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Next Restaurant: Paris 1906

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

I went to a restaurant that serves “breakfast at any time.”  So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.
- Steven Wright

Here’s the concept behind Next: Every three months, the restaurant will serve a menu inspired by a specific time and place. It could be anywhere in the world, decades past or years into the future. Think of it as culinary time travel. It’s a staggering ambition for a restaurant that not only must reinvent itself four times a year but essentially seeks to excel at interpreting many types of world cuisine within a certain historical context. For its first incarnation, Next chose to present Auguste Escoffier‘s classical French cuisine, evoking Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. The recipes are taken from Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire, widely considered the authoritative cookbook on haute cuisine.

Like most people I know, I have no point of reference when it comes to classical French cooking, so this dinner was exploring uncharted territory. Even a month later, it’s difficult to describe the extraordinary experience we had, so here are my impressions.

(An important side note: I decided to make things even more interesting by ordering the nonalcoholic beverage pairing, since the kitchen would surely do something wonderful. Besides, Josh was getting the wine and he’d let me steal a couple of sips. I was right about the beverage pairings — the wines were excellent but the nonalcoholic drinks were genius.)

(Another important side note: the numbers in parentheses in the photo captions refer to the recipe numbers in the cookbook.)

 

Hors d’oeuvres from left: quail egg with anchovy, mushroom duxelle-stuffed leek, truffled egg custard, brioche with foie gras and apricot jam, pork rillette on saltine

Our dinner began with an elegant tray of delicate hors d’oeuvres, my favorite of which was the truffled egg custard — a creamy, savory spoonful infused and topped with earthy black truffle. The mushroom-stuffed leek provided a nice vegetal contrast to the richness of the other bites. This course was paired with a refreshing ginger-elderflower-pineapple aperitif.

 

Potage a la Tortue Claire (907)

Next up was a turtle consommé — rich, salty, funky, very animal with an almost acidic tang — garnished with thin slices of carrot and turnip and an herbal flower I can’t remember the name of. The pairing was a sparkling apple cider-sherry vinegar drink which beautifully brought out the sweet high notes of the soup.

 

Filet de Sole Daumont (1950)

From left to right: breaded, fried sole roe, crawfish mousse-stuffed crawfish head, filet of sole, crawfish-stuffed mushroom

The best thing about this buttery seafood ensemble was the saffron-laced cream sauce, adding a delicious brininess that reminded me of bouillabaisse. Even better, the orange-carrot-saffron-fennel drink both echoed and contrasted with the notes in the dish.

 

Supremes de Poussin (3130)

Cooked cucumber wrapped in pork skin and stuffed with chicken, 4-6 week old chicken cooked sous vide

Other reviewers have commented that this was the least interesting offering of the evening, and I’d have to agree. Although the chicken was impossibly tender and the mellow cooked cucumber proved a tasty novelty, the star of the course was the beverage pairing: ti kuan yin, grenadine, and verjus. Floral, sweet, slightly tangy and very tannic — the closest thing I’ve tasted to wine without actually being wine, and one of the most delicious drinks I’ve ever had, period. Pure genius.

 

Caneton Rouennais a la Presse (3476)

The pièce de résistance was the pressed duck, which was squashed through an antique duck press. The extracted drippings, juices, and blood were used to make a velvety, deep burgundy sauce, so flavorful I wanted to tip the sauce boat into my mouth and gulp it all down. Instead, I enjoyed the cherry-lapsong souchong-Sanbitter drink, which cleverly elevated the duck’s smokiness.

 

Gratin de Pommes de Terre a la Dauphinoise (4200)

Comforting, creamy potatoes gratin with Comté cheese accompanied the duck and was the most recognizable dish of the evening.

 

Salade Irma (3839)

This beautiful little salad served as a palate cleanser and was made of vegetables flown in from The French Laundry.

 

Bombe Ceylan (4826)

Inside the spray-painted(!) chocolate shell was a rum ice cream and coffee custard interior, with a garnish of rum-soaked cherries. I like classic dessert flavors — no newfangled dehydrated savory vegetables masquerading as sweets for me — and this one was the bomb, a haute sundae with a crackly Magic Shell coating.

 

roasted banana Tom & Jerry

The Bombe drink pairing outshone the dessert itself, though — the roasted banana Tom & Jerry was like a melted milkshake, sweet, creamy, and eggy with hints of vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

 

mignardises

 

beet pâte de fruit

 

salted caramel

 

non-alcoholic beverage pairings clockwise from top left:
carrot, saffron, fennel; pomegranate, verjus, ti kuan yin;
blis elixir xo, sparkling apple cider; cherry, lapsang souchong, Sanbitter

 

Since it was my birthday, one of the managers took us in for a look at the kitchen.

 

duck press

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Dose Market: a cure for the common shopping experience

Thursday, June 9, 2011

This past Sunday I visited the opening of Dose Market, a monthly event featuring Chicago food artisans and fashion designers held at the spacious River East Arts Center. Dose is the brainchild of four local food and fashion mavens, including the Chicago editors of Daily Candy and Tasting Table, and their impeccable tastes were evident in the well-curated selection of goods. From the sparkling gemstone necklaces by Mineralogy to Sprout Home’s charming terrariums to Artfully Disheveled’s cheeky pocket squares for the handful of gentlemen in tow, there was something to catch everyone’s eye. But I was really there for the food.

With almost twenty booths and just under an hour to spare, I managed to sample something from about half of them. I ate a spoonful of smooth, tangy rhubarb-crème fraîche sherbet at Snookelfritz Ice Cream and wandered over to the Salted Caramel booth for a refreshing watermelon-coriander ice. They also had chocolate-molé pudding pops and Thai-mango-curry yogurt pops, but I had to pace myself.

It was especially exciting to try cheese and charcuterie from vendors who don’t normally appear at markets. I picked up a sharp, caramelly gouda from Great American Cheese Collection, a cheese purveyor located on the Southwest Side that holds free tastings every Saturday, one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Old Town Social was there, too, with loads of house-cured meats. Their whirring meat-slicer was in constant motion as they handed out samples of the Tuscan salami, making it one of the liveliest corners of room. “My boyfriend’s blood type is bacon,” said the girl next to me as she reached for a pack. Mine would be finocchiona (fennel salami) if I could gorge myself on OTS’s particularly robust version.

 

Underground dining dynamos X-marx threw down the gauntlet with a variety of items inspired by their recent trip through China, Hong Kong, and Macau. I was thrilled to see Chinese flavors used in challenging, creative ways such as Sichuan cold noodles with smoked tofu and shiitake mushrooms. But I was completely blown away by their Macau rice crisps — rice krispy treats covered with a layer of spicy housemade pork floss, shredded nori, and sesame seeds. Sure, there’s the sweet-savory appeal, but it resonated with me on a deeper level, which sounds completely ridiculous but just bear with me. I asked X-marx chef Adrienne Lo about it, and she said her dad made congee with these ingredients when she was growing up. So there you have it — traditional Chinese rice porridge toppings garnishing an iconic American dessert — nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the United States, double nostalgia for those with Chinese heritage.

 

Lest we forget this was a food and fashion event, kudos to Truffle Truffle for excelling at both. Their rustic wooden table was bedecked with piles and piles of confections, each more adorable and scrumptious-looking than the last: bite-sized brownie bonbons decorated with fondant polka dots, cake and pie parfaits in cute little jars, gourmet pop tarts showered with rainbow sprinkles, and the I Love Chicago truffle collection, making its debut at the market. Draped in the colors of the Chicago flag, the sweets are infused with Half Acre Over Ale, Metropolis Coffee, and spices from The Spice House, a delicious homage to the city.

 

Forthcoming market days will feature different vendors, but it’ll be quite a challenge to top those at the inaugural event. I’ve already booked my calendar for the next one on July 10 and can’t wait for another dose of Chicago’s imaginative artisans.

See below for more pictures and information about Dose Market.

 

striped tote by Lisa Spagnolo; Balenciaga bag from Luxury Garage Sale for the high rollers

 

speakers made of vintage trunks by Gentleman’s Boombox

 

vintage housewares from STUDY

 

spicy, mouth-numbing Sichuan peanut brittle by X-marx (I love the fobby Asian mom on the package)

 

lemon raspberry “wandering pie” by Truffle Truffle

 

What: Dose Market at the River East Arts Center (435 E. Illinois), dosemarket.com
When: Monthly dates for 2011 are July 10, August 14, September 25, October 16, November 6, December 4
Cost: $10 entry fee at the door, $8 in advance online, children under 13 free. Bring extra to buy the goods. Many vendors take credit cards but come prepared with cash just in case.

 

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Homemade ramen

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Like many people, my early ramen experiences involved pouring boiling water into a large styrofoam cup and waiting for the tangled brick of dried noodles to magically transform into a piping-hot, satisfyingly salty soup best enjoyed while pulling an all-nighter cramming for finals. Up until my early twenties, I’d assumed that all ramen was instant, and even now, I’ve only eaten authentic ramen a few times.  So when our friends Doug and Jeanne invited us over to make homemade tonkotsu ramen, it was an excellent opportunity to learn more about this Japanese noodle dish.

This was actually our friends’ first attempt at homemade ramen, and they used these recipes for the tonkotsu (pork bone) soup base, the chashu (braised pork) topping, and the ramen noodles. (The recipes are superbly written — extensively tested and researched, with detailed history and background information — and are well worth a read.)

We started with the soup base. Tonkotsu (not to be confused with tonkatsu — breaded fried pork cutlet) is a Kyushu-style ramen with a rich, creamy white broth which gets its consistency by simmering pork bones until all its savory goodness is extracted from the meat, fat, and marrow. The recipe also calls for chicken bones and pig trotters, the latter of which is essential for the collagen that melts into the liquid to create a thick, velvety texture. After that, caramelized ginger, garlic, and onions were added and the stock was pressure-cooked for almost two hours.

Simmering pig trotters

While we were waiting for the stock to complete, we started on the ramen noodles. The process is very similar to making homemade pasta — we even used a pasta machine to roll and cut the ramen — and the ingredients are comparable as well, just flour and water.  The recipe uses bread flour because of its higher protein content which contributes more elasticity to the noodles. But what really puts the ramen-ness into ramen is the addition of kansui, a mixture of potassium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. This alkaline solution toughens the proteins in the flour to create firmer noodles, further increases their springiness, and is responsible for ramen’s signature golden yellow hue.

Sheets of ramen

Finished ramen, waiting to be cooked

Ramen is commonly served with pork belly, but we opted for pig cheek, which is more tender and succulent with beautifully marbled fat throughout. We made the chashu by braising the pork in a liquid that included soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, ginger, and garlic.

Chashu

After that, we boiled the ramen and filled the bowls with the broth and noodles and topped it with a variety of garnishes. Here it is again in all its glory:

The results were heavenly — hearty ramen drowned in velvety, porky broth punctuated with sweet-savory melt-in-your-mouth pork cheek, hard-boiled eggs steeped in the chashu braising liquid, the tangy counterpoint of pickled bamboo, a dark, bitter drizzle of burnt garlic oil, and the zing of crunchy scallions.

This feat would not have been possible without the efforts of several hungry, adventurous people: Doug and Jeanne shopped for the ingredients, Doug did most of the cooking (simmering, chopping, braising, slicing, making inappropriate jokes about pig trotters, etc.), Warren and Vernalynne rolled and cut the pasta, Jeanne and I made the tuna and vegetable maki (not shown) in case the experiment went horribly awry, Josh finished prepping a bunch of things in the kitchen and brought the alcoholic beverages, Victoria attempted to eat whole edamame pods, and Earl the greyhound tried his best to tolerate the affections of an excited toddler.

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Sous vide: high tech slow cooking

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Thomas Keller. Heston Blumenthal. Grant Achatz.

Chipotle. Stouffer’s. American Airlines.

From world-renowned chefs to large-scale food production companies, sous vide (French for “under vacuum”) has revolutionized the way people cook. This method involves vacuum-sealing food in plastic and submerging it in a temperature-controlled water bath for a specific period of time. It’s a very efficient approach for cooking huge quantities of mass-produced meals, and for the inventive chef, a boundary-pushing technique that can produce textures and flavors diners have never experienced before the twenty-first century.

Vacuum-sealing has been done since the 1960s to extend the shelf life of food, but French scientist Bruno Goussault is widely credited for introducing sous vide to the commercial food industry and restaurant chefs. In the 1970s, Goussault noted that one could make tough cuts of meat tender by cooking it at very low temperatures. This is hardly a discovery; braising and barbequing “low and slow” follow the same idea.

But additionally sealing the meat in plastic prevents it from drying out and keeps its juices from escaping, creating unusually succulent, flavorful results. Sous vide can turn out the perfect steak, a rosy pink medium-rare from center to edge, because the entire piece of meat is cooked at the temperature of the surrounding water as opposed to a blast of heat from a grill that makes the outside much hotter – and drier – than its interior.

Big food companies and trailblazing chefs alike value sous vide for its precision, consistency, hands-off approach, and easy storage and cleanup. It’s the kitchens of some of the world’s top restaurants, however, that really prize the technique’s seemingly endless possibilities for experimentation. For example, one can make traditional duck confit by putting it in the oven at 107°C (225°F) for two to three hours, but with sous vide it can be cooked at 75°C (167°F) for 20 hours, that extra time creating a tenderness and intensity of flavor that can’t be achieved using the conventional method. Further manipulating variables along the time and temperature spectrum generates an array of subtly different outcomes.

Playing with the pressure of the vacuum seal also creates fascinating results. Under heavy compression, watermelon’s juiciness transforms into the density of a crisp apple, and cherries take on a bright, otherworldly translucency, like glittering rubies trapped beneath a layer of ice.

Despite its futuristic appearance, sous vide faces age-old food safety issues. The anaerobic environment inside the vacuum-sealed bags is an ideal breeding ground for dangerous bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum and salmonella. There’s the risk of contracting food poisoning, but similarly, people still enjoy home canning and raw eggs.

Until recently, sous vide food preparation has been largely unavailable to those outside the professional kitchen. There’s now a machine called the Sous Vide Supreme, a gleaming silver appliance that’s compact enough to fit on a kitchen countertop. And with the guidance of Thomas Keller’s spectacular cookbook Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, today’s intrepid home cook can conjure impossibly moist chicken breasts and flawlessly creamy custards. But the hefty price tag – around $400 for the machine, $100 for a vacuum sealer, $75 for the book – plus the time and resources required to experiment may just persuade people to leave sous vide to the experts.

Try it here: Peeky toe crab Benedict with one hour eggs, Old Bay infused hollandaise, dehydrated bacon at Longman & Eagle (2657 N. Kedzie, 773-276-7110)

DIY if you dare: Sous vide in a beer cooler

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Review: Balsan at the Elysian Hotel

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The problem I have with dining at five-star hotels is my sneaking suspicion that I’m not supposed to be there, that the maître d’ will take one look at my scuffed-up shoes and send me over to the pizza joint down the street. It’s this apprehension I feel as I climb the grand staircase to the third floor of the opulent Elysian Hotel where its two restaurants reside and into Balsan, the casual counterpart to the two Michelin-starred Ria.

A gleaming marble bar announces its magnificent presence across the length of the expansive space, and I try to get comfortable as I settle into a chunky leather chair. Thankfully, my dining companions and I are seated in a cozy, dimly-lit alcove and I start to relax. Our server, Marco, brightens the room with his friendly conversation and then gets our meal started.

First come the sweet and savory bites. I slather a scone with rich, tangy lemon curd and spread creamy housemade gianduja on a pillowy madeleine, relishing the unexpected pop of sea salt crystals against the chocolate. And as much as I love sweets, I’m smitten with the mellow, nutty, 18-month aged comté and the paper-thin slices of peppery capicola that melt in my mouth.

A bowl of bright orange carrot-fennel soup arrives next, a solace from the dreary weather. The herbal bite of the fennel brings out the carrot’s earthiness and I’m amazed at the pure simplicity of each velvety spoonful.

After the delicious soup, the potted eggplant that follows is a real letdown. It’s a slick, greasy mess; the crème fraîche and mayonnaise in the dip render the bland eggplant even more flavorless and the accompanying cold, charred baguette slices fail to soak up the oily aftertaste.

But the grilled leg of lamb from Elysian Field Farms is just that: heavenly. Tender slices of lamb are crowned with a scattering of mint and parsley and rest on a bed of ethereal potato purée and a touch of fragrant jus. Colorful little vegetables – a tiny baby carrot, English peas, ramps – peek out of the purée like crocuses bursting through the season’s final snowfall. It’s a playful, refined take on lamb stew, and the perfect transition dish from winter to spring.

Our lunch concludes with a paris-brest, a dessert I’ve never had, and I’m not sure how to eat it. Marco, with his disarming sense of humor, says he would just pick it up and shove the whole thing in his mouth. So I take a bite of the eggy, crispy pastry that yields to its soft hazelnut nougatine interior. It reminds me of a cream-filled doughnut, only a hundred times more luxurious.

And that’s Balsan at its essence – luxurious, yet familiar and comforting. I’m already thinking of coming back for a family-style Sunday supper, maybe slurping some oysters at that magnificent bar. Our server provides me with the details and I thank him. “You’re very welcome,” he says, and I really do feel that way.

Balsan at the Elysian Hotel
11 East Walton Street
Chicago, Illinois 60611
312-646-1300
www.balsanrestaurant.com

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