Souffle Fears...Conquered?

This past weekend I attempted my first souffle. I definitely had some reservations about taking on this dish; visions of deflated souffles danced in my head.

Savory goodness

I'm happy to report that my first souffle was actually....well pretty damn delicious. While I didn't get as much of the signature souffle lift as I had hoped, the texture and flavor were spot on. Served with a peppery arugula salad, the savory gruyere souffle was the perfect Sunday brunch at home.

Nonetheless, making one souffle does not an expert make. I still have a number of questions, mainly:

1. Is there such a thing as over-whipping egg whites?
2. How long does a souffle really need to bake for? And why does every recipe have a different temperature and time?
3. Why is it so hard to not open the oven door when the souffle is cooking?
4. Why does anything with melted gruyere taste so perfect?
5. When would it be socially acceptable to make and eat another souffle - ideally chocolate?

These are just a few questions I'm looking forward to getting to the bottom of.

In the meantime though, I won't be too quick to dismiss a seemingly challenging recipe from David Tanis, Saveur or the like. If there's anything this venture taught me, it's that - like with most things in life - it's good to go out of your comfort zone every now again. 99 percent of the time you end up surprising yourself and that's always a good thing.

Souffle Fears

Late last year, I outlined my 2012 cooking resolutions. As of today, all but one - the souffle - have been attempted.

Avid readers of this blog know that my last foray into my cooking resolutions (making homemade pasta) was met with a number of...ahem...challenges. See The Time I Made Pasta and it Turned to Mush for more details on that particular cooking debacle.

This weekend, I'll be tackling my final cooking resolution heads on and making a savory souffle with nutty gruyere. Armed with an excellent recipe from Michael Ruhlman's Twenty (a book every cook needs to own - more on that later) and my trusted Kitchenaid mixer, I'm hopeful things will come together...or at least be edible.

I'm not going to lie; I'm pretty intimidated to attempt this notoriously fickle dish. If you have any words of wisdom, tips or ideas, leave a comment and let me know.

In the meantime, I'll be studying this video and working to get perfectly peaked egg whites. This makes it look so easy doesn't it?

The Classics - Part 3: Beef Bourguignon

As I write this, my West Loop condo is filled with the smell of a slow roasting, bubbling dutch oven of beef bourguignon. With the temperature in Chicago hovering around 20 degrees, I love having something warm and comforting like this stewing slowly throughout the course of a lazy Sunday.

Like other classics covered on the Drunken Goat (roasted chicken and salad lyonnaise), beef bourguignon is surprisingly simple and relies of a few staple ingredients and techniques.

Also known as beef Burgundy (its place of origin), beef bourguignon is essentially french peasant food focused on braising the beef in red wine with vegetables, garlic and herbs. Frankly, I'm a fan of any recipe that requires an entire bottle of red wine!

There are many different recipes for beef bourguignon, some more complicated than others. I like this recipe from The Barefoot Contessa, which calls for braising pan-seared beef in a base of thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, garlic, onion, carrots, thyme, beef broth and an entire bottle of wine. Towards the end of cooking, add in mushrooms sauteed in butter and frozen pearl onions. The recipe calls for 90 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees, but I recommend letting it braise for at least 2 hours and then another hour on the stove. This will ensure the meat is absolutely fork tender.

Today I'm serving the beef bourguignon with a side of buttered egg noodles seasoned with fresh ground pepper, chives and parmesan cheese (an unexpected and wonderful idea from my lovely dining partner). However, it's also great with a simple starch such as mashed potatoes, rice or crusty, garlic-rubbed sourdough bread.

Happy winter comfort food eating from the Drunken Goat.

2011: A Year in Eating

December is always a time for year end lists. Best albums. Best songs. Best concerts. Best new restaurants. Best desserts. Best new bars. It seems like there's a list for everything.  

This got me reflecting on the best things I ate in 2011. But, how to rank? How to compare an appetizer or one simple ingredient to a full entree or ten course prix fix? So in no particular order, the best things I ate in 2011: 

Fresh Brazilian starfruit
plucked right from the tree. 

• The delice de bourgogne cheese plate at Maude's Liquor Bar. Absolute decadence. It was the dish that spurred me to launch The Drunken Goat Dispatches in May, and I'm still in love. 
• The deluxe focaccia at Avec, with taleggio cheese, ricotta, truffle oil and fresh herbs is salty, savory and more addicting than a Big Mac.  
• An authentic Brazilian fish feast prepared by the lovely people at Salto das Nuvens, a small, waterfall-side restaurant, bar and resort located in the Matto Grosso state. It was like being on an episode of No Reservations.
• Fresh starfruit picked off a tree (also in Matto Grosso) and eaten. Nature's sweet tart.  
• Mom's stuffing at Thanksgiving. So incredibly simple (bread, onions, celery, stock and pork sausage) yet delicious and flavorful. The memory of Thanksgiving leftovers is still lingering.  
• Served with crisp sourdough bread, sea salt, parsley and red onion jam, the bone marrow at Longman & Eagle is savory and rich.  
• While I love the cheese and charcuterie at The Purple Pig, the olive oil poached tuna with lima beans, fresh herbs, red onion and vinaigrette is still the dish that I keep thinking about. 
• Fetucine a la Pasquale at my family's favorite restaurant, Pasquale's Osteria in Norwalk, Conn. Homemade pasta, shrimp, ham, asparagus, tomatoes, fresh basil in a garlic red sauce with a touch of cream. It's ultimate Italian comfort food made by Pasquale, a former Vatican chef (more on that in a future post).   
• The lobster roll at B&G Oyster in the South End of Boston served just the way I like it: heaping mounds of lobster, slightest touch of homemade mayo, herbs, S+P, on a butter toasted roll. 
• I'm still blissed out from The Lair of the Minotaur burger at Kuma's Corner. The brie, pancetta and bourbon poached pear made the burger worth the wait...and the calories.    
• The cheese cart at Tru. An unpasteurized heaven on wheels.   
• The hen at Graham Elliot: a savory and memorable dish that embodied fall with every bite.

What was your favorite dish or dining experience in 2011? 

Paris 1906 Lives On

Grant Achatz' Paris 1906 menu at Next might be long gone (we're on to Thailand now), but thankfully this video lives on.  Whenever I need a three minute food escape or a break from reality, I watch this. It makes me feel energized, refocused and appreciative of the things that matter: time spent with friends and family over an amazing bottle of wine and unforgettable food.

I also happen to wish this song soundtracked the movie of my life, particularly the food scenes (ideally done in a well-edited and generously retouched montage).

The Classics - Part 1: Salad Lyonnaise

I love the classics: timeless movies (Casablanca, Philadelphia Story), forever-relevant fashion (the little black dress, the Birkin bag) and dishes that have stood the test of time (roast chicken, steak au poivre). While I continue to be inspired by chefs who test different techniques, pair unique flavor combinations and textures, I also appreciate those that can perfectly execute a classic dish (and maybe even put their own spin on it).

Salad Lardon at Les Halles

One my favorite dishes of this kind is the Salad Lyonnaise. It's a classic French dish that will never go out of style. It's like the trench coat of classic dishes: excellent for any season and something you can go back to time and again; it's great for brunch or a night out.

The ingredients are simple: frisee, lardon (thick-cut French bacon, though pancetta and bacon are often substituted), champagne or white wine vinegar, a poached egg and crouton. Some recipes will offer variations on the vinaigrette, adding dijon mustard, shallot or garlic.

The beauty of this dish is how all five ingredients work in concert. The saltiness of the lardon plays off the bitterness of the frisee and the tartness of the vinegar. The richness of the runny poached egg mixes with the champagne vinegar to create a vinaigrette that gently coats the frisee. The crunch of the crouton provides an added layer of texture. Perfect harmony.

When I see this dish on a menu, it's a must order. I've recently visited two restaurants that both served excellent Salad Lyonnaise. This is not surprising given both restaurants' classic approach to French cooking.

On a bright, steamy afternoon in New York City, I visited Anthony Bourdain's old stomping ground, Les Halles. In addition to immediately ordering a bottle of delicious, dry rose (a warm weather must), we ordered their Salad Lyonnaise (or Salade Lardon as they called it). Upon arrival, we dove in, my dining partners graciously allowing me to break into the runny egg - one of the great rituals of eating this dish. It was salty, rich, crunchy, tart, fresh - and not to mention quite satisfying.

Pork belly makes everything better. Especially this dish.

Another restaurant, Maude's Liquor Bar, turned the richness of this dish up even further by adding pork belly instead of lardon. The pork belly was undoubtedly the star of this dish, with its smoky flavor, crispy outside and meaty texture. Maude's also added a brioche crouton, which added another layer of rich, buttery saltiness.

Interestingly enough, I've attempted this dish many times in my own kitchen. It usually comes out ok, but more often than not, it just tastes better at a local bistro, surrounded by great friends, a cheese plate and a bottle of rose.

Delice de Bourgogne Seduction

Those of you will come to know that while I love food of all varieties, my most favorite edible is cheese. Hard, soft, salty, mild, goat, sheep, buffalo, cow: I've never met a piece of cheese I didn't like (or at least want to meet). It seems as though the artisnal cheese plate has become a restaurant standard these days. There are a few places in the city that do this exceptionally well. The Purple Pig, Bin 36 and Bin Wine Cafe and Bluebird immediately to mind but certainly there are others.  

I recently had the opportunity to sample the cheese plate at Maude's Liquor Bar, a new, bistro-inspired restaurant and bar in the West Loop with very forgiving lighting, a comfortable and cozy atmosphere and classic French food. It's the type of place to hunker down in during a storm.

Heaven on a plate. 

As it so happened, a friend and I stopped in there on a Wednesday night as one of Chicago's legendary spring downpours was winding down. After sampling their Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc and Saint Germain Fizz, we turned to Maude's cheese plate and were completely and utterly seduced by the Delice de Bourgogne.

Where other restaurants go over the top with their cheese varieties and corresponding accoutrement, Maude's approach is direct and simple. The Delice de Bourgogne is a rich, buttery cow's milk cheese that's impressive enough to stand on its own. It's pungent but not overbearing. Maude's served a large, oozing wedge of it with a warm baguette and a spread of apples and dijon mustard. The hint of spice in the spread countered the richness of the cheese perfectly. The experience left us wanting more, and we both later confessed we woke up the next morning thinking about it.

I'd like to say that the Delice de Bourgogne was the first time I was seduced by a wedge of cheese, but it wasn't. In fact, I have a long and storied past with Humboldt Fog. A topic for another day.