Long Time

Sorry about the no posts in awhile folks. Had some things to do. Starting soon though I will be daily posting again. I'm working on some exiting new material, so stay posted.

Mushroom Risotto

So, I am not going to go into the risotto method here. It is a little time consuming and lengthy for a single blog entry. If you want to attempt this dish read up on risotto first. Heres what you need,

Risotto

Mushrooms

Vegetables

Butter

Parmesan cheese

Cream cheese

Truffle Oil

Begin by heating your risotto in a cold pan with a little heavy cream. When that is working saute up all of your vegetables and mushrooms in a hot pan with oil and butter. Set the veg aside for a moment. Now add parmesan, butter, cream cheese, and truffle oil to the risotto. When the parmesan is melted season with salt and pepper and give it a taste. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Now add the vegetable mix to the rice and give it a toss or two. Plate it and garnish. Your done.

Crab Cakes

There are many different methods for these. I am not going to go into all of them. Here is a fairly simple one I enjoy. You will need,

Crab meat

Bell pepper

Onion

Old Bay seasoning

Dijon mustard

Tabasco

Lemon juice

Mayonaise

Bread crumbs

To begin put your crab in a bowl. Dice and saute all of your onions and peppers. Let these cool then add to the crab. Add your mayo and bread crumbs as a binder. Add your lemon juice, tabsaco, and dijon mustard. Add old bay, and salt and pepper to taste. You may need to add more bread crumbs. Test one cake to see if it will hold together. Do this by attempting to sear it in a hot pan. You will know pretty fast if it is going to hold or not. Serve on a bed of greens or however you prefer.

Strawberry Bread Pudding

This desert is a great way to use up stale bread. I enjoy this recipe very much, itas colourful and oh so tasty. Here is what you need,

Old bread

Strawberrys (or other berries)

Whip cream

Berry Liqure

To begin blend up a buch of berries. You want enough berry sauce to saturate all of your bread, so use your judgement on this one. Cut your bread into large cubes. Line the inside of a mold with plastic rap. Fill the mold with bread and add your berry sauce. When it is full up cover and place a weight on it and refrigerate for 12 hours. Slice and serve with berry sauce and whipped cream. Some more berries is nice to.

Duck Rice with Polish Sausage

Word to my sous chef on this one, you know who you are. We had some duck stock to utilize, and polish sausage, as well as some rice. Out of need to use product, this dish was born. A very flavourful and yet at home style rice dish, something great for a cold day. Here's what you need,

Rice

Duck or other poultry stock

Vegetables

Cream

Butter

Polish or other sausage

To begin cook your rice. If you are unfamiliar how to do that i'll tell you an easy method now. Bring the same volume of water to a boil as the amount of rice you want to use. So for one cup rice, one cup water. When the water is boiling add your rice, turn the pot off and cover. Let it sit until the rice is done. This is a pretty awesome method for some nice fluffy and yet not over-done rice. So, now you have your rice. Next grill or saute up your sausage. After that saute up your vegetables. Next combine your rice with some pultry stock, butter, and cream, and heat it up. Season with salt and pepper. Some parmesan cheese is nice too but not needed. Now combine your rice mix with your vegetables and sausage and you are good to go. Simple easy and good.

Pasta Carbonara

This is a classic. I don't really know if I do this the completely traditional way, probably not. I have been told my Carbonara is the closest to authenic a lot of people at my job have seen in awhile, but who knows. Anyway, I learned this recipe from an american guy who spent a lot of time travelling in europe, and I trust his opinion. We actually made this as hangover chow at 7:30 am one day after a night of partying, and I must say it did the trick. Heres what you need,

Penne pasta

Heavy cream

Parmesan cheese

Garlic

Bacon

White wine

Tomatoes

Onions

Eggs

Ok here we go. I hope you know how to cook pasta al-dente, otherwise there isn't much point for you reading this recipe. Assuming you do cook off your desired amount and cool it off and set aside for use later. To make your sauce cut up bacon into 1/8 inch strips and begin browning in a saute pan. When it is about halfway there add your onions. When it is about 3/4 of the way there add your garlic as it is the smallest. Now hit it with a little white wine to get all that brown flavor off of the bottom of the pan. Add your heavy cream now. Leave the heat on so the cream will start to thicken. Add your tomatoes now as well as your parmesan so it begins to melt. Now turn off your heat and wisk in ann egg. This must be done at the end so that you only thicken your sauce and don't end up with scrambled carbonara. If this happens to you, you will know what I mean. HA HA. Anyway, now add your pasta and toss in the sauce. In a minute or so the pasta should have taken on the heat from the sauce and you are ready to go. Season with some salt and pepper and garnish with more bacon bits, parsley, and parmesan cheese. Done. This is incredibly bad for you, but oh so good. I even like to save rendered bacon fat from when I cook bacon and add even more to this recipe. Its awesome.

Beer batter fish and chips

Who does fancy a fish with some chips once and awhile? Here is what you will need,

Fish

Beer

Flour

Eggs

Turmeric

French Fries

Mayonaise

Relish

Lemon Juice

To begin mix up your beer batter. Add flour and eggs to the beer until it is thick, so as to coat the fish very well. I like to add some turmeric to the batter to give the fish more of a golden brown color. Then dredge the fish in the flour and dunk it in the batter. Go directly from the batter to a deep fat fryer at 350 degrees. You can also use a pot full of enough hot oil to submerge the fish. While it is frying mix up your tartar sauce. Equal parts relish and mayonaise plus a little lemon juice. You will know the fish is done when it turns golden brown. Serve with french fries and enjoy.

Lamb au Chocolate

I kind of went out on a limb on this one, but got amazing responses to it. My chocolate sauce is a little bit like a Mexican mole sauce, but not really, anyway here is the procedure. You will need,

Lamb rack (frenched)

Chocolate (semi sweet)

Hazelnut coffee

Butter

Vegetables

Mashed Potato

Allspice, Nutmeg, Chipotle peppers, and Cinnamon.

To begin salt your lamb and roll it in the hazelnut coffee. Sear it on all sides. Put lamb in the oven until desired temperature is reached. While that is going on make your sauce. Melt down your chocolate (chocolate chips work) and then add a pinch of each spice. Add a little bit of chipotle, the amount depends on how hot you like things. You can thin the sauce out with a little heavy cream if you want, I like a thick sauce. Serve with mashed potatos and vegetables. The savoryness of the chipotle should tone down the chocolate and coffee a little, combined with its own natural juices. I call this fusion of sweet and savory cooking "swayvory". Usually if you stay within reason you can come up with some bomb flavor combos using this methodology of thinking. Enjoy.

Tomato Pineapple Soup

This is my newest creation. The idea came from having to use pineapple up. This is very simple, yet very beautiful. You will need,

1 Large Pineapple

1 Large can Tomato juice

1 Bottle Pineapple Juice

1 Cup sugar

To begin clean and blend up your pineapple. Add it to your pineapple juice in a sauce pot and heat it up, very easy. Next heat up your tomato juice. Whisk a cup of sugar into the pineapple juice. Pour the two soups into the bowl at the same time. The consistency should be close enough that the do not meld with one another and thus create a really nice looking bowl of soup. The flavor combo is not as far out there as you might think, picture roasted tomato and pineapple salsa.

Pan Seared Lamb

Ahh, good old lamb. Lamb is a staple of most any fine dining menu, and I am taking a very basic stance on it here. You will need,

1/2 Lamb rack (frenched)

Mashed potato

Vegetables

Heavy cream

Dijon Mustard

Rosemary

Begin by seasoning the lamb with salt and pepper. Sear the lamb in a hot pan on all sides with a little olive oil. Finish the lamb in oven to whatever temperature is desired. Serve with mashed potatos and vegetables. To make an easy pan sauce put a little heavy cream in the pan that is still hot from the lamb and add a little dijon mustard. In a matter of seconds you will have dijon cream sauce. Whole grain mustard works well for this. I like to garnish with a sprig of rosemary. Enjoy!

Venison with Lingonberry Sauce

Venison goes really well with lingonberry, here is my version of the dish.

You will need,

Venison (a steak cut of venison)

Lingonberry sauce (canned is fine)

Mashed Potato

Red wine

Vegetable

To begin season your venison on both sides with salt and pepper. Sear the venison on both sides in a smoking hot pan with a little olive oil. Continue to cook the venison in an oven at 350 degrees until the desired internal temperature is reached, I like my venison served medium. In the meantime heat your vegetables and mashed potato. Also heat your lingonberry sauce with a little red wine to thin it out. Now plate everything and garnish your plate. I really like edible orchids as they go well with the red of the lingonberry. Thats it, serve and enjoy!

Goat Cheese Fritter

Goat cheese fritters make great appetizers. These are really easy to prepare and are very pleasing to the eye. You will need,

Flour

Eggwash

Bread crumbs

Mix greens

Cherry tomatos

Balsamica Viniagrette

To begin form your goat cheese into little round cakes of 2-4oz of goat cheese a piece.

Roll your goat cheese cakes in flour until well coated. After that submerge the cakes in eggwash. Transfer the cakes from the eggwash to the bread crumbs and coat them completely. Brown the quickly on each side in a smoking hot cast iron skillet with a little olive oil. Serve on top of some mixed greens tossed in balsamic dressing and garnish with a few cherry tomatos. Serve immediately. Overall time for this dish is lees than five minutes if you move fast, about a half hour if you move like a snail.

Horseradish Cod

Horseradish encrusted cod is one of my favorite dishes to prepare as well as to serve. Preparation is as follows. You will need,

Eggs

Flour

Bread crumbs

Cod fish

Horseradish

To begin using fresh cod liberally coat the fish with fresh ground horseradish. Next dredge the cod in flour on both sides. After this beat eggs with water to form an eggwash. Make enough eggwash to completely submerge the cod. Submerge your cod in the eggwash and then transer into the bread crumbs. Now you are ready to cook! Leave a cast iron skillet with olive oil in it on the burner until the oil is smoking. The reason we use cast iron is for the hard sear and nice color it will give the cod. Brown the cod on each side and then finish in a 350 degree oven for about ten minutes. I like to serve mine with mashed potatos and vegetables, but many things go well with this dish. I like to garnish with a lemon wedge and a little chopped parsley.

Turkey

Ok, so for all of you who are planning to roast a turkey this thanksgiving, don't do it.
This guy posted a great entry on his blog about roasting turkey, and it made a world of sense to me. Here is the link.

http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/chickenturkeymore/a/turkeytrouble.htm

Chicken Parmesan

Today I sold a couple of chiken parmesan, a dish that is as easy to make as it is good to eat. Basically all you need is chicken breast, marinara sauce, eggs, flour, bread crumbs, and cheese. I like to bread the chicken breast after seasoning it with salt and pepper. I bread it by dredging it in flour, dipping it in eggwash, and last the bread crumbs. After this I brown the chicken in a hot cast iron skillet and cook it in an oven of 350 degrees until the chicken is done. I won't give you an exact amount of time with this recipe as your mileage may vary and with chicken one should always cut it open and look to see if it is done just to be safe. Anyway when it is done I put some already heated marinara on it and a little cheese (I prefer sharp cheddar). Then I melt the cheese in the oven. In this time usually I heat up my rice, pasta, or bread, whatever I am serving the chicken on today. Thats it. Some parmesan cheese on top and maybe some herbs. This is sooooo good. Hope it works out for you!

Just a small note.

Got a digital camera today, so soon I will start posting photos of my food as well. I think it will help to illustrate some things.

Duelling Soups

Ok, today I made a soup using a technique I really enjoy. I call this the dueling soup technique. Its a fairly simple thing to do, but thats the whole point here. In my opinion this soup is brilliant in it's simplicity. I'll explain this technique a little more in-depth before I go more into the individual soup itself.
Basically prepare two really vibrantly colored soups with a similar thickness or consistency. Pour these two soups into a bowl at the same time and they will not merge with one another. If done right it looks like a yin-yang. If you really want to go all out do not make the separate soups perfectly balanced flavor wise. Plan so that when the two soups are mixed together the flavor then becomes complete. This is a little hard to explain if you don't understand what I am talking about. It's kind of like one half of the soup not having any salt but its kind of bitter, and the other half being salty and sweet. Together they should meld into something nice. Now if your flavor combos work together as well you have a fairly impressive soup on your hands. Today I made roasted red pepper tomato vs. spinach and celery with lemon. I used a nice little creme fraiche to tie it all together.
If you are stumped for flavor combos just remember to keep it simple. Think really basic and about what you might like to eat yourself, or perhaps what the person or people you are cooking for might like. This usually helps me.

Funnel Cakes and Meatball Subs

Ok, so today the two items I prepared today that stand out most to me are meatball subs and funnel cakes. I had never actually heard of a funnel cake before, and my variation is quite simple to make, but i'll get to the recipe itself in just a little bit. I was discussing deep frying with my sous chef and realizing we had thrown just about everything we could possibly think of into the fryer as of late when we had the wonderful Idea to make funnel cakes. They turned out pretty nicely, I was satisfied anyway. We covered them with maple syrup, chocolate syrup, whipe cream, sugar, all kinds of good stuff. Here is the recipe;

1 store bought pancake mix (the just add water kind)

2 water

Procedure: Mix it up, leave it thick (almost like cookie dough). When your batter is finished procede to ladel it into 350 degree fryer oil and fry until dark brown. Top with whatever, these things rock.

So on to the meatball subs. Who doesn't love these things aside from vegetarians? Marinara, meatballs, cheese, that easy. Keep it simple. Thats why meatball subs rock. For me as a chef it is also a low food cost meal for my staff that takes all of ten minutes to prepare, and most everybody loves. Its kinda hard to go wrong with canned marinara and frozen meatballs, combined with par baked breads. I have seen people mess this up, but its pretty hard.