Saw these little containers from Le Creuset and they were $20 a pop…..found something like them at World Market for $4, just like that, gratin time!
Eric
Smoked Gouda Potato Gratin
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Category Archives: Potatoes
Steak and Frites
Ribeye, Dijon and Pickled Mustard Seed Demi, Fried Parsley Oil, and Triple Fried Frites.
Brabant Potatoes Tossed in a Smoked Paprika/Chorizo Sauce with Poached Egg
Eric
Mindy’s Garden Salad and Fried Pork Chop with More Garden Delights
The lettuce and the radishes are from the garden. Cherries are from some friends of ours that picked them this past weekend. It looks like we will have to move to California to grow black olives which I am all for.
Back to the radishes….they’re sliced thin then quickly blanched and shocked which makes them translucent…..I like. The salad is tossed in a neutral grape seed oil vinaigrette to let the salad itself stand out. A little sel de mer and black pepper….ta-da!
FRIED PORK CHOP TIME!!! I had plans for another type of meat for this but things didn’t work out so when in doubt, FRIED PORK CHOP!
The pea vines, peas, radishes, and basil that I used in the mashed potatoes are from the garden. I wish the carrots would get here faster because this dish would explode with some rainbow carrots and a nice piece of fish…….. However, it is pretty awesome as it is.
I used yukon gold potatoes in the mashed potatoes. I used a concentrated pesto base that I made using basil from the garden and I folded that into the potatoes along with cream, butter, salt, pepper, and a little white wine vinegar.
The carrots, peas, and radishes were blanched then shocked then sauteed in clarified butter with shallots, white wine, salt, and pepper. During the last minute of that cooking process the pea vines were added to the mix….they are edible…..learned that at work.
Fried pork chops have my special touches to them. I have perfected those things……really.
I can’t wait to see what else the garden has to offer!!!!
Eric
Roasted Lavender Honey Glazed Turkey Breast with Fingerling Medallions and Leek
I got a book (click) a while ago and had some honey that I infused with lavender to so I decided to put it to work.
Take a turkey breast that you have brined then get it ready to roast. Season with salt, pepper and the usual suspects then roast it until it’s done.
Save the pan juices then deglaze with white wine and reduce until it’s almost nothing. Work in the lavender honey to make a glaze.
The fingerling potatoes are sliced about 1/8 of an inch then shallow fried in clarified butter then topped with sel de mer and black pepper. The leeks are lightly cooked until translucent in clarified butter and sel de mer.
Slice the turkey then place a little clarified butter in a hot saute pan and toss the chicken in then the glaze to coat. This only takes about 35 seconds. Remove, plate, garnish with a micro green,
eat.
Eric
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
“Yeah, I’ll have the 8 piece fried chicken with champagne”
Awesome, have a seat this is going to take a little while.
“What, why?”
Well, I’m going to brine the chicken in a salt, brown sugar, and pepper solution for a few hours.
“Brine?”
It’s awesome, trust me.
“Alright, but I don’t have all day…”
Believe me, it will be worth it. I’m gonna brine that chicken then I’ll pour you a glass of champagne.
“So what kind of champagne are you going to serve?”
Huh, I guess it’s technically not champagne……those French people are a little weird. Anyway, it’s a rose sparkling wine to be “correct”. It’s good, that’s all you need to worry about. Champagne, sparkling wine, fermented grapes with carbonation….who cares, just drink it.
“Oh alright, I guess I’ll try it, I was expecting champagne”
I can say a couple words in French if it makes you feel better.
“That’s rude”.
Sorry, I don’t really understand the whole wine thing. However, this sparkling wine is a 92 point on some magazine…..Does that do anything for you?
“I love 90+ point wines so this will do”.
*cough* F’ing snob *cough*
“What was that?”
Oh nothing, so do you want this now or with dinner?
“Dinner is fine”.
Cool, hey let me whip up a quick salad for you while you wait. It’s a spring salad with goat cheese, diced strawberries, candied meyer lemon, and elderflower vinaigrette. It’s no 90 point wine but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
“This is really good! I can do without the wine comments though”
Sorry, I just get a little bent out of shape sometimes. You like spicy food? I was going to fry off the chicken wings early so you can have a little preview before the chicken comes, is that cool with you?
“Yeah, I love spicy!”
Alright, it’s a spicy wing with recao hot sauce, my own by the way, a little tabasco, lime, and cilantro. Let me know what you think.
“Geez, you went a little crazy with the sauce on the plate but it’s great”.
Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking…….Oh, fancy wings!!!! I’ll just keep it simple next time. I’m going to season the chicken real quick, I’ll be back.
Chicken is removed from the brine and run under water and left to dry. The it is seasoned with I’ll never tell you spices. Then lightly dusted with flour and put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It’s removed, then I ran it through some spiced flour, into eggs, then into seasoned Panko, then back to eggs, flour, eggs, flour, and finally Panko (this gives it a nice layer of crunch). The chicken is then placed back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Canola oil is placed in a large skillet, then pieces of chicken are placed in large skillet, cooked on one side then the entire pan goes into the oven at 400F until the meat is done. This is a better way to go than deep frying, the flavor develops more and you end up with a crispy crunchy piece of fried chicken.
I’m gonna serve up some waffle fries with this. I have something special I want you to try.
“Ok, uh sure”.
Alright, here you go fried chicken, champagne, with a tomato powder, urfa biber infused honey, enjoy.
“Urfa what?”
Don’t worry about it, just try it.
“Ok”
What do you think?
“I’ve never had anything like this, it’s great”.
Awesome, thanks! Here’s the tab by the way, just pay whenever you’re ready.
“YOU WANT HOW MUCH!?!??!?!?”
Hey man, that sparkling wine is expensive and this food didn’t cook itself. 
Eric
Sauteed Chicken with Braised Kale and Dutch Potato Chips
Kale is way to healthy for me. I’m not a big fan of the way healthy food is marketed. You always hear about all the great things….possible cancer prevention, amounts nutrients, vitamins, weight loss potential and all that jazz. My first question when someone goes on a healthy food product freak out is, HOW DOES IT TASTE?!?!??!?
Raw kale is gross. I’ve seen people put it in a smoothie then add 8 billion other ingredients in the smoothie to make it ridiculously unhealthy. Wait a second though, don’t be fooled here, I’m not a health food blogger. I’m not going to do a bunch of yo-yo dieting or tell you about how you can change your lifestyle by doing obvious things like “dieting” and “working out” so I can keep your attention and you can get inspired by my experience. I think about doing stuff like that all the time so this blog can finally take off……I won’t though, I cook!
There are nutrition density charts that say kale is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Kale, today is your day to be knocked down a few notches, I’m tired of you doing nothing and getting all the credit.
Take some kale and cook it like some collard greens. Render some bacon, pull the bacon bits out, cook some onions, celery, and carrots then deglaze with white wine and add vegetable stock then add the kale and through it in the oven at 325F until it starts to wilt. Wait, that’s not so unhealthy…….. YOU WIN TODAY KALE!!!!!
The chicken is brined then salt and peppered. Sauteed in duck fat skin side down first until the skin is crispy then flipped over and finished in the oven.
The dutch potatoes are sliced thin on a mandoline. Deep fried then salted and peppered.
A light pan gravy is made with the chicken/duck fat. I leaned it out with pickled mustard seed juice then poured a little bit over the dish to bring it all together but not overpower.
All of this sounded way to healthy so I made some creme brulee for me, Mindy, my sister and her husband.
Oh yeah!!!!!
Eric
Fried Duck Egg over Ham, Leeks, Carrots, over Fingerling Hash with Green Peppercorn Glace de Viande Sauce
Mindy’s dad is building a shed for us outside of our house so we can have extra storage. It amazes me to see someone who can take a few pieces of wood and make something so functional and brilliant out of it. His work inspired me this morning to create this dish.
I started by grating fingerling potatoes then cooking them in a cast iron pat with lots of clarified butter, salt, pepper, and tarragon filler. On the stove for a bit at medium-high heat to get a nice crust then into the oven to finish off the potatoes. I didn’t flip it like I normally did because I wanted to try out a technique my chef at school taught me….it worked. Once it was done I drained the butter off and adjusted the seasonings on it with a little salt and pepper.
(Yes, the contact points on the stove top suck…big deal)
I can make these in my sleep but I wanted something different this time…..something exciting. To the cookie cutter drawer! Round and nice…
I had a couple leeks, ham, and carrots lying around so I prepared them by cutting the leeks and carrots lengthwise the doing a julienne on the ham. I sauteed the ham first in duck fat then added the carrots and leeks with a little red wine vinegar, salt, and green peppercorns. At the same time I had two small cast iron pans going with 1 duck egg in each. Once it was done they received the cookie cutter action.
I removed the vegetable/ham mixture from the pot then deglazed it with red wine and built the sauce with glace de viande. I took the pot off the heat then stirred in some whole butter then sauced the plate.
Potato, leek/carrot/ham, then egg on top. Ready to go.
Thanks for the shed Bruce!
Eric
Fried Egg over Linguica, Fingerling Potato Medallions, Leeks, Portobello Mushroom with “Hollandaise”
The sauce is a hollandaise minus the egg yolk being worked in. When you break the yolk on the fried egg it combines with the sauce to give you the complete hollandaise experience when eaten.
The linguica sausage is seared then the pan is deglazed with white wine, then the potatoes are cooked in clarified butter until they are tender. Add the leeks, mushrooms, and linguica back and cook until mushrooms have released their flavor, the seasonings of salt and pepper are adjusted at this time. The items are removed from the pan and the pan is deglazed again with white wine. I place a little white wine vinegar, minced parsley, salt, dijon mustard, and pepper then worked in some butter until a nappe sauce consistency is achieved. While this is all going on I was frying an egg in clarified butter.
The plating as you can see above is quite simple. I should have made a parsley puree or fried some parsley to put around the sauce to bring a green/fresh appearance to the plate….next time. The plating will be improved as well by shaping the egg and the items underneath it with a mold.
The flavor met my expectations but it needs to look much more elegant.
Eric
Sexy Food: Dry Aged Sirloin with Tarragon Butter Poached Fingerlings with Caramelized Pearl Onions over a Triple Stock Merlot-Demi Glace
Sexy food? Yeah, sexy food. Listen up single people on Valentine’s day. You wanna know why you’re still single? It’s because you don’t know a thing about sexy food. Let me help you.
I’m a married dude, I’ve been married for 8 years and my wife and I understand what sexy food is. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, it doesn’t have to be expensive, all you have to do is put your passion, soul, and maybe a little bit of sweat into your food before “dessert” happens. Now that’s sexy…
You don’t have to reduce a beef stock three separate times or age your own steak for 15 days or infuse tarragon into white wine vinegar or….. you get the point. All you have to do is say, “relax, I got this” then disappear in the kitchen while your lady relaxes on the couch listening to some fine music and while she has a glass of wine.
But Eric…what kind of music? SEXY MUSIC!!! Come on do I have to spell it out for you? I do? Ok fine. Here is a 30 second clip from Sade’s new album “Soldier of Love” courtesy of Epic Records. It’s also the #1 album in the U.S. right now so take a little listen then go buy it.
Sade “Baby Father” from her New Album “Soldier of Love” (click)
Wow, thanks Eric that Sade song is perfect where can I buy it?
I have to do everything around here
The dish above is perfect for two people. Just a taste or two of food, a little wine then add a little music (SADE!!!) and things start to happen. Good things….wink wink nudge nudge!!
I have two desserts that I will be posting soon that compliment this dish perfectly. Come back soon….please!!!!!
Ingredients:
Dry Aged Sirloin
- Sirloin steak
- Sel de mer (course sea salt
- Crushed black pepper
Tarragon Butter Poached Fingerling Potatoes
- Fingerling potatoes
- Clarified butter and whole butter
- Tarragon, fresh
- White wine vinegar infused with fresh tarragon (take a bunch of tarragon and place it in a jar with about 2 cups of white wine vinegar then let it sit for a few days covered)
- Salt and black pepper
Caramelized Pearl Onions
- Pearl Onions
- Duck Fat
Triple Stock Merlot Demi Sauce
- Triple stock. Make a stock. Make another stock then add some of the previous stock to that towards the end of the process then do it once more. Take the final stock then reduce that to a demi-glace
- Green Peppercorns
- Pickled shallots (click)
- Merlot
- Whole butter, cubed, room temperature
- Side note….the sauce looks lean in the picture but it’s not…crazy lights in the kitchen.
Procedure
Steak
- Rub steak with salt and pepper then place on a plate with plastic wrap over it in the refrigerator for 15 days. It’s important to get high quality meat for this.
- Place a pan on the stove that will handle a little abuse. A conditioned cast iron is great for this then set your oven to high.
- Place steak on pan then sear on each side for 2-3 minutes then finish last minute on each side with a little clarified butter.
- The steak should be medium rare but it will depend on how big of a cut you are using. Practice!
Potatoes
- Place clarified butter and whole butter in small sauce pot. 90/10 ratio of clarified to whole.
- Add infused white wine vinegar and fresh tarragon then place potatoes in on medium to low heat. You want a steady cook of this….not too high or it will fry and not too low or it will be greasy. Practice!
- Remove when potatoes are tender
- Top with parsley
Onions
- Blanch onions, shock them, then peel
- Saute in pan with 1 1/2 tbsp. duck fat until caramelized
Sauce
- When the steak is done cooking immediately pour off fat then deglaze with merlot
- When merlot has reduce by 75% add the shallots and green peppercorns
- Heat for 2 minutes then remove from heat and stir in butter
- Sauce plate by dipping paint brush into sauce (yup) the streaking over plate
Eric
Yes, I ate the green stuff. hahaha
Parmentier of Oxtail with Foie Gras and Quail Egg ala Rover’s
The Chef in the Hat (Chef Thierry Rautureau) visited my blog a week ago so I decided I would try to tackle one of the recipes from his book. My execution of this dish is nowhere near his but I think it’s a step in the right direction. I won’t post the recipe because I think you should go buy his book, it’s amazing. However, here are a few steps from the 3-4 hour process…….all worth it.
I will do this again in a few months to see how far I’m progressing with school, work, and this blog. This dish has now set the bar for me.
Go buy his book!!! (click)
26 Month Gouda on Monster Hash with Omelette and Mimosa Sauce
One of my goals for 2010 is to create 30 sauces. It’s not over 1,000 like Escoffier but I think I can get there one day. This mimosa sauce is fantastic and while I won’t share the details of the exact measurements, I will share the ingredients. My f’ing hand is killing me right now so I’ll make this quick.
Ingredients:
Hash
- Russet potatoes, grated
- Clarified butter
- Bacon fat
- Salt and pepper
- 26 month old Gouda Cheese……don’t wake up and use Gouda unless it’s aged for 26 months…..be a snob sometimes
- Fresh dill
- Sour cream
Mimosa Sauce
- Champagne, purposely made flat
- Orange, juiced
- Fresh meyer lemon puree
- Shallots
- Clarified butter
Omelette
- 2 eggs
- Red bell pepper, 1/4 inch dice
- Clarified butter
- Salt and pepper, tt
Bell Pepper Frittata with Steamed Purple Potato Medallions and Parmesan Cream Sauce
Breakfast is served!
Ingredients:
Bell Pepper Frittata
- Red bell pepper sliced in half
- Eggs
- Saffron
- Adobo
- Cilantro
- Salt and pepper, tt
- Cheddar Cheese, grated
Purple Potatoes
- Purple potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1/2 white onion
- 1 celery stalk
- shallot
- 2 mini-portabella mushrooms
- White wine
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper, tt
Sauce
- Parmesan Cheese
- Pepperjack cheese
- Heavy cream
- Salt and pepper, tt
Procedure
Bell Pepper Frittata
- Scramble all ingredients together then pour in bell pepper
- Place in pan then in oven at 325 then cook until the egg starts to get fluffy, when that happens place cheese on top then cook until it’s melted
- I know there isn’t a lot of instruction for this…..it’s ridiculously simple…..try it
- Top with cilantro when it’s done cooking
Potato
- Place olive oil in pan and saute onions, celery, and shallot
- Throw in the potatoes and mushrooms then deglaze with white wine and cover
- Cook until potatoes are tender…..basically what you’re doing is infusing the potatoes with the aroma of the other vegetables……it’s awesome
- Cover with sauce
Sauce
- In a small sauce pan pour in all the ingredients and slowly reduce mixture….too hot and you’ll scorch it…slow is good.
- Adjust with a little salt and pepper then pour over the top of the potatoes
ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!
Eric
Duck Fat Fries, Herbs de Provence Chicken Tenders with a Duck Fat Country Gravy
Duck fat is in…..Yup.
Ingredients:
- DUCK FAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Russet potatoes, shoestring cut……buy a mandoline
- Standard breading procedure………..flour with herbs de provence, sel de mer (salt), and pepper……whisked eggs……and panko bread crumbs with herbs de provence, sel de mer, and pepper
- Chicken breasts cut into 1 inch by 4 inch long pieces
- AP flour
- Heavy cream
- Milk
- Butter
- Parsley, minced
Procedure:
- Have a heart attack!
- Cut potatoes with mandoline then blanch them in duck fat then freeze
- Standard bread the chicken then freeze
- Remove fries and chicken
- Fry chicken in canola oil
- Fry fries in duck fat
- Season fries with sel de mer and black pepper when done cooking
- In a small sauce pan add duck fat then whisk in flour
- Add herbs de provence, butter, heavy cream, milk, and pepper to sauce then cook slowly
- Pour sauce over fries and chicken
- Have another heart attack!
- Enjoy
Eric
