Epcot Fod & Wine

As I said in the previous post, we have been extremely busy and will continue to be busy. Last weekend and this past weekend we had separate demos at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. The first one with Torm Siverson of Pasture Prime Wagyu demoing his mangalitsa pig and the second with Chef Todd English, followed by a 7 course dinner at the restaurant. There is more about the Mangalitsa pig and the demo on Torm's blog that has pictures of the event and is worth checking out.

photo courtesy of pasture prime wagyu

I also recently did a tasting for a sous chef position at work which I was unable to get any pictures of, but fortunately did get the position, so here is the menu.


foie gras mousse
brioche butter, caramelized milk solids, minus 8 gastrique


crispy sweetbreads
garlic puree, heirloom tomatoes, fried caper vinaigrette


olive oil poached halibut
roasted boniato, preserved meyer lemon, ham hock broth


sous vide pork belly
braised kale, cannellini beans, pickled chanterelles


wagyu ribe eye
pickled beet fluid gel, baby root veg in different textures, arugula, bordelaise


"napoleon"
foie gras, preserved strawberry, frangipan, ice wine

Bresaola

This will be a brief post, but yesterday I cut into one of the bresaola, and was pleased outcome. I probably would bump up a couple of the spices and herbs when curing, but overall the flavor was good. It probably would have a better texture if I had used something other the tenderloin, but when I get free meat I don't complain. Here it is...

Where to begin....

OK, so I've been super busy that past few months, this being the reason for the lack of posts. In early september we were working on the new menu, then I went and spent a week in new york for star chefs (met some awesome people, learned  a lot, ate some great food), took the first flight home for a 5 course buy out for 180 people, did a tasting for a jr sous chef position at work, and we're in our busiest month of the year and haven't gone to sleep since...


Dan Barber's Speck.... AWESOME!!

Corton. Sic dinner, sic food

The dudes at olives hooked it up and killed it. 

...and we don't plan on slowing down. Looking towards the future I will be cutting into a coppa and our country ham here in middle to late november, so I'm pretty stoked abou that. Chef Windus, myself and Torm Siverson of Pasture Prime Wagyu will be heading over to the Epcot Food and Wine festival this week to demo the Mangalitsa pig. Just pulled out about 200lb of fat to be rendered for a couple of different applications for the demo. The on November 6th, I will be heading back with Chef Todd English to do his yearly demo, race back to the resraurant and do another 5 course meal for at leats 180 people (which is always a great time), and then we break down and get ready for a full restaurant buy out the next evening. So, it may be another couple of weeks before I'm able to post anything interesting, but we are still pushing ourselves and the restaurant and do still have projects in the works. Stay Tuned!!!

More Coppa

This time I actually was able to procure these coppa myself, since I was working butcher and received the massive mangalitsa shoulders. These things are serious. I just recently got some beef bung in, and it is a good thing that I did because I'm gonna need them. I have rubbed these down with salt, cane sugar, garlic, black pepper, cayenne, fennel, espelette, smoked paprika, and some cure 2. They just went in a couple of days ago, so I will post more about them later.

I have really high hopes for these bad boys. The smaller chunks of mangalitsa that I cured like coppa turned out really good, so my fingers are crossed.

This is a small plate i did a few weeks ago for a guest who came in and had the tasting menu 3 nights in a row. We gave him different courses each night, and I was stoked that I got to throw this one in.

From Left to Right: Pickled Okra, White Cuke, Cherry Bomb, Melted Lardo, Coppa, Bottom: Pepperoni, Lonzino

Bresaola

I have recently been cross training to work butcher on the weekends. This is not only good because it gives me a bit more experience and is something new to do, but also because it will give me a little bit of extra time after my shift to hopefully get the charcuterie project rolling faster. Now with that being said, the other day we received some beef tenderloins leftover from a chef's demo. So, I decided to try a bresaola. We haven't tried this yet, so I figured what better time than now. Since I have never done a bresaola, I am going based off of len poli's recipe for the most part. I am not smelling as much of the garlic or rosemary by using the dry, so depending on how it tastes, I may change this next time around. However, I will give in a update on those in the near future.

Here are a couple of images that Chef Windus shot the other night from a VIP tasting we did for a friend of his. There were more courses, but these included some of our house cured products. there was one more that had house lardons on it, but I didn't get a pic of that one.


House Smoked Pork Belly, Mizuna, House Lardo, Yuzu Pickled Watermelon, Compressed Watermelon, Watermelon Vinaigrette, Miso Powder, Candied Ginger, Micro Mustard Greens

House Lardo Wrapped Black Cherry, Black Cherry Noodle and Powder, Pure Butter Shortbread Cookie

A Failed Sopressata, but Good Mangalitsa Dog

I cut into this sopressata about a month ago, and was quite disappointed. It had such promise. Great ingredients, a nice mold on the outside, and I cut into it at about 38% weight loss. However, something had not gone right. The outside of the meat had dried and hardened into what I can only describe as what was like a "rind." The smell of the meat on the inside,( although not discolored but not dried either) was not right and borderline rotting. So needless to say it went into the trash rather quickly. There were only two but disappointing none the less. Better safe than sorry. I used artificial casings on these and have noticed that they dry up really quickly and don't shrink like natural casings, but there was also something that didn't go right on the inside.

On a brighter note, Chef Windus and I made some mangalitsa dogs for memorial day weekend. The ones in the following picture are the ones that I smoked at work (Chef has his own smoker at home). Then I grilled them up for a little BBQ we had for my wife's birthday. They were a hit. Better than the $2 12 pack dogs we bought...haha.

Some More Mangalitsa Jowl & The first peaches of the year

So this jowl was brined with some of the mangalitsa bacon, smoked and then sous vide. We are trying to come up with a new pork dish at work, and this is one of the concepts that I have been messing around with. The concept is there, but I am still trying to balance out the flavors.

We had a VIP come in for dinner tonight, so I sent them out a version of the dish. I didn't get a chance to snap a picture, but one of the other guys did, so I may post it down the road.

The Concept:
I sous vide the already smoke jowl @ 158' f for 24 hours in a mixture garlic honey, mustard seed, korean chili paste, peppercorns, etc.

Pickled Peaches with a mixture of cider vinegar, simple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, and red pepper flakes

the peaches were really soft, so i didn't really get the texture that I wanted. I may try compressing the with the liquid and dropping the bag into boiling water and shocking, and see if I can remove the skin without overcooking the flesh.

And I also made a Peach based BBQ sauce which turned out pretty good (a touch too sweet though).

So here is one we made up to taste.

ELEMENTS:
Sous Vide mangalitsa Jowl
Peach BBQ
Fried Anson Mills Grits
Pickled Peaches
Arugula
Parmesan
Burnt Onion
Freeze Dried Charred Corn (which was plated with NL2 to appears as if it was still smoking)