haldean eats.

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[haldean]

Gravlax

Cured some salmon with herbes du provence for a couple of days; made for an awesome breakfast!

[haldean]

Short rib, asparagus

Short rib was a 48-hour sous vide followed by a sear on the grill. The sauce was an asparagus, lemon and brown butter emulsion, and the asparagus was sous-vided in the oil created during the emulsion.

Damn this was good.

[haldean]

Cara-Cara and Grapefruit Marmelade

Did my first-ever real canning today! It’s two cara-cara oranges, two grapefruits, the juice of four oranges and a Meyer lemon, boiled forever with tons of sugar and then canned. I’ll see how it set up when it’s cool tomorrow.

[haldean]

Back Page Boil: Volume 1

The first installment of Adam’s and my crawfish boil series was yesterday, and it was a great success! Stay tuned for announcements of more crawfish events this summer.

[haldean]

Steak and Eggs

After a long hiatus, I’m back to posting! I have a bit of a backlog but I’m posting this one first because I’m really happy with how it turned out (the food, not the photo -- the photo could be a lot better).

Short rib with pressure-cooked onion compote and scrambled egg foam, garnished with daikon sproouts. The short rib was cooked sous vide for 48 hours and can be cut with a fork; the onion compote was just butter and onions in a pressure cooker for half an hour. The egg foam was more complicated; the eggs were blended, then sous vided, then blended, then charged with nitrogen oxide in a cream charger. Served with garlic-rubbed toast.

[haldean]

Chicken, mushroom and asparagus quinoa risotto

Chicken thighs were poached in sake, mirin, soy and dashi, and the quinoa risotto was made by cooking quinoa regularly, then adding Parmesan, butter and heavy cream until the consistency was correct.

This is probably going to be served at Haldean Eats Vol. 3, coming up soonish! Volume 3 is going to be Peruvian themed; get excited.

[haldean]

Mushroom and arugula pizza

Thanks to wictorwictor and captaincabinets for the dough recipe!

[haldean]

Potato, Leek, Wild Rice and Fennel Soup

Bloom wild rice in the oven by placing two parts boiling stock to one part rice in a 500 degree oven and immediately turn the oven off. Let that sit for at least 6 hours. Boil potatoes. Sautee onions, ginger and leeks in brown butter, and when they're done, throw them in with the potatoes and the potato water along with the fennel and some rosemary. Let that boil a while; when it's done, add wild rice and serve with sourdough and butter.

[haldean]

Kimchi pork tacos

Let two pork loin cutlets marinate in a mixture of 1 part soy sauce to 1 part liquid from a jar of kimchi. Grill it and slice it and throw it on some corn tortillas with sauteed onions, garlic, ginger, more kimchi, green onions, jalapenos and mayonnaise. Eat all four and hate yourself.

[haldean]

Egg-in-a-basket with pesto

[haldean]

Spaghetti Alfredo with Brussels sprouts and figs

Make an Alfredo sauce, stew some figs in it, take dried figs and saute them with garlic, then throw in Brussels sprouts and pine nuts and put it on pasta. Super easy.

[haldean]

The Burger

An attempt at the perfect burger. Two thin, griddled patties made of 60% ground sirloin and 40% ground pork belly with melted sheep's milk cheese between them, fresh tomato, romaine lettuce, brown-butter sauteed onions, mustard and mayo. I cheated and bought buns.

They were good, but note to future self: use fattier pork belly, and maybe throw in some pork back fat. They lacked the sausage-patty crust that I was going for.

[haldean]

Braised lamb shoulder with a mushroom tomato sauce and roasted turnip puree, served over orzo.

[haldean]

Chicken liver puree on toast, then seared duck with citrus pepper sauce and fries

To make the puree, I cooked livers in butter, salt and pepper sous-vide for 45 minutes to 170, sauteed shallots in the pan juices (bag juices?), combined with a little bit too much yogurt and sour cream and blended.

The fries were new potatoes, deep fried at 110 degrees C and they came out crispy and great; I'd like to try double-frying, Belgian style, but these were pretty good just like this.

The duck was seared then pan-roasted and served with blackened shallots and a sauce made from fresh orange and grapefruit juice, orange peel, rosemary and szechuan pepper corns. The rosemary sprigs were thrown into the pan right before throwing the whole thing into the oven.

[haldean]

I'm back! And I made a bastardized kara age don!

The chicken was marinated in buttermilk and soy, then covered in both crushed and powdered instant ramen and deep-fried. It was served on rice with pickled carrots, cucumber and daikon (thanks Hang!) as well as fresh-grated daikon, roasted purple radish and "chicken chicharrones" (deep-fried chicken skin). The sauce was maybe my favorite part; it's a really rich mushroom, bonito, chestnut and miso stock that I let reduce all afternoon, and it's rich and earthy and a bit fishy. Served with a bit of Kewpie and my friend Jacob's Saison; it was a fantastic meal.

[haldean]

Grilled salmon and asparagus with wild rice!

[haldean]

Sea scallops with stewed mushrooms, braised spinach and pesto gnocchi.

Had meat, cheese and crackers to start, and the gnocchi was served with bread and homemade roasted garlic butter.