So here are the pictures that I promised in the last entry. This is a exciting moment for me to have all eight of these meat works on the plate at once and get a snap shot of them. Its been a lot fun studying and learning about these various types of curing, smoking taking rough cuts and turning them into something really cool. To describe them let me start from the topand go clockwise. The first two are the Coppas; Spicy and Sweet versions. The Coppa is made using large chunks of pork shoulder that are put into a nonreactive metal hotel pan and cured for eighteen days adding another round of salt after nine days. After the full eighteen days I rinse and dry them and rub the different types of spice on each of them. The spicy is pronounced by pimenton (smoked paprika) and cayenne. The sweet has sugar, coriander, black pepper and allspice which were ingredients that I was unsure of how they were going to come out. I broke into that one two days ago and was excited to find it really delicious. I would like to try these two again in bigger casings to slice them bigger. Next is the cured duck breast which has been the specialty of one of the cooks in the Bar. It has juniper and nutmeg along with some brown sugar. The fat cap on that melts together with the lean to be tasty. The next one is Black-strap Molasses (Sorghum) "Lamb Ham". This one was out of the gates early and was the first of the curing experiments. It is made with local Petit Jean Farm Lamb Hams and is cured with Dark Rum, Brown Sugar and Sorghum Molasses. It is then cold smoked for ten hours and hung to cure for eight weeks depending on how full the cure box is at the moment. Its slices up like a Prosciutto or Serrano and goes great with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some fresh cracked Black Pepper. The Saucisson Sec was next in the cure box, and has steadily evolved into a great salami. It is a basic cured meat, with ground pork shoulder, fat, black pepper and garlic. Next is another recent adventure; Head Cheese. This one I had made before at Culinary School watching over the chefs shoulder. So I really hadn't made it on my own, but its really very simple just time consuming. I boil (simmer really) the head, tongues and trotters for an hour then pull the tongues and continue the head and trotters for another two hours give or take a few minutes. I pull the head when its falling apart, I go through and clean it all up and pick the meat from the trotters. The tongues get diced up to add a different level of visual and texturalness to the terrine. I then test the liquid for whether or not to add more gelatin. I did add more gelatin and herbs and spices, then folded all together and into a terrine mold. Chilled overnight and sliced it up. The flavors are unlike any of the others, having a deeper richer flavor. The Country Pate has been on the menu since the beginning, but has also taken on an evolution of its own. It started simply with the pork shoulder and duck liver, but since has had pistachios and an exterior bacon garnish added. Last is the Mortadella style fresh sausage. Its an emulsified sausage that also has pistachios, fat garnish and sweet spices mixed in and is poached. I have put an entire entry showing the procedure on this one earlier down the page. I was very happy with the way this came out. So all in all I'm excited and privileged to be able to play and experiment with these meats. So EVERYBODY should come and enjoy them and make sure you ask for me and I"ll come out and talk your ear off about them. Oh also these are served with whole grain mustard, our house made pickles and baquette bread.
03/27/2009
03/24/2009
Spring happenings in the Bar
These are a couple of menu changes reacting to the spring changes. Also the Charcuterie is back in full affect and we have seven different varieties to choose from now too. I'll follow up next time with a picture with the full variety of options too
. The first one of these is the new Leg of Duck dish; Duck Confit with Rhubarb Onion Relish and Herb Roasted Fingerling's. The second is the Asparagus Onion Goat Cheese Tart; its great to have Asparagus back even if it is for such a short time.
03/11/2009
Roast Beef Po' Boy
The Roast Beef Po'Boy could possibly the sloppiest sandwich to date coming out of the CBG kitchen. Worth every drop of gravy; its delicious.
03/05/2009
Pancetta
This Italian style bacon is distinctive and delicious. Its very similar to American style bacon until the point of roasting and smoking. The Pancetta is the same cut and goes through the same curing process by way of the salt and sugar cure. The difference being that when you pull it out of cure it gets rolled and put into a environment best for curing. Its best to leave the bellies in cure for ten to fourteen days. I prefer to push it closer to the fourteen, it helps to develop the flavors in the long run. Next we pull and rinse them under cold water and pat dry. With doubled up butchers twine I begin to truss them. This is the part where I differ in style than the big timers making pancetta. Its hard to get a full "roll" in the belly. It takes me a few times of rolling and re rolling to get it nice and tight. I use a kitchen towel to give me a good grip on the meat. Mine tend to look a lot more "rustic" and "natural". Thats a nice way of referring to my amateur pancettas. I use double the twine because I really get it tight to insure that it will slice and be a pinwheel. Once this batch is cured I'll have to cut a piece and post a photo. The first time I did this was here at the capital and it was awesome when we cut into it and it was a nice pink color and the roll was nice and tight, as tight as I can get it anyway. Sometimes the ends are so tight, but we can cut them like lardons (little batons) which is how we cut the bacon most times. Otherwise you can slice it into the pinwheels and render it to top off a salad or wrap it around another piece of meat for searing. There are many ways to use this cured belly, it all depends on what your going for. The hardest part is the decision of whether or not to use American bacon or Pancetta. The Pancetta really has a distinctive flavor after they hang and cure for a month. I used Cassidees camera for these and discovered a black and white settting. I threw it in for something different, its pancetta in film noir.
02/20/2009
Finale with Saurkraut
Well not quite the finale, but the finished plates starring the Saurkraut. These are the plates that I promised a shot of ,along with, a written description. The Reuban needs no introduction. This is our (almost) entirely made on premise Reuban sandwich. The only thing we don't make is the cheddar cheese melted onto it. They make the cheese somewhat better than we can so we leave it to them. The Cornbeef and the Saurkraut are both made in the CBG kitchen. The Saurkraut which you saw in a previous posting, and the Cornbeef that we brine with spices and curing salts sits in the brine for three weeks. So its not possible to let it slip behind in the rotation, so we have to stay on top of the production. The Rye bread is made in the bakeshop by our baker Matt Lowman. He's reasonably new to the baking scene, but he does a great job with our bread department.
The smoked sausage with saurkraut is an old favorite. Another old world inspired dish, I first learned of the meat and kraut dish by way of the Alsation culture in the north of France. The more I learn about it the more I learn about how its all over the Northern parts of Western Europe. They are all basically the same. They all showcase off the meats of the area and all have their Saurkraut with potatoes. This one is served with Thuringer, a smoked German style sausage from and area called Thruringia. The saurkraut is sauteed with Guanciale (cured pork jowl), onions, duck fat, juniper berries, caraway and white wine. The potates are poached with garlic, fresh thyme and bay leaves. Its also a must to serve it with Dijon mustard and a big beer.
02/05/2009
Ooozing excitement
It takes a special kind of passion to maintain this amount of stamina.
Capital Bar and Grill Mortadella
This is our first run a the traditional Italian style sausage called Mortadella. Mortadella is large emulsified fresh sausage. Emulsified in this case meaning using a food processor to puree the lean meat and fat together until they form one paste, and then folding in diced fat and pistachios. It originated in the area of Italy called Bologna. Which is what americans refer to Mortadella but only without the nuts and fat garnishment. It actually has PGI or Protected Geographical Indication, like wine, cheese and other traditional artisan food products which just shows you how passionate Italians are about their bologny. This is a meat being replicated throughout the worldm, most often for sandwiches. The southern most points in South America i.e. Argentina, Uraguay and Brazil are known to have this meat on their sandwhiches thanks to all of the Italian immigration. Other country's include Spain, and parts of the middle east. These countries could of course substitute other meats such as beef, lamb and turkey. The recipes that I read on Mortadella call for stuffing the forcemeat into a Spleen, I didn't happen to have any spleens on hand so I used a beef casing large enough; 4 1/2-5" in diameter. Stuff the meat let it hang overnight, to let the meat relax, and poach it the next day. The poaching is very slow and low, about 160-170 degrees for about two hours or until it has an internal tempurature of 150. Shock it in an ice bath and let it hang overnight. It can be sliced to add to a sandwhich or a meat platter or Italians supposedly like to cube it and eat it this way.
01/29/2009
Curing Box, Duck Box, Environmental Chamber
Any of the names that we have for our box of humidity and temperature you can go with. Its a very unique devise that Chef Lee Richardson found back before the hotel was open. Its an environmental chamber for researchers to use to test food products for spoilage. They can put a glass of milk in the box and play with the humidity and temperature to see how long it will take before spoilage occurs. Chef Lee had them modify it to go down to thirty two degrees (health code reasons) so that we could use it for hanging ducks in over night for the whole roasted duck. I eventually moved in with various meats and have been using it ever since. Its a great thing to have. It has humidity and temperature gages so I can keep an eye on the environment status. It also has a fan to keep the air moving inside. In any other kitchen and when I"m in another kitchen I would have to create a cave like space somewhere safe to do this type of curing.
01/26/2009
House Made Saurkraut
Sauerkraut is something that I picked up with Greg Higgins at "Higgins Restaurant" a few years ago. It was intimidating the first few times I helped. Greg usually took care of the maintenance and tending to the cabbage, but I looked out on it from time to time. It was something that he took great pride in because of his passion for Alsatian cooking. The choucroute was always a big hit in the restaurant. We use our kraut on the Reuben. Which is also made with our house made corn beef (another posting) and house made rye bread. When finished we saute it with duck fat, onions and juniper berries. A very traditional take on the cooking of sauerkraut for choucroute. Making the kraut is easy, it just takes good mixing and a constant eye to make sure the mold isn't getting the best of the batch. We chop the cabbage and mix it with the appropriate amount of salt. Next we start to pack and punch it into the crocks. Its important to pack into layers so that you force the salt to expose the water from the cabbage to form the brine needed to ferment properly. We do this in layers so that its easier to punch. Once you have the crock nearly full (leaving some room for a plate or bowl) we press the sanitized bowl or plate on top of the cabbage and put the lid on for storage. At this point we label and date it so that we can keep track of the day it was put down to ferment. Usually the cabbage is ready in ten days, but sometimes it could take fourteen days. This all has to do with the room temperature which is best at 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It should be checked everyday for the first few days to make sure the brine is taking okay. If the cabbage does not release enough water to create a brine, it will be necessary to add your own salt water solution. Certain cabbage produces more water than others, my theory is it depends on how fresh the cabbage is or isn't. These are the only pictures I have right now, and I promise to come up with more very soon. Some finished dishes would be cool, or I would like to put a choucroute like dish on soon. At least before it gets warmer, maybe a little riesling or sylvaner to go with the meat and cabbage.
