Entry tags:

avocados, beets, blueberries, grapefruit, kiwi, sorbet, tuna

New Year's Eve Tasting Menu
Unbelievable. As every cook knows, New Year's Evening is the red letter evening for the entire restaurant industry. If you aren't completely booked solid, with a waiting list on NYE you are probably doing something wrong. And yet, somehow, I managed to get NYE off this year. For the first time in the 7 years I've been cooking. In fact, I know it was this long, because the last NYE I had off was when I was in cooking school.

So what is a cook to do with his unexpected freedom? Why, cook a 6 course tasting menu for his family, of course!

AND get photographs for the internet. First, allow me to introduce my family- we posed for a cheesy family photo after dinner, and I think it is a good way to start out the post.

Here's us. That's me, second from the right, between my mom and my girlfriend glapaloopscap. My sister Heather and her boyfriend Duncan are on the left, with my lovely parents in the middle.

I really threw together this tasting menu only a few days in advance, and I had quite a few criteria for supper that I was trying to fufill. I wanted to be able to try a few new flavour combinations, create a mini-tasting menu around my mom's proposed large entree. But, Heather and Duncan need to be out by 8PM, so it is crucial that my courses be all but completely prepared in advance. I had some practice with this when I did my 9-courses a few months ago. Furthermore, shellfish and red meat are out, since my sister is a vegetarian, and doesn't care for shellfish. And I didn't want to saddle my mom with a huge disaster to clean up.
So here's what I came up with.

Chioga and Golden Beet Chips with Hot Juniper and Blueberry Gelee

For the gelee, I needed to use a heat resistant gelling agent, of which there are several, but the alginate agar-agar is by far the strongest/best. It creates jellies that remain cohesive at temperatures of up to 180 degrees fahrenheit. So to create this jelly, I combined 250ml of fresh blueberry juice with about a tablespoon of ground dried juniper berries, and brought this to a boil in a small saucepan. Meanwhile, I soaked 1 tablespoon of powdered agar-agar in cold water, which I then brought to a boil to dissolve the agar. Straining the blueberry-juniper liquid, I then combined it with the dissolved agar, and poured into a plasticwrap lined mould. This I then refridgerated.

For the beet chips, I first peeled and then sliced some beautiful heirloom beets that I got at the farmer's market. The trick is to set your mandolin to just the right thickness. You don't want the chips paper thin or else they won't hold their shape when fried, but if they are too thick they won't crisp up properly. Next, rinse the chips thouroughly to help prevent the colours from bleeding together in the rings of the chioga chips. Now pat them well dry on paper towel and you are ready to fry them.

To fry beet chips, you want oil that is at 250-275 degrees fahrenheit. Swirl them around with some tongs, turn them over a few times, and when the bubbles stop, they are done.

Since my mom was doing the main course, and we were going to her kitchen to put together this meal, it was important to have as small a "footprint" in her kitchen as possible. This course was a study in economy, when it came time to plate. I filled her kettle with water, let it boil and poured it into a small plastic dish. I measured the temperature with my stem thermometer, and added a bit of cool water until the temperature was 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, I cut off some of the Gelee, and put it in a ziploc bag. I pushed out all the air, and sealed it up, and submerged the gelee in the hot water for about a minute. Ta-da! It's like ghetto sous vide. :)

For the next course, I decided on Carpaccio of Blue Fin Tuna with a Ginger-Soy Froth, Mesquite Smoked Dijon and Parsley "Paint".
The story behind this course is interesting. I suppose it might even be close to a deconstruction. Basically, my old, VERY traditionalist chef from Rome taught me Tuna Carpaccio, with cucumber, lemon, capers, dijon, parsley and pepper. His version has the dijon and parsley on top of the tuna, and is WAY delicious. I basically took the flavour combination that he taught me, and took the presentation out of the .. i don't know... 60s maybe? When Claudio sees and hears about the kind of food that I make now, he tells me that I'm "ruined" and that he "wasted years" training me. What can I say- he's Italian? I don't know if all Italians are melodramatic like this, but let's just say that this course definitely "flies in the face of" my training under him.

I also added the Soy-Ginger because hey- raw tuna with soya sauce? Slam dunk flavour, right?

For the froth, I used 200mL soya sauce, 50mL water, a sprinkle of dried ginger, and 2 tsp of soy lecithin. I combined all of those ingredients in a measuring cup, and then blitzed it up with my immersion blender. Woo!

For the Parsley "Paint" I basically shoved Italian Parlsey into my juicer by the handful. Out came this awesome, brilliant, tasty liquid. Perfect for plate garnish.

For the Mesquite Smoked Dijon Mustard, I simply put a few drops of liquid smoke into an ounce or so of dijon mustard. I started with two drops, mixed well and tasted. Basically I added drops until I could just BARELY detect the smokiness on my palate. Probably about 10 drops, but of course YMMV.

Not only a fantastic course, but with the pink, mustard and green, the colour combination made plating a breeze. I used an artist's paint brush to apply the Parsley, then thinly sliced the semi-frozen tuna and arranged the slices. Then I used a spoon to make three swooshes of mustard on the side. I squeezed a bit of lemon juice on the tuna, and then added a dollop of my soy-froth. Easy peasy, as they say.

For my next course, I had my heart set on reproducing this course:
Avocado Balls stuffed with Umeboshi and Wasabi dressed Granny Smith Apple and Green Bean, Micro Salad with Baby Tomatos and Smoked Salmon "Snow" As you can see, I didn't manage to get a good picture of it the last time I made it. It is fantastic, and looks great. I decided to bring everything necessary for that course, including the plates. The Avocado balls were to be constructed, so that all that was to be required to do is place them on the plates, dress some micro salad and put that on the plate, and then garnish with the tomatos and smoked salmon snow. And take some pictures, of course. This did not take time at all. Perfect, since we were under the clock. Well, I think it was mission accomplished for this one:


Another angle:


As always, I brought a sorbet. I decided to go with the grapefruit-sambuca sorbet that I have made several times at work. Again, it was a simple matter of scooping out the sorbet and serving. No time added to the meal. I did take a picture, but come on- sorbet isn't really that exciting to look at, right?


Anyway, for the main course, my mom did a Maple Roasted Ham, which my dad carved at the table:

(my sister had baked haddock). She also steamed broccoli, and had roasted sweet potato and squash puree. I got one "plate up" photo, but the point of this course wasn't about presentation. It was just delicious, home cooked feast.


For dessert, to offset the potential heaviness of the Ham, I thought about a light, fruit dessert. Given the time of year, I decided to try to incorporate clementines, so how about a Clementine Kiwi cup, with Chestnut Whipped Ricotta and Aged Balsamic?

Welll... that didn't quite all work out. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to construct the chestnut whipped ricotta, and then I forgot to put the Aged Balsamic when plating. It probably didn't help that by the end of the meal, I was about a half a bottle of wine deep. Anyway, a Kiwi Cup of Curd is a good idea, generally speaking:

But DON'T use this recipe for mandarin orange curd.

180 grams butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2/3 cup strained mandarin orange juice
3 large eggs

No. No. No. This would be fantastic if you were using 2/3 cup of Lemon Juice. But that is because Lemon Juice is SO strong. You don't need much of it. For Mandarin Orange Curd, you need WAY more juice, less butter. Or something. In any case, the curd really fell flat. Oh well.

If I had more time, I would have shelled out the chestnuts that I had roasted earlier in the day- blended them up my food processor, then whipped about 1 cup of ricotta with one egg yolk and 1/2 cup or so of sugar. I was going to fold the chestnut puree into the ricotta, and place a quenelle of the mix next to the kiwi cup. I think that a bit of spun sugar would make a nice garnish for this plate as well. Everybody really enjoyed it anyway.

So there you have it. My NYE supper.

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