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

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.

www.shucksmaine.com

I have been rackin my brain about these flavor profiles.  They are simple, subtle and classic.  This is what i decided to go with:

“1/2 lobster” , smoked fingerling potatos, black trumpet mushrooms,spanish chorizo emulsion and a lobster-saffron sauce.

The 1/2 lobster will consist of butter poached tail and claw with a cube of fried lobster legs.  Black trumpets will be slow cooked  and the chorizo emulsion will be a flavorful yet airy, bite of intense spanish chorizo garnished with wild fennel pollen.  I thought the lightly smoked potato might add a depth of flavor that compliments the chorizo and saffron.  I have to stick to my guns, because I am always changing my mind.

I will have pics up next week of a practice run.

Thank you to Charlie Langston at www.shucksmaine.com for helping me out with getting  some lobster legs. I first ran into these when I was staging at WD-50. I do not know of many people using them.  I think the judges will really like the idea of the ‘1/2 lobster” or they will dock me for not using the actual legs of MY lobster.  Shucksmaine has the technology to get perfect legs or perfect raw meat out of the shell.  They have great product.  Everytime I have ordered meat in my area and surrounding it has been par cooked or fully cooked meat. That is how they got it out of the shell. Thanks to www.ShucksMaine.com with this technology to bring us chefs a better product.

Here is what I was thinking:

Butter poached 1/2 lobster (which will include, tail,claw, legs)

Black Trumpet mushrooms : straight up saute’

Sauce will be made up of, fish stock, lobster body, saffron and hint of pickled ginger *and aromatics

smoked hazelnut milk and hazelnut powder from the actual oil

Cylindral potato cooked slowly sous vide with a chorizo and fennel consomme//or broth

garnish with lemon verbena

If there is still room in the competition, I will have to make one of these and take a pic to submit..so let’s see what happens.

Another competition is coming up. This would be my first time doing an ACF competition. The rules are very elaborate and you can’t miss a thing.  There are 18 spots open for this and although I have not signed up yet, I will next week. I am thinking of doing lobster. I would be using a 2lb lobster and use the whole lobster. 

My thoughts on what I’d do:  Steep the lobsters and pull open the meat. Using the Tail and claws for sous vide or poaching in buerre monte’.  I will use the body’s to infuse a rich veal stock or fish stock with saffron. I have not decided yet.  I know I want to use fingerling potato but am torn between what preparation to use. I am trying to get some lobster legs from a company up north because I know not many people are using them. They would be my “crunch” in the dish somehow.

Right now I have two dishes which I am working on.  I do not know if I should go classical or modern american. My gut and personal style tell me to go modern american with great technique. I want to showcase the lobster with different textures. Should I butter poach? confit?

For some reason I want to use hazelnut, whether its powdered, thickened oil, consomme’.  Hopefully I will have something in the next day or so. I will have to keep in mind, this will all have to be done in about an hour or so. All ingredients can be scaled out as well. This is something to keep in mind.   I’ll keep this updated.

I forgot I had this picture. This is a practice run of the Sweet Potato Gnocchi I did at home. In this version, I used trumpet royales. In the actual version I used morels. This dish was simple and I had to keep in mind that this recipe was for “everyone”. None the less I was only allowed to use 10 ingredients. 

On January 30th, 2009 I won best over all and grand prize  at the “Anything But Ordinary NC Sweet Potato” competition.  This was more than a competition, it was basically a full on video production. I guess it will be used in advertisements. We had mics and there was cameras and producers asking us questions and telling us to re-do things so they can get it on film.

I was also asked to be a part of a special luncheon/dinner at “SECOND EMPIRE RESTAURANT AND TAVERN” in Raleigh, NC which is a very nice and award winning restaurant. Thank you to everyone at NC Sweet Potato comission foundation for making this possible.

And yes…Representing Johnson and Wales…..someone has to do it!!!

With some of the winnings..I splurged at the cooking store and bought 3 Shun knives and my mom a panini grill.

1st course:  Sweet Potato gnocchi, with morels, parm reggiano, and brown butter

3rd Course:  Sweet Potato sorbet with a walnut struesel blueberry/balsamic redux and sage emulsion.

Reppin JWU

Anyone that knows me, knows that my whole life is my passion to be great, to make a difference. I am constantly thinking of new ideas, well, new to ME. It may be recreating a dish that someone did but in my own way or just to understand how certain hydrocolloids or modified starches work.  I am always in search of great plateware, or new cooking techniques. My cabinets are full of powders, starches, scales, plates, grinders and other little contraptions.  I sometimes just mess around at home and see what I come up with. I’d rather mess up on my own dime than waste the money of an employer. Maybe thats crazy but that is how I think. Is this normal? to have a pantry full of experimental powders and chemicals?   There are not enough hours in the day.