Whisky-Peach-Tea Sauce

Maybe a few times a year I return to the idea of bbq sauce. This turned out well but lacked the tang needed for a good bbq sauce. The addition of tamarind, malic or ascorbic acid will probably round it out nicely.

Whisky Peach Tea Sauce

630g peach nectar
6g worcestershire
6g sriracha sauce
85g cider vinegar
60g ketchup
50g brown sugar
25g jack daniels whisky (flamed)
20g lipton tea
1/4 tsp allspice
25 grinds black pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 clove garlic

Cold infuse the tea for two hours.

Combine everything in a pot except the whisky. Reduce mixture to 250g. Remove from the heat. Stir in the whisky.

Salmon Tartare

Salmon Tartare, Black Pepper Coulis, Meyer Lemon Curd, Avocado Ice Cream

The black pepper coulis really ties together the crisp acidity of lemon at the same time as it complements the floral qualities. It cuts through the fat of the salmon and avocado. I pressure cooked the peppercorns in water for 2 hours. The result was less tender than I would have liked. The puree was a thick paste but even when passed, contained a lot of solids. Tenderizing a dried peppercorn to the point it can be pureed is an ongoing search.

The ice cream base is made from of 3 parts fat free milk to 1 part heavy cream, and sugar. I added .15% iota carrageenan. The avocado is pureed into the cold base raw with citrus.

The meyer lemon is preserved in salt and sugar, blanched, pureed and set with carrageenan.

Musings

In case anyone has become as distraught as myself searching for a creme anglaise recipe in the CIA Pro Chef textbook - fear not. It is listed under its proper english name, "vanilla sauce."

I am still unable to find a recipe for "freedom fries" however. If anyone has a good recipe please email me immediately.

Salmon with Gazpacho Sorbet and Meyer Lemon Coulis

The salmon was cured via standard gravlax.

Asparagus Soup

If you said "asparagus soup" to me, I would probably yawn and go back to searching for a good recipe for butterstoch-miso or chocolate parmesan gnocchi. At this point I have to realize I've completely lost touch and need to come back to reality. Asparagus is a wonderful spring flavor and a king among vegetables. It deserves to star in its own dish and not just take second stage to beef or chicken.

I was looking at an old recipe I wrote for a chilled green asparagus soup and it got me thinking about how I would make it today. The fact that its a green vegetable is really what drew me back to the idea, because care must be taken to preserve the color. I start to get a little more excited when I think there really is no cooking past the stock and the asparagus destined for puree.

At this point I'm engaged in a brainstorm focusing solely on my methods. It has actually been quite a challenge to completely omit, garnishes, flavor combinations etc from this thought process.

We can break it down and focus on the elements. A vegetable soup is basically a vegetable puree that has been thinned with a water-based liquid to a soup consistency.

So we have 1) the liquid and 2) the puree. So how can we infuse and preserve the flavor of the asparagus, at the same time controlling the heat to preserve the nice emerald green color?

We can infuse the base liquid or stock with the woody end of the vegetable and the peelings that we normally discard. We can steep the liquid with raw asparagus. We can use the raw juice of the vegetable.

Asparagus juice

Juice the stalks in a juicer over an ice bath. We could always juice white aspargus and reduce it down.

Asparagus Stock

vegetable, chicken or bean stock
mirepoix and herbs
parmesan rind
whole coffee bean (3 per liter)
asparagus, woody ends and peelings
thinly sliced raw asparagus

bring the stock, mirepoix, woody ends and peelings up to a boil and cook 10-15 minutes. Strain over the sliced asparagus and allow to steep another 10-15 minutes. Strain again and cool completely. Save the asparagus juice for the finished soup.

Asparagus Puree

Normally we would blanch the asparagus in heavily salted boiling water and shock it in ice water. There are a lot of aromatics and flavors lost in this process. I don't want to completely eliminate the cooked element, but how much do we really need to cook it to make a puree? Can we sous vide it for a very short time and use the pacojet? Pressure cook it? Pressure cook it sous vide? If we can boil the asparagus in a bag, we can save all those nutrients, but it may discolor before its cooked in time.

Use the asparagus stock and juice to thin out the puree to a desirable soup consistency. But we can still add more flavor. Since we are not reheating the soup, we can cold infuse it with more asparagus and herbs.

Cold infusion

thin sliced asparagus
herbs

Add the asparagus and herbs to the finished soup and cold infuse until the soup is ready to be served. Strain and serve.

Is this the best I can do? What about asparagus powder? Can we use a gastrovac to reduce asparagus juice without heating it enough to discolor?

Tokyo Stars

This isn't really news, but looking at Michelin's 2008 rating of Tokyo is pretty crazy - 150 restaurants adorn Michelin stars in this city. More than Paris or London combined? Well London, don't get me started... According to Michelin, Tokyo has around 190,000 restaurants compared to its count for NYC of 18,000 in 2005 and 25,000 in 2008. This makes sense considering most people in Tokyo don't even have kitchens in their apartments, and homecooking is not an option. But what the hell? 150 restaurants? they care less about stars than we do. At least Robuchon can tack on another three and Gordon Ramsay is dicked once again. haha, EAT IT!