Na'cho Mama's Fish and Chips

So look. Fish is ugly, it can be slimey, it's intimidating but...it's just food after all. It's pretty cheap, if you buy right, and it tastes freakin delicious so get over it, find a good fish market, a sharp knive and get to work.

Buying whole fish can be quite economical. Once you learn to butcher the few types of fish you might come across, it becomes pretty simple and quite quick. I'm not saying you will be ready to work at Le Bernardin, but you will be more than capable to throw together a meal for a few guests.

So, I was lucky enough to get a nice whole trout which I promptly took home, on ice, and took apart to cook for my lady. We had a nice "fish and chips", aka, Poisson et pommes frites. Sans malt vinegar, but we did throw in a semi decent burre blanc and a very acidic lemon sauce to top. I'm not going into crazy specifics for the recipes right now but I'll briefly describe at least the techniques behind it. As for filleting the fish, just youtube how to filet a flounder or trout or red snapper or whatever fish tickles your fancy.

For the french fries, frites, fried potatoes: If your normal, French, or uber patriotic respectively.

French fries are generally a two step process. You cut your fries then dry them well. If they sit too long they will oxidize and turn brown so don't leave them on a sheat pan for an hour while your oil heats up.

Fry the potatoes at 300-320 degrees until tender all the way through. Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Let them cool and drain well. Heat the oil up to around 375 and put the fries back in until golden brown. Remove from the oil and season immediately. The fries should be crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. It takes a little bit of playing around when you're using a dutch oven as a deep fryer. The temperature will swing wildly in different directions so, one hand on the food, the other on the gas knob.

The fish was incredibly simple. I filleted it into two pieces about 8 inches long and cut them both on a bias. The trout was about 2 lb's and was easily enough to feed two people. I left the skin on and dredged the skin side in a little bit of flour, although I'm told Wondra works a little better. I seared the skin on medium heat in a little butter and olive oil. Keep in mind how fatty and how thick the skin is, if it's a thick cut you don't want to sear it on too high heat or it won't render completely. Flip the fish after the skin is crisp and lightly browned and warm the bottom side through.

The buerre blanc sauce was a classic recipe that I got from cooking school. Nothing crazy and quite unimaginative but pretty good I suppose. I'll post the recipe another time.

At the end I took a little vinegar, sugar, lemon juice and supremed lemon. Tossed it in the drained pan that I pan seared the fish in. Let it warm up just a touch and spooned it on top of the fish.

Sorry for the not so typical post but I'm kind of scattered, have a lot to do and a bunch of stuff to read and not a lot of time to get it done so I'm kind of flying through this. Hope at least someone out there might at least try making the french fries. They are definitely worth the effort. Don't forget you can season fries with anything. My favorite is onion powder, garlic powder, salt, black pepper and celery seed.

Sharpening Your Knive, With a steel?

Many of you have one of the above in your knive collection. Most people get them for free when they purchase even a cheap set of knives and most people never use them or even know what they really do. One thing they don't do, sharpen your knives. Now, when you're done using it, your knive will effectively be able to more efficiently cut through items. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of means the knive is sharper but you're still wrong. What a steel does is "hone" a knive's edge.

While using a knive the blade begins to lose its edge. What that means is that the microscopic tip of the blade edge begins to fold and wave in varying directions.  It can't be stopped and it happens no matter what you are cutting. Cutting on certain surfaces, like glass, marble, and normal dinnerware will cause it to happen almost instantly and will dull the knive almost beyond the ability of a hone to fix it. 

You want to hone a knive at a minimum each time you use it. Ideally you can hone before and after each use. This will help keep your edge in between sharpenings, but don't forget, even the best high-carbon blades need regular sharpening so don't rely on a hone/steel to do your bidding.

For details on how to properly use a hone, check out:

http://www.videojug.com/film/sharpening-a-knife-with-a-steel

Cooking Tip of the Day

Sometimes the simplest thing, is the best thing.

Ayu with Hiroko Shimbo

Yesterday I had the pleasure to see Ayu, a Japanese sweetfish, prepared using a few seperate methods. Ayu is cultivated in Japanese streams starting around June and continuing for four months. The fish was quite mild yet rich with a slight bitter aftertaste. It is hard to locate in the U.S., but it is becoming more predominant and has already been added to menus of Per Se and Daniel (seasonally of course). Ayu is quite small and has a life span of about one year only growing to 8-10 inches. It lends it self to grilling, saute, braising, roasting, the works. Typically, the Japanese season the fish and put heavy salt on the fins and tail then grill over very high heat on open flame. Chef Shimbo served it with an acidic watermelon sauce she made with watermelon juice and rice vinegar. The bitterness in the sauce compliments the bitterness in the fish quite well.

There were two parts of the presentation that impressed me. The first, watching Chef Shimbo, a slightly middle aged, incredibly petite woman, getting all up in her business. I cringed several times as I knowingly watched her grab incredibly hot items with bare hands without hesitation. She loved the food, the tradition, the perfection involved in Japanese cuisine and it was quite interesting to watch through a language and cultural barrier. The second was that for the first time I was made aware of this trip I've set on. Chef Shimbo was talking about traditions that were hundreds of years old. Still today people slave over stoves to recreate a bit of history in the present. We take items out of the ground, find them in rivers, on mountains, practically everywhere in the world, and using age old methods and techniques we convert them into feasts. The true idea of being a chef is pretty amazing. I'm not talking about working at applebee's (lowercase) and opening plastic bags and reheating, but the simple idea of putting seeds in the ground to harvest fresh produce in months to come to plate on a table shortly thereafter is amazing to me.

With that being said, I'll leave you with this. You may not be able to see, I took the picture with my iPhone, but settling in across the street under the 31st bridge between 30th and 31st Avenues is a quite spritely fellow. Tall in nature with flowing black curly hair and a wired frame in a green speedo. His name? Russell Brand. His place? Filming Arthur down the street.

Chef Hasni Ghazali - Executive Chef/Owner, Bentara / MISC

           Today I was able to see an interesting cooking demonstration by the above mentioned. Chef Hasni Ghazali is a Malaysian chef who has opened a restaurant in New Haven,Connecticut. His food was definitely interesting. If I had to describe it I would lean towards saying it is Indian flavors with a cleaner finish with Thai influences. I tasted some of the dishes he prepares at the restaurant and they were definitely worth checking out if you are in the New Haven area. I haven't been to the restaurant myself but I plan on it.

Not much else to report on today, but I will say this. I recently switched to a gas range, which is by far a must for any serious home cook. I have had a set of pans which I thought were relatively decent, until late. Heat energy from gas  is pushed in differing ways than electric.Rather than simply conducting the heat there is radiation and convection and without proper cookware it is quite easy to create hot spots in subpar cooking vessels. Now, different metals have different specific heats, meaning it takes different amounts of energy to increase their temperature. There is a whole science behind it but it gets quite specific and boring. In reality, all you need to know is that a good quality pan, say a 10 inch saute, will heat evenly on the bottom and will conduct heat around the sides of the pan evenly as well. A lesser quality pan, as exampled below, allows the temperature on the side of the pan to increase well beyond that of the bottom. This is because the heat transfered from the bottom of the panis going directly into the oil and pork cutlet. The heat on the side of the pan is being absorbed into the bare metal which is creating a hotspot. If you look at the picture you  can see how the flour in the bottom of the pan is brown while at the far edge it has burnt and become black. This is simply due to an inferior quality saute pan heating unevenly over a gas flame. Now technically, you don't have to run out and buy new pans, you can cook on lower flames but now you have to be aware that it will take longer for your pan to heat as well as rebound when cold items are added. I say, when you are saving to buy a pan, you might as well save as long as you can and buy something decent. It will last a lifetime and if you cook regularly it will more than pay for itself in time of use and quality. Good pans last seemingly forever and only get better with age.

                            

Six Points Brewery...Ridiculous.

So, today I had my first micro-brew tour experience. With nothing to expect I can only say that Craig and Dan from Six Points when far above and beyond what I could have imagined. Being the same age as these guys it almost makes me feel like I've been wasting my life watching TV. These guys were a plethora of knowledge above beer and beer like things. Not in the sense of the idiotic college student who likes to get drunk on bud light. (notice the lower case letters) However, they were true artisans. These guys knew every aspect of their personal art and were obviously deeply passionate in learning what others around them were doing and how they can incorporate it into their own product. Craig was clearly on his way to being quite business savvy and Dan was an obvious beer connoisseur. Anyways, on to the good stuff!

The tour start up in the "greenhouse" with Craig. The large bags seen in the bottom left of the picture (above) were one of the various types of barley used in the process. While explaining the history of brewing, the company, and himself we were able to taste various types of barley, both raw and malted. Malt basically means that the barley has been allowed to germinate for a very short period of time. Generally the malted barley or "malt" is roasted or dried in various ways to produce many different flavor profiles. I equate this to coffee beens at different temperature roasts. We tasted six varietals ranging in flavor from a light cereal to a smokey burnt barley which I promptly cringed at and shouted that it tasted like cigarette water.There are many types of barley, many types of malting methods, many types of roasts, or raw, etc. etc. etc. The flavor combinations are seamingly endless.

After determining the combination of various types of barley for your desired flavor profile, the barley is dumped into this vessel. It is then combined with very hot water and stirred (see below picture for a full view) by hand. This process is continued for a predetermined length of time. I might add, each step in the process effects the final flavor. Everything from the type of ingredients to how long they sit at different stages changes how your beer will taste.

After this inital period it is piped into another tank where it is heated or boiled at which time the hops are added. At this point the mixture is called a wort. The wort is held at a temperature that will produce the desired flavor.

The wort goes through some slight processing to adjust temperature and it is now introduced to the yeast. In case you didn't know, yeast is a single celled organism whose sole purpose in life is to create alcohol. They literally eat sugar and crap CO2 and alcohol. They also are an integral part of the flavor of beer. The beer is than allowed to ferment before it is bottled or forced into a pressurized (or pressurised if your British) keg. Chloe and I were there for a little over three hours. These two artists went into great detail about the process and I only wish I could convey it all to you because it was incredibly interesting. I will leave you with this, if you ever have a chance to either track down the Six Point Brewery guys and ask for a tour, totally worth it, if you ever have a chance to take a tour at an artisinal brewery I'm sure it will be worth your while. Amazing experience.

Nothing like some beers to make you miss the ones you love :) Get home safe babe.

Please Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGpm2YKrdDA for a quick video clip about Six Point Craft Stein Beer - Dr. Klankenstein.

Day Three

            So today was pretty interesting. We went over some basic food identification. Most of it wasn't rocket science but two parts were particularly interesting. Herbs and Spices. Everyone, well everyone I converse with pretty much, knows what say cilantro or parsley might smell and taste like. At times I think we may take it for granted though. In class the chef spread an array of herbs, some common, some not. We sat and smelt, tasted, felt each one individually and I must say, When you really sit down and distinguish ever nuance of an herb you might discover some things you never noticed before. Same with spices. I definitelly recommend going to a good spice shop and literally taking a minute at each spice to smell and taste them. Common or not, you may find something you've never found before.

So anyways, after doing some identificationwe made two seperate recipes. Both are very simple and both tasted pretty good I have to say. Nothing that couldnt be made at home with a few cheap ingredients either. We made ratatuille and a nice beet and goat cheese salad with an apple vinaigrette. Above is the ratatuille. Below is the goat cheese and beet salad. The presentation still needs some work but hey, it'smy third day. The ratatuille speaks for itself. The beet salad was tossed in a simple white wine and olive oil vinaigrette with chervil, tarragon and parsley. Quite delicious. If you would like the recipes let me know and I will be more than happy to post it.

                                                 

Good night all.