Eric
Sriracha Salt
Reply
Category Archives: Sauce
Saute of Brussels Sprouts Tossed in Rosemary Cream Sauce with Crushed Almonds
Eric
Lobster Mushroom and Pancetta with Descending Romanesco Broccoli
Pretty creative stuff at 2AM.
I get off of work late….I cook things when I get home.
The yellow dots are an emulsified butternut squash puree.
The romanesco broccoli is cooked sous vide with salt, pepper, and a touch of contadina.
The tower is composed of lobster mushrooms cooked in pancetta fat with pancetta lardons spread throughout. Saute of frisee with leeks, and gold beets. It’s topped with a small salad of arugula and pickled shaved fennel.
Eric
Dinner, my place. Seafood Extravaganza
Practice makes perfect!
Had some friends over the night for dinner and since I have one night a week to cook dinner at home I went all out.
A couple dungeness crabs as you can see above. Some spot prawns.
A collection of fun things from Mindy’s garden.
and off to work I go.
First up was Kumamoto Oysters with sauce Mignonette and a Japones Chili Oil Vinaigrette that was infused with green onions using Nitrogen Cavitation.
Next up was a compressed warmed salad which consisted of golden beets, Mindy’s carrots, another nitrogen cavitation vinaigrette infused with persillade.
Next, a carrot ginger soup (click) with pancetta lardons (click)
Next, sous vide spot prawns cooked in a killer sauce that I’m not going to talk about. I took the roe from the prawns and soaked them in a ginger brine for a few hours……incredible.
Finally, harissa spiced angry crab.
Eric
Wanna Play Chicken?
I use chicken as a practice protein for ideas I have. It’s inexpensive because I buy a whole chicken then just break it down myself and then go from there….stocks are made, nice little airline breasts, dark meat for braising and whatever else I can make into a meal.
In the picture above I’m getting ready to work with duck in the near future but duck is expensive so for now I wanted to see how it would work with chicken…duck breast isn’t cooked like chicken breast but it’s close to the same size and I wanted to see how medallions would look on top of couscous with two broken sauces.
I learned about broken sauces at work….instead of doing those tight sauces that I have learned at school then broken ones look really cool if you have the right things to make it with. At work we do a broken tomato vinaigrette….it’s f’ing delicious.
The dish above is a brined the chicken is sauteed in bacon fat and cut into medallions. It’s sitting on top of glazed leeks and carrots which is sitting on top of coriander cous cous. The broken sauce above is a kale puree (kale that Mindy grew!) mixed with popped brown and yellow mustard seeds. The sauce on the bottom is a broken dijon pan sauce. With duck it will be incredible….pretty awesome with chicken too!
I wanted to work with polenta and one day use transglutaminase to make a roasted chicken piece with skin on that will go below the polenta (rectangle chicken piece). The polenta will be a different shape on the second go -around. The sauce is a take from one at work….brown butter almondine but this uses pumpkin seeds, peaches, and sage……yes, excellent………the one at work is f’ing amazing too! The next time I make this I’m going to use compressed pumpkin instead of peaches.
This is a piquillo pepper polenta cake over a sauteed chicken medallion with a brown butter, sage, pumpkin seed, and peach sauce.
This was a sous vide stew I did one night at 2AM. I put all of the things you see in a plastic bag then vacuum sealed it, cooked it, then seared the chicken. It was pretty good and a good late night snack.
Chicken, the practice meat!
Eric
House-Cured Pancetta, Egg Yolk, Avocado, Tomato, and Hearts of Palm
Tomatoes from Mindy! That’s the pancetta I’ve been working on for a month resting on top of a quick poached egg yolk….when the yolk is broken it flows over the other items on the plate. The pancetta is rendered then I worked that fat into the avocado puree. There’s more to it but I won’t bore you with you details.
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
Pickled Red Chili Pepper/Honey Glazed Chicken and more…..
Here’s a little of what’s going on here.
I did a soy/ginger/shallot/sesame seed sous vide of some of Mindy’s carrots and some green beans.
I brined the chicken in rice vinegar, sugar, and ginger. I removed the chicken from the brine then did a hard sear of the skin then through it in the oven and basted it with a pickled red chili pepper and honey glaze that I made. When then chicken was about to be finished I through some green onions in the pan from Mindy’s garden….
They picked up the sticky glaze so I was able to mold them how I wanted and they were a little crispy too….awesome.
I removed the chicken and then reduced the sauce in the pan.
The rice is a made with black sesame seeds then some rice vinegar is folded in once it’s done….sushi style.
I eat pretty well at 2AM.
Eric
When In Doubt…..TACO PARTY!!!!!
Audrey and Dan came over to our place in West Seattle so I decided to cook a few things for them. Audrey loves spicy food and so do I so it was me and her versus Dan and Mindy and the cook always wins so spicy was the theme!
Adobo spiced cheddar cheese
Fried Corn with a brown butter chipotle sauce……Trying to perfect my technique for work!
Pique Coleslaw!
U.S. Wild Caught Shrimp in a pickled red pepper sauce with green bell, garlic, Walla Walla Onion, and Cilantro
Ghost Chili Blackened Hawaiian Mahimahi.
Garbanzo Awesome Rice
Sauteed Limes
Roasted Salsa. Green Bell, Red Bell, Tomatoes, Garlic, Walla Walla Onion, and more!
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
Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon with Opal Basil/Kalamata Olive Puree, Beans!, and Salmon Chicharron
Sockeye salmon skin is taken off the fish then deep fried and topped with salt and pepper when it comes out. Salmon is sauted skin side down (skin was removed at this point, just giving you detailes) then placed in the oven to finish. The opal basil and kalamata olive puree has a little bit of white wine vinegar, olive oil, and herbs. The beans are three different colors…..yellow, green, and purple (purple lost its color but I intend to address that problem in a few days). Beans are blanched, shocked, then warmed in warm salty water. Made a sauce for the beans to soak up which consisted of Italian purple garlic, brown butter, salt, pepper, thyme, and oregano. The salmon chicharron is crushed and spread on the sauced salmon and spread throughout the plate.
Beans and opal basil are from the West Seattle Farmers market. Fish is from Pike Place Market.
“Eric, that plate looks too cluttered”.
Hey, I don’t remember you paying for anything and since when did you start critiquing my dishes?!?!?
(Fight with the voices in my head)
Eric
Herbed Goat Cheese Stuffed Squash Blossoms with Macerated Peach Sauce
The squash blossoms, goat cheese, and peaches are from the West Seattle Farmers market. Peaches are macerated in PX S’orange then blended, strained, and made a little tighter with agar. The squash blossoms are cleaned, blanched, shocked, drained, stuffed then warmed in the oven then topped with sel de mer. The goat cheese is herbed with herbs from MindyRiveraFarms.
Eric
Thanks for the plates Bonnie and Bruce!!!
Donutpalooza
I am not a baker but I like donuts and I had a few ideas for glazes and sauces to put on them so I called in my future pastry chef to help me out with this whole donut problem I was having (long sentence!).
Ellen Benezra is pretty damn good at what she does. She’s crazy like me when it comes to cooking stuff so it was only natural that we worked together on this donutpalooza thing. She is available for hire in the Seattle area and she makes some pretty amazing cakes, pastries, and anything else to do with baking…..she even has a website so you can see what I’m talking about (click).
I had a few ideas about how I wanted the donut to be constructed and while we’re still working on getting there we started in the right direction. She picked a brioche mother recipe and it turned out to be a fantastic choice. One problem we ran into was that it was 90 degrees and we kept having heat issues with the dough so sous-chef Mindy stepped in with the brilliant idea of putting an ice bath under the mixer….genius.
The dough was just about ready so it was my turn to work up some glazes to go on top of these amazing donuts. Hmmmm, what’s an Eric to do?
Donut in front: Fresh Bing Cherry and Fresh White Currant Glaze with Urfa Biber
Donut to the left: Maple Syrup and Mangalitsa Bacon Glaze
Donut in the back: Butterscotch Ganache with Black Lava Salt
Donutpalooza 2 is already planned. It’s going to be a 5 course sit-down dinner featuring donuts.
Eric
Smoked Paprika Torta with Sausage and Dueling Sauces
Great way to wake up in the morning.
Eric
Sauces, Spreads, and More Projects
This is a cherry wood smoked tomato base sauce.
This is my pique sauce before straining.
This is a Rainier Cherry syrup. I have a special dessert planned…..when I get around to it.
These are diced cherry wood smoked Walla Walla onions. I’m going to make a relish from this that will go on a fish dish.
This is a molasses ghost chili sauce. Sweet and f’ing hot…..just like me…. not really 
Took some pickled mustard seeds (brown and yellow) then smoked them. Built a grape seed oil french mayonnaise then worked in the seeds with a little honey.
Eric
