Lately I have been on a somewhat of a comfort food kick. Maybe it is the cold weather or maybe I just want to give my brain a rest and stop trying to create new dishes. I am sure this cold weather doesn’t help either (yes it gets cold in Louisiana).
A few weeks ago when Ann was traveling I really didn’t feel cooking so I picked up one of those deli made meals at a local grocery store. It was a chicken tetrazinni dish loaded with what I assume was velvetta cheese. It was good just nothing really spectacular.
I wanted to make my own version of tetrazinni but not use a processed cheese. Since I have not had this dish (not counting the grocery store) since I was a child I looked up several recipes to give me a guideline to follow. I settled on one that used a basic bechamel sauce and assorted REAL cheeses.
My version includes Tallegio and freshly grated Parmesan as well as mushrooms sauteed in garlic,italian herbs and simmered in beer.
- 1 Rotisserie Chicken ( meat shredded and skin removed)
- 8-10 Baby Bella mushrooms diced
- Parsley,Basil,Oregano
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 stick butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 cups milk
- 1 can of beer, I used PBR
- 2 cups pasta water reserved
- 8 oz Tallegio Cheese
- 8 oz Parmesan,freshly shredded
- 1 package thin spaghetti, cooked in chicken stock
Saute mushrooms,garlic and herbs in 1/4 stick butter. Add beer and reduce to simmer till absorbed and set aside. Melt remaining butter and stir in flour. Add milk and stock gradually, stirring until thickened. Add cheeses. Combine spaghetti, chicken, mushrooms, and cheese sauce in a large bowl, mixing well. Pour into a casserole dish and bake at 375 degrees until bubbly. Top with freshly grated Parmesan and broil till crispy.
Although Ann is deathly allergic to onions, I added chopped green onions just to mine at the end for that extra boost of flavor. Not too bad…..
I have been putting this off for awhile now. Between getting the coffee shop ready to open back in September and the daily grind of it (HAHA) I have not had much time for blogging,let alone putting together a video. With today being Veterans Day,the Air Force was off for the day and therefore 90% of my sales were on vacation so I had the day off as well. This video shows pretty much the whole evening of the ArtSpace dinner and should give you a pretty good idea of how the night went. This was such a great experience and I was fortunate that they gave me a shot at doing it. The night went pretty well but as always there was room for improvement.
Some of the things I would have done differently/changed/or added:
- Printed menus with my logo to hand out to the guests to take home
- Have an additional cheese to add to the cheese course
- A “surprise” course not on the menu – just did not have enough time for this
- The dessert : because of the heat and humidity it did not set up and became almost impossible to plate. Everyone said they enjoyed it though.
- Goodie bags for the guests to take home – I had some really good ideas just messed up the timing therefore they were shelved.
- Logo’ed t-shirts for myself and my crew.
All in all it was really fun and went by extremely fast. I had originally signed up to do one of these dinners again in early 2011 but ArtSpace has gone through some changes and is in the process of revamping this program. I let the director know my continued interest in this as well as any other culinary programs they might do in the future so I will keep you updated when I find out anything.
I have to give thanks to everyone who made this night possible : ArtSpace, Michael Chisum, my lovely wife Ann, Connor “mini-me” O’Boyle, Liz Beattie,Robin Rice and Jaimee “Pony Thief” Rice and of course all my guests who dined with us that night…….it truly was special.
The audio in the beginning when the Culinary Director (Michael Chisum at the time) is speaking is kind of low so you may have to turn your speakers up but after that watch the volume because the rest is okay.
ArtSpace – Someone’s in the Kitchen Dinner 8-10-2010 from Michael O'Boyle on Vimeo.
For the cheese course I had originally wanted to have an assortment of cheeses and preparations but as usual with the scope of the whole dinner and what all I was trying to accomplish I had to trim down the “wants” of each of my courses. When we went shopping for the meal in addition to the Brie I purchased some Gran Padano a Parmesan like cheese. I meant for this crumbly type cheese to be served alongside the brie with a few sprinkles of freshly ground black pepper. If I were on Bravo’s Top Chef the camera would have shown this cheese sitting on the shelf of my fridge while I walked out of the house 
For the Brie,I just let it soften then tossed it in a standmixer and whipped it till it was the consistency of a soft butter. The popcorn cracker was made by placing popcorn in a food processor and finely chopping it,picked out the hard shell pieces and added to a basic cracker recipe. The balsamic was just balsamic vinegar reduced down to a syrup like consistency.
As for the fig, you would think “hey,we are in Louisiana,it’s August – we have to have figs” well yes and no,try finding a fresh black mission fig around North Louisiana and it is near impossible. This little beauty was bought in Dallas,TX.
In addition to adding more cheese with different preparations for the next time I do a dinner I will also attempt to make my own Slate Cheese Boards. Awhile back my FBF ( food blog friend) David of Eat Foo did a post on how to make these at home,check it out HERE when you get a chance
This course halfway turned out like I originally envisioned it. The pork belly turned out perfect, the bbq sauce I can make in my sleep nowadays,onion sprouts – well not much to screw up there. The corn and ricotta gnocchi is where things veered off course a bit.
My original idea was to have an all ricotta gnocchi, no eggs, no flour. I had read on Ideas in Food that they used a binding agent called Activa YG which is specifically for dairy applications. I contacted the supplier and they graciously supplied me with a few samples. I made a test batch a few weeks before the dinner using 1% Activa YG and 99% drained whole milk ricotta. These worked out pretty good so I felt fairly confident about the ones I would make for the dinner. Well about an hour before the dinner was supposed to start I decided to test a few of the gnocchi. As soon as I put them in the water they basically just fell apart and I was left with a pot of ricotta water. They just would not hold their shape, they were super delicate. Not that I wanted to, but Iended up adding some flour and egg yolks to bind them together. I cooked these then tossed them in a saute pan to lightly brown on one side. They were tasty just not what I had originally envisioned.
The rest of the course consisted of my Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce, Beer Braised Pork Belly, a Corn sauce to top the gnocchi and finally some onion sprouts. I had brought along some corn nuts that I ground up to add texture to the dish but in the haste of plating for the crowd they were forgotten about.
If I could have done anything different I would have liked to change the gnocchi to be smaller and more uniform in size as well as lighten up the corn sauce and clean up/tighten the plating. Also we had a whole tray of pieces of Pork Belly that I had trimmed off the ones we served. My whole crew used this as snacks throughout the dinner, some more than others 
This was one of those courses that I knew I wanted to do but was not sure of the execution let alone find all the ingredients. It is meant to clear the palate after the strong tastes of the previous course and prepare it for the next course without leaving any lingering flavors.
In the past two years I was able to find passion fruit nectar at a local store that usually sells “hard to find” ingredients in this area and in this area most stuff is “hard to find”, but lately it is nowhere to be found. We traveled to Dallas the weekend before the dinner to source some of the “hard to find” and “better quality” ingredients for the meal. I was pretty confident I would find everything I needed with the selection of all the gourmet and ethnic stores in the area. Dallas is about a 3 hour trip from here and we probably spend at least three hours driving around Dallas and the surrounding cities visiting the different stores. To say the Dallas area is spread out is an understatement.
The inspiration for this dessert came from past recipes in working with passionfruit and how it can act as a palate cleanser. The idea for the “dry” ice cream came from a book called Coco. They used different ingredients but the concept was similar.
I was hoping I would be able to find Passion Fruit Nectar in Dallas at one of the ethnic markets, Whole Foods or Central Market (which kicks Whole Foods butt) but the only thing I was able to find was a passionfruit/mango nectar at an Asian Supermarket called Super H. Super H is like an Asian Wal Mart, I forget how I heard about it but I am pretty sure it was on the E-Gullet Forums. It is located in Denton which is north of Dallas right off one of the major freeways that circle the area. They always have a nice selection of fresh seafood and prepared foods as well as an interesting selection of produce. The nectar was in 12 oz cans so I bought like 15 of them.
The preparation was just making a basic gelee, letting it set, then cutting with a small cookie cutter to about the size of a scallop. The “dry Ice Cream” was an equal mixture of Coconut Cream Powder, Powdered Sugar and Tapioca Maltodextrin.
I was hesitant about this dish working out but luckily it worked exactly how I thought it would.
I came across this technique via one of my daily food site reads – Ideas in Food. Now this post deals with a technique that was explained on another site I follow – Cooking Issues , I just hadn’t got to it yet for the day. The technique deals with using an iSi whipper and N2O to quickly infuse different ingredients in under a minute which normally would take a few days to weeks. Alex & Aki of Ideas in Food have been very inspirational and informative in my cooking processes and this idea led me to create something a little different with our dinner tonight.
For dinner I really did not feel like cooking tonight so I got a store bought pre-made (not frozen) raw cheese pizza. I picked up some roma tomatoes as well to slice and top the pizza with. Now here is where things differ a bit. I like basil,okay love it but Ann hates fresh basil – the texture of it anyway. Normally I add fresh basil once the pizza is out of the oven and drizzle with olive oil and leave Ann’s side sans basil. After seeing this technique on IIF I figured that I could slice and salt the tomatoes,add to the iSi with copious amounts of Basil from the garden and charge with two N2O charges. Therefore we would have tomatoes with he flavor of basil but without actually having the basil leaf on the pizza.
After letting it sit for about a minute, I released the pressure and strained out the tomatoes. The tomatoes had a faint taste of the basil but not as much as I had hoped for. I added the tomatoes and basil back to the iSi and charged it again with one N2O charge and let it sit for about two minutes. After reading through the comments on the original post I released the pressure again and instead let them sit in the canister for about 5 minutes before straining. This worked even better, the tomatoes had a more pronounced basil flavor and they actually had a more “cooked like” texture but still had the taste of a fresh tomato.
The possibilities are endless with this technique and glad that both sites shared their success and failures with us.
This past Tuesday, August 10th, I did for my first of hopefully more dinner events at ArtSpace here in Shreveport. ArtSpace is located in downtown Shreveport and is housed in one of the many old buildings that make up the downtown area. I want to call it an art museum but it is so much more than that. There are about 4 levels that make up the whole space with the mezzanine holding a small kitchen and eating space. The ArtSpace Cafe is open for lunch and they just starting this Sunday to have a Jazz Brunch.
Once a month they hold a “Someone’s in the Kitchen” event where a guest chef comes in and prepares a fixed menu that is paired with wine for $65 a person. Back in early spring I received an email inviting me to one of these events and i thought to myself ”I could do one of these” . I emailed the culinary director stating who I was, what I wanted to do, that I do not have a restaurant nor any formal training but to look at my website and give me a shot. It took awhile to get a response but once I did the ball started rolling on being able to host one.
I wanted to do a menu that people would understand and find approachable but when delivered on a plate,it would be something a little different and unexpected (in a good way )
You can download the full menu HERE : Artspace Menu
I started off with an Amuse Bouche of a pork rind topped with Tuna Tartare, Pickled White Peach & Chives. I made the pork rind from the skin of the Pork Bellies I was preparing as an entree. This was the second time I have made Pork Rinds and it can still be a tricky process. I fried them the day of the event and I think I lost 10lbs just by standing over the fryer in this lovely 110 degrees Louisiana heat. I had originally wanted to place a thin slice of Lardo (from Cochon Butcher – Thanks Blake) between the fried pork skin and the tuna but the pork skin still had a pretty meaty fatty quality to it. The tuna itself was just finely chopped and left unseasoned.
I got the idea to make pickled peaches from Shola of Studio Kitchen and his upcoming Restaurant SPECK. I deviated from his recipe on the spices and instead used Togarashi, a japanese spice. The peaches I picked up were White Peaches since the usual yellow were too soft and would not hold up to the pickling process. I topped everything off with chopped chives.
Up Next : Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Lemongrass smoked Crab
Tuesday, August 10th at 6:30 pm
Chicken Fried gourmet
Michael O’Boyle is best known to the community through his highly followed blog, www.ChickenFriedGourmet.com where he shares interesting tidbits about food and the culinary arts.
MENU
Amuse of Tuna Tartare
pork,peach,chives
Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Grilled King Crab
cucumber,lemongrass,cilantro
Beer Braised Pork with Sweet Corn Gnocchi
popcorn, onion, bbq sauce
Cheese Course
brie, figs, toast
Chocolate Ganache
smoked oreo,cocoa nib,pudding, pistachio
Someone’s In The Kitchen is Shreveport-Bossier’s premiere culinary arts experience! Guests dine at the Chef’s Table while receiving a full demonstration on preparing a multi-course meal that is enjoyed with a pairing from a selected wine tasting.
Enjoying our 3rd year of successful evenings, Someone’s In The Kitchen occurs the 2nd Tuesday of each month and features Culinary Artists from Shreveport-Bossier preparing unique and exotic meal selections to classic and traditional with their own special flair.
Please go here to sign up : http://artspaceshreveport.com/2010/08/10/someones-in-the-kitchen/
This is a “new to me” cut of steak that I found at Wal-Mart recently. I have heard about Hanger Steak before but had yet to see it anywhere locally. Normally I do not but steak at Wal-Mart but this store has a whole section devoted to our neighbors south of the border. In addition to this steak (which only cost me $5), you can find beef tongue, heart,tripe and cheek meat. I am pretty good at trimming meat thanks to my days at Lonestar Steakhouse many moons ago but this one was a challenge. I googled Hanger Steak and found this picture heavy tutorialthat helped me out immensely. This is my second time to trim it and prepare. The first I grilled with carne asada seasoning and made tacos, for this marinade I took some fresh rosemary from the garden, about 4 garlic cloves, a tablespoon of crushed red pepper and olive oil.
Most likely I will just grill and slice and serve with a salad.
Beer Brined Grilled Chicken with Ancho Bacon BBQ Sauce
Green Goddess Potato Salad with fresh herbs from the garden tossed with Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips
Pickled Corn with Basil Puree and Cold Corn Soup “foam”
