Book Signing!

I was fortunate enough last weekend to actually meet the man himself! A great bookstore in my neighborhood, Book Court, was somehow able to get Thomas Keller to come and sign copies of his newest cookbook, ad hoc at home. Jordan and I met up with our good friends Jen and Eli about 45 minutes before the signing was to begin, and we were lucky enough to get seats! 15 minutes before start time, there were at least 100 people in the space just trying to get a glimpse.

Chef Keller spoke for about an hour about his book, his influences and his career - it was a fantastic look into his crazy life as a cook-turned-celebrity chef. Here's a few pics of the event:

Yes, I know my iPhone takes terrible pics. What can I say?

And now the obligatory (per Jordan) photo of me and Chef Keller. Quite possibly the worst picture of me ever taken... no comments please:

Ta-ta for now!

Sweet Potato Agnolotti with Sage Cream, Brown Butter and Proscuitto

Well, hello there!! I know, I lied about when my next post was going to go up.. please forgive me? Pretty, pretty please?

I promise it was worth the wait!

I made the dish for today's post back in the first week of December, when I started my new job at BWE, the greatest wine store on earth. I cooked dinner for 12 people that night and surprisingly remembered to take pictures of pretty much everything. My journey for this dish began the day before the dinner party, when I made the pasta dough.

I'd like to start out by saying that this was, by far, the EASIEST pasta dough that I have ever made and/or worked with. I've tried countless recipes from some of the most famous Italian chefs, and never has it worked this well. Leave it to a French-trained chef to finally whip me into shape.

The recipe begins, like all others, by using the "well method," making a ring of flour and filling the middle with eggs, olive oil and a bit of milk. Here's a pic:

Then, you gradually incorporated the flour into the ingredients in the center, very slowly to avoid clumping, until it looks like this:

Then, the needing begins. And goes. And goes. And goes. Until you pretty much have a sprained wrist (no comments please) and the dough looks like this:

I put my dough in the fridge to rest and made the filling next. First, I roasted some sweet potatoes in the oven until they were tender. While they were roasting, I chopped some pancetta:

And sauteed it until the fat was rendered, draining it after on paper towels. Once the potatoes were done, I scraped out the flesh and put it in a pot, adding the pancetta, butter and a bit of nutmeg. Easiest part of the day! Here's the filling:

Now it was time to roll out the dough on my pasta machine. It's a pretty easy process once you get the hang of it. This is what it looked like after the final roll through the second-thinnest setting:

Then, I piped a line of filling down one side of the dough:

Folded the dough over and formed the pasta, cutting the individual pasta with a crimped cutter:

Don't they look cute??? Like little pillows :)

Those bad boys went into the freezer with a bit of cornmeal so that they would be ready to travel up to Williamsburg the next day!

****THE NEXT DAY! (dun, dun duuuuuun!!!)****

The first step once I finished carrying my entire kitchen to Caroline's house was to deep fry the sage for the final presentation. This was very easy and basically just involved some canola oil and frying the sage until crispy:

Then, I made the sage cream sauce by first blanching some more sage leaves, and then adding them in the blender to a heated mixture of creme fraiche and beurre monte. The resulting sauce, once put back in a pan, looked like this:

While my pasta was cooking:

I sliced up some proscuitto di parma:

And made my brown butter by cooking the butter until it was light brown and smelling deliciously nutty (sorry I forgot a picture!!). Then, I tossed the pasta with the sage cream and plated the dish (pasta, then proscuitto, then fried sage and drizzled with the brown butter). It looked beautiful!

And it tasted soooo good!! It was very rich and delicious with so many different textures and just wow. Totally worth the work - I don't think I ever want to eat boxed pasta again.

Next time, another agnolotti dish - just as delicious, not quite as pretty (you'll see!).

PS - Thanks to Ruth for showing me how to use my camera!! You can definitely see the improvements in my pictures as this post goes along.. how lame am I?

PPS - If you are reading... please let me know!! Don't make me beg.

Oops!

Well, shoot. It has been WAY too long since my last post, and I swear I haven't given up on this project. I actually started a new job after Thanksgiving, and between that and the holidays I have had zero time to update. I've got a new post from December that I will be putting up on Thursday! YAY! From there, I will try to update more often again.

Shout out to my people over at The Brooklyn Wine Exchange!! If you are around the neighborhood... stop by! www.brooklynwineexchange.com ....

Til next time...
xx

Lemon Sabayon-Pine Nut Tart with Honeyed Mascarpone Cream

Sorry for the long delay with this post. I actually made this tart last week, but things have been so crazy with our cute ass foster puppy that I haven't had a chance to write about it!! Good news - my mom is actually adopting him and he will be going home for Thanksgiving! YAY!

I also just had the final exam for my wine class and I'm waiting on the results... don't want to jinx myself but I'm pretty sure I rocked it!

Back to the important stuff - FOOD..... DESSERT.

This was my first attempt at a FL dessert... I chose it because it looked like one of the simpler recipes. I've made both a tart shell and a sabayon before, so it wasn't too intimidating. For anyone that is wondering what "sabayon" is... here is a quickie (hehe I said quickie) definition:

Sabayon (or Zabaglione) is a dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, and some kind of flavoring liquid (such as sweet wine or in this case, fresh lemon juice). The end result is a very light custard, which has been whipped to incorporate a large amount of air.

Got it? Great! Moving on....

The first step in making this dessert was to make the tart shell. This shell was a bit different from others that I've made in that it incorporated pine nuts with the flour and other ingredients. First, my pine nuts went into the food processor:

I pulsed them a few times and then put them into my big KitchenAid mixer bowl, to which I added sugar and flour and mixed briefly with the paddle attachment. Then, I added some butter (at room temp), an egg and vanilla extract...

... and mixed to incorporate into a large dough ball:

This was obviously wayyyy too much dough for one tart, so I divided it into three equal parts, reserving two in the freezer for future use, and putting one in the refrigerator to chill.

Then, I buttered and floured my fluted tart pan (with a removable bottom):

...and gently pressed my chilled tart dough into the pan:

This went into the oven to pre-bake, since my sabayon was not going to actually bake in the oven. While it was turning a perfect golden brown, it was time to make the sabayon.

First, I created a double boiler by bringing a small amount of water to a boil in a pot and placing a mixing bowl with a slightly larger diameter over the top. To this bowl I added the eggs and sugar and whisked:

After the eggs were foamy, I added my freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1/3 at a time, while whisking vigorously to create the custard. The end result looked like this:

... and in the shell:

The final step was to put the tart under the broiler and rotate it to brown the top. After almost giving myself third degree burns, the tart came out looking like this:

While it was cooling to room temperature, I made the mascarpone cream by whipping together a combination of heavy cream, honey and mascarpone. This is served on the side:

A great first dessert (and another really crappy last picture WTF??)... this was relatively easy to put together and I would absolutely make it again. I served it to my boyfriend (who loves everything I make) and my friend Kelly (who is always down to at least try my experiments) and they both came back for seconds!! Yum.

Sources:

Specialty Bakeware - A Cook's Companion, Brooklyn, NY

Grocery and Dairy - Trader Joe's, Brooklyn, NY

Staff Meal Lasagne

Some of you may think that this post is a cop-out because it isn't exactly French Laundry food... however, staff meal is an extremely important part of restaurant culture.... I believe that you can tell a lot about a restaurant by what they feed their staff. At the last restaurant(s) I worked at, we were treated to some pretty great food on a daily basis, and it was easy to see that it was much appreciated by all.

That being said... I thought it was important to make this dish, because I was interested to see the kind of food that Thomas Keller feeds to the (pretty amazing) staff at his acclaimed restaurant. I have made my own version of lasagne tons of times and really don't need any instruction (if I do say so myself :)), but I stuck to the recipe from the book this time around.

First, I chopped up some onions and garlic:

and peeled and diced up a bunch of tomatoes:

Then, I sauteed the onion and garlic in some olive oil until soft and just translucent, and added in the tomato paste, cooking until the mixture turned a vibrant orange color:

Well, my camera skills need some work, but I promise it was orange :)

I added in the tomatoes and cooked the sauce gently for 2 hours on the stove top, stirring frequently to avoid scorching the tomatoes on the bottom of the pot. This was necessary since I used chopped tomatoes only with no juice (as you would have when using canned tomatoes). After it was done cooking, I removed the sauce from the heat, added some chopped oregano, salt and pepper, and put it aside to cool to room temperature. The resulting sauce was thick and somewhat chunky... it looked like this:

While the sauce was cooling, I boiled the lasagne noodles and made the mixture for the filling. The filling consisted of ricotta cheese, eggs, chopped parsley, salt and pepper:

Now it was time to build the lasagne. First sauce:

Noodles:

Ricotta:

And repeat!

To finish, I topped off a final layer of noodles with the remaining sauce and sprinkled it with some seasoned grated mozzarella cheese. Before it went in the oven it looked like this:

After 45 minutes in a toasty oven, the lasagne was bubbling and ready:

One slice on the plate....

Mmmmmm... definitely a good lasagne. The sauce and the filling were flavorful and well-seasoned, and it was light while still filling me up! I have to admit, I did miss the little mini meatballs and definitely the parmigiano cheese, but this is a good, simple lasagne recipe.

Coming up next, something sweet (I promise this time!)...

Comments make my day :)

Sources:

All Grocery and Produce - Met Foods, Brooklyn, NY

Spotted Skate Wing with Braised Red Cabbage and Mustard Sauce

Another day, another recipe.

Today I made Spotted Skate Wing with Braised Red Cabbage and Mustard Sauce.

What is a skate you ask? Well... it is a strange little fish that honestly doesn't look that appetizing at first glance:

Mmmmmm doesn't that look delicious?

RIGHT.

To be honest, I wasn't a fan of this funny looking creature until semi-recently, but now that I've been converted, I am in love. It is a very forgiving fish to cook and it does not taste even remotely "fishy."

So... getting started.

My first task of the day was to prepare the braised cabbage, because it needed to go into the oven to cook for 3 hours. Nothing is ever easy is it?

First, I trimmed the ribs from my red cabbage and then sliced it into a chiffonade. I put it all in a bowl and added some red wine, tossing to coat:

The mixture went into the fridge to marinate for a few hours. Then, I melted some butter in a saucepan and added the cabbage and the wine, as well as some grated apple and veal stock. The pan went into the oven for two hours and when it came out looked like this:

Then, I added some grated russet potato and wildflower honey and returned the pan to the oven for another 45 minutes. The finished product looked like this:

Creamy and smooth - just needed a touch of salt and pepper.

Next, I started the mustard sauce. First, I chopped up some leeks, mushrooms and carrots:

Then, I sauteed them in some canola oil until they were just browned, and added some veal stock:

This simmered down for about 5 minutes to create a glace (basically a sauce that is the base for another sauce). Then, I added a whole bunch of butter one piece at a time to the glace until I had a thick sauce. The sauce went through a chinois and back into the pot:

You can see in this photo that my sauce was starting to break... so annoying. But I fixed it by adding just a little bit of water and bringing it back to a simmer while whisking! To the butter mixture I added dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, some brunoise and chopped chives. I kept the sauce warm on the stove while I started the final step.

Cooking the fish was relatively easy. I first dusted both pieces with flour and seasoned them with salt. Then, I cooked them in a pan of fully heated canola oil for about 2 minutes on the first side...

And another minute on the second side, while continuing to baste the tops of the skate with the hot oil to add more color.

Time to plate! First the sauce, then the braised cabbage, and finally a piece of skate. Here's the finished product:

The fish was flaky, but not at all dry and had a really nice crisp on the outside. The sauce was, of course, fantastic because it was loaded with butter... :) For anyone skeptical about skate-- once you try this dish, you'll be a skate-lover forever.

If you have read this far, I beg of you to leave me a comment! Pretty pretty please?

Up Next: Something sweet!

Sources-

Specialty Cookware: A Cook's Companion, Brooklyn, NY

Seafood: Fish Tales, Brooklyn, NY

Grocery Items and Produce: MET Foods, Brooklyn, NY

Braised Breast of Veal with Yellow Corn Polenta Cakes, Glazed Vegetables & Sweet Garlic

Okay, so I need to start this post with a shout-out to my boy Pedro at Los Paisanos Meat Market in Brooklyn for helping me to procure this veal breast and making my life very easy.

Readers, meet a six pound veal breast, rib bones and all:


This may not seem like a big deal, but it actually took some work to be able to get this cut of meat. The breast on a veal is not very desirable as it is very tough and takes hours of cooking to make it tender.... which is exactly what I planned on doing! :)

The first step in this process was to sear the breast on both sides in a pot large enough to hold not only the meat but also all of the vegetables, braising liquid, etc. I heated up some canola oil until it was hot and then seared the meat until it was nice and golden brown:


Then, I removed the meat from the pan, drained the excess oil, and sauteed the mirepoix of onions, carrots and a leeks, along with some garlic, thyme and a bay leaf:


Once the vegetables were tender and slightly caramelized, I put the meat back into the pot and added the braising liquid - a mixture of chicken and veal stock. Then, the entire pot went into the oven, its home for at least the next four hours:


hehe.

When the veal was finished cooking it was so tender that I could easily slip all of the rib bones out - it looked like this:


I removed the meat from the cartilage and put it between two pieces of parchment paper and into the fridge. I weighted it with a big 2-gallon jug of water to flatten it out - you'll see why later! I also strained the braising juice and lightly simmered it down to create a concentrated sauce for the veal. I added some shallots and of course some butter (!!) to the sauce and set it aside for the end...

The next step was to make the polenta. I boiled some water, chicken stock and minced garlic in a saucepan, added the polenta, and cooked it for about 20 minutes until it was thick and creamy. Then, I added butter, mascarpone cheese, chives, and salt and pepper to taste. The mixture was then spread in a 9x13 baking dish....

... covered with saran wrap, and put in the fridge to set. As the polenta cools, it goes from being a thick "mush" to a solid mass.

While my polenta was setting, it was time to deal with the vegetables. This recipe called for beets, turnips and carrots to be cut in different ways. The carrots were cut into small batons, the beets were scooped by the tiniest melon-baller ever, and the turnips were scooped with a fluted oblong vegetable scooper. Are you still with me?

Then, each vegetable was blanched separately until they were tender, quickly cooled in an ice bath, and set aside to drain. Once they were drained, they were sauteed in a pan until lightly golden. Then, I added some butter and chives and set the pan aside for later.

The next step was to make the sweet garlic. The whole garlic cloves were blanched not once, not twice, but three times. Then, I added some butter and a pinch of sugar to a pan and sauteed the garlic until golden brown:

Time for the home stretch!! I took the veal and the polenta out of the fridge and cut them with a 2" round cutter into seven equal rounds each. The polenta got a light dusting of flour, and the veal got rubbed lightly with dijon mustard and dredged in panko breadcrumbs. Then, I heated two pans side-by-side and sauteed the polenta in one and the veal in the other until each were golden brown on both sides:




Once they were done, I drained the veal and the polenta on paper towels briefly while began to plate the dish. First up was the sauce that I made earlier... then a piece of polenta, a piece of veal on top of that, and finally the glazed vegetables and sweet garlic. The finished product(s):



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's just say that this dish was more than worth the cooking time, ridiculous number of steps, and effort to procure the meat. The veal was crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle and the polenta was to die for (there was even some left over ;) ).....

Next up - something fishy!

Sources:
Meat - Los Paisanos, Brooklyn, NY
Grocery - MET, Brooklyn, NY
Produce - Trader Joes, Brooklyn, NY