Truffle Mutt

Asian Recap

What to recap to you about Asia week?  I could tell you about the dim sum that we made, the red braised pork, the chile tofu or the Indian buffet, but I'd rather just show you the pictures and skip straight to the Wok Around China Town where I made a total ass out of myself.  Yeah let's do that.  Here goes...

Steamed bbq pork buns - super yum!

Bok choi with red braised shitake mushrooms.

 

Chile tofu.  A dish that introduced me to fava bean paste, a substance that could burn holes in sheet metal.  I think there was a typo on the bottle, it should have read lava bean paste.  It's super good though, right up until your taste buds are scorched off. 

And crispy fried whitebait.  A-amazing.

Italy Week - The Rest

I am behind with this post!  I'll try and catch you up.

This picture is of our Italy menu development project.  Pasta stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a roasted pepper and tomato coulee.  Josh and I were kitchen buddies this week and it was a pretty fun week.  Sure, we got our arses handed to us on restaurant day - the chefs way to bring us back to earth after exams, but much fun was had too.   

This was our main of roasted game hen with fennel, parsnip gratin, sausage tournedo and sun-dried tomato artisan pasta. 

The gratin was a combination of sliced parsnip and fennel layered with parmesan cheese, cream and Pernod.  We served the roasted breast of the game hen with a mushroom infused reduction and used the thigh meat for a sausage stuffing, with roasted fennel seed and pine nuts, raisins, pancetta and bread crumbs, wrapped in kale. 

Lastly, and certainly the most humorous, was Josh's foccacia cracker.  I'm not sure what happened during the bread making process here, but the end result resembled something very similar to year old gingerbread.  If I hadn't seen it come together in the kitchen, I'd believe it came out of a time capsule - from the 80's.  We almost required a diamond cutter to get through it and you could hear people crunching on it from halfway across the kitchens.  Much laughter was had and possibly a couple of cracked teeth.  Ahh - the best part of the week!  

Italy Week - Day 1

A picture of French bread on the first day of Italy week - I know, I know.  But I don't have a picture to show you, despite actually getting it together enough to take my camera to school.  So, you get the French bread I made last weekend, or I could show you an equally un-Italian Tart Tatin...

Oh what the heck, you can have that picture too!  And now that I am fresh out of filler pictures to blog about I will have to remember to use my camera tomorrow!

Today's menu was oven roasted tomato and garlic soup, hand made pasta - including my second attempt at making Orrechiette, pesto sauce, classic tomato sauce and biscotti.

Hands down my favorite thing of the day was the tomato sauce.  Garlic, onion, tomato paste and the best quality tomatoes - totally brilliant.  But, you can't skimp on the tomatoes here, you have to find the sweetest, ripest canned tomatoes possible, which I guarantee you won't find at any old supermarket.  You are looking for a can of tomatoes with no added anything...  Tomatoes, tomato juice and maybe, maybe basil.  That's it!  No salt, no citric acid, no nothing. 

I learned today that if a tomato is picked at its ripest there is enough sugar to preserve it in the can.  So, it's good advice to avoid added salt and citric acid, because something wasn't quite right when those little buddies went into the can.  Other than the tomatoes you are relying on the caramelization of the onion, garlic and tomato paste for added sweetness.  And don't you dare go and buy Heinz tomato paste after you just bought the best Italian canned tomatoes you could find!  Buy high end there too, or better yet, puree sun-dried tomatoes. 

If there's something tomato sauce can teach us all it's that cooking simple is a HUGE challange.  Five ingredients come together to create perfection - if you don't skimp it's amazing!