Wekly Culinary Challenge -- Intro

Part of why this blog exists is to have a way in which a culinary community can be created. While that sounds somewhat high-brow, that's not the point. By challenging ourselves to do something a little out of our comfort zone, we can all hope to get better. No matter what our background and skill level in the kitchen is, we can all learn something new and different from the experiences of others. The weekly culinary challenge is here to streamline that process and to give us all a way to talk to each other using the same framework. So, if the the theme is "pork tenderloin AND ginger," for example, we can all use those ingredients and come up with something that's unique to each one of us.

So here are the guidelines for the challenges:

1) Use the ingredient(s) that is listed for the week.
2) There will be at least 2 keywords for each challenge. One will be an ingredient. The other(s) will be either another ingredient, a cooking method, or style of cuisine. Every now and then, there will be a NEGATIVE keyword. That means don't use or do that -- e.g. lamb NOT mint would mean create a dish that uses lamb but without mint.
3) You have one week from the date of the challenge being posted to come up with something.
4) Please post your recipe from that week. Tweak it if necessary to make sure you're putting your best foot forward. However, if you have a disaster, talk about it! Again, the point is that we're all trying to learn here.
5) Nothing has to be fancy or "gourmet" here. Sometimes a simple preparation of an ingredient is a lot more difficult to pull off than something that has 20 odd items that go into it, and requires hours of work.
6) If at all possible, take a picture of your masterpiece. We eat with our eyes as much as any other sense. Not only that, but it'll force us to present the food a little more nicely than we might otherwise.
7) Don't just copy someone else's recipe. If you need inspiration, by all means look on Food Network or Epicurious, but do something different and unique with it, ok?

Pretty simple, eh?

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In an effort to get this started, here's a recipe using the above example as a guideline.

CHALLENGE: Pork AND Ginger

Recipe: Pork Tenderloin with Two Sauces -- serves 4-6

2 Pork Tenderloins, silver skin removed
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
White Pepper
Curry Powder (hot Madras, if available)

1 Cup chopped Dried Apricots
1/4 Cup toasted Pine Nuts
1 ts grated Ginger

Red wine, blackberry and ginger sauce:

1 Cup bold Red Wine such as a Shiraz, or red Zinfandel
2 TblS fresh grated Ginger
1 small Shallot
2 cloves Garlic
1 ts Chicken Demi-Glace (or chicken base)
1 TblS Blackberry Jam
1 TblS Unsalted Butter
1 ts Corn or Potato Starch mixed with a little water

optional: 1 small handfull fresh Blackberries

White wine and apricot sauce

1 Cup Chardonnay
2 TblS fresh frated Ginger
1 small Shallot
2 cloves Garlic
1 ts Chicken Demi-Glace (or chicken base)
1/2 Cup chopped Dried Apricots
1 TblS Unsalted Butter
1 ts Corn or Potato Starch mixed with a little water

optional: 1 TblS chopped flat-leaf Parseley

Prep:

Preheat your oven to 425 F/220 C

Rub both loins with curry powder and sea salt. Put black pepper on the one to go with the red sauce, and white pepper on the one to go with the white sauce.

Take the loin that will be going with the white wine sauce, and make a slit into it, opening it up somewhat like a book (butterfly it)

Place a mixture of chopped apricots, grated ginger, a little salt and toasted pine nuts into the cavity and then roll the loin back together. Tie with butcher's twine in three to four places to keep it together.

Make the sauces:

Take out two sauce pans, and add the chopped shallot and garlic to them with a little butter, and sauté until translucent. Add the red wine to one pan and white wine to the other.

Red wine, blackberry, and ginger sauce:

Add grated ginger and chicken demi-glace to the pan with the red wine, whisk to dissolve, and then add the blackberry jam. Reduce slightly, and then whisk in the butter to give it a sheen. Adjust seasoning as needed. The sauce should be slightly hot from the ginger and sweet, but not overly so. Add the slurry of starch and water into the pot, and bring back to a boil. Reserve once the sauce is slightly thickened. Strain if you want it smoother. Add in the fresh blackberries if desired while holding.

White wine, ginger, and apricot sauce:

Add grated ginger and chicken demi-glace to the pan with the white wine, whisk to dissolve, and then add the chopped apricots. Reduce slightly then whisk in butter to give it a sheen. Adjust seasonings as needed, and then add the slurry to thicken slightly. Strain to make the sauce smoother. Just prior to service, add the chopped parseley is desired.

Pork:

Preheat an oven safe saute pan with oil (canola or peanut work well) until slightly smoking. Place both loins into the pan and sear well on all sides, about 1/2-2 minutes per side. Don't move it around too much! You won't get that nice crust you want.
Once the pork is seared, pop it into the preheated oven. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes for medium, or until an instant read thermometer reads 140 F. Do not overcook the meat, as there is not enough fat to keep it from getting dry. Let the meat rest under some tented foil for about 5 minutes. Carve each into medallions and server 3-4 pieces of each per person and prepare the plate with both sauces -- red wine for the unstuffed loin, and white for the apricot stuffed one.


Serve with vegetable and starch of choice. I like to serve a simple cous-cous and steamed green vegetable (like haricot verts) with this dish.

Happy cooking!

How I am dieting, or the Japanese principle of good eating.

DISCLAIMER: I am in no ways a dietician or a health care professional. The below is merely an opinion of what works for me. If you try it and it doesn't work, I'm not responsible, ok?

I decided that my partner and I need to be on a diet. Not a crash and burn "must lose 50 pounds NOW" kind of diet, but one that's sensible and sustainable. Here's what I came up with that works for me. Rule Numero Uno of successfully dieting is to slow down one's pace while eating. The thought here is that by slowing down, we can be more in tune with our body's signals that we're full. Good enough. In order to do this and to get more nutrition into my diet, I'm following a basic Japanese concept of eating: "Ichi-jyu San Sai." Basically, this translates to "one soup, three sides." With an understanding that rice is assumed in any Japanese meal, you end up with five dishes consisting of soup, main dish, two sides, and a bowl of rice. While that may sound like a lot of food, it's not -- Japanese rice and soup bowls are very small, and the point is to limit the amount in terms of quantity of foods that are taken in. By having various flavors and textures on your plates and picking and choosing while eating them (the dishes are all served at the same time, and are supposed to be eated in a "bite of this, a sip of that, a little rice..." fashion), you automatically slow down the pace of eating, and end up being more satisfied with less. Not only that, by having all these different ingredients, you are more likely to get more essential nutrients than eating that big steak with mashed potatoes (not that I'm against that either... love steak).

In addition to this, the original intent of Ichi-jyu San Sai, was to follow two other principles than just the course list. One, each meal should have items of all food colors represented (red/yellow, green, white, brown, black), and two, all the items featured should be cooked in a different manner, i.e. items could be grilled/broiled, sauted, boiled, steamed, fried, raw, etc. By having items with different colors, you broaden the nutritional base of your meal, and by using different cooking methods, you can make your brain more satisfied by giving it a wealth of textures in addition to flavors that make the meal more interesting.

Is it a little more work... yes. Cooking like this does require the use of more pots and pans in the kitchen, but I think that the rewards are highly worthwhile. Here's an example of a meal I might make with these premises.

1) Soup: small serving of miso soup with daikon and tofu (brown/white, boiled)
2) Main/Protein: salt grilled chicken thigh with black sesame seed (white/black, broiled)
3) Side 1: carrots simmered in dashi (red, simmered)
4) Side 2: small salad of lettuce, cucumber, and grape tomatoes with non-oil dressing (green/red, raw)
5) Starch: brown Rice (brown, steamed)

Ok, so you can see above that I have five dishes, with each color represented, each with a different cooking method. While it might seem like a lot, remember that the portion control is in the "three to four bites per item" range. Too Japanese? No problem. I've found that the premise works well with even a decidedly Western bias. For example:

1) Soup: French onion soup au gratin (brown/white, boiled)
2) Main/Protein: parmesan crusted filet of sole with lemon caper butter (white/yellow/green, pan-fried)
3) Side 1: creamed spinach (green/white, steamed)
4) Side 2: wild rice salad with golden raisins, celery, and peppers (black/yellow/green, boiled/raw/dried)
5) Starch: half a baked potato (white, baked)

See, it works with no weird Asiatic twist to it too... although I do get stumped sometimes in finding "black" ingredients... dark brown and purple seem to work ok as substitutes too. And there are days that I have three simmered items on the menu, but I think that's ok... this is a general guideline, not a strict science. I try to cook like this at least once a day, usually for dinner. Just remember, portion control is everything here. A little bit of this and a little bit of that makes for great eating.

I don't count calories, or really restrict myself too much. The only thing, if you must know, that I look at on a nutrition label, really is the saturated fat content of something. I try to keep my intake of saturated fat under 15 grams a day. It's really not that hard... I look for "better" fats like olive oil to do my sauteing in, and hold off of butter and cream for the most part. Once a week or so, I go all out and have a big fatty piece of meat with a side that's oozing cheese and butter. I enjoy it then without feeling too guilty.

Hope this inspires you a bit.

Happy Cooking!

An example of my culinary whorishness... Or the Gayest Purchase Ever

So, I was shopping in Williams Sonoma the other day, and my partner David picks up a nice chopping block. Well, to be precise, it was a mezzaluna board (refer to picture). I'm thinking, "that's nice, but..." Then I realize what it is. There is an actual mezzaluna knife in a slot on the board. We pull it out and lo and behold, it's a SHUN blade. I'm not going to get into what exactly a SHUN blade means to me at this point since I'm planning on writing an entry on the topic of kitchen knives (hey, I not only sell them, I collect them), but suffice it to say that IMO they're one of two or three companies that sells commercial kitchen knives in the US that are at the top of the list. David's gawking at the thing, and saying that he's always wanted one so he doesn't "have to chase herbs around a board." I'm sort of thinking the same thing. But there are some problems here:

1) our kitchen is TINY. I've collected so much kitchen shit in the past couple years and I have so many different herbs/spices/condiments that there's literally no space for actual cooking left.

2) it's a total unitasker. This is something that basically performs exactly one function besides being so darn pretty. It chops up herbs. If you want to really stretch the point, it's good for mincing things like garlic and onion too. 99% of the time, I'm in agreement with Alton Brown of the Food Network who says that things that are only good for one thing should never come into one's kitchen (with the exception of a fire extinguisher). Yeah... um, but it IS a knife and I CAN use the board to do other thingsm maybe.

3) it's FRICKIN expensive. Don't get me wrong. Being a sales whore at a gourmet kitchen supply store, I have my fair share of expensive things in my kitchen. While some purchases are truly frivolous (like this one's seeming right now), there is a point in which you really do get better quality for your big bucks. No, I'm not saying spend 19.50 on a jar of spaghetti sauce, but a pan, pot, knife, mixer, well, you may as well save up and spend it.

The above being said, I'm justifying my purchase. All things considered, the most important thing of any purchase one makes is the bottom line of "I really like it." And I do, really. :D In terms of the cons listed above...

1) It's pretty enough to actually be left out.

2) ok, but the blade is a SHUN, man!

3) expensive, yes, but I did get it at a significant discount...

Bottom line again, I like it, and as for the unitasker thing, at the point in which I decided it was purty enough to leave on my counter, it serves a second purpose as counter sculpture. Yeah, I know. I'm a total whore as is my partner who found it, and we have made the GAYEST purchase ever.

Happy cooking!

Introduction

Hi there, my name's Claude and I'm a culinary whore. What does that mean? Well, it means that I think and talk about food almost constantly. I'm the guy that talks about what I made for dinner tonight while out at a bar and makes you hungry even though you've already eaten. I even took a part-time job at Williams-Sonoma just because I was spending too much money there and needed the discount. I'm also a culinary whore in the sense that I perhaps because of my heritage (French/Japanese) and having lived all over the world (really, on all inhabitable continents), I like to pick and choose and combine ingredients and flavors. Sometimes it's sensational, other times... well... although I have enough experience these days to instinctively know what does and doesn't work about 99% of the time. Hey, I've been cooking for over 20 years and experimenting all that time.

This is an outlet for my culinary creativity -- I've had enough people ask, so I decided to share on a broader level than having cooking classes at home for friends. I'm constantly trying new combinations of flavors in my head, and I consider cooking to be therapeutic. One of the first things my partner David heard from me when we started dating was that the worse the day I have, the more elaborate dinner tends to become. Have I been to culinary school or been formally trained? No. That being said, I do have a killer instinct when it comes to flavor. And I do know what and how to do a "brunoise" and I can make "demi-glace" from scratch... not that I do that often in my small-ass kitchen.

Join me here for my ramblings and recipes. I probably will start posting on things like what kitchen equipment you should buy, and what items at your local gourmet purveyor actually are worth the premium. Also, I'm going to start posting a once-weekly culinary challenge with an ingredient and a "keyword" such as a cooking method. I welcome each and all of you to participate and join the discussion. The rules are simple. Just use the ingredient and follow the keyword, and then post your proudest creation that fits the bill. If you can plate it pretty and take a picture to make everyone drool, even better. I'll collect all the recipes, and set up a recipe bank at some point when there's enough to go in. Just do me a favor, if you want to look at another recipe for inspiration (nothing wrong with that), just change it around a bit. The whole point of this is for me and you to try new and interesting things.

Happy Cooking!