Cooking with wine!!

Hey Guys-

The question today has to do with cooking with wine-- Kelly B. asked me "How do you know which wine is best for cooking different recipes?".

This is a great question. An excellent cooking wine is 'Carlo Rossi'. This wine is inexpensive and it is usually sold in large quantity size bottles. As far as making a court bouillon or braising beef in a red wine, any red or white cooking wine will do. As far as making a reduction sauce or using a sparkling white wine in a fruit salad or things of that nature, you may want to get specific varieties of wine. The reason for wanting to specify the variety of wine is depending on what the dish is used with. You may want to accent specific notes in each dish. Sometimes you may want to pull out the smoky notes of a white wine when prepared with a fish, or you may want to produce a nice pinot for the spicy attributes it would add to a rack of lamb. Or you may want to reduce a sweet port with some berries to be topped with vanilla ice cream. Anytime your using the wine in a dish for it to be a specific component of a dish it IS important to decide on specific wines to use. On the other hand, anytime your using wine to de-glaze a pot, braise a lot of meat or create a poaching liquid etc. your normal inexpensive cooking wine will do.

So now let me tell you about my cool encounters with food yesterday!! :)----

When I walked into the kitchen to prepare for service on both pasta and fish station, I see a hotel pan of veal sweet breads soaking in water. My immediate reaction was to run to my Chef and ask him what we get to do with the sweet breads. Sweet breads are a delicacy that began in the 16th century. There are 3 different kinds of sweet breads which come from mammals; There are sweet breads of the thymus glands, the pancreas, and the heart. The most commonly ate now days is the thymus gland. In all honestly, it is a really good version of something that tastes like CHICKEN. It's name originates from 'sweet'; meaning how light and airy the texture is as opposed to how dense and rich the savory part of muscle is that we normally eat. And 'breads'; came from the word 'braed' in old english meaning flesh. I should have taken pictures of this, I will try to today. But when looking at eat, one would think I was a brain. The graphic truth aside, if I fried some of this up and didn't tell you what it was--you would think this was the best chicken nuggets you've ever had. The sweet breads are going to used in what Chef called a "surf and turf". The bottom of the dish will have a muscle puree with white wine steamed muscles on top and golden fried nuggets of sweet bread. Around it with bright colors and bold acidity a medley of veggies that started being pickled last night. I can't wait to try the finished dish today and I will keep you posted and try and get you a picture of the dish.

Please don't forget to send your questions to chefbazblog@gmail.com

Thanks and I'll talk to you soon-

Chef Baz

Happy New Year!---and happy steaks!

Hey everybody--

Sorry for the long break! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and ate great food! If you didn't I ate enough for you :)

I had a few questions while I was away. One was 'what is the best way to grill a steak?'.

My answer to that is pretty simple. Grilling is a very straight forward method of cooking. It is a dry heat cooking method with contact heat to the surface of what you are grilling. In all honesty the best way to have a good grilled steak relies mostly on the cut of meat and quality of beef you are buying. I recommend to try and find 100% angus beef. This is hard to find because in USDA standards the cow only has to be 50% or more of the angus breed. If it is 100%, it will be marked as such. Also, there is the dry aging process that adds more flavor than you can imagine, and a lot of butchers now have that option. Dry aging is storing your meat in a dry place where most of the moisture is pulled. It is left in this dry place up to 20-30 days and it holds so much of the beef flavor. To answer this question, its all in the quality of what you're grilling. You don't need awesome marinades and soaking your meats in different things if your cooking the best product. Simply generously season both side of the steak with salt and pepper and grill it evenly on both sides to your desired temperature. I know your first thought is probably this better quality meat will be more expensive. 9 times out of 10, that is correct, but if you consider not having to spend extra money on any ingredients to marinate or any pre-made marinades its worth the experience. After you try this, you will more than likely what to throw your steak sauce from the fridge away and do this anytime you grill steaks. My philosophy on cooking is to of course push the limits with the ingredients of what we cook with but balance that out by broadcasting the natural flavors of the food we use. Simplicity is not a bad thing...to perfect the flavors of simple food is key to building a complex palate.

Thanks William for your question!

On another note I would like to share with you guys something I did at work tonight.-- This is one of my top 5 favorite things! I made duck confit. Its an amazing preparation from classic french cooking where you take the duck meat and cure it in salt over night. When taking your meat out of the cure you season it and cover it in it's own fat (rendered duck fat). You cook it low and slow for about 3-3 1/2 hours. Then after letting it cool, you cover it in it's own fat again and store it that way in the fridge for another night. Tomorrow I will go and literally pull the tender duck meat off the bone and come up with something very tasty with this amazing treat! :) If you ever see duck confit as a menu option or any part of a dish on a menu it's in your best interest to try it!!

Don't forget if you have any questions for me you may send them to chefbazblog@gmail.com

Thanks and talk to you soon-

Chef Baz