David Ross

Last weekend: -Apple, Pear and Parsnip Salad with Toasted Walnuts, Bleu Cheese and Apple Cider Vinaigrette -Rotisserie Chicken. Yes, I use the handy-dandy Ron Popeil 'set it and forget it' equipment. -Rotisserie Chicken, Red Chard with Bacon, Mashed Potatoes, Chicken Glace' -Slow-Roasted Duck, (more of the Red Chard and Mashed Potatoes), Huckleberry Compote

Thank you-it did turn out to be a dish using a few different cuisines. I really don't like the term 'fusion' on a restaurant menu because it sometimes means that there is trouble to come in a dish. In other words, fusion sometimes turns into 'confusion' in terms of flavors. But in the case of the merguez it worked really well. The spicy, smokiness of the lamb was balanced by the cool, crisp cucumber raita. And the corn tortillas added a nice crunch. I fry them myself using fresh corn tortillas that I cut into small rounds and then use tongs as they fry to shape them into little tacos. Worked pretty well.

I've been wanting some spicy meat dish ever since Little Ms. Foodie posted that delicious photo of Spicy Turkish Meat Pizzas. So yesterday I made my own Merguez Sausage. I ground up meat from a leg of lamb and combined it with a small amount of ground beef, then added lots of spices, including my own harissa and a good amount of smoked paprika. I fryed some corn tortillas to serve as the pockets for the meat filling, then added a cucumber raita sauce on top of the meat. The rice is simply steamed Basmati with some toasted pine nuts, dried apricots and fresh parsley. I was worried the meat mix would be too spicy but it was pretty tame.

Sounds like you already got started on your dessert, but I'd also suggest making a Tarte Tatin, especially since we are in the midst of apple season. I started making a Tarte Tatin just yesterday that I'll serve tonight. The photo below is a Tarte Tatin I made a while back using pears. Pears are also good in a Tarte Tatin, but of course, apples are the classic. Here's my recipe: Apples 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces 10-12 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut in half 1 ½ cups granulated sugar Pastry 2 1/3 cups all purpose flour 1/3 cup cake flour 1 tbsp. superfine granulated sugar ½ tsp. salt 1 stick unsalted butter, chilled, cut into pieces ½ cup Crisco shortening, chilled, cut into pieces ½ cup ice water Heat oven to 400°. Heat a 10-12" round and 2-3" deep heavy ovenproof non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add butter to skillet and melt. Add sugar to skillet and stir with butter until sugar is melted. Remove from heat and arrange apples side by side in skillet. Place skillet in oven and let cook for 1 hour or until apples are soft and puffy. Remove skillet from oven and let cool to room temperature. Cover skillet with foil and refrigerate overnight. This lets the apples cool down into the caramelized sugar. To make the pastry, combine flour, cake flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl and stir to mix. Using a pastry cutter, cut in butter and Crisco into small pea size bits. Mix in enough ice water with a fork until the pastry comes together. Form pastry into a ball and cover completely with plastic wrap. Refrigerate pastry for at least one hour before using. To complete the Tarte Tatin, heat oven to 350°. Take the the skillet and the pastry from the refrigerator. Roll out the pastry to 1/8" thickness. Gently place the pastry over the apples in the skillet. Trim edge of pastry so that about ½" overhangs skillet. Press in edges of pastry to inside of skillet. Bake skillet in oven just until pastry is golden, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. To unmold the Tarte Tatin, place a plate over the top of skillet and carefully turn over the skillet. The Tarte Tatin should easily invert onto the plate. Cut into wedges and serve warm with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream.

"Cloying"-which to me is a term used by negligible restaurant 'critics' who don't have the knowledge of food and cooking to use another term to describe a dish that is 'sticky' so they use 'cloying' because they've read it in other critics reviews. "Confit"-used to describe dishes that are anything but prepared in the true sense of the term 'confit.' For example, 'Confit of Strawberries.' And may I ask, are you saying that you prepared your strawberries by stewing them in goose or duck fat? If you slow-cooked the strawberries in their own juice call it like it is-"Strawberries Poached in Juice." Don't play tricks on unsuspecting diners by calling your dish something it is not. I really don't like all the trendniness we see on many of today's menus where a sacred culinary technique like 'confit' is used to describe something that is not at all truly 'confit.' They think their trendy-and lengthy-menu descriptions are chi-chi and will somehow lure the diner into thinking because they've called the dessert 'confit of strawberries' that it's going to be a great dish-and one they can charge $15 bucks for. Worst of all, they do fool most of the people most of the time.

You cut the skin off, and then put it under the broiler to crisp the skin which you've cut off? ← No-I just cut the outer 'rind' which is the outer skin of the pig. I leave the layer of fat that is just under the rind. I find the rind can be incrediby tough when it is crisp. So I cut that off and leave the remaining fat layer. That layer of fat protects the meat yet leaves you with enough fat to get a crispy layer. Sorry, my previous answer wasn't totally clear. Good question.

One of my favorite cuts of pork to be sure. Oh the fatty belly. It's about the only cut of pork that I can get close to the fatty and delicious pork we ate when I was a kid-about 40 years ago and long before that silly "the other white meat" marketing campaign. I buy fresh pork belly from a local Asian market. But I cook it in different styles-sometimes Asian, sometimes American with French influences. I usually cut the outer rind off and leave the thick layer of fat on. I only season the pork with salt, black pepper and sometimes a bit of Cajun seasoning. I stick it in a large Le Creuset pot and add the lid. I don't add extra liquid to the pot-the pork belly oozes juice and fat, which creates steam and cooking liquid for the pork to braise in. I usually braise the belly in a 275 oven for 4-hours for a 3-4lb. chunk of meat. I take the pork belly out of the oven and stick it on a cookie rack over a sheet pan and then stick it back in the oven under the broiler to crisp the skin. The meat always turns out incredibly juicy, the skin very crisp. Here are some photos of a pork belly I cooked using this method. It was served with mashed potatoes and a green peppercorn sauce.

Peter-next time try searching the web or looking in your cookbooks for recipes with rabbit in mustard sauce. That's a classical pairing-the tanginess of mustard against the sweetness of the rabbit meat. I do a braised dish of rabbit with mustard sauce and I add some wild mushrooms, usually morels in season. It's sort of the theory that what 'grows together goes together.' In other words, we shoot little Peter Cottontail in the forest where the morels grow!

David, do you have an online source for crab delivery? ← Try www.pikeplacefish.com. It's the guys who throw the salmon at the market in Seattle. While the throwing bit is a part of their shtick to tourists, they do have really good seafood. I looked at the site today and their Dungeness crabs are $24.95 each. I think they would be reliable. Since I live in Spokane, (only a 45 minutes flight from Seattle), I can get fresh crabs within a day of harvest so I don't have to shop online, but I'm sure the guys at the market would ship you really fresh crabs.

By the way, our crab season is starting to wind down. The new season will start about December 1 depending on ocean conditions, so if you can wait until then to order or buy Dungeness Crab from the Pacific Northwest, you'll be in for a treat of the first of the season crab.

For the crabcakes I start by making a homemade mayonnaise-egg, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, pepper and add both olive oil and canola oil. Any basic mayonnaise recipe will do. I use a blender. This recipe also called for worcestershire and Tabasco in the mayonnnaise. I didn't add any herbs or other seasonings. In the crab cakes I use fresh Dungeness crab, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, green onion, some of the mayonnaise and then a bit of fresh white bread crumbs. I added just a bit of Paul Prudhomme Seafood Magic Cajun seasoning. Then I saute the crabcakes in a non-stick skillet using clarified butter-about 3-4 minutes per side just until they get a nice golden brown color and a bit of crust. Thanks for asking. I'm thinking of doing a platter of little crab cakes for an office Holiday party-if my company will spring for the cost of the crab.

Hello everyone. I've not been posting much for the past two weeks. Computer issues which is really a pain in the you know what, and then too busy to devote my normal amount of time to cooking. But tonight I hit a couple of homers. First-Dungeness Crab Cakes. My fishmonger got 100lbs. of fresh Dungeness out of Alaska delivered to his store on Friday morning-and I happened to stop by at 10am, only one hour after he had opened and started selling the beauties. (I found out that most of the restaurants in town only take deliveries of fresh seafood Wednesday thru Saturday-but my fish guy gets fresh seafood delivered in 6 days a week. Yeah!). Now you probably know we take our crab cakes pretty seriously up here in the Northwest. I bind mine with homemade mayonnaise rather than just using an egg. I dip the crab cake in fresh bread crumbs, then fry them in only clarified butter. A dollop of the mayonnaise on top of the crab cake just adds to the richness of this dish. It's actually pretty decadent-and delicious. When I looked over the fresh seafood in the market I immediately put my sights on the fresh Black Cod. My fishmonger had gotten some whole black cod delivered that morning-fresh out of Alaska. Black Cod is also sometimes called 'Sablefish.' It is buttery, soft, oily and tender. I used an old recipe from the Alaskan Brewing Company for the sauce. I cooked with their 'Smoked Porter Ale' ale a few years back at a local cooking expo. We used the Smoked Porter to make a glaze for Black Cod. The Smoked Porter is a thick, dark beer. The smoke comes from the malt-which is smoked over old alderwood boards that were once part of a fish cannery. Pretty unique isn't it? Using alderwood from a fish cannery to smoke malt for Porter. You can get the recipe for the smoked porter sauce off their website. But buyer beware-Alaskan Smoked Porter is very rare and they only release it once a year, usually in December. I was lucky my fishmonger had BOTH the Black Cod and the Smoked Porter. I thought the recipe off the website was a bit sweet for my tastes, so I added some 'Chinkiang Black Vinegar' (Chinese Black Vinegar), to make the sauce more sour. I served the cod on a bed of bok choy and mushrooms.

As far as the cooking and the dishes presented by the chefs, I think the finale was the best episode of Top Chef I've seen. I said the cooking and the dishes presented, not all that gooey shtick and other fluff the producers threw in. I thought the gunk the producers added in was unnecessary and interferred with the flow of the show. So let me get that gunk cleared from the kitchen drain first. I didn't think it was necessary to have the 'celebrity' chefs in the kitchen helping with the prep. I don't think Bravo announced in advance that they were going to showcase three 'celebrity' chefs on the finale. If they had, it might, just maybe, have gained them a few more viewers. But since I don't think Bravo announced the 'celebrity' chef element in advance, I doubt the general viewing public cared much that Todd English stepped out of a gondola on top of a mountain. Other than a few cursory comments from English, Rocco and Michelle Bernstein, I didn't think their presence in the kitchen added much to the show. I did however appreciate their comments on the tasting panel. I think we all knew that Top Chef would bring back a few of the eliminated chefs, so that was not a surprise at all. I think Howie, Sara and CJ actually added more support than the celebrity chefs. That was probably due to the fact that the celebrity chefs were restricted from doing much other than showing for appearances sake and to make a few comments. Howie, CJ and Sara seemed to really step in and offer support in terms of ideas for the 4th dish and support over the stove. I thought the 'live' ending in Chicago was a joke. In fact, I've watched the show twice now and I still haven't seen or heard a mention that they were 'live' from Chicago. I didn't get the point of moving the finale to a city for the last 5 minutes of the show. But on to the cooking and what I thought in general were very creative, well-executed dishes. But as I've said all season, it's pretty hard to critique a chef's dishes without tasting the food, so my opinions of the dishes are far from accurate since I didn't have the pleasure of dining at the Aspen Club. Casey was obviously rattled from the start. Did you catch that interaction with Casey and Michelle Bernstein when they were standing in the pantry area? I thought Casey sounded like she had just smoked some wild Colorado weed! Man her sentences were disjointed and she was speaking in broken English. I couldn't tell what she was thinking-and I don't think she knew what she was thinking or saying. As a result, her scatter-brained approach to the finale showed in her scattered dishes with too many ingredients that fought for flavor with one another. It almost seemed as though Casey had given up and being in the top three was good enough for her. She looked put out at the final judges table in Chicago-especially when the judges grilled her on her dishes and even more so when the cameras picked up her facial expressions as Hung was being judged. Too bad-up until two weeks ago I was rooting for Casey to win-but I fell off her wagon train when she got to Colorado. I thought Dale gave a great performance. My only suggestion for Dale would be to cut down on the number of ingredients in his dishes and realize that more isn't always better. What sounds trendy on a menu-Chanterelles, Curry, Lobster, Bacon, Corn and Gnocchi-isn't always better. As the judges mentioned, the curry overpowered the lobster-which Colicchio said was raw. And I really took a long drink of my ice water when I heard Dale say he poached his rack of lamb in Duck Fat. I thought of beautifully sweet, meadow-raised lamb being stewed in fat. Yuck. But the judges loved the technique and resulting flavors. I've printed Dale's lamb recipe off the Top Chef website and once I find a tub of duck fat-I'm on that dish. Dale's passionate speeches about his love of food and cooking along with his performance on the finale really won him a lot of points and I think he's got a great future in the restaurant business. I've been a fan of Hung's since the start of the show-you're all probably a bit tired of me continually mentioning that dish of Geoduck and Black Chicken that Hung did weeks ago-but from the start I really got on to his creativity. Yes, I know, the technical vs. soul issue has been a hot potato with some of us and I did a lot of writing defending the soul behind Hung's food. But I actually always felt it was his creativity that set his food apart, and I suppose you could argue that is where I found the soul in his food. I think it was pretty telling that all the judges awarded Hung's Duck as about the best dish they have ever tasted-including Todd English going so far as to call it 'Michelin 3-Star.' Collichio is right-if you look at the number of ingredients in Hung's Duck recipe (posted on the website), there is a lot of stuff in that dish. Yet to the judges, the dish on the plate and on the palate tasted quite simple, yet elegant and memorable. I think this was about the third time Hung used the Sous-Vide method to cook a protein, but it appears to work well for him as witnessed by the results he's gained from the judges each time he's cooked with Sous-Vide. The menu description doesn't do justice to the final dish. The website lists Hung's dish as "Duck with Truffle Scented Broth and Mushroom Ragout." Simple enough, but the recipe also has foie gras in the mushroom ragout and the truffle broth is accented with a hint of Asian influence from lemon grass and fresh lime leaves. Now if that isn't a dish from the 'soul' of a talented, rising-star chef, I don't know what is.

You've keyed on something completely overlooked! Hung is Vietnamese. The french ruled vietnam for a very long time, their culture and cuisine would be imprinted on Vietnamese dishes, they would be an eastern variety of Haute' Cuisine. Hung's soul may very well dwell within his native dishes. ← Exactly part of my earlier point-which I only gave in terms of a subtle hint-I was waiting for someone to pickup on the marriage of French and Vietnamese cuisines and how that quite likely could be the 'soul' behind Hung's cooking. But as we've discussed earlier, the 'soul' of a chef is subjective based on whom you ask, whether it be those of us who merely watch the show, Collichio or Bourdain who've tasted Hung's dishes-or Hung himself. And therein lies another one of the mysteries of why I suppose I find Top Chef so intriguing.

I'm a bit tardy in adding my review today for last week's show-but here goes-- Being a native Northwesterner and having cast a few flies in some of our better trout streams, I was pretty excited to see what the chefs would come up with when faced with having to cook trout in 30 minutes alongside a roiling Colorado stream. But I was quite disappointed in Brian's effort and his comments. His dish lacked focus and had way too many elements-a hallmark of his cooking that proved to be his undoing with his elk dish in the Elimination challenge. But what really offended me was his statement that "most chefs don't use trout because we don't consider it seafood." In my opinion that remark was obnoxious and offensive to those of us who pursue the art of trout fishing and secondly to all the cooks and chefs who find the flavor of trout quite tasty and an appropriate 'seafood' to put on the menu. Advice for Brian-if you want to savor the true flavor of fresh-caught trout, camp alongside that beautiful stream in Colorado. Get up at sunrise and cast your fly into a swirling pool just as the flies start to come off the water. Catch a feisty, 15-inch rainbow. Now put a cast iron skillet over an open campfire. Throw in some strips of smoked bacon and fry the bacon until it is crisp. LEAVE the bacon fat in the skillet. Dredge your fresh trout in flour and then fry it up in that bacon fat. Add some sliced potatoes to the skillet. Fry those too. Then plate up your fried trout, thick slices of crispy, smoked bacon and your home fries. Pour a fat mug of campfire coffee then sit down, looking at the rushing waters and have the breakfast of your life-fresh trout. Brian-that just might have impressed Chef Ripert-the chef of seafood. We all know that Brian's obsession with adding a plethora of trendy, or not so trendy, ingredients basically killed his elk dish. I don't think he needed to add two bleu cheese choices let alone one. But I thought Brian's troubles began at the start when he chose the elk shank for a challenge where he had just a few hours to pull off his dish. To really pull that off he would have needed to braise the shank for more than a couple of hours. If he had stuck with the loin like the other three chefs and kept things simple he still might be in the competition. Dale gained ground in my eyes with his Elk dish-marrying Elk with Huckleberries is quite likely the temple of wild game cuisine to a Northwesterner-and his passionate speech about why he should be the next Top Chef. He spoke from the heart, with 'soul,' about why food and cooking are important to him. Like Dale, I even got a bit of a tear in my eye listening to him speak. I thought Casey gave her usual consistent, stellar if albeit not overly creative performance. She's still in the lead in my book. And lastly to Hung. I think I'll venture into the forest a bit on this one and disagree with some of the comments that Hung doesn't cook with 'soul.' I think he does. In my view, this is a young man who came to this country as an immigrant and has taken great pride in the fact that he's trying to find his way, his craft, his art, his skill, in a new culinary path that is unfamiliar to Hung and his family-haute French cuisine. I see it as Hung believing that for him to find that path he had to get the 'technical' skills needed to excel as a chef. So to me that means that his knife skills, his ability to create a dish of black chicken and geoduck, his creativity to garnish a classic chicken dish with 'crispy chicken skin' and his ability to recreate a Le Cirque classic dish of Sea Bass shows his 'soul' in discovering, in finding, his culinary sense. I see it as Hung's journey to being a great chef. That's how he's showing his soul. Is his soul found in a traditional Vietnamese soup or is it in presenting a technically sound dish of Sweetbreads? I don't know. I suppose that can only be answered by Hung or the customers who eat his food. Let the food decide if it has soul.

I've been craving some of those spicy lamb pizzas ever since you posted this delicious set of photos Can we have the recipe for the spicy lamb mixture and the skordalia??

Thank you all! Excellent, excellent responses. Some of you may not have followed my writings and postings-so just to give you a bit of info about me, I'm not a professional chef but I'd consider myself a good cook. Most of my areas of concentration in the food world are skewed more toward teaching, writing and restaurant critiques. And while I started this topic for my own education on how Escoffier created a classic chicken-glace', I am really happy that the topic has grown into a larger discussion about the 'classic' methods as opposed to 'today's' methods for creating demi-glace' and glace.' Thank you to the professionals who have chimed in on our topic. You've all given me many ideas-and many ideas for writing a piece about the methods of Escoffier updated for use in today's restaurant kitchens. But let's keep the topic going-I'd like to continue to hear tips on creating a classic chicken glace using Escoffier's base recipe and secondly, how you are creating 'classic' demi-glace and glace style sauces in your professional kitchen. Finally, do you feel there is still a place in the professional kitchen for Escoffier's teachings on classic sauces? Is the cost and time involved in creating the classic Escoffier demi-glace take a backseat to the final sauce in terms of flavor? Does the classic really, truly, give you an intense flavor that you absolutely cannot achieve through any modern method?

And I also have this funny sense that if I had done a perfectly roast chicken with pan juices, roast potatoes and onion jam that just maybe Chef Soltner would have been quite pleased with some good rustic French food.

Hmm, this past week I would have been faced with a Chicken, a Russet Potato and a Sweet Onion. I wish that the viewer was given information on what other items are in the pantry for the chefs to use. For example, are they given access to things like wild mushrooms, foie gras or pre-made stocks and sauces ala Iron Chef? It's always been a badly kept secret on Iron Chef going back to the days of the show in Japan that the chefs had a large pantry full of stuff to cook with other than the 'secret ingredient.' So hoping that the pantry would give me a few additional items, last week I would have probably done this dish for the "Classic French" Elimination Challenge: Foie Gras stuffed Chicken Breast on Truffled Potato Puree, Chicken Jus, Fried Onion Ring. I would have cut the chicken breast to leave the wing drummette attached. I would have made a stuffing out of the chicken innards along with some foie gras mousse and fresh bread crumbs. I'd follow Robuchon's recipe for pureed potatoes and added some fresh black truffle. If I had time, and it wasn't in the pantry pre-made, I would have roasted some chicken bones and made a chicken jus and then finally, for a bit of crunch, a nice, thick slice of sweet onion coated in panko and deep fried. Just one onion ring. Now I'm not a chef, nor do I have the skills of the Top Chef contestants, but I think if one of the contestants had done this type of dish, they would have scored up in the realm of where Hung was with his dish, much classier and 'French' than some of the other chefs dishes.

There are some interesting posts over in the "Top Chef-What Would You Make?" thread. I'll put a post over there myself with a suggestion on a dish I would have done for this past week's episode.

← Yikes, 22lbs. of baby cow bones! I found a copy of Escoffier's original recipe in a French reference cookbook I have and it's pretty detailed. If I can scare up the veal bones, I may, may, give it a try. If I do I'll report back.

Actually, don't worry, you can still save your mistakes sometimes and make quite delicious desserts. Jumanggy is right, if you think the custard tastes good you could always scoop it out of the cups. Spoon some of the custard into say martini glasses and garnish with some crumbled sesame cookies and maybe a dollop of whipped cream and you would have a nice Green Tea Pudding with Sesame Cookies-a sort of Asian inspired dessert. It would be worth a try.

Can anyone give me Escoffier's original recipe for making a classic chicken based glace' sauce? I know it is a lengthy process that involves lots of bones, vegetables and reductions over the course of many days, but I'd like to venture into making a feeble attempt at the original. I've done lots of dishes using shortcuts to create a chicken jus or chicken demi-glace and I've used commercial demi-glace products to help me along the way, but I'm still coming up short in terms of deep chicken flavor. I thought I'd try the master's original recipe. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you and yes, I agree, we seem to relegate celery to snacks for the kids or our turkey stuffing. Celery gives a wonderful peppery, crispy fresh flavor to many dishes but don't forget it can be served cooked on its own and it's delicious.

I make a big batch and keep it in the fridge. It is a delicious sauce on any warm spice cake like gingerbread or sticky toffee pudding. And REALLY good warmed as a sauce over vanilla ice cream! Rum Raisin Sauce 4 cups whipping cream 2 cups (packed) dark brown sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter 2/3 cup golden raisins 1/4 cup dark rum Place the whipping cream, brown sugar and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Bring the cream mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and reduce, stirring occasionally, until the sauce until is reduced by half or to about 3 1/2 cups. This should take about 20 minutes. Stir the rum soaked raisins into the sauce. Remove the sauce from the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate the sauce. The sauce can prepared in advance. Simply re-warm the sauce in a double-boiler over gently simmering water. Serve the sauce warm.