Restaurant Daniel

           On my honeymoon to New York City, I had the fantastic opportunity to eat at Restaurant Daniel, ranked number ten in the world by San Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants. It was a pretty incredible experience.

            Let me start from the beginning. I was originally recommended Per Se, Thomas Keller’s “urban interpretation” or his restaurant, French Laundry. I tried making a reservation through Opentable.com, but it kept coming up as unavailable, so I thought I would try the phone. I suppose that Per Se is a popular restaurant, because I got an automated answering machine, and listened to classical music for 20 minnutes. After a second attempt later in the week, I gave up. Perhaps trying to make a reservation at Per Se a mere month in advance was foolish of me. I decided to try Restaurant Daniel.

            I made the reservation over the phone, and instead of getting a machine, I got an extremely helpful and friendly lady on the other end who made my reservation and informed me of the “jackets required” rule. Excellent. That week, after making a trip to H&M to buy a reasonably priced blazer, we made our way to the restaurant. The exterior was (of course) clean and classy, with a revolving door.

After entering the restaurant, I was immediately impressed with the interior. Five huge “Chandelier” type lights hung from the ceiling, softly illuminating the dining room. We were seated in a plush seat along the wall with a nice view of the rest of the restaurant, complete with little pillows behind us.

After being greeted warmly by a smiling waiter with a French accent, we were presented with a rather large wine list and Janice (my wife), ordered a glass of 2008 German Riesling (of which I cannot remember the name) and it tasted marvelous. After the wine was poured, our menus were presented to us and we decided to order the six- course tasting menu.

            For each course, you have an option of two dishes, so Janice and I ordered alternating dishes on each one for the purpose of tasting everything we could. But before anything else happened, we were presented with the amuse bouche of the night-A tasting of parsnips.

It did exactly what an amuse bouche is supposed to do. Which is to say it didn’t take my breath away. However it teased my palette with some interesting textures and flavors. I particularly liked the middle, a parfait of parsnips.

Next, A bus boy brought out a basket full of about 8 different kinds of freshly baked bread. I chose the mini baguette. It was still hot and crispy! 

           Unfortunately, for the first course, I didn’t get a picture. Mostly because I was pretty excited to eat it. Mine was a Duck liver and foie gras terrine with macrona almonds,  apple confit, and mache salad. I was so excited to eat this that I forgot to take a picture. But it was served with two pieces of toast. I suppose this is kind of an upscale take on a classic bistro item. My wife got a foie gras terrine with marinated bok choy, which was equally delicious.

            The second course, which was by far my favorite as far as presentation goes, and possibly taste (although I am undecided on the matter) was fantastic. First, my selection was that of crab salad, avocado, heirloom tomato jelly, shaved vegetables and crostini, finished with a drizzle of a delicious Tuscan olive oil. I am a huge fan of avocado and crab, so this hit the spot. And you could tell that the heirloom tomatoes used for the jellies were fresh, and perfectly ripe.

            My wife got the Thai snapper ceviche, which was equally as good if not better, and was finished with a delicious Jus of Fennel and avocado, and topped with caviar.

Third Course: sea scallops. Sliced very thin and served over Hawaiian hearts of palm and an avocado tomatillo coulis and pickled peppers. This dish was rich but refreshing in a way, and gently warmed. Very nice.

Janice got the squid ink and artichoke ravioli with clams and shrimp and saffron cream. Need I say more?

Fourth course. This one was awesome. It was halibut so tender that it melted in my mouth, served with an almond foam, which I thought was awesome. I mean honestly….who FOAMS almonds? Seriously though, I was impressed. So much so that I forgot to take a picture. Janice got a Wild Alaskan king salmon with black musto oil. it was also served with a stuffed zucchini, which was quite nice.

Fifth course. The entrée. Janice got the trio of veal, which consisted of a classic red wine sauce, spooned on tableside by the waiter. I don’t quite remember, but I think that it was veal loin, sweetbreads, and braised veal cheeks. The cheeks were especially nice since you don’t often see veal cheeks being used (or at least I don’t) that often, and they were done perfectly. I got the duo of beef, which was a tenderloin, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and was, without a doubt, the best piece of meat I have ever eaten in my life. There was also a nicely braised short rib paired with an eggplant puree. Both were served with bordelaise sauce and a potato crisp.

Before the dessert course was brought out, our waiter brought out the behemoth you see before you, as congratulations for our getting married. I was bummed that we didn’t get to keep the chocolate sculpture, but we did get an additional dessert.

Our tasting menu desserts were lemongrass poached pineapple with sorbet, and chocolate soufflé served with milk sorbet. After we were done with that, the wiater then brought out a tray of petit fours (dessert hors d’oeuvres) and a basket of freshly baked madelines. And I’m talking hot out of the oven. Round it off with our after dinner coffee and I was in dessert heaven.

One of the best parts of the whole experience was seeing the kitchen. I have worked in a few very different kitchens myself, but I had never seen anything like this. There were literally 20 line cooks, all scurrying about, being directed by 2 chefs and about 5 sous chefs. All of the hot food was prepared on separate parts of the line, and then passed down to the sous chefs or chef to be plated and sauced. I guess that’s what you need when you have three Michelin stars.

Looking back at the experience, I can say without a doubt that Restaurant Daniel is the best meal I have ever had in my life. If I am ever in New York again and have a spare five-hundred dollars, I want to go back. The price might seem high, but the level of service that we got was outstanding and the food was even better. Perhaps one day I will have a better meal, but I don’t think that it will happen anytime soon.

Sorry, A Little Busy...

Hey, Just thought that I would stay with the one post a week rule.

I got married on the 2nd of september and have been on my honeymoon in NYC.

Don't worry, tomorrow we are going to the number ten restaurant in the world Restaurant Daniel, and there will definitely be a post about that.

Thanks for reading.

-Tim

P.S. If you are my friend on Facebook, there are about sixty more photos of our trip to New York.

Books that inspire me, Part 2- the French Laundry Cookbook

Last time I discussed the Fat Duck Cookbook. The French Laundry Cookbook is wildly different to say the least.

In this book you won’t find a lot of abstract photography or even a lot of history about the French Laundry Restaurant, or the chef, Thomas Keller except for brief little paragraphs here and there explaining his choice of equipment and methodology or highlighting an important purveyor. Although I would have liked more background in the book, It really helps to focus on what’s important: the food and methodology.

If the French Laundry were to be placed in a category or genre, I suppose it would be classical French, but it goes beyond that in a way. The main reason I love this book is because of the solidly explained classical French techniques that back up his creative recipes, Because for me, it is not only important to understand how to cook things, but also important to understand the methodology and theory behind the actions. And really, once someone has a sound grasp of the basic methodologies of cooking and an understanding of how food works, they can cook and create almost anything their imagination desires.

And lastly, the food in the book is downright amazing. The photography is spot on, and almost all of the recipes have a picture. The recipes themselves are very in depth and often have a short paragraph about the best parts of the dish and how it was created. This is also a great book for beginners because of the included stock recipes, knife skill guides and other basic techniques.

All in all a great book that I think every cook should own.

 As always, thanks for reading!

-TIM

Works In Progress

I had the urge to try some new stuff out this weekend, but had very few ingredients, so here is what I came up with

First, I have been wanting to try out some dehydrating. It’s a little bit more towards the modernist side of things I suppose, but I figured that it would cool to make things crispy that normally aren’t crispy. For example: Cabbage, Cucumbers, peaches, Cherries, etc. I decided to start off with cucumbers.

I set the oven to as low as it can go (for me it was 200⁰F) and cracked the door for 6 hours while I was at work. The results were less than satisfactory.

The heat was too high and the cucumbers were in for too long.. That much was clear just from the color. They were very crispy which was awesome, but I think that if I had dropped the heat they might not have shriveled up. Perhaps if I just left the oven on warm and let the cucumbers go for a little longer, they would not shrink up from the higher heat and cook a little more gently. Or I could just get a dehydrator.

Expect more dehydrated cucumbers in future.

Secondly, chilled soup of cherries, peaches, and cucumbers.

A few days ago, My fiancée brought home a bunch of fresh fruit and cucumbers from her aunt and uncle’s garden. Needless to say I was pretty excited about this. Mostly about the cherries and peaches, two of my favorite fruits when in season.

I could have made some dessert out of them, but that’s what everyone does. I decided to shoot for the savory side. I started by marinating peaches, cucumbers, cherries, basil, thyme, olive oil and vinegar in a bowl overnight to let the flavors get to know each other. The next day, after Straining and pureeing, I got a slightly viscous but not completely smooth soup. It was a sort of intriguing texture, and it had great flavor, but was really unexciting. I am thinking of garnishes now, something along the lines of balsamic reduction, honey mascarpone, and black lava salt. Perhaps a table-side pour?

Anyway, I thought that I would do a quick update about the random crap that I am doing.

Hope you enjoyed.

-Tim.

            

Books That Inspire me part 1-The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

There are books that I think everyone should have, or at least every serious cook should have.  The list is long, but I will start with one of my favorites.

The Fat Duck Cookbook.

Not only is this a great cookbook, it’s a great book to just keep on your coffee table or nightstand and read for fun every once in a while. It’s written by Chef Heston Blumenthal, who is pretty inspiring in and of himself. If you watch BBC, you will have seen Blumenthal on the air, either on his show In search of perfection, or getting interviewed about a dish of his. He never went to culinary school, but was self-taught, which is incredible considering where he is now. As he was learning his trade, he began to question the things that he was taught and ask why. Why sear meats? Why not wash mushrooms?  What’s the best way to really do this? This led him to his style of cooking that Blumenthal calls “Classic cooking with a little science.”

The book starts with a lengthy (almost a third of the book) and intriguing history of Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, which is cool, because he shares with us what inspired him and how he came to have the number one restaurant one of the top restaurants in the world.

The next portion (about half the book) is full of Recipes from The Fat Duck. Not only are his recipes awesome, but also before each one there is a page or two explaining how the dish was created, beginning at conception and ending on the Fat Duck menu. Some recipes are complex, and most are very complex, oft times using equipment that makes it hard to do them at home. Even so, the ideas and concepts behind his recipes are astounding, and can certainly teach anyone a lot about cooking and creativity. As an added bonus, the photography and graphic design in this section is incredible. Lastly Blumenthal takes a chapter of his cookbook and dedicates it to the science behind his methods and ingredients, which is good to know if you are truly going to dive into his recipes.

Overall, The Fat Duck Cookbook is an amazing book that any aspiring chef should have.

As always thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more posts. I’m going to start updating the blog once a week!

-Tim

Salad Of chilled scallops, oyster mushrooms, oyster vinaigrette, and fresh baby greens.

I was sitting at the house of my soon-to-be in-laws tonight and something sort of came to me. There was a conversation going on around me and I think I even participated in it a little, but my mind was elsewhere, which seems to happen a lot for some reason. This particular time however, I was thinking about the stranger vinaigrettes that I have seen in my culinary wanderings. For example, some of the more interesting one’s I have seen are bacon, bone marrow, and oyster vinaigrettes.

in my little idea book, I had been toying with a chilled scallop dish and thought it would be cool to use one of these more unique offerings. As for the marrow, I didn’t really relish the thought of bone marrow and scallops. I also was doing this at 10:30pm, so I was pretty sure that I couldn’t go out and buy bone marrow. The bacon seemed more practical and would have gone great with the scallops, but since it was going to be a chilled dish, I was worried about the fat in the bacon vinaigrette solidifying, which would make a gross texture and also look disgusting.

            This left me with the oyster vinaigrette. Oysters seemed like a good pairing with their shellfish cousin, the scallop (scallops can even be considered a type of oyster! They also have close relations to the clam), and I thought it would be kind of funny if I made a dish with oyster mushrooms and oyster oysters. Culinary humor at it’s best, am I right?

Also, before I begin, my phone was unavailable during the cooking process, so I had to wait until the end to take pictures. Sorry. On the bright side, My Fiancée, photography major at UW, took the pictures, so they turned out great!

I started out by poaching the scallops, since they were going to be chilled. I seasoned up the scallops a bit, but not too much since I had a pretty flavorful cooking liquid at hand, made up of water, rice wine, lime, salt, and a bit of butter for  a touch of richness.

Next was the oyster vinaigrette. I am not really the type of person who makes super complex, many-ingredient recipes, so I tried to keep it simple. I got a few different kinds of oysters pre-shucked, all from willapa bay, which is where a lot of Washington oysters come from (Kumamoto and Pacific are just a couple of the more well-known ones). All I did for this was use my hand blender to puree and emulsify oysters, oyster juice, lime, and grape seed oil with salt to taste. It turned out really viscous, but smooth and pourable, which was exactly was I was looking for.

            The mushroom salad was really easy as well. I heated a pan with a mix of grape seed oil and butter, and waited until it was smoking and threw in the mushrooms. After getting some nice color on them, I removed them from the heat and stirred in finely chopped garlic, shallots, and thyme, and seasoned to taste with salt. After that, I simply let them cool to room temperature.

The fresh baby greens were even easier. All I did was make vinaigrette of lime, rice vinegar, and olive oil, and tossed it with the greens.

The final step was garnish. And what better garnish for a cold, fresh dish than edible flowers? My Fiancée and I were walking by them in the store and she said, “Hey, that would be cool!” They were.

Anyway, Here is the final product. It was pretty tasty! I think that If I were to do it again, I would try to use wild mushrooms (black trumpets would be great!), but other than that I don’t think that I would change it a whole lot. The oyster vinaigrette was really subtle, but still a necessary addition to the dish. Perhaps next time, I will make it more visible and present on the plate( here, it’s under the mushrooms).

As always, thanks for reading!

You can certainly look forward to less of a wait for the next post!

-Tim

Graduation! Also, Duck Prosciutto...

it says proof because i'm too poor to order grad pics

Two years ago, I started this thing that people call culinary school. Last Tuesday, I finally Finished!

Looking back on the whole experience, there are a few things there are a few things that I have been thinking about.

A lot of people ask me: "Well Tim, You are finally done! Was it worth it?""do you think every aspiring chef should go to school?" My answer is always the more or less the same. "You get out of it what you put into it," and really, I couldn't be speaking more truthfully.

See, the thing about culinary school is that, well, it's pretty easy. There, The secret is out on how I passed all my classes. This may explain why there is such a wide variety of people that come to culinary school, Like the mom who wants to learn how to bake, the older lady who wants to open a cafe, or the GI thats looking to stretch his legs. There is also the line cook who has been working for ten years and decided that he needs a degree to move up, or me, who just loves cooking and wants to be a chef.

I'm not going to lie, anyone can do it. But what separates a chef-to-be and someone who will have a hard time finding a prep cook position is passion, drive, and commitment.

I am going to quote my Chef, Kevin Davis. Learning to cook is like standing in a fruit orchard. everything you could want to know or learn is right there in front of you. You just have to reach up and take it (He says a lot of things that blow my mind, by the way). Such is culinary school. I could have taken it easy, found a part-time job, and coasted through for two years until I was done, but that wasn't enough for me. Instead I worked 40 hours a week on top of school, practicing what I was learning.
Fortunately for me, I worked with some really great chefs who have cared about my success and have always pushed me to the next level.

Anyway, Thats a brief snippet of my opinion of culinary school. It has been a wild two years. Thank you Art Institute, and thanks to all the chefs who have helped me along the way.

I really couldn't have done it without you.

on a totally unrelated note, I am making duck prosciutto!

It wont be done for about two weeks though :(

Thanks for reading!

-TIM

Crispy Pork Belly Sandwhich with Balsamic Onion Jam and Pickled Cabbage.

This was a good one

I bought about 3 pounds of pork belly to play around with from Rainshadow meats (which is an awesome butcher shop in capitol hill), and kept it in my freezer for a while because I wasn't sure what to do with it. finally I was inspired by a couple of recipes that I had read recently. I took my favorite parts from each of them and came up with something different entirely.

Heres what I used

Pork Belly

Chinese 5-spice

Minced Garlic

Mire Poix (Carrots, Onion, Celery)

Salt (always)

Chicken Stock

I started by scoring the pork belly so that it could absorb the flavor of the seasoning. after that I rubbed it with an excessive amount of chinese 5-spice,  because in my opinion, It's a really great, complex array of flavors that is spicy, kind of sweet, nutty, and subtle, all at the same time.

After the 5-spice goodness and a little garlic was rubbed on the belly, I refrigerated it for 2 days to let all the flavor absorb into the pork. Afterwards, I turned on the oven to 200 degrees and covered the pork belly in chicken stock and some Mire Poix and slow braised it for about 9 hours over night to make sure that it not only got tender, but had enough time to combine with the other ingredients and take on their flavors.

It came out tender as tender can be, and it even tasted pretty good.

After it cooled down,  I heated up some oil until it was smoking and seared off a few slices. They turned out great! it was crispy on the outside, but super, ridiculously tender on the inside.

The balsamic onion jam was easy. It might sound a bit odd, but it was pretty tasty. all it takes is:

onions

Balsamic vingar

sugar

salt

butter or oil

I had seen the chef at Rover's make an onion jam while I interned there, but had never made one. What he did was take some caramelized onions and slowly stirred in rice wine vinegar. If done properly, the Vinegar will emulsify with the fat used to caramelize  the onions and will get really creamy. I did the same thing, but the onion jame he made was really acidic and simple, which was fine for what he used it for, but I wanted mine to be a little more complex. 

I started with the same basic premise and caramelized some onions. At the end though, I added a good amount of vinegar (enough to come about 3/4 of the way up onions), and let it reduce with a touch of sugar to take a little of the acidic edge off. Balsamic vinegar is really pungent and acidic, but when reduced, the sugars concentrate and it gets sweeter and thicker.  When it was all reduced with the onions, I seasoned it just a bit with salt. it looks sort of weird, but it was great!

The pickled cabbage was the easiest. All I did was mix white wine vinegar with sugar, salt,  touch of lemon, and let it soak. And then hey! it turned out like pickled cabbage.

Lastly, I toasted a whole wheat bun with some butter and garnished with a spicy dill pickle and whole grain mustard.

And here is the final product! It was really great! Although, I think that if I were to do it again, I would make pork belly sliders instead of a full sandwhich. 

Maybe it's because I am in a skinny guy, but it was a bit too much for me to eat. 

Either way, It was really good! 

Thanks for reading!

-Tim

P.S. As a side note, I'm going to be graduating on tuesday! expect pictures of me in a spiffy chef jacket.

A New Take

A new take on the duck prosciutto dish we were playing around with.

We still used chervil, tarragon, and pickled beets, but also threw in pickled spring onions, edible kale flowers, peas, pickled beet gelee, pear espresso powder, and olive oil emulsion.

I thought that it looked pretty cool. We made 30 of them.

which is a lot.

Until next time, when my hand is better and I can cook again,
-Tim

Almond Gazpacho

I made this the other day at school for another team’s 5-course tasting menu.

Some things to know about this dish: It is not a true gazpacho. Classic Gazpacho is a tomato based soup, thickened with bread and is served cold. There are a lot of variations of gazpacho that I really like (peach and almond are my two favorite), but besides being thickened with bread and having a slightly acidic taste, they are really only gazpacho style soups because they don’t have tomato in them.

Anyways, down to the good stuff.

The thing I like about this dish is it’s flexability. You can do almost anything with it because it is so simple. For example, you can swap out the almonds for hazel nuts or pecans, you can play around with salt-vinegar ratios, or you can change the vinegar type completely to give it a different flavor profile.

Here are the ingredients I  used.

1 part Almonds, plain

1 part Bread plus a little extra for the adjusting of thickness

Red wine vinegar

Salt

Grapes

Garlic, whole cloves

Grape juice from peeled grapes.

Extra Virgin olive oil

Mineral water (I don’t know why, but it just tastes better)

The process may seem tedious, but it is for good purpose.

I started out by combing the almonds, garlic, and enough mineral water to cover. I brought that to a boil and strained it out. I added a fresh cup of mineral water to the drained almonds and brought it to a boil again. I then strained it out one more time. The purpose of the boiling and straining is to mellow out the garlic and almonds a little. That way there is no bitter taste in the almonds, and the garlic isn’t nearly as pungent.

After that, I added the almonds, garlic, and more fresh mineral water to a blender. In addition to the above-mentioned ingredients, I added a little red wine vinegar. I blended it all together, adding mineral water as necessary. When it was starting to get smoother in texture, I started adding olive oil slowly to emulsify it with the other liquid.

When it was all done, I adjusted the taste with red wine vinegar and salt, and stuck it in the fridge to chill.

For garnish, I did a couple of pretty cool things. First, I made some Smoked paprika almonds, which contrasted and balanced really nicely with the subtle flavor of the gazpacho.

This was pretty simple, but really good. To make infused oils, I take some E.V.O.O. and heat it up to exactly 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Right when it reaches that point, You throw in whatever flavor you want (in this case, I used smoked paprika, but you can use garlic, thyme, rosemary, etc.).

After I made the oil, I poured it over some sliced almonds and let it cool. I also added a little bit of raw paprika to give it a slightly spicy and smoky flavor profile.

They came out looking really freaking cool (and they tasted good too!).

For the rest of the garnish, I just sliced some grapes in half and made it all pretty like. Here is the final product!

Thanks for reading! Check out my other posts in the archives (to the left of the page)

You can also follow me on twitter @RookieChef or tweet from this page (also on the right)

-Tim

P.S. I got a third degree burn on my hand, so im not allowed to cook for a week. dang it.... Doctors orders.....

Tasting menu

Here is the 5 course Tasting menu that we did for school (based on Heston Blumenthal's cook book, The big fat duck cook book").

Kumamoto oyster with Kale flowers, lavender, and passion fruit jelly

This one was pretty simple. We used Agar Agar (a japanese product made from seaweed that is similar to gelatin) to thicken up som passion fruit puree and sugar to make the jelly. while it was still warm, we poured it over the oysters and let them set in the fridge. we then garnished with the flowers and little fruit tuile.

Vegetarian "Pot Au Feu"

Pot au feu is actually made out of bone marrow, so its impossible to make a true pot au feu vegetarian. What you see here is actually a heart of palm with the center pushed out of it, filled with a a sort of horseradish custard filling. The trickiest part of the whole thing was getting it to stand up. We garnished with carrots and green onions and poured a vegetable broth into the bowl table side.

Cauliflower Risotto with chocolate jelly, Dried Cauliflower

This one didn't plate up as nicely as I thought it was going to. It was super good though. We started by making a pretty standard risotto base, But instead of finishing with cheese and butter, we made some cauliflower cream and cauliflower veloute, and mixed that in, making it super creamy and giving it a nice semi-sweet cauliflower taste. 

We garnished with a dehydrated cauliflower, shaved cauliflower disks, and a chocolate jelly, which was quite a rigorous task because the gelatin in the chocolate didn't quite set up all the way, so the disks tore when we tried to pick them up. it turned out alright though and paired nicely with the cauliflower.

Licorice poached salmon, asparagus, vanilla mayonnaise.

This one was probably the most interesting. we poached salmon via the sous-vide method (poached in an airtight bag) and glazed it with a sauce made from slowly cooking licorice down to thick glaze. after removing the salmon from the bags, we poured the sauce over them to coat. We garnished with balsamic reduction and grapefruit membranes.

Thats it! Hope you enjoyed it! more food goodness to to come. feel free to comment or check out my older blog posts (archive to the right).

-Tim 

P.S. You can follow me on twitter @RookieChef or email me at TimothyChambers91.blog@gmail.com

Tasting Menus from school

Over the last few weeks of class, we have been putting together 5 course tasting menus based on the style of a chef of our choosing. here is what some of the other student teams have put together (although, I certainly helped out with these).

 

Pear, beet, smoked salmon skewers

 Wild Mushrooms risotto with lardons. (Recipe-May 5 blog post)

 Braised pork shoulder, Apricot sauce

 Blueberry tart

 Pinapple tomato skewer

 Almond Gazpacho with grapes and smoked paprika almonds

 Shellfish bisque with ceviche

 Potato with Octopuss, balsamic flashed calamari, paprika and olive oil.

 beet cilantro salad

 Seared quail with yellow lentil bacon stew

 braised Pork shoulder with cheesy polenta

 orange segments with red wine sauce

 fried plantain chips with ceviche

 warm duck salad with miso dressing

 ahi tuna poke with soy aioli

 ginger crusted halibut with corn relish

Guinea fowl with mole and hazelnuts

Anyway, I thought that these were pretty cool. I am doing my tasting menu tomorrow, so stay tuned for some more freaking awesome food.

-Tim 

Also, You can now follow my blog on twitter! @RookieChef

Thanks! Happy eating!