1. Appetizer Omelet
the filling was wilted spinach and ricottta, topped with the CS coffee butter and chive. this is was one of my favorite dishes of the evening. it was light. each bite had all the flavors.
the technique used for making the omelet is from MCH. the omelet was cooked before hand, stored in the fridge, reheated and then assembled with the fillings.
2. Carrot-Orange-Ginger Soup
another one of my favorite courses of the evening. this soup was spicy, sweet, and sour and was topped with coconut cream. as i had been eating hard ginger candy for the past couple of weeks, i had the idea to increase the ginger and sweet flavors of the soup by pulverizing the ginger candy in a coffee grinder and sprinkling it over the top. this recipe is a keeper!
3. Risotto That Can't Be Beet
this risotto dish had beet juice, pickled beets, roasted and then dehydrated beets, and beet leaves. horse radish cream gave a fantastic balance to the sweet-acid of the beet components. for the recipe i used a combination of MCH with the pressure cooker technique and heston blumenthal for flavors. another keeper!
4. Pasta with Orange-Lemon-Mint Cream Sauce
this home made pasta dish was my big failure of the evening.
a couple of months ago i was watching triple D on the food network. they were showing the signature dish of the restaurant which was a pasta dish with a cream sauce that included mint, micro-planed orange and lemon peel, and cognac. when i saw this episode, i knew i had to try this recipe. but as you know, the show does not give you an exact recipe, just shows you the dish being made. well, i must have not used enough sauce or flavoring as the pasta was on the dry side. to make matters worse, the pasta was under cooked.
5. Papaya-Avocado-Cucumber-
Cilantro Salad
this used a chile-ginger-rice-vinegar-peanut oil vinaigrette and a mango sauce. all the flavors were there. BUT i felt that this dish was somewhat a failure as it felt out of place with the season. it is winter in chicago and this dish was too cooling. it would be a great dish to include during the summer months to refresh and cool.
6. Steak + Pomme Puree
the medium-rare steak was cooked sous-vide and then deep fried for about 90 seconds to sear the crust. i used baking soda on the steak before deep frying to help with the mallard reaction. the steak was OK but needed more salt as the guests were salting it on the table. the dish used a cherry-butter-thyme sauce and broccoli micro-greens. the chefsteps pomme puree was excellent, though i did use a 30% butter to potato ratio rather than the recommended 50%.
7. Chocolate-Espresso Panna Cotta
the chocolate-espresso panna cotta was served with an hazelnut-cinnamon brittle, pistachio gelato, and a lemon-lime sauce. this dessert had a great combination of flavors and textures.
i like to tell my friends that the way you know that you have a good panna cotta is that when you agitate the plate, the panna cotta jiggles like the breast of beautiful woman. and it did!
