Goutes de Decembre

Goutes de Decembres

foie gras, pastille de menthe, canneberge, pop corn, sapin

Caramelle de Betterave Roti

crème de gorgonzola, ciboulette

Foie Gras Poelé

coing, poivre noir tuile, sirop

Veloute de Marrons Roti

confit d’canard, brioche truffé, petite chou

sorbet de chevre

Raie farcis avec Moelle et Cepes

poitron roti, gremolata, beurre noisette

Duo d’Agneau: Entrecote Grillade & Cote Braisée

orge risotto en “crepine”, trompe le mort, jus de pruneaux fume

Ananas Sous Vide

pain d’epice crepes, vanille gastrique

coco” red velvet” macarons  

Perfect for Fall: Cocido ala Gabriel

It's funny how dishes get created and how the "what's for dinner" question gets answered.  Some people read magazines, some tap into the dishes they know and love, and some like me have an abundance of pig's ears.

After all of the charcuterie stuff of the past week, I have some odd bits.  Then on Twitter, Cynthia Nims was talking about lamb shoulder blade steaks and that made me think of chickpeas and that made me think of tomatoes, which brought me to saffron and rosemary, and and and... um, yeah.  A little convoluted, but the results were delicious.

Cocido is traditionally a Northern Spanish fall/winter pig and chickpea dish.  I have taken many many liberties with the dish (being that I have never actually read a recipe, but just a description in a novel) and have actually crossed it with Olla Gitana, which is the Andalusian Gypsy Stew.

Cocido ala Gabriel (feeds an army, kids loved it)

peas
1# dried chickpeas
2 quarts water
1 jar of piquillo peppers, pureed
10 cloves garlic

This isn't mine.  We ate mine.  My recipe is much more red
with the tomatoes and piquillos.

5 sprigs thyme
1 big sprig rosemary
chunk of prosciutto fat
fat pinch saffron
1 tsp toasted cumin
1 cinnamon stick

Bring all ingredients up to a boil in a big pot, then simmer for one hour.  Meanwhile:

meats
6 large chunks oxtail
2 lamb shoulder blade steaks
1/2 # pork belly, cut into 1" cubes
2 pigs ears
4"x6" section of pig skin, some fat still attached, cut into strips
3 T smoked spanish paprika
3 T olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Season all meats with salt and pepper and brown in the olive oil.  remove from pan and add to the chick peas.  In the remaining fat saute the paprika until darker and aromatic.  Scrape into the pot.

Stew: 
1 large can of tomato puree
2 quarts chicken stock
2 large ripe pears
1/2 small sugar pie pumpkin, peeled, diced

Add all of this to the pot and simmer gently for 2 hours until the meats and chickpeas are very tender.  Adjust seasoning with salt and sherry vinegar. Add:

Finish
4 bunches of mustard greens, chopped
5 slices stale bread, chopped

add the finish ingredients (and green beans if you want, my kids were pissed I forgot them).  Simmer for 15 minutes until very tender.  Stir in:

Picada
2 bunches parsley, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 C toasted sliced almonds, minced

Adjust seasoning and serve with Rioja and bread.  It helps to parse it out into a bowl of greens (from the top) a bowl of meats (guests should be encouraged to pick up the meats and nibble them) and then the rich soup.

Dinner Bump: New date 11/6

So the day before Halloween is a lil to close for most people.  Due to popular demand, the "Burnt Offering" dinner is being moved to NEXT Saturday November 6th.  Please come and join me for an amazing meal, featuring some of the tastiest tid bits of Lilly, the wonderful pig.

Truffled Pork Belly Rillettes

pomegranates, parmigiano, greens

Rich Pork Broth with Pumpkin, Escarole, and Testa Raviolis

ears and tails

Apple Boudin Noir

arugula, kraut, roasted apples

Roasted Fresh Ham

Harvest Vegetable sauce, pickled fennel, potato gratin, housemade mustards

Butter lettuce Salad

prunes, goat cheese, crostini

Tarte Tatin

creme fraiche, ginger cardamom syrup

Dinner is still just $50 plus wine and tip.   dinner is full, join us for Cassoulet next sunday!

Where: Vineyard Table
When: 6:30 pm
What to bring: yourselves and your appetites.  funny stories?

A true Pop Up... in January

She: I want to write about Pop up Restaurants in Seattle for a National Publication...
He: very cool
She: you doing anything?
He: Should I?
She: Yes.

Ok.  Just for fun we are gonna do a lil Pop up in January with an a la carte type concept.  This will be a ton of fun and be at a stunning location in Fremont.  Menu goes a lil sumpin like this:

(half of the dining room will be open tables where guest can order ala carte and plates come in three sizes.  Or you can sit at the communal table for an Omakase type experience and that is $50)

 ala carte:

Wee $4

Not So Wee $8

Friggin Huge $14

Lamb Confit | black lentil dahl | fried okra

Truffled Egg | Brioche | Hedgehog Duxelle | Porcine “bottarga”

House cured Ham (36 month Berk)

“Cocida” : Chickpeas | Noses | Morcilla

Grilled Gizzard Confit | Grilled Chicken Heart Yakitori

Seared Foie | Gingerbread | pickled cherries

House Salt Cod | Tripe | Chipolatas | Tomato Stew

Crispy Cheeks | Apple Chutney | Brussel Slaw | Mustard Tarka

Fried Fishies | Sauce Verte

Plus I need to do desserts.  Dunno yet

Communal Table

 (basically all you can eat, done family style)

Group participation expected  

$50/person

Plus Wines, tax, tip.

 Sunday and Monday January 16, 17^th 

^{Dinner reservation will open at 6pm and be set for every 30 minutes thereafter}

^{Reservations required}

Alchemy Dinner #4 Cassoulet!

Cassoulet, just the name conjures up images of fall leaves, French afternoons, cured meats, stories, wine, amazing scents coming from this smell box.

Every year I have had a big Cassoulet dinner experience.  It is what keeps me grounded to the Seasons.  November is for confit and cassoulet, pumpkin, salads, and prunes.  Call me boring, but for me it is a family tradition.  Please join me for a rockin evening:

Roasted Pumpkin Salad

goat cheese, cranberries, pepitas, sage vin

Gabriel's Cassoulet

Green Salad

Tarte aux Pruneaux

Dinner is of course served family style and is $40.  30 spots.  Wine will be available.  Probably Cahors and other deep funky reds.

Sunday November 14th, 6: 30pm

This one will sell out quick, so make sure to sign up soon.  Reserve Now!
Just in: Kimpton Hotels is offering Alchemy Dinners great rates for this Sunday!  Email here to find out more. *based on availability of course.

Dinner is in a secret (revealed upon reservation) space in Georgetown.
Starts at 6:30

Confit Clinic

When my son Rhone was born our at the time 6year old daughter Noelani refused to leave his side at the hospital... until I reminded her it was November and "You know what that means..."  she looked at me surprised and whispered: "Confit time?"

You know it is!  Time to make a lot of confit for the holidays.  This will be a two day extravaganza for a very small group (only 6 spots).  We will breakdown whole ducks as well as duck hind quarters.  We will make Duck confit, Pork belly confit and Gizzard confit.  We will also put up Duck Prosciutto, Pickled Pumpkin, Mostardo, and hopefully some pickled mushrooms.

All participants can expect to truly master the confit process.  We will probably make about 200# of confit and everyone will take home a couple of pounds.  Also, if anyone wants, I will order more legs for people to buy wholesale cases.  Each class will end in a full meal

When: Wed Nov 10, 6-9pm
Where: The Vineyard Table
How much: $80
How to sign up: Email me here!
Space available: 6 spots
please read our alcohol policy:

When: Thursday Nov 11, 6-9pm

Where: The Vineyard Table

How much: $80

How to sign up: Email me here!

Space available: 6 spots

please read our alcohol policy: 

New Classes for November

Wow, October was officially very very busy! Now I am way behind to post my listing of November events and classes. The following are open to the public, grab some friends and come and join me!!

• Nov 3rd: Butchery class at Sur La Table to promote Primal Cuts
• Nov 8th: Rolling Pin/Hand Rolled Pasta @Dish it up!
• Nov 10/11: Confit and Preserving Clinic @Vineyard Table
• Nov 12: Alchemy Dinner with Marissa, Book Signing of Primal Cuts!
• Nov 14: Alchemy Dinner: Cassoulet!  Come and join me for our annual tradition. 
• Nov 18: Butchery and Meat Curing with the Portland Meat Collective

Please follow the links to get more information. Can't wait to see everyone!

Gabe's Laboratory: Katsuobushi... at Home?

In a recent recipe writing under taking, I was asked to research and design a method to make Bonito Shavings.  I adore them and was really enthusiastic about the project, but with some research discovered... OMG, they are seriously complex.  I didn't realize they were smoked, let alone fermented!  So just for fun, here is the recipe.  I had to hybridize it from a whole slew of sources.  If anyone has a better one, or has actually made it, please comment!  I can't wait to try it.



Katsuobushi
50 grams salt
1000 grams bonito, albacore, or mackerel






Prep fish: remove any bones and break fish down into 4 loins.  
Simmer: simmer gently in heavily salted water for 1 hour.  
Shock: remove fish from water and shock in icewater until completely cold.  Pat dry.
Pellicle: air dry, on a rack, in the fridge, overnight.
Hot Smoke: using oak chips and 1T sugar, hot smoke @150F for 1 hour.
Cold Smoke: using the same oak mix, smoke @70F for 5 hours per day, for 20 days.  Return 
product to fridge everynight.  Store wrapped in paper towels to maintain dryness.
Mold Spray: spray with bloomed MEK and let dry at room temp for 2 hours.  
Place under refrigeration in a sealed container @80% humidity for 2 weeks.  Turn daily. 
Clean: remove from fridge.  Product should be rock hard, and sound like wood when 
tapped.  Using the back of a pairing knife, scrape off and mold/black sooty mud.  
Store: packed in rice, in a glass jar in the fridge. 

Perhaps a fun project?  It would seem that this is the only copy of a recipe floating on the Inter-webs...
I want to vary the fish. I can see a yummy salmon product as well as smelt.  What if you left the smelt whole?  when they are that dry, would we mind the bones?  Dunno.  

Mommy, why am I so Fat? It's John Howie's fault.

warning: full blown rant.  Needs editing and refining.  In a really bad mood.  

So I have a problem.  Overall, I am a red-blooded carnivore type American chef.  I scoff at spa food, whole wheat bread gives me the hibeejeebees and I actually throw up with brown rice. I opened THE SWINERY for pete's sake.  But we live in a day where there is a severe disconnect between the what is truly good for you on a real honest level and what is just feeding our most depraved needs.

I became a Chef because I believe in something.   Food is the most sacred thing we have in this country.  The direct link between the Earth, our Families, our society, and whatever your concept of God/ess is.  (Argue with me...I dare you).  We live in an era where we don't go to church, and if we do, it isn't because it provides a relevant answer for anything in our life, it is because our parents did.

Chefs are the new clergy.  There, I said it.  You know it is true.  We provide the soul sustenance without the guilt.  We bring the communities together, we provide the place.  And the best thing is that it's not about us.  It is about you.  We aren't/shouldn't be heroes, we are merely catalysts.

That being said, we have a responsibility to our communities.  I am sorry, if this isn't "a calling", then you shouldn't be doing it.  Denny's always needs another fry-guy.  We are supposed to feed the people... correctly.  We are supposed to give them what they want, but in a manner that feeds the whole person, the whole society, and the whole earth.

I started cooking when I was 17 because of two people: Greg Higgins and Rick Bayless.  Greg was my teacher, and Rick wrote something that means something to me: "My Soapbox: Reflections on Celebration in a Land of Plenty" (pg 285 Mexican Kitchen). excerpt:

"We're forgetting both what our bodies feel like when we eat old-fashioned small portions of fresh-by-necessity, everyday cooking, as well as what satisfaction there is in spending the whole day in the kitchen making huge quantities of inimitable, rich, dishes for the most special times" 

How have we gotten so off track?  Never before in the HISTORY OF MAN have we been so fat and unhealthy.  Food manufactures and global distribution of our food have conspired to destroy us.  Anyone who is remotely paying attention have noticed that a great portion of our societal ills stem from food in one way or another.  (Which makes sense as it is the most important thing we have in our culture). Most of us Chef-type-folk get it; we understand that WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS, it is our job to serve real food that make people pause and remember what it is to not just be a consumer.

Clearly not everyone agrees though.  Take a local "celebrity" chef: http://bit.ly/b4EhYm .  Really?  This is the single most disgusting thing I have seen outside of a 7-11 or a KFC.  But wait: the best part is there is already a chain named "The Heartattack Grill"!

I know it is completely anti-Seattle to directly express a negative opinion about food or chefs. I am aware that I am going to get unfriended on FB for this.  But really?  John Howie, you are a hack.  I would wish you a good career making up new culinary abortions for Taco Bell, but you would probably get a hell of a lot of people sicker.  Please leave the feeding people to the Chefs who actually care about the people.

Ok, I am going to go walk in my garden.  Pick some grapes.  breathe a little.

Best Bloody Borscht, EVER!

So I am blessed with little kids who love their vegetables.  Give Rhone a bowl of salad and he will ask for 3rds.  Leeks in vinaigrette=yummy.  Broccoli?  are you kidding?  they will beat you up for broccoli.

One of the absolute favorites however is beets. My kids go ape-shit for beets.  Roast em, pickle em, boil them, doesn't matter.  However, one of the principal reasons for their love of beets has nothing to do with the iron content... They love beets because of the effects.  Red tongue and teeth and the delight of the surprise the next day.  Yup.  Dinner table conversation is frequently graphic.

So last night, I had a hankering for Borscht.  It can be amazing, but usually as most people know, it really kind of sucks.  Just sort of disappointing.  I have never actually made borscht before, nor do I have a recipe, but hey, what the heck.

OMG, it was supernaturally good.  And best of all: 1 hour start to finish with kids underfoot!  Everybody ate three bowls.

Gabe's Borscht

1# chuckeye steak, cut into 1" cubes
2 T butter
1# beets, peeled, medium dice
1# yukon golds, peeled, medium dice
2 quarts beef stock
1/4 C grated horseradish (fresh, use a microplane)
5 cloves garlic, smashed
1 leek, small dice
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp dried marjoram
salt and pepper
finish with chives and dill
sour cream for each bowl

Season beef with salt and pepper, and dust with flour.  Saute in butter until golden brown.  Toss in pot.  Add everything except the chives, dill, and sour cream.  Simmer 1 hour. Add remaining herbs.  simmer 2 minutes.  Adjust seasoning.  Serve with sour cream.  Easy cheesy.

I think the secret is the fresh horseradish.  It mellows out all the way by the end, but adds an enormous complexity.  Also, the steak was really good, tender enough to have a pretty short cook time. I skimmed all the scum as well, btw.

Menu change for Sacrificio #3

As the leaves swirl all around and the sun plays peek-a-boo with the clouds, I sit here and think to myself: My oh my, Paella sounds like an odd thing to do at the end of October in a field with blood on my hands!  Ya know?

So came up with a more appropriate menu: I feel like Riesling, don't you?

Gougeres

Rustic Pate en croute

Sour pork soup with caillettes

Lentils de Puy

“Chocroute Garni”: bacon, pork loin, blood sausage, sausages, sauerkraut, potatoes

Pumpkin Gratin 

Marsala creamed chanterelles

Huge salad

Tarte aux Pruneaux

Pig cookies to take home

I am hungry now.  I am not sure what appeals to me so much about Caillettes.  They are principally a Provencal thing: bunch of the organs, meat, and fat, lots of herbs, and bread cubes, made into big meat balls and wrapped in caul fat.  Sounds gross right?  Nope, really good.  All roasted up and juicy.  I am going to wrap them in Savoy cabbage and set them in the middle of the soup bowl.  Then ladle the vinegar laced pork broth around .  

Come and join us in Rice.  It is going to be very fun.  This post references: http://alchemyinthekitchen-kitchenalchemy.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-kill-pig.html 

Burnt Sacrifice for Halloween: Alchemy Dinner #3

October 30th--- Halloween for Grownups

I will have just come back from the pig kill in Eastern WA and I am going to bring home some treasure: PIG!

Alchemy Dinners are going to be different every time and this will certainly break the mold of the previous two... Tonight's dinner will be served truly family style, slightly messy, snout to tail (yours and his!) focusing on the seasons and the glory of swine.

Truffled Pork Belly Crudo

pomegranates, parmigiano, greens

Rich Pork Broth with Pumpkin, Escarole, and Testa Raviolis

ears and tails

Roast Pork Shoulder "Porchetta Style"

blood sausages, cavolo, pickled cippolinis, housemade mustards

Really Big Salad

Apple Pie ;)

Dinner is $50 + wine and tip.  Wines will be really dark and dank and Italian and yummy.  

reserve: gabriel@alchemyinthekitchen.com

Down Home Funky Japanese Food

Explore the world of Japanese cuisine beyond the standards at the sushi bar and enjoy some of the traditional “down home” favorites.  From simple soba noodles to complex soups, stuffed rice balls, and super fun: Homemade Mochi, we will do it all. 

Date: Thursday 10/7
Time: 6-9pm
Location: Whole Foods Roosevelt Square
Space available: 14 spots
Cost: $55, includes a full meal.  

Register now!!!  

Umbria in the Fall

Central Italy in late October is my favorite time to eat Italian food.  The cuisine is so rustic and pure, and the flavors so bold.  Tonight we will recreate many of my favorite dishes from our trip there as well as some classics.

Handmade pasta will be transformed into the best lasagne ever, when combined with our Ragu Perugina and Bechamella.  Stuffed Onions and Baked Pumpkin with Gorgonzola Fonduta, as well as a tiramisu and chicken liver sformata on crostini.  Plus many more!  Join us!

Date: Thursday10/28
Time: 6-9pm
Location: Vineyard Table
Space available: 10 spots
Cost: $75, includes a full meal.  Please read our Alcohol policy.  
Register now!!!

Turducken!

Turducken is an intricately layered ballotine (boned-out fowl stuffed, rolled, and cooked). A chicken, a duck, and a turkey are each completely boned out and filled with different stuffings, then rolled up together with the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey. We will learn how to bone the fowl, make several stuffings, and then assemble the whole thing and enjoy a mouthwatering meal. So much fun and an amazing party trick.  


Date: Wednesday 10/27
Time: 6-9pm
Location: Whole Foods Roosevelt Square
Space available: 14 spots
Cost: $55, includes a full meal.  
Register now!!!

2 part Charcuterie Clinic

Now we are getting down to it!  Finally, my most famous class of all: Charcuterie!

Day 1 we will have a whole beautiful pig on the table to learn a brand new way to break down.  This method is my own invention and considerably faster and cleaner than the traditional ways of doing it.  We will spend the evening breaking the pig, mixing cures, and making dinner.

Day 2: We will turn every inch of the pig into cured meats.  Total utilization of the product and about 15 different recipes and applications.  Incredible opportunity to really get your hands dirty and have the only hands on meat curing experience in Seattle!

Classes are available individually or get a discount for coming to the whole clinic!  $75 for one, or $140 for both!

Pig Breakdown
Date: Wednesday 10/20
Time: 6-9pm
Location: Vineyard Table
Space available: 10 spots
Cost: $75, includes a full meal.  Please read our Alcohol policy.  
Register now!!!


Charcuterie Day
Date: Thursday 10/21
Time: 6-9pm
Location: Vineyard Table
Space available: 10 spots
Cost: $75, includes a full meal.  Please read our Alcohol policy.  
Register now!!!

Exploring our Northwest Wines

In the last decade, the Pacific Northwest has gone from relative obscurity as a wine region to national, even world wide prominence.  Tonight we will taste some of the great wines that make our region so awesome including the Gramercy Cellars (Best winery in America) and Elsom Cellars.

We also will get to use the "smell box" to really start to pull apart the wines and start to build a language of tastes and smells.  Includes heavy appetizers.

Date: Thursday 9/30
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Vineyard Table
Space available: 14 spots
Cost: $75, includes a heavy appetizers.   
Register now!!!

Wood Fired Pizza Class

Pizza pleases people of every age; it has become an American comfort food. Making pizza at home allows you to be healthy and also very creative. You don't need any special equipment to make pizza at home, although five bucks spent at the hardware store can help a lot; we'll show you how. Today's class will teach you how to make perfect pizza dough and sauce, tricks to getting your toppings perfect, the best cheeses for pizza, and how to bake them to perfection. We'll do several kinds of doughs, learning to hand-toss. We have been lucky enough to be invited back to Paul's house in Woodinville to use his amazing hand made brick pizza oven.  This is a special treat for pizza enthusiasts as well as brick oven lovers.  

Date: Saturday 10/16
Time: 10-1pm
Location: Private Home Woodinville
Space available: 10 spots
Cost: $75, includes a full meal.  Please read our Alcohol policy.  
Register now!!!

The Vineyard Table

For a little while longer, tucked into a little hole in the wall, across the street from Safeco field is an amazing gem of a space.  Owned by Jodi Elsom of Elsom Cellars it is a treasure trove of found and recovered items from salvage yards and antique stores.  I can't think of another space that I have ever been in that "fits" really fits how I cook and how I think.

Check out pictures here: Vineyard Table and come and join me for dinners and classes!

85 Atlantic Ave
across the street from Safeco field

The First Breath of Autumn: Alchemy Dinner #1 & #2

Yesterday I got the pleasure of explaining to Rhone more about the Seasons and equinoxes and the change.  This is my favorite time of year, the first breath of cool crisp mornings, and still warm days.  I don't know if I have ever felt this alive with possibility, it is really time to get back into the kitchen and do what I do... cook!

Side Note: I am sure everyone has read "Return to Cooking" by Eric Ripert?  If not, you should, it is amazing. I feel like him at the end of the book.  Been doing a lot of other stuff, which has crystallized what I need.  I am ready.

My first dinners will be October 9th and October 10th: Both at the prettiest most perfect space in Sodo: The Vineyard Table.  Both will be alternating 3 course meals.  If you sit in this seat you get one menu, and in that seat you get the other one.  The point is the meals work as is and they work with each other.  You have to meet your neighbors, you have to share your food.  (I first did this with Bourdain and he was a lot of fun, and a little demanding: "Give me a bite of that!")  Dinners are $40 each plus wine and tip.

October 9th

amuse gueule: 

warm olives, pate de campagne, cornichons, crostini

menu 1

Zucchini & Roasted Pepper Souffle

goat cheese, almonds, sultanas

Pan Seared Halibut

lobster mushrooms, tomato confit, delicata, mustards

Corn, Parsnip, and Apple “Cappucino”

pine nut biscotti

menu 2

Mackerel Tartare

preserved lemon, chickpeas, mint, harissa

Crispy Pork Belly

ratatouille in “crepinette”, ratte potatoes, braisage

White Truffled Gelato

Armagnac prunes, walnuts, mint

October 10^th

amuse gueule: 

warm olives, pate de campagne, cornichons, crostini

menu 1

Roasted Pumpkin Salad with Porcinis

pepitas, cranberries, sage vinaigrette

Mussel Bourride

saffron, fennel, tomato, rusks

“Fig Newton”

vanilla ice cream

menu 2

Butter Lettuce Salad

radish, carrot, bacon, buttermilk dressing

Crispy Duck Leg

collards, hominy, shitakes, yam juice

Tarte aux Pruneaux

crème fraiche

There are only 26 spots for each dinner... please email to sign up.  Thank you!  gabriel@alchemyinthekitchen.com 

Dr. Meat Love in da House!

Warning: Rambling


So after a protracted stint as Seattle's "Bad Boy", "Rogue", and "Enfant Terrible" I am hangin up my spurs. Figure I will let some of the young whippersnappers cut their teeth on KCHD.  After almost 10 years in the Evil business, I am going to go and work with THE MAN... Turning "State's Evidence"... ;) I have become a consultant for chefs who have been told by KCHD that they need to stop making their favorite house cured meats, cheeses, and pickles.

Some explanation and background
There has been so much misinformation swirling around in the press and on blogs by irresponsible reporters and people who like to talk a lot, concerning Meat production here in King County and what I did or did not "get busted for"... and what is really going on in the Seattle Restaurant scene.

Just for the record: I never got shut down at all, by anyone.  Liquor control threatened the crap out of me about Gypsy and the wine thing, but beyond that, never got busted for anything.

What actually happened was I got to be the guinea pig in a very large paradigm shift.  King County adopted NYC's policies on HACCP, quietly, and then needed to figure out what the heck that means.

HACCP: Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points is a system of procedural documentation that has been used in the big factories for a very long time. it creates not only a safer product, but a easily documented one that if people ever got sick, can easily be traced back and lawsuits diverted.

FOR INSTANCE: everyone who has ever taken my classes or read Ruhlman's book (Charcuterie) should know this:  When you make a salami, things could go wrong.  Like what, you might ask?

Well, we are taking freaking meat, usually pork, and hanging it in the closet for 3 months.  What on Earth about that sounds safe?  Would you hang your pork chop up?  What do we do differently?  Grind it? ummm, that would be worse...


A HACCP plan would point out the Control Points: 

1. Use really fresh pork: something that can be proven to have never gone over 40F
2. Use the correct amount of bacterial culture
3. Make sure the pH drops below 5.3 in a certain amount of time
4. Make sure it drys properly and is dry enough.  

What could happen if these things didn't happen correctly?

1. bacteria that is already on the pork will go nuts and grow like mad.  Maybe even too much to be controlled by later steps.
2. the good guys wouldn't be strong enough to overwhelm the bad guys
3. Staph Aureus will create a heat stable enterotoxin which will kill you
4. Trichina (if there) will survive, E-Coli will survive, hell even Samonella will survive.  These would all be very bad things.  

So now we can ask ourselves how would we measure success?  How would we measure failure? If step one goes sideways, can we fix it?  Do we throw it away?  Etc...

While this thought process is not new, it has NEVER EVER been required in a non wholesale type environment.  Which, frankly after getting deep into them, I don't know why it hasn't.  Plans like this dramatically improve the safety of the product.  I have talked to very talented chefs who are making salami for you to eat who don't know what could happen.  It is all very cute to say: "It has been made for a thousand years, blah blah blah" and then think it is ok not to own a pH meter.  It isn't.  It pisses me off.  

So back to my story: Randomly, I happened to sell that 1000# of bacon at the wrong time.  The big bosses had just told the middle tier bosses that they had to make sure chefs had approved HACCP plans.  Middle tier told street agents to go bust people... and I was jumping up and down screaming "Pick me, Pick me". 

Chris Skilton came and told me I wasn't allowed to make any of it anymore, and predictably I threw a big ole hissy fit and said they are "pickin on me", and generally acted like a terrible child (Enfant).  Thank God I am so full of myself, cause otherwise I would be really embarrassed for all of the times I have acted stupid.  

Since I had all sorts of grand plans to make not only bacon, but salamis and salumis, and I wanted to do it at the farmers' markets (and because I was the notorious Gypsy guy), KCHD decided to take their time with the rest of the city. They had their guinea pig.  I could twist in the wind a bit for having been making meats that were NO LONGER approved. They were still safe and yummy, but I couldn't explain in this new format why they were safe.  Not really explain.

So over the next year, through help from my amazing friends who are bloody geniuses at this stuff and who wish to not be named, I got to understand how to write one of these things.  They are very long and take a lot of knowledge that you can't just "google".  Wiki doesn't really explain the concept of "degree hours".  But I did it.  I learned it.  I got seven plans approved by KCHD and many more were on deck before I left the Swinery.  It makes sense now.  Kind of easy actually, just long.  

Mainly, what I have learned from this process, is that things can go very wrong and people can die.  I think HACCP is really important.  I wish the agencies would help chefs understand how to do this, rather than just making them stop... but I suppose I can help.  

These things that are no longer permissible:

• Using curing salts
• smoking (food)
• drying foods
• vacuum packing anything
• making salamis
• making salumis
• confiting makes them cranky (and they can't pronounce it)
• cheese making
• pickling
• sous vide
• or any combination of the above

Chefs don't have time to learn this crap.  It is a really hard curve, and they are supposed to be: COOKING!!!  Not sitting downtown arguing about their comma placement and whether they are using MEK-4 or MEK-6.  I am not taking care of it for people.  You want bacon? Pancetta?  Jerky, camembert, sous vide, etc... call me.  206.551.2598

More Dinner Details...

Ok, so dinner is looking like this:

We will probably seat about 30, depending on the location.  All locations will be at various legitimate restaurants.  Menu will change nightly.

Ala carte pricing will be from about $8-$16.  Most likely figure about $30 per person, to have a nice time, maybe more.

Communal table price will be a flat $50 per person.  Most likely seat 12.  Dinner will consist of lots of dishes, all served family style.  Essentially "all you can eat" without being insane.  Again, guests are encouraged to bring yummy things and or hop up and help.  Very interactive.

Booze: Will depend on the liquor license of the space.  It will either be BYOB or normal wine/beer service.  I am not going to get arrested again, so I will err on the side of caution.  If it is BYOB, there will be a $5/bottle service charge.  This will cover the costs of renting the glasses.

Tip: Normal tip rules apply.

Make sense?  Writing menus now and securing spaces.  For reservations, please email me.

Dinner Dates-Come and Join us!!

Bringing people together around the table is what I love.  Eating, drinking, singing, loving, these are the things that make life worth living.  I can't stay away...

A new concept:

Alchemy Dinners 

Alchemy Dinners are a completely new style of Dinner Series/Omakase/Pop-up Restaurant.  A roving feast, moving from location to location.  Both singular tables for a traditional ala carte style experience with exciting inexpensive dishes, newly created for the evening.  And featuring a large communal table where the food is served family style and guest participation is requested.  Guests are encouraged to bring yummy things to share, maybe an awesome cheese, a bag of greens from the market, this or that... And communal table guests can get up and help cook.  The Table's meal will continue to be chef's choice until everyone is full. 

The spirit of Alchemy Dinners will be that of fun and experimentation.  New ideas will flow and frequently be attempted on the spot.  Embrace Change.  

Join us for the kick off dinner: Saturday, October 9!!!  email to get your name on the list, this will sell out quickly.

Other nights on the books: 

• Sunday Oct 10
• Saturday Oct 30
• Saturday Nov 6
• Sunday Nov 21
• Sunday Nov 28   

New dates will be added as locations manifest... know a place with a legal kitchen that isn't being utilized all the time?  Call me! 206.551.2598

Announcing a new kind of Dinner!

Manifesto of a Non Restaurant

We live in a day where we measure ourselves not by the quality of the friends we have, the times we share, or even the content of our personality, but by the efficiency of our work habits and the money we make. 

This is going to change.

The revolution is coming. Not a revolution of guns and politics, but a revolution of spirit; of ideals. Like all true revolutions, this one will start humbly. This one starts with the stomach, the table, and the fork.

We spend our days in our cubicles staring at the screen. We go home in ones and twos. Family is synonymous with a long-distance phone call- no longer with a 6’oclock supper.  Instead we get our sustenance from “gourmet” microwave meals. To break the monotony we go to a crowded restaurant to eat alone. 

Not anymore.

The winds of change are blowing. Soon, very soon, we will sit down to eat with perfect strangers and get up as friends—as family, a new kind of family.  We will eat from the same pot, drink from the same bottles, sing the same songs, and together wash away the isolation. 

This is the beginning of the paradigm shift we have been waiting for. 

The Revolution of the Table!

For what the heck that just meant, and for announcements of dinner dates, read on!!!!

A bit of sexy food writing

So not to change the nature of this blog, but to introduce an element that was always meant to be here.  Food is good.  It is yummy.  It has the ability to change people, to inspire them, to shake them to their cores.  It is also frackin sexy as hell.

Let's all be honest,  show me the person who never used their culinary powers to seduce the girl/boy and I will show you either a liar or someone who doesn't deserve to cook.

Just reread this in Julie&Julia ( I know, we have all read it, but damn, the girl can really write):

         "Now, this is going to be a stretch for some people, but I believe that calves' liver is the single sexiest food that there is.  This is a conclusion I've come to relatively recently, because like almost everyone else on the planet, I've spent most of my life hating and despising liver.  The reason people despise liver is that to eat it you must submit to it-- just like you must submit to a really stratospheric fuck.  Remember when you were nineteen and you went at it like it was a sporting event?  Well liver is the opposite of that.  With liver you've got to will yourself to slow down. You've got to give yourself over to everything that's a little repulsive, a little scary, a little just TOO MUCH about it.
When you buy it from the butcher, when you cook it in a pan, when you eat it, slowly, you never can get away from the feral fleshiness of it.  Liver forces you to access taste buds you didn't know you had, and it's hard to open yourself to it.  Just like really good sex. "

So this is what is on my mind.  Now I just need to meet someone who agrees!!!

Paella Party on the Deck

So I have a new "secret" fantasy... I am going to become "Gabe, the Paella Guy".  Yes, you heard it here, I am going to go from being a one-trick-bacon-pony to a one-trick-paella-pony.  Cause, Paella is more fun than bacon.  I mean really, bacon touches more of a nerve and has semi-orgasmic properties but Paella is very cool and really brings people together.  Case in point:

A week or so ago, I was invited to help a dear friend have a Paella party for 50 people for his birthday.  Alan has done this every year for 3 years now, but this year he decided/was told that he needed to spend more time with the guests.  A party for 50 in your home is not an insignificant amount of work, not counting the food.

I love Paella.  We used to do it all the time at CC and also as an in home class.  Usually I would do it with several different Tapas options to start, we would drink Sangria and we would all pitch in.  One time we had one in Provence with one of the groups and it was awesome, all though they put white beans in it (coco beans) which was odd.  (They just had to be all French on it!).  Still it was great.

There is something about tending the paella that also gets everybody pumped.  It is really actually quite boring, you don't even stir the damn thing.  But it inspires people to gather around and offer opinions and swap stories and lies and drink wine.  Perfect, yes?

Alan's brick oven

So, at Alan's I was in charge of doing all of the prep for the dinner, plus actually cooking it.  We also added on a mustard crusted prime rib done in the wood fired oven... just cause. Alan traditionally uses a recipe from Bobby Flay, but he said I didn't have to follow it. Which was good, because anyone who knows me, knows I am not much of a recipe follower.

Here is the vaguest approximation of the recipe I did do: Then below are pics and variations.

Gabe's Classic Paella serves 10

sofrito

2 # Chicken, cut in small pieces                             1# onion chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced                                           4 T Olive oil     

1 ea red, green pepper, small dice                          1 T paprika

Broth

6 C hot chicken stock                                             large pinch saffron

1 T Kosher salt

Rice                                                                                                          

2 C Spanish rice (Bomba)                                       8 oz tomato concassé

8 oz Chorizo, thinly sliced                                      1 sprig rosemary

Seafood garnish

20 clams, cleaned                                                  20 ea mussels, cleaned

20 shrimp, peeled, deveined                                 4 oz garden peas

Kosher salt and pepper to taste                            ¼ C sliced scallions

                                         

Heat Broth: Heat the chicken stock up with the saffron and the salt.  The broth should be very well flavored.  Keep hot.

browning the chicken

Make sofrito: Sauté the Chicken pieces in the olive oil until nicely browned.  Add the garlic, onions, peppers, and paprika.  Sauté for about 5 minutes.

parching the rice

Parch the rice: Add the rice and a pinch of salt.  Stir until the rice is well coated with oil.   Sauté 2 minutes to parch. 

Add liquid: Add the tomatoes, stock, chorizo, and rosemary.  Cover and bring to a boil for 8-10 minutes. 

adding the liquid

Garnish and simmer: Add the seafood and peas to the top of the rice.  Do not stir.  Cover and turn down heat and simmer 10 minutes or until rice is tender, seafood is cooked, and liquid is absorbed.  Keep covered and allow to rest for 10 minutes.  Garnish with scallions and lemon wedges.  Serve

Kitchen Notes: 

So the nice part was we were doing it up sexy-tempo for this party.  Alan got 2 live Maine lobsters, live spots, wild caught gulf prawns, clams, squid, halibut, chicken, chorizo, and andouille.  


First things first: Good Stock: Because of all of these goodies I got to really make a good stock.  If you think about it, the stock is really the most important part.  A good Spanish rice like Valencia or better yet, Bomba, will absorb 4:1 in the case of Valencia or 5:1 in the case of Bomba.  Now why is this important you ask?  If the rice is done when it absorbs 3:1, why waste the stock?  Cause stock is where all of the flavor is.  If you create a bomb-diggity stock and then use Bomba, OMG it is stunning.  But it will require a lot of liquid.  

So I started with 1 gallon of homemade chicken stock, very rich and gelatinous.  Then I added all of the heads of the live spots, the shells of everybody, the lobster bodies and all of the shells and coral, the halibut skin, and 2 TABLESPOONS of Saffron.  


Understanding solubility:  so a little science is important here.  Ever had saffron oil?  It sucks.  big waste of money.  Why? Most foods are either fat-soluble or water-soluble not both.  Paprika for instance if very firmly fat-soluble, not water.  This is why most Americans think of paprika as food coloring.  We keep adding it after we have added a liquid component.  Paprika MUST be fried in oil at the beginning of the cooking in order to bring out the flavor, otherwise it is just red.  (the whole capiscum family is like this, try sauteing cayenne)


Saffron on the other hand is water-soluble not fat.  If we fry it in the beginning of the sofrito, it doesn't do anything.  You need to add it to the stock and let it simmer a long time to get the maximum flavor.  


Side not about saffron: it is unfortunate that we don't like Iran right now.  They have some amazing stuff.  Saffron originally came from Persia and went to Spain with the Moors.  The only good stuff comes from either Spain or Iran.  the difference is the price.  Spain has quite a marketing team driving up that price.  Iran on the other hand... umm... let's just say it is cheaper.  The thing is, I feel the Iranian stuff is better.  Spanish stuff taste metallic if you use to much, where Persian saffron tastes great no matter what.  Go to Pars market in Bellevue by the Skateking and pick up a dime bag of Saffron.  Literally like a quarter cup for $10!!!!

sauteeing the sofrito

What is a sofrito? Every culture has its basic way to start a dish.  We are very french focused, so we all know our Mirepoix.  Carrots, onions, and celery.  However, the other cuisines have their own.  Sofrito is the Spanish version.  It is onions, garlic, tomato/pepper, and a lot of extra virgin olive oil.  Saute, add salt, and now proceed with your dish.  This when translated through the lens of the bayou has become Sofregit (Trinity) onions, green bell, and celery.  


So once you have all of your ingredients prepped and you have a very full flavored, heavily seasoned stock (Rice doesn't like to take salt at the end of the cooking, make sure to over season your stock), it is time to cook.


So Alan has a toy that I want for Christmas sooooooooo bad!  It is from Spanish Table and it is a 35person Paella pan with a 3 burner ring that is run by independent valves off of one propane tank.  So if it is cooking to fast on the rim of the pan you can turn it down, etc.  I was like a kid in the candy store!!  Only like $250!  Anyway, super fun event, and I can't wait to do it again.  I will come to your house! Just make sure to have lots of wine for me.  and perhaps a band?

They were good!!!