Hunters Stew

Ahhh hunters stew well almost anyways. It wasn't made with Venison or Rabbit but beef will have to do . This is a traditional Polish stew but I've maneged to squeeze it on the menu for the second time as the Soup De Jour. This soup contains , Potatoes, rutabaga's, carrots, onions , apples, yes I said Apples,turnips, Cabbage and sauerkraut, garlic, shallots, white and red wine, apple cider vinegar, and some chicken stock . It's so easy to make and so freaking good. This soup and recipe will actually be in March or Aprils issue of NC Signature Magazine. So look for it! I get some grip for making Polish stuff but everyone seems to like it. Not sure what soup i'm going to make next but i think i want to do ravaoli for the garnish so you should see that one here as well. O yeah sorry about the picture it's not that good I took it with my Phone.

This is actually from this summer but I liked it a lot. It was for a soup that I had made , Grilled Roma's , House Olive Oil, Chive oil, and Chile Oil . The soup was Gazpacho . It went over extremely well. I've made many soups since then and Most of them have gone over very well. I have one that made it into a State wide Magazine and it comes out in a Month! It was Hunters stew, My own version but slightly modified for the restaurant. Makeing the oils was one of the cool parts about this dish . After the soup was gone I messed around with makeing Smoked Tomato oil. It turned out ok but the flavor didn't come through enough . I think the olive oil that I used was to stronge of a flavor.

Sous Vide

So for those of you that aren't Foodies out thier or Chef and Don't know what this is i'll break it down for you. Simply it is cooking in a bag. You can get alot more Techancial with it if you want but thats what it pretty much is . Yes it should be Cryovaced - The air is sucked out of the bad and sealed. It's the New way of cooking in the Restaurant Industry. It's totaly differnet from sautee, roasting, searing, baking, boil, and blanching. It's cooking at a CONSTANT Tempature for a EXACT amount of time. You can cook something Completely medrare. what i mean is you don't have to have the outside of the meat be well done like when you sear it in a pan . Once you are done cooking it will look almost rare because it is cooked Perfectly .

This was my first attempt to use Fondant. My wife went to school for Baking and Pastry so shes the pastry Chef not me I was just helping her out with a Wedding cake that she was doing. I really had no idea what to do or where to start so this is what i ended up with. The shoe it's self is made out of Rice Krispies and then i put white fondant on the whole thing then did layers of the colors and this is what i got.

So I have not done one of these in a long time , not scene Collage. I 'll try to put pictures up here as much as i can but no promises of keeping up on it this winter . the spring is a better time for me i have more time to do this short of thing. well till next time!