Today I grabbed a package of fanny bay oysters from the supermarket, I also had some fresh cheese curds from the farmers market. Hmmm, how to make cheese and seafood work together....

I deep fried the oysters after a quick breading. I made some duck gravy from the duck stock that I pulled out the other day, and I combined the three, garnishing with bacon and green onions.

mmmm.

Today I wanted to try making potato foam gnocchi that I had read about - originally a Ferran Adria creation - and had attempted once before rather unsuccessfully (last time I used cream with the yams, and the texture turned out like whipped cream rather than foam).

I also had a duck breast in the fridge that needed to get eaten up. At the store, I came across some sea asparagus and nice crimini mushrooms. All that was left was to figure out a sauce for the dish, so I took some duck stock out of the freezer.

The gnocchi are created by combining some mashed potatoes, potato water (the water used to boil the potatoes), seasonings (I added a touch of truffle oil), and sodium alginate (about 5g) in a whip cream gun. The gun is then charged with a nitrus oxide canister and then squeezed out into a water bath that has some calcium chloride (about 5g) mixed in. The chemical reaction between the sodium alginate and calcium chloride creates a gel layer around the foamed potato mixture. It comes out as a big long snake, so you have to snip it into gnocchi sized pieces with a pair of scisors. The end result is a delicate gnocchi that pops in your mouth releasing the potato foam interior.

I pan fried the duck breast, blanched the sea asparagus, and sauteed the crimini mushrooms. I reduced the duck stock and added a couple crimini mushrooms to it to give it more body. The end result was a very enjoyable dish. The flavours all worked great together and the gnocchi was an enjoyable success.

Today I had the idea to make some sausages. I went into the grocery store hoping to find some pork shoulder - just to my luck, it happened to be on a crazy sale and I walked out with a hefty shoulder for $5.

I then went on to break it down by hand (this I've heard gives a finer texture, and I happened to not have a meat grinder) and season it. I had taken a couple notes from a recipie for mexican chorizo just before I left the house so I loosely followed those suggestions (some cumin, oregano, hot paprika, cayanne, pablano peppers, onions, chipotle, garlic, red wine vineagar, tequila, salt, and pepper) to create a spicy and savory seasoned meat. I didn't have any casings so I just balled up the sausage into meatballs this time (the leftovers I took the time to suran wrap in the shape of sausages so I can boil them, unwrap, and finish by frying).

I also oven roasted some roma tomatoes, and steamed some broccolini. I cooked up some bucantini pasta (one of my favourite pasta forms), dressed it in some olive oil, and piled everything into a bowl. It was delicious, truly satisfying. To top it all off, I fed enough sausage to co-workers to make everyone happy, and I had about a dozen sausages left over to put into my freezer for later.

For those of you following my 30 days project (I know there's not much else on this site right now), I thought I'd give an update.

I'll start by saying I still have roughly nine or ten dishes that have been cooked and photographed, but not yet posted. That being said, it's now July and I clearly haven't made the thirty dishes in thirty days for the month of June as I had originally intended. The end of June really did burn me out physically in the kitchen, so the project ended up slowly wrapping up over the first weeks of July.

I am in the process of finding time to upload the projects to this site, so expect a couple bulk postings soon.

-Eric

I picked up a nice flank steak the other day for relatively cheap. I know this cut can get a vit touvh if cooked poorly, and it had been a while since I'd sous vide anything, so I started up the pot of water and got out my thermometer. Into the ziploc bag went the steak, some branches of savory, peppercorns, salt, and a clove of garlic. After a few hours in the water at 135 I decided that it wouldn't be ready for dinner and the steak would turn out much nicer if I was to leave it cook through until morning.

Thus my breakfast was sous vide flank steak and eggs. Very nice and tender with a pungent herbal note from the savory.

I had never tried chocolate covered bacon before this, but the desire and curiosity to do so was very strong. I guess that, combined with the nag of cherries in my fridge is what led to the creation of this ice cream.

I dipped fully cooked bacon strips into some melted dark chocolate, let them cool then sliced them into small chunks. Meanwhile I pitted and quartered some cherries, and started a vanilla bean custard ice cream base, then put everything together and sat it in the fridge to cool. Afer about six hours I moved it all to the freezer (oh and this is all just inside a tupperware container, no fancy machines for me) to freeze.

First time I served a scoop to a friend we happened to be drinking bourbon and we both noted how well the bourbon paired the bacon with the vanilla. The next time I simply poured a small splash of bourbon directly over the scoop. In the end the ice cream is an interesting but wholly satisfying bite, though it's not the type that you would want an entire bowl of.

This was an ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS MEAL. At work in the morning I was watching our poissonnier butchering a tuna loin into portions and my mouth started watering. I then went to the grocery store to find a couple veggies to include with the fish. While there, I stumbled across some citrus champagne vinegar that piqued my interest, so into the basket it went (very smart move, it was delicious).

In the end I sautéed some pearl onions in butter, salt, and pepper, I blanched the broccolini before quickly sautéing it as well. Finally I tossed the amarosa tomato wedges in the same hot pan just long enough to warm them through.

The tarragon oil was created by simply blending tarragon with olive oil for a few minutes.

I carefully grilled my tuna steak just briefly enough to warm it through without ruining it.

In the end, deliciousness ensued. The citrus champagne vinegar and tarragon oil combined to compliment the fish wonderfully, the browned butter onions were excellent, and the broccolini florets soaked up some of the sauces on the plate making them truly delicious.

This dish started out at the liquor store, I found a Jasmine Tea IPA that I was curious about trying. Then I wandered down to the asian supermarket nearby, found a pheasant that I figured could be brined with some green tea, saw some nice cherries that I decided could make a nice sweet compliment to the bitter IPA. To round out the dish I bought a starch (green tea soba noodles) and a veggie (enoki mushrooms).

I started by brewing some green tea, adding some salt and sugar to it, then putting the pheasant in to brine for a few hours. I cooked the pitted cherries with some of the IPA until they resembled a cherry beer sauce. I deep fried the enoki mushrooms until they were crispy, and I boiled the noodles 'til al-dente - all while oven roasting the pheasant.

In the end, the dish paired very well with the beer, but it did turn out a bit different than I had anticipated. I ended up describing the dish as a rich man's bar food, as it just didn't stand up on its own very well. I realised after eating the dish that I had been trying to bring out a subtle tea flavour while dealing with very strong flavour notes of bitter IPA, cherries, and pheasant.

Still a tasty meal with the IPA pairing.

I've been wanting to play with sunchokes for some time now and after stumbling across them at the supermarket, I decided today was the day.

Whipped up some parsley pasta, made a sunchoke puree with some cream, nutmeg, and a small dash of truffle oil, then turned the puree into stuffing for the ravioli. I ended up with too much puree, so I thinned it out with cream and white wine to create a sauce for the pasta. I then added in some sweet peas and some hot calabrese to give the dish some added punch and breadth.

In the end, the ravioli was slightly undercooked, but still tasty. The calabrese was a very nice touch to the dish and helped cut through the creamy sunchoke overkill I would have had otherwise.

When I arrived at work I started slow braising the short ribs in the oven. I used coffee, red wine, cocoa powder, cola, salt, onions, and carrots in the braising liquid. However I forgot to sear the ribs before starting, which truly ended up costing the dish in the end. After the shift, the ribs were extremely tender.

I made some quick and honest mashed potatoes with cream, butter, green onions, and salt. I made a pickling solution of white wine vinegar, sugar, salt, star anise extract, and ground coriander, then threw some thinly sliced radishes in. I sautéed both the portobello mushrooms and radish greens with butter, salt, and pepper, then turned them into a warm salad with the pickled radishes on top.

The ribs turned out amazingly soft and tender, but were lacking punch that some more salt and maillard reaction would have given. The mashed potatoes were great, and the salad was tasty, but by far the surprise of the plate was the pickled radishes. The sweet and tart balance that they brought to the plate was excellent with the after-taste of anise pairing well with the coffee short ribs.