I Am Serious... and Don't Call Me Shirley!!

Even now, eight weeks after my trip to Hong Kong it is still influencing my specials. Sure, I would love to be able to line them up week after week in succession, but I prefer to offer a great special as opposed to making sure I stick to some sort of format.

But this week's inspiration is drawn from a surprising source: an airplane meal!!

Before you turn away in disgust, allow me to explain; First of all, we weren't on Southwest, Delta or United. We travel in style, so we took Korean-based Asiana Airlines - rated the best in northern Asia due to exceptional service and meals created by chefs. They created dishes that travel well, can be heated easily and, most of all, taste good.

We had simplified versions of our favorite Asian dishes like bibimbap, congee and the inspiration for this week's special: lettuce wraps.

It's really the taco of the orient; a combination of meat, sweet, sour, spicy and crunchy. And even though it wasn't the first time I've have lettuce wraps, there is something about having really good food on an airplane really made them stick in my mind.

Since I was working with all of the bold flavors that Asia has to offer I needed a meat that could hold up to them, so I went with lean and gamey venison, something so far off of the radar from what anyone would expect from a dish like this that you have to be intrigued, and that's half the battle.

To make the filling I made a white coconut curry with cardamom, coriander, lemongrass, lime leaves, ginger, garlic and Walla Walla spring onions in place of the obligatory scallions for that iconic Washington touch. Once reduced with mirin for sweetness I strained the sauce over the ground, cooked venison and stirred in chopped cilantro.

To pair with the rich, gamey filling I created a series of pickled vegetables like cucumbers, red peppers, baby white turnips and red onions uniquely flavored with rice wine vinegar, mirin wine in place of the classic sugar, Chinese five spice powder and a touch of Sriracha chile sauce.

Finally, I bring it all back to the original Korean inspiration with a sauce that is traditionally used for bibimbap that is simply gochujang, a wonderful fermented chili paste that's sweet and spicy, blended with sesame oil, soy sauce and a little water to thin it out. With some bibb lettuce, fresh mint and Thai basil there are a hundred different combinations that you can create on your own with just one beautiful plate!!

We restaurant folk stick together. When I asked one of my friends, Milla, a bartender from Charlie's next door what I could do with a bottle of Effen cucumber vodka that we couldn't seem to sell, she came back with this brillant idea!!

She knowingly looked at me and simply said "Cucumber Kamikaze.", then laid out how I should do it.

A kamikaze is a citrus cocktail made with vodka, triple sec and fresh lime juice, but with the way cucumber and lime interplay, Milla knew what is best!! 


Thanks, Milla!!

With Love,

Cheffrey

Mentors

This week began with the first of many Tuesdays where I am mentoring a young, aspiring chef through a program that pairs underprivileged people with restaurants to help teach them a trade, much like the Farestart organization that we love so much to support.

I can't take credit for the idea; Stacey first employed Nathaniel at our sister restaurant, Geraldine's Counter, as a busser, but asked me to bring him in on Tuesdays to help me on my biggest prep day while teaching him my Jedi culinary ways.

I can't pretend to be able to understand where Nathaniel is coming from or what he's been through; all I know is how important it was for me for the great chefs of my past who took the time to show me the ropes and share their knowledge and insight with me. I felt that if I could spark that same fire of passion for cooking that I have in someone else and help turn their lives around for the better, then why not try??

I wanted to showcase a dish for Nathaniel that would explain what I like to do here at Table 219 - taking those classic Americana dishes and putting them through the wringer of my mind; twisting and turning the idea until it comes out its own, unique dish.

I've had the idea for a shrimp 'n' grits au gratin in my notebook for a while now but I never had the appropriate cooking vessel, until now. At risk of repeating a similar presentation so soon I went with the same dishes that I used for my (future menu staple) wild boar enchiladas two weeks ago. In hindsight, I believe that self-imposed risk was more than worth it.

I first poached medium-sized shrimp with the shells still on in an already flavorful shrimp stock to make sure all of their flavor stay inside. While the shrimp cool and are peeled I used the cooking liquid along with half and half to cook the grits, finishing them with freshly grated Grana Padano, an Italian hard cheese similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano but more subtler and less nutty, perfect for debunking the "no cheese with shellfish" myth. That's right - MYTH!

I fold in freshly chopped chives and parsley that are abundantly available locally before baking the mixture in individual dishes with even more cheese on top until bubbly and delicious. I added a side of grilled sourdough bread that makes for a perfect bridge for the au gratin from dish to mouth!

The only thing missing is the obligatory vegetable, only this time it's something that threatens to outshine the main focus of the dish:

This spring/summer cusp is really the best of both worlds. I used Walla Walla spring onions that I slowly cooked in butter, sweet curry powder and a splash of soy sauce to bring that umami flavor. I used the curry butter to saute local, organic shitaki mushrooms, first of the season yellow corn and vibrant pea shoots to give a beautiful taste of the season with a punch of flavor!! 

To offset the somewhat rich aspect of the au gratin I thought that a light and bubbly cocktail would fit the bill.

With fresh blueberries now coming in from California I wanted to infuse them in vodka, but I didn't have the chance to do it ahead like I normally do, so I used a new technique that I learned which involves quickly chopping the blueberries in a blender with the vodka, funneling the mixture back into a bottle and drawing out the air with a wine pump that creates a vacuum in the bottle normally used to preserve the wine. The technique does in one hour what would normally take at least a week!

To further enhance the blueberriness we muddle a few with ice before adding the infused vodka, Aperol - an Italian aperitif that has a lot of flavors going on like bitter orange, rhubarb and cinchona, the bark that I used as the foundation for my tonic water recipe a couple of months ago. It's the original ingredient in a spritz that's topped with sparkling wine, which led me to this combination.

With Love,

Cheffrey

Hooray for the USDA!!

Most likely due to the fact that the world did not end last weekend, the USDA announced Tuesday that it has lowered the recommended cooking temperaturefor pork from 160 to 145 degrees, bringing it in line to the same cooking standards as beef, veal and lamb.

This is finally on par with what we chefs have been doing for about a decade because we are governed by the FDA, which has allowed the lower temperatures, because otherwise the meat would be dry and tough when fully cooked. I must have some kind of pork radar thing because I had this incredible urge to feature a pork special this week... or is that just how I am every week??

Since apricots have just come into season and the amazing way that pork pairs with sweeter ingredients, I wanted to make a sauce with them, but I had to make sure the dish didn't end up tasting like a dessert, so I decided to first roll portioned tenderloin in a robust spice blend popular in North Africa called ras el hanout that I fortified with freshly ground coriander, cumin, caraway and chile flake before pan roasting it, which also toasted the spices. Though the new guidelines suggest cooking the pork to medium rare, I prefer to cook it medium to medium well not only to appease a wider audience but also because I have found that cooking it less makes it too chewy.

For the sauce I simply simmered the whites of Walla Walla spring onions in some fruity extra virgin olive oil until soft before adding the depitted apricot halves and some white wine, cooking them down until they are soft enough to puree, giving me a silky smooth, almost pudding-like sauce.

Even though the natural sweetness of the apricot is far from cloying I felt that I should further detract from it by sauteing finely chopped broccoli rabe, aka rapini, which has a bitter and pungent flavor that also really brings together the spice rub and the sauce. To take it a step further I added wedges of red radish that had been roasted to mellow their spiciness but still leaving a lot of flavor.

After last week's cocktail success I wanted to keep with the light and fresh theme, especially with the upcoming holiday weekend that is the unofficial marker for the start of summer.

One of the most recognizable classic cocktails is the gin fizz, which is the perfect summertime drink because it is cool and refreshing. To take it a step further I added the crisp juice of pomegranate to the usual suspects of gin, club soda and a splash of simple syrup to make the ultimate tribute to our glorious season, the best time of the year and the reason why we all tolerate the bleak, rainy season.

With Love,

Cheffrey

Diecisiete de Mayo

At face value, this week's specials may seem more appropriate for the week of Cinco de Mayo, but even though I had the idea for the sauce well before, I couldn't have come to this conclusion without the proper dishes, which I just so happened to need for a private party last Friday.

We do close for private parties from time to time depending on their size, and I have to apologize if you ever stop by and are unable to dine with us during these events. Last Friday's was a pre-Bat Mitzvah celebration, a Jewish daughter's coming of age ceremony, and for the grand finale they wanted banana splits with the works, thus leaving me with a new set of dishes to use as a blank canvas of sorts.

The shallow, oval bowls that we got are actually for baking and broiling, so I thought that I could utilize my ancho chile and hibiscus sauce as the foundation for some unique enchiladas. Another example of how the plate is the inspiration for the food.

The sauce is made by slowly cooking the whites of spring Walla Walla onions (saving the greens for the filling) in oil with garlic, cumin, and ground ancho chiles, or dried poblanos which have a wonderful raisin/dried fruit and a slightly tobacco flavor that aren't very spicy. I added tomato paste and hibiscus syrup and simmered until everything was very soft before I cooled it and blended smooth with fresh oregano and parsley.

For the filling I went with coarsely ground wild boar that must have been lingering on my mind every since I decided over the weekend that I want to cook a whole boar in the ground luau-style in my backyard sometime this summer. I guess I just had it on the brain!

The ground boar cooked in its own juices along with chipotle powder, garlic oil and cumin. Once cooled I mixed in fontina cheese, freshly chopped cilantro and the leftover Walla Walla green onions.

The glory of enchiladas is in the preparation: you dip each corn tortilla in the simmering sauce so that it absorbs all of its goodness, then mound with the filling and roll, placing each in a dish with a little  more sauce. I bake two per order in a hot oven until bubbly before I top them off with more fontina and a pinch of cheddar for color.

Since I only had one chance at offering fava leaves this season (and all of my other ideas fell through...) I used them here, where they offer a unique vegetable pairing to a usually solitary dish and lend to the presentation as well.

I have been steeping tequila with dried black mission figs well before Cinco de Mayo, but since I had other ideas for that week I saved it for the right moment. Once watermelon became available, I knew the best way to use it.

I carefully peeled all of the rind and white pith from the watermelon, leaving only the sweet flesh that I pureed in the blender and strained until it was just the silky juice. I then simply poured it into a pint glass filled with ice, followed by the fig tequila and topped with club soda to brighten it even more and make it dance on the palate!!

 

With Love,

Cheffrey

Mint Condition

Few ingredients scream SPRING!! to me more than fresh peas. The thing is, there are few things in life that I hate more than shucking peas - fava beans being one of them - hence my love for the the more practical pea vines and fava leaves. Not only do they offer all of the flavor of their more popular pod stars, but they're a fraction of the cost, which translates into high class dishes at affordable prices to you.

I'll save my rare gem, fava leaves, for next week. In the meantime I want to focus on the more prevalent climber, pea vines.

Over the years I have amassed great knowledge about what flavors work best with peas, like the freshness of mint, the earthiness of caraway and the crispness of radishes. I feel that this dish expresses what could possibly be the perfect matching for all of these ingredients.

First, I wanted to make a thick puree of the pea vines by first slowly cooking the whites of spring onions and garlic in butter, and then cooking down the vines with half and half. I quickly pureed and strained it to make sure the sauce is silky smooth and set the vibrant color.

Seafood plays well with that bright, green flavor so I chose to pan-seared scallops to match with it, though the real emphasis is on the accompanying salad that features the epitome of my pea pairings: a salad of freshly sliced and julienned radishes like English breakfast, purple and Cincinnati, that I enhanced by adding the finely chopped leaves as well. To this I also added the classic fresh mint and some crisp green apple that is all tied together with a vinaigrette of spring onions and toasted caraway seeds; the unsung hero of peas.

 

As I've stated before I grew up in a Louisville, Kentucky suburb, and last weekend was our big day, The Kentucky Derby.

Even though I didn't offer the staple Derby drink, the mint julep last week, I knew first-hand that it isn't the only time of the year that we drink a julep. TRUST ME!!!

So, in celebration of the "Run for the Roses" and in honor of my geographical heritage  I wanted to offer a slant on the mint julep that I like to call the Georgian Mint Julep: freshly muddled mint topped with bourbon, peach schnapps and topped with a splash of club soda. A spring cocktail that begs for better weather...

With Love,

Cheffrey

Duty Free

I still have a few ideas kicking around from my trip to Hong Kong a few weeks ago; don't be surprised if you see remnants for months to come.

If you haven't ever gone abroad, let me tell you that one of the greatest things about international travel is actually the duty free shop here at the airport in Seattle. Seriously! The yardstick by which duty free prices are measured: Johnny Walker Blue Label is $138 a bottle!! We held out for Asia only to see that price rise.

Luckily for us duty free extended onto the plane, where we went for the Remy Martin XO cognac that was priced a little less. We sipped glasses of the elixir like royalty in our hotel room; I even mixed it with some champagne which made an amazing cocktail that I promised myself that I would feature at Table 219, but alas, the price would be too much, so I had to draw inspiration from elsewhere...

The second most memorable beverage we had was at Bo Innovation, where aside from some amazing food that you will no doubt see in my specials over the next couple of months (or even years) we had sparkling sake for the first time. As I was trying to figure out my specials this past weekend I remembered that Gary had been duped into buying a bottle of Effen cucumber vodka, I realized how well the vodka would benefit from the unique flavor and effervescence of the sparkling sake, leading me to this refreshing cocktail:

 We muddle fresh mint and sliced ginger with a little simple syrup and ice to help break it all up before dousing it with the cucumber vodka, topping it off with some sparkling sake that Uwajimaya happened to have on sale, like it was meant to be!!

 

Another inspiration came from THE most beautiful restaurant that I've been to (and that says a lot!!), Amber, in the Landmark Hotel which is a part of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel chain. Though my wife Anna giggled over the fact that our server looked like one of our close friends, Tommy Lee, she burst out laughing at a dish that looked like "Asparagus Man with Bone Marrow and Black Truffle 'googly eyes'"! It was delicious, but comical; too bad we were laughing too hard to take a pic...

So I drew from that flavor profile, one of my favorites, and created a dish like it but with more of my own style.

Since asparagus is available locally now I knew that it would be a good time to pair it with the leftover black truffles that I had from the cod dish on the previous menu. I also love black truffle with chicken, so I seasoned an airliner chicken breast (which has the wing bone attached for presentation and flavor) with black truffle salt and pan-seared it while basting it with butter, fresh thyme and garlic. During the long process of roasting I warm thick slices of purple potatoes in butter, steam the spears of asparagus, and whip up a black truffle hollandaise to order with the aid of a hand blender.

Everything is seasoned with some sea salt that has been infused with black truffle that I've been using to flavor our popcorn every since the conception of my Pacific cod dish on the last menu. A wonderful, earthy dish that joins the flavor of winter with that of spring.



Enjoy the past while it lasts!!

With Love,

Cheffrey

Tribute to Hong Kong

I was a little overwhelmed with all of the inspiration that I brought back from Hong Kong, but I simply sat down and wrote out what came to mind first. After a little whittling, this is what I came up with.

Hong Kong is a port city, located on the southeastern coast of China between the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, so obviously seafood is a serious part of the cuisine there. You wouldn't believe the variety offered even out front of restaurants for you to take home to cook. I couldn't believe how bad I wanted to cook on my vacation.

To pay tribute to the glorious seafood I saw I chose these jumbo prawns that I've been wanting to use for a long time now from Viet-Wah, an amazing store in the International District. These things are HUGE!! they're called 2-4s, meaning that there's 2 to 4 prawns per pound, or an average of 4 ounces each. Not your typical salad shrimp!!

Probably the best dish I had was at the Night Market, the area where you can get everything. My wife and I stopped at a sidewalk restaurant that had an amazing cuttlefish dish that was obviously steamed until tender and lightly breaded like a tempura batter with an interesting dipping sauce that I deciphered to be a mixture of shao-xing, a typical Chinese cooking wine, rice vinegar, sugar, and five-spice powder. I feel like I nailed the flavor of the sauce, along with a few of my own special chef touches... ;)

Another major aspect of our trip was (of course) dim sum, and the most predominate dish is glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf, though I used Chinese sausage and dried black mushroom as a filling to make the little package of rice burst with flavor like any good dim sum restaurant would!

Hong Kong had a lot of alcohol, but nothing made locally other than beer, so I had to take my inspiration for this week's cocktail from the heart of the luscious fruits that are available there, like mangoes, so I decided to make an infusion of green tea and vodka to flavor a martini shaken with mango puree and simple syrup to create a tropical drink that reflects a trip to the South China Sea!!

With Love,

Cheffrey

A New Step

We had a blast is Hong Kong! I have a ton of inspiration, from both the city and all of the catching up I did with culinary publications. But since I had to plan for this week in advance to avoid a last minute scramble, those ideas will have to wait. Until then...

This week we are not only introducing a new dinner menu starting Thursday, but also an upgrade to better our brunch menu by implementing cage-free eggs from local Stiebers Farms, and while they feed their hens mostly organic food, that minute amount that they don't is what separates the cost of the eggs by another 50%. We'll try these out on our customers before we upgrade again - not everyone appreciates the value that a humanly raised animal can cost.

To showcase this new addition to our brunch menu I wanted to feature these wonderful eggs as a dinner special first, along with several other tasty bits:

Many months ago I had already tested the idea of softly poaching an egg and then breading it with panko and frying just enough to crisp the outside and warm the yolk without overcooking it.

I've always thought that it would make a great addition to an awesome salad with other rich ingredients and an acidic vinaigrette, so I started with my favorite green: frisee because it's fluffy, crunchy and bitter; already giving great contrast to the dish. I've been curing my own guanciale, or pork jowl cured with salt, herbs and peppercorns that I then hung to air-dry for a month. I finely julienned the fatty meat that's been compared to pancetta (but with WAY more flavor) before cooking it in its own fat until tender. And, just for good measure I used the remaining fat as part of a vinaigrette made with steamed spring onions, garlic, fresh herbs and extra virgin olive oil.

I also added diced vine-ripened tomatoes, the raw green ends of the spring onions and some nice pistachios for crunch and flavor, creating an excellent early spring salad that has enough heft to enjoy as a small entree or light enough to save room for one of my new menu items!!

I had a few of the dates leftover from the special before I left (like I was hoping for) so I chopped them up in a blender with some rum to macerate while I frolicked in Hong Kong like a fool...

When I got back, the flavor of the date had infused beautifully into the rum as expected, allowing me to combine it with other tropical flavors to brighten up our slow spring, like a splash of Malibu coconut rum, pineapple juice, lime juice to cut some of the sweetness, and Peychaud bitters to balance it all out.

With Love,

Cheffrey