Hawaiian Tuna

Koko from Honolulu Fish Co. sent us some awesome tuna. The color was a deep purple, it was difficult to see where the blood line ended and the super fresh flesh began. It reminded me of the black bass that Dave Arnold and Nils prepared at Star Chefs after using the Ike Jime method, the texture was almost crunchy. We cut it into blocks, season it heavily, and give it a good cast iron sear. Right out of the pan I covered it with a cilantro\parsley and garlic marinade then wrapped it tight with plastic wrap and let it cool in the fridge. This method really allows the marinade to penetrate the tuna.
I paired this with scallion cream, miso caviar, golden pea tendrils, nasturtium, and a touch of lemon balm from chefs garden that was tossed in J. LeBlanc evo with finger lime cells and murray river salt.



At the table the servers frenched nitro siracha aioli that was aereated in an ISI.



A version of this will be coming to our new spring menu that will debut mid-march. Spring is by far my favorite time for menu change. We are also looking forward to adding Torm Siverson's mangalitsa to the menu. He has about 30 head and we will be making a trip out to the farm later in the month to see our little friends.

Kurobuta Lonzino

We had some kurobuta tenders laying around so we gave them the lonzino treatment for 10 days, rinsed, and let dry for 3 hours before putting them in the casings.



The only issue was our casings mysteriously disappeared from our cooler and all we had was over sized synthetic so we tried to make do. We tried rolling and tying them like torchons but we couldn't get all the air out of the casing so that was a no go.
In the end we put the casings in the vac machine and sucked out the air. The casings don't seal in the vac machine but they hold the vacuum for a minute you just have to work fast and tie them off. It worked pretty well, we'll see how it comes out.




We left them to ferment for 12 hours and hung them in our curing chamber. Hopefully they turn out alright as this is the first time we have used synthetic casings for this application. The tenders are small and we only need a 35% weight loss so we should have some results in 4-6 weeks at the most.

Vermont-Pittsburgh

We're back from our trip and I walked straight into a crazy week with the American Bar Association hitting us hard. Now that business has fizzled out a bit I can finally post. We flew into Burlington, Vermont late Sunday night and headed straight for the hotel. Coming from some nice 60F weather we were hit with some 6F weather right off the plane. Not as bad as expected. My human resources associate and I made a mad dash for Montpelier early in the morning. Of course I was on time for the cab to pick us up and my associate was about 15 minutes behind. Good thing the cab drivers in Vt are patient, any where else and we'd be on the meter or possibly left behind. A nice 30 mile drive through the mountains and we were in Montpelier. I will say the sunrise in Vt is awesome when your driving through the mountains. It's been a while since I've been in a small town but it seemed like everywhere in Vt was a small town. People were actually nice!





We arrived at NECI and found our contact.




After we found where the job fair was located I also found out that I would be prepping our passed apps across campus. See the building just to the right of the bigger building. Yeah, that's where I was cooking. So haul ass over there, get in the kitchen which was the cafeteria for Vermont College where the NECU students worked and prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for the College. i'm pretty sure this wasn't a class but I could be wrong. Hats off to Chef Dave who showed me around and ran a full kitchen with students. They all worked throughout the morning with me jumping in the middle of there 8 burner line taking up space. I was told 300 students would be attending so lots of work to do right off the bat.



I got everything prepped then ran it over to this building, an old basketball gym where the job fair was being held. Note to self, carrying lots of shit and running through the snow in clogs, not a good idea. I forgot for a second we were in a small town, actually the smallest capital city in the US. I was trying to cross the road with an arm full of prep, freezing and cars were actually stopping, waiting for me to cross. Not the norm for where we are from. I can see why having a hospitality institution makes sense here. We hit the job fair, mostly local or nearby hotels and resorts were there. It's hard to convince people to move 1500 miles away with no promise of housing to do an externship but most were receptive and appreciated the apps we provided as we were the only with food offerings. i actually was approached by a former TE cook that worked at Kingfish Hall and new me from when I was training in Todd's restaurants to take over bluezoo. it's a small world being in this business and I try to make an effort to remind my guys that when they are working with us.





Finished with the job fair, we took off back to Burlington to catch a glimpse of the Magic Hat Brewery. They do a good job of making the place look weathered and run down but it is neither of those.



This is a full scale operation, brewing nonstop. They just recently entered our market at the hotel about a year ago but we we had a pretty limited amount to distribute. Now they are coming full swing. Oddly enough the day I was visiting the brew house the Owners were dining in bluezoo! They met with our F&B execs at the hotel and we're are expected to carry Magic Hat No. 9 (their signature brew) pool side for the upcoming months.





The brewery itself is based on the Mardi Gras theme and what we were told is that their Mardi Gras festival generates the largest F&B revenue in Vermont. There is Mardi Gras art posted throughout the brew house.



We took the self guided walking tour since they only offer the guided on Fridays and Saturdays, on top of the fact we had a cab waiting outside for 20 minutes. It was like walking into a bakery, that yeasty, sourdough, wet goodness filled the air. They happened to be bottling that day so there was some action. This time of year they bottle about 4 times a week and during the warmer months it's a nonstop process. "As long as there is beer, it will be put in a bottle" is what I was told. These signs are placed aling the brew line to tell you what is going on.



Out of the filler, the bottlers are shot down the line.




Here they get labeled and while another machine builds the boxes and the line workers fill, seal, stack, and ship.



Now off to the airport on our awesome prop plane to LGA then on to PITT. Same deal, get to the hotel, sleep, get to the school and start cooking. I had 3 demos set up and Tammy was my go to all around you need it I can get it assistant. She was great and is looking at doing here externship at the white house. She deserves it!



PCI was great. Everything prep to a T. Chef Will Hunt did a great job setting me up. I had a full demo kitchen so we got started right away. If there is anything I hate it's public speaking but I love teaching and they made us feel very welcomed so it was easy. I'm not a big fan of formal, I'd rather be a little outside of the box an engaging with the students so sitting classroom style didn't last very long.



We got them so up they could get a first hand look at what we were doing and it seemed much more comfortable for all.



All in all a good trip. There are some bright culinarians coming our way. Some interesting questions were asked by the students and I learned a lot about what they really want out of the education that they are getting. I don't sugar coat anything when it comes to what we do and the dedication that it takes to make it happen and they were very receptive to someone being up front and honest. When I went to school they asked us this question, "where do you see yourself in five years?", most of the responses were along the lines of owning a restaurant. I think reality has set in a bit more and these culinarians have a better grasp of their future in the business. I'm not saying that it can't be done, I'm just saying that most of the people I talked to realize that they will be working their way up, letting their actions in the kitchen speak rather than their diploma.

The Beer List

Doug, Adam and I have been doing beer tastings on and off for the last 2 months sifting through tons of micro brews. There are so many good ones, or at least what we think is good but we also have to think about our guests. So here is the new beer list that is going into effect. The Allagash Curieux is one of my personal favorites and the Omegang Rare VOS is another that I will be sampling quite often. Can't go wrong with contributions by rogue, oskar blues, lagunitas and stone. All of them are great and as they are now on the list we will be planning a beer dinner to go with it, I'll keep you informed as we get closer.

suds to share….
(all bottles are 750ml)

southampton cuvee des fleurs, sasion
"cuvèe des fleurs" roughly translates to "batch of the flowers". This most distinctive ale is flavored with a variety of edible flowers including lavender, chamomile and hops.

the breuery, saison rue, belgian/french-style farmhouse ale
malted rye, spicy, fruity and a biscuit-like malt backbone. With age, this beer will dry out and will become more complex with rustic notes of leather.

allagash, curieux, triple ale
Curieux, french for "curious", aged in jim beam barrels for 8 weeks and many new flavors and aromas. Most notably, the beer picks up soft coconut and vanilla characteristics...and also a hint of bourbon flavor!

suds to sip.....

lagunitas, indian pale ale
raging hoppy character and imperial qualities of the 65 various types of malt

ommegang, rare vos, amber ale
coppery-amber color with the aroma of spicy orange blossoms and taste of caramel malt

oskar blues, mama’s little yella pils, czech-style pilsner
“hand canned” with pale hops and bavarian malt

oskar blues, old chub, “hand canned” scottish-style ale semi-sweet with cocoa, coffee and a hint of smoke

rogue, dead guy ale, german-style maibock ale
deep honey in color with a malty aroma and a rich hearty flavor

stone, levitation, american amber ale
big hoppy character with rich malt flavors and citric overtones

NECI, PCI

Leaving tomorrow for the NECI and PCI job fairs. I haven't been to either before so it will at least be a change of scenery. I don't like standing in one spot for 5 hours handing out pieces of paper so I called the schools and asked if I could cook instead. So I'll be doing some passed apps for the NECI students at the table on Monday and have 3 demos back to back at PCI the next day.
Its more work for me but at least I'll have something more to say than "Are you interested in an externship with us?" 100 times in a row. I'll leave that to the human resources people that will be there with me.
There won't be much time to do anything, I have about 3 hours of free time after each job fair before it's back to the airport but it just so happens that the Magic Hat Brewery is only 10 minutes from the Burlington Airport so a quick tasting and tour couldn't be a bad thing. Hopefully after the PCI demos we'll have time to hit Primanti Bros for some ridiculous sandwich that's usually best enjoyed at midnight after some libations but 2pm will have to do.
It's going to be a crazy, quick trip. 6 planes in 3 days, who booked these flights anyway, I don't think HR has ever heard of nonstop. On top of that going from 80 degrees today to 8 degrees tomorrow is not top on my to do list but I get a free trip out of it so I shouldn't complain. I'll try to snap some pictures and let you future culinary students know what I think of the schools.

Nantuckets and Fluke

We received some really great fluke from George at Gary's Seafood, Gary's is the best all around in CFL but what's up with the video when you check their website? Looks like everyone in O-Town likes the balsamic redux 1970's squiggle on the plate. If the video doesn't come up you may have to scroll to the bottom of the homepage and hit replay intro video, but it's worth watching. Not so much for the dishes presented but the facility itself. They actually care about their product and communicate with us everyday all the fish available. Our order is all over the place everyday, it's hard to decide what you want. Almost like standing in the beer isle of a grocery store on the west coast.
Back to the fluke, I sliced it and tossed it with acacia honey, meyer lemon juice, meyer lemon oil, fleur de sel and finger lime cells. The unexpected pop and acidity of the finger lime cells really set the dish off. We rolled the slices up, added some blood orange segments, then garnished with luna lentil from chef's garden, Florida orange air and fluid gel. Nothing more to say than clean and delicious.



We also pumped out some Nantucket bay scallops, "snowball cheddar cauliflower" puree, some of the "purp"(that's kitchen talk for purple cauliflower), sous vide beet, borage, and carrot noodle with a little harissa spice thrown in to cut through all the sweetness of the scallop and beet in the dish.



Former cook George Aviles made an appearance in the dining room with family, good to see him and glad they all enjoyed the meal.

To Brine or Not to Brine, the polyscience question

Christoph at polyscience posed the question to us in response to comments on our recent New Years Eve post that was attached to the polyscience facebook page. The results were surprising after a few tests. Stephen Weiner ask a question of whether or not anyone had any knowledge regarding brining prior to sous vide cooking. I'm not the world's foremost expert on the subject but the question was pushed in my direction by Christoph so here we go. Before we start, everyone does everything differently. These results are not the end all be all but they are precise and through our sous vide technique using the polyscience thermal bath(insert gratuitous promotional plug here) this is what we found.

We used confit chicken thighs as the example. We took several approaches, one being plain chicken thighs bagged with duck fat. One cured in kosher salt for 30min then rinsed, patted dry and bagged with duck fat. The last one was brined for 2 hours, then patted dry and bagged with duck fat as well. The thighs were cooked at 80C for 2 hours, left to cool at room temp for 1 hour, and weighed at all stages of the experiment. Here are our interesting results

plain thigh, overall 24.73% weight loss after cooking
cured thigh, 4.56% weight loss after cured and an overall 41.66% total weight loss after cooking
brined thigh, 5.01% weight loss after brined and an overall 38.5% total weight loss after cooking

In terms of the finished product's taste and texture the plain sous vide thigh was pretty boring in terms of taste. I am a firm believer of season as you go. The texture was good though, still moist, and shredded easily like a traditional confit.



The cured thigh was a disappointment. It didn't carry the salt for some reason as a traditional confit in the oven does. The texture was drier than the plain and more dense. This had the highest weight loss of after the cooking process was complete.



Now this is where it gets interesting. The brined thigh had the highest initial weight loss after brining but a lower percentage of weight loss than the cured thigh after it was cooked. One of the comments left stated that brining prior to sous vide does not improve the flavor and this is where I disagree. You can add so many different flavor components to the brine and they DO carry throughout the cooking process. I used my go to, all purpose brine which consists of molasses, honey, sugar, kosher salt, soy sauce, water, and orange slices. This is great for chicken and pork, the background flavors really come through in the finished product. This brined thigh had the best flavor, the texture was a little bit more dense than the plain but still super moist. You can really see the difference in the appearance.



All the samples were patted dry with c-folds after cooking, then weighed completely intact and shredded. There are variables here, would the results differ if we used a straight up 10% saltwater brine? Probably, but the flavor wouldn't be as good.

We used this same technique with our berkshire pork belly. We brine it for 24 hours in a Tucher Helles Hefeweizen beer brine, smoke it for 4 hours, then sous vide for 10 hours. You can still smell and taste the "yeasty" flavor of the wheat beer that has permeated the pork. Even with the addition of the smoke it still comes through. It's the basis of what we do, layering flavors, complexity in something very simple.

So in terms of brine or not to brine, I say brine. You can manipulate the flavor in so many ways with a good brine to really compliment the rest of your dish. That is if your thinking that far ahead, and you should be.