From Scratch

Working in a restaurant we often have to make choices as to what we make from scratch and what we buy. I go back and forth a lot on items and for many different reasons. Usually time and space hinder a lot for us. I am no bread baker but I can make bread. We do not have the space or equipment to make bread from scratch so we buy it. And we buy great quality bread. But do we make bacon?, depends on what we want to accomplish with a dish. Sometimes yes and sometimes now.

But we often over look from scratch items that are so simple and so effortless. They only require some time and a limited amount of space. After some recent reading online I found two things to start on. First on the Popular Science website the guys from Ideas in Food layout the specifics of making vinegar from just about anything. I decided to start with they're recipe for maple vinegar. Mainly because I love maple syrup.

The other is yogurt. Yes you can go buy high end yogurt or you can spend a lot of money on a yogurt making machine. But Harold McGee lays it out really simply.I have made creme fraiche before and what a treat. But to have a solid fresh yogurt on hand at any given time would be great. Should my experiments work, I might go for making it at home. What else am I overlooking? Sausage?

Farmers Market Caprese

We are really luck to have such a great farmer's market and group of farmer's around the Chapel Hill area. We buy a lot from local farmers but I usually only go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday's with the family. Most of the farmer's here do deliver which is amazing considering the gas prices these days.

These days we have been seeing some great tomatoes coming in. We have featured a lot of tomatoes over the summer, but I hit a chef's writer's block so to say. Sometimes I over think too much and fail to look at the simple beauty of the local products we get. This past Wednesday one of my line cooks John and I went to farmer's market to see what was available. While we were there John suggested mozzarella caprese. I was quick to dismiss the idea as seen all too often and on far to many menus. Luckily John convinced me otherwise and we bought almost everything for the salad at the market.
The Shopping List:
Chapel Hill Creamery fresh Mozz- Chapel Hill creamery uses whole milk Jersey cows to make all their cheeses. Their mozzarella is some of the best i have ever had. They also make some other great cheese from hard too soft.

Lyon Farms sungold, brown roma and grape tomatoes. A great selection of sweet and meaty tomatoes grown in Creedmore, NC.

Perry-winkle Farms Basil- fresh farmer's market basil is always so much more intense.

The rest of the ingridients were silver DOP 15 year Aged Balsamic. Dop extra virgin olive oil and fleur de sel and elephant garlic

Mozzarella Caprese is so simple and so great but only if you let the quality of great ingredients shine through. The Farmer's did all the work on this dish. We just presented it on a plate. And thanks to John for helping break down my Chef's Block.
On a side note our garde manger chef got waxed on this all weekend. Chino (this means chinese in spanish, and chino is a latino) did a great job with these.

Rib Eyes

We keep coming back to serving ribeye caps. Mainly because they are delicious, and probably the most tender cut of meat. But what else do you do with the cleaned center cut ribeye? Cut into steaks similar to filet mignon, or ribeye filets. Here are our two servings of each.
First we deconstructed a beef wellington and looked at all the components and put it back together like this:
Layers of ribeye "filet" with mushroom duxelle, puff pastry, and truffled mousse pate. Served over sauteed spinach. This was our first run and our sauteed spinach bled out immediately. So for service we blanch off our spinach and pressed it dry. This kept our plates lookng much prettier.
Here we do a take on steak and eggs with the cap. Poached egg sous vide, "tater tot" truffled red wine demi. I liked this dish a lot. But today we started a deconstructed pot roast using the cap. It is awesome.

Bocuse d'Or

The Bocuse d'Or is the Olympics of the culinary world. It happens every 2 years in Lyon France and is coming up in January 2009. The NY Times has nice article about the USA's involvement over the lifespan of the awards. No one from the US has ever placed higher than 6th place.
In an effort to up America's showing Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud are putting a together a competition with Paul Bocuse's son Jerome call Bocuse d'Or USA. The winners will get to train with Keller and Boulud before going to France. I think it's awesome that America is finally taking the culinary world seriously. I hope this all proves to be successful and allows America to place first. Although I'm sure to be at the bottom of around 20,000 applicants, I figured why not try so I will be filling out an application to the Bocuse d'Or USA.