ICC 2010: the dishes

Once again, Starchefs gathered together some of the most talented chefs from around the world to share ideas and techniques at the 5th Annual International Chefs Congress.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion on this year's theme: Art vs. Craft. Present on the panel were chefs Dan Barber, David Kinch, and Thomas Keller, with Michael Rhulman moderating. The discussion brought up some thoughtful points about intent and perception. While Barber and Kinch were willing to entertain the notion of chef/artist, Keller adamantly stated that he was a craftsman, not an artist. The consensus seemed to be that it was hubris for chefs to label themselves as "artists", though it was OK for the consumer to do so. The lack of a radically opposed point of view, which would have added another dimension to the conversation, became apparent when Barber admitted that the panel was mostly ''vanilla' on the subject.

Here are most of the dishes prepared on the main stage over the course of three days:

Continue reading “ICC 2010: the dishes” →

citrus

High up on a remote mountaintop on the coast of central California, there lies a paradise of citrus with over three hundred different varieties of rare and exotic cultivars from all corners of the earth. The fruit there is not grown for commerce, but out of a strong interest, curiosity, and love by Gene Lester, a citrus-enthusiast.

This box of sunshine comes to me via Chef David Kinch, whose longstanding friendship with Mr. Lester and mutual interest, curiosity and love of exceptional product allows him access to the private collection of trees.

Chef Kinch's two-Michelin-star Manresa is among the handful of restaurants in this country* that offer a true farm-to-table experience. The diversity and quality of the produce that is grown for Manresa at Love Apple Farm is stunning, as shown in this video.

These are exceptional specimens—each one a jewel— and I am grateful to the spirit of generosity and sharing that brought them to me. In the same spirit, I'd like to share them with you— in the only way that I can— through pictures and words.

For further information and descriptions of these cultivars, I've compiled a downloadable catalog.

Download catalog: Citrus Cultivars

*the T&L article fails to recognize McCrady's in Charleston, where Chef/Farmer Sean Brock grows an amazing array of vegetables for his kitchen, among them heirloom varieties indigenous to the lowcountry, as well as raises pigs for an extensive charcuterie program.

ICC 2009: the dishes

The 4th annual Starchefs International Chefs Congress took place last week in NYC. Once again, it has proven to be a fountainhead of creativity for chefs, mixologists, and industry professionals. I could wax on at great length about the ideas and inspiration presented there, but instead, I'll let you see for yourself.

Richard Blais Workshop: Breakfast, in B Minor

smoked corned beef hash sausage, buckwheat pancakes, whipped maple, iced coffee, brown butter.

David Bouley Paris to Tokyo: French Cuisine, Japanese Techniques

miso black cod, black onion powder

Yoshihiro Murata The Quest for Umami

Modern kaiseki; an homage to autumn.

vegetables with kuzu jelly and aromatic kombu dashi.

April Bloomfield Pig, Pig, Pig

slow poached St-Canut suckling pork belly, onion puree, deep-fried garlic confit, fried pig ears, puffed skin.

Pierre Gagnaire Creativity a la Minute

Le maitre de Cuisine takes on a mystery basket of American ingredients. He prepares 3 dishes plus 3 alter-dishes from leftover components.

top: duck and shrimp sauteed in duck fat, teardrop tomatoes. alter-dish: langoustine bouillion, kale, beet and asian pear puree, micro-greens butter. bottom: almond and toasted flour crumble, salmon belly, scallions, pequeno cucumbers, fresh dates, thyme, honey.

Johnny Iuzzini, Sam Mason, Alex Stupak Three Men and a Dessert

Actually, three men and three desserts.

top: Alex Stupak's "Apple Pie" (sauteed apple mosaic tiles, pecan shards, whipped cider, vanilla ice cream with liquid caramel center. bottom: Sam Mason's "Jello Shot" (bbq sauce-infused whisky, watermelon) missing: Johnny Iuzzini's "Dirt Pot" (chocolate pudding, soil, and agar noodle 'gummi worms')

Jose Andres American Cuisine Through a Spanish Lens

"Tom Collins" carbonated spheres

Masaharu Morimoto Hook, Line, and Sinker

raw fluke, cooked eel

Rohini Dey and Maneet Chauhan The Deal with Fusion

India meets Latin-America

Tandoori Skirt Steak, sauteed spinach, fried plantains

Juan Mari Arzak Techniques From Arzak Laboratory

top: seared tuna with blackened tuna skin emulsion. bottom: "Lunar Rock" orange, passionfruit, milk chocolate, black sesame, red wine. Last picture shows the dish glowing on a custom LED-lighted plate.

Sean Brock Getting Down with Lowcountry Cuisine

top: "the garden" bottom: "hoppin' john"

Rick Tramonto The Birth of Modern American Cuisine

lavender lamb loin with toasted almond espuma and chocolate-red wine sauce

Nils Noren and Dave Arnold High-Tech Delicious

Mokume-Gane fish and lamb, pumpernickel ice cream, curried apple and fennel

The descriptions of the dishes are from memory (which sometimes fails me). I would appreciate any corrections/clarifications.

For a day-by-day wrap up, go to starchefs.com

For more photos and descriptions, check out docsconz's blog. John photographed everything.

caramel corn donut

In the last post, Larry P. left a comment describing Johnny Iuzzini's deep-fried chocolate ganache "doughnut". I assumed it was from his book Dessert Fourplay, which I own, but have only read cursorily. Sure enough, I found it on pages 170 & 171. I really need to get to know this book better.

As Larry pointed out, Johnny Iuzzini's doughnut features a creamy ganache blended with methylcellulose to hold it together while frying, and sodium alginate to allow it to be encapsulated in a calcium bath. The doughnut are then dipped in egg, coated with panko, and deep fried. Larry successfully executed the doughnuts in this post.

After succeeding at producing a cake with the frosting baked inside, my thoughts immediately turned to an old donut fantasy. One of my most gratifying achievements in baking was making a yeast donut that rivaled those found in donut shops. For awhile, I became a bit obsessed with the idea of making a filled ring donut. I abandoned the idea when I couldn't achieve the desired results.

Revisiting the idea with new hope and armed with a viable technique, I set out to encapsulate the filling and layer it between yeast dough. Then I reasoned that encapsulating might not be necessary as the dough itself would act as a capsule, and that adding methocel to the filling would stabilize it and help it keep it's shape.

The good news is that it worked.

The bad news is that the textures suffered in the process.

The filling– popcorn-infused cream and fresh corn juice, reduced and enriched with butter– lost it's fluid creaminess and became more of a custard. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I preferred the texture before heating. The yeast dough, which is very soft and wet and a challenge to work with, but produces the most ethereally light and fluffy donuts, turned out sodden and heavy. I suspect that the weight of the filling inhibited the final rise and that the moisture that escaped during cooking became trapped inside the dough.

As a control, I fried a round of dough (without the hole) and filled it with the cream (without the methocel) post-cooking by piping it in through a hole poked in the side. The textures were notably better: thin, crisp crust gives way to pillowy-soft dough; creamy filling spills out. This is the recipe that I am including here because, at least for now, I can't improve upon it.

Download recipe: caramel corn donuts

eggs benedict

Some dishes have stood the test of time by honoring tradition. Innovative chefs seek to redefine these classics by examining the flavors and textures that make the dish appealing and attempt to give us a purer, focused version. When successfully executed, the new dish feels like a rarefied distillation of the old. I think this is called refinement.

Eggs Benedict certainly falls prey to this category and I have yet to taste a better interpretation than the one served at WD-50. So good, in fact, that I had it twice on the same day.

Every component on Wylie Dufresne's plate is beyond reproach: Wafer-thin slices of crispy Canadian Bacon. Toasty English Muffin crumbs holding together a mind-bending cube of liquid hollandaise. But it was the egg yolk that did me in. Cooked sous vide at 70C for 17 minutes, egg yolks are transformed to the texture of soft, dense fudge that coats the mouth and leaves the tongue happily lapping over and over it like a dog with peanut butter. (OK, that was just me. That, I'm certain, is not called refinement.)

left: seasoned and whipped egg white quenelles, poached in barely simmering water.

center: seasoned egg yolks in sealed piping bag, 70C water bath.

right: piping cooked yolks.

Eggs Benedict v.1.1

70C egg yolks

brown butter hollandaise

whipped egg whites

crispy serrano ham

bacon curls

crispy ciabatta

plantago

Eggs Benedict v.1.2:

egg yolk wrapped in serrano ham "cooked" in dehydrator at 150F for 45 minutes.

brown butter hollandaise

mini English Muffin

plantago

peas parmesan prosciutto

My kitchen is beginning to look like a dairy lab with containers of cream at various stages of infusion and ripening. Fortunately, the local grocer stocks pasteurized cream, so I don't have to go far when inspiration strikes.

fresh peas

parmesan

prosciutto

lemon thyme beurre monté

The first of the infusions– lemon thyme, was made by gently warming the cream to 125F/52C to more readily allow the release of essential oils from the herb, then chilled and infused overnight before culturing. It occurred to me while churning this butter that I could perhaps have saved a step by letting the infusion take place simultaneously with the culturing. It's back to the store to test that idea. Of course, I could have skipped the ripening stage and churned the butter directly from the chilled, infused cream, but I am currently enamored with the plangent and resounding flavor of cultured butter.

Infusing at the cream stage is, so far, turning out to be an effective way to introduce other flavors into the butter. Here, lemon thyme, whose terpenes can be assertive and overwhelming to more delicate flavors, mellowly haunts in the background of the finished butter, which is turned into a beurre monte for this dish.

Beurre monté was brought into modern cuisine by Thomas Keller at The French Laundry. It is an emulsion in which cold butter is gradually whisked into a small amount of hot water and can be heated up to 180F/82C without breaking. While it is typically made with water, I've used a lemon thyme and wine stock in a 1:4 (stock:butter) ratio to reinforce the flavor and lighten the richness of the sauce.

This dish also reflects another current fascination with pliable Parmesan , an emulsion of cheese

sherry, and sodium citrate. In the Umami burger, I used sake to boost the glutamates. Here, sherry was used to test Heston Blumenthal's groundbreaking discovery of diketopiperazines (DKPs), a compound unique to sherries that are produced by yeast activity during secondary fermentation and enhance glutamate-rich foods. Anyone who has nibbled on a well-aged cheese while sipping sherry will recognize and appreciate this symbiotic relationship. As always, flavor is what grabs my attention, but the consistency of this product also appeals to my sense of play. At room temperature it is as soft and malleable as playdoh. I can tell you about the restraint that it took to roll these pea-sized balls, but I'll spare you of the inner-child-induced 'sculptures" that took place after.

The effect of salt on dry-cured meats such as prosciutto di Parma or serrano ham is purely chemical but the transformation is so profound that it seems supernatural. Opaque muscle filaments are rendered translucent, flavorless proteins break down into concentrated glutamates, and muscle fats fragment to form a kaleidoscope of aroma compounds that range from fruity, herbal, grassy, floral, to nutty and buttery. Again, one couldn't ask for more in terms of flavor, but these hams also possesses a silky suppleness that allows it to be molded by compressing finely chopped or thinly sliced pieces. One advantage to breaking down and restructuring prosciutto is that it can be presented in playful forms that retain a resilient bite without all the chew.

Prosciutto di Parma and Parmesan cheese share not only an indelible terroir, but also similar aroma compounds. Another connection is that the pigs, whose hind legs are destined for prosciutto, are often fed the whey from the production of Parmesan. The trinity of cheese, ham, and peas is rooted in the advent of spring, when the harvest of peas marks the end of lean winter months and the beginning of the celebratory feasting season, an apt time to break out ripe-and-ready hams and cheese.

I can't say that my winter months have been lean, but I'm ready for some celebratory feasting.

Bring on the peas!

winter branches

I've revisited Albert Adria's technique of modeling chocolate in ice water. I think it's simply brilliant in it's ability to produce delicate and organic 3D shapes without molds.

For these miniature twigs, the white chocolate was flavored with birch syrup. Preserved wintergreen berries and tiny shards of pine glass were affixed to the branches.

I love the idea of presenting a bouquet of these branches as a mignardise. Their refreshing flavor would be a fitting end to a special meal.

Wintergreen (Gaultheria), also known as teaberry, is an evergreen creeper native to norteastern North America. The leaves and red berries are a rich source of methyl salicylate, or oil of wintergreen. The flavor is popular in chewing gum, particularly Clarke's Teaberry gum.

The fresh berries are somewhat dry and mealy in texture and shrivel quickly. Preserving them in a glycerin and water solution keeps them plump and improves their texture. After 2 weeks in a solution stored in the refrigerator, the berries still look and taste fresh. An added perk is that they infuse the solution with wintergreen flavor, which could then be used as a flavorant.

Warning: Methyl salicylate is an analgesic found in aspirin and many over-the-counter liniments and ointments. Pure methyl salicylate can be lethal in doses of 4-6 grams. Oil of wintergreen is 98-99% methyl salicylate and gaultheria leaves and berries contain up to 0.05%. A lethal dose of berries is about 800-1000 grams. Although gaultheria has a long tradition among indigenous Canadians and North Americans as food and beverage, use common sense when ingesting. Young children and pregnant women should avoid eating gaultheria.

crab mango spruce pomelo vanilla

In my mind, mango and pine will always be tangled together. I have Luciano to thank for that.

Luciano was a dishwasher at the first restaurant that I worked in. He could rip through stacks of dirty dishes faster than any machine, work any station where he was needed, fix anything that was put in front of him. He also made the most delicate pasta that I've ever tasted. All this, he did with the demeanor of a pit bull, alternately growling and cursing like a sailor, then laughing and smiling like an impish boy. He held everyones respect with his consummate badassness.

He was a man of many talents and just as many peculiarities. For one, he had a habit of chewing on pine twigs, of which he kept a fresh supply in a freezer. When questioned, he explained that it kept his teeth clean and it was Nature's breath freshener. I had to agree as he did, indeed, have a dazzling-white smile and always smelled forest-fresh.

Luciano also introduced me to the mango. He brought one in for me one day when I expressed an interest in the fruit that he spoke of with an exaggerated fondness that made his eyes go soft. He showed me how to peel it with a paring knife, then cut away the flesh from the flat seed that he kept for himself, scraping it over and over between his teeth, because–as he put it–"It is the sweetest part…Nature's candy."

My first impression of the mango was favorable–a nice balance of sweet and tart, exotic aromas, buttery texture–yet there was an underlying flavor that intrigued me. When I identified it as pine and relayed this to Luciano, he burst out in a belly-laugh, explaining, "To me, everything tastes like pine"

It came as no surprise when, many years later, I confirmed that there is a concentration of the hydrocarbon, terpene, in the flavor profile of mangoes. Among these are limonene (citrus), pinene (pine), carvone (caraway, dill), myrcene (bay, verbena, myrtle), and ionone (violet, vetiver).

While playing with the flavor of pine (here, in the form of spruce) and mango, I found vanilla to be a nice bridge with both flavors, rounding out the sharp pitchyness of the pine and enhancing the floral aroma of mango. Pomelo, an enormous citrus that tastes like grapefruit without the bitterness, has a fragrant peel with tones of bergamot that played along well with these flavors.

Recently, in an email exchange with another chef, I mentioned this relationship between mango and pine. He was quick to reference a dish in The Big Fat Duck Cookbook. Sure enough, Heston Blumenthal had uncovered this relationship and composed a beautiful dessert around it.

king crab

mango

spruce

pomelo

avocado

vanilla

Although Luciano was in his fifties when I knew him, he was one of the fittest people I knew. He attributed this to a daily regimen of weight lifting and mango power shakes.

I think that he would approve of this mango lassi with a head of spruce foam, scented with a split vanilla bean.

Spruce (Picea) proliferates throughout Northern temperate zones. It is distinguished by its symmetrical conical growing habit, making it a prized landscape plant as well as a favorite Christmas tree. Spruce contains a good amount of vitamin C and its sap was used by Native Americans to make a gum, which later became the inspiration for the first commercially produced chewing gum.

Addendum: an interesting bit of information from a reader via email:

"…I lived on Kauai for four years where people with property have varied and excellent cultivars of all sorts of mango trees and one of my neighbors took me to his 'special' tree to harvest a basket load of perfectly luscious golden mangos. Then he showed me his personal quirk – mangos will bleed sap from the stem when they're picked and that was one of his favorite parts. I tried it and found it to be totally piney in flavor and from then on, I really taste the terpenes in the mango's I eat quite clearly. So fun. He believed it to be particularly healing too, though he didn't have any concrete thoughts about why specifically.
I recommend looking near the stem end of the mangos you find in the market for a shiney, dried drip of sap somewhere on the skin. You can usually peel it off and chew it like gum. It will be totally piney and delicious.
Thought you'd find this a fun bit to know…"

cod juniper apricot

There were few foods that I disliked eating as a child. Salt cod was definitely one.

It is said that the Portuguese have 1,000 ways of preparing bacalhau. Much to my dismay, many of these preparations made their way onto my dinner plate. No matter how much I protested or pleaded, the only requisite to leaving the table was to eat my bacalhau, thus saving me from an empty, degenerate life, the direct result of a salt cod deficiency. The potatoes, a traditional accompaniment, always came to my rescue. Not only did they make the fish more palatable, they provided a cover under which to hide the bits that I couldn't get down.

After a long separation, I've developed a taste for salt cod. I had to come back to it on my own terms. The dense, fibrous texture, which I once found so offensive, is what draws me to it now.

I can't help but feel a little naughty as I revert back to hiding the bacalhau in this dish, although this time around the intent is to bury it as a treasure and give it the respect that it deserves.

apricot lime puree

potato puree

egg yolk

crispy smashed yukon gold

juniper salt cod

juniper foam

juniper-gin tempura dome

In addition to playing off of the flavors and textures that are found in traditional Portuguese bacalhau dishes and the classic fish and chips, this dish explores the chemical relationship between the flavors of cod, juniper and apricot.

…………………………

More profoundly than spice, salt has steered the course of history. Our fundamental need for it prompted an age of discovery, displaced populations, built empires, leveled economies, instigated wars, and saved humanity from starvation.

The history of cod is intrinsically entwined with salt. Dating back over 500 years, salt cod has sustained entire populations on both sides of the Atlantic. Its commerce linked the New World to the Old. Codfish were once so plentiful that it was jokingly said that one could cross the Atlantic on foot by using their backs as stepping stones. Now, they have been overfished to near extinction, warranting heavy restrictions to protect the remaining population of Atlantic cod and challenging consumers to seek other options. Sustainable alternatives are Pacific cod, Alaskan pollock, and hook-and-line caught Haddock.

To make juniper salt cod: Finely grind fresh juniper sprigs and berries. Mix 1 part juniper with 2 parts coarse sea salt. Lay fresh fish fillets on a bed of juniper salt and completely cover with a thick layer of additional salt. Cover, and refrigerate for 2 days, after which time, the fish can be hung and dried in the refrigerator for up to a month, then hydrated before cooking. I prefer the texture when it is hydrated directly after salting. To hydrate: Rinse salt off of fish and soak in fresh, cold water for 2 days under refrigeration, changing water 3-4 times during this period. Cook as desired.

To make juniper foam: In a blender, place 500ml tonic water and 30ml juniper sprigs. Blend until liquified. Strain. Season liquid with salt and a few drops of lime juice. Place 1/2 of liquid in a saucepan and add 3 sheets of gelatin that have been bloomed in cold water. Heat until gelatin dissolves, then blend in remaining liquid and allow to cool. Strain again into an iSi canister and charge with N2O. Chill thoroughly before discharging.

To make juniper gin: Lightly smash leaves and berries on sprigs of juniper with a mallet. Place in a bottle of gin and set aside at room temperature for at least 3 days. Remove sprigs when the juniper has a pronounced presence in the gin.

To make juniper gin tempura dome: In a bowl, combine 2 eggs, 5g agave syrup, 3g salt, 80g AP flour, 100g rice flour, 120ml tonic water, and 120ml juniper gin. Whisk together until smooth. Heat the back of a ladle in a deep-fryer of vegetable oil to 375F. for 2 minutes. Remove ladle and let excess oil drip back into deep-fryer. Invert ladle over a bowl and drizzle the tempura batter over the back in a lacy pattern. Lower ladle into hot oil and fry for 2-3 minutes or until golden and crispy. Carefully remove dome from the back of the ladle using the tip of a knife to help it dislodge.

Various species of Juniper (Juniperus) grow widely throughout the Northern hemisphere. The needles of most Junipers look like tiny, overlapping scales. The berries, which are actually cones, mature to a deep blue in the fall and remain on the branches throughout the winter. They provide the distinct flavor of gin and are used in Northern and Eastern European cuisines to flavor wild game and choucroute garnie.

ginger bread bourbon

Its hard to believe that nearly four months have passed since the Starchefs International Chefs Congress and I am just beginning to assimilate the plethora of ideas and information that I gathered there. Over the course of three days, a large group of food professionals witnessed demonstrations by some of the most creative chefs on the planet: Heston Blumenthal, Jordi Butron, Masaharu Morimoto, Joan Roca, Carlo Cracco, Rene Redzepi and Grant Achatz, to name a few. And that was just on the main stage.

In addition to these demonstrations, there were optional hands-on workshops and seminars that catered to smaller groups. I wished that I could have attended all of them, but time and money forced me to choose the ones that I felt were relevant to my interests. In the end, these were the ones that I chose:

Wylie Dufresne of WD-50–what was supposed to be a demonstration of his re-interpretation of the classic Eggs Benedict turned into an invaluable discussion of the evolution of the dish and his unique process of creativity.

Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernadin–a thoughtful and meticulous approach to creating petit-fours using classic flavors and modern techniques.

Blogging with Andrea Strong, Traci Des Jardins, Aki Kamozawa, Alex Talbot and Michael Laiskonis–lots of good information and insight from a panel of chef-bloggers.

Eben Freeman of Tailor–this one proved to be the sleeper of the bunch. I was hesitant about this workshop that was geared for mixologists and controlling costs in a recession, but I've been an ardent fan of his innovative cocktails and hoped there would be some creative content. I wasn't disappointed–his sound economic strategy could be applied to all aspects of operating a restaurant and his discussion of infused spirits and flavored sodas broadened my horizon of perceived liquid flavor. In retrospect, this workshop was confirmation that a modern mixologists approach is the same as a chefs and that a well conceived and executed cocktail lifts the craft beyond the formulaic blending of beverages and into an artform. Did I mention that the 9:00 AM workshop started out with a sample of Eben's popular cocktail: the Waylon, a blend of bourbon and smoked coca-cola? Amazing depth and complexity of flavor.

As it turned out, the day ended with more Waylons at a cocktail party where Eben Freeman, along with other master mixologists, offered up some of the most deliciously creative potions that I had the good fortune to sample. Among these were: Junior Merino's Ginger Julep, Hibiscus Cocktail with rose-aloe foam, and a savory fennel potion; Simon Difford 's In-Seine–an evocative blend of cognac, St. Germaine and absinthe; and Audrey Saunder's refreshing and beautifully balanced Gin Mule.

Modern cocktails–its a Brave New World.

ginger bread-infused bourbon

The yeasty, fermented aromas of brioche reinforce those that are already present in bourbon. The spices add an evocative complexity. I leave the quantities up to you and your personal taste.

bourbon

thick slices of spice brioche

whole cloves

cinnamon sticks

chunks of nutmeg

slices of fresh ginger root

Place the brioche and spices in the bottom of a glass jar. Cover with bourbon. Seal and set aside for at least 3 days. If you have access to a chamber vacuum sealer the process is instantaneous. Strain through a very fine mesh.