CREAM PUFF WARS

When I was a young, kid I remember vividly at one point, being totally distraught, frustrated, mentally exhausted and over all totally panicked about the rest of my life. My life stalling dilemma was an incredible inability to draw or write the number 2. I was a complete disaster at it. It took me a few days to master the calligraphic craft of illustrating the second digit in the Hindu -Arabic Numeral system. I mean, you would have thought I was actually making up math the way I flailed about moaning and defeated for those two…longest days. But in the end, I got the grasp of it! I was so damned proud.

When I was older still, I had another proverbial number two that encroach on my personal well being. It was the, never ever once dreaded before, Pâte à choux. Choux pastry is the pastry dough used in making eclairs, profiteroles or cream puff depending on what side of the Atlantic you live, and my absolute favorite doughnut in the world the French Cruller.

This entirely simple recipe yeilds roughly 30 choux:

250 ml of water
a pinch of salt in the water
125 grams of unsalted butter
135 grams of plain flour
4 eggs

Melt the butter in warming water and add flour.

Use a spatula to whisk flour into water and butter making a type of roux.

Once you have your dough, allow to cook for a minute or two over low heat. Continue to stir. Careful not to over work.

Take off the heat and in the same sauce pan, on a counter top or chopping board, add 4 eggs, one at a time. Stir each egg quickly into the mix, not allowing the white to cook. Your dough will separate upon introduction with each egg. No problem, stir-mix until the dough comes back together. As soon as it does you are ready to add your next egg. Step and repeat.

Once finished with your eggs, put into a pastry piping bag and pipe away your desired shapes and sizes. Cook in a pre heated oven at 180 C for 15 minutes. Allow to cool & dry. They can then be stored in the freezer until using. Flash under heat just before serving and fill with your favorite filling.

This recipe is breezy, C’est sincerely! Enjoy. I put this up for my sister Alex to try with her new silicone cooking mats.

RACHEL KHOO

I have just returned from a event filled stay in Paris. Art, fashion, business, friends,  babies, food, no matter the color of the grass, it was an amazing vacation. The images right now are a not so consoladated so my posts will be a bit bare. Until then, I would like to mention that my I had the most amazing lunch date with kenya at Rachel’s on our last day in town.

I had reached out to Rachel Khoo, Paris based and studied food creative, to make a reservation at her new founded Paris kitchen, La Petite Cuisine. I had learned of her spectacular works while researching the London underground food movement. I am very happy to have had our timelines line up.

Sometimes, when worked with correctly food can be synonymous with magic. Real talk!  An mind her skills first world, she is coming for your kitchens, turning out scrumptious food on what might as well be a Coleman stove and  a toaster oven. I was way the hell impressed with what what she was able to do inside what some Parisians consider a kitchen. It was a tremendous experience and I left feeling a fabulous bit sentimental. I want to give her another shout out and special thanks for sitting us. C’est swag the fuck out & thanks Rachel. The three of us had so much.

PS: Thanks to Design Sponge for the image.

ITALIENS

Last week in Milan was how I always remember it. Amazing. Always amazing. It has many great cultural scenes that my wife and I fold in and out of. They are familiar varieties of the incredible & interesting only in NY kind of a thing. But in another country.  Entwined with the visiting of friends is the core of the matter. The living. I love the food, the wine, the coffee & how the times of the day are more breakfast, lunch and dinner than what I am used to them being; morning, noon and night. I especially adore that. I crave that. And while in Milan, no matter how brief, one can find the clock that reads eat with out much effort. I take to this particular time immediately. I run to the (average, regular, everyday) supermarket when I land and pick up things that you just cant get on the near Great British Isle. Inside the market is a treasure chest  of things you would need lawyers guns and money or a specialty store to acquire outside of Italy. There is so much pride in the culinary culture. So much. And this is kind of how it went down on the road, in Milan.

Anti Pasta, not sensa. In the Hotel-Motel-Holiday:

This plate was followed by another and another, the oils and aromas filled the room, we opened the window and the crisp air volleyed the intoxicating perfumes of aged meats and pureed mushrooms and herbed vinegars between the walls. It was sensory  and palatable pong. The cured meats were; Soppressata, Soppressata Picante, Bresaola.

Soppressata: is usually from Molise/Campania/Basilicata/Calabria. is made of Pork. Salami from lean pork meat and pork fat. The meat is cut by knife rather than ground, then spiced (to desired flavors), stuffed into casings, and pressed under a weight to obtain its characteristic flattened shape (hence the name). Traditionally hung near the hearth to age and acquire a delicate smoky aroma. Sometimes conserved in olive oil or lard; may contain pork blood or ground sweet peppers for a brighter red color.

Bresaola: is usually from Lombardy. is made of Beef or Horse. Salami from prized cuts of beef (or, more rarely, horse) which are salted and spiced, then hung to dry; sometimes smoked.

The cheese Amalattea Testadura. The bruschetta,  bruschetta di funghi, which may be  a semantic shift even as Italy now defines the bruschetta as a topping less the historical dish itself. Which would have been of garlic, olive oil and tomato. The  little dot in the center is a pickled picante cherry tomato stuffed with anchovy. The pepper was silky as could be and semi-rough come time for the fish and the whole thing was like eating a dense salty cloud that was about to pour spicy rain.

For dessert we ventured to MARSELLERIA to see Ninos du Brazil (Giovanni Donadini of Cane di coda & Nico V of …) perform for, Nico Vascellari’s book release, Blonde. Hotness. It was so much fun. A tremendous time. Peep us in the slide show on Vogue.it with old friend and artist Ivan Atzori and International Editor and Wife, Kenya Hunt

Second food memory of Milan was the (much talked about in our house)  Torre di Pisa. We absolutely go on and on about this place. They serve the most amazing dish of food I have ever eaten in the entire world. Fegato con Carciofi. I reckon they use a veal liver and dress the inside with a semi-soft cheese, sprinkle confit artichoke hearts and rough cut flat leaf parsley over the pan seared meat. Its a small piece of heaven. If you imagine that the end of the world could in fact be chopped liver.  It is absolutely amazing, and more so I had not even thought to whip out my Black Berry and snap photos. Oh yeah, PS my new project is to only use my Black Berry for image capturing. Brass Tacks.
I think I must give a photo credit to my homeboy from Purple Olivier Zhan. Solid.

Next up is Pietro Leeman’s Joia. We experienced this place on the recommendation of a vegetarian friend and I must admit, it was an encounter. Joia was awarded a Michelin star in 1996 and is apparently the only vegetarian restaurant in Europe to have achieved such stature. And maintained it. I was excited. I was intrigued.  The whole crew we dined with was excited and intrigued. It is a wonderful exercise when one limits their pallet to expand their creative potential. And seemingly that is what is at work here. Pietro has decidedly removed meet from his cooking as a significant gesture  reflecting his philosophy towards today’s continued rich diets vs. sedentary lifestyles. Joia engages the diner in challenging (yet delectable) dialogue between available and  seasonal offerings and the natural and nature.

The environment was a bit lacking with poor sophomoric new age looking art to build quite calm and serene place of respite. I didn’t buy it. It had way too many devices. Will-owing linens from the ceiling looked more like looms and partitions, antiquated dressing room dividers all mural’ed up proved a weak aesthetic. I was unimpressed, but we sat in the front of the restaurant and it seems the back was more a proper dinning room, mannered and aethetic. Something our night was lacking and had me baffled by, as we sat in the proverbial kids- my first yoga section, for the Michelin Star is not handed out lightly.

I quite enjoyed my first dish which was a faux egg made of home made cheese, no dairy sitting in the middle of celeriac puree and black truffles. It had a name like wild forrest still view from the sky. I am completely not on the same new age page for dude’s naming convention. It was hard not to chortle while reading away. The second dish was composed of roast veg, grilled artichoke hearts celeriac puree, a form of frothy pesto and broad brush strokes of licorice on the side of the plate for melding. I was less wild about this dish from it’s presentation & it’s too many flavors. I am a big fan of more is more, but when it comes to flavors, they have to be carefully vetted. And I do not think that this dish is succesful. Others that came out and sat on the table bent my mind. In ways of auroma, flavor and presentation. I just was not into this particular plate which was titled meditation in a bog. Or something like that. Sincerely it was educational and proved a lovely dinning time, the company was tremendous, the service spectacular, the wine was superb. On the whole I found it good, but not my favorite, as it was certainly pricey. Yet and though, I understand for the cost, the quality ingredients, the work, the craft, the artistry -counter that – I also understand that we ate only vegetables and unfortunately, they traveled great distances to arrive on our table, we had not been party to a birds nest broth or  roast white truffles or ambergris, although we almost drank the coffee made by the Asian Palm Civet but decided against it at 35 Euro a cup. I am siked it is on the menu though. C’est Sincerely. And maybe one day down the road when my stars are all lined up and my ship rocks gently at the dock, I will call again and make a reservation, maybe. Special shout out and thanks to Pietro Leeman for having stuck by his principles and made a career of it. This in itself deserves celebration and praise. Salute.  

LILL COQ IN A BIG GAME

Just before posting tonight’s dinner I was just trolling a favorite – Anissa Helou’s food  blog, and decided if she can book end  her first and  last post with penises and testicles, for sure I can rock with my coquelet out! Tonight I will be trying my luck at cooking a corn fed Spring Chicken. First time.


On a side note, admittedly, I probably fall into the category of an adventurer more than an epicure. I get quite excited about new foods, new takes, new twists, variety… sail across the oceans and eat cream furnished by the milk from the udders of cetaceans and ride my bike out West London and scoop up some ice cream made from breast milk…? Real talk, movie no commercials.  This cave of endless recipes, the gourmand I aspire and become.

So for tonight’s meal:
I rubbed herbed butter of oregano and rosemary just under the skin and stuffed it with a halved a lemon and herbs. I tied down the legs to keep the little thing from thrashing & spatchocking all about as I crisped the skin in a skillet. Just after browning,  the hot hot hot skillet and bird goes into the oven on about 200 C. Put the timer on for 15 minutes.

The bird looked done, but with out wanting to open it all up and see pink anywhere, I turned down the heat and gave it another 5 minutes. Succulent. Lemon infused poultry  juices squirted all over the cutting board,  the herbs braised under the skin perfumed the air, plume!, with the first delicate incision. I couldn’t even get the heaven sent hell proof bird to the plate as I ate half  while carving it up. C’est moi animal yo. It was delicate and intimate, the perfect portion for a personal appetite. I am way siked on small game. Over. Let’s play again.

LET ME SEE YOUR GRILL

Out for a Friday night with a friend. Unusual quantity of Pounds in my pocket. Indeed, happy to see you. An empty messenger bag to fill (no spare tube to speak of either). Sans squat, an empty house or two to choose, one of them, decorated with a magnificent quantity of herbs. Yes Kenya that is a pun. A little bit with an ache for steak and a some way sure of it’s self  red wine. Fine.

A simple celebration of steak. Easy preparation. Take your steak and rub salt into the fat as you season it. I used Maldon Salt. For texture and a certain principle applies with it’s use; that you can never use too much. I mean you can, but… but this crystalline is so brittle and wafiy and it’s textured somehow like an english muffin, with  depths that allow for a broad stroked multi dimensional savory experience. Salt Maldon makes table salt pale in comparison for certain uses. It is unlike table salt, which has the capacity to blemish and or potentially bore right through your tongue as if drilling for a door handle. Silver or wooden spoon, with each new dish you use it on, you will understand .

What this salting does is extract the moisture from the fat and when treated with heat, it allows the fat to caramelize and crust up. So so yummy.
I mean most people cringe at all those calories and artery trouble makers, but fat is where the flavor is. As I make a ceremonial head nod and throat clear, for those chefs still roaming Marlborough Country*.

Unless it’s fish-line or rope caught, no more smoking for me. I will be taking my chances from now on, chewing the fat & with a brimmer of vin de pie. As we stationed the meat to for grilling, we stood around the kitchen & opened a supernacular bottle of Clos de l’Oratoire des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2008. It is an affordable take on a very serious manner of wine. Constructed from a variety between 13-15 grapes, a multitude of aromas waft up with complexity-which is well beyond most of my ability to taste or comprehend. I do not pretend to understand much of what’s going on in that glass of mine but I know that it is good, great & maybe divine. I mean it has the nome du Papes,  religious elixir of miraculous proportions since the 1300s.  Its noted as the Grand Vin of the Southern Rhone region. I have read that one typically  finds rich strawberry and red cherry tones in Châteauneuf with complicating notes of herbs and lavender, frequently referred to as “garrigue”. There are frequently notes of game, leather and tar.

We finished the steak to each ones liking. Grabbed some herbs from out the back door, rosemary and lemon thyme roughly chopped them up to the tune of hundreds of thousands and splashed a little olive oil over top as they rested.

C’est Fin.

Foot Note: for almost every ten chefs I know, two do not indulge in carcinogens beyond the grill.