Crab Cakes, Poached Fish and Free Form tart. September 2011

We finally finished a our well balanced meal with a Free Form Berry Tart. We used a Pate Brizee for our Pie Crust, filled it with assorted berries and folded the sides while while still unbaked. When if first came out of the oven it smelled delicious and the berries looked shiny and fresh. A few minutes later it started looking soggy and the liquid from the berries started draining out of the shells. For this kind of Free Form tart it is ideal to use fruits that do not release much liquid during baking and maintain their shape, such as carmeled apples or pears.

Poached Papillete Fish with Boiled Red Potatoes and Swiss Chards. This healthy mild dish was our main course after having the Crab Cake Appetizers. When preparing a meal it is very important to maintain harmony and balance between the ingredients and cooking methods of each course. If one course is rich and strong flavored, the next should be lighter and milder. When poaching your fish, make sure you don't poach it in to much liquid. This way you can use your liquid to make a sauce after.

Crab Cakes with a fennel, carrot and red onion salad topped with a dab of tartar sauce and a touch of fried unions as a garnish. When you buy your crab meat to make the crab cakes, make sure you choose a good brand of crab meat that is already cooked. Once you open you meat spread it out and pick any pieces of shells that still remain in your meat. If your recipe calls for salt, you will probably not want to salt it since the meat comes salted. try it before adding any salt.

The fennel salad was a perfect combination to the cakes since it is crunchy and refreshing.

A quick lunch break at home. September 2011.

I like fun foods that don't make me feel bad afterwards. This salad was prepared with all organic ingredients: Mixed baby greens, pieces of nectarines (gotta enjoy the end of the season), grapes, raisins, roasted and salted cashews (sea salt), whole Greek yogurt, aged sharp Cheddar cheese, extra virgin olive oil and a touch of yellow mustard. 

Unique treat! September 2011

Gorgonzola Ice Cram with Caramelized Pears, Raw Walnuts and Berry Sauce: This was a treat given to us by the kitchen next door. I tried a few bites of it and found it interestingly delicious. The Strong Flavored but still creamy hand made Blue Cheese Ice Cream combined with the fresh flavor of warm pears, a touch of sweetness from the caramel and a simple crunchy flavor from the raw nut made a perfect dessert for someone who is not fond of sweets, like myself.

Lobster Bisque, Seafood A La Nage, Frangipan Tart. September 2011

We wrapped up our evening with a bit of sweetness: Frangipan Tart topped with glazed pears.

This is our Seafood A La Nage. We served the fresh molluscan, calamari, shrimp and vegetable in a fortified fish stock and garlic bread on the side. It was a very mild flavored dish.

Hint: when you buy seafood such as molluscan always buy live ones with shells that are complete locked closed. They should also smell like the ocean, no stronger. Clean them well by scrubbing them with a clean sponge (no soap) and rinsing the quickly in iced clear water. Once you bring them to a boil and the shell cracks open, they are done.

The squids should be cleaned by removing the inside feather, organs, paint bucket, beak and anything else that is found inside. You should only use the clean crown and the clean trunk. We did not use octopus because it is considered to be tough and hard to eat.

This was the Mishe we served with our Lobster Bisque Soup. Boris (our starter dough) is getting more mature as the days goes by. His flavor is giving a us accentuated flavored bread. We baked this Mishe in 550 degrees F. and purposely let the crust brown, by leaving it long enough and leaving a steaming cooking sheet half full on the bottom of the oven while the Mishe baked. It taste like a wood burning oven, like Brazilian pizza crust!

We plated it in a clear round plate with the bowl in the middle, big chunck of steamed and seasoned lobster and Mishe bread on the side.

One of the secrets for making a good Lobster Bisque sauce that is flavorful and not to heavy is using a good fortified lobster stock and thickening it with pureed rice. In our fortified sauce we sweated the lobster shells with mire poix and fish pieces and once we got the right flavor we steamed some white long grain rice, pureed it in a rice mill and mixed it in our sauce. 

Praparing the sauce for our Lobster Bisque.

Hint: always but live lobsters and keep their claws tied. A claw bide from a lobster can cut off your finger. I was told not to feel too sorry for them as we cut them and boiled them, since they do not have the sensory part of the brain that feels pain. In my opinion that was really hard to believe and I still felt really bad while watching the lobster being broken and desiccated while still moving and then being thrown into the boiling water.

Shrimp Cocktails, Saffron Risotto and Flan. September 2011

Ps: We did also have this course in our meal but since I didn't eat all if mine I didn't consider it as part of the experience. It is a Crispy Striped Sea Bass. The fish is tasty, but skin on is not my thing. It makes it taste to fishy and the skin turned out rubbery.

Finally for desert we repeated the Flan Recipe...a nice finish for the day.

This time we made a Rosemary and Garlic seasoned Oil. The plating display was not perfect even thought the   Olive Oil did turn our very flavorful since the glass got dirty with butter chunks. Next time I will but them in separate plates.

To accompany our Risotto and Shrimp we also had Boris make us some great fresh Baguettes with seasoned Extra Virgin Olive Oil and plain Organic Unsalted Butter Slices.

Boris (our Starter Dough) is now resting in his Couchet Bed.

These are the crispy onions that went with our Risotto.

We finished up the last 5% of the Risotto at serving time. Something I have learned is cook a Risotto up to 90% doneness. The other 10% will cook on its own once it is off the stove, in Carryover time. This way you will end up with a nice creamy Risotto and still "Al Dente" to the bite. The Crunchy onions on top added a great contrast in flavor and texture to the plate. I highly recommend this kind of garnish.

After the Shrimp Cocktail we also made a Saffron Risotto with Arborio Rice which was sweated in vegetables and we added 1 ladle of  fortified chicken stock per time until it absorbed it little by little and created the starchy cream. Towards the end we added the Saffron and stopped when it was about 75% done.

This was the final product of our shrimp, once boiled, chilled and served with a special Tartar Sauce that I made my self. The secret for my delicious Tartar Sauce: Make the Mayonnaise with good new eggs and a good amount of lemon. Season it with Dijon Mustard and lots of big chunks of canned pickles, sea salt and black pepper. It went very well with the shrimp.

The shrimp we use come dead, but clean and from a sustainable organic supplier. One way of checking the freshness and quality of the shrimp you buy is by smelling it. It should smell fresh like the ocean. If it has any fishy smell it means they are already in the process of decomposing. Ours smelt very fresh and oceanic.

This was my first time making Shrimp Cocktail. The first step for it is immersing them in iced water in order to get rid of any rest of impurities.

Making Lox or Gravax. September 2011

Some of our Flavored Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The one in the right was made with fresh local basil and lightly pressed pieces of garlic. The one in the left was made with sage. Add the herbs to the olive oil, lightly heat the pan until the first bubble. Turn it off and serve.

Finally we finished our evening with a piece of Ahi Medium Rare Tuna, mixed greens, sauteed green beans, hard boiled organic eggs, potatoes and local cherry tomatoes.

This last and main course was way to much food for me. I could have stopped on the Lox and Latkes plate, since besides it we had fresh baguette and flavored olive oil to go with dinner.

A day with Lox deserves a nice kitchen setting with a delicate entree: Fresh Chilled New England Oysters with a Gastrique Sauce.

These were the potato pancakes that we serves with our lox. The crunchy and light flavor blended perfectly with the strong salty fish flavor.

The final piece served on top of a Latke (Potatoe Pancake) with strips of sour cream, chopped red onions, chives and a green garnish. Simply amazing!

The sliced Lox, should be paper thin.

Slicing the Lox at the perfect time.

Salmon fillet immersed in cold water after curing for 3 days. The extra salt will drain off.

After 3 days we rinse the salmon under running water and bathe it under cold water to remove all the salt. Put it back in the cooler for another day so that the salt that is left in the skin spreads evenly through out the rest of the salmon raw meat and cures the rest.

Gravlax: means "buried salmon" in the old Scandinavian countries. Lox: means cured salmon in Yiddish. It came from the custom the Scandinavians had of burring their fish under the earth with salt so that it would stay preserved.

Folding the salmon in salt before wrapping it.

Next step is to cure the salmon with a proportion of 1 sugar to 2 salt and some fresh dill. We immersed the salmon fillet in this curing bath for 3 days in the cooler.

First step is slicing the fresh salmon into a thick fine fillet and removing the scales with a special utensil. Salmon is a round fish, so you can take two fillets from each one.

Quick lunch at home.

A quick complete lunch at home before classes: Mixed baby greens with raisins, organic red grapes, sharp cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, walnuts, extra virgin olive oil and a touch of yellow mustard.

Burning it with a blow torch.

Creme Broule: A baked egg custard that has to be baked vary carefully so that it doesn't break. I will be burnt sugar topping.

Apple picking. September 2011

This day, as I was walking back home in Sunshine Canyon I discovered an apple tree with real apples. I had never seen real apples in an apple tree. I picked one and since I did't know if they were edible I decided to wait for my mom's evaluation to be sure. Yep, they are real and I won't die if I eat them. I tried one. It was very hard, rather juicy and with a leafy green flavor. Almost like a vegetable. 

Pastry week continues. September 2011

Bread Sticks

The rolls are ready: Focaccia, Dinner Rolls and Brioche.

Focaccia with black organic olives

Focaccia with herbs

Making dinner rolls in different shapes: round, knots, stripes and coating them with a bit of egg wash.