Culinary Books I Have Been Reading Lately

It's been awhile since I have talked about the books I have been reading. As I have been working on my thesis I seem to have my nose stuck in the same few books each day, but I have also picked up a number of other great books the last few months.

Let's look at some books I have been reading for my thesis research. In reading some of the titles you might get the direction as to where my thesis is going. A particular favorite of the books I have been reading in Food in the USA: A Reader by Carole M. Counihan. This book is a collection of articles written about, well food in the USA. There are some regional writings, political and cultural writings (how the heck did Coca-Cola become the national drink of America?), food as the American identity, and a number of other great topics.

Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation by Roger Horowitz is an interesting way of looking how meat has become such a large part of the American diet. It also explores how, what was once such an expensive item, has become a relatively cheap and affordable, albeit generic form of protein consumption.

A really enjoy this book by Carol Fisher, American Cookbook: A History. Have you ever wondered why your grandmother's cookbook looks so different from the cookbooks of today? Well you'd be amazed at the cookbooks from the 17th century. It is great to see where the cultural influences have come from that drove the different cookbooks that have proliferated in our country. Originating from English roots, most of our books were influenced as such with irritation toward French cookery until we became enemies with England and friends to France.

These next few books are from a series called Food in American History. These are written in a very academic manner and are not for the causal reader. These books however are some of my favorites in my library. American Indian Food by Linda Murray Berzok explores the pre-Columbian era and the cultural exchange that change the American Indians in both positive and negative ways. Written without bias, this is how a text of this sort should be written. The second book which is certainly a favorite is Food in Colonial and Federal America by Sandra L. Oliver. Ever wonder where some of our cultural food items came from? Did you know that the reason we took up coffee drinking was to boycott English tea imports? Did you know the reason we don't eat lamb like some of our English ancestors was as boycott as well? It was more important to have wool from our sheep than it was to eat mutton. Food in the United States, 1820s-1890 by Susan Williams brings us into the 19th century and introduces us to the ethnic influences many of us are accustomed to.

One last book I will share with you from my research is an easy to approach book that will make you change the way you think about dining and eating in the United States. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan identifies all of the issues that have burdened the USA over the last century in the food industry. Today many think of fast food as normal food, Olive Garden as traditional Italian, Taco Bell as traditional Mexican and my disgust can go on and on. Corporate dining has homogenized our food so much that we can goto TGI Friday's, Applebees, Houlihan's, Ruby Tuesday's, any of those theme steak houses like Outback, Bugaboo Creek or otherwise and pretty much get the same meal. We have come to think about food in this country in terms of calorie, nutrient, carbohydrate and fat consumption while not caring about the food itself. We eat food wrapped in plastic that say cheese on them, but share about as much in common with cheese as a bowl of glue. This book is a must read, it will make some of you cry for those who still know how to cook. This is one of the books which made me rethink the way I eat today.

I will toss two more books in here just to share a non-academic or food writing book. I have been wanting to buy Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine and the dessert version for some time. These books are an extensive exploration of many of Ducasse's modern take on French classical cooking along with his personal recipes. It reminds me of Le Guide Culinaire, but without the attempt to codify cuisine as Escoffier was attempting. This book to me though is an important asset to any professional chef's library or any serious home cook that enjoys cooking French cuisine. Do yourself a favor and buy these books from Amazon.com. I purchased them foolishly from a private bookstore that is a favorite of mine to promote a local business in Boston, but at $250.00 compared to $114.00 used from Amazon, I think I should have waited until I came home, so much for impulse shopping. You can purchase both the desert text and savory text for the cover price of the savory text alone. I have both now though and even at the higher price I am extremely happy I own them.

So there you have it, go forth and read. I have a large number of other purchases I have made recently for both personal reading and academic research. Hopefully I will get a chance again soon to share a few more of my readings with you, until then happy reading!

Classical Five Course Gastronomique Menu For One

So I entered another one of those illustrious American Culinary Federation competitions I love to participate in. The latest entry was another cold food entry. This particular one was a five course tasting menu, prepared hot and shown cold. The requirements for the category was to prepare two appetizers, consommé, salad course and an entree.

As I love reading Le Guide Culinaire and I instantly thought of the classical French style of cooking, I decided to prepare a five-course menu right out of Escoffier's design. I knew that some of the ideas might be dated because of the time when the book was written, but I wanted to do it all the same. As Fritz H. Sonnenschmidt, Certified Master Chef, A.A.C. was one of the judges for the competition, I knew that the research put into the classical menu would be appreciated.

I took a couple of student's from the school where I teach at and one of them took pictures of my dishes, so if she is reading this thanks Christina Luckette. I also took Valerie Inman along with me, another great student from one of my Food Prep classes. I think both of these girls will be great chefs some day in the culinary community.

So I will expalin the menu here along with the pictures that Christina took. My first course was
medallions made from the chicken breasts served with medallions of mouselline forcemeat made from the legs. The version I made was with a chipolata garnish which includes glazed button (chipolini) onions, chipolata sausage, olive shaped carrots, and diced caramelized salt pork. The sauce was a demi-glaze sauce made from chicken stock. Some issues I had with this course is that I didn't place the breast medallions on top of the farce medallions. Otherwise I think the course came out well, so did the judges.

My second course filet de sole a l'andolouse. I went with this one as I had served it awhile ago at one of the restaurants I worked at and loved eating it. The dish is half a lightly cooked tomato with risotto with pimento inside and a paupiette (silet of sole rolled with forcemeat) with pimento sitting on top. The whole thing sits on a base of pan-friend eggplant and it is accompanied by beurre noisette (brown butter). The judges each seemed to have issues with the eggplant for some reason. One stated that for the amount of eggplant there needed to be more sauce, another stated an issue with the eggplant in general, but all the comments made sense. This course was my least favorite of all the courses, it just seemed clunky to me.

My third course was a consommé, Consommé Talleyrand. I have no picture of this course. The consommé was made from chicken stock, the garnish was quenelles of pheasant forcemeat, cockscombs and julienne of truffle. I think I needed some work on the truffles, but the judges all seemed to like this course.

My salad course came out pretty well, needed some work as well but I liked it a lot. I prepared Salade Opera which consists of julienned chicken breast, truffle, salted ox tongue and celery tossed in mayonnaise. The salad has a bouquet of asparagus tips in the center an then slices of rooster kidney and gherkin bordering the salad. I prepared a pate en croute made with an herb dough and dried cranberries, salt pork and ham in the forcemeat.

My final course was a Filet de Bouef Bouquetiere. The dish is a roasted filet of beef surounded by bouquets of glazed carrots, diamond sliced haricot verts, butter coated peas, hollandaise coated cauliflower and small chateau potatoes. The sauce was a gravy made from the pan drippings in the manner of an Espagnol sauce. The beef was undercooked on this course, could've been sliced thinner as well. The vegetables should have ben plated together as we do not serve food this way anymore unless we are in a French restaurant presenting by tableside service.

Overall the presentation went well, I ended up with a silver medal. I had fun coming up with this menu as it was something different and I don't normally see a menu like this displayed. The show itself had a number of great pieces displayed. We don't often see as much cold food displayed these days at ACF shows but this show had probably about sixty or more entries. The show did not have any gold medals for cold food, there was one other silver medal and the rest was either bronze or certificates. This show has its own medals as well that they give to those entries that did not receive an ACF medal which was a nice touch,e specially for those just starting out as it encourages them to continue competing. I will certainly attempt this category again some time soon if I can find an ACF show with a cold food salon close to me.

My Last Supper

I was at the bookstore the other day and saw a book on what chefs would like to have for their last meals, My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes. It is a great book as it gives you a look at what chefs really lie to eat. Most accomplished chefs that really like to cook complex meals really enjoy eating simple dishes that remind them of something great that has happened in their lives, be it spending time with their family, coming home from school and the smells of mom cooking a favorite beef stew or that significant trip to France where they tasted their first oyster which inspired them to become chef.

Reading the book got me into thinking about what my favorite dishes and what would I like to eat for my final meal. Seems a little morbid, but I suppose it brings out the essence of what life means to you if you need to think about the most important meal in your life.

My choices would be pretty much on the simple level but by no means general. Oysters are one of my favorite joys in the world. I have traveled hours just to go to oyster festivals held in different parts of the country. There is nothing like having a fresh oyster right out of the ocean. Wellfleet, MA holds an oyster fest every year, I wouldn't say they are the absolute best oysters in the world, but they are certainly unique and I have never had them more fresh than when I went there. That said, my first course would have to be a selection of seasonally fresh oyster from around the world. Along with the oysters I would want a glass of Veuve Clicquot Champagne.

For a second course I would have to go with a seafood gumbo cooked VERY traditionaly with a rich dark roux, celery, bell pepper and onion (Creole trinity) cooked in the Cajun roux (Cajun napalm they like to call it down there as if it hits your skin it burns your skin instantly). It has got to have some tasso ham in there and probably some smoked andouille sausage as well along with some fresh shrimp, gumbo crab, whitefish and absolutely needs to have some crawfish along with some okra. It may sound complex, but in reality is is just a simple Louisiana stew. For wine I would have to pair this with a nice Alsatian Gewürztraminer, Wintzenheim from Zind-Humbrecht.

I suppose I'll toss in a salad course here. One of my absolute favorite salads is the simple French salad consisting of frisee lettuce tossed in a vinaigrette made from perhaps Banyuls vinegar along with bacon lardons and a poached egg on top. The best version I have ever had of this salad has been from Eastern Standard (the picture to the left is of their version), they also add hazelnuts to the salad which adds a nice crunch. When I make it myself I toast some medium diced bread in some high fat content butter seasoned with fleur de gris and fresh ground pepper. For wine I would have to go with the Flagstone Winery Free Run Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa.

Alright, now we come to the entree and a tough choice. It's a hard decision between a perfectly cooked cassoulet or a perfectly cooked medium rare rib-eye steak. I think I am actually leaning toward the rib-eye steak cooked to a perfect medium rare, seared well on the outside on a cast iron pan and crusted with a beautiful dry-rub seasoning. I'd have to pair that along with some simple roasted fingerling potatoes tossed with rosemary, thyme and olive oil and salt and pepper. For vegetable I would want some haricots verts cooked fork tender and tossed with some fines herbes. My favorite sauce is Sauce béarnaise and it needs to go with this dish. Wine would have to be a glass of Belloni Zinfandel from Ravenswood.

As for desert, I think I'd have to go with a New York style cheesecake. Dense, rich with the slight amount of dryness that French cheesecake does not have. I want my slice of cheesecake to weigh a couple lbs. if possible please. I don't need anything else with it, no strawberry sauce or sliced fruit cocktail on top. For wine I would have to go with an Inninskillin Vidal ice wine.

Can I throw in a cheese course here? Of course I can it is my last supper. If you sit me in Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, MA for a few hours before the executioner comes to lop off my head I would be content. I love all kinds of cheese and Formaggio Kitchen in my opinion is the only place to buy cheese in the United States. If you want good cheese in general, you goto any great restaurant in Boston and New York City and they will tell you that many, if not all of their cheeses come from Ihsan at Formaggio Kitchen. I would have to go with a selection of goat cheeses along with English cheddar from James Montgomery and the Cabot clothbound cheddar. Get me a bottle of 1999 vintage Port from Taylor Fladgate, if I have to settle for non-vintage get me a bottle of 30 year and go away, let me expire while I sip my last sip and take my last bite of cheese, the end to a perfect meal.

So there you have it, my last supper. Just let me know when my last day will be and get that together for me and I'll be a very grateful man. I think if my time hadn't come at that point, the cholesterol and what not will do me in, but again at least I'll be happy with "my last supper".

From the SCCC Kitchen: Guinness Oat Bread a hearty dish to go with St. Patrick’s Day meal

Daily Gazette article

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

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From the SCCC Kitchen: Guinness Oat Bread a hearty dish to go with St. Patrick’s Day meal

Whole Wheat Guinness Oat Bread, as prepared at SCCC by technical specialist Christopher Tanner.

“From the SCCC Kitchen” offers Daily Gazette readers tastes from Schenectady County Community College’s nationally accredited American Culinary Federation culinary arts program. Recipes selected by SCCC instructors can easily be prepared at home. Today, technical specialist Christopher Tanner offers a hearty dish from the oven for St. Patrick’s Day, Whole Wheat Guinness Oat Bread.

Guinness will be popular in glasses for the next few days. Christopher Tanner says you can pour the famous imported dark beer into bread pans, too — along with wheat flour, oats, brown sugar, eggs and molasses.

“I’ve seen Guinness bread before, but whole wheat flour goes really well with Guinness,” Tanner said. “You think of Guinness, it’s a nice, heavy, hearty beer. So obviously it’s going to go with these strong flavors.”

The Irish and their friends will be able to taste the beer in the batter, once its been warmed into a mellow, light brown bread.

“The malt comes through. . . . All those hearty grains bring out that flavor; they all complement each other,” Tanner said.

The bread can be served with any dish traditionally served around St. Patrick’s Day, Tanner added, corned beef and shepherd’s pie among them.

WHOLE WHEAT GUINNESS OAT BREAD

11⁄2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups whole-wheat flour

1⁄2 cup packed light brown sugar

11⁄2 teaspoons baking powder

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1⁄2 cup) unsalted butter, melted

3 eggs

1⁄8 cup molasses

1 can (12 ounces) or bottle

of Guinness beer

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, grease an 81⁄2-by-41⁄2-inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl, mix together oats, whole-wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

In separate bowl, combine butter, eggs, molasses and Guinness beer. Add this mixture to the dry mixture and mix until the batter is thoroughly moistened.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, place into preheated oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

Makes one loaf.

Greezo, Raw Food in Boston's North End

Current mood: good

I've been extremely busy for the last couple months teaching at my new job, covering for another instructor along with competition and judging a number of culinary competitions so I hope you will all excuse my temporary absence.

I receive a weekly e-mail post from the Zagat Guide and just came across an interesting post about a new restaurant in Boston which I wanted to share with everyone. A new RAW restaurant has opened in the North End of Boston which features everything a Raw Vegan would appreciate.

I myself have studied and followed this phenomenon a number of times and find the short term health benefits to be great, albeit it at times a tedious, expensive and at first, bland experience. However with time I found ways to add new flavors that those non-meat eaters had probably never of thought of. Also chefs like Charlie Trotter and numerous others have jumped on the band wagon and attempted some fun new items that complement the rest of their regimen.

I have personally lost over 40 lbs in the last four months and part of it comes from following a heavy vegetable based diet complemented with animal proteins once in awhile in small portions. The Raw Food regimen is a fun way to break up the monotony of everyday eating while adding some fun into your "cooking" style and it also makes a great conversation piece. For those of you that are chefs, you will be finding more and more of these people coming through your doors so it might be prudent of you to understand these techniques so that you may please a myriad of customers and maybe make some more money while you are at it.

So here is the link to the restaurant. The restaurant is named Greezo and is totted as a high-end restaurant in the North End of Boston. The menu is up online and it looks like a lot of fun and I bet there are some great flavors there as well. I will certainly be trying this place on my next trip back to Boston.


"A vegan beacon amid the pasta palaces of the North End, chef-owned Grezzo serves uncooked dishes using organic, locally sourced ingredients (the name means 'raw' in Italian) alongside biodynamic wines and sake; candlelight bounces off copper tables, lending a touch of romance to the rustically hued digs."

69 Prince St.; 857-362-7288

Le Guide Culinaire

Georges Auguste Escoffier was surely a genius in his collection of recipes and techniques in Le Guide Culinaire in 1907. His subsequent edits, 3 in total over the next few decades added new techniques and new recipes that would become integral parts of the national French cuisine. My current readings and study of his text however has lead me to believe a number of people have misunderstood his purpose in this text.

It is not only the study of the text itself that has lead me to believe this, but additionally academic readings such as French Food: On the Table, On the Page, and in French Culture by L. Schehr, French Gastronomy by Jean-Robert Pitte and Jody Gladding, Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine by Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, and Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789 by Barbara Ketcham Wheaton have all lead me to believe that this book has been misunderstood by a number of professional chefs for many years.

Many of the chefs I worked for and talked to in the past talked about Le Guide as a reference book for Escoffier's cooks to use in his kitchens. This outlook seems sort of limited when you look at the broad scope of the book itself and then at the advertisements that were done for the text. Le Guide was researched (in Escoffier's and Gilbert's words) in three main ways, research into La Varenne and Careme's works, public domain recipes, and his own personal recipes. If Escoffier was looking to make a cookbook for his employees, wouldn't he just make a book with recipes his kitchen used on a regular basis?

The fact aside of the broad comparison of the text compared to his kitchen offerings, the advertisements for the sale of LE Guide must be addressed. If Escoffier was writing this book for his staff, why would he have promoted Le Guide so heavily in the United States of America. I will tell you why I believe he promoted the book so heavily in the United States. After the American Revolution the French Revolution occurred which caused a large number of French chefs to export themselves to the United States as we had become sympathetic to their plight through the leadership of men like Thomas Jefferson, who himself employed a French chef.

This large group of French chefs who had moved out of the France needed a set of codified recipes to make sure they "stayed French". I fully believe that Escoffier was creating a codified text to promote French cuisine throughout the word, not just in France. It is this belief that has become a large part of my understanding of cuisine. I have come to believe that in order to have a cuisine one must be able to understand the cuisine outside of its own place of origin. That said, us being outside of France must understand what French cuisine is from our shores, not just while we are in France. I believe, as do many other academics, that this is what Escoffier was attempting to accomplish. It is my belief that he was one of the first chefs to properly accomplish this in Le Guide Culinaire and I look to his example for reference.

Braised Silkie Chicken with Shallot and Onions

The Capital District in New York state is a great area. Much like Boston, we have a very diverse ethnic culture which includes a number of Asian cultures. It was this diversity that influenced me as a young chef to begin researching and cooking a variety of Asian cuisines. Recently I have been playing around with some traditional Chinese cuisine. By Chinese cuisine, I don't mean the dishes you find at your buffet or take-out place, I am referring to dishes brought over by cooks that probably only cook these dishes in their homes or back in China.

There are a number of great shops to pick up traditional ingredients in this area. I personally shop at Kim's Oriental on Central ave. in Albany, Lee's Market at 1170 Central ave in Albany, and the Asian Food Market, LLC on Colvin ave. in Albany. Asian Food Market is by far one of the better shops I have been to outside of Chinatown in NYC or Chinatown in San Francisco. A vast variety of fresh poultry, seafood, pork, and seafood, including live fish they will shock and cut to order for you on the spot.

On this last trip I picked up a number of things I do not use all that often. One of the most interesting was a fresh black skinned chicken called a Silkie. I have used these chickens before, but in the past I have always purchased them frozen. It is nice to have a place to get these items fresh. A warning to some of you squeamish types, in an Asian market the heads are usually still on much of the poultry when you purchase them as was the case with these fresh chickens. It is a sign of quality, much as in Italian culture, seafood is often served head on to show its freshness.

So I thought I would share a great traditional Chinese dish I prepared with the Silkie Chicken. This is a nice winter dish as it is a braise. Many might notice the extended period of time for braising this chicken and question why one would braise a chicken for so long. The Silkie is a small bird with a small amount of slightly tough flesh, this lends it to braised dishes which will create a pleasant fork tender meat. The Silkie chicken is also believed to have medicinal characteristics in Asian cuisine, so besides being tasty, perhaps it will cure some ailment you have as well.

Braised Silkie Chicken with Shallot and Onions

Ingredients:
2 Silkie chickens separated into four sections, 2 breasts, 2 legs and thighs (A normal 4-5 lb. chicken may be substituted)
5 Tablespoons dark soy sauce or mushroom soy sauce
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
4 shallots, peeled and sliced thin
1 small onion, peeled and sliced thin
1 1/2 Tablespoons black bean sauce
3 Tablespoons oyster sauce
1/2 cup rice wine
2 cup chicken stock or broth
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup cilantro, minced

Method:
1. Rub the chicken pieces with dark soy sauce and let marinate for 30 minutes.
2. Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat. Add the vegetable oil to the pan when heated and add the ginger and garlic, quickly stir-fry until garlic begins to lightly brown.
3. Add the shallots and onion and stir-fry for a couple minutes, add the black bean sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine and bring to a simmer, then add the stock and remove from heat.
4. Heat a cast iron pot over medium-high heat, add a couple Tablespoons vegetable oil and sear the chicken pieces on each side until golden brown.
5. Once all of the chicken has been browned, add the sauce to the pot with the chicken, bring sauce to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover the pot. Let simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn chicken pieces over and let simmer, covered, for another 30 minutes.
6. Remove the chicken from the pot and simmer uncovered to reduce the sauce to about 1.5 to 2 cups.
7. Place chicken pieces on a platter and top with sauce, sprinkled cilantro over the top.