I start by rendering some bacon then I sliced a bunch of white onions then caramelize them for 4-5 hours in the bacon fat. At the same time I cut up the two squash then roast them. Then I toast some pumpkin seeds with cardamom, _ _ _ _ _ bean, and sea salt. Then I make a muscat vinaigrette, julienne an apple, _ _ _ _ _ bean, toss in a brunoise of celery and carrot which will get tossed with a little celery leaf and those pumpkin seeds that will garnish the soup later. I remove the onions, saute some celery, carrots, and leeks in the pan, deglaze with muscat wine, season, add the roasted squash, add chicken stock, reduce the soup slightly, add the bacon back in, puree the soup, send it through a sieve. Pour into bowl, garnish with that little salad, eat it, high five anyone within close proximity.
Sauté some onions, zucchini, then add veal stock and cooked soba noodles. Add those pickled sweet chili pepper flakes (this is the key!), small amount of rice vinegar, soy sauce reduction (so many secrets), and fresh ginger. Let it work a bit then add some of that roasted turkey, egg, green onions, and leek strips. Confuse the hell out of everyone when they want to know what it’s called. Welcome to my world Soooooooooooooooooooo good!
Ginger with a little red miso…..and a few friends.
Chicken stock then add a bunch of chopped up ginger, red miso, toasted szechuan peppers, toasted coriander, roasted tomato powder, pickled white onion, minced garlic, kasu paste, and then simmer…….then strain. Work in some sriracha, salt, and garnish with some chopped up cilantro. A work in progress….tastes great, let’s make it look good next time!
I took a double beef stock I had on hand then built this soup around it. It’s nothing crazy but it’s just a nice warming soup.
I started off by thawing out the double stock then seasoning it with salt, black pepper, leeks, lemon thyme, and rosemary. Once the proper taste was achieved I added the asparagus, carrots, and let them get tender then I added the mushrooms finally and adjusted the seasonings again.
I love clean soups. I love clear soups even more but I decided to bring a few experiments together in order extract the most amount of corn flavor into a soup. What this ends up being at the end could be called a creamed corn soup but I think it’s a bit more than that.
I saw Heston Blumenthal do something similar to cauliflower except for his was a dish where he used a puree, a sauteed piece, and a roasted piece. I wanted to do the same 3 way play but decided to make a soup and substitute the sautee for sous vide. Why the sous vide? It allowed me to keep all of the juices from the corn intact while I played with the other techniques being used in the soup.
I started by roasting some corn in the oven with a little butter, salt, and pepper. Once the corn was done roasting I removed the kernels then pureed them, the strained them. I put chicken stock in a pot then added the roasted kernel juice. The soup was left to simmer while I had more corn in its vacuum sealed temperature controlled water bath (sous vide). Then I took some raw corn and made a puree then strained then added it to the simmering soup.
When the soup was nearing completion I sauteed some leeks in butter to use as a garnish. I had previously noted on this chicken stock that I used leeks so this would be a nice finishing touch….the green looks pretty cool floating around.
I prepared a piece of baguette with Beecher’s flagship cheese, thyme oil (prepared a few days ago), leeks, salt and pepper then broiled it until the cheese melted. I was going to cube it and throw it in the soup but I wanted a nice clean soup so I made the decision to serve it on the side as more of a dipping bread.
The soup was ready for the sous vide corn so I pureed it, strained it then added it to the soup along with some cream. I would love to learn how to make an essence of corn but I will save that for another time.
The cream helped thicken the soup a little bit which is what I was looking for. I adjusted the seasonings of the soup with a little salt and pepper then plated, garnished, and served. Everything worked the way I wanted to but I will explore different plating options next time.
(knife cuts are awful when you can’t use your left hand….ahhhhhhhhh)
This is the 4th item made from the whole chicken. Granted, it’s really 3 things because the chicken stock became this soup but I like to make it seem like I did a lot more than I actually did….story of my life.
After you have made the chicken stock then cube up some potatoes, cut up some leeks (save some to garnish with), add a little thyme, salt, and pepper and there you have it. I would prefer if you cooked the soup slow so potatoes don’t cause it to get too cloudy, it will take longer but the appearance is great (this is perfect for a crock pot). For some reason I like clear soups, I have the same problem when I go swimming….if I can’t see the bottom then I won’t go in….hi, I’m twelve!
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Ir’s all about the stock when you make Phở. This is my second go around making this on the site but this time I decided to go with a seafood stock instead of a beef stock. I think with the addition of a few tricks from the Momofuku cookbook and talking to a few different Phở restaurants that this whole Phở thing is going in the right direction for me.
Ingredients:
The stock
1.75 gallons dungeness crab stock…..made it from the crab I had a couple weeks ago. Mirepoix added when I made it
2 tbsp. lobster base
Red pickled onions
Pickled cucumbers
Sweet chili sauce
Plum sauce
Fish sauce
Crushed red pepper
Star anise
Clove
Cinnamon
Fresh ginger, peeled, minced
All-spice
The goods
1/2 lb. shrimp soaked in salty water for 30 minutes
1/2 lb. mini-portobello mushrooms…..quick pickled for 30 minutes in a black garlic vinegar mixture….could have gone longer but I just wanted a quick shock to the mushrooms then I dumped the rest of the mix in the soup
Sambal Olek
Sriracha hot sauce
Bean sprouts
Fresh lime juice
The Noodles
Rice Noodles
Procedure:
Stock
Saute red onions and sweet chili sauce in stock pot then throw in crab stock. THROW IT IN…DO IT!!!
Reduce mixture by 10% then add the rest of the stock ingredients. Season with salt if you need to. I cooked it for about 2 hours but I’m going to cook it further tomorrow…I was hungry….the flavor will be even more intense tomorrow!
The Goods
Place shrimp and mushrooms in stock when you are ready to eat then place other ingredients in a bowl to your taste…..that’s the best part of Phở
The Noodles
Follow the instructions on the box…..if the box has directions in a different language that you don’t understand then buy 2 boxes and take notes. It’s ok to F up every once in a while.
Cool, no surgery required. Still on some pretty heavy prescription pills and a long way to go to be healed but until then I have lots of food to cook. Things could be worse!
Ingredients:
Sandwch
Macrina Brioche
Beecher’s Flagship Smoked Cheddar
Smoked gouda
Clarified butter
Soup
Chicken stock (made a few weeks ago then frozen and thawed out today)
Tomato juice
Tomato sauce
Diced tomatoes
Tomato paste, pince
Red Bell Pepper
Leeks
Celery
Parsley
Thyme
White wine
Crushed red pepper
Kosher salt
Heavy cream
Procedure coming soon………..swelling is starting to go down a bit.
Yeah, I don’t care for the picture either. I’m sick right now and cooking for myself so I don’t really care about the fancy bowls, garnishes or anything else. I ate it out of the pot, that’s right, I ate it out of the pot. Sneeze, cough, nose running, fever, and drool….
I made a French Onion soup in class last quarter but I felt like it was missing something. I don’t know why I felt like it was missing something because it was the first time I ever had French onion soup but that’s how I roll. I had some black garlic and raw it tastes like it would be amazing with French onion soup……it was/is! It just adds another texture to the taste by giving a slightly salty and sweet taste to it. So try it, I triple dog dare you.
Ingredients:
3 white onions
1 gallon beef stock
Clarified butter
3 cloves black garlic
2 thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
Black pepper and kosher salt, tt
Shiitake mushrooms, for additional texture and taste
AP flour
White wine or red if you feel like running to the store……I didn’t
Procedure:
Place clarified butter in pot then caramelize onions
Add a little flour to the onions then deglaze with white wine
Add rest of the ingredients then simmer for about 45-60 minutes.
Eat out pot with large spoon intended for noodles because you don’t feel like running the dishwasher either.
Mindy is still not feeling well so after a few meetings I ran home, melted a gallon of chicken stock I made on Saturday, cooked up some smoked paprika chicken, added some rice, celery, thyme, carrots, parsley, salt, pepper, and voila!
Let me get this out of the way first just because I’ve been singing this song in my head for the last few days now.
Hahahaha, sorry. Serious post now.
Alouette sent me over their entire product line of cheese two days ago which overwhelmed/suprised the hell out of me. Usually when people say they’re going to send you something it’s one or two things not their entire lineup of products. I opened the box with 22 pounds of cheese and at first I thought, “what am I going to do with all of this”? So I called Mindy and said, “Tomorrow, wine and cheese party at the house”? She said, “sure”. That’s all I needed to hear!
Double Creme Baby Brie with a Reduced Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
Take 1.5 cups of balsamic and slowly reduce it to about 3 tablespoons then pour it over the cheese like so!
Sweet and Spicy Pepper Medley Cheese Dip with a Thai Infusion served with a French Boule
Ingredients:
1 container Alouette Sweet and Spicy Pepper Medley Cheese
5 cups water
1 lemongrass stalk, 1 inch slices
3 tbsp. Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce
1 tbsp. Mae Ploy Red Curry Paste
1/2 tbsp. Huy Fong Foods Garlic Chili Sauce
1 tsp. Sriracha Sauce
2 bay leaves
1/4 cornstarch slurry
Procedure:
Set aside cheese
Combine all the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pan except for the cornstarch slurry
Reduce mixture by half then strain and slowly work in slurry
Place cheese in stand mixer along with liquid mixture then whisk together and serve!
Pancetta Wrapped Gorgonzola Stuffed Dates
They taste a lot better than they look. Slice date, stuff, wrap with pancetta, bake for 5-7 minutes, and enjoy!
Acorn and Butternut Squash Soup with Crumbled Goat Cheese Provencal
Ingredients:
Turkey broth…..made it myself!
2 Acorn Squash
1 Butternut Squash
Parsley
2 bay leaves
White Wine
Mirepoix (celery, carrots, onion)
Salt pork
Salt and pepper, tt
Smoked Paprika, tt
Alouette Crumbled Goat Cheese Provencal
Procedure:
Take salt pork and render fat
Remove pork bits and throw in mirepoix. THROW IT IN THERE!!!!
Deglaze with white wine and reduce then deglaze again. You don’t have to deglaze twice….I do because I’m awesome.
Add turkey broth, squash, parsley, bay leaves, smoked paprika, salt and pepper
Remove bay leaves then puree!
Adjust seasonings then serve with cheese crumbled on top
Spring Salad with Cucumber Vinaigrette and Alouette Crumbled Feta Mediterranean
Put cucumber in a food processor then strain it, take the liquid, add it to white wine vinegar, and a great olive oil then mix and add it over a salad. Throw in some cheese and you’re done!
Buffalo Turkey Leg with a hand mixed Alouette Blue Cheese Dressing (almost broke a sweat!)
Ingredients:
Turkey legs, brined in brown sugar and alderwood smoked salt
Smoked Paprika
Parsley infused salt
Pink and Black Pepper, ground
Mayo……1 cup canola oil….1 egg….whisked together!
Alouette Blue Cheese
2 tbsp. yogurt
Frank’s Hot Sauce
Clarified Butter
Procedure:
Rub turkey legs with smoked paprika, parsley infused salt, and peppers
Roast until done
In a small sauce pan heat up Frank’s Hot Sauce then add the clarified butter and simmer for 10 minutes
Mix together mayo, yogurt, and blue cheese
Pour Frank’s Sauce over turkey leg then serve with blue cheese dressing.
Stop looking at it funny and just grab the whole damn thing and eat it!
Boiled Artichoke with Alouette Spinach and Artichoke Spreadable Cheese
Prep the artichoke then boil it in salty water. Remove leaves then serve with cheese. Use the leaves as a scoop for the cheese! Are they leaves? I don’t know/care.
Lamb Gyro with Alouette Feta Cheese
Ingredients:
Lamb…..rubbed with salt and pepper
Olive oil
Cucumbers
Yogurt
Dill
Lemon Juice
Salt and pepper, tt
Alouette Feta Cheese
Procedure:
Make a tzatziki with the cucumbers, yogurt, dill, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil…..let cool in refrigerator. I would tell you my recipe but I’m keeping it for myself.
Heat up olive oil in a pan then cook lamb until you have reached desired doneness then let rest and dice
Serve lamb, tzatziki, and crumbled cheese on gyro bread.
I can be your gyro baby!
Thanks for sending me your products, Alouette! I had fun with them and so did these people.
The selt timer setting on the camera is awesome!
I’m ready for a much larger event in 2010 so make it happen Alouette!!
Soooooooooooooooooooo good!
