My Stuff, Recipes

Recipe – Anti-pasta platters

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I love to make anti-pasta platters. I have a Sicilian background and when it came to the holidays we always had a anti-pasta platter. For those who do not know a anti-pasta platter is traditionally something you would put out like a salad, it usually always consists of cured meats, like salami, pepperoni, and prosciutto. It usually always has some kind of cheeses like mozzarella and provolone, and then there are usually a hand full of accompaniments like olives, tomatoes and dips.

My favorite item on the platter is the eggplant capponata. it is chunks of eggplant made with tomato sauce, herbs and raisins, and makes for a excellent bread spread. There is so much you can do with these platters and items and get so many different presentations out of them. You can fold, roll, or slice the meats, dress the extras up however you like and put in all kind of dishes to give great depth to the platter, and you can cut the cheeses however you would like to give it that last little oomph. One of the things I like to do is tossed artichoke hearts in pesto, toss the olives in oils and pickled red onions, and marinade in oils and herbs grape tomatoes.

As always have fun and be extremely creative.

My Stuff, Recipes

Recipe – Fruit Platter

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Wanted to show of some of my recent fruit platters. When making a fruit platter it is essential to have one dominant focal point as the garnish and then to build up from there. There is many different cuts and directions that you can go with the fruit, so never allow your creativity to be subdued. Of course the bigger the platter then the more room you have to come up with fancy garnishes, as you can see in my third picture where I made a basket out of a honey dew and then filled it with berries. Pineapple tops make for great focus points because they are cheap and easy to use. I usually take a pair of shears and cut the edges down a little to try to even it out and get rid of any bad leaves you find.

The most common fruit you will find on a platter is honey dew, cantaloupe, and pineapple. Oranges and grapefruits make for great garnishes, but short of doing slices, don’t usually hold up well to the display time of the platters. If in season I really like to get some papayas, kiwis, and star fruits, unfortunately since they are not a necessity and don’t always get eaten they are not used very often except for VIP events.

Just like cheese platters I like to use the berries to give it that extra level of pizazz, and they can also be used to keep the focus off any cuts that do not look ideal to the rest. As with all platters though make sure to be really creative and have a lot of fun.

chef, My Stuff, Recipes

Recipe – Cheese Platters

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I decided to go ahead and put up a few cheese platters that I have recently done. The key to a good cheese platter is to make sure to have a array of various flavored cheeses, but to also get creative with the design and direction that you want the cheese platter to go. Always remember to have fun when building platters and to get creative as possible, as you can see when we had one platter for a Christmas party and I made the snowman out of goat cheese and a Christmas tree out of a pineapple top.

The big thing is to make sure to utilize all of the various colors and shapes that the cheese gives you to work with, and then use your fruits and berries to give it that next level of pizazz.

Recipes

Recipe – BBQ Braised Beef Short Rib

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I recently had a chef tasting for a Sous chef position I applied for and decided to go with this delightful little spoon of flavor as my amuse for my four course menu. For those who do not know, amuse stands for the start of the menu and traditionally the tasting menu should be a slight increase to your grand finale, maybe something light and delicate like a shrimp or scallop dish at first, but I wanted to go bold right out the gates. To me this dish is the perfect amuse because it hits you in the face with a powerful smack of flavor, but since it is so small the only thing you can say is,” I want more”. The menu I put together was a southern style menu hence the BBQ item, which is also very nontraditional. The item was considered a hit and took quite a long time to prepare, but in the end was more then worth it.

I bought 2 lbs of prime beef short ribs, and marinated them with a BBQ rub for 24 hours. The seasonings puncture to flavor and tenderize the meat.

I then created my own BBQ sauce using roasted plum tomatoes, molasses, sherry vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, onions, garlic, fresh thyme, and s & p. thicken with a little roasted tomato paste and let go on the stove for 4 hours on a light simmer.

After the BBQ sauce is complete, I then sear the short ribs on the grill getting a couple of really nice grill marks. I then smoke them for 30 minutes, but while they are smoking I start my braising liquid consisting of celery, onion, carrots, water, and the BBQ sauce. You sear the vegetables, then add the water and BBQ and bring to a boil. Take the ribs out of the smoker, put in a deep half hotel pan, and then cover with the hot braising liquid. Make sure to get the veg in there, then top with foil and put in the fridge over night.

The next day you are going to put that pan in a oven at 375 degrees and let it go for 2 hours. Once complete you then pull out and check the tenderness, if it isn’t falling off the bone then it needs to go longer, this time though but over a open flame and just let the liquid boil until the meat has reached the proper tenderness. Once it has pull out of the liquid and allow to rest for 30 minutes, then you are ready to slice.

I took some of the BBQ and mixed it with a demi to create the sauce on top, to also give it a classier touch, and then served it on top of a root vegetable puree.

I know this seems like a really long process, but as always good food takes time and this time sacrifice is well worth it in the end.

foodie

Valentine’s Day

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Another Valentine’s day has come and pass, and like all that have come and gone I can only help wondering what my favorite foodie item is that always comes up around this holiday. Of course the first thing to pop in mind is sweets, but lets get a little bit more descriptive. For me it has always been the Lindt Chocolate truffle line, nothing I like more then their peanut butter one to be exact. So tell me what is your favorite Valentine’s day item to receive or maybe just a favorite dish in the past that always pops into your head whenever you think about this most loving of holidays.

So You Want To Be A Chef

So You Want To Be a Chef – Part II

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You are on you’re feet all day, anywhere between 7 and 15 hours a day, 5-7 days a week. So what that means is the most important tool in a chef’s repertoire is not his Wustohf knives or his fancy Japanese water stone, but is your feet. For some people you can buy a pair of Birkenstock clogs and you are set, but for some of us you need to really pay attention to your feet and what type of shoe would be best for you. Over time I ran into a few issues that have caused a extreme strain on my daily fatigue and overall personality.

I started coming across my first issue when I tried to work out and do my daily shifts on the regular. I wasn’t properly stretching on the daily and so started  creating a extreme amount of tension on my muscles and started breaking down my arches and so got diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. To relieve this pain and to prevent this from happening to you, there are various stretches that you can do that I would recommend starting immediately and getting into a set routine. Another thing you can do is roll a frozen water bottle up and down your feet, it relieves the muscle and helps keeping that muscle from having excessive muscle inflammation.

Another thing to watch out for is making sure that your toes have plenty of room to wiggle, and that your feet fit comfortably in the shoe with no tightness or pinching. Also make sure that what ever shoe you where has proper cushioning and arch support. My newest issue I have been diagnosed is called Nemouras, it is a symptom in the middle of the 3rd and 4th toe where your nerves create a small hard ball, and every time you step on it you have a hot searing pain that shoots up your leg. I am not completely sure how this happened, but I think it was because with my flat feet that the Birkenstocks were not giving me the proper cushioning in the balls of my feet and in response my muscles and nerves created this stone where I was constantly hitting the floor first. The remedy right now was a couple of shots injected at the podiatrist office in each foot, and hopefully I will not need surgery to remove these little knots.

Any job where you are on your feet for long hours at a time are going to create these possible situations, I am not bashing on the chef life but trying to inform. That is the whole purpose of this thread of blogs is to give that heads up to the next generation of chefs so hopefully they can avoid these problems and have a easier time at reaching their career goals. Feet pain are not something people always talk about when you ask people about what it is like, but It is something you will deal with for as long as you are in the profession.

experience, foodie, Reviews

Review – Lai Lai Chinese Cuisine and Sushi Bar

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For those of you who live in the Orlando area, we may not get our Chinese and sushi down the street from the Hudson, but we do have a little gem of a restaurant all to ourselves, I am talking about Lai Lai. Lai Lai restaurant has been in business now for 22 years in the Orlando area. It is a mom and pop place so to say because it is run and operated by Mr. Ping and his wife Betty. It is located near the Florida Mall, in a plaza off OBT (Orange Blossom Trail), across from the Home Depot. It is the best Chinese cuisine that I have had in the area, it is also the cleanest and freshest sushi I have had in Orlando.

Mr. Ping started learning his art while he was with his father in San Francisco as a young man. He then moved to New York for a few years and lived in Pennsylvania with his wife Betty, who was his girlfriend at the time. He took a vacation to Orlando and saw all the opportunity that our theme park world had to offer, and decided to move him and his wife down here. Saved up for 10 years and then opened Lai Lai. now he is one of the top distributers of oriental delicacies in the area and services more than 15 hotels, who all buy and trust him to get them the nicest and freshest products.

He has a really nice corner restaurant in the plaza, and he let me see the operation today, and I would have to say it is one of the cleanest restaurants, let alone Chinese restaurants, that I have ever seen.  He has the ability to do anything and he has a extremely vast and wonderful menu, that touches upon all of the usual Chinese take out menu items we all love, wonderfully hand prepared sushi, and a buffet that is constantly refreshed and has a wonderful selection of items.

To b able to do the vast amounts and quantities of items that he does out of a restaurant is truly impressive. The table service is really great and has that New York, Chinese restaurant feel to it. Mr. Ping is always there, so make sure to stop by and say hello to him and his wife, and let him no you heard about his place from my blog. You my even see me there behind the sushi bar honing my skills. The address is, Shoppes of Southland, 7400 Southland Boulevard #116, Orlando, FL 32809.

Reviews

Review – Bohemian Bar and Grill, Celebration. 2nd Magical Dining Experience

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When I first chose to go with the Bohemian Bar and Grill and saw it on the website I thought it was the location downtown, come to find out there was a Bohemian Hotel in Celebration, Fl area. I knew of the area from when I worked at Disney, but had never actually been to the area and I was pleasantly surprised. When you drive into the area it is like nothing else in the Orlando area, the houses all were very small town architecture from the 50’s and the whole town of Celebration makes for this very nice, quaint little town on a lake, with this gorgeous hotel on the back end of it all. Honestly if it wasn’t for the menu peeking my curiosity I would still never know that this little gem is even back there. This is the place you go to impress that girl that said yes, that special night out with that special someone, or just need a night out where you feel like you aren’t in Orlando and instead someplace in another time.

When you walk up to the hotel it is stunning, with a beautiful white exterior and this grand sign on the side of the hotel. There was all these classic cars in the front and just a very elegant driveway in the valet area. When you walk in you can see all the artwork and fine decor and interior that you can only get from a hotel like the Grand Bohemian. The lobby isn’t very big mind you and the bar and restaurant are out in the open as part of the lobby, but it still looks elegant and makes you feel like you are walking into one of those hotels you see in old black and white movies. There is also a big porch area that they use for the restaurant and all the decor in and out are wicker chairs and tables with glass tops, wooden floors and bar. The whole place was well lit and classy.

When I sat I arrived just in time for happy hour and was immediately handed the magical dining menu on top of their regular menu. It was a simple one page menu and their regular menu was just two pages, there bar menu on the other hand was a few pages in a separate book. The happy hour was extremely reasonable, and I noticed that the magical dining choices were straight from their regular everyday menu, not some watered down menu, with minimal creativity.

For my three items I decided to go with the filet mignon eggroll, roasted salmon, and chocolate lava cake.

The best course out of the three was the eggroll hands down. The plate was clean, flavor was exquisite, the garnish and presentation was amazing, not at all what I was expecting from a eggroll appetizer with filet and boursin cheese. The papaya lotus root slaw was a excellent accompaniment, to this very tender and creamy, crunchy delight. They finish it with cilantro for flavor and color, after they flash fry it and finish in the oven. Would easily go back just to have another rum runner and this appetizer.

The second course was the roasted salmon, with a garden ragout of sweet corn, edamame, petite green peas, and pearl onions, and topped with a pesto lemon. It was a very pretty dish, with excellent technique, and everything was cooked perfectly. I forgot to order my salmon medium, so it is my fault it was a little dry for my taste, but a good dish none the less.

My last dish with the chocolate lava cake. Unfortunately this was the most depressing of the dishes because there was no molten center, the cake was dry, and the chocolate flavor was ok. I asked my server if it was a outside product and unfortunately the answer was yes.

Overall this was the best of my experiences during the magical dining.  my server was well educated with the menu and didn’t look down on me because I ordered off the magical dining menu. Would definitely go back and enjoy the location and happily pay full price. Probably would go to the café down the street for the dessert course.

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Happy New Year Bloggers

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I just want to say Happy New Year to all my followers and blogger community. Haven’t been on in a bit and figured I would start the new year right by wishing one to have a happy and wonderful new year.

industry, technology

App – Specialty Produce

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specialty produce

Right now is a great time to be a chef, technology is our greatest tool and to be able to have it at our side and in our pocket for whenever we need it is wonderful. In this blog I am just quickly highlighting a little app I like to use called specialty produce. Within this app it list a amazing assortment of all the different produces that are out in the industry available to be used and explored.

What I love about the app is how it breaks down the seasons, flavor contexts, it gives you pictures, locations nearby that you may possibly be able to purchase, and it also gives you links to recipes and websites that have used the item and how it worked out. If you are a chef, a sales rep, or just a curious foodie I definitely recommend picking up this app and giving it a go. Let me know what you find and how you use it in the comments section.