Archive for 'In the Kitchen'

The quick and dirty secret is that serving wine at the right temperature is EVERYTHING when it comes to enjoying the wine. A $75 wine served at the wrong temp can taste like a $20, and conversely a $30 wine served at the perfect temp will be enjoyed like a $50 wine. Temperature affects how you taste fruit and acidity, so watch my tips on an you’ll be happy all summer long! Then stock your wine cellar for the summer season before the” heat shipping holds” start.

Am I the only chef who sometimes finds it difficult to stay creative in a bustling and busy restaurant? Yesterday, I was collaborating with my super talented chef de cuisine, Robert Hohmann, and we worked out a plan to tackle this problem. Together, we came up with a coaching tool that we hope will inspire us to develop techniques that we can pass on to the sous chefs who will then pass it on to the cooks. The benefits of this inspiration will be passed on to our customers.

We’ve mapped out three months of research — not of dishes, but of techniques.  We’re going to start if off by braising for the first two weeks.  Beef shanks, lamb shanks, goat shanks, oxtails, pork shoulders — all in various liquids like broths, vegetable-rich braises, confit, sous vides, goat’s milk, and sheep’s milk. Each day we’ll pair one type of meat with one type of braising, and we’ll measure our success over the weeks to determine which technique works best for each protein.  None of these are dishes that will be served to the customers; they’re the genesis of techniques that will later become the ideas for dishes.

Two weeks later we’ll try alternative flours for pasta and their best shapes, followed by whole fish cooked in salt crust, cooked in pastry dough, whole roasted or whole poached.

The intention is to build a trend in the low season to carry us through to the high season.  Techniques developed in low season, and the results of these techniques, will be applied to various dishes during the busiest time of years.  The idea is to take time when we have time, so we can save time when we don’t.  And hopefully, we’ll benefit with 12 months of recipe development.

I’m curious what my other Chef friends do to solve the same problem.  How do you maintain your creativity throughout the year in a busy kitchen?

It’s been a hot summer across the country so I’m thinking about ice. It’s such as basic ingredient that we don’t always consider its possibilities.

What we’ve been doing at Bottega this week is smoking our ice. I have a smoking gun (available at www.cusisinetechnology.com) and we’ve been experimenting on our cocktails. We’ve smoked tequila, bourbon, and water with good results. Most of us think smoke belongs to grilled foods so sipping an ice-cold margarita with an undernote of smoke makes you sit up and reconsider smoke’s flavor.

We’ve also been spicing our cubes. Heating up water with roasted peppercorns, cooling and then freezing creates an ice cube with some force. Plus the peppercorns look modern frozen in the cube. As the spice cube melts the drink gets more peppery.

I also like the ice cube trays I’ve seen that let you make six big round cylinders of ice, the shape of a hockey puck and just a little smaller. A cocktail requires just one of these super cubes. Not only does it keep the drink cooler, it melts a little slower so your drink stays undiluted a little longer. Plus I like the idea of “Maker’s Mark on the Rock.”

How about you? Any ice shows going on in your freezer? Share your ideas for spicing the cube and staying cool on hot days.

-Michael

Chefs love cooking for other chefs. You would think celebrities would be high on the list – and it is fun and exciting when Julia Roberts or the Beckhams come into the restaurant. But celebrities change the energy level in the room. We find ourselves working twice as hard to make sure that the rest of the people eating at Bottega that night feel equally important. On the other hand, when we’re fawning over a chef, our other customers don’t seem to mind – they just want to know what the chef is eating.

At Bottega, I’ve had the chance to cook for some of the chefs I most admire: Julian Serrano, Morimoto, Michel Richard, Paul Bartolotta, Rick Bayless, Hubert Keller, Lidia Bastianich, Dr. Tim Ryan, the President of the Culinary Institute of America, just to name a few. Our local chef talent is so huge, there are many, many chefs I’ve had the pleasure to cook for since we opened Bottega.

With all of these compatriots, I get a chance to share my craft, hear what they’re up to, do some wine pairings with wines from my own vineyards, and sit and catch up. I like to stretch the envelope a little when a chef is in the house: I’ll consider the chef’s background and serve some foods that are in their wheelhouse or maybe bring out a dish that we’ve been working on but not yet added to the menu. With Serrano, for example, we turned our menu into a tapas-like mini tasting: half of a crispy soft-cooked egg with a slice of pork belly confit and a silky corn spuma.

When I cook for a chef it’s a chance to thank them for their glorious craft, a way to honor their work with my own. Plus, there’s always that unwritten rule: chefs don’t like to spend their after-tax dollars on each other. My chef friends know that their money is no good in my restaurant.

Who is the person that you’ve most enjoyed cooking for and what did you cook for them? Stay tuned – next time I’ll talk about which chefs have knocked it out of the park, inspiring me in their own restaurants.

-Michael