Ghetto-tastic Sous Vide

I've been playing around with sous vide cooking for a while now. The wine dinner we hosted on Wednesday was a chance to incorporate this technique into a couple of dishes.

The only problem I have, is that I am using a foodsaver to vacuum seal my items. The foodsaver does a decent job, but the bags don't seem to stay sealed like they should. At first, the bag seems to be airtight. Then, after awhile in a water bath(no I don't have an immersion circulator), the bag has expanded and it looks like it has air in it.

For the wine dinner, I sous vide rhubarb and white asparagus. The rhubarb was delicious and the fibers broke down nicely without overcooking the product.


I also sous vide cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. The cabbage turned out incredibly well.


The results then seem to be nothing more than boil in a bag some of the time. I would love to see the results with the proper equipment. I'm still working on getting a cryovac machine. If anyone knows someone that is throwing one away, let me know.

Chilean Wine Dinner March 25th

I thought it would be nice to blog about one of the nicest wine dinners that have taken place since I have been employed at the old Fire restaurante. Tonight Jeff and I did a wine dinner featuring Chilean wines from Odfjell Family Vineyards. We did our best to pair the wines with the food and I think we succeeded. Below is a blow by blow description(pics included).

1st Course
Corned Duck Breast
Asparagus Confit (2-way)
Whole Grain Mustard Vinaigrette
Frisee

Cold Blooded Aperitif

2nd Course
Pan Seared Halibut
Sous Vide Rhubarb
Watercress-Fennel Salad
Blood Orange Gastrique
Armador Sauvignon Blanc, Casablanca Valley, 2008

marco makin' us look good!!

3rd Course
Tandoor Roasted Veal Breast
Preserved Tuna Aioli
White Bean Puree
Mixed Olive Relish
Orzada Carmenere, Maule, Chile 2005


the veal was stuffed with Killbuck Valley mushrooms, la quercia proscuitto, parmesan,
rosemary, and garlic

Intermezzo
Sherry Vinegar Sorbet

there is no pic of the sorbet because it melted so fast.
people seemed to have incredibly mixed feelings about the sorbet.
we wanted to try it out and figured between these two courses would be perfect.


4th Course
Jamison Farm Lamb Duo
Red Wine Marinated Sirloin
Braised Shoulder Tortellini
Sauteed Rapini
Porcini Jus
Armador Cabernet Sauvignon, Maipo Valley, Chile 2006

this dish had incredible flavors.
the tortellini was jampacked with goodness.

5th Course
Rhubarb Upside Down Cake
Rhubarb Compote
Creme Fraiche

delicious

The food was awesome. Jeff and I were both extremely pleased with our results. We ordered extra lamb and our going to run the lamb dish as a weekend special. If you didn't get to try this dish at the wine dinner, you should visit us at the restaurant.

I apologize for the wackiness with the fonts. I can't seem to get the format right this time. Allow yourself to be distracted by the pretty pictures instead.

The Best Seasoned Salt Ever!!!!

This brand is my favorite.

The Viking salt is something I use all the time.
Something about smoke, curry, and garlic.

Try them if you see them!!!

Essential Cooks Books - Episode Dos

This book is a fascinating read. One of my favorite parts of the book is the argument against vegetarianism.

If you are a fan of the book's namesake, then you should go out and buy it. Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall is extremely passionate about the subject matter and spends the entire 1st 100 pages or so helping one understand meat.

Below is an interesting clip wherein Hugh demonstrates how to grow your own food in urban areas. This show originally aired on BBC and is quite insightful.



Watching Hugh follow someone around with"fine rotted horse muck"(manure)...priceless.

Check out the River Cottage Handbook series of books as well. I just ordered the 1st four on Amazon and hope they arrive in time for my birthday!!

Creminelli Tartufo

We ordered a case of Creminelli's Tartufo salami last week. This stuff is incredible. There is a slight black truffle flavor, and thats just the way I likes it.

The salami itself is nice and salty as well. This salami is excellent with some good cheese and crispy crackers. I like to eat it with Guggisberg's Aged Grassfed Baby Swiss.

MMMMM-HMM!!

OBERRRRRRRRRRRRRON!!!!!!

It comes out on March 30th!!!!! That's the day before my birthday.......yeehaw!!

Experimental Drinktitude

This drink menu is starting to become extremely fun to play with. Today we finalized the 1st edition of our new house cocktail list:



I played around today, trying to perfect a recipe for green olive caviar. So far, its pretty cool. Now, I just need to work on getting the size right. Hopefully, this will end up garnishing a dirty martini.




I think it will be awesome. I'm still trying to work on encapsulated shots.

I also made a sherry vinegar sorbet for a wine dinner. This idea came from the book Flavor Bible. It turned out really good, and we will use it as an intermezzo.

Essential Cooks Books - Episode 1

Inspiring. Fun. Awesome.

If you love being a glutton and aren't afraid of meals that say f-you to diets, buy this book. The book is worth it just for the illustrations and photos. Make sure you buy the Canadian edition!!

A Few of my Favorite Things

Favorite knife:

The Shun 8" Chef's knife with a Granton edge is the best knife that I have ever owned. This knife is sharper than any knife I have ever used. I love Shun knives because they are so easy to maintain.

If you have some cash and need a knife that will last longer than most marriages, buy this one.

Bacon Is Hard Work, But So Damn Worth It

Today, I took a bunch of pics of the baconator in action. The baconator is incredible, but sometimes smoking in the the tandoor can be a little bit tricky. It is hard to maintain a proper, consistent level of smoke. When it works, though, it works like my liver after a night of heavy drinking. You can see an example below.






The bacon is hooked up all S & M like to the baconator...



...and dropped into the tandoor.

The bacon smokes like a crowd at a Dave Matthew's concert and looks like this when done:

Fan-dang-tastic!!!!

There you have it kids.....house smoked bacon and all its porkgasmic goodness!!!!

Sustain-o-bar!!

Ideas for the revised bar concept at Fire are still floating around. We hope to unveil the new drink menu and happy hour menu once we change over for spring. This has been a fun exercise, even though it seems that not everyone is as excited as I thought they would be.

Anyhoo, we have been trying to reinvent the bar by staying with the theme of the restaurant itself: "simple food, sustainable practices, igniting the community".

The bartenders have been saving the liquor bottles for us to refill with syrups and infusions.



We are also working on a seasonal drink list. We think it would be great to have a cocktail list that changes with the seasons, like the dinner menu. Look for some rhubarb cocktails in the spring!

We have also started to make our own bitters and a smoked vermouth syrup(for the perfect manhattan).

These drinks are all being designed to bring back the art of bartending. Its time to sit back and watch someone craft the perfect cocktail before your eyes, instead of slopping random alcohols together without any passion.

Hopefully, drinking is about to be a lot more fun at the good ol' Fire Food and Drink Saloon!!

Yummy, Yummy,Yummy....I Got Corned Beef in a Bucky!!

As you can see, we had to transfer the briskets to a larger brining device. The hotel pan was just way too crowded.


Today is the day I've been waiting for. We finally get to try the corned beef at the restaurant. The menu is a prix fixe. You get 3 courses of St. Patty's goodness for 30 buckaroos.

Anyone that reads this, needs to come in and get some!!!

The Virtues of Housemade Bacon

For a while now, we have been making our own bacon at Fire. I know that many places in town make bacon in house, but ours is special for 2 reasons.

1st, we have the real deal "baconator".
This bad boy was fashioned out of a deep hotel pan. My man, Dave "Geez" Treaster, then drilled holes and hung five rows of painter's hooks in the pan.

2nd, we have a tandoor oven in which to smoke our deliciousness. I, being the genius that I am, forgot to take a separate pic of the tandoor. So, if you don't know anything about them, go HERE. This monstrous beast is perfect for smoking bacon and does a better job than most commercial smokers.

For our bacon, we adjusted the basic cure recipe(the one with dextrose instead of sugar) from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie book. Before curing the bacon, I brush each slab of pork belly with copious amounts of good ol' Knob Creek bourbon. The bourbon accentuates the smokiness of the finished product.

After curing for 10 days(7 just ain't enough), we get the tandoor nice and smoky. Then, we hang the slabs(5 at a time) from the painter's hooks and invert the pan over the tandoor's round opening.

The bacon is then smoke until it reaches the desired temp(155 F.). After its done, we brush it with maple syrup from Snake Hill Farms. Their grade A Amber is incredible with the bourbon soaked bacon.

The finished product looks like this:


The white spots are just a little bit of congealed porky goodness, not mold. Bacon looks good chillin next to the latest issue of Meatpaper magazine.

We are about to start working on small batch artisan bacon that we will sell through the restaurant as "private label". I'm just waiting on Doug to finally purchase a cryovac machine, so we can finally insert ourselves into the 21st century.


All this being said, I think we have the best bacon in town. Thanks Tandoor!!!!

Spring Menu Brainstorm Extravaganza!!!!

Tonight we sat around and made huge strides towards completing the spring menu for Fire.

Here is a tease of our minds at work:


That tease was for you Stuart!!


We also experimented with a few new drinks. The one that was the best would have to be the new "house" manhattan.

The "hot and bothered" martini is incredible as well. Something about habanero vodka and pickles...............yee-haw!!!!

New Cheeseplate Cheeses!!

I'm pretty excited about 2 new additions to our everchanging cheese plate lineup. I am super excited because I have never tried either of these cheeses.

The 1st cheese is Saxon Creamery's Green Fields Cheese. This cheese comes from Wisconsin and you can learn more about it here. I took a pic of the wheel cause it looks awesome.


The other cheese is Istara. This cheese is made in the Basque region of France and is made from sheep's milk. This cheese can be ordered from Amazon. Below is another another pic of cheese wheel goodness.

Tasty Bites

Below is a pic of my new favorite BBQ sauce. I experimented a little bit and decided to make a Smoked Dr. Pepper and Strawberry BBQ sauce.

This tasty as it can be sauce was served at a function promoting "minimally invasive surgery" for Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland.

If anyone wants the recipe, drop me a line.

Maple Fed Foie Gras!!!

Two weeks ago, I purchased one of the best DVD sets that I own. The set, Martin Sur La Route, is a series that aired on Radio-Canada. The episodes follow Martin Picard and his sous chef on a road trip throughout Canada while they explore regional delicacies of the country.Sur la Route, which means on the road, is super entertaining. The only problem, at least for me, is that it is only in French. Still, I have enjoyed these shows more than I have enjoyed most food media in awhile.

Martin Picard, for those of you that don't know, is the chef/proprietor of Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal. This restaurant is know for its indulgence and excess. Foie gras factors into many dishes. This restaurant is my favorite and Anthony Bourdain's too.

Check out this video from No Reservations:




I had the opportunity to eat here and instantly fell in love. Enough gushing about my personal hero.

One of the episodes of Sur La Route titled, Le Foie Gras, is awesome. They travel to a farm where Martin purchases his foie gras. I didn't feel like the animals were being abused, like so many others sissyfied animal rights activists/vegans. The animals seemed to be well taken care. I laughed pretty hard when I watched Chef Picard play with the baby ducks.

Martin and his Sous Chef(Hugue), prepare several dishes using a portable stove they have in the back of their truck. Towards the end, the make renditions of burgers, hot dogs, and poutine...all with foie gras!!!!!

The true highlight of the episode comes when they are at their campsite for the night, and a man delivers "secret" lobes of foie gras in a suitcase. Martin and his sous are obviously excited about foie, because it is foie from Maple fed ducks.

Martin worked on this project last year, and watching them eat this milky white treat made me hungry as heck!! The ducks are force fed maple syrup in addition the corn mush that are accustomed to. The product looked incredbile and I'm gonna try to order some for next year.

He mailed little care packages of the foie with champagne to chef's and food critics. Eric Ripert looked like he was gonna have an orgasm while eating it. The whole time Chef Martin is giggling like a schoolgirl.

I hope you enjoyed this post and the video that accompanied it. Let me know what you think.

Making Your Own Corned Beef- Pt. 1

Ahhhh......Corned beef. Cleveland loves its corned beef and so do I. Oddly enough, making your own is quite simple. All you really need is some brisket, a decent brine recipe, patience and space to do it.

We are brining our own brisket at the restaurant for a couple of reasons. We have plenty of cooler space, and it just tastes better!!

I used a simple recipe, and it goes a little something like this:

1 8 to 10 pound brisket (trimmed of any hard fat)
2 quarts of water(preferably distilled)
1 c. Kosher Salt
1/2 c. Cider Vinegar
4 T. Light Brown Sugar
6 ea. Bay Leaves
2 t. Black Peppercorns
1 T. Yellow Mustard Seeds
1/2 t. Ground Cloves
6 cloves of Garlic
2 T. Curing Salt

Bring everything but the garlic and brisket to a boil. When the salt dissolves, chill the liquid. Put the brisket in roasting pan and pour the brine over. Place in your refrigerator and rotate once daily for at least 10 days.

Discard the brine. Rinse the brisket. Peel and cut 2 carrots, 2 yellow onions, and 2 stalks of celery into 1/2" pieces. Sear the brisket and on all sides until slightly brown. Add veggies and a couple of bottles of your favorite beer. Now add : 3 bay leaves, 3 whole cloves, 3 cloves garlic, 2 bay leaves, 1 t. mustard seed and add 2 bottles of your favorite beer(hopefully Irish). Cover and simmer slightly until fork tender. This usually takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Below are a couple of pics of the brining process at work:

Oops...looks like some bacon got up in this piece. I'll post about that deliciousness next.

Saint Patty's Day @ Fire!!

I'm getting pretty excited about St. Patricks Day this year. We are finally doing a special menu. I have wanted to do this in this past, but didn't know how it would fit in with our concept.

This year, good old depressing 2009, felt like a good time to have fun with America's favorite excuse to drink green beer and pretend to be Irish.

I present now, for your perusal, our tentative St. Patty's Menu:

Potato 'n' Ale Soup
Irish Cheddar
Whiskey Bacon

Housemade Corned Beef
Sous Vide Cabbage
Roasted Turnips

Traditional Irish Soda Bread
"Carbomb" Icecream

Sassy-fras and Childhood Influence

Yesterday, one of my cohorts(Ed Kipp) was at his local candy store and found a bottle of sassafras extract. He asked if I wanted to use it at the restaurant. I said.....words that I can't publish here.

Today, Ed brought in the extract and we decided to make a syrup. Ed also infused this syrup with a little bit of vanilla extract. Our vanilla extract comes from Singing Dog Vanilla....and it is extremely tasty.

At the end of the night, we decided that it was time to try out this syrup in various ways. The first stop was to infuse a White Russian with it. This yielded a drink that tasted extremely similar to a root beer float.

The second drink we tried involved: Stoli Vanilla Vodka, sassafras syrup, and soda. This delightful concoction tasted very similar to cream soda and was one of my favs.

The third sassafras inspired drink involved: Absolut Mandrin Vodka, "sassy" syrup, and a splash of cola. This drink yielded something very similar to a Creamsicle. We later added a little bit of half/half.

All of the above would make great "girl" drinks(sorry ladies). They are potent versions of childhood favorites. And yes Samuel Jackson, they will get you drunk!!!!!

We also talked about incorporating these flavors into a mint julep. How refreshing it would be to on one of these sassafras twinged juleps while listening to A.A. Bondy's- "Vice Rag"(one of my favorite songs right now).

Exploring the flavor of sassafras again has made me yearn to incorporate its goodness into other aspects of the kitchen.

I am so looking forward to Spring. There are so many flavors that I want to be able to use in cocktails and fun dishes.

Bringing Cocktails Back

Currently I am working with the other chefs @ Fire on revamping our bar. Fire has been open 8 years, and the bar has never fully realized its potential.

We have come up with several new cocktails(12 so far) and I think they are gonna be very, very good. The most exciting part about this process is approaching bartending from a culinary standpoint.

We are making our own bitters. We are making our own fresh syrups, and also making infusions with seasonal ingredients. I think that drink making is an art form.

I am currently reading The Essential Cocktail by Dale Degroff. It's nice to read about bartending from his perspective. He tells a little anecdote about the drinks that he considers "essential" and then proceeds to tell you his version of that cocktail. The recipes are simple, but precise. I think that this is key to having a great bar. I also think that the bartenders need to be extremely passionate about the drinks that they are making.

A lot of our new drinks are derived from old standards and even from some pre-prohibition era cocktails. A version of one of my favorite "old-timey" cocktails, the "block and fall" makes an appearance in a new and refined manner.

We hope to unleash our new concept soon. So, those of you that dine at Fire, be on the lookout for the mysterious jars that begin appearing behind the bar. We might even start seeing zoot suits and flappers again. Who knows?

1st Post

This post is dedicated to Stu Spivack.

I have often wanted to blog, but have found very little time to do so. I finally decided to do one after hearing about an argument between some of the cooks at the restaurant that I am Executive Sous Chef at.

The argument they had was about the validity of "foodie" blogs. One side of the argument was that people don't really pay attention to food blogs(this is the side that I don't agree with).

The other side is in defense of "foodie" blogs and the publicity that they can generate(this is the side I do agree with).

In the last few years, blogs have taken off. Blogs about food have especially seemed to gain notoriety. One blog in particular, Chocolate and Zucchini, is extremely popular. The author of said blog, Clotilde Dusoulier, has been on television and has even published 2 books. I would say that this makes her blog something that people read on a daily basis.

I myself am extremely fond of food related blogs, especially blog posts that pertain to restaurants. I often look for reviews of the newest spots that are opening up. Blogs are even useful for finding out what events are being held at your favorite restaurants(ex: Stuart Spivack's blog).

Over the last few years, blogs have really opened my eyes to what is going on in the culinary world. Ideas in Food, opened up my eyes to "molecular gastronomy"....even though that term has been widely abused by many writers. This blog really began to show me how important a blog can be for expanding your knowledge of cooking techniques. It also showed me how much more I have to learn about food.

As I began the start of my career in Cleveland, I began to seek out blogs about the dining scene(ex: Cleveland Foodie). Michelle blogs about every restaurant in Cleveland. This is where my point about the validity of food blogs comes in. She blogs about the restaurants, she interviews the chefs, and people read all about it.

Chefs around town begin to notice, and soon she gets noticed when she goes out to eat. Some bloggers even get invited to events that chefs hold promoting their newest restaurant.

Chefs take notice, so why wouldn't educated consumers. Isn't it possible that a favorable review in a blog could make a restaurant goer more likely to dine at that establishment. Don't even get me started on how pictures of dishes can totally influence someone's decision to eat there.

In summary(sorry if I rambled to much for a 1st post), I think food blogs are very important. I feel that they can influence people to come to your restaurant, and have sometimes even influenced my decision.