I've taken on the challenge of trying to cook my way through this book. I met Mr Keller at the Seattle Ad Hoc book launch and he was very inspiring - a very sharp mind. To date I've done: 1. Whole roast chicken on root vegetables Difficulty:1/5 Taste: 3/5 Learnt: How to truss a chicken 2. Peaches and Cream Peaches weren't in season so I substituted nectarines which weren't so great. Difficulty: 2/5 Taste: 3/5 Learnt: How to fold marscapone into whipped egg whites and yolks 3. Buttermilk Fried Chicken Difficulty: 3/5 Taste: 5/5 Learnt: How to fry, brine and section a chook! I'd never made fried chicken before because of the concern around disposing of the oil. This was a very rewarding recipe although it takes a good 24 hours prep due to the brining. I learnt how to cut a whole chicken into sections (damn that whishbone), how to monitor oil temp, and how preparation and cleaning as you go really helps. These were out of this world taste-wise. Succulent and crunchy. My mouth waters just thinking of them. 4. Pan Fried Chicken breasts with tarragon and Garlic Mash Difficulty: 3/5 Taste: 5/5 Learnt: These two recipes required purchase of a couple of new kitchen tools - a meat hammer and food mill. I also discovered the magic of tarragon - a subtle but rewarding herb. If you haven't made this yet, I thoroughly recommend it. The tast of the breasts was out of this world due to the seasoning and the pan sauce. There's a heap of unsalted butter used but it's worth it. I also had the garlic confit for the mash potato sitting in the fridge from a previous recipe so I was able to use that without making it from scratch. So good that I made it twice in one week. And last night I made 5. Crab Cakes Difficulty: 4/5 Taste: 2/5 I cut quite a few corners with this recipe as I didn't have the fancy preserved pepper he calls out and the dungeness crab was already cooked. I've found with these recipes that they usually require ingredients that are their own process and recipe, in this case the pepper infused garlic aioli which is actually based off the mayonnaise recipe. I was a little frustrated having to bust out the food processor and mix up a batch of mayo with the garlic confit oil but was good to learn. The next frustration came trying to roll the crab mixture with the panko bread crumbs. Very very hard to keep the balls together when placing them in the pan. As the crab was already cooked, I should've have just colored the cakes and served them but I stupidly cooked them for 10 mins on the stove top, then another 3 or so in the 350 F oven. They came out crunchy and a little burnt. I'll start taking photos and posting them here for y'all.
