Quiche!

Every now and then I've found I need to take a step back from the upscale haute cuisine I've been so enthralled with recently and remember some of the dishes that started this whole culinary journey.

My mom endures a lot of teasing (especially from her side of the family) about her skills in the kitchen, but the reality is some of my all-time favorite foods have come from her kitchen: the french fries that have become small legends among my friends, the macaroni and cheese that I've been happy to serve time after time, and the fried chicken that I still don't know how to recreate.

But perhaps my favorite of all of these, since before I even knew had to spell (or probably pronounce the word), is the spinach and bacon quiche. So much do I love it that I'm not even remotely tempted to kick it up with my own additions.

I start with chopped braised spinach in a mixing bowl mixed with extra sharp cheddar, monterey jack, and asiago.. Either frozen or fresh spinach will do, but when I do it fresh I make sure to keep the vinegar to a subdued minimum. In a separate bowl I mix 6 eggs and about a quarter cup of milk with some salt and pepper. Add the egg mixture with a healthy dose of chopped bacon to the spinach, and pour into two pie crusts that have been pre-baked for about 10 minutes. Top with lots more extra sharp cheddar and bake at 300 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. Let chill for about 10 minutes before serving.

There are few words to describe how delicious this quiche is. The amounts of spinach, bacon, and cheeses are really up to you, but I like to be heavy on both the cheese and the bacon. Spoken like a true southerner.

But of course, I can't keep the gourmet stuff on the back-burner too long. Next up, my restaurant weekend dry run, and the menu for the real restaurant weekend, coming up in just 6 short days!

2 for 2

My fantasy of opening a fine dining restaurant has always felt like just that--a fantasy. Especially a year ago, when I took that next step in cooking--a full set of cookware. When I really got into making my own recipes. I mean, sure, I could recreate recipes pretty well, but my original recipes were rarely spectacularly interesting. Sure, a tasty meal at the end of a day of work--but nothing I'd be excited to see on a plate I had paid $30 for.

That seems to be slowly changing. And I owe a significant amount of it, no doubt, to my sauce work and in particular my discovery of gastriques. A gastrique is actually a pretty basic sauce: a pureed fruit of some sort, white wine or vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar. I first had the idea to make a gastrique from some leftover cherries and pair it with my horseradish crusted rack of lamb a few weeks ago. And if you recall, I was so impressed with that dish that I mentioned I would have been happy to have gotten it at any restaurant I've ever been to. (Side note: a reminder for me-next time, serve it over some baby arugula tossed in lemon juice, salt and pepper for a little acidic kick. See? Where is this COMING from??)

I was so happy with the cherry gastrique that when I went exploring in Harris Teeter the other day to try to figure out what to make with my friend Jess, I stopped dead in my tracks as I passed the blackberries.

Although, to be fair, I didn't conceive this dish around the blackberry gastrique. Actually, the dual presentation of a duck breast and thigh at Blue Duck Tavern, as bad as it tasted, gave me an idea of two separate preparations of two different parts of a duck (or chicken) with two different sauces.

So I scoured Harris Teeter for ideas. I settled on skin-on chicken breast and, since the pieces were a bit smaller, both a chicken leg and thigh. Pan roasting the chicken and....how about shallow poaching? It's one of the techniques in The Professional Chef that I hadn't tried, but seemed like a good idea. Cool. And then I'll make a sauce from the reduction of the poaching liquid. I still needed a base for my second sauce and that's when I walked by the blackberries.

I started with by browning minced garlic in butter and adding chicken stock, salt, pepper, and pomegranate juice...just enough to come halfway up the chicken legs and thighs. I poached on the stovetop on medium low for a few minutes, being careful not to let the poaching liquid boil, and then tossed the whole pan in the oven. Next I started the chicken breasts on the stovetop, seasoned with cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, chili powder, coriander, and mustard ground. That pan also ended up in the oven. While the chicken was poaching/roasting, I braised some rainbow chard in balsamic vinegar, white wine, salt, and pepper. Then made the gastrique...I simmer my gastrique with bay leaves, star anise, and allspice before I push it through a chinois and let it continue to reduce until just thickened. Just before I pulled the legs and thighs out of the oven, I turned the broiler on high to caramelize the skin just a bit. Then, took the pan out, removed and covered the chicken, and put the pan back on the stovetop. I let the poaching liquid reduce and strained out the garlic. I laid a dollop of rainbow chard in the middle of the plate and arrange the three pieces of chicken around it. On the side of the pan-roasted breast, I spooned the blackberry gastrique...now a rich, deep red. And on the side with the shallow-poached leg and thigh, I spooned the dark brown pan reduction.

With the exception of a slight overdoneness on the chicken that was basically a timing issue, I was thrilled with the outcome. The acidic chard cut through the sweetness of the gastrique and the rich flavor of the reduction. The chicken was well seasoned and the sauced complimented the preparation styles very well. And it was the second dish in as many tries that I think would be completely worthy of a spot on the menu of the vast majority of fine dining establishments out there.

Lord knows it'd be a step up from Blue Duck Tavern....

PS-One day I'll start taking pictures again. I just don't know when that will be.

Bicycles.

Miss Natalie's birthday was a few weeks ago, which gave me an excuse to head up to Baltimore and check out the best food it had to offer. Not knowing much about the city or its food, we were kind of flying blind, but I read very good things about a restaurant called....Bicycle.

I knew I was in trouble when I walked in the door. We were greeted by spectacular smells wafting through an open kitchen into the dining room just a few feet away. The Executive Chef was on the premises that night, and cooks bustled about, busying away at creating dish after dish. A couple of plates sat waiting for just a moment or two under the heat lamps before the thoughtfully put together dishes were whisked away to awaiting diners. I had a feeling we were in for a treat.

Nat had been eyeing a sashimi of tuna and avocado dish since we saw on the menu on their website. I was enthralled by the diver scallops with apples, fennel, braised cabbage, and a truffle vinaigrette. But then....then the waiter came by with a first course special of mussels and prawns in a sweet white wine garlic sauce. Decisions....decisions.

Let's do all three.

And all three we did. My diver scallop was spectacularly prepared--literally a paragon of balanced flavors. Everything was just a symphony. Impeccable. Nat's tuna and avocado was a simple, clean dish. No explosively surprising flavors, but phenomenal texture, and the freshness of the tuna really spoke for itself. I'm always impressed with minimalist dishes like that--ones that manage to still speak loudly, even when they aren't layer after layer after layer of flavor. In that way, Nat's dish and my dish were total opposites. Mine the layering of truffle, apple, fennel, cabbage, scallop, baby arugula. Hers just tuna, avocado, a light peanut dressing, and a bit of masago.

But the third appetizer--deliciously fresh mussels and huge prawns in a sauce of delicious heaven--wins the 'lick the plate" award. In fact, it came with two large pieces of Texas toast that could, should, and I can only imagine were designed to, sop up as much of the sauce as possible. Sweet, spicy, rich...I literally wanted to put it in a baby's bottle and carry it around with me. Rest assured, I will find some way to recreate that sauce. Perhaps at this moment I was most impressed by the flexibility of the chef; we had now enjoyed a restrained dish, a delicately balanced dish, and a rich, filling, homey dish.

Unfortunately, neither main course lived up the abundance of the first courses. Natalie ordered a New Zealand rack of lamb that should have used the same restraint we found in the tuna. Lamb is like beef tenderloin--so naturally flavorful and tender, it should always be complimented by its additions...not covered up. Unfortunately, this lamb was marinated in some sort of citrus that ended up a distraction and, for me, ruined the dish. My steak was a little better, but not by much. I ordered a NY Strip that was, unfortunately, not particularly tender. It was garnished well--some finely diced bell pepper--but the steak just didn't speak too loudly for me. I definitely felt like I could have better at home with the steak and the lamb, and that wasn't true of any of the first courses.

Finally, dessert. Natalie got a chocolate waffle with flambeed bananas. I didn't find it particularly impressive. But then I got a chocolate peanut butter cup....literally a chocolate cup with a rich peanut butter ganache, torched whipped cream, and peanut brittle. After every bite, I had this overwhelming desire to say "that's what she said." It was literally so good it was sexual, and it was enough, once combined with the consistent exceptional quality of the first courses, to put Bicycle in my top 3 of all time. Just behind Perilla and Corduroy. Now I just need an excuse to go back to Corduroy...

Coming soon, my second dish in as many attempts that should be served in a restaurant somewhere, and musings on running my own Restaurant Week(end).

Probably sits at number 3, behind Perilla and

Showed flexibility