Sunday, February 28, 2010

fun with extracts

i'll be honest, we've been cheating a little bit, but damn we're having a good time! we've been using a lot of natural extracts when cooking meat sous vide. the first inspiration was the caramelized chicken thigh terrine we featured at the wine conclave. made by using caramel oil to coat chicken thighs, since then other successful expirements include: duck breast cooked with bitter orange extract, @ 50c for two hours, the rabbit bacon, previously mentioned in the whole animal post, we salted the bellies for twelve hours, then misted the rinsed meat with mesquite oil and transglutaminase, then stacked one on another to form a slab, then cooked for another twelve hours @ 67c. the featured photo is another flavor of the chicken thigh terrine. this time using pine oil, again transglutaminase is sprinkled on the thighs, formed into a terrine mold, and cooked @ 62c for six hours, we then seared the slices of the terrine, and paired the crispy thigh with a ragout of pine braised pine nuts, and the first morels of the season!

rabbits

this spring sunday supper goes whole beast, offering an a la carte menu of small plates. kicking off march 21 with rabbits from big creek farm in rogersville, tn. followed by riverview farms pigs on march 28, easter sunday lamb dinner, then fowl ( i am still in search of a local source for whole birds, any info would be appreciated). below is the preliminary menu for the rabbit supper.

rabbit consomme
parsley root royale, rabbit confit agnolotti

rabbit bacon & eggs
slow poached local egg, brioche

brunswick stew
hominy, sea island red peas, tomato

potted hare
roasted kidneys, rhubarb mostarda, pickled ramp

roasted saddle
heirloom carrot, english peas, tokyo turnip

hind quarter
fermented red cabbage, trumpet royale mushoom


Thursday, February 11, 2010

mortadella

mortadella is an emulsified sausage, essentially bologna, the city of origin, in emelia-romagna, made by grinding meat into a paste, and emulsifying fat, also garnished with diced pork fat! we serve the mortadella as one of our meats @ $4, garnished with toasted pistachios and green olives. we use fresh hams for mortadella and shoulders for salami, due to the fat distribution of each. lean meat and fat are ground separately, the lean meat is then pureed in the food processor. fat, ice, and dry milk are slowly added. we make 12 -14 pounds at a time, in small batches, then stuff the sausage into a large beef casing and poach @ 65 c .