I used to be mystified by Pate de Fruit (PAHT duh fruit.)  I watched Tony create these candies from passion fruit puree and I was in awe.  Chewy, sugary, fruity, firm but yielding.  When I first started at ten-01, Chef asked me if I could make them to serve as mignardises. I of course said “Sure!” and set about learning to make them.  I searched around online and came across some ratios and learned the basic components.  Fruit puree, granulated sugar, apple pectin, glucose, and tartaric acid.  The recipes I found were specific and complicated, and scaled in grams.  I felt way out of my element.  Stupidly, however, I had already told Chef I knew how to do it, so I shit my pants and dove in to swim.  The importance of mise en place in this process was blatantly apparent from the outset.  Ingredients were added in specific order at specific times.  On the stove this shit looks dangerous; bubbling and spitting hot goopy napalm.  It always gets a second glance when cooks pass by.  After fucking it up a few times (too hard, too soft, grainy or burned)  I started to learn the critical points.  Firstly, always have a spat and a whisk in a bain near the stove.  As you add the various items, you want to alternate between the two, making sure to incorporate and scape well.  Second, dump the ingredients in, then whisk/scrape.  At first I was adding while whisking, but the precision cook loathes unincorporated ingredients stuck to the whisk.  Those grams add up quick, and this recipe requires exactitude.  Next, after you get the glucose in, turn the flame down a bit.  This burbling lava is hell of hazardous.  Don’t let it get away from you.  You have at least ten minutes before this candy reaches its finishing temperature.  Don’t add the thermometer until you get past that.  It’s easier to whisk/scrape without it, which you should do often.  Have your molds set up and ready to go, because time is limited when you reach temp.  Have a towel for the pot to land on, and your tartaric acid near by.  Remember that bain you’ve been working out of?  Drop your thermometer in there, and move it to where your molds are.  After adding the acid,  you only have a few moments to pour before it starts to set up.  Cool the candy to room temperature before turning it out onto parchment to store or a board to cut into desired shape. To serve, toss them into a big bowl with sugar, and tap off the excess.  The sugar will absorb into them, but you can, to a point, recoat them.  A few words on ingredients:  Use the good shit.  Buy Perfect Puree, or an equivalent high quality puree.  I’ve tried most of them, and now stick with Perfect’s strawberry and white peach, the recipes below are product specific.   If you want to make your own puree, buena suerte. Use powdered apple pectin.  This recipe is written for it, not the liquid shit.  Glucose and corn syrup while similar, are not equal.  Glucose has a higher density and while I would substitute corn syrup in brownies, I wouldn’t here.  Many of these products are available to you at Pastry Chef Central, whose logo resembles  Pom Pom, the most mackinest.

Strawberry (and White Peach) Pate de Fruit.

1800 g puree

180 g sugar

44 g apple pectin (46 g for white peach)

1800 g sugar (1738 g for white peach)

360 g glucose

27 g tartaric acid (28 g for white peach)

1.  Weigh puree into a large heavy saucepot.  Scale all other ingredients and set aside.

2.  Sift togehter the first amount of sugar with the apple pectin while bringing the puree to a boil.

3. When the puree starts to boil, add the sugar/pectin.  Return to a boil and add the other amount of sugar.  Return to a boil and add the glucose.

4. Cook to 225 F and remove from heat.  Add tartaric acid add pour immediately.

I love deep frying.  As long as I’m creating dessert menus, there will be a fried item included.  Customers seem to love them, too.  I still have people asking me about the Olive Oil Beignets.  Not every fried dessert I’ve tried has been a huge success.  The funnel cakes turned out to be just OK, and the brown butter beignets straight didn’t work.  I mostly base my doughnut ideas on pate choux, because I can pipe them, freeze them and fry from frozen.  This system works well because I normally have to make the batter only once a week.  A simple dipping sauce of creme anglaise or fruit coulis made it a no-brain pick up.  With the lackluster reception of the funnel cakes, I wanted to try something different.  I turned my Googles upon the humble fritter.  The simple, basic recipes I found reminded me right away of pancake batter.  Milk or water, eggs, flour, chemical leavener, flavorings.  I tried a couple of “meh” recipes before choosing the most simple.  A no frills apple fritter formula I found God knows where at God knows what wee hour of the morning through bleary search-engine eyes.  I thought this recipe was the most tweakable, and slightly tweak I did.  The original recipe called for milk as the liquid, and apples for the fruit.  I wanted to use pears, because I originally had bleu cheese in mind for the sauce.  I ended up using pear puree for half of the liquid volume (instead of all milk,) because the fruit flavor was faint at best.  I also tossed the diced pears in more pear puree, just to seal the deal.  These steaming balls of fried tree fruit batter are delicious.  Hot from the fryer they get tossed in cinnamon sugar, the smell is heady, as in it turns heads in the kitchen.  At this point, I started working on the sauce.  My first idea was a honey-roquefort creme anglaise.  Blue cheese and pears are thick as thieves, right?  A famous pearing pairing.  I bounced the idea off of Chef and he suggested I use Gorgonzola Dolce. I put together the simple custard based on David Lebovitz’s ice recipe in The Perfect Scoop. Spooning the warm cream into my mouth I almost puked.  The funky foot taste filled my sinus and the too sweet eggyness turned my stomach.  I stashed it in my low boy.  Somebody was getting got with that stinky mess.  It turned out to be Perez.  I called him over once the sauce was cooled to have a taste.  The look on his face was priceless.  Slowly nodding his head and trying not to grimace, he looked like as if he was going to spit it out, but didn’t want to offend me.  I burst out laughing in his face.  I love cooking.  Even the failures prove to be somehow useful. This is my second experiment with stinky cheese in a dessert, and the second not so good result.  I decided to go with a pear brandy caramel, using local a Clear Creek Distillers product.  Anyway, here’s the recipes. To fry these babies, spoon the batter into a 350 F deep fryer.  When they float to the top, note how they look like The Guardian from Big Trouble in Little China. Fry until golden brown and a knife comes out almost clean.  And watch out for Lo Pan.

Pear Fitters

makes one deep 6 pan

4 eggs

2/3 cup milk

2/3 cup pear puree

4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 oz salt

1 oz baking powder

4 cups diced pears

pear puree to coat pears

1. Whisk the eggs together with the milk and the pear puree in a large bowl.

2. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl and mix to combine with a wooden spoon.

3. Dice the pears into a seperate bowl and toss them with enough pear puree to generously coat.

4. Fold the pears into the batter and either fry at 350 F until golden brown, or refigerate up to five days.

Pear Brandy Caramel

1 lb 8 oz sugar

10 oz corn syrup

10 oz butter

3 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup Clear Creek Pear Brandy (don’t sub the cheap shit)

1.  Caramelize the sugar and the corn syrup to a rich amber color.

2. Whisk in the butter, take care with the bubbling and frothing.

3. Whisk in the cream and return to a boil.

4. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature, then whisk in the pear brandy.  Serve warm or store up to 1 month in the refigerator.

This is a variation of one of my older recipes, literally the first dessert I made at ten-01.  I learned this one from Tony, of course, and I’ve been tweaking it ever since.  If you review the earlier version, you’ll notice a few changes in the recipe below.  Firstly, the weights have changed.  Somewhere along the line, while converting it for various applications, I skewed the amounts.  The newer proportions reflect just how many times I’ve made this recipe, how many times I’ve observed it’s subtleties.  Chef actually improved upon its technique by mistake while I was in Europe.  Anyway, here’s whats changed and why.

This recipe contains all my favorite ingredients; butter, chocolate, eggs, sugar, and booze.  I was taught to melt the butter and chocolate over a double boiler Then whisk together the sugar and the eggs.  Then, when the chocolate was melted, everything was whisked together with the booze and baked in a water bath in ten inch cake pans.  When baked and thoroughly cooled we glazed them with a one to one ganache and sliced them in 16 portions.  Onto a marble and out to the buffet.   Simple and decadently effective.  The main trick then (and now) was knowing when to pull them from the oven.  They never really look baked, all loose and jiggly.  It’s still a kind of leap of faith for me when I pull them.  I find myself touching them every five minutes until they cool and solidify.

At Carlyle this recipe started to evolve.  The original recipe, just cut in half, was giving me some great results. I realized at this point how similar this cake was to cheesecake, and I treat cheesecake like a custard. I started baking it at a  lower temperature, and turning off the oven for the last half hour of baking.  A thick, fudgey texture was my reward.  I started trying different molds, and building up creamy layers.  The best version at those times was with passionfruit, I wanted to call it Sexual Chocolate.

For my tasting at ten-01, I baked the cake in a small ring mold and served it with brown butter ice cream.  It was over the top rich and showed I wasn’t afraid to knock people unconscious with chocolate.  At least that’s what I kept telling myself as they ate it (”They don’t hate you, they don’t hate you, they don’t even KNOW you, man!”)  I got the job, needless to say, and the cake ended up on the first menu.  I started to bake it in frames around this time, and that marks the first change in the recipe’s proportions.  Every time I pulled the 1/2 sheet cakes from the oven, the tops were just pooled with butter.  I think this happened because the cakes where to big to cook through before basically breaking.  I tried varying oven temperatures, mixing techniques, and finally ended up just reducing the amount of butter.  The cake had a slightly more crumbly texture but was still dense and fudgy.  Chef suggested I started serving the cake at room temperature. Chef knows a lot about food.  Much like cheese, the cake was way better at room temp. He actually improved upon the recipe by mistake, confusing the bread pudding technique with this one and whipped it on high speed for over 15 minutes. The cake melted in the mouth, inducing groaning.  This version of the cake sold really well. It seemed like it was around forever.  I started to get bored with it.  I replaced it with another Tony Classic and tried to forget about it.

Fast forward three or four menus.  The servers are clamoring for a rich, knock-out chocolate dessert.  The stupid Guinness brownie thing just wasn’t working.  Marble Cheesecake?  Yeah, kind of, but not quite.  Scouring the internet for ideas,  I came across this.  The tenth item on McCormick’s 2008 Flavor Forecast was rubbed sage and rye whiskey.  Things started to click into place in my mind; the hamster running in its wheel turned the lock’s tumblers to open my mind on a new idea.  I knew whiskey and chocolate worked.  Would I use whiskey in the cake or in the sauce?  I knew how to make a kick-ass mint ice cream, would it work with sage? And would it go with the rich fudginess of the cake?   As it turns out, it does.  Famously.  I remember standing in the walk-in waiting for the ice cream base to cool down enough to spin.  I had some whiskey caramel left over form the Guinness brownie.  I spooned the caramel into my mouth followed by the sage base.  Closing my eyes, nodding, I reached to the top shelf for a beer…it was time to celebrate.

“Oh wait…” I thought, “…it’s only 6:30.”  I started straight away making a batch of flourless chocolate cake. Scanning over the ingredients, I encountered a problem.  I’ve only made this recipe with alcohol.  It’s always been whiskey, or Grand Mariner or Bailey’s or something.  I knew this recipe really well and just knew that I had to come up something to use in the place of whiskey, 3/4 of a cup of what, dammit, air?  Suddenly it hit me.  Water.

This batch of cakes,  baked in my handy new flexipans, was one of the best I’ve created.  Fudgy, of course, but the main flavor was chocolate. Not booze, but chocolate.  Water made this possible.  Having worked in pastry for a few years, this really struck me.  Water, the arch-nemesis of chocolate, was helping me showcase chocolate in this recipe.  Sometimes when things seem weird at first, proper handling can produce fantastic results.  Water is now my new favorite ingredient.  Even chocolate isn’t scared anymore.  I  even used the two together it in the mirror glaze.  Anyway, enough of my jawing, here’s the recipes for my faithful readers, and also for the readers of the Willamette Week, who will find this cake in the October 15th Restaurant Guide.

 Chocolate Flourless Cake

1 pound 14 ounces chocolate (64%)

1 pound 8 ounces butter

15 ounces eggs

15 ounces sugar

3/4 cup water

1.  Pre-heat your convection oven to 200 F.

2.  Weigh the chocolate into a bowl and set aside.

3.  Weigh the butter into a sauce pot, and bring it to a boil.

4.  Weigh the eggs and butter into the bowl of a stand mixer and whip light and fluffy.

5.  Pour the boiling butter over the chocolate, give the bowl a shake and a spin and let stand two minutes.

6.  Whisk the chocolate until smooth.

7.   Fold the whipped eggs into the  melted chocolate, then fold in the water.

8.   Pour the batter into the flexipans and bake in a water bath until set, about 30 minutes.

9.  Cool properly and chill thoroughly before demolding and glazing.

Mirror Glaze

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup heavy cream

9 ounces chocolate

enough hot water to reach desired consistency

1.  Weigh the chocolate into a bowl.

2.  Measure the corn syrup and heavy cream into a sauce pot and bring to a boil.

3. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate, give the bowl a shake and a spin and let stand two minutes.

4. Whisk the chocolate until smooth.

5.  Whisk in enough hot water to make the glaze loose and pour easily.

Assembly- Set the de-molded  cakes on a glazing rack and ladle the hot glaze over the cakes.  Chill the cakes and apply a second coat.  Serve at room temperature with Sage Ice Cream and Whiskey Caramel.

The branding and packaging of Valrhona chocolate just begs to be treated trashy.  The sexy black box and flashy gold wrapper simply scream: do your worst, I can take it and still be good.  Nothing is more ghetto to me in the world of pastry than s’mores.  The latest tableside “twist” or lofty “deconstruction” did not, for me, change the fact that this is a campfire treat, a gooey mess that was never intended as a plated dessert.  These days, anything goes. If a chef wants to do s’mores as a plated dessert, that’s just fine.  In fact, my old chef Tony made a kick-ass “Rocky Mountain S’mores“  With homemade graham crackers, marshmallows and Bailey’s ganache.  Anyway, I wanted to make s’mores with this bad-assed Valrhona, and seeing that these bars go for ten plus dollars retail, I decided to go budget as possible with the other ingredients.  Ever heard of a good Western Family product?  That’s because there isn’t one.  The gold standard of sub-standard in gas stations everywhere, I was surprised to find both of these gems at New Seasons.  My first couple s’mores started out great.  I trimmed up the chocolate and crackers.  I split the mallows in half and set to work.  I cranked up old blue and within 5 seconds had a flaming stinky white goo dripping off my skewer.  I turned down the heat and split a few more of the puffy little orbs.  7 seconds, flaming goo.  It was time to scale this operation down.  Old Blue sported way to many BTU’s for this project.  Plus it was cold and rainy outside.  Inside, my camping stove proved to be the perfect marshmallow toaster.  I used some little corn holding prongs to get in there nice and close, slowly rotating and toasting. Once lightly toasted and warmly gooey, I transferred them onto the chocolate.  Waiting a minute or two for the chocolate to melt, I drank a beer.  Slurping down the messy-mess was funny-fun.  I couldn’t help but smile as the marshmallows dripped everywhere.  The sumptuous 64% chocolate had melted just so, a delightful tiny snap as I bit down.  The crackers were meh.  I wasn’t surprised.  On my second s’mores I did opt for five seconds in the microwave.  I wanted to finish off the melting of the chocolate bar, and make it as drippy as ever.  It was pretty tasty I must admit.  I may not be an authority on cookery, but I still can’t see making it at it in a fancy restaurant.  It just seems contradictory.

This is certainly my most exhaustive Photoshop effort to date. This silly thing took at least five times as long to make as the gnocchi, and isn’t half as delicious. For this recipe I used Ile de France goat cheese, the second installment of product they wanted me to eat and write about. The last cheese they sent me I basically ate straight, so I thought it better to cook with this one. The cheese had a creamy texture and showcased that distinctive goaty taste. The flavor carried through to the gnocchi, and was exceptional. I liked this cheese better than the last one they sent, it had a little more personality. I also found the packaging more pleasing, this time with a picture of a goat rather than a picture of cheese. Still a bit flashy for me but a step in the right direction. This company is bringing some great cheese into the country. I hope some more of it finds its way to my doorstep. I chose gnocchi because I have always wanted to try it. I’ve seen Perez and before him Arturo making these things three times a week for the past eight months. I had the process memorized just by seeing it done so many times. I won’t include a detailed recipe because I’m quite sure there isn’t one. You basically knead the ingredients into a dough, form it into a wiener, and you’re good to go. You’ll have to forgive the penis humor, faithful readers, but I gotta be me.

I get sent home with a fair amount of food.  Working in kitchens, you don’t go hungry.  Often, pre-seared lamb won’t get sold, and won’t make it until Monday.  Enter the fat kid!!!  And how about a deli cup of those delicious fucking beans with the shredded duck confit? That would go great with this lamb.  I’ve got that balsamic glaze from Italy in the cupboard at home, for drizzling.  All the cooks know they can get rid of their various use-able odds, ends, bits and pieces.  I used to have a line on some halibut scraps, but I haven’t seen him in a grip.  Yes I will have two deli cups of garlic oil.  Yes I will take home a day old loaf of brioche.  (French Toast, bitches!!) How’s about Chimichuri marinated flank steak? Why yes I can find a use for that.  To feed my ever growing teets!!  With power-lunch-stlyle sammy action on old blue.  Enjoying  some vino from the vineyard  always helps wash this all down quite nicely. In light of some rather alarming new statistics, it’d good to know that food isn’t going to waste, but to my waist.

The last night we were in Paris we ate at Les Cocottes, a short walk from The Eiffel Tower. The chic dining room and meat hanging in the windows drew us in.  Our glorious meal was accompanied by a bottle of Beaujolais and dark rainclouds. Our appetizers arrived as it began to drizzle.  I had a crab salad which had been meticulously packed into a tiny mason jar.  Shaved cucumber and homemade mayonnaise blended together well.  Kate’s salad was simply mounded with bacon, and an oozing quenelle of goat cheese sat melting on top.  Kate sipped her wine as I drank her in.  What a babe.  Later that night we got engaged.  The small restaurant was filling up, people bustled in from the blustering rain.  The place was full and people were waiting by the time our entrees arrived.  I was immediately jealous of Kate’s scallops.  They swam in a foamy and delicious smelling sauce.  I was straight drooling.  She gave me only one taste.  Good Lord.  C’etait delicieux!!  My steak dish was very meat and potatoes for Paris, but was well executed and well, it was meat and potatoes.  Man I wanted those fucking scallops.  We laughed and talked for awhile, digesting and enjoying the wine.  This was our last night in France, and we were savoring every minute.  We finally ordered dessert, she the chocolate tart, and me the clafoutis.   The simple dark tart sat silky on the plate, a texture that would prove to taste as good as it looked.  My dessert was strewn with port soaked prunes, a pot of pancake.   Totally sated and elated we paid our bill and left with smiles.   I lifted an umbrella from a pot by the door on the way out.   That rain was really coming down.

If you aren’t reading IDEAS IN FOOD, my faithful readers, You should be.  I look forward to their frequent blog posts.  Food Porn in it’s purest form.  Innovation through science.  Pictured here is chicken skin crusted skate with rhubarb mustard, shrimp spaetzle, arugula and fresh bergamot.  Chicken skin crusted!?!  And what the hell is bergamot?  Seriously, Cheers to you Ideas In Food Chefs.  I want to eat your blog.  How could I not?  32 preparations of Foie Gras?  And what about Hot Ice Cream?  Amazing stuff here guys.  Best food in the Blogosphere.  Look at this Torchon!!

My brother Jaybill has perfected southern style smoked pork.  He finally showed me how to do it, and it really got my faithful readers excited.  The 20 hour process involves brining, rubbing, smoking, roasting and only about 15 minutes of actual work.  Most of it is a drinking waiting game.  The night before you’re going to smoke, you need to get your pig in the brine.  I used two six or seven pound boned-out boston butts.  Jaybill swears by the bone-in cut, and I tend to agree with him.  I think the bone adds flavor as it cooks, and my dogs just love those things.  So you’ve got your meat, now crack a beer.  The brine is a simple recipe, taking just a few moments to prepare.  Whisk the ingredients together then sink in your meat.  Make sure the pork is covered with the flavorful liquid.  Optimal brining is about 12-14 hours.  Any longer, it might get too salty.  I floated mine at 6 pm the day before I was going to smoke, and pulled ‘em out at around 7:45 am the following morning.  Pat the meat dry to remove any excess moisture.  Now comes the rub.  As a cook, there have always been certain jobs that I’ve found naughty, almost erotic, and spice rubbing meat is certainly one of them.  Prepare your rub and go to town on that meat.  Every inch of that sucker should be crusted with spicy goodness.  When the meat is enrobed in deliciousness, get the smoker ready.  The genius of Jaybill’s smokers comes from their simplicity.  The parts for which can be found at any home and garden store, the heating element at your local Fred Meyer.  These things are everywhere.  Fellow Alton Brown fans the world over embraced this DIY set-up, and our recipe featured here is adapted from his “Q” episode.  Jaybill taught me to smoke the butts for four hours.  You’ll need at least a 12-pack of crsipy Longhammers for this part.  When four hours is up, remove the pork and tightly wrap it in tin foil.  Roast for an additional four hours in a pre-heated 300 degree oven.  Don’t be tempted to raise the oven temperature to shorten the cooking time.  All of those delicious juices you’ve worked so hard to create are going to escape.  Don’t you know, that with the pork bro, slow and low that is the tempo?  After 8 hours of cooking you’ll be well brined yourself no doubt and ready for the fun part, pulling.  After proper resting (about 20 minutes)  pull back the foil and take in the sweet smelling steam.  A pair of latex gloves will ensure your tender skin won’t get too warm as you pull apart the porky goodness.  At this point, the entire neighborhood will be lined up to sample your pork.  The smoke signal was sent out hours ago.  Don’t  Jersey up your meat with store bought barbeque sauce.  I recommend a North Carolina style vinegar sauce and some srirachanaise.  You can find AB’s original recipe here.  For our adapted ones read on.

Brine:
1/2  cup molasses
24 ounces kosher salt
1 gallon water
2- 6 to 8 pound Boston butts

Rub:
2 tblsp whole cumin seed
2 tblsp whole fennel seed
2 tblsp whole coriander
2 tblsp chipotle powder
2 tblsp onion powder
2 tblsp paprika

Combine molasses, pickling salt, and water in large bucket.  Completely submerge pork in brine, cover, and let sit in refrigerator 12 hours.Grind all spices to a fine powder in a coffee grinder.

Remove pork from brine and pat dry.

Rub them shits!!

Smoke them shits!!

Eat them shits with Foie Gras Baked Beans!!

We did it again, faithful readers.  We rolled up into a vineyard and cooked a bad-assed meal.  At Adelsheim Vineyards in Oregon wine country Chef and I cooked up a 5 course plated dinner for some lucky people.  They had hor de oeuvres at the winery while we set up our food and the service staff set up the table.  Nestled between rows of grape vines sat our al fresco kitchen, which was equipped with two low propane burners (the kind used for outdoor turkey frying,)  a large charcoal grill, and ample plating space.  The guests were enjoying Gazpacho shots, arugula pesto prawns, and hamachi tartare while I drank beer and spit cusses at the grill.  I had one hell of a time getting that thing lit.  It took a side towel soaked in lighter fluid, but I got that fire rolling.  The guests strolled up in the waning evening light as the charcoal sputtered and spat to life.  Spring Lamb Chops marinated.  Chef seared scallops as the girls plated the first course.  I scurried about, feeding chef clean pans and regulating fires and helping plate.  The servers bussed and poured and ran the plates when each course came up.  When it was time for the duck tits, the sheet pan flat top was again created, and the sizzling fat filled the air with a delicious smell.  They were sliced and hit the plate with a scrumptous plop.  The fading light mingled with the gasps of gastronomic pleasure, the breeze wafted sweet smelling smoke and aounds of merriment across the vineyard.  The lamb chops hit the grill with a satisfying sound, that fucker was hot.  Chef kicked me off grill duty as I blackened some of the chops.  Fucking pastry chefs trying to grill, shit…