One week down and I kinda feel like I've been strapped to a roller coaster and set into motion. I've had such extreme highs and lows so far on my trip that I hope the rest of it will kinda level off. I started off the day at the
Black Dog tavern having breakfast with the bosses. The Black Dog is the local chain around the island and has became the one thing tourist can't leave without experiencing. I had a pretty good meal of blueberry pancakes and a egg scramble with feta and tomato. Could have done without the extra water in the eggs but there located on an island. HMPH...
At work yesterday I got the chance to make a soup for the dinner crowd to enjoy. We had an abundance of carrots in the walkin so a carrot soup was definitely in the works. But like most people who make carrot soup what's always the first ingredient they pick up? GINGER!! Not for me I say! I go and grab ... you guessed it not BASIL. Sweet Sweet Basil. So the soup started off like every other soup I make. I take some onion, celery and garlic and start to sweat that out. I cut the carrots in a rough cut style tossed them with salt , pepper, thyme, and olive oil and caramelized them in the oven. To the pot with the veggies I added the basil and about 3 galleons of water and went ahead and threw in some chilies, fennel seeds, salt, and pepper. Brought that up to a boil then added a half of pound of butter. I grab about 8 roma tomatoes and roasted them off with the same seasonings and the carrots. After about an 45 mins I pureed the carrots with the tomatoes and added everything into the pot with the "stock" and let it cook for another 30 mins. Once it tasted nice and carroty I pureed it once more but then I put it through a china cap because I wanted some texture to still be intact. Key Word : Delicious. We served it with a salad of parm, arugula, and lemon. We sold quite a few and seeing that some of the islands residences are veggie heads I thought they would enjoy having something on the menu that they didn't have to modify. After the soup was complete you guess it (wrong again) I started on desserts. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Today the chef asked me " Joe do you know anything about sorbets?!" I said Bitch polease sorbet used to be my middle name after randy ( thanks parents ). So I grabbed there ice cream machine and went to work. We had a couple pints of fruit in the walkin. So I decided to do a trio of summery sorbets. So I did Pineapple-Orange, Blueberry-Vanilla, and Raspberry-Cream. I left them all totally uncooked and just pureed them up and measured them up so I had at least 40 oz of each fruit puree. For the Pineapple-Orange I just added simple syrup and Orange oil to the fruit. I would highly recommend sparingly using the oil because too much can leave a pithy after taste. The Blueberry-Vanilla I added simple syrup and well and a half of vanilla bean and let that kinda macerate for a while. And finally the Raspberry-Cream was a bit challenging so I made a lavender pastry cream and to the fruit I just added simple syrup and half of the cream before turning it and as it reached its final seconds I swirled the other half of cream into the ice cream maker. I got some good reviews from all the staff and the guest enjoyed the not so normal flavors I offered.
So there was still one question I had to answer. What the hell to do with the rest of the berries?! So once again you guessed wrong ( you guys suck at this) I decided to (with the help of the GM and CHEF) offer up a seasonal bowl of fruit. Shocking simple I know but I tried to put a spin on it and everyone else loved the simplistic take on a house hold favorite. I macerated the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and even a small dice of peaches with some peach simple syrup and sugar. I made some almond shortbread cookies and crumbles and the night before I put all the fruit mousse I had left into a mold and layered that with peaches and blueberries. I thought it looked great (but everyone else thought I was too Palena ... LOL)and wanted to use it but it was ok. I topped the bowl off with whipped cream that I folded a bit of berry puree and a berry liqour into it.
I think I'm gonna slow down a bit with the creating dishes thing and focus on walking around a bit. Till then...
OUI
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| My pickins for the day |
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| The food truck menu for the night... |
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| My duck confit spring rolls from the food truck |
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| Berry frozen mousse with white peach and blueberries |
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| All from the Dunn's garden |
One week down and I kinda feel like I've been strapped to a roller coaster and set into motion. I've had such extreme highs and lows so far on my trip that I hope the rest of it will kinda level off. I started off the day at the Black Dog tavern having breakfast with the bosses. The Black Dog is the local chain around the island and has became the one thing tourist can't leave without experiencing. I had a pretty good meal of blueberry pancakes and a egg scramble with feta and tomato. Could have done without the extra water in the eggs but there located on an island. HMPH...
Today the chef asked me " Joe do you know anything about sorbets?!" I said Bitch polease sorbet used to be my middle name after randy ( thanks parents ). So I grabbed there ice cream machine and went to work. We had a couple pints of fruit in the walkin. So I decided to do a trio of summery sorbets. So I did Pineapple-Orange, Blueberry-Vanilla, and Raspberry-Cream. I left them all totally uncooked and just pureed them up and measured them up so I had at least 40 oz of each fruit puree. For the Pineapple-Orange I just added simple syrup and Orange oil to the fruit. I would highly recommend sparingly using the oil because too much can leave a pithy after taste. The Blueberry-Vanilla I added simple syrup and well and a half of vanilla bean and let that kinda macerate for a while. And finally the Raspberry-Cream was a bit challenging so I made a lavender pastry cream and to the fruit I just added simple syrup and half of the cream before turning it and as it reached its final seconds I swirled the other half of cream into the ice cream maker. I got some good reviews from all the staff and the guest enjoyed the not so normal flavors I offered.
So there was still one question I had to answer. What the hell to do with the rest of the berries?! So once again you guessed wrong ( you guys suck at this) I decided to (with the help of the GM and CHEF) offer up a seasonal bowl of fruit. Shocking simple I know but I tried to put a spin on it and everyone else loved the simplistic take on a house hold favorite. I macerated the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and even a small dice of peaches with some peach simple syrup and sugar. I made some almond shortbread cookies and crumbles and the night before I put all the fruit mousse I had left into a mold and layered that with peaches and blueberries. I thought it looked great (but everyone else thought I was too Palena ... LOL)and wanted to use it but it was ok. I topped the bowl off with whipped cream that I folded a bit of berry puree and a berry liqour into it.
I think I'm gonna slow down a bit with the creating dishes thing and focus on walking around a bit. Till then...
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