Archives for April 2009
Devil’s Food Cake with Dulce de Leche Mousse.
27 April 2009 | Ten 01, chocolate, creative presentation of the week, delicious, faithful readers, pastries, plated dessert, recipe | 8 Responses
in possibly my best effort in plated dessert design to date, I give my faithful readers this fucking thing. Hopefully, the plate exudes a clean elegance, peppered with a touch of how’ did he do that? Well, I’ll tell you. The sponge cake base is a classic Devil’s Food cake recipe that I found in one of my new favorite cookbooks, Dessert Fourplay by Johnny Iuzzini. The recipe calls for mayonnaise, which tickles me, and keeps the cake super-moist. The science of that is kind of obvious: cake batters have eggs and oil, mayo is eggs and oil emulsified. On top of the sponge cake I pipe a chocolate icing that I found the recipe for on the best food site ever, IDEAS IN FOOD. The icing calls for sweetened condensed milk (like the dulche,) and balsamic vinegar to blend with dark chocolate. The sticky icing has a nice subtle acid note, a quiet personality. On top of the icing is a thin piece of tempered chocolate, a nice thin snappy-crunch. I’ve seen garnish this used a lot; especially in Parisian pastry shops. With the help of my ChocoBot, some marble slabs, and some precise cuts, this process proved to be quite easy. Just like Salted Caramel Sauce, easy peasy-smack-a-jeezy. Really, the only semi-difficult element to this dish is the dulce de leche mousse. The recipe it self is no brain-tease; just a spin on a white chocolate mousse. In fact, I was originally going to use caramelized white chocolate, but decided the laborious process wasn’t worth the taste. It tastes like dulce, so why not just use dulce? Making dulce de leche is not hard, just kinda weird. Take a few cans of sweetened condensed milk, place them in a large pot (yes in the can.) Fill the pot with water, be sure to cover the cans by a few inches. Bring the water to a boil, and keep boiling for 3 to 4 hours. Keep a bucket of water nearby to refill the water as it evaporates. After 4 hours, kill the heat and dump out the water. Cover the cans with ice to cool them off. When cooled, open the cans and enjoy the dulceness. I know this sounds strange, but it’s way easier than the traditional method. So here’s the hard part, molding the cylinders. Not really hard I guess, just time consuming. I’ve seen Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin make cool cylnders on his blog, and always wanted to try it. After a month of experimenting, I have a process. There’s got to be a better way, but here’s how I do it. Take your cannoli forms and line one side of each mold with tin foil. Stand them upright in a six pan or secured with a rubber band on a sheet tray. Line each mold with acetate, the thin clear plastic stuff. When the mousse is ready, pipe it into the molds. Freeze them shits rock hard, at least 3 hours, better to do it overnight. \Demold the mousse and plate while frozen, and thaw in the fridge on the plates. Serve with desired components. Or wrap them shits.
Dulce De Leche Mousse
4 1/2 sheets of gelatin.
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 lb 5 oz Dulce de Leche
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1. Bloom the gelatin in cold water.
2. Weigh the dulce de leche into a bowl. Bring the first measurement of cream to a boil, and then pour it over the ducle. Drain and add the gelatin. Whisk to combine. Or use an immersion blender.
3. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, whip the second measurement of cream to soft peaks.
4. Fold in the cream gently. Pipe into desired molds, or just into a martini glass. Chill until set and enjoy.
WW’s Eat Mobile Carty Awards: I ate my Face Off.
19 April 2009 | delicious, eating | 8 Responses
I was thrilled when contacted by Ben Waterhouse of Willamette Week to be a judge for this event. I love street food, I often drive downtown to hit the 10th street carts for Aybla’s gyros. After seeing the list of competing carts however, I was already biased towards Flavour, my favorite cart in all the land. They serve a hand-held dutch waffle taco filled with various combinations of delicious. Anyway; as my brother and I approach the venue, we scoot to the front of the 2 block long line. We meet Ben at the gate; I get my judges packet, bypassing throngs of sharp looks and hungry faces. Once inside, I get my wristband and grab an Aquavit cocktail from Matt at House Spirits. After that, Jaybill and I ate it all. A clean sweep of the open outdoor area, revisiting a table to eat and discuss. At our first booth we were pushed aside by a Oscar Bluth look-alike in a Trailblazers jersey. After that we waded to the front of long lines with our judges badge, accepting sidelong glances and the hottest plates of food. We filled out our score cards without getting too much sauce on them. Once inside, the waffle smell engulfed us, and hey…more cocktais! If you held a gun to my head and asked what I remembered, I’d say: smoked salmon and cream cheese ice cream, banana nutella grilled cheese, bees knees cocktails, hot chicks and hot sauce with a warm setting sun on vegan tacos. A search party of volunteers searched for me while the other judges dilberated, I was roaming drinking and eating. The grassroots of this event and the frequent familiar faces led me to a satiated inebriation, a stuttering acceptance of existence during something awesome, a fat slice of time with toasted meringue, perfect clarity. Tits and champagne as they say. The judges ruled as I would have, had I been there, to rule. Junior Ambassador took the cake with his salmon ice cream, his Sgt Pepper’s style coat. Grilled Cheese Grill man took the stage fighting tears and clutching the people’s choice award. Thier booth was by far the most fun, with laughing and carrying on and cooking of great grilled sandwiches. Nutella and mascarpone, on cinnamon swirl bread? Holy shit. Check out the menu for this cart, mainly the Cheesus Burger. Flavour got some kind of honorable mention, I guess they were out of their element. They waffles just weren’t the same for some reason. How could they compete with Junior’s maple bacon ice cream anyway?
Two guys that ate wat too much. But picked up Oreos on the way home…
Chepe
14 April 2009 | chef, cook, faithful readers, jack yoss, people | 8 Responses
I’ve run into a diverse cross-section of chefs, and Mike Perez is one of the best I’ve known. He’s more gringo than Mexican, but he’s still a great cook. He’s got the humble pan pusher work-ethic, and the passionate drive to make the best food. We’ve got an easy raport that sometimes speaks volumes in a look, the kind of in-the-trenches kind of friendship that only true kitchen lifers know. Sometimes during service, deep in humping out food, he’ll just crack a sly smile. “Ain’t nothin’ to a boss!” Sometimes, he’ll look at me like Murderface, and I’ll know what he means; you nasty, girl! As a faithful reader, our jokes got jokes, laughter comes easy. I’m proud to rank him among the top people I’ve met in this business, and as a lifelong friend. As all cooks know, you run into those people in your careers; the kind of peeps you say you’ll work with again, maybe even open up your own place, and with Chepe it’s no different. With him I can almost see it actually happening. We both were privileged to be mentored by Chef Jack Yoss, and as anyone who has worked with Jack knows, that’s something. I’ve learned a lot working with Perez, watching him cook, lead the cooks. I’ve jumped down, I’ve turned around, I’ve picked a bag of cotton. I’ve been violated. I’ve enjoyed some long services, some outlandish circumstances. We’ve even spent some time together off the clock, riding the mountain, eating and drinking. Drinking, eating, cooking, drinking. The guy loves food. I recall once I was drinking creme anglaise out of the blender. Perez walks up and laughs, then asks for a hit. You really have to respect a guy that will drink creme anglaise out of a blender. Well…I do anyway.
Empty Wallet Theif.
4 April 2009 | fiction, writing | 2 Responses
Lamp post says “the walk signal is on” my head snaps up, I’m crossing. Glancing down my mind wanders; remembering when the crossing signal was birds, chirping. On the other side now, approaching Denver and the two story Paul Bunyan, the Max Station. There she was; haircut with too many angles, nape of neck suggesting the geometry of a larger object. Perched precarious with dangling limbs in an impossible position; an awkward grace, a calculated nonchallance. I want to believe she just landed that way; crooked provocative balanced on the circular metal bike-rack. Legs crossing she notices me as I approach, an exclamation point in body language.
“The yellow line to city center is expected to arrive in six minutes,” a disembodied female robot voice announced. I square up with the ticket machine and I feel her watching. As I fumble out my card I sense her movement, the chains on her jeans jangling. The next few moments pass in a flash; a single breath, inhale…exhale.
“Hey,” she says in a small voice, I turn. Her right hand comes up, palm down, as if to slap me five. Too late I notice my wallet open in front of me like a book, her black-nailed hand coming down. I barely have time to register the quiet “smeck” sound of it being stolen before she’s gone. Across the tracks in three gawky, too-long strides. Over the fence on the far side and out of sight before I can open my mouth to shout. Behind me, the ticket machine spits out my card, tauntingly flashing and beeping. Grabbing my plastic and paper I turn and smile into the sounds of the approaching train. I had just witnessed a desperate act, however useless. She’ll be disappointed with my cheap camo-colored bill-fold; nothing but sweaty business cards and yellowing old receipts.
*this is a work of fiction; as in I made it up, it didn’t happen.