Moving

Asides from rarely writing, I feel that my blog has not been quite on the subject that I had in mind when I created it. Thus, the move to a new address. The title is just a nod to one of the greatest chefs of our time, and something that expresses what I feel about the cooking going on in a lot of places in this country.

So there we are, new address, same old stuff.

I will keep all of the contents here, but it's also been moved to the new place: http://sansturbot.blogspot.com/

Helping

A week ago, Chef Mauricio Martínez suffered an accident that left in in a grave state. Unfortunately, Mauricio has no assurance or social security benefits, so all the medical expenses have to be covered by his friends and family. The cost of his medical attention has been significant since we're dealing with neurosurgery.

Antonio Márquez of LMA FoodConcepts and Edna Alanis of CEC Roccatti have been working to set up a help network and raise the funds needed to help the Martínez family.

The bank account where people may send help is:
SCOTIABANK
Luis Arturo Martinez Carreon
00 105 922 437
Clabe 044 18000 105 922 4372

Another way to help is attending to the benefit dinner hosted by Adrián Herrera at the Fonda San Francisco. It will take place tuesday, march the 2nd. Reservations can be made through Ada Guillén at (81)8336 6706.

St. Valentine's dessert

De Blogger Pictures

Simple: Warm Brownie, Balsamic Strawberries, Port Reduction, Rose Ganache, Spice Tuile, Chocolate Ice Cream.

February 4

An international company from a town up in the border contacted me about catering a very important dinner. They wanted a Mexican inspired dinner and I thought it would be adequate to showcase some good Mexican wines too. Sommelier Humberto Falcón, provided the pairings. Here's the Menu.

Cucumber and Jicama Salad, Aguachile Shrimp.
Mariatinto Blanco 2008.

Green Pozole, Duck Confit.
Maat 2007

Zucchini Blossom Risotto, Pepitas and Cotija Crisp
Kojáa 2007

Entrée options:
Rack of Lamb, Cinnamon Mole, "Esquite" purée

Duck breast in Adobo, Glazed Camote, Guajillo and Agave Sauce

Red Snapper in Achiote, Grilled Peppers, Orange and Mezcal Sauce.

The wine for these was La Borde Vieille DCR 2007. A great wine made by Hugo D'Acosta in the Languedoc Rousillon Region.

Making the dinner was a lot of work and dealing with unexpected issues. In the end, I was happy with the results, but more importantly the customers were happy too.

Highlighting 2009

This last year was, to say the least, a very busy one. I had left teaching to take on the opening of Buké, later on I re-took it. We ate a bunch of things both in Monterrey as well as on our trips. So here's a list of the best things of 09. This list is bound to grow as I keep thinking of more cool things that happened on the year.

Best Restaurant Meals

If we were to keep tabs on the cost of the dinners, then the Highlight would definitely be either Thierry Blouet or Las Ventanas. However, as good as those were, I don't think they were the best of the year. Of course they had their highlights.

At Thierry Blouet's I had one hell of an Escolar, one of the best fish dishes I've ever had. The cheese plate, although tiny, was really creative (and It was kindly given to us as a comp). The dish at Las Ventanas that stuck the most wasn't definitely the best of the night, and while it was good, it was definitely not mind-blowing. Again, for full disclosure, I must say that we got complimentary glasses of Danzantes mezcal, apparently to make it up for not having the cheese dish I had ordered.

Probably the best meal this year was at Frida!. Chef Antonio DeLivier's flagship restaurant at the Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach. It's really sad that it doesn't have a website, but that was the one dinner where all but one courses were incredibly delicious. I didn't love the dessert. A really close second, or even maybe tie, were the meals I had at Pangea. Those three were also great, but I think that the extremely refined service at Frida! made for a superior experience.

Other remarkable meals of 2009:
Nick San Cabo San Lucas
Kitchoan
Aquiles Chavez cooks at La Catarina
Street and Typical Food in Michoacán, La Paz and San Luis

Dishes I enjoyed making this year:
One of my pet peeves is gloating over the food that I make. Thus, this section is not about the dishes that I think were the best, but instead, the ones I had more fun making:

Beef Tartare with Pimentón, Chocolate Sauce
Danablu, Onion Agrodolce over Tesinois
Plancha U8 Shrimp, Oyster Mushroom, Potato, Rouille
Red Snapper, White Beans, Spicy Tomato Stew
Pecan Pain Perdu, Pluots, Blue Cheese Ice Cream
Salt Roasted Red Beets with Chocolate Vinaigrette
Instant Chocolate Cake with Ancho Confit, Blueberry Compote
Sweet Bean "Buñuelo", Chipotle-Piloncillo Sauce, Vanilla Ice Cream
Brown Butter Cake, Spice poached apples, Danablu foam, Vanilla Ice Cream
White Pepper Ice Cream with Strawberry Chutney


Other cool things that happened this year:
The Book
The huge flop at the Cocinero del Año Semifinal (I'll try again this year)
The still unpublished webisode thingy for the guys at ElGusto.tv
Tasted lots of really good wines.

Let's just hope this year is as cool or better!

Xmas Dessert

For more than a year now, I had been obsessing about Dulce de Frijol. While I have tasted azuki paste and my parents told me about sweets made from beans or garbanzo, it wasn't until last year's Culinary Symposium that it stuck. I didn't get a chance to do much with the lingering idea for a good long while. I even wento to the Second Culinary Symposium...

Luckily for me, the same presenter was on this year, and he showed the same clip. This year, I recorded the clip and later I took note of the recipe. So now I had the information needed to tackle my obsession. What I didn't have was a purpose other than pure curiosity. Then I read this. Author Haalo talks about interchangeable ingredients. So instead of azuki, our pinto bean paste went in. Some people relate wontons with tortillas (and why not), but the look of fried wontons reminds me a lot of Buñuelos, a typical dessert for the holiday season.

Buñuelos are usually served with a syrup made with piloncillo and accompanied by some hot drink such as atole, champurrado or hot chocolate. We simply decided to add some heat to the syrup by putting a bit of chipotle in there.

Other elements in the dish are chipotle crumble and vanilla Ice Cream. This dessert made with playing with regional flavors will be available for Holiday Dinners this season.

Published

I really can't complain. This has been a very eventful year. Of course that the events leading up to this actually started since last year when I had the chance to join the team at Buké. Things have been crazy since then, we've cruised (or dragged ourselves) through some very bad times like the whole H1N1 flu craze, a couple of holidays and overall a slow economy. While we're not at all where we'd like to be, I'd like to think we're well on our way.

Personally, this job has landed me a few interesting opportunities, such as participating in the "Cocinero del Año" semifinal, taped an episode for a web-based show (which hasn't aired because suppposedly it's going to go on TV) and had a couple of press mentions.

One of the best things that have happened this year was being invited to be a part of the "Cocina de Autor" cookbook. The project was born as a charitable project for the Mano Amiga Foundation, who give out scholarships for elementary education. Mano Amiga managed to gather some of the biggest names in the Culinary Industy in Mexico like Thierry Blouet, Enrique Olvera, Paulina Abascal and Guillermo Gonzalez and other very important chefs from Monterrey like Antonio Marquez, Adrián Herrera, Mima Gonzalez, Alberto Sentíes and others. I am really blessed to have my name on the cover among theirs and as it's the day for it, Thanks are in order to all of those who have allowed me to have such luck.

I guess I'm a published author now too... cool!

OMG GMO! or requiem for corn.

Just this last week, Mexican Government approved 15 out of 35 permits that will enable GMO corn planting. The beneficiaries of such permits are Monsanto and Dow AgroScience. This news has been received in a couple different ways. On one hand Greenpeace has strongly objected to this, arguing that SAGARPA (Secretary of Agriculture) is ignoring international agreements and advice from experts in the field. On the other hand, mainstream press personalities have expressed their approval of the motion. Their argument: that this will improve the yield of our fields, enabling a sort of "Argicultural Revolution".

I for one, find the move appalling. I believe that the press is missing on some big issues such as quality of the produced food, and where the revenue from that nasty corn is going. It's definitely not going into the poor journeyman's pocket. And that is where all the problem spawns. For a good deal of our history, we have had a history of exploiting the people tending to our fields. And it has been the greed of the people buying dirt cheap products from them that has led to the ruined state our fields are in. Take Vanilla, for example. Veracruz is the home of Vanilla, and for decades, Papantla vanilla was regarded as the best available. Seeing that their product was in demand, sellers (not the growers) entice extract producers to start messing with the product. Buyers notice and demand for our vanilla spirals down, resulting in being perhaps third-string option. Gladly, as with Coffee, responsible growing and movements like Fair Trade have started their rescue of Vanilla.

With corn, however, the outlook is definitely stark. I had the chance of meeting Diana Kennedy, recently. She asks: how can a country as rich as ours embrace a crap product like Maseca? We've just embraced worse. Lots of mexicans don't know what nixtamal tastes like. Now, I am reminded of David Patterson when I feel we're en route to forget corn.

The only word I can think of to describe what's going on right now is shameful. Eight years ago, when I was in France, you could see the strength of the anti-GMO shift. Producers were proudly boasting: Non-GMO in their labels. We seem to be bidding them welcome.

Need more? How about watching Michael Ruhlman and Dan Barber at Chautauqua. Mr. Ruhlman goes, as Mr. Patterson earlier, into detail about why the corn produced by the mass industries is wrong, even explaining how it affects the rest of the food chain. Chances are, you already read Michael Ruhlman's Blog but as I said earlier: if you don't, start doing so.

Finally, a big Thank You to Donna Turner Ruhlman for kindly letting me use her "Ear of Corn" picture. See more of her amazing work at Ruhlmanphotography.com.

Pics from the job

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Taking pictures onsite is challenging, to say the least. Lighgting in kitchens isn't quite adequate for good photography. However, I have been trying to get some better pictures into this blog.

Here's a sampling of some pictures taken of both dishes from our menu and others created for our wine tasting events.

Cocinero del Año Menu

Last september I participated in the local semifinal of the Cocinero del Año contest. It was my first contest and I learned a lot about what needs to be improved for following attempts (meaning I didn't do that good).

Here's the menu I prepared:

Appetizer 1:

Smoked Salmon and Xiqueño Mole Tostada

Appetizer 2:

Escabeche Carrot Cappucchino and Pig Trotter Croquette

First Course:

Salt-Cured Nopal and Confit Tomato Salad.

Main:

Red Snapper with Beet Mole, Cacahuazintle Corn Raviolo, Oyster Mushrooms and Cilantro Pesto

Dessert:

Chocolate and Corn Millefeuille, Garapiñado Ice Cream, Coffee Sauce.

Maybe next year!

2nd CANIRAC Culinary Symposium

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Last year the State's Restaurant Chamber (CANIRAC) organized a culinary symposium focused on the "rescue and preservation of Northeastern Mexico's cuisine". Many of us were surprised to see that the seemingly simple cuisine of the northeast isn't shabby at all. True that we don't have the culinary complexity or popularity of the central and southern regions. But it's still worth taking a look into.

Last Wednesday, CANIRAC hosted their second edition of the symposium, and again, there was a fair share of great information to chew on.

The event kicked off with the early day being mostly about conferences, starting with Dr. Glafiro Alanís, from the State University's Faculty of Biology. His conference was a presentation of the edible plants available in Nuevo León, some of which were unknown to many of the assistants.

Eduardo Alvarado, host of the show "Reportajes de Alvarado" presented a recap of some of the show's moments highlighting the people of the state and their traditional foods. Asado de Puerco, Sweet Bean Paste, Beef Cortadillo and many other regional specialties were highlighted in them. After his presentation, CANIRAC presented Mr. Alvarado with a special recognition for the show's labor in the rescue and preservation of local culinary traditions.

Nina Mayagoitia, from Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma came up next and after a brief talk, gave way to Sommelier Humberto Falcón. Humberto talked about the company's premium brand: Bohemia, the characteristics of the different varieties, proper service for each and even pairing tips.

After a Short break, consultant Miguel Espejel took the stage and briefly gave us some pointers on Restaurant Marketing.

For the second part of the Symposium, we moved to the Museum of the Northeast's terrace for the cooking demos. Unfortunately, it was a bit hot last week so both Speaker Chefs and attendees were in a bit of an uncomfortable situation. The good part of this was that the demos were both entertaining and illustrating and more than made up for the weather.

First up, Saltillo's Juan Ramón Cárdenas shared one of his passions: Pecans. Being native of the region, pecans make up a pretty important part of our cuisine, particularly in the sweet side of it. Chef Cárdenas told us about how the Tlaxcaltecan women, finding themselves lacking avocado leaves to cook with, took upon the pecan tree for substitutes and proceeded to make a Pecan Tree leaf green mole. It was served over some pork rib carnitas... delicious! He also shared a quick way to make "Queso de Nuez", a local candy similar to Marzipan.

Chef Abdiel Cervantes was up next. Chef Cervantes has dedicated himself to promoting Mexico's culinary heritage both locally and internationally. He spoke to the many culinary students in the audience about the importance of discovering and mastering the local tradition. He also prepared a Prickly Pear Ceviche and a "Cactus Flan" flavored with saffron and served with a poblano sauce.

Last but definitely not least, Chefs Alberto Sentíes and Adrián Herrera took the stage and prepared a three course menu using flowers as ingredients. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day, as their contrasting culinary styles meshed together in some quite interesting dishes.

I was forgetting, there was one last, surprise demo held by Chef Rodolfo Onofre on fruit carving, unfortunately it was getting late and I had to go back to the restaurant to our regular Wednesday wine tasting.

Congratulations to CANIRAC and all the speakers for this second Symposium, our region definitely needs more efforts like this one.

Introducing: TGRBT #1

After recently hosting a round of TGRWT, blogger Aidan Brooks comes up with a really interesting idea: They really go badly together, inspired by a recent Masterchef episode...

Worth a read if not a shot!

TGRWT 19 Tomato and Black Tea announcement

While we're still expecting the news from Trig, the announcement for the next round of TGRWT is already out!

Pablo, from Medellitin is our host this time and his choice of ingredients are: Tomato and Black Tea. His words are the best to say what this is all about:

But, maybe, just maybe, you can use this to get your creative juices going, and find your way back into your poor, neglected kitchen. I wanted to choose common ingredients that were familiar, seasonal and could still be exciting for people to riff on. I also wanted to choose things that would let our vegetarian/vegan friends contribute.

So there we have it... Let's cook!

Mexican menu in the works

Mexican Independence Day is just around the corner. So we're taking a shot at making our first multi-course menu for the whole restaurant. We're thinking of doing a 5 course menu, details about service are still to be decided. Heck, the whole menu is still to be decided. But here's a sneak peek:

Griddled Jalapeño Panela

Watermelon

Arúgula

Roasted Pumpkin seeds

Margarita Serrano Vinaigrette

Green Pozole

Chicken Confit

Radish Salad

Bacon fat plancha Shrimp

Frijoles Puercos

Cotija Frico

Chipotle

Braised Short Rib

Nixtamal Gnocchi

Corn Purée

Colorado Chile Sauce

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Tamarind Gel

Peanut Praline Sauce

Coffee Ice

I'm still working on this. When it's done, I'll try to re-post here and at the restaurant's blog.

P.S. A note of credit: Thanks to the Ideas in food twitter feed for the gnocchi.

TGRWT #18: Plum and Blue cheese.

So as I'd announced previously, TGRWT #18 is being hosted this time by Aidan Brooks. As usual, I had a bunch of ideas as to what to do in this round. But thanks to the extra push by Mr. Brooks, I decided to tackle dessert.

I had ideas swimming around for a while, but it wasn't until I received a dinner invitation that the planning process really got started. The ingredient list was there: Plums (Pluots), Blue Cheese, some nut and something bacon.

We have an awesome bread puveyor that had brought over some samples of pecan bread. Since it wasn't quite fresh (Frozen) I decided to use it to make French Toast. This made me think of adding spices to the mix, but since we were going to taste this with Sparkling Riesling Icewine, I decided to skip on them. I also refrained from making a candied bacon crisp and opted to make Bacon fat Pecans (just like making butter pecans). Finally, I had to skip on adding some blue cheese crumbs because I didn't have the time.

For the pluots, I used part of them fresh and made a gastrique-like sauce with the rest. I didn't cook it too long to keep the wonderful flavor of the plum.

Here's what it ended up looking like:

Pecan Bread French Toast, Danish Blue Ice Cream, Pluots fresh and gastrique, Bacon Fat Pecans

Taste wise, the flavors were pretty much spot on as I had imagined. I had thought that the Ice Cream could be too sweet and overpowering, but it when placed in the context of the whole dish, it was balanced out with the sweet tartness of the gastrique. I would've liked a bit more presence of the salty element (pecans or the crumble, perhaps). While the dessert was pretty good on it's own. The Pilliteri ended up being even sweeter and overpowered the whole dish. Still it was a very good way to end our sunday Meal.

Morelia Tour

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Earlier this year, my wife and I took off to Morelia for a weekend. We had a great time visiting that beautiful city. Michoacan is an amazing state full of incredible places and lots of very interesting food. Pictures of the sights are on our Facebook, but I got all the ones of the Food.

Particularly memorable were the all the sorts of tamales: Corundas, Uchepos and Wheat tamal as well as the awesome Black Zapote Sorbet.

TGRWT #18: Plum and Blue cheese.

It's back! Although I don't know why I get so excited seeing how I am really a terrible blogger and I've participated in little of these awesome events. Still, they're tons of fun and it helps getting the thinking hats on. Sooo...

As we all surely know by now, TGRWT is a blogging event created by Marin Lersch over at Khymos. Using the principle of aroma pairing, we're challenged to create dishes incorporating ingredients that are seemingly an odd match, but that should go well together because of common aroma compounds.

This round is being hosted by Aidan Brooks. To make things even more fun, Aidan is challenging us to go the extra mile with an optional competition. Be sure to scroll all the way down when you read his post to get the scoop!

My only regret is that I didn't get to see good Pluots this year...

What people want.

While creating the dessert section of our menu, my two principles were to try to be true to the ingredients of the Mediterranean region, and to be different to what everyone else is doing (Thanks to the restaurant Chains, stuff like Hot Apple Pie and Brownie, both a la mode is everyewhere). It was a matter of testing, but we finally settled on the following choices:

Our version of Manchego and Membrillo: Olive Oil and Quince Paste Cake, Young Manchego, Artisanal Quince Paste.

Goat Cheese Flan, Orange Sauce, Dates, Pistacchio Crumble

Yoghurt Panna Cotta, Honey Stewed Peaches

Lavender Chocolate Mousse, Apple Granité, Apple Rollup

Citrus Espuma, Citrus Caramel, Pistacchio Joconde, Chamomille Gel

Pear Tarte Tatin, Port Wine Sorbet.

For our lunch menu, we also added a Black Pepper Ice Cream, Strawberry ALmond Chutney and Crumble.

After a mere four months of operation, changes are due. There will be a new dessert and we're getting our Ice Creams outsourced and getting rid of the Port Sorbet (Mainly because of production issues). Our new dessert has been conceived by listening to what people want. Unfortunately, people want what every other place in town is offering: Brownie A la Mode.

Since this is business, after all, we're making them the darned thing. But not quite. The brownie part is being replaced with a Almond and Cocoa Financier. We're buying a wonderful Burnt Caramel Ice Cream to go with it, and finishing the dessert with some Candied Orange Peel.

It will be available sometime this week.

Microwave Crisping

Foodplayer Linda's last post on crispy asparagus sparked an interest into making crispy vegetables with a different technique than that used in pastry (simple syrup + oven). Two things stand out for me in her experiment, apart from the obvious, exciting result: first, finding a better way to use our microwave oven, and second, the fact that replicating the technique seems doable within almost any kitchen.

After asking her about other experiments with other vegetables, she let me know that she has gotten good results out of mushrooms and she's got a list of others to try. We have a dish at the restaurant that, while it sells like crazy, I've always felt that it needs something to give it a bit more of a visual impact. So the thought of crisping zucchini came to mind.

I took some zucchini bits left over from some prep and since it was too short to slice lengthwise, sliced it into rounds. Prepped my salted water and blanched them. I laid the zucchini rounds on paper towels and transfered to parchment. In comes snag #1. The dehydration process. Our oven's lowest temp setting is 220°F. So instead of the 30 minutes at 100°F they were there for 15 minutes. Snag #2 came from a huge human error. I was pulled into a meeting and couldn't keep watch over my experiment. When I came out of the meeting I found my rounds perhaps a bit too dry or they were too thinly sliced as many were sticking to the parchment or too fragile to handle.

Still I managed to get some into the microwave. Before I had my zucchini ready, I microwaved some of our soft apple glass with pretty decent results. Testing on the glass allowed me to notice that perhaps tossing stuff into the microwave at full power wasn't too wise. Plinio advised to reduce power. Which led to a bunch of trial and error tests to get the right power and time. It also reminded me of David Arnold's microwave power woes and to think about how the oven being non-linear could affect the result.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like finishing pastry's mise en place with my testing and I didn't quite like my zucchini slices. So results obtained so far are mixed. Initially it feels like a wafer. It's paper thin and somewhat crispy. Once inside the mouth it loses the texture and becomes chewy. Taste, however, is very good. Although I'm thinking of seasoning them slightly. Perhaps with curry...

Adventures w/Activa (Not too proud)

I had been saving my Activa samples for... I don't know exactly what. I had been toying with the idea of rolling up some marinated arrachera (skirt), a meat that's practically a staple in barbecues around here. And cooking it like a roast. 

However, I haven't had much time to do much fun, now that I have a space to play, I don't dedicate my time or budget to things that aren't part of the restaurant operation. So the Activa sat in my freezer. 

Just recently a friend of mine called me to ask for some of it. So the Activa came out of retirement. I let him have some of the GS as well as the regular GM. I still have to check with him how his meals worked out. I also noticed that I had been given two samples of both, so I was left with some spares without really knowing what to do with them. 

The opportunity presented itself in a shameful fashion. A batch of braised pork shank was cooked a bit too long and the meat was falling off the bone. Usually this is a good sign, but this one was impossible to handle. Out came the Activa. 

I made a RM Slurry, brushed it on the meat and reassembled the shanks in the best way possible. Wrapped it tightly in film and left them in the refrigerator so set. 

Today we got the first order for a shank. It worked perfectly. Not the proudest example of how to use the Activa, but our first test with it.