Inspired by StudioKitchen

[percyn]

What sauce did you use for the skate wing, i am trying to recreate this at home and am not sure what gigondas sauce is exactly

For my version of the stake wing sauce I sauteed leeks, added white wine and some stock (veal or chicken), reduced it and crushed 4-5 Sichuan peppercorns into the broth.

Shola made a sauce from Gigondas wine (thus the name) which can be seen here, but I have not made this sauce (yet). Perhaps Shola can comment on how to make the Gigondas sauce.

Another question, did you finish this with a lot of dairy, like parmesan or marscapone? Just wondering if the dairy would ruin the clean taste of the rissotto.

No dairy was added to the tomato water rissotto.

[mrbigjas]

once on this very forum we were talking about a meal at SK where in this post i said i didn't taste the miso in the carrot/miso puree. further discussion revealed that the idea was that the miso would amplify the sweetness of the carrot.

so tonight, that discussion came to mind, and i decided to give it a shot. so i slowly cooked some shallots in olive oil, added a brunoise of carrot, a little salt, and water to cook. after pureeing it, i added miso (dissolved in hot water) tasting as i went along until... whaddya know, the guy was right--the miso DID accent the sweetness of the carrot and suddenly after a teaspoon or so, everything changed and it tasted fantastic.

i seared some dry scallops, and this is what i ended up with:

(in the background are the very un-studiokitchenesque sake-braised mushroom/scallion ragout, and braised endive with pernod, which is really a candidate for the unfortunate dinner thread, looks-wise, but tasted really good)

good stuff, i recommend it.

Edited December 11, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[percyn]

Mrbigjas, all those dishes look and sound really good.

[mrbigjas]

thanks percy. shola knows what he's doing--i mean, i knew that, but still i was kind of surprised, with the pureed carrots, adding miso little by little, that suddenly i hit this 'sweet spot' where everything tasted like more than the sum of its parts. kind of part of the fun that was SK--i fully admit i don't bother doing this with every dish, but today i had the time for it.

[CaptainJack]

Well tried the tomato water risotto last night, the risotto was fine but the sweetness was a little overbearing, I tried different herbs to try to cut through the sweetness, tarragon worked pretty well. I was a little disappointed with it though, I think the choice of ingredients to go into it needs to be well thought out.

[percyn]

What kind of tomatoes did you use?

[sadistick]

If you are using a good quality tomato, often times you will have a level of sweetness in your risotto. In order to balance it, one or two types of good quality (salty) cheeses helps it out - I prefer Peccorino and Parm...Remember, chances are a good tomato risotto will always have some level of sweetness, but that all depends on the quality of your ingredients.

[CaptainJack]

What kind of tomatoes did you use?

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They were plain old vine tomatoes.

[percyn]

Elements of last night's dinner were SK inspired:

Mushroom Polenta w/Bacon and Hot Spring Egg* - Used Shitake, dried porcini and Portobello mushrooms sauteed with shallots in Benton's bacon fat and deglaced with red wine and beef stock.

The creaminess of the polenta went well with the richness of the egg yolk, the smoke from the bacon and the earthiness of the mushrooms......yuuummmm.

*Egg cooked at 63.8F for 1hr in an immersion circulator. And yes, used more than one egg.

[alwang]

Looks awesome. We made mushroom polenta as well over the weekend, though didn't think to add a slow-cooked egg. We did add a healthy dollop of mascarpone to liven things up...

You mean 63.8C, right?

[MattJohnson]

You mean 63.8C, right?

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haha. That would indeed be something new!

Edited April 17, 2007 by MattJohnson (log)

[percyn]

For some reason I had not made the now famous corn soup this summer and was craving it, so I was inspired to concoct...

Essence of Summer soup - Corn milk, lobster, crab, smoked salt, avocado and avocado oil. Not the best presentation, but good none the less. Pity I did not have lobster oil to drizzle on it as well.

Bruschetta w/Manzanillo Olive Oil (which I was introduced to at SK)