Chipsalmico Ribeye with Choux Bowls of Seafood Newburg

This pic happened about 3 mins. after I was CheffyDancin' at the Saucier Station chanting "I've got and idea...I've got an idea..." And Greg sayin', "Don't tell me let me guess...you have an idea...." The CheffyDance works in weird ways now and then...one thing for sure if it doesn't rattle your brain housing group or senses , don't worry about it cuz if I am CheffyDancing then you can bet your ass I am a happy boy.....when the senses are happy, everything is happy...

Had some dried fish flakes and some lobster base, infused with butter as a flavoring for the bread crumbs that I decided to put on top of the Choux bowl....was freaking awesome...

House made bread crumbs, large grind
The infused butter with basil, thyme, oregano, granulated garlic and onion, dill and black pepper tossed in the bread crumbs----oh, this made me happy.....have you ever seen someone dance with a faceful of Bread Crumbs before...? Is kinda hard to swallow....LOL

*************************************************************

Man, did I have a lot of fun today...no stress, just Cheffy and his warrior friends having a really good time putting out kick ass food...what is better than that??????????

Chungachungabam Baby...

The Plate...

Chipotle-Balsamic infused Ribeyes with Mushroom-Veal Demi-Glace, accompanied by Seafood Newburg stuffed in an herb infused bowl of Choux Pastry, Roasted New Potatoes and fresh steamed garden veg....




The event was a small one (130 pp) but everything came together and our culinary team actually came together as a team (as we almost always do, but today was different cuz we really put out a nice dinner...)




Me, T and Greg pumping out the Choux Bowls...



Me filling the bowls with Shrimp and Scallops



So anyway, Greg rocks....I had a lot of fun with him the past couple weeks, from all of the playing that we got to do. He is thankful for the things that I have taught him these past couple weeks and I am twice as grateful because I get to think about and develop new shit with his help, and sometimes that just puts you deeper in touch with yourself, not only as a chef and culinarian but as a spiritual influence in this thing that we call a life...you rock Bud...

So anyway, I had a shitload of fun today...

I told Greg that I thought we were gonna have a lot of fun today and that I was gonna have fun with or without him, been a long time since we have done a high-profile event and got to have fun with it...



So anyway....

Greg got taken to Pate a Choux 101 this week, after making five or six batches in a row, he claims "...I own that sonuva bitch now..." We adjusted the recipe some, adding some herbs and spices...turned out pretty rocking...those were the bowls...

We don't know where they dish came from or whether it was something that Greg an I wrote over sushi or what the hell...

Had a freaking nightmare trying to resource sea shells to put the newburg into instead of edible container, but the choux bowls were a great contribution to the dish...if not the centerpiece...

Anyway, couldn't freaking find any shells...what's up with that shit....three weeks trying and none of our freaking perveyors can resource sea shells for service....WTF?????

Was a toss up between vols au vents or trying a savory choux pastry bowl around 4-5 oz in center... Vols au vents suck in doing in volume...if someone has a secret, please share it with me...so we chose the choux bowls and it rocked...

Is perfectly undercooked a word?

I cooked shrimp and scallops in my cinnamon court boullion undercooked enough so that after the addition of sauce and cooking time plus the inevitable hot box time, would be perfect once it hit the table. Cooking seafood for a large amount of people can sometimes be the difference betwen success and failure...overcooked seafood sucks....

I got as close to a traditional sauce than I normally get with the Newburg Sauce, traditional in the sense that I made it like it was supposed to made, but as with everything else it had a bunch of CheffyBoy variables going on with flavors-it was excellent...had me happydancing most of the day...and would definitely make Escoffier ask me what the hell I thought I was doing....

Anyway, just wanted to fill in everything so that I remembered this dish, will post both final choux we used and the recipe for the newburg sauce...

Cheffy

Orange Bourbon Salmon

Cheffy's Baby Vickie---







Roasted Scallops in Garic Cream with a mesclun salad....mmmmm

As far as inventing goes, we are getting some parties in that are not letting us play too much

Had a small function yesterday that I amde some orange bourbon salmon that turned out pretty good-

The marinade-8 oz filets,apple juice, orange concentrate, brown sugar, honey, bourbon- marinated overnight

Dredge in flour and panfried

The sauce-garlic, shallots, fumet reduction, reduced cream, butter, white wine, lemon juice,orange juice, butter, bourbon

Was pretty good also made a hot bacon dressing that was pretty good too....

Bacon and fat, black pepper, apple cider vinegar, shallots and garlic, brown sugar---this turned out pretty good for being a quicky dressing nithing like my original, but good nonetheless...

Am going to have fun tonight will have some pics- am doing the Seafood Newburg in the Choux Bowls that should be pretty good. Shrimp, Scallps and Crab topped with Sauce Newburg as part of a duel entree for 130 pp, accompanied by a petite ribeye with Mushroom Demi -Glace.

Am also doing a couple large events tomorrow that we are going jto have fun with...

In Quest of the Perfect Sandwich

Sandwich I made today for a client-took some of the Blackberry-Roasted Vidalia Jam that Greg made yesterday and mixed it with mayonnaise for this club sandwich on Italian Flat Bread.

Freaking Awesome....I love that bread...

Crazy Ceviche, Choux Paste, Vidalia Jam and using gelatin

Greg gets an education in Pate Choux and Using Gelatin
Bread and Butter Roughy Ceviche
Blackberry Roasted Vidalia Jam


Choux Bowls around 3-4 oz for Lobster Newburg-couldn't decide on what to do for a bowl for a dual entree with Seafood Newburg and Flat Iron Steak with Mushroom Demi- Was originally going to try to find vols au vents, but decided to make something instead, and decided on making these Choux Bowls. Greg had to make 4 or 5 batches of Choux Paste so he "owns it" now---

Roasted Vidalia Jam- at the class on Monday they had this product in the warehouse "roasted vidalia jam" and needless to say, it was roasted, it was an onion, it was jam....what's not to like....

So when we got back to work, Greg was ready for play mode, so he wanted to try to copy the jam---so he comes out with his mise en place and I saw that he had madarin oranges---ah....hell no...take a walk with me young man, lemme show you something...hmmm frozen peaches, blueberries, ah looky what Cheffy found...blackberries....oh, we're on now....

It rocked, he was going to tighten it with a cornstach slurry and I told him to use some gelatin---ah shit, we're on now....

Greg had not done aspic or vegetable molds before with gelatinized consumme before, so here we go back to Cheffy's-ah hell, let's play....

I continued on my day while commenting occasionally on Greg's playing, method, flavor, that kinda thing which often led to a "what if?" question from Greg and some of them were "Hell, I don't know go ahead and try it..." replies, the fun of playing I suppose....

So he made a vegetable terrine in a loaf pan a some small in two inch souffle cups. We have some functions coming up this weekend with veg displays so some of the aspic and terrines would be nice on a veggie platter...




A couple weeks ago Vickie and I went out for a kick ass meal at "Bistro By The Tracks" in Knoxville...if you have never been, ya really need to go check out Amber and Doyle, they rock!!!!

So anyyway....one of the dishes they had prepared for me had these pickled onions as an encroutment with one of the many dishes I had that night and I loved them. They were marinated in some kind of bread and butter pickling with what I gueesed as beet juice as a coloring additive, I really liked it and told Greg about them and I tried to replicate it.

Bread and Butter Pickled Orange Roughy

I wasn't all htat impressed with the pickled onions that we did, but I took the brine and put in a peice of orange roughy for two days---ah shit...did that ever rock!!! Kind of like a pickled herring and such a funky color, I loved it....ha-the things that freaking amuse me....

Fun Stuff....

The Class-Second Harvest Culinary Class

Mike and Greg Give Cooking Class

Well, we hosted the cooking class last Monday, and it was awesome.

This 16-week cooking program is geared towards people that are low-income or recieving some form of state assistance to train them in a field so that they can become employable. 12 week course followed by 4 week internship in a catering facility. Throughout the 12 weeks they attend a series of ServSafe classes daily and will be certified ServSafe at the end of the program.

Currently, the program is funded by Second Harvest Food Bank and the United Way and is really a great program, which is why I chose to get involved with them.

The Premise

The premise for the class was to hang out with the five students, do some stuff with some beef tenderloin and go home, but what happened was a little bit out there---CheffyStyle...

Walking in the door



Walking in to the kitchen was a far cry from what I was expecting but it was right up my alley anyway...

This catering kitchen is a part of the Knox Area Ministries and thanks to donations and funding available offer this culinary course and feed the sixty plus residents of the mission but also another 200 homeless three times a day.

So what started out as playing around with five students for a couple hours, within the next two hours we are going to design, develop and execute a function for sixty people, while we are talking about tenderloin, how to clean it, where it comes from blah, blah, blah...

Let the games begin....

Let's Make Some Food!!!

Greg and I started just pumping through the walk-in having the Chef tell us what we could and couldn't use out of the walk-in's and freezer...life just changed for quite a few people, Greg and I were having a freaking blast, this is right up our alley....

So we settled on ground sirloin wrapped in bacon like a filet...with a beef base brown sauce made from veg stock and mirepoix finished off with a sweets vidalia jam that was pretty rocking for what it was...also had mashed potatoes, asparagus in cheese sauce and baby vegetables tossed in garlic and butter



The class was more than I was originally expecting, first, I was expecting to do lunch with a couple people and just feed us, but when Chef Allen opened up the opportunity to do lunch for the sixty with whatever we could come up with out of the walk-ins with only a little over two hours to design it and pump it out, Greg and I were all over it, it was right up our alley, unfortunately in our professional lives one of our greatest attributes is the innate ability of pulling a meal out of our ass in a hurry...

Anyway, Greg and I went through the walk-ins and freezers and planned on both meals, the sixty plus and then started figuring out what we were going to do with the tenderloin.

Once we got started on lunch, and had the proteins ready for firing, Greg started on the cleaning of the tenderloin explaining about the cut of the meat, where it's from, buying meats etc. while showing them how to properly clean one.

In Walks The TV Cameras

Allen tells me that someone had gotten a hold of the TV station and they are going to be coming down for a little while and shoot us while we are cooking the meals and giving the cooking class.

So he took some shots of Greg while he was cleaning and talking to them about the tenderloin and meat in general, they took some good shots. While Greg was doing this, I am still working on some of the loose ends that needed to be tied up for us to have service in an hour.



So although I am still prepping food for this sixty that we are about to do, I talk to the TV dude for a minute-talking about RestaurantEdge and how this is one way for us to give back to the community not only as a business, but as people that love food and love expressing their craft especially when you can instill some knowledge, passion and creativity.

Man! Do I love food....

The Tenderloin
Greg had 'tenderloin' duty...

So after we had finished with the sixty, we cleaned and re-grouped the kitchen and then started in on our lunch...

I had roasted sliced whole russet potatoes in a garlic-cream, and we used the leftover vegetables from lunch.

Out of the tenderloin, Greg and I decided, (more Greg, the tenderloin part was his baby, with the CheffyBabbles intefering when he had a point to make about what Greg was talking about) that we would make:



Beef tips with onions grilled on a flat top, so that we could explain the use of a quick rub for meats.

A psuedo-Steak Tartar made out of the hangers

A petite filet topped with a Chiptole Gouda Brown Sauce

And roasted the tail end to show explain roasting methods and a different method of using rubs.

It was a pretty cool experience....

Allen said that we could make this a recurring theme with his other classes if we wanted, I don't know about them, but I had a real good time...

Real Food by Real People

I Want Real Food from Real People!!!!

I Want Real Food By Real People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somebody tell me what the hell is going on when I can't travel a hundred miles and not see any little mom and pop place on the side of the road making real food with real faces and everything...what's the world coming to anyway....?

I was on the quest for a great sandwich, and it was kind of a culture shock when you realize that even the small towns off the side of the road are still over run with Shoney’s and Applebee’s and Papa John’s Pizza and corporations like them…. Where in hell are the people that actually cook food?

Some things just piss you off....

Gatlinburg-Sunday the 16th

This is pretty much a Mike and Vickie story although as is with me, it always is an adventure for the palate....

Saturday night we decided that we were just gonna take off somewhere for the whole day and didn't care where, so we wound up in Gatlinburg, TN, after her Mom was telling me of all the little forgotton about towns in Eastern TN.---Vickie wanted to take me to the aquarium and I wanted to find the perfect sandwich...well at least we got to go to the aquarium.




Vick and I had a great time, she is a lot of fun to be around. She took me to the Aquarium and I took a bunch of pictures…






I went to the Pepper Palace and tasted every thing that I possibly could in the matter of an hour I suppose… This place was pretty cool, I was in there for quite a while and couldn't even tell you how many different sauces and salsa I tried, was probably my culinary excitement of going to Gatlinburg.





Went to the Hollywood Car Museum, got some cool pics of some old time cars, some bringing back some childhood memories…

Photos

We just hung out and played the tourist thingy, saw some music, watched some kids clogging in the parking lot, walked hand in hand and were utterly as pathetic as two people that genuinely care about each other can be…


Was pretty cool...but Gatlinburg is such a tourist trap...

A Boardwalk without any water...

The Boys-Part One-Test Kitchen Results

Just Like Finding Wild Turkey's having a road race....

The almighty test kitchen....

Tempura Brie, Provolone and Pineapple-OK, this is the part I forgot about when we did original tempura, I put these in the freezer and forgot about them...Next day we pull them out and Greg fried them, they were ok....the provolone was wedge kind of thick and it held up really good with the tempura. This was of particular reason I wanted to try the provolone...

Unfortunately, somebody that makes a lot more money than I do thinks that having mozz sticks on the banquet menu is acceptable behavior so my only option is to invent a chafer friendly "cheese stick" and then say..."hey, here...taste this...."

So, with that said, the brie was pretty good but needed that sweet happy thing going on with the brie---a roasted vidalia jam or something fun and funky...I liked the provolone, but didn't get a chance to throw any in the hotbox to see how long they held up...they were subject to a major taste sample...freaking staff.....the pineapple was pretty good dusted with a little cinnamon....

Udon Noodles in Green Curry Sauce

I turned Greg onto Udon a couple months ago and now he is addicted...beats the hell out of Ramen's I guess...They are by far my favorite pasta...

So, I walk into work the other day around 12 or so and Greg whipped up this sauce for the Udon Noodles...he wraps it up and tries to give me some, I just walked in the door and didn't taste them, by the time I got around to it he had put them up and then blocked the walk in door because I wasn't allowed to taste his mystery sauce that was supposed to make me all happy and cheffy dancing in the kitchen...

So, I go in and taste his sauce eventually and he is waiting outside for a reaction when I come out of the walk-in knowing that I am gonna be CheffyDancing when I came out of the walk-in...so I just walked out and didn't say a word..."What? No Comments? You ain't gonna say nothing just walk in there taste my sauce and then come out of there and say nothing????????????BullShit!!!!!!!!!!!!" " Yeah, Greg it's OK...."

Needless to say he went on a little rant- a little cuss word explanation of how I think he really felt about my not saying anything about this Green Curry sauce....it was pretty comical....But the sauce did rock though, a green curry cream sauce...would have been awesome with coconut milk or something like that, a little more salt or add Tamari and less hot...but it was really good if you like hot, nice flavor but really hot...

Other Toys....

Chicken Etouffee-One of my old dishes from Mr. Flood's Party so many years ago...fed the staff, had some chicken that I needed to get rid of...

Can't think of anymore for the time being...but stay tuned...

Catching up prior to 7-13 and T

OK...back to the past week or so...and a little about T...


I talked a little earlier about our cook "T"-he kind of knows his stuff about generic Chinese food, so it is fun for him to step up to the plate with food that he knows something about.

Generally, I make all of the sauces and stuff but this was T's day to shine and he makes a traditional sweet and sour sauce that is alot better than mine, so he made sweet and sour pork in a traditional recipe that was really good.

So aside of all of the other stuff that he took control of, he had fun with his sweet and sour pork and I had fun watching/helping him take control of something, it isn't all that often when he has a sense of ownership for an event, so it was fun watching/helping him have fun.

T is a hard working, good family man whom is pretty consistent and definitely dependable...when you're getting your asskicked he is definitely good to have in the trenches of our insanity. Sometimes he's a smart ass and you just want to kill him, but that's life, especially in our world....

But anyway, getting off the subject...
T took charge of the event and did some really nice stuff...

Kuddo's buddy,
You Rock...

Cheffy

Boys Will Be Boys...

Bunch of stuff going on that I am going to babble about, am gonna make them separate so that the stories are easier to find in the archives.

The Cooking Class
Aspics and Jellies/Jams
Cold Processed Flounder
Shopping/Cookbooks
Quest for the perfect sandwich
Pepper Factory
Gatlinburg
And all the stuff in the last blog...

Peace, Hugs and Cookies,
Cheffy

Breads and Playing

No time to write but want to leave notes....

Got into flatbread yesterday. Pictured here-Garlic-Herb Flatbread, Sundried Tomato Chapala Bread, and Honey-Chipotle Milk Flatbread--cool story...



Other-
Tempura Brie, Provolone and Pineapple
Udon Noodles in Green Curry
Chicken Etouffee
How I finally threw out the White Rice Cake chips...
Article about T
Class...

Asian Sauces-Dragon Fruit-Cheffy and Greg Plays

Had a lot of fun playing....sooooooooooooo....

I have been an influence on Greg with Asian flavors and techniques pretty much since he has known me, so the past couple days have been kind of fun because we have had some f*** around time to play with food and flavors.

A couple days ago we had an Asian based buffet to do for a couple hundred people, one of our cooks, whom I will refer to as T used to work at a Chinese Restaurant, so it was a great opportunity for him to step up to the plate and pretty much let him run the event. One of the items we had on the buffet was generic spring/egg rolls so I told Greg that I wanted to do something different, fun and funky other than our regular infused soy sauce and sweet and sour for the buffet. He came up with a nice sweet, sour, spicy sauce with chipotles that was pretty good, reminded me of my honey sambal....Anyway, it was a clear sauce with vinegar, simple syrup, and lemon finished off with a chipotle powder I had made with "big brown chipotles"...the sauce was pretty awesome...nice flavor, beautiful viscosity and presentation....Good Stuff Greg....



He was so freaking geeked about the sauce that he put up this plate and I told him to take my camera and take some pics....The green thing is a flour tortilla and I told him a couple days prior that he could shape the tortilla to do something similiar that I do with parmesean tuilles, the red stuff is a sundried tomato and pepper chutney that he came up with from an idea that he got from somewhere that he went out to dinner a couple days ago...the chutney was pretty awesome, I used it a couple days ago for a special lunch for Sen. Tim Burgess (R-TN) I stuffed roasted roma tomatoes with the chutney mixed in with a parmesean bread crumb and topped with parmesean cheese as a garnish on the plate...sorry...no pic...but awesome nonetheless.....

Ssoooooo....rice paper, wontons and some other stuff that you wrap other stuff in.....

After playing with the egg rolls Greg wanted to take a trip to the Asian store to buy some egg roll wrappers....and to me, trips to the Asian store are right up there with sex, triple expressos, pool tables and beer so off to the store we went...

I bought some rice noodles and shrimp chips that we use for garnishes and some stuff called white rice cake that I have no idea what the hell it is or how to use it....I thought that it would blow up like rice noodles and things of the such do, but it didn't do anything but stay hard as a rock. First, I called my buddy Chef Scott in South Carolina and gave him the whole "what the hell is this shit" spiel and he had no idea what I was talking about so then I called the Asian Store and asked them and they said that I had to rehydrate it and use it in a stew or soup, but being hard headed I thought that it would expand...I was wrong. I tried to boil it, let it set in liquid overnight, fry it raw and all I got was freaking peice of hard "white rice cake".....oh well...the fun is in the experimentation I suppose....

(PS....yo' Cheffy, don't buy that shit again....)




So in going to pay for the stuff that I bought I was $.48 short of being able to put it on my credit card so I bought a piece of dragon fruit, something that Greg has never seen nor tasted, so I bought one. I didn't take a pic of the fruit but here are some aftermath pics. The first is a fruit display that Greg had done using the meat of the fruit, the second is that once it was peeled and the third one is that we decided to dehydrate the fruit to see if it held onto the crazy shapes and colors of the fruit and it turned out pretty crazy...was a fun experiment but the fruit is way too freaking expensive to make it practical for use, in our purposes anyway...

The fruit display that Greg did with the Dragon Fruit.




The inside of the fruit spread out




The exterior of the fruit, which I thought looked cool as hell



And this is what it looked like after we dehydrated it for a day...was pretty cool looking, not that we would use it on anything but it was pretty cool nonetheless...

Other cool shit that I will write more about tomorrow, just wanted to put it on here so I remember....

Jalapeno Jelly made from Florida Swamp Water...Swamp Jelly you say??? kinda crazy I know but it was a gift to my baby, Vickie from some waiter at a Ruby Tuesday in BF, Eastern TN and she gave it to me....it pretty much had no flavor, a very neutral jelly and I have had it sitting on the shelf for a couple months, so I made jalapeno jelly out of it today and it was pretty awesome...

Greg watched Rice Paper grow and expand in the steamer while I informed him how sensitive rice paper was to water and humidity...that was classical....Cheffy got a good chuckle out of that one... I was walking by and Greg was staring inside the steamer and I was wondering what the hell he was doing. I peeked in and he was watching the paper expand and contract, flipping it over and watching it again. I told him how moisture effects the rice paper and then he commenced on playing with it some more. More about Greg and Rice Paper later....

Then Greg baked a large rice paper atop a bowl in the oven to make a bowl and it turned out pretty good, to my recollection I have never tried to bake rice paper before so that was kind of fun and funky...now just to figure out an application that we can use it with should be fun. Greg was thinking about Wakame and Tuna Tartar (boy has Cheffy really gotten to this boy coming up with all of this Asian shit...ha ha)

We did a tasting today for a projected function of 700 and had only two hours to put together the menu and present the tasting, so we had some fun with that too once the stress level was gone...Greg did a Salmon ring stuffed with a crabmeat stuffing that I garnished with a white wine-shrimp cream sauce and topped with garlic herb compound butter. I did a blackened chicken with a chipotle hollandaise florentine sauce that was pretty rocking. The tasting was a duel entree that we served with orzo sauteed with garlic and roasted red pepper and steamed hericot verts. Was pretty good dish although the point leading up to the execution was pretty stressful because of the lack of communication between sales and the kitchen...that is another story in and of itself....maybe some other day....

Twisted Cristo's-Greg had this idea about Monte Cristo Sandwiches--just wanted to take the original and make a little con-Fusionary twist to it...Italian Flat Bread, ham and swiss cheese with apricot sauce dredged in tempura batter and fried....it was unusual, but really freaking good...still a work in progress, will write more when he or I develop it more...

Tempura'd Aspargus-held up really good, looked pretty cool, it would be a good garnish....

Greg had the idea to tempura brie cheese. I dredged it in flour along with some large wedges of provolone, but we forgot that we put it in the freezer and they are stil in there....whoops...forgot something....oh well, tomorrow is another day....

OK...that was some of the stuff we played around with today will write moreCheffy Babbles in the morning, I don't have to go in until late....

Peace, Hugs and Sesame Oil...

Cheffy

Events y mas

Well, Greg and I have some things planned for the near future that is going to be kind of cool...

Next week, perhaps on Monday we are going to be giving a cooking class for a culinary program sponsored by Second Harvest Food Bank and the Knox Area Ministries---here is a copy of the press release

For Immediate Release (Knoxville):

On July 17th, Chef Michael Hayes of RestaurantEdge.com, accompanied by Chef Gregory Gross will conduct a culinary art exhibition for the students of the Second Harvest Culinary Classes at Knox Area Ministries with Chef Allen Trent in Knoxville, TN.

The program, taught by Chef Trent, instructs low-income families in the Knoxville area in the basics of culinary arts to help them become employable in the industry. Throughout the 16-week program, the students touch base on all of the basics necessary to be able to work in a functioning kitchen which includes a four week internship in a catering kitchen and a ServSafe Certification.

Chef Hayes and Chef Gross will instruct the students in a hands-on demonstration on the differences between marinating, brining and the use of rubs on proteins, the “how’s” and “why’s” of roasting meats, and basic sauce techniques. This day long event will be followed by a question and answer session with all three chefs.

RestaurantEdge.com is constantly searching for avenues to help the less fortunate, both inside and outside of the foodservice industry. From the free cooking classes for low-income families offered by Chef Hayes to our Katrina Hurricane Relief Fund as well as hosting past, present and future charitable projects.

more schtufff

Also, I have been working on getting a sushi class together with some members of Vickie's family and some of the women from my bank, I just don't have a place large enough to host the class yet...will keep you informed.

Cheffy

No Passion, No Love

TACT
Taste
Aroma
Color
Texture

Need I Say More?