Archives for category: Brooklyn
So, I have been making fried chicken lately. There are all sorts of ways to do it. When making fried chicken for a large group, I like to first sous vide the chicken until the internal temp is around 125 or 130 degrees. then all one has to do is bread the chicken and fry it for a very small amount of time. Where as a normal fried chicken may take 18 minutes, one can fry chicken in batches for about 5 minutes. But, I digress.
This post is about normal fried chicken.
Hello All,
So, it has been awhile since I posted. Simple dinner last night. Fish store was selling line caught gulf red snapper for $5.65 per pound. My fish guy gave me 2.25 lbs for an even 12 dollars. We are friends. He rounds down.
I simple put a couple of cuts into the flesh of the fish on either side. I salted inside and out, squeezed a few lemons over the fish and let it get to room temperature.
After that, I simply grilled the fish on both sides for a short period of time prior to finishing off the fish in a 450 degree oven.
Bite Club was fortunate to cook the rehearsal dinner for one of my oldest and dearest friends wedding.. The large group of people came to my house where we cooked them a dinner.
First course steak tartare
Second course- scallop cooked in it’s shell with a cube of bacon and a soy butter sauce topped with crispy shallot jelly.
Third Course- soft shell crab cooked in butter, served over fried goat cheese ravioli with pickled ginger beets.
Fourth Course- fried sweetbreads with cauliflower, uni flan topped with uni, sauce gribiche and pickled peppers.
Fifth Course- Sliced duck breast with grilled pineapple, seared foie gras and a cherry demi glace.
Last Course-chomeur pudding with a marscapone lemon granita.
It was a pretty amazing dinner. Was really happy to be able to do this for him and his new bride.
Again, since I don’t take photos of the finished plating, all I can really share are the ingredients and some early prep.
Here is a tray of live soft shell crabs. They were still moving around when i opened the container. you have to cut the eyes out, remove the gills, it’s a lovely process:
Uni: Later became a flan
Fried Goat Cheese Ravioli
These were the Maple Puddings: Later to be topped with the marscapone and lemon granita.
A duck liver:
Beginning of a demi: Later became a cherry sauce
Duck breastasis:
Bacon for the scallops:
Hello All,
Long time, no speak. I have been working a lot this summer. We have catered 5 weddings along with doing our Regular Bite Clubs and various other events. Sorry, I have not given much attention to the blog.
We have a Bite Club dinner this weekend. We are making a parsnip potato gnocchi that were are going to pan crisp. We are going to serve the crisped gnocchi with lobster and fried shallots in a corn and leek broth. So, I have been practicing getting the correct texture down for the gnocchi.
Last night, we made dinner for our neighbor. Dinner took a total of an hour to prepare. We have been using the pressure cooker lately so, the beans were done in 30 minutes. Amazing to take a bag of dried chickpeas and have them finished in 30 minutes.
The menu last night was:
1)Fried Squid with Chickpeas in a smoked paprika and vinegar sauce
2)Parsnip and Potato Gnocchi with Blood Sausage
3)Branzino in a tarragon sauce with roasted tomatoes served over green beans.
My problem is, I photograph the prep but, when it comes to final dishes. I rarely remember to photograph finished dishes. Anyway, here are a bunch of photos from dinner, of course, not one photo was taken of the plating. It’s also really annoying to cook with one hand and shoot with another
Here is what I got!
Portuguese Blood Sausage. It is out hanging in my butchers shop. So, it is precooked, perhaps, lightly smoked. I ate some raw, it was delicious. Not mushy at all. A little rice in it.
Peeling squid for the squid and beans:
Gnocchi: You can see a bowl of last night’s gnocchi in the background. I just felt like doing another round as I am making 32 servings on Saturday.
Branzino:
Quick three course dinner. Cost was like 25 bucks for three people.. If we had the same thing out to dinner it would have been most likely, a lot more dough. we got to sit at home and I wore my sleeveless harley davidson shirt I bought in Sturgis.
I don’t know why lobster is so expensive in restaurants. Or even if it is anymore? I know in some spots in Chinatown, you get two lobsters with a choice of them being cooked three way different ways, for only 20 bucks. This is a great deal.
So yesterday, i am at my fish guy and the price of lobster was 7.25 bucks a pound. How could I resist. I picked up two lobsters for around 20 bucks.
So two weeks ago, I was in China, then, last week, I spent 8 days in New Orleans. It looks like I am done traveling for at least the next three weeks. Then, it is on to Atlanta and Chicago but, for these next few weeks, I am going to enjoy them.
I have one wedding to cater in two weekends from now so, I kind of have an easy schedule coming up. Hey, I am not complaining.
But, I arrived home late Saturday Night. Yesterday, I spent the day gardening, doing laundry, took a trip to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, checked out this food truck ralley which was pretty lame, watched Portugal beat up on the Dutch and made a little pasta.
I enjoy eating out but, moreso, I enjoy cooking in my home. Out of the last 30 days, I have spent 22 of them on the road. Which meals, 3 meals a day out in and around.
Over the last day I managed to eat every meal at home. The cost of these meals? $3.99. I went out and bought some strawberries. Besides that, all of the meals either came from my garden or my freezer.
Yesterday, I started with pancakes with strawberries and homemade whipped cream. Then it was a simple grilled cheese for lunch, followed by homemade tagliatelle for dinner.
If you read my blog, I am sure you are tired of my plates of pasta photos. I am sure they all look the same. I have pasta dough down to brain autopilot. A certain amount of flour, a couple of eggs, roll around for a bit and it’s done. Then sheet it out, then run it through the cutter. Obviously, I do other things but, this is my tagliatelle routine.
We had a fairly large party the night before. I wish I had taken photos. i made agnolotti with veal and pancetta, in a butter and sage sauce for 9 people. In addition, we started with a smoked salmon fritatta with creme fraiche, herbs and caviar. We finished off dinner with pork ragu over polenta. A delicious meal.
So, here was dinner last night. It was really high end. I think it was like 120 bucks for the three of us. Essentially, it was the equivalent of going to Per Se and getting like the truffle and wine tasting add ons. The food here is unique.. It’s international let’s say in its presentation and preparation.
Here you have tofu skins wrapped up like little crepes sitting in a chicken broth.. Super delicate, really lovely.. The serving dish is definitely the game changer here. Like nothing i have seen in 99 percent of the restaurants.
So Mao is from the Province of Hunan and further more a little farming village called Shaoshan.. Besides farms and the birthplace of Mao, there is not much doing… So, some enterprising person decided to Capitalize on the popularity of the place and opened a chain of places featuring the cuisine of Hunan and the name of Mao.. Though, i am not for certain that the place we went to was that chain, there was plenty of references to Mao and lots of fun posters around… Fun for me, perhaps inspirational and terrifying for others..
This meal was spectacular chain or not,i think the two have different connotations.. Plus, i don’t know how well a crappy restaurant would fare carrying such a significant name in it’s title..
There is our buddy and he is ordering again, for us.. All the waitresses are in their Chinese Red Jump Suits.. Mao would have been happy..
Out come the peanuts and spicy pickled bean curd..
Fried fish and spicy salt:
