Category: career

Rolling with the Flavor

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Brigadeiros is a traditional Brazilian delicacy,  an iconic cultural treat that is eaten by anyone and everyone in every part of the country.  This unifying treat is eaten at celebrations, parties, and is seen as a gourmet item.  The brigadeiro is basically a Brazilian style truffle.  It is a very popular confection, and seeing how I work in a Brazilian restaurant, I decided to give this treat a try.

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Being the lady that I am, I cannot keep anything basic, so I took the original and tweaked it a bit.

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The traditional way uses sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder, and chocolate as the filling, and it rolled in chocolate sprinkles.  I used dulce de leche in place of the sweetened condensed milk, added more chocolate, and rolled this concoction in a streusel made from milk powder, flour, and caramelized white chocolate. This truffle is finished with a nice pinch of salt to draw out all the sweet flavors.  Caramel and salt is a very nice flavor combination, each enhancing one another, like sweet does to sour.  (For those who do not know, salt is the secret ingredient in pastry).

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The goal was enhance the flavor, to bring out a more caramel and toasted flavor notes, to make a more dimensional treat.

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The end product is delicious, very toasty (my favorite flavor) and chocolaty.  I have made the treat even better, while paying homage to the tradition behind this iconic confection.

Downsizing

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Narrowing down the list of prospective concepts down to a more approachable number than 11, we are down to 4 (not counting the cookie), thanks.

Fire Cake: dulce de leche cake, caramel, fire ancho marshmallow, magic

Smoking Pionono: Tamarind Cake Roll, Crunchy Fluff, Smoking Cashews, Hot Cajeta Drizzle, Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Carbonated Chocotorta: Chocolate Maciena Cookie Stack, Cannoli Crema, Fizzing Strawberry Meringue, Chocolate sorbet, Carbonated Strawberries, Pistachio

Argentinean Float: Fernet Ice Cream, Mexican Cocoa Cola, Rum Cherries, Candied Almonds, Milk Foam

Alfajore de Macienca: shortbread sandwich cookie filled with dulce de leche

Additional Items, not listed on the dessert menu:

Potato Focaccia with Malden Salt and Olive Oil

Dulce de batata: a sweet potato candy offered with the dessert menu

Ok, that is all for now…

 

3 Leche Spring

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Because the concept of the 3 leche cake- a Latin American iconic confection, a cake soaked with 3 types of milk until soggy, is limited to white cake and milk soak.  I love this concept and I want to build upon this classic dessert with a curious twist, with fanciful flavors, and whimsical undertones.

In this rendition, I made a cajeta sweetened cake (cajeta is goat’s milk and sugar cooked down to a caramel flavor and consistency- when it is cooking it fills the entire restaurant with the scent of snickerdoodle cookies.  This is a heavenly smell and produces an equally heavenly end product) that is then soaked with the traditional 3 leches, but with goat’s milk replacing the cream, and further fortified with chocolate to make a unique chocolate milk soak.  This lightly sweet, slightly chocolaty and caramel cake is served with Brazil nut streusel (for crunch and a nice nut flavor that resembles the Macadamia nut), acai purée (a small dark purple berry valued for its high nutritional content and subtle blueberry flavor), candied cocoa nibs (a pure form of chocolate) to enhance the chocolate notes in the dish, and cajeta chantilly (whip cream sweetened with cajeta) to balanced out the heavy liquid with a cloud like aura.

This dish is reflective of the season.  This is a spring dish in the ingredients used, the textures represented, and the earthy presentation.  This dish is modeled after the soggy spring, with lush, muddy ground waiting to sprout new growth.  The chocolate soak mimics the wet and fertile ground.  The streusel mimics broken up, freshly tilled soil in appearance and texture.  Because of limited local seasonal availability,  I used the hard to source acai berry to add a fruity flavor that interacts very well with the established flavors of the cake.  Early spring, right off winter, is the season to focus on frozen and preserved foods, and highlight them in the menu when you have the chance to search to globe for ingredients.  If you are going to use a frozen product, you mind as well use one that invokes curiosity and is not readily available to the average person.

Finally the whipped cream adds such a soft touch, light as the spring’s warmth, to round of the overall mouth feel.  The flavors are not too bold, except for the tiny explosion of flavor in the cocoa nibs- as a final lasting impression.

 

 

Hands Off Magic

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“There is something cathartic about making bread.  I think it has to do with the process of creating a dough and then leaving it alone to do its thing.  Even though you may have brought it to life, what it does most of the important thing on its own.” –Ideas In Food

 

Yeast is magical and delicious, and the best part is that the magic of bread making happens on its own, the synergy and the interaction of ingredients that happen in between the baker’s input.  There are just a few steps, simple yet very precise, and then the dough takes on a life of its own, and does the caterpillar thing to transform to a whole new creation.  Yeast, protein structure, fermentation, air, salt, with a high dose of heat all together form a completely new and totally phenomenal monster.

El Che Ingredients

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I got a sneak peak at the menu, and I saw some things that I would like to incorporate into the pastry menu:

Duck eggs- maybe a custard?  What else highlights eggs in dessert other than a custard of sorts?  Noting, the answer is nothing.

Yerba Mate- I want to use this as a sauce, it can add a bitter and fun element, good for the Argentinean theme.

Brioche- do I make this?  Probably time I figure that out. Can I stuff it with cheese, and deep fry it?  Gooey fried dough, with a sharp cheese.  Delicious.

English peas- to go with a strawberry dessert, a freeze dried strawberry pavolva, the peas with a cream, or ricotta.  Ricotta flor di latti?

House ricotta- I want to make cheese and ricotta is great in dessert, just ask the Italians.

 

Elemental Inspirations

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The four elements of western culture are earth, air, fire, water.  The goal is to include these concepts in the dessert menu, to create a memorable experience and one the ties the diner to a deeper meaning than simply consuming food.  Eating, we take for granted, simply because since it is done so often it becomes mundane.  I am not of the opinion that Americans truly value everything that goes into their mouth as building block of who we physically are and who we become.  Dessert is not nutritious by nature, and I am not trying to make “healthy” desserts.  Dessert is a treat, and should be viewed as one- something special, something to make you feel good.  The reasoning behind wanting to incorporate classical earth elements is to subconsciously tie you back to the history of food, to mimic fundamentally how modern cuisine was formed, to tie the present into the constant past.  We are a reflection of our ancestors, we have a lineage drawing back to the basic building blocks of life.

How can I show respect to the four corners of life through a sweet dish?

Sounds like a challenge.

Geometrical Patterns

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Ok, ok so if art is breaking the rules, that means that you take something that you normally try to avoid and twist it around some so that the negative becomes something you embrace, transforming in the bad into the good.

Today’s topics: crystallization.    This is the reorganization/unstable transformation of the structure of a substance, normally making it an inferior/subpar quality.  Primary examples include: butter once it has melted, does not solidify the same, chocolate will bloom if it has not been properly melted down, ice cream will get gritty if ice crystals form from the latent water content.

Granite, or shaved ice, has been around for a long time.  This technique takes a solid frozen confection, then shaves the ice block to form a slushie.  This takes advantage of the ice crystals to create a both a liquid and a solid, both a wet and a textured product.

This method is a precursor to ice cream, a continually rotated while freezing invention, where the solidifying happens at such a small scale, that when initially frozen, this product is still a liquid (think soft serve ice cream)

What I need to focus on is the beauty of naturally occurring ice patterns.  These are highly visually appealing, perfectly symmetrical, yet all so unique.  Normally this is avoided, but what if I purposely form these as a decoration?

 

 

 

All Together Now

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Apple allspice strudel with oatmeal streusel, bay leaf Bavarian cream, candied marcona almonds, rum cider glaze.

Apple strudel with streusel, just because it’s hard to tell the two things apart.  I thought, let’s put them both on to save confusion.  The streusel compliments the strudel in this German themed dessert.

The apples are cooked lightly in sugar, butter, and rum, tie together with 3 layers of phyllo dough brushed with allspice infused butter, a lot of butter.  The rum is represented again in the glaze, because traditionally apple strudel is made with rum soaked raisins on the inside.  I skipped the raisins and doubled up on the rum to compensate for missing dried fruit bit.  The strudel is crisp, flaky, buttery, tender, and softly sweet on the inside.

The candied almonds add texture and provide light caramel flavor for added depth.  The oatmeal streusel adds another layer of crunch, because I am texturally obsessed when it comes to composing a plate.  That, and because who can remember which is the German dessert wrapped in layers of flaky dough, and which is like a cookie without the egg?

I love bay leaf with apples in the winter, the flavors go well together like two lovers holding hands.  Bavarian cream has a mousse like texture: fluffy, creamy, and smooth.  There is just the subtlest amount of cinnamon, just to warm it up a touch.  This dish is a rare example without any added vanilla, aka the flavor of the gods.  I skipped it because it can become commonplace, an ever represented ingredient that can sometimes get lost in the medley of flavors.  I wanted the bay leaf and the apples to shine on there own, taking center stage in the mouth.

Toasted Love

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Finding flavors alive in the dead of winter is not the same as the flourishing spring, but we can still get that feeling of excitement and jubilee in this frozen wonderland.

For this dish I focus on the flavor of the amazing Maillard reaction, or more widely know as toasted.  The Maillard reaction is similar to caramelization , but the flavor is not as strong.  This is the magic spot that occurs before caramel, it is a browning process when the sugar reacts with amino acids, around 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  It is what happens when you put bread in the toaster, it is what happens when you start to smell the cookies baking in the oven.  The Maillard is amazing, and I love it.  That is why I chose to focus on this beautiful reaction for Valentine’s  day brunch: I did it for love.  I did it because Milliard represents that toasty warm feeling of butterflies in your stomach, stars in your eyes, a smirk on your lips, a giggle under your breath.  The feelings of love, the feeling a coziness, the feeling of comfort, content, and closeness.

I want to represent various flavors of the browning process, to create a subtle yet complex taste.  There is caramelized white chocolate ganache – toasty, sweet, creamy, and downright heavenly, brown butter milk solids- nutty, rich, and aromatic, oatmeal streusel- for texture and to add comfort, a touch of cinnamon for warmth, and finally a coffee cake sweetened with unrefined sugar- to add depth, to add a unique sweetness, to add character.  This is topped with a light sherry vinegar and unrefined sugar glaze, to add pop to the sugar, to give definition to the toasty and sweet flavor profiles.

The taste of love, the feeling of comfort, the joy of winter.

 

 

 

Turning the Tables

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I complain about the negatives of kitchen life and the hardship that go along with this career path.  I don’t need to sum up all the drawbacks and inherent wrongness of this job line, so I will consolidated all my complaining into a list for those who may still be in the dark: it generally sucks all around, it’s hard and nobody ever says good job, no vacation time, no sick days (unless you are in the hospital, and deep cuts do not always counts, depends on if it’s a holiday in which case the answer is always no), fire, very sharp knives, very hot things that want to burn you, heavy things, competitive environment, egotism, low pay sometimes even no pay, no respect, sometimes you get yelled at like you are a child misbehaving, incompetent coworkers who get paid the same, small working environment, no privacy, constant harassment, you have to fight for the tools you need, you have to clean a lot, no sitting down, if you do get to eat that will be while standing.

So instead of further complaining, we are going to change the hands of power.  People need to eat, that demand will never go away.  Beyond job security, the stability is intrinsic.  I can take a break, walk away, say fuck you hungry people I am going to be a writer!  I will break your heart and you will hate me.  But when I say, hey, I am back in town, want something to eat?  You will not say no, you will not refuse my cool offer of a hot meal.

I want to travel everywhere on this great and green planet.   This wish is very conflicting with working in a restaurant.  But what if I could cook from home, making delicious and healthy meals, sell enough product so that I can give myself 2 months off a year?  I could be private chef for any special occasion.  I will be your very own caterer.  I will bring my own pots and knives, and I will be polite and cook and serve.  I will wash the dishes and you will pay me a good amount of money because it will be very nice.  Think about wearing whatever you want while you eat a fancy meal, instead of those stuffy clothes.

Sounds crazy, but you don’t know how good I am at being poor.  I have been refining my skill for decades now.  Food for motivation, your reality is what you make it.