Workbook

Snapshots

Of course, so many moments speed by without proper documentation. For instance, this year's New Zealand greengage crop came and went without me going on about it like I do every year. At least here anyway. We did end up discussing its merits, clafoutis-style, on Martha Stewart Radio back in late March. And then Chef and I shot a greengage-yogurt-rhubarb dish for photographer Mary-Laetitia Gerval's next book project. But I digress. A few more snapshots from our kitchen and beyond... 

 

   

The LB team also busted out a new cookbook over a mere few weeks in April. My contribution to the project- a companion book to ER's PBS series- included about twenty dessert recipes. Above, a few of my reference images for the recipe tester- Roasted White Chocolate Panna Cotta, Blueberry-Almond Budino, and a classic Chocolate Mousse. And below, evidence discovered along the way that not all vessels are in fact oven-proof.

 

 

As usual, Spring was event season here in NYC, and I must have averaged one such out-of-house gig a week. Above, for the Tap-n-Tapas event, we riffed on our pistachio-cherry-white chocolate dessert. A few weeks later we twisted it further: black sesame, soy, mandarin, yuzu, and cherry, for the inaugural Lucky Rice festival. Below, going back further, our prototype for the SoBe dinner honoring Daniel Boulud. Our plate-up for 600 was a mashed-up vacherin of sorts: lemon, praline, coconut, cocoa pain de genes, and meringue.

 

 

When you get the call to make a special surprise birthday 'cake' for Dave Arnold and Nils Noren, you accept the challenge without question. Above, my test semla- a favorite dessert from Nils' homeland- essentially a sweet bread flavored with cardamom, hollowed out, it's interior shredded and soaked in milk, blended with almond paste, and stuffed back in, before being finished with clouds of whipped cream. Pretty good, I thought. But not as cool as Brooks Headley's commisioned Fudgie-the-Whale, complete with decor of fried pasta. This will give you a good sense of how the evening progressed.

 

 

Above, a loose strawberry-rhubarb tart designed for our project in DC. Below, changes made there earlier in the year, rocking out the classics, if you will: Profiteroles, Praline Mille Feuille, Apple Tatin, and a coupe- Pistachio, Vanilla, Rasberry, and Caramel. Heading back this coming week to do more; I will also be paying a visit to the White House.

 

I haven't yet really followed through on the 'Covers' idea, but not for lack of inspiration. Pulled this book off the shelf a while back. As you can see, it saw quite a bit of use when it appeared in the mid-90s. I must have lifted every single component in that book at one point. Classic indeed.

 

Breakfast functions at LB aren't all that common, but rather than out-source pastry when they do pop up, I recently decided to upgrade and produce everything in-house because, well, we can. It's been fun re-learning this facet of the profession after fifteen years of restaurant work. Simon took the lead in fine-tuning the doughs and lamination. In addition to bagels (of course), we're now at the ready to pump out croissant, pain au chocolat, several danish, muffins, etc. Good stuff.

   

 

 
   
 
 
  

On the plated front, a sketch: Black Sesame, Mandarin, Cherry, Shiso

 

 

Another rough draft. Almost too similar to the Black Sesame dish in terms of techniques and components, this is a play on the idea of Tres Leches. It all began with Jesus, and after much back and forth, he put together a traditional version, which led to this interpretation, blown out to include a condensed milk ice cream, brown butter micro-sponge, banana, coconut, and caramelized white chocolate. Needs more work.

 

 

I traveled quite a bit in the interim- quick trips to Miami, LA, Seattle- but the highlight was a chance to tour cacao plantations in the Dominican Republic. Hosted by Michel Cluizel, a small group of us pastry chef types were offered access to the Rizek family's Los Ancones and La Esmeralda plantations outside San Francisco de Macoris. To say that it was inspiring would be an understatement. No matter how much of you read about it from a book, there's just no substitute for seeing, feeling, and tasting the process from tree to bar up close and on location. It will change your view of chocolate, for sure. We were suprised with a last-minute challenge to prepare a dessert on the plantation for local chefs and media. The group I led produced a conceptual dish inspired by the surroundings, composed of hand-ground cocoa paste, young coconut, green mango, cashews, lime, ripe mango pearls, goat's milk caramel, freshly-roasted nibs, beans/pulp taken straight from fresh pods, flower buds, and garnish made from chocolate produced in the next room.

   

 

 

I've been digging these little matcha truffles. We've messed around with them off and on, first for the Lucky Rice event, and most recently, for the lunch attended by the Dalai Lama, where they found a place in boxes of take-away chocolates.

 

Lots of other fun stuff happened, but the question will always remain, 'What's next?'

As always, it's a pleasure to be here.

 
 

 

Hands in Dough

Ok, this isn't so much a 'cover' as it is perhaps a faithful rendition of an old standard. And I think it also fits into our theme as I did nick the recipe from beloved bread master, Ciril Hitz.

The thing is, every few months I feel the sudden urge to get my hands into some dough, to feel this living, breathing mass that we don't really 'make', but rather we enable nature to just do it's thing. It was with bread that my passion for cooking formed, as well as my curiosity with how food fundamentally works. The smell of yeast, the feel of flour on my hands- they instantly take me back to those days over 15 years ago.

    

 

I built quite a repertoire as I filled the cases of the bakery I worked in. Perhaps my favorites were bagels and soft pretzels. The whole process and ritual intrigued me as much as the results. On a slow day recently (rare indeed) we decided to make our own, just for the  hell of it. Simon made the dough a day ahead and I set about hand rolling. Awkward at first, after a few mis-shapen rings the physical memory of the hands started to come back. After a quick boil in a honey syrup, I still can't get over the fact that these ugly wrinkly blobs will transform into a smooth glossy finish in the oven.

 

 
 

We cheated and used the same dough for a round of pretzels. The only difference came in the boil, to which we added baking soda (in place of the traditional lye). Incidentally, this is a great way to teach the Maillard reaction, and how an increase in pH accelerates the browning and kicks up the flavor- that ineffable 'pretzle-y' flavor.

   

 
 

 

And yes, ladies, our resident bagel model, Jesus, is available.

Giving It Some English

 

A bit of a detour from our normal work here. A few months back, a slow circulator-cooked egg was added to the menu. While the dish was being developed, it was decided that we come up with an English muffin-esque toast to accompany the egg. At any given time, we provide a handful of various doughs, tuiles, chips, and bases for the savory side of the kitchen. Truth be told, we're not always excited about this stuff, yet we manage to easily absorb the extra work with little hassle. The English muffin, however, was actually fun to develop, and months later, I still enjoy making them. Perhaps it’s that part of me that will always miss my first love, bread.

 

 

   
 

In addition to adapting the traditional to restaurant production, the real challenge came on two fronts: in order to produce a long, thin slice that could be toasted for the egg dish, we had to first make a rectangular-shaped muffin, and second, the crumb- or nooks and crannies, if you will- had to be a bit tighter than the classic, in order to get a clean look. The conventional English muffin is wrought from a fairly loose dough, nearly a batter. The griddling then takes place within rings to contain the dough, the looseness of it partially contributing that wonderful open and irregular crumb.

 

 

   
  

Surprisingly, we nailed down both our recipe and method quite quickly. The dough was just tight enough to manipulate, and the texture and flavor was achieved by utilizing a fair amount of dry milk in the formula. The result gave us a familiar look and flavor of an English muffin, though in a form that we could tailor to our specific use.

 

 

 

The funny thing is, not having had too many English muffins over the years, I now crave them, and must have them in the house at all times. Store-bought, of course. Who knows, there may be some bagel-making experiments in my future, too.

 

 

Download: English Muffin- Workbook.3.10.09

 

A side note on the low-temp egg. Earlier this year, I collaborated with Dr. Cesar Vega, a food scientist at Mars, on an intense presentation covering many of modern cooking’s ‘greatest hits’. The centerpiece of Cesar’s demo was his extensive research on an egg’s texture in relation to its cooking time and temperature. Using common textural analogies, his goal has been to create a tool that chefs could use to pinpoint specific, predictable results- and debunking the myth that time doesn't really matter, even at a constant temperature. He also presented this ongoing project in May at the Experimental Cuisine Collective's daylong symposium here in NYC. I know a lot of us are looking forward to the eventual published work! Cesar also introduced me to the fun egg cooking calculator created by some folks in Oslo, which has since been linked to by Martin and others.