Kohlrabi and Mustard with Short Ribs

The fall garden is going crazy and I wanted to do something with some of my harvest. 

I saw a great recipe in my Volt Ink cookbook, by the Voltagio Brothers from Top Chef. The recipe was simply titled Beef, Mustard, Kohlrabi. It was fairly advanced requiring heavy use of sous vide, pressure cooking, making a "cheddar cheese stock", etc. Used some molecular touches such as xanthan gum as a thickener. Anyhow, this was my type of cooking and I'd been wondering what I would do with my kohlrabi plants and mustard greens.

This time I followed the recipe almost exactly. They were doing some fancy tricks here, and I wanted to try to learn. The only change that I made was replacing the sous vide NY Strip steak that the recipe called for with a 36 hour (133F) sous vide beef short rib.

Kohlrabi and Mustard with Short Ribs

Kohlrabi puree with beer and cheddar. Sous vide baby kohlrabi slices. Mustard greens. Pickled mustard seed. 36 Hour sous vide short rib. Pressure cooker beef demi-glace. Mustard micro-greens.

This was a beautiful, amazing dish. It had many components, so it was fairly time consuming to make. The fact that I now know how to make "cheddar stock" alone was worth this recipe, though the cheddar flavor was actually very subtle in the kohlrabi puree. 

Coq au Vin

The weather was unseasonably cool for early October... it felt like winter. I had just picked up Elizabeth David's French Provencial Cooking cookbook. I made her Coq au Vin nearly exactly following the recipe, though I replaced the Burgundy with a Brouilly Gamay. I put together an endive salad that felt particularly autumn-like along with a simple recipe of sauteed delicata squash with shaved fennel. I accompanied with simple traditional parsley potatoes. I served family style for a change, opting for rustic comfort over formal plating.

Very yum, overall. The Coq au Vin per the Elizabeth David recipe came out perfectly cooked, but the sauce was not quite as intense as I prefer with a Coq au Vin. I attribute this to the choice of the Brouilly over a Burgundy. The Bruilly was fruity and delicate... a nice Beaujolais style wine, but possibly not quite robust enough to hold up to the chicken. Her approach of pre-reducing the wine and then adding the chicken was right on, as every Coq au Vin I've had prior to this has sacrificed overcooked chicken in order to get sufficient reduction of the wine sauce.

The sides were great... It's hard to go wrong with delicata squash, especially if you keep the preparation simple. I sliced it 1/8" thick and then used a circular cookie cutter to core the middle, which made it look quite fancy. I sauteed until caramelized and added some simple raw shaved fennel over the top and salt and pepper. The endive served as a salad in this meal, but would also make a great seasonally appropriate "finger food" hors d'oeuvre. Very simple... use the endive as a "boat" and stuff with a salad of finely diced seasonal ingredients (celery, apple, walnut, bacon, parrano cheese in this case) with a little mayonnaise to bind together and lemon juice for acidity. The potatoes... what can I say. Thanks to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I think I may have mastered the art of potatoes... In this case, I peeled into uniform spheres, parboiled, cooled, raked with a fork to "increase surface area", pan fried in hot olive oil, and tossed with parsley.

Coq au Vin

Chicken. Brouille wine. Homemade chicken stock. Salt pork. Button mushrooms. Pearl onions. Brandy. Herbs.

Autumn Endive Salad

Belgian endive. Bacon. Walnut. Celery. Apple. Parrano cheese. Mayonnaise.Balsamic vinegar. Parsley.

Delicata Squash Rings

Delicata squash. Shaved fennel. Olive oil. 

Parsley Potatoes

Baby Yukon gold potatoes. Parsley. 

Fresh Garden Ingredient - Eggplant

Ratatouille Terrine with Sous Vide Duck Breast

Sous vide duck breast. Garden eggplant. Yellow summer squash. Roasted red pepper. Roma tomato. Tomato jelly. Mushroom duxelles. Verjus gastrique.

Fresh Garden Ingredient - Sweet Corn

Lobster with Foie Gras and Sweet Corn

Butter poached Maine lobster. Seared Hudson Valley foie gras. Garden sweet corn. Enoki mushrooms. Scallions. Fig champagne gastrique.

Fresh Garden Ingredient - Okra

So I haven't posted anything in quite some time... Work, the garden, and now football season have been keeping me busy. That said, I have still been cooking, just not taking pictures and posting as often.

In the spirit of trying to get caught up a bit, I'll post a series of mini blog entries of meals that I've built around specific fresh ingredients harvested from our new garden.

Chicken Gumbo with Okra

Steak n' Stuff

Jessica was out of town on business last weekend, and we had just gotten back from Napa the week before. To top it off, our garden was going crazy with stuff I either had to harvest or let go to waste. I was worn out, so it was a bit of a decision between ordering sushi delivery or cooking a dinner for one, but at the end of the day I was feeling inspired by the Napa trip and my fresh garden vegetables... cooking won.


I promise to post more on the garden. We have lots of great pictures on Jessica's camera. In the meantime, though, I will post some pictures of the results. Here is last week's dinner for one. Lonely and lovely at the same time. Glad to have my beautiful bride back this weekend!


Steak, Potatoes, Broccoli, and Chard 
Prime filet mignon. Garden broccoli. Mashed potatoes. Creamed garden rainbow chard.



Atkinson Family Farm Salad
Butter lettuce. Arugula. Micro spinach. Frisée. Shallot red wine vinaigrette


A few tidbits learned on this one for me:

1. Home Grown Vegetables
   
   Especially when harvested within an hour or so of cooking, home grown veggies are WAY better than even the best stuff I can find at the farmer's market or Whole Foods. I don't know how much of it is the psychological effect of growing it myself and how much of it is just how super fresh they are, but my home grown veggies are ridiculous.
   
   As a cook, growing my own vegetables definitely inspires me to pay more respect to the ingredients... to delicately coax out and maximize natural flavors rather than over seasoning. Self sourcing ingredients inspires good cooking.
    
2. Creamed Chard
   
   If you haven't tried creamed chard, you must.
   
   Big pot blanch the chard leaves until just tender and refresh in ice bath. Separately blanch the chard stems until bright and just tender... longer then the leaves. Refresh in ice bath. Place in saucepan with a little butter and cream and simmer for a few minutes until cream thickens. Just liked creamed spinach, but with chard.
   
   I personally prefer creamed chard to creamed spinach, as the bitter bite of the chard better balances with the cream. You may need a squeeze or two of lemon juice to balance the acidity and certainly some salt and pepper to taste.
    
3. Broccoli with Steak
   
   Best way yet I've found to prepare broccoli with steak. Big pot blanch broccoli until just tender and bright green. Refresh in ice bath. Refrigerate until ready to use. Pan cook steaks to completion. While steaks are resting, toss broccoli in pan and warm in steak fat. Very nice!

Peas in a Pod

It's full-on Springtime here in Austin. Daylight savings time just started, SXSW and St. Patrick's Day were this weekend. The bluebonnets are starting to come up in full force.The greenbelt is lush, green, and filled with flowers, butterflies, and flowing water. All sure signs that spring is here.


Spring is probably my favorite time of year as far as seasonal ingredients are concerned. It is full of fleeting vegetables that are precious and delicate and only have a short window of availability before the tomatoes, corn, and squash take hold for the long, long Texas summer. Coming off of the winter, the flavors are light and gentle. It is a rare and delicate time of year.


Peas and artichokes are some of my favorite Spring vegetables. To celebrate, I made a couple of very seasonal recipes that I adapted from recipes from two very amazing French chefs.


Chilled Spring Pea Soup (adapted from Daniel Boulud)
Sugar snap peas. Snow peas. English peas. Onion. Chicken stock. Bacon. Garlic rosemary cream foam. Garden mint.



Chicken Tagine with Artichoke Hearts and Peas (adapted from Joël Robuchon)
Pastured chicken. Fresh artichoke hearts. English peas. Onion. Tomato. Preserved lemon. Saffron. Tumeric. Corriander. Cumin. Ginger. Hot Paprika. 


Both dishes paired beautifully with a crisp, grassy Berger Grüner Veltliner. Grüner, from my experience, is probably the perfect Spring wine varietal. It is also one of the few wines that I know of that actually pairs well with artichoke.


So seasonal. So healthy (well, minus the bacon and the cream foam). So delicious.

Lasange Nepolatana

I had a picture floating around so I thought I'd do a short post. I'm not going to go into the details of this recipe, other than to say that you can find it in the Silver Spoon cookbook, which is basically THE definitive book on Italian cooking. It's been the number one selling cookbook in Italy for like 50 years... If you have any interest in Italian food, I highly recommend obtaining this book.


Lasgane Nepolatana
Homemade pasta. Grass fed beef and Parmesan cheese mini meatballs. Homemade heirloom tomato tomato sauce. Boiled eggs. Fresh Full Quiver Farms mozzarella cheese.



I made two versions. A gluten free one, using Thomas Keller's magic Cup2Cup gluten free flour for Jessica and I as well as a full on gluten one for Eric and Kelly, the proud new parents of baby Katie Rae.


This recipe took forever to make. It was involved, to say the least. The 300-400 mini meatballs that I hand rolled took an hour by themselves... and the hand rolled pasta.  


It was SO worth it. This was simply amazing.

Lobster and Mushrooms

Lobster and Mushrooms

Butter poached Maine lobster. Homegrown oyster mushrooms. Potato pavé. Leeks. Rainbow carrots. English peas. Green garlic absinthe lobster cream sauce. Thyme. Chervil.



Avocado and Grapefruit Salad
Avocado. Grapefruit. Homegrown butter lettuce. Frisée. Red onion. Green garlic. Lemon crème fraiche dressing.



I hadn't prepared fresh lobster before, so this was a big one for me. Jessica left the house so I could take care of the business at hand. I wanted to use Thomas Keller's basic approach for cooking the lobster just enough to remove the tail and claws from the shell, but leaving them mostly raw to allow you to refrigerate and cook according to your method of choice later.

I was, however, not comfortable with the boiling alive thing which Keller didn't really specifically speak for or against. I was much more down with Eric Ripert's "humane" method in which the lobster is killed immediately prior to cooking by aggressively stabbing a sharp heavy knife into the seam just below the lobsters head until the tip goes through the cutting board, and then immediately pushing the blade forward, splitting the head between the eyes. This approach requires a good knife, a steady hand, and some solid mental commitment.  You want your knife strokes to be confident and decisive when committing this violent act of crustacaecide. It's really not all that bad, though be prepared for the lobster to twitch and squirm for a little while, as it will experience postmortem involuntary muscle contractions.

I used the Ripert knife murder approach and then steeped the lobsters in boiling, acidulated water for 1 minute per Keller. From there, I removed the tail and claws and returned the claws to steep for another 5 minutes in the water. I removed the meat from the tail meat using kitchen shears and ran a metal skewer through it to keep it from curling too much. I delicately removed the meat from the claw, immediately wrapping the claw and tail meat in plastic wrap and refrigerating. 


I then cleaned the carcass, knuckles, etc and tossed them in a pot along with the shell pieces from the claws. I poured in some olive oil and sauteed the shells until bright red and aromatic and then filled the pot with water and added some onion, tomato, carrots, and green garlic.  and started simmering into a stock. I let this simmer for maybe an hour and a half and then strained it through a chinois to remove the solids. I returned the strained stock to a saucepan and reduced to about 1/4 at which point I whisked in some cream and some absinthe as well as some salt and pepper and let the sauce thicken a bit more. 


While this was going, I started a Beurre monté... basically butter emulsified with a little water and kept warm as my poaching liquid. I sliced and sauteed my potato pavé (which I had prepared the previous day). I big pot blanched my carrots, leeks, and peas transferring each to an ice bath after blanching. I sauteed the mushrooms and chopped my herbs. I then poached the lobster in the beurre monté (over medium heat) on the stove for like 5-6 minutes. While the lobster was heating, I quickly sauteed my (already blanched) veggies to get them to heat. 


Keeping each component warm in a 200 degree oven, as they finished, I was able to time everything well and get it all together and plated. The lobster was fantastic.. very sweet and buttery. Not the best I've ever had (I may have overpoached a bit, especially the tails), but up there... what a wonderful sweet buttery flavor. The pavé was awesome and was a great excuse to put my new Shun mandolin through a serious workout (which it handled with flying colors). The mushrooms came out a little dry. I think I let them go a little past their prime and coupling that with slightly overcooking them in oil, the result was a slightly crispy texture that didn't quite jive with the other textures on the plate, though the flavor was good. The vegetables were overkill. I got big eyes at the Farmer's Market and Whole Foods with all the great Spring produce starting to arrive. I think the dish would have been much better with just the leeks, but I just couldn't pass up those fresh spring English peas and carrots. As usual, a little more restraint/editing would have helped.


All in all I was pleased with this result with my first try at fresh lobster.

Also, I've got to say that the salad was awesome. Avocado and grapefruit pair beautifully, especially with some red onion and green garlic to give it a little bite and some creme fraiche to pull it all together. 

Dolsot Bibimbap

A few weeks ago, I made some kimchi using David Chang's Momofuku cookbook as a guide. To be honest, I cheated a little and substituted Thai Sriracha sauce for the kochukaru (Korean chili powder) that I didn't have on hand. I have since obtained actual kochukaru and will never commit such an egregious sin again ;)


For those who do not know, kimchi is a Korean spicy fermented pickle dish, usually made with cabbage and generally used as a condiment to put on just about anything. Kimchi has an awesome blend of sour, sweet, spicy, and umami... the Japanese "savory" fifth taste that one associates with things like mushrooms, stinky cheeses, dry aged steaks, green tea, fish sauce, etc. When I was in college I lived with some Korean roommates for awhile and they made bad ass, though ludicrously spicy kimchi. It was good, but was almost too much for my young Western palate to handle.


I made two kinds of kimchi. A savoy cabbage kimchi and a radish kimchi.


I let the kimchi age and ferment in my fridge for about a month. Each passing day, it got a little more "funky", with increasingly complex sour and umami flavors.


The kimchi came out really well, but I can't wait to make it again with the kochukaru in place of the Sriracha. Anyhow, now that I had a bunch of awsome kimchi, I needed something to serve it with.


Enter dolsot bibimbap. Bibimbap is a Korean mixed rice dish with rice, vegetables, usually bulgogi beef, and usually a raw or fried egg. You put everything in a bowl, stir it up with chopsticks, add some Korean hot sauce and some kimchi, and go to town. Dolsot bibimbap is a variation in which everything is served in a VERY hot clay bowl. This not only keeps the food warm for a long time, but it also toasts the rice on the bottom of a dish, kind of like you get with paella.


Dolsot Bibimbap
Rice. Marinated grass-fed ribeye, bulgogi style. Sautéed carrots. Blanched then sautéed spinach with toasted sesame seeds. Cucumber. Steamed mung bean sprouts. Sautéed shiitake mushrooms. Fried egg. Sesame oil.



Cabbage Kimchi (adapted from David Chang)
Savoy cabbage. Garlic. Ginger. Carrots. Scallions. Soy sauce. Dried shrimp. Fish sauce. Sugar. Salt. 



Radish Kimchi (adapted from David Chang)
Radish. Garlic. Ginger. Carrots. Scallions. Soy sauce. Dried shrimp. Fish sauce. Sugar. Salt. 



Homemade Korean Kochukaru Paste
Kochukaru chili powder. Garlic confit. Sugar. Soy sauce. Sesame oil. Rice vinegar.


This was really, really good. We tossed a bunch of kimchi and chili paste in the bowl and it was totally off the hook... The flavors were perfect. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. Bibimbap is a very fun an interactive dish to serve. 


Two things I will adjust next time around. 


First, I will make more legit kimchi with my newly acquired kochukaru powder and skip the Sriracha. I love Sriracha, but it was just not quite exactly right. The kochukaru definitely tasted more "Korean" to me.


Second, I will heat the bowls way longer next time before using them. The heat capacity of my stone bowls is insane, so it takes a LONG time to get them really hot. I got impatient. They needed to be a bit hotter than they were to really properly toast the rice. I'd say they probably need like an 45 minutes to an hour in a 425F oven just to get them crazy hot. Take them out VERY carefully and swirl a light coating of sesame oil in the bottom. You probably want the sesame oil to smoke on contact. Then put the rice in and pack down. It should sizzle pretty hard. Then put the rest of the ingredients in. Be careful not to melt your counter, your table, your hands, or your guests.