Foraging

I went foraging this weekend with my good friend Matt Wick and found some exciting things other than wild edibles. We just went out into the woods surrounding my home in Northwest, CT. We did not find many mushrooms other than one botele and one dried up chanterelle. We did find loads of wood sorrel and loads of newly growing woodruff. We found some pursalane, bee balm flowers, and some yarrow. We did also find this bath tub sitting on a large rock deep in the woods. Yes, creepy. What is even more creepy is that we also found our missing chicken seed. I found the ripped apart bag under a tree that was only about 30 feet from our home. Apparently our resident bear carried the 25 pound bag of starter (which was leaning against our house) about 30 feet and tore it to shreds. We also found his collection of trash, including some old beer cans. Perks of living in the woods, I guess.

 Tub

 The missing chicken seed bag

 Bee Balm (hummingbirds love this stuff)

Honeydew Melon

At community table we received a bounty of cucumbers and honeydew this month from various Connecticut farmers. I love the combination of cucumber and honeydew melon and no ingredients represent summer better than melon and cucumber (and maybe tomatoes, ha). I really love the simplicity of honeydew melon compressed in a flavored syrup, like lemon verbena for example, which I use in this dish. I wanted the honeydew to be the main focus of the plate and highlight its sweet, mildy vegetal flavors with citrus-y lemon verbena and sorrel, herbal and somewhat grass-y matcha green tea, and lastly refreshing cucumber. I am really happy with the overall dish especially the mousse. The great thing about the mousse is that it is dairy and egg free. It is essentially only honeydew. The creation of this dish led me to a new way to make sorbets for fruits, especially fruits that should never be cooked nor heated. I mentioned how I love simply compressed honeydew melon so I figured why not transform this into a sorbet. I came up with a formula by calculating how much water was in the melon and compensated it into the recipe. I figured it would be silly to just puree the melon and then make a base with that, since the melon would be too hard and brittle. I simply make a syrup with various sugars, some water, and some citric acid. I then pour this liquid over the melon and then compress the fruit in bags in the cryovac. The fruit absorbs this syrup and becomes very soft and almost pliable. I let the bagged fruit sit in the walk for about 36 hours and when the fruit is soft and has absorbed all of the sugar liquid, I then blend it, and spin it in the ice cream machine. The results are terrific. I use this same method the create the base for the aerated mousse. The sorbet flavor is intensely honeydew melon and not watered down at all. The sorbet base actually only has about 5 percent of added water so it is pure honeydew melon. This method works great with other delicate fruits such as nectarines, peaches, and blackberries. 

Honeydew Melon Mousse

lemon verbena, green tea, wood sorrel, cucumber ice cream

Raspberry Ice

Raspberry Ice

buttermilk, green tea, sorrel, backyard black raspberries

This is one of my newest desserts at CT. We have been receiving massive amounts of berries from all of our local farmers, especially raspberries. I love raspberries and I really enjoy eating them frozen. The concept for this dish was simple. I wanted to serve frozen raspberries in the form of a simple granita served with green tea, sorrel, and yuzu. To add an element of surprise and subtle complexity to the dish, I keep the vibrant red raspberries hidden. The raspberry ice is encased in buttermilk ice, so when the diner receives the dish there is neither visible granita nor any red component in the dish . After "digging in" the diner then breaks open the ice to reveal the intensely red raspberry ice and this makes the dish more interesting by being unexpected.

Living in Cornwall, CT

Long Meadow Farm eggs

Long Meadow Farm

neighbors

calves!

Our neighbors

BBQ + chickens (not barbecue chicken)

Our Barred Rock chicks

wild angelica

Our Concord Grape tree

"Roosevelt" our resident black bear 

photo courtesy of our neighbor Brian Thomas

Sheep's milk yogurt

Sheep's Milk Yogurt, sweet cicely, rhubarb, chartreuse, lemon verbena

Strawberry

(photo courtesy of the awesome instagram skills of Audra Viehland)

White Chocolate, strawberry, whey, olive oil, nasturtium, ricotta 

Strawberry season is finally in full swing. We are actually getting some awesome strawberries here in northwest Connecticut. So good in fact that I was struggling to figure out what to do with them because I just wanted to serve them as is. I was inspired by salad with italian flavors for this dessert. I love the classic combination of strawberries with black pepper and balsamic, especially on a salad of pepperry greens such as arugula and a soft goat cheese. So simple but still one of my favorites. So with this dish instead of macerating the strawberries in vinegar, I substitute the sour- tangy flavor with whey. We get some great local yogurt and we save the whey which is very versatile. . We use the whey for baking and lacto-fermented, etc. The strawberries are just compressed whole in whey, lightly sweetened with sugar. I also use the whey to make a nice peppery olive oil-whey cake that is cut and then toasted to make "croutons" just like in a salad. I serve it with Calabro ricotta from New Haven (which i clearly love- i use it constantly) that is sweetened. It is garnished with peppery nasturtium, untouched strawberries, olive oil, and served in a white chocolate "egg". Dessert salad- Simple but good.

white chocolate eggs

Community Table

These guys at Spanish Hipster do an awesome job!

http://www.spanishhipster.com/2013/05/community-table-washington-ct-2/

Garden

Here are just some shots of our garden at home.... Getting excited for the summer.

Various Heirloom Tomatoes

Garden

Beets

Greens

Kale

Keeping it simple....

Carrot Cake, wild carrot, gjetost, ginger, thyme 

Carrot cake is classic. I decided to update it a bit by using various colored local carrots as well as super intense wild carrots. Some of the shaved "carrots" are actually shards of a frozen carrot-ginger puree. It also served with a gjestost cheese that has notes of milk caramel and is reminiscent of roasted white chocolate.  I serve it warm in a "rustic" ramekin with a simple scoop of ice cream. Boom.

Quark

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Quark / blackcurrant, milk thistle seed, woodruff flowers, St. Germain

Loads of woodruff in my yard. My wife and I are lucky to have such an amazing home deep in the woods where there is a bounty of wild herbs. This herb in particular has such a pleasant aroma. Woodruff has a unique flavor, such as vanilla and clover, and I am currently in the process of drying it to add to my pipe tobacco.

Golden Beet and Dandelion

Golden Beet | white chocolate | brown sugar | kumquat | dandelion root ice cream

I am trying to really embrace spring and what we have to work with in north-western Connecticut. I am happy with the outcome of this most recent dessert. I feel that I have a responsibility as a new england chef to showcase beets in a dessert. Chocolate and beets are a classic combination but I didn't want to go that route. I decided to use the earthier golden beet and highlight its flavor with coffee/ molasses flavors such as brown sugar and dandelion root. The dandelion flower, white chocolate and orange/ kumquat bring a brightness to the dish and tie the flavors together. I keep the colors of the dessert, shades of yellow and orange. I want the diner to immediately think of spring, and the bounty of dandelions. The dandelion is considered a weed and most landscapers have a great disdain for the bright yellow flower. But, every part of the dandelion is delicious, the roots, flowers, and leaves, and they are everywhere! Dandelions, as well as garlic mustard and ramps, are one of the true harbingers of spring. 

At CT, we are trying to get people to embrace Connecticut's fruits and vegetables, but also the wild and less common ingredients. This early in spring, we don't have the bountiful berries, stone fruits, or vegetables yet. Early spring's garlic mustard, chickweed, sorrel, and dandelions may be considered weeds and a nuisance, but they grow everywhere and their flavor can really elevate a dish. We don't need to depend on a farmer to cultivate them when we can just walk outside and pick them ourselves. As I have learned, a good chef will use the undesirable cuts or offal (kidneys, livers, tripe, etc) to make an exceptional dish..  so as a pastry chef, instead of buying expensive exotic fruits, south american bananas or foreign strawberries, I feel more passionate about making a dessert highlighting beets and dandelions grown here in Connecticut... 

CT

I am excited to announce that I will be joining Joel Viehland and the staff at Community Table in Washington, CT as their new pastry chef! Check out the website and the incredible food coming out of this place..Community Table

And check out some amazing shots of CT here at this killer blog ... Spanish Hipster

Inspired by Easter and Spring

It always takes a lot out of me when creating a dessert that has so many "pastel" colors and feminine/floral flavors but hey, its Easter / Spring. And every now and then I have to make a dessert that pleases our feminine customers..

Lemongrass Custard

rhubarb / hibiscus / pomelo / chrysanthemum sorbet

Getting ready for spring...

 

Ricotta Cloud

apricot / orange blossom / anise hyssop / chamomile

Red Velvet Cake

Having fun making a red velvet cake. The cake has multiple layers and I have been working on a technique of frosting a cake using acetate which gives the cake an almost flawlessly smooth frosting. The process has proved to give me very nice results and I hope to be able to work on it in the future.

Playing with plating.

Here are some various shots of my chocolate-banana dessert. 

Chocolate

roasted banana / shiso / green tea

I have been working on this dish for quite some time now and you can see how a dish evolves over time. The inspiration behind this dish is the fried banana dessert with green tea ice cream and chocolate sauce that we have seen on various "sushi" restaurant menus. No matter what it somehow always ends up on our table when we order sushi. Chocolate and banana is an obvious pairing. And the herbal and earthy matcha green tea compliment the dark Valhrona 69% Otucan chocolate very well while the herbal/ anise qualities of the shiso bring complexity to the dish. The roasting of the banana makes them sweet like that of a super ripe banana but it gives them a faint anise/ acidic flavor. I like to highlight the "green" components of the dish and make the dish appear very natural, with components that replicate; rocks, branches, moss, leaves etc. It is also surprising for any diner to receive a dessert that has so many green components yet is a very rich chocolate dessert. This desserts starts off with a roasted banana cremeux and it is served with chocolate mousse "rocks", matcha green tea-chcolate cake, a shiso puree, micro shiso, fried banana tuiles brushed with otucan chocolate, chocolate vines, and an aerated green tea ice cream.

Neapolitan Ice Cream

I have been working on reinventing the classic "neapolitan" for a while now. I decided to aerate the ice cream in a "food saver"with the use of the cryovac and I can achieve the classic rectangle shape of the ice cream. Below, you can see the progress and I will post pictures of the finished dish soon!