How to prepare Lobster (and ruin your Karma for life).

The general standard of throwing helpless lobsters (sea bugs) into a vat of boiling water is completely wrong. You must poach the helpless lobsters in a courtbouillion with the heat turned off, then sous-vide their meat in homemade butter! -Delicious!

Here is how I prefer to cook lobster;

LOBSTER

1) Make a courtbouillion with lemons and season it salty like the sea. Make enough to both thoroughly cover the lobsters, and enough to set aside to make an ice bath with. Bring to a rolling boil for 10 minutes.

2) Final Hour for the lobsters. Remove the rubber bands from their claws, be aware of any retribution at this point, they are opportunistic creatures who will pinch your fingers as a last act of defiance. It has the potential to be funny if it didn't hurt so much...

3) Turn off the heat. With some of the courtbouillion, make an ice bath, set aside. Without thinking about the lobster's family, throw them into the pot. ...tell yourself you are using the entire carcass, nothing is going to waste, you are a good soul...etc...

4) Poach for 5 minutes, lift the lobsters from the pot, remove the claws and arms, place them in the ice bath. Throw the body back into the pot for 3 more minutes to cook the tail, remove and put into the ice bath right away.

5) Leave the lobster in the ice bath for no more then 3 minutes. Remove the lobsters. Using an area which is cool to get messy, remove the meat from the shells (I save the upper body for garnish) and place the meat on towels to dry. The shells are saved to make amazing stocks with.

6) From here, you can finish off in butter on a pan, but what I do is take home-made grapefruit butter, maldon salt, and a sprig of tarragon and sous-vide the lobster. I bring it to temp. and in Epic we serve it with a choron sauce.

-Enjoy,

(and forget the fact you had named your lobster before cooking...)

-Jerek

Vacuum Infusions (Do not use a Dustbuster for this)

Cold Smoked Sea Bass, Gin/Tarragon Cherry Tomato,

Frisee, Pink Peppercorn Salad

The Process (with Pineapple and Dark Rum)
The Mise: Pineapple, 2:1 Ratio of Dark Rum to Simple Syrup (ICE COLD!), Pinch of Salt


Put everything in a container and make sure the Pineapple is fully covered with the rum/syrup mixture. Put said container in vacuum sealer (ask your chef nicely for one if you do not yet have it at your disposal.)
Set vacuum setting to max, turn off the gas and wielding settings.


Run the process. In 30 seconds, the Rum mixture and Pineapples will start to go bananas crazy because the pores of the Pineapple are opening and the air is being sucked out, while the Rum is being sucked in. Let it run it's full cycle (about 2 minutes).

When the cycle is over, close the lid and start the process again, THIS TIME, bring the vacuum pressure up all the way (about 30 seconds into it) and put the process setting on hold so that the Pineapples may rest in a vacuum state for 10 minutes.

This is Pineapple Rum Spears resting in a vacuum state. Note the random carbonated looking bubbles. This is infusion doing it's thing.

After 10 minutes of vacuum, release the pressure, remove the Pineapple from the fluid (reserve the fluid for all sorts of reasons), pat dry and serve as a drink garnish.


I love learning anything and everything new in cooking,

and new techniques are at the top of the list.

The Executive Chef approached me and asked me to fire off this seemingly simple Pineapple garnish recipe (originally from a couple of instructors at the French Culinary Institute in New York) because the procedure looked new and pretty cool.

Indeed, it is cool. There are other ways of infusion, but this stood out because of it's effectiveness in a short time span. 10 minutes fully infused the Pineapple.

I wanted to play around with the concept a little further, so for my 'bouche the following day I devised a Salty/Citrus Brine for Sea Bass, and a Gin/Tarragon Simple Syrup for some skinless Cherry Tomatoes and used the technique on both to see what would happen.

For the Salty/Citrus brine, generally, I was impressed. I made a basic brine and used the vacuum technique to infuse it into the Sea Bass before patting dry and cold smoking it. The outcome was good but mixed. While the salt was present, there was no indication of Citrus. This is likely my fault as I used Lemon Juice and discarded the zest - thus not allowing enough Citrus flavour to begin with.

The Cherry Tomatoes worked out well. There was definitely an intense infusion, however, next time I would change the Gin/Simple Syrup ratio to ease up on the sweetness.

All in all, this is a beneficial tactic towards quickly infusing liquid into highly permeable products. Something I have wanted to try but haven't gotten to it is weather or not compressing the product after vacuuming will significantly intensify the flavours.

Loving the possibilities...

-Jerek

The Stop Community Food Centre

Cooks from "Canoe" restaurant prepping for the fundraiser in Stop's Community Kitchen.

At Wychwood Farms, Stop not only educates and promotes healthy cooking but also grows a great variety of plants in their large green house to educate on the source of products. Here, I was shown Pink Oyster Mushrooms. ...if you are into mushrooms, this is frigging cool.

A view of the Green House.

When I first met Chef Chris Brown (for someone of his pedigree, I found him to be amazingly positive and down to earth - very passionate about his work), the first thing he offered me was a tour of the place and made a bee-line towards this plant: a Crocus Flower. Being a cook, he knew I would have much appreciation for this flower. This is where Saffron comes from... and then I turned geeky within 2 minutes of meeting the guy and whipped out my camera to take this shot...

Meyer Lemon Tree.

Honey-Bee doing his (or her?) thing.

The Stop Community Food Centre is a wonderful entity in Toronto. Their idea to tackle hunger head-on is met through many different avenues, but with an emphasis on education.

From school day trips, after-school programs, green-house programs, cooking courses that emphasize an approach on real ingredients, hunger is dealt with in a way to teach people how to deal with it within their community and on their own.

It's encouraged as a place for community members to organize and build mutual support networks and as their mission statement reads "find their voices on the underlying causes of hunger and poverty."


I had the opportunity this past week to be part of an event held there and was blown away by what I saw. Chef Chris Brown runs the kitchen and it was immediately evident why he would be so happy being there. It's a great feeling being able to share your passion in a professional kitchen by serving high-end diners day-in, day-out, but it's an altogether other higher gratification to teach and educate people who will use this knowledge for the rest of their lives. I cannot imagine a position more respectable in my profession when it's your mission to eradicate hunger.



-Jerek

Callebaut Chocolate Demo Nov.3rd

I made this.

OK.

I didn't.

Plantation specific Chocolate. Probably the coolest thing I tried. Much like wine, the "Terroir" plays a big role in the nuances of the flavours. My favorite was the Peruvian, which had a ripe banana undertone.

The demo took place at Humber College. It was hosted by Master Chocolatiers, Julian Rose (Chicago), and Derrick Tu Tan Pho (Montreal).

Our first selection (Left to Right Clockwise) "Callebaut Crispearls", "Assam Tea Ganache Dome", "Tanzania with Orange Praline", and "Port Wine Ganache, Cocoa Pod".

Our second selection (From Left) "Exotic Chocolate", "Bubble Chocolate Log", and "Cafe Praline".

Sampling of different garnishes. The one I enjoyed the most was the spaghetti garnish (front, right in the pic) which is done by mixing 250gr. salt into 1lt. water, chilling to just before freezing and pouring chocolate into the solution. It will take on a little salinity which is ideal for a dessert with nuts.

Truffles... and the chef is looking the other way...

A Thermomixer. This is relatively new, and I am sure it will be standard in most professional kitchens soon. Here, the Chef demonstrated how to make a White Chocolate Mousse in 3 MINUTES. ...weird.

An A La Carte presentation of "Exotic Chocolate".

A Cake with a "Skeletal Garnish" on top.

There, 3 hours of intense lecturing and demos has told me that chocolate is not only addictive and a meaning of life (which, honestly, I knew before going in), but also, an entire profession of it's own.

-Jerek