STIR THE POTS

Wabbit, no BBQ!

This last month has been non-stop at work and I felt like crap this weekend, had this nasty canker sore under one of my vital chef tools, my tongue! Won't describe it but it really wiped me out, so I took this weekend sabbatical to visit my mom to get some R&R ("west and we-waxation") I caught some serious zzz's on the couch, read and slept some more! Then was enlisted by mom to cook dinner! What did she have? Rabbit, and some serious amounts of ratatouille vegetables as well as some corn!
So what do you think of when you’re doing a meal that is thrust on you, mom wanted me to cook it but she wanted to direct the show! So she gathered ingredients, gave her interpretation of what she thought I wanted to do and said go ahead! This is not what she had in mind, she liked it though and since we forgot to buy some wine we sipped a very nice sparkling wine, a malbec from Argentina!

Ratatouille
6-8 servings

3 Zucchini
4 Italian eggplant
2 White onions
4-5 cloves garlic
3 sweet red peppers
4-5 Thyme branches
3 tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
2-3 Tbsp. parsley

Cut vegetables into 1 1/2 cubes and keep separate from each other.
Sauté  onions and garlic till slightly golden and translucent, follow with each successive  vegetable separately, seasoning each with salt and pepper. Put into a pan and cover cook in pre-heated oven @350 F
for about 20 minutes, check seasoning and sprinkle with chopped parsley.   

Roasted Rabbit with olives and orange zest
serves 4
1 Rabbit Whole or quatered
1/2 cup green olives (Picholine)
2 Rosemary branches
salt pepper
2 dried orange peel or 1 orange zested
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 bay leaves
1 head garlic cut in half
1/2 cup stock (veal or chicken)
Brown the rabbit, put into a shallow roasting pan, de-glaze pan with balsamic and a small amount of chicken broth or veal stock if you have any?
Roast uncovered @400F for 25-30 minutes

Fresh corn Polenta
4-6 servings

2 shucked corn cobs
1/4 cup of polenta or corn meal
2 cups water or chicken stock
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese
chives snipped

Lightly sauté corn in pan for a minute, add stock, season. Boil and sprinkle over with cornmeal, stir till thickened, simmer for about 8-10 minutes until done, salt and pepper to taste fold in butter and cheese at the end off the heat.

Cold Loaf

They weren't lying about the weather today! Whew, nasty New York, still not humid but nasty! I revived my starters and made up a classic levain recipe from Nancy Silverton’s La Brea book yesterday morning before rushing to work. I didn't follow rule one, schedule; in fact I gave the bread maybe something like 45 minutes of bulk fermentation and plop! Into the fridge!
Hours passed as we toiled in the kitchen at work, hopped on my bike and huffed it home over the humid layers that passed me by over the fifty-ninth street bridge, passing other cyclist for one reason only, to take that loaf out of the retarding stage!
When I finally got home I happily found the loaf had some movement in the cool confines of my fridge. I wasted no time and gave it a few folds to warm and invigorate it so it would be ready a few hours later for baking, so one would think. Right? Wrong! Instead I went to shower clean and slightly invigorated myself I gave the dough another fold, some rest a little CNN and then back to shaping for the banneton! By that point I wasn't sure who was more tired me or the loaf, I lay in bed thinking only to shut my eye's around midnight; when next you know I wake up at 2:00 am and look at a rising loaf, quickly I shove it back in the fridge for a nap! Fast forward next day 3:30 pm exhausted and having just raced madly again over the east river back to my home in scorching heat I decided to use the cold oven method so recently hailed by many a home baker from London to Malaysia! My better half said no but the devils said do it! I did it and well some interesting things, first I put cold dough in oven and blasted the gas, gave some silly sprays of water and crossed my fingers

Some observations (Oh now he gets to observe his mess!)

Taste: Wheaty and somewhat has a ......uh oh sounds like a wine taster!

Shape: Sort of messy, probably cold on cold doesn't help, will try warming up bread first?

Crumb: Tight. but light and moist, not so much oven spring too!

Overall: It's good when your just messing around, I will stay with the pre-heated oven from now on,can't say I didn't try though!

Awake the sleeping beast!

So we are fore casted to have 90 F degree weather tomorrow, I had a cancellation for an interview with no other than Alice Waters of Chez Panisse!, (will be a good one, when it reschedules!) I have had a few good loaves in between my hectic work schedule, but the last  was sort of like a clay  vessel, lifeless! I considered the levain stock in my fridge and I have been a lazy baker of late and not giving it the usual feeds! Yesterday I proceeded with a furious feeding regimen  of water and flour to invigorate the dormant cells that still may have survived this lazy mans schedule, good news there kicking and bubbling!
With some extra levain I will attempt to make another loaf and bring it with me for the weekend to my Mom's house, I can't eat store bought and she is sort of not eating lots of carbs!
Looking forward to my trip to Wales later this August;where I will be amongst my home/pro baking peers! This has me somewhat on edge, I will sharpen up a little and try to hone my skills so they can match or try too get some hints on how to really bake! Feeding the starters is my first step, could this be a career change? I might even hazard a trial at the newest baking fad, cold oven baking method? Not!

Subway & gugelhopf

It's a lazy pre-Memorial day weekend, first there is a subway series going on, I hardly had the energy today to put myself in the kitchen or even consider creating a meal! My recipe cards are also a project put on hold, I start to orgnize them in a file and find a recipe for gugelhopf! Hesitantly I follow my old scribbled notes and decide to go for it!
Between a noon siesta on the couch with the cat and a fantastic race at the Giro d'Italia, I was able to get in a recipe of guglehopf and a rendition of Nancy Silvertons sourdough levain in!
This version though light, had a cakier feel, and after a few bites I was hooked! This recipe is a keeper!

Makes two small gugelhopf about 500g each

210 milliliter milk
15 gram yeast,
355 gram flour
50-75 gram sugar
pinch salt
3 eggs
125 gram butter melted
75 gram dried currants
45g gram raisins

whole almonds, depending on your mold 6-8

you can also soak fruit in hot water and drain, then macerate with liquor like rum or kirsh?

Butter moulds and press whole almonds on the bottom of pan.Start yeast with warm milk,sugar and flour,when sponge has started to rise add remainder of ingredients, fruits last after the butter has been mixed into dough.fill moulds and let rise till they reach 3/4 of the way up moulds. bake @ 45-50 minutes at 350 farenheit

Crumbs ( a look inside!)

Been working like mad and trying to keep from losing my mind at work lately, summer is coming and I can't wait to get out of New York, I will be visiting Europe and will finally meet some bakers who I only have met on the web through Dan Lepards forum.Recently I followed a thread on making ciabatta, something we are all pretty familiar with in the bread world, so I made the loaf and just now had time to show the rest of the bread once we cut into it!
Strange things that bread can do to an avid home baker, like taking a few pictures of a recently baked  breads interior? Well that is what we call the crumb (actually it's also known as bread porn!), that lacy holed and honey comb body of bread where we lay anything or spread onto and eventually enjoy in whatever manner we decide to indulge! Some people do strange things like remove the mie, as they call it in French or take off the crust? Why? Enjoy  the whole thing, you can toast it or even just chew on it savoring the distinct nuances  from the wheat or rye, whatever flour it was milled from for that matter.As I sit here and jot down this passage I am already waking my sourdough from the fridge and deciding on what to bake for the rainy weekend, what shall it be?
I will let you know, snap a picture of the loaf even?

L'absinthe

It's been a long time since I have seen a chef of mine; I have been trying to get an interview with him for ages! He is virtually up the road away from me, we met once at Bridge Kitchenware’s and he asked me if I was still a club chef, seems like were in another world from the restaurant chefs!
So it's Mothers day, well actually it's the day before and my mom was invited to visit my most influential chef, Jean Michel Bergounoux of L’absinthe. After having failed to put up with crap from a infamous starred chef in midtown, I was without work and Jean-Robert my former chef sent me to Jean-Michel who was also out on his luck too from the late three starred restaurant Le Cygne. Along with me and two other cooks he hired us to head up the restaurant Raphael on 54th street. Restaurant Raphael was the original home of Nouveau cuisine in New York, as well as the layover for wayward future stars like Thomas Keller and a long list of names resembling the who’s who of chefs! The first incident where we screwed up, and there were surely a lot more than a few; chickens we forgot roasting in the oven led to admitting our mistake to Jean-Michel who only said, “guy’s it’s just chicken, I don’t want to yell and ‘ave an heart attaque!” we were amazed at his calm, most other chefs would scream like drill sergeants or can you! Jean-Michel made a cook understand the senses, judgment and taste; he was an all around chef always able to pull out masterpieces of food in such simple ways that were sublime!
So tonight I wasn’t disappointed, a fabulous sardine terrine with yukon potatoes and a roasted duck with an intense olive coulis! There was that pure earthiness that is signature of Jean-Michel’s food! I thought I would surprise him, indeed I think he was ; at first he wasn’t able to recognize me!
I hope to get him for an interview soon, sure was funny snapping a picture of him in the kitchen, “stand still Jean-Michel!” “Too busy Jeremy, je suis desolé,” he said as he was cranking out the orders on the line!

Check him out at the restaurant and catch the video with Al Roker!

Ciabatta

There are certain amounts of repetition in the food industry, trends, the way we work in kitchens and flavors...Last night I was talking to my friends Tim and John about what else, food! Tim mentioned an article about culinary students who don't go on to follow the path of the hardcore and underpaid into the fire of the frying pan! Anthony Bourdain also touches on this subject in his book, what sort of person it takes to go into this madness! It's a trend I think, I recall when I first went into this field and reading statistics regarding how the business would be "hot" by the year two thousand! Who said it would ever get cooler?

Trends were what I wanted to focus on in food, or perhaps a branded item (Jonathan, I said branded!) like say balsamic vinegar, tiramisu, foam? Not really caring too much I make tiramisu at work, people are nostalgic and you know it is a classic!

Bread also has its favorites too, who doesn’t eat baguettes or a Jewish rye? So while I was following a thread on Dan Lepards site recently by a fellow forum member, I tried his recipe he had found on a commercial Italian bread site for ciabatta. The first formula I attempted was a good bread but felt a bit doughy, it didn’t have that thin crisp feel or billowy hole ridden interior of what I would call a perfect ciabatta! Never giving up on a challenge and practicing my skills for the bread-baking event of the year! Some of the forum members and I  will participate with in Wales this summer, I tried another formula from another baker (Michaelthebaker, his moniker!)!
I haven’t cut into it yet but the smell and feel are fantastic, it’s fully sourdough I didn’t use any commercial yeast, and as a lazy baker (Steve Sullivan said I should write a book for kids about a lazy baker!) I didn’t feed my stored in the fridge starter for a while; still it’s got some feet left to make it across the line!

Bugs!

Nothing like a good seasonal sort of food to remind a chef to cover his arms and stand away from the pan in front of him! What is he talking about? Soft shell crabs, those summer delights we enjoy, those pan frying bugs from all down the eastern sea coast that we devour only after cutting off their faces,tearing off the tail and eviscerating the lungs! Sure in my next life I will come back as a lobster or one of the many animals I have taken apart and be treated with such disregard, my luck I will come back a cockroach!
This first batch we had was rather lively and as I dismembered them they didn't give a thought about snapping at me as I precariously snipped away at them! How do you eat them? Fried is best, I cover them with some flour and corn meal, serve them with a coleslaw or sometimes with a nice composed salad, or hell go retro and have them almondine! Just about anyway is good I think!

Pasta Primavera

Tonight was a quick and tasty semi vegetarian homage to spring, "pasta primavera!" The weather has been like spring, cross your fingers global warming is lurking! I ate a burger last night so I decided to cave in to my usual duties at home, that being cooking! So I struck out to the corner market and thought maybe a sausage and broccoli rape? No, instead I decided on a dish we used to do at the MOMA years ago with my old chef Yves. We mixed bitter greens, endive, radicchio with some pasta, to round out the flavor a roasted pepper  and prosciutto!

This time I had the notion of adding a few more things seasonal, what is seasonal when most vegetables or fruit are available year round? The shelves had some shucked peas, and artichokes, as well some fine asparagus!
This dish required only one pan and a pot for the pasta, so I layered my vegetables according to the cooking time and finished everything off with a dash of olive oil and parmegano and a few strokes of ground black pepper!
Buono  Appetito!

Pasta Primavera, my way!

Servings 4-5
1 bunch peeled asparagus
2 artichoke hearts
1 small onion diced
1/2 a head of garlic peeled and sliced
1 cup peas shucked
1 roasted red pepper peeled and devained
1/8 pound of julienned prosciutto
2 endive julienned
1 small head of radicchio cut into 1/4 inch wedges
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 lbs linguine

sweat the onion and garlic  add  the artichoke hearts which have been sliced to an 1/8th of an inch and toss with onions.Add in peas,continue stirring for a few minutes, add in prosciutto. Check the tenderness of the artichokes. Meanwhile cook your pasta according to the directions on your box, I used fresh pasta which took no more than 5 minutes, it's up to you?
I added the final ingredients, endive,radiccho adn finally the red peppers to warm through. Finish pasta with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a heaping handful of Parmagiano  and some fresh cracked black pepper!

Enjoy!

Jean-Robert de Cavel

Jean-Robert de Cavel is Chef and owner of Pigall’s in Cincinnati, but that isn't his only restaurant nor is it his only job being a chef.

Jean-Robert was my second French chef under my belt ,when I went to work for him at the Plaza Athenée. When I first met him I noticed his shy and very friendly demeanor with his cooks, something wasn’t right, a nice chef? Though my tenure with him was a short two years, he helped me out finding a job when I had left the restaurant I had left his kitchen to work for! He has  always been more than just my chef, I think he is a friend and someone I can look to for advice.

It's been years since I have actually seen him since he left New York to head west to Cincinnati. I have kept my eyes on his rapid succession of new ventures making him an important Chef not only in his community but also amongst his peers in the culinary world.

He talks about his extensive and interesting career, the climb to the top and some regrets, but never one to cry over spilled milk he is always looking for a new challenge ahead on his radar. Reaching  out to the community that has adopted him through  personal tragedy  as well an  important chef to his role as a businessman trying to revive a town center during race riots. Determined and not giving up he continued building his  dream restaurant, showing the nay sayers that this could be a dream city.

I can definitely say he is probably the nicest chef I have had the pleasure to have worked with and hope to do so again!

Oh yeah, all you all you local farmers, JR says, " Go and visit your local chef!"

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