Sauce vierge is one of my all time favorite sauces. The word "vierge" is French for "virgin," meaning that the ingredients in a vierge are not cooked. This is the sauce that we use for our heirloom tomato caprese, which I will demonstrate in an upcoming video.
These savory caramelized onion scones are perfect for breakfast, or a mid-day snack with coffee or tea.
In a previous rebuttal video to a Slate.com article, we went over how to caramelize onions in 10 minutes. This shortened version of the video was uploaded so you don't have to sit through my 14 minute rant every time you'd like to review this technique.
This video demonstrates how we prepare and cook our sous vide chicken breast that we're currently serving with sauted spring vegetables and a reduced shallot jus.
The chicken breast is first brined for 24 hours in a 5% brine and then rinsed. Next, the chicken breast is vacuum packed individually and cooked sous vide in 60ºC/140ºF water bath for 4 hours. On "the pickup," the chicken breast is cut out of the sous vide package and the skin is pressed into rice flour and then pan fried in chicken fat.
What makes this sous vide chicken breast great ...
This post was inspired by Tom Scocca who last Wednesday released an article on Slate.com alleging a vast conspiracy among recipe writers. He claims that the "Recipe Writing Guild" is intentionally deceitful about how long it takes to caramelize onions and it wasn't long until the "Food-Arazzi" jumped on the link bait bandwagon.
I disagreed, and this is my rebuttal.
This video will take you through the process that we use to sous vide a rack of lamb at Stella. The nice thing about this process is we cook the lamb rack a second time in a reduced pan sauce which infuses both the lamb and the sauce with an amazing flavor.
Here's a quick video that will teach you how to peel and blanch pearl onions. Once prepped, pearl onions make a great accompaniment to many saute dishes.
Pancetta in its simplest form is salted and cured pork belly that is native to Italian Cuisine and loved throughout the world. Commonly referred to as "Italian Bacon," pancetta's major difference from it's American counterpart is its lack of smoke. Pancetta is commonly flavored with different seasonings and spices, with each region of Italy, (and chef for that matter), having their own preferential spice blend.
This video demonstrates the prep process for making oil poached and pressed potatoes. Fingerling potatoes are first slowly poached in flavored oil until tender, slightly cooled and then pressed with the skin still on. These potatoes can then be fried in olive oil or clarified butter until the exterior is crispy, finished with fresh herbs and sea salt and served as is or as an accompaniment to a meat course.
This video will teach you how to make a cauliflower soup base that can be served as is or doctored with different components and garnishes. I will also release a completed dish video that will demonstrate how we plate and serve this soup at Stella.
In a previous video I demonstrated how to make what I called a "semi-classic" bechamel sauce, which is the version most commonly taught in culinary schools today. However, sauce bechamel has gone through a few evolutions since it's debated creation.
Bechamel is a classic French sauce made with milk. It is one of the Five French Mother Sauces and is used to make derivatives such as Mornay (a simple cheese sauce).
Beets are one of my favorite food products to work with during fall and winter. They are extremely versatile, come in all different shapes and sizes, and have an earthiness that just screams “winter comfort food.” Although there are many different ways to prepare and serve beets, one of my favorites, and most classical methods, is roasting.
A traditional beurre blanc is a finicky sauce that can easily break, especially if it's not made to order and served immediately. This video will teach you how to stabalize a beurre blanc by using a blender and xanthan gum. This approach will allow you to make the beurre blanc in advance and hold it warm until you're ready to serve.
This video will demonstrate three different techniques for roasting garlic. Also, a brief lecture on the science behind roasting garlic, and why its strong, pungent flavor will become mild and sweet when heat is applied over a long period of time.
Learn how to make a stuffed chicken roulade using a pounded out chicken breast.
Although restaurants love to tempt you with some of their more creative appetizers, sometimes you just want to start your meal with a good, green salad. When I want a great salad, this is the one I crave above all others.
I first fell in love with salsify when working at a French Restaurant in San Francisco. The edible root portion most commonly served in restaurants, looks like a dirty tree branch but when properly prepared, has an extremely unique flavor and texture that closely resembles a cross between parsnip and potato. A member of the sunflower family, salsify is a tuber that can be used just like any other common root vegetable.
This video will teach you how to properly prepare baby carrots.
Blanched garlic is a great way to remove the harsh, bitter bite of raw garlic while still keeping the floral, garlic aroma and flavor. In Thomas Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook, his technique calls for the use of milk instead of water. I've found that for most purposes, water can achieve fairly comparable results and it's more cost effective.
