I’m just a cook, I aint no rocket surgeon

Thank you to Andrew Schaumann and the rest of the staff for having me  and letting me hang out for the day.. on 4-20-09

When you start off with great product, its pretty hard not to yeild great results.  Fresh made papardelle, raviolis, agnolotti were just a small glimpse  of the great things coming out of this kitchen.  These guys are putting out some great looking food. This is a Contemporary Italian “trattoria” at its’ finest.  Great operation/great food/great people.

 Urban Food Group also owns Coquette, Fraziers,  and Porters City Tavern in Raleigh, North Carolina. There will be a Vivace Charlotte opening up in the fall of 2009 in the “Metropolitan” in Charlotte, NC.

 These pics are two of the few that I took. The first is the pasta tank…..It keeps water at a tepid boil to cook pasta to order. We all know what it is like to have that big rondeau with the four slots  that you have to keep refilling through out the night, not only that but it takes up almost 2 burners all night. Next is a light take on a caprese salad. The mozzeralla was fresh, the pesto was vibrant, and the tomatos were roasted an marinated I think…very nice.  Thanks again for letting me hang out for the day.

Pasta Cooker

caprese

final dish...not as planned compared to practice run

Inhumanely killing the lobster even more....

As many people know, this was my first ACF competition. I’ll be honest. I was 12-15 minutes LATE plating my food. I was NAILED for “INHUMANELY” killing my lobster.   I thought that this competition was going to be about refined cuisine hence the name “contemporary” cuisine.. My dish is the ONLY one that used exotic mushrooms, bright colors, and things like Red vien sorrel or micro greens, not that it is FANCY  or anything. Every dish LOOKED exactly the SAME.. carrots, asparagus, potato and tomato. Basically they were looking for things that you would find in Escoffiers’ book…I had no idea it would be like this. This is not my style of cuisine although it has its place, dont get me wrong. I went with a more modern dish..that was failure number ONE…number TWO…was they way I killed my lobster. Now, I normally cook my lobster sous vide or at a controlled temperature. I did not have a circulator available to me so I decided to go with Keller’s approach to lobster which is steeping your lobster with boiling water and vinegar for 2 minutes, then the claws for another 5 minutes. The judge came up to me and asked me “are those lobsters still alive”?  I said  “yes”.  He looked at me like I was Charles Manson. He politely asked me to take them out of the water and stick a knife in its head….So I did..I pulled out the 2nd lobster and as I did, my timer went off for the tails, so instead of sticking a knife in its head, I ripped the tail off, and THEN stuck a knife in it…WHY? I DONT KNOW…I panicked,  my timer went off for the tails to be ready, he was over my shoulder staring at me.

Judges Table:  I am surrounded by CMC’s and highly credited chefs at the judges table and they are going over my plate. The never said anything about the flavors or the tots. One said that his lobster seemed under done. Which may be due to the soft butter poach, it is a different texture after all..but I know it was not raw nor slightly under. They did give me a 15 minute lecture , in front of EVERYONE mind you…about how I need to respect the product. I needed to research and understand what I was doing and then proceeded to tell me a story about rabbits and this and that which was told as if were a personal story….. It was the story in “Soul of a Chef’ by Rhulman about when Keller talks about his respect for live rabbits  when he has to kill them himself…I remember the chapter in the book as if I read it yesterday.  YEAH YEAH,,, I read that book too…thanks though..  Anyways, I do not think I will do another ACF competition. Not because I got reamed or I did not finish on time. It is clearly not the food I want to do.  The guy who brought home the Gold medal did  a dish of roasted bronzini with two tourneed potatos, 4 batons of carrots, some celery nest or some spindle of vegetables, and two pan roasted cherry tomatos and god knows what else… The plate was crowded with food. Honestly, it looked like a nightmare. Appetizing? No, technical….ok….maybe……If that is what wins, I’m sorry, it is not for me. You live and you learn. Now NO MORE LOBSTER POSTS!!

I know I said that it was finalized, but things have changed. As I kept reading more and more and talking to people who have done this, I got a lot of feedback. I wanted to show some knife cuts and a few techniques.  I changed my dish to :

Butter Poached Lobster, black trumpet mushrooms, spring vegetables (heirlooms,carrot baton, glazed pearl onion, tomato diamond), sweet corn and saffron sauce with lobster leg tater tots accompanied with textured basil oil. The dish is finished with a bit of sicilian sea salt.

The only difference in this picture and the actual dish will be that I will have micro purple basil instead of chervil on the tater tots. I want to showcase the fundamentals of cooking by glazing, knife skills, poaching, and throwing a twist in there by doing tots and textured oil. I hope this goes well. Wish me luck on Friday morning. I will be cooking at 9:40am.  ACF guidelines are very anal…I just wanna cook man!!  blah!

I am starting the beginning phases of practice runs for my competition next week. Today I started with the simple breaking down of lobster.  I covered the lobster with boiling water with a bit of white vinegar. I let it steep for 2 minutes and then ripped the tail off and let the rest of the body and claws steep for an additional 5 minutes.  While the claws were in, I took the tail meat out of the shell and let it chill in the fridge. When the claws were done, I took the meat out and also chilled them in the fridge.

Now, I have read different methods of doing lobster and personally I do them sous vide but I do not have a circulator anymore  so that is why I am going with the boiled water method.  The tail meat is curled which is ok, but it does not even bend, I am afraid it is overcooked. I will still give it a whirl at 59 degrees C for 15 minutes in a beurre monte’ and see if the meat breaks down any.

For the competition, I will show how I break down my lobster and I will use the whole carcass.

The head is cleaned and the eyeballs cut out. The inner body is washed out and the gills removed.  Each part of the body is cut off and cleaned of any sediment or coagulated protein.  This lobster had roe in it and if I get one again, I may try to dry it out as quick as possible to use as a garnish.