Father's Day Menu

I apologize for being MIA for a while! Life has been crazy busy and the commute to my internship was completely wearing me out. So, a brief update: I finished up my internship at Good Housekeeping yesterday! It was truly an amazing experience and I am so lucky to have been exposed to so many aspects of the industry. Luckily, there were plenty of television shoots while I was there that I was able to be a part of. I prepped shoots for Emeril and Guy Fieri, along with a show called "Food-ogrophy" on the Cooking Channel. I loved every minute of it!

I was extremely sad to leave! Unfortunatley there aren't any positions available at the moment, so I am now on the job search! (Wish me luck!!)

Last Sunday my mom and I organized a casual Father's Day dinner for my family. My uncle was in town from Cali, so he came along with my other uncle and aunt, 3 cousins, and grandparents.

I made sandwiches for lunch to bring on the beach with us. While on the beach, we sipped on some Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling.. so light and refreshing!

I headed back to the condo early to prep dinner and appetizers. Our appetizers were pretty basic and included gourmet cheeses, crackers, hummus, etc. I wanted to make a little something special and prepared Giada's Deviled Eggs with Crab. It was delicious! I made a few minor changes: I added in the yolks of 3 eggs to the filling and ended up filling 8 eggs instead of 6. I also sprinkled the tops with paprika (afterwards I realized old bay seasoning would have been nice!):
We had a nice spread for dinner that was not too gourmet (my family enjoys comfort food!) but still incredible. I made an Asian barbecue chicken from Food and Wine magazine. I made this earlier in the afternoon and heated it up later. I made the mistake of coating it in the toasted sesame seeds too early because when I heated it up, the sesame seeds weren't as crunchy and toasty. Woops...next time I'll make sure to coat them with the seeds a la minute!
Since these had a distinct Asian flavor and were a little spicy, I made a few extra chicken drumsticks with Emeril's barbecue sauce.
We also made a double batch of Giada's Sausage, Peppers, and Onions. We served this with toasted Italian rolls, and pasta tossed with olive oil.
My mom also made a tray of homemade mac & cheese (a healthier version that included whole wheat panko and fresh sliced tomatoes!). I think the adults liked this more than the kids! We also had a tossed salad with toasted pine nuts, craisins, croutons, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and raspberry vinaigrette.

The night ended with my mom's famous Strawberry Roll and my grandpa's favorite cake.

Chicken with Mustard Mascarpone Marsala

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I had a wonderful weekend lounging on the Asbury Park Beach and spending lots of time with family and friends.

I've mentioned before the amazing restaurants in Asbury.. my family went to some of our favorites this weekend. Unfortunately, I missed out on Moonstruck on Thursday (I had work) and Langosta on Saturday, but I did make it to Taka on Friday night (the best sushi & Japanese cuisine) and Siculiana's (a new pizza joint on the boardwalk) on Sunday night.

On Saturday night I ventured back to the Colts Neck house and made a little date-night dinner for the boy. I wasn't sure what to make, but knew that Giada's chicken marsala recipe has never failed me. I used to make this dish a lot even before I went to culinary school and it was always a crowd pleaser. The recipe can be found here. I didn't make any changes, except I used a combination of baby bella mushrooms and shitakes. In this picture you can't even see the chicken because it was soo much sauce! But I swear they're hiding under there somewhere!

Giada recommends serving this with linguine (probably to soak up all that sauce!) but I thought that was boring. Instead, I made some whole wheat Israeli cous cous (cooked in chicken stock and a touch of salt to add extra flavor) and topped it with roasted grape tomatoes:

I also roasted some broccoli for some green on our plates, but didn't take a picture! It was a great meal that we enjoyed outside with a bottle of Chateau St. Michele Riesling. Delightful.

Hors D'oeuvre II

What better place to spend a rainy Monday afternoon than in the kitchen?

Today was our second (and last) day of hors d'oeuvres. Hors d'oeuvres are tough because they're a bit time consuming since you have to assemble individual bites and make them look presentable. I actually really enjoyed preparing these recipes..not to mention, it's fun to taste everyone else's bite-sized hors d'euvres.

Kim and I worked together to prepare Goat Cheese Mousse with Beet Quennelles and Buckwheat Blini with American Caviar.

The goat cheese mousse was simply a puree of goat cheese, milk, creme fraiche, roasted garlic, cumin, extra virgin olive oil, and walnut oil. There's a bit of gelatin in the mousse to help the mixture firm up and create a smooth, silky consistency. We also folded in some ground walnuts and minced chives. We topped each little mousse with a beet mixture that I made by mincing cooked beets with olive oil, canola, sherry vinegar, salt, and pepper. You definitely have to like goat cheese to enjoy this hors d'oeuvre (I LOVE goat cheese!).. The consistency was perfectly silky and the beets added a nice hint of sweetness to the tart goat cheese.
The blini were also very interesting to make. The batter was made with warm milk, yeast, sugar, buckwheat flour, all-purpose flour, and salt. After the mixture fermented and doubled in size, we added in an egg yolk and some beer. (This was all mixed up in the industrial-sized food processor to create a light, airy batter). Right before cooking the cakes, we folded in a whipped egg white. Then, we put the batter in a squeeze bottle to make it easier to create tiny "pancakes". The cakes tasted very interesting--they were light, but you could taste the beer in them (Kim and I were tempted to finish the beer.. we were good though!). They went perfectly with the accompaniements of caviar, creme fraiche, and chopped chives:

My group also made Shrimp Shao Mai Dumplings: (And unpictured Duxesses & Fois Gras Palmiers and Chicken Sate Yakitori)
At 4:00 all three groups presented their dishes. There was a lot to try today! A new class started today down the hall, so they came in our kitchen to sample our food. I'm jealous that it was their first day.. I don't want to be done with school!! I was also jealous of their crisp white uniforms... ours definitely aren't crisp or white anymore! Anyways, back to the food...

Chicken Sate with Southeast Asian Dipping Sauce:

Vegetable Confetti Pancakes with Tomatillo Salsa:

Thai Spring Rolls:

Spicy Crab Remoulade:

Smoked Salmon Parfait Shot Glasses:

Beef Sate with Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Smoked Salmon Crepes with Cream Cheese and Caviar:

Scallop and Pork Spring Rolls:

Coconut Shrimp in Puff Pastry Shells:

Tomato Mousse with Sun-Dried Tomato & Zucchini Quenelles:
We are making a sausages tomorrow which should be interesting! Then I'm having a girl's night out in the city with my sister :)

One more thing.. Kim brought in cookes from Levain Bakery for us to try. Let me just say, it was the most amazing cookie I have ever tasted. They were HUGE and cake-like with chocolate chips that are all gooey (which I don't understand because the cookie wasn't warmed up). So basically, I'm going to have to plan a trip to this bakery very soon because I need more cookies!!!!!

Market Basket Challenge

Why do I always have the weirdest encounters at Starbucks???!  Today I was minding my own business while sipping on some green tea before class when some guy comes up to me and hands me his business card.  Apparantly he writes on a blog called "womenofstarbucks.com" and asked if he could take my picture.....uhhhh??  Awkward!  I didn't really know what to say, so I uh, let him take a picture of me?  Must've been my snazzy new yellow jacket from Marshalls that made me look so picture-worthy ;)

Anyways, I'll back-track to last weekend.  I spent the majority of the weekend experimenting with graduation ideas.  Kim worked on some of the dishes too so we were able to really discuss our game plan today.  I won't tell y'all the exact menu yet, but here's a little preview of what I was up to this weekend:

Notice my ridiculous sad face while killing the lobster... yup, I'm a killer and I'm not proud of it.

I brought the final dish to school today for Chef Chris to try.  Kim and I also brought it down the hall for the other chef instructors to have a taste and offer their opinons.  Overall, we got good feedback and have a good idea of what to change.

Class today was a bit different than usual.  Instead of working in groups, we were able to work independently.  We were given complete freedom as to what to make and were not given any recipes or instructions.  Chef Chris gave us a few ground rules and then left the rest to us.  We had to present a plate to him that contained a protein, starch, vegetable, and 2 oz of sauce.

At the beginning of class half of the students were let into the kitchen to take a look at the ingredients we were given and prepare a menu.  The rest of the students were let into the kitchen 30 minutes later.  I was in the first half of the group and immediately looked at the proteins.  My game plan was to keep things simple and to cook things that I knew how to cook well.  I was nervous about today and didn't want to think of crazy new ideas and then get flustered and mess up.  This was the first opportunity I was given to present a dish to Chef Chris that I could call my own, so I wanted to impress him with the skills and techniques I have learned thus far in culinary school.

Once I decided on my menu, the rest of class was a breeze.  Everything turned out perfectly and I presented a beautiful plate to Chef Chris that I was proud of:(Sauteed breast of duck with a red wine & rosemary reduction; Glazed carrot rondelles with orange zest; Rice Pilaf with fresh herbs and a brunoise of red and yellow bell peppers)

Chef commented that I cooked and seasoned everything very well.  He gave me suggestions to make the dish even better, but was impressed with what I served. 

While I was cooking, I was a little insecure because I thought my dish was going to be "boring", but I was happy that I contained my composure and executed every component very well.  Tomorrow will be my chance to add some more creativity and perhaps challenge myself a bit more!

Modern Culinary Masters-- Daniel Boulud

Today was the best day of my life.

Just kidding, although I did have a wonderful day. Whenever we ask Chef how he's doing, he always responds "today's the best day of my life" in a serious voice. I love it.

Before class I stopped at Starbucks to eat my lunch and have some tea. I had the lovely pleasure of meeting Edward, the man who sat next to me and decided to strike up conversation. Actually, that's an understatement.. he actually decided to tell me his whole life story. I learned about his long trips to Mississippi and what he likes to do in his free time on the weekends. Things got weird when he asked me if I wanted to listen to his ipod with him, so I chugged my tea and bolted. He gave me a Lifesaver mint as a parting gift..... weird.

I got to class nice and early to help set up the kitchen. There is a lot of prep to get the kitchen exactly how Chef likes it. Once we went over the recipes, Kim and I started working on the Soupe au Pistou. The soup used vegetable stock as a base, so we decided to "fortify" the stock that was given us by adding more vegetables, herbs, and spices to it. This increased the depth of flavor, which really affected the outcome of our soup.

The soup required a lot of prep work and chopping. It is basically a French version of minestrone, so we prepped a lot of different vegetables and aromatics. Once our soup got going, we made an awesome pesto sauce to top the soup with. We made this sauce to taste by blending fresh basil, parmesan cheese, lightly toasted pinenuts, and garlic. While these ingredients were pureeing, we streamed in extra virgin olive oil. After adding more cheese, pine nuts, salt, and pepper, this pesto was perfect! It was the perfect topping to our soup.

We also changed the recipe of our soup a bit by adding tomato puree. This added a nice sweetness and made the broth my hearty. We also added some torn basil for a bit of freshness. The end result was perfect. Chef complimented us on our soup and even said it was one of the best minestrone soups he's tasted... I'll take it!

Matty and Allison made a Crisp Paupiette of Sea Bass with Red Wine Sauce. It was a beautiful presentation and a very delectable dish. The sea bass was coated with paper-thin slices of potatoes and sauteed until the outer layer of potatoes were crispy:

Rob and Nora made the Baby Chicken and Squash Casserole with Rosemary. They also dried some tomatoes and used it as a garnish. This was another wonderful dish!

The other groups made some other impressive dishes. My favorite was the Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Sage Croutons:

Obviously, I also loved the Lobster Ravioli on Spinach Leaves in a Ginger Cream Sauce:

Lamb Chops with Lemon -Pignoli Crust and Oven Roasted Vegetables:

Billi-Bi Cressonniere (Vegetable cream soup with mussels):

Maine Sea Scallops in Black Tie (Layers of scallops and black truffles in puff pastry):
Creamy Rabbit Casserole with Nine Spring Herbs:
After making these recipes, I am dying to go to Daniel Boulud's restaurant (appropriately named "Daniel") in NYC.

I was kind of bummed because Chef asked the class if we would want to skip Thomas Keller's recipes tomorrow and have a class of knife skills. Most of the class said they wanted the knife skills lesson. The recipes for tomorrow looked sooo good. Oh well, at least I'll get some much needed practice. Chef said that we can make some of the recipes, although we will spend most of the class on knife skills. At least tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!!

Modern Culinary Masters-- Rick Bayless

Rick Bayless, you are a genius. I enjoyed the food today more than any other day. Obviously, the theme was "Mexican", a cuisine that I am not very comfortable cooking. I'm not talking about the tacos and fajitas you get at your local Mexican restaurant on 99 cent margarita night. I'm talking REAL Mexican. I love how all of the ingredients that we used were very cheap, but had a lot of flavor and were stretched out because of the fillers or toppers.

Kim and I were paired up to work on the Chilied Chicken Steamed with Avacodo Leaves. Chef changed the recipe considerably, so we ended up searing and baking the chicken in the marinade instead of steaming it. The avocado leaves were similar to dried bay leaves, so we simply wrapped them in cheesecloth and added them to the marinade to add some extra earthiness and flavor.

I worked on the marinade while Kim seared off the bone-in, skin-on chicken breast (keeping the bone in and the skin on keeps the chicken moist and flavorful). I toasted and rehydrated some dried guajilos chiles (very spicy!). I also toasted some other spices and ground them up in a spice grinder. I blended up the spices, chiles, onion, garlic, cider vinegar, and water. Next, I sauteed the mixture with some canola oil in a skillet until it thickened to the consistency tomato paste. We spread the mixture over the chicken and let it marinate before we put it in the oven to finish cooking. Here was our finished product that we plated with some red tomato rice that every group had to prepare.
Once our chicken was marinating and ready for the oven, I started helping out with other tasks that needed to get done in our group. I helped Matt and Allison prepare the gorditas for the Bacon-Flavored Gorditas Corn Masa Pockets with Roasted Poblano Guacamole:


Next, I helped assemble the chicken tamales with Kim, Henry, and Nora. These were my favorite!!!!Nora and Rob prepared this delicious chicken in Oaxacan yellow mole with green beans and chayote. I tried chayote for the first time today. Chef told us it is similar to an apple, but it's a vegetable. I would describe the taste as a cross between a cucumber and jicama. It was very fresh tasting, with little flavor. It went well with this flavorful sauce!
Here is the Red Tomato Rice prepared by another group (every group prepared this same recipes, but they all looked different.. our group eliminated peas because one team member is allergic)
Here are the rest of the recipes prepared by the other teams. Like I said, everything was incredible!!

(Crispy Potato Sopes with Salsa, Goat Cheese, and Herb Salad)

(Chicken in Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce)
(Classic Shredded Beef & Tomatoes served with Corn Masa Pockets)

(Slow-Cooked Achiote Chicken)

(Classic Red Mole with Turkey)

Tomorrow I am group leader, so I definitely have to be on my game! The next couple of days are only going to get harder, but I'm excited for the challenge!

Modern Culinary Masters-- Ming Tsai

I cannot express enough how great it is to have Chef Chris as our chef instructor this module (no, I'm not sucking up... I'm too scared to tell him about my blog hehe). I took a moment during class today to just observe the chaos and professionalism in our class. We have definitely come a long way in the past few months!

We began today's class with knife skills. I definitely needed the practice! We each minced a couple of shallots and cloves of garlic. When I say mince, I mean MINCE... these had to be chopped until they could not be chopped any more. We were even given knife skills homework for tonight. I'm saving it for the morning... I have to mince 5 cloves of garlic, 2 shallots, and small dice 4 carrots (1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 inch cubes).

After knife skills and a quick review of today's menu, we got to work on the recipes (provided by Master Chef, Ming Tsai).

I started out by preparing an Asian Pear Chutney for our duck recipe. This chutney was spicy and sweet.. I loved it with the duck! The mixture contained, onions, ginger, sambal oelek, rice wine vinegar, apple cider, and Asian pears.

After that, I helped prep the fennel orzo salad, the shrimp stir-fry and helped saute the duck breasts. Just like yesterday, everything turned out beautiful and tasty! We were all scrambling during the last minutes to get our dishes on the table. It is seriously like a food network show when Chef is counting down the seconds and we're all putting our final touches on the presentation. Every minute is so worth it when we are all able to stand back and see all of the hard work we put into each and every dish. Then we EAT and it is DEFINITELY worth it!

Time for pictures....These first 3 dishes are the ones my group worked on:
(Achiote Duck Breasts with Asian Pear Chutney, Spiced Pecans, and Red Chile Oil)

(Spicy Shrimp with Mangoes and Snow Pea Salad)

(Citrus Herbal Tea-Rubbed Halibut with Orange-Fennel Orzo Salad)

(PEI Mussels and Chinese Sausage with Garlic-Ginger-Scallion Stir Fry Sauce)

(Blue Ginger Alaskan Butterfish with Soba Noodle Sushi)

(Traditional Mandarin Fried Rice)

(Oyster Corn Fritters with Two-Vinegar Emulsion and Spicy Mayonnaise)

(Napa Slaw)
(Oven Roasted Szechwan Squab with Steamed Scallion-Lemon Rice)

(Chicken-Rice Noodle Stir-Fry)

Everybody watch Chopped tonight--Chef Erica will be competing (our chef instructor from module 3!)

I'll be spending the rest of the night brainstorming menu ideas for our graduation! I'm working with Kim to create a very original and creative menu for the big day! We're meeting tomorrow before class to get our ideas down on paper for Chef Chris.