De la Peau Dans le Jeu. Tuesday, Mar 13 2018

Skin in the Game

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In lieu of the unsolicited opinion, clumsy accusation and merit-less, par-baked verdict viciously slapped on my humble, equal opportunity galantines (see comments here, and here), by Art Institute of California Culinary Director Rudy Kloeble, I would like to reassure you, loyal reader of unwavering faith, bedrock morality and delectable charm, that the galantines and ballotines are all wrapped in the skin of the bird (or fish, or rabbit or plump captive coed), the forcemeat is a “farce fine” of ground and diced breast meat (for fish flesh) and that the cheesecloth holds the shape during the cooking process. I keep the cheesecloth on to prevent oxidation and drying out of the skin. My culinary integrity aims for platinum standards and while certain liberties may be taken, products are generally a proud representation of authenticity in either theory, practice and/or ingredient.

Skin to win

 A more reasonable inquire on behalf of a culinary instructor would have been to inquire: “are the galantines breast meat wrapped in skin?” to which I would have happily replied: “yes, of course. Suck it”. To publicly dispute my reliable adherence to the kitschy classics of French Gastronomy (on my day off, snowbound and still in my bathroom well into the afternoon) will invite a well seasoned and sturdy retort.

Caution: reading about galantines on this blog may give goosebumps.

Furthermore, as a matter of sanitary practice and cleanliness, I would suggest Mr. Kloeble use latex gloves on his non-knife holding hand in fish and chicken cutting demonstrations, to keep one’s hands a fingernails clean. Lead through example Sir. Cleanliness is the hallmark of disciplined handiwork (see Bernard L’Oiseau’s anecdote of the Troigros brothers clean aprons in “The Perfectionist”).  And unless there is reason to doubt the accuracy of my craftsmanship, effusive praise is preferred from the peanut gallery.  Make Galantines Great Again.  #MGGA

Let’s not throw shade on the ballotine; an equally refine fabrication similar to the galantine, only that it is served hot. To wit: Thanksgiving turkey leg ballotine.  Thigh muscle meat mixed with ground leg trimmings (meticulously cleaned of tendons), liver, cream, egg, confit chicken gizzards, diced heart, dried cranberries and so forth.  

A leg up in the skin game.

Not to be outdone, consider the shad ballotine from the Eat The Rich days back in the nation’s Capital.  It is worth noting that my trusted, tall, infinitely capable and indispensable sous-chef Gerald at the time has been recognized by the JBF for his work at Maydan in the capacity of chef.  His skin is delightfully decorated and a pleasure to look at.

Its a shad state of affairs when the use of skin is questioned.

But wait, there’s more.  Never before posted on this blog, the elusive and **Exclusive** Rabbit ballotine with black truffle and black trumpet mushrooms.  Rabbit wrapped and cooked in its outer layer of flesh (since the rabbits are skinned) and a bonus layer of pancetta. Close enough and good enough for government work.

Rabbit ballotine with a loin, truffle and black trumpet bull’s eye. You are welcome, internet.

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Galantines: Édition Spéciale “roule ma poule” Saturday, Nov 17 2012

Galantines:  Special “On a Roll” Edition.

Breast binoculars yet.

Chicken Galantine.  Swan song for the penultimate day at work and poultry butchering demonstration.  Bobo chicken, breast strips, pork, fatback, brandy-drenched currants, pistachios and an inlay of liver mousse wrapped up in fatback.  Yep.  Centered too.

Pleasant, that pheasant.

Pheasant galantine.  Ballotine actually, since it was lightly seared and warmed through with the poaching juices.  Pheasant breast garnish, confit gizzards, pork, livers chestnuts and sage.  Served with chestnut purée, autumn vegetables and a croquette made from the legs.  Legs were braised with juniper and gin, picked from the irritating tendons, shredded, supplemented with whole-grain mustard and orange zest.  Twice breaded and fried (needed more fat for unctuousness).

 

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Merci-donnant 2011: Édition Spéciale “Nouvelle Frangleterre“ n. 3 Monday, Jan 2 2012

Thanksgiving 2011: Special “New Frangland” Edition.

Part III.  Turkey Delivery

Dinner seen through rosy early 20th century glasses.

Happy New Year, dearest faithful and hopelessly sexually repressed readers. Forgive the brevity, but commuting has sapped free time. Consider relieving your New Year’s Eve shame with this delightful –albeit tardy- ultimate TG2011 installment as you hopelessly milk the clock –managers or worker bees alike.

Hell, its been almost 6 weeks and at this point flexing any turkeyday muscles is just a formality.  Still, if a pair of contraceptive diaphragms remain in your desk drawer and weren’t taken to your holiday party, put them in over your glasses because you are about to get fucked in the eyes.

A delectable variety of seasonally appropriate garden accoutrements preceded the roast of honor.

Baby cabbages, or whatever. From Belgium with flavor.

Brussels sprouts, savory and tart.  Blanched in water seasoned to theWestern Atlantic’s liking then agitated with red onions cooked in plenty of lard and made vibrant with lemon juice.

Holla-flower. #gratiné

Heirloom cauliflower à la Polonaise.  Yellow, purple, and romanesco.  A béchamel supplemented with the stalks.  Eggs barely boiled, split and nestled within the brassica valleys.  A generous dusting of lemon zest, garlic and bread crumbs toasted in poultry fat –butter not readily available from a turkey no matter how hard you milk it.  Given the tanning salon treatment  in an oven until deliciously crunchy.  Verdant, tender, firm, rich, crisp, saucy, hearty.

Roast cleavage.

And then there was the heritage Virginia bird.  Brined in a solution of salt and maple syrup.  Left to dry overnight then roasted over a bedding of vegetable aromatics and sliced lemon to the goldest of golden.

Thigh-roller.

As for the leggy appendages, ballotines, naturally.  Puréed, seasoned garnish with thigh meat, fatback, cranberries, fatback and expertly rolled up, as one would an XXXL reefer and roasted with fresh cranberries and chestnuts.  Superb.

Tastes charming as well.

No bird can go to the ball without a proper dressing, or in this case, saupiquet –a gravy made from reduced turkey stock and thickened with the seared liver.  Then some confit gizzard chopped up in there.

I am the gizzard king.

Pan Coudoun.Languedocfavorite. Candied quince baked in whole wheat bread.  Chewy crumb, aromatic crust, sweet filling.

Nature’s candy in a gluten wrapper.

Frangipane pagentry.

 Pumpkin and ricotta frangipane tart.  Courtesy a friend in the industry.  To top it; honey-cream cheese iced cream.  Wonderfully flaky crust.  Fragrant frangipane, sweet pumpkin and just a little bit of sour from the ricotta.  A fitting closure washed down with Pachernc.

Gilded arches.

An exceptional evening whose fare was only made as enjoyable as the company.

Thank you guests.

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Suckling Porchetta Richelieu. Tuesday, Feb 2 2010

A continuing epicurean series of  porcine  highdives, the first being the porcine pedaler.  While not the crappiest bicycle powered spit mechanism ever devised, it is close, though in a different class from collegiate electric and pneumatic Yahoo-Serious down under pig spits.

Bring it Lance.

Porcine Pedaler (beta version). $5 Home Despot amalgamation of cycling, BBQ, Free Market economic theory, Protestant work ethic and the ballad of John Henry.

Meat: 16# suckling pig. Deboned, stuffed with starfruit, cashews and tropical spices (nutmeg, mace, allspice and clove). Basted with fresh coconut water. Served with cashew and tamarind satay sauce.

Metal: 52cm hand-polished aluminum Raleigh fixed-gear conversion BBQ spit. 41 x 200± gearing for a 0.4 ratio. 8′ chain catching the spoke nipples of a road wheel fixed to a threaded 5/16″ spit rod placed on 700c forks. Chrome BMX chainring counter-weight and floating road chainring to give the drunks something to marvel at and a piece of gate to help straiten spit which bent under weight of the creature. A very rustic soup-to-nuts Sunday afternoon build and not OSHA sanctioned. PP 2.0 will have a welded frame to contain the torque and weight of drive-train as well as an integrated container for the heat source.

Wheels of Porkin’.

Pedantic porcine: Lots of structural and mechanical problems. Massive spit fail. The pig was too heavy for the forks and the cement-filled flowerpots were not nearly as sturdy as imagined. Heat source was too far away. Chain slipped. It was too hot out to pedal anyway. The thing eventually cooked, albeit achingly slow, and the flavor was exceptional. Many questioned the pinkish color but were somewhat reassured by the nitrite explanation and consumed heartily. A sturdier PP2.0 rig will tentatively be made from square sign post tubing and a spit rod which would hold the pig in smaller rods run through chainring bolt holes like staves on a barrel then turned by chains. On a cocktail napkin it works like a Swiss watch however the leap from 2 to 3 dimensions and the fundamentals of natural physics may prove to be a formidable challenge.

A star is born, and eaten.

“Anything worth consuming is worth sweating for; bourgeois electric spits be damned.” Max Weber, 1907

Suckling Porchetta Richelieu 2.0, special Turnip Greens edition: Accompanied by pears, pearl onions, turnips and an inlayed sausage made from their greens.  Main course for an inaugural snow bound supper club dinner.  15lb Amish suckling pig deboned and stuffed with it’s own 3 thirds puréed, ground, diced forcemeat and an inlay of turnip greens sausage.

Get your chlorophyll fill.

Forcemeat was comprised of the removed meat, diced heart & kidneys, puréed liver, pistachios, fatback and inlayed with the cleaned loins, tenderloins and a sausage made from pork, blanched turnip greens and chlorophyll extracted from spinach.  The slices were bathed with a spoonful of the strained cooking juices and served with red pearl onions as well as crescents of both turnips and Asian pears, glazed in olive oil and roasted in butter with cinnamon & clove, respectively.

Skink torpedo.

Rich pig In Lieu of Pro Bowl. Well within the margins of a successfully stuffed porchetta.  The extracted chlorophyll helped to keep the greens closer to green than brown, even upon resting 3 hours after the initial 2 hour roast.  The meat & sausage were well seasoned, properly cooked, colored and moist, particularly the cheeks which literally fell out like chicken oysters upon removing them.   Skin was delightfully crisp.

Cheeky little fellow.

A refined version would have a finer puréed element (requiring a blender), more forceful wintry spices and the sausage would be either rolled and frozen or preferably blanched in a beef middle to ensure a perfectly round center that would not shift during the cooking process.

DC Metro Swine Station.

Pedantic Pedaling: An intoxicating amount of  structural and mechanical problems. Massive (s)pit fail. The pig was too heavy for the forks and the cement-filled flowerpots were not nearly as sturdy as imagined. Heat source was too far away. Chain slipped. It was too hot out to pedal anyway. The thing eventually cooked, albeit achingly slow, and the flavor was exceptional. Many questioned the pinkish color but were somewhat reassured by the nitrite explanation and consumed heartily. A sturdier PP2.0 rig will tentatively be made from square sign post tubing and a spit rod which would hold the pig in smaller rods run through chainring bolt holes like staves on a barrel then turned by chains. On a cocktail napkin it works like a Swiss watch however the leap from 2 to 3 dimensions and the fundamentals of natural physics may prove to be a formidable challenge.

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Thanksgiving 2009, the recapitulation. Saturday, Nov 28 2009

TG09: Old World France meets New World America.

A moderate case of PTD (post-turkey depression) affected the host after having cogitated then gestated the menu and its formulations for the better part of 3 weeks, but the dinner was not  offered without gustatory success. No breakage, pretty girls and a weekend of early morning grazing on tryptophan & cheese scraps with fingers by the twilight of the Frigidaire brought savory solace, albeit cold and perishable.

Exemplary guests provided long sought company, anecdotes and booze.

Preamble: My Mt. Pleasant dry cured sausage, turkey pâté en croûte with currants,  Chris Bradley’s blood pudding and a salt cod brandade in the style of Nîmes. Pickled purple cauliflower accoutrement and mulled cider to warsh it all down, adulterated with some trickle of George Dickel’s whisky for some social lubricant. The pâté en croûte was not as successful at the pâté pantin poultry edition in terms of pastry crust which was far too wet.  Escoffier’s measurements called for far too much water (2dl water for 25ogr flour), though such proportions were respected on account of the esteemed author’s reputation.  The same pâte á foncer proportions were used in the coq en pâte prototype  with diastrously wet results but technique and choice of fats may have been the culprit.  Whatever the case, notes were taken the recipe has been adjusted for future endeavors.  The  cooked pastry tasted good but was not as flaky as it could/should have been but was removed from the over for fear of overcooking the forcemeat.  The forcemeat  however–turkey, pork, chicken livers, cooked gizzards and hearts marinated in gin and augmented with currants was satisfying. Aspic was of the proper consistency, though perhaps a bit too sweet as a result of the crappy sweet wine used.  Patience and the fundamental practice  of  waiting for the pâté to cool before applying the aspic was not respected causing the aspic to run through a seam that did not have time to seal upon cooling.

Turkey trimmings in a savory pastry sarcophagus.

Variations of tubesteak.

Pickled Purple Caulimonster.

1st plated course: An almost ethereal turkey consommé with a few cauliflower-mornay agnolotti and florets of different cauliflower varieties (white, yellow and romanesco) clearly visible at the bottom.  The stock was made from chicken legs, 1/2 a turkey neck and turkey drumstick bones, the meat of the chicken legs being used for the clarifying raft, and that of the turkey for the pâté.  The other half of the turkey neck was caramelized with mirepoix and tomato purée, covered with the cold stock and clarified with a raft of ground chicken leg meat, vegetables, egg whites, salt and vinegar.   The cauliflower florets and agnolotti were blanched in advance then heated in extra stock upon serving.

Shots of Armagnac all around.

The bird: Heartier traditional sustenance manifested itself in 2 preparations of an Amish heritage turkey, a descendant of the original birds the Hittite pilgrim brought over with Columbus on the Mayflower .

Start cold turkey.

The breasts were brined on the bone and then roasted on a bed of vegetable and pear trimmings with slices of Bosc pears shingled under the skin, essentially basted with pearoultry juices.  The rest of a bothersome extra bottle of orgeat syrup replaced the sugar component of the brine (pears and almond blossom seemed compatible) and was injected into the breasts.  The shingled pears were apparent under the skin but pictures were blurry.  The ambitious vision was to reproduce a crude feather of sorts under each breast.

The legs for their part were transformed into ballotines.

Double barreled poultry.

The legs were skinned in a manner to provide the largest canvass and the meat broken down into major muscle components and any tendons removed. A forcemeat was fabricated from scraps and the remaining meat from the pâté marinade. Pistachios, dried cranberries, diced fatback and the larger turkey leg muscles were rolled into cylinders, wrapped in the skin, tied with string and poached in turkey stock with a calf’s foot until an internal temperature of 150F was attained. The poaching liquid cooked into a rich braising liquid with a tender garnish of standard mirepoix, leftover cranberries, sliced gizzards and fluted mushrooms for showmanship shits & grins. The flavor was nothing short of remarkable. Well seasoned, moist, delicious and classically refined. Nitrite was added to the forcemeat so as to ensure an appealing rosy hue rather than the drab autumnal brown.

Winner: Turkey legs in a supporting roll.

Another round of Armagnac.

Nods to the fall harvest: A gratin dauphinois. Scalloped russet potatoes with a middle layer of caramelized onion deglazed with white wine vinegar and anchovies (inspired by the Swedish Jansson’s Temptation) bound by mace and nutmeg infused cream which helped to permeate the saltiness of the filling throughout the dish.  Fresh cranberry sauce with orange zest, cloves and some more currants.  Brussels sprouts off the stalk with rutabaga, turnips, rainbow carrots, parsnips and pearl onions glazed in veal suet, finished with toasted almonds.

My rye bread was turned into stuffing with pomegranate seeds, celery root, celery stalks and their leaves. Could have benefited from further toasting of the bread.  Vehicles for sopping up the juices were sweet potato biscuits (courtesy of Mr. Bradley) and my pan coudoun: bread rolls with a segment of cooked quince inside.  The leavened biscuits were made from roasted sweet potato, lard, butter, buttermilk, flour and 2 sieved hard boiled egg yolks to absorb any excess moisture from the sweet potato.

Lou Pan Coudoun (the quince bread in Provençal dialect) was hearth bread dough with a wedge of cooked quince (oven cooked in a light syrup until tender and red) inside, then baked.  Traditional recipes called for a whole raw quince, peeled, halved, cored put back together with honey and butter inside and baked in a dense bread for 40 minutes or so which is supposed to cook the quince.  The safer M.O. was to use cooked quince and work backwards to less cooked quince.   The cooked quince were extremely soft, like firm apple sauce and not at all unpleasant.  Delectable, actually, though a little fleur de sel on the bread before baking would have balanced the sweet/salty.

Your quince charming.

Yep, more Armagnac.

Cheese: courtesy of Mr. Bradley’s affinage program.  Clockwise from center: Livarot, France;Nettle Meadow Kunik, NY; Gorwydd Caerphilly, Wales; Twig Farm Square Cheese, VT; Tarantaise, VT; Mondegueiro, Portugal; Rogue River Blue, OR.

Cheese course, of course.

Dessert: A honeycrsip apple tart with a nappage of my qunce jelly perfumed with rosemary and cinnamon.   Standard pâte sablée with 1/2 lard 1/2 butter for the fat proportion and a whisper of orange zest and ground cinnamon.

In lieu of a flower.

Ef’n Jelly. Disclosure: after countless attempts in making pectin-free apple/quince jelly, pectin was called in from the cupboard in desperation. The cursory theory appeared simple.  Cook quince scraps (cores & peelings) in water with rosemary and cinnamon,  add 55% sugar by weight, chill and glaze apple tart. Quince are heavy in natural pectin and based on numerous recipes, none such additive would be needed.  In practice the results were anything but jolly jelly.  Reduction made a remarkably tight and sticky syrup better destined for pest control than desert.  Cooking new scraps in the previously attained liquid boosted the quince flavor but did not make jelly.  Powdered pectin was considered and obtained, but in what quantity?  The properties of quince and pectin were researched and Eureka!, the gosh darn good jelly scholars at University of Minnesota, oh yah, had the explanation

A certain amount of acidity (below pH 3.5) is necessary for jelly to form. If the fruit juice is not sufficiently acidic, a gel will not form. If too much acid is present, the jelly will lose liquid or weep. Acidity can apparently be tested.  To form a gel, fruit juice should be as tart as a mixture of 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of water. If the fruit juice is not this tart, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for each cup of fruit juice.

What’s more, the kind folks up there provided a simple test for determining whether the jelly juice base has sufficient pectin to gel, which begs the question: “why jelly and not gelly?”  A tsp of the juice is mixed with rubbing alcohol and if the junk gets hard, you’re on.  If it stays limp and juicy, there is a powder for that.  Don’t drink the rubbing alcohol-quince juice mixture, unless you are a hopeless alcoholic.

The proper Ph matrix for apple/quince jelly has not yet been figured out despite 11 prototypes and a mathematically derived 11% lemon juice formula.  Quince scraps and apples were cooked in water with varying proportions of acidulated water ranging from 6.7%-11% lemon juice based on the U of M’s recommendations of 1tsp of lemon juice for 3tbsp of water for proper gelling Ph.  However, weight is a more disciplined unit of measure than volume, even if the weight and volume of both lemon juice and water are the same.  55% sugar was added to the strained liquid, cooked for 20-30 minutes each time and nothing happened. Many recipes, both French and American called for a range of a whole lemon’s worth of juice, half and none at all, despite the science that mandates a fruit juice can not gel without the 3.5Ph.  So 1% powdered pectin was grudgingly added and the damned stuff set.

Eat it, William Tell.

Coffee, cigarettes, more Armagnac and a joint or two rounded out a superlative meal helping to easy digestion and induce well deserved sleep.  Enthusiastic thanks to all the guests for allowing the host the pleasure of hosting.

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