If you voted for the Canadian Blue Cheese, pat yourself on the back.
While it is stinky, it's not as stinky as durian. Hmmm, all I need is some good crusty bread.
With the holidays here, I'm often found experimenting. I love making food gifts. I have a whole collection of treats and nibbles that I like to make and package to give friends and loved ones. I try and push further than your typical cookies and 10 bean soup mixes. That means researching, making and tasting new finds to add to my collection. Sometimes you have to wait until the star ingredient is in season to test out a new recipe and so it was with Kumquats in Spiced Syrup over at Cooking Light.
Not everyone enjoys kumquats. I don't fall into that camp. I love the fragrant citrus sweetness of the skin and the sour pop of the flesh. It's like a sweet and sour popper in your mouth. It only gets better when you marinate the fruit in a spicy syrup of cinnamon, star anise, cloves and vanilla, topped off with a little brandy. It's a fairly easy recipe with the exception of one caveat...there is a monotonous annoyance factor. The recipe, as written, calls for 2 pounds or about 8 cups of kumquats. Each kumquat has to be pieced several times with a wooden skewer or toothpick. That's a lot of kumquat stabbing. Sounds like a job for...The Kids. (I'm quite sure had my mother known of this recipe when I was a kid, this job would have been all mine). Now the tricky part is if can you trust your kids to complete the massive task and not to stab themselves or their siblings (what?? poke my brother with a wooden skewer?? Never!). Once you get past any potential whining and poking, the rest is a breeze. You're on your own explaining to The Kids that after all their hard work they're still going to have to wait two weeks to taste the fruits of their labor. Just tell them all good things come to those who wait.
I decided to seek solace in cooking up a simple but special meal. Prime Rib Roast, Yorkshire Pudding and Kale with Cranberries.
While I couldn't be with family this Christmas, I am certainly there with them in spirit. I hope where ever you are this holiday season, you are safe, warm and happy. Thanks to all our readers and especially our regular commenters, you guys are the best.
Cook's Illustrated, my favorite culinary magazine still in business, has a fantastic and detailed article reviewing kitchen fire extinguishers. I already had a smaller fire extinguisher but decided add their recommended brand to my culinary arsenal.
So while you're busy checking your roast or turkey, while the pots and pans are merrily bubbling on the stove top, take just a minute to remind yourself where your kitchen fire extinguisher is, read over the instructions, and generally familiarize yourself with how it works. If you don't have a fire extinguisher then immediately get in the car, go to one of those big box hardware stores, pick out the Kidde Kitchen Fire Extinguisher and buy it. They're cheap, $20 which is cheaper than rebuilding your house because your flambé efforts went horribly wrong.
We wish you a full and Happy Holiday.
No matter who was your favorite chef going into those final moments, you had to feel for Kevin. Here was one of the nicest chefs ever to draw a knife from the Top Chef Knife Block. I don't recall him saying a harsh thing about any of his competitors, like calling their food overly complicated and bombastic. He had fun moments like kicking ass at the horseshoe pit out at the cowboy cookoff. Most of all he stayed true to his upbringing and roots. There was never a doubt how much Kevin loves Southern Cuisine and his passion to leave his imprint on the food he loves so much. Too bad the head judge seems to think that Southern Cuisine is limited to just biscuits and gravy.
Do you wonder what other misconceptions Tom has about Southern Cuisine?
Maytag Blue Cheese Souffles with Black Grape Reduction
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Butter six 1/4-cup ramekins (2 1/2 by 1 1/4 inches) and coat with walnuts, knocking out excess walnuts.
In another 1 1/2-quart saucepan heat milk and butter over moderate heat until butter is melted and bring to a boil. Add flour all at once and whisk vigorously until mixture returns to a boil. Transfer mixture to a bowl and whisk until it no longer emits steam. Whisk in yolk (mixture will be very stiff). Break half of Maytag Blue into small pieces and with a rubber spatula stir into flour mixture.
In a bowl with an electric mixer beat whites until they just hold stiff peaks and whisk half of whites into cheese mixture to lighten. Add remaining whites and whisk gently until incorporated (mixture will be dense).
Divide batter among ramekins and arrange in a roasting pan. Add enough hot water to roasting pan to reach halfway up sides of ramekins and bake soufflés in middle of oven until puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes.
Break remaining half Maytag Blue into chunks. Invert soufflés, 1 at a time, onto a large plate and turn right side up. Spoon sauce around soufflés and arrange grapes and remaining cheese on plates.
Second Course or the clichéd Mystery Box dish (Don't we watch Top Chef to see something new, not something they've done forever everywhere else?) goes to Michael with his Dashi Glazed Rockfish. Have to take this one on taste faith that it was better. At least to Tom, not necessarily to Gail. Score is one point to Kevin and one point to Michael.
Third Course was the Make whatever you want Course. Here's where it gets tricky. Bryan made venison that seemed to get raves, Kevin made pork belly that while his sauce is praised his cut of meat is considered undercooked. Michael gave us squab with mushrooms but both Gail and Donatello did not enjoy the mushroom concoction. What does Tom think? "The faux mushrooms were playful, a bit silly. They didn’t need to be there – why bother, when everything was so fine? That said, though, they didn’t hurt the dish a jot – it was absolutely delicious." O....K. So a dish that is delicious but has a silly extraneous component is a hallmark of a Top Chef? Score - Michael 2, Kevin 1, Bryan is screwed.
Fourth Course - Mandatory Dessert. While the previous judging may have been tricky, the dessert course show Tom's true colors. He claims Bryan won the round, making the score Michael 2, Kevin and Bryan 1 but what he conveniently glosses over is Michael's failure. "Michael’s dessert was really very delicious, even though he overcooked the ganache a bit. He knew he had done so, and that was unfortunate, but it didn’t overly harm the dessert, because the cake was still tasty and the other elements of the dessert worked really well. There were lots of little techniques in there that were used to great effect, and, overall, the dessert still worked." That's all well and good but Michael still failed to watch his sous chef over fill the molds and he didn't set a timer and ended up overcooking the dessert. Wow, seems a bit....(oh what's the word Tom used just last week), scattered to me. So scattered that I bet Jen was shaking her head that her well received, delicious duck dish was eliminated because she cooked it correctly but differently than what she told Tom. Understand that again, Michael made a dish, a dish he admitted he had made often at his restaurant, a dish he committed to memory but failed to EXECUTE! Tom says it was tasty but four people at that table remarked on the dryness. Now if I were judging, I don't think I'd want a Top Chef who failed to execute one of the dishes. As a matter of fact, I'd deduct a point for the failure. Hasn't that been the mantra this season and every season? One mistake and you're gone? Tell that to Tre back in Season 3. But I'm not Tom, who spent all night telling us, yet again, what he would do. Pork belly with roast pork, dessert bananas two ways, it really gets old. Last time I checked, Tom's not competing. I thought he was supposed to be judging the food in front of him. If he really wants to put his money where his big mouth is, I'm sure the producers of Top Chef Masters would welcome Tom as a competitor with open arms. I seriously doubt that will happen because handing over control of your culinary fate to judges not of your own making is not something Mr. Colicchio seems prepared for. Until then, we'll just have to suffer along with Tom Chef.
Congratulations...I guess. For the quality of chefs up until this point, for the Finale episode, I expected a whole lot of fantastic, not the overwhelming urge to flip the channel to a mediocre Sandra Bullock movie. As for the food? Wow, totally underwhelmed. Yeah, I know, I can't taste the dishes. But I also don't see myself ordering many of them as they were presented on a menu of a restaurant I'd never dined at before, that's how uninspired I was by what I saw on my TV screen. I'm sure Tom's blog rantings will explain his intricate thought processes tomorrow but tonight all I can think is that was the most boring Top Chef Finale I've ever seen.
Cooking on the Napa Valley Express? That's it?
Turns out that due to Kevin's potential bouts of motion sickness and Padma's baby bump... 
...the train could be re-christened as the Stress Hurler Express.
30 minutes to make a dish showcasing Napa Valley grapes. To win a car. There is absolutely no tension or excitement in this Quickfire. NONE. No one threw up, no one accidentally stabbed someone else with their knife. Hell, Padma didn't even demand something like chocolate and mustard to satisfy her pregnancy cravings. So who won?
Michael Voltaggio's Grape Leaf Stuffed with Couscous Vinegar Glazed Grape and Scallop Kabob. This looks like a nice dish however I thought it was a little gimmicky but when you're cooking for Michael Chiarello in his backyard of the Napa Valley, using a grape leaf to wrap couscous and a grape vine to skewer grapes and scallops is a very smart way to win a car. Why?
Chef Chiarello himself whipped out cuttings from his own Napa grape vines for his finale dishes on Top Chef Masters. Now had Tom been judging the dish?
Might have been a different chef driving away that car especially judging from the results of Tom's Diet Coke commercial and his hatred of inedible parts of dishes.
So you remember my Heritage Turkey that I brought in for my co-workers on Black Friday? That tasty, juicy bird? One of my co-workers so enjoyed that meal that as thanks he brought me a dozen farm fresh eggs from his parent's chickens. As you can see above, the brown egg dwarfs the supposedly large grocery store egg. I knew I had to do something fun with these luscious gifts. I decided to make Pasta Carbonara and not just any carbonara, a Peppery Pasta Carbonara with Poached Egg. I would even make the pasta from scratch. All with the help from my new leetle friend....
...the Kitchen Aid Mixer Pasta Attachment.
The Top Chef producers have been very generous to our kick ass Season 6 chefs. To the tune of $110,000 cash (if you count a $10,000 Macy's gift card). Not to mention a Toyota Prius just for winning the last Quickfire.
But what's really interesting is who won the money. There were 7 episodes with High Stakes prizes. Only one chef not in the group of top four chefs won $15,000. Jennifer, Michael V. and Kevin won a combined $95,000 in cash. That's not counting non-cash prizes (like knives, cookware and appliances all of which I think either Kevin and Michael won). Even more fascinating is the fact that one chef won 4 Elimination Challenges, no Quickfires and no cash and only one prize and that lonely reward was to stage with Joël Robuchon in Vegas. That excellent chef is Bryan Voltaggio.
Just something to keep in mind as we watch next week's Finale.
From the moment he started describing her as scattered I knew she was gone.
Again, someone...anyone will have to explain to me how the Tom Colicchio judging system works, because kids, it's a mystery to me. How a duck dish that seemly glowed with judging praise suddenly went to being scattered. How from the moment she told him that fire coals story and how she used good judgment to save the dish instead of grilling it and ended up with under cooked duck, suddenly made the dish worse than what it actually tasted? Tell me how that's worse than attempting to make a tricky egg dish, under cooking the egg (raw eggs being so appealing to the general populace) and having the undercooked egg overwhelm the rest of the components of the dish? What's that you say?
Oh yes, you're absolutely right, I did forget. Stunt Casting. Congratulations Tom, you've totally earned your latest title and the reputation that goes with it.
