"Under Pressure..."

Written by Chef Dave | 08 December 2009

“Under Ground or Under Pressure”?

I recently received an email from my brother in law titled “appala don’t get no love”! He is quite the comedian but it got me thinking…"is the apalla under pressure"...or just living a great life "under the radar"?

Recently, I have reconnected with a foodie friend and his amazing wife on a more regular basis (who is an outstanding home gourmet and chef by the true sense of the word in knowledge). We both have a true passion for going local, using organics, and supporting local agriculture. This led us to meet first off, but beyond that it has opened up many cans of worms, or more appropriately bottles of vino!

In attendance were lawyers, fashion photographer, software guru, enterainment group owner, fashion merchandising master, college professor (and media specialist), and of course myself! All these people share one thing in common, they have a passion for great food!

What do you do on a Sunday night? We decided that hey, why not spend the day cooking, playing, and putting ourselves (and the food) “under pressure”! Sure enough we did!

Before we even sliced the first onion, the oven was flipped on, the water circulator flowing, and by those sounds became the inspiration for the evenings menu (6 hours later was dinner for 7, oh S$@T!, I mean 9!)

With little time to spare we jotted down a few ideas for some direction and got with the program! I don’t think there was a faster movement once the circulator reached 56 centigrade to break down the lamb leg (from Rohobuth Farms) and get her in the massaging bath of the circulator. In the bag we tossed fresh rosemary from the garden, peppercorns, and olive oil- and off and away it went to do some magic!

(with that little of time we were concerned the leg would not be as tender as we would like, but hey, we were UNDER PRESSURE!)

Slice, Slice, Slice….Chop, Chop, Chop (Michael Buble in the back ground, well until 3pm Cowboy Kickoff) and in the oven with the eggplant, roast that garlic, sauté the barley, cook the peas, render the Pork Jowels, make the potato foam, set the table, clean up the kitchen, chill the wine and champagne--- “go, go, go”

What it all was going to come down to was the lamb going to be cooked and tender enough to serve? There was no telling, just a whole lot of hope and prayer we would pull it off!

In the mist of all this we were still finalizing the menu as we were bagging the East Texas Persimmons with vanilla and honeycomb (to be sous vide), talking about the appropriate garnishes for each dish… etc. Organized chaos, good thing we only had a limited amount of ingredients-

My favorite conversation of the day was, Hey Chris, “I have some aged Havana Club Rum for after dinner”…. “How did you get that?”…. “The same way you got the cinnamon bark and nutmeg from St. Lucia that’s sitting on the counter”…. A great laugh broke out, and that is what made this dinner so special… Every ingredient had a story!

The final menu landed up being

Cold Smoked Wild Salmon

spiced yogurt, pickled cucumber-

Roasted Eggplant and Garlic Soup

Sous vide hen egg, rosemary aroma, olive oil

Verticle Baked Potato

Yukon gold, garlic, crisp pork jowels, chives, potato foam-

Sous Vide Lamb Leg

Cream pea barley, olive oil, flor de sel

-Leyla Farm Yogurt Cheese

Vanilla, honeycomb, sous vide persimmons