Roasted Banana

Roasted Banana Cremeux 

Otucan chocolate / shiso / cocoa / matcha green tea ice cream

This dish is inspired by the classic "Fried Banana with green tea ice cream" that you see on many sushi restaurant menus. The cremeux is made with bananas that have been roasted black with the skins on and the "tuiles" are fried-dehydrated banana. I use Valhrona's 69% Otucan Chocolate for this dish, which works great matched with the banana, and the herbal-earthy flavors of the shiso and matcha green tea. The chocolate is in the nitro poached chocolate mousse as well as the green, green tea-chocolate cake. The green sauce is a shiso puree, which is difficult to make since shiso browns so easily. It is blanched at 180 degrees F and then pureed with ice. The ice cream is an intense matcha green tea and then I garnish the dish with micro shiso.

Yule Log 2012

                              

Here are some pictures of my "Yule Log". I decided to try to make it look as realistic as possible. I am tired of seeing goofy "buche de noels" that look like every other cake/ gateau. The majority of them are perfect chocolate cake cylinders with perfectly smooth chocolate glazes, tempered chocolate "curls", french macarons, and chocolate plaques that say Merry Christmas. I love the retro american yule logs that resemble actual logs and that are covered with meringue "mushrooms". I wanted to emphasize on the beauty of imperfection and the beauty of nature. The best, classic yule logs have imperfect frosting that resemble real logs so I thought, why not go even further. I like to forage for mushrooms in the spring and summer so I thought I could use that knowledge of mushroom types to my advantage. Instead of making generic button mushrooms, I made black trumpets, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and even white truffles. All are made out of chocolate that is softened with some glucose syrup (except the oysters are meringues. I had to keep some of it classic). The cake itself is a gingerbread genoise that is very thin. The filling is a soft chocolate ganache and when the cake is rolled up it actually resembles the rings of a tree. We tried to keep it as realistic as possible but keeping in mind it has to taste great as well. The "moss" is a matcha green tea/ milk chocolate cake. The green tea goes very well with the chocolate and gives the cake a perfect "moss" color without the addition of food coloring. We had grooves in the cake that resemble the grooves of an actual log and kept that look by lightly spraying the cake with chocolate. We also cut the cake in such a way that it actually looked like the log "broke" and fell on the ground naturally. It actually came out looking quite nicely and really resembles a log sitting in the forest. Enjoy the pictures and Happy Holidays!

Chocolate "Black Trumpets"

 Chocolate "Chanterelles"

 White Chocolate " White Truffles"

Very cool that a picture of one of my desserts made Daniel Krieger's top 15 food pictures of 2012!

http://firstwefeast.com/eat/year-in-pictures-daniel-kriegers-15-best-food-photos-of-2012/s/on20/

Really?

Apparently, there are two types of restaurant customers in this world. The people who order 9 course tasting menus, and the people who don't eat meat, bananas, grapefruits, melons, peppers, and onions........ wtf

Pumpkin

Pumpkin Bavarian

Brown Butter / Espresso churro / Strega / Mascarpone Sorbet

Ok,  I love pumpkin spiced coffee..... So having said that, I had to create a dessert that embraces pumpkin and coffee. The main flavors of the dessert are pumpkin, espresso, Strega, and mascarpone. To me pumpkins are one of the most "New England" ingredients and espresso, obviously, very italian. So being an Italian-New Englander, I naturally love the two. We are in between Halloween and Thanksgiving so it is now the height of pumpkin season. I truly love pumpkins but I didn't want to cop out and just roast them and puree them. I wanted to showcase the pumpkin first and foremost. We get beautiful CT sugar pumpkins and I decided to sous-vide them in a spiced brown butter-brown sugar liquid. I cook the raw pumpkin at 187 degrees F for 40 minutes. I then dice some of the pumpkin and puree the rest with the brown butter liquid. I wanted to serve actual pumpkin pieces on the plate to ensure the diner that we utilize beautiful local pumpkins and not a canned pumpkin puree. The puree is transformed into a dense mousse, or a bavarian, the barely spiced puree is also warmed slightly and dolloped onto the plate, and the base of the dish is a torched milk meringue. I wanted to replicate the foam on a cappuccino for example, so instead of frothed milk, I made a frothy milk meringue. I then wanted to create an espresso component that was crispy but at the same time can be served warm. I settled on a churro, which has a natural organic look, that ties in nicely with the overall concept of the dish.

The churro is a pate a choux made with espresso and milk instead of water. It has a nice bittersweet flavor with nice toasted milk / caramel notes. The mascarpone sorbet provides creaminess to dish without being overpowering. The sorbet also works better than an ice cream because the mascarpone flavor isn't lost with the rest of the components. The sorbet essentially just tastes like sweetened mascarpone that is very soft when frozen. The Strega or "witch" liquor is an interesting blend of herbs and aromatics that produce a very funky aperitif. The anise and herbaceous flavors of the liquor bring out the earthy pumpkin flavor and bittersweet flavors of the coffee and mascarpone. It was also a perfect fit in that a. its italian and b. it means witch! And pumpkins and witches surely go hand and hand.

Strega!

Mignardises

Here are just some shots of the various "mignardises" that we serve at ON20. 

Frozen Red Velvet Cake (Red Velvet Ice Cream coated in cream cheese "frosting" and red velvet crumbs)

Mango-Tonka Bean Creamsicles

Pumpkin-Brioche Beignets

Pumpkin-Spiced Peanut Butter Cups

Raspberry-Beet Popsicles

Lemon Italian Ice with pine nut and rosemary

Pumpkin Spiced Peanut Butter Cups

Various Buttercrunch

Mango-Tonka Bean Creamsicles in the making

Lemongrass-Sesame Tartlets

Sunflower

 "Elements of Sunflower"

Sunchoke Mousse / Sunflower Seeds / Wattleseed / Mascarpone / Acacia Honey Sorbet

I wanted to create a dessert focusing on a flower, yet using every element of the product. The dish has multiple components but focuses on sunflowers and acacia flowers. The main component is a mousse made from sunchokes. Sunchokes are the root of a type of sunflower and also go by the name Jerusalem Artichoke. The sunchokes are sous-vided with brown butter and muscovado sugar, and are then pureed and used as the base for the mousse. The mousse has sweet yet earthy notes. The sunflower seeds are cooked in honey and sunflower oil. They are well salted and add a savory component.The two sauces are mascarpone and wattleseed. Wattleseed is an interesting product and is actually the seed of acacia flowers. We were able to obtain some of the ground wattleseed from Australia. The seeds are roasted and then ground and the flavor is similar to chicory root or coffee. The wattleseed adds a nice bitterness to the dish that is balanced by the sweet mascarpone. The sorbet is made with acacia honey. The sorbet is very subtle but heightens the floral notes of the dish. It is not pictured, but the dish is then garnished with buttery-herbal sunflower sprouts and marigolds. With the plating, I wanted to try to recreate the colors of mums. The themes are flowers and fall so I wanted to represent the colors of fall by using brown, orange, and gold components.

Autism Speaks Chef Gala 2012

These are just some photos from an awesome event in NYC, Autism Speaks. I was so honored to be invited by chef Neal Fraser from LA and it was amazing to part of the event. There were many incredible chefs and it was a just an overall great experience!

 Chef Neal Fraser 

My friend and very talented pastry chef Malcolm Livingston from wd-50

Plating the "Buttermilk Cheesecake"

 Johnny Iuzzini plating and I was honored to watch him work

on20's Evan Small came to help out!

All the chefs!

Service

Just some shots of pastry during service.....

 herbs

 buttermilk dish waiting for quenelle

 chocolate and the pass

 intermezzo

Celery Sorbet

absinth / lemon / granny smith apple

mignardises

Apples "Benedict"

 Macoun Apple

warm spice cake / thyme / quinoa / brown butter ice cream

So I love New England. I love my home state of Connecticut and all its amazing produce as well as traditions. Apples are just such a staple of CT and I have been going apple picking every fall for as long as I can remember. I love the McIntosh and Macoun apple varieties more than any other and they are the most popular in New England. So I have been trying to create a new dessert that showcases these apples but a dessert that is also classic in flavors as well as presentation. Apple crisp is the perfect example of a truly New England dessert. It has become such a familiar dessert that you will see it on almost every restaurant's menu around fall. I decided one day on a whim to make it for staff meal at ON20 and it just came to me that I had to make a warm apple dessert that was traditional in flavors and familiar in presentation. A modern take on a classic dessert.

I decided to make the apple dessert look like a dish that was just as traditional and approachable as apple crisp... Eggs Benedict. The dish starts of with a muscovado sugar-spice cake that is baked in cast iron egg coddlers. The cake is the base of the dish and is spiced with typical seasonal spices, nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. The cake serves as the toast component. I then decided to cook slices of Macoun apples and sous-vide them in an apple cider caramel. It is very easy to cook the apples to "mush" when baked in an apple pie or apple crisp, so the sous-vided of the apples ensures that they still have a nice soft, but crisp texture. The apples are also infused with the strong flavor of the buttery, apple cider caramel. The apples taste like they have been cooked for a very long time but feel like they have been barely cooked. They make up the "canadian bacon" portion of the dish. The "poached egg" is actually a brown butter ice cream that is filled with the apple cider caramel. Due to a high ratio of glucose, the caramel "oozes" out of the completely frozen brown butter ice cream. The ice cream looks like it has been poached and this is because it has been... "poached" in liquid nitrogen. The cake is served warm with the cold ice cream on top. These differentiating temperatures of hot apples and cold ice cream, have the same nostalgic impact of that of an apple crisp. It is also served with a thyme creme anglasie that is poured table-side. This is the "hollandaise" component. Visually, it looks like breakfast but stylistically, it is a traditional dessert.

 Staff Apple Crisp

Buttermilk Cheesecake

So this is my newest dessert being served at ON20.

 Buttermilk Cheesecake
concord grape | St. George gin | wood sorrel | yuzu ice cream

This dish showcases all the flavors and aromas of ingredients that grow wild in my home state of Connecticut. The main flavor components are buttermilk, concord grape, wood sorrel, pine, and juniper. Fall is my favorite season and there is nothing better than fall in New England. I love concord grapes and no other fruit represents fall better to me. My wife and I were looking at a house in CT and I wanted to move there immediately because of the yard. It was somewhat secluded in the woods and there were concord grapes growing wild all over the property. I was eating them right off of the tree and tasting them with the aromas of the pine, the huge juniper bush, and the smell of the woods and it was incredible. That inspired this dish. To compliment these flavor notes I use yuzu (which is very pine-y) and buttermilk which is naturally sour. The sour, sweet, and rich cheesecake is made with buttermilk, cream cheese, and cream and is very smooth. I bring the juniper and Douglas fir into the dish by utilizing the St George Gin. It is a truly incredible product made right here in the U S of A. It is very intense and also has notes of sage and citrus. It makes a mean Negroni as well.  I cook the alcohol out and with it make a sweetened foam that is super aromatic and tastes like a "walk in the woods". The concord grape is transformed into a bright purple cake and a puree that sets instantly when placed on the plate. Many pastry chefs use concord grape in desserts and it ends up tasting like welches jam. I wanted to avoid this so the underwhelming sweet cake and the puree bring out the natural musky, sour notes of the amazingly aromatic grape. The wild wood sorrel grows wild in CT and is by far my favorite herb. It's sourness brings the dish to a new level. Buckwheat, which is also in the sorrel family, is utilized in a streusel.  The streusel is intensified by the use of dehydrated concord grape skins that are pulverized and incorporated into the streusel recipe. The dish is finally rounded out by the sweet, sour and creamy yuzu ice cream. The concord grapes are a stunning color so I tried to replicate that in the plating. Enjoy!

I will post the recipe of the cheesecake shortly!

Zagat Photo Shoot

We had a photo shoot for Zagat/Google today at ON20 and this is one of my dishes for the shoot.... It is the Pear Mousse with lychee / acacia honey / elderflower sorbet. I must say the natural lighting in the restaurant is in incredible. We are on the 20th floor and the dining room is surrounded by windows over looking the Connecticut River and Downtown Hartford. I am very excited to to see the actual photos!