STIR THE POTS

Pi(e)

Pizza!

It seems an item people (and the media) never tire of exploring. I don't blame anyone. I love my pie. But more people might try making it at home, as it's so easy. Not to fuel more recessionary "don't go out" habits that hurt my fellow professional chefs, but pizza is a dish more people should enjoy making at home, as well as out. A good home baked pizza is satisfying and doable. With some basic appliances (like the Cuisinart oven I wrote about months ago) you can get a crisp New York style pizza to compare to the pre-baked and parked specimens in too many of today's pizzerias.

 

Some of the recipes I've used, I will convert to sourdough, ever the purist. But I do yeast when I am short on time or just getting the munchies!

This is a nice recipe from Betterbaking.com, a simple and reliable dough. It's good, even left over two days in the refrigerator. But if your even more inclined to try some adventurous and more detailed dough, go and visit my friend at foolish poolish bakes, and even like Susan at wildyeast who grills hers! Or you can give my rendition of Verace Neopolitano dough a go if you have some sourdough culture!

That's Amore!

Pâté platter @ Boulud

Daniel Bar Bistro

Image by ZagatBuzz via Flickr

Whilst meeting Susan from Wild Yeast, we sauntered down to New York's Lincoln Center, aiming for a nosh at Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud, a place known for it's pâté and country driven menu.

Sitting down, we experienced the highs and lows of high prices but lovely dishes; thyme and rosemary scented  lemonade along with a platter full of terrines, pate and a small portion of bread.      

I wish my taste buds were  up to the job, as my nose was just off the chopping block, on the mend. The charcuterie was well portioned offering lots of variety, well textured, with a nice accompaniment of condiments and composed salads. Without the body senses at full form, my judgment was flawed, but  I will come back to nosh on some more of Daniels food to get a better idea and feeling of what he is offering? In the meantime, it is lovely to look at, no?

Savoy

Savoy

Instead of just going to my local joints or picking up my own pots to cook, my wife and I have made an effort to visit certain restaurants we've been gathering on a list in recent months. Prior to my operation, we stopped in and had lunch at Savoy.

Having passed it a million times while stomping around Manhattan's downtown section of Broadway, and seeing a story about this particular restaurant on the Colameco show, I just had to try it.

From the tiny dining room filled with sunlight from the windows open to the street, this quaint and unpretentious restaurant is by far the most relaxing environment I have eaten in New York. My wife ventured upstairs to the second story of the restaurant, where they have another dining area used in the evening. 

The menu though light for lunch, was just that - a lunch menu, market driven with surprising flavors and textures. The small plate appetizers can be ordered as a single order or as a mixed choice of three.  They're simple dishes, rooted in just two or three ingredients that lean to vegetables, with the exception to my favorite fried duck livers! These nuggets had a perfect texture and served with a deliciously spiked chive buttermilk sauce.

 

Even with a small menu of just six main courses, the various dishes all caught my eye, making it difficult to decide. Finally, I gave in to the Corned duck leg sandwich. Served with purple mustard on rye with home made potato chips flavored with black pepper and coriander, it was delicious.

Following that lovely sandwich, we shared dessert, an upside-down rhubarb cake with beet sorbet flavored with hyssop. 

The butter rich cake studded with rhubarb was a perfect foil to the earthy and yet not overwhelming sorbet that soaked up the buttermilk cream and poached rhubarb pieces.  I scarfed this baby down, no problemo!

Venture to say I am going back to this great spot with wonderful food and wonderful service. Next time for dinner.

Rhubarb chutney

Many moons ago, working for Chef Jean Michel Bergounoux, I was lucky to get a chance not only to learn his cooking methods as well as techniques. The experience was hands-on private cooking classes. By far he was my biggest influence and I think one of the best chefs in New York City. Strictly rooted in the French classics, he has years of experience in the most renowned kitchens both in France and throughout Europe. Beyond experience, he has an adventurous streak, a constant curiosity to try elements not in his usual repertoire, something that would seem out of  terroir for many Frenchmen.

For instance, he'll create a chutney, more common in the pantries of English kitchens. When first meeting to discuss our opening menu for the restaurant we were launching, Jean Michel had us take notes for the various preparations. One recipe he pulled out was for rhubarb chutney. Jean Michel told us he had found it in some old American cook book. Since the name of the book escapes me, I credit it to my former boss and mentor. The flavor packed chutney  accompanied a roasted duck breast. We often used it with seared foie gras for amuse bouche, or ate leftover in the copper pots  by spoonfuls.

Recently I rustled up the recipe from my folder. Its food stained and yellowing pages had already been torn from the notebook years ago. I wanted to pass it on to a new friend, Sonia F. Bañuelos, who makes some fabulous chutneys herself on her site, Saffron Paisley. She mentioned her gardens rich bounty of California fruits, herbs and vegetables and how she is  preparing all sorts of delicious sounding recipes for preserving from her home  kitchen. I decided to send over this recipe so she could rate this old favorite of mine.  The recipe is a deliciously spiced, unctuous jam, a perfect foil for foie gras or duck breast like we made with Jean Michel. It's a refreshing snack like the one pictured above, which I accompanied with a some rye hopped beer recently. I am sure Sonia will find a good dish to marry it with!

Rhubarb Chutney

2lbs Rhubarb

11/2 cups onions chopped

1/2 cup of raisins

11/3 cup sugar

4 cloves garlic chopped

1 Tbsp. ginger grated (you can use dry, but I prefer fresh!)

1Tbsp. Sel rose or Salt peter (optional)

1Tbsp. Mustard seeds

1/2 Tsp.Coriander seeds

1/2 Tsp. cinnamon

2 Cups Vinegar

1/2 cup of sugar

Cut rhubarb into dice, add the rest of the ingredients except the 1/2 cup of sugar, cook over low heat covered for about an hour, stirring  every few minutes to avoid scorching. Add in the last 1/2 cup of sugar and cool. Can be eaten cold or heated according to what you serve it with.

Backferment

As of this posting, they will have drilled a hole and removed something from my main line! But as of now (days before) I am still behind the stove, manning the fires, folding the dough, making the stocks! Chefs never stop. We're burdened by ideas, insecurity and probably too much drink or something. You can't stop cooking, baking or doing what you love just cause your sinuses are backed up. Right? Gotta deal! What better time then now to try a new product?

So I have this wonderful sister who happens to be a great baker herself. Whenever possible she sends me sacks of Swiss flour. Recently  she tried sending some, but it seems our regulatory system won't let it come through. What a drag! My sister's last care package contained a product that always has interested me; backferment from Sekowa. "Sekowa Spezial Backferment" is a dry and fine granulate made from high-grade honey, biologically grown peas and wheat. It's not technically a sourdough,If someone knows other elements, please tell me! I am still investigating what it is myself but haven't much via Google. The product is widely used in bakeries and households in Germany and Switzerland.It's origins have sort of health nut hippie roots, according to my forum friend Carla in New Zealand; pointing to a Rudolf Steiner connection, kind of  a cultist culture (pun intended), born from his ideas on bio dynamic farming.

While visiting my sister on my last trip to Switzerland, I tried to cultivate this stuff into a levain,with no success. I made the mistake of assuming it was dry sourdough and fed it a regimen of 1.1.1 like I was doing at home. So when I received this last batch it sat around for a long while until I was  in between feedings of my wheat levain, scratched my head and ripped open the seal.

An alum of Bethesdabakin, Brad Prezant and Nina Holm Jensen both left some answers to several queries regarding this product on Dan Lepards site and Brad kindly sent me some notes from his own bread seminar in France last year.

This recent project of mine was as follows; The first dough was a combination of spelt and rye fed from my initial starter, which had wheat and rye, and the other I combined backferment to make a sourdough recipe,(It worked!), which I  adapted from Bread Matters,by Andrew Whitley.