Alrighty...so here we go. As I was developing this menu I had docsconz's voice in my head (I often have eGers' voices in my head when I do things like this). In various topics, but mainly in the thread on best MG restaurants in the world, I remembered John talking about the MG restaurants that jump the shark and are more interested in pursuing an idea/gimmick versus putting out great food. I know that I have a tendency to do that because the more techniques I learn, the more I want to play. And that often leads to my emphasis being on technique instead of taste. So with John's voice ringing loudly, this menu wasn't a slave to the concept of aphrodisiacs or kama sutra. I worked in aphrodisiac ingredients when appropriate, and let the KS titles find an appropriate home with a dish instead of modifying a dish to fit the KS position. Here's the setup. Four times per year I put on a tasting dinner that themes with the season. Winter was surely the hardest to theme with since I also try to source much of my food locally. For this dinner I was only able to use a handful of locally produced foods. This meal also happened to land on Valentine's Day which was coincidence not design, and that led to the theme of the Kama Sutra. I sell tickets through my store/cafè to 18 guests, which each dinner has become easier and easier to sell the tix as word gets out. The meal is hosted at a personal home - a home that I've paired with the season and meal. I didn't get any pics of this home, but its an old adobe that has been hippied out by some long-time local hippies (aged now into hip hippies) with solar, wood burning stoves, and many, many organic evolutionary add-ons to the home. The main room has the shape of an old fashioned circus tent with a high spot draping down to the outside, all of which is adobe. There are no straight lines with this house. And even though we're in the Southwest, we're in the mountains, so right now its cold. The house was warm and homey and welcoming. Just what I wanted for a winter dinner. I've struggled with wine for all three meals. We don't have a liquor license, so in the previous two meals I've asked guests to bring their favorite wines and I would pair them. Well, that didn't work on two grounds. First, I didn't know many of the wines, so I was doing crude pairings (syrah = red meat), and second, the wines were shared with the whole table, so I had guests bring very nice wine that they never got to taste, while they were stuck with someone else's Yellowtail (it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea). For this dinner I said, bring whatever wine you want and it will remain at your table setting, we'll just provide the openers. That was fine, but I want a better system to let the wine work with the food. Of my 18 guests, four had been to the previous dinners and had an idea of the style of food. The other 14 had no idea, had never heard of Alinea or el bulli, etc. I did a brief introduction that explained the style of preparation and then told them to shut off their analytic brains and enjoy the ride. This meal leaned more heavily on meats since its an area where I need to grow in my skills. As such I had been studying the new Keller book and borrowed from it for this meal, as I did Alinea, which I'm much more comfortable with Achatz's techniques. Enough intro, here's the meal. Course 1: Amuse Bouche: The Lotus A direct ripoff from Alinea. Freshly squeezed granny smith juice sphere encapsulated in horseradish white chocolate/cocoa butter shell, set in celery juice. For those of you who know this dish, my shell was a tad thick, meaning it did burst easily in their mouths, but required a second of chewing to swallow the shell. Not ideal, but the flavors always have been, and always will be a great starter to a meal. I stayed mostly in the kitchen which was out of site (normally I find houses where the kitchen is visible so as to add to the drama), but I knew we were off to a good start when I heard the roars of laughter - it is a fun dish! Course 2: Splitting the Bamboo My adolescent male went wild with this one. I flew in ultra fresh tuna loin, cut it into smaller stips, coated in black and white sesame seeds, a bit of seasoning, and a quick pan sear to leave the inside very sumptuously red and meaty. I then split the strip and spread the legs (so to speak). Set inside the crotch was a reverse spherification of smoked oysters to which I added a high end tonic water. The plating included a nori flakes, savory malt, soy granola and miso nage. Another hit, but I was cursing in the kitchen because I realized I had cut the tuna too large and was filling bellies too quickly. A smaller cut would have been more appropriate, and would have made for more delicate plating which would have fit this dish much better. Course 3: Caressing the Bud In this course I was using Keller's technique for sous vide radishes, but I made some modifications which had nice results. The radishes were cooked in a sweet vinegar sauce, served with sunchoke soup, fried carrot threads and what I was calling a rubic's cube of root vegetables. Originally this was going to be a perfect 3-d cube of carrot, beet and parsnip. I tossed the beets because I knew there were going to bleed (although in retrospect, that could be a cool effect too). I then tossed the cube idea when we tried to get perfect cuts - it was just too hard to achieve that level of precision, so we went to the flat sheet you see above. I then tossed the cubes in corn start assuming the moisture, then the heat of the water bath would fuse the cubes. For the most part this worked well. A few cubes fell off but that actually made for a nice effect as well. A quick pan sear and onto the plate. I considered this one of my two courses for people to relax the senses - nothing too fancy, just comfort foods to take a break before the onslaught that was coming next. Course 4: Mirror of Pleasing My favorite course to plate although my pics sucked hence the ultra close up. Caviar set inside of a geleè with lime pudding, banana foam, curry salt, citrus flakes and sous vide monk fish cooked with fennel. This course evolved greatly. First, the geleè was supposed to have sea urchin gonads. I couldn't get them. Next, the geleè was supposed to have crawfish brains. I couldn't get them. What kind of Cretans are running this town! So I settled for caviar - a relatively low end caviar which was okay because I wanted the saltiness and the pop which I achieved. Second, the monkfish was supposed to be a much more important part of this dish. I ordered a fresh whole and received frozen fillets - I wasn't happy. I had been studying Morimoto's processing demo in the Chef's Congress topic and really stressing over it, and then these frozen bags showed up. Bummer - no liver, no gills...boring. Still a really good course that had exquisite plating. Course 5: Pair of Tongs OMG! This was the first time I had ever prepared or eaten belly. First, I've sent a deposit to my cardiologist, but second, this was one of the best things I've ever eaten. Riffing off of Alinea's recipe, its a sous vide cooked belly seasoned with cayenne and smoked paprika. Each cube is then topped with a thin sugar shell also seasoned and set under a broiler to melt. The result is a thin crisp shell over a luscious moist and highly flavorful cube of meat. Plated with mascarapone polenta, juniper berry sauce and savory chocolate soil. This was the course that I first started hearing, "I don't know if I'll be able to finish this meal," - damn that tuna steak! Everyone did finish however, and nothing came back on any plates. Course 6: Congress of Crow Help! Plating Emergency! Duck breast pastrami, rye gnocchi, pickled mustard seeds, chestnut oil pudding, slaw and a roasted chestnut financier. I had the best sous chef I could have asked for in eGer Patrick A. He's off at culinary school now, but came back to assist me and I'm so glad he did. His skills have improved. He has clearly let some of my snobbery and discernment rub off on him. And his speed is much improved. That said, this course suffered from too many hands on the plate. I need more precision in my gnocchi cuts, straighter lines in the pudding, and a more delicate hand on the coleslaw which was plated by one of the servers. But, it was as equally delicious as it was ugly. Also, a quick note about the use of a chestnut financier. A while back I had bought chestnut flour and accidentally wound up with roasted instead of regular. The smokey flavor has ruined one dish after another HERE is the best example - the only combo that I've really liked has been in a white chocolate scone. During NPR's Thanksgiving food show this year, one of the guests made a passing comment that "The cabbage family loves smokey flavor." I wrote it on my prep board at the cafè and sat on it waiting for the right time. Finally this dish came into being and I knew it was my chance to apply that statement. It worked incredibly well. Good combo. Course 7: Milk & Water This was the only course that I didn't think was good. Most of the guests liked it but I did hear one say, "I guess my palate isn't developed enough to appreciate this." I don't like hearing that. My snobbery is self-imposed, not intended to be passed on to the guests. This was the cheese course. I had numerous technical difficulties and the highlight never worked. It was supposed to have cheese caviar which never would set for me. The cheese cracker was supposed to be filled with cheese sauce - the cracker was too hard. So I went for the punt and put the sauce on the bottom, a bit of pear puree, and szechuan peppercorns. Let's forget this one and move on... Course 8: Pop!corn A mechanical difficulty here - my immersion blender died. Always bring a backup system! Alinea's popcorn soup with caramel foam - a foam that I had no way to froth. On the skewer is a popcorn ball dipped in chocolate and rolled in neutral pop rocks - our menu orgasm! Roars of laughter filled the room. Course 9: Butterfly Such a pretty dish, and such perfect flavors after all the previous food. Citrus compari granite, lemon curd, grapefruit geleè, citrus flakes, and the infamous damiana geleè cube. Standing ovation by the guests for Patrick and I and then I explained damiana and passed the bottle for them to enjoy. I'm happily rested and ready to start planning my Spring menu for May.
