The meal was fantastic. We started with a ginger cocktail and a beets & ricotta appetizer that blew us away. Beets and orange zest and cheese. fantastic. The cocktail was gingery and not too sweet. I wanted two more, but I had to drive.
Erin got a mushroom pizza with arugula, rosemary and robiola cheese. The robiola has a funky smell but the pizza was deelicious. My entre was the pork chop with creamy polenta, bacon, and some wilted greens that I forget. This was the best pork chop of my life. It was huge and perfectly cooked. I also received a side of brussel sprouts that were also fantastic. One thing I noticed was that all of our food had a char on it. The sprouts, pizza, and pork chop all had that bitter burnt char to them. Having said that, though, the flavors were awesomely balanced with other elements.

The price kinda blew me away. Even with all that perfectly prepared food, our meal was under $50. This explains why the place was packed at 5:30.

Now, a few weeks ago for Detroit Restaurant Week, Erin and I ate at Roast. Perhaps it was because of a poor menu choice, but I wasn’t very happy with my meal at Roast. I ordered the ‘beast of the day’, and ended up with just a plate full of pork. Now, I like meat as much as the next guy, but I can’t really get excited about a pile of pork, no matter how perfectly cooked it is. I feel like my waitress should have given me a heads up.

I was definitely happier with my experience at Lolita. I look forward to trying it again, or maybe even securing a reservation at Lola. From our experience in Tremont, I’m excited to check out more of Cleveland.

Thomas Keller's Scallion Potato Cakes

One of the things that inspired me were these hash browns from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home. They looked so delightfully crispy and definitely something that could be hand-held. Also, reading the instructions, I could definitely see how I could adapt them to include hippy hash.

Here is what I did, to much success:

First, prepare the filling. One whole tomato, cut into a small dice. Lightly salt the tomato and set aside. A handful of trimmed broccoli, boiled for 2 minutes in salty water, remove from water and let cool. Take a handful of mushrooms and cut them into 1/2 inch pieces. Put 1/3 cup of small onion dice in a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a small skillet. Cook on medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add the mushrooms and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Toss and let cook until mushrooms are soft and remove from heat. At this point I also added some minced pea shoot microgreens, I had them on hand, and the extra heat in the pan softened them up. Strain the tomatoes and cut the broccoli into the smallest florets. Mix the tomatoes and the broccoli in with the onions and mushrooms and remove the pan from the heat. Crumble some feta cheese into small crumbles that is about 1/3 of a cup.

For the potatoes: Peel three medium russet potatoes and grate them into a bowl of cold water using the medium coarse side of your box grater. I used a mesh strainer to strain the potatoes out of the water and rinse them slightly in cold water. I then pressed as much water as I could out of them. This could also be done with a salad spinner, or by laying them out on towels (paper or kitchen) and pressing the water out. Put the potatoes in a large bowl and spoon a few good spoonfuls of cornstarch around the edges of the bowl. For three potatoes you might need as much as 6 tablespoons of cornstarch. Toss this with a spoon or your hands to get the potatoes well coated.

Success

At the same time I put a good handful of fresh mint leaves in a small pan. To this I also added 1oz of sugar and 1/2 cup of water. I brought this to a simmer, let the leaves get nice and green and then removed from the heat and let it sit covered for about 40 minutes.

For the shortbread recipe, I used the recipe from the Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, a tome of bulletproof recipes from Cook’s Illustrated. This is the general gist:
1-1/4 cup (10.1 oz) of AP flour, whisked with 1/2 tsp of salt.
Cream together two sticks of soft butter with 1/2 cup of confectioner’s sugar.
Beat the flour mixture in with the butter.
Use your hands to form this into a ball and knead it on a floured counter for 3-5 minutes.
Roll into a 9′ disk and crimp the edge like a pie crust.
Chill for 30 minutes.
Bake in a 300 degree oven for 40 minutes, rotating halfway through.

For my strawberries I cut 1lb of strawberries into slices. I cut the greens off and sliced the strawberries thinly, longways. I tossed them with a tablespoon or two of sugar and let them sit and get juicy for a few minutes.

Meanwhile I strained the mint leaves and ginger disks out of my syrups. Then I mixed 1 cup of cream with the mint syrup and put it in the fridge to get cold.

I put the strawberries in the saucepan with the strained ginger syrup and put them on medium heat and brought them to a simmer. I made a cornstarch slurry with 2 teaspoons of cornstarch and added it and let it simmer a few minutes. This still wasn’t as thick as I wanted so I added 2 more teaspoons of kuzu. If you haven’t used kuzu, it is very similar to cornstarch but it is made from the Kudzu plant. It is commonly used in Japanese cooking to thicken desserts. It is very handy to have around, buy some on amazon, or find it at your grocery store, most likely next to the seaweed in the international aisle.

Once the shortbread had rested on the sheet pan for an hour out of the oven, I poured the strawberry mixture over it and spread it out to the edges. I put this in the fridge to cool for at least an hour.

Sadly, when I went to beat the whipping cream up to peaks, it wouldn’t quite get there. I think next time I should use less liquid to make the mint syrup, or perhaps use a creamier whipping cream.

Erin gives this dessert rave reviews, thats all I can ask for! She suggests next time I make peach, possibly with ginger whipped cream. And when I make the strawberry again, perhaps I’ll make it with unsweetened basil whipped cream.

Get yourself one or two 2-liter bottles. The plastic ones that contain your favorite HFCS flavor work the best. Wash them out really well. You’ll also need a strainer, a funnel, a grater and some measuring cups.

Scrape the skin off of a large knob of fresh ginger. Grate the ginger on your box grater with the coarsest (largest) side. You’ll need about 3oz of ginger per batch. Go ahead and use the stringy bits that are left behind while you’re grating. 3 oz of grated ginger is about 1/3 of a packed cup, if you don’t have a scale. (If you don’t own a scale, BUY ONE).

Take 2/3rds of this grated ginger and put it in a small saucepan with 1/2 cup of water and 6oz of sugar. (6oz of sugar is about 3/4ths of a cup) Put this over medium heat and stir until the sugar is disolved. When you start to see some bubbles, take this off of the heat and cover. Let seep for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, stir in the rest of your grated ginger. Cover and let sit another 30 minutes.

While your syrup is soaking up ginger, fully juice one lemon. This should give you about 1/4 cup of juice. You’ll only need two tablespoons of lemon juice so you should have made two batches.

Using a funnel, pour the ginger syrup into the plastic 2-liter bottle. Give the 2-cup yeast & water mixture a quick whisk and pour into the funnel after it. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 3 more cups of water. I usually mix the lemon juice into the water first, but it doesn’t really matter. This means you’ve put in 7 cups of water, total. Oh, and the 1/2 cup that made the syrup.

Cap off the bottle and give it a good shake to mix it up. Put this bottle at room temperature for 2 days or so. You’ll want to give it a slight shake every day and check it for stiffness. Also, keep this bottle in another container, just in case it springs a leak. If you try to squeeze the bottle and it has absolutely no give, you probably want to put it in the fridge. Depending on the temperature this could happen in a matter of 24 hours, but most likely it will take 48. Recently during really warm weather the yeasts got really crazy and my ginger ale tasted more like funky yeast than ginger.

This ginger beer needs to be refrigerated before you can open the bottle. Carbon dioxide will only stay suspended in cold liquid, so any attempt to open this while warm will make a fizzy mess and give you flat ginger ale. As it is, you’ll need to crack this open slowly to release the pressure. Once it is cold, make sure you open it once a day, just to release the pressure that will still be building up.

This recipe mostly stolen from Alton Brown [ Food Network: Alton Brown Ginger Ale ]]]> http://www.rexroof.com/261/ginger-beer/feed/ 0 http://www.rexroof.com/234/what-we-ate-at-ko/ http://www.rexroof.com/234/what-we-ate-at-ko/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:54:31 +0000 Rex http://www.rexroof.com/?p=234 Erin and I dined at Momofuku Ko this afternoon for lunch. My thoughts on it will come soon, but for now, this is what we were served.

Three little bites to start: a cube of duck pate, a little fried potato tube with vodka creme fraice, and what I think they said was uni skin?

Second we were served a single washington state oyster with something sweet potato added. I didn’t pick up on the sweet potato part.

The next few courses we can’t quite remember the order of:

The strangest bowl of dashi broth with fresh tofu and some other fishy paste stuff in it. Along side it was a bit of wegyu beef rib meat and a bit of fish tartare and caviar.

A platter of four types of sashimi. some highlights: one of them had buttermilk and scallion flower. a really spicy/wasabi mustard oil. toasted buckwheat was on one. a purple orange blossom thing. crispy fish scales were sprinkled on one.

An egg custard in bacon broth served with a bagel bite filled with bacon cream cheese. We watched them cook this custard in a covered pot of water, it was fascinating.

A plate of sliced beef cheeks with some white fungus and some mushrooms over a spicy green sauce. These beef cheeks were sliced so thin and had an awesome flavor, I wanted them to be deli meats on a sandwich.

One course was their bento box served on multiple plates: a single lamb rib with kolrabi slaw dressed with coconut vinegar and lime. some greens dressed with sesame paste. a cylinder of rice dressed with some bacon essence and grilled. a dashi soup with clam.

Lobster tail served on a turnip cake, fried cauliflower and crunchy potato bits.

Handmade orchetta pasta served with a cheese sauce, brocoli puree, dried brocoli florets and crunchy bits of benton’s ham.

A duck leg cut into medallions. Parsnip ice cream dusted in burnt onion powder, served on mung bean sprouts? and four onion caps. One of them was cream filled? and another tasted like pink grapefruit.

lychees, riesling jelly and pine nut brittle with frozen foie gras shaved over it.

our cheese course was a cheese sauce with greens and whisky soaked raisins topped with a puff pastry.

passion fruit ice cream, fried forbidden rice, banana caramel sauce.

orange granita with ground black sesame and probably something else.

whew. what a meal.

Make mayonaise.

Dice 1 whole fennel root, you might not need it all. Mince 2 scallions. Mix these in a bowl with about 1/4 cup homemade mayonaise. Stir in 1 tsp curry powder and a healthy pinch of salt and a few good grinds of pepper.

Peel and rinse your eggs and pop out the yolks. They will probably be a little moist, thats what I am going for. Smash the yolks into the mayo mixture. Cut the egg whites into a small dice and stir into the mixture. Taste and serve.

I ate mine on toast. Then I mixed my leftovers into some grain salad from whole foods salad bar. Also, I used curry powder that my housemates made from the Eve Cookbook. Deeelicious.

Adapted from [ Simply Recipies ]