New Duck, Version 1.2

Here is the process for our new duck.  I took whole ducks, skinned them and blanched the skins.  I then glued the skin together with Activa to form a block.  Then I shaved the skin on a slicer and reattached the skin with more Activa.  Then I sous vide it at 130 deg for 3 hours.  Final plate up coming.

This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Chicken…

We de-boned chickens, butterflied the breast, made a farce with the leg meat and filled the breast.  Then  we glued the filled breast back together.  It was sous vide at 140 deg for 2 hours.  It was then dry rubbed and crisped in a hot pan.  It’s served over a green peppercorn and goat cheese risotto, toasted almond butter, hibiscus demi glace and baby orange carrots.

Duck, Take One…

Here is version 1.1 of our new duck dish.  It’s pretty standard with pan seared duck breast, confit leg, butternut squash puree and roasted fall root vegetable hash.   Good, solid winter flavors.  I, however, wanted to somehow make the skin **SUPER** crispy thus altering the final texture.  I was thinking of duck skin as thin as chicken skin.  On our next version, we will be involving a frozen, meat glued block of duck skin and a thermal circulator to reinvent it.  Can’t wait!  Be on the look out for version 1.2

Stuffed Chicken

This dish turned out real nice.  We take whole chickens and cut out the airline breast.  The thighs are boned out and the skin is reserved for the chicken skin wrapped pork.  The thigh meat is turned into a farce meat with linguisa sausage.  We butterfly the breast and pipe in the farce.  It’s then glued back together with Activa and sous vide at 140 deg for 2 hours.

Chicken Fried Pulled Pork.

Chicken Fried Steak?  Yeah.  How about Chicken Fried Pulled Pork?  We took our sous vide pork and pressed it into a terrine while it was hot and let it set over night.  Then it’s sliced and wrapped in chicken skin glued on with Activa.  After it sets, its coated in seasoned buttermilk and dredged in flour and fried.  Just like fried chicken, but it’s pulled pork.

Pork Getting Ready for Sous Vide

We’ve taken Pork Shoulder and seasoned it heavily with salt, sugar and spices.  Then we will sous vide it for about 28 hours at 160 deg.  This will then be pulled and pressed in a terrine and then wrapped in chicken skin.

Activa RM.

We just received our shipment of Activa RM today.  AKA Meat Glue, we will be using this in several different applications.  The enzyme transglutaminase has the ability to molecularly crosslink protein molecules together.  It does not discriminate against which kind of protein, so you can theoretically glue a piece of fish to a piece of pork if you wanted to, just as if that’s how nature intended it to be. 

Terra Spice Account Active!

Finally got our Terra Spice account active.  I used to use them in North Carolina.  Great spice selection and also purveyors of chemicals used for molecular gastronomy.  Looking at buying some “caviar” chemicals, soy lecithin and malto dextrin powder to make airs, caviar and powders for wine tastings.  We will create unique flavors and textures to compliment the wines to be tasted in our wine shop.  Great fun…  Also looking forward to terra’s smoked black peppercorns, black garlic, dill pollen and others….  Check them out at www.terraspice.com

Nice little wine dinner

Here’s some preparation for a nice little wine dinner we just had featuring Caymus Wines. Being from California, these guys are one of my favorite wineries. The Quail is stuffed with Burgundy truffles and finished with Butternut Squash. The scallops are finished with scallop dust and crispy mushroom risotto crackers. The quenelles I have to keep secret for now.