Ghetto Sous Vide Chicken.

Poaching is something that many people will associate with eggs or fish more so then chicken. But I've been eating poached chicken ever since I was a small child when I was still in Thailand. I think one of the thing that really is off putting for people is that they think that poached chicken is flavorless and the skin is like rubber. Lets face it, the best part of chicken if probably the skin. So a good way to really add flavors to poached chicken is to season it with whatever you want and then seal in in a vacuum bag and then poach it. As for the skin, I just remove it altogether and crisp it in a low over to render it crispy so it can make it's way back into the dish. This way you still get the crunch from the skin and the chicken mean is very flavorful and moist. Also the "torchons", once sliced up, looked great the plates.

Crust

I've recently realized my obsession for crust and all things crusty/crunchy. Whether eating apple pie or a piece of bread there has to be the sweet/salty factor and good soft-crunch ratio. Too much crunch makes it difficult to eat but too soft and there is no depth of texture. The prefect crust has all of these factors perfectly balanced without overpowering the flavors it's trying to carry.

Why not?

It'd be great to wrap this around the meat loaf from the other post.

Dumplings... enough said.

Most of my favorite types of snacks are the ones that I used to have when I was still living in Thailand. I personally think that the Asians have the best street snacks out all of the other nations. I love to munch on a bag of chips as much as anyone else, but I would much rather eat some freshly prepared dumplings from a street vendor while making my way through an open air market. To me, dumplings are the perfect snack because they pack so much flavors into each little one-bitter size meat filled dough pouch. (quite a description there) Plus you can have them hot, cold steamed or deep fried. And the best thing about dumplings is that they are so easy to make at home and they freeze really well.

My 1/12/10 Tasting Menu.

Mushroms: mushroom crepe, sun chokes, redwine redux, micros.


Tomato: organic tomatoes, our own ricotta, baby artichoke, cress, ciabatta crisps, pine nuts and balsamic.


Beef: local strip loin, carrot, baby turnips, red wine soaked parsnip, natural jus and crispy parsley.