Chicken Rillette

The other day we were confiting milk fed chicken from Pasture Prime in Ocala, and I had an idea I had been wanting to mess around with for a while so I decided to give it a shot. Its still in the works, but the concept is good. I kind of just threw together a bunch of stuff we had just received, but also I want to keep it seasonal, so will make some adjustments. Hopefully we can run it on the tasting menu next week.

The Compnents:
Crispy Chicken Rillette, Buttermilk-Dijon Dressing, Egg Yolk, Ramp  Top Fluid Gel, and a salad of Green Apple, Ramp and Arugula.

Everything went together well, but needs to be tweeked and the presentation tightened up.

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

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