Antipasto II: Seafood

I'm talking raw today baby. I love raw food, especially raw seafood. Crudo, tartara, carpaccio, I feed right into that goodness. Those are some Italian terms which mostly describe the cut of the fish or meat. Crudo is a semi free form cut similar to a suhimi cut. Tartara are small cubes while carpacio is a very thin slice, I'm talking paper thin. 

The two dishes I am featuring today are tuna tartar and oysters and clams on the half shell.

Tuna tartar with celery, capers, tomatoes, and red onion. 

 When making tartar consider these six elements to create a composed and balanced dish: 

1. Fat

2. Acid

3. Salt

4. Texture

5. Color

6. Spice

Remember that a lot of fish are fatty naturally so be mindful of how much fat you use and what kind. Consider the flavor and texture of the fat. I used lemon infused extra virgin olive oil in mine. It's bright but subtle and adds a healthy shiny coat.  A good tartar has a balanced level of acidity and should not be overpowering. Acid will also cook the fish so you want to add a small amount and add it at the very end. Remember, tartar is not ceviche. With texture, consider the size of your fish and the size of your veggies. I like a contrast between the two so I do a medium dice on the tuna and a fine dice on the veg.

When you break a dish down to its elements you can see how easy it is to be creative and have fun with it!

Oysters and clams on the half shell.

I'll post a video on how to shuck oysters at a later date but this is the finished product. I served it with a supreme of lemon, extra virgin, cracked black pepper, and the oyster and clam liquor. Do not loose the liquor inside the shell, that's your golden ticket.

The less you process these dishes the better. They are meant to be eaten raw so the essence of each ingredient can be appreciated. Full flavor, full nutrition, that's what I'm about.

Antipasto I: Veg

I've featured a few dishes I've made so far. Both are antipasto dishes, we refer to them as appetizers.

First up is Caponata, Sicily's most famous antipasto. 

Eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, olives, capers, raisins, and pine nuts in agro dolce sauce. Agro dolce is a sweet and sour sauce, referred to as a gastrique in French cooking. I love it an you should play with it. It's simply acid and a sweetener. In school we used white wine vinegar and sugar but I'd like to experiment with honey and apple cider vinegar. This dish has a complex flavor profile, sweet, sour, spicy, and salty. A classic!

Next up:

Crostini with roasted red pepper, capers, garlic, and anchovies, yup! Anchovies are all over Italian cuisine and are seriously growing on me. Stay tuned...

Cooking With a Celebrity Chef

The Food Film Festival: Celebrating documentary food films showcasing farm to table sensibility.

 

It's Sunday morning, 8:45 a.m., the alarm bells weave their way into my dreaming state. Slowly I come to realize that this is not a dream, this is real life. I need to wake up. I have to stop at school to pick up my knives before I go to the theater. Am I going to meet Amanda Freitag today? Holy guacamole, what would I say!? She's a Next Iron Chef finalist, a Chopped judge, a roll model! I better make ginger tea this morning.

I'm here. This is cool. Taste what you see on the screen, sweet concept! I wonder what we'll be cooking...

Through the hallway, past the theater, up the stairs and enter kitchen. Hello FCI student volunteers. HELLO Amanda Freitag! I cannot believe I am sharing a kitchen with Amanda Freitag all day.

She’s amazing, kind, and such a positive person. She lives up to everything I admire.

  

Week one and I already met and cooked with one of my idols… hell yeah school!  

Her menu was creative, delicious, and showcased the local produce beautifully. 

Edible dirt made from mushrooms with arugula, lemon oil, and salt. 

And how fresh was the produce you ask? 

Cannot get more farm to table than that!

What an accomplished day. Fed 250 people and feeling gratified.

How to Prep an Artichoke

Read by Hadley Shully  in Julia Child's voice

Pounding Pesto

Culinary school is fantastico! There is so much action at the French Culinary Institute (which is now known as the International Culinary Center, by the way). This week we had The Pesto Champion from Italy demonstrate the art of making pesto. There are three important dimensions to pesto and they are flavor, texture, and color. 

Balance of flavors means one ingredient cannot overwhelm the other. The texture should be buttery and smooth and the color vibrant green.  Using a mortar and pestle is essential in obtaining the right texture without brutalizing the basil. It gently extracts the essential oils from the garlic, pine nuts, and basil without sacrificing color and flavor. Also, pesto is the verb to pound in Italian, tradition calls for physical labor with this dish (so green!). The following are the traditional ingredients in a pesto: basil, pine nuts, garlic, parmigiano reggiano, pecorino cheese, olive oil, and salt.  

After the demonstration the chefs asked for four volunteers to partake in a little pesto making competition. I immediately jumped to the challenge. I was pounding that pesto to great places. Garlic, pine nuts, and basil splattering all over my face but I didn’t care. It was about the pesto, not about me. I had to impress the pesto world champion after all!

Ten minutes later and times up! The judges, including the pesto champ, tasted all the pestos, deliberated, and announced the winner. How do you think I did? I’ll tell you… I pounded the competition like I pounded that pesto. First place baby! 

Chef Jessica to the left, the pesto champ to the right, and the other competitors. 

That was fun, I like competition!

Today I got my knife kit. Check it out! I feel so empowered and complete with this.

....and that’s only one of three compartments full of kitchen gadgets.

Last thing I want to share with you today is my curriculum for the next few months.

 LOVE LOVE LOVE

Passion Fruit

When you hold it for the first time you think, is this a stone I’m holding? Passion fruit has a lackluster grey exterior that feels kind of like holding a stone. You cut into it only to discover a pearl chest of passion fruit seeds.  The aromatic scent of paradise enters your nose, the alluring shades of yellow draw your attention… you take a bite... It’s tart, sweet, crunchy, and silky. How can one fruit be so complex? I Respect you passion fruit. You may become part of my fruit salad.

A Little Trip to Amherst

Yesterday I was in Amherst, Massachusetts. This is where I went to college, if you didn’t know. I could post about Umass all day but I’ll focus on the good stuff.  Immediately upon arriving to Amherst I hit the food scene. Sure, I thought about attacking an Antonio’s slice or a Bueno Y Sano soft taco, or maybe 4, but this time was different. This trip I had an inner spirit guiding me directly to:

  

I lived across the street from this place during grad school so I absolutely needed to refuel the tank with The Big Band breakfast sandwich.

 

Let’s talk about this baby. It is eggs, smoked salmon, scallion infused cream cheese, and monsieur cheese, on a bagel. But let’s get into the details. It’s perfection with the first bite. The warmth of this sandwich is so comforting. A creamy, chewy deliciousness with melted cheese and plump eggs subtly perfumed with scallion flavor. The smoked salmon is alluring with a mellow but distinct salty flavor. The combination is straight up foodgasmic especially when accompanied by an herbal jasmine-green tea to warm you right up on a chilly fall morning in New England. 

I Bit the Big Apple

I love being a New Yorker already. It took one day. Sure there are many factors that make city living not ideal, such as people. People people people everywhere but it’s cool because it’s those people who have created such an expansive city.

By the time I finished unpacking and arranging my things on night one, a marvelous city view presented itself outside my bedroom window. Strangely enough, the big city lights made me feel homey and comfortable.

The following morning I woke up excited to meet my professors and classmates for the first time. It’s about a 10 minute walk from my apartment to the subway (I want to call it the T so badly) but it’s a peaceful and scenic walk since I live on an island. 

 I jumped on the F train and headed to Soho Village and I arrived to:

Maybe I’ll be up there one day. 

After orientation my new friend Hadley and I took a stroll to Wall Street. Yup, we have our eyes on prize.

  

On the way we passed ground zero. Check out the new construction:

There are a few protests happening around Wall Street right now. 

I’m not sure if the next war will be about water but it’s a good reminder that we need to preserve our natural resources.

Here is the good stuff. We found a hidden eating quarter on Stone Street. 

First thing is first, pumpkin ale!

 

We whipped out our books and new gear and next thing we knew, two ladies started talking to us about culinary school and how envious of us they were. Yea, I would be too.

The perfect companion to the beers is a sesame seed crusted tuna sandwich with thick cut fries. 

It was magnificent. The bread imparted a crusty-charred flavor while the sesame seeds provided a nutty crunch to the rare seared tuna steak with avocado, tomatoes, and lettuce.

A few subway mix-ups later—oops – I found my way home to my Island…

… and napped. It was an exhausting day after all; school orientation, walking around the city, drinking beer, and eating tuna in the middle of the day… (I honestly don’t know how I was pulling 14 hour work days auditing in front of a computer a few months back)  My life has exponentially improved. I’m napping in the middle of the day again! One of my favorite activities, by the way. Thanks to my gut for guiding me to this new and improved life.