Eric
Puerto Rican Cuisine: Plan B
I was supposed to teach a Puerto Rican cooking class last night but the weather decided it wanted to take control of the fun and excitement so the people that run the shop where I was going to cook decided to reschedule because of the threat of snow. The forecasters said anywhere between 1-8″ of snow would fall so this freaked the hell out of everyone and well……SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING. There was one problem with this, I was running around all morning buying all the ingredients for the event…yup, enough food to feed 14 people…..now hanging out at my house with nobody to eat it…..
Plan B! Call over everyone brave enough to come over and risk an impending death of snow in order to come and eat some Puerto Rican food. I posted a note on Facebook and within a few minutes I had a bunch of people ready to dine.
Above is a picture of the empanada dough that I stopped making right before I called to see if the class was about to happen. The dough went right in the trash after that….I wasn’t very happy about the class being cancelled….it was looking pretty good too!
I got back in happy mode and starting cooking. I would recreate the entire menu at my house for friends!
Dungeness Crab Mofongo.
Shrimp Ceviche
Sancocho
Ropa Vieja and Saffron Duck Stock Rice
Eric
Dark Soy Sauce Glazed Short Ribs, Rice, and Japones Pickled Chayote
Pretty f’ing good.
Eric
Steak and Frites
Ribeye, Dijon and Pickled Mustard Seed Demi, Fried Parsley Oil, and Triple Fried Frites.
Loco Moco
Fried Egg, Pickled then Stir Fried Vegetables, White Rice, Pickled Serrano Glace de Viande, with Candied Serrano Garnish.
Eric
Brainstorming Food……
Quick-pickled ocotopus with ikura, mung bean, satsuma zest, and green onion on tarro root crisp with japones chili oil on the outside…..re-plated this later when Mindy got home and it looked much better…still tasted pretty awesome.
Scott, Jethro and I are working on a dinner for a few of our culinary heroes in February so we are brainstorming a whole bunch of ideas. I had them come over to my place so we could brainstorm and decided to cook them dinner. Unfortunately, Jethro was caught up at work and couldn’t make it so Scott and I went through some logistics for the dinner so we could make it flow.
The dinner we’re planning is pretty ambitious and it has an Asian flair to the cuisine so I’m working on sauces and flavor combinations that can add to the dishes or just be another option if we’re running into time constraints for the dinner…..something blows up….can’t re-fire…..option b!
Hedgehog mushrrom and squash soy broth with soba
I have two dishes that will be my main focus and they’re pretty much mapped out I just have to practice them by mastering work with those crazy ingredients and powders. I would love to tell you what they are but I don’t want to ruin the surprise…you’ll be seeing some components of them but the dinner will have the final reveal.
I’m working on a few other projects as well. You’ll be hearing more about them soon.
Made some dumplings that were filled with oxtail that was marinated in shiso and lemongrass. I would have braised it in the oven but it’s broken so I had to go all sous vide on it which I don’t like to do for braising but plan b was in full effect. As you can see my dumpling skills needs to improve so I’ll be working on that too (the wrappers I was using were too thick…that’s my excuse!).
Anyway, stay tuned for more events and things I’m working on.
Eric
59.5C Rib Eye with Cranberry Demi-Glace and Winter Ratatouille
Oh yes…..Oh yes…….
Perfect on the inside.
Eric
Dinner, My Place: Baking, Science, and Killer Pasta
Aw yes, lobster mushrooms. They look like cooked lobsters on the outside and they have a nice meaty texture when cooked…..
Put some salt and pepper on the ox tail and braise it with some veal stock and smoked ham hock…..yes, excellent. It’s going to be a ragout for the pasta.
Make some fresh rosemary pasta then cut it and work on something else. (Duck eggs, rosemary, “00″, Semolina, Contadina, Water)
Mushrooms, golden beets, and butternut squash go into bags so they can have a meeting with the immersion circulator for a while. I made a terrine with that carrot ginger soup using agar, took about 3 hours to set.
Well, I’m ready to go so let’s start cooking stuff!
First up is a brown butter brioche with sauce rouille and pickled vegetables.
Next is a carrot/ginger terrine with sous vide butter poached lobster mushrooms, golden beets, butternut squash, and shaved fennel served with a caramelized fig sauce with reduced sherry and contadina extra virgin olive oil.
Finally, an ox tail and smoked ham hock ragout over rosemary/duck egg pasta.
Another successful dinner at my place. See you next week!
Eric
Ossobuco
I don’t care if this is the traditional way to do this or what not. This is the Eric way.
I took some veal shanks and then tied them, seared them in bacon fat, braised them in veal stock (not worth trying unless you make your own….) with carrots, onions, leeks, shallots, pickled brown and pickled yellow mustard seeds, cloves, and cinnamon. I used tarragon, rosemary, candied meyer lemon peel, green peppercorns, and thyme as additional herbs and spices.
When the veal shanks were tender I strained and de-fatted the sauce in the pan then cooked Israeli couscous in it…..awesome move Eric.
I eat pretty well before I go to work.
Eric
Epic Burger
Start with Painted Hills Sirloin then cube it up.
Mix it together with some cubed up pork back fat.
Then grind it together.
Combine that with:
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parsley, minced
- Bread crumbs…made some from Tall Grass Bakery Bread
- Egg
- Walla Walla Sweet, minced
- Green Onion (MRF)
Then form them into patties.
Make 2 sauces…..one that takes forever……. I have about 5 days into this one. Veal Glace de Viande with molasses/ghost chili starter.
and an avocado puree….you’ll see it in the final picture.
Render some bacon…..start forming the brioche dough and cook it off….finish with a roasted garlic oil that I made earlier.
Cook the patties in the bacon fat on high heat to sear each side then spoon bacon fat over each patty….I added 4 sprigs of rosemary and 5 garlic cloves to the bacon fat so it would add more flavor……epic. When the burgers are about 50% done then throw the entire pan in the oven to finish……
Beer batter some Walla Walla Sweet Onions in a Rainier Beer Batter then fry them off. I’m so used to using the fryer at work……..piece of crap Fry Daddy wasn’t cutting it so I had to resort to plan B. It worked.
Give them some vegetables too……at least one healthy thing. Lots of vegetables from MindyRiveraFarms and a persillade I made with herbs from the garden as well. Saute of vegetables with persillade and pumpkin seeds.
Ready to go!
Cheese is Beecher’s Flagship……..
Epic burger by Eric
Painted Hills Ribeye with Chanterelle Demi-Sauce, Fingerling Mash, and More!
That is a sexy piece of meat. I purchased it at Rain Shadow Meats (click) which is in the Melrose Market on Capitol Hill in Seattle. I have a friend that works there and he has been telling me to check it out for some time so I did! I’ll have a follow up post to it next week because I intend to go there again this weekend…..it’s an amazing place.
This is my first attempt at sous vide cooking. I have been reading about sous vide cooking for about a year now so I know all the ins and outs of it from random posts online from people that don’t know what they’re talking about to Thomas Keller’s guidance in the book “Under Pressure”. Well, I had Scott from Seattlefoodgeek.com build me an immersion circulator and I found a screaming deal for a Foodsaver Vac. on eBay so my time is now but before I get to my experiments with sous vide cooking I promised you “and More!” in the subject line of this post.
This is a salad I put together consisting of:
- Hearts of palm
- Pickled red onion (MindyRiveraFarms)
- Cilantro Oil (MindyRiveraFarms)
- Yellow Carrot (MindyRiveraFarms)
- Cilantro Flower (MRF)
- Capers
- Pickled Rhubarb Vinaigrette
- Pickled red pepper coulis
- Lemon Cucumber
- Sel de mer
- Pressed green pepper jus
Next up was a little work with some tomatoes from MindyRiveraFarms
I did a confit of tomato with them then crushed them over some bread with a little bit of the liquid from the confit then crumbled some goat cheese over them and served them on some Essential Bakery bread.
“Eric, that’s cool and all but what about this sous vide thing you were talking about”.
Right, so sous vide cooking is pretty damn amazing and I don’t think there is a better way to illustrate the awesomeness of it than cooking a steak using this technique. First step is to salt and pepper the steak then vacuum seal it like so.
Then you set your kick ass cooking machine for 53C which in American is 127.4F
Then you throw the bag in the water and 20 minutes later you’re ready to have a perfect medium rare steak….well, once Eric does a few more things.
Once the steak was done I took a flat cast iron skillet and set the stove to ludicrous heat. I patted dry the steak and reserved the juices for the sauce I was about to make for it. The steak gets seared on each side for about 1 minute. I wanted a little bit of that charred taste to a steak that we all love but not too much so that it wouldn’t start to cook my steak past my perfect medium rare.
“Eric, you cooked a steak under the recommended temperature for killing bacteria, E. Coli, and zombies….”
Well, here’s the thing…yes, I did but you need to remember what I did to start with. The steak I used is a great quality steak from people that I know that I have built a relationship with it’s not just some off-the-rack piece of meat that I found in the weekly circular for a “great deal”. What is a great deal? Price? No, I think a great deal is getting amazing quality for every cent you pay then being able to cook the food to highlight each penny that you spent. Sure, having an immersion circulator built, buying artisan meat, and spending a bunch of time researching the right way to do it isn’t for everyone but I wouldn’t cook steak any other way. F’ing baffles me when steak houses around this city don’t do sous vide for their steaks. F’ing baffles me when people tell me they make a great steak……Can you make a perfect one? I can, every time with SCIENCE!!!!
“Eric, zombies and e.coli!!!!!”
Sous vide cooking won’t kill that scary bacteria you’re afraid of so just keep cooking your steaks to well done and keep believing the FDA and health department are on your side. Egg recall (mass produced eggs with chickens living in horrendous conditions)? e.Coli outbreaks (awful ground meat that was undercooked by people that shouldn’t be allowed to touch/sell food)?
If you need me, I’ll be over here talking to my purveyors directly and talking to the people that grow my food (Hi Mindy!!!). You can keep worrying about recalls and dumb ass cooking rules….I’ll be over here eating!
(Rant over…….remember, I live in West Seattle now…..my hippie rage is awesome).
Back on track….. So while I was cooking the meat I put together a few sides.
- Green Been Trio (yellow, purple, green) with a green pepper/sherry butter sauce
- Saute of vegetables finishes with almonds, persillade, and sel de mer
Prior to being awesome.
So, the steak is seared off so I took the reserved juices then mixed them with veal demi and a chanterelle stock I had from a puree of dried chanterelle’s I had steeped……sent through 5 layers of cheese cloth then reduced further for a more concentrated flavor then finished the sauce with a little pickled mustard seed aioli. Made some mashed potatoes then emulsified the mix to put in a pastry bag in order to create a barrier so I could flood it with sauce once I poured it over the steak. What? Like this!
Cut into steak….medium rare the whole way through.
Science in my kitchen? It’s more likely than you think.
Eric
Pulled Pork Veal Stock Orzotto
Welcome to flavor country.
If I opened a restaurant this would be a “special” item. Something for those rainy, gloomy, and cold days. Seattle, this dish is for you!
I took some of that pulled pork that I made the other day that was already cooked in veal stock then added more and proceeded to reduce it slowly. I added some tomatoes and then added the orzo and cooked it like a risotto. Stirring, stirring, stirring, then a ton of Fontina cheese then a little bit of veal demi-glace to finish it off. EPIC!
Eric
Negative feedback received for not posting recipes…..hilarious.
Petit Beef Wellington with Cheese Bechamel Potato Gratin Topped with 5 Hour Caramelized Onions
It’s a work in progress but a huge first step in the right direction.
15 day dry aged meat, which needs to be a different cut for this to work properly….still good though the way it was. Need one less layer of phyllo. The sauce on top is amazing…. It’s made from deglazing the pan where the caramelized onions were cooking then building it with veal demi, green peppercorn, crushed black pepper, and salt. Sauce presentation on the plate needs work.
The onions were caramelized for 5 hours. I built a bechamel then melted a ton of cheese into it. I sliced some russets very thin then placed the sauce in a squeeze bottle and layered the potatoes in the ramekin then flooded it with remaining sauce.
When the gratin was done I placed the onions on top and a little more cheese then torched it. This little concoction doesn’t need anything else.
Two experiments. One a complete success, the other needs a little refining. Next!
Eric
