Yellow Jacket Social Club

What's up bros?! If you've wandered over to my ol facebook page you may have seen this. That's right. I'm gonna be a dad! That really has nothing to do with this post, but I'm bragging about it anyway. 

On to the post! We met up with Natalie, Elliott, baby Olivia, and Beka for Nat's bday brunch at Yellow Jacket Social Club. We'd never been there so it seemed perfect, since we've been to just about every brunch spot in town. Overall, it was a great experience. You order at the bar and they bring the food out. It did take about 40 minutes to get our food, so order as soon as you get there. 

Let's get down to it:

 

PORK BELLY

This was definitely the winner of the day (surprise!). A nicely cooked slab of pork belly atop a -perhaps slightly over cooked- hashbrown cake, topped with a fried egg.

   

SHRIMP N GRITS 

This came in a very close second. It was the leader in the clubhouse until the belly came out. Buttery grits, bacon, sauteed onions, and well-cooked shrimp.

 

CONCHINITA PIBIL

The off the menu special was a welcome surprise! Unfortunately, you can't really see the star here - the pork. Traditionally the pork is marinated in citrus and slow cooked in a banana leaf. I can't say that this was necessarily the way this pork was prepared, but it was super tender and delicious. Accompanied by frijoles, a real nice verde salsa - that had some kick, a fried egg and cotija. Tasty!

"THE MISTER"

A smoked ham and gruyere panini. Topped with a fried egg. Topped with béchamel. Forget about it. Ridic.

 

FRITTATA 

This was pretty much the only choice for the pregger (my wife, Summer). It was good, not great. It had organic Brussels sprouts and roasted tomatoes. Cooking them in, what I can only assume was, muffin tins was a nice touch though.

Overall, we definitely enjoyed our experience at the Yellow Jacket Social Club. The food was great. There's TONS of out-door seating. And they have a great beer selection. Other than the wait - it should be mentioned that it looked like a super tiny kitchen with like 2 or 3 cooks - it was an excellent time.

Poussin Control

Once again, I make a valiant return after a lengthy departure from regaling y'all of culinary wonderment. What's my excuse this time? Nothing. I have started a new job since last we adventured into the world of tasty foods! I am the Chef de Partie (lead lunch line cook) at Swift's Attic downtown on Congress between 3rd & 4th St. It's a Modern American Small Plates concept. Modern American in that we are constrained to no one central culinary genre and small plates meaning everything is shareable, not family style, more like tapas. It is great!

Our executive chef Mat Clouser - @SwiftsBlade on twitter - has come up with some really ridiculous food. Oxtail, ham hocks, squid AND octopus, pork cheeks, I could go on, but you'll just need to come check the place out. We are open for lunch 11-2 M-F; dinner 5-10 M-W and the kitchen rocks to midnight Th-Sa. We are closed on Sundays.

Now that we're all caught up, the wife and I had some friends in last night for dinner. I finally have weekends off so I took this as an opportunity to hit up the downtown Austin farmer's market to get as much of the mise as I could. They did not disappoint. 

The beginning:

 

We started the night with some tasty appeteasers. I made a pork rillette (basically braise pork until spoon-tender, then mix in the KitchenAid with a paddle attachment until it shreds, adding the reserved braising liquid until it's a spread) with which I served an apple bourbon mustard, cornichons, and crostini. Killer. 

For a lighter fare, I served farmer's market fresh strawberries - sidebar: we picked up a pack of these when we walked by the booth and Summer said, "We have to get those strawberries, I can smell them from here". There were that fragrant - with basil from our "killer basil plant", reduced balsamic vinegar, and house made ricotta. Yes. I made ricotta cheese. Yes. It was delicious. RECIPE:

2 cups milk (whole preferred)

1 cup heavy cream

.5 t salt

1.5 T white wine vinegar

Bring milk, cream, and salt to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add vinegar. Sit 1 minute until curdling begins. Pour into double cheesecloth that has been dampened with warm water and is sitting in a strainer over a large bowl. Allow to sit at room temp for 20ish minutes. Longer for thicker, shorter for thinner. So good. So easy.

Next, we had a very simple salad of herbed spring mix, orange supremes and a bacon sherry vinaigrette. I phoned in the salad, cause this was dinner:

 

Here's where the farmer's market really shined. Let's start with the brussels and work our way around. Baby brussels sprouts that were blanched and shocked earlier, got tossed in a hot pan with bacon fat, olive oil, salt, and red pearl onions. The fresh sprouts had a peppery quality to them that was both surprising and yummy.

Next is what I called "Spring-stuffed Squash Blossoms". I made a filling of brunoise (very small diced) carrot, celery, garlic scape and artichoke hearts with lemon zest and parmesan. That got carefully piped into amazing little squash blossoms (that were surprisingly being sold for $1/5 - they go for like $48/case from a produce purveyor). I just popped em in a super hot oven for like 10 minutes and they were ridic.

The star of the show. Poussin. These were picked up from a guy named Sebastian, whom runs Countryside Family Farm in Bastrop, TX. They are quite young, thus incredibly tender and juicy. I stuffed them with a half lemon, garlic scapes, celery, onion, carrot, thyme, and parsley stems. After rubbing the skin with olive oil and S&P, I placed them in a 450º oven on top of more garlic scapes, for about 20-30 minutes. They rested for another 15-20 minutes after coming out of the oven and were spectacular! I deglazed the pan with white wine, added stock, mounted with butter, and seasoned appropriately to create a nice little pan sauce to have with the chicken.

All-in-all, the meal was really great, but the best part was hanging out with some really great friends and having an awesome time. My blogging may remain somewhat infrequent in the coming months, but I promise to try to get on it whenever possible - as long as y'all promise to come eat at Swift's as soon as you can!

The BIG Easy

Hold on to your butts, this is gonna be a big one. Me and some fellas took our annual trip to New Orleans this past weekend so I hit up a couple friends for some cuisine recommendations - special thanks to Will Semons and Kristi Willis for the suggestions! In additions Harrah's (to lose money) and Bourbon St (for other stuff), we hit up some great restaurants for some killer grub. And this is that tale.

Both lists included this place:













And both lists recommended this dish:













And this is what that dish looks like:













I wish I had a picture to describe HOW DELICIOUS THESE WERE!! Wow. They actually grill these oysters over an open flame, then brush them with a garlic and herb butter, and dust them with Parmesan and Romano cheeses. They're served with French bread to sop up all that glorious butter. With a nice Abita Turbodog to wash em down, these were a great way to start of the trip.

After donating some cash to the Harrah's Kid's College Fund, it was time for some more grub:













Yes, of the Archie-Eli-Peyton Mannings. None of us were starving, plus we wanted to get a nice sampling of the menu. So we just hit up some apps. SWEET POTATO SKINS with goat cheese, bacon marmalade and green onions - good, but way to sweet. GRIS GRIS DUCK WINGS flash fried with pepper jelly - easily the best thing we had. COCHON DE LAIT "POUTINE" hand-cut fries, pulled pork, pepper jelly gravy and cheese curds - even though the duck wings were best, this was my favorite. CAJUN SLIDERS alligator sausage, caramelized peppers, onions, and Crystal hot sauce aïoli. Overall, the grub was good, but nothing was mind-blowing.













Now let me tell you what WAS mind-blowing, the complimentary continental breakfast at our hotel, The Queen & Crescent.













That's it. No comment.

The one place that we all knew we were going to, was Butcher. We hit this place up last year, and it was so good, we HAD to go back.













Of course, I won the war of the order. I got the Pork Belly with cumber and mint on white bread. Simply delicious.













In another concerned effort to experience as much as of the menu as possible, we tried to make sure everyone ordered something different. So we also got to experience the BBQ Pork "Carolina Style" with slaw - honestly, the pork was a little dry and not very smoky, but the potato salad that it came with was real nice. We also had the Cold Roast Beef with horseradish and arugula - this was real tasty with the added bonus of a sinus-clearing punch.













A quick pause in food and debauchery landed us at the aquarium. Check out this little guy:













Yup, that's an otter swimming on his back. Nothing cuter. Seriously. We also saw sharks, rays, snakes, frogs, turtles, jellyfish, and some fish.

After the aquarium, it was nap time. Then we said, "let's get some doggone Cajun food Ayeeeee!!!!!" Okay, there was no actual "Ayeeeee", but you know what I mean. So we hit Coop's Place. This was one of those hole-in-the-wall, line-out-the-door kinda joints.













Again, trying to get a well rounded experience of the menu, we all got the same thing. Huh? Hand on, you'll get it. We started with the Bayou Appetizer - fried crawfish, shrimp, crabfingers, and oysters. This was a nice alternative to getting a fried entree. We also all tried the Abita Restoration Pale Ale - not bad, the hops worked real nice with the spice of the rest of the meal.













We all ordered the Coop's Taste Plate for dinner. It came with a cup of gumbo - a filé-thickened gumbo had an overwhelming vegetale flavor for me. It also had

A piece of Fried Chicken: good ole fried chicken, no complaints!
Shrimp Creole: clearly Creole sauce poured over boiled shrimp, a little disappointing there, but good flavor.
Red Beans and Rice: a little salt really set this off. The pieces of pork in here were a welcome surprise.
Rabbit and Sausage Jambalaya: real tasty.













All in all, nothing here blew our minds, but it was a great sampler of Cajun cuisine.

Again, another fantastic trip to Nawlins. As far as fun and cuisine were concerned, I graded this trip an A+. As far as gambling, a D- and not an F because I didn't go to the ATM for more cash to lose. We sure did laissez les bon temps rouler.

4 Course and 7 Beers Ago

Of Course, we did not have 7 beers, but it works - President's Day having just passed and whatnot. I prepared the food, and Mike brought along the accompanying libations. As promised, this is the Mardi Gras Four Course Cajun Feast blog:













This particular feast took a good amount of time to prepare. It started around 9am with the production of stocks. I made a shrimp stock, that would later become etouffee and a "veggie" stock (not in a traditional sense, but I'll explain that with the first course). I also got some pork simmering away with trinity (celery, onion, bell pepper) + jalapeño and garlic which would become boudin.







GUMBO CONSOMME
As the description dictates, this blog is about my triumphs, and failures. In the case of GUMBO CONSOMME, we've stumbled upon the latter. That's not to say that it didn't taste good. On the flavor front, all was well. On the front of this consomme being a successful consomme, or clearly being reminiscent of a gumbo, thumbs down. As the photo clearly conveys, the clarity of the consomme is not so clear. Whilst preparing something else, I let the consomme boil, reintroducing the impurities to the stock, and botching the whole batch. ALSO, I clearly underestimated the obvious importance of roux to gumbo - this is where the soup failed to reach true gumbo-ness. That being said, the soup was good and Mike's 2010 Blufeld Riesling from Mosel, Germany was a perfect match.













GULF TRIO
The next course was a celebration of the triumphant return of the Gulf - or just an excuse to fit three courses into one. A) Gulf oyster on the half shell with cocktail sauce foam - I shucked to order. The sauce was too viscous to foam properly, thus it didn't have enough body to stand up to the oyster. Mike's Katana Junmai Ginjo Sake from Shizuoka, Japan was however, a perfect pair with the oyster. B) Boudin balls on house-made remoulade. Absolutely killer!! C) Boiled crawfish and potatoes over a corn-andouille puree. The puree was the highlight of the night. The wheat beer Mike brought was perfect with the boudin and crawfish.













BLACKENED ROCK COD, DIRTY RICE, ETOUFFEE
Want to smoke out all your dinner guests with a noxious blackened cloud? Blacken some fish with a killer black spice in a screaming hot pan inside an apartment. But then serve it over shrimp etouffee with dirty rice, and you'll have them... still talking about how we all coughed for 10 minutes. Mike took a real reach on this one and served a traditional Indian Lassi. The purpose of this choice was to subdue the spice, which it did. However, it did not serve as a really thirst quenching beverage. It was nice in sips, but not in gulps.













Mardi Gras just ain't Mardi Gras without a KING CAKE. So I made one.







Instead of colored sugar, I made colored icing. No baby, that's dangerous.

BEIGNETS
Thanks to Cafe Du Monde, I made these tasty morsels:













Not gonna lie here. I went out and bought Cafe Du Monde beignet mix, mixed it up and fried it. I did top it with pow pow sug sug that had been mixed with a little Cafe Du Monde coffee. These went splendidly with the Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout from Petaluma, CA that Mike brought.

All in all, another successful tasting and pairing dinner.

I have exciting new coming up very soon. Stay tuned!

Valentime's Day

I have to work tonight, so the wifey and I did our Valentine's Day dinner last night. We started with a some prosecco and my favorite salad - herbed spring mix, orange supremes, toasted almond slices, and an orange-shallot vinaigrette. Then it was on to dinner:

SEARED NY STRIP, CRAB CLAWS, HARICOT VERT,
BACON-CRAB MAC N CHEESE
Obviously, none of this is super high end, but it was delicious. I did make the Mac with a béchamel with aged cheddar and topped it with cave-aged gruyére and panko - yummy. And yes, those are two heart-shaped beets for garnish! <3







The star of the show was the cake I made:













A sponge cake with a hint of almond, iced with a brown sugar buttercream and garnished with toasted almond slices. Notice the intricate piping work! The cake wasn't quite as light and airy as I'd hoped, but it was still delicious.













Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Bangers & Pizza

Just in case you didn't see the rockstar picture of my marinating pork on facebook, here it is again:







That was a tease. I'm such a sausage tease.
Both sausages were made with an 8 pound pork picnic. Yesterday, I skinned (and kept in the freezer), de-boned (bone got trashed since I didn't have any large bags), diced, and split.

BOURBON CHIPOTLE
To the pork, I added chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, fresh garlic, salt, pink salt, cayenne, and chili powder. Today, I ground it up. When it came time to add the cold liquid (which aids in distributing the seasoning and helps emulsify the sausage, usually water), I added 1 part cold water and 1 part COLD BOURBON! That's right. I did that. Then it all got cased up. The bourbon actually stands up to the pork and chipotle. And the chipotle spice comes through at the end. Not a bad little sausage. I think it would be great cooked up out of the casing and added to queso.

POBLANO & PEPPERJACK
This is an idea I've had for a while. It's basically a re-work of the classic Jalapeño Cheddar sausage. On this one, I added half a roasted poblano, half a roasted jalapeño, fresh garlic, cumin, salt, pink salt, and a little adobo seasoning. Today, I ground it up. During the mixing process, I added the other half of the poblano and jalapeño and some pepperjack cheese that I pulsed in the food processor (I used block cheese so I could ensure the lack of cornstarch - which is added to pre-shredded cheeses to prevent sticking). Then it all got cased up. This one was the winner of the day. It would be killer in a fresh flour tortilla with cilantro and pickled red onions.

Oh and here's what they look like:














Of course, tonight was Pizza Jersday (pizza and "Jersey Shore") DON'T JUDGE ME!! Instead of ordering, I mixed it up a little this week: homemade pizza. I did cheat a bit, I went on down to Homeslice and picked up a dough ball for $5. Half the pizza was pepperoni, and red wine garlic sausage. The other half was roasted Brussels sprouts, criminis and thyme, shallots, and prosciutto piccolo.













Check out the sweet pizza paddle! Thanks Glenn and Diana! Both sides were great. It's hard to compare because they were two totally different directions. There was a little extra dough. Hmmmmm....... what to do with that?

GARLIC KNOTS!!













Just tie strips of dough in knots, brush with garlic butter, sprinkle with coarse sea or Kosher salt, and throw in the oven until GBD!!!

I may have another tasting dinner coming up. So that could be cool. Umm....hmmm... I'll try to come up with some more cool stuff to do. Maybe I'll just jack around with my "Beginning Molecular Gastronomy Kit". I haven't busted that out in a while. Who knows? Stay tuned!

Don't forget to go to the right side of the page and "FOLLOW" the blog. It won't send you emails or anything. It'll just make me feel good.

Bambi Butcher Blog

WARNING: Graphic images and information to follow

This is the promised blog resulting from my hunting trip last week. I went with my buddies Dan and Mike. Unfortunately, we were a week late for bucks, which was the majority of what we saw all day. However, we did happen across a couple does right at the end of the day. From about 75-80 yards out, I bagged a 2-2.5 year old doe with the Remington .270 that Summer's parents gave me for Christmas - thanks Larry and Terri!













We loaded the ol girl on the Mule (off-road golf cart, not donkey-horse hybrid) and headed to the cutting room. Dan has a suh-weet set up out at his place. There's a concrete slab with an awning that has a wench hanging from the ceiling. Why? We sawed the legs below the knees and wenched the deer up off the ground. From there, dressing, gutting, and skinning the deer was a breeze. Dan did the lion's share of the work, but I get in there for some of it. There's a HUGE difference in cleaning a deer when you cut the stomach and when you don't. Don't. After getting it all clean, we hung it in the walk-in for 5 days.

HERE ARE THE GRAPHIC IMAGES:


















Look how beautifully lean that piece of meat is. You can also see the exit wound there.













Here's a great view of the shot. It went in through rib #4, through the lung, the heart, the other lung, and out rib #5. A really great shot for a first-timer. Also, note how clean our gut job was.

On Friday, we butchered it. Dan quartered it (hips and rear legs first, then front legs individually). Next, we took the backstraps and tenderloins. Most of the rib cage was bloodshot - that's where the bullet explodes, sending fragments of bullet and bone through out, blasting the meat. All this needs to be removed and discarded. Some of the rib meat was salvageable for sausage. Next, I watched Dan break down one of the back legs, and I repeated. We reserved the two bottom rounds and one top round for the dinner party from 5Courses+5Beers+5Wines. The rest became either cutlets - which made some of the best chicken fried steaks ever - or trim for sausage. The front legs were also a bit bloodshot, which became sausage material as well. Overall, it was a blast breaking down the deer. There's something greatly satisfying about eating something that you took from start to finish.

CHIPOTLE VENISON SAUSAGE













So I took 2.5 pounds of the trim (non-backstrap, tenderloin, or leg roasts), .5 pound of bacon (for fat, smoke, and texture), 2 pounds of pork butt, garlic, chipotles, cayenne, and salt, ground it, mixed it, and stuffed it. The colors on this thing are great. The dark is the venison, the light is the bacon, the in-between is glorious pork. The tester was tasty, and I'm going to roast a couple off tonight with dinner.

Not sure what my next culinary quest is, but it should be a good one. Stay tuned!

5Courses+5Beers+5Wines

My buddy Mike Beech (of Strength and Beer) and I have been talking for a while about doing a coursed out meal with wine and/or beer pairings. We got the opportunity to do just that this weekend at a friends' house warming party.

SIDEBAR: As mentioned in "Red Wine Garlic Sausage", I did get a chance to take down my own venison last Sunday, and I was successful! I got a 2-2.5 yr old doe from 75-80 yards out. What an intense experience. I cannot wait to get out for more. I'll do a blog about just the deer later, but I bring it up because it was the 4th course.

So in this particular case, I came up with the menu first. I didn't really want a "theme" so much as I wanted to feature several different techniques. Once the menu was in place, Mike spent a couple weeks tasting beers and wines to match each course. I know right? Poor Mike.

And awaaaaayyyy we go!

Course #1: Herbed Spring Mix with Goat Cheese, Almonds, Orange
Beer #1: Ommegang Rouge, Flanders Red Ale, Cooperstown, NY
Wine #1: Verdemar Albariño, 2009, Riaz Baixas, Spain

You may remember this salad from the classic "Crevettes L'Orange", except that I have replaced the gorgonzola with goat cheese. The goat cheese is much more mild. The almonds were toasted slices. The orange was supremed. The dressing was minced shallot, fresh squeezed orange juice, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper shaken in an old spaghetti sauce jar - this results in a superior emulsification of the ingredients.

Mike killed it on the beer pairing here. The interesting part about the beer in this course was the amount of acid it had. It really went perfectly with such a tart salad. The wine was really good, but wasn't quite there with the salad. It wasn't a bad pairing or anything, just not perfect.

Course #2: Chicken and Andouille Gumbo
Beer #2: Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, India Pale Ale, Milton, DE
Wine #2: Chateau Routas Rosé, 2010, Provence, France

Honestly, this was my first gumbo. I can't believe that's true, but it is. Aside from not thickening up as much as I wanted, it was really good. I sautéed "the Holy Trinity" of celery, onions, and green bells and threw that in the crockpot. I added okra, garlic, tomatoes, andouille, chicken thighs (roasted in the oven), stock, roux (of which I did not add enough), thyme and cayenne. That simmered all day. Right before we left, I seasoned it with salt and added Louisiana Hot Sauce.

The IPA really accentuated the heat of this gumbo and was, again, a perfect pair. The rosé was a really nice, serious rosé, and went well with the gumbo. Again, we felt this pairing wasn't quite perfect.

Course #3: Pork Belly, Confit Tomato, Frisée
Beer #3: NXNW Northern Light, Pilsner, Austin, TX
Wine #3: Kenwood Pinot Noir, 2010, Sonoma County, CA

This course was near and dear to my heart, because it was the pork course. I braised a piece of pork belly for 1.5 hours in the ol Dutch oven, after searing it off and adding a little stock. I reduced the remaining liquid with brown sugar and bourbon to a glaze. The "confit tomato" was cherry tomatoes that had been cooked on low in extra virgin olive oil, duck fat, thyme, and garlic for an hour. The frisée was there for texture and contrast. When we were ready for this course, I put the belly under the broiler to crisp the fat on top, sliced it, glazed it, and ate it. The tomatoes came out WAY more tart than sweet - most likely a result of the lack of ripeness. But, as always, the belly came through and saved the dish.













I knew I should have taken notes. Sitting here at the computer, writing this blog, I can not remember my exact thoughts on the pairings. I remember that they worked, but no specifics. My head must have been in pork belly mode - it makes you forget things.

Course #4: Venison Leg Roast, Potato Celeriac Purée, Roasted Squash
Beer #4: Chimay Premiére, Belgian Dubbel, Hainut, Belgium
Wine #4: Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008, Patterson, WA

This course was near and "deer" to my heart. As previously mentioned, this was the deer that I had, only a week prior, actually shot myself. And had butchered the day before. It doesn't get much fresher than that. To get a large enough roast for the party, we tied together the two bottom rounds with a top round in between. Absolutely zero silver skin anywhere and about 99% fat free. I jammed garlic and rosemary between the layers, S&P'd the outside and seared it GBD. I placed thick slices of onion, celery tops, and carrots in the pan, covered those 3/4 with stock and placed the roast on top of that. With the probe thermo inserted, it roasted at 250º for 3 hours until the inside was a PERFECT 140º - and yes, to answer your question. Venison SHOULD be cooked rare to barely medium. Any more, and it's toast.

The purée was another gem. Potatoes and celery root were simmered to tender, then tossed in the processor with heavy cream and butter, salt, duck fat, and an egg yolk. Puréed to silky smooth, then pressed through a sieve, they were delectable.

The squash was just roasted. I was really disappointed in that. It was a throw away side from the get-go. I should have been more creative. It does look purty though.













Wow. This dish killed. The venison had very little gaminess. It was perfectly cooked. And was tender as can be. The purée was delicious as well. They raved.

This was the first course where the wine was an absolute perfect pair. The cab really held up to the intense flavor of the venison, and the super rich purée. The beer was a nice pairing, but I don't know that any beer could have been a better pair than the wine was.

Course #5: Roasted Banana Semifreddo with Peanut Butter Caramel
Beer #5: Rahr & Sons Ugly Pug, Black Lager, Fort Worth, TX
Wine #5: Tott's Gold Medal Cuvée, San Joaquin Valley, CA

I have made this dessert before, but I don't remember blogging it. A semifreddo is an Italian dessert meaning "semi frozen". It's a fluffy, cold combination of an Italian meringue (sugar melted to 240º, drizzled into soft peaked egg whites) and whipped cream. The flavor, in this case, roasted bananas, is added to the meringue before folding in the cream. The dessert is then molded, and frozen. About 10-15 minutes before service, it should be removed to the fridge to soften a bit. I served it with a peanut butter "caramel". I say "caramel" because I didn't have enough white sugar to make a true caramel. So I used a combination of white sugar and brown sugar. I really just melted them, added some cream, then stirred in peanut butter. The poor technique was revealed in both the grittiness of the sauce, and the way the sauce set up instead of staying pourable.













People actually came back for seconds on this one - it was the only one we had second helpings of.

The beer, once again, was killer with this one. Aside from the salad pairing, this was most surprising that a beer could be paired so well. The lager really accentuated the nuttiness of the dessert. The sparkling was great as well, but let's all be honest with ourselves here, bubbles go with anything.

All in all, wow. What a successful endeavor on both our parts. Mike brought the heat big time and the food was pretty killer too, if I do say so myself. We already have a few requests to do some more, and I can't wait. Stay tuned for that Bambi Butcher Blog!

Barleyswine

(not my picture)
We finally did it. I know they've been open for a year, but Greg and I had always promised that we'd go together. It took us this long to actually set a date and follow through with it.

Worth. The. Wait.

We had six people in our party, and our wait was right at an hour and a half. To kill time, we went over to La Feria for a margarita, some chips, and a sampler platter of taquitos, nachos, and jalapeño poppers - a truly great way to destroy your palette right before a great meal, but I digress!

Typically, they recommend that each diner order three entrées because their portions are quite modest. Thanks to our pre-gaming, we left quite content after seven entrées and two desserts between the six of us. Those guys are putting out some beautiful plates of food and they look even more beautiful than they taste (the plates of food, not the guys). I was able to resist the urge to photograph EVERY SINGLE PLATE of food that hit the table as that results in quite a bit of ribbing from fellow diners. I'll do my best to recall the plates. I should have taken a picture of the menu. Anyhow, the reason you're here: 9 plates of food

Grilled Pork Belly
We started with the off-the-menu item of grilled pork belly, grapefruit, peanuts, and brussels sprouts. The belly with the brussels and grapefruit was fantastic. There was a good bit of char on the pork and it contrasted nicely with the acid of the grapefruit. I found the peanuts superfluous. A great start.

Sunchoke Velouté
Next up was the other off-the-menu item: a soup made of sunchoke, with a slow cooked farm egg, salsify, goat cheese, and sunchoke chips. Their was a very pronounced cumin/curry flavor in there somewhere that, to my taste, overwhelmed the rest of the dish. Otherwise, I think it would have been pretty tasty.

Gulf Shrimp
This seemed to be the consensus favorite of the evening. Two, head-on, grilled gulf shrimp over hominy (with which I'm now in love), and a shrimp foam. This is one of the one's I wish I had photoed because with those shrimp heads poking up, it was gorgeous. I happily crunched the meat out of the face of that shrimp *droooool*. It was killer.

Spicy Goat
This plate resulted in mixed reviews, which was unfortunate because it may have been my most anticipated dish. I was hoping for a nice solid piece of goat. What we got was (totally an educated guess here) braised goat formed into a patty and grilled - less than breath-taking, visually. It was served with a cauliflower and a purée of, I believe, cauliflower as well. All together, the bite was good. By itself, the goat lacked a little to be desired. Greg likened it to "moist beef jerky" and I could not disagree with him.

Duck
Green lentils on the bottom, seared duck breast, duck confit sprinkled throughout, crispy duck skin, radish, pickled radish, and curry/cumin makes a return visit. This dish was really nicely put together. The flavors all meshed well (aside from that pesky cumin flavor), but I found my piece of duck a tad on the chewy side. Otherwise, tasty.

Scallop
As a rule, I'm not a big scallop guy. It's got to have a really nice GBD sear on it. This one did. But that wasn't the highlight of the dish. The spicy braised pig cheek was aces. You will see pig cheeks here in the future. The only drag of this dish was the sweet potato purée, which was curried. See a theme here? The raisin relish on the plate was a revelation - who knew pickled (guessing) raisins would be so delicious?

Brisket
As you can imagine, I was stoked for this dish. I mean, how often do you see brisket on a small plates menu? If you answered, "never", then you'd be correct. I'm just gonna let you take in this picture for a minute.













I know, right? Brisket, over a barbecued baked bean purée (great idea btw), coffee barbecue sauce, smoked potatoes, dehydrated onion rings, sliced cornichons, and frisée tossed in slaw dressing. With such small servings and so many people, the idea is to get a piece of everything on the plate in your mouth, all at once, to create that "perfect bite". Do that on this dish? And it's summertime backyard barbecue in your face. Wow. Really killed it. Was the brisket as good as mine? Shut your face - no way, but the composed plate together was insane. Upscale BBQ achieved.

Beet Cake
Beet cake, tapioca, goats milk ice cream. The cake itself tasted kind of like a spice cake, until beet came and ran all the other flavors out of town, proclaiming its dominance. That was a beet cake, fa sho. The goats milk ice cream was yummy. The tapioca and the rest of the garnish around the plate was interesting, but not really wowing. I appreciate the technique.

Pumpkin Cheesecake
I should just leave you with the photo below, because a simple qwerty keyboard with nothing but letters can't possibly do it justice. I'll try though.













Pumpkin cheesecake, wattle seed cream, pistachio, and rum caramel. It's what every pumpkin cheesecake in the history of man wishes it could be, but knows it never will be. And yea, that's a tempered dark chocolate garnish that says, "chocolate".

All in all, I'm so glad to have finally eaten here. I will DEFINITELY go back when the menu changes and I highly recommend going with four or more people and pre-gaming a bit so you can tour the menu and get your money's worth.

I'm cooking a five course tasting menu for some friends this weekend and my buddy Mike Beech is doing beer and wine pairings for each course. This is going to be a blast and I can't wait to share it with y'all. Stay tuned!

Red Wine Garlic Sausage

I LOVE that clip. Every time I made sausage at school or work, all I could here was that song - "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" by Jackie Davis. And now I get to hear that tune at home! As you may have seen from fb posts, I received the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid and a sausage stuffer and today, it set out on its maiden voyage!

STEP 1:
Cube a nice, fatty, 5# pork butt. Season it with minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Into the freezer to get super cold, but not quite frozen.

STEP 2:
Grind it with components that have been placed in the fridge, into a bowl, that is chilled. RULE #1 of making sausage is to keep your meat and equipment as cold as possible. This results in the most desirable consistency in the sausage.

STEP 3:
Mix it with the paddle attachment in the KitchenAid. As it mixes, slowly add cold red wine. This adds flavor, moisture, and aids in the emulsion. You could stop at this point and make the sausage into patties or cook it crumbled like ground beef in a spaghetti sauce, like we did last night. OR continue to step 4.

STEP 4:
Stuff it in hog casings that have been soaked in room temperature water for ~30 minutes and rinsed.

STEP 5:
Eat it.

And hopefully, I'll be taking down my own venison this weekend to turn into more sausage!

A few more experiments with the grinder and stuffer, then I'll graduate to dried and cured sausages. That'll be fun.